The 8th Western Novel

by Dean Owen

  The pain jolted clear up to his elbow and on past to his shoulder. It jarred him and his whole attention was focused on releasing the pressure of the fist and stopping the pain.

  At last he opened his hand and he was awake.

  There was movement up ahead. He jerked the Colt up and listened.

  Ellis had forgotten about his breathing in those few seconds during which he closed his fist. In those seconds the south breeze had carried his position to Goose Face and now the savage made ready to use his knowledge.

  * * * *

  He would have to do a reckless thing, but he felt confident now. He released the tension on the bowstring and held the shaft on cock with his forehand around the bow. With his free hand he pulled out his tomahawk and waited again for the breathing, just to make sure.

  He heard nothing. Had he been wrong?

  There! He heard it again. Without hesitation, Goose Face threw the tomahawk where he thought the foe should be and tensed. The whanged, colored threads of buffalo hide strung to the handle of the weapon whistled through the air. He was ready with the bow, shaft drawn.

  The tomahawk landed and he heard the enemy groan, but was it a second late? Did the foe realize that it would be better to make a sound at that moment and seemingly betray his position while staying well hidden?

  No, the man had been hit. Goose Face jerked up and threw the arrow.

  There was a pure red, then a yellow flash of light to the right of where he had thrown his shaft.

  Then something plunged into his body, something hot and fiery that burned his chest. Too late, Goose Face knew he had made a mistake. He had been beaten. But had he taken the white with him? Had the shaft also burned into the chest of the white?

  His mouth was full of sand and Goose Face realized that he was screaming and clawing at the red-hot thing that had torn into his chest. He opened his eyes.

  The white stood over him. Fuzzily, Goose Face looked for the shaft in the white’s body. He saw nothing.

  The white grabbed his head roughly. Goose Face screamed.

  Ellis pulled the hog-sticker from his holster and snatched the hair of Goose Face back away from the forehead. He slit the skin and peeled the scalp back from the white mask, down which tears of anger, hate, fatigue and finality were flowing.

  Ellis stood up and looked down at Goose Face’s dead body. If he had not seen the white mask a second before he had heard the bowstring, Ellis would be the one losing his hair. It had appeared like a bodiless specter against the black sky and Nathan Ellis had fired at it out of sudden, uncontrollable fear, fear of the unknown rather than fear of the savage Cheyenne Soft-and-Running-Dear, known to the world as Goose Face.

  * * * *

  With the body of Slocum jack-knifed across the back of his horse, Ellis climbed into the saddle and spurred his pony gently. “Let’s go, hoss,” he whispered.

  The animal dug its way out of the gully they had followed earlier and Ellis headed it in the direction of the faint glow on the northeastern horizon of the plains. The blaze of a thousand lanterns and camp fires of the railhead settlement guided him in the moonless night.

  The dark, lustrous hair of Goose Face trailed from his stirrup.

  CHAPTER NINE

  There were sections of the tent community that did not bounce back with brawling jocosity. Amid the ashes were men, women and children, numb to the tragedy that had befallen them. A few had lost everything: family and all worldly goods. But in the grog tents men and women with no responsibilities but to themselves drank and fought and recounted the terror of the stampede and the brutal attack by Goose Face.

  The fire had been quickly isolated and stamped out, a good fifth of the camp had been burned.

  Jeremy Watson’s tents had not been touched. His stock of whisky was intact and at midnight—after the general emergency was over and nothing left to do but bury the dead and clean up the mess—the lanterns were lit and the maw of his big tent opened to the Johnny-Jacks. The weary men pushed and shoved their way to the front of the plank bar and paid four and five dollars a pint for whisky ladled out of the earthen crocks. Side by side, men and women tried to forget the massacre.

  * * * *

  Liza Reeves had ignored medical aid and fought alongside the men during the attack. And when a doctor insisted on looking at her wound, he announced that the cauterizing had effectively sealed the fleshy hole, and, considering the amount of bleeding, was probably clean and would heal with no after-effects.

  Liza had turned to the grief-stricken women and children after Goose Face had been driven off. She had helped locate lost children, re-united husbands and wives, helped the prostrate victims of arrow wounds. She had worked without stopping, talking softly, harshly, soothingly, with authority. And underneath all of it, she had wondered if she would ever see the tall Texan again. Often during that long and hectic night, she had glanced to the south and west for signs of a rider.

  At midnight Kelly had seen the last of the scattered equipment sorted and counted. The salvaged wheels of the Jehus’ carts were waiting for frames of new wagons to replace those crushed by the stampede. Rails and cross ties, tools and railroad gear of every sort had been collected, replaced and laid in readiness for the Monday morning push. A special train had been dispatched back to the east with the critically wounded and a message sent ahead to have a supply train loaded and ready to leave on the return trip at daybreak on Sunday morning.

  Kelly whipped and bucked, threatened and pleaded, and got the dead-tired men to work cleaning up the railroad gear. A very tired army of Johnny-Jacks would not be paid, Liam Kelly told them, until he was satisfied.

  At midnight the men lined up before the general’s caboose to collect their money and then dropped into a dead sleep at the first protected spot they could find. Many of them said to hell with sleep and headed for the grog tents.

  At midnight the men and women of the Union Pacific Railroad advance camp were emerging from the nightmare.

  * * * *

  Kelly stood still in the middle of a burned-out clearing. He looked around him, his eyes hollow. There must be something else to be done, he thought. Then he stared out to the southwest, wondering if he would ever see Nathan Ellis again, wondering if the big man, who was not an employee of the U.P. and had drifted into the camp looking for a man and a fair fight, was now stretched out in the plains grass with a Cheyenne arrow in his back.

  He looked around him again. The men had been paid and had dispersed, and even the sudden shrieks of women in pain had ceased to split the air. There was nothing else to be done.

  He started for his tent, not at all sure if it had been burned or if his crippled Jehu was still alive, when someone crossed his path and stopped him.

  “How do, Kelly.”

  “Simpson,” Kelly growled. “What do you want?”

  “I been lookin’ for that big cowboy—the one come lookin’ for Lefty,” replied Watson’s man. “Lefty just rode in from Green River with some of the boys. He sent me lookin’ for the Texan. Lefty’s waitin’ at the big tent. That is, if the big ’un ain’t dead yet—or ain’t run out.” Simpson snickered.

  Kelly replied with a perfectly-timed right hand that sent the man sprawling. Simpson slapped at his Colt. “You shoot me,” Kelly growled, “and every Johnny-Jack in this camp will fight to string you up.”

  Simpson pulled his gun and cocked it. “They won’t know who done it, Kelly. I’ve had enough of your—”

  Liza Reeves stepped out of the darkness and chopped the gunman on the back of the head with a tent stake. Simpson rolled over without a sound.

  “He wouldn’t have shot,” Kelly growled, walking over and kicking the gun away.

  “You don’t know a hell of a lot about gunfighters, Mr. Kelly,” Liza said. “You look more tired than I feel. I got your Jehu to cookin’ some coffee.”

  Ke
lly followed Liza Reeves through the scramble of half-burned tenting and erupting luggage. Liza was still wearing the Indian breeches and vest. Her hair was wilder than ever and she had tied a bandanna around her forehead. She looked like a small lithe brave in the darkness.

  Over coffee that was thick and hot and sticky-sweet, they sat on the hard ground and stared into the cook fire. The Jehu had lost a close friend in the raid. The two of them had come up out of New Mexico to work on the railroad and hoped to return with enough of a stake to buy a spread. Now the boy fought back tears as the dream vanished.

  None of them spoke for a long while. Finally Kelly turned to look in the direction of the laughter coming from Watson’s tent. “You think the big fellow will come back, miss?”

  “I sure hope he does, Mr. Kelly.”

  “You like the lad, miss?”

  “I reckon,” Liza said quietly. “He’s a pretty good-type fellow.”

  “I hope,” Kelly said, meaning it more than he had meant anything in his life, “I pray, miss, that he’ll come back. And if he does, don’t let him go after Lefty.”

  Liza’s eyes flashed. “After what we went through today?” She shook her head. “If that man comes back, Mr. Kelly,” she said staring into the southwest, “I ain’t never goin’ to let him out of my sight again. You think I’d let some low-life gun him down? If I have to hog-tie him and strap him blindfolded on a pony and lead him clear to the Yellowstone, hand-feedin’ him every step of the way, I wouldn’t let him fight no shoot-out.”

  “He’s a head-strong lad, miss.”

  “That’s all right. I reckon I can handle him. Let’s just see—” She stopped. “Let’s just see if he gets back from chasin’ that Injun all over yonder.”

  “Beans is all we got, Mr. Kelly,” the Jehu said apologetically. “I got some hot if you and the lady would like some.”

  “Bring ’em on, lad,” Kelly said. “I’ll eat what the young lass can’t handle.”

  “I reckon I could eat a bite or two,” Liza said, her eyes on the southwest where it was dark and the south wind blew softly, bringing on its breath the scent of prairie flowers from Texas and Oklahoma.

  * * * *

  At midnight the glow on the horizon grew brighter and Nathan Ellis began to distinguish the flickering of camp fires. His pony was near exhaustion. “Keep goin’, hoss,” he breathed to the animal and patted its neck. “Both of us goin’ to rest soon.”

  The ride for Nathan Ellis had been a time of reflection. He had faced death many times. As a child he and his infant brother were left with his mother on the banks of the Colorado after his father had been killed by Apaches. Later, as a growing boy, he had fought the southwest Indians himself, and began to range north in search of blood stock for his cattle. Death had been a daily diet during the war when he had snaked the wagon trains up the Santa Fe trail with guns and ammunition brought overland from the Pacific coast. Raids by Indians, white renegades and Union detachments had been common during the drives. He had even gone to the front lines with the Grays to get a taste of real war for six months before he was ordered back to the supply trains.

  He had no idea how many men he had killed in his life. Certainly there had been more Indians than white men. But Goose Face had been the first the tall Texan had scalped. It was a savage gesture, and an honor only to the Indian.

  He glanced down at the blood-caked hair of Goose Face, a little white at the edges with war paint, and was glad that he had lifted the hair of the renegade brave. It was a small act indeed by comparison to the devastation Goose Face had brought to the men and women at the camp, but, for what it was worth, his scalp belonged to them.

  He guided his pony into the outer edges of the camp, unmindful of the stares and comments of the Johnny-Jacks who began to follow him. The figure of Slocum, with the Cheyenne arrow still imbedded in his skull, and the grimy rider with the raw-red hand and the long black hair of an Indian scalp trailing the dust at his stirrup brought increasing murmurs.

  “Is that Goose Face’s hair, mister?” one of the Johnny-Jacks asked.

  “It sure is,” Ellis said.

  The news rippled through the crowd. “He got the Injun!”

  “There’s his hair to prove it!”

  “Gimme a drink! Hot damn his red soul to hell!”

  Ellis pulled his pony to a stop before Kelly’s tent. The big Irishman and Liza Reeves looked up at him from the fire and put the beans to one side.

  “Hail Mary, full of grace—” Kelly crossed himself.

  Liza Reeves stood up. She pursed her lips and fought back tears. “Well, I see you got your Injun,” she managed without breaking down.

  “How’d you do it, mister?” The Johnny-Jacks crowded around, examining the scalp Ellis now held in his hand. Others had removed Slocum’s body and laid it to rest beneath a blanket.

  “I didn’t do it,” Ellis said. “He done it.” He pointed to Slocum. “He killed six of ’em with six bullets.”

  “And that really is that chile’s hair?” a man inquired, Standing close to Ellis and looking at the bloody scalp.

  “Goose Face is dead,” Ellis said. “Only one of his men is still alive.”

  “But close to a dozen of ’em got away!” somebody shouted.

  “Didn’t you hear what the man said!” somebody shouted back angrily. “Only one of ’em got away!”

  “Sure, it’s Goose Face’s hair. You can see the smudges of white from the paint he had all over his face.

  Kelly got to his feet and, before all of them, embraced Nathan Ellis warmly. “Lad,” he said. “I’m glad to see you.”

  “Goddam, we gotta celebrate!” someone shouted. “Get out the fiddles—”

  “But ain’t you got no reverence for the dead?” someone asked.

  “Dead, hell! I’m glad to be alive!”

  The crowd moved away from the tent. Suddenly there came the squeaks of a violin, and then the groans of a concertina filled the air. The men began to form up and stamp the ground and clap their hands, squaring off for the dance. Big, rough Johnny-Jacks, their women and their children joined in the sudden wild release that the death of Goose Face had triggered.

  Ellis sat cross-legged on the ground and accepted the coffee the grinning Jehu offered him. Liza Reeves sat at his side.

  “How’s your leg?” he asked.

  “Fair to passin’.”

  “And your shoulder?”

  “Nothin’ to trouble about. Here, lemme see that hand of yours.” She examined the palm carefully. “Don’t reckon you’ll be grabbin’ at anythin’ for a while.” She turned to the Jehu. “Gimme some pure grease fat, boy, and one of Mr. Kelly’s shirts.”

  “Ain’t no use in doin’ that now,” Ellis said uncomfortably.

  “You just keep your mouth shut,” she said tartly. “I reckon if I want to put grease fat on your hand and tie it up in a rag, you ain’t goin’ to say nothin’ about it!” Her eyes flashed at him.

  Ellis looked at Kelly.

  The big Irishman was busy eating his beans.

  At one-thirty in the morning, his hand bound in the tail of Kelly’s nightshirt, Nathan Ellis put coffee down on top of beans and bacon and told them of his man-to-man duel with Goose Face on the plains.

  “You rest, lad,” Kelly said. “When I tell the general all you’ve done for his railroad today, he’ll show his appreciation in hard money. That’s the kind of man the general is. And as soon as you feel able to straddle a horse, you’re number-one scout for the Union Pacific Railroad.”

  “I don’t want no job, Kelly,” Ellis said. “And I don’t want no pay for what I did today. Soon as Lefty shows his face I’ll have my showdown and afterwards I’ll just cut on back south to the Colorado.”

  “You ain’t gettin’ into no gunfight with Lefty, or nobody,” Liza said. “So you might just as well get that rig
ht clear out of your mind.”

  “Who said?”

  “I said.”

  “Who do you think you are?”

  “Well, you ain’t exactly ast me to marry you yet, but you will sometime or other, so I’m just settin’ out my fences right now in advance a little bit. You ain’t fightin’ no Professional gun-toter.”

  “Marry you!”

  “Don’t act like you don’t want to, ’cause it won’t get you no place. You ain’t goin’ to do no more shootin’—leastways not around this camp at Lefty Whatever-his-name-is.”

  “It wouldn’t be wise, lad,” Kelly said softly. “Even if you did manage to kill him, I’m sure Watson’s men wouldn’t let you get away with it.”

  Ellis sipped his coffee. “As soon as Lefty shows his face, that’s when it’s goin’ to happen.”

  Liza and Kelly looked at each other quickly, and then were silent. Ellis watched their faces.

  “He’s in camp, ain’t he?”

  Liza jumped up. “God damn it! I ain’t goin’ to let you go!”

  Ellis shook his head. “Woman, just stay the hell out of my way.”

  Liza jerked Kelly’s Colt out and aimed it at Ellis. “I’ll break both of your arms, mister,” she said coldly. “You won’t be able to lift a gun for six months. If you don’t believe me, just try and walk away.”

  “How come you so interested?” Ellis demanded angrily.

  “’Cause I love you, you hard-headed, stubborn Texan!” Liza yelled at him. “I been waitin’ a long time for somethin’ like you to come along and I ain’t goin’ to stand by and see you drop in front of the gun of a no-good—”

  “Now you listen to me a minute, woman,” Ellis said, his voice hard and edged with determination. “I do wantta marry you. And under the circumstances, I guess you’d be right to keep me outa a fight—if it was an ordinary shoot-out—but it ain’t.”

  “What makes this one so different?” Liza demanded.

  Ellis pulled out his Colt and began to load it, examining it carefully. He did not look at Kelly or Liza as he spoke. “I got a place down on the Colorado, near Center City, Texas. My paw staked it out forty years ago with my maw. I was born there and worked cattle with my paw. Then my brother was born in the same room as me, six years later.