Deadlands--Thunder Moon Rising

by Jeffrey Mariotte

  She poured the drink. Tuck put some coins on the bar and downed it. Liquid fire. He hadn’t known how much he’d missed it until he had it again. “Another.”

  “Hard day?” she asked as she poured.

  “Aren’t they all?”

  “Some’re worse than others.”

  “This is one of those, then.” He held the glass in his hand for a few seconds, swishing the amber liquid around. His life had contained few pleasures, and most of those fleeting, costly, or both. This one wouldn’t fail him. The color, the flavor, the warmth already spreading from his gut—he loved them as he had never loved anything or anyone. Drink fought back the chill from the rain and the memory of his mother’s disapproval of everything and everyone. Especially him. “Just like your father,” she had complained. “I was a fool to ever let him make you.”

  “Guess that makes us both fools,” he muttered.

  “Sorry?” someone said from behind his shoulder.

  “Nothing.” Tuck held the glass to his lips, sipped from it. He would savor this one, make it last awhile. Then the next few he would put away fast.

  “What are you doing here, Tuck?”

  “Go away, Missy.”

  Her hand came down on his arm. Her grip was unyielding. “I mean it, Tuck. Why?”

  “I—oh, hell, Missy. Don’t tell me you never take a drink.”

  “I do, time to time. But you stopped. And you were … you’re a better man when you’re not.”

  “I reckon you’ll have to get used to a worse man, then. Or don’t.” He shook her hand off and finished the glass. Never mind savoring. He slammed it down on the bar. “Another.”

  Sally Jo caught Missy’s eye. Missy shrugged, and Sally Jo poured.

  He took a couple of sips, leaning against the bar, enjoying the taste and thinking that Sally Jo was getting more attractive by the minute. Then Missy took a position next to him, so close he could feel her heat. “I wish you’d talk to me,” she said. “Tell me what’s bothering you.”

  “Where would I start?” he asked.

  “Start with what happened, maybe.”

  He drained the glass. “What happened? You tell me. I was perfectly happy being miserable. Then Daisie got killed and Turville roped me into his damn posse and then who knows what? And don’t get me started on Montclair—”

  “What about Montclair?”

  Tuck eyed her. She was pretty, all right. When she’d been younger, probably beautiful. The years had marked her, in the way that time did. Little scars here and there on her face, faint lines at the corners of her mouth and eyes that would grow deeper and more pronounced. Her green eyes were clear and animated by what he suspected was a fierce intelligence.

  “I’m not sure,” he said after a while. “All the killings in these parts. Everything. He’s in the middle of it all, I think.”

  “But what does that mean? What would he have to gain?”

  “I don’t know. Thought for a while I’d find out, but I reckon there’s no point in it, now.”

  “I never took you for a quitter, Tuck.”

  “When you met me, I had already quit. Turns out that was the right thing, after all.” She was staring at him now, hands on her hips and a look on her face like she was a schoolmarm and he a misbehaving student. “What?” he asked. “I guess you want your hat back.”

  Her expression changed, and he could see that the question had stung. No, more than that—it had pierced her heart, as surely as a knife or an arrow might. Tears welled in her eyes. Her lower lip quivered as she started to say something, but then she changed her mind, spun around and walked away from him. He watched her go up the stairs and out of sight.

  He was sorry he’d hurt her. But it was for the best. There could be no passengers on the trip he was about to take, no spectators. It was a one-man voyage, and one-way, too. Straight from here to the bottom.

  He bade Sally Jo bring another glass, and he had just raised it to his lips when he heard a commotion outside—a high-pitched scream, followed by angry shouts. Tuck put the glass down and took a step toward the door, then stopped himself.

  Whatever was going on out there wasn’t any of his concern. Not anymore. Only one thing was, and he had left that behind on the bar. He went back to his spot and swallowed the rest of it. “Keep ’em coming,” he said.

  The barkeep obliged. While she was pouring the next one, though, some of the men playing cards with Senora Soto went to the window and looked out. “Looks like somethin’ to do with that Apache scout,” one said. “The one’s always follerin’ that white girl around.”

  “Little Wing?” Tuck asked. “Kuruk?”

  “Never knowed their names,” the man replied. “White girl they found with the slaughtered mule train.”

  Little Wing. For a few long seconds, Tuck was torn. His next drink was on the bar in front of him, and he wanted it as much as he had ever wanted anything in his life.

  But Little Wing and Kuruk had been decent to him, when not many were. They had trusted him. He wouldn’t say they’d befriended him, but they were as close to friends as he had in this place.

  He left the drink where it was, left his coins on the bar. He would come back once he’d found out what was going on. Wincing as the rain pummeled him, he stepped back into the storm.

  Kuruk was at the corner, squatting down and tending to a young cowboy who had a gash across his forehead and blood running down his face. The rain carried it away as fast as it flowed, but there appeared to be plenty more behind it.

  “What happened, Kuruk?” Tuck asked.

  “Cale and Little Wing were spending time together,” the Apache said. “Most of the afternoon. I think they’re sweet on each other.”

  “It ain’t that,” the cowboy said.

  Tuck saw that he was not much more than a boy, seventeen or eighteen at the oldest. “I’ve seen you before,” he said. “You work for that rancher? Tibbetts?”

  “Did,” Cale said. “Not no more. Ranch is gone.”

  Did was right. It didn’t sound as if the boy knew about Tibbetts yet.

  “Anyhow,” Kuruk went on, ignoring the interruption, “I gave them a little privacy when it looked like maybe they wanted to kiss or something. I had been keeping them in sight, but I let them go around the corner for a few minutes so they could be alone.”

  “Then what?” Tuck asked.

  “Then someone jumped us,” Cale said. “Like they was waiting back there the whole time. They knocked me down. Little Wing tried to fight them off. I got up and tried to help. But they was too strong, and they rode away with her.”

  “What’d they look like?”

  “I hardly saw ’em. Just guys. Wearing black, riding black horses. They rode south.”

  “Where did this happen? Right here?”

  Cale waved his hand toward the alley running behind the north side of the street. “Back there. Right around the corner.”

  “Be right back,” Tuck said. He hurried to the corner Cale had indicated. He didn’t think it was possible to get more soaked, but his clothes were getting heavier by the second, his boots ever more caked with mud.

  At the corner, he breathed in. The downpour had diluted it, but some of the familiar stink still lingered. Those pitch-black creatures he had encountered before had taken Little Wing. Why, he couldn’t know.

  When he returned to the others, Cale was on his feet. His head was still bleeding a little, but Kuruk had packed some mud over the wound. Tuck put a hand on Cale’s shoulder. “Listen, son, I don’t know if you’ve heard about Jed Tibbetts.”

  “What about him?”

  Tuck remembered Tibbetts’s body, the wall behind it splattered from the close-range gunshot. He couldn’t think of a gentle way to say it, and he was more interested in going after the things that had grabbed Little Wing than in sparing the boy’s feelings. “He’s dead,” Tuck said. “Shot himself. His wife and I heard the shot, but we were too late to stop him.”

  Cale’s eyes wide
ned, then filled with tears. His mouth opened, his jaw dropped, his cheeks sank in. “No. He’d never do that.”

  “I’m sorry, Cale. I saw him, right after.”

  Cale swallowed hard. “He … he couldn’t.”

  “He did.”

  The boy’s chest hitched, his shoulders bucked, and then the sobs came on strong. He put his hands over his face, as if ashamed of his tears. Kuruk stood with him, holding his shoulders and glaring at Tuck.

  “He had to know.”

  “There’s better ways to say it.”

  “A man’s dead. Little Wing’s been taken. I thought those were more important than sparing his feelings.”

  “They are,” Kuruk said.

  “Then we ought to do something about Little Wing.”

  He heard boots approaching, but didn’t look to see whose until he heard Kanouse’s voice. “Anything wrong here?”

  “This boy was attacked, Mo. Somebody grabbed his friend.”

  “If a crime’s been committed, Bringloe, you ain’t the man should be dealin’ with it.”

  “Aren’t you the marshal?” Kuruk asked Tuck.

  “Not anymore. He is.”

  Kuruk shot Kanouse a scowl. “Him?” He spat into the mud.

  “Now listen,” Kanouse said. Then he dropped it and turned his attention to Cale. “Boy, if you’d like to make a report, come by my office in the morning.”

  “The morning?” Tuck repeated. He could barely contain his rage. “The girl’s missing now.”

  “I got other things to do, Bringloe. And if it’s the girl goes around with this Indian, she don’t even live in town. She’s the army’s problem.”

  Tuck looked at Kanouse’s ugly face, his thick lips formed into a smirk, his tiny eyes lacking the slightest glimmer of intelligence. The man had his shoulders back and his gut forward and his legs wide, and he exuded a confidence Tuck had never felt in his life.

  Tuck’s mouth worked, but nothing came out. He wanted to say something—a lot of things—but he didn’t know how, or what, or even why.

  Instead, he took a fast half step forward and struck out with his right fist, leaning into the punch, putting his shoulder behind it. His fist slammed into Kanouse’s left cheek, and Tuck felt something give behind it. Kanouse’s head snapped to the right. His hat flew off and he started to sway backward. He tried to catch himself, pinwheeling his arms, but in the soft mud he couldn’t keep his balance. He fell back, as inexorably as a tree cut off at the base, and landed on his back, arms out, spread-eagled in the muck.

  Tuck stood there, his fist already starting to ache from the contact. But Kanouse would hurt a lot more, and he was glad for that.

  The new marshal sat up in the mud. He shook some from his hands and carefully touched his face. Blood was running from his open mouth, and he spat something into his palm. Two teeth. Tuck had been kind of hoping he’d broken the man’s jaw, but he’d take it.

  “That weren’t a smart thing to do, Bringloe. Keep in mind who’s the law here. I won’t haul you in for that, even though I could do. You already stink of liquor. I were you, I’d keep a close watch on my back.”

  Again, there were things Tuck could have said, but he thought the punch had done a pretty good job of speaking for him. Kuruk and Cale were still standing there. Cale was no longer sobbing, though his eyes and nose were red from his tears. “Come on,” Tuck said. “He’s not going to be any help.”

  Kuruk looked at the former deputy, still sitting up in the mud and feeling his cheek with his tongue. “Not now, anyhow.”

  “He was right about one thing,” Tuck said. “The army. Think we can bring them in?”

  “The army?” Kuruk chuckled. “What army? Colonel Cuttrell sent everybody away.”

  “Everybody?”

  “Pretty near. We could maybe find a few troopers around, but the fort’s empty.”

  “Why?”

  “Beats me. I’m just a scout, and Apache to boot. You think they tell me anything?”

  “What are you thinkin’, Mr. Bringloe?” Cale asked. “Do you know who took her?”

  “I have an idea,” Tuck said. He had been thinking about it since talking to Missy earlier, and he was embarrassed that it had taken him so long to put the pieces together. He hadn’t had a lot of pieces to begin with, and nothing definite. But he had a series of little ones, and combined with some hunches, he thought they added up to something.

  The incidents he had found described in the Epitaph had centered around Montclair’s ranch. The route that Daisie’s killer had been taking would have led him back to the same vicinity, if the posse hadn’t caught up to him. The night he had slept so soundly at his desk, one of Montclair’s men had delivered flowers to the office—it was those, he was sure, not drugged coffee, that had put him under. Montclair had taken over the Tibbetts ranch, and he had done it the same day that Cale had been attacked in town. Montclair had taken Sadie Cuttrell from town—apparently of her own volition, but Tuck couldn’t help feeling it was more complicated than that—and Little Wing had been taken from town.

  He didn’t explain all that. He simply said, “Jasper Montclair.”

  To his surprise, Kuruk nodded. “He’s no good, that one.”

  “You know?”

  “Some things a man can tell.”

  “If Montclair’s got her,” Cale said, “that’s where I’m going.”

  “Not so fast, son,” Tuck countered. “We need a plan of some kind. If I’m right, Montclair’s got some very dangerous allies. I don’t even know how to describe them, except to say they’re vicious, not human, and extremely hard to kill.”

  “A plan? Ride in and shoot everyone until I get her back. That’s my plan.”

  “You own a horse? Or a gun?”

  Cale hesitated. “I can get those.”

  “You mean steal them? So you can not only have Montclair and his thugs gunning for you, but the law, too?”

  “I mean, I’ll do whatever it takes to get her back. If you two won’t help, then I’ll go by myself.”

  “Simmer down, Cale,” Kuruk said. “Nobody is saying we won’t back you. Just that riding in there on our own might not be the way to do it.”

  “If you have a better idea—”

  “I might,” Kuruk interrupted. “I just might. If Jimmy McKenna is still around. Or Clinton Delahunt…”

  “Who?” Cale asked.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Kuruk said. “Just come with me.”

  Chapter Forty-five

  In its emptiness, the fort seemed huge and oppressively silent.

  Given his reception the last time Tuck had visited, the lack of troopers ready to hurl him through the gates was a pleasant surprise. He remembered what Kuruk had said about Cuttrell dismissing everyone, but he hadn’t quite been prepared for the reality of it.

  He wondered, too, if the colonel’s act had anything to do with the disappearance of his wife.

  A few troopers remained in evidence, presumably because they had nowhere else to go. Tuck didn’t see any in full uniform, or doing anything that could remotely be described as military. One soldier in striped pants and no shirt was turning circles in the rain, his arms outspread, palms up and mouth open, as if he’d been dying of thirst and it was the first water he had seen in months. Another was ushering a goat out of a building. Tuck hoped it wasn’t a barracks, but he couldn’t tell for sure.

  He looked toward Cuttrell’s office and saw the colonel through a window, shaking clenched fists at the ceiling. Tuck couldn’t tell if there was anyone else there or not.

  Kuruk led them past that and some other buildings, around a corner, and between a set of low, blocky structures set close together on what would have been a narrow, dusty alley any other time of the year. Now it was a running river, inches deep. Beyond the buildings were the fort’s stables. The musky smell of wet horses filled the air.

  Nearing those, Tuck heard the banging of a hammer or some other implement on steel. It was a steady, rh
ythmic sound, just irregular enough not to be mechanized. As they grew closer to the farthest building on the stretch, wading through the deluge, the banging got louder. That building had a wide opening at the far end. The scents of wood smoke leaking from the chimney into the storm and the tang of metal on metal mingled with the animal musk.

  “Where are you taking us, Kuruk?” Tuck asked as they neared it. “You fitting us for suits of armor?”

  “You said Montclair has inhuman allies,” the scout replied. “That don’t surprise me. I never did like that fella. But I think we need something more than the three of us and some stolen guns and horses to fight them.”

  “So we’re going to a blacksmith’s shop?”

  “That’s right. Like most whites I’ve known, you’d learn more if you could close your mouth and open your eyes.”

  Tuck did. When they reached the doorway of the shop, his eyes opened even wider.

  McKenna, the lieutenant who had banished Tuck earlier, was there, along with three Buffalo Soldiers, all working on … on what, he couldn’t say. Something that looked vaguely like a steam-powered wagon. It had four wheels, at any rate. But those wheels were enormous, the rear ones almost as tall as Tuck, and the front ones about five feet in diameter. The wagon itself was bigger than any Tuck had ever seen, with a deep bed with walls that appeared to be inches thick. Set a couple of feet in from the front was a steel-and-glass compartment jutting up above the bed, with what looked like a Gatling gun barrel emerging from an opening. Another, similar configuration sat near the other end. The bed itself was clad in some kind of dull, gray metal, and it had various apparatuses affixed to it for which he had no names, much less comprehension.

  A furnace blazed in a corner of the shop, making the place swelteringly hot. Standing just inside the doorway, Tuck thought his clothes were already drying.

  “Kuruk,” McKenna said. “This is supposed to be a secret. You brought him?”

  “Bringloe is a good man,” Kuruk said. “I trust him.”