by Tony Masero
‘Is that any particular Comanche?’ asked Britt.
‘Oh, I expect it’s the same one as you yourselves are after.’
‘And why would you be doing that?’
‘We have commission, sir,’ supplied Cromwell. ‘The parents of these poor lost infants have brought us in to seek out their offspring.’
‘The devil you say!’ blurted out O’Brien.
Just then Rawlings and Governance clattered in after stabling the wagon and stopped at the door aware of the tension running in the room.
‘What can I get you?’ grinned Hands, trying to be amenable. ‘We have a sturdy draft of ‘Old Nick’ whiskey or a barrel there of the finest beer, I brewed it myself and can vouch that its good.’
‘So the family’s have gone private,’ said Britt, ignoring the post owner.
‘It would appear so,’ answered Cromwell with a dismissive wave of a limp hand.
‘You want a job done it’s no good going to the army,’ cut in Kant. ‘Need specialists for this sort of thing.’ His tone was derisory and provocative.
‘That so, dear man?’ smiled O’Brien pleasantly before turning to Hands, who stood waiting expectantly behind the counter. ‘Why, I think I’ll have me a taste of that whiskey you have there, Mister Hands. Will you set me up a bottle.’
‘Need a sucking straw for that, army boy?’ prodded Kant.
‘I’ll be sure and let you know,’ countered O’Brien with a casual tilt of his head, although his eyes glittered under the shadow of his heavy brows.
‘What is this?’ asked Governance pushing forward aggressively.
‘Seems like we have some competition,’ supplied O’Brien.
‘Oh, no, please don’t think of it like that,’ said Cromwell. ‘I’m sure that myself, Mister Kant and Warren and even Mistress Marques here, will only be thinking of the salvation of those poor infants so cruelly wrested from their loving parent’s arms.’
‘For a fee, I’ll be guessing,’ said Britt.
‘Indeed,’ agreed Cromwell. ‘A laborer is worthy of his hire, is that not so?’
‘Then it’ll be the money and no charity work you’ll be about,’ spat Governance.
‘Watch your manners, boy,’ growled Kant.
Governance made a move towards him but Rawlings standing close by held back the soldier’s arm.
‘Steady,’ he muttered in Governance’s ear.
‘Please,’ said Cromwell, spreading his arms wide and looking to all purposes to Britt like a big black bat as he did so. ‘Let us not argue. Join us, have a drink. We all seek the same end here and there is no need to fall out over what is fundamentally a rescue mission, no more, no less.’
‘You’re civilians and don’t know your way around this neck of the woods,’ Britt answered coldly. ‘And that one there is a scalp hunter, so be warned, you step in our way and I’ll cut you down soon as look at you.’
‘Oh, dear,’ sighed Cromwell. ‘It seems then that we cannot join forces. I had hoped we might find some common ground given the nature of our task.’
‘Stay out of our way, Captain Cromwell. Don’t think I don’t know of you, like to nail up Plains Indians, don’t you? Pin them up to a tree as if you was some kind of Holy Roller with a Testament calling.’
Cromwell was unfazed, ‘Indian fighting certainly is my game, sir. But I don’t think I know you, a scout, I believe, and perhaps somewhat past his prime by all accounts.’
‘The name’s Britt Marley and I’m enough in my prime to put the likes of you down, if need be.’
Cromwell pushed back his chair noisily and got to his feet, ‘Well, I presume we shall see on that score, shan’t we? Now, my friends, I believe we will take our leave, this liquor has developed a putrid taste, must be the company, I fear.’
The other three joined him and stared at the collected army men with a show of cocky indifference before Cromwell took the lead and they made for the door.
‘Holy mother!’ snarled O’Brien, snatching the whiskey bottle from Hands grasp after they had left. ‘Did you ever hear the like?’
‘Damned renegade posse!’ Governance agreed. ‘Give me a glass will you, Sergeant?’
‘They’re certainly a bunch of killers,’ said Britt. ‘You know them, Mister Hands?’
‘Well, it appears you already heard of the Captain,’ said Hands with a weak grin. ‘The scalp hunter too, name of Ray Kant. The mixed-blood girl is Jan Marques and the long shot goes by Warren, that’s all I know of them.’
‘She’s a tracker,’ cut in Rawlings. ‘I heard of her when I was stationed at Fort Selden, the best at her given skill, so I was told. Good looking but cold as ice, they say.’
‘Do you know the sweet thing’s story?’ asked O’Brien.
‘Daddy was a Buffalo Soldier with the ninth, I believe. Took up with some white crib girl and got himself the brat.’
‘And the rifleman?’ asked Britt. ‘Anybody know him?’
He was answered by a collective and negative shake of heads.
‘Going by that long gun he carries, he will know what he’s doing,’ supplied Rawlings.
‘Maybe so,’ agreed Britt. ‘It’s a damned nuisance, going to be tough enough without tripping over that pack of bloodthirsty money grubbers.’
‘Indeed we shall,’ agreed O’Brien. ‘We’ll be looking over our shoulder every step of the way.’
‘Well, they get in our way and doubtless they’ll be having a small accident,’ added Governance.
‘Come on, boys,’ said Hands. ‘Forget all that, drink up and be merry. Do you have the list of your requirements?’
‘Rawlings, darling boy, tell the man will you,’ said O’Brien, swallowing a satisfying slug of the whiskey.
Britt had it in his mind to ride further south once they had collected their supplies and then strike due west back into New Mexico and either find the Comanche band or at least get news of their whereabouts. He feared that would only be by tidings of another killing raid and hoped they could find the war party before that happened and then they could begin to harass them before Bellamy arrived with the tempting prize of the ponies.
With these thoughts in mind, they loaded up the wagon and bade farewell to Jacob Hands. With Niyol scouting ahead, Britt and O’Brien rode together and the chuck wagon followed in the rear.
They were heading in the direction of the Hondo River, aiming to cross over below Fort Stanton and head out into Socorro country. The trail led them into a valley where the rock formation was split and layered like piled bricks all of it overgrown with yucca and wild brush. Raw rock had broken from the valley sides and tumbled down to form a gradual slope to the heights and all of them were glad of the shade the wall of stone provided.
When the shot rang out it was a sudden hefty boom of sound that flew down the valley and bounced from the slopes with a dying reverberation.
Every man in the column searched the valley sides and as Britt fought with a startled Pencil he called out to O’Brien, ‘Where away? You see them?’
O’Brien shook his head negatively as he dismounted, taking up position with Rawlings and Governance alongside the chuck wagon.
Britt swung his pony around in a tight circle, searching the heights for some sign of the shooter.
‘That was a long gun,’ he called across to the others.
‘Sounded like a Sharps buffalo gun to me,’ Rawlings answered.
Only then did it occur to Britt, ‘My God! Niyol!’
He dug in his heels and raced off ahead along the trail, there was no road to speak of and Pencil swayed and zigzagged around obstacles that lay in their path as effortlessly as a cow pony. The road ahead narrowed and became a tumble of loose stones and it was on a heap of shale that Britt came across the body of the Indian lying on his side as if asleep.
‘Oh, no!’ Britt breathed, jumping down before Pencil had pulled to a complete halt. With one eye searching above, he took the Navajo’s shoulder in his hand and rolled the body over.
‘Warren!’ rasped Britt quietly to himself. ‘I know your name and for this I will kill you.’
The rest of the party came up some time later to find Britt still crouched over the body, occasionally reaching out and straightening the Indian’s shirt or adjusting his headband. It was as if Britt could not accept parting with the young Indian, he had seen him grow in the service and alongside Kilchii had been one of his most favored of the Navajo scouts.
The three servicemen gathered around, standing in a solemn half-circle behind Britt.
‘You think it was that tomfool Cromwell?’ asked O’Brien.
Slowly, Britt climbed to his feet, his gaze still fixed on Niyol’s body.
‘Has to be,’ he said. ‘They’d like to take out our eyes by killing off the scout.’
‘Why did they stop there?’
Britt shrugged, ‘Who knows, crazy bastard like that, maybe they just want to string us out. Hoping that we’ll give up and leave the field to them.’
‘You’ll not let it rest there, will you, darling boy?’ observed O’Brien knowledgably.
‘I will not,’ Britt promised. ‘You fellows camp here. I’d be obliged if you’d see to Niyol’s burial. I have to go on a spell.’
With that Britt threw himself up into the saddle and whirled Pencil around to head off down the valley.
‘When will you be back?’ O’Brien called after him.
‘When I’m done,’ Britt answered over his shoulder.
It was three hours later and late in the afternoon when Britt found the scuffmarks on the valley rim. He trailed them by the glow of the low-angled sunlight, searching for an overturned pebble or a slide of dust. When he discovered the sharp mark of metal against stone he knew he had found where the shooter had kept his horse tethered. Britt set out to follow the set of hoof prints into the evening light.
He was saddened to see Niyol gone, the boy had been bright and with a good future ahead of him. It was a sour waste to Britt that the Indian’s life should be taken by the callous and coldhearted expedience of Cromwell and his crew. Their only motive being to slow him down and to interrupt his closing with the Comanche war band and for this they had murdered the young man.
As the sun set behind distant mountains Britt peered into the purple shadows of gathering gloom on the plain before him. He could see a single light, small but bright and all alone on the otherwise deserted plain. It made sense to him that he should explore the possibility that the marksman had chosen to stay overnight in the lonely homestead before joining up with the rest of the gang.
Angling Pencil down the incline towards the flat plain, Britt dragged out his carbine and kept it across his lap before him as he rode. It was a sight further than he anticipated, maybe nine or ten miles, the darkness disguising the distance. When he arrived at the source of the light he saw it was a small homestead, there was a plank corral outside with three horses inside, a barn and outhouses and the main house where the light came from.
Britt pulled up on the outskirts and tied off Pencil at the corral fence, he drew his pistol and with the rifle in one hand and the Colt in the other he quickly strode up to the front door of the main house and kicked it open.
He was met by the sight of a long table on trestles, at one end sat a patriarchal figure. A white-bearded man wearing a low crowned flat-topped black hat and plain collar shirt over his bulky frame. On each side of the table were benches and facing Britt sat two young children and a teenage girl. A woman stood shocked at the other end of the table having just entered from the kitchen, in her hands a bowl of cornbread and another of potatoes. Sitting with his back to Britt sat a hunched figure in a long duster coat.
‘Nobody move!’ said Britt.
‘What is it you want?’ boomed the bearded man.
‘Just this fellow here,’ growled Britt, poking the seated figure before him in the back with the rifle barrel. ‘Get up!’
The children were staring at him wide-eyed and clinging to the teenage girl, whilst the woman holding the dishes lay them down carefully on the table, her mouth open and lower lip trembling.
‘Who is this, Malachi?’ she asked.
‘It’s nothing, Ma. A bad mistake is all,’ said the duster clad figure.
‘Malachi! Is that your name?’ said Britt. ‘I thought you went by Warren.’
Without turning the marksman answered over his shoulder, ‘What does it matter?’
‘What, son? You have no pride in your name,’ boomed the patriarchal figure, staring angrily from under beetled brows. ‘The Good Lord gave us names to mark us out and to separate us from the beasts of the field. A man should not be ashamed of his name or his origins.’
‘Well, this one ought to be,’ snarled Britt. ‘Now, get up and do like I say.’
Warren moved from his seat and then did a surprising thing. He leapt up from the bench and with amazing dexterity turned an athletic cartwheel in the air, his long coat flapping as his slight body rotated over backwards and landed on his feet in front of Britt. Still with his back to Britt, he held the long barrel of his Sharps rifle in both his hands as it was never far away from him, and he swung it in a loop like a bat. With a crack the flat side of the stock caught Britt a blow on the side of the head and stunned, his legs gave from under him and he fell.
The women screamed and the children whimpered, Warren’s father roared as the marksman loomed over the fallen Britt. Warren lifted the hefty nine and half pounds of gun above his head and brought the brass-plated stock down sharply. Although dazed, Britt saw it coming, the blow intending to smash the wrist of his gun hand. He drew the hand back but not quickly enough and although the rifle butt missed his wrist it slammed into his Colt revolver, the vibration dashing the pistol from his grasp.
Britt, lay flat on his back, his face stinging from the blow on his cheek, and struggling to bring around his carbine. With a back handed swipe, Warren knocked the carbine aside, the gun going off and blasting a bullet into the ceiling above.
Placing a boot on Britt’s chest, Warren leveled the Sharps and pressed it into the base of Britt’s neck under his bearded chin.
‘Now then,’ snarled Warren. ‘You were saying?’
Britt looked coldly back at him and said nothing.
‘Malachi!’ snapped the old man. ‘Tell us what this is about. A man comes in here bearing weapons and distresses your mother and the children, what is this?’
‘Your boy’s a killer, sir. That’s what this is about….’ said Britt and Warren pressed the barrel in deeper to cut him off.
‘Oh, no,’ wailed the woman. ‘What can he mean?’
‘Let him up, Malachi. Let him explain,’ ordered his father, pushing back his chair and getting to his feet.
‘There’s nothing to tell,’ said Warren, his gaze fixed firmly on Britt. ‘Yes, I’ve killed, Pa. You know I did my duty back in the war. I served, I know you didn’t approve, but I believed I had to go. I was a good shot, wasn’t I, Pa? You trained me well. So, I put it to best use out there on the battlefield.’
‘This ain’t the battlefield I’m talking about,’ said Britt.
‘You shut your mouth,’ snarled Warren, cocking the hammer on the Sharps.
‘Let him up, son,’ the old man came around the table and took Warren’s arm, pulling him away.
‘Leave it be, Pa,’ said Warren irritably. He was obviously in awe of his father and the years of engrained obedience through his childhood forced him to falter. ‘I’ll take him outside and we’ll sort this out.’
‘Yeah, like you did my friend,’ said Britt. ‘With a bullet in the brain.’
‘He was an Indian!’ spat
Warren. ‘Nothing but a stinking Indian.’
Britt scrabbled to his feet, ‘He was my friend and he was a good man. Better than you and the likes you travel with.’
‘Husband!’ cried the woman suddenly. ‘Will someone tell me what is going on, please, somebody explain.’
‘Your son there,’ said Britt hurriedly. ‘Is part of a gang led by a drummed out ex-soldier who runs with a scalp-taking animal of a man and a lady of questionable virtue. I represent a legally ordered military patrol trying to recapture some children stolen by the Comanche. Your son here and his cronies are being paid reward money to do the same job and obviously they don’t want us to succeed. So, your boy here, took it into his head to shoot down and kill my guide with that long rifle of his.’
‘Is this true?’ growled the father, his hand pressing down the barrel of Warren’s Sharps.
‘It was only an Indian,’ pouted Warren by way of sullen explanation. ‘You know they don’t amount to much, Pa.’
The old man turned to Britt, ‘You, sir, will take your truck and get out of my house. Whatever my boy has done it does not excuse such an entrance, terrifying my family and all.’
‘For that I apologize,’ said Britt, collecting his carbine and pistol. ‘But I should like to take your boy back for proper judgment by the authorities.’
‘I think not,’ growled the old man. ‘I shall see to my own as I have always done, now be on your way.’
Britt and Warren glared at each other and then decisively, Britt turned on his heel and made for the door.
‘Don’t think it’s that easy,’ Warren called after him.
‘Be quiet boy!’ snapped his father.
Outside, Britt hurried away to his pony and mounted up. With a slap of the reins and a dig of the heels he urged Pencil away from the homestead. He headed back the way he had come knowing full well it wasn’t over, certainly not as far as he was concerned. There was no point in pressing his case with Warren’s family about him but Britt intended that he would watch and wait and that the matter was not done yet awhile. With this in mind he made his way back to the high hills and camped himself down amongst the overlooking rocks content to wait until daylight and see which way Warren headed.
