Kill the Indian

by Johnny D. Boggs

  Holding their Chicago nightsticks, two policemen forced some of the onlookers back. One of the peace officers cursed as Daniel entered the healing lodge. He watched the policeman for two or three seconds, no longer, and stepped through the flap.

  “Tsu Kuh Puah,” he whispered to Nagwee. “There is a man outside that I must talk to.”

  Nagwee’s face hardened.

  “If you say I must stay, I will,” Daniel said. “But I need to speak to this man.”

  “A taibo?”

  Daniel nodded.

  Nagwee shot a glance toward Quanah, then shook his head, and waved his hand in Daniel’s face. “Go. Do what you must.”

  He wanted to apologize, thought better of it, and stepped through the flap. Billy Kyne was not in the crowd, which Daniel considered lucky. The Herald reporter, likely in one of the saloons, would have been almost impossible to sneak past. The newspaper horde, however, had divided into groups with a handful of reporters agreeing to alert the others of any new news. Billy Kyne would right now be in one of the saloons, drinking. Maybe with Frank Striker. Daniel didn’t see the interpreter, either.

  He looked through the opening, saw Rain Shower’s questioning glare, then faced the newspaper men.

  “It is about to begin?” one bespectacled reporter asked.

  “Soon,” Daniel said. “It will be over by noon tomorrow.” He moved toward Sixth Street.

  “Well, where the Sam Hill are you going?” the reporter said.

  Daniel forced a smile. “The Comanche have bodily functions same as white men.”

  That got several chuckles, and the newspaper reporters turned away, rolling cigarettes or pulling bottles of beer from an ice-filled bucket resting on the ground.

  Daniel moved past some of the younger employees of the wagon yard and railroads, and walked away from the lodge, the ditch, the smoke, and the smell of beaver. He made a beeline for the policeman with the Irish brogue.

  Chapter Thirteen

  He had not seen anyone resembling the cowboy he had glimpsed in the alley, but he knew this Pale Eyes was the same one Daniel had spotted on the streets. Maybe the Metal Shirt had seen somebody enter the Taylor & Barr’s upstairs apartments.

  Once he reached Rusk Street, Daniel stopped and caught a glimpse of the policeman as he turned east onto Eighth Street. Daniel broke into a sprint, weaving past men and women, careful not to knock anyone over. He took the corner, and spotted the officer passing a two-story structure on the corner of Calhoun. Twirling a nightstick in his right hand, the man moved at a lively clip, and Daniel, already out of breath, wished he had that copper’s gait. The cop turned south onto Calhoun, heading toward the Third Ward.

  Sucking in air, Daniel chased after him.

  He didn’t catch up with him until the officer had heard his footsteps and stopped, turning, raising his nightstick while reaching for a holstered pistol. Sensing the policeman’s alarm, Daniel stopped, held out his empty hands, and tried to catch his breath.

  “My name … is Daniel … Killstraight,” he said. “I would like … to talk to … you.”

  The police officer didn’t move, didn’t speak. He was almost to Eleventh Street.

  Laughter echoed across the Third Ward, someone sawed a fiddle, terribly, and Daniel could hear the clinking of glasses, the curses and catcalls.

  “Step into the bloody light.” The policeman had finally spoken.

  Daniel moved until he stood under a gas lamp next to the City Gas Works building.

  “That’s good. Just keep your bloody hands where they are.”

  The officer moved closer to him, hands nervously but determinedly clutching the club and the butt of a Smith & Wesson revolver.

  “You’re one of those Comanches,” the man spoke.

  Daniel nodded, and tapped his badge. “I, too, am a peace officer.”

  The policeman let out a mirthless chuckle and spit onto the street. A tall, angular man in the navy blue uniform of the Fort Worth Police Department, he had deep-set blue eyes that never seemed to blink, a crooked nose, dark walrus mustache flecked with gray, thin lips, and a cleft in his chin. A scar ran from the corner of his right eye, then up to his temple like a check mark. Two items hung from his neck: a whistle, part of the police force’s equipment, and a golden medallion that Daniel had seen worn by many of the miners in Pennsylvania who followed the Pale Eyes religion of the Black Robes.

  “Peace officer. There’s no peace in the bloody Third Ward, boy. Best get your arse back to the wagon yard.”

  Often, Daniel felt that way about the Comanche, Kiowa, and Apache reserve near Fort Sill.

  “On Wednesday night,” Daniel said, “early Thursday morning, actually, you were patrolling on Houston Street.”

  The police officer released his grip on the revolver, and lowered the billy club just a little. “Aye. And what of it?”

  “That was the night Quanah Parker, our chief, was poisoned by the gas and another was killed.”

  “So?”

  A grunt, curse, and thud sounded behind him, and the officer turned, gripping the Smith & Wesson again, flattening himself against the wall. He saw a cowboy pushing himself up from the boardwalk, slipping again, trying to pick up a bottle he had dropped, but unable to make his right hand cooperate.

  “Jesus, Mother Mary, and Joseph,” the policeman said, shaking his head, glancing at Daniel before moving down Calhoun Street toward the buffoon.

  Upon reaching the drunkard, the officer reached down, grabbed the cowhand by the collar and waistband, jerked him to his feet, and slammed him against the picket wall of a ramshackle building. “You’ve had a wee too many tonight, you dumb bloke,” the officer said.

  The cowboy slurred words Daniel could not understand.

  “Aye, and your breath reeks of a brewery.”

  Daniel eased down the boardwalk. “There was another drunk on that night,” he said. “He had relieved himself in the alley, was trying to make his way back to the Tivoli.” Hoping he pronounced that right. “Do you remember this?”

  The officer had fished metal bracelets from his belt, had slapped one on the drunk’s right wrist, was trying to get the other hand secured.

  “What are you talking about? Can’t you see I’m busy here.”

  “I just wish to know if you saw anyone entering the Taylor and Barr building around this time. Or coming out of it.”

  No answer. Having managed to get the handcuffs on, the copper jerked the drunk around. The cowboy tilted toward the officer, but the billy club caught him in the sternum and forced him back against the wall.

  “It is important,” Daniel said. “Do you remember?”

  The policeman whirled, his blue eyes fierce. “Here’s what I remember, you bloody red heathen. I remember that tonight is me daughter’s birthday, but I’m patrolling this hell-hole instead of celebrating with my family on account of you Comanch’. I remem—”

  Like water from an artesian well, vomit hurled from the cowboy’s mouth.

  “Damnation!” The officer tried to turn to his side, but the stinking wretchedness caught the right side of his uniform, his arm, his nightstick. His boot heel fell into a hole in the warped pine planks, and he turned, twisting, cursing as he crashed into the fine dirt and horse droppings. The cowboy slid down the wall.

  Daniel moved for the officer, who rolled over and sat up, lifting his billy club, snapping, “Get the bloody hell back to the wagon yard, you stupid son-of-a-bitch.”

  “But …”

  “Bugger off! Or I’ll run you into the jail with this cad!”

  * * * * *

  Well, he thought while walking dejectedly back up Calhoun Street, that’s probably what I should have expected. He hadn’t even gotten the officer’s name, but Daniel refused to give up. My fault. Policing the Third Ward has to be more stressful than policing the reservation. I caught this Metal Shirt in a foul mood. But he has not seen the last of me.

  He remembered the conversation he had overhead with the cit
y marshal. How many officers? Two on horseback, two patrolmen, a jailer, and two sanitary officers. Something like that. All Daniel had to do was go to the jail, wait for the patrolman to return. Offer to buy him a cup of coffee—providing Charles Flint would loan him money. Meet this Irishman on friendlier surroundings. But not tonight. Better to let the man cool off, and clean his uniform.

  Turning left onto Eighth Street, he saw her.

  At the same time Rain Shower spotted him, and halted in front of the two-story building.

  Two men walking west angled around her, ignoring her, but another man, leaning against the building between a window and batwing doors, smoking a cigarette, pushed himself off the wall, flicking the cigarette into the street, and approached her from behind.

  Like in Daniel’s nightmare.

  Rain Shower smiled, started again toward him. Daniel wanted to shout a warning, but he couldn’t quite comprehend what was happening. She stopped, sensing the presence behind her. Daniel found his voice, roared out a warning in the language of The People, knowing he was too late.

  As she started to turn, the cowboy wrapped a massive hand around Rain Shower’s mouth, while his left arm wrapped around her waist. Her eyes showed fright. The man was a giant. Laughing, he dragged her through the doors, and they disappeared inside the two-story building.

  The two men who had passed Rain Shower on the boardwalk stopped, turned, but did nothing else, other than grin. The one on the left elbowed the other.

  Daniel ran, watching the two men turn back around to continue their journey as if they had not seen the abduction.

  A laughing man staggered into Daniel as he made his way toward the batwing doors. “Watch where the hell …”

  The man never finished. Daniel slammed a left fist into the man’s temple, and he crashed into the trash can, pulling it over as he slammed onto the boardwalk.

  Daniel pushed his way through the batwing doors. Light from the chandeliers and wall sconces made him squint, yet his vision soon adjusted. He wasn’t aware that the musician had stopped playing, lowering his fiddle. Wasn’t aware that the rough-looking men lining the bar had stopped, turning, staring. Wasn’t aware of the meaty woman in the corner, tossing a cigar into a spittoon and hefting a bung starter.

  He moved to his right, toward the table. Two giggling men stood in front of it, one of them with his arm around a red-headed woman wearing nothing but calf-length drawers and a camisole.

  The redhead saw him first. She started to utter a warning, then pulled herself away from the snickering man’s grip, and leaped away.

  “What’s wrong, Cynthy?” He saw Daniel. His partner didn’t.

  Daniel grabbed the man’s shoulder, jerked, sending him sprawling to the floor. He ignored the one who had been holding Cynthy.

  The big man had thrown Rain Shower on a table, his left knee between her legs, hat on the floor, his face pressing against her neck, moving up to her face, her lips. He jerked back suddenly, spitting out blood from where Rain Shower had bit his bottom lip.

  “You little … !”

  Daniel grabbed him by the collar and waistband—just as he had seen the Irish policeman handle the drunk earlier. He threw the man, off-balance, to the floor. Rain Shower rolled off the table, black eyes malevolent—but not as angry as Daniel’s.

  The one who had taken Rain Shower off the street had to be taller than six-foot-two, and likely weighed better than two hundred pounds, with muscles tearing at the sleeves of his calico shirt, and a face covered with scars. Like most Comanches, Daniel was short, stocky—no match for this man who began pushing himself off the floor. No match under London prize ring rules, that is.

  “Well, well, well,” the man said. “Reckon I get you first, her second. Suits me to a T.”

  Daniel kicked him in the face.

  The man crashed back to the floor, and Daniel was on top of him, slamming a knee into the man’s groin, left hand wrapping around the man’s throat, right hand smashing into his nose, his mouth, feeling the teeth break, carve into his knuckles. Blood splattered his face. He stopped hitting, grabbed a fistful of hair, jerked the man’s head off the floor, slammed it onto the hardwood. Again. Again.

  Behind him, the giggling man suddenly wailed. Daniel turned, saw the man writhing on the ground, his left leg drenched in blood. Rain Shower held a broken beer bottle.

  The redhead screamed.

  Cowboys, muleskinners, and railroad men left the bar, moving toward Daniel.

  He didn’t care. He turned back to the man, kneed him again in the groin, slammed a right, then a left into the man’s face. The nose gave way. The jaw bone broke. Daniel locked both hands on the man’s throat, pressed harder, harder.

  Suddenly his head rocked with fire.

  He shook off the pain, turned away from the unconscious giant’s unrecognizable face, spotted the fat woman, her face plastered with rouge like mud on a Mexican’s jacal. The woman raised the bung starter over her head again, started to bring it down a second time.

  Daniel swung his right arm, catching the woman just below her knees. She yipped as her feet flew out from under her, and fell hard onto the floor.

  “Get that sum-bitch!” one of the men cried out.

  “Aiiiyeeeeee!” Rain Shower leaped in front of him, and the men suddenly stopped, watching her warily as she waved the bloody end of the broken bottle. She taunted them as women, as worthless as Pawnees, afraid of one warrior and one woman. She said they had no honor, that they were dogs. They could not savvy her words, but they certainly understood her meaning.

  Daniel pushed himself to his feet, took one step toward Rain Shower, then fell.

  The first cowboy he had thrown to the ground had jerked Daniel’s ankle. Daniel rolled over, felt the cowboy jumping on top of him. He saw Rain Shower turn, and tried to warn her …

  Too late. A wiry man in buckskins took advantage, whipping out his right hand, locking on Rain Shower’s wrist, wrenching the beer bottle from her hand. Daniel swung his fist upward, a glancing blow, but the man holding him did not budge.

  Rain Shower screamed.

  A boot crashed into Daniel’s shoulder. Another struck his ribs. Something smashed his face. He tasted blood.

  Something roared, but Daniel couldn’t see. Vaguely he was aware that the pressure was off his chest, and that nobody was hitting or kicking him.

  Words reached him.

  “Stop him!”

  “He’ll kill him!”

  “Mickey, for the love of God!”

  He heard Rain Shower. Opened his eyes. Saw her face. He shook his head, trying to shake off the fog, pulled himself up.

  The policeman came into view. He had struck the man in the buckskin britches with the barrel of his pistol. He struck him again. The man lay on the floor.

  “Mickey!” the fat woman cried. “Stop!” She turned. “Find another marshal!”

  The Irish officer muttered something about his daughter, brought the pistol down on the man again, missing his head, but clipping his ear and smashing the collarbone. He spoke again, raising the pistol, using words Daniel did not understand. Not English. Something else.

  “Stop!” the woman named Cynthy yelled. “Stop him, in God’s name! He’ll kill Petey!”

  None of the men moved, either intimidated by the Irishman’s badge, his Smith & Wesson, or his savagery.

  The copper was about to strike the man again, when Daniel—who didn’t even remember climbing to his feet—grabbed his arm, pulled him back, spun him away.

  Blood pooled on the floor underneath the buckskin-clad man’s face, but his lungs still worked. Cynthy ran to him and turned his battered head upward, looking up at the crowd and uttering a plea, “Get a doctor. Somebody get a doctor!”

  There were plenty of volunteers, for the room quickly emptied.

  A metallic click brought Daniel’s attention back to the Irish patrolman.

  The Smith & Wesson’s hammer was cocked, and the barrel trained on Daniel’s heaving stomach
.

  Daniel wiped the blood off his face. His eyes locked on the policeman’s. “It is over,” he said.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “I don’t know what came over me.” A sigh escaped the police officer, and he shook his head, and lifted his coffee cup. “That wasn’t you I saw in that disorderly house, but me daughter.” He sipped, set the cup back on the table, and leaned back, clenching his fists. “I hate this bloody town. I ought to be in England, not Texas.”

  The waitress brought another ice-filled rag, swapping it out for the one Daniel had been pressing to the side of his face.

  “You need anything else, Mickey?” she asked.

  The patrolman shook his head, and the woman left.

  They sat in the Queen City Ice Cream Parlor, leaving the blood, carnage, and confusion behind at the sporting house on Eighth Street. Daniel did not know what had become of the man the policeman had buffaloed, the one Daniel had almost beaten to death, or the one Rain Shower had stabbed with a broken beer bottle. He didn’t even know what had happened to the drunk the patrolman had been carting off to jail. They had left the bawdy house together, backing out of the saloon, the officer warning the big woman he called Loretta that, if he heard a peep from her house or a complaint, this place would go up like Chicago in ’72.

  “Will the woman make things difficult for you?” Daniel asked.

  Sergeant Mickey O’Doherty shook his head. “Loretta? She knows to keep her bloody mouth shut. That was no idle threat I gave her. Me name in the old language is Dochartaigh. It means hurtful, and that I can be, laddie, lassie. That I can be. Now, what do your names mean?”

  Rain Shower answered for both, then Daniel said, “But I am called Daniel Killstraight.” His fingers lifted the bottom of his vest, and he pointed to the chevrons. “I, too, am a sergeant.”

  “Sergeant Killstraight.” O’Doherty let out a chuckle. “That’s an apt name, laddie, seeing how you almost killed that one fellow.” He looked across the table. “But I don’t know if Rain Shower fits you, lassie. Not after that ruction. You fight mighty well. I warrant you could give John Sullivan, the Boston Strong Boy himself, a run for his money.”