by Ron Schwab
Ethan looked up; his head bobbed drowsily, feigning surprise. A big, beer-bellied man with a scraggly beard stepped into the clearing. The man raised his long arms above his head. “No harm intended, friend. I was on the trail and saw your fire. Thought there might be coffee and company here.” The big man advanced, lowering his hands slowly as he moved closer. His eyes moved warily from side to side. “You alone, friend?”
“Yes,” Ethan lied, knowing that the man could not have missed the two bedrolls spaced some five feet apart off to one side of the fire. Damn, he had been out of the business too long; it could cost him his life if he didn’t watch out.
“You alone?” Ethan countered.
“Yep.”
Ethan’s own hand edged closer to his Peacemaker. Suddenly, the crack of a rifle exploded in the heavy night air. Reflexively, Ethan dove to his left, drawing his Peacemaker and rolling several times in the grass before he sprang up with the pistol leveled in the direction of his visitor. The big man, taken off guard by the gunshot behind him, drew his own pistol and fired off a hurried shot, and Ethan felt the searing pain at the base of his neck before he deliberately squeezed the trigger to put a bullet through the man’s right eye. The man, gun still clutched in his hand, stumbled forward and collapsed in a heap in the ground.
Instinctively, Ethan’s hand went to his right shoulder and grasped at the throbbing pain. Warm, slimy wetness there told him he was bleeding heavily. His body went weak.
He looked out into the darkness, his Peacemaker poised but shaky in his hand. “Skye,” he called, “Skye?”
She came out from the trees, her rifle cradled in one arm. “Are you all right, Ethan?” she responded, looking at him quizzically. “I got the two back there.”
“Two?” he asked before his knees buckled and blackness devoured him.
The darkness was still there when his eyes opened, but the stars that spangled the night sky told him he was alive. He started to lift himself up, but the vertigo hit him again, and he lay back, surrendering to it. He saw Skye moving toward him from the red hot coals of what remained of the fire.
“Would you take some coffee?” she asked. “The air is getting chilly and you need some fluid. You have lost a lot of blood.”
“Yeah, I think so,” he said, getting up on one elbow, suddenly conscious of the searing pain in his neck and shoulder.
Skye knelt down and pressed the cup to his lips. The shock of the steaming hot liquid in his mouth and throat brought him abruptly back to his senses. He accepted another drink and then lay back down.
“Thanks. Just leave the cup here. I’ll be all right in a little while.”
“I know you will,” she said. “You are not hurt badly.”
“I’m not? It hurts like hell.” He touched his neck gingerly where Skye had made a compress of a shirt she had torn up and anchored by wrapping his chest and shoulder. “Did you get the bullet out?”
“There was none to remove. It looked more like a knife slice than a bullet wound. And as much as you bled, it should be a clean wound.”
“The man . . . where—”
“I dragged him into the brush.”
“How?”
“With a rope and Razorback pulling like a plow horse. I think Razorback was insulted. You will have to help bury him in the morning, though. A little scratch like you have will not get you out of that,” she announced unsympathetically.
“Was I dreaming, or did I hear you say something about two other men before I went down? I only saw the big man. And I heard you take out another.”
“You heard correctly, but there was one on the trail with their horses.”
“What happened to him? I only heard one rifle shot.”
“I cut his throat.”
Ethan’s brow furrowed in disbelief. “You what?”
“I cut his throat. It was the only way I could handle him quietly. If I had shot him, it would have warned the others. It was not very sporting of me, but I shot the second man in the back. He had his rifle aimed right at your chest. He did not appear very patient.”
“Jesus,” Ethan whispered.
“Do not worry; I did not scalp them,” she said. “Not yet, anyway.”
“You’re not serious?”
She looked at him sober-faced, but the mischievous sparkle in her eyes betrayed her.
“Did you recognize any of the men?” he asked.
“No, but I think they were professional gunmen.”
“What makes you say that?”
“When I left here, I went back to the trail and waited for them so I could follow them in. I could hear them talking. The big man, the one you shot, said something about Mr. Webb paying them the rest of the money when they brought back your scalp. They mentioned Webb’s name several times.”
“Gideon Webb? The rancher?”
“I did not hear a first name.”
“I only know of two Webbs in the valley—Gideon and his son, Clete. I’ve never met Clete, just know him when I see him. And I’ve never had any trouble with Gideon Webb. He always seemed a decent sort of fellow. I’ve handled a few routine matters for him since I came to town. Property transactions. He was a congenial man. I had the feeling he was trying me out and I had hopes of a continuing relationship. A client like Circle W can make your bread and butter. To my knowledge, I’ve never done anything to alienate him. No reason to.”
“Ethan,” Skye scolded, “you are not naive. If the man wanted to have you killed before, he could have picked his time and place. But now? And here? It could have something to do with the attack on the Harper ranch.”
He sighed and shook his head, trying to fight off the drowsiness that was overtaking him. “It doesn’t add up.”
“Is he land hungry?” she asked. “Does he want the Harper place?”
“Oh, he probably wants it all right. It lies next to the Circle W, but it’s not especially strategic for water supplies or anything like that. But we ranchers are all alike, I suppose; we all want the land that lies next to us. Most of us are empire builders in a way, although my place barely qualifies as a ranch, let alone an empire. Still, you keep thinking how that neighbor’s place would fit in with yours, what you could do to develop it. Then you see your place on the county map, taking up a little bit more of the county as each year goes by.”
“That sounds like greed to me.”
“Call it what you want, but that doesn’t mean a man would kill for it. In fact, in my experience, I’d hold ranchers, as a group, pretty well above the rest of the population. In terms of honesty, their word is their bond, and while they’re individualistic and aggressive, they’re also high-principled. Sure, there are some bad ones, but I’ve never seen anything to indicate that Gideon Webb was one of them. Hell, my place would fit in better with the Circle W operation than Harper’s. I can’t imagine that Webb’s mixed up in this thing, but it bears checking out. Something else bothers me more, though.”
“What is that?” Skye asked.
“Well, half the town probably knew I’d hauled those boys out to my ranch on a buckboard, but for all they knew I was going to bury them. How many people knew I was going to Lame Buffalo’s village and why I was going? If our friends out there were sent to stop us from getting to the village, then they had to know I planned to bring back Bear Killer and get to the bottom of the Harper killings.”
“It does not take a lawyer to figure that out, Ethan.”
“Skye, did you talk to anyone else about our plans?”
“No.”
“How about Red Horse?”
“No. He knew we were taking the boys back to the village, but nothing else.”
“He’s Pawnee,” Ethan said, “and they’ve been enemies of the Sioux for generations. Pawnee scouts fight Sioux for the pleasure of it.”
“Not Red Horse. We are friends. He is like an old uncle to me, probably because of my Indian blood, and he has lived around the whites too many years. He is not interested in any blood feud. I would stake my life
on it.”
“You may be right. Let’s look at my side of the ledger. Ben Dobbs knows what I’m up to; no problem there. The only other person is Katherine Wyeth.”
“Your secretary?”
“Yes. I didn’t give her any specifics, only that I would be gone for three or four days while we returned the Indian boys to their village. Of course, she knows that you retained my services. But she could have learned more.”
“How?”
“By snooping through my personal notes in your file. After I confer with a client, I write out a fairly detailed memorandum of pertinent facts—the action I propose to take, that sort of thing. Katherine Wyeth would have access to those notes, and she could be especially nosey about this case.”
“Because an Indian is involved?”
“Possibly. She didn’t like you much.”
“That was obvious.”
“And I know she wasn’t too keen on accepting someone with Indian blood as a client.”
“But what good would the information do her even if she did have it? How would she know what to do with it?”
“I don’t know. She’s worked in law offices for a long time, so she should know the importance of keeping confidences. She could have talked out of turn, though, especially if she was upset. She’s temperamental as hell. I don’t think it was intentional; she wouldn’t have a job if something happened to me. She won’t have a job if I find out she had anything to do with this. I don’t know,” he mumbled, “I just don’t know.” His eyelids started to drift shut.
“Go to sleep, Ethan,” Skye said as she pulled the blankets up over his shoulders. “You’ll need all the rest you can get for tomorrow.”
She got up and moved to her own bedroll which, before he finally surrendered to an exhausted sleep, Ethan noticed had been moved to within reach of his own.
7
BENEATH A THIN layer of rich humus, the mountain soil was dry and rocky, and Ethan had neither the strength nor the inclination to hollow out more than shallow, common graves for the three would-be assassins. The rock and shale, raked and piled over the dead men, would offer no more than token resistance to the predators that would soon descend upon the slope, but somehow the performance of the ritual salved Ethan’s conscience and made him feel civilized.
Skye dePaul had the horses saddled and ready to ride, and by the time Ethan finished his job, all that remained was the additional unpleasant task of loading and tying the bodies of the Indian boys to the pack animals. Ethan nearly gagged at the stench that rose from the blanket-wrapped corpses as he and Skye finished hitching them to the pack horses.
“I see you’ve added our friends’ horses to the string,” Ethan remarked, nodding toward the horses at the rear.
“Yes,” she said. “They will be gifts to Lame Buffalo. And their rifles, too. My uncle will be especially pleased to receive the rifles.”
“Damn it, Skye. I don’t know. Now you’ve got me gun-running, too. I think that’s going a bit too far. The horses, well, I suppose that’s all right, although their legal status is a little shaky. But the guns—”
“I am not asking you for your advice on either the horses or the guns, Mr. Attorney,” she said coolly. “This is my mission. You are accompanying me only as my lawyer. I shall assume full responsibility for disposition of the spoils. Besides, how do you propose to keep my uncle from taking these things and everything else we have as well? Is it not better to tender them as gifts and secure his good will?”
She made sense, but ruffled by her abrupt manner, Ethan was not about to concede it. “Oh, hell, have it your way,” he growled, as he moved for his horse. “As you say, I’m just a hired hand.”
“I did not say that,” she countered. “I said you are my lawyer. Please do not be so sensitive.”
“Let’s get moving,” Ethan said. “We’re apt to run into some of your kinsmen today, and they might shoot first and ask questions later. One of us had better stay toward the rear. Why don’t you handle that . . . you can keep an eye on your ‘spoils’ that way.”
Her eyes blazed and she opened her mouth as though to retort, but then turned quickly away, mounted Razorback, and nudged him to the rear of the caravan.
Skye dePaul had been right about one thing the night before: he had needed rest. He was exhausted and suspected he was suffering from dehydration. After he tied the last of the horses to the picket line, Ethan had collapsed in front of the towering ponderosa where he now sat. The day had been a grueling test of his endurance, the trail steeper and the footing more precarious than the day before. It had also been hotter and drier and windier. And the horses had been nervous and balky. And Skye had been more disagreeable. But in spite of the obstacles, they had made good time, reaching their destination by late afternoon.
The placid, mirror-like lake near which they now camped reflected the emerald spires of the ponderosa that cloaked the rocky slopes and provided an ample windbreak, and the thick, luxuriant grass along the lakeside provided abundant grazing for the horses. It was the last sanctuary before the final ascent that would lead them above the valley of Lame Buffalo’s summer camp.
They were vulnerable to attack. He would never have led a cavalry patrol to this spot, for the surrounding ridges left them in a bowl, and they could be swallowed up in seconds by a sweep of attacking Sioux. But it no longer mattered. Any thought of safety now was an illusion because they were in the heart of the Brule.
“My people know we are here,” Skye had said earlier. “You now live at their pleasure.”
He had known that, but hearing her say it, and the way she had said it, had left him cold.
The fiery glow of the sun had crept behind the mountain peaks and dusk was rapidly settling on the glen. Skye had built a fire that was burning down to red-hot cooking embers now.
She had disappeared some time earlier, and he had resigned himself to fixing supper. The woman was not inclined to draw a clear line between male and female domain. Hell, it wasn’t her Sioux blood that kept her a spinster. Any man who ran up against her would see that marriage would be a lifelong struggle over who got to wear the pants in the family. Of course, you could have two pair of pants, he supposed.
Her strength and independence attracted him, he admitted, and he was intrigued, stimulated, by her intelligence and the aura of mystery that surrounded her, a mystery that evolved from the unique way two cultures had come together in this woman, blending in some ways, yet clashing and irreconcilable in others.
He looked over at the smoldering fire and hunger pangs sliced through his belly. Oh, what the hell. He got up stiffly and decided he would start the coffee brewing and maybe grab some beef jerky to pacify his stomach. As he got up, the dull, throbbing pain commenced in his neck again. A bath, that’s what he needed. A steaming, hot tub bath. But any bath would feel good now, just to wash away the dirt and grime, to ease the soreness in his neck.
The lake, fed by mountain springs and melting snow from the peaks above, would be ice cold, but it would cleanse and soothe, he knew, for he was not a stranger to mountain streams and lakes. He headed for the inviting water, deciding that coffee and supper could wait.
He peeled off his shirt when he reached the lake’s edge, but stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of the brown-skinned nymph swooping and gliding in the water off the fingerlike projection of rock not more than a hundred feet down the lakeshore. He watched her, mesmerized by the grace and ease with which she moved in the water, like an otter, born to it, a part of it.
Momentarily, she emerged and lifted herself up on to the craggy rock. She did not see him. She stood there and brushed her wet black hair back over her shoulders and then faced the lake and opened her arms as if to catch the breeze that drifted off it. She was a statue, a young goddess, standing there against a backdrop of shimmering colors muted by the fading light. Her body muscular, yet sleek. Her breasts small, but well defined. Her face uplifted, almost posed. The embodiment of an artist’s vision. His hear
t hammered and his pulse quickened; desire surged through him. How long since he had had a woman? The saloon girl in Cheyenne? Three months? Now it seemed like three years.
Suddenly, as if she had felt the heat of his gaze, she turned and faced him. She stood there naked, unashamed, and he was glad that he could not see her eyes, for in that instant he felt lower than a peeping tom.
Then, without particular haste, she bent over and picked up her clothing and began to dress. Ethan did not move, embarrassed by the unabashed scrutiny he had given her, yet uncertain after having been caught in the hen house, what protocol demanded.
She approached him quietly, and he saw she carried a string of lake trout in her hand. Her face was stern, mildly reproachful, but he saw no anger there.
“I will prepare these for supper,” she said softly.
“Skye, I—”
She turned away and hurried up the path, for which he was grateful because he had not the slightest idea what he would have said. He walked to the lakeside, finished disrobing and waded out into the water. Shivers raced down his spine and goosebumps broke out on his skin as the water and its icy coldness consumed him. The stiffness in his shoulder would not permit him to swim, but once he adapted to the frigidity of the water, he soaked and bathed and was invigorated by it. He stayed longer than necessary, and when he got out he discovered that the air had turned chilly, almost biting. Nonetheless, he stood there, letting the dry mountain air sponge out the water from his skin before he dressed.
As he started to slip into his buckskin shirt, he saw that a tiny stream of scarlet was working its way down his chest, and realized that the water had softened the scab on the wound and reopened it.
“Come back to camp,” Skye’s voice came from up the slope. “I will redress your wound.”
He could not see her in the darkness, hidden by the shadowy veil of ponderosa, but with the reflection of the full moon glow off the quiet water, he knew he might as well have been standing in the center of a brightly-lit room. How long had she been standing there? Long enough.
