by Ron Schwab
The Chief’s face was grave and Ethan could see he had struck a responsive chord. “I’ll give you this pledge, Lame Buffalo. . . . If your son returns to Lockwood with me, I will protect him with my own life. I will not let him be put to death under white man’s law. . . . I promise that.”
“I do not trust the white man’s law. How am I to know you do not speak with forked tongue?”
“Because I have never lied to your people, and because I know I am a dead man if I betray the Sioux.”
“If I heed the words of Badger Claw, you are a dead man anyway. He would like your scalp to decorate his war lance.”
“I am not worried. Badger Claw is not the Chief of this village. Lame Buffalo is said to be a man of honor; I have come in friendship, and I have brought no harm to your people. I know you do not like this idea of a lawyer, but your people need a lawyer in the village of my people.”
“I will think on this,” said the Chief. “You will know what I decide when the sun rises. You will leave then. Maybe alone.”
10
THE HAIR BRISTLED on the back of Ethan’s neck, and a shiver danced down his spine. It was nothing he could put a finger on, just the same instinct that had made him a good scout, the sixth sense that he had long since learned to trust unquestionably. Something was not right at the ranch.
The gray haze of dusk had settled on the valley, and all he could make out was the shadowy outline of the barn and corral against the fiery orange horizon. His view of the ranch house was obscured by the dense growth of mountain ash and ponderosa that sheltered the approach to the ranch buildings, and he was unable to detect any activity near the house. He reined in the Appaloosa and raised his hand to signal a halt to the two riders lagging behind with the pack horses.
“What is it, Ethan?” Skye asked as she sidled Razorback up beside him, leaving the sober-faced Indian boy with the pack animals.
Patch whinnied nervously and jerked his head sharply against the reins. “I don’t know,” Ethan said. “Patch is skittish as the devil, and it’s awfully quiet down there.” He slipped his Winchester from the saddle holster, dismounted and handed Skye his horse’s reins. “You and Bear Killer wait here. I think I’ll walk on down and take a look.”
“Do you want me to follow and cover you?”
He started to protest, but then thought better of it. If she had been a man, he would not have hesitated. It was just good sense to have someone backing you in a situation like this, and he already knew Skye dePaul could handle a gun. “Yes, it might be a good idea,” he said.
Ethan headed down the slope while Skye led their horses back up the trail to Bear Killer and followed him a respectful distance. Ethan wound his way through the trees that provided a natural windbreak for the weathered, frame house and outbuildings. When he reached the edge of the clearing he stopped and looked out onto the ranch yard. It was still, deathly so. The corral gates were open, and the horses had been turned out. Ben had been trying to break some of the wild ones in the north corral and would not have turned them loose. Ethan glanced over his shoulder and saw that Skye waited further up the slope, her rifle readied in her hands.
He stepped cautiously into the open, his eyes scanning the building and corrals as he walked slowly across the ranch yard. Suddenly, the all-too familiar stench of rancid flesh seared his nostrils. It was human carrion he smelled; there was no other scent like it.
He angled into the breeze that wafted in from the foothills to the north, the increasing odor telling him as he moved to the far end of the yard that he was walking in the right direction.
Momentarily, he came upon what was left of Ben Dobbs. The corpse was a far cry from the Ben Dobbs Ethan remembered. Ben had been scalped, but someone had done a messy job of it and removed a fair chunk of his skull in the process. The body was bloated and Ben’s face was grotesquely mutilated where the buzzards had been feasting and even shredded his shirt and trousers in the course of ravaging his remains. One more day and Ben Dobbs would have been picked to the bone.
Ethan moved closer, nudging the corpse with the barrel of his rifle. He had seen worse, but it was a struggle to keep from retching, for this particular body had housed his friend. That made a hell of a difference, Ethan thought. Death was never pleasant, but a dead stranger often seemed little more than a dead animal. The death of a friend or comrade always hit home. And Ben Dobbs was about as close as he had had in the way of family.
Ethan pushed away some of the ragged buckskin that covered Ben’s chest and found the gaping hole that must have killed him. He guessed it was an old Sharps or other powerful rifle from the size of the wound. The bushwhacker must have caught Ben by surprise, for his six-gun was still holstered and his rifle was nowhere in sight. It didn’t make sense. Ben’s killer couldn’t have moved in too close, or the old Indian fighter would have felt his presence. It would have taken a skilled marksman to nail Ben Dobbs. That pretty well ruled out most of the Sioux, but Ethan had not been fooled by the clumsy attempt to put the blame on the Indians in the first place.
“Ethan! Watch out!” came Skye’s voice from behind.
Reflexively, he hit the ground and rolled, just as a rifle cracked and a bullet thudded into the earth where he had been standing. He heard Skye’s rifle snap off two quick shots. Someone groaned, and Ethan looked up to see a man at the north corner of the corral double up and slump to the ground as if he had been kicked in the groin. Then he heard hoofbeats as a horse, presumably that of an accomplice, raced away from the ranch.
He got up and dusted off his trousers and then looked back at Skye who stood with rifle poised at the corner of the house, her face expressionless, her dark eyes cold as steel. He waved acknowledgement.
“Thanks,” he said. “Damn,” he muttered under his breath as he strode toward the fallen, would-be killer. Skye dePaul might be half-white, but so far he had not seen much of the white half. She was full-blooded Sioux right now for damn sure.
Ethan knelt down and flipped the ambusher’s body over on his back. The man was stone dead. Either bullet could have killed him. His chest was a sunburst of scarlet where one bullet had struck, but the bullet that had driven into his temple had probably killed him instantly.
Skye came up behind him. “Do you know the man?” she asked.
“No, I’ve never seen him before, but he’s a gunslinger, not a cowboy.”
“How do you know?”
Ethan gazed impassively at the contorted face of the lean, dark-haired man who lay sprawled in the dust. “His face, for one thing. Look how pale it is. A cowboy’s skin would be brown and windburned this time of year. This guy lived in saloons except when his work took him outside. And the callous on his trigger finger on the right hand; he used a gun every day in regular practice sessions. Like a professional violinist. He carried his handgun low on the hip, and the rifle and pistol weren’t cared for by a man who just respects his weapon; they were looked after by somebody who worshipped them. No, he was a professional. I’m damn lucky it isn’t me lying there.”
“But why?” Skye asked. “Why is this happening? Why your friend? That is your friend over there, is it not?” she asked, waving her rifle in the direction of Ben Dobbs’s body.
“Yes, that’s Ben . . . and I don’t know why. But it’s got to be for the same reason those birds tried to ambush us in the mountains. It’s a good bet those men and this fellow had the same boss. It must have something to do with the murder of the Harpers and the hanging of the Sioux boys. My guess is that Ben Dobbs was on his way to getting it figured out, and that’s why he’s dead.”
“Then perhaps Red Horse knows something,” Skye said. “Maybe they found something at the Harper ranch. I could ride out to the Pennock School and talk to him.”
“Not tonight,” Ethan said. “If Red Horse knows anything important, he’s probably already dead. Ben’s been dead the better part of a two days. If they haven’t got Red Horse by now, he’ll still be at the Pennock School in the morning. Why
don’t you get back up the trail and bring Bear Killer and the horses in? I’ll get a shovel and see to burying Ben. This hombre, I’ll load into the Sheriff in the morning, then check at my office and take a ride out to the Pennock School.”
“Are you going to take Bear Killer in?”
“No, not now. I want to be certain Sheriff Bridges is back. I think you and Bear Killer should stay at my place. At this point, I don’t know who to trust, and I promised Lame Buffalo that Bear Killer would be safe in Lockwood. We can protect him here as well as any place right now. I’ll send him back to your uncle’s village before I turn him over to the law for slaughter.”
Skye’s eyes softened. “Thank you, Ethan,” she said. “I think I selected a good lawyer for myself.” Her face flushed slightly before she turned and walked away.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Ethan whispered. “I think she just said something nice to me.”
11
“CARTIN’ AROUND CORPSES is gettin’ to be kind of a habit with you, ain’t it, Ethan?” Enos Fletcher chortled as Ethan dismounted in front of the livery stable. Enos scratched at his beard and studied the body that was slung over the back of the second horse.
“Do you know him?” Ethan asked.
“Sort of,” the old man replied.
“What do you mean ‘sort of’?”
“Him and another fellar rode in a couple of days ago. Put their horses up here the first night. Figured them for hired guns. Real dandies, both of them. Looks like I had ‘em pegged; they was hired guns, wasn’t they?”
“Yeah, Enos, I think that’s a fair statement.”
“Did you kill that jasper?”
“No.”
“Did Ben do him in?”
“Ben’s dead.”
The old man frowned. “The hell you say. Goddamn. I’m right sorry, Ethan. Ben was a good man. . . . A hell of a good man. Did this skunk kill him?”
“I don’t know, Enos. I don’t know who killed Ben . . . but I intend to find out,”
“Who did you say done this bird in?”
“I didn’t. Let’s just say it was a friend of mine.”
Enos cocked his head to one side and looked at Ethan quizzically. “You sure don’t talk much for a law wrangler, do you Ethan?”
“Sometimes a lawyer does his best work when he keeps his mouth shut. Tell me something, Enos. You say this guy rode in with another man. . . . What did he look like?”
“Younger by ten years. Barely twenty, I’d guess. Tall, skinny fellar with slick black hair. I’d guess he has a touch of Mex in him. Dark skin, thought he was hot shit. Had one of them smiles that wriggles the gals right out of their bloomers. Know the kind?”
“Yeah, I’ve got the picture.”
“He carried one of them fancy pearl-handled revolvers, too. Shiny, black boots. Showboat type. But this here fellar, he was the boss man. The kid didn’t give him no guff.”
“Do you remember their names?”
“Not this one. The kid’s name was Race. Race something, that’s what this fellar called him. Race, now ain’t that some name for a kid?”
“Different,” Ethan agreed. “Can you tell me anything else?”
“Nope. Just saw them twice—once when they left the horses; once when they picked ‘em up. Twice too many as far as I’m concerned.”
“All right, Enos. Do me a favor, will you? Keep your ears open; let me know if you hear any more about those two. . . . Anybody they talked to or did business with while they were in town.”
“Maybe I will and maybe I won’t,” Enos said noncommittally.
“What do you mean?”
“Sometimes it ain’t such a bad idea to keep your damn mouth shut in the livery business either.”
“I guess you got me there, Enos,” Ethan said. Then handing him Patch’s reins, continued, “Take care of my horses, will you? I’ll be back around noon.”
“Sure, the horses I can handle. What about this hunk of dead meat? He’s startin’ to putrefy; I can’t have him around here. Bad for business. Scares the hell out of the horses, too.”
“Just drop him in the shade someplace. I’m going down to talk to Will. He’ll probably want to take a look at him before the undertaker goes to work.”
“George don’t like county funerals; he ain’t gonna be happy. He’ll bellyache like hell.”
“But the guy’s white,” Ethan reminded. “George will take care of him. If I know George, he’ll find a way to screw the county.”
Enos cackled, displaying his yellow fangs in a rare smile. “Damn you, Ethan, maybe you’re smarter than you look. Lots of folks have been here ten years and ain’t never caught on to George. Good old God-fearing George, they say. Shit,” Enos spat a stream of gooey tobacco on the ground at Ethan’s feet. “Double shit. If folks knew what I knew about old George. Hell, he comes in here his pecker so hard he can hardly sit down. Runs out to the widow Brown’s every Wednesday and Saturday just like clockwork. If his old lady knew what kind of evangelism work he was doing for the Methodists, she’d run his balls through a coffee grinder. I can tell you something else about old George, too, you know,” said Enos.
“Some other time, Enos. I’m late and I’ve got a lot to get done this morning. I’ll see you later. And about our friend and his partner, Race . . . well, I’ve got a client who might pay pretty well for some bits of information. Just keep that in mind, will you?”
A greedy glint surfaced in the livery man’s eyes. “Like I say, Ethan, sometimes it pays in my business to talk a lot.”
As Ethan stepped onto the boardwalk that edged Lockwood’s main street, he glanced back over his shoulder and noticed a little cluster of old men and small boys was beginning to congregate at the livery stable. Enos had an audience, so he wouldn’t be putting up the horses for a spell. God knows what kind of tale Enos would spin. But at least word would be out. The undertaker had a new customer, and the right persons would find out before the morning was over. Ethan knew that much about Lockwood, Wyoming.
He just hoped Skye and Bear Killer would stay out of sight. The woman wasn’t much for taking orders, but they had talked it out this morning, and he thought there was a mutual agreement she should stay in the house with the boy. In the present public climate, it was best that anyone who even remotely resembled an Indian stay clear of Lockwood. In Skye’s case, the resemblance was more than remote, and Bear Killer, though not yet a man, was strong and sinewy, with his father’s height, a son worthy of a chief, and an Indian certainly capable of committing the crimes he was accused of.
Bear Killer’s physical appearance presented another problem: there wasn’t much chance that a Lockwood jury would see him as a helpless innocent. No, he could write off any emotional appeal from the start. The emotions were all stacked in favor of the other side. He was going to have to ferret out un-contradicted facts if Lockwood was not going to be embroiled in the middle of a Sioux Indian war.
The fools, why couldn’t they see it? Why did people have to be so hellbent on self-destruction?
12
THE OAK DOOR to the sheriff’s office creaked on rusty hinges as Ethan opened it and stepped in. Sheriff Will Bridges was leaning back in his chair, his booted feet propped on the desk. The sheriff, a bearish, white-haired man with pale blue eyes looked up and tipped back his battered Stetson. “Morning, Ethan,” he said amiably. “Wondered when you’d be around.”
“Your hinges need oil,” Ethan said.
“That’s my warning system,” the sheriff replied. “Nobody sneaks up on me that way. Hell, if it wasn’t for the squeaking hinges, you’d have caught me napping. This way I had a chance to get my eyes open before you got in.”
Will Bridges played the lazy county sheriff role. Ethan knew better. The law was his life, and behind the hick facade lay a shrewd, deductive mind and an iron will. Nobody owned Will Bridges. If there was a man who didn’t have a price, Sheriff Bridges would be the one. But Will Bridges was only one man, and that one man’s gun was
slower now. He could not rule by fear like he no doubt had in countless small Kansas and Nebraska towns in the years before he took the job in Lockwood and vowed he was there to stay.
Ethan sat down in front of the sheriff’s desk and sighed. “How much do you know?”
The sheriff locked his fingers behind his neck, and his eyes met Ethan’s. “That some of the good citizens of Lockwood had a lynching party while I was gone. That my so-called ex-deputy looked on while a mob murdered two Indian kids. That you took it upon yourself to haul the bodies out of Lockwood and that nobody’s seen hide nor hair of you since. Enos Fletcher said he had a hunch you were headed to Lame Buffalo’s camp. If you did, it’s some kind of miracle you’re here to tell about it.”
“Not bad, so far,” Ethan said. “Is that all?”
“No. I also know that we got some grave robbers hereabouts. Somebody dug up the Harpers. Their bodies are gone. That makes for interesting speculation, doesn’t it?
“Well, I have a confession to make, Will. Before I left, I sent Ben Dobbs down to the Harper place to see what he could find out. He was going to dig up the bodies—”
“You mean Ben took them?”
“No. I don’t think so anyway. Ben’s dead.”
The Sheriff swung his feet off the desk and sat upright in his chair. “The hell you say. How’d it happen?”
Ethan related the story of his homecoming and told Bridges about the attack he and Skye dePaul had aborted in the mountains.
“Son of a bitch,” the sheriff exclaimed after Ethan had finished his story. “I don’t believe it. It doesn’t make sense. Not a damn bit. And you say Gideon Webb’s name was mentioned by the gunslingers?”
“Not specifically. The only name Skye heard was ‘Webb’.”
“There are two Webbs, you know,” the sheriff said. “Don’t rule out that no account son of Gid’s, Clete. He’s a bad apple. Something like this is more his style.”
