Fort Revenge

by J. R. Roberts

  She reached under the sheet and between his legs, found him getting hard already.

  “Again?” she said, surprised.

  “Well, we could probably both use a little wake-up,” he said.

  She continued to rub his penis until it was hard, then ducked her head beneath the sheet . . .

  “I know a great place for breakfast,” she said as they dressed.

  “I’m sorry, Trudy, but I have to meet a friend in the dining room. Deputy Marshal Heck Thomas.”

  “I know Heck,” she said. “He comes in for a drink once in a while when he wants someplace quiet.”

  “Really?” he asked. “You know Heck? How well?”

  “Well,” she said, “after last night, not as well as I know you.”

  They went down to the lobby together, where they split up.

  “Come and see me when you’re back in town,” she said, putting her hand on his arm.

  “I will,” he promised.

  He went into the hotel dining room and she went out the front door.

  THIRTEEN

  Clint found Heck waiting for him, working on a pot of coffee.

  “I ain’t ordered yet,” Heck said.

  “Thanks for waiting.”

  Clint sat, poured himself a cup of coffee, then both men ordered steak and eggs from the waiter.

  “Did you stay out of trouble last night?” Heck asked.

  “Of course.”

  “I saw you with Trudy in the lobby.”

  “That doesn’t count as trouble, does it?”

  “Only if her boyfriend doesn’t find out.”

  “She didn’t mention a boyfriend.”

  “That’s not a surprise. How did you find her?”

  “I was just looking for someplace quiet for a drink,” Clint said. “She came up to me at the bar to try to distract me.”

  “Distract you? For what?”

  Clint explained about saving Jack Harvey’s life in Cardiff.

  “So why is he on your tail?”

  “He seems to think he owes me a debt, and that bothers him.”

  “So he’s following you, waitin’ for a chance to pay you back?”

  “I guess.”

  “Unless . . .”

  “Unless what?”

  “Unless he’s waitin’ for a chance to kill you.”

  “Why would he want to kill me?”

  “Why wouldn’t he?” Heck asked as the waiter brought their food

  “You make it sound like everyone wants to kill me.”

  “Well, you gotta admit, a lot of men have tried.”

  “Not my fault.”

  “I never said it was. It’s just something to . . . keep in mind, is all.”

  “I will.”

  “At least you got me to watch your back.”

  “And the other way around.”

  They both cut into their steaks.

  “Any word on the Colters?”

  “Not today.”

  “Who was the contact who gave you the bad tip last time?”

  “Just a fella in town,” Heck said. “He wants to be a deputy, but the judge won’t have him. Every so often he tries to help.”

  “With bad information?”

  “He probably thought it was good,” Heck said, “but then, he’s not the best judge.”

  “Why would you listen to him then?”

  “I had nothin’ else to go on,” Heck said. “I thought I’d give it a shot.”

  “So where do you plan to look now?”

  “Well, there’s one possibility.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The Cherokee.”

  “In the Territories?”

  “There’s a band of Wolf Clan Cherokee in the Nations,” Heck said. “We’ve been hearin’ that the Colters might have a relationship with them.”

  “Why would the Cherokee care about the Colters?”

  “Gabe has apparently taken a Cherokee bride from the Wolf Clan.”

  “You haven’t checked this out yet, have you?”

  Heck shook his head. “Not alone.”

  “I get it,” Clint said. “You want me to go with you to see the Wolf Clan.”

  “The Cherokee know who you are.”

  “Do you know where they are?”

  “Got an idea.”

  “Well,” Clint said, “let’s finish eating and get going.”

  After breakfast, they walked together to the livery stable and saddled their horses. Heck had purchased supplies and they were waiting for them there at the stable, divided into two burlap sacks.

  They mounted up, hung the supply sacks from their saddles, and rode out of the stable.

  “Okay, Heck,” Clint said. “Take me to the Cherokee.”

  “I only said I had an idea where they were,” Heck reminded him.

  “Well,” Clint said, “we’re not going to find them sitting here.”

  Jack Harvey watched the two men ride out of the stable and head out of town. He still thought Clint Adams had no idea he was in town. He gave the two men a head start, then went into the stable to saddle his own horse.

  FOURTEEN

  Fort Smith was east of the Indian Territories; just over that border were the Cherokee Nations.

  Just on the edge of the Nations was a settlement called Dark’s Landing. This was the first place they stopped. It was a collection of ramshackle, falling-down buildings.

  “Why the hell do they call this a settlement?” Heck said. “Why not just call it a town.”

  “It probably has no mayor and no law,” Clint said. “And even better, no town council. That’s a place I’d settle down in.”

  “You?”

  “If I was going to settle down.”

  “No town council?”

  “They’re the worst,” Clint said. “When you’re wearing a town badge, you’re at their mercy. They think they own you because they pay you forty a month.”

  “That’s more than the judge pays us,” Heck said.

  “Yeah, but you’re allowed to collect rewards.”

  “Bounty hunters with a badge,” Heck said. “I’m not gonna be doin’ this for much longer, you know? I’m sick of it already.”

  “That’s okay,” Clint said. “I understand plenty of the judge’s men leave and then come back when they need a job.”

  “Yeah, well, not me,” Heck said. “I’m gonna stick with bein’ a detective. Work for the stockmen and the railroads for a lot more than forty a month.”

  “Why don’t you go private?” Clint asked. “Work for Talbot Roper.”

  “Yeah, well, Roper’s a lot smarter than the rest of us. And he’s a politician at heart. He can put up with the shit.”

  They rode up to one of the buildings and reined in.

  “If there’s no law here, what are we doing here?” Clint asked.

  “There’s a fella here I wanna talk to. Works in the livery.”

  “Then why are we stopping here?”

  “We’ll walk the rest of the way,” Heck said. “I don’t wanna spook him.”

  “You saying he’ll run if he hears us coming?”

  Heck laughed and said, “All the way to the Cherokee Strip.”

  They dismounted and walked the rest of the way.

  “Willie Iron Fist is a Cherokee,” Heck said, “but he lives like a white man. At least, when it suits him. Right now he runs the livery here.”

  “An Indian who likes work?”

  “If he liked work,” Heck said, “he wouldn’t be runnin’ a livery in this godforsaken settlement, would he?”

  “I guess not.”

  As they approached the barn, Heck said, “You better go around back. When he sees me, he’s gonna run.”

  “Okay.”

  Clint moved around to the back doors and waited. It didn’t take long before a man came running out, an intense look on his heavily lined face. Clint stepped in front of him and then stopped short. He looked at Clint, and for a moment it looked like he’d
try to run again, but in the end his shoulders slumped and he gave in.

  “Thanks for not runnin’, Iron Fist,” Heck said, coming out the door.

  “My name is Willie,” the man said.

  Clint studied Willie Iron Fist. Like many Indians of a certain age, he could have been forty or sixty. By the time the sun got through with their faces, they looked weathered earlier in life.

  “How about a drink?” Heck asked.

  Willie Iron Fist’s face brightened.

  “This place got a saloon?” Clint asked.

  “Kind of,” Iron Fist said.

  “Okay, then,” Heck said, slapping the man on the back, “kind of take us there.”

  The saloon was also the general store. There were two tables in a corner, and the clerk sold whiskey over the counter, no beer. They bought a bottle, got three glasses, and carried them to one of the tables.

  “Here ya go, Willie,” Heck said, pouring the Indian a shot. He poured smaller ones for himself and Clint.

  “I got a question for you, Willie,” Heck said.

  “What question?”

  “I’m looking for the Colter boys,” Heck said. “You seen them around?”

  “Colter?”

  “You know,” Heck said. “Gabe Colter took a Cherokee bride, remember?”

  “Col-ter,” Iron Fist said. Clint thought he said the name with distaste.

  “Right,” Heck said. “Colter. I’ve been hearing that maybe they were staying with Gabe’s wife’s people. The Wolf Clan?”

  “I am Red Tailed Hawk Clan,” Iron Fist said.

  “What does that mean, Willie?” Clint asked. “I mean, exactly.”

  “Messengers,” Willie said.

  “What?”

  He held his glass out. Heck filled it.

  “We are the messengers. We care for the birds who carry messages on the wind.”

  “And the Wolf Clan?” Clint asked. “They’re warriors, right?”

  “Yes.” Iron Fist paused to drink. “All the clans are run by the grandmothers. When a warrior marries, he must join the woman’s clan.”

  “So Gabe, he would be with the Wolf Clan, right?” Heck asked.

  “If he took a Wolf Clan squaw, he would have to live with the Wolf Clan.”

  “Okay, then,” Heck said, filling Iron Fist’s glass a third time. “Here’s the big question, Willie.”

  The Cherokee reached for the drink, but Heck pulled it back.

  “What question?” Willie Iron Fist asked.

  “Where do we find the Wolf Clan?”

  FIFTEEN

  “To be fair to old Willie,” Clint said, “he did say he was Red Tailed Hawk Clan.”

  “Well, you’d think one clan would know where to find the other clan.”

  “Well, he gave us a general idea,” Clint said.

  “Yeah, well, I wasn’t ready to ride all the hell the way to the Cherokee Strip to find them.”

  “It’s not all the way to the Strip,” Clint said. “It’s just the other side of the Nations.”

  They were still sitting at the same table, having sent Willie Iron Fist back to the livery with the rest of the bottle. They had opened a second bottle, but were intent on not finishing it. The last thing they needed was to fall out of the saddle.

  “I guess I was hoping for a quick finish to all this,” Heck said, “but I should know better than that.”

  “Let’s put the cork into this bottle and take it with us,” Clint said.

  Heck nodded. They stood up and headed for the door. The place was empty except for the clerk.

  “Excuse me, gents,” he said.

  They stopped short of going out the door.

  “Yeah?” Heck asked.

  The clerk was tall, bespectacled, with a small mustache.

  “Would you gents be deputy marshals?”

  “I am,” Heck said, showing the man his badge. “This is my colleague.”

  “Well, I heard what you were talkin’ to Willie about,” the clerk said.

  “And?”

  “I don’t think he was tellin’ you the truth.”

  “About what?”

  “The Colter brothers,” the clerk said. “They were here. Well, two of them were.”

  “When?” Clint asked.

  “Last week. That is, two of them were.”

  “Which two?”

  “I don’t know,” the clerk said, “but I know what Gabe looks like, and he wasn’t one ’em.”

  “What were they doing here?” Clint asked.

  “They stocked up on supplies.”

  Clint and Heck exchanged a glance.

  “They may not be so far away after all,” Clint said.

  Heck looked back at the clerk.

  “You remember how much they bought?”

  “I don’t remember what they bought,” he said, “but they took it all off on a packhorse.”

  “One packhorse?” Clint asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “Maybe,” Clint said, “we should buy a few extra things.”

  Outside the store, they packed their horses with the rest of the supplies they’d bought. They were going to need a little more than they’d thought, but not as much as Willie Iron Fist wanted them to think.

  “Why would Iron Fist lie about where they were?” Heck asked.

  “Because,” Clint said, “whether he’s Red Tailed Hawk or Wolf Clan, he’s still a Cherokee.”

  “Maybe we should go back and press him.”

  “We do and he’s liable to warn them,” Clint said. “The way we stand now, he’ll send word that he put us off the trail.”

  “Okay, then,” Heck said, “we’ll leave it that way—for now.”

  SIXTEEN

  They left the settlement behind, along with Willie Iron Fists’s lies.

  “Hey,” Clint said.

  “What?”

  “What makes us believe the clerk, and not Iron Fist?” Clint asked.

  Heck shrugged.

  “The Cherokee had reasons to lie to us,” he said. “The clerk didn’t.”

  That made sense to Clint.

  Outside of the settlement they found some tracks.

  “Could be two saddle mounts and a packhorse,” Heck said, “but no way to tell for sure.”

  “Then we might as well follow along until we can eliminate them,” Clint said.

  Heck nodded, and they started to follow.

  Jack Harvey rode into the settlement, wondering what Clint Adams and the deputy could have been doing here. There was nothing.

  He rode past most of the buildings until he came to the combination saloon and general store. Inside he bought a shot of whiskey.

  “Lookin’ for a couple of friends of mine, might’ve come this way,” he said.

  “Who’d that be?”

  “One’s a deputy marshal,” Harvey said. “Ridin’ with another man.”

  The clerk licked his lips.

  “I ain’t lookin’ for trouble, friend,” Harvey said. “Why don’t you do the same?”

  “You ain’t more than a few hours behind them,” the clerk said.

  “Goin’ where?”

  “That I don’t know,” the clerk said. “Honest. All I know is that they’re trackin’ the Colter brothers.”

  “Colter brothers? Who are they?”

  “Outlaws.”

  “Who else did they talk to in town?”

  “Just ol’ Willie Iron Fist, over at the livery,” the clerk said. “That’s all I know. Honest.”

  “Okay,” Harvey said. “Relax. Gimme another drink.”

  Harvey left and walked to the livery. He found an old Indian lying drunk on a bed of hay.

  “Hey, old man.”

  There was no answer. He got closer, saw the old Indian cradling an empty whiskey bottle. He got closer, leaned over him.

  “Hey, old man!” He shook him.

  Suddenly, the old Indian wasn’t asleep, and the point of a blade was against Harvey’s neck. The
Indian wasn’t so drunk, after all.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  Harvey swallowed, and the movement made the edge of the blade nick his neck.

  “Just lookin’ for a couple of friends of mine,” he said. “Two men, one a deputy. The clerk at the store said you talked to them.”

  “I did not tell them anything,” the Indian said.

  “But you did talk to them?”

  “I did. They asked questions I could not answer.”

  Harvey wanted to swallow again, but he didn’t want to get cut.

  “About the Colter brothers?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know who they are?”

  “I do.” Abruptly, he removed the knife from Harvey’s throat. “But I do not know where they are.”

  Harvey straightened up, stared down at the Indian. Going by the man’s eyes, he was, indeed, drunk.

  “What else did you talk about?” he asked, touching the nick the blade left on the flesh of his throat.

  “Cherokees,” the Indian said. “Wolf Clan, Red Tailed Hawk Clan.”

  “And which are you?”

  “Red Tailed Hawk.”

  “And do you know where the two men went when they left here?”

  “No,” the man said. “Only that they left.”

  “Okay,” Harvey said. “Thanks . . . I guess.”

  “Mister?”

  “Yeah?”

  Willie Iron Fist fell over onto his back. “You got any money for whiskey?”

  “Oh yeah,” Jack Harvey said, “as a matter of fact, I do.”

  SEVENTEEN

  Gabe Colter looked at his new bride. She was asleep, wrapped in a blanket on the floor of the small shack they shared. He decided to leave her there, and stepped outside. He immediately smelled coffee and something cooking.

  He walked to the fire, where his brothers Brett and Joe were arguing about what they were cooking.

  “It’s done,” Brett said. “In fact, it’s overdone.”

  “No, it ain’t,” Joe said. “It still gotta cook a little longer—”

  They both stopped short when they saw Gabe standing there.

  “Well, look who decided to come out,” Joe said.

  “You two wear yerselves out?” Brett asked. “Sure was noisy in there for a while.”