by Jake Logan
With a nod for her to continue, he mounted the bay horse he’d borrowed from Hurricane and they rode out the gate. The older man riding a red mule, they headed for a place called Soda Gap. This man Porter there dealt in un-stolen horses. Hard to find in the Nation, Hurricane informed him. They crossed the windswept, bluestem-clad, rolling country, keeping to the high rims. Hurricane wore an unblocked hat complete with eagle feather and a quilted vest with the Cherokee star on his back despite the day’s growing warmth.
“Is he going to be home—this guy Porter we’re going to see?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“A bee told me so.”
Slocum nodded. If a bee’s information was good enough for Hurricane, it was good enough for him. “You act kind of stiff today?”
“I’ll be fine.” The older man grinned. “It is work to make a young woman happy in bed. Maybe I outdid myself.” Then he laughed aloud. “I am glad you came. I worried something had happened to you—maybe because they stole your horses. I just knew all was not well with you.”
“I’ve been healthy.” Slocum shrugged off his friend’s concern.
“Not that, but bad spirits have been stalking you.”
“What can I do about them?”
“Smoke some special tobacco I have mixed for you.”
“Will that cure them?” He reined the bay off a long hill toward the tree-lined watercourse that snaked through a flat, grassy valley dotted by scattered homesteads.
“If my medicine is stronger than theirs.” Hurricane chuckled, moving his mule in closer.
“If I showed you some posters of the men killed her husband and son, would you know if it was them?”
Hurricane nodded slowly. “Maybe, if it is them.”
“She has the posters. I’ll show them to you when we get back.”
“Good, I will look at them. Here.” He handed Slocum some papers to roll a cigarette.
Slocum took one and handed him the rest back ruffled by the growing wind. He exchanged the papers for a small leather sack. His back turned to shield his efforts from the forces, he filled the V-shaped paper with the fine shredded tobacco, then pulled the small sack’s drawstring tight using his teeth. Hurricane took the pouch back and Slocum twisted the cylinder tight. With the tip of his tongue he licked it shut. Then, holding his head to the side and the cigarette in his lips, he struck a match from his vest and began to drag on it. The sweet smoke soon filled his mouth and he inhaled it.
Powerful stuff, he decided, exhaling.
“Porter’s place is that one over there.” Hurricane pointed to the southwest.
Slocum nodded and tried another puff. He sure hoped the medicine worked—all he needed was more trouble than the colonel and his killers. Maybe she would stay with Blue and Hurricane while he went to find them—doubtful. Time would only tell. He sure hoped this Porter had some decent horses.
A short man came out of the frame house to meet them. Definitely not an Indian, he wore a starched white shirt with pressed wool pants. Porter was in his fifties, and when he swept the windblown dark hair back from his face, he looked like a man of wealth. Something about his manners and dress said he was also a lady’s man
“How’ve you been, Hurricane?” he asked as they dismounted.
“Fine, fine, Porter, that’s Slocum, he needs two horses. Someone stole his up in Kansas.”
“Nice to meetcha.” They shook hands. “Damn thieves are bad along the border. They duck the law going back and forth. What did they steal?”
“A stout blue roan, probably came out of old Mexico, and a sure enough good dun horse with an MC brand on his right shoulder.”
“I’ll watch for them. But they don’t bring a lot of stolen ones to me.”
“Good, thanks. I’d turned down a hundred bucks for the dun.”
Porter nodded and turned to shout at someone unseen. “Boy, go bring in those horses.”
A young Indian holding a pitchfork came out of the barn and nodded at him. In a second he was gone inside and reappeared ducking his head to get outside, riding a leggy gray mare bareback. He swung open the gate and loped off down the bottom to gather them.
“Where do you live?” Porter asked.
“Looking for a place,” Slocum said, and the answer was accepted.
Heads high, the horses came in. From big feather-legged draft horses to stout cow ponies, they milled in the yard. The boy busied himself cutting out the work horses and some others, and sending them back to pasture.
“How about the big stout horse?” Porter pointed out the tall black horse in the bunch.
“He looks good, but I’d like to see some of those Texas ponies up close.” He didn’t need a conspicuous horse like the black to draw attention to him and Wink.
“Those ponies came from John Blocker, Texas cattle dealer.”
“I know Blocker. Took some herds up the trail for him.”
“I bought those in Abilene last summer. Boys all went to Chicago on the train and he had no one to take them back.”
“Let’s catch that sorrel and the bay with the snip.”
“Boy,” he shouted to the youth and then listed the ones he wanted.
A bob of the brown face and he kicked the gray into action. In minutes, he brought up the sorrel and handed the lead to Porter.
“Good help,” Slocum said, putting his hand on the gelding’s neck and talking to him. He bent over and checked his front hoof, and dropped it when he was satisfied it was sound. He did the same on the back two and the other front. Then he mouthed him for six years old.
Complete, he forced the pony backward. That worked, so he moved out to look him over, and satisfied, he turned back to Porter. “How much?”
“Fifty bucks.”
“Thirty-five. You must have given Blocker ten for them.”
“You know about the deal?”
Slocum shook his head. “I know Blocker. He cut his losses and gave them to you.”
“You wanted two, here’s the second one.” The boy led him up and piled off the gray, handing Slocum the lead.
Nice-looking dark bay, a little dish-faced and high-headed, but stylish enough for her to ride. He found him sound and probably five years old. The dickering began, and Porter had several used saddles and Navajo saddle pads to choose from.
Two hours later, the three men ate lunch at the kitchen table with Porter’s Indian wife, Nonia, and Slocum savored her good fry bread. The sale had been made for one hundred twenty-five bucks for the two outfits and both men had shaken hands on the deal. So, after the noon meal, Slocum rode the sorrel and led the other two, and with Hurricane on his mule, they headed back.
About to cross a long hogback, Hurricane stopped him. “Better go around.”
“You see something?”
“No.”
“A bee tell you?”
Hurricane nodded and booted his mule northward to avoid the high rise. Slocum looked back and saw nothing out of place on the grassy-covered knob, but he wasn’t chancing Hurricane’s prophecy or a bee’s advice—better safe than sorry.
They reached Hurricane’s place in mid-afternoon, and Wink acted pleased about her bay. Slocum got on him first, and he humped his back some riding him around, but never really bucked. When she got on him, he acted like a well-broke one.
A small Indian in his twenties rode up on a thin piebald horse and nodded to them. Knowing he wanted to speak to Hurricane, Slocum pointed to the house. The thin-faced man bobbed his head and rode on.
“What’s he want?” she whispered.
“Guess to see Hurricane.”
“He looked mean.”
Slocum shook his head. “No, he wore no gun and had no rifle.”
“They carry them when they’re mad?”
“It helps.”
“I won’t forget that.”
“Good. Did you have a nice day?” he asked her
“Yes, you know how old Blue is?”
“No.”
“Fifteen, about the same age I was when I married Walter.”
“She happy?”
“Oh, yes. She says she eats much better with him, and she—well—she really likes the being a wife part.” Wink wrinkled her nose at him and then looked a little red-faced.
Laughing, he slung an arm over her shoulder, and they headed for the house. Target practice came again in the morning. He’d put the horses up later. Blue was signaling for them to come eat by waving her arm at them.
David Longthrow was the guest. Hurricane introduced him.
“David had a cow stolen.” Hurricane explained.
“Recently?”
“Yesterday.”
“He know who stole it?”
Both men nodded.
“What do we need to do?”
“The one who stole it is very tough.”
“What should we do about that?” Slocum asked Hurricane.
“Go get his cow back for him.” Then Blue interrupted her husband and he laughed. “Blue says we must eat first.”
After supper, they decided to wait until dawn to ride over and confront the cow thief. Slocum went to put the horses up. Wink helped Blue with the dishes and heated water for them to sponge off before bedtime. Longthrow and Hurricane smoked on the porch and talked while the Susie bugs sizzled in the cottonwoods.
A night wind rustled the dollar-sized leaves, and somewhere down the valley a coyote cried at the rising quarter moon. Slocum had no idea about Hurricane’s plan to recover the cow, but he intended to tag along and fill his hand if he needed him. The ponies in the pen and some hay forked in the manger, he headed for the open, lighted front door.
“May blow in some rain,” Hurricane said when Slocum reached the porch.
Slocum looked around in the growing darkness. “Guess you can use it.”
“Summertime, we can always use it. I’ll wake you early.”
“Fine whenever. Nice to meet you,” he said to the other man.
“Yes.”
He and Wink sponged off outside the back of the house in the starlight and dried with flour-sack towels. Feeling cleaner, he tossed out the pan of water while she lamented over how they couldn’t wash their clothes too.
“I’ll borrow his razor while they’re still awake,” he said, ready to go around in front.
“Good idea. They got yours in the saddlebags, didn’t they?” She fell in beside him. “My arm is sure sore. That old pistol is heavy.”
“What was your best pattern?”
“You’ll see in the morning.”
“Maybe afternoon. I’m leaving early with Hurricane to see about the cow.”
“You be careful doing that.”
He chuckled. “I’m always careful.” Always.
5
“You awake Slocum?” a voice in the darkness called to him.
“Yah, yah,” he grunted, throwing his legs over the side and rubbing his sleep-hungry eyes in the darkness. “Be there in a few minutes.”
“Good, she’s got coffee and food.”
Coming,” he said and leaned over to kiss Wink on the ear. She mumbled something back and like a groundhog going into her burrow, she pulled up the blankets to seek more sleep. He was up and dressing in the late night’s coolness. Despite the day’s heat, it had all evaporated and would start over the heating process the next day. Holding the Colt’s cylinder to the stars’ glow, he checked the loads and then, satisfied, holstered it. His hat on and silk kerchief around his neck, he stopped to empty his bladder and listen to the night sounds, a totally different orchestration than early night. Susie bugs asleep, a few crickets chirped and an owl hooted. A big one from the sounds of his bass voice and resounding “who”s.
He entered through the open cabin door and nodded to Hurricane and Longthrow seated at the table already eating breakfast in the candlelight. With a tin cup in his hand, he went to where Blue knelt before the fireplace, busy frying eggs in a skillet over the coals. The attractive girl smiled at him.
“Pretty damned early, ain’t it?” he asked as she filled his cup.
“Maybe not pretty, but early,” she said privately to him. They both laughed. “Here’s your eggs,” she said and put them on a china plate.
“Thanks.” He rose with the plate in one hand and coffee in the other.
“Hear the owl hooting?” Hurricane asked.
Slocum put down his plate. “He a friend of yours?”
The older man nodded. “Good sign. He hasn’t been around my house in a long time.”
“Good,” Slocum said, seated and reaching for the biscuits. Whatever that meant in Cherokee medicine.
“This guy who has David’s cow is called Barrows,” Hurricane offered. “He is a big bully.”
“What will you do to him?”
Hurricane’s brown eyes met his. “Maybe have to kill him.”
“Whatever.” Slocum busied himself with eating.
“Why would you even go with us—you’re a white man?” Longthrow asked over his fork of scrambled eggs.
Slocum nodded and looked hard at him. “Hurricane’s my friend. He asked me to go.”
That must have satisfied the man, for he went back to eating without comment.
They saddled by starlight, and Slocum noticed that Hurricane carried a double-barrel shotgun. His red mule wringing his shorn tail, Hurricane set out with Longthrow on his thin horse and Slocum aboard the sorrel in the rear. Red, as he called him, acted halfway spooky at first, then settled into a long swinging walk. Be better when he’d been ridden some, especially after all his time turned out on pasture; horses always forgot something about being rode again.
Dawn was a gray flannel blanket behind the ragged clouds in the east when they rode off a ridge toward a dark set of buildings and pens. Hurricane stopped his mule and waved Slocum forward.
“You circle wide and come in from the east. Trouble starts, you can come on in.”
“If he turns tail and runs, which way will he go?” Slocum gripped the horn and tried to loosen it—nothing gave—it was a good saddle.
“To you, I think.”
“I’ll be watching for him.”
“He might shoot at you.”
“He better have his best suit on if he does,” Slocum said.
“Why?” Longthrow asked with a frown.
“It’ll be what he’s buried in if he shoots at me.”
Both Cherokees chuckled. He smiled, nodded, then reined Red aside and went off though the stirrup-high bluestem that polished his boot toes.
A rooster crowed as he edged wide around the outfit. Somewhere a couple of hungry pigs squealed for food. Spears of sunlight came over his shoulder as he set Red up looking at the front door of the cabin in the distance. A couple of hounds went to raising hell, and soon Hurricane and Longthrow rode up to the hitch rack.
Hurricane called out to the cabin.
Someone appeared in the doorway in his pants and underwear top. Must be Barrows. The clatter of a rifle dropping from his hands carried to Slocum, who booted Red in closer. Hurricane had the shotgun’s butt against his shoulder and pointed at the man in the doorway.
“. . . came for David’s cow,” Hurricane spoke aloud as Slocum drew closer.
“His cow ain’t here.” Barrows filled the doorway with a red unbuttoned union suit and galluses hanging down, unshaven; he looked hard-eyed and mad.
“We want it,” Hurricane insisted.
“I ain’t got his gawdamn cow!”
“She’s here in the barn,” Longthrow said.
“Only cows in that barn are mine—you dumb son of a bitch!”
“Go get your cow,” Hurricane said with a toss of his head. The shotgun still ready in his hands, his dark face showed no sign of emotion.
Using his finger for a gun, Barrows pointed it at the man. “Longthrow, you take one of my gawdamn cows, I’ll kill you! I know where you live.”
“Get the cow!” Hurricane said louder when his man hesitated. “He won’t b
other you.”
“You take one of my damn cows out of here, I’ll cut your balls out, you little son of a bitch.”
Longthrow put his hands to ears and ran toward the barn and pens.
“You better hear me!” Barrows said loud enough.
In a short while, Longthrow returned, leading a black-masked milk cow with curled horns. He looked like a frightened cur yard dog, but he led the cow up to the front of the house.
“This is my cow Sally. Has my ear notch on her right ear.” He pointed to the long ago done job of marking her.
“Hogwash! I raised that cow!”
“Take her home, Longthrow,” Hurricane said.
“You do—” The threat of the shotgun silenced his words spoken through gritted teeth,.
“Go on!” Hurricane frowned at Longthrow to make him move.
“I get my damn—”
The blast of Hurricane’s shotgun caused Red to spook sideways, and Slocum had to catch the reins to check him. Through the cloud of acrid smoke, he saw Barrows lying on his back in the doorway. His bare feet stuck out on the porch and twisted in the throes of death. Screams from a woman inside began to reach a high pitch. Blood soon darkened Barrows’ chest that smoldered from the burning gunpowder.
Hurricane shook his head in disapproval. “He should never have reached for that rifle.”
He broke open the breech and took out a smoking shell. Longthrow was hurrying for his horse, leading the cow. As if still afraid, he glanced back once or twice and looked like the devil might be after him.
“Why did you shoot him?” the thick-waisted Indian woman screamed, standing over him.
“’Cause he would never have let Longthrow alone.”
Tears ran down her full cheeks and she nodded, solemn-like. “He would have killed him.”
“Yes, now only one is dead.” Hurricane gave a head toss to Slocum that he was ready to leave.
Slocum booted the sorrel in close, and when they were out of earshot, he asked, “That owl tell you to shoot him?”
Hurricane nodded, and the expression on his poker face never changed.
The first drops of rain struck Slocum, and he wished for the slicker they’d stolen from him. Cold as ice, the rain soon penetrated his shirt and drummed on his felt hat. Had the medicine man held it off that long? No telling. Thunder boomed in the west. More was coming.
