“Sure, Rollo,” Bruno said. “I don’t do no worry about that.”
Otto Bolkey went over to the small campfire and got himself a cup of coffee. “When’re we pulling out, Rollo?”
“I figgered if we leave by mid-morning, we’ll get there by early evening,” Kenshaw said.
“I wonder what happened to Downey and them other boys,” Bolkey said. “By my reckoning, they shoulda been back here a coupla days ago.”
“Yeah, me too!” Kenshaw said in a worried tone as he suddenly remembered the missing five men. “I sent ’em out to make sure no competition came in off the Oregon Trail.”
“Maybe that son of a bitch Chet O’Dell showed up with a big gang and kilt ’em,” Bolkey said.
Kenshaw shook his head. “O’Dell ain’t got the cash money to hire any good men. The best he could do would be some St. Louie river rats. They’d never whup Downey.”
The trio was joined by Bobby Slowfoot. The young smuggler, well rested and eager, got himself a cup of coffee from the pot on the campfire.
“I heard y’all talking ’bout Downey when I walked up,” he said. “Does anybody know what happened to him? He’s long overdue.”
“You’re right about that,” Kenshaw answered. “But nobody knows for sure where they are. I’m thinking he run acrost some Injuns that got no weakness fer liquor.”
“Yeah,” Bobby Slowfoot said. “Five fellers wouldn’t stand much of a chance against a war party, that’s fer sure.”
Otto Bolkey had another idea. “Maybe dragoons outta Fort Laramie got ’em, huh?”
Rollo Kenshaw shook his head. “Nope. I know fer a fact that them soldier-boys has got all they can do just keeping track o’ wagon trains traveling on the Oregon Trail. If’n they didn’t, they woulda been up in these hills looking fer us a long time ago.”
“Will them dragoons ever be coming after us?” Bobby Slowfoot asked.
“Sure,” Kenshaw said with a shrug. “But not ’til next summer. And that’s a maybe, not a certainty. If’n we stay low, we’ll be all right.”
“Sure,” Bolkey agreed. “After a year goes by, they ain’t even gonna be certain who was up here and who wasn’t. If they can’t get us now, they ain’t never gonna do it.” Bobby Slowfoot noticed some movement among the Indians. “Looks like they’re waking up. Got any more liquor to sell ’em, Rollo?”
“Sure,” Kenshaw said. “But they ain’t got nothing to buy it with. I was just telling Bruno and Otto that we’re heading for Little Valley to meet up with Buffalo Horn.”
“They’ll have something to trade, all right,” Bobby Slowfoot said with a laugh. “It’s been a while since they been drunk. They ain’t nobody more ambitious than sober drunks when they know they can earn some liquor.”
Bruno Glotz laughed. “Rollo say they be stealing furs from other Injuns for to trade.”
“I’ll bet they been raiding,” Bobby Slowfoot observed. “Buffalo Horn can be right nasty when he gets riled and wants a drink.”
Kenshaw noticed that all of his men were now awake and stirring around. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “Let’s cook up some grub and have a nice leisurely breakfast, then we’ll break camp and head for Little Valley. We’ll see what Buffalo Horn and his bunch got to give us to get drunk.”
“That oughta do in our liquor supply,” Bobby Slowfoot said. “We’ll have to make it to the river for another load.”
“I just hope Cap’n Hawkins has something for us,” Otto Bolkey said.
“He’ll have it all right,” Kenshaw said. “He’s always got our cargo on board that riverboat ’cause the good cap’n never knows for sure when we’re gonna show up to swap off our goods for more liquor.”
“I don’t like the idea of getting that close to Fort Laramie,” Bobby Slowfoot said. “We could run into a dragoon patrol accidental-like even if they ain’t out looking for us in particular.”
“I thought o’ that, Bobby Slowfoot,” Kenshaw said. “So instead o’ going to the reg’lar spot, we’ll head for Sandy Bottom. The water is deep enough there for Hawkins’ boat to come up to the bank. We can make the transfer right there on the river without having to row out to do the job. That’ll make it go a hell of a lot quicker.”
“I like that idea fine,” Otto Bolkey said. “Going to a differ’nt place now and then makes it harder for anybody to keep tabs on us—Injuns or soldiers.”
“That’s part o’ my working plan,” Kenshaw said.
“Now, let’s quit jawing and get on with breakfast so’s we can move the hell outta here afore midday.”
The whiskey peddlers put on some fresh coffee and set pots filled with food prepared the previous evening on the fire to reheat. A couple had some fresh venison dealt from the Indians for some trinkets, and they began roasting the meat. It was a pleasant meal, with casual talk except for a couple of conversations centered around the mysterious disappearance of Downey and his four companions.
But as is common with men who live in an atmosphere where life is cheap and the danger great, they didn’t waste a lot of time in concern or speculation over the absence of their companions. If unfriendly Indians got them, it was their own tough luck as far as the other liquor smugglers were concerned.
Over on the Indian side of the encampment, however, things were not so peaceful. The Crow had begun to wake up and stir about. Husbands kicked and pushed their wives into preparing meals and picking up the mess left by the previous night’s drinking.
An argument, no doubt started during the binge, began again between two of the men. Shoving and slapping led to a stabbing. The wives of the pair of combatants—five in all—became embroiled in the altercation until a battle royal raged between the two lodges.
Rollo Kenshaw slurped up the final drops of a rabbit stew. He glanced in irritation at the source of the disturbance and noise.
“Things may get nasty,” Bobby Slowfoot observed.
“You’re right,” Kenshaw said. “Let’s get the hell outta here!”
Breakfast quickly came to a halt. Pots were emptied into the fire and water poured over the implements to get them cool enough for carrying. All the gear was hastily packed and rolled up, then tents were struck. Everything was bundled, with the large items divided between the two wagons. The whiskey vehicle, with more room because of sales and trades, received the bulk of the items as the white men performed the final preparations for departure.
Within a quarter of an hour, the two teams were hitched to the wagons, drivers sat aboard the conveyances, and everyone else was on horseback.
Kenshaw took another look at the fight going on between the Indians. He noted that some of the Crow warriors were already drinking again and that another corpse had joined the two left over from the night before.
“Roll ’em!” Kenshaw yelled, knowing it was prudent to vacate the area as quickly as possible.
The small convoy eased into life, traveling out of the campsite and onto the forest trail leading down and away from Medicine Hill.
The trees were sparse in the area, making it easy going as they completed the short descent and turned to the southeast for the scheduled meeting with Buffalo Horn and the Wolf Society band.
Kenshaw arranged his entourage so that the wagon with the goods was in front of the one carrying the liquor. He positioned men close around both vehicles and saw to it that a rear guard followed a short distance away. Those three men ranged back and forth, keeping an eye to the back of the procession to make sure no one snuck up on the group.
Others, going out to the side, had the job of making sure no bushwhackers could set up an effective ambush.
Bobby Slowfoot, the smartest of all of Kenshaw’s men, was chosen to be scout. He picked the best route while Otto Bolkey and Bruno Glotz accompanied him to act as security in case they blundered into unfriendly people.
Men in military professions studied to learn such techniques. Rollo Kenshaw acquired the knowledge for effective and safe travel through hostile areas in the
school of hard knocks. In his life as trader, smuggler, bandit, and killer, the whiskey smuggler learned from each ambush, sneak attack, or other treachery he suffered until he was an expert at staying alive in the lawless wilderness.
If he hadn’t learned, he’d have been dead long ago. Or, like Chet O’Dell, he’d be running a small operation that didn’t amount to much.
The slow trip continued for the rest of the morning and into midday. Eager to make the scheduled rendezvous with Buffalo Horn, Rollo Kenshaw did not permit a stop for a meal break. Instead, the group pressed slowly on, the clomp of their horses’ hooves and the loud squeaks of the wagon wheel announcing their progress.
Out on the flanks, the four scouts to each side also rode slowly. They glanced through the trees now and then to make sure they kept the two-wagon train in sight. The men on the south side of the caravan reached some dead fall and had to turn out to go around it.
The lead man went up an incline around the undergrowth and turned into an area where the trees thickened enough for their branches to intertwine. Forced to duck down, he went under some of the lower limbs, coming out into a more open part of the forest. He straightened up and received the arrow that passed through his neck and went on to spend its flight in a tangle of brush.
Cut nerves and severed arteries caused almost instant death, and he toppled out of his saddle without making a sound. The man behind him, confused as to what had happened, grinned.
“What’s the matter, Fred?” he cracked. “Forgit how to ride a damn horse?”
Suddenly he felt a strong hand clamp over his mouth and nose; it shut off his ability to breath. Instinctively he started to fight back, but a half dozen quick thrusts of a long, cruel blade up under his right rear ribcage drained away his strength as surely as it did his life’s blood.
Eagle Talons pulled the body from the horse and let it fall. Tim Stephans trotted ahead and retrieved both animals, leading them back to the death scene.
Darcy Hays, Chet O’Dell, and Norb Walton joined the two. They scarcely gave the dead men any attention at all. Darcy pointed through the trees.
“The wagons are that way, are they not?” he asked. “Yes,” Eagle Talons said.
“Remember to shoot at the second one,” O’Dell said. “That’s how Kenshaw sets up his trains. Most of his liquor is sold off, so remember that what’s left is gonna be set in the middle of the wagon for balance.”
“Right,” Hays said. “Fire into the center of the canvas covering. We haven’t enough men for an effective ambush when it comes to kills, but we can sure as hell shoot up that whiskey supply. Once it’s gone, they’ll have to go for more. And that’s exactly where Eagle Talons is going to follow them.”
Tim listened to the sounds through the woods. “They’re drawing close now.”
“Let’s go,” Hays said. “Don’t fire until I do. Remember! The center of the canvas on the second wagon! Then run like hell back to the horses, and we’ll withdraw to where we left Buffalo Horn and his group.”
“I not go with you,” Eagle Talons said. “I follow whiskey men. When they stop to get more liquor at river, I come back for you damn quick.”
“I thought we were going to let Buffalo Horn and his band lead us to the river,” Tim said.
Eagle Talons shook his head. “I tell you no trust that whiskey drinker sumbitch. I learn he don’t want you to find nothing about Rollo Kenshaw. He lead you somewhere else.”
“Why didn’t you tell us before now?” Hays angrily asked.
Eagle Talons didn’t understand why the captain was upset. “I tell you now because it is time to tell you.”
Tim was worried, too. “We’ll have to get the Wolf Society the hell away from us.” He glanced at Hays. “How are we going to do that, sir?”
Hays thought a moment. “That shouldn’t be too difficult. We’ll tell him to go on to Little Valley because Kenshaw is there with whiskey. Then we’ll wait for Eagle Talons to come back after he finds out where the whiskey peddlers have settled down on the river.”
“This situation is getting more dangerous and complicated with each passing day,” Tim said.
“We’ll deal with those passing days one at a time,” Hays said. “Meanwhile, we have to successfully pull off this ambush or everything is going to hell anyway. Now, let’s go.”
The five men moved silently through the woods, with Eagle Talons in the lead. When they reached a spot he deemed good for the job ahead, he brought them to a halt. The small wagon train could be seen through the trees ahead as it approached.
A full five minutes passed before it drew alongside the ambushers. Hays, using his broken carbine, pointed it at the second wagon. It was an easy shot, and an instant after he fired, he saw a hole appear in the canvas cover on the wagon. Hays drew his Colt to pump six more bullets into the whiskey in the vehicle.
His shot was instantly followed by a fusillade of others. Tim, now having fired his carbine, also cut loose with his revolver.
Eagle Talons, with his long gun slung across his shoulder, had not fired at all. Using a match he got from Hays, he lit off an arrow around which he had wrapped carefully cut shavings of dried tinder. It lit immediately. The Sioux took aim with his bow and sent the flaming missile into the wagon, where the raw whiskey flowed from the split barrels that had contained it.
An exploding whoosh of flame leaped from the vehicle, sending a fireball rolling skyward through the trees. If it had been during a dry season, a forest fire would have erupted. But the green limbs didn’t ignite as the fiery cloud went through them.
At that moment, the ambushers turned and ran like hell through the woods. Shots erupted from the whiskey peddlers, but Hays knew they’d stay down for a few minutes before attempting any counterattacks.
The captain and his friends reached their horses and wasted no time in saddling up and spurring the animals for a gallop through a section of the forest that Eagle Talons had carefully selected.
After a run of twenty yards, they burst out into a valley. Turning to the east, they took advantage of the open country to pick up speed before going back into the woods.
The going was slower in the forested area they entered. The trees, thick and plentiful, made movement painfully slow. Eagle Talons left them to retrace their tracks to see if any of Kenshaw’s men had mounted a pursuit.
Hays glanced over at Chet O’Dell, who sat in the saddle grinning widely. The dragoon captain remarked, “You seem to be in a good mood.”
“You’re damn right I am, Cap’n,” O’Dell responded. “I just got a little more even with that son of a bitch Kenshaw. I still owe him plenty, but it felt damn good to pump bullets into the whiskey wagon o’ his.”
“I guess if Lieutenant Stephans and I ended up hauling him into Fort Laramie to face charges on murder and illegal smuggling, you’d be ecstatic,” Hays said.
“Does that word mean I’d be happier’n a pig in shit?” O’Dell asked.
“That is exactly what it means,” Hays said.
“Then I’d be what that word says,” O’Dell said. Hays glanced over at Norb Walton. “How’re you doing, Walton?”
“I wish I was back in St. Louis,” he replied, in a voice tainted with misery and foreboding.
“We’ll do our best to see that you get there, don’t worry,” Hays said.
Eagle Talons made another of his silent, mysterious returns. He wasted no time in informing Hays what he’d found out.
“Rollo Kenshaw not follow us,” the Sioux Warrior said. “He try, then give up. I think he got big hurry to get more whiskey. Not take time from doing that. I go back to follow him. When I see where he go, I come for you. You wait for me with Wolf Society. Then you tell them to go to Little Valley to meet Rollo Kenshaw.”
“That we’ll do,” Hays said. “Hurry it up.”
“Sure, I hurry,” Eagle Talons said. He whirled his horse around and rode off to tend to his task.
O’Dell was worried. “Do you think it’ll be safe to
go back where them other Injuns are?”
“They’ll be drunk on your whiskey,” Hays said. “When they sober up, we’ll tell them to go to Little Valley to wait for Rollo Kenshaw.”
“If he. ain’t there, they’ll get mad, won’t they?” Walton asked.
“Don’t worry about that,” Hays said. “We should be with Rollo Kenshaw by then.”
“And if we ain’t?” O’Dell asked.
“Then worry about it,” Hays said.
Tim Stephans hurried his horse up so he could catch up with his company commander. “What are you planning on doing when we find out where Kenshaw gets his liquor, sir?”
“I plan to attack him, Lieutenant,” Hays said.
Walton moaned, “Now I’m really worried!”
Twenty
When Captain Darcy Hays and Lieutenant Tim Stephans, along with their companions, Mister Chet O’Dell and Mister Norb Walton, returned to the Wolf Society encampment, they were not greeted by a happy sight.
Sick, hung-over, half-drunk Indians wandered about the area. A quick inspection of O’Dell’s wagon showed the warriors had consumed every barrel of whiskey he’d brought with him.
“I’ve knowed for over a week that my profit on this trip was gonna be zero,” O’Dell said. “But it hurts just the same to see all that liquor gone without me getting a single coin or pelt for the trouble o’ lugging it all the way out here.”
“Don’t forget them fellers that got kilt,” Walton said. “Don’t they count for nothing?”
“Are you forgetting who kilt ’em?” Walton asked, pointing to Hays and Tim.
“And we weren’t even mad at them,” Hays said coldly.
“We ain’t complaining ’bout you, honest to God, Cap’n,” O’Dell said.
“That’s right, Cap’n!” Walton exclaimed.
“Let’s quit the unnecessary chatter and see how things stand around here,” Hays said.
A further inspection of the wagon showed the Indians had damaged it by ripping away boards for firewood. That was something else that upset O’Dell, but he kept his remarks to himself.
The team of horses used to pull the vehicle had been left in peace. Still hobbled as they had been left, the animals grazed peacefully and contentedly on the forest grass. It was almost as if they could sense that they would not have to pull the heavy load again.
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