Buzzard Bait

by Jory Sherman

  She reached him just as she saw Carl Lathrop limp to his horse and climb on. She picked up Matt's pistol and shot twice at the young man before he disappeared from view. She knew she had missed. Breathless, she sank down beside Matt and lifted his head up into her lap.

  "Matt, Matt, it's me, Addie!" she pleaded.

  Her arm was drenched with blood. Quickly, she turned him over and, with her teeth, ripped her dress. She tore off a strip and wrapped a tourniquet above the slashed groove of his wound. She found a stick and placed it in the cloth, tied the material around the wood, and twisted it to staunch the flow of blood.

  She knew he was in shock. He had hit his head severely when he fell and she tore another strip of cloth from her dress, ran to the stream, dampened it and returned. She heard the man moan and knew that he was coming around.

  "Matt, can you hear me?"

  "Yeah, I, uh .... " he groaned.

  "We've got to get out of here."

  Matt's eyes opened. He saw Addie's face swimming above him. He sat up, the nausea swirling in his brain like roiled waters. She helped him to his feet.

  "Where's your horse?"

  He pointed with his right hand. Addie reached down and handed him his pistol. He holstered it.

  "Carl Lathrop?" he asked.

  "Gone. But the others will be here soon. Can you ride?"

  "I'll have to." He looked at his arm. The blood flow was slowing down. He felt dizzy and disoriented, but he knew he could make it.

  "Get your horse, Addie. Follow me."

  He checked his pistol. There was only one ball left. Like many other men of his day, he carried spare pistols, slung on the saddle horn and in the saddlebags. When he reached his horse, he exchanged his nearly empty one for a fully loaded Colt's Army just like it. Gingerly, he climbed into his saddle. He almost fainted again, but held on until the feeling passed. Addie rode up, her eyes anxiously looking into his.

  "We've got to get to your brother, warn him. Let's head up the Bozeman. I'll be all right."

  She nodded, her face white with concern. She looked back at the cloud of dust to their rear. Matt noticed her movement.

  "They might have heard the shots. I doubt it. Carl will join them, that's for sure. Big John might send Ross after us, or come himself. We've no time to waste."

  He knew he would have to attend to his wound soon, pack it with cool mud and leaves. It was beginning to swell and throb, but his strength was returning. He had lost a lot of blood, but, thanks to Addie's quick thinking, not enough to be dangerous. His greatest worry was infection. He had a bottle of whiskey wrapped in a small cloth bundle inside one of his saddlebags. That would have to do to wash the wound.

  Looking at her out of the corner of his eye, he could see that she was exhausted. Her face was pale, wan from the strain of the twin ordeals. He knew she must have gone through something to have escaped, but he did not ask. There would be time for that when they were able to stop for the night. He had to put distance between them and their pursuers, first. He felt sure they could make the Rosebud and then they would begin to climb, to head west for the pass. Just beyond was the C Bar M, and Ted, Tex, perhaps a couple of other drifters or hands. Mountain men were always stopping by for a meal or for talk. Sometimes one or two would stay on, help out, just to get the feel of civilization back in their bones.

  At one point, Matt stopped at a high rise and looked back. Far off he saw a speck that might have been a rider.

  "Are they following us?" Addie asked.

  "Could be. They would be going too slow now, I'm thinking. There's a storm coming."

  Addie looked at the sky. The clouds were scudding in over the Big Horns. The wind picked up as if to emphasize Matt's statement.

  "Yes," she shivered. "It's going to be cold and wet. You should take care of that wound."

  "We'll camp on the Rosebud, a place I know there. It's not far. The weather will take care of any pursuer."

  "I hope so," she said.

  Matt stepped up his horse's gait after that. They would need shelter and warmth. Addie, he knew, was already cold. It would get colder. As they neared the Rosebud he wondered who was following them. Ross or Big John himself?

  He'd bet it was Ross. Big John would stay in reserve, or wait until he joined up with Roumal. He was the fox. Smart and canny.

  * * *

  Big John had been angry that the Malone girl hadn't stopped when Ross had shouted at her. He cursed his son for not having shot her, winged her, at least.

  "You're soft, Ross."

  "I don't hold to shootin' no girls, Big John. I figured to run her to ground sooner or later."

  "She's a spunky one. You'll run a long way 'fore you corner her again. Roumal'll have all our hides for this."

  "I reckon," Ross said. They had herded the cattle in silence until, nearing the Tongue, they stopped up short at the gunfire. When Carl came riding up, Ross gave a shout.

  "It's Carl, Pa. He's back!"

  "Carryin' lead, it looks like."

  Carl slid from his saddle as his father and brother rushed up to him with questions.

  "I killed Cord," Carl panted.

  "You sure?" asked his father.

  "Pretty sure. He come up on me back there on the Tongue. The girl, too. She caught both of us off guard, but I spit some lead at Cord and he went down like a stone."

  Big John's eyes widened. He looked intently at his son.

  "What about the girl? Where is she?"

  "She picked up his pistol and started in a-shootin'. Come pretty close, too. I lit a shuck. Why'd you let her loose?"

  "We didn't let her loose," Big John said sarcastically. "She got away. That's twice now. You should have gotten her."

  "She may still be there, Pa. I got me a wound's openin' up again. It's mighty sore."

  "Oren!" Big John called. "Tend to Carl's leg here. Ross, you find out where the shootin' was. Get that girl back. If'n Cord ain't dead, finish him off. Don't come back until you do those two things."

  "Sure, Big John," his son said. "What're you gonna do?"

  "We're due to meet Roumal on the Yellowstone, this side of the pass. I'm leavin' Oren with the herd to make his own time. I can send men back to help him with the drive. That girl may know the country. If so, she's got to go through the Pass. We'll be a-waitin' for her or for both of 'em."

  "What if I get her first?" Ross asked.

  "Then Bull won't be so danged mad at us. We'll go on to the C Bar M as planned. I'll see Roumal in no more'n two sleeps. You be there in three sleeps, no later. Now, get crackin'."

  Carl looked at his father, a question in his eyes.

  "Come on, Carl, we'll see to your wound. Oren's got stuff in the wagon can ease your misery.''

  Ross took along some grub from the chuck wagon and rode off while Big John looked at the bullet wound in Carl's leg. Oren searched through the wagon for salves, medicants and bandages.

  " 'Pears you cauterized it right well, son," Big John said. "Clean enough hole. Should heal up in no time. Chew on a bullet and let it scab over. You'll be fit in no time."

  "I'm gonna kill Matt Cord," Carl said.

  "If'n your brother don't get to him first. Cord's a handful."

  "I almost got him, Big John. I should'a got him."

  Big John turned away from his son in disgust.

  "Yair," he growled.

  Oren leaned out of the wagon lugging cans, bottles, gauze and cotton. Big John looked at him with contempt.

  "Put that stuff away. Warn't nothin'. Keep it dry and clean, it'll mend all right."

  Oren just dropped the stuff in a heap and climbed down to the ground.

  "You two'll have to handle the herd from here on in. Carl, you work with Oren, hear? I want every head to cross that Pass. Keep 'em movin'. Let 'em feed, but don't let 'em slack up too much after you cross the Little Bighorn. You got a long stretch from there to the Yellowstone. I'll likely see ya at the C Bar M. Watch yore hair."

  "Yes sir, Big John," Ore
n said. "We'll be there directly."

  Carl was sullen. He didn't like being left behind. Big John filled his saddlebags with provisions and rode off without another word.

  Travel on the Bozeman was light, almost nonexistent at that time of year. There were serious considerations to close the road because of the extreme danger it presented to travelers. This was a fact that Roumal and his bunch had taken into consideration. Big John rode into the teeth of the gathering storm, heading for Bozeman Pass and his rendezvous with Roumal. He knew the country well and skirted the usual routes, cutting down the distance he would have to travel.

  Roumal's plan would have worked, he thought wryly, if Matt Cord had been killed. Instead, they had lost the hostage, the girl, and that was another mistake.

  Big John knew that it would be best to see Roumal and explain matters to him alone. Otherwise, his sons' lives might not be worth much. Roumal had an obsession about Matt Cord. Ever since that day at Cherry Creek. It wasn't only the money he had lost, it was the fact that another man had bested him. That the man was also in the right made the loss doubly hard to take. Roumal had wanted Cord dead and he'd wanted him to die slow. Maybe, though, there was a way to convince Roumal that the mistake was even better for him. Cord would hurt a while longer, grieving for his twin brother.

  Big John hadn't reckoned on the fierceness of the storm, however. One moment it was calm, the wind waiting with bated breath. The next, the wind rose with a shuddering velocity, cutting at him like a fresh-stropped razor. He turned away from the wind, heading back to the safer path, the Bozeman Trail. Snowflakes began to blow in from the north, curling like feathers on the gusts.

  Lathrop pulled up the collar of his coat and fished gloves from his saddlebags. The snow thickened and the wind subsided. The flakes grew larger and a calm settled on the trail. The temperature dropped and the snow began to stick to the ground. He was in the open and his eyes sought shelter through the drifting flakes. Soon, he knew, the trail would be wiped out. He would lose his bearings long before the light faded. Still, he rode on, wanting to get as much distance as he could before he had to stop and make shelter. He hoped to strike the Rosebud or the Little Bighorn before dark, before the snow got too thick to ride over. If the wind came up again . . .

  The snow began to fall faster and faster. Visibility dropped to a hundred yards, then fifty, to twenty-five. He could still make out the wagon ruts of the trail, signs of settlers moving through the territory to the gold fields. The landscape was even more desolate now that the snow was locking it in, confining his vision to a scant few yards ahead and on either side.

  There was an eerie silence settling about him as he rode. The sound of his horse's hooves were strangely muffled. The wind shifted and the snow began to blow at his back, extending his vision. Flakes stuck to his sheepskin coat, to his gloves, to the space between his horse's ears, to its mane. He brushed them from his eyelashes, shook them off his hat. Soon he could only hear the sound of his own breathing and his horse's. His breath spumed from his mouth in steamy puffs as the temperature continued to drop. The light from the sun shrank away in the west and he used it as a guide to keep himself on the trail as he remembered it. An hour of light, more or less, was left to him. He had lost his sense of distance once the storm had closed in about him. He might be close to the Rosebud, might be drifting away from it toward the Little Big Horn. He kept angling toward the sunglow, the pale light to the west.

  The trail was still defined, and trackless. He wondered where Ross was. He should have been ahead of him, leaving tracks. Or, maybe he had taken shelter before the snowstorm had hit. Big John's senses sharpened in the void of the falling snow. He slowed his horse down and listened until his ears hurt. His eyes burned from the whiteness surrounding him. His horse bent its head and snorted, began to fight the bit.

  "Not yet, you bastard," Big John muttered, digging his spurs into its flanks. "Got to get to the water."

  The trail widened and Big John stepped up the pace. The Rosebud couldn't be far off.

  "Pretty soon, boy," he said to the gelding. His breath was smoke, his heart pounding. He hoped he was right. A man had no business being alone in such country at such a time. The trail was littered with the bones of men who had been caught out in weather. Winter never let on when it was coming. It showed no mercy when it did come.

  The light in the west seemed to falter, then surge to a brighter glow. Big John looked at it and drew a deep breath. The cold air seared his lungs. For a moment, the snow seemed to hesitate. Ahead, he saw the dark break in the land, a wide cleft in the whiteness. The gelding lifted its head and snorted, blowing twin freshets of brume through its distended nostrils.

  "Be gawdamned," Big John exclaimed. "The Rosebud, for sure enough."

  He angled toward the dull silver-grey stream, then pulled up short, his eyes widening as they looked down at the snow-covered ground in front of him.

  Two sets of horse's tracks crossed the trail. He recognized one of them. Snow had not yet filled them in completely, so they were still fresh.

  The tracks were of one of his own horse's. The one that Addie Malone had taken when she escaped!

  Chapter Eight

  The empty sockets of the skull stared up at them.

  Addie Malone shivered.

  "Buffalo skull," Matt said, skirting it, his horse slightly spooked.

  "Why is it there?"

  The bleached mass of bone was sitting exactly in the center of the trail.

  "It's there for me," he said.

  Puzzled, Addie watched him look closely at the skull. Then, he led out, following an imaginary line that extended from one horn. They both felt the wind rising, the chill that meant snow. A quarter of a mile away, Matt pulled up. There were three more skulls, arranged in a circle.

  "I don't understand," she said.

  "Talking Horse. He put these out for me. It's a signal. He knows we're here. We'll wait."

  He swung down from the horse, and Addie watched as he turned pale and almost fell to his knees.

  "You're weak," she said, "let me help you."

  "Yes." He let her hold on to him for a moment, then he made his way to a tree and sat down slowly. "Tie the horses up, will you, Addie? I don't think we'll have to wait long."

  "You're in no condition to travel anymore," she said. "You should let me make a shelter. There's a storm coming."

  "I know. I have to meet Talking Horse. He can help."

  His eyes closed with weariness. He shifted his weight to favor his wounded shoulder.

  "I'm so sorry, Matt. For you. For Luke. I know how close you were, even though you were so different from each other."

  "Yes, we were different, inside, maybe. Outside, we looked the same. We both lost a good man. I'm sorry for you as well. You had to watch him die."

  Addie shuddered with remembrance.

  "Did you . . . I mean . . . was he . . . ?" she stammered.

  "I buried him proper, Addie. No more need be said about it now. We can talk out our grief later."

  "I'll tend to that wound now, while we're waiting," she said, a hint of command in her voice. Matt nodded and closed his eyes, listening for sound, letting his weariness wash over him like a tide.

  Addie saw that the wound was clean. The edges around the blue-black part were red and showed signs of hardening. She looked at Matt and marveled again at the uncanny resemblance he had to Luke. Yet, she knew that the two men had been so different, as Matt had said, inside. They hadn't even seemed to be the same age. Matt always seemed older. Maybe that was because Luke so obviously worshipped him. Maybe it was because Matt was a leader, Luke a follower. Luke liked to be with people, Matt seemed to be alone even in a crowd.

  Her brother Ted had introduced Luke to her, less than two years before, in Denver. Matt was Ted's friend, but was driving another herd of cattle up from Texas at the time. Luke was working in a dry goods store. He was very polite, a trifle shy, and terribly handsome. She hadn't thought anyone could
be that handsome until she had met Luke's twin brother, Matt. She had very nearly gone into shock. No one had bothered to tell her that the men were twins. She had just assumed that Matt was an older brother. They didn't make much of their being identical.

  Addie had chosen to marry Luke and start her own ranch in Montana Territory. She didn't regret her decision, but had to fight hard to keep from feeling sorry for herself now that Luke was dead, her dreams shattered. Matt was hurt and Ted was in danger. She had expected none of this. Yet, Addie was not a woman to bemoan her fate. She was determined to see things through as best she could. Right now, Matt needed her attention. The wound was bound to fester unless he received some sort of treatment. It might even become infected. He could die, if that happened.

  "This wound needs a poultice on it," she said.

  "Later," Matt told her. "At least the bleeding's stopped."

  She tied a loose bandage around the wound and sat down to wait with Matt. The wind kept rising and soon a few flakes of snow began to blow against her face. The wind dropped and she wasn't as cold as before. Matt seemed to be dozing, but she knew he was alert because he heard the Indian long before she did. She watched him open his eyes and look through the trees.

  At first, she saw only a shadow. Then a shape. She gasped and slapped a hand against her mouth. The man wore a single eagle feather, sticking out of his dark black hair. He was wrapped in a robe that appeared to be made of antelope. He carried a rifle. Matt got to his feet slowly and waited for the warrior to ride up.

  "Hunh!" said the Indian.

  "How, Cola," Matt grunted.

  She heard a spatter of guttural language. The two men used their hands in a graceful talk, augmenting their speech. Matt's movements were not as fluid as the Indian, and twice he clutched his throbbing shoulder.

  She watched them, fascinated. The Sioux smelled of earth and hide. She admired his beaded moccasins as he sat astride his painted pony. His cheekbones were high and his skin stretched tightly over them. He was very young, his eyes like polished beads. His talk, though harsh in his throat, had a musical quality to it, almost chanting. Matt's dialect seemed little different to her, deeper, more raspy, perhaps.