"So, you want to tell us why that bunch was giving you a necktie party?" she inquired.
The Hilliards glanced at one another, which appeared to be their habit before speaking. Amos was the one who answered, saying, "They don't care for colored folk around these parts. Leastways, not ownin' land and workin' for themselves."
"They string you up for that?" J.D. asked him.
"First time they've gone for anything like that," Amos replied. "Before, it's always been insults and warnings, stray shots now and then, what looks like accidents around the place, if you don't know better."
"You've told the sheriff, I suppose," said Kate.
"No ma'am," Calliope spoke up for the first time since leaving town.
"Why not, for heaven's sake?"
Amos stepped in to answer for his wife. "You have to understand, Missus. Where we come from—down Mississippi, back before the war and after—sheriff's just another white man workin' for the masters, doin' what they tell him. When a mob shows up to hang you, like as not the sheriff's leadin' 'em."
"But this is the Dakota Territory," J.D. said. "Far as I know, they never had a single slave up here."
"Bein' a slave is one thing," Amos said. "And bein' black's another altogether. Just because a piece of paper says we're free, it don't mean any of the white folk hereabouts like breathin' the same air as we do, workin' the same land. There's free, and then there's free to keep on movin', if you follow me."
"But under law—"
"The white man's law," Calliope spoke up, her tone embittered. "What it says and what it means can be like night and day."
"You take for granted that the sheriff is against you," Kate said.
"Didn't want to jump out of the fryin' pan, into the fire," Amos replied. "He locks us up, claimin' it's for our own protection, maybe that's the last that anybody sees of us."
As Hilliard spoke, J.D. was wondering about the lawman's first reaction when he'd seen the dead lyncher they had delivered to his office. Kersey knew the man, as he'd admitted, but he wasn't saying any more. Because the two of them were strangers and he disliked bounty hunters anyway? Or had there been some other reason?
"This is our place, comin' up," Amos announced.
From something like a quarter mile, J.D. made out a small house and a barn that looked proportional, with a corral out front. Kate scanned the place with her sharp eyes and said, "Looks like there's someone waiting on your porch."
That made the Hilliards hesitate, until Kate removed her rifle from its saddle boot and J.D. followed suit. They moved in closer, then she saw Calliope and Amos starting to relax.
"It's fine," Calliope advised them. "That's just Moses, come to call."
"Moses?" asked Kate.
"You might say he's our leader," Amos answered. "In the so-called Promised Land."
* * *
"You saw that Sandy Rice was here?" asked Ellis Fields.
"I did, yes sir," Bodine replied.
"The sheriff's got Arnie in town, what's left of him. Or maybe I should say the undertaker's got him now."
Bodine, uncertain how to answer that, just stood there in the boss's study, staring at his boots.
"I guess you know I 'm disappointed in you," Ellis said.
"Yes, sir. I'm sorry, but—"
"As soon as you say 'but,' that's making an excuse, Brent. And there's no goddamned excuse for running off the way you did. Eleven men against a man and wife, for God's sake, and they kicked your ass. It makes me wonder if there was a single spine amongst the lot of you—or even one good brain."
Bodine knew better than to answer that. He noted that his boots were scraped and dusty.
"Look me in the eye, goddamn it!" Ellis hissed.
"Yes, sir." Lifting his chin struck Bodine as the hardest work he'd done in months.
"You had a simple job to do: get rid of two damned niggers squatting on my range. It should have set the others running anywhere but here. That was the plan. Am I correct?"
"Yes, sir."
"All right. And what you left, instead, was one man dead, another wounded that I have to hide until he heals, and three lost horses."
"Three?"
"The two you put the niggers on, and Arnie Sallinger's. Christ, can't you even count?"
"Oh, right. Yes, sir."
"Now what am I supposed to do, Brent? Ride out to the Hilliard place and ask them can I get my horses back? The ones my stupid goddamned foreman tried to use for hanging them? Should I just ride in to the sheriff's office and confess?"
"No, sir." Almost a whisper now.
"Well, are you going to?"
"I hope not, sir. Unless you think—"
"Shut up, for Christ's sake! If you turn yourself in, Kersey knows damned well I was behind it. Are really dumb as you pretend to be?"
Trick question? Bodine found the safest answer to be none at all.
Fields forged ahead. "You hurt us, Brent. Hurt me. You hurt us bad. Smart thing would be for me to send you packing, or to put you in the ground."
Bodine could feel his gun hand twitching, but he knew that if he drew down on the boss, he'd never make it out of there alive. "Yes, sir," he muttered, feeling like he'd signed his own death warrant.
"But I won't," Fields said. "Not yet. I'll give you one chance to redeem yourself."
"Yes, sir! Thank—"
"Don't thank me yet," Fields interrupted him. "I want you staying put and doing nothing other than your normal job for now. Don't play at thinking for yourself. We've seen how that works out. I'll think of something, tell you what to do and when to do it. Right?"
"Yes, sir."
"And Brent?"
"Uh-huh?"
"Next time you let me down, nobody's gonna miss you, even for a second. Take my word on that."
* * *
Moses Wright, they found, was over six feet tall, broad chested and broad shouldered, narrow in the hips, with arms that strained the rolled up sleeves of his blue denim shirt. His massive hands were scarred from years of toil. Beneath a straw hat, his long face could have been carved from ebony. His wiry hair and trace of stubble on his jaw were frosty gray. Eyes of a matching gray surveyed J.D. and Kate with frank suspicion while Calliope performed the introductions.
"Reckoned you was gone for good," he said at last, to Amos Hilliard.
"Nearly were," Amos replied. "But J.D. and Miss Kate come by and helped us out."
"First names, is it?" Wright challenged. "Don't sound much like dealin' with 'em on the old plantation."
Amos had his mouth open to answer but Calliope was quicker. "Old plantation's far behind us, Moses. You should know that, better than the rest of us."
"Is it? When we're still fightin' crackers for a little piece of ground to call our own? And what you ridin' there?"
"Horses they tried to hang us from," Amos replied, almost defiantly. "The mob run off and left 'em to us."
"And you think they won't be back to fetch 'em, with your heads?"
J.D. cut in, saying, "We'll just ride on and leave you to your argument."
"Go just like that?" Wright asked. "You know, the ancient Chinee say that once you save a life, you be responsible for it."
"Well, if I ever save an ancient Chinaman," J.D. replied, "I'll surely keep that fact in mind."
"Who's gonna stand with 'em after you're gone?" Moses inquired.
Kate answered with a question of her own. "Who stood with them before we happened by? I understand that you're their leader, but I didn't see you helping when they needed you."
Wright didn't flinch at that, exactly, but it left him silent for a moment. Amos Hilliard filled the gap in conversation, saying, "Mr. Blaze and Missus Kate, we both appreciate the risk you took for us and hope it won't come back on you no how. You ever pass this way again and think of some way we can possibly return the favor, just say where and when."
"Our pleasure, Mr. Hilliard," Kate allowed. "Now, if you're settled, we still have a bounty to collect."
"I see that," Kate responded. "But he won't get far just being free, unless he learns to recognize a friend without regard to color."
* * *
It took an hour and a bit for Sheriff Kersey to confirm the cash reward on Bad Eye Voightlander. Four thousand dollars—more than most folks living in the territory earned per year—seemed pretty steep until he thought about Voightlander's crimes, the lives he'd taken, the young women he had traumatized, the money that he'd stolen out of banks and from stagecoaches rattling across the plains.
Besides, it wasn't Kersey's money. After he'd confirmed the stiff's identity, the money had been wired to Yankton's Farmers' Bank through Western Union. After signing the receipt, Kersey had walked back to his office, put the payoff in his safe, and waited for the Blazes to return. He'd spoken to the undertaker about Voightlander, but hadn't made his mind up yet, concerning Arnie Sallinger.
That was a problem of another kind, and one likely to blow up in his face if Kersey didn't walk around it very carefully.
Arnie had worked out on the Circle F, for Ellis Fields. Most of the county's White Caps hailed from there, though rumor had it certain other farmers had signed up from fear of ex-slaves moving in and claiming homesteads on the range. Kersey was smart enough to see a certain irony in that: the small sodbusters fighting on behalf of Mr. Fields, in essence doing what he told them to protect his range, when they were no better than any other homesteader themselves.
Well, wasn't that the way of it in general? Hadn't the Rebel armies been made up of common workingmen who'd never owned a slave or given any thought to buying one? They'd marched off to the Civil War on orders from the Dixie aristocracy, commanded by slave owning, slave trading officers, and tens of thousands had died or were maimed in defense of a system that ranked them one half-step above the captive Africans.
But sometimes, to a certain kind of man, one half-step was enough.
Same thing down south right now, from what Kersey had heard. The Ku Klux and assorted other bands of night riders, mostly poor farmers who could barely rub two cents together under Reconstruction, were out killing, whipping, castrating—whatever—on instructions from the same rich men who'd led them into war and let them down without the slightest gesture of apology. Who were the fools in that case? Who the puppeteers?
The sheriff cleared his mind of such abstract considerations, focusing on his real problem now. When word got back to Ellis Fields—and it most likely had, already—he'd be spoiling for revenge, not only on the couple who'd escaped his lynching party, but against those with the raw temerity to rescue them. And like as not, his shooters would come looking for them under Kersey's very nose, in Yankton.
"Shit!" he muttered to the empty room, as he got up to oil his guns.
Chapter 5
Back in their snug room at the Yankton House, locked in and with a chair propped underneath the doorknob for security, Kate drew the curtains shut and said, "I need a nap."
"I wouldn't mind some rest, myself," J.D. replied.
"Who mentioned resting, Lover?"
"Ah. I see."
"You up for it?" she asked, unbuttoning her shirt.
"I'm getting there," he said, removing his gunbelt and dropping it beside the bed, within arm's reach.
It turned into a race then, shedding clothes and tossing them aside whichever way was easiest, revealing flesh in need. When he was down to socks, J.D. asked Kate, "We're just skipping the bath, then?"
"Later," she said, almost breathlessly.
They came together standing up, their naked bodies molded in a line of almost liquid heat, holding each other close. J.D.'s long pride was pressed against Kate's belly, causing her to grind her hips against him while he kissed her deeply, swift tongues dueling. When he feared he was about to burst, J.D. walked Kate backwards until her buttocks met the bed, then eased her gently down onto her back and knelt between her open thighs.
He feasted on her sex as if he were starving, sliding long arms up to find and knead her breasts while he licked and suckled on Kate's fragrant mound. It only took a moment for her to respond to J.D.'s practiced tongue, her back arching, hips rising up to meet his mouth, while Kate's hands clutched the bedspread, clinging for dear life. He heard her climax starting with a throaty growling sound, then gaining volume as she finally surrendered to the waves of pleasure washing over her and sweeping her away.
"Oh, God!" she cried. "OhGodohGodohGod!"
J.D. kept lashing with his tongue until she'd reached the crest and passed it, slumping back onto the bed before he rose to join her, repositioning her form until he loomed above her, in the slack V of her legs. Slowly now, a bare inch at a time, he entered Kate, feeling her wet warmth welcome him, the old familiar fit of hand in glove.
When he was buried to the hilt, supported by his rigid arms, he started rocking slowly, back and forth, starting the dance that would inevitably coax at least one more delicious climax from his wife. J.D. was in no hurry now, pacing himself, ready to go the distance for her pleasure and his own.
After a few long moments, he could feel the tingle starting down inside him, like a distant warning bell. J.D. sank to his elbows, kissing Kate and savoring the contact of their bodies on the yielding mattress. So damned much better than the hard ground of their prairie camp, before they closed on Bad Eye Voightlander and punched his ticket.
"Mmm. I've missed you," Kate purred in his ear.
"It's only been since yesterday," J.D. replied.
"Too goddamned long!" she gasped, and locked her ankles tight behind the flexing, pumping globes of J.D.'s ass. "Hurry! I'm almost there again!"
* * *
Sheriff Kersey had their money waiting when J.D. and Kate returned to his office in late afternoon. Seated behind his desk, he stood up when they entered, made a small adjustment to his sagging pistol belt, and said, "So, there you are."
"Did you expect us earlier?" J.D. inquired.
"No, but I close up in an hour and my deputy's not authorized to make disbursal of rewards."
"I'd say we're right on time, then," Kate allowed.
"Close enough," the lawman grudgingly acknowledged. Opening a drawer beside his right leg, he removed two stacks of currency and set them on the desktop, watching as J.D. and Kate stepped forward to examine them.
J.D. sized up the stacks, each banded at a bank. The strip encircling each was printed out to read TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS, but he thumbed through one of them regardless, while Kate checked the other. Each wrapped stack contained a score of hundred-dollar bills.
"All there?" asked Kersey, with what might have been a smirk.
"Looks like," J.D. replied, after he got a nod from Kate.
"Okay, then." Kersey took a piece of paper from the money drawer and slid it toward them, so it lay beside a chunky fountain pen. "One of you sign for it, and we can all say our good-byes."
Kate inked her name on the receipt while J.D. told the sheriff, "Sounds like you'll be glad to see the last of us."
Kersey lifted his shoulders in a lazy shrug. "I don't like trouble in my county," he replied. "And folks who kill for money normally mean trouble."
"Have we caused you any, Sheriff?" Kate chimed in.
"Not yet," Kersey replied. "Although I could've done without you plugging Arnie Sallinger."
"The lyncher," Kate reminded him. "I'm guessing you don't hold with that, being opposed to trouble as you are."
Instead of rising to the bait, the sheriff said, "I understand you rode out with the Hilliards to their place."
"The wife was nervous about going home alone," J.D. explained. "Them being nearly hanged by hooded men and all."
Before the sheriff had a chance to speak, Kate said, "No doubt you're looking into that and hunting
down the scum responsible."
"It's on my list of things to do. No need for you to fret on that score."
"I guess the charge would be attempted murder," Kate pressed him.
"Assuming anybody can identify the other men," Kersey replied.
"Among poor Arnie's friends and coworkers, for instance," J.D. said.
"No need for either one of you to get involved in that beyond what you've already done," Kersey advised. "In fact, I'd say it was the worst idea you ever had."
"Sheriff," Kate said, "your wildest dreams wouldn't include ideas I've had."
The lawman blinked at that and asked, point blank, "How long will you be staying here in Yankton?"
Kate's short laugh was musical and cutting, all at once. "Who knows?" she said. "You've got a nice town here, and we just came into some cash. No reason why we shouldn't stay a while and spread some of the green around."
"It's a free country," Kersey said as they were leaving. Just before the door closed on them, he had time to tack on, "More or less."
* * *
"More of less," Kate echoed, as they walked on from the sheriff's office to a decent looking restaurant they'd spotted, riding into town. "The hell is that supposed to mean?"
J.D., reading his wife's combative mood, replied, "I'd say it means another sheriff doesn't want us meddling in his business or his town's. We've heard that tune before, if you recall."
"And I didn't appreciate it any of the other times," Kate said.
"We did our job with Voightlander and we've been paid in full," J.D. reminded her. "Helping the Hilliards was a bonus, but I don't feel like we owe them any more. If anything—"
She cut him off. "Don't say it ought to be the other way around, all right?"
"We saved their lives, Kate. If that doesn't count as a good deed, what will?"
He felt her cooling down a bit. "You're right, I guess. Nobody's paying us to join another fight between homesteaders and whoever doesn't want them here."
"The army deals with things like that," J.D. replied. "They ought to have a bivouac around here, this being the capital of the Dakota Territory."
Blaze! Night Riders Page 3
