by J. R. WRIGHT
Finding a can of powder among his things, he charged the flash pans of both weapons. He would fire them into the ground behind the livery when he returned from taking Jake’s body to the undertaker.
Just then, Harmon Quinn came into the livery, followed closely by Rosa. They seemed wrought up about something.
“You’d best get out of here, Pierre! Hans is on the warpath. He was telling over at the saloon he plans to kill you for walking out on him. I just saw him heading up Second Street a moment ago.”
“Sonofabitch!” Pierre ran from the rear door of the livery and turned up the alley, still gripping the 50-caliber flintlock rifle he had in his hand.
When entering through the rear door of Nellie’s, he heard her frantic shouts and went directly for the stairs. Taking them two at a time, he arrived in Breanne’s room just in time to see Hans slap Nellie to the floor and hear Breanne scream as best she could through the wired teeth.
“Now I’ll finish what I started with you, bitch!” Hans went for Breanne on the bed.
“Hans!” Pierre yelled.
Hans paused and turned drunkenly to face him. Pierre, in turn, leveled the rifle at Hans.
“So there you are, you French bastard. Nobody walks out on Hans Hunzinger and lives to brag about it!”
He then charged at Pierre like a crazed bear.
Having no time to think, Pierre fired. The flash pan sizzled, but the load in the rifle only puffed un-dramatically. With that, a huge cloud of white, pungent smelling smoke instantly filled the room, making it impossible to see anything. Pierre moved to the side and felt Nellie come up behind him.
Within seconds the smoke cleared enough for all to see Hans was no longer in the room. Nellie rushed to Breanne while Pierre went to the hallway, where he spotted Hans exiting through the front door below, still open from his stormy entrance minutes ago.
Pierre sat the rifle aside and hurried down the stairs in pursuit of him. When he got to the door, he saw Hans, zombielike, crossing the street. A team and wagon, going fast, swerved and barely missed him. Once across the street, he staggered up the alley. It seemed clear to Pierre he was, by sheer habit, heading for the rear entrance to the Blue Bear. He waited for a few minutes and saw him do just that, and enter through the kitchen door.
Back inside, Nellie met him near the door.
“Is he okay?” she said, not from concern for Hans, but for any repercussions this may have for Pierre. “I found this.”
She handed him a fifty caliber slug about the size of a marble. It had fresh blood on it.
“He made it back to the saloon,” Pierre said.
“Good. Where do you suppose he was hit?”
“Head! Had there been fresh powder in her, he’d be dead, blown his head near clean off, I reckon.”
“Don’t talk of such things!” Nellie scolded.
Just then a noise at the top of the stairs caused them both to look up. It was Breanne at the railing above, very unsteady on her feet.
“Mercy!” Nellie said.
The two of them raced up the steps and soon had her back in bed.
“The bad man is gone, honey,” Nellie consoled. “He won’t be back.” She hoped.
Back at the livery, Pierre noticed his things had all been put into the storage room and the cart was gone. He went to the front where he saw Rosa and Quinn trying to wrestle Jake’s body into the cart. People were standing around watching, but not a one of them offered a helping hand. ‘What has become of people?’ Pierre fretted, and he went to help Rosa with the legs while Quinn had Jake under the arms. Soon they were underway, the three of them toting the cart down the street in front of solemn onlookers. It was the closest Jake Brumond would ever come to a funeral procession. He was put under that evening with only three mourners at the brief ceremony: Pierre, Rosa and Quinn. Nellie wanted to go, but didn’t dare leave Breanne, who was in an agitated state after the ordeal with Hans.
CHAPTER EIGHT
It was a little over a week later when Jeb Dunlap showed back up at the livery with his two deputies in tow, as usual.
“You got some gall showing up here after what you done to my Pa,” Rosa said to the three of them as they rode up.
“It’s Luke McKinney we’re after,” Dunlap said. “There was some that saw him leave here on a bay horse the day that Cajun gal was killed. I was just wondering if you might know where he was off to?”
“I don’t know anything about it. I wasn’t here, remember?” Rosa said.
“Thought maybe somebody might know what farms up river he was in a habit of visiting on his outings from the Blue Bear. Hans had a list, but we have visited those. Seems Luke may have made some new friends, perhaps further out. Leastwise, that’s what we’re being told by some who saw him on the trail.”
“You killed the only man who would know that,” Rosa said smartly. “Now, if you don’t mind, I have work to do.”
“If you hear of where McKinney has gone, ma’am, you best let us know. It will be awful hard on you if we find out you’ve been holding out on us,” Jeb threatened.
“What will you do? Kill me too, Jeb?” She squinted up at him.
“Just remember what I said.” He reined the horse aside and rode away, his deputies following close behind.
Pierre, who had, when Dunlap arrived, been mucking out a stall inside for lack of anything better to do, now came out of hiding.
“What did he want?”
“He’s still looking for Luke. Where is he anyway? You never did tell me.”
“He’s…” Pierre was about to tell a lie.
“Never mind! I really don’t want to know, as long as I get my horse back.”
“That you will,” Pierre said, relieved she hadn’t pressed him.
“Did he happen to say how Hans was?”
“No. But Quinn, when he was over there yesterday for a beer, noticed Hans had a bandage on his head. He was acting a bit stupid like somebody had beat up on him for a change. Why?”
“Just wondering,” Pierre passed it off. “Guess I’d best go pick up them rifles I took to Sam Hawken. It’s been about a week.” He put the pitchfork aside and headed off down the street in a hurried walk.
It wasn’t only the guns he went for, it was also the two young mules and fairly new covered Murphy wagon out back of his shop. Sam Hawken had taken the rig and mules in on trade from a disgruntled traveler for some rifles. He had them up for sale at a reasonable price. Pierre had committed to buying the rig in a week or so. But there was an urgency to do it sooner now. If Jeb Dunlap was still searching for Luke, more than likely at the insistence of Hans, then Pierre best get a move on. He had a plan and hoped Luke would be agreeable to it once he arrived at the Nelson farm.
After putting the mules away at the livery, Pierre began loading the wagon with his and Luke’s things. Breanne’s belongings were set aside. He would take them over to Nellie’s when finished here. Luke would be angry when he showed up without her, no doubt. But due to the urgency, he felt she was just too weak yet for travel, at least the distance he wished to go.
He loaded the two rifles with fresh powder he had purchased that very day, and wrapped each in a blanket and shoved them under the canvas on top of the load. One was a fifty caliber and the other an experimental eighty caliber Hawken had made years ago. That one could be loaded with a super slug for bear or buffalo, or with buck shot and fired as a shotgun for smaller game. The gun never got off the ground, but Pierre liked it for its versatility and wouldn’t part with it for the world.
It was near dark when Pierre entered Breanne’s room with her bag of possessions. He could see her wide eyes on him in the faint light.
Breanne had improved to the point that she could move about the room unassisted, even though she was weak. Her injuries, other than the jaw, had greatly healed, leaving little evidence of damage. Thus far she had existed solely on broth, and it showed. She had been slim before, but now she was bone skinny. Nellie had taken note of her condition
, however, and was now giving her solid foods chopped fine so Breanne could force it through the gap left by the missing tooth at the side of her mouth. Nellie also served her thin puddings and plenty of milk.
“You’re going without me, aren’t you?” She glared, hissing the words through the wired teeth.
“It Luke’s safety we need to be concerned about. Hans has that fool Jeb Dunlap scouring the countryside looking for him. It’ll only be a matter of time before they turn him up, if I don’t get to him first. You understand, don’t you?”
Breanne nodded yes, but her eyes told a different story. It wasn’t long before her glaring eyes began to water and huge tears began rolling down her cheeks.
With that, Pierre humbly turned away and left the room.
Back at the livery, Harmon Quinn gave Pierre a hand at harnessing the mules, after having reshod them that day. Once the team was hitched to the wagon and tied up at the rail out back, the two of them worked at filling ten two-bushel burlap bags with oats for the mules and lacing them tight. It would be enough for a long trip lasting several weeks. However, after seeing Breanne so distraught, he felt badly about leaving so soon, before she was strong enough to travel. Perhaps he should go on and alert Luke, then return in a week or so to get Breanne. He could borrow another horse from Rosa…
His thoughts were interrupted when the big doors in front of the barn came slamming shut. One glance saw that it was Hans who had done it. He was now going for a pitchfork from a rack midway in the barn.
“Now you hold on there,” Quinn said and moved toward him.
Harmon was no small man, but he in no way measured up to the size of Hans Hunzinger.
“Get out of my way, Quinn!” Hans yelled. “It’s that Frenchman I’m after!”
“You’ll need to go through me,” Quinn said and gathered a pitchfork of his own.
Pierre reached up on the wagon and pulled a blanket wrapped rifle from the load. It just so happened he got ahold of the eighty caliber loaded with a slug as big as a choke cherry.
“Hold it right there,” Pierre shouted and leveled the rifle at him.
“It just come to me you was the one that shot me, before. What makes you think you can get the job done this time, old man?” He doubled back to throw the fork at Pierre.
The thundering blast of the big bore rattled the walls, and a wound the size of a fist opened in Hans’ midsection. There was no doubt this time he would die, but for now he lay on the floor wide eyed, gripping his stomach.
“You just did the town a huge favor, little man,” Quinn said, walking up to him.
“What’ll we do now?” Pierre said, noticeably shaken.
“Help me hitch up my wagon. We’ll cover him with hay, and I’ll take him upriver and dump him later on, when everybody has gone off to bed. They’ll never know who done it.”
The two of them hurried and within a half hour had the wagon tied up out back, Hans’ dead body safely hidden under a half ton of hay.
Good thing it was late, and nobody was about when the big bore thundered, or surely they would have drawn a crowd. Now, however, Pierre had more to think about. No way would he dare come back for Breanne now. That left only one alternative: take her now, and hope she was up to the journey. He whipped up the mules and headed up the alley toward Nellie’s.
Nellie came to his room while he was gathering the last of his things.
“Pierre LeBlanc, what have you done to that poor girl? She’s been bawling her eyes out ever since you left.”
“She needn’t cry anymore. I’m taking her with me.”
“Where to…?”
“To meet up with Luke.”
“Where is he?”
“A half day’s travel up river.”
“I don’t think she’s up to that,” Nellie said, confused.
“Best decide, ‘cause I’m leaving here in an hour. There’s something I have to do, then I’ll be back. Have her ready if she’s going. If not, I don’t know when I can come back for her.” He went out the door with his arms full of blankets, buckskin outfits, and a buffalo robe.
At the Blue Bear it was dark in the kitchen. Otherwise, it was business as usual. The piano played loudly, glasses clinked, whores screamed, and men laughed. They wouldn’t miss Hans for a while, Pierre thought as he slipped in through the rear door. He went to the back counter, lighted a lamp, and ducked below it.
Studying the safe briefly, he began turning the dial. Pierre had watched Hans open it so many times he knew the combination by heart. Inside he found what he was looking for. It was a small wooden box. He opened it to see if the contents had remained intact all these years. It was all there, except for the money. Pierre knew how much was missing and counted it off the top of one of the many stacks of gold coins and placed it in the box. While he was at it, he took what was due him. Hans had never paid him his promised wage. He had held back great sums over the years, only doling out what necessary to cover his meager needs, promising each time to settle up some day. That day never came. Pierre suspected Hans planned to keep it after his eventual death, even though he’d promised to pass it on to Luke when his time came. In total, it came to twelve hundred dollars, more or less. That left an estimated five thousand dollars still in the safe for somebody, even though Hans had no known relatives, in this country at least. Pierre put the box and his gold in a flour sack and pulled the safe door almost closed before reaching in for another hand full of gold. That would be for Breanne, for all the hell he had dealt her. And another for Luke, for what he had done to his mother. Ah, hell, one more for good measure.
With another bag, Pierre went to the ice room. To his surprise no one had bothered to take anything from his special meats box in his absence, but then, he had covered it with ice before he left, hiding it from view. Before long he had all the ham, bacon, smoked fish, and sausage he could carry.
Back at Nellie’s he found her and Breanne waiting on the back steps. Even from a distance he could see the smile on Breanne’s face. And why not? She was going off on an exciting adventure to be with her hero, perhaps forever.
CHAPTER NINE
Taking it slowly, the trip to the Nelson farm took the remainder of the night. They arrived without a hitch shortly before daybreak. Breanne had spent most of the trip on a makeshift bed Pierre had made up for her atop the bags of oats in the back. However, when Pierre was certain they were approaching their destination, he called back, and she crawled forward and took up a position next to him on the seat. Again, she was all smiles, even though the trip had been painful. All the shifting and jarring had forced her to take several sips from the laudanum bottle that Nellie made sure she had with her.
When they entered the yard, three barking dogs came on a run to greet them and yipped at the wheels of the wagon all the way to the house.
“Who goes there?” A gruff voice came from inside the part log, part frame two story house.
“If this be the Nelson farm, then might you have Luke McKinney about?” Pierre asked.
“Don’t know that name,” the voice sounded again. “Best move on now!”
“It’s alright, Tom,” Luke shouted as he came walking up from the barn.
With that, Breanne began squealing through her teeth. Her arms shot out to be received by Luke when he arrived on a run. He took her gently from the wagon, and for the first time, planted a kiss on her cheek.
“I missed you,” he managed to say.
“Me too,” she hissed between her teeth.
“Pierre…” Luke looked up to him in the faint light, still sitting on the wagon, reins in hand.
“Jake’s dead.” Pierre couldn’t wait to get it out. “Dunlap’s bunch done it.”
“Jake...?”
Then, before Luke had a chance to absorb that, Pierre said, “Hans too…”
“Hans is dead…?”
“Yep, I kilt him with the big bore.”
This was also news to Breanne, who let out a faint gasp when she heard it. Her kn
ees started to buckle. Luke, who still gently embraced her, scooped her into his arms to prevent her falling.
“Howdy,” Tom Nelson, a graying middle aged man, said coming from the house. “Effie says you ought to bring the lady in, Luke.”
Confused and agitated by the disturbing news, Luke carried Breanne into the house, ducking under the low door opening as he entered.
“I’ll have some breakfast on once I get a fire,” Effie, a small, rather plump woman, said as she added small pieces of wood to the shallow coals in the range. “So this is the young lady we’ve heard so much about. Pleased to finally meet you, Breanne.”
“Hello,” Breanne squeezed out with a smile.
“My, those wires must be awful uncomfortable?”
Not ready for small talk after hearing Jake’s fate, Luke carried Breanne to a chair at the table in the center of the small room and sat her down. He then went directly back outside, feeling her eyes following him as he went.
Glad to see he was returning, Pierre climbed down from the wagon and swiftly went to him.
“We shouldn’t linger. Jeb Dunlap has been up in this area looking for you.”
“He was here,” Luke said. “I was down creek on the bay and saw them coming. We hid out in the breaks yonder until they left. Tom and Effie had enough sense not to let on.”
“He’ll be back,” Pierre said sternly. “Once they find Hans dead, and Jeb sees me missing, it won’t take him long to put us in the same teepee.”
“How’s it happen that you shot Hans?”
“He had his back up because I walked out on him. Came at me with a pitchfork.”
“And nobody saw it?”
“Just Quinn. It happened at Jake’s last night.”
“I just wish I would have been there to do it myself.”
