by Doug Thorne
Hearing that. Hennessy’s lips suddenly tightened and the breath caught in his throat. But it was too late now – the damage had been done. Billy, thinking the same thing, threw him a quick, apologetic glance, then glared at the youngster, doubtless thinking the same as Hennessy – that if Masterson knew as much as he thought he knew, he’d have known better than to tell the rest of the hunters that Hennessy was on friendly terms with the men who’d just killed two of their own.
‘Jesus, Dixon,’ rasped another of the assembled hunters, a short, big-bellied man who went by the name of Bermuda Carlisle. ‘You got some strange friends, ain’t you?’
‘Bermuda’s right!’ cried another buffalo hunter, getting to his feet. He was tall and heavy-set, long through leg and arm. He wasn’t much more than forty, but his long, straight hair was already bone-white, his full, curly beard only slightly darker. ‘If you’re so damn’ tight with the Comanches, what you doin’ here, Hennessy?’
Hennessy recognized him as Hank Ketchum, but just in case he hadn’t, Billy was quick to hiss, ‘Don’t tangle with that sonuver, Cal, just step wide around him. He’s strong as an ox an’ mean as a sidewinder.’
As if anxious to prove as much, Ketchum took a couple of unsteady paces into the centre of the room, where a single, weathered ridgepole was doing its best to support the sagging roof. His fists bunching at his sides, he rasped, ‘Best you drag your sorry ass back to your redskin buddies, mister, ’cause it sure as hell ain’t welcome around here!’
He was drunk, or well on the way to being so, and the drink was making him even more belligerent than usual. But Hennessy had the feeling he wouldn’t have been any more sociable, even sober. His longish face was flushed and his green eyes, spiked top and bottom by distinctive white lashes, were glassy and bloodshot. One wrong word, one wrong move, and he’d explode – and all because Masterson hadn’t been able to keep his damn’ mouth shut.
‘I’m not looking for trouble, Hank,’ Hennessy told him. ‘I’ve just come from one fight. I don’t want another. So just back off.’
‘Back off, be damned!’ slurred Ketchum.
He was just about to advance on Hennessy when Mike Welch shoved his own table aside and stomped across the dirt floor to intercept him. Mike was a massive man in every respect, closer to seven feet than six, with wide shoulders and a broad chest, a big belly and calloused hands that were only slightly smaller than shovel-blades. His features were overlarge, too. from the heavy brow that hung above his unreadable black-brown eyes down through the broken strawberry of his nose and on to the thick, unsmiling lips that sat above his lantern jaw. He could have been anywhere between thirty and fifty: with his long black hair and full, unkempt beard, it was virtually impossible to say.
‘Simmer down, Hank,’ advised the giant. ‘Sounds like we got trouble enough as it is, without you causin’ any more.’
Ketchum glanced up at him and curled his lip. ‘Sam Dudley was a friend o’ mine,’ he pointed out. ‘You think I’m gonna welcome a man who breaks bread with the sons who killed him?’
‘That’s not what the boy said.’
‘That’s what it sounded like to me.’
Big Mike glanced around the room. He saw fear and hatred, dread, excitement and uncertainty in the faces ranged before him, and it was, he knew, a dangerous combination. Finally, he turned his attention back to Billy and said in his slow, ponderous way, ‘Comanches declarin’ war, you reckon?’
Billy shrugged grimly. ‘Sure seems like it.’
‘Then we’ll oblige ’em,’ decided Mike, as if it was really that simple. He saw Hennessy open his mouth to speak but pointedly turned away from him and said a little more briskly, ‘Drink up, boys, and call it a day. Seems to me it’ll be clear heads that win this fight, and we’re none of us likely to think straight with too much of Jimmy Hanrahan’s popskull inside us.’
Seeing sense in his words, the other patrons reluctantly drained their glasses and headed for the batwings, muttering to each other about how they were going to teach them Indians a thing or two. Ketchum lingered where he was, still swaying gently, his hooded green eyes fixed on Hennessy. Then, his point made, he headed for the batwings, punched through them and quickly vanished from sight.
Mike Welch waited till he was gone, then crossed over to Billy and the others, leaned his patched elbows on the makeshift counter and fixed Hennessy with a steady look. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I can see you got somethin’ to say. Say it.’
Hennessy sighed. ‘The hell with making a fight of it,’ he replied after a moment. ‘Was I you, I’d just up-stakes and pull out while I still had the chance.’
‘Run, you mean?’
‘Survive,’ corrected Hennessy.
Mike’s dark eyes moved a fraction. ‘What say you, Billy? Don’t set well with me, runnin’ from a scrap.’
Billy reached up and scratched the back of his neck. ‘Me neither, truth be told. We got some good men here. Push comes to shove, I reckon we’d give them Comanches a lickin’.’
‘Damn’ right,’ agreed Masterson.
Ignoring the youngster, Hennessy asked, ‘But why fight if you can avoid it?’ He looked from Billy to Mike. ‘Every buffalo you men cut down makes the Indians hate you that little bit more, and as of today I reckon you’ve cut down a right smart of ’em. So, if Eagle Hand’s right, and this shaman, Isatai, is workin’em up for war, they won’t hold back much longer. They’ll be coming with blood in their eyes and they won’t stop till you’re gone, the lot of you. Any man with a lick of sense’d be someplace else when they come a-killin’.’
Billy made a scornful gesture with one hand. ‘Damn this what’s-his-name, this Isatai!’ he swore. ‘He’s just another red trouble-maker, that’s all, a dream pedlar.’ He shook his head and then, to the surprise of his companions, gave a short laugh. ‘Any case,’ he said, ‘I’ll be damned for sure if I ever get scared of a man whose name translates as “coyote dung”.’
Masterson chuckled at that, for that was indeed what isatai meant in Comanche, but aside from Billy he was the only one.
Looking at his friend, Hennessy observed mildly, ‘Not like you to treat this kind of business so light, Billy.’
‘An’ not like you to take it so serious,’ countered Billy. ‘Was a time when you’d whup your weight in wildcats an’ not give it a second thought.’
‘That was before I saw what they did to Dudley and Williams.’
As Billy’s grin died, Mike Welch crossed his big, beefy arms. ‘Well, I think we’re frettin’ over nothin’,’ he concluded. ‘The Comanches won’t show themselves within a mile of here, an’ I’ll tell you why. In this here stockade, we got cover. Out there they got nothin’! We’ve got handguns an’ saddle-guns, an’ what’s more we’ve got the best of both, an’ we know how to use ’em. All they got is bows an’ lances.’ Using the thick fingers of his left hand to count off the points, he said, ‘We got ammunition, we got food, we got water, an’ above all we got the guts to see ’em off!’
Put that way, an ill-informed man might decide that it was crazy to worry overmuch about the Comanches, to consider them a poor threat at best. But a man who knew his history would also know that those same Comanches had first attacked Adobe Walls a decade earlier, had burned what was then an important trade centre to the ground and made it look easy.
Besides, Hennessy reminded himself, there was also the Sun Dance to consider.
Although this annual, eight-day religious ceremony was practised by a number of tribes, from the Arapaho and Cree to the Ojibway and Shoshone, this year would mark the first time it had ever been held by the Comanches. Rituals varied from tribe to tribe, but essentially the Sun Dance was an opportunity for the Indians to set their differences aside and pay tribute to the buffalo, their giver of life.
Hennessy felt that his companions were overlooking the potentially worrying significance of the Comanches’ sudden desire to take part. The way he saw it, the Sun Dance would be an ideal platform from
which they might gain the support of the other tribes, to recruit or otherwise draw them together into one unyielding army united in its hatred of the white man. God knew, the Comanches were a fearsome enough enemy by themselves. But what if you added the Kiowa to their number, the Arapaho, the Cheyenne and others?
Looking into Mike’s face, however, into Billy’s and those of Masterson and Sheppard, he could see little sense in arguing the point. Their minds were already made up. If it came to a fight at all, they’d fight, simple as that. The only trouble was that, when they were all through fighting, they’d start dying, one after the other, and by then there’d be no stopping it.
‘Well, you men got to do what you reckon’s right,’ he said tiredly.
‘That we have,’ agreed Mike.
The matter settled – at least as far as he was concerned – the big man nodded ‘so long’ to the barkeep, Jimmy Hanrahan, then pushed himself away from the bar and headed for the batwings, his movements as slow and measured as ever.
Masterson elbowed Oscar Sheppard in the side and said eagerly, ‘Come on. Let’s go see what the fellers’re fixin’ to do.’
As they left, Hennessy shook his head and murmured, ‘Lord protect me from greenhorns.’
Billy raised his eyebrows. ‘Masterson, you mean?’ he asked. ‘He’s just a kid, I’ll grant you, but he’s got bark on him, Cal. Came to Dodge just ahead of the railroad a couple years back, got hisself a job layin’ track, then decided to try makin’ his fortune at buffalo huntin’ instead. So don’t underestimate him. He’s all stay an’ no quit. You, though….’
His voice trailed off.
‘Me…?’ prodded Hennessy.
‘You’ve changed,’ Billy said, almost grudgingly. ‘You used to be one of us, Cal, a hide man an’ proud of it. But not any more. Lookin’ at you now, I’m not even sure whose side you are on. Way you act, a man’d think it’s wrong to make a livin’ off the buffalo.’
‘Maybe it is,’ Hennessy replied. ‘Maybe I see that now, Billy. Maybe I see that a lot of innocent folks, red and white, are gonna die because of what we’ve done in the last five-six years.’
‘Well,’ opined Billy, ‘you won’t be one of ’em, that’s for sure. You’ve already made your choice. You’ll be ridin’ on, I ’spect.’
Hennessy nodded. ‘First light tomorrow,’ he confirmed.
‘Then we best get you somethin’ to eat,’ Billy decided. ‘An’ then I’ll take you over to the barracks an’ find you a bunk for the night. There’s two empties that I know of.’ And here he shook his head sadly. ‘It’s for sure that Dudley an’ Williams won’t have no more use for ’em.’
THREE
Hennessy untied his horse and followed Billy past Tom O’Keefe’s smithy and on to the larger of the two hide yards. A stable owned by two Dodge City businessmen named Myers and Leonard had been built against the yard’s rear wall, and it was here that Hennessy stowed his gear and made arrangements for the gelding’s care.
That done, they headed for the small mess hall next door, which was also owned by Myers and Leonard but run by a married couple name of Olds. William Olds, a chunky man in his late forties, was lighting kerosene lanterns against the coming dusk as they let themselves inside. He wore a creased apron to protect his grey pants and collarless white shirt, but the way Billy told it, it was Olds’s wife, a fat woman some older than him, who did all the cooking. According to Billy, she was pretty good at it, too.
They ordered bowls of buffalo stew and when it came, ate largely in silence. At first they had the eatery to themselves, but gradually hungry hide men began arriving in twos and threes, most of them pausing to throw Hennessy a suspicious or otherwise hostile glance before pointedly finding themselves table space as far away as they could get.
Ignoring them, Hennessy concentrated on simply taking the pleats out of his stomach, but couldn’t help thinking about what Billy had said earlier. He’d been right, of course: Hennessy had changed, and that change, however it had come about, had erected some kind of invisible barrier between them.
Furthermore, now that he really thought about it, his desire to get drunk, swap news and remember the old days seemed almost ridiculous in its naïveté, for no matter how much he might want to, it wasn’t always possible for a man to go back and recapture earlier, happier times. Once you started notching up the years, riding different trails and meeting different people with different points of view, life became a sight more complicated than it ever was when you were a know-nothing kid like Masterson, and realizing that now left Hennessy feeling more than a mite dismayed.
When they were done eating, Mrs Olds fetched coffee in a blue enamel pot. She had iron-grey hair knotted behind her head and dark, kind eyes, but because of her size she could only move with effort and her breathing was constantly laboured. As she poured the brew, she wheezed worriedly, ‘Is it true what we been hearin’, Mr Dixon? That the Comanches’re spoilin’ for a fight?’
Billy shrugged. ‘Looks that way. But if they’re fixin’ to mix it up with us, they’ll find they’ve bitten off more’n they can chew.’
‘I hope so.’
Olds himself stopped wiping down rough plank tables and came over to join them. ‘There’s talk that they’ve already killed two men,’ he said.
‘They have,’ Billy confirmed with a nod. ‘Sam Dudley an’ B. J. Williams. But it’s like you said – they was jus’ two men, an’ they was outnumbered by about four to one. The Comanches hit ’em out where there weren’t no cover, took ’em by surprise an’ didn’t give ’em a chance. But things’ll be different if they come out this way. They’ll know they’ve been in a fight then.’
Mrs Olds shuddered at the prospect and her husband gave her a comforting squeeze. ‘Now, don’t take on so,’ he murmured solicitously. ‘You heard what Mr Dixon jus’ said. There’s nothing to worry about.’
The woman looked a little less than convinced as she turned and waddled back towards the kitchen, and Hennessy couldn’t say that he blamed her.
It had been a long day, he was tired and his earlier fight with Tahkay had left him feeling stiff and sore. Seeing as much for himself, Billy put some coins on the table and suggested they go get him settled in for the night.
As they headed for a long, sod-built structure on the far side of the hide yard, which had been turned into a rough and ready barracks and common room by Adobe Walls’s new occupants, the westering sun just started dropping behind the jagged caprock escarpments that fringed this desert country and isolated it from the land beyond. In the deepening grey-red gloom the serrated peaks were a hazy lavender, the craggy shadows with which they were seamed and scored a much darker purple.
Billy took him into the barracks, lit a lamp and then gestured towards the far end of the room, where the plain truckle beds formerly occupied by the two dead men were situated. ‘Take your pick,’ he invited.
‘Thanks.’
But Billy was already turning away. ‘See me before you leave tomorrow,’ he said, and left the room without another word.
Hennessy watched him go. Billy’s manner wasn’t cool, exactly, just somehow … disappointed, and that gave him the feeling that the last year or so had changed him even more than he knew, that he really was a stranger now to these men and this way of life.
He glanced around the room. He’d slept in worse places over the years, but not by much. The room stank of sweat and urine, and the bunks were packed so tight that a man could hardly squeeze between them to reach his own billet. In a vain attempt to make the place more hospitable, someone had driven hooks and nails into the crudely whitewashed walls at irregular intervals, so that its occupants could hang their shirts and pants up before they went to bed – when they bothered to strip for bed at all, that was.
Hennessy made his choice of cots, took off his gunbelt, rolled it and stuffed it underneath his pillow. Then, tilting his hat down over his face, he stretched out, still favouring his bruises, and waited for sleep.
It d
idn’t come. Instead he saw Eagle Hand’s angry face again, saw in the Comanche’s dark eyes his absolute, unquestioning belief in Isatai’s half-baked prophecies. He saw again what was left of Dudley and Williams, remembered the metallic stench of their blood in the overheated air and—
Thirty minutes later he sat up again, knowing that tired and achy though he was, sleep wasn’t going to come any time soon. He listened to the sounds of revelry coming from the saloon, to the noises men made coming and going as if Dudley and Williams had never existed, and shook his head. It seemed that his warning about trouble with the Indians, and Mike Welch’s suggestion that they go easy on Jimmy Hanrahan’s popskull in order to keep clear heads, had already been forgotten.
He stood up and went outside to get some fresh air. It was full dark now, the scattering of adobes, the tall stacks of buffalo hides and a few parked wagons all sketched silver in the rising moonlight. Immediately he became aware of unseen eyes and glanced up at the watchtower, where a slightly more observant hide man had taken over from his spectacle-wearing companion. Hennessy waved up at him: the hide man barely nodded an acknowledgement.
Thinking back over the events of the day, Hennessy headed north-west on a course that led him behind the smithy and saloon towards the privy, where he took the pressure off his kidneys. He was just starting back towards the hide yard when it happened.
The first he knew was a sudden, low scuffing behind him: someone coming at him in a rush. A split second later something large – a man – slammed into him, caught him a short, sharp punch in the small of the back and sent him crashing forward and down.
He hit the ground on his stomach, the impact waking fresh pain in his already bruised body, but he forced himself to ignore it and quickly rolled to the left, just narrowly avoiding the heavy stamp of a boot that would otherwise have snapped his ribs for sure.
He rolled again, determined to put distance between himself and his attacker, and as he came up onto his knees about a dozen feet away he made out a dim silhouette in the darkness, a tall, heavy-set man in buckskins, with long hair and a full, curly beard.
