Winter Kill

by Bill Brooks

  So when Cole first felt, then heard the rumble, and jumped from his blankets in time to see a large herd of the shaggy beasts coming directly out of the gray dawn at full charge, bearing straight down on them and the settlement, he thought he was dreaming. Teddy Green and Harve Ledbettor leaped from their blankets, too, their Winchesters at the ready. The people of Nowhere came tumbling out of their shacks, the men carrying their shotguns. The charging herd seemed an implausible sight to behold, and for a full few moments they were all mesmerized by it.

  “Holy shit!” Harve squawked.

  “They’re coming straight for us!” Teddy Green said in disbelief. For the first time, he looked uncertain.

  Cole saw the people of the settlement—the men, the women, and children—and saw destruction and death if the herd continued their course and overran them.

  “Get inside!” Cole shouted. “Get in and stay there!”

  Israel looked at him, his eyes keen, a hard-eyed stare as though their presence, the presence of white men, had brought this misfortune with them.

  “Take your families inside!” Cole yelled.

  “I ain’t never seen nothing like it!” the Kid cawed. “Why, there must be a hundred of them!”

  “More like several thousand,” Cole said. “Mount your ponies and we’ll try and turn them before they reach the settlement.”

  “Huh!”

  “Hell, yes!” Harve shouted. “Like in the old days before Cody killed them all! Hell, yes!” He was the first to run for the horses. “Get inside with the others, Kid, and stay there!” Harve paused to look at Cole, then continued to run for all he was worth.

  “We don’t stand a chance in Hades of turning that herd!” Teddy Green said as he and Cole ran for their mounts.

  “No, but we have to do something or else they’ll run right over us!” Cole insisted.

  They stepped into leather and wheeled the horses about and slapped their flanks with the barrels of their Winchesters. The horses were balky about charging ahead at a thundering herd of buffalo, and who could blame them?

  “Try and shoot the leaders!” Cole shouted. “Come at them from the flank and knock as many down as you can!”

  It was risky business. It was always risky business when you shot buffalo from a galloping horse. One misstep and you were under their hoofs. One quick turn and they had their horns up in your pony’s belly. They were five hundred yards from the settlement and they closed the gap quickly, then swung wide, and came alongside the leaders and commenced firing into them.

  Harve had taken the reins between his teeth and was firing and jacking shells by levering the Winchester with his one hand after every shot. It was an amazing piece of shooting and horsemanship, and anyone who saw it knew he’d hunted buffalo before and knew his business. The roar of the thundering hoofs drowned out the crack of their rifles as they dropped several of the leaders by firing almost point blank into them. You had to shoot them just behind the front shoulder—shooting them in the skull was useless, the bullets would simply bounce off.

  Cole was concentrating hard on one exceptionally large bull that had taken the lead when suddenly his horse stumbled, then caught itself just as he pulled the trigger. His shot struck the bull in his haunch, and in the quickness of a breath he turned suddenly, his horns goring into the ribs of Cole’s mount and just barely missing his leg. The horse went wild with fear and pain; blood spouted in a pulsating stream as the big bull ripped and butted with its horns. Cole felt the horse rear, felt them going over backward, the thundering herd swarming around them, sweat stinging Cole’s eyes, his mouth full of dust. Falling, falling … No time to think, Cole braced himself for the pain of trampling hoofs as he was slammed onto the ground, his pony swept from under him by the goring bull. Cole’s head struck something hard and his world went mercifully black.

  * * * * *

  John Henry Cole awakened to flames of pain in his ribs, back, and right knee. He tried to move and it hurt like hell. Harve and a black woman were leaning over him. The woman had a wet cloth she was pressing to his face.

  “Back from the dead, John Henry … how was it?”

  “Preferable to what I’m feeling being alive,” Cole said, every word like a dagger in his chest. He knew he was going to cough, tried not to, and, when he did, blood flecked the pan he’d grabbed from the nightstand.

  Harve offered a look at the contents, then tried to smile it off. He was dusty and sweaty and so was Teddy Green.

  “We turned them,” Green said. “I don’t know how we did, but we turned them.”

  Cole tried to sit up but it felt like a rockslide on his chest.

  “Busted ribs, pardner,” Harve said.

  “Put a bullet in me,” Cole rasped.

  “You’re lucky all you got was busted ribs,” Teddy Green said. “I once met a man who was struck by lightning on two different occasions and lived to tell about it, but he wasn’t half as lucky as you. I never heard of any man losing his saddle in a herd of charging buffalo who lived to tell about it.”

  “Fell into an arroyo,” Harve said. “That’s what saved you.”

  Lucky, Cole thought. He had been shot and hadn’t felt as badly off.

  “Thing is, John Henry,” Green said, “it’ll be some little time before you can even sit on a horse … and we can’t wait around that long.”

  Cole wanted to argue, to crawl out of the bed and prove Green wrong, but just breathing was pure torture. He cursed silently.

  “We’ll go on ahead, try and catch up to Ella Mims and Tom Feathers,” Harve placated. “We’ll head on to Gonzales and see if we can locate this Feathers ranchero, see if the two are there.”

  Teddy Green shifted his weight and said: “We’re leaving the Kid, too.”

  Cole nodded, too angry and in too much pain to argue.

  “I’ll park this with you,” Harve said, placing a bottle of whiskey on the bed. Then he handed the woman a pair of $20 gold pieces and said it was for Cole’s care and feeding. “Don’t let him get too fat and lazy, miss.”

  They shook hands and Cole heard them ride off.

  “You wants anything, mister?” the woman said.

  “Yeah, some … ribs that ain’t … busted.”

  She looked at him and shook her head before leaving the room.

  The old man, Israel, came into the room and stood at the foot of the bed. “Want to thank you gents for what you did,” he said.

  Cole didn’t want to say what he was thinking, about how he’d maybe traded Ella’s life for theirs by getting himself this stove-up.

  “Least we got our homes left, our garden saved, and plenty of meat to eat,” Israel said. “Guess misfortune brings fortune at times, don’t it?”

  “I don’t see how,” Cole replied.

  Israel smiled knowingly, like he had secrets locked up inside his head only he was privy to. “You’ll see,” he said. “There’s a silver lining in every cloud. You’ll see.”

  “You don’t mind, I’d like to drink about half this whiskey my compadre left me.”

  He nodded his head. “Lottie will take good care of you long as you here,” he said, indicating the woman who’d just left the room. “She’s a dandy cook as well. You up to some sweet buff hump for supper?”

  Cole had had about all the buffalo he could stand for one day. “The whiskey will do me just fine.” It was like he had to squeeze out every word.

  “I’ll look in on you after a time,” he said. “You need anything, you tell Lottie.”

  Cole felt alone and useless. Ella Mims was somewhere on the run and he couldn’t do a thing about it. The world for him at that moment was a very damnable place to be. And as far as silver linings in the clouds—well, all he could see, or think about, were rainstorms. He didn’t know how things could get much worse. But being a fairly sensible man who’d seen his share of mise
ry, he knew that they could, and they probably would.

  He heard the happy laughter of the folks from the settlements as they sallied forth to the killing fields where they’d shot a number of the great beasts—maybe truly the last roving herd of buffalo anywhere on the plains. Taking with them their skinning knives and baskets for the meat, they were about to harvest the shaggy brown manna. Israel and his people’s silver lining, not Cole’s. Cole’s was there in the form of a bottle of expensive whiskey. It seemed a far cry from deliverance.

  Another knock at the door and the Kid ducked his head in.

  “You doing OK, Mister Cole?”

  “What’s it look like?”

  “I guess I must be some sort of bad-luck charm,” he said. “First I join up with the Canadian River boys and they get themselves shot all to pieces, then I join up with you fellers and a dang’ buffalo herd nearly runs us over. You ever heard of anybody with such bad luck?”

  “Just me, Kid.”

  He blinked, half smiled. “Well, I guess I’ll leave you be, go out and help ’em skin some of those buffs. You need anything, you just holler.”

  Cole nodded.

  The Kid closed the door and Cole started looking for that silver lining Israel had spoken of in the bottom of the whiskey bottle.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Later that day, Israel and some of the men came into Cole’s room.

  “We got us enough meat to last the season,” Israel said.

  “You came here to tell me that?”

  Israel offered Cole a benign look. “We need to wrap those ribs, that knee of your’n, too. Looks twisted.”

  “Not in my lifetime.”

  Israel shook his head. “Could be one or two a them ribs is busted clean in two. We don’t wrap ’em, they could stab you in the heart, lungs maybe.”

  “There’s not enough whiskey left in this bottle to kill the pain.”

  He eyed the bottle, nearly gone now. He looked at one of the men, a big, broad-chested man with thick brown arms. “You help lift him, Ezekiel, whilst I cut off his shirt and Lottie wraps his ribs.”

  “Leave me be,” Cole said.

  “’Fraid I can’t.”

  Strong hands lifted Cole as gently as they knew how, but it still hurt like hell and he wanted to bite his tongue off against the pain. It was like being suddenly plunged into ice-cold water. It took what seemed like forever before the woman had Cole’s ribs wrapped sufficiently to suit Israel. And when it was finished, Israel told her to go to work on Cole’s right knee. Cole watched as she split the pants leg up the middle.

  “Fat as a mater,” Israel said. “Best not jump around too much on it.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Cole said through clenched teeth, the sweat stinging his eyes.

  “I’ll have Lottie come later and give you a bath, get some of that dust and blood offen you.”

  “No, thanks … I’ll do my own bathing.”

  Israel looked at Cole as though he had all the sympathy in the world for him. “Best let her do it,” he said. “It won’t hurt half as much.”

  Cole closed his eyes, tired from the pain and with no more energy to argue. He was lying on a featherbed and between it and the whiskey all he felt like doing was closing his eyes, and that’s what he did. He remembered turning once in his sleep and having the pain shoot up through him like bolts of lightning, waking him up, the room black as pitch.

  After that he slept fitfully, on and off, waking when someone would come in the room, waking when someone pressed a cool rag to his face or put water to his lips. He woke completely when he felt his clothes being removed and his skin being bathed. The whiskey had done its job only in part, not completely.

  Finally he came out of the fog and the pain came full bore and he cursed it as hard as he did his bad luck. Lottie came into the room with a plate of mush and buffalo meat.

  “You up to eating?”

  Cole shook his head, no.

  “Israel says best you eat.”

  “Can’t, won’t.”

  She set the plate down on a stand next to the bed, shrugged, turned, and started to leave.

  “Where are my clothes, miss?”

  “Getting warshed.”

  “I had some tobacco, papers, and matches in my shirt pocket.”

  “Right there,” she said, pointing to a small shelf just above his head, then reached and handed them to him. “You want me to fashion you a cigarette?”

  “I can do it.”

  “You sure are an independent and grumpy man.”

  “Thank you,” Cole said, and waited until she had left the room before fumbling with the makings. He couldn’t even roll a smoke.

  He felt something stiff above his left eyebrow, reached a finger, and felt a ridge of dried blood. He knew he must be a sight.

  * * * * *

  It took three precious days for the pain to ease up enough so John Henry Cole could sit on the side of the bed, use the privy without Lottie sliding a chamber pot under him. Israel came in several times a day to check on him.

  “Ribs look good, but that knee looks out of kilt,” he said. “Looks like I might have to set it back in place.”

  “Let’s get it done,” Cole said.

  “You won’t be able to stand it.”

  “Hell, tell me something I don’t know.”

  He took a pouch from his pocket, poured some of its contents—a whitish powder—into a tin cup of water that he took from the nightstand, then swirled it around, and told Cole to drink it.

  “What is it?”

  “Something to put you out of the misery I’m going to cause you.”

  Cole looked at him.

  “Mambuto,” he said. “It’s more powerful than any whiskey or any drug.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “It’s from Africa, where my people come from, handed down. Comes from a certain plant found there. Nothing like it here on the frontier.”

  “You ever had the pleasure?” Cole asked, eyeing the contents. The powder had tinged the water yellow.

  “Not me personal, but I’ve seen it taken.”

  “For what?”

  “Cousin of mine was with us in the Apache campaign and got hisself shot in the nuts.”

  “It helped?”

  “He died, but at least he died without knowing it.”

  “That’s a comfort to know. How do you know it wasn’t the mambuto that killed him and not the getting shot in the nuts?”

  Israel shrugged his shoulders. “Couldn’t say for certain. Least he didn’t die miserable.”

  “I think I’ll pass on the mambuto,” Cole said.

  Israel looked at him, then shook his head. “OK.”

  Then he called in the men and told them to hold Cole down. Cole nearly flew out of bed when Israel’s hands took hold of his knee and began moving it around. Cole drank the mambato and waited. He didn’t have to wait long. A soft hum began inside of his head and his blood felt thick in his veins. Everything seemed to slow down at the same time so that his entire body felt like it was floating off the bed. He tried to say something but couldn’t be sure the words even came out or what they sounded like. The faces of the men above him became distorted. When Israel leaned in close to look at his eyes, Cole saw a green light surrounding the man. The first moments created fear in him, then he felt a deep calm, as peaceful as anything he’d ever experienced. If he was dying, he thought, he welcomed it, surrendered completely to it. He felt a mixture of sadness and joy, of surrender and triumph even as his mouth grew dry as grit and he had trouble swallowing. He floated up to the ceiling and looked down upon the men surrounding his bed. Amazingly he saw himself lying there on the bed and continued to watch as Israel went about manipulating his knee, aligning it, then binding it.

  Cole heard Israel say t
o the others: “For a white man, he’s tough as they come.”

  Then he watched as they left the room before his world went totally black.

  * * * * *

  John Henry Cole awakened to the sound of a harmonica and someone thumping on a guitar. Singing. The shuffling of feet and the clapping of hands. It was dark in the room, and through the only window he could see the night sky flung with stars. There was a flickering yellow light licking at the blackness. Instinctively he moved his right leg and was surprised that he felt no pain in his knee, just a bit of stiffness. The rest of him still hurt like he’d fallen off a cliff. His throat was parched and he reached for the tin cup and the pitcher of water that had been on the nightstand. He fumbled for it, only to knock it to the floor. The music stopped briefly, then started up again. Israel came in, holding a lamp, shined it in his eyes, and said: “You ain’t dead.”

  “I could use a drink,” Cole rasped.

  Israel shone the light on the tin cup, then called some of the men and had them carry Cole outside and place him in a chair. Then he told Lottie to bring Cole some water and something to eat.

  “Last time he wouldn’t eat a thing,” she said.

  “Don’t be quarrelsome, woman, bring this man some victuals.”

  Israel handed Cole a jug and said: “Drink some o’ this.”

  “More mambuto?”

  Israel grinned. “Cider … hard cider.”

  “What’s the occasion?” Cole asked, taking up the jug and watching as couples danced to the music around a huge bonfire.

  “It’s Saturday night,” Israel said. “End of the work week. Tomorrow’s Lord’s Day. But tonight, we celebrate.”

  “Celebrate what?”

  “Lots of things,” he said. “Our freedom, for one. Fact we ain’t all killed or slaves or on the run from the law. Fact we got ourselves a place we can call home. Fact we got plenty o’ meat and a mouth harp and an old guitar and somebody who can play them. You think of any more reasons to celebrate?”