Sudden Country

by Loren D. Estleman

  At first I thought it was a patch of moonlight on the forehead of Wedlock’s sorrel Nicodemus, but upon investigating I found that it was fixed in place. I had not noticed it in all the time the horse was tied to the back of the chuck wagon during our trek through Wyoming. Suspecting a bird passing overhead, I licked my thumb and rubbed at the spot. Nicodemus flinched–as did I, for the thumb came away streaked not with white, but with the reddish brown of the stallion’s coat.

  Curious, I plucked a handful of grass damp with evening dew and scrubbed at the animal’s forehead, clutching its mane to prevent it from shying. Slowly the dark color came off. I stepped back, dropping the stained grass. A chill gnawed at my vitals. Before me was the blaze-face horse belonging to the one-eyed man who had superintended the murder of Jotham Flynn.

  Chapter12

  WHAT I HEARD

  I had scarcely time to digest this revelation when the sound of approaching voices alerted me to my own danger. To be discovered staring at the awful evidence would have been fatal; for among those voices I heard the bantering, storytelling tones of Ben Wedlock. Without thinking I scrambled down the other side of the ridge. In the shadow of the hill my foot found the burrow of some small animal and I fell headlong into the tall grass, emptying my lungs and stunning myself momentarily. The horses, unsettled by so much unexplained movement, stamped and snorted and tugged at their pickets.

  “Here, what’s with the horses?” I recognized Mike McPhee’s brogue.

  “Eyes open,” Wedlock admonished. “Horses draw injuns like gnats.”

  Yellow light came over the ridge in a counterfeit dawn. Flattening myself further–I was stretched out on my stomach now-I saw the Irishman’s profile on the crest with lantern raised. He passed it around in a wide arc, startling the horses into fresh transports. I buried my face and felt the light sliding over my back. Finally he lowered it. “Nothing.”

  “Varmint.” The single word belonged to Christopher Agnes. “They’re what snakes was invented for.”

  “Go on, Black Ben. You was at St. Louis.”

  “Mind that!” snapped McPhee.

  “Aw, that Bible-banging old bastard won’t hear us up here.”

  I could not place this voice, and decided it belonged to one of the young men who had joined us in Cheyenne.

  Wedlock said, “Just the same, call me Ben. Well, St. Louis. We dropped a tree across the tracks and when she stopped, Pike and me boarded and throwed down on the engineer and brakeman. Beacher was riding the cars and had the conductor pinned back by that time. Then Bloody Bill come up with Flynn and the rest. The eye was my doing. When the shooting commenced I lost concentration and that engineer jerked this old knuckle-duster out of his back pocket and let fly at my face. It was the powder flash done it; the ball had fell out if it was ever in or I wouldn’t be here jabbering. I reckon I done for that engineer while I was still howling.

  “I wasn’t good for much after that, though I got mounted and made it to our first camp. It was Bloody Bill told me he couldn’t stop to see I was took care of; said Shelby’d be along directly and his sawbones’d fix me up proper. Well, we both knowed he was lying in his whiskers, but I reckon I looked not long for this here world or he’d of put a ball through my other eye to keep me from talking to the bluebellies.”

  “What happened?”

  I was struck by the thought that the young man from Cheyenne sounded much like me.

  Christopher Agnes said, “He died.”

  “Stop funning the boy. It was the Yanks found me. Told ‘em I was with Shelby or they’d of hung me on the spot to save powder. I was halfway to Elmira with a patch on my eye by the time they worked it out, if they ever did.”

  “You spent the rest of the war in prison?”

  “Busted out when I was up for it and hiked back. Took me six months. By the time I caught up with Pike and Beacher and the rest Bloody Bill was dead. Flynn had lit out and it wasn’t till the shooting stopped on both sides we put together what became of the gold. When that paymaster Peckler turned up dead in Amarillo and Flynn got sent to Huntsville we knowed for sure. That’s when I set up shop in Amarillo; if there was a way to that gold, there’s where it’d start. Mind, if I knowed it’d take twenty years I’d of found a better one. Ah, but then I would never of hitched up with you, Tom. You’re wise beyond your years and hang the rat that says different. I’ve ridden with men twice your age didn’t have half your brains.”

  I felt ill to hear him plying another young man with these familiar words. However, I had not the opportunity for self-pity because of the turn the conversation took at that point.

  “Who’s with us?” Wedlock inquired.

  “Just Tom here in that Cheyenne crowd,” said McPhee. “They’re older and the straight wages look sweet to them. But Blackwater’s adjusting their case. We might be obliged to help one or two along to judgment and then the rest will see their way clear enough.”

  Wedlock said, “The Deacon’s lost to us for sure. Every time I lay eyes on him I see him walking the row at Elmira sticking Jesus through the bars. What about Sampson?”

  McPhee made a noise of Celtic contempt. “When Hecate buys the farm, expect the Elder to wait by the rock three days. He don’t wring out his own mop but that the Deacon gives him leave.”

  “He sleeps under that wagon,” Christopher Agnes added. “Blod sleeps harder than harsh justice inside but there’s no getting the guns without stirring up Elder Sampson.”

  “There’s hazards out here. That jackass of his could put her foot wrong any day and pitch him headwise into a rock.”

  Wedlock delivered this pronouncement over a yawn. I felt a chill that had little to do with the damp grass upon which I lay.

  “Where’s Pike and Beacher?” McPhee asked. “I calculated they’d be here before this.”

  “Trailing, like I told them.” The saloonkeeper yawned again. “We’re laying ruts a Yankee clerk could follow. They’ll be here come the time. Don’t waste your water worrying over it till then.”

  “When is the time?”

  “Possess your soul in patience, Tom. Let Knox and Blod find the gold first. There’s no sense in us doing the work, with them so eager.”

  “What then?”

  Christopher Agnes cackled. “I get the Deacon. Let me punch in his skull with my stick and you can split the schoolteacher and Judge Moldy Toe ‘twixt you.”

  “The boy too?” asked Tom.

  “Leave the boy to me,” Wedlock said.

  “Ben, look here.”

  Something in McPhee’s tone, coming on top of the other’s ominous statement, made me shrink closer to the earth. Figures moved in the lantern light at the top of the ridge. I smelled Wedlock’s pipe.

  He cursed. “Red Hannah swore to me the stuff would hold in a Missouri rainstorm. Tom, go down and fetch me that black pot from my wagon, the one with the cover.”

  Footsteps retreated in the direction of camp.

  “Someone’s wiped it off deliberate,” McPhee said. “Where’s the nigger?”

  They had discovered the sorrel’s exposed blaze. My heart began to bang.

  “Down having his supper. He didn’t do it.” Wedlock sounded thoughtful. “It sweated off. We’ll have to watch for that. Damn Hannah.”

  “It couldn’t all sweat off.”

  “Know the stuff, do you?”

  McPhee did not respond. “If you changed horses we wouldn’t be worrying over it.”

  “You’d not say that if you saw Nicodemus on the flat. I’m standing here now on account of he won’t be beat.

  And the boy saw the blaze the night Flynn bought the farm.”

  “You might could sell the boy a piece of it,” Christopher Agnes suggested.

  “We kill him now we tip our hand. Besides, they’ve all seen the horse without a blaze. We’ll just have to watch for it like I said.”

  “I say someone wiped it off.” McPhee took two steps down my side of the ridge and lifted the lantern. The light swung
my way.

  “Lower that,” Wedlock said. “You want the whole camp up here?”

  The edge of the light touched my hand, wavered. I was tensed to spring up and flee.

  “Is this what you wanted?” It was, Tom’s voice. “There’s the boy,” Wedlock said. “Hang on to it while I smear it on. Mike, the light.”

  The light was withdrawn. My hand felt cooler.

  No one spoke after that, although I heard Ben Wedlock humming “I’m a Good Old Rebel” as he covered the blaze with red hair dye. I took advantage of their concentration to crawl backward to the bottom of the ridge. There I rose in darkness and started off around to where I had left Mr. Knox and the others. I was shivering with shame and betrayal.

  Chapter13

  WE DRAFT A PLAN

  “I knew it, under God!” As he said this, Deacon Hecate smacked his left palm with his right fist, producing a sound not unlike a crack of wrathful thunder. “Did I not say I remembered him from New York? That face stood out even among Elmira’s Godless!”

  Judge Blod, looking repentant, had joined the group at Mr. Knox’s wagon. “I must assume responsibility. It was I who found Wedlock and pressed for his inclusion. I above all should recognize a desperado when I see one.”

  “We were all fooled. And I rather think it was Wedlock who found you. He is cleverer than he appears.” Mr. Knox was calculating. “He has managed to stack this expedition with his fellow guerrillas and to seduce one of the Deacon’s volunteers under our very noses. It is no wonder that Bloody Bill found him indispensable.”

  “Thief and murderer,” said the Judge. “And very near Mephistopheles to Master Grayle’s Faust.”

  “More accurately, the swan to David’s Leda. I think that even the Deacon will agree that David’s soul is firmly in his body’s keeping.”

  “He was my friend, I thought.” It shames me to relate that I was very near to tears.

  Mr. Knox laid a hand upon my shoulder. “You have had a hard lesson. Some men will assume any guise in order to fulfill their greed.”

  “Now you will tell me what we are about.” The Deacon’s graven countenance belonged to a vengeful angel. “Killers and brigands do not plot for honest gold.”

  “There is little point in maintaining the secret.” Judge Blod told him of the train robbery, of Flynn’s death, and of the Yankee bullion hidden in the Black Hills. For illustration he bade me produce the map. The Deacon glowered over it.

  “I shall keep this. It is all that stands between us and the fate these cutthroats have in store for the honest men of this expedition.”

  Mr. Knox said, “It is better left with David. Wedlock would not expect it to be in a mere boy’s possession.”

  After a moment, the Deacon returned it to me. “A child shall lead them.”

  “We cannot turn back without forcing a fight. Meanwhile we remain in their clutches,” said the Judge. “One of us must ride back and fetch Rudeen’s column.”

  “I will!” I was eager to redeem myself.

  “He said that we were on our own when he left us,” Mr. Knox reminded him. “You know the man. Would he disobey orders to help a friend?”

  “No.” The Judge was solemn. “He is too much the good soldier for that. However, in the absence of alternatives it seems worth the attempt.”

  Mr. Knox shook his head. “It would leave us short a man–or a boy. Whoever we sent, the guerrillas would be bound to notice his absence and start the show.”

  “So much the better. If we send the boy, we will still be eight and they are seven. And we have access to the weapons.”

  “You forget Pike and Beacher, who will certainly come up to join their confederates at the sound of a battle. We cannot assume the cooperation of the four men from Cheyenne whom Wedlock has not reached, after having kept them in the dark so long about the nature of this excursion. For which I accept my share of the blame,” Mr. Knox added. “Also, the Deacon has already postulated the existence of hideout guns among the party.”

  “We are in a fair fix.” Judge Blod looked old and frail.

  The schoolmaster did not. “We have not considered the obvious.”

  “No!” barked Deacon Hecate, whose brain was working faster than either the Judge’s or mine.

  “Hear me out. If gold can buy the support of the men from Cheyenne for the guerrillas, it can as well buy it for us. But we must work fast. Many a war has been decided by such businesslike methods.”

  “And many a soul lost.” In his righteous wrath, the Deacon appeared younger–yet far older; as old as the bedrock upon which the Black Hills stood–than Judge Blod. “I shall not proposition loyalty.”

  “Wedlock will if we do not, depend upon it. His kind is not bound by laws or Scripture.”

  “The Apocalypse is upon us,” snarled the other. Plainly, he had surrendered the point.

  “Wedlock’s delay has given us grace.” Mr. Knox did not pause to mourn the demise of the Deacon’s principles. He again grasped my shoulder. “David, I have a difficult chore for you. It will be harder than anything you have ever attempted.”

  “Worse than geography?”

  He did not laugh. “I want you to return to Wedlock’s side and behave as if you still thought you were friends.”

  “Is this wise?” asked the Judge.

  “It is more than wise. It is unavoidable.”

  “I don’t wish to see him ever again,” I said.

  “That is the difficulty. We require this time to canvass the Cheyenne volunteers for their support in the coming fight. You have already saved our lives by overhearing Wedlock’s intentions. I must now ask you to go back and keep your ears and your eyes open and report to me what you have heard and seen. David, you are our one hope.”

  “I will do it!”

  “There’s a lad! Deacon, the Judge and I must request the return of our handguns. You will be prudent to arm yourself as well.”

  Soberly the man of God unfastened his buffalo coat and opened it to reveal the yellow bone handle of a pistol concealed in one hairy inside pocket. ” ‘And his sling was in his hand,’ ” he said.

  “I shall need my Navy Colt’s,” said I.

  Mr. Knox said, “In time you shall. For now it would be more dangerous for you to go armed. Everything must appear as normal.”

  We repaired to the wagon where the weapons were stored. There I stood watch while the Deacon explained the situation to Elder Sampson, who listened without comment and then allowed Mr. Knox and Judge Blod to reclaim their pistols. The Deacon then cautioned Sampson about the plot to murder him and make it appear an accident.

  “It will be–for them.” It is the only one of the Elder’s rare remarks I remember in detail.

  Presently I saw the lantern descending the ridge where the horses were picketed, and announced this to the others, who concealed weapons and tied down the wagon flap. “Remember, David,” said Mr. Knox; “everything as before. We are counting on you.”

  And so I set out to play my role. I did not overlook the disturbing fact that the last time I had heard these parting words, they had been told me by Jotham Flynn on the morning of the last day of his life.

  Chapter14

  THE FIRST SHOT

  Little conversation passed between Ben Wedlock and myself upon his return from the ridge. This was mostly my doing, for despite the responsibility I had been given, I could not be garrulous that night. Hours after the camp bedded down I lay awake in my blanket beneath the chuck wagon. Wedlock breathed evenly nearby, and the moonlight glittering off his glass eye between lids that never quite closed was no aid to rest. Supine, he loomed very large, the ogre of all my nightmares.

  Most of them, in any case. When I finally surrendered consciousness, I found myself clinging, as in my dark Amarillo dream, to a rocky cliff many leagues high. Below me my pursuer inched closer with each breath, a terrible tobacco-stained grin smearing his black-bearded face when I lost my footing and nearly pitched into his arms. As I caught myself, a sha
ft of light found his narrow rodent’s features and gold front tooth. They belonged to Nazarene Pike, he of the coiled bullwhip and fleetness of foot when I denounced him in the Golden Gate Saloon as one of Jotham Flynn’s murderers. Again I reached the end of my climb and could go no farther; again I saw his hand dart behind his head, the shining something come out. I awoke with a cry.

  In a trice Wedlock was upon me, one trunk-like arm braced behind my neck and the other across my face, the hand gripping the side of my head. His big face with its blackened left side and dead eye was terrifyingly close. (How could I not know that countenance as the one Flynn had described to me with such fear and loathing?) A single twist and my neck would be broken.

  Recognition seeped slowly into his fierce expression. He relaxed his grip. I resumed breathing.

  “I near done for you that time, Davy,” he said, and–oh, dissembling villain!–his voice shook. “You must never spook old Ben. I kilt a Cheyenne breed on the Rocky Ford that same way in ‘78.”

  “Was that–was that the time you sang your Death Song?” I could scarcely hear my own words for the hammering in my breast.

  “That was later.” His expression was a grotesque parody of Christian concern. “You must promise not to spook me again. A mossback old snapping turtle can take off your finger after you lop off its head.”

  I made him the promise. He slid his weight off me then. “Keep the crawlers to yourself, now. It’s the ones come when your eyes are wide open you got to fear.”

  The warning was unnecessary. I slept no more.

  The Black Hills accepted us the following morning without resistance, rather in the way that a spider knows no unwelcome visitors to its home–or so I interpreted in my combined states of agitation and exhaustion. Up close they were not black at all, but coated with dark ponderosa pines, grown so thickly that there were places where the sun had not been seen since the time of the glaciers. Our path was paved with a spongy layer, centuries in the making, of fallen needles over which hoofs and wheels passed without a sound. Indeed, the entire forest was eerily silent, yet far from uninhabited, and the very sight of those rows of trunks, together with the unnatural stillness of the air, made me imagine that I was standing on the edge of a pool of black water with no bottom, in danger of toppling in and sinking down and down into the icy inky depths where blind things swam about in absolute silence. Not sacred, these hills; damned.