Dead Aim

by Dusty Richards

  “Wait until it cools.”

  In a short while she nodded after drinking the cup of his potion. “I feel much better.”

  “Good. If you feel like that in the morning we will ride on.”

  “Do you think those men have quit trying to get me?”

  He shook his head. “For some reason they want you. I can’t imagine why.”

  “What would that be?”

  “Does your tribe have lots of money or gold?”

  She shook her head.

  “The only reason I can figure out for all these bad guys wanting you, they expect to make some big money. If you don’t have any more pain get some sleep. Maybe in the morning we can continue west.”

  “Where did you learn about willow tea?”

  “My mother. She used it for toothaches, broken bones, headaches. I had almost forgotten it. It must be a painkiller.”

  “Oh, it is.” She rubbed her lower stomach under the buckskin dress.

  He tucked her in and went to check on their stock. The animals were sleeping on their feet as he watched the moon drop below the horizon. What would he do with her? Return her to her people? Could she survive in his world? In Texas people might snub her for being an Indian. He’d felt some resistance himself being shown toward him in the past. Harp would not put up with it. But she was almost still a child.

  After a meal of oatmeal the next morning, and more of his tea, they saddled up and continued on their ride west. They pushed hard, and when he looked for her reaction she nodded she was all right and they rode on.

  They found a store on the rolling prairie. He told her to stay with their horses and he’d find them something to eat inside the store. There were only two or three loafers around when he went inside. The store had few food items on empty shelves. No frijoles. No peaches. Some canned tomatoes and rice he bought, paid for, and went outside.

  There were two scruffy men out there beside her horse and demanding her name. He crossed the space. “Get the hell away from her.”

  “Who are you?” one of them demanded.

  “The guy that’s going to shoot you if you don’t get away from her. Now get.”

  He fumed as those two went back toward the store. “What did they want to know?”

  “What my name was.” She winked at him, looking half-amused at his anger.

  He frowned back at them. “What did you tell them?”

  “My name in Sioux.”

  “Good. I bet they couldn’t translate that.” He flipped back the diamond hitch to put the rice and tomatoes in the panniers. Those packed inside, he was disappointed over the poor quest for something to eat. That wasn’t a store. Just a depot for white lightning—he recovered the canvas and put the hitch back on.

  They rode west.

  He had not seen any wanted posters for her in there. There were many wanted outlaw ones.

  In late afternoon, he could at last see the outline of the mountains.

  “Another day we should be there,” she said.

  “Yes. Have you ever been in them?”

  “Not here.”

  “I guess they run north and south.”

  She smiled at him and turned up her palms for him. “I have to guess so.”

  He shook his head. “I am pleased to have you with me. When I am satisfied I saw them, then you must tell me if you wish to go home or go to Texas.”

  “You wish to go home, don’t you?”

  “Yes. I have a ranch there and my brother.”

  She booted her horse in beside him. Then she held her fingers up apart a small space. “Is there that much room for me?”

  He nodded. “There is lots of room there. My mother would smother you. She never had any girls. My father would, too. After this year Harp and I will have some real large ranches.”

  “I never lived in a house.”

  “It is not hard. You shut out the cold and rain.”

  She shrugged. “If you are not ashamed of me, I would go there.”

  “I have never been ashamed of you.”

  She nodded. “I have tried to figure where I belonged. I have been at peace with you these days we shared. My life was not easy with my own people. How will they survive?”

  “These people who passed through here have no end. Now you have chosen I want to buy you a saddle, some clothes, and we can find a wagon train going east.”

  “We need a train?”

  “It would be safer. We can go back perhaps on the Arkansas River route. Trading wagon trains use it to go back and forth to Saint Louis.”

  “I am pleased to ride with you.”

  “So am I to have you.” He leaned over the horses and hugged her.

  Long studied the spectacular snow-capped mountains riding toward them all day. Two days later they made Denver. He found her the right size saddle, and they put their horses in the livery.

  The livery owner stopped them before they left to find a room. “I have a better horse for her to ride if you want to look at him.”

  “How much does he cost?”

  “Look at him first.”

  He turned to her for an answer.

  She shrugged.

  “Show him to us.”

  He sent a boy after him. The roan horse led easy, looked excited, and walked on his toes when the boy brought him. He checked his mouth—a four-year-old.

  “Give her the lead.”

  She looked at Long. He said, “Try him.”

  She began to talk in Sioux to the compact red roan horse. Then she grabbed a hank of mane and swung swiftly aboard. When she gave him slack he raced out back, and when she pulled on his head he slid to a stop in the dirt. She patted his neck, then turned him around to come back.

  “How much?” Long asked.

  “A hundred fifty.”

  “A hundred and her horse.”

  The man shook his hand.

  “What do they call him?”

  “Powder River.”

  Long nodded and paid him.

  They were refused admittance to the first dress shop they stopped at. She told him laughing, “They do not want your money.”

  He was not laughing. “We will find someone needs the business.”

  The next two ladies were delightfully friendly. They tried several dresses on Rose to get to see how she looked in them. Some were too fancy, but they found some nice-looking dresses that would work for her.

  Then the younger one of the ladies said, “Why don’t you buy her some boy clothes to wear when she is riding?”

  “Why is that?”

  “She will be more comfortable and who cares . . . she is an Indian girl.”

  He about laughed. “I guess she’s not confined to anything in her dress is she?”

  “I am not being disrespectful to her race. But riding she will feel much more comfortable.”

  “No disrespect. You two ladies have been patient and generous with us. We were barred from buying anything up the street. They must not need business huh?”

  The older woman said, “They are too snooty. Mr. O’Malley, you and this girl are welcome here any time you are in Denver.”

  He ordered the three dresses they chose.

  When they were alone, Rose said, “Why three? I can only wear one at a time?”

  “That will come to you later. Don’t worry . . . I am not a poor man.”

  They bought two sets of boy clothes that she tried on at the mercantile in a closet to be sure they fit her. He bought her some boy-size suspenders for the pants and she smiled. Then he bought a suit coat for himself, and the night the first dress was done he took her to an opera.

  She was awed by the music, and, while he understood little, it was an intriguing evening for both of them.

  Walking back to the hotel in the cooling night air, she asked him where he learned about such things.

  “A school teacher told me that if I ever got a chance in my life that I should go to see an opera.”

  “I loved it. The music and the sing
ing. What are your plans now?”

  “Ride back to Texas.”

  The desk clerk when he gave him the room key also handed him a note.

  It read:

  Long, there were some tough men here today asking about you and the girl with you. I told them nothing but felt you should know.

  The liveryman

  Hinkle

  “What is it?”

  “Time to check out and ride south.”

  “Why?”

  “Men were at the livery asking questions about us.”

  “Go now?”

  “We better. Get our things from the room and go.”

  “Is there a place to be safe anywhere?”

  When at the top of the stairs, he whispered to her, “Texas.”

  She nodded and in the room she hugged him. For a long moment the two of them treated themselves to a moment of rest and assurance in their clutch. She was his ward and he was her shield from harm.

  They headed south in the night. Camping before dawn at a rancher’s windmill off the road. There they slept a few hours and rode on.

  Long bought some more food for them to eat in Pueblo. There he met Clem Sparks, a freighter out of Missouri who was headed east to St. Louis with Mexican woven cotton blankets, pottery vessels, and other items he found in Santa Fe. He’d come up there to Pueblo in hopes of finding some more freight to haul east but found nothing to take back with him there. Sparks owned two dozen wagons and extra, long-eared mule teams that he drove along in case any died or was crippled. Also he had six tough guards to defend it besides the drivers.

  Long and Rose took the Arkansas River Trail east with his outfit. To most it was the Santa Fe Trail, but some folks didn’t want to give the Hispanics credit for anything. Two Mexican women, wives of the drivers, also went along. Sparks’s outfit bristled with Winchesters and Colts. Sparks repeatedly warned them the Indians along the way this time could be treacherous and for them to stay close to camp at all times.

  In the case of an attack they’d circle the wagons and hold them off. But as summer turned toward fall most Indians were too busy laying in food supplies and the train moved east safely, at a snail’s pace. Sparks had them put Long’s panniers in a wagon so there was no loading or unloading of the packhorse. Long and Rose rode their saddle horses at the head of the column with Sparks or one of his lieutenants.

  The days dragged along at twenty-mile stretches or less per day. Rose helped the other wives fix meals. Her women problems returned in three weeks and she rode in the lead wagon and drank willow tea the next few days. She assured Long she would overcome it and be back to ride with him shortly.

  He grew impatient, by the day, with the train’s slow pace. They passed out of Colorado into western Kansas where, at the time, most of the warlike tribes were situated. She was back on horseback and her old self.

  Sparks took a day to rest and repair things when he and his scouts thought it would be safe to do so. Long and Rose went off a short distance to a place on the river and talked freely about Texas and his plans for their future.

  “When will I become your wife?” she asked.

  He knew she was growing much more anxious over the matter of their pairing. He wasn’t resistant to the idea, but he wanted things perfectly right before they entered into it. They could wait until they were alone in a safer place like being at home.

  “When we can find a place to be alone and safe,” he promised her.

  She nodded, seated on a fallen cottonwood log. “I am ready to be your wife.”

  “There is so little privacy in camp. I want to save it for a special time and place.”

  “The days are so long. The nights are worse not sharing my body with you.”

  “Our time will come. I promise you that we will have a dreamlike union.”

  She agreed and he hugged her. Then he kissed her. He kissed her a lot, but still held out for the right moment—not some quick flash in the pan affair. This would be for their lifetime.

  Two days later farther east on the road, their scout Jules Hambee rode in late one afternoon, where they’d parked for the night, and talked to Sparks. Then the two men, looking very serious, came over and talked to Rose and Long.

  “Jules thinks a band of Cheyenne are gathering to attack us. He thinks she should ride in a wagon for her safety.”

  Long looked over at her. “You heard the man. What are your wishes?”

  “I would rather ride with you, but I know you will want to fight them if they come, and with me in the wagon you would be free to do that.”

  He nodded. “I want you safe. I thought we were about past the mean ones, but Jules has no reason to fabricate.”

  She smiled and shook her head. “What is that word?”

  “Means he did not make up something.”

  She nodded. “Tell Woolley I will join him. There is no need to stop.”

  Sparks agreed that for her safety it would be best. The next morning Long helped her up with the jolly driver, Woolley, who welcomed her riding with him again.

  While they were stopped the night before, Sparks and Jules told the drivers, guards, and the rest of the wagon train the situation, and said they would go ahead, find a good site, then circle and stand them off. Long put Rose’s horse in the herd of loose mules and horses, telling the herder boys what the deal was about the Indians.

  On the move, Long started watching the northeast horizon closer. This was where he figured they’d come from. He hoped those Indians didn’t think they were sodbusters that they could easily swarm over.

  Every man on the train, he knew well, was an experienced driver or guard and with it went training and knowledge of how to hold off an Indian attack. They were not inexperienced Indian fighters. Those bucks would soon learn these guys could shoot them off their horses. They had lots of ammo and real lever action–fighting weapons, not single-shot muskets.

  Long first saw their dust boiling over in the east when he started back to the front of the train. Woolley was already bringing his lead wagon around in a circle. The herders brought the loose extra mules and horses to be inside that ring. Helpers were being sure each man had enough ammo and good weapons in working order.

  They were unhooking the teams and putting them in the center with the loose ones. There was no time to unharness them. The distant drum of the war ponies’ hooves could be heard as they thundered toward them still beyond the horizon. Men refilled their water bags from the water barrels in the side of the wagons. This could be a long battle, no telling, except someone he heard say that the Indians were getting desperate. All summer long endless wagon trains of land seekers had plodded west, shot their buffalo and other game, making their source of food much scarcer. Few of the tribes still stayed out there on the plains, but it would only be a short matter of time until they must move. Long knew it and so did the Indians. These white invaders would soon fill all of their country.

  Riding at the front that morning, he began to hear their distant war cries. It was time to circle the wagons. Orders were given and they militarily-like began to form the circle. The loose animals were driven into the middle.

  The Indians’ cries would soon deafen everyone’s ears with their screaming. His horse in the herd, Long went to find Rose. She piled out of the wagon at the sight of him coming through the great-circled fortress.

  “Rose, stay over here where they piled these crates. It is intended for a hospital. The other two women coming?” Long looked around for sight of them.

  “No, they told me they fought with their men. They say they can shoot.”

  “You get in that hospital. You may have to help bandage the wounded.”

  “I can. Protect yourself.” Then she stood on her toes and kissed his mouth.

  “I will come for you when it is over. I will . . . I promise.”

  And she was gone to hide in the center place where they would treat the wounded. He went with his rifle and two boxes of cartridges to where Sparks stood giving orders
.

  “I think they will charge right at us and try to get inside the circle. We need to keep them out and make them circle us. We have to mow that charge down so they will be forced to ride around their own dead horses. We can kill them as they ride past us.”

  “When your rifle is empty use your pistol. That initial charge must be turned,” Long added.

  “When Long’s rifle is empty, have him a spare one loaded,” Sparks told one of the horse boys named Dale, chosen to reload rifles for Long.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Any Indian inside the circle must be killed immediately.”

  The sounds of their approaching fight grew louder, and Long knew they were coming at a breakneck speed. He waved at Dale to be ready with the second rifle. He stood beside the front of the wagon he figured would be their main target. He could see them now.

  “Shoot their horses. Cut them down,” he shouted to the others, and he began taking down approaching horses.

  In an instant he swapped rifles for a loaded one. More horses went down under his and the other men’s bullets, and that made the field impassable for the Indians in the back to charge over the downed, dying, but still kicking horses. Fleeing bucks tried to escape all the hot lead being shot at them. He’d swapped rifles four times, and the boy always had the next one loaded.

  Sparks shouted, “We’ve stopped them.”

  Long nodded at him and went to picking off either horse or rider he could see in his iron sights through the thick gun smoke and dust on the scene. Without any wind, visibility had become a serious problem. But guns continued to crack whenever a mounted fighter came out of the fog.

  Sweat ran down his face in streams, and if the gunpowder smoke didn’t burn his eyes the sweat did. He mopped his face on the kerchief around his neck. He feared using it for a mask in case he might not see everything going on.

  There must have been a dozen Indian drummers out there somewhere beyond the riders’ track still beating on their drums the whole time. He’d liked to have gone out there and shot some of them to shut them up. A warrior came out of the smoke trying to control his spooked horse. Too late and he was blown off his horse screaming from the bullets making a sieve of his body.