by Bill Brooks
“Well, what is it?” she said impatiently.
“I seen your cabin, is all,” Dave said.
“And what would it be to you?”
“Anybody living here but you?”
He saw the startle in her eyes.
“Oh, me mister will be back soon, anytime now, he’s gone to town and on his way back. Why, I think I see him now.” Dave looked back over his shoulder where the old lady’s eyes went—toward a ridge of sand hills, but he didn’t see anything.
Dave looked past the old crone into the room behind her. He didn’t see a plump young woman with dark hair or any plump little children either.
“Nothing,” Dave said. “Your cabin or you don’t mean nothing to me.”
“Well, then, you best be going along before me husband gets here. He’s the jealous sort, he is. Awful mean too when it comes to strangers.”
Dave turned to leave, disappointed that the woman in his dream was not the same as the one standing in the doorway: small and dried up like a fig, with no bosoms to even speak of, much less rest his head on.
“Oh, by the way,” he said, putting one foot in the stirrup and grabbing the horn of his saddle. “I come across a war party of bad-looking Indians back a ways. They had their faces painted for war. I outrun ’em, but I reckon they’ll plunder and rape and scalp everything in their way. I was you, I’d get on to a town somewhere and take that mangy dog with you.”
The old thing gasped.
Dave forked his cayuse and rode off with a happy grin. Let all them immigrants go on back to wherever it was they came from; they was just dirtying up the prairies.
The mean mood was still on him like snow was on the land. On him like brown was in the river. It was on him in the worst way and he sure enough wanted to kill somebody, Buffalo Bill most especially.
The bullet ached in his lung like someone was probing around in it with an awl and he had to piss and that was about as much as he could stand.
Chapter 26
The hunting party rode at a good clip, up the canyons until the canyons opened out onto a broad prairie that looked stark and dead under the winter sky. They rested for short periods of time, enough to give the horses a blow, then rode on and on. They crossed the river at a shallow place and then rode on, and in the distance they could see some low-lying bluffs that looked as bleak as an old abandoned fortress.
They topped a rise that looked down onto another plain and this came just after noon when the sky looked like steam and spread out before them was snow drifted in places and poked through in other places with bunch grass. And there in the distance they saw a herd of buffalo—less than a dozen in all—browsing, their dark shapes starkly contrasted with everything around them.
“There’s your buffs,” Billy said to Banks.
“How do we do it, Colonel, go after them?”
“Well, sir. We can ease down and set up a stand and shoot them as many as we can before they get wise to our game, or the wind shifts ’round.”
“Hardly seems sporting.”
“Or we can ride in on ’em and shoot them running.”
Banks smiled.
“Let’s do that,” he said.
Edgar looked pale at the prospect but did not say anything.
“What about you, Mr. Blue?” Billy said.
“I’ll let you gents do the shooting,” Teddy said. “You tell me where you want me and that’s where I’ll be.”
“You boys make sure you’ve got a shell in the chambers of your rifles,” Billy said. “We ease down off this rise until we get close. We’ll try and get as close as we can—wait till they start running, then we’ll run with ’em.”
Even their mounts seemed eager for the hunt.
Teddy rode alongside Cody.
“Keep an eye for trouble,” Cody said, shifting his eyes to indicate he meant trouble with either of the two men. “You ever do this sort of thing before?”
“No, sir. I never had any reason to shoot a cow from the back of a horse.”
Cody smiled.
“They’re a little ranker than a cow,” he said.
“Can’t be much ranker than those Mexican longhorns we used to pop out of the brush.”
Cody said over his shoulder to the other two, “When you get a shot, make sure and aim either just behind the head between the shoulders, or just behind the shoulder into the heart. Don’t shoot ’em in the head, it won’t do no good.”
They approached the herd with stealth and got to within about a hundred yards before one of the large bulls raised his head and looked ’round at them, watched them for a moment, then commenced to run, the others running with him.
“Go!” Billy shouted and they spurred their horses into a gallop.
The thunder of hooves drumming over the hard ground was the sort of thing that stirred a man’s soul and caused his heart to beat fast. John had picked out some good horses and it didn’t take much to gain on the herd and finally catch up with them. Cody swung ’round to the right and shouted for the others to swing to the left.
Next thing Teddy knew, he was running alongside a cow and her calf. He had no heart to shoot either one and wouldn’t. But then he heard the crack of a rifle and saw the cow stagger and looked ’round and saw that Banks had caught up to her and fired into her. She ran a few more feet, then stopped, her calf too. Banks swung his mount around and rode up to her as she stood facing him, her head lowered. Banks fired again, this time a direct shot to the skull and Teddy could see the dust spank up but there was little or no effect otherwise.
Rapidly levering another shell into his breech, Banks fired a third time, this time striking the calf, which toppled over—its skull not so thick or invulnerable. The cow turned its head to look at its calf and Banks shot the cow again through the neck and a fountain of blood arced forth before the cow too toppled over.
Teddy felt disheartened. Banks was off again after the others and the rest of the herd, happy, no doubt, he’d gotten his buffalo, but not content with the kill.
The chase lasted nearly thirty minutes. Half the buffs were killed when Cody reined the hunters in.
“We’ve got enough,” he said. The horses were nearly staggering, their chests lathered.
Banks and his assistant rode back to the carcasses and got down and looked at them close and grasped the horns of the dead buffalo and shook them and ran their hands through the thick coats.
Billy sat his horse next to that of Teddy’s and watched them.
“They got their buffs,” he said.
Teddy didn’t say anything.
“I guess those are the last buffs I’ll ever shoot,” Billy said. “They’ve about gone the way of the Indians—at least the wild ones has, anyway.”
Billy took off his sombrero and wiped a forearm across his brow.
“It’s sort of sad for me to see,” he said.
“What now?” Teddy said.
“Now? Why we head back to camp.”
“Just leave them for the wolves?”
“The wolves, or if there’s some stray band of Indians, they’ll be thankful for the bounty.”
“Seems a waste, Colonel.”
“I know it.”
Banks insisted that one of the buffalo be skinned and that the head be cut and wrapped in the hide.
Billy shifted his weight in the saddle.
“We don’t have time if we’re to make it back to camp by nightfall,” he said.
“Then we’ll camp where we can for the night and make the rest of the trip in the morning, Colonel.”
It was starting to spit snow again.
Teddy could see that Billy was against skinning one of the buffs, that it wasn’t a job a man like him would normally do.
“I’ll be glad to lend a hand,” Teddy offered. He could see how utterly unhappy Billy was with Banks’s request. Billy finally consented to skin the big bull that had an hour earlier been supreme among his fading breed and now lay growing stiff upon the dead grass, its hide d
usty and bloody.
Billy showed Teddy where to cut and when they’d made their cuts, they punched ropes through the neck of the hide and wrapped the other ends around their saddle horns and peeled off the hide with the strength of their mounts. Then Billy cut off the magnificent head of the bull and wrapped it in the hide and tied the whole thing together into a bundle.
It took the better part of an hour and they tied the bundle on the back of Billy’s horse and then started back for the camp, knowing that they would not make it before dark.
Teddy could smell the blood of their journey following them, could smell the death of the hide pursuing them like a bloody ghost of the past.
And when at last they made a camp by the river as the gray afternoon sunk to a darker hue and snow began to fall more in earnest, there seemed to have fallen with it a pallor over Billy.
They ate jerked beef around a quick fire and Banks and his assistant sat together, talking about the hunt, Banks doing most of the talking. Teddy realized Banks wasn’t a bad sort, neither of them was. They were just wealthy men who wanted more of an adventure for a little while than making money. That soon enough, they would return East and whatever they left behind in this country, whether it be the corpses of buffalo or bear, would soon enough be forgotten and that they had no real affinity for this country, that they were just visitors and little else.
Soon enough, both men rolled up in their blankets and fell to an exhausted sleep.
Billy sat with his arm resting on one raised knee, the light of the camp’s fire darting in his dark eyes.
“You sorry you did this hunt, Colonel?” Teddy said.
Billy glanced over at him.
“Seems like everything is different now than what it used to be. Seems like it all just changed sudden over this past year. I lost me two good pards. We about run off all the wild Indians and the buffs are all but gone, as well…” Billy’s voice had a lonesomeness to it.
They sat for a time longer without saying anything, then rolled up in their blankets. Teddy figured that such a lonesome place late at night with no light—not even moon or stars—that they didn’t have to worry about assassins, at least for this one night.
They lay there and listened to the stars falling.
Chapter 27
The telegram arrived just as the blizzard began.
Henry Egg was standing in his small office watching it snow in earnest when he saw Karl from the telegraph office coming across the street, his hat brim like a plate of snow. Karl came in and shut the door behind him, trying to keep the wind out.
“Wire for you, Constable,” Karl said, then went and helped himself to the coffee heating in the pot atop the potbelly.
“Sounds like we got us some criminal element coming to town,” Karl said.
“I don’t know why you bothered carrying this piece of paper with writing on it,” Henry said. “Why don’t you just tell me what it says, since you already know, and save me the trouble of wearing out my eyes?”
So Karl told him that the wire was from the city lawman in Omaha, warning that there were two people—a woman and a young man, probably an Indian—most likely to pass through North Platte on the next train. That the woman and Indian boy had killed a feller in Omaha and that when Sheriff Mudd went to arrest them, he was pistol-beat near to death. Karl went on to say that these two individuals were thoroughly dangerous types and should they be spotted they were to be arrested and held until Sheriff Mudd could arrive and take them into custody.
“Say, this ain’t bad coffee,” Karl said upon finishing telling what the wire said.
Henry Egg read the telegram anyway.
“It looks like one of them hell fire storms,” Karl said, stepping close to the window. “Like that time in ’sixty-nine when half the livestock in the county froze and Ed Franklin was lost and never found.”
Henry took out his pocket watch and checked the time. It was a quarter past noon, about the time he normally went home to have lunch with his wife. It took him fifteen minutes to walk home and another thirty minutes to eat his lunch. He was generally back at the office by quarter past one. But with the snow falling hard as it was and with the noon flier past due, Henry figured he’d be a little late for lunch this day. He put on his hat and coat and took his Whitney shotgun from the wall rack and jacked two shells of double-ought buck into the chambers, then snapped it shut again.
“You gonna have to kill you something to eat for lunch?” Karl said.
“Gonna wait for the train,” Henry said. “Gonna see about arresting them desperados.”
“You want me to round some of the fellers up to deputize?”
“No. It’s just a woman and a boy,” Henry said. “I’ve been doing this business a long time. I don’t see where’s I’ll need any deputies, for a woman and a boy.”
“The snow’ll be ass-deep by evening if it keeps on like this,” Karl said.
“That don’t mean nothing to me.”
“It don’t to me either.”
“Well, I got to get on. Close the door when you leave,” Henry said, knowing how Karl liked to take his time enjoying his coffee. “And shuck some more wood in that stove before you leave, we might be having guests.”
Karl watched Henry going down the street through the window, the snow gathering on his black hat and coat. Karl knew Henry as one tough old bird. Like a big old blackbird, Karl thought. Just like a big old mean blackbird.
Bob was watching out the passenger car’s window as the train eased into the station of North Platte. He figured it was possible that the lawman back in Omaha might have gotten free in time to wire ahead. Pearl had made the mistake of telling the lawman they were headed west. It wouldn’t take a genius to figure where their next stop would be.
Bob saw a lone figure standing in front of the station with a shotgun cradled in the crook of his arm. He had broad shoulders with snow collected on them and a black hat with a snowy brim.
“We’ve got trouble,” Bob said to Pearl.
Pearl saw the man Bob was looking at.
“What should we do?”
“You get off first,” Bob said. “Go up to him and do what you’re best at.”
She felt the sting of his comment.
“I won’t do it if you’re going to shoot him.”
“Well, I’m sure not going to invite him to join us in our hotel room,” Bob said.
“I’ll distract him if you promise to sneak off the train and meet me somewhere.”
“Like the last time?”
“You promised me we wouldn’t fight any more about that.”
“Yes, you’re right.”
The train screeched to a halt. Bob could see the man with the gun watching the cars. The porter came through announcing they were in North Platte, that there’d be a thirty-minute delay while they took on water and passengers.
“Why don’t we just stay on the train?” Pearl said.
“Because if he’s looking for us and doesn’t see us, he’ll come aboard. I’d rather take my chances out in the open than trapped in one of these cars.”
“Where will you meet me later?”
“Go to one of the hotels, sign in as Mrs. Bob Parsnip. I’ll find you.”
Henry Egg watched the passengers disembarking from the train. He didn’t see anyone that matched the descriptions of the desperadoes. He was hungry and his feet were getting cold.
A handsome woman in a gray capote disembarked, looked around. That could be her, Henry told himself. Then he watched as she walked right up to him and said, “Excuse me, sir, but might you direct me to some local lodging?”
Henry touched the brim of his hat, an old habit of addressing women. He looked her over good, could see she had lovely yellow hair bunched under her eastern ladies’ hat that had a big plumed feather sticking from it.
“You traveling alone, miss?”
“Why, yes,” she said.
Henry looked past her toward the train.
“I don’t b
elieve you’re traveling alone,” he said.
“Why, sir. What would cause you to doubt that I am?”
“Maybe it’s because I been in the law business a lot longer than you been in the lying business. Where’s your young partner?”
Pearl hissed and fumed appropriately, hoping that Bob had slipped off the train through another door.
“Just don’t move,” Henry said, then opened his coat enough to show her the badge he wore pinned to his vest. “Henry Egg, ma’am, town constable.”
“I don’t know what it is you think I’ve done,” Pearl said. “But I assure you—”
“Please, miss, I’m trying to concentrate on them cars.”
“Well, then, arrest me if you must.”
“I intend to.”
Henry saw that no more folks were getting off the train.
“Come on,” he said and took Pearl by the arm. They boarded the train and walked down through the four passenger cars, all the way to the caboose. Henry didn’t see anyone else.
“He slipped off, didn’t he?”
Pearl remained silent.
“Don’t worry, I’ll find him yet. I’m good at this,” Henry said. He took Pearl to the jail and locked her in a cell.
“How long do you intend to hold me on these foolish accusations?” she demanded.
“I’ll wire Sheriff Mudd in Omaha, tell him to come down and take a look at you. It shouldn’t take him more than a day or two to get here. If you ain’t her, I’ll let you go with my apologies.”
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Pearl said as she began to weep. Her act is a good one, Henry thought, but I’m not buying any of it.
“I need to go look for your partner. I’ll see Clark brings you some grub.”
She didn’t know who Clark was, nor did she care to know. The jail seemed a cold lonely place. She was starting to have misgivings about her love for Bob.
