Dying Thunder

by Terry C. Johnston

  Hell, he shuddered with the thought. There was going to be damned little chance of finding a warm, willing, white-skinned gal down there south of the dead line in Injun country.

  A far better chance of leaving his scalp hanging on some Comanche’s lodgepole.

  * * *

  He was too tired to really care that the town wasn’t quieting down. Dodge had that sort of reputation. It hooted and hollered from sundown clear to sunup.

  Seamus tugged off the second boot and let it fall where it would beside the cot in the narrow, canvas-walled room. Throughout the past several hours spent with Louis Abragon, he had been exerting his brain like an overworked muscle, and now it seemed to be complaining for the lack of sleep and the soaking he had given it in Abragon’s potent alcohol.

  “I waited more than a month to meet you, Louis,” Donegan had said days ago upon first meeting the short, spare Mexican at Abragon’s dingy, smoky saloon. But as he had looked around the squalid surroundings, Seamus had been one to admit that the businessman did know his women. Abragon’s reputation of having the best to offer in the way of girls was not at all unfounded.

  Abragon had seated himself, indicating a chair for the Irishman beside him at the saloon owner’s table. “I take it you approve of my … employees?”

  “Truly a marvel, Louis. Finding so many of such beauty out here.”

  “For some time I have wanted to offer the very best a man could find, Mr. Donegan. Every color … something to please any taste, you might say. I do so want to give these rough but wealthy men something to think long and hard on when they are many weeks on the prairie shooting their buffalo. Something soft and sweet-smelling that just might make a good number of these hard men come riding back here to Dodge earlier than they might plan otherwise.”

  “You sound like an educated man.”

  Abragon had nodded, signaling the bartender over. “I spent more than a dozen years in the southwest traveling with a missionary. The Jesuits were very kind to share their knowledge with me.”

  It was then that Donegan had forged ahead with his discussion of the Spanish language, and a particular Castilian dialect in particular.

  “Yes. Jack Stillwell was perhaps right when he said I am the one man for many hundreds of miles who might know something of that dialect.”

  “Did you ever help the Jesuits do any translating?”

  Abragon’s brow had furrowed for a moment, something dark crossing those deeply brown eyes, before he caught himself and let his face become a mask once more. “I did, from time to time.”

  When Seamus mentioned the existence of the ancient map and that it covered an area stretching from the northern provinces of Old Mexico to the central plains of what appeared to now be the United States, Abragon became clearly excited. He suggested they take their discussion to his private office.

  The more Seamus had described the map, the more Abragon became excited about seeing it.

  “It would be an honor if you would allow me to look at it, Mr. Donegan,” he had gushed.

  “It’s back in my room at Kelly and Beck’s. I’ll go get it if you—”

  “I will go with you,” Abragon had interrupted, his hands busy with one another. “This piece of Spanish and Mexican history I must see.”

  Seamus took him to what passed for a cheap hotel in Dodge City. Inside the narrow cubicle formed of timber with walls of whitewashed canvas hung from rafters, a narrow hallway only feet away, the Irishman unlashed his bedroll to retrieve the leather map tube. From it he had carefully pulled the ancient map. When it was unfurled across the low cot, Donegan had once again looked at the Mexican’s face.

  Abragon had his hand to his mouth. Above it, the wide, dark eyes were lit with a liquid fire as they bounced over the figures and lines and fading words.

  “You can translate this for me?” the Irishman asked.

  Abragon’s eyes had flicked to the doorway, then back to the Irishman’s face. “I can. But tomorrow is soon enough.”

  “Why not tonight—”

  “Tomorrow,” he had snapped hurriedly. “I must return and attend to my place of business. Shall we say, noon?”

  “Noon it will be.”

  After Abragon had left and Seamus had gone back out for his usual toast to the early morning hours, and perhaps a tumble with one of Dodge City’s soft-skinned attractions, the Irishman had answered the voice inside him that said he should take the map tube with him now that others knew of the map’s existence. When he decided to call the evening short and returned to his cot, the nagging doubts still troubled his whiskey-numbed brain. Bothered that he found a pair of faces becoming familiar to his in every saloon he visited that night as he sought out the company of Billy Dixon.

  His second boot dropped to the dirty canvas that served as a carpet over the hard-packed earth. Donegan turned down the wick on the oil lamp and lay back, wadding up his wool mackinaw for a pillow. Deciding he was cold enough that he might need a second blanket, Seamus sat up suddenly, reaching for the end of the cot, when the blast of a shotgun ripped through the peaceful fog of his mind, as well as shredding the canvas wall beside the bed.

  Without much more than a glance at the tatters the buckshot had made of his mackinaw and the canvas cot, Seamus swept up one of the gun belts and pulled free the pistol just as an arm and a head poked their way through the gaping hole the shotgun blast had made beside his bed.

  “The bastard oughtta be—” snarled a voice like slow water over gravel.

  “Just get it and be quick, goddammit!”

  There were two of them.

  Without conscious thought, he knew he dared not wait.

  Drawing back the hammer as fast as he ever had, the Irishman unloaded the first three cylinders, sure that one of the shots hit something with the sound of a smack on wet clay. He was answered by a grunt of pain, like a boar hog rubbing on a stump—then quickly thumbed a fourth and fifth, but held the sixth in ready as a second frightening spray of buckshot spat into the tiny cubicle.

  He fired the sixth cylinder from the floor, his last shot, then went groping in the dark for the second gun belt he had dropped upon returning to his canvas cubicle.

  Muffled, furious and frightened shouts pierced the whitewashed wall nearby. Just outside the shredded canvas footsteps dragged and shuffled across the hard earth. They were getting away and he wasn’t about to let them—

  “Stay where you are!”

  Seamus whirled around to the doorway at the sound of the voice as the canvas hung like a curtain door was pulled aside, exposing a gunman.

  The Irishman started to ask, “Who are—”

  “Put the gun down.”

  “I doubt that I will till I know who you are and what your bleeming business is, friend. I’ve just had the hell shot out of me—”

  “You will put your gun down—until we can sort out what happened here.”

  Wagging the pistol barrel at the gaping canvas wall, Donegan said with a grim smile, “It’s bloody plain to see I’m the one someone wanted to kill. Not the other way around. Suppose you tell me who the divil you are and why you’re here so goddamned quick after the shots.”

  As the stranger pushed on into the cubicle, eyeing the gaping hole in the side of the wall, Donegan looked across the crowd of faces straining to get themselves a peek into the doorway.

  “Seamus!”

  Blessed Mary, a familiar voice. And with it a familiar face pushed into the tiny space Donegan rented from the innkeeper.

  “Billy, what brings you to—”

  “Curious. Ain’t often a man hears a shotgun in Dodge City. Much less a two-shoot gun.”

  “Took all of you long enough to come help.”

  Dixon shrugged. He crossed the narrow room and stood with the stranger at the gaping hole.

  “You know this one?” the stranger asked of the young buffalo hunter, wagging his pistol barrel at the Irishman.

  “He’s all right, Zeke.” Dixon turned around to Donegan.
“Only trouble he’s ever gonna cause will be to the Kiowa and Comanche.”

  “He going with you?”

  Dixon nodded. “Part of my outfit, Zeke.”

  The stranger straightened. “All right. Looks like someone wanted you out of the way, mister. But if you’re leaving with Dixon when Myers pulls out, I suppose we won’t make any more of it.”

  “Any more of it?” Seamus asked, incredulous. “Someone just about took my head off!” He scooped up the tatters of his old mackinaw coat. “I’ll bloody well find out who—”

  “Not in my town you won’t.”

  “Zeke!” called a voice from just beyond the torn canvas wall. “Looks like the Irishman hit something out here.”

  “You found some blood?”

  “Damn if I didn’t.”

  “There,” Zeke said, turning to Donegan. “Seems to me you evened the score. He ruined your coat, and you ruined his night.”

  Still in disbelief, Seamus watched the gray-faced stranger push his way out the doorway, past the curious faces.

  “Damn, Seamus,” Dixon said, turning from the empty rifle case splintered by buckshot. “I was going to light your lamp, but it’s blown all to hell. Whyn’t you come bunk with me till we pull out day after tomorrow.”

  Donegan wagged his head. “I’ll bloody well be ready to get out of this crazy hole. Who was this Zeke anyway?”

  “Oh, him? Just the fella some of the local businessmen pay to watch over things for ’em.”

  “Thought you had a marshal?”

  “This town does. But some of the businessmen pay for a little extra protection, you might say.”

  “Protection, is it?”

  Already something in his weary brain was telling him this was the work of Abragon. It had to be because of the map. And as far as he knew, Abragon was the only other man in town who knew of the existence of the old map. Whatever those faded words said on the map—it was evidently worth killing for.

  “Hell,” Seamus muttered to himself as he bent to scoop up his bedroll, “more than one man’s been killed for that map and its secrets already.”

  “What’re you growling about like a sour-rumped bear?” Dixon asked, tossing Donegan the Henry repeater.

  “Just said I’m going to have to see that fella Abragon again in the morning.”

  “Don’t think so,” Billy said. “Saw him leaving town while ago.”

  “In the middle of the night?”

  “Yeah, thought it strange myself. But he said he had urgent business to attend to up at Fort Larned. C’mon, I’ll buy you a drink, Irishman.”

  Donegan shook his head, eyes narrowing. “No, I might take a ride up to Larned meself.”

  Dixon wagged his head. “Listen, Irishman. It’s gonna be Lamed … and Louie Abragon. Or it’s me and the Canadian River down there in buffalo country. Which is it?”

  For a moment Seamus ground his teeth together in disappointment and fist-pounding frustration verging on rage. “Whiskey, me friend. That, and a ride south of the dead line with you.”

  5

  Late March 1874

  “Billy!”

  At the call of his name from an aging skinner named Frenchy, Dixon turned from one of his many checks of the two wagons he and his outfit were taking to Indian country. Nearly every one of the fifty-odd men had stopped what they were doing up and down Front Street and were either staring gape-mouthed or nudging one another and outright guffawing at the sight of the greenhorn fresh out of Illinois.

  “Lookit Fairchild, will you?” shouted another of the crowd pushing onto the plank boardwalks lining the storefronts.

  “Damn, if he don’t look the sight,” Dixon had to admit.

  Whereas only two days before, Fairchild had been dressed in his shiny broadcloth suit, flowery vest and plug bowler, fresh from the east, the former barrister was now outfitted from head to toe in what he evidently considered a costume appropriate to the woolly frontier. At least that frontier he had recently been reading of in the dime novels of the day so popular east of the Missouri River—the same novels that had so excited Fairchild that he abandoned his law practice in southern Illinois to come to the buffalo country and take part in making history himself.

  Up and down the street he paraded on his horse, bouncing ungainly atop his saddle, nonetheless whooping along with the crowd lining Front Street. At the end of his arm he waved a white, stiff-brimmed sombrero big enough for an umbrella. A tan canvas suit covered him top and bottom, with the pants stuffed down the stovepipes of the favored high-heeled boots Fairchild had adorned with brand-new spurs, the huge, menacing rowels rattling like cymbals as he throbbed up and down atop his new horse. At his neck was tied a brightly printed bandanna, and around his waist bounced both pistol and cartridge belt, along with a huge butcher knife. As Fairchild reined up near some of the buffalo hunters, he held aloft his new Sharps rifle.

  “What caliber you get, mister?” asked Jim Hanrahan.

  “Fifty,” Fairchild answered, a smile brightening his face. Although in his mid-thirties, the barrister nonetheless appeared almost boyish in his delight and enthusiasm to forge his way south with these hardened hide men.

  “How much you pay for it?” pried Frenchy, the greasy-mopped skinner who had hired on to work for Billy Dixon.

  “Eighty-five dollars.”

  “Lordee!” someone exclaimed as general laughter broke out.

  “Trader musta see’d you comin’,” allowed Frenchy.

  “Doesn’t matter if I paid a little more than I should have,” Fairchild bristled instantly. He stroked the breech and action. “This old girl is bound to make meat and raise hair.”

  At that contention arose more catcalls and hoots.

  Billy shouldered forward so that he could stand near Fairchild’s horse. “What do you mean by ‘raise hair’?”

  Fairchild looked evenly at the young, black-haired hunter. “Just what I said. I believe that is the term I’ve read about in the books. Meaning: to kill me a redskin. Make him a good Injun. See this here knife,” he said, patting the huge butcher knife at his belt and affecting a real frontier roll to his words. “Well, boys—I aim to pack at least one Injun’s scalp home to Illinois!”

  Dixon caught Hanrahan looking at him, and they both wagged their heads in disgust. Dixon backed away from the wild scene.

  “That one, he’ll cause plenty trouble for you.”

  Billy turned at the low rumble of the familiar voice, a sound like a splash of water over parched ground. “Chapman. Oh, him? He’s harmless, I suppose.”

  “Mark my word, Dixon. That one make trouble for you.” But then the young half-breed scout finally touched the young buffalo hunter with his black eyes and graced him with half a smile. “But then—I suppose you don’t go stick your nose down to buffalo country and not expect trouble, right?”

  He nodded at the half-breed who served as post interpreter and a sometime scout down at Camp Supply in Indian Territory. “That’s right, Amos. We’re likely fellas and we’re bound for where the buffalo can be found. You ought to think about throwing in with us.”

  Chapman snorted. “Me? I got honest work to do, Dixon.”

  “Army work, is it?” Billy knew the scout had a Cheyenne wife, probably children by now. And he could count on Chapman’s family being back at the Darlington Agency. “You helping keep things quiet for us, are you, Amos?” Over Chapman’s shoulder he watched the Irishman walking up.

  “Nothing I say, nothing I do, can keep those warriors from going after your scalps—they take a mind to, Dixon.”

  “Your words don’t carry enough medicine with ’em—that what you’re saying?” Billy declared, then immediately looked away so that Chapman would not have a chance to answer. “Seamus! C’mon over here—want you should meet a honest-to-goodness scout.”

  Chapman turned, his dark eyes measuring the tall Irishman as Donegan came to a halt and held out his hand to the half-breed.

  “Seamus Donegan.”

&nb
sp; “Amos Chapman.” He turned to Dixon. “He going with you, maybe lose his long, curly hair too?”

  Billy chuckled. “Yeah. Seamus is going to buffalo country too.”

  “Too bad,” Chapman said without emotion. “That pretty scalp of his will look real good on a Kwahadi lodgepole.”

  “Crazy Horse and Red Cloud already tried,” Seamus snapped, hooking his thumbs inside his gun belts. “Then Roman Nose did too. There’s been others—but none’s had the medicine to raise this scalp of mine.”

  Without his face betraying his thoughts, Chapman nodded, perhaps with something close to approval. “You talk good, Irishman. Maybe your medicine was stronger back then. Just you pray your medicine stays strong in the days to come.”

  They watched the sullen half-breed part them and move off through the crowd that for the most part made way for him.

  A. C. Myers and his partner, Frederick J. Leonard, were clambering up into one of the tallest freight wagons, standing on the seat above the crowd, where they began to wave their arms, whistling for attention. Myers shouted for attention then, quieting the clamor as the spring sun finally made its appearance at the far edge of the prairie. Referring to some papers he held in his hand, Charlie Myers called out trail assignments to the teamsters of those forty-plus wagons lashed behind their hardy, restive bull teams anxious for the trail. Better than sixty men would be rolling south in outfits that would mess together and camp together, he told them, for the sake of securing enough grass for the animals.

  “Don’t this make a fine show of it, Seamus?” Dixon asked, feeling the pride surging through him as he peered over the group spread up and down Front Street.

  Donegan nodded. “Got to admit, Billy. This bunch looks like it can handle itself, trouble comes calling.”

  “Damn right, we can. Look at these fellas. This whole damned outfit could fight its way clean down to the Rio Grande, we had to. And cut a path through the Kiowa and Comanch’ on the way back if we need to.”