CHAPTER 29
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Early into the afternoon Tucker awoke to a horse riding hard into camp. Only a fool or someone desperate rides a horse like that in this heat, he thought. He sat up as far as his leg chain would allow to get a better look at the rider. Tucker turned to speak with Red, but he had disappeared into the brush.
When the rider topped the hill south of their camp, the unmistaken swollen face and broken nose of Jess Hammond reflected the light. He fixed his gaze on Tucker as he slowed to a fast walk. When he reached the center of the camp, he stopped his horse beside Tucker. The animal shook his head, flinging lather onto Tucker’s face. “You all alone now?” Jess asked.
“Not hardly.” Red emerged from wherever he had been hiding. “Just that I wanted to see who the fool is come riding hell-bent for election into camp.”
Jess dismounted. “Aurand says he’s mighty worried about those Lakota.”
“What’s to worry about?” Red laid branches across the coals and blew on the fire to flare it up. “They are long gone for the Great Wall. Knowing Blue Boy like I do, he’s taken his white woman with him, and they’re at the bottom of the Badlands by now. He’s probably mighty impatient to break in his new bride.”
Tucker tried to stand but fell against the chain. Red looked at him and smiled. “Nothing personal, but you know the score with these Sioux. Having multiple wives. Hell, that ought to make you feel good, knowing that woman of yours is alive and just waiting to please her new husband.”
Tucker drew in deep, calming breaths as he fought against his pain and anger, and the thought of what suffering Lorna must have had to endure thus far. Red was right: Tucker had known almost from the start that Blue Boy took Lorna that night from her room to make her his newest wife. And once they reached the safety of the Wall, they would wed in the custom of the Lakota.
Tucker thought back to the woman abducted by the Lakota who had escaped two summers ago. Tucker had talked with her at Ft. Pierre after her escape. The men had treated her well. Exceptionally well, in some instances. It had been the competing women and the other women in the band who had torn at the soul of the captive. The Crow and Pawnee women—natural enemies of the Lakota—had been picked apart by the badgering and the back-breaking work and beatings at the hands of other tribal women, but it had been the white woman who had been mistreated by Sioux women the most. Tucker knew that—with Blue Boy to protect her—Lorna could live out a satisfying existence. Until he went on a war party or hunting foray away from camp. Then the abuse would resume.
“Red’s right.” Jess grinned. “By now, that Indian’s sharing a tipi with her and breaking her in proper.”
Tucker lunged at Jess but hit the end of his chain. Pain radiated from Tucker’s bad leg all the way through the rest of his body.
“Calm down, Tucker,” Jess said. “Maybe there is some hope yet. Maybe Red here’ll pick up those Indians’ trail.”
“What that?” Red set a coffee pot over the fire.
“Aurand wants you to find Blue Boy and his band. Aurand’s waiting at Rocking Chair Creek for you. He says to find where they went and come tell him pronto.”
“Why not you?”
Jess smiled and took out his pocket knife. He began picking what teeth he had left. “Us city boys wouldn’t last more’n a day out there looking for Indians. Aurand needs someone who can work a track.”
“Aurand wants me to find Blue Boy?” Red’s hand trembled as he filled his cup. “Now?”
“He does.”
“Most folks who have found Blue Boy didn’t live to tell anyone where he was.”
Jess laid a hand on Red’s thin shoulder and squeezed hard. “But Red Sun could find him. Aurand wants that woman found. He don’t care so much about those Sioux.”
Red shook off Jess’s hand. “Why the interest in that woman all of a sudden?”
Jess shrugged. “Guess Aurand’s realized he better get her back. Wouldn’t look good for a territorial marshal to ignore an abducted citizen.” Jess winked at Red. “Or maybe he’s been thinking of that reward money. Either way, you better saddle up and find those Indians.”
“Someone has to watch Tucker.”
“What’s to watch,” Jess said. “He’s chained up. I’ll stay until you come back.”
Red tossed his coffee onto the ground and started for his horse. He paused and looked down at Tucker with sadness. “Good luck,” he said and walked into the brush. Although he couldn’t see it, Tucker knew the old man had his horse tethered apart from the camp. A few moments later, hoofbeats riding away from the camp grew fainter.
Tucker turned his attention back to Jess. He stood on the other side of the campfire and began taking off his gun belt. “Aurand never wanted Red to scout for Blue Boy, did he?”
“You’re smarter than you look.” Jess dropped his Bowie beside his gun belt and rolled up his sleeves. “I wanted another crack at you. You didn’t dance fair the other night in Cowtown.”
“Aurand will kill you if I’m found beaten to death.”
“So the little man will be mad. By the time he finds your body, I’ll have hopped a stage to California and won’t ever see Aurand again.”
“It angered you that much that I beat you the other night?”
“Let’s say I never been beat before.”
“You forgetting about Blue Boy cold-cocking you in the saloon?”
Jess frowned. “If I thought we’d have any chance to find that Indian, I’d take him on, too. Point is, he’s not here, and you are.”
“You that afraid of me?”
“Afraid?” Jess stopped rolling his shirtsleeves up. “How so?”
“You want to fight me while I’m shackled to this tree, and with a bum leg to boot?”
Jess paused and seemed to mull that over. He fished a key out of his pocket and tossed it to Tucker.
Tucker unlocked the leg irons and dropped them on the ground beside him. He massaged circulation back in his leg where the shackle had rubbed his ankle red and raw. “And my bum leg?”
“I’ll try not to hit it.” Jess grinned. He stood in the middle of the clearing, flexing and unflexing his fists as he waited for Tucker to toe the line. Tucker continued to massage feeling back into his leg as he tested his weight on it. Red’s medicine had worked, but Tucker’s leg still felt as if a coyote had gnawed on it all night.
He limped to where Jess stood waiting. Although it had only been a few hours since the rain stopped, there was little left to indicate there had been a nasty storm. All that greeted Tucker was the hard ground and a man bent on beating him to death.
Tucker toed the line, careful not to put too much weight on his bad leg.
Jess smiled through broken teeth, his tongue flicking past spaces in his gums like sentries peeking around a fort’s walkway. Jess had learned something from their last fight. He began to circle well out of Tucker’s long reach.
Tucker tried turning to match Jess’s movement, but each time he turned to face the big man, his weight shifted and pain shot up his wounded leg.
Jess smiled, and Tucker knew he’d figured out how to prolong Tucker’s agony. He circled first one way, then the other. Each time he turned to match Jess’s movement, Tucker nearly cried out in pain.
Suddenly, Jess slid to one side and flicked out a jab that caught Tucker flush on the cheekbone. It wasn’t a hard blow, but it rocked Tucker, and he staggered back. He wasn’t sure he could stand another shot like that, when Jess proved him right. A left hook landed on Tucker’s jaw. His head snapped back, and he felt himself falling backwards. His head hit the hard ground with a vengeance, and pain shuddered all the way down to his toes.
“Don’t move so fancy now, do you boy?” Jess stood over him. “Get up. We ain’t done dancing.”
Tucker remained on his back. He pawed sweat out of his eye as he focused on Jess, who bent over Tucker and hoisted him to his feet. Jess let him loose, and he began circling Tucker again. “I owe you,” Jess said
and landed a jab on Tucker’s eye. He stumbled back. As Jess came in for another, Tucker landed an uppercut that rocked Jess back. Tucker moved toward him for a follow-up blow, but his leg buckled. He just caught himself from falling down and turned to face Jess.
“You do have some spunk left.” Jess flicked two quick jabs meant to harass Tucker. They connected to his nose and watered his eyes. “You could have got me and Philo killed in Cowtown.” A quick jab landed above Tucker’s eye, and blood dripped into it from split skin. He staggered back and threw a roundhouse. Jess moved back, and Tucker fell to the ground.
“And this is for that nasty little headache you gave me.” Jess kicked Tucker’s bad leg. He tilted his head back and laughed when Tucker writhed in pain.
He rolled over and caught sight of the bedroll where Jess had tossed his knife and gun. Twenty feet away. Might as well have been twenty miles away, unless Tucker could work close enough to grab either.
He stood on wobbly legs when Jess lashed out with a right cross. Tucker pulled back; the blow caught him on the side of the head. He rolled with the punch and allowed himself to fall down, closer to the bedroll. One more punch to mask his moves, and he’d be close enough to grab Jess’s gun or his knife.
Tucker stood bent over as he sucked in breaths. “You hit like an old woman,” he told Jess and braced himself for the charge he knew would come.
“Woman!” Jess bellowed. With his fists flailing in the air, he hit Tucker in the stomach with his head. The force of Jess’s charge drove Tucker back twenty feet. And within reach of the gun.
Jess landed on top of Tucker. As he swung a hard right at Tucker’s head, Tucker grabbed a rock and hit Jess on the forehead. Jess screamed in pain, and Tucker rolled over onto his stomach. He gathered his good leg beneath him and sprang for the bedroll. He landed beside it as Jess hollered again when he realized Tucker’s plan.
He grabbed for Jess’s Remington, but Jess clamped his hand onto Tucker’s arm and smashed his hand into a rock. He let go of the gun, and Jess snatched it from him. Tucker lunged for the knife, but Jess rolled out of slashing range.
Jess sat back on his haunches and turned so he could focus on Tucker out of his good eye. Jess smiled a toothless grin as he leveled his gun at Tucker’s head. “Aurand will think it came down to you coming at me with a knife, and I had to defend myself.”
Tucker stood and crow-hopped on his good leg. “Who’d believe that cockamamie story?”
“Only one who has to is Aurand.”
“I thought you were going to California.”
Jess grinned. “That’s when I hadn’t run into this little scenario. Even Aurand would believe I had no choice, you wrestling my knife from me and all after Red unlocked your shackles.”
“So you admit I’m too much a man for you to fight fair?”
Jess turned red, and his gun hand trembled. “Let’s just say no one else will know.” He cocked his gun.
Tucker held the knife in front of him like a shield.
Jess smiled. He pointed his Remington at Tucker’s head and took up the trigger slack.
The shot reverberated off the surrounding rock. Tucker slumped over while he checked himself for holes. Jess looked down at an exit hole through his chest. He fired his gun into the ground beside Tucker and fell face first into the dirt.
Simon Cady walked out of the brush and into the clearing, leading his small brown donkey tied to the pommel of his chestnut’s saddle. “Hold these,” he said and handed Tucker the reins.
Tucker took hold of the reins while Cady slid his Spencer back into his saddle scabbard. “Bet you wonder why old Simon saved you.” He squatted beside Jess’s body. Though he was twenty years Tucker’s junior, Cady easily hoisted Jess onto the donkey’s back. “You figure it out yet?”
Tucker shook his head. He had never met Cady, but his reputation as a scoundrel preceded him. Few people with a bounty on their heads lived to tell how the trip to the law went with Cady. He had scouted for the army—old scouts told tales around campfires. He had been with Chivington in Colorado when the state militia had murdered unarmed Arapaho at Sand Creek in ’sixty-four. Some even thought Cady set the whole thing up. And bad legend had dogged him ever since.
“Jess Hammond here’s got a sizeable bounty on him. Man’s been working for Aurand Forester, but on the side he’s been robbing and killing all around the territory.”
“How’d you find him?”
Cady took rope out of his saddlebags and walked around his donkey. “Aurand is so predictable. I began following him knowing he was after you. I knew he’d need every criminal working for him as a deputy if he were to best the likes of Tucker Ashley. I knew he’d have to meet up with Jess somewhere.” Cady took out a pipe and filled it with tobacco. “I almost had Jess the other night in Cowtown, when you spoiled my fun by beating him in front of a hundred witnesses.”
“Excuse the hell out of me for surviving.”
Cady brushed the air as if telling Tucker it was all right. In the end. “Aurand thought I was after the bounty offered for that little lady from the mercantile.”
“Aren’t you?” Tucker leaned against Cady’s horse to steady himself. His arrow wound had opened up again, and sticky warm blood oozed down his leg. “Aren’t you after her for the reward?”
“Friend,” Cady said as he cinched the rope tight holding Jess’s body onto the donkey, “I don’t go after women. Some folks say I have a propensity to kill my prey.” He shrugged and walked around the animal as he snugged Jess’s body to the pack frame. “If there’s a bounty on your woman, let someone else collect it. I’ll stick to my kind of hunting. Besides”—he turned Jess’s leg over to look at his new boots—“sometimes the man I hunt wears my size.” He laughed. “A bonus, don’t you think?”
Tucker debated if he could mount Cady’s horse before he realized it. But the Spencer within Cady’s reach told Tucker that was a bad idea.
Cady took the reins from him and seemed to be reading his mind as he motioned to the rocks. “If you can sit a horse with that bum leg, Jess’s gelding looks like he’s willing. He’s grazing over yonder.” He motioned to a nearby hill. “And you have my permission to take his gun.” Cady swung a leg over his horse, and it groaned with the weight. He started away from the camp when he stopped and turned in his saddle. “If you’re still foolish enough to go after Blue Boy, I saw him looking for you during that storm. I’m thinking he’s hanging out closer to the Badlands about now. Waiting for something. Just this side of the Wall.”
Tucker watched Cady disappear down a hill and then turned to Jess’s bedroll. He grabbed the gun belt and put it around his waist. But it was too long, so he slung it over his shoulder before tucking the Bowie into Jess’s belt sheath.
Tucker walked to Jess’s horse and ran his hand along the gelding’s muzzle as he spoke softly. He gathered the reins and swung his bum leg over the side and into the saddle. Pain shot up all the way to his head, and he felt himself become lightheaded. He took deep breaths as he fought to remain conscious. He couldn’t let himself go under right now. There had been Cady’s Spencer firing, followed closely by Jess’s pistol shot. A man might speculate where a single shot came from. Two shots, and whoever heard it would know where it originated. The gunshots would warn Aurand that there had been trouble in his camp. But at least it would tell Blue Boy where Tucker was.
Tucker was counting on that.
CHAPTER 30
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Blue Boy reined his horse up sharply. He sat motionless on top of a rise as he cupped his hand to his ear. Two shots. Coming from the east. Close.
Black Dog stopped his pony beside Blue Boy. He had pried the slug out of Black Dog’s shoulder, and it hung in a makeshift sling made out of Lorna’s petticoat. When he and Swallow had ridden back to camp without finding He Who Follows, Black Dog was up and insisting he come along on the hunt. “I heard it, too.” Black Dog sniffed the wind like a coyote. “I think it came from the east.”
&nb
sp; Jimmy Swallow pulled up the rear. He walked his pony towards Blue Boy and Black Dog.
“You hear shots?” Blue Boy asked. “Or are Black Dog and me losing our minds?”
“I heard them,” Swallow answered and chin-pointed to the northeast. “They came from that way.”
“I do not think so,” Black Dog said. “The ones that I heard came from there.” He pointed. “Straight east.”
“I think they came from the east as well.” Blue Boy turned to Lorna riding in front of Swallow. “What direction do you say the shots came from?”
“The shots came from the northeast. Swallow is right.” Lorna looked into Blue Boy’s eyes. “Swallow is young. You two are . . . older. Perhaps both of you have been hit on the head once too often, and that cost you your hearing. All I know is the shots came from where Swallow said.”
Blue Boy digested what Lorna told him. Perhaps Jimmy Swallow’s young ears had heard better than his and Black Dog’s. “What else can you tell us about the shots?” Blue Boy asked.
Swallow puffed out his thin chest. “I know that one was a rifle and the other a pistol. And at least one was a wasicu.”
Blue Boy looked down at the young warrior. “And how did you come up with that wonderful conclusion?”
“Only a white man carries a short gun into this hostile place. He would not last long if his life depended on a pistol.”
Blue Boy thought of Swallow’s logic. Perhaps a chief could learn from the littlest of braves who followed him. “I think you are right, and He Who Follows just fired off a shot. We will start in the direction you heard them.”
Black Dog trotted his horse beside Blue Boy, and he nodded to Lorna. “She slows us down enough. If we go after He Who Follows, the Badlands may elude us after all. And perhaps the woman will seize her chance to escape.”
Backed to the Wall Page 16
