Jim couldn’t hide a blush. “Shit,” was all he replied.
“Ride over there,” Clay insisted. “We’re likely gonna be gone a helluva long time.”
“I might as well,” Jim conceded, “as long as I’ve gotta wait around here for you.”
“Good. You might as well stay there, and I’ll meet you there.” Clay didn’t express it, but he had a hankering to look in on Katie Mashburn as well.
The decision made, they sat in silence for a few minutes more before a young lieutenant signaled Clay that he was ready. “See you in Canyon Creek,” Clay said as he prodded his horse into action.
Jim remained there to watch the patrol file out in a column of twos. Then, following the simple directions given him by Alton Broom, he crossed the bridge and rode along the riverbank until he reached the tent described to him. It was attached to the bed of a wagon by a canvas flap that was tied to the rear wheel spokes. Dismounting, he called out to see if anyone was about. After a moment or two, a pale woman with tired eyes and lips painted ruby red pushed the entrance flap aside and stuck her head out. Seeing the tall, broad-shouldered young man, she immediately affected a smile and came outside to greet him.
“Well, sir, what can I do for you?” she asked, her enthusiasm fostered by the prospect of a customer she might actually enjoy servicing. “In need of a little female companionship?”
“No, ma’am,” Jim replied. “It’s a little early in the day for me. It’s a tempting thought, though,” he lied, not wishing to insult her. “Is your name Cora?”
“It might be,” she replied, suspicious of any man who called on her for other than business reasons.
“I’m looking for a man that came to see you maybe a couple of months ago.”
Before he could say more, she laughed and replied, “Ha! I don’t remember who was here last night, let alone a couple of months ago.”
“His name is Johnny Malotte,” Jim continued.
Cora replied at once, “Oh, him. I remember Johnny, all right. He spent the best part of a week around here.” She paused to recall. “I swear, I believe he’da stayed longer if that big scary bastard with the scar down his face hadn’t knocked him in the head and dragged him outta here.” She shook her head in wonder and shuddered involuntarily as she remembered Slocum’s surprise visit to her tent.
Jim was puzzled. “Somebody knocked him in the head? Who? Was it a lawman?”
“No,” she answered, then hesitated. “Well, maybe. I don’t know. He didn’t say he was the law, just said Johnny was wanted by the army in Fort Lincoln.”
“Fort Lincoln?” That didn’t make sense to Jim. “If he was wanted by the army, why not turn him over to the army right here at Fort Laramie?”
“You got me, mister. All I know is he said he was wanted at Fort Lincoln.” She paused, trying to recall. “For something he did in Virginia, I think he said.”
Virginia? That definitely struck a chord, and Jim immediately became impatient for answers. “Did this man say he was taking Johnny Malotte to Fort Lincoln or Virginia?”
Now Cora’s patience was beginning to thin. “He didn’t say where he was going.” She threw her hands up helplessly. “If you coulda seen that man . . . I wasn’t about to ask him where he was going. I was just glad to see him go.”
Seeing that he was going to get no more information from Cora, Jim thanked her, started to leave, then as an afterthought, gave her a couple of dollars for her time. She curtsied sweetly and graciously accepted the money, then invited him back when he desired something more than answers. “I could get real generous with a man like you.”
“Much obliged,” he said as he stepped up in the saddle. “Maybe another time.” Then he wheeled the buckskin pony around and rode off down the riverbank. There were a lot of facts that didn’t add up swimming around in his mind. I’m looking for Johnny Malotte. Some stranger is looking for me. But he finds Malotte and hauls him off to Fort Lincoln. It didn’t take a genius to figure out this fearsome stranger Cora had talked about had mistaken Johnny Malotte for Jim Culver. He knew now that he had been dead wrong when he assumed the army would not pursue his arrest. From Cora’s description of the incident, the huge man didn’t waste much time making sure he had the right man. The fact that Malotte was riding my horse and carried a rifle with my initials on it didn’t help Johnny a drop. By now this bounty hunter—and Jim was sure that was what he was—had to know that he had captured the wrong man. He would be back. The question in Jim’s mind was, after all this, where was Johnny Malotte? Maybe he was in Fort Lincoln, or anywhere west of the Missouri . . . or dead. Knowing it might be impossible to track Malotte down, he was still determined to settle that score. But first, his common sense told him a more urgent concern might be the bounty hunter. I’d better go back and see if I can find out more from Alton Broom about my so-called friend from Virginia.
Chapter 11
“Well, if the bastard’s in the camp, he ain’t showed his face all day long,” Slocum complained aloud, his impatience about to get the best of him. Never good at the waiting game, he was getting more and more antsy as the sun sank lower in the afternoon sky. He had spent the entire day watching the Crow camp, looking for some sign of the young white man he hunted. He had spotted an old white man who he assumed was Newt Plummer, the man Jake had described. So he was pretty confident that the village he was watching was that of the Crow chief Iron Bow.
He squinted as he strained to watch a group of Indian women as they made their way, laughing and talking, along the riverbank after emerging from a thick stand of willows. Slocum guessed there must be some berry bushes beyond the willows, because the women were carrying baskets. He followed them with his eyes as they returned to the circle of tipis. From his position on a high bluff, he could now see hunters, some individuals, some in groups, returning to the camp—but no sign of a young white man among them.
“Dammit!” he exclaimed aloud, reluctantly coming to the conclusion that he had wasted an entire day watching the Crow village. He could feel the hot blood of frustration heating his veins as he thought of the man he hunted. Jim Culver . . . in the beginning he was just another rabbit, to be tracked down and skinned for the reward money. But Jim Culver had caused Slocum a great deal of humiliation—as well as a sizable reward payment—when he mistook Johnny Malotte for the wanted man. Slocum hated the fact that he had brought in the wrong man, more than the loss of the money. After the berating by the contemptuous army officer, Slocum tended to heap the entire blame upon Jim Culver, and he developed an intense hatred for the man. Discovering that Culver had killed Blackie added so much fuel to Slocum’s rage that he could not rest until Jim was dead. He did not hold that much affection for his brother. Slocum hadn’t seen him in years. It was more the fact that Culver had the audacity to kill his brother. It ate away at his insides that the young fugitive had escaped him so far.
Maybe Jake Pascal had lied to him about Jim Culver being in Iron Bow’s village. Slocum frowned at the thought. “I ain’t gonna wait much longer,” he mumbled. “I’ll find me one of them Injuns alone and beat it out of him.” It was an idle threat, Slocum’s natural reaction to resort to violence as a solution to every problem. But the angry comment caused him to consider approaching a member of the village to find out if Jim Culver was, in fact, among them. He had to know for sure. Spurred by his growing impatience, he decided it was the best thing to do. What I gotta do is catch one of ’em alone, he concluded.
This thought brought his attention back to the willows where he had seen the women. “Maybe there’s still some of ’em picking berries or whatever they was doin’,” he mumbled as he got to his feet and made his way back down the bluff to where his horses were tied.
It was close to sundown by the time he circled around to approach the riverbank below the stand of willows. Leaving his horses tied again, he moved through the trees to the water’s edge until he discovered the patch of serviceberry bushes where the women had evidently been. There w
as no one there now. Disappointed almost to the state of fuming, he angrily turned on his heel and stomped back through the trees to his horses. He was just shy of emerging from the cover of the willows when he caught a glimpse of a buckskin-clad figure through the foliage.
Quick as a wink, Slocum dropped to one knee and drew the pistol from his belt. Moving very slowly, he reached up and pulled a willow branch aside and peered through the leaves to discover the slightly bent figure of Newt Plummer standing by his horse. Slocum waited and watched for a few minutes before deciding what to do about his surprise visitor. It was the old white man he had seen in the village earlier, and here he was snooping around his horses. After watching Newt for a short while, Slocum decided the old man was simply curious about finding a couple of horses tied among the gullies, especially one with a white man’s saddle. He decided to try a friendly approach, counting himself lucky that it was the old white man snooping around instead of an Indian. He knew some sign language, but none of the Crow dialect.
Newt was surprised, but not startled, when a man called out from behind him, “Howdy. I reckon you might be Newt Plummer.”
Newt turned to face the stranger who suddenly appeared from the willows. At once taken aback to find himself confronting Blackie, or Blackie’s ghost—he wasn’t sure which—he nevertheless kept his emotions in check. His common sense told him that Blackie was dead. He had witnessed his death. But this man looked enough like Blackie to be his twin—except for the scar on the side of his face. It was this feature alone that convinced Newt he was looking at Blackie’s twin brother. “I’m Newt Plummer, all right,” he replied, “but how’d you know that?”
“Oh, I heard you was livin’ with a bunch of Injuns,” Slocum said, smiling. “I’m lookin’ for a friend of mine, and I was told he was runnin’ with you.”
“Is that so?” Newt replied, looking Slocum over thoroughly. “And who might that be?”
“Jim Culver,” Slocum said. “I’ve got some news for him from Virginia.”
“Is that a fact?” Newt responded. He had a pretty fair idea why Blackie’s brother would be looking for Jim, and it wouldn’t be to bring him any news from Virginia. “You’re kinda takin’ a chance, sneakin’ around Iron Bow’s camp, ain’tcha?”
Slocum grinned. “Well, maybe. But I wasn’t exactly sneakin’ around. I was just fixin’ to ride in. I’m a peaceable man.”
Newt had lived in the high mountains long enough to know a skunk when he met one, and he was certain he was facing one now. For sure, this oversize polecat was no friend of Jim Culver’s, and he must have found out that Jim had killed his brother. “Well, I can save you the trouble of ridin’ into Iron Bow’s camp. Jim Culver left over a week ago.”
“That so? Heading where?” Slocum asked.
“He didn’t say,” Newt replied.
“Maybe he headed back to that little valley they call Canyon Creek. You reckon?”
“Like I said, he didn’t say,” Newt replied dryly.
Slocum’s eyes narrowed behind heavy black brows, and a lascivious grin slowly spread across his woolly face. “You’d tell me if you knew, though. Right?”
Newt shrugged in response, feeling no need to reply. He turned to fetch his pony, which was pulling up some grass near the water’s edge. “I best get back to camp. I reckon you’ll be anxious to get on your way before some of Iron Bow’s warriors catch your scent. They ain’t exactly fond of white men right now.”
Slocum raised an eyebrow at this. “Why, hell, you’re a white man, ain’tcha?”
“They don’t look at me as one. I’ve been livin’ with ’em long enough so’s they look at me same as a Crow.” He prepared to mount his pony.
“Well, that’s just dandy, ain’t it?” Slocum’s grin returned to part the hairy mass of beard that obscured the lower half of his face. “Much obliged for your help,” he said as he stepped closer and extended his hand. Newt reluctantly took it.
Slocum continued to grin, staring directly into Newt’s eyes, as he gradually increased the pressure of his hand. Newt tried to squeeze back at first, but the old man was no match for the powerful grasp that was slowly intensifying with bone-crushing power. Newt tried to pull away, but he could not free his hand. Slocum laughed at the old man’s attempts and continued to apply pressure until suddenly there came the sharp crack of bone breaking, and Newt cried out in pain. Desperate now, he tried to lash Slocum’s face with the reins he held in his other hand. Annoyed by Newt’s feeble efforts, Slocum emitted an angry grunt and responded by drawing his knife from his belt. Newt drew his breath in a sharp gasp of surprise as the blade sank deep under his ribs. His whole body tensed helplessly, and he grimaced with the fiery pain that seared his innards.
“Damn you,” was all Newt could manage to mutter through clenched teeth. He knew he was done for. His efforts to free himself became more and more feeble.
The grin still in place, Slocum continued to hold Newt up with the knife embedded deep in the old man’s organs, watching him die. “You’re done for,” he crowed. “You might as well tell me where Culver is.”
“You can go to hell,” Newt gasped with his final breath. The light of life in the mortally wounded man quickly faded away until it went out, and Newt slumped limply. In one sudden move, Slocum snatched the knife from Newt’s belly and let his body drop to the ground.
“I can’t abide a renegade Injun lover,” Slocum stated dispassionately as he cleaned his knife blade on Newt’s shirt. Killing the old man provided a certain amount of satisfaction for Slocum, because he knew Newt was a friend of Jim’s. So it was almost like killing a little piece of the man for whom he had built such a strong hatred. If he had his way, Slocum would kill everybody in Jim Culver’s family. There was a practical reason for killing Newt beyond pure satisfaction, however. Slocum didn’t doubt for a minute that Newt would have sicced his Indian friends on him as soon as he got back to camp. With Iron Bow’s Crow warriors in mind, he decided he’d better remove Newt’s body from the vicinity in case someone from the camp chanced upon it. That decision made, he picked Newt up and flopped him across his pony’s back.
He led the horses along the riverbank, remaining in the cover of the cottonwoods and willows until he deemed it safe to mount up and head south down the valley. He was satisfied that Jim Culver was no longer in the Crow camp, and he had made a decision to head for Canyon Creek. He had a notion that maybe Jim wouldn’t stay away from those two women in the new cabin there for very long. After putting some distance between himself and the Crow camp, he released Newt’s pony. He would have ordinarily kept the horse, but at this time he didn’t want the extra burden. So after watching the Indian pony wander off toward a berry thicket with the old man’s body teetering to and fro across the saddle, Slocum led Toby off toward the end of the valley.
Chapter 12
Jim looked up into a heavy gray sky as a light shower of snowflakes began to settle softly upon the trees along the narrow trail he followed. The snowfall was unexpected. The sky had been almost cloudless the day before, and it was still early for cold weather. It was not unusual, however. According to Newt, more times than not the weather turned cold overnight in this part of the Rockies this time of year. High up near the peaks, it could be a sunny fall day on one side of a ridge and a spine-freezing winter squall on the other. It was just one more thing about the high mountains mat fascinated him. Less than a week before, he had been riding in warm sunshine as he made his way through the Bighorn valley country, his senses almost overwhelmed by the pungent aroma of the sage that grew there in such abundance. Now he could possibly be faced with plowing through snowdrifts before he made it through the narrow pass to Canyon Creek.
He found himself thinking more and more about Lettie Henderson as he urged the buckskin pony along a trail barely wide enough to permit a wagon to pass. On either side of him, the wind whispered softly through lodgepole pines that stood so tall it strained a man’s neck to look up to their tops. This was such a
peaceful place that Jim found it difficult to concentrate on the likes of Johnny Malotte and the mysterious stranger who seemed to be dogging his trail. Instead his thoughts kept straying ahead to the cabin in Canyon Creek and the slight young girl there. Many weeks had passed since he rode out of Canyon Creek, not only to follow an inborn call to see the other side of the mountains, but also to give his mind a chance to rid itself of thoughts of Lettie Henderson. It hadn’t worked. Even after all this time, and all that had happened, she still crept into his thoughts.
“What in hell could I offer her?” he suddenly blurted, wondering how he could even think about supporting a wife. Surprised by the sudden outburst, the buckskin turned its head to eyeball the troubled young man. “Hell, I ain’t nowhere near ready to settle down,” he offered in answer to the horse’s apparent question. “I’ve got a helluva lot of unfinished business to tend to before I’m ready to think about the plow.” He unconsciously fingered one of the bullet holes in his deerskin shirt as if to recall his attention to the business ahead. Silently he reprimanded himself for entertaining such thoughts about the young lady.
“Hell, she might not even be in Canyon Creek,” he voiced his thoughts again. “I’ve been gone a long time. She could have decided I wasn’t coming back, and decided to go back to St. Louis.” This time the buckskin didn’t bother to even acknowledge its master’s foolish prattle, but continued its steady pace along the narrow pass. The pony’s previous Crow owner never wasted breath talking to himself. Jim rebuked himself again for thinking foolish thoughts. “She ain’t gone back. They would have told me back at Fort Laramie if she had passed through there.”
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