From the lawman’s appearance and tone, Millard had sensed that the Ranger wanted Lamar Bodeen, killer and whiskey-runner for something other than justice. His eyes had burned with hatred. Ranger Clarke had a personal score to settle with that felon.
It would not have surprised Millard to see the Ranger trailing Bodeen’s trail or his own.
No matter. By the time the three men were fifty yards from the camp, Millard knew they weren’t Rangers, and the one riding in the center was not Mr. Clarke.
He had to chuckle without much humor as he remembered the saying There’s no law, and no God, in this part of the territory.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Limestone Gap, Choctaw Nation
“Wait here.” Winchester shotgun in his right hand, Jackson Sixpersons swung down from his horse and handed the reins to Deputy Marshal Malcolm Mallory.
Setting the brake on the tumbleweed wagon, Virgil Flatt blew his nose with one of the tied ends of his bandana. Neither argued with the old Cherokee’s orders. Neither tried to talk him out of walking to the log cabin down below.
Sixpersons hadn’t expected them to. The fact, however, that neither volunteered to wait in the woods behind them, came as a mild surprise. He pulled his hat on a little tighter before unfastening one of the saddlebags. His left hand disappeared into the leather bag and came out with a long pouch. Liquid sloshed from inside the bottle inside the pouch. Keeping the shotgun in his right hand pointed at the cabin, Sixpersons walked down the path, past the well and the rawhide corral that was falling apart, and stopped before stepping onto the rotting porch. The place hadn’t been lived in—permanently—for years, but smoke rose from the chimney. Even outside, Jackson Sixpersons could smell and taste pungent tobacco smoke.
He did not announce himself. Did not knock. Just waited in the hot sun.
“You alone?” a hoarse voice called from inside.
“You know I’m not,” Sixpersons answered.
From inside came a slight chuckling. “Yeah, you are.”
Jackson Sixpersons had to smile. “I reckon you’re right.” He tried to pick out the most solid of the rotting wood and eased his way onto the porch without breaking any planks—or his leg or neck—and pushed the creaking door open with the barrel of the twelve-gauge. Slowly, he stepped into the one-room cabin, not stepping into the shadows, but staying in the slip of sunlight.
Any furniture had been taken with whoever had once lived there. He could see the small fire, the occasional orange glow of a cigarette, and the figure of a man sitting on the hearth. Now that he was inside, other odors assaulted his senses.
Dust. Dead rats. The musky smell of a skunk. Or maybe that was just Newton Ah-ha-lo-man-tubbee. For the four years Sixpersons had known him, the half-breed Choctaw had smelled of nothing except Bull Durham and sweat.
“You sent for me,” Sixpersons said.
The shadow rose. The orange glow disappeared, followed by the sound of a butt hitting the floor. Newton Ah-ha-lo-man-tubbee never crushed out a smoke with his foot, never used an ashtray. He’d probably burn to death in a fire one night. No, he would meet his end from a bullet. In fact, he should already be dead.
The breed glided across the room, but stopped before the sunlight hit him. Still, he stood close enough for the Cherokee lawman to see him.
The ragged clothing. Sweat dripping down his face. The straw hat, the sheathed Bowie on his hip, the cigarette paper, the sack of Bull Durham. He was already rolling another smoke. Jackson Sixpersons could even see the scar on Newton Ah-ha-lo-man-tubbee’s left hand.
“I hear,” the man said in a tobacco-strained voice, “you want the McCoy-Maxwell Gang.”
Sixpersons head shook. “I want nothing. The law wants them.”
“I can get ’em for you.”
“Last I heard, they were in Texas.”
The Choctaw licked the paper, sealed the cigarette, and put the smoke between his razor-thin lips. A match flared, and Newton Ah-ha-lo-man-tubbee brought the Lucifer to the cigarette, which flared to life. He took a long drag, held it in, blew out a stream of blue smoke, and then pointed a thin finger at the shotgun in the Cherokee’s hands. “The younger one, the meanest, smooth-talkin’ one”—the cigarette returned to the man’s lips, but he kept talking—“his scattergun’s fancier than yourn. Mean lookin’. Blow a man’s head off.”
“Maybe yours.”
The half-breed Choctaw smiled. “Maybe so.”
“If I don’t do it first.”
Newton Ah-ha-lo-man-tubbee laughed. “You ain’t done it in four years.”
“We Cherokees are a patient people.”
The half-breed took another drag on the cigarette, held it, exhaled. “Link McCoy.”
Sixpersons said nothing.
“Made me a proposition in Denison.”
“That’s Texas. Not my department.”
The thin man grinned again and removed his cigarette. “But he wants back in the Nations.”
Again, Sixpersons kept quiet.
“Asked me to find Lamar Bodeen for ’im.”
“Don’t know him.”
“Whiskey runner. Bad whiskey. Last I heard, the Rangers want him bad in Texas. Made a bunch of folks sick in some Podunk town in the Panhandle. Killed a few. Including one Ranger’s kid.”
“Like I said, that’s not my department.”
“Is if Bodeen’s in the territory.”
“Bodeen, maybe. Not McCoy.”
The breed laughed, smoked again, and pointed the cigarette under Sixpersons’ nose. “Thought you said you got no interest in Link McCoy. Or Zane Maxwell.”
Flattening his lips, the Cherokee waited.
“McCoy asked around down Denison way. He wants to partner up with a big-time whiskey runner, and he ain’t after no small-time Choc or Creek. Even a Cherokee. He don’t want none of the big boys, but a small-time man with a lot of whiskey and no morals. I figured that described Lamar Bodeen to a T.”
When Newton Ah-ha-lo-man-tubbee took another drag, Sixpersons said, “You telling me that McCoy, Maxwell, Tulip Bells and whoever is left are turning to running liquor in the Nations?”
“You don’t pay me to make no guesses, Jackson. Just for information.”
Sixpersons brought the pouch up and waved his hand so that the liquor in the bottle inside the pouch sloshed.
“Old Overholt?” Newton Ah-ha-lo-man-tubbee asked.
The Cherokee’s head shook.
“You know that’s my brand,” the breed complained.
“Rye’s not allowed in the Nations,” Sixpersons said. “You get what I can confiscate.”
The man’s scarred hand came up and took the pouch. “Runnin’ liquor is a felony, Mister Marshal, or so I hear tell.”
“That’s a down payment. Now you pay me.”
The cigarette flashed through the light and doorway and disappeared in the afternoon. Newton Ah-ha-lo-man-tubbee’s right hand disappeared into the deep mule-ear pockets of his duck pants, and came out holding something that glittered in the sunlight.
Jackson Sixpersons could hear the ticking of the watch. The breed let the watch dangle in the light from his right hand.
It was gold. Sixpersons could tell that much as the watch spun on its chain, back and forth. After a moment, the Choctaw half-breed jerked the watch to his hand, put his thumb on the key, and the watch opened. Sixpersons couldn’t read the manufacturer’s name on the dial, but he could hear the music. The lid snapped shut. Newton Ah-ha-lo-man-tubbee held the watch in his hand, and Sixpersons saw the engraved initials on the hunter’s case. MRC
“Familiar?” Newton Ah-ha-lo-man-tubbee asked.
“Is it a Waltham?” Sixpersons asked.
“I wouldn’t know. I can’t read. Or tell the white man’s time from a white man’s toy.”
Sixpersons knew. Only one watch like that could be found in Indian Territory, and it had been stolen by the McCoy-Maxwell Gang from a teller named Mike Crawford at a bank in Greenville, Arkansas.
>
Suddenly, Jackson Sixpersons felt something he rarely felt.
Sweat.
Not from nerves. Not even from the heat. From excitement.
“Whiskey,” he said.
“Not just any whiskey. Bad whiskey. That’s what Link McCoy wanted. And I told him I could take him to Lamar Bodeen.”
“Bodeen.” Jackson Sixpersons wanted more than the whiskey runner’s name.
“One of his names. Wildcat Bodeen. Wildcat Lamar. B. C. Bodeen. Bill Lamar. Whiskey Bill. Rotgut Wildcat. For about sixteen months, he’s been bringin’ whiskey from No Man’s Land and across the Panhandle, fillin’ the railroaders and cowboys bellies with rotgut, then driftin’ into Indian Territory. He don’t get up into Creek or Cherokee country. Stays south. The wild savages to the west of us. Then Chickasaw and Choctaw lands. Heads down to Texarkana. But, since he’s riled the Rangers, I don’t reckon he’ll do that no more. Appears to me he wants to make one last score then get out of the business.”
“They just made a score. More than seventeen hundred bucks from a bank in Greenville. That should last them.”
The half-breed’s head shook. “What I hear tell, they didn’t get near that much. Maybe four hundred. So Link McCoy wants a whiskey runner. And Bodeen’s just the kind of man Link McCoy needs.”
“For what?”
Newton Ah-ha-lo-man-tubbee busied himself removing the bottle from the pouch. He held it in the light, but his tobacco-stained teeth disappeared in a frown.
“You been samplin’?”
“I don’t touch the stuff. Anymore.”
“Somebody did.”
“The man I confiscated it from.”
His teeth reappeared, but only to pull out the cork, which he spit into a hole in the floor, and drank long and greedily. Half the bottle was empty when he lowered it and coughed violently. He blew his nose and shook his head. “Who’d you say you taken this rotgut from?”
Sixpersons had been waiting for that. “Bodeen.”
The bottle dropped to Newton Ah-ha-lo-man-tubbee’s side, and his face seemed to pale, but only briefly. He cursed, took another pull, wiped his nose with the sleeve of his homespun shirt, and cursed Jackson Sixpersons in Choctaw, Cherokee, English, French, and Spanish. “Funny, for a thievin’ Cherokee.”
“What does Link McCoy want with a wagon full of whiskey?”
Newton Ah-ha-lo-man-tubbee’s head shook. “Don’t know. He don’t tell me much. Not yet.”
“When are they to meet?”
Again, the breed shook his head. “We ain’t talked terms.”
“Name them.” Jackson Sixpersons had heard and seen enough.
“Three horses. One a stud. Fifty dollars. I keep the watch. You keep the rewards. I just tell you where and when. You don’t know me. I don’t know you. You take the horses and the money to my wife. And if I get killed, you still pay your debt.”
“You know I will.”
“Yeah, but I want to hear it.”
“You just did.”
“If you get killed, I still get paid.”
“I’ll tell my wife. That I lost a bet.”
“I trust her more ’n I trust the likes of you. ” Newton Ah-ha-lo-man-tubbee held up the bottle. “And a bottle of rye, but not this slop. Old Overholt. No, two bottles.”
Jackson Sixpersons agreed and asked the question again. “When will Bodeen and McCoy meet?”
The half-breed grinned. “Don’t know. But the way McCoy tapped his fingers on the table, it appeared he was anxious and eager to get things movin’ along right soon.”
“Where?”
Newton Ah-ha-lo-man-tubbee drained the bottle, dropped it through the floor, and began rolling another cigarette. “Like I says, I got to find Bodeen first.”
“Be careful, Newton.”
Another match flared, and the cigarette flared to life. He shook out the match, stuck the cigarette in his mouth, and smiled. “You, too, Jack.”
“Don’t call me Jack. You sure you can find Bodeen?”
“Sure. Providin’ he ain’t riled the Comanches or Kiowas with his poison and gotten his hair lifted. Or his kid’s.”
“Kid?”
Newton Ah-ha-lo-man-tubbee took another drag, exhaled, and let out a smoker’s heavy cough. “Girl. Fifteen. Sixteen. Some such. The old man tries to pass the petticoat off as a boy, but only an idiot would think that lass be a he.”
Kiowa-Comanche-Apache Reservation
After making camp, Wildcat Lamar strode off afoot to the north, leaving the two boys on their own.
“What in blazes are you doing?” Robin Lamar roared.
“I have to go!” James Mann sang out, desperately trying to unbutton his britches. “I’ve been holding it so long, my kidneys are about to rupture!” Relief—from his bladder and from the fact that he had not wet his pants—came instantly as he sprayed the bush with urine. Too much coffee that morning, he decided, and the old man had been pushing him, Robin, and the oxen hard all day. James finished relieving himself, buttoned up his pants, wiped his hands on the sand, and turned to Robin Lamar.
But Wildcat’s son had gone. Practically tripped, it appeared, to get away from James. He scratched his head, then chuckled, thinking that the boy must have thought that he might have peed on him. Crazy.
By the time Lamar came back to camp, the oxen were unhitched and camp was being set up, but he flew into a fit, cursing, yelling, kicking out the campfire, knocking over the tripod that held a kettle full of rabbit stew, and screaming at his son that he knew better. Then he pointed a thick finger at James. “Get that team hitched, boy! Now. Comp’ny ’s comin’ and . . .” The rest of the orders were lost in a cacophony of curses and gestures.
They had just finished breaking camp, the team hitched, though ornery at feeling the leather of harness again.
The whole blasted family, father and son, were mad as a couple of mercury-addled hatters.
It all made about as much sense as sticking to game trails or blazing their own paths in that wild country. Company was coming. So why get ready to break camp? It would be dark before long. Sundown was coming at a high lope, so how much farther could they travel without a road to follow?
On the other hand . . . James began to calm down. If they left camp tonight, they might reach Fort Smith sooner. He stepped around the rear of the wagon, which had been opened by the old man.
Wildcat stepped to the end and tossed James the Winchester ’86. “Keep it handy, boy.”
James dropped the rifle in the sand. The old fool had thrown it hard.
Another litany of curses came out of Wildcat Lamar’s mouth. “Ain’t you got any sense, boy?”
James picked up the rifle, blew the sand off the receiver and lever, and checked the barrel to make sure it wasn’t clogged. It looked clean.
“What are you talking about?” It might have been the first time James had ever raised his voice against Robin’s pa, but frustration was building, and he felt a headache coming on. Fast.
“You can shoot that big gun, can’t you, kid?”
“Sure.” James hesitated. Well, he thought he could. Yeah, he knew how to work a rifle. Uncle Jimmy had helped teach him. “Yeah,” he said with a little extra confidence. I can shoot a gun, he told himself. Even this rifle.
If I only had any bullets.
A large barrel rolled out of the wagon.
James stopped it from rolling over him, and read the stamp branded into the oak. MALASES. He sniggered.
“What’s so blasted funny, boy?” Wildcat was in poor humor.
James used the barrel of the rifle to tap the word. “Molasses is misspelled.”
“Like ’em dirty bucks know how to read.” The old man hopped from the high wagon, his knees popping. He grunted and pushed himself up. “Robin!” he thundered. “Where be ya?”
“Here,” the boy said without much enthusiasm, and stepped around the side of the wagon.
His eyes met James’s, and quickly the kid looked away, starin
g at his feet, practically blushing.
“Ever’thing loaded up, boy?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Blacksnake whip in the box?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Brake ain’t set, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Fetch yer shotgun.”
The kid looked up and wet his lips.
“Do it!” Wildcat accented the order with more profanity.
“Yes, sir.” Robin climbed into the back of the wagon, disappearing behind other barrels and boxes.
James looked at Wildcat Lamar, who was wiping his sweaty palms on his britches and wetting his own lips.
After a few moments of nervousness, he found a twist of tobacco in his pouch and tore off a mouthful. “Oughten to be here by now.” He tried to spit, but couldn’t. He wiped his brow again, his mouth working furiously against the hard-cured tobacco
“Who is coming? Who is company?” James lowered the barrel and ran his left hand through his sweaty hair. He looked across the prairie, but saw only the endless expanse of Indian Territory—a few broken hills, grass, and dips of arroyos. Only a few trees seemed to appear way off in the distance. A man could see clear to Kansas off to the north, maybe even Nebraska or the Dakotas. But no one. No body. Not even a horse, rabbit ,or tarantula.
“Shut up. I smell ’em. Smell ’em lyin’, thievin’, con-nivin’ savages. Ro-bin!”
“Here I am.” The boy jumped from the wagon, wielding the shotgun.
“Get into the box. Down low. Keep down. Not a word, kid. Don’t hardly breathe. Hide till we needs you. You savvy?”
The kid’s head bobbed, and then he was running to the front of the freight wagon, climbing up on the front wheel, lowering the shotgun into the driver’s box, and then climbing over and disappearing inside the box.
Finally, Wildcat Lamar spit brown juice into the dust. James stepped closer, and the old man sucked in a deep breath, held it, let it out, and nodded to the north.
“Knowed it. Smelt ’em, I did. Here they come. Rifle handy, boy. Rifle handy.”
James Mann saw a dozen or more men on horses, mostly paints, but a few roans and one bay. They had appeared as if from magic, climbing out of one of the arroyos. They rode free, easily, long hair hanging in braids, decorated with feathers, although the leader had a buffalo horn headdress. Behind the riders, walked two or three women followed by a dog.
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