A Man Called Sunday

by Charles G. West

  Crouched on her heels until that moment, Mary Beth sprang up and ran out to the water’s edge. Too late to stop her, Vienna could only gape at the woman who had seemingly lost her mind. A moment later, she saw Mary Beth’s glad smile and heard her say, “Luke Sunday.”

  “Are you all right, ma’am?” Luke asked.

  “Now that I’m looking at you, I am,” Mary Beth admitted.

  Vienna came out from under the bank to join them. “I’ve never been so glad to see someone in my entire life,” she exclaimed when the tall white warrior made his way down through the gully. “I guess you saw what happened at my cabin.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Luke replied. “I’m real sorry for your friends. I didn’t see anybody around, and I found your tracks leadin’ across the field, so I came lookin’ for you. I didn’t see anybody’s tracks chasin’ you.” His typical unemotional speech belied the anguish he had experienced when coming upon the ghastly scene at the cabin, as well as the joyous relief he felt upon finding Mary Beth safe.

  “Is my house still standin’?” Vienna asked, afraid that the two assailants might have burned it down. Luke assured her that both houses were intact although there appeared to be quite a bit of destruction to the furnishings. “Well, at least they left us a roof over our heads,” she said.

  Answering his question, the women told him of the two men who had appeared at the edge of the road, and the futile attempt they had all made to defend themselves after John was shot down in cold blood. When Mary Beth described the two men, and said that the big one reminded her of one of the scouts she thought she had seen at Fort Fetterman, Luke had no doubt who the killers were. “Bogart,” he muttered, for the huge man came to mind immediately. But how, he wondered, did Bill Bogart happen to be here on the Yellowstone, and not with the soldiers now chasing the splintered parties of Sioux and Cheyenne? Mary Beth told him about the demands they had made for the money they said they knew was hidden somewhere in the house. It seemed more likely then that someone at Fort Fetterman had found out about Mary Beth’s sack of corn. And from her description of the men that attacked them, that man had to be Bogart. Still showing no outward emotion, he said, “Well, they’re gone now, so we best be gettin’ back. We’ve got bodies to bury.” He took a long look at Mary Beth’s eyes, now somewhat strained and weary, and said, “I expect you two could use some rest and maybe somethin’ to eat.”

  “I could eat,” Vienna replied immediately.

  At Luke’s insistence, the two women rode back to the cabin on his horse while he ran a few yards in front, trotting at a pace that dictated a fast walk for the paint gelding. It was a distance of a little over two miles, but it had seemed twice that in the darkness of the night before. Upon reaching the cornfield, Luke halted the horse, telling the women to remain there until he took a precautionary look around. “A man like Bogart might take a notion to come back lookin’ for you,” Luke said.

  “Well, that’s comfortin’, ain’t it?” Vienna asked facetiously.

  “Don’t hurt to be careful,” Luke said, realizing then that it might not have been the right thing to say.

  After a brief look around, Luke signaled for them to come in. Mary Beth and Vienna went directly to the bedroom, where they found Doris’s body just as it had been when they escaped through the window. In the doorway of the bedroom, they found young John Edward Freeman Jr., called Jack by his parents, his body drawn up in the fetal position, a result of two gunshot wounds in his gut. A third wound in the side of his head must have slammed death’s door on the dying boy. “Those bastards,” Vienna spat. “They couldn’t just rob us and leave us in peace. What kind of animal does this?”

  “You women do whatever you want to get ’em ready to bury,” Luke said. “I’ll go up by the road and get John’s body. Then I’ll dig a grave.”

  “I’ll take care of this,” Vienna told Mary Beth. “Why don’t you get a fire goin’ in the stove and see if you can find something to cook? We’re all about to starve.” She looked through the doorway toward the kitchen. “They sure made a mess of the place. They probably didn’t leave us a mouthful of food.”

  “I’ve got plenty of meat on my packhorse in the barn. I was bringin’ it to you,” Luke said as he was going out the front door.

  “You always do,” Mary Beth remarked. “Whenever we need food, you find a way to get it.” Luke was not sure how to respond, so he didn’t. Mary Beth watched him as he stepped off the front porch on his way to get John’s body. She turned and started toward the kitchen, only to think of the one thing she had not checked on. She passed through the kitchen and out the back door, an anxious frown fixed on her face. Frozen in the door of the smokehouse, she stared at the gutted sacks against the wall. The one she was most concerned with sat almost empty, a pile of corn before it, the top of the bag collapsed upon itself, a signal to her that everything she had was gone. Knowing it to be a useless endeavor, she rushed to kneel before the gutted sack and scattered the pile of corn in desperate hope they might have missed a bag or a coin. What a fool I am, she silently berated herself for having thought the sack of corn the perfect hiding place. After a few moments of chastising herself, she told herself, What’s done is done. There’s nothing I can do about it now. And she once again despaired over David’s and her fatal decision to come west in the first place. Pulling herself together, she got up to return to the kitchen to see what she could find to feed them, dreading to tell Vienna that the money she planned to spend on their farm was gone.

  * * *

  What Bogart and Wylie had not stolen, they had destroyed, but Luke supplied the women with enough meat, coffee, and beans to tide them over for a few days until they could go to town for more supplies. The money to buy those supplies was also furnished by Luke, who volunteered the balance of the one hundred dollars Mary Beth had paid him, sixty dollars to be exact. Mary Beth made a mild protest, but knew that she and Vienna had little choice but to take his money. Luke insisted that he was accustomed to being broke, so he would hardly miss it. “If I ain’t got it, I won’t have to worry about losin’ it.”

  Mary Beth would always remember the sadness of the day when they buried John, Doris, and their son in one common grave. It had been a gray day from the beginning, and as soon as Luke had finished digging the grave, a light rain began to fall. It was as if God saw fit to personally express His sadness over the brutal murder of a young and promising family. There was little ceremony. Vienna beseeched God to please accept them lovingly. “They’re good people,” she implored, “the kind we need more of.” She ended her prayer with one more request, since she had the Lord’s ear, and that was to strike down the devils who had destroyed the family.

  “Amen,” Mary Beth offered.

  The meal that followed was almost as sad as the funeral with all three eating in silence until Vienna commented that at least the rain had let up. “It wasn’t enough to do the corn any good, but at least we got John and his family in the ground.” Her comment seemed to end the mourning period and signal the need to plan for the future. “We need to get all that deer meat in the smokehouse and start drying it. Then we’d best get this place straightened up. After that, we can take care of John and Doris’s house.”

  “I’ll be leavin’,” Luke announced quietly.

  “Why?” Mary Beth quickly responded, her fears at once returning. “Where are you going?”

  “I need to go while I’ve still got a trail to follow,” he replied. “They didn’t bother with coverin’ their tracks.”

  Mary Beth was at once alarmed. “We need you here.” She paused when both Vienna and Luke gave her a look of astonishment. “For a while, anyway,” she continued. “What if those men come back?”

  “That’s why I’ve got to go after ’em,” Luke said, “to make sure they don’t.” He glanced at Vienna, and she nodded in agreement. “One of ’em’s hurt. I found a lot of blood on th
e ground back of the house. Maybe they’ll be travelin’ slow. I need to get after ’em before we have more rain and I lose the tracks.”

  “What about the law?” Mary Beth asked. “Shouldn’t that be the law’s responsibility?”

  Her questions drew expressions of astonishment once again from both Luke and Vienna. “What law?” Vienna responded. “There ain’t no law closer than Bozeman, and that’s about a hundred and fifty miles from here. An eye for an eye, that’s the law in this territory, and it’s up to ordinary folks to protect themselves from predators like the ones responsible for our trouble.” She left little doubt where she stood regarding punishment for the two men who had killed John, Doris, and Jack. “Ain’t no different from shootin’ a couple of coyotes raidin’ the chicken coop.”

  “I guess you’re right,” Mary Beth conceded, “when you put it like that.” She frowned and shook her head. “It’s just that there’s so much killing.”

  “That’s just the way it is out here, ain’t it, Luke?” Vienna remarked. “And it’s the way it’s gonna be until Coulson gets big enough to hire a sheriff. So good huntin’, Luke,” she blurted. “I hope you find ’em quick and send ’em to hell, where they belong.” Seeing the concerned frown still in place on Mary Beth’s face, she said, “We’ll be all right. We’ll get this place back in order, and me and my rifle will take care of anybody tryin’ to bother us. Ain’t that right, Mary Beth?”

  Mary Beth smiled sheepishly. “That’s right. We’ll take care of ourselves.” Her frown returned momentarily. “But, damn it, Luke, you be careful. Those men are dangerous.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said as he turned to leave. They stood by the door, watching him until he disappeared into the barn to saddle up.

  * * *

  From the trail leading from the back of the barn, Luke could see that the two he followed were each leading a packhorse, making the tracks that much easier to follow. In addition, all four horses were shod, which helped as well. They led him to the common trail referred to as the river road by the settlers, and although there were many old tracks, those he trailed were much more recent than the others. As he rolled with easy grace to the paint’s steady pace, he thought about the men he pursued. There was no doubt that the huge man the women had described was Bogart, and he wondered why fate seemed intent upon crossing their two trails again and again. It seemed that fate, or whatever, had decided that it was up to him to rid the world of the menace that was Bogart, so the sooner he could get it done, the better. He thought of the family he had just buried, and he knew there would be other innocent people to receive the same fate if he didn’t stop Bogart.

  When he reached the trail that forked off the river road and led into Coulson, he pulled his horses to a halt. The tracks he followed indicated that Bogart and Wylie had stopped here for some reason, telling Luke there was some discussion between the two. One of them had dismounted, for there were boot prints as well, large boot prints. Luke guessed they were Bogart’s. Then the horses’ tracks split, one set left the river road and headed down the trail to Coulson. The other set continued along the river. A small spot of blood on the ground told him that the wounded man took the trail to town. Luke had a feeling that the wounded man was Wylie, and not Bogart. He had a decision to make. If he chose to go after Wylie, it would give Bogart more time to put distance between them. It was a tough decision to make, because Bogart was the man he wanted most to stop. But, he told himself, Wylie was every bit as guilty, and since he was wounded, he should be easier to trail. I’ll go after him first, he decided.

  * * *

  George Wylie was suffering. Sitting in the stable with his back up against the wall of a stall and one of Vienna Pitts’s blouses wrapped around his head, he waited for Doc Gunderson to return from an overnight visit upriver. And he ain’t even a real doctor, he thought. He’s a damn horse doctor. But Gunderson was all Coulson had to offer for folks in need of a doctor. While Wylie sat there trying not to think of the pain that encircled his head, he was deep in regret for ever having joined up with Bill Bogart. Sleep had been out of the question, so he had been forced to sit up all night, enduring the pain. Being in poor condition to defend himself should there be a call for it, he placed his rifle across his lap, cocked and ready to fire. Next to him lay his saddlebags. He had been in too much pain to unsaddle his horse, but he was not willing to risk leaving the saddlebags with two hundred dollars in gold coins inside.

  Bogart had left him at the crossroad, left him to seek help on his own. Wylie would have shot him if he had possessed the strength, even knowing Bogart probably hoped he would try. At least he had the money. The thought created a desire to feel the weight of the gold coins in his hand and maybe take his mind off his wound for a few minutes. Fumbling with the left-side pocket flap, where Bogart had dropped the two small bags, he thrust his hand inside. The bags were not there. In a panic, he pulled the saddlebag across his legs to get to the other pocket, thinking he must have remembered incorrectly. As before, he found no gold coins in the pocket. Bogart had cheated him! But how? Wylie had seen Bogart drop the two bags in the saddlebag with his own eyes. He was sure the money was in his saddlebag. Then he remembered. At the crossroad, where he had left him, Bogart dismounted to talk to him, standing next to his horse. Bogart had to have taken the bags then when he had been hurting too badly to know he was being robbed. The realization of it caused his wounds to scream out in agony, and he leaned his head back against the board partition and silently pleaded for the strength to heal enough to track Bogart down and kill him. His fear returned then that he was not going to make it if the doctor didn’t get there soon. Silently, he implored, God! How much longer? In immediate response to his plea, he heard a horse enter the stable, and a voice say, “Back yonder in the third stall.”

  “Buster said you’re waitin’ to see me,” Doc Gunderson said upon entering the stall to find Wylie sitting there with what once was a woman’s blouse wrapped around his head, now so blood-soaked as to be unrecognizable.

  “I need doctorin’,” Wylie said, his words garbled and almost incoherent, from his effort to talk with the teeth remaining on the other side of his mouth clenched against the pain.

  “Well, let’s take a look and see if I can help you,” Gunderson said, and knelt down before him. Very carefully, he unwound the clumsy bandage to reveal the ghastly destruction of Wylie’s mouth and jaw. “Good God, man!” Doc Gunderson exclaimed. “What the hell happened to you?”

  Wylie painfully replied, “I was cleanin’ my pistol, and it went off.”

  “That’s as good a story as any, I reckon,” Doc said, not wishing to know any further details. He remained kneeling before Wylie for several minutes while he studied the wounds and tried to decide what he could possibly do to treat them. “I’ll be honest with you, mister,” he finally said. “I don’t rightly know if I can help you or not. That’s a helluva hole in your cheek, and it looks like your jawbone is smashed. Tell you the truth, I’m tryin’ to find somethin’ to sew together.” He shook his head apologetically. “You know, I ain’t no physician. I’m a veterinarian.”

  The prognosis was not what Wylie had hoped to hear. “What would you do if I was a horse?” he sputtered.

  “Shoot you,” Doc answered.

  “Damn you . . . ,” Wylie started and clutched his rifle.

  “Hold on!” Gunderson quickly interrupted. “I ain’t said I wasn’t gonna try to help you. Don’t get all riled up. That sure ain’t gonna help none. From the looks of it, you’ve already lost more blood than you needed to. There’s some things I can do to make it easier on you, some medicine to help with the pain for one thing. Just sit tight, and I’ll be back in a minute.” He got to his feet and left the stall to retrieve a bottle of laudanum from his medicine cabinet in the tack room at the back of the stable.

  Left to fret over the desperate situation he found himself in, Wylie groaned with th
e discomfort. Angered over Doc Gunderson’s inability to fix his problem, he promised himself that he was going to shoot him if he didn’t give him adequate treatment. Then the thought of Bogart riding away free and easy while he suffered almost gave him the strength to overcome his wounds. Lost in thoughts of a showdown with his ex-partner, he wasn’t certain the voice was real when he heard it.

  “You ain’t lookin’ too good, Wylie.” Wylie jerked his head up, looking for the source, and finally located it at the door of the stall in the lethal form of Luke Sunday. “I’ve come to settle with you for those folks you killed back at that farmhouse.”

  “Sunday!” Wylie blurted, jerked his rifle up, and fired. His hurried shot missed wide, burying itself in a post by the door. Before he could cock the rifle again, Luke’s patiently aimed shot hit him square in the chest, and he slumped over, fatally wounded. Luke chambered another cartridge and walked into the stall to make sure there was no more danger from Wylie. He picked up the saddlebags draped across Wylie’s legs, turned them upside down, and raked out the contents on the floor of the stall. There were no little cloth bags with double eagles, so he did a quick check of Wylie’s pockets and came up empty again. Bogart’s got Mary Beth’s money, he thought, and turned to face the door of the stall again, in case there was something to anticipate from Wylie’s doctor. When no one came, he calmly walked out of the stable, climbed into the saddle, and rode out the front door.

  Doc Gunderson, being a practical man, had quickly closed the tack room door behind him at the sound of the first gunshot. It was fully fifteen minutes after the second shot before he heard Buster Carter knock on the tack room door and tell him that it was safe to come out. Still a little leery, afraid that someone might be holding a gun on Buster, Doc cautiously pushed the door ajar. “He’s gone,” Buster exclaimed as he and Doc hurried to the stall. “I saw the whole thing. I was up in the hayloft when that feller came in. I was climbing down the ladder to see what he wanted when I heard the first shot. Then I heard the second shot. I was scared to death. I was still hangin’ on to the ladder, halfway down, when he walked out—calm as you please—wild-lookin’ feller, like one of them trappers that live up in the mountains. He looked at me and just nodded, like ‘howdy-do.’ I near fell off the ladder.”