Fred became suspicious of the youngster’s motive. “Why are you tryin’ to get rid of me all of a sudden?”
“I’m tryin’ to do you a favor.”
“Well, that’s decent of you, but I’d better see this through,” Fred said. He added, “As much as I don’t want to.”
“See? You shouldn’t let those others boss you around. Are you the marshal or a sissy boy?”
“Now, see here,” Fred said.
Tyree busied himself with the beans. He would stir and taste and wait, then stir and taste and wait some more.
Fred was content to hold his hands to the fire and warm himself. He couldn’t remember the last time he had spent a night outdoors. It might have been that elk hunt in the mountains. He never went hunting after that. His father was disappointed. He said Fred was breaking the family tradition. Fred’s father hunted and his father before him and his father before him. “And now there’s you,” his father had said, crestfallen.
Fred refused to change his mind. Shooting an animal never appealed to him. Oh, he’d do it if the critter was trying to tear him to pieces or eat him. But otherwise, it was let bygones be bygones, whether two-legged or four.
A shooting star blazed the heavens. Fred watched for more, but there were none. When he looked at the boy to see if the beans were ready, the boy was looking at him.
“What?”
“Why are you so nice to folks? I saw how you were in town. You had good cause to be mean, but you weren’t. You were always nice. I figured maybe you were yellow, but you didn’t spook when those wolves paid us a visit.”
“I was plenty spooked inside me,” Fred assured him.
“You’re a puzzlement,” Tyree said.
Fred decided to enlighten him. “It’s not in my nature to be mean to folks. Oh, I can get mad now and then. But usually I do to others as I’d like them to do to me.”
“Where’d you pick up a peculiar notion like that?”
“It’s in the Bible.”
“Ain’t that the one that says we shouldn’t kill?”
“It is.”
Tyree snorted. “Whoever wrote it never lived west of the Mississippi.”
The baked beans were finally hot enough to suit him. The boy spooned some out for each of them and sat eating his slowly, chewing each mouthful so long Fred thought it was comical. As for him, he practically gulped his food. Baked beans had never tasted so good. He attributed that fact to going most of the day without food or drink. Which he would remedy later.
McCarthy barely touched his meal. He’d fallen back into his deep depression. Fred mentioned that he needed to keep his strength up, and McCarthy replied, “Whatever for?”
After their meal they turned in. It was sort of pleasant for Fred, lying there with his blanket to his chin, the stars sparkling overhead and the creatures of the night serenading the stars with their cries and hoots and howls.
Fred waited until he was sure Tyree and McCarthy were asleep before he slipped his flask from his saddlebags. He’d brought two full bottles besides. He could go without his comforts if he had to but not without his Monongahela. Taking a sip, he smiled and said, “Ahhh.”
Life was good, for the moment. But he mustn’t fool himself into thinking this was how it would be the whole way. The wilderness was treacherous. About the time a man let down his guard, he’d find himself in peril for his life.
Folks were always saying that was bound to change. A new century was a decade off. The railroad was spreading over the West, making travel safer. New inventions were making life easier. Not long ago the newspaper crowed about how Cheyenne had electric lights and then prattled on about how one day everyone would have electric lights in their homes, as well as other marvels.
It sounded too good to be true, and Fred had learned long ago that usually meant it was. All those marvels wouldn’t come free. People would have to earn more to keep up, meaning they’d have to work longer hours, which to Fred’s way of thinking put them in thrall to their purse. Money became their master, and he disliked having anyone or anything lord it over him.
Listen to me, Fred reflected with a wry grin. Thinking I’m halfway smart.
His grandpa had always said a man should know his limits, and Fred knew his. His mind worked slower than some. He often had to chew on an idea like a dog worrying a bone before he could make up his mind what to do.
He liked his life to be easy and would do whatever he had to in order to make it stay that way. Sometimes he compared himself to a prairie dog that liked to lie at the entrance to its den and watch the world go by, wanting no part of it.
Fred chuckled and drank. The kid would brand him as silly, but he didn’t care. He was what he was.
The kid. Fred glanced over at Tyree Johnson, who let out little snores. Now, there was someone who hadn’t had it easy. His parents murdered when he was an infant. Raised in a hellhole of an orphanage. And here he was, making his living by going after hard cases who were as likely to do him in as agree to be taken back to face justice.
No, sir, that kind of life wasn’t for Fred.
He felt sorry for Tyree. From the sound of things, the boy never had anyone treat him halfway decent. That uncle had proven next to worthless. Tyree needed someone to take him under a wing and show him that life wasn’t always as cruel as Tyree’s had been. Show him there was goodness in the world if a person looked for it.
One of Fred’s few regrets was that he’d never had any kids of his own. But to have kids you needed a wife, and Fred was about as attractive to the opposite sex as, say, sour milk. He’d tried a few times in his younger days to strike up an acquaintance with females, but they never showed any interest. One lady told him flat out that he bored her. That his conversation was dull. That he’d never amount to much because he had no ambition. She was the last one he tried to woo.
He didn’t need the humiliation.
But Fred would have liked a kid. A boy more than a girl. He was so bad at getting along with females that he’d probably be bad at raising a daughter. But a boy, now. He’d been one once, so he should be able to raise one.
McCarthy put an end to Fred’s musing by rolling over and muttering in his sleep, something about stabbing someone.
There was another sad case. A moment of rage, and his life was forever changed.
Yet another reason Fred was glad he was so even-tempered. Rage never got a man anywhere except the gallows.
Fred’s eyelids were growing heavy. Capping his flask, he replaced it in the saddlebag and made himself comfortable. Gradually he felt himself slipping into welcome slumber.
Then a scream pierced the wilds, far off, a shriek of pure terror.
Fred sat bolt upright. His skin prickling, he glanced at the others, but neither had heard it. He was sure it was a human who screamed and not an animal.
He waited in tense expectation for the scream to be repeated, but the night had gone deathly quiet. The scream had silenced the other cries. Even the animals knew death when they heard it.
Uneasy, Fred settled back down. He held the blanket close and sought to drift off, but his nerves were on edge. When a horse thumped a hoof he sat up again, but it was nothing.
“Damn Crittendon anyhow.”
He shouldn’t cuss, Fred told himself. It was one habit he hadn’t gotten into, largely because of his mother. She’d washed his mouth out with soap more than a few times to discourage him. That, and her observation that folks cussed because they were immature.
Tyree cursed a lot, Fred had noticed. He’d like to break him of it, but the boy wasn’t his responsibility. They’d only be together as far as Cheyenne and then they’d get on with their individual lives. Which suited Fred fine. He could get back to his marshaling and his office and the peace and quiet he loved.
Now if only he could get to sleep.
Chapter 8
Two days went by. Two days of long hours in the saddle and baked beans for supper. The steep slopes and heavy timber made for slow going.
Midway through the next morning, they descended a ridge and came on a stream. Tyree called a halt to let their horses rest.
Fred liked that the boy was considerate toward his animal. It showed Tyree wasn’t as heartless as he pretended to be.
Dismounting, Fred put a hand on the small of his back. He was sore from all the riding. Once this trip was over, if he never sat a horse again, it would be fine by him. He led his bay to a spot where the bank leveled off. He was about to step down but drew up short.
There were footprints in the soft earth at the water’s edge.
“Look at these,” Fred said.
Tyree came over and squatted. He traced the outline of a print with a finger, and scowled. “Injuns.”
“You’re sure?” Fred wasn’t much of a tracker. And these prints didn’t show much detail.
“Do you see a heel mark?” Tyree said. “No, you don’t. The soles are flat, and that means redskins.”
Putting his hand on his Colt, Fred scanned the shadowed forest.
“Relax,” Tyree said. “These were made a day or so ago or better. The Injuns are long gone by now.”
“You hope,” Fred said.
“You’re one of those pessimists, aren’t you?” Tyree said.
“No.”
“Like hell you’re not. A fella told me about them once. He said that pessimists always look at the bad side of things. They always expect the worst. I kind of like that word, so it stuck in my head.”
“I like to think of myself as practical.”
“You’re somethin’,” Tyree said, and grinned.
Tom McCarthy had knelt to cup a hand in the stream. He hadn’t spoken since the other night, but now he laughed and said, “So it’s Indians now? That figures. Life is out to get me.”
“How?” Fred absently asked.
“The way my luck is going, these Indians will turn out to be hostiles,” McCarthy said. “A tomahawk is as good as a rope, after all.”
“It could be a huntin’ party of tame ones,” Tyree said.
“You know better,” McCarthy said. “We keep going, we’re bound to run into them. Mark my words, boy.”
Fred worried that McCarthy was right. The whole rest of the day he was a bundle of nerves.
A small valley offered haven for the night. They camped in a grove of oaks. Tyree got a fire going and put on the inevitable beans.
Fred stripped their horses and picketed them. He looked forward to a quiet meal and a good night’s sleep. Dusk was falling, the shadows lengthening, and as he turned to go to the fire he spotted an orange glow at the other end of the valley. “Look yonder,” he exclaimed in alarm.
Tyree was busy spooning beans. “At what?”
“Another fire.”
The boy came over. “I’ll be damned,” he said. “You have good eyes. They’re in some pines, it appears.”
“Who?” Fred said.
They looked at each other.
“We have to find out,” Tyree said. “One of us had to go have a look-see. Since I have to stay with McCarthy, you’re elected.”
The last thing Fred wanted was to go sneaking around in the dark. “I can stay with him.”
“He’s my prisoner, not yours. Go slow and you should be fine. It could be white men for all we know.”
“Sure,” Fred said, but he didn’t believe it and neither, he suspected, did the boy.
Tyree moved to their fire and began stamping it out. “If we can see theirs, maybe they can see ours.”
Taking his Winchester from the saddle scabbard, Fred licked his dry lips and headed out.
“Don’t get killed,” Tyree said.
Fred could have done without the warning. At the edge of the oaks he hunkered and went on doubled over. The grass wasn’t high enough to hide him, but in the growing darkness he’d be hard to see. Rather than go straight across, he made for the woods bordering the valley floor. Once in the trees, he wasn’t quite so tense.
Stars were out, but they did little to relieve the mantle of black. Fred kept bumping into things. A bush here, a tree there, a boulder now and again. He took to groping with a hand to feel his way.
It took forever to reach the other end of the valley.
Fred lost sight of the fire. Whoever they were, they were well hid. It was pure luck he’d spotted it the first time.
An open space of twenty feet or so separated the stand of pines from the forest proper. Fred hesitated, then sucked in a breath and darted across. He was enormously pleased when nothing happened.
The scent of the pines in his nostrils, Fred crept forward, a human snail. The slightest sound might give him away. He heard muffled voices. A little farther, and it was obvious they weren’t speaking English.
Flattening, Fred crawled. When he came to a log he removed his hat and rose high enough to peer over. Apprehension flooded through him.
The fire was small. A rabbit was on a spit, being roasted. In a circle around it were seven young warriors, their faces painted for war. Most wore buckskins and a few had feathers in their hair. Beyond the fire were their mounts.
It was their faces that filled Fred with fear. Their faces had paint on them. He was looking at an Arapaho war party.
Fred had never been this close to hostiles. If they spotted him, he was as good as dead. But they were at least sixty feet away and intent on whatever they were talking about.
He noted how young they were. Not much older than Tyree. Yet here they were, hunting for whites to kill.
Fred looked for guns. They had knives and tomahawks and bows and one had a lance. Not a single firearm, which was small comfort. From what Fred had heard, a skilled warrior could unleash four or five arrows as quick as thought and hit what he aimed at.
He debated what to do. He had his Winchester and his Colt, more than enough bullets to drop them where they were, provided he didn’t miss a single shot. Which was about as likely as him walking on water.
Fred started to lower his head, and froze.
One of their horses was staring right at the log.
Fred’s mouth went dry. The animal must have seen him. He dreaded it would whinny and give him away.
A warrior with stripes on his face reached behind him and held up something for the others to admire.
It was a fresh scalp, the flesh the hair was attached to still pink.
Fred remembered the scream from a few nights ago, and shivered. He yearned to get out of there, but the horse hadn’t stopped staring. He held himself still, refusing to even blink. The young warriors were passing the scalp around and fingering it as a trapper might a prime pelt.
Without warning a warrior rose and came toward the trees. He was armed with a bow. Exceptionally long whangs hung from his buckskins and swayed with every stride. Like the others’, his hair had been parted in the middle and hung in long braids on either side of his head, down past his shoulders.
Fred braced for the worst. He figured the warrior had seen him and was coming to investigate. But no. The man came to a stop about ten feet away and hitched his long shirt up.
Fred didn’t look. That sort of thing should be done in private.
The horse had lost interest and was nipping at grass.
Fred got out of there. Jamming his hat on, he crawled until he was clear of the pines, then rose and started up the valley. He wasn’t worried about being seen. The night was so dark he could barely make out his hand at arm’s length.
A twig crunched under Fred’s foot, and he stopped. Indians had keen ears. But a minute went by and then another, and there was no outcry.
Figuring he must have been born under a lucky star, Fred continued on.
He
looked back often, but the warriors weren’t following.
He made so much noise that Tyree was on his feet with a revolver cocked when he got to their camp.
“Well?” the boy asked. “Friendly or not.”
“Not,” Fred said. “Unless you call liftin’ scalps the height of brotherhood.”
“No redskin will ever lift mine,” Tyree said. “I’ll blow my brains out first.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. I’m fond of what few brains I have, and don’t care to be parted from them.”
McCarthy didn’t show any interest whatsoever. He had made a teepee of his hands and was resting his chin on them.
“How many?” Tyree wanted to know.
Fred told him.
“That’s all?” Tyree grinned. “Between your pistol and my pair, we can fill them full of lead before they can so much as blink.”
“I doubt that very much,” Fred said. “I can’t shoot that fast and I doubt you can either.”
“What would you do?”
“Sneak off while we can.”
“Turn tail?” Tyree shook his head. “I’ve never shown yellow my whole life. We’ll cat-foot on over there and blow them to Hades.”
“Count me out.” Fred wouldn’t push his luck a second time. “We should go up the mountain and lie low until they move on.
“I can’t do it by my lonesome,” Tyree said. “Not one against seven, I can’t.”
“Then quit your foolish talk of wipin’ them out and come with me. Or have you forgot that horse you shot?”
“Why do you keep bringin’ that—” Tyree began, and stopped. “Hell in a basket. Where did he get to?”
Tom McCarthy was gone.
“Weren’t you watchin’ him?” Fred said.
“He was right there a minute ago.” Tyree commenced to rove in a circle. “He can’t have gotten far.”
“Maybe he’s answerin’ nature’s call,” Fred said.
“With those hostiles nearby?”
Fred failed to see how the Arapahos would keep a man from his bodily functions, but he kept quiet about it and moved in the other direction. “He has to be here somewhere.”
Ralph Compton the Evil Men Do Page 6
