First there was Marshal Fred Hitch. Tyree couldn’t decide whether the lawman had taken a fatherly interest in him, or whether it was Hitch’s natural niceness that accounted for him acting like a mother hen. Tyree liked the man, sort of, but he was next to worthless in a fight and had about as much vim and vinegar as a lump of clay.
Aces Connor was an entirely different matter. Tyree respected him, looked up to him. And why not? Aces was a bona fide gun hand. A man-killer. And for some reason he too had taken an interest in Tyree.
Tyree had leaped at the opportunity to learn gun handling from Aces. Learn from the best, people were always saying. He wasn’t nearly as happy about his newfound mentor’s constant carping to him about right and wrong. He didn’t share Aces’s desire to always do right. To Tyree, right and wrong were fuzzy notions that seldom applied to the needs of the moment. He did what he had to when it needed to be done and didn’t worry about whether he should or not.
Now, the morning after they’d buried Tom McCarthy, Tyree sat at the fire, nursing a cup of coffee and fuming. “I’ll have to go after another bounty as soon as I get back to Cheyenne. That gent who knows one of the buzzards who killed my folks won’t say who it is unless he gets that five hundred.”
“If he even knows,” Aces said.
“He said he does.”
Marshal Hitch shook his head. “You’re too trustin’, son. Only pay him half and tell him he gets the rest when he proves he’s not tryin’ to trick you.”
“I’m not your son, law dog,” Tyree said. “And he won’t tell me unless it’s the full five hundred.”
“He’ll tell me,” Aces said.
Tyree was mightily pleased but hid the fact. “You aim to tag along with me once we get there?”
“Why not?” Aces said. “I’ve got nothin’ else to do. And you and me are pards now, aren’t we?”
“I’ve never had a pard before,” Tyree said, dazzled by the offer.
Marshal Hitch cleared his throat. “I reckon I’ll tag along too.”
Tyree was puzzled. “What on earth for? Your part in this is over. The mayor wanted you to help me take McCarthy to Cheyenne. Well, McCarthy’s dead, so you have no reason to come along. Go back to Sweetwater and roost in that office of yours and sip your flask and be happy.”
“To tell the truth, I’d like nothin’ better,” Fred said. “But I find I’d like to see this through.”
“See what through? Me findin’ the murderers? What are they to you?”
“Nothin’. It’s not them. It’s us. I’ve never, ever done anything like this, Tyree. Common sense tells me I should do as you say. But part of me wants to go on. Helpin’ you is only part of it. The rest has to do with me. With doing something I’ve never done before. With livin’ for a change, and not hidin’ from life. When it’s over I’ll go back to my hidey-hole.”
“I don’t know,” Tyree said. He was skeptical the lawman could be of help. And he didn’t like being mothered.
“You won’t have any jurisdiction in Cheyenne,” Aces mentioned.
“I’m still a marshal,” Fred said. “People will be less likely to give you trouble if I’m along. Most won’t buck a tin star.”
“I don’t know,” Tyree said again.
“Give him a chance,” Aces said. “What can it hurt?”
Tyree agreed, reluctantly, and was tilting his cup to his lips when he happened to gaze into the forest and saw a pair of eyes gazing back at him. Startled, he dropped the cup and leaped to his feet, drawing both Colts as he rose.
“What on earth?” Fred blurted.
“A redskin,” Tyree said. “I saw him as plain as anything.” Well, the eyes, at least, and some of the face.
Aces was up, his own Colt leveled. “One of the Arapahos?”
“It could be all of them,” Fred said worriedly, scrambling up. “They came back to see if McCarthy had given up the ghost.”
“Or they were out there the whole time,” Aces said. “Watchin’ and waitin’ for a chance to jump us.”
Tyree wasn’t hankering to die. Not with his quest unfinished. “I have no quarrel with them. Let’s light a shuck.”
“And hope they don’t come after us,” Fred said.
Aces covered them while they saddled the horses, his included. Revolvers unlimbered, they made off to the south.
The skin on Tyree’s back crawled. He kept expecting to take an arrow. Head twisted, he didn’t relax until they’d gone over half a mile. “No sign of them,” he said in relief.
“Let’s hope it stays that way,” Aces said.
They rode until noon and stopped to rest their animals. Tyree walked in circles to stretch his legs, then went over to where Aces sat on a log watching their back trail.
“You sure are a worrier,” Tyree teased.
“I’m fond of breathin’.”
Reaching behind him to move his saber, Tyree joined him on the log.
“I’ve been meanin’ to ask,” Aces said. “Isn’t it uncomfortable walkin’ around with that armory of yours? You have to keep movin’ the saber, and the bowie is always flappin’ around.”
“I’m used to it, I suppose.”
“You look ridiculous.”
“I told you before. The saber was my grandpa’s. The bowie was my pa’s. They’re all I have of my past. I’m keepin’ them with me until the day I die.”
“You could put them somewhere for safekeepin’,” Aces suggested. “Those derringers too.”
“All that would leave me are my Colts.”
“They should be all you need.”
Tyree wasn’t fond of being lectured to, and Aces had taken to doing that a lot lately. “You live your life your way. I’ll live mine my own.”
“You have a thick head, boy, and that’s no lie,” Aces said, but he grinned as he said it.
“I’m not used to someone givin’ me advice,” Tyree confessed. “I’ve been on my own my whole life.”
“I only offer it when I think it will help.”
Tyree fingered the bowie’s sheath and looked over his shoulder at the saber’s hilt.
He supposed he did look a mite silly toting them around. But he didn’t have a normal keepsake like a watch or a ring. And the same compulsion that drove him to hunt down the murderers also made him want to cling to the only links he had to those who had brought him into the world.
Resting his chin in his hand, Tyree closed his eyes. Sometimes he wished he wasn’t so driven. He should take a job as a clerk somewhere and live an ordinary life and forget about his pa and his ma. He should, but he couldn’t. What sort of son would he be if he did? No son at all.
Opening his eyes, Tyree sighed.
“Something eatin’ at you?” Aces asked.
“Just the usual.”
Marshal Hitch walked over, looking worried. “They’re after us. The war party. I feel it in my bones.”
“There hasn’t been any sign of them,” Aces said.
“There won’t be until they’re ready to jump us,” Fred said. “But they’re out there, bidin’ their time.”
That was all Tyree needed. To be attacked and slain before he accomplished his life’s purpose.
“It’s your nerves talkin’,” Aces said.
“I know what I know,” Fred replied, “and nothin’ you say can change my mind.”
“You and Tyree have that in common,” Aces said, chuckling.
Tyree wasn’t amused. He was as unlike the law dog as a body could be. He wasn’t timid. He didn’t hide from the world. When things got rough, he got rough right back. Give as good as he got, that was his motto.
Presently they moved on.
Tyree rode alongside Aces. The cowboy seldom said much when they were on the go. The lawman, on the other hand, was a chatterbox. Always going on about this or that. I
t annoyed Tyree no end.
The middle of the afternoon found them winding down out of the mountains. Below stretched the plain that would take them to Sutter’s Stump, and beyond. Tyree wondered out loud if they should stop when they got there.
“Are you loco?” Fred said. “Twice we barely got out with our lives. Give it a wide berth, I say.”
They were descending the last slopes. Aces was in the lead, and as he went around a blue spruce he drew sharp rein. Bending low from the saddle, he said, “Look here.”
Hoofprints pockmarked the earth.
Tyree knew fresh ones when he saw them. And he noticed something else. “They’re not shod.”
“No,” Aces said.
“The Arapahos,” Fred exclaimed, unlimbering his six-shooter. “They circled around in front of us, I’ll bet. That’s why we haven’t seen any sign of them behind us.”
“Be my guess,” Aces said. Straightening in his saddle, he drew his ivory-handled Colt and held it on his thigh.
“When we reach the prairie,” Fred said, “there won’t be any cover.”
“Which means they aim to jump us between here and there,” Aces predicted.
“Oh, hell,” Fred said.
Tyree didn’t blame him for being anxious. His own mouth went dry at the prospect of fighting Indians. Drawing his right Colt, he said, “What if we do some circlin’ of our own? Swing wide and go around them.”
“Depends on how spread out they are,” Aces said, “and how badly they want to count coup on us.”
“They’re young warriors,” Fred said.
“So?” Tyree said.
It was Aces who answered. “So they have something to prove to themselves and to their tribe. If they take our scalps back, there will be a feast and a dance in their honor. They’ll be praised as great warriors.”
“I don’t want my hair to end up hangin’ in some lodge,” Fred said. “Let’s avoid them if we can.”
“Stay close,” Aces said, and reined to the east. For a quarter of a mile he rode parallel to the plain. “This should be far enough,” he declared, and reined down.
“I hope you’re right,” Fred said.
Tyree was sure they’d outwitted the redskins. And once they reached the plain, the warriors could eat their dust.
A final slope was all that remained. Thick with timber, it was plunged in shadow. Their horses made little noise on the carpet of pine needles.
They came to the last rank of trees, and Fred laughed. “We did it,” he said happily. “Will wonders never cease?”
That was when an arrow streaked out of nowhere and struck him in the shoulder.
Chapter 22
Tyree saw it as clear as anything. The barbed tip sheared into Hitch’s right shoulder with a fleshy thwip and burst out his back. The impact twisted the lawman half around in his saddle. Hitch opened his mouth as if to scream, but didn’t.
War whoops pierced the woods and buckskin-clad forms spilled from the shadows.
Tyree was a shade slow to react.
Not Aces Connor. The cowboy fanned his Colt in a blur of motion. An onrushing warrior, a lance raised to throw, seemed to slam into an invisible wall and crashed down. Swiveling, Aces fired at another warrior while hollering, “Ride! Ride like hell!”
Jabbing his spurs, Tyree broke for the prairie. He banged a shot at a long-haired figure, heard the whiz of a shaft past his ear, banged a second shot, and flew around a spruce. Too late, he saw a crouched warrior. He tried to take aim, but with a wolfish howl, the warrior sprang. One hand seized Tyree by the arm. The other swung a tomahawk. Tyree blocked the blow but was wrenched from his horse. Before he could recover his wits, he hit hard on his head and shoulder. Dazed, he made it to his knees.
Face aglow with bloodlust, the warrior leaped to his feet and raised the tomahawk for another try.
Tyree shot him. He wasn’t conscious of doing it. He wasn’t even aware he still held the Colt. At the crack, the young Arapaho jerked and clutched himself, then howled anew and launched himself at Tyree. Tyree got his hand up to seize the other’s wrist and stop the tomahawk from splitting his skull. Suddenly they were on the ground, grappling mightily.
Tyree punched the warrior on the jaw, but it had no effect. A knee to his own groin did, though. His vision spun and he nearly doubled over. Desperate to clear his head, he shoved the warrior away and scrambled back.
The Arapaho came after him.
Tyree got a leg up just as the warrior leaped. His boot caught the Arapaho on the chest and the warrior tumbled, enabling Tyree to heave onto his knees. Out of the corner of his eye he caught movement and turned to see another warrior coming at him with a knife. He fired and the warrior went down.
The first Arapaho was back up. With a cry of fury, he pounced.
Tyree was borne to earth. He felt a sharp pain in his left side. Jamming his Colt against the warrior’s belly, he thumbed the hammer and squeezed. The Arapaho was jarred back but came at him again. Tyree fired, worked the hammer, fired.
The warrior dropped.
War whoops still sounded, and somewhere close by a gun thundered.
Tyree lurched erect, his left arm pressed to his ribs, and ran. The sorrel had kept going and was standing about ten yards from the forest, looking back. His life might depend on reaching it.
Racing out of the trees, Tyree sprinted like mad. The saber flopped against his back, and the bowie swung wildly. In the rush of conflict, he’d forgotten he had them. He reached the sorrel and flung a hand up to catch hold of the saddle horn, but the sorrel shied and moved forward. “Stop, damn you!” he fumed, and went after it.
A commotion in the forest drew his attention just as Aces Connor exploded into the open. Aces had his Colt and reins in one hand, the reins to the marshal’s bay in the other. Arrows were flying, and Aces was bent low. Marshal Hitch was clinging to his saddle horn with his good arm. His right appeared to be useless.
Tyree raised his Colts and fired at the vegetation to discourage the Arapahos. He didn’t see any of them. He just shot. The sounds spooked the sorrel into moving again.
Backpedaling, Tyree was ready to let lead fly to protect his companions, but the Arapahos didn’t come after them.
Aces reached him and bellowed, “Get on your horse!”
The sorrel had stopped, and Tyree wasted no time clambering on. He used his spurs, as did Aces. They galloped to the south, Tyree expecting to be pursued by the war party, but no one gave chase.
Aces didn’t draw rein until they had gone better than a mile. Vaulting down, he moved to the bay. “How are you holdin’ up?”
His teeth gritted, Marshal Hitch groaned and said, “Not so good. It hurts somethin’ awful. You have to get it out.”
About six inches of arrow, and the barbed tip, protruded from the lawman’s back. The feathered end stuck out his front below the shoulder. He was bleeding but not profusely, and was in agony.
“We can’t stop yet,” Aces said. “They might come after us.”
“How much farther?”
“Another mile should be enough.”
“Too far,” Fred said. “I’ll pass out by then.”
“We should tend to him here,” Tyree spoke up. “He can keep up if we bandage him.”
Rare uncertainty made Aces hesitate. “Have it your way. But you keep watch.”
“Like a hawk,” Tyree vowed. Dismounting, he examined his side. The tomahawk had scraped his ribs. The wound wasn’t deep and it had already stopped bleeding, but it would hurt like Hades for a while.
“Are you keepin’ watch or not?” Aces said. He had carefully lowered Marshal Hitch and now he was gathering dry grass and twigs for a fire.
“I got nicked,” Tyree explained.
“I’ll look at you next.”
“No need,” Tyree said. He refused to make
a fuss over it. As wounds went, it was minor.
The lawman sat with his legs splayed, his hand on the arrow and his head hung low. “I’m so dizzy I can hardly sit.”
“Hang on,” Aces said.
The plain to the north stayed empty. Tyree was surprised that the war party hadn’t come after them, and remarked as much.
“They lost four or more, wounded or dead,” Aces said as he worked. “Odds are the others are tendin’ to them like we’re tendin’ to the marshal.”
“My first Injun scrape,” Tyree said, marveling that he’d survived.
“May it be your last. I’d rather tangle with a snake-mean drunk than a warrior out to do me in.”
“I should think drunks can be plenty dangerous,” Tyree said.
“They can,” Aces agreed, “but all that liquor makes them careless. They grandstand before they draw. Brag on how they’re going to make worm food of you. That sort of thing.”
“Can we concentrate on me?” Fred asked.
“I got the fire started, didn’t I?” Aces replied.
The tiny flames grew rapidly.
Aces kneeled next to the lawman. “Tyree, do you reckon you can keep the fire going and watch for the Arapahos, both?”
“Easy as pie.” Tyree stepped around the fire so he faced the distant mountains, and hunkered. The movement didn’t help his side any.
“Now, then,” Aces said as he examined the lawman. “The good news is it went clean through.”
“I can see that,” Fred said. “I want it out.”
Aces bent over the barbed tip and sniffed loudly several times.
“What on earth are you doing?” Fred said.
“Sometimes Injuns dip their arrows in dead polecats or some other dead varmint to taint them. I heard of a Comanche once who liked to dip his in rattler venom.”
“The Lord preserve me,” Fred said.
“All I smell on this one is your blood,” Aces said. “You might have lucked out twice over.”
“I don’t call bein’ shot with an arrow any kind of luck at all.”
Aces went to his palomino, groped in a saddlebag, and returned with a folding knife. Opening it, he tested the edge on his thumb. “This will do.”
Ralph Compton the Evil Men Do Page 16
