by Ford Fargo
“Then you ain’t lookin’ at it from where I sit, I reckon,” Pettibone said.
“Look,” Bob Keene said, before Quick could respond to Pettibone. “We know that ain’t how you do things. Hell, your plan probably would’ve been to rob the McNulty Cattle Company in the middle of the night, and hand out half the money to the dirt-scrabblers in Kingman as we passed through.”
Bob sighed and closed his eyes for a moment, as if trying to draw courage, then continued. “We’ve been doing things that way for years, Sam. But we ain’t exactly got rich at it. We figured—well, we figured maybe it was time to take something that was gonna be all for us, just once.”
Quick tossed off the last of his coffee in a gulp. “Kingman isn’t the only bank job the populace was buzzing about in Wichita,” he said. “While I’ve been away, Wolf Creek was hit by Jim Danby and his gang. Several citizens shot dead, including a pretty young school teacher. A little Chinese boy trampled to death. I bought candy for that little fellow when I went to Wolf Creek to set up my studio.”
Pettibone chuckled again. “I’ve heard stories about strangers with candy.”
Quick stepped forward, fast as a panther, and backhanded Clay Pettibone. The coarse outlaw fell out of his chair and instinctively reached for his gun.
“Oh, by all means,” Quick said. “Please do.”
Pettibone raised his hand, slowly and carefully, and wiped the blood from his mouth.
“No thanks,” Pettibone said. “I’m no match for you and you know it.”
“Then keep your mouth shut.”
Pettibone’s eyes blazed, but he did not move.
“Let’s all calm down,” Harlan Graves said. “It’s no good, us goin’ at each other like this. Sam, it’s a shame what happened to them friends of your’n over in Wolf Creek—but I don’t see what that has to do with us.”
“I’ll tell you what it has to do with us,” Quick said. “Jim Danby, and a good number of his men, rode with Quantrill’s Raiders. And that’s how Quantrill’s kind does things. The officers we served under were gentlemen, even during the worst part of the war.”
He gestured contemptuously at Pettibone. “I saw it in him when he first started riding with us. There is a feral nature in the eyes of such men—I’ve learned to spot it in an instant. Since he has been with us, I have watched it spread to all of you.”
Quick turned to Graves. “Even you and Tom,” he said. “You cracked that teller’s skull so hard in Market City last month you almost killed him. Annoyed, because an old man moved too slowly to suit you. The Harlan Graves I know would never have done that.”
After a few seconds, Chester Keene broke the uncomfortable silence. “Like my brother said, Sam—we’ve done things your way all this time. But you left us setting out here, with no word, and figured we’d just wait on the master to come home—like we really was nothin’ but hounds. But we showed that we can take action on our own.”
“You did, indeed,” Quick said bitterly.
“We’re wolves now,” Pettibone said. “Not dogs.” He climbed slowly to his feet.
Sampson Quick took a deep breath. “I’m through with you,” he said. “Do as you wish. I’ll not have my name associated with it.”
He looked around, his gaze lingering longest on LeBeau and Graves. “Despite the circumstances of our parting, I wish you well,” he said. “We have endured much together, and I have counted you brothers.”
Pettibone’s annoying chuckle returned. How Quick had come to loathe it.
“Well, hold on there, mister high-and-mighty,” Pettibone said. “Surely you ain’t stupid enough to think it’s as easy as that. With all you know about us? What makes you think we’d just let you walk out of here, free as a breeze?”
“What makes me think so?” Quick asked. “The knowledge that—yourself excepted—every man here still possesses some vestige of honor.”
Quick turned and walked toward the door.
Pettibone’s hand dropped to his weapon, but Harlan Graves restrained him firmly.
Quick went outside, mounted up, and rode away. He half-expected a bullet in his back, but none came.
At least, not yet.
***
Quick kept a close eye on his back trail. It did not surprise him to discover, after traveling only a few miles, that he was being followed. In fact, it would have amazed him if he had not been. He was pretty sure there were two of them. They were keeping a significant distance, of course, taking great pains to avoid detection; but Sampson Quick had an uncanny knack at reading everything in the land around him. One might say he had the eye of an artist.
Even Quick was not able to identify them at this distance, of course. He knew that Clay Pettibone would be one—probably accompanied by one of the Keene brothers. Quick was not sure which of the Keenes he would have laid money on to betray him. If forced to bet, he would have placed a marker on them both.
While scanning the horizon, Quick realized that the breaks around him had a somber beauty all their own. The gulleys and shallow ravines cut through the land, evoking the interruptions and challenges that had broken the landscape of his own life.
Sampson Quick dismounted and hobbled his horse. He took off his gunbelt and hung it from the saddle horn, retrieved the tools he needed from his saddlebags, and began to draw.
***
Chester Keene rode slowly toward his longtime boss. It almost seemed a shame to end things this way, but the die was cast. A change had to be made in how the Hounds did things, he saw that now, and sentimental ties to the past had no place on the outlaw trail.
Pettibone had not ridden up with him, but had rather taken a position with his rifle. “In case he makes a break and gets past you,” the old guerrilla had said, but Chester suspected it was fear of Quick’s fast gun.
He need not have worried. Quick was proving even now that they had been right—he had lost his touch, and was no longer fit to command. The celebrated highwayman stood with his back to them, oblivious to the world, lost in his artwork. He had a cleaning rag in one hand and a charcoal pencil in the other—and the fool had left his gun on his saddle.
“Pettibone was right, Sam,” Chester called out as he rode close. “Them pretty pictures of yours are liable to be the death of you.”
Quick seemed startled, but regained his composure in a heartbeat.
“Chester,” he said. “I didn’t hear you ride up. What brings you out here?”
Chester reined in. “Well, Sam, it’s like this. First we remembered you most likely had some cash on you from that painting you made in Wichita, which you never offered to share with us. And then we remembered that five hundred dollar bounty on your head. Seemed like bad business to let you just ride off.”
“So they sent you to kill me?” Quick said. “I didn’t think Tom and Harlan would do that. In fact, I counted on them to stop the rest of you from shooting me in the back as I rode away.”
“Didn’t nobody send me,” Chester said, and then he shrugged. “But then on the other hand, didn’t nobody stand in my way, neither. It’s just business, you understand.”
Quick nodded. “I understand, all right. I suppose it is fortunate, then, that I was just finishing my drawing—considering it is fated to be my last.”
He nodded toward the easel. “Since you are to be my final audience, Chester—and since we have been comrades all these years—the least you could do is take a quick look at my opus ultimo and tell me if you like it.”
Chester leaned forward in the saddle, reluctantly, and squinted at the paper. He recognized the breaks around them. He also saw a man standing at an easel, a tiny gun in his hand, shooting another man off a horse. Chester’s heart fell.
His eyes darted back to Sampson Quick. With a flick of his wrist, the artist sent the cleaning rag that had covered his left hand flying away. The hand it revealed held a four-barreled Derringer, pointed straight at Chester’s face. Its flash was the last thing Chester Keene ever saw.
As Chester’s body fell to the ground, Quick ran underneath it and scooped his dead opponent’s revolver from its holster with one hand while the other grabbed at the reins of Chester’s horse. A bullet kicked up dust where Quick’s feet had been while he swung into the saddle.
The highwayman hung low on the neck of his confiscated mount as more bullets whizzed through the air around him. Quick galloped straight into the source of the gunfire.
As Quick had gambled, Pettibone was unnerved and beat a hasty retreat. The old guerrilla did, however, take time to send several more wild shots at his pursuer.
Quick was confident that he had a chance of catching his quarry—but one of Pettibone’s bullets plowed home into the shoulder of Chester Keene’s horse. The roan balked, almost collapsing. Pettibone disappeared over a small rise.
It seemed that the miscreant was going to escape after all, Quick thought. But there would be another time, he would make sure of it.
Then he heard gunfire over the rise. A lot of it. He urged the wounded roan cautiously forward until he could see what was going on.
Pettibone had barreled straight into an Indian war party—probably Kiowa. They had surrounded him, and were pulling him—kicking and screaming—from his horse.
They were too preoccupied to notice Quick, and he took full advantage of it. He had been fully prepared to blow Pettibone’s brains out—but he didn’t wish torture on him. Even so, Quick hoped desperately that if they did decide to work on Pettibone awhile before they killed him, they’d take their time at it and give him a nice head-start on them.
He spurred the poor roan into a gallop. He hated to do it—the beast was no doubt in awful pain—but his own safety was paramount.
The horse was wheezing horribly by the time they got back to Quick’s impromptu camp. He fairly leaped out of the saddle. He drew out his knife and cut the suffering animal’s throat—he could not risk a gunshot.
Sampson Quick gathered his art supplies and packed them rapidly away, unhobbled his own horse, and climbed into the saddle.
Then he rode like hell.
***
He had put several miles between himself and the war party—and hopefully they were still unaware of his existence—when he came upon the stragglers.
Four people on foot, in the middle of the prairie. Quick was tempted to leave them to their own devices, but then he saw that one of them was a woman. He was still tempted to leave them—but only for a moment. His chivalry quickly got the best of him. Which was part of the reason, he had to admit to himself, that he was now an outlaw leader without a gang. He trotted up to them.
“Hallo!” he called. “Gentlemen—and lady—if you have not reached the conclusion already, it is a damned poor day for a stroll!”
“We figured that part out,” the tallest of the men said. “But we didn’t have much choice. A band of Kiowa attacked the stage to Wolf Creek—killed the driver and the shotgun, and all the horses. We fought them off, and we’re lucky to be standing, let alone walking.”
“Yes, I ran across them myself, earlier,” Quick said. “Or some of their comrades. So you are all on your way to Wolf Creek?”
The tall man nodded.
“So am I,” Quick said. “It is where I presently hang my hat. But it is a bit of a walk.”
“We’re headed for the Manning ranch right now,” said another passenger, a wisp of a man. “It’s only a few miles away.”
“Then perhaps we should travel together,” Quick said, and dismounted. “James Reginald De Courcey, at your service.” He extended a hand, and the tall man shook it firmly.
“Dave Benteen,” he announced. “I’m opening a gunsmith shop in Wolf Creek.”
“Lester Weatherby,” the third male passenger said. “Salesman of fine whiskey.”
“An excellent addition to our hardy band,” Quick told him. “I am pleased to meet you, gentlemen.”
Then the wiry one caught his eye. Seeing the man at close range made the highwayman realize he was vaguely familiar.
“I’ve seen you before,” Quick said. “But I can’t recall where.”
“Probably around town. I’ve been in Wolf Creek a few months now—I’m John Hix. I’m a barber. But you ain’t been in my shop—we must have seen each other in the street, is all I can think of.”
Quick nodded, and shook the man’s hand, but was unconvinced. Quick had only been in Wolf Creek once, just long enough to pay rent for his studio and set it up. He had seen the barber somewhere else, and not recently. It would come to him.
For now, there was a lovely young lady present.
“And your name, dear lady?” Quick said.
“Cora Sloane. I’m the new schoolteacher.”
She extended her hand, and Quick kissed it gallantly. “Enchanté. Your obvious grace will be much welcome in our little town. I knew your predecessor, if only in passing—her loss was a tragedy.”
Quick waved his arm toward his horse.
“Miss Sloane, your ride awaits. I’m sure your feet must be throbbing.”
“Thank you so much, Mister—Courcey, was it?”
“De Courcey, madam.” He clasped his hands, inviting her to step into them, and assisted her into the saddle.
“Let us not waste time, dear friends,” Quick said, “for our red foes travel with alacrity. On to the Manning ranch.” He gestured at the barber. “Lay on, MacDuff. Cursed be the first to cry hold, and all that.”
“My name is Hix.”
“Indeed it is, sir.”
They started walking.
CHAPTER FOUR
Captain Dent’s troop found the buffalo hunters late in the afternoon. They saw the buzzards long before they could make out the bodies.
Of course, it was difficult to identify them as buffalo hunters, or as anything else, at first. They had been stripped naked, scalped, and mutilated. There was no sign of clothing or equipment to identify them, save the Sharp’s buffalo rifle that lay in the grass a few yards away. The barrel was packed full of dirt, and the stock was broken off.
Charley Blackfeather squatted beside the ruined weapon, turned it over in his hands, and grunted.
“This was a damn good buffalo gun,” he said. “Most anybody that came across one of these would snatch it up—white, black, or red. But somebody busted the hell out of it.”
“Busted the hell out of them fellers that carried it, too, I’d say,” Trooper Amos commented in his Tennessee twang.
Charley nodded. “That part makes sense,” he said. “If you get ahold of an enemy, especially one you hate, you make him suffer—the more he suffers, the more medicine you get from his death.”
Trooper Klein chuckled nervously. “You talk like you’re speaking from experience.”
Charley stared at the man, his face impassive—but inwardly he was amused by how much more nervous Klein became under his scrutiny. How nervous would the soldier be, Charley wondered, if he knew how many men the Black Seminole had put under the knife in the Florida swamps of his youth? Men in uniforms much like Klein’s. Or the men in gray, for that matter, that Charley had worked on when he, himself, was the one in blue?
After several seconds, a broad smile grew on Charley’s face. Klein gulped.
“Like I said,” Charley continued. “That’s normal enough. But bustin’ up a perfectly good rifle? You don’t see that often. It seems like the Kiowas took a dim view of these men’s profession.”
Sergeant Nagy was bent over one of the corpses. He rolled it over and examined its features.
“Don’t look familiar,” the wiry Hungarian said.
“That’s Culley Bartlett,” Charley said. “And the skinny one would be Les Forman.”
“You ain’t even looked at their faces,” Amos said.
“Don’t have to.” Charley stood up, the broken rifle stock in his hand. He pointed at it. “I can see the mark scratched into the patchbox of this Sharps. I’ve seen it before, when they came into Wolf Creek to trade in their furs at Casto Haston’s t
annery. Seen ‘em a couple of different times. Culley carried this rifle—he done the shootin’, and Les done the skinnin’.”
Captain Dent walked over and looked at the stock. A crude B was carved into the metal patchbox.
“B for Bartlett,” Dent said. “Makes sense.”
Charley shrugged. “I never learned to read sign in books, so I wouldn’t know.”
“Well, you can read sign on the land better’n anybody I ever seen,” Amos said. “So don’t let that bother you none. They’s lots of us don’t know how to read and write, we still get along.”
Charley regarded the rangy Tennessean as the man took off his hat and ran fingers through thin, black hair. The fact that Charley was illiterate actually did not bother the scout at all, he had merely stated a fact. It was never too late to learn, if a person was of a mind to, but the Seminole saw little need—Amos was right, he managed fine without it. Charley chose not to correct the man, though, for he knew the trooper had good intentions. He and Amos had seen the elephant together more than once; he was a good soldier, and Charley respected him. It didn’t hurt that, as an East Tennessean, Amos had been a good Union man in the war. Charley flashed him a smile much different than the one he had given Klein earlier.
“I reckon you right,” Charley told Amos. “We get along just fine.” He realized now that it was Amos who was ashamed of his own illiteracy, and was trying not to show it. Charley looked at the darkening sky. “But even I can’t read sign in the dark,” he said.
Dent nodded. “We may as well make camp here.”
Sergeant Nagy scowled. “Dere’s several families hereabouts,” he said. “I hate to t’ink how many farms dem savages might still come across.”
“They’re a good ways ahead of us still,” Charley said, “so any places for the next several miles have most likely already been attacked, and there’s nothing we can do for ‘em. But the Kiowas won’t attack anybody tonight, not without any moon. They won’t be travelin’, neither. We’ll just have to hit their trail hard come daylight.”
Nagy grumbled. “I know, you’re right,” he said. “I just hate it, dat’s all.”
