by J. T. Edson
‘What I saw of ’em, neither of the two young’n’s’d do a lick of work unless the other two was helping,’ Javelina explained, then he waved a hand towards the still and blanket covered shapes around the fire. ‘Don’t forget, everything you take from ’em goes into the pot so’s the boys riding night herd and with the remuda get their fair share.’
‘Sure, Tom!’ chorused the rest of the men, but their tones held little assurance that they were sincere.
Dismounting and leaving the horses ground hitched by dangling reins, the half-breeds fanned out as they hurried to collect what they expected would be easily acquired loot. Moving faster than the rest, the man who had asked about the ‘dudes’ arrived first. Bending over the nearest figure, he jerked off the blanket.
‘Surprise!’ Peaceful Gunn greeted, thrusting himself into a sitting position with a cocked Colt Peacemaker in each hand.
As was so often the case throughout his life, Dusty Fog had been successful in duplicating the thoughts of a man against whom he would be in contention. Knowing the camp was between the buffalo and—as a result of the four Indians who were to act as liaison between the various conspirators being killed in Mulrooney—the most likely direction from which the replacement trail crew would arrive, he had guessed they would call at the camp for a meal and to loot what they believed to be the corpses of their predecessors before going to the animals. Stone Hart had agreed they should base their strategy upon this supposition. Having been removed by the Ysabel Kid, Annie Singing Bear and Johnny Raybold, the night herders had had their places filled by Texans. Hiding the bodies of Walter Johnson, Kevin Roddy and Francis Morrell, the rest of the party had positioned themselves ready to deal with the contingency which Dusty had envisioned.
Spluttering an alarmed profanity, the first half-breed to have reached the supposed victims jerked erect. Seeing that more of the recumbent, concealed shapes were starting to sit up and also held weapons, he tried to bring out his revolver. Under the circumstances, the attempt was futile and doomed to failure. Appreciating the full extent of the devastation and loss of human lives which would have occurred throughout the West if the scheme had achieved its purpose, Peaceful had no compunction over dealing with such a reaction. His right hand Colt barked and, entering beneath the man’s chin, ranged onwards through the brain to kill instantaneously. While the lifeless body of the would-be looter was toppling away from his intended victim, there was more shooting.
Not all the party seeking to prevent the delivery of the buffalo were posing as drugged Easterners around the fire. Is-A-Man, the trail boss, his segundo and the members of the floating outfit had taken concealment in the bed and chuck wagons. Following advice given by Dusty, based upon considerable experience of such matters gained whilst serving as a peace officer, none of them were relying upon handguns. Seeing the rest of the newcomers were displaying hostility, their Winchesters—five rifles and two carbines—were more suitable than revolvers would have been over the distances involved.
Taken completely unawares, although far from cowards and usually well able to handle guns, the half-breeds were far from at their most efficient. To add further to their misfortunes, they were opposed by a girl trained as a Comanche warrior, and by men who shared the revulsion felt by Peaceful Gunn for what they were planning to do. Only one of them succeeded in clearing leather. Even though he got his gun out, Tom Javelina was cut down by lead from the carbine in Annie’s hands and the Kid’s rifle before he could get off a shot. Three more of the half-breeds took lead, one being flung backwards under the impact of eighteen. 32 caliber buckshot balls from the sawed-off shotgun owned by Joseph Henry Abrahams, and which Silent Churchman had declared he would wish to be used in retaliation for what had happened to him. Although untouched by flying bullets, provoked by near misses, the rest of the would-be looters concluded discretion was the better part of valor. Dashing to the alarmed and rearing horses, they displayed riding skill of a high order by mounting the nearest animal, regardless of its behavior, and racing away.
‘Take after them, Lon, Annie!’ Dusty commanded, lowering his smoking Winchester Model of 1873 carbine and noticing with satisfaction that his companions were also refraining from firing at the fleeting men. ‘If they’re only lighting a shuck, let them keep going.’
‘And if some of them’re figuring on heading down to let Prophet know what’s come off here?’ the Kid inquired, although he could guess the answer.
‘In that case,’ the small Texan replied, his voice as cold and deadly as a judge announcing a sentence of death. ‘Stop them in their tracks!’
Seventeen – No Buffalo Are Coming
‘Well, the Apaches have left,’ announced the interpreter for the Sioux, entering the tipi presented by the Kweharehnuh to their new medicine man and finding all his associates present. His tone was filled with a malicious mock commiseration which the others knew indicated satisfaction over being able to deliver bad news affecting somebody else. ‘And, from what I’ve been told, the Cheyenne are thinking of going.’
‘Those Throat Cutters of yours were the first to start whining when the buffalo didn’t show up,’ growled the young man who had translated for the Apache. ‘I’m surprised they haven’t run away already!’
‘They won’t leave so long as they’re getting their idle bellies filled with food,’ claimed the representative of the Cheyennes, having a very personal relationship which made him willing to back up the previous speaker.
‘Don’t start bickering, damn you!’ Prophet commanded savagely, his own nerves being equally on edge as a result of the animals, upon which the outcome of his venture depended, having failed to put in the appearance he had promised. ‘Javelina warned us that he couldn’t guarantee to have them show up on time, and they might be a day or two late.’
‘So you told us the second day after they were supposed to be here,’ the interpreter for the Kiowa reminded sourly. ‘And that was four days ago. I don’t know about those other savages, but my crowd are getting harder to keep hanging around. Even your conjuring tricks and the magic lantern are beginning to pall.’
As was always the case when the college educated Indians gathered together, because none of them knew more than a limited number of words of any tribal language other than their own, they were speaking in English. They also considered it advisable to do so, particularly when discussing their reason for being at the Kweharehnuh village amongst themselves, as it prevented what they were saying from being understood by the people upon whom they were depending to put them in the positions of power they craved.
Looking from one to another of his associates, Prophet hoped he was showing less of the trepidation which was growing increasingly stronger among them with each passing day when they had to tell their delegations that the promised sign from Ka Dih still had not been given. When Walter Johnson had met with Tom Javelina at a town near the junction of the Canadian River and Rita Blanca Creek, having gone there under the pretense of collecting supplies for a celebratory dinner on the night before parting company with the Wedge, he had reported the expected delivery date to the medicine man. Therefore, the prediction had been based upon the time he had quoted.
At first, the delegates and men of the village had accepted Prophet’s explanation that bounty from the Great Spirit could not be hurried, and they all awaited the coming of the herd without complaint. However, with each succeeding day, they had shown less sign of being impressed by the spectacular conjuring tricks he had used to help him attain his position. Even the—to them—still inexplicable picture of the buffalo upon the white covered wall of whichever building was selected in the town of Hell had lost its appeal, and he had been hard pressed to prevent the growing disillusionment over the failure of his prophesy to be fulfilled.
‘What’re we going to do?’ the Sioux demanded.
‘Wait!’ the medicine man replied, the question having been directed at him.
‘For how much longer?’ the Sioux snarled.
‘Until I say otherwise,’ Prophet stated, pulling what appeared to be an Indian-made wooden flute from his left sleeve and toying with it. ‘Have you any objections?’
Although the Sioux scowled malevolently at the apparently innocuous action and laid his right hand upon the butt of the revolver which he—like all the others—carried tucked into the waistband of his trousers, there was an interruption before he could respond further to what had clearly been a challenge.
‘Prophet! This is Bad Temper, lance carrier of the Pahuraix calling for you to come out and make talk!’
‘What’s brought him back?’ the medicine man asked and, not being averse to finding an excuse to avoid a confrontation with the Sioux, came to his feet.
‘Who?’ the Cheyenne inquired.
‘That damned savage who killed the half-breed girl the first night we showed them the buffalo,’ Prophet replied. ‘Come on. Perhaps he’s seen the real thing!’
Starting to leave the tipi, followed by his companions, Prophet came to a halt in the doorway and stared at the sight which met his gaze. A large number of villagers and delegates were gathered and more were coming from all sides, but he gave them no more than a cursory glance. His main attention was devoted to two men and a woman standing well in the forefront of the crowd. From all appearance, apart from the lance being absent, and the Winchester being in a long fringed buckskin pouch inscribed by medicine symbols, the taller was dressed and armed as he had been in the alley at Hell. The second man was a small Texas cowhand with dusty blond hair. Despite the two white handled Colts butt forward on a gunbelt, he hardly appeared to be worthy of notice.
The same did not apply to the female member of the trio!
It was the half-breed girl who called herself, ‘Is-A-Man’!
‘Y—You said you’d killed her!’ Prophet gasped, wrenching his gaze from Annie Singing Bear to the “Indian” with an effort of will.
‘I lied,’ the Ysabel Kid confessed calmly. Then he raised his voice and, looking over his shoulder at the gathering crowd, made his Pehnane dialect even more pronounced as he continued in his maternal language, ‘Is this the great medicine man of the Kweharehnuh, a man who doesn’t know a Wasp from a Water Horse?’
‘What do you mean?’ Prophet snarled.
‘I’m not a Pahuraix, nor even a full blood Pehnane although there is no lie about this medicine pouch, and I am a member of the Dog Soldier war lodge,’ the Kid replied, bringing his gaze to the speaker and reaching with his left hand to remove the wig. ‘My man-name is “Cuchilo”, the Knife. Is-A-Man you know, and this one with me is Magic Hands who broke the medicine of the Devil Gun—In other words, you stinking half bred son-of-a-bitch, he’s Captain Dusty Fog!’ [9]
If the exclamations from the men behind him were any guide, Prophet decided they too had heard of Captain Dusty Fog. What was more, like the Comanches, the Kiowa delegation in particular probably knew why the sobriquet ‘Magic Hands’ was given. With it had also been conferred a status of blood brother which made the small Texan—who somehow no longer gave the impression of lacking size—persona grata in the Kweharehnuh village.
‘Why have you come back?’ the medicine man asked, trying to avoid being shoved forwards by his associates as they crowded from the tipi and, as the final part of the introduction had been made in that language, also speaking English.
‘To say you lied when you spoke of Ka-Dih giving a sign for all the nations to join and make war on the white man,’ the Kid proclaimed in ringing tones, reverting to Comanche. Even without looking around, he could hear his words being translated into other languages without the need for the college educated interpreters forming a line around the man he was addressing. Knowing Indians, it was as he had anticipated. Each delegation had included at least one brave conversant in the tongue of their hosts. ‘No buffalo are coming!’
‘How do you know?’ Prophet asked, instead of trying to quell the wave of excited comments which arose amongst the crowd.
‘We’ve stopped them,’ the kid replied.
‘Javelina is dead and those of his bunch who lived ran off without any the one of ’em trying to come and warn you,’ Annie supplemented in English, sounding just a trifle disappointed there had been no attempt to deliver the news. Gesturing with the Winchester carbine she held before her in both hands, bared of its medicine boot, she went on, ‘That smoke down to Hell’s coming from your wagon, along of all that fancy white man’s conjuring gear ’n’ magic lantern. Those jaspers you had minding it for you just somehow couldn’t stop us setting fire to it.’
‘I must seek guidance on this,’ Prophet asserted, starting to raise the wooden tube he was still holding. ‘This medicine flute will let us see what the wishes of Ka Dih are.’
With that, confident his associates would realize his intentions and be ready to take the appropriate action, the medicine man inflated his lungs and brought the tube to his lips. Even as he was doing so, gloating inwardly over what he expected to happen, his proposed victim proved his intentions were known to more than just the Indians to either side of him. Flung with power and precision, the black wig flew to strike him on the face. The unexpected attack caused him to inadvertently breathe in sharply instead of blowing through the tube. Before he could stop it, shock ripped through him as he felt the deadly sliver of wood he should have expelled at the Kid being sucked into his mouth. Although there was only a slight stabbing pain on his tongue, which instinctively sought to eject it, he knew what this implied. Gasping in horror, he allowed the tube to fall from his hands and clasped them futilely—as he knew—to his face.
Ready for Prophet to send off a poison tipped sliver of the kind which had played a major part in his rise to power amongst the Kweharehnuh, not even their previous medicine man having heard of such a device, the other college educated Indians snatched at the guns in their respective waistbands as the wig was being thrown at him. Before any of them could extract his weapon, they discovered how Dusty had acquired the sobriquet used as part of the introduction by the Kid. Crossing so fast the human eye could barely follow their movements, his hands brought the bone handled Colt Civilian Model Peacemakers from their well designed holsters. Turning the barrels outwards at waist level, half a second after the commencement of the movements, he fired them practically at the same instant. For all that, before either could clear his weapon, the interpreters for the Apache and the Sioux each received a .45 caliber bullet in the left breast.
Like the small Texan, Is-A-Man had been told by the Kid about the secret of the ‘flute’ and its poisoned darts. Therefore, she too was prepared for trouble. Bringing around her carbine with the smoothly flowing rapidity through long practice, she also opened fire, guided by instinctive alignment. Working the lever as swiftly as possible, she spread five shots before her like the spokes of an invisible wheel. Hit by two, either of which would have been fatal, the translator for the Kiowa followed Dusty’s victims as they reeled against and rebounded helplessly from the side of the tipi to sprawl dying on the ground.
As soon as the steps to prevent Prophet using the blow pipe had been taken, the Kid was shaking the medicine boot from his Winchester. While the right hand was turning the barrel the left flashed over to close upon its wooden fore grip. Such was the deft speed he employed and the skill he had attained, the bullet he discharged found its intended mark by passing through the centre of the Cheyenne speaker’s forehead. Spinning around, the stricken man collided with Prophet and they fell together through the door of the tipi. Neither would walk out again.
‘There is no need for weapons!’ the senior chief of the Kweharehnuh declared, as the girl and the Texan swung towards the crowd ready to take whatever action might prove necessary. Indicating the bodies outside and two pairs of unmoving feet showing through the entrance to the tipi, he went on, ‘The medicine flute took Prophet’s life this time, which means he had lost favor with Ka Dih and that is why those others died with him. Let all who came here because of him leave in p
eace.’
‘We can put up our guns, Dusty,’ the Kid stated with confidence. ‘It’s safe to do it now and, seeing’s how the buffalo won’t be coming, there isn’t going to be any uprising of all the tribes.’ [10]
About the Author
J.T. Edson was a former British Army dog-handler who wrote more than 130 Western novels, accounting for some 27 million sales in paperback. Edson’s works - produced on a word processor in an Edwardian semi at Melton Mowbray - contain clear, crisp action in the traditions of B-movies and Western television series. What they lack in psychological depth is made up for by at least twelve good fights per volume. Each portrays a vivid, idealized “West That Never Was”, at a pace that rarely slackens.
The Floating Outfit Series by J. T. Edson
The Ysabel Kid
.44 Caliber Man
A Horse Called Mogollon
Goodnight’s Dream
From Hide and Horn
Set Texas Back on Her Feet
The Hide and Tallow Men
The Hooded Riders
Quiet Town
Trail Boss
Wagons to Backsight
Troubled Range
Sidewinder
Rangeland Hercules
McGraw’s Inheritance
The Half-Breed
White Indians
Texas Kidnappers
The Wildcats
The Bad Bunch
The Fast Gun
Cuchilo
A Town Called Yellowdog
Trigger Fast
The Trouble Busters
The Making of a Lawman
Decision for Dusty Fog
Cards and Colts
The Code of Dusty Fog
The Gentle Giant
Set A-Foot
The Law of the Gun
The Peacemakers
To Arms! To Arms, In Dixie!
Hell in the Palo Duro
The South Will Rise Again
