Chapter Twenty-One

Once more the trail was leading toward the Blue Mountains. Will rode along contentedly, eating several pieces of Shorty’s fried chicken.

“This is mighty good chicken, Mister Blaine,” he commented. “I think I’ll save the leg bones and make whistles out of them.”

“Whistles?”

“That’s right. A little music wouldn’t hurt this expedition any.”

“I never heard of making a musical instrument out of a chicken bone,” Shorty said.

“Well, you can,” Will said. “I learned how from a Sioux woman.”

“That’s interesting.”

Will produced a bottle of mash whiskey from his saddlebags and passed it to Shorty. Shorty took a long pull and said: “God damn but that tastes pretty good.”

“How’d you end up with your leg all bent?” Will asked him.

“Horse fell on me. I was riding along pretty as you please and the son-of-a-buck just went over on me. Rode for years, all up and down the trails … the Bozeman, the Goodnight-Loving, the Bandera, the Chisholm … never once had a horse fall over on me. Had horses shot out from under me or drop dead of the staggers when being chased by Apaches and Comanches, but never had one fall on me until that day.”

“That is a stroke of bad luck,” Will said.

“Worst part of it was,” Shorty said, taking liberty with Will’s bottle. “I was on my way to see my sweetheart that very day. I was going to ask her to marry me. It was a Sunday. I remember it was a nice pleasant day like this one. I was just riding along, going to see my sweetheart when it happened. Her name was Josephine Dart. Tall gal, pretty as you please.”

“You never made it, then?” Will asked, his curiosity now up as he gnawed on a drumstick. “You never got to ask your sweetheart to marry you?”

Shorty shook his head sadly and took another pull on the bottle of mash. “No, that horse fell on me and crushed my leg and pelvis and squashed my insides. They thought they was going to have to bury me that very evening. The pain was so bad, I was wishing they’d just get their shovels and bury me without waiting for me to die. Then I begged them to shoot me in the head, but no one would. Then a doctor rode all the way from Tascosa and gave me a bottle of laudanum and asked if I was a Christian man and said he would pray with me till my time came. The laudanum helped more than the praying.”

“Well, wasn’t that doctor able to set your leg straight once he seen you were going to live?” Will asked, tossing the drumstick bone over his shoulder.

“I thought you was going to make a whistle out of that bone,” Shorty said.

Will reached into the sack and pulled out another drumstick and said: “I forgot. I’ll just have to eat another chicken leg and save the next bone for my whistle.”

“I don’t believe you can make a whistle out of a chicken’s leg bone,” Shorty said skeptically.

Will went on chewing the drumstick, ignoring the comment. “You never did say why that medico wasn’t able to set your leg straight after that horse fell on you, Mister Blaine.”

“He wasn’t much of a doctor for one thing,” Shorty said. “He mostly treated sick animals and took care of burying the dead. I think that’s why he rode all the way out from Tascosa in the first place. He figured the boys would take up a nice collection to have me buried. I found out later that, when he wasn’t treating sick animals or burying folks, he gave haircuts and only charged twenty-five cents and was considered to be the best barber in the Panhandle.”

“Well, I hope he was better at cutting hair than setting people’s bones,” Will said. “Your leg’s as crooked as a cottonwood branch.”

“I don’t know,” Shorty replied. “I never went to him for a haircut.”

“I’d say you saved yourself a good two bits, then.”

“It was my poor luck to have my horse fall on me in a country where the only doctor was a man whose best talent was hair cutting.”

“That is poor luck,” Will said. “All the way around.”

“The great sadness was, I never did make it out to Josephine’s that day. And by the time I was able to get around well enough to ride a horse again, Jo had run off and got married to a goat rancher.”

“A goat rancher!” Will seemed incredulous. “Who in their right mind would ranch goats?”

“This man that Josephine married,” Shorty said, “that’s who.”

“That would be a hard one to swallow, Mister Blaine,” Will commented dryly, “to have your leg busted and set by a quack then find out your best gal run off and married a man that ranched goats.”

“It wasn’t the best year I ever had, I can tell you that.”

They passed the bottle between them as they rode along, all the while commenting on the deficiencies of doctors and women in general, and goat ranching in particular. Cole’s thoughts were of Ella Mims, so he didn’t have a lot to contribute to the conversation of his companions.

Their journey remained uneventful for the remainder of the day, and that night they made camp near a clump of cottonwoods along a sweet spring that trickled water cold and clear. Shorty said he would cook their supper if the other two would gather firewood.

“My leg is aching something terrible,” Will responded. “Gathering firewood ain’t in my book.”

Cole offered to gather the wood while Will made himself a comfortable place to sit and nurse a fresh bottle of mash.

Shorty made biscuits for supper that night along with some extra for their breakfast the next morning. They ate the remainder of the fried chicken and washed it down with coffee, except for Will who preferred to wash his supper down with the mash whiskey. It was a good meal and afterward they sat around and smoked and shared some of Will’s whiskey and talked about the old days, the places they’d been, the times they’d had—both the good and the bad. And gradually, as the conversation wound down, they were all left to their private thoughts as they lay, looking up at the stars.

That was the best and the worst time of night—when conversation ended and sleep hadn’t yet begun. Cole pulled his blankets up tight and kept his feet pointed toward the fire. It was a cold night and getting colder. Lying there, thinking about it, some nagging doubts came into his mind, doubts about the man they were chasing. Leviticus Book had outsmarted them so far. That in itself was troubling. Will was a professional manhunter, yet he’d been outfoxed and Cole had been outfoxed along with him. That combined with the fact of how easily Book had murdered a man like Ike Kelly didn’t exactly cause Cole to want to close both eyes at night, knowing the man was still out there in the dark somewhere. So far, Book had cost him a good friend and probably the love of a good woman. He wanted to get it over with, to end the business. Maybe when it was ended, he could ride back to Nebraska and see if Ella was still a free woman. He heard the call of a gray wolf and felt the heat of the fire against the soles of his boots. Those things and the mash whiskey finally forced him into a fitful sleep.

* * * * *

The next morning, they were awakened by a hard, icy rain. It fell out of the sky like a bucket of cold nickels and seemed to freeze as it hit the ground.

“Look’s like breakfast is out,” Will grumbled.

“Unless you want me to sit around in this frozen rain and cook,” Shorty said, his own mood sour because of the nasty weather.

“There’s bound to be a town somewhere along this road,” Cole suggested. “Maybe, if we leave off with the griping and get a move on, we’ll come to it.”

No one argued.

“How come it ain’t snow, I wonder?” Shorty said after they had ridden for a time in the ice storm. “It’s cold enough to be snow. Why’s it have to be ice? All the damned luck!”

“It’s just one more thing,” Will grumbled, his mustaches heavy with ice particles. “It’s been my poor luck ever since I stopped in Cheyenne that first time and ran into John Henry.” Will looked at Cole from under the brim of his wet hat. “Nothing against you,” he assured. “Just that, if I’d never stopped to wet my beak that day, I probably already would have captured Book and had him halfway back to Fort Smith by now.”

Cole didn’t bother to contradict Harper on the subject. He saw no point in discussing what might have been. Then he saw them coming through the glittering ice storm—the band of Indians.

“We’ve got company,” he said.

Will and Shorty jerked up their drooping heads. The ice seemed to crackle off their slickers when they did.

“What the hell do you think they’re up to?” Shorty said.

Before anyone could offer a reason, the forelegs of Will’s horse buckled and sent him sprawling. Then Cole heard the crack of a rifle. He swung the speckled bird around and offered his hand to Will at the same time as he kicked his right foot free from the stirrup. “Get on!”

Will was still half stunned from the tumble he’d taken, but he grabbed Cole’s hand and with a struggle pulled himself onto the back of the bird. She didn’t care for it much, having to haul two big men, but she responded to Cole’s command as he drove his heels into her flanks.

“Where?” shouted Shorty.

“Anywhere but here!”

Shorty tried to grab the lead rope of the pack mule.

“Leave it!” Cole yelled, and Shorty did.

They raced their horses across a sage-covered valley coated with a thin layer of ice that shattered like glass under the hoofs of their mounts. Cole looked back in time to see that one of the renegades had caught the pack mule, but the others were still on their heels. With the speckled bird having to carry both Cole and Will, the race would not be a long one. Several times bullets went whistling past their heads. Cole thought they were all holding their breaths, waiting for one of the bullets to find its mark.

After a mile, the bird started to labor under the load. Shorty’s roan passed her and with every second opened a wider distance between them. Cole looked back again and saw the renegades on their swift mustangs were gaining. Shorty and his roan were several hundred yards ahead of them, then Cole saw Shorty’s horse top a rise and disappear over the other side. The bird was doing her best, but her best wasn’t going to be good enough, not with two riders on her back.

The renegades were less than a hundred yards away as they started up the rise. Cole figured they would have to stop near the top and make their stand.

The icy rain stung like bees, attacking their faces and hands. Then Shorty appeared at the top of the rise again and waved them on.

“What the hell’s he doing?” Will shouted.

Cole urged the bird on. She gave all she had and took them to the top where they saw the walls of an old cabin at the bottom of the slope.

“It ain’t exactly Fort Abraham Lincoln,” Shorty shouted through snapping ice rain, “but it’ll do!” Then jerking his Winchester free from his saddle scabbard, he began firing at their pursuers while Cole raced the bird down the slope.

They made the walls of the cabin just as the band of renegades reached the top of the rise, Shorty coming in behind them. Several rounds slammed into the cabin’s walls as they took cover.

“Thank the son-of-a-bitch who built this cabin,” Will said, taking up a position alongside a window.

“Yes, but he could have left a roof on it,” Shorty said with a relieved half grin.

“Who do you reckon those peckerwoods are?” Will asked, peering around the sill long enough to have two more rounds slam into the walls.

“From what I could see,” Cole said, “they looked like Sioux. But then, I’m not an expert on Indians.”

“Maybe once we whip them, we can ask them,” Shorty said, ducking around an opening long enough to rapid-fire his Winchester. The renegades had slipped back beyond the rise, no doubt holding a powwow as to how they were going to smoke them out.

“Do we try and make another run for it?” Shorty asked after some time had passed with no further sign of the renegades.

“Two horses, three men?” Cole said. “You figure out what our chances are.”

“Maybe they got tired and left,” Will said. “You know how damn’ funny Indians can be about waiting around for something to happen.”

“You want to take a walk up that hill and find out?” Cole asked.

Will looked sheepish at the suggestion.

“I wish it would at least quit this damn’ freezing drizzle on us,” Shorty said. “I could stand a smoke.”

“I wonder what did happen to the roof,” Will said, looking up as he shielded his face with one hand. “Somebody steal it?”

The walls were still in good order, though they sagged at the northwest corner. All the glass was gone from the windows.

“Maybe a big wind came and blew the roof off,” Shorty suggested. “Sometimes they get cyclones out in this country and they blow roofs off places.”

“That’s probably what happened, all right,” Will said. “A cyclone came along and blowed off the roof and blowed out all the windows and whoever was living here had to leave.” Will pulled out his bottle and added: “Least this didn’t get broke in all the commotion.” He took a pull before passing it to Shorty and Cole.

“What about those Indians, John Henry, you see any more of them up there?” Will asked.

Cole looked but didn’t see anyone. Then came a roar that sounded like rolling thunder and they all looked at one another. Then twice more the sound came.

“That’s a Big Fifty,” Will said. “Sharps buffalo gun.”

“What the hell!” Shorty said, taking a peek through one of the missing windows.

“I used to hunt buffalo on the plains. I know a Sharps when I hear one,” Will assured them.

“You reckon one of those peckerwoods has a Sharps with him?” Shorty asked.

“If he does,” Cole said, “what’s he shooting at?”

“As long as it’s not us,” Will said, “I don’t care. Any gun that can kill a buffalo at five hundred yards ain’t something I want aimed at me.”

Several more shots from the big gun crashed through the air, then forty minutes passed without a sound.

“I’m getting damn’ tired of sitting here, freezing my backside off,” Will said.

“Well, I don’t see how that’s going to change any,” Shorty said. “Unless this ice rain stops or you go and build a new roof and put it on over us.”

“Screw this!” Will said, and stepped outside the walls of the cabin. “Let me borrow your horse.”

Shorty said: “Go right ahead. Just don’t get him shot, OK?”

“I’ll go with you,” Cole said. “I’m tired of the damned ice, too.”

“I’ll wait here, and cover you boys,” Shorty said. “I’m a damn’ sight better hitting what I aim at if I ain’t on the back of a horse.”

Cole rode with his self-cocker in his right hand; Will rode with Cole’s Winchester resting across the horn in front of him. They took it slow up that hill just in case the renegades were still there waiting for them. It was hold your breath time.

What they found when they reached the top caused both of them to pull up short. Four of the Indians were dead, their faces gray under the formed ice. Each had holes blown through them the size you could put your fist through. The rest were nowhere in sight. Will and Cole looked at each other.

“What the hell went on here, John Henry?”

“I don’t know.”

The realization was slow in coming, then they looked again at each other.

“Leviticus Book,” Cole breathed.

Will nodded. “Must have been.”