8
Toby dismounted heavily in front of the hitch rack with a clunk of his spurs, and stared at the moth-eaten old buffalo-hide door. This place was rough. He pulled his pants out of his crotch and stretched his stiff back muscles. So far, they’d been following the right tracks. Good thing that they didn’t erase very fast in this land. Even better that those two boys could read them.
If Slocum and Juliana weren’t here, he’d be pissed off. But where were they going? Only thing he could imagine was Fort Dodge, Kansas, which was north of here a helluva long ways. The rest of this country was Comanche/ Kiowa/Cheyenne land. Not a good place for a man that liked his scalp.
Kelso was acting strange and holding back. There must be a reason for that. Toby shrugged it off and handed his reins to Polo. “I’ll go in and look the place over. See if there’s any sign of them here.”
The pair agreed, and rode for the pens.
Toby lifted the hide and looked around the dark interior, letting his eyes adjust to the bad light.
“Howdy, stranger, welcome to Cally. Whiskey is four bits a shot. Horse overnight’s two bits and meals the same.”
“Pour me one,” Toby said, hitching up his chaps and bellying up to the ornate wooden bar that had obviously come from some grander place than this. “What’s this Cally business?”
“We, sir,” the whiskered big man behind the bar began, “have seceded from the Union. Since we receive no U.S. mail here despite my pleas with Washington, we have no law enforcement provided, except my sawed-off shotgun, or road crew to smooth out the ruts, we have decided to raise our own flag and call this Cally.”
Toby frowned. “I’m looking for a man named Slocum. They say he has a woman with him that may be kin to me.”
Woodberry nodded. “You’re several days too late. She left with some outlaws and he left the next day.”
After taking a quick swallow of his whiskey, he looked hard at the man. “Say that again?” He nodded for the man to refill the shot glass. “She left with outlaws?”
“They conked Slocum on the head and took her, I should have said.”
“Who in the hell are they?”
“Three men drifted in here and drifted out with the lady.”
“Slocum went after them?”
“Three days ago.” Woodberry refilled his shot glass and recorked the bottle.
“Hell, they could be to Santa Fe by now. You holding any grudges against a trader named Kelso?”
“He out there?” Woodberry made a face like a man who’d smelled sour milk.
“Yeah.”
“Tell him come inside. I won’t eat him.”
“I’ll do that.” Toby downed his whiskey and slapped two quarters on the bar.
He went over, lifted the hide door aside, and used his other arm to wave the trader inside. “He’s forgiven you. Get in here.”
With a shake of his head, Toby went back for another drink. Who in the hell where these men that Woodberry called outlaws? And why did they take her? Sumbitch.
They took her for their own piece of ass. No way they could know she was a discard. If she wasn’t talking, they didn’t know her from goat shit. But how was he going to get to her?
“Did Slocum go after them?” he asked, and turned to see Kelso entering the hide door. “Get in here. I’m buying the drinks.”
“Well, where’ve you been?” Woodberry asked Kelso, looking him over.
“Trading’s all I do.”
Woodberry shook his head in disgust and set another shot glass on the bar. “You buying for him, too?” he asked Toby.
“I swear, Woodberry, I ever get the money I’ll pay you,” said Kelso. “I’ve had a tough run on bad luck. He asked you about that woman? I had her and I’d’ve gotten enough reward for delivering her to pay you what I owe you and more. That damn Slocum got her away from me and I couldn’t chase him. He’s a killer and—”
“Shut up. The man’s buying you a drink.” Woodberry gave him a scowl and pushed the filled shot glass closer.
“Ah, ah, sure.”
“Who’s got her? I mean what’s their names?” Toby asked.
“Freckles, Rudy, and Earl.”
“Who are they?” Tony turned to Kelso. “You know them?”
Holding the half-full shot glass, he shook his head at Toby. “Never heard of them.”
“The story goes that they robbed some fella up in Kansas of lots of cattle sales money,” said Woodberry. “They figured or knew that he’d sic the Pinkertons on them. So they were riding hard west.”
Shit. Toby downed his third shot. That was all he needed. Someone else messing up his business. Now he no doubt had two groups to fight with over her. This gritty business of sleeping on the cold ground wasn’t worth a damn. He’d eaten enough bad camp food to last his upset bowels for a long time. Plus he didn’t trust Kelso. Nothing he could put his finger on, but Kelso wasn’t telling him everything about Juliana and how he came to be holding her. It wasn’t the fact he’d been screwing her that bothered him either—he’d shut the door on her forever when those hired guns of his had hauled her ass off.
Such a perfect plan and now—now it had gone sour. He could think of twenty other things he’d rather have been doing than standing in this dark stinking saloon drinking sorry, high-priced whiskey with two smelly old farts. They acted like a couple of old tomcats ready to claw each other’s balls off and could barely stand each other’s company.
No women in this place, and if there were, they’d be so eaten up with venereal diseases that he wouldn’t touch them. Worse than anything else, he needed to get this damn thing over with and get back to being a ranch owner. Not someone’s flunky or day laborer. He’d worked all kinds of jobs before he married Juliana. All kinds. Like moving that hay for Old Man Pitch or cleaning outhouse pits for old ladies in town—he’d had all those bad jobs, but when he took over the 345, he’d moved into the kind of life he wanted to live. Let the help handle it. But this was his mess to straighten out, and he had to be certain he didn’t screw up. This was where great plans had led to—a dead end.
“No idea where they went—these outlaws that took her?”
“New Mexico, I guess. You going to help Slocum get her back?” Woodberry asked him.
“Sure, soon as we can catch him,” Toby replied, after seeing what side Woodberry was on.
“Horse feed is two bits a head. Hay’s expensive hauled out here.”
Toby nodded and paid the man. Then he looked at Kelso. “Come on, the boys’ll have food ready.”
Outside in the late afternoon wind, Kelso hugged his arms. “What the fuck did you mean back there—help Slocum?”
“Stupid, couldn’t you see and hear he liked Slocum and didn’t like the outlaws? Why not agree and be on his side?”
“Never thought of it that way.” Kelso squeezed shut his right fist. “Wish I had Slocum’s balls in my grip. I’d smash them to pieces and then squeeze them apart between my fingers. That sumbitch is the cause of all this.”
“We can ride hard enough, we may catch him.”
“I want him.”
“We’re leaving before dawn. I want him, too. You said she didn’t talk when you had her. Didn’t or couldn’t talk?”
“She didn’t say a word. You could wave your hand in her face and she would look right through it.”
“Lost her mind, huh?”
“I guess. She sure wanted to run away from me, and hell, I was saving her ass from them horny red savages. Couldn’t figure it.”
“Why do you think she wanted to run away from you?”
“Damned if I know.”
“I guess we’ll only know when we get her.”
“Sure. Sure. But I’ve got a bad feeling about this deal.”
Toby didn’t give a gawdamn about Kelso’s feelings. “Where we headed next?”
“There’s a woman west of here. She’s got the only water until the Devil’s Fork River, which is a good day’s ride past her place.”
“What’s her name?”
“Dominga.”
They were up at dawn. Kelso cussed and belly-kicked his honking mules while loading them. They soon were ready to sail. Toby rode out with his two men, and it was near noontime when Kelso, who had been trailing them a quarter mile behind with his noisy mules, came busting his ass to catch up.
“Wait! Wait!”
What the hell was wrong now? Toby stopped his horse and scowled at the trader as he reined up his spotted mule in a sliding stop.
“We’ve got big troubles. There’s a war party trailing us back there and there’s plenty of them.”
“I thought Injuns didn’t raid until their horses had grass to eat. There ain’t no grass out here. If we weren’t graining our horses, they’d’ve starved to death by now.”
“I don’t care. There’s twenty or more bucks on our ass right now.” Kelso looked fidgety, glancing back over his shoulder like he wanted to get out of there and had nowhere to go.
“Who are they?” Tony asked.
“Comanche, I figure. They may think we shot them young bucks that Slocum killed.”
“I thought you traded with ’em.”
“These are some of them red bastards that only the Comancheros trade with. Not me.”
Toby pulled the field glasses out of his saddlebags and focused on the country behind them. There were plenty of war-painted Injuns coming. Some had Henry repeaters; their brass actions shone in the sun. But having a repeating rifle and knowing how to shoot it accurately were two different things.
“Find us a place,” he said to his pistoleros. “Where we can defend ourselves and our animals. Then limber your rifles. We may have hell popping around here any minute.” The two boys looked around, and chose a place on the slope above them so the Indians had to come uphill toward them.
Toby agreed, and told them to get up there and to hobble the stock.
“How-how many you seeing?” Kelso asked, pushing in closer to Toby.
“Maybe twenty.”
“Let me look. I may know them.”
Toby handed them the glasses. “Well?”
“Black Horse.” Kelso shook his head, “He’s a real mean sumbitch.”
“You screw his woman? Or him on some trade?”
“No, he’s just bad mean.”
“I don’t like fighting your wars, Kelso.”
“I don’t like it either.” He handed the field glasses back and spurred his mule and train for where the boys were already hobbling the other animals. Toby was right on their heels, wondering how well they’d stand up against the onslaught of two dozen bucks.
This wouldn’t be any Sunday school picnic. Damn, more problems in his struggle to become a prosperous rancher. He would survive this day. He had to.
Screaming sonsabitches! They charged in riding half hung over the far side of their ponies. “Shoot their gawdamn horses,” Toby shouted at his men.
The acrid stink of the black powder stung his nose and half blinded him. Through blurry vision, he made his Spencer bullets count. A piebald horse went nose-down, sending its rider flying off into the mesquite brush. Next round, a screaming buck threw up his arms, hit square in the chest with a .50-caliber slug
They began taking a toll on Comanche horse stock, and caused enough wrecks that the circling Indians rode off to count losses. Polo’s arm was bleeding from a bullet fragment, they decided. Guerra bandaged him when the shooting let up. Kelso had two scratches from shots by the raiders.
“What are them red fuckers going to do next?” Kelso asked, using some whiskey on his scratches.
“How should we know? You trade with ’em.”
“Not that bunch out there. Them’s the bad ones.”
Toby didn’t like the looks of things. Those bastards were coming back for more. Hell, they’d lost a half dozen bucks and maybe that many horses. But they came charging in again.
Taking deadly aim, Toby shot, piled up a big roan horse in the lead, and two more flipped over him. Their riders scrambled for cover. Bullets whizzed by his head. Then one struck him. Hard in the chest. He couldn’t catch himself and fell backward.
“You all right?” Kelso shouted at him.
Out of wind, he couldn’t answer, and waved Kelso back to shooting so the bucks didn’t overrun them. He held his hand to his wound and then looked at the blood. Holy crap, he was going to die out in this godforsaken land looking for a damn woman who should have been dead.
Gun smoke, Indians screaming, the confusion of their own horses stomping around, some horses hit by the bullets—he lay on his back with a burning wound in his chest, and was barely able to do little more than sit up and empty his handgun at the charging Comanche.
In the next charge, Toby fell backward, clicking his empty six-gun, and at last, in deep pain, he fainted away.