Trigger happy, p.11
Trigger Happy, page 11
Nathan scowled. “I’m almost afraid to ask, but what are you talking about?”
Red Buffalo turned from where he’d been looking out the front opening of the tent they’d been assigned.
“The way this morning has gone,” he said, making a catch-all gesture with one hand. “Starts out with a fine, reasonably priced breakfast. Then turning Lester’s and Curly’s shooting irons over to the marshal goes nothing like we expected. No fretting or accusing, practically no questions, just a lame warning about keeping any future trouble between us and them outside of town. And now we get here to the army post and we find ourselves dealing with a commander who seems fair and reasonable and actually compliments us on our past service and our reputations for being top scouts.” Red Buffalo shook his head. “Come on now. You telling me you’re used to things going that smooth in the normal course of events?”
From where he sat on the edge of one of the tent’s two cots, repairing some leather stitching on his knife sheath, Nathan replied, “No, I can’t argue that it’s normal for things to go along that smooth. But by the same token, I don’t see where a body ought to rail against a good stretch when one does come along. And remember, the day is young. We ride out on a scout this afternoon through territory neither of us has ever been in before, so there’ll be plenty of time and opportunity for things to turn unsmooth in a hurry.”
Red Buffalo grunted. “You’re just saying that to cheer me up.”
“The hell I am. I got no problem at all with suffering through a stretch of easy going for a while.”
Red Buffalo sat down on the other cot. “But a stretch of easy going may include having no Indians to kill. That’s of no concern to you?”
“A little bit of ease-up don’t mean there won’t still be plenty of Indians out there to kill when the time comes.” Nathan continued to focus on his stitching, then added offhandedly, “Besides, if I get too hard up, there’s always you.”
“You have the advantage of being satisfied with killing any and all Indians that come along,” said Red Buffalo, getting used to the kind of needling comments Nathan came up with. Red Buffalo went quiet for a long count, his expression hardening as his gaze seemed to penetrate the wall of the tent, seeing something far beyond. When he spoke again, his voice, too, seemed harder and somewhat distant. “Me, I’m out for Blackfeet. And unlike our boy captain, who’s about to find he has more than one Indian Killer in his ranks, I’m not willing to be satisfied with just chasing them over the damn Canadian border.”
Chapter 20
“No, sir! It ain’t gonna go that way. I won’t have it!”
Curly Messingill tromped back and forth on a patch of dusty grass out back of the M-Slash-G bunkhouse as he spouted these words. His face was flushed bright red with anger.
Standing with one shoulder leaning against the outside of the building, Rafe Ridgway patiently watched Messingill pace and let him rant until he had to pause to catch his breath. Then, sighing, the deputy said, “I’m afraid that is the way it’s going to go, Curly. The boss has got his mind made up. I understand it’s a galling thing to choke down, I surely do. But you’re going to have to cool off and find a way to live with it.”
Messingill abruptly stopped pacing and turned to stand facing Ridgway. His gun belt was once again around his waist, holster tied down snug.
“What if I don’t?” he challenged.
Ridgway remained leaning, his relaxed pose in sharp contrast to the other man’s rigid tenseness.
“Do you really have to ask that question, Curly? Are you that stupid? Under different circumstances, I suppose maybe you could refuse an order from McGreevey and simply get fired. Go ahead and ride away. But there’s too much riding on things this time around, and you damn well know it because you’re up to your eyeballs in it.”
“Yeah, I know that,” countered Messingill. “Seems to me McGreevey is the one who might be forgettin’ it. I know too much for him to jerk me around and expect me to put up with it no matter what. I got my pride, you know.”
Ridgway’s narrow eyes grew even narrower. “There’s an old saying about pride … how it goes before a fall. Ever hear that one?”
“Maybe. Even if I did, I never understood what the hell it meant.”
“Try this for size, then. A minute ago I told you you’d have to find a way to live with doing what McGreevey wants, holding off on going after those strangers we now know are scouts for the army.”
“I don’t give a damn who or what they are,” Messingill insisted. “Nobody gets the drop on me and strips me of my guns and then can expect me not to come looking for payback. Not the low-down curs who done it, and not even Bennett McGreevey! Now that you’ve brung my shootin’ irons back to me, Rafe, I’m bound to use ’em for deliverin’ that payback.”
Deep inside the slits that were Ridgway’s eyes, the flames of a cold fire flickered.
“You didn’t let me finish making my point before you so rudely interrupted me,” he said, his voice suddenly colder, too. “When I said you’d have to live with doing what McGreevey wants … the unspoken part was that you could choose to die over not doing it.”
Suddenly, as silently and effortlessly as a curl of smoke, Ridgway was no longer leaning against the building but was standing upright, feet planted wide, facing Messingill full on.
Messingill remained rigid, motionless. His eyes widened, though, and his chin sagged as if in disbelief.
“You’d do that, Rafe? You’d pull iron on me over something like this?”
“I will if you give me no choice, Curly.”
“But you’re a lawman. Quittin’ McGreevey ain’t breakin’ no laws, and neither is lookin’ to settle the score with those two who done me wrong.”
Ridgway spat out a short, caustic laugh. “I’m a lawman like you’re a cowpuncher, Curly. We’re neither of us no more than hired guns for McGreevey, and no matter how much of a pain in the rump he is, I like being on the right side of the money he dishes out. If he succeeds in pushing through statehood and ends up the damn governor—which he very well may—then I want to be on the right side of that, too.”
“So what does me or Lester settlin’ up with a pair of mangy army scouts have to do with any of that?” Messingill wailed.
“For cryin’ out loud, Curly, for once try thinkin’ with your brain and not just your gun hand, will you?” This came from Lester Fallow, who until then had been standing quietly off to one side in front of a dilapidated old buckboard. “You think I don’t want to go after those scouts as bad as you do? I tossed and turned all night, itchin’ to get my hands back on my guns, thinkin’ of nothing else but how I’d use ’em on those two.”
With a renewed show of eagerness, Messingill said, “Then you’re singin’ the same tune as me, right?”
“Same tune for sure … but all in good time,” Fallow countered. “Didn’t you hear what Rafe told us about McGreevey sayin’ we needed to hold off? Not forever, just for the time being. You can see how an Indian uprising could ruin the whole statehood thing and all the rest of McGreevey’s plans, can’t you? And you’ve seen how poorly the ranchers and homesteaders—and even the army, so far—have fared against Thunder Elk’s raids. So if that pair of scouts can provide an edge, well, it makes sense for McGreevey not wantin’ ’em interfered with. For now. But after they’ve served their purpose, then there wouldn’t be no more reason for us to hold off gettin’ our turn at ’em.”
Messingill looked torn with indecision. Turning back to the deputy, he said, “Is that right, Rafe? Is that what you think about McGreevey’s feelings? That he wouldn’t have no problem with me and Lester settlin’ up with those scouts after the Injun trouble is over and done with?”
“Seemed plain enough to me,” confirmed Ridgway. “And in the meantime, he’s still needing you and Lester to keep the nesters and farmers from clogging up the range. You stick to that, keep doing the good job you been doing, and you’ll have your own shot at being on the right side of what lies ahead for this whole blasted territory.”
“That don’t sound too bad to me, Curly,” encouraged Fallow. “Sure seems worth havin’ a little patience when it comes to those scouts … knowin’ we’ll get our chance at ’em in the end.”
Messingill looked almost won over but he still had a question. “What if the Blackfeet get ’em first?”
Fallow considered for a beat, then one side of his mouth pulled back, baring his teeth in a humorless grin. “Would that be such a bad trade? Losin’ our turn to an Injun torture knife?”
At last the tenseness lifted from Messingill and he said, almost relieved, “No, I reckon not. If things were to work out that way, it wouldn’t be a bad trade at all.”
Chapter 21
“Not too far past that rise straight ahead,” said Sergeant Thomas O’Driscoll, pointing, “is the latest homestead we know of those red devils strikin’. That was day before yesterday. They did their bloody work and their robbin’ and then, as usual, shot back north toward their mountain hideout.”
He swung his thick arm in that direction to add clarity to his statement.
O’Driscoll was a big, beefy trooper, ruddy-faced as much from the copious amounts of liquor he’d consumed in his fifty-odd years as from exposure to the elements, with decades of army service under his belt and citations for bravery in battle equaled only by the number of times he’d been busted back in rank due to his fondness for the bottle.
“This homestead marks about the farthest south and the closest to town they’ve struck so far,” the sergeant went on. “Their pattern seems pretty clear, though. They’re workin’ their way down more and more out of the mountains. Just a matter of time, once they get all the scattered little places picked off, before they start hittin’ the herds of the bigger ranchers down in the basin. Barrin’ us stoppin’ ’em, that is.”
“So when the smaller spreads were getting pecked away at, they were pretty much on their own,” said Red Buffalo. “But now that the big, moneyed outfits are on the brink of getting hit, it’s serious enough for the army to be called in. That the way it went?”
O’Driscoll’s face scrunched up with an expression that seemed to convey annoyance, but whether it stemmed from agreeing or disagreeing with the Crow’s assessment wasn’t clear. All the sergeant said was, “The army goes where it’s sent, when it’s sent. I been around a long while, mister, and that’s how it’s always been.”
Nathan joined in, saying, “The bigger ranches down in the basin, one among those belongs to a Bennett McGreevey, ain’t that right?”
The three men were striding abreast at an easy pace, on foot to give their horses a walking break. The soldiers of the twenty-man patrol sent out under O’Driscoll’s command, also on foot and walking their horses, stretched out behind them. The sun hung just past its noon peak in a cloudless sky and a light, gusting breeze came and went in the pleasantly warm air, stirring faint swirls of dust from the bare patches in the grassy, rolling terrain that spread out all around them.
“McGreevey,” O’Driscoll said, echoing Nathan’s mention of the name. “Way I hear, he ain’t just among the big ranchers in the basin, he’s the biggest … by half again of all the others combined, if the stories are true. What’s more, he owns a good share of the businesses in the town of Telford.”
“He-wolf of the whole area, we’ve heard him described,” summed up Red Buffalo.
O’Driscoll cocked a shaggy brow. “That’s an accurate way of puttin’ it, I reckon. You fellas got some particular interest in McGreevey?”
“Just some things we heard,” Nathan replied. “We got in late and stayed over in Telford last night. Like you said, he casts a pretty big shadow over the town so his name popped up more than once.”
O’Driscoll reached up with a big paw and scratched the side of his neck. “What else I hear is that he’s a, whatyacall, delicate for makin’ our Montana Territory a state.”
Nathan grinned. “You mean he’s a delegate. I never met the hombre, but I’ve got a pretty good hunch there ain’t much delicate about him.”
“Well, whatever you call it,” grumbled O’Driscoll, “I don’t see why fellas like him—or anybody, for that matter—push so hard for statehood. Why not leave at least a few places wild and free? I’ve been in other territories that got turned into states and right away there was lawyers and politicians and town councils and what have you, all layin’ down statutes and boundaries and so forth until in no time at all it got so’s every way you tried to turn there was some blamed rule against it …” He shook his head. “Naw, I know enough to know that ain’t no way for the likes of me.”
“But you’re in the army. Have been for more than three decades, the captain told us,” said Red Buffalo. “Ain’t the army full of rules and regulations you have to follow?”
“There’s rumors to that effect,” the old sergeant allowed. Then, after a moment, the lower half of his whiskey-ravaged face split into a sly grin. “But for some, the army’s book of rules is sorta like the devil ye know. For an old horse soldier who’s been around as long as me, you learn to slip and slide in and out of the more meddlesome ones and even get a chance to tweak the devil’s nose now and then.”
Nathan and Red Buffalo glanced involuntarily at the stripes on his sleeve.
O’Driscoll added, “Of course, as these wee little three stripes indicate after all my time in this man’s army, the devil does tweak back once in a while. Still, I’d rather give and take my tweaks soldierin’ in a territory over a state any old day. That was my point.”
Nathan sighed. “Comes down to it, reckon me and Moses have chalked up our share of dodging meddlesome rules ourselves.”
To which Red Buffalo remarked, “Speak for yourself, white eyes. I am a good Christian who always walks the straight and narrow.”
O’Driscoll cast a somewhat uneasy sidelong glance and said, “He’s kidding, right?”
“Hard to tell about this particular one,” Nathan replied. “Other Injuns I’ve known lie half the time then don’t tell the truth the other half. Can’t say much ‘kidding’ ever enters into it.”
O’Driscoll decided to let it go at that. “Well, we need to get that burnt-out homestead looked at and then make our swing north if we’re gonna give you two enough daylight to have a chance at picking up any sign.” He stopped walking and called back over his shoulder, “Halt and prepare to mount!” The men in the column did as ordered. When, a moment later, the sergeant called, “Mount!” they swung smoothly up into their saddles, as did O’Driscoll, Nathan, and Red Buffalo.
As promised, a handful of minutes later the blackened shell of the most recently attacked homestead came into sight as they topped the rise O’Driscoll had indicated. The place didn’t look like it ever amounted to a whole lot to begin with, but whatever sweat and hope and dreams had taken it as far as it did were certainly ended now, crushed and turned to ashes.
“Ebner, we were told, was the name of the family who lived here,” O’Driscoll related as they rode down to the place. “A ma and pa and a couple of boys who were just comin’ of age. Had some hogs and chickens, a milk cow or two. A decent-sized stand of corn over yonder by the creek. Seems like they were makin’ out okay, maybe on their way to gettin’ by still better … but Thunder Elk and his braves took it away. Their lives and all the rest. But you can bet the livestock meat and the corn and whatever else they hauled off made the lives of their own a lot better off.”
“Their own? Women and children part of this renegade band?” Nathan asked.
“Took squaws and brats with ’em when they left that Canadian reservation,” O’Driscoll answered. “Nobody can say for sure how many, though, because nobody has got close to wherever they’re holed up to see. Same for the size of the raiding parties they send out. Never been any survivors to say how many hit ’em. Somewhere north of thirty seems to be the generally accepted number, based on what sign they’ve left behind. But that ain’t sayin’ all the fightin’ braves go out at once.”
“They’d leave a few behind to watch over their camp, but most of the able-bodied men would join the raids,” said Red Buffalo confidently. “Especially now that you’ve shown up.”
“The army, you mean?” O’Driscoll frowned. “We ain’t never had no kind of run-in with ’em yet. They might not even realize we’re here.”
“They do.” If anything, Red Buffalo’s tone was even more confident.
Nathan had dismounted and was slowly circling the charred remains of the cabin on foot, leading Buck along behind him. His eyes were cast downward, sweeping from side to side as he walked, scanning the blackened rubble as well as the trampled ground around it. As he got to what had been the back corner of the cabin, his eyes lifted and he stopped. His gaze settled on a grassy hillock about twenty yards out where lay a row of four fresh graves marked by simple wooden crosses.
His eyes remaining trained on the piles of heaped earth, Nathan said over his shoulder, “So they killed the mother, too, rather than taking her captive.”
It wasn’t really a question but O’Driscoll, who remained mounted, as had the rest of the soldiers as well as Red Buffalo, saw fit to answer anyway.
“The Blackfeet ain’t been takin’ captives in any of these raids. Which ain’t to say the red devils haven’t been usin’ some of the women mighty hard before they kill ’em and ride on.”
Nathan’s face was turned in such a way that none of the others could see the look that had come over it: features turned to stone, mouth pulled into a grimace as tight and thin as a knife slash, an icy glint in his eyes that, no matter where they were aimed, were seeing something visible only in a tortured internal place.
Watching, Red Buffalo could not see these things either; but he didn’t have to. He knew what was happening by the sudden rigidity that ran through Nathan’s whole body, the way his shoulders raised ever so slightly and then locked as motionless and hard as if they’d turned into a steel rod spreading his shirt.
