Authors: Loren D. Estleman

The High Rocks (16 page)

BOOK: The High Rocks

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“When did the bullet shift?” I asked him.

“Just before we stopped.” He had turned and, walking on unsteady legs, crossed over to his horse to unhitch the litter. “I didnâ²t say nothing at the time because I wasn't sure. It was just a tingle. What difference does it make? It shifted. Find that nag of yours and let's ride.”

“Ease up. If that bullet's as mobile as that, you're running a risk every time you take a step.”

“Save that stuff for when you hang out your shingle,” he retorted, tossing the litter aside with a powerful thrust of the left arm. He winced and placed what he thought was a surreptitious hand against his injury. I pretended not to notice.

The mare hadn't wandered far. I found it munching at a blackberry bush on the edge of the forest and led it back to the riverbank, where it became so troublesome at the scent of gunpowder and death that I had to tether it to the trunk of a storm-shattered pine while I sought out the bounty hunters' horses. These were hobbled a hundred yards upstream behind a steep snowbank. I chose oneâa black with a yellow blaze and stockings to matchâfor Little Tree, and after removing the
other's saddle and bridle, cut it loose and shooed it away. There was no sense in making things easy for Lop Ear and company. Only as I stood watching it canter away toward the comparative openness of the forest did I realize that I had just released a mount far better than the one I was riding. Well, I had gotten used to the aging chestnut anyway. I threw the extra saddle and bridle into the snowbank and rejoined Bear and Little Tree with the black.

Crossing was tricky. I went first, leading the mare, and when I had reached the opposite bank, Little Tree struck out with her new mount, followed by Bear leading the big dun. When he was halfway across, the ice hammocked, squirting water up through its cracks and groaning ominously. He stopped, but as the noise continued it became apparent that standing still was no safer than moving and he resumed with caution. There were two inches of water on top of the ice by the time he and the horse stepped up onto dry land, but the surface remained intact. From a distance it might have been two feet thick.

“We'll stop here,” Bear said.

“We've eight hours of daylight left,” I pointed out. “What about the Indians?”

“This is where we make our stand.”

“Nice last words. Too bad there won't be anybody left to carve them on your tombstone.” I spoke bitterly.

“We ain't about to outrun them, that's for sure. And a river's good a place as any to face off. Better than most.” He held out his hand for the Spencer. I gave it to him reluctantly.

“Tether the horses clear of the firing line,” he told Little Tree, handing her his reins. When she moved off, leading all three animals, he inclined his head toward the gun in my holster. “You're going to have to use a little more economy when it comes to shooting Flatheads. You used four too many on Church.”

“Do I tell you how to scalp Indians?” I snapped.

“Just a suggestion.”

The Indians came at noon. By that time, entrenched amid the cattails between Bear and the squawâwho was armed once again with the Danceâmy gun in hand and the rest of the captured iron within reach, I had given up on them entirely. I was about to say so when the sound of galloping hoofs reached me faintly over the incessant whine of the wind. A soft rumble at first, in seconds it swelled to a roar. The scalp-hunter settled his Spencer into a groove he had hollowed out previously atop an old muskrat den and sighted in on the spot across the river where he had left the bodies for bait.

“Don't nobody fire until I give the word,” he said.

They came streaming out of the forest on the other side, a loose wedge of warriors with Two Sisters and Black Kettle mounted at the point. From
there the momentum slowed until, drawing near the corpses, they halted. A brave sprang down from his horse and stooped to examine each of the bodies. Rising, he cast a glance across the river, spotted Rocking Wolf sprawled face down in the middle, and pointed.

The chief had already noticed. He nodded reflectively, after which he and the medicine man fell into animated conversation. At one point the latter paused to gaze along the opposite bank, then suddenly raised his right arm and thrust a finger straight at us. I buried my face in my arms. When no bullets followed the gesture, however, I returned my attention to the Indians. It appeared that Two Sisters and Black Kettle were arguing once again, this time over whether they should charge across and begin pursuit immediately or follow the bank and cross farther upstream to avoid a possible ambush, with the medicine man in favor of the former. This time he won. Under instructions from the chief, punctuated once again by numerous gestures, the Flatheads lined up along the riverbank in what my old cavalry sergeant would call charge formation.

“Remember,” Bear muttered, “not until I give the word.”

They started across in a tight line, unslinging their bows and rifles as they went. The ice bowed dangerously beneath their collective weight. I stretched out full length on my stomach and held
the Deane-Adams with my arms resting on a knot of tangled cattails, awaiting the order to fire. It didn't come when I expected it, with the result that I almost gave the game away with a premature shot. Even then Bear remained silent. Out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of his bearded profile; his teeth were showing and the skin over his brow was taut. By that time the Indians were so close I imagined I could smell the mingled stenches of horse and rancid bear grease.

“Fire!” His voice was shrill.

Our first shots crackled like burning wood. Two braves fell, shrieking as they spun from their horses. The third bulletâI think it came from the Spencerâstruck Black Kettle's horse and it crashed over onto its side, spilling the medicine man off its back and smashing through the ice where it fell. That sparked off a chain reaction, and as we continued firing the river became a confused tangle of tumbling warriors and horses screaming and thrashing in the black water. Bodies, both of horses and men, were so thick that there was no longer any need to take aim; we just kept pumping lead into the fray like hunters heading off a herd of stampeding buffalo. In seconds the holes in the ice were rounded up with bobbing corpses.

I had emptied both the five-shot and Church's Navy Colt and was reaching for Rocking Wolf's Winchester when Two Sisters gave the order to retreat. Ducking lead, the braves gathered up what
dead they could get their hands on and thrashed their way back toward the opposite bank, twisting around now and then to snap off a shot in our direction. Bear and I kept hammering away at their backs until they vanished among the trees.

“They'll try again,” said the scalp-hunter. “Next time they'll be more savvy.”

He took in his breath suddenly, and I paused in my reloading to look at him. He was staring in the direction of the river. I followed his gaze. Something was bobbing in the water.

At first I thought it was a corpse the Indians had overlooked, but as I watched I saw that it wasn't a corpse at all, but a live warrior swimming frantically toward the broken edge of the ice. I squinted through the flying snow; it was Black Kettle. Unseated from his horse, he had plunged into the river and was straining every muscle to reach the safety of the ice before he was either dragged down by the weight of his furs or picked off by our guns. Tight, glistening wet curls spilled over his shoulders and down his back, his buffalo horn headgear having been discarded.

“Let me have the knife.” Bear's tone was strained. When I hesitated, he reached back and snatched the bowie out of my boot. In another moment he was on his feet and striding out over what was left of the ice.

“Bear!” I shouted. It was no good. He had eyes and ears only for the man in the water.

He reached the jagged edge just as Black Kettle lunged forward and grabbed hold of it with both hands. The medicine man's gasp of relief was choked off as he saw the fur boots planted in front of him and looked up at Anderson's towering figure. I saw the whites of his eyes bulge in horror, and then Bear bent down, snatched a handful of his kinky hair, and with the other hand swept the blade of the bowie from left to right across Black Kettle's throat. Arterial blood spurted out three feet in a bright red stream; his gurgling cry was torn to shreds by the wind. The water turned pink around him. Now only Bear's grip on his hair kept the medicine man from sliding beneath the surface, and in another moment, as the scalp-hunter gathered a bigger fistful and made use of the knife once again, the river snatched away the final traces and swept themâbody, blood and allâdownstream.

I had seen too much in one day. When Bear straightened, holding aloft his bloody trophy for all to see, I turned my head and was sick.

L
ying beside me, Little Tree was strangely silent. I overcame my nausea long enough to ask if she was all right. She wasn't.

“Bear!”

I had to call a second time before he heard me. Finally he turned and, still holding the dripping scalp, made his way shakily across the ice; the sluggishness in his right leg told me that some of the paralysis was. still with him. “What is it?” he demanded, his chest heaving.

“Your squaw's dead.”

I had been in no mood to break it to him gently. Now I regretted my bluntness. He dropped the scalp and fell to his knees at Little Tree's side, gathered her in his arms and tried to get her to raise herself. It was no use; the blood was already beginning to congeal where a bullet from a Flathead rifle had
made jelly out of the back of her head on its way out of her brain.

“I hope the scalp was worth it,” I said.

I regretted that too, but for a more personal reason, as without warning he let go of the corpse and swept his knife around in a broad arc with the intent of decapitating me. I ducked just as the blade swished past, knocking off my hat. Before he could come back the other way I fisted my revolver and, taking advantage of his hunched-over position, threw all my weight into a punch straight at his bearded jaw. I felt the jar all the way to my shoulder as I connected. That was more than I could say for Bear, who shook his head as if to rid himself of a moth trapped in his whiskers, gathered the front of my collar in one tremendous fist, and without so much as a grunt of exertion lifted me off my feet and held me dangling twenty-four inches above the ground. His eyes were bloodshot, his face purple.

“Now,” he said, balancing the knife in his other hand, “let's see what you et for breakfast.”

“You'll have to take my word for it.” I stretched out my right arm, which was only now beginning to ache, and planted the muzzle of the Deane-Adams between his bushy brows. “This time there's no broken firing pin.”

I could tell it wasn't working. He was going to use the knife, and it didn't matter whether I pulled the trigger or not, because with his last reflex he was going to let open my belly. We were both dead.
All that remained was the burying. Judge Black-thorne was going to be confused as hell when he learned what had happened to me. I began to squeeze the trigger.

The cylinder was already turning when the scalp-hunter's face twisted into a mask of pain and he lost his grip on the knife. It hit the snow only an instant before he did. I pulled loose from his weakened hold on my collar, landed on my feet, and prepared to finish the job I had started, for the gun was still in my hand.

He was stretched before me, unable to move. All my experience told me to fire and get it over with. Even if he wasn't bluffing, and the bullet in his back had in fact shifted, we would both be better off if I put him out his misery and rode on. There was no doubt in my mind that that was the only thing to do, so of course I didn't do it. I let the hammer down gently and put the gun away.

“How bad is it this time?” I asked him.

“Don't know.” His feet shifted slightly in the snow. “I'm starting to feel something. A tingle.”

“You're lucky. It probably moved again when you hit the ground. It could just as easily have cut a cord and killed you. Can you ride?”

“Go to hell.”

“I'm sorry about Little Tree,” I said. “But she's dead and those Indians are due back any time. If you can't ride, I'll have to rig another litter. From now on we keep moving until we get to town.”

“Do what you want. I'm staying.”

“Like hell you are. Little Tree and I didn't bring you this far just to let you commit suicide. She's dead because of you. Are you saying that doesn't mean anything?”

He didn't reply. I gaped at him.

“That's what you're saying, isn't it?” I arranged my face into a sneer. “You're pathetic. It wasn't enough that you threw away your life on vengeance; you had to toss hers out too. Now that it's come down to a choice, you've chosen to go out in a blaze of glory. Glory, hell! You're giving up.”

Roaring in rage, he threw himself over onto his stomach and wriggled through the snow toward where he had left his Spencer. He had his hand on it when I took two steps and pinned it, hand and all, beneath my boot.

“âMountain That Walks!'” I taunted, sneering down at him. “You can't even crawl.”

He let his face fall forward into the snow.

I reached down, snatched the rifle out of his grip, and jacked out all the shells. “Better pick them up,” I advised, tossing the weapon down beside him. “You haven't got that many to spare.”

He was still lying there when I mounted the mare and rode off. I can't say now whether I intended to leave him to his fate or if I thought my leaving might shake him out of it and get him to follow me. I was sure he could ride. How I really felt is a moot point, though, because I hadn't made half a mile
through the steep drifts that blanketed the foothills when I spotted the blue uniforms riding toward me from the direction of Staghorn. I reined in and threw a leg over the horn of my saddle to wait.

They seemed to be taking an inordinately long time about approaching until I realized that they were doing so by design. They had heard shooting and had come running. As far as they were concerned, I was the enemy. My suspicions were confirmed when drawing within rifle range, they spread out, dismounted, and knelt in the snow beside their horses with their rifles braced in firing position. There were fifteen of them, wearing army blue oilskin slickers over their woolen winter uniforms.

“You there!” This from a rail-thin horse soldier near the center of the line, a sunburned youthful type with a hollow, drillmaster's voice, matter-of-fact and without inflection. “Throw down your weapons and dismount!”

I didn't argue. I unholstered the Deane-Adams for the ten thousandth time and flung it away out of temptation's reach. Next came Church's Colt, and then the rifle I had captured from Rocking Wolf. I got out of the saddle as slowly as I could without losing my balance and falling, which would undoubtedly have provoked the order to fire; he had that kind of voice.

“Now the hat. Remove it with two fingers and scale it away.”

He was no fool. I did as directed. None of the men left his ready crouch even then.

“Identify yourself.”

“Page Murdock, deputy U.S. marshal, Helena.” I was careful to keep my hands within sight. “I have a badge, if you'd care to see it.”

Apparently he didn't. He gave the order to mount, and after much floundering and soldierly cursing I was surrounded by men on horseback.

“Sergeant, his weapons.” Up close, the officer wasn't quite the young man I'd thought him to be; he had a blond moustache and creases beneath his vague gray eyes. His face was gaunt beneath the brim of his campaign hat, his complexion nearly as dark as an Indian's. Little lumps of determination stood out on either side of his jaw.

The sergeant, whose square, black-moustached features looked as if they had come up against more than one bony fist in their timeâonce quite recentlyâdismounted and fished the revolvers and rifle out of the snow where I'd thrown them, then handed them to his superior, who examined them in an offhanded fashion.

“Captain Amos Trainer, Fort Benton,” he said in his clipped monotone. He made Two Sisters sound emotional by comparison.

“You're a long way from home, Captain.”

He ignored that, pretending to be interested in the engraving on the side of the rifle. “We were told by the sheriff in Staghorn to look out for a
mean-looking bastard riding a no-good chestnut mare. His description, not mine.”

“You didn't seem to have any trouble identifying me by it,” I said. “How is Henry?” I bent to retrieve my hat.

“He's dead.”

I paused in mid-stoop, then snatched hold of the hat and shook it free of snow, as if that were the most important job in the world. I put it on and carefully creased the brim. “Who?”

“Nobody you'd know. About a week ago, a punk shell from Wyoming got drunk and called him out.”

“Faster?”

He shook his head. “Fast as. They fired at the same time. The punk was dead when he hit the floor. Goodnight died the next morning. He never regained consciousness.”

“Two years ago the punk would never have cleared leather. Who's the new sheriff?”

“You're looking at him. When there was no word from the man we sent here, General Clifton sent out his patrol to hunt down and arrest Bear Anderson, the Indian murderer. Goodnight was shot the evening we arrived. I wired the general, who wired the governor, who placed me in charge until the local citizenry can hold an election.”

“Bet that pleased the general.”

Something bordering on a smile passed across the officer's gaunt features. He swung open the rifle's lever, found the chamber empty, frowned, replaced
it. “I was told you'd gone into the mountains after an escaped prisoner. Where is he?”

“You don't want to stand out here in this blizzard while I tell you that one,” I assured him.

“We heard some shooting a while ago. You can start with that.”

“I had a run-in with Two Sisters about a half-mile back.”

“Alone? How many guns can you fire at one time, Deputy?”

I sighed. “I'm tired of arguing, Captain. Bear Anderson's back there, and he needs medical help.”

He glared at me. “I think you'd better start explaining.”

I took a deep breath and told him what I could, including the fate of the bounty hunters his commanding officer had hired. He listened in silence.

“Mount up, Sergeant,” he said when I had finished.

The sergeant had been standing behind me. Now he stepped into leather, oilskin rustling, and accepted the revolvers and rifles from his superior.

“I'm going along,” I said.

“That's what you think. Sergeant!”

“Yes, sir.” The sergeant saluted. He spoke with a Georgia drawl; I found myself wondering what rank he had held in the Confederate Army, and if we might have met somewhere before, across a smoke-enshrouded battlefield. He was too old not to have served.

“Detail two men to stay here and keep an eye on Mr. Murdock. Orders are to shoot if he tries anything.” He gathered up his reins and reached back to flick open the flap securing his side arm in its holster. It was an Army Colt; what else was there, here in Colt country?

“I'm going along for your protection,” I explained. “If you go in there half-cocked, you're going to lose most of your men.”

He smiled twistedly. “Against one man, Deputy? One
wounded
man?”

I said, “The Flatheads number over five hundred, and they haven't been able to take him in fifteen years. And wounded or not, he just killed two men, one of them with his bare hands. If he sees me with youâarmedâhe might go with you peacefully.”

“You're not sure?”

“He tried to kill me a little while ago.”

“You don't inspire confidence, Deputy.”

“That's your job, Captain. I'm just a public servant.”

“Very well. Sergeant!” He nodded at the non-com, who handed me my weapons. I accepted them and returned each to its proper holder.

“But, remember,” added the officer, “my orders stand to shoot to kill in the event you cross us.”

“I expected no less from the U. S. Army,” I replied, and mounted the mare.

Heading back toward the river, I asked Captain Trainer what he was doing out there.

“We were on our way back from our first patrol when he heard the shots,” he said.

“Isn't that neglecting your responsibilities as sheriff?” I asked.

“Not at all. There's no reason I can't fulfill my duties to the U.S. government as well as to the voters.”

“Funny, I thought they were one and the same.”

“Column of twos, Sergeant,” he said, ignoring my comment.

We came upon him just as he was preparing to straddle the dun. Little Tree's body was nowhere to be seen; a mound of snow, marked at one end by a pine bough standing upright, explained his delay in leaving. He saw us approaching, but made no move toward the Spencer in his saddle scabbard. He mounted carefully and sat watching us.

“You said he was wounded,” snapped Trainer, drawing his Colt. He signaled halt.

“I said wounded. Not dead.”

“Look at the size of him.” This from the sergeant. “I wish I'd brought my buffalo gun.”

“Just keep him covered.” Trainer raised his voice. “Bear Anderson! This is the U. S. Army! Throw down your weapons and surrender!”

BOOK: The High Rocks

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