Beyond Squaw Creek (6 page)

“He was once a fine officer. Straight outta West Point. His family ran a shipping business in New York. Friends of all the mucky-mucks. Hell of an Indian fighter, old Mordecai. Till he went crazier'n a tree full of owls.”

The old scout stopped working to lift his hat from his horribly scarred scalp and run a gloved hand through the remaining salt-and-pepper hair tufting up around the knotted, grisly scars. “He went so nuts, drinkin' like a fish, laughin' and cryin' by fits, that the major decided to ship him back to St. Louis, to some special institution for army officers who got their bellies a little too full of the frontier life…if you're gettin' my drift.”

With his index finger, Prairie Dog made a swirling motion in front of his ear. “He wasn't more than twenty miles southwest of the fort when he broke out of the wagon, killed two of the guards with his bare hands, and hightailed it into the tall-and-uncut, like a mustang with tin cans tied to its tail.”

“Well, how in the hell…?” Fargo let his voice trail off, pricking his ears. Voices rose from beyond the barn's open doors, growing louder as men approached.

Prairie Dog glanced outside, then turned to the Trailsman and said softly, “Best not talk about this in front of the enlisted boys. They don't know about Lieutenant Duke and the Injuns. Let's finish up here, and we'll finish our powwow over a drink in the sutler's saloon.”

While Prairie Dog smoked a cigarette outside the barn, the Trailsman finished rubbing down the Ovaro, stabling it, and measuring out oats, hay, and water. He told the remount sergeant, an irreverent, craggy-faced Scot named Drake, to turn the pinto into the corral after the mount had cooled off and had eaten and drunk its measured portions.

“Don't put him out with any mares in rut,” Fargo warned as he grabbed his rifle and saddlebags. “Once he sets his hat for a filly, it'll take a dozen men to change his mind.”

He moved off down the barn alley, the crotchety Scot grumbling his displeasure at taking orders from a civilian while running a file across the horse hoof wedged between his knees.

Fargo and Prairie Dog tramped over to the sutler's store in the early afternoon sunshine. The two-story log structure with a lean-to addition housing the saloon was shaded by a giant cottonwood tree rustling its silver leaves in the perpetual prairie breeze.

The store smelled like molasses and flour and cured meat. The Trailsman and Prairie Dog were the only saloon customers at this hour. They sat at a table under a large bison trophy mounted on a square-hewn ceiling joist. Through the open shutters emanated the phlegmatic barks of an infantry sergeant, the thuds of an ax, and the occasional stamp of horses passing the store on cavalry drill.

Between the sounds was an eerie, tense silence, as if the fort were awaiting an Indian attack similar to the one on Fort William. In the blockhouses, the guards had been doubled or tripled, and extra soldiers were perched on the shooting ledges along the stockade walls, facing the endless swell of prairie around the fort.

The sutler's stoic Indian wife brought Fargo and Prairie Dog each a schooner of surprisingly cold ale and a whiskey shot. Collecting Fargo's coins, she shuffled sullenly back to the store, where she'd been tying and wrapping the deer roasts her husband had carved from the carcass outside.

Fargo sipped the whiskey suspiciously, made a face as he swallowed. “Did Smiley Bristo have a whiskey contract with the sutler, by any chance?”

Prairie Dog downed nearly half of his own shot, and smacked his lips. “Nectar of the gods, ain't it?”

“Wrathful gods,” Fargo muttered, and washed down the camphorlike taste of the liquor with several deep swallows of the wheaty, refreshing beer. Setting the mug down, he tossed his hat on a chair and sank back in his seat. “Finish the story, hoss—what's this crazy Lieutenant Duke have to do with the uprising?”

Prairie Dog tossed down his own hat and fingered the tooth dangling from his right ear. He claimed it was a tooth from the Comanche who had scalped him down in Texas. When he'd looked around the saloon, making sure that he and Fargo were alone, he propped his elbows on the table, looked across at the Trailsman with a serious expression, and kept his voice low.

“You see, Lieutenant Duke spent a lot of time with a band of Assiniboine camped on the far side of Squaw Creek. Now, that's against regulations, and most of this is hearsay, but rumor has it he married the daughter of Chief Iron Shirt. Iron Shirt took a liking to the lieutenant, even though Duke was obviously crazier than a pack of wild lobos on the night of the first full moon. Or maybe
because
he was crazy. The Injuns often take craziness for wisdom, don't you know?”

Fargo nodded. He'd been around Indians enough to know that men and women whom white folks would normally lock up in a funny farm were often given special privileges amongst the natives. Many were respected for their “crazy wisdom” and insight into the “ether regions.” Some tribal leaders had been known to call upon these people for advice on hunting or battle strategies or to cast spells on their enemies.

“To make a long story short,” Prairie Dog continued, “Lieutenant Duke and Iron Shirt have been seen riding together with a whole passel of painted warriors. Apparently, somehow, Lieutenant Duke—in his crazy, mixed-up mind—decided the Indians oughta be killin' the whites. And, somehow, he got the Blackfeet to throw in with the Assiniboine to do just that.”

“Two tribes that normally fight each other,” Fargo said, daring another sip of the rotgut whiskey. “You reckon the major's attempt to trot Duke off to a nuthouse turned him against the entire army?”

“And the poor white settlers and trappers in these parts,” Prairie Dog said. “Possible.” He chased the whiskey with the beer, draining his schooner in three long chugs, then plunked the glass back down on the table. “Now, ain't this a fine sichy-ation?”

“You have any idea what the major intends to do about it?”

Prairie Dog grinned. “No. But I got a feelin' it's gonna involve you, Mr. Trailsman, sir.” He slid his chair back. “Now, if you'll excuse this rancid old hide, I'm due over to Lieutenant Donovan's office to see about puttin' a huntin' expedition together. One that won't lose its hair and other sundry body parts. We have enough food for a few more days, but sooner or later we're gonna need meat.”

Fargo lifted his beer glass. “I reckon I'll have a bath and a shave. Bathhouse still by sud's row?”

“It is. And don't forget to see Captain Thomas for your ‘debriefing.'”

“Hell,” Fargo grunted, donning his hat and rising. “I'm between contracts. If the captain wants to debrief me, he can come looking for me. I'm gonna take a good long bath and a nap before heading over to the major's this evening.” He paused beside Prairie Dog in the store's open doorway, looking out at the sun-washed parade ground. “You'll be there?”

“Ain't been invited yet, but I probably will be. Howard's probably gonna try to throw me in with you, for no more pay than what I'm gettin' now!” Prairie Dog cursed, descended the porch steps, and sauntered off across the parade ground where a dozen soldiers marched, the sun reflecting off their rifles and sabers.

 

Fargo enjoyed a long, hot bath in the bathhouse at the south end of the fort. Through the room's single window, he watched the three stout wash ladies—the wives of noncoms—stirring kettles of boiling uniforms over ash wood fires while telling bawdy stories they didn't think anyone could overhear, and laughing with salty abandon.

After the bath, he sacked out in a bunk at the back of the sutler's store—just a storeroom cluttered with barrels, crates, and flour sacks—but far enough from the fort's fray that he slept soundly until the light angling through the window was the salmon hue of late afternoon. Desultory voices rose from the saloon on the other side of the wall—the voices of officers finally freed from their duty and seeking distraction from the Indian trouble in the saloon's questionable liquor.

Fargo stepped into fresh buckskins, donned his hat, and, leaving his rifle and saddlebags in the care of the sutler, headed off to Major Howard's cabin on the north side of the parade ground. The two-story structure sat about halfway down the row of officers' cabins, and could be distinguished from the others by its larger size and grand fieldstone hearth abutting the east end. It also had a broader porch and a brick-lined path leading from the front porch, around a welltended thicket of prairie rosebushes and chrysanthemums, to a two-seater privy out back.

Valeria Howard answered Fargo's knock on the door and regarded him coolly, holding the door only two feet wide, as though she weren't sure she would let him in. She glanced quickly behind her, then tipped her head forward, and whispered, “You haven't told anyone, have you?”

Fargo grinned and dropped his eyes to her bosom heaving behind a delightfully low-cut dinner dress. The ample breasts were pushed up and out, to thrilling effect. The ribbon choker on her neck, adorned with an ivory cameo resting just beneath the small mole on her neck, complemented the outfit nicely. Her rich, red hair was piled in a loose bun atop her head. Reacting to his bald appraisal, a blush rose in her finely tapered cheeks.

He wanted to grab her, tear her hair free of its bun, lift her skirts, and kiss that wide, delectable mouth.

Instead, he grunted and shifted his weight from one boot to the other. “Don't flatter yourself.” He returned his eyes to hers. “You were one hell of a romp—and I'd put you high on my list of the best I've had—but it wasn't anything I'd squawk about. Now, can I come in, or do you wanna send a plate out to the porch?”

Green eyes flashing angrily, she stepped back and jerked the door wide. “Do come in, Mr. Fargo!”

The Trailsman gave his boots an obligatory scrape on the porch boards, doffed his hat, and stepped over the threshold. He found himself in the cabin's simple, rustic but comfortable kitchen, which was warm from the ticking iron range against the far wall, and rife with the smell of roasting meat.

A stout, gray-haired woman in a bonnet and apron stood at a table slicing a steaming bread loaf—another noncom's wife, probably, working as the major's housekeeper. Fargo had heard that the major's own wife, Valeria's mother, had years ago died from a fever back east. Valeria had been educated at the best boarding and finishing schools. She'd come to Fort Howard to spend the summer with her father before traveling with wealthy friends overseas.

“The men are in the
parlor
,” Valeria curtly announced, staring up at Fargo icily. “Dinner will be served shortly.”

“Obliged,” Fargo said, nodding at the housekeeper who'd looked up from her work to greet the newcomer with a wan smile.

Hooking his hat on a rack, Fargo turned through a door in the kitchen's left wall, and entered the nattily-appointed parlor where four men—Major Howard, Prairie Dog Charley, and two crisply dressed officers—stood in a tight clump before a red divan and a ticking wall clock. There was a thick throw rug on the floor beneath their boots. Beyond them, through an open door, lay the dining room in which a long table stood draped with oilcloth and china place settings.

“Ah, Mr. Fargo,” the Major said, halting his hushed conversation midsentence. “How good of you to join us.”

The others turned toward the Trailsman, including Prairie Dog Charley, all holding glasses quarter filled with whiskey or brandy, and smoldering cigars. Prairie Dog gave Fargo a furtive wink.

“Do come in and meet Captain Rudolph Thomas and Lieutenant Andrew Ryan. Gentlemen, meet Skye Fargo, commonly referred to as the Trailsman.”

Fargo shook hands first with Ryan—a slender, prematurely balding man in his late twenties—and then Thomas, who quirked his upswept mustache in a stiff smile as he said, “Ah, yes, the Trailsman. We were to meet earlier for your debriefing, Mr. Fargo, but I couldn't find you anywhere.”

Thomas was also in his late twenties—short and pale and bespectacled, with a flawless uniform and a smattering of red pimples across his cheekbones. He and Ryan were obviously West Point lads. They'd come west to bludgeon the savage redskins, but now, realizing they'd had no idea what they'd gotten themselves into nor of the Indians' fighting abilities and furor, were soiling their trousers hourly. Their faces were stiff, smiles taut, eyes glassy.

“Sorry, Captain,” Fargo grunted, releasing the man's hand. “There wasn't much to debrief. We were ambushed, everyone in our party dead but myself and Miss Howard. I had a bath and took a nap in the sutler's storeroom.”

Prairie Dog chuckled as he lifted his glass to his bearded mouth.

Turning away to fill a goblet from a cut-glass decanter, Major Howard said, “The sutler's storeroom? Mr. Fargo, we've humble accommodations, to be sure, but we can certainly put you up better than that!”

Fargo hiked a shoulder as he accepted the glass. “I like bein' out of the way.” He sipped the whiskey, which was better than that in the sutler's saloon. “Prairie Dog here filled me in on the Indian trouble, Major. I know from being out there myself that you're pretty well surrounded. Any ideas about how you're gonna get yourself out of this bailiwick?”

The major flushed slightly as he glanced at the other two officers. They and Prairie Dog stood before Fargo in a loose semicircle. Returning his gaze to the tall Trailsman standing before them in smoke-stained buckskins and with a no-nonsense scowl on his rugged features, the major chuckled. “You like getting to the point, don't you? Well, shall we have a seat, gentlemen? I'd been going to save this part of the conversation until
after
we'd dined, but since Mr. Fargo would like to skin the cat now, let's skin it now.”

Fargo sat in a bullhorn rocking chair near the front window. When the lieutenant, the captain, and Prairie Dog had taken seats around him, the major refilled their glasses and sat in a cowhide chair to Fargo's right. He jerked his gold-buttoned tunic down sharply, cleared his throat, and propped a low-heeled cavalry boot on a knee.

Since Prairie Dog had already briefed Fargo on the situation, Howard merely summarized the trouble from the start of the uprising to present, adding nothing Fargo didn't already know, including his suspicions about the insane Lieutenant Duke.

“Which leads me to the reason I'd like to extend your contract, Mr. Fargo,” the major said, puffing his stogie, a sheepish cast entering his eyes as he shifted his gaze to the two other officers.

The major paused as if for dramatic effect, and Fargo frowned impatiently. He could occasionally tolerate coyness in a woman, but not in a man. “And that is…?”

Howard returned his gaze to Fargo, flinched slightly at the coldness in the Trailsman's stare, and nervously flicked ashes into the stone tray on his chair arm. “We'd like you to hunt him down and kill him.”

Fargo was genuinely shocked. “
Kill
him?” He'd thought the man was going to ask him to try and run the Indians' gauntlet and seek help from an outlying fort, possibly Fort Buford or from one of the fledgling Canadian outposts on the other side of the border. “It seems to me, from what I've heard so far of this Lieutenant Duke's relationship with Iron Shirt and the rest of his band, the last thing you'd want to do is
martyr
the man.”