Blood at Bear Lake (14 page)

Joe barely heard, but Cy's face flushed dangerously dark. He had taken just about all he could stand, and Joe knew it.

“Don't do it, old friend,” he silently told himself. “Don't.”

But Cyrus did.

With a roar he leaped forward, eyes flashing, knife held back until the last possible moment, but then lashing out with all the speed of a striking rattlesnake.

Joe thought he was ready, but even so he misjudged his old friend's ability. He felt an icy cold sensation flick across his left forearm, and knew he had been cut, perhaps badly. Blood began to flow, dripping off his hand.

The crowd roared their approval. There was blood in sight. The volume of their shouts increased until Joe felt he could feel it like a weight pressing in on him from all sides.

Cy grunted, stepped quickly to his right, and his blade flashed again, driving toward Joe's gut.

Joe's own blade darted forward, reaching not to open up Cy's belly, but cutting hard across the hand that held that deadly butcher knife. It was a maneuver that meant Joe's own death if he misjudged the speed or the direction of Cy's thrust. It was all or nothing.

The razor-sharp bowie whipped across Cy's hand.

Cy cried out. He pulled his hand back. Or what remained of it. His thumb, along with his knife, tumbled to the floor. His forefinger had been severed, and dangled loose from what was left of his hand, held there by a thin strip of skin. Cy blanched and ripped it free, letting it drop into the sawdust on the floor.

Cyrus Brainard's knife-fighting days were ended.

But he was still alive. Both of them were.

Joe felt a flush of deep relief.

Cy could snatch up his knife and try to fight with his left hand. Joe did not for an instant believe that he would. Honor had been satisfied. For both of them.

“Let me get you a bar towel t' wrap around that,” Joe said. “An' a mug o' whiskey to help take the pain away. We'll get a doctor later if we need to.”

Cy nodded. “You're a pal, Joe.”

“Always will be, Cy. God knows, you've saved my bacon enough times in the past.”

“Just like you done mine.”

“Pull that chair out, Cy. I'll bring the whiskey.” He turned away and raised his voice. “You there. Clear aside. I need to get t' the bar.”

“Not in here you won't,” someone called back. “Set down. We'll bring you boys your whiskey. All youse can drink.”

Joe didn't figure he could reject an offer like that. He dragged a table and two chairs free of the mess he and Cy had created. He glanced toward the floor and then at Cy. “D'you want those?”

“Those what?”

“Those there.” He nodded. “Your thumb an' that finger.”

“Naw, I don't want 'em.”

“One more thing, Cy.”

“Yes?”

“You know I got t' take your scalp, don't you?”

“Jesus!” Cyrus sighed and dropped his chin. “Go ahead then. Fair is fair.”

Joe took up his bowie again and leaned forward. But instead of lifting Cy's scalp, he took hold of his friend's beard and carved a few inches off the bottom, then turned and held the trophy high, to the approving laughter of the men who had watched the fight.

“Damn you, Moss,” Cy complained. But he was smiling when he said it, even though he was holding a bit of rag over the empty meat where a thumb and finger should have been.

“Shut up and have a drink, Cy. It'll make you feel better.”

36

JOE'S HEAD HAD surely doubled in size and turned hollow. And there was some evil sonuvabitch pounding on it with drum mallets every time his heartbeat sent blood pulsing through his veins.

“Jesus, Mary, an' Joseph,” he mumbled as he tried to sit up, failed, and fell back on . . . on what? Where the hell was he anyway? He could smell . . . shit. Genuinely. It smelled like somebody had crapped himself. And he could smell beer and puke and sawdust.

Which explained where he was, lying on a saloon floor. Must have passed out and spent the night there.

He tried to open his eyes, but they were pretty much glued shut. He managed to reach up, and with the fingers of his right hand—his left arm hurt too bad to move unless he really had to—pry one eye open.

That was a mistake. The light was blindingly bright. It shot bolts of fresh pain through his skull . . . the jagged lightning of a monumental hangover.

“Oh, shit,” Joe muttered aloud, squinting his eye nearly closed while he tried to calculate where he was and just how he got there.

He remembered . . . he remembered damned little actually. The fight. Celebrating after. That was in Wilson's. Was he still there? He didn't know. If the truth be told, didn't much care either. Or would not have, except that he had to take a piss. Bad. And real soon.

It would have been easier to just open up and let it flow, right there in his britches, right there on the floor.

That would have been damn-all embarrassing, though.

He forced his eyes open, blinking and squinting against the pain, and managed to roll onto his belly, then lift himself onto his hands and knees.

Cy was lying there curled up like a possum, his right hand heavily bandaged with a bar rag. One sniff told Joe that it was Cy who'd shit himself sometime during the night. He was going to for damn sure need a new pair of pants after this.

Joe noticed with some surprise that his own left arm was covered with a rag. He had almost forgotten that Cy cut him during their fight. He peeked underneath the rag and saw that some helpful soul had taken needle and thread and sewn his wound closed. Joe figured he should find out who did that and thank the man. It was a right neighborly thing for him to do.

Joe shook his head—a mistake—and blinked to clear his eyes, then with a lunge came partway onto his feet. He grabbed the seat of a chair for support and dragged himself erect. He felt ten feet tall. And wobbly.

The motion made the acids in his belly start churning.

He turned and stumbled out the back door and down the little path to the public outhouse behind Wilson's Café.

He made it there in time to avoid squirting a load into his britches the way Cy had, then turned around and puked until the only thing he would have had left to throw up was his teeth.

Joe hurried back inside—or as close to hurrying as a man in his condition could manage—and propped himself up on the end of the bar.

“Well, Moss. I see you're alive,” a bartender he had never seen before said. “I would have thought that much whiskey would kill you.”

“It came close. Gimme a beer, willya?”

The barman drew one and set it in front of Joe, who felt suddenly dry and empty. The beer, cool from the keg, washed some of the fur off his tongue and most of the taste of puke out of his mouth.

“Another?” the bartender asked when Joe set the empty mug down.

Joe shook his head. “One is all I need o' that.”

“You aren't going to have more whiskey, are you?”

“Sonny, I may never drink whiskey again, way I feel now. It ain't good. No, what I'm wanting now is some coffee.”

“No shit. Coffee?”

“This is a café, ain't it?”

“I'll make you some coffee. Pick a table. You look like you're going to fall down, the way you're swaying back and forth and hanging on to the bar. I'll bring your coffee to you. Anything else?”

“Yeah. You got any liver you could fry up for me?”

“Liver? Mister, you can't be serious.”

“Serious as serious gets, sonny. I need something with strength in it. Somethin' to build up the blood. Liver's good for that. Fry me some. An' eggs. You got eggs around here?”

“I can find some. It will take me a few minutes, though.”

“Believe me, I ain't going anywhere for a while. I'll be . . .” Joe waved a hand limply in the direction of the jumble of tables and chairs where Cyrus and a good half-dozen others were passed out on the floor. “I'll be over there.”

He walked, weaving and wobbling, to the far side of the room, deliberately avoiding getting too close to Cy.

It was not that he was angry with Cy for trying to kill him. That was the right thing for his old friend to do seeing that money had changed hands already.

But, dammit, Cy stank from that load in his pants.

37

JOE GLANCED UP and smiled. “You look near about to bein' human now. Feel better, do you?”

Cy grunted.

Joe motioned Cy closer, then held up a hand to tell the man to stop while Joe tipped his head back and very loudly sniffed the air before laughing and pointing to a chair across the table from his own. “You smell better, too.”

“Well, I ought to. It cost me a dollar and a half for a bath and these britches.” Cy pulled the chair out and flopped into it.

“Want some o' this liver?” Joe pointed to a platter that he had not quite emptied. It held two slices of beef liver and a quantity of blood and grease to testify to those missing slabs already consumed.

Cy looked like he was going to throw up. Again. He shook his head. “I don't see how you can stand the thought o' food when my gut feels so turrible, Moss. If you was any kind of a friend, you'd be sick with me.”

“Have some coffee. You'll feel better.”

Cy made a face. “Coffee. Bah! You're actin' like a damned pork eater. But I'd take a whiskey if you was t' buy one.”

“Sure, I'll buy your whiskey, you old fart. But listen, you ain't broke, are you? You needin' money? You know I'll share if you spent all your brass.”

“Oh, hell, no. I just want you t' feel bad about my hand, that's all.”

“Huh! Better your fingers than my ass, Cyrus.”

“You got a point there. You really ain't mad?”

“O' course not. You took on the job. Had to do what you done afterward. I hold no hard feelin's for it.”

“You're a friend, Moss. Makes me kinda glad I didn't kill you an' never mind those fingers. I'll learn t' make do.”

The bartender came to the table, and Joe asked for more coffee and a bottle of whiskey. The barman went away shaking his head at these uncivilized old mountain men. He did not often see their kind in the city.

“Thinkin' about money reminds me,” Cy said. “The fella that hired me t' lay for whoever it was that blew up the Peabody mine.”

“What about him?”

“He wasn't satisfied with havin' me wait here. He said he was going on over to Colorado an' then up into Wyoming to hire some other fellas, not just me. Whichever one of us kil't you was t' get a bonus. Another thousand dollars.”

“Damn,” Joe mumbled. “Any way you could know who these others are or where they'll be?”

Cy shook his head. “If I knew, I'd for damn sure tell you, but I don't. I don't think he knew himself. He was just gonna look around when he got to these different spots where he thought you might show up. That's what he done here when he hired me.”

“I've had better news, but I'll handle things as I come to them. No need to borrow trouble. Here you go, Cy. Here's that whiskey you wanted.” Joe dug into his pouch to pay for his meal and for Cy's bottle.

“How are ya feelin' now, pard?” Joe asked solicitously. They were alone behind the livery stable where Joe's big Shire was boarded. He had been buying Cy's whiskey for more than an hour. Joe himself had had nothing but coffee.

“I'm good. Yeah. I am.”

The man didn't
look
good. He looked about half-drunk again. But alert and able to talk. Just loosened up a little. Perfect.

“You got to tell me more about this guy offering t' pay for my killing, Cy.”

“Course I'll tell my ol' pard. Whadaya wanna know?”

“You was to wait for me and kill me, right?”

“Tha's right.” Cy nodded and belched. For a moment, Joe thought he had misjudged and Cyrus was going to puke and pass out, but the old mountain man only blinked and swayed back and forth a little.

“Was there anything else?”

“Jeez, Joe, ain't killin' enough for ye?”

“I mean was there any
body
else, Cy? Were you fellows supposed to look for anybody else, too?”

“Oh, that. Well, yeah, but that don't have nothing t' do with you, does it?”

“Maybe. Tell me about it.”

“Well the thing is . . . I'm kinda emba . . . embar . . .”

“Embarrassed, yeah. Go on.”

“There was somethin' about watching for some woman, too. Redheaded woman. An' a kid. But that was separate, see, an' not so much money promised for th . . . th . . . for them. Joe, lemme sit down over here for a minute, can I?”

“Sure, Cy. Let me help you.” Joe put an arm over Cy's shoulders and guided him to some discarded kegs, helped him to a secure seat on one of them.

“Thanks.” Cy belched again. When he looked up, he said with a note of querulous surprise, “Joe, where you goin', eh? We got more drinkin' t' do.”

But Joe Moss either failed to hear his old friend, or simply ignored him. Joe was headed for the stall where his horse was.

He seemed to be in a hurry.

38

AN OLD MAN with thinning gray hair and a pair of prissy spectacles perched on the bridge of his nose sat in a rocking chair in front of a dusty, ramshackle building. A sign pegged into the adobe over his head read: TRADING POST.

One lone horse, its ribs showing and its mane tangled, stood hipshot and head down in a corral adjacent to the single-story building. An American flag hung limp atop a tall post in front of the corral.