Blood Dance (11 page)

In a few minutes we were riding out of town.

As we rode, Honest Roy explained that the man had a wagon and it was full of supplies. It appeared he was doing some mining. That fit. It was mining country, and I had felt all along that the gold would bring them.

About a half-mile out of Deadwood we struck up the gang’s trail good, and not long after I realized where they were going.

Our mine.

Now fate works some strange ones, but this was the strangest of all. There we were, away from our mine for a few days, and Carson had come in and found it, taken over. That would be like him. Why lay out an honest claim when you can steal one already in progress?

After it was evident where the gang was going, and after I had spent a few minutes toning down Roy’s cussing long enough for us to lay a plan, we went in after them.

We found a place to leave the horses and eased our way up into the rocks for a look-see down on our own mining operation.

It looked like ants on sweetbread down there.

There must have been Cust="left">It twenty of them, working their butts off stealing our claim. Carson, as usual, had set up “headquarters” and was sitting out front of his tent with a glass and a bottle.

It was very tempting to draw a bead on him with my Sharps, because I was carrying both it and the Winchester. Blow his brains all over the country.

I knew, however, that that would give me only a moment’s satisfaction, and soon we would be swarmed by a horde of men. Honest Roy and I could give them hell from our angle, and even do some sincere damage, but the end result would be us lying out here on the rocks supplying the buzzards with a buffet.

“Why them gold poachin’ sonsofbitches,” Roy said.

“You said it.”

“I think maybe I’ll just see if I can give that Carson fellow a mole behind his left ear.” Roy raised his rifle.

“No.”

“It is Carson, ain’t it? And even if it ain’t—”

“It is, and I understand what you’re saying, but you kill him, or any of them, and we’re dead men.”

“Then what in the hell did we follow them all the way out here for? We knew there were a pack of them varmints.”

“What I’m saying is we use common sense. Let them work the mine for us, and tonight, when it’s good and dark, we’ll go in.”

“Umm,” Roy said.

“They’ll post guards. I’m sure they expect the owners to show up eventually, and I’m sure they intend to bushwhack them. But being the owners, and having the advantage of knowing they’re here, we’re going to be one step ahead of them.”

Honest Roy bit himself a chaw off a tobacco twist.

“All right, Red Spot, let’s get comfy.”

Then I heard the slightest sound, the trickling of gravel rolling down the rocks.

I turned, poked my Sharps in that direction. A black sombrero came into view. I beaded in.

And then a face—the face of Wild Bill Hickok.

“Hickok!” I said.

The face broke into a grin.

“I was just in the neighborhood, so I thought I’d drop by.”

“How in the world…?”

“Carl Mann back at the Number Ten, he said you two lit out of his place like a couple of jackrabbits with their butts on fire. And since it wasn’t any of my business, thought I’d follow after. Figured it was trouble. You boys sure don’t slow down much for a man that’s following you.”

Hickok took a pair of blue spectacles from his pocket and put them on. “This damn light.”

He looked at Honest Roy, who was eyeing him strangely. “I’d rather you not say anything about these spectacles. I’d rather not have it known.”

“Not a word,” Roy said.

“Now,” Hickok said, “what are you boys doing lurking around up here?”

“It’s a long story, Bill.”

“I haven’t got a date, get on with it.”

So I told him. Told him everything. About Bucklaw. About our mine. When I was finished Hickok removed the black sombrero and ran his fingers through his long blonde hair.

“I’d say you’re lucky, friend. Mighty lucky for this coincidence. Them fellows down there, they aren’t so lucky.” He smiled again. In spite of his attempt at self-control, I could tell Bill was ready to go. It wasn’t so much that he was a killer, but he was a man of justice and action, a one man judge and jury. I wasn’t any better.

“I reckoned we’d wait until dark. Sneak down there and even out the odds,” I explained.

“Sounds good,” Hickok said. “When it’s good and dark we’ll just go down there and pay them a social visit.

“Yeah,” Honest Roy said, “well, all I can say is I hope these boys are caught up on their harp lessons.”

When night had settled in solidly, Hickok removed his spectacles and put them in his pocket. “It’s time,” he said.

“Maybe we should split up and come from three different sides,” Honest Roy said.

“Not a bad idea,” I said.

“What might be better is for you to get down there closer, Roy,” Hickok said, “and keep a rifle bead on anything that moves. Me and Red Spot will go in there and do some throat cutting.”

Hickok took out his knife; Honest Roy gave me his.

“Let’s see how tough their flesh is,” Hickok said.

We moved down silently and Roy took up a position behind the rocks with his rifle, my Winchester and Sharps, and Hickok’s Sharps.

“With all those rifles you ought to be able to get at least one,” I told Roy.

“You just tend to your own rat killin’,” Roy said.

Hickok and I crept like Indians down into the camp.

I’ll tell you true, I found something bothersome about cutting a man’s throat while he slept. I’m no fool for fair play when the odds are against you, but this seemed just plain nasty and sneaky.

It didn’t bother Hickok any. He cut two throats before I could slice my first. We were five down on them—Hickok three, when a guard spotted us and yelled. Next he lowered his rifle on Hickok who was sneaking from one tent to another.

That fellow C>Th his riflshould have shot first then yelled. His voice gave Hickok the drop, and that was all Hickok ever needed. Both of those silver-plated revolvers seemed to jump into Hickok’s hands, and when they spat fire that man tumbled dead as the stones around him.

I dropped the knife and went for my Colt as men came foaming out of tents and off their ground pallets.

A shot plucked at my shirt collar. Another splattered at my feet.

I shot a man twice in the head.

Hickok, hardly seeming to pay attention to the gunfire and screaming men around him, yelled, “I’ve told you about them head shots, Red Spot!”

I heard Honest Roy bring a Sharps into play, and in the next moment a man was flying ass over elbows into a tent, knocking it down.

I was watching for Carson out of the corner of my eye, and after a moment I saw him. The major came out of his tent with a revolver in either hand, blazing away at me.

I returned the fire and knocked off his hat, remembering what Hickok had said about head shots. I was trying to remedy that when Honest Roy’s rifle roared again and dropped another of the polecats, kicking a hole in the man’s chest about the size of Hickok’s sombrero—which Hickok was no longer wearing, it having been restyled by a bullet and knocked to kingdom come.

Carson wheeled out of my sights, and Hickok and I started running, side by side, guns blazing. The camp had really opened up on us now, and without discussing the matter, we were heading for high ground and the protection of Honest Roy’s long range shooting.

Carson had turned on Roy’s concealment now, and was barking his revolvers at the old man’s hideout.

Roy yelled, “Dammit!”

“I believe,” said Hickok, after we had jumped behind a mass of boulders, “that your eloquent friend has been hit.”

“Sounds like it. I’m going over to him.”

“We’ll make it a twosome.”

We darted out of cover and headed for Roy. Bullets splattered around us like drops of hard rain. I couldn’t believe we weren’t being plastered all over the rocks. Hickok’s luck must have been something he could share.

Running zigzag, firing as we went, we made it to Honest Roy’s cubbyhole.

“We dance well together,” Hickok said after we had hunkered down behind some rocks.

“Yeah, we’ll have to try it again sometime.”

Hickok picked up his Sharps, propped it on a rock and blew away a Crow warrior who was advancing.

“Parted that varmint’s hair,” he said.

Honest Roy was shoulder hit and bleeding pretty bad. I tore off the front of his shirt and put it against the wound.

“Use your own damn shirt,” Roy said.

height="0em" width="1em" align="left">“I like mine,” I said. “It’s clean. Yours isn’t.” Roy was still affecting his dude clothes, but the months hadn’t been kind to them, and neither had Roy. They didn’t look too dude-like at the moment.

“Lucky shot,” Roy said, “bounced off that rock.”

“Shut up, Roy, and hold this bandage to yourself.”

I crawled over to Hickok, who had brought the Winchester into play now. “They’ve skeddaddled for cover,” he said.

I picked up the Sharps rifles, loaded them in turn from the loads Roy had laid out on the ground. I put one aside and held the other, ready for action.

There wasn’t much movement now. Everyone had hid, except for one man who we had thought was dead. But he was just bad wounded, and was now crawling slowly across camp, trying to reach the shelter of the nearest rocks. None of his comrades came out to help him, in spite of the fact that he was yelling for assistance.

I couldn’t say as I blamed them. If they showed their heads it was damned likely Hickok would blow them off. He was the damnedest shot I’d ever seen, no matter that he claimed his eyes were getting bad. I hadn’t thought guns could do the stuff Hickok made them do that night, and all by the light of the moon!

The injured man was screaming his lungs out now, and he was barely able to crawl. Frowning, Hickok lifted the Winchester and lowered the boom on him. Things got quiet again.

“I cannot abide that damn screaming,” Hickok said.

Suddenly the rocks across the way lit up as a barrage of gunfire ripped at the rocks around us. I dove down and covered my head with my hands. Hickok got behind his rock and pressed his back to it. When I looked up at him he was smiling.

“Having a good time, Bill?”

He winked at me and his grin split wider. “Why I haven’t had this much fun since the hogs ate my baby sister.”

“Ha, ha, ha,” I said.

“That’s terrible,” Honest Roy said, taking Hickok very seriously.

“Just press that rag to the wound and shut up,” I told Roy.

Rock chips were flying all around us, bullets were bouncing about like June bugs.

“Reckon they’re closing in on us?”

“I reckon they’re running like hell,” Hickok said, and suddenly he stood up with the Winchester and began to return fire.

I bounced up with the Sharps. A line of men, Carson in their lead, were darting across the clearing toward where their horses were tied. I cursed myself. The horses should have been our first priority.

Hickok and I each dropped another man. The Sharps nearly took off the head of mine.

A moment later we heard horses thundering down the pass. Hickok jumped his rock and bolted across the way. I picked up the oth Ced ign="lefer Sharps, Hickok’s, and ran after him.

Hickok caught the last man riding hell-bent-for-leather down the rise, just about to make the bend around a rocky trail. Hickok shot the horse out from under him. The falling animal dropped and tossed the rider far right. When the man came up he had a revolver in his hand. I gave him a third eye—a big one—with the Sharps.

“The forehead,” Hickok whined. “You are the head-shootinist fellow I ever did see.”

“I’m going after them,” I said.

“I figured as much,” Hickok said as we walked back to Roy. “We’ll catch them.”

“Bill, you have been one fine friend—”

“Just evening up the score.”

“—but I’m going alone.”

“Hero, huh?”

“Not hardly. Roy there is going to need a doctor. We can put him in the wagon Carson had, hitch us up a team from the horses they left, along with yours and Roy’s, and you can take him into Deadwood.”

“Deadwood doesn’t hardly have a doctor,” Hickok said.

“It’s got more than we’ve got. Besides, he’d be better off than riding with me.”

Roy, who we were now standing over, said, “I don’t like doctors.”

“Shut up,” Hickok said.

“Don’t be tellin’ me to shut up. Don’t care if you are Wild Bill Hickok… Awww!”

“Hurts, don’t it,” Hickok said, grinning at Roy. “Maybe I ought to just shoot him here,” he said to me.

“He would be quieter, and that is a natural fact.” I bent down to look at the wound. “Bill, he’s lost quite a bit of blood. Think his shoulder’s broken, too.”

“Course it is,” Roy snapped. “Otherwise I’d be up from here a-lightin’ into you two.”

“He talks best when he’s got a shoulder wound, I bet,” Hickok said.

I tore up some more of Roy’s shirt—an act I got cursed for—and padded the wound. After that we got the wagon hitched up with a couple of horses that we had to chase down, plus Roy’s and Hickok’s. We made it as comfortable as we could in back and put the old codger on some empty flour sacks and a few blankets that Roy and I had there at the claim.

“I don’t really like this,” Hickok said as he stepped up on the wagon.

I had my horse now and was mounted.

“I know, Bill. Has to be.”

“Reckon. Damn you, Red Spot, I like you. Don’t get yourself killed.”

“Yeah, don’t,” Honest Roy said, “ ‘cause I’m gonna do it when you get back, you empty-headed sonofabitch.”

I grinned at Roy. “I hope you hit every bump in the road.”

I rode up close to Bill. “Take care of the old timer.”

“No need to tell me,” Hickok said. Then: “Touch skin, friend.”

We shook.

Honest Roy said, “Remember, Red Spot, take care of yourself so I can have you. When my shoulder heals you’re gonna get a tannin’.”

“I’ll remember, Roy.”

Hickok reached deep into his broad red sash, fished out a Remington short gun, caliber .41.