Blood Dance (4 page)

I couldn’t fasten to a thought long enough to hold it, but I did know one thing. Carson had only grazed me with that bullet, given me a scalp burn and one hell of a headache.

I laughed hysterically. What more did he need to do? I might have been better off had he killed me. This was the slow way. Blood seeping out, mind falling away, my head, shoulder and side throbbing as if rail spikes were being driven there.

Finally consciousness stayed with me, and I managed to push Bucklaw’s body off of me. I tried not to look at his face.

The dream-like state passed.

I lay there until nightfall, collecting my strength.

There was a stench in the air already, and I was glad it was dark and I could not see what the buzzards had done to the bodies.

Rolling over, I tried to get first to my hands and knees and then to my feet.

I could barely stay on my hands and knees without falling over. I began to crawl toward the train, past Bucklaw and his horse. They had even shot and killed Bob’s mare.

Finally I crawled past the body of the woman—no longer pretty—and that of her child. I did not linger a look. Cold rage foamed up inside of me.

I pulled myself up the shakedown passenger steps, dragged myself up them and inside the train.

With my feet hanging halfway out the door, I rested, slept awhile. When I awoke I didn’t know if I had slept five minutes or five hours, but it was still dark.

I crawled the rest of the way inside, squirmed up the aisle toward the back of the car, made it halfway and passed out.

Middle of the next day I felt much stronger. My shoulder was about as handy as a nail-hung razor strap and my side and head hurt something awful, but compared to how I had felt, I was one fine specimen. I was very hungry and thirsty. Using my good arm, I managed to haul myself out of the aisle and into one of the passenger seats. From there I could look out the window and see Carson’s handiwork: dead bodies turning black, flies buzzing, buzzards feasting. At that very moment the harpies were all over Bucklaw.

I felt sick inside. I wanted to bury Bob, but didn’t have the strength.

Turning away from the dead, I tried to concentrate on getting out of the seat and finding food. The train was a pretty fancy rig and that meant there should be food onboard.

I managed my way down the aisle, holding onto seats for support, and finally found a little annex with all sorts of food and champagne. Apparently the passengers had been pretty high-class folk. In death they didn’t look any classier than Bob did. I think he would have found a certain humor in that.

I found a loaf of bread wrapped in paper that was still pretty fresh. I cut off some of that and ate it with some strong cheese, washed it all down with some champagne directly from the bottle.

When I’d eaten enough of that to take the edge off my hunger, I looked around and found a jar of pickled fish of some sort. I got that open with about the same effort as blowing a good safe and used a butcher knife to spear the pieces out. I didn’t really find the fish very appetizing, but I ate about half a jar anyway.

Feeling good and stuffed, I moved back to the passenger compartment. Glancing out the window I saw four mounted Indians moving toward the train.

They wore full regalia, and they looked like bad news.

They were Sioux.

They saw me immediately. I turned as quickly as I could and made my way back to the food compartment, got my hands on the butcher knife.

No sooner had I stepped back into the passenger car than one of the Sioux came through the door, a revolver in his hand. He raised the gun and fired, but it was a hasty jerk and the bullet whizzed by my cheek. I didn’t figure to be so lucky a second time.

I threw the butcher knife, caught the brave in the throat. He tumbled back out the open door, dropping his revolver just inside.

It hurt like hell, but I tossed myself toward it. I landed on the floor and grabbed up the Colt. My body felt as if a herd of buffalo had been wearing me for boots.

One of the three remaining Sioux—still on horseback—fired a shot at me with a .50-caliber Sharps. The shot went over my head and splattered somewhere behind me on the far wall. Had it hit its mark it would have painted the passenger car with me.

I lifted the Colt and fired. Missed.

The other two Sioux galloped quickly to the train, dismounted, began moving alongside the boxcars at a crouch.

The mounted Sioux rode up and down in front of me shouting, obviously proving his bravery and trying to draw my fire.

Which I did. I got him in the chest. He rocked back hard on the horse, swung in a half circle on the animal’s bare back and almost righted himself, but the bullet had done its work, and the man dropped to the ground. He wasn’t dead, just wounded, and he wasn’t out of the fight. He started crawling toward the Sharps which lay on the other side of his pony’s legs—for when he had fallen the well-trained animal had stopped dead in its tracks, waiting for its master to remount. It hardly moved a muscle.

I peeped around the edge of the car and found myself looking at the open end of a Winchester. I jerked my head back.

A shot slammed into one of the wooden steps and a splinter flew up from it and hit me in the left eye. It was as if I had been hit with a hot branding iron.

I managed somehow not to jerk at the long splinter. In fact, it had entered the left corner of my eye and I could still see; though it was a blurid.t was ary sort of sight washed in tears.

I back-crawled from the doorway and leveled the revolver on it. If one of those braves peeped around the edge of that doorway I meant to plaster him.

I figured the odds. If the Sioux on the ground made it to the Sharps, that would put it three to one. At best I figured to have three more loads in the Colt. If the Indian had followed white man’s custom of normally carrying only five chambered pills, then I was down to two. Two shots for three Indians. Bad business.

I wanted to take a quick look at the chambers, but a split second with my good eye off that doorway could get my hair parted. I kept a bead on.

Suddenly the air cracked with the sound of rifle fire, two quick shots. There was a loud thump against the outside of the passenger car and a load groan.

“Ah right, ya red divvil,” someone yelled, “come and let me count yer teeth.”

I raised up a bit. Blood was running out of my eye now, filling it up and flowing down my cheek. I heard one of the Sioux cry, “Hoka Hey, Hoka Hey.”

“Come and get yer ass skinned, ya red divvil,” came the loud voice again.

I raised up to where I could see out the windows. One of the Sioux warriors was running full speed toward a giant man on horseback, a red-bearded demon in buckskin.

When the warrior was halfway to the man, the red-beard leapt off his big, black stallion and tossed his Spencer repeater away from him. That seemed like a damn fool thing to do.

The running Sioux was armed with a tomahawk, and he looked more than slightly ready to use it.

The big man jerked a stone-headed tomahawk from his own belt and ran to meet the brave.

It was the Sioux who swung first, and to my wonder, the big man dodged beneath the Sioux’s blow with grace that belied his body weight—probably something like 250 stretched over a six-foot, five-inch frame—and caught the brave’s arm in his left hand. With his own tomahawk he cut a vicious blow to the Sioux’s kneecap. Almost simultaneously he twisted under the Indian’s arm and tossed him nearly ten feet.

In spite of the wound, the Sioux got to his feet and limped painfully toward the giant. I was amazed the leg was still put together.

The big man threw down his tomahawk and rushed the Sioux, who still held his weapon. The warrior swung with experienced ease, but the big man dropped low, came up and caught the brave’s weapon hand again.

Grabbing the warrior’s elbow with his free hand, the giant wrenched it. The sound it made while breaking could be heard all the way to the passenger car, a good two hundred feet away.

Next the giant grabbed the Sioux by underarm and crotch, actually lifted him above his head and tossed him down.

The warrior skidded. The broken arm still clung to the tomahawk, however, and when he stopped his sliding, he reached across with his left hand and plucked it from his dead right. He was about to fling it when tn="ng it whe giant recovered his own tomahawk and threw it, splitting the Sioux’s head wide open.

I limped toward the doorway of the passenger car. I leaned against the jamb. I was too weak to do otherwise. To my right lay the other Sioux; his brains were splattered against the side of the rail car. Both shots had taken him in the head.

The big man, bloody tomahawk recovered, looked at me and smiled.

“Hell of a job you did here.”

“I like to do her up tidy,” the big man said.

At that moment I realized the Sioux I had shot off the horse was still alive, and crawling silently. He had finally recovered the Sharps, and it was obvious that he had been playing possum until he could get hold of it, and now he was lifting it toward the big man.

I fired twice, one of my shots caught the Sioux in the top of the head and that was all she wrote.

The giant nodded at me. Then, bending over the Indian at his feet, scalped him deftly with a quick swipe and a whip of the wrist that pulled the scalp from the Sioux’s head with a nauseating snap.

He repeated the process with the Sioux I had just killed, then started for the train.

I was feeling real poorly now, and it was all I could do to get to the aisle and find myself a seat. The world was moving like a raft in the rapids, and I was no longer sure of what was real and what was a dream.

I remember wondering if the big man was scalping the Indian lying against the train, but I neither saw nor heard him at his work. I leaned against the seat and promptly conked out.

Passing out was getting to be an annoying habit. When I awoke my left eye felt like all of Satan’s devils were holding a dance there. It was puffed and swollen shut.

Lifting up, I could see the big man out of my good eye. If I hadn’t hurt so bad he would have been a pretty scary sight, standing there with three bloody scalps hanging from his belt.

The giant took hold of my head and cranked it back, used his thumb to ease open the eye. “Caught some wood in there, pilgrim.”

Moving quickly, he pinched the fragment free of my eye. It was as if someone had punched a hole in a beaver dam. Blood and pain flowed out. It was a clean pull, however, and the eyeball was spared.

“We’ll have to clean her up a bit,” the giant said, “but she’ll be all right in time. You won’t be eyeballin’ much for awhile, though.”

“How long I been out?”

“Couple minutes. Gonna have to set yer shoulder, pilgrim. Gonna pain ya some.”

“Side hurts, too. Took a slug there.”

“Went clean through. Already looked at ’er. We’ll have to clean ’er up, pour a little rot gut down ’er and plug it with a poultice.”

“You think maybe I could just throw up some?”

“Long as it ain’t on my moccasins. Let’s get ya to the door though. Reckon we’ll have to call this our nest till I get ya worked over.”

The giant helped me to my feet and to the door. I did what I had to do, aided by a slap on the back.

“Finished?” he asked.

“Yeah, finished.”

He helped me back to my seat.

“Reckon we ought to get started right quick, pilgrim. Get ya fixed up.”

“This going to hurt?”

“Like hell.”

“Ever done this before?”

“Things like it.”

“Good at it?”

“Not much. Had three men die on me.”

“Comforting.”

The giant laughed. “Not hardly. What’s yer tag?”

“Jim Melgrhue. Yours?”

“Johnston. John Johnston, though lots of folks call me Johnson and a lot more call me Liver-Eatin’ Johnston.”

“The Crow Killer!”

“Yep, some call me that, too.
Dapiek Abasaroka,
the Crows say.”

“Well I’ll be damned. I thought you were a tall tale.”

“In a way I am. Now shet yer hole and get ready for hell.”

Johnston worked up a fire just outside the passenger car, heated his big Bowie knife. It wasn’t something to look forward to with any anticipation. He got a bottle of very dark whisky from his saddlebag and made some splints from the slats in one of the passenger seats.

After that Johnston got the Bowie out of the fire and the thing I remembered most was him coming toward me, smiling, with that red-hot blade. Pain put me out again.

When I awoke Johnston had a big slab of meat stuck in front of my face on the tip of the Bowie. The same he had used to cauterize my wound.

“Take it, pilgrim. Eat it.”

I did as I was told. The meat was still warm from the fire, slightly burnt, but I had no complaints. It was delicious.

“It’s good,” I said. “What is it?”

“Horse.”

I lay back in the seat and felt my stomach churn. Horse. And not even fresh horse at that, I bet.

“I reckon we ought to be leavin’ here pronto,” Johnston said. “Figure them that own this here train will be out to see about her when she don’t getwit don’ home.” He eyed me. “Reckon you know what I mean. You didn’t come with this here train.”

“How do you know?”

“I’m a good guesser. Robbin’ it?”

“I didn’t want to kill the passengers. They shot me and my friend Bucklaw.”

“Figured it was somethin’ like that. I wouldn’t’ve shot no passengers, either. Only I wouldn’t have been robbing no train in the first place.”

“I’m not saying it was anything but stupid.”

Johnston grunted. “I caught one of them Indian ponies for ya. Had to cut one of the saddles off a dead horse, it was so belly-swollen. I pieced it back together pretty good. We’ll move out soon.”

“Sioux be back?”

“Might. That was a hunting party, but they were dressed for war. Sioux stay that way these here days. Things is buildin’ up for a big Indian and white man ta-do, and I ain’t talking about no backyard social.”