Ralph Compton the Evil Men Do (12 page)

Tyree saw it as clear as anything. The barbed tip sheared into Hitch's right shoulder with a fleshy
thwip
and burst out his back. The impact twisted the lawman half around in his saddle. Hitch opened his mouth as if to scream, but didn't.

War whoops pierced the woods and buckskin-clad forms spilled from the shadows.

Tyree was a shade slow to react.

Not Aces Connor. The cowboy fanned his Colt in a blur of motion. An onrushing warrior, a lance raised to throw, seemed to slam into an invisible wall and crashed down. Swiveling, Aces fired at another warrior while hollering, “Ride! Ride like hell!”

Jabbing his spurs, Tyree broke for the prairie. He banged a shot at a long-haired figure, heard the whiz of a shaft past his ear, banged a second shot, and flew around a spruce. Too late, he saw a crouched warrior. He tried to take aim, but with a wolfish howl, the warrior sprang. One hand seized Tyree by the arm. The other swung a tomahawk. Tyree blocked the blow but was wrenched from his horse. Before he could recover his wits, he hit hard on his head and shoulder. Dazed, he made it to his knees.

Face aglow with bloodlust, the warrior leaped to his feet and raised the tomahawk for another try.

Tyree shot him. He wasn't conscious of doing it. He
wasn't even aware he still held the Colt. At the
crack
, the young Arapaho jerked and clutched himself, then howled anew and launched himself at Tyree. Tyree got his hand up to seize the other's wrist and stop the tomahawk from splitting his skull. Suddenly they were on the ground, grappling mightily.

Tyree punched the warrior on the jaw, but it had no effect. A knee to his own groin did, though. His vision spun and he nearly doubled over. Desperate to clear his head, he shoved the warrior away and scrambled back.

The Arapaho came after him.

Tyree got a leg up just as the warrior leaped. His boot caught the Arapaho on the chest and the warrior tumbled, enabling Tyree to heave onto his knees. Out of the corner of his eye he caught movement and turned to see another warrior coming at him with a knife. He fired and the warrior went down.

The first Arapaho was back up. With a cry of fury, he pounced.

Tyree was borne to earth. He felt a sharp pain in his left side. Jamming his Colt against the warrior's belly, he thumbed the hammer and squeezed. The Arapaho was jarred back but came at him again. Tyree fired, worked the hammer, fired.

The warrior dropped.

War whoops still sounded, and somewhere close by a gun thundered.

Tyree lurched erect, his left arm pressed to his ribs, and ran. The sorrel had kept going and was standing about ten yards from the forest, looking back. His life might depend on reaching it.

Racing out of the trees, Tyree sprinted like mad. The saber flopped against his back, and the bowie swung wildly. In the rush of conflict, he'd forgotten he had them. He reached the sorrel and flung a hand up to catch hold of the saddle horn, but the sorrel shied and moved forward. “Stop, damn you!” he fumed, and went after it.

A commotion in the forest drew his attention just as
Aces Connor exploded into the open. Aces had his Colt and reins in one hand, the reins to the marshal's bay in the other. Arrows were flying, and Aces was bent low. Marshal Hitch was clinging to his saddle horn with his good arm. His right appeared to be useless.

Tyree raised his Colts and fired at the vegetation to discourage the Arapahos. He didn't see any of them. He just shot. The sounds spooked the sorrel into moving again.

Backpedaling, Tyree was ready to let lead fly to protect his companions, but the Arapahos didn't come after them.

Aces reached him and bellowed, “Get on your horse!”

The sorrel had stopped, and Tyree wasted no time clambering on. He used his spurs, as did Aces. They galloped to the south, Tyree expecting to be pursued by the war party, but no one gave chase.

Aces didn't draw rein until they had gone better than a mile. Vaulting down, he moved to the bay. “How are you holdin' up?”

His teeth gritted, Marshal Hitch groaned and said, “Not so good. It hurts somethin' awful. You have to get it out.”

About six inches of arrow, and the barbed tip, protruded from the lawman's back. The feathered end stuck out his front below the shoulder. He was bleeding but not profusely, and was in agony.

“We can't stop yet,” Aces said. “They might come after us.”

“How much farther?”

“Another mile should be enough.”

“Too far,” Fred said. “I'll pass out by then.”

“We should tend to him here,” Tyree spoke up. “He can keep up if we bandage him.”

Rare uncertainty made Aces hesitate. “Have it your way. But you keep watch.”

“Like a hawk,” Tyree vowed. Dismounting, he examined his side. The tomahawk had scraped his ribs. The
wound wasn't deep and it had already stopped bleeding, but it would hurt like Hades for a while.

“Are you keepin' watch or not?” Aces said. He had carefully lowered Marshal Hitch and now he was gathering dry grass and twigs for a fire.

“I got nicked,” Tyree explained.

“I'll look at you next.”

“No need,” Tyree said. He refused to make a fuss over it. As wounds went, it was minor.

The lawman sat with his legs splayed, his hand on the arrow and his head hung low. “I'm so dizzy I can hardly sit.”

“Hang on,” Aces said.

The plain to the north stayed empty. Tyree was surprised that the war party hadn't come after them, and remarked as much.

“They lost four or more, wounded or dead,” Aces said as he worked. “Odds are the others are tendin' to them like we're tendin' to the marshal.”

“My first Injun scrape,” Tyree said, marveling that he'd survived.

“May it be your last. I'd rather tangle with a snake-mean drunk than a warrior out to do me in.”

“I should think drunks can be plenty dangerous,” Tyree said.

“They can,” Aces agreed, “but all that liquor makes them careless. They grandstand before they draw. Brag on how they're going to make worm food of you. That sort of thing.”

“Can we concentrate on me?” Fred asked.

“I got the fire started, didn't I?” Aces replied.

The tiny flames grew rapidly.

Aces kneeled next to the lawman. “Tyree, do you reckon you can keep the fire going and watch for the Arapahos, both?”

“Easy as pie.” Tyree stepped around the fire so he faced the distant mountains, and hunkered. The movement didn't help his side any.

“Now, then,” Aces said as he examined the lawman. “The good news is it went clean through.”

“I can see that,” Fred said. “I want it out.”

Aces bent over the barbed tip and sniffed loudly several times.

“What on earth are you doing?” Fred said.

“Sometimes Injuns dip their arrows in dead polecats or some other dead varmint to taint them. I heard of a Comanche once who liked to dip his in rattler venom.”

“The Lord preserve me,” Fred said.

“All I smell on this one is your blood,” Aces said. “You might have lucked out twice over.”

“I don't call bein' shot with an arrow any kind of luck at all.”

Aces went to his palomino, groped in a saddlebag, and returned with a folding knife. Opening it, he tested the edge on his thumb. “This will do.”

His face slick with sweat, Fred swayed. “Are you sure you know what you're doing?”

“I took an arrow out of a tree once. This shouldn't be much different.”

Tyree laughed.

“Was that your idea of a joke?” Marshal Hitch said. “You pick a poor time for humor, sir.”

“And you picked a poor time to get shot.” Aces set down the folding knife and gripped the arrow below the barbed point. “I need to break it off. Brace yourself. This will hurt.”

“I could use a sip from my flask first. It's in my saddlebag.”

“Tyree, would you?” Aces said.

“What help will that be?” Tyree asked as he stood. “You should pour it on the wound.”

“What a waste that would be,” Fred said. “Are you a drinkin' man, boy?”

“I've never seen the point.”

“Then keep quiet until you are. You should never
criticize someone else's vices unless you have the same vice yourself.”

“I never heard that before,” Tyree said.

“Probably because you don't have any vices.”

Aces snorted. “You have no shame, Hitch.”

“Not a lick,” Fred replied. Grimacing, he shuddered and said, “I can really use my flask.”

Tyree brought it over. No sooner did he hold it out than the marshal snatched it and opened it and glued it to his lips. Hitch's throat bobbed and his expression became almost serene. “A person would reckon you'd died and gone to heaven,” Tyree joked.

“Close,” Fred said. He clutched the flask as if he were drowning and it was his only hope of staying afloat. “Now get to it, Mr. Connor, if you please.”

Just like that, Aces broke the arrow. He did it so quickly, so unexpectedly that it took the lawman off guard. Hitch's eyes widened and he opened his mouth to cry out, but once again didn't. More shuddering ended with him doubled up and pale as a bedsheet.

“You were right,” Fred husked. “It hurt like hell.”

Aces tossed the broken end to the ground. “That's not the worst part. If you start to feel sick, I'd appreciate it if you vomited on something other than me.”

“Sick?” Fred said.

Aces took a firm hold on the feathered end and commenced to slowly pull the arrow out. “Easy does it or it might set you to bleedin' worse.”

“Sweet heaven,” Fred exclaimed. Averting his face, he moaned. “That's the damnedest feelin'.”

“So I've been told,” Aces said.

Tyree felt his own gut churn and bitter bile rise in his throat. He had seen worse wounds, but something about extracting the arrow nauseated him. “Remind me to never take an arrow.”

“It's not like I planned it,” Fred said.

With a sickening squishy sound, the arrow came out.
So did more blood. Fred closed his eyes and sank onto his back. “If you'll excuse me, I reckon I'll pass out now.”

“Not until we bandage you,” Aces said.

“You are a cruel taskmaster,” Fred said.

They used Tyree's bowie to cut a towel from the lawman's saddlebags into strips. Aces cleaned the entry and exit wounds and Tyree passed the strips to him and they were soon done.

Tying the last knot, Aces sat back and smiled. “There you go, law dog. How does it feel?”

Fred didn't reply. He was out to the world.

“Fetch a blanket,” Aces said.

Tyree was going to ask why Aces couldn't get the blanket himself, but shrugged and did. He figured he owed the gun hand for helping him, but he sure didn't like being bossed around.

“We'll let him rest an hour or so,” Aces said as he spread the blanket over Marshal Hitch.

“I reckon there's no hurry now, with McCarthy dead,” Tyree said. “I just hope there's someone else with a sizable bounty on his head so I can raise the five hundred I need.”

“That's a lot of money to pay for information,” Aces mentioned.

“The son of a bitch won't take a cent less,” Tyree said. “I tried to talk him down. But no. He said if I want to find the men I'm after, I pay him or I get lost. I considered tryin' to beat it out of him, but he's no mouse.”

“What's this virtuous citizen's handle?”

“Moses,” Tyree said. “Moses Tombs. He's an old-timer. Been on the wrong side of the law more often than not, and he claims to know nearly every owl-hoot who matters.”

“And you believe him?”

Tyree squatted, plucked a blade of grass, and stuck it between his teeth. “I've been on the hunt for years now. Askin' questions of everyone I come across who might know somethin'. A few claimed they did, but none
panned out. Now here comes old Moses, with all his big talk. Do I believe him? Not entirely, no. But I've been at this so long I reckon I'll grasp at any straw.”

“With us to help you, things will change.”

“How so?”

“You'll see.”

“The murderers I'm after won't go down easy. They kill women and tried to kill me and I was just a baby. You get on me about how feeble my conscience is. They must have no conscience at all.”

“Then we'll have no regrets when we blow them to hell.”

“You'd help me do that?”

“What are pards for?” Aces said.

Despite the clash with the war party and his hurt ribs and the death of Tom McCarthy, Tyree was in fine spirits.

He had been on his own for so long that he had gotten used to it being him against everyone else. He saw the world as a hostile place. No one cared for him—and he didn't care for them. People were always trying to take advantage of one another. It was dog-eat-dog, or as Tyree often thought of it, wolf-eat-sheep.

The few helping hands he got, people were using him. The man who sold him his first horse at half what it usually cost didn't tell him the horse couldn't trot a mile without becoming severely winded. The gent who offered him his first bounty job needed a certain bail jumper found or he would lose a lot of money. And so it went.

Then Tyree rode into Sweetwater and met an old lawman who seemed genuinely nice, and took to mothering him besides. Tyree figured Marshal Hitch was so nice because he was dumb. No one ever got ahead in the world by being nice. He was growing to like the old lawman, begrudgingly, but he could never be that nice himself.

Then the world surprised him again with something even more remarkable. A cowpoke with a reputation as a gun hand had taken him under his wing and had now gone so far as to call him his pard.

Tyree had never had a pard. For that matter, he'd never had a genuine friend. He'd never had anyone at all he could depend on, not in the way pards were supposed to depend on one another.

Tyree tried not to get excited over it. He told himself that it wouldn't last. That Aces would change his mind and go his own way.

Yet the cowboy seemed sincere, just like the lawman, and now Tyree found himself with the last thing in the world he ever expected to have: not one but two friends. It put him in a good spirits. So much so he'd catch himself grinning for no reason at all.

They spent two days waiting for the marshal to recover enough to be able to ride. Aces took Tyree aside and suggested they take Hitch back to Sweetwater. There was no reason for the marshal to go on to Cheyenne, and it would be weeks before he was fully recovered from his wounds.

They put it to Fred Hitch, and Hitch said no. He'd rather stick with them. Tyree knew that Aces was as surprised as he was.

“What are you tryin' to prove?” Aces asked.

“Nothin' at all,” the lawman replied. “I just don't want to go back to Sweetwater just yet.”

“That makes no kind of sense,” Aces said bluntly.

“It does if you're me.”

Aces and Tyree talked it over that night and were baffled. Tyree mentioned how Hitch had said he liked getting out in the world for a change, instead of hiding from it in his office. “Could be that's why.”

“He's safer in his office,” Aces said. “The world can kill you if you're not careful.”

“Don't I know it?”

Aces shocked him by asking what he wanted to do. “We'll take him back if you say so, his wishes be damned. It's for his own good.”

“You're leavin' it up to me?”

“We're after the buzzards who killed your folks. Seems to me you wouldn't want anything to interfere with that.”

Aces was putting Tyree's wants above his own. No one in Tyree's entire existence had ever done that before. “I need to ponder on it some,” he said.

That night, when he was sure Aces was asleep, Tyree went to Marshal Hitch, who lay staring into the fire. “We need to talk,” he whispered.

“About what?”

“You. Aces says we should take you back. I think we should too. But you have your heart set on taggin' along.”

“That's a good way of puttin' it,” the marshal said. “I'm lettin' how I feel guide me and not my head.”

“You nearly got killed. Didn't that teach you anything?”

“That it did,” Fred replied. “To duck the next time.”

Tyree chuckled. “I'm serious. You're a nuisance sometimes, but I don't want you dead on my account. I don't mind ridin' all the way back to Sweetwater for you. I owe you that much.”

“That's damn decent of you, son,” Fred said.

“Stop callin' me that.”

“But I believe I'll go on with the two of you, if you'll have me. I know I'll slow you some for a while, but I promise not to let you down when it counts the most.”

“Why are you doing this? We just don't savvy.”

Fred Hitch eased onto his back, careful not to disturb his bandages. “Part of it is for me. I like being with the two of you. I like our adventures.”

“Is that what you call havin' that Caleb out to split our skulls with an ax? Or that war party out to take our hair? An adventure?”

“For me they are. The only adventures I've ever had.”

Tyree shook his head.

“The other part of it is you. I like you, son. You've had it rougher than most, yet you don't let that stop you. I want to help you find those you're after.”

Tyree didn't know what to say to that. It choked him up a little, and hardly anything ever choked him up.

“So yes, I'd like to go on. If you think I'll be too much
of a burden, then by all means, take me back to Sweetwater. But I hope you'll prevail on Mr. Connor to let me come along.”

Over breakfast Tyree informed Aces that he had thought about it and would like for the marshal to go on to Cheyenne with them. “It's what he wants, and he's a good old goat.”

“He's a lunkhead and so are you. But you're my pard, and if that's what you want, that's what we'll do.”

That was the moment it truly sank in. Tyree's entire world had changed. He had a pard and a mother hen. Two people he could count on. In a world where most folks were only out for themselves, it was like finding a vein of gold in ordinary rock. Tyree was suddenly rich in friends. It was enough to make a person giddy.

On their way to Cheyenne they avoided Sutter's Stump. Two visits had been enough.

The next day they ran into half a dozen cowhands Aces knew. The cowboys camped with them that night and stayed up late joshing and laughing. It was clear to Tyree that they accepted Aces as one of them, his reputation notwithstanding. It was equally clear that Aces liked the cowboy life, and was putting it aside to help him.

Five days later found them winding down out of the foothills to the Laramie Mountains.

Marshal Hitch was feeling a lot better. He still wore bandages, but he could ride for hours without it bothering him, and at night he could sleep straight through without the pain waking him. When they drew rein on a last crest and saw the sprawl of buildings and streets in the distance, he gave a slight whistle. “It sure has grown since I was here last.”

“Cheyenne has pretty near ten thousand people,” Tyree recalled hearing. That was small potatoes compared to St. Louis, which had over four hundred thousand. But Cheyenne was still one of the largest cities west of the Mississippi
River. People heading west, the cattle trade, the gold rush to the Black Hills, accounted for its growth.

They accounted for something else too. A quality Tyree liked about Cheyenne. St. Louis had been a quiet sort of city. An orderly city. A law-abiding city. There was nothing exciting about it.

Cheyenne was excitement, plus.

Its streets were always jammed, the people always bustling about. Frontiersmen and city folk, cowboys and the ranchers they worked for, tame Indians and Chinese railroad workers, and more, mixed and mingled and scurried all over like bustling ants in an anthill. Pistols and knives were as common as noses and ears, although often hidden under jackets or in pockets and sheaths. The threat of violence always hung in the air like a thunderhead about to unleash a storm.

When Tyree had first arrived, he drank in Cheyenne as a parched wanderer in a desert would drink cold water. It had a vigor St. Louis and other places lacked. If cities had hearts, then Cheyenne's heartbeat and his were a lot alike.

A large part of Cheyenne's wildness, Tyree had been told, had to do with it being a “drinkin' town,” as one man put it. There were over two dozen saloons, four or five breweries, and other businesses, like social clubs, that catered to those who liked their liquor. At night Cheyenne was one big rowdy party, with piano playing to all hours, songs and dance onstage, and theaters for those with fancier tastes.

Yes, sir. Tyree liked Cheyenne a lot.

All of this went through his mind as they neared the city limits. A sign announced that the local laws would be strictly enforced. Every city had a sign like that. In Cheyenne, though, they didn't take it quite as seriously as other places. You could get away with more in Cheyenne, the saying went, if you were careful about it.

One thing Tyree didn't like about Cheyenne was how
the streets were laid out. In St. Louis there had been some sense to it, with many of the streets aligned with the four points of the compass and arranged in blocks. In Cheyenne, there wasn't any sense whatsoever. For one thing, instead of running north and south and east and west, Cheyenne's streets ran aslant of one another. If you wanted to tell direction, you had to keep an eye on the sun. It made Tyree wonder if whoever designed the town hadn't been hitting the liquor a little hard.

No sooner did they enter the outskirts than it was apparent something was going on. More folks were bustling about than Tyree had ever seen. The streets were practically packed with horse and wagon traffic. And nearly everyone was smiling and plainly in a good mood.

“What's all this?” Marshal Hitch wondered. “I've been to Cheyenne a few times and it wasn't ever this lively.”

“Let's find out,” Aces said. He reined over to where a pair of locals stood talking. “Howdy, gents.”

The townsmen looked up.

“Mind tellin' us what all the fuss is about?” Aces asked. “We just got in.”

“Then you haven't heard, cowpoke?” a man with a goatee replied. “Tomorrow is the big celebration. There will be fireworks and a parade and more goings-on than you can shake a stick at.”

“What's bein' celebrated?” Aces said.

“Where have you been, cowboy?” the other man said, grinning. “Tomorrow is July tenth.”

“So?”

“So Wyoming becomes a state,” the man declared.

“Not only that,” the man with the goatee said, “Cheyenne is to be the capital. They're building the new capitol buildings as we speak.”

“Yes, sir,” said the other proudly. “Tomorrow will be a day to beat all others. I can hardly wait.”

“I'm obliged,” Aces said, and reined back over to Tyree and Marshal Hitch. “You heard?”

“I plumb forgot about that state business,” Tyree said. “It was all folks were talkin' about when I left.”

Fred gazed up and down the busy street. “Findin' a place to stay might be difficult. Everywhere must be full up.”

“I have a room,” Tyree offered. “It's not much, but there's space on the floor where you can spread out your blankets.”

The boardinghouse where Tyree was staying was on Seventeenth Street. He'd paid for a couple of months in advance, thinking it might take him that long to find the man he was looking for. It had barely taken a week. But the man wouldn't tell him what he wanted to know unless he came up with the five hundred dollars.

The lady who ran the boardinghouse was sweet Mrs. Watkins. Most any hour of the day she could be found in her rocking chair on her porch, knitting. She was there now, and greeted Tyree with her usual warm smile. She had white hair and wore a print dress and laced-up shoes polished to a sheen.

“Mr. Johnson, welcome back. You've been gone a week or two, I do believe. I haven't seen you at the dinner table or had to change your sheets.”

“Yes, ma'am, I have,” Tyree said.

Mrs. Watkins set her knitting needles in her lap. “Who are your friends?”

“This here is Mr. Connor,” Tyree introduced his new pard, “and this other hombre is a lawman from . . .” He got no further.

Fred stepped past him, took Mrs. Watkins's hand, and gave a slight bow. “Marshal Frederick Hitch, from Sweetwater, at your service, madam.”

“My word,” Mrs. Watkins said, and blushed.

Tyree was astounded. “You're sure not timid around the ladies, are you?”

“Yes, well,” Fred said, and coughed. “Mr. Johnson here has invited us to stay with him for a day or two. Would that be all right with you? We wouldn't want to impose. And we're willin' to pay you for your kindness.”

Aces was looking at the lawman in amusement. “Don't you beat all?”

Mrs. Watkins smiled at Fred. “Ordinarily I wouldn't allow three men to that room. It's not very big and there's only the one bed. But with you being an officer of the law, and the statehood and all, it would be remiss of me to refuse you.”

“My, you are eloquent, kind lady,” Fred said. “And I think you for your kindness.”

Fanning herself with her hand as if she were suddenly hot, Mrs. Watkins did some coughing of her own. “It is a pleasure to meet you. I hope we can sit down together and become better acquainted.”

“I would like nothin' more.”

Tyree led them inside before the marshal made a spectacle of himself. “I'll show you which room it is and then we can go find the gent who claims to know about my folks. Not that he'll tell us anything unless I pay him.”

Aces Connor patted his ivory-handled Colt. “Have a little faith, pard,” he said.