Disorder in the House [How the West Was Done 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (21 page)

“What’s he doing?”

It looked as though the other, wiry figure in the battered slouch hat was kicking something. Levi focused the glass and saw that Shady was kicking bones.

“Bones? What are they—bison bones?” Levi had to look twice, squinting and focusing on the bones, to realize that the femur Shady kicked was much larger than a buffalo’s. How could that be? The bison was the largest mammal on the prairie. Only an elephant might have a larger femur, and Levi doubted that anyone had transported a bunch of elephant bones to this remote spot simply in order to kick them.

He handed the glass to Garrett. “Why would he be kicking bones?” Now it looked like Shady was jumping up and down on the oversize bones. “Would they use bones to make some kind of ceremonial tea or something?”

“That’s not what they’re doing,” Garrett whispered. Soberly, he handed the glass back to Levi. “It looks like he’s destroying dinosaur bones.”

Dinosaur bones?
Jamming the glass back into his eye socket, Levi asked, “Dinosaurs? I’ve never stumbled across any of those, although I’m sure it’s possible. Why would he be destroying them?”

Garrett said, “The fossil remains of the mastodon are thought to be the bones of some god. This is probably a place of worship, and Shady means to scare the people further when they discover the bones all shattered and scattered about.”

Levi lowered the glass. “Let’s go get him.”

Girding their gun belts around their waists, the two men set off down the slope. Levi wore his revolvers with their butts to the fore for a quick draw. He wasn’t concerned with Shady getting the drop on him, even though they were heading onto the treeless knoll. Levi had spent many a boring hour at Standing Rock practicing his shooting, hitting bottles. He was a quicker draw than any other white man he’d seen. That, coupled with the fact that Garrett split off from him and would sneak up a rise behind the
wakan
medicine man, gave Levi the grit to proceed in full view down the rise.

Shady whipped his head around to view Levi. He paused with his foot on a rib bone that was entirely as big as Shady’s decrepit, crumpled body. Of course, Shady’s hand instantly went for his holster, but he didn’t draw, merely yelled, “Who are you?”

Levi waited until his horse had ambled closer and he could dismount. “Levi Colter,” he said, trying to sound affable. “
New
Indian agent out at Fort Sanders. Your successor.”

Instead of being glad to meet a fellow Indian agent, Shady Barnhart squared his shoulder and squinted suspiciously at Levi. “What’re you doing way out here? Shouldn’t you be back at the fort getting all your supplies in order?”

“I would be,” said Levi, “if there were any supplies to get in order. But it seems you left me with absolutely no supplies, aside from a sausage grinder.”

Now Shady tried the brotherly approach. Hiking up his pants, he tilted his head and drawled, “Well, I reckon you’ll just have to start from scratch selling your next shipment of supplies.”

“It’s not just the supplies, Shady. It’s the land you’ve been selling to settlers. Land that was meant for Indians.”

At that, an owl hooted from somewhere over the lip of the knoll. The
wakan
fellow jumped in the air at the sound. Levi almost laughed at the way his treacherous limbs went all stiff and he leaped back several feet. The hooting was odd, because Levi didn’t think there was a single tree down there, so where would the owl be perched?

Shady was unperturbed by the sound. “Well, you can look forward to many such economic transactions yourself, Colter. I was even kind enough to leave you some land to sell. I wasn’t able to make the transaction for that piece over by Serendipity Ranch, since old Caeser Moxus went and died on me.”

“Before you could forge his signature.”

Shady grinned toothlessly. “Yeah, heh heh. I forged it rightly enough, and you can use my penmanship as examples for your future dealings. The key to drawing the squished turtle is, you’ve got to make its face look rightly anguished, with squinty little eyes and—”

That was it. Levi pulled the bracelets off his gun belt and stepped around behind Shady.

“What you doing, Colter?” Shady shrieked. The
wakan
fellow’s eyes got big and round, and he ran over the edge of the knoll with hands held out in front of him as though feeling for invisible bushes. Apparently he startled the owl there, for more hooting was heard.

Levi didn’t care. “Arresting you, obviously.” He had only snapped one cuff onto Shady’s wrist when the diabolical Indian agent yanked himself free. He did a jig over to a pile of stones that had obviously been erected for ceremonial purposes, kicking frantically at them. He was a thrashing fool with the bracelets flying, and it was difficult for Levi to get a bead on him with his revolver.

So Levi strode to the pile as he leveled his revolver at Shady’s chest, the chest being the biggest target. “Off that pile, Shady. Give me your weapon.”

“No one’s getting these damned rocks and bones!” Shady wailed. “I’m sick of these heathens burning shit, flinging dung, and yammering stuff that don’t make no sense! You’re not taking me in, Colter!”

One of his more strenuous kicks dislodged a round stone beneath his feet, and Shady went falling to his ass among the rolling boulders as the pyramid disintegrated around him. His right, cuffed hand reached for his pistol, but Levi was quicker on the trigger, shooting off one of Shady’s fingers.

“I don’t want to have to shoot you again,” Levi said honestly. “So you’d best stand up and let me finish cuffing you.”

But Shady seemed possessed by some irrational thought patterns, for he struggled to his feet, cupping his bleeding, cuffed hand to his chest, and skittered back toward the mastodon bones. Almost wearily, Levi followed. What other limb would he have to shoot off? He’d rather bring the fellow back to the fort alive for proper justice to be administered. Since Shady was a government agent, he doubted it would involve Judge Lynch. However, if Levi delivered Shady to Brave Buffalo’s tribe…

As Shady stomped on the bones some more, uttering slogans about red men and their final destruction, Levi merely reached out and lifted Shady’s revolver from its holster. He placed it in his own holster that wasn’t currently in use. He would just have to wait this one out, until Shady ran out of energy or had stomped all the bones to smithereens.

A renewed burst of owl hoots, much louder this time and increasing in urgency, sounded directly behind Shady’s writhing body. It would have been humorous the way Shady jolted stiff as though hit by a lightning bolt if he hadn’t fallen directly back onto the pointed tip of a mastodon rib. The one he hadn’t been able to stomp into dusty smidgens.

Levi’s jaw hung loose when he saw Shady wriggling around, the tip of the rib protruding from his side, directly between two of his own ribs, presumably. That was astounding! Garrett certainly knew how to make some convincing owl sounds.

“All right, Shady,” Levi said calmly. Squatting down next to the writhing agent, Levi was able to shackle both hands together at the small of his back before he sat down, too, to ponder how best to get the dinosaur rib out of Shady.

“You know, you’re wrong, Shadrack,” Levi told his associate. “You’re stealing from the government when you’re selling these supplies and lining your own pocket.”

“Get this damned thing out of me!” Shady howled.

“I don’t think that would be helpful,” said Levi. “I think that dinosaur rib is the only thing holding your liver inside.” He thought. “If that medicine man hadn’t of run off, maybe his mumbo jumbo could help you, don’t you think?”

At last, Shady fainted from the pain or loss of blood. Levi started wondering where Garrett had gone. Just as he thought this, Garrett himself appeared over the lip of the knoll but directly opposite where the owl hoots had emanated from. He hauled the hostile
wakan
man by the arm. The fellow was so reluctant to come, his feet dragged against the grass.

Garrett’s mouth turned into an
O
when he saw the immobile Shady, seemingly a goner. “How the hell did you get that bone into him?”

Levi said, “The issue here is more like how the hell did you make those owl sounds when you were way over on that side of this knoll?” Levi pointed to where the hoots had come from. “Were you ever over there?”

Garrett frowned. “Not at all. Hey, I don’t think you should take that bone out of his back. He’s liable to bleed to death before we get him back to the fort.”

“And wouldn’t that be a shame,” Levi agreed.

“Well, I need to know where my wife’s ring is first, before he dies. You have another pair of bracelets for this fellow, don’t you? I don’t look forward to keeping him in line until we can get back to his camp.”

Levi had another pair of bracelets he had meant for Moses Taggart, and as he walked to his horse to retrieve them, a bewildering and beautiful thing happened. An enormous snowy owl suddenly rose overhead, its blocky, fluffy body ruffling with the air current. Levi instinctively put up an arm to shield his head, especially after the encounter with the bald eagle the other night.

But the owl merely landed near his horse, blinking at him with its gleaming yellow eyes, outlined like a fancy prairie flower’s. It shivered as though cold, looking from Levi to Garrett with some sort of expectations.

Levi and Garrett looked at each other. Garrett said something to the
wakan
man, who answered back.

“He says this owl has been possessed by the spirit of a white man.”

The
wakan
man yammered some more, and Garrett interpreted, “A white man who wished for something bad to happen to Shady.”

“Caleb?” Levi whispered, looking from Garrett to the owl.

The owl blinked but did not turn into Caleb, so Levi put the bracelets on the medicine man, and they went to inspect Shady’s saddlebags. They were lucky to find the ring formerly belonging to Garrett’s wife, although Garrett could find nothing resembling the necklace a coworker of Liberty’s had claimed was stolen from her. That they might find when they found Moses.

They set off toward Brave Buffalo’s village. It wasn’t an easy journey, for they had to lift the entire mastodon rib along with the unconscious Shady and drape him across the skirt over the horse’s back, trussed up like a dead deer.

In Brave Buffalo’s camp, Garrett let them know their
wakan
man had been deceiving them, but as suspected, no one bought it. Levi was forced to release the medicine man, but when they saw Shady with the mastodon bone sticking through his ribs, they were quite prompt in agreeing to allow him to shackle Shady to a lodge pole until they could come back for him.

“We should’ve asked them if they wanted to allow their medicine man to treat him.” Levi grinned as they rode away in the direction Caleb’s map had indicated they would find Paddy’s wife’s jewelry.

* * * *

Paddy’s cache turned out to be only a quarter mile from the encampment.

“No wonder Paddy has it in for Shady and Moses,” Garrett commented as he dismounted. “They’ve been perpetrating their flimflam directly over where he stashed his wife’s goods.”

They wandered around, looking for two triangular rocks angled together to make a pyramid at slightly higher than eye level. The grotto did have a mystical feel that brought gooseflesh to Garrett’s shoulders.

Garrett said, “I’m wondering what we’re supposed to do with this jewelry once we find it. Who will we return it to, for instance?”

Levi said, “No one ever said it was specifically jewelry. For all we know, it’s just a jar of his mother’s special jam recipe.”

“Or another map leading us somewhere else.” Garrett sighed. “I’d really like to get back to town tonight. Oh, wait. What’s this?”

The second Garrett saw the mossy, triangular rocks, he was struck with one of those odd feelings. The feeling that he had seen this exact thing not very long ago. It usually came in the form of a hunch that he may have dreamed this exact thing, but it was always very difficult to pinpoint the time
when
he had this dream. The feeling always evaporated as quickly as it came, leaving just an impression that he was repeating the identical actions he committed earlier in the dream. Repeating them over again, as it were.

So when Levi’s hand moved to pull back a triangular rock, Garrett already knew what lay in the opening behind it. “It’s a bag,” he blurted out.

“What?”

“There’s a bag in there full of eagles’ quills.”

Levi looked strangely at him but didn’t question his knowledge. And sure enough, when he removed the second triangular rock and allowed Garrett to stick his hand into the dark cave, Garrett came away holding a leather bag. Mossy and moldy but capable of protecting the eagles’ quills he knew he’d find in there.

At least a hundred quills spilled over Garrett’s palms, and he instantly knew by their weight they contained gold dust. They had been stoppered with clods of packed dirt, and Garrett gave one to Levi to open up. Levi shook the bright dust into his hand and looked up meaningfully at his partner.

Garrett said, “Last night. I had a vision. I saw a hand stuffing this bag into the rocks. It must’ve been Paddy’s hand.” He was almost as thrilled to know that he’d seen Paddy’s very hand as to realize that he held a fortune.