High Plains Massacre (4 page)

When most folks in the East thought of the prairie, they imagined a vast flat sea of waving grass. While there were stretches like that, more often the lay of the land consisted of rolling hills and rises bisected by canyons and washes or towered over by buttes and bluffs.

Grass of different kinds was plentiful but there was also mesquite and the thistle that broke off in strong winds to become tumbleweed and wildflowers and milkweed and clover and wild onion and more. In certain areas at certain times of the year there were sunflowers and coneflowers and plantain and black-eyed Susans.

With such a great feast of plant life, it followed that there was an abundance of wildlife. The huge herds of buffalo were the animals most people thought of when someone mentioned the prairie, but the buffs were but one of many. Deer and a few elk and antelope called the prairie home, too, as did wolves and coyotes and foxes and cougars and a host of lesser animals on which they fed.

It amused Fargo no end that one of the first white men to explore west of the Mississippi River had told everyone it was nothing but a “great desert.” He had to wonder if the man rode around with his eyes closed.

He was reminded of it when, on their second day out of Fort Laramie, Lieutenant Archibald Wright brought his sorrel up to pace him and remarked, “If there is anything more boring than this godforsaken prairie, I have yet to come across it.”

Fargo watched a red hawk wheel high in the sky and heard a sharp whistle and saw prairie dogs scamper down their holes.

“I could never be a scout,” Wright said. “I couldn't take this boredom.”

In the distance antelope took flight in long, graceful bounds.

“How do you manage?” Wright asked.

“I reckon I just like a dull life,” Fargo said.

Lieutenant Wright looked at him and seemed to be contemplating, and then said, “Tell me something. Is it true what Bear River Tom told me, that you lived with the Sioux once?”

“For a short spell,” Fargo confirmed. He'd also lived with the Apaches and others.

“How could you? I mean, given the fact they're Indians?”

“They're people,” Fargo said, “like us.”

“The hell they are,” Wright said. “White and red are as different as night and day. They're savages, for God's sake.”

“And what are we?”

“What kind of question is that? We're civilized. We have laws and government and culture. What do they have?”

“Tribal councils and chiefs and what you call a culture all their own.”

“Be serious. They run around in animal hides and disport themselves like animals.”

“Disport?” Fargo said.

“You know what I mean. They're heathens. They don't believe in God like we do.”

“Ah.”

“Ah what? Don't tell me that when you lived with them you took up their heathen ways?”

“Ever hear of the Great Spirit?” Fargo asked.

“That hogwash the Indians believe in? Yes, the colonel told us about it and said we should try to respect their beliefs if we're to get along with them.”

“Jennings is a good man.”

“If you ask me, he's too weak-kneed,” Wright said. “The Sioux hate us. They don't want to get along with us. They want to drive us out.”

“They were here long before we were.”

“So you're one of
those
,” Wright said. “In that case let me make my own feelings clear. I don't care that they were here first. We're here now, and all this land will one day be ours. We owe it to the settlers who are flocking to the West to make it a decent place to live by keeping the hostiles in check by any means necessary.”

“You'd put them all on reservations, I bet.”

“Of course. Or exterminate those who refuse to go. That's what you do with vermin.”

Fargo controlled his temper enough to say, “There's a lot of hate on both sides. And a lot of stupid.”

“Are you referring to me?”

“If the boot fits.”

“I don't like being insulted. To be honest, the more I get to know of you, the less I understand why Colonel Jennings admires you so.” Wright wheeled his mount and rejoined his men.

Not half a minute later Bear River Tom took his place. “What did you say to get the lieutenant's britches up around his nose? He's back there ready to spit nails.”

“He's a jackass.”

“You know why, don't you?”

“Don't start,” Fargo warned.

“He didn't squeeze enough tits growing up. The more tits a man squeezes, the more mature he is.”

“Do you ever listen to yourself?”

“I never talk to myself, no,” Tom said. “You have to be loco to do that.”

Fargo glanced behind them at the troopers, and stiffened. Half a mile or so back there was a bright flash of light. It was there and it was gone. The kind of flash caused by, say, the sun glinting off metal.

“What?” Bear River Tom said, and shifted in his saddle. “I don't see anything.”

“It could be we're being followed.”

“Hostiles, you reckon?”

“This soon?” Fargo rejoined. He deemed it unlikely that a war party would venture so close to the fort.

“We'll have to find out who. Do you want to flip a coin to see who goes?”

“Me,” Fargo said.

“Why you?”

“I'm in charge.”

“So you get to have fun and I get stuck with the green bluebellies?”

“You'll be a fine nursemaid.”

“Just so I don't have to change their diapers.”

Fargo let another mile go by before he made his move. They had just crested a low hill when he slowed to let Lieutenant Wright come up. “I'm dropping back. Keep going with Tom and I'll catch up.”

“Why are you leaving us?”

Fargo saw no harm in saying, “I think we're being shadowed.”

“By who?”

“I won't know until I see them.” Fargo lifted his reins to go.

“Hold on. You should take a couple of my men with you.”

“No.”

“To back you up.”

“I don't need backing.”

“It's common sense. What if there are more than one? What if something happens to you?”

“I'll be fine.”

“If you ask me,” Wright said, “you're too smug by half. I know you don't think highly of us but we're not incompetent.”

Fargo almost said, “You're damn close to it.” Instead, he replied, “You give orders a lot better than you take them. The colonel said you're to do as I say.”

“Nice of you to remind me every chance you get,” Wright said. “But very well. And if we never see you again, I'll put it in my report that you died due to your own pig- headedness.”

The troopers looked quizzically at Fargo as he rode past.

Private Oleandar Davenport smiled and looked as if he was about to say something but didn't.

Fargo put them from his mind for the time being. He circled around the hill and stopped when he could see their back trail. Dismounting, he shucked his Henry from the saddle scabbard.

A small boulder a stone's throw up the slope was the only cover. It would have to do. He climbed and flattened and took off his hat. Folding his arms, he rested his chin on his wrist and settled down to wait. It shouldn't be long, he reckoned.

It wasn't.

A lone rider appeared, coming on at a walk. Fargo wasn't at all surprised to see who it was.

The killer with the eye patch rode with the casual air of someone at home in the wilds. There was none of the nervousness of the young soldiers. His good eye was bent to the ground, and he held his reins loosely. A rifle butt poked from a scabbard, and he had his knife on his hip.

It annoyed Fargo that Tom had realized the man was a Metis before he had. He couldn't afford lapses like that. They too often proved fatal.

Sliding the Henry past the boulder, he tucked the stock to his shoulder and took a bead. Shooting from ambush didn't bother him, not when the bastard had tried twice to kill him.

Instead of aiming at the head or the heart, though, he centered the Henry's sights on the man's shoulder. He'd like to take him alive and ask a few questions.

The Metis raised his head and regarded the hill, and just like that he reined sharply around and jabbed his heels against his bay.

Fargo swore. The same thing that had given the Metis away earlier—the flash of sunlight off metal—had now given him away. The Henry's brass receiver must have caught the sun just right. He banged off a shot but was sure he missed. Jacking the lever, he pushed to his knees and went to fire again.

Well out from the hill, the Metis performed a feat worthy of a Sioux warrior; he swung onto the side of his bay, hanging by a foot over its back and an arm over its neck.

Fargo aimed at the foot. He might hit the horse but it couldn't be helped. Just as his finger began to tighten, horse and rider disappeared. It was as if the earth swallowed them.

Grabbing his hat, Fargo raced down the hill to the Ovaro. He vaulted into the saddle, hauled on the reins and used his spurs.

A gully explained how the Metis had vanished.

Fargo galloped down into it and along its winding course to where it opened into a stretch of flat prairie. Beyond were hills.

The Metis and the bay were nowhere to be seen.

Fargo made for the hills. He spotted tracks and leaned down for a closer look. The whistle of lead and the crack of a rifle were simultaneous.

Wheeling the Ovaro, Fargo galloped for the gully. The rifle cracked a second time and a slug missed his head, but not by much. Fear spiked in him that the
Metis might try to bring down the Ovaro, and he cut right and then left.

He reached the gully and sprang down. Moving to the rim, he scanned the hills. The man with the eye patch had to be somewhere on the nearest, but if so, he was well hid.

Fargo felt a certain begrudging respect. Whoever this small man was, he was damn good.

Fargo stayed put, hoping the killer would show himself. He got his wish but not in the manner he expected.

The bay and its rider appeared atop the second hill, not the first. Safely out of range, the man with the eye patch raised an arm as if in salute, then turned his animal and rode down the far side.

“I'll be damned,” Fargo said. His respect climbed. This Metis had a flair about him.

Reluctantly, Fargo shoved the Henry into the scabbard and climbed back on the Ovaro. He didn't give chase. It would be pointless. The Metis had too great a lead, and something told him that bay would prove to possess as much stamina as the Ovaro.

Something also told him he hadn't seen the last of them. Sooner or later, that small man with the eye patch would try again.

Lieutenant Wright was a stickler for the manual. He posted a sentry by the horse string even though the horses weren't twenty feet from their campfire. The troopers were to take turns standing watch.

“One good thing about having these kids along,” Bear River Tom remarked to Fargo, “is we get to have a good night's sleep.”

Fargo doubted he'd rest all that easy. Not with the Metis out there somewhere, and liable to sneak in and try to slit his throat in the dead of night.

“I heard that,” Lieutenant Wright said, taking a seat across from them. “And I'll thank you to stop calling my men ‘kids.'”

“Sorry, sonny,” Bear River Tom said. “But when you're not old enough to shave, that's what you are.”

“I'll have you know I shave twice a week whether I need to or not.”

“That often, huh?”

Wright focused on Fargo. “Tell me more about this one-eyed killer.”

“You know as much as I do.”

“Which is nothing,” Wright said. “You're supposed to be one of the best plainsmen alive. How could he get away from you?”

“It happens,” Fargo said.

“I hate to think we'll have him on our trail all the way to the Black Hills,” Wright complained. “Surely you can come up with a way to catch him.”

“I'm working on it.”

“What I don't savvy,” Bear River Tom said, “is how the Metis are involved with those settlers who have gone missing.”

Neither did Fargo. The Metis rarely visited towns or settlements. Considered outcasts because of their mixed blood, they kept to themselves. They dealt more with the Indians than with whites, trading for hides and sometimes plunder. But according to Captain Calhoun's report to the colonel, the settlement hadn't been raided.

“So much for the great scouts,” Lieutenant Wright remarked.

“Keep it up, sonny,” Bear River Tom said, “and you'll be eating teeth.”

“Anytime you want to try, tit fiend, feel free,” Lieutenant Wright said.

Tom blinked. “What did you just call me?”

“Tit fiend,” Fargo said.

“That I did,” Wright said. “And it's only fair to warn you that I was the top of my class in the fine art of boxing.”

“A scrawny runt like you?” Bear River Tom scoffed.

Lieutenant Wright jumped to his feet and raised his fists. “I'll thrash you here and now if you dare try me.”

“Sit down,” Fargo said.

“I will not.” Wright moved around the fire until he was only a step away from Tom. “I've had enough of you two looking down your noses at me. I challenge this lout to a fight.”

“Now, Archibald . . .” Tom said with a smirk.

“Archibald
this
,” Wright snapped, and stabbed the toe of his left boot at the ground. Dirt flew up, not a lot, but it caught Bear River Tom flush in the face, causing him to turn his face away.

“You damned pup.”

“Stand and fight.”

Fargo was dumbfounded, and he wasn't the only one. The troopers sitting a few yards away were slack-jawed and wide-eyed.

“Lieutenant,” Private Davenport made bold to say, “what on earth has gotten into you?”

“I have been belittled long enough,” Wright said without looking at him. “And you and the others will keep silent and not interfere. Is that understood?” He gestured at Tom. “On your feet, bumpkin.”

“First I'm a tit fiend and now I'm a bumpkin. Make up your puny mind.”

“I'll show you puny,” Lieutenant Wright said.

Bear River Tom turned to Fargo. “It's up to you, pard. Can I or can't I?”

“You can,” Fargo said.

Bear River Tom set down his rifle and rose. He stood a good head and shoulders over the lieutenant and outweighed him by at least fifty pounds, but Wright didn't seem to care. “Boy, I've whipped bigger men than you without half trying.”

“You'll have to try with me,” Wright said. “Raise your fists and defend yourself.”

“I don't go in for that fancy stuff,” Bear River Tom said. “Whenever you want this dance to commence, get to hopping.”

“Don't expect me to go easy on you just because you're ignorant of the science of fisticuffs.”

“You know where you can shove your science, boy?”

“Stop calling me
boy
,” Lieutenant Wright cried, and waded in with his bony fists flying.

Bear River Tom just stood there. A left connected with his cheek and a right whipped into his stomach. All he did was wince. “Is that the best you can do?”

Archibald Wright lost control. With a half growl, half scream, he waded in again.

Tom got an arm up but he didn't make any great effort to avoid the rain of blows. He grunted when an uppercut clipped his jaw and again when Wright slammed him in the ribs. When Wright stepped back, he was the one breathing heavily.

“Not bad, youngster,” Bear River Tom said, rubbing his side. “Some of them stung.”

Wright looked at his fists and then at Tom. “This can't be. What are you made of?”

“Flesh and bone, boy.”

“I told you to stop calling me that.” Wright sprang and cocked his right arm but before the blow could land, Bear River Tom unleashed a backhand that caught Wright full in the face and knocked him flat on his back.

“Stay down, pup,” Tom said. “I don't want to hurt you.”

Rubbing his chin, Wright looked up in amazement. “I hit you with all I had.”

“It's not how a man hits,” Tom said, “it's how much he can take.” He extended his hand. “Here. I'll help you up.”

Anger and bewilderment had Wright confused. He let himself be pulled to his feet, and shook his head. “I've never been so humiliated.”

“You've got nothing to be ashamed of,” Bear River Tom said. “Give yourself a few years and you'll be someone to be reckoned with.”

“Don't patronize me.”

“Hell, I don't even know what that means.” Tom chuckled and clapped the lieutenant on the arm. “I'm only saying that tough trumps everything else. Look at the Apaches. Or look at him.” Tom pointed at Fargo.

“Are you saying he's tougher than you?”

“Fargo there is the toughest son of a bitch I know, and that's saying a lot. If you'd pulled your stunt with him, you'd be spitting teeth.”

Wright frowned and his shoulders slumped. “I've been made a fool of in front of my men.”

“That's one way of looking at it.”

“What's another?”

“That you learned an important lesson,” Bear River Tom said. “A man has to know his limits. Now you know yours like I know mine.”

“What about him?” Wright asked with a nod at Fargo. “What are his limits?”

“He doesn't have any.”

Wright scowled and said, “He doesn't seem so formidable to me.”

“Take a swing at him, then,” Bear River Tom said, “and see what happens.”

Lieutenant Archibald Wright stared into Fargo's eyes and slowly shook his head. “No, I don't believe I will. I need these teeth to chew my food.”

Bear River Tom grinned. “There's hope for you yet, Archie.”