Kiowa Vengeance (4 page)

“Not disturb the locals in Dogleg City as
they go about their pursuits,” Dent finished. The sergeant nodded
sagely, obviously pleased his commander understood how much trouble
they would cause for their small troop if the soldiers found
100-proof popskull and nickel whores this early in the day. “See to
establishing the camp,” Captain Dent ordered. “I have to talk to
the local lawman and warn him of the possible trouble brewing.”

“You might want to find a fellow to scout,
too,” Corporal Sligo said. “The best we have now makes Wolf Creek
his place of habitation.”

“Charley Blackfeather,” said the captain. He
smiled wryly. “Don’t worry, corporal, I know the right man for this
job.” He didn’t bother telling his sergeant that Lieutenant-Colonel
Vine had ordered him to recruit the half-breed. Even if the
commander of Fort Braxton hadn’t given the order, Dent would have
sought out Blackfeather. There hadn’t been a single man he had
inquired after that hadn’t sung the scout’s praises, some
reluctantly, others loudly, but all had been impressed with the
Black Seminole’s skills. Dent had learned, in dealing with the
scout, that they were all correct.

He felt a moment of satisfaction in having
such experienced noncommissioned officers. Nagy had fought in more
wars than he could count, and Sligo was not far behind—the latter
had made sergeant more than once, but a fiery temper kept getting
him busted back. The two of them maintained a firm grip on the
company. The men were always ready to travel—or fight—and the only
grousing he overheard was half-hearted, not bitter. Sergeant Nagy
would get the troopers to a camp west of town away from trouble,
and Dent would ride straight in from the north to sound the
warning. He tapped his heels against his mare’s flanks and trotted
off from his command. Advancing by himself proved a relief. He
managed to wiggle and scratch and rub his hindquarters as necessary
without fear of the men under his command thinking less of him.

As he approached the northern scattering of
Wolf Creek’s buildings, his keen brown eyes began looking for
defensive points, places to fortify, where to abandon in favor of
stronger bulwarks. By the time he rode past the AT&SF depot on
Fourth Street, his back was straight, his shoulders square, and the
pain in his butt a distant ache. Beyond the telegraph office he
caught the beguiling fragrance of bread baking at the store on the
corner of Fourth and Lincoln. It reminded him of Molly’s bread, but
this couldn’t be half as tasty. His wife’s recipe had been handed
down for generations, and her German mother had been about the best
cook Dent had ever found. Except for her daughter. Dent experienced
a momentary pang. He wanted to see his wife and their three
children again, but Fort Braxton might as well have been on the
other side of the world. Sometimes he wondered if Colonel Vine had
it better than he did, or worse—the colonel’s wife and children
refused to join him at his frontier outpost, preferring to remain
in Washington.

Steeling himself against memory and the
delicious scent of fresh bread, Dent was once more the dashing
cavalry officer, not the family man. The sheriff’s office at
Washington Street was still a relief, giving him an excuse to
dismount.

***

Wil Marsh stared at the picture of Mrs.
Pettigrew, nakedly revealing acres of bare flesh. A thin smile came
to his lips, then he gripped the middle of the print at the top and
carefully tore the photograph in half. Her face and one breast,
along with ample leg almost to the thigh, glistened on the print.
He crumpled the other half and threw it aside, then placed the half
photograph between two sheets of paper he had ripped off a roll of
newsprint when David Appleford wasn’t looking. Blotting the last of
the fixer from the photograph, he tucked it under his arm and set
out for the office of the
Wolf Creek Expositor
. Appleford
would be hard at work setting type for the next day’s edition and
would likely be alone in his shop at the corner of Third and
Lincoln.

The morning was blossoming like some
diseased flower. The sunlight filtering through storm clouds that
had sprung up quickly on the eastern horizon carried a peculiar
butterscotch hue to it that Marsh loathed. Photographing in such
ambient light always proved difficult, not that he had any work at
the moment. Portrait work proved elusive lately, and Elijah Gravely
at the funeral home hadn’t come on any likely candidates for a
photograph in the past month. Families losing small children
usually wanted a keepsake to remember the deceased.

Marsh had taken more than one photograph of
a child a year or younger who had died. Gravely gussied up the ones
that died from disease. Others had simply . . . died.

If commerce didn’t pick up soon, Marsh
feared he would have to help along the natural course of life—and
death. Photographs of a dead child, especially a son, could earn
him ten dollars or more. And that was after splitting the fee with
Gravely.

He saw that the door to the
Wolf Creek
Expositor
was propped open in the vain hope of a vagrant
morning breeze to whisk away the interior heat. Poking his head
inside, he saw Appleford bent over his desk, tiny bins of lead type
stretching up in front of him. The man labored quickly, cursing
quietly as he worked.

“You’re running out of E’s,” Marsh called.
He kept from laughing as Appleford jerked bolt upright, sending
lead type dancing across the floor.

“Don’t do that, Wil,” the editor said.
“Knock first. It’s only polite.”

“You know I’m not the polite sort.”

“You sweet talk all the women in town. Save
some of that politeness for your dealings with everyone else.”

Marsh stepped into the shop and closed the
door behind him. Appleford started to protest the cessation of even
the tiny zephyr and then clamped his mouth shut. Marsh enjoyed the
slow peeling back of the newsprint on the photograph, the gradual
revelation of the photograph, the surge of lust so quickly masked
as Appleford recognized Mrs. Pettigrew.

“I have another one for you. Better than all
the others. Much better.”

“There’s only half there,” complained
Appleford. He licked his lips. As much as anything else, Marsh
enjoyed this part of the negotiation.

Both of them knew how Appleford lusted after
the widow. Just as both of them knew he was married and unlikely to
ever gain a divorce, not when divorcing the daughter of a pastor
out in Wichita would destroy his reputation. Appleford might as
well nail boards across the
Wolf Creek Expositor’
s windows
and take the train west, never to be seen again.

But lusting after Edith Pettigrew in a
photograph? That was something to do in private, away from the
wife, her pastor father and polite society.

Marsh almost laughed. “Away from polite
society.” He was anything but polite. And he furnished the blue
photographs.

“How much?”

“Ten dollars for this half. Another ten for
the entire photograph.”

“Twenty! You road agent! You thief!
You—”

“It’ll take me a few days to get the entire
photograph. I don’t suppose you want this—for ten dollars
now—rather than waiting for the entire photograph later?” He knew
Appleford would rip his intestines out and strangle him with them
if he tried to deny him his photograph. His
half
photograph.

“All right, all right, you robber. You son
of a bitch.” Appleford went to his desk, unlocked the center drawer
and took out a thin wad of greenbacks.

“Specie,” Marsh said. “Paper money’s not
something that travels well outside of Kansas.”

“Where are you going?” Appleford asked
suspiciously.

“Wherever I have to go if you need
photographs for your newspaper. You have any work for me?”

Marsh’s disappointment rose when the editor
shook his head. Appleford pawed through the desk and found ten
silver dollars. He dropped them one by one on his desktop. From his
expression he might as well have been leaking his life’s blood.
Marsh placed the torn photograph back between the sheets of
newsprint and laid the discreet package on the desk, then carefully
slid the cartwheels off one by one, as if counting them to be sure
of Appleford’s arithmetic. He tucked them into his vest pocket,
where they made a satisfying bulge.

“In a week?” Appleford asked.

“Sooner,” Marsh said.

“Good. Now skedaddle. I have work to do.”
Appleford’s eyes darted to the hidden photograph.

“Work before pleasure,” Marsh said, slipping
from the office with a broad grin on his face. He didn’t bother
leaving the door open to the fitful, humid breeze. He knew
Appleford’s dedication to the next edition would fade in a few
seconds as he thought more of setting his gaze on Edith’s bare
limbs and bare, swelling bosom.

Marsh straightened his vest and brushed off
his coat. It was threadbare, and stains from his photographic
chemicals turned to outright burn holes, but he strutted along like
a prince. His head held high and the morning breeze stroking
through his sparse blond hair like a feathery comb, he made his way
toward the laundry owned by Li Wong. With the way his luck ran so
far, Marsh figured good fortune would stay with him long enough to
ensure Li wasn’t in the laundry but his lovely daughter Jing Jing
was. She fancied him almost as much as he did her exotic beauty, he
could tell. If only her father would stop watching her like a hawk.
. . .

“You go away. Run, run!”

Marsh reached for the bone-handled short
knife he kept sheathed at the small of his back, then stopped.
Killing Li Wong would be satisfying, but his daughter would never
have anything more to do with him if he did.

“She too young for you! Go away, picture
man!” Li Wong waved his broom about, then began thrusting the
handle in Marsh’s direction as he tried to poke him in the gut.

Marsh let his fingers slip across the slick
bone handle and then come away empty.

“Top of the morning to you, Mister Li,” he
said, staying just beyond the Celestial’s range with the broom
handle. “Is my laundry ready?”

“You no leave laundry,” Li cried, moving to
stand sentry at the door to his laundry. He placed the broom in the
crook of his left arm, a soldier standing guard. “I tear it all up
if you do! You not to see Jing Jing—ever!”

“I’m sure I left some. Shirts to be washed
and starched.”

“You go! Go or I call Sheriff
Satterlee!”

“If you send Jing Jing to fetch him, I’ll be
happy to accompany her.” Marsh shouldn’t nettle Li this way, but he
couldn’t help himself. He jumped away as the short man charged for
him.

Marsh avoided several powerful thrusts with
the tip of the broom, then kept walking. The money in his vest
pocket was burning a hole there. Ten dollars. With that much more
to come.

He turned west on South Street, saw that
Gravely had yet to open the funeral parlor for the day, glanced
south down Second Street toward the Lucky Break Saloon where
business was already brisk. But he had scant taste for whiskey. An
occasional beer was all he partook of. Marsh walked on until he
reached First Street where he could see the Mt. Pisgah Methodist
Church. The parsonage was immediately to the south. He walked past
it, as if a single footstep might bring Pastor Hyder rushing out to
berate him.

Marsh stopped at the whitewashed gate on the
path leading to the church’s main door. He looked around. Unlike
the saloon, it was still too early for these parishioners to
congregate. He opened the gate slowly, knowing the pastor needed to
oil the hinges. He didn’t want a squeak betraying him. The gate
grated open, and he slipped through quickly, leaving it ajar so he
could beat a hasty retreat.

Steps quick, he went to the front doors and
gripped the handle. A slow turn, a shove and the dim interior
beckoned to him. Marsh ducked in, turned to his right and saw the
poor box. Hands shaking just a little, he lifted the lid and peered
in. Six dollars rested inside, money that went to help orphans. He
knew. He had asked around town repeatedly, and everyone he had
interrogated said Pastor Hyder reserved the money for orphans, then
the indigent if the homeless children had been properly taken care
of.

His trembling fingers traced around the rims
of the coins, then quicker than a striking rattler, he took six of
the silver dollars he had received from Appleford and added them to
those in the box. Carefully stacking the additional coins on those
already in the box, he studied the small two-coin towers for a
moment, then closed the lid. It wasn’t much but made up for some of
his sins.

He paused at the door, wondering how much he
had to leave for the orphans before his guilt was expiated. It had
been twelve years of donations, and he still felt the need, the
psychic burden after doing what it took for him to stay alive.

A sudden noise at the church’s altar sent
him scurrying away like a rat. Marsh darted through the gate and
didn’t try to prevent it from squeaking on the rusty hinges as he
closed it. Stride long and his heart trip-hammering, he walked
north along First Street. He slowed as a cavalry soldier galloped
past him, coming from points south, then made a quick turn east a
few blocks away along Washington. The only place the soldier might
be heading with such grim determination was Sheriff Satterlee’s
office.

Marsh broke into a run to find out what was
going on.

***

The coffee was so bad it threatened to close
Captain Dent’s throat. He took another sip, keeping his face as
neutral as possible so as not to insult Sheriff Satterlee.

“Tastes like shit, I know,” the sheriff
said. He took a sip of his own coffee and made a face. “Damned near
puked my guts out first time I drank some, but it grows on you.” He
smiled crookedly and added, “‘Course, you can always cut it off
with a knife if it gets to growin’ too fast.”