Kiowa Vengeance (8 page)

Pettibone’s hand dropped to his weapon, but
Harlan Graves restrained him firmly.

Quick went outside, mounted up, and rode
away. He half-expected a bullet in his back, but none came.

At least, not yet.

***

Quick kept a close eye on his back trail. It
did not surprise him to discover, after traveling only a few miles,
that he was being followed. In fact, it would have amazed him if he
had not been. He was pretty sure there were two of them. They were
keeping a significant distance, of course, taking great pains to
avoid detection; but Sampson Quick had an uncanny knack at reading
everything in the land around him. One might say he had the eye of
an artist.

Even Quick was not able to identify them at
this distance, of course. He knew that Clay Pettibone would be
one—probably accompanied by one of the Keene brothers. Quick was
not sure which of the Keenes he would have laid money on to betray
him. If forced to bet, he would have placed a marker on them
both.

While scanning the horizon, Quick realized
that the breaks around him had a somber beauty all their own. The
gulleys and shallow ravines cut through the land, evoking the
interruptions and challenges that had broken the landscape of his
own life.

Sampson Quick dismounted and hobbled his
horse. He took off his gunbelt and hung it from the saddle horn,
retrieved the tools he needed from his saddlebags, and began to
draw.

***

Chester Keene rode slowly toward his
longtime boss. It almost seemed a shame to end things this way, but
the die was cast. A change had to be made in how the Hounds did
things, he saw that now, and sentimental ties to the past had no
place on the outlaw trail.

Pettibone had not ridden up with him, but
had rather taken a position with his rifle. “In case he makes a
break and gets past you,” the old guerrilla had said, but Chester
suspected it was fear of Quick’s fast gun.

He need not have worried. Quick was proving
even now that they had been right—he had lost his touch, and was no
longer fit to command. The celebrated highwayman stood with his
back to them, oblivious to the world, lost in his artwork. He had a
cleaning rag in one hand and a charcoal pencil in the other—and the
fool had left his gun on his saddle.

“Pettibone was right, Sam,” Chester called
out as he rode close. “Them pretty pictures of yours are liable to
be the death of you.”

Quick seemed startled, but regained his
composure in a heartbeat.

“Chester,” he said. “I didn’t hear you ride
up. What brings you out here?”

Chester reined in. “Well, Sam, it’s like
this. First we remembered you most likely had some cash on you from
that painting you made in Wichita, which you never offered to share
with us. And then we remembered that five hundred dollar bounty on
your head. Seemed like bad business to let you just ride off.”

“So they sent you to kill me?” Quick said.
“I didn’t think Tom and Harlan would do that. In fact, I counted on
them to stop the rest of you from shooting me in the back as I rode
away.”

“Didn’t nobody send me,” Chester said, and
then he shrugged. “But then on the other hand, didn’t nobody stand
in my way, neither. It’s just business, you understand.”

Quick nodded. “I understand, all right. I
suppose it is fortunate, then, that I was just finishing my
drawing—considering it is fated to be my last.”

He nodded toward the easel. “Since you are
to be my final audience, Chester—and since we have been comrades
all these years—the least you could do is take a quick look at my
opus ultimo and tell me if you like it.”

Chester leaned forward in the saddle,
reluctantly, and squinted at the paper. He recognized the breaks
around them. He also saw a man standing at an easel, a tiny gun in
his hand, shooting another man off a horse. Chester’s heart
fell.

His eyes darted back to Sampson Quick. With
a flick of his wrist, the artist sent the cleaning rag that had
covered his left hand flying away. The hand it revealed held a
four-barreled Derringer, pointed straight at Chester’s face. Its
flash was the last thing Chester Keene ever saw.

As Chester’s body fell to the ground, Quick
ran underneath it and scooped his dead opponent’s revolver from its
holster with one hand while the other grabbed at the reins of
Chester’s horse. A bullet kicked up dust where Quick’s feet had
been while he swung into the saddle.

The highwayman hung low on the neck of his
confiscated mount as more bullets whizzed through the air around
him. Quick galloped straight into the source of the gunfire.

As Quick had gambled, Pettibone was unnerved
and beat a hasty retreat. The old guerrilla did, however, take time
to send several more wild shots at his pursuer.

Quick was confident that he had a chance of
catching his quarry—but one of Pettibone’s bullets plowed home into
the shoulder of Chester Keene’s horse. The roan balked, almost
collapsing. Pettibone disappeared over a small rise.

It seemed that the miscreant was going to
escape after all, Quick thought. But there would be another time,
he would make sure of it.

Then he heard gunfire over the rise. A lot
of it. He urged the wounded roan cautiously forward until he could
see what was going on.

Pettibone had barreled straight into an
Indian war party—probably Kiowa. They had surrounded him, and were
pulling him—kicking and screaming—from his horse.

They were too preoccupied to notice Quick,
and he took full advantage of it. He had been fully prepared to
blow Pettibone’s brains out—but he didn’t wish torture on him. Even
so, Quick hoped desperately that if they did decide to work on
Pettibone awhile before they killed him, they’d take their time at
it and give him a nice head-start on them.

He spurred the poor roan into a gallop. He
hated to do it—the beast was no doubt in awful pain—but his own
safety was paramount.

The horse was wheezing horribly by the time
they got back to Quick’s impromptu camp. He fairly leaped out of
the saddle. He drew out his knife and cut the suffering animal’s
throat—he could not risk a gunshot.

Sampson Quick gathered his art supplies and
packed them rapidly away, unhobbled his own horse, and climbed into
the saddle.

Then he rode like hell.

***

He had put several miles between himself and
the war party—and hopefully they were still unaware of his
existence—when he came upon the stragglers.

Four people on foot, in the middle of the
prairie. Quick was tempted to leave them to their own devices, but
then he saw that one of them was a woman. He was still tempted to
leave them—but only for a moment. His chivalry quickly got the best
of him. Which was part of the reason, he had to admit to himself,
that he was now an outlaw leader without a gang. He trotted up to
them.

“Hallo!” he called. “Gentlemen—and lady—if
you have not reached the conclusion already, it is a damned poor
day for a stroll!”

“We figured that part out,” the tallest of
the men said. “But we didn’t have much choice. A band of Kiowa
attacked the stage to Wolf Creek—killed the driver and the shotgun,
and all the horses. We fought them off, and we’re lucky to be
standing, let alone walking.”

“Yes, I ran across them myself, earlier,”
Quick said. “Or some of their comrades. So you are all on your way
to Wolf Creek?”

The tall man nodded.

“So am I,” Quick said. “It is where I
presently hang my hat. But it is a bit of a walk.”

“We’re headed for the Manning ranch right
now,” said another passenger, a wisp of a man. “It’s only a few
miles away.”

“Then perhaps we should travel together,”
Quick said, and dismounted. “James Reginald De Courcey, at your
service.” He extended a hand, and the tall man shook it firmly.

“Dave Benteen,” he announced. “I’m opening a
gunsmith shop in Wolf Creek.”

“Lester Weatherby,” the third male passenger
said. “Salesman of fine whiskey.”

“An excellent addition to our hardy band,”
Quick told him. “I am pleased to meet you, gentlemen.”

Then the wiry one caught his eye. Seeing the
man at close range made the highwayman realize he was vaguely
familiar.

“I’ve seen you before,” Quick said. “But I
can’t recall where.”

“Probably around town. I’ve been in Wolf
Creek a few months now—I’m John Hix. I’m a barber. But you ain’t
been in my shop—we must have seen each other in the street, is all
I can think of.”

Quick nodded, and shook the man’s hand, but
was unconvinced. Quick had only been in Wolf Creek once, just long
enough to pay rent for his studio and set it up. He had seen the
barber somewhere else, and not recently. It would come to him.

For now, there was a lovely young lady
present.

“And your name, dear lady?” Quick said.

“Cora Sloane. I’m the new
schoolteacher.”

She extended her hand, and Quick kissed it
gallantly. “
Enchanté
. Your obvious grace will be much
welcome in our little town. I knew your predecessor, if only in
passing—her loss was a tragedy.”

Quick waved his arm toward his horse.

“Miss Sloane, your ride awaits. I’m sure
your feet must be throbbing.”

“Thank you so much, Mister—Courcey, was
it?”

“De Courcey, madam.” He clasped his hands,
inviting her to step into them, and assisted her into the
saddle.

“Let us not waste time, dear friends,” Quick
said, “for our red foes travel with alacrity. On to the Manning
ranch.” He gestured at the barber. “Lay on, MacDuff. Cursed be the
first to cry hold, and all that.”

“My name is Hix.”

“Indeed it is, sir.”

They started walking.

CHAPTER FOUR

Captain Dent’s troop found the buffalo
hunters late in the afternoon. They saw the buzzards long before
they could make out the bodies.

Of course, it was difficult to identify them
as buffalo hunters, or as anything else, at first. They had been
stripped naked, scalped, and mutilated. There was no sign of
clothing or equipment to identify them, save the Sharp’s buffalo
rifle that lay in the grass a few yards away. The barrel was packed
full of dirt, and the stock was broken off.

Charley Blackfeather squatted beside the
ruined weapon, turned it over in his hands, and grunted.

“This was a damn good buffalo gun,” he said.
“Most anybody that came across one of these would snatch it
up—white, black, or red. But somebody busted the hell out of
it.”

“Busted the hell out of them fellers that
carried it, too, I’d say,” Trooper Amos commented in his Tennessee
twang.

Charley nodded. “That part makes sense,” he
said. “If you get ahold of an enemy, especially one you hate, you
make him suffer—the more he suffers, the more medicine you get from
his death.”

Trooper Klein chuckled nervously. “You talk
like you’re speaking from experience.”

Charley stared at the man, his face
impassive—but inwardly he was amused by how much more nervous Klein
became under his scrutiny. How nervous would the soldier be,
Charley wondered, if he knew how many men the Black Seminole had
put under the knife in the Florida swamps of his youth? Men in
uniforms much like Klein’s. Or the men in gray, for that matter,
that Charley had worked on when he, himself, was the one in
blue?

After several seconds, a broad smile grew on
Charley’s face. Klein gulped.

“Like I said,” Charley continued. “That’s
normal enough. But bustin’ up a perfectly good rifle? You don’t see
that often. It seems like the Kiowas took a dim view of these men’s
profession.”

Sergeant Nagy was bent over one of the
corpses. He rolled it over and examined its features.

“Don’t look familiar,” the wiry Hungarian
said.

“That’s Culley Bartlett,” Charley said. “And
the skinny one would be Les Forman.”

“You ain’t even looked at their faces,” Amos
said.

“Don’t have to.” Charley stood up, the
broken rifle stock in his hand. He pointed at it. “I can see the
mark scratched into the patchbox of this Sharps. I’ve seen it
before, when they came into Wolf Creek to trade in their furs at
Casto Haston’s tannery. Seen ‘em a couple of different times.
Culley carried this rifle—he done the shootin’, and Les done the
skinnin’.”

Captain Dent walked over and looked at the
stock. A crude
B
was carved into the metal patchbox.

“
B
for Bartlett,” Dent said. “Makes
sense.”

Charley shrugged. “I never learned to read
sign in books, so I wouldn’t know.”

“Well, you can read sign on the land
better’n anybody I ever seen,” Amos said. “So don’t let that bother
you none. They’s lots of us don’t know how to read and write, we
still get along.”

Charley regarded the rangy Tennessean as the
man took off his hat and ran fingers through thin, black hair. The
fact that Charley was illiterate actually did not bother the scout
at all, he had merely stated a fact. It was never too late to
learn, if a person was of a mind to, but the Seminole saw little
need—Amos was right, he managed fine without it. Charley chose not
to correct the man, though, for he knew the trooper had good
intentions. He and Amos had seen the elephant together more than
once; he was a good soldier, and Charley respected him. It didn’t
hurt that, as an East Tennessean, Amos had been a good Union man in
the war. Charley flashed him a smile much different than the one he
had given Klein earlier.

“I reckon you right,” Charley told Amos. “We
get along just fine.” He realized now that it was Amos who was
ashamed of his own illiteracy, and was trying not to show it.
Charley looked at the darkening sky. “But even I can’t read sign in
the dark,” he said.

Dent nodded. “We may as well make camp
here.”