Lynch (2 page)

Her cheeks colored slightly. “Half. My mama was Cheyenne.”

“No shame in that,” Pearl smiled gently. “My grandma was Cherokee.”

He was suddenly aware of just how wretched he must look, with his unshaven jaw and filthy hair. He returned the gun to its holster, its voice strangely silent for the first time in years.

“What's your name, gal?” he rasped.

“Katie. Katie Small Dove.”

“That's a right pretty name.” He cocked his head to one side. “You ain't scared of me, are you?”

“No, sir. I ain't.”

“Why is that? You know who I am—what I done?”

“Yes, sir, I know all them things. But I still ain't scared of you. I seen bad men before—more than my share. I know what they're like, and you ain't like them. I seen how you tried to keep from havin' to kill that boy. A bad man—a real bad man—wouldn't have bothered with that. He'd have shot that boy soon as look at him. So's that's why I ain't scared. Leastwise not for myself. I'm more scared for you than of you.”

Pearl smiled and got up from the chair, motioning for her to take his place. “Come sit and visit with me a while, Katie. It's been a long time since I talked to anyone with horse sense.”

She glanced over her shoulder. “I got work I need to do.…”

“Pretty please? With sugar on top?”

Katie giggled. It was a sweet, natural sound, like birdsong in the trees. “I guess I can talk for a lit'l while, mister,” she said, stepping into the room.

“Call me Johnny,” he said.

“All right—Johnny,” she replied, beaming him a smile that could raise the dead.

Chapter Three

It was autumn, and even though the days were still warm, it didn't take a trained eye to spot winter approaching. The last couple of mornings Pearl had awoken to find a thin skin of ice covering the rain barrel outside the cabin door, and frost in the shadow of the rocks.

It had been over a year since Johnny Pearl did something he had never thought possible—traded in the black garb of the gunslinger for the buckskins and homespun of a settler. And he had yet to regret one minute of a single day since then, despite the long hours and hard work.

He could take no credit for his rebirth; it was all Katie's doing. She was the one who had given him the strength and incentive to turn his feet from the destructive path he had walked so long. Her love had raised him up from the shadows, just as Jesus brought Lazarus back from the Land of the Dead. Pearl had given himself up for lost, but she still managed to guide him back to the land of the living, the land of hope. She was a miracle worker, that woman.

Although there was no proper preacher to be had, Johnny Pearl considered Katie joined to him as surely as Eve had been to Adam. Since there was no preacher to be had, they had ridden into the foothills one day, and, when their horses had climbed as high as they could go, Pearl took her hand in his and shouted up at the sky: “Lord! This here's Johnny Pearl! I'm taking Katie Small Dove for my wife!” He figured that was probably as official as they could get, given the circumstances.

Now that Katie was carrying their first child, Pearl felt as if he had been blessed by God Himself. For the first time since the war had come into his life, he could look to the future and see something besides smoke and ashes. As a symbol of his rebirth, he took his old clothes and the pearl-handled pistol and buried them underneath the cabin's flagstones.

When Katie asked him why he didn't just burn the clothes and throw the gun in the river, he shook his head. “I'm not proud of what I used to be, but there's no denying it, either. I need to be reminded of what I was once was so I won't turn back into it again.”

He and Katie made their home in a cabin abandoned by a faint-hearted settler, and their closest neighbor was ten miles away, the nearest town nearly a hundred. All of which was fine and dandy, as far as Pearl was concerned. Their existence was humble but adequate; Katie tended a small garden near the cabin—mostly corn and squash—while he ranged for antelope, shorthorn and rabbit. For those few items they couldn't make themselves, Pearl took bear, coyote and panther skins with him on his rare trips into town.

However, just because their nearest white neighbor was a two-hour ride away, that didn't mean they were total recluses. They received occasional visits from some of Katie's Indian relatives, one of her favorites being her elder cousin, Ohkom Kakit, known to the whites as Little Wolf.

Little Wolf was a respected war chief among the Cheyenne, which guaranteed the Pearls a certain amount of protection—at least from the natives. It wasn't an easy life, but it was a free one, and for that Johnny Pearl was thankful. He had never thought he would settle down the way he had, but damned if every evening he couldn't be found sitting on the modest porch of his cabin, enjoying a quiet smoke as he contemplated the land as the sun went down.

He had the river running at his door, the rolling expanse of the plains on one hand, the mountains stretched out like sleeping giants on the other, and a sky like a great blue bowl turned upside down overhead. How could he not look out on all that and not think that this was indeed the best of all worlds, these the finest of all days, and that it would never end?

He was wrong, of course.

They appeared without warning—a neat trick, given the terrain—while Pearl was busy chopping wood. One minute he was by himself, the next he was surrounded by snorting, stamping ponies. Normally a settler on the high plains would be alarmed by the sight of several armed Cheyenne warriors, but Johnny Pearl merely smiled in recognition.

“Greetings, cousin,” he said, setting aside his axe so none of the braves accompanying his wife's kinsman might get the wrong idea.

“Greetings, Johnny Pearl,” Little Wolf responded.

There was something in the old chief's voice that gave him pause. Pearl glanced at the assembled Cheyenne. Even though their skin was darker and their uniforms different, he still knew soldiers when he saw them.

Katie emerged from the cabin, wiping cornmeal from her hands. “To what do we owe the honor of this visit,
Ohkom Kakit
?” she asked.

Little Wolf shook his head. “This is no visit, Small Dove. I come to warn you.”

Johnny frowned and put his arm about his wife's shoulder. “Warn us? About what?”

Little Wolf glanced at his men, and then took a deep breath. “Three moons past there was a great battle between the white man and the red man along the Greasy Grass.”

“You mean Custer,” Johnny Pearl said grimly. “I heard tell of it last time I was in town.”

“Yes. The yellow-hair,” Little Wolf nodded. “It was a great victory for the Cheyenne and the Sioux. We counted great coup against the pony soldiers.”

“You were there?” Pearl asked in surprise.

Little Wolf nodded and smiled crookedly, trying to keep his pride from showing. “It was a great fight. But now the whites are angry and seek to hunt us down and punish us for this thing.”

“The U.S. Army don't take kindly to gettin' whupped,” Pearl sighed. “I can tell you that first-hand.”

“The pony soldiers are rounding up all Cheyenne, all Sioux—warriors, women, children, grandfathers—all of us! They seek to lock us away from our hunting grounds and our sacred places as punishment for daring to fight. They will try and take Katie away from you, Johnny Pearl.”

“Why would they do that? She ain't full-blooded. Besides, she's my wife.”

“Perhaps you are right, Johnny Pearl,” Little Wolf conceded. “You know the mind of your people better than I do. But you would be wise to leave this place and come with us. We are headed for Dull Knife's village. There we stand a better chance against the pony soldiers when they come.”

“We appreciate the concern, Little Wolf,” Pearl said. “But we're staying put. Besides, Katie is in no condition to travel.” He smiled and patted his wife's swollen belly.

“All the more reason to leave,” Little Wolf frowned.

Katie glanced anxiously at her husband but said nothing. Seeing the fear in his kinswoman's eyes, the Cheyenne chief's grim demeanor softened.

“Do not be frightened, little cousin. Your husband is a good man and a fine warrior. Farewell, blood-of-my-blood. And many blessings on your child.”

“I thank you,
Ohkom Kakit
, “Katie replied, blinking back a tear. “You're welcome to stay here as long as you like.”

Little Wolf shook his head and pointed to the clear, cloudless sky on the horizon. “We must go. There is a storm coming.”

Two days after Little Wolf and his followers left, the storm arrived.

It wasn't a storm that brought with it thunder and high winds and hailstones. No, the storm that bore down of Johnny and Katie Pearl was a mortal one—the kind that rains fire and hot lead.

Pearl had just finished milking the nanny goat and was bringing the pail into the house when the thunder rose through this boots. It had been a long time since he last felt anything like that—but it wasn't something a man could forget. Many men on horseback were coming their way—riding hard.

Katie was in the front yard, throwing feed to the chickens. When she saw the look in her husband's eyes, she let her apron drop and ran into the cabin, re-emerging seconds later with the carbine.

“Git in th' house and stay there!” Pearl ordered as he loaded the Winchester.

Katie hesitated, placing a hand on her husband's arm. “Perhaps it is only my cousin.…”

Pearl shook his head, his mouth set in a grim line. “Whoever they are, they ain't Cheyenne!” Katie gave his arm one last squeeze and disappeared inside the cabin just as a horse cleared the rise.

Most whites in the Wyoming and Dakota territories heaved a sigh of relief when they saw the U.S. Cavalry. Johnny Pearl wasn't one of them. He'd spent too many years shooting at blue uniforms—and being shot at by them—to find their presence comforting. He watched uneasily as the squadron of troopers, roughly thirty in all, made its way toward his cabin. As the soldiers drew closer, Pearl stepped off the porch into the dooryard but did not lower his weapon.

The squadron's scout trotted his mount forward to where Pearl was standing, lifting his empty hand in greeting. There was something about him Pearl didn't trust. He fidgeted in his saddle too much, like he had a ferret down his pants.

“Howdy,” the scout said, looking about. “Where's John Myerling?”

“He pulled up stakes and went back to St. Paul. I took over his cabin,” Johnny replied.

“That a fact?” The scout glanced in the direction of the soldiers, but Pearl couldn't make out who he was looking at. “Have you seen any Injuns?”

“Sure, I seen Injuns. See 'em all the time. Now get off my land.”

The scout twitched in his saddle again, his eyes narrowing. “You sure got a smart mouth for a sodbuster.”

“I
said
get off my land,” Pearl replied, his voice hard as an iron bar.

The scout's eyes narrowed a split second before he reached for his holster, which was all the warning Pearl needed to step forward and jam his rifle directly into the other man's crotch. The scout yanked his hand back like his gun had turned into a red-hot poker.

“Y-you're bluffing, honyocker,” the scout sneered.

“I
never
bluff.”

There was something in Pearl's voice that that made the scout decide not to push his luck. He licked his lips nervously and fidgeted even more in his saddle.

“What the hell is going on here?” boomed an angry voice. An officer dressed in the uniform of a Cavalry captain rode forward. He was a big man, the way trees are big and rocks are big. His shoulders were as wide as an ax handle and his hands could easily hide Bibles. However, the captain's most intimidating feature was not his sheer physical size, but the wavy mass of red hair that fell below his shoulders, and the matching beard and mustaches he wore combed out over his chest, which made him look like a lion. His stern face was burned by the sun, and his pale eyes were a startling contrast to the darker blue of his uniform and the vibrancy of his hair. “Put that weapon down, farmer!” the captain barked. It was clear he was used to being obeyed, be it by soldiers or civilians.

“Like hell I will!” Johnny snapped in reply. “And who might you be?”

“Captain Antioch Drake, United States Cavalry. Now do as I say, sodbuster, or I'll forget I'm talking to a white man and have my men open fire!”

Pearl glanced at Drake, then stepped back, lowering his gun. What he'd seen looking at him through Drake's eyes was all too familiar. He'd known men like him during the war: bloody-minded and scarlet-handed, incapable of separating friend from foe, soldier from civilian. Quantrill had been one such monster. If the war had taught Pearl one thing, it was that a bastard's a bastard, whether suited up in blue or gray. And what he saw before him was a bastard in a blue suit.

“That's better,” Drake said. “Now—are you going to answer the question my scout put to you or not? Did you see Injuns pass this way a day or two ago?”

“What makes you think there's been Injuns through here recently?” Johnny asked, trying his best to sidestep the question.

“We've been following their trail—and it lead us to you,” Drake responded. “Now—did you or did you not see Injuns passing through?”

“What do you want them for?”

“They were amongst those murderin' redskins responsible for the massacre of the Seventh Cavalry under Lieutenant Colonel George Custer at Little Big Horn,” Drake replied, his tone reverent.

“Do tell,” Pearl said, spitting in the dirt.

Drake seemed surprised by Pearl's blatant indifference. “You
do
know about what happened at Little Big Horn, don't you?”

Pearl shrugged. “Yeah. I know. But that still don't explain why
y'all
are on my property, askin'
me
questions about Injuns.”