Sudden Country (7 page)

"Admirable!" exclaimed Judge Blod.

"Did you really meet Chief Red Cloud?" I asked.

"Better than that, lad–Davy, is it? I cured his corns."

"Indians have corns?"

"Bigger than your thumb, every last one of 'em. Comes from climbing over rocks and cactus in moccasins. One of the chief's corns was some older than I was and I soaked it in scalding water and rubbed buffalo grease on it and peeled it off after a week. Injuns never learned about soaking feet. Well, sir, the chief was so happy to have feet like a papoose's he was fixing to adopt me, make me his heir and personal physician. Would of, too, if I didn't see my chance and steal away that very night. I sometimes wonder if I shouldn't of stayed. There's worse ways to live."

"Is that why you wish to serve as our interpreter?" asked Mr. Knox.

"A man can draw a beer just so many ways, sir. He needs to feel a horse between his thighs or he forgets he's a man."

"You know the Black Hills?"

"Better than I wanted to, some days. I scouted them for Custer in '74 and prospected there the next year. I'd likely still be there if I didn't clear out just before the Little Big Horn; picked clean by ants. It was a near enough thing as it was."

"This Ghost Dancing doesn't frighten you?"

He made a motion of dismissal with his mug, which was almost empty now. "Newspaper talk. They've no horses nor weapons. Their warriors are too old and fat to put up a fight and the yonkers are full of mission-school Christ. Half of them don't even speak the lingo. You think old Sitting Bull credits that guff he's spouting about dancing back the buffalo and wearing painted shirts that turn away bullets? He ain't long for this here world himself, so he's stirring them up to die right along with him."

"What luck have you had rounding up volunteers?" the Judge asked.

"Well, it'd be better if you'd say what you want them for. But I'm closing the place at midnight and if you come back then you'll meet what I've got. Mind you, they're friends of old Ben's, and if you don't sign him you'll not find them as willing."

Mr. Knox stiffened. "Blackmail, Mr. Wedlock?"

"I'm just saying they'll do on my word what they wouldn't on a stranger's. Special a stranger that plays his cards as close as you. They've all been snookered before to be what they are, and they didn't none of them forget it."

"It is a prospecting expedition," said Mr. Knox. "Will that satisfy their curiosity–and yours?"

"Them hills was mined out years ago."

"I rather think there is something to be got from them still. In any case that's not your concern. We are hiring an escort, not taking on partners."

"Right enough. They're no hands with picks and shovels." He drained his vessel and rose. "You'll want to talk this out. I'll be at the bar."

When he had withdrawn, Judge Blod glared at me. "There will be no more talk of Quantrill or Flynn. We are assembling an expedition, not a gold rush."

I said nothing, for he was right. My reservations aside, there was something about Ben Wedlock that made me want to confide in him.

Mr. Knox said, "I doubt that fellow has ever seen Virginia, much less lived there. From his speech he might have left Missouri last week."

"Well, and what of that?" asked the Judge.

"When a Missourian dissembles his origins, it's a fair wager he rode the border. Did you catch that reference to Johnson out front?"

"There were many Johnsons on both sides. It needn't be the one Bloody Bill Anderson defeated after Centralia."

"Even so, I don't believe he ever served with Stonewall Jackson."

"Every other Southerner old enough to have participated in the war claims service with Jackson or Stuart," the Judge said. "If we reject them for that we will be a party of three. We cannot afford to pass up a man who speaks Sioux and knows their habits."

"Perhaps not. We will require a guide with more recent knowledge of the geography."

"Naturally. Meanwhile we require men, and Wedlock has pledged to deliver them."

A muscle worked in Mr. Knox's jaw while he considered. He was thus engaged when the batwings flapped open to admit the man we had seen Wedlock cast out earlier. His overalls were dirtier than before and he had a strawberry streak on one side of his face where he had scraped it when he fell into the street. He was carrying a sawed-off shotgun.

Someone shouted. The shotgun came up and chairs turned over as patrons flung themselves out of the field of fire. Wedlock, standing behind the bar, tugged a short-barreled revolver out of a socket among the beer pulls, aimed along his outstretched right arm, and shot the man in the chest. The shotgun roared, obliterating most of General Lee's face in the photograph over the bar and punching a hole in the ceiling big enough for a boy to crawl through. The man in overalls fell back against the doorframe and slid down, streaking the wood. He finished in a sitting position on the floor with the shotgun between his knees and his chin tucked into his throat.

Silence throbbed. The room was glazed with smoke. It seemed a very long time before someone approached the man on the floor and pried up each of his eyelids. "Deader'n Lincoln."

Only then did Wedlock relax his stance, lowering the pistol. "Fetch the marshal."

The sallow bartender took off his apron and went out the back. Moments later he returned in the company of a small man in a tight black waistcoat and gray pinch hat with a wide flat brim. The newcomer wore gold-rimmed spectacles and black handlebars, and I divined from the brass star in a circle on his waistcoat that this was United States Marshal Julius Honyocker, who had been too busy to attend the inquest on Flynn and Joe Snake. Stepping over the dead man's outstretched legs, he reached down and lifted off the battered hat.

"Anybody know him?" His inflection held a bitter twang.

After a short silence one of the men near the bar spoke up. "Name's Bates, I think. He's got him a little spread out by the canyon."

"Who saw what happened?"

"It was self-defense like I said," announced the bartender. "He did not give Mr. Wedlock no choice."

"Anybody argue with that?"

No one responded.

"Wedlock, I'll use your office for depositions," said the marshal. "If we get enough agreement on the details we'll not need to convene court. I'm closing you down until further notice. This here's the third incident on these premises this year. I warned you last time about your clientele."

Wedlock said, "If he was still clientele he wouldn't of come looking for me with that there splattergun. I run a straight house. You got no call."

"This badge gives me call. Someone push two of these tables together. Two of you men give me a hand with this." Setting aside the dead man's shotgun, the marshal got his hands under the man's arms.

While a temporary bier was thus being assembled, Judge Blod looked to Mr. Knox for a sign.

"He will suffice," said the schoolmaster.

PIKE'S FLIGHT

M
arshal Honyocker took our depositions without comment, obtained signatures, and thanked us for our time. Reassured by Wedlock that he would host us later in his padlocked establishment, we returned to the hotel, where the Judge had two bedrooms and a sitting room with a settee sufficient to accommodate a thirteen-year-old boy for the night. With an uncharacteristic flourish, Mr. Knox tossed a blanket roll he had carried from Panhandle onto the settee. "Yours, son," he said. "See to your possibles."

Cautiously–for expansiveness was not his custom–I unbuckled the straps and spread the cover and blanket across the cushions. I then peeled the oilcloth from around two objects calculated to quicken the heart of an adventuresome boy. Jotham Flynn's Navy Colt and a Model 1876 Winchester carbine gleamed in the sunlight coming through the windows. I recognized the latter as the weapon Joe Snake had dropped when his horse threw him. Included were two cardboard boxes containing cartridges in .36 caliber for the pistol and .44-40 for the Winchester.

"A man needs protection in sudden country," said Mr. Knox. "There will be time enough to instruct you in their use when we reach Dakota. Mind, you're to shoot only when shot at."

"That is heavy armament for a child," remarked the Judge.

"When I was not much older I could field-dress and reassemble a musket by campfire light. I lied about my age at fifteen in order to join Ledlie's cavalry."

"I was under the impression you were an officer."

"I was promoted from sergeant in the field. Serve your weapons as they serve you, David. They may be your salvation."

"I will. Thank you." It has been my lifelong custom to meet momentous events with reserve.

"No thanks are required. The carbine was Flynn's by right of conquest, the revolver purchased with his money. If he had an heir it is you." He located and opened his satchel, drawing from it a length of parchment that had been rolled into a tube and folded double in packing. "This map of the Black Hills is based on Custer's 1874 survey. I obtained it in Fort Stockton. David, might I borrow Flynn's map?"

I gave him the item, which was always on my person. He unrolled the big map across the cherry wood secretary, weighting down the corners with a lamp and a hand blotter, and spread the Confederate note on top of it. He and the Judge bent over the two illustrations. "No names on these military maps," said Mr. Knox. "This highest peak must be Harney."

They spent most of the afternoon collecting their bearings. At first it was fascinating, but as minutes stretched into hours and the discussion turned from the treasure to equipment and vehicles best suited to the country, it began to sound like one of Mr. Knox's interminable geography lessons. For a time I busied myself with the Colt's and Winchester, learning their mechanisms and admiring their lines and workmanship in a proprietary light. The rail trip and the events of the day–meeting glass-eyed Ben Wedlock, tales of adventure in the war, the killing in the saloon–had exhausted me, and as it was to be a long night I felt that a nap would be wise. I wound the oilcloth around the weapons, rolled them back into the blanket, and made myself comfortable on the settee. Very soon I was dreaming about daring daylight train robberies and bandits' gold.

The dreams became disturbing. In one I clung to a high stone cliff whose nearly smooth features presented few handholds, gazing down at a man climbing toward me in the moonlight. Plainly he was bent upon my destruction. When I attempted to increase the distance between us by ascending farther, I slipped and almost fell. Meanwhile my pursuer was making terrible progress on the slippery rock, hatless and grinning horribly, his angular limbs resembling a spider's. Very soon he was near enough to grasp one of my ankles if he cared. Instead he freed one hand to reach behind his head. Something glinted that turned my bowels to water...

"David! Wake up. It's time."

I lashed out. A lean corded hand caught my wrist. The jolt snapped my eyes open. My first realization was that it had grown dark out. The lamp was burning, casting a globe of buttery light that left the corners black. Mr. Knox's stem face was very close to mine. As he felt me relax, his features softened.

"Nightmares are beneficial to the reasoning process," he said. "They clear out the clabber for the daylight hours. However, I would save my blows for the hostiles."

"Is it midnight?"

"Near enough." He released me and stood back. I rose, quivering a little in my efforts to appear nonchalant. The dream had been vivid.

"Imagination has its place, and this is not it," said another; and now I was aware of Judge Blod standing in the shadows. "Who will keep watch on the trail if one of us must stay up to hold his head?"

"A man without fear is a fool. I fight the war every night in my sleep."

"Just so you have some fight left for the morning."

Amarillo was not safe at night. The railroads delivered as many ruffians as they carried off on their way to and from New Mexico and the Indian Nations, and "knaves and cutthroats," to borrow Jed Knickerbocker's purple phrase, plied the dark streets. A bulge in the right side pocket of Mr. Knox's black frock coat indicated a small pistol, and the way the Judge carried his hickory cane suggested a bludgeon. The staghorn butt of Joe Snake's Schofield revolver protruded through the notch in his waistcoat. I reached for my blanket roll. Mr. Knox stopped me.