Blood Dance

  Carson rode up to him, said, “Well?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing! You said there was gold.”

  “That’s what I was told.”

  “You stupid sonofabitch! Search the passengers, dammit! Take what they got!”

  I looked at Bucklaw. “I got a feeling our cut is going to be a lot smaller than we expected.”

  “Looks that way. Maybe next time.”

  That’s what I thought. “No next time for me, Bob. I mean it.”

  “We’ll talk later.”

  I shrugged. It was useless.

  The passengers stood against the train with their hands raised. Each and every one of them, men, women and children, looked terrified. I wished I could tell them it would be over in a minute and everything would be all right, but they would know soon enough.

  Mix went to the passengers one by one, got their belongings. He went back to Carson with a hatful of wallets and watches and jewelry.

  Carson said, “That’s it?” I could see a nerve in his cheek jump.

  “That’s it,” Mix said.

  “I ought to have you shot, Mix.”

  “It’s not my fault.”

  “Stop your whining.”

  “I was told there was gold.”

  “Someone’s whisky brag.”

  I looked back at the passengers, saw a handsome blonde woman reach over and put her arm around her daughter. The little girl had dropped her doll and she was starting to cry.

  The woman picked it up for her, gave it back to the child, said something soothing to the girl.

  “You there,” Carson snapped at the woman, “up against the train.”

  “Afraid she’ll hit you with the doll?” Bucklaw yelled.

  Carson’s cheek jumped again. He had Mix’s hat in his hand, and he tossed it and its contents back to Mix. “Some haul,” he said. Then: “Tell them.”

  Mix put the contents of the hat in his saddlebag, the hat on his head, and mounted up. He rode from man to man, finally over to us.

  “We’re not leaving any witnesses,” he said.

  “Carson said—” I started.

  “He’s saying something different now. No witnesses,” Mix said.

  “No way,” Bucklaw said.

  “Have it your way,” Mix said. He rode back to Carson.

  I said, “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “I am,” Bucklaw said.

  “Been good riding with you.”

  “Same.”

  Carson and the others made their move. I jerked up my carbine and had the satisfaction of hearing it roar and seeing one of the Crow Indians bite the dust before a bullet plucked me from the saddle and tossed me to the ground.

  More bullets plowed the ground next to me, and one nestled in my side like an angry bee. The world went gray, fuzzed back into view.

  Women and children screamed. Through a haze I saw the blonde woman dive over her little girl and her dress and flesh hop up amidst a red spray. She was done for. I was glad I didn’t see the little girl get it.

  Bucklaw was still on horseback. He had shot two men and Carson’s horse out from under him with the Henry. When it was empty he dropped it and went for his revolver. A shot hit him in the chest and sent him twisting from the saddle. He seemed to turn and look at me as he fell.

  There was another shot, and half his face went away. It was as if I were seeing it all in a dream. Bucklaw seemed to dangle in the air as if on strings, then he fell down on top of me.

  I tried to crawl out from under him, get hold of my revolver, but it was impossible. Too weak. I couldn’t move.

  Above me was a fuzzy shape. Carson had taken one of the dead men’s horses and remounted. His face faded in and out, then all I could see was his snow-white mustache and three bores—the cold eyes of Carson and the colder eye of the Colt .44.

  Then there was thunder. It seemed to rumble for an eternity, mix horribly with the dying sounds of women and children, and then I fell from life down the long trail of death.

  Or so I thought at the time.

  Chapter Two

  1

  When I awoke, I was first aware of a fly in my ear. I was too weak to brush it away. Bucklaw’s body was still sprawled on top of me. It felt like a boulder.

  It was cold. I blinked my eyes open to darkness, and after a bit I could see the stars. I closed my eyes again.

  Morning seemed instantaneous. It was cool now, and not too bright. I could hear flapping sounds. Buzzards, probably. God, but I hoped they didn’t eat live men—or half-live ones.

  Somewhere I’d heard that they go for the softest parts first: the eyes, face and groin.

  I tried to shift from beneath Bucklaw, but I couldn’t. My body ached. My head felt as if it had been split open with a dull axe.

  Next thing I knew it was midday. It seemed very warm, but it wasn’t the weather. Fever.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw a buzzard. It was walking awkwardly toward me.

  “Shoo,” I tried to say. It came out more of a croak. But it was enough. The big bird flapped away.

  I wove in and out of consciousness, dreamed. I kept seeing Bucklaw falling off his horse, falling down toward me, blood dripping from his face. And finally there was Carson, hanging over me, pointing that big Colt at my head.

  I couldn’t fasten to a thought long enough to hold it, but I did know one thing. Carson had only grazed me with that bullet, given me a scalp burn and one hell of a headache.

  I laughed hysterically. What more did he need to do? I might have been better off had he killed me. This was the slow way. Blood seeping out, mind falling away, my head, shoulder and side throbbing as if rail spikes were being driven there.

  Finally consciousness stayed with me, and I managed to push Bucklaw’s body off of me. I tried not to look at his face.

  The dream-like state passed.

  I lay there until nightfall, collecting my strength.

  There was a stench in the air already, and I was glad it was dark and I could not see what the buzzards had done to the bodies.

  Rolling over, I tried to get first to my hands and knees and then to my feet.

  I could barely stay on my hands and knees without falling over. I began to crawl toward the train, past Bucklaw and his horse. They had even shot and killed Bob’s mare.

  Finally I crawled past the body of the woman—no longer pretty—and that of her child. I did not linger a look. Cold rage foamed up inside of me.

  I pulled myself up the shakedown passenger steps, dragged myself up them and inside the train.

  With my feet hanging halfway out the door, I rested, slept awhile. When I awoke I didn’t know if I had slept five minutes or five hours, but it was still dark.

  I crawled the rest of the way inside, squirmed up the aisle toward the back of the car, made it halfway and passed out.

  2

  Middle of the next day I felt much stronger. My shoulder was about as handy as a nail-hung razor strap and my side and head hurt something awful, but compared to how I had felt, I was one fine specimen. I was very hungry and thirsty. Using my good arm, I managed to haul myself out of the aisle and into one of the passenger seats. From there I could look out the window and see Carson’s handiwork: dead bodies turning black, flies buzzing, buzzards feasting. At that very moment the harpies were all over Bucklaw.

  I felt sick inside. I wanted to bury Bob, but didn’t have the strength.

  Turning away from the dead, I tried to concentrate on getting out of the seat and finding food. The train was a pretty fancy rig and that meant there should be food onboard.

  I managed my way down the aisle, holding onto seats for support, and finally found a little annex with all sorts of food and champagne. Apparently the passengers had been pretty high-class folk. In death they didn’t look any classier than Bob did. I think he would have found a certain humor in that.

  I found a loaf of bread wrapped in paper that was still pretty fresh. I cut off some
of that and ate it with some strong cheese, washed it all down with some champagne directly from the bottle.

  When I’d eaten enough of that to take the edge off my hunger, I looked around and found a jar of pickled fish of some sort. I got that open with about the same effort as blowing a good safe and used a butcher knife to spear the pieces out. I didn’t really find the fish very appetizing, but I ate about half a jar anyway.

  Feeling good and stuffed, I moved back to the passenger compartment. Glancing out the window I saw four mounted Indians moving toward the train.

  They wore full regalia, and they looked like bad news.

  They were Sioux.

  3

  They saw me immediately. I turned as quickly as I could and made my way back to the food compartment, got my hands on the butcher knife.

  No sooner had I stepped back into the passenger car than one of the Sioux came through the door, a revolver in his hand. He raised the gun and fired, but it was a hasty jerk and the bullet whizzed by my cheek. I didn’t figure to be so lucky a second time.

  I threw the butcher knife, caught the brave in the throat. He tumbled back out the open door, dropping his revolver just inside.

  It hurt like hell, but I tossed myself toward it. I landed on the floor and grabbed up the Colt. My body felt as if a herd of buffalo had been wearing me for boots.

  One of the three remaining Sioux—still on horseback—fired a shot at me with a .50-caliber Sharps. The shot went over my head and splattered somewhere behind me on the far wall. Had it hit its mark it would have painted the passenger car with me.

  I lifted the Colt and fired. Missed.

  The other two Sioux galloped quickly to the train, dismounted, began moving alongside the boxcars at a crouch.

  The mounted Sioux rode up and down in front of me shouting, obviously proving his bravery and trying to draw my fire.

  Which I did. I got him in the chest. He rocked back hard on the horse, swung in a half circle on the animal’s bare back and almost righted himself, but the bullet had done its work, and the man dropped to the ground. He wasn’t dead, just wounded, and he wasn’t out of the fight. He started crawling toward the Sharps which lay on the other side of his pony’s legs—for when he had fallen the well-trained animal had stopped dead in its tracks, waiting for its master to remount. It hardly moved a muscle.

  I peeped around the edge of the car and found myself looking at the open end of a Winchester. I jerked my head back.

  A shot slammed into one of the wooden steps and a splinter flew up from it and hit me in the left eye. It was as if I had been hit with a hot branding iron.

  I managed somehow not to jerk at the long splinter. In fact, it had entered the left corner of my eye and I could still see; though it was a blurry sort of sight washed in tears.

  I back-crawled from the doorway and leveled the revolver on it. If one of those braves peeped around the edge of that doorway I meant to plaster him.

  I figured the odds. If the Sioux on the ground made it to the Sharps, that would put it three to one. At best I figured to have three more loads in the Colt. If the Indian had followed white man’s custom of normally carrying only five chambered pills, then I was down to two. Two shots for three Indians. Bad business.

  I wanted to take a quick look at the chambers, but a split second with my good eye off that doorway could get my hair parted. I kept a bead on.

  Suddenly the air cracked with the sound of rifle fire, two quick shots. There was a loud thump against the outside of the passenger car and a load groan.

  “Ah right, ya red divvil,” someone yelled, “come and let me count yer teeth.”

  I raised up a bit. Blood was running out of my eye now, filling it up and flowing down my cheek. I heard one of the Sioux cry, “Hoka Hey, Hoka Hey.”

  “Come and get yer ass skinned, ya red divvil,” came the loud voice again.

  I raised up to where I could see out the windows. One of the Sioux warriors was running full speed toward a giant man on horseback, a red-bearded demon in buckskin.

  When the warrior was halfway to the man, the red-beard leapt off his big, black stallion and tossed his Spencer repeater away from him. That seemed like a damn fool thing to do.

  The running Sioux was armed with a tomahawk, and he looked more than slightly ready to use it.

  The big man jerked a stone-headed tomahawk from his own belt and ran to meet the brave.

  It was the Sioux who swung first, and to my wonder, the big man dodged beneath the Sioux’s blow with grace that belied his body weight—probably something like 250 stretched over a six-foot, five-inch frame—and caught the brave’s arm in his left hand. With his own tomahawk he cut a vicious blow to the Sioux’s kneecap. Almost simultaneously he twisted under the Indian’s arm and tossed him nearly ten feet.

  In spite of the wound, the Sioux got to his feet and limped painfully toward the giant. I was amazed the leg was still put together.

  The big man threw down his tomahawk and rushed the Sioux, who still held his weapon. The warrior swung with experienced ease, but the big man dropped low, came up and caught the brave’s weapon hand again.

  Grabbing the warrior’s elbow with his free hand, the giant wrenched it. The sound it made while breaking could be heard all the way to the passenger car, a good two hundred feet away.

  Next the giant grabbed the Sioux by underarm and crotch, actually lifted him above his head and tossed him down.

  The warrior skidded. The broken arm still clung to the tomahawk, however, and when he stopped his sliding, he reached across with his left hand and plucked it from his dead right. He was about to fling it when the giant recovered his own tomahawk and threw it, splitting the Sioux’s head wide open.

  I limped toward the doorway of the passenger car. I leaned against the jamb. I was too weak to do otherwise. To my right lay the other Sioux; his brains were splattered against the side of the rail car. Both shots had taken him in the head.

  The big man, bloody tomahawk recovered, looked at me and smiled.

  “Hell of a job you did here.”

  “I like to do her up tidy,” the big man said.

  At that moment I realized the Sioux I had shot off the horse was still alive, and crawling silently. He had finally recovered the Sharps, and it was obvious that he had been playing possum until he could get hold of it, and now he was lifting it toward the big man.

  I fired twice, one of my shots caught the Sioux in the top of the head and that was all she wrote.

  The giant nodded at me. Then, bending over the Indian at his feet, scalped him deftly with a quick swipe and a whip of the wrist that pulled the scalp from the Sioux’s head with a nauseating snap.

  He repeated the process with the Sioux I had just killed, then started for the train.

  I was feeling real poorly now, and it was all I could do to get to the aisle and find myself a seat. The world was moving like a raft in the rapids, and I was no longer sure of what was real and what was a dream.

  I remember wondering if the big man was scalping the Indian lying against the train, but I neither saw nor heard him at his work. I leaned against the seat and promptly conked out.

  4

  Passing out was getting to be an annoying habit. When I awoke my left eye felt like all of Satan’s devils were holding a dance there. It was puffed and swollen shut.

  Lifting up, I could see the big man out of my good eye. If I hadn’t hurt so bad he would have been a pretty scary sight, standing there with three bloody scalps hanging from his belt.

  The giant took hold of my head and cranked it back, used his thumb to ease open the eye. “Caught some wood in there, pilgrim.”

  Moving quickly, he pinched the fragment free of my eye. It was as if someone had punched a hole in a beaver dam. Blood and pain flowed out. It was a clean pull, however, and the eyeball was spared.

  “We’ll have to clean her up a bit,” the giant said, “but she’ll be all right in time. You won’t be eyeballin’ much for
awhile, though.”

  “How long I been out?”

  “Couple minutes. Gonna have to set yer shoulder, pilgrim. Gonna pain ya some.”

  “Side hurts, too. Took a slug there.”

  “Went clean through. Already looked at ’er. We’ll have to clean ’er up, pour a little rot gut down ’er and plug it with a poultice.”

  “You think maybe I could just throw up some?”

  “Long as it ain’t on my moccasins. Let’s get ya to the door though. Reckon we’ll have to call this our nest till I get ya worked over.”

  The giant helped me to my feet and to the door. I did what I had to do, aided by a slap on the back.

  “Finished?” he asked.

  “Yeah, finished.”

  He helped me back to my seat.

  “Reckon we ought to get started right quick, pilgrim. Get ya fixed up.”

  “This going to hurt?”

  “Like hell.”

  “Ever done this before?”

  “Things like it.”

  “Good at it?”

  “Not much. Had three men die on me.”

  “Comforting.”

  The giant laughed. “Not hardly. What’s yer tag?”

  “Jim Melgrhue. Yours?”

  “Johnston. John Johnston, though lots of folks call me Johnson and a lot more call me Liver-Eatin’ Johnston.”

  “The Crow Killer!”

  “Yep, some call me that, too. Dapiek Abasaroka, the Crows say.”

  “Well I’ll be damned. I thought you were a tall tale.”

  “In a way I am. Now shet yer hole and get ready for hell.”

  Johnston worked up a fire just outside the passenger car, heated his big Bowie knife. It wasn’t something to look forward to with any anticipation. He got a bottle of very dark whisky from his saddlebag and made some splints from the slats in one of the passenger seats.

  After that Johnston got the Bowie out of the fire and the thing I remembered most was him coming toward me, smiling, with that red-hot blade. Pain put me out again.

  When I awoke Johnston had a big slab of meat stuck in front of my face on the tip of the Bowie. The same he had used to cauterize my wound.