It was the Crow from Carson’s camp. The one I had called Eagle Feather.
2
The Crow looked at Johnston. He did not seem interested in me.
The big mountain man did not seem in the I least bit perturbed by the arrow sticking in his shoulder.
“Dapiek Absaroka?” the Crow said.
“At yer service,” Johnston said.
I had a moment of uneasiness. Johnston had been called his Crow name—The Killer of Crows—and by none other than a Crow.
If eyes were weapons, Johnston and the Crow had already pierced each other with .50-caliber balls of hate.
“This isn’t going to get ugly is it?” I said.
“That’s up to this red divvel. He did save our lives, and I’d hate to scalp ‘em. I’m at peace with the Crows. Sort of.”
“We are at peace with you,” the Crow said. “Sort of.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Johnston said, “this here booger speaks English.”
“Missionaries,” the Crow said.
“Brought ya God, huh?”
“English and smallpox.”
“Listen,” I said, “you helped pull our fat out of the fire.”
The Crow looked at me. “You were the other man. I saw you shot.”
“You saw what happened at the train?”
“I thought you were dead. You and your friend were brave. You turned against many. You must be strong to live after so many wounds.”
“You were trying to catch up with Carson?”
“He has humiliated my people,” the Crow said, turning to Johnston, “as this man has done.”
“That was years ago,” I said. I could feel the tension drawing between the two men like drying rawhide.
“So who’s keepin’ count,” Johnston said. “I’d jest as soon make a necklace out of yore teeth.”
The Crow smiled. “We are at peace.”
“I reckon,” Johnston said. “How are you called.”
“Di wace rockusakeetak.”
“That right?” I asked.
“Mean’s something like, You Are Next To Dead Thing,” Johnston said.
“Nice name.”
“I know about this here red divvel. That’s not the name he grewed up with. It’s the one the Crows give him later. Crows are an adulterous people, Red Spot. They’re quite unlike the Sioux. This here brave loved his wife, did not chase squaws. Crows don’t consider that manly. They compare it to a hunter who kills a buffaler and stays by the dead critter because he’s afraid to chase after the rest of the herd. Lacks spirit, manhood. He’s dead inside.
“Tale has it this here buck’s wife didn’t feel that way. She slept around. Dishonored old Dead Thing here. He left the Crows, didn’t go back. Did some scoutin’ and such fer the army.”
“That’s why he’s called Dead Thing?”
“Dead Spirit. A woman is somethin’ the Crows think yer supposed to conquer, then move on to ‘nuther. Like huntin’ buffaler. Now, if we’re all through with our chitchat, think maybe ya could help me get this here arrow out of my hide?”
Dead Thing had not moved or blinked an eye during Johnston’s windy explanation. He just stood proud and handsome, straight as a pine all the while.
With Johnston directing, I set about getting that arrow out. Johnston was an old hand at it, and it was grisly business. He directed the use of my revolver butt to drive the tail of the arrow and push the point on through. It ripped through the skin on the back of his arm like rotten leather. I broke the point off as close to the arm as possible. Then, with a quick jerk, I pulled it out through the hole it had entered.
Johnston hardly moved at all. Let no man ever say Johnston was all bluff. He was one tough sonofabitch.
Dead Thing reached down and took the arrow, did a strange thing. He licked the blood from the shaft with his tongue.
“Like that, red divvel?” Johnston growled. Picking up the pointed end of the shaft, he tossed it in Dead Thing’s face. “Here, suck on this!”
He leapt to his feet and pushed me away. Blood pumped from the wound, but it didn’t stop the big man from lunging at the Crow.
“Boys, boys!” I yelled.
Dead Thing and Johnston locked arms. Dead Thing was a hell of a man, but wrestling with Johnston would be sort of like trying to stab a grizzly to death with a twig. You could do it, provided the grizzly allowed it, but it would take some time.
I picked up Johnston’s Spencer and shattered the stock some more by banging it off the giant’s head.
When Johnston fell, Dead Thing jerked out his Bowie.
I said, “No more, huh?”
Dead Thing looked at me, nodded. He put the knife away.
I rolled Johnston onto his back; and, using a piece of my own shirt, I stopped the bleeding from the arrow wound. Johnson’s head had a knot, but nothing more. I wasn’t looking all that forward to when he woke up.
Dead Thing was using his knife to cut the arrows from the Sioux, but when he finished that task, he gave each corpse a special salute. He stood up, raised his breechcloth, and exposed himself.
I had once heard that the Sioux did that, and they considered it the ultimate insult to the eyes of the dead.
I reckoned that Crow was giving them a taste of their own medicine.
When he was finished with that, he started back to the first and set to scalping.
I didn’t watch. I turned back to Johnston. When the fire was built up good, I put Johnston’s Bowie blade in it, and got his whisky from his saddlebag.
Dead Thing came over with a handful of scalps. “You killed these. They’re yours.”
“No, they’re yours. Call it a present. As for the rest… well, some of those are Johnston’s and you’ll need to talk to him.”
Dead Thing grunted, tossed a handful of scalps beside Johnston. “He killed the most,” the Crow said flatly.
“He’s had plenty of practice,” I said. I went back to Johnston, knelt down and looked at the wound. It was bleeding through the torn shirt fabric.
I got the Bowie out of the fire, and very quickly, put it to the wound.
Johnston came out of his knocked-out condition like a mad puma out of cave. He got me by the throat and started squeezing it like so much weaved basket. But just as suddenly as he had come awake, he passed out again. Even Johnston had his limitations. Loss of blood, a good knot on the head and a red-hot Bowie on a wound was at least part of it.
I got my throat working again, poured whisky on the wound, redressed it with some wet leaves and a few strips of blanket, and let it be.
Johnston, that big, ugly bear, began to snore.
3
I made coffee and put out the fire. I gave Dead Thing a cup and we squatted around the dead coals, just looking at one another. After awhile, Dead Thing said, “You and the Liver-Eater are friends?”
“Yes. He saved my life. You saved our lives.”
“The Liver-Eater just happened to be here. I saved your life.”
“Why?”
“Because you fought White Lip.”
“White Lip?”
“The one you call Carson.”
“I see. What’s your beef with the major?”
“He made my people look like fools. They follow him and do what he wants to get his crazy water. The warriors are no longer proud. They act crazy.”
“Whisky does that,” I said. “But you’re way behind them.”
“I did not follow them at first. I saw what happened at the train. I went away. I thought about it. Those men with him were friends of mine. Once. The more I thought about them, about how they acted, about how they followed White Lip, the more I decided that they should die. They make the Crows look bad.”
“And White Lip?”
“He dies, too.”
“You do this to honor your people, yet they have dishonored you.”
“I am still Absaroka. Does White Lip dishonor you?”
“Yes, I suppose.”
?
??He is white. Are you now ashamed of being white?”
“No, I’m not, and I see your point,” I said. “You and me, we’re after the same thing. We can follow their trail together.”
The Crow grunted. “I travel alone. Their trail is long cold now. My own people have hidden it. But I will find them. Perhaps our paths will cross again.”
“Then we’ll not do it together?”
“No.”
I nodded. I finished my coffee, went to tend the horses. I took off the saddles, rubbed down the horses, then put the saddles back. In this country, a person has to be ready to move at any notice.
I was working on Johnston’s stallion, fastening up the cinch, when I noticed Dead Thing was gone.
I never even heard him move. I wondered if he had a horse out there in the trees somewhere. Most likely.
I wondered if Dead Thing would get to Carson before I did. I certainly hoped not.
4
It was barely light. A cool fog had settled on us like a wet, wool cap. I wasn’t really surprised to wake up and find Johnston cooking his biscuits. There wasn’t enough there for two.
“I’m sorry about whacking you,” I said, rolling out of my blankets.
“I ought to left ya on that train with them Sioux,” he said.
“Dead Thing saved our lives.”
“And I saved yorn, for some reason or ‘nuther.”
“I’m grateful.”
“Ya show it good. We’re partin’ ways, pilgrim. You go on over the rise there, and two days later you’ll reach town. We meet again, I’ll consider all debts paid. Savvy?”
“Yeah.”
I watched Johnston eat the biscuits. In the harsh morning light he looked very old, like a tool used long after its time. For the first time I could see gray in his beard. After he finished eating, he got his gear together. “I kinda liked ya, boy. Thanks for patchin’ me up.”
“Only fair.”
“Account ya doin that, I’m lettin’ ya keep yer hair.”
“We don’t have to end this, Johnston.”
“Yeah, we do.” He walked away, climbed on his stallion.
“That’s it, then?”
“Reckon so.”
“You’re the one ending it.”
“You ended it last night when ya kept me from killin’ that red divvel.”
With that he turned his stallion and started out of the hills. I was going to miss him, and I wished it hadn’t ended that way.
Just as predicted, two days later I reached civilization. If you could call Deadwood Gulch civilization.
Chapter Four
1
I had never been to Deadwood Gulch, but I knew about it. There was talk of making it a town. It was home for several hundred miners, and it was said to be the roughest place since Hickok cleaned up Abilene.
It was a dead-end canyon bordered by the thick Dakota woods and the tall, rock walls of Pa Sapa. It was a gathering of miner tents, dugouts and shanties. It was, due to its narrow pass and steep walls on all other sides, fairly safe from Indians. It could be defended easily. There was hardly room for two buckboards to pass through the mouth of these rocks and into the Gulch. Law was where you found it. At the end of your own gun or with the skin off your knuckles. They said the sound of gunfire and fist fights could be heard continuously, and that many a would-be miner spent the next season fertilizing a Dakota pine.
I figured that was all true. I figured, too, that it would be a haven for outlaws, men on the run. Men like Carson and his crew.
I rode through the pass and into Deadwood Gulch, down the single narrow street between tents and clapboard saloons. I wound my horse through drunken miners staggering across the street from saloon to saloon.
Finally, I dismounted and lead my horse through the street, trying not to get knocked down by the drunks. A man, staggering a little less than most, was coming down the street toward me. This was an ugly cross-eyed cuss, and the gloomy light—for it was near nightfall—did little to enhance his appearance.
I said to him, “Hey, friend. Can you tell me where I can put my horse up for the night, find a place to sleep?”
The little man looked at me. I could smell his stinky whisky breath. “You talkin’ to me?”
“Unless you have a small man in your pocket, I am.”
“Yeah?”
“Look, friend, I don’t want trouble, just information.”
“I ain’t your friend.”
“All right. Now will you answer my questions? Where can I put up for the night?”
“How about six feet in the ground?” And with that, the little man pulled a .44 with fair speed.
I swatted his hand with the barrel of my Winchester, which I had carried in with me, leaving the Sharps in the boot. Then I put the rifle to the man’s throat.
“I don’t want any trouble from you,” I said.
The little man started to stoop and recover his revolver, but I pushed his head up with the Winchester. “No you don’t,” I said.
“No one does Jack McCall that way,” he snarled.
“I just did.”
He swallowed.
“Now hide out, and leave the .44.”
“You’ll pay for this,” McCall said, and he went away, still staggering.
“I’ll spend the night trembling,” I called after him.
I picked up the .44 and stuck it in my belt. I found a hitching rack and tied up my horse. I took my saddlebags and both rifles with me. They would be too inviting just hanging there.
On down the street I came across a redheaded whore outside a miner tent. She was plying her trade, smiling and yelling at the miners as they passed. She was fat, with filthy skirts and the complexion of a dead fish belly.
“Lonely, mister?” she said.
“No. Actually, I’m right tuckered out and I’m looking for a place to bunk out. Can you direct me?”
“A girl’s got to live.”
“Don’t let me stop you.”
She laughed. “Well, a girl does, you know?”
She was long past being any girl, but I didn’t want to disillusion her.
“How about I trade you this .44 for some information?”
“Do I look like a pistoleer?”
“You look like a pretty girl,” I said. I could lie when I had to. “You can sell or trade it.”
“Well, that’s true enough.”
I took McCall’s revolver and gave it to her. She looked at it in a familiar manner, and I guessed that she might be more of a pistoleer than she let on.
“Sure you wouldn’t like to sow some seed?” she said.
“I’m worn to the bone. I just need a place to sleep and I need to find a place for my horse.”
“All right. You go down the street till you come to a big clapboard building. It’ll be the biggest around. You can find a place for the night there. Tell old Moses that Big Butt Molly sent you.”
“I’ll do that.”
I walked for a spell, sidestepping piles of dung and passed-out drunks before coming to the place Molly had told me about. There was a man standing outside of it urinating in the street. Somewhere I could hear a street Bible thumper yelling about Deadwood Gulch being the Sodom and Gomorra of today. I could hear the drunks better.
I went into the clapboard building. It was dark and as stinky as the inside of a buffalo’s guts in there.
Men in camps of this sort, women too, were not prone to regular bathing. I realized that I was a bit overripe myself. I thought the odor was going to take my guns away from me and shoot me in the foot.
There was a plank counter on the left made up of boards stretched over whisky barrels. A lantern sitting on the left-hand side of the board was the only light. A man on a stool behind the plank and barrels had a scatter gun in his lap. He eyed me like a bad case of the piles.
“Hep ya?” he said.
“Woman name of Big Butt Molly said I could find a place to bunk here.”
“Cost ya two bits. Y
a don’t look to have two bits.”
“You Moses?”
“Yeah.”
“What can I trade you for a place to sleep?”
“Howsabout two bits?”
“How about my revolver?”
“Handguns is right cheap in a place like this, sonny.”
I knew that was a lie. King Colt, no matter what the iron population was, was always welcome.
“That’s what I got to offer,” I said. “I figure that’s good for one night’s sleep and enough change left over to put my horse up.”
Moses got up. “Let’s see’er.” He cradled the sawed-off shotgun in his arms and looked at me.
I laid my Colt on the plank.
Moses examined it.
“Alrighty, here’s two bits change.” He dug it out of a dirty pocket and tossed it on the plank and I pocketed it. Moses picked up the lantern. Carrying it in one hand, the shotgun in another, he came from behind the plank and barrels and led the way.
There was a blanket drawn over a doorway, and using the shotgun to push it aside, I followed him into a long, narrow room with rows of dirty socks sticking in the throughway.
“There’s a place down at the far end on the right side. Blanket up against the wall.”
“This is it?”
“You was expectin’ champagne and flowers? This ain’t back east.”
“I’ve never been east. But this sure ain’t much.”
“A Colt Revolver don’t buy much, Mr. Hoity-Toity.”
I sighed. “All right. Can you hold my spot until I’ve taken care of some business?”
“I suppose. Lay out yer blanket to mark yer place.”
I went down there between those stinky miner feet and pulled a blanket out from the wall, unfolded it. It smelled like something dead had been wrapped in it.
Snores echoed all around as I walked back to Moses.
“Pleasant sleeping companions,” I said.
“Ain’t they?” Moses said.
2
I carried the rifles, one in either hand, up the street. I hadn’t gone twenty feet when I stopped to watch an old man leading a horse. The horse looked familiar. It should have. It was the one Johnston had taken from the Indian and given me.