Beyond Squaw Creek tt-316 Page 5

Fargo and the girl raised their gazes to the stockade wall, where ten or twelve soldiers and a rotund hombre in smoke-tanned buckskins milled on the shooting ledge, a couple still triggering their army-issue Springfields over the wall toward the prairie.

  A tall, hatless gent with thick dashing hair nearly the same red as Valeria’s stood facing Fargo and the girl, holding a smoking .44 in his hand. He wore duck pants with red-stitched pockets, snakeskin spats, and a white silk shirt under a cowskin vest bearing a distinctive pinto pattern. Nothing on the man’s attire indicated that he was an army major, but his red hair and fatherly gaze directed at Valeria left little doubt that the man was Major Howard, commander of Fort Clark.

  “Father!” the girl sobbed, and Fargo saw her shadow on the hoof-pocked ground clap a hand to her mouth, stemming a cry of both shock and relief.

  “Oh, my girl!” The major holstered his pistol and moved along the shooting ledge toward a ladder constructed of narrow logs and rawhide. “I never thought I’d see you alive!”

  He descended the ladder quickly and dropped the last three feet to the ground. Fargo had dismounted the horse and was helping the girl down. She ran to her father, sobbing as the major snaked his arms around her slender waist and buried his face in her hair.

  “Oh, Valeria…you have no idea how relieved…”

  “Father, you wouldn’t believe what happened,” she cried, convulsing in the man’s arms.

  “Shush now,” the major said, smoothing her hair against the back of her head. “You’re safe now. You’re here.” The man glanced expectantly at Fargo as the girl’s back continued jerking and muffled sobs rose from her mouth buried against the major’s shoulder.

  “A war party attacked us on the other side of Smiley’s roadhouse,” Fargo said. The shooting had died off, the Indians apparently giving up the fight, and the soldiers were closing the stockade’s gate with a raspy creak of leather hinges. “Except for your daughter and me, the entire party was wiped out. We had to abandon the stage, rode like hell to the roadhouse. Spent the night there. I saw smoke from that direction earlier this morning.”

  Major Howard sighed darkly, his cheek still pressed to his daughter’s head. “I sent couriers to warn you, but apparently they didn’t make it through.” He turned around. “We’ll talk later this evening. I’m going to see my daughter to my cabin. See to your horse and a bath, Mr. Fargo. Then see Captain Thomas for debriefing. In the meantime, do you know Mr. Charley?”

  Fargo turned in the direction indicated. The only other man Fargo had seen so far not dressed in army blues was descending the creaky ladder, huffing and puffing with the effort. At the bottom, the man in stained buckskins turned and shuffled toward him, grinning in his shaggy, cinnamon beard.

  Fargo ran his gaze across the stout frame of the old army scout and tracker, and sighed ruefully. “Prairie Dog Charley. I reckon I’ve confessed to worse. Didn’t figure the old dog was still howling on this side of the sod.”

  The major, leading his daughter away, said, “Mr. Charley will fill you in and show you the stables.”

  As Howard and Valeria drifted off toward the log huts and cabins on the north side of the parade ground, Valeria glanced back toward Fargo, a vague conspiratorial smile in her red-rimmed eyes. She turned away and rested her head once more against her father’s shoulder, wrapping an arm around his waist.

  Prairie Dog Charley pulled up before Fargo, grinning wolfishly after the girl, showing a full set of large, white teeth framed in glistening, brown tobacco juice. “Skye, you didn’t?” The tracker dropped his voice and canted his head toward Fargo, so the soldiers wouldn’t hear. “The major’s daughter, fer cryin’ out loud? Son, you haven’t changed a bit!”

  “And you have, you old whoremonger?”

  Fargo ran his gaze down the burly, buckskin-clad, broad-shouldered frame, from the greasy leather hat that covered the scant hair left by a scalp-crazy Comanche down in the Texas panhandle, to his boot moccasins sewn and patched from tanned moose hide and trimmed with the ebony hair of a black panther.

  A small bone-handled knife protruded from a sheath attached to the inside of the right moccasin, and around his considerable waist he wore two Colt Pattersons and a stag-handled bowie. A muzzle-loading German percussion rifle, a Schuetzen with a deeply curved and silver-fitted butt-plate, rested atop his shoulder.

  “Except for wielding that prissy target piece,” Fargo said, “you’re still the ugly old mossy-horn I left at Fort Bliss two springs ago. No doubt still howling at full moons, too.”

  Prairie Dog guffawed and jostled the rifle’s barrel proudly. “This here’s a gift from Sir Frederick Some-such of Manchester. Took him shooting in Colorado, don’t ya know, and even though his wife tore off with a handsome Ute warrior, and the Sir hisself almost went down a wild sow griz’s belly in tiny little pieces, he gave me this here rifle for his appreciation of my services.”

  The old tracker glanced at the sweat-lathered pinto standing behind Fargo, who watched both men with strained patience; the Ovaro was accustomed to a good rubdown and water after a long, hard ride. “Took down that brave aiming for your prized stallion with this here German-smithed piece, I did,” Prairie Dog continued. “So mind your manners toward my gun…and can’t you see your horse is chompin’ fer a rubdown?”

  “Lead the way to the stables,” Fargo said, grabbing the pinto’s reins. “And then the sutler’s saloon. The drinks are on me, you old sharpshooting moon howler.”

  As Prairie Dog headed toward the stables at the north side of the compound, a couple of gaunt privates in torn uniforms and battered forage hats stepped in front of Fargo. Fargo frowned as the two hemmed and hawed nervously, shifting their weight from one foot to the other, glancing at each other as if for encouragement.

  Prairie Dog howled and clapped one of the lads on the shoulder. “Oh, don’t get your tongues all in a twist, boys. This here’s the famous—or, I should say, the notorious—Trailsman, sure enough. Go ahead and take a good look at him, then git out of the way, will ya? We got work to do!”

  The boys flushed and, nearly at the same time, scrubbed their hands on their threadbare tunics, then extended the dirt-encrusted paws at the Trailsman. “A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Fargo,” said the taller of the two. “A real pleasure.”

  “We knew if anyone could bring the major’s daughter through, that person would be you, sir,” said the other, a scrawny lad with hair like wild oat stalks poking out from around his torn, faded hat. “Me an’ Benny, we really been anticipatin’ your visit.”

  “M-maybe you’d join us for some poker later, Mr. Fargo?” asked the taller lad. “We ain’t allowed in the saloon, but we’d be right honored if you stop by the bear den later. Uh, that’s the enlisted men’s barracks. Maybe share some of your stories. Why, we been hearing about you since—”

  “Come on now, lads!” Prairie Dog cut in, doffing his hat to swipe it against the scrawny private’s shoulder. “Can’t you see you’re embarrassin’ the man? Off with you, now. Me and Fargo got business to palaver.”

  “Y-yessir!” said the blond private, both young soldiers shuffling off toward the parade ground where drills were resuming after the Indian scare. “Sorry, sir.”

  “Didn’t mean to pester you, Mr. Fargo!”

  “I might just join you for that poker game,” Fargo called after them. “If old Prairie Dog is true to form, he’ll no doubt bore my socks off long before sundown!”

  Fargo snorted and clapped a hand to Prairie Dog’s shoulder as they continued toward the stables. Blue smoke ribboned from several of the stone chimneys surrounding the parade ground and from a cook pit before the mess hall. A man in bloodstained buckskins carved a deer outside the sutler’s store while a half-breed woman in bright calico rolled the freshly cut roasts in burlap.

  Leading the pinto through the wide gap between the sutler’s store and the officers’ cabins, Fargo asked Prairie Dog what had set the Indians to stomping with their tails up, and which tribes were invol
ved.

  Prairie Dog swiped a hand across his beard and shook his head. “The major’ll fill you in this evening, Skye. It ain’t purty. I’ll tell ya that.”

  “That’s why I want it from you. In plain talk, no army bullshit.”

  As they entered the cool shadows of the remount barn, the clang of a smithy’s hammer rising from the nearby blacksmith shop, Prairie Dog hiked a hip on the edge of a water barrel. “We been havin’ trouble off and on for three weeks. That’s when the Assiniboine started raiding the trading posts and little settlements popping up along the creeks and streams.

  “We didn’t think we had a serious problem till an eight-man woodcutting crew was sent out last week and never came back. We found ’em butchered in a ravine about three miles west, along Squaw Creek. Decapitated. Mutilated in ways I ain’t even seen the Comanches do. Their mules shot, wagons burned. Then, three days ago, we spied smoke rising from the direction of our sister fort, William, down along Little Muddy Creek.”

  About to set his saddle on a stall partition, Fargo froze and glanced sharply at the old scout. “They burned Fort William?”

  Prairie Dog shook his head. “Don’t know for sure. I rode out to have a look, and the Injuns—more’n a dozen mixed Assiniboine and Blackfeet—chased me back, killin’ my pony in the run. Lost the three boys who rode with me.”

  The old scout squinted one eye and gestured with his hand. “I can tell you this about William—we ain’t seen hide nor hair of their soldiers since we spied the smoke, and we usually exchanged couriers daily. Since another patrol was wiped out day before yesterday, Major Howard’s ordered the gates closed. No one leaves till we can come up with a way to turn those savages’ horn back in. We have little hope of help from outside, as we can’t get couriers through to the forts along the Missouri.”

  Fargo set the saddle across the stall partition, then grabbed a burlap sack from the hay-flecked floor. Brows ridged with consternation, he set to work rubbing down the pinto’s sleek, sweat-lathered coat. “You still haven’t told me what got those Injuns’ tails in a twist, hoss.”

  “That’s the ugliest part of this bailiwick, Skye.” Prairie Dog picked up a handful of dry straw and went to work on the Ovaro’s hindquarters, scrubbing off the lathered, muddy sweat. “One of our own men might’ve riled those savages. A lieutenant named Mordecai Duke.”

  The Trailsman frowned and glanced around the Ovaro’s head at Prairie Dog. “Duke? Seems I heard that name before.”

  “He was once a fine officer. Straight outta West Point. His family ran a shipping business in New York. Friends of all the mucky-mucks. Hell of an Indian fighter, old Mordecai. Till he went crazier’n a tree full of owls.”

  The old scout stopped working to lift his hat from his horribly scarred scalp and run a gloved hand through the remaining salt-and-pepper hair tufting up around the knotted, grisly scars. “He went so nuts, drinkin’ like a fish, laughin’ and cryin’ by fits, that the major decided to ship him back to St. Louis, to some special institution for army officers who got their bellies a little too full of the frontier life…if you’re gettin’ my drift.”

  With his index finger, Prairie Dog made a swirling motion in front of his ear. “He wasn’t more than twenty miles southwest of the fort when he broke out of the wagon, killed two of the guards with his bare hands, and hightailed it into the tall-and-uncut, like a mustang with tin cans tied to its tail.”

  “Well, how in the hell…?” Fargo let his voice trail off, pricking his ears. Voices rose from beyond the barn’s open doors, growing louder as men approached.

  Prairie Dog glanced outside, then turned to the Trailsman and said softly, “Best not talk about this in front of the enlisted boys. They don’t know about Lieutenant Duke and the Injuns. Let’s finish up here, and we’ll finish our powwow over a drink in the sutler’s saloon.”

  While Prairie Dog smoked a cigarette outside the barn, the Trailsman finished rubbing down the Ovaro, stabling it, and measuring out oats, hay, and water. He told the remount sergeant, an irreverent, craggy-faced Scot named Drake, to turn the pinto into the corral after the mount had cooled off and had eaten and drunk its measured portions.

  “Don’t put him out with any mares in rut,” Fargo warned as he grabbed his rifle and saddlebags. “Once he sets his hat for a filly, it’ll take a dozen men to change his mind.”

  He moved off down the barn alley, the crotchety Scot grumbling his displeasure at taking orders from a civilian while running a file across the horse hoof wedged between his knees.

  7

  Fargo and Prairie Dog tramped over to the sutler’s store in the early afternoon sunshine. The two-story log structure with a lean-to addition housing the saloon was shaded by a giant cottonwood tree rustling its silver leaves in the perpetual prairie breeze.

  The store smelled like molasses and flour and cured meat. The Trailsman and Prairie Dog were the only saloon customers at this hour. They sat at a table under a large bison trophy mounted on a square-hewn ceiling joist. Through the open shutters emanated the phlegmatic barks of an infantry sergeant, the thuds of an ax, and the occasional stamp of horses passing the store on cavalry drill.

  Between the sounds was an eerie, tense silence, as if the fort were awaiting an Indian attack similar to the one on Fort William. In the blockhouses, the guards had been doubled or tripled, and extra soldiers were perched on the shooting ledges along the stockade walls, facing the endless swell of prairie around the fort.

  The sutler’s stoic Indian wife brought Fargo and Prairie Dog each a schooner of surprisingly cold ale and a whiskey shot. Collecting Fargo’s coins, she shuffled sullenly back to the store, where she’d been tying and wrapping the deer roasts her husband had carved from the carcass outside.

  Fargo sipped the whiskey suspiciously, made a face as he swallowed. “Did Smiley Bristo have a whiskey contract with the sutler, by any chance?”

  Prairie Dog downed nearly half of his own shot, and smacked his lips. “Nectar of the gods, ain’t it?”

  “Wrathful gods,” Fargo muttered, and washed down the camphorlike taste of the liquor with several deep swallows of the wheaty, refreshing beer. Setting the mug down, he tossed his hat on a chair and sank back in his seat. “Finish the story, hoss—what’s this crazy Lieutenant Duke have to do with the uprising?”

  Prairie Dog tossed down his own hat and fingered the tooth dangling from his right ear. He claimed it was a tooth from the Comanche who had scalped him down in Texas. When he’d looked around the saloon, making sure that he and Fargo were alone, he propped his elbows on the table, looked across at the Trailsman with a serious expression, and kept his voice low.

  “You see, Lieutenant Duke spent a lot of time with a band of Assiniboine camped on the far side of Squaw Creek. Now, that’s against regulations, and most of this is hearsay, but rumor has it he married the daughter of Chief Iron Shirt. Iron Shirt took a liking to the lieutenant, even though Duke was obviously crazier than a pack of wild lobos on the night of the first full moon. Or maybe because he was crazy. The Injuns often take craziness for wisdom, don’t you know?”

  Fargo nodded. He’d been around Indians enough to know that men and women whom white folks would normally lock up in a funny farm were often given special privileges amongst the natives. Many were respected for their “crazy wisdom” and insight into the “ether regions.” Some tribal leaders had been known to call upon these people for advice on hunting or battle strategies or to cast spells on their enemies.

  “To make a long story short,” Prairie Dog continued, “Lieutenant Duke and Iron Shirt have been seen riding together with a whole passel of painted warriors. Apparently, somehow, Lieutenant Duke—in his crazy, mixed-up mind—decided the Indians oughta be killin’ the whites. And, somehow, he got the Blackfeet to throw in with the Assiniboine to do just that.”

  “Two tribes that normally fight each other,” Fargo said, daring another sip of the rotgut whiskey. “You reckon the major’s attempt to trot Duke off to
a nuthouse turned him against the entire army?”

  “And the poor white settlers and trappers in these parts,” Prairie Dog said. “Possible.” He chased the whiskey with the beer, draining his schooner in three long chugs, then plunked the glass back down on the table. “Now, ain’t this a fine sichy-ation?”

  “You have any idea what the major intends to do about it?”

  Prairie Dog grinned. “No. But I got a feelin’ it’s gonna involve you, Mr. Trailsman, sir.” He slid his chair back. “Now, if you’ll excuse this rancid old hide, I’m due over to Lieutenant Donovan’s office to see about puttin’ a huntin’ expedition together. One that won’t lose its hair and other sundry body parts. We have enough food for a few more days, but sooner or later we’re gonna need meat.”

  Fargo lifted his beer glass. “I reckon I’ll have a bath and a shave. Bathhouse still by sud’s row?”

  “It is. And don’t forget to see Captain Thomas for your ‘debriefing.’”

  “Hell,” Fargo grunted, donning his hat and rising. “I’m between contracts. If the captain wants to debrief me, he can come looking for me. I’m gonna take a good long bath and a nap before heading over to the major’s this evening.” He paused beside Prairie Dog in the store’s open doorway, looking out at the sun-washed parade ground. “You’ll be there?”

  “Ain’t been invited yet, but I probably will be. Howard’s probably gonna try to throw me in with you, for no more pay than what I’m gettin’ now!” Prairie Dog cursed, descended the porch steps, and sauntered off across the parade ground where a dozen soldiers marched, the sun reflecting off their rifles and sabers.

  Fargo enjoyed a long, hot bath in the bathhouse at the south end of the fort. Through the room’s single window, he watched the three stout wash ladies—the wives of noncoms—stirring kettles of boiling uniforms over ash wood fires while telling bawdy stories they didn’t think anyone could overhear, and laughing with salty abandon.

  After the bath, he sacked out in a bunk at the back of the sutler’s store—just a storeroom cluttered with barrels, crates, and flour sacks—but far enough from the fort’s fray that he slept soundly until the light angling through the window was the salmon hue of late afternoon. Desultory voices rose from the saloon on the other side of the wall—the voices of officers finally freed from their duty and seeking distraction from the Indian trouble in the saloon’s questionable liquor.