Massacre at Whip Station Page 23

  You mustn’t think of that, she told herself. He is smart and he knows how to use the land better than probably anyone other than his grandfather.

  Reverend Michaels had awakened when the coach braked. He saw his sister and, still groggy, it took him a moment to make sure she was really there.

  He was about to ask if everything was over when he noticed that Tuchahu was missing.

  “Did—did someone take him?” the man asked.

  “Slash did,” Clarity answered, leaning forward so her voice wouldn’t wake the old woman.

  “My, that is a story!” the reporter said.

  The pastor’s pasty expression brightened. “If he’s gone, then the miscreants who have been pursuing us will have no further cause to do so.”

  “Unless they seek hostages,” Clarity said.

  “Would they do something so endangering?” Michaels asked.

  “At least until dawn,” Clarity said. “At sunup, they might be able to detect a trail. But by then, Slash and Tuchahu would have had a considerable head start.”

  “This is all so vexing,” Michaels said, sitting back.

  “I feel alive,” Clarity said.

  “Do you?” her brother said. “Even though you could be shot? We all could be?”

  “What better time and reason to feel alive?” she asked. “Merritt, I feel reborn out here. I don’t think I will be continuing with you to San Francisco.”

  Michaels and Small both went very still.

  “It’s the full moon,” Small said finally. “Affects people funny, I’m told.”

  “Sister, you are joking.”

  “I am not at all, not a word of it,” she replied. It sounded, even to Clarity, as if she was in the process of very quickly convincing herself. “I want to live here and I hope you will stay. They don’t have a church here. They need one.”

  “Well, Parson,” Small said, finding his voice—and a chuckle. “Looks like God has been working in His own wondrous way.”

  “Clarity,” was all the suddenly forlorn preacher could say.

  The reporter continued, “I see, sir, you have learned not to argue with a lady whether she is armed or not.”

  The pastor had shrunk to a portion of his former height, his eyes sinking. “Clarity, I have a new parish. I have made a commitment.”

  “You sent a letter ahead to your old seminary brother saying we were coming,” Clarity told him with growing agitation.

  Before Michaels could answer, Small spoke.

  “No time to wait for a reply, I’m guessing,” he said.

  Clarity looked at him, edged her carbine very slightly in his direction. “This is a private matter, Mr. Small, unfortunately being aired in a public space. I ask for you to be decent enough not to interfere.”

  Small held up a palm and nodded. But Clarity was already stung by the ricochet reference to what she had done.

  “Merritt,” the woman continued more sedately, “the reality of our situation is, all you’ve got is hope.”

  “‘All’?” the preacher said with disbelief. “Clarity, my entire life is based on hope, on faith! Without that, without trust in the divine providence of God, we have nothing! None of us!”

  “I believe in God,” Willa rasped, suddenly awake. She curled her bony fingers around the shotgun, which now stood barrel-up between her legs. “But I also believe in my own self. At the risk of earning this here girl’s unfriendliness, I say you should let her be.”

  Clarity smiled at Willa. “Your wisdom would never offend me,” she said.

  That ricochet hit Fletcher Small squarely.

  Clarity looked softly at her brother. “I have been looking for something my whole life, Merritt. You know that. This may be it. I have to find out.”

  “Isn’t it possible, Clarity, that you could find this in San Francisco?” he asked. “Even if I am unable to get a position at first, we know someone there, someone of connections and influence.”

  “You know someone,” Clarity said.

  Willa waved her free hand in front of her impatiently. “It’s the boy, you blind mule,” the old woman said. “Your sister is in love with her cowboy.”

  A velvet-thick silence dropped on the group.

  “Oh—I don’t know that,” Clarity said, just as suddenly and blushing again.

  “You an’ your brother the only ones,” Willa replied. “Except maybe the cowboy. He seems to lack general awareness.”

  “No, Willa,” Clarity began, then went in a different, slightly flustered direction. “I don’t know. I do know what I am in love with, and that’s the life out here.”

  “Barbarity and primitive conditions,” her brother said imploringly. “How could anyone be in love with that?”

  “Son, you don’t know barbarity and poor conditions,” Willa said. “Let the girl be. I didn’t have a choice in my life till recent. You have no idea what that feels like!”

  Before the conversation could continue, several shots cracked from somewhere behind the stagecoach. As one, Willa and Clarity both reached for their guns.

  “Is this all people do out here?” Reverend Michaels screamed, and immediately folded his hands in prayer.

  * * *

  B.W. turned to Joe. The former plainsman was still looking back.

  “What do I do?” B.W. asked.

  It was a moment after the shots before Joe answered. “Damned if I know why, but it’s cavalry,” he replied. “Don’t see as we have a choice but to stop.”

  “Butterfield oughta figure out how to make one o’ these that can outrun bullets, or at least can’t be stopped by ’em,” B.W. grumbled as he braked once more. He slowed his hardworking team gradually and allowed the riders to catch up.

  “Do you need help?” Small called through the open window. “We have ladies who seem keen to shoot something.”

  “Y’all just sit tight,” B.W. said. “It’s troops.”

  Joe and B.W. exchanged looks as they waited. Joe was considering a number of possibilities. The most likely were that it had something to do with the medicine man or the men who got shot back at the ravine.

  “Rotten luck if they was out on patrol,” Joe said.

  “Huh?”

  “Nothing,” Joe replied.

  The column encircled the coach, with a major leading. When the stage was enclosed, the officer doubled back and approached the Whip. Behind him were two men Joe had hoped never to see again.

  “Kennedy and Hathaway,” B.W. muttered. “Scoundrels on the hoof.”

  “Did you say something, driver?” the major asked.

  “Nothing, Major,” B.W. said. “Just chewing fat with my Shotgun.”

  “I am Major Alexander Howard out of the San Diego Barracks,” the man announced.

  “Welcome to the Butterfield Trail, sir,” B.W. said.

  The officer regarded Joe. “Are you Joseph O’Malley?”

  “No one but,” Joe replied.

  “You are not the regular Shotgun,” the major said.

  “My family and I run Whip Station, south of here,” he answered. “Why are you asking, Major Howard?”

  “I will address that later. At the moment, I want you to hand your weapon to Sergeant Wayne, beside you.”

  Joe didn’t move. “I assume you got a reason for that request?”

  “It wasn’t a request—”

  “I am not a pony soldier,” Joe interrupted. “You want to take it, you’re welcome to try. You want me to give it over, I want a reason.”

  “Because I will, trust me, sir, have you shot. Until proven otherwise, you are a renegade and will be treated as such.”

  “On the say-so of him?” Joe pointed the gun at Kennedy.

  “Now, Mr. O’Malley!”

  Joe handed the weapon to a private who reached for it. Howard’s eyes shifted from Joe to the Whip.

  “The men behind me are Indian agents who are authorized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to take charge of one of your passengers, the Serrano named Tuchahu
,” Howard said to B.W. “You will surrender him at once.”

  The driver was sitting with his right hand still on the brake, his left forearm resting across his knees and he relaxing on top of it.

  “I can’t do that, Major,” B.W. said.

  “Company policy does not outrank military jurisdiction in this state,” Howard assured him.

  “I was schooled in such things before I was hired,” B.W. answered. “Doesn’t change the fact that I cannot oblige.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because, sir, the gentleman you referred to, Mr. Tuchahu, is not presently aboard.”

  Major Howard ordered two men to check the coach. They dismounted, went to the door, and opened it. One of the men asked Joe to pass the lantern down from where it was suspended from the cargo rail. The shotgun rider obliged. The private handed it to his companion, who thrust it in the cabin. The trooper stepped back suddenly.

  “Cooper?” the major said.

  “There are more weapons, sir,” the private answered.

  “Collect them,” Howard ordered. “And bring the Indian out at once.”

  The private gave the lantern to his companion who stood close behind him. Cooper approached more cautiously now. After a moment, he came back out with his arms full of two shotguns, Clarity’s two handguns, and a .22-caliber pistol he confiscated from Fletcher Small, a seizure that made Clarity laugh.

  “Where’s the Serrano?” Howard demanded.

  “Sir,” replied Cooper, “there is one gentleman, one priest, one woman, and one Negro woman. No medicine man.”

  “Shut the door,” Howard ordered his men.

  “What if we’re attacked?” B.W. said. “You’re leaving us defenseless.”

  “Mr. Cooper, place the weapons in the rear boot,” Howard said through his teeth. The men obliged, the major’s eyes returned to B.W. “I notice, Brother Whip, that you are carrying no luggage other than the mail. Where is it?”

  B.W. indicated Kennedy with the hand holding the reins. “Broke a spoke running from this prairie-rat. Wheel acted up so we had to ditch the baggage.”

  “Where?”

  “Back on the range about three miles,” B.W. said. He wanted to say that he used the bags to build a lodge for Tuchahu. But when the lantern was rehung and he saw the major’s expression, he thought better of it.

  Howard came a little closer to B.W.

  “Where is he, this Tuchahu?”

  “He departed of his own free will,” B.W. said.

  “On foot?”

  “On horseback.”

  “Whose horse?” Howard demanded.

  “It belonged—I lost track, but I think it was the one belonged to the old Colored lady, Willa.”

  “You ‘think,’” Howard said. “Who else had a horse out here?”

  “Her son,” B.W. told him. “He rode south to look for his kin.”

  “Did he leave alone?”

  “Yes,” B.W. said.

  “And Tuchahu?”

  “No, Major,” Joe answered. “My grandson Slash is with him.”

  “‘Slash,’” Howard repeated, looking at Joe. “He also had a horse?”

  “He did.”

  “Which way did they go?”

  “They was headed eastward to start, though I don’t suspect they stuck to that path,” Joe answered.

  “Why not?”

  “Because Slash ain’t a dope,” Joe said, making a point of looking at Kennedy—whose face was a taut, ugly mask. “He figured somebody might ask me that question and I would have to give an answer, far as I knew.”

  Howard was clearly unhappy with that explanation. He gestured behind him.

  “You seem to know these gentlemen,” the major indicated.

  “I sadly do,” Joe replied. “The big log is Kennedy and the grub-line cayuse is his partner in crime Hathaway. Reason I’m here riding shotgun, like B.W. said, is because their Rebs shot up the reg’lar man, Dick Ocean, back at Civil Gulch. When their mercenary posse rode in to Whip Station to take the Indian at gunpoint, Kennedy and Hathaway joined them. The only reason they departed without their man is the lady your Mr. Cooper mentioned, the white girl with the gun, chased them off.”

  “A girl,” Major Howard said.

  “A dead shot,” B.W. assured him.

  Joe said, “That Miss Clarity? If you hadn’t relieved her of her gun, she could shoot my seat through my chest from where she’s seated. I’ve threatened Apache but I would not take my chances with her.”

  Several of the troops smiled. Major Howard was not among them.

  “That’s quite a tale,” Howard said when it was finished.

  “If they was honest men, the two finefied dirtbags would back it up,” Joe said. “But they ain’t.”

  “And you, mister, are a liar!” Kennedy charged.

  Howard turned on the Indian agent. “Did you threaten any of them, Mr. Kennedy?”

  “I certainly did not,” Kennedy said, riding forward. “And I’ve had enough of their hollow talk! Major, this man is the Rebel lover. We shot one who was working with him, the man you saw dead. The Indians took care of the other fellow shortly before you arrived.”

  “Finally, a word of truth,” Joe said.

  Kennedy ignored him. “Joe O’Malley has been obstructing Bureau business since we stopped at Whip Station. I don’t know why, maybe to incite an Indian war, but I demand that he tell us where the shaman is bound and that the Indian be immediately apprehended.”

  The major took a long moment to consider the situation.

  “Sergeant Wayne?” he shouted.

  “Sir!” the man answered, riding over.

  “Take Cooper and Locke and escort the stagecoach back to Whip Station,” the major said.

  “Aw, Jiminy!” B.W. yelled. “My schedule! The mail!”

  “I’m sorry, but as Mr. Kennedy has told you there are two dead men four miles back and a missing Red Man of keen interest to our government,” Howard said. “Since Whip Station was the start of this, and since this Slash O’Malley lives there, that is where we are going.” He looked at Joe. “Mr. O’Malley—and passengers!” he shouted the last. “You may retain your weapons. However, anyone who uses one to countermand my orders will be shot.” His eyes remained fixed on Joe. “Is that clear?”

  “As the sinking moon,” Joe said.

  “What about the Indian Tuchahu?” Kennedy demanded.

  “Sir, the rest of us are going after him,” Howard said. “We’ll go back a ways and head east, since they left before we spotted the coach. It will be light in about an hour. We should be able to pick up a trail.”

  The three-man detachment took up positions to the side and rear of the stagecoach and, with a deep, unhappy sigh, B.W. turned the conveyance around. In just a few minutes, the Butterfield party was headed back to the south and the rest of the cavalry unit was headed east.

  B.W. leaned toward the shotgun rider.

  “You want to get off and figure out some way to help your grandson?” he whispered.

  “If there was some way to catch them, I would.”

  “One o’ those troopers’ horses?”

  “Thought of it,” Joe replied. “As likely to get the horse shot in the arse or me in the back. This bear of a sergeant—he looks like the type to do it.”

  “So what do we do? Just ride back?”

  Joe looked longingly to the east where the cavalry column was riding hard after his grandson.

  “I got folks at home I have to think about, too,” he answered. “We lose our boy, someone has to avenge him.”

  B.W. thought about that, then nodded.

  “How in heck did good folks like all of us get trapped in this quicksand?”

  Joe replied, “’Cause even after this is done—I agree with your book,” he dipped his head toward the Bible on the seat between them. “I have ta think the best of men or else why do anything but build bigger walls and gun down everyone you see?”

  “I reckon that’s true,�
�� B.W. said. “But since yesterday afternoon, it’s been a whole lot less true.”

  Joe suddenly raised his arms straight up.

  “You cramping?” B.W. asked.

  “You haven’t been watching ahead,” Joe said.

  “Naw, I been watching for ruts and rocks since we got a weak—”

  As B.W. spoke his eyes rose from the road just below to the road beyond. He stopped talking. One of his arms followed those of his companion, while the other hand stayed with the reins.

  “God A’mighty,” B.W. said. “You fixin’ to get to the back box?”

  “Not in time, especially if we have to explain to those troops who are half-asleep in the saddle.”

  “Hey, Sergeant!” B.W. yelled down.

  The man was riding beside him and looked up. “Yeah?”

  B.W. pointed. The cavalryman swore and barked an order to driver and riders to stop.

  “This is gonna be interesting,” Joe said, his arms still in the air.

  CHAPTER 21

  Slash and Tuchahu rode through increasingly hilly countryside at a slow but steady pace. Although he didn’t really wish that Gert were here, he could sure use her. This man was a mute mystery. He barely moved, he didn’t speak, and if he was scared he didn’t show it.

  I really wish you could help me understand, sis, he thought. Coupla lives could depend on that.

  The young man had briefly kept to an easterly course, measured by the stars—those he could see, that weren’t swallowed by moonlight. When they reached a stretch of desert, he debated separating: letting the Indian continue east while he turned south. If there were two sets of hoofprints, anyone following them would have to divide their forces to follow both.

  But that would still leave half of them on Tuchahu, he realized.

  They stayed together. Slash was satisfied with the distance they were putting between themselves and the stagecoach. Hopefully, by dawn, they would have reached the shoreline of the creek. He had never been there, but he heard his grandpa tell it was a considerable body of water with a lot of gullies and underground caves.

  Places where a man could hold off an army, Slash hoped.

  His eyes were suddenly heavy, the perfect companions for his arm-weariness. He stretched them wide, looked up. The moon was setting and the sky was becoming pitch. The stars were coming out like bashful ladies who were now all dressed . . .