Dead Aim Read online

  Long was satisfied the Indians, by this time, knew these teamsters were not simple farmers. And they would, despite their small numbers, be able to fight to the end.

  The drums finally went silent and the howling quit. Too quiet for him. Then Woolley came over and shouted for Long to come quick to the center area. Long had to duck the frightened mules bolting around him and others kicking some unseen enemy in their panic inside the circle. Plus their honking so loud he could hardly hear a thing when Woolley shouted for him, “It’s Rose. She’s been shot by a stray bullet.”

  He came up to one of the other men holding her half on his lap. Too much blood was on her dress. Long dropped on his knees and took her gently into his arms.

  “Rose, Rose don’t die.”

  She coughed and then managed to say, “I love you so—much—”

  So did he. But at that very moment every drop of life went out of the body he held.

  “Men! Men!” Sparks shouted. “They’re coming back to try us again.”

  “She’s dead,” he said to the man who’d found her.

  “Cover her and I’ll get back to my gun.” He stood up and ran through the mules, took the Winchester from his loader, and began dropping all the Indians that came into his rifle’s range. His jaw hurt; he had it clenched so tightly it ached.

  Tears, not from the smoke and dust but rather directly from the internal feelings over the heavy loss of her on his mind. She was dead. He’d never get to have the wedding he promised her that they’d planned. Nor have the wedding night to share with her in a fine bed and her virtue. Damn you, red devils . . . I’ll see you all in the fires of hell and re-kill every damn one of you down there.

  After their second try the Indians left, carrying some of their fallen brothers off the field of death. Many corpses were too close to the accurate riflemen in the wagon circle for them to recover and were left among the dead and dying war ponies.

  There was silence in the wagon camp. Two men had minor wounds and were doctored.

  Sparks and his top men circled and squatted around Long to comfort him.

  “This may not be where you wish to bury her. But there is no way to take her body with us. I am sorry,” Sparks said to him.

  “She would understand. But when we bury her I want her body so concealed that no damn Indian can dig her up to disfigure or rape her.”

  Sparks looked half-sick back at him. “Would they do that?”

  “Damn right. It would be as big a deal for them to do it as tramping on my soul for killing so many of their brothers.”

  “We can bury her tonight. Real deep. Damn it, Long, we loved her as much as you did. There’s not a dry eye here. She was an angel walking among us. All of us were so damn jealous that she was your girl, and we’ll make damn sure they can’t get to her.”

  Long nodded. “I’ve lost some things in my life. My cow dog that got bit by a rattler, a horse, who went down in a badger hole that I wouldn’t have sold for a thousand dollars. I had to shoot him. But Rose was so special in my life—that I wouldn’t touch her until we were married. That concerned her, but I held her that great in my heart and mind to be square with her.

  “God sent her to me up on the Platt. A worthless man brought her to my camp and he offered to sell her—I gave him all the money I had at the time. It is not the money I lost but her gentle spirit. Boys, this is hard.”

  They all agreed.

  “I told her when he left her with me, I told her that she could go back to her people. She wasn’t sure. I said that I was going to see the Rocky Mountains and she could come with me—”

  Concerned, Tucker said, “Sit down before you fall over.”

  He did so on a crate. “I told her, then, ‘Rose, if you still want to go home I will take you.’ After that was settled we went to Denver, and I bought her that horse, saddle, and some new clothes. Then the stableman—hell, fellows, I didn’t tell you how three hardcases came to us right after Bromley sold her to me. They said they were taking her.” He rubbed the side of his hand on his forehead. “I fed two of them to the fish in the Platt River. Anyway the Denver stableman told me some tough guys had come around there asking about me and her at his stables. So we left in the night and found your outfit down by Pueblo. We planned to be married at Christmas at our family ranch in Texas.”

  “Why did they want her?” one of the men asked.

  “Maybe because her father is a big Sioux chief. I never pressed her about that. I knew she was homesick. Now my entire life has fallen into a pile of fresh hog shit.”

  “Long, I’ve been out here for near twenty years. I’ve fought beside some of the toughest men anyone ever heard of, but you are the toughest Indian fighter I have ever known. I knew when they charged you that they were tackling the hardest, toughest Indian fighter I ever met. We can’t heal your loss, but ain’t a man here tonight don’t think that about you.”

  “Boys, if Harp and my dad had been here there’d been a lot less of them that would have ridden home.”

  One of the men held up something. “I’ve got a bottle of whiskey. Good stuff. If you want it you can have it.”

  “No, but thanks. I am so mixed up now that whiskey would really put me spinning.”

  “We can stay and talk all night and the others can dig that grave.”

  “I’ve said about all I need to say. A drover would say to his partners I’d cross the next river with any of you any time. Gracias.”

  He rode his horse, took hers and the packhorse away from them the next day. In two weeks pushing himself hard he was at the trading post of the half-Cherokee John Chisholm on the Salt Fork. He’d met John that summer going north and they laughed about being alike—both half-Cherokee.

  He told John he’d seen the Rockies. John had been there before, too.

  “Mighty tall hills,” Chisholm said, and they both laughed.

  He talked to John about Rose and losing her.

  And his friend told him, “The maker in the sky treated you to her. But he had more work for her in that final place. I, too, have lost such perfect women. They never complain. Never nag you and bring sparkles into your life. But instead the others always survive.”

  They both laughed.

  Among Chisholm’s trading goods he found a well-made, sheep wool–lined, long-tailed leather coat like new. It fit Long perfectly and he bought it. After he paid for it, John told him that the man who owned it last was still alive when he sold it. That the damn fool had sold it to buy whiskey and the next night froze to death without it.

  Long was never sure if he was teasing or right about it—but he knew, headed south, as long as he had it on he wouldn’t freeze to death.

  On the Texas Road he met up with an outfit returning home from Abilene and going south. Long met Grover McCarthy, who owned the Plains Cattle Company that was situated west of Austin, on the road. He and his dozen boys, his remuda, and chuck wagon made up their outfit, and Grover told him he was welcome to come along with them going home. There were enough worthless bums on the road south looking for a single man to prey upon that Long was grateful for their company.

  Long, right off, liked Grover and his men, mostly boys who were a fun bunch, so he brought along his packhorse and Rose’s pony and joined them. They loaded all his gear in the chuck wagon, put the extra two horses in the remuda, and headed south leaving behind the Salt Fork Trading Post of John Chisholm.

  The rivers were all low in the fall, and some of the boys asked if he could swim.

  “I sure can. Harp and I were raised in western Arkansas, and as young boys my dad made us learn to swim. His first wife drowned, so Mom and us all learned how to swim. When we got to Texas we didn’t have enough water but we had learned how, and you don’t forget it.”

  One of the boys said, “Where I was raised we didn’t have any water ’cept in a well deep enough to swim in.”

  They all laughed.

  Those boys wanted to stop and party in Fort Worth. So Long shook their hands
, loaded up his gear, thanked them, then him and his ponies headed southwest. He wanted to be home for Christmas, and partying at the moment didn’t have an appeal to him.

  Late that next night, across Brazos River, he’d not found a site to camp before dark. Then he discovered a loose-saddled horse in the road and caught him. The good gelding must have gotten loose and was dragging his reins. Long decided he’d have to make a camp and try to find the owner in the morning. Maybe they’d been thrown or were hurt. He had a candle lamp in his things. He’d need some light while he tied up the horses, so he unpacked that. Then he began to unload things under the lamplight. It wasn’t that big a help, but it beat the moonless darkness. The saddle horse had a brand but he couldn’t read it.

  He found some wood and had a fire going to cook some frijoles and make some coffee. It brightened up his rough campsite among the post oak and cedar along the wagon tracks someone called a road that supposedly went south to Kerrville. He knew it was still several long days’ ride from home.

  When involved at last in pouring himself a cup of coffee, he heard someone cock a pistol behind him. The sound chilled his blood—all the care he took and this might be the last moments of his life.

  “Get your damn hands in the air or I’m blowing daylight right through you, mister.”

  He set down the cup and rose to his feet all careful-like. It was a woman’s voice but she sounded tough.

  She reached in and jerked his Colt out of the holster. “Now get over there.”

  “I’m sorry. What are you so mad at me about?”

  “I figure you work for that gawdamn Orem Cates. I ain’t going to be his whore.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know him or you for that matter.”

  “Don’t lie to me, you big sumbitch. Why, you guys doped me tonight or I’d got somewhere’s safe. But—I got—dizzy.”

  He knew in an instant she must be fainting and tried to catch her, but in his effort to save her she rode him to the ground, her limp form on top of him. She was six feet tall and not fat but a very big woman—a real nice enough looking one, too, from what he could see in the fire’s light. He set the gun aside from her and rearranged her body to be more comfortable, putting his saddle under her head.

  Then, sipping coffee, he wondered how to revive her. Man that sure was a lot of woman there. Who was this Orem somebody? Obvious someone had doped her. But what could he do? A twenty-some-year-old woman he had no name for was passed out cold in his camp. Someone was trying to enslave her or she thought so anyway.

  How in the blue blazes did he get caught up with these women? Her and Rose had both been dropped in his lap. Of course he loved Rose and they’d made—would’ve had a good life together. This woman was an Amazon. He read a book somewhere about them.

  He almost laughed out loud about how he had been nearly crushed to death by a storybook character.

  Still amused about that, at last he went about fixing a bowl of steaming beans to eat. She’d tried to come around once, but didn’t make it. He finally hid her gun in a pannier, put his own back in his holster to have it at hand should he need it, and got ready to sleep on the ground across the fire from her.

  The temperature had dropped so he put his heavy coat over most of her and kept his own blanket for himself to sleep in. She still puzzled him, but maybe she’d sleep it off, and when she woke up maybe she’d explain. He sure hoped so.

  When the sun tried to rise he woke up. The temperature had dropped even colder. When he got water on the fire for coffee she stirred. He glanced over where she had pulled herself up into a sitting position huddled in his great coat.

  “Oh, my God. What in the hell did you do to me?”

  “Not one damn thing, lady. You came in here accusing me of something I had nothing to do with—doping you or poisoning you. I simply found a loose horse, saddled, in the dark on the road and made camp.”

  She shook her head. Her brunette hair was in her face. She looked a mess, and a large one at that.

  “First tell me who in the damn blazes are you?”

  “Long John O’Malley from down by Kerrville. I’ve been from Abilene, Kansas, to Denver to see the Rockies and dodging fighting crazy wild Indians to get back here. My business is driving cattle herds to Kansas.”

  She parted her hair and tossed some back. “And you’ve got a damn nice thick coat I am loving this cold morning. Me, well six weeks ago I had a husband. He got into a gun fight with a man who came by and told me to leave my husband and for me to come be his concubine.”

  Smiling, Long said, “He had lots of nerve to tell you that, didn’t he?”

  “Oh, he had the gall of a real billy goat. That old sumbitch riding a stud horse like he was Napoleon telling me that I needed him.” She made a repulsive face and shook her head over her situation.

  “Well here’s what happened next. Rory, my husband, got so mad over it he went to town and got in the damndest gun fight with those sumbitches. Ended up wounding some of them and got kilt his-self.”

  “I’m sorry about that.”

  “Well I buried him. Bless his soul and went to running my ranch. Next they went to running off my hired help. I told the sheriff but him and Orem Cates, the bastard that told me to leave Rory, are as close as brothers.”

  “So what happened next?”

  “I told you. Cates’s boys run off my help, and yesterday they come to forcibly take me to their paw. Well I fought them hard as I could and they got me down and about choked me to death giving me laudanum. Then loaded me onto a horse. I fooled them acting groggy and I got away in the night. But the drug struck me and I got dizzy, fell off the horse, but remember stumbling down the road. When I found your camp I thought you were more of them Cates.”

  “What is your name?”

  “Janet Holcroft.”

  “I’ll make us some breakfast, Janet, and then we can go see what can be done for you.”

  “Hey, you must have family, a wife, a ranch, too much for you to worry about my ass.”

  “The woman I was to marry was killed by Indians in Kansas six weeks ago. My brother’s been running the H Bar H ever since I left. I would like to settle this horrific war for you before I go home.”

  “Well I wouldn’t turn down any gawdamn help. You got a brush. My hair is a damn mess.”

  “How big a ranch do you have?” he asked her.

  “Oh, a section. Rory’s daddy fought in the Tex/Mex war and he earned it as a sixteen-year-old boy.”

  “Wow.”

  “We lost him last year to the fever. But he was a great guy and he left Rory with the ranch. His dad’s second wife had a baby after him but they both died at the birth. Rory’s mom had died earlier from snakebite.” She paused. “Where did you come from?” she asked.

  “My Cherokee father died out hunting buffalo. I never met him. My stepfather married my mom before I was born up in Arkansas. My nine-month younger brother Harp and I are very close. We took six thousand head of cattle to Abilene last year.”

  “Why hell, Long, you’ve got enough money to burn wet mules on a wet damn rainy day and have some left.”

  He laughed. “I never thought about it like that.”

  She got up and put the coat on. “I’ve got business to take care of right now. I swear I’ll come right back and I won’t shoot you.”

  “Don’t take too long . . . these eggs and ham I have here will be done soon enough.”

  She nodded and strode off in his coat into the brush.

  He shook his head after her. Why, she might even up and claim it for her own.

  They ate his cooking. She bragged on his Arbuckle coffee and then she gathered dishes to wash them and his pan.

  “I’ll saddle the horses. Anywhere you want to go, or home?”

  “Won’t do any damn good to go to the sheriff. Told you, him and Cates are like brothers.”

  “Fine. Your place?”

  “If they ain’t burned the son of a bitch to the ground.”

 
; He stopped. “I know you’re mad, but cussing like a sailor won’t bring your man back or stop these bullies from attacking you.”

  “Hmm, my cussing bothers you?” Her blue eyes stared a hole in him.

  “It does. You’re a pretty woman and it comes out of place for me.”

  “You may have bad eyes, too.”

  “No, my eyes are fine. Your cussing, aside from bothering me, does nothing but distract from you.”

  “Well.” She wet her lips. “Not one man ever told me that in my life. How did a half Indian learn so much and so many words I never heard of, ever, before in my life?”

  “My mother, and I hope someday you meet her.”

  “Long, I want to meet her.”

  “We can go down there. You’ll like her.”

  “And from here on, I will try not to cuss around you.”

  “Don’t do it for me. Do it for yourself.”

  “Go pack. I’ll have these—dishes done in no time.”

  He tossed her a hairbrush that she caught. “Thanks. I’ll try to look better wearing this fine coat and talk more like a lady.”

  Horses packed. They rode for her ranch. He felt better when they found the place was still standing.

  She dropped off her horse. “Long, this is all I have from a wedding and three years of marriage. Rory worked hard. We sent two hundred head of cattle, we had big enough, with a drover and got eight thousand dollars. Paid off the longest standing ranch loan in Texas and I have the rest in the bank.

  “I guess Cates thought I was free game for no reason I could give. I swear I never as much as smiled at him. I met Rory up at Cleburne at a dance. He was like you, six feet tall and it was nice. I’d danced with midgets since I was sixteen or younger.

  “He told me he’d marry me if I’d move to his ranch down here. That wasn’t hard. I figured I’d be an old maid if I didn’t. No, that’s not so. He was very gracious and respectful of me. We were married two weeks later. His paw was still alive and he was a good old man until he later died.

  “After we got the loan paid off, Rory got serious and we went to branding mavericks that were all over the place. The Cates got pushy about us taking their cattle, but we never did one blame thing about rounding up any of theirs. Why, we branded five hundred head, Rory, I, and two cowboys in the past three months.”