Blood at Bear Lake Read online

  Joe turned around and weaved his way unsteadily outside.

  He did not remember to stop and give the extra bottle to the gents gathered just outside the door, but carried it on with him toward the corral where his horse and mule were confined.

  Moss was accustomed to being alone anyway. And two bottles ought to be enough company for anyone.

  43

  “SHH! WATCH WHERE ya step.”

  “Shush yer own damn self, Carl. You an’ them big feet o’ yorn.”

  “Where the hell is this fella, Asa?”

  “The man said someplace out this-a here way. After two bottles, he should ought fer t’ be layin’ up drunk by now.”

  “You hope. You ain’t never killed nobody afore now.”

  “Well, you ain’t neither. Besides, I ain’t scared to. Not for that kinda money, I ain’t.”

  “Hush now, dammit, lest he hears you.”

  “You’re the one makin’ all the noise.”

  “Whoa. Is that him?”

  “I don’t see nothin’.”

  “Over by that fence line yonder.”

  “Looks like a shadow to me.”

  “He’s got to be right close aroun’ here someplace, Asa.”

  “So watch yer step now. Slow an’ easy does it. Slow an’ easy. Don’t make no noise. It’ll be easy. One whack o’ the ax an’ all that money’s our’n, just like the man said. Easy money, Carl. Easy money.”

  “I sure as shit hope it’s easy.”

  “Aw, it ain’t gonna be no worse ‘n killin’ a shoat. Easier likely. This fella ain’t gonna be runnin’ around no pen an’ squealin’. He’ll just be laying there passed out from that likker.”

  “Lordy, I could use a drink my own self.”

  “Soon as we collect our money, we’ll both of us have a drink. Likely more’n one.”

  “Shh. Shh. I think I see him. Right over there in that shadow. Y’see? D’ you see?”

  “Right. Shush now. You got that ax ready? All right. Now quiet, boy. Real, real quiet. No, stop. Wait just a minute whilst I get my breathin’ slowed down. What we can do, we’ll slip in just a little bit closer, then rush the son of a bitch. Run in quick and one whack and it’s done. Right?”

  “I’m nervous.”

  “Shit, there ain’t nothing t’ be scared of. The man is passed out drunk. You can see for yourself.”

  “Yeah. I see.”

  “All right now. Ready with the ax. Get set . . . go!”

  44

  JOE SAT COMFORTABLY enough with his back against a feed bunk inside the next corral over from where he had laid out his gear. He was a little cool—felt like he was damned well freezing actually—because his blankets, hat, and rifle were laid out on the ground where they could be seen if anyone took the bait he was dangling there for them. This chill was nothing, though, compared with wading thigh-deep in a cold mountain stream to check a set of beaver traps. Nor did it rise to the level of danger he had faced one night on the Musselshell when half a dozen pissed-off Crow warriors were searching for him. Both parties, then and now, were after his scalp.

  That was a thing to keep in mind, Joe told himself.

  Take an enemy lightly and you give him an edge. Enemies could indeed be dismissed as unimportant, Joe figured . . . after they were dead.

  He sat motionless in the shadows, virtually under the belliesof a dozen or so mules that were part of some freighter’s string. He would not have trusted himself like that to oxen nor even to horses, but mules are cautious about where they place their feet. He was in no danger from the mules. In fact, the long-eared beasts were acting as his sentinels. Their hearing was as acute as any dog’s, and they were not so vocal in their warnings when someone passed near.

  A dozen times or more, the mules warned Joe that someone was coming. Almost as one, their ears swiveled and pointed, telling Joe not only that someone was close, but pinpointing exactly where.

  People came and went, passing on in whatever business they had in the night. Joe sat and waited. And watched.

  “Shit, there ain’t nothing t’ be scared of. The man is passed out drunk. You can see for yourself.”

  “Yeah. I see.”

  Joe heard the whispers. He did not recognize the voices. He did recognize the threat, however.

  There were two of them. One was carrying an ax, a single-bit blade of the kind someone might use to chop firewood. The other seemed to have a club, or perhaps simply a section of tree limb.

  Joe was mildly surprised that this particular pair had been hired as assassins. They did not appear to be well suited to the task. They lacked the degree of stealth that Indian fighters develop—or at least those who survive long enough to learn—nor did they exhibit any firearms. Joe would have thought that in a frontier post like Fort Laramie, Ransom Holt could have found someone more likely to succeed than these two.

  Not that Joe was complaining. Hell, he hoped all of Holt’s choices were this inept.

  The two of them crept up on Joe’s blankets with no more noise and commotion than a team of dray horses might have made. When they were in position to make their final rush, they stopped. He got the idea that they needed a moment to screw up their courage—much of which probably came from a whiskey bottle to begin with—and prepare themselves to commit murder.

  Murder is not an easy thing, Joe figured.

  Killing is something else again. There are many reasons that can make it necessary to kill another human. Joe had done that many times and never regretted it afterward. If it was genuinely necessary, there was no cause for regret; if it was not necessary, he did not do it. Plain and simple.

  What these two men were preparing themselves to do was murder.

  They intended to attack and to kill a sleeping man who was no threat to them whatsoever—or would not have been had they not chosen to come after him in the night—and they intended to do that not for cause, but for money.

  Joe did not know what Ransom Holt was offering in exchange for his scalp.

  But it was not enough.

  As the assassins crept ever closer to Joe’s empty blankets, he stirred a little, giving the mules around him time to recognize the fact that their visitor was moving.

  The mules parted, stepping carefully aside as Joe uncoiled from his position beside the feed bunk.

  He slipped silently through the bars of the corral, and came out behind the two who wanted to murder him.

  The taller of the two paused and took a deep breath as if to steel his nerve.

  “All right now. Ready with the ax. Get set . . . go!”

  45

  IT WAS JOE Moss who “went.” Joe stepped in close behind the one in the rear, the taller of the two. He was the one who was wielding the club, which up close Joe could now see was a singletree that was part of someone’s hitch.

  The shorter man hefted his ax and stepped confidently toward the still form on the ground, thinking it was Joe lying there passed out and defenseless.

  Joe, in fact, was not quite so defenseless as these boys seemed to think he was.

  While the fellow with the ax was busy planting his heavy blade square into the top of Joe’s hat, a killing blow for certain had it been Joe lying there and not a makeshift dummy, Joe was taking a swing with his own very much smaller ax.

  Joe’s tomahawk reflected sharp sparkles of starlight as he deftly chopped the back of the tall man’s neck, severing the spine and killing the son of a bitch instantly.

  The man fell, the singletree he had been carrying falling with a dull clatter.

  Even before his dead partner hit the ground, the shorter fellow with the ax felt by the impact that his blade had not found flesh nor bone, but only a nearly empty flour sack that Joe had propped his hat on.

  He took his ax up, but did not strike again. That was when he turned around and saw his partner lying dead on the ground and someone else standing over the body. “Hey, dammit!”

  “Hey yourself, you piece o’ shit,” Joe barked. �
�You’ve gone an’ ruint a perfectly good hat, damn you.”

  “Who . . . ?” The fellow’s eyes went wide with shocked realization at what was happening. “Look . . . mister, I . . . I . . . oh, shit!” He let the ax hang at his side.

  The fellow seemed to steel himself. He paused for only a moment, then exploded into motion, bringing the ax up again and lashing out with a quick, sweeping stroke that would have spilled Joe’s guts onto the ground if it had connected.

  Instead, the sharp blade swept harmlessly through nothing but air where Joe’s belly had been a moment earlier.

  The emigrant grunted with the effort of his blow, his breath whooshing loud from his lungs in the silence of the night. Joe could smell the garlic he had had in his last meal.

  Last meal indeed!

  Joe stepped in behind the emigrant’s missed ax stroke, stepped in close, and quickly hacked once with his already bloody tomahawk. Joe’s blade cut through flesh and sinew and bone, and the heavy ax fell onto the ground, dropping from suddenly nerveless fingers as the fellow’s arm was chopped very nearly in two just above the wrist. What was left dangled and flopped, useless and spouting blood that was black and shiny in the dim starlight.

  “Oh, God!” The man screamed and grabbed his wrist with his other hand, trying to stanch the flow.

  Joe moved sideways a step and then another, trying to see what other armaments the man might have on him.

  Not that it would have mattered anyway. The fellow was out of this fight, and probably everything else as well. His horrified concentration was focused totally on his grievously wounded right hand. Joe doubted he would have noticed had a herd of naked doxies paraded themselves before him pleading for his attention.

  “You’re gonna bleed t’ death,” Joe said, shoving his tomahawk casually into his sash. He bent and picked up his hat, scowled at the clean slice this man’s ax had put into the felt, and punched it back into shape before putting it on again. He hated going bareheaded in the night air. Bad for the lungs, or so he believed, and left a man susceptible to all manner of ills and influenzas.

  He stepped closer to the injured man and repeated, slower and a little louder this time, “You are gonna bleed to death, mister.” This time the man seemed to hear.

  “I . . . I . . . oh, God!”

  “You already said that. I don’t know as it’s doing you any good.”

  “But I . . . I . . .”

  “Point that blood spray somewheres else, will ya? I don’t want t’ get it all over me.”

  “Jesus, mister, I’m dying here and you’re taking it awful light.”

  “Well, I reckon so. Mister, I’m the one you just now tried t’ kill. You want sympathy, this ain’t the place to get it.”

  “Help me, mister. You got to help me.”

  “All I got t’ do is stand here an’ watch you die. That an’ tell folks that I’m proud to be the one that’s killed you. Or I could take my belt . . . no, wait a minute, no sense in that . . . I could take his belt”—he pointed to the dead man lying at his feet—“I could take his belt an’ tie off your arm so’s you don’t bleed out. Then you and me could have a little talk about why it was you decided you wanted t’ come along an’ kill me while I was laying there passed out drunk.”

  “You could do that?”

  “Ayuh. Could. But I ain’t saying that I would. Why the hell should I?” Joe snorted. “Unless you was to tell me some things.”

  “Anything,” the man frantically said.

  It was plain to see that the grip of the man’s good hand was weakening with the blood loss and that soon he would have no effect at all on the continuing dark flow from his slippery, blood-slick arm.

  “Here,” Joe said. “This might help.” He rather delicately took the injured hand by one finger and held it so he could critically examine the strip of flesh and tendons that kept the hand so tenuously attached to the fellow’s forearm. After a moment, Joe said, “Uh-huh,” and used his razor-sharp bowie to deftly slice through the last strips of flesh. The severed hand dropped to the ground and the emigrant screamed again.

  “Should be easier t’ tie off now,” Joe said. He smiled. “If I want t’ bother stopping you from bleedin’ to death. Can you think of any reason why I should?”

  “I . . . I . . . anything, mister. Anything. But you got to help me. You got to.”

  “First you tell me why you come at me like you done. Then we’ll see do I want t’ bother stopping you from dyin’. Set down. You’re starting t’ look a little pale. Set down by that post there . . . no, not on my blankets, dammit, you’ll get ’em all bloody . . . set an’ tell me what I’m wantin’ t’ know.”

  46

  JOE HUMMED A Lakota chant while he gathered up his things and moved them away from the blood and the two bodies. Stupid sons of bitches! They had thought to strike it rich without even going to California. Instead, they reached the end of their road right here at Fort Laramie.

  According to the one with the ax, each left a wife and family back in wherever the fuck they came from. Those wives likely would never know what happened to their husbands. Just as well that they didn’t, Joe thought with a grunt as he placed his blankets and saddle down again.

  He patted his war bag, which now held two fresh scalps to add to his collection. He would have to remember to dry these. Fiona had not liked the smell of his old scalps and threw them away. Maybe if he properly dressed this new and still growing collection, she would not mind having them around. In Joe’s opinion, a man just naturally felt better having those reminders of past success close to hand for him to sing about.

  By the time Joe was done, it was closer to dawn than to dusk. He could feel the chill of the morning air, and he shivered just a little as he strode through the darkness toward the old trading post that had been Sol Pennington’s. And Burl Danforth’s before Sol, and . . . it took him a moment to call back to mind the name of the long-dead trader who had had the post before Danforth. Jones. Reggie Jones that had been. All of them dead and gone now.

  The place was shut down for the night, the last of the drunks thrown out and the heavy door barred, although there was a rim of yellow lamplight around the edges of the door. Likely, the proprietor was busy cleaning up. Or counting his profits.

  Joe took his bowie out and used the heavy butt end to rap on the door. Loud and hard.

  There was no immediate response, so he did it again, and kept up the pounding until he heard a voice from the other side call out, “I’m closed, dammit. Come back in the morning.”

  “I have an express packet for someone name of James Tuttle,” Joe called through the door.

  “An express?”

  “That’s right. Some fella in Julesburg paid me t’ carry it here. I’m supposed to give it into the hand of this James Tuttle person an’ no other. That’s what I was told.”

  “But what is it?”

  “How the hell would I know? The package is tied tight with string. It ain’t heavy enough t’ be gold, though.” He faked a laugh. “I don’t know as it woulda got here if I thought it was gold.”

  “Just a minute, then.” There was the thump and scrape of a heavy bar being retracted, then the door swung partially open. “Let me have . . . you!” The trader’s eyes went wide when he saw who his nocturnal visitor was.

  Joe shouldered his way inside, pulling the door closed behind him. He yanked the bar into place, locking himself inside with James Tuttle, who turned out to be the same impatient fellow Joe had spoken with earlier in the day, the one who took Sol’s place when Sol was murdered by Ransom Holt.

  “What do you want here? Come back during business hours and we . . .”

  Joe shut him up with a slap across the face.

  “Wh—you can’t do that!”

  Joe slapped him again. Harder. Blood began to trickle out of the corner of Tuttle’s mouth.

  “Why are you . . . why are you doing this?” Tuttle demanded. His voice was firm. But he did not meet Joe’s eyes when he
spoke. He knew damned good and well why Joe was there.

  Joe slapped him a third time, the force of it turning Tuttle half around. His hand crept into the pocket of his apron and emerged holding a tiny pepperbox revolver.

  Joe took it away from him.

  Tuttle turned pale with terror now that he was unarmed. “Look . . . Moss . . . I didn’t, uh, I didn’t . . .”

  “Interesting that you know who I am now,” Joe said. “Earlier today, you didn’t know nothing. Or claimed you didn’t. But you knew enough to hire those damn fool pork eaters t’ kill me. Gonna pay each of them a hundred dollars, they said. Told them I’d be passed out drunk an’ it’d be easy t’ take my scalp.” Joe held up the two fresh scalps for Tuttle to see. “Wasn’t quite that easy, James. Turns out they’re the ones as has gone under.”

  Joe returned the scalps to his war bag and took up the bowie again.

  “The thing is, James, I figure t’ take one more scalp tonight. Something you ought t’ know before we set down t’ talk. There was one of those Missouri boys lived long enough t’ tell me a few things. Then I finished the son of a bitch off.” He drew the edge of the bowie over an imaginary throat, then chuckled. “Don’t know as I’ll be so easy on you though, James. Might kill you Injun style so’s it will take you a couple days t’ die, wallowing around in pain an’ screaming for your mama.”

  “Don’t kill me, Moss. Don’t. Please.”

  “I can’t think of any reason why I shouldn’t, you settin’ me up t’ die like that.”

  “I can tell you . . . tell you everything, Moss. Just let me live. Everything.” The man was sweating profusely and looked like he might pass out there on his own floor. “Everything.”

  “I dunno, James. I ain’t gonna make no promises. Not yet, I ain’t. But I reckon I’ll listen to what-all you got t’ say. Then I’ll decide.” He smiled, under the circumstances a very chilling expression, and tapped Tuttle lightly on the chest with the tip of the big knife. “So let’s us two set down in those chairs over there an’ have us a good talk. After that, we’ll see do I still want t’ kill you or just leave you alone t’ fester in your own pus. Go on. Set. An’ James . . . one thing more. Any time you decide you want t’ make a try for me, why, you just go right ahead.” The smile turned into a wickedly mocking grin. “Any time, you cocksucking son of a whore.”