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The Legend of Blue Soldier Riding, Kiowa
By Tom Sheehan
The High Chief of Clouds, he was sure, had sent the landslide, and vengeance was left to him and him alone. All the others were gone. Gray Dove was gone. One Wing was gone. Puma Path was gone. His best friend Eagle Claw and all the others were gone. For his own life, he said his thank you to The High Chief of Clouds, "Aahóow" it was said. In a soft chant deep in the cave, he sang his thanks repeatedly. But when he tried to chant "in the language" the names of those he had lost in the raid, they jumped around like hummingbirds and caught in his throat, threatening to choke him. "I will die with a hard memory," sounded in his head, but strong Kiowa vengeance tossed it away like a feather from a nest, no more to be remembered. After all, he was Kiowa, fierce, relentless, warrior of the plains, horseman without match. His blood, he knew, would long sing the names.
Before all this was over, he would take himself to Bear Butte far in the north, the sacred place, "K'ówp·éytto" it was called and it would be good for him and all the others. He would lift their names to The High Chief of the Clouds and Dead River himself would come back to a good life when he offered up his name, "Pééy p'óó." All would be blessed again; many drawings on the robes of the elders said it was so, robes where events were marked and time kept in its place and where the promises coming almost became visible.
The landslide had saved his life, coming down between him and the pursuing troop of soldiers who had destroyed his village. With the onus of vengeance on him, he accepted the loss of all his implements. In his scramble for safety, the clutter of rocks and debris had taken possession of his horse, bow, arrows, quiver, his only knife, and even the blanket Gray Dove had made for him. The only things keeping him warm in the cave he had found were the pine boughs he dragged in behind him during the night, through the solid mass of devil's claw hiding the entrance. No trooper would follow him; off horseback they were lost, and he knew it as well as they did. This was Indian country, along the Rio Grande Valley, up from the jungles south of there, down from the ice bridges in the north, past "K'ówp·éytto" sitting so proudly on Mother Earth as if the High Chief had set it in place so all would think of him.
It was only three days since he had started alone out on his hunt, as Good Chief had requested. His real name day was coming where he would meet up with himself, as Good Chief had said. "You will find your real name on this hunt. Be aware." Now Good Chief would not know he had taken the name of "Blue Soldier Riding." Would he understand when the name became known? Would there be shame? Would other braves make fun of his name, even if he was Kiowa? Does anybody make fun of a Kiowa name?
He reflected back on the start of his trek, saying goodbye to Gray Dove at the edge of the teepee village. Before he knew it, the great river was in front of him. With some planning and good fortune the river crossing had gone well, his horse Wolf Boy, "Kûy thalíi," strong enough to fight the surge of water that came out of the canyon wall in a quick rush, as if long rains had been chasing him for days on end. He wondered about the name "Long Rain," but had not seen the long rain, so that name was put aside. "Great Fish" did not come or "Hawk on Ledge" or "Puma Plunge." For two full days he was nameless.
And then, at a sharp turn in the mountainside trail, he saw great smoke rising as he came back toward his village, where three days earlier 100 teepees had spread across the plains like sunshine. Then, like a hawk had dropped it across his path in the path of the wind, he smelled fire, and the burning of flesh, a disgusting odor coming upon him.
Still astride the main trail on The Big Mountain, he suddenly became aware that some riders were nearby. Horse smell came first to him and then he saw the soldier in blue on the top of a rest, motioning to others that he had probably seen a lone Indian on the trail. One soldier caused him no fear, but he did not know how many others were behind him, back down the trail on the other side of the mountain.
It would be best to find out how many dared pursue him. He whipped Wolf Boy into a fast run back on the trail. The lone rider in blue followed him, a good rider on a good horse, he determined in a few quick looks. A strong horse, a big red horse, moved like a prairie fire in the wind, a horse as good as Wolf Boy, and he was gaining on him.
Then the gods interfered, The Mountain God and the High Chief, as a loud crack, as loud as the voice of an angry Thunder God spoke, and the Good Earth God shook all over, and part of the mountain came down on the two riders. Everything growing in the path of the landslide came down, pinon trees, devil's claw with its thick, coarse hairs on long leaves, manzanita he knew as bearberry shrub with red bark and oval-shaped leaves, tall pine trees torn by awesome power from deep-dowsing roots gone down to unknown depths.
In that massive movement of earth mix, he thought the last thing in the world he would see was the blue soldier riding on the big horse getting caught up in the overwhelming rush of rocks and unearthed trees. That would become his name if he lived, Blue Soldier Riding. The pain that must have come upon the other rider came upon him as the rush of mountain pushed itself upon him. Wolf Boy's front legs were broken in one swift crush of rock and stone. There was no sound except a collapse of breath escaping the great chest.
Noise surrounded him. Dust entered his eyes. Sat on his tongue. Rocks bounced their chaos around him. Unhorsed, stripped of his gear, he found himself flush against the mountain. A dark opening was beside him and he rolled into it, his hands reaching ahead of him, at search. When they touched the inside wall, he muttered, in the language, "T 'óów ts' óów," cold stone. The white man, the blue soldiers, often used cold stone to mark their graves, but he would not think the cold mountain was going to be his final holy place. After all this, he was still Kiowa.
Hours passed, stars surely passed overhead, and no sounds came from the mountain or from the debris piled up in the bottom of the canyon. And nothing from the blue soldier. No sounds came from his comrades wherever they were or had gone. No search party had made themselves known, as if the blue soldier was already forgotten, discounted, his spirit trying to find its way to wherever such spirits went.
He waited a whole day, thinking of Gray Dove and Eagle Claw and One Wing, and finally believed that they were free and in the wind with all the other birds. And Puma Path would be loose on the Great Mountain, on the scent.
In a bright morning's sun, a hawk cruising on a lift of air rising from the mountain, he crawled out of the cave. The sky was blue as far as he could see, with the exception of one white cloud sitting way off in the western sky like a lost rabbit out on the wide grass. Silence rode the air as if all sound had fled the earth. No wind touched his face where wind was always turning on itself in the heart of canyons, playing games with one's face and mind, like children at play at the edge of the village.
He was hungry. He had no tools, no weapons, but he was Kiowa. He'd go hungry as long as it took him to find food, find a horse, find a way to a friendly village. He was still on his hands and knees when he heard a horse snickering beyond the crush of rocks and uprooted trees. Moving cautiously among the mass of boulders and sheered rock face, the arms and trunks of trees tumbled in a heap at the end of their lives, he stood to get a longer look.
It was amazing; the soldier's horse was there, the great red horse that had pursued him and Wolf Boy, penned in against the face of one cliff, his saddle in place, a canteen still tied to the saddle, a rifle in its long scabbard. Then he saw the blue soldier flat on the floor of the canyon, his head nearly crushed by a stone as big as himself. For the first time he could study a blue soldier, look at his hands, study the his wrists and arms, imagine the decisions that had been made by a man now dead, now past all doubts and all decisions. This one looked to have been a strong man, one his own size, but there was no face in which to find a reflection, the way one sees into others as one sees into a placid stream.
Then it hit him; he would soon be known as Blue Soldier Riding. Villages would call his name out. He would wear the soldier's blue clothes, his boots, and his wide-brimmed hat. He would ride his horse and use his weapons. All the world would know of Blue Soldier Riding. Pelts would come to him, beads in great designs from the High Chief himself, a slim girl who could hunt and fish and who might say he could call her Gray Dove if he wanted to.
"Ahye," he said, as he saw a knife sticking from a place in the saddle, a long knife of a kind he had only seen once, in the hands of a great Kiowa who had taken it from a horseman in Mexico, across the wide river. "K'óo'" he said under his breath, like it was a prayer, "Knife," it would have said to the soldier if he was listening with an ear for the language.
A patch of food was in a saddle bag. Dry beef jerky, needing good teeth, did its errand. And the horse was given the first water, right from the wide hat. One large rock was moved by using a long limb shorn from a tree. The rock rolled slowly at first, and then rolled a few feet on the canyon floor. Now there was room enough for the horse to leave. The big red drank again from the hat, felt the comfort and the trust in the new hands, and heard the soft whisper in his ear.
Again, confirming he was Kiowa, he was horseman; he agreed with himself that his new horse must have a new name, as he himself had a new name.
For a long while he thought, and then, he touched the horse's neck with a soft pat and a soft voice saying, in the language, "K'óo tséeyñ," Knife Horse. The bonding that had begun long ago on the prairie when the horses came with the Spaniards from below the big river, began anew; a new horse and a new rider, made for each other, and new names for each. He patted the big red once more on the neck, whispered his name in still a softer voice, "K'óo tséeyñ,' thinking it was like talking to Gray Dove out on the soft grass, under the moon laying cover on them.
K'óo tséeyñ answered back.
Studying rifle and knife and the saddle gear, getting his hands comfortable with them, he still yearned for his bow. He'd have to make one, and do that in a hurry. The horse moved easily out of the natural corral, eased his way past more boulders, turned at a reins message, and came out at the end of the landslide. The new weight sat on him evenly and comfortably. At the reach of grass he broke into a spirited run, pulling up in a copse of trees at a new command; where a bow might reside, and arrows might be found.
At a small stream nearby he found enough smelly arrow weed stems to make a dozen arrows. They looked long and true and would fly like the small thief bird. He found and cut wood for a bow, liking the feel of it immediately. Hunger coming at him, a rabbit was snared, a small fire lit at the edge of twilight, the meat cooked quickly, the fire put out, and the animal tethered and watered. He slept a few hours until a distant wolf call, disturbing K'óo tséeyñ, disturbed him. He rose up in the darkness. It was time to go back.
It was time for revenge.
He took a different way back, over another mountain, through numerous valleys, down through a final canyon cutting right into Mother Earth. He came at last to a familiar place, on the side of a mountain that looked down where the village had been, on the meadow where he and Gray Dove had spent a few nights.
The fullness of day was behind him, and when he turned to look back down the trail he had used, he saw two blue soldiers, astride their horses staring at him from a long distance. Without hesitation, the way he had planned it out all in his mind, he crazily shook his rifle over his head, waving them on. They came toward him, dipped around a turn in the trail and disappeared. When they came in sight, around a sharp turn, he dropped one of them with a single arrow. The man fell quickly from his saddle. As the other soldier turned to run or dismount, he fell dead from a rifle shot. A third rider appeared way back down the trail and galloped off.
With speed, the two dead soldiers were stripped of their gear, but not their uniforms, except the yellow patches on their sleeves. He laid them side by side and covered them with a few rocks that scavengers would have trouble moving, and rode off, down into a canyon he knew well.
In the middle of the old village, death still a living sign there, every teepee torn down and burned, but no bodies visible, he drove an arrow into the ground and attached to it the yellow patches he had stripped off the arms of the soldiers, and included those on the shirt he wore.
At the edge of evening he raised his arms to the High Chief of the Clouds who had given him the errand of vengeance. With arms lifted, his very spirit moving from him in thanks, he chanted again and again the words of thanks, "Aahóow," he sang and kept singing, "Aahóow, Aahóow." The echoes of the chant are heard yet, in small canyons, on mountain tops, on the wide prairies under sun and moon and the mix of stars.
The legend has run wild for many years, the legend of Blue Soldier Riding, the Kiowa trying to find again a lost village, and a girl named Gray Dove.
The End
Salvation
By Randal Schmidt
He stumbled and reeled in the midday heat, and when he fell a jagged rock was in the small of his back and the sun in his eyes.
His shirt was little more than ribbons now, the flight through wilderness having shorn away what little civilization had been
left in him. His breath came in ragged gasps.
Somewhere in the foothills below, the riders were coming.
He kicked with his heels at the dirt and grit and scrambled up. He picked up a rock and flung it off the mountain in some feeble
effort at resistance. Exhaustion slowed his steps and the sheer faces of stone did not help his flight. He picked his way amongst
the uneven rises and struggled to keep a footing while pushing himself ever higher. He'd left the pine forest long ago and now only
a hundred or so more yards separated him from the summit.
Holes had appeared in his boots when he crested the last rise. He threw himself on an altar of stone like some pilgrim seeking the
face of a god who had long since abandoned this land to the ravages of time and man. Behind him the riders still, but in front a
steep descent to a wide prairie with the thin line of a lonely river snaking through the otherwise parched country. The land was
dotted with trees and here and there, groves of them offered shade from the unforgiving sun. Beginning immediately on the far side
of that river, a dense forest stretched towards the horizon.
In the miles of land before him, he saw no living creature except for a few circling hawks caught on updrafts of warm air. But for
them, nothing moved. His moments of rest had been short and infrequent in the days since he'd fled the town, and he paused on this
summit to catch his breath before descending into an unknown country.
He allowed himself a sip from a dwindling canteen that he'd strapped to his belt with a short thong of animal skin. When he'd replaced
this at his waist, he set off again and aimed his course as straight as possible for the thin river, his only hope in the wide barren world.
His first steps in descent were hesitant and careful. He feared a slip and a long fall, bouncing to his death amidst the razor edges of
the mountainside. His only relief was that it may likewise slow the posse of mounted men that even now must be gaining ground on him.
By the time he reached the mountain's foot and began to put his weary boots on flat dirt, the riders had still not reached the summit.
He had no idea how far back they'd be or how much of a lead he'd had on them when he shot his way out of the hangman's noose three days ago.
He'd ridden hard for the first two, pausing only to relieve himself or to collect water when he got the rare chance or to pick up what
little game he could shoot from the saddle in full gallop. This he ate raw as he rode, not daring either to stop or to make a fire to
serve as a beacon for his pursuers. For two days, he beat a path as southwards as he could reckon, hell-bent on leaving any traces of
man behind, desperately fleeing the vestiges of law that reached out this far into the frontier.
But the law was not eager to let him leave. On the second night out of town, he'd caught the light from the lawmen's camp on the land,
unknown miles behind him. He could not be sure of their numbers, but he knew their intent and that was enough to drive him onwards in blind flight.
On the morning of the third day, he'd killed his horse.
Her flanks were raw from his spurs, but he had neither the time nor the heart to pay this any mind so he pushed her on. In a forest of pine,
she'd collapsed from exhaustion in mid-sprint and thrown him forward end over end. He'd come to a stop when his back struck the base of a tree,
and he'd flown to his feet in a murderous rage, his gun un-holstered in the same motion. The horse's breath was fading when the pistol cracked
and thundered in the ancient forest, boring a small hole straight between her eyes and putting out the life in them.
He'd kicked at the carcass and cursed the uncaring trees and spit on the ground and sat crumpled next to his last companion in this world and
wept for the first time in years.
After a time, he'd cut the saddle from her and emptied the packs of it on the forest floor. He sorted out what he could carry with him, taking
only two canteens, some wads of powder and shot and filling his pockets with raw squirrel meat. He took his knife also, but the rest of the
effects he left scattered amongst the pine needles and horse blood.
From there he'd gone on foot, weaving through the trees and cutting his face on bits of undergrowth and small limbs that swatted at him as if
the forest itself opposed his escape. By the time he reached its edge, he'd devoured the last of the squirrel meat and dried blood coated his
chin. Ahead of him was a stretch of land unbroken by any feature and just beyond this, rolling foothills climbed into a mountain ridge that
ran unbroken towards either horizon.
There was no other way but up and over, and he'd done this with the riders ever gaining on his trail and his strength ever failing. The canteens
became lighter all the time.
And now he stood on the opposite side of that ridge with more land in front of him and only one canteen that would soon be empty, and the
strange river was unknown miles away.
There was nothing to do but run, and he did, his mind holding no thoughts but this. He had ventured into a world beyond exhaustion, and
visions crept in on it and tainted reality with dreamlike uncertainty. These were not the mere mirages of desert travelers, but ethereal
beings burst free from some subterranean prison. They danced in orgiastic fury around him, mocking his flight as they reveled in the fate
that was bound to come. He felt them prod him onward in hateful triumph, and despair gripped his soul as he had never felt it before. The
very depths of hell yawned in his heart.
He screamed to a god whose face he had never known, screamed mercy at the top of his lungs. An outlaw's lament rose from those badlands
like the dust kicked up by an errant sandstorm.
A distant answer brought his eyes back to the mountain. The riders had made the summit and yelled down to the plain at their hapless query.
They were arrayed for war, each bearing a rifle tucked in a scabbard on their saddle. They were a party of one mind: his death.
One of them fired from their perch but the hot metal ball fell nowhere near him. He had already scrambled far out of their range. The crack
of that rifle reverberated across the empty plain and mixed with the demonic laughter that now surrounded him. His satanic companions welcomed
the appearance of the riders with lecherous grunting, wantonly carousing about him as he fled on towards the river.
A formidable distance separated him still from his pursuers, but their appearance spurred him like a crazed animal. From somewhere deep within,
he summoned a hidden strength — the last of it — to pound out a steady gait, his legs feeling disconnected as they moved in rhythm. Ahead he
could see where the land sloped gently to the miserable river, and he made for this without thinking as if this line of water denoted some
immutable border between two lands that only he could cross.
With each footstep, he knew the riders pounded closer, their guns ready to deliver him unto the Final Judgment. The visions squealed with
delight, fat sows of debauchery now rolling in anticipation of the blood to fall, exhorting him to run faster in mocking satisfaction.
The sound of a gun not far behind. The yell of the riders. The hooves of their chargers on the prairie. The devil's laughter.
He stumbled now. The ground had become uneven as it fell away to the river. More shots rang out as his feet splashed at last in the edge of
the water. On the other side, the thick forest loomed like an impenetrable wall.
Two hundred yards behind. Now one hundred. The riders drew closer, the shots more frequent. Balls struck the river around him, sending up
showers of cool water. Smoke spouted from the ends of their rifles and with each puff, he expected to leave this world.
Less than a hundred yards away and on they came. He could see they numbered thirteen all told, come to kill him for his crimes. He waded
knee deep in the river, and a shot struck him in his right arm. He rent his shirt in desperation and tore what little was left of it away.
The sound of rifle shots and furious laughter now reached a crescendo, the cloven-hooved spirits at the climax of their arcane ritual. He
stood in his last river and turned to face his executioners.
They were fifty feet away when the nearest rider's skull exploded in a shower of gore, and he fell from his horse. The shot came from behind him,
across the river and as the other riders fought to control their startled horses, a salvo erupted from the tree line. Under this torrent of
gunfire, four more men were stricken dead in their saddles or fell lifeless by the riverside.
From within that malicious forest leapt a company from which even his devilish visions fled. The attackers with twisted faces obscured by
war paint burst forth and fell upon the riders in a blood lust unrivaled in the long annals of war.
He fell from where he stood knee deep in the river, fell as if he'd been killed when the arm shot was his only wound. He floated to the
middle of the river, amidst the wild splashing as the red skinned warriors crossed under the fire from the remaining riders. All about
were the screams of the dying and the war cries of the braves and fearful sobbing and all sounds of war, the like of which he had never
heard in all his years as an outlaw.
The riders who had fallen from their mounts were set upon with knives and whatever manner of sharp objects the savages possessed. Their
skulls were split open and their scalps rent away and held in bloody triumph, flesh trophies torn from the defeated. It was willful
carnage and the not-quite-dead split the skies with their death cries.
And during this massacre, he had floated some distance down the river, unseen by either the dying riders or the war-crazed Indians. He floated
on his back, the sun in his eyes and blood from his arm staining the water around him, borne silently away from the slaughter, borne out
of death on his baptismal river into freedom and a new life.
The End
Screaming Woman, Part 1 of 3
By Jason Stuart
Ackley Finch was bad to whore his wife to pay his debts 'til she finally died that winter of '66 of consumption. About that time his girl, Bree, was just past seventeen and not a bad looker herself, though a sight bigger than her ma was. She'd been the only one to work the mule during the planting seasons and ate her fair share pretty much all her life, so when she hit that growth spurt and shot up to near six feet, folks were impressed but not terrible shocked.
Bree was mean as a bag of snakes and had done laid out most of the eligible bachelors in Culloden County at one time or another to the tune that at this point no man who'd heard of her wanted much truck with her. That and seeing she'd split his lip the one and only time he'd come after her — it was right after her ma died — Ackley decided he'd broker up a deal to pay off his last big debt outstanding which he owed to Old Jack Creed.
Creed was a gumsucker of about sixty made famous during the war for ripping out Yankees' intestines and force-feeding 'em back to 'em. Ackley was into him for over eighty dollars from a bad game of stud last August and had little intention of eating any pan-links made of his own innards. So, he offered him Bree at a cut rate which left him only ten dollars still in the hole. Of course, breaking the news to Bree was a whole other affair.
First she bit a hunk out his face and spat that in his good eye. Whilst he was fingering that out, she give him a reasonably hard shot to the loins and then laid into him with fisticuffs — which had she been born a man and eligible to compete, she'd've taken the county bareknuckle prize in a walk any year she pleased. Ackley finally got hold of himself and shot her a good one to her left titty. That got her breathing a little harder at least. He would've liked to push his advantage a little more but she picked him up over her head and threw him against the opposite wall which cleared the fight for the time.
Bree snatched up a kneckerchief and threw in some biscuits, planning to high-tail just in time to have Ackley pop a sack over her head from behind. Served her right for leaving him be without seeing the job done, she told herself as Ackley clocked her with a fire poker. That sent her to bed a bit and gave Ackley the time to drag her heavy ass to the cellar and lock her in.
Ideally, Ackley would have left her down there to get hungry and weaken up a few days so she'd be more docile for Old Creed. But, as things will go, Ackley instead folded over and died from the beating Bree had give him.
She wore herself out the first day or so slamming her shoulder against that rock-hard cellar door despite knowing full well it was no useful endeavor. Wasn't her first stint locked in this cellar, neither. Not far back her mama had kept her locked away down there with a sack of cracklins and a jar of cane syrup and two or three jugs of water and bade her keep hushed for fear them dern Yankee soldiers looking for holdouts decided they needed a turn with her. Bree's mama had made right sure none got turns with her girl, no matter the cost to her own self.
Bree sat and sung to herself after she was too tired and hungry to slam at the door any longer. She'd hum along the same songs she had before, when she needed to keep out the bad sounds from above. She'd learned a few old tricks growing up, ways to keep out the bad things from her head. Her Oldma, her mama's mama's mama, had even told her some songs for other things. Songs for catching a fish, or a rabbit or even a man when she needed one. Songs for making a man leave off her if such was her need. She had songs for getting better from a snakebite and the bad fever. And, she even had songs for dying. She'd sung songs for her mama all the while the bad sounds came. But, in the end, her mama had sung the song for dying.
Bree started to resign herself she may well starve right there. Leave it to Ackley Finch not to keep one decent tool in an entire cellar. Hocked the lot of 'em to settle a night's drinking and gambling. Living or dying wasn't of much concern to Bree anyhow. In fact, the more she thought on it, the more she looked forward to setting an eye on that next world. She wanted to know if what that preacherman had told that time about that crystal water was true and whether it would be fit to drink or even if she could drink being dead. Her Oldma had told her not to hear bible men because they didn't know any good songs. Still, she wanted to test that crystal water and see if wasn't good to drink. But, that only reminded her she was stuck here with nothing to drink but a few jugs of old wine.
She was down there pushing a week drinking blackberry wine and ate two rats before Sig Freeley busted open the cellar door with a splitting axe. Old Creed had come by to collect on his debt and seen Ackley laid out dead on the floor and had he known to check the cellar for the girl he'd never have gone to report the death to the sheriff. Now the law was involved, it'd make things right complicated.
"You all right, Miss Finch?" Sig asked, offering her a hand up out of the cellar which she would normally slap away but was just weak enough this time to appreciate.
"I 'spect I need a bathtub and a piece of cornbread'd be decent," she said, near weak as a smallcat. Then she noticed Creed. "What's he doing here? And who are you anyway?"
"Well, Mr. Creed here found your daddy dead on the floor and came to fetch me. I'm Sheriff Freeley," he said with a grin and tip of his hat.
"Thought you was older," Bree said.
"That was my daddy you're thinking of. He took sick and died last spring and they decided to elect me in his place seeing as he paid for this Remington pistol with his own salary money and the county didn't want to foot the extra thirty dollars for a new one."
"Well there you have it," she said. "But I don't like him. Tell him to git."
"I ain't goan go nowhere 'til I gets my money I's owed," Creed said with a sneer.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Creed, but the party which owed the debt is deceased which by law nullifies it," the sheriff said.
"I'll take it out from her," Creed said, pointing hungrily and smiling.
Bree started in after him but was so weak she fell down before she took a step. Creed started to cackle and reached down to grab her which made it right convenient for Sig to slap him on the back of the head with his pistol and have his deputy shackle him and toss him in the wagon to take down to the lock up.
Sheriff got Bree to tell him most of what happened which was about how he had it figured up anyhow and would have normally writ it up as a clear case of self defense, but no one really liked old Creed so while he had the chance, Sig went ahead and had a jury hang him for the beating to death of Ackley Finch. Suited Bree well enough and her daddy's land passed to her.
Things settled down after that. Bree went to work on her farm — refusing any offers to come stay in town — Coldwater being the only town in Culloden County those days. Aside from old Creed's demise, there was only ever one other legal hanging in the county in 1902 and then that one didn't even work — which was fortunate as it turned out the fella, Walter Lathan, had actually been innocent all along — more innocent than Creed anyhow.
Needless to say Sig had a rather decent job. Aside from arbitrating an outbreak of violent swearing over matters of hogs and telegraph poles, Sig spent most days with his feet propped up on the desk of the combination Sheriff's Station and U.S. Post and Parcel. There was a man named Clancy Atwood who called himself a lawyer who sat in a chair on the corner and shot shit with Sig, waiting on clients who never came.
It was really Silas Olsen Boon III who started all the real trouble and ruined damn near everything. He was one of them geological speculators come down after the war to "help out with the rebuilding" and hit a powerful payload of number nine coal about forty miles northwest of Laketown, as it happened just this side of the county line which made the whole affair a part of Sig's jurisdiction and calling for his regular presence.
Such it was one particularly frigid March morning when Sig was riding up that way to have to deal with some ornery miners trying to unionize on Boon which he did not care for one tot. Sig was just hoping he could arrive in time to keep Boon from chopping them up as hog feed. He tugged his coat tighter round his shoulders and blew into his fist and wished to God the sun would slide out from behind the clouds and directly heard a loud bustling coming from the treeline along the road. Sig sat up straight in the saddle and squinted to try to see what was coming at him. Half a dozen fat shaggy heifers burst into the clearing being punched by no other than Bree Finch.
"Miss Finch?" Sig said, unsure his eyes told him the truth.
"Bree'll do well enough, Sheriff," She said, as she steered the beef straight, now she had them to the main road. "Where you apt to this wicked bitch of a morning?"
"Boon's got some miners want to file against him. I got to git that way and arbiter the whole affair if he don't murder 'em or I freeze to death first."
"Ought have brought a better coat," she said. "Headed there myself delivering this order of beef. Reckon we'll ride along together then?"
"Reckon so," Sig said, clicking his mare to. "When'd you turn drover?"
"Didn't really. Just had a few wander in a while back and they never did leave and instead had a mess of calves. So, I sell 'em once a while to the mine or whoever wants 'em. Gives me a chance to see the big city every now and then," she said smiling.
Bree decided right then and there that if she decided to take a man it would likely be this one. She'd wait 'til they got to Boon to really decide one way or the other, though. She was never one to be too rash. She liked the way he sat his saddle and never forgot that hanging he arranged neither.
* * *
Boon was nearly finished kicking some poor fat sow to death and seeing what new swears he couldn't invent with two skinny Chinese looking on disapprovingly, knowing that hogmeat was ruined now from the bruising.
"You can quit your goddamn gawking you goddamn chinks and get back peddling dope or slanted cunny or whatever the hell it is you do in my goddamn camp," Boon said, pulling out a kneckerchief and wiping pigblood off his boot just in time to catch sight of Sig and Bree make camp.
"Sweet old feller, ain't he?" Bree said grinning.
"Ain't he?" Sig answered, half sick at the sight of that sow. He was with the Chinese on this score. He absolutely hated the thought of wasted bacon.
"Sheriff, you're goddamn lucky I had to deal with this shit hog or I'd have done with them unioners this morning. Leave it to this batch of treasonous gray scum to give the word a bad taste. You're a slow man on the back of a horse or I don't know the color of coal. Them my beef?" he asked Bree.
"On the hoof and on time, Mr. Boon," Bree said.
"Believe it or not it's Dr." he said, spitting on the ground and coughing. "I come from Pennsylvania where there's such a thing as a fucking school. You a married woman?"
"Don't affect the price of the beef," she said.
"Suit your fucking self. Sheriff, I need to file charges against these union-talking cunnynuggets. You got papers on you for that?"
"I'm afraid you can't file charges just out of spite. A crime has to be committed first."
"They've slowed my production to near nothing. Ain't that a crime?"
"No."
"Fucking Johnny Reb pieces of shit. We ought to bring another war down here to teach you soft-headed bastards the meaning of a day's work."
"I'd be careful I's you the sentiment I produce on that score. This county was happy to sit that war out on account of its lack of interest in keeping a rich man his niggers. Didn't keep old Sherman from burning us out anyway. So, you spit that shit out the wrong place you're apt to have one of your own pickaxes growing out your back and I'm afraid I'll have missed sight of the whole affair. Savvy?"
"Yeah, I savvy you ain't gonna be no help and may as well not have come. I'll settle on that beef in the hour as I'd like to clean my hands before I deal with money. Just put 'em yonder in that corral, and we'll have dealings at my hotel lobby."
"Be fine," Bree said, and turned the cattle toward the corral next to a blacksmith and wondered was it worse to smell cowshit or a smoky forge all day.
* * *
Cailean and Earic Cameron, cousins — clansmen as they would have it — whose great grandfather lost a leg at Culloden Moor with the '45 — had themselves each charged the field at Gettysburg with their sovereign general. They both spat constantly and cursed to beat the band and claimed they'd sooner slit throats than undo the plaid sashes at their belts much to the chagrin of Silas Boon, their employer. It was to these two men that Sig had to speak concerning the sudden union sentiment growing rapidly in the camp. The family in general had a bad reputation for being naysaying troublers — never mind old Bob resting up at Dead Yankee Holler — but also what with the big hissy they'd had over voting to change the spelling of the county name — nobody nor his brother having a flat clue how to go about saying 'Claidheamh.'
Each had thick braids of rust-red hair hanging down either side of his face and beside that Cailean had a full on beard against Earc's six day stubble, the twain would have been a mirror shot of the other.
"Mornin', gents," Sig said, offering a hand as the two turned from an unsolicited inspecting of Rebecca MacDonald's buckwagon.
"You're the Sheriff?" Cailean shot.
"Yeah?" Earic seconded. Each had an accent so think Sig had a rough time catching hold of their jib. They both beat him by a few inches and more than few pounds and sported a tattoo of a mallet on their left forearms. Bob Cameron's Hammer of God Gang. Late-joiners, no doubt.
"Sig Freeley, that's right. I understand you boys been working up a ruckus up this way."
"Just do'n what's right by us," one said.
"Yeah, for us and them as like us," the other added.
And so it went from there with one speaking and one repeating as they spit out the various details of what they wanted and expected to happen in order to keep from spreading more gab of a walkoff. Most of what they said seemed right fair enough by way of Sig's understanding — all except for the bit about no work on Thursdays as a holy day which apparently had something to do with the mallet on their arms and seemed a great deal of nonsense. All in all, despite the piss-rough appearances, they each seemed decent enough folk.
Sig assured each he would do everything in full accordance with county law and asked them kindly not to work up anything they'd all have to regret in the end of things. They spat and told him quick that'd be between them and their All-Mighty and slapped the mallet on their arms. Sig walked back toward the hotel shaking his head and looking to his own almighty that he'd be able to come through all this keeping his record of never firing a pistol shot in the line of duty.
* * *
Boon's camp was eat up with cow and pig shit and the endless wafting stink of it all was near enough to end Bree's negotiations far short of her desired price. The fact she and Boon had agreed on a fair price before she drove them up notwithstanding, he still felt he was owed a chance to drop her down. He didn't actually expect her to drive them in herself and that rankled him more than a bit.
As Boon sat humming and hawing over her fifth flat refusal to drop the agreed sum, Bree stared out the window at Sig Freeley making his way across the thoroughfare and cutting a fair line in the sunlight doing it. He walked like a man both sure of himself and exempt from the cares of the world at the same time.
"I like that Sheriff," she cut in on Boon. "Man's right decent."
"For one of you lot, reckon as good as one fucking can," Boon agreed. "Piss-poor shame that deal with his betrothed."
"His what?" Bree fired with a gun.
Boon, seeing her show cards, pressed in harder — told her the whole deal. Alisha Gordy was her name. She had been working for Boon as an undersecretary despite some folks' aversion to a woman cleric. "She had him coming round right regular and often while back," Boon said. "Was all I could do to keep him from slapping me in the thinker with that fat Colt of his — "
"Remington."
"Whichever," Boon went on. "I can't be held accountable for what a half-crazed mule hauling a load of coal's gonna do when some wild celestial goes to popping off paper rockets in the middle of fucking February. And no sooner do I get her preciousness off to Atlanta to the best doctor in this poor excuse for what would've posed as a nation than I get these jibberish-squawking, skirt-wearing narrow-backs screaming about work-hours and chow. Now, I'll knuckle on this beef here — for them, not you — but they ain't quitting at sundown, not with them new candle-caps I just paid twenty dollars a case for, no ma'am."
It was all quite a lot to take in and Bree was now quite convinced that Mr. Boon was a great deal interested in having other people listen to him talk. The part about the fiancée was complete news to her and not of the Christ-risen variety. Folk'd color her black in a hurry, she went after a man promised to a cripple girl and that was a fact. She'd be working nights now to spin this one her way. With any luck the old girl would kick while she was in that hospital in Georgia, but Boon hadn't described the thing quite that serious. She thought maybe to sing a song for it, but wasn't all the way sure which was the right one.
All the way home with Boon's money he finally gave over to her, she had the thought ever more on her mind. She colored her own self poorly on account of holding out such hope for another gal to die. She could have just sung her dead, but that would be terrible. The thing she couldn't figure the most was why she should be so stuck on any man nohow. She had always done just fine on her own, thus far, and the only time she'd ever lived with a man was not the most desirable situation to return to — not that she had half an inkling Sig would turn out to be a jot like Ackley Finch.
End of Part 1
The Stock Detective
By Kenneth Newton
The stock detective spotted the cow thieves through his spyglass from about a half a mile away. He worked his way toward them through a deep gully off to the side, then circled around behind a low hill so he could approach them from the opposite direction without being seen. Near the base of the hill he hobbled his mare, gave her some oats to keep her mind occupied, and pulled a lever action carbine from its scabbard.
He worked his way up the hill with the sun at his back. It was only an hour after sunup; the cow thieves probably thought nobody would get up early enough to catch them, but they were wrong. He crested the hill and watched them for a minute — an old woman and a young man busily quartering a steer. She wielded a long butcher knife, and he worked a cross-cut saw as they hurried to get the carcass into small enough pieces to put into their waiting buckboard.
The stock detective side-stepped and slid his way down the side of the hill, no longer concerned with the element of surprise. He had already achieved that, and he had a Winchester and a top break Smith and Wesson for insurance. Considering that the cow thieves would be looking up into the rising sun, he felt like he had things pretty much under control. "Drop those tools and put up your hands," he said. "I'm arresting you for cattle rustling."
Both of them jerked their heads in his direction and put up a hand to shield their eyes from the sun. If they could see anything, it was just the black silhouette of a man against a hot orange glow, but they knew what was happening. The woman held onto her knife, but the man dropped his saw and glanced quickly toward the seat of the buckboard where a well-worn belt and holster offered up the walnut handle of a Colt percussion revolver some ten feet distant.
"That will be the last stupid thing you ever do," the stock detective warned. There was already a round in the chamber of the carbine. He thumbed back the hammer.
The young man looked back toward the sun. "Now, look, Bull," he said. "This ain't what you think. This is our steer."
"You picked a funny place to butcher him." Bull glanced toward the old woman, who still had her knife but hadn't moved a step. "I said put that down."
The boy was talking again, and reclaimed Bull's attention. "It's the truth, Bull. We had our milk cow bred, and we been raisin' this fella up for slaughter. He broke out. He was pen raised, and didn't know nothin' about makin' his way on rocky ground. When we found him, his leg was broke. You can see it's so."
The steer's right foreleg was broken. Bull gestured toward the back of the buckboard. "For all I know, you did that with that sledge hammer before you brained him with it. Do you reckon I'd find a 36 caliber bullet hole in him someplace, if I was to look?"
"There ain't no bullet in this steer, Bull, and even if there was, without this meat, my grandma ain't gonna make it through the winter."
"Well, let's let the law sort it out."
The young man put his hands to his head in exasperation. "The law? Don't you mean the Cattleman's Association? They own all the lawyers and judges for 100 miles in every direction." He glanced back toward the buckboard.
Bull Henry shook his head. "You're worrying me, boy, the way you keep thinking about going for that gun. You need to give up on that."
The young man's shoulders slumped in resignation, and he turned back toward the stock detective with his arms outspread. "OK, Bull, let's go to town."
Bull pulled the trigger. The boy made it to the buckboard, stumbling backward as he fell, but he was dead before he got there. The woman dropped her knife at last, and ran to the boy's side, sobbing as she fell across his body. Bull walked around her and pulled the old pistol from its holster. After an initial misfire, he shot one round into the carcass of the steer, and another into the hill, then holstered the gun and tossed it into the back of the wagon.
* * *
Town Marshal Tom Woodward lifted the blanket and looked at the dead body in the back of the wagon. "Jesus, Bull! Willie Edwards?"
"He fired on me, Tom. It was him or me. Check that cap and ball pistol if you don't believe it."
"I find it damn strange how every man you ever thought stole a steer always took a shot at you and missed, right before you killed him. This was a sweet boy. He wouldn't have shot anybody, not even you."
"Sweet boys don't steal beef cattle."
Woodward walked to the front of the buckboard where Willie's grandmother sat on the seat. "Bertha," he said, "what happened out there?"
She shook her head. "Bull Henry murdered my grandson, that's what, for butcherin' our own steer. But it don't matter none what I say. Bull Henry's with them, and what they say, goes. But there's a higher authority than the Association." She turned in the seat. "And Bull Henry, that authority knows who you are and what you do, and one day, retribution will come."
Woodward saw his teen-age son staring at the body. "You gonna be OK, Jack?" The boy raised his head and looked at Bull Henry for a moment, then nodded. "All right, then," said the marshal. "You go with Bertha and take Willie to the undertaker, and then you go out there with her and you get what the wolves haven't got of that steer and help her get it home."
"That's a bad idea, Tom," Bull Henry said. "You let one cow thief get away with it and you'll be up to your elbows in cow thieves."
The marshal glanced at the dead man in the wagon. "It's kinda hard for me to see how he got away with anything."
"If she eats Association beef this winter, he got away with it."
Woodward shook his head in disgust. "You stick around town, Bull. This one ain't in the books just yet."
It was in the books as far as Bull Henry was concerned. He went from the marshal's office to the headquarters of the Cattleman's Association, where he collected his bounty. It wasn't strictly legal, but in addition to his generous salary of $100.00 a month, he got $100.00 for every rustler he permanently removed from the range. The association secretary offered to buy him a steak, and an hour or so later, after they'd finished their meal and polished off half a bottle of good Kentucky bourbon, the secretary excused himself. Bull decided to make a night of it and finish the bottle. After all, it was paid for. It had been a good day.
He spent the evening alone at his table, as usual. Some people seemed to have a problem with a man doing his job, and maintaining law and order. Even the cowboys, whose bosses were his bosses, wanted little to do with him. He had his own bunk in every bunkhouse on every spread affiliated with the Association, but he didn't feel wanted in any of them, and was never invited into a game of cards or dominoes. Well, to hell with them. They could have their dollar a day and found. Even Jensen's two dollar women didn't come around offering their company. Bull Henry could buy and sell them by the dozen, but he could do without them, too.
As the night wore on, he dozed from time to time, and sometimes when he came to he had to close his eyes for a moment to stop seeing double, and to try to make the room stop spinning. At one point he felt a hand on his shoulder. "Bull, come on. It's just you and me. If you go home, I can go home." The bartender stood waiting, but when Bull opened his eyes, he didn't see a bartender, he saw Sam Perkins. Half of Sam's head was missing. A 44 caliber slug from Bull's Smith and Wesson had done that job and netted Bull $100.00, but somehow, there stood Sam, big as life, talking about going home. "Whaddya say, Bull, let's call it a night."
Bull stood and threw aside his chair as he backed away from the table and drew his revolver. The man with half a head seemed perplexed. "Whoa, now, Bull," he said, "You don't need that."
"I think maybe I do," Bull slurred, and he shot Sam Perkins through the breast bone. Even if he could live with half a head, he probably couldn't live with a heart shot through and through. It seemed to work, as Sam fell and didn't get up.
The saloon keeper, Nils Jensen, ran out at the sound of the shot. "Holy God, Bull," he said, "you've shot Joe!" But the man confronting Bull Henry was Pete Drake, another rustler he'd seen off. He was bleeding heavily from the chest, but didn't seem much the worse for it. Bull put a bullet between the rustler's eyes and watched him fall.
He then found his way to where the horses were tied. His was the only one there, and as he pulled himself into the saddle, Harvey Flanagan, owner of the Bar D and an Association stalwart, rode up next to him. "What's all the shootin' about, Bull? Did Nils try to get you to pay for your supper?" When Bull ignored the joke and didn't answer, he said, "Well, never mind, come on, and sleep it off at my place."
Bull looked at the man on the horse next to his, and saw the disheveled countenance of Willie Edwards, bleeding from a wound just below his Adam's apple. "You're supposed to be dead."
Flanagan laughed. "You know, Bull, that's what my sweet young wife says. But she's gonna have to wait a little while longer for the money."
Bull pulled his revolver and began firing wildly at Willie Edwards as he spurred his horse and galloped out of town.
* * *
The deputy U.S. marshal looked straight ahead as he rode past the saloon at a slow walk, not offering so much as a sideways glance. Three doors down, he dismounted and tied his horse in front of a dry goods store. He pulled some folded papers from his saddlebag, put them in his coat pocket, and made his way back along the boardwalk. He pushed open the batwings and crossed the room to the bar. As far as he could see, he and the bartender were the only people in the place. That was good.
He put his foot on the rail and leaned on the bar. "Is the beer cold?"
The bartender smiled. "Well, it's slightly cooler than fresh horse piss." He brought up a mug from underneath the bar. "Actually, there's still some ice in the cellar. It's not too bad." He drew a glass and slid it in front of the stranger. "I'm not sure I've had the pleasure." He held out his hand as he eyed the deputy quizzically.
The deputy drained half of the mug before coming up for air. "You're right. That's not half bad." He put down the mug and took the bartender's hand. The man behind the bar was going gray, and he had grown a beard and put on some weight, but the deputy had seen all he needed to see. Releasing the hand, he said, "Keep your hands on the bar where I can see them." He brought up his Colt and removed the wanted poster and arrest warrant from his pocket. He shook the folds out of the papers and laid them on the bar. "Albert Henry — may I still call you Bull? — I'm a federal marshal. I have a warrant for your arrest, not to mention a wanted flyer that says you're worth $100.00, dead or alive."
The bartender kept both hands on top of the bar as ordered. "You're making a mistake, marshal. My name's Bill Clayton, ask anybody around here. The town sheriff will vouch for me."
"There's no mistake. If God Almighty walked into this dump and told me to turn you loose, I wouldn't do it, and there's no higher authority than that. Now come around from behind that bar."
As Bull Henry walked, he gradually turned until his back was to the deputy, and his hands crept slowly toward the edge of the bar. The deputy saw it, and cocked the hammer on the Colt. Bull heard the three ominous clicks and stopped walking. Both hands were now at his sides. "I'm sorry for the things I did, but I just can't go back there," he said.
"You're going to, though, one way or the other."
The deputy thought to himself that Bull was still pretty fast for an old guy — but nobody was fast enough to pick up a sawed-off scattergun, pull back a hammer, turn, and shoot before a man could pull the trigger on a revolver that was already cocked and aimed. He waited until Bull was turned almost all the way around before he shot him. The bullet struck Bull low in the left side and he jerked one trigger on the shotgun as he stumbled around the end of the bar, the load of buckshot splintering a table and chair in the middle of the room.
Bull Henry looked at the deputy as he cocked the other barrel. He had figured out who he was talking to. "Little Jack Woodward. The moustache and scar is what throwed me." He gritted his teeth against the pain.
"Retribution is who I am."
Bull nodded. "Did the wolves get all the beef, or was there some left for the old woman?" He pressed his hand to the wound in the side of his gut.
"Yes, plenty. But she died that winter anyway. Broken heart, they said." The deputy glanced at Bull's bloody side. "That'll kill you, but it's going to take some time, and hurt a lot." He cocked his revolver. "Why don't I — "
Bull raised his bloody hand. "Wait. So, was the steer theirs, after all?"
"It matters now?"
Bull leaned against the bar and nodded. "It does."
"It was theirs. You murdered Willie for nothing, same as the other three."
Bull looked at the floor. "I truly regret it, all of it. If I could make it right, I would."
"That's my job."
Bull raised his head. "Well, then."
"Yeah." The deputy aimed at the middle of Bull's chest and pulled the trigger. One final reflexive jerk on the trigger of the scattergun sent a load of buckshot into the floor as Bull Henry collapsed. The deputy walked over and put another bullet in Bull's chest and one in his head. He heard running footfalls on the boardwalk as he laid the Colt on the bar and retrieved the warrant and wanted poster. Holding the papers aloft in his right hand, and opening his coat with his left to expose his badge, he turned toward the door.
* * *
The deputy wrapped Bull Henry's carcass in a tarpaulin and tied it securely in place with a rope, then hopped down out of the back of the buckboard.
The town sheriff sadly shook his head. "That's one of the finest men I ever knew, wrapped up in that tarp."
"I showed you the warrant and the wanted flyer. You saying I got the wrong man?"
"I'm sayin' a man can change."
"Yes, he sure can, but he can't un-do what he's already done. That fine man there killed nine so-called rustlers under color of authority — working as a stock detective for the Cattleman's Association up north — and got away with it. Stock detective was a fancy way of saying hired gun, and a rustler was anybody that owned cattle that didn't pay dues to the Association." Deputy Woodward saw the liveryman coming, and produced a notebook and pencil from his pocket. He began writing as he continued his conversation with the sheriff. "Then he got a little carried away and murdered four men in one day. Even the Association couldn't protect him then, and didn't want to, because one of the four was a big shot Association man named Flanagan. He named Bull as his killer before he died, but Bull was long gone."
"Yeah, everybody, even me, has heard all the Bull Henry stories, includin' how he just disappeared into thin air. My problem is, I can't get used to knowin' that Bill Clayton and Bull Henry was the same man. Bill would give you his last nickel."
The deputy looked up from his notebook. "Bull would give you his last bullet for $100.00."
The stable master had arrived, and he was livid. "Damn you, I told you that rig wasn't for rent."
"And I told you," said the deputy as he continued to write, "I'm requisitioning this wagon and team for official government business. When you retrieve your property in Sheridan and file your claim, you'll be paid a fair rate, plus any legitimate expenses. Your wagon will be stored and your horses boarded for 30 days, after which time they are subject to be sold to the highest bidder as excess government property." He tore the page from the book and held it out to the liveryman. "Don't lose this. It's your only receipt."
He was even madder now. "Sheridan's a hard two days from here. Excess government property, my ass." The stable owner turned to the sheriff. "Carl, don't let him do this."
"I can't stop him, Morgan," replied the sheriff. "Better take your receipt."
Morgan fumed for a few more seconds, then snatched the paper from Woodward's hand and stormed away.
"Why not just leave him here and let us bury him?" asked the sheriff.
"I need proof in order to collect the reward."
"Well, I never understood lawmen collecting bounties. It don't seem right."
The deputy had tied his horse's reins to the buckboard. He now removed the saddle and put it in the bed next to Bull Henry, moving a stirrup to avoid a smear of blood. "Well, your old pal, Bill, would understand," he said with a small grin. "But I suppose I could cut off his head and let you bury the rest, if you want to do that."
"Well, that's a god awful thing to say, but it wouldn't be much worse than what you already did. You damn near shot him to pieces."
"The first bullet went in his gut. The next three were a favor from me to him, to end it quick. But he was a dead man when he grabbed that scattergun. I winged a fella once, when I was young and dumb. I was helping him to the doc's office when he pulled a knife and gave me this for my trouble." His finger traced a long, straight scar on the right side of his face. "Went clear through my cheek, cut my gums to the bone, and took a hunk out of the side of my tongue. Ever since then, if a man turns a weapon on me, I shoot him until he stops moving. Bull wanted to talk a little first, and I had the drop on him, so I let him talk."
"If you'da done me the courtesy of a visit when you got to town, between the two of us we might have arrested him."
"That's one of the things we talked about. He wasn't going back alive."
The sheriff sighed. "How'd you place him here?"
The deputy climbed into the seat of the buckboard. "My daddy and lots of other law dogs, including me, looked for him for ten years off and on, and pretty much gave up on ever finding him. Then just recently, a fella passing through said he knew somebody that knew somebody from down around here that said they thought they'd seen him behind that bar. Damned if they hadn't." He picked up the reins. "How long has he been here?"
"Two years, give or take."
"I wonder where he was for the first eight." The deputy released the brake. "Wherever he was, he should have stayed there. It's funny to think of Bull Henry getting homesick, and working his way back in our direction." He smiled again.
"Maybe it was Bill Clayton that got homesick."
The deputy raised his eyebrows for a second, then extended his hand. "Yeah, maybe. So long, sheriff."
The sheriff shook his head. "I wish you well, Deputy U.S. Marshal Woodward, but I can't shake that hand."
The deputy withdrew his hand. "Just doing my job, sheriff. If we let one get away with it, God knows how many more will think they can do murder and just ride away."
The sheriff looked at the bloody shape wrapped in the tarp. "Well, he sure didn't get away with it. I reckon nobody ever does. Leastways, not forever."
The deputy clicked his tongue and shook the reins. "I reckon not."
The End
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