The Broken Bow, page 4
The wind turned sideways, and the temperature dropped a good twenty degrees as the gray clouds raced toward him. There was a familiar hiss in his ears, one that he had not known during his time in Indian Territory but had become well acquainted with upon his arrival in the purgatory of Bismarck. The constant wind that swept across the top of the open plains was no friend to any man or beast. Lack of trees, places to hide were as much an advantage as a disadvantage; Trusty could see and be seen from miles around. The crack of a rifle had the deadly ability to settle a score and close the gap in the blink of an eye. There was little or no thunder to consider in December, so if such a sound did erupt over the rage of the wind, all Trusty could do was hope that the unknown and unseen shooter failed in his attempt. He was tiring of having to worry if every breath he took was his last. Even the cargo in the bed of the wagon suggested that his concern would not end anytime soon, but he was determined to find a way to free himself of dying every two seconds.
He drove at a steady pace, pelted by unforgiving ice crystals, sharp and cold to his face, while the rest of him was protected as much as possible by his thick buffalo coat. The long robe of a thing still held the distant smell of life and sweat, especially when it was wet. His fingers tingled in the mittens, but he could still hold the reins tight enough to encourage the stoic Springfield mules that pulled him to Cannonball with enough enthusiasm for them not to rebel against an unknown driver. His toes tingled just the same as his fingers, and he feared frostbite was setting in, offering a nightmare of losing an appendage or something to the cold as much as he did dying. There was also the wonder and concern about the cold entering into his body, invading it, freezing him slowly to death, coursing through his body in search of his heart and turning it into a solid chunk of ice. There were advantages to a cold heart in a metaphorical sense, but that thought was better left to poets. At the moment, Trusty was focused on staying alive and nothing more.
Cannonball, Dakota Territory, December 1888
The Catholic mission stood as the tallest building in Cannonball. A steeple topped with a cross stood three stories tall, announcing the dominating Christian presence on the Standing Rock Reservation from a mile or more away. The practice of Indian religion, if it could have been called that, had been outlawed a few years before, and the missionaries had been encouraged to take up residence and spread their gospel without restraint; eternal life offered with a sip of wine instead of a bullet-proof shirt. Trusty, who had never been to Cannonball, was beset by the sight of the church. He’d ended up in the Dakota Territory because of a priest, his family, and their betrayals. Along with his grudge against the Almighty for taking his mother away, Trusty had a more recent wound to consider, one that was open, raw, and still bleeding if he was honest with himself when the thought of Michael Darby wandered through his mind or was put there by the sight and assault of a cross. The ex-priest had betrayed him, then died for him when they’d reigned in Judge Hadesworth’s killer. He stiffened with distrust as he drove the wagon into Cannonball, unsure of where to go first, but aching to leave the place before he arrived.
The spot in the road was not a town like Trusty was accustomed to with homes, squalid and small, propping up a main street of false-fronted businesses. There were no dance halls, banks, or liveries to be seen, just the church standing dominant over a few smaller buildings; a trading post; a barn; a tool shed; an outhouse—shadowing them all with its presence. Residency was not the point of Cannonball. It was only concerned with salvation and commerce. And considering the weather, both looked to be in short supply. The place looked vacant. There were no people milling around, no horses tied to hitching posts in wait. Not even a stray dog was brave enough to conquer the wind and falling ice to announce his arrival. Trusty had to wonder if everyone had frozen to death regardless of the shelter they had built for themselves.
The mules were glad to face the small building that served as the trading post. A sign declaring the business swung back and forth, hung on a rusted wire, squeaking like a pond of frogs in spring announcing the arrival of a new season. Ice crusted the mules’ foreheads, had gathered an inch deep between their ears. Horse was in no better shape with his strawberry coat layering to a distinct white as the ice turned to snow. The Dakota precipitation shot sideways one second, then dropped straight down the next, creating squalls in the sky that settled to the ground impatiently looking for a place to live the rest of their lives; there was no threat of the sun melting the ice and snow away anytime soon. Trusty worried his cold knees would shatter like glass when he jumped down from the wagon. Without any more direct regard for the three beasts who had accompanied him to Cannonball, he hurried inside seeking shelter for them all.
The inside of the trading post was well-lit and immediately warm. A fire worthy of melting iron roared in a fireplace that took up half the room. Trusty had half-expected to walk into a frozen tomb.
“Well, there you are Trusty Dawson,” a white man with wiry long gray hair and plump cheeks flush with warmth said as he walked toward Trusty.
Trusty had been expecting a Sioux working as a trader. The man was short, his face covered with as much hair as on his head, with the rest of him covered in buckskin. Rabbit fur was sewn to his collar and sleeve and pant cuffs, a common fur found in Cannonball. Mukluks reached up to the trader’s knees, tied tight with sinew laces. He was not familiar at all, but he knew who Trusty was. Recognition in the Indian Territory had been common. He had a reputation there, something he thought, and in a less than kind way had hoped that he had left behind. The day had proved that hope wrong from the start.
There was no one else in the room, which was the whole of the building from what Trusty could tell. The man must have slept somewhere else. “Do I know you?” He had stopped to get his bearings, surrounded, surprisingly, by a complement of well-stocked wares to serve the needs of travelers and residents alike.
The man headed straight toward Trusty, leading with a pot belly that jutted a respectable distance over his belt; the prairie obviously hadn’t starved this man like it had so many before him. He wore no visible firearms but did nothing to conceal a thirteen-inch Bowie knife sheathed on his right hip. Fringe swished from the sheath as he walked. “I don’t suppose you do. I’m Brazos Joe Moeker, entrepreneur and owner of this here establishment.” He extended his stubby hand for a shake.
Trusty took the man’s hand out of habit, surprised by the warmth and strength of it, and returned the handshake with suspicion. “How do you know me?”
Brazos Joe stood back and eyed Trusty warily, still hunkered under in his buffalo coat and outside garb, minus the mittens. “You think a Deputy U.S. Marshal carting two dead bodies and a load of sewing machines don’t get no attention in these parts? Word of your arrival preceded your shadow by hours. Indians still be Indians, you know.”
Trusty didn’t say anything. There had been no sign of any living being from the time he had encountered Carmichael and Miles, but that didn’t mean there weren’t eyes on him. He was in Indian country, on a reservation, their land, not his. A shiver ran up his spine. Luck had served up a short meal to him from the looks of things at the moment. Maybe the Sioux didn’t know about the bounty on his head. “I suppose I was just concerned about stayin’ on the trail.”
“A logical thing to do, but you had to know that we all knew you was coming this way before you left Bismarck, don’t ya?”
Trusty stood firm, suddenly aware of how small the room he stood in was; it was packed with supplies of every kind; pots and pans; fabrics; even candy of a sort; you name it; from the floor to the ceiling. Warmth from the inside out attacked him all at once, and his coat felt like it was made of iron instead of buffalo hide and fur. Sweat poured out of his skin, and his lungs felt wet and heavy. “I’m lookin’ for a man,” he said.
Brazos Joe took a deep nod, looked to the floor, then backed his way to the counter from where he had come from in the first place. “Charlie Littlefoot. I know. We know. I suspect he knows, too, if he’s still alive that you’re on the trail after him.”
“You don’t know for sure if he’s alive?”
“How could I?”
“Seems to me you know a lot of things.”
“I ’spect I do, but that don’t mean you should assume or expect me to know anything about Charlie Littlefoot’s location or state of mind.”
“So, he hasn’t been through here?”
“I didn’t say that.” Brazos Joe planted himself behind the counter, his face lit by a lamp that burned on a crowded shelf behind him. A store of hairpins, some fancy and carved, others plain and straight, lined the shelf.
“When was he here?” There was no race in Trusty’s heartbeat, no excitement at closing in on his quarry. Trusty had been wearing a badge long enough to know that a man like Charlie Littlefoot wasn’t going to be easily caught. All he wanted to do was take off his damn coat. But he didn’t move. Brazos Joe had just invited him to a dance.
“Ain’t nothing around here that comes free,” the trader said.
“I don’t suppose it does. I got a wagon load of sewing machines, and some weapons that belong to two dead men. I figure that’s a good place to start if a bargain is your aim.”
“I hear you got more than that to offer a man in need of a silver or two,” Brazos Joe said, reaching slowly under the counter with his right hand.
Before the trader could look Trusty in the eye and square his shoulders, Trusty had already torn into his coat and pulled his Colt from the holster. There was no escaping Theodore Marberry. Not even in Cannonball where the dead were equal to the living.
Chapter 4
Cannonball, Dakota Territory, December 1888
“You move another inch and I’ll blow your head off,” Trusty said. He wasn’t going to honor Brazos Joe with the pleasure of his good nature or the assumption that he was mistaking his intentions. The ivory handled 1880 Colt Single-Action was firm in his grip, and the six-inch barrel was steady in its aim and target. He’d kill two men in one day if he had to. “I’m in a foul mood, and I ain’t ashamed to admit it. I got no patience for bounty seekers, mister.”
“Now, now, friend, put the damn gun down. I don’t mean you no harm,” Brazos Joe said with a smile that held no menace. He looked like a mouse with a cockeyed grin.
“Raise your hands so I can see them in the light, then we’ll finish this discussion.”
“Sure, marshal. I can do that.” Brazos Joe smiled and did as he was told, offering up a bottle of whiskey to the world and Trusty instead of a weapon intended to kill a man straight away. The amber liquid glowed from the flame that danced behind it, the bottle warm and half full of good times and comradery instead of a deadly threat.
Trusty sighed but didn’t lower his Colt. “I ain’t up to no tomfoolery at the moment, old man. I done told you that.”
“If it was seeing you dead that I was interested in we wouldn’t be standing here considering a drink of whiskey. I knowed you was coming, remember? If I was a bounty hunter, I’d be halfway to Saint Louis by now with you wrapped up like them two salesmen ready to collect on my good fortune. That bounty ain’t worth the trouble it brings with it if you ask me, and I know you didn’t, but I’m telling you so. I’m not risking the life I have here to spill the blood of a man I know nothing about.” Brazos Joe continued to wear a jovial face as he sat the whiskey bottle down on the counter. Then he reached down and produced a pair of sparkling clean glasses without any fear at all that Trusty was going to shoot him. “You can put your gun away, marshal. You’re as safe here as you are among your own.”
Trusty didn’t move a hair. He stood with the barrel still zeroed in on Brazos Joe’s head. “I don’t have a single reason to trust you.”
“Looks to me like you don’t have a reason to trust anyone except the man who gave you the job to go out in the world to track down Charlie Littlefoot. Good luck with that by the way. Charlie ain’t gonna get caught unless he wants to or the fates offer up a chance and a dose of good fortune to you. From what I can see, luck don’t favor you one bit, so that’s not likely to happen.” The trader matched Trusty’s recent sigh, then went about pouring two whiskeys.
“You don’t think that’s brave, sharing a whiskey with a lawman on an Indian reservation?” The buffalo coat felt heavier than it had before; iron turned to lead by the alchemy of sweat. Perspiration ran down Trusty’s forehead like he had just finished a foot race in summer. A healthy fire blazed in a wood stove to the right of the counter. Winter and its icy touch had retreated from memory but stood just outside the door with an axe made of ice and a kiss of wind so cold it could shatter a man’s eyeballs.
Brazos Joe finished the pour and put the whiskey bottle back where it had come from. “You got bigger problems than the small offense you see before you, Dawson. Hospitality is hard to come by out here in this world, and if I’m guessing right about now, your toes and other parts of your body are still numbed to the bone. You’re free to arrest the first kind man you’ve seen today, Marshal Dawson, but I don’t think you will.” He picked up a glass and offered it to Trusty.
“I’m warm enough to tell you the truth,” Trusty said.
“Then put your gun away, take your coat off, and stay awhile,” Brazos Joe said. “Don’t be a fool and mistake this for anything other than what you see.”
“How do I know that you’re tellin’ me the truth?”
“How can you not know?”
Trusty looked over his shoulder to the door he had walked in. Outside the wind still raged and the snow blew sideways, pelting the wood frame, trying to get inside. It was a white nightmare wrapped in ice with the tough grasp of frostbite hankering to nip away at any flesh it could touch. The trader was right. Trusty couldn’t feel his toes. “I need to see to my horse and those two mules the Singer men drove.”
Brazos Joe shook his head. “They done been tended to, just like I’m trying to do with you. Don’t you worry none about your mount or them mules. They’re all safe and warm as they can be in the barn by now. I got an Indian man that tends to the animals like they’re his own.”
Trusty didn’t react, didn’t move for another long second. He stood there silent and stiff as a lodgepole listening to the wind howl and the fire crackle, a mix of hot and cold, a man-made contradiction that offered him sanctuary or freezing to death. It didn’t take much more thinking to decide where he wanted to be. The only other option he could choose was to walk out the door and trudge over to the church and beg the padre for a bit of warmth and comfort. That wasn’t going to happen. At least not straight away. Trusty would take his chances with the trader.
He climbed out from under the buffalo coat and hung it on a peg on the wall. He was still dressed in layers, two pair of long-johns and his traveling clothes. Relieved of the weight, he was cooler, but not cold. He wiped the sweat away from his forehead and kept his hat on.
Brazos Joe stood waiting at the counter for Trusty to join him. Both glasses of whiskey were untouched, waiting according to manners for the guest to take the first drink. Trusty wasn’t opposed to a taste of whiskey like some men were. He liked the burn of it on the back of his throat. Especially in Dakota Territory, though there had been few opportunities to let go and unwind since his transfer. His mind and heart were pulled tighter than a cat-gut string on a guitar, fearing the bounty and trying to figure out how to track the baby girl and still keep his badge. That didn’t mean this was a moment to relax. It wasn’t. He still wasn’t sure what he thought about Brazos Joe.
“I see you’ve come to your senses.” Brazos Joe smiled, showing a fair number of teeth in good shape, a rarity in older men this far north.
“Lack of opportunity forces a man to consider what’s best in a hurry,” Trusty said.
“Truer words have never been spoken. Help yourself.” Brazos Joe nodded at the glasses.
“I appreciate it, but you first.”
A smirk replaced Brazos Joe’s smile. “You think I would poison you instead of shooting you?”
“Bounties don’t come with instructions on how a man should die. Dead is dead. I’ve learned quick to be cautious if I’m gonna stay alive.”
“You like living like a rabbit?”
“Not necessarily, but I like livin’. Mark my word, this threat ain’t gonna last forever. I gotta outlive it is what I got to do. First whiskey is on you.”
The expression on Brazos Joe’s face was void of any emotion or feeling, blank as an undertaker attending a funeral. He took a quick slug of whiskey without breaking eye contact with Trusty. “Poison is hard to come by in these parts,” he said as he set the empty glass on the counter.
“Seems to me you’re a resourceful man, Mister Moeker.” Trusty looked around the trading post again, making his point, noting the push of powdery snow making its way under the door—only to meet a quick end as it encountered the warmth and appetite of the stove. Even the rafters were hung with gear; reins, shovels hung on nails, more pots and pans. There wasn’t a cobweb in sight. The place was as clean as it could be. “You got help here, too?” Trusty said turning his attention back to the man.
“Of course, I got help. You think an old man like me can keep up with a place like this. You went and got all formal on me, Marshal, callin’ me mister. Offending you is not what I mean to do.”
“Just tryin’ to figure out where I’m standin’ is all.” Trusty grabbed the whiskey and downed it easily, not reacting to the burn. He’d had a better drink, but it added an unexpected flavor to the day. A welcome warmth stayed on his tongue and in his throat. “Now why don’t you tell me how you know so much about my business.”
Brazos Joe reached down and pulled the whiskey bottle back into view. Trusty put his hand up. “One’s enough,” he said.
“Suit yourself.” The bottle disappeared back to where it had come from. “The answer to your question is simple if you think about it. All a man like me has to do is stand here and wait for the door to open and the news of the territory walks in with whoever comes with it. Don’t matter if it’s a Sioux or a white man, but I hear mostly Sioux, though the church over yonder brings in its own traffic, missionaries passing through on to a greater cause from out east and elsewhere. I see more and more folk every day, even here on the reservation. As far as I’m concerned, Cannonball is the center of the world, and all I have to do to know what’s going on in it is stand here and listen to the words, to the silence, to the wind, and I know what’s going on from here to Boston. I know what to fear and what to take advantage of if I need to. I have no motivation to lie to you, Deputy. I don’t interfere with the law. Never have. I’m an honest businessman just trying to make a living.”
