The Reckoning Read online

  ****

  Over the next week, Lorraine slowly gained strength with Ike nearly constantly by her side. When Doc gave the okay to move her to the boarding house, Ike wagoned her over there and carried her inside. Margaret Pinshaw volunteered to help take care of her and met them as they arrived. “Please put Lorraine in the back bedroom, Ike.” Buster, Rob, and the professor followed him into the boarding house.

  “But her room’s upstairs,” Ike said.

  “Not any more. I moved everything I’ll need to care for her down to this level. This way she won’t have any stairs to climb when she’s able to get up and about.”

  After he got Lorraine settled in, Ike left her with Margaret and sat in the Wildfire with his three companions. “I thank the good Lord Lorraine’s gonna be okay,” he said.

  They all raised whiskey glasses and drank a toast. Buster downed a hot coffee. After his second shot, Ike’s face lost all expression. “I’ve wanted Manning dead for so long I can’t remember that far back. Now he’s dead, and I wish it was me that killed him. If he was still alive, I could find out what happened to Sue. Now, me and Rob’ll never know.”

  As Buster sipped his coffee, he cleared his throat. “That may not be exactly true.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  While Lorraine recuperated, Buster rode west into the mountains alone early one morning. The aspen were dropping their golden leaves, and he traveled over fresh snow that didn’t quite reach down to the valley floor yet. A nearly-horizontal line partway up the foothills marked the frost line. Buster followed a faint trail that led up to the high meadows. He rode back into a box canyon, and after discovering broken glass and a frame, found a hidden trail at the back of the formation. The high country was transitioning from fall, but there was still enough muddy ground to capture hoof prints. Buster followed a large grouping of solidified prints until the tracks disappeared in the higher, colder reaches. It had been years since he’d been to the Ute winter camp, and he wasn’t sure he remembered where it was. After two days searching and no luck finding the village, his provisions ran out and he headed back to Cottonwood.

  Red was at the stable when Buster rode in as dusk was pushing daylight away. “I was gettin’ a little concerned, Buster. You been gone a couple days. I figured you must have drank yourself off your horse and ended up snowed under. And we wouldn’t have found you ’til spring,” he said, laughing.

  Buster straightened up in the saddle. “You got a right to say that, Red. I been a true drunk, I have, and I ain’t proud of it. And you got the right to take me to task for it, ’cause your words are gonna help me stay sober. Anytime you want to remind me about bein’ a drunk, you just go ahead. So thanks. I’ll be back in the morning.” His words seemed friendly enough, but his voice carried a hard edge. Buster was mad at someone. He just didn’t know if it was himself or Red.

  Red rubbed his stubbly chin. “You’re welcome, I think.” As Buster walked away, Red called after him, “I’ll have her ready for you.”

  “Thanks, Red, I like ridin’ this time of year before the snowdrifts seal the mountains off for the winter.” It was a good half-lie, half-truth. The crisp mountain air was good for his soul, and right now, his soul could use some good.

  He walked toward the boarding house full of aches from two days riding in the cold. Age and the chilly Colorado nights were catching up with him. He hoped he was in time for dinner. Margaret wasn’t the cook that Lorraine was, but he’d never been picky about what he ate. To him, food was food, and even though Margaret’s cooking wasn’t anything to write home about, it’d do.

  Ike, Rob, and the professor were already seated at the table. The professor was holding court, still dissecting how they had taken Manning and his hands down at the ranch without losing anyone. Anyone could tell he was fascinated by the raw edge of life in the West, so foreign to his upbringing.

  “Rob and I worked exceptionally well together during the attack the other night. One of us would draw a shooter out, and the other finished him off. Teamwork at its best, in your wild, wild west.” He snickered a bit at his small rhyme, but no one else joined in. Buster glanced over at Ike with a small smile as he sat. “So, after we’d shot several of Manning’s men, the rest either skedaddled—I’m really picking up your jargon, aren’t I—or threw their hands up and surrendered. That jail’s a bit small for the four of them, but then I don’t think the Cottonwood city fathers ever anticipated having so many men incarcerated at the same time.”

  Rob rolled his eyes. “No doubt.”

  The professor looked over at the handyman. “Where have you been the last few days, Buster?”

  Buster didn’t answer right away. The question was a breach of western protocol and rubbed the former mountain man raw. He stopped forking at his food and looked up at Walnutt. “Just takin’ my ease, Professor. Some days I go here, and some days I go there. Helps clear my mind to get out into the hills. Always has.” He turned his attention back to his food. He was through talking about his whereabouts.

  ****

  Margaret swept into the room with a pot of more stew. “Why, I thought that was you, Buster. Welcome. I hope you boys don’t mind my cooking; it’s never been my strongest suit.” She got no argument and smiled at her all-male audience as she ladled her concoction into each bowl. When she got to Ike, she said, “It’s such a blessing that Miss Lorraine continues to do well. She’s a strong one and will make someone a good wife.”

  Ike’s beard couldn’t entirely hide the blush underneath. He’d trimmed the bushy thing up some since he came to town, but it still covered most of his face. He nodded and kept his head down, eyes fastened on his plate, and ate faster than usual.

  Margaret ladled the most stew on Rob’s plate and took her time doing it. “You look like you could stand some fattening up, mister. I may not be the best cook, but what I make has a way of stayin’ with you.” She winked at him.

  Rob arched his eyebrows and smiled back. Margaret kept ladling until he held a hand up. “That’s plenty, Miss Margaret. This is awful good.” She left for the kitchen with a grin.

  Ike stared at the professor and cut in. “No need for you to tell us where you been, Buster. I reckon you’re allowed to come and go as you see fit.”

  “Thanks, Ike. Maybe I can take you along with me one day. I might come across some things you’d like to see.”

  Ike returned Buster’s steady gaze. “I’d like that. I’ll hold you to it.”

  The next morning, Buster set out early for the mountains again. He’d taken on the task of finding Sue if he could, and had a clue the others hadn’t uncovered yet. Finding her, if she was still alive, would help sooth his soul. His horse left hoofprints in the overnight snow as she trotted up toward the low hills, tracks that soon disappeared in the brilliant Colorado sun. When he left the box canyon this time, Buster angled further north and west than on his previous scouting trip. He rode northwest through forests and meadows, then more forests, until after a two-day ride, he came to the rim of a high plateau. The surrounding landscape looked vaguely familiar, and he stopped and dismounted. Leading his horse over rocky ground to the mesa’s lip, he stared down on the Ute camp. Finally. The village lay in a broad valley where the tribe spent the winter months. The camp was right where the Utes usually passed the winter. Buster just didn’t remember as well as he used to. He backed away from the rim and hid himself and his horse in a dense stand of pines and shrub oak nearby, careful to stay out of sight of braves on the hunt for game. He still had a good view of the village below.

  Years ago, he would have ridden right into camp, but that seemed like a long time ago now. There was no turning back the clock. As he sat in his hideaway, he shifted only when need be. All that afternoon he watched carefully, then saw what he was looking for. His hunch had paid off.

  Sue!

  How could he get her back? He had nothing to trade for her. Didn’t matter, Rain Water probably wouldn’t take a trade anyway. He watched a while longer, t
hen moved back from the edge of the drop and mounted up. He picked his way back out through the dense pines, and after several minutes rode out into a meadow lit by bright sunshine.

  Five Ute braves sat their horses directly in front of Buster. Four had rifles pointing skyward resting on a leg.

  Buster wasn’t entirely surprised. The Utes had a knack for knowing everything that was happening around them. Trying to outrun them was a losing proposition. He sat still and waited for their next move. They stared back at him.

  Buster raised his right hand, palm toward them. “Greetings.”

  The brave in the middle moved toward him on a magnificent paint. It was Rain Water, older and imposing. The young Indian chief stopped a short distance away. He didn’t raise a hand back. “Why are you here, white man? Why do you spy on us?”

  It was clear they knew what he’d been doing. He’d better come clean. “I came to see if she was here, and then I saw her in your village.”

  “How did you know she was with us? I did not see any other white men when I found her. Just the coward who would have killed her had I not stopped him.”

  “A fair question, Rain Water. I sorta had a feelin’ when the coward said he got knocked out that it was the Utes that did it. You’re the only people who would have been that far back in the foothills. When I searched the place where he said he shot Sue, I found shoeless prints and figured it had to be you. Yours is the only tribe around here, but I had never come to your camp from this direction. Took me two tries and several days to find you.”

  “Why do you look for her? It is your people who would have killed her. It is my people who saved her life.”

  “True enough, but there are others of my people looking for her, too. She has two brothers nearby who been tryin’ to find out what happened to her.”

  Buster had traded with Rain Water many times over the years, but that was some time back, before he’d come out of the mountains a broken man. At one time, Buster had been an honored guest around the tribe’s campfires, and together they had many good visits. During an especially harsh winter, they’d even taken Buster in as a guest of the Ute village, a singular honor that had probably saved his life.

  “I have not seen you for many years, Bus-ter. You used to be a friend of my people, and now you watch over us like a crow scavenging for food. That is not what friends do.”

  “I am still your friend, Rain Water. I am not the one who left her for dead. I am only the one who wants to bring her back to her family.”

  “She is still not well yet, but even when she is, we would not let you to take her from our camp. She is one of us, now. You will come with us back to the village.”

  Rain Water motioned with his rifle, and a brave relieved Buster of his pistol and rifle. In the process, Buster surreptitiously let his cartridge pouch fall to the ground while the braves examined his Sharps rifle. Rain Water started off at a trot, and the small troupe set off for the village below. Buster rode in the middle as they descended from the heights that overlooked the Utes’ winter camp. He was Rain Water’s captive. What happened to him now was up to him.

  The small caravan carefully traversed the muddy slope that led down to the village below. Bright sunshine had burned off the morning snow by now, leaving watery mud that stuck to the horse’s hooves as they descended to the valley floor.

  Buster tried to engage Rain Water in conversation. He still spoke Ute well for a white man. “How is mighty Chief Black Tail Deer?” Buster knew if Rain Water didn’t answer, it would mean he’d already decided his fate. “I hope he continues to enjoy good health.” There was no response.

  As Rain Water entered camp with his hostage, women and children turned out to watch the entourage pass by. The Indians rode with their painted lances raised and stopped short of the largest dwelling in camp. Rain Water told Buster to dismount and stand there until told otherwise.

  The tribe gathered around the strange white man and waited for the chief to appear from inside the large wikiup. It was nearly ten feet at its highest, with a frame fashioned of wooden poles leaning toward each other covered by brush and hides. Spruce boughs spread over the top created a thick covering. A leather flap covered the entrance. After a half hour, a hand from inside the dwelling swept the covering aside, and Chief Black Tail Deer emerged.

  Rain Water greeted him. “Great Chief, I bring you one of our enemy.” He motioned to Buster. “He spies on our camp and prepares to bring other white men down on us. He must be punished.”

  Chief Black Tail Deer came forward, stumbling slightly. He looked like he’d been sleeping.

  Buster stared at Black Tail Deer. The wrinkles of age had crept across the chief’s face.

  The chief stood slightly stooped in front of Buster, but was still eye to eye with him. “Why do you return our friendship with treachery? Have we not befriended you over the years? Yet you betray us in return.” He circled Buster. “You have aged, Bus-ter. Your eyes tell a story of great sadness. They carry the look of one who has let drink rule his life. The same look some of our braves carry as they ruin their lives. You are not the man I used to know, Bus-ter.” The chief nodded to Rain Water and turned away.

  Buster cursed himself under his breath. He held Black Tail Deer in high regard and was embarrassed by the chief’s rebuke. He’d been rash to ride out alone, and now payment was due.

  Rain Water motioned with his rifle to the braves gathered around Buster. They moved aside and formed a double line between where Buster stood shaking, and the chief’s wigwam in the distance. One of Rain Water’s braves tore Buster’s coat, leaving him clad in only a threadbare cotton shirt and worn pants. Age had attacked Buster’s heavy, soft frame. Rain Water ordered Buster to move through the two lines toward the chief’s wikiup.

  Buster straightened up as much as his stature would allow. He knew of the gauntlet. If he could make it to the chief’s tent, still standing, they’d let him live. A bitter wind blew through the village and chilled Buster’s bones to the core. The sun had retreated to a cloudy hiding place. Rain Water motioned to Buster again as more braves extended the punishing line. Buster focused his eyes on the chief’s tent and moved forward at a steady walk. Running was considered cowardly and meant he would have to face the gauntlet again.

  As he stepped into the violence, Buster felt the first several blows. Rifle butts, fists, rocks, and the blunt ends of tomahawks battered him. Only a little way in, he fell. The braves set up a raucous whooping that promised even worse treatment if he didn’t get up. He struggled to a stand, leaned forward, and began a lurching stride again. Blood dripped from his face, and his torso was full of red welts. A rock to the side of the head put him down again, and this time he didn’t get up, or move.

  Several braves started toward Buster with raised tomahawks to finish him off. Rain Water fired his rifle in the air and stopped them. He came and stood over the dazed figure.

  “Pick him up and put him in the hillside dugout with a guard.” The tribe stored buffalo, deer, and elk meat in large hollows carved in a nearby rise. “If he dies, bury him by the river, far away from our burial grounds.” He turned and left while braves carried Buster away.

  He’d failed.

  ****

  Sue McAlister turned her head to the sounds of anger outside her tent. She recognized some harsh words in the Ute language. But it was an English-speaking voice that caught her attention. Do I know that voice? She pushed up off the colorful woven mat she lay on. Her side protested as she sat up. Kiska, the Ute woman who shared the shelter with her, reached out to keep her still. In her broken English, Kiska said, “You no go outside, stay here. Still sick.”

  Sue wouldn’t be deterred. The bullet wound was healing, but she’d gotten an infection that left her weak. She grabbed at the old woman’s arm and pushed it away, then struggled up to a stand. Sue half-walked, half-stumbled to the deerskin flap that covered the tent’s entrance and peeked outside. Rain Water stood in the center of the village with his braves, sur
rounding a white man.

  Buster!

  Crazed warriors heckled Buster—pushing, prodding, and hurling things at him. The chief lifted an arm, pointed toward his tent, and walked toward it. Rain Water motioned to his braves, and they hurried to form two lines between Buster and the chief’s wikiup.

  Sue turned to Kiska. “What are they doing?”

  “Not good. White man must get to chief’s tent to live.”

  Indians on both sides of the gauntlet brandished weapons. “But they’ll kill him. He’s old and doesn’t stand a chance.”

  “Then he will die.”

  Sue’s legs buckled, but Kiska caught her before she fell. “You come now, lie down.”

  Sue gritted her teeth. “No. I will stand and watch to see how Indian braves mistreat an old man and squander their honor in doing it.” Kiska stiffened next to her but continued to hold her up.

  When the cruelty of the gauntlet was over and Buster lay motionless on the ground, Sue said through tears, “Let me lie down and leave me.”

  “I cannot do that, Sue Mc-Alister. Rain Water said to stay with you. I will be here as long as he says it is so.”

  That was the last Sue heard before she fell back into a fitful sleep. When she awoke, darkness blanketed the village, and she nudged Kiska awake. “Help me up.”

  Kiska lit a candle, then put an arm around Sue and helped her to her feet. She wobbled a bit and pushed Kiska away to stand by herself. She staggered to the entrance and swept aside the flap. “I don’t see Buster anymore. Everyone’s gone, and night has fallen. What’s happened to Buster?”

  Kiska dropped her gaze to the ground. “Bus-ter is dead. The gauntlet too much. Blows too hard, distance too far, and years too many.”

  “You killed him!” She looked away from Kiska, and her voice rose from a whisper to a shout. She stood outside the tent and yelled her rage into a chill night wind. The village was asleep, but Indian sentries converged on her as she screamed. Kiska made shushing motions to quiet her. Her shrieks echoed off the mountainsides carried along by a stiff night wind. The sentries milled around the yellow-haired woman. She stood before them on shaky legs, breaking village decorum as she shouted her grief. They leveled their rifles on her, but she continued her tirade.