To Hell and Beyond Page 8

  “What? You got no stomach for such talk?” Billy Scudder sneered. “Neither did your chubby little friend . . .”

  Feak snorted. “Shut up, Billy, before you scare her to death. The boss wants her alive.”

  Moira slumped back on the edge of the bed, her scrub brush dripping suds and dirty water on the sheets. If she cared, she didn’t look like it.

  “Maggie O’Shannon,” Moira droned. “I’ve heard of her.”

  The older of the two Indians glared at the far wall intently with his good eye as if he were remembering something from his past. A mottled burn scar furrowed the left side of his face from jawline to forehead. The string of his black felt eye patch ran across a twisted nub of skin where his ear used to be.

  “Maggie Sundown of the Wallowa.” His voice was pinched and he spit the words more than said them. “Strong medicine, that one. She is the wife of Denihii, friend to the one who did this to me.” He gestured to his eye and the scaring on his face. “Her power is all that kept me from killing Roman those years ago. She is an evil witch. If she were among my people, we would torture her and hang her from a cottonwood tree for the buzzards. I would very much like to cut out her filthy heart.”

  “Mercy, Juan Caesar, you got it in bad for that woman.” Feak chuckled, then rubbed his face in thought with a wet hand. Moira slouched and let the scrub brush drip more gray suds onto her bed.

  Scudder sat upright at the mention of the word witch.

  “I need you to be ridin’ back to Taft tonight, Billy. We gotta do somethin’ about this boy, big medicine or no.”

  “T-t-tonight? Me?” The sneer bled from Scudder’s mouth. “Why, come on, Lucius, you just now heard Juan Caesar allow as how he wants to be the one to carve her heart out.”

  “If Billy is afraid of this witch, then I’ll go. I have no fear of an old woman and a pitiful child.” The younger of the two Apaches smirked.

  Juan Caesar looked at his young companion and shrugged. “Her medicine is real. It is no joke. But she does have a weakness. She keeps her charms in a leather bag around her neck. I believe if she was caught without the bag she would not be as powerful.”

  Bill Scudder’s eyes darted around the room, searching for some way, any way out of this assignment. “I . . . I don’t want to go after no witch. I . . . think maybe I should stay here with you. What if someone comes to try and rescue the girl?”

  “The A-patch will stay and help me with that.”

  “Send them to kill the kid.” Billy’s voice was high and tight as a guitar string. “They know more about this Injun woman anyhow.”

  Feak’s mood went as dark as the cloud of his cigar smoke. “Come here, Billy, so I can be sure you’re hearin’ me proper.”

  Slowly, Scudder skulked up to the edge of the tub, a dog waiting, knowing it’s about to get kicked, but too afraid or stupid to do anything else.

  Without warning, Feak’s hand shot out from the tub like a viper curling between Scudder’s legs and behind his left thigh so the young man straddled his crooked arm. Billy’s eyes went pie-pan round and he swallowed hard, standing perfectly still. The Indians grinned openly.

  “It ain’t safe for the A-patch to be seen too much.” Feak’s voice was a whisper, slow and even. “The boss wants us to keep them out of sight. I’m tellin’ you to go and take care of the kid. If you can do it without comin’ up against this fierce Injun witch, so much the better. Hell, kill her too, I don’t care. Cut her heart out so Juan Caesar can chop it into little pieces. Take her medicine pouch and burn it if you have to, cut it off with her Injun neck. But . . . whatever you do, you best be takin’ care of that kid so he don’t ever talk again.”

  Feak paused, staring hard at the man, who towered over him while he sat in the tub. “Understand, Billy?”

  Scudder nodded. His belly trembled and his breath came in short gasps. He was almost whimpering.

  “Thought you would.” Feak withdrew his hand slowly, and Angela was able to see the long skinning knife. A dark trickle of blood mixed with the soapsuds and water along the razor-sharp edge of the blade.

  Angela slumped as far as she could to the floor. What chance could she possibly have to survive if these people were bent on hurting each other?

  CHAPTER 7

  “Ten thousand dollars is a hell of a lot of money.” Peter Kenworth slammed a ream of yellow stock certificates on the flat of his desk. The shiny red of his well-fed jowls reflected in the polished cherrywood finish. Kenworth always sounded pinched when he talked about money. One didn’t get to be rich by buying other people’s lunch at every meal and Peter Kenworth was very rich. Cattle wearing the PK brand ranged over most of five sections of rolling foothills above the Bitterroot Valley. Most years the grass covered these hills and the cattle were fat as ticks, but the spring of 1910 brought unusually hot weather, and what little snow that fell in the high country melted early. Not a drop of rain fell through May, June, or July. August brought only more searing heat—and fire.

  Already, acre after acre of PK land had been consumed by the spot fires that dotted the dry, brown hillsides and sent plumes of dark gray smoke up into the darkened sky, only to settle back to turn the once-picturesque Bitterroot Valley into a haze-filled mess of charred stumps, bloated dead cattle, and black, skeletal husks of what used to be his buildings.

  As strange as it seemed to some, Peter Kenworth didn’t care about the cattle or the vast ranches. He hated the loss of his profit, but mining was his first love. While others enjoyed the wide-open spaces and tree-covered hills, Kenworth longed for the darkness of the mines, the cool breeze that blew from a side shaft when it connected him with the heart of the earth herself. When he went below, Peter felt connected, part of something larger than himself. On top of the ground, with all the big sky in the world above him, he often felt untethered, as if he might float away.

  Even with the fires, Kenworth mines near the St. Joe and holdings near Anaconda still brought him a steady income. Not as much as they had in the beginning, but steady nonetheless. A good deal of that he sent to his wife back in Boston. Not that there was any love lost between him and Lizbeth. If circumstances had not conspired against him back at his humble beginnings, he’d have divorced the dictatorial woman long before. As far as he could see, she had only ever given him two things of any value in the twenty-year span of their miserable acquaintance—a grubstake, which he’d paid dearly for over the years, and a daughter, who she’d kept from him and held over his head at every turn. Lizbeth had always hated tight places, and Peter often wondered if his own love for the mines signified something about his strong desire to be as far away from her as possible.

  She’d not been able to get through to him on the telephone, but her wire had been bad enough. She was unforgiving and vindictive after he’d informed her of the kidnapping.

  “Get her back quickly. Stop. When you do, send her home at once. Stop. My fault for trusting you. Stop. No foolishness will be tolerated. Stop. Lizbeth “

  Peter knew it was sheer foolishness with Lizbeth on a dark, humid night in Boston so many years ago that had led to Angela’s arrival, but that didn’t keep him from doting on his daughter at every opportunity. Lizbeth had tried to keep them apart, but the girl was too much like him—too full of spirit, goaded by her sense of adventure to try out new things. No matter what his wife did, she’d never been able to keep him from getting to know his own daughter.

  Now he even doubted himself. He’d vomited when he saw what had happened to the poor Donahue woman. His whole body ached at the thought that they would find Angela somewhere in the nearby woods—his poor, beautiful daughter, disemboweled and naked. Strangely, it was a comfort when one of his men found her finger with the ruby ring still on it. It seemed like a sign that she’d been taken alive. Peter had wrapped the precious little finger in his handkerchief and tucked it safely inside his vest pocket. Even now, the pitiful thing rested in a small wooden box in the lap drawer of his desk.

  Tom Ledbe
tter stood across the spacious wood-paneled room. He held his hat in one hand and an arrow in the other. “We didn’t see who shot it, Mr. Kenworth. I have men out now looking for a trail. We plan to track whoever it was at first light.”

  Kenworth held the rolled note that had been tied around the arrow up to the gaslight again. “I’d gladly pay ten thousand dollars if I knew she was still alive. I’d pay ten times that if I could only be certain.”

  Ledbetter’s face glowed red. He hung his head as if he was about to cry. “I feel downright awful, sir. I know it was my idea to send Mueller to pick the young lady up in the coach. I can’t help but think if I’d been the one to go . . . maybe met her myself . . .”

  “Then you’d be dead as well and I’d have no one to rely on right now. Stop blaming yourself, Tom. All I care about now is getting her back, not what we all should have or could have done.”

  “The note seems like the only chance, sir. We take the money to the crossroads and they’ll have the girl there. There’s not much of a choice for now.” Ledbetter shrugged. “They picked a perfect spot. Open land all around so they don’t have to fear we’ll ambush them. If they’re telling the truth, I’ll have your daughter back by tomorrow night.”

  Kenworth collapsed back in the padded chair and rubbed his beleaguered eyes with both hands. The man meant well but, dammit, it wasn’t his daughter out there with a mutilated finger and who knows what other kind of humiliations. He should never have gone and seen what they’d done to the poor Donahue girl. Now he couldn’t close his eyes without envisioning the same treatment for Angela. He spoke into clenched fists—more to himself than to Ledbetter. “And if they aren’t?”

  Ledbetter’s eyes grew dark. His long lips pressed together. He nodded slowly to his employer. “I will take care of this myself, sir. One way or another, I plan to track down these redskins and kill them all whether they bring back your daughter or not. I promise you, they won’t have the money for long.”

  Ledbetter made an imposing figure in the dancing gaslights. Kenworth felt a little better to have such a capable man on his side. “Are you so certain Indians did this?”

  Ledbetter held up the arrow and snapped the wooden shaft in half with a beefy thumb. “I’d say this is proof enough.”

  “I don’t know, Tom. It’s all just too pat. Indians may be cruel, son, but they’re not stupid. Why use an arrow unless they wanted us to know they were Indians?”

  Ledbetter’s jaws convulsed as he ground his teeth together. His vehement hatred for all things Indian was common knowledge in western Montana, but few knew why. “Hell, I don’t know what was going through their sick minds. But everything about this massacre stinks of red sweat and treachery.”

  “Just the same,” Kenworth said with a weary sigh, “I think we should talk to that Donahue boy, see what he has to say about it. He had to have seen something.”

  Ledbetter shrugged. He suddenly seemed preoccupied with something outside the window. “If you say so, Boss. I don’t mean no disrespect by this, but it’s a waste of time. They say he’s not doing much talking.”

  “You know the lawmen guarding him?” Kenworth snatched a pen from the gray marble holder on the desk and began to scribble a note.

  “I do.” Ledbetter took a step toward the desk. His eyes twitched and he looked into the gaslight instead of at Kenworth. The muscles along his jaw clenched again as if he were chewing through a difficult thought. “I know you’re worried about your daughter, sir, but I hate for you to get your hopes up about this boy. It won’t do no good to talk to him. Even if he talks, he’s gone crazy. After what he seen them savages do . . . anybody would.”

  “Nevertheless, I want to talk to him.” Kenworth blew on the paper to dry the ink, then folded it lengthwise before sliding it into a tan envelope he produced from the lap drawer. He handed the letter to Ledbetter and rested his elbows on the desk, leaning his chin against his hands. “You take that to the deputy and then bring the boy here tonight. I want to talk to him as soon as possible.”

  Ledbetter nodded, a soft sigh escaping his narrow lips. “They say there’s an Indian woman with him. She may not be so eager for us to talk to him if she thinks we can find out the truth.”

  Kenworth kept his chin against his hands, but let his tired eyes float up to meet Ledbetter. His voice creaked with the weariness of a man twice his age. “Arrange to bring me the boy, Tom. Nobody but the people who have Angela will care if I talk to him or not. There’s something not quite right about all this Indian business. How would Indians know my daughter was to be on that coach?” He sighed and closed his eyes. “I just don’t buy into it yet.”

  “What about the things they did to those poor people? You can’t believe a white man would do such things as that.”

  “Oh, Tom, my boy.” Kenworth leaned back in his stuffed chair and tried to stretch forty years of tension out of his weary spine. “You shouldn’t underestimate what one white man could do to another. Indians don’t have the corner on the atrocity market.”

  CHAPTER 8

  The other firefighters looked like woodchucks far below Daniel Rainwater as he swayed in the smoky wind 120 feet up in the lonely top of a ponderosa pine. It had been an easy climb, and Daniel had the best eyesight of anyone he had ever met. He felt a strange need to make the fire boss proud of him, and volunteering as a spotter seemed a good way to make that happen.

  Even with the thick haze, Daniel could see for miles. Jagged peaks stuck up from a blotchy patchwork of parched brown and singed black. Rivers of smoke ran in thick streams along the low-lying valleys. Plumes of gunmetal smoke billowed up every mile or so in all directions as far as the eye could see. So many fires burned, he couldn’t count them. Taking a deep breath of the relatively cooler air before he clambered back down the swaying tree, Daniel took one last look around. He was supposed to give a report to Mr. Zelinski with the location of the nearest fire so they could march to it. From his vantage point, it didn’t look like finding a fire to fight would be a problem. Any direction they walked would give them ample opportunity to do battle with any number of blazes. They were surrounded by fire.

  While locating a place to work would be easy, surviving the night might pose a bit of a problem.

  After shinnying back down the tree, Daniel let himself drop from a high branch about eight feet off the ground. He landed in a crouch a few feet from his friend Joseph. Zelinski was nowhere in sight, but a dozen other men pressed in closer to hear what Daniel had seen. Big Ox Monroe towered in front of the group. He sneered and clicked his gold teeth when Rainwater looked at him. Roan Taggart leaned against a tree beside him and stared across his pink nose.

  “What did you see?” a tall man with soot-streaked blond hair asked. He wasn’t much older than Daniel.

  Corporal Rollins stood to one side with his oak-tree arms folded across a massive chest. The rest of his men were working a line about half a mile away. There had already been two brawls between colored troops and men egged on by Monroe and Taggart, so Rollins preferred to keep his men working as far away as possible but still get the job done. He watched, but said nothing.

  “Where’s the boss?” Daniel looked at Joseph. “I need to see him.”

  “Talking to White,” Joseph said.

  “Come on,” the blond man, whose name was Peterson, pleaded. “How many fires did you see?”

  “Who says he saw anything at all,” Ox Monroe said from his leaning spot at a nearby tamarack. Though Roan Taggart stank to high heaven from his farting, the air around Ox felt dead as a corpse. “He’s probably up there sendin’ signals to his red devil friends so they know where to slip in and cut all our throats. I say we send somebody up we can trust and dump the skinny little buck and his friend in the creek where they belong.”

  A nervous chuckle rolled through the small group. They cast bleary, bloodshot eyes back and forth as if looking for guidance. It didn’t pay to ignore Monroe’s jokes completely.

  “How many fires,
Daniel?” Corporal Rollins unfolded massive arms and let a relaxed hand rest on the upright handle of a pickax beside him. He spoke to Rainwater, but sent a pointed smile at Ox Monroe. “Don’t listen to Mr. Ox there. He just foolin’ with you, I’m sure of it. Ain’t you, Mr. Ox?”

  Monroe grunted and spit on the ground, but he didn’t answer.

  “I hope you was just funnin’, Mr. Ox.” Rollins flipped the pick around and around in a hand the size of a shovel blade the way a smaller man might toss a hammer, catching it by the end of the handle on each full rotation. “I think you and me, we gonna have to wrestle one of these days, Mr. Ox. I think you’d get a kick outta that.” He beamed and shook his head slowly back and forth while he spoke. His eyes never left Monroe. “Yes, sir, I just love to wrestle.”

  “Why don’t you wrestle your own self, you ignart tar baby, I got no truck with you.” Monroe didn’t know it, but Roan Taggart who was always stuck so close he seemed like another appendage, looked around for a place to hide and took a half a step back at the last remark.

  Rollins caught the pick by the handle and held it out in front of him as if it were no more than a light twig.

  Daniel sighed. His ever-present smile faded away. “I need to talk to the boss, boys. There’s too many burns to count. The whole country’s on fire and we’re in the middle of it.”

  “Why don’t you do that, young buck?” Monroe said with a swagger, his eyes still locked on Rollins.

  The corporal nodded slowly, flipping the pick again in one hand. “Yeah, Daniel, why don’t you go ahead and tell Mr. Zelinski what you saw while me and Mr. Ox decide the rules to our wrestlin’ match.”

  Monroe scoffed. “Why you always takin’ up for the Injun? You’re too stupid to see what’s goin’ on here, ain’t you. They must call you niggers buffalo soldiers ’cause you’re so thick-skulled.”

  Rollins let the pick fall to the dust and slowly popped his powerful neck from side to side. His head bowed like a bull on the fight as he spoke. His quiet words cut the air. “I don’t know about them others, but the name suits me ’cause I’m ’bout to trample your mangy ass.”