Black Hills (9781101559116) (38 page)

They all looked cared for, but well used: signs of a high-volume business. The walls were bare and undecorated unlike the Saloon With No Name. The only door, other than the entrance, was located near the far end of the bar, leading to the outhouse.

It was late afternoon, and the place was filling up. They selected a table in the far back corner away from the bar and Jake ordered them a couple of drinks and a round for the men. When the drinks came, Jake told the bartender to leave the bottle. Although he sometimes liked a shot of good whiskey, when he had his druthers, Cormac's first choice was beer. Cormac told him the story of the cowboys, fast horses, and rustlers with Jake stopping him from time to time for more details.

“Well, if that don't beat all,” he said when Cormac had finished. “That took a lot of guts to play it that way. Tell me about shooting the Indian. I'd of liked to have seen that, and that gun. What did you say you call it?”

“GERT. She was my pa's rifle, and he called her GERT, so I do, too. So, where you shipping the herd to?”

“No, no! No changing the subject. You've avoided telling me about how the Indian spooks you. What's the deal?”

Cormac hesitated.

“Come on. Out with it.”

Cormac took a deep breath. “It's just unnatural . . . strange. I don't believe it, but I don't know how not to.”

“Well, get it out here on the table and let's look at it.”

Cormac took another deep breath and another drink. “Okay, here it is. I already killed this Indian once before. I sunk my pa's knife, this knife . . .” Cormac pulled his pa's big knife out of its sheath and put it on the table. “We were in a knife fight, up in Wyoming, and I stuck that knife up under his ribs and into his heart. He was dead. He had to be dead. Another Indian took the body away draped over a horse. Before that, I had met a couple of mountain men fresh out of the Black Hills who told me the Black Hills are the religious center of the Indians and have special powers, and that there is a medicine man there believin' he can bring a person back from the dead, but I didn't believe it for a minute. But maybe I'm wrong.”

He hesitated, and poured another drink for the both of them.

“I had been told the Indian doing the raiding down here was a Sioux named Lakata Loma, but I saw him clear as could be with my long glass. It was a Sioux alright, but his name is Kahatama. He's the one I killed once already. I guess the medicine man's medicine is strong.”

“No,” said Jake Barlow. “I think I can solve this for you. Now that you mention it, I do remember hearing the name before. It was Lakata Loma. I've never heard the name Kahatama, but I have heard that Lakata Loma is part of a set of triplets and has two brothers up in Wyoming Territory the spitting image of himself and all just as ornery. I have no idea what happened to the other one, or if he's still alive. In fact, this is the first I've heard anything about them in years. I've never known of any other Indian triplets, and only one set of twins. They were women that drove the buck-Indians nuts. They thought pretending to be each other was great fun, until they secretly swapped husbands one too many times and got caught. Both of the husbands got them together and beat the fire out of them so badly they no longer looked alike, and that ended that. But you got him, you say? Good. But do the Indians up north know that it was you that got the other one?”

“Oh, yeah. They know,” Cormac answered as he turned his chair sideways to the table. “Up there they call me Two Horse because of... well, you saw my horses. They're better than most.”

“Well, my young friend, you better ride light in the saddle when you're in Indian Territory. If you killed one twin in Wyoming and the other in Texas, you're big medicine now. It's gonna be a badge of honor to wear your scalp on their belt. And gettin' your horses would just be icing on the cake. They're gonna want you real bad; they'll have their eye out for you. In fact, to let it be known that they have your scalp and to be seen riding around on one of your horses could very well become a top priority. Indians are big on honor and counting coup. In some ways, they are like children playing a game and keeping score.

“Completing any act of danger is counted and recorded with a notch on their coup stick. Even just to touch you and escape unharmed would count, and the more coup they count, the more eagle feathers they get to wear. But riding your horse with your scalp tied firmly on their belt would be the greatest and longest lasting coup of all. Some of their young bucks may even go out looking for you. So I'm deadly serious. You watch yourself.”

Cormac sighed. “The mountain men said something very similar. But I'm not worried. As fearsome as they believe me to be, if I see any of them around, I'll just jump up and yell boogitty, boogitty, boogitty! They'll all just naturally run right away.”

“You laugh, but the more fearsome you are, the more of a challenge you become. It's like a game to them, an act of manhood to show who is the most brave, who has the best story to tell around the campfires, whose squaw has the best stories to tell about her man, who the squaws find the most impressive.” Jake Bartlow paused. “You know,” he laughed, “other than the killing part, I guess they really ain't that much different than us, are they?”

Cormac sighed. The drunk at the bar made up his mind. Well, it was about time. He had been trying to talk himself into trouble since he walked in and seen Cormac. He had finally succeeded. While Cormac had been telling the story, he had kept an eye on a couple of toughs who had bellied up to the bar. Most bars have a mean drunk or two, and at first, these two had appeared no different than any others. One of them, a tall thin galoot wearing two guns, had been leaning close and speaking low to his compadre from time to time, and shooting glances at Cormac. His friend had given the appearance of not wanting to hear what he had to say.

While turning his chair in preparation for the inevitable, Cormac had loosened the Smith & Wesson in his holster and double-checked that the thongs were off his guns while watching skinny out of the corner of his eye, waiting for him to make up his mind. He finally talked himself into it. He turned and started across the saloon toward Cormac. As he rounded the table next to them, Cormac made as if to leave and stood up.

“Whatever happens next is my fight,” he told a surprised Jake, who was in the middle of a sentence when Cormac stood up. “This kind of thing happens from time to time.” As skinny skirted the poker game in progress and slid a chair out of his way, he came up with his gun in the process; it was quite a nice move. Then, he disappointed Cormac by speaking.

“My partner tells me that he knows who you are, and says I should stay away from your gun. He says it's almighty sudden. Well, you don't look almighty sudden to me.”

Would-be-toughs never learn. They can talk, or they can shoot; they always have to talk. They think that as soon as they point their gun at somebody, that somebody is just naturally going to shake with fear and do whatever they're told. They don't believe anyone would ever attempt to draw while being covered by a gun.

What they don't realize is that if the person they are pointing their gun at chooses to react negatively, it takes time for the would-be shooter's brain to realize it, then it takes time for it to send a message to the finger telling it to fire; it takes still more time for the finger to react to the command. From past experience, Cormac tended to believe that when someone was pointing a gun at him, they intended to shoot him, saving him all that thinking time.

The drunk's shirt was held closed by oversize black buttons with the thread holding the third button from the top needing attention. It was stretched and about to break. Just as the drunk was saying how Cormac didn't look almighty sudden to him, he was cocking his gun and bringing it to bear on Cormac, and Cormac nailed the button down with a .44 caliber bullet.

A look of shock twisted the tough's face. “I didn't think . . .” he got out before he collapsed.

Well, what in the hell did he think? He admitted that his friend had told him Cormac was quick and still the drunk just had to try him. Cormac shifted his eyes to the drinker still at the bar. The drinker held up both hands to show Cormac they were empty and shook his head.

“I tried to tell him,” he said. “He wouldn't listen.”

Cormac holstered his gun and turned to a wide-eyed Jake Bartlow.

“I didn't even see you draw,” Jake mumbled, a look of something between amazement and fear on his face, “and I was watching you.” Cormac was familiar with that look. He had seen it before. He didn't respond; he just left.

Cormac walked out into the street. It was a street just like a street in any other western town, with a boardwalk on each side and overhangs from the buildings to protect would-be customers from the rain during the season. At opposing ends of the street were a church and a stable. Cormac had spent the last few weeks on one horse or another, and stretching his legs felt good. He elected to stroll down and check on Lop Ear and Horse.

They were there, in neighboring stalls, right where he had left them, both standing lazily on three legs, munching contentedly on mouthfuls of hay. He admired their lines, thinking how lucky his pa had been at having Lop Ear given to him. Cormac hadn't done so badly himself when he chose the grulla. She stood only a bit smaller than Lop Ear, well muscled without being bulky, graceful without being delicate, and she was built for speed and endurance with plenty of both. Anywhere they happened to be became a beautiful picture of which he never tired. Lop Ear turned his big head to greet him with a friendly nicker.

“Hey, old-timer,” Cormac answered.

Cormac started into the stall and then hesitated. Horse had turned his head around to look back beside Lop Ear's for a good look-see. With them standing side by side with their heads almost touching, their expressive eyes looked like they were trying to tell him something, and it occurred to him that he had noticed it before, but never really thought about it.

They looked like relatives. They had the same conformation: the high-held, graceful, long slender necks and legs, high-set ears, and broad foreheads with small muzzles. He had previously noticed how they both stepped proudly and carried their tails high, yet his pa had been told Lop Ear was bred from some Arab country, and Cormac recognized Horse's slightly smaller mustang lines. Maybe a hand or hand and a half smaller than Lop Ear, her features were just kind of a watered-down version of Lop Ear.

Cormac wondered if it was possible that one of Lop Ear's ancestors got loose somewhere along the line and ended up in the same band of mustangs as Horse's sire or dam. He slid into the stall beside Lop Ear.

The big gray nuzzled his nose against Cormac's chest friendly like, searching for the piece of apple or carrot he would sometimes bring them and found one of the pieces of carrot in Cormac's shirt pocket that he had gotten at Daisy Lil's.

Not wanting to be left out, Horse stuck her head over the stall and, with her nose in the center of his back, gave him a shove. Cormac fell forward against Lop Ear's head. Lop Ear snorted and pushed Cormac back to Horse. Horse thought this to be great fun and shoved him back to Lop Ear. Cormac side-stepped to avoid Lop Ear's return. “Very funny, guys,” he said. “That was really cute.” They appeared to be pleased with themselves.

Cormac gave them each their piece of carrot, scratching the knots on their heads while they munched. Leaning his face against the face of first one and then the other while he petted and talked to them, they shared the same air and smelled each other's breath and both appeared to enjoy the closeness of the association, as did he. He looked back and forth between them, into their eyes.

While they were crunching their last crunch, he went and got the hostler's currycomb. Returning to the stalls, he found both horses looking at him, waiting expectantly; they both loved the comb, and their skin would sometimes shiver from the feel. The grulla blew and Cormac blew back. “Okay, girl. You win. You first.”

He had finished Horse and was out of sight in the corner of the stall working on a tangle in Lop Ear's mane when two riders entered the stable.

“He's still up in Colorado,” one was saying, “working for Lambert. He got word to me to round up any men I can find and go help take over the L-Bar N. I got eight men waiting at the old Carob place out north of town, with you and me, that makes ten; that should do it. We'll leave first thing in the morning and pick the others up on the way out. Lambert is going to wait for us to get there before he moves in on them. He wants more manpower.”

One of their horses blew, and Cormac quickly put a hand over Lop Ear and Horse's noses to keep them quite.