Cry of the Hawk

47

July, 1868

WISER SENT HASTINGS with a half dozen of his scouts around to the back.

Boothog himself would go in the front door of the livery stable. Backed up by four of his own men.

He knew they enjoyed this. Every last one of them. He had seen it burn in their eyes more than once. Whenever Wiser had been crossed and wronged and felt the burning need for taking revenge on one of the men. The rest—especially these most trusted by him—they all watched unflinchingly as Wiser had taken his pound of flesh each and every time.

He could remember seeing that love of it in their eyes. They had enjoyed watching the torture and the blood, the begging by the victim.

And Boothog Wiser knew they would take no small pleasure in what he, Wiser, now had in store for this simple homespun Southern sodbuster named Jonah Hook.

Wiser figured he had given Hastings enough time to get around by the run-down stable’s double-wing back door, a stable that slightly listed to one side with age and the incessant prairie wind.

Silently moving to the small door, he tested the latch and hinges gently for noise. He wanted to be in the stable before Hook knew he had arrived. As Wiser was pushing in on the short door, a hollow shot echoed from within.

Wiser froze. A quick exchange of gunfire, intermingled with a pair of grunts. Then shouts swamping over everything from out back. Calling for him.

He glanced at his own men, then shoved his way into the stable, both hands filled with the fancy pistols.

It was dark in here—dimly lit at best. Four horses milled about, pawing, rearing at the noise. Some gun smoke hung in a murky haze at the far end of the stable, swaying with the rocking light of the disturbed lantern hung upon a long nail. Hay dust stirred, making it hard to see. Wiser could not make out what was happening.

“Major Wiser!”

It was Hastings’s voice.

“Captain! What’s going on? Where is he?”

“He’s in here! Got two of my men! Get the sonofabitch!”

Wiser read the panic in Hastings’s voice. Strange that a man as proven as the captain should express so much fear. Perhaps only the tension coming now at the end of a long scout. Then Wiser’s belly convinced him of something different. Hastings would know, better than any, about the enemy they were up against.

“What’s he got for weapons, Captain?”

“Those two pistols—all I saw him carrying.”

“He’s got something more,” someone said from the darkness.

“What?”

“Dunno.”

“Shuddup! Now get your boys to rush him,” Wiser ordered, with his pistol waving two of his own to go down either side of the center aisle between the two rows of stables.

Boothog could read more than reluctance on their faces. He pointed the pistol at one of them. The man moved on into the murky darkness, carefully, his head pulled back in his shoulders like a gun-shy tortoise.

Wiser watched as a pair of Hastings’s men argued with their captain at the far end of things.

“Get them moving! This can be over in a matter of seconds, Captain!”

Hastings shoved the two forward with his big, fleshy hands. They dived into the dim light shed from the solitary oil lamp. Something flickered across the corona of light—the shadow of a man. A bevy of shots rattled through the stable. Three of the gunmen fell. Two of them screaming before they passed out. The third crumpled silently.

The fourth lay wounded in the dust and hay, dragging himself back toward Wiser. A hand over a dirty blotch on his shirt.

“Bastard got us in our own cross fire!” hollered the wounded man.

“You think you’re gonna die—that it?” Wiser shouted back at the man.

“I’m gut-shot, Major,” he begged, crawling close to Wiser’s legs. “It’s a slow, mean way to go.”

“Go to hell then!” Boothog cried, instantly aiming his pistol at the man’s face below him and pulling the trigger.

The back of the gunman’s head exploded in a spray of red that splattered the hay and dust with gore and crimson. Wiser stepped over the quivering body, waving the last two ahead with him.

“Hastings!”

“Major?”

“You and me gotta see to this—don’t we now?”

“I suppose we do.”

“You especially, Captain. You brought him in.”

There was a moment of quiet reflection from the far end of the livery. “You’re right. It’s my doing. I’ll … clean things up for you, Major.”

“That’s a good soldier.”

A wild laugh split the shadows. “Ain’t that just like you goddamned officers!” the drawl called out from the darkness.

“Ah, Mr. Hook!” Wiser replied. “How good of you to let us know that you plan to join the celebration.”

“All you officers can do is send good soldiers to their death, ain’t that so? And now you’re gonna follow orders like the rest, Hastings? Or you gonna get out while you still can?”

“Go ahead, Captain,” Wiser reminded stiffly. “Let’s see you tidy this matter up.”

“Sure—c’mon in here, Hastings. I’ll put a couple of holes in you before any of the rest of your boys get close enough to finish me off. And what’s it get you, Captain? A decent burial in a hero’s grave back in Zion? Shit—you know damned well Wiser will leave you rot where you lay. Like he done with all the rest before you.”

“Don’t listen to him, Hastings! That’s the devil’s own hand servant in there! Let’s finish this and get the girl.”

“That’s right, Hastings,” the Southerner’s voice called out. “The girl is all that Wiser wants. He don’t care a good goddamn about you at all.”

“Goddamn you, Hook!” Wiser spat.

“Say, Major—where’s Hattie’s mother?”

That stopped Wiser. And the major saw it had stopped Hastings in his tracks as well.

Hook called out again. “The woman’s with Usher, ain’t she?”

Wiser was slow making sense of it. How did the man know?

“I don’t know what the devil you’re talking about, Hook. Perhaps if you come out and give the girl up, we can sort—”

“The girl’s name is Hattie. She has a name, Wiser.”

Boothog smiled. He had it fitting together nicely. “And the woman? What was her name?”

“Gritta.”

Wiser listened to the rumble of the two men left with him, and those still with Hastings. If they had been spooked by a man hiding in the dark before, they now were a little less than anxious to tackle someone who had tracked them across more than three years and hundreds of miles of wilderness.

“Three winters gone, Wiser. I been waiting a long time to put a name on the bastards come and stole my family. Now I got names. And I got you here with me. Whyn’t you send the rest of these hired killers out of here, and you and me finish his—like the big man you’re always bragging you are.”

“You’re a back-shooter, Hook. I saw it in your eyes when we first met. You’d never fight me fair.”

“Shit—I’d never expect you to fight fair, you bastard. Your kind never does. You run and hide less’n the odds are in your favor.”

“Live to fight another day has always been my credo.”

“And let other men do your dying for you.”

“I’m done talking with him, Hastings! Finish it!”

“Major—why don’t we just burn the sonofabitch out. We can do it real easy—”

“I want the girl, Hastings!” he shrieked. Then, attempting to gain some self-control, he said, “The colonel wants the girl too. She’s no good to us burned alive.”

“None of us good to you killed, Major.”

“You’re not going in there to finish this off, Captain?”

Hastings hesitated a moment, finally wagging his head. “Never meant to fight a badger buried in a hole—”

Suddenly the captain was knocked backward a step, still standing, staring down at the tiny hole in his belly, a red blossom slowly spreading around it. He started swiping at the stain with one hand, wide-eyed—

—a second hole opened up in the center of his chest. Right where Wiser had aimed. Hastings looked up at the major with dull disbelief, trying to raise his own pistol to fire at Wiser.

Boothog fired a third shot, watching it connect low in the neck, spurting bright blood as Hastings stumbled backward against his men diving helter-skelter for cover. Near Wiser, the last two were scrambling out of the way. Boothog yelled for them to come to him. They did not.

He emptied one pistol at them taking cover in the dark, shadowy corners of the stable behind him. Then calmly holstered the weapon and shifted the other to his left hand, where he spun the cylinder, methodically checking the caps on each nipple.

Deciding he would have to finish off this goddamned Gentile himself.

He had heard the scrape of a boot out the back, too late to do anything about it.

But Jonah Hook didn’t get back-shot. He had shoved Hattie back down in a dark stall, slapping the horses out into the dusty aisle between the rows of stalls for cover and confusion as he drew his first pistol. As he ducked back into the dark of a far stall, he dragged the Winchester from its scabbard beneath the stirrup fender.

So that was all he had, Hook thought as he made himself small. Two pistols and a seventeen-shot Model 1866. Maybe, if he was lucky and made each ball count, he could hold both sides of the stable at bay. Whittling them down one by one.

Then he heard some of them coming, whispering … footsteps from both directions. And he knew if they rushed him like that—it was all but over. He started to move to a crouched position, putting a hand out to steady himself, when he had found the flake of a hay bale. Big enough, he figured.

He waited, breathless and listening. Then flung the flake into the murky lamplight and shadows, across the aisle into the far row of stalls.

It had done the trick. The four gunmen spooked, firing into one another. And Jonah had himself made sure of two of them before he ducked back into the darkness once more.

From the sounds of things, the four were done and out of the way.

Then he thought on it hard and knew they still might rush him. And that would be the end—unless he put a little more fear into their hearts. More so some downright simple confusion to keep them off balance.

That’s when he started talking to Hastings, recognizing his voice at the back of the livery. Hearing Wiser at the front of the stable. And glory of glories—it had worked.

Better than Jonah had hoped: the major shot Hastings. Gone right mad, Wiser had. Mad with frustration, even hate. He heard him shooting up there among the front stalls. Lead smacking wood, scattering hay dust. Gun smoke hanging like dirty gauze, suspended over the stable, made a greasy yellow by the single lamp.

Wiser was a madman. Shooting at his own men. None of the last shots came Jonah’s way.

Then some quiet. Quickly sorting it out, Jonah figured Wiser was reloading. Or waiting with that second pistol—wanting Hook to grow impatient and show himself. How Jonah wanted to watch the bastard squirm ….

More than anything, Hook knew he had to swallow his own hate down now—keep thinking things through or he would not last. Not long enough to get Hattie out of there. And that fear of failing her stabbed something down deep inside him now.

“I’m with you, Major!” cried a voice from the back of the stable, near the big opened doors.

“Your glory will be made in Zion, boys!” Wiser called back. “Let’s go in and get the Gentile!”

Hook stood, sensed where Wiser was, and pulled off two quick shots that barked but bit only stall uprights. Yet before he himself ducked back down, Jonah watched Wiser going for cover.

Overhead sang more than a half dozen bullets as Hastings’s scout fired at the disappearing target. Jonah counted shots, with his left hand reaching for the security of the repeater.

More gunfire exploded at the back of the livery, although these did not echo like those before inside the stable. These shots were instead swallowed by the night. Outside. Beyond those big open doors leading onto the black prairie.

Jonah strained his eyes, shading them from the pale, murky lamplight—trying his best to get his night-eyes.

A man reeled backward into the barn from the doors. Then he made out three of the gunmen crouching, turning to fire into the night with quick orange muzzle blasts.

Then a second gunman sank back on his haunches, clutching the side of his chest. In a moment he lay down, rolled onto his belly, and did not move again.

The last two of Hastings’s scouts yelled at one another and flung their voices to Wiser at the far side of the stables. Then the pair bolted to their feet and at a dead run plunged into the blackness of night, their pistols spitting yellow flames ahead of them.

There came a flurry of more gunfire outside the building. Not only pistols, but big guns as well. Booming amid the cracks of the smaller-bore pistols.

An agonizing silence followed … until Wiser called out.

“Men? The rest of you able, get back in here so we can finish what we’ve started!”

There came no answer.

Hook heard the shuffle of steps in Wiser’s direction, the murmur of voices. Wiser was arguing with those two he had left in his command.

“Jonah?”

On guard, Hook snapped around, to the back of the stable.

“Jonah Hook! You in there, son?”

“Shad Sweete? That you?”

“By damn, it is—his own self!” Sweete roared.

He was flush with confusion, joy, relief, and then again fear. “Keep covered. This fella’s got him some gunmen left, Shad.”

A bullet whined overhead.

“How many, Jonah?”

“Don’t know—”

“You’re still mine, Hook. And the girl too!”

“Girl, Jonah?”

“My daughter, Shad.”

“Hattie’s there with you?” a new voice sang out.

Something familiar to it, but not like the hominess of Shad Sweete’s colicky bellow.

“Who’s asking?”

“It’s Riley Fordham, Jonah.”

“She’s here with me, Riley,” he called into the dark.

“Ah—Mr. Fordham!” Wiser cried. “What an unexpected pleasure. Not only will I get to watch Hook die—as slow and painfully as possible—but I will have the pleasure of killing you as well. Cutting off your head and presenting it to Colonel Usher when next I see him at Fort Laramie.”

Wiser laughed, loud enough that Hook stood, without thinking, firing the last two shots in the one pistol, then aiming the second into the dark. One, two … then three shots—

A scream, then many footsteps pounded the hard earth, flinging the small door aside noisily. Until there was no more noise from the front of the stables.

Hook listened to the quiet for a long, long time.

“Go ’round front, Fordham,” Jonah called out.

“Already sent him, Jonah,” Sweete replied.

Jonah cautiously stepped to the corner of the stall, listening. All he heard between each of his own steps was the labored breathing of one of them. Then the creak of the hinges at the front door.

“The rest run off, Jonah,” Fordham called out. “Likely they’re on their way to their camp—get the rest. We gotta be making tracks, and now.”

“Fordham’s right, Jonah,” Shad said.

“This ain’t finished.”

They joined him, finding Hook standing over Wiser, one boot on his gun hand.

Sweete knelt beside the man, putting his ear against his wet, dark-slicked chest. “He ain’t got long, Jonah. You plugged him in the lights twice’t. Who is he?”

“Damn.” Hook used his boot toe to knock the man’s pistol aside. “This one had Hattie.”

“We gotta go,” Fordham said anxiously. “Get her out—”

“G’won, then. I appreciate what you done, coming to help me. You can go now. Save your hide, Riley.”

“Listen, dammit. I put my own neck on the line to come back to make sure Hattie was safe. No different from you, Jonah.”

“She’s safe.”

“Where’s she?”

“Back there. They got her pretty sleepy. She don’t know nothing that’s going on.”

Fordham stepped away as Jonah knelt over Wiser. Shad shifted, turning his head first this way, then that, as he listened for sounds of the gunmen returning.

Hook stuffed the muzzle of his pistol up under Boothog’s nose. “Before you go, you sonofabitch—why don’t you die clean so you can meet your maker proper.”

“You can go to hell, Gentile,” Wiser gurgled. “Filthy vermin—”

“I figure I will go to hell, in the end. But right now—that’s where I’m fixing to send you. I’ll be a while getting there before I join you.” With the muzzle and front sight, he lifted Wiser’s upper lip, ramming the pistol in hard against the gums and upper teeth.

“He know where your wife is, Jonah?”

“He does—and I do too,” Hook answered. “Now, Boothog—let’s just come clean with your dying breath, you want to tell me where I can begin looking for my boys.”

“I don’t have any idea, sod—”

Jonah drew the hammer back with a loud click. “I thought I spoke good enough English for you to understand, Major. Maybe you just don’t listen good unless it hurts real bad. That’s it—ain’t it? Your kind likes to hurt … enjoys it something special. All right then.”

Hook pulled his pistol away from Wiser’s mouth and jammed the muzzle against the man’s thigh, pulling the trigger.

Wiser shrieked, almost biting through his lower lip as he squirmed on the floor of the barn. His pant leg smoked until enough blood seeped from the gaping bullet hole to snuff out the smoldering cloth.

“Tell me where I start to find my boys.” He cocked the pistol and jammed the muzzle against the major’s other thigh.

“Good glory, Jonah!”

“Die in hell, you dumb sodbuster!”

He fired. Wiser doubled up in pain, then Jonah brought the pistol butt down into his groin. And pointed it at the major’s scrotum.

“Jonah!” cried Shad.

“I’ll save your balls for later.”

“Jonah—he ain’t gonna talk—”

Shad was too late.

Hook flicked the muzzle just below the bottom rib on Wiser’s left side and pulled the trigger. Wiser doubled up with a gurgling grunt, rolling onto that side as Jonah got out of his way.

“You’re not gonna get a thing outta him, Jonah.”

Hook kicked Wiser’s head brutally to the side, then knelt again to hold the man’s chin cupped in his left hand. “Is that right, Major? You figure I’ll never get any word out of you?”

“J-just leave me die,” Wiser gurgled. “The rest … they’ll be coming for you now. Anywhere you go—”

“Let’s ride, Jonah.” Shad stood.

Behind them Fordham came up, the girl cradled across his arms. “She didn’t get hit. It’s a miracle, as much lead was—”

“Get her on a horse, Riley. Now!” Jonah snapped.

Fordham turned and was gone without a word.

Shad took off, then turned after a few steps. “You coming, Jonah? We ain’t got a whole lotta time. Let that bastard die on his own. He’ll take what he knows of your boys with him.”

“Listen to that old man, Hook. He ain’t stupid like you,” Wiser spat blood up, coughing. “You’ll never see the rest of your family again, you simple heathen.”

Jonah gazed down at Wiser. Then turned aside, finding Sweete anxious. Maybe the old man was right. Leave Wiser to bleed like a stuck pig here in the dirt. Better to get in the saddle and ride—

“Jonah!”

As the old mountain man bellowed his name, Hook whirled back around. Finding Wiser pulling something from his boot—a double-bored, over-under derringer.

It spit flame, burning a tongue of pain along Jonah’s neck as he brought his pistol up, firing at the instant Wiser’s second barrel erupted.

Wiser’s grunt exploded from his lungs as Hook put a hand to the damp ribbon of pain low on his neck. Jonah brought his hand away as Shad stepped up. Sweete peered down at the body. “This one’s gone. You’ll live—if we get you out of here now.”