Do or Die

Chapter Twelve

Southwest Nebraska Territory

Justice Department Agent William Shores and the Shoshone warrior Red Fox had been riding south for days with no sign of the outlaws Shores was after. Red Fox repeatedly reined up and climbed down to inspect the ground. When he was done, he always swung up, pointed, and declared, “Bad whites go that way, Brother John.”

Shores was no tracker, but he had two good eyes, and he never saw tracks of any kind. He never saw the charred remains of a campfire or anything else that would prove they were really following the Hoodoos and not just aimlessly scouring the prairie. By the fifth day, he couldn’t keep quiet any longer and turned to the old warrior in exasperation. “Are you sure we’re still on their trail?”

“Yes, Brother John. They ten, twelve sleeps ahead. But we catch.”

“I’d sure as hell better, or my boss will drown me in the Potomac.” Shores scratched a bug bite on his neck. “That’s assuming I live long enough to make it back to Washington. The mosquitoes last night about ate me alive.” He scratched another bite. “I thought they are only found near water.”

“We were near creek,” Red Fox informed him.

“We were? Why didn’t you say something? I could use a bath.” Shores had not had one since Cheyenne, and he was a little on the rank side. Many Westerners, and, to be fair, many from the East, had an aversion to water. Regular bathing was believed to weaken the constitution and make one sickly. Shores disagreed. In Chicago he had grown fond of taking a hot bath daily. So much so, he now owned his very own porcelain tub.

“We be near other water soon, Brother John.”

Shores was astounded by the Shoshone’s remarkable knack for always knowing where water was. They hadn’t gone thirsty once, for which he was grateful, given that daytime temperatures hovered near one hundred degrees. Today was no exception.

Removing his hat, Shores flicked a quick glance at the sun. “I don’t see how you stand this heat.” The old Indian never seemed to tire, never seemed to need water or to eat much food.

“Land hard, man hard,” was Red Fox’s reply.

“Where I’m from, a man doesn’t need to be hard to survive. All it takes is money.” And money was something Shores wouldn’t mind having more of. The assistant director had promised that if he arrested or slew the Hoodoos, he would be entitled to the bounty. Seven thousand dollars was a sizeable amount.

“You whites and money. It be silly.”

“You wouldn’t think so if you were in my boots,” Shores assured him. “Without it, a white man can’t buy clothes to wear or food for the table.”

“Make clothes, shoot food,” was the warrior’s solution.

“If only it were that simple.” Every time Shores tried to get the white view across to the old man, he had the impression he was talking to a stone wall. Shoshone ways and white ways were worlds apart.

“Bear,” Red Fox announced and extended an arm.

“What the hell do you mean, ‘bear’?” Shores asked. But by then he had spotted it himself, a large, hairy form plodding ponderously toward them from the northeast. “Must be a black bear.” The morning sun lent its coat a cinnamon hue, but he was well aware black bears were not always black.

“No. Grizzly.”

“That can’t be.” The last Shores had heard, the only grizzlies left were in the mountains. Once quite numerous on the plains, they had been exterminated to the point where no one ever saw them there anymore.

“Grizzly,” the Shoshone repeated. “Him see us, Brother John.”

“Don’t sit there and tell me you can see its face from here.” Shores could barely tell it was a bear. He gauged the distance and wasn’t worried. The grizzly had to be a quarter of a mile off, and their horses were fresh from a night of rest.

“Young bear,” Red Fox told him. “Hungry bear.”

“Can you hear its stomach growl?” Shores grinned. Sometimes the old Indian was too preposterous to be believed.

“No. It run now. Come eat us, Brother John.”

Shores looked again, and damned if the grizzly wasn’t loping toward them at a rapid if ungainly pace. “Damn stupid bear. It’s too far off. It can never catch us.”

“Stupid white man. Bear faster. Maybe catch horses.” Red Fox slapped his heels against his paint and lit out of there like his life depended on it.

Perhaps it did. Shores was appalled to see the grizzly barreling toward them like a steam engine at full steam. He pricked the claybank with his spurs and galloped after the Shoshone. Every ten or fifteen seconds he looked over his shoulder and saw the grizzly had gained.

Soon the bear was close enough for Shores to distinguish its massive head and the bulging hump atop its broad front shoulders. God, but the thing looks bigger than the claybank, he thought. He had his Winchester in its scabbard, but he wasn’t positive he could hit the bear while riding flat out. And hadn’t he heard grizzly skulls were inches thick and deflected anything short of a cannon ball?

Red Fox was motioning for him to ride faster.

Shores knuckled down to do just that. He didn’t glance at the grizzly again for a while, and when he did, he wished he hadn’t. The bear was less than thirty feet behind him. Its maw gaped wide, exposing teeth as long as daggers.

Goosebumps prickled Shores’s spine and up over his scalp. He imagined those teeth shearing into the claybank’s rear legs and the horse taking a tumble. He imagined being spilled into the long grass. Imagined the grizzly reaching him before he could stand. He might get off a shot, maybe two, but it wouldn’t be enough, and the bear would open him up like a husked ear of corn. “God help me,” he breathed.

Red Fox had let go of his reins, twisted at the waist, and was notching an arrow to his bow. Pulling the string back to his cheek, he held the bow steady.

Shores was sure he could hear the thud-thud-thud of the grizzly’s paws. He didn’t want to look back again because he was afraid of what he would see, but, steeling himself, he did. And saw exactly what he had feared.

Mere yards separated the claybank’s flying hooves from the grizzly’s teeth and claws. The bear was huffing and puffing but showed no signs of slowing. If anything, the nearness of its prey had lent it speed.

Shores reached down for his rifle, but in so doing he shifted his weight in the saddle and the claybank slowed. Not much, only a trifle, yet it was sufficient incentive for the grizzly to take a prodigious bound and swipe at the claybank’s hindquarters. The claybank squealed, and Shores felt its rear legs start to sweep out from under it. He tensed to try and leap clear. But somehow the claybank stayed up, and another few seconds took it out of the bear’s reach.

The grizzly, though, wasn’t about to quit. Uttering a roar that blistered Shores’s ears, it surged forward.

Shores had momentarily forgotten about Red Fox. Now he saw the Shoshone let fly with the arrow. He glanced back, thinking the warrior had gone for the neck or the throat. The shaft, however, embedded itself in the ground in front of the bear. Shores couldn’t believe Red Fox had missed. The old man nocked a second arrow and sent it after the first, and once again the arrow bit into the earth in front of the bear instead of into the bear’s flesh.

So much for the stories about Indian prowess with a bow, Shores thought. Red Fox had to be the worst archer in the history of the world. Red Fox let loose a third shaft, and this too struck the ground in front of the bear. That was when Shores noticed something he hadn’t noticed before. Each time an arrow hit, the grizzly slowed. And each time the bear slowed, the claybank and the paint increased their lead.

Another arrow flew. The grizzly swerved to avoid it and lurched to a stop. Its sides heaving, it watched them race off, voicing a snarl of frustration at being thwarted.

They hadn’t gone two hundred yards when Red Fox reined up. Against his better judgment, Shores did the same, wheeling the claybank so he could keep an anxious eye on the bear. “Why did you stop so soon?”

“Need arrows, Brother John. Wait bear go. Then get them.” The old Shoshone had the patient air of a parent enlightening a small child.

“But we’re too close.” Shores shucked his Winchester out. “If that monster comes after us again, we might not get away in time.”

“Bear tired, Brother John. Bear go rest. See?”

The grizzly had turned and was shambling north, its head hung low in fatigue. It looked back at them once and grunted.

Shores had something else to gripe about. “Why in hell didn’t you shoot that damn thing instead of into the ground? I’d rather it was dead so it won’t ever go after anyone else.”

“Take many arrows kill grizzly. By then grizzly eat you.” Red Fox kneed the paint. “Get arrows now. Much work to make. Not lose them.”

“I’ll wait here.” Shores was tired of the Shoshone treating him like an idiot who couldn’t pull on his own boots without help. Maybe he wasn’t a savvy frontiersman, but he was a grown man and could get by just fine on his own.

Dismounting, Shores squatted and angrily plucked at the buffalo grass. He would still rather be on his own. But without Red Fox it would take a lot longer to find the Hoodoos, and Shores dearly wanted to complete his assignment and return to Washington, D. C. and his comfortable life there. He had a nice apartment and nice clothes, he ate at nice restaurants. The wilderness held no appeal for him at all. Quite the opposite. Given his choice between a stroll down a tree-lined avenue and spending an entire day in the saddle sweating to death, constantly bothered by dust and insects, he would choose the city every time.

Shores supposed some would consider it sacrilege for a Texan to feel that way. But not all Texans lived in the country, and not all Texans thought a horse was God’s gift to creation.

Red Fox, Shores saw, was taking his sweet time collecting the arrows. He picked at his teeth with a blade of grass and thought about what he would do with all the money he would get for the Hoodoos. Seven thousand dollars was enough for a nice house. For new clothes. For a gold watch. Or maybe he would just hold on to it. Eventually he hoped to meet the right young woman and settle down. But he was in no rush. Three Washington lovelies were dating him at the moment, and he liked the variety.

Shores straightened and stretched. He was feeling restless, which he attributed to his narrow escape from the bear. It had set his blood to racing, and it would be a while before he was his old self.

The claybank nuzzled him, and Shores patted its neck. It wasn’t a bad horse, but he would be damned if he would let himself grow attached to it. Once his job was done, he would take it back to the livery in Cheyenne, and that would be that.

After a while, Red Fox rejoined him. “Better hurry, Brother John. Rain come later. Much rain, much thunder.”

Shores tilted his head. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. “What makes you think we’re in for a thunderstorm?”

The Shoshone sniffed. “Smell in air.”

Shores sniffed a few times, but all he smelled was horse sweat and dust. “Do you read palms too?”

“Sorry, Brother John?”

“Never mind.” Shores forked leather and clucked to the claybank. “Come on, old man. Let’s pretend one of us knows what he’s doing. I’d like to find the Hoodoos before next year.”

“We find before half moon,” Red Fox predicted. “Many die, Brother John. Maybe me. Maybe you.”

Shores hoped the old man was wrong.

Denver

Colorado Territory

The building was in a crowded section of the city decent people avoided after dark. Ubel Gunther climbed to the third floor, avoiding litter and stains of questionable origin. The stink caused him to breathe through his mouth instead of his nose . . . when he breathed at all.

“These people live like swine,” Hans remarked.

“Swine have their uses,” Ubel observed. “Perhaps this one will be the right one.”

“Mr. Radtke isn’t happy it’s taking us so long. He says we should have left days ago.”

“Are you saying I’m not performing my duties efficiently? That you could do it better?”

Hans’s beefy face mirrored sudden fear. “I would never say a thing like that, Mr. Gunther. I know my place. Mr. Radtke trusts you. That’s enough for me.”

“He trusts me enough to know these things can take time,” Ubel said, mollified. “It’s not my fault most of these so-called scouts and trackers are drunks or braggarts or worse.”

“The next one comes highly recommended.”

“They all came highly recommended,” Ubel reminded him. “And they have all proven worthless.” He went from door to door until he came to Room 34. He rapped with his cane.

“Go away!” someone demanded. A female someone.

“Is this Mr. Trask’s apartment? Mr. Blue Raven Trask?” Ubel put an ear to the door and heard rustling.

“Who are you? What do you want?”

“My name is Ubel Gunther. I would like to tender a business proposition. May I speak with him?”

The door opened a crack, and a brown eye peeked out. “That’s all you want my husband for?”

“Why else would I seek him out?” Ubel was growing impatient with her timidity. “Please, madam. I am in need of a tracker, and I have been informed he is one of the best.”

“There’s none better,” the woman confirmed. “But he told me not to tell anyone where he went.”

“What harm can it do?”

“He’s got enemies, mister. Maybe you didn’t hear, but he’s the one who tracked down those stage robbers a while back. Their friends have sworn to get even with him. Just the other night, one tried to knife him in the back.”

This was news to Ubel. “What happened?”

“Blue cut him from ear to ear.” The woman opened the door wider. She had a pleasant face and fine brown hair and was a half-blood. “I’m his missus, Nora.”

Ubel doffed his bowler. “My name is Gunther. I’m extremely pleased to make your acquaintance. Would you prefer I leave an address where I can be reached, and you can have him contact me at his convenience?”

“You sure do spout a lot of fancy words.” Nora gnawed on her lip. “No, you won’t need to go to that much trouble. He’s at the billiard hall at the end of the block. He’ll be the one wearin’ the headband. Tell him I sent you. And if I’m wrong about you, and you try to kill him, I’m sorry.”

“Sorry you sent us?”

“Sorry for you, mister. He don’t kill easy. He’ll do the both of you before you can blink.” Nora smiled and shut the door.

The billiard hall catered to some of Denver’s rougher element. Hans stayed by the door as Ubel walked past two billiard tables to one at the rear. The glances cast his way were rife with distrust and more than a little envy. Leaning on his cane, he addressed a short, wiry man in buckskins and a raw-hide headband. “Blue Raven Trask? Your wife said I would find you here. We’ve been told you are an excellent tracker, and my employer would like to hire your services.”

Trask bent over the table to take a shot. Since it was against the law to wear a sidearm within the city limits, he did not appear to be wearing a revolver, although the right side of his shirt bulged suspiciously. On his other hip, wedged under his belt, was a tomahawk.

When there was no reply, Ubel said, “I would be grateful for a few moments so you can hear me out. I’ve already interviewed eight men who failed to impress me. I hope I’m not wasting my time again.”

Trask stroked his stick, and the cue ball struck the seven with a sharp crack. The seven disappeared down a side pocket.

“You are the man, are you not, who rescued the farmer’s wife abducted by Yellow Badger’s renegades last year?”

“That was me.” Trask changed position to take another shot.

“Where did you learn to track, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“In case you can’t tell, mister, I’m a breed. My father was Arapaho. He started teachin’ me to read sign almost as soon as I could walk. There aren’t but a handful of men better than me in the whole country.”

“Then you are exactly the person I need.” Ubel offered his hand. “Name your price and give me a list of what we will need, and we can be on our way.”

Again Trask stroked the stick, and again a ball shot down a hole. “First things first. I don’t take just any work. If it’s not legal, find someone else.”

“You have scruples?”

“Why wouldn’t I? Because I’m half-and-half?” Trask unfurled and placed his hand on the tomahawk. “I should have known you would be one of those.”

Ubel was unfazed by the slur. “I am not a bigot, Mr. Trask. The truth be known, the circumstances of your birth could not matter less to me. I simply meant that most of the men I have talked to so far have not shown your aversion to lawbreaking. They do not care what the job is.”

“I’m not them. What are the particulars?”

“A young man whose name would be of no interest to you stole a considerable sum of money from my employer. This young man and several friends left Denver three days ago, traveling east. Naturally, my employer would like to have him tracked down. That is all there is to it. Are you interested?”

Trask wasn’t one to bandy words. “It’ll cost you two hundred dollars. In advance. I’ll find them for you, you can bank on that. But once I do, my work is over, and I go my own way. Agreed?”

“Your terms are more than agreeable.” Ubel offered his hand, and Blue Raven Trask shook.

“A few more things,” the tracker said. “I don’t take to being bossed around. You don’t tell me what to do, ever. You ride when I say to ride, you stop when I say to stop. If we run into Injuns, you let me handle the palaverin’.”

“When can we depart?”

“That depends on how many are going and how soon you can get your hands on what we’ll need.”

Walking side by side, they moved toward the street. Ubel saw Hans gesture at a cluster of men near the front. A broomstick in a vest and high boots had a knife in his hand, low down against his leg. The man was staring hard at Trask, but Trask did not appear to have noticed. “There will be four in my party, including myself.” Ubel changed his grip on his cane so he could swing it like a club, then leaned to the side to whisper, “Mr. Trask, I think I should warn you—”

“No need,” Trask said. He looked at the pool tables, at the window, at the portly proprietor, at everyone and everything except the men in the corner and the man holding the knife. “When he makes his move, get out of my way. This isn’t your fight.”

“Does it have something to do with the stage robbers your wife mentioned?”

Trask nodded. “Some folks just never learn.” He was almost to the door, only a few yards from the men in the corner. Inexplicably, he turned his back to them, but as he did, his right hand drifted to his tomahawk.

The man in the vest didn’t shout a threat or swear at Trask or give any other sign of his intentions. He simply raised his knife and sprang.

To Ubel, Trask’s death seemed certain. The tracker had been a fool to turn his back like that. But then Trask spun with incredible swiftness, and the tomahawk met the descending stroke of his attacker’s blade. Other patrons scrambled to make room as the man in the vest crouched and circled.

Trask stood as still as a statue. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking but not to tell that here was a man possessed of no fear whatsoever. He was as calm and as self-assured as a mountain lion.

“You were warned not to go after my cousins.” The man in the vest broke his silence. “They’ll spend eleven years in prison, thanks to you.”

“I hope they remember to send flowers for your grave, Roarch,” Trask said. Me, I plan to piss on it.”

“You damned breed.” Roarch attacked anew, weaving his knife in a savage series of arcs and slashes. He was skilled, very skilled, but every swing was countered by the tomahawk.

It wasn’t often Ubel Gunther was impressed, but he was impressed now. The half-breed was unbelievably quick and undeniably deadly. It occurred to him that here was a potential valuable ally. Trask had said he would go his separate way once their quarry was located, but Ubel wondered if more money might induce him to change his mind. Not that Fabrizio or Pickett or the girl posed much of a threat. Ubel was thinking of the buffalo hunter. Enos Howard was known to be a marksman, able to drop an animal or a man from a great distance. Getting close enough to dispose of them might be difficult, and Ubel was a firm believer in eliminating difficulties before they became a problem.

Roarch was swearing up a storm. With good reason. Trask was slowly but inexorably forcing him toward one of the pool tables. Soon he would have his back to it and be hemmed in. “You stinkin’ breed!” he screamed and redoubled his efforts to kill Trask. He was no slouch with a knife, but he just wasn’t good enough, and it wasn’t long before he realized it and worry replaced the fury contorting his face.

The end came with stunning rapidity.

Trask feinted to the left, and when Roarch parried, he sidestepped, shifted, and buried the tomahawk in Roarch’s temple. Roarch died on his feet, his mouth opening and closing like that of a goldfish out of water. He melted beside the table. No one else moved. No one else spoke.

Trask wasn’t even breathing heavily. “This will delay us,” he said to Ubel. “The police will want to question me.”

“Leave them to me,” Ubel said. “My employer has considerable influence.” More than considerable. Radtke often invited the mayor and the chief of police to his best boarding house at no cost to them. Ubel smiled and put a hand on Trask’s shoulder. “While we are waiting, I have another proposition for you.”