Do or Die

Chapter Fourteen

Montana Territory

No one could ever figure out how the Hoodoos were able to be in Colorado Territory one day and Kansas Territory a few days later. Yet it was an indisputable fact that they somehow covered hundreds of miles far more swiftly than everyone else. Time and time again they were seen in one territory by reliable witnesses and a short while later spotted in another territory by others.

Rumors sprang up. Some claimed the Hoodoos knew of Indian trails no one else did. Others said their horses were bred especially for speed and endurance that far outstripped ordinary mounts. A few believed the Hoodoos dabbled in dark and fearsome magic, which explained not only their extraordinarily swift animals but the inability of the army and the law to end their vicious spree.

The true answer was much more down to earth. Brock Alvord had traveled widely. He had been as far west as California, as far north as Montana. He had fought Blackfeet. He had fought Sioux. He had survived encounters with Apaches and with Comanches. And it was from the Comanches, those dreaded scourges of Texas, that he had learned the trick to covering ground faster than most thought humanly possible.

The Comanches were infamous for their lightning raids deep into settled regions, after which they melted into the wilds with impunity. No one could catch them, and a lot of lives had been lost before their secret was discovered: relays. Warriors with strings of fresh mounts waited at designated points along the line of escape.

Brock Alvord was quick to see the potential. He had been called a lot of things, many less than flattering, but “dumb” wasn’t one of them. He rightly reasoned that the Comanche system would work well for someone in his chosen line of work. So, early on, Alvord had taken to keeping the best of the stolen horses for himself and his men, and to setting up relay sites.

The sites posed a challenge. They had to be near water. There had to be ample forage. There had to be shelter from the elements. But most importantly, the sites had to be where no one would find them.

Alvord searched and searched and found plenty of sites with water and grass but few that met all his requirements. Particularly the last. There was hardly a spring or water hole the Indians didn’t know about, and they would no more hesitate to steal horses from him than he would from them.

The solution was staring Brock Alvord in the face for months before it came to him one night when he was half-drunk and playing poker with Curly Means and John Noonan, the first two to join his horse-stealing ring. The subject of hostiles came up, and Noonan mentioned how an uncle of his had been tortured and mutilated by Comanches some years back. It reminded Brock of his relay scheme and how it had fallen through because he couldn’t find safe sites.

Shortly thereafter, their conversation had turned to the fur-trapping days of decades past. Curly Means mentioned how a friend of his had once found a cache in a river bank filled with old plews. “They were piled in a dugout with a buffalo hide and a foot of dirt over them. But heavy rains collapsed the dirt.”

Just like that, a gem of a notion hit Brock Alvord like a thunderclap. He slapped down his cards and whooped like a drunken cowboy, and the next morning he lit a shuck for northwest Kansas with his new recruits in tow. They asked what the shovels and picks were for, but he saved his surprise until they came to one of the sites he had come across months before but chalked off as too risky.

Curly and Noonan about had fits when Brock informed them they were to dig away half a hill.

“What the hell for?” the tall Missourian demanded. Shoveling dirt did not suit him one bit.

“I want the world’s biggest dugout,” Brock elaborated. “Big enough for six horses and a two-month supply of hay and feed.”

Curly caught on right away and worked with zeal, laughing at the joke they would play on the law and everyone else.

Covering the dugouts proved the hardest task. Brock tried buffalo hides. He tried canvas. Finally, he used a latticework of branches reinforced with rope, over which blankets were draped. Then grass and weeds were strewn over everything. From a distance it looked like the rest of the prairie.

Eleven more dugouts were constructed, scattered throughout four territories. Some were in the sides of hills. Two were carved out of the walls of remote canyons. One, in the Tetons, was a cave the Hoodoos enlarged.

Another problem confronted Brock. What was he to do about the tracks the stolen horses would make? In the mountains there was plenty of rocky ground to throw pursuers off the scent, but not out on the prairie. He pondered long and hard and came up with the solution: burlap bags. Twenty or more large bags at each dugout were always kept filled with grass and leaves and whatever else grew in the general area. When a new herd was brought in, the Hoodoos took the bags and covered the last quarter mile or so of trail. It wouldn’t fool a skilled tracker, but it would delay pursuers long enough for whoever was on lookout to warn the rest.

All that effort, and it was never put to the test. Brock’s relays worked too well. That, and as he learned early on, the Indians he stole from rarely chased his gang past the boundaries of whichever reservations they lived on. The tribes who didn’t live on a reservation, the wild ones Brock had expected the most trouble from, were reluctant to stir up trouble with the white man and bring the army down on their heads, so they, too, rarely chased the Hoodoos far.

A few tribes, though, didn’t give a damn who stole their stock. They wouldn’t give up short of the grave. Which was why Brock avoided stealing from the Blackfeet, whose fondness for white scalps was well known. Sioux territory was also taboo. Of late the Sioux had been slaying every white they caught and had been brazen enough to attack well-garrisoned forts.

The Crows were another matter. They had a long history of being generally friendly to whites. They also owned some fine horses. The band that Looks With His Ears belonged to was camped along Arrow Creek within hailing distance of the Crow Indian Agency.

Three hidden relays were between Painted Rock and the agency. The Hoodoos stopped at each to change mounts. It was close to midnight of the sixth day when they arrived.

Thanks to Sunset’s detailed directions, Brock led his men right to a rise overlooking a circle of Crow tepees. It lay dark and quiet under the stars. At that time of night even the camp dogs were asleep.

The best horses were picketed in the center of the circle. More had been turned out to graze close by, but Brock was only interested in the horses in the circle.

“Do we ride on down and take ’em?” Curly Means asked. “Or do you want me to raise a ruckus by going after the outlyin’ herds and draw off the bucks?”

“We stick together,” Brock responded. “Big Ben and I will see to the horses. The Kid, Noonan, and you are to make damn sure we don’t take an arrow in the back.”

Kid Falon drew a pearl-handled Colt. “My pleasure. There’s nothin’ I like better than shootin’ Injuns. I’ll cover the tepees to the north.”

Noonan shucked a Winchester and levered a round into the chamber. “I’ll take the ones on the west.”

“I reckon that leaves the rest for me.” Curly chuckled. “The more lodges to watch, the more fun it will be.” He palmed his revolver.

Brock Alvord loosened his rope. “Ready?” he said to Big Ben.

The giant already had his rope in hand. “Are we drivin’ the horses out the same way we came in?”

“No. I want to fight shy of the agency cabins. We’ll swing east for a couple of miles, then turn south. Kid, you and Curly bring up the rear. Noonan, once we’re out of the village, you ride on ahead and take point. Don’t get careless on me. Just because these are Crows doesn’t mean their arrows can’t turn you into pincushions.”

“You’re doin’ wonders for my confidence.” Curly Means grinned.

Brock motioned and spurred his horse down the slope. No sentries had been posted; the Crows felt safe with the agency headquarters so close. He saw a four-legged shape appear out of the inky shadow at the base of a tepee and cursed. He had hoped the camp dogs wouldn’t give the alarm until his men were closer. Even so, they were almost to the bottom when the first dog barked, and in seconds they were in the circle.

John Noonan and Big Ben Brody let out with Rebel yells. Kid Falon whooped and hollered. Curly Means did what Curly always did and laughed for joy. More than any of the others, Curly thrived on the thrill, on the excitement.

Brock’s gaze swept the picketed horses. They were indeed fine animals, just as Sunset had asserted. He counted nearly three dozen.

The racket was enough to raise the dead. It was only a few seconds before a lodge flap parted and a Crow warrior stuck his head out. A shot from the Kid snapped him around, and he scrambled back in.

Falon, Noonan, and Curly were all firing now. Brock reined up and vaulted to the ground to cut a picket rope. He worked swiftly. They had to be out of there before the Crows could get organized.

A warrior armed with a rifle burst from a lodge to the west and was promptly gunned down in his tracks by Noonan.

To the north two warriors charged from the same lodge, only to run full into the blazing Colts of Kid Falon.

Curly was having a grand old time. Cackling and firing, he kept the occupants of the tepees to the east and south pinned inside.

“Hurry!” Brock called to Big Ben, who had just dismounted to cut a rope. Ben had brawn to spare, but he wasn’t particularly quick. His nickname in the Confederate unit he’d belonged to had been “Turtle,” and it fit him like a shell.

Brock slashed another rope, and a third. The horses were nickering and milling. It wouldn’t take much to spook them.

Shouts and screams came from the tepees. Some of the warriors were yelling back and forth. Working out what to do, Brock suspected, a hunch proven right when warriors charged from different tepees at the same time. The Kid and Noonan wounded two and drove the rest back.

Brock didn’t go in for wholesale slaughter. It wasn’t that he was an Indian lover. Far from it. Needless killing would incite the Indians into more determined pursuit. So, long ago, much to the Kid’s displeasure, he had given a running order to the effect that his men were to kill only as a last resort. By and large they abided by his decision. The notable exception was the Kid, who had more last resorts than all the others combined.

Big Ben was severing the last of the ropes. Brock swung onto his mount and began to drive the Crow horses east. It didn’t take much to set them in motion: a few swings of his rope and a few shouts, and taut nerves did the rest.

A warrior with a bow came from behind a tepee. Either he had been off in the woods the whole time, or he had cut a hole in the back of his lodge and forced his body through the opening. Now he raised his bow, an arrow nocked to fly.

Kid Falon fired two shots so rapidly they boomed a fraction of a second apart. Punched by the slugs, the Crow fell against the tepee and slid to the ground.

“Yeehaw!” Big Ben Brody had heaved his bulk into his saddle and was on the other side of the herd, goading stragglers.

Brock was pleased. So far it had gone smoothly. But he mustn’t be cocky. They wouldn’t be safe until they put a couple of hundred miles behind them.

The Crow horses filed between tepees. A dog came bounding out to yap at them and was promptly shot by Curly Means. As was inevitably the case, several other dogs had preceded it in death on Curly’s side of the circle.

As the last of the horses thundered into the night, Brock looked back and howled like a wolf. It was the signal for the Kid, Noonan, and Curly to leave off harrying the Crows and catch up.

Brock concentrated on keeping the horses together. Across the way, Big Ben was swinging his rope and yipping like a seasoned cowhand. Only Curly Means, though, had ever actually been a puncher, and then only for a short while. As he once told Brock, “Spendin’ the rest of my life smellin’ the hind end of cows didn’t appeal to me, so I took to ridin’ the high lines.”

No explanation was needed. In Brock’s opinion, cowboys had to have the dustiest, dirtiest, most thankless job around. For a measly thirty dollars a month they worked themselves to the bone. That wasn’t for Brock. He never liked hard work. Back in Illinois, he had spent more time at his favorite fishing hole and in frolicking with friends than doing the chores his parents wanted him to. One thing led to another, and on his sixteenth birthday his father gave him an ultimatum: Either start pulling his weight or get the hell out. Brock hadn’t been back since.

The others had varied backgrounds. Noonan and Big Ben had served in the army of the Confederacy. When the war ended, they did what thousands of men their age were doing and drifted west. The Kid had never done much of anything except gamble and shoot anyone who looked at him crosswise.

Brock knew how the path he had chosen might well end. But he could never go back to leading a law-abiding life. All those years he watched his father work at a job he hated had taught him an invaluable lesson. The straight and narrow was more than a path: It was a cage. It hemmed people in as surely as if they were ringed by iron bars. They weren’t free to do what they wanted, when they wanted. From cradle to grave they were slaves to laws and conduct that governed everything they did. That wasn’t for him.

Pistols were cracking. Brock saw a handful of Crows running across the circle, but the Colts of the Kid and Curly dispersed them.

The country was fairly open. It wasn’t long before Brock Alvord spotted the agency cabins. Earlier the cabins had been dark, but now lights had come on and people were standing outside in their nightshirts and robes, trying to divine what all the commotion was about.

From out of a corral near the largest cabin came a rider. He wore a nightshirt and pants and had a rifle in his left hand. And he was undeniably white.

An agency employee. Brock frowned. The last thing he wanted was a gunfight with a white man. The Hoodoos had gone unchecked as long as they had in large part because they never stole from whites and never killed whites when on a raid. It was Brock’s cardinal rule.

When they weren’t on raids, it was another matter. What his men did on their own time was none of Brock’s affair. There had been shooting scrapes; most involved disputes over cards or women. Most but not all. The Kid had shot a few people for the hell of it. He always claimed self-defense afterward, but he wasn’t fooling anyone. The Kid loved to kill. It was that simple.

That business with the cavalry troopers was typical. The Kid and Noonan had sat in on a card game with three soldiers. Poor losers, the boys in uniform had accused the Kid and Noonan of cheating. One hot word had led to another, and hot lead was slung. The result: three dead soldiers and a boost in the bounty on the Hoodoos.

The agency man Brock had spotted was angling to intercept the herd. “Stop!” he bawled. “Stop in the name of the United States government!”

Idiots were born every second. Placing his coiled rope over his saddle horn and sliding his leg against it to hold it in place, Brock yanked out his Winchester. He had to act before any of the others did. Particularly the Kid.

“Stop!” the man repeated and raised his rifle.

Firing a Winchester accurately from the back of a horse at full gallop took some doing. Fortunately, Brock had some experience. His shot brought the agency man’s mount crashing to the ground and tumbled the rider into a wash.

In a cloud of dust, the stolen horses swept on by the cabins. Brock breathed a sigh of relief. He replaced his Winchester, reclaimed his rope, and spent the next several hours guiding the herd south. The horses were tired and flagging when he brought them to a halt, and his own mount was lathered with sweat.

Big Ben Brody came trotting around. “We did it! Those Crows are as easy to steal from as a passel of babies.”

“We were lucky,” Brock said.

“Hell, the Kid and me could wipe out that whole village by our lonesome.”

Brock doubted it. The Crows were formidable warriors who for years had held their own against the Blackfeet and the Sioux.

Curly Means trotted up. “There’s no sign of anybody on our trail. The Kid and me flipped to see who rides drag, and he lost.”

“I want both of you back there until we reach the first relay,” Brock instructed him.

“How about after?”

“Flip another coin. Just so we get these horses to the Bar K without losing any.” Brock had a potential buyer in mind. The last time he delivered rustled horses to Will Seever, the owner of the Bar K in Colorado Territory, Seever had expressed an interest in acquiring more.

Curly shook his head. “No, I meant after we deliver them.”

“I haven’t thought that far ahead. What does it matter?” Brock would do as he always did and hide most of his money in a secret hole at one of their relays. He had thousands squirreled away and planned to have thousands more before he called it quits. If he lived that long.

“The Kid has been makin’ noise about Painted Rock,” Curly said.

Brock had been expecting something like this. “Talk to him. Use that charm of yours. Persuade him to let it be. Abby’s death was an accident. That should be that.”

Curly lifted his reins. “I’ll try, amigo. But you know how the Kid is when he’s made up his mind. If you hear a shot, come a runnin’. He might blow my head off for stickin’ my nose in.”

Brock tried to dismiss it as of no consequence, but for the rest of the night and well into the next morning he mulled over how to make his case. By then he was convinced no one was chasing them. They stayed a whole day at the next relay to rest the herd. Brock used the opportunity to sound the Kid out.

Kid Falon was seated on an upended barrel, cleaning one of his Colts by candlelight. “I’m thinkin’ of buyin’ me a derringer to keep in my boot like Curly does,” he said as Brock walked up. “Any you can recommend?”

“I’ve never used a hideout gun myself,” Brock responded. “And it’s not guns I want to talk about. It’s Painted Rock.”

The Kid looked at him. “We tote our own skillets when we’re not stealin’ cayuses for you. That’s always been how it was. Unless you aim to change things.”

“No, not at all.” Brock was under no delusions. The Kid and the others permitted him to lead them because it was in their best interests. But they wouldn’t hesitate to strike off on their own if he ever presumed to step over the invisible line he had no right to cross.

“Then why the hound-dog face?”

Brock sat on another barrel. “Those soldier boys were bad enough. We don’t need to make it worse.”

“Some pills can’t be swallowed. It’s not as if I’m on the peck. If ever a man had cause, it’s me.”

“How many, then?”

The Kid twirled the Colt and gave it a final wipe. “Every mother’s son. And then I’m burnin’ the place down.”

“Some might say that’s a little extreme.” Brock was choosing his words with care.

“Killin’ Abby was extreme. That gal never hurt a soul in her life. Sure, it was that loco cripple who set the tumbleweed rollin’. But the rest of those no-accounts are as guilty as he is. Remember what the barkeep said to the crip? ‘We told you not to do this.’ His exact words. Those people knew, Brock. They should have warned us he was lookin’ for trouble.”

“It could push the bounty on us up to ten thousand. Maybe higher.”

Kid Falon grinned. “That’s as much as they’re of ferin’ for Jesse James. Why, we’d be plumb famous.”

“The James boys have every manhunter and Pinkerton in the country after them,” Brock noted. “I don’t know about you, but I’d get a crick in my neck from lookin’ over my shoulder all the time.”

“I dare a damned Pinkerton or any other gunny to try and buck me out in gore,” the Kid blustered. “My lead-chuckers will put sawdust in their beards soon enough.”

Brock could see there was no reasoning with him, but he tried once more anyway. “One of my conditions for lettin’ you join was that you try to avoid makin’ wolf meat of white men.”

“You can’t blame those soldiers on me. I was sittin’ there behavin’ myself until they accused Noonan of dealin’ from the bottom of the deck and took to callin’ us names. They jerked their hardware first. We jerked our final.”

“I was there, if you’ll recollect.” Brock had to admit the troopers had asked for trouble. Too much bug juice and poor poker skills had planted many a gent on boot hill. “All I’m askin’ is that you think it over.”

The Kid didn’t reply, and that was where it stood until they arrived, over a week and a half later, at the Bar K, located in southeast Colorado Territory. Will Seever was all too happy to take the horses off their hands and invited them to stay overnight in his bunkhouse.

Brock Alvord thanked him but declined. Kid Falon and Noonan were about as fond of punchers as Curly was of dogs, and it wouldn’t do to put temptation in front of them. He touched his hat brim and rode off.

A mile from the ranch, Brock reined up and swung his mount to face the rest. “All of you know what the Kid has in mind. Anyone who wants to ride with him can. But you should know I’m dead set against it. Whoever wants can go with me to Denver. We’ll meet up there at Darnell’s saloon in a month.”

The others glanced at one another.

“Well?” Brock prompted and looked at Big Ben Brody. “Let’s hear it. Are you goin’ with the Kid or me?”

Big Ben shifted in his saddle. “There isn’t an hombre I admire more than you, boss. You know that. But what those folks did was just plain wrong. I’m with the Kid on this. Sorry.”

“Noonan?” Brock said.

“A man should always stick by his pards. If the Kid is dead set on a killin’ spree, I say roll the dice and let ’em fall.”

“Curly?” Brock had a sinking sensation deep in his gut.

Curly grinned. “Last time we were there, I saw three or four dogs waltzin’ around as healthy as you please. We can’t have that, can we?”

So there it was. Brock Alvord hid his disappointment. “All right. If that’s how you want it, count me in.”

The Kid leaned on his saddle horn. “You’re throwin’ in with us after all the jabberin’ you did about how we should get shed of the idea?”

“We’ve ridden together this long,” Brock said and shrugged.

“All right, then.” The Kid’s smile was downright vicious. “The good people of Painted Rock better start countin’ the days. Their time on this earth is over.”