Doomsday Rider

Twenty-three

Keeping Big Creek to his east, Fletcher planned to ride to the Arkansas River, a distance of about seventy-five miles, and then swing west.

Hickok would be slowed by the wagons, and Fletcher doubted he’d push all the way to the Cimarron before making his own westward turn to reach the migrating herds in the sheltered, shallow canyons near the Colorado border.

If they had any chance of catching up to Falcon Stark, it would have to be west of the Arkansas, in that flat, open country where a man on a tall horse could see for miles.

The gently rolling land around them was covered in buffalo and blue grama grass, and here and there Fletcher and Estelle rode past bright green bushes of tumbleweed with its purple-and-red-striped leaves. Come summer, sunflowers would bloom on these plains, and colorful masses of columbines, daisies, goldenrod, and wild morning glory would stretch to the horizon.

But now, in the depths of winter, the landscape was bleak, the grass scorched by snow and frost to a dull brown, and willows and leafless cottonwoods clung to the banks of the partially frozen creeks. The cold was icy and penetrating, the kind of cold that made a man huddle into his mackinaw and think the fires of hell would be a welcome relief.

To the southwest lay the 2,400-foot peak of Round House Rock, and just ahead was the south fork of the Smoky Hill River, a barrier Fletcher and Estelle would soon have to cross.

When they were an hour out of Hays, Fletcher picked up the wheel ruts of heavily loaded wagons heading due south toward the Arkansas.

“I’d say that’s our buffalo hunters,” he told Estelle. “The ground was still fairly soft when they rolled across here and they’ve left a pretty obvious trail. I’d say they’re maybe three days ahead of us.”

The trail led to the Smoky, then swung east toward its junction with the north fork.

Fletcher dismounted and studied the tracks. Hickok had been looking for a place to cross, either a shallow ford or a ferry, of which there were several scattered up and down both banks of the river.

He stepped into the saddle and again followed the wheel ruts. The Smoky had not yet frozen, though patches of ice clung to the rocks along its banks and there was a thick hoarfrost on the trunks and branches of the cotton woods.

It was getting colder, and Estelle shivered and pulled her mackinaw closer around her, only her eyes showing above the sheepskin collar.

“As soon as we’re across the river, we can stop and boil some coffee,” Fletcher told the girl, trying to bolster her sagging spirits. “Heat you up some.”

Estelle lowered the collar of her coat and gave Fletcher a grateful smile, immediately covering her mouth again.

Fletcher noticed scattered buffalo tracks along the bank, and he recalled hearing that in the summer drought of 1868 a vast herd of a million animals, stretching thirty-five miles from point to drag, had drunk this river dry.

The wagon ruts led through a shallow valley between two saddleback hills, then, as the valley opened out, headed back to the river again. Ahead Fletcher saw a small shack, an iron pipe belching black smoke sticking out of its roof, and a ferry tied up to a ramshackle wood dock.

He and Estelle rode to the shack, and Fletcher yelled, “Ho, the house!”

After a few moments a man stepped outside. He was big and burly, dressed in greasy buckskins decorated with ornate beadwork, and a matted red beard spread thick to his belt buckle. A young Indian woman hung shyly in the background, her braids plaited in the northern Cheyenne style with blue trade ribbon, her face revealing bruises from blows old and recent.

“We want to cross,” Fletcher said. Now that he’d seen the woman he was unwilling to be civil. “Right now.”

The man stood scratching under his beard, studying Fletcher closely as he tried to figure how much the traffic would bear. “Two bits for man and horse,” he said finally. “Each.”

Fletcher nodded his agreement. “Anybody else cross recently?”

The ferryman smiled, his teeth showing yellow and broken under his beard. “I guess you mean the president and the senators and them foreign fancies.”

“How long ago?”

The man’s face screwed up in thought. “Three, four days. Four maybe.”

“Did they say which way they were headed?”

“South, then west. That’s all they tole me.”

Fletcher swung out of the saddle, and Estelle did the same.

The ferryman looked at the girl, his tongue running over his top lip, eyes suddenly hot. “Been a long time since I saw a yeller-haired woman,” he said. “Been a long time since I had me any white woman.”

“Yeah, times are tough all over,” Fletcher said. “Now let’s get going.”

“Name’s Jones, little lady, Red Jones,” the ferryman said, his grin sly. “A name you mought care to know real well.”

Estelle ignored the man and led her horse onto the ferry, following Fletcher up the ramp. The ferry itself was a roughly made raft of pine logs, a low plank rail running along each side.

Jones, the huge muscles of his arms bunching under his buckskins, grabbed the rope that looped around a pulley on the other bank about ninety feet away and began to pull. He gave Fletcher a single, surly glance, then went back to his task. Slowly the ferry inched away from the bank and headed out to midstream.

Fletcher stood with Estelle at the rail, looking at the river as it wound away to the east, toward its junction with the north fork.

“See those cottonwoods lining the banks?” Fletcher asked the girl. Estelle nodded and he continued: “The Indians say that in summer the gray-green leaves of the trees look like smoke, and that’s how the Smoky Hill River got its name.” He smiled. “Well, that’s one story anyway.”

“How did you know that, Buck?” Estelle asked.

Fletcher shrugged. “I read a lot. Newspapers, local histories, Dickens, Scott, Cervantes, Shakespeare, the labels on peach cans.” He smiled. “I guess any reading material I can lay my hands on.”

“Buck Fletcher, you’re quite a remarkable man. I think you—Look out!”

Fletcher turned quickly as the girl screamed her warning. Jones was right on top of him, the man’s eyes blazing, a wicked-looking hickory club in his upraised fist.

Fletcher tried to step to his right, his hands flashing to his guns as he moved.

He was too late.

The club crashed onto the top of his head, and the last thing he remembered before darkness took him was blinding pain and the brown torrent of the river rushing up to meet him.

* * *

Buck Fletcher woke to cold.

He lay among ice-covered rocks along the bank of the river, his booted feet still in the water.

Shallow pools among the rocks, driven by the current, lapped around his chest, and when he raised his head the water under him was stained red.

Fletcher tried to rise to his feet but couldn’t muster the strength to make it. He sank back to the rocks and lay there for several minutes, his head spinning, waiting for the world around him to right itself.

Having learned from his mistake, he made no attempt to get up again. Instead he crawled toward the grassy bank, dragging himself over rocks that gouged cruelly into his chest and belly.

It took Fletcher the best part of fifteen minutes to clear the rocks and scramble higher onto the bank, where tufts of buffalo grass spiked among thick, tangled brush surrounding the trunks of the cotton woods.

He was soaked to the skin and freezing cold. Shivering uncontrollably, Fletcher burrowed into the brush like a wounded and hurting animal, trying to find shelter away from the worst of the wind.

Covered by brush and feeling a little warmer, he lay flat on his belly and pillowed his head on his forearm. It was time to sleep, and he told himself that when he woke up he’d be sure to feel better.

Fletcher closed his eyes. He had no idea where he was or how he had gotten here. Nor did he care. He knew only that if he could sleep, the terrible, jarring pounding in his head would go away. . . .

Above him the sky was a pale blue dome stretching from horizon to horizon, streaked with narrow bands of hazy white cloud. A bluegill splashed in a shallow pool near the bank, sending out a widening circle of ripples. A single, shriveled leaf drifted from a branch of the cottonwood above where Fletcher lay, its fall making a tiny sound that passed unheard and unnoticed in that vast wilderness.

Fletcher slept. . . .

The copper sun slid lower in the sky as the day wore on and touched the gathering clouds with scarlet. A few flakes of snow spiraled in the restless prairie wind, and the hushed, shadowless land braced itself for the long, cold night to come.

Fletcher woke with a start. He lay still for a few moments, his eyes open, trying to remember. . . .

He forced himself to think. Then it came to him.

Estelle!

Ignoring the pounding in his head, he backed out of the brush and used the trunk of a cottonwood to help him struggle to his feet. He was cold and wet, his body stiff, and when he attempted to walk, his knees gave way and he fell flat on his face.

Fletcher lay still until the hammering in his head subsided; then, more slowly this time, he rose and walked to the riverbank. Kneeling, he splashed icy water on his face, the sudden jolt of coldness helping to revive him.

Fletcher got stiffly to his feet, his hands searching for his guns. They were both in place, secured by the rawhide thongs over the hammers.

Shivering, he looked up and down the riverbank. Something black was wedged among the rocks about twenty yards away, and when Fletcher reached it he saw it was his hat.

Like the hat, he must have been pushed to the bank by the current. Swollen by melted snow, the river was running fast enough that it had shoved him along, refusing to let him sink and drown.

Fletcher knew he had been lucky. Very lucky.

His hand strayed to the top of his head and found a deep gash crusted with hard blood. Fletcher cursed softly and bitterly, remembering Red Jones and his hickory club. He had turned his back on the man like a green pilgrim, and he had paid the price.

Absently he reached for his tobacco. The sack was soaked and shredded, the makings useless, a gloomy fact that immediately filled Fletcher with a dull rage. It had been personal before between him and Jones; now it was even more so. The ferryman had denied him even the small consolation of a smoke—and that was something he could not forgive.

Fletcher rubbed his temples, his head throbbing. There was something else . . . something he had forgotten. . . .

Jones must have taken Estelle!

He recalled the bruises on the face of the Cheyenne woman and how the man had looked at Estelle, the lust in his eyes naked and cruel. Jones’s intentions had been clear from the start, and Fletcher cursed himself for not recognizing that the man would act on them. He had taken Jones too lightly, dismissing the ferryman as just a dirty, unkempt woman beater. It was a mistake—and one he vowed he’d never in his life make again.

Now Estelle was in terrible danger . . . and he was just standing there, mourning his tobacco.

Wincing, Fletcher settled his hat on his head. How far downstream had the current taken him? He had no way of knowing. The ferry might be just around the next bend of the river—or a hundred miles away.

The day was slowly dying, shading into night, and a few flakes of snow tumbled in the air. Fletcher shivered. He had to make it to some kind of shelter before the temperature dropped much further or he could freeze to death in these wet clothes.

How far away was that damned ferry?

There was only one way to find out.

Fletcher glanced toward the last dim glow of the setting sun, gauging the time, then turned to the east and, unsteady on his feet, his head spinning, began to walk upstream.

The riverbank was lined with cottonwood and willow and was mostly flat, though in many places the underbrush grew thick, slowing Fletcher’s progress.

Here and there where the bank had crumbled under the relentless pressure of the current, the rushing waters had gouged great semicircles out of the land, the bottoms covered in rock-strewn sand and massive boulders, and these obstacles also took time to cross.

The rising temperature of his own body as he struggled forward was rapidly drying Fletcher’s clothes, at least those nearest his skin, but amid the gathering darkness the night was getting colder, and very soon he would be unable to see where he was going.

Up ahead there was a bend in the river where a spit of land jutted into the water. It looked to be mostly hard-packed sand, but there were cottonwoods growing among scattered boulders at the point nearest the bank.

Fletcher stumbled forward and rounded the spit, taking the easiest route across the sand. When he cleared the promontory he saw what he’d been hoping to see. About two hundred yards away was the ferry, smoke still belching from the chimney of the shack.

There was only one problem.

It was on the other side of the river.