A Man Called Sunday (20 page)

Chapter 11

“Well, I'll be go to hell—Lem Sloat,” the huge man with the reddish-brown whiskers exclaimed. “I thought you was dead.”

“Bill Kunze,” Sloat returned, equally surprised. “I thought they hanged your big ass back in Oklahoma Territory. I know they was lookin' for you for shootin' that deputy in the back.” He shifted his gaze to scrutinize the weasel-faced man at Bogart's elbow, who was looking at Bill with a confused expression. “Who's this you got with you?”

“Shake hands with George Wylie,” Bogart said, grinning broadly. “Course you're gonna have to take your hand off that shotgun you're holdin' on to under that counter.”

Sloat's hand came up at once. “Howdy, George,” he said, then cocking a mischievous eye toward Bogart, added, “It ain't a shotgun. It's a forty-four Colt.” They both laughed. “Hell,” Sloat confessed, “I didn't know who you was, ridin' up to my porch. I shoulda known it was you when you filled up the whole door when you walked in.” He turned his head toward the back of the store and yelled, “Come on in, Pearl. They's friends of mine.”

“Kunze ain't my name no more,” the big man said. “It's Bill Bogart now.” He grinned again. “'Cause of that little matter with the deputy marshal.”

“Bogart, huh?” Sloat remarked. “Well, I ain't surprised.” Wylie nodded his understanding, no longer confused.

In a few minutes, the stoic Crow woman came in the front door carrying a rifle, causing Bogart to chuckle once more. “I swear, Lem, you don't take no chances, do ya?”

“This here's Pearl. She's been with me for a few years now.” Turning to her, he said, “Go see if you can rustle up some grub for these fellers. I expect they're hungry.”

“I could eat the south end outta a northbound mule, and that's a fact,” Bogart allowed. “How 'bout you, Wylie?” Wylie just grinned in reply.

Sloat chuckled. “Will beans and bacon do? We're fresh outta mule—maybe Pearl can make up some corn cakes to go with it.”

“Anythin' will do right now, long as there's plenty of it,” Bogart said.

“Come on, we'll go in the house,” Sloat said, referring to the tent beside his store. “I might have a little drink of somethin' to cut the dust while Pearl's cookin'.” He led them to a table with two chairs and a three-legged stool. Being the proper host, he took the stool for himself, although he claimed it was because Bogart's big ass might break the legs on his stool.

Pearl placed a bottle of whiskey on the table with three cups, and Sloat poured. “Does she ever talk?” Bogart asked, eyeing the Indian woman.

“'Bout as much as your friend there,” Sloat countered.

His remark brought a foolish grin to Wylie's face. “I can talk,” he said. “Bogart can tell you that. I just ain't got nothin' to say right now.”

The three of them killed more than half of the bottle before the silent Crow woman removed it from the table and filled the cups with coffee. She had no intention of preparing food that the three men were too drunk to eat. When Wylie started to protest, she declared, “No more whiskey, eat now.”

“There you go, Wylie,” Bogart roared. “She can talk when she's got somethin' to say.”

“You never said what brung you to this neck of the woods,” Sloat commented when Bogart quit laughing.

The big man became serious for a few moments when he answered. “I'm lookin' for somebody,” he said, “and I'm thinkin' he had to come this way.”

“Judging by that look on your face, I'd guess this somebody ain't gonna be glad to see you.”

“I s'pose not,” Bogart went on, “'cause when I catch up with him, I'm fixin' to hang his guts up on a fence post.”

“What did he do to get your dander up like that?” Sloat asked.

“That damn light-haired Injun crossed me too many times, and he's carrying somethin' that I figure belongs to me.” The mere thought of Luke Sunday caused the scar in Bogart's side to sting.

The description struck a chord in Sloat's mind. “He wouldn't by any chance be travelin' with a woman, would he?”

Bogart looked surprised. “As a matter of fact, he was—a woman and her husband, drivin' a wagon. Tall feller with light-colored hair, tied Injun-style, ridin' a paint Injun pony.”

Sloat nodded knowingly. “Yep, that's the feller, only they didn't have no wagon, and there wasn't anybody else but the two of 'em. Ain't that right, Pearl?” The woman nodded.

“That son of a bitch,” Bogart growled. “He's already got rid of the husband.” He gave his partner a quick glance. “What'd I tell you, Wylie?”

“You had it right, Bill,” Wylie dutifully replied.

Sloat studied his two guests with a sly gleam in his eye while Pearl set plates of food on the table, amused that Bogart was hesitant about mentioning anything relating to money. “And this poor recently widowed woman was carryin' a feed sack full of money on a packhorse,” he stated matter-of-factly, confident now that there had to be more incentive for Bogart's search than the mere satisfaction of a killing. That sack must have carried a great deal of money, more than he had figured, to give Bogart a reason to come this far looking for it. He wondered if that was the reason Kirby and Gopher never came back.

“A sack full of money?” Bogart asked. “She had a sack full of money?”

“Well, I reckon she did,” Sloat said. “I saw her get some money out of it.” Noticing the expression on Bogart's face, he guessed that this news must have just increased his desire to find the woman. “I'll tell you a little story that might be bad news for you,” Sloat continued. “I had a couple of fellers in business with me. We had a nice little arrangement, but I reckon they got greedy on me. I sent 'em after your man and the woman, and I ain't seen 'em since. They mighta beat you to that grain sack, and there was too much in it to wanna give me my cut.”

“That mighta been the way it was,” Bogart said, “or they mighta got shot. This feller's not an easy man to get the jump on. Hell, he's half Injun. Ain't that right, Wylie?”

“That's a fact,” Wylie answered.

Back to Sloat then, Bogart asked, “So, they stopped here, did they?”

“They did,” Sloat replied. “Bought a sack of coffee beans.”

“Did they say where it was they was headed?”

“They asked where Coulson was.” When Bogart responded with a blank expression, Sloat said, “That's a new town some folks just set up a few months back.”

“Coulson, huh? How far is that?” Bogart asked, thoroughly pleased to learn that the woman's relatives on the Yellowstone weren't the only ones with money.

“Two and a half, three days, dependin' on how bad you wanna get there,” Sloat said. He could almost see the wheels turning in Bogart's brain as the big man thought about the man he hunted. “You know, there's a chance this feller has got what you're lookin' for and long gone,” he suggested. “And like I said, I had a nice little arrangement with Kirby and Gopher. We could work the same arrangement together, the three of us.”

Bogart fixed him with a contemptuous stare. “Shit, if you're thinkin' about robbin' and killin' folks, why don't you just do it yourself? I ain't lookin' to split with anybody.” He paused then to reassure Wylie, “Except you, partner.”

“I'm gettin' too old for that kind of work,” Sloat complained. “Besides, I couldn't just start killin' folks right here at the store. It wouldn't be long before somebody caught on. I just thought you might be interested if you was in need of some extra money.”

“Hell,” Bogart swore, and nodded toward Pearl. “Why don't you just let that Injun take care of it? She looks like she would just as soon scalp you as look at you.” Pearl gave no indication that she had heard the remark. “How long ago was it when they passed through here?”

“Three or four days ago, I reckon,” Sloat replied.

“Well, I reckon me and Wylie will be gettin' along,” Bogart said, and pushed his chair back from the table, but was apparently in no hurry to leave. “That was mighty fine grub, Mrs. Sloat,” he said, and winked at Wylie.

Wylie, thinking it a cue for him to duplicate, said, “That's a fact.”

Bogart stretched his arms out, then patted his belly contentedly. “Maybe me and Wylie oughta think about your offer to go partners with you. The thing that bothers me, though, is how many folks stop in here that has enough to go after. It don't sound like much money or goods to split three ways.”

“You'd be surprised,” Sloat replied. “There's a lot more folks headin' this way every month to start up places like Coulson, and they're carryin' every cent and everything else they own. And the sweet thing about it is there ain't nobody looking for 'em when they don't show up at wherever it was they was headed, so there ain't nobody to miss 'em.”

“So you're fixed up pretty good here?”

“I sure as hell wouldn't be here if I had to get by on whatever I was sellin' legit.”

“Well, now, that's right interestin',” Bogart said, and casually reached over to scratch under his left arm. It was a simple move from there to drop his hand on the butt of the pistol riding below, butt-forward. Lem Sloat carried the stunned look of surprise on his face to wherever his next stop was destined to be, most likely hell. The sudden pop of Bogart's pistol startled Wylie as well, and he went over backward while trying to disentangle himself from his chair. The next moments were an explosion of chaos as the sullen Crow woman attacked Bogart, diving headlong across the table. Not expecting a violent reaction from the woman, he was caught by surprise. The collision of their bodies knocked the pistol from his hand and it was all he could do to pry her fingers from his throat. Walks-With-A-Stick was a big woman and a natural fighter, giving Bogart all he could handle, and strong enough to make his fight a defensive one. While Bogart fought to keep her from scratching his eyes out, Wylie finally freed himself from the chair. Pulling his revolver, he tried to get a shot at the frenzied woman, but could not take a chance on hitting Bogart by mistake. Finally Bogart was able to get both his hands on her throat and force her away to arm's length. “Shoot her!” he yelled. “Dammit, Wylie, shoot her!” No longer afraid of hitting Bogart, Wylie pulled the trigger, sending two .44 slugs into Pearl's abdomen. Even though mortally wounded, she continued to struggle against Bogart's frantic efforts to free himself. Fascinated by the enraged woman's refusal to die, Wylie stared in disbelief for a few moments more before holding his pistol to her head and firing a bullet into the back of her skull, causing her to finally slump to the floor.

“Damn!” Bogart exhaled, pushing the corpse away from him. He had not escaped the fight without damage, for there were numerous scratches on his face and neck from the clawing Pearl had administered. In addition, he experienced a close call when Wylie's bullet exited the woman's skull and zipped by his shoulder, leaving bits of bone and brain on his shirt. Disgusted, he looked around frantically for something with which to clean it off. Pearl's skirt was the most convenient, so he used that. Still furious at the way a simple killing had mushroomed into such a disgusting mess, he picked up his pistol from the floor and proceeded to pump a couple more slugs into the corpse, just to vent his rage. When that didn't totally satisfy his anger, he considered shooting Wylie for the mess on his shirt, but managed to restrain himself from taking further retaliation. “Let's take this place apart,” he ordered. “He's bound to have somethin' hid somewhere—in the walls, under the floor—somewhere.”

Not much time was wasted in the tent, since there appeared to be few places to hide anything, so the major portion of their search was in the store. By the time they were ready to give up, they had found very little money, but they helped themselves to basic supplies and ammunition, blankets, tobacco, and several bottles of whiskey, all of which they could surely use. They loaded all their plunder on the two horses in the rough corral behind the tent.

When the horses were fully loaded, Wylie stepped back to gaze upon them. “I swear, Bogart, we got enough possibles to last us six months.”

“Maybe,” Bogart answered as he dabbed the scratches on his neck with some lard he had found in the tent. “The way he was talkin' about goin' partners with us, I thought there had to be some money hid somewhere. It was all talk. Hell, he was always all talk. I shoulda known better. You can't trust a man like that.”

“He sure looked surprised, didn't he?” Wylie remarked.

“I expect he was,” Bogart replied, and went to the stove in the middle of the room. “See anythin' else you want, you'd better get it, 'cause I'm fixin' to burn this place down.”

“Ain't you gonna take this Injun's scalp?” Wylie asked.

“No,” Bogart replied. “Take it if you want it.” He raised his boot and gave the stove a solid kick, knocking it over to spill hot coals on the earthen floor. Then the two of them gathered up anything that looked as if it would burn and threw it on the coals. Before very long the shack was too hot to remain inside. “That oughta do it,” Bogart said. “Now let's get on down to . . .” He paused. “What was the name of it?”

“Coulson,” Wylie replied as he gazed at the long clump of hair he had removed from Pearl's head.

“Right, let's go to Coulson. I got a yellow-headed Injun I'm needin' to see. I might take
that
scalp.” The recent bloodletting of one who was supposed to be a friend had served to nourish his feeling of power. The sensation was tempered slightly by the stinging scratches on his neck and face.

With their newly acquired packhorses, they headed up the path to the river road as black clouds of smoke billowed out of the two small windows of Lem Sloat's trading post. After about an hour's ride from the burning store, they approached a wide creek. Wylie called ahead to his partner, “Bogart, look yonder.” When Bogart looked back at him, Wylie pointed toward the treetops farther up the creek and a small circle of three buzzards overhead.