Brian Garfield (54 page)

He plowed into a knee-high pile of snow wedged against a scrub plant and it was a moment before he realized that was wrong: must have lost the road. Felt behind him with a toe and backed up and prodded the earth with his hand until he knew the ruts were there. Which way now—left or right?

It was a sign of the dangerous deterioration of his mind that it took quite a while to remember that the wind needed to be at the right shoulder.

Exhaustion and frostbite. With senses slowly disintegrating he recognized the dangers. He felt the ache in his legs as they began to turn numb; he stamped his feet hard as he walked. Tucked the rifle under his arm and whacked his hands together with powerful beating strokes.

Don't worry, my darling Edith. I shan't stop fighting back. Nothing will keep me from our lovely nuptial appointment.

Must feel like this to be blind.

He groped ahead of him, hand splayed …

Abruptly his hand banged into something hard; he stubbed his finger.

He felt at it. Flat vertical surface. Wall? Ridiculous. Couldn't be a building in the middle of the road.

Maybe this wasn't the road.

Or maybe it wasn't the
same
road.

Had there been a fork in the road? Had he taken the wrong turn? Walked into a farmer's yard?

He slid his hand across the surface and found its boundaries.

The wagon tailboard.

It wasn't moving.

He heard, or felt, something; he bent down and dimly saw the huddled lump beneath the dubious shelter of the wagon bed: four men; ferociously flapping blankets and ponchos. He caught the dim glimmer of a pair of yellow eyes. O'Donnell or Finnegan? Whichever—there was the threat of death in those bleak eyes.

They saw him at the same moment he saw them. A hand reached for his ankle—pulled him down. Tumbling, he nearly lost his grip on the rifle. There were hands against him in earnest—pawing at his face, scrambling for the weapon. He could smell their rank breath. It was Finnegan's burly arm that slammed the side of his head and encircled his neck.

It was all a terrifying confusion then.

They were pulling him to them—tugging him under the wagon—it was hard to sort out, in his mind, what was transpiring; Finnegan had a headlock on him and O'Donnell was slithering around, trying for purchase, and he saw Dutch Reuter just beyond them—Dutch was wide-eyed, watching with his mouth agape, not moving, not taking any action, not making any choice or decision but simply watching to see how it was going to come out …

Finnegan roared, louder than the storm. There was a red haze; there was a drumming thunder in his ears where Finnegan's heavy arm was ready to crush his skull …

“
By thunder you haven't whipped me yet!
”

He stood up—stood up on his hind legs with such an immense effort that he not only dragged the Irishmen with him
but also lifted the back of the wagon on his bent shoulders.

It squeezed Finnegan's arm against the wagonbed, hard enough to bring a grunt of pain from the man; and then the ranchman swung the rifle, hard, and had the satisfaction of hearing the barrel smack noisily against flesh and bone. There was an outcry—O'Donnell—and then the ranchman was stumbling back, crouched over, weaving for balance, sucking air, trying to find his bearings.

Finnegan hurled himself forward, scrambling, trying to reach him. The ranchman fired a sudden shot into the ground. The bullet sprayed frozen mud in Finnegan's face; the abrupt explosive noise seemed to stun them all to motionlessness.

In that broken interval of time the ranchman slapped the rifle's forestock into his palm, yanked the hammer back and laid his aim hard and steady against the Irishman's face not two feet away.

“
Hold!”

Finnegan stared at him. The rage of murder in his eyes slowly cooled.

The frigid air sawed in and out of the ranchman's lungs. He coughed hard.

Finnegan held—silent and still.

The wind seemed to have dropped; everything had gone quiet; and the ranchman said resolutely, “Very well then. You've had your chance. It didn't work. Now get back!”

When Finnegan began to crawl back under the wagon the ranchman let the hammer down slowly but he kept the rifle trained on his adversaries.

He moved forward, shooing Finnegan back, until he had all four men huddled tight against the singletree. He crouched under the tailboard and sat crosslegged, aiming the rifle at them, and sat without a word to await the end of the storm.

Soon enough it passed by—as quickly and as mysteriously as it had begun. By early afternoon it was possible to see miles across the high plain. The sky was lead-grey. A warm soft rush of south wind brought such an emphatic thaw that even the larger hailstones underfoot were transformed to slush within less than an hour after they had fallen; the temperature climbed so rapidly that the ranchman, heated from the exertion of walking behind the wagon, removed his coat and tossed it in the flatbed and made do comfortably in buckskin shirt and fringed waistcoat.

Dutch Reuter, after half an hour's battering in the lurching wagon bed, asked permission to get out and walk.

“I have your word you won't jump me?”

“Yah. My word you got. No trouble—my word on that.”

“Then get down and walk. Beside the wagon, where I can see you.”

The two Irishmen shot malign glares at Dutch.

The muzzle of the ranchman's rifle stirred. “Turn your faces forward, please.”

They glanced at each other, grinned unpleasantly and presented their backs to him.

Dutch said plaintively, “You me can trust.”

“I'm sorry, Dutch, but I'm not sure I can. I don't think you know yourself whose side you're on.”

Dutch went alongside the wagon without further complaint.

Walking along behind the procession, the ranchman opened his copy of
Anna Karenina
and resumed reading where he had left off last night.

He sat with his back braced against the wagon wheel, notebook on his upraised knees, rifle across his lap; at intervals he looked up at the four men beyond the fire. The two Irishmen and the old frontiersman lay close together; Finnegan and O'Donnell were talking in low tones. Dutch Reuter slept off to one side, by himself, thoroughly shamed.

At a guess there were another thirty miles or so left to travel. Barring another storm they could make it that far by tomorrow evening.

The four pairs of boots were piled beside the ranchman. He adjusted the blanket around his shoulders and continued to write in his notebook. After a while the mutter of the two Irishmen's voices began to annoy him. He said, “Please be quiet now. You may as well get your sleep. You'll need it for tomorrow.”

“What about you, dude? Need your sleep too, I expect.” Finnegan heaved his head up and leered. “Sleep tight—if you can.”

“Go to sleep,” O'Donnell said, “and maybe you won't ever wake up.” But there wasn't any conviction in it. They'd been licked and, he thought, they knew it. The rest was no more than hollow boasting.

“No more talk now,” said the ranchman. He dipped his pen in the inkwell.

The fire dwindled. He fed it and poked it up. A fitful racket of snoring rumbled beyond the fire. It was around three o'clock. Abruptly Finnegan sat bolt upright and glared at him.

The ranchman laid his hand on the grip of the rifle.

Finnegan smiled slowly.

The ranchman said, “Test me again and I may have to tie your hands, Red.”

Without argument the rogue lay back.

Well it will be a long night and a longer day. But it will come to an end
.

Dutch moved closer to the fire, held his palms out to warm them and said, “Without help maybe all this you cannot do.”

“I think I can.”

“Man got to sleep.”

“Plenty of time for that after we get to Medora.”

“Something you try prove?”

“What?

“You trying prove? Something?”

“I'm not
trying
to prove
anything
, Dutch. I'm demonstrating that it's against the law to steal a man's boat, and if you break that law, you will be held accountable. That's what the rules of civilization mean.”

“Maybe the Markee and the Stranglers a different rules of civilzation they got.”

“The rules apply to them too—whether they know it or not.”

“I to the Markee that will say. ‘Markee,' I will say, ‘the rules of civilzation you got to obey.' This I will say right after you he shoot dead.”

“He hasn't shot me dead yet, Dutch.”

“And when he does?”

The ranchman said, “Everyone has to die, sooner or later. But no one has to run away.”

“Ever you scared get?”

“Certainly I get scared.”

“Right now?”

“I don't know about right now. I don't think your friends are going to make any further trouble.”

“How about the Markee you duel fight?”

“We'll see—we'll see.”

After that the silence stretched a long time until Dutch Reuter said softly, “I you like. But you one crazy dude.”

“Good night, then, Dutch.”

In the morning he watched the old frontiersman settle his team into the traces and he held the rifle across the crook of his elbow while the four men climbed onto the wagon. Finnegan looked down at him. “Dutch is right, you know. You're one crazy bastard.”

“Got
cojones
to spare,” O'Donnell agreed. “You going to walk us all the way to the railroad? Can't be much less than thirty miles—and plenty of swollen streams between.”

“We'll get there.”

“Know something?” said O'Donnell. “I think you will, too.”

Finnegan growled, “Let's go if we're going. Jail's got to be warmer than this.”

Dutch Reuter looked at his two Irish companions in obvious surprise. Then he turned a growing smile toward the ranchman and drew himself up like a pigeon.

The ranchman knew he might have their respect at last but it didn't count for much. There was a long gloomy walk ahead.

The ranchman wiggled his toes in his boots. He felt the swollen blisters and said, “Let's go.”

Twenty-three

P
ushing his wheelbarrow with its teetering tower of newspapers Pack trudged over the snow past Joe Ferris's store, boots crunching loudly. Joe was inside at the window looking out. Pack saw him look away—make a
point
of looking away. Pack continued on his errand.

It was truly a season of damnation. Only three weeks ago a train had been snowbound in the station for days. Starving cattle had drifted into Medora, smashed their heads in through windows and eaten the tarpaper off several lean-tos and shacks. A sodbuster couple had gone out to try and feed the cattle in their barn, and had frozen to death within fifty feet of the house. And a horse rancher had shot himself to death, or so it was claimed; there were suspicions it might have been the Stranglers, although Pack was fairly certain they'd disbanded and dispersed. He had put the question to the Marquis and the Marquis had not denied it.

As he reached the depot platform he encountered an astounding sight. It was something out of a fevered dream. There came lurching a battered wagon with four men on it and, walking behind the tailboard, bedraggled, mudcaked, scratched, black-and-blue, a skeletal apparition that was identifiable only by its teeth and eyeglasses.

“Just the man I want to see,” Roosevelt croaked. “We need the key to the jail.”

The wheelbarrow nearly capitulated when Pack set it down.

Roosevelt stumbled, then grinned. “Come along, Mr. Packard.”

“What in God's name is all this?”

Redhead Finnegan, on the wagon—for Finnegan it was indeed, Pack determined after a closer look—thrust his face over the sideboard and glared at Roosevelt. “This dude's trying to railroad us, Pack. He and his crew ambushed us in the Bad Lands. He'll tell you any old pack of lies. Don't believe a word he says. You can see he's plumb crazy.”

Roosevelt leveled his rifle—a ghost as determined as a bulldog. To Pack he said, “Come along.”

“Well I don't know. Their word against yours—”

Dutch Reuter jumped down off the wagon, startling Roosevelt whose rifle swung tentatively toward him but Reuter ignored it. He had bits of brown grass and twigs in his beard. He clutched Pack's coat. Pack shrank back. Reuter's breath was foul. “His boat we steal. Behind the wagon all the way with his Winchester he walk. Fifty miles. Two days. Fifty miles.
Fifty miles!
His eyes he never close. Twenty foot back walking, and all the time that book he's reading. ‘Keep going there—keep going.' Big storm. Him they jump—Red and Frank, they jump. And he fight 'em off! That wagon and two men, on his back he lift! Bejesus out of them two tough boys he scare. And the river. Dead cows. Take apart the wagon, he makes us. Pieces across we carry. Put back together. That water God-damn cold.”

It wasn't easy trying to put the German's words back together and make any sort of sense out of them. Pack tried to review what Dutch Reuter was saying. It began to come clear.

Reuter said in awe, “No man so God-damn brave I ever seen. No man. No sir.”

Pack slammed the Bastille door shut upon Finnegan and O'Donnell. They were bellowing.

Dutch Reuter remained outside. Roosevelt said to him, “Go on, Dutch. Get out of here—get out of the country before someone hurts you. Don't stay around here, for you're a fool. You haven't got enough sense to take care of yourself.”

“
Mein Gott, Herr Roosevelt
—such kind and generous—how can I you thank?
Gott im Himmel
—a hundred thanks, a thousand thanks …”

Roosevelt looked at Pack in amusement and said, “By Godfrey, it's the first time a man ever thanked me for calling him a fool.”

Pack gaped at the fiendish filthy spectral wraith before him. Roosevelt was so tired his every muscle quivered visibly.