Gunsmith #362 : Buffalo Soldiers (9781101554388) (4 page)

Bass Reeves saw one man up in the rocks, the sun reflecting off the metal of the man’s rifle, or maybe a belt buckle or a spur. He assumed there were more because, after all, he and Clint were tracking more than one ex-Buffalo Soldier. If anything, they were across from him, so they’d be able to catch Reeves in a cross fire. That was exactly what a batch of Buffalo Soldiers would do.

He reined his horse in and waited. Clint needed time to get into position. At the moment, he was still out of range of anyone in those rocks with a rifle.

Or so he thought…

Private Luke Edwards was the best shot in the regiment while he was with the Buffalo Soldiers. He could make a shot with a Remington that no other man could make, the difference being the distance. While other soldiers needed
to be closer, Edwards could make his shot from yards farther away.

He sighted down the barrel of his rifle, and fired.

Clint heard the shot. It had come way too soon. He was still climbing up the rock face, hoping to get behind the shooters so he could find out how many there were, maybe get the drop on them before anything could happen. Reeves was supposed to have remained out of range until then.

Clint started climbing faster.

Bush and Davis heard the shot, looked over at Edwards, saw him sighting down his barrel again. They looked, but they couldn’t see what he was shooting at. Whoever it was was out of their sight, and range.

All they could do was wait.

The bullet grazed Reeves’s shoulder. It wasn’t much of a wound, but he made a show of falling from his horse. He lay still, figuring his next move. If the shooter believed he was dead, he might look away long enough for Reeves to move.

Edwards saw Reeves fall from his horse and land hard enough to kick up dust. He must have been dead. He looked over at Bush and Davis. They were staring at him, waiting for some kind of signal. He stood up to wave at them, then saw the man appear above his men. The white man. He must have climbed up from the back.

Edwards brought his rifle around and sighted along the barrel.

At this distance he couldn’t miss…

Clint made it to the top and immediately saw the black man across from him. As the man raised his rifle, Clint drew and fired. His bullet struck the man in the chest. He dropped his rifle and fell to the ground below with an audible thud…

Bush and Davis saw Edwards fall, then looked above them to see the white man with the gun. He hadn’t seen them yet.

They raised their rifles.

Bass Reeves came running up to the body of the fallen black man. A brief check of the man revealed him to be dead. He looked up and saw the other two black men, and Clint Adams. He quickly drew and began firing. He didn’t have a clear shot, and his bullets bounced off rocks, but the sound alerted Clint.

Clint looked down at the sounds of the shots. He saw Reeves on the ground, and the two black men in the rocks. Reeves’s shots had driven them to cover from below, but he could see them from above. He fired at them, but not to hit them. His bullets struck the rocks, peppering them with shards. As he’d hoped, the men reacted as if it was lead that was striking them, not stone chips.

They panicked.

* * *

Bush and Davis felt the rock shards striking them, thought they were bullets. They dropped their guns and began examining themselves for wounds. By the time they realized that neither had been shot, Clint had reloaded his gun.

“If I was you,” he called out to them, “I’d climb down.”

They stared up at him, then bent to retrieve their guns.

Clint fired once more, the bullet pinging off a rock very near them.

“Leave your guns where they are and climb down!” he called out.

Shoulders slumping in resignation, the two men began to climb down from the rocks.

Briefly, Clint wondered how he could climb down and keep the two men covered at the same time, but then he saw that Bass Reaves was right beneath them. He was sure the deputy would keep them covered while Clint worked his way down.

Bass Reeves was waiting for the two black men when they reached the ground. It took Clint a little longer to reach them.

Once they were all on the ground, Reeves said to them, “Your friend is dead.”

They looked down at the dead man. All three of them were wearing Buffalo Soldier jackets with a single stripe.

“Take off those jackets!” Reeves commanded. “You’re a disgrace to them.”

“We earned these jackets, brother,” Bush said to him.

“I ain’t your brother,” Reeves said. “And maybe you earned them once, but you don’t deserve them now. Take ’em off!”

Slowly, the two men obeyed.

“Now take his off him,” he said, indicating the dead man.

“He’s dead,” Davis said. “Why don’t you leave him be?”

“Take the jacket off him,” Reeves sad. “He didn’t deserve it any more than you did.”

Slowly, they crouched down by the body and removed his jacket. Then they handed all three jackets to Reeves. Meanwhile, Clint noticed Reeves had a slight wound on his left shoulder.

“Take a shot?” he asked, indicating the wound.

“He was a good shot, whoever he was,” Reeves said. “He clipped me from a long ways off.”

“How is it?”

“Not bad,” Reeves said. “Where are your horses?” he asked the men.

“Same place mine is,” Clint said. “I saw them when I started to climb.”

“Okay,” Reeves said, “we got to get their horses and yours and then we’ll get goin’.”

“Where?”

“We’ll keep going to Muskogee,” Reeves said, “And leave them in a cell there. Then we’ll keep goin’ till we catch the others.”

“Maybe these fellas can help us with that,” Clint suggested.

“Yeah,” Reeves said, “we’ll have to ask them. I’m sure they’ll be happy to help.”

They collected the horses, including the one that belonged to Private Edwards. Bush and Davis finally identified him for Reeves, which led the deputy to believe they might eventually cooperate.

They mounted up, tied the two live men to their saddles, and tossed Edwards over the back of his horse, trussed up so he wouldn’t slide off.

“Anybody else up ahead waitin’ to bushwack us?” Reeves asked them.

“We don’t know,” Davis said. “All we knew is what Edwards tol’ us we was doin’.”

“And what was that?”

“Killin’ you.”

“Were those your exact orders?”

“That’s what Edwards said the sergeant wanted us to do,” Bush said.

“Sergeant,” Clint said. “Is that your commanding officer, or is there someone higher?”

“Nobody higher,” Bush said. “Sergeant Washington gives the orders.”

“Those raids and robberies you been pullin’ have been his idea?”

“Yeah,” Bush said, “he said it was time for us to start gettin’ somethin’ back.”

“For what?” Clint asked. “Getting back for what?”

“For all the Buffalo Soldiers have done for the white man,” Bush said.

“You feel entitled, then?” Clint asked.

“What’s that mean?” Bush asked.

“You agree with your sergeant that the white man owes you something?”

“That’s what the sergeant says,” Davis said. “Why wouldn’t it be true?”

Clint shook his head.

“The red man out here has got more coming to him than you do,” Clint said.

All three black men, including Bass Reeves, looked at
him. Clint was certain that none of them agreed with what he’d just said.

“We better get movin’,” Reeves said. “I wanna get these men to Muskogee.”

“You gonna hang us?” Davis asked.

“That’ll be up to Judge Parker,” Reeves said, “I ain’t gonna do nothin’ but take you back. Ain’t up to me to hang ya.”

They rode on in a curious silence. Clint had a feeling he would hear from Reeves some time in the future about his opinions regarding white, black, and red men.

When they got to Muskogee, they stopped in to see Sheriff Overbay, the Cherokee lawman. They got the two black men installed in their cells and then Reeves made the introductions.

“This here’s my friend Clint Adams,” Reeves said to the lawman.

“Sam Overbay,” the lawman said. “I heard of you.” He put out his hand. Clint felt the man’s power in his handshake, although he was sure the big Indian was taking it easy on him.

“We’ll take this other fella over to the undertaker’s,” Reeves said.

“You gonna stay awhile?” Overbay asked.

“No,” Reeves said. “We’ll come back and question them two a little bit more, see if they can give us some idea where the others have gone. But we’ll be ridin’ out later today.”

“I’ll be here,” Overbay said.

* * *

Clint and Bass Reeves left the sheriff’s office, walked their horses as well as Edwards’s horse over to the undertaker’s with the body.

“What do you know about Sheriff Sam Overbay?” Clint asked.

“Not much,” Reeves said. “He stayed out of my way last time I was here. I’ve never seen him have to do anything yet.”

“Big man,” Clint said.

“But that don’t mean he can do nothin’,” Reeves pointed out. “Size ain’t everythin’.”

When they carried the blanket-wrapped body into the undertaker’s, the man looked at Bass Reeves and said, “You again.”

They set the body on a table. The undertaker took a peek, then looked at Reeves again.

“Another black man?” he asked. “You like killin’ your own kind?”

Reeves stared back at the undertaker, who was also black. He was an older man, his skin with that dusky, dry look old black men get.

“I’m doin’ my job, old-timer,” Reeves said. “Don’t matter to me if they be black, white, or red. How about you?”

“Yeah, well…” the old man said. “Who’s gonna pay?”

“Send a bill to Fort Smith, to Judge Parker,” Reeves said. “He’ll take care of it.”

Clint and Reeves stepped outside.

“Don’t let him bother you,” Clint said. “He was out of line.”

“He don’t bother me none,” Reeves said. “Come on, let’s go ask them other two some questions.”

“You think they’re going to know where this Sergeant Washington took the others?”

“Maybe not,” Reeves said. “Maybe he just sent them after me, figurin’ he might lose ’em. But maybe they heard somethin’ useful.”

“Could be.”

When they got to the sheriff’s office, they went right into the cell blocks. The two men had been put in separate cells, but they were side by side. They were both lying on their bunks.

“Wake up! We got some questions for you two,” Reeves said.

“We ain’t got nothin’ ta say to you, Reeves,” Davis said.

“It might help you with Judge Parker if I can tell him you was cooperative,” Reeves said.

The two men exchanged a glance between the bars.

“Well, whataya wanna know?” Bush asked.

“How many more of you are there disgracing the uniform?” Reeves asked.

“Well, suh,” Bush said, “you done kilt three of us, and put us in here. That leaves…six?” He looked over at his partner.

“I ain’t so good at sums,” Davis said. “That sounds about right.”

“Yeah, I think that leaves six,” Bush said to Reeves with a nod.

“Where were they goin’ when you split up?” Reeves asked.

“That we don’t know,” Davis said. “Maybe Edwards knew, but you done kilt him.”

“We split up in groups of three after we left here,” Bush said, still proving his ability with his sums. “But we don’t know where they was goin’. Nobody never tol’ us.”

“Nobody tells us nothin’,” the other man said.

“Even if you let us go,” Davis said, “we wouldn’t know where to go to join up with them again.”

Reeves looked at Clint, who nodded, indicating he believed what they were saying.

“Okay,” Reeves said.

He and Clint started to walk out.

“Hey, hey,” Davis yelled, “you leavin’ us here?”

“For a while,” Reeves said. “But don’t worry, we’ll be back for you to take you see Judge Parker. You and the rest of your gang.”

“We ain’t a gang,” Davis yelled, “we’re a squad.”

Reeves stopped halfway out the door and stepped in again, glaring at the men.

“You ain’t no squad,” he said. “You’re a disgrace to the Buffalo Soldiers you used to serve in, but you don’t no more. You’re nothin’ but a gang of outlaws, and I aim to bring you all in.”

“Seems like you’re aimin’ to just kill us all,” Bush said.

“Whether you go back dead or alive is up to all of you,” Reeves said. “It don’t make no never mind to me. But one way or another, you’re going back.”

Reeves left the cell blocks, ignoring whatever else the two black men had to say.

“How long you want me to hold ’em?” Sheriff Overbay asked.

“Until we get back,” Bass Reeves said, “to pick ’em up.”

“And what if you don’t come back?”

“Oh, don’t you worry, Sheriff,” Reeves said. “We’ll be back.”

“Both of you?” Overbay asked.

“Yeah, both of us,” Reeves said. “Just hold ’em for Judge Parker.”

“Yes, sir,” Overbay said.

As they left the office, Reeves asked, “Why would he think he should let them go at some point?”

“He’s probably used to holdin’ drunks for a day or two,” Clint said. “I get the feeling he’s not a real experienced lawman.”

They walked their horses to the end of town the two black men indicated they had left by.

“Lots of tracks,” Clint said. “How do we pick them out?”

“That’s easy,” Reeves said, getting down on one knee. “Look.”

Clint looked down at the horseshoe print Reeves was pointing out.

“Wait,” he said, “that’s military issue.”

“That’s right,” Reeves said. “These men still have their
jackets, and their military-issue horses. They really think they’re still a Buffalo Soldier squad.”

“They’re deluded,” Clint said. “And they feel they’re owed.”

“Well, maybe I ain’t gonna give them what they’re owed,” Reeves said, “but I’m gonna give ’em what they got comin’.”

“So then you are planning on killing them,” Clint said.

Reeves looked at him.

“I don’t lie to you, Clint,” the black lawman said. “Not ever. If they make me kill ’em, I will. Otherwise I’m takin’ em back to the Judge to let him do what he does best. That suit you?”

“Actually,” Clint said, “that suits me just fine.”

“Well, then,” Reeves said, “I guess we better mount up and see where these tracks take us.”