Cry of the Hawk

It snagged Jonah’s attention as he stuffed a piece of dark crust into his own mouth. He vowed he would not sound anxious. “Just where … on the borderlands? Down to Texas? Up to Arkansas? Or just in the Territories?”

The stranger poured more good whiskey in the three short, smoky glasses. Apparently disarmed. “No. Mostly in southern Missouri. On the run to keep ahead of … ahead of any army wanted me to do its fighting for it.”

Hook sagged back in the chair, his belly feeling more settled now for the food. His gut more settled, yet disappointed was he that the stranger had not been part of either army that might know something of that band of freebooters that had come marching through his quiet valley back of a time.

“You been south of here, was it?” Jonah asked. “Not much on south, less’n you get into Injun country.”

“Injuns don’t bother me none,” he answered. “Now, that sausage was tasty, it was. You fellas eat up the rest. And,” he said, rising from his chair, “you figure on needing a place out of the snow—”

“It starting to snow outside?” Sweete asked, turning clumsily in his chair.

“Was when I came in. Big ol’ flakes, mister,” said the stranger. “I got me a small room for the night down the street.”

“Jenkins place?”

“That’s the one,” he replied.

“What’s a man do to feed himself down in the Territories?” Jonah asked before the stranger was ready to push away into the crowd.

He smiled at Hook. “Whatever he can to keep himself busy, I suppose. You fellas don’t finish that bottle, bring it ’long with you.”

Sweete held up his hand. “By the way …”

“Yeah, I forgot my manners too,” he replied, taking the old man’s hand, shaking it quickly then letting it go.

“Shad Sweete.”

The Confederate held his hand out to the stranger reaching across the table. “Jonah Hook.”

“Glad to meet you fellas. Riley Fordham is my name. You come make yourselves to home with me tonight before I pull out to go talk with the quartermaster out to Larned in the morning.”

“Least we’ll be dry, Jonah.”

Fordham smiled with those big, pretty teeth of his as he turned and was gone through the smoke and tobacco haze and the crowd. The air stirred as the noisy door opened, then closed, shutting out the swirl of wet, icy flakes that had come to settle on central Kansas Territory.

“He might know something, Shad.”

“It’s for certain the man knows good whiskey, Jonah.”

“Dammit—I mean he might know about that bunch disappeared down in the Territories.”

“Been a long time, son.”

“We were fixing on going down there together.”

“Been wanting to talk to you about that.”

“Sounds like your whiskey’s talking now, old man.”

Sweete laughed. “All right. Let’s talk another time about going down to sniff around.”

Jonah gazed through the crowd, through that ill-fitting door, and right on through the icy, swirling mist squeezing down on the central plains.

“I scent me something, Shad. That fella—Riley Fordham … he smells like he just might have something to tell me about Missouri. And the Territories.”

“And that bunch you got a hankering to gut real slow with a dull elk antler?”

With a crooked grin that lit up the face beneath the wolfish, yellowed eyes, Hook said, “Real … real slow.”

41

Late November, 1867

“YEAH, I KNEW of a bunch like that,” Riley Fordham admitted, casually. His eyes held steadily on Jonah.

Either he’s telling the truth about all of this and he don’t have nothing to hide, Jonah thought to himself, or the man is a downright cold-blooded liar.

“You know of ’em in southern Missouri?”

Fordham nodded. “Seems I recollect hearing they rode through down there too. Like some others. I hear Missouri was a bad place during the war. Why you so interested in that one bunch of bad characters?”

“I got family mixed up in it.” He watched Fordham cleaning his pistols at the small table against the wall.

Jonah sat on the edge of the bed in the tiny room. Both of them were waiting for Shad Sweete to return from Fort Larned, where the old mountain man had been summoned by the post commander early that morning, red-eyed and plagued with a hangover, swearing he was too old to be drinking that way with young guns like Hook and Fordham. Official business, the messenger from Larned had said.

But this was family business for Jonah. Because of it he felt he was walking on eggshells with the man rubbing the oilcloth back and forth, in and out that .44-caliber pistol barrel.

“Looking for a bunch I understand rode into Indian Territory not long after end of the war come to that part of the country.”

Fordham kept on polishing. “Lots of bad folks always run off to the Territories when it gets too hot for ’em elsewhere. How are you so sure the fellas you’re looking for went down there?”

“I was told.”

The oilcloth stopped. Then after a moment, began polishing again.

“Told, huh? Somebody knew where they were going?”

“I s’pose,” Jonah said, beginning to sense a growing tension from the man at the table. “I guess they didn’t figure on this fella having any reason for talking.”