Cry of the Hawk

“That man there,” Fordham said, pointing his rifle at the bleeding man. “He’s got two of Hook’s bullets in him. And near as I tell, Jonah’s likely got one of this bastard’s in him.”

“You hit, Jonah?” Shad asked.

Hook pulled aside his coat to show a dark stain at his right side, just above his hip. “Grazed me. A wild shot he got off when I hit him the first time.”

“How you two ever work together, Riley?” Shad asked. “Unless this one was with Usher’s bunch.”

“That’s what I tried to tell you. Now I gotta go. No telling how many out there now—coming.”

“There’s a way to find out.” Jonah handed his pistol up to Shad then and pulled out his skinning knife, laying the edge against the stranger’s jawline. “You remember his name, Riley?”

“Called Laughing Jack. Never knew his last name.”

“All right, Jack. S’pose you tell us how many there are here at Laramie.”

“O-only me,” Jack coughed his answer. “God! Don’t—”

Hook dragged the knife across the skin, opening a thin laceration that beaded with dark blood in the silver light.

“Goddammit—I beg you!”

Hook yanked back on the man’s head. “I’m gonna keep cutting down, slow … real slow—while you tell me who all came with you.”

“No one, for the love of God!” he sputtered, coughing up a little black fluid. “I’m alone. Though I am in the presence of mine enemies, may my hand be strong to smite the—”

“You believe him, Riley?”

“You gotta believe me, Riley!” the man pleaded. “Usher and Wiser—sent out a few of us they trusted. Some went on north, into Nebraska country. Others down sniffing around for you at Denver City … out to the forts in Kansas. You was there months back—they figured you’d … so some are asking around the railroad. I’m alone, goddammit! You can’t let this Gentile … get this crazy bastard off me and find me a doctor—I’m bleeding to death!”

Fordham knelt beside Laughing Jack. “What’s Usher gonna give the man who finds me?”

Jack’s eyes grew even more frightened. He swallowed, realizing now, then gurgled some on the blood dribbling from the corner of his mouth. “Usher’s gonna give ’im the girl. She’s a virgin—”

Fordham drove the back of his hand across Jack’s jaw. “Hattie—”

Hook yanked Jack’s head back, bringing the blade down in that heartbeat until Fordham put a hand against Jonah that stayed the Confederate’s. “All right, Jack. How ’bout you telling me and Hattie’s papa just where we can find them.”

“I don’t know where now—” Jack started, then screeched as Jonah dragged the knife blade deeper into the flesh of the man’s throat. It was pink and white, the neck turning bloody now, right across the rings of cartilage that formed the windpipe.

“Get back in the lodge!” Shad hollered as the two women started out the door with a rustle of frozen hides. They obeyed without question in a swirl of blankets. He heard their voices whispering in fear between themselves.

“Take the son of a bitch someplace else, Jonah. Away from this lodge—my family.”

“I’m leaving now,” Fordham said, rising to his feet.

“You’re coming with me, Riley,” Hook said firmly.

Fordham looked down at his rifle, then at Sweete with the pistol, and finally back at Hook.

“All right. I owe Hattie that much.”

“You owe me that much for not killing you the first time I found out back there in Kansas.”

Hook yanked on the front of Jack’s shirt, straining to pull the man. Sweete at last saw the two holes: one in the chest, the other low in the belly. Bleeders—both of them. A man drowns in his own juices, gut-shot that way, Shad thought.

“I’ll be back, this is over, Shad,” Hook said quietly as he started off, dragging Jack, with Fordham bringing up the rear.

Sweete watched them hobble through the snow toward the nearby cottonwoods and willow, listening to the whining of the dogs sniffing the blood on the snow where Jack had lain, hearing the whimpering of the man as he begged Riley for his life, begged his God for help, begged for anyone to put him out of his pain—quickly.

“Soon enough.”

Hook’s whisper went the way of smoke on that cruel, winter wind.

“You won’t feel no pain soon enough.”

“They come north, Shad,” Jonah explained, blowing the steam from his coffee. His first cup that morning. Always better in the gray of predawn like this, when it was the coldest time of day. Especially after a sleepless night.

“Out of the Territories?”

“Yeah. Course, Fordham told us Usher was planning to do that eventual.”

“Riley—he gone now?”

“Must be. After we … finished with Jack: dragged his body a ways down the bank, rolled it under the ice in the river over yonder—Fordham lit out. Said he had to get moving or his scent would stay around for the next one come along.”

“He’s probably right. This bunch with Usher found Fordham this time—they’ll find him again.” Shad took a slice of the dried buffalo from Toote.