Cry of the Hawk

When he had waved Jowls and Flat-face back from the table, Jonah set his two pistols down in front of one of the locals, then strode past the fleshy man, heading for the rat-faced one who was moving off, volving his shoulders, bringing up his fists and flexing his ropy muscles.

With a crack, Jonah caught him unprepared with a quick jab. Rocking Rat-face backward. A second jab brought a spurt of blood as the man shook his head, bewildered. The room erupted into cheering and jeering. From the corner of his eye, he saw the flat-faced man balling his fists, uneasy, wanting in on the action.

That glance cost him.

Rat-face was on him with a crack to the side of the head that stunned Hook. It made his temple throb with bone against bone, and seeing stars. A big, powerful fist doubled him over, a fist on the back of his head brought Hook to his knees. As Rat-face stepped up, preparing to ram his knee under Jonah’s chin, Hook moved aside and caught the leg, standing as he did it. The man spilled backward, cracking the back of his head on the edge of a far table.

Of a sudden the air was being choked out of him. Jonah felt an arm around his neck, fingers in his hair, reaching down for his eyes, a thumb clawing toward his mouth, gouging for all the man was worth. Shifting his weight, Jonah saw from the corner of one bloody eye that Jowls still stood his ground, yelling enthusiastically. It had to be the plain, pie-faced one. Jonah had not counted on this.

Now he jammed a heel into the man’s boot. Feeling a lurch in his grip. A second time he jammed down, even harder with his heel. The arm came loose, just enough that Jonah spun beneath it, feeling some of his long hair come away in the man’s grip. He drove one fist into the gut, the heel of his other hand came up beneath the man’s chin, driving him backward.

Hook tasted the salty blood on his tongue, felt it dribbling from his nose. And the sting of torn flesh at the corner of his eye where the man’s fingers had raked him good.

And then Jonah had his hands full again as Flat-face came at him, charging, head down, crushing Hook with both his arms as Jonah pummeled him on the back of the head, neck, shoulders. Arms locked him in a painful vise, choking off his breath. Hook couldn’t get any air as the man shoved him against the wall, driving the last breath from him. Then, again he rammed Hook against the clapboard. A collision against the wall. Each time with a grunt from the Confederate.

“Drop the knife, Perkins!”

He heard someone yell. Not sure who. His eyes weren’t clear—not for the blood and for the tears of pain.

“Leave me cut him, Hastings!”

Rat-face was there at Hook’s side now. Knife out, he was badly bruised and bloody.

“He could have gut-shot you—but he didn’t, Perkins,” said Jowls, the man called Hastings. “Leave it at that.” He was looking over the room like he knew good and well that none of them really could stand a chance of getting away from committing murder in this fashion.

“I’ll finish him good,” Flat-face said with a grunt, shoving Jonah against the wall a fourth time.

“Let ’im go, Colby.”

Colby obeyed immediately, stepped back, and accepted his pistols from Hastings. Perkins was wiping himself off with the back of his hand, smearing the blood on the front of his greasy britches.

Then Hastings was in Hook’s face. “You fight good, for being such a skinny fella.”

“You need someone like me who can fight, don’t you, Hastings?”

Jowls cocked his head slightly, his eyes getting real serious. “You want work, that it?”

“Easy work,” Jonah replied. “Never cottoned to doing anything hard. Like my money come easy.”

Hastings smiled. Then stepped back and appraised the Confederate a moment. “You just might do. But mind you, it ain’t only my say.”

“The major ain’t gonna let him in,” Perkins snapped sourly. “He’s a Reb. You know how both of ’em feel ’bout Rebs.”

“We’ll see what the major says,” Hastings replied. “My bosses both gotta want you in—or you can’t stay.”

“They out at your camp?”

He shook his head. “We’ll be meeting up with one of ’em not for weeks from now. Planned on it being out to Fort Laramie.”

“That’s along the North Platte.”

“You know it, mister?” Hastings asked with interest.

“I been out there. Fought Injuns a time or two. On the Sweetwater. Clear up to South Pass. I know that ground, and Fort Laramie too.”

Hastings was grinning again as he came a step forward and slapped a hand on Hook’s shoulder. “See there, boys? We got us a honest-to-goodness Injun fighter in our platoon now. Just what Boothog and Jubilee gonna want when we cross back over them damned mountains to Deseret.”

45

April 1868

“PERHAPS IT IS time we took a holiday from one another,” Jubilee Usher told him as the big man slowly walked away across the canvas-sheeting floor of his massive tent.