Cry of the Hawk

“Yes, Colonel,” Boothog replied, remembering that other passion Usher possessed: always being addressed by his rank in front of the men. No matter when he and Wiser were alone—Boothog could address him as he pleased. But whenever they were before the men …

Usher turned and retrieved a long leather cylinder from the field table beneath the canvas canopy. From it he pulled a series of maps, found the one desired, then laid it flat upon the table, placing lunch dishes and an inkwell at the corners.

“Fordham, come over here and show us where you were on your journey to Kansas.”

Wiser watched as the two of them hunched over the map, Fordham moving his finger this way, then that, at times a little uncertain.

“I don’t read much, Colonel—”

“It doesn’t matter, Riley.”

“But this looks familiar … the rivers and creeks here.”

“Good. Now show us where the outlying settlements are from here, and here. With the railroad coming their way—it means gold for us. Lots of gold.”

Wiser watched and listened as Fordham went on, explaining the fruits of his scout north into Kansas Territory. But Boothog listened only halfheartedly. He glanced at the nearby tent flaps, not daring to let Usher catch him looking. Yet it excited him nonetheless to know that behind those flaps was the light-haired, blue-eyed Missouri woman they had captured two years before. He had rarely seen her since—only moving from the tent to Usher’s ambulance, where she rode hidden, always with a cloak hood over her head, helped along by Usher and the Negro manservant. And Wiser never heard her anymore. In the beginning she had cried out each time Usher climbed atop her. But it hadn’t taken long for that to come to an end.

She rarely made a peep now.

Still, Wiser hungered for her. There was something in the woman that he had never found in the others. But then, the rest had all had many men before him. They were used, soiled merchandise. Not like the settler woman.

That was why Wiser wanted the girl, the woman’s daughter—in the worst way. More and more over the last months, he found himself getting dry-mouthed just looking at the young girl. Waking up at nights, knowing he had dreamt of her. Wondering if he could wait long enough, till she was old enough and Usher would finally give her over to him. Then at last, Boothog would have one of the two things he wanted most.

Telling himself he must be satisfied with only one of them.

Simply because Major Lemuel Wiser couldn’t bring himself to believe he would ever have the nerve to kill Jubilee Usher.

Shad Sweete thought he recognized something familiar about the distant, thin rail of a man at first, then put the nudge of recollection out of his mind. It simply couldn’t be.

Not that the rider didn’t look one whole hell of a lot like someone he knew—or had known—but that it just didn’t seem likely to find the man out here. Must be the sun playing tricks on him.

No way Jonah Hook would be riding in behind Milner and James Butler Hickok, with the rest of those civilian scouts. Hook had gone back home to Missouri, and Sweete doubted there would be anything that could drag the Confederate off his farm, what with the way he talked and talked about his family and his place all through those months they had shared out on the Emigrant Road and up to the Powder River country. Likely nothing could shake Hook loose.

“Shad Sweete!”

“That you, Joe?” he called back to California Joe Milner.

The long-bearded plainsman brought his mule to a halt beside Sweete there at the edge of the parade of Fort Harker, central Kansas. “Before you go to hugging your how-dos on me, I figured I’d better ask you if you know this young fella. He claims you do.”

“Howdy, Shad,” the thin one said, kicking a leg over the saddle and dropping to the ground on both feet.

“Jonah?”

“By damned,” Joe said, “you do know one another!”

Shad embraced Hook fiercely. “What the hell you—”

“I don’t think Joe believed me when I told him I’d rid with you and Bridger,” Hook said. “Gabe here with you?”

“He’s gone back east, Jonah,” Shad said quietly. “Figures his time might come soon.”

“He dying?”

“Not just yet. But he’s give up on scouting for a time. Now answer my question, boy—what the devil brings you here when you got family back to home depending on you?”

Shad watched as Jonah glanced at Milner, and Milner urged his mule away with the rest of the scruffy civilian scouts James Butler Hickok had brought in from Hays to join up with Custer’s chief of scouts.

Jonah’s eyes narrowed. “They’re gone, Shad.”

“Dead?”

He shook his head. “I wish I knew. Not a trace.”

“Up and gone—like smoke?”

“Stole.”

“Took off, like prisoners?”

“Or worse.”

“You know who?”

“A little. A bad bunch running through Missouri there at the end of the war. Taking what they wanted from farms and settlements.”

“Heard tales there was a lot of that,” Sweete replied, not knowing what else to say.