These Violent Times Read online

  The war is behind us, the railroad uniting us, while more and more brave men are charged with protecting our lives and properties. Where does this renegade John Bishop, this “Shotgun,” as he has been monikered, fit into our modern, and growing, society?

  This Eye Witness, who has seen too much of his slaughter and mayhem, including members of my own family who died alongside young troopers guarding a government gold shipment, declares that John Bishop does not fit into the New West.

  And to that, I am personally offering a bounty of $10,000 to any reader who assists in Bishop’s capture, or assassination, by sheriff, territorial marshal, any recognized deputy, or private individual acting in self-defense. All information obtained will be strictly confidential, until Bishop’s capture or demise, and then will be the subject of articles/books penned with skill by this author.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Demon

  The blood spatters were jagged brown stars across the little girl’s face, their dried edges broken by streaks of tears. Her tiny arms, dotted with a hundred more brownish little spots, locked around White Fox’s neck, holding on for dear life.

  “Hávêsévemâhta’sóoma! ” said the fragile little voice. A tangle of Cheyenne and sobs, meaning “The Demon!”

  Beside the fire, White Fox held the child, obscenely caked with dried blood and muddy leaves. The older woman felt the hysteria roll through her tiny body; arms and legs thrashing wild, fighting something invisible. Trying to kill it.

  Screaming about the Demon.

  The constable known as Firecrow watched White Fox from the other side of the tepee, shifting a bowie knife between his large, flat palms, making a judgment. He then spoke, but in the older Suhtai language of the Northern tribe. “She was burrowed-up in a hollow log on the edge of the Platte River. I thought she was a fawn, got herself stuck. Pulled her out by the ankles. She clawed me until I knotted her wrists together, lashed her to my horse. She never stopped crying ’Demon, Demon,’ the whole ride.”

  White Fox responded in Suhtai; like ancient poetry to her. “You saved her life.”

  “Her wits?”

  White Fox nodded. She was sure she would recover. Children were malleable.

  “An orphan?”

  “So it appears,” the man replied. “She is not from here.”

  “No,” White Fox agreed. She did not recognize her or the fishbone necklace she wore; that design was not of her people. There had been a fire to the north the week before. Many Comanche were displaced, she had heard. Perhaps she was one.

  Constable kept turning the knife. “You understood all that I’m saying, these words of the elders?”

  “All of it.” White Fox thought for a moment. “For now I will call her Little Hen, because of the way her hair sticks up.”

  “You cannot avoid issues by talking around them.”

  “You cannot solve them by talking at them,” she replied.

  White Fox brought the girl’s dampened face to her shoulder, a tight embrace, quieting her until finally, the only sound was the crackle of the hot stones in the cook fire. She took a cloth from a water bowl, squeezed the run-off through her fist, then pressed it against the child’s face, letting her feel the cool.

  “Fear is hot, allow the cold to help you,” White Fox told her.

  The young one tried to do her part. She swallowed the cries, the sniffling. It struggled to come back and the older woman held her more tightly. There was a quiet majesty to the latter. A sense of life lived, challenges met and survived. Of appreciation for both the trials and setbacks that gave her strength. She would say that her strength came from many sources. From the earth and sky. From the painted stallion she rode. From her tribe. But mostly it came from her spiritual connection to the man whose life she had saved, and who had in turn saved her own. John Bishop.

  Unlike Bishop, White Fox was not a haunted soul. She existed in the moment, and right now the moment was this girl. “She’s terrified,” the beautiful Cheyenne woman said.

  “Of the Demon,” Firecrow said. “What cut her?”

  “Squeezing into the log, I would expect.”

  “True or not, the Demon was there, she says. I have to know what she means, who she means, to do something about it.”

  “To kill someone.”

  “Or some thing. Animal or man, it makes no difference, as long as it helps the child. Prevents further injury.”

  “These could be bear scratches,” White Fox said. “Children approach baby bears unwitting.”

  “Then why did she not call it a bear?”

  White Fox’s voice was now flat, even, honoring the old language. “Because a frightened child is not always a rational child.”

  “But I am,” Firecrow said. “It’s my duty to protect, not to prove or disprove fables.”

  He was referring to the story of the fish she had told the girl, and of the bear that had frightened them both. The fish could not harm the bigger animal so they let the river shield them in its current where the bear could not stand.

  “There is always a place where a bear—or demon—cannot go,” White Fox had said. “But first we must know what it is.”

  White Fox wrapped the girl in a blanket, aware of Firecrow’s eyes on her, fixed and deep-set in a face carved from oak, of the knife still turning in his hands.

  She wiped more blood from the girl’s face, smearing away the stars, careful not to pull any damaged skin. But there was none. She rinsed the cloth, pinking the water, wiped the girl’s arms and around her shoulders.

  White Fox said, “I’m finding no wounds.”

  “Then, how?”

  Firecrow had moved to the back of the tepee’s curve, where scarred battle shields hung above stacks of blankets, and medicine jars. He poked at a shield with his knife, sending it sideways on its leather hanger.

  White Fox was still running her fingers through the girl’s hair, checking for wounds, and decided, “Those spots are mine.”

  “This blood here.” He indicated a shield that had caught his attention. “Also yours?”

  “Some of it. Mostly others’.”

  He shifted his attention to a harness that was made for the neck of a horse, one slot for a large hunting knife, another for a heavy tomahawk. The edge of the hatchet, poking from above the strap that held it, was new. Kept in good repair. Ready.

  “You were once a warrior, as I was.” He went on sharply, “Now I am a keeper of the peace.”

  White Fox washed more blood away. “That’s a Sioux braid hanging from your belt.”

  “From the Black Hills War,” Firecrow said, pulling at the braid that hung beside a short-blade throwing ax. “Just a boy when I took it, and this was my choice of weapon, the blade perfectly edged with leather and water. Thin and strong. I hadn’t got to know my enemies yet, but it would still be my choice today.”

  White Fox asked, “Better than a gun?”

  “Better?” Firecrow said. “Yes. With a gun you become reliant on the weapon, not on your skill, not on your purpose. A lazy man becomes fearful, cautions. Such a man becomes a victim. There should be effort in taking a life.”

  White Fox slipped a hand behind some clay jars by her bed, sliding a battle club hidden there within reach, keeping the handle down, and said, “More effort should go into protecting them.”

  Firecrow examined poultice sacks hanging from a support pole. Smelling them, balancing one on the edge of the knife blade. Approving, in the old language, of the “true medicine.”

  White Fox gave a cautious nod. “Medicine is anything that heals.” She kissed the girl on her warm forehead. “Anything.”

  “Then death is a medicine?” Firecrow asked.

  “Death does not heal. It is something else, beyond healing or affliction.”

  Firecrow was not happy with that answer. He was not happy with anything. “I used to ride patrols, now I ride patrol and bury the dead. Over a hundred this month. All fever, no war. And no healing.”

  From o
utside, a drum started to beat. Steady, then breaking into rhythms, into words.

  Firecrow said, “War drums . . . but they are sending the warning of fever in the camp.”

  “I hear it,” White Fox replied. “Always the same now. The fear of a spreading fire.”

  “A righteous fear, of a fire that will never go out.”

  “We will find a cure,” White Fox insisted.

  “That is why I brought the child to you,” Firecrow answered. “The Demon. Maybe it is in her mind as disease is in her blood.”

  He was standing over a wooden case, with leather pockets for bottled medicine, and a drawer for surgical knives. He pushed at it with a moccasin, tipping it back, but not over, seeing the army medical insignia gold-painted on its side.

  Firecrow measured his Suhtai words, chopping them as he spoke. “New medicine. White medicine. I can think of one thousand reasons to reject it.”

  “I can think of one reason not to.” She regarded the girl.

  “And if the Demon is in her?”

  White Fox tightened her grip on the club, her body shielding the child. “Then it will be driven out.”

  The two stared at one another as Firecrow said, “You got this from that army doctor, the one who all the tales are told about. Almost legends.”

  “There is dishonor in that?” she challenged.

  “In that, no. You rode with him for how long?” The way Firecrow said “rode” suggested something more intimate.

  Before White Fox could reply, the little girl screamed again, same words erupting.

  Firecrow regarded the bowie, the blade angled to catch White Fox’s reflection. She watched his eyes. The blade, with her hand on the battle club. The drumming was fading, moving off.

  “Fever,” he said, sheathing the knife. “The baby’s mind and spirit, corrupted. She will not live a week.”

  “She is not corrupted,” White Fox insisted.

  Firecrow said, “You really shouldn’t be here at all . . . you should be pushing on to the reservation.”

  “Use your authority to push me, then?”

  Firecrow measured his words again, emphasizing the old language. “If I had intended to harm or force you, I would have—”

  “Tried,” she added. “I have to be alone with her now. Leave.”

  “Very well. I have said what I came to say. For now.”

  Firecrow stepped through the fire to the hide-opening, and said, as though it were an insult not a commendation, “Má’heóná’e”—Medicine woman—before slipping out.

  White Fox exhaled and let go of the club, taking one of the medicine jars and pouring root tea, then dropping quinine tablets in to break the girl’s temperature. White Fox let it stir, old and new medicine mixing, keeping a hand on the girl, then sitting her up to drink.

  “The Demon,” the girl repeated.

  White Fox said, “He’s gone, he’s gone.”

  The warning drums were as quiet as a pulse, the girl drinking, the tea soothing, taking control, and then White Fox placed both hands on her face, cradling her jaw. Gently, but letting her feel the grip.

  “The blood,” White Fox said softly. “Whose is it?”

  The little girl looked directly at White Fox. About to scream, but then, “It came from the sky.”

  “You mean—as the rain?”

  The girl sat stiffly, her eyes wide, her mouth the opposite.

  “Tell me. You don’t have to be afraid.”

  White Fox relaxed her hold and eased back. The girl’s body reacted as if she were being pulled from the log again, out of any and all protection. Her eyes rolled back, and she cried: “A rain of blood! That came with the Demon as he rode. Blood from the sky, and flame shooting from his arms!”

  White Fox held the girl tighter, keeping her safe. “It cannot be a demon, it must be a man. Tell me.”

  “No!” the girl continued screaming, weeping, as if speaking the spoken words once again made the spirit real. Finally she said, “Hávêsévemâhta’sóoma. The Demon who is half-man, and half-gun.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Last Rites

  “Watch the bloodstains, Homer.”

  Avery spoke in tones that invoked a wholly inappropriate yet apt reverence.

  “I’m watching,” the older man said.

  “They were spilled by John Bishop and they are precious indeed.”

  “I heard you the first four times,” Homer Lancaster grumped.

  Homer sighed as he dipped a paintbrush, finishing the circle of yellow around the blood spatters across the floor, some from the dead man and some from the rattler. He’d already marked the bullet holes in the ceiling and walls, and painted a circle to surround the blood spray on the door, so everyone could see. At least the open window kept the paint fumes from making him dizzy. A man like Homer who worked for a man like Avery had to be grateful for the little things.

  Homer rose slowly, shuffled to a bunk, knees creaking, as Avery lifted a heavy sign, struggling to position it beside the shattered window in the corner of the room. A red bandanna wrapped his bald head, hiding his bandage.

  It was a piece of old plank, with SHOTGUN BISHOP’S LATEST VICTIMS MET THEIR MAKER ON THIS VERY SPOT scrawled across it. Avery teetered, hips rolling, as he held the thing against the wall. Homer watched, then yawned.

  “Lord save me, I’ve got a real hunger going,” Homer said. “And, I ain’t been paid.”

  Avery coughed, fat arms straining to hold the sign in place. “When word of what happened here spreads, you’ll be papering these walls with hundred-dollar bills.”

  “Your walls,” Homer noted.

  “From which I will pull them like leaves, and bestow them on all who serve.”

  “God’s manna,” Homer said. “I got stuck with a suitcase of that Confederate scrip’ one time,” he warned as he dropped the brush in the paint can, pulled at his beard, considering. “And what d’you think Bishop’s gonna do when he finds out about all this phony take-on?”

  “There’s nothing phony,” Avery said defensively. “The men did die here. By his hand. Or . . . well, one hand. Just nail this damn thing, would you?”

  Homer put some bent nails between his teeth, holding them as he took up his hammer. “You know I had to pull these out of a pew, one of the ones to the back of the church.”

  “God won’t mind. In fact, He would commend you. ’Thou Shalt Raise Up Your Fellow Man.’ This puts those brads to better use. Bring people back to Good Fortune, fill the church and the saloon, and we’ll build anything we need to accommodate the crowds. God will be very pleased. Satan sent these men on a vile mission and was stymied.”

  Homer drove nails into the old plank. “How many times you get cracked in the skull?”

  “Fewer than you. Better ideas? I’ll consider them.”

  “A full church,” Homer said thoughtfully as he hammered another. “I could go back to preaching again.”

  “Indeed,” Avery agreed. “And I’ll be right there among the faithful to receive your message . . . and to thank the Good Lord for His bounty.”

  The planking split along the knots, the nails going through the rot hidden inside the sign, to more rot in the old window frame, and Homer said, “Sure hope your scheme works, Mr. Mayor. This place could use all the help it can beg.”

  Avery took a step, judging the handiwork, saying, “These killings mean our begging days are truly over.”

  “You still ain’t said what Bishop might do, he sees all this.”

  “John expects no better, so he won’t be surprised at my exploitation,” Avery said, then couldn’t help his grin. “Or, he might kill me—”

  Homer spit. “I’ll put up that sign.”

  “—and you,” Avery added.

  Homer hammered faster.

  Avery was looking down to the street, through the last pieces of broken glass in the window frame, and said solemnly, “But I’m guessing he’s already made his plans, and they do not include me or you or Good Fortune
.”

  Avery’s hand rested on Homer’s shoulder, his weight bending the old man as he followed his own look, down and out to the street. He absently touched his head, feeling the wound through the bandanna.

  “Where’s your gun?”

  Homer didn’t have to think. “Jacket pocket, downstairs.”

  “Get it.”

  “That surely ain’t Bishop ridin’ in.”

  “Just get your gun.”

  “Your carbine too?”

  “No,” Avery said. “Not how we’re playing it.”

  “This is turning into quite a day,” Homer said, shaking his head, his beady eyes growing wider. “I can probably still throw a mean hammer, if I have to.”

  Avery said, “I remember it well. Your wife.”

  Homer slipped the hammer through his belt loop. “That was an accident. My sister-in-law was on purpose.”

  Avery was still at the broken window. “Make this ’on purpose.’ Now get the damn gun.”

  * * *

  Avery blinked, then shook his head to clear any pain, any streaks of light, as he watched the four horses pulling the hearse around the old general store, skidding across the slop of Main Street, then angling for the hotel, where he stood.

  Seen through the evening wet, the horses were a vision of ghost-riders; blazing white, with black stars marking their foreheads, all four moving as one animal. The driver, massive chest and arms, cracked a bullwhip, keeping the team hard-running, the hearse’s wheels cutting ruts in the Good Fortune mud.

  A once-elegant coach, black-lacquered and trimmed in silver and carved glass, the hearse’s roof and sides had been extended with bolted iron plates, turning it into a rolling fortress.

  Standing on the hotel porch, Avery waved to the driver and passenger as they got closer, keeping his other hand in the pocket with the straight razor and derringer.

  The passenger, sporting a new homburg and with a crisp leather satchel across his knees, returned the wave, as the driver braked to a stop directly in front of Hospitality House. Wheels locked and mud churning, the horses pulled back, legs chopping the air, then settled.

  “Am I addressing the law or the landlord?”