A Man Called Sunday (16 page)

“This oughta hold us till we run up on some deer or antelope, though,” Wylie said. “Where you figure we oughta head? Back toward Cheyenne?” When they had left the army encampment, they had ridden out to the north, for no particular reason other than it seemed the quickest way to put the various battalion and company camps behind them.

“Don't seem like the smartest thing to do, does it? Goin' back to Cheyenne? There's liable to be some questions asked about us leavin' right after they found that little bastard's body.” He took a long look at the simple man who had taken Sonny Pickens's place as his partner. So far Wylie had proven to be little more than a toady, striving to make himself useful in Bogart's eyes.
Well, I've got a use for someone like that,
he thought. But all the same, he missed Sonny's fearlessness when it came to a barroom brawl, or a throat that needed slitting. His musing brought another to mind, the man who had killed Sonny. The thought caused him to grunt irritably, “Huh.” He reached over and speared another slice of bacon on the tip of his bowie knife. “I've been thinkin' about where I wanna go, and the more I think about it, the more I'm satisfied that we need to head out for the Yellowstone.”

“Why?” Wylie wondered. “What's up there?”

“Well,” Bogart replied with a devilish grin, “there's a couple of things. You remember that wagon that came up from Medicine Bow with them folks that was hurtin' so bad to get to some new town on the Yellowstone? I expect you remember that fine-lookin' wife that feller had.” Wylie nodded. “Captain Findley said them folks was tryin' to get up there 'cause some of their family had struck it rich and was lookin' to buy up a whole lotta land up on the Yellowstone.” He paused to wipe the bacon grease on the sleeve of his shirt. “You know who they took to guide 'em?”

Again, Wylie nodded, then said, “Luke Sunday.”

“That's right, Luke Sunday. And that murderin' Injun lover ain't the kind to do nobody no favors unless there's somethin' in it for him. So that says to me that he knows somethin' he don't feel like talkin' about, and I don't think he's got a right to whatever it is any more than we do. If somebody's got some gold they're lookin' to spend, then we need to be up there and see if we can help 'em get rid of it.”

“Well, that sounds all right to me,” Wylie said. “Whatever you think is best.”

Bogart was silent for a long moment, a deep furrow etched across his brow. He held his knife up before his face and tested the sharpness of the blade with his thumb. “I've got somethin' to settle with Mr. Luke Sunday, and the sooner, the better.”

Chapter 9

A chilling rain had set in right after they left Pumpkin Creek and Luke unrolled the canvas he had removed from Mary Beth's wagon. Half of it was used as a tent for her when they camped. The other half he had cut into two pieces. With one, he fashioned a raincoat to drape over her head and shoulders. The other was secured over the packs on the extra horse. For his own protection against the rain, he always carried a cloak made out of deer hide. The rain never let up throughout the morning as they continued on a northwest course, and it was close to noon before it began to taper off. By the time they reached the east bank of the Tongue River, horses and riders were both ready to stop and rest.

After Luke took a good look around them, he picked a spot on the west bank, and they crossed over. Mary Beth was bone-weary, but after Luke got a fire going, she rallied to take on the chore of fixing something for them to eat while he removed the packs and the saddle from their horses. “We'll stop here for a spell and give you a chance to rest up,” he told her. His demeanor also told her that he was no longer worried about being followed by the two Sioux warriors. Enough time had passed since their flight from the Powder to suggest that they had left that danger behind them. Added to that was the possibility that the morning rain had helped to obliterate their tracks. In spite of the improvement in their situation, Mary Beth was still unable to discard the feeling of tension that had remained with her ever since David's death—for she was still a woman alone with a man as close to a wild savage as she had ever met in her entire life. Now that imminent danger was no longer upon them, would he attempt to take advantage of her as a savage might? As if intercepting her thoughts, he turned at that moment to gaze at her. After a lengthy pause, he said, “You look like you need some extra time to rest. We'll stay an extra night here.”

“All right,” she replied hesitantly, “if you think that's best, but I'm not too tired to go on right now.”

He continued to gaze intensely at her for a few moments longer, then said, “It's best we stay here and rest. Then we'll head for the Yellowstone.”

He seemed forceful in his tone. She wasn't sure she liked it, for it might be a sign that he had things on his mind now other than their escape from the Sioux. Suddenly she felt exhausted. If what she feared was true, there was very little she could do to stop him. Sooner or later she was going to find out what was on his mind. It might as well be sooner. Weary from carrying such thoughts of fear of the man, she poured them out on the ground between them. “I'm afraid of you,” she blurted. “Do I need to be?”

Her blunt statement caught him completely by surprise and his eyes opened wide. “Why, no, ma'am,” he replied, baffled by the question. “Why'd you think you did?”

She stared at him, half expecting him to fly into a rage, but the genuine astonishment she read in his eyes was enough to finally convince her that she had made a gross misjudgment of the man. “I swear . . . ,” she started to apologize, realizing she had let her fears and imagination create a ridiculous picture. Suddenly she found the situation hilarious and started to laugh uncontrollably, unable to finish her remark. His bewildered reaction to her laughing fit almost convinced her that, contrary to the fears she had harbored, he might be more afraid of her. Her nerves, strained to the point of exhaustion by the harrowing events of the last several days, seemed to release their tension with her laughter. He stood, perplexed, watching and wondering if the woman really had gone mad, accustomed as he was to the resolute reaction of Crow or Cheyenne women when faced with danger. Although he was born a white man, he had always lived with one Indian tribe or another. This was his first exposure to a white woman and he had wondered if they were different. Maybe she was not really mad. Maybe she was just white.

When finally she was able to recover from the massive release of the fear she had built up, she dropped to the ground, feeling very much like a rag, but with a great sense of relief, for she felt safe with her wild man for the first time. She wiped her eyes with her sleeves, and released a long sigh that signaled the end of her attack. “Mr. Sunday,” she stated in straightforward words, “I apologize for not trusting you completely, for thinking you might rob me or harm me. I promise I won't misjudge you again.”

“Luke,” he reminded her again. “There ain't no Mr. Sunday.”

His reply brought yet another smile to her face. “Luke,” she repeated. “Thank you for all you have done for David and me.”

“I ain't got you there yet,” he reminded her.

Her smile broadened. “Even so,” she said, “I thank you.” She realized that he didn't really know how to accept thanks for doing something he was being paid to do. “Now, let's see if I can cook up some more of that meat we're packing, and if the flour stayed dry, maybe I can come up with something to go with it.”

Things went better for both of them after that. Mary Beth no longer tried to keep one eye on Luke, secure in the belief that her welfare was his main concern. As for Luke, he couldn't help noticing the change in her manner, and that made it more comfortable for him. After spending an extra day at the camp on the Tongue River, they started out on a course that led them to the northwest, leaving the river. One day's ride brought them close to the Yellowstone at the point where Rosebud Creek emptied into it. There had been no sign of Indian travel between the Tongue and the Yellowstone except for one trail heading west where unshod ponies, some pulling travois, had passed. Luke determined that the trail was several days old. They continued through a line of low hills until he figured they could be no farther than a mile or two from the river, so he turned the gray toward the slope of the highest ridge and climbed to the top. From there, they could see the wide, peaceful river as it flowed snakelike through the high plains of Montana Territory.

While Luke was intent upon searching the river for as far as he could see, east and west, for any sign of Indian camps, Mary Beth was struck by the beauty of it. “I didn't know it was so big,” she said. “It's so wide and peaceful.”

“I reckon it is peaceful on this part of it,” Luke allowed, “but it ain't that peaceful back up in the mountains where it starts out.”

She turned to look at him then. “You've seen where it originates?”

“Yes, ma'am, up in the Absarokas. It's pretty country up that way.”

She smiled and slowly nodded with a slight feeling of envy. “You really are a child of the wilderness, aren't you?”

He shrugged, not knowing how to answer the question. It seemed that since she had decided she had nothing to fear from him, she tended to talk to him more. And much of what she said confused him. “Well,” he said, “I can't see any sign of trouble, so I reckon we best get movin'.”

* * *

Having reached the Yellowstone, Luke was now as much in the dark as she, for he had never heard of a town called Coulson until he met David and Mary Beth. The Crow people had frequented the area for many years, but Luke had not been back for quite some time. Based on what David had told him, Coulson was on the river, some distance east of the Gallatin Valley. That could be anywhere within a large area, so the only thing they could do was to travel west along the river until they eventually found it.

Late in the afternoon of their first day following the winding river, they came upon a trading post. Little more than a shack perched on the edge of a high bank, the store looked in danger of tumbling down the bluffs to land in the water at the first gust from a north wind. The owner apparently lived in an old army squad tent beside the store. Luke pulled the gray to a halt to study the shack. “'Pears to be a tradin' post,” he said to Mary Beth.

His remark caused her to pull the paint up closer to the trail leading down to the store to get a look for herself. “It doesn't look like much,” she said.

“I expect he mostly trades with the Indians,” Luke replied.

“Do you suppose there's any chance he might have coffee beans?” Mary Beth asked. “We're almost out, and we don't know how far it is to Coulson.”

“Don't know,” Luke answered. “He might.”

Mary Beth looked doubtful. “Where on earth would he get them?”

“Riverboat,” Luke replied. “I expect that's where he gets most anything he sells.”

She was still skeptical. “Why would a riverboat stop at that little shack?”

Luke pointed to several stacks of logs, cut into even lengths, down near the water's edge. “Wood,” he answered. “Those riverboat captains will pay for wood for their engines.”

“Oh,” she exclaimed softly, then gave him a smile. “Let's go see if he has any coffee beans, because in about two more days we're going to be out.”

Luke glanced at the packhorse, then back at her. “I ain't got no pelts or nothin' to trade,” he said apologetically.

She laughed. “I've got a little bit of money,” she said. “Remember?”

“I forgot,” he replied, truthfully. Nudging the gray gently, he guided the horse down the path to the trading post.

Lem Sloat frowned and squinted in an effort to identify the two riders descending the path to his store. As they came closer, he reached up and thoughtfully stroked his beard, curious as to what they might be carrying in the packs on the extra horse. “Pearl,” he called. His Crow wife, Walks-With-A-Stick, whom he called Pearl, came from the tent to stand beside him. “You ever see them folks before?” Lem asked. She shook her head. “One of 'em's a woman. T'other's an Injun or a trapper. I ain't sure which, but it don't look like a load of pelts on that horse.” He got up from the stool he had been seated on by the fire, and then set his plate on it. “Seems like somebody always has to come when I'm eatin' my supper.” He rubbed his ample belly with one hand, wiping the grease from his fingers, and started toward the front of his store to greet the strangers.

“How do?” Lem called out when Luke and Mary Beth pulled their horses to a stop before the door. “Ain't seen you folks around here before. Where you headed?”

“Coulson,” Mary Beth volunteered cheerfully as she stepped down from the saddle, her spirits lifted by the mere sight of another white man. “Maybe you know where that is.”

“Yes, ma'am, I surely do, and a right lively little town is what I hear. It's about three days west of here, dependin' on how fast you're traveling.” Sloat smiled pleasantly for the lady while his eyes never left the sandy-haired scout holding a rifle in one hand with a bow strapped on his back. “My name's Lem Sloat,” he said. “This here's my place of business. What can I do for you folks?” He stepped back cautiously when Luke threw a leg over and slid off the spotted gray pony. The couple was not a common sight on the trail along the Yellowstone, and Lem's mind was already turning over the different explanations for the seemingly odd pairing.

“We were wondering if you might have some coffee beans we could buy,” Mary Beth spoke up as they followed him inside. If anything else came to mind, she decided it would have to wait, for Lem Sloat's shelves were sparsely stocked.

“I do,” Lem replied. “You're in luck. I've got some come fresh up the river last month, and we got two forty-pound sacks of 'em already roasted. My wife is the one who roasts 'em, and there ain't nobody does 'em better.”

“I reckon she'd be the woman standin' at the back of the cabin with that rifle stickin' through the knothole,” Luke commented dryly.

Lem Sloat had close to a full face of dingy gray whiskers, but even so, the sudden flush was clearly evident in the small parts of his face not covered by hair. “No offense, mister, but with what just happened southwest of here on the Little Big Horn, ever'body's kinda jumpy.” He hesitated before adding, “And you did look a helluva lot like an Injun when you came ridin' up, even if you was with him, ma'am.” He favored Mary Beth with another smile, then called to his wife, “It's all right, Pearl. Come on in.” Turning to Luke again, he said, “You got pretty sharp eyes, mister. Most folks don't spot that rifle barrel stickin' through them pelts hangin' on the back wall.”

Astonished by the words just exchanged between Luke and Sloat, Mary Beth was at a loss for words, but soon recovered. “I guess we'll take one of those forty-pound bags if the price is not too high.” She looked at Luke then for approval. “Is that all right? Can I put forty more pounds on the horse?”

“Yes, ma'am,” Luke replied. “It ain't too much.” Without pause, he then turned back to Sloat and asked, “What trouble on the Little Big Horn?”

“You ain't heard?” Sloat responded with surprise. “Some army troops under General Custer attacked a big camp of Sioux and Cheyenne on the Little Big Horn. Only problem, I reckon, is them soldiers didn't know there was so many Injuns in that camp. What I heard was ol' Sittin' Bull and Crazy Horse's people were there, Cheyenne, Arapaho, thousands of Injuns, and Custer jumped 'em. They wiped out ever' last one of them soldiers, includin' Custer himself. Don't know how many was killed, maybe five hundred or more, maybe a thousand. The word I got was that that big Injun camp broke up after they whipped the soldiers and scattered, so folks along the Yellowstone has been seein' Injuns behind ever' outhouse, expectin' to get scalped ever' time they go to do their business.”

“Have you seen any Sioux war parties up this far?” Luke asked.

“Nah, I ain't seen none, but there's a lot of settlers movin' into this part of the valley, and they're scared them Injuns might take a notion to start raidin' up through here.”

Sloat's story had a chilling effect on Mary Beth, just when she was beginning to believe she was soon going to find her brother-in-law. She had visions of a giant red horde overrunning the countryside, plundering and killing innocent white settlers. Luke noticed her trembling and sought to set her mind at ease. “But you ain't seen no Indians hereabouts yourself?” he repeated.