Magnificent Guns of Seneca 6 (11 page)
The men came forward, each of them crouched forward in anticipation of firing their rifles.
All except the one in the middle.
The one in the mask.
“You like my decorating, Tookie?” he said.
Keewassee saw more of the men coming up on their sides pinning them in, moving like eager killers.
He looked back at the man and said nothing.
The masked man turned to look up into the tree and said, “These boys somehow got wind of where we was and tried a come up on ol’ Jim.
But Jim ain’t the kind you easily come up on.”
He circled around Keewassee's destrier and said, “Now who do you suppose told them how to find us?”
Keewassee looked up at the bodies and said, “They are Akashame.
River people.
When the wasichu came, they were the first to sign his treaties.
Now they are forced to live like scavengers.
If they had been true to the old ways, this would not be so.”
Keewassee looked down at the man in the mask and said, “If they had been true to the old ways you would be a dead man right now.”
“So how do I know it wasn’t you that sent them?”
“Because I would not send Akashame for a task such as this.”
“No?
Who would you send?”
“I would do it myself.”
The masked man chuckled and said, “I bet.
So what brings you out here, friend?
Just good conversation, or were you fixing to do some trading?”
Keewassee looked back at the caged wagon and said, “Tonight I have brought you something different than before.”
“Different how?” he said.
“Our deal was squaws.
Not too young, not too old, and not too ugly.
You bring me some raggedy bag full of deformities and left overs and we ain’t trading.”
“Before I tell you anything else, I want you to know they were not harmed.
They were not touched.
They were fed.”
Gentleman Jim smiled sharply at him, “How about we cut the foreplay and bump uglies, Tookie?
What did you bring me?”
Keewassee cocked his head and one of his Beothuk threw the caged wagon’s rear door open.
The women inside screamed as he reached in and grabbed the first limb he could find.
Ruth kicked at him violently but he grabbed her by the ankles and yanked her out of the wagon so fast that she fell on the dirty ground with a thud.
He snatched her by the hair and lifted her head, showing her face to the wasichu.
The masked man yanked his pistol free and shoved it against Keewassee’s belly.
“You got five seconds to tell me what the hell you’re doing with a cart full of white women, itjin.”
“They came to us.
They wanted to come live among The People and learn our ways.”
He headed for Ruth and said, “Is that true?
You came here to join the itjins?”
“Our church did,” Ruth hissed.
“But he killed Willard!”
“Who’s Willard?”
“Our teacher.
The one who brought us here.”
The masked man looked her up and down and nodded approvingly.
“Teacher, huh?
I just bet he was.
Get the rest of the women out of that damn cage before I lose my temper.”
“Please save us,” Ruth begged.
“Please, in the name of the Great Spirit, I beg you to save us from these monsters.”
“First things first, buttercup,” he said.
He waited for the rest of the women to get ripped out of the wagon, laughing as they spat and cursed in fury at the Beothuk who touched them.
He knelt down to inspect Elizabeth Hall but recoiled in revulsion at the vomit staining her chest.
The masked man bent down and washed his hand in the dirt and said, “I reckon if we clean ‘em up a bit they’ll do just fine.
Especially this young ‘un.
Not that our buyer is real particular.
Long as a girl’s got the right amount of holes, he’ll pay.
I mean, they been takin’ squaws, so a few white women should be like Christmas come all over again.”
He snapped his fingers at his men and said, “Round ‘em up, boys.”
Keewassee watched the filthy wasichu grab hold of the women and thought,
Good.
Better to be rid of them.
“There may be others.
Ones like these.
I do not know yet.”
The masked man mounted his destrier and stayed silent for a moment, thinking it over.
“The deal we had was for redskin slots only.
We start taking real people and the law will come down on us harder than divine judgment.
Plus, taking squaws is one thing, but taking white girls seems, I dunno.
Uncivilized.”
Keewassee looked at his riders who had the wasichu from the group bound and gagged across the backs of their destriers.
“What do you want me to do with the men who came with them?”
“Well, they wanted to be with the Beothuk, right?”
He looked up at the dead native bodies hanging from the tree and said, “There you go.
Itjin and whiteman, together at last.”
Three days.
Three days in the sun and heat, after Bob Ford fled Seneca 5 with no destrier and no water.
Just a damn gun,
he thought bitterly.
It’s going to be the thing I use to blow my brains out and end this misery.
He slumped against a rock and stayed there long enough that vultures started swirling over him, waiting until it was safe to descend and start pecking at him.
Something was approaching.
Bob lifted his head as much as he could, but could make out nothing more than a swirl of dust in the shimmering heat.
He tried to swallow, but his throat refused.
It was like someone had scraped sandpaper down his insides and stuffed it with cotton.
He reached for his pistol but his hand slipped off the Devastator’s handle and finally, he managed to raise his arm in the air before collapsing on the road.
His body contracted and extended in the dirt like a worm, a system of gears and cables that had run out of oil and started grinding against one another, glowing hot.
A wagon trucked past him, swerving at the last second before the single mount pulling it trampled Bob.
He choked on its dust and gagged on dirt as it filled his nose and mouth and eyes, swirling around him in a filthy cloud from the wagon’s tires.
A strong arm lifted his head up from the ground and someone spoke, but the words were strange and muffled.
Bob felt cool water trickle across his chest and dribble over his forehead, watering him like a plant.
Water touched his lips.
Droplets slid down into the white fissures of his cracked mouth.
Everything inside of him began to bloom again.
Bob looked up at the man who held him and saw an angel silhouetted by sunlight.
“God sent you for me?” Bob said.
“Not exactly,” the man said softly.
“But I guess you’ll do for now.”
***
Bob woke up in the back of the wagon, wedged between the wall and an enormous contraption that filled up the rest of the compartment.
It was covered by a dirty tarp and Bob clutched handfuls of it to pull himself off the floor.
“Hello?” he called out.
There wasn’t room enough to stand inside the wagon.
Sharp metal corners stuck into him from whatever was hidden beneath the tarp.
Bob hammered his fist against the wall and shouted, “Hello?
Anybody out there?”
The wagon’s brake screeched and Bob had to brace himself against the doorframe to keep from getting bounced into the heavy metal frame.
He reached down to feel the floor and realized his gun was missing and reached around in the darkness to see if he’d dropped it.
That was when the side door opened and there it was, pointed right at him.
The man holding the gun was old enough that his long hair ran thick with streaks of silver.
His eyes were feline, drawn to sharp points over his weathered cheeks.
His long, thin mustache dropped straight down toward the gleaming white preacher collar around his throat.
“What’s your name, son?”
“Bob Ford,” Bob said.
He put both his hands up through the door and added, “Sir.”
The man wrapped both of his black leather-gloved hands around the Devastator and cocked the handle back.
“I’m only going to ask you this one time, Bob Ford.
What are you doing out here?”
Bob lowered his eyes for a moment, feeling his lip twitch while his mind spun like a roulette wheel, waiting to land on some kind of answer.
“My destrier died and I was stranded.
I thought I was a goner for sure until you came along.”
“You with a gang, Bob Ford?”
“No, sir.”
“You with a gang that steals women and sells them off-planet?
They get mad at you and leave you out here, Bob Ford?”
“No, sir!
But I reckon me and you have a similar interest in finding such men.
I come to Seneca to find just such a person and bring him to justice, God willing.”
“You some kind of a lawman?
You don’t look like one.”
“No, sir, I ain’t no lawman.
I’m just trying to find the type of villain you seem to be so agitated about and hand him over to Johnny Saringo at the first opportunity.”
The preacher’s eyes narrowed, “Saringo’s looking for him?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And what does he have over you to make you do such a thing?”
Bob shook his head, “That’s a private matter, sir, and I prefer not to speak of it, even if you are a preacher and even if you do have me at gunpoint.”
The preacher flipped the gun backwards and dropped it behind his belt in one fluid motion.
“I’m gonna hold on to this weapon for a while until we get to know one another a little better if that’s all right with you, Mr. Ford.
Come on out of there now.
You can ride up front since you’re awake.”
