The Red Hills (13 page)

Moving very slowly so Simpson wouldn't have the trace of an excuse to murder him, Crow reached round and pulled out from his belt what he'd taken off the decapitated corpse of the Oglala warrior. Throwing them down in the dirt at Menges's feet.

The scalps of two Troopers, Captain. And one other. Not a head scalp. Off a lady. Not off her head, Captain Menges, Sir. Look at it!'

The little officer doubled over, retching at the sight. It was a piece of skin about six inches by six inches. Triangular.

Blood clotted among the wiry hairs.

Thick, long, curling, pubic hairs...

But it didn't make any difference.

Some, but not enough.

There was the word of Captain Silas Menges.

Captain.

Against the word of Lieutenant Crow.

Lieutenant.

And there was the evidence before the court-martial at Fort Buford of Trooper Simpson.

That was what tipped the balance against Crow. The senior officers didn't take to Menges. And there was evidence from the other survivors of the Indian attack that maybe everything wasn't quite like the Captain said.

But Simpson came across like an honest and bewildered soldier, telling it the best he knew. Backing up Menges.

Crow knew how it would go. The only way it could go.

He waited for the verdict, knowing that the very best he could hope for was to be dismissed the Cavalry with ignominy. But the odds were he'd be shot.

The soldiers guarding him were friendly, moaning about the standard of officers like Menges.

'They might as well send in the clowns, Lieutenant Crow,' said one, offering him a cigar.

'Yeah,' he replied, lighting it up, wrinkling his eyes against the light of the match. 'They look for better times. But it's always the same. Maybe next year.'

'Guilty.'

But they took into account Crow's previous record and what they called the 'certain conflict over some points of evidence giving a cause for a reasonable degree of doubt.'

So it wasn't death.

Simply a dishonorable discharge from the services of the United States Cavalry with effect from that moment.

'Turn in your uniform and all your equipment at the commissary, Lieutenant Crow. Sorry, I guess that ought to be Mister Crow.'

He hadn't replied. There was too much on his mind to bother with details like that. Everything else blurred out apart from wondering just how and when he'd get his revenge on Captain Silas Menges and Trooper Edward Simpson.

'It's just a matter of time,' he said quietly, not even aware that he'd spoken his thoughts.

The young Captain who'd been passing on to him the rulings of the court-martial stopped and turned back.

'What was that, Mister Crow?'

'Nothing. Not a damned thing for you to worry about. From now on in I do all the worrying.'

Crow rode out of Fort Buford on that morning in late May of eighteen seventy-six a changed man. Though he had always kept his past to himself, locking it away from prying eyes, he had figured his life had been moving steadily on.

Now his whole career was finished in disgrace and he had to look for something else.

The Captain had asked him what he was going to do. A formal, disinterested query that barely hid the yawn.

'Pay some debts.'

'Then what? What sort of living?'

Crow had looked at him, seeing the bright, fresh face, the peach fuzz light on the soft cheeks. A rich man's son, he'd guessed, who would only ever encounter death as a number on an official piece of paper.

'What living?' he'd repeated.

'Yes. What can you do to live?'

'One thing, boy,' Crow replied. 'I can sure as hell kill.'

But there were the debts first.

Trooper Simpson had left immediately after the court martial and Crow had learned that the perjurer had been transferred to another unit. But no official notification had yet come through. There would be time for that.

The biggest debt had to come first.

Menges.

The newly-widowed officer had been granted leave to recover from his sad bereavement. The Army looks after its own and the indisputable fact that he had callously arranged Angelina's death was never mentioned.

'Gone huntin', Mister Crow,' said the Sergeant when asked about Menges. He collected all of Crow's gear, noting them down on the official list. Querying some missing items.

'I want to keep the saber and the neckerchief, if that's all right, Sergeant?'

The non-com looked across the stores table at the tall man. Now dressed entirely in black except for the splash of yellow at his throat where he wore the bandana. He stared up into the dark eyes above the high cheek-bones.

Eyes that stared back at him without any more expression than a basking rattler. It was a warm summer's day at Fort Buford, but the Sergeant had shuddered. Pitying Captain Menges, despite the rumors of what he'd done to the man called Crow.

There was the black stallion. A Colt forty-five tucked in the back of his belt, with ammunition in the loops. A seventy-three Winchester in the saddle bucket. The sawn-down Purdey in the long holster on the right hip. And on the left hip, courtesy of the Fort Buford farrier, who'd been a long-time friend of McLaglen, the saber. Honed down to a more manageable length. Two feet and six inches from needle tip to the hilt. Razor-edged in the shortened sheath, the pommel still carrying the golden braid. Not because ,Crow was proud of it or of being reminded of the Army. It just wasn't worth the trouble of taking it off.

To pay for the equipment he was taking with him, Crow had laid down a total of twenty-seven dollars and fourteen cents, leaving him with eleven dollars and thirty-eight cents. That was all there was to show for the long years in the Cavalry. A handful of silver that jingled in his pockets.

'Gone huntin',' the man had said. South of the Fort, along the Yellowstone. Without any kind of patrol. It was in an area well covered by the Cavalry, and Menges didn't have any reason to think that he might be in any danger from the Indians. And on that score he was probably about right.

But danger doesn't always come from the direction you might be expecting.

Silas Menges was feeling good. It would have been so much nicer if that skinny bastard Crow had been executed. That would have been the icing on the cake that had been mixed when he first saw his wife coupling with Crow.

Angelina had won the end she'd deserved for her lustful infidelity and it would have been so good if Crow could have been dispatched to join her burning in Hell for ever and a day.

'Busted from the Cavalry,' grinned Menges, lying back in the stubbly grass and hugging the whisky bottle to his chest, squinting drunkenly into the bright ball of the sun, rolling gently above him in the blue bowl of the sky.

By his reckoning he must just about be in Montana. He was supposed to be on a hunting vacation, but all he wanted to do was get away from the sneers and backbiting of Fort Buford. He'd been promised a new command.

General hadn't been too specific about just when.

'Cock-suckin' son of a bitch,' shouted Menges, hearing his voice echo away among the grey rocks, vanishing finally into the tumbling waters of the great gorge of the Yellowstone River. 'Don't give a shit for you!! Not for anyone!!!'

Maybe he'd quit the Army. Here and there over the last ten years Captain Silas Menges had managed to salt away a nice little grubstake for himself. Nearly four thousand dollars. All wrung out of his men by cheating on supplies and on ammunition. And by taking bribes from Indian agents and traders. He'd been planning to desert some time in seventy-six. Leave the whining Angelina. He'd had hopes of her but she'd been a damned disappointment.

Wouldn't even act like a wife,' he muttered, his swollen red eyes filling with drunken tears at the thought of the betrayal. Menges had never been very virile. Not in the ordinary way with women. But if they turned over and let him... Angelina had screamed when he'd tried it. Said that he wasn't a real man. That he'd do better with little boys.

'Bitchin' whore,' he mumbled, his shoulders shaking with the gross unfairness of life.

He'd wondered whether it was safe to go out alone like this. But the region was patrolled. And nobody at Buford had said anything to him about dangerous hostiles in the area of the Yellowstone. Custer was supposed to be somewhere around Fort Phil Kearny, further up river, heading north with a big unit of the Seventh. Enough to wipe every stinking Sioux and their allies clear off the face of the earth, leaving it clean again for decent white men like Menges. Nobody had said anything to Menges about there being any danger.

Then again, not many men at Fort Buford had said much to him about anything.

'I'm fuckin' safe enough,' he boasted, taking another great swig from the nearly empty bottle.

'Got my pistol on that little rock there and my rifle safe in the saddle of my horse by that tree.' Menges glanced round to look at his weapons with a serene smile.

A smile that hung on his lips like spittle on the face of a new corpse. Hanging there. Trembling. Slowly dripping off his chin as his jaw fell open. Teeth sagging in the cavern of his mouth.

The pistol was gone! He'd taken off his belt to ease his bulging stomach, leaving the Colt in its holster. Putting them both safely on the boulder a few paces off. Not more than six or maybe seven paces off, just up the hill. A boulder no bigger than a dining-table, with a flattish top to it.

'Fallen off,' he muttered, the bottle slipping from his nerveless fingers as he stumbled to his feet. The short hairs at the nape of his neck beginning to rise with terror.

He walked twice around the rock to convince himself the pistol hadn't simply fallen.

It hadn't.

'Rifle,' he said, voice pitched quiet. There must be Indians very close.

With the careful cunning of the drunk, Menges made his way cautiously up the hill, peering owlishly down into the small dip where he'd tethered his horse.

'No. Oh, sweet Jesus Christ! Have mercy on me, a sinner. Spare me from the heathen savages.'

Menges was sobering up very quickly, trying to force his brain to work out what was happening. Sioux had stolen his horse and his rifle and his pistol.

'But not me,' he whispered, raising a finger to his own lips to remind himself to take care.

There had to be a reason.

'Terrified of soldiers,' Menges concluded. 'Frightened to kill me. Too noisy. Bring the good old boys in blue down on their lousy bastard heads. That's it.'

He smiled again, flicking beads of sweat from his forehead.

Relieved now he had worked out the answer to the riddle of why he hadn't yet been killed. Sitting down again.

That's it. I'm right. Aren't I?' He shouted out the question, secure and safe. I'm right.'

You're wrong.'

The silence rolled on.

Menges lay very still, hearing the distant rumbling of the Yellowstone and the wind rustling through the short grass around him. Conscious from the stench that he had fouled himself in shock and utter fear at that cold, quiet voice. Coming from nowhere. Like the winter gales that moan around the lonely graves of men that have died forgotten and alone.

Minutes slipped by, counted by Menges against his own jerking heart-beats as he sweated in the baking sun. He even began to wonder whether he might have imagined the voice. Perhaps it had been a phantom of his own mind, created by the whisky.

It could just be.

Perhaps if he closed his eyes and kept motionless the horror might not be repeated.

Perhaps...

Menges had no idea how long went by as he remained still, eyes squeezed shut like a child fearing a nightmare figure in its room and closing it away.

The sun vanished behind a cloud, bringing a chill to the officer. He squinted up at the sky, seeing that it was blocked out by a shadow. A long, lean shadow.

'Crow,' he gasped. Trying to say more but his tongue had stuck to the roof of his mouth in panic and nothing came.

'Good day to you, Captain,' said the tall man, voice calm and gentle as ever.

'You... you followed me...' muttered Menges.

'Nope. You led me here. Wasn't a question of following you. Just depends on how you look at it.'

'I'll give you everything,' he tried, voice cracking in hopeless desperation.

'Been offered a whole load of things in my time, Captain, but never everything. Jesus Christ! What is that smell? You shit your breeches, have you, Captain?'

'I guess I... I guess that you're goin'...'

'Guess I am, Menges.'

'Figured you wouldn't have stayed around, Crow. Thought you was a kind of back number as far as you and me went.'

'Like I said, Menges. You were wrong. Don't ever write someone off whatever things might look like. Was you ever stung by a dead bee, Menges? Huh?'

'No. Never.'

'Just as damned painful as a live one.' Crow squatted comfortably down on top of the boulder where Menges had laid his pistol. He unblocked the sun by moving and Menges blinked in the sudden brightness. Seeing that Crow wore all black, but for the yellow bandana. And that the scatter-gun was still safely bolstered at his hip.

'You expect me to help you? Expect me to try and get you back into the Army, Crow? I can do that.'

The laughter was genuine and unforced. Menges's suggestion amused Crow. 'No. Hell, no, Captain. I don't expect none of that from you. I just expect you to die.'

It had been easy for someone as expert in the Indian skills as Crow to follow and track Menges. The Captain had never imagined that he might be in danger from anyone and had ridden carelessly along, going deeper into wild country.