The Red Hills (2 page)

'Some,' replied the man.

'Didn't catch your name, Mister. I'm Luke Barrell.'

'Didn't give it. I'm grateful for the water, Mister Barrell.'

The voice was uncanny. Nearly as soft as a woman's.

Luke was reminded of a finger-nail rubbing down a piece of black velvet.

But the man didn't look soft. Hard and lean as whipcord, thought Luke. Every move balanced and easy. The eyes shadowed pits in the hollows of the narrow face, ridged above high cheekbones. Difficult to see in the shadow, but the eyes didn't seem to have any true color.

To be so dark they were almost black. Like everything else about the stranger. Excepting for the bright yellow neckerchief that the man had hung over the edge of the well while he drank deep from the dipper and bucket.

'See any Indian sign, Mister .?..'

'Name's Crow, Mister Barrell. And no, I haven't seen any Indian sign. And I'm not married. I like simple food. I'm on my way up north to Fort Buford, where the Missouri meets the Yellowstone, to join my unit. I'm a Lieutenant in the First Squadron of the Third Cavalry. I hope to be there in two days. I'll be on my way in a half hour when I've rested my horse. Any other damned questions you might be askin' me?'

There was so much pent-up anger and bitterness in the stranger's words that Luke Barrell took a step backwards, his hand coming up as if to protect his face from a blow.

'Jesus, Mister... Crow... I didn't...'

'Sure you didn't. Folks never do. I see them all the damned time, Barrell. Men with small minds and women with big mouths. Sometimes folks with both. Makes me sick to my guts how they won't leave a man to hisself. Now I've asked you for water and I've thanked you for it. If n you want money for it then there's Army scrip you can have.'

'No, it's not...' he saw his young daughter staring open-mouthed at the scene and turned on her. 'Becky, you go inside and get on with the meal, you hear!'

'Takin' it out on the kid won't make you any more of a man, Barrell,' said the man called Crow, wiping his mouth and spitting out the trail dust from his throat.

'Never you mind, Mister. Just get your water and get out of here. Quick as you like.'

'I'm goin', Mister Barrell. But if n I wasn't then you and me might have a fallin' out about talkin' like that.'

The voice was still quiet and low. Not a hint of being raised in anger. Yet Barrell shuddered as if someone had walked across his grave. He stepped back towards the house.

Suddenly, the dog, Bart, snarled deep in its throat and made a quick, crabbing run towards the stranger, leaping up at where the yellow bandana hung in the breeze, snapping at it and carrying it off in its jaws in triumph..

'Bart!' cried the little girl, dropping her doll in the dirt and moving a few steps towards the dog.

'Drop it, you hear,' yelled Luke Barrell, not wanting to give the tall stranger any excuse for causing trouble.

But the dog took no notice of either of them, scampering a few yards to the shade of the barn wall where it hunkered down and dropped the bandana in front of it, looking up as though daring anyone to come and take it, still growling deep in its throat.

Barrell shrugged his shoulders and turned to face the man in black with an apologetic smile on his face.

'Heck Lieutenant Crow, I'm surely sorry about this. Bart's a fine watch-dog and he's good with kids. Don't normally take on like this with folks when...'

The words faded away in his throat as he looked at the stranger's eyes, not seeing the friendly response he'd expected.

Luke had thought there might be a touch of exasperation, but that wasn't what he saw in Crow's face.

Not at all.

The eyes were like mirrored pools of blackness at the shadowed end of a box canyon. Still and empty. And cold.

'Your animal's got my bandana,' he said, voice scarcely a whisper in the Dakota morning.

'Sure. Sure, Lieutenant. I'll get it. Becky! Go get the 'kerchief off that damned mutt. Quickly!'

But Bart wasn't in the mood for giving up his newly-won treasure without a chase and some fun. The hound had taken an instinctive dislike to the tall stranger in black and that same instinct told it to keep well clear of him. As the little girl scampered towards it, hand stretched for the golden bandana, the dog growled and backed off, vanishing around the corner of the barn.

'I'm near finished here, Mister,' said Crow. 'If n I don't have that back in two minutes from now, then I'll take it and you can live on with the consequences.'

As he finished talking he fished inside the pocket of his vest and pulled out a gold hunter watch, clicking open the case and looking down at the white face with its Roman numerals. The sun was bright and warm, reflecting off the polished case of the watch, making Luke Barrell blink, his eyes watering.

'Look, Lieutenant...' he began, looking round to see Becky still pursuing the panting dog, trailing the bandana behind it.

One minute and three-quarters, Mister Barrell. If n you and the girl are fond of that animal, you better get your ass movin' after it. I'm not a man to waste words.'

Luke Barrell guessed that.

'Don't hurt the dog, Lieutenant,' he begged. Feeling a nerve beginning to work beneath his right eye.

'I don't aim to hurt it much,' replied Crow.

The farmer shuddered as though a cold blue norther had swung across the Plains, but the sun still shone and the sky was blue as blue. In the house he could still hear the merry laughter of his three youngest children and Becky had cornered Bart against the corral fence, bending down in front of it, scolding the panting animal.

'You got less than a minute,' said the lean stranger.

'Come on, girl. Get the Lieutenant's bandana for him. Quick! He's getting impatient with the waitin' for it.'

'Half a minute.'

'Come on, Becky!' Barrell couldn't hide the tense anxiety running through him.

'Bart. You're a naughty boy. Momma'll spank you if n you don't give that up right now.'

The girl didn't realize. Still intent on playing with her beloved dog, enjoying the teasing. Reaching out for the stained bandana, and giggling when Bart snarled at her, snatching it up in his slavering jaws and holding it tight.

'Land's sakes, Bart,' sighed Becky exasperatedly. 'You are a dreadful dog. Mister Crow here is going to get mighty...'

'Time's up,' said Crow, snapping shut the hunter's golden case and sliding it back in the pocket of his black vest.

'Wait a minute..." began Luke Barrell, seeing the tall stranger thumbing back a retaining leather thong off the top of the sawn-down scatter-gun in its deep holster on the right hip.

'I've finished waiting,' Crow said softly.

The gun was a Purdey. A double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun with hand-engraved action and a polished walnut stock, dated eighteen sixty-eight. Crow had committed the ultimate sacrilege on a Purdey by hacking off the end foot or more of both barrels and sanding them down so that there was only about four inches left. The shot would star out as soon as the triggers were squeezed. At anything over fifteen feet the gun wasn't a whole lot of us. At anything under fifteen feet it could cut a man clean in half.

'Move the girl.'

'What?'

'The little girl. Move her.'

Luke looked at the stranger as if he was a man from another planet. 'How's that again?'

There was the faintest note of irritation in Crow's voice. 'If n you don't want the little girl harmed, then move her out of the way. Now!' There was the crack of command in the last word and Barrell jumped at it.

'Becky!' he yelled, frightened of what was going to happen.

Unable to believe it as he saw the fluid ease with which the cavalry officer drew the sawn-down gun, cocking the twin hammers with his thumb. Holding it as easily as a light pistol.

'What is it Pa?' Becky turned and saw the pointed barrels of the gun, gaping at her and at her dog. 'No!!!' she screamed, eyes wide.

'Move girl,' said her father, eyes half closed in horror at what was happening. Wishing that this morning had never dawned. That such a beautiful day should have brought this living specter of death walking in to his spread like this.

'Don't let him,' moaned Becky, standing and facing Crow, spreading her thin arms to try and shield Bart from the man's gun.

Seeing that the farmer wasn't going to do anything, the tall black figure stepped forwards and slapped the girl across the side of the face with his left hand the marks of his long fingers standing out livid against her rosy skin, sending her spinning sideways in a bundle of tangled limbs and flying petticoats, a scream starting from her open mouth.

'Stupid little bitch,' snarled Crow, squinting down at the dog. The animal had dropped the neckerchief in front of it and was shuffling backwards through the dust, tongue out, a deep growling rippling from its chest, hind legs tensed as though it was about to spring at the man who had hit its mistress.

'No!' shouted Luke Barrell, taking a step towards the house and his own elderly carbine, knowing in his guts that he was going to be way too late and that the situation had slipped away from him right from the start.

Without even appearing to aim, the tall stranger pulled one of the triggers of the gun. There was a burst of black powder smoke and the boom of the heavy explosion.

Despite the power of the recoil, Crow didn't move, the gun steady in his right hand.

The impact of the charge at short range ripped the hound apart, kicking it a dozen paces backwards, sliding through dry sand that suddenly became puddled crimson mud. Its skull dissolved in a welter of lead and blood and flayed skin and shards of splintered bone, mingled with the torn remnants of pink brains. The legs kicked and scrabbled at the dirt in a reflex of dying, watched in mute horror by Becky and by the other little children who had just appeared on the porch.

Crow ignored them all, stepping forwards, the smoking gun cradled in his right hand, stooping to pick up the soiled bandana with his left, eyes watching Luke Barrell who was poised like a child caught stealing apples, one foot raised, unable to decide whether to go for his own gun or not.

'If n you're goin' to do it, then get on,' said Crow softly. 'If'n not then I'm movin' on out.'

'Pa!' cried Becky, standing up, hand to her bruised cheek. 'Don't let him get away with that, Pa. Please. Don't. He killed Bart, Pa. You always said you'd look lifter us all when Ma went, Pa. And now... now you ain't doin'...' and she collapsed on her knees in tears by the side of her pet's headless corpse.

Luke Barrell shrugged his shoulders, holding his hands out, palms facing the gunman. 'Guess you got me cold, Lieutenant. Sure hope you're proud of what you done here.'

'I did what I said I'd do Mister,' replied the officer, ejecting the spent cartridge from the gun, replacing it with another from the pocket of his jacket. 'That's the way I live my life. Don't know any other way. No better way. Your girl and the dog had their chances.'

'That's not the way.'

Crow shook his head, ignoring the weeping children.

'You're wrong there, farmer. Damned wrong. Living is just the mistakes you don't make. So long, and thanks for the water.'

He swung back into the saddle of the black stallion, sliding the scatter-gun back into its holster and flicking over the leather cord that held it safely in place. Luke Barrell watched the lean stranger, stepping to one side to avoid the long shadow falling across him.

'You didn't have to do it. You know that.'

The stranger glanced back at him, eyes still veiled in shadow, horse headed north. 'Sure, but I figure you might be thankful for one thing, Mister.'

'What the Hell's that?' asked Barrell, only too aware of the way he'd failed his family when it came to facing down the stranger.

'Be thankful it was only the dog got killed,' he replied turning away from the small spread and riding on.

Leaving Luke Barrell to watch him go and wonder about the man called Crow.

Fort Buford was a key installation in the campaign to suppress the Indian tribes of the northern plains. Built in hostile territory in eighteen sixty-six, its buildings had originally been fashioned entirely of adobe. In eighteen seventy-two, four years before Crow reached the Fort, they had been replaced with the more common wooden frame buildings.

Situated at the junction of the Missouri and the Yellowstone, Fort Buford was of vital strategic importance. Units of the Seventh had been stationed there but the local Sioux had become so troublesome that it had been necessary for a unit of the First Squadron, Third Cavalry to go up there on active service.

And some thirty miles north and east of the Fort, a temporary camp had been set up. Commanded by Captain Silas Menges.

Crow had heard about Menges even though he'd not yet served under him. During the War he'd been a junior officer with the Eleventh Ohio, fighting with little distinction and only finally reaching his present rank at the age of thirty-eight. At a time when the Civil War had led to early promotion for many young and ambitious officers Menges stood out by his lack of progress.

He was short and stout, looking better on a horse than he did on foot. Bow-legged with a belly that sagged over a regulation belt that had already been expanded by several inches. His face had that permanent flush of a heavy drinker. Narrow eyes that slitted out from rolls of swollen fat and thin lips that barely hid a mouth filled with rotting teeth. Menges was a man who had risen as far as he'd ever rise, and who now stared ahead of him down a long and winding road towards either an early death or an empty retirement.

There were plenty of officers like him on the frontier but most of them were content to sit quietly behind their desks and leave the running of their commands to younger and more able men. But Menges wasn't prepared to do that. Five months earlier he'd gone off East on a furlough, and had confounded every man in his command by returning with a pretty and much younger wife from Boston.