A child he was. From a distance, I had guessed he had reached his teen years, but up close he looked as young as ten or eleven. I felt ready to explode, but suddenly fatigue, and perhaps the relief of still being alive, washed over me. “Captain, I tried.”
McAllen’s hard face softened. “I know … sorry, Steve.” He looked at the ruined dress in his hand and sadness seemed to overwhelm him. “Things don’t always go the way you want in a fight.” If possible, his expression became even more forlorn. Before I could think of any words of comfort, he turned and walked away. As I watched him retreat, I saw McAllen smell the berry-stained dress.
“Ya know about treatin’ wounds?” Sharp pulled me back to our situation.
“Not much.”
“Then I’ll help Red. Why don’t ya check those shelters for any sign of the girl?”
I started off toward the first shelter, thankful for something to do.
Just as I stepped away, Sharp added, “Be careful. Enter rifle first. Could be more’n we thought.”
I found no more Utes. Of the four partially built shelters, two were living quarters, and the other two held supplies and food stores for the winter. When I returned from searching the camp, McAllen and the others stood talking about ten feet away from the wounded youth. The captain waved me over. “Find anything?”
“I found her saddle and bridle. No personal stuff. No shoes, hat, coat.” I shrugged. “Nothing.”
Red and McAllen looked at each other. “You look everywhere?” McAllen asked.
I was about to give a snippy answer but caught myself. “Yeah, all four shelters. Other than her gear, no other sign of your daughter.” McAllen looked puzzled so I added, “I found some things that might be normal, but they struck me as odd.”
“What?” McAllen demanded.
I pointed at the two far shelters. “Inside I found canned goods, tobacco, sugar, whiskey.” I thought a second. “A couple pots, a saw, an axe … stuff I didn’t think Indians packed with them.” I glanced at Red. “At least not Indians that want to live like their forefathers.”
“I ’xpect you paid for those supplies,” Sharp said.
“Me?”
“That two-hundred-dollar credit you set up at the general store.”
“Jeff’s right,” McAllen said. “The posse probably traded those goods to the Utes.”
“For what?” I asked.
“That’s what Red will find out from that boy.”
I looked at Red and then at the youth. “I’ll go get our horses.”
“Thanks,” McAllen said. “Don’t forget to pick up the field glasses.”
Without a word, Sharp hitched up alongside me, and we both walked to the rise where we had first observed the Ute camp. I pulled out my watch and was startled to see that less than an hour had passed since the two returning hunters had surprised us.
“Will it go bad for the boy?” I asked.
“No worse than if he had been caught by Shoshone.”
“Are you justifying what’s going on back there?”
“Nope. Just somethin’ that’s gotta be done.”
“Why are you with me?”
“I’d rather not be a demon in that boy’s nightmares.”
Chapter 13
Sharp and I each led two horses back to the Ute camp. As we approached, McAllen marched toward us looking so grim and threatening that I had to suppress an impulse to mount up and ride away.
When he got within earshot, he yelled, “We’re returning to Durango. Now!”
I looked at the sky. “Captain, we can’t—”
“Now, goddamn it!”
Without another word, Sharp and I stepped into our saddles, and by the time we had gathered up the reins, the rushing McAllen had reached us and swung onto his horse without a moment’s hesitation.
“Jeff, run Red’s horse down to the camp and tether him. Move it!”
As Sharp trotted down to the camp, I asked, “Red’s not coming with us?”
“He’s staying with the boy for a few days. He’ll catch up later.”
I felt relief that the boy was still alive. We watched Sharp in the distance lean off his saddle and flip the reins of Red’s horse around a drying rack and then wheel his horse about and race back to us at a full gallop. I thought when Sharp reached us, we would get some explanation, but McAllen rode off before Sharp arrived. Soon, we made a single-file line and retraced our path from earlier in the day.
We rode hard for about an hour, and then dusk slowed us down to a walk. We were not on a trail, and the mountain terrain was rough going. Without Red to guide us, I wondered how far McAllen would continue to push on in the dark. In another half hour, I got my answer.
McAllen pulled up under some rocks in a flattish space no bigger than a one-room cabin. “We’ll wait here until light,” he said.
I noticed he didn’t say sleep. After we dismounted and unsaddled the horses, I realized this would be a close space for three men and three horses, but it was too dark to find another place for the horses. Perhaps McAllen didn’t intend to sleep.
“Build your goddamn fire,” McAllen said with bitterness. “We ain’t hiding from anyone now.”
McAllen normally kept his thoughts to himself, and his current mood certainly did not invite questions. Sharp and I gingerly felt our way in different directions to gather up some wood. Soon we had a decent fire, but that was all. Coffee and anything that might be improved with cooking had been left at base camp. We sat around the light and warmth of the fire, gnawing on jerky and hardtack between sips of Kentucky whiskey from our flasks. It had been one hell of a day.
Sharp went to his bag and pulled out a small burlap sack. As he stood over us, he popped raisins into his mouth. Finally, he dangled the sack by its tie string in front of McAllen. “Raisins, Joseph?”
I wondered for a moment whether McAllen would draw his gun or accept the offer. Eventually, he reached up and accepted the sack and then spilled some of the raisins into his palm. “Sit down, Jeff. I’ll tell you two what happened.”
Sharp plopped down close to the fire, and we exchanged glances as we waited. I suspected that McAllen might be crying. After a long moment, he tossed the burlap bag over the fire to me and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “She’s dead.”
“I’m sorry.” It was all I could think to say.
McAllen slammed his fist into the dirt. “Murdered.” Sharp and I waited, and when McAllen spoke again, he seemed to have regained some control. “A white man paid the Utes to seize and murder my daughter. He told them when and how. Nothing was spur of the moment.”
“Was it one of the men in the posse?” Sharp asked.
“The boy doesn’t know. He wasn’t allowed to hear the men talk.” McAllen threw the handful of raisins into his mouth and chewed. “He knows that a man entered their camp loaded down with supplies and left with her scalp and a necklace.” McAllen’s voice broke with the last word of that sentence. After a minute, he continued. “I gave her that necklace last Christmas. I know that was the one the Indians gave him, because she wrote to me that she wore it every day.”
“The body?” Sharp asked.
“The boy has no idea. Somewhere back along the trail. He was sent away from the camp to hunt when they murdered her.”
Sharp seemed to think things over. “Could be the man just haggled to get her effects for the family, but it don’t sound right. Why didn’t the posse just kill ’em all an’ simply take her stuff?”
“Stuff?” An edge had come back into McAllen’s voice.
“Sorry, Joseph. Poor choice of words.”
“Forget it,” McAllen said. “But you’re right. Two big questions. Why did the posse barter instead of attack, and who paid the Utes to do this?”
“You think we can get the answer in Durango?” I asked.
“Yes. From that posse. We’ll leave at first light and ride down to the base camp to gather up our supplies and the packhorses. I want to be in Durango by nightfall.”
That will be a hard day’s ride, I thought. “When will Red join us?” I asked.
McAllen made a motion with his hand, and I threw him the bag of raisins. After chewing a mouthful, he said, “We didn’t hurt the boy. He saw no reason not to tell us what little he knew.” McAllen had understood the real intent of my question. “Red will stay with him until he’s well enough to fend for himself or possibly take him back to Durango. The boy’s choice.”
Sharp put another stick in the fire. “Ya said there were two big questions. I think there’s three.”
“What else?” McAllen seemed nervous about what might come next.
“Why did someone do this?”
“I don’t give a damn why.”
“Joseph, I don’t think preachers and schoolmarms make a hell of a lot of enemies.”
“Meaning what, exactly?”
“Meaning, the person who did this probably meant to hurt Captain Joseph McAllen.”
Chapter 14
When we rode into Durango the next evening, not a single person could be seen on the street. We stopped in the middle of the road and looked around for some sign of life. It felt ghoulish until I heard a hymn coming from the church.
“Could the whole town be in church?” I asked.
McAllen spurred his horse forward. “They’re conducting services for my daughter.”
The only church in town sat at the end of the lane, and the entire area around it was crowded with carriages, buckboards, and horses. After we corralled the packhorses at the livery, we tied up our horses in front of a saloon about seventy yards away from the church. As I stepped out of the stirrup, I could see only four or five people inside the saloon instead of the normal bunch of rowdies just off their shift.
McAllen immediately marched off toward the church. I followed reluctantly. I smelled bad after nearly a week in the wilderness, I needed a shave, and my clothes were covered in filth. When McAllen opened one of the church’s double doors, a sea of men’s backs blocked our entry. McAllen pushed his way in, and we followed. Once inside, McAllen continued to push his way to the front, but Sharp and I remained standing just behind the last row of pews.
The hymn ended, and it didn’t take long to discover that we had arrived at the end of the service. I could hear wailing at the front and sobs from all over. After a final prayer by a layman, Sharp and I jostled our way out of the church and returned to where we had tethered the horses.
Walking our mounts over to the livery, I asked, “Did you see Doc?”
“Too many people. Let’s get the horses quartered an’ go find him.”
The liveryman was at the services, so we unsaddled the horses ourselves, pitched fresh hay into their stalls, and made a quick pass at grooming them. After seeing to our mounts, we unloaded the packhorses and stacked our supplies and gear in a corner of the barn. I brushed each packhorse while they ate and then returned them to the corral. I would have preferred to spend more time brushing Chestnut, but we wanted to get back to the church so we could ask Dooley what had happened when the posse came upon the Ute renegades. A few more pitchforks of hay thrown into the corral, and we were walking back to the church.
Dooley was not hard to find. There must have been about forty people talking quietly outside the church, and Dooley stood with a couple other unattached men. We caught his eye and waved him over.
“Sad day for the town,” Dooley said.
“Sadder for Captain McAllen,” Sharp said.
Dooley looked puzzled, so I explained. “McAllen used to be married to the schoolmarm. Long time ago. The girl was his daughter.”
“Oh, my God. I had no idea.”
“What happened out there?” Sharp asked.
Dooley turned his back to us and whispered to himself. “So that’s why McAllen rushed here.”
“What happened?” Sharp repeated in a commanding voice.
Dooley returned his attention to us. “We got there too late … damn it, Grant should’ve gotten off sooner.”
“Doc?” Sharp was getting impatient.
Dooley wiped his forehead. “The half-breed tracked us right to them. He went in to parley—to see if he could barter for the girl—but they had already killed her.” Dooley went in another direction again. “Did you hear about that Meeker massacre up north?”
“Yeah, go on,” Sharp insisted.
“Well, Grant went in with a bunch of supplies and got her, uh …”
“Scalp,” Sharp said with a sharp tone. “Why didn’t ya attack and kill the sons a bitches?”
“They had already joined up with a bigger war party. The half-breed said there had to be over thirty of ’em. It woulda been suicide.”
Sharp and I looked at each other. Finally, I asked, “Did Grant say that there were over thirty, or just the half-breed?”
“What? Why?”
“Damn it, just tell us. Did they both confirm a large war party?” I was getting as frustrated as Sharp with Dooley’s obfuscation.
Dooley rubbed the back of his neck. “No, I don’t think Grant said anything about it, as far as I can recollect.”
“When we came on ’em, there were only six braves and one boy,” Sharp said.
“Maybe they split up after we left.”
“There were no signs of a larger party,” I said. “I searched the camp myself.”
“You checked the camp? How? Had they left?”
“In a way of speakin’,” Sharp said. “We killed ’em. All but the boy.”
“Oh, my God.”
“Doc, no war party camped in that meadow.” Sharp had lost all patience. “Only a ragtag band of renegades. Now, where’s this half-breed and Grant? I want to talk to ’em.”
“Gone.”
“Gone? Gone where?”
“The half-breed left us on the trail. Said his work was through. Grant paid his respects to the family and left for Leadville yesterday.” Dooley looked back at the crowd in front of the church. “Grant said he had urgent business, but everyone assumed he was actually embarrassed by our failure.”
“We better find McAllen,” I said.
Dooley looked back at the church again. “He’s still in the church. We’re waiting for the burial service.”
“Burial?” I asked.
“The minister bought a coffin and put her, uh, remains in it. They’re going to bury her in a few minutes. As soon as the wife is a bit more under control.” Dooley looked beaten. “Damn, I’m sorry. Grant seemed such an upright fellow.”
Sharp put his hand on Dooley’s shoulder. “Not your fault. He had the whole town buffaloed.”