The Dawn of Fury (72 page)

At last Captain Ferguson received word that three newly assigned soldiers would be arriving on February twenty-first. One of them was the long-awaited telegrapher. The next report on Hardin came from south Texas, from Gonzales County. Hardin and some other riders had stopped at a Mexican camp, and after taking part in a game of monte, quarreled with the dealer. Hardin slugged the man with his gun barrel and when two other Mexicans drew knives, Hardin shot and wounded them. There was no mention of names other than Hardin's.

On February fifteenth, word came that buffalo hunters had brought a wounded man to Fort Griffin. The men claimed they had been attacked by four riders, one of whom was believed to have been John Wesley Hardin. Identify had been unconfirmed. Nathan went to the huge map of the United States in Captain Ferguson's office. Fort Griffin was in northwest Texas. That could mean Hardin and his friends were bound for Indian Territory to hole up until it was safe to return to Texas, or it could mean they were going all the way to Kansas.

“Where are we going when we leave here?” Mary Holden wanted to know.

“North,” said Nathan. “Maybe to Indian Territory, maybe to Kansas.”

“Am I allowed to know why?”

“I reckon,” said Nathan. “If you aim to ride with me, you might as well know what you're up against. I'm going to kill a man. He was one of seven who murdered my family.”

“Where are the others?”

“Dead,” Nathan replied. “Now you know all there is to know about Nathan Stone. Are you satisfied?”

“No. What will you do after you've killed this last man?”

“I don't have the faintest idea,” said Nathan.

On February 21, Nathan gave up his temporary position as telegrapher, and Captain Ferguson thanked him profusely.

“If you're ever in trouble and need the army,” Ferguson said, “call on us. However, we're always undermanned, so I can't promise there'll be enough of us to save you. Of course, you can always telegraph Washington.”

“I can't count on that, either,” said Nathan. “Silver's the kind who'd go out and get himself shot just when I'm needin' him the most.”

Nathan had a letter—enclosed in oilskin—from Captain Ferguson informing any and all concerned that Nathan Stone had, on more than one occasion, rendered service to the army of the United States of America. Ferguson had requested that Nathan be shown every consideration by other military installations, including food, lodging, and use of the telegraph. It quickly got Nathan and Mary into the office of Fort Griffin's post commander, Colonel Lowell.

“Sorry,” Lowell said, after Nathan's inquiry, “but the man you're seeking was released from our dispensary more than a week ago. His wound wasn't all that serious. The report we have of the shooting is sketchy, because none of the buffalo hunters had ever seen Hardin. Therefore, we don't know if it was him or not. It well could have been, because that's how most of these Texas killers operate. When the law gets after them in Texas, they go somewhere else. By the time they're in trouble there, things have usually cooled down enough for them to return here. We're never entirely rid of them till they're hung or shot.”

Nathan and Mary were offered lodging and meals, so they spent one night at Fort Griffin. After breakfast they rode north. Nathan had no doubt that he would be shot on sight if they rode anywhere close to El Gato's stronghold. Mary hadn't said anything, but he could see the fear in her eyes at the very mention of Indian Territory. Finally, when they stopped to rest and water the horses, he decided to ease her mind.

“We're not going anywhere near El Gato's place,” he said. “It's a good hundred and fifty miles east of here. I think we'll just ride on to Fort Dodge. From there, I can telegraph Captain Ferguson and see if there's been any more hell-raising by Hardin anywhere in Texas.”

“I'm glad we're not going anywhere close to those outlaws,” she said. “I don't even like to think of what he ... El Gato would do to me if he ever got his hands on me again.”

“No more than he'd do to me,” said Nathan. “That's practically the first thing he said to me, that he'd kill me if I ever betrayed his trust.”

“I wonder what happened after you left them? Did they go ahead and rob the bank at Wichita?”

“I don't know,” Nathan said. “I haven't read a newspaper since leaving Kansas. In a way, I hope Hardin and his bunch are in Kansas. I have friends there, and it's a hell of a lot more civilized than Indian Territory.”

They crossed Indian Territory's panhandle and rode on toward Fort Dodge.

John Wesley Hardin was bound for Kansas. However, he and his friends did not take the most direct route, and as a result, didn't arrive until early June. Following the shooting in Gonzales County, Hardin rode to Cuero Creek, where a rancher he knew was about to take a herd up the Chisholm Trail to Wichita.
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In between scrapes with the law, Hardin often hired on as a cowboy, and he did so this time, taking two other men with him. The drive eventually crossed the Red into Indian Territory at the same point Nathan and Mary had left it, after their escape from El Gato's band. Hardin managed to stay out of trouble until the trail drive was out of Texas. However, for no apparent reason, in Indian Territory, he shot and killed an Indian. Fearing retribution, the cowboys helped Hardin conceal the body. The incident went unrecorded until much later.

Nathan and Mary were well received at Fort Dodge, but a telegraphed inquiry to Captain Ferguson at Fort Worth proved unrewarding, for there was no further word as to the whereabouts of John Wesley Hardin. After spending a night at the fort, Nathan and Mary rode upriver to the tent city. Many of the tents were gone, and in their places, wood-framed buildings now stood. The mercantile was one such building and was quite impressive. It was larger than many Nathan had seen in larger, already-established towns.

“Are we going in?” Mary asked.

“I reckon,” said Nathan.

One display especially intrigued Nathan, for it was a new blasting method, a vast improvement over the bothersome, unpredictable black powder.

“It's called dynamite,” a clerk told him. “You just cap it and light the fuse, using as many sticks as you need. It's been available back East for several years. Because of the recent war, we're just now getting it.”

“We can reach Hays before dark,” Nathan said, when they had left the store. “I know the Kansas—Pacific dispatcher there, as well as the editor of the newspaper. I may learn something from them.”

So they rode north. Nathan took a room in the same boardinghouse where he had once shared a room with Wild Bill Hickok. Cotton Blossom followed willingly only when they went out for meals, for he didn't like Hays. It was late when they reached Hays, and Nathan decided he would talk to Donaldson, the dispatcher, and Plato, the newspaper editor, the next day. However, he had been away from the saloons for months. Perhaps it was time to inquire there again.

“I'm going to visit a few of the saloons and see what I can learn,” he told Mary. “I want you to stay here and keep Cotton Blossom with you.”

He visited Drum's Saloon first, finding it crowded, but subdued. Others were much the same, and after less than two hours, Nathan was finished with them, having learned exactly nothing. He was afoot, and by the time he was in sight of the boardinghouse, he knew something had happened. Men wandered around in front of the place, and he could hear shouting. Pete Lanihan, the county sheriff, was there.

When Nathan reached the outer fringes of the crowd, he discovered what the commotion was all about. Mary Holden knelt with her arms around a growling, bloodied Cotton Blossom. The buttons had been ripped off Mary's shirt. A pair of soldiers—privates—stood within the circle of spectators. The trousers of one of them had been ripped from the knee down.

“That's my dog,” Nathan shouted, raising his voice above the uproar, “and I want to know what's happened here.”

Nathan shoved his way through, coming face to face with Sheriff Lanihan. Lanihan didn't show any friendliness, and the first thing he said rubbed Nathan the wrong way.

“So it's your dog,” Lanihan growled. “You're prepared to pay—”

“Nothing,” Nathan finished. “I'm prepared to call on the post commander at Fort Hays and demand that these men be court martialed. Look at the front of the girl's shirt.”

“Cotton Blossom bit him only after he did this,” said Mary, standing to allow the shirt to hang open. “They beat him with a gun barrel.”

An ugly murmur arose from the crowd that had gathered, for most of them were civilians. Sheriff Lanihan realized what must be done and did it quickly, raising his voice so he could be heard.

“That's enough. All of you clear out. I'm taking these men to jail and notifying the post commander. This will be handled in an orderly manner.”

“Now,” he said, turning to Nathan, “I'll want both of you at the courthouse in the morning at nine o'clock. I'll need your names to file my report.”

Nathan told him, and he left afoot, leading his horse, the pair of crestfallen soldiers plodding ahead of him. Nathan and Mary returned to their room, Cotton Blossom trotting beside them. Inside, Nathan removed a bottle of strong disinfectant from his pack. With a clean strip of cloth, he cleaned Cotton Blossom's wound and doused it with the fiery medicine. Finally Mary spoke.

“I shouldn't have gone out,” she said, “but I was only a short way from the door. It was like . . . they were looking for someone.”

“Likely they were,” said Nathan. “There are few women in this town, or in any other town on the frontier.”

“What's going to happen to the soldiers?”

“They'll do some time at hard labor,” Nathan said. “The post commander can't allow them to go unpunished.”

“But they didn't hurt me. It's Cotton Blossom that was hurt.”

“He'll live,” said Nathan. “He did what he thought was right.”