Waltzing With Tumbleweeds (5 page)

The Dodge Brothers touring car spluttered on the steep grade. Half sick with fear that the engine might die, Craft threaded the accelerator with his boot sole. To his relief, the motor overcame the cough and the rear tires dug in the soft sandy tracks, chugging powerfully to the top of the rise.

His major concern was the tall thin man in the passenger seat, Craft glanced aside to check on him. The ivory mustache was yellow at the corners. His thick eyebrows were snow white and hooded his steel blue eyes that stared straight ahead at the brown grass country that rolled off to south Texas. Deputy sheriff Bill Purdy, the famous ex-ranger, had not broken the past five miles of silence, not a word since sixteen year old Craft had driven him out of town.

“You herd this noisy thing around much?” Purdy finally asked.

“Quite a bit.” Craft swallowed hard hoping he had given his important rider a good enough answer.

Purdy scowled in disapproval. “A man could go crazy listening to
this infernal thing cluck.”

“I’d have to agree a horse would be a lot more quiet.”

“That’s for sure. Why this thing spooks all the game clear out of the country. Did you see that doe run off back there?”

“Yes sir.” It would be hard for him to impress the old man in any way about the autocar and its features.

“Those damn rustlers will hear us coming ten miles off,” Purdy scoffed.

“Maybe they won’t suspect a lawman coming in a car,” Craft said as he fought the steering wheel to follow the wagon tracks.

“That’s the only way it will work.”

“Sir? Do you think they’ll fight their way out?”

Purdy shook his head as if the matter was of little concern to him. Then he leaned forward and squinted out the sun blasted windshield at the country ahead.

“Did you ever know John Wesley Hardin?”

“Yes.”

“Was he the killer they say he was?”

“I guess so. They say he once shot a man who snored too loud.”

“Really?”

“Aw, old men spin lots of windy yarns, don’t believe half the stuff they tell you. How old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

“Hmm, when I was sixteen, I made my first trail drive to Kansas.”

“Was it exciting?”

“Every dang bit as exciting as driving this car is for you.”

Craft nodded in agreement as he wiped his sweaty left palm on his pants leg for the sixth time. Finally the old man was talking about something interesting.

“What did you do on the drive?”

“Cook’s helper, till the night wrangler drowned crossing the Red River. Got a promotion after that, took care of the remuda.”

“Were there Injuns?”

“There was everything on those drives to contend with: Injuns, herd cutters, plain rustlers and nesters.”

“I’ve heard them cow towns were really wild?” Craft wondered about his carousing with wild women and exciting things that the man would admit to.

“Yes, they were straight from the pages of Hell.”

The Dodge rumbled over some washboard places tossing both driver and passenger around. With only a small scrape of the metal to metal, he quickly found another gear to slow them down.

“This thing is sure rough riding,” Purdy complained.

“It’ll be smoother ahead.” Craft pointed to where the ground became sandy again.

“Can’t come soon enough.” Purdy adjusted the snowy Boss of the Plains hat on his head and sat straight back on the seat.

“They say in a few years these cars will replace horses and wagons for travel.”

“Heard the same silly thing about bicycles thirty years ago and they ain’t done it yet. Hmm, they said we won’t need horses after they invented them either.”

Craft wished he’d never mentioned the part about autocars taking the place of horses; it had only made the old man sull up. He would have enjoyed hearing more about the cattle drive business and cow towns. Despite his gruffness, the slender six-foot officer didn’t look stout enough to handle real tough lawbreakers. He hoped the man’s reputation held when they found the suspects he sought.

A hiss of air came like a gunshot and Craft sunk behind the wheel as if he’d been hit. A flat tire—

Purdy frowned at him as he braked to a stop. “What’s wrong with this contraption now?”

“Flat tire, sir.”

Purdy studied the sky for the time and then looked pained at the inconvenience. “How long will it take you to fix it?”

“I’m not certain, I don’t carry a watch.”

Purdy removed the fancy engraved time piece on the gold chain from his vest, popped it opened and showed the face to Craft. Two-thirty. With a nod that he’d read it, he hurried out of the seat.

“It won’t take but a jiffy,” Craft promised and went back to the trunk, a high steamer like case on the rear of the car.

The rear axle finally jacked up, he sweated profusely as he pried the casing off the rim. Then, upset with the delay, he furiously inflated the a inner tube to locate the puncture, while the man Purdy seated himself on the running board, rolled cigarettes and acted like any malfunction was not his doing.

Twenty minutes later, the smell of gunpowder strong in his nostril from vulcanizing on the patch, Craft cranked the Dodge’s engine to life. An hour later with a funnel of dust in their wake, they drove up to Oakley’s Bar Seventy-Nine headquarters.

“You let me handle this,” Purdy said as the brakes gritted to a stop. “Stay in the car, no matter what happens.”

Craft nodded, letting the engine idle as Purdy unfolded himself out of the front seat. Deliberate like he reset the Stetson and then walked toward the house. A yellow dog who’d barked his head off since they’d arrived, ran off yelping at his approach.

Two men came out on the porch; they never smiled. Craft drew a deep breath, frozen to his seat, and spellbound, he watched things unfold. The Oakley brothers, Harp and Doan, were by reputation tough men, half Purdy’s age too. Would they resist the old lawman and what should he do? Angry voices carried to him. Craft reached for the door latch—perhaps he should back Purdy’s play. What could one old man do?

A gunshot broke the melee. A cloud of blue smoke settled around Purdy and the two men. Wide eyed, his heart pounding in his throat, Craft leaned forward on the steering wheel to stare in disbelief at them. Purdy was still standing, so were the other two. Purdy must have punctuated his orders with the shot, Craft decided as he slumped in relief under the steering wheel.

The two brothers, their hands raised high, marched toward the car ahead of Purdy.

“There’s been a mistake,” a distraught woman shrieked. “They never done it!”

Purdy looked unfazed by her pleading. He holstered his gun, handcuffed the silent prisoners and then loaded them in the back seat.

“Young man, let’s see if you can get this thing back to Sulphur,” he finally said, then he climbed in.

Craft nodded, revived the engine and ground the transmission into low. It chugged around in a great U-turn away from the shouting woman, toward town and the jail. Uneventfully he delivered his passengers to the courthouse at six-ten on Purdy’s great gold watch.

“Thank you, young man,” Purdy said after unloading his prisoners. “The sheriff will pay you your fee in the next few days.”

Craft thanked him, then he proudly drove the Dodge back to the family store. Flushed with excitement, his best pals swarmed off the porch to greet him, freckle face Bobby Jack and Alvin Frank with his stubborn cowlick standing up in back like a rooster comb.

“Well, tell us all about it,” Bobby Jack gushed.

“Only one shot was fired.”

“One shot?” Alvin ran his hands over the fender feeling for a bullet hole.

Craft shook his head in disgust at his friend’s searching. “No one shot the car silly. He fired once into the air to settle them down.”

“Wow! Were you right there?”

“Close enough.”

“What’s he like?”

So Craft explained all Purdy had told him about cattle drives and John Wesley Hardin, as they went inside and had a sarsaparilla to celebrate his first law enforcement adventure.

Q Q Q

After scanning the news headlines on the front page that told how America would soon go to war against the Kaiser, Craft read the obituary, about the famous Texas ranger losing a bout with pneumonia. William Houston Purdy went to his reward in the great sky, December 18
^th
, according to the Sulphur Valley Gazette.

The next few days, several gray-haired men gathered at the hotel to join the procession from Parnell’s funeral parlor to the hill cemetery where they took the deceased. From the store front window, Craft watched the old timers shuffle long-faced up Weather Street.

He studied the saddled buckskin horse trailing behind the hearse and approved of it. Then he turned on his heel and went back to finish stocking
shelves—another legend was gone like a dust devil spun away into oblivion.

Later in the afternoon, he looked up from his sweeping when Sheriff Micheals came through the front door, tingling the bell. The man’s broad shoulder’s crowded the brown suit. Craft realized the lawman had a purpose and he was the person he sought.

“You must have impressed the old man,” the sheriff began.

“Pardon sir?”

“Bill Purdy. He left some strict instructions.”

“Oh.” Craft blinked in confusion as Micheals held the great gold watch before him.

“Take it. He wanted you to have it.”

“Me?”

“Yes. He asked on his dying bed that the polite boy who took him on his one and only car ride should have it. You know old Billy never said much, but I guess he was sure impressed with you.”

Craft acknowledged he’d heard the sheriff’s words as he opened the timepiece’s face with shaky fingers. Then he laid it to his ear to listen to the ticking. He’d probably never hear all those tales about Kansas, the saloon gals and famous wild places, but he did have a great watch that once belonged to an important man. Why he’d be the one in history who gave the former ranger Bill Purdy his only car ride. He polished the gleaming case on his shirtfront, then he pocketed his prized possession. Wouldn’t his buddies envy him now?

The frost-crusted snow would not support her. Each time she stepped, her moccasin and the bare calf of her leg plunged into the icy powder beneath. Guided by the Moon of the Last Goose, Deer Woman struggled northward in the white world of night, pained by her fresh widowhood and the loss of her two children. She hastened onward in an effort of blind survival, to put as much distance as possible between her and the treacherous Yellow Legs. Under her long breasts beat the strong heart of a warrior for many times she had carried war against the Long Knives

Cold scorched her cheeks like a firebrand. Doubt fogged her mind as she breathed deep to fill her straining lungs. She needed to find a warm friendly lodge. Her own tepee was a charred ring, no doubt hidden already by the wind driven snow.

Early that day, the pony soldiers raked their village with grape shot from a cannon, then they charged
in to
kill the survivors. Her tall handsome husband Red Horse lay dead, a crimson wound in his chest that seeped onto his quill vest. Both of her children stilled and bloody beyond recognition from the fierce blasts of the cannon shot. Even before the madmen on horseback raced screaming into their camp, she had suffered her losses.

“Death you Indian bitch!” The trooper charged from out of nowhere, bearing down on her, but he snapped an empty pistol and the speed of his horse carried him by her. Bewildered
at how to escape amid the death, raping, scalping and screams of her people, she managed somehow to step in the right places and soon found herself burrowed into a cavity between two dead Indian ponies at the edge of camp. The sorrow burned inside her as she concealed herself, forced to clutch her fingers so tightly the nails dug into her palms to contain the urge to rise up and kill everyone of the blue coats.

She tried to shut out the cries of pain. Even with her hands over her ears she still heard the survivors pleading under the brutal hands of the soldiers. Fervently, she asked her spirits to deliver her people from this hell, but her gods did not answer her. The cries went on forever.

Under the cover of darkness, she slipped away from this place of death. The obscene talk of the white eyed soldiers around blazing fires
carried across the frozen prairie as she stole her way up a draw to leave the scene of so much devastation. There remained nothing she could do for Red Horse or her small children—the knot in her throat restricted her breathing as she bent low running away from her losses. The bitter smoke of smoldering lodges branded the inside of her nose; she would never forget the sickening smell of burning buffalo hide and hair.

Cold night air knifed her lungs as she hurried westward, determined, despite the burden of sorrow, to live. The spirits had saved her for a purpose and although she did know the true nature of their wishes she did not doubt that her survival was planned by the Gods of her world. Even as her moccasins crunched the snow, her future was not clear to her. Deer Woman pushed into the night—away from the treacherous white eyes.

Dawn dazzled across her frigid world. Afraid of their pursuit, she often glanced back over her shoulders. Each time, her heart stopped for a beat when she re-visualized the distorted face of the pony soldier snapping his empty pistol at her and at any moment expecting to die from his bullet that never came. Hugging the trade blanket around her shoulders, she hurried on.

To survive, she must ration the meager buffalo jerky in her elk skin dress pockets. The substance needed to last her many days until she found another camp of her own people. Grateful the small streams were frozen solid, she quickly crossed another, labored up the steep bank and moved on again.

At last,
she stopped to recapture her breath, then squinted against the blinding glare. Something was out there on her back trail, she had seen it move. Her heart rate quickened at the notion—the relentless ones had scented and found her back trail. Only a flash and then a shadow, but she knew they would be coming for her; buffalo wolves were on her tracks. Her hand closed on the handle of the sharp knife in her belt. Even keen edged steel would be no match for the slashing teeth of the predators. Perhaps she could find a tall tree to stay in during the night, but there were none in sight and she didn’t expect to find one.

She hurried on
_,
grateful for her powerful, long legs. As a girl she could out run most boys. Tall for a Sioux woman, she stood a head higher above most of her tribesmen, except her beloved Red Horse who was the tallest male of the Mandan people. When she looked back for signs of her pursuers she felt a deep twinge of remorse over the loss of that powerful man. Never again would Red Horse part her legs and send her into the land of passion.

The things she treasured were all gone, her husband, their two
children, the great tepee that turned the north wind and their horse herd. Deer Woman felt pangs of guilt for not remaining and giving her family a proper burial. The spirits would have to forgive her. Besides they had sent her in headlong flight away from the destroyed camp into the fangs of the buffalo wolves who would kill her and shred her body into bloody parts for their own pleasure.

The slinkers on her back trail grew braver as the day lengthened. Despite the cold, the sun warmed her left side through the layers of blanket and leather. She appreciated the warmth. Still the breath escaping her lips turned to vapor and the sun’s glare burned her eyes.

After darkness fell on the snowfields, the cowardly yellow eyes would come in snarling and snipping at her. Finally when she could no longer scare them away with her screaming threats and the knife, they would charge in. First the leaders would shred her bare calves under the elk skin dress as they sought to pull her down. At the same time, she would be trying to fend them away from jumping at her tender throat while they tore at her back. With her finally down on the snow, the wolves would get braver, despite her screams. The copper smell of her wounds and the success of the braver ones would feed the desire of the others to rush in. Without honor, her blood would stain the snow as she died.

Their final attack, she knew, would not occur until after sunset. She raced to the next ridge and paused to catch her breath, she looked back across the sea of dazzling ice. The wolves were back there. Mere dark specs pacing back and forth in place. She even imagined seeing their great red tongues lolled out as they panted, acting bored. Waiting for her to go forth, wear herself down some more; they were patient killers and would follow.

Woman Deer with her leather skirt in her hands, plowed on with long strides. She hoped to see the smoke of another winter camp when she
reached
the next high point. She wished to find lodges of friends and relatives where she could share her losses before a warming fire. The leader of her camp, Chief Yellow Sleeve was dead too.

Finally on the crest, she shaded her eyes with the sides of her hands; she saw no camp—only more whiteness. She also knew viewing the empty land, when the sunset finally fell to her left, the wolves would close in and her life would end.

No one to hear her screams, She pledged in silence to die honorably. Soon she must find herself a place to make the final stand against the blood thirsty ones. Even for her own death she must plan.

The tormentors grew braver. They were finally close enough that when she stopped to gulp more air, she could see their long red tongues. However they would not look at her. Their yellow eyes averted from her stare. She knew when they sprung for her throat they would look at her. A shudder of raw fear made her shoulders quake.

The flat report of a powerful rifle forced her to whirl to see the shooter. The soldiers had found her. Deer Woman did not recognize the buckskin-clad figure as she floundered to stand in the deep snow. He stood in the stirrups to take aim and fired again at the confused wolves.

They savagely attacked the stricken member of the pack that yelped in pain from his wound and the bites of his pack mates. Some cowered close by, unsure whether to attack their brother or flee.

The stranger’s powerful black horse breathed great clouds of vapor and the string of horses heavily laden with packs remained behind him. His rifle belched more smoke and death. Another wolf pitched down and died without a whimper. The wounded one still cried, but the last shot proved to be enough for the other lobos. They left in great leaps racing across the sun’s glare to escape the brand of death that he dispensed.

Would he kill her next? She wondered as her hand closed on the antler handle of the knife in her belt. Filled with distrust she silently promised she would die honorably and proud. It made no difference, she would not beg for her life.

“Hey, where is your horse?” he asked, sitting down in the Mexican saddle and holstering the long gun in its boot.

She did not blink. Deer Woman understood English but if he was to kill her—why should she talk to this man?

“Where’s your camp?” he asked an edge of anger creeping into his voice. “Are you speechless?” he demanded.

She teetered dizzy with exhaustion. Her strong resolve locked her knees and she vowed not to faint, nor to show this white eye any weakness. Despite her teeth clenched effort, her vision began to swarm and the snow came up fast to meet her.

“Christ, woman are you losing a baby?” he demanded as she tried to raise up. No good, she fluttered away into the sleep of the pained.

He had bound her. She tried to move her limbs and couldn’t. The white eye had tied her up tight and intended to feed her to the wolves. What was she constricted in—she did feel warm and there was a fire. “Ah, you’re coming around,” he spoke and she began to realize they were inside a small lodge. “Here, I’ll help you.” he offered, but she tried to draw away.

“Suit your self, I ain’t all that fond of you either,” he said and relighted his pipe with a sliver of wood from the fire.

The smoke was sweet and she wondered what things he burned for it smelled settling despite her position. The blankets, she was wrapped in were his too, for the material carried the scent of a white man and that tobacco. Certainly not an Indian male either. She soon discovered the blankets weren’t bonds and fell away; he had merely wrapped her tight to hold in her body heat while she slept.

“I have food.”

She did not answer though her empty stomach hurt.

“You can go on being stupid or you can eat a bowl of my cooking.” On his haunches, he waited ready to dip her some from the kettle swung over the fire.

“White eyes killed my man and children two days ago,” she said.

“Injuns killed my woman and a papoose a month ago.”

“You had an Indian wife?” she asked, touching the ground for her balance as she settled on her haunches.

“Part Injun.”

“Who killed her, the Pawnees?”

“No, the Sioux.”

“My people?”

“It don’t make a damn—everyone is killing everyone in this damn crazy world up here.” He gave her a look of disgust.

A rawboned burly man, but powerful for he had carried her to this lodge. She could see the night sky and stars out the smoke hole. How long had she been unconscious? She needed to go outside and relieve her bladder. Would he let her go? He did not appear cruel.

“I will go out and come back,” she said waiting on his nod. He settled back and she left him.

The cold air shocked her when she emerged from the lodge. She waded past the close tied horses. What did her spirits want her to do? This man did not seem murderous. Still her recent losses forced her to dread any white. She did not stay outside long for the cold felt worse and the snow much deeper.

She ducked back inside and slung a blanket over her shoulders to restore some of the lost warmth. He looked at her expectantly and she bobbed her head that she would try his food. On his knees, he dipped her out a full bowl and handed it to her.

The rich smelling dish in her hands, she nodded thanks and wondered if underneath the bushy red beard there was a chin and a face. She had seen his mouth under the bow of his mustache and the even line of white
teeth.

Deer Woman began to recall his panic when he first found her. He’d asked, was she losing a child? No, she carried no child. Head bowed, she waited for the steaming stew to cool. Even though he was white, she owed him her life—she paused. The spirits had sent her to him; she stared at him for a long second. No, surely they had not taken her children and husband in such a cruel way so she might serve this bushy faced man—the knowledge caused a sickness in the pit of her belly that settled like a great stone. She had read the signs careful enough and the notion bothered her more than she wanted to admit.

“Where are your people?”

“Blue legs kill all of them.”

“They’re closing in on all the wild ones.”

She shook her head. “Not wild ones, we are on the land our gods have given us.”

“White man’s taking all that back.”

“It’s not his!”

“Don’t matter, he has guns and the army and the Sioux too will bend.”

“We want none of his res-va-tions.”

He filled his pipe and looked at her with a hardness that struck her heart like flint and steel. “Then try the happy hunting grounds, that’s where the free ones are.”

“Better to be dead then,” she said and set the food down.