CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Lee Regret and Sam Davis rode down to the river at the base of the mountain and dismounted. Leading their horses down to the water, they stood holding the reins as the horses began to drink.
“I don’t see him anywhere about,” Regret said.
“He’ll be here,” Davis said. “You know Sergeant Depro as well as I do. You know that when he tells you he’s goin’ to do somethin’ that he does it.”
“Yeah, well, only if he’s goin’ to get somethin’ out of it for his ownself,” Regret said.
“Well, he is goin’ to get somethin’,” Davis insisted. “He’s goin’ to get his cut of the money.”
“If there is any money,” Regret replied. “You ever seen any Indians with money?”
“You were there when we talked to Mean to His Horses. You heard me tell him that we wanted to be paid in gold. He agreed, and that’s what we’ll be dealin’ in.”
As the two men stood there talking and watching their animals take water, they heard a low whistle from just beyond the tree line on the opposite side of the river.
“What was that?” Regret asked.
“Sounded like a bird,” Davis replied.
“Didn’t sound like no bird I ever heard.”
Davis returned the whistle and a moment later a man wearing an army uniform with the stripes of a sergeant walked through the tree line.
“Howdy, troopers,” he called from the other side of the river.
“We ain’t troopers no more,” Regret said. “We done been out of the army for nigh onto a year.”
“Hell, Regret, you wasn’t no soldier when you was in the army,” the sergeant said. “You wasn’t bad though, Davis.”
“Thank you, Sergeant,” Davis said.
“What the hell you suckin’ up to him, for?” Regret asked. “He can’t make me muck out stables, and he can’t give you no stripes. Me ’n you both is out of the army and there ain’t nothin’ he can do to hurt us or help us. Ain’t that right, Sergeant Depro?”
“That all depends,” Depro replied.
“Depends on what?”
“On whether or not you want the weapons I got.”
“You got ’em, Sarge?” Davis asked, now, suddenly animated.
“Come over here with me, and I’ll let you take a look.”
Regret and Davis waded through the water, then followed Sergeant Depro to the other side of a large rock outcropping. There sat an old weather-beaten wagon, its markings so dim that it was barely identifiable as a one- time army wagon.
“Here they are,” Sergeant Depro said, jerking the canvas cover away to reveal eight closed boxes.
Davis pried off the lid from the first box. He picked up one of the rifles and tossed it over to Regret, then picked up another for himself. It was a lever-action rifle, and he pumped the lever as he examined the action. “How many do you have here?” he asked.
“Forty Winchester repeaters, .44-.40, fifty-five Springfield .51 caliber breach-loading rifles, and thirty-five Colt revolvers, .45 caliber,” Sergeant Depro answered. “Or, put another way, enough weapons to start a small war.”
“Funny you should say that,” Regret replied. “For that is exactly what we have in mind.”
“Have you got a buyer?”
“Yeah, we have a buyer,” Davis said. “Mean to His Horses.”
“Mean to His Horses?” Depro replied. “Wait a minute. Are you tellin’ me I stole these guns to sell to Injuns? And not just any Injun, you’re going to sell them to Mean to His Horses? You can’t be serious.”
“Yeah, we are serious. Why wouldn’t we be serious?” Davis asked.
Depro shook his head. “I don’t know, Mean to His Horses is one bad son of a bitch. I just can’t believe you sold weapons to him.”
“Who did you think we would sell them to?” Regret asked. “Some squaw, somewhere?”
“No, I guess not. But I’m sure you remember the skirmish we had with Mean to His Horses a couple of years ago. He had fifty braves who went off the reservation, and we ran into them at Crazy Woman Creek. That was the fight where Miller, Tucker, and Jimmy Clark was all three killed.”
“Yeah, I remember that,” Davis said.
“They captured Jimmy Clark, and tortured him that night. We all heard him screaming for two or three hours before he died,” Depro said. “You remember that too, do you?”
“Yes, of course I remember. Something like that ain’t all that easy to forget,” Regret said. “So what is your point?”
“My point is, is that really the kind of Injun you want to sell these guns to?”
