'Two miles,' the old man told him. 'No more, no less.'
Longtree sat up and his head spun. 'Damn,' he said. 'I have to get down to Bad River. The men I'm hunting…they might still be there.'
'Who are these men?'
Longtree told him.
There were three men, he said. Charles Brickley, Carl Weiss, and Budd Hannion. They ambushed an army wagon in Nebraska that was en route to Fort Kearny, killing all six troopers on board. The wagon had carried army carbines which, it was learned, were sold to Bannock war parties. That was a matter now for the army itself and the Indian Bureau. But the killing of soldiers was a federal offense which made it the business of the U. S. Marshals Office. Longtree had trailed the killers from Dakota Territory to Bad River. And in the foothills of the Absarokas, they had ambushed him. They jumped him, beat him senseless, strung him up.
'But you did not die,' Swift Fox reminded him.
'Thanks to you.' Longtree was able to sit up now without dizziness.
Swift Fox was studying him. His hair was long and dark, carrying a blueblack sheen foreign to whites. 'You are a breed?' he asked.
Longtree smiled thinly. 'My mother was a Crow, my father a beaver trapper.'
Swift Fox only nodded. 'When do you plan on hunting these men?'
Longtree rubbed his neck. 'Tomorrow,' he said, then laid back down, shutting his eyes.
4
The wind was blowing when he made it into Bad River.
It wasn't much of a town. A rutted road of dirt and dried mud meandered between rows of peeled clapboard buildings. What signs hung out front had been weathered unreadable by the elements. There was a livery, a blacksmith shop, and a graying boarded-up structure that might have passed for a hotel. There was no law here, no jailhouse. What Longtree had come to do, he would do alone.
Dust and dirt in his face, the wind mourning amongst the buildings, Longtree hitched the horse Swift Fox had loaned him outside the livery barn. The horse-an old gray-wasn't too happy about being left in the wind.
'This won't take long,' Longtree promised him.
He broke open the short-barreled shotgun the old Flathead had given him, fed in two shells, and started down the rotting, frost-heaved boardwalk. His army spurs jangled as he walked. Swift Fox had done some checking and found that the men Longtree was looking for often frequented the Corner Saloon in Bad River.
This is where Longtree went now.
He had his neckerchief pulled up over his nose and mouth so he wouldn't be breathing grit. The shotgun was held firmly in his fists, his eyes narrowed. His dark clothes were gray now with dust and wind-blown debris. Outside the saloon, he paused. It was a decaying structure, single-story, its boarding warped and peeled, the doorway askew with an old army blanket tacked to the frame.
Longtree went in with a slow and easy pace, the shotgun ready in his hands. It was dim inside, lit only by sputtering lamps. The floor was uneven and covered in layers of pungent sawdust. The stuffy air stank of cheap liquor, smoke, and body odor. Beaten men lounged at the bar. A few more in booths. An obese, toothless bar hag slicked with sweat and grime grinned at Longtree with yellow gums.
'What'll ya have?' the bartender asked. He was bald and had but one arm, an empty sleeve pinned to his side.
Longtree ignored him, keeping his neckerchief up over his face so the men at the back table wouldn't recognize him.
They were all there.
Brickley, thin and wizened, hat pulled down near his eyes. Weiss, chubby and short, grinning at his partners. Hannion, a muscled giant, a knife scar running down one cheek.
Longtree went to them.
'You want somethin'?' Weiss asked, a single gold tooth in his lower jaw.
'I have a warrant for the arrest of you men,' Longtree said. 'Murder.'
They looked up at him with wide, hateful eyes.
Longtree flashed his badge and pulled down the neckerchief.
'Oh God,' Weiss stammered. 'God in Heaven…you're dead…' He fell backwards out of his chair as Brickley and Hannion went for their guns. Longtree shot Brickley in the face, his head pulping in a spray of blood and bone. Hannion pulled his gun and took his in the chest, hitting the floor and flopping about, pissing rivers of red.
Longtree broke open the shotgun, emptied the chambers, and fed in two more shells. He stepped over the corpses and towered above Weiss. Weiss was trembling on the floor, his crotch wet where he'd pissed himself, bits of the other two men sticking to him.
'Where's my horse?' Longtree asked him. 'My guns?'
Weiss shuttered, unable to talk.
Longtree kicked him in the face, the boot-spur slicing off the end of his nose and dumping the man in the wreck of Hannion. Weiss screamed, left arm sunk up to the elbow in the bloody crater of Hannion's chest. Longtree grabbed him by the hair and pulled him to his feet.
'My things,' he said in a deadpan voice. 'Now.'
Barely able to walk, Weiss led him out of the saloon and through the screaming wind to the livery stable. A lamp burned in there; a grizzled old man oiled a bridle. He saw the blood on Weiss. Saw Longtree's badge and fled.
Weiss pointed to Longtree's horse and saddlebags, his bedroll and weapons lying in the corner. Then he fell to his knees, crying, whimpering, drool running down his chin.
'Don't kill me, Marshal! Oh, God in Heaven, don't kill me!' he rambled in a broken, lisping voice. 'Please! They made me do it! They made me!'
Longtree kicked him in the face again and the man howled in agony.
Sighing, Longtree turned to his things and went through them. Everything was in order, save the warrants and wanted fliers of the men-they were missing. His gun belts and nickel-plated Colts were untouched. His Winchester rifle had been emptied of cartridges. Nothing else had changed.
Behind him, he heard Weiss make a run for it.
Longtree turned quickly and let him have both barrels. The impact threw Weiss through the doors, his midsection pulverized. He hit the ground a corpse. Only a few ripped strands of meat held him together.
The killing done, Longtree sat down and smoked.
5
Later, after he'd hauled the corpses to the undertaker's and arranged for their burials using the outlaws' horses and guns as payment, Longtree hit the trail. He rode up to the camp of the Flathead and gave Swift Fox the horse and gun back, thanked the man.
And then he was gone.
Longtree didn't like Bad River. It had a stink of death and corruption about it. And if the truth be told, there were few frontier towns that did not. And the reality of this brought a bleak depression on him.
So he rode.
He headed east to Fort Phil Kearny where orders from the U.S. Marshals Office would be awaiting him.
And that night, the air stank of running blood.
