caught the leg, standing as he did it. The man spilled backward, cracking the back of his head on the edge of a far table.
Of a sudden the air was being choked out of him. Jonah felt an arm around his neck, fingers in his hair, reaching down for his eyes, a thumb clawing toward his mouth, gouging for all the man was worth. Shifting his weight, Jonah saw from the corner of one bloody eye that Jowls still stood his ground, yelling enthusiastically. It had to be the plain, pie-faced one. Jonah had not counted on this.
Now he jammed a heel into the man’s boot. Feeling a lurch in his grip. A second time he jammed down, even harder with his heel. The arm came loose, just enough that Jonah spun beneath it, feeling some of his long hair come away in the man’s grip. He drove one fist into the gut, the heel of his other hand came up beneath the man’s chin, driving him backward.
Hook tasted the salty blood on his tongue, felt it dribbling from his nose. And the sting of torn flesh at the corner of his eye where the man’s fingers had raked him good.
And then Jonah had his hands full again as Flat-face came at him, charging, head down, crushing Hook with both his arms as Jonah pummeled him on the back of the head, neck, shoulders. Arms locked him in a painful vise, choking off his breath. Hook couldn’t get any air as the man shoved him against the wall, driving the last breath from him. Then, again he rammed Hook against the clapboard. A collision against the wall. Each time with a grunt from the Confederate.
“Drop the knife, Perkins!”
He heard someone yell. Not sure who. His eyes weren’t clear—not for the blood and for the tears of pain.
“Leave me cut him, Hastings!”
Rat-face was there at Hook’s side now. Knife out, he was badly bruised and bloody.
“He could have gut-shot you—but he didn’t, Perkins,” said Jowls, the man called Hastings. “Leave it at that.” He was looking over the room like he knew good and well that none of them really could stand a chance of getting away from committing murder in this fashion.
“I’ll finish him good,” Flat-face said with a grunt, shoving Jonah against the wall a fourth time.
“Let ’im go, Colby.”
Colby obeyed immediately, stepped back, and accepted his pistols from Hastings. Perkins was wiping himself off with the back of his hand, smearing the blood on the front of his greasy britches.
Then Hastings was in Hook’s face. “You fight good, for being such a skinny fella.”
“You need someone like me who can fight, don’t you, Hastings?”
Jowls cocked his head slightly, his eyes getting real serious. “You want work, that it?”
“Easy work,” Jonah replied. “Never cottoned to doing anything hard. Like my money come easy.”
Hastings smiled. Then stepped back and appraised the Confederate a moment. “You just might do. But mind you, it ain’t only my say.”
“The major ain’t gonna let him in,” Perkins snapped sourly. “He’s a Reb. You know how both of ’em feel ’bout Rebs.”
“We’ll see what the major says,” Hastings replied. “My bosses both gotta want you in—or you can’t stay.”
“They out at your camp?”
He shook his head. “We’ll be meeting up with one of ’em not for weeks from now. Planned on it being out to Fort Laramie.”
“That’s along the North Platte.”
“You know it, mister?” Hastings asked with interest.
“I been out there. Fought Injuns a time or two. On the Sweetwater. Clear up to South Pass. I know that ground, and Fort Laramie too.”
Hastings was grinning again as he came a step forward and slapped a hand on Hook’s shoulder. “See there, boys? We got us a honest-to-goodness Injun fighter in our platoon now. Just what Boothog and Jubilee gonna want when we cross back over them damned mountains to Deseret.”
45
“PERHAPS IT IS time we took a holiday from one another,” Jubilee Usher told him as the big man slowly walked away across the canvas-sheeting floor of his massive tent.
Lemuel Wiser was relieved. Whenever he argued with Usher, Wiser was never sure how the argument would turn out. Except that he had long ago learned to make an idea sound like it was Usher’s from the start. Convince the charismatic Saint that the idea was his to begin with, and then the man would defend it with a fiery passion.
“We have been moving across this country faster than we had planned, Colonel Usher,” he said. “Hastings’s group is likely already away from the Missouri and pushing west along the Platte toward our rendezvous.”
Usher turned, grinning crookedly. “I certainly hope Hastings has the information we need for Brigham.” For a moment he gazed into his glass of brandy, swirling it around. “All of Deseret will need that intelligence, Major Wiser.”
“Hastings and his bunch are proven, Colonel. They won’t let us down. You handpicked them yourself—the steadiest we have among the whole lot. They learned a lot about Kansas that last scout you had them on.”
“Yes, I did pick them myself—most carefully.” Usher took a drink. “I wanted the best to ride back north again with Hastings, because they would be the outriders plunging into enemy territory farther than any of the rest of us. I had to know I could depend upon them to get the job done—clean and tidy. No messy mistakes. No deserters.”
“No, not like Fordham.”
Boothog watched the mention of the name twist Usher’s features, making his eyes mere slits with a flinty center.
“No, Major. Not like Riley Fordham.”
“But I do have four out looking for him already. I spread them out as you suggested. They’ll cover everything north and west of here, sweeping the land clear before meeting up with us at Fort Laramie. I’m sure one of them will have Fordham’s head waiting for you.”
Usher smiled. “That was a novel approach to this ancient problem, don’t you think, Major?”
“The burlap bags, Colonel?”
“Yes,” Usher replied, sinking slowly into his canvas chair. “Giving each of those four I sent scrambling after our deserter a burlap bag.”
“One of them will have the prize in his bag when we get to Laramie, Colonel.”
Usher stared into his brandy. “The head of Riley Fordham.”
“Yes, Colonel. And that man will win the prize.”
Usher gazed up at Wiser now, the grin disappearing. He sounded almost sympathetic. “You so wanted the girl, didn’t you, Major?”
Wiser had never been able to hide it. “She is every bit as beautiful as her mother, Colonel. Yes. The girl will bear a man many children, and make a Saint proud to have her for one of his wives when we return to the land of Zion.”
He turned away, gazing wistfully at the roof of the tent. “The thought of that has such a peaceful picture to it. I tell myself very often now what it will mean—returning there to old friends and family. After all these years of waging war against the blaspheming Gentiles.”
“Brigham Young will welcome you home with a parade, Colonel.”
Usher threw back the last of the brandy and licked a droplet from his lower lip. “A job well done. Yes. The Prophet will reward us all for a job well done.”
“Our job is not really over, Colonel.”
He waved a hand in answering. “Of course, it isn’t, Major. But I wish to be among my own people for a
