The blond shrugged and shoveled another mouthful. “Where’s the best place? Helena?”
“Maybe. They’re just opening the lodes. Might take a couple of years to see the likes of the Colorado strikes or the Comstock. And even then it’d be a mighty different class of people.”
“Seems to me all these Rebels can have this damn frozen waste. And good riddance.” His eyes narrowed. “But then, from your accent, you’re a damn Rebel yourself.”
“Nope. Not really. Had kin that fought for the South. I didn’t figure it was my war. I was ready to live and let live.” He smiled thinly. “But sometimes some son of a bitch just comes along and sticks a finger in your eye.”
“They conscript you?”
Billy shook his head. “Bushwhackers. Killed Maw, took my sister. Mean bunch. Took me to nigh on the end of the war to run down and kill every last one of the whoresons. By then wasn’t a hell of a lot left of Arkansas but ruins.”
“I was in Arkansas there at the end. You’re right. Not much left.” He stared thoughtfully at nothing, as if reminiscing. “It was always the chase. They leave traces when they run. Letters home, some mention to friends. I sure miss it.”
Billy narrowed his eyes. “That what you’re doing now? Hunting someone?”
The blond laughed bitterly. “Don’t I wish. They say my means are too harsh.” He gestured with the fork to make his point. “You want to get anywhere hunting men? You’ve got to go for their throats. Especially the dangerous ones. Like pulling up weeds, you gotta yank out the whole rotten plant. Rip out its jugular, break its neck, and jerk up the roots. Then you burn the very ground it grew on and teach a lesson by destroying everyone close to the traitorous son of a bitch. Friends, wives, whores.”
His eyes seemed to flicker, lips quivering. “And somehow…” He cocked his head. “It’s just bad luck. Who would have thought a homeless cunt…?”
He seemed to have lost his train of thought.
“You going to stay around Fort Benton?”
The blond man shrugged. “Might try Helena. Maybe follow one of the freight companies down to Virginia City.” He seemed to forget the question, then looked up, gaze brittle and cold. “You see, I learned. A smart man lets them relax. Think the danger is past. Then, when they least expect it, that’s when you catch them in their doorway. That’s when you really make them pay.”
Billy studied him warily. “Thought you were looking to run a fancy house?”
“Man can have two skills, can’t he?” The blond smiled coldly. “Running special whores and killing, can’t call either one exclusive, can you?”
“Nope. Reckon not.” Billy picked up his cigar. Maybe it was time to drift back over the divide to Helena. Send a telegraph to Nichols. Maybe a winter job was what he needed.
“Call me Billy Nichols. Who are you?”
“Win Parmelee.”
Billy frowned. Where in hell had he heard that name before? Colorado? Something about a parlor house? Lord knows, a man heard a lot of names out here.
“Tell me,” Parmelee asked casually. “You ever hear of a man who calls himself the Meadowlark?”
Billy stiffened, his heart skipping. “Nope. Where’d you hear that?”
“Drunk gambler I met. Barely made it onto the last boat headed downriver. Said he was lucky to get away with his life. Funny how things work out, isn’t it? All them odd coincidences in life.”
Danny? Had to be.
“How’s that?”
Parmelee shrugged. “You ever hear anything about this Meadowlark, I’d pay to get a line on him. That’s all.”
“Why?”
“Might have some work for him.”
Billy took a draw on his cigar, only to find the ash gone cold.
100
February 18, 1868
Had you asked Butler, he would have told you it was a rotten night for a celebratory feast, especially given the blizzard that raged outside. Nevertheless, a celebration it was. Every now and then a severe gust of wind rocked the hide lodge, and drafts of cold—bearing a dusting of snowflakes—would trickle down from the smoke hole. As they fell into the warm interior, the flakes vanished.
And a snug lodge it was, crafted from scraped and tanned elk hides and wrapped around a conical framework of lodge poles. Tied to the inside of the poles, a thin calfhide liner rose two thirds of the way up the walls and acted to create an insulating layer of air.
The inside was just large enough for him to sit in the guest’s place beside the door. To his left sat a pretty young woman dressed in a beautifully beaded and quill-worked dress that sported chevron patterns of elk teeth. Her woman’s name was Wobindotadegi, or Mountain Flicker in English. Tonight they celebrated her passage from girl to woman.
Cracked Bone Thrower sat in his traditional spot in the rear as lord and master of the lodge.
Beside Cracked Bone Thrower, and across from Mountain Flicker, the man’s wife, Ainka Wei, or Red Rain, perched uncomfortably given her swollen and very pregnant belly. She was also Mountain Flicker’s older sister, and the resemblance was plain to see.
Finally, opposite Butler, Cracked Bone Thrower and Red Rain’s two little boys, five-year-old Cricket and two-year-old Water Snake, wiggled and fidgeted more than they actually sat.
In the center of the lodge—and in front of the anchor rope—the hearth crackled and burned cheerily. Resting on hearthstones sat a soapstone cooking pot, its contents bubbling and filling the air with scents of wild onions, sego lily, and biscuit root taken from the family’s dried stores. All were swimming in melted buffalo back fat.
The centerpiece of the meal was baked elk heart seasoned with dried biscuit root leaves. Strips of the succulent meat steamed on the wooden plate in Butler’s lap. He glanced at Mountain Flicker and grinned as he chewed off another bite.
He had grown fond of the girl over the months since his return from the journey to the Underworld. She had been fascinated by him and his invisible men, and
