XIX
The buckboard rattled and heaved under Hank’s ass. He would much rather have been in the saddle than out here in a wagon. The wooden wheels cut ruts in the tall grass and sod that hid every goddamn badger hole, which this Army nag found somehow without missing nary a one.
He studied the huge thunderstorm building in the west. A tower of purple-gray clouds reached up to touch the descending sun. The deep gray underbelly of the storm sent thunder rumbling across the endless prairie.
Hank had memorized the landmarks whereabouts he found Oliver, but he still spent over an hour searching the hills and valleys for the cowboys’ former campsite, driving the wagon back and forth over an area of several square miles. Oliver had told him of the spot, but Hank was skeptical of the boy’s accuracy. Oliver had been so addled this morning, he could have been walking around in Hell and not known the difference.
The cowboys had been tending old Angus McCoy’s herd. The Bar-M was a sizable spread stretching toward the edge of Indian lands and then south toward the Nebraska border. The ranches of the Dakota Territory had been skirmish grounds more than once between the ranchers and sheepherders. Fighting between the ranchers and Indians was rare, but not unheard of. Decades of conflict had turned old Angus into a man almost as tough and uncompromising as Hank.
Hank admired that.
A man had to be tough as hell to live here, so far from what the city folks called “civilization.” Where hostile savages could be lurking over the next hill, however much the heathens had had the shit kicked out of them. Where the wind never really stopped blowing. Where the nights were filled with the howls of coyotes. Where the seas of prairie grass just went on and on, and the sod was so tough you could make a house of it. Where eking out an existence made men and women as hard and resilient as a boot heel.
So where were the Bar-M cattle? The cattle would matter to McCoy almost as much as his son. Even with his wealth, losing a herd would be felt. Where did it get off to?
Abandoned saddles and a burned-out campfire peeked out of the wind-ripples of grass.
“’Bout damn time!” Hank said and turned the horse that direction.
Reaching the campsite, he reined up, set the wagon brake, and stepped down.
The grass was dense, knee-deep, and just starting to green with spring. Large swatches had been flattened by the presence of the Bar-M herd, but of the cattle there was no sign. All that remained of the campsite was the black splotch of dead fire, with the cowboys’ saddles and tack carefully arranged around it. Bloated black flies buzzed, flicking and alighting on the congealed blood, black fluid, and viscera still staining the grass.
The bodies were gone.
Hank scratched his head. “I’ll be damned.”
Suddenly his short hairs jumped to reveille, and he scanned the grass around him. Maybe coyotes had dragged the bodies away. This morning, he would have said there were no critters in these parts dangerous to man except an occasional rattlesnake, no wolves, or bears, or cougars. But now …
A powerful sensation that something was watching him chilled his blood, and he was sharply glad he had reloaded his pistol.
He threw the saddles and tack into the back of the buckboard. A tether where the cowboys had tied their horses was broken. Hoof tracks reached for the nearest horizon. He picked up a blood-spattered hat, but it clung to the grass for moment, until he tore it free and tossed it in the back of the buckboard. He caught himself searching the grass, with a potent feeling that a snake must be within striking distance, but the grass was an opaque, impenetrable weave.
Something rustled a few steps away.
His eyes flicked toward it, but there was nothing to see. He pulled his six-gun and squinted toward the sound, his jaw and shoulders tightening.
For a long minute he stood there. All he could hear was the wind-driven rustle of the grass, the call of a distant meadowlark, the nervous stomping of the Army nag.
Hank shook his head, holstered his pistol, and climbed into the wagon. Everything he had seen today had knocked his common sense off kilter. He needed to get back to White Pine. There was some digesting to do.