The Pursued Page 7

Cole moved, drawing his leg across in front of him and the iron chain clinked and rattled, running like a black snake on the pale dust in the sunlight. He squinted up at the sun, “You feel that heat? It’s real intense, ain’t it? We get to bathe one time a week in here, you understand that? One time a week. There’s six of us in those tiny cells and we sweat a lot. There’s a bucket in the corner where we do our necessaries, all six of us. It stinks. We stink. We stew in our own stink. And it goes on for years. Years and years, unless a parole or pardon comes down the line, like some holy manna from heaven. And you know how often that arrives! That’s what you people put me through that first time. But, and here’s the funny thing, you never knew what a favor you all did me. Ain’t that a joke? I never looked back after that first time. I learned how to be in here, how to survive.” He leaned forward intently, and Powers could see Cole was about to divulge a piece of profound knowledge. “I found out where I truly belonged. I like it. I like being down with the dirty and deadly. The crazy thing is, I had to come and be put in a prison cell to get to be free. Now, don’t that beat all?”

  He waited patiently as Cole croaked a wild chuckle for a long moment. When Cole finished, Powers said, “Well, I can see you’re real happy where you are. So I won’t disturb you much longer. Just be sure you don’t fall over that ball and chain you’ve got there, might curb your newfound freedom some.”

  “Did you make it rich?” Cole asked suddenly. “Huh? Did you use that Rebel gold to good effect?”

  Powers looked around cautiously as Cole raised his voice. There was still talk that the Federal Government hunted the lost Confederate Treasury money and would go to any lengths to recover it, and he had no desire to have attention drawn to himself in that regard.

  “We all got the same out of it, Cole. What did you do with yours, drink it all away?” he whispered scornfully.

  Cole shrugged. “It went. What more can I tell you?”

  “Sure, on whores and liquor. That’s why you have to go rob stagecoaches and end up in here.”

  “So, what say you lend me some? See an old buddy all right. How about it, got a little something left from all that treasure for me?”

  “Keep it down, you fool,” snapped Powers.

  Cole was raising his voice again and a prison shotgun guard ambled over. “Everything all right here, sir?” he asked Powers, his expression and voice deadpan.

  “We’re good,” said Powers.

  The guard turned to Cole. “Shut your mouth, Loumis, you’re making too much noise. Keep it up and you go back inside. You understand me?”

  “Yeah, boss, I got it,” said Cole, lowering his head.

  “Be sure you do, boy.” The guard turned and wandered off among the stalls.

  Cole spat when he had gone. “Go on, get out of here, Powers. Get out of here before you get me into more trouble and I end up adding another five years to my sentence for busting your head open.”

  Without answering, Powers turned on his heel and began to walk away.

  “I’ll be coming,” Cole called after him. “When I’m out, I’ll be coming.”

  Without looking around, Powers said over his shoulder. “You come ahead, Cole. I’ll be waiting.”

  Chapter Nine

  Powers made his way back to Mary as he promised. It was a long journey by train and he was tired when he arrived but despite this, he was keen to see her and he hurried over to her house.

  On opening the door, she caught him quite unawares as she threw herself into his arms.

  Staggering back he looked quickly up and down the street to see if they were observed before carrying her bodily inside.

  “Mary McArthur,” he said, smiling around her kissing lips. “You are a shameless woman.”

  “I am pleased to see you, Powers,” she confessed. “It seems you’ve been away for months.”

  “Two weeks is all.” Smiling, he took time to hold her away and look at her. “Still as pretty as ever,” he judged.

  “Come along, you old flatterer.” She took his hand and pulled him after her into the kitchen. “Now sit,” she said, indicating a chair. “And tell me all. How did it go?”

  Briefly, he told her the story of his trip and the unsuccessful confrontation with Cole Loumis. “He hates me,” Powers explained. “And with some good reason, I guess. But I think he has gone wholly to the bad now. There is only bitterness in his heart and I fear that once his time is done, he will come looking for me with bad intent.”

  “And what of Andy?” she pressed him.

  “I don’t think he had anything to do with that. No, it’s me he holds to task. And Andy? Well, I still don’t know what —”

  “The sheriff thinks he has found the perpetrator.”

  “Indeed! Who’s that?”

  “A mixed-blood Indian. An old drunk, who lives on the edge of town. They found him trying to sell Andy’s Bible for money to buy drinks.”

  Powers frowned. “Really? Does the sheriff hold this Indian here in town? I should like to see the fellow.”

  “Yes, he keeps him here just now. They’ll take him into Boomer City next week for the trial. They have proper law courts there.”

  Powers studied her a moment. “You look doubtful,” he said. “You don’t believe this Indian did it?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know. Tunkan is a half-breed Sioux, his Ma married a traveling artist way back, a man called Captain James Tobin. So his white name is William Carter Tobin, but he hankers for the ways of his Wahpeton Sioux origins and is torn between the two races. He’s seen a lot of bad things, poor man. I think he is a lost soul, but I never made him out to be a killer.”

  “Lost souls usually make the best kind of killers,” Powers observed dourly. “What was his relationship with Red?”

  “Andy treated him as he did any unfortunate, with kindness and generosity.”

  “I’ll go and see him tomorrow but for now I’m beat. It has been a long trip.”

  She pressed her lips together in disappointment and looked at him with her head cocked to one side. “Oh, must you go? It is so good to see you, Powers.”

  “I will see you again once I’ve slept,” he promised.

  “Here,” she said hurriedly. “Let me make you up a bed, you can stay here.”

  He looked at her a long moment. “You must understand one thing about me, Mary. I have been alone a long while now. I can take care of myself quite well. I thank you for your attentions but you must see that I will go my own way. I mean no offence, you understand, and I like that you offer, but do not press so. It will all be well in time.”

  Flustered and admonished, her cheeks flushed. “I’m sorry,” she said, looking down at her fingers clasping and unclasping on her lap. “I did not mean to intrude. It’s so long I have cared for my brother, who was no more than a child in many ways, that I’m not used to the presence of a capable man.”

  “Well then,” he said, rising to go. “I will see you soon. I must go to the hotel and find if they still have a room for me.”

  She saw him to the door and stood there downcast, obviously feeling uncomfortable with their recent altercation.

  He turned at the open doorway. “I shall bring you flowers, Mary MacArthur,” he promised. “And I shall prepare my house for you.”

  She raised her head to look at him, her eyes still with a touch of hurt pride in them. “And just what does that mean, Powers Brent?”

  “It means, woman, that I’m asking if you will marry me.”

  A smile crinkled the edge of her mouth. She shrugged casually. “Well, I will have to give the matter some serious consideration. You see, I am an independent sort, used to my own company, and will have no hoary old male trampling over my sensibilities.”

  Powers barked a laugh. “Well then,” he said. “You give it some thought and if you like the idea, you will let me know in good time, I trust?”

  She caught his sleeve as he made to leave and pulled him back to her. “Of course I will, Powers,�
�� she whispered, her breath coming quickly as she kissed him full on the mouth. “I love you too dearly to do otherwise.”

  “Then,” he said, backing away. “I shall bring you a gold ring as well as flowers.”

  Hes slept deep that night. His contentment was full to overflowing with the prospect of starting a life with Mary. There were no doubts in his mind, even after his long period of bachelorhood. He was comfortable with her and he knew without any doubt that they would get on very well together.

  As he awoke the next day his mind raced with all the things he would now need to consider. There were obvious changes to make at his ranch house so he could accommodate a female there. Even as he dressed, made his way out from the hotel, and headed for the sheriff’s office, his head was full of alteration plans.

  Sheriff Moore pushed all such thoughts from his mind.

  “He’s back here,” said the sheriff, guiding Powers to a heavy door on one side of his busy office. Powers stepped around mountains of paper stacked and tied in ribbon and leather-bound ledgers rising in uncertain and dangerously leaning stacks.

  The sheriff shrugged. “My apologies, Mister Brent, we’ve nowhere else to store the records at present. It’s a tally of all that passes through here in the season. A busy time then.”

  “So I see,” said Powers as he weaved carefully around the piles. “You keep the suspect back here?”

  “It’s an old storage room. The paperwork used to be in there but we had to move that out to accommodate the prisoner. We don’t have much call for cells here in Soda Falls.”

  “Count yourself lucky, Sheriff.”

  “We do indeed, sir. We do indeed.” He brought out a heavy key and inserted it into the lock. “I doubt you’ll get much out of him. He’s somewhere else at present.”

  Powers was about to ask what he meant by that remark but the sheriff swung the door open and he was ushered in.

  The half-breed sat huddled in a corner, arms wrapped around his bent knees. He was old, his brown skin wrinkled and seamed. He wore dirty buckskin pants and a stained loincloth, a wool shirt under a dark waistcoat and moccasin boots. His hair hung down in lank threads from under a grubby headband and hid his features. He smelled ripe and Powers swallowed at the stink of the man.

  “Tunkan!” said Moore loudly, as if speaking to a partially deaf person. “You have to call him that,” Moore explained. “He won’t answer to no other name.”

  The sheriff turned again to the creature crouched in the corner. “No other name will do, will it, Tunkan Tobin? Don’t rightly know why you turned your back on your white self, but turn you did. Now this here is a gentleman come to have words with you. You be polite now, you hear? He’s a friend of the preacher and he has a few questions.”

  Tunkan remained as unmoving as stone; only the faint movement of his chest showed that he lived at all.

  “Sheriff,” Powers said. “Will you allow us a moment alone together?”

  “Surely. He’s harmless as hell, really. Don’t know what urged him to attack MacArthur.”

  “Do you know for sure that he did?” Powers asked, looking doubtfully at the sorry aspect of the prisoner.

  “Well, we found him in possession of the preacher’s Bible. That’s the closest we’ve come to a motivated attacker so far.”

  “The pistol? MacArthur was shot in the head.”

  “He owns a pistol all right. An old regulation Navy Colt. We found it in the heap of sticks and tarps he calls a home. It had been fired recent.”

  “Thank you, Sheriff,” Powers said by way of dismissal.

  “Right you are, Mister Brent. I’m going to lock this here door. I got paperwork to be getting on with. You holler when you want out. Best give me that Schofield you’re packing. I’ll give her back when you’re through.”

  Powers handed over the pistol and the sheriff left them to it, locking the door as he went.

  When they were alone, Powers slid down the wall opposite and sat on the floor across from the Indian. He sat in silence and waited. Neither moved and the silence hung heavily in the unpleasantly smelling air between them. Powers had some knowledge of Indian ways from the Sioux that often passed by his ranch and he knew that he had to be patient as their concept of time was not the same as a white man’s.

  A silent hour later, the sheriff came and knocked on the door. “You all right in there, Mister Brent?” he called.

  “We’re fine,” answered Powers. “Give us a while longer, will you?”

  “As you say.”

  Powers heard the sheriff’s footsteps wander off and at their departure the Indian looked up. He glanced at Powers through a curtain of unwashed hair for a long moment, then he jerked his chin.

  “You have tobacco?” Tunkan asked.

  Powers shook his head.

  “You have whisky?”

  Again, Powers shook his head.

  The Indian dropped his head to his knees in a show of despair.

  “You need eneépee, the sweat lodge, Tunkan. Your heart is unclean.”

  Tunkan snorted. “It is more than my heart that is tainted, white man. Why do you come here?”

  Smelling the rankness of the man, Powers had to agree. “I wish to ask you about the preacher, Andrew MacArthur.”

  “What of him?”

  “You knew him?”

  “I know of whom you speak. He of the flaming hair.”

  “Will you tell me of his death?”

  Tunkan shifted in a stretch, then rubbed his stomach roughly with both hands. “I need whisky, white man. My stomach is full of knives.”

  Powers nodded. “It will be so. You will be sick a long time in the prison without it.”

  “My body is in here,” Tunkan said, looking toward the one small window set high in the wall. “But my spirit is out there.”

  “They will take even that if you don’t tell me what happened.”

  “My life matters little now,” Tunkan said glumly. “I am without a way.”

  Powers looked at him, wondering how to get through to the man. “You have a way.” He said it decisively.

  Tunkan glanced up at him and snorted derisively. “You would know such a thing, I suppose?”

  “I would. You have a middle way. You are of both sides, white and red. You know both and speak their tongues. You are capable of great power with such knowledge.”

  Tunkan looked at him doubtfully.

  “It is true, is it not?” Powers went on. “That a man who can stand on two countries covers the world.”

  “And where would I use such a power?”

  “You can represent the tribes, speak to the white man. Explain and help. At the trading posts, the forts and the reservations. And you can speak to the Sioux, tell them about the white man’s ways.”

  Tunkan chuckled. “They know the white man’s ways well enough already. They have seen how to cheat and lie. To kill and be killed without honor. The whites have no love of the Four Winds, the Fire, Water and the Rock. In their ignorance, they rip from the soil, take the heart without honoring the soul of the great Mother Earth who gives us everything.”

  “Then put them to rights,” urged Powers.

  Tunkan looked at him keenly. “It cannot be done, white man. You have no ears to listen.” He looked suddenly out the window in despair. “I have no ears to listen with either. It is all noise here. Noise without meaning.”

  “Open them now to hear what I say. What about your gun?” asked Powers. “The Colt pistol. You fired it. Did you kill with it?”

  “Sure, I am a good shot. I scout for the army. I was good at that.”

  “Who did you kill?”

  “Supper.”

  “You shot some animal to eat?”

  Tunkan nodded. “No money, I must hunt.”

  “What did you hunt?”

  “I killed a deer,” Tunkan said proudly. “A little one, it is true. But the hunting was good.”

  “Tell me of the preacher,” insisted Powers.

 
“He tried to be a good man,” Tunkan began quietly. “But there was a shadow in his heart. He could not leave the shadow, it haunted him. He lived with it and ran from it like a child. He would give everything he had to be rid of the shadow and he did. But the shadow was not of this world, it was of the spirit world and could not be bought off in such a way.”

  “Who killed him?”

  “A hunter who carried a greater darkness.”

  Powers leaned forward excitedly. “You saw this man?”

  “Can one see vengeance? Does it have form? It comes and will claim life but cannot live as a result. It is only a song of death.”

  Powers allowed his frustration to get the better of him. “Who was it?” he barked. “Who shot down Andy Macarthur? For the love of God, tell me!”

  Tunkan looked at him blankly, slowly retreating into himself again.

  Powers calmed himself with difficulty. “The book?” he said. “The book of holy words. The Bible, how did you come by it?”

  “It was found,” Tunkan grunted.

  “Where? Where was it found?”

  “It was in his hand. He offered it to me and I took it.”

  “When was that?”

  Tunkan shrugged irritably. “In the night. A night. My head is hurting, white man. Must you keep speaking with questions?”

  “Did you take the Bible from a dead man’s hand, Tunkan?”

  “Dead, alive, what does it matter? He offered it and I took it, it was a gift.”

  “Was he already dead?” Powers insisted.

  Tunkan sighed tiredly. “He did not move, I guess he was dead. He lay on his face with his arm outstretched, like so.” Tunkan demonstrated. “And he gave me the book. It was good, in leather with gold paint marked in it. I thought ‘I will sell this for whisky,’ so I took it.”

  “But you never saw who shot him down?”

  “I saw only a darkness. It had two legs, like a man. It was a part of the night and moved in the shadows like a wolf.”

  Powers got to his feet, his knees popped as he did so, and he rubbed his aching thighs.

  Tunkan chuckled. “The years are not kind, huh, white man?”

  “You’ve got that right.” Powers smiled. He rapped hard on the door to let Moore know he was finished. “You need anything, Tunkan?” he asked, turning to the Indian.