Prairie Dog guffawed and jostled the rifle’s barrel proudly. “This here’s a gift from Sir Frederick Some-such of Manchester. Took him shooting in Colorado, don’t ya know, and even though his wife tore off with a handsome Ute warrior, and the Sir hisself almost went down a wild sow griz’s belly in tiny little pieces, he gave me this here rifle for his appreciation of my services.”
The old tracker glanced at the sweat-lathered pinto standing behind Fargo, who watched both men with strained patience; the Ovaro was accustomed to a good rubdown and water after a long, hard ride. “Took down that brave aiming for your prized stallion with this here German-smithed piece, I did,” Prairie Dog continued. “So mind your manners toward my gun…and can’t you see your horse is chompin’ fer a rubdown?”
“Lead the way to the stables,” Fargo said, grabbing the pinto’s reins. “And then the sutler’s saloon. The drinks are on me, you old sharpshooting moon howler.”
As Prairie Dog headed toward the stables at the north side of the compound, a couple of gaunt privates in torn uniforms and battered forage hats stepped in front of Fargo. Fargo frowned as the two hemmed and hawed nervously, shifting their weight from one foot to the other, glancing at each other as if for encouragement.
Prairie Dog howled and clapped one of the lads on the shoulder. “Oh, don’t get your tongues all in a twist, boys. This here’s the famous—or, I should say, the notorious—Trailsman, sure enough. Go ahead and take a good look at him, then git out of the way, will ya? We got work to do!”
The boys flushed and, nearly at the same time, scrubbed their hands on their threadbare tunics, then extended the dirt-encrusted paws at the Trailsman. “A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Fargo,” said the taller of the two. “A real pleasure.”
“We knew if anyone could bring the major’s daughter through, that person would be you, sir,” said the other, a scrawny lad with hair like wild oat stalks poking out from around his torn, faded hat. “Me an’ Benny, we really been anticipatin’ your visit.”
“M-maybe you’d join us for some poker later, Mr. Fargo?” asked the taller lad. “We ain’t allowed in the saloon, but we’d be right honored if you stop by the bear den later. Uh, that’s the enlisted men’s barracks. Maybe share some of your stories. Why, we been hearing about you since—”
“Come on now, lads!” Prairie Dog cut in, doffing his hat to swipe it against the scrawny private’s shoulder. “Can’t you see you’re embarrassin’ the man? Off with you, now. Me and Fargo got business to palaver.”
“Y-yessir!” said the blond private, both young soldiers shuffling off toward the parade ground where drills were resuming after the Indian scare. “Sorry, sir.”
“Didn’t mean to pester you, Mr. Fargo!”
“I might just join you for that poker game,” Fargo called after them. “If old Prairie Dog is true to form, he’ll no doubt bore my socks off long before sundown!”
Fargo snorted and clapped a hand to Prairie Dog’s shoulder as they continued toward the stables. Blue smoke ribboned from several of the stone chimneys surrounding the parade ground and from a cook pit before the mess hall. A man in bloodstained buckskins carved a deer outside the sutler’s store while a half-breed woman in bright calico rolled the freshly cut roasts in burlap.
Leading the pinto through the wide gap between the sutler’s store and the officers’ cabins, Fargo asked Prairie Dog what had set the Indians to stomping with their tails up, and which tribes were involved.
Prairie Dog swiped a hand across his beard and shook his head. “The major’ll fill you in this evening, Skye. It ain’t purty. I’ll tell ya that.”
“That’s why I want it from you. In plain talk, no army bullshit.”
As they entered the cool shadows of the remount barn, the clang of a smithy’s hammer rising from the nearby blacksmith shop, Prairie Dog hiked a hip on the edge of a water barrel. “We been havin’ trouble off and on for three weeks. That’s when the Assiniboine started raiding the trading posts and little settlements popping up along the creeks and streams.
“We didn’t think we had a serious problem till an eight-man woodcutting crew was sent out last week and never came back. We found ’em butchered in a ravine about three miles west, along Squaw Creek. Decapitated. Mutilated in ways I ain’t even seen the Comanches do. Their mules shot, wagons burned. Then, three days ago, we spied smoke rising from the direction of our sister fort, William, down along Little Muddy Creek.”
About to set his saddle on a stall partition, Fargo froze and glanced sharply at the old scout. “They burned Fort William?”
Prairie Dog shook his head. “Don’t know for sure. I rode out to have a look, and the Injuns—more’n a dozen mixed Assiniboine and Blackfeet—chased me back, killin’ my pony in the run. Lost the three boys who rode with me.”
The old scout squinted one eye and gestured with his hand. “I can tell you this about William—we ain’t seen hide nor hair of their soldiers since we spied the smoke, and we usually exchanged couriers daily. Since another patrol was wiped out day before yesterday, Major Howard’s ordered the gates closed. No one leaves till we can come up with a way to turn those savages’ horn back in. We have little hope of help from outside, as we can’t get couriers through to the forts along the Missouri.”
Fargo set the saddle across the stall partition, then grabbed a burlap sack from the hay-flecked floor. Brows ridged with consternation, he set to work rubbing down the pinto’s sleek, sweat-lathered coat. “You still haven’t told me what got those Injuns’ tails in a twist, hoss.”
“That’s the ugliest part of this bailiwick, Skye.” Prairie Dog picked up a handful of dry straw and went to work on the Ovaro’s hindquarters, scrubbing off the lathered, muddy sweat. “One of our own men might’ve riled those savages. A lieutenant named Mordecai Duke.”
The Trailsman frowned and glanced around the Ovaro’s head at Prairie Dog. “Duke? Seems I heard that name before.”
“He was once a fine officer. Straight outta West Point. His family ran a shipping business in New York. Friends of all the mucky-mucks. Hell of an Indian fighter, old Mordecai. Till he went crazier’n a tree full of owls.”
The old scout stopped working to lift his hat from his horribly scarred scalp and run a gloved hand through the remaining salt-and-pepper hair tufting up around the knotted, grisly scars. “He went so nuts, drinkin’ like a fish, laughin’ and cryin’ by fits, that the major decided to ship him back to St. Louis, to some special institution for army officers who got their bellies a little too full of the frontier life…if you’re gettin’ my drift.”
With his index finger, Prairie Dog made a swirling motion in front of his ear. “He wasn’t more than twenty miles southwest of the fort when he broke out of the wagon, killed two of the guards with his bare hands, and hightailed it into the tall-and-uncut, like a mustang with tin cans tied to its tail.”
“Well, how in the hell…?” Fargo let his voice trail off, pricking his ears. Voices rose from beyond the barn’s open doors, growing louder as men approached.
Prairie Dog glanced outside, then turned to the Trailsman and said softly, “Best not talk about this in front of the enlisted boys. They don’t know about Lieutenant Duke and the Injuns. Let’s finish up here, and we’ll finish our powwow over a drink in the sutler’s saloon.”
While Prairie Dog smoked a cigarette outside the barn, the Trailsman finished rubbing down the Ovaro, stabling it, and measuring out oats, hay, and water. He told the remount sergeant, an irreverent, craggy-faced Scot named Drake, to turn the pinto into the corral after the mount had cooled off and had eaten and drunk its measured portions.