“Whoa now! Hold on there!”
Gustav was standing by Pryor’s horse, and as we turned to face him, he said something that made me wonder if we needed to have him trussed up next to Sweetman.
“Boys,” he said, “I think we need to ask ourselves a very important question: What would Sherlock Holmes do in this situation?”
It had been weeks since I’d read out “The Red-Headed League” for the whole bunch, so it took a few seconds for the words “Sherlock” and “Holmes” to come together in their heads. When it did, the boys either snickered or shook their heads in confusion.
“Who’s this Holmes feller?” Pryor asked.
“An Englishman,” Charlie said with a sad sigh. “One of them ‘detectives.’”
“Well, what’s he got to do with us?”
“Plenty, Mr. Pryor,” my brother said. “Looked at the right way.”
Charlie and Tornado shared a little glance that said they’d struck on something they could agree on: It looked like Old Red had left his sanity back along the trail somewhere in North Texas.
Gustav smiled grimly. “I know what you’re thinkin’. But just hear me out. If you still wanna take us chargin’ off to Vinson after I’ve had my say, well, I’ll forfeit my part of the reward.”
I could see lips moving soundlessly in the flickering light of the fire. The boys were doing some quick mathematics. My brother’s share wouldn’t mean too much when spread around the group, but it must have been enough.
“Go ahead,” Tornado said.
Gustav took a deep breath, cleared his throat, and had his say. For a man unaccustomed to speechifying, he did a whiz-bang job of it. His voice quavered once or twice early on, but once he built up a head of steam there was no stopping him.
“Fellers,” he began, “you know me. I’m the kinda cow puncher who likes to keep both boots square on the ground or firm in the stirrups. I’m not one for flights of fancy or unnecessary gum-flutterin’. So I’m not just mouthin’ off here for my own amusement. If I don’t miss my guess, each and every man in this outfit has a bull’s-eye on his back, and we better get ’em off lickety-split or there won’t be anyone left to do the buryin’.
“Now a month or so back we heard how Mr. Sherlock Holmes cracked up a gang of bandidos over in London, England. He didn’t do it with fast guns or quick fists. He did it with sharp eyes. He saw the hidden connections ‘twixt this thing and that thing — connections that were there for any man to see if he just tilted his head a bit and found the right angle of lookin’.
“That kinda thinkin’ made a powerful impression on me. I have to admit, there was a part of me that was hopin’ for a chance to try it out myself. Well, boys, I got my chance and I took it. You can rest assured I wasn’t too happy about it, though.
“If you’ll recall, it was me ‘n’ Big Red that went back for Billy and Peanuts after we lost ’em in that stampede. What I saw put me in mind of Mr. Holmes right off. Somethin’ didn’t sit right, and I did my best to figure out what it was.
“First thing was how the boys were killed. They were each of ’em stabbed in the gut and chest. Now think about that. Where’s a man gotta be to poke a feller that way? Why, right in front of him, that’s where. But Billy and Peanuts were doin’ their rounds. They were mounted. How’s a Kiowa or Comanche kill a man on horseback? With an arrow or a bullet or by hoppin’ right on the horse with him and stabbin’ him in the back or reachin’ around and slicin’ his throat.
“And then there was where the bodies were left. They were propped up against a bluff, nice and tidy. Now you can’t tell me they died that way — sittin’ side by side while two somebodies went to work on ’em with blades. No, sir. They were killed somewhere else and moved. But why? Well, here’s one thing to ponder on: If they’d been left where they died, what would have happened? A few hundred head of cattle would’ve run over ’em, that’s what, and there wouldn’t have been so much as a fingernail left for us to find.
“So what are we to think? A gaggle of renegade Indians talked Billy and Peanuts down off their saddles, knifed ’em, scalped ’em, dragged ’em out of the way so their bodies wouldn’t get mussed up any further, then made off with... how many head did we lose? Just a dozen or so? No. Uh-uh. It just don’t figure.
“Of course, I was chewin’ on this as we moseyed up the trail. But I was doin’ it quiet-like cuz I didn’t have enough conclusions sewn together to make half a hankie. And then we ran across Mr. Sweetman there, and suddenly I had me a whole new mouthful to chew on.
“I knew he was nothin’ but venom and manure practically the minute he opened his mouth. He said his horse got shot and lamed up so he had to put it down. Well, I took care to get up close to that pinto of his. There were two wounds, all right — one in the head, one in the flank. But it was clear as day which one came first. You get a horse shot in the hindquarters, run it across the prairie, it’s gonna be soaked in sweat and blood. But that carcass was dry as desert dirt, and the blood around its head was already baked to a crust. That horse had been dead over two hours before we showed up. The shot we heard — the one into the haunch — that was just to draw us in.
“So we ride up, and this crafty outlaw gets the drop on us. Fine. Makes sense. But then my little brother — who, try as he might, ain’t exactly Comanche material when it comes to stealth — is able to sneak up and lay him out with one swat? A swat that’s half air? You don’t need a hound dog’s smeller to know that stinks.
“Then, once Sweetman’s back on his feet, he doesn’t waste two minutes before he’s hissin’ like a wildcat cuz I’m strayin’ too close to his saddlebags. And when we join up with the rest of the outfit, every other thing out of his mouth is, ‘My saddlebags! My saddlebags! Touch ’em and die!’
“Well, it was easy enough to figure out what that really meant. Tell a boy fifty times an hour not to look in the cellar and you know he’ll be creepin’ down there with a lantern the first time you turn your back. Sweetman was desperate for us to look in those damn bags.
“Only he didn’t count on how easily buffaloed you fellers are. I finally lost my patience yesterday mornin’ and sneaked me a look when I came in off watch. Sweet made it easy for me by gettin’ up to make water when I strolled into camp. Why, he practically handed the saddlebags to me and said, ‘Have at it.’
“It seemed mighty curious to me that an outlaw named ‘George Sweetman’ would come up with an alias as wispy thin as ‘Joe Sweet,’ then practically wave a wanted poster under the nose of every man he met. I figured if I sat back and watched a little while longer, Sweetman’s real plan would come into view soon enough. So I kept my trap shut and pretty soon our lawman here arrived, and there the whole thing was, stretchin’ out before me like a wide open valley.
“Billy and Peanuts weren’t killed by Indians. They were killed by the only folks who could somehow coax ’em off their horses before planting a knife in their gullets — white men. They were scalped and left to find so we’d blame a raidin’ party off a reservation. The killers only took a few head of cattle cuz they were gunnin’ for bigger game.
“We might’ve set off after the raidin’ party — leavin’ the herd sittin’ out there on the trail with hardly a hand around to greet whatever rustlers might happen along. Or, with the outfit down a couple men and a band of scalp-hungry braves on the prowl, we might’ve put in at the nearest town. That would have been Vinson.
“But Charlie, he chose to push on, so we kept headin’ north. Then a few days later, Sweetman falls into our laps, and he does everything but hand-deliver a telegram tellin’ us he’s an outlaw with a bounty on his head. And if we wanted to collect that bounty, where would we go? Again, the nearest town — Vinson.