Wickham furrowed his eyebrows. “A strange turn of events, I would say. Very few men survive the noose. I’ve known but one and he spent the remainder of his days with a crooked neck.”
“My throat doesn’t feel the best,” Longtree admitted, meeting the captain’s gaze, “but nothing’s damaged. A week or so, I’ll be fine.”
“Odd, though.”
Longtree had the distinct feeling Wickham didn’t believe him. He loosened the top few buttons of his shirt, revealing a bandage wound around his throat. Carefully, he unwrapped it. There was a bruised, abraded, and raw-looking wound coiled on his neck.
Wickham’s eyes bulged. “My God… how could you survive that? How?”
Longtree wound the bandage back up. “I don’t know. Luck? Fate? The grace of God?” He shrugged. “You tell me.”
Wickham had nothing to offer. He downed his rum. “Well, back to work, Marshal. I’m sure we’ll see each other before you leave. Good day, sir.”
Longtree watched him leave. No doubt he was going back to gossip about the hanged man to his fellow officers. Longtree supposed it had been a bit dramatic showing the wound, but he detested a look of disbelief in another man’s eyes. And after everything he’d been through, he figured he could be excused a bit of drama.
He ordered another rum and waited.
Waited and thought about Tom Rivers.
11
The room wasn’t bad.
There was a bed and blankets and a little firepot in the corner. A few logs blazed in it. A washtub had been filled for him with steaming water. A cake of soap and a couple towels were set out.
“Just like home,” Longtree said, kicking off his boots and clothes.
After his third hot rum, the lieutenant had come for him and brought him to the officer’s mess. He stuffed himself on tender buffalo steaks, sliced potatoes, and cornbread washed down with ale. He hadn’t eaten a meal quite so good in some time.
As he scrubbed a week’s worth of dirt and sweat off, he thought about Tom Rivers. Why would the Chief U.S. Marshal come all the way from Washington to the Wyoming Territory to bring him his assignment? It just didn’t wash. Maybe Rivers was out visiting his marshals-something Longtree had never heard of him doing-and had just decided to serve Longtree’s papers in person.
Could be.
But Wickham had said that Rivers wanted to see him before riding down to Laramie. What was so important that Rivers would wait around to see him in person? There had been no set time for the arrival of Longtree; it could’ve been today or next week or next month, for that matter.
Longtree reclined in the soothing, steaming waters and wondered about these things. Thoughts tumbled through his head in rapid succession.
There was always the possibility that Rivers had come in person to tell him that his appointment as a federal marshal had been revoked. It had happened to others. But it seemed unlikely. Longtree had been with the marshal service since ’70 and in that time, of the dozens and dozens of wanted men he’d hunted down, only a few had eluded him. His record was very impressive. If he was being turned out, then it wouldn’t be a matter of job performance.
The drinking? Was that it?
Also unlikely.
He hadn’t allowed himself to do much drinking recently. And the only time he did was between assignments. And lately, there’d been no time between them: one assignment came right on the heels of the last with no break in-between. It had always been the boredom before, waiting around with nothing to do, no constructive purpose, that set Longtree going on one of his drinking binges or indulgences in other vices.
No, Rivers coming had nothing to do with that.
But just what the reason was, Longtree couldn’t guess.
The next thing he knew, the water was cold and there was someone knocking frantically at the door.
“I’m coming,” the marshal mumbled.
He dragged himself to the door.
12
“Let me guess,” Longtree said. “I’m fired.”
“Of course not, Joe,” Tom Rivers said plopping himself down in a chair by the fire. He warmed his hands. “In fact, we need you more than ever now.”
Longtree, dressed only in a red union suit, pulled his shoulder-length dark hair back and tied it with a thong of leather. He reclined on the bed.
“Tell me of your expedition with Colonel Smith,” he said, changing the subject.
Rivers grinned, smoothing out his mustache. He was a thin man, corded with muscle. His face was lined and pocketed with shadow. His eyes a misty green, like the depths of a pond. He had an easy way about him and there were few who didn’t warm to him almost immediately. It was rumored that years ago when Rivers had been a marshal in Indian Territory, he’d charmed many a white and redskin outlaw into handing over their weapons. He was a natural diplomat. People just seemed to want to do good by him.
“We didn’t see a thing,” Rivers admitted. “Not a damn thing. The only injuns we came across were a beaten, pathetic lot, half-starved.” He shook his head. “I never cared much for the Sioux. You know that. Give me a Shoshone or a Pawnee or a Flathead any day. But to see them reduced to what they are now…well, it’s a sorry sight to see a once proud lot like them begging for a few crusts of bread.”
Longtree rolled a cigarette. “The buffalo are disappearing fast and with them, the Plains Indians. I think we’re about to see the death of an entire people.”
“It pains me some, I must admit,” Rivers said.
Longtree lit his cigarette. “I never loved the Dakotas either.” It was a truth that didn’t require elaboration. Longtree had been a scout in the army and had fought the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Commanche back in the sixties. He developed a hatred for the Sioux Nation not only for their campaigns against whites but for the brutalities and indiscriminate slaughter of other tribes. “But it’s a shame to see this happen. When the buffalo are gone…well, they won’t be far behind.”
“I’m afraid that was the plan, Joe.”
Longtree nodded.
In 1874, he knew, a group of Texas legislators had proposed a bill limiting the slaughter of the buffalo herds. It would’ve imposed restrictions of how many animals hunters could kill each day and limited the range in which they could be taken. It sounded like a good idea. But the army jumped all over it. The sooner the buffalo were gone, they argued, the sooner the backs of the Plains Indians would be broken. It was logical and during the height of the Indian Wars, no one really opposed such thinking. The army had found it almost impossible to pin down and defeat the swift-moving nomadic tribes of the plains-the Blackfeet, Sioux, Cheyenne, etc. But once the buffalo had been decimated, these peoples would no longer be able to feed, clothe, and house themselves. And an army cannot survive without raw materials.
It was sound thinking, if somewhat cruel.
But it worked.
“There must be a few bands out there still, though,” Rivers said. “It’ll probably take a few more years to clean them out.”
Longtree nodded. “Why don’t you tell me now why you’ve come.’’
“I’m just visiting my marshals. It’s something I’ve been planning on doing for awhile, I just haven’t gotten around to it.” Rivers paused, pulled out a clay pipe and filled it. “As for you, Joe, I have a special assignment.”
“Which is?”
“I need you to go up to Wolf Creek in the Montana Territory and look into some killings up there.”
Longtree exhaled a column of smoke. “Wolf Creek. I know of it, near Nevada City. But that’s John Benneman’s territory,” he reminded Rivers. Benneman was the deputy U.S. Marshal operating in southwestern Montana.
“Benneman’s on a leave of absence, Joe. He got shot up pretty bad bringing in a couple road agents. He’ll be out of commission for months.” Rivers looked unhappy about this. “Besides, this is a special situation. We need more than a lawman on this. We need someone with investigatory skills.”