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  The smithy took one look at Rowdy, looking walleyed at him, and said, “I ain’t touching that bastard!”

  “I didn’t want you to. I’ll shoe him.”

  “If he gets shoed, you will!”

  Rowdy showed his teeth to the smithy as Bodine bent to the task.

  “Your name wouldn’t be Bodine, would it?” the smithy asked.

  Bodine looked at him.

  “I ain’t tryin’ to be nosey. It’s just they’s some hard-cases over to the saloon. My boy was fetchin’ me a bucket of beer this noon and heard them talkin’. If your name’s Bodine, them gunnies is here to kill you!”

  “I’m Bodine.”

  “Then you better ride, mister. One of them ol’ boys is Utah Jack Noyes. And my boy says he heard one of them men say somebody named Thomas has got hired guns all up and down the river huntin’ you.”

  So someone at the fort was in Thomas’s pocket. That didn’t come as any surprise to Bodine. Thomas was a rich man and didn’t mind spreading his wealth around to get what he wanted.

  He finished shoeing Rowdy and put him in a stall. After rubbing him down, he gave him some corn and patted the dun on the rump. “Relax, Rowdy. I got some business to take care of.”

  Bodine wiped the dust from his guns and checked the loads. He usually carried his guns with the hammer over an empty cylinder. He took a moment to fill up the six holes in each Colt and slipped his guns back into leather, the hammer thongs off, and walked out of the barn.

  Bodine looked up and down the wide street of the village. A couple of general stores, a saloon, an apothecary shop, and a cafe. That was it. Bodine walked across the street to the cafe and stepped inside.

  The menu was simple: beef with potatoes and gravy, and apple pie. Bodine ordered that and a pot of coffee.

  He sat with his back to a wall and his eyes on the batwing doors of the saloon. When his food came, he ate slowly, savoring the taste of food he hadn’t had to cook himself. The pie was delicious—although not as good as his sister could make—and Bodine had another cup of coffee with the pie.

  A citizen wandered into the cafe, started to sit down, then took a look at Bodine. He left the cafe at a fast walk and crossed the street, entering a general store. A few seconds later the store owner pulled down the shades and locked his store doors.

  Bodine put some coins on the table and stood up, settling his hat on his head, conscious of the eyes on him from the kitchen of the cafe.

  The little village had become silent. The smithy’s hammer no longer sang against the anvil, its metallic sound echoing around the village. The short street was void of life, human or animal. The two horses that had been tied at a hitch rail in front of the saloon had been moved to a safer place, hopefully out of the line of fire.

  Bodine stepped off the boardwalk in front of the cafe and walked slowly across the dusty and rutted street, stepping up onto the boardwalk in front of the saloon and pushing open the batwing doors.

  Inside, he stood for a moment, allowing his eyes to grow accustomed to the sudden dimness of the beery-smelling barroom. He began spotting and locating the few people in the saloon.

  The four men sitting at a table were local cowboys. The slick-looking man dressed in a black suit was a gambler. The one man who sat alone was fat, and with the sour expression on his face, looked like he might be having troubles with his wife.

  Utah Jack Noyes stood at the bar, holding a shot glass of whiskey in his left hand. The man was smiling at Bodine. Bodine did not know the two men who stood on either side of the Utah gunfighter.

  But that was all right: he hadn’t known the names of many of the men he’d killed.

  Bodine walked to the bar to stand at the curved end closest to the door, so he could face the three gunslicks, all looking at him.

  “What’ll it be?” the barkeep asked, a nervous quality in his voice.

  “Nothing. Get out of the way.”

  The bartender complied very quickly, moving from behind the bar to stand amid the tables.

  “Place suddenly started stinkin’ like an Injun,” one of the men said, moving away from Utah and the other man.

  “You’re probably smelling yourself,” Bodine told him. “Way you look, you haven’t bathed in six weeks. Is that fleas I see jumpin’ around on you?”

  Utah Jack laughed at the expression on his friend’s face, his eyes quickly returning to Bodine. “I’ve been wanting to meet you for several years, Bodine. I’m Jack Noyes.”

  “Better known as Utah,” Bodine acknowledged. “I saw you three years ago over at Silver Bow.”

  “Did you now? Ah, yes! I remember. The Mac Kenny boys.”

  “That was pretty good shootin’.”

  “Yes, it was, wasn’t it?”

  “Considering that you shot one of them in the back as he was leaving the barber shop.”

  Utah Jack’s smile faded. “I seem to recall I shot him from the side.”

  “His gun was still in leather with the hammer loop in place when I saw him.”

  “Are we gonna have a de-batin’ society here?” the third gunhand asked. “Or are we gonna kill this punk?”

  “Relax, Jones,” Utah said. “Plenty of time. The impatient one is Jones, Bodine. The other one is Callaway.” He jerked his head while his hands remained at his side.

  “I’m not impressed.” He kept his eyes on Utah. “Why do you want to kill me, Utah?”

  “Now there is an interesting question, Bodine. I suppose it should be addressed. A man should know why he is about to die.”

  Talk was that Utah Jack was the son of a minister and had a good formal education behind him somewhere back east. But he’d raped and then killed a girl and had to go on the run, changing his name to avoid the law. He’d become a very feared gunhand.

  “For sure, Utah, one of us is about to die. Maybe all four of us. ’Cause you know damn well I’m not going down easy. I’m gonna get lead in every one of you.”

  “That is a risk that men of our profession must always consider, isn’t it, Bodine?”

  “Your profession, Utah. I never asked for the name of gunfighter.”

  “My, how noble of you, Bodine.” The sarcasm dripped like scum from his mouth.

  “Tom Thomas paying you boys to kill me?” Bodine dropped the question in fast and very unexpectedly.

  And it shook Utah; shook him hard, just as it did the other men. But the Utah gunfighter recovered quickly. Bodine then knew that Thomas was not as slick as he thought he was. He had slipped up this time. And if he had done so this time, chances were good that he’d left a backtrail of trouble behind him a time or two before.

  “I never heard of the man,” Utah said

  “Your a damn liar!” Bodine said, and both grabbed iron. Bodine’s slug took the tall gunfighter in the belly, doubling him over and slamming him to his knees on the freshly sawdusted floor.

  Bodine’s draw had been so smooth and so fast, it had caught them all off-guard.

  As soon as he had shot Utah Jack, Bodine dropped behind the edge of the bar and crawled behind the bar, as Utah moaned on the floor.

  “Where the hell did he go?” Jones shouted.

  Bodine holstered his Colt and grabbed the sawed-off shotgun that western barkeeps always kept behind the bar. He reared back the hammers and fired through the bar, knowing he was just about even with where the three men had been standing.

  A hoarse and horrible scream confirmed that his location was true as the buckshot struck Jones in the side and hip and knocked the man sprawling into a table.

  Bodine rolled to the far end of the bar and came up with both hands full of .44s just as Callaway turned, a wild look in his eyes.

  Bodine let the lead fly as he cocked and fired as fast as he could pull the trigger, each round striking the man in the chest or belly. Callaway’s shirtfront became stained with blood and the man slowly sank to his knees, the .45s slipping from suddenly numb fingers.

  Bodine quickly reloaded one Colt and st
epped out from the edge of the bar. The saloon was filled with eye-smarting gunsmoke.

  Quickly, Bodine reviewed the situation. Jones was unconscious and dying, his right side and hip horribly mangled from the double charge of buckshot. Callaway was dead, on his knees, with his head pressed against the footrailing.

  “Damn your eyes, Bodine!” Utah Jack cursed him, blood leaking from his mouth. He tried to lift his right-hand Colt but the strength was leaving him as the pounding hooves of the Reaper’s horse silently galloped closer.

  Bodine reloaded his other Colt and held it in his left hand. He didn’t think Utah was quite through—not just yet. Over the years, the gunfighter had proved to be a tough man to kill. And sneaky.

  Bodine watched as Utah, on his knees on the floor, slipped his left hand toward his belt buckle. Probably carrying a derringer, Bodine thought.

  “Who sent you, Utah?”

  “You had it pegged right, Bodine.” Utah didn’t have long and the man knew it. The blood from his mouth was tinged with pink, indicating he was not only gut-shot, but lung-shot.

  “Tom Thomas?”

  “Yeah.” The word was more a painful moan pushed past bloody lips.

  “You want me to give him any messages before I kill him?”

  “Yeah. I suppose so.”

  Bodine waited for the man to gather enough strength to talk. His left hand had reached the belt buckle and the fingers were fumbling.

  “You can give him a message when you both get to hell, Bodine!” Utah Jack Noyes grabbed for the two-shot .44 derringer and Bodine shot him between the eyes.

  The son of a preacher died with an oath on his lips, a startled look on his face, and a blue hole in his forehead.

  Bodine replaced the spent brass and holstered his Colt, walking toward the batwing doors and some fresh air, his spurs jingling softly.

  “What you want us to do with the bodies?” the barkeep called.

  Without stopping, Bodine said, “Do what you usually do with bodies—bury them!”

  Chapter 7

  Bodine didn’t look back as he rode out of the little settlement on the Yellowstone. But he knew his reputation had taken another giant step, and it was a renown he had never sought. He was a man who had been born with the natural ability of perfect eye and hand coordination; a gun was merely an extension of either arm.

  He made camp for the evening, eating a can of beans and some bread he’d bought the day before from a farmer’s wife who looked like she could use the dime.

  Bodine was rolled in his blankets and sound asleep as darkness spread over the land.

  On the second day of his wait beside the Yellowstone, Bodine’s vigilance paid off as the Josephine steamed into view. The steamer was commanded by Captain Marsh Grant, had a capacity of three-hundred tons and a crew of twelve officers and thirty-one men. And Captain Grant didn’t like the idea of tying up just because one man was waving at them from the shore.

  “That’s Bodine, General,” one of the civilian scouts aboard said. “If he wants to talk, it’s important.”

  “Tie it up,” Grant instructed.

  The general was stunned when he heard Bodine’s news. “Man, you can’t be serious!”

  “I got the Crow and Sioux to agree not to fight until this expedition is over, General. On the stipulation that these phony soldiers are arrested. Sitting Bull and Big Face sent representatives to meet with Two Wolves and me in Lost Valley. Fat Bear and Running Man agreed to the plan.” He then told the officers about his gunfight in the village.

  “You killed all three of them?” Captain Grant exclaimed.

  “Yeah. They were too confident and too damn slow. Utah Jack Noyes confirmed that it was Tom Thomas who hired them to stop me.”

  “We’ll be able to stop this so-called army, Bodine,” the general said. “But we’ll never be able to get a conviction against Tom Thomas.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s a big man, Bodine. Lots of friends back in Washington, including a lot of pull within the War Department. There are certain members of Congress who would not be opposed to a plan such as the one you just described; no matter what the cost in human life. And, I’ll be willing to admit, some Army officers as well.”

  “Then they’re fools,” Bodine said flatly. “The Indians have been pushed just about as far as they’re going to be pushed. You’re no Johnny-come-lately out here, General. So when I tell you that a gathering has been called, I don’t have to tell you what that means.”

  “Do you know where it’s been called?”

  “If I had to take a guess, I’d say somewhere in the Rosebuds, somewhere between the Bighorn and the Little Bighorn. But that doesn’t make any difference; it isn’t going to be a mass gathering, just the chiefs and sub-chiefs. If they don’t want to be found, they won’t be.

  “Now then, listen to me. Big Face has agreed to abandon his camp, leaving the lodges in place and intact, with a few braves behind to keep the fires burning. They’ll slip out just before dawn on the morning of the attack. Two Wolves will let them know when Thomas’s men get into position on the ridges around the camp.”

  “We’ll be about a mile behind them,” the general said grimly. “In force. I’ve got three companies of battle-tested men with me. Where do you want us to tie up?”

  Bodine pointed to a spot along the river. “Right there. I checked it out coming up here. Even if Thomas has spotters along the river, they won’t be alarmed by your docking there. It’s a natural spot, with good cover. You’re going to have to force-march your men to here!” He jammed a finger against the map.

  “If we have to engage in a fight with any men along the river, it’ll be a dead giveaway,” the general said.

  “You won’t have to,” Bodine told him. “Because there won’t be any of Thomas’s men there.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because I’ll be there first,” Bodine said with a tight smile.

  * * *

  On the way back to where he would rendezvous with the Army along the Yellowstone, Bodine came upon a small hunting party of Sioux.

  He drew a map on a piece of paper. “Ride to Two Wolves,” he told them. “Give him this. Then tell Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse the Army will be docking and marching inland to arrest the men dressed up like soldiers. Go like the wind.”

  Bodine left the banks of the river and rode inland for several miles before once more turning west. He knew that Thomas had men spotted along the river, and he wanted them to see the Josephine as she steamed along. He didn’t want Thomas’s men to see him.

  When he reached the area adjacent to the proposed landing site, Bodine turned south. He found a natural three-sided corral for Rowdy, with water and graze for several days, and covered the entrance with brush and small limbs, leaving it so Rowdy could break out easily enough if Bodine did not return before the water ran out. He left his boots and slipped on moccasins. Bodine put together a small packet of food, slung his canteen, and picked up his Winchester.

  “I’ll be back,” he said to Rowdy.

  The big stallion showed him his teeth and returned to grazing.

  Bodine took his time working his way toward the river; he wanted to get there just about at midday. And then, he would begin his deadly work.

  To the south and west of Bodine’s position, Two Wolves was keeping a wary eye on Lone Dog and the band of young braves who looked to him for leadership. Two Wolves didn’t trust Lone Dog, and with good reason: Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse didn’t trust him either.

  “He should have been named Mad Dog,” Running Man told Two Wolves. He put a finger to his temple and made a slow circle. “He envisions himself to be a great war chief. He is not. He is simple. But out of that simpleness, or because of it, he is fearless in battle. That is why so many young braves follow him.”

  Two Wolves was torn. But that was not an unnatural emotion within the man. He had always been torn between his white side and his Indian side. His sympathies lay ripped o
n both sides of the invisible line. And there were so many lies told about him, over and over again until a great many people believed them.

  Two Wolves had never led any band of Indians against any settler. He had never killed except when he was attacked—and even then, Two Wolves would try to make a run for it rather than fight. It was not done from cowardice, but rather from an unwillingness to kill needlessly. As he had said many times, he did not hate all whites; just some of them. He hated the broken promises and the greed. He hated what they were doing to the land, but understood that when whites came, most came to stay, so the land was carved up and cut up and planted and fenced. It was the spoilers whom he despised.

  Men like Tom Thomas.

  Word had drifted back to Two Wolves about Bodine’s fight in the village. A drifting cowboy had told a friendly band of Gros Ventres and the Indians had brought Two Wolves the news. Two Wolves had heard of the gunfighter Utah Jack; he could have told Utah that bracing Bodine was pure poison. Bodine was like those Vikings that Two Wolves had read about. Only death stopped them, and that type of man was very hard to kill.

  “Be careful, brother,” Two Wolves muttered. “Your enemies are many.”

  * * *

  Bodine spotted the first lookout easily. The man was busy rolling a cigarette. Bodine let him roll it, lick it, and take a draw. Then he cut his throat, lowering the body silently to the ground along the Elk River, the true name for the Yellowstone, so named by the Crow Indians long ago.

  In the Crow language, the words “yellow” and “elk” sound much alike, and the first French fur traders didn’t understand Crow very well and got the words mixed up, naming the river La Roche Jaune—River of the Yellow Rock.

  Jim Bridger, known by everyone as a skillful weaver of very tall tales, told of a river that straddled the Continental Divide. For once, he told the truth when describing the north-flowing Yellowstone, as it ripped its way out of the wild Absaroka Range north to the plains of Montana.

  Bodine took the second man out as silently as he did the first and then waited in the cottonwoods for the fun to start.

  “Hey, Sonny!” the last man called. “You got any tobacco? I’m plumb out.”