Gunman and the Angel Read online

  Dan Quint saw no more because his vision went black.

  Chapter Eight

  Time passed without notice because Dan Quint was not aware of his surroundings, nor did he see the sky lighten and darken. He clung to his thoughts, felt the present, thought the past – stretched along a grassy edge of the lake on their small family ranch, speaking low secrets with his brother. He lived life with his brother Jordan helping his pa with horses, listening to the soft voice of his ma reading from the good book. Using the old, single-load shotgun, he hunted squirrels with Jordy and Rufus, the wonder squirrel dog, and they splashed in the lake with Rufus barking from the shore – always with Jordy. Time had pushed the killing of blue uniforms at him as he rode, walked and crawled battlefields of the Civil War while lead and steel occasionally slammed into his body. He heard repeated endless talk with Jordy about what they would do once they got home, away from the uniforms, away from the mutilation and blood of war.

  Monte Steep and four other deserters had jumped Dan and Jordy when they were riding to Waco to sell the ranch. Their parents, killed by blue belly Yankees, the boys had deserted in 1864, a few months before Lee surrendered, and were off on another life as drovers. Dan took a flintlock ball across his leg before he shot down two of them. A lieutenant in a filthy Confederate uniform fired two shots at Dan, one slug across the right wrist. He’d stepped up to Jordy with a smirk and shot him once in the gut and twice through the chest, then rifled his pockets for gold coins.

  Dan killed one more then shot the lieutenant three times, aiming for the head, while the killer jumped and ran for Jordy’s horse. One slug grazed his forehead. The killers had wanted horses. Dan got a good look at the killer who, stumbling from his wounds, crawled into the saddle of Jordy’s one-eared chestnut and jammed his heels into the sides. The man had one gray eye and one brown eye. Dan kept firing until the gun emptied and Steep rode off, bleeding badly. The others were dead.

  Later, Dan’s hands were scraped raw from dragging rocks and dirt to cover Jordy’s body, knowing but not believing he’d never see his little brother again, loving and missing him. In the first town he reached when going after the odd-eyed deserter-killer, Dan learned the man’s name – Monte Steep. Dan had been after him since.

  Steep kept sending gunfighters after Dan. Years later, he came himself with four others when Dan tracked the trail to Mexico. They dry-gulched him, chewed up belly skin, grazed his head, and left him to die.

  More images passed by as fever burned through Dan. A girl stood in the rain beside a smoldering wagon with her slaughtered family around her, frail, simple calico dress soaked, in tears, calling him back when he was so close to killing those responsible. He continued burning with fever. Pain ate up his belly and chest. His head ached.

  Time and events passed by him beyond arm’s length while his past life crawled through his thoughts. He watched through a close, dark mesh, unable to see or reach beyond it.

  He heard CK say, ‘Thank God, the fever’s broke, doctor. He’s sleeping now.’

  The wall of mesh thinned, making him aware of sounds around him.

  And he knew he would not die just yet.

  When his thinking cleared, he learned from CK that a month had passed while he recovered in her bed. Mandy Lee visited every day. She kept vigil not only over Dan Quint but across the road from the jailhouse where deputies held Gray Putman. After the shooting, by the time men inside the Silver Street Saloon and Pleasure Parlor got through with him, the shooter had some recovery to do of his own. Being young, and with no broken bones, he healed quickly while he waited for Judge Parker.

  A week later, with help, Gray Putman managed to escape the Abilene jailhouse.

  Dan Quint sat in a comfortable armchair of the suite sipping morning coffee while CK told him what had been going on. He wanted Mandy in the room. He missed looking at her.

  CK said, ‘Mandy will have to tell you what happened.’

  ‘He escaped?’ Dan said. ‘Where is he now? Who helped him?’

  CK sat across from him and held his hand. She was dressed in a pale, pink nightdress, her silky blonde hair down around her shoulders.

  Though she looked weary, nothing could take away her beauty. The blue eyes constantly searched his face as if she needed assurance he had recovered. Outside the open window, a wagon rolled by, jangling its hardware. The blacksmith hammered a horseshoe. A horse raced past.

  ‘Mandy is on the way,’ CK said. ‘I sent Sally to fetch her. Mandy chased after them. She was there. She can say better what happened.’

  Just after noon, Dan dozed when the knock came. He still felt weak, but at least he didn’t have to be hand-fed soup anymore. CK opened the door then returned to her chair. She had pulled up another for Mandy.

  Mandy came in with her Plains Stetson tipped back on her brown-copper hair. She glanced around the room – her emerald green eyes looked at CK in the saloon dress. She bent boldly to Dan and kissed him lightly on the cheek. She sat in the chair next to CK.

  Dan immediately saw a change in the girl. Mandy brought in the smell and look of outside. Even with the window open, the room had seemed close with the lack of moving air. She had the trail on her. She had been riding. Sleek and easy moving, she gave a presence of knowledge, knowing where she was and all around her. A change had come to her eyes while she studied Dan’s face with an easy trace smile. She still looked so young, so vulnerable, angelic, and yet, something was different.

  Dan knew what had happened to her.

  CK stood. ‘I’ll bring lunch.’ She kissed Dan on the mouth and left.

  Dan and Mandy locked eyes. The change was obvious.

  ‘You’re a skeleton,’ she said. ‘You look weak and fragile. You’re not ready for the trail.’

  Dan said, ‘Who helped the kid escape?’

  ‘One of them what burned our wagon.’

  ‘Big Nose Rox Levant?’

  ‘No, though he was probably close by. From what you told me, it was a small, wiry man, Tom Baily. He got away.’

  Dan squinted at her. ‘But Gray Putman didn’t, did he?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘You drew down on him.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I was watching the jail, looking for a way to stop his thinking and breathing. Tom Baily killed one of the deputies. He had an extra horse, and they lit out in the dark. Moccasin and me and our filly Mesa followed them to their camp about fifteen miles out on the prairie beyond the Smoky Hill River. Before I let them know I was there, I listened in on their talk. Sure enough, Big Nose was gonna be waiting in the Dakotas. They was all three gonna meet to look for gold through the Black Hills. Or maybe steal from them what found it. So, before I stepped into camp, Tom Baily, the coward, jumps his horse and rides out. Gray Putman ain’t got nothing but confidence. He done shot down the famous Deadly Dan Quint, killed him dead for all he knew. He ain’t gonna have no trouble with a wisp of a girl like me. And he was fast.’

  Dan saw it in her eyes. He didn’t have to ask. ‘What did you do after?’

  She leaned forward, eyes dancing with excitement. ‘Let me tell you how fast he was, fast on the draw. Let me tell you where I shot him.’

  ‘No, Mandy. I don’t care where you shot him. What did you do after? What was the first thing?’

  ‘Nothing. I rode on out, left him there on the prairie. I reckon we got to be heading up to the Dakotas now.’

  Dan said, ‘You killed your first man. How did it affect you? What did you do?’

  Mandy blinked and looked away. ‘Nothin’. It was nothin’. I didn’t know how fast I was. He was quick, but I beat him easy and shot him dead.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘Why you keep asking that, Dan? It was done, and I rode out.’

  ‘You saw his face when your slug tore into him. You watched the pain. He dropped his gun and fell in front of you. The bleeding started. You caused it. You shot and killed the man.’

  The emerald eyes filled. ‘Stop it, Dan.’


  ‘Mandy, I got to know what you are.’

  ‘I got sick,’ she cried. ‘I went to my knees and puked my guts up. I couldn’t believe I done it. Shooting a fence post is one thing. OK, so I ain’t a cold killer like you. It didn’t come easy for me.’ Her face dropped to her hands while she wept.

  ‘It ain’t never easy, Mandy. Unless it’s natural in your blood and you get a love for it, it never gets easy. Sometimes it’s necessary, but not easy.’

  Mandy sniffled. ‘I don’t want to know if I’m faster than you. When it comes time to shoot down those murdering skunks, I can do it. That’s all I know. I can do it if I have to. We got to do it, Dan.’

  ‘Yes, we do,’ Dan said.

  Chapter Nine

  It was the middle of September, 1874, before Mandy Lee and Dan Quint crossed the grasshopper-eaten wheat farmlands of Nebraska to reach the Badlands, and then into the Black Hills of Dakota Territory. Lately, in gun practice with Mandy, Dan noticed that on some draws, his arm tingled and lost feeling which flowed to his thumb. He couldn’t cock the Colt hammer. The feeling loss went to his hand, making him drop the weapon. It only happened on occasion and he reckoned it had to do with all the lead slammed through him over the years. The doc had no answer. Dan knew it would clear up before they reached the Dakotas.

  Newspaper reports hinted at gold discovery in the Dakota hills. Would-be prospectors rode the rails with their gear into the northern territory then packed south to the Black Hills with pans, shovels, picks and the makings of Long Toms. Others with packed horses came up through the Badlands. Creeks provided flakes for all but no big strikes at first.

  Dan and Mandy saw them all around.

  The proof of gold provided a fever, filled with dreams and wishes and hope, little ever fulfilled. Every place there was a discovery, Dan saw the camp tents, the overpriced goods and hardware tents, the saloon and one-dollar whore tents. He also observed Lakota and Sioux, sitting their ponies, not yet hostile but watching. The Laramie Treaty had already been violated, the treaty to last as long as water filled lakes and flowed in rivers – white men and their false words once again. Dan knew nothing but trouble lay ahead. After the first feeble effort to keep gold-fever men out, Custer ignored them, and they swept through the hills from pairs to crowds with nothing to stop them.

  At the end of September, Dan and Mandy camped close to Rapid Creek along the eastern slope of Black Hills mountain range, not far from Deadwood Gulch where gold had first been discovered. Many tents were pitched along the gulch – it had the makings of a town. Dan moved among them asking about a man with the nose of a saddle horn, maybe with a weasel-looking jasper riding alongside.

  Dan rode the chestnut filly, Mesa – the buckskin, Rowdy used as a packhorse, a task he grudgingly accepted with small bucks and snorts each time he was loaded. Mandy was astride Moccasin, her devoted pinto.

  On a hot, muggy Tuesday night when Dan returned from his tent rounds, he sat on a rock in front of the campfire and accepted the coffee Mandy handed him. He laced the cup from his whiskey bottle. The pain came mostly from his stomach, and the headaches.

  ‘They’re not prospecting,’ he said.

  ‘You reckon they gonna rob somebody?’

  ‘They’re here to steal and plunder, not somebody but along a path. It’s what they do. They come through here a week ago. Not enough gold then. And no Steep.’ Dan tilted his Stetson back. ‘I can’t figure where he is, what he’s doing.’ He sipped his coffee and rolled the makings for a cigarette.

  ‘Where do we go now?’ she asked.

  ‘We head north to the railroad, and keep checking the tent camps. There was a town up there called Edwinton that I think they changed to Bismarck on account of the Northern Pacific Railroad, connects to the Missouri River. I figure if the railroad is bringing these prospectors in, they must be taking some gold out.’ When he shifted position, he grimaced in pain.

  ‘You got some bother?’ she asked.

  ‘It’ll pass. I feel it getting better.’

  ‘Is there anything I can do, Dan? Anything?’

  She looked anxious, her hat back, hair cascading to her shoulders, angel face shiny in the firelight. Men they rode past looked at her the same insolent, hungry way Bear had looked at her, a way Dan didn’t like. She may have the image of a woman, but she still thought like a schoolgirl. Her saddle bed spread on the other side of the fire. She wasn’t young enough any more, to be lying against him during the night. She seemed to accept that. He granted her to hover over him because he hadn’t fully healed. She tolerated the whiskey because of the pain, and he allowed her to take the bottle when she thought he’d had enough.

  They continued north, across foothills, through ravines, around granite peaks and down through flat valleys. Considering what Dan heard from prospectors in small tents, he had figured right. The two men had headed for Bismarck and the railroad tracks.

  Bismarck was hot, dusty and still had tents, but buildings did line the dirt road through town – railroad station, hotel with restaurant, bank, Post Office, Telegraph, hardware, provision stores, three saloons, each with upstairs cubicles to house two-dollar whores, stable and blacksmith. The town marshal’s office was next to the railroad station. Tents were set up just outside town to sell mining equipment. The air carried foul garbage smells and the chill of early winter.

  Dan concentrated on the saloons and the bank. Mandy got friendly with the restaurant owner and two waitresses. They stayed at the hotel in separate rooms. They ate breakfast and their evening meals together. Dan figured that because of the people they talked to, word would leak out.

  Big Nose Rox Levant and Tom Baily visited the town, and they brought friends.

  Late Saturday night drunken noise rocked the streets and saloons of downtown. Alone in his room, Dan couldn’t sleep. He stretched on his bed, propped against pillows, smoking and sipping whiskey from a glass, thinking of CK, and the girl next door – and how distinct yet similar they were. He heard a light knock on the door and gathered the Peacemaker in his hand.

  ‘It’s me,’ Mandy said.

  Dan crossed to unlock and open the door.

  Mandy stepped in wearing a thin purple night dress that showed too much of her for public presence.

  ‘You better cover yourself,’ he said.

  Mandy frowned. She sat in a worn, green velvet armchair. ‘You seen me in less than this. A waitress, Milly, went and got herself wrapped up with one of the gang members.’

  Dan returned to the bed, grimaced in pain when he stretched out and lifted his glass to his lips. ‘Gang? What gang?’

  ‘They got a gang. Three men. The five of them gonna rob the train, the caboose, a strongbox of gold, supposed to be more’n forty thousand in nuggets.’

  ‘The jasper told Milly that?’

  ‘Bragging on it. Telling her to keep shut – saying, the man, Tom Baily was setting it up. Saying to Milly, him and her gonna leave this hole with his share of the gold – head on down to New Orleans for fun.’

  Dan frowned. ‘Baily? He ain’t got the brains of a fruit-fly. Why not Rox Levant? I’d reckon he’d be in charge, planning and setting it up.’

  ‘Milly says they got a cabin, five miles out. The big nose ain’t been around much.’ She crossed one leg over the other and swung it back and forth slowly. The night dress parted, but she pulled it together and stopped.

  Dan said, ‘You’d better go back to your room.’

  Mandy sighed. ‘Do I look too good to you, Dan? You’ve seen it all before.’

  ‘You’re young and full of mischief and looking for trouble. Go on, out with you. We’ll talk over breakfast.’

  With a pout, she crossed to the door. He pushed her out and locked the door.

  In the morning, Mandy was already seated in the restaurant when Dan arrived.

  She said, ‘I had a talk with Milly.’

  Dan sipped coffee. ‘And?’

  Mandy looked well-rested and sparkling with life. Her smile showed a fa
ce fresh-washed and lovely. He didn’t know how to accept her – as a girl with woman ideas or a woman with girlish notions. He felt increasing discomfort when alone with her. It had to do with his heart and his own manly notions. Or, maybe the feelings came from old wounds.

  She said, ‘I told her my man wanted in on the robbery. They could use another gun. I didn’t say it was you, just told her to ask her boyfriend what he thought. She did tell me the cabin was northeast of here.’

  ‘About five miles you said.’

  She nodded. ‘The train pulls out tomorrow, supposed to have the gold in a safe in the caboose.’

  ‘How do they know that?’

  ‘They been watching gold shipments pull out, watching it loaded from the bank.’

  Dan rubbed his chin. ‘Why the train? Why not hit the bank, get gold and cash?’

  ‘This is a railroad town. Besides town marshals, they got railroad deputies, too many of them around town, he told Milly.’

  Milly was not their waitress. After they had ordered ham and eggs, Dan said, ‘There’s five of them?’

  ‘Four. I forgot. Milly said Big Nose Rox Levant left town. Packed his pony and just rode out yesterday.’

  ‘For where?’

  ‘Maybe to join up with Monte Steep. Milly’s man said the territories, down around Santa Fe or Tucson or Yuma.’

  Dan stared at her as the breakfast arrived. ‘Are you still committed, Mandy?’

  Mandy sat straight, her shoulders stiff. ‘How can you ask that? Those coyotes wiped out my family. If you don’t kill Tom Baily, I will. I should anyway. He wasn’t there shooting your brother, just Monte Steep. Him and the big nose killed my folks and set fire to our wagon. Tom Baily is here, and I’ll see him dead.’

  Dan remained silent for a spell. He said softly, ‘We hit them at the cabin tonight, before they go after the train.’