Blood Feather by Don Bendell Page B

handles. They waded into Chris Colt and Joshua Strongheart, and the two men instinctively dashed for the door, wanting to take the fight into the light, where they could see. Inside, Chris’s right eye was swelling shut from a blow, and Joshua’s left eye was swelling shut from the same.
    Strongheart said, “Why don’t we make this fight a little more even?”
    He drew and fired, hitting one of the axe handles near the man’s hand and shattering it. Almost immediately, Joshua heard Chris’s gun boom next to him, and another axe handle splintered. Then both men fanned their Colt .45 Peacemakers and the third axe handle exploded.
    The biggest man swung at Chris Colt, who ducked under it, and the big man was met by a thundering right hook from Strongheart, shattering his jaw. Colt hit the man closest to him with a head-butt tackle, sending him crashing over the bar. Joshua faced another tall man and suddenly pointed at the man’s foot. The man looked down and Strongheart caught him with a vicious uppercut, lifting him off his feet and onto a table, which crashed over backward with him and several glasses and bottles. Colt and Joshua both hit the next man simultaneously, one with a thundering overhand right and the other with powerful left hook. The eyes of the last one looked like those of a small deer facing a family of mountain lions, as he gawked at Joshua Strongheart standing before him. He turned to run and was immediately tripped by Chris Colt, who hit him with a downward right as he fell forward. He was out cold when his face hit the floor.
    Chris and Joshua looked at each other and the fallen men and started chuckling, both subconsciously touching their blackened eyes. They ordered steaks, and Colt had a beer, while Strongheart drank coffee. The defeated bullies each slowly left the room sheepishly as they awakened individually, while the two men spoke with each other and ignored them.
    Strongheart said, “Tomorrow I have to brief General Sheridan. He is famous for the Civil War and his friendship with Grant, but I want to know from you what to expect.”
    Chris Colt started chuckling and Joshua said, “What’s funny, Colt?”
    Colt replied, “He will not like you from the get-go, for the same reason he does not like me.”
    His curiosity piqued, the Pinkerton asked, “What is that?”
    Colt said, “You and I both stand about six-foot-four or so.”
    â€œSo why won’t he like that?” Joshua said.
    Chris laughed and replied, “’Cause he’s the very last guy to get snowed or rained on.”
    Strongheart laughed, saying, “Short?”
    Colt said, “Five-foot-five. You ever hear the famous quote about Sheridan by old Honest Abe?”
    â€œNo,” Strongheart said. “What did he say?”
    Colt replied, “Abe Lincoln said of General Sheridan, ‘A brown, chunky little chap, with a long body, short legs, not enough neck to hang him, and such long arms that if his ankles itch he can scratch them without stooping.’ I heard that several times from several soldiers and laughed every time.”
    Joshua was laughing hard himself at the late President’s words.
    Chris went on to reiterate that Sheridan was indeed just barely five-foot-five.
    Another item, which he knew would anger Joshua as much as it angered him, was the fact that Sheridan was one of the prime backers of the program to slaughter the buffalo to defeat the red man. Colt was correct in his assumption. Joshua was very angry when he heard this.
    Colt told Strongheart that Sheridan had had a mistress years before, when he was dealing with the Nez Perce, Modoc, and other tribes in the northwest. Her name was
Sidnayoh
, but he called her Frances. She was the daughter of the chief of the Klickitat tribe. Colt did not know it at the time, but she would never be mentioned in Sheridan’s memoirs.
    The two men went to bed, and Strongheart met