Stamping Ground by Loren D. Estleman Page A

wet season. It just moves on, leaving the places where it’s been to dry and cake and the crops to wither while it washes away what’s left of the green that’s already given up waiting for it elsewhere. The storm that had hit us after leaving Fort Ransom was in the north now, a black crescent on the skyline looking like the charred fringe of a towel left too close to the fire, dumping water over the higher country up around Fargo. The prehistoric lake bed that stretched from the Drift Prairie to the Red River took the runoff and channeled it into the James River. At that point the lazy stream we had crossed a couple of hours earlier became a snarling torrent forty feet wide at its narrowest point and swift enough to sweep downriver a horse and rider faster than a man can curse. I no longer recognized it.
    I wasted half a day riding up and down in search of a place to cross. A mile north of the spot where we’d come over, the river broadened into a lake, which was no good at all, and the farther south I rode the swifter grew the current. It was late afternoon when I gave up and turned back toward the mission, and damned near sundown before I galloped up the rise where I’d left my companions.
    At least I thought it was where I’d left them. Those swells all looked alike when there was no one there. I called their names a couple of times, being careful to keep my voice from carrying as far as the mission. When after two or three minutes there was no answer, I rode to the top of the hill and looked around. There was the mission on thesky-line, looking to be about the same distance away as it had been that morning. There was no sign of life on any of the other hills in the area. I turned and cantered back below the crest for a second look.
    It was the spot, all right. Dismounting, I saw that the ground was chewed up where our horses had stood fidgeting and pawing the earth while we squatted talking, and in a bare spot I saw the pointed toe of a footprint that could only have been made by one of Hudspeth’s fancy Mexican boots. As I bent over to study it, something cold and slimy slithered up my spine. I mounted again and spurred the bay back to the crest. What I saw there made me reach back automatically to grip the butt of my revolver.
    On the ridge about three hundred yards away, a solitary rider sat facing me astride a roan horse with no saddle. The figure’s hair hung down in plaits on either side of its naked chest. It was holding a rifle upright with the butt resting upon one thigh; a cloth of some sort drooping from its barrel and stirring ever so slightly in the minimal breeze. I was only dimly aware that this was Pere Jac’s beloved calico shirt. The Indian looked as if he had been there for hours, which was impossible, since I’d just looked in that direction a few minutes before and seen nothing. The slimy thing crawled back down my backbone.
    â€œPage Murdock.” Warped and distorted by distance, the unfamiliar voice was felt rather than heard, stroking my eardrums in such a way that it set my teeth on edge. “You have the choice of dying in the mission with your friends or dying out here alone. I await your answer.”

Chapter Nine
    I waited until the words died away before, slowly, as if a sudden movement might spook my game, I squeaked my Winchester from its scabbard and raised it to my shoulder. Ghost Shirt didn’t stir. I wondered if he thought his flag of truce might save him, or if he really believed-he was indestructible. If so, his brilliance was overrated. Allowing for distance and the updraft from the hills that rolled between us, I drew a bead on a point just above his left shoulder and took a deep breath, half of which I planned to let out before I squeezed the trigger. Still he didn’t move.
    But something did.
    Thirty feet in front of my nose, the ground heaved and spewed up a dozen black-faced braves on horseback. They exploded over the crest