Sudden Country by Loren D. Estleman Page B

sorrel Nicodemus, but upon investigating I found that it was fixed in place. I had not noticed it in all the time the horse was tied to the back of the chuck wagon during our trek through Wyoming. Suspecting a bird passing overhead, I licked my thumb and rubbed at the spot. Nicodemus flinched–as did I, for the thumb came away streaked not with white, but with the reddish brown of the stallion's coat.
    Curious, I plucked a handful of grass damp with evening dew and scrubbed at the animal's forehead, clutching its mane to prevent it from shying. Slowly the dark color came off. I stepped back, dropping the stained grass. A chill gnawed at my vitals. Before me was the blaze-face horse belonging to the one-eyed man who had superintended the murder of Jotham Flynn.

Chapter12
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    WHAT I HEARD
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    I had scarcely time to digest this revelation when the sound of approaching voices alerted me to my own danger. To be discovered staring at the awful evidence would have been fatal; for among those voices I heard the bantering, storytelling tones of Ben Wedlock. Without thinking I scrambled down the other side of the ridge. In the shadow of the hill my foot found the burrow of some small animal and I fell headlong into the tall grass, emptying my lungs and stunning myself momentarily. The horses, unsettled by so much unexplained movement, stamped and snorted and tugged at their pickets.
    "Here, what's with the horses?" I recognized Mike McPhee's brogue.
    "Eyes open," Wedlock admonished. "Horses draw injuns like gnats."
    Yellow light came over the ridge in a counterfeit dawn. Flattening myself further–I was stretched out on my stomach now-I saw the Irishman's profile on the crest with lantern raised. He passed it around in a wide arc, startling the horses into fresh transports. I buried my face and felt the light sliding over my back. Finally he lowered it. "Nothing."
    "Varmint." The single word belonged to Christopher Agnes. "They're what snakes was invented for."
    "Go on, Black Ben. You was at St. Louis."
    "Mind that!" snapped McPhee.
    "Aw, that Bible-banging old bastard won't hear us up here."
    I could not place this voice, and decided it belonged to one of the young men who had joined us in Cheyenne.
    Wedlock said, "Just the same, call me Ben. Well, St. Louis. We dropped a tree across the tracks and when she stopped, Pike and me boarded and throwed down on the engineer and brakeman. Beacher was riding the cars and had the conductor pinned back by that time. Then Bloody Bill come up with Flynn and the rest. The eye was my doing. When the shooting commenced I lost concentration and that engineer jerked this old knuckle-duster out of his back pocket and let fly at my face. It was the powder flash done it; the ball had fell out if it was ever in or I wouldn't be here jabbering. I reckon I done for that engineer while I was still howling.
    "I wasn't good for much after that, though I got mounted and made it to our first camp. It was Bloody Bill told me he couldn't stop to see I was took care of; said Shelby'd be along directly and his sawbones'd fix me up proper. Well, we both knowed he was lying in his whiskers, but I reckon I looked not long for this here world or he'd of put a ball through my other eye to keep me from talking to the bluebellies."
    "What happened?"
    I was struck by the thought that the young man from Cheyenne sounded much like me.
    Christopher Agnes said, "He died."
    "Stop funning the boy. It was the Yanks found me. Told 'em I was with Shelby or they'd of hung me on the spot to save powder. I was halfway to Elmira with a patch on my eye by the time they worked it out, if they ever did."
    "You spent the rest of the war in prison?"
    "Busted out when I was up for it and hiked back. Took me six months. By the time I caught up with Pike and Beacher and the rest Bloody Bill was dead. Flynn had lit out and it wasn't till the shooting stopped on both sides we put together what became of the gold. When that paymaster