Page 8 of Sure as Shooting

Chapter Four

“So we was crossing Four Creeks and stopped to rest and graze our horses. A band of Indians came down and demanded tribute to cross their territory. We didn’t pay them no mind but gave them some tobacco. I mounted and rode off after some antelope. That’s when I heard firing coming from our halting place.”

“Hush,” Whit told Long-Haired Quartz. He was almost done sawing through the ulna bone. “You can tell the story later.”

“Yeah.” Bud gnashed his teeth—it was always difficult to tell whether it was with glee or rage. Bud’s task was to pinion the patient to the table—in this case, Huntley Ashbury’s desk in the back room of his trading post. Bud was actually turning out to be quite a good surgical assistant. Blood and gore didn’t seem to faze him in the slightest. “Stop your bloviating, partner. You’ll have to tell the whole story again anyway, after you faint.”

Long-Haired Quartz ignored them. Whit had seen this before, men who would not shut up while having a limb amputated. It was almost as though their mind was floating around in the atmosphere while speaking through their physical mouths. “Riding back, I saw my comrades surrounded by yelling demons. I struck my horse with my spurs, but suddenly my arm went numb. Considering my arm was shattered, I thought I’d at least give them one last shot. I never took better aim in my life. That Indian died suddenly. My rifle was useless, so I broke it against a tree. I took the bridle rein in my teeth and carried my broken arm in my other hand all the way back here.”

“Hush,” Whit said again, allowing two Indian children to spirit away the severed forearm. He didn’t care what they wanted with it. It was just in his way. He pinched a severed artery shut. “Huntley? I could use a little help here.”

Huntley whipped his head around. He was engaged in a hearty yammering argument with a knot of ten other men. He took several long strides to stand by Whit.

“Can you thread that needle for me?”

Huntley threaded the needle. “This is unconscionable, Whit.”

Whit was glad Huntley had stopped referring to him as Dr. Whitney. He was even gladder the powerful trader had not run him out of town for having had the grit to slither his fingertips against his masterful erection. Whit hadn’t been able to think of much else, even now with his fingertips pinching off a slimy, slippery artery. Even with the legs of his trousers so soaked in blood they stuck to his thighs, he was aware of the trader’s body heat slamming into him. He could stitch an artery with his eyes closed, but it would never become dull staring at that straight, pointed nose. There was a feral quality to Huntley, and this excited Whit.

Huntley raged, “First Cassady comes, telling me my partner Greeley has been massacred and my store on Mariposa Creek plundered, and now this!” He indicated Long-Haired Quartz, who had thankfully swooned into unconsciousness.

Whit took the needle from Huntley. “Metal file, please.” He had to look at the artery to stitch it while Bud held the tourniquet tight above the elbow. “This Quartz fellow here just told of a separate massacre at a place called Four Creeks. One survivor straggled in, but the other ten men were wiped out. I can’t say as I blame you for your anger.”

“Scheming red devils,” Bud seethed.

Whit silenced him with a glare. He cut off the silk thread, set the needle down, and accepted the metal file from Huntley. He scraped the end of the ulna smooth so it wouldn’t puncture the skin later. “I’m fine here now, Bud. Can you mix that isinglass?”

Bud commenced stirring a nearby bucket. “We’ll use this to make a plaster over the linen, right?”

“Right. Huntley, I’ve heard some of your conversation. You’re definitely getting up a group to go chase them down?”

“Sure as shooting!” Huntley declared. “We’ve over fifty men right here in Agua Fria determined to give them hell. After word gets out, we can easily have over a hundred within a few days. I intend to make a run tomorrow into Bear Valley to gather men. Everyone has reached their breaking point, Whit. If they think we don’t mean what we say, they’ll just overrun us.”

Whit didn’t have to look in order to file down the bone. He much preferred studying Huntley’s curious, beautiful eyes. “Would you mind if I accompanied your expedition? I’d like to see more of this countryside.”

A flicker of fondness came into Huntley’s eyes then. “Certainly, Doc.” He was now “Doc”! That gladdened Whit’s heart. “We could certainly use you. Although you’d have to hold yourself in reserve, of course, when it comes to fighting.”

Whit chuckled. “Of course, Captain Ashbury.” Huntley had told him he had been a captain in Frémont’s Battalion, and he assumed he’d be made one again.

Stirring the bucket of isinglass, Bud cleared his throat meaningfully. “I’d like to come along, too, Captain.”

Whit and the captain exchanged glances. With his eyes, Whit tried to tell Huntley something along the lines of Hey, this is the first time Bud has treated you with respect. Give him a chance. Huntley turned to the younger man and said politely, “Bud. Pennington, is it? Anyone with such a spirited hatred of Indians is welcome, for the more hatred there is, the more efficiently you’ll fight.”

But Bud seemed to lose all the advantage he’d gained when he inquired, “Will we be heading toward the Ahwahnee Valley?”

Whit had seen that look in Huntley’s hooded eyes before. When he shut down what little goodwill he had built up toward a man. “If you want to head to the Ahwahnee Valley,” he said thinly, “you can do so on your own.” Turning back to Whit, he said more cheerfully, “We’ll be heading toward the San Joaquin River. That’s where they’re encamped.”

Whit grinned and nodded, perfectly satisfied. Folding the flap of skin over the exposed bone, he set to plastering the wound with strips of linen.

* * * *

“They’re about six miles off, having a feast.” Huntley reiterated to the group at the rendezvous. “I can smell them sure as bear sign.”

The assayer Paul Terrell said, “No dog can follow a trail as Ashbury can. No horse endures so much, Sheriff Burney.”

Burney said, “I’m familiar with Ashbury’s mountain man attributes. But why didn’t you lead the scouting party closer to them than six miles?”

Huntley started to explain, “There was no need to give away our presence. I could hear them singing—could hear King Joseph’s mewling voice.”