Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Chapter One - Deadwood, Dakota Territory, September 16, 1876
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Epilogue
Author’s Note
UNDER FIRE
The sharp smell of the coal oil was even stronger out here. Dan turned toward where it seemed to be coming from and heard a muffled curse. His gun came up as he spotted an indistinct figure in the shadows at the rear of the hotel.
Then he heard a familiar voice exclaim, “Ryan!” and the figure stepped forward into the light that spilled from the kitchen door. Dan just had time to recognize Matt Hollis before the gun in Hollis’s hand stabbed toward him and cracked wickedly, flame spouting from its muzzle . . .
Berkley titles by Mike Jameson
The Tales from Deadwood series
TALES FROM DEADWOOD
THE GAMBLERS
THE KILLERS
THE TROOPERS
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)
Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196,
South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
TALES FROM DEADWOOD: THE TROOPERS
A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with the author
printing HISTORY
Berkley edition / March 2009
Copyright © 2009 by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors’ rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
eISBN : 978-1-101-01973-3
BERKLEY®
Berkley Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
BERKLEY® is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
The “B” design is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Prologue
Montana Territory, along Rosebud Creek, June 17, 1876
As he listened to the wild ki-yips of the savages and tried not to choke on the clouds of dust and powder smoke that clogged his throat, Major Stephen Ransome thought that if he never saw another Indian in his life, it would still be too fucking soon.
Of course, Ransome reminded himself, if not for some of the Indians around him—the Crow and Shoshone scouts fighting on the side of the United States Army—he might well be dead, feathered with arrows or skewered by the lance of some painted, yelling barbarian . . . such as the one who charged at him now on a spry little spotted pony. The Sioux warrior shrieked out his hatred and leveled his lance at Ransome while the major attempted to reload his Colt Single Action Army revolver in time to save his life.
Fear made his fingers fumble momentarily with the last cartridge, but finally he shoved it home and snapped the cylinder shut. Just in time, too, because the Indian was almost on him. Ransome jerked the gun up, pointed it, and pulled the trigger, yelling, “Take that, you son of a bitch!” as the weapon roared.
Ransome had always been a good shot, and that remained true even under these trying circumstances. The .45-caliber slug caught the Sioux high in the chest, right under his throat. Blood spurted from the wound as the impact rocked the warrior back. He didn’t fall, though. He clamped his knees on his pony’s flanks, and as his war cry died away into a blood-choked gurgle, he still aimed the lance at Ransome.
“Die, damn you!” the major yelled as he cocked and fired the Colt as fast as he could. Three more slugs crashed into the Indian’s body and finally drove him off his horse. The buckskin-clad warrior thudded to the ground in a limp sprawl.
Ransome jerked his mount around and tried to see what was happening. The action was spread out all along the banks of the creek. General Crook’s forces had been taking a morning rest in a natural amphitheater beside the stream when shots began to ring out somewhere nearby. Moments later, a couple of Crow scouts, one of them seriously wounded, galloped back into the temporary camp shouting, “Sioux! Sioux!”
“Get up there and see what this is all about, Major,” Crook had ordered Ransome. The major was one of Crook’s staff officers, valuable because he spoke a smattering of the Crow tongue. His father, the Reverend Charles Ransome, had been a missionary to the Plains Indians, and young Stephen had learned how to speak several of their languages before his mother took him back East.
The Reverend Ransome had gone west to convert the heathens. His son had returned to the West to kill them, as part of the three-pronged summer campaign against the Sioux. General Crook’s column had moved north from Fort Fetterman while Colonel John Gibbon led a column eastward from Fort Ellis and General Alfred Terry’s column headed west from Fort Abraham Lincoln. All three columns would converge on the Sioux hunting grounds between the Yellowstone and Powder rivers.
Until today, Crook had not encountered any hostiles, but that had changed in a hurry.
The Shoshone scouts under Chief Washakie had been approximately five hundred yards out in front of the rest of the column when at least a thousand of Crazy Horse’s Sioux attacked. Washakie had hated the Sioux for years, and fighting a defensive action wasn’t in his nature anyway. So, despite being heavily outnumbered, he had launched a counterattack, which had gotten under way just as Ransome and a small detachment of cavalry arrived to check on the situation. Ransome and his troopers had been swept up in the action, and now he found himself fighting for his life in the midst of a crazed swirl of men and horses, gun smoke and dust.
This wasn’t Ransome’s first Indian fight. He had been with Crook in Arizona and had taken part in the general’s clashes with the Apaches there, the battles that had earned General George C. Crook the reputation of being the best Indian fighter in the whole army. But despite that experience, Ransome still felt fear burning through his veins. He had never gotten used to having death stare him in the face, and he supposed he never would.
As the dust cleared for a moment, Ransome spotted three of the men under his command stretched out behind a low hummock of earth, firing at the Indians from that position. He hadn’t given the order to dismount. His men were supposed to be on their horses, taking the fight to the savages. Anger welled up inside Ransome as he sent his horse toward the three troopers.
“Mount up!” he shouted as he came up behind them. “Mount up, damn it!”
They turned to look at him. He recognized them—three privates named Brundage, Hollis, and Lamont—and wasn’t surprised to see them together. They were friends and spent most of their time in one another’s company. They were troublemakers, as well, too fond of boozing and brawling for Ransome’s taste, even though he knew the men had to let off steam somehow.
“Get on your horses and engage the enemy!” he ordered them, just as a shrill cry sounded behind him. He wheeled his mount in time to see a young warrior on horseback emerge from a nearby cloud of dust. Without thinking, Ransome jerked his pistol up and fired. The Indian doubled over as the bullet ripped into his belly. He caught hold of his pony’s mane to keep himself from falling.
Only then, as the pony came to a trembling halt and the wounded man lifted his face to stare at Ransome, did the major realize he had just shot one of the Crow scouts, a young man called Spotted Dog. As Ransome watched in horror, the scout’s pain-distended eyes rolled up in their sockets and he toppled off his pony.
“My God!” Ransome muttered. Why did all the blasted savages have to look so much alike?
He glanced over his shoulder, unsure whether the three troopers he had just been upbraiding had seen what he’d done. The air was so thick with smoke and dust they might not have noticed who Spotted Dog really was. They wore blank expressions, so Ransome couldn’t really tell.
“Mount up,” he ordered again in a thick voice. Then he heeled his horse into motion. He didn’t look back at either the dead scout or the three troopers.
So he didn’t see when one of the men raised a carbine and pointed it at his back.
Clyde Brundage knocked the barrel of Dewey Lamont’s Springfield carbine upward just as Lamont pulled the trigger. The shot went high and wild over the battlefield. The tall, sandy-haired officer didn’t seem to notice as he rode away. He probably thought the shot had been directed at one of the hostiles.
“Damn it, Clyde!” Lamont said. “I would’a plugged that shit-faced major! He had it comin’. He’s been ridin’ us the whole campaign.”
“I know that.” A grin creased Brundage’s lean, dark face. “But think about what we just saw.”
“He shot one of our redskins,” Matt Hollis put in. “Killed him, too, looked like.”
“That’s right,” Brundage said. “Major Ransome killed one of our own scouts. I reckon knowin’ about a thing like that might come in handy, somewhere on down the road.”
Lamont and Hollis began to grin, too, as they realized what Brundage meant. They had something they could hold over Major Ransome’s head now . . . and they were just the kind of men to take advantage of that, if they could.
Brundage got to his feet and said over his shoulder, “Come on.” Carrying his carbine, he trotted toward their horses, which he and his friends had left tied to a bush not far off. The cavalry mounts trembled from the noise and the smells of blood and gun smoke, but they didn’t bolt. They were too well trained for that.
Lamont and Hollis scrambled after Brundage. “I thought we said it’d be safer squattin’ behind that hump,” the burly, ginger-bearded Lamont called.
“Major Ransome gave us a direct order,” Brundage replied. “Reckon we’ve got to follow it. Besides, I want to make sure he lives through this skirmish.”
“Because he can’t do us any good if he’s dead,” Hollis said. “I get it.”
Brundage jerked his head in a nod. “That’s right.” He jerked his horse’s reins loose from the bush and swung up into the McClellan saddle. “Ransome may not know it, but he’s got himself three guardian angels.”
He grinned at the irony of that as he rode off in the direction Ransome had gone, followed by Hollis and Lamont. The three of them were about as far from angels, guardian or otherwise, as you could get. Fallen angels, maybe, thought Brundage.
We hope you are enjoying the book so far. To continue reading...
Copyright © 2024 All Rights Reserved
Please log in to recommend or discuss...
