A Cold Day in Hell Read Online Free Page A

time I was putting my saddle on, I was telling him I’d pay him for the animal. But he kept on telling me he wasn’t going to sell him. Over and over he said I’d hang for horse stealing. So I told him I’d hire the goddamned horse out. How much did he want—but he’d none of that neither.”
    Andy Burt asked, “You end up just riding off?”
    “Was near to it when he saw that I was about to,” Frank replied. “Told him one last time he had that last chance to get his money before I was gone. Guess he figured that was that, so he said he’d sell for eighty dollars. I throwed him his money right there in the middle of that Laramie Road and kicked that horse in the ribs. It took off something smart.”
    “Eighty dollars for a horse?” Burt exclaimed.
    “So did you end up with a eighty-dollar horse?” Seamus inquired.
    Frank smiled. “That was no eighty-dollar horse. Irishman. Worth much more’n that. I’ll tell you, boys: that was the best bargain I ever made for a horse. Son of a bitch had more bottom in him than any horse I can remember,” he said with undisguised admiration.
    “So when did you catch up with Crawford?” Wessels asked.
    “Less’n five miles after I got on top of that German’s horse,” Grouard answered. “Come up on Captain Jack pretty quick then. His horse was all but winded.”
    “What’d you say to him?” Bourke asked.
    “First thing: I asked him if he remembered his orders to stay with Lieutenant Bubb. He looked sheepish at that, but all he said was he had dispatches to get through for the New York
Herald.”
    “That when you left him behind?” Donegan asked.
    “Yep, but not before I told him he was no longer a army scout—from the moment he abandoned the column and disobeyed orders. I kept on with that German’s horse, reaching Custer City twenty minutes before three o’clock that day.”
    Donegan whistled, looking around the table. “How far is that? Anyone know?”
    Bourke shook his head and shrugged like the rest, while Wessels answered, “Just over a hundred miles.”
    “In four hours and ten minutes?” Bourke exclaimed, his voice rising in surprise. “You bloody well did ride those horses into the ground, Grouard!”
    “Damn near did my own self in too,” Frank added. “Had to be taken off that last horse when I reached Custer City. Couldn’t get off on my own.”
    Burt asked, “What become of Crawford after you left him behind?”
    “He limped on in on that crippled-up horse,” Frank said. “Found me having my supper that evening. We come to an understanding that we’d start the race again the next morning.”
    “You figured you could trust him?” Bourke asked. “What with Davenport wagging all that money out in front of his nose?”
    A wry smile came across Grouard’s face. “You think I figured to let that son of a bitch burn me twice, Lieutenant? Hell no, I didn’t believe a word of his song. But he didn’t trust me neither. Fact was, he come to my room that night—checking to see if I’d gone and got the sneak on him after dark.”
    Donegan squinted one eye in appraising the half-breed. “Listen, you goddamned half-blood—I know you good enough to know you wasn’t about to eat supper and lay your head down in no bed if there was a chance Crawford was about to get the jump on you through the night. So what’d you do?”
    Smiling, Grouard replied, “To make sure of him not running off on me again—I sat tight and finished my supper before I went down the street to find me a good man there in town I could trust to carry a note to Captain Egan—”
    “Teddy Egan?” Donegan asked.
    Grouard nodded. “The same what led your charge on that village in the Powder River last winter. Told Egan that I needed one of his men to get the dispatches on through, and then had that fella ride off with ’em on a fresh horse down to Egan’s camp at Red Canyon—a good forty miles off. Sent Crook’s note on with the man too. Then I wrote me a letter