Read Online Beneath a Dakota Cross by Stephen A. Bly - Free Book Online

nothin’.”
    â€œWhat did they want to know?”
    Hook’s voice was faint. “About the big claim beneath the Dakota cross. He was there in Tucson when I won it in a poker game.”
    â€œThat’s what I heard.”
    â€œSaid he’s been on my trail since Arizona.”
    â€œDid you give him the map?”
    â€œI cain’t feel nothin’, Brazos. Do I still have on my boots?”
    Brazos glanced down at the foot of the tent. “Yep.”
    â€œThen he didn’t get the map. It’s in my left boot.”
    â€œYou hang on, Hook. We’ve got to take care of the bushwhackers in the whitewoods.”
    â€œYou and the others will have to find that Dakota cross without me.”
    â€œOh, no . . . you’re goin’ to lead the way, partner. Right now, we have a little justice to serve up.”
    A wide, pained smile broke across the wounded man’s face, revealing tobacco-stained teeth. He nodded his head and closed his eyes. Brazos heard noise outside the tent.
    â€œIs Hook dead?” Grass Edwards called.
    Brazos crawled to the tent flap on hands and knees and poked his head out. “No, but they shot him.”
    â€œWho are they?” Big River Frank called. He was now perched just behind the second tent.
    â€œDoc Kabyo and them.”
    â€œKabyo? What are they doin’ in the hills?” Edwards grumbled. “They ain’t prospectors. They’re murderers and horse thieves.”
    Brazos kept his eyes and his gun focused on the grove of whitewood trees. “They wanted Hook’s treasure map, he said.”
    â€œDid he give it to them?”
    â€œNope.”
    â€œYou boys need some help?” someone hollered from the rocks below camp.
    â€œIs that you, Yapper Jim?”
    â€œI’ve got Alamo McCoy and Quiet Jim with me.”
    â€œWe’ve got bushwhackers in the whitewoods. It might be Doc Kabyo, so don’t get yourself shot.”
    â€œWe’ll flank them east of the creek,” Yapper Jim hollered back.
    Brazos, still on hands and knees, crawled through the mud behind the tent and motioned to Big River and Grass. “You flank them on the west. I’ll drive them out of the woods.”
    â€œHow you goin’ to do that?” Big River challenged.
    â€œI’ll ride straight at them,” Brazos said.
    Grass Edwards continued to point his gun at the aspen grove. “By yourself?”
    â€œMe and Mr. Sharps.”
    Big River Frank shoved his hat back. “You’re crazy, Brazos!”
    â€œEver’body in these Black Hills is crazy, Big River . . .”
    The first shot from the Sharps carbine hit the aspen tree about six feet above its base. The bark exploded, and twenty-five feet of treetop toppled over as if felled by an axe. Two more rapid explosions from the single shot brought down two more aspens.
    Suddenly, four horseback riders bolted out of the back of the grove and galloped towards the pass, east of Thunderhead Mountain.

CHAPTER THREE

    The bright August sun was straight above the three men who squatted around the low, crackling campfire. Brazos Fortune was the only one still sipping coffee.
    Grass Edwards rocked back on his heels, his cheeks freshly shaved, his mustache neatly trimmed. “I still say it seems strange to ride off and leave you two.”
    Brazos idly poked at the fire with a short stick. “Hook can’t last another night. I’ll catch up to you tomorrow.”
    His floppy, felt hat hanging on his back by a braided leather stampede string, Big River Frank ran his fingers through his clean, black hair. “And I say we can all three wait one more day. A man don’t ride off and leave his friends.”
    â€œIt’s a business decision,” Brazos insisted. “Tomorrow morning they’re drawin’ up the papers on all our claims. We need you two to be at the stockade on French Creek to represent us. If we don’t get in on