Stamping Ground by Loren D. Estleman Page B

knock the mortar out from between the rocks in the wall.”
    â€œThe Mormon mission,” said Jac.
    I nodded. “Thanks, Private. You’re clear with us.”
    He muttered something indelicate and stamped out.
    The first drop banged my hat while I was mounting up outside the door. It was the last individual drop I heard. The rest came down in a roar so sudden Hudspeth and I were thoroughly soaked by the time we got our black slickers out and on. Pere Jac merely removed his nice calico shirt and stored it safely in a saddle bag, facing the elements half naked.
    â€œCouldn’t wait till tomorrow to get kicked out, could you?” grumbled the marshal.
    Jac smiled and quoted something from Mark, or maybe it was Matthew.
    The water was streaming from the brims of our hats—those of us who had hats—as we rode out through the open gate. It glistened on the old breed’s broad back, magnifying the scars of battles old and new. There was a light in the window of Major Harms’s office, and I knew he was bidding us good riddance. I considered tipping my hat, thought better of it, and kicked the bay into a canter just in time to splatter mud over the uniforms of the troopers waiting to close the gates behind us. Whatever they called me was drowned out by the downpour.

Chapter Seven
    The wind rose and lightning stabbed at the ground, throwing the landscape into dazzling negative, as we stopped to camp on the high ground west of Fort Ransom. But the hard rain was over, and that which hissed down around us now was the kind that could go on for days, flooding the lowlands and washing away farmers’ crops as it fed rivers still swollen from the spring thaw. Hudspeth and I used our rifles to make tents of our oilcloth slickers and crawled under them while Pere Jac wrapped himself up from head to foot in his saddle blanket and began snoring almost immediately. If I slept at all I never realized it, shivering in my wet clothes and listening to the drops drumming the surface of my temporary shelter as I thought about how nice it would be to hear them tapping the roof of the officers’ quarters back at the fort from the depths of a warm featherbed.
    It was still raining when I arose at sunup to find the marshal already at work over a small fire, frying bacon in the cast-iron skillet he carried in one of his saddle bags.The smell of sweet grease clawed at my stomach, reminding me that I hadn’t eaten anything to speak of since breakfast the day before. The longhom beef at Fort Ransom didn’t count. I swigged water from my canteen, sloshed it around and spat it out to clear away some of the fuzz, and stepped closer just to smell.
    â€œWhere in hell did you find dry wood?” I asked him.
    â€œNot wood, buffalo chips.” His voice was hoarse and thick with phlegm, the way it was every morning. After several days with him I knew that it didn’t begin to clear until he’d been up half an hour. “Best damn fuel there is, and it never gets so soaked you can’t start it burning with a little work.”
    â€œI’m surprised the métis have left buffalo in Dakota to make enough to get a fire started.” I glowered at Pere Jac, who sat on his wet blanket gnawing at his pemmican. I resented the ease with which he had fallen asleep the night before. He went on chewing as if he hadn’t heard.
    The bacon was a little too crisp for my taste, but after nearly starving to death I wasn’t complaining. Jac preferred the saddle leather he was eating, but he did accept a tin cup of coffee when it was offered. I did too, but only to wash the grease from the roof of my mouth. The stuff tasted like burnt grain. We crouched around the fire sipping in moody silence.
    â€œWhat are we doing out here?” growled Hudspeth. “Bouncing around all over the territory, getting saddle sores and wet asses, and for what? A hunk of lead between the eyes and six feet of Dakota on our