The Endless Sky (Cheyenne Series) by Henke Shirl

Author:Henke, Shirl [Henke, Shirl]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Shirl Henke
Published: 2011-06-22T07:00:00+00:00

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“There's a civilian feller here to see you, sir,” the corporal said to Lieutenant Phillips, who sat in the small cramped office of the adjutant at Fort Steele. “I tole him you was real busy. He looked sort of down at the heels, a drifter...but he...” The corporal shuffled nervously, unwilling to meet his superior's eyes. “He said he seen a white woman with an Injun who attacked his medicine show wagon and killed his partner. Said she might be an officer's wife.”

“Send him in,” Hugh replied tightly, dismissing the noncom. Everyone at the post knew his wife had been missing for over a week now, mysteriously vanished without a trace from the Rawlins Hotel where she and the other officers' wives were staying. Gossips who knew the Phillipses were having marital troubles whispered she had run away with another man. All he needed to make matters worse was for her to have been captured by savages!

A tall gauntly built man wearing a moth-eaten frock coat and shabby boots shuffled into the office. A sour smell of cheap whiskey and body odor filled the stuffy little room. He needed a shave and his eyes and face were ravaged by prairie winds and drink, probably more of the latter.

“I understand you had an encounter with savages, Mr....” Hugh waited for the man's name, not offering him a seat. A cheap huckster by the looks of him. He couldn't possibly know anything about Stephanie. Still the doubt niggled.

“Wallaby. Seth Wallaby, Lieutenant...Phillips, ain't that yer name?” the narrow faced man asked.

There was a crafty gleam in the bloodshot eyes that unnerved Hugh. “I'm Lieutenant Phillips, yes.” He waited for the man to speak his piece, volunteering nothing.

“Last week, Friday, it was, er, I think,” he said, scratching his thinning greasy hair, trying to retrieve the event from whiskey blurred memory. “Me 'n' my pards, Laben 'n' Marty, we run on this buck. Had him a fancy Yellow Boy Winchester. We run a circus wagon 'n' sell a little tonic on the side.”

“What did the savage do, Mr. Wallaby?” Hugh's patience was wearing decidedly thin.

“Tried to buffalo us into giving him these here two Injun brats we had workin' in the show. When I said no, he up 'n' shot Laben 'n' tried to do fer me 'n' Marty. Winged Marty. We split in opposite directions. Never did find him.”

Hugh could wager how diligently Wallaby had searched for his injured comrade. “And this white woman?” he said, affecting a bored tone.

“All a sudden just after the fireworks started a woman come running out of the bushes—yellin' she was a cavalry officer's wife—Stephanie Phillips. Course, I was bein' shot at by a buck with a repeater, Laben was stretched out dead 'n' Marty wounded. I couldn't get near her to save her, but I thought the army might want to know.” He shuffled his feet a bit more, one well-worn muddy boot, then the other. “I, er, I heerd they might be a reward for the lady.

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