Chapter 10 –Bart's Story: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

There was noise, but it wasn't the howlin' we'd listened to for what seemed like hours. It took more than a few minutes to realize it was a female voice, accompanied by a female hand shakin' me, that kept callin' "Bart." It had to be Ginny. I opened my eyes but the first thing I saw was Brother Bret, sittin' right next to me. We were back in the train car we'd spent the previous day in, and I didn't feel near as good as I had the last time I was here. But I felt a darned sight better than Bret looked.

"What happened?" I asked at last, when it became apparent nobody was gonna tell me anything unless I questioned them. I got a long winded story from Francis and Malone, filling me in on everything I'd missed after hitting the ground when the dynamite went off and the railroad car exploded.

"You three saved our lives, that's for sure," Jim Francis added. He was standing right behind Ginny Malone, who'd finally come into focus in front of me. I turned my head slowly to look at Bret, and even through all the blood and bruising, he grinned at me.

"You look like Pappy took out a losing streak on your face," I told him. "How'd you get out? Last thing I remember, you were supposed to be right behind me – and you weren't."

"He stayed at the party too long," Ginny answered for him.

"Is that what yer callin' it? He's still bleedin', ya know."

"I can see that," she replied. "Hold this, Bret, and press on it," she instructed him as she raised the wet handkerchief to his forehead.

"For how long?" he asked.

"Until it stops bleedin'," Ginny told him. I started to close my eyes again and I got a Maverick elbow in the ribs.

"What?" I asked.

"Stay awake," my brother told me.

Bane came back into the car and announced, "The engine's workin' again. Looks like we're gonna make it to Denver after all." He looked across the car at Daggett. "So much for your crew gettin' you out, Charlie."

"They dead?" the convicted man asked.

"Every blasted one of 'em," Francis answered. "Checked it out myself." Daggett grunted and said not another word.

"Engineer know what was wrong?" Bret questioned.

"Nope," Bane answered. "Has no idea. Engine came back to life after the explosion. They got everybody outta the last car and unhooked it. They'll send a crew down from Denver to clear the tracks. Glad that ain't my job."

"That makes two of us," I said.

Francis slapped me on the back. "Good job, you two. You sure saved somebody a lotta money."

Bret grinned again, but all I could think about was what would happen when we got into Denver and nobody knew who the Maverick brothers worked for. Then something occurred to me. "Hey Bane, is the Blood Moon still out in the sky?"

Bane walked to the front of the car and opened the door, going so far as to step out into what was left of the night and search the sky. "Don't see it anywhere," he answered, turning back towards me.

"Thanks."

XXXXXXXX

The Lakota gods smiled. They were pleased. They had at last repaid the white man named Bart Maverick for the kindness he had shown Kimimela and the good deed he performed for the Lakota people in South Dakota when he gave the tribe back the land that was rightfully theirs. Their job completed, they allowed everything to go back to normal, at least in the white man's world.

TBC