Free White Desert by Loren D. Estleman

have the corner on treachery.”
    Now we were moving in circles. “What news of Bliss and Whitelaw?”
    â€œNothing since that bad business on the Saskatchewan at Christmas.” He relaxed a little; his shoulder blades actually touched the back of his chair. “It wasn’t enough for them to steal every dollar and gold filling in the settlement. They had to take target practice on the locals as well, and put a tourch to everything that wouldn’t bleed. I helped bury the bodies. Some of them were burned all in a heap, their flesh melted in one lump; rather than try to separate them we dug a big hole and pushed them in like rubble. They smelled like burnt pork. I sent to Regina for troops and we tracked the buggers as far north as Saskatoon when a blizzard wiped out the trail. They didn’t pass through town. I wired the constable in Prince Albert to keep an
eye out. I’m still waiting for an answer. That far up the lines are down as often as not.”
    â€œWhat’s past Prince Albert?”
    â€œEight hundred miles of wilderness, clear up to Victoria Island. Beyond that’s the Arctic Ocean. Oh, there’s a river settlement two hundred miles north of Albert, founded by former American slaves, and a stronghold up on Cree Lake full of Sioux Indians who chose not to surrender with Sitting Bull last summer, but even Bliss and Whitelaw aren’t barmy enough to take on either one. They’re armed camps.”
    â€œThe slaves are armed?”
    â€œ Former slaves—and free up here since long before Lincoln. They’ll shoot a white American as soon as look at him. There’s not a one of them as didn’t have a wife or mother or some other close kin sold down the river at one time or another. Americans have been known to disappear in that vicinity, and there’s not a Mountie in the country could track them to where they’re burned or buried. The locals are always polite to redcoats, invite us in for dinner and a jug, but when we ask them what became of so-and-so, they roll their eyes and shake their heads, laughing at us the whole time behind that plantation-nigger show. I hope to blazes Bliss and Whitelaw tried them on; it would save Her Majesty the cost of a trial and Washington the price of extradition. But I don’t count on it.”
    â€œWhat’s the name of the settlement?”
    â€œShulamite. Not that you’ll need to know it, except as the name of the place you want to ride wide around. The settlers put their trust in a hag of an African shaman, and I don’t set any store by such claptrap, but she’ll see straight through you if you try to brass it out and claim you’re anything but a wicked slave-taking white American. I suspect her hideous old face is the last thing those men who vanished ever saw.”

    â€œHow many men are riding with Bliss and Whitelaw?”
    He took another pinch but didn’t sneeze this time. He seemed relieved not to be still discussing Shulamite and its witch queen. “The survivors of the massacre couldn’t agree on a number. As few as eight, as many as fifteen. The witnesses were in shock, and it’s usual in those circumstances to count high. Enough, anyway, to call for a company of Mounties when we find out where they’re hiding.” He glanced down at Blackthorne’s letter. “You know, I sent wires to the capitals of all the American territories where these animals committed atrocities, but Helena was the only one that offered to send help. I suppose the others think Bliss and Whitelaw are our problem now. But this letter don’t say anything about how many men are coming behind you. I frankly don’t care for the prospect of a gang of heavily armed strangers loitering about town, and neither will Superintendent Walsh. Such men become bored easily.”
    â€œTell Superintendent Walsh not to worry. I’m the entire expedition.”
    â€œI’d feared