Vengeance Trail

by Bill Brooks

  She shrugged and cupped her chin in the palm of her hand and stared at him until he dropped his eyes down to his empty plate.

  “You married, Mr. Dollar?”

  “No ma’am.”

  “Ever been?”

  “No ma’am.”

  She sighed, stood, and went to a basin near the window. He watched as her shoulders rose and then dropped again in deep sigh as she stood there staring out the window.

  “Being married can sometimes be hard,” she said. “Living out here in the middle of nowhere, listening to the wind blow all the time, hearing the bawl of cattle can be hard. It makes me cry sometimes, Mr. Dollar.”

  He could understand her loneliness. The frontier was a rugged place for women.

  She turned and faced him.

  “Do you think me an attractive woman, Mr. Dollar?”

  The question caught him off guard.

  “Well, ma’am. I guess I shouldn’t be the one to judge,” he said.

  “Why not? You’re a man. Surely you can see for yourself whether or not a man would find me interesting to look at.”

  “I would say that most men would find your looks to be agreeable,” he said. In a way, he had not lied to her. Even though plain and somewhat large as females went, with a little fixing and a little care, he could see where she could draw a man’s attention to her.

  “You are a kind person for having said so,” she replied. “Would you like more to eat?”

  “No ma’am. I reckon I’d best be going,” he said, the poor light in the room indicated that the sun was sagging in the west.

  “Then how about a cup of coffee before you go? I can see that you are not a fancier of tea,” she said, glancing at his half empty cup, “but it was kind of you anyway. Coffee won’t take but a minute. If you like you can smoke outside while I make it?”

  He knew that she was holding on to his company, not wanting to be left alone. Well, maybe if he lingered a bit, her man would show. He could see no harm in a few more minutes.

  He stepped out into the long shadows of the house, shadows cast by a setting sun. The wind had died, the windmill stood silent and still. He pulled his makings and rolled a cigarette and struck a match off the heel of his boot.

  He thought about the woman inside, thought about her loneliness, about his own. The smoke tasted good after the meal. A man should feel this way most of the time, he told himself.

  He imagined the spread being his, the buildings, the cattle, the land, the woman inside. He imagined stepping outside the house after a fine full supper and having a cigarette and watching the sun sink red and feeling the coolness of evening start to come on.

  She came outside, handed him a steaming mug of coffee and leaned against the wall next to him.

  “What do you see, Mr. Dollar? Can you understand how a body could go crazy?”

  “I reckon it must be hard on you, ma’am.”

  “Cows and cowboys,” she said. “I don’t see it. I was born in Ohio. There, we had trees and green grass and rivers…oh my, we had lots of water.” She fell silent thinking about it. He crushed out his cigarette, not wanting to offend.

  “I married Clave through the mail, answered his advertisement for a wife. I thought it would be a great adventure—you know, the wild and wooly West, marauding Indians, the frontier. My parents were against it of course, I was but seventeen at the time. I truly was a handsome girl, Mr. Dollar. I had many beaus at the time and could have taken my pick of men to marry.”

  Henry hitched his thumbs inside his pockets while he listened to her. She had a soft, mellow voice that belied her size.

  “But I had a wild streak in me. Ohio was full of trees and grass and rivers and eager young farm boys, but it lacked adventure. It was a tamed land. When I saw Clave Miller’s ad looking for a wife, I just naturally had to answer.” She lapsed into silence again. He listened to her breathing.

  “I reckon now I know.”

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “Know that the whole thing was a mistake.” Silence, until the wind started up again, started up the blades of the windmill. Clack. Clack. Clack. Clack.

  “Well, ma’am. It don’t look like your man is likely to come back soon. I hate to take up more of your hospitality…”

  “Stay.”

  Her long graceful fingers—too delicate for her big hands, it seemed—reached out and touched him on the arm.

  “Ma’am?”

  “Clave isn’t coming back to night. He and the hands have ridden to Mobeetie to visit the cat house. They won’t come riding in until tomorrow or the next day—else, they’d already be back by now. Clave don’t miss supper unless he’s gone to Mobeetie.”

  It seemed the gliding light of dusk had transformed her, had softened her looks. She reached up and unpinned her hair and let it fall loose about her shoulders.

  “I know I’m not pretty, not anymore I’m not. But it don’t stop my desire to have a man treat me like I still am.”

  “I’m sure plenty of men would—”

  “No, Mr. Dollar, that’s not true. Why else would Clave ride all the way to Mobeetie to get what he can get here? I’m not a fool, Mr. Dollar. I’d take it as a kindness on your part if you’d spend the night with me.” She allowed her hand to drop away and she turned her face back toward the open flatness of the land that had now grown to shadows.

  He took her hand and held it for a time. And for a time, the two of them stood silent, each with their own thoughts.

  He knew everything about it was wrong. Taking a man’s horse or his woman was a killing offense. And if he did this thing, and Clave Miller showed up…

  But she squeezed his hand, and he could hear the soft snuffling sound of her crying, and something in that touched him in a way that few other things in life ever had.

  “I’d like to wash up, first,” he said, just as the last ray of sun disappeared below the edge of the earth.

  She leaned and kissed him gently on the cheek.

  “There’s a wash pan, soap, and towel out back. I’ll

  be inside when you’re finished.”

  “Are you sure this is something you want?” he asked.

  “No, Mr. Dollar, I’m not sure at all. But, I know it is something I need.”

  Chapter Eight

  It had been three days since he had ridden out of Ft. Smith. The crawly feeling up his back that someone was dogging his trail had not left him in all that time. Nights were getting downright spooky by his book.

  He had found it hard to shut his eyes and sleep, even with a gut full of whiskey. He had grown to favor the whiskey too much—once a man craved Old Tom day and night, well, that told a feller something about himself—something that was hard to face each day he looked in the mirror.

  He stayed to the trees, in amongst the tall pines, stayed clear of open ground whenever he could. Trouble was, a horse walked soft, hardly no sound at all on ground covered thick with pine needles. But a feller would have to shoot around an awful lot of trees to shoot him in the back, reasoned the old lawman.

  He made dry camp the first two nights, but on the third day, it had rained and turned unusually cold— he rode in it for hours. By that night, he had gotten the shakes from being so cold and wet.

  He found an old lean-to, all that was left of some old farm, it appeared. It wasn’t much, but it had stopped raining and it seemed like wonderful shelter to spread out his war bag under.

  He scrounged around the area and dug up some old lumber that had lain under a piece of tin roofing. It was dry enough to build a fire from.

  He had hardtack and whiskey for a supper, but with the warmth of the fire at his feet, the hardtack and whiskey seemed just fine.

  He gave only brief thought to the suspicion that someone was on his trail and that he was an easy target sitting there in the fire’s light. Well, to hell with it, he told himself. I’d just as soon be shot dead as to die of the pneumonia—what’s the difference!

  He had his horse,
a dapple gray mare, hobbled nearby and spoke to it openly. The whiskey was dulling his senses. The horse eyed him suspiciously whenever his voice grew loud.

  “I was once a fire-eatin’ son of a bitch!” he announced to the animal. “Now look at me, all broke down like a fat widow’s sofa. Your back must be as sore as an infected tooth havin’ to carry me around all day.” His laugh was cut off by a hacking cough that he had come to notice more and more as of late.

  “The damn croup’s come to take me, Li’l Bess.” He had named the mare after his late mother—in his mind, the greatest of all respects to be paid.

  He coughed and swallowed more whiskey.

  “I have shot men, and been shot!” he yelped, resuming his monologue to the encroaching night, to the grazing horse. “This saddle’s had blood on it,” he said, patting the worn leather beneath his elbow.

  “My blood!

  “I’ve been cut with knives and been banged over the head. Had my jaw broke by a desperado named…named….” He searched his fogged memory for the name of the man that had broken his jaw in a fight—what fight exactly, he could not recall either.

  “Dick Treadwell! Mean son of a bitch! Prize-fighter! No wonder he broke my jaw.” The fire was feeling warm and pleasant.

  “Had a bad eye but could hit you with either hand quick as you could spit.” He rubbed the jaw, remembering where Dick Treadwell had broken it, and grinned, showed old teeth in doing so.

  The feeling came over him again, the feeling that someone was out there. He reached a hand out and touched the Winchester repeating rifle propped up against the trunk of a yellow pine. Then, partly for comfort, partly for assurance, he shifted the holstered .45 caliber single-action Colt off his hip and onto his lap, the worn walnut grips smooth to the touch. With seven and a half inches of barrel, it was a hefty piece.

  “I don’t know who the hell you are out there, mister! But if you’ve come to take my hide, you’ll get hold of nothing but wild panther and poison!” The yelling made him short of breath, made him need another swallow of whiskey.

  “I’ll gouge out your eyeballs and eat them for breakfast!”

  Sitting in the darkness, a silent form of a man listened to the ranting of the drunken lawman.

  Eli Stagg had planned on trailing the Deputy all the way to Ardmore, had planned on waiting until he took charge of the prisoners and then making his move.

  After having used threat on the telegrapher back in Ft. Smith, threat that produced a look-see at the message being sent down to the Texas Rangers in Pecos, the bounty hunter figured it would just be a simple matter to hang on the trail of the careless old lawman.

  But now, things had changed. The deputy had detected his presence—how, he wasn’t sure. Never know, he thought, the old coot might set an ambush for him. Eli Stagg was not a man to take chances. No, he’d have to kill the lawman. Kill him to night.

  More whiskey, less fear. The drink had turned the old lawman maudlin. He remembered a song. His voice sang mournful.

  “I asked my love to come with me. To take a walk a little way…” His voice broke with one great sob and then another. Tears slid down his cheeks, the words to the song momentarily lost within the clouded mind.

  The old bastard was crying. Eli Stagg was forced to stifle a laugh. Damn’d old fool.

  Al Freemont used his blue bandanna to blow his nose and clear his eyes. Another drink of old bust-head and things would feel better, he told himself as he tilted the bottle to his lips.

  The words of the song returned to him:

  I held a knife against her breast, and gently in my arms she pressed. Crying: Willie, oh Willie, don’t murder me. For I’m unprepared for eternity….

  It was a song that he had learned as a boy: Banks of The Ohio. Some of the words had become lost to time. It was the sad tale of a man who killed his lover and threw her body into the river because she refused to be his bride. It was exactly the sorry state of mind he wished to be in.

  He closed his eyes, remembered a girl with carrot-colored hair, remembered the greenness of her eyes and the way she called him Albert. It seemed like such a long long time ago. He remembered a paint horse, and high-water pants, and a barn dance— remembered the sound of the fiddler’s music and the smallness of her feet.

  The snap of a twig somewhere close by cracked through the fog of his mind. He forced himself to lift his head off the saddle, leaned on one elbow and stared out at the blackness.

  “Who’s out there?” His right hand fumbled for the pistol. It had somehow gotten twisted underneath him: Where was the damn thing!

  He sensed it rather than saw it—the presence of a man! The awareness startled him. The whiskey lay on him like a weight.

  “Who—?” His fingers touched the butt of the pistol—at last! But something pinned his wrist down, pressed it into the soft earth. Something soft. He realized it was a moccasined foot.

  He reached with the other hand, but something struck him across the jaw and he fell back onto the saddle. He felt the pistol being jerked loose from his holster, saw the large shadow of a man loom over him silhouetted against the light of the campfire.

  Then something cracked him hard in the ribs and he felt something snap within his chest, felt a great sharp pain that not even the whiskey would dull, felt his breath flee him for an instant.

  He struggled to rise, struggled like he never had before. A sharp blow struck him just above the ear and he felt himself falling down what seemed a dark hole.

  Eli Stagg brought the rifle stock of the Creedmore

  down for a second strike against the lawman’s head, but it proved unnecessary; the man collapsed face down and did not move. There was a bloody gash just near the temple.

  Eli Stagg breathed heavily as he stood over the lawman.

  “I guess you’ve about sung the last you’re ever goin’ to,” he said, checking the lawman for any sign of life. There was none.

  The bounty hunter saw the near empty bottle of Foster’s Blend Whiskey lying tipped over on its side. He reached for it, wiped dirt from the neck, and swallowed what was left.

  “Well, at least you knew your likker,” he said, tossing the empty bottle near the body.

  He began a careful search of the lawman’s pockets. There was little to be found: a plug of tobacco, a pocket knife, a stub pencil, some pennies and nickels.

  Next, the bounty hunter searched the saddlepockets lying on the ground near the bedroll; two more bottles of Foster’s Blend, vouchers imprinted with a Federal stamp, obviously for the use of supplies, and some legal papers detailing the arrest warrant and transfer of the two prisoners—Johnny Montana and Katie Swensen.

  One final thing. The bounty hunter unpinned the star from Al Freemont’s coat. “I guess I’m the law now,” he said with a grim satisfaction. “I guess maybe the law ain’t so dern keen after all!”

  Studying the script on the documents more closely, the killer saw that the deputy’s name was Al Freemont. He was to make contact with the local law in Ardmore, the Indian Nations. The document would introduce him as being from Judge Parker’s court of Federal Marshals. Further, the local law was ordered to assist in the transfer between a Texas Ranger by the name of Pete Winter and his prisoners in what ever way possible in order to expedite their return to the state of Arkansas to stand trial for murder.

  It said some other things, too, legal parlance, which the bounty hunter neither understood or cared to understand. The main thing was, he had the documents and the badge, and soon, he’d have the two people that could bring him the rest of the reward money.

  By now, he had even figured out how he was going to show proof to that feller, Kimbel. After he killed ol’ Johnny Montana, he’d haul him to the nearest town and have his picture took. Damn if life wasn’t gettin’ simple.

  Chapter Nine

  The journey had been marked mostly by silence, except for the soft plodding of the horses’ hooves.

  Johnny Montana found lots to complain about: His hand
cuffs were chaffing his wrists, the Ranger was being inconsiderate of the woman’s delicacy in having to ride for such long stretches at a time, the thirst they had to endure, and of the all-round general poor treatment they were getting.

  Pete Winter mostly ignored the outlaw’s carping. His attention was given over to the woman, who rode in silence and without complaint. It was because of her that he allowed them to pause and rest more often along the trail than he otherwise would have.

  They were nearing the end of their fifth day on the trail. Pete Winter decided they should make camp for the evening along a small tributary that was marked on his map as No Timber Creek.

  As was his usual practice, the Ranger draped a blanket over some small mesquite trees in order to provide a sheltered lean-to for the prisoners.

  He removed the outlaw’s wrist irons and allowed each of them to “take a little walk” of privacy. He knew that they wouldn’t run; there was no place to go out on the open prairie, not without a horse there wasn’t.

  Afterwards, he placed leg irons on them and allowed them to sit in the shade of the lean-to while he prepared supper.

  He built a fire from mesquite and set a pot of beans and a pan of bacon to cooking.

  “How about some water, mister? My tongue’s about fried out of my mouth!” Once more the outlaw was complaining.

  Pete Winter took one of the canteens he had filled in the trickle of stream and walked it over to the couple. He handed it to the woman.

  “Drink it down slow,” he warned. “You swallow too much or too fast, it’ll bring on cramps.”

  The outlaw reached out and snatched the canteen from her grasp. Pete Winter tore it from his hands before he could drink from it.

  “You wait your turn, amigo!”

  Johnny Montana’s dark, sullen gaze came to bear on the lawman.

  “I won’t suffer your abuse just because you pack a gun and wear that little tin star on your shirt! You touch me again and I’ll…”

  Pete Winter’s instinct was to jerk the man to his feet and knock some respect into him. But he remembered the Captain’s admonishment about abuse to prisoners and so refrained. Instead, he steadied his youthful gaze upon the outlaw.