Mark of the Hunter

by Charles G. West

  “Howdy, Clyde,” Stony returned, and headed for a table across the room from the Texans. “Bring us a bottle of that rye whiskey you had last time I was in here.”

  In half a minute, Clyde came over to the table with a full bottle and three glasses. “Stony, Blackie,” he acknowledged, then nodded toward Cord. “I remember your face, mister, but I don’t recollect if you was in here before.”

  “I’ve been here before,” Cord said.

  The way he said it, short and factual, triggered Clyde’s memory. “’Bout this time last year,” he recalled with a grin. “Looks like you found a job. I swear, though, I didn’t see you no more after that, so I figured you musta not had no luck.” He was about to say more but was interrupted by a call from one of the soiled doves attending the Texans.

  “Hey, Stony,” she bellowed, “it’s about time you showed up. Me and Betty Lou are fixing to pull outta here in a couple of days.” She was a large woman, tall with still some feminine shape in a body that had seen many miles of hard road. She was not really overly heavy. Big-boned was her description of herself, with enough padding to give a man a handhold. Her name was Flo, Stony’s favorite whenever he had occasion to visit town.

  “I figured you and Betty Lou might be gettin’ ready to head out to Omaha or Cheyenne for the winter,” Stony yelled back to her. “That’s the main reason we came to town today.”

  “Liar,” she responded. “I don’t reckon all them cows over there in the holdin’ pens had anything to do with it.”

  “You know I couldn’t ride through town without comin’ to see you,” Stony insisted, holding one hand over his heart for emphasis. Flo threw her head back and laughed. “Come on over and say hello,” Stony invited.

  Not particularly amused by the playful conversation between Flo and the three cowhands across the room, the Texans attempted to regain the attention they had enjoyed before Stony came in. Three of them looked little more than boys. The other one, however, was a heavyset, square-jawed brute with coal black hair pulled back and tied like a pig’s tail, and he took personal offense when Flo started to get out of her chair. “Where the hell do you think you’re goin’?” he said, and grabbed her wrist.

  She favored him with a patient smile, and replied, “I’m just goin’ over to say hello to a friend.”

  “The hell you are,” he informed her, “not after I spent my money fillin’ your gut with whiskey.”

  Flo maintained her patience, having dealt with countless bully types over the years. “I’ll just be gone a few minutes,” she said. “Betty Lou and Frances will take care of you boys.”

  “Set your ass back down in that chair,” Pig Tail ordered, tightening his grip on her wrist until she winced.

  “You’re hurtin’ my wrist,” she told him, still standing. “Let me go.” He responded by clamping down on her wrist until she cried out in pain.

  Her sudden cry interrupted all conversation at the table as everyone became aware of a situation suddenly turned threatening. Hoping to head off an ugly scene, Betty Lou and Frances both tried to calm the Texans down, insisting that they would make sure none of them would be slighted. The incident had caught the attention of everyone in the saloon now, including the three men at the table across the room, as well as Clyde behind the bar. As Pig Tail continued to crush her wrist, now forcing her back toward the chair, she struggled against him and said, “I’m gonna ask you one more time to let me go.”

  “Or you’ll do what?” Pig Tail slurred. Her answer was swift. Using her free hand, she reached up and pulled a long hat pin from her hair. And in one quick move, she plunged it deep into the back of his hand. With a great roar of pain, he freed her wrist immediately to yank the pin out of his hand, releasing a spurt of blood when he did. The sight of it, and the pain throbbing from the wound, sent him into an insane rage. He sprang to his feet, knocking his chair over in the process. “Now you’re gonna pay for that, you damn slut,” he promised.

  Alerted by the sudden commotion at the table across from them, Stony, Blackie, and Cord realized that a serious confrontation had developed. Stony rose from his chair, preparing to intervene, unaware of the quiet rage flaring up in Cord’s mind. His young friend’s attention was captured with the first sign of an argument between the woman and the rude cowboy when their voices rose in heated exchange. Thoughts of his mother’s abuse came back to fill Cord’s mind with images of her blatant mistreatment at the hands of his father. Vivid pictures of his mother’s suffering caused the muscles in his arms and shoulders to tense with each threat that issued from Pig Tail’s mouth, and for a brief moment, he saw Pig Tail as the incarnate of his father. Ever frustrated by his inability to protect his mother then, he now sought to punish the brute lunging after the woman.

  As Flo instinctively backed away toward Stony, he stood ready to defend the prostitute while Blackie kept his eye on the Texan’s companions. In the midst of this tense situation when the opposing cowhands eyed one another, and Flo’s girlfriends tried to calm the men down, striving to head off a brawl, no one was prepared for what happened next. Like a wolf on the attack, Cord struck quickly and savagely. Launching his body like a human battering ram, he drove his shoulder into Pig Tail’s chest, and the force of his strike carried the two of them hurtling backward to land in the middle of the Texans’ table. The impact of the two sizable bodies caused the table to collapse under them, landing them on the floor with whiskey glasses and bottles scattered in all directions as the women screamed and the drovers jumped back out of the way. His rage fed now by the fury of his attack, Cord hammered his victim with a series of left and right punches, each one with every ounce of strength he could muster. So lost in the determination to punish all men who victimized women, he failed to notice when Pig Tail no longer tried to defend himself and lay unconscious, his head rocking back and forth with each blow delivered.

  “Cord!” a shocked Stony yelled. “He’s had enough!” When Cord continued his brutal assault, both Blackie and Stony tried to penetrate the blind fury that consumed him. “Cord! He’s done! You’ll kill him!” When words failed, Stony grabbed him by his belt and pulled him off the beaten man. Cord spun around to defend himself. “Whoa!” Stony yelled. “It’s me, Stony!” His words finally registered and Cord relaxed and looked around him at the shocked witnesses. Staring in disbelief, as if having witnessed the strike of a cougar, everyone was stunned to the point of paralysis, never thinking to join the fight. Aware now that he had lost control of his emotions, Cord stood numb, his hands bloody and swollen.

  “He ain’t dead, is he?” The question came from behind them, and everyone turned to find Clyde standing there, holding a double-barreled shotgun.

  “If he ain’t, it’s a miracle,” one of the Texans said. At that moment, Pig Tail moaned and rolled his head back and forth as if recreating the beating just administered.

  “Looks like he’s alive,” Clyde decided. “I expect it’s best if you boys get him outta here before the sheriff finds out and throws the lot of you in jail. That goes for you, too, Stony. It’s best you and your friends leave.”

  “Right, Clyde,” Stony replied, but made no effort to move, still unable to believe what he had just witnessed.

  Clyde lowered his voice and spoke softly to Blackie. “Get him outta here,” he said, nodding toward Cord.

  “Right,” Blackie said, and took Cord by the elbow. “Come on, Cord, we gotta get goin’.” He kept one eye on the cowhands helping the beaten bully to his feet, but there was no indication they entertained thoughts of making any further trouble. “Let’s go, Stony.”

  Finally back to his senses after the shocking exhibition he had just seen, Stony looked at Cord and muttered, “Damn, Cord!” That was all he could think to say at the moment.

  Blackie was intent upon taking Clyde’s advice, however, and started herding Stony and Cord toward the door. While her two friends stood back from the broken
table, still shaken by the brutal beating of the belligerent bully, Flo stepped in front of Cord. “Honey, I wanna say thanks for what you did. That bastard was fixin’ to give me a real beatin’. Thank you.” He nodded, but made no reply, and Blackie pressed him toward the door again.

  Outside, the three younger men were lifting Pig Tail up into the saddle. The opposing parties paused only momentarily to stare at one another before getting about the business of leaving town. There was nothing said between the two groups. They got on their horses and rode out on opposite ends of Railroad Street.

  It was a somber ride back to the ranch for the three friends. For Cord’s part, he was slowly coming down from the violent rage that had overcome him when he had seen the bully’s mistreatment of Flo. Prostitute or preacher’s wife, it made no difference—no woman should be treated like that by any man. As for Stony and Blackie, they were still somewhat stunned to have been introduced to a side of their quiet friend that they never suspected. The attack on Pig Tail had been as violent as any they had ever seen, and was only a few minutes short of a killing. “It don’t pay to rile him none.” Blackie summed it up when he and Stony told the rest of the crew about it out of Cord’s presence.

  In the days that followed the near-fatal beating, Cord could not help noticing a difference in the attitude of the other men with whom he worked. They seemed to be more guarded and less inclined to jape him as much as they were inclined to do with everyone else. Stony was the one exception. He seemed to know that there might have been something deeper inside that caused the quiet man to react so violently. Cord regretted the change in their treatment of him, and he wished that he had not totally lost control of his rage that night. But he did not regret stopping Pig Tail from harming Flo.

  As was bound to happen, word reached Eileen of the savage beating of the Texas trail drover a few days past the incident when she overheard her father relating the story to her mother. “Hard to tell about that boy,” Mike had said. “Looks like he’s got a little rattlesnake in him.” The comment was enough to worry Muriel, for she was already concerned about Eileen’s apparent curiosity about the quiet man. She talked to her husband about the peril that might lie ahead for their daughter if her odd fascination for the man was not nipped in the bud, and suggested that it might be in Eileen’s best interest if Cord was let go. The decision was a tough one for Mike, since Cord had proven to be hardworking and dependable. “Problem is, honey,” he complained, “there ain’t a man on the place that works harder than Cord. And he ain’t ever showed no violent streak before, least not against the men he works with.” He promised her he’d think about it, however. Before he was moved to take action on the matter, an opportunity arrived to delay any permanent settlement of the problem.

  Word arrived in Ogallala early one morning in late September that the Union Pacific train had been held up twenty miles west of town at Big Springs Station. It was the first time that a Union Pacific train had been robbed, and the bandits had reportedly escaped with some sixty thousand dollars, all in twenty-dollar gold pieces. There was great speculation as to who the guilty parties were. Some suspected Jesse James or the Youngers, but a witness aboard the train recognized one of the robbers as Joel Collins, one of Sam Bass’s gang, and the call went out to the ranches to form a posse to hopefully pick up the robbers’ trail. Mike Duffy was willing to let a couple of his men ride with the posse. His first choice was Cord, hoping this would give Muriel some temporary peace of mind, having him away from the ranch for a while, and maybe out of Eileen’s mind. When he approached Cord with the proposition, the quiet young man agreed to go without hesitation. Mike asked Lem Jenkins to volunteer as well. He, too, was agreeable to participate, not being averse to an opportunity to get away from the daily chores of the ranch. “No tellin’ how long you’ll be gone,” Mike told them. “So get what supplies you think you’ll need for a week or two at the general store and tell Homer to put it on Murphy’s bill. I expect you’d better head for town right away, ’cause they’ll be ridin’ out as soon as they get a posse together.”

  It was already late in the afternoon by the time Cord and Lem rode into Ogallala, and judging by the number of horses tied up in front of the Crystal Palace, they figured that was the place to find the posse. When they walked into the noisy saloon, they saw a group of men standing around one who appeared to be in charge. “That’s J. G. Hughes,” Lem told Cord. “He was given the job of sheriff after the last one left last spring.”

  “Lem,” Hughes acknowledged when he noticed the two latest arrivals, “’Preciate you and your partner there joinin’ up with us.” He paused only a few seconds to consider the man with Lem, since he had never met Cord. “We was just talkin’ about it bein’ too late to start out this evenin’, so I think it best if we bed down here in town tonight and start out for Big Springs in the mornin’.” He raised his voice then, so that all could hear. “And I’m talkin’ about first thing in the mornin’, first light, so don’t spend half the night in here drinkin’ whiskey.”

  From behind the bar, Clyde Perkins, always concerned about business, called out, “He don’t mean you ought not have yourself a little bedtime toddy to help you sleep good.”

  “I’m ridin’ with whoever shows up at first light,” Hughes repeated. “Might be a good idea to make camp by the river so we’ll all be ready to go, come mornin’.”

  “Me and Cord need to pick up some supplies before we head out,” Lem said.

  “Homer’s still open,” Hughes told him. “He said he’d stay open later, in case anybody needed supplies.” When Cord and Lem started for the door, Hughes walked over to the bar for another glass of beer. He took a drink from the glass, then asked Clyde, “Who’s the young feller with Lem Jenkins? He ain’t the feller who damn near beat one of them boys from Texas to death, is he?”

  “He is,” Clyde said, and chuckled. “And from what I saw that day, you just need to turn him loose on that Bass gang. You might not need the rest of the posse, if you get him riled enough.”

  Hughes thought about that for a moment. “Maybe he might be more trouble than I need to deal with,” he remarked.

  “Nah, I wouldn’t think so,” Clyde said. “He didn’t seem the kind to give you any trouble—quiet, don’t hardly say a word. It just don’t pay to make him mad. Anyway, I doubt Mike Duffy woulda kept him on this long if he was a troublemaker.”

  “I reckon you’re right,” Hughes said. “Funny I ain’t ever run into him in town. What’s his name?”

  “He don’t ever come to town. That time a couple weeks ago, when he gave that feller a lickin’, was the first time I’d seen him all summer. His name’s Cord Malone, says he’s from some little place in Kansas.”

  • • •

  Early the next morning, the posse set out for Big Springs Station on the South Platte. Sixteen strong, they arrived well before noon to find there was very little trace of the train robbers except for tracks leaving the station and heading south across the prairie. There was some disagreement over the number of men that made up the gang. It was hard to tell from the tracks alone. Some might have been left by packhorses, but at the least, there were six bandits, according to J. G. Hughes, and maybe as many as eight. Stationmaster and telegraph operator Quincy Johnson listened until Hughes’s speculation was finished before stating, “There were six.”

  “How do you know that for sure?” Hughes asked.

  “I counted ’em when they held up the train,” Quincy said. “Then they rode off across the tracks that way.” He pointed toward the south.

  “Why in hell didn’t you say so to begin with?” Hughes asked.

  “You never asked me how many,” Quincy replied. “The word has been wired out to every marshal’s office in the territory and Union Pacific has already got their detectives on the job.”

  Perturbed to be wasting time, Hughes asked, “Any other information you can offer to help us track down the r
obbers?”

  “Well, Sam Bass and Tom Nixon was two of ’em.”

  “How do you know that?” one of the posse asked.

  “I’ve seen ’em around here before. I ain’t ever seen the others.”

  “I reckon ol’ Bass got tired of holdin’ up stagecoaches,” Lem remarked. He turned to Hughes then. “Whaddaya aim to do now, J.G.?”

  “Hell, whaddaya think? Go after ’em, follow that trail south, and we’d best get started right now. We’ve wasted enough time.” When no one moved immediately, he raised his voice. “Let’s go! Everybody in the saddle.”

  “Hold on a minute, Sheriff,” one of the ranch hands from H. V. Redington’s spread interrupted. “Those fellers have got a pretty good head start on us. It could take a helluva long time to track ’em down—if we ever do. And my boss only figured on me bein’ gone for a couple of days. Maybe we just oughta let the law and the Union Pacific take care of this.” His words were echoed by a few others in the posse.

  “Well, I’m aimin’ to track those bastards down if I can. Anybody else wantin’ to quit with Ed here?” To his disappointment, several others were of a like opinion. Disgusted, he looked at Lem and Cord. “What about you boys? You gotta run home to Daddy?”

  Lem looked at Cord for his reaction, which was nothing more than an indifferent shrug. “No,” Lem told Hughes, “I reckon me and Cord will ride along with you.” So the posse set out following the train robbers’ tracks with eight of their number heading back to Ogallala.

  • • •

  They were fortunate to have no rain for the two and a half days it took them to follow the gang’s tracks from Big Springs. The robbers seemed to take no real efforts to hide their trail. On the morning of the third day, the posse struck the Republican River, and from the signs they found, it appeared Bass and his gang had camped there for a couple of days. That meant the posse had gained a day on them, which would have been encouraging news except for one thing. After they’d studied the tracks around the camp, it was obvious that the gang had split up in three pairs when they left the river, heading out in three separate directions. The decision had to be made as to how to split the posse. Hughes suggested that he should follow the trail leading southeast, and invited Lem and Cord to ride with him. The other posse men seemed reluctant to continue deeper into Kansas, their numbers reduced by the three-way split. A couple of them grumbled that they should have turned back with the others at Big Springs. When it became clear that any enthusiasm they might have had for capturing the train robbers was now waning, Lem asked Cord if he was still willing to stay in the hunt. “Ol’ Hughes seems to have his mind set on catchin’ some of these outlaws, so I figured somebody oughta go along to keep him outta trouble.” He cast a broad grin in Hughes’s direction, knowing the sheriff could hear his remark.