BEAR CREEK (SAGE COUNTRY Book 1)

by Dan Arnold

  Nick was, in some ways, more his son than mine. One day Nick would lead our people, having earned that right through both succession and apprenticeship.

  Matthew had promised this to me.

  I hoped I had gotten one other thing right. The money I placed in Sasha’s care would be my wedding present to my son. Sasha would see that Nick got the money, and Matthew would help him choose and purchase a good wagon and team for himself and Rachel. There would also be enough money for Rachel’s dowry. Matthew insisted on paying for any other expense. That left me with about five hundred dollars.

  It had been very hard for me to stand in front of my family and all the people, and tell them that yet once again, I could not be counted on. Once again, I would not be with them. Once again, I would choose a different path.

  It was clear to me I was, after all was said and done, still just another “Townie.”

  11.

  The storm hit hard, just as I started to go to sleep. A flash of lightening and immediate crash of thunder rattled my window. Right behind that, a curtain of rain hit the town like a cow peeing on a flat rock. The electric fireworks passed over fairly quickly, but the rain continued in earnest. I fell asleep to the sound of pelting rain, but in my mind, I heard the music of the Roma people.

  A little before eight o’clock the next morning, I hustled over to the Marshal’s office. I wanted to give Jack the option of sending me to get Rawlins breakfast, so he wouldn’t have to run that errand in the rain. Because my slicker was on my saddle in the livery stable I had to race through the rain, from one covered stretch of boardwalk, to an awning, then a porch.

  When I made it to the office, I stood on the porch for a moment and drained most of the water off my hat.

  The door wasn’t locked, so I went inside expecting to find some hot coffee on the stove. I was disappointed. The stove had gone out and there was no coffee. Jack wasn’t there, either. I figured he had already gone to get himself and Rawlins some breakfast.

  I started a fire in the stove. There was some water in a pitcher, so I poured it into the coffee pot and got some coffee started on the stove. I sat behind the desk, putting my feet up on it.

  It seemed odd that Jack had left the door unlocked while he was out…and why would he let the stove go out, when it was wet and cold outside? Something wasn’t right.

  I went to check on the prisoner. When I looked in the cell everything appeared normal. He was lying kind of curled up with his back toward me and he had the shabby blanket pulled over him.

  “Morning, Mr. Rawlins.” I called “Do you need to use the privy?”

  No response.

  I realized he was too still.

  “Hey!” I yelled, banging on the cell door. It was now clear he was not going to move.

  I ran back into the office and got the key off the peg. I ran back to the cell and unlocked it. Throwing the cell door open, I walked over to the man on the bed. When I touched him, he was cold and stiff.

  It wasn’t Rawlins body lying on the bed.

  It was Jack and he was dead.

  He’d been dead for some time, probably for several hours.

  When I pulled the blanket back, it was apparent he had been stabbed, just under the breast bone. His shirt was stiff with drying blood, and the flimsy, straw stuffed mattress under him, was nearly saturated. He was lying in a pool of congealed blood. He’d been put on the bed and covered up, after he was stabbed. I looked at the floor and saw big drops of dried blood. I hadn’t noticed them before.

  I left the cell and wandered back into the office, in a daze. How had this happened? Where was Rawlins? What should I do? How would I tell Becky and Tom?

  After a moment, I went outside, locking the office behind me. I ran to the doctor’s office and raced up the stairs, to his residence. I pounded on his door and he opened it, almost instantly, startling me. He was obviously dressed for church.

  “Doctor Johnson, I’m John Sage…” I began.

  “I know who you are. What’s the problem?”

  I told him what had happened.

  “Doc, I don’t know where anybody lives, except Tom and Becky. I need you to find the Judge and the Mayor and meet me at the Marshal’s office. I’ll go tell Tom and Becky what’s happened.” I said miserably.

  He put his hands in his pockets and thought for a moment.

  “No.” He said. “I’ll send Bob Maxwell to get the Judge and the Mayor. You and I will go to Tom and Becky’s house. Since we have to go right past the church to get there, we’ll pick up the Pastor on the way.”

  I had forgotten all about Bob Maxwell.

  He was downstairs, lying on a bed in a room behind the office, but he was awake. He looked like hell. Both eyes were going black and the doc had stuffed his nose with cotton, and taped it. I knew he was probably sick as a dog. He probably felt like he was going to die, just from the hangover.

  “Bob, you have a bit of a concussion, from your, uh…shall we say ‘encounter’, with the deputy here. You need to take it easy for a few days. You can go on home, but first, the deputy needs you to do him a favor.”

  Bob looked at me and ducked his head.

  “Listen, Deputy Sage, I sure am sorry about last night. I don’t know what come over me. I know I shouldn’t drink, but sometimes I do. No hard feelings?” He asked bashfully.

  “OK, Bob. You were lucky this time. There will be no charges. Will you go to the Mayor’s house and ask him to meet me at the Marshal’s office in about an hour? I also need you to tell the Judge the same thing.”

  Doctor Johnson was looking at his pocket watch. As he snapped it shut, he said, “We’ll find the Judge at the church. Bob, just have the Mayor meet us at the Marshal’s office. That’s all, Bob. Go on now,” he waved Bob out the door.

  “Come along, deputy, we want to get to the church before the service starts.”

  As we headed that way, sloshing through the rain, we could hear the church bell ringing. When we reached the church, Tom and Becky were already going inside with some other folks. With this weather, no one was standing around outside. They hadn’t even seen us. We had to follow them inside.

  That was one of the worst and best times I have ever experienced in a church. It was the worst because we had to tell Becky her dad was dead. It was the best, because the pastor and the entire congregation wrapped Tom and Becky in their love and support. The pastor’s wife, Mildred, latched on to Becky and wouldn’t let her go with Tom and me back to the Marshal’s office. Becky wanted to see her dad, right away, but Mildred and others told Becky to wait just a little while and she could see him at the mortician’s. I was grateful for that. Doctor Johnson stayed there with her, in case he was needed. It was clear he wouldn’t be needed at the jail.

  I hated to have Tom come with me, leaving his wife behind, but he was coming, and that, was that. The three of us, Tom, Judge Tucker and I, walked in silence through the pouring rain to the Marshal’s office.

  Mayor Larkin was waiting on the porch. I unlocked the door and we went inside. Only Tom, the Judge and I, looked at the scene of the murder. The Mayor did not care to see it, and I don’t blame him.

  We heard a knock on the back door of the jail. I walked over and unlocked it. There were two men standing there in the rain. I could tell by the rig behind them, they were there for Jack’s body. The mortician had been at the church.

  Back in the office, we started addressing the issues at hand. I looked in the drawer where Rawlins’ gun had been, it was gone. He had taken Jack’s gun as well. I wasn’t surprised.

  “How did this happen?” Tom asked. “How did Rawlins get a knife and how did he get Jack to open the cell door?”

  I didn’t want to tell Tom. Jack was not as careful as he should have been. When he disarmed us, he had let us touch our weapons. That shouldn’t have happened. When he locked us up, he never patted us down, or had us empty our pockets. Rawlins had a knife hidden on him the whole time. I had one myself. I also had a hide-out .38 in a s
houlder holster. Evidently Jack had been unaware of it, or had ignored it.

  Rawlins knife must have had at least a six inch blade and he knew exactly how to kill a man with it, very quickly. He was patient and waited for the right opportunity. He waited and planned. Once the crowds emptied away and the rain came, he had his chance. Poor jack was compassionate, so it had been easy for Rawlins to fake being sick or hurt, luring Jack to his death. Rawlins was a cold and calculating killer. Jack never had a chance.

  “I guess Rawlins had a knife hidden away somewhere. Tom, Becky needs you. You should go to her.” I said.

  “We have to find that son of a bitch.” Tom swore.

  “I understand how you feel, Tom, but he’s probably long gone from here and in this rain, we can’t hope to find any sign of where he went. We’ll find him. Wherever he goes, we’ll find him, but Becky needs you, now.”

  Mayor Larkin cleared his throat. “We have two men dead and a killer on the loose. I hate to bring it up now, but we need a new Marshal.” He paced a little and we waited.

  “Tom, do you feel like you should take over as Marshal?”

  He looked at Tom, solemnly.

  “No sir. I can’t. I don’t think I have enough experience…and, you know…” He trailed off, looking down at the floor.

  “What,” I asked, “did I miss something?”

  There was an awkward silence. Then Tom sighed and looked up at me.

  “I can’t read. I mean, I can, a little. Becky is teaching me, but…”

  He looked back down at the floor.

  I thought about it for a moment. A Marshal had to be able to read and write. Tom was a good man, but he couldn’t really do everything the job required.

  The Mayor and the Judge looked at me. I knew what was coming.

  “Mr. Sage, I can’t think of anyone in this town, better qualified than you. Will you take the job?” Judge Tucker asked.

  There was nowhere else I needed to be, no longer a reason for me to move on. We discussed a number of things, but in the end, I said “yes”, pending approval of the city council.

  We agreed on certain terms, which I hated to haggle over, under the circumstances, but I knew from previous experience that clarity was essential, right from the get go. I had a written list of rules that I always enforced in every town I worked. Back in Texas, my list of rules had come to be called “Sage Law.”

  The Judge looked over the list. He nodded his approval, telling me, most of the rules on my list were already ordinances in Bear Creek.

  Finally, the Judge said, “Raise your right hand and repeat after me…”

  12.

  Tom took off, to go be with Becky. I told the Mayor and the Judge I needed to send some telegrams. I also had a possible lead to follow and I would be gone for most of the rest of the day. I took a moment to write a note, tucking it in my vest pocket.

  The streets, which had been so heavily populated with families enjoying the festivities, were now completely empty, and had turned to mud.

  By the time I finished at the telegraph office, the rain stopped.

  I headed over to the livery stable. Just as I suspected, the latch and lock on the front of the barn had been broken away. Lying in the mud where he had dropped it, there was a long piece of pig iron. Rawlins had taken it from the side of the blacksmith’s shop.

  Inside the barn, I discovered that his horse and tack were gone. Again, this was exactly as I had expected.

  He had ridden out of town several hours ago, covered by the rain and darkness. No one would have seen him go and the rain had erased any hope of tracking him.

  I took the note I’d written at the Marshal’s office out of my pocket. It said simply:

  “Al,

  Marshal Jack Watson has been killed. The killer broke in here and took his horse, to make his escape. I have borrowed Willy’s horse, to pursue the suspect. Any charges for the rental will be paid by the city. Thank you.” I had signed it, “Marshal Sage.”

  I stuck the note in the crack at the edge of the office door.

  I found my saddle and gear where Al had put it, when it was sent over from the freight depot. I took my riata off my saddle and went out to the pens behind the barn. I found Willy’s line-back dun and eased the loop over his head. I petted him some and talked to him quietly for a moment and then I took him back into the barn. I gave him a quick grooming to get him dry and fairly clean before I saddled him. After I saddled him, I checked my rifle, led him outside, tightened my cinch and mounted.

  I walked the gelding up to the railroad depot and turned right. We walked on past the stage depot and the post office, to Omaha Street, and the freight yard.

  I thought about how well the layout worked. The mail came in on the train with the passengers. The mail was sorted at the post office and then the stage line carried the mail and any passengers on to the outlying towns. The stages also brought mail and passengers back to the railroad from those towns.

  We crossed the railroad tracks on Omaha, and I trotted him in the mud, on through that part of town and all the way to where the carnival had been. The dun gelding was relaxed and confident, and he didn’t mind the mud.

  When we reached the place beside the road where the carnival had been, there was no sign it had ever been there. The Roma have learned to leave nothing behind that could cause someone to come after them with a charge or a fine for littering or destruction of property.

  At the campsite, the latrines had been filled in and the sod put back. The stones where the fire rings had been were returned to the creek and where the fires had been the sod had also been put back. Even the manure from the horses and mules had been scattered. The rain had done the rest.

  I thought about Rawlins maybe coming this way in the rain. There was no sign of him either.

  I was glad the Roma would have been gone for hours before he passed through here, if he had even come this way.

  As the sun broke through the clouds, I turned the gelding back on to the road and we headed east.

  We passed a couple of farmhouses along the road and then it was mostly open range for about three miles. I love open range. The road was fairly straight, only winding around and through some low hills. Much of the time it ran right alongside the creek. That ended when I came to a corner post of a barbed wire fence. The fence crossed the creek and disappeared off to the north over a hill. To the east, it continued in a straight line parallel to the road. Eventually, the creek wandered off somewhere to the north, somewhere on the other side of the fence and I couldn’t see or hear it anymore. The barbed wire fence continued on for about a mile.

  I hate barbed wire. I had seen it slowly boxing up the range land, all over Texas. It was a great benefit to some of the ranchers, but it changed a whole way of life. Now it was getting harder and harder to travel cross country. More and more land was bounded by barbed wire, keeping livestock in and everyone who didn’t own the land, out. Back in Texas, there had been many men killed in the clashes involving barbed wire.

  Free grazing on the open range was nearly gone. And that wire was brutal on any animal or person who tangled with it. I was glad there was still some open country here.

  There had been range wars fought over the barbed wire fences, in various parts of the country.

  I was thinking about all that, when I came to the gap in the wire at the entrance to the Bar C. It was a fancy entrance. On each side of the ranch road was a big flat stone, standing upright in the ground, with a Bar C brand carved into it. There were two tall poles, holding up a wrought iron sign, which arched over the entrance. Worked in the wrought iron, was one word. “Courtney.”

  “Yep, this must be it.” I thought.

  The barbed wire continued on east, for as far as I could see.

  I turned the dun horse north, down the ranch road, with barbed wire on both sides, following it for about a mile. We stopped at the top of a hill and looked down on the ranch headquarters, at the end of the road. It was a beautiful sight. />
  Bear Creek, lined with giant cottonwoods, wandered along below a bluff. On this side of the creek were corrals and barns, and a single story, log and stone bunkhouse with a porch on the front. There was a stone bridge spanning the creek and on the far side of the creek, on the top of a rise, with the bluff towering above it, the big ranch house sprawled.

  It was a two story house, made of peeled, lodge pole pine logs and stone, with a huge porch on three sides. The porch had a rail around it built of smaller pine logs and the roof was supported by stone columns. The house had been built on high ground, at the base of the bluff and there were various out buildings nearby. There wasn’t much activity going on, it being late on a Sunday morning.

  I rode on down the hill.

  As I got closer, I could see there were some cowboys lounging on the porch of the bunkhouse. One of them stood up and walked out to meet me.

  “Howdy,” he said. “Can I help you?” He was eyeing my badge and gun.

  I stayed up on my horse. “My name is John Everett Sage. I’m the new Marshal in Bear Creek. I need to speak to Mr. Courtney.”

  “OK. I’m the foreman, Glen Corbet,” he said, reaching up to shake my hand.

  “Is he expecting you?” He asked, nodding his head over toward the big house.

  “No, he isn’t. Can I ask you a question, Mr. Corbet?”

  “Sure, go ahead.”

  “Has a man named Ed Rawlins been here, at any time you can recall?”

  “Not that I know of,” he said, thoughtfully. “Course, I don’t meet everybody that visits.”

  That made sense.

  “Let me ask you this then…did anybody ride in here early this morning, maybe about daybreak, on a big bay gelding?”

  “It was pouring down rain at that time, and we were all pretty much still in bed. A couple of the boys were out feeding and doing some chores. Nobody mentioned a rider coming in. You’re the only person we’ve seen coming down the road today. Now, let me ask you a question. Why are you looking for this fella?”