by Mike Kearby
4.
Gonzales, Texas,
October 1848
Carrigan gazed intently into the cantina mirror. Behind him, a man cut in the shape of a pear, entered Delgado’s with a double-barrel shotgun. The card dealer followed closely behind. "Hhmmmmpph," Carrigan cleared his throat, expressing little concern for the pair. The man with the shotgun took a position at his back while the dealer slithered to his cards. Carrigan shrugged and lifted the coffee tin to his lips.
"Hold it right there, mister."
Carrigan stopped and met the man's eyes in the mirror. He studied the man's face carefully. The man blinked repeatedly, unable to hold his gaze, while his Adam's apple bobbed up and down nervously. Carrigan noted the jitteriness and resumed his drink.
"What's your business in Gonzales?"
Carrigan swallowed his coffee and then set the cup onto the bar. "I'm here to see some old friends," he replied and turned with indifferent deliberateness to face the shotgun.
"Hold it!"
Carrigan lifted both hands chest high, grinned, and glanced at the man's badge. "No law against seeing old friends is there…friend?"
Daniels raised the shotgun's barrel with two quick jerks. "Raise those hands higher, mister," he ordered. "I don't want to see them anywhere near those Colts."
Carrigan offered a friendly smile and pushed his hands past his shoulders. "Is there a problem, Deputy?" he asked casually.
Daniels dragged his tongue against his lower lip and moved closer, cautiously. "Who are you?"
Carrigan lifted his brow and smiled. "Name's Carrigan."
Daniels stopped and tensing, gripped the shotgun tighter. "Who are these friends you've come to see?" he bristled.
Carrigan could see uneasiness in the deputy's face. He nodded toward his raised hands. "You've got me pretty well covered, Deputy. Mind if I lower my arms a bit?"
Daniels raised the shotgun to his shoulder and looked down the bore. "Their names," he ordered.
Carrigan lowered his left hand somewhat and scratched behind his ear. The deputy's voice revealed anxious impatience. "Funny thing, Deputy," he chuckled, determined to push the man to his limit. "It has been so long since I last saw them that I can't rightly remember their names. But give me a minute or two to think. I'm fairly sure they will come to me."
Daniels frowned and placed his index finger against one of the shotgun's triggers. "You better come up with some names right quick, Carrigan, or I'm gonna march you over to the jail and let you rot there until your memory improves."
Carrigan pursed his lips and squinted. "How about if I remembered their faces," he replied with mock enthusiasm. "I'd never forget these fellows' faces."
Daniel's face reddened. He clenched his jaw and stepped within two feet of Carrigan. "Don't get too full of yourself," he mumbled and lowered the shotgun to Carrigan's belly. "Dead men don't get to answer at all."
Carrigan glanced at the shotgun and then lifted his gaze slowly toward the deputy. "Now see that's where you and I disagree," he replied, curtly, and then whispered, "Me? I believe that dead men answer through their sons."
Daniel's eyes widened. His tongue raced faster around his lip. "That your stallion outside?" he asked quickly.
Carrigan watched small beads of sweat pop up on the deputy's forehead. "Yes, sir. And I've got papers to prove so." He laughed, pressing the rising tension further.
Daniels blinked a drop of sweat from his eyes. "Where'd you get that saddle, Carrigan?"
Carrigan smiled proudly. "Ain't she a huckleberry above a persimmon?"
Daniels poked the shotgun against Carrigan's belly. "I've had enough of your smart talk," he snarled. "You tell me right now where you got that saddle?"
Carrigan kept his eyes locked on the deputy. "Funny story about that saddle," he whispered. "The man I got it from called it a dead man's saddle."
Daniels gasped and rocked back on his heels, shocked surprise visible in his expression. "Who are you?" he questioned, worried now.
Carrigan's smiled widened. "Who am I? Why I'm nobody, Deputy…just a man come to see some old friends."
"I can settle your hash right here," Daniels spouted, aggravated. "And nobody would give two hoots."
Carrigan glared at the deputy and then slowly turned his head to the right exposing the jagged scar on his face. "How's your foot, Deputy?" he asked and then, with raised eyebrows, added…"Daniels."
Daniels tilted his head. The recognition came slow. His mind refused to accept his claim of the man's identity. His lips parted ever so slight. "No," he whispered, astonished. Then in perfect clarity pronounced, "You!" then puzzled, muttered, "But we ran you off."
Carrigan turned his chin back. "Where are our other friends, Daniels?" he asked. The insincerity in his voice was gone. His words now carried a hard edge. His eyes ran green. "I thought buzzards always circled together."
Daniels gritted his teeth and shuddered, "I should have killed you twelve years ago."
Carrigan looked past Daniels, through the open doorway, raised his brow ever so slight, and followed with a delicate nod.
So prompted, Daniels instinctively followed Carrigan's gaze, turning and then looked at an empty doorway.
In the deputy's split second of carelessness, Carrigan's Colts effortlessly cleared their holsters and filled both of his hands.
Immediately aware of his blunder, Daniels wheeled back around. His eyes widened at the sight of the Colts. Deadly realization replaced his fear. He mouthed, no, and fumbled to line out the shotgun.
Carrigan's eyes smiled. A glint of contentment flashed across his expression, reparation and fulfillment for things long undone. The gun in his left hand roared. A flash of smoke exited the barrel. Simultaneously, the gun in his right hand leveled blindly on the saloonkeeper's forehead.
Daniels dropped the shotgun. Puzzlement followed by disbelief swept across his face. Looking down, he grabbed his belly, threw a quick glance back at Carrigan, and then collapsed to the cantina floor, writhing, and moaning, gut shot. Blood oozed across the front of his shirt and within seconds, his body jerked in a death spasm.
Emotionless, Carrigan watched Daniels die. As the deputy gasped his last breath, he turned his head slowly toward the round-faced saloonkeeper. The man held the shotgun from below the bar. Never blinking, cool and detached, he questioned the man through clinched lips. "You know what I've always believed?"
The saloonkeeper gave a quick, nervous shake of his head and tightened his finger on the gun's trigger.
"I've always believed that if any man had the draw on me…maybe a man much like yourself…even if that man held a shotgun like the one you're holding…that I could still kill that man before I went spurs up."
The saloonkeeper gritted his teeth, sweating, trembling, deciding, and then slowly lowered the gun to the bar.
Carrigan threw a quick glance at the Faro dealer and raised his brow.
The dealer shook his head and raised both hands.
Carrigan holstered the Colts and slid over to the saloonkeeper. A dark, hard look draped his expression. He picked the shotgun up from the bar and cracked both barrels. "Where are the others?" he asked in a low voice never bothering to look up.
"What others?" the saloonkeeper stuttered.
Aggravated, Carrigan clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and removed the shells from the shotgun. "The others," he growled and flung the shotgun shells at the mirror hanging on the back wall.
The saloonkeeper winced as the mirror shattered violently.
"The others! The leader of the Lone Star Brigade and his henchmen!" Carrigan screamed gruff and forbidding.
The saloonkeeper held his tongue to the harsh, forbidding stranger.
Unaccustomed to such insolence, Carrigan's right hand dropped instinctively for his Colt. "That dead deputy's boss, Wes Cauble," he howled. His tone was harsh and ill humored.
The saloonkeeper's eyes widened. His face turned white, fearful of the ease and quickness in whic
h the man's gun hand found the Colt handle. "All right…All right," he shuddered. "The rest of the bunch rode to San Antonio yesterday."
Carrigan rubbed his jaw, thinking. He had chosen this path, but the road ahead wasn't going to be easy. He knew the rest of the Lone Star Brigade wouldn't be caught with their guns holstered. They would ride a murderous trail for him. After all, the vigilantes couldn't risk their stranglehold of fear being broken in the territory. They would send a message straightaway…kill a brigade member and violent retribution will follow forthwith. And there was yet another problem; he had killed a deputy. Even justified, from this moment on, he would be called assassin and live as a wanted man. He shot a hard glare at the saloonkeeper. "You give Wes Cauble a message for me."
The saloonkeeper nodded once.
"You tell him, the man who shot his deputy is riding to Arroyo de la Soledad."
Another nod.
"You tell him that man has a dead man's saddle waiting for him there."
5.
Gonzales, Texas,
October 1848
"Tell me again, Ned!" Wes Cauble roared as he slammed a fist on the bar inside Delgado’s. Cauble was an imposing figure even to the most hardened of men. The Lone Star Brigade leader was thirty-five and stood six feet tall, with coal-black eyes. "Tell me exactly what he said!"
The saloonkeeper rubbed his brow and exhaled with a loud whoosh of breath. "How many times do I gotta tell this story, Wes?"
Cauble glanced up and locked eyes with the man. His lips pulled back over his teeth, giving him the appearance of a wild animal. "As many times as I want to hear it – that's how many!"
The saloonkeeper's face reddened, and his left eye twitched slightly. "He said, 'tell Wes Cauble that the man who shot his deputy is riding to Arroyo de la Soledad.' "
"And…"
The saloonkeeper grimaced. "And that man has a dead man's saddle waiting for him there," he repeated once more.
Cauble removed his wide-brimmed hat and dragged his fingers through his sandy-colored hair. He wheeled from the bar and faced the Faro dealer. "Jonesy?" he boomed with a thunderclap of a voice. "Is that what you heard?"
Jonesy sat silent for several seconds then looked down at his cards. "That's what I heard too, Wes," he gulped and repeated softer, "That's what I heard too."
Riled, the Lone Star Brigade's captain straightened all of his six feet, tensed, and grunted, "So you're both telling me that Floyd comes in with his double-barrel locked on this Carrigan and before Floyd can pull the trigger, this drifter yanks two Colts, drops Floyd dead with one, and trains the other on Ned?"
Jonesy eyes lifted. He nodded with little enthusiasm. "I know you're hinting that me and Ned should have done more, Wes."
Cauble's face darkened. Rage twisted his mouth into tight grimace. "I'm not hinting, Jonesy. I'm calling you straight out on it."
Jonesy dropped his gaze and fidgeted in his seat. "There's one thing, you don't understand, Wes…," he sighed.
Cauble burned a stare through the dealer. After a long minute of silence, his face relaxed.
Jonesy turned his glance up again.
Cauble grinned pure evil and answered in a calm, even voice. "What, Jonesy? I don't understand that you and Ned are cowards?"
Jonesy pulled a yellow-stained handkerchief from his vest pocket, dabbed at his forehead, and forced out a quick breath. "No, Wes, I'm only tying to explain to you that this fella was fast, faster than any draw I've ever seen."
Cauble pursed his lips and contemplated the dealer's words. Glancing left, he looked at his four deputies and lifted his brow. "Have you ever heard of someone that fast, fellas?"
Four grins stretched across mute faces. Four flimsy headshakes followed.
Cauble looked back at the Faro dealer. "My men have never heard of anyone that fast, Jonesy."
The dealer returned his gaze to the table. "It wasn't only the speed, Wes."
Cauble glanced back at his men and winked. "What else was there, Jonesy?" he demanded.
Jonesy bit down on his lower lip. "It's hard to explain," he mumbled. "There was something branded inside this fella a long time ago. Like somebody did something terrible to him, something that turned him mean, something that made killing easy for him. He's dangerous, Wes. And he's carrying a lifetime of anger, more than enough for ten men. Killing Floyd only seemed to give him more rein."
Cauble pushed away from the bar and walked toward the dealer, deep in thought, anxious and angry.
Jonesy raised his eyes and locked stares with the brigade leader. "His eyes were a graveyard, Wes…," his voice faltered, "…like a man who draws blood with those Colts wherever he goes."
Cauble saw fear welling up in Jonesy's eyes.
"And by the look on his face, Wes, I'd say he wasn't through with his killing."
Cauble eased into the chair across from the dealer and leaned across the table, whisper close. "What about his face? What did he look like, Jonesy?" he asked.
Jonesy placed his forefinger near the corner of his left eye and then dragged it to his lower jaw.
Cauble studied Jonesy's face carefully. "A scar?"
Jonesy lifted his brow and nodded.
"A knife scar?"
Jonesy nodded again. "And he showed it to Floyd right before he killed him."
Cauble rocked against the back of his chair and pushed a thumb and forefinger around his upper lip, deep in thought. He considered the scar and the dead man's saddle…and he remembered that afternoon twelve years earlier in Arroyo de la Soledad. The brigade leader bit down on his lower lip, engaged in the moment of his deputy's shooting. His mind raced, imagining what Floyd's last thoughts might have been. "You might have been right, Floyd," he muttered and then took a quick look at his men's faces. They waited for some order or reassuring word. Cauble had neither. He stared at the floor calculating their play and for the first time in his life, a twinge of regret churned in his belly, not of sorrow or remorse, but more a building anger for not shooting down the miserable little half-breed just like they had shot his mother that September day in '36.
6.
Arroyo de la Soledad, Texas,
September 1836
Two days west of Gonzales and well away from any legal jurisdiction, Wes Cauble and his vigilante brigade sat on a bluff overlooking Arroyo de la Soledad. They eyed the small stretch of water below them. Hundreds of scrub cattle grazed unfenced on range east of the river.
"The Mex call it the River of Solitude," Cauble announced.
Floyd Daniels leaned over his horse's withers and stretched his neck. "Well, I'm all for that," he spouted. "Nothing better for a man than a little solitude."
A murmur of laughter arose from the other riders.
Daniels turned in the saddle and laughed with his fellow killers.
The group consisting of Cauble, Daniels, June King, Winston Brand, Bark Turner, and Johnny Matthews had ridden together since the seeds of independence in the Republic. Cauble realized early on that post- revolution Texas would establish itself with little law and order, and any man not put off by murder and treachery would do well in the wild, young Republic.
They had begun their careers ad hoc when as young men they rode through the Texas countryside warning farmers of the approaching Mexican army. Cauble soon figured out that the farmers left whether Santa Anna showed or not. The discovery turned profitable as the brigade stayed behind and gathered up treasured possessions of their fleeing countrymen. The "false" runaway scrape left Cauble wealthy and determined that lawlessness could indeed pay in the newly founded Republic.
Cauble looked at his deputy with a raised eyebrow and a tight grin. "Floyd, I hope you are fit to the work ahead of us."
Daniels straightened and patted a coil of rope tied to his saddle. "I believe in the Republic and all she stands for and if that means we must hang an amigo of old Sannie Annie, then so be it."
"Is that a presumption of Señor de Anza's guilt?" Cauble asked, mockingly.
&nb
sp; "He's a Mex, isn't that proof enough?"
"Shouldn't we hear his legal defense first? We wouldn't want to be in restraint of the Republic's adjudication procedures."
"I believe him to be a cunning and devious cattle thief, boss."
Cauble started his horse forward. "Well, we are maintained for use in keeping good order in this country," he stated flatly. "I suppose we are obligated to the good and upright citizens of Gonzales, or municipalities in close proximity, to confiscate these stolen cattle and return them to their rightful owners."
Daniels and the others started in behind the brigade leader.
Cauble glanced back at the men and exposed a smile borne of hell. "Unless it is determined that said livestock's owners cannot be located, then we are duty bound to sell said livestock and take our rightful wages from gained monies."
"Agreed," the jaded bunch uttered in unison.
Cauble turned back and nudged his horse with a bite of his spurs. The steed snorted and then began a steady lope down a small animal trail to the meadow below.
The brigade steered well south of the rancho once they reached the bottomland. Cauble directed his team to the riverbank where he spied a lone oak tree nestled among a line of blood maples. The oak tree, its branches as thick as a man's upper leg, towered above the river.
