“Blue...”
“He couldn’t do it. I sort of knew he couldn’t.”
“What happened? What did you say?”
“I told him he would have to raise up the children to be good and strong.”
Barlow lifted his battered felt hat from his head and squinted. “There’s something going on here I ain’t getting a handle on,” he said. “Where’s Castle now?”
Blue shrugged. He wanted just to leave it lie, but knew Barlow would keep on pumping him. “Carl, you’ll never see Jack Castle again. You’ll never get wind of him. It’s over.”
“How do you know that?”
“I know it.”
“He left a trail, probably hoofprints inches deep in the mud. We’ll go after him. He’s up there, carving a trail that a fool could follow.”
Blue shook his head. “Carl, let it be.”
“Let it be! Hell no, I’m not letting it be. This is crazy. He’s the most wanted man in the Territory. In the West. In the whole country maybe. No man’s hands are bloodier, no man’s name is more feared and hated.”
“You give me a couple of days, and I’ll be able to tell you the case is over. I have to make a little trip, is all.”
“What am I supposed to tell folks in town? That you let Castle go? That murderer?”
“No, Castle caught me and let me go. And the children, too. You tell ’em that, and tell ’em we’re fishing, and everything is all right.”
“I’m going to worm this story out of you, Blue. Either that or you’ll tell it under oath at some hearing. Is Castle alive or dead?”
“I’ll know in a day or two. Right now, he’s a fugitive and missing just as he has been, wanted dead or alive just as he has been.”
“Why aren’t you getting up a posse and going after him?”
It had come down that this, then. “Carl, there’s no need for a posse.”
Barlow scraped moist earth with the toe of his boot. “This is between you and him, then. It always was. Has been since he was a boy, and you were almost a pa of his. Still is between you, even if he’s...put your family in graves. Well, I’ll do this much: I’ll hold off the folks in town. I’ll keep the Weekly Crier in the dark—for now. But dammit, Blue...”
Blue clapped his deputy on the back. “That’s a deal,” he said. “We’re fishing here tomorrow, and the next day, we’re heading out. So you don’t need to send anyone up here to look after us.”
Barlow grinned and shook his head. “I guess you’ve got your posse right here,” he said, nodding toward the children sitting on the bank of the fishing hole. “You speak truer words than you know, Carl.”
Blue watched the deputy board his horse and ride off. Then, with a small wave, Barlow vanished into the forest. Good man, Blue thought. The deputy didn’t know it, but he’d be sheriff soon. In a few days, maybe. The thought shot pangs through Blue. He remembered Olivia dishing out apple pie to Carl over dinner. He remembered standing beside Carl, best man at Carl’s wedding to Agnes, remembered Carl’s good-natured campaigns to get himself elected sheriff. And now Carl would have his wish.
Times had changed. Blue had new responsibilities. But he ached for the old days, the times he could slip up here all alone, just himself and the fish, and the mule deer out on the meadows, and the eagles floating over, and the snow on the peaks even into August, and his wife’s arms discovering him when he returned, and the joy of a man with a family doing well.
The fish quit biting in the bright afternoon sun, so Blue gathered the children into the tent for a nap. Fear had not abandoned them, nor was Blue himself unafraid. They fished that evening, and the man didn’t come, and the next day, and the man didn’t come. Joey and Sarah had grown restless, and Blue knew the time had come to leave the fishing hole, let it heal, let the deer and elk reclaim the meadows, let the kingfishers dive for minnows, and let the spirit of the dead stranger depart. Blue had felt its presence, felt that first dark murder all the while, still wounding his paradise. Now, with the thing that had come to Jack Castle, the spirits might leave.
The morning of the third day he caught the pack horse and mules and his own strawberry roan, dismantled the tent, poured water over the breakfast fire, slid his fishing gear into its place, and then hoisted the children onto the swaybacked saddler. “I’ll be with you in a moment,” he said.
He walked out into the meadow, feeling its sweetness, and then lifted his gaze to the everlasting mountains, feeling their shoulders guard him, and then into the mysterious hole where the waters ran dark. He saw a flash of silver there, down some unfathomable distance below the surface.
He boarded his horse and led his little caravan away, not over the pass to Blankenship but up the steep trail, over the ridge, and across vast drainages. The children enjoyed the ride. They were glad to be going somewhere. The lushness of summer lay upon the land, along with a vast silence. He camped that night in a broad canyon, and fed the children from stores Carl Barlow had brought them. The next day he descended the slopes of the mountains until late afternoon, when he could see the high plain spread before him. But closer at hand was the tree he had come to see, the tree that carried in its limbs the old Indian burial scaffold where Absalom lay. Even as he rode, he saw a great flock of carrion birds, red-headed black vultures, gathered at that tree, burdening every limb. He knew he must approach upwind, for the downwind stench would be unbearable. And he must go alone.
He steered the children in a great arc around that tree. They saw the flocking vultures but did not grasp the meaning of those dark flesh-eaters. He left them a hundred yards out, sitting on their horse, and rode ahead to the burial tree. The vultures did not yield, but flapped wings and threatened him as he neared the place.
He could not see what lay above, so he dismounted, stirring the vultures, and then scared them away with shouts and waving arms. A score of them lumbered heavily into the sky. He tied a bandana around his nose, thinking it would do little good, and crawled up one notch and then another until he could see.
There were two bodies. Absalom, tightly bound from head to toe, and Jack Castle, whose face, neck and shoulders had been pecked away until little remained but bone.
Blue didn’t linger. He didn’t even seek to find the instrument of death. He hastened to the stained earth and backed away. One beloved and brave son whom Blue had twisted and hurt. Another man who had murdered Blue’s whole family. Blue remembered clearly the many times he had hiked and camped and hunted with Jack Castle, taught the boy the skills of the wilds, encouraged the boy to grow in strength and courage.
Had he failed Jack Castle as he had failed his own Absalom?
He knew he hadn’t. Blue had shown Jack Castle what made a man, but Jack Castle hadn’t listened to half of it, and the fatherless youth ran wilder and wilder until he crossed the divide that led straight to this early grave. In that moment, Blue absolved himself. More than absolved himself: he knew that Jack Castle would have gone much wilder, a lot younger, and died a lot sooner, had it not been for Sheriff Blue Smith. He rode back to the children.
“What did you do?” Joey asked.
“I visited your uncle’s grave,” Blue said. “That’s where I put Absalom, wrapped up in the Indian way and given to the sun rather than the earth. He’s been given to the sun, Joey.”
“I liked him,” Joey said.
“I loved him,” Blue said, and strangely, the images of both the young men on that scaffold came to mind.
He would resign. He would fish. And he would see to it that his grandchildren grew to be what they most wanted to be.
* * * * *
About the Author
Richard S. Wheeler is the author of more than seventy westerns, historical novels, mysteries, and biographical novels. He has won six Spur Awards from Western Writers of America, and the Owen Wister Award for lifetime achievement in western literature. He lives in Montana, where he has also ranched. Learn more in his memoir An Accidental Novelist.
Westerns by Rich
ard S. Wheeler
Drum’s Ring
Easy Street
Flint’s Gift
Flint’s Truth
Flint’s Honor
Trouble in Tombstone
A list of all Wheeler's titles can be found at his Goodreads page.
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