Now as the land rose, Kiebler continued to guide his two-horse team easily, almost aimlessly it seemed to Sage. He did not know the trail—if this track winding through the barren oak trees and shuddering pines could be called that.
‘It’ll be a while,’ Kiebler told him. ‘You might as well doze and dream of this hot urge for revenge you’re carrying around.’
‘You mention that lightly, as if it were a small matter,’ Sage said with some testiness.
‘Well, I know it isn’t to you. But how can it be so important that you are risking your own well-being, playing tag with death over something that probably only has importance to you?’
‘You don’t understand at all,’ Sage said bitterly, shifting in his seat.
‘No,’ Kiebler said after a while. ‘I don’t. I’ll listen if you want to talk about it, but I can’t promise that I’ll understand the rush of a young man toward death no matter what you have to say.’
‘It’s my brother I’m after,’ Sage said.
‘Then perhaps your revenge should be tempered a little with mercy, given the family connection,’ Kiebler, who had produced a pipe and lighted it, observed.
Sage’s voice was nearly savage as he answered, ‘It was my mother and father he killed.’
To that there was no response the good-natured Kiebler could make. Sage was seething inside with the need to repay a blood debt, and the storekeeper could see that there was no way anyone would talk Sage out of his mission.
Kiebler fell silent and continued to guide his team up the slope toward Mackay’s secluded farm. ‘That over there is Barlow,’ the sutler did say a mile or so on, and Sage looking that way saw a dozen shanties huddled together on a dust-colored meadow.
‘It’s not much to look at.’
‘It’s even less to visit. The view you get from here is the best you’ll get of the town.’
‘It’s of no never mind to me—I don’t plan on ever seeing it again.’
‘I can’t say it would enrich your life any,’ Kiebler said with a sort of snort which might have been caused by inhaling tobacco smoke.
‘How far is Mackay’s place?’ Sage asked.
‘Not far. What does it matter to you? You’ve the time to waste. Your horse won’t have gotten better overnight.’
‘No, I know it. Why couldn’t I have landed some place where I could trade it?’
‘It was your decision to come to Fort Vasquez. It could be that you’ve been making a lot of rash decisions these days.’
‘Could be,’ Sage admitted. Then he fell into a studied silence.
As the land rose higher, the pines grew more densely. The sky was holding blue, stained only by a few scattered, drifting clouds.
‘There ’tis,’ Kiebler said, holding the team up at the crest of the timbered knoll they were travelling, and Sage lifted his eyes to see the meadow below them, situated prettily among the surrounding pine-clad hills beside a slowly moving, sinuous stream. There was about an acre of apple trees behind the house, some barren, and to one side stood a smaller orchard. From what Kiebler had told Sage, he assumed them to be cherry trees, although he could not identify them without their blossoms which were long gone at this time of year.
‘The man’s got himself a nice-looking place,’ Sage commented.
‘Yes, if he were any nearer to a town, he’d be doing all right.’
‘What about Barlow?’ Sage asked, thinking of the stunted little town they had just passed.
Kiebler laughed unpleasantly. ‘Barlow’s not a town where men pay for what they want. If they did, they’d relieve you of your poke before you had left town.’
Sage nodded. ‘Tough town, is it?’
‘Tough, dirty, heartless and cruel.’ Kiebler was scowling now. It was an unusual expression on the cheerful sutler’s face.
‘You’ve done business with the town before?’
‘I tried to once before the army came in and I got my sutler’s commission. I had a break-in twice a week, all sorts of pilfering and some downright malicious damage.’
Sage now was thoughtful as the team followed a more clearly defined road toward Mackay’s farm.
It was a little odd to Sage’s way of thinking. Most frontier towns were very needful of some sort of store, so much so that they would never risk driving them off any more than they would the local doctor.
‘What do they do now for the needfuls?’
‘If it doesn’t come in a bottle, they don’t seem to have any use for it.’
Sage nodded. ‘Barlow sounds like a nasty town—I’ll avoid it.’ He added, ‘The army post must’ve seemed like a fine, well-ordered place to work after that.’
‘Yes, the army has its rules, and anyway none of the troopers would stand for seeing me harassed—if I pulled out, that would leave them with nothing.’
Sage smiled his understanding, thinking that, also—although the soldiers didn’t have much to spend on payday—they were a steady, predictable source of income.
‘I see old Ben Mackay standing over there near that twin-pine,’ Kiebler said, relighting his pipe. ‘I’ll tell him what I need and ask him where he wants us to start, though I already know. We’ll be taking the cherry boxes first. The apples are in sacks, we can put them on top of them. There’s only a little damage done to the produce if you’re careful about what you’re doing.’
Sage just nodded. No one was asking for his opinion. He was only hired help for the day. Which gave him cause to think as the wagon team was guided toward where Mackay stood watching—how was his horse doing on this morning? It was too much to hope that it could have been miraculously cured overnight, but Sage had little time to waste. The storm had broken, the sun was beaming down pleasantly, and the long vengeance trail to Trinity was beckoning insistently again.
Charles Mackay was a little bulldog of a man: small nose, small ears, grayish complexion, sagging jowls and a tuft of red hair which showed when he removed his hat to wipe his scalp. He had small, uncertain eyes which seemed to brighten a little as he stepped forward to welcome Kiebler.
‘Brought some help, did you?’ Mackay said as the two men shook hands.
‘Ah, the work’s getting too hard for my failing back, Charles. I needed some young muscle along.’
Mackay’s eyes lifted to study and evaluate Sage Paxton. ‘Don’t look like a soldier to me.’
‘No,’ Kiebler laughed, ‘he’s not. The captain would never loan me a trooper for something like this. The way he sees it army business and my business are two different and separate jobs. This is Sage Paxton, he was temporarily displaced by the storm.’
‘And wasn’t it coming down!’ Charles Mackay said, seeming to have forgotten all about Sage. He hadn’t. ‘Paxton, you say. It seems I’ve heard that name before.’
‘It’s a new one to me,’ Kiebler said, although he had said the same thing to Sage the night before. He was not the Paxton they had heard of; that one lived in Trinity. Sage sat the wagon seat, looking around innocently. He heard Mackay speak again. ‘Tall, dark and handsome, isn’t he?’
‘Well,’ Kiebler said without hesitation, ‘he’s tall enough and you can see that dark hair of his; as far as being handsome, I’d have to let a woman make a judgment on that.’
‘Just make sure it ain’t no woman around here,’ Mackay said. He added, ‘Cherry boxes are in the barn, usual number. We can tally them if you like.’
‘I trust you, Charles, like I hope you trust me.’
‘I trust you fine, Kiebler—if I didn’t, we wouldn’t be doing business together.’
With that Charles Mackay turned on his heel and stumped back toward his house. Kiebler started the team and wagon again.
‘What was that about?’ Sage asked.
‘What? Oh, the part about you being handsome? Charles Mackay has a pretty young daughter, and he worries about her—his wife ran off with a traveling man. Don’t let him trouble you, Sage. Mackay is no one to worry about.’
The wagon was
pulled into the barn and Sage got down to eye the carefully stacked boxes of cherries. ‘You want to count these?’ he asked Kiebler, who had removed his coat prior to the work.
‘No, you heard what I told Mackay. His word is good enough for me. A man wouldn’t get far if he kept shorting his buyer, would he?’
‘How do you want to do this?’
‘I’ll climb up on the wagon bed and stack the boxes if you don’t mind handing them up. I’ve had some experience on the best way to load.’
‘Whatever you say—I’m just the labor.’
Sage began picking up the cherry flats, two at a time, and carrying them to the rear of the wagon. He was ahead of Kiebler in the loading, so he simply stacked the boxes on the wagon’s tailgate. It took no more than an hour. It was light work, cool in the barn, but even so Kiebler was perspiring when he clambered down from the wagon bed.
‘I am getting old!’ Kiebler said, mopping at his expansive brow with his handkerchief. ‘I’m glad I brought you along, Sage.’
‘I’m glad I came. What would I have done with myself back at the fort but sit and worry and get mad at myself for getting myself in this fix.’
‘Now for the apples,’ Kiebler said after a few minutes’ rest.
These were in burlap bags at the other end of the barn, and harder to load only because they had to be carried one at a time over the shoulder. On a tag sewn to the tie at the top of the bags it said ‘Apples, fifty pounds’, but some of these sure seemed heavier to Sage. He could see why Kiebler had asked him to come along. The storekeeper would have had quite a time of it loading the sacks by himself.
With the last sack delivered to the tailgate, Sage removed his hat, scratched at his head and waited while Kiebler arranged things to his liking. ‘What now?’ Sage asked.
‘Get the tarp out of that side box and throw it over and tie it down,’ Kiebler answered. He was sitting on the tailgate now, breathing rather heavily. ‘I’ll go over and talk to Mackay, pay him off.’
Sage did as he was asked, removing the heavy canvas tarpaulin from its storage box and spreading it over the produce. That was not as simple as it sounded, and before he had finished Kiebler had returned from the house accompanied by Charles Mackay.
‘Ready?’ Kiebler called out.
‘Soon as I finish lashing down the back.’ Sage started toward the rear of the wagon.
‘Never figured out why you bother with a tarp,’ Mackay was saying.
‘If something comes loose on the grade, I don’t want to go chasing rolling apples down the hillside.’
Mackay laughed and they started talking about something else. Sage didn’t try to hear them. His attention had been caught by something else. Tying his final knots in the ropes he caught a glimpse of an unexpected sight. Two small boots projected from under the tarp, showing at the very edge of the wagon bed. Peeling the tarp back a little Sage saw wide dark eyes looking back at him fearfully. The girl’s lips moved, but she formed no words, simply shook her head with those pleading eyes fixed on his.
They had a stowaway on board.
The young woman—it had to be Mackay’s daughter, did it not?—had slipped into the wagon while Sage’s attention was elsewhere. Sage did not wish to be involved in anyone else’s trouble, neither did he think it was his place to thwart the girl’s plan for escape—if that was what it was.
It would have caused much more of an uproar if he called out to Mackay than to simply pretend he had noticed nothing. Finishing his knots, he walked back to where Kiebler already was sitting the wagon seat.
‘All done?’ he asked as Sage climbed aboard.
‘We’re ready.’
Kiebler lifted a hand to Mackay, who stepped aside as the wagon was drawn out of the barn and into the bright, clear light of day.
They rode silently along the trail through the forest, hearing only the chatter of the squirrels and the squawking of blue jays. Sage thought he heard a small scrabbling sound coming from the back of the wagon, but Kiebler had not heard it and he decided to say nothing about it.
The dark rider appeared ahead of them as they crested the hill and again started down toward Fort Vasquez.
‘Who’s that?’ Sage asked as the menacing, lone rider approached them. Kiebler’s eyes flickered that way, narrowed against the glare of sunlight.
‘It looks like Austin Szabo,’ the sutler said. ‘Sage—remember what I said about Charles Mackay? That he was not a man to worry about? Austin Szabo is a different sort of man. Don’t give him any reason to look twice at us.’
‘Why would I? What would he want with us, anyway?’
‘Sometimes Szabo doesn’t need a reason; he just feels like shooting.’
‘Who is he, anyway?’ Sage asked as the lone rider drew nearer. ‘The law in Barlow or something?’
‘Barlow has never had any law and never will have. Austin Szabo is what you might call the town boss there. And he’s plenty tough. Remember, I told you that I once tried to start a store in that town. I’ve met Szabo and I know who and what he is. If he looks at you, look away.’
Sage nodded though he kept his eyes on the rider. He did not believe in ignoring trouble or hiding from it. The man—Szabo—he saw now was riding a dark-brown horse, nearly black, carried two Winchester rifles in scabbards and had two belted pistols. The man either liked guns a lot or had much use for them.
‘Can’t see any reason why he’d be interested in us,’ Sage said.
‘I don’t think he is,’ Kiebler answered in a lowered voice. ‘From what Mackay told me in his house, it’s his daughter, Gwen, that Szabo is interested in. And he seems ready to buy, bargain or bully Mackay into letting him have her.’
‘A nice fellow,’ Sage said, turning his eyes down now. He thought of the girl he had seen under the tarp of the wagon. If that had been Gwen Mackay, and it seemed it must be, she had good reason for wanting to escape the farm. He was all the more glad that he had not given her away.
‘No, he isn’t,’ Kiebler said, finally replying. ‘He is not a nice man. He is the exact opposite of nice, whatever that is.’
The rider was abreast of them now. A strong-looking man with sturdy features and no expression at all in his eyes. He focused his adder eyes on Sage and then looked down at Kiebler, who nodded his head slightly in recognition. No words were exchanged. Szabo continued along the trail. Sage saw the man slow his horse and seem to look back at the wagon, but he did not return.
It was none of his business. Szabo, Gwen Mackay, the town of Barlow had nothing to do with Sage Paxton, and he was glad of it. It was enough, however, to make returning to the trail to Trinity seem that much more urgent. He had his own mission to resume and it had nothing to do with the spats, loves, hates and desires of these hill folks.
It had to do only with killing a man.
Chapter Three
The fort stood upon the junction of the two rain-swollen rivers, looking stolid, purposeful but somehow futile against the background of sprawling primitive land surrounding it. The main gate stood open and Kiebler rolled his wagon through with a wave of the hand to the men standing guard.
The sutler nodded toward the front door of his shop where four or five soldiers crowded the plank walk. One of them shouted out to Kiebler, who waved again before guiding his team between two buildings to draw up in a loading area behind his store.
‘If I could afford a clerk, I’d hire one,’ Kiebler said, halting the horses and setting the brake. ‘Those boys out front are eager to throw their money away this morning.’ Kiebler drew in his lower lip thoughtfully. ‘It’s close to payday; it must be tobacco they’re so impatient for.’
Sage couldn’t follow that logic if he was meant to. Grunting a response he stepped down from the wagon and stretched. ‘What do you want me to do?’ he called up.
‘Just get the tarp off and stowed. I’ll show you in a few minutes where I want the produce stored,’ Kiebler said, climbing down himself. ‘First I’ve got some anxious troopers to s
ee to.’
‘Right,’ was Sage’s short reply. He began untying the ropes which held the tarp as Kiebler entered the store via a back door. Untie the ropes, stow the tarp in the wagon’s side box ... and then what?
That is, there was a stowaway to be dealt with. Now they had smuggled her on to an army post. What was to be done with her? If she was still there ...
Pulling the tarpaulin aside, Sage saw the same small girl, the same confused, frightened eyes looking up at him like some small wild beast he had captured and which wished to bolt but had no idea of where to go.
‘End of the line, Gwen,’ Sage told her. ‘You’ll have to hop down now.’
‘They’ll find me!’
‘That seems likely. You didn’t think your plan through very well, did you?’ Sage set to work spreading the canvas tarp out on the ground so that it could be neatly folded. Gwen had hopped down, staggering as she hit the ground. Probably her legs had fallen asleep on her.
‘Where should I go?’ she asked Sage. She had taken one corner of the tarp to help him double it. Her eyes flickered around anxiously: a small rabbit caught in a snare.
‘I couldn’t tell you that,’ Sage said, lifting his eyes. ‘Maybe you should go to the camp commander, ask him for help.’
‘Captain Rowland?’ She laughed disparagingly. ‘All he’d do is tell me to go home, maybe assign a couple of troopers to escort me and curse me for having cost him two men for the day.’
‘You knew where the wagon was headed. Surely you must have considered these things before.’
They folded the tarp the other way. ‘I knew, but Mr. Kiebler, I know, is a kindly man. I thought he might have some ideas. Then I saw you and there was a kind look about you as well. I thought—I hoped—that between the two of you men you could come up with a plan to help me out of my mess.’
They folded again, transforming the bulky tarp into a neat rectangle which would fit in the side box of the wagon. As they worked, Sage watched the small woman. Her eyes were still deeply concerned, her face fearful. She exhaled tiny puffs of breath as she worked, apparently taking the small task seriously. She was a pretty little bob of a girl, well assembled and Sage could see why Austin Szabo was willing to go to extremes to have her.
The Trail to Trinity (A Piccadilly Publishing Western Page 2
