At the first lantern he saw waving in the night, Connor fired a shot. He fired again at another, ducked at the sound of a shot fired back, and suddenly he was beyond the edge of town, his horse galloping madly into the empty plains, his brothers racing behind.
6
The first day out of Denver Balum twisted himself around on the driving bench over two dozen times. The notion would come upon him every half hour or so that Buford Bell had escaped. He would turn and lean over the side to give a visible inspection of the stage door and, when satisfied that it was still clamped shut, would immediately wonder about the door on the other side. His eyes would drift across the empty plains over which they’d just traveled. He wasn’t sure what he expected to see. It was foolish to think he’d turn to discover the convict hopping frantically through the buffalo grass, leg irons clanking behind him. Yet more than once the concern boiled over to the point where he told Joe to pull up on the reins and stop the coach so he could step down and peer through the window. Each time he saw the same thing; Buford Bell’s sunken eyes staring back from a face the color of sun-beached adobe, framed in a ring of thick black curls. His demeanor looked no different to Balum than any other paying passenger might look on a traveling coach. Once he even smiled back.
The fifth time Balum asked Joe to pull up the coach, he found himself searching for a decent explanation in response to his partner's raised eyebrow.
“Doesn’t it worry you?” said Balum. “The fact that we can’t see him. If he got out we wouldn’t know for hours.” He jumped down from the bench and took three steps into the grass and looked in the window. He gave a nod, satisfied, and climbed back up beside Joe.
“He still there?” said Joe.
“Yep.”
“But you keep thinking he might not be. Like maybe he escaped.”
“I’m just saying if he did.”
“Where would he go? He’s got irons on his legs and shackles on his wrists.”
“I know it,” said Balum. He pulled the pouch of tobacco from his pocket. He unrolled it and eased his fingers inside as the stage jerked forward to resume its rolling across the pockmarked ground. After he’d stuffed a wad into his cheek he spit and leaned against the benchback. Watching the roan tug at the traces, yoked up beside Joe’s buckskin and two sturdy shire horses borrowed from Jackson Stables, he spoke his thoughts out loud. “Maybe I’ve been letting other folks’ worries sneak into my head. I got Charles, Pete, Ross, even Chester, all warning me about how dangerous this trip could be.”
“You believe that?” said Joe.
“I do and I don’t. Like you say, he’s chained up good. His brothers are about to be hanged any day now.”
“Easy as it comes.”
“Right,” said Balum. “Easy as it comes. Only, the damnedest thing. About an hour or so back when I looked in the window, he smiled at me.”
“He’s just trying to get in your head. It’s a long way to Texas. Best thing for us to do is treat him like a sack of cornmeal. He’s not going anywhere.”
Balum spat over the side. Joe was right, there was nothing to be worried about. Just be smart and keep Buford chained tight, and it’d be as simple as a Sunday jaunt to the churchhouse.
Around midday they stopped beside a stream-filled pond whose waters were kept cool by the shade of giant cottonwoods. Balum slid open the bolt on the stage door and motioned for Buford to step out. He led the prisoner away from the pond. While Buford relieved himself, Balum watched the sun sparkle on the water in the few spaces where it snuck through the leaves. When Buford was finished Balum led him back to the fire. All the while the prisoner said nothing. He made no sudden motions. He kept his head down and his eyes forward. When Balum told him to sit, he sat.
From the ration boxes Balum took a hunk of salt pork and cheese. While he cut them into slices he wondered how long Buford’s silence would last. He stowed the knife away and passed a handful of grub to Buford, who accepted his share like a solemn beggar; head down, mouth shut.
It took a minute for Balum to accept that he could leave Buford’s side without any fear of disaster unfolding. He took a good look at the shackles and leg irons before he turned his back, then walked to the stream where Joe held canteens submerged beneath the slow-moving waters.
“He’s awfully quiet,” said Balum.
Joe pulled a full canteen from the water and screwed its top down. He set it in the grass and when he pushed the next one under, bubbles gurgled from its spout. “Would you rather he was jabbering at us?” he said.
“It’s strange is all.”
“I think I’ve got a notion of what’s going on,” said Joe.
“Yeah?”
“You’ve got a reason not to die. First time in your life you’ve had one.”
Balum watched the last gurgles spit up from the canteen. Joe was usually straight to the point. Maybe this was some old Apache wisdom about to be handed over. He didn’t say anything, just watched the canteen fill and waited for Joe to continue. When nothing further came of it, Balum took the bait.
“Alright, let’s hear it. What’s the reason.”
Joe looked up from the water. “Angelique.”
Her name sounded heavy in Balum’s ears. He glanced over at Buford suddenly, but the man was sitting where he’d left him. “You think so?”
“Sure. You’ve had a lifetime of tough scrapes, but all that while you’ve been accountable to no one but yourself. It’s easier to face danger when you’ve got no reason not to die.”
“Laying it on thick, Joe.”
“You’re the one preening over him like an old woman with a sick cat.”
Balum chuckled. He took a look at Buford sitting with his face in his hands, and shook his head. “Maybe,” he said. “Let’s get these horses hitched back up. I want to get another few miles in before dark.”
They left the pond as they’d found it. For nine more miles the two men bounced on top of the driving bench. The urge to look over the side of the stage and double-check the door lock rose up countless times, and each time Balum fought it back. He ignored the urge to ask Joe to rein the horses in so he could hop down and look through the barred window. Instead he stuck a thick wad of chaw in his lip and thought about what Joe had said.
When they pulled up in a grove of quaking aspen Balum was still chewing over the notion his friend had laid out. He led Buford out of the stage, told him to sit still. A good deal of dead branches lay on the ground. After several trips Balum had collected enough to last most of the night. He broke them into even lengths, carved kindling from a birch tree he found not far off and, with the strike of a match, put fire to it. Next he put water on to boil. He cleared out bedspaces, fished the frying pan from the top of the stage.
He gave little thought to these chores. If he were to add up the miles he’d ridden with Joe they’d have totaled over two thousand. The number of campfires the two had shared numbered in the hundreds, and of all the men Balum had shared a fire with-- cowpokes, pioneers, outlaws, ne'er do wells, tinkers, gypsies, men on the run, dreamers, gold chasers, entrepreneurs and old soldiers-- none measured up quite like Joe. The two got along as if they’d been forged in the same furnace, cast from the same mold.
Balum had seen Joe in more than one knife fight. He’d seen him fire a weapon while others fired back, and he knew Joe’s nerve wouldn’t fail no matter what obstacle faced him. He knew he was a smart man also. He trusted Joe’s judgement, which was why, as he went about preparing camp that first night away from Denver, he gave considerable thought to what Joe had said back at the pond.
He thought about it as he wrapped Buford’s chest and legs in rope and cinched him to a tree. He double tied each knot, which were several, and stepped back. Buford squirmed against his bindings. He made faces, he swore, but Balum’s mind wandered. He was distracted and he knew it. Not distracted enough however, to leave Buford alone for very long. He stepped over to the fire and five minutes later returned to the tree to double check
the prisoner. He gave every other loop of rope a pull, then drew back again. Buford stopped squirming. The ropes held him so tightly against the tree it showed in his breath. It came strained and wheezy through a discolored face.
Even after he’d eaten and bedded down, however, Balum returned to inspect the ropes a final time. He checked each section of binding but found not a margin of slack anywhere. Satisfied, he kicked out the fire and bedded down.
Lying in the dark, Balum’s mind circled back to Joe’s observation. Was that why his nerves were worked up? Because of Angelique? He’d known he loved her almost since the day he met her. He remembered it quite clearly, dragging himself into her brothel, his head swollen from a gunshot wound and his lips parched from thirst. In the time since, he’d faced down Ned Witney, battled Frederick Nelson as well as the man’s friends and extended family, fought against outlaws and a crooked sheriff, and had faced down the Bell Brothers Gang. And all that while he’d never questioned his love for her.
Suddenly it hit him. He rolled over and whispered Joe’s name. When the Apache turned beneath his blankets Balum said, “I’ve got my own notion.”
Joe put an elbow under his head. “What notion.”
His voice low beside the coals, Balum summed up what he’d been thinking. How Angelique had been there in the background through all his troubles over the past couple years. “In fact,” he said, “as much as I think about her, I feel my mind is even more at ease, not less. The curious thing about it all is that you’ve brought her up twice now in two days. That tells me something.”
“What’s it tell you?”
“You need a woman.” He said it bluntly, as was his manner. No beating around the bush or searching for a delicate turn of phrase.
Joe’s response was little more than a grunt.
Balum went on. “Will’s gone and married himself a nice young lady. Charles has Juanita. Angelique and I moved in together. Then there’s you.”
“There’s me,” said Joe.
“More concerned about my woman than I am. That tells me you’re lonely.”
By Joe’s silence, Balum knew he’d landed on it. He heard the words he’d just spoken retrace themselves through his mind, and he heard the harshness of them. A few night birds chirped far off. On the other side of the coals, Buford snored his own tune. Balum searched for a way to soften what he’d said. “You got someone on your mind?” he asked.
Joe’s silence was long. After a while he said no.
“Yes you do,” said Balum. “Tell me.”
Another long silence. Another round of Buford’s snores.
“You’ll think I’m crazy,” said Joe.
“Maybe I will. Tell me anyway.”
Joe raised himself up higher on his elbow. “You remember that silver boom town? That girlie show?”
“The one you were just talking about yesterday?”
“Yeah. You remember that Mexican señorita?”
“Dark eyes, pretty laugh. I remember.”
“When I went back that night, after we shot it up, I found her. We stayed up all night, me and her. We took a walk over the mine roads, just the two of us. We talked under the stars until the sun rose in the morning. Valeria was her name. I haven’t stopped thinking of her since.”
Balum let out a long sigh. He watched the steam curl from it and thin itself into the night. Rarely did Joe give voice to his feelings. The night he’d described was one Balum remembered. He’d sat on a hotel porch that night with a wad of chaw in his cheek, thinking of killing Johnny Freed and returning to Angelique. And to think that all that time Joe had been walking empty mine roads with a dark-eyed Mexican gal.
The moon rose over the earth’s edge and shoved the constellations forward. They turned slowly through the aspen branches. After their path through the sky marked off a couple hours and Balum still had not found sleep, he called out to Joe once more.
It took a while for his partner to wake. Balum called again. He was considering tossing a branch when Joe rolled over and mumbled something.
“I’ve been thinking,” said Balum.
“Uh?” said Joe.
“The route we’re taking to San Antonio. If we make a little detour, that boom town wouldn’t put us off more than a week.”
The silence from the blanket roll a few yards off was enough to make Balum wonder if Joe had truly woken or if he’d even heard the suggestion. He nearly repeated himself. Then Joe answered.
“You sure?”
“You’re telling me you’ve been tied in knots over a woman going on half a year now? And she’s not but a week off the trail? You’re damn right I’m sure. Besides, another month babysitting this son-of-a-bitch and we’ll both be in need of a woman. That was the finest show I’ve seen in my life. I told you the deal Angelique and I have. Four weeks out, and I’ll be ready to let the badger loose, I can guarantee you that.”
In the morning the sky had clouded over and a thick mist that wanted to turn to a drizzle encompassed Balum and Joe as they broke camp. They loaded Buford into the stage, closed the door and, once again on the driving bench, slapped the reins to the draft team.
After a half hour of riding, Balum snuck out the patch of tobacco. He offered some to Joe, then stuck a wad in his own cheek. He smiled. The urge to twist around and check the door had mostly left him. Buford was wrapped up tight as a jack chain on a lumber pile. He wasn’t going anywhere. In a month Balum would be at the finest girlie show in the West, and a week after that he’d have a five-thousand dollar reward in his pocket. And, with some luck, Sara Sanderson behind bars.
He spat over the stage. Time to sit back and relax. From here on out it would be an easy ride.
7
To the expanse of prairie stretching in gentle ripples under clouded starless skies, the sound of the Bell brother’s getaway was nothing more than a faint drumming of sound, a small spot of noise on all that open stillness. To the brothers, their ears pinned low over the horses’ necks, it was a furious pounding of hooves cut sporadically by whoops and hollers, the smell of churned earth and the sweat of horse flesh.
To Connor Bell, it was victory.
He had doubted himself, though he’d never admit it. He had always looked to Buford for direction, always taken for granted that the Bell Gang’s crimes would play out based on carefully crafted plans, and always assumed that Buford would be the one to write them. Never had he imagined that his brothers would one day turn to him for leadership. Yet they had. The result was that they were now free men charging across the Colorado plains, armed and mounted and eager for retribution.
The first two miles they rode at a gallop, then continued at a hard trot for several more. When Connor sensed his horse was near the point of shaking, he slowed it to a walk until they reached a stand of trees that offered both concealment and a thick bed of pine needles on which to sleep. They built no fire. They had no matches or even flint by which to build one, and no food to cook if they did.
The precariousness of their situation began to creep into Connor’s mind as his brothers swung down from their horses. They had no food. No matches, no pan, no tarp. No canteens, no blankets, no razors to shave the stubble off their faces, and not even a drop of whiskey, which would have made all those other details seem much more bearable. He laid himself out under a pine tree and scratched his jaw. Maybe while he slept a plan would come to him.
At the coldest hour of dawn, just before the sun broke the horizon, Connor woke shivering in his bed of needles. The first thought that came to him, besides the fact that he was cold and hungry, was that he had no plan. None whatsoever. All he could think to do was ride in a southerly direction, scout for tracks, and follow them once discovered. He crawled to his knees and stepped behind a tree. He beat his arms against his ribs for warmth like a fluttering chicken, and watched half-asleep as the steam rose from his piss. Even with it being the dead of summer, the mornings weren’t going to get any warmer. Not at that elevation. He took comfort in the fact that
they would be traveling south, not north. He buttoned up and walked back to where his brothers slept and roused them from their slumber with kicks to their backsides.
They rode spread out from one another. Connor took the position farthest east, swerving in wide lazy loops with his eyes running all over the ground and a worry building up behind his eyes. The pressure mounted until John Boy cupped a hand to his mouth called out across the plain.
When Connor reached him he saw immediately the fresh wheel ruts cutting through the soil. “Nice work, John Boy,” he said. He scratched his jaw and looked at the horse tracks between the ruts. “You boys see what I’m seeing? Looks like they don’t got but one horse hitched up.”
“That’s what I see,” said Floyd.
“That don’t make no sense,” said Connor. “They were supposed to take him in a stage, not a carriage.”
“Them wheel tracks are about right, though,” said Delmar.
It was true. The depth to which the wheels cut into the loam told Connor the weight was right. And the tracks weren’t more than a couple days old. It had to be them. With a wave of his hand he set the gang in motion.
The ruts being so fresh, they could be picked out without difficulty. It was a simple thing to follow at a run, which further eased Connor’s fears that a posse from Denver might catch them. He ignored his chapped throat, telling himself they’d drink as soon as they passed an acceptable water source. Streams and creeks ran everywhere in that country. Fresh water trickled all summer long off the snow-capped mountains that towered in a ridge further west.
Only they didn’t cross one. Not all that morning, nor in the afternoon. Near evening the tracks led them past an algae-covered pond that stunk like something old and rotten lay just below the surface. Complaints of thirst and hunger started up. The only words Connor had for his brothers were to shut up and keep riding. They followed the orders until night fell. This time they slept on a patch of moss, and in the morning they woke wet and covered in dew.
Shotgun Riders Page 4
