Wife Stealer

by F. M. Parker

  He felt as if a picket pin had been hammered into his chest. His blood cascaded through his veins in a storm, and hate flared so hot it seemed to burn. "You sons of bitches, I'm going to kill every one of you," Ben silently raged.

  TEN

  Ben brought Brutus to a stop a few feet from the bloody bodies of Morning Dew, Swan Woman, and Black Moon and looked down at them. Tears pricked his eyes. That wouldn't do, for he mustn't give a sign that he knew them. He blinked his tears away and focused on devising a plan that would give him a chance to kill the four men.

  "Looks like you killed some Indians," Ben said, fighting the tightness in his throat.

  The four men remained silent, staring at Ben's mutilated face. The sight of him had thrown some confusion into the group.

  Finally a tall man with a full beard spoke. "We didn't mean to shoot the squaws, but they were too close to the buck and got in the way. Ruined the fun we could've had."

  Ben saw a man lying on the opposite side of the camp. By his posture and a trail leading from him off through the grass, it appeared he had been dragged in from some other location and dropped on the ground.

  "Looks like the buck got one of you," Ben said. Good for you, Black Moon.

  "A tough son of a bitch. That Sharps bullet should'a killed him straight out."

  "He's dead now," Ben said. "A bad-luck Indian."

  "And sure an ugly one. Don't see how a man that ugly could have two such pretty squaws" The man was smirking as he looked into Ben's ugly face.

  Ben read the man's insult. But that was nothing as compared to his hatred of the men for killing the Comanches. "Were some of those horses his?" Ben asked.

  "Yeah, those five there. Fine animals too."

  "Those are Valdes horses," Ben said.

  "That's their brand, all right."

  "That means the Indian was down south robbing the Mexicans. He must've killed a rich Mex, for that one saddle has a lot of silver on it. I bet he got more than just the horse and saddle. Did you search his pockets for gold coin? Even the squaws could have gold on them."

  "Didn't think of that. I've never found coin on an Indian I killed." He motioned at the other men. "Have a look."

  Three of the men went to the Comanches and began to search through their clothing.

  The tall man seemed mesmerized by Ben's face. "Did you get that in the war?" he asked.

  "Yes," Ben replied and grinned, his face twisting into a horrible mask with the action. "Would you like a souvenir from the war?" He moved his hand toward his hip pocket as if reaching for some object back there. His hand stopped at the holstered pistol on his side.

  The man looked perplexed by the question. "What do you mean?"

  "There was a hell'uva lot of death there." Ben pulled his pistol and shot the man in the forehead. Ben pivoted toward the remaining three men. He must quickly identify the man who would react most swiftly to the shot. A small, skinny man jerked around. In a fraction of a second he took in the situation and grabbed for his pistol. Before the man could touch his weapon, Ben shot him through the heart. He shot the third man as he looked up from Morning Dew's body.

  The fourth man hastily stabbed his hands up above his head. "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" he cried.

  "Why not?" Ben asked, holding his pistol pointed into the man's face. "Why should I let you live?"

  "I ain't done nothing to you. Nothing a'tall. Let me get on my horse and ride out."

  "Why didn't you ride on by and let them safe?" Ben moved his free hand to indicate the three Comanches.

  "They were just Indians."

  "Yeah, they were. I knew them and was getting to like them. And I don't like you." Ben shot the man through the right eye.

  * * *

  Ben buried Black Moon, Morning Dew, and Swan Woman close together in graves he dug in the prairie sod. The bodies of the white men he left for the coyotes and buzzards.

  He gathered the horses, now numbering thirteen counting the packhorses, and tied them in a line. He mounted Brutus, and sat looking down at the three graves. The Llano Estacado was a place where living things died by violence, and he had added to the violence. He heard the wind in the prairie grass and it was sighing, as if expressing shame at what he and Black Moon had done to the young Indian women. The awful episode of stealing the women, and by so doing being the cause of their deaths, had cut a hard groove in his mind, one that would never be eroded away by the passage of time.

  A vast clarity came to Ben. God was a joker and had just played a big one. The man who cared the least about living was the one who had survived.

  Evan Payson and John Davis entered Monroe, Louisiana, in early afternoon. Planning to catch a train west, they continued on directly across town to the station of the Houston & Texas Central Railroad. When they arrived, a train of four passenger coaches and two flatbed cars sat in front of the station house. The engine was quietly chuffing steam.

  A Confederate lieutenant, with his left arm in a sling, was directing a squad of soldiers. He was small and thin and seemed hardly more than a boy. He had six soldiers helping wounded men to climb aboard the coaches. Four soldiers were loading freight, boxes, barrels, and crates onto the flatbed cars.

  "The Army has taken over the railroad," John said to Evan, sitting beside him on the seat of the surrey.

  "Looks like more wounded from Vicksburg are trying to get home same as we are," Evan said. "Pull up there by the lieutenant and let's talk to him about hitching a ride."

  "Right," John said. He pulled the team of horses to a stop with the vehicle close to the lieutenant.

  "Lieutenant, do you have room for two more on the train?" Evan called.

  The lieutenant looked at Evan. He noted the slumped shoulders and sallow, bony face of the wounded man. The fellow appeared quite ill. He looked past Evan to John. "I'm taking only wounded soldiers," the lieutenant said.

  "We fit that bill," John said.

  "You two were at Vicksburg?"

  "Yes, sir," John said. "I'm Corporal Davis and my leg's all smashed to hell. And this is Captain Payson, he took a bullet in the lung. Now don't ask what army he was with thought John. "We're both from El Paso."

  "The train's crowded, but I think you can find space for yourselves someplace." He called out to a soldier near where the wounded were being loaded. "Sergeant, allow these soldiers from Vicksburg to go aboard."

  "Yes, sir," replied the sergeant.

  "How long before you pull out?" Evan asked the lieutenant.

  "Probably half an hour. We're mostly loaded."

  "Do you know where we can sell these horses and surrey?"

  "See Ed Tomlinson. Three blocks that way." The lieutenant pointed with his good arm. "He's a horse trader. You should get a good price, for horses are scarce with so many being taken east by the soldiers going off to fight. Don't be gone long, for I'll not hold the train for you."

  ELEVEN

  Karl Redpath arrived in Shreveport aboard the steamer Putnam’s Pride after a journey from New Orleans up the Mississippi to the junction with the Red River and then up the Red to the city. When the boat docked, he hoisted his trunk onto a shoulder and left the boat. Moving easily with his load, he walked the six blocks to the station of the Houston & Texas Central Railroad.

  Redpath halted when he came within sight of the station. In the long shadows of late evening, some ninety Confederate soldiers, wounded in battles in the east, but able to walk and now bound for home, sat or lay on their bedrolls on the station platform. Several women of the town, carrying baskets of food and buckets of water, moved among the soldiers. To each man, the women offered a sandwich and a drink of water. Redpath noted that every man quickly accepted the sandwich and a dipper of water from the bucket. They gave heartfelt thanks to the women and ravenously tore into the sandwiches.

  Redpath selected a location away from the soldiers and placed his trunk down on the ground. He was a large man, well over six feet tall and solidly built. His hair was black, and he sporte
d a heavily waxed mustache that extended outward in thin spikes from each side of his mouth. His clothing was made of excellent material and well tailored to fit his strong body.

  He had until recently owned more brothels in New Orleans than all the other whoremasters combined. The brothels had made him very wealthy. Then the damnable Union Navy and Army sailing up the Mississippi with their powerful warships had captured New Orleans. General Butler, the commander of the occupying army, had gradually tightened his control of the businesses of the city. Then he had issued an order making it unlawful to operate a whorehouse. As an example to the other whorehouse owners, he had called Redpath into his office in the Cabildo and told him to close all his establishments, with the threat of being hung if he didn't comply immediately.

  Redpath had known he would never permanently leave New Orleans, for it was too vibrant, too lusty, and its rough, tough underworld fit him exactly. Most importantly, it was a very rich city. New Orleans was often called the Queen City, for it was the financial center of the South. Also, it was a great port city, with the quantity of the ocean shipping passing through its waters, before the war, second only to New York. Even though he loved the city, he had to find a place to wait out the war, a town wide-open to his type of business.

  He had chosen El Paso, for he judged it far enough west to escape attack by the Union Army, and also because it was a bustling, growing town at the intersection of the north-south El Camino Real and the much-traveled east-west road between Texas and California. He had selected his most lovely women and prized brothel furnishings, and with his man Dubois, had journeyed to El Paso. There he had found, and purchased, the perfect building for his purpose. After designing modifications to the existing structure and a substantial addition, he had set Dubois to work with a construction crew. He had returned to New Orleans to find occupants, with legitimate businesses, for his brothels. He was now on his way back to El Paso.

  Soon he would have the most luxurious whorehouse in Texas.

  The first, faint sound of the train approaching the station came to Redpath.

  "More wounded soldiers trying to get home," John said as he looked past Evan and out the window of the passenger coach at the railroad station in Shreveport, Louisiana.

  "There's enough of them to form a company if they were whole."

  Evan's keen surgeon's eyes were, without conscious thought, examining the men on the station platform. The sun was below the horizon and dusk was deepening; still, he saw several men were missing arms and legs, and two men had bad face wounds. A shudder passed through Evan at the recollection of the hundreds of bleeding bodies that had lain on the operating table before him. He had done his best with those mangled bodies, cutting away with sharp steel saw and scalpel those parts beyond repair, and trying his utmost to put back together the less-damaged parts so the soldier could function as nearly like a whole man as possible.

  He pulled his mind away from the memory of the heinous butchery of the war. Never again would he take sharp steel to a man's body. His profession as a surgeon was finished for all time.

  "Texas is going to have an army of crippled men," John said. He looked at Evan. Though somewhat improved, the man was still very ill. You and I are going to be part of them, John thought.

  The train was slowing, and Evan braced himself against the coming blast of pain. Always the train came to a halt with a series of sharp jolts as the engine slowed and each car trailing was brought to a stop by collapsing the coupling between it and the one ahead. The jarring made his lung ache painfully.

  The train came to a shuddering, jarring stop. Evan clenched his jaws. When the pain had faded from his chest and there was no taste of blood in his mouth, he breathed a sigh of relief.

  He poked his head out the open window of the railroad coach. The Confederate lieutenant, who had given John and him permission to ride the train, and his sergeant were coming along the tracks.

  The sergeant spoke. "Good God, Lieutenant, we don't have room for that many more wounded."

  "I'll not pass them by," the little lieutenant said. He stopped and ran his eyes over the men, estimating their number. "We're going to take every one of them. There's space for twenty or so on the floor of the coaches. The rest will have to ride on one of the flatbed cars. Take all the freight from that first one and double-stack it on the other. What you can't put there, set it off on the station platform. The next train west can pick it up."

  "Yes, sir," the sergeant said, and moved off.

  * * *

  Redpath remained sitting on his trunk and evaluated the lieutenant directing a sergeant twice his age. The fellow seemed too young to be an officer. Most likely his father had outfitted the squad of men and thus the son had become an officer. Many of the soldiers fighting for the South were equipped with private money. Redpath lifted his trunk and went toward the train.

  "Lieutenant, may I have a word with you?" Redpath called as he drew close to the officer.

  The lieutenant turned to Redpath. "Yes, what is it?"

  "Is the train going to the end of track at Marshall?"

  "Yes."

  "I'd like to purchase a ticket." He set the trunk on the ground and pulled a purse bulging with gold coins from his pocket. He bounced the purse on his hand so that the coins jingled. Confederate paper money had little value, but gold should buy him what he wanted.

  "This is a military train and not for civilian use," the lieutenant said.

  "I'll pay fifty dollars in gold," Redpath said, ignoring the officer's words.

  "Maybe you didn't hear me. This is a military train, and I barely have space for the wounded soldiers."

  "I'll pay one hundred dollars for a ride."

  "Are you trying to bribe an Army officer?" the lieutenant said, bristling.

  "Certainly not," Redpath said. He stepped close to the lieutenant and towered over him. "I'm merely trying to get a ride to Marshall."

  The smaller man did not budge from his position. He looked up at Redpath with a weary, harried expression. "No civilians will ride when soldiers need all the space. Now I've got to load those men before it gets dark and that's the end of it." He turned away.

  Redpath's mud-colored eyes tightened. He reached out and caught the officer by the injured arm and turned him. "Wait. I'll go on board and pay one of the men for letting me have his place. Many of them would be glad to get a hundred dollars in gold for just waiting for the next train." He squeezed the lieutenant's injured arm.

  The lieutenant quickly masked the pain that had suddenly ballooned under the man's hard grip. He put his good hand on his pistol. "Get your hands off me before I shoot you."

  Redpath's anger soared at the threat. He would stomp the little bastard and teach him a lesson, and it would take only three or four seconds. He swiftly scanned around to see if anybody was looking and could be a witness against him. A skinny, sallow-faced man was watching him from a window of the railroad coach but a few yards distant. Farther away, the sergeant was looking at him. Even as Redpath's eyes fell upon the sergeant, the man came swiftly forward to stand beside his officer.

  With an expression of fury on his face, Redpath gave one quick look at the sergeant and then back at the lieutenant. He released his hold and stepped back.

  "Sergeant, if this man tries to board the train, shoot him. That's a direct order."

  "Yes, sir," said the soldier. There was a pleased tone in his voice.

  The lieutenant turned and walked away.

  * * *

  "You've made a serious mistake," Redpath called after the lieutenant.

  "Are you trying to scare the lieutenant?" the sergeant asked. "Hell, he's one of the bravest men I’ve ever seen. Why, in the fight at Shiloh . . ."

  "Being brave doesn't mean the same as being smart," Redpath growled. He hoisted his trunk up and stalked away.

  The sound of a man's loud voice woke Evan from the sleep he had fallen into while he waited for the train to leave Shreveport. He sat up and glanced about
to find the source of the voice. The other soldiers in the coach were looking out the windows and through the darkness at the station house. Evan turned his sight in the same direction. The light from several lanterns, carried by a squad of armed soldiers, illuminated the railroad station. The soldiers were being given orders by a captain. It was the captain's full-voiced orders that had awakened Evan. John stood listening on the edge of the station platform.

  "John, what's the trouble?" Evan called.

  "Somebody killed the lieutenant," John said. He came limping toward the railroad coach. "He was found a few minutes ago behind the station with a broken neck. Those soldiers are from the local garrison."

  "Probably that big man who had the argument with the lieutenant did it," Evan said.

  "That's what the sergeant told the captain. And that's who the soldiers are going out to search for."

  "He didn't seem like a fellow who'd be dumb enough to stick around town after killing an Army officer."

  "I feel the same way. And it's dark too. The captain told the sergeant to stay in Shreveport to help identify the man if he's caught. We'll have another officer bossing the train on west. It'll be moving soon."

  TWELVE

  Rachel Greystone remained in the shade of the porch of the Morgan House Hotel in Marshall, Texas, and out of the sun that was a scorcher.

  A block away from Rachel and beyond the brick-paved city that was radiating heat in shimmering waves was the railroad. A train had just arrived from the east and sat steaming in front of the yellow station house. Marshall was the end of line and the train could go no farther to the west. She could see wounded soldiers climbing down from the railroad coaches and one of the flatbed cars of the train. Each soldier carried a bedroll. Some also had small satchels or tied bundles of personal items. Several of the men stopped on the station platform and piled their possessions there. Then they joined with the others coming into the town.