Savage Texas: The Stampeders

by William W. Johnstone

  Johnny Cross was on the porch of the Cattleman when Sam Heller passed by, still fuming and confused after his time with Julia. Or was it Della Rose? His brain spinning from it all, and just then noticing Johnny Cross, Heller knew he had to make a decision about all this. Whom was he going to choose to believe? Cross or the lady herself?

  “Come up here and have some ham and taters with me, Sam,” Johnny Cross said.

  Sam trotted up the stairs, realizing he was hungry.

  The coffee was especially hot and especially good, leading to Cross teasing the waiter, a Mexican young man named Luis, about the restaurant having forgotten to reuse the previous day’s grounds for once. “No, Señor Johnny. No forget nada. Just make sure coffee good for you and Señor Sam.”

  “Well, we don’t forget our friends, Luis,” Cross replied. “When Sam and me are all rich and grand and famous, we’ll make sure we let folks see you with us in public, and maybe even shake your hand right in front of everybody! We could get Four-eyes Perkins to take a picture of it!”

  Luis, uncertain as always about how to take Johnny Cross, chuckled and mumbled, “Gracias, señor,” then hustled away. As soon as he was in the kitchen he realized he had never taken their order, and so returned.

  Both orders were the same: ham, eggs, biscuits, and fried potatoes. Luis kept the coffee mugs refilled and it was several minutes before any real conversation began.

  “So, Sam, have you talked any with the pretty one since I told you what Timothy showed me?”

  “I have. Even asked her about the whole name business.”

  “So, what did she have to say for herself?”

  “Well, she did what you’d figure. She denied the whole Skinner business. Swore she’s Julia Canton and her daddy was a preacher and the whole thing just like she said before.”

  Cross shook his head and took another forkful of potato. “I saw the picture, Sam. She’s handing you a bill of goods on that one.”

  “Know what, Johnny boy? I’ve just flat-out decided to believe her. She tells me she’s who she says, says that picture you say ain’t her, and I’m just going to go with what she’s saying, till something forces me to do otherwise.”

  “Faithful as an old hound, are you, Sam?”

  “I hope so. I don’t see it as a bad way to be.”

  “Don’t know. Sometimes old hounds take some pretty stout kicks.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Odd feeling in the atmosphere, it seemed to Sam Heller on the morning of the day that would conclude with the huge town dance in and around the big barn just south of Hangtree. He studied the sky, looking for evidence of coming bad weather. He saw nothing.

  He had an active day ahead of him, though not of the sort he was accustomed to. He was going to be in the center of the town’s attention that evening, and a man needed a good suit for such as that.

  There was only one tailor in town, a Scottish man named McCardle who had a shop of sorts framed off in one back corner of the Lockhart Emporium. In some unusual stroke of foresight, Sam had gone to humpbacked old McCardle three weeks earlier and been measured head to toe, an exercise that had required the short Scot to stand on a stool to complete the job. Sam had placed an order for a good black suit, one he could use for occasions ranging from weddings to funerals . . . the only kinds of ceremonies he was prone to be part of. McCardle had notified him a week prior that the suit was ready and waiting, but not until this day had Heller felt any rush to pick it up. He now worried that the blasted thing might not fit, that McCardle could have wrongly measured, considering all the leaning and stretching and squatting he’d had to do just to get all the relevant numbers scribbled down on his little tailor’s pad. Beside McCardle, Sam Heller was Goliath.

  After a breakfast in a small new eatery that had opened on Mace Street and was struggling valiantly against the well-established Cattleman, Heller strolled through town, thinking again about the questions surrounding Julia Canton. He’d told himself he would take a leap of faith and believe her. Even so, he knew that Johnny Cross, sometime-antagonist and annoyance though he could be, was not a fool. If he swore that the face he’d seen in the Skinner family portrait was Julia’s, it wasn’t something to be cavalierly dismissed.

  Maybe it was time to go to Otto Perkins, and while giving as much protection to Timothy Holt as possible, tell him he’d heard about the Skinner image, and ask to see it for himself. He almost turned his steps toward Perkins’s place of business, then reconsidered. Tonight he would be stepping out before his fellow citizens, Julia at his side, bandaged head and all. For this night it was best to let things stand, to let Julia Pepperday Canton be Julia Pepperday Canton, and Della Rose Skinner a nonentity. Get through this one night, reevaluate later, and move on from there and then. Not here and now.

  One more night. And it could be a good one . . . especially if he gave Julia no reason to be unhappy with him. She could make it a fine night indeed.

  He went on to the Emporium, and there saw Timothy at work on the boardwalk. Heller had momentarily forgotten that the young man had retained his old job with Lockhart even after adding the new one with Perkins. Hard-working fellow, no question of it.

  Heller stepped onto the boardwalk and Timothy looked up at him and seemed startled, or in some manner taken aback. “Mr. Sam!” he said. “Hello.”

  “Hello back atcha.”

  “Are you here for your suit? It’s hanging up back in the tailor corner. Mr. McCardle did a good job on it, like he always does.”

  “He’s good at his work, like you are. In fact, I’ve wondered how he manages to survive in a town like this, where there’s not a lot of demand for tailored clothes.”

  “He does some work with Mrs. Bewley at the dress shop, too. He makes dresses for her a lot, as an extra job. Kind of like me sweeping for Mr. Otto and also still working here.”

  “You do what you got to do,” Heller said, putting a foot on the bottom step leading up to the entrance.

  Timothy had lost his earlier burst of nervousness and was his usual slightly intense, naturally friendly self. “Let me tell you something: I think Mrs. Bewley sometimes claims that she is the one making the dresses that Mr. McCardle is really making.”

  “My! Imagine it!”

  “Telling lies, Mr. Sam. Lies. And that’s bad.”

  “Yes, I guess it is.”

  “Have you seen that new dress Miss Julia is wearing to the dance tonight? Really pretty, kind of violet color.”

  “Haven’t seen it. I guess I will tonight.”

  “Well, every woman who came through the Emporium while Mr. McCardle was working on it stopped and went on about how wonderful it was, and asking who it was for, and all that, like women do.”

  Heller grinned. “They do talk, that’s a fact.”

  “Well . . .” And here Timothy paused and sidled closer to Heller, speaking in the whispers of a man giving state secrets to an enemy nation. “. . . Mr. McCardle made that dress, and I heard that Mrs. Bewley says she did it!”

  “Just plain wicked, Tim, don’t you think? But please don’t let Mrs. Bewley know I said that.”

  “I won’t. I won’t. There’s things I’d like to tell you, Mr. Sam, but I ain’t free to do it. Things folks said for me to keep secret.”

  “And you keep secrets when you’re asked to, right?”

  “That’s right, that’s right.”

  “Good man, Timothy. But I do want to ask you if there are any secrets you’re keeping that you might personally think I need to know about?”

  “Like what, sir?”

  “I don’t know. Like maybe if somebody is planning to steal some of my cattle. Or maybe anything about my good lady friend, Miss Julia.”

  “Why are you asking about her?”

  “Tell you the truth, Tim, I’ve begun to notice things that make me wonder if she’s telling me, and all of us, the truth about herself. Who she is and so on.”

  Timothy gaped, clearly having much he wished to say, but
fighting himself over whether to say it.

  “Because, Timothy, I think she might be named something different. Della, maybe.”

  Timothy looked scared now. Had he somehow let the information out without knowing it? Yet he thought it right that Mr. Sam, being as close as he was to Julia, should know what there was to be known. He made a decision, praying that it was the right one.

  “I ain’t supposed to say, but there’s a picture Mr. Otto has, shows Black Ear Skinner’s family years back. One of the people in it is Miss Julia, younger than now. But it’s her. Mr. Otto sees it that way—and he was the one who made the picture, so he saw her in real life—and Mr. Cro—somebody else who looked at it thought it was her, too. But if it is, that means her real name is Della Rose Skinner, and her papa was a bad, bad outlaw.”

  “It may be true, Tim. But we don’t know for sure, and until we do we need to not call anyone a liar. Don’t you agree?”

  “I do, Mr. Sam.”

  “I’m going in to see if my suit fits now. You’re doing a good job out here, Tim. You’ll be at the dance tonight?”

  “Yes. But I won’t have a lady with me. The one I wanted to go with is going with . . . you.”

  “Who knows, Tim? She might have taken the worse end of that bargain. I got a feeling you’d treat a young lady right.”

  “I’d sure try, Mr. Sam. I’d try real hard.”

  “Talk to you later, Timothy.”

  “Sir.”

  Heller went inside.

  On most days, banker Arvil Caldwell went home for his lunch. It was an easy, brisk walk and a pleasant dose of fresh air after the enclosed staleness of the Hangtree Bank.

  Typically, he either found the house empty, meaning Bridgette and Angeline were out at the little makeshift schoolhouse that stood behind the Hangtree Church. The meager little place actually belonged to the church trustees, and the school was substantially an unofficial and unaffiliated entity, possessing no real schoolmaster or schoolmarm. The mothers, and occasionally, fathers, of the handful of children who attended Pecos Academy School provided the teaching and leadership on their own, coming together for the benefit of sharing the work involved and giving the children a chance to know and play with one another. Angeline was fairly new to the Academy, young as she was, but she loved it and Caldwell was happy she had the opportunity to be part of it.

  He did not anticipate his two ladies would be absent today, though. This was a “home study” day for the informal school, so he expected to find wife and daughter with their noses buried in a book, working hard.

  “Bridgette? I’m here!”

  The house was strangely silent, and felt empty as he entered the rear door. “Angeline, honey? Are you here? Where is Mama?”

  No reply. Caldwell’s heart began to pound harder. This was not right. Something was wrong . . . he could feel it.

  A moment’s pause reminded him that they might be merely out on a walk, or visiting the outhouse, or the garden, or a neighbor . . . there was certainly no evidence of anything to panic over.

  Forcing himself to calm down, he went for a crockery vessel in which he knew there were cold biscuits from the morning, and probably two or three well-fried sausages. An entirely sufficient lunch.

  The food was there but he found it tasteless and ate only half a biscuit and sausage before putting it aside. He couldn’t shake off the sense of something being amiss. He began to explore the house, quietly calling for his wife and daughter.

  He found nothing to disturb him except their absence. Until he climbed the stairs and neared an unused rear room with wall access to an attic storage room. When he walked into the rear room, heels clunking, he thought he heard a small, tremoring voice that at first he thought was a bird trapped in the adjacent attic. Then he thought it sounded like the soft vocal noises little Angelina sometimes made when she napped in the big overstuffed chair downstairs. He went to the closed access door to the attic space and leaned close to it.

  “Angelina? Are you in there?”

  This time a reply, clearly spoken. “Arvil!”

  It was not Angelina, but Bridgette. He found his wife bound and lying on the floor inside the attic space, her wrists raw from her efforts to free herself and her feet swollen below the area where over-tight restraints had been tied just above her ankles. Her face streamed with tears and a gag she had managed to work loose with teeth and tongue hung damp around her neck. Her hands were tied behind her back, with a rope leading down to join with the one binding her ankles.

  “God, honey! Oh God, dear, tell me, what happened? Are you hurt? Where is Angelina?”

  “He took her . . . he took her, Arvil!”

  “Are you hurt?”

  “No. Just sore and stiff from being tied here all morning.”

  “Who was this man and where did he take our daughter?” So many dreadful possibilities were flooding Caldwell’s mind that he was near to bursting into tears. Bridgette’s streaked and reddened face revealed she had done plenty of crying of her own already.

  “Who was he?”

  “A stranger. Nothing unusual about him . . . he was friendly, and talked so sweetly to Angeline when he came to the door. She heard him knock and was closer to the door than I was . . . I was dragging that big tin washtub out of that back closet and didn’t even hear the knock. She shouldn’t have done it, but she opened the door and let him in.

  “When I came back in the room and saw him standing there near Angeline, I think I might have yelled. I jumped back hard enough to trip myself and sprawled out on my rump. He came over, looking very concerned, and put his hand out to help me up. I wouldn’t take it, wouldn’t touch him without knowing who he was and why he was here. I got up on my own and went over to Angeline and put my arm over her. She asked me what was wrong, and told me her ‘new friend’ was Uncle Cale, and that he was a friend of yours.”

  “I’ve never known a ‘Cale’ in my life, and certainly I have no uncle or relation by that name.”

  “I’d never heard you mention such a name, so that made me mistrust this man even more. And then . . . he asked me if I might spare him a bite to eat, and I realized this was probably just some drifter who went door-to-door to find his meals. He was certainly no fat man, but he wasn’t too thin, either, so he gets something to eat from somewhere. I made him a sandwich with the last of the cheese and those store-bought pickles you brought back from San Antonio. He thanked me and ate. I thought he would leave then, but instead he reached in a pocket and pulled out a little pistol—what do they call those little, frilly-looking ones? Derringers?—it was one of those. He had the friendliest grin on his face, but he held that derringer up and aimed it right at Angeline. My breath went away and for a long while, probably near two minutes, I couldn’t breathe at all, no matter how hard I tried.

  “Angeline, she thought that derringer was a toy, I think, and that he was offering it to her, because she reached out for it. He lost his smile all at once and sort of snarled at her, enough to make her move back. He says to her, ‘Know what that is, darling? That’s a little girl dead-maker. It kills little girls just as dead as stones in the creek.’ I shuddered to hear it, and I think most of it went right past Angeline because she just looked solemn and confused, and maybe like she wondered if she’d done something wrong.”

  “Dear God above!” Arvil Caldwell declared in a hoarse whisper. “What did this devil want?”

  “I think, Arvil . . . I think he wants you. He told me to tell you that he and Angeline will be waiting for you at the bank tomorrow morning at seven. He says come alone, and not to tell a soul about any of this, especially the law.” She paused and began to cry. “He said if he gets even a sniff of law or other interference in the morning, the first thing that happens is that Angeline dies. And he’ll do it, too, Arvil. I could tell he’s the kind who would really do it.”

  “God, Bridgette, I think he’s robbing the bank! He wants me in there to get him into the vault!”

  “Arvil, you ar
en’t going to tell the law, are you? Please don’t do it, if you’re thinking that. He’ll kill her, he will! I think he might have killed me before he left except he wanted me to be able to tell you all this without him having to write it down.”

  Arvil Caldwell realized he was quaking from head to toe, as much as if he were outdoors in a bitter winter far, far to the north. He saw his little girl’s face with every blink of his eye and in every corner into which he turned his gaze.

  What was he going to do? He needed help, but was forbidden from seeking it. And the price of disobedience would be the life of his little girl. His own beloved little girl.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  There would be no surprises come evening when Claude Farley revealed his new waltz composed in honor of Julia because he spent most of the day practicing it outdoors. By midafternoon most of Hangtree’s residents had heard the tune at least three times. Claude could take comfort, though, in the general consensus that he’d done a good job of composing.

  Timothy Holt had actually adapted his sweeping to three-quarter time, brushing along while he hummed the tune he’d heard drifting over the breeze much of the day. He was reaching the part he liked best when a carriage passed, raising dust and annoying him because it undid much of his best cleaning. He glanced up to see who the driver was. It was a man he didn’t recognize, a stranger to Hangtree. But for only a moment, he thought he saw young Angeline Caldwell peep around the raised carriage hood. The man, he figured, must be a relative or family friend, because he saw neither of Angeline’s parents.

  To Timothy’s surprise, the driver rolled the carriage to a stop before the Emporium and waved for Timothy to come over. He did, and found that it was indeed Angeline Caldwell in the vehicle with the stranger. She looked nervous to him, and was sitting back squarely against the seat, as if trying to stay as out-of-view as possible. Timothy wondered if the man had told her to do that.