Savage Texas: The Stampeders

by William W. Johnstone

  “Hello, Angeline,” Timothy said, smiling. “Where are your mother and father?”

  The little girl looked like she wanted to answer, but the man with her glared over at her, and then turned a happier expression to Timothy. “She is with her uncle Cale this morning. We are having a very pleasant ride. But I didn’t call you over here to tell you that. You know Angeline, I can see . . . do you know many others in this town?”

  “I get to know most everybody because of my job here at the Emporium,” Timothy replied. “Everybody goes up and down these steps and across this walk, and they see me.”

  “Might you know a very pretty young lady who has come lately and calls herself Julia Canton?”

  “Yes, yes, I know Miss Julia.”

  “I need you to deliver her a message for me,” the man said. “Can you do that? I’ll give you two whole dollars in advance if you’ll get the job done.”

  “Yes, sir. Yes, I can do it.”

  On the spot, Timothy got his two dollars, which he clutched and then pocketed. Happy as he was for the money, it didn’t erase a sense of doubt about this stranger. He instinctively found the man impossible to trust, or to feel positively toward. And the overly friendly smile only heightened the impression of falseness that came from him.

  “What do you want me to tell her?” Timothy asked.

  The man leaned down. “Listen closely, boy: Tell her that Uncle Cale says she need not be involved in the plan now. We’ve found a way to move it along without her. The other way we’d talked about. Did you get it?”

  “Yes, sir. What does it mean, though?”

  “She’ll know. You don’t need to. You just need to say it right. Now, say it back to me.”

  Timothy repeated the words almost perfectly, and what minor differences there might have been had no effect on the meaning. Cale Pepperday had him repeat it a third and fourth time before he told Timothy to get the message to her as quickly as possible, and to no one else. And to be sure to remember it came from Uncle Cale.

  “So are you uncle to Angeline and to Miss Julia both?”

  “Boy, first off, don’t ask questions that ain’t none of your business. It’ll keep you out of a lot of trouble. Second, I’m everybody’s uncle. I’m one of those nice gents everybody wants to be their friend and their kin.”

  “That’s good . . . Uncle Cale.”

  The man shook his head, still holding his smile. “Uh-uh, boy. Your uncle I ain’t. I’ve already been uncle to one half-wit. I don’t need another one coming along.”

  “Uncle Cale” turned his eyes forward and prepared to move the carriage out. In that moment Angeline looked at Timothy with eyes that reflected sadness, questioning, and most of all, fear. He tried to make his own eyes speak back, telling her that whatever was scaring her was going to turn out all right.

  He repeated several times to himself the message the man had paid him to deliver. He would get it done, either by speaking to her on the street if he saw her out taking one of her nearly daily walks, or at the big town celebration in the evening. He again repeated to himself what he’d been told to say, and decided to repeat it throughout the day until he finally got it delivered.

  He went back to his work with his mind continually turning back to little Angeline and the disturbing man she was with. Probably the man really was her uncle and it was perfectly fine she was with him . . . yet it didn’t feel right.

  As a couple of hours passed, Timothy’s anxiety only heightened, and he decided to go visit the Hangtree Bank and tell Mr. Caldwell he’d seen Angeline, so that Mr. Caldwell could assure him that all was well and she was supposed to be with that man, her uncle Cale. He was tired of worrying.

  Getting permission to leave early from the storekeeper Lockhart, Timothy made his way to the Hangtree Bank and slipped in. A cluster of people were gathered in a corner, backs to Timothy, speaking to someone their forms hid from him. Timothy was curious, but he was here to find Caldwell.

  Caldwell seemingly was not there. His office door was open but no one was present. Timothy asked Wilson, a teller, if he knew where Caldwell was, and got a shrug in reply. “He was here this morning,” Wilson, a gruff-voiced man, said. “Ain’t come back since he went home for lunch.” Wilson edged a little closer. “Know what I think? Got him that pretty wife at home, and . . .” Wilson made a circle with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand, and pushed his right-hand index finger up through it, grinning in a way Timothy didn’t like. “Know what I’m telling you, boy?”

  Timothy didn’t, but pretended he did. He pondered that bank teller Wilson gave him a bad feeling something like the one “Uncle Cale” in the carriage had roused.

  Timothy turned to go. Just then the little crowd in the corner broke up, and the person who had been holding their attention emerged from among them. It was Julia Canton.

  She noticed Timothy and smiled, coming his way. “Hello, my good friend! What a happy surprise to see you!” She patted his arm and leaned up to whisper. “Walk me out of here, would you? I’ve been surrounded by people in here and I need some fresh air.”

  Since her refusal to go to the upcoming dance with him, Timothy had viewed Julia in a cloud of negative uncertainty, particularly since he’d seen that picture of young Della Rose Skinner in Mr. Otto’s big book of photographs. Much of that cloud was instantly pierced through and dissipated. He welcomed the fact that she seemed to welcome him.

  She even tucked her arm around his and let him escort her out just as if he was . . . somebody. Timothy rarely felt like a somebody. Yet here he was, marching out of the bank in front of all Hangtree, his arm held by the prettiest and momentarily most-celebrated person in town.

  Walking tall and straight like his mother encouraged him to do, Timothy kept glancing at the bandage on Julia’s brow. “How’s your head feeling, Miss Julia?” he asked.

  “I’m healing up well, Timothy, thank you. The pain is mostly gone, though I still have a headache in the mornings when I sit up. Especially if I sit up too quickly, or bump my head on anything. Bumping my head is the worst of it now.”

  “I hope it don’t leave no scar, ma’am. ’Cause I always thought you had a pretty forehead.”

  She chuckled. “I’ve never been specifically complimented on my forehead before, Timothy. It’s quite nice. And I’m very hopeful there’ll be no scar, or at least not much of one.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “And what about you, Timothy? How are you doing?”

  The question brought back all his concerns in a rush. He slumped a little. “I’m worried, ma’am. About a little girl in town here. I was in the bank just now hoping to see her daddy, ’cause he works there. But he ain’t there this afternoon. Hey, why were all them people around you in there?”

  A wry expression crossed Julia’s face. “People are odd ducks, Timothy. They’re always looking for somebody to watch and hold up on their shoulders or stand on a pedestal, because those people are stronger or bigger or braver or prettier or whatever. Well, for some reason this town has decided to make me that person. Until the next one comes along.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Have you heard the story about how I stopped that man from robbing the church folk on a Sunday morning? Well, people thought about that story awhile and decided it meant I was the great heroine of Hangtree. Simple Georgia girl brings down the bad man with nothing but a church offering plate. That kind of thing.”

  “It was mighty brave of you, Miss Julia.”

  “I doubt ‘brave’ is exactly the right word. If something had gone wrong and he’d shot somebody that Sunday morning, people would be cursing my name instead of praising me and gathering around me in a bank lobby just so they can tell people they talked to me and ‘know’ me. There’s a thin line between heroism and foolishness, Tim. Very thin. It all comes down to the choices made and whether they turn out for good or bad.”

  “I think I know what you mean. Can I ask you another question?”

&
nbsp; “Certainly.”

  “How can you tell a good man from a bad one? Can you tell just from looking at him or talking to him?”

  “I don’t think so. People are good or bad based on what they do. And maybe what they think, and how they think. A plain or even ugly person or even one it is hard to like—or even a simple person—can be a good person. And someone can be handsome, or strong, or pretty and ladylike, and be a very bad person in the things they do and the things they think.” She stopped, thoughtful and frowning as much as her injured and bandaged brow would allow.

  “Is something wrong?”

  She squeezed Timothy’s arm with her own. “No. You just made me think about some things, that’s all.”

  “Can I ask you one more question?”

  “Go ahead. But remember, my answers may not be the best ones you can find. I’m just a lady, not Socrates.”

  “Who?”

  “Never mind. What’s the question?”

  “Do you have an uncle whose name is Cale?”

  She yanked her arm from his and got directly in front of him, gazing unblinking into his face and making him redden and seem to shrink in stature a few inches. “Why do you ask me that, Tim? Have you met this ‘Uncle Cale’?”

  Timothy often didn’t know the right thing to do, but this time he did. He made himself look at her probing, glaring eyes, and said, “Can we find a place to sit down in the shade somewhere? I want to tell you something.”

  She located a shaded alley beside a small carpentry shop, and sat down on an old thrown-out nail keg. Timothy remained afoot and paced back and forth as he talked.

  He told her about the Caldwell family, parents and child, and about his experience with the carriage, and Angeline’s pleading look, and the odd and unsettling man who had given him a message to deliver to Julia. And of his sense that Angeline was not really supposed to be with that man.

  “What was the message?” Julia asked.

  Timothy’s mind had been so busy the last little while that he panicked for a moment and forgot what he’d memorized and repeated to himself most of the day.

  But it returned quickly. “Uncle Cale says she—that means you, Miss Julia—need not be involved in the plan now. They’ve found a way to move it along without you. The other way they’d talked about. That was what he said to tell you. He said you’d know what it meant.”

  “I’m afraid I do. And he had this little girl with him as he said all this?”

  “Yes. Right there beside him. I don’t think she wanted to be there.”

  “Timothy, we have to go to that girl’s parents right now. Can you take me to where the Caldwells live?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  With the Caldwells both in tears and clinging to one another while Julia spoke softly but terrifyingly of the man who had taken their daughter, Timothy sat tensely in a corner of their parlor, eyes on a door he wished he could bolt out of and find an ordinary world beyond. He despised sadness and fear, having known plenty of both in his life, and it tormented him to see the Caldwells, good people, going through so much of both right now.

  “I wish I’d just grabbed her out of the carriage,” he murmured, looking down between his feet.

  “What?” Julia asked, pausing in her talk.

  “Nothing. Nothing. Just thinking.”

  “Oh God, what might he do with her?” asked Bridgette Caldwell, her voice choked and quaking.

  “If you cooperate, nothing, or so I hope,” Julia said. She’d already admitted to two humiliating things: to her actual blood relationship with Cale Pepperday, her late mother’s brother, and to her involvement in a conspiracy to rob a bank, particularly to doing some of the initial research to find a particularly vulnerable but richly deposited bank at a location far enough away from much anywhere to draw ready notice. She confessed to having helped develop the specifics of the robbery plan: stampeding a huge herd of cattle through a cow town in as damaging and dangerous a way as possible, thereby creating such an overwhelming distraction that whatever law enforcement there was would have little chance to notice, much less react to, a bank robbery. It sounded like a mad scheme, she admitted, but told the story of the partially similar incident farther east, and declared that it was the very wildness of the scheme that made it likely to work. No one would anticipate such a thing.

  What she didn’t reveal was anything related to the name Skinner. Nothing about the fact that she was herself Skinner’s offspring, or that the conspirators behind the scheme were, to a man, old members of the Black Ear gang. None of that was relevant to the only real concern at hand: getting back young Angeline safe and sound.

  “Beyond the things that are obvious from what he’s done, what can you tell us about this Pepperday fellow who has done this to us?” Arvil Caldwell asked. “Has he ever kidnapped or harmed a child before?”

  “No,” Julia was glad to reply. Her words became, from that point, true but deliberately vague. “My uncle Cale is a man who entered crime because of opportunity, not through an inherent criminal nature. He was placed in a situation of coming to know an active outlaw through the marriage of one of his relatives, and that outlaw tempted him to join his gang with promises of easy wealth, freedom, and fame with the kind of people who admire outlaws. He joined in, and it changed him, slowly, from a decent, normal man at the start to a criminal-minded man later on. Until he visited me this week to tell me about the death of my mother, I hadn’t seen him in years. What I’m telling you is, I don’t know what he might do, because I don’t know how far down the slope he’s progressed since I’ve really known him last.”

  “He might kill her, oh, dear, sweet Jesus, no!” Bridgette’s voice was growing higher and more tremulous. “Oh, merciful Jesus, protect our child!”

  Arvil put his arms around his wife more firmly, and they wept together. Timothy wanted to weep, too, and also to get away from all this overwhelming sorrow.

  Tears in her own eyes, Julia tried to sound as reassuring as she could. “He might . . . or he might not. But I can tell you this: I am fully confident that if you are cooperative, he will not hurt her, and will return her to you safely. But you must take him seriously when he warns you against turning to the law, or any other such entity, to protect her. I know too little about him as he is now, that’s true. But I know enough of some of the men around him to know that they would not hesitate to do dreadful harm to her, even to kill her. You must not, must not, speak to any officer of the law about this.”

  Arvil found the strength to look Julia in the eye. “Pardon me, ma’am, but why should we trust the word of someone who has just confessed to her involvement to the very conspiracy that had put our child, not to mention my employing bank and the town at large, into danger?”

  “I can . . . I can hardly find an answer to that. There is little evidence I can present in my own favor. Just know this: I might have enough greed and potential criminality in my soul to allow me to take money from a bank. I do not possess sufficient darkness of spirit to allow me to see a child hurt or killed simply to clear the path for me to gain good fortune. I didn’t have to come to you today to tell you any of this, but I did so, of my own choice. Take that into account as you pass judgment on me.”

  He stared at her darkly. “Account taken.”

  “Here is what tallies on the bottom line of the ledger for me: I was willing to help with the planning of the bank robbery using stampeding cattle as a cover. As soon as talk turned to a second, alternate plan, one involving the taking of a hostage related to someone at the bank in order to force that person’s cooperation, at that point I withdrew my cooperation. I would play whatever part I could in the first formulation of the plan, but in no way would I take part in anything that might lead to the murder of an innocent. I did not help plan that version of the scheme, but I heard it planned. That was what my uncle was telling me . . . that the second plan, the one I declined to take part in, was the one they were moving to.”

  “Just tell us what
we should do in order to save our girl,” pleaded Bridgette.

  “He told you, Mr. Caldwell, to be at the bank at seven tomorrow morning?”

  “He told me that through Bridgette. I’ve not spoken to him myself.”

  “All the same, follow his instruction. Exactly. Resist any temptation to notify authorities. Your daughter’s life may depend on it.”

  “He’ll want me to open the vault.”

  “He will. And you must do it. And give him access to any other items he may ask for.”

  “I will do just that. I don’t like being party to the robbery of a bank that has been good to me, a second home to me, really . . . but my daughter’s safety is all that matters. Whatever happens to me after that, so be it.”

  “That is precisely the attitude you must have, Mr. Caldwell. Bring Angeline home, first and foremost, then after that, and only after that, address any other issues that arise out of it all.”

  “Such as my loss of employment.”

  “That’s a likely result, yes. But again, it’s the safety of Angeline that matters.”

  Bridgette was watching Julia closely. “Are you certain you are not part of this conspiracy even now? I am sorry to ask you that, but it strikes me that all you’ve done is tell us to cooperate with these evil people, which it seems to me serves their purposes as much as ours.”

  “But your purpose, the life of your child, is of such high importance that all other concerns vanish.”

  “Yes. But I have to know something: are you going to gain from the proceeds of this robbery, if it happens?”

  “I would have done so, but not now. Not that a child has been put in danger as part of the scheme. I’m not a woman of the highest scruples in all areas of my life, but that I will not take part in, nor profit from.”

  “I suppose we simply have to trust you on that, as on everything else you’ve said.”

  “Yes. I suppose you must.”

  “I’ve got to go to the outhouse,” announced Timothy. “Real bad. Can I?”

  “Go on, Tim,” said Arvil. “You know where it is. But hurry out . . . thinking about this situation, I may have to go in there soon to vomit.”