by Murray Pura
“He told the murderer who you were and that Cody and Cheyenne were with you? What a despicable rattlesnake!”
“Go easy on him. He’s just a frightened little man.”
“Go easy on him!”
“You have that thunderstorm blue about you.”
“What?”
“You know that dark blue of thunderclouds when they’re coming at you full of wind and hail and fury? That’s the color of your eyes right now.”
“How can you tell what color my eyes are in here?”
“They glow.”
Charlotte smiled. “Oh, yes?” Then she had a look of concern. “You’re sure you didn’t get hurt?”
“Well, the outlaw meant to give me a going over. But the man in black took him down.”
“What’s the marshal’s name?”
“Austen. Michael James Austen.”
“Your brother telegraphed him?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“‘Yes, ma’am.’” She made a face that brought her freckles tight around her nose. She kissed him on the mouth and then pulled away. He put one hand gently behind her head and brought her lips back to his. He expected the moment to be brief. But she slipped her arms about him and held him close. They kissed a second time.
“I was worried,” she whispered.
“I know.”
“Were you ever afraid?”
“Only that he might get past me.”
“He’d never have gotten past you.”
She gave him one more kiss and then stepped back and smoothed her gray dress. “The children will be wondering where we are.”
Zeph felt light-headed. “After you.”
When they got back to the car, three cavalrymen were talking with passengers, and Cody and Cheyenne were glued to one of them. They all wore buffalo coats over their uniforms. The unconscious outlaw had already been carried out. Marshal Austen touched his hat brim at Charlotte’s entry and introduced himself and the officer standing with him. “This is First Lieutenant Robbie Hanson.”
“Ma’am,” said Hanson, giving a short tug on the brim of his cavalry Stetson. The number two stood out over the crossed sabers on his hat.
“Lieutenant. I see you’re with the Second Cavalry. One of the best.”
“Company K. The best I believe, Missus Wyoming. I hope I find you well after your ordeal?”
“Quite well, thank you. The greater part of my ordeal consisted of hiding under a musty saddle blanket and trying hard not to sneeze.”
The men laughed.
“Well, ma’am,” said the lieutenant, “I think I can safely say that your saddle blanket days are behind you. We have two of the gang in custody. The others are probably halfway to Mexico. We have already thanked your husband for relaying the information to us at Fort Laramie that permitted us to be at this location today to capture them. There was a score to settle.”
“You gentlemen have done an admirable job. I thank you with all my heart for protecting us from these savages. I especially thank you for delivering the children from their hands.”
“It was an honor, ma’am,” replied the lieutenant. “Very much so,” responded Marshal Austen. “Were any of your men hurt or wounded, Lieutenant Hanson?”
“Five, thank you for asking, ma’am. They will be all right.”
“I am glad to hear it. Well, Lieutenant, what happens now?”
“Now, ma’am,” said Lieutenant Hanson, “we will take our prisoners ahead to the depot at Maxwell where a special train that set out from Omaha yesterday will meet us. The train will take the prisoners and their guards to Cheyenne where they will be put on trial. Then there will be a public hanging.”
Charlotte’s face whitened. “A hanging? Both of them?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Charlotte recovered and patted him on the cheek. “I understand, Lieutenant Hanson. Thank you again for all you have done for us. I’ll let you carry on with your duties.”
“Thank you, ma’am. Will you be riding with us, Marshal Austen?”
Austen shook his head. “I’ll take this train and go ahead to Maxwell. I’ll meet you there when you arrive.”
Lieutenant Hanson saluted and turned to leave the car, tapping his two men on the back as he did so. Cody and Cheyenne walked with their trooper to the door. He shook Cody’s hand and gave Cheyenne a kiss on the cheek. Then, as he turned to go, he suddenly planted his Stetson on Cody’s bare head and, whipping off his yellow scarf, tied it around Cheyenne’s neck. Grinning, he climbed down from the car, swung up into the saddle, and galloped off with a wave of his hand and a shout.
Cody and Cheyenne came running back to Zeph and Charlotte.
“Look at this!” cried Cody. The Stetson had flopped down over his eyes.
“Very handsome,” said Charlotte, “but you will have to let me put some paper under the sweatband, so it will fit.”
“He gave me his scarf,” said Cheyenne. “How does it look?”
“Wonderful. On windy days you could use it to keep your hair in place as well.”
“No, it always needs to be around my neck.” Cheyenne’s face was set. “Just the way Trooper Johnny wore it.”
“Trooper Johnny, is it? Suit yourself.”
The whistle blew. People were tidying up their seats and putting away bedding. Charlotte began to do the same as the train lurched and started forward. Cavalrymen walked their horses on either side of the train. The two prisoners, unmasked, were escorted between them. Neither of the outlaws had boots. The breath of men and of horses hung like a white haze in the cold air.
Charlotte said to Zeph, “I can’t see either of the outlaws’ faces, only the backs of their heads. Did they catch Seraphim Raber?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did the others get away?”
“Yes.”
The train left the cavalrymen and their prisoners behind. Marshal Austen watched the morning sun run over the prairie for a few moments, and then he said to Zeph in a low voice, “Your brother told me you don’t go heeled.”
“That’s right.”
“What would you have done with that outlaw if I hadn’t been in the car?”
“I guess I would have tried to wrestle him to the ground if he got close enough.”
“What if he kept his distance and just kept putting bullets into you?”
“He wouldn’t have done that. He needed to know where the kids were at.”
“He only had a couple more cars to search. He would’ve found the baggage car and gone through that, too. He didn’t need you. If you’d told him where they were it would’ve made his job easier, that’s all.”
“I would never have told him.”
“That’s right. And once he’d put enough holes in you and realized that, he would’ve gone looking in the cars behind you and left you on the floor to bleed out.”
“It’s personal.”
Austen nodded. “Most of us have our war stories, Mister Parker. I wouldn’t touch a firearm going on five years after Appomattox. Worked cattle in Texas and then ran a dry goods store in Missouri. Had a friend elected town sheriff nearby who swore off killing after Lee surrendered. Never wore a sidearm or carried a rifle or shotgun, though his deputies did. This all works out fine long as you’ve got outlaws that respect the code. There’s many won’t draw on an unarmed man. But the day comes you’ve got a gang that will. Perk was healthy up until a Sunday the Murfreesboro Gang were out hunting men that had been Union officers. Shot him full of holes and left him lying in the street. He lived. Lost all but one arm. Perk’s not a lawman anymore. Can’t take care of himself or his own family, let alone the citizens of a town that would be counting on him.”
Charlotte stuffed paper inside the cavalry Stetson’s sweatband Cody wanted to wear. “And what became of the dry goods merchant Michael James Austen?”
Austen fixed his gaze on her. “Why, missus, the same gang rode back into the neighborhood a month later when someone told them I’d bee
n a Yankee colonel. They laughed when my wife pleaded that I didn’t have a gun. Strung me up by my feet and covered me in flour and molasses. Said I wasn’t but half a man, and they wouldn’t even waste half a bullet on me.”
Charlotte felt a sadness go through her. “At least they let you live.”
“Did they, Miss Spence? They snatched up my wife and two children when they left. The kids are hollering, and I’m hanging upside down, choking on the molasses they poured into my mouth—I couldn’t do a thing. Never saw them again. I hired Pinkerton’s to track them down. Pinkerton’s followed their trail as far as Arizona Territory. Then the gang vanished. I did some searching on my own. The story went that the gang had been wiped out by Mescalero Apache.”
Chapter 16
Charlotte did not know what to say. She wondered what Zeph would have done under similar circumstances. Neither of the children was listening. Cody had his hat on and was drawing cavalrymen on the pad of paper with strong, dark strokes, the man back to being a boy. Cheyenne was daydreaming and fingering the yellow scarf tied around her throat.
Austen coughed. “There’s something you don’t see every day.” Out the windows that looked south, a line of Indians on horseback were trotting single file. “A war party!” cried Cody.
Austen shook his head. “No war paint. A hunting party. They’re heading west. I expect they’re following a herd of buffalo.”
All the Indians were men, all were wrapped in buffalo robes or red point blankets, all had repeating rifles. A few wore eagle feathers in their hair. They did not look at the train. It was as if the railroad did not exist. There were about fifty of them. They stared straight ahead and their heads were erect.
“Lakota Sioux,” said Zeph.
Austen nodded. “Allies of the Cheyenne. Looks like Oglala, some of the Kiyuksa band. I recognize a few of them. They’re a ways south of the Black Hills.”
“What will happen when they run into the Second Cavalry?” asked Cody.
“They’ll ignore one another,” said Austen. “The Sioux haven’t been raiding, and Hanson has to get his prisoners to Wyoming.”
“At least the gold rush in the Black Hills is over,” said Zeph.
“For now.”
Austen tugged his pocket watch from his vest and consulted it. “We’ll be into Maxwell shortly. It’s only a half-hour run.” From another vest pocket he brought out his badge. He smiled at Zeph. “I guess I’ve played a gunslinger on his way to points east long enough. I like black, but I like silver, too.”
He stood up and pulled on his dark sheepskin coat. Then he clapped a hand to Zeph’s shoulder. “No man can tell another man what to do. I admire your sand, Parker. And I wish you all the best. I pray to God it will be a clear run for you into Omaha and Chicago. If there’s anything I can do, telegraph me at Cheyenne.”
He began to walk up the aisle as the train slowed and the brakes squealed. Charlotte reached out and touched his arm.
“And are you a praying man, Marshal Austen?” she asked earnestly.
“On occasion.”
“Then let’s pray your family is alive. Isn’t it possible the Mescalero have adopted your children and are raising them? And that your wife is with them in some Apache camp?”
He nodded. “It’s possible.”
He continued walking. When he reached his seat, he bent down and picked up his black carpetbag. The pretty young woman who’d sat across from him rose to say something with a most engaging smile. But he touched his hat brim and said, “I am a family man, miss,” and carried on to the door. He stood there as the train came to a stop. Then he looked down the length of the car to Henry Chase. “Mister Chase.”
The man looked up in surprise and a bit of fear. “Yes, sir?” “You’d best be coming with me.” “But, sir—”
“Aiding an outlaw gang, Mister Chase. You and I need to talk.”
“I need to get to—”
“Come along, Mister Chase.”
He pulled aside his sheepskin coat just enough for Chase and everyone else to see the silver badge he’d pinned to his vest. Chase looked around him for support, but there was none. Reluctantly he got to his feet and walked in his stained suit and vest to the front of the car. Austen stepped to one side. “After you.”
Chase climbed down the steps and Austen followed him. Then they walked back toward the baggage car. No one boarded the train. After a minute or two, the whistle shrieked and the US Grant began to pull out of the small town.
Zeph watched Marshal Austen—lean, tall, in black—standing beside Henry Chase—portly, short, in white—on the station platform with three gold carpetbags at Chase’s feet. Then the train left them behind, and there was only a row of large bare-branched cottonwoods rolling past the windows.
“I feel alone,” Charlotte said.
Zeph nodded. “I know. I trusted that man.”
“It’s chillier in here than it was yesterday.”
“Mercury’s dropped, I expect. Maybe put your sheepskin coat on. Here.” Zeph brought a white blanket with colored stripes out from under his feet. “One of these’ll help, too.”
“Why, it looks new.”
“I believe Marshal Austen left it for us.”
“Marshal Austen?”
“Who else would have done it?”
“But we were both here—”
“He did it while we were in the baggage car, I expect. He left this also.” Zeph held the silver pocket watch in his hand. “And this.” A package of Black Jack chewing gum.
Tears sprang to Charlotte’s eyes, and she took a handkerchief out of a pocket in her coat. “Of course a gunslinger in black would chew that kind of gum.”
“Could I have some?” Cody has his eye on the package.
Charlotte reached over, still sniffing, and plucked the Black Jack from Zeph’s lap. “If the blanket was meant for me, and the watch was meant for your father, then I’m sure the chewing gum was meant for our two troopers from the Second Cavalry.”
Zeph was examining the watch. “Don’t know why he did that. It’s a Waltham and it’s engraved under the lid.”
“To you?” Charlotte was surprised. “He didn’t even know you before today.”
He went silent as he read the entire inscription on the watch lid. Then he blinked several times and snapped the lid shut.
“Well, what does it say?” asked Charlotte impatiently.
He handed her the watch. She looked at him a moment and then opened it up. The etching on the underside of the lid was very fine. She turned the pocket watch toward the sunlight.
FOR CAPTAIN ZEPHANIAH TRUETT PARKER. WHO FOUGHT SLAVERY. AND WHO STILL FIGHTS FOR OUR FREEDOM. THE OPPRESSOR SHALL FEAR THEE AS LONG AS THE SUN AND MOON ENDURE. COLONEL MICHAEL JAMES AUSTEN. Psalm 72:3–5.
Charlotte looked up. Zeph was rubbing his eyes in a peculiar way.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing. I’m just tired. I kind of had a rude awakening.” He smiled.
“But this inscription is beautiful. Don’t you think it’s beautiful?” “Sure.”
“And he hardly knows you. But he’s right, isn’t he?”
Zeph did not answer. He leaned his head back and watched the prairie slip past. “They’ve got more snow here,” he finally commented.
“Where’s your brother’s Bible?”
Zeph tugged the small Bible out of the pocket of the baggy coat she’d made him wear since Ogden. She took it from him and flipped pages. Then she read the passage inscribed on the watch: “The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the hills, by righteousness. He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor. They shall fear thee as long as the sun and moon endure, throughout all generations.”
“My goodness,” she said when she had finished, “He is paying you quite a compliment.”
“For all his gunslinger looks, he is a kind man.”
“And to say these things abo
ut someone he’d never met when he had the watch engraved.”
“He was one of my commanding officers.”
“Pardon me?”
“Look, I didn’t want to bring it up. I had him pegged for a gunslinger at first. Then there was the holdup and all the excitement. I only figured out who he was a few minutes before he got up to leave. He had a beard back then—it was twelve years ago. I just wasn’t sure.” “Obviously he was sure.”
“Matt’s doing, I expect. He sent the telegram asking Austen to help me. Likely mentioned I’d served in the war and wouldn’t carry a gun now. The mention of the war would have jarred his memory, and then he would have made the connection with my name.”
Charlotte’s eyebrow arched. “Why? He must have known scads of soldiers.”
Zeph was slow to answer. “Because of what happened. There was an incident he wouldn’t have forgotten.”
“What incident?”
“I don’t want to talk about this, Charlotte.”
She stared into his eyes. “Z. What incident? Tell me. Please.”
“A night in Virginia. There’d been a clash. My boys had managed to free a dozen men, no, fourteen—it was fourteen men they freed from a Rebel company. They were freemen, African men, but they’d been captured when Lee invaded Pennsylvania, and the Rebs were taking them back to be slaves. There was a lot of that even though Lee forbade it and never kept slaves himself. We’d caught them out in the open, in a meadow; it was raining so hard the field was flooded. We could see the kind of men they had as prisoners, they weren’t even soldiers. It was wrong.
“This was just after Gettysburg, and Lee was retreating. I guess he never stopped retreating from Gettysburg to Appomattox, and my boys were fed up with the whole Army of Northern Virginia and that attitude the Confederacy had about Africans and slavery. They went at the Rebs hand to hand—they wanted to make sure they didn’t kill any of the freemen by mistake. It was after the fight I stood in front of Austen’s tent in the rain with the Africans until he could see me. He had no idea yet of what had happened, but I brought two of the men with me into the tent once the orderly called my name. The orderly tried to stop me from bringing the Africans in. I just brushed him aside.”
