The Reckoning

by Mike Torreano

  Kelly released his hold on her horses’ reins and drew his pistol. “I may do just that, so shut up and do what I say.” He motioned with his sidearm. “See that small side road, there? Sit down and take it.” On the opposite side of the main road lay a dim path leading up into the hills.

  “You mean drive the wagon up that? It’s nothing but an old game trail.”

  “That’s the one I mean, missy. Get goin’.” Kelly waved his gun again in that direction.

  “No, I won’t.”

  Kelly cocked his pistol and brought it up just under Sue’s chin. “Does that change your mind?”

  “You’re nothin’ but a bully and a coward, Dan Kelly, but I’m sure I’m not the first person who’s told you that.”

  “How’d you know my name?” He squinted hard at her.

  “Margaret Pinshaw told me all about you, you murderer. How you browbeat everybody around here. But you don’t scare me!”

  Kelly dropped his right hand down to his holster. “You oughta be scared. Now quit stallin’ and start on up that rise.” He trotted behind as she started the wagon up a faint path into lightly wooded hills that gave way to mountains in the distance. When she’d bounced over rocks and ruts for almost two miles, Kelly yelled at her to stop.

  “This is far enough.”

  Sue brought the team to a halt and stared at Kelly.

  “Get down.”

  She took her time stepping off the wagon, facing Kelly the whole time as he dismounted too. They were in a narrow clearing ringed with aspen whose round green leaves quivered in the light wind. A small stream gurgled along the lower edge of the meadow. Kelly motioned for her to move away from the wagon. Her insides were filled with defiance, but she pretended to be scared.

  “Oh, please don’t hurt me, Mr. Kelly. I don’t know why you’d want to get me out here. I haven’t ever even spoken to you or done nothing to you.”

  “Don’t matter none that you know who I am. As far as you’re concerned, I’m the last person you’re ever gonna talk to.”

  “Everybody knows who you are. And what you are.”

  “Then you know I have to kill you, and you know why.”

  Sue needed to buy time. “No sir, I don’t know why you’re doing this.”

  “Does the name George Pinshaw mean anything?”

  “Margaret’s husband?” Now Sue was really confused. “What’s he got to do with this?”

  “He told you about us, me and the major, didn’t he?”

  Sue turned the question back on him. “What about you and the major?” She was going to pull out a confession if she could. It’s what Ike would have done.

  “Pretendin’ you don’t know nothin’ about what we done in Kansas ain’t gonna save your hide.”

  Sue’s demeanor suddenly changed. She thrust her chin out and stared up at the man who was almost a foot taller than her. She dropped all pretense of timidity and stomped both feet into the earth. “I’ll tell you what I think. I think you’re a murdering son of a bitch, and that you and Tompkins killed my pa back in Lawrence. And you’re going to rot in Hell.” She spit on the ground. “That’s what I think!”

  That stopped Kelly short. A red flush spread around the outline of his beard. “So Pinshaw did spill the beans about us.”

  “No, he didn’t, but you just did.” Despite her desperate situation, a small smile crept across Sue’s face. “Even before we came out here, we suspected you and Manning were sorry Quantrill killers, but you just confirmed it for me, Kelly. Manning can change his name to Tompkins, but he can’t change his stripes, or what he did in Lawrence. You were with him there and did your share of killin’ too, didn’t you?”

  A sneer crossed Kelly’s face. The red flush grew brighter.

  “You are so stupid, Kelly, everyone in town knows how dumb you are. They laugh at you behind your back, and you don’t even know it, you half-wit. Murder sears a man’s soul, and yours is going to burn forever.”

  Kelly erupted with a bloodcurdling yell and charged Sue. At the last minute, she sidestepped his rush. In one quick motion, she reached around to the back of her skirt for her Remington derringer and fired a single shot at Kelly as he lumbered past. The small bullet dug a shallow furrow along his cheek, which drew a sharp howl from him. He turned and rushed her again, but this time, her derringer misfired. Kelly plowed into her midsection and drove her to the ground. All the breath rushed from her body. He raised up off her somewhat but still kept her pinned down.

  “You ain’t so smart now, are you?” He slapped her across the face and smiled down at her as her cheek reddened and she squirmed under him. “Just want you to know, before you die, I do remember your folks, the way your father ran away like a frightened little girl while we held your mother. I shot the coward in the back and twisted your mother’s neck. I heard it snap.” His eyes gleamed as he spoke.

  Her father had taught her many things growing up, and one of them was the importance of family. Nothing Kelly said rang true. Kelly was making it up. Especially about her mother. She wanted to roll up into a ball to catch her breath, but she clenched her fists instead and hit Kelly about the face and shoulders. She’d unleash all her fury on this coward. He’d remember her, even if he didn’t remember her folks.

  Kelly fended off her blows, laughing as he got up, and pulled Sue up with him. “Get on over near them willow shrubs by the creek. That way, I won’t have to drag your body there after.” The edges of his mouth turned up in an evil smile. He motioned toward the stream with his revolver.

  Sue walked toward the water, searching her surroundings for an escape route. She thought about running away but discarded the notion. Can’t outrun a bullet. Well short of the stream, she stopped and turned back toward Kelly. “I won’t give you the satisfaction of shooting me in the back, you coward. You’ll have to kill me looking me right in the eye.” She stood as tall as she could. “I ain’t goin’ no further. You’re gonna have to shoot me right here. Damn your soul to Hell!”

  Kelly smiled and raised a coat sleeve to his cheek, which only smeared blood from his wound further over his bearded, dirty face. “You got spirit, I’ll give you that, but you should have killed me with that first shot, ’cause you ain’t never gonna get the chance again.” As he brought his six shooter up, Sue rushed him and kicked toward his groin. Her boot missed the mark but jarred him enough that he shot her in the side, instead of the chest. She went down in a heap, groaning, and as Kelly raised his gun for a killing shot, Kelly suddenly went down too.

  ****

  When he woke up, Kelly took a while to get his bearings. Daylight was fading, the sun reduced to a faint orange glow behind the mountaintops to the west. He lay sprawled on his back in the meadow, with a bad headache. He reached up with one hand to his forehead and shook his head slightly left and right. Searing pain made him stop. Rolling over on his stomach, he tried to stand but had to go back down to one knee. With some effort, he pushed himself upright. His eyes watered, and he bent down again, gathering himself for a moment. His head throbbed with every heartbeat.

  He looked around for his horse. Gone. His hand went to an empty holster. No knife either, as he felt by his side. Boots and socks gone. His heavy winter coat was missing, and the cold air that night brings to the high country was descending over the land. The first of the evening stars twinkled in the darkening sky overhead as he searched his surroundings further. He was alone with no idea how that happened. He put a hand to his pounding head again and felt a large bump on the back of it. His hand came away from his matted hair with thick dark blood. He ran a hand up to his cheek and flinched. The wagon was there, and there was blood on the ground. Nobody could survive a side shot like that out here. She must be dead. But where’s the body?

  He started a long, stumbling walk back to Emerald Valley, which gave him time to make up a story for how he came to look as bad as he did. He settled on a fight at the Wildfire.

  Chapter Five

  On the trail, western Kansas<
br />
  The following month brought another letter from Rob, but none from Sue, the first time Ike hadn’t gotten one from her since she’d been in Colorado. Rob’s letter said he’d heard more talk from the Emerald Valley hands about killing Indians on their way out to Cottonwood, and they bragged about their time as Confederate Army irregulars. He signed off with, These might be the ones we’re lookin’ for, Ike.

  Ike put this latest letter with the others he’d gotten from them and rubbed his forehead hard. Sue would have written if she were able. That night he packed up his few belongings and closed up the meager farmhouse and barn. In the morning, he walked out behind the house to the slight rise where his parents were buried. As he neared the single gray headstone, he removed his stained cowboy hat and placed it gently against his chest. He gazed around at the farm and the surrounding hills, and it struck him that there wasn’t anything left for him here. He smoothed his full brown beard with a calloused hand as he stood at the gravesite, still not able to look at their marker for long. He was responsible for Rob and Sue and damned if that didn’t weigh heavy on him. His need to protect his brother and sister warred inside him with the need to find the killers, and he’d never rest easy until he’d handled both.

  He took one long last look at the marker and wiped at his face. He mounted up, looked around at the only home he’d ever known, the place where his mother and father had worked their hearts out, and pointed Ally west.

  It was hard to imagine ever coming back.

  ****

  Ike had been on the trail for nearly a week when he stopped and set up a makeshift campground one night in western Kansas. As he leaned down to spread his blanket on the hard ground, he heard a rattle off to his right. He turned his head toward the sound. No mistaking what it was. He must have bedded down too near the rocks. In the dim light, the snake’s outline was just visible as it lay there coiled, head raised slightly atop a curved body, rattles straight up and shaking. Ike thought about reaching his left hand down for the well-used Colt .44 on his hip, but both hands were still full of Army blanket. In a blur, he hurled the heavy wool spread at the snake, which struck at it as the blanket descended. Ike sprang at the center of the cover as the reptile twisted wildly underneath. He pinned the snake down with his hands, not sure which end he’d captured.

  Carefully running his hand along the wiggling outline, he finally felt a triangle shape and jammed it to the ground. Lifting the rest of the blanket off the snake with the other hand, Ike stood, grabbed the rattle end, and snap-thrust the reptile into the darkening air. The snake thudded heavily in the rocks nearby, then made its escape over telltale crackly fall leaves. Ike wiped at his brow, his heart pounding. He turned to check on Ally, but she was still there, tied off on a low shrub at the edge of the camp, neighing and kicking her front legs. He went over and laid a hand on her neck and patted her until she calmed down. He moved his bedroll further away from the rocks and started a fire.

  Camp was at the bottom of a slight rise in western Kansas. Low limestone formations shared the ground with stunted cedars. Scant grasses and rocky soil made for an uneven bed, but Ike had lain on worse.

  A small flame barely warmed a mean dinner of lukewarm coffee and a couple of stale biscuits. Afterward, Ike lay down on the blanket that had just served him so well and put a hand to his head, hoping to push his headache further away. Imaginary sounds of battle played a cruel dance in his head as he thought about how his parents died. A headline from the Lawrence Daily Times tortured him.

  “Raid on Lawrence by Quantrill! The City Burned! 100 to 160 Persons Shot!”

  It was a headline his folks never saw. He turned on his side in the starry dark, but neither the meager fire nor his skimpy blanket could ward off the evening chill. He pulled the collar of his long coat further up and rested his head on a hard saddlebag. The long riding wasn’t helping his leg heal, but tomorrow would bring him a day closer to Cottonwood.

  “Among those killed—Jonah McAlister, proprietor of The Lawrence Republican. Newspaper office burned to the ground.” The headlines haunted him, especially at night, when he couldn’t distract himself with anything.

  Morning came too early as the cold hard ground stole Ike’s sleep. He rose in the faint light of dawn, limped over to Ally, and untied her so she could scavenge the sparse grass nearby. After a paltry cold breakfast of beef jerky, he sat on a solitary granite rock wondering why he hadn’t heard from Sue. It wasn’t like her. She was the most stubborn but most conscientious of them all. She wouldn’t have missed writing unless…

  He got up to give Ally a small drink from his canteen. Ike held the nearly-empty container up and peered into it, heard the hollow sound as he swished it for a moment, then popped the cork back on and slung it on his saddle. He’d just have to find water on the trail today. A picture of his boyhood home going up in flames flew through his head as he scattered the cold embers of the campfire.

  He stooped to retrieve his blanket and snapped it a couple of times in the crisp air to dislodge a thin veneer of frost, then rolled it up and tied it on behind his saddle. Swinging his bad leg over Ally’s back, Ike reined her back along the bottom of the slight scrub-oak-covered rise he’d camped on, and horse and rider soon eased into a jog west. Hard riding had brought him to the Kansas border. Ike slowed Ally to a trot as the waning grasslands grew more uneven and gave way to the gullies and gulches of eastern Colorado. In the distance, the large shoulders of a massive summit glimmered with a rosy early morning glow as the sun climbed the eastern horizon. Had to be Pikes Peak. There weren’t any mountains a tenth that size in Kansas. Denver was somewhere ahead and off to his right, from what the sheriff said. North of Pikes Peak at the bottom of the next big set of mountaintops. Not a very precise description, but it was all he had to go on. He didn’t know where Cottonwood was, but he’d find the way there and see about Sue once he got to Denver.

  As he crossed into the Territory of Colorado, he carried a sense of unease with him. He was leaving lots of bushwhackers behind in Kansas, but there were plenty more ahead in Colorado. Seemed like he was just trading the old for the new. But the renegades would have to take a back seat to finding Sue. The war was over, but as he rode west, a different battle stirred inside him.

  Chapter Six

  Cottonwood, Colorado

  A shot rang out in the gathering dusk, and a bullet whizzed by Ike’s ear. He tumbled off his horse and hit the hard ground with his backside first, then the back of his head. As he sat on the cold earth, he tried to regain his senses. An imaginary boom of artillery echoed in his ears. His right leg screamed at him, but otherwise he wasn’t hurt.

  “Oh, you ain’t shot, so don’t start whinin’ about it. Just scared your horse is all,” came a female voice with an edge to it from somewhere up ahead. “But you will get shot if you reach any further for that pistol.”

  Ike eased his hand back from his holster and pushed himself up to a sitting position. His head protested. The long-ago whistle of minie balls rose in his head, then grew faint.

  The voice said, “What’re you doin’ out here on this trail all by yourself this late, cowboy? Nobody but a fool would be ridin’ out here in the dark like that.” Her voice came from everywhere, and nowhere—he couldn’t pin it down exactly, and he couldn’t make anything out clearly except the early stars overhead. The rising moon didn’t help much either. Moonlight had its own way of hiding people who weren’t moving.

  He ran a calloused hand through his long brown hair. “Just ridin’ into Cottonwood, ma’am. Didn’t know that was a shootin’ offense.” An edgy fear roiled in Ike’s stomach. He didn’t know where the shooter was or what her intentions were.

  “Well, it is when you sneak up on me in the dark and scare away the quail I had in my sights for tomorrow’s stew. Now, I won’t get another shot at ’em again ’til who knows when, which means I’ll probably have to go buy some bad beef from that devil Tompkins.”

  That was more than he wanted to know. He rub
bed his leg lightly, and the pain eased.

  “You go on now, ride out of here, and don’t go scarin’ poor little ladies at night no more.” She still hadn’t revealed herself.

  Ike brushed his backside off and limped warily to where Ally stood, grazing just off the trail. She was a war horse, and gunfire didn’t scare her. He laid a hand on Ally’s neck and said in a loud voice, “Now, I’m gonna get back up on my horse and ride into town. Don’t shoot at me no more. Please.” Silence greeted his statement. Whoever it was likely was already gone, stealing away in the darkening light. Coyotes howled in the distance as he labored to mount up.

  Ike slowed as the dirt trail he was on joined the larger main street of the small mountain town. Cottonwood lay in a high valley surrounded by late fall snowcapped peaks. A full moon shone off the mountaintops and lent a soft light to the settlement. An evening chill lay on the land as Ike rode Ally down a nearly-empty dirt street. The gambling house to his left was going full bore. Light from the saloon faintly lit a sign above the swinging front doors, but he couldn’t make the name out. The stable smelled like it was dead ahead. Ike rounded a corner and saw a dilapidated structure that looked like a barn. As he drew near, he could just make out the word Stable on a small piece of wood nailed over a doublewide open door. It had been a long ride from Kansas.

  A small blacksmith’s bench sat in shadowy disrepair off to one side. Ike hitched Ally to the weathered wooden rail, smacked his wide-brimmed hat against dirty pants several times, and limped into the squat, unpainted wooden building. Empty. He led the mare inside, found some feed in an old tin bucket, and let Ally eat her fill. Water in a half-filled pail had the slight slime of age on the surface, but it would have to do. The horse didn’t seem to mind.

  An emaciated cat stared up at Ike as he looked for a spot to bed down. Shafts of moonlight revealed that the cat was lying on a dirty pile of straw just inside the stable entrance. Its calico fur only occasionally managed to peek through the dirt that covered it. Life on the farm had taught him that calicos were nearly always female. Her front paws were licked clean up to her chest, though. The cat didn’t move while Ike surveyed his shabby surroundings. She didn’t look like she had the energy to do much of anything as her ribs showed with each breath.