Hard Texas Trail

by Matt Chisholm

  ‘They want to kill me. They want me dead.’

  Blessed started toward her, saying: ‘Poor child, I’ll take care of you. I know what’s best for you.’

  The girl scrambled away behind Clay. She put her arms around him and clung to him. He could feel her shaking.

  Blessed said: ‘All right, sir. I’ll take my wife.’

  ‘No,’ Sarah screamed.

  Blessed advanced. Hurley reached inside his coat and produced a large Colt revolver.

  There came the sound of a rifle being jacked.

  George sang out: ‘Hold it right there.’

  Blessed and Hurley stopped in their tracks.

  Clay released himself from the girl’s embrace and said: ‘Drop the gun.’

  There was a bewildered and unbelieving look on Hurley’s face as he hesitated for a moment and dropped the gun to the ground. Pepe Mora jumped forward and whisked the weapon up. He got around behind Hurley and held it pointed at him, thumb on hammer.

  Clay said: ‘I don’t know if you’re her husband or not, Blessed. It don’t matter much. She don’t want to come with you. Walk back to your horses and ride. Was I you I’d keep on a-goin’. You come near this crew again, it ain’t goin’ to be overly healthy for you.’

  Blessed didn’t seem abashed. It was almost as if he had expected that this would happen or even as if it had happened before and he was used to it.

  ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘You gentlemen have the advantage of us. I know when I’m beaten. We’ll take ourselves off. All I can say is that I hope you’re aware that when a man comes between a husband and wife, the consequences are usually of a set pattern. In other words, sir, you must realize that if I were to shoot you dead, the law would take a very lenient view of my action.’

  Clay said: ‘An’ you git this into your head. There ain’t law a-tall in Texas right now. An’ if I blow your fool head off the law ain’t even goin’ to know about it.’

  The bearded man gave him a curious look in which there was a touch of doubt, turned on his heels and walked away into the darkness. The tall man followed behind. Those in camp stayed still, listening to the sound of the fading footsteps.

  Then Clay said: ‘Pepe, kill that fire.’

  The Mexican at once kicked dirt on the fire. They were left in sudden blackness. For a moment they were all blind. Clay felt the girl reach for him and he put an arm around her.

  ‘Oh, Clay,’ she said and he knew that she was weeping. She said something in so low a voice that he couldn’t hear.

  He bent down and said: ‘What was that?’

  She said: ‘He’ll kill you.’

  He smiled in the darkness.

  ‘I had the same idea,’ he told her.

  Within minutes, they had gathered the horses and the gear and were moving off south. Their eyes were more accustomed to the dark now. They moved about a mile before they halted. Now Clay told Pepe Mora to ride into town and find the boys there to tell them where they could find the new camp. They were to come back soon and they were to come back sober. Maybe he was making a lot of fuss over two men and one of them presumably without a gun, but he had no idea if there were only two men. There could have been a dozen out there on the trail. He put George on guard, then found the girl. She had spread her paulin under a tree. When he knelt down by her, she raised herself on one elbow.

  ‘You want to talk? ‘ he asked.

  ‘I’m beyond talk,’ she said.

  ‘You meant that, about them wanting to kill you?’

  She nodded.

  ‘It’s true,’ she said.

  ‘Why should they want to do that?’

  He wanted to believe her, but he knew that she could be lying. He knew that she had made a profound impression on him, he knew that he could be blinded in her favor.

  ‘Clay,’ she said, ‘either you believe me or you don’t. If I tell you more, it won’t make it any more the truth.’

  That was right enough, of course. He couldn’t deny it.

  ‘Just one more thing,’ he said. ‘Is Blessed your husband?’

  She put her hand on his.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  And still he didn’t know if she were telling the truth.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Get some sleep.’

  She clung to his hand.

  ‘Clay,’ she said. ‘You don’t believe me. You think I’m lying, don’t you?’

  ‘It don’t matter right now what I think,’ he told her. ‘It’s what I know that matters. I seen Blessed back there. I know a killer when I see one.’

  She laughed shakily.

  ‘Thank God you believe that much,’ she whispered, ‘because he’s out to kill you as well as me now.’

  He released his hand and she lay back. He stood up and said: ‘He ain’t goin’ to kill you, girl. Rest easy.’

  He walked away, sensing that he might have promised something beyond his power. A man with a rifle could kill a rider on the trail as easy as picking daisies on a spring morning. Even tomorrow as they rode on south, a good rifleman could pick the pair of them off and there was nothing that could be done about it. Or he could wait. He could wait until they were home even. A man, or a woman, could die in bed, coming from the house to the pump in the early light of dawn. There wasn’t any time that a bushwhacker couldn’t cut down on a victim.

  He sat down on his blanket and thought. He was going to have to think this through tonight. Come daylight, his plans must be complete and foolproof.

  He thought about Blessed. His reaction to the man had been one of revulsion, as though his senses informed him of the man’s evil. But it was possible that he was wrong. Everything the girl could have said could be lies. Blessed could be in the right. He might sincerely feel himself a man wronged. Clay may have come between a husband and his wife. No matter, he thought, Sarah didn’t want to go back with the man. She was a free agent in his book and could go where she wanted. But just the same ...

  An hour or so later, the boys rode in. Pepe had told them the whole story. Jody was still a little lively with drink and he wanted to saddle up at dawn and go hunting for these sonsabitches who threatened women. He took a lot of calming down and went grumbling and cursing to his bed.

  Clay turned in, troubled, not knowing what to think, but wanting more than anything to believe in the girl. He thought back over everything he knew about her, but he couldn’t fathom her story. He lay awake a long time.

  Blessed and Hurley didn’t enjoy their hike back to the horses. They didn’t speak. They found Oaks and Witney and stepped into the saddle.

  ‘You don’t have the girl,’ Oaks said woodenly.

  ‘Your observation does you credit,’ Hurley said coldly.

  ‘Where do we go now?’ Oaks demanded, unoffended.

  ‘We go back a mile and camp,’ Hurley said. They reined their horses around and trotted back down the trail.

  When they had made camp miserably in the darkness, because Blessed thought it unwise to light a fire, Hurley took the bearded man aside and said: ‘Another mess. What in hell do we do now?’

  ‘We wait.’

  ‘Good God, haven’t I waited long enough.’

  ‘It’s not going to be easy now, Lin. I admit that I made a mistake there. I thought we could sweet-talk those cowboys into giving us the girl. We should have used the final resort there and then. We shall take that step next.’

  Hurley said: ‘But what chance do we stand with all those damned Texans around her?’

  ‘Our chance will come. My guess is that they’re going home. We’ll do it then, when they least expect it. A week, a month from now. As the days pass, they will feel safer.’

  ‘But we don’t have the time. Our money’s running out. It’s getting risky. Too many people know us. Our faces are now identifiable. Don’t forget we have to prove her dead. That is essential to our plan.’

  ‘One problem at a time. Sure, we’re known here. But here isn’t in Baltimore. I have thought it through to its
conclusion. The girl will die and her murderer will be caught in the act.’

  Hurley’s voice trembled.

  ‘How can you do it? They’ll trace it to me.’

  ‘Not if you’re in Baltimore.’

  Hurley sighed.

  ‘You mean you’d agree to complete the job here on your own?’

  Blessed leaned forward eagerly.

  ‘I’d agree to anything that would see this through to a satisfactory conclusion. I have a lot at stake in this, Lin.’

  ‘So what do we do next?’

  ‘I’ve kept my ears open. Our destination is Oaks’ hole card, but he has told me more in his talk with Witney than he imagines. For instance, I’m sure we’re going past San Antone. How much further can you get before you reach the sea? So the Storm place must be somewhere in the south-western triangle. Maybe near Corpus Christi, most likely someplace along the Nueces River. So there’s Corpus Christi or maybe even Galveston you can get on a ship for the east coast. That gives us plenty of time to lull the Storms into believing they’re safe. And the girl.’

  ‘Maybe she’ll part company with the Storms.’

  ‘I doubt it. That young Storm’s stuck on her.’

  ‘We don’t have any money, Lin. We have to have money.’

  ‘We’ll get it. I give you time to reach Baltimore, then I finish it all. I prove the girl’s identity. I prove her death. Then it’s all yours, Lin.’ He chuckled. ‘That’s not quite correct, of course. You don’t ever forget that half is mine.’

  Hurley said coldly: ‘I shan’t forget that, Lewis.’

  Blessed said: ‘Don’t you ever do that.’

  He rose and went away into the darkness to his bed.

  Hurley was left with his thoughts. Maybe one day he’d get Blessed off his back. Let him finish this and return to Baltimore, then he would see. There could be an accident. When the money was his he could buy any service he wanted. Even the death of a man.

  He pulled the blanket over him and longed for the time when he could be back in the comforts of civilization. Not long now.

  Chapter Twelve

  Lincoln Hurley was counting his chickens. Without his being aware of it, fate started to deal a few cards from the bottom of the pack.

  They reached San Antonio and booked a room between them at a hotel and found lodgings of a sort for Witney and Oaks. They reckoned that they had enough money to last them a week. Blessed didn’t seem disturbed. They enjoyed the comfort of the hotel for a couple of days and then during the evening he advised Hurley to enjoy an hour or two drinking in the bar. Hurley looked at him sharply.

  ‘What do you intend to do?’ he demanded.

  ‘The less you know, the better,’ Blessed told him with a confident smile. ‘I’m going to replenish our dwindled fortune.’

  Anxiously, Hurley said: ‘Take care, Lewis.’ He knew that he couldn’t survive without his partner. True it was he who always gave the final orders, but it was Blessed who had the daring and the driving power.

  Blessed merely laughed and walked out of the room.

  Hurley repaired to the bar, got into conversation with some Texans and was, within the hour, enjoyably drunk. Getting drunk was a relief for he found that the tension in him was rising. This affair over the girl was dragging on endlessly. It should have ended last summer in her death. Now she was still alive and appeared to have the unopposable protection of a bunch of gun-toting Texas cattlemen. He was laughing and talking easily with his new-found friends when Blessed walked into the bar and slapped him on the back. He suggested that he was tired and that it was time he turned in. Hurley was enjoying himself and resisted, but Blessed was insistent. Finally, the message got through to Hurley’s befuddled brains and he followed the bearded man to their room.

  Hurley stood swaying and watching him. Blessed reached into his pocket and drew out something which he tossed with a grin on the bed. Hurley picked it up and saw that it was a thick roll of money.

  He turned to Blessed and asked simply: ‘How?’

  Blessed laughed.

  ‘One good tap with the barrel of my Colt’s gun.’

  This information sobered Hurley somewhat.

  ‘You took a hell of a risk,’ he said.

  ‘There’s nearly three hundred dollars there,’ Blessed said. ‘Wasn’t that worth some risk?’

  They retired to bed. They rose the following morning and went down to breakfast. Hurley suffered from a hangover and ate little. Blessed stuffed himself heartily and suggested a stroll to clear Hurley’s head. Hurley agreed. In that moment, fate played her first card. They walked out into the sunshine and stood for a moment surveying San Antonio’s traffic. Blessed suggested they turn right. Hurley, for some reason unknown to him, insisted on going left. They turned left and fate played her second card.

  They hadn’t covered a dozen yards when a man walking toward them stopped in his tracks, pointed a quivering finger at Blessed and shouted; ‘That’s him.’

  Fate had played her final card.

  Blessed recognized the man. It was the man from whom he had taken the money the night before. If his reaction had been a little less quick and if he had kept his head, he might have talked himself out of it. But his reaction was fast and before he even knew what he was doing, his right hand had whisked back the skirt of his coat and his gun was in his hand. The other man, with no less speed, had also drawn a gun. It seemed that both of them fired in the first moment.

  A woman screamed.

  Men turned to run from the line of fire. A buggy swerved from its course. Blessed was aware that Hurley had shouted out and had fallen in a heap to the ground. His adversary was still on his feet and firing. Several bullets had winged past Blessed coming too close for his comfort, when he triggered off a deliberate shot and saw the man jack-knife. He went slowly down to his knees, Blessed coolly shot him through the head.

  He coughed a little on his own gun smoke and turned to Hurley.

  The man was stretched out, groaning and his face was deathly pale. For one terrible moment, Blessed thought that he was dead and he saw all his schemes and ambitions go up in smoke, but, on going closer, he saw that to all appearances, Hurley’s leg had been shattered by a shot.

  People were starting to gather, now the shooting was over.

  Blessed put his gun away and walked over to the man he had shot. The fellow was lying in a pool of blood. Blessed’s last bullet had taken him in the side of his head and scattered his brains. A woman fainted and had to be carried away.

  A man came up on the run with a drawn gun in his hand. Blessed saw that he wore a badge on his vest and decided that he was the local law. This fellow asked who had done the shooting and Blessed unhesitatingly said that he had done it. Bystanders who had witnessed the fight came forward to give their version of it. Blessed’s whole mind was on the wounded Hurley. He couldn’t afford to let him die.

  He turned to the lawman and said: ‘I’ll answer all the questions you want, but please help me to our hotel with my friend. He’s badly hurt. This man here just came up and shot him without warning.’

  The lawman said: ‘Do you know the dead man?’

  ‘I never saw him before in my life.’

  They carried Hurley into the hotel and the manager made some objection to him bleeding over new furnishings. When they laid him on the bed, Hurley recovered consciousness and the lawman questioned him. He seemed to believe that the dead man had fired at Hurley and not at Blessed. Hurley was in pain, but he had the wit to play along with him. He said that he was completely in the dark about why the man had shot at him. All he could think was that it had been a case of mistaken identity.

  A doctor was fetched and declared that the tibia bone was broken. He stopped the bleeding, said that there was no lead in the wound and set the leg. Hurley was in considerable pain, but he bore it well. After the doctor had departed with his fee in his pocket, the lawman stayed to ask more questions, but they didn’t get anybody anywhere.

  Hur
ley and Blessed were left alone.

  Hurley was weak and in pain, he was also dispirited. To him it looked as if all their plans were now ruined. It was impossible for him to depart for the safety of Baltimore and firmly establish his alibi while Blessed killed the girl. He said as much, but Blessed didn’t seem to be at all put out.

  ‘Just as well it happened this way,’ he said. ‘That fellow I shot was the one I rolled last night. I didn’t think he got a good look at me. The law thinks he was shooting at you, but you couldn’t have robbed him because you were seen to be drinking in this place. It’s all nice and tidy. One thing is certain, that fellow’ll never recognize me again and we have a little money to be going on with.’

  Hurley groaned.

  ‘But how long will it be before this leg mends? How long will I have to stay here? Everything’s ruined.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Blessed said in his most jovial tone. ‘Everything’s just fine. Couldn’t be better.’

  Hurley looked at him in amazement.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’ve still got your alibi. You’re pinned down here with this leg. I can get our business finished. You can be here to see it ended happily.’

  Hurley thought about that. Yes, he had to agree, Blessed could be right. He cheered up. He wondered however he got by before Lewis had come into his life. His leg hurt like hell, but at least he wouldn’t have to fret and wait in Baltimore while all the action took place down here. As soon as the girl was dead, he would know about it. He was almost pleased that he had been shot.

  Blessed produced a bottle and they had a drink. They were pretty cheerful about everything.

  ‘There’s one thing,’ Hurley said, ‘you’ll have to move pretty quickly, Lewis. This leg won’t incapacitate me forever.’

  Blessed grinned.

  ‘I’ll do the job within the week if friend Oaks will lead me to the girl.’

  They had Oaks up to their room during the afternoon. He stared at Hurley’s splinted leg, but he didn’t show any more curiosity than that. He sat down and he took a drink with them.

  ‘Now,’ Blessed said: ‘Where do I find my wife?’