by J. Lee Butts
“Quieter than the bottom of a fresh-dug grave at midnight down there,” Boz muttered between teeth clenched around his twiglike, unlit cheroot.
“Can’t make much out,” I said, left eye still pressed against the leading lens of the foot-long telescope. “Appears as though there’s some kind of wagon pulled up under that thickest stand of cottonwoods down yonder.”
“Thought somethin’ didn’t look right,” Boz mumbled.
“Yeah. Spot nearest the creek where it drops off the mesa into the river. Looks like a cross between an old-fashioned prairie schooner and a trail-drive chuck wagon. Has a water barrel mounted on the side facing us.”
Boz chewed on the cheroot. “Hear tell as how some town folk are buyin’ them old chuck wagons just so’s they can gad about the countryside these days. Convertin’ ’em over just for travelin’ around. Campin’ out and such. Leastways, that’s what I’ve heard. Don’t that just beat all you ever heard? Town folk campin’ out just for the fun of it?”
“Umm, well, maybe it is a converted chuck wagon. No chuck box left on the back though. Grass growing all around the site looks like it’s probably close to belly deep on the horses. Pretty well trampled down in some spots, though. From up here, it’s kind of like looking through a series of weed-choked windows. Only allows a body a small piece of the scene at a time.”
“People? You see any people, Mistuh Dodge?” Glorious said.
“Not a soul, Glo. Leastways none that’s upright and moving around. Do spy a couple of lumps, or mounds, on the ground near the wagon’s back wheels. Sad to say, but they look an awful lot like bodies to me. All those weeds render any solid observations, from this far away, little more than an educated guess though.”
Boz pushed his hand-creased sombrero to the back of a sweaty head, pulled a blue-and-white bandanna, and mopped at a dripping brow. “Damn. Cool of the mornin’ sure ’nuff didn’t last long.”
Me and Glo grunted our agreement. Bear breathed a snarling sound around a dripping tongue, like some monstrous wild animal.
“You know, that’s mighty suspicious lookin’, even from up here, you ask me, Lucius,” Boz said. “Oughta be able to see somebody movin’ around. It’s more’n a bit worrisome, by God. Mighty worrisome. Earlier, we heard a right smart amount of shooting coming from this spot. Crop of dead folks won’t surprise me much. You see anything else as might look like bodies?”
Several seconds of oppressive silence followed. Then Grizz impatiently pawed at the ground with one iron-shod front foot. The bit and reins rattled when he shook his equine head and softly whinnied.
I lowered my glass, shoved it back into the protective sheath, and let the whole package dangle from the leather thong. “Not real sure, Boz. Just can’t make out much from this far away, ’cause of all the brush and such. Driver pulled that wagon up so far beneath those trees a body would have to really be looking for the thing to even know it was down there.”
Boz grunted, “Uhmmm,” but added nothing more.
“Seems most like he was trying to hide it from anyone who might happen to pass by. No fire as I can detect. Not even a ghostly wisp of smoke. Doesn’t appear that whoever might be left alive down there even bothered to put one together.” Another brief bit of wordless silence passed between us before I added, “Or maybe they just never got the chance.”
“Gonna make damned fine targets if we go ridin’ in there sittin’ up tall on these hammerheaded bangtails,” Boz offered. “Figure we’d best dismount, fan out a bit. Walk in. Maybe do a little of the ole Comanche tiptoe,” he said and stuffed the damp bandanna back into his pocket, then snugged his battered hat down.
I swung off Grizz. Pulled the heavy, octagon-barreled Winchester hunting rifle from its boot in a single practiced move. Levered a hot round into the big shooter’s chamber, as Boz and Glo stepped off their animals and loosed their own long guns.
“Gimme a few minutes to get over to the camp’s far side, Glo,” Boz said, then shoved the spit-soaked cheroot into his vest pocket. He breeched the coach gun and rechecked each massive brass-cased round. The weapon made a loud, metallic, thunking click when he snapped it shut.
With the blaster draped across one arm, Boz cast a steely, squint-eyed gaze from one side of the stand of trees to the other. “Once I’m set up, Glo, I’ll give a yelp. Then you can move in on this side. Lucius can take the middle. Three of us close in on the camp at the same time, from different directions, should spread the fire from any hidden, back-shootin’ varmint as might be lying in wait.”
“Ya, suh, Mistuh Tatum. I’ll be right ’hind yuh.”
Silently nodding my agreement of the suggested strategy, I threw Boz a quick smile, then winked. “Sounds like a good enough plan to me. Guess we aren’t getting any younger just standing around, twiddling our thumbs. Let’s head on out and get ’er done.”
I watched as my friends wordlessly turned and moved off through the waist-deep dry grass.
My compadres in position, I cast a quick, unblinking glance toward Heaven. Said, “Lord, let’s try not to let anyone get hurt today. Want all my folks sitting down to one of Paco’s suppers at the same time later this afternoon when we say grace over our food. Okay?” Then I snapped my fingers and motioned Bear into action.
The dog snorted out an enthusiastic growl and hit the ground running. Rifle at the ready, I hunched over and slipped into the already parted weeds, silently trailing behind the happy beast.
A stricken look carved deep lines of pain and concern into Glorious Johnson’s already creased face. He squatted at the edge of a semicircle of flattened grass and trampled earth near the remains of a pair of oozing corpses.
Nearby, Bear flopped on his hairy belly and let out a series of low guttural yowls.
Appearing as though lost in confused thought, Johnson gazed at the bullet-riddled bodies, then sadly shook his head. The recently departed lay on their backs and gazed with unmoving, sightless eyes, at cotton boll clouds pinned onto a crystalline, turquoise sky.
Caught in a hailstorm of blue whistlers, the dead couple had fallen near the back of the refurbished Studebaker. The entire side of the vehicle’s wooden freight box facing the river was riddled with fresh, splinter-decorated bullet holes. A team of fine-looking mules lay dead in the traces.
In the manner of a gory carpet, a clotted mat of blood and viscera, as thick as half a family Bible, covered the well-trampled earth for several feet around the bodies of the man, woman, and their animals. Here and there, like flakes of blood-flecked snow, bits of brain matter and splintered bone from the couple’s shattered skulls decorated the thin exposed areas of crushed grass and packed dirt.
Shotgun at the death-dealing ready, Boz circled the wagon.
I stood near the dog and swept a piercing gaze from one side of the campsite to the other. Hissed, “Can you make any kind of sense from all this, Glo?”
Johnson pushed a sweat-stained, gray flop hat to the back of his head, then scratched a spot over one ear in puzzlement. “As you see, Mistuh Dodge, these poor folks been shot slap to pieces. Done bled slap out right where they fell. Just like them poor defenseless mules.”
I shook my head in disgust. “Damned sorry business all right. Damned sorry.”
“Looks to me like whoever done fer ’em wanted to make certain sure they didn’t get up once they ’uz down. Both these poor folk been drilled through the head bone several times—least twice, maybe more. This here pitiful feller’s skull’s splattered all over hell and yonder.” He paused, then as an afterthought added, “Woman’s, too. Top of all that, they’s bullet holes in the dirt all around ’em. ’Pears near half a dozen men stood over these unfortunates and just blasted the by-God bejabbers out of ’em.”
“What about them as done the deed?”
“Gone, Mistuh Dodge. Leastways, near as I can tell. Ain’t been gone long, but them as done this sorry deed come and left in a mighty big hurry. Five, six, maybe seven of ’em. Made such a mess right here around the w
agon it’s hard to tell exactly.”
“Anything else?”
“Well, can say for sure as how the killers rode their animals right up from the river. Got down, walked up here, caught these folks unawares. Shot ’em dead, then lit a shuck away from their crimes. Didn’t waste a single second from the looks of it.”
“Uh - huh.”
A visage of sadness and regret flashed across Glo’s strained, ebon face. “Most like them raids we done made when me’n Mr. Boz ’uz rangerin’ and trackin’ them Messican killers down in Coahuila out on the Rio Salado. ’Member as how we used to storm right into their camps, whilst they ’uz sleepin’, pistols a-blazin’. Kilt ’em all. Learned the method from the Comanche, back when I used to go out and slaughter them folks, too.”
I watched as Boz drew to a halt near the wagon’s tailgate and shot a troubled glance at the ground beneath the back axle. A separate, substantial pool of near-black, gooey, congealed blood had accumulated atop the grass near the wagon’s back entry. Blood that obviously didn’t belong to either the man or woman. Thumb-sized droplets dribbled from cracks in the Studebaker’s wooden bed and splattered atop the still widening pool.
He eased up to the tail flap and pushed the canvas aside with the barrel of his shotgun. Stood for several seconds, staring into the vehicle’s dark, musty interior until his eyes adjusted enough to take in the horror that lay waiting in the vehicle’s rank darkness.
Of a sudden, my friend made a smothered retching sound. “Sweet merciful mother of Jesus,” he said and stumbled backward as though slapped across the cheek by an invisible hand.
“What is it?” I called out, then rushed to my ashen-faced amigo’s side. “What’s in there, Boz?”
Grabbed the heavy canvas cover and flipped it aside. Took a second for my own light-dilated eyes to adjust to the central gloom. The wagon’s horrific contents brought on a stunned feeling not unlike being struck in the chest with a closed fist the size and weight of a blacksmith’s favorite anvil.
Despite a level of self-control most men would never know, or even aspire to, my eyes flashed wide in awestruck horror. I yelped, “Damnation,” and took a step backward to stand shoulder to shoulder with Boz.
Swear all the air tried to rush from my compressed lungs at the same instant. Felt as though my heart and brain had locked themselves into a struggle to disconnect for several seconds. Intellectually, I could acknowledge the ghastly truth of what lay inside that benighted vehicle. But oh, my friends, a heart made tender by an inability to understand such butchery refused to concede that the hellish, unspeakably evil scene was real.
Felled into a hideous, twisted pile, not unlike seedlings caught in a cyclone, the deformed, broken bodies of three bullet-blasted children lay one atop the other amidst piles of dolls in a misshapen, bird’s-nest-like mass. Given the quick, stomach-churning examination I allowed myself of the grisly, macabre scene, there were two boys and a girl.
Blasted nigh to shreds by a hot curtain of concentrated lead, whatever features of youthful beauty that might have existed a few hours prior to our arrival had been effectively obliterated. I kept thinking as how, perhaps, the stack of bodies was just three young girls. Nigh impossible to tell, really. But continued examination revealed the error of my hurried, horrified, initial observations.
When confronted by the surprise and unspeakable terror of certain death, the youngsters appeared to have covered their eyes with tiny hands, as though in denial of the reality facing them. Their childish faces had vanished, for the most part. Legs and arms lay splayed and twisted in monstrous, unnatural ways. Atop thin, childish chests their hands lay shattered beyond any practical use, even if they had managed to, somehow, survive the fiery onslaught. The blasting was so intense it appeared as though hell-sent imps had painted the entire interior of the grisly vehicle with gallons upon gallons of human blood. Not a single inch of available space had been spared the gory coating that seeped through the wagon’s floor and onto the ground below.
Grim-faced, I jerked the flap back into place, took two stumbling steps, then grasped the wagon’s wooden tailgate to steady myself. I coughed, toed at the dirt, and coughed again. Snatched my hat off and slapped a trembling leg with it. Then I rubbed a flushed, dripping face against the sleeve of my shirt.
Jammed the hat back on before I was able to say, “Swear ’fore Jesus, Boz, figured as how, between the three of us, we’d seen just about everything godless men could do over the combined years we’ve shared as Rangers. But, with sweet Jesus as my witness, it’s been a damned long time since any of us has had to look on a scene as appalling as this one.”
Boz swung a misty-eyed gaze toward the tops of the swaying, murmuring cottonwoods overhead then turned teeth-gritting attention onto the toes of his boots. He picked at a frayed spot on his vest. “My, oh, my, Lucius, but ain’t that the Lord’s truth. Truly hoped I’d seen the last of such as this. Makes my heart hurt just to think on it.”
Then, within a matter of fleeting seconds, it suddenly felt as if an iron bar had been inserted into my spine. I straightened and turned. Shook a finger at Glorious Johnson.
Like an angry animal, I growled, “Get after ’em, Glo. Take Bear. Set the dog on these monsters’ trail. Find ’em. Find which direction the bastards who did this came from and where they’re headed. Only a few places men who’d commit such an atrocity can go from a spot as remote as this.”
Glorious Johnson nodded and, as though distracted, mumbled, “Sho ’nuff, Mistuh Dodge. I’ll find ’em. You know I will.”
I continued thinking aloud to myself. “Figure the men responsible for this sorry deed are gonna need a stiff drink and damned quick. Bet all I’ve got, and all I’ll ever have, they’re headed for the nearest cantina.”
Boz toed at the ground beneath his feet. “I agree, Lucius. Men as would murder a woman and three little kids are gonna need a tubful of strong liquor to wash memories of this massacre away. Once you’ve got a bead on these sons a bitches, Glo, get back here quick as you can. Don’t let ’em see you. And whatever you do, don’t try and take ’em alone.”
I gazed into Glo’s strained face. The man appeared to have aged a thousand years in a matter of seconds. He slowly rose to his feet and stared into my hardened visage. He, Boz, and me had ridden together on dozens of other raids and searches. Both men had seen that same grim look on my face before. Hard-eyed, jaw clenched, back teeth grinding against one another.
Better than just about anyone living, Glorious Johnson understood what the look meant. As clear as staring into a traveling gypsy’s crystal ball, he could see the blood-soaked future of the killers in my flint-eyed gaze.
Men who had never heard of Rangers Lucius Dodge, Randall Bozworth Tatum, or Glorious Johnson would pay dearly for the death and destruction they had wrought on the banks of Three Mile Creek. They were dead men on horses and didn’t have the slightest clue that their departure from the ranks of the living had already been written into the golden pages of the Angel of Death’s eternal book.
Those men’s damnable names, and ten times damnable deeds, were already inscribed in flowing script by the blood-dipped finger tip of a dangerous man most people didn’t even know. I could tell what my friend was thinking. For the slaughter of this unknown family, Lucius Dodge’s ruthless, relentless, unstoppable judgment was now focused on them like a narrow pointed shaft of August sunlight falling through the cottonwoods beside Three Mile Creek. Mounted on a blue-gray horse, bony-fingered death was headed their direction—and his judgment was coming damned quick.
Solemn with respect for what he detected on my stony countenance, Johnson grimly nodded. “Yes, suh, Mistuh Dodge, Mistuh Boz. Don’t you be worrin’ none. Me’n ole Bear, we be findin’ ’em fellas as done this horrible thang. Fast as a vengeful God’ll let us,” he said.
Johnson made a clucking sound, snapped his fingers at the dog, then turned and vanished into the thick patch of weeds with the snuffling animal hot on his heels. As he strode
away, I barely heard it when he muttered, to no one in particular, “Thankee Lord God for not makin’ me help burry them poor childern. Not sure I coulda took part in such a gruesome task.”
I watched Glo disappear into the curtain of tall grass between the blood-soaked green spot and where we’d left our animals. Then I propped my rifle against the wagon’s back wheel, unbuckled my pistol belt, and draped it over the sideboards.
Set to rolling up my sleeves. “Best see if we can locate a shovel, Boz. Two would be even better. Need to get ourselves busy digging graves. Might as well go on ahead and get these poor folks underground ’fore they get too ripe on us. Time’s a-wastin’.”
Boz stared into the heavens, as though silently hoping for some sort of divine intervention. Perhaps a miracle the likes of which he’d never witnessed in his long life. When none came, he turned to me and said, “Where you suppose God was when this happened, Lucius.” A single tear streamed down his leathery, stubble-covered cheek. He wiped the droplet away on the sleeve of his shirt. I’d never witnessed such an open display of emotion from my best friend before. Never. His momentary loss of control had a profound and powerful effect on me.
Couldn’t do much of anything but say, “Don’t have a single idea, Boz. Just don’t know.” I hemmed and hawed around some, then clumsily added, “Appears pretty certain he wasn’t anywheres around these parts. Must’ve had more pressing business elsewhere.”
Boz toed at the dirt again and shook his head in sad resignation.
I tried to smooth the situation over a bit in the only way I knew how. “Figure the best thing we can do for these poor folks is get them in the ground quick as possible. See to it they’re covered up where nothing can get at ’em. Don’t you think?”
Boz rubbed a reddened eye with a scruffy knuckle and tried not to look at me when he croaked, “Yeah, I know, Lucius. You’re right as rain. Hot as it is, and as hot as it’s gonna get ’fore dark finally comes, these poor people gonna be getting mighty rank,” Almost as an afterthought, he coughed, stared at Heaven again, then added, “Gonna be all swole up ’fore a body can spit. Putrefied quicker than double-geared lightning.”
