by Jory Sherman
Lew felt something squeeze his chest, and he struggled for air as his stomach churned, his knees turned to rubber.
He knelt down beside Carol and touched her forehead. Her eyes were closed. He pried one of them open with his forefinger and saw the frosty glaze of death. He winced and squeezed back the tears that boiled from his eyes.
The children were dead. Carol was dead.
Blackhawk was unconscious.
Wayne Smith had gotten away. Lew knew that it was Smith who had murdered his own family.
For the money.
Greed.
That’s what drove Wayne Smith. Pure greed.
Lew knew he was going to be sick. He needed air and he needed to get away before he was blamed for the carnage in that hotel room.
What had Blackhawk said? Wayne Smith might be heading for Santa Fe. That was it.
New Mexico.
Well, that was where Lew had to go, then. He knew that.
He had fallen in love with Carol. They might have had a future together after she divorced her husband.
That future was gone. Wiped away by a crooked sheriff who thought only of himself.
He stepped past Blackhawk.
“Some other time, Mr. Blackhawk,” Lew whispered, and walked down the hall.
Twenty minutes later, he was atop his horse, Ruben, heading west.
He had gotten a good look at Wayne Smith.
He would know him when he saw him.
“Maybe I am a vigilante, Ruben, old boy,” he said. “What do you think?”
Ruben snorted and whickered softly, shaking his head. Lew studied the road ahead. There were fresh horse tracks in the dirt. He touched spurs to Ruben’s flanks. Smith was lighting a shuck, for sure, putting distance between himself and the murders he had committed.
Ruben strode into a slow canter. A roadrunner, what the Mexicans called a paisano, streaked across the road in front of Lew. Ruben didn’t swerve an inch. Ahead, blue sky and fluffy white clouds painted shadows across a desolate, empty land.
And Carol in his thoughts, and Seneca Jones, too. The girls he left behind.
2
A FEW MOMENTS LATER, LEW REALIZED HE WAS NOT FOLLOWING just one man, Wayne Smith, but three. Two other riders had apparently been waiting for Smith. The tracks closely paralleled each other. He saw where Smith’s companions had joined him on the road. When he looked off in the direction from which the tracks had come, he saw a low flat mesa and some little hills, any one of which would have made a good place for a lookout.
The mountains were still mantled in snow, but the foothills were streaming with runoff from the spring melt, stippled with shoots of green grass. Fountain Creek was running high, its surface frothy and choked with driftwood and clumps of earth that broke up and sank or were absorbed by the water.
A wave of homesickness swept over him. Spring in the Ozarks was the time of year Lew liked best. That was when the redbuds bloomed and the dogwoods were like bright lights in the green hills. The air was filled with the fragrance of tree blossoms and the fields were losing their drab khaki color and greening out under a warm sun.
The mountains gleamed like alabaster, so purely white and blinding, they snatched the breath from his mouth. He had been in them not so long ago, and now, he realized, they were in him. He had become a western man, like so many others before him who had come to the Rocky Mountains, gazed upon them and felt their majesty, their brooding timelessness, the weight of countless centuries. The mountains were bigger than the Ozark hills, and the sky was broader, more blue, and closer somehow. It was a good land, rich with unknown treasure, lying fallow for any who chose to stay and farm. His blood raced and tingled with the thought of settling in such country, someday, maybe, when he no longer had to outrun the posters that bore his likeness and his name.
The ground and the road were soft and moist. They held the tracks good, and they were so fresh, the moisture in them was just turning to steam under the blaze of the warming sun.
He wished he had not seen what Wayne had done to Carol. Even now, he was trying to erase that image of her dead face and replace it with the smiling woman he had known in the mountains, the woman he had fallen in love with, despite the fact that she was married and had children. Her true face swam in memory, then was replaced by Seneca’s face. She had come back to him, in memory, at this hour of his grief, this sullen gray grief that threatened to blot out the sun, deafen him to the lyrical chirping of birds, blind him to the empty road ahead.
And why was he here? Was he running from Blackhawk like a rabbit? Or was he, as Blackhawk had said, a vigilante bent on vengeance against the man who had murdered the woman he loved? The marshal would have arrested him and taken him back to Arkansas, probably to be tried by a kangaroo court and hanged before he reached his twenty-first birthday. He had to admit it. He was on the run again, running from the law, the law that had not been fair with him in the past. But he was honest enough with himself to know that he was also bent on bringing Wayne Smith to justice. It galled him to think that Carol’s husband would profit by her death, her murder.
He wondered if Blackhawk would have forsaken the warrants in his pocket and gone after Wayne Smith, who had been caught in the act, practically. Probably not. The murder was a local matter, to be handled by the authorities in Pueblo. But Smith had escaped any retribution. He was headed for Santa Fe. Out of sight and out of mind of the Pueblo police, probably.
Was there justice in the world? He had once thought so. But now he was no longer sure. He was a wanted man, but all he had done was defend himself. Yes, he had gone after Wiley Pope and Fritz Canby, but only because the sheriff in Alpena would not, because he was loyal to the men who paid his salary, the men who made the town prosperous.
There was no justice in that, and certainly no fairness.
Lew was becoming bitter, despite his intentions to the contrary, and he tried to shake it off. He did not want to become a bitter man, disillusioned by life. Carol had stirred something in his heart, made him feel alive and strong, protective of her and of her children. That’s who he was, or who he wanted to be, a man who was needed, who could care for a woman and make her happy, be a father to her children and his own.
The land rose under him slightly, and as he topped the rise, expecting to see only open spaces and the long road, he came upon a white woolly sea and a sound he had never heard before. There upon the plain, and blocking the road, a huge herd of bleating sheep grazed and milled, while a furry black and white dog raced up and down the nearest side, pushing back strays.
A man walked along among the sheep, a staff in his hand. Two boys with sticks chased sheep, and far to the east, a woman and a girl sat in a small covered wagon that creaked and groaned, clattering with pots and pans. The wagon was pulled by a pair of mules, their hides moth-eaten, worn smooth in places by the rub of the traces. The two boys, wading through the herd of sheep, looked like a couple of pollywogs cavorting in a foamy tide.
Lew’s way was blocked for miles. He stood up in the stirrups to try to see beyond, but there was no trace of the three riders he had been following. There were sheep as far as he could see, in every direction. They had not yet crossed Fountain Creek, but they seemed to be headed that way. He had never seen sheep before, and it was a strange sight. Their bleating filled the air, and he watched as the little black and white dog herded bunches of them back into the herd. It was fascinating to watch it work as the man walked along with his staff, seemingly as carefree as a man could be.
Lew rode toward the man, saw him turn and then stop to wait for him. The bleating grew louder as the dog crept along the flock, quiet and calm one minute, then racing after the wandering ones the next.
“Hello,” the man said. “You ride from Pueblo?”
“Yes. I’m going to Santa Fe. You have the road blocked with all these sheep.”
“I am sorry, but there are many sheep. They take up much room.”
“Where are you taking them?”
>
“To the grass in the mountains.”
“A little early, isn’t it? There’s still a lot of snow up there.”
“It will take many weeks to climb to where we are going. Why do you not rest awhile? I will take a smoke with you until the sheep pass and clear the road.”
“I’m kind of in a hurry. Did you see three men ride past you on the road?”
“I saw them, from a long way off. They were in a hurry, too. They are friends of yours?”
Lew shook his head.
“No. One of them murdered his family in Pueblo.”
“You are a lawman?”
Lew hesitated. What was he? A vigilante? An outlaw?
He shook his head again.
“No. I seek justice.”
“Ah, justice. There is no justice in this world, my friend.”
“You are a Mexican?”
“No. I am a Basque. My people are from the Pyrenees, the mountains that border Spain. But I speak the Spanish. I am called Joe Eramouspe, and you?”
“Lew Wetzel,” he said, unwilling to speak his surname to a stranger. He thought about that for a brief moment. He was being deceptive, he knew, so maybe he was an outlaw, or thinking like one.
“That sounds like a German name,” Eramouspe said. “Are you German?”
“American.”
“I mean your family.”
“I reckon.”
“Very fine people, the Germans. Will you wait for the sheep to pass?”
“Would it bother them for me to ride through?” Lew looked around. The herd was very large. It would take him a couple of hours to ride around it.
“I can make you a path. With my boys and my dog.”
“What kind of dog is that?”
“That is what they call a border collie. Her name is Lacy. She is very smart. A good dog.”
“Yes, I can see that.”
Eramouspe put two fingers in his mouth and let out a sharp whistle. The two boys looked over at him and then started wading through the sheep, coming his way. The dog snapped at the sheep, turned tail, and ran toward Joe.
“Would you like something to drink? My wife has tea and a Mexican drink she makes with bananas and beer, called tepache. The tea and the tepache are very cool. She keeps them in the ollas. It will not make you drunk, but it will put a little fire in your blood, eh?”
Lew laughed.
“I think I’ve got enough fire in my blood, thanks. I won’t have tea, either, thank you. I want to be on my way.”
“If you catch up to these men, what will you do?”
Before Lew could answer, the two boys came up. Joe spoke to them, then they called to Lacy and she followed them. They began clearing a path through the sheep, right where the road cut through the flock.
What would he do about those men? Lew couldn’t say for sure. He had only caught a glimpse of Wayne Smith, but he was sure he could recognize him if he saw him again. He did not know who the other two men were, but they could be trouble. It was three against one.
“I guess I’ll turn the one man in to the law up in Santa Fe,” Lew said. “There might be a U.S. marshal come along directly. He’s after one of the men, too. And he might ask about me.”
“Is he after you, as well, eh?”
“We know each other,” Lew said.
“I see. Well, there is your path, Lew Wetzel. Go with God, eh?”
“Thanks, Joe. I wish you luck with your sheep.”
“We will fatten them in the mountains and then sell them in Denver. Then, we go to New Mexico.”
“Santa Fe?”
“No, a little town. You would not know it. My brother says there is trouble there. I want to help him if I can.”
“He raises sheep, too?”
“Yes. It is very hard to raise sheep there. His name is Ben Eramouspe.”
“What’s the name of the town where he lives?”
“Socorro. Do you know what that name means?”
Lew shook his head.
“It is like when you give aid to a traveler. Help him when he is tired or has hunger.”
“Sounds like a nice place.”
Joe’s face darkened.
“It once was a good place, yes.”
“Not now?”
“My brother, he does not say what the trouble is, but he is very worried. Or he would not write such things to me. I know there is much trouble there.”
“I hope it all works out for Ben and you, Joe. Buena suerte.”
“Ah, you speak the Spanish. That is good. If you go to New Mexico, there is much Spanish spoken there.”
“I know a little.”
“You had best go while your way is cleared, Lew Wetzel.”
“Yes. Thank you, Joe.”
Lew rode Ruben slowly so he would not disturb the sheep. The boys waved at him as he passed. The dog worked ahead of them, pushing sheep to the left and right. When he looked back, the path had closed and the sheep were moving toward Fountain Creek, a slow, undulating pile of wool. When he looked back toward Joe, the Basque was waving good-bye to him.
He wondered if they would ever meet again.
The wind came up and the horse tracks started to blur. But the riders were no longer moving fast. It grew warm, but was still fairly cool as the breeze swept down off the snow-capped mountains. Ruben shied at a diamondback, and that probably saved Lew’s life.
Ahead, he saw an orange flash. A moment later something whizzed past his ear, sounding like an angry hornet.
Then, he heard the report.
A rifle shot.
It had come from a jumble of rocks just to the right of the road.
Someone was shooting at him.
He did not know who or why.
But he put the spurs to Ruben and rode into a shallow arroyo just as another shot rang out, sounding like a bullwhip cracking. He heard the lead whine as the bullet caromed off a rock near where he had been a split second before.
The road to Santa Fe was turning mighty dangerous.
3
LEW JERKED HIS RIFLE FROM ITS BOOT AND SLID FROM THE saddle. He pushed Ruben to the lowest point of the arroyo, where his head would not be seen, and tapped his knees. It was a trick he had taught the horse, to lie down like a camel when his knees were tapped. Ruben folded up his forelegs and crumpled to the ground, obedient as any well-trained dog, and a lot smarter, Lew figured.
He crawled cautiously up the bank until he reached a point just below the rim. There, he waited. He took off his hat and laid it beside him. He peered over the edge until he could see the jumble of rocks where he had seen the powder flash when the rifle first exploded.
The bottom of the arroyo was damp—still wet from the snowmelt, he imagined. Plants grew along the sides, cholla, nopal, greasewood. There was brush on the top and he hid behind a prickly pear, peering through its wide, flat, spiny leaves. He saw movement among the rocks and made out a human form scrambling to another position. He eased his rifle up and poked it through the cactus, levering a cartridge into the chamber.
He lay very still. He knew he could not be seen if he did not move. Not from that distance, a good two hundred yards. He had learned that from the western jackrabbit. When he had first seen one, he watched it run, then stop on a piece of ground that matched its color. The rabbit had turned almost invisible. He watched it for a long time. It sat there as if frozen, and Lew thought it was a good survival trick, something he might use himself one day.
He saw the sun flash on something among the rocks and he knew right away what it was.
“So, that’s how Smith knew I was coming,” he said softly.
He stayed perfectly still, knowing that one of the men, probably Smith, was using a pair of field glasses to look for him. The flash appeared each time the man in the rocks moved the binoculars to another angle.
Lew put the rifle slowly to his shoulder and sighted down the barrel. He was already uncomfortable, lying there, rocks pressing into his flesh. No telling how long th
ey were willing to wait him out. But he was not going to be made a prisoner by these three.
The lenses of the binoculars flashed again, two quick bursts of light. Lew drew a bead on the flashes, allowed for windage and bullet drop, and squeezed the trigger. The rifle boomed, butted against his shoulder. Smoke and fire belched from the barrel of the Winchester ’73. He saw the bullet strike the top of a rock and spew sparks. He heard someone yell.
He pulled the rifle back off the ridge and ducked down, then rolled a few feet away to another position. He heard a shot, followed by another, and dirt spewed up in front of the cactus where he had been.
“Pretty good shots,” he said as falling dirt rattled atop his hat brim.
Another shot rang out and kicked up to the right of where he had been. The men in the rocks had guessed wrong.
A moment later, another rifle cracked and a bullet plowed a furrow closer to where he now lay. They were trying to find him, maybe hoping for a lucky shot.
The sky was a soft periwinkle blue, and little puffs of white clouds floated serenely above the stark landscape to the east. Huge white thunderheads slowly rose from behind the range of snowcapped mountains. As Lew had come to know, the mountains produced their own weather. It could be calm and beautiful one moment, then those giant thunderheads would rise up from some distant valley and turn black, pregnant with rain or snow. It was that kind of day that made anyone with a weather eye very wary.
More movement in the rocks. He saw two men scramble for different positions behind the small outcroppings. Below, he saw the flick of a horse’s tail and knew their mounts were not far away. They must have wanted him pretty bad to go to all that trouble, he thought. They picked a perfect place for an ambush. On the other side of the rocks, the ground sloped downward, and to the north, a short dip and then a rise. Anyone wanting to get away fast and lose their silhouette would have only a short distance to ride before they would be out of sight. But Smith didn’t know this country. He was from Missouri. One or both of the other men must be familiar with the terrain, Lew reasoned. But who were they? And why was Smith riding with them after murdering his wife and kids?
