by Jake Logan
“I’ll talk to the horse,” Sarah Beth said. She went to look the mare squarely in the eye. She pressed her cornflower blue eye within an inch of the horse’s big brown eye. For a long minute, she and the horse had a stare-down. Then the horse neighed and tossed her head about.
“She’ll go now,” Sarah Beth said, backing away. Barely had she gotten out of the way when the horse rushed past. Sarah Beth jumped and caught the side of the buggy, pulling herself up to land hard beside her mother.
“I don’t know what you did, but it’s a miracle,” Louisa Magee said. She put her head down a little and stared ahead. Now and then she snapped the reins, but the horse was trotting along on its own, taking the two women for the ride.
A half hour later, Sarah Beth rose in the buggy and pointed.
“There, Mama, there’s a town. Charity! How can we go wrong in a town called Charity? They’ll have to help us.”
“It had better be a big town. Remember what your father did to Cherokee Springs. There must have been a hundred people there.”
Sarah Beth’s heart sank when she saw a sign proclaiming Charity to have safe water—and a population of only seventy-eight. It was smaller than Cherokee Springs. There was no way such a small town could stand against Clayton Magee and his men, unless . . .
“Find the marshal, Mama,” Sarah Beth said as they neared the tight knot of houses at the edge of town. “If they’re waiting, lying in ambush, the townspeople can stop them. Give those bastards some of their own medicine!”
“Watch your language, young lady.”
“Mama, I’m nineteen years old. I’ve heard worse. I’ve said worse.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“This isn’t the time or place to discuss my manner of speech, Mama,” Sarah Beth said. “There! There’s the marshal’s office. Stop now.”
Louisa Magee braced her feet against the front of the buggy and leaned back, tugging hard on the reins. The mare stopped so fast both women were thrown forward. Sarah Beth tumbled from the buggy into the dusty street. Aware of the attention she was getting, she got to her feet, but did not bother brushing herself off. She walked around the buggy, only to be stopped by her mother.
“Don’t, Sarah Beth. Think what you’re doing to them.”
“What?” Sarah Beth stared at her mother. “What I’m doing to them? Think what Papa and his butchers will do to everyone in Charity!”
“He won’t hurt them, not if we keep going. Please, Sarah Beth, don’t tell them.”
“Why are you sticking your head in the sand like one of those African ostriches, Mama? Cherokee Springs was completely destroyed because of him. He’ll do it again and again.” Sarah Beth closed her eyes and wobbled a mite. Then her eyes opened and she finished in a cold tone. “Until he catches us. I don’t know what he will do to me, but I can guess what he’ll do to you.”
“I’m his wife,” Louisa said in a tiny, trapped-animal voice.
“A man who slaughters dozens—hundreds!—of people is not going to kiss and make up. Even if he wanted to, do you think those cutthroats riding in his gang would let him?”
“Kimbrell is an animal,” Louisa said weakly.
“An animal isn’t cruel like Kimbrell. Even a cat playing with a mouse isn’t cruel like Albert Kimbrell.” Sarah Beth pushed past her mother and opened the door to the marshal’s office. The musty smell hit her like a club, but she went in anyway.
The marshal looked up from his desk where a newspaper was spread out. He puffed away at a dirty pipe that released clouds of noxious smoke that partially hid his face. All Sarah Beth could tell was that he had a goatee and a bushy brown mustache. As her mother came in, leaving the door open, a gust of humid air pushed the blue smoke away from the marshal’s face. He was younger than Sarah Beth had thought on first look.
“What kin I do fer you ladies?”
“You the town marshal?”
“Lester Vannover,” he said, putting his pipe down carefully on the desk at his elbow. Then he meticulously folded the paper and placed it on the far edge of his desk, as if it were some sort of peace offering to his visitors. “What brings you here?”
Sarah Beth and her mother exchanged a quick glance. Sarah Beth saw that her mother was not going to say a word. So she let her concerns come tumbling out before she lost her nerve.
“Whoa, little lady, draw rein and let me git this straight. You’re sayin’ Cherokee Springs got burned to the ground?”
“Every last man, woman, and child was murdered,” Sarah Beth said.
“You saw this?”
“We did,” Louisa said. “We were only a few minutes ahead. He killed them all, hoping to find my daughter and me.”
“A man would kill a couple hunnerd folks jist to take you two prisoner? Now, excuse me when I say this, you’re both lovely women, bein’ blondes and all, but I can’t believe no man would commit such a terrible crime jist because of you.”
“He’s crazy,” Sarah Beth said. “There’s no stopping him and his men. He’s crazy but his men are even crazier.”
“Albert Kimbrell is the worst of the lot.”
“Kimbrell, you say?” Marshal Vannover dug around in his top desk drawer and pulled out a stack of wanted posters. Carefully removing the top one and looking at it, he went to the next, and the next. The fourth wanted poster he held up for Sarah Beth and Louisa. “This the outlaw?”
“Yes!” Sarah Beth blurted. Her mother covered her mouth with her hand. Kimbrell had a five-hundred-dollar reward on his head for more crimes than she could read in the small print.
“Yes, ma’am, a real desperado. You say him and this Clayton Magee are on their way to Charity?”
“With an army!”
“An army?” Marshal Vannover chuckled. “Kimbrell was in the Union Army. That what you mean?”
“My papa was a major before he was mustered out,” Sarah Beth said, “but that’s not what we meant.”
Vannover grinned.
“You don’t understand, Marshal. They wiped out Cherokee Springs. There’s nothing—and no one—still alive there. They’ll repeat that destruction in Charity, unless you get ready for them.”
“How, Miss Magee, do I do that?”
“Ambush them when they ride into town,” Sarah Beth said. “Don’t give them the chance to shoot up everyone.”
“I suppose it’s not too hard to git a few of the fellas together.”
“A few? You mean dozens. It’ll take that many to stop them,” Sarah Beth said. The marshal looked at her in amusement. “Please, Marshal Vannover, we’re not making this up. It’s serious.” Sarah Beth turned to her mother for support. Louisa Magee backed away and stood in the door, nervously looking out into the street as if her husband and his horde would come galloping up at any instant.
Sarah Beth knew that they would soon enough.
“Why don’t you two go on over to the hotel and get settled?” Vannover suggested. “I’ll round up a little posse and take care of your problem.” Vannover tapped Kimbrell’s wanted poster. “If this pans out, there might be a few dollars in it for you.”
“We don’t want money, we want my pa stopped,” Sarah Beth said. Her voice rose to a shrill pitch. “Don’t underestimate him or Kimbrell or any of the others.”
“You jist run on now and let me do my job.” Vannover stood and settled his gun at his side.
Sarah Beth started to say something more, then spun and pushed her mother out of the marshal’s office. They were assaulted by the sultry day. Sarah Beth felt her clothing gluing to her body, but she realized it was less from the humid air than from the way she was suddenly sweating from fear.
“They’ll all be killed like the others. The entire town,” Louisa Magee said, looking at the citizens of Charity going about their business, unaware of how close destruction was for them and their town.
“We did what we could,” Sarah Beth said. “The marshal thinks this is a joke. No, not a joke. He looked like he could use that hogleg st
rapped to his hip. He just has no idea what he’s facing.”
“There’s no way to convince him,” Louisa said. “Come on, Sarah Beth. Let’s keep going.”
“Mama, we can’t. The horse is exhausted, and we don’t have money to buy another. Even if we swapped, we wouldn’t get a horse as good.” The swayback mare turned her head and glared at Sarah Beth as if in reaction to the combination of insult and compliment.
“What are we going to do?”
“Get supplies for the road, let the horse rest, then pray that Papa doesn’t get here before we can leave.”
“How far is Cherokee Springs from here? I was so intent on driving, it’s all a blur.”
“Not far enough,” Sarah Beth said. “Let’s get something to eat and be on our way.”
“The Christianson’s Café is ’bout the best place in town, ladies,” Marshal Vannover said, coming from his office. He carried a shotgun in the crook of his left arm.
“Thank you,” Louisa said before her daughter could utter a word. She took Sarah Beth’s arm and pulled her along down the street toward the Café. The sign above the door was freshly painted, and the interior looked inviting.
“I . . . I’ve lost my appetite, Mama,” Sarah Beth said. “Let’s leave now. We don’t have to have the horse pull the buggy too fast.”
“We have to stop running sometime, dear,” Louisa said. “The marshal looks like he might—”
“Might nothing!” flared Sarah Beth. “He doesn’t understand.”
Her mother broke out crying. Sarah Beth threw her arms around the woman and hugged her close.
“You’re right, Mama. We can’t run forever.”
They went into the restaurant and sat at a table by the only window. Sarah Beth watched anxiously as the marshal stopped one man after another in the street and talked to them. Her heart beat a tad faster when she saw that he’d recruited almost a dozen men. Then she held back a sob of disbelief as half the men shook their heads and left. The marshal had only six others to defend the town.
“They won’t be able to stop them,” Sarah Beth said in despair. Her mother had ordered for them, and the waiter dropped a plate of roast beef and gravy in front of her. She looked at it, then back to the marshal as he positioned men on either side of the main street, then back at the food. Sarah Beth began eating with real hunger. How she could be starving one instant and wanting nothing the next was a mystery, but the beef went down well. She gulped at a glass of water and finished before her mother did, who only picked at her meal.
“What are we going to do?”
“Get ready to leave,” Louisa Magee said. “Maybe Marshal Vannover will hold them back long enough.”
“What are you saying?” asked the waiter. “Who’s the marshal supposed to go after?”
A bullet sang through the window above Sarah Beth’s head and hit the waiter in the middle of his chest. He looked stupidly at the blossoming red flower on his chest and reached for it. Then he sank to the floor as if all his bones had turned to rubber.
“Down!” Sarah Beth jumped across the table, wrapped her arms around her mother, and bore her to the floor as more bullets broke out what remained of the window glass.
Out in the street came sporadic firing; then all hell broke loose. Sarah Beth scrambled to protect her mother and see what was going on at the same time.
“Stay down,” Louisa ordered, but she was in no position to do anything about her daughter. Sarah Beth upended the table and used it as a shield to peer out from behind.
Her eyes went wide as she watched the carnage being wrought. She didn’t see her father, but recognized Albert Kimbrell right away. The man had six-shooters in his hands, and fired until both were empty. In a smooth movement, he put the six-guns back into his holsters and went to the pistols shoved into his belt. Firing both guns, he galloped ahead of the rest shooting at anyone or anything that moved. Sarah Beth saw a man go down, his face a ruin from Kimbrell’s bullets. Seconds later, Kimbrell shot a dog.
“What are we going to do?”
“We can’t get to the buggy,” Sarah Beth said. “When Papa sees it, he’ll know we’re in town.” Sarah Beth looked toward the rear of the café. “There’s got to be a way out.”
“Then what? Our horse and buggy are out in the street.”
“Our bags!”
“Sarah Beth, no!” Louisa grabbed for her daughter and missed by inches.
Sarah Beth crawled to the door, opened it a few inches, and peered out. Marshal Vannover had finally realized the extent of the opposition. His six deputies were fighting the best they could, but they had prepared for only a skirmish, not a major battle.
Even as she watched, two of the deputies went down under the gang’s withering fire. As the men crashed to the ground, Vannover stepped out and fired both barrels of his shotgun. He took out one outlaw and caused another to yelp in pain as a pellet tore across the man’s face. This drew the attention of most of the gang, giving Sarah Beth the chance to scramble outside to the buggy and grab her and her mother’s bags.
“Sorry to leave you, but there’s no other way,” she said to the nervous horse. Sarah Beth was loath to leave the horse behind, but had no choice. The mare had carried them to safety more than once in the past three weeks since they had been on the run.
A new fusillade from her father’s killers brought down another of the marshal’s deputies. She cried out when she saw Vannover spin away as blood sprayed from his arm. The lawman dropped the shotgun and drew his six-shooter. He turned back and started firing.
“Shoot ’em all!” Sarah Beth cried. Her words were drowned out in the roar of rifle fire. The outlaws had exhausted their pistols and were beginning to use their rifles to devastating effect.
Sarah Beth scuttled like a crab, dragging the bags behind her. She got into the café and dropped her burden behind the table where her mother cowered.
“You shouldn’t have gone out there. He’s found us, oh, I knew he would find us.” Louisa put her arms around herself and drew up her knees. She shivered as if she had a chill.
“Mama, come on. We’ve got to go. Now!”
Sarah Beth grabbed her mother’s arm and tugged insistently. Louisa tried to curl up even tighter.
“He will kill us,” Sarah Beth said brutally, “but not until after he’s made you pay. Made us pay. Both of us.”
“We should never have left. I could have stayed. That would have appeased him. You would have been safe.”
Diminishing gunfire outside showed that the resistance to Clayton Magee and his small army was decreasing. More of the people of Charity died with every passing instant.
“Come on,” Sarah Beth said insistently. She got her mother crawling on her hands and knees to the back of the café and then into the small kitchen. The back door stood open. The cook had already fled. Sarah Beth wasted no time in pushing her mother outside and shoving both of their bags into her hands to keep her occupied.
“I’ve got to get horses. We can’t stay.”
“He’ll find us,” Louisa Magee said dully.
“He might, but he’ll damn well have to work hard to do it.”
It took Sarah Beth only a few minutes to catch a couple of horses running loose. From the blood on the saddles, she guessed two of her father’s men had been killed. She felt a small bit of pride in Marshal Vannover and the valiant fight he had put up. But he was dead now. The smell of gunpowder hung in the air, but there was no more shooting.
Sarah Beth lashed down their bags and helped her mother into the saddle, then clumsily mounted her own horse and galloped from town, hanging on to the horse for dear life. It was hard fleeing like this, leaving behind Charity and anyone still alive, but Sarah Beth had no choice. Her pa cared nothing for the others. He sought her and her mother.
Sarah Beth vowed anew that she would kill him before allowing him to touch either her or her mother again.
4
It had happened again. Slocum rode slowly toward Char
ity and saw Cherokee Springs instead. Fire leaped high into the sky as flames devoured buildings by twos and threes. Men and women lay dead everywhere he looked, but this time there were survivors who worked furiously to put out the fires.
“Who’re you?” demanded a man with clothing so blood-soaked Slocum could not even determine the original color of the man’s coat. He held a six-gun at his right side and his left arm was oozing blood.
“Not one of the men responsible for this,” Slocum said.
“What do you know about them?” The man struggled to lift his six-shooter and aim it at Slocum.
“I came across Cherokee Springs just after they had left. There was one survivor.” Slocum paused, wondering how much he should tell this man fighting to aim his gun. The man’s hand trembled so much, Slocum began to worry about getting shot accidentally.
“Who did this? Kimbrell?”
“That’s not a name I know,” Slocum said.
“Who was the survivor?”
“He’s dead now. He was shot up pretty bad. I have no idea how he lived long enough for me to find him. Everyone else—everyone—was shot to hell and gone,” Slocum said.
“So you don’t have any idea who was responsible?”
“For Cherokee Springs or for here?” Slocum looked around and saw stacks of bodies piled like cordwood. The largest of the fires was under control thanks to bucket brigades and what looked like a pump and hose working out of a large water tank.
“Reckon I mean both.”
“Who are you?” Slocum dismissed the threat from the man’s pistol now since the harder the man tried to lift the six-gun, the more the muzzle bobbed about. Slocum had seen men at the end of their rope before, and he saw another one now.
“I’m the marshal of this here town.”
“Then you have an interest in tracking the men responsible,” Slocum said. He wondered if he ought to mention the promise he had made to Jerome Nickson, and finally decided against it. The marshal wasn’t likely to care.
“As soon as I can git things in order, I’ll be settin’ out after the sons of bitches.”
