The Trail

by M L Dunn

  The Trail

  M L Dunn

  ISBN 978-1484093191

  Copyright by M L Dunn 2015

  Purgatory Press

  New York

  Prologue

  Kansas, 1871

  Two thoughts took root in Caleb Evan’s mind and simply could not be driven out. The first was not new. Just a reminder that his wife, Allison, never had wanted to come to Kansas. If they never had, their family would never have suffered years of crop failure and hardship, but that was nothing now that the Comanche had taken Mattie.

  The second was that Allison didn’t care for him to return, if he was to return without their child.

  Chapter 1

  Allison Evans came out the house and stood on the porch to look for her child. Not seeing her in the vegetable garden or elsewhere in the yard, she shouted at Caleb working in the barn.

  “I sent her to fetch the cow,” Caleb said walking out the barn to answer his wife. He pointed over the cornfield toward the stream.

  “She ain’t old enough to go there alone,” Allison replied, shaking her head at her husband. “She’s liable to wander off,” she added, before starting through the tall corn.

  Allison would not find Mattie near the stream. All she would find, coming out of the corn, was a path beaten through the tall grass by horses. She looked for Mattie among the few trees lining the stream thick enough to conceal a child, but not spotting her, Allison followed the path until it ended at the water’s edge. She stood there calling Mattie’s name, but not receiving an answer she started walking upstream, calling Mattie’s name every few seconds, but stopped both walking and shouting when she spotted the fire.

  It was not a large fire, not yet anyway, but Allison knew it and Mattie’s disappearance were connected somehow. She looked around and shouted for Mattie one last time, but when Mattie failed to answer, she turned back to the fire, watched it but briefly before running for home. She did not slow down as she ran through the tall cornstalks that placed upon her a thousand tiny cuts.

  Caleb stepped out of the barn when he heard Allison’s shouting. He liked to disappear inside the barn to escape the harsh sunlight that persisted on the Kansas plain. His barn was really just a crooked shack just big enough for the only horse he owned, but he hoped for better. This year the fields surrounding him were as tall and thick as castle walls and come harvest he would have a stake towards making his farm appear more prosperous. He couldn’t think about that right now because Allison was calling him so he left the comfort of his barn to see what she was yelling about. Allison shot out of the corn like she was running from a fire, yelling that she could not find Mattie.

  “She’s down there,” Caleb said, not sure what more to say.

  Allison raised her arm and pointed behind him. “Look,” she said, and Caleb spun around to see smoke rising off the Havel farm nearly a mile away. “Something’s happened,” Allison said, anxiously. Caleb determined the fire was growing larger by the second. “Mattie must have headed there.”

  Caleb turned back around to face his wife.

  “Ingrid’s there alone,” Allison reminded him, since not twenty minutes before the rest of the Havel family had waved at them from the road on their way to town.

  “I’ll hurry,” Caleb said before dashing back inside the barn.

  Soon he had the mare saddled and as he was leading it out, Allison came out the house carrying three-year-old Abby in one arm and his rifle in the other. She ran up to him and shoved the rifle into his hands.

  Caleb slid atop the mare as Allison held onto Abby tightly and then he spurred the horse into the cornfield.

  He followed the stream toward the Havel’s, hoping to overtake Mattie, but didn’t catch up to her there. As he neared the edge of the Havel farm, a veil of blowing smoke met him.

  Caleb thought others should be hurrying toward the fire as well and his spirit was lifted when a half-dozen riders splashed into the stream ahead of him, but he quickly realized they were headed away from it and not toward it. Heavy smoke and thick brush prevented him from getting a good look at them, so Caleb left the stream, rode through the brush also and when he spotted the riders again, saw they were Indians.

  Not peaceful Cheyenne or one of the other bands common around here, but wild savages who held the plain to be theirs still. He grasped this from the shields and lances they carried and the fire they had set. The Indians rode toward a spot on the plain where others of their kind waited. Watching them head there, Caleb spotted Mattie. The sight of her among them made his body as rigid as a cord of wood.

  He looked down the plain back toward his place, but saw no one coming to his aid. It was up to him alone to reclaim his child, so Caleb started towards the Indians, who had, by then, spotted him.

  Caleb approached them cautiously, lifting his rifle up so they’d know he had it. He took the attitude a mistake had been made on their part, and they should rectify it by returning his child.

  When he was within a hundred yards of them Caleb saw that Mattie was not their only captive.

  Her name was Rebecca Hilliard, and she was the daughter-in-law of a store proprietor in town. She was maybe twenty one. She always had a smile for Caleb when he came in the store and he always responded with a kind word, but he was sure she was hoping for more from him then. Seeing her hands were tied caused Caleb to pull back sharply on the reins. He wondered how to reason with a race of men that would steal a child and young woman and all he could come up with was to point at Mattie and shout he’d like her back.

  Caleb wondered if they understood him, but what he wanted was easily grasped. He held his rifle out in front of him in a manner to demonstrate they could have it in exchange for returning Mattie. Hopefully they would return Rebecca Hilliard as well, but if not, he would have to take just Mattie back. He was encouraged when several of them gathered together to discuss his offer, but another of them lifted a rifle up - a single shot musket - and fired it.

  If he had not flinched, he would have been hit through the throat, but he did so the ball whizzed past his ear like an angry wasp. A second ball buzzed past, sounding not unlike an axe splitting dry wood. Lead balls flying through the air in close proximity was a sound Caleb had not heard since Gettysburg or one other time; as his regiment was marching through the open fields leading up to Fredericksburg. Neither had been red-letter days and he couldn’t stop himself from thinking this one wouldn’t turn out any better.

  His mare, hearing the sound as well, began bucking wildly, jarring Caleb out of the saddle. Looking down from above, Caleb saw no horse below to arrive back on. He dropped until he hit the ground, landing on his heels. He fell onto his backside. As he sat up, the shaft of an arrow sprang up between his boots like a weed and then another beside him.

  It seemed they intended to take from him everything he held most dear, including his life. Looking up he spotted a half-dozen arrows sailing toward him, so in the two seconds before they arrived there, Caleb scooted back. A half-dozen arrows landed just where he had been. Caleb rose and began to run.

  They Indians must have thought he intended to run all the way back to his farm, because all of them were caught unawares when Caleb stopped, spun around and began firing. Everything changed in that moment and it would take many days to set them right again, if ever.

  A brave slumped from his horse and fell to the ground with a thud. The others looked at him and then at Caleb before suddenly fleeing. Caleb continued to fire at them, meaning to kill them all. Taking no time to pick out a target, other than to avoid hitting Mattie, hoping they would leave her behind, even if it meant for her a hard fall.

  Despite their sudden understanding he was serious about wanting his child returned, they failed to abandon either captive. When his gun clicked on empty Cale
b ran to his mare, slid atop it and spurred her after the fleeing Indians, but their smaller ponies proved themselves more suitable than his in a sprint. After a minute of hard riding, they had distanced themselves nearly beyond sight as his horse began to tire. Despite Caleb’s cursing and spurring her, the mare slowed to a halt and collapsed.

  Caleb looked for Mattie as the Indians rode straight at the blinding sun like it was a portal. It might as well have been; for Mattie was soon swallowed up in its brightness. Caleb ran toward there, yelling Mattie’s name.

  And then something emerged from out the light. Caleb prayed it was the horse carrying Mattie, but his prayer was only partially answered. It was the Indian pony that belonged to the warrior he had killed, the horse coming back to ride past its fallen rider. Caleb went to catch it, but the small horse backed away from him when he did. He realized he needed to give the animal time to get use to him. As well he knew he would have to be patient if he was to find Mattie now, and bring her home.

  Chapter 2

  Sheriff July Ford was resting in his room connected to the jail, when he heard yelling. A fight likely, a loose horse maybe, possibly even a trail herd crossing through some farmer’s field, but whatever it was, he hoped to have it settled before they stopped serving dinner over at the hotel.

  He sat up and ran his fingers through his graying hair, picked up his gun belt from the floor beside him and strapped it on. It was still bright outside so he put his hat on before stepping out onto the veranda. July Ford was wiry still despite being well into his forties and handsome still by most accounts. Standing on the porch, what he saw was three boys strung out behind one another running up the dusty street. The oldest boy July recognized as belonging to the German settler, Mr. Havel, who talked too much. He would have liked the man more had he stuck to speaking solely in his incomprehensible native tongue. When the boy spotted the sheriff, he stopped and pointed back towards where he’d come, needing to gather his breath before he could report that a man had been killed.

  That news, while unexpected, seemed tame to what the boy said next, for July suspected some kind of accident, but instead the boy informed him Indians had done it.

  “What makes you think that?” July shouted, hurrying down the steps.

  “Got arrows sticking out of him,” the boy explained.

  “Where is he?”

  “About a mile out on the road, sitting in a buggy.”

  July looked toward where the boy pointed as a crowd began to form in the street. He spotted smoke rising some miles away. He began looking through the crowd then and spotted his deputy, Tom Durant, who’d been taking dinner over at the town’s hotel.

  “Tom, what men are there inside the saloon?” July asked.

  “Uh, Steam Carter and Bill Parson of the High Water ranch is all.”

  “Go get ’em. Tell ‘em to saddle up. You three ride out west and start checking on the families that way. I’ll be along shortly,” July ordered him. Then noticing Sam Bartlett, the livery owner, July ordered him to go with his deputy as well as the rest of the men coming out onto the street.

  July leaned forward then and took hold of the outside of the Havel boy’s shoulders like they were the frame of a picture he wanted to lift up and view. “Who was the dead man?” he asked.

  Worry for his mother overcame the Havel boy then and trying to answer, his words came out sounding like a fiddle being tuned, squeaky and high-pitched. “I don’t know. My pa wouldn’t let us see him, he told us to run into town and tell the sheriff what had happened. He took off home then to check on my ma,” the boy said. “She’s all alone.”

  July stepped away from the boy, hoping some women in the crowd would step forward to comfort him and then spotting Aaron Hilliard, one of the store proprietors in town, July started toward him.

  “Aaron I’m gonna need ya too,” July said as Mr. Hilliard approached him, “and get your boy...,”

  But Mr. Hilliard interrupted the sheriff to inform him his son had just ridden out of town on a buggy his bride. Mr. Hilliard asked what had happened and Sheriff July Ford figured he knew who the dead man was.

  Chapter 3

  The buggy sat out into the tall weeds a ways, at an odd angle to the road, and the Morgan horse that normally accompanied it was absent. The sheriff dismounted and walked up to it while Mr. Hilliard followed two steps behind. The carriage was hooded, its backend facing July and he could not see inside it until he reached the side of it. Looking inside then, held his hand up indicating for Mr. Hilliard to not come any closer. July could see Aaron Hilliard’s boy lying inside, but his bride was not at his side.

  “They’ve taken your daughter-in-law,” July told Mr. Hilliard.

  July walked back to the men who had ridden out with them and ordered them to check on the nearby farms. When he turned back around, Mr. Hilliard was disappearing inside the buggy and July knew some part of him would never come back out.

  July walked up to the carriage again and saw Aaron Hillard sitting with his son. It was an unsettling sight, for the boy had two arrows protruding out his chest, he’d been scalped and his body was limp and bloody and his father had to hug him awkwardly so as to prevent him from slumping out of his arms. July stood close by, not knowing what to say, waiting for Mr. Hilliard to request his help laying the boy out.

  “Why’d they do this?” Mr. Hilliard asked, barely loud enough for July to hear.

  “No good reason,” July said shaking his head.

  “I’ll have to go after her.”

  “You should take your boy home.” July said, wanting to help Mr. Hillard, but just as eager to see him on his way.

  “I should go after her.”

  “Best if you stayed with your wife. She’s going to need you. I’ll round up some men and we’ll go after her for you.”

  “Let me take my boy home and then I’ll join you.”

  “If she’s to be found we’ll need to start after her right away. Let me do this for you. You should take your boy home to his mother.”

  After a moment, Mr. Hilliard nodded and July went to retrieve Mr. Hilliard’s horse so he could hitch it to the buggy. As soon as he had, July turned around to find Mr. Hilliard dragging his son out. He stood holding him in his arms then.

  “I haven’t picked him up since he was a boy,” Mr. Hilliard said, and July realized he had never thought he would again. They laid the boy out on the buggy seat and covered him with the blanket that Mr. Hilliard’s son and daughter-in-law had intended to picnic on. July turned to leave then.

  “I want my daughter-in-law back, don’t think that I don’t, no matter what’s happened to her,” Mr. Hilliard said.

  “I know you do,” July said, nodding at Mr. Hillard.

  Chapter 4

  The Evans’ farm lay not much farther down the road and approaching it, July saw Caleb Evans throwing a saddle over a spotted pony. The paint did not care to have a saddle placed on it and fought plenty, but Caleb managed to saddle it with Mr. Bartlett’s help. Sam Bartlett had remained there while the others had gone on to the Havel place, having determined that was where the fire was burning.

  Mrs. Evans was standing on the porch holding her youngest child in her arms, but when Caleb had the horse saddled, she set the child down and began handing things to her husband that had been set out on the porch. Caleb Evans began stuffing the items in his saddlebags or tying them behind the saddle.

  The Evans’ home looked untouched, so July assumed Caleb was volunteering to help chase down the killers of John Hilliard, but then Sam Bartlett mounted his horse and rode toward him shouting something. When he was close enough, July learned that Mattie Evans had been stolen.

  “They took Caleb’s oldest child,” Sam told him. “Caleb killed one of them.”

  “What kind of Indians done it?”

  “I didn’t think to ask.”

  “He say which direction they went?”

  “West,” Sam Bartlett said, pointing directly at the setting sun as if July
would not have known that.

  July nodded at Mrs. Evans as he rode into the yard. He looked closely at Caleb’s horse then and saw that three yellow lines as well as a gray handprint had been painted on its shoulder so as to identify its owner. It registered with July then that the pony had just recently changed ownership and possibly it previous owner was lying around somewhere, close by.

  “How long they been gone?” July asked, taking his hat off and wiping his brow with his sleeve.

  “Less than an hour,” Caleb said, busy tying a blanket behind his saddle.

  “What kind of Indians were they?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Caleb said.

  “How’d you end up with this one’s horse?” July asked, pointing at the Indian pony.

  “I caught it, after I …,” Caleb glanced at his wife and child before answering, “shot the one riding it.”

  “I’d like to take a look at him,” July said. “If he happened to have been left behind.”

  “He’s out there,” Caleb said pointing across the stream.

  July glanced at Mrs. Evans then and his noticing her caused her to speak.

  “What are you planning to do to get my child back?” she asked, firmly.

  “I plan on running them killers down,” July replied looking Mr. Evans in the eye. He turned to Sam then as he flicked a wrist toward Caleb. “Meet me over at the Havel’s as soon as he’s ready,” July told him. “That pony will surprise you. You’re lucky to have it,” he told Caleb before riding off.

  The Indian pony was smaller and leaner than horses Caleb was accustomed to, but it demonstrated a strong temperament, sliding away when he tried to mount it. Caleb Evans had been in the infantry during the war, and had somewhat limited skills working with horses, so Sam Bartlett took hold of the horse by its ear and told him to slide on up. Caleb did so, carefully, and when he was fully mounted atop it, Sam Bartlett released his grip on the horse. The pony spun around like the hands of a clock wound too tightly then, but Caleb dug his knees into the side of the horse and held on.