Legends of the Lost Causes

by Brad McLelland

“It is magic!”

  Nat ignored him. “Cutter’s only his nickname, though. He’s too stubborn to tell us what his real name is.”

  “You cowhands know it’s bad luck to ask for a fella’s full name. You have to earn that,” the boy said, and chortled. Cutter’s boots, coat, and hat were a dusty tan, and a bright blue bandana hung around his neck. In place of a belt, he wore a dull red sash made of woven silk, tied in a half-bow knot on his left hip.

  “Cutter’s chasing the man who killed his friend,” Nat continued. “He and John Wesley was on the trail together before they met me and Duck. They’re thick as thieves, those two.”

  Cutter was still rubbing his offended wrist. “Don’t you even think about trying that move again,” he growled at Keech, “or I’ll have my compadre pull your arms off.” He gestured to John Wesley, who offered Keech his meanest scowl.

  Not the friendliest pair, Keech thought. Still, there was something about them, the whole pack. They seemed strong together, united. Maybe they could help in some way.

  “So what do you call your outfit?” Keech asked Nat.

  “We ain’t settled on a proper name. We never expected to be on the trail for so many weeks.”

  Keech nodded.

  Nat sent John Wesley off to fetch the gang’s horses, concealed up Big Timber Road behind a thicket. While he was gone, Keech and the others assembled around Copperhead Rock. Nat explained that their group had been traveling on a northwest track, avoiding main roads and large towns. A few miles south of Big Timber they had spotted columns of dark smoke rising from a nearby valley. When they stashed their mounts and moved closer, they had found Keech and his ponies near the big rock.

  “What happened down there, anyway?” Nat asked. He stooped to one knee and leaned on his Hawken rifle like a staff.

  Keech hated to speak about his family’s murderer. But if he wanted their help, they would have to hear as much as he could tell.

  “A fella named Bad Whiskey Nelson is what happened. My pa said he rides with a cruel pack who call themselves the Gita-Skog. It’s some kind of wicked militia, though Pa never told me where they come from or how many make up the outfit.”

  “I’ve heard the name,” Nat said, glancing at his brother. “Their deeds are known farther down the state.”

  Keech pondered the comment. “The sheriff of Big Timber did say a terrible band of murderers had been sweeping the Territories. Just yesterday there was an incident over in Big Timber. A strange man shot up the telegraph and threatened the clerk.”

  “Same kind of thing happened down in Arkansas,” Cutter said.

  Nat grunted. “No coincidence, I reckon. Keep going, Keech.”

  “Whiskey rides a chestnut broomtail, but the horse looks sick, like it hasn’t been fed for months. And there’s a brand on its forehead.”

  “On the forehead?” Duck gasped. “That’s awful!”

  “It looks something like this—” Keech stooped and drew the brand in the dirt.

  The group studied the marking.

  “A spiral?” said Cutter.

  “More like a rose,” Keech said. “I just can’t draw for spit. Whatever it is, I’ve never seen a brand like it in these parts.”

  Nat gave the symbol Keech had drawn a long look. “A rose,” he muttered, as if a dark thought had crossed his mind. “Describe this Bad Whiskey. What’s he look like?”

  “He’s no handsome man, that’s for sure. He dresses in black and wears a pointy goatee. Carries a Dragoon, and smells like a ripe sty.” Keech turned to Duck. “Was this the same man who killed your family?”

  Duck opened his mouth to answer, but Nat put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him.

  “The one who killed our folks goes by the name of Big Ben,” Nat said. “A grizzly of a man who wears a tan riding coat and a long red beard, parted halfways in the middle like a lizard’s forked tongue.”

  Keech thought back to the night before. No man among Whiskey’s number had worn a parted red beard. And the largest goon in Whiskey’s horde had been the thrall with the gold nose ring, the one Keech had thought of as Bull.

  “All I know is, when the law finds Bad Whiskey, I want to lead him to the gallows myself,” Keech said. “I want to look in his one good eye so he knows it was me who laid him low.”

  A visible shock registered on Cutter’s face. “What do you mean, ‘one good eye’?”

  “Bad Whiskey is blind in one eye. He’s got a filthy yellow glaze over the left one, like somebody took a rotted egg and smeared it over his eyeball.”

  Cutter dropped his head. “El Ojo,” he murmured. His hand lowered to the bone grip of his giant knife, as though by habit.

  “El what?” Keech looked at Nat and Duck, but the brothers said nothing.

  Cutter gazed across the forest. “Maybe someday I’ll tell you a story,” he said to Keech. “A story about a boy named Bishop, my amigo, my one true friend—till he was put down by a cruel, murdering bandido. The one who killed him, I call him El Ojo. The Eye.”

  Cutter spoke the rest through a vicious scowl.

  “The man in black you describe—I believe your Bad Whiskey is El Ojo. And he ain’t yours for the taking, Blackwood. He’s mine.”

  CHAPTER 11

  I AM THE WOLF

  Keech stepped closer to Cutter. “Not a chance,” he said. “Hunting this man is all I have left.”

  Cutter’s lips drew upward. “This ain’t no debate, Lost Cause. I’ve been planning revenge on El Ojo for months. No way some orphan’s gonna steal it.”

  Hearing Cutter use the name of the Home in a disparaging way sparked a brand-new flame of anger. “Don’t you call me ‘Lost Cause’ again,” Keech said.

  “Or what, Lost Cause?”

  The flame sizzled to a brush fire. Keech broadened his stance to scuffle again, but Nat stepped between them. “Settle down, both of you. Fighting won’t bring anyone back. It certainly won’t get you closer to your one-eyed outlaw.”

  A high whistle sounded nearby. Everyone looked around.

  John Wesley came galloping up Big Timber Road, mounted on a fat calico gelding. Beside him trotted three other horses—a slender palomino mare, and a fine-looking pair of buckskin Fox Trotters.

  As he rode up, John Wesley gestured over his shoulder. “Horses!” he shouted. “Approaching from the east!”

  Keech scrambled up Copperhead Rock to get a glimpse. Though he couldn’t see proper details yet, the sound of clopping hooves and clattering spurs galloped on the wind. Riders were indeed approaching, and traveling fast.

  Nat whistled a shrill melody. In response, Cutter and Duck mounted their horses, preparing to light out.

  When the first of the travelers galloped into Keech’s view, he grinned. “It’s the sheriff!” He climbed down Copperhead Rock. “Bose Turner is a good man. You can trust him.”

  Cutter snorted. “Ain’t no such thing as a trusty lawdog.”

  Mounting his horse, Nat pointed toward Pa Abner’s property. “We’ll ride down to your land and water our mules. You talk to your sheriff, Keech. Explain who we are, what we’re after. Maybe he’ll help us track the outlaws. But if he tries to slow us, we’ll scatter.”

  Keech found the plan agreeable. As the four young riders headed over White Elm Peak and down to the Home, he guided Felix and Minerva to the middle of Big Timber Road and stood facing east.

  Give me strength, Sam, he thought, as four men led by Sheriff Turner galloped toward him, stirring dust clouds in their wake. When the sheriff saw him, he gave a sharp whistle and the company came to a stop in the road.

  Keech doffed his hat. “Sheriff.” His eyes prickled with relief at the sight of the big man.

  “Mr. Blackwood.”

  Keech took a moment to peruse the troop. On Turner’s left sat Deputy Goodlet, a pudgy, mean-faced lawman who’d never spoken a kind word to Keech or Pa Abner in his life. On the sheriff’s right sat Deputy Ballard, the skinny man who had assisted Turner on Main Street.

  Ke
ech had assumed the other two men in the company would be lawmen as well. He was pleasantly surprised to see the third man was the white-haired clerk, Frosty Potter.

  When Keech saw the fourth man, his stomach lurched with surprise and disgust.

  The fourth rider was none other than Tommy Claymore, the peg-leg bandit.

  The creature was hunched atop a speckled mustang, iron shackles binding his wrists to the pommel of his saddle. Keech couldn’t believe how different he looked compared to the day before on Main Street. His pale face had turned the color of stale prunes, and his eyes had become two murky hollows, full of gloom and resentment. At first it appeared his mouth had fallen right off his face, but the lips were indeed there, just curled beneath his filthy beard, like a dried-up cicada shell.

  Revulsion burned away any relief Keech had felt. “Sheriff, it sure is good to see you and your men,” he said. “But why is he with you?”

  Tommy Claymore cackled at the question. “’Cause judgment has come, you foolish tyke.”

  Frosty Potter leaned from his saddle and swatted the fiend’s head. “That’ll be enough out of you,” the clerk said.

  Claymore chuckled again and then quieted down.

  Turner said, “This rascal is the reason we rode out. Last night he started babbling in his jail cell about some kind of attack. At first we thought he was trying to get a rise out of us, but when he mentioned a ‘massacre,’ I started asking questions.”

  Deputy Ballard said, “He offered enough details to make us think we oughta ride out and look.”

  Not wanting to be left out, Deputy Goodlet continued, “We had to bring him along ’cause he wouldn’t tell us where the killin’ happened.”

  “No sooner did we light out than Claymore mentioned the orphanage,” Turner said. “I prayed he was lying, but not long after, we spotted smoke. Tell us everything, son. Spare no details.”

  Behind the sheriff, Claymore snickered.

  Keech tried to ignore the brute. “All right, Sheriff. But please, keep his trap shut.”

  All strength left his body as he began the story. The fresh memories wrenched out the hot tears that hadn’t wanted to fall before, forcing Keech at times to pause the tale, wipe his face with his coat sleeve, and collect his breath.

  Turner listened without interrupting. When Keech got to the part about the Char Stone, the sheriff lifted his hand to stop him.

  “Why would Whiskey want a blasted rock?” he asked.

  Keech considered telling Turner what Pa had said in the study, that the Char Stone was a cursed thing. But he needed these men so that they could form a posse and ride down Whiskey.

  For now he simply replied, “It’s some kind of treasure.”

  “Must be worth a lot of dinero,” Deputy Goodlet said. “Hey, Bose, maybe we’ll get ourselves a finder’s fee.”

  “Hush, Goodlet,” Turner said.

  After Keech had finished, Turner led the troop down to the Home. The air was a burden of churning smoke. The men gazed in disbelief at the mangled black heap that had once been the farmhouse.

  “When I lay hands on this Whiskey Nelson, he’ll regret the day he was born,” Turner said.

  Leading Minerva by her rope, Keech trotted Felix to the shakepole fence, then stopped at the gate to let the lawmen proceed. He grimaced when Claymore passed, beaming his coyote grin.

  “Lookit my master’s fine work!” Claymore cheered. He rattled his shackles at the rubble, then leaned over his saddle to get closer to Keech. “You,” the bandit whispered. “You have somethin’ he wants.”

  Deputy Ballard took hold of Claymore’s chains. “Quiet, you dog,” he spat, and pulled on the shackles. “Apologies, Mr. Blackwood. I’ll take this slug away and give you some peace.”

  “Much obliged, Deputy.”

  Ballard spurred his horse and led the peg-leg bandit out of sight.

  Frosty halted beside Keech at the gate as Turner and Goodlet crossed the yard and disappeared around the smoking mountain of rubble. The clerk peered southward, where Ballard had taken Claymore, and said, “Mr. Blackwood, don’t let that rattlesnake get under your skin. He ain’t worth a lick.”

  “I sure am trying, Mr. Potter.”

  “Men who make wicked deeds in life are hollow on the inside.”

  Keech shuddered at Frosty’s words. He remembered Sam’s discussion back in Big Timber. I can’t shake a terrible feeling, his brother had said. Like that fella didn’t have a soul.

  “I think this man is hollow in more ways than one,” Keech said.

  “Men like Claymore—” Frosty went on, but suddenly an angry shout rose from the backyard, where Bose Turner and Deputy Goodlet had disappeared. The white-haired man looked up. “What in blazes?”

  The shout hadn’t come from one of the men. The voice had belonged to a boy.

  “Nat’s gang!” Keech yelled. Claymore had caused such a distraction, he’d forgotten the plan to inform Turner about Nat and the others.

  Leaving Minerva at the fence, he sped Felix around the rubble. Frosty followed on his roan. In the backyard they found Turner facing the open barn and leveling his Colt revolver at Nat, who had dropped to one knee and was holding his Hawken rifle to his side. Deputy Goodlet had pulled his own weapon on Cutter, who stood beside Nat, poised to chuck his massive knife. Duck and John Wesley stood behind Nat and Cutter in the barn, frozen in their tracks. Blue hens clucked around their boots, combing the dust for feed, oblivious to the conflict around them.

  “Lay down your rifle!” Turner boomed.

  “Mister, it ain’t even pointed,” said Nat.

  “You have till the count of three!”

  Keech rode up beside Turner. “Sheriff, I know these boys! They came down to water their horses.”

  In the barn’s doorway, Cutter said, “Give the word, Nat. I’ll practice my aim.”

  “Sheriff, these boys ain’t your enemies,” Keech said. “They’re hunting the gang that killed their families.”

  Turner’s steady gaze passed over each of them. “Is that true? You kids are tracking criminals?”

  Slowly, Nat lowered his Hawken to the dirt. He gestured for Cutter to sheathe his knife. “Yessir, since early September,” he said, rising.

  Keech’s thumping heart relaxed as Turner and Goodlet holstered their sidearms. Cutter was the only one left clutching his weapon. Nat turned back to him. “Dangit, Cut, put the knife away.”

  “Or what?”

  “Or I’ll do it for you.”

  Muttering, Cutter slid the long blade back into its sheath. One of Granny Nell’s pigs came waddling up, fussing at the blue hens around Cutter’s feet. Annoyed, he shooed the critters off with the side of his boot.

  Keech and Frosty dismounted as Turner and Nat’s gang walked carefully toward one another in the yard. Nat introduced his group, then stretched out his hand. Turner sized Nat up with great interest before shaking.

  “That symbol,” the sheriff said, pointing at the brown-and-yellow patch on Nat’s coat. “I recognize it.”

  Nat glanced down at the patch with a small frown.

  Turner opened his mouth to speak again, but a bluster of horses from the south interrupted. It was Deputy Ballard, returning with Claymore. He was holding the bandit’s chain in one hand and what appeared to be a scrap of black cloth in the other.

  “Hey, Bose, I found this cloth back yonder,” Ballard said.

  “Where?” Turner asked.

  “Over to the south. On a buckthorn bush.”

  “Maybe a strip of Whiskey’s overcoat,” Keech mused.

  “I think I’ve located the gang’s tracks, too. No thanks to this varmint.” Ballard jostled Claymore’s chain.

  Turner eyeballed the patch on Nat’s coat one last time before moving his gaze to the black scrap in Ballard’s hand. “So what do you think?”

  Ballard pointed back to the property’s southern edge. “There’s a path at the wood line. The weeds are pushed back there, and a few of those buckthorns have bee
n trampled. Looks like Whiskey and his crew are headed straight for Farnham.”

  Beside the deputy, Tommy Claymore chuckled.

  Duck clutched his coat at the sight of Claymore, looking quite uncomfortable just being near the scoundrel. “What is wrong with that fella?”

  A voice of warning sounded in Keech’s head. He had already tried, the morning before, to send Bad Whiskey down to Farnham on a wild-goose chase. But the man had seen through that deception. He wouldn’t pursue that direction again, especially if he was acting on Pa’s clues about this Char Stone and seeking the nearest graveyards. A sullied place. A place of death, Pa had told him. I can feel its wickedness pulling at me from the west. Farnham was a long ride, and the country along the way was empty of graveyards.

  If Keech had to guess, the gang would be riding for Whistler, a peaceful village deep in the western forest. Many of its settlers were German immigrants. Keech had been there once, on a business trip with Pa to trade furniture for rice and salt pork.

  “What now, Sheriff?” Frosty asked.

  “I reckon it’s time to find some good men, form a posse, and hunt these killers down.”

  The sheriff’s words baffled Keech. Did Turner intend to ride all the way back to Big Timber simply to round up townsfolk? Such a thing would take hours, maybe a full day.

  “Sheriff, we can’t afford to lose time,” Keech said. “Bad Whiskey is half a day’s ride away. My hunch is he’s ridden west to Whistler. If we don’t ride now, he could destroy the place. Those people are defenseless.”

  Turner wrinkled his brow. “I know of Whistler. But Jake’s found the trail south.”

  “It’s a false one,” Keech said. “The black cloth, the trampled weeds—it’s all intended to throw us off. Whistler is where he’s headed, I know it.”

  Deputy Goodlet snorted. “Ain’t nothin’ at Whistler but a bunch of plowchasers.”

  But Keech would not be bullied. “Sheriff, Whistler is in trouble. And after Whiskey’s done there, he’ll disappear.”

  “Keech, by your own words, there are half a dozen men in the outfit,” Turner said. “We’d be outgunned.”

  “I have my Hawken,” said Nat.

  Turner wagged his head. “Absolutely not. I will not bring along a gaggle of hasty kids to track and arrest murderers. We’re just not outfitted. We could be on the trail for days. I’m sorry, boys, but we do this by the book. We seek proper volunteers. We need full-grown men, and we need them well-armed.”