The Adventures Of The Brothers Dent (The Mountain Men Book 3)

by Terry Grosz

  “Where they going next?” growled Gabe with a tenor in his voice that advised one to answer truthfully or suffer further suffocating consequences.

  “The farm over in the next hollow and then we was going north to hide in the swamps until the law cooled off,” he replied. In his reply, it was obvious he understood the tenor in Gabe’s question and what was forthcoming if he wasn’t truthful.

  “The Tellers are all in their hay barn. They was strung up by these killers and kilt to a man, woman and child,” grimly reported a returning Cal. With that information, John fingered his pistol in recognition of the deed that was sure to follow if he had his druthers. However, there was no need for John to finger his pistol. Gabe, in renewed pent-up fury upon hearing of the death of the Tellers who were close friends, tore the frightened prisoner’s throat out in one quick motion with the strap steel- tough strength in his arms and hands. In so doing, he spewed bright red blood over everyone. He continued holding the dying, violently wiggling man in his outstretched hands and arms until the fury left him with a rush as did the spurting lifeblood from the now-quivering unfortunate.

  Dropping the dripping man to the ground, Gabe said, “Let’s ride. The Williamsons own the next farm over and they will need help since old man Williamson is partially crippled!”

  Running to their tethered horses standing quietly a short distance away in the timber, the four men scrambled into their saddles and sped off for the Williamson farm. They followed the tracks left by the four riding and two packhorses of the raiders in the process. The killers’ tracks soon separated as if suspecting they were being followed and headed for the edge of timber adjoining the Williamson farmstead instead of heading for the old man’s cabin. Being so close to the Williamson’s cabin, the men ignored the turning tracks of the killers and headed in the farmstead’s direction. Rounding the bend onto the Williamsons’ farm, the riders were surprised to see Old Man Williamson tending to his flock of chickens in his front yard.

  Riding up in a lather of horses, a cloud of dust and flying dirt clods, John bellowed out, “Damn! Glad to see you and Molly are still on this side of the dirt and in the Lord’s good graces.”

  “What you talking about, John?” asked a surprised Duncan Williamson hurriedly stepping back from the lathered horses as they reined to a stop, scattering his chickens every which way to Sunday in a flurry of feathers.

  “Did you see four riders come this way leading two packhorses led by a large man riding a coal-black horse with a blaze and four white fetlocks?” asked Cal.

  “Nary a soul came this way since I been on these here legs this morning,” declared Duncan. “Why do you ask, Cal, and why are the four of you all lathered up and in such a danged fired-up big hurry?” he continued.

  “Them four been killin’ and rapin’ everything they come across in the ‘Boot Heel’ and are in country once again. Just came from the Tellers and they all be dead. Kilt by those four and two others who the boys just dispatched after they was caught robbin’ the Tellers’ smokehouse,” he grimly continued.

  “Damn, Boys. Them Tellers was good people,” said Duncan slowly as Molly came out from their cabin. “Good morning, John, Cal, and you two young-uns. Got time for some sowbelly, biscuits, and grits?” she warmly asked not knowing the real reason for their neighbors’ early morning surprise presence.

  “Not today, Miss Molly,” said John. “We be on the trail of several hard cases who need our attention. Duncan will fill you in ’cause we need to scoot afore they get into the next county. Fill her in on the problem, Duncan, and be on your toes and keep your rifle handy until you know otherwise. If any four unknown riders come upon your homestead after we leave, I suggest you start shootin’ first with no questions asked and don’t miss. Me and the boys will hear the shootin’ and come a-hellin’ when we do.”

  “Count on it, John, and thanks for the warning,” said Duncan as he hurried for the cabin and his rifle, pushing Molly back inside for the protection their sturdily built log home offered.

  With that, the four riders backtracked their trail until they came across the tracks of the culprits heading into the timber. Following them, they came to a place where the four riders and their pack animals had stood at the edge of the timber on a small hill above the Williamsons’ farm as if looking on when John’s party had ridden up. Then the tracks backtracked themselves back to the Teller farm from whence they had earlier come.

  Quickly following those fresh tracks, John’s party found that the killers had discovered their dead kin back at the smokehouse. Now they knew they were found out and being tracked. With that realization, they had taken the dead men’s riding and pack animals that had been left behind in the hurry to get to the Williamsons’, finished cleaning out the Tellers’ smokehouse, and fled north towards Malden, Missouri. Pushing their horses, John’s party soon met the local Town Constable from Malden and his posse who were also hot on the trail of the outlaws now that the word was out. The two groups joined up and continued following the killers’ tracks until they were lost in the darkness along the St. Francis River and its dense swampy undergrowth.

  ***

  The next day’s search continued anew, but once again the earth swallowed up the killers especially when the killers left the river’s brushy confines and had gotten onto the well-used local roads. It was also obvious they had now split up once again making trailing all but impossible. Finally after another fruitless day of pursuit, the posse from Malden went home. John and the boys returned home, as did Cal, and retrieved their families. After several weeks, things returned somewhat to normal in the “Boot Heel” as the lands needed to be worked and harvested, stock cared for, and winter wood cut, reclaiming their landowners.

  One morning, John had the boys cut out from his herd of cattle, six ready-for-market steers. Those he wanted taken from his farm near Campbell, Missouri, to Malden for sale at Jeffrey’s Mercantile and Stockyard. Having done so, the boys also did the monthly shopping for their aunt and, with loaded pack animals, returned home.

  Arriving well after sunset, they were surprised to find the farmhouse dark. Pulling up in front of the farmhouse, Josh noticed many of their Aunt Kate’s household items strewn around in the front yard! It took a few seconds for the magnitude of the situation to sink in due to darkness and their being so tired after the long day but, when it did, it hit them like a blacksmith’s anvil! Vaulting off their horses, the two men sprinted up the front steps and, in the process, stumbled over the inert body of their Uncle John, bloodied and lying in the open doorway!

  “Uncle John!” yelled Josh as he turned and knelt by his uncle. Reaching out to his uncle’s body, he discovered his hands came back covered in sticky, still-drying blood!

  Seeing he could be of no use to his uncle, Gabe rushed into the cabin. “Aunt Kate!” yelled Gabe in agony, as he discovered her nearly naked body spread-eagled on her bed! Once a lantern was lit, it became obvious that even though she was an older woman, she had been brutally raped and then bludgeoned to death!

  Turning with the lit lantern, Gabe observed his brother standing up from the inert form of his uncle and possessing a look on his face of extreme anger and subdued violence. If Gabe could have seen his own face, it, too, registered the same killing look. Their uncle and aunt had been killed in the same fashion like their parents and numerous others scattered around the “Boot Heel.” In fact, the butchery was that of the trademark left by none other than Black Bill Jenkins and his three brothers.

  The next morning found the two brothers quietly burying their aunt and uncle under an American elm tree in the backyard. Buried together in death, like they had been in life. Next they rode into the Town of Malden to inform the Town Constable, but only after losing the killers’ tracks on the main road among the many other horse and mule tracks from local travelers.

  Again, two days of canvassing the area with a posse from town produced nary a sighting of the killers. They had once again been swallowed up by the earth like
before. It was now apparent to Josh and Gabe that these outlaws were very woods wise; woods wise because they treated every escape while on the outlaw trail as if they were being closely pursued by a posse. By treating their every movement as if closely pursued and splitting up after every deadly deed, they managed to stay ahead of anyone pursuing them with blood in their eyes. They also showed by their escape actions that they understood a sure and equally violent death like they had heaped on the folks in the country would follow if they were ever captured by their Missouri, ridge- running neighbors!

  Returning home, Gabe and Josh cleaned up the area and tended to the livestock. It was during that time the boys discovered that the money they had secreted in the springhouse stone wall from the sale of their folks’ farm had been discovered by the killers and taken! Sitting on the porch that fall evening, the two boys, because of their life’s events and tragedies, took stock of their lives. They had lost all their known relatives to these killers and the money from the sale of their parents’ farm as well. However, the killers had overlooked the livestock in the irrigated south pasture which included some excellent riding stock and packhorses.

  Since they were now the last of kin on their uncle’s farm, they had those resources at hand once the Malden Town Constable arranged for the sale of the farmstead to the local bank. They still had each other and each man now stood over six-and-a-half feet in height and weighed in at 250 hard and lean-muscled pounds. Truly a force to be reckoned with in any day and age. They were crack shots, outstanding trackers of man or beast, and now had decided with the farm’s resources once in hand that they would follow Black Bill Jenkins and his kin until they caught and sent them into the damnation of hell. Sent them in a way in which the devil would hardly recognize them when their murdering carcasses arrived at his unholy place of business. And once that task was accomplished, they would follow their destiny into the land of the setting sun as Mountain Men and buffalo hunters because their lives in Missouri had now effectively come to an end.

  CHAPTER THREE : THE HUNT BEGINS

  While the land appraiser from the First State Bank of Malden moved through the farmstead that morning gathering together an appraisal for the upcoming land sale, Gabe and Josh tended to other business at hand. That morning they had selected from their uncle’s remaining horse herd in the south pasture six of his best-matched buckskin riding horses. That was followed with the selection of his six stoutest mules as well. The rest of the afternoon was spent shoeing that livestock with new shoes for the upcoming trip, repairing and gathering together riding and pack saddles and other necessary tack for a trip of long duration. A goodly stock of farrier tools, horse and mule shoes, shoeing nails, extra halter ropes, leather stocks to repair broken or busted gear, and other necessary stocks were assembled for the Jenkins clan manhunt. Then trying to think ahead on needs for a subsequent trip into the Trans-Mississippi West as fur trappers after the Jenkins killing business at hand had been rectified, many of those items identified were also gathered up and packed.

  The following day was spent procuring trip supplies in Malden. Supplies such as a 12-gauge fowling piece, two .69-caliber horse pistols apiece, extra rifle locks, springs, pins, two extra .40-caliber Pennsylvania rifles, and mold blocks for making pistol and rifle bullets. Also procured were two hand axes, two skinning knives, bullet pullers, extra ramrods, bars of pig lead, kegs of powder, and lock picks, as well as the necessary foodstuffs for the time on the trail. Because Gabe and Josh lacked the hard currency to procure such items, they were purchased on credit pending the sale of their uncle’s farm.

  ***

  Back at the farmstead that evening, the boys cast a small mountain of rifle and pistol bullets and gathered together the necessary cast iron frying pans, Dutch ovens, utensils, fire flints, knife steels, sharpening stones and the like from stocks remaining in their uncle’s farmhouse, barns, and from his smokehouse.

  The next morning found the boys at the Malden State Bank awaiting the arrival of Jim Garrett, close family friend and banker. When Jim arrived and in front of the Town Constable to make it all official, Josh and Gabe, last of kin, sold their uncle’s farmstead to the bank. Refusing script or a bank draft, the boys chose Spanish Reales that were coin of the realm and gold coins. This they did due to the fact they knew not where their trail would lead them and they wanted the latitude hard cash provided. Besides, the boys knew that paper script or bank drafts had a short life under the best of normal circumstances. In short, paper had a habit of the ink being smeared or destroyed when one got them wet crossing a river or caught out in a rain or a wet snowstorm. Filling up two sets of saddlebags with gold and silver coins from the sale of the farmstead, Josh and Gabe then paid off their creditors. Finished with the business at hand, they headed for their uncle’s farm for one last evening of memories before they hit the trail, a “cold trail” that would lead them to their destiny.

  However, before they left town, they questioned the Butler County Constable as to the latest information he had on the whereabouts of Black Bill Jenkins and his clan. The Constable indicated his counterpart up in Salem, Missouri, had advised he had some like trouble with four men answering to the Bill Jenkins clan’s descriptions. Four men, doing what the brothers had previously experienced in the “Boot Heel,” around the small Town of Darien just days earlier. The Salem posse had little luck running the culprits to ground and had last lost them heading northwesterly in the direction of Rolla, Missouri.

  Gabe and Josh tucked that piece of information mentally away as they prepared to head for their uncle’s homestead. As they headed for their horses, the Town Constable did something that was totally unexpected and to prove fortuitous many days later. Telling Josh and Gabe to raise their right hands in a surprise move, the Constable swore them in as Deputy Constables in and for the State of Missouri! That action was followed with the placing of a silver Constable’s shield into each young man’s hand. That was followed with a warning that this action was not a license to kill but the authority to bring in alive to the nearest Missouri law Black Bill and his kin. That was if they chose to go “peaceable like.” If not... Then he handed them a letter of Josh and Gabe’s official status as Missouri Constables introducing them to anyone of interest,.

  First looking in amazement at the shiny shields lying in their hands and then their letter, Gabe and Josh looked deeply into the Town Constable’s eyes, a Town Constable who was an old family friend and almost like a son to their late aunt and uncle. The look they received in return said it all! With that, Josh and Gabe headed for “home” one last time, such as it was.

  Daylight the next morning found Josh and Gabe packed and ready to go. However, before leaving, they visited the gravesite of their late uncle and aunt to say their good-byes. Afterwards, they swung into their saddles and with both leading fully packed horse and mule strings, headed for Rolla, Missouri, and whatever destiny awaited them.

  ***

  Passing through Darien days later, Josh and Gabe got an earful from the locals on what deadly deeds Black Bill and his brothers had put several farmers and their families through just days earlier. In fact, they had some trouble with a few of the locals now suspicious of any unknown new faces in the area. However, the letter procured from the Malden Town Constable before they had left vouching for the two brothers, along with the display of their silver shields, smoothed down the ruffled feathers of the backwoods folks’ suspicions. The cat was now out of the bag that Black Bill and his kin were now being hotly pursued across the backwoods of Missouri by two Missouri Constables. “Jungle telegraph” information, which was quickly passed from farmstead to farmstead almost at the speed of the wind through the Missouri hardwoods. And for those four being pursued, it proved to be an ill wind indeed.

  Arriving at Rolla, Missouri, several days later, Josh and Gabe swung into the Town Constable’s office. After introductions, Josh asked the Constable if he had any information on Black Bill and his kin who at last report had been heading
in that direction. According to the Constable, his contacts had heard nothing more other than that four unknown men had stopped off at McNabb’s Saloon in Hayden, Missouri, and had shot up the place during an argument over a poker game’s outcome.

  The next afternoon found Josh and Gabe in McNabb’s Saloon having a quiet drink and listening to the conversation going on around them regarding the earlier poker game and the subsequent shootout. It seemed a large, black-bearded man had gotten into a quarrel with a local cardsharp during a poker game and had shot him through the head at close range. Then the black- bearded one and his three cronies swept up all the money from the poker table and fled before the local law could intervene. The last anyone had seen of the four men was that they had been heading up the road towards Jefferson City, Missouri, as fast as their horses could carry them.

  ***

  Five days later while crossing the Osage River just below Wardsville, Missouri, on the ferry, Josh and Gabe overheard the news they had been looking for. Four days earlier, four rough looking men leading two packhorses had crossed on the same ferry. During the trip across, the ferry operator said he had overheard one of the men saying they were looking forward to meeting the rest of their kin in Jefferson City. According to the ferry operator, one of the men, a huge specimen with a black beard, had indeed been riding a black horse with four white fetlocks and a blaze on its forehead.

  Tired of eating each other’s poor cooking on the trail, Josh and Gabe decided the next decent looking eatery they came across they would frequent. Later, Josh and Gabe crossed the Missouri River on a ferry and then holed up at Bosco’s Saloon in the small burg of Taos, Missouri, southeast of Jefferson City. The reason for holing up was their desire for some good Missouri backwoods home cooking and a little time out of the saddle. A move that was to prove a bit hazardous.