The Dawn of Fury

by Compton, Ralph

  Ferguson and the other officers left, and Mary paused.

  “That must have been interesting,” she said, “working for the railroad.”

  “It was for a while,” said Nathan. He continued eating.

  “You don’t talk much about yourself, do you?”

  “No,” Nathan said. “I’ve never thought of myself as a conversation piece. I’m a jack of all trades and master of none. I’ve been a soldier, a gambler, a railroad man, and a deputy U.S. marshal. I’ve killed some hombres that was needful of it, and unless somebody salts me down first, I aim to kill a few more. I’m not a drinking man, and I don’t use tobacco or visit whorehouses. I do sleep with women occasionally, but I’m considering giving that up, because the last three are dead, because of what I did or failed to do. Will that be enough for now?”

  “Yes,” she said, in a small voice. The rest of the meal was eaten in silence. They had returned to their cabin before Nathan spoke again.

  “Gather up the rest of your clothes,” he said. “I’ll leave you with Mrs. Masters. Have her take up at least one shirt and one pair of Levi’s, so’s you have something to wear. Leave the others, and she can take them up when she gets to them.”

  The lieutenant’s seamstress wife did sewing in the cabin where she lived, and after leaving Mary there, Nathan went to Captain Ferguson’s office. Even then, the telegraph was chattering, demanding attention.

  “Thank God,” Ferguson groaned. “Find out what that thing wants. It’s been driving me to distraction.”

  Nathan sat down at the table with pencil and paper. Most of the messages were followups to earlier messages, seeking to learn the reason for the lack of response from Fort Worth. Nathan quickly sent a lengthy response from Captain Ferguson detailing the problem. Ferguson had given Nathan credit for aiding him in his emergency. When Washington acknowledged, there was a five-word message for Nathan: Silver sends regards to Stone.

  Nathan’s apparent recognition in Washington didn’t go unnoticed by Captain Ferguson. When he had read the message, he spoke.

  “So it was you who alerted Washington to the ... ah ... difficulty some months ago at Fort Concho. Silver ... Byron Silver . . .”

  “A friend of mine,” Nathan said. “I hope your operation that began at Fort Concho worked out to everybody’s satisfaction.”

  “Very much so,” said Captain Ferguson. “If it won’t inconvenience you, I would consider it a personal favor if you will act as post telegrapher until I can make other arrangements.”

  “I’d be glad to,” Nathan replied.

  By the time Nathan returned to the Masters’s cabin, Mrs. Masters had a pair of Levi’s and one of the shirts altered to fit Mary.

  “If you can leave the rest with me,” said Mrs. Masters, “I can have them ready in the morning.”

  Nathan and Mary returned to their cabin, for it was getting dark. Cotton Blossom waited at the door.

  “I may be here several more days,” Nathan said. “I promised the Captain I’d remain here as telegrapher until he makes other arrangements. We’ll have our meals and a place to sleep.”

  Nathan removed his gun belt, his hat, and his boots, and lay down on the bed.

  “Do you always sleep in your clothes?” Mary asked.

  “When you travel a lot and you don’t often have a bed, it helps keep you warm,” said Nathan.

  “There’s something unnatural about a man who never takes his clothes off,” she said, looking at him critically. “There’s not ... some of you ... missing, is there?”

  It caught him off guard, and when he realized she was serious, he laughed until he cried. Angrily she grabbed the chair and sat down facing the door, her back to him. When he began to snore, she got up and kicked the chair up against the bed. He opened one eye.

  “You ... you’re impossible,” she shouted. “You sleep with your clothes on, you won’t talk to me, you won’t listen to me. Damn it, I might as well have stayed with El Gato. At least, he ... he made me feel like a ... a woman.”

  Nathan got up and lighted the lamp, for it was dark in the room. He then took her bodily and threw her on the bed, and taking her boots by the heels, jerked them off her feet. She tried to get up and he shoved her back down. Unbuttoning her Levi’s, he dragged them off. By the time he got to her shirt, he had to fight her to remove that, but he managed it. He got up, leaving her lying there. When he caught his breath, he spoke.

  “If that’s your idea of being treated like a woman—being stripped and having a man salivate—then so be it. I’ve seen naked women before. When you have something more to offer me than what El Gato could have taken, then maybe you and me will have somethin’ to talk about. Meanwhile, you just lie there and feel like a woman.”

  He sat down in the chair, leaned its hind legs against the wall and just looked at her. He alternated between feeling sorry for her and wishing he’d never laid eyes on her. Finally she rolled over, buried her face in a pillow and began sobbing. Even as he was feeling guilty and snake-mean, he wondered if she weren’t just putting on another act for his benefit. He got up, opened the door, and then closed it, as though he had gone out. But her wailing continued, becoming louder, until he feared others would think he was beating her. He rolled her over, but her eyes were closed, and she kept them closed. He kissed her gently on the lips, just once. She almost strangled as she choked off a sob. When she opened her eyes, the anger had been replaced by wonder.

  “Mary,” he said, “if you can’t get a man’s attention without taking off your clothes, then there’s something wrong with you. Or with him. You’re an almighty pretty girl, but that’s not enough. You’ve been trying to prove something—maybe to me, maybe to yourself—I don’t know. Starting right now, I want you to just be you. Understand?”

  “I ... I understand,” she said, “and I’ll try.”

  He got up, blew out the lamp, got undressed, and lay down beside her. She remained where she was, unmoving. She was silent for so long, he breathed a sigh, thinking she was sleeping.

  “Nathan, are you asleep?”

  “Yes,” he said, “and it’s not easy, with you talking to me.”

  She laughed, poking him in the ribs with a finger. “Aren’t you afraid you’ll freeze?”

  “There are times when I like to live dangerously,” he said.

  Sergeant DeWitt, after a long bout with fever, died from causes unknown. Captain Ferguson telegraphed Washington, and was informed that it might be as long as a month before a qualified telegrapher could be assigned to the post.

  “This is embarrassing,” Captain Ferguson said, after Nathan had given him the telegram from Washington. “Is there a chance you can remain here until I get this new man assigned? I don’t expect your services for nothing. I can authorize payment of a dollar a day, retroactive to the day you began.”

  “I can stay,” said Nathan, “and the pay isn’t necessary. You’re providing me with food and quarters. That’s enough.”

  Nathan was enjoying his temporary duty, for the telegrapher at Fort Worth was liaison between Washington and the state of Texas, as well as parts of Indian Territory. Much information came his way. Despite the Reconstructionist governor of Texas refusing to recognize the Texas Rangers, the Rangers had survived and were now stronger than ever. The Union army had developed a healthy respect for these men who had led the fight in the war with Mexico. Much of the information that came over the wire concerned outlaws of concern to Texas lawmen, and there were names of Rangers Nathan recognized. The last week in January, a report came in involving John Wesley Hardin. The gunman, in custody of two state lawmen, along with two other prisoners, was being transferred from the little town of Marshall, Texas to Waco. While one of the guards had gone to buy grain for the horses, Hardin produced a hideout gun and shot the remaining guard. Hardin and the other prisoners had fled on horseback. One of the other prisoners, captured with Hardin, had been Dade Withers!

  Nathan swore under his breath, for he was committed t
o fill in as post telegrapher for at least three more weeks, and maybe longer. His position now seemed a blessing and a curse. A blessing, because he might have ridden for months, searching saloons and reading newspapers before learning this bit of information that had fallen into his hands. However, he was cursed by being committed indefinitely to the very instrument that had served him so well, for he was unable to look for Hardin and Withers. But he had one thing in his favor. With access to the telegraph, he could watch for reports on Withers and Hardin’s whereabouts. Withers might not alone command the attention Hardin would, so it was to Nathan’s advantage if Withers kept with Hardin.

  At last Captain Ferguson received word that three newly assigned soldiers would be arriving on February twenty-first. One of them was the long-awaited telegrapher. The next report on Hardin came from south Texas, from Gonzales County. Hardin and some other riders had stopped at a Mexican camp, and after taking part in a game of monte, quarreled with the dealer. Hardin slugged the man with his gun barrel and when two other Mexicans drew knives, Hardin shot and wounded them. There was no mention of names other than Hardin’s.

  On February fifteenth, word came that buffalo hunters had brought a wounded man to Fort Griffin. The men claimed they had been attacked by four riders, one of whom was believed to have been John Wesley Hardin. Identify had been unconfirmed. Nathan went to the huge map of the United States in Captain Ferguson’s office. Fort Griffin was in northwest Texas. That could mean Hardin and his friends were bound for Indian Territory to hole up until it was safe to return to Texas, or it could mean they were going all the way to Kansas.

  “Where are we going when we leave here?” Mary Holden wanted to know.

  “North,” said Nathan. “Maybe to Indian Territory, maybe to Kansas.”

  “Am I allowed to know why?”

  “I reckon,” said Nathan. “If you aim to ride with me, you might as well know what you’re up against. I’m going to kill a man. He was one of seven who murdered my family.”

  “Where are the others?”

  “Dead,” Nathan replied. “Now you know all there is to know about Nathan Stone. Are you satisfied?”

  “No. What will you do after you’ve killed this last man?”

  “I don’t have the faintest idea,” said Nathan.

  On February 21, Nathan gave up his temporary position as telegrapher, and Captain Ferguson thanked him profusely.

  “If you’re ever in trouble and need the army,” Ferguson said, “call on us. However, we’re always undermanned, so I can’t promise there’ll be enough of us to save you. Of course, you can always telegraph Washington.”

  “I can’t count on that, either,” said Nathan. “Silver’s the kind who’d go out and get himself shot just when I’m needin’ him the most.”

  Fort Griffin, Texas. February 25, 1871.

  Nathan had a letter—enclosed in oilskin—from Captain Ferguson informing any and all concerned that Nathan Stone had, on more than one occasion, rendered service to the army of the United States of America. Ferguson had requested that Nathan be shown every consideration by other military installations, including food, lodging, and use of the telegraph. It quickly got Nathan and Mary into the office of Fort Griffin’s post commander, Colonel Lowell.

  “Sorry,” Lowell said, after Nathan’s inquiry, “but the man you’re seeking was released from our dispensary more than a week ago. His wound wasn’t all that serious. The report we have of the shooting is sketchy, because none of the buffalo hunters had ever seen Hardin. Therefore, we don’t know if it was him or not. It well could have been, because that’s how most of these Texas killers operate. When the law gets after them in Texas, they go somewhere else. By the time they’re in trouble there, things have usually cooled down enough for them to return here. We’re never entirely rid of them till they’re hung or shot.”

  Nathan and Mary were offered lodging and meals, so they spent one night at Fort Griffin. After breakfast they rode north. Nathan had no doubt that he would be shot on sight if they rode anywhere close to El Gato’s stronghold. Mary hadn’t said anything, but he could see the fear in her eyes at the very mention of Indian Territory. Finally, when they stopped to rest and water the horses, he decided to ease her mind.

  “We’re not going anywhere near El Gato’s place,” he said. “It’s a good hundred and fifty miles east of here. I think we’ll just ride on to Fort Dodge. From there, I can telegraph Captain Ferguson and see if there’s been any more hell-raising by Hardin anywhere in Texas.”

  “I’m glad we’re not going anywhere close to those outlaws,” she said. “I don’t even like to think of what he ... El Gato would do to me if he ever got his hands on me again.”

  “No more than he’d do to me,” said Nathan. “That’s practically the first thing he said to me, that he’d kill me if I ever betrayed his trust.”

  “I wonder what happened after you left them? Did they go ahead and rob the bank at Wichita?”

  “I don’t know,” Nathan said. “I haven’t read a newspaper since leaving Kansas. In a way, I hope Hardin and his bunch are in Kansas. I have friends there, and it’s a hell of a lot more civilized than Indian Territory.”

  They crossed Indian Territory’s panhandle and rode on toward Fort Dodge.

  Chapter 34

  John Wesley Hardin was bound for Kansas. However, he and his friends did not take the most direct route, and as a result, didn’t arrive until early June. Following the shooting in Gonzales County, Hardin rode to Cuero Creek, where a rancher he knew was about to take a herd up the Chisholm Trail to Wichita.37 In between scrapes with the law, Hardin often hired on as a cowboy, and he did so this time, taking two other men with him. The drive eventually crossed the Red into Indian Territory at the same point Nathan and Mary had left it, after their escape from El Gato’s band. Hardin managed to stay out of trouble until the trail drive was out of Texas. However, for no apparent reason, in Indian Territory, he shot and killed an Indian. Fearing retribution, the cowboys helped Hardin conceal the body. The incident went unrecorded until much later.

  Fort Dodge, Kansas. March 1, 1871.

  Nathan and Mary were well received at Fort Dodge, but a telegraphed inquiry to Captain Ferguson at Fort Worth proved unrewarding, for there was no further word as to the whereabouts of John Wesley Hardin. After spending a night at the fort, Nathan and Mary rode upriver to the tent city. Many of the tents were gone, and in their places, wood-framed buildings now stood. The mercantile was one such building and was quite impressive. It was larger than many Nathan had seen in larger, already-established towns.

  “Are we going in?” Mary asked.

  “I reckon,” said Nathan.

  One display especially intrigued Nathan, for it was a new blasting method, a vast improvement over the bothersome, unpredictable black powder.

  “It’s called dynamite,” a clerk told him. “You just cap it and light the fuse, using as many sticks as you need. It’s been available back East for several years. Because of the recent war, we’re just now getting it.”

  “We can reach Hays before dark,” Nathan said, when they had left the store. “I know the Kansas—Pacific dispatcher there, as well as the editor of the newspaper. I may learn something from them.”

  So they rode north. Nathan took a room in the same boardinghouse where he had once shared a room with Wild Bill Hickok. Cotton Blossom followed willingly only when they went out for meals, for he didn’t like Hays. It was late when they reached Hays, and Nathan decided he would talk to Donaldson, the dispatcher, and Plato, the newspaper editor, the next day. However, he had been away from the saloons for months. Perhaps it was time to inquire there again.

  “I’m going to visit a few of the saloons and see what I can learn,” he told Mary. “I want you to stay here and keep Cotton Blossom with you.”

  He visited Drum’s Saloon first, finding it crowded, but subdued. Others were much the same, and after less than two hours, Nathan was finished with them, having learned
exactly nothing. He was afoot, and by the time he was in sight of the boardinghouse, he knew something had happened. Men wandered around in front of the place, and he could hear shouting. Pete Lanihan, the county sheriff, was there.

  When Nathan reached the outer fringes of the crowd, he discovered what the commotion was all about. Mary Holden knelt with her arms around a growling, bloodied Cotton Blossom. The buttons had been ripped off Mary’s shirt. A pair of soldiers—privates—stood within the circle of spectators. The trousers of one of them had been ripped from the knee down.

  “That’s my dog,” Nathan shouted, raising his voice above the uproar, “and I want to know what’s happened here.”

  Nathan shoved his way through, coming face to face with Sheriff Lanihan. Lanihan didn’t show any friendliness, and the first thing he said rubbed Nathan the wrong way.

  “So it’s your dog,” Lanihan growled. “You’re prepared to pay—”

  “Nothing,” Nathan finished. “I’m prepared to call on the post commander at Fort Hays and demand that these men be court martialed. Look at the front of the girl’s shirt.”

  “Cotton Blossom bit him only after he did this,” said Mary, standing to allow the shirt to hang open. “They beat him with a gun barrel.”

  An ugly murmur arose from the crowd that had gathered, for most of them were civilians. Sheriff Lanihan realized what must be done and did it quickly, raising his voice so he could be heard.

  “That’s enough. All of you clear out. I’m taking these men to jail and notifying the post commander. This will be handled in an orderly manner.”

  “Now,” he said, turning to Nathan, “I’ll want both of you at the courthouse in the morning at nine o’clock. I’ll need your names to file my report.”

  Nathan told him, and he left afoot, leading his horse, the pair of crestfallen soldiers plodding ahead of him. Nathan and Mary returned to their room, Cotton Blossom trotting beside them. Inside, Nathan removed a bottle of strong disinfectant from his pack. With a clean strip of cloth, he cleaned Cotton Blossom’s wound and doused it with the fiery medicine. Finally Mary spoke.