Solitary Horseman

by Camp, Deborah

  “He’s been slow to mend. Thank you for asking, Mr. Summerfield. How is your missus?”

  “She is a trifle better, but still nervous. I don’t think she’ll ever completely settle. The war cannons still echo between her ears.”

  Callum nodded. He could certainly understand that. The roar of ghostly cannons kept him up at night quite often, as well.

  “Have you had trouble with thieving out your way?”

  “I had two thieves on the payroll, but I cut them loose.”

  “Oh?” Summerfield cleared his throat. “Guess you don’t have as much trouble because you have Indians working for you. They all stick together just like the Negroes. That’s why I’m here. I figure we need to band together more than ever to make sure they don’t keep taking from us.”

  “Only people who’ve taken anything from me are two white men. I have no quarrel with any Negroes or Indians. What have they done to you and yours, Mr. Summerfield?”

  The older man coughed and cleared his throat again. “Nothing. Yet. But they’ve made plenty of trouble for others around here. Time to put a stop to it.”

  “Damn right,” the man at Callum’s other side declared. He leaned forward and stuck his hand out past Callum to shake Summerfield’s. “Good evening, Daniel Summerfield.”

  “Hey, Bob Taylor. Didn’t see you there. Do you know Callum Latimer?”

  “I know his cousin Eller Hawkins.” The man shook Callum’s hand. “Pleased to meet up with you.”

  “Where do you know Eller from?”

  “Oh. Around.”

  Callum studied the man’s cool, sly smile. He was probably in his late twenties, red hair, clipped beard and mustache, freckled skin. His eyes were so dark brown they looked almost black, the pupils blending in with the irises.

  “Gentlemen, find a seat, please, and let’s begin this meeting. We have a lot to discuss this evening!”

  Callum turned his attention to the front and was shocked to see that it was Pastor Vancroft calling everyone to order. What happened to brotherly love and forgiveness? Callum wondered as the hum of voices subsided.

  “Very good,” the preacher said with a smile. “Now, bow your heads and let us pray.”

  Callum frowned, but bowed his head. Was this a town meeting or a prayer meeting?

  “Oh, Father God, guide us to greatness tonight. Help us find remedies to the problems plaguing us. Guide us toward justice and instill in us the courage we need to right the wrongs done to us. For it is in your name and in your son’s name that we endeavor. Amen.”

  Callum lifted his gaze to the stage again where the preacher was being joined by four other men. Eller was one of them, strutting like a bantam rooster. He recognized the other men, too – the grocer Buck Friendly, the livery stable owner Gus Bransetter, and a cotton farmer named Lawrence Dockers. Bransetter and Dockers were hotheads, just like Eller. Friendly had served valiantly in the Rebel forces and had taken the surrender harder than most. In fact, he often told anyone who would listen that he hadn’t surrendered and he wished that Texas would secede from the “new” United States.

  It was Friendly who stepped forward, waving his arm over his head in a big greeting. “Folks! Good to see y’all. Hey there, Pastor Vancroft . . .” He turned slightly sideways to look at the preacher, who had taken a seat in a chair behind him. “Did you hear about the little Negro who was asked by a preacher man, ‘Do you know who saved you, boy?’ Well, he answered, ‘Yassah! Abham Linckin saved me!’”

  A big guffaw rose from the crowd and hands slapped thighs. Callum narrowed his gaze, watching his cousin laugh it up along with the other saps on stage. The unrest he’d felt the moment he’d arrived in town teetered toward unruly. He reckoned that about a third of those present were itching to draw blood and maybe kill someone tonight and another third were itching to watch.

  “We have some activity that needs to be addressed,” Friendly said when the snickering died down. “Indians are racing up and down these here streets, shooting out windows and hollering and stealing horses.”

  A low murmur rumbled like thunder through the room and Callum shifted on the hard bench, sensing the tension of fisted hands and hard jaws all around him. He knew that a few people near him had turned to glare at him because he was friends with Ki and Mary and their sons. No matter that not one of them would stoop to stealing horses. They were good people and he trusted them with his livelihood and his life.

  “We have freed slaves roaming around and asking for work or even trying to buy forty acres here and there. But they’re not as bad as those snakes wearing Eastern finery and looking down their noses at us.”

  Men shook their fists and several rose to their feet to shout, “Damn, dirty Yankees!” Others shouted their agreement and then the pounding of boots began as men stomped and their eyes blazed with bloodlust. Callum looked around, their expressions reminding him of his regiment’s in preparation for a battle. His scalp prickled.

  “In Gainesville, they’re taking matters into their own hands and not waiting for the Rangers or judges to finally crack the whip,” Friendly continued. “Four thieving sonsofbitches were hung last week and there hasn’t been a peep of trouble in that town since!”

  “Hang ‘em high!” Someone shouted behind Callum and a roar of approval filled the Masonic Hall.

  Friendly stepped aside to let Bransetter take over. He had a high-pitched voice that grated on Callum’s last nerve.

  “The Ku Klux Vigilantes are setting things to right again. The war is over, but that doesn’t mean we’re tucking our tails and rolling over onto our backs. Did we fight and lose our sons and brothers and wives and daughters for nothing? To let Yankees and darkies and Injuns take over the South and ruin it like they’ve ruined the rest of the states?”

  “Hell, no! We’re Rebs to the bitter end!” Bob Taylor yelled next to Callum. And then he let go with a Rebel yell that had others joining in like a pack of wolves.

  Callum shut his eyes and swallowed hard as the urge to join them stormed through him, but he wrestled with it and stuffed it back inside him. It had been years since he’d heard the Rebel yell. The last time had been in a field in Tennessee right before cannons and rifles had belched smoke and death.

  When he opened his eyes, he focused on Bransetter again, who was now turned sideways and sharing a smile with Eller – a smile that was both knowing and deadly. They were definitely in cahoots with each other, chilling Callum’s blood. Eller gave a nearly imperceptible nod to Bransetter and his eyes glinted with excitement.

  “Settle down now, men.” Bransetter turned back to the rambunctious congregation. “Settle now!” He waited a minute for the men to sit down again. “Lawrence Dockers is having a bull riding and barbecue celebration on his place next Saturday. We will have information there about a group we’re forming to help look out for what’s ours. You can sign up on that day and we’ll hold regular meetings where we’ll decide what actions need to be taken. How many of y’all will be there?”

  Another blast of voices thundered through the hall and feet pounded on the wood floor. Callum crossed his arms and stared at his cousin, who was grinning like a chimp. A group, huh? A vigilante group. It was a damned shame Eller hadn’t seen more battles in the war. He’d been taken prisoner in his second engagement with the enemy and had spent the next ten months in an Illinois jail. He’d escaped with another thirty or so inmates, but didn’t join up with his regiment again, saying he couldn’t locate them. His story was that he’d taken up with a group of renegade soldiers, all former prisoners, and engaged with other regiments in battles.

  Callum had never believed that because Eller’s recollections of battles he’d fought in changed with the wind. He figured Eller had laid low. He sure wasn’t battle scarred and he had too much rootless violence stirring in his blood to have seen much action. Men who had truly been in battle, who had marched endless miles in the rain and the snow and the blazing sun, who had resorted to eating worms and wild onions, wh
o had taken boots and clothing off dead soldiers because what they were wearing was ripped and torn and their boot soles were worn clear through – those men weren’t looking for reasons to kill someone else. Yeah, they might be fed up with the way things were – with having to do business with smug Yankees and freed slaves – but Callum couldn’t believe that they actually wanted more blood on their hands.

  “I’ll be there for sure,” Mr. Summerfield said, slapping one hand on his thigh. “It’s high time we took back Texas.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Bob Taylor said, rising to his feet.

  Callum glanced up at him and saw that Taylor was smiling and nodding at someone on the stage. Following his eye line, Callum saw that it was Eller who nodded back.

  “What about you, Latimer?” Mr. Summerfield asked.

  “I might. Depends on if I can afford to take the time away from the ranch.”

  “You might not have a ranch if you don’t take action now.” Mr. Summerfield pushed up to his feet. “You can’t expect those Injuns on your place to keep their brothers and cousins from raiding your ranch and taking horses and steers.”

  “And which ranchers had that happen to them?” Callum stretched to his full height and looked down at the man. “You have any names or just hearsay?”

  “It’s been in the Dallas newspaper. It’s happened to ranchers around Gainesville, Elm, Paris, Denton . . . all over these counties. Only a matter of time before it happens here.”

  Callum ran a hand through his hair and shoved his hat back on. “I have a ranch to run. I don’t have much time for reading newspapers and worrying about raids that haven’t happened. See you gentlemen around, I reckon.” He made his way from the packed hall, pausing to shake hands with a few men and responding briefly to others who asked how his father was doing and if he would be at the barbecue next weekend.

  Outside in the velvety night, he paused to fill his lungs with air that wasn’t thick with cigarette and cigar smoke and sweat before he jogged down the four steps and went to retrieve his horse at the hitching post. He ran a palm across Butter’s flank and let her nuzzle his shoulder and the side of his face before he levered himself up into the saddle.

  He took a shortcut home, riding across the eastern edge of a neighboring ranch to come onto his land out near the old log cabin that had been there when his father had purchased the ranch. No one around could recollect who had built it, but some speculated that it had been an early settler trading in skins. It wasn’t used anymore, although he and his brothers had occasionally spent a night in it when they’d been rounding up rogue cattle in this farthest eastern reach of their land. A couple of creaky bedframes with lumpy mattresses and a few rickety chairs were the only furnishings left in there, last time he’d looked.

  Giving Butter a slack rein, he let her pick her way through a thicket of pines and shrubs that would give way to a trail in another hundred yards that started at the cabin and snaked across the land, past a pond, and then onto the road that led home. The rattle of buggy wheels brought Butter’s ears forward and Callum peered ahead at the glint of harness, breast collar, and buggy hitch.

  “Who in the hell . . ?” he whispered, urging Butter a few more steps closer to the trail. The buggy came into view – a dark red color with a flashy pinto horse pulling it – and he recognized it instantly, along with its driver. What the hell was Lilah Hawkins doing out here at this time of night?

  A few minutes ticked by as he tried on one reason after another as to why Lilah would venture out on her own after dark when she knew Eller was in town attending a meeting. The soft tap of hooves made him hold his breath and he rested a hand on Butter’s flank to keep her still and quiet. The horseman rode through a bright shaft of moonlight and the sight of him made Callum’s heart stop dead for a few seconds.

  Ben Echohawk. Mary and Ki’s oldest son. Callum slammed his eyes shut and held his breath to keep the epitaph from spilling forth. After another minute, he threaded Butter through the trees and toward the cabin. In the moonlight, he could make out the fresh tracks made by a horse and rider and a horse-drawn buggy.

  Damn it all to hell and back.

  ###

  “Settle down, girl,” Callum said as he slipped the damp saddle blanket off of Butter’s back. “We put in a long day, didn’t we?” He caught the sound of hoof beats and glanced toward the stables’ open doors. He knew it would be Ben. Earlier that day, he’d asked Ben to come by before he headed for home.

  Another soft noise reached him and he looked over the stall wall into the deeply shadowed corners. Was something or someone moving back there? A barn owl sailed from one rafter to the next, probably stirring up the mice hiding in the hay bales.

  “Hey, big man,” Ben called, striding into the stables. “Did you go to that town meeting last night?”

  “I was there. They griped about everyone who isn’t lily-white and Southern.”

  “Figured they would.” He hooked his thumbs under his belt. “You got a bur under your saddle about something else?”

  Callum swiped a brush across Butter’s back and along her sides, giving Ben a glance over his shoulder. “I do. How’d it go out there today?”

  “Nothing special. You about ready to brand them?”

  “Just about.” Callum tossed aside the brush and stepped out of the stall, leaving Butter to enjoy her feed. He leaned against the outside of the stall, bending one knee and propping the sole of his boot against it. “The blacksmith should have the branding irons ready by the end of the week.”

  “That’ll make it easier to separate them from the ones heading for market come spring.” A long stem of buffalo grass bobbed between Ben’s lips and his dark eyes glinted in the light of the setting sun.

  Callum nodded. “We’ll see how it goes.” He looked at his best friend. With his shoulder-length black hair and dark brown eyes, Ben had never had trouble attracting the ladies. His teak skin and lean physique also worked in his favor. But Ben had never been one to chase skirts. As far as Callum knew, Ben had only courted a couple of girls, a Kiowa and a Cherokee. He’d broken if off with both of them when their families had pressured him to ask for their hands in marriage. He’d told Callum once that he liked the open prairie and didn’t want to be forced into a corral.

  “You going to talk or can I walk? My stomach’s growling here.”

  Shoving aside his musings, Callum focused on the current courting problems Ben had dumped on him. No need to pussyfoot around it, he told himself as he gathered in a deep breath and kept his gaze fixed squarely on the man he’d known since they were barely out of nappies. “I always pegged you as someone who avoids fights and puts a lot of stock in honor.” He noted the narrowing of Ben’s eyes. “That’s why I can’t for the life of me understand why you’re screwing Eller’s wife.”

  Ben’s face hardened to the consistency of stone.

  “How long has it been going on?” Callum folded his arms against his chest. “You know that it has to stop. If I know about it, then it’s only a matter of time before Eller figures it out and then one of you is going to get the shit beaten out of you or even end up dead.”

  “Did she tell you?” Ben yanked the buffalo grass from between his lips and tossed it aside.

  Callum scoffed at that. “Lilah? Hell, no. I saw you two sneaking away from the old trapper’s cabin last night.”

  Ben stared down at his boots until the silence in the stables became oppressive. “She’s a good woman, Cal. She deserves more than what she gets from him. He treats her with disrespect. She touches me deeply . . .” He rested a hand over his heart. “Deeply, Callum.”

  Shaking his head, Callum scoffed at his friend. “Aw, hell, Ben. She’s not worth dying for. If she wants you so bad, she should leave Eller. This screwing around behind his back is no way for either of you to behave. Ki and Mary would kick your ass if they knew what you were up to. Hell, your brothers would join in on the ass-kicking.”

  Ben sighed and looked toward the
open door at the lengthening shadows. His expression relaxed slightly. “It’s true, I know. I tell myself to stay away from her, but she looks at me and speaks to me. She touches me. I forget everything, Cal. Everything. She is hot molasses in my blood.” He swung his gaze back to him. “Did it feel like that for you when you were with her?”

  Callum shook his head slowly. “She was sweet and pretty, but I wasn’t in love with her. Not even close.” He shrugged. “Don’t get me wrong. I would have taken her if she’d offered, but she was holding out for marriage. She got what she was hankering for.” He shoved away from the stable wall to stand on both feet. “She’s another man’s wife, Ben. That should be the end of this discussion. I don’t give a good goddamn if she feels like hot satin around your dick or if she screams and claws at you like a wildcat when she comes – she vowed to be faithful to another man.”

  Ben closed his eyes for a few moments and when he opened them again, clarity and conviction shone out of them. “You’re right, of course. It must end.”

  Callum stepped over to him and rested a hand on his shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “It will be better for her, too. If Eller thinks she’s messing with another man, he’ll make her even more miserable than she is already. Be the bigger person and walk away from this, Ben.”

  Ben nodded, jerkily. “It will be done.” He went to his handsome black pony and swung nimbly up into the saddle, then kicked him into a trot for home. Callum leaned a shoulder against the wall, his attention fixed on Ben’s departing figure and his thoughts circling to the trouble that could be following the lovesick cowboy. He must be out of his head over Lilah to ignore the obvious – that when Eller got wind of it, he’d fly into a murderous rage. To Eller, his wife bedding down with another man was intolerable, but if that other man was an Indian? He’d be reaching for his gun or a hanging noose.

  The faintest scrape of a shoe and rustle of clothing pricked at his senses and Callum looked over his shoulder toward the back of the stables. That’s when he caught the scent of apple blossoms and lavender.