by Jake Logan
He cursed himself for not doing so when he had shaken off the effects of having his head all bashed in. Thinking straight had been a problem, but he couldn’t use that as an excuse for simply riding to Fort Stockton to get troopers on the Terwilligers’ trail. He should have looked harder.
“No sense beatin’ up on yourself, Slocum. We’ll find out the truth soon enough, ’less you want to ride all night.”
They reached the Yarrow farm by sunrise.
Sergeant Wilson was asleep in the saddle and Slocum was in hardly better condition. Both were driven by the need to find out what happened to the little girls. If the Terwilligers hadn’t spirited them off, there had to be another explanation. At least Slocum hoped there was. They had searched the spread the best they could but a churning in his gut persisted. Had they missed something? The Terwilligers weren’t clever men, but they had been at their thievery and mopery for a lot of years. They might have accidentally found a way to hide the girls that had escaped two tired men on their trail.
Slocum touched his six-shooter and knew the soldier had been right. He was too quick, too good with the pistol. If he had missed or just winged Pa Terwilliger, they might have found out what had happened here.
Looking around the Yarrow farm didn’t give him any good feeling that they would succeed in their hunt. Rain during the night had further wiped away tracks in the dirt, if there had been much chance of finding the proper trail before the storm that had pelted them with small hail and cold, wet drops for more than an hour.
Wilson’s horse came to a halt, but the sergeant didn’t wake up. He snored loudly and wove from side to side. He had long ago learned the trooper’s trick of sleeping in the saddle. Slocum was loath to wake him, though it might be good for the injured soldier to lie down inside the farmhouse. His leg had swollen up to twice its normal size. Slocum had lanced it to drain the pus, and that had helped keep Wilson in the saddle. If gangrene set in, chopping off the leg was about all Slocum could think to do. They were too far from Gregory or the fort to get the sergeant to a doctor before that drastic surgery would be needed.
Movement at the corner of his eye caused Slocum to jerk around. At first he didn’t see what had alerted him. He looked across the yard, where chickens had once pecked away at bits of grain Mrs. Yarrow had tossed out for them. Nothing here. He slowly lifted his gaze to the edge of a plowed field and saw a dark shape fading away.
“Wilson! Stay here!”
Slocum heard the sergeant grunt and jerk upright, but he was already galloping toward the field. Whoever he had seen was too large for a young girl. It might be nothing more than a shadow caused by an animal caught in the rising sun, but Slocum’s instincts told him differently. He reached the field and the spot where he had seen the movement. In the rain-soft earth were clear boot prints, freshly made and undoubtedly left by the man who worked hard not to be seen.
Riding slowly down the rows of struggling corn, Slocum warily watched for any movement to betray the man he pursued. The sound of a galloping horse told him he was headed in the wrong direction. He cut across the rows and broke out into a cleared, unplowed field in time to see a rider disappear down a draw. In hot pursuit, Slocum rode until his paint began to falter. The old horse had held up well under all Slocum had asked of it the last week or so, but such a burst of speed taxed it past endurance.
It stumbled, forcing Slocum to slow. He finally brought the gelding to a halt. Ahead, outlined against the dawn sky, sat a rider, watching, unmoving. Then the horse reared, front hooves clawing at the air in Slocum’s direction. The rider wheeled about and disappeared over the ridge.
Slocum seethed at losing the man so easily. He didn’t force the paint but allowed it to pick its own pace as he crested the hill. The mysterious rider was nowhere to be seen. His tracks were plain, but following them on a tired horse was out of the question, especially when Slocum worried about Sergeant Wilson and his leg.
And the Yarrow girls. That was a puzzle that had to be solved before he went thundering across the prairie after a will-o’-the-wisp.
“Let’s go back. There has to be some fodder in the barn for you,” Slocum said, patting the horse’s neck. The paint responded with more strength than Slocum thought remained in the exhausted animal’s body. It understood that food and rest awaited it in the Yarrows’ barn.
It took close to a half hour to thread his way back and get the horse to a stall. The amount of grain for fodder was sparse but better than the paint was likely to get otherwise. Slocum put it into a nosebag, curried the horse, and made sure it had water before going to the ranch house. Wilson’s horse stood patiently tethered outside the front door.
Slocum took the steps two at a time and went into the house. Wilson had flopped out on the sofa. His half-closed eyelids fluttered and came fully open when Slocum stopped a few feet from him. The soldier had his pistol on the sofa beside him.
“Wondered where you’d got off to. Find anything?”
“Somebody’s been dogging our trail,” Slocum said. “He was hiding out in the cornfield, but I lost him.”
“Horse’s tired, too,” Wilson said, understanding the problem immediately. “We all need rest ’fore gettin’ on back to the post.”
“Fort Stockton’s not going anywhere. We can rest until you’re up to the trip.”
“Want to look around here, too. Must be some clues what happened to the girls.”
“Rest up. I’ll get you something to eat, if there’s anything in the larder.”
Wilson made some incoherent reply and leaned back. This time his eyes closed entirely. His breathing became shallow but regular. Slocum wasn’t afraid of having the soldier die on him anytime soon. Like all good troopers, Wilson had learned how to take his rest when and where possible.
Slocum went into the small kitchen and began opening cabinets. He found some food but most of the containers were empty. A discarded flour sack by the back door caught his attention. He knelt and picked it up. A tiny white cloud cascaded to the floor where damp spots showed how the rain the night before had blown under the door.
The flour sack had been dropped recently, maybe only minutes before he and Wilson had ridden to the farm.
Thought of the stranger spying on them came to mind, but Slocum wasn’t convinced the man was a squatter living here now that the rightful owners were gone. If he had camped inside the house for any length of time, there’d be signs. A quick tour through the house showed the bedclothes rumpled but not likely to have been slept on recently.
Slocum stared when he reached an even smaller room, obviously the girls’ bedroom. The blankets had been taken off the bed and were nowhere to be seen.
“Wilson?” He went into the front room, but the soldier was sound asleep. Even waking him for food seemed against the laws of nature. He needed rest more than anything else.
Slocum returned to the kitchen and opened the door. It took him a few seconds to find the carefully hidden tracks—and when he did, he saw right away they weren’t human. His heart beat faster as he stepped out into the morning sun and looked in the direction of the barn. The tracks were plainly visible halfway there.
He went into the yard, dropped to his hands and knees, and sighted along the ground to find the ridges left by the animal paws. Straightening, he saw they went into the stand of trees some distance from the house. Yarrow had built his house here to use those trees as a windbreak as the gusts usually whipped up from the southlands. Now Slocum knew they held something more in the way of protection.
Stride long, not bothering to follow the animal’s tracks, he went into the woods and looked around to get his bearings. He had been in here once before and damned himself for not coming here sooner.
Before he could call out, he heard a growl that meant a dog was ready for a fight. Slocum put his hand on his six-shooter but did not draw.
; “You know me, Windmill. You don’t have to protect the girls from me.”
The snarling dog crouched low in the bushes, fangs showing, eyes narrowed for the attack.
“Audrey, Claudia!” He called out loud enough to be heard but not so loud that he would spook them—he hoped. “It’s me, John Slocum. I’ve come back looking for you. Sergeant Wilson and I’ll take you to Fort Stockton.”
Windmill hunkered down even more, then coiled, ready to launch an attack. It was a mangy dog, scrawny and hardly worth notice, but it was protecting the girls and would fight to the death.
“I don’t want to hurt Windmill. I’d back off, but he’ll attack if I do. I don’t want to shoot him.”
“Mr. Slocum, don’t hurt him!”
“Hush, Claudia. Be quiet!” came the immediate admonishment.
“Your ma and pa are dead. The men who killed them are dead now, too. Sergeant Wilson and I made sure of that.”
“Who were they?”
He couldn’t tell which of the girls spoke, but he thought it was the older one, Audrey.
“A clan of no-accounts named Terwilliger. They have—had—a spread a dozen miles west of here. We thought they had kidnapped you. Glad to find they haven’t.”
He kept his eyes on the dog. The hindquarters quivered from the strain of being tensed, but the lips relaxed a mite and Windmill didn’t growl quite as deep in his throat. When the two girls appeared from the brush, the dog fell down to his belly in relief and barked. This time it was a friendly, greeting bark and not one of warning.
“The sergeant’s hurt bad,” Slocum said. “He stepped in a trap the Terwilligers set. Either of you know anything about how to doctor a bad cut?”
The two girls exchanged looks, then the younger one smiled almost shyly and said, “I do. Sorta. Ma showed me when Audrey got all cut up last fall.”
“The sergeant would appreciate it if you could help him clean his wound and see to it being tended. I’m not sure I did it right.”
Slocum saw that his approach worked wonders. The two girls hugged each other, then ran to him, each taking a hand in their own and pulling him behind them as they raced to the house. Windmill dashed around as if herding sheep, more playful now.
“Look who I found, Sergeant,” Slocum said. The soldier’s eyes fluttered open. When he saw the girls, a smile broke out like the rising sun.
“Glad to see you young ladies.”
“Boil some water,” Claudia said, enjoying that she could boss her older sister around.
“I’ll help,” Slocum said, wanting to talk with the girl. Let Wilson engage Claudia awhile.
“I know how to boil water,” Audrey said primly.
“I’ll start a fire for you.” As Slocum worked, he asked, “I saw a man prowling around in the field. You know who it was?”
“We saw him a couple times. Claudia and I hid. It was all we could do to keep Windmill from going after him, but we wouldn’t let him. The man was scary.”
“You get a good look at his face?”
“No. He always seemed to stand in shadow or be looking away from us. All I can say is that he wore a gray shirt with a long tear along the back. Up here.” She stretched around and pointed to her left shoulder. “It might have just been a seam that came unsewed, but I think it was tore. Might be he rode through the thicket hunting for us and caught it on a twig.”
“He might be the man I’m hunting,” Slocum said, wondering if Beatrice Sampson would recognize the description as being that of her brother.
Or was it another outlaw looking for an easy score?
Slocum got the fire blazing in the iron stove, slammed the door, and stepped back. Audrey heaved a kettle onto the top and said in a low voice, “We saw the graves. You buried Mama and Papa?”
“I did. Sergeant Wilson and I did.”
“You said words over them? Like a preacher? Mama would have wanted that.”
“That’s not something I do,” Slocum said. He rushed on, saying, “But the sergeant did. They were pretty words.”
“He’s a nice man.”
Slocum said nothing more as they waited for the water to boil. When it did, Audrey soaked some rags in the water, then carried them into the front room, where her sister had peeled back the field bandage Slocum had put on the leg wound.
“They’re fixing me up real good, Slocum,” Wilson said. Their eyes locked. To the girls, the soldier said, “We have to go back to Fort Stockton. You have any relatives?”
The girls both started sniffling, giving the answer more eloquently than words ever could.
“The missus and me, we lost our children. For a while, you want to stay with us? If something better comes up, you could go on. A relative might find you and—”
Sergeant Wilson found himself surrounded by sobbing little girls. Slocum stepped out onto the porch where Windmill sat, head cocked to one side and ears alert. Slocum followed the dog’s line of sight and saw in the distance the rider he had spotted before.
He might, just might, be wearing a gray shirt. Then he was gone.
10
“I’ll let you go the rest of the way,” Slocum said, seeing the low wall around Fort Stockton and the sentry pacing out his station. It would only be a few minutes before the guard spotted them and raised the alarm.
“The captain won’t eat you alive.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Slocum said. “Likely, he’d shoot me and then serve me up for dinner. You go on in. You can explain everything that’s happened.”
“I shouldn’t be the one taking all the credit,” Wilson said. He shifted in the saddle and winced. The girls had done a right fine job of patching him up but the wound would take another couple weeks to heal properly before he wasn’t in pain.
“You can do all the explaining,” Slocum said, inclining his head in the direction of the two girls trampling along valiantly with Windmill at their heels. They had ridden behind the two men most of the way, but Slocum didn’t want to be hindered if he had to hightail it away from the post. His reception from Captain Legrange hadn’t been good on the best of occasions. Finding out about the Terwilligers’ deaths wouldn’t likely gall him, but Slocum’s part as a civilian and how he had rescued Wilson would all make for a long explanation he wanted to avoid.
And there was the rider who always seemed to stay a mile or two off. Slocum had caught sight of the man less than an hour before. If Wilson and the Yarrow girls continued into the fort, he might have a chance to nab the man or at least get a better look at his face.
“You’re making a mountain out of a molehill, Slocum,” the soldier said. “But you got to come back by in a week or two to see how things are going.”
“A family’s what they need right now.” Slocum wondered how Wilson’s wife would react to having a brood underfoot again. It might be just what the woman needed—or it might be poison for both her and the girls. Considering all that Audrey and Claudia had gone through, he hoped they fit into the Wilson household just fine. They needed more family than a dog, even one as good as Windmill.
“You planning on getting the drop on the man shadowing us?”
“Can’t put anything past you,” Slocum said. “When I get back in a couple weeks, I suspect I’ll find you’re wrapped around the fingers of three women.” He waved to the girls, who had finally narrowed the distance, then wheeled his horse about and trotted away.
“Mr. Slocum, don’t go!”
“Got to do my job and deliver some more mail,” he called out. Then he put his head down and pushed his paint for all the horse could give. A ravine running parallel to the fort gave him some shelter from direct view and took him in the desired direction.
When he had ridden a couple miles, he urged his horse up a steep embankment overlooking a level stretch of prairie. He bit h
is lip to keep from crying out in glee. His trick had worked. He was less than a hundred yards from the rider.
The rider who wore a gray shirt.
The man was looking away, but something alerted him to Slocum’s presence. He put his head down and glanced back over his left shoulder. As he did, part of the shirt opened up and showed bare flesh. While there might be two men on the range with gray shirts, Slocum doubted there were two matching the description given by the Yarrow girls. But now that he had been spotted, Slocum knew he was in for a race.
The man lit out like his horse’s tail had been set on fire. He galloped hard and fast. Slocum urged the paint to as much speed as he could, but the horse was old and tired. The distance between Slocum and his pursuer slowly widened and then the man evaporated, gone from sight in less than a heartbeat.
When Slocum rode to the spot where he had last seen the man, he saw what had happened. He had snuck up on his quarry using a deep ravine cut by the recent rains. The rider had done the same thing to escape. Slocum eased his horse to the muddy ravine bottom and soon saw how hard it would be tracking anyone. The inch or two of water left in the ravine from the recent rains covered hoofprints in the mud. As the sluggishly flowing water moved southward, even the small traces were erased.
He rode his paint to the bank and looked in both directions, but the rider might have gone a ways, then hidden.
Slocum’s dejection soon faded as he turned to find the road meandering away from Fort Stockton. He had mail to deliver—and had proven to his satisfaction that the man after him was no hallucination. Who he might be or what he wanted could be settled later. Now that he had revealed himself, he was no longer a bogeyman.
An hour later, Slocum used the map Underwood had given him to find the road and a signpost that had been blown over. He had to dismount to scrape away the mud, then wondered which way the sign had pointed. He was near a town, but which direction? Seeing another sign a hundred yards farther, Slocum rode to it and read the name.
He fished around in the mail bags until he found a small package for Justin Framingham. Holding the package at arm’s length, he double-checked the name. It matched the one on the sign.
