by Stephen Bly
As they followed the wagon, they kept a pace in the tall beach grass that they hoped kept them from the wagon’s view. A wind swelled and nudged the rise and fall of the ebbing tide. The waves rose higher. A sudden summer’s downpour intervened.
Rain pounded over the roar of swells. Waves broke in every direction. The tournament would have been rained out anyway… at least part of it.
Brannon trudged ahead clutching Tres Vientos as waves dashed against the beach and scattered rocks. Whitecaps boiled onto the beach. He took a quick peek behind him. Fletcher, Sylvia and Tanglewood followed by several horse lengths.
Tres Vientos found his beach stride. When he is good, he is very, very good. But when he is bad…
He spotted the wagon as a moving dot on the beach, far ahead of them, but he realized they couldn’t chance that Lanigan could see them. At this point, he’s loco enough to follow through on his threat.
Brannon got down from Tres Vientos, led him to a thick growth of pine parallel to the beach. Back on horses, they plowed through the trees at a more rapid clip and soon sighted the wagon. Brannon slowed down.
He pulled out the two pieces of his takedown ’92, .44 Winchester rifle from the canvas bag. He balanced the barrel on his lap, opened the action on the walnut butt stock with crescent metal plate, turned the lever a half dozen twists, then locked the two pieces together.
“Very nice,” Fletcher commented. “I brought my carbine.”
“Lanigan got the Colt revolver, but I retrieved Papa’s rifle.” Sylvia patted a canvas cover behind her. “And of course my sneak gun.”
And knife too, I’m sure.
Tanglewood displayed his bow and arrow and slid out of his scabbard a long bayonet knife.
“Good. But this situation also requires wisdom. The weapons are backups,” Brannon said.
He knew they waited on him for a strategy. He was their man to figure a way out. The same gunman who spent years fighting injustice on primitive western trails now faced one more battle. Perhaps his personal finish line. Was he up to the task?
A new and delicate matter forced a dawning truth, one he hated to admit. His mind skipped now and then. His body lagged. Could he lead his troop of followers on this crucial campaign?
He had one hope.
God, give me strength and wisdom.
Thirty-nine
“Why aren’t they moving?” Tanglewood asked.
They had nearly caught up with the wagon. “It’s stuck,” Brannon said. “The wheels are too deep in the wet sand. The axle’s twisted or broken.”
Lanigan shouted something as he and several of the boys untied the horses. The children bounded over the sides and underneath the wagon.
“If he would just get away from those kids, we could shoot him down.” Sylvia urged Geode nearer an opening in the trees.
“Be careful,” Brannon cautioned.
“He’s going to ride away with all four horses,” Sylvia informed them. “But not alone. He’s got two of the boys with him.”
“And the guns. The boys look like Bueno and Hack.” Brannon slid off his horse. “Let’s check on the children when Lanigan gets out of sight.”
Lanigan had both boys on one horse, Bueno in front with his hands tied to the saddle. Hack was roped to Bueno. He rode one horse and led the other two, a blanket-bag of guns bundled on a riderless mare. As they trotted away, Brannon’s team could hear the singing… a sweet song of affirmation, of safety, of protection in God’s arms. Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to Him belong. They are weak, but He is strong.
They waited until the coast cleared of Lanigan and his pair of hostages, then ventured out of the trees and over the grassy dunes. The song reverberated despite the thrust of the waves. Out of possible horror, a holy moment. Though all the danger had not passed, these children knew one important lesson they affirmed for themselves and the departing Bueno and Hack: Jesus loves me.
Lanigan kept going. He didn’t threaten the singers.
Penelope Tagg rolled out from under the wagon and ran to greet Brannon. “We need a doctor. One of the girls fell out of the wagon. I forced Lanigan to pick her up. She may have a broken leg. The one he hit with the revolver may have a broken rib. Others got scraped and bruised. They’re terrified to come out from under the wagon. Lanigan told them to stay there or he’d shoot them dead.”
Brannon and his crew helped Miss Tagg coax the children out from under the wagon, then lifted them up on the hay.
“What do we do now, Brannon?” Fletcher inquired. “Do we use our horses to pull them back to Gearhart or do we leave them and race after Lanigan?”
“I’m going after Lanigan,” Sylvia asserted.
“We all are,” said Brannon. “But look back there.”
Lady Fletcher drove the lead in the Buick with passengers Laira and the Smythes. Darcy and the Lazzard twins rode with Hawthorne Miller in his wagon. Behind them, a huge swath of people in motorcars, on horses and runners, as wide as the beach, surged forward, a welcoming committee. Horns blared among the hoots and hollers.
“A scout told us Lanigan left the wagon,” Lady Fletcher said.
Brannon searched the throng for the famed, familiar faces of Wyatt Earp or William Cody.
“They’re on the course,” Lady Fletcher explained, “betting high stakes on each shot, every hole, with all the winnings going to the orphan farm.”
“Where are the other players?” Sylvia asked.
“The politicians are talking to the Seaside Signal reporter,” Lady Fletcher said, “and that young Vaudeville comedy juggler went down to the Chautauqua to do a show. Sure hope he doesn’t snarl at the children.”
She opened the Buick door to march over to Lord Fletcher. “Dear, do please be careful. You’ve got guests waiting.” Then she turned to Brannon. “You simply must save at least one decent jacket for Sunday service or go to the haberdashery. Edwin’s out of lenders.”
Sylvia’s horse twirled around. “We’ve got to go,” she said to Brannon.
“Our prayers are with you,” Sam Smythe assured the four.
Darcy got into the Buick with Laira, Eloise Smythe and Lady Fletcher, who drove behind the wagon. Everyone else trailed behind them. Except Hawthorne Miller. His wagon with two teams of mules aimed north, primed and ready for adventure.
“You can’t go with us,” Brannon asserted.
“I know where he’s headed,” Miller said.
“How could you possibly know that?” Brannon retorted.
“I have my sources.” Miller put on a stovepipe hat, lit a cigar, and leaned back in the buckboard. “A meeting had already been scheduled.”
Brannon got up on Tres Vientos, placed his black felt Stetson firm on his head and fumed. Do I play his game? Do I ignore him once again? Or do I take any available opportunity to make a tough job easier? Oh, Lord, what to do with my pride?
“Okay, where’s he headed?” Brannon asked.
“I’ll tell you, if you allow me admittance to record this event for posterity.”
“Miller…” Stuart began.
“Make up your mind,” Sylvia scolded. She spurred Geode and trotted him down the beach.
Brannon judged women in two ways. There were standers and there were runners. They would fight for what was right even with the odds stacked against them. Or they take flight. To save themselves. To avoid the pain of sacrifice.
Sylvia definitely was rated a stander.
And she was right. They must chase down Lanigan. Now. But Brannon must decide. Would he put away his pride this time and depend on the likes of Hawthorne Miller for perhaps crucial information? “Okay, Miller, where’s he going?”
Hawthorne Miller tossed his cigar on the beach. He sat straight up, loosened his collar, and grabbed up a whip. “To the abandoned William Smith house. Been there for decades. At the former Fort Clatsop property where Lewis and Clark wintered a hundred years ago.” He flicked the whip over his mules’ rumps and sped no
rth as the wagon rattled, bounced and squeaked.
Forty
Brannon caught up with Sylvia. They had to get to Lanigan and stop his madness. As the horses plodded with great labor through the sand, he contemplated the events that led to this chase.
At peace on his thriving ranch in Arizona.
The telegrams from the President.
Tom Wiseman left injured and helpless on a cliffside of Tillamook Head, now buried under a stack of memorial rocks on a secluded beach.
Tally Rebozo’s cold-blooded murder.
The kidnapping of the orphans.
Whether he wore a badge or not, this was his duty. Just as it was when he faced the countless series of miscreants and evildoers he’d helped to incarcerate or eliminate over the decades. All of this somehow bundled with the darkest time of his life, when death and tragedy took away everything he held dear.
Lisa. The lovely face. Her gentle disposition. Her graceful manners. She was my life, my riches, the highest and noblest spirit I have ever known.
And our baby.
The trek during that hard winter to Broken Arrow Crossing. How painful then the long, relentless hours of stinging, blowing snow as it sliced into his skin.
But have I gotten too fond of dwelling on the past?
For a moment, he forgot about his mission to right the world’s wrongs. The memories trapped his mind, misdirected his focus. Yet Brannon realized from the lessons learned and experiences lived that fairness would be served, somehow, some way. The deaths of Tally Rebozo and Tom Wiseman and any others in this case, would be rectified. If not by him and those who came alongside, then in some other time, by some other means.
God’s will would prevail.
The world would be saved.
But for now, he and his comrades bowed under another rain shower.
After a brief break to spell the horses, they started at a walk, then a trot. Brannon spurred Tres Vientos to a lope and off to a gallop in the uneven sandy dunescape. Brannon whipped from side to side in the saddle, his hat flapping on his back, held by a stampede string, as he depended on the strength, stamina and speed of the animal beneath him. Hard to imagine this was the same horse who only days before had been so fearful that he would flee from a seagull, balk at the smell of saltwater.
If he kept him at a walk, they’d go about four miles an hour. Tres Vientos moved his head and neck up and down, a steady motion, keeping horse and rider balanced. The rainstorm had left the air so clean-tasting that every gulp seemed to lift Brannon’s spirits.
Brannon checked to see that the others kept up. Hawthorne Miller began to lag behind, impeded by some distress with one of his wheels. Brannon didn’t stop to offer help. He knew the man would fix the problem and forge on to meet up with them later. Meanwhile, they easily tracked the four horses they followed, even though a few places had been wiped clean by the wind, rains or a purposeful swipe by a tree branch.
Sylvia rode up beside him. “I’m not complaining, just stating a fact. No woman could possibly be more soaked than I am right now.” Her hair dripped in ringlets down to her shoulders. The tweed suit clung like a leaky balloon to her body.
“I’ve been to that place before, where that house is, when I was a child,” Tanglewood informed them. “I remember a little river with high, dark woods on one side.”
The day had started cloudy, with a high gray bank, but now a low thick fog hid the ocean and most of the sandy beach like a blindfold. The four crossed a small stream and skirted a pond.
The big black horse dropped between beats and bounced up again. Brannon jolted upwards out of the saddle and bumped the horse with force. He finally found the rhythm on the sand dunes to keep going and not be jostled out of the saddle.
Tres Vientos had been a sturdy horse for Brannon. One time Tom Wiseman had helped Brannon round up some stray cows that stampeded in a thunderstorm. He rode Tres Vientos a hundred miles that day. Only a fit horse could complete such a ride. But Tres Vientos, like his owner, had aged. He needed extra care and patience. And Brannon tried to recover from the slap of humiliation that he was unable to control any horse, especially his own.
They halted when they reached the bottom of a hill full of high, course grass and rocks. The tracks ceased.
Brannon hopped off his horse, to give him a rest.
Tanglewood scrambled up beside him. Sylvia’s face was set, her body rigid, as she pushed on her flaxen horse. Fletcher wheezed up last. Brannon spied Miller taking a different route around, across the sand in the wagon.
“Shouldn’t we follow him?” Sylvia asked.
Tanglewood pointed northeast. “The William Smith House is over there.”
“That must be the way Lanigan went,” Brannon stated. “It’s a good thing we know the destination. Otherwise, we’d stay north. Or track him around this hill. We might not have picked up his trail again or wasted a lot of time.”
“If he harms those boys, we’d better be hot on his tracks,” Sylvia said.
“I hope it wasn’t a mistake for you to allow me on this venture. I do seem to be lagging,” Fletcher groaned.
Brannon punched his friend’s arm gently. “I’m certainly not as hardy as my Kansas cattle drive days.”
“Buck up, man. You’ve got lots of miles in you,” Fletcher countered.
“Have I ever told you that survival as a way of life depresses me?” Brannon dragged himself up on Tres Vientos. “But we’re of the breed who live adventures until the end. Men like T.R., Tom Wiseman and you, too, Edwin.”
“I say, I believe there are lots out there who’d kill, metaphorically, to live like we have.”
“That’s exactly why we’re chasing a madman right now and there’s no metaphor about it. Come on, we’ve got our duty.”
Edwin climbed up on his horse, back erect, primed for the ride. “That’s the Brannon we know and love.”
Yeah, right. All I need is some direction from you, Lord. Any word would help.
They left the beach and plodded over the grassy dunes, into some woods, and over a bridge that crossed a river. Then it was easy going through pastures sprinkled with lakes. They approached another forest where they spotted a Roosevelt elk, moving very quietly among the trees. Long, dark hair encircled the thick neck above the pale brown body.
Then a gentle descent.
“Not too far from here where Fort Clatsop used to be,” Tanglewood announced.
After a mile or so, Tanglewood observed a press of grass down the slope to their left on the rain-wrecked trail. He scrambled down the incline partway. “A horse fell,” he reported.
“Do you see anybody or any gear? How about the bagged blanket of guns?” Brannon said.
“No, nothing else, just the horse. I think he broke his back and somebody shot him to put him out of his misery.”
Up ahead Brannon isolated a column of smoke. Somewhere on the skyline were signs of fire. Either friendly warmth from a chimney or possible trouble. Tres Vientos reared and Brannon patted his neck down.
“Okay, guys, try not to start anything. No shooting unless you absolutely have to. We want Lanigan, not a gunfight.”
They stayed behind some hemlocks and alders.
“There’s an old Indian trail, part of an elk trail that goes to the ocean from here,” Tanglewood said.
They rode towards a small clearing. Brannon leaned low in the saddle with his sternum on the horn. His face bounced in the black mane as he peered between the horse’s ears. Wind whipped through the treetops and they heard the eerie whine of a dead tree as it screeched and moaned.
The former Fort Clatsop of the Lewis and Clark expedition was now a simple farm of a two- story frame house with shake roof and a scatter of outbuildings behind. A few old cherry and apple trees dropped stony fruit. They passed a slough and a spring with brownish, brackish water that might hold iron deposits. Moss, lichens and ferns filled the area. Peering through the trees they could see a part of Young’s Bay in the far distance.
> The marsh ground made slow travel for the horses. The woods that surrounded the house included hemlocks with droopy branches and very small cones, the tops of the trees nodding, as though to welcome them. They rode under firs, alders, ash and spruce, whose stiff, sharp needles brushed them. A number of dead trees also stood around.
“This ground is what we call a fen or sump,” Fletcher commented.
As they neared one of the outbuildings, Fletcher’s horse almost tumbled over what looked like an oval fire pit with red clay in the center, charcoal around the top and edges. It had been used much less than a century ago.
To think, Captains Lewis and Clark had stepped here, had slept here many a winter’s night.
Charcoal gray smoke rose from a chimney at the aging house, which was what Brannon called “makeshift.” There was a lean-to with sloping roof, an empty water well with sink and pump at the edge of an added wing. A crosswalk stretched from the house to a woodshed in back. A huge spruce tree decorated the front yard.
A half-dozen horses were tied to a deck in front. The windows provided high visibility and little opportunity for any of them to rush the place unnoticed. They slinked back further in the trees and waited.
The branches dripped from the recent rain. No insects buzzed. No birds flew. The forest drank in the nourishment.
“It was such a difficult winter in 1805, even after they built the fort,” Brannon mused. “Standing right here in this spot, it’s hard not to think of it.”
“I’ve read all about it. Only twelve days without dreary, driving rains. Dismal fog with no letup,” Fletcher commented. “Hard winds, violent flood tides, constant high waves.”
“I have to agree with Captain Clark. The Pacific isn’t always peaceful. I’m not too fond of the saltwater myself. It gets in your eyes, your ears and parches your joints. Get me back to the…”
“Brannon,” Sylvia called out.
