by J. T. Edson
The mob advanced and they were almost on the house when hooves thundered loud and three horsemen rode between the woman and the crowd. The horses turned, rearing and pawing the air, bringing the mob to a halt by fear of their iron-shod hooves. Then the horses settled on all four legs and the riders faced the crowd. A stop came to the mob, brought about by the determined look of the three men who faced them. There was menace on the face of the tall, lean, miserable looking sergeant major at the left and on the face of the freckled, pugnaciously handsome, red-haired lieutenant at the right. There was more than menace in the cold, gray-eyed stare of the small, young-looking captain in the center. It was he who spoke, his voice cool, commanding and firm. The sort of voice a man heard—and obeyed.
‘All right. Hold it up, right there!’
All eyes were on the small Confederate Army captain and he looked back at them with cold contempt plain on his face.
Some of the mob, a good part of it, were the sort Dusty Fog expected to see on such an affair, louts, town bullies and loafers. The sort of men who avoided taking any part in the War other than sitting at home, being fiercely patriotic but making sure they took no risks themselves. They were the kind who would be on hand for any kind of hell raising which offered but the slightest risk. Yet there were others present who definitely did not look to be the kind to become involved in a lynch mob. Honest citizens, the better class people, law abiding, the sort who did not go to War because they were too old, urgently needed at home, or unable through ill health. The small woman must have done some real bad act for such people as those to be wanting to lynch her.
It was one of these better-class people who spoke, a man who knew Dusty by sight. ‘That’s Elizabeth van Bruwer, Captain Fog,’ he said.
‘So?’ inquired Dusty, lounging easily in his saddle, but watching the crowd.
‘She’s a lousy Union spy, that’s what’s so,’ yelled a voice well hidden in the crowd.
‘The War’s over, mister!’ Dusty’s voice was not loud, but the words carried to every member of the crowd.
‘Over?’ gasped the man who’d spoken first. ‘What happened, Captain?’
‘We called off the killing,’ Dusty replied, thinking back to the scene at the Appomattox Court House when General Robert E. Lee brought to an end the long and bitterly fought Civil War.
The South was defeated by economics, not on the fighting field, for the poorly armed, gray-clad warriors would have fought on to the last drop of their blood if given the order. It was just the South could no longer afford to fight, so Lee took the only sensible way out and brought an end to the useless killing.
At Dusty’s words silence fell on the crowd, the lynching forgotten. The War was over, the South beaten, their way of life gone forever. Peace brought the crowd no happiness, only the numb, raw, aching hurt of defeat. Slowly the crowd began to break up, men and women heading for their homes. As they went someone began to sing the Confederate battle song:
I wish I was in the land of cotton,
Old days there are not forgotten,
Look away, look away …
Dusty rode his horse forward and halted the man who first spoke to him, recognizing a citizen with whom he’d done some business for the Texas Light Cavalry. ‘How’d you know the lady’s a Yankee spy, friend?’
‘A man told us so, a man at the tavern.’
‘That’s a kind of slender thing to hang a woman over, isn’t it?’ asked Dusty. ‘Did he offer to prove it?’
‘Showed us some papers that said he was working as an undercover agent for the Confederate Army. Said he and his friend were going to arrest her. Then the talk got going that she should be hung.’
‘Who started it?’ Dusty asked, knowing the Confederate Army’s undercover agents were given nothing to identify themselves. ‘The lynch talk, I mean.’
‘I don’t know for sure.’
‘What did the man who told you about her look like?’
The man thought for a moment. ‘A big, heavily built man, with a heavy black beard that hid most of his face. I think he’d been a sailor.’
‘How’d you know that?’
‘He reached out for a drink across the bar and I saw an anchor tattooed on his wrist. His friend called his attention to it and he covered it up quickly.’
‘What’d the friend look like?’ asked Dusty.
‘A tall, thin man, pale faced and with a small beard. He’s got the meanest pair of eyes I’ve ever seen, light blue, they were, and expressionless. Looked more like a snake’s eyes than snake’s eyes do,’ explained the man. ‘I think we all lost our heads. We know all her folks are Yankees and she’s a strange one, living here all alone except for her two servants. I don’t know what come over us, but there’s a lot of us lost kin in the War.’
‘Killing her won’t bring them back,’ said Dusty. ‘Leave her be, friend. The War’s long over and there’s too much work to be done now to bother about old hates.’
Dusty turned his horse to ride back and join his friends as they sat their horses guarding the woman. He thought of going to see the two ‘undercover agents’ and finding out what proof they could offer, if only to satisfy a theory he’d formed just before the Appomattox. He decided not to bother, there was no need for him to get the proof of his theory now the War was over. He sat on his big black horse and watched the crowd going off, the torches discarded and burning out in the dust of the street. There would be no more trouble again that night.
Elizabeth van Bruwer looked at the three men who saved her. Dusty Fog, Red Blaze and Billy Jack, she knew them all by name. The Union Army would have given plenty to capture any one of them, particularly the small captain called Dusty Fog. Only one thing in her spying activities did she feel any shame at, something connected with the three men who just now saved her life.
‘Was I you, ma’am,’ Dusty said, looking down at the woman. ‘I’d pull out of here until folks forget this. We’ll escort you to the town down the trail a piece.’
‘Thank you, Captain,’ she replied. ‘This is my home and I’m too old to leave it now. I’ll stay on here and hope that people will forget it. Would you care to come in and take a meal?’
‘Why sure, thanking you kindly, ma’am. We haven’t sat to a table in a week, been riding steady since the Appomattox, warning our people the War’s over, so there’ll be no incidents when the Yankees move in.’
The three men left their horses in the almost empty stable behind the house, attending to the animals before they made any attempt to feed themselves. The big old house was empty and deserted, only a couple of rooms being in use. Miss van Bruwer led the three Texans into a candlelit dining room where two scared looking Negroes were cowering back against the wall. They showed more fear as the three men entered for this was an uncertain time and they’d heard the noise outside.
‘Be seated, gentlemen,’ she said, waving them to seats, then turned to the two Negroes. ‘Ezra, Mandy, we have three guests, make a meal for them.’
The three Texans took seats and Miss van Bruwer urged her two servants out of the room, into the kitchen. She came back and took a chair at the head of the table, sitting prim and erect on it. She saw Dusty looking at her with some interest.
‘So you’re Miss van Bruwer,’ he said. ‘I was thinking of coming to visit you when we got word of the meeting at Appomattox.’
‘Really?’ the woman smiled. ‘I didn’t know my fame extended to the Texas Light Cavalry. Did I make a mistake which told you what I was doing?’
‘I guessed, ma’am. There’d been a powerful lot of information leak out from this area and you was the only person who’d been present at all the leaks. It all figgered to me, I learned your background, how your kin were abolitionists and went north just before the War. How you stayed on and was real hospitable to any soldier who came your way.’
There was no animosity in the way Dusty spoke, just plain admiration. He’d made use of information gained by the Southern spies, Belle Boyd and R
ose Greenhow, on more than one occasion and did not see there was any moral objection to the North using spies.
‘I came near to capturing you once,’ Miss van Bruwer remarked.
‘When was that, ma’am?’ asked Dusty and his two friends looked interested. They knew there’d been times when the Yankee Army came near to catching them but could not think of any time they’d been involved with the woman.
‘Do you remember when the Union held this town, before you drove them back?’ she explained. ‘You came down here to meet a renegade firearms dealer and collect a consignment of arms.’
‘Why sure,’ agreed Dusty. ‘It cost me three good men, but I got out and took the arms with me.’
‘You say you nearly got us captured that time, ma’am,’ Red went on, for the three men were all friends. ‘How was that?’
‘I put it down to bad luck, meeting the Yankee patrol,’ Dusty drawled.
‘It was bad management, not bad luck. The dealer came here as soon as he got word of where you would meet him, and to collect payment for betraying you. But you didn’t go to the place where you were supposed to meet him and slipped out of the trap. You’d have got clean away with it if you hadn’t run into a stray patrol.’
‘So they were waiting for us?’ mused Dusty.
‘Yes, but you didn’t go where you said you would meet him.’
‘That’s right, ma’am,’ agreed Dusty. ‘I didn’t, fact being I never aimed to go where I arranged. A man who’d sell arms to the enemy wouldn’t play square with anyone. So I worked out which way he’d come and met up with him. I thought he looked surprised when he met us four miles from the place where we was supposed to be. He’d got his face covered and I couldn’t say.’
‘What’d he look like, ma’am?’ asked Red.
‘I never saw his face either. He came to this room as by arrangement, with one small lamp lit and he stood well back except for when he came to get his money. He wore a flour-sack mask,’ she answered, then, seeing the look on Red’s face, smiled. ‘I have no reason to lie, young man. A man playing both sides of the fence must not take any chances of being known. He would have sold me out as easily as any other person, if he could have done it safely. All I know is that he’s tattooed on his right wrist.’
‘What kind of tattoo, ma’am?’ growled Red.
‘I’m sorry, young man. But he—’
‘We saved you out—’
Red Blaze was always a hotheaded young man who both said and did rash things without thinking. His inborn good breeding revolted at his words and it was to his credit that he stopped speaking even before Dusty’s angry interruption came.
‘Red. That’s enough. We’d have helped the lady, no matter who she was. She owed nothing for doing it.’
Miss van Bruwer smiled at Red as he stammered his apologies for his lack of manners. ‘It’s all right. I know how you must feel. There’s no real reason why I shouldn’t tell you. The man gave no loyalty to the Union and I owe him nothing. The tattoo was an anchor. I saw the flukes of it as he reached out for the money. It was the first time I’d seen an anchor tattoo since I left New England. When—’
Dusty’s face lost the relaxed, friendly look and became hard. He sat up in his chair and snapped, ‘Red, go down to the tavern take Billy Jack and bring me those two men who should be there. One of them’s big and bearded, the other thin, got a smaller beard. They likely only checked in today. Fetch them back here.’
Red and Billy Jack came to their feet and went fast. When Dusty Fog’s voice took on that grim note there was no standing around and asking fool questions, it was time to obey and obey fast. Miss van Bruwer watched the two go, then turned to Dusty, a question plain in her eyes.
‘Might I ask what that was all about?’
‘The two men who started the lynching talk going, ma’am. The men who told folks you were a Yankee spy. I want to see them.’
From the way he spoke Miss van Bruwer guessed Dusty did not aim to say any more about the men and did not press him. Dusty was worried for her sake. The anchor tattoo might have been a sheer coincidence, or it might be the renegade arms dealer getting rid of someone who knew about the identifying mark on his arm.
‘That man you knew, he’d got the tattoo?’ he asked.
‘Yes, I remarked on it and he became angry, said I’d imagined it. Just at that moment Mandy knocked to tell me General Handiman’s aide had arrived and the man left hurriedly.’
‘Lucky,’ Dusty said softly.
‘What do you mean?’
‘If he hadn’t you’d likely be dead now. You’re maybe the only one who could identify the dealer. I couldn’t, or any of my men, because it was dark when we met.’
Red and Billy Jack returned half an hour later from the tavern. ‘They’ve gone, pulled out,’ Red remarked. ‘Left as soon as the mob started. We went to the livery barn and found they’d brought their horses there earlier, then fetched them and gone out of town by the north road. Went out a piece after them but they’d got too much of a start. Who were they?’
‘I don’t know for certain, thought I’d warn them off.’
Miss van Bruwer watched Dusty’s face and she almost guessed the truth, fantastic as it first looked. Her gentle voice cut in, just as the food was brought and set on the table in front of the three men.
‘What do you intend to do about that traitor, Captain Fog?’
‘Nothing, ma’am,’ replied Dusty. ‘The war’s over now. Long over as far as I’m concerned. The OD Connected’s going to need a powerful amount of work doing to it, setting it back paying again and there’ll be no time to waste trying to find one man with an anchor tattooed on his wrist. We likely couldn’t do it, even had we the time and we haven’t.’
Red grunted. He too knew there would be little or no time to waste in search for a man on such feeble evidence. There were many men with anchors tattooed on them and one could easily be lost forever. The man was just one of the many who saw war as a chance to line their pockets. The sort who would side with one faction, yet deal with the other and betray both. Such a man was to be despised, killed if caught at it, but Red knew it was too late to catch the man now. It was like Dusty said, hard work in plenty awaited them at the OD Connected and there was no time to be wasted on a revenge hunt.
All through his young life Red was never the sort to hold a grudge. He’d pitch in and fight any man, but after the fight was just as willing to shake hands and be friends, even ready to help the man he’d just fought with, if help was needed. So he did not bear the woman any grudge and he too remembered how they’d profited by the spying of two Confederate women, so could hold this Union spy no ill feeling. Right now he was seated in a comfortable chair and a good meal was waiting for him; his thoughts about the rights or wrongs of Elizabeth van Bruwer’s actions were put off and forgotten.
~*~
The following morning in the early light of dawn Dusty Fog mounted his horse and looked down at Elizabeth van Bruwer. She stood at the gate of her garden, a woman in her fifties, he a youngster still in his teens. Yet each played a part in the War Between the States, serving as best they could. Now the War was over and peace, uneasy peace, lay on the land.
‘The War’s over!’ said Miss Van Bruwer as if she could hardly believe it.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ agreed Dusty, looking at his two companions who were mounted, and ready to resume their ride back to Texas. ‘The War’s over, and now you’ve got to face the peace. It won’t be easy for you, ma’am. Goodbye—and good luck.’
Touching his hat he turned the horse and rode away.
She watched Dusty ride off along the street, a small man between two tall men, but she’d never think of Dusty Fog as small. Turning she went back to her silent, lonely house, a house which would be even more silent and lonely from now on.
Chapter Two
The War had been over for eight years, and they had been busy years for Dusty Fog. On a mission of importance in Mexico he met two good friends
who now rode with him as members of the OD Connected’s floating outfit. i His wartime record was being forgotten as men spoke of him as segundo of the huge ranch, trail boss of the first water, town-taming lawman—and the fastest gun in Texas.
Seated in the mayor of Mulrooney’s office, Dusty looked at the beautiful Miss Freddie Woods, Town Marshal Kail Beauregard and Shepherd, a top railroad official. He wondered why Freddie called him to her office—she was mayor of the town and an old friend from the days when he ran the law in Mulrooney ii —on his arrival with a trail herd. Freddie did not keep him in suspense.
‘I want you to find a man for me, Dusty,’ she said.
‘Is it important?’ Dusty asked. ‘I’ve promised the crew to whoop things up with them.’
‘It’s real important, Dusty,’ Beauregard put in. ‘I can’t leave town right now to get the feller and it has to be done.’
‘What’d this feller do?’ Dusty inquired.
‘He killed five Texans,’ Freddie said, and went on after a slight pause, ‘one of them was called Allison.’
‘You’d best tell me all about it,’ drawled Dusty, knowing the significance of that name and knew who was following him up the trail.
‘All started when Ed Baylor brought the first trail herd in this season,’ explained Beauregard. ‘The Magluskey brothers were railroad superintendents and not friendly gents at all. They didn’t like Texans and Mike Magluskey got into a fuss with Ed Baylor. Died of a case of slow. His gun hadn’t even cleared leather.’
‘Which same figgers. Ed’s some fast with a gun.’
‘Like you say, Ed’s some fast with a gun. Trouble was Ed left town the following day, headed for home. Two nights after, that’s four days back, Joe Magluskey and another man went into the Fair Lady. They stood at the door and started shooting at five Texans who stood at the bar. Young Tim Allison managed to come round and shoot Magluskey before he went under, but the other man got away. I was coming along Main Street as he came out and we traded shots. He threw four at me. Real curious that.’
