The Independence Trail

by Lyle Brandt

  BERKLEY

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  penguinrandomhouse.com

  Copyright © 2020 by The Estate of Ralph Compton

  Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

  BERKLEY and the BERKLEY & B colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Ebook ISBN: 9780593100806

  First Edition: November 2020

  Cover art by Steve Atkinson

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  pid_prh_5.6.1_c0_r0

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  The Immortal Cowboy

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Epilogue

  About the Authors

  THE IMMORTAL COWBOY

  This is respectfully dedicated to the “American Cowboy.” His was the saga sparked by the turmoil that followed the Civil War, and the passing of more than a century has by no means diminished the flame.

  True, the old days and the old ways are but treasured memories, and the old trails have grown dim with the ravages of time, but the spirit of the cowboy lives on.

  In my travels—to Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, and Arizona—I always find something that reminds me of the Old West. While I am walking these plains and mountains for the first time, there is this feeling that a part of me is eternal, that I have known these old trails before. I believe it is the undying spirit of the frontier calling me, through the mind’s eye, to step back into time. What is the appeal of the Old West of the American frontier?

  It has been epitomized by some as the dark and bloody period in American history. Its heroes—Crockett, Bowie, Hickok, Earp—have been reviled and criticized. Yet the Old West lives on, larger than life.

  It has become a symbol of freedom, when there was always another mountain to climb and another river to cross; when a dispute between two men was settled not with expensive lawyers, but with fists, knives, or guns. Barbaric? Maybe. But some things never change. When the cowboy rode into the pages of American history, he left behind a legacy that lives within the hearts of us all.

  —Ralph Compton

  PROLOGUE

  Las Vegas, New Mexico Territory

  The Last Chance Saloon lived up to its name. It needed paint inside and out, along with rigorous sweeping, new furnishings, the whole shebang. Glasses were spotty, the bartender weary-looking. Its piano likely had been out of tune before some rowdy drunk had fired two bullets through its upper panel. He might have had a human target, judging from some old stains on the barroom’s floor.

  The Last Chance was a place where people died by violence from time to time.

  As more might do today, perhaps.

  Arthur Catlin sipped his second whiskey, wondering why anyone had named the town Las Vegas.

  He spoke fair Spanish, knew las vegas meant “the meadows,” but he hadn’t glimpsed a bit of grazing land since he’d arrived in town two days ago. Not that he minded. Folks could call their towns whatever they desired. It made no difference to him, but things like that stuck in his mind sometimes, distracting him from work at hand.

  But not today.

  This afternoon Catlin was focused on the men he’d ridden sixty-some-odd miles to find, along a trail of sorrow they’d left in their wake. Two murders he was sure of, one bank robbed, a coach as well, and one young woman outraged but surprisingly allowed to live.

  They hadn’t done her any favors there.

  The Grimes brothers, in order of descending age, were Lincoln, Leland, and Lucas. Catlin guessed their parents had a fondness for the letter L, although their father’s name was Rupert and their mother’s Abigail.

  Again, he couldn’t work that out and didn’t give a damn.

  Standing rewards for capture of the brothers totaled fifteen hundred dollars. Lincoln was worth seven, Leland five, and Lucas just a measly three, but altogether they’d been worth the trip and the two days learning where they went to have a bender and disport with ladies of the evening.

  The former was an occupation, while the latter seemed to be a last resort. From what he’d learned while tracking them, Catlin believed their preference was picking up some innocent young woman to terrorize.

  Between that and the murders, they were slated for an air dance on the gallows if he brought them in alive. The good news: Catlin could collect his money either way, their “Wanted” flyers having specified “Dead or Alive.”

  That made it easier.

  Just now, the brothers had a table and a whiskey bottle to themselves, the only Last Chance customers besides Catlin, on a sultry afternoon. They all wore pistols, two in Lincoln’s case, with knives sheathed on their belts.

  Good reasons for deciding “Dead” might be the way to go.

  As brothers will, the three Grimes boys were arguing; Leland and Lucas starting off, then Lincoln joining in to keep the fire stoked, maybe for his personal amusement. Catlin had grown up with brothers and he knew how that could be, but when the chips were down, he reckoned they’d be all for one and one for all.

  Three men who’d proved themselves killers, and Catlin had six .44-caliber rounds in his Colt Army Model 1860 revolver. He didn’t like to use all six, preferring one or two kept in reserve for unforeseen eventualities, but he would play the hand that he was dealt.

  Quaffing his whiskey off, he set the glass down quietly and focused on his targets. Leland Grimes had spared a glance at him when the brothers arrived, frowned to himself, then seemed to shrug it off. Whatever the Grimes boys were squabbling about, they had been working on it when they pushed in through the barroom’s batwing doors and couldn’t seem to let it go.

  Not shouting, though; they were keeping their voices down, so Catlin couldn’t make out much of what they said.

  Again, he didn’t give a damn.

  As they’d arranged themselves around their table, Leland sat facing toward Catlin, Lucas on his right and Lincoln to his left. When Catlin started giving Leland hard eyes from halfway across the room, it took a minute for the middle brother to pick up on it, but then he lost track of whatever Lucas had to say, giving Catlin a cold stare of his own.

  Another minute passed that way before Leland inquired, “You want something, mister?”

  “I do,” Catlin replied, right hand already on his Colt below his table.

  All three Grimes brother
s faced him now, regarding him with different measures of hostility. Leland said, “Yeah? And what might that be?”

  “Money,” Catlin said.

  Leland tried smiling but fell short. “You want some change, then? Is that it?”

  “I took him for a bum right off,” Lucas chimed in.

  “I’m thinking bigger money,” Catlin said. By then, he had his holster’s hammer thong released, his fingers curled around the Colt’s curved butt, thumb on its hammer.

  “Getting greedy, and we ain’t even been introduced,” said Lincoln Grimes, making his brothers snort and chuckle.

  “Not your money,” Catlin said, correcting him. “And if it was, so what? You won’t be needing any where you’re going.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” asked Leland, past seeing the humor in their repartee.

  “The three of you have decent money on your heads,” Catlin replied. “Thought I might help myself to that.”

  Slow minds required another heartbeat to connect on that and start reacting. When they did, all three Grimes brothers bolted to their feet as one, tipping their table over, whiskey bottle shattering on impact with the floor. Hands dipped toward guns, liquor hampering their speed.

  Catlin kicked over his own table, using it for cover as he drew and cocked his Colt. The pistol weighed a tad under three pounds, was fourteen inches long, and eight of that was barrel. He shot Lincoln first, two guns being the greatest threat, and saw blood spout out of a chest wound just an inch or so off target for the heart.

  The elder Grimes went over backward, howling, pistols spilling from his hands and clattering across the barroom’s floor. His brothers didn’t seem to notice, focused as they were on clearing leather with their own smoke poles while time remained.

  But not much.

  His second shot plugged Leland through the left shoulder and spun him off to that side, traveling 640 feet per second, striking with 207 foot-pounds of explosive energy. It didn’t make the middle brother drop his weapon, though. As Lincoln was reeling, he squeezed off a shot that punched through one of the saloon’s front windows.

  On the street, a woman screamed.

  Catlin had no time to consider that if he intended to survive.

  Lucas was lining up his shot, Leland still on his feet but unsteady, with his back turned toward the enemy as Catlin fired again.

  At first, he thought he’d missed and only knocked the final Grimes boy’s hat off, but then Catlin saw a chunk of skull was airborne with it. Lucas folded like an empty suit of clothes as he collapsed.

  Lincoln down and jiggling through his death throes left only Leland fit for battle, if you stretched a point. Turning to face Catlin again, the middle brother saw both of his siblings lying dead or close to it, and a howl of rage ripped from his throat, eclipsing the prior sounds of pain.

  His pistol wavered toward its target as the sole surviving Grimes shouted, “Son of a—”

  Catlin fired his fourth shot, got it right that time, and stillness fell over the Last Chance battlefield. It took another moment, his ears still ringing from gunfire, before he picked up sounds of female weeping from somewhere outside.

  Long strides propelled him toward the shattered window, where he saw a woman kneeling on the sidewalk, gingham fabric pooled around her, sobbing as she clutched the limp form of a child to her bosom.

  A little boy, he saw, blood smeared across his forehead but no longer pulsing from the bullet wound that set it free.

  Across the street, a portly man was rushing toward the scene, propelled by legs too slender for the rest of his physique. A tin star on his vest explained the six-gun in his hand.

  Catlin holstered his own and muttered to himself, “Well, shit!”

  * * *

  * * *

  The marshal’s name was Bradford, with no given name offered. He read the scene inside the Last Chance and could see right off what had transpired. He had no problem deciding that the window shot had come from Leland Grimes’s weapon, but he still eyed Catlin like he was a pile of road apples he’d stepped in, giving off a noisome smell he couldn’t shake.

  “A bounty hunter,” he pronounced, as if the words tasted like lemon juice. “See what you’ve done today?”

  “Marshal—”

  “Shut up! I know you were within your rights, far as that goes.” Standing behind the small desk in his office, Bradford peered down at the “Wanted” posters Catlin had provided, creased from spending three weeks folded in his pocket. “I’ll pay up and bill the capitol for reimbursement, like the papers say.”

  “All right, then.”

  “But my question to you is, will fifteen hundred dollars soothe Amanda Regner’s mourning for her son, Bill Junior?”

  “Marshal—”

  “You don’t know her, but she lost her husband—that would be Bill Senior—in a mining accident last year. Their son was all she had left in the world.”

  “I didn’t shoot him, Marshal, as you know full well.”

  “You didn’t pull the trigger on him, true enough. But if you hadn’t done your hunting at the Last Chance, I suspect that he’d still be alive.”

  “You want to talk about what might have been?” Catlin replied, tone challenging. “The Grimes brothers—all wanted men on counts of murder, robbery, and rape—have hung around your town at least three weeks before I got here. Once I settled at your fleabag Grand Hotel, it took me one day to find out where they spent time drinking and whoring. Where were you the other twenty days, Marshal?”

  “You got me there. My cross to bear, and not the first. You think that lets you off the hook, Catlin?”

  “Which hook is that?”

  “Depends.”

  “On what?”

  “Whether you’ve still got any conscience left or if you’ve burned it all away.”

  “You ever plan on turning to the pulpit, Marshal, I’d think twice about it.”

  “I’m no sin-buster, much less a saint. Just wondering who’ll help the Widow Regner put Bill Junior in the ground.”

  “I get it now. How much?”

  “For what?”

  “The burial. What else?”

  “I reckon twenty dollars ought to get it done.”

  “So, rake it off the bounty. Keep some for yourself, why don’t you?”

  “That sounds like a bribe, son.”

  “First, I’m not your son. Second, how can I bribe a lawman to do nothing?”

  “No damage to your sense of humor, eh?”

  “If you’re all done, Marshal . . .”

  “Not quite. You plan on staying here in town awhile?” Before Catlin could speak, Bradford informed him, “I expect your answer to be no.”

  “I’ll need my money first. Minus the twenty.”

  “Right.”

  Bradford turned to a safe that occupied one corner of his office, crouching down in front of it and wheezing from the effort, blocking Catlin’s sight line on the dial. The sound of shuffling money was familiar. When he’d counted twice, Bradford reclosed and locked the safe, then rose and turned around.

  He dropped a wad of well-worn currency. Said, “Fifteen hundred minus twenty. Count it.”

  “I don’t need to.”

  “Count it anyway.”

  Catlin obliged him while the marshal roughed out a receipt in pencil and set it beside the cash, the stubby pencil lying next to it.

  “Sign that,” said Bradford, “and the money’s yours.”

  Catlin read it over, then signed, picked up the cash, and folded it, stuffing the wad into a pocket of his blue jeans. He was turning from the desk when Bradford spoke again.

  “You’ve already checked out of the hotel,” the marshal said. “I had the manager pack up your things. He’s holding them behind the counter for you.”

  “Much
obliged.” It was about what Catlin had expected when he’d first glanced through that broken window back at the Last Chance.

  “You’ll understand that folks are tired of having you in town.”

  Won’t be the first time, Catlin thought. And said, “That’s mighty thoughtful of you, Marshal.”

  “Doing what I can with what I’ve got.”

  “Next gang blows into town, you might try stepping up a little sooner. Or you could take off that tin.”

  “Get on that big old bay of yours and ride,” Bradford replied. “You’re burning daylight.”

  Leaving Las Vegas wouldn’t be the worst trial Catlin had endured, by any means. He had another six or seven “Wanted” flyers in his saddlebag, men sought for felonies across New Mexico and Arizona Territories, but he didn’t feel like starting up another hunt first thing.

  No need for that, with fourteen hundred eighty dollars in his pocket and no deadline for another catch. In fact, Catlin was thinking he might take a short vacation. Give his gun a rest.

  That wouldn’t purge Bill Regner Jr. or mother Amanda from his mind entirely, but forgetting certain things was something of an art form that he’d cultivated over time.

  It helped him sleep at night and get through long days on the road.

  But would a short break do it this time? Should he maybe start to think about another line of work?

  And what would that be? Where would he begin to look?

  The answer came to Catlin as he mounted his bay stallion, turning toward the Grand Hotel to pick up his meager belongings.

  Santa Fe, the territory’s capital, lay sixty-odd miles to the west and slightly northward. Last he’d heard, some forty-seven hundred people occupied the city, with hotels, saloons, and restaurants, bathhouses, barbershops, something for any need that came to mind. Albuquerque, twice as far to the southwest, was just a minor crossroads by comparison, still trying to recover from the Civil War when it was claimed by the Confederacy, then recovered by the Yanks in 1862, eleven years ago.