The Independence Trail

by Lyle Brandt

  “Or hanging ropes,” Axel retorted.

  “Most of us got nooses waiting as it is,” the leader said, his smile a mockery. “Still getting sold short on rewards, though.”

  “I implore you one last time to go and leave my family in peace.”

  “What’s that ‘implore’ mean?” asked a fat man standing to his leader’s left.

  “A fancy word for begging,” their mouthpiece replied.

  “Huh.” The fat man scratched his beard, keeping his rifle aimed at Axel’s torso in a firm one-handed grip. “So, if he’s begging, shouldn’t he be on his knees?”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” the leader said. “Thanks for reminding me, Lubie.” And then, to Axel: “Well, boy? Are you gonna do it right, or not?”

  Bjorlin knew that he should curb his anger, bite his tongue, but rage was boiling over in him now.

  “I kneel to beg for no man,” Axel answered through clenched teeth.

  “Well, then,” the leader said, “I guess that settles it.”

  He raised his rifle, sighting down its barrel, while his comrades did the same. Staring into eleven dark gun muzzles, Axel knew he only had two choices left. He could surrender, begging for his life, and likely draw more laughter before he was shot and swept aside.

  Or he could fight, expend his final breath cursing his enemies.

  He swore at his assailants while he swung his rifle into line with their apparent leader’s face.

  The bad men got there first, their gunshots nearly simultaneous, and Axel Bjorlin’s world went black.

  * * *

  * * *

  Art Catlin heard the distant gunfire halfway through the second hour of his graveyard shift. He guessed that it had come from ten miles off, at least, and only reached his ears because several large-bore weapons had been fired at once.

  What did it mean?

  He thought about the solitary wagon left behind by Tom Redden’s advancing train and knew the distance was approximately right. One family alone wouldn’t explain the thunderclap of shots unless someone had come upon them by surprise and sought to rid themselves of inconvenient witnesses.

  And what could Catlin do about it?

  Nothing.

  Glancing toward their campfire and chuck wagon, he saw no one stirring. They were either fast asleep or else had chosen to roll over and ignore it, rightly judging that the sound of shots, cut off after a single fusillade, posed no immediate danger to them or Mr. Mossman’s herd.

  The longhorns, for their part, had barely stirred at all.

  Turning his stallion toward the circled wagons fifty yards or so away, he saw a lamp come on inside the wagon master’s prairie schooner. Seconds later, Redden stepped down from the tailgate, wearing trousers, boots, and roll-brimmed hat but bare-chested in the pale light from a quarter moon.

  He held the lamp in his left hand, a pistol in his right, but found no targets readily available.

  In lieu of waking Mr. Mossman for no reason, Catlin urged his roan closer to Redden, waiting for the man to notice him, hoping he wasn’t so keyed up that he might fire a shot Art’s way. Instead of that, when Redden noticed him, the wagon master shoved his six-gun down inside the waistband of his pants and raised the newly emptied hand in greeting.

  “You heard that, I guess,” said Catlin, when he’d moved in close enough to speak without disturbing any of the dozing immigrants.

  “Rifles,” Redden replied. “On back the way we came from.”

  Catlin didn’t state the obvious, that Redden likely wouldn’t see the missing Swedish family again. At least, Art thought, he was unlikely to be seeing them alive and well.

  “You think it was the Bjorlins,” Redden said, as if reading Art’s mind.

  Catlin allowed himself a shrug. “Could have been anybody,” he suggested.

  “Sure. Maybe the governor was passing through and someone picked him off.” Art recognized a man disgusted with himself as Redden added, “We both know exactly who that was.”

  “On the receiving end, maybe,” Catlin agreed. “That doesn’t say who tangled with ’em.”

  “No. It doesn’t.”

  “Meaning they’re ahead of us, same way we’re going, while you move on south and west.”

  “Luck of the draw,” Redden replied. “I’d like to get my hands on ’em, but not with all these other folks caught in the cross fire.”

  “I was planning to let Mr. Mossman sleep,” said Catlin, as if speaking to himself. “But now I guess I’d better not.”

  “Bad news dislikes waiting around,” the wagon boss opined.

  “Good night, then,” Catlin said, already turning from the wagon circle when its boss called out to him.

  “You find the Bjorlins, if it ain’t too much . . .”

  “I’ll ask,” said Catlin, “but I can’t promise you anything.”

  “I figured that but had to ask.”

  “If Mr. Mossman needs you . . .”

  “He knows where I am. It ain’t like I’ll be getting any sleep from here on in.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Sunday, May 4

  Another Sunday on the trail, and while there was no pause for a religious service, no one on the Bar X crew complained. One day was like another on a cattle drive, hours of labor and monotony spiced up with threats that had to be contained and dealt with, like dashes of seasoning added to spice up a leftover stew.

  The hour was approaching noon when all that changed.

  It was their second day since camping with the westbound wagon train, and in that time the herd had traveled sixteen miles or so from that night’s bivouac. So far, they’d found no sign of the Bjorlin wagon left behind to mend a broken wheel—that is, until the Bar X foreman came back from a scouting mission to report a grim discovery.

  Art Catlin wasn’t close enough to eavesdrop on the conversation between Sterling Tippit and Bliss Mossman, but from the expressions on their faces, he didn’t require a gypsy mind reader to tell him both men were upset. They’d galloped off together, Mossman coming back alone after a good half hour, keeping any news about what he had witnessed to himself.

  That time around, the boss was solemn faced, as if he’d just received an invitation to an old friend’s funeral. Instead of riding up to Mr. M and asking him about it, Catlin concentrated on his job, trusting passage of time to clarify the reason for their leader’s funk.

  Some twenty minutes later, it was plain enough for all to see.

  A burned-out Conestoga wagon stood before them like a monument to tragedy, with vultures circling overhead, frightened to land and feed while Sterling Tippit sat astride his blood bay mare, Sharps carbine in his hand, its butt plate resting on his thigh, muzzle directed skyward toward the circling scavengers.

  Considering the wagon’s blackened state, Catlin surmised the fire had died out sometime Friday night or early morning Saturday, before the drive marched on from camping out with Thomas Redden’s train. A stench of ash and roasting flesh hung on the air, fainter than Art supposed it must have been on Saturday, but still offensive to the Bar X riders’ nostrils.

  Catlin had smelled death before, of course—some of it caused by his own hand—but this struck him as somehow being worse.

  He didn’t have to wait long for an answer as to why.

  The five Bjorlins, big and little, had been massacred. Art had to guess at how they’d died—whether by bullets, slashing blades, or something else—since coyotes and buzzards had been at them, feasting and obscuring their mortal wounds. The woman—Mrs. Bjorlin, he assumed—was naked, while her husband and their three children were fully clothed except where wildlife had torn through their garments, seeking flesh.

  Another glance around the family’s last campsite showed Catlin no sign of arrows that would pin the slaughter on a native war party. Sadly, that didn�
�t narrow down the range of suspects very much. He realized a single lunatic could have performed these heinous crimes, but if he’d had to place a bet on it, Catlin would have put his money on a roving gang of butchers.

  Men no different from those he’d hunted for the prices on their heads.

  Riding up beside him, Nehemiah Wolford asked, “Do you believe this?”

  “Seeing’s believing,” Catlin answered.

  “Yeah, I guess. But honestly, what kind of scum would leave a mess like this?”

  “The kind we’re better off avoiding,” Catlin said.

  “Maybe. I wouldn’t mind having a shot at this bunch, though.”

  Be careful what you wish for, Catlin thought, but he kept that to himself.

  “You think the boss will want to stop and bury ’em? Maybe send someone back to warn the others on that wagon train?”

  “Guess we’ll just have to wait and see,” Catlin replied.

  He doubted whether Mr. M would send a message to the wagon train. That meant at least a two-day journey, out and back, for the selected rider, and to what result? No wagon master in his right mind would reverse two full days’ travel to return and bury murdered stragglers. And, that being true, why even share the news with Redden in the first place? There was nothing he could do about the massacre, and if he tried, Redden would only put his other immigrants at risk.

  In time, maybe returning to his base of operations in Missouri, Redden would discover what had happened here after he left the Swedish family behind. However he contrived to live with it was out of Catlin’s hands, nothing for Art to fret about.

  Right now he worried more about what Mr. Mossman might decide to do.

  * * *

  * * *

  We bury ’em,” said Sterling Tippit, “it’ll cost us half a day’s travel.”

  Bliss Mossman nodded. Told his foreman, “I’m aware of that. It’s still the decent thing to do.”

  “I hear you, boss. It’s your call, either way.”

  “I want it done. Also, I’d like to find the men responsible and make ’em pay.”

  “You want me to,” Tippit replied, “I’ll ride to Dodge and tell the county sheriff what’s happened.”

  Mossman frowned at that. After another moment he said, “What I had in mind was going after ’em, running ’em down ourselves.”

  His foreman blinked at that. “All due respect, sir,” he replied, “that ain’t our job.”

  Mossman considered that for two or three heartbeats, then said, “Correct me if I’m wrong, Sterling. I understand your job to be whatever I might say it is.”

  That brought a tinge of color into Tippit’s cheeks, either embarrassment or anger, possibly a bit of both. Clearing his throat, the Bar X foreman answered back, “I ain’t a lawman, boss. Neither are you, nor any of the drovers.”

  “Does it take a badge to do the decent thing, Sterling?”

  “I never said that, sir.”

  “You didn’t argue against going after the Apache war party.”

  “That ain’t the same at all,” Tippit replied. “First thing, they came at us. And second, that was back in the Indian Country. Kansas was a state before the war. Counties elect lawmen to handle things like this.”

  “And what if we just leave it to the sheriff. What’s his name, again?”

  “It’s Charlie Bassett, till the next election, anyway.”

  “Bassett. I recollect him, now.”

  “He’s bound to have a deputy or two.”

  “And by the time you reach him with the news, whoever did this crime will have another two days’ lead.”

  “Boss—”

  “It’s settled, Sterling. Pick a couple men to ride along with you. On second thought, you’d better make it three. If it’ll ease your conscience, ask for volunteers.”

  “And if I don’t get any?”

  “Then I’ll reconsider making it an order,” Mossman said.

  “Okay, boss. Just a couple other questions, though.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “First thing, how long do we spend on their trail, leaving the herd shorthanded?”

  “If you haven’t run across ’em in two days, then double back. I’ll let it go at that.”

  “All right, sir. And what happens when we find ’em? If we find ’em?”

  “You could always try a citizen’s arrest and take ’em into Dodge, but I don’t see that happening.”

  “You figure on them fighting, then.”

  “It wouldn’t shock me.”

  “Then we kill ’em?”

  “You defend yourselves, the same as if they’d come after the herd.”

  “I see. You have a preference for who should come along, boss?”

  “Any of the boys who helped with the Apaches would do fine.”

  “Except for Dietz, sir.”

  “I regret his death the same as you do, Sterling. But there’s no connection to this other deal.”

  “Except the others who were in on that may not be keen to roll the dice again.”

  “Seems I remember you saying Art Catlin used to be a manhunter.”

  “Yes, sir. Claims that he came along with us hoping to put all that behind him.”

  “But he did all right with the hostiles.”

  A shrug from Sterling. “Did his share and then some. Doesn’t mean he likes it, though.”

  “Nobody in his right mind likes it, Mr. Tippit. Ask him, all the same.”

  “Just as you say, sir. I’ll get started on that now.”

  “And pass the shovels out,” Mossman reminded him. “Whoever stays behind needs to get busy on those graves.

  Devil’s Crossing, Kansas

  Oren Dempsey didn’t have a clue how Devil’s Crossing got its name and didn’t care. If he’d been called upon to speculate, he might suggest that being built astride the border between Ford and Hodgeman counties was responsible, a quirk allowing wanted men to stroll across Main Street and thereby immunize themselves against arrest for any violation of one county’s or the other’s local laws.

  That wouldn’t stop a bounty hunter jumping them, of course, but for the moment, Dempsey—drunk and halfway happy with his lot in life for now—wasn’t concerned about that possibility. He had eleven men, all hardcase killers, standing by to back him up in case of any danger.

  That is, if the other members of his gang were even fit to stand by now.

  Dempsey suspected all of them were either soused or sleeping off a bellyful of booze, unless they still had energy enough to roll around with one of the Red Dog Saloon’s resident hookers. Dempsey’s personal choice, a chubby blonde who called herself Jasmine, omitting her surname, was snoring loudly in her rumpled bed while Dempsey watched her from the crib’s lone chair, nursing a bottle of Old Overholt and watching her asleep, as naked as the day she’d come into the world.

  Things could be worse.

  After they’d finished playing with the Swedes and started picking through their personal effects, one of the Comanchero gang—Nestor Carrasco, just turned twenty-one—had found five hundred thirty dollars hidden in a cedar hope chest stowed aboard the Conestoga prairie schooner. Dempsey, as their leader, had relieved Carrasco of the cash, then shared half of it out among his men and kept the other half himself.

  Rank had its privileges.

  Eyeing Jasmine and wondering if he could go again so soon after the last time, Oren spared a brief thought for the immigrants they’d killed.

  Death held no mystery for him. It was a part of life, awaiting anything that walked, crawled, or drew breath, and Dempsey knew the reaper would be calling on him someday, maybe someday soon. His way of living put him constantly at risk from law dogs, victims who resisted being robbed, and even from his own backstabbing Comancheros. Hadn’t Dempsey risen to h
is present leadership position by eliminating his ex-boss, the late and unlamented Eustace “Killer” Kane?

  Indeed he had, and now Dempsey expected nothing better from the men he bossed around.

  Thinking about the silvertips they’d sent to Swedish hell the night before last, Dempsey wondered whether anyone had found them yet. Would strangers bother planting them? Would they have checked the burned-out wagon first, to see if any trinkets still remained inside it? Afterward, would they have scuttled off to tell Ford County’s law?

  Dempsey had no fear of a posse, since Ford County’s sheriff couldn’t follow fugitives beyond his legal jurisdiction. Vigilantes posed a greater threat to Dempsey’s kind, but he was confident he and his men had left no useful clues behind at their latest crime scene.

  For all intents and purposes, Dempsey reckoned they should be free and clear, at least for Friday night’s fiesta. Beyond that . . .

  Thinking of the time he’d had with Mrs. Swede, Dempsey felt a stirring in his loins and reckoned going down to breakfast in the Red Dog’s little dining room could wait awhile longer. Rising, he walked three strides to reach the bed and prodded Jasmine’s buttocks with his trigger finger.

  When she whimpered, still half dreaming, Dempsey told her, “Wake up, sleepyhead. I’ve got a surprise for you and mean to get my money’s worth.”

  Ford County

  Sterling Tippit was surprised to find that following the killers wasn’t all that difficult. He guessed the sparsely populated county gave them no cause to believe they’d be pursued right off, or maybe they were just so all-fired arrogant they didn’t give a damn.

  In any case, despite the better part of two days passing since the wagon massacre, the tracks left by an estimated dozen mounted men were etched into the prairie, indicating that they’d ridden off at speed to wherever they had planned to go after the bloodletting.

  A dozen horses, give or take, and Tippit began to wonder if his unofficial posse was shorthanded for the job they’d been assigned.