The Independence Trail

by Lyle Brandt

He’d asked Art Catlin first about joining the hunt and was a bit surprised when the ex–bounty hunter readily agreed. Catlin didn’t appear to be fired up about it, but he hadn’t tried to shirk the job, either. He was handy with a shooting iron, had proved it in their fight with the Apache braves, and Tippit reckoned Art would more than pull his weight.

  The foreman’s other volunteers were Julius Pryor and Zebulon Steinmeier. Zeb carried his matched Volcanic rifle and six-gun, while Pryor only had his Remington revolver. Counting Tippit’s and Catlin’s weapons, that made three rifles and four sidearms, while they’d likely be outnumbered four to one by enemies who’d proved their willingness to kill.

  How would his riders overcome those odds, assuming that they ever caught up with the murderers? The only plan that came to Tippit’s mind was a surprise attack, harking back to their raid on the Apache camp nine days ago. Whether or not that turned out to be possible depended on a list of factors Tippit had considered while they rode mostly in silence on the killers’ trail.

  For instance, it would make a difference where they found the fugitives. If they were camped out on the prairie, an approach to them would be more hazardous than if they’d taken shelter in a town, with innocent bystanders blundering into the line of fire.

  That thought, in turn, made Tippit voice the first question he’d asked since riding off to leave the Bar X herd behind. “Do any of you know if there’s a town in this neck of the woods?”

  “Dodge City,” Pryor said.

  “Not likely they’d go there,” Tippit replied. “Unless they’re idjits, they won’t try to hide out in the county seat.”

  “It’s in the wrong direction anyhow,” said Steinmeier. “But there’s another coming up, the way we’re headed. Not much of a town, I grant you, but it still might do.”

  “What town is that?” asked Tippit.

  “Devil’s Crossing,” Zeb replied. “It’s more a wide spot in the road—or would be, if they had a road—but last time I was through there, they had a saloon, a livery, and a dry-goods store.”

  “You figure they’d accommodate a gang of killers?” Tippit asked him.

  “All depends,” Steinmeier said. “They might deny knowing the men we’re after murdered anyone, much less the rest of what they done. Another way to think about it, they might not have guts enough to go against a gang of thugs.”

  “How far ahead of us is Devil’s Crossing?” Tippit asked.

  “I’d say another six or seven miles, smack on the county line. A settlement divided, as you might say.”

  “Is there any law there?” Tippit asked Steinmeier.

  “None I ever heard of,” Zeb replied. “They’ve only got a hundred people, give or take. Last time I passed through Devil’s Crossing, no one seemed to think the cost of hiring on a deputy was worth it.”

  “All right, then,” their foreman said. “Unless the trail we’re following veers off some other way, it looks like we’ll be heading on to Devil’s Crossing. What’s the name of that saloon you mentioned?”

  “Red Dog,” Zeb replied. “Funny, considering I never seen a dog in town the whole time I was there, much less a red one.”

  “Don’t give up just yet,” said Tippit. “They may have some mad dogs with ’em now.”

  Devil’s Crossing

  Lonnie Kilgore, the Red Dog’s proprietor, had never planned to run a whorehouse and saloon far from anywhere worth mentioning. It surely wasn’t what his parents had in mind for him when he was just a little shaver on their farm in Iowa.

  His parents wanted Lonnie to grow up and run the place, to make something out of it that his old man never could. But by the time he came of age to light out on his own, Kilgore was sick to death of plowing, seeding, harvesting, and milking cows. He hadn’t spoken to or heard from anyone back home in twenty years and reckoned they were likely dead by now, or else had given up and moved on to some other patch of unforgiving dirt.

  Running the Red Dog was another sort of life entirely. It had its ups and downs, but nothing by comparison to waking up each morning at cockcrow, knowing your day would be as long and tedious as every other day that went before it.

  Drunks and whores, at least, provided some variety. Kilgore had learned to handle both and turn a profit from it, though he wasn’t rich by any means. Most nights he shared in the frivolity downstairs, although he sometimes had to fake enjoying it. Mornings, unless there was a problem to be dealt with, he slept in till ten o’clock or so.

  But not when Comancheros came to town.

  They were a rowdy bunch but paid their way without complaint and rarely tried to get one over on him. With a gang of them in town, there might be scuffling, sometimes outright brawling, but Kilgore employed a bouncer who could settle most problems by glaring, rarely having to knock anybody out.

  And if it started going south, Kilgore was armed and ready, with a sawed-off shotgun underneath the bar, another one upstairs, and an Apache revolver he kept in his pocket. That was an ingenious weapon. It folded in upon itself to roughly four and one half inches, .27 caliber, with six rounds in its cylinder, had a knuckle-duster for a pistol grip when opened, and a two-inch, double-edged blade tucked beneath its stubby barrel, ready for extension as a kind of bayonet. Kilgore had used it three, four times on rowdy customers, never on local folk.

  And he would never pull it on a bunch of Comancheros, either.

  That would wind up being shotgun work, if things went bad.

  Cletus Robard was preparing breakfast in the Red Dog’s kitchen when Kilgore got there, poured himself a mug of black coffee, and sat back to watch. The smell of frying bacon grease put Kilgore off eating and followed him as he retreated to his backroom private office, where he shut the door and settled down behind his cluttered desk.

  If he was lucky, Kilgore thought, the Comancheros would be out and gone today, or else tomorrow at the latest. As a rule of thumb, they didn’t like to stay around a settlement for long, maybe afraid some civilizing tendency might rub off on them or—more likely—that someone might come along behind them, seeking to avenge some grievous wrong they’d done.

  And when it came to enemies, Kilgore would bet that Oren Dempsey’s raiders had a longer list than most.

  In fact, if called upon to name someone who didn’t fear or hate them, Kilgore doubted he could list a single living soul.

  The good news: Dempsey’s gang only showed up in Devil’s Crossing when they had money to spend, and Lonnie Kilgore got the lion’s share of that. Granted, from time to time one of their guns went off, drilling a wall or shattering a windowpane, but they had never injured anyone in town, unless you counted putting hard miles on the girls upstairs.

  And every time Kilgore heard bedsprings creaking overhead, it meant more money in his pocket.

  A few more hours, then—another day at most—and he’d be rid of them until they made another score. And if the greenbacks they gave Kilgore for his liquor and women had a few rust-colored stains on them, so what?

  For all he knew, it could be spilled ink or a smattering of chicken blood.

  * * *

  * * *

  The sun was westering, maybe an hour shy of dusk, when Zebulon Steinmeier said, “That’s it.”

  “You’re sure?” asked Sterling Tippit.

  “There ain’t no mistaking it.”

  Nor, Catlin thought, could they mistake the tracks that they’d been following, which made a beeline right across the plain toward Devil’s Crossing.

  “All right, then. Everybody double-check your guns,” Tippit ordered. “We should be getting in there right around sundown.”

  “And what then?” Julius Pryor asked.

  “If Zeb’s right,” Tippit said, “there’s only one place we should have to look for ’em. They’d make for the saloon and whorehouse if I’ve got them figured right.”

  Pryor
pressed him. Said, “I mean how do we go about it?”

  Tippit thought about that for a moment while he spun his Colt Dragoon’s cylinder, checking loads, then said, “Look first. A dozen men together ought to stand out in a town that size, especially in the saloon. If we don’t spot ’em right away, I’ll have a word with whoever’s in charge.”

  Pryor couldn’t seem to let it go. “And if they ain’t down in the barroom?”

  “Then we’ll need to head upstairs. Knock on some doors,” Tippit replied.

  “The owner won’t like that,” Steinmeier said.

  Tippit considered that and asked, “What kind of fella is he?”

  “Only saw him for a minute,” Zeb replied. “If it’s the same guy I remember, he’d be on the hefty side but soft-looking. O’ course, that don’t mean that he wouldn’t fight.”

  “Armed, was he?” Pryor asked.

  Steinmeier thought about it, shook his head, and answered, “Not that I recall. Remember it’s a barroom, though. I’d be mighty surprised if there weren’t guns around there somewhere.”

  “The question,” Tippit said, “is whether he’d see fit to back a customer while knowing what they did to that poor family.”

  “I couldn’t judge his mind,” Zeb said. “If it’s a matter of us barging in and telling him we’re after murderers and worse, he’d likely ask by what authority.”

  “Let’s put it this way, then,” the foreman said. “We nose around as best we can without declaring anything. If challenged, let me do the talking. If the landlord or whoever wants to side with Comanchero scum, it’s his lookout.”

  Art Catlin didn’t like where this was going but he knew they’d come too far to turn back empty-handed. Instead of questioning their foreman’s judgment, he asked no one in particular, “And what about after?”

  “After?” Tippit was frowning at him. “After what?”

  “Say we come up against them and we don’t get shot to hell, what happens then? We stay around and plant them, or just head back to the herd and leave a mess behind? The county sheriff may not like it, either way.”

  “I’ll tell you what,” Tippit replied. “If he shows up, I’ll hand the problem over to him and be glad to see it go. Until then, let’s quit wasting time and get it done. That suit you, Art?”

  “Sounds fair enough,” Catlin agreed.

  “Okay, then,” said Tippit. “Let’s ride.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  The Red Dog Saloon

  Halfway down the staircase leading to the Red Dog’s second story, Oren Dempsey paused to scan the barroom. First, he saw Lonnie Kilgore seated at a solitary corner table, cutting up a blood-rare steak with fried potatoes on the side. He concentrated on his food like men will when they haven’t eaten in a week, putting the beef and spuds away with focused energy.

  Out in the middle of the room, four Comancheros had their minds on poker, five-card draw with Lubie Grant dealing. Across from him, Ardil McManus eyeballed four cards in his hand and drummed his fingers on the tabletop, waiting to get his fifth. The outfit’s brothers, José and Juanito Calderón, sat facing one another, José on Grant’s left, Juanito to his right. Each man had anted up a silver dollar, but they hadn’t started betting yet.

  The barkeep was a hulk named Spencer Poe, six five or six at least, broad shouldered, barrel-chested—just the sort of bruiser that you needed tending bar if your employer was too cheap to hire a backup bouncer. Eyeing his scarred knuckles and the billy club that dangled from his left hip on a leather thong, Dempsey imagined Poe could look out for himself.

  That shouldn’t matter if somebody put a bullet in him, though.

  Oren had no such plan for Poe just now, but it was something that he thought about, so he’d be ready just in case.

  You never knew.

  The Red Dog’s only other customers so far this evening were a couple of old-timers, townies with a worn-out look about them, like they’d have to study on remembering the last time either of them had occasion for a smile. Their skin and clothes looked dusty, gray hair showing underneath the felt hat each man wore pulled down to shade his face from lamplight.

  Dempsey wandered over to the owner’s table, and didn’t ask before he pulled a chair out and sat down where he could watch the Red Dog’s batwing doors and his four gunmen playing cards.

  Kilgore made no protest at the intrusion. Looking at him, Dempsey recognized a man who’d learned you go along to get along.

  Which didn’t mean that if push came to shove, Lonnie wouldn’t be dangerous.

  “Good steak?” Oren inquired, not really caring one way or the other.

  “Fair,” Kilgore replied. “Ain’t Kansas City prime, but it’ll do.”

  The pleasantries concluded, Dempsey asked Kilgore, “You have our tab writ down?”

  “Yes, sir. Will you be leaving us tonight?”

  “First thing tomorrow,” Dempsey said. “Might have some breakfast for the road.”

  “Cletus can do that for you. Most days he gets up by six, six-thirty.”

  “Reckon you’ll be sad to see the back of us.”

  Kilgore rolled his meaty shoulders in a kind of shrug. “You’re always welcome here,” he answered, with his mouth full.

  Meaning that their loot was always welcome, and what more could Dempsey ask? People who knew him—or imagined that they did—stayed focused on whatever profit they could turn from dealing with him. Strangers had a tendency to take one look and shy away, as if some sixth sense let them see the bloodstains on his hands.

  “Say nine o’clock, then, give or take?”

  “I’ll be here,” Kilgore said. Then, almost wistfully, he followed up. “I’m always here.”

  Rising, Dempsey replied, “It could be worse.”

  “Amen to that,” Kilgore said, and went back to sawing at his steak.

  * * *

  * * *

  Art Catlin scanned the one and only street that ran through Devil’s Crossing. On the west side, to his left, stood the Red Dog Saloon, while to his right, or east, he saw the livery and dry-goods store Zeb Steinmeier had described. Sunset cast the saloon’s shadow across the dusty thoroughfare, shading its neighbors as night fell.

  “Reckon they’ll have their horses in the livery,” their foreman offered.

  “If they’re here at all,” Julius Pryor said.

  “We’ll find out soon enough.” Reining his blood bay to a halt when they were still a hundred yards outside of town, Tippit informed his men, “I think it’s best that we split up. Zeb, you ride around behind the livery and have a look. Don’t rouse the hostler, though, if you can help it. Try to count the horses. See if there’s enough of ’em to match the tracks we’re following.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Turning to Catlin, Tippit said, “Art, see if you can get around behind the Red Dog. Don’t go in unless you hear a ruckus, but be ready if it happens.”

  Catlin nodded. Said, “No problem.”

  “Where do you want me?” Julius Pryor asked.

  “You go with Zeb, but don’t stop at the livery. Ride on around it, so that you can watch the northbound road. Cover the street from there and keep an eye peeled if somebody tries to make a break for it.”

  “Got it,” Steinmeier said. “And what about you, sir?”

  “Thought I might mosey into the saloon and have a drink,” Tippit replied. “Best way that I can think of to eyeball the clientele.”

  “And what if they ain’t here?” asked Pryor.

  “Then,” said Tippit, “we should have another think about whether we keep on chasing them or let it go and head back to the herd. Any more questions?”

  * * *

  * * *

  It was a load off Lonnie Kilgore’s mind to hear the Comancheros would be riding out tomorrow morning. If they settled up their tab—whi
ch Oren Dempsey had always done before, without complaint—Kilgore could bid the gang farewell and wipe his mind of any thoughts about what they got up to when they were away from Devil’s Crossing.

  But if Dempsey tried to skip out on the bill this time, or if his riders spent their last night at the Red Dog raising holy hell, Kilgore reckoned that he should be prepared for anything.

  After he left his supper plate with Cletus Robard in the kitchen, Lonnie circled back to have a word with Spencer Poe behind the bar. Poe saw him coming and broke off from wiping down the bar’s top with a dirty rag.

  “You notice Dempsey jawing with me over there?” Kilgore inquired, nodding in the direction of his corner table.

  “Yeah, I saw him.”

  “Claims him and his boys are lighting out tomorrow morning, maybe after breakfast.”

  “Suits me,” said the barkeep.

  “Anyhow, we’ve never had a problem with them paying up before, but just in case . . .”

  “Did he say something, boss?”

  “Like what?”

  “To make you think he’d try ’n’ cheat you.”

  “No, nothing like that.”

  “But you’re still worried.”

  “Let’s just say I like to be prepared.”

  “Makes sense, a bunch like them.”

  “And what I don’t want is to light a fuse I can’t stomp out. You hear me?”

  “Sure.”

  “So, in the morning, what I need’s a tab on whatever they’ve had to drink, how many bottles—keep the empties till they’re gone—and how much time they spent upstairs. How many girls they used, and so on.”

  “Right.”

  “When I present the bill, if Dempsey wants to dicker, maybe I’m amenable.” Kilgore liked using big words now and then, to make him sound more educated than he was. “He tries to screw me, though, and it could go another way entirely.”

  “Understood.”

  “First chance you get, make sure that twelve-gauge underneath the bar is good to go.”