The Searcher

by Len Levinson

  “There was a man in the bushes!” she said. “I was back there at the ladies’ latrine, and he was watchin’ me.”

  “Was he an Indian?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Miss Bottom led them back to the ladies’ latrine, a hole in a small clearing.

  “I was over here,” she said, pointing at the hole, “and he was over there.” She indicated the bushes straight ahead.

  Stone moved into the bushes and saw that something or somebody had been there because branches were broken and the earth was stomped down. He got on his hands and knees and ran his fingers over the tracks, feeling the marks of boot soles and heels.

  He returned to Miss Bottom. “I’ll walk you back to your wagon.”

  Stone and Miss Bottom headed across the campsite, followed by a group of armed travelers.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t go to the latrine by yourself anymore,” he said. “Take one of the other women with you.”

  “I think I know who it was.”

  “I thought you said you didn’t see him.”

  “I know who it was anyway. Mike Leary’s been gogglin’ at me and makin’ remarks. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was him.”

  “I’ll have a talk with him.”

  The other travelers walked back to their wagons. Stone accompanied Miss Bottom to hers, then continued around the circle to the one occupied by the four dudes from the East: Mike Leary, Frank Maxsell, Homer Hodge, and Lou Tramm. He found them lounging around their fire, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee.

  “All four of you been here all evening?” Stone asked.

  “What you wanna know fer?” Homer Hodge asked. He was slope-shouldered, gaunt and wore a huge cowboy hat and had acne scars on his face.

  “Just answer the question.”

  “‘Course we been here. Where the hell else you think we were?”

  Stone looked at Leary. “How about you?”

  Leary was small with blond hair like straw. “What’re you drivin’ at, Stone?”

  “You haven’t been hanging around the ladies’ latrine, have you, Leary?”

  “What makes you think it was me?” Leary said indignantly. “Is that what Miss Bottom said? Well, she’s lyin’! I don’t hang around no ladies’ latrines! I got better things to do!”

  Stone pointed his finger at Leary. “Don’t ever let me catch you over there.”

  Stone walked back to Taggart’s wagon. The air carried the fragrance of smoke from fires burning throughout the campsite. Taggart lay on his back near his fire, his head resting on his saddle, a cigar sticking out the corner of his mouth.

  “What was the problem?” he asked.

  “Somebody was peeking at Miss Bottom while she was going to the latrine. She thinks it was Mike Leary.”

  Taggart sighed and shook his head. “There’s one on every wagon train.”

  Chapter Seven

  The wagon train passed a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. The farmer and his family waved at the lone rider in front of the wagon train, and Stone waved back.

  The farmer and his oldest sons were all muscle and bone with rugged faces. The woman looked as tough as the men, and the kids seemed happy. They had a vegetable garden, a few cattle, pigs and chickens, and were carving a life for themselves on the American frontier.

  A man could start out all over in this bright new land, Stone realized. It didn’t matter what you’d done or hadn’t done. You could make yourself into anything you wanted, throw off an old identity, make a new one.

  Most of the time the travelers saw nothing except the endless expanse of plains, hills, and sky. Stone realized for the first time how huge America was. If a man wanted to get away from it all, this was the place to be.

  On the fourth day after the peeping-Tom incident, he saw up ahead a vast mountain range that looked like a barrier across their path. Taking out his map, he saw that the trail was supposed to lead through a narrow pass cut into the mountains.

  He couldn’t see the pass; it was still too far away. His horse plodded along, and Stone took off his hat, mopping his brow with the back of his shirt sleeve. He lifted his canteen and took a drink, then turned in the saddle and saw the white canvas tops of the wagon train behind him.

  The mountain barrier came closer. Stone rocked back and forth in his saddle, holding the reins. He was becoming lazy, because nothing had happened for the past few days. He was beginning to think the rest of the trip would be uneventful. Maybe tomorrow he’d do some hunting. The wagon train was running low on fresh meat.

  In the middle of the afternoon, he approached the mountain range. Stopping his horse, he looked at the map again, but the map didn’t furnish enough particulars about where the pass was. Stone would have to find it himself. It was straight ahead, according to the map.

  Stone folded his map and put it away, then pulled his old army compass out of his saddlebag and oriented himself. Next he yanked his army spyglass out of the saddlebag and scanned the terrain ahead. He saw the opening in the mountain range. It was toward his left; the wagon train had been a few miles off course.

  Stone angled his horse to the left and dropped his spyglass back into his saddlebag. His horse trudged over the prairie grass, passing bushes and trees. They were supposed to make camp that night somewhere in the mountains. A stream was there according to the map.

  As Stone drew closer to the mountains, he saw the pass with his naked eyes. It was narrow; not more than two or three wagons could go through abreast. Then something caught his eye.

  There were figures in front of the pass. Stone took out his spyglass and focused it straight ahead. He saw five men with horses a few hundred yards in front of the pass. The horses were grazing, and the men sat nearby. They weren’t Indians, so Stone thought they must be cowboys, but where were their cows?

  Stone wondered whether to ride on and encounter the men himself or go back and tell Taggart. He decided to tell Taggart. Taggart would know what to do.

  Stone wheeled his horse and galloped back toward the wagon train, his horse kicking up clods of earth. The wagon train came closer, and he saw Taggart in front, his reins wrapped around his hands. Stone slowed his horse as he approached Taggart’s wagon.

  “Men up ahead!” Stone shouted. “Five of them that I could see.”

  Taggart’s brow furrowed. “Did they look like Injuns?”

  “Definitely aren’t Indians,” Stone replied. “They’re white men.”

  “What were they doin’?”

  “Nothing I could see.”

  “Did they have much supplies or equipment with ’em?”

  “Seemed to be traveling light.”

  “Don’t look good,” Taggart said. “They ain’t travelers like us, and they ain’t cowboys because I don’t see no cows.”

  “Maybe they’re hunters.”

  “No buffalo around. Ride back and tell the wimmin and children to git out of sight.”

  Stone rode back and passed the word along. The men gathered their rifles and pistols, and the women and children climbed into the rear of the wagons, getting low behind the sidewalls.

  Stone rode to the side of the wagon train and took out his spyglass. He peered ahead and saw the five men on their horses, strung out in a line in front of the pass, blocking the way.

  Stone dropped his spyglass into his saddlebag and spurred his horse. He rode toward Taggart and said, “Looks like they don’t want us to go through.”

  Taggart set his mouth into a grim line. “It’s gonna be a holdup.”

  “We should be able to handle them. They’ve only got five men.”

  “There’s only five that you can see. What about the ones you can’t see?”

  Stone hadn’t stopped to think there might be more men than the ones he could see. “What’ll we do?”

  “We’ll find out what they want.”

  The wagon train moved forward, and the five men on horseback became clearer. They were a dusty bunch in mangled hats and raggedy clothes, all
wearing beards. The one in the middle was tall and slim, even taller than Stone, or so it appeared in the distance.

  “They’re waitin’ for us,” Taggart said. “Let’s you and me go up and palaver with ’em. We’ll leave the rest back here for safekeepin’.”

  Taggart pulled back his reins, and his horses slowed to a halt. The other wagons stopped behind him. He climbed down from his seat and mounted one of the horses tethered to the back of the wagon.

  “Let’s go,” he said to Stone.

  Stone and Taggart rode side by side toward the five men, while the travelers watched and wondered what was going on.

  Stone and Taggart advanced toward the mountain pass. The five men looked like hard cases who hadn’t seen a town in weeks. Two smoked skinny cigarettes, and the tall one in the middle chewed tobacco, spitting a huge brown gob at the ground as Stone and Taggart came abreast of them.

  The tall man’s lips were ringed with brown tobacco juice. “It’ll cost you five hundred dollars to git yer wagons through that there pass behind me.”

  “What if I don’t pay?” Taggart asked.

  “You don’t go through.” He aimed his thumb at the mountains behind him. “I got men with rifles up there. You won’t make it. Take my word for it.”

  “You drive a hard bargain.”

  “Tough shit.”

  “I’ll have to go back and talk with my people about it.”

  “Talk all you want, but let’s get one thing straight. There ain’t no way yer gettin’ through this pass in one piece less’n you pay me five hundred dollars. You try it, we won’t have no mercy. Wimmin and children don’t mean a fuck-all to us. You get what I’m sayin’?”

  “I hear you,” Taggart said.

  Taggart and Stone headed back toward the wagons. When they were out of earshot of the highwaymen, Taggart leaned toward Stone.

  “I reckernize ’em,” he said. “They’re the Owsley Gang. They used to ride with Bloody Bill Anderson’s guerrilla cavalry durin’ the war. After it ended, they come out here, and they’re doin’ pretty much the same thing they done in Missouri and Kansas: robbin’, rapin’, and killin’ civilians. Unless I miss my guess, that tall one’s Hank Owsley hisself. I saw his picture in a sheriff’s office once, and it damn sure looks like him.”

  They rode back to the wagon train, and Taggart dismounted behind his wagon.

  “All right everybody!” Taggart said. “Let’s have a meet-in’!”

  He walked off to the side of the wagon train and sat on the grass. Stone sat beside him, glancing back at the five outlaws poised like sentinels at the entrance to the pass. He looked up to the mountains and wondered if the outlaws were bluffing. Did they really have men with rifles up there, and if so, how many?

  The travelers gathered around Taggart and Stone. There were the McGhees and the Donahues, the Fenwicks and the Roysters, gamblers, city slickers, miners, kids, and dogs. The men held their rifles and looked suspiciously at the five men guarding the entrance to the pass.

  “What’s goin’ on?” asked Sam Drake, the gambler with the goatee.

  “We got a problem,” Taggart said. “Them’s outlaws up there, and if we don’t give ’em five hundred dollars, they won’t let us go through the pass.”

  Georgie Saulnier spat into the grass. “Sheet,” he said, “that ain’t no problem. They’s only five of ’em.”

  “You only see five of ’em, Georgie,” Taggart replied, “but they got more in the mountains, with rifles. At least that’s what they said.”

  Reverend McGhee cleared his throat and spoke in his deep, resonant voice. “Do we have to use this pass, Taggart? Can’t we go around some other way?”

  “We could, but we might have to travel a few hundred miles out of our way through uncharted wilderness that’s infested with Injuns, and I don’t know where the water is. Them outlaws got us over a barrel. They know we need to use this pass.”

  Maxsell, one of the dudes from the East, pulled out his six-gun and grinned. “Can’t we fight ’em off? Hell, I’d rather fight than give ’em all that money.”

  “How’re you gonna fight ’em?” Taggart asked. ‘They’re hidden in the mountains. The way I see it, we got four choices. We can pay them their money. We can go the long way and take our chances. We can go back the same way we came. Or we can make a run for it through the pass and hope for the best.”

  “I wouldn’t recommend that last one,” Stone said. “If they’ve got men up there as they say, they’d cut us down like fish in a barrel.”

  “I don’t think we should give in to them,” Donahue said. “I think we should go the long way around.”

  Taggart shrugged. “That’s liable to cost us more than five hundred dollars in the long run, because it’ll add additional time to the trip, and time is money. I don’t know what’s on that route and couldn’t guarantee we’ll get through. It might be impassable.”

  Holton, the gambler with the pencil-thin mustache, leaned forward. “What if they take our money and shoot us down anyways?”

  “If they attacked us, we’d fight back, and they know some of them’d git hurt, too. I think them outlaws is lazy. A fast five hundred dollars is what they want.” He looked at Stone. “What do you think?”

  Stone had been considering the problem from a military point of view while the others had been talking, and he thought the outlaws held all the high cards. They occupied the best terrain and could fight off attackers indefinitely. It was like the pass at Thermopylae in ancient Greece where a handful of Spartans held off the Athenian army.

  “I think we should pay them,” Stone said, “and go through the pass.”

  “I just thought of somethin’,” said Wayne Collins, his mangled ear hanging on one side of his head. “How do we know you ain’t in cahoots with ’em?”

  Taggart turned to him solemnly. “What was that?”

  “Maybe we’ll pay five hundred dollars, and they’ll split it with you. Maybe that’s why you’re a-tellin’ us to pay the money, because it’s gonna wind up in yer own pocket afterwards.”

  Taggart pulled out his six-gun and pointed it at Collins. “If yer callin’ me a crook, we’re a-gonna havta fight it out. Go for yer gun.”

  Collins became agitated. “Wait a minute, now. I was just raisin’ the issue, that’s all. Don’t be a-gittin’ hot under yer collar.”

  Taggart continued pointing his pistol at him. “You call a man a crook in this country—you’d better be ready to fight.”

  “Don’t get yer feathers riled,” Collins said. “I’m sorry.”

  Taggart holstered his gun and sat down. “Let’s come to a decision, folks. We don’t have all day.”

  “Why don’t we have all day?” Joe Doakes asked. “What’s the hurry?”

  “I don’t want to be out here at night with those outlaws up in the mountains.”

  Fenwick said, “I agree with Captain Stone. We should pay the money because we don’t have much choice. Split among us, it won’t be that much.”

  Hodge, one of the dudes from the East, looked at Fenwick sullenly. “Maybe it won’t be much to you, but it might be a lot to the rest of us.”

  Fenwick blushed, because he was the richest man on the wagon train and everybody knew it. A few of the others shifted their positions uneasily. Miss Bottom was the next to speak.

  “I think we should pay it,” she said. “Them outlaws got us where they want us, and the sooner we realize it, the better off we’ll be.”

  “We’ll take a vote,” Taggart said, “and whatever the majority decides, that’s what we’ll do. Everybody who thinks we should pay off the outlaws, raise yer hands.”

  Most of the hands went up.

  “Who don’t want to pay the outlaws?”

  No hands went up.

  “Some of you didn’t vote,” Taggart said. “Why the hell not?”

  “I don’t know what to do,” Wayne Collins said.

  “The majority rules. You folks figger out how much each of you has to p
ay.”

  “Whataya mean, each of us?” Collins said. “What about you?”

  “Me and Stone don’t pay,” Taggart said. “We’re just along for the ride.”

  The travelers grumbled as they returned to their wagons to get the money. Some had it in strongboxes, others in money belts, others hidden in special secret places. One by one they returned with the money and dropped it into Taggart’s hat.

  Taggart rose and hitched up his gun belts. “Let’s go pay the bastards,” he said to Stone.

  Taggart and Stone climbed onto their horses and rode toward the outlaws.

  “We got your money,” Taggart said as they approached.

  “Hand it over,” said the tall thin man with tobacco juice on his lips, the one Taggart had said was Hank Owsley.

  Taggart rode forward and handed his hat to Owsley, who dismounted and counted the money.

  “It’s all there,” Taggart said.

  “It’d better be.”

  Owsley fingered the last coin and growled, “You and your nesters can use the pass now. You’d better git goin’ afore we change our minds.”

  Stone gazed down at him. “What do you mean—change your mind?”

  Owsley smiled, revealing rotted stumps of teeth. “We got a deal as long as I don’t change my mind. That’s the way it is, cowboy.”

  In a movement so fast his hand was a blur, Stone pulled out his six-gun and pointed it at Owsley, whose eyes widened like saucers.

  “Where I come from,” Stone said, “a deal is a deal.”

  Owsley’s smile disappeared from his face. “Put that gun away, if you know what’s good for you.”

  “You’re comin’ with us, Owsley, to make sure we get through the pass without you changing your mind about our deal.”

  “Now, just a moment…”

  “Get on your horse, or you’re a dead son of a bitch.”

  Owsley smiled again. “I was only kiddin’ about changin’ my mind. You don’t have to get all persnickety about it.”

  “Get on your horse.”

  Owsley looked at his men, and they all knew they were in a predicament. They outnumbered Stone and Taggart, but Owsley would be killed without question if there were gunplay.