She reached up and kissed him tenderly, then eased away. “Sully, my love. I wish….I wish…Oh damn I should not be wishing that. Now get out of here before I really fall apart.”
He patted her shoulder, slid away from her and ran down the street. He felt like singing, but remembered that he could not sing. He did the next best thing, he hummed all the way to the café where he found the men.
The celebration supper was outlandish. Each man ordered whatever he wanted: pound and a half steak, standing rib roast, baby back ribs, and roast beef. Anything on the menu. Sully arranged for the waiter to go to a saloon and bring back tankards of beer for everyone. They retold events of the drive, laughed and cried and enjoyed themselves. The blowout lasted for two hours and Sully paid the tab. It came to just over two dollars a man and Sully knew it was well worth it.
“Okay, men. The party is over. Now is the time for all of you to get a good night’s sleep on a real bed. Strange as it may be there still are such things. See you all ready to ride at seven a.m. in front of the General Store. Oh, Wander, do you have a working rifle?”
“Wouldn’t ride far without one, Sully.”
“Good. I’ll see you all tomorrow.” He left and hurried to Annie’s house. She had a porch lantern on waiting for him. Inside the front door she hugged him, kissed him, and led him into the parlor were a low table was set up with cards and stacks of chips.
“Poker?” she asked.
“The only good card game,” Annie said. “I and my husband used to play all the time. We kept track of our losings. The last week of his life before he went in the army I owed him over twelve thousand dollars. That was on paper.”
“Poker is a game of guts, mostly then throw in about fifty percent chance and you have it. What games do you like to play?”
“Five card draw, the only good game.”
He played the game and soon saw that he was remarkably good at it. He was over a hundred dollars behind before he started taking the game seriously, won back half of it, and looked at his Waterbury.
“Hey, almost midnight. I’ve got an important job for tomorrow. Supposed to meet this beautiful lady at six thirty. I better get some shut eye. See you bright and early.”
In his hotel room, that cost a dollar fifty because it was the only hotel in town, he found the bed not as lumpy as he figured, and got to sleep almost at once.
Sully woke up at five thirty, was eating a big breakfast at the café when it opened at six and sat waiting for Annie at her store just before six thirty.
“You’re late,” he said.
She grinned and touched his arm. “And you are early. Where is the chuck wagon?”
“Curley said he would have it here by now. Let’s get the bill paid, then I’ll track down the rig.”
They went into the store and she showed him the bill. He looked at it in quiet shock. Eighty six dollars and twelve cents. But that was food for six men for at least a week.
He paid it from the side of his wallet where he kept Hirum’s share. He figured it was down to about five hundred.
“It wouldn’t be so much if you fed these guys biscuits and beans twice a day,” she said. “You’re too good to them.”
“Treat a worker right and he does a good job for you.” He counted out the money and she said not to worry about the twelve cents. By the time she had put the money away, Curley walked in the front door.
“Thought we had some food things to move,” he said.
“You’re late, Curley,” Annie said then pointed to the stack of boxes and sacks near the front door. “Have at it. You can stash these things anywhere you want them now, or sort it out later.”
“Let’s just load it in for now,” Sully said. “We will have four riders here in about ten minutes.”
When they had the food all in the back of the chuck wagon, three of the riders came up. Greg Victor was missing.
Curley nodded. “Yeah, he over slept. Said her would get some breakfast and catch up with us. He knows the route by now.” Curley stepped up on the wagon’s high seat and turned the draft horse south. Annie waved Sully back inside the store. As soon as the door closed she held out her arms. He took her in his arms and kissed her seriously.
“Gonna have to do till we come back. Might be two or three days or a week.” He gave her one more hug and hurried out to his horse. The rest of them were half a block down the main street. Sully mounted and rode after them. There was an air of excitement in his mind. This time they were going after a larger herd. He was thinking five hundred head. How many men would he need to drive that many critters to Fort Worth? He pictured it: one on the lead, three flankers on each side and two riders on drag. That would be nine besides him and Curley. It boggled his mind. He frowned. First they had to round up that five hundred head.
Chapter Sixteen
Former Captain Dan Tracey edged his left shoulder tighter into the cloth sling that held his left arm tightly against his side. The doctor said it would heal with no lasting problems. The only trouble was it would take time. He had spent two months in a hospital in Memphis before the army discharged him. It was the massive cut down of the U.S. Army right after the war. He knew it was coming but he had loved the army. Every officer he knew below the rank of major had been automatically sent home. After the hospital stay he had talked to more than a dozen high ranking army officers to try to get some action on the raid on the army payroll. They all had dismissed it as just another misfortune of war and sent him out the door.
At last he had talked to the U.S. Marshalls office men in Memphis. It was a new unit just set up and it was immediately interested in his story of the payroll hijacking and death of his men. He had joined the marshal’s team and they assigned him, shot up shoulder and all, to track down this man he had a name for. One man during the attack had called him Sully. That was a big start. The way the Rebs treated him he figured Sully was an officer, probably a lieutenant.
His first work was searching the Rebel army records they had captured in Memphis. There were a lot of them. He asked for help from the U.S. Marshal’s office and was assigned a clerk. Together they worked long hours. Soon they found two Sully names, but no last names or home towns. They worked on.
Dan Tracey was relentless. He remembered all too well the smirk that the Sully had when he found the payroll. It was a face he would never forget. They looked for the name Sully but also for Sullivan which was the regular name for the men. The two they found in the Memphis area were the first two they checked. One was a man in his forties now with one leg. He wasn’t the right man. The other one was the right age, but short and going to fat.
They went back to the big building housing the records and worked until late that night. Before they quit they had another hit.
“Name is Sullivan Sampson,” his coworker said. “He volunteered for a cavalry unit and was made a lieutenant.”
Dan yelped in delight. “He could be the one,” Dan said. “Tomorrow we go out and find his place bright and early.”
They did. It was a few miles outside of Memphis, a small farm and ranch. Quickly they saw that the whole place had been trashed and burned to the ground. No one lived there now. Certainly not the Sully they looked for.
The break came two days later when a routine letter sent to county seats in Tennessee and Texas netted a reply. It was from a county sheriff in Texas. A man named Sully Roberts had registered a cattle brand in that town and the sheriff forwarded it on to the state office.
“Not sure this would be any help in your search for Sully Sampson, but I decided to send along the brand name and this is the closest county seat to the village of Connor’s Corner where the brand owner evidently lives.”
It just might be the one. Dan settled back in a chair and thought it through. Changing a name was easy. Lots of men in and after the war had done it. Just pick out a new name and forget the old one. Had this Sully Roberts done the same thing? He had been a small time rancher there near Memphis. Maybe he was going big
time in Texas with all that payroll money. He took the letter to his superior at the Marshal’s office.
Hus boss, a small man with a moustache and not much hair, looked at the report Dan handed him. He grinned.
“Sounds good, Dan. Get yourself some travel money and go see if this if our man. Really want to clear up this robbery if we can.”
Four days later Dan stepped down from a stage in Gunsight, Texas and looked for the sheriff’s office. He found it and showed the man his letter of introduction and his search.
“Oh, yeah. Remember the man. Interesting fellow. Rounding up those strays down on the flats.”
“Can you describe him for me?”
“Been over two months. Let me see. Tall, about six feet I’d say. In good shape, not fat at all. Wore a low crowned hat. Clean shaven and with a good sun tan showing me he spent time outdoors.”
“Has he been back to town since that first time?”
“Hard to say. I haven’t seen him.”
“Where is this Conner’s Corner you mentioned?”
“About twenty miles almost due west”
“Can I get a stage there?”
“Don’t think so. They were losing money on the line and quit it about six months ago. Best bet is to hire a buggy or rent a horse. You do ride?”
“Yes. No buggy. A horse it has to be. Thanks, sheriff.”
Dan rented a horse, got directions, and set out. He took some trail food not sure how long the ride would take. He at last came into Connor’s Corner midway through the second day, stabled his mount, and fell into a bed at the hotel. He slept for eight hours and woke up angry and hungry. It was nearly ten o’clock at night and the cafes were all closed. Not even the General Store was open. He took a walk the three block length of the town and went back to bed in the hotel. He went to sleep at once.
The next morning Dan eased out of bed and tested his left arm. The doctor told him to leave it out of the sling as much as he could so the tendons in the arm didn’t shorten. If they did he would never be able to straighten his arm out all the way.
Tears came to his eyes as he stretched out his arm fully then rested it at his side. He slid into his blue jeans and a well-worn shirt so he didn’t look too prosperous. Then he took out his U.S, Marshal’s badge and put it in his shirt pocket. No sense advertising what he was doing. The last thing he did before leaving his room was to slip on the sling and tie it up tight.
At the closest café he ordered a good breakfast, ate it with relish and had two cups of coffee. Then he went to see the town marshal. He would know what was going on.
At the marshal’s office he found the man inside making out a report. He was a town marshal, not a sheriff. Dan held out his hand.
“Morning, Marshal. I’m Dan Tracey from Memphis. How are things going?”
“Tolerable so far. You a long way from home.”
“Yeah looking for a friend. You seen Sully around town lately?”
“Well now, all depends. We got two. One is Sullivan Jones, our undertaker. He’s always here, or he’s in a six foot deep hole somewhere.” The marshal looked up but his joke was not noticed. “Then the other one is Sully the cow man. He’s on his third roundup of strays out on the prairie south of here. This one is about thirty or so, maybe a little over six feet tall and clean shaven”
“Sounding more and more like my friend. Know if he’s in town now?”
“Don’t think so. He should be on his third cattle drive into Fort worth or Dallas, whichever one needs the meat the most.”
“Oh. He have a roundup camp he works from to gather the herd?”
“Yep that I know. About seven miles almost due south at the edge of the big valley. He might be in the middle of a roundup.”
“Don’t say. Might be a bad time to talk to him. Any idea how long these trail drives take?”
“Sure do. Long about three weeks or so one way, then less than that coming home.”
“Afraid of that. Might be better to just ride out to his camp and talk there.”
As Dan left the lawman’s office he made up his mind, quick and certain the way he always did. He had to get some trail food, some cooking gear, and set out to find this good sounding suspect for the payroll robbery and murder of the soldiers. He went to the General Store and asked the woman clerk there advice on trail food to last for five or six days. She was most helpful. He also needed a bedroll.
No sense in waiting. It was just after noon when he headed south out of Conner’s Corner. He soon found wagon wheel tracks on the prairie and decided they should be ones leading to the Sully outfit’s camp. He followed them south for two hours and soon came to an overlook where he could see a huge valley spread out below him. It was an impressive sight. Then at the near side, maybe a mile down the slope, he saw smoke coming from a grove of trees. In back of that he could see what looked like cattle that must be enclosed in some kind of a pen.
He figured he had found Sully Sampson also known as Sully Roberts. Now all he had to do was get close enough to identify the man for sure. His features had been burned into Dan’s memory after that confrontation and battle near Memphis. Now at last he could find out for sure if this was the same man who had shot him, killed several of his men, and stole he payroll belonging to the army. He was not sure how he would handle it. If it was the right Sully he could gun him down from ambush. With his badge he could do it. Or he might want to arrest him, put him in leg irons and handcuffs and take him back to Memphis to stand trial. That would mean problems with the men under his hire. The more he thought of it the more he leaned toward the bushwhacking. He would decide one way or the other tomorrow.
Now he noticed that it was almost dusk it might take him a half hour to work his way down the slope and into the valley. By then it would be full dark and he would have to wait until the next day to make a positive identification. One way or the other Sully Sampson Roberts’ days were grinding down to a precious few. Either death by a rifle slug, or the rest of his life in prison. So far Dan Tracey didn’t care which one.
Chapter Seventeen
Sully worked with a team of three other riders to round up the fifty head they had discovered in a small valley about five miles from the roundup tent and pen. They were moving them slowly in a bunch, not spread out in a string. That would have made it easier. This way one or the other of them was constantly galloping away to roust a wayward steer or cow back in the small herd. They had them about half way there and it was just after their noon time. They had let the cattle drink at a small stream then munch on some grass along the bank while the men ate sack lunches that Curley had fixed up for them that morning. Now they were moving along about two miles an hour maybe three. At this rate it would take them another hour or more to get the animals to the chuck full cattle pen behind the chuck wagon. They had made two more fences expanding the length of the pen but not making it any wider. Now they had over four hundred head in there and they were planning on another two hundred before they got the branding started. Six hundred was about all that Sully wanted to drop on Dallas this trip. They had loved the three hundred on the last run, but he didn’t want to overload the market.
The second drive had worked out well. He had hired the two new men and they got through with no downed horses, no sudden attacks by would be rustlers, and no swollen rivers.
Now he was planning on the next drive. It would take them at least three days to brand all of the animals. He had two new branding irons made in Connor’s Corner, but still it would be a close call. They might have to brand for four days. The payoff for the last drive had been for thirty two dollars a head or $9,760. They had increased the rider’s pay to thirty five dollars a drive and all of them signed on for another try. Curley had been flabbergasted at the amount of money he now had in his bank account in Gunsight. Sully was not sure what it was but his own account now had more than seven thousand dollars in it with plenty still in his pocket for spending.
It was almost five o’clock and they were l
ess than half a mile from the larger pen when Sully spotted two riders galloping toward him over the flat land. He had no idea who it was or who would be in that much of a rush.
Soon he could tell one of the riders was Curley but the other one looked smaller. They were fifty yards apart when he realized the second smaller rider was Annie .What in the world was she doing out here and evidently in some hurry? He signaled for the other riders to start thinning out the herd into six or eight wide to get through the gate into the smooth wire lot they had built. Then he rode ahead to meet the pair of horse people.
As he rode up he reached out and touched Annie’s out thrust hand.
“Annie what brings you out here in such a rush?”
Annie almost cried. She rubbed her eyes and there was an unusual tremor in her voice. “I told Curley about it and he said we find you quick.”
“What could be so important?”
“There’s a stranger in town asking questions about you. He just used the name Sully. No last name. He talked to the marshal. Then he came past the store and bought a week’s worth of trail food. He had an almost shaved hair cut like some of the military men do. He marched rather than walked and he had a far north accent I’m familiar with. He scared me, Sully. Scared me right down to my stockings.”
“Does sound strange,” Sully said. “Did he give you his name?”
“No. I didn’t take time to ask the Marshal if he did there. I had to come tell you. I don’t know why but I had a chill when I looked at him. He frightened me and I didn’t know why. Still don’t, but I think he is hunting you for something that happened during the war. Could that be it?”
“What I figure, too, Sully,” Curley said, “So we both rode.”
“What I’m thinking, too,” Sully said. “Annie describe this gent for me.”
“Not good at that. I guess he’s about four inches taller than me so he would be five eight. A little on the heavy side. Clean shaven. Dark hair real short. Mean looking blue eyes. He didn’t smile much. Marched more than walked. About it.”
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