The Crimson Trail

by Eric Red

  “You gonna squeal to the boss lady on me?”

  The bounty hunter squinted. “Not as long as you don’t tell the outfit I was in here going through their personal effects. Wasn’t here to steal.”

  “Why was you going through their stuff then?”

  “Curiosity.”

  “Deal.” Joe Idaho scrabbled a fistful of his cash and belongings from Luke McGraw’s war sack and hurried out of the hooligan wagon.

  The bounty hunter was right behind him.

  * * *

  Before he blew out his lamp by his bedroll, Joe Noose made a few brief entries in the murder book with his pen.

  First he scratched out the name of Wylie Jeffries under Suspects and wrote it under Victims.

  Under Suspects, beside the name Charley Sykes, the bounty hunter wrote: Best with knife in outfit, a dash, then Jeffries stabbed in back with a knife, probably thrown.

  Under Victims, Noose made a notation beside the names Luke McGraw, Ox Johnson, Clay Fullerton, Wylie Jeffries, and Jed Wade that the murdered men, at least some, were card sharks who cheated the unluckier gamblers in the outfit of their wages and valuables, and took further advantage of the other rovers, making them loans and charging unfair interest. Joe wrote Motive in large letters.

  He put a question mark beside all of the surviving wranglers on the list.

  The bounty hunter rubbed his eyes, trying to remember the initials and monograms on the watches, belts, and pistols he had seen in the war sacks of McGraw, Fullerton, Johnson, Jeffries and Wade in the hooligan wagon—property the dead men confiscated from other drivers for gambling debts incurred during their crooked card games, leaving one of the cheated men in the outfit broke and insolvent, desperate enough to be driven to murder to get his money back . . . and if he knew the victims had cheated him, plenty of motivation to kill for revenge. But then why would the valuables still be in the dead men’s war sacks? It wasn’t adding up. It was so dark in the hooligan wagon all Noose had made out in the war sacks were the wads of cash, and on the jewelry and watches Joe’s fingertips had only felt different initials from the names of the dead men on the war sacks.

  He would have to go back in daylight, bringing Laura Holdridge with him. Noose decided to go to the cattlewoman’s wagon and speak with her about his findings directly.

  Joe closed the murder book and was just about to blow out the candle when he heard a rough, inebriated voice. “What you wr-r-writing in th-thash book?” Charley Sykes slurred, rearing behind him as Noose rose to his feet and spun, slipping the murder book into his coat deftly, his hands dropping to the holstered Colt Peacemakers hanging on his belt, flexing and unflexing his big hands, cracking the cartilage of his knuckles.

  Charley Sykes swayed on his boots like a drunken bull—but a soused bull, if it charges, can still kill you with its horns, and Sykes had his bowie knife palmed in his right hand. Why didn’t I see him there? Joe grimly realized he had no idea how long the wrangler had been standing there, reading over his shoulder, able to put a blade in his back at any time, just like Jeffries. How could my reflexes be that slow? Damn, that was close. The riled, paranoid rover’s face flushed beet red as he pointed with the hand holding his knife. “Thash-thash my name you write, I shaw you write my damn name, what you write in b-book?”

  “None of your damn business.” One moment Joe Noose’s right hand was empty and the next his unsheathed bowie knife was clenched in his raised fist so fast the intoxicated Charley Sykes’s eyelids kept fluttering, blinking as if in astonishment at some astounding magic trick the bounty hunter had performed.

  Noose was watching Sykes’s eyes and knew when the wrangler stopped blinking, the first stab would come, so Joe was ready—Sykes lunged faster than he thought he would, the tip of the knife driving straight at Noose’s nose. Stepping aside easily and pivoting on his boots, Joe heard the whoosh of the blade hiss by his head as Noose swung his knife hand and slashed a deep wound in Sykes’s bicep, spraying blood across the tent; the rover screamed in agony, already off balance from putting his full weight into his missed thrust, and Joe let gravity take over—Noose raised his boot and gave Sykes a taste of spur as he kicked him in the ass as hard as he could. The huge wrangler went headfirst through the wall of the tent and went sprawling to the ground, face-planting in the dirt. Dust settled. The bounty hunter stepped out of the tent.

  Joe Noose didn’t think he would get up that fast.

  Back up on his boots in the blink of an eye, as drunk as he was, Charley Sykes took the duel seriously now, ducking and weaving like a snake, taking quick, deadly jabs and slashes at Noose’s face with his bowie knife. Joe felt the serrated edge nick his nose and dodged back again and again. His pale eyes were riveted on Sykes’s face, not the blade, and when he saw the savage gleam in his opponent’s gaze, anticipated the next thrust of the knife; when it came, Noose spun and ducked with fearsome speed, feeling the fist with the blade go past his head, throwing his shoulder hard into Sykes’s thrusting underarm and using his whole body mass to drive the violent rover against an oak tree, where the knife slammed home harmlessly. Surprised and off balance, Charley Sykes tried to yank his weapon out of the tree, but it was stuck deep in the trunk—as he looked anxiously around at Noose. Expecting the wrong end of a knife, he got Joe’s fist instead, three times in the face, knocking two of his teeth out. The stunned wrangler slumped to the ground.

  Yanking the bowie knife out of the trunk of the tree, the bounty hunter heaved it far into the dark woods. “Trying to cut the new man ain’t no way to welcome him to your outfit, or didn’t your mama teach you no manners? Why’d you pull a blade on me, Sykes?” Joe Noose picked Charley Sykes up by the throat with one hand and slammed him against the tree at the edge of camp, pulling back his other fist to smash the man’s face in. “Wylie Jeffries in the river was killed with a knife, and I seen how good you were with one tonight. Before you met me, that is.” Joe grinned coldly. “It’s you killin’ these rovers, aincha?”

  “It wasn’t me!”

  “Liar!”

  Squirming under the bounty hunter’s strangulating grip on his throat, the wrangler gagged out the words, “I didn’t kill them drivers . . . but I know who did.”

  “Who?” Noose loosened the pressure on Sykes’s neck slightly, using his hand and the muscle in his arm to keep him pinned against the tree trunk. “If it ain’t you, then which man done it?”

  “If I tell you, my life ain’t worth spit. He’ll kill me too.”

  “Don’t worry about him, worry about me. Your life ain’t gonna be worth spit anyway unless you spill your guts now.”

  “I ain’t telling you shit.” Joe pulled back his fist to plow it into the fallen wrangler’s jaw, and the man’s gaze wavered. “B-but I’ll tell the boss. I’ll t-tell Mrs. Holdridge. It’s her outfit and she gots a right to know. This has to end.”

  With a grunt, the bounty hunter released the wrangler, who dropped onto his tailbone and slumped against the tree.

  “I’ll get her. Then bring her back here directly.” Joe pointed down at Sykes. “And, mister, when I do, you better tell her every last thing you know or the last words coming out of your mouth better be your prayers.”

  Sykes nodded, beaten, blood seeping from his jaw.

  Taking two long strides to the nearest horse, Noose took a lasso from the saddle, uncoiled it, and quickly wrapped the rope around the felled rover and the tree three times, binding Sykes’s arms to his torso, then pulled it taut and knotted it. He grabbed the yellow handkerchief from around the man’s neck and stuffed it in his mouth to silence him. “Stay put,” Noose growled, stalking off in the direction of Laura’s wagon.

  When he got to her quarters, Joe rapped on the wood with his thick knuckles. Her silhouette moved in shadow behind the canvas in the warm light of a coal lamp. In a moment, she poked her head out, brushed-out hair down around her shoulders and brush in her hand, but still fully dressed.

  “What is it, Joe?” the cattlewoman aske
d wonderingly, searching his grim face.

  “Your man Sykes and I got into an altercation. I’ve got him tied up nearby. Says he knows who the killer is been murdering your men, Laura, but he’ll only talk to you. You better come with me.”

  With a gasp, Laura urgently grabbed the coal lamp and ducked out of the canopy, dropping off the wagon in her boots. Hastily, she followed Noose’s swift paces toward the tree.

  In the moonlight ahead, Charley Sykes’s large figure sat on the ground against the tree, his bulk shadowed in the lee of the branches.

  He didn’t look at them as they approached.

  When he got within a few feet, Joe’s boot squished in wet mud on the dry grass.

  Laura lifted her lantern, casting a glow of firelight on her wrangler tied to the tree.

  She jumped back with such a start she nearly dropped the lamp.

  Charley Sykes’s throat was brutally slashed from ear to ear, his head gruesomely thrown back, eyes rolled up in a pale bloodless face, because most of his blood he sat in, the grass wet black with it.

  CHAPTER 10

  Cocking the lever of her Winchester, Laura Holdridge aimed the barrel of her rifle at her six surviving wranglers sitting on the ground.

  She swapped glances with Joe Noose, who was on the other side of the men keeping his Henry rifle leveled at the rovers. “Charley Sykes was murdered tonight,” she said. “But one of you boys already knows that.”

  Joe had seen raw fear on the faces of the six sitting men when he and Laura had roused them at gunpoint from their sleeping rolls and force-marched them to the chuck wagon five minutes ago. That look of fear grew when their trail boss made them take off their gun belts and they were disarmed. Now, in the lamplight, Noose watched the drivers’ expressions upon hearing the news of Sykes’s murder change from fear to shock to remorse to fear again, yet none of their reactions gave him a clear indication as to who the killer might be.

  Murmurs and whispers traveled through the outfit.

  Their boss walked slowly around them with her gun. “One of you boys murdered Charley Sykes,” Laura said, her voice breaking. “Just like you murdered Luke McGraw and Ox Johnson and Clay Fullerton and Jed Wade and Wylie Jeffries. Now Charley Sykes. How could you? Why? These men were your friends. We ride as an outfit. We ride as a family. But now the devil rides with us. Never thought I’d live to see that day I’d be pointing a gun at my own crew. I hate that it’s come to this, boys, but the way I’m feeling right now, whichever one of you is the killer better confess, or I’m just gonna start shooting and maybe get lucky. So I ask you again, which one of you did it?”

  “I know I didn’t kill nobody,” Curly Brubaker said.

  “Me neither,” said Fred Kettlebone.

  One by one, four others all claimed they were innocent.

  Frank Leadbetter said nothing, Noose noticed.

  “Then one of you is a liar.” Laura scowled. “Your soul’s going straight to hell and I promise to send it there.” She clenched her Winchester, moving the muzzle back and forth across the faces of her crew. “I swear on my dead husband’s grave.” She traded looks with Joe, who nudged his jaw at Leadbetter.

  “How come just now you didn’t deny doing the murders?” Joe asked.

  Frank looked up at Noose without blinking. “If I was the killer, what good would it do saying I wasn’t? Every man here says they’re innocent when one of us ain’t, so what do you expect?”

  “How do we know the killer is one of us?” Brubaker snapped at Laura.

  “Of course he’s one of us, who else could it be?” she retorted.

  “How can you be so sure, ma’am? You even considered that the killer might be an assassin out there tracking us, keeping up with the herd but staying out of sight? Murdering us when we ain’t looking? For all we know, this individual could be some kind of professional killer. It ain’t out of line that maybe instead of right away suspecting the men who have worked for you for ten years, you’d give us the benefit of the doubt and give a little thought to it could be someone else, Mrs. Holdridge.”

  The cattlewoman considered that possibility again. Her gaze wavered when she looked to the bounty hunter. What do you think?

  Noose shrugged. Possible.

  The rovers all exchanged troubled, uncertain glances filled with fresh suspicion and doubt.

  “It’s got Injun written all over it,” Kettlebone grumbled. “Like I told you boys. Mebbe an Injun assassin paid by the white man.”

  “Stop making excuses.” Noose cradled his rifle, walking around the seated wranglers. “I find it tough to swallow that one of you men don’t know something or has any clue about which one of you is the murderer. I respect your outfit sticks together and nobody wants to be a snitch, as long as you get it through your thick skulls that one of you means to kill the rest.” Most of the men avoided his eyes, and the ones who didn’t had resentful gazes, being interrogated by a stranger. He stared them down. “It’s plain to see how pissed off you are that the new hired hand, somebody you hardly know, is questioning you, and you’re probably doubly pissed off that your trail boss, who you worked for so long, is trusting me to hold a gun on you, but the reason she turned to me is that I’m the one man in this outfit Mrs. Holdridge knows positively ain’t the killer. You boys ought to realize the same. I ain’t your enemy and I ain’t your friend. I’m just a cowpoke like you trying to earn a living and help this outfit get the cattle to market without getting killed, so I get paid. How about a little cooperation?”

  Looking over at Laura Holdridge, Joe Noose saw the hopeless look on her face knowing none of her men were going to talk. She met his perspicacious gaze with a tight shake of her head. This is useless. “OK, boys, collect your weapons and get your asses out of my sight,” she muttered. “First thing tomorrow we bury Charley. Then we got fifteen miles of territory to get these steers across by sunset, so get some rest and try not to get murdered in your sleep. I can’t afford to lose any more hands.”

  The drivers all rose grumpily to their feet, swearing under their breath. Curly Brubaker, Frank Leadbetter, Rowdy Maddox, Billy Barlow, Joe Idaho, and Fred Kettlebone retrieved their gun belts and slunk off into the darkness toward their bedrolls. “Not you,” Noose said, touching Frank’s arm with the muzzle of his Henry rifle. “You stay. I want a word with you.”

  The teenage Leadbetter stopped and threw uncomfortable glances between Joe and Laura, who both braced him. “What do you want to talk to me for?”

  Noose spoke forcefully. “Tell us your whereabouts tonight around the time Charley Sykes had his throat cut.”

  “Near as I can remember, I was answering nature’s call.”

  “Anybody see you do that?”

  He shrugged. “Why would they?”

  “Notice you keep to yourself, don’t fraternize with your saddle mates much.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Do I need to spell it out for you?”

  “You’ll have to. I can’t read or write.”

  “Why don’t you pal around with the other drivers?”

  “I’m a greenhorn. The other rovers is all older than me, they all got more experience and they’re always picking on me because I’m the kid. Well, sir, I may be only twenty-one, but I been around cattle my whole life and I’m just as good a driver as any one of them.”

  Joe traded glances with Laura. She nodded in agreement.

  Leadbetter went on. “But I can see what’s going on here.”

  Curious, Noose asked the teenager what he meant. Lowering his voice to a whisper, sneaking a furtive glance in the direction the drivers went, Frank said, “I can’t read or write but any fool can count. With every man we lose on the cattle drive, fewer men are left to stop the others from doing something bad, like stealing the whole herd or having their way with their sexy lady boss—no offense, Mrs. Holdridge—or both.”

  “None taken, Frank,” Laura replied “You heard any talk in this outfit about any of this?”
>
  Leadbetter shook his head. “Just loose talk.”

  Joe nodded at Laura to let the young rover go, and Frank walked off to join the others at the bedrolls.

  As they stood alone together in the lee of the chuck wagon and quietly conversed, the bounty hunter told the cattlewoman he believed the young cowpuncher was not their killer, and she agreed. “Frank Leadbetter worked for my husband and me for ten years and I trust his loyalty.”

  “Is he good with a gun?”

  Laura nodded decisively. “A dead shot.”

  “Good,” Noose replied. “Because if there is a treacherous plot among the wranglers to steal your herd by force, we can use that kid’s pistol on our side.”

  * * *

  Joe Noose was a light sleeper.

  He awoke to the sound of hooves.

  Someone was riding toward the camp. Riding very quietly, at a slow trot, so as not to attract attention or awaken any of the outfit.

  Lifting his head from his saddle, which he used as a pillow, and sitting up in his bedroll, the bounty hunter slid his Colt Peacemaker smoothly from his holster and listened, his senses alert.

  The lanterns were all extinguished and the camp was cloaked in darkness. A low-hanging mist covered the ground. The moonless night made it impossible to see more than twenty feet in any direction, and until his eyes adjusted to the dark, Noose had only his keen ears and sharp hearing to track the horse and rider with as they made their approach.

  When Joe heard the sound of more hooves fifty yards away, it sounded like the horses tethered to the hitching rope stepping aside to make way for another horse entering their midst. Rolling silently to his feet, Noose did not waste time putting on his boots, and walked barefoot in a low, quiet diagonal to the horses, his raised pistol barrel going where his nose went. Ahead, he heard the clinking of stirrups and squeak of leather as someone swiftly dismounted, then the metallic sound of a saddle cinch, and bridle, being undone. Finally, a muffled thump as the saddle was dropped in the dirt close to where the other saddles were stowed.