The Revenger

by Peter Brandvold

  Ignoring him, the captain walked over to a private leading a bay gelding toward him and swung up into the saddle.

  Sartain hesitated before climbing into the back of the wagon beside the soldier who’d manned the Gatling gun and was now taking it apart and crating it. Pimples rammed the butt of his Spencer repeater against the Cajun’s back between his shoulder blades.

  “Get in there like the captain said, Revenger!” Pimples laughed. “You done been de-fanged and de-clawed!” He laughed again.

  Sartain whipped around automatically, forgetting for the moment that his ankles were hobbled. He swung both his manacles at the laughing, pimple-faced lieutenant, who jerked back with a start, his eyes and mouth wide in horror.

  But before The Revenger’s fists could connect with the young officer’s bony jaw, he got his ankles tangled up. He fell sideways and backward, slamming his head against the end of the wagon bed. His last sensation was hitting the street like a stack of lumber.

  Then an inky veil of semi-consciousness settled over him, quelling the throbbing in his battered head, until he became aware he was riding in the wagon toward some unknown destination.

  It would probably turn out to be some remote ravine where he’d face a hangman’s noose or a firing squad.

  And then the carrion-eaters...

  Chapter 4

  “Hey, fellas, where we headed?” Sartain asked the two soldiers guarding him as the wagon continued rocking and clattering along a rough, shaggy two-track trail.

  High rocky copper-colored ridges sparsely populated with pines loomed over the canyon, their soaring crests sometimes appearing to converge and almost entirely close out the sky. The wide, shallow Arkansas River chuckled along the base of the ridge on the trail’s west side.

  Sartain rode with his back resting against the wagon’s front panel beneath the driver’s seat. The stench from the driver’s sweat-soaked wool uniform occasionally wafted back to assault the Cajun’s sensitive nose. The two soldiers guarding him—the same two privates who’d been riding in the back of the wagon when Sartain had first seen them and the Gatling gun—sat near the tailgate, one with his back to the left-side panel, the other with his back to the right-side panel.

  The Gatling gun rested in its crate to Sartain’s left like a cobra slumbering in a basket.

  The soldiers, rocking with the often-violent bounce and sway of the wagon, merely exchanged droll, weary looks. The man to Sartain’s left, the one who’d borne down on him with the Gatling gun, was now taking occasional drags of a loosely rolled cigarette.

  “Come on, fellas,” the Cajun urged. “I’m all trussed up like the fatted calf. What’s it gonna hurt to tell me where we’re headed?”

  The soldiers glanced at each other once more and then turned to look behind the wagon at half the column following far enough back to not be eating the wagon’s dust. The other half of the column rode just far enough ahead that the wagon was not eating their dust.

  “Hey, lookee,” said the soldier on the right to the one on the left, staring a short way up the eastern ridge, where two elk cows grazed on a flat shelf just above a brushy wash. He raised his rifle and pretended to fire two shots, chuckling.

  Chewing grass, the elk turned to stare at the convoy, nervously flapping their tails.

  Obviously, the two soldiers had been told not to answer any of the Cajun’s questions or converse with their prisoner at all. So far, they hadn’t even told him to shut up, which to his way of thinking was just plain rude. On the other hand, he supposed he should count his blessings. He’d been fully expecting to have been hanged or shot by now, his body left for the coyotes and diamondbacks.

  That he wasn’t was a plus in his column, but it did make him damned curious.

  But he obviously wasn’t going to learn anything from the two wet-behind-the-ears federals riding guard on him, their Spencers resting across their thighs.

  That he wasn’t dead yet didn’t reassure him much. It probably meant that ole Uncle Sam was fixing to make a spectacle of him, maybe use him to set an example to all other would-be vigilantes roaming the frontier. He’d probably get a “fair” trial to which a dozen or so big-city newspaper scribblers would be invited, and only after the government had squeezed everything they could get out of the man known as The Revenger, they’d make one last spectacle of him by hanging him before a crowd on a busy city street.

  If that were the case, however, wouldn’t they be heading for Denver? That was the closest federal courthouse. But the soldiers had turned off the trail that led to Denver and were now angling south, which led to nowhere, or possibly to northwestern New Mexico.

  But what in the hell was in northwestern New Mexico?

  Damned befuddling.

  Sartain craned his neck to peer over the driver’s spring seat toward the front column. At the very head of the column, the captain, who’d never told Sartain his name, rode beside the chocolate-haired beauty. Her hair, even from this distance, shone in the brassy high-altitude light as it hung down her back in its loose braid.

  Sartain turned to face the two soldiers guarding him. “How ’bout that purty little filly ridin’ with the captain?” he said, curling half of his upper lip. “What the hell’s she doin’ out here?”

  The soldiers glanced at each other speculatively.

  “Ah, come on. I know you both seen her,” Sartain probed, grinning. “Probably like to see what she looks like under all them neat clothes of hers.” He whistled and pulled his shirt out away from his chest. “Tits out to here. Now those, soldier boys, would be a sight to see!”

  The soldier on the left snorted a laugh and said, “Shee-it,” to his partner as he exhaled smoke into the breeze.

  “Private, what did I tell you about conversing with the prisoner?” The captain had ridden back to inspect the column. Sartain heard the thuds of his horse’s cantering hooves. “Would you like to walk along behind the wagon, Private?”

  “Sir, no, sir!” the private shouted, turning around to face the man riding toward him and saluting.

  As he cantered on past the wagon, the captain said, “And strip that cigarette! You’re on guard duty, Private!”

  The captain glanced back at the beefy sergeant riding behind him, both men now well past the wagon and heading toward the second half of the column. “Sergeant, place that man on report. I want to see him in my office first thing Monday morning!”

  “You got it, Captain,” said the sergeant, his voice dwindling away.

  The private dropped his cigarette on his lap. He cursed loudly, brushing the sparks away.

  The other private snorted.

  The admonished young soldier turned to Sartain and wrinkled his freckled nose, his eyes bright with fury.

  “Uh...sorry there, sport,” the Cajun said.

  * * *

  An hour later, they stopped for lunch and to rest and tend the horses.

  Sitting in a patch of shade along a dry arroyo that fed into the Arkansas, Sartain sipped a tin cup of coffee he held in both his manacled hands and looked around. There were several small fires, around which most of the men dozed or conversed in desultory tones, washing down hardtack and Army-issue desiccated beef with coffee so weak it tasted like stale tea.

  Some of the horses were splashing in the river shallows behind Sartain. He could smell the smoke of the quirleys of the men tending them, and hear the soldiers’ occasional muffled jokes and ribald laughter.

  As he raked his gaze around the various groupings of men and horses, Sartain saw the captain and the chocolate-haired young woman standing on a low ridge about sixty yards away. They were facing away from the Cajun, standing shoulder to shoulder, conversing.

  After a time, as though she sensed The Revenger’s stare, the woman turned sideways and looked at him. Wisps of hair that had strayed from the braid blew around her cool face in the breeze.

  “Who are you, pretty lady?” the Cajun drawled softly, speculatively. “And how in the hell do you know so much ab
out my doins?”

  * * *

  Sartain thought his bones were going to rattle apart before they stopped again, as he was sitting on the wagon’s bare, hardwood bed. The two soldiers were too, but they didn’t have their wrists and ankles bound, so they could move around a bit to keep their blood flowing. The Cajun’s hands were swollen and numb, but he knew it wouldn’t do any good to ask the soldiers to loosen the cuffs so he swallowed the pain.

  The one who’d been caught smoking sat in brooding silence, injured by the captain’s public chastisement.

  They stopped again just before sunset and Sartain thought they’d set up camp for the night, but a mere fifteen minutes later, they were all mounted and rolling again. As the sun went down and a chill threaded the hot, dry air, Sartain slid into a front corner of the wagon, tipped his head back, pulled his hat brim down over his eyes, and willed himself to sleep despite the wagon’s violent churning and the precariousness of his situation.

  How in the hell had they found him without his noticing anyone on his back trail?

  Where were they taking him?

  What were they going to do with him?

  And who in the hell was the pretty, insouciant young woman with the chocolate hair? She looked as out of place out here among these soldiers as would a gold-crowned English princess amid a tribe of red savages. Something told Sartain she had been key in the soldiers’ running him down, although he had no idea what that something was.

  He’d find out sooner or later.

  Somehow, he slept.

  He woke when the wagon stopped. Blinking, he looked around at the shadows of the milling soldiers silhouetted against several swinging lanterns and what appeared to be a small train combination stopped on tracks that glinted pearl in the moonlight. The moonlight shone dark gray on surrounding mountains looming against the starry sky. There were only four or five cars sitting dark and silent behind the puffing locomotive, its nose aimed south.

  The iron beast panted loudly, its pressure-release valves pinging noisily as great clouds of wet steam that smelled like copper billowed out from around the giant, iron wheels. Somewhere, a bell was ringing.

  “Where...where in hell are we?” Sartain asked as his two chaperones manhandled him out of the wagon.

  They chuckled as they dropped him down over the open tailgate. Unable to spread his feet far enough to catch himself when he hit the ground, he fell with a curse and rolled.

  Fury burned through him. Instinctively, he swung both bound legs toward one of the two laughing soldiers, knocking the soldier’s feet out from under him.

  The soldier screamed as his boots went one way, his shoulders the other. He hit the ground with a resounding thud, cursing.

  Snarling at Sartain, he started wrestling his Army-issue .44 from the flap holster on his right hip. The beefy sergeant who’d been driving the wagon kicked the pistol out of the soldier’s hand.

  Again, the private screamed. He clutched his hand and glared up at the bearded, sack-bellied noncom.

  “Go ahead and shoot the son of Satan, Davey me darlin’,” the sergeant said in a heavy Irish brogue. “See how many years that gets you in the guardhouse, ya bloody fool!”

  “Sergeant, what’s going on over there?” the captain called from some distance away.

  “Oh, nothin’, Captain. Just nothin’!” the sergeant said, helping Sartain to his feet. “Our clumsy prisoner just took a little tumble out of the wagon, that’s all. You’d think a man so renowned for his pistols would be a little lighter on his feet, now wouldn’t you, Cap?”

  Chuckling, he brushed Sartain off and then turned him around and started leading him toward a stock car three cars down from the locomotive. The stock car’s doors yawned wide. A loading ramp slanted from the open doors to the ground. Behind the stock car was another stock car into which some of the soldiers were leading their horses, hooves thudding hollowly on the ash planks.

  Behind the second stock car were a flat car and a caboose.

  “Get on up there and be quick about it,” the sergeant told Sartain. “It’s late and I’m needing my beauty rest.”

  “Where we goin’, Sergeant?” The Revenger asked as he entered the stock car.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?” The sergeant laughed from the bottom of the ramp. “Wouldn’t you bloody well like to know.”

  The Cajun’s two chaperones tramped up the ramp behind him. The injured Davey flared his nostrils at him and shoved him inside the stock car. Sartain tripped over the manacle chain and fell on his butt with another curse. Davey and the other soldier slid the doors closed, shutting out the dancing lights and jostling silhouettes.

  Sartain sat in the musty darkness, hearing the clanks of the iron latch being closed and then the clinks of a chain securing the doors. He looked out through a gap between two boards in the wall before him. He’d seen a flash of something pale just before the doors had closed. Now he saw what that paleness was.

  It was the chocolate-haired young woman in the white blouse and fawn-colored vest, sitting on her thoroughbred, staring at Sartain from beneath the brim of her tan Stetson. The captain sat his Army bay beside the girl. He said something to her and then reined his horse toward the other stock car.

  The woman held her gaze on Sartain until he wondered if she could see him staring out at her. She reined her fine mount away, clucking to the beast, and trotted off toward the other stock car.

  The hollow clomps of shod hooves on wood told The Revenger that she and the captain were riding their horses up the other loading ramp.

  “Who are you, pretty lady?” Sartain found himself muttering again as he stared through the gaps in the stock car’s wall. “And what’s your business with me?”

  Chapter 5

  The train clicked along all the rest of the night and throughout the next day. It was only a little less rough than the wagon had been. Sartain had found that his grim, sparse surroundings were furnished with a horse blanket, a tin slop bucket, and a water pail with a gourd dipper.

  Occasionally, when the train stopped to take on water, the doors were opened as wide as the locked chain would allow and his benefactors would slide through the gap a spartan plate of food—mostly crusty bread, a small pile of warm beans, a wedge of old cheese, and a wormy apple—and sometimes a cup of coffee.

  Through the gaps between the boards, he watched the country roll by—mostly broad valleys carpeted in blond grass that smelled of summer curing and pine-clad mountains. Sometimes the train ran slowly up through these mountains, chugging hard, the wheels grinding. Sometimes the mountains fell back to the west.

  When they were far enough east, The Revenger could see the ermine of snow mantling their highest ridges.

  They were either the Sangre de Cristos or the San Juans. Or maybe neither. He was too disoriented to know for sure. All he knew was that he was heading south, either through the heart of southern Colorado or northwestern New Mexico.

  Night fell again. The air grew brisk. Sartain sat against a stout post and drew the blanket about his shoulders.

  The car rocked and swayed around him. The cooling air sifting through the gaps in the boards occasionally carried glowing cinders from the locomotive and the heavy smell of dank steam and pine smoke.

  Sometime during the night, the train came to a screeching, shuddering halt, the iron couplings clanging loudly. Sartain woke and stared through the gaps in the car’s wall.

  Shadows were moving, men were talking. The captain barked orders, though Sartain couldn’t hear what he was saying because of the horses being loudly led out of the second stock car. He could hear the wagon being unloaded as well, its wheels clattering on the plank ramp.

  Sartain leaned against the post, waiting.

  Something was happening. He knew the horses were being saddled since he heard the clanking of buckles and bridle bits, the squawks of saddle leather. Horses whinnied and stomped while the soldiers conversed in businesslike tones.

  Finally, the ramp was ra
ised to The Revenger’s car and two men climbed it. A key scratched in a padlock, the chain was removed from the door’s iron handles, and the latching bar was freed. The door opened.

  Davey and the other young private stood staring at Sartain.

  “Up,” Davey said.

  “Nah, I don’t think so. I like it right here,” Sartain said, mostly to amuse himself, but also because he didn’t like the kid. He didn’t like any man in a blue uniform. In fact, they were all making him grind his molars and wish like hell he could get his hands on a gun.

  He’d lay waste to as many as he could before they killed him.

  Davey stomped forward and kicked the Cajun’s left foot. “Up! I ain’t gonna tell you again!”

  “What’s the matter, Davey boy?” asked the sergeant from the bottom of the ramp. “Did I send a pair of girls to do a man’s work?” He chuckled.

  “Sergeant, what’s keeping those men?” the captain demanded from farther away.

  “Private Wilson, Private Ellison, bring the prisoner now!” ordered the sergeant, stomping his boot.

  Davey lunged forward, reaching for his pistol, threatening.

  “Hold your water, kid,” The Revenger said, pushing back against the post and heaving himself to his feet.

  Several minutes later, he was back in the wagon. The wagon was back on a trail heading toward what Sartain, disoriented by the confined travel and the dark night, not to mention the surrounding mountains blocking out half the stars, thought was southwest.

  The surrounding terrain was much the same as during his previous wagon ride. Cedars, piñons, and silver-green sage. Hills covered in grama grass rolled up toward bluffs, stony dikes, and tall mountains, though no mountains lay directly ahead along the two-track wagon trail.

  As the wagon and the soldiers guiding it drifted away from the train, the locomotive chuffed back to life after taking on fresh water and chugged off to the south, belching, sighing, and clattering away into gradual silence.