The sound of horses’ footfalls striking hardpack rose up in number and the roan was led with them. Turning his head to the side, Balum watched the last buildings grow small as they rode out of Denver. He felt blood slowly gathering in his head low down against the roan’s flank. He struggled to move but there was no give to be found in the ropes. He passed out again and fell into a fitful sleep.
He woke again when the horses stopped. Starlight reflected off the dew covering the grass at the roan’s fetlocks. He could hear the rustle of tack; saddles coming off horses, the sound of a brush scraped over coats.
‘Saul,’ Aston Sanderson’s voice carried in the night. ‘Untie Balum and take him out where he can relieve himself.’
‘Why don’t we just leave him right there on the horse?’ asked Nelson. ‘Let him shit himself. See how it feels.’
‘You can treat him as bad as you want when we’re done. For now we need him and his horse in working order.’
The rope underneath the roan’s belly was let loose and Saul Farro pulled Balum from the saddle and dumped him to the ground with a thump. With one of his massive hands he reached down and took Balum by the underarm and dragged him several yards off and dropped him.
‘Go ahead. Do your business.’
‘Untie my feet,’ croaked Balum.
A boot struck him in the ribs and rolled him.
‘Shut your goddamn mouth. Open it again and the next kick is aimed at your face.’
Balum did as he was told and when he had pulled his trousers back on, difficult as it was with his hands and feet tied together, Saul dragged him back to where the men had built a campfire and threw him to the ground. He landed on his hip, which should have caused his gun to dig into his body, but the Dragoon was gone. He checked with his hands but the holster was empty.
He lay in silence. His head still rang due to the crack he had received from the crown moulding. It felt swollen and a slight whine hummed away in his ears. In time he slept. When he woke, the sun had nearly broken the edge of the earth and he lay shivering uncontrollably and covered in dew. Its rays gradually extended out over the plains and where they first shone in the grass several yards from him he rolled until he lay in its warmth and rubbed his hands over his body until the shaking had ceased.
Daylight revealed his captors. Aston, Nelson, and Farro. Also Douglass Crenshaw in his fine clothing, fat and pampered as though he were holding court. Shane Carly sat up from his blankets with his face red and his breathing ragged though it was only morning and he had done no physical labor.
Who he did not expect to see was Sara. But there she was, tending to the pot over the fire. Not one look did she cast his way.
They took their breakfast and offered him nothing. Saul was instructed to check the ropes. He did so, adding a kick to Balum’s back for good measure. When their food was eaten and the coffee drunk, they threw him again over the roan and bound his hands to his feet. The riders departed out from the dimple of land where they had camped the night and rode north through oceans of swaying grass and stands of oak and pine and cottonwoods thrust upward like islands in that mighty expanse.
All that day they rode under a windless sky. Clouds passed overhead, but none drifted to block the sun burning large and heavy above them. The rustle of leather and hoofbeats sounded loudly in the otherwise silent arena. They met no one coming or going from any place whatsoever, as if the world had emptied itself of human life.
By the edge of a narrow stream they stopped to water the horses. Balum turned his head and looked past the roan’s shoulder to where the men knealt with their canteens outstretched. Nelson lifted his dripping from the water and as he drank, his eyes saw Balum watching him. He stood, took another swallow, and approached the roan.
‘How’s it feel, eh Balum? Chest sore yet? Head hurt?’
Balum’s eyes turned to the ground. His ribs were pushed flat against the saddle and his back hurt from the unnatural curve his body held, tied over the saddle as it was.
Nelson reached him and gripped a wad of Balum’s hair in his hand and jerked back, cranking Balum’s neck backward and lifting his face up. With his free hand he formed a fist and drove it into Balum’s face. Blood burst under the crunch of knuckles. It ran from Balum’s nose over his lips and dribbled down his chin. When Nelson let his head fall back so his chin rested against the horse’s flank, the blood pooled backwards up Balum’s nose, causing him to snort and cough and gasp for breath.
‘He better not still be bleeding when we get to my place,’ whined Shane Carly. ‘I don’t want blood everywhere.’
‘Cut it out, Frederick,’ barked Aston from the riverbank.
‘I’m just having some fun.’
‘Have your fun later. You smash his face in and no one will recognize him. What’ll be the point of that?’
The party remounted and crossed the stream. Northward they rode. Only one thing lay ahead of them and that was Cheyenne. Balum’s chest rubbed painfully against the saddle. He wondered to himself what plan they had for him. It was not to kill him, that was certain. At least not immediately. His mind ran over the possibilities but came up with nothing.
In the evening they ran through the same motions as before. Balum was thrown to the ground, his bindings secured, and left to shiver in the cold of the coming evening. The rest built a fire and ate. They slept under blankets, and as their snores rose above the sounds of crickets, Balum calculated how many he might kill with his hands before the rest woke and shot him. After several minutes of such thought he admitted to himself that, tied and bound as he was, it was only a fantasy, and he closed his eyes and slept while his stomach grumbled in hunger.
The ground they covered the following day was ground Balum knew well. He had ridden the same plains and ascended the same mesas several times over from Denver to Cheyenne. The CW ranch lay not far off.
They drew close enough to Cheyenne to become wary of other travelers. Saul rode ahead to scout, and more than once he rode back with warnings of riders in the distance. They would stop in the shade of trees and wait until the path was clear. Once, when no cover was to be found, they gagged Balum’s mouth and threw him into a shallow cut in the earth and threw debris over him. When the danger had passed they hauled him back out and over the saddle and rode on as before.
An afternoon of hard riding took them within a few miles of Cheyenne. They reined in the horses and dismounted. Talk started up amongst them immediately.
‘This is where you live?’ Sara’s voice did not hide her disgust.
‘You’ll like it,’ said Shane Carly. ‘It stays cool inside.’
‘How long do we have to stay here?’ said Sara.
‘Not any longer than we need to,’ was Aston’s reply.
When Balum was jerked off the saddle he stood unbalanced and looked at where they had arrived. The horses stood in a patch of trees that had grown up alongside a hill cut sharply away by the forces of nature. A crooked door hung on a makeshift frame in the flat drop-off of the slope. Trash lay scattered about the entranceway. Broken shards of glass bottles, bean cans strewn about the mud and half rusted out. Saul and Aston each took an arm and hauled Balum inside. The rest followed.
The smell of dust and stale earth greeted them. Balum landed with a thump against the dirt wall cut deep into the hillside. The darkness was lessened by an oil lamp Shane Carly was quick to light. It revealed only two rooms; the main room which held a table, a few chairs and a straw mattress, and a small adjoining room where a type of stove had been fashioned up and a hole dug up through the hilltop to release cooking smoke.
‘Make yourselves at home, boys,’ said Shane Carly. ‘And you as well, ma’am,’ he added to Sara with a ridiculous smile.
The girl looked around, appalled at her surroundings.
‘Let me offer you all some whiskey,’ said Shane. ‘This is the best stuff in all of Colorado and the Wyoming Territory.’
Aston and Crenshaw refused, knowing full well the quality of the p
oison swill Shane Carly sold under the name of whiskey. Saul and Nelson happily accepted two mugs. The first greedy sips were immediately replaced by expressions of disgust.
‘What is this shit?’ yelled Nelson.
‘That’s good corn whiskey right there,’ said Shane.
‘Tastes like you’ve let dog piss ferment.’
‘Aw, come on. It’s not that bad.’
‘You don’t need to be drinking it anyway,’ said Aston. ‘There’s work to do.’
‘How far away is the ranch?’ said Nelson.
‘A few miles.’
‘Good. I don’t feel like riding much more. So what’s the plan? Get them in the morning?’
‘No. The train doesn’t come in until the day after tomorrow. We’ll wait until tomorrow night. The less time they’re missing, the better for us.’
‘What are we supposed to do until then?’ asked Sara.
‘Whatever you want. Just stay here and out of sight.’
Balum listened, slouched on the floor against the wall.
‘We gonna tell this bum what he’s in for?’ asked Nelson.
They all turned to where Balum lay tied up. Crenshaw snorted.
‘He might as well know now,’ said Aston, looking at Balum. ‘You’re going to do us a great service, Balum. Consider it repayment for putting my brother through such tribulations.’
Balum’s eyes cut over to Nelson. Charles had been right. So had Daniel and Chester. He thought of Caesar Costas from the cantina and waited for the rest to come. His fears did not go unvindicated.
‘All of Denver has serious doubts about you now, Balum. Any more problems you give ‘em and they’ll be ready to hang you. They just need a little push. Well, we’re gonna give you that push.’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ said Balum.
‘Balum the great train robber. That’s what I’m talking about. The cattle payload comes in once a month from Kansas City. We’ve gone after it twice but luck hasn’t been on our side. Once the wrong train, once the wrong date. But now we know. The day after tomorrow, on the ten sixty-five, over sixty thousand dollars will be riding in a strong box located in the car behind the steam engine. Enough to buy thousands of head of fat cattle. But that money has a better destination.’
‘Damn right it does,’ Frederick Nelson slammed his glass down.
‘What have I got to do with this?’ said Balum.
‘Why, you’re robbing that train right along with us, Balum. You’re going to be known from here to Texas as the man who robbed the ten sixty-five.’
‘You’re out of your mind. Sounds like you’re drunk off that dog piss whiskey.’ Balum pulled his feet up and straightened his back against the dirt wall. ‘Why would I do that? If it’s between helping you or getting shot, I’d rather be shot. I’m no thief.’
‘We figured as much. That’s why we’re not threatening to shoot you.’
Balum looked at his captors in the heavy air weighed down with dust and lit weakly by the oil lamp. Saul and Frederick grinned with their whiskey mugs in hand.
‘We’ll shoot your friends, Balum,’ said Aston. ‘Just think of that poor boy’s new bride, and how sad and lonely she’ll be when her new husband is found with his head cut off in a manure pile. And that Mexican woman’s bawling when she discovers her man has met the same fate.’
Balum said nothing. He thought of Charles and Will and what a fool he had been to bring the Sandersons to the wedding.
‘We’ll bring them back here tomorrow night. We’ll have them tied up just as pretty as you are now, and the day following we’ll ride out each one of us, Sara here to mind your friends, and we’ll take all sixty thousand dollars off that train. And you’ll be the face they see. You can say no, Balum. Just remember. If you do, it won’t only be your neck on the line.’
18
They rode out the following afternoon, four men armed like cavalry and bent on a hellish mission. Sara stood in the doorway and watched them leave, then walked about aimlessly in the yard by the horses after they’d left.
Shane Carly sat at the table sipping his own putrid whiskey and watching her through the doorway. He had filled a bowl with shards of beef jerky and he munched on pieces of the dried beef while his small eyes squinted into the sunlight after her. When the whiskey was finished he stood with the bowl of jerked meat and paced over the dirt floor of the cramped and musty room, peering out the doorway at each pass.
‘I think she likes me,’ he said after a while.
‘Sara?’ Balum was incredulous.
‘Good looking women are attracted to good looking men.’
‘You’re a fool.’
Shane turned and looked at Balum. His mouth worked over the jerky. A piece fell from his hand and landed in the dirt but he made no move to retrieve it.
‘Do you know what you’re doing tangled up with these guys?’ said Balum. ‘They’re using you. When they’re through they’ll kill you. Or they’ll figure something worse for you.’
‘They like me,’ argued Shane. ‘And I like them. They’re tough. They’re winners. And I’m a winner. That’s all there is in life; winners and losers. And look at yourself, tied up there on the floor. You think I’d team up with you? Ha.’
He turned away from the fallen piece of beef and stood in the doorway longing for the woman outside. Sporadically he would swing his head back around to check on Balum, then drift back into ignorant fantasies of how he might win over Sara’s love. When his little mind had landed on a path forward he left the doorway and approached her where she stood in the shade by the horses.
Balum sat alone on the dirt floor and waited for Shane’s figure to disappear. He leaned forward and began to work at the ropes wound about his ankles. His fingers dug into them. He pulled and pried, but after several minutes it became apparent that the ropes were tied so tight they would need to be cut off. He let himself fall back to the wall and stared at his boots. Suddenly his hands moved to his breast pocket. He patted it and felt for the envelope underneath.
It was still there, waiting.
Sunlight came through the open doorway. Shane’s high-pitched voice drifted far away outside. Balum drew the envelope from his pocket and looked at the writing. His breath came heavy. One more look outside. Emptiness. He slipped a finger through the flap and ripped it open. The paper inside had been folded once in half. He opened it and read the words in the musty filth of Shane Carly’s dugout.
Dear Balum,
My heart jumped when I received your letter. I had not expected it and when it was given to me I realized how deeply I missed your words, your presence. You must have wondered why I did not meet you that night at the station. I would have, gladly, but the letter was not delivered to me until the day after you left it. Natasha is not the most reliable of my girls.
I’ve thought a lot about what you might have said to me there that night, had I met you. I’ve also spent time thinking of what I might say to you the next time we meet.
I love you, Balum. I’ve loved you since the first day I saw you, sitting ragged and bloody at my barroom table. I know what I’ve said to you before has been harsh. It’s true, I still believe, that you and I are untamed souls. We are wild creatures that live outside the parameters of society. I used this as an excuse to not settle down. I told myself you would hurt me, or worse yet, that I would hurt you. But I realize now those worries are not strong enough to keep me from wanting you.
I know what you’re searching for, Balum. You’ve made it clear, through your own way. I want what I believe you want. I want us to be together.
I hope this letter finds you soon. I have no doubt you will be present at Will’s wedding. I will be there too. My Uncle Roger will be with me, I’ll be happy for you to meet him. Until then I’ll think of you and wish you well.
Love,
Angelique
Balum took a sharp breath. He folded the letter quickly and shoved it back into his breast pocket. Pressure welled inside his
skull. He’d been such a fool. He knew all along who it was he dreamed would share that ranch house with in his imagination. Who would be the mother of the children running in the yard. His own fears had kept him from that. Fears of rejection. Of the inability to provide what she might need.
He bent forward again and struggled at the ropes binding his ankles together. Nothing moved. His thoughts turned to Charles and Will. They were no tinhorns. They’d seen their share of gunbattles. And it wasn’t just them. That bunkhouse they’d built could house two dozen men, and Balum knew they were filling it with tough, reliable hombres. Still, he worried. Bound as he was and unable to move, those worries grew at him. His mind worked frantically. Shane was still outside. He needed to find something to cut the ropes.
He rolled to his hands and knees and began to worm his way over the dirt to the kitchen. Cockroaches crawled over the floor in front of him. He rose to his knees and looked about for a knife. Footsteps hit the dirt behind him and Shane Carly let out a yelp.
‘Hey! Get back here.’
The pudgy man grabbed Balum awkwardly by the arm and Balum pushed from his feet and rammed his skull into Shane Carly’s face. The man fell in a soft pile of flesh and Balum turned back to the kitchen. Alongside the stove two knives sat, covered in dried grease and food. He took the larger of the two and bent to his ankles.
Shane Carly moaned beside him. If he rose, Balum decided, he’d plunge the knife into the man’s soft neck. The determination found no waiver to it, but the sound of a hammer cocking back was the unseen force that finally stopped Balum’s feverish hacking at the ropes.
For the Love of a Woman Page 11
