For the Love of a Woman

by Orrin Russell

  No light penetrated the woods. The sun was gone and the moonlight reflecting from the shaved orb of the moon had not the strength to illuminate what transpired beneath the canopy. He let the horse pick its way along, and in a random spot on the western edge of the woods he stopped suddenly and dismounted. He unlooped the rope from the horn and walked to the horse behind his own.

  Sara kicked at him ineffectually when he pulled her from the saddle. He hauled her over his shoulder several feet into the woods until he ran up against an oak with a flat trunk, then spilled her from his shoulder and set her with her back against the bark. The rope he wrapped three times over her arms and chest, around the back of the tree, coiled tight enough to pin her thoroughly, and tied it off in a double knot.

  Rising, he paused and listened. The sounds of pursuit had reached the edge of the treeline. He grabbed the reins of the horses and walked gingerly with one arm out until he had left the trees behind him and the pinpoints of starlight opened up above. In the open grass he stopped the horses. For a moment he debated tying them to a tree, but he discarded the idea. If any of the men were to find the horses they would kill them. He had no doubt of that.

  Keeping only the rifle, he smacked the two horses across the hindquarters with his open hand and they trotted off into the night. Should he live to see morning he would track them down again.

  Into the trees again he turned. The sounds of his enemies had dissipated. Beyond the rustling of the night there was nothing. Crickets chirped, the swoop of a bat overhead. Lightning bugs flickered on and off.

  Balum remained motionless until the sounds disappeared into the background of his mind, then bent over and removed his boots. He laid them beside a tree and leaned the Winchester alongside them. From his belt he unsheathed the bowie and judged the weight of it in his hand; how it balanced, how the shape of the blade carved the empty air in front of him.

  In silence he sunk deeper into the woods. The pupils of his eyes dilated until they reached the edges of the irises, grasping at light that wasn’t there. With his free hand extended before him he took careful steps over the ground, his feet covered in socks only, feeling each branch, each leaf and cone underneath. His movements created no sound that rose above the din of crickets and owls, or the soft buzz of the wind cutting through tree branches.

  He stopped often to listen. Like a nighttime creature, blind and navigating by sound alone. At the first hint of sound foreign to that of the woods he froze. He waited and it came again. A man walking. Slowly.

  Balum crouched and let his eyes relax. An image of his surroundings formed in his head through the information gathered by his ears. The man on foot was alone. They had separated. The lone man walked slowly, carefully, yet clearly was no woodsman. The soft compression of leaves trampled under boots, an occasional twig snapped, it all gave away not only his position but his trajectory.

  Balum rose from his crouch and put a foot forward. Another, one more, and he stopped again. He redirected his path then continued. Seventy or eighty feet he judged to be the distance. More steps. His toes reached out to test the ground before placing the full weight of his body down. His socks had become damp, his feet cold within them. He stopped again and waited. The man, whoever it was, would reach him soon.

  Cold seconds went by. The wind stopped. Balum could hear the man’s trouser legs chafing against one another.

  When the man’s breath became audible Balum rose from his crouch. The man stopped. His breath caught.

  ‘Aston?’ the man whispered. ‘That you?’

  Douglas Crenshaw. Even in a whisper Balum recognized the voice of the fat lawyer. A quick succession of four clicks from a Colt hammer being cocked back advertised the presence of Crenshaw’s weapon, and Balum came forward bent low, the bowie ready in his right hand. His left hand groped out and found Crenshaw’s shoulder. The shoulder flinched, swung down, and Balum thrust his right arm forward and sent all nine inches of the blade through the lawyer’s belly.

  The Colt blasted from Crenshaw’s spasmed finger and a flash of light lit the image of the two men locked in some horrid embrace of death, a slice of a second only, before darkness swallowed them again. Balum’s left hand pushed Crenshaw’s gun hand away and in the same motion he drew the knife out from the man’s belly with the squishing sound of tripe being sliced, and plunged it in again.

  Crenshaw gasped and let out a moan a beast might make as it lay dying. His fat body fell backwards and Balum stabbed the bowie through the massive torso several times over, the wounds squirting like demonic geysers spewing spindrift of hot gore onto Balum’s face.

  Somewhere to Balum’s left, two gunshots clapped through the woods from a distance of under fifty yards. Balum lunged forward over Crenshaw’s body, feeling for the head, and when he found it he brought the blade to the man’s neck and drew it across the length of it, feeling thick blood course down the bowie handle and run over his knuckles.

  He jumped up from the dead man’s body and ran ten feet with his arms out and stopped. He wiped the blade across his pants and squatted with a tree between himself and the source of the two gunshots.

  The night had returned to silence. Crickets started up again while Balum fought for his breath to return to normal. He waited and listened. Whoever had fired those shots was too close to move without making sound. Not that it couldn’t be done. But neither Frederick Nelson nor Aston Sanderson were men who knew how to move silently over a forest floor.

  A section of time went by that Balum found hard to judge. He could not see the stars nor the moon. Blackness surrounded him and nothing changed. It might have been an hour, maybe four. He had no idea. He waited longer and let his mind work.

  Two men were left. If they both remained alive by sunrise, Balum’s chances would turn as dark as his present surroundings. The man who had fired those shots lay close by, afraid to move. Balum waited another stretch of time, his feet freezing. He cupped his toes in his hands to warm them. He had no choice. He had to move.

  He stepped out from the trunk of the tree and took small careful steps to the source of the gunshots. Every few feet he paused to listen. Nothing but the night. He covered ten feet, then another ten. He stopped. When he stepped out again his heel came down on a small twig of pine and it snapped crisply in two.

  A gun roared. The bullet smacked into a tree to Balum’s right and sent bark flying into his face. He sprawled to the ground and rolled, then came up and took four large strides while the echo of the gun rang through the air. The Manhattan Navy; Aston’s gun.

  The man was not far. Thirty feet, no more. Balum sank slowly to his hands and feet. Like an animal he crawled over the distance, a human spider moving its legs one at a time, ever so slowly. He cut the gap in half and leaned back on his heels.

  Aston’s position was close but still undetermined. Balum ran his hand slowly along the floor. His fingers brushed over leaves and pine needles until it found the sharp bristles of a pine cone. He picked it up and tossed it underhand into the darkness.

  It smacked lightly against a tree and Aston’s Manhattan Navy flashed with an accompanying smack of sound, of which Balum took full advantage. He ran with his left hand outstretched and the bowie low in his right. The flash of light had been clear; no trees or branches grew in the remaining fifteen feet. Before he expected it his body crashed into Aston Sanderson. They fell to the ground, Balum on top, but Aston moved fast. He rolled Balum over with a push of his hand and drew back the hammer, its faint clicks clacking in the night.

  Balum slashed upward with the blade and felt it catch. Aston fired wildly, the shot unaimed. The bullet pounded into the soft earth beside Balum’s head, and Balum ripped the knife through the air again, then rolled, Aston’s body beside his, and leapt forward again and caught the big man’s neck with his free arm.

  Aston dropped backward. The weight of his body crushed Balum underneath. The wind collapsed out of Balum’s chest. With his right arm he brought the blade around and stabbed into Aston
’s ribs. The man seized up, his body lurched. Balum held fast to the neck, squeezing the inner side of his elbow into the thick throat.

  Aston’s gun barked out again. He had crooked his arm back and fired back over his head, and the blast next to their ears deafened the two of them. Balum brought the knife around again, stabbing into the side and belly of the man on top of him, feeling his own chest being crushed by the weight above him. He drove the knife in again, a sucking sound like boots pulling out of mucky soil, and Aston lurched wildly above him.

  The man rolled over and Balum kept his hold over the neck. His right arm found more range and he drove the blade around Aston’s chest and stabbed the tip through the ribs and into the lungs. A gush of blood came pouring out of Aston’s mouth, spilling down his chin and over Balum’s arm at the neck. Furiously Balum stabbed the bowie knife into Aston’s chest until the body lay dead and lifeless and the ground around them a puddle of mud, thickened by Aston Sanderson’s blood.

  Balum crawled through it on hands and knees. Bloodied soil seeped into his trousers, through his socks and along his forearms. He clenched his teeth and struggled to calm his ragged breath until he could hear it no longer. The stench of death clung to him. The blood smeared over his skin and clothing began to dry and turn crusty. It caked along his knuckles and cracked when he bent them. With no thought in his head he waited. He listened. The breeze returned and lightly ran over his face. More time passed and he stood and took steps on feet stiffened by the cold.

  Light showed itself on the edge of the woodline. Morning was near. The sun had not yet risen. A burnt-orange aura preceded its apparition from behind the horizon. It came slowly, then suddenly, light cutting through the treetops and disseminating through the leaves down to the dew-covered floor.

  Balum’s senses turned from sound to sight. His eyes that had been made useless in the fog of night turned sharp and piercing. He rubbed them, shoving back the sleep that lagged behind the lids. Bits of movement caught his attention. A leaf turned in the breeze. Birds darted low through the trees.

  As images became sharper he crept to the edge of the treeline and circled closer to where Sara sat with her back against the trunk. The ropes still held her. She sat with her head fallen forward, dozing, her knees curled up to her torso. As he watched her, her head bobbed and she came out of her sleep. Her eyes blinked forcefully and her head turned.

  Balum squinted. He saw her eyes dart in search of something. Someone speaking to her.

  He leaned forward and walked toward her with the Dragoon having replaced the bowie in his right hand. A movement caught his eye. He swung his head sharply in time to see Frederick Nelson draw his gun and level it across the woods at Balum.

  It barked and jumped in the man’s hand as Balum hurled his body forward. The bullet whistled past his head and imploded into the limb of a tree. A shower of wood shards sliced the air. Balum turned and fired. Another shot came hurtling across the woods from Nelson’s gun.

  Through the sound of gunfire a wail rose up from Sara’s throat, audible over the gag tucked in her mouth. It came hoarse and cracked, and through its cry Balum fired the Dragoon and saw Nelson’s body jerk, his knee buckle, and his frame drop lower.

  Balum ran in an arc, tree branches and the trunks of towering pines cutting his view of Nelson into sporadic sections. The big man followed Balum’s running figure with the barrel of his gun and fired off shots that sent leaves spiraling downwards where the bullets cut through them.

  Balum dropped to a knee suddenly and fired his last two shots into Nelson’s body. They hit him, one after the other. They ripped through his chest and exploded in destruction out his back, expunging a ribboned mass of meat and organ out two gaping holes beside his spine. His body leaned back, then fell face forward into the leaves.

  Balum plucked the bowie from his belt and ran toward the man. His steps propelled him across the ground, feet cutting sharply on twigs and cones. Descending upon the fallen man, Balum raised the knife.

  Like a fabled monster rising from the sea, Nelson’s body rose from the earth. His ashen face bore a grimace made hard by hatred, and he raised his gun hand and fired point blank at Balum. The distance was not more than four feet. Balum had lifted the bowie above his head and the bullet tore through the underarm of his jacket.

  The knife came down like a fallen ax. Its tip bit into the bridge of Nelson’s nose and the nine inches of blade followed until that same tip protruded out the back of the man’s skull.

  Frederick Nelson fell back dead with the handle of the bowie sticking out of his face like a long brown nose pointing toward the heavens. In a single jerk Balum ripped it from the man’s cranium and turned and crossed the distance to where Sara sat screaming and jerking at the ropes.

  Drenched in the blood of his enemies, blood and plasma smeared over his face and clothing, he walked over the cold wet ground like some creature risen from hell and gone mad with fury. Blood and brain dripped from the long blade of the bowie knife. Dirt caked his knees, a dark magenta from the mix of blood and earth. He reached her and stood motionless with the knife a moment. Then he bent and slit the ropes that bound her.

  25

  Movement on the streets of Denver froze in shock and horror as five horses shambled through the center of town. They came out of the setting sun with three of them portaging the dead butchered bodies of blood-drenched men, their straw-like hair blowing askew in the wind. Sara sat her horse with her hands tied at the wrists and her eyes empty and unfocused.

  In front of the motley ensemble rode Balum. The blood painted in thick strokes on his face had dried and blackened under the sun. His clothing was stiff with it, caked heavy and dark. It covered his trousers, his hands, the handle of the Colt Dragoon protruding from the holster. He rode with his eyes bored straight ahead and paid no mind to the gawkers and pointers rushing into the street out of the stores and hotels and saloons and brothels.

  At the jail he dismounted and hitched the roan to the post out front. He made a motion for Sara to follow, and she obeyed and dropped to the ground. Another motion from his hand signaled her to enter the jail, and when she did he followed her through it.

  Ross Buckling bent the newspaper in half to get a look at the two ghostly souls who had entered the jailhouse. His mouth fell open and the paper sank to the desk.

  ‘Sit down,’ Balum said to Sara, and she sat in the chair beside Freed’s empty desk.

  Ross said nothing. He reclined in his chair and looked at Balum and waited. Balum put a hand to his breast pocket and, finding it empty, felt his trouser pockets until he found the pouch of tobacco. With his blood-blackened fingers he drew out a wad and tucked it into the back of his cheek.

  ‘You got a minute?’ he said to Ross.

  At no point in the story did Sara interject. She had no arguments, no rebuttals or nuance to add. She hardly seemed to listen at all. When Balum had told all there was to tell he spit a wad of tobacco juice into the spittoon in the corner and turned back to the Sheriff.

  Ross Buckling shook his head. ‘I don’t doubt a word of it. Still, you know what it all means. Another trial. You on the witness stand again, you as the defendant. The robbery happened outside Cheyenne, and seeing as Cheyenne ain’t got no law to speak of, it’ll mean Freed will be involved. He’ll be looking for witnesses. He ain’t gonna like this.’

  ‘He doesn’t have to like it.’

  ‘You know he was sweet on that girl right there,’ he nodded toward Sara. ‘He can hardly stand to hear your name spoke without his face pinching all up and his nose flaring.’

  ‘He’ll have all the time in the world to sweet talk her then. Until they hang her.’ Balum fired another pellet of tobacco into the spittoon and laid his hand against the jailhouse door.

  ‘You’re leaving just like that, Balum?’ said Ross.

  ‘I am.’

  He made to open the door but it opened for him, and Johnny Freed stood in the frame. The Marshal’s head jerked back a bit when
he saw Balum standing so close to him, and his face scrunched up in anger.

  ‘Are you responsible for those dead men out front?’ he shouted.

  ‘You bet I am.’

  ‘Is this your idea of vigilante justice? Revenge? Is that it?’ His eyes caught Sara sitting at the chair inside and he pushed past Balum and bent to look at her. ‘You poor thing,’ he murmured. He swung back around to Balum and took a few sharp steps across the floorboards until he was face to face with him. He rose his hand and stuck a finger out and lifted it to Balum’s face where it shook like an alcoholic’s digit too long without drink.

  ‘I don’t care what your cockeyed story is for this, Balum, I swear to God I will have you hung for these crimes…’

  Balum pulled his fist back and drove it into Johnny Freed’s face. The knuckles on it were wide and thick and hard from years of labored use. Freed’s nose crunched beneath the impact and he fell flat to the floor where his head bounced twice on the wooden boards and came to rest.

  Balum leaned down with his hands on his thighs and said to Freed, ‘You shut your mouth and do your job. If you need me you’ll find me in Cheyenne.’ He straightened back up and touched his hat brim with a blood-covered hand and gave a nod to Ross, then left through the door.

  He untied the roan and swung into the saddle. The three dead bodies he left hanging over the horses at the jail. He left Main Street and swung down the meandering lane to Chester’s cabin. A knock at the door went unanswered. He rode on to the Mexican cantina where the barman with the thick black mustache greeted him and told him he’d seen nothing of Balum’s friends.

  He found them in the second story of the Silver Nest. Chester and Daniel, immersed in a game of faro. The hall came to a standstill when Balum came in stinking of death and blood and gore and looking like some creature pulled from the swamps of an oil pit fire. His friends raised their heads to see the reason for such silence, and when they saw him they abandoned their game and rushed to him.