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Overview
THE WRONGED SIDE OF THE LAW
Jordan Gray was hot on the trail of some killers when his wife and child needed him most. The very hardcases he was after rode right up to his home and murdered all those he held dear. Now, Jordan will ride the vengeance trail until he hunts down his family’s killers—even if it means becoming a vigilante.
But seeking justice is one thing—finding it is another. After the gang that murdered Jordan’s family robs a bank in Fort Smith, lawmen under the jurisdiction of “Hanging Judge” Parker set out to catch them swiftly and ruthlessly, but in a rush to judgment, the townsfolk mistake Jordan for one of the desperadoes. Caught in the middle, Jordan learns that he doesn’t have to take the law into his own hands to wind up a wanted man.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781101662830 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Penguin Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 01/04/2005 |
| Sold by: | Penguin Group |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 288 |
| Sales rank: | 51,334 |
| File size: | 644 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
HELL IS COMIN’ TO CALL
After a few moments, Leach expressed what they were all thinking. “Don’t look like there’s nobody home but the little lady and the young’un. We’d best wait a few minutes more to make sure her old man ain’t settin’ by the fire.”
“Maybe he’s off ridin’ with that posse, lookin’ for us,” Snake said, amused by the thought.
“Yeah,” Roach said, grinning, “that’d be somethin’, wouldn’t it?” Turning to Leach, he urged, “Ain’t nobody else around. Let’s go on down and pay our respects.”
“Now don’t go off half-cocked till we see for sure there ain’t no rifle pointed at us,” Leach said. “We’ll just ride up nice and neighborly till we see what’s what.”
Even as he spoke, he knew his warning was probably wasted. Roach went crazy anytime his nostrils caught the scent of a woman. He had even ravaged an old woman a couple of days before—with her husband and three young’uns lying dead beside her . . .
DEVIL’S
KIN
Charles G. West
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
“Lookee yonder, Leach.” Ernest Roach waited for his two companions to catch up. When Leach and Snake pulled up on either side of him, Roach pointed, directing their gaze toward the modest cabin at the foot of the hill.
Leach didn’t say anything for a moment or two while he looked the tiny homestead over. The cabin looked to be two or three years old. There was a small barn built off to one side, open on both ends, with a corral attached. “One horse and one mule,” he commented to himself.
“Damn! Look at that!” Roach broke into his thoughts, and Leach turned to follow the direction of Roach’s gaze. He immediately saw the cause of his companion’s excitement. A young woman emerged from the barn, walking briskly toward the cabin. A toddler trailed along behind, holding onto his mother’s skirt as she stepped around the larger puddles, trying to hurry to get out of the rain.
“One horse and one mule,” Leach repeated, this time loud enough for the others to hear.
“And one cow,” Snake interjected dryly, having noticed the animal’s head appear at the barn entrance.
All three were silent then, waiting to see if the man of the house would then appear. After a few moments, Leach expressed what they were all thinking. “Don’t look like there’s nobody home but the little lady and the young’un.” He removed his wide-brim hat and flung some of the water from it before replacing it on his head. “We’d best watch for a few minutes more to make sure her old man ain’t settin’ by the fire.”
“Hellfire,” Roach replied, anxious to get a closer look at the woman. “What if he is? We can take care of him right quick.”
“Maybe he’s off ridin’ with that posse, lookin’ for us,” Snake said, amused by the thought.
“Yeah,” Roach said, grinning at the half-breed, “that’d be somethin’, wouldn’t it?” Turning to Leach, he urged, “Ain’t nobody else around. Let’s go on down and pay our respects.”
Leach didn’t reply, having come to the same conclusion. He gave his horse a kick and started off through the poplars toward the foot of the hill. He didn’t speak until halfway down, when he reined up momentarily to issue some words of restraint. “Now don’t go off half cocked till we see for sure there ain’t no rifle pointed at us,” he said. “We’ll just ride up nice and neighborly till we see what’s what.” Even as he spoke, he knew his warning was probably wasted. Roach went crazy anytime his nostrils caught the scent of a woman. He had even ravaged an old woman a couple of days before—with her husband and three young’uns lying dead beside her.
* * *
Inside the cabin, Sarah removed her woolen shawl, and shook some of the water from it before draping it across the back of a chair near the fireplace. Using her skirt for a towel, she dried her son’s hair and face. Holding the child at arm’s length, she smiled at him. “You’d just as soon stay out there in the rain and splash around in the mud, wouldn’t you?” The child giggled as she playfully ruffled his hair. “You’re just like your father.” The comment caused her to pause and think of her husband. Jordan had only been gone for two days, but it seemed like a week. She tried never to let him know how frightened she was when he was away from the cabin. When she was growing up on her father’s farm, there had always been a lot of people around: her family, the hired hands, her mother’s maid. Now there were only the three of them, and sometimes she would not see anyone else for weeks at a time. The isolation never seemed to bother her husband. In fact, he thrived on it.
Her thoughts were interrupted when she heard the horse nicker. Thinking that maybe Jordan was returning, she went to the door and looked out. What she saw immediately troubled her. Three men were filing down the slope, their yellow slickers glistening in the rain. She didn’t recognize any of them, and alarming thoughts sprang to mind at once. Just two days before, the Thompson family had been massacred. Sheriff Winston Moffett had sent his young deputy to fetch Jordan to join a posse to search for the murderers. Jordan had been reluctant to leave Sarah and Jonah alone, but felt he had an obligation to the community.
She didn’t like it when Jordan was away, fearing the possibility of incidents like the one facing her now. Feeling her heart pounding in her chest, she went to the cupboard and took a single-action revolver from the top shelf. With the pistol in her skirt pocket, she returned to the door, little Jonah clinging to her leg.
* * *
“Mind your manners, boys,” Leach warned as the three men approached the house. Although the cabin door was opened only a crack, he could see the woman standing there watching them. With a gun in her hand if she’s got any sense, he thought. Slow walking their horses, the three rode up before the cabin, halting a few yards from the door. “Hello the cabin,” Leach called out. “Anybody home?” He glanced over at Roach and shot him a warning frown. Roach was fairly fidgeting with anticipation. “We’re ridin’ with the posse, lookin’ for them outlaws. We could sure use a cup of coffee if there’s any to spare.”
His words were far from reassuring to Sarah. She was tempted to simply make no reply, hoping they would then ride away. But she knew they had seen her peering out the crack of the door. Finally she responded, her voice trembling with fright, “I’m afraid we can’t ask you inside.” She hesitated, searching her mind for something that might persuade them to leave. “We’re sick. I think it may be the pox.”
Certain now that there was no one else inside but the woman and her child, Leach dismounted. Snake and Roach followed suit. “Ain’t no need for you to be concerned, ma’am. We’re just checkin’ on folks in this part of the valley, makin’ sure you’re all right.”
“We’re all right,” Sarah quickly replied. Then remembering what she had just said, she added, “We’re just sick is all. I’m sorry I can’t invite you in for coffee.”
“Is that a fact?” Leach responded. “Well, this looks like your lucky day. Roach here is a doctor. He’ll be glad to take a look atcha.” With a nod of his head, he motioned toward the cabin wall.
Roach understood. Grinning widely, he moved to a position to the right of the door and inched his way closer, while Leach continued to engage Sarah in conversation. With another silent motion, Leach directed Snake to move around to the back of the cabin. Then he took a couple of steps toward the door.
Certain now that the strangers meant to do her harm, Sarah took the pistol from her skirt pocket and cocked it. Her hand trembling, she held it before her. “I’m afraid I must ask you to leave,” she said as bravely as she could manage, but unable to keep her voice from quaking. “My husband should be here at any minute,” she added.
Seeing the barrel of the pistol now protruding a few inches through the partially opened door, Leach stopped. He gave Roach a nod. “Now look here, lady. There ain’t no call to point a gun at me. We just wanna get out of the rain for a while.”
“Please leave,” Sarah pleaded, her voice without all pretense of bravado, the hand holding the revolver trembling perceptively.
She had no sooner uttered the words than Roach suddenly grabbed the barrel of the weapon and wrenched it from her hand. Following Roach’s move, Leach quickly stepped forward and grabbed Sarah’s arm before she could slam the door. “Come on out here, missy, and let’s have a look atcha,” he crowed as he kicked the door open and hauled her violently out into the rain. With little Jonah clinging to her skirt and screaming with fright, she fell to her knees in the mud, reaching instinctively for her son. She drew the terrified child up close to her in a vain effort to protect him, knowing their fate was in the hands of God.
“Damn!” Roach exclaimed, fairly salivating in his anticipation and delighted with his prize. “She’s a real looker, ain’t she?” Without hesitating, he reached down and, grabbing her by the bodice of her dress, pulled the struggling woman to her feet. “I’m claiming the first ride on this little filly.” With a sharp rap across Jonah’s face to quiet the bawling youngster, he started to drag Sarah inside the cabin.
“The hell you say,” Leach said, catching him by the arm. After seeing Sarah up close, his desire was as fervent as that of the lustful Roach. “Who the hell said you had the right to have her first?”
Roach, his passion already overheating, tried to jerk his arm free of Leach’s grasp. But Leach held him firm. When Roach released his grip on Sarah’s bodice in an attempt to shove Leach away, Sarah saw her chance. She grabbed Jonah by the hand and ran for the corral. Locked in a shoving match, Leach and Roach didn’t realize she had taken flight before she had scrambled between the rails of the corral.
Having heard the commotion at the front door, Snake turned the corner of the cabin in time to see Sarah and the child running for the barn. Without hesitation, he raised his rifle and fired, putting two bullets in the fleeing woman’s back. Knocked down immediately, Sarah fell sprawling in the muddy slime of the soggy corral and lay still.
Roach was devastated. Arriving beside the body a moment or two behind the half-breed, he bemoaned the lost opportunity. “What the hell did you do that for?” Roach demanded.
Snake shrugged as he stared down at the woman’s body, her young son crying at her side as he vainly begged his mother to wake up. “She was trying to run” was Snake’s simple explanation.
The absolute senselessness of the killing infuriated Roach. “Why, you dumb son-of-a-bitchin’ half-breed, you ain’t got no more sense than that. . . .”
“Maybe I shoot you,” the stoic half-breed said in reply, gazing at his partner with steady lifeless eyes.
“Well, that would just about fix things up proper, wouldn’t it?” Leach stood gazing down at the dead woman, her son now wailing in terror. “Somebody shut that young’un up.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, Snake swung his rifle, catching the unsuspecting child beside his temple with the barrel. The force of the blow knocked Jonah several feet away, where he then lay as still as his mother.
“Well, I reckon you shut him up all right,” Roach said sarcastically, still frustrated by the somber half-breed’s lack of constraint.
“What was you aimin’ to do?” Snake replied coldly. “Take him to raise?”
“It’s done now,” Leach said, stepping between the two. “Let’s see what we can find and get the hell outta here.”
Snake turned and went into the barn while Roach remained standing over the body. “That’s just a damn shame,” he complained. “That damn Injun just ruined all our fun.” He squatted on his heels and pulled Sarah’s skirt up.
“You aimin’ to jump on a dead woman?” Leach wanted to know.
“Hell no,” Roach at once retorted. “I’m just lookin’ at what I missed. Damn”—he sighed in frustration—“she was a pretty thing.”
Leach shrugged, figuring they had wasted enough time. “They all look pretty much alike with their clothes off. Let’s get going.”
Just then, Snake came out of the barn, carrying a shotgun. Holding it up, he said, “This is what she was runnin’ for—found it hid in the hay rack.” He walked over to the horse to get a closer look. “Pretty good horse,” he decided. “Wanna take it with us?”
Leach hesitated for a moment before answering, “Nah, I reckon not. If we happen to run into that posse, we don’t wanna be riding with this feller’s horse.” He turned and started for the cabin. Behind him, Snake removed a couple of rails from the fence and chased the livestock out. Leach didn’t bother to ask the half-breed why. Snake just did whimsical things.
They found little of real value in the tiny cabin. They took what food they could find, as well as Sarah’s pistol and a box of cartridges. Snake strapped the shotgun on his horse. “I reckon that’s about it,” Leach commented as he stepped up in the saddle. Snake took a piece of wood from the fireplace and, using it as a torch, touched off a fire in the middle of the cabin, piling on curtains and furniture to give it fuel.
Already mounted, Roach shook his head. “Now what the hell is he doing that for?”
Leach shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s the Injun in him, I reckon.”
* * *
Jordan Gray stood transfixed, staring vacantly at the lifeless bodies of his wife and son. Oblivious to the cold, steady rain that beat down upon his face, he felt as helpless as he ever had in his entire life. Stunned, his brain refused to function for what seemed an eternity, until finally, drained of all energy, he dropped to his knees in the muddy corral. Tears streamed down his rough cheeks as he gently lifted his wife’s face from the wet mud and held her head with one hand while he struggled out of his coat. Laying her head carefully upon the coat, he paused a moment to wipe the filth away from her cheek before moving several yards away to gather up the body of his son.
Jordan had never been one to waste time wondering about the why of things. Unlike her husband, Sarah Gray had always held a certain fascination for why things happened the way they did. She had often sat out under the stars at night, trying to imagine what part she and her little family had to play in God’s great plan for all the creatures of his universe. In contrast, Jordan never gave things like that much thought. He seriously doubted that a grand plan even existed. All his life, since being orphaned at age ten, he had known only one religion that produced any definable results, and that was hard work. And to feed and clothe his family required practicing that religion from sunup to past dark in the fields he had cleared. He never let his mind dwell upon whether or not his lot in life was fair. It was all he had ever known, and if he thought about it at all, it was just to be grateful that he had a strong back to do the work.
For the past four years, he had had a reason to work even harder. The only miracle he had ever known in his life was when Sarah accepted his proposal of marriage, and never a day passed that he had not marveled at the wonder of it. One year to the day after they exchanged vows, Jonah was born. Sarah had wanted to name their son after her father in hopes of appeasing the old man somewhat for going against his wishes and marrying one of his hired hands. At least, that was what Jordan supposed. Jonah Wheeler had begrudgingly offered forty acres of his farm as a wedding present, but Jordan had politely refused, preferring to start a new life with indebtedness to no man. Sarah cheerfully supported her husband’s pride, and bade her mother and father goodbye as she and Jordan rode off to find land of their own. It had been a hard four years, but they had been the only happy years of Jordan Gray’s life. Hardly a day had passed during that time when he did not marvel at his good fortune. Sarah was his life.
Now, kneeling in the muddy quagmire of his corral, created by six days of steady rain, and holding the bodies of his wife and son wrapped in his coat and pressed close to him, he felt the fatal results of his pride. He clenched his eyes tightly closed, grimacing with the pain he felt when he pictured Sarah’s final moments. From the marks left in the mud, he could see that she had attempted to make a run for the barn and was shot down halfway across the small corral. Her murderers didn’t waste a bullet on little Jonah, simply knocking him in the head as he must have cried out for his mother. Unable to contain his grief as these horrible images flooded his brain, Jordan looked up to the leaden skies and cried out his pain. He had not been there when they needed him most. The irony of the situation increased his agony tenfold. He had been away with a posse, looking for outlaws who had raided another isolated farm two days before, leaving a family of five dead. If he had stayed at home, Sarah and Jonah might still be alive.
As he looked around him now, his world seemed dead, gray as the dingy clouds hanging low overhead. The smoldering ashes of the cabin he had built were in the final stages of life as the steady rain patiently extinguished each lonely spark. The barn was still standing, but the livestock were gone. The only things left to him were his rifle and his horse. There was some money he had been saving to purchase another fifty acres near the river—if the raiders had not discovered his hiding place and dug it up. Everything else was gone. Suddenly the thought struck him that he hated the sight of this place, and he wanted to be away from it. All meaning to his life would be buried with his wife and son.
It was almost sunup by the time he finished digging the grave on the little hill behind the cabin. This was Sarah’s favorite spot to gaze at the stars, out from under the huge poplars that shaded the little cabin in summer. She’ll always be able to look up at the stars, he thought as he gently lowered the tiny body of his son to rest beside her. He stood back to look up into the dark sky, which was already melting into lighter shades of gray in anticipation of the sunrise. It had stopped raining sometime during the night. He had not taken notice of the exact moment as he had steadily worked at his grim task. Parting clouds overhead held promise of a clear day, suggesting that the long rainy spell might be over. The signs were lost on him. It no longer mattered that he was late in the spring plowing.
His tears exhausted, he was forced to choke back a dry sob as he began to shovel the saturated earth into the open grave. “I’m sorry, honey,” he blurted, unable to contain his grief when the first wet shovelful fell heavily upon her feet. Even though he knew she was no longer there, he could not bear to cover her with dirt. Vivid images of her radiant face raced through his mind, and he backed away from the grave, trying to control his emotions. Knowing it had to be done, he took hold of the shovel again and set to his grim chore.
The dismal task finished, only then did he give thought to the immediate demands of the living. His mind already overburdened with the guilt of not having been there to protect his family, he felt another stab of guilt when he realized that he had not unsaddled his horse. The poor beast had stood uncomplaining all night. Jordan quickly pulled the saddle off and led the chestnut gelding to the barn. He left it there with a portion of oats while he returned to look through the ashes of the house.
The fire had pretty much destroyed everything, but Jordan continued to search for anything that might have come through unscathed. Lifting a charred timber that had been the cabin’s ridge pole, he caught a glimpse of something shiny in the ashes beneath it. Brushing away the ashes, he reached down to retrieve a broken length of silver chain. Standing up again, he carefully wiped the chain on his shirt. It had held a small heart-shaped locket. The locket had been his wedding present to Sarah. He dropped the chain into his pocket and began sifting through the ashes in hopes of finding the locket. After half an hour with no luck, he gave up. It was useless to continue searching the ruins of his life. Everything was gone. Suddenly feeling totally exhausted, it occurred to him that he had not slept in two days. He walked back to the barn, sat down against the side of it, and closed his eyes for a few minutes. A few minutes turned into several hours, as he drifted off into a deep sleep.
He was awakened by the sun shining through the open end of the barn. A new day, it would go unappreciated by the man as he set his mind for what he had to do. He had no notion as to whom or how many he must hunt—only that hunt them he would, if it took the rest of his life.
* * *
Sheriff Winston Moffett was not in a good mood. He was late for breakfast, and that always served to put him in a foul mood. His deputy, young Johnny Spratte, had failed to show up for work that morning, and Winston didn’t like to leave the jail unattended when there was a prisoner in one of the two cells. When seven thirty came and passed, and Johnny had still not shown up, Moffett opened up the cell and roused Ned Tucker from the bunk. Ned hadn’t had time to sleep off his drunk, and protested his eviction before the usual time, but Moffett would not relent. His belly was already growling like a catfight about to commence.
Hell, I made it to work on time, he said to himself, thinking about his tardy deputy. If I can make it, he by God can. Speculating that Johnny felt justified in coming to work late because he had ridden with the posse, Moffett would be sure to remind his wild young deputy that riding a posse was part of the job. The sheriff had led the posse, and in spite of returning late in the night—and having to lock Ned up—he was at work on time this morning.
Still grumbling to himself, he was about to step up on the wooden walkway that fronted the hotel when he caught sight of a rider approaching from the far end of the street. He paused long enough to identify Jordan Gray, mildly surprised to see the quiet young settler in town after having ridden with the posse for two days. His interest tuned more toward a plate of potatoes and eggs than Jordan Gray’s reasons for being in town, the sheriff stepped up on the boardwalk and ambled into the hotel dining room.
Having spotted the sheriff at about the same time Moffett had seen him, Jordan guided his horse directly to the hotel. Still somewhat dazed, he went through the process of dismounting and tying his horse, his motions trancelike, before following the sheriff into the dining room.
“Well, Jordan,” Moffett greeted him when he walked in, “I’m surprised to see you here this mornin’. I thought you’d wanna be with that pretty little wife of yours after riding around in the rain for two days.”
“Sarah’s dead,” Jordan answered bluntly. “Jonah, too.”
Moffett dropped his fork. “What? Dead? How?” he stammered.
“Murdered,” Jordan replied, his words devoid of emotion. “By the same bunch we’ve been chasin’, I reckon.”
“Damn!” Moffett muttered, unable to think of an appropriate reply. “Damn,” he repeated. “We were lookin’ in the wrong end of the valley. They musta doubled back on us.” Seeing the blank look on Jordan’s face, the sheriff wasn’t sure what action the bereaved young man expected of him. “I reckon we could get up another posse,” he volunteered, glancing at his breakfast rapidly cooling off. In fact, Moffett had been satisfied that he had done all that was required of him in regard to the raid on the Thompson place. He had assumed that the raiders had left the territory, and were consequently out of his jurisdiction. He felt badly for the Thompson family, all five murdered, but he was relieved that he did not have to go up against a gang of ruthless killers. Now this with Jordan Gray, and his eggs were getting stone cold. Feeling a tiny stab of guilt for thinking of his stomach in the face of such tragic news, Moffett realized he must answer the call of his responsibilities.
“How long ago you figure it was?” the sheriff asked, reluctantly pushing his plate away.
Jordan hesitated. “A day or two—I don’t know.” It occurred to him then that he had not taken the time to look for signs that would even tell him which way the raiders had left when they finished their evil business. He promised himself that he would tuck his emotions away from that point on.
Moffett placed his hand on Jordan’s arm, reassuring him. “Don’t you worry, son. We’ll go after them, soon as I can round up another posse.” The implications of Jordan’s tragedy began to take hold in the sheriff’s mind. Maybe this band of raiders had not left the valley after all. Who might be the next to be hit? His own house was over a half mile from town. “Yes, sir,” he decided, “we’d best not waste any more time.” Grabbing a biscuit from his plate, he got to his feet.
Outside the hotel, Moffett paused, looking up and down the empty street as if searching for candidates for his posse. “I wonder where the hell Johnny is,” he complained. He pulled his watch from a vest pocket and stared at it for a few seconds. It was already half past eight, and still no sign of his deputy. He looked into the expressionless eyes of the man stoically watching him, waiting for some show of action. “It’s gonna take me some time to round up some of the boys who rode with us out to the Thompsons’. Why don’t you go on back to your place and scout around? And we’ll meet you out there.”
Jordan didn’t react at once as he studied Moffett’s face. He was thinking that maybe it had been a waste of time coming to the sheriff for help. He should have scouted around, picked up the raiders’ trail, and gone after them while it was still fresh. After a moment, he nodded his head and turned to leave, just as Rufus Bailey unlocked the door of the saloon next door to the hotel. Jordan paused when Rufus walked over to greet them.
“Damn, I’m right sorry to hear that,” Rufus said when Moffett related Jordan’s tragedy. “I’d volunteer to ride with you, Sheriff, if I wasn’t by myself in the saloon until this afternoon when my help comes in.”
“I’m lookin’ for Johnny,” Moffett said. “Was he in the saloon last night?”
Bailey nodded. “Yeah, he came in after you came back, stayed around for about an hour, then lit out for somewhere. He didn’t say where.”
Moffett shook his head slowly, thinking about his young deputy. “I swear, I mighta made a mistake when I hired that boy,” he speculated aloud.
Rufus hesitated for a moment, as if not sure he should say what he was thinking. “It ain’t none of my affair, but I’d say Johnny Spratte picks a pretty rough bunch for drinkin’ partners. I mean, with him supposed to be a lawman.”
This piqued Moffett’s interest. “Whaddaya mean?” he asked.
“I mean there was three pretty rough-lookin’ fellers passed through here a couple of days ago. You probably saw ’em.”
The sheriff nodded. “Johnny said they was with a cattle drive north of town.”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” Rufus replied, shaking his head. “They didn’t look like no ranch hands to me. One of ’em looked like a half-breed. I probably shouldn’t have even served him any whiskey. I was kinda glad they moved on. Johnny sure seemed to enjoy their company, though.”
Moffett, feeling Jordan Gray’s eyes on him, spoke in his deputy’s defense. “What with the Thompson murders and all, I naturally was curious about any strangers in town, but Johnny said they was all right.” He shifted his gaze, avoiding Jordan’s eyes. “I’ll have a talk with Johnny when he comes in.”
Jordan had heard enough, a clear picture already forming in his mind. He remembered that it had been primarily Johnny Spratte directing the posse at the Thompson place. He had been so sure of the direction to search that Moffett had let him lead. The rest of the posse, Jordan included, followed along blindly until it became obvious that there was no trail to follow. Thinking back now, he felt sure it was also Johnny who had insisted that the raiders were long gone from this valley. The thought also occurred to him that there had been no sign of any cattle drive anywhere near Crooked Creek.
Jordan untied his horse and stepped up in the saddle. “I wouldn’t wait too long for Johnny.” He stared hard at the sheriff. “I don’t think he’ll be coming to work.” That said, he turned the chestnut away from the rail, and rode away.
* * *
With his sorrow tucked carefully away in his mind now, Jordan set about his task with a clear head. After a brief visit to the new grave to say a final farewell to the two souls who had completed his world, he turned his thoughts to concentrate on their killers. There was no doubt in his mind that his search was for the three strangers Rufus had talked about. They might be four now. Johnny Spratte was somehow involved. Maybe he had joined them.
Jordan didn’t consider himself much of a tracker. He had never had reason to be. But he studied all the tracks and signs he could find around the corral and the ruins of the cabin. He soon found that there were too many tracks, which resulted in telling him nothing beyond the fact that the raiders had ridden their horses back and forth, and all around the cabin. There may have been three horses; there may have been thirty. There was no way he could be sure from the churned-up mud that had been his yard. Feeling the frustration that fueled his anger even more, he walked away from the barn to a distance of about forty yards. Keeping that distance between him and his home, he then began a slow walk in a circle around the barn and the charred remains of his house, his eyes focused on the ground before him. He crossed a fresh set of hoofprints that his horse had left just minutes before as he returned from town. A few yards farther on, he saw the sharp imprint of a deer track. Heading for what’s left of the garden, he unconsciously observed. Halfway around the circle, he found what he was looking for.
He felt a numbness that shot up the length of his spine as he stood motionless for a few seconds, gazing at the hoofprints in the soft, wet sand of the creek. Looking back toward his cabin, he saw that the tracks were mixed together, telling him that the raiders had ridden single file until coming to the small creek that wound around behind his barn. They had fanned out to cross the creek, leaving three clear sets of tracks. His earlier feelings were strengthened. The murderers of his wife and son were the same three strangers in Rufus Bailey’s saloon. This was the only reasonable conclusion.
He knelt down to examine the tracks carefully, looking for any distinguishing markings of the shoes. Prepared to follow the prints into the bowels of hell if necessary, he studied the impressions in the sand intensely. There was nothing he could discover that made any of the tracks remarkable. One of the horses might have a nick in one shoe. He couldn’t even be sure of that. Feeling a need to somehow put his hand on the men he hunted, he placed his fingers on one of the prints and gently traced the outline. A surge like lightning shot up his arm; the immense pain he had been struggling to contain would no longer be denied. With clenched teeth and every muscle in his body taunt, he lifted his head toward the heavens and roared out his frustration. It would be the last time he would give in to such an emotional display of his anger. From that point on, he would lock his emotions away, replacing them with a cold, hard determination to hunt down the men who had killed his wife and son.
He rose to his feet again and followed the direction of the hoofprints with his eyes. They were heading for the northwest corner of the wide river valley, away from town, probably to cross the wagon trace to Fort Smith. With a controlled urgency, Jordan returned to the barn. He filled a sack of oats for his horse and dug up the money he had buried under a cornerstone of the cabin. There was nothing else to pack. A change of clothes and his rifle and cartridges were already on his saddle, having been there since he was riding with the posse. He would need to spend some of the money for cartridges. His rifle, an 1866-model Henry, was the only remembrance he had of his father. The old man had bought the rifle in 1868, when he had paid fifty dollars for it. He had bought it from a returning war veteran who had purchased it at a government sale for fourteen dollars and fifty cents. His father had not begrudged the young man for the excessive profit of the sale. A good, dependable rifle, though not an unusually powerful one, it held sixteen shots in its magazine. Jordan had killed many a deer with that rifle.
He paused for a moment to think about his father. Jordan had always supposed his father was a good man. He didn’t know for sure, since he was only ten years old when his father was crushed under a giant oak tree while clearing some land for Jonah Wheeler. Since his mother had left them two years prior to that to return to her parents’ home in Virginia, Jordan was left an orphan. Jordan felt a begrudging respect for Jonah Wheeler. The man had felt a responsibility toward him, and Jordan owed him for it. After all, he had given the boy a place to live, but after all the years Jordan lived and worked on Jonah’s farm, he was never elevated above the status of hired hand. Jordan had never been content to work on a farm. He would have left to seek his fortune in the mountains of the Rockies as soon as he was full grown, but there was one overpowering force that held him there: Jonah Wheeler’s daughter, Sarah.
Sarah—a ray of golden sunshine whose smile would always lighten his darkest days. It was Sarah who befriended the orphaned boy when there was no one else for him to turn to. Although her father discouraged it, she and Jordan became close friends, spending a great deal of time together after Jordan’s work was done. Thinking about her now, Jordan was forced to smile when he remembered the times she would sneak a piece of cake, or a slice of pie, from the kitchen for him. It was only natural that childhood friendship developed into love as they grew older. In Jordan’s case, it was more aptly described as adoration, for he never dreamed Sarah could ever become his wife.
When they went together to tell her father of their intention to marry, the old man at first ordered Jordan off the farm and forbade the union of his only daughter to a hired hand. Had it not been for the intervention of her mother, the young couple might have been forced to elope. As it was, Myra Wheeler was able to persuade her husband to allow a marriage there at the farm, hoping she could at least keep her daughter close to her. When the prideful young man insisted that he would seek land of his own, she persuaded Jonah to offer him part of the farm. Like her daughter, Myra saw a sincere quality that showed a genuine strength of character in the young man. Suddenly shaking his head to rid his mind of thoughts of the past, he looked around him at the sorrowful ending of his marriage. How, he wondered, could he ever be forgiven for this?
He thought about the last time he saw her. She had walked arm in arm with him to his horse, cheerfully going on about the shirt she was going to sew for little Jonah. Smiling warmly, she had kissed Jordan and stood back while he stepped up in the saddle. “I’m going to make you a pie with the last of those apples,” she had said. Knowing her well enough to see through her casual facade, he knew she was afraid to be left alone. He didn’t want to leave her, but Winston Moffett had sent Johnny Spratte with word that he needed Jordan and his rifle.
Bringing his mind back to Winston Moffett, he felt no necessity to wait for the sheriff to assemble another posse. It would be a waste of time. Without a backward glance, not even a final look at his wife’s grave, he stepped up in the saddle and gave the chestnut his heels, guiding the willing gelding toward the road to Fort Smith.
Chapter 2
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Leach uttered, his words trailing off as he spotted the young man pausing at the swinging doors of the saloon.
Following the direction of Leach’s gaze, Roach grinned. “He said he would meet up with us here. I swear, though, I thought it was just the whiskey talkin’. Johnny somethin’—what was it?”
“Spratte,” Leach replied, a smirk forming upon his face. “Johnny Spratte—Deputy Sheriff Johnny Spratte.” The irony of it amused him.
Always the stoic realist, Snake commented dryly, “Maybe he ain’t come to join up with us. Maybe he’s got that posse right behind him.” He set his half-finished glass of beer on the table and rested his hand on the handle of his knife.
Leach gave the half-breed’s concerns no credence. He fancied himself a fair judge of a man’s character, and he was pretty sure of Johnny’s. “He ain’t with no posse.” He glanced over at Snake. “He’s just tired of tryin’ to make an honest livin’ in a flea-bitten little town, same as you or me—just like he said. Hell, he led that posse off on a wild-goose chase, didn’t he?”
“He did at that,” Roach chimed in and raised his hand to catch Johnny’s attention.
Johnny’s face lit up when he spotted the raised hand on the far side of the crowded saloon. He immediately pushed through the doors and made his way across the noisy room.
“Well, now, lookee here,” Roach greeted him, a broad smile plastered across his face, “if it ain’t the deputy sheriff.”
Johnny grinned back. “I told you I’d be comin’ to join up with you fellers. This is the third saloon I looked in. I knew you’d be in one saloon or another.”
Leach studied the ex-deputy as he pulled up an empty chair, smiling like a kid at Christmastime. When Johnny had seated himself, and signaled the barkeep for a glass of beer, Leach asked, “You think you got sand enough to ride with us?” His eyes now cold and searching, he didn’t pause to wait for an answer. “This ain’t no Sunday picnic. A man’s gotta have a belly full of guts to ride with us.”
The smile remained on Johnny’s face, although it had lost a considerable amount of its original shine. He realized that all three were now staring at him, sizing him up. Looking from the steady, lifeless eyes of the half-breed to the frozen smile of Roach, he realized that they all questioned his commitment to ride on the other side of the law. Returning his gaze to lock onto Leach’s, he said, “I reckon I’ve got as much sand as it takes.”
“You ride with us, and you’ll damn sure find out how much sand you’ve got. Ain’t that right, Snake?” Not waiting for an answer from the somber half-breed, Leach continued to stare the young man down. Shifting his eyes momentarily to the Colt .45 in Johnny’s holster, he asked, “You ever use that gun on anything bigger than a snake or a rat?”
Johnny hesitated. He considered lying about it, but Leach’s penetrating gaze seemed capable of seeing through a lie. No longer able to match Leach’s stone-cold gaze, he shifted his eyes down to the glass of beer before him. “I ain’t never had to,” he finally answered. “But I reckon I damn sure can.”
Leach made no comment for a long moment, his eyes still locked on Johnny’s. Then his stone countenance was finally broken by the hint of a grin. “Well, I reckon you’ll damn sure get a chance to prove it.” The hazing over, he drained the last swallow of beer from his glass. “Won’t he, boys?”
“Wouldn’t be surprised,” Roach commented, his grin back in place. “You might get like ol’ chief here”—he nodded toward Snake—“and go outta your way to shoot somebody.” Not amused by the comment, the half-breed only grunted in response.
“We take what we want,” Leach said. “Sometimes folks get in the way, but that’s just their hard luck.”
Feeling as if he had been accepted, Johnny relaxed. “That don’t bother me none. I’m done with hiring my ass out for twenty dollars a month.”
“That’s good,” Leach said, “’cause you know a little too much about us to back out now.” It was a serious threat, even though he was smiling when he said it. That bit of business concluded, Leach proceeded to the next subject on his mind. “It’s a good thing you caught up with us when you did ’cause we ain’t gonna be here very long. You notice that bank across the street when you walked in here?” Johnny nodded, although he had really paid no attention to what was across the street. Leach continued. “That’s the First Mercantile Bank of Fort Smith. When they open in the mornin’, we’re gonna make a withdrawal.”
Johnny’s pulse quickened; he was excited by the immediate promise of wealth. He assumed he would be given an equal share of the money, and whatever the amount, it would be a hell of a lot more than his previous twenty-dollar wage. In truth, the only one of his new partners who begrudged a new split in the spoils would be the somber half-breed.
“We was through here last month,” Roach said. “They got one old man that opens up ever’ morning and two women that come in about thirty minutes later.” He chuckled as he added, “They might as well set the money outside the door and let anybody who wants it just pick it up.”
What People are Saying About This
PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF CHARLES G. WEST
“Rarely has an author painted the great American West in strokes so bold, vivid, and true.”—Ralph Compton
