Ralph Compton The Convict Trail (5 page)

“Why, Hook?”

“For money, of course. And the satisfaction of ridding the earth of undesirables.”

“You're a paid killer, Hook, and a poor excuse for a man. If I hear of you hanging a man in the Territory, I'll come after you, arrest you and take you back to Fort Smith. The Honorable Judge Isaac Parker will deal with you at his convenience.”

Anger flared in Hook's eyes. “Kane, you won't be around to arrest anybody, for I intend to kill you.” His fingers drifted to his blistered face. “For this.”

“Hook, if you're pondering the scattergun, I wouldn't. I can draw and shoot the iron on my hip faster'n you can blink.”

“My time will come, Kane. Revenge is a dish best served cold. I'll wait.”

Hook's stare moved beyond Kane. “Lorraine,” he said, “get up here. We're pulling out now.”

The woman stepped beside Kane. “Once again, Marshal, thank you for everything,” she said.

“My pleasure, ma'am,” Kane said. He took Lorraine's elbow. “Let me assist you into the wagon.”

“She doesn't need assistance,” Hook said.

Kane ignored the man and walked Lorraine around the stamping Percherons to the seat. He helped the woman climb up beside her husband, then said, “You're wrong about being homely, ma'am. You got pretty brown eyes and your hair catches the morning light an' turns it into spun gold.” Suddenly embarrassed, he said, “Well, I jes' thought you'd like to know that.”

Lorraine smiled at him but said nothing. Kane stepped back as Hook slapped the horses into motion and watched until the wagon left the clearing and turned onto the trail.

Suddenly Sam was at his elbow. “Marshal,” he said, “one day soon you're going to have to gun that man.”

Kane stared at him. “Shoot a cripple?”

“He's poison,” Sam said. “Don't ever take him lightly.”

“I feel as mean as a mule with a toothache this morning,” Kane said. “I ain't in the mood to take anything lightly.”

“You're feeling mean on account of how you haven't had your coffee yet. Come an' get it afore it biles away.”

Kane glanced at the sky. “Fixin' to rain again, I reckon.”

“Rain, shine, it don't matter, Logan. We got prisoners to collect.”

Kane was silent for a moment, then stared at Sam. “How come I don't feel good about that no more? Since I woke this morning, it's like I've been expecting something real bad to happen. Maybe a thing I can't handle.”

“Marshal, you're an ol' curly wolf from way back, an' you can handle anything throw'd at you. You jes' need your coffee is all.”

Sam was smiling, but his eyes were troubled.

Chapter 5

The Texas Rangers had arranged to meet Judge Parker's deputies a few miles north of the boomtown of Clarksville. The location was an abandoned railroad station that had been built in anticipation of a Texas and Pacific Railway branch line. The rails had never arrived, and the station and the tent-and-tarpaper settlement that sprang up around it had been quickly abandoned.

Logan Kane and the wagon came down through trees along one side of a pasture that showed signs of having once been earmarked for cattle pens. Five horses and four mules grazed on the thin grass and a convict wagon without a cage stood to one side, its tongue raised. The station itself was an ornate, gingerbread structure that had been painted red at one time. Now its timber had reverted to a silvery gray and the peaked roof sagged, most of its wood shingles long since taken away by winds. Two windows stared blankly out into the pasture, all of their glass panes gone but one. Some ranny had taken a potshot at the surviving pane, but had succeeded only in putting a hole in it. The fractured glass around the bullet hole spread out like a spiderweb.

Beyond the station, all that was left of the town were a few grassy mounds and broken pieces of lumber. A waterwheel had rusted into immobility and at its base a rotting, fly-specked coyote lay tangled in death.

Up on the wagon box, Sam looked around him but said nothing. He reined the mules to a halt as Kane rode closer to the station.

A short, bearded man wearing a grubby collarless shirt and a suit coat three sizes too big for him stepped onto the platform. A .44-40 Yellow Boy hung from the crook of his left arm. Unlike its owner, the rifle was well cared for and its barrel gleamed with an oily sheen.

Kane drew rein as the small man studied him with hard blue eyes, then said, “State your business.”

“I'm Deputy Marshal Logan Kane, acting on behalf of Judge Isaac Parker's court. I'm here to take delivery of six prisoners.”

The small man looked surprised. “You and who else?”

“Me an' my teamster, feller by the name of Sam Shaver.”

“Mister, there's nigh on three hunnerd miles of rough country between here an' Fort Smith.”

“I know the trail. It's the way I came south.”

“They sent only you?”

“And my teamster.”

“Then God help you, Marshal. That's all I can say. You're either a damned fool or brave too much. Me, another four men an' a driver escorted the prisoners up from Tyler, an' I reckoned five rangers wasn't near enough. In the event, we was lucky, that's all.”

The short man hesitated, looking at Kane. He said, “I'm Corporal Dan Hayes, D Company, Texas Rangers. Climb down, then come inside and inspect your prisoners. I expect a receipt, testifying that they were transferred to you in good condition.”

Kane swung out of the saddle and followed Hayes into the station. The interior walls were gone or had never been built and there was only one cavernous room with a warped, green timber floor. The place was dusty and smelled of decaying wood, and an untidy packrat's nest lay in one corner.

Six men sat on the floor, their backs against a wall. All were dressed in nondescript range clothes and battered, shapeless hats, except for one who seemed to be the oldest. That man wore striped pants tucked into high boots, and a fancy embroidered shirt that once had been white but was now stained and dirty. He wore a brown derby hat with an eagle feather stuck in the band, and a large silver ring graced the little finger of his left hand.

The convicts looked what they were, cold-eyed killers who had long since forgotten if they ever had a conscience and slept without dreams. They closely studied Kane as he walked into the room, measuring him from hat to heels, six dangerous, predatory animals hunting for any sign of weakness.

Hayes introduced Kane to the four other rangers, hard-bitten, unfriendly men with worn Colts on their hips, their lips thin and tight under sweeping dragoon mustaches. The tough eyes of the lawmen were an even match for the tough eyes of the prisoners and just as measuring. Kane, a cold-eyed man himself, looked right at each one, lawman and outlaw, and did not take a step back from any of them. Over the years, along a hundred dangerous trails, he had written the book on toughness. And he knew it showed on him.

“Come, meet your charges,” Hayes said, a bemused smile on his face, as though he knew Kane had just fought a successful skirmish in the battle to be acknowledged bull of the woods. He reached into the inside pocket of his coat and produced a folded sheet of paper.

Hayes cleared his throat, then said, “From the left: Buff Stringfellow—convicted of murder, rape and robbery.”

Stringfellow hawked and spat, narrowly missing Kane's boots.

“Kills with a Colt but will use any weapon to hand,” Hayes said.

“Bennett Starr—murder, rape and robbery. Kills with the Colt.

“Hick Dietz, murder, rape and robbery. Used a rifle in most of his killings.

“Amos Albright—murder, rape and robbery.” Hayes' eyes angled to Kane. “All of his seven victims have been whores. Uses his hands as weapons.

“Reuben Largo—murder, rape and robbery. Calls himself a preacher and kills with a bowie knife.

“Joe Foster—murder, rape and robbery.” Again Hayes turned to Kane. “Don't let his baby face fool you. He's worse than any of them. Fancies himself a fast man with the Colt and has killed at least six men trying to prove it.”

“How old are you, boy?” Kane asked Foster.

“What's it to you?”

“Well, for one thing, if I end up killing you, Judge Parker will expect me to put your age on my report.”

“I'm eighteen, and I've killed seven men. I like to shoot big men like you. They make a louder noise when they fall. Sometimes, if I'm in a grouchy mood, I plug them in the belly so I can hear them scream.”

The other convicts laughed, and Stringfellow yelled, “That's tellin' him, kid!”

Hayes ignored the men, as though he'd heard it all before. “Marshal, would you like to address the prisoners?” he asked.

Kane nodded. “My speech will be short and sweet an' this is it: Any man who tries to escape between here and Fort Smith, I'll shoot off his right thumb. Any man who gives me back talk or sass, I'll shoot off his right thumb. Any man who kicks out at, or in any way abuses or impedes my teamster as he applies or removes shackles, I'll shoot off his right thumb. Any man who interferes with or in any way harms the civilian population we might encounter on the trail, I'll shoot off his right thumb. That is all I got to say.”

Hick Dietz, a tall, heavy-shouldered man with blazing black eyes, jumped to his feet. “Damn you, I'm all through with chains. Your man ain't putting the shackles on me, an' if he tries I'll kick his face in.”

A second ticked past, then another. Kane looked confused, as though he was thinking of something to say. Already a smirk had appeared on Stringfellow's face.

Then Kane summed it up. He drew and fired, and Dietz's right thumb disappeared in a sudden fan of blood and splintered bone. Kane spoke into the stunned silence that followed the roar of his gun and the shriek of the wounded man.

“I don't usually repeat myself, but I'll say it one more time: Any man who kicks out at, or in any way abuses or impedes my teamster as he applies shackles, I'll shoot off his right thumb. I have just made good on that rule. Don't let it happen again.”

Dietz was sobbing. He looked down at Stringfellow and wailed, “Buff, he shot my thumb clean off. He took it away, Buff.”

Stringfellow lifted his eyes to the man. “I know, Hick, I know. Just keep in mind that it's a long way to Fort Smith.” Stringfellow's eyes angled to Kane. He said nothing, but his burning stare spoke of hatred and death.

Kane turned and stepped to the door. He called out, “Sam, you've got doctoring to do.”

Sam was standing beside the mules. “Figgered that when I heard the shot. You plug somebody?”

“Uh-huh. He done broke the rules.”

Hayes stepped beside the marshal. “Mighty sudden with the iron, ain't you, Mister?”

“Dietz was notified.”

“I'll need that receipt. I'll need it signed, saying that the prisoners were in good shape afore you started shootin'.”

“You'll get it.”

A big ranger in a black shirt and hat slapped Kane on the shoulder. “Hell, Marshal, you did good in there.”

Kane nodded. “Dietz knew how I felt about things, and if he didn't, he should have.”

He glanced at the gray sky. In the distance birds were singing and insects were making their small sounds in the grass. And it had started to rain again.

Chapter 6

Sam Shaver bound up Hick Dietz's thumb, then applied leg irons to the prisoners. Kane tore a page from the tally book he always carried, laid it on his knee and wrote:

 

He signed the receipt and handed it to Hayes. The ranger looked the note over, folded it twice and shoved it into the pocket of his coat.

His eyes were level, looking at Kane as a hard rain ticked on the station roof.

“Marshal, I got to be pulling out. But here's some advice: You and Shaver sleep in shifts an' sleep light. When it comes feeding time, don't take your eyes off them boys for one second. They'll be looking for an edge and they'll kill you if they can.”

“I'll surely give that some considerin',” Kane said, though the ranger was telling him a thing he already knew.

Drips from the roof plopped on Hayes' hat. He ignored them as he studied the marshal's face as though looking for the answer to a question he hadn't asked yet. Now he asked it. “You heard tell of an hombre
malo
who goes by the name o' Jack Henry? By nature, he's a quarrelsome man, especially in drink.”

Kane nodded. “Heard tell of a hired gun out of El Paso by that name. Last I heard he was ridin' with the James boys an' that tough bunch.”

“Henry split from Jesse an' them a year or two back. Now he's in business for his ownself. Two months ago, sixty-one miles west of St. Louis, him and three others, identities unknown, robbed the Katy Flier, dynamited the safe an' killed a Pinkerton guard. Ol' Jack put a bullet into a passenger who sassed him, but I read in the newspaper that the man was expected to live. But, like I said, that was two months ago, so who knows if he did or not? I don't.”

The ranger was a talking man and Kane was irritated. “Hayes, when you're done pumpin', let go of the handle. Get to the point.”

“Hold your horses, I'm getting there. Henry an' Stringfellow are close kin, weaned on the teats of the same wet nurse you might say. Now, they belong to a mighty close-knit clan and word gets around. It could be that Henry already knows you're taking his cousin on the trail to Fort Smith and he just might come a-gunning for you. I don't know that for a fact either.”