Vengeance Trail (22 page)

He removed the Creedmore from the deerskin scabbard and laid its barrel to rest across the saddle. He judged the distance
between his position and that of the far bank to be seventy yards, an easy shot for such a weapon.

He settled himself in a comfortable position, accommodating his wait with the taste of beef jerky and warm water from his
canteen. A taste of good whiskey would settle just fine in a man’s belly, he thought.

So would a lot of other things that two thousand dollar reward money would bring: Whiskey, and women, and a new rifle. Some
good horses maybe.

He checked the loads in his weapons, made sure his cartridges were dry by spreading them on a blanket in the sun. A man could
never be too careful. Lots of men had died because their hammers fell on bad cartridges.

Caleb Drew had removed his jacket due to the heat of the day. He wore a fresh white linen shirt that he had packed as an extra
and had put on the day before when eating lunch with the Mormons in their settlement.

His wife had bought him the shirt for his Federal
appointment. It had come with a paper collar and paper cuffs, which he soon discarded. He wore crimson suspenders instead
of a belt to hold up his denims. Strapped to his waist was the Peacemaker with a seven-and-one-half-inch barrel that he had
paid fifteen dollars for. He had replaced the original walnut grips with ones of Mother of Pearl and then had the pistol nickel
plated. It was a fine looking weapon. He had only fired it in target practice. It seemed a bit heavy, but he figured after
all the expense, it would do.

Off in the distance he could see the bright green leaves of the cottonwoods fluttering in the wind. The horse had picked up
the smell of water and had quickened its pace. He gave it its head, glad for the opportunity.

Eli Stagg saw the dust sign of a rider approaching from across the river. He set the rear sights that he had had especially
mounted to the Creedmore. Resting the weapon across the seat of the saddle, he lay spread-eagled behind it.

The flat muddy river came into view as Caleb rounded a slight bend in the road. It was the color of creamed coffee.

Eli Stagg saw a single rider appoaching the river from the far side. He drew a bead on the broadest part of the man—his chest.

As the rider came nearer the water, the bounty hunter could plainly see that it was not Cherokee Tom, as he suspected it might
be all along. He was disappointed that it was not the lawman. He had sort of hoped it would be; the fellow was way too nosy,
and too uppity to be wearing a badge and acting like a white man.

The fellow across the river looked as though he could be a drummer, except for the iron on his hip and the stock of a Winchester
protruding from the saddleboot.

Caleb Drew had never even given it a thought that his badge remained pinned on the jacket he had removed earlier and tied
to the back of his saddle.

The bounty hunter squinted to see if the rider across the river was wearing a star. He didn’t see one. It would be an easy
shot. He held his fire, though, waiting to see what the fellow was up to. A lawman had certain ways about him that other men
did not. Lawmen were snoopy. He’d be able to tell by watching whether or not this fellow was snoopy.

Caleb Drew pulled up to the water, dismounted, and let his horses drink freely while he scanned the far shore. There were
cottonwoods on the other side that he could catch some shade in and give the animals a chance to graze on sweet grass for
a brief while. He was glad for the respite.

While he waited for the animals to finish drinking, he knelt to scoop some of the water into his hands and splash it over
the back of his neck. As he did so, he noticed a fresh set of tracks leading into the river. He moved closer to examine them.

Eli Stagg saw the man inspecting the ground.

He surely ain’t no drummer.
He drew the hammer back on the Creedmore.

In that instant, Caleb Drew recognized the possibility that the tracks could easily belong to his quarry. Perhaps, right now,
the man was across the river laying in among the cottonwoods watching him—laying ambush for him.

Instinct caused him to reach for the Colt on his
hip, the fingers touching the Mother of Pearl hand-grips.

As they did, Eli Stagg squeezed the trigger of the Creedmore.

The boom of the big gun resounded among the cottonwoods, a large plume of smoke lifted itself from the hidden position. The
thumb-sized chunk of lead smashed into the chest of Caleb Drew knocking him flat on his back. His horses broke and ran.

It was as though a great weight had fallen on him and held him pinned to the earth. A fire felt as though it were blazing
in his chest and both his hands had gone numb.

Everything seemed to have suddenly slowed down, most of all his thoughts. He could feel the wet warm strain of blood spreading
over his shirt front. He knew he had been shot. The realization frightened him. He was afraid to look at the wound, but he
did so anyway. The white shirt was splattered a crimson that glistened in the sunlight.

He tried to move but found that he could not. The weight on his chest seemed to grow heavier. It was difficult to take a breath.
He swallowed several times and felt the blood rising into his throat.

The sky above him was clear blue, as blue as he had ever seen it. He could hear something splashing in the river, could hear
the splashing come nearer.

Eli Stagg waded into the water, his Creedmore reloaded and ready. He crossed cautiously, even though he knew that his shot
had taken the stranger dead center—through the brisket. The man had not moved, except for a slight effort of his legs. But,
old trapper’s habits made the bounty hunter wary of the trapped.

The blood was beginning to cause him to choke and fight for breathing. He wished he had something to drink, something to wash
the blood out of his throat. He could hear the sound of splashing growing closer and closer.
If only he could reach his pistol.

Eli Stagg waded out of the river, his buckskins dark and greasy brown, and came to stand before the downed man. It was easy
enough to see from the amount of blood soaked into the man’s shirt front that the shot had been a mortal one.

“Who are you, mister?”

Caleb Drew felt the shadowy presence of someone, or something pass over him. He opened his eyes, saw the blurred features
of a man, saw the man’s mouth move, heard what sounded like echoes coming from the man’s mouth.

“What—?”

“I said, who the hell are you?” Eli Stagg bent at the waist and examined closer the drawn and twisted features of the wounded
man. It was then that he finally came to recognize his tracker.

“I’ll be damned to hell, you’re that Federal Marshal back in Ft. Smith! The one that had everything handled. Haw! Looks like
you done gone and got yerself kilt!”

The man’s words were muted by the roaring inside Caleb Drew’s head. He was feeling suddenly cold, as though he was laying
in ice. He tried to understand what the man was telling him, trying to understand…and then he recognized the man!

“Please…,” he uttered. The word gurgled in the bloody throat. “Please…don’t…” But, the words, the plea, seemed
to die somewhere deep inside him.

The bounty hunter looked into the dying man’s eyes. It was a look he had long grown accustomed to seeing in the eyes of animals
he had trapped in the wilderness.

“You rode a long way just to get yourself kilt!” He saw the bounty hunter step back away, saw the patch of sky above him once
more, felt the warmth of sun strike his face, but still, his body was growing so very cold. He knew he was drowning in something
he could not see but only feel.

He closed his eyes at the impending terror, prayed to a God that he had never taken the time to know, and then surrendered.
Eli Stagg was already stripping away the lawman’s possessions.

After nearly six weeks, Carter Biggs found himself in the middle of nowhere, or so it seemed to him. All of his efforts had
not brought him one step closer to his quarry, Johnny Montana.

Every day that passed drove home the realization that the quest for vengeance had been ill-fated. How he had ever hoped to
track down the outlaw to begin with was beyond him now.

His journey had carried him through piney woods and rolling hills, through the bayous and swamps, beyond the forests and out
into the open grasslands. Once he had crossed over into Texas, the country seemed to have gotten suddenly bigger and emptier
than it ever had before.

The loneliness of the country had given him over to talking to himself. Without Lowell along to converse with, he felt a great
longing to hear the sound of another human voice. His own would have to do.

“This is no place for a hog farmer,” he admonished himself several times an hour, it seemed. “Nothing but yellow grass.”

He had grown weary of the chase for more reasons than one. The fire in his belly to settle scores with the outlaw, Johnny
Montana, no longer burned so hot.

“Forgive me old man,” he prayed aloud as he rode over the vast open prairie, “but I just don’t feel like I have the heart
to keep going most days. It ain’t that I don’t want to do what is right by you, but I feel plumb lost in this Godforsaken
country.”

And then he would lapse into long spells of silence letting his bulk sway to the rhythm of the horse’s step, listening to
the whistle of wind against his sunburned ears. Sometimes he would cry.

He had ridden through rain and lightening storms, and once saw a tornado twisting in the distance. The sun and wind burned
his neck and ears and turned his hands brown. And, it seemed, all day long he spat dust from his dry mouth.

Except for scattered herds of cattle, he saw no animal life other than a pair of pronghorn antelope that was too far away
to shoot at—he shot anyway out of frustration.

He came to places where barbed wire fences made him change direction and once counted over two hundred coyotes that had been
shot through the head and hung up by their tails on one of those fences— the smell was awful.

Compared to his beloved Autauga County, this land offered little compromise to man or beast. Even the plants were nothing
more than survivors. Grease-wood and prickly pear cactus, mesquite and yucca— thorny, sharp, inhospitable plants that seemed
not much good other than for something to look at.

He missed the sweet grasses of his homeland, the bending willows, the towering oaks. He missed, too, the abundance of water.
Texas water was precious; even the raindrops seemed to dry into dust the moment they hit the ground.

But it was more than trees and rivers and plants that was taking the heart out of Carter Biggs. It was more than missing the
sound of rooting hogs and the smell of wood smoke and curing hams. It was more than the lonely journey that carried him farther
and farther from home. What was weighing on the big man’s shoulders more than anything was a desperately wounded brother left
in the hands of a black-eyed Cajun swamp woman.

Carter Biggs was a man who prided himself in taking care of his own. It was a matter of honor.

But he had abandoned the boy in favor of some foolish vow he had clung to. That vow had not brought him any closer to Johnny
Montana than it had the man in the moon.

It was stubbornness that had made him go on. He knew it. Stubbornness, like a pistol at his head, giving him no choice, pushing
him on and on and on.

Poor ol’ Lowell. Baby brother, Lowell. Probably lying dead under a mossy sod right now—chickens pecking on his grave.

He thought of the swamp woman, the Cajun.
Marie
, she called herself. Strange woman that both frightened and attracted him.
Hell, he had to leave.
Strange woman!
Stood right up to him, though. Stood up and talked him down.
Thinking of her made him anxious.

The town of Tascosa appeared through the haze of heat, a distant outline of low-lying buildings. He had no idea what town
it was, nor did he care. He was weary and sore and his mount was lathered, its head bent low to the ground.

Every board of lumber on every building was gray and weathered and curled, every nail head rusted.
A few tents, a few buildings—that was Tascosa, he saw the name on several of the buildings painted in dull black letters a
long time ago.

BEER
&
WHISKEY
was one of the faded scripts above a narrow little shebang that seemed near ready to collapse inwardly upon itself. It would
do, he told himself as he turned the animal’s head in toward the hitch rail.

He didn’t bother slapping the dust from his person, and out of habit, he looked around to see if Johnny Montana was among
any of the patrons—he wasn’t, nor did Carter Biggs expect him to be. It didn’t seem to matter as much as it had in the last
town, nor the town before that.

He ordered a whiskey and a beer chaser and the bardog announced that such purchase earned him the right to the free lunch
that set at the end of the bar.

Flies circled and landed on the stacks of sliced beef, bread and pickles. Stalks of celery stood in a glass of water. He brushed
away the flies and made a sandwich, then a second and found a table at which to sit where he did not feel so crowded by others.

The bartender brought over another glass of beer and without protest, Carter paid him a nickel for it.

As he ate, he noticed several men coming and going through the rear door of the place, heard some commotion, paid it idle
curiosity.

A man stopped briefly at his table, leaned on it with both hands and with a twist of his mouth asked: “Hey there, stranger,
are you gettin’ in on the dog fight out back? It is about to start and they are laying bets now.” Carter gave him the eye
until he moved on.

In the next few moments, the entire population of the bar headed out the back door. His curiosity got the better of him.

Picking up a sandwich in one hand and a glass of beer in the other, he walked toward the back of the building and stepped
outside.