Ralph Compton The Convict Trail (10 page)

“That's the ticket, kid,” a prisoner laughed.

“Hey, Larson, what about us?” said Stringfellow.

“You can stay.” The man's eyes dropped to Kane. “He goes.”

The marshal smiled. “Don't like lawmen much, huh?”

“I hate the breed, especially you. I heard about you, about your big rep. Well, now I'm going to take it all away from you. Get to your feet.”

His voice even, Kane said, “Kid, if I stand up, I'll kill you. Don't make me do that.”

Mae St. John took a step toward Larson. “Hyde, you've been drinking. Go sleep it off. Now!”

“I'm not backing down, not this time, lady. Kane has a choice—drop his guns and ride out of here with his tail between his legs or die where he lays. The proposition ain't real complicated.”

The marshal's gaze lifted to Larson's face. “You've spelled it out clear enough.” Kane rose to his feet, death in his eyes. “All right, let's see what you got, boy.”

Larson's hands dropped to his Remingtons. He never made it. A single shot, and his head exploded into a scarlet and white fan of blood, brain and bone. There was enough time remaining in the man's life for a single, terrified scream. Then he staggered a few steps and crashed onto his back.

“You killed him!” Mae shrieked.

Stunned for a moment, Kane glanced down at the unfired Colt in his hand. His eyes darted to Sam, but the old man's arms were dangling at his side and his face bore a shocked expression. Finally Sam recovered enough to point across the clearing where the rustling pines were lost in darkness. “It came from the trees, Logan. Rifle shot.”

“Sam, put your scattergun on the prisoners!” Kane yelled. Without waiting for a reply, he sprinted across the clearing and pulled up when he reached the tree line.

His Colt ready, the marshal stepped warily. There was little underbrush to slow him and he walked on a carpet of pine needles. Ahead he saw an impenetrable wall of blackness. Only when the soundless lightning flared did the trees momentarily come to life, their trunks shimmering with a ghostly sapphire light.

Kane stopped, listening into the silence. His mouth was a thin, hard line and his ragged mustache drooped to cheeks that were drawn tight against the bone. He moved again, cursing under his breath when the crown of his hat scraped against a tree branch and was swept from his head. Kane took a knee and fumbled about in the darkness, found the hat and jammed it back on his head. He rose to his feet, then froze.

Someone or something was running fast toward him. Ahead of him Kane caught a blur of motion and his Colt came up fast. A few small branches cracked and then whatever it was almost landed right on top of him.

But the deer sensed danger and bounded to its right. The marshal had a fleeing impression of wide, frightened eyes and a flash of tan coat. Then the animal was past him, vanishing into the night.

His heart hammering in his chest, Kane stood for a moment to regain his composure, then walked on, feeling his way around the tree trunks. A moment later, not far ahead of him, he heard the pounding of retreating hooves; then the echoing silence crowded around him again.

Kane hurried his pace, helped by lightning that flashed more frequently now, shading the darkness among the pines from black to purple. Gradually the forest thinned and he looked out on the plain that mocked him with its emptiness.

On the way back to camp, Kane paced off the distance. He came up with eighty yards, maybe a little more. The bushwhacker, whoever he was, had made an excellent shot under difficult circumstances, hitting a small, moving target in poor light.

The marshal was impressed—and more than a little troubled.

But what if there was another possibility? Perhaps the marksman was not as good as Kane gave him credit for and the bullet had been aimed at him.

That thought was not calculated to help a man sleep well o' nights.

When Kane returned to the campfire, Mae St. John and her two remaining hands were standing over Larson's body. Sam was by the prisoners, his shotgun cradled in his arms.

A huge chunk of Larson's skull had been blown away and his open eyes still showed his fear and surprise at the time and manner of his dying.

Mae's eyes lifted to the tall marshal. “Did you see anything?”

“Heard a hoss.”

The woman looked at the man called Ed. “Get out to the herd. We'll bury Hyde in the morning.”

The man touched his hat. “Anything you say, ma'am.” He hesitated a moment, then said, “Leaves us shorthanded though, don't it?”

“Maybe I can pick up a drover along the way.”

“Ain't likely, ma'am,” Ed said. “Not in these parts.”

All at once the horror of Larson's death caught up with Mae, and her anger flashed. “Ed Brady, don't tell me what I can't do. For a change try telling me what I can do.”

Chastened, the man touched his hat. “Yes, ma'am. I'll study on that very thing.”

A few moments later Brady rode out to be with the herd and Sam stepped beside Kane. He looked at Larson's body and said, “That boy must've made a mighty powerful enemy.”

Buck pointed at Kane. “Either that or he has a mighty powerful friend. I reckoned the kid was gonna gun him fer sure.” His old, red-rimmed eyes swept the marshal's face. “Heaven's lookin' out fer you, boy.” He paused. “Or hell.”

“Sam, start loading the prisoners,” Kane said wearily, a sudden tiredness in him. “Buck, let's me an' you move the kid's body away from camp.”

“Coyotes around.”

“They don't eat their own kind.”

The drover shook his head. “Death on a drive has always boogered me. I never did know any good to come from it.”

But the dying wasn't over.

Not that night.

Chapter 10

Sam Shaver had just ordered the prisoners to their feet when Bennett Starr made his break.

Starr had been quiet and uncomplaining since he'd left Texas, which caught Sam and Kane by surprise. He was a small, thin man with dark, brooding eyes, his nose and cheekbones cobwebbed by red, broken veins, and his teeth were few and black.

The man hobbled away from the cottonwoods, desperately seeking the cover of darkness. Like the others, his ankle chains were long enough to allow him a shuffling walk, but too short for running.

“Starr!” Sam yelled, and fired a shotgun blast over the prisoner's head.

The man kept on going, glancing fearfully over his shoulder as he took quick, choppy steps along the creek bank. Lightning splashed around him and now, for the first time that night, thunder rumbled. Ahead of Starr the looming darkness was a welcoming cloak ready to shelter him.

But he was destined never to reach it.

Kane ran after the man, then stopped and drew his gun. “Starr, halt right there!” he yelled. “Or I'll shoot!”

Starr ignored the warning, his ankle chains chinking as he staggered forward.

The marshal raised his Colt to eye level and fired.

For a moment Starr kept going. Then his legs buckled and he fell flat on his face and lay still. Kane walked to the man's side and rolled him over with the toe of his boot. Starr's eyes were open . . . but he was staring into nothingness.

The marshal grabbed the dead man by the back of his shirt and dragged him into camp. Kane's teeth were bared under his mustache, his eyes ablaze with a terrible anger. The prisoners were lined up at the rear of the wagon and he hauled Starr's body in front of them, then let the man's shoulders thud to the ground.

Straightening, he yelled, “This man tried to escape. Now he's dead. From this moment onward I'll kill any man who tries to make a break.” He looked at the sullen, angry faces of the convicts. “Do you understand that?” There was no answer and Kane said, “Stringfellow, do you understand that?”

“You shot him in the back,” the man growled.

“He gave me no choice. Now answer my question, damn you. Do you understand what I just told you, told all of you?”

Stringfellow looked along the line at the others. Then he answered for all of them. “Yeah, Kane, we understand you only too well.”

The marshal turned his head slightly, his glare still fixed on the prisoners. “Sam, load these men into the wagon. Get them out of my sight.”

The red mist had cleared from Kane's eyes and his burning anger had cooled, leaving only a sickly, tangle of loss in his belly and the realization that his killing of Bennett Starr had not been a victory.

“He made his play and he lost.” Kane said it to Mae, who was looking at him in horror. “If he'd reached the darkness he could've got down on his belly and crawled for miles. I would never have found him.”

“No, Marshal, you know you didn't have to kill him. I saw what happened and it—it was cold-blooded murder.”

Kane's voice was level, almost reasonable. “Ma'am, like the rest of them, Bennett Starr was a killer—a wild, dangerous animal. Ask Sam what he and Stringfellow and the others did to a Cherokee farmer's wife and daughter up in the Territory. You don't take a chance on men like these gettin' loose among decent folks. You go after them and if you have to, you kill them.”

Kane saw shutters close in the woman's eyes. She turned on her heel and walked away toward the awning at the side of the chuck wagon.

He had the feeling that when it came to Buff Stringfellow and the rest of them, Mae would believe nothing he said.

Kane saw that Buck was looking at him, an expression on his face that could have been fear. The old puncher shook his head. “Hell has come to this place,” he said.

The marshal smiled without humor. “Old-timer, I got the feeling hell was riding drag for this outfit long afore I ever got here. Now, help me put this body beside the other one.”

“No, Marshal,” Buck said. “Lay out your own dead.”

 

Kane took the first watch and let Sam sleep. Mae St. John was wrapped in her blankets under the awning and Buck was stretched out near the chuck wagon. Ed Brady was still with the herd, but Mae was due to spell him in a couple of hours. Now that she was down to two hands, the woman seemed determined to pick up her share of the work. Kane had overheard her tell Buck that, against the accepted practice of a trail drive, tomorrow his wagon would take the point and she and Brady would ride flank, dropping back every now and then to cover the drag.

It was a far-from-perfect arrangement, but Kane was sure that if anyone could make it work, it was Mae St. John. She was a strong, capable woman with only one flaw to the marshal's thinking—a blind spot when it came to Buff Stringfellow. Where that might lead, Kane did not know, but it continued to worry him.

Kane sat with his back to a tree near the creek where he had an unobstructed view of the camp, his rifle across his belly. The thunderstorm had passed quickly, with only a few drops of rain. The blushing moon was covered and uncovered by scudding clouds, driven by a belligerent wind, performing a shy dance of the seven veils for the heedless night.

Carefully keeping his eyes away from the fire, Kane built a smoke. The camp was quiet, the cries of hunting coyotes but distant yips in the stillness. The marshal inhaled deeply and listened into the darkness. Wood crackled in the fire, shifting now and then, sending up a shower of sparks that briefly winked red, then died.

The tall, rangy shape of Sam Shaver emerged from the darkness and walked around the circle of the firelight, moving stiffly. He carried his shotgun, a holstered Colt, on his hip. The old man stepped to Kane's left, not wishing to obstruct the marshal's view of the camp.

Kane's eyes lifted. “Can't sleep, huh?”

“No, I reckon not. There's something in the wind I don't like, Logan. It's telling me things I don't understand.” He shook his head. “It's like there's a ghost at my elbow, whispering in my ear.”

“Old-timer, we're all on edge tonight. Still fur to travel an' one of the prisoners dead already. It's a time for a man to trouble his mind thinkin' about haunts an' sich. Maybe so.”

As Sam squatted on his heels, Kane asked the question uppermost on his mind. “Was I right to gun Bennett Starr?”

Sam made a show of thinking about an answer. He said, “ ‘In the performance of his duty, and only if the appropriate warnings to halt have been issued and ignored, a marshal has the right to bring down a fleeing fugitive by any and all means necessary.' Them's ol' Judge Parker's words. I heard him say that with my own ears.”

“What do you think, Sam?”

“I just done tole you what I think.”

“No, you told me what the judge thinks. What do you say?”

The old man reached out, took the cigarette from between Kane's lips and inhaled. He passed the smoke back to the marshal and said, “What I say don't matter.”

“It matters to me.”

The words he was about to say seemed painful to Sam Shaver. He grimaced as though they were stuck like rocks in his chest. “I don't think you needed to kill that man. Starr was hobbled with chains an' I reckon you could've gone after him afore he got too fur. Seems to me you could have buffaloed him, then drug him back to camp.” The old man hesitated a heartbeat. “That's what I think, Logan. Fer what it's worth.”

Beyond the campfire, the prison wagon creaked, then creaked again, louder this time. Kane looked in that direction. “What's going on over there?”

Sam shrugged. “Somebody stirring in his sleep, I reckon. Them boys won't give us any trouble while they're locked in the wagon. They know I could up my rifle an' clear that cage quicker'n scat.”