Ralph Compton The Convict Trail (28 page)

Apart from a groan now and then, Stringfellow was silent. The man had fallen apart completely, the iron collar a harsh symbol of his harsher fate. His arrogance had disappeared with the deaths of Jack Henry and the others, and now he seemed a broken man, content to allow himself to be dragged, like a sheep, to his death.

Logan faced a two-day ride to Fort Smith, a prospect that scared him. He had steeled himself to hold on as long as he was able. All he had to do was get close enough and Vito could take Stringfellow and the women the rest of the way.

After an hour's ride, Kane reached the foothills of Poteau Mountain. As he led the way into the pines and hardwoods covering the southern slope of the ridge, fever raged through him and he rode slumped in the saddle, Stringfellow stumbling along behind him. It seemed to Kane that the trees, swollen with a north wind, spun around him and the mountain stood on end, its prow-shaped outcroppings of rock threatening to break loose and crush him.

A couple of miles to the west soared the twenty-four-hundred-foot peak of Oklahoma High Top, lost in cloud and rain. Some said that the mountain was part of a vast territory once claimed by Vikings who traveled far across the misty ocean, only to perish in a land even more hard and unforgiving than their own.

Norsemen were far from Kane's mind, but as he climbed the Poteau ridge he would have believed, had someone mentioned it to him, that he was sharing their hardships.

The marshal heard whispered talk between Lorraine and Vito. Then they rose closer to him, supporting him in the saddle. They were near, but Kane felt alone, more alone than he'd ever been in his life. Around him, rain ticked through the pines, and the wind sang an elegy for the sun that had died somewhere beyond the leaden clouds.

Kane searched for the top of the ridge. He could not see it through the trees, but he felt its baleful presence. Then he knew what was happening. The entire mountain was moving, rolling over him, a colossus of rock that would smash him to pieces.

He screamed, just before the mountain covered him and plunged him into darkness.

 

“He's coming to. His eyes are opening.”

Lorraine's voice. Kane drifted back to consciousness, the woman's face an oval blur in the darkness, hovering over him.

“What—what happened?” he asked.

It was Vito who answered. “You called out, then fell off your horse. You took a nasty tumble, you know.”

Panic spiked in Kane. “Stringfellow!”

“Tied to a tree,” Vito said. “He's very concerned about you.”

“Yeah, I bet he is.”

The marshal's eyes tried to penetrate the gloom. He heard the crackle of a fire close by and the smell of coffee. Somewhere a stream made a soft, splashing sound. “Where are we?” he asked.

“My answer to that would be nowhere,” Vito said. “But Lorraine assures me we're on the north slope of the Poteau ridge.” He hesitated a moment, then added, “In the rain.”

“How did you get me here?” Kane was surprised at how weak his voice sounded.

“I took you up on my horse,” Vito said. “It wasn't easy. You're a big man and every square inch of you has a bullet hole in it.”

Kane felt Lorraine's cool hand on his forehead. She sounded worried. “Logan, your fever is not as bad as it was, but you're still burning up. Don't try to talk. You must rest.”

It was a hell of a time and place to be an invalid and Kane forced himself to stay awake. “Lorraine, help me sit up and get me some of that coffee,” he said.

“I'll get it,” Nellie said.

The girl had been sitting near Kane's feet and he smiled when he saw her. “How are you feelin', Nellie?” he asked.

“I'm fine, Logan,” she said. “Just fine.”

But there was a wounded sadness about the girl that Kane recognized and he decided that only time and kindness would heal her.

Nellie stepped into the firelight as Lorraine and Vito propped his back against the wide trunk of a beech. He was naked from the belt buckle up, and he turned to Lorraine. “Woman, you surely love to take my clothes off.”

“I washed your bandages and I'm drying them by the fire,” she said, smiling slightly. “They were stiff with blood.”

Kane wanted to look at his wrecked shoulder and the wound in his side, but he fought off the urge. Maybe it was better if he didn't know how bad it was, though the pain was spitefully keeping him up to date.

“Did you find tobacco in my shirt?” he asked.

Lorraine reached into the pocket of her dress and passed the sack and papers. “Why they weren't ruined by blood, I don't know,” she said.

“Just lucky, I guess,” Kane said.

He rolled a cigarette and drank the coffee Nellie brought him, then another cup. He felt a small surge of strength, but was still very weak. His head pounded and he found it hard to focus his eyes. It was an effort to talk.

“Vito,” he said, “come morning you take Stringfellow into Fort Smith. Lorraine and Nellie will go with you.”

“And leave you here alone?” Vito was incredulous.

“I'll make out. Tell Judge Parker where I am and he'll send someone to bring me in. It ain't such a fur piece.”

Vito shook his head, the half of his face nearer the fire glowing red, the other side in darkness. “I can't do that, Marshal. Suppose you got eaten by a bear or something? Why, I'd be upset for at least a day or two.”

“Then what do you propose?” Kane asked, irritated at the other man's short period of potential mourning.

It was Lorraine who answered. “Logan, you stay right where you are for a few days until you have strength enough to ride. Then we'll all head for Fort Smith and find you a doctor as soon as we arrive.”

Kane shook his head. “I'll saddle up come daylight. I want Stringfellow in Judge Parker's jail where he belongs and the sooner the better.”

“We'll talk about that . . . in . . . the . . . morning. . . .” Lorraine's voice grew distant, fading into the silence of his mind, and Kane closed his eyes. Suddenly he was very tired.

 

On the morning of their fourth day on the mountain, under a blue sky, Kane and the others rode down the slope and onto the flat.

The marshal was still weak and had been helped into the saddle by Vito. His pain was gone, and that worried him. It could hardly be a good sign. But his fever remained high—and that had worried Lorraine.

Just before dawn, as they'd drunk coffee by the scarlet light of the fire, she'd asked, “What happened to your family, Logan?”

Kane had been building a smoke, and his head had snapped up. “Why do you ask that, woman?”

“Because you've been out of your mind with fever for days and you've been talking to your mother constantly, like she was right here.”

Kane smiled. “I think I've told this story before. My ma died of the cholera. So did my pa and my two sisters. I'd been out hunting, trying to lay in meat fer the winter. When I got back to the cabin, they were all dead.” Kane had lit his cigarette and inhaled deeply. “I got scared an' rode away from there—left them lying in their beds, unburied.”

“How old were you?”

“I was fourteen that fall. Man grown, I reckon.”

“What does she want from you, your ma?”

“She wants me to go back to Texas and lay them all in the earth.”

“And you will, won't you?”

Kane had nodded. “Soon as I see Stringfellow hung, I'll go back an' find the cabin.” He'd stirred uncomfortably. “I still want you and Nellie to come with me.”

Lorraine had smiled, looked into Kane's eyes and had laid her hand on the back of his. It was her answer to his question, and it spoke louder to Kane than a volume of Mrs. Elizabeth Barrett Browning's love sonnets.

Now Lorraine was beside the marshal as they rode north and swung around Cowskin Ridge into rolling, long-riding country cut across by dry washes and shallow creeks.

Stringfellow had recovered from his gloom and cursed Kane loudly every time he stumbled and the marshal jerked him to his feet. The iron collar was rubbing the outlaw's neck raw, and at Lorraine's insistence Kane stopped to let her bind the wound, using a strip torn from her petticoat.

If Stringfellow had it in mind to thank her, Lorraine headed him off. She looked into his eyes and said, “I'd do the same thing for a dog.”

An hour later they skirted the foothills of the Sugar Loaf Mountains, then stopped among the cottonwoods of Gap Creek to boil coffee and let Kane rest.

The marshal was barely holding on to what little sense of reality still remained with him. He was scorched by fever, tormented by phantoms that haunted every shadowed hill and stand of pine. Dead men from his past stood and watched him ride past, their faces chalk white, hollow eyes without expression.

Once he saw Sam Shaver squatting on the top of a low hill, peeling a green apple, shoving white slices into his mouth with his thumb and the blade of his knife. The old man watched Kane for a long time, then rose and disappeared over the rise, limping like a man whose wounds gave him no peace.

The coffee helped Kane, or he convinced himself it did. He mounted again and the rest followed. Lorraine's face was haggard with fatigue and Vito and Nellie rode together, saying nothing. Stringfellow stumbled more often and cried out when Kane yanked on the rope and dragged him to his feet.

The day was shading into evening when they crossed the timber bridge over the Arkansas and rode into Fort Smith.

Chapter 32

“Logan, there's a gentleman to see you.”

Lorraine stood at his bedroom door, lit by the sunlight that streamed through the windows. She was wearing a new dress and her hair, just washed, hung over her shoulder in damp golden ringlets.

Kane moved higher on his pillows and rubbed a hand over his stubbled chin. “I don't think I'm ready to see anybody. I'm a sight.”

Lorraine smiled. “It's Judge Parker.”

It had come, the meeting Kane had been dreading. He swallowed and said, “Show him in.”

He looked quickly around him, making sure the furniture was in order. Before he'd left for New Orleans, Vito had rented the house for three months, calling it an early wedding present. It was a sunny, pleasant place and for the past week Kane had enjoyed the birds singing in the piῆons in the yard.

The old man's head appeared in the doorway. “Deputy Marshal Kane, would you think it amiss and me too bold if I entered?”

“No, Judge, not at all.” Kane smiled.

“Please stay, dear lady,” Parker said to Lorraine. “I won't impose on you for long.” He stepped into the room, white haired and dignified, old before his time. “And how is the patient today?” he asked. “Much better than the last time I saw you, I'll be bound.”

“I don't remember anything about that, Judge,” Kane said. He wished he'd had time to shave and trim his mustache.

“Well, you brought in the escaped murderer Buff Stringfellow. Then you collapsed.” Parker shook his head. “It was all very distressing, but now I can see you're on the mend and that pleases me.”

“Stringfellow, is he—”

“He hangs tomorrow morning at ten o'clock. That's partly why I'm here, to see if you wish to attend the execution. The other part is, naturally, that I wanted to check on your welfare.” He smiled at Lorraine and made a courtly little bow. “I can see you are in excellent hands.”

Kane said, “I don't want to see Stringfellow hang. I'm done with him.”

The old judge registered surprise with a raised eyebrow, but said nothing.

“All the others are dead,” Kane said.

“By your hand?”

“Most of them.”

Parker nodded, his tired eyes thoughtful. “You can give me a full report when you get on your feet again.” He stepped to Kane and placed a hand lightly on his shoulder. “We have a difficult job to do here in the Territory, Marshal Kane, and when men die, good and bad, we must live with the consequences.” The old man smiled. “I will not allow myself to judge you too harshly.”

“Lorraine,” Kane said.

The woman walked to the door where Kane's holstered Colt hung. His badge was pinned to the cartridge belt. “Give it to the judge,” he said.

Parker took the gun belt from Lorraine, his face puzzled.

“I'm turning in my star,” Kane said. “The Colt belongs to a dead man, but maybe another marshal will need it sometime.”

Judge Isaac Parker was an intelligent man and he knew it was pointless to argue. “Mr. Kane,” he said, using his civilian title for the first time ever, “this will stay in my desk drawer. If you ever want it back, you know where it is.”

Kane smiled. “Thank you, Judge.”

“Where will you go?”

“Back to Texas.”

“Then all I can say is good luck.” He bowed to Lorraine. “I'm a thoughtless old man and I've imposed on both of you long enough. Dear lady, I wish you good day.”

After the old man left, Lorraine plumped Kane's pillows. He reached out, took her in his arms and kissed her long and passionately. When she broke free of him, the woman said, “Later, Logan. The doctor will be here any minute, though all he'll say is that you're as tough as an old boot and healing well.”

“Lorraine,” Kane said, grinning, “let's get married before we leave for Texas.”

The woman smiled. “Of course, Mr. Kane. I wouldn't have it any other way.”

Historical Note

New Orleans was the first home of the Sicilian Mafia and its roots went all the way back to the War Between the States. By 1881 the Provenzano family, made wealthy and powerful by its control of the docks, pretty much ran the entire New Orleans underworld. (In
The Convict Trail
I slightly changed the spelling of the clan name to protect the guilty.)