The Killing Season (2 page)

“When a man pulls a gun on you, always shoot to kill. Let him live, and the first chance he gets, he'll show his gratitude by shootin' you in the back.”

“Bill was right, Cotton Blossom,” Nathan said. “Even if he fails to bushwhack me, he can always claim that my hand wasn't steady or that I was afraid of him ...”

As he had done so often, Nathan allowed his mind to wander back over the years, to that bleak day in January 1866. Ragged, hungry, afoot, he had returned to his fire-ravaged home near Charlottesville, Virginia, following two long years in Libby Prison in Richmond. Old Malachi, an aged Negro, had lived long enough to describe and name the seven renegades who had murdered Nathan's mother, father, and sister. Swearing a vow of vengeance on his father's grave, Nathan had taken the trail of the killers, following it west. His constant companion had been Cotton Blossom, the only living reminder of a past that had been lost to him forever. Reaching St. Louis, Nathan had become involved with young Molly Tremayne, only to lose her when he had again taken up the vengeance trail. While he had never gotten over Molly, he had never tried to reclaim her, for their parting had been bitter. So he had never learned that pretty Molly had died less than a year after his leaving, having given birth to his son....

In a little Missouri town, Nathan had found and had killed the first of the seven men on his death list. In Waco, Texas, dealing faro, he had found himself in an uncomfortable position when the three unwed daughters of the saloon owner had set out to trap him. He had escaped, only to find himself pursued by Eulie, the eldest of the trio. Unable to rid himself of her, he had made the best of it. Eulie had dressed as a man, had called herself Eli, and had proven her ability to ride, rope, and shoot. Nathan's manhunt had led him to New Orleans, and there Eulie had so impressed Barnaby McQueen with her horse savvy that McQueen had persuaded her to remain at his ranch, gentling a horse. Nathan had begun spending his time in New Orleans saloons, seeking some word of the men on his death list.

On a New Orleans street, Nathan had gone to the aid of a stranger, and as a result, had gunned down two killers employed by Hargis Gavin, owner of a New Orleans gambling empire. Byron Silver, the stranger whom Nathan had befriended, had been associated with French Stumberg, owner of his own gambling houses and archenemy of Gavin. Stumberg, from what Nathan had learned, harbored two of the killers on Nathan's death list, so when Byron Silver had persuaded Stumberg to hire Nathan, Nathan had taken the job. But Nathan quickly learned three things. The first and most disturbing had been Stumberg's involvement in white slavery, the selling of young women in Mexico. Second, Nathan had found Stumberg intended to win a horse race—a race in which Eulie was determined to ride a McQueen horse—by ambushing certain riders. Finally, Nathan had learned Byron Silver was an undercover agent from Washington, seeking to trap French Stumberg. The day of the horse race, Eulie had been shot out of the saddle and had died. Byron Silver had been wounded, leaving only Nathan to prevent the escape of Stumberg and his killers, and Nathan had accomplished that by blowing up Stumberg's steamboat, with the gambler and his killers aboard.

Nathan had left New Orleans, having learned that one of the killers he had believed was with Stumberg was riding with the notorious Cullen Baker. Baker and his gang had been reported in Arkansas, and Nathan had ridden to Fort Smith. Offered the badge of a deputy U.S. marshal, Nathan had accepted it, awaiting Baker's next foray into Arkansas. Eventually he had confronted the Baker gang, killing two of the outlaws. One of them was a killer from Nathan's death list.

Returning to Texas, five men still to be found, Nathan had paused in Lexington, where he had become friends with Viola Hayden and her father, Jesse. Viola had been set to ride Daybreak, her big gray, in a race with odds against him of twenty-to-one. On impulse, Nathan had bet five hundred dollars on the horse, but after collecting his winnings—ten thousand dollars-had been forced to shoot his way out of an ambush. While in Lexington, Nathan had met Texas Ranger Captain Sage Jennings. From the ranger, Nathan had learned that two of the killers he sought had left Texas, apparently bound for Indian Territory. Following, Nathan had gunned one of the men down, taking from him a young girl, Lacy Mayfield. From Lacy Nathan had learned that the man he had killed had been on his way to Colorado. Nathan, taking the girl with him, had ridden to Colorado. Reaching Denver, he found that the killers he sought had ridden south to Ciudad de Oro, a mining town. Leaving Lacy at a Denver boardinghouse, Nathan had ridden south, finding and gunning down one of the killers on his death list. There, however, Nathan had been given a false lead that had taken him to Austin, Texas, while the killer he sought had gone to Fort Dodge and eventually to Denver.

Reaching Austin, Nathan had found Viola Hayden working in a saloon, destitute, her father dead at the hands of the man who had lost ten thousand dollars to Nathan just a few months before. Despite Nathan's efforts to save the girl, she had shot the man who she believed had killed her father and had then shot herself. Returning to Colorado, Nathan had found Lacy Mayfield involved with the owner of a saloon, a man Nathan had learned was one of the killers on his death list. In the fight that followed, Lacy had been gunned down by the outlaw when she had come between him and Nathan's gun. Thus it had been a bitter victory, the killing of this fifth man, for he had taken Lacy with him. While in Denver, Nathan had become friends with Wild Bill Hickok, and when Hickok had ridden east to Hays, Kansas, Nathan had ridden with him. Nathan had spent a few days with Hickok, until he had been elected sheriff. Nathan had then ridden to Kansas City, uncertain as to how and where he would find the last two men on his death list.

In a Kansas City newspaper, Nathan had seen a reward dodger that had been widely circulated by the Pinkertons on Frank and Jesse James. Among the names of men who had ridden with the infamous outlaws, Nathan had found the name of one of the killers he sought. Following a bank robbery by the James gang, Nathan had found the hideout of the outlaws and had led a sheriffs posse to it. While Frank and Jesse had escaped, Nathan had confronted the man he had sworn to kill and had forced a shootout. At loose ends, not knowing where he might find the seventh man, Nathan answered an advertisement in a Kansas City newspaper and took a position with the Kansas-Pacific Railroad between Kansas City and Hays. It had been his duty to repair telephone lines torn down by Indians or outlaws and to warn train crews of damaged track. After serving with distinction for a few months, Nathan had resigned because he had seen nor heard nothing of the seventh and last man he had sworn to kill. Riding south into Indian Territory, he had been taken prisoner by the ruthless El Gato and his band of thieves and killers.

Nathan had soon learned that the killer he sought was not among the renegades, and as he plotted his escape, he had learned that El Gato had a girl he planned to sell into slavery, in Mexico. Talking to her, Nathan had learned that her name was Mary Holden, that she longed to escape. But before Nathan could make a move, he had been forced to ride with El Gato and his outlaws on a winter raid into Kansas. Slipping away during a blizzard, Nathan had returned to El Gato's camp, overpowering the two men El Gato had left behind. He had then taken Mary south, to Fort Worth, Texas. Nathan had been in Texas often enough to have become friends with the post commander, Captain Ferguson, and the officer, assuming Mary was Nathan's wife, had assigned them a cabin. By the time Nathan and Mary had left Forth Worth, riding north, Nathan Stone had done the very thing he had vowed never again to do. He had become involved with a woman, more committed than he had ever been, but still burdened with his oath to kill the last of the seven renegades who had murdered his family in Virginia.

While at Forth Worth, Nathan had learned by telegraph that Texas outlaw John Wesley Hardin had been involved in shootings in several south Texas towns and was believed to be riding north. One of several men who had been riding with Hardin had been identified as Dade Withers, the seventh and last man on Nathan's death list. He and Mary had ridden to Fort Dodge and then to Hays without finding a trace of Hardin. Fifty miles east of Hays, on their way to Abilene, they had ridden into a holdup involving a Kansas-Pacific train. As he had traded lead with the outlaws, Nathan had been seriously wounded. But the train crew had remembered him from his Kansas-Pacific days, and taking Mary and the wounded Nathan aboard, had reversed the train and backed it to Abilene. The railroad, grateful for Nathan's daring, had paid all his medical bills and presented him with a reward. When he had recovered, he had been offered the task of taking a posse after the outlaws, for they had become an expensive nuisance, destroying track and stopping trains bearing army payrolls. But Nathan had declined, determined to find that seventh man, so the Kansas-Pacific had hired other men to trail the train robbers.

Again Nathan had taken Hardin's trail, and he had found evidence that the outlaw and his companions had reached Wichita with a trail herd. But there the men had split up, and Nathan had trailed Dade Withers west, knowing only that the man rode a horse with an XIT brand. Reaching Fort Dodge, Nathan and Mary had learned that a lone outlaw had robbed the mercantile at Dodge City, just west of the fort. At the mercantile, Nathan had learned the outlaw had ridden south on a horse bearing an XIT brand. He had not been followed, for he had struck exactly at sundown, so when Nathan had taken the trail the next day at first light, it had been easily followed. But the lone rider had traveled less than a mile when he had been surrounded by others. He had ridden away with the larger band and Nathan had followed them all south until they had crossed the Cimarron, into Indian Territory. Thus the seventh man on Nathan Stone's death list had become part of El Gato's band of renegades.

Riding to Kansas City, Nathan had agreed to pursue the outlaws on behalf of the Kansas-Pacific Railroad, but learned something that stopped him in his tracks. Mary Holden was expecting his child, and he had set aside everything else to marry the girl. But Mary had refused to remain safely in Kansas City, insisting on staying at Fort Dodge until Nathan and his posse had captured the band of renegades. But the outlaws always escaped into Indian Territory, leaving Nathan frustrated. Unknown to Nathan, El Gato had been sending a man to Fort Dodge to look and listen, and the outlaw chieftain had learned that Mary—his former captive—was there. Nathan had become fed up with railroad methods and had ridden to Hays. From there he had taken a train to Kansas City to resign from the railroad posse. Awaiting just such an opportunity, that very morning El Gato's men had stolen Mary away from the fort and had taken her into the wilds of Indian Territory, to the outlaw stronghold. Only Cotton Blossom, Nathan's hound, had followed.

Learning that Mary had been abducted, the post commander at Fort Dodge had telegraphed the Kansas-Pacific office in Kansas City. Nathan immediately had engaged a locomotive and tender for an emergency run to Hays. From there, he had ridden to Fort Dodge, arriving after dark. He had learned that a party of soldiers had gone after Mary, only to be ambushed. Nathan had then ridden out alone, to find Cotton Blossom awaiting him near the Cimarron. With the dog guiding him, he had ridden into Indian Territory and had found the outlaw camp. In the darkness of El Gato's cabin, he had killed the outlaw leader in a knife fight, only to learn that the renegades—a dozen strong—had already ravaged and murdered Mary. Grief and rage had taken control of Nathan Stone, and he had burst into the outlaw bunkhouse, his Winchester blazing. He had gunned down ten of the outlaws—including Dade Withers—but had been so severely wounded he had been in danger of bleeding to death. He had been saved only because Cotton Blossom had returned to the fort and had been able to attract the attention of the soldiers.

Healed in body but sick to his soul, Nathan had ridden to Kansas City, only to learn the newspapers had created him an unwanted reputation as a fast gun, a gunfighter. The Kansas-Pacific had released an etching of him, and his reputation seemed to have spread throughout the frontier. In one town after another, he had been forced into gunfights to save his own life, with each new killing adding to the deadly legend. Finally, in the fall of 1872, he had managed to drop out of sight. Riding south to New Orleans, he had found refuge with Barnaby and Bess McQueen, who had befriended him and Eulie so long ago. There he had remained until the last week in February 1873. Finally he had ridden away, hopeful of escaping his past, only to find it stalking him like the pale horse. There in the street of this little Texas town he had been forced to face up to the awful truth. He was a marked man. While he had fulfilled his promise to his dead father, it now seemed a hollow victory, as he thought of what it had cost him. His vendetta had led to a bitter parting with Molly Tremayne, in St. Louis. He had been hell-bent on going to New Orleans, and it was there that Eulie had been shot. His winning—and taking—ten thousand dollars had cost Viola Hayden her father, driving her to murder and suicide. Lacy Mayfield had been gunned down trying to save one of the very men Nathan had sworn to kill. Poor Mary had suffered a horrible death in Indian Territory only because she had wished to be near him. He groaned, for their faces seemed to have been burned into his mind with a hot iron, and he couldn't escape them. Sensing his anguish, Cotton Blossom came near. He scratched the dog's ears, thankful for his faithfulness, feeling even that was more than he deserved.

For a long time Nathan lay looking at the silver stars in the purple of the sky, until he finally slept. Sometime after midnight something awakened him, and he realized it had been the rattle of dry leaves, as Cotton Blossom had gotten to his feet. It was in the small hours of the night, when every sound was magnified many times, and it was all the warning Nathan Stone had. With the snick of an eared-back hammer, he was moving, rolling away from his saddle, palming a Colt. There was a roar from the surrounding thicket and two slugs slammed into Nathan's saddle. He fired three times. Once at the muzzle flash, once to the left, and once to the right. There were no more shots, and there was a rustle of leaves as Cotton Blossom trotted toward the thicket. Nathan followed, and taking the dead man by the ankles, dragged him out into the clearing. The moon had risen, and with the starlight Nathan had no trouble identifying the man.