Ralph Compton The Convict Trail (4 page)

His useless legs dangling, Hook managed to lift himself onto the wagon gate. Behind the man, Kane saw a couple of blanket-covered pallets and an oil lamp. Only a small part of the wagon was covered, but it looked dry and snug enough.

“Thanks for the help, Kane,” Hook said, his tone spiteful.

The marshal grinned under his dripping mustache and waved a careless hand. “Anytime.” He pointed to Hook's scowling face. “The sovereign remedy fer them burn blisters is fresh butter. If you got none o' that, then axle grease will do in a pinch.”

He'd tried to sound relaxed, but as he walked away from the wagon, the skin on his back felt like it was crawling with ants.

 

“We're winning, Logan.” Sam Shaver grinned when Kane took a knee beside him. “The young 'un's fever is down fer sure.”

Kane felt the girl's forehead. “Uh-huh, it certainly is,” he said. He looked at Lorraine and smiled. “I'd say Nellie is going to be all right.”

“Thanks to you two,” the woman said. “I'll be beholden to you forever.”

The child's eyes were open and now she was aware of where she was. She looked up at her mother. “Ma, I don't like it here in the water. I'm cold.”

“She'll do.” Sam grinned. He said to Lorraine, “If'n I recollect rightly, that cavalry doctor said it was dangerous to warm up the Comanche young 'uns too fast after their fevers broke. He wrapped them loose in a blanket and let them set thataway fer an hour or more.” His eyes shifted to Kane. “Logan, we have dry blankets in the wagon.”

“I'll get one,” Kane said, wondering at how easily he had adapted to the change from gun-handy lawman to sick child's nurse. There was, he decided, no end to life's strangeness.

The thunderstorm was moving, flashing and grumbling to the south, but the rain was still falling, heavy and relentless. Kane was soaked to the skin and he shivered in the cool wind. Suddenly he found himself yearning for the comfort of his own blankets, wet or no.

Tired as he was, he had a feeling the dream would not disturb his sleep tonight. He hoped not. He wished for it to stay far away from him and eventually lose itself in memories.

The prison wagon was a converted Mitchell and Lewis Company farm wagon that had been fitted with a wrought-iron cage and hinged door made by a Fort Smith blacksmith. The man had been paid sixty dollars for the work, the money coming out of Judge Parker's own pocket. The comfort of prisoners was not a consideration and the wagon box was only ten feet long and forty inches wide. Like old Charlie Goodnight's famous chuck wagons, it had a box for supplies and a boot to the rear featuring a number of shelves and drawers to hold what Sam Shaver would need to feed the prisoners. A water barrel big enough to hold a two-day supply was roped to the side of the wagon along with a shovel, pick and the precious American Enterprise coffee grinder.

Since wood was often hard to find on the trail, Sam had slung a canvas under the wagon hammock-style where he could throw any fuel he collected during each day's drive. There was also a wagon box where he and Kane kept their bedrolls, spare blankets and shackles. No bedding was provided for prisoners.

The wagon was sturdily built and was fitted with steel axles that could last up to five months on the trail, as marshals and drivers often stayed out that long. Judge Parker had written a letter to the Mitchell and Lewis Company declaring that their wagon was “a marvel of modern engineering, first-rate in every way.” What his prisoners thought of the prison wagon has not been recorded.

Kane took a folded blanket from the wagon box and bent over, holding it against his chest to protect it from the hammering rain.

He handed the blanket to Lorraine. “It's dry, mostly.” The woman lifted her daughter from the creek and wrapped her in the blanket.

“Remember, don't get her too warm, ma'am,” Sam said.

Kane helped the woman to her feet. “I'll walk you back to your wagon.”

The marshal held Lorraine's elbow as they made their way to the wagon, stepping through darkness and rain. Lightning shimmered to the south, but the voice of the thunder was stilled.

“Brung you back your woman, Hook,” Kane said when he reached the tailgate. “Make room there.”

Grudgingly the man made a space. He glanced at Nellie. “She all right?”

“Her fever is down,” Lorraine answered, attempting a smile that quickly died on her lips.

“Woman, you ever disobey me again, I'll throw you and the brat out, no matter where we are, desert, mountain, swamp, wherever,” Hook said. “Without me you'd both starve to death in weeks.”

Lorraine's face didn't change, but her eyes were wounded, lifeless. She handed Kane his slicker, then took her place on the pallet beside her husband and bent her head to the child, whispering soothing words.

“Lorraine,” Hook snapped, “did you hear me?”

“I heard you, Barnabas,” the woman said quietly.

The man grabbed a handful of his wife's hair and forced her to look at him. His red, blistered face was twisted in fury. “Then heed me well. You were a two-dollar whore before I took you in and I can send you back to being a whore tomorrow.”

“I'm sorry, Barnabas,” Lorraine said meekly. “I promise, I'll heed you from now on.”

Kane had seen enough. It was not his place to intervene between husband and wife. He stepped away from the wagon and walked into the night, the rain hissing around him like an angry dragon.

Why had Lorraine married such a man? Was it an act of desperation by a woman who reckoned her child needed a father?

Kane had no answers and he tried to dismiss the woman from his mind. She was none of his business and he had problems enough facing him. The day after tomorrow he'd take custody of six dangerous killers. It was nearly 250 miles to Fort Smith, and not a single yard of it would be easy. Now was not the time to think about a woman, and a married one at that.

The marshal smiled, rain beating on his lean, leathery face. As a youngster he'd pushed cattle along the Chisholm and Western trails, routes first forged by others. But now he was about to pioneer his own trail—northeast across plains, mountains and rivers, a dust-and-cuss journey across an unforgiving land that offered nothing except a hundred different ways to kill a man. With an empty wagon, plenty of supplies and good weather, the trip south from Fort Smith had been relatively uneventful. But heading back would be different now that fall was starting to crack down hard. Buff Stringfellow and his boys were no bargains either. Six desperate men who would do anything to escape the noose would be a handful.

“I'm blazing the Convict Trail,” Kane said to himself.

Despite its dire implications, he liked the sound of that.

Chapter 4

Kane and Sam bedded down in the wagon, their slickers spread on top of the cage to keep out the worst of the rain that continued to fall ceaselessly. They spent an uncomfortable night and slumbered little, but the dream had stayed away and for that Kane was grateful.

The dawn shaded gray from night and when the marshal woke from a shallow sleep, Sam was already up and had coffee on the fire.

“They're pullin' out, Logan,” the old man said as Kane joined him, stretching knots out of his back.

“So I see,” the marshal said. He glanced at the Hook wagon and then the ashen sky. “At least the rain has quit.”

“For a spell at least,” Sam said. His eyes lifted slyly to Kane. “Sleep all right, Marshal?”

“Did I call out?”

“Nah. Not a sound. First time in a while, mind you.”

“Then I slept all right.”

Kane squatted and built his first cigarette of the day. The trees around him were ticking water and the creek had spilled over its banks, swollen by the storm. The air was cool and smelled of dampness and decaying vegetation.

Lorraine had hitched the Percherons, and Hook was up on the box, the reins in his hands. The man had some kind of grease on his face, and the eyes he turned to Kane were cold and hostile.

Sam saw it and said, “Step careful around that man, Logan.”

“He don't worry me none.”

“He should. He's a back-shooter, an' you can take that to the bank.”

Kane thumbed a match into flame and lit his smoke. Lorraine, smiling, was walking toward him.

“Nellie is resting,” she said. “I want to thank both of you for saving her life.” The woman kissed Sam on the cheek, then got up on her toes and did the same to Kane. “I'll never forget you, Marshal,” she said.

Kane shook his head, his eyes questioning. “Lorraine, why that man?”

The woman took the question in stride, showing no surprise. “Barnabas told the truth. I was working the line in Abilene when he found me. He married me and gave my daughter his name.”

“Nellie Hook,” Kane said. “Was it worth it?”

Lorraine took a quick glance over her shoulder, then turned back to the tall lawman. “Logan, look at me. I'm a homely woman, no great catch. When Barnabas asked me to be his wife I jumped at the chance. I was already getting too old to work the line, so what was ahead of me? A hog ranch at best, dead from disease or some drunken cowboy at worst. What would happen to my child then?”

Lorraine unbuttoned the top of the shirt she was wearing and pushed it off her shoulder. Her skin was laced all over with the pale scars of bite marks. “Is living with Barnabas really any worse than this?”

Kane was shocked into silence, the tracery of arced scars more eloquent than any of the woman's words. Finally he managed, “Lorraine, I'm sorry. I'm not by inclination a questioning man.”

The woman buttoned her shirt. “You got nothing to be sorry for, Marshal. You didn't put the scars there. Men who visit girls on the line act like animals.” She shrugged. “And animals bite. I reckon it's just a fact of nature.”

Sam had been listening and watching, and now he said, “Coffee's biled, ma'am, if you'd care fer a cup.”

Lorraine shook her head. “No thank you, Sam. I have to get back. Barnabas is eager to leave.”

“Where you headed?” Kane asked.

“The Territory.”

“Them's badlands up there, ma'am,” Kane said. “It just ain't safe for a lone man to be travelin' with a woman and child. What's your husband's line o' work anyhow?”

The woman's quick eyes revealed her unease. “Marshal, maybe you should ask him your ownself.”

“Logan, if'n you won't, I will,” Sam said. “Why would a crippled man take a white woman and her young daughter into the Indian Territory? It don't make a lick o' sense.”

“No, it don't,” Kane agreed. “Maybe I can talk to him.”

A painful look crossed Lorraine's face and she laid her fingertips on Kane's arm. “Be careful. Barnabas loaded his shotgun again.”

The marshal smiled and touched his hat. “It always pays to be careful, ma'am.”

Hook's welcome was less than cordial. “What the hell do you want, Kane?”

“Your woman says you're taking her and Nellie into the Territory. Is that wise?”

“What business is it of your'n?”

Kane pulled back his vest, uncovering the star pinned to his gun belt. “This makes it my business.”

For a few moments Hook was silent, making up his mind about something. His scattergun was beside him, propped against the seat. Finally he said, “All right, then I'll let you meddle in my affairs for the last time.” He motioned with a hand to the wagon bed. “The wooden box back there behind the seat—open it up, see what you see and be damned to ye fer a bad egg.”

Ken stepped behind Hook and found a box of rough-planed mahogany. He lifted the lid on the box and looked inside. A dozen hemp ropes were neatly coiled, already noosed with the hangman's knot and next to them, made from rough cotton, was a pile of black hoods. A worn Bible lay on top of lengths of rope long enough to bind a man's hands and feet, and under those lay a .38 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver.

Kane stepped to the driver's seat again, puzzled. “What the hell are you?”

“Ain't it obvious?”

“No, tell me.”

“I'm what you might call a traveling hangman. That's why I'm bound for the Indian Territory.”

“Judge Parker administers the Territory and he has his own hangman.”

“I'm aware of that. But you'd be surprised how many settlements need a helping hand. In every town there's always somebody nobody likes or a troublemaker who keeps getting into scrapes or a nuisance that's tetched in the head. It makes folks feel real good about themselves to hire me and know they're hanging a man legal-like.”

Kane's eyes hardened. “You don't have a legal right to hang a man in the Territory.”

“Damned if I don't. I got me a letter signed by a federal judge in Texas giving me the legal right to hang a man in any state, territory or protectorate where our flag flies.”

“Hook, that letter isn't worth the paper it's written on. You know that.”

“The hell it isn't.”

“You paid some drunken old judge to write it.”

“That's neither here nor there. It's a legal document an' nobody has ever questioned it before, 'cept you.”

“How many men have you murdered with a rope, Hook?”

The man looked sly, warning Kane what to expect. “Legally executed, you mean. At last count, twenty-seven men and one woman. Each and every one of them a thief, murderer or no-account.”

“How can a cripple in a wheelchair hang grown men?”

Hook smiled. “The locals haul me up the gallows steps and then I make the condemned kneel for the noose. Once they're cut down to size, I can get to their necks just fine.”