Untamed Journey (26 page)

Sue clucked at the horses as they headed up a
particularly steep part of the trail. “It’s true I haven’t known
you long, but I’ve lived many years and have learned how to judge a
person’s character in short order. You work hard and never hesitate
to lend a hand. You had the gumption to follow your dreams out here
and keep on going, even after being held up on a train. You helped
Jackson save some of those passengers, make no mistake about it.
That gang is pure evil, killing for the sake of killing. That means
you’ve got the strength to match Jackson’s. You’re fair and kind.
You didn’t judge Catherine poorly when many so-called ladies would
have. As for honesty, I see shadows in your eyes, but no
meanness.”

Ruth glanced away, unable to maintain eye
contact.

“I know you’ve got a past. Maybe one you’re
not proud of and feel a need to hide. And that’s your right. The
same could be said of everyone here, including me – including
Jackson. He did some things in the War he’s never spoken about
since. Not once to me, to his brother, or to Old Mike. It doesn’t
make him a liar or a cheat to have done bad things. All men are
capable of doing bad things when the world’s gone to hell. Women,
too. Just don’t let that guilt poison your future. If you can grab
one, don’t hesitate. Life’s too short. And Jackson won’t wait
forever.”

“W
e’ve been waiting
going on forever for someone to show up. I think the Widow Thornton
was telling tales just to get a look at you in your long underwear,
old man.” Emmett didn’t bother muffling his laugh, figuring they
had been misled.

“Patience, boy, patience,” Mike cautioned.
“Your brother has gone to the Widow Thornton before, and she hasn’t
let us down yet. She might be a bit touched in the head when I’m in
the room, but her information is rock solid.”

“Old man, if I didn’t know any better, I’d
think you were just a bit flattered by your ability to distract our
zealous queen from her mission.”

The smallest grin showed through the gap in
the old man’s front teeth, courtesy of a jealous husband some
twenty years before. “A body never gets too old to appreciate a bit
of genuine flattery.”

Emmett started to reply when he caught
movement out of the corner of his eye. He signaled Mike to
immediate silence and both grew perfectly still, allowing only eye
movement to scan their surroundings.

Mike tapped Emmett on the hand when he
spotted the approaching riders.

There were three armed men, riding single
file. They were approaching at a slow pace from the southwest.

Emmett quickly absorbed the fact that two of
the riders were armed with repeating rifles, and the third carried
a six shooter. Although the men were well armed, their horses
walked sluggishly, with heads bowed and unsteady feet. The fools
had stopped to buy more ammunition and fix a bent shoe, but failed
to properly rest their horses.

Emmett recognized the immediate advantage, as
he and Mike had re-mounted fresh horses at the insistence of the
blacksmith. Sven had not wanted his efforts to go in vain, so had
loaned them the mounts at no charge.

The extra speed had allowed them to take a
chance and ride ahead of the tracks they’d followed from the
blacksmith’s place. There were only two likely locations for the
outlaws to hole up and wait for the rest of their men. The first
was too close to the main trail to be a good bet. It was an
abandoned railroad stop that many settlers used as a rest stop to
water and feed stock as they took their wagons west.

The only alternative was a dugout that sat at
the edge of Indian Territory. Its location kept it unused most
nights. Only the occasional lost traveler, surprised by bad
weather, would stay over until better conditions allowed them to
head in the other direction.

He and Mike had bet on it being a worthwhile
risk for men being pursued by the law. They had gone to ground for
the past six hours, waiting to see if they’d guessed right.

Mike had chosen their location. It placed any
rider heading from the main trail to the dugout along a course that
edged a steep ravine, too sandy to safely travel on horseback.

The three riders took the direct route as
expected, placing them with their backs to the ravine and directly
in Mike and Emmett’s line of sight.

Emmett looked to Mike for the go ahead. When
he got the nod, he yelled out the required warning. “Stop where you
are. This is the Marshal Service and we’re taking you into
custody.”

The Mexican was the quickest to react. He
slid off his horse, using the animal for cover as his two
companions opened fire. The two end riders stayed mounted while
they fired off several rounds with their repeating rifles.

Mike took careful aim and plucked the closest
man from his saddle with one shot. Five wild shots in rapid
succession were still misses, and no match for one carefully placed
bullet from his trusted musket.

The horse of Bear Standish froze when Mike’s
kill shot whizzed by and outright panicked when his foolish rider
dug in his spurs. The horse bolted and quickly lost his footing in
the sandy clay along the ravine’s edge. Horse and rider tumbled
over, crashing straight into the Mexican, who was on foot, firing
off shots from his pistol over the back of his horse.

Emmett mounted his well-trained horse in one
leap and charged the flailing mass of horseflesh and outlaws. He
closed the gap in three quick strides and had both men dead in
their tracks with his shotgun cocked and ready. “Don’t move, or
you’ll join your friend over there,” he warned.

Mike ran up from the left side, closing off
any possible escape route save a hundred-foot drop onto jagged
rocks.

“Weapons on the ground, or we’ll gut shoot
you here and leave you to rot for the winter,” Mike warned as he
closed the distance to the men.

Bear dropped his rifle immediately, having
seen first-hand the effects of gangrene. His great strength had
earned him a spot for most of the War carting wounded men to the
nearest field hospital where ninety percent would lie in the muggy
heat while their wounds festered in the mud. He had an irrational
fear of gangrene. To this day, he’d break out in a cold sweat at
the smell of rotten meat.

The Mexican remained on the ground, already
unarmed when Bear’s horse ran him down. “You fool! We could have
taken them.”

“Don’t want to die slowly. You heard
them.”

“They will not shoot you in cold blood,” the
Mexican scoffed. “They cannot. Not with those tin stars pinned to
their chests. Besides, you are already bleeding.”

Bear looked himself over and saw a slow
trickle of blood leaking down his left boot. He quickly sat down
and pulled off his boot to assess the damage.

Mike rounded up their guns. He unloaded them
and packed them into his saddlebags.

“That wound looks pretty bad, Bear,” Emmett
remarked, as he slowly rolled himself a smoke. “We should get you
to a doctor, quick, before it starts to putrefy.”

Bear couldn’t hide the beads of sweat that
started to trickle down from the brim of his hat.

“You keep your mouth shut, you hear me Bear?”
the Mexican hissed. “That is just a scratch. You will be fine. They
have to take us over to the Fort and they have doctors there that
can fix you up.”

Mike accepted Emmett’s offer of a cigarette,
shaking his head. “No sir. I know for a fact the Doc’s doing the
circuit. Snow’s comin’ soon and he always makes a last round of the
farms that’ll get packed in for the duration. I expect by now he’s
a good three days ride from the Fort.”

“That’s five days from here, Bear,” Emmett
added. “I doubt that’ll be soon enough to help you.”

Bear started wiping nervously at his wound,
as the voices of dying men cried out in his head.

“Bear, your friend here is right,” Mike
continued. “We’re lawmen – sworn to protect decent folk. Now, if
you was to tell us who your leader is – who’s been planning all
these robberies - why, you’d be on the road to redemption. And then
I’d have to help you, just like the Señor said.”

“Keep quiet, or you will die worse at Smith’s
hands,” the Mexican warned.

Bear couldn’t muster much fear of Jasper
Smith, when the smell of his own blood was fresh and his pain was
mounting.

“We just need a name,” Mike cajoled. “This
outlaw ain’t your friend. He’ll turn on you, if we offer him the
same deal. It’s easy for him to be strong now – he’s not
hurtin’.”

Emmett walked over to his saddlebags and
methodically began pulling out and assembling a syringe and
bandages.

Bear recognized the tools, and a desperate
hope drew air into his constricted lungs.

“I’ve got morphine, Bear. Just one dose,
though. You understand that it’s near impossible to get out here,
with the shortages from the War.”

“The Doc, if we can even find him in time,
ain’t going to waste his good morphine on a no-account murderer and
train robber,” Mike warned. “Not when some birthing mother or a
hard-working farmer needs it instead. This’ll be your only chance.
If you have this to dull the pain, we can get you to the Fort
quicker. If you’re in pain, you’ll just slow us down.”

“They are trying to trick you, Señor Bear,”
his partner insisted. “You tell them what they want and they will
just leave us both here to die like dogs.”

“You’re the one who’ll leave me here to die,”
Bear whispered, almost to himself. “You might escape. You’re not
hurt and would just ride off without me.”

“That’s smart thinking, Bear. We have to keep
you alive and well to testify. You’re no good to us dead,” Mike
promised.

Emmett finished binding the Mexican’s hands
and feet. He hefted him over one of the mounts, not caring how he
kept his saddle.

“Your turn, big man,” Emmett sighed. He
secured Bear’s hands, making note of the prisoner’s sweaty palms.
He deliberately left the man’s feet un-bound, knowing the effort of
mounting a horse properly would hurt more.

“Get up there. You’re coming with us, one way
or the other.”

Bear took a deep breath, pulling on his last
reserves of strength. He’d almost convinced himself he could make
it to the Fort without saying a word, until he placed his great
weight on his wounded foot. The scream of pain startled the horse
and made him bolt, catching Bear’s boot in the stirrup.

Emmett couldn’t break the giant’s fall
without risking injury himself, so Bear tumbled to the ground. He
was dragged a good ten feet before Emmett pulled in the horse’s
lead line.

Emmett approached Bear and gently untangled
his now fully-bloodied foot. “Near as I can tell, you not only have
a bullet lodged in your lower leg, but now you’ve broken your
ankle. You either have to mount again, or stop this foolishness and
let us help you.” The lawman stated his ultimatum plainly, not
finding much sympathy for the lazy murderer before him.

“Give me the morphine. Please. I can’t stand
it. I can’t stand it.” Bear was nearly crying now, as the bullet
scraped his broken bone.

“Give us the name, first,” Emmett quietly
demanded.

“Smith - It’s Jasper Smith who gives us
orders.”

Emmett injected the morphine, and Bear
slipped off into blissful nothingness.

“We should have tied him to the horse first,”
Mike complained, as they struggled to get their witness
mounted.

“He’s a big one.”

R
uth would never
forget the first time she rolled into Fort Lyon. Her imagination
had conjured up a tightly-run, highly-secure, all-military
establishment. What she saw instead was a chaotic mix of civilian
and military buildings, slapped loosely together into every
available space within the perimeter wall.

As they rolled their wagon up to the gate,
they found it propped wide open with folks coming and going at
will, all hurrying to their destination. Although there were two
soldiers manning the gate, they seemed more interested in the fancy
ladies hawking their wares from a red silk covered wagon than in
who was coming or going into the Fort.

“Are those Indians living here?” Ruth asked
Sue, surprised at the sight of five teepees located not ten yards
from the Fort’s perimeter.

Sue nodded. “They’ve been wintering there
five, maybe six years that I can remember. They’re mostly
stragglers from lost tribes, just trying to make their way in the
world. The Indians living on reservations won’t often take in
members from other tribes. The government just ignores the fact
that a man’s not likely to live peaceably with a tribe that was his
bitter enemy less than twenty years ago. So a few have made their
way here for trade, and found the Colonel in charge to be a
practical man. He told them to set up camp. Last I heard he hires
them on occasion to translate, or track down fugitives for the
Marshal Service.”

“People aren’t afraid?” Ruth asked in genuine
bewilderment. “I always heard the battles with the Indians were
never ending.”

“That was definitely the truth twenty years
ago, when Jackson’s daddy was working for the army. Maybe still
partially the truth up until the War started. Then I saw most of
the battle-hungry men leave for back East. The officers who stayed
behind were practical types – clerks and merchants at heart, rather
than born-and-bred soldiers. They just wanted things to run
smoothly and quietly and not stir up trouble with the natives.
Added to that, the Union Army didn’t want to be battling two
enemies at once, so orders came west to make peace with the local
tribes. That’s when Colonel Roe was put in charge. The first thing
he did was persuade a handful of Indians to put up camp here as a
signal that the Fort was a safe haven. Soon after, this place went
from being a Fort to the closest thing we have to a town for a
hundred miles.”