Vengeance Trail (17 page)

Just walking down the middle of the street, well-heeled, with the Colt on his hip and the Winchester balanced in his hand,
was beginning to make him feel like a true lawman.

She billed herself as
THE YALLAR ROSE
, and she was the largest soiled dove that ever escaped a gilded cage: three-hundred pounds of Chinese and Mexican with a
face as round as a fry pan, arms as big as a miner’s thighs, and feet so dainty that no one could understand how they held
her up.

She plied her trade in the Black Moon Club on Second Street. It was the best low place in the Nations and every evening it
was beset by the crashing of piano keys under the brown worn fingers of a Negro in a straw boater, blue smoke, the high-pitched
laughter of parlor girls, and on occasion, the bang of gunfire.

The Black Moon Club was the sort of place that Eli Stagg knew he could cut the wolf loose in after a long hard ride. And when
he spotted the Yallar Rose, he knew he had fallen into good fortune.

He saw her sitting in a chair that seemed lost beneath her bulk, talking to a pair of miners, a cowboy and an Indian. It did
not deter his attraction.

“I am Al Freemont and I’m a Federal Marshal,” he announced, over the protesting glances of her court. He pulled the badge
out of his pocket and showed it to her, to her audience as well. They suddenly found other places they thought they should
be.

She turned her attention toward him. Aside from the powdered face and cheeks rouged as red as apples, she had eyes as black
as a horse-thief’s heart.

Upon giving the mountain man the once over, she cried out in a high thin voice: “Waugh, did you come here to arrest me or
to screw me?” And then she laughed in a way that shook her entire body and threatened to bust out the sides of the velvet
dress she was wearing.

He knew right off he was consorting with the devil. He liked everything about her.

“Ain’t never seen no woman like you,” he said.

“That’s ’cause there ain’t no other woman like me, Marshal.”

“That’s a fact. How about splitting a bottle of champagne?”

“Well gosh and be damned, if you ain’t the one,” she said. The red parting of her lips showed that her teeth had seen better
days.

He ordered up a bottle of house champagne and blew the cork clear to the ceiling. It bubbled out of the bottle and spilled
over his fingers as he poured it into glasses.

She drank the first glass down in a gulp, and so did he. He poured another and she did the same.

“What’s a high-toned woman like you doing in the Nations?” he asked.

“Same as everyone else, I just wound up here on my way to someplace else.”

“Well have another drink and let’s talk business.”

“Exactly what kind of business did you have in mind, honey?”

“The kind I believe you are selling.”

“You ain’t exactly a romantic man, I can see that,” she said, reaching for the bottle of champagne and refilling her glass.

“And you ain’t exactly somebody’s bride,” he said, foregoing the glass and tipping the bottle directly to his mouth.

“How much you willing to pay for the Yallar Rose?” she asked.

“Well honey, if you ain’t chargin’ by the pound, I reckon I can pay the freight. How much?”

“Judging by the dust on you britches, I’d say it’s been a time since you had a woman,” she said. “I reckon a man whose gone
so long without a woman ought to be willing to pay thirty dollars for the privilege of being with the Yallar Rose.”

“Thirty dollars!”

“There’s cheaper around,” she said. “But they ain’t never going to do for you what the Yallar Rose will.”

“I’ll give you ten, not a cent more.”

“Honey, like I said, you ain’t much of a romancing man. Make it twenty and let’s go.”

He reached in his pocket and peeled off twenty dollars and handed it to her.

“This sure better be somethin’.”

“Don’t you worry none, mister, it’ll be a thing of wonderment.”

The next morning, he felt as though his head had been busted in from all the champagne. The Yallar Rose was a sonorous pile
of flesh that weighed the springs of the mattress all the way to the floor.

He got dressed and rifled through her clothes until he found the twenty dollars he had given her the night before.

“Damn fool woman must’ve thought I just fell off a hide cart to think she’d clean me for twenty skins,” he said to himself,
stuffing the money back into his pocket.

The next thing he needed to do was report in at the local law office, announce himself as Al Freemont, Federal Marshal and
see if any Texas Rangers had showed up carrying two prisoners. If they had not, he’d just bide his time until they did.

He clumped down the stairs and saw the bartender sleeping atop the bar, curled up like a baby with his knees pulled up.

A cold morning light was filtering through the windows and the place was as silent as a graveyard.

He stepped outside into a muddy street that sucked at his boots as he walked. Sometime during the night a hard rain had fallen.

The town itself looked rotted and ready to fall down. He’d see the town law, have breakfast, and then just wait.

Pete Winter awakened from a fitful sleep; it felt to him like he had gone on a long and perilous journey. Waking up was both
disappointment and surprise.

Katie Swensen pressed a canteen to his lips and the swill of water assuaged his dry lips and tongue. He swallowed and coughed
and fell back into that deep dark place of unconsciousness.

She repositioned the horse blanket over him, wondered what hour it was. The night sky was indigo, the land hidden in blackness.
She was trying to fall asleep herself again when she heard the call of wolves, their howl high and mournful. The dead horses
were attracting their attention.

Reluctantly, she took the knife and cut more stalks and rebuilt the fire. She could hear something moving about beyond the
circle of light, could hear sounds that threatened her nerve. But her resolve was clear: she would not let anything come into
camp.

She held the Ranger’s pistol in both hands and cocked the hammer, just as he had shown her.

The growls and snarls drew nearer. She thought that she saw a shadow of something move just beyond the light. She aimed the
pistol, holding it as steady as she could, and pulled the trigger. The roar of the shot echoed off into the night, and what
ever it
was that had been out there had retreated—at least for the time.

The silence that followed the gunshot caused her a deep sense of isolation. The imposing darkness, the threat of unseen creatures
stalking the encampment, the severely wounded lawman next to her side—all were the source of a sense of dread for her.

She had resolved, however, that she would not let death come easy, either for her or the Ranger.

She fought sleep to maintain a vigil against the stalking predators. Whenever they came too near, she fired the pistol and
they scattered. Whenever the lawman stirred from his feverish sleep, she gave him water. Whenever the fire began to flag,
she fed it more yucca stalks. She would not just let “it” happen.

If the lawman died, she told herself, then it would not matter what happened to her. She knew that she could not make it across
this open country alone. She would save one bullet, just in case. If death reached her, she decided, it would reach her by
her own hand and not that of another person, or another thing.

She checked the lawman’s wounded shoulder several times. The cauterization had worked, the bleeding had been stopped. She
did not know if it would be enough. He seemed so young, the face of a boy in repose.

She stroked his face and held his hand and thought of songs she had sang as a girl and sang them to him in a low soft voice
that, at times, was drowned out by the wind or the cry of the wolves.

She turned her eyes heavenward and watched for shooting stars on which to say a wish upon. There
were none. Slowly the constellations, some that she had learned as a schoolgirl, passed in slow rotation in the vast night
sky.

Something warm touched her face and she awakened to it. It was the rising sun, warm and gentle. Tears spilled from her eyes
from the relief and joy that she was still alive. She had fallen asleep next to the Ranger, the pistol still gripped in her
hand.

A moment’s joy turned suddenly to a moment’s fear as she remembered the wounded man’s condition throughout the night.

She quickly checked him. His breathing was now even and his skin was cool to the touch once more. The fever had broken. He
stirred to her touch. His eyes opened and his mouth turned up into a smile.

“Katie,” he whispered in a dry, weak, voice. He struggled to sit up.

“Don’t thrust about so much,” she cautioned him. “It’s alright. You had a fever in the night, but it’s broken.”

He saw her tears, moved his hand to touch them.

“I’m alright,” she said. “I guess I’m just happy.

” He could feel the dull ache in his shoulder, but the worst of the pain seemed to have passed. He looked around him, remembering.

“Katie, Johnny’s gone!”

“Yes. I let him go. He rode out last night.” She saw the look of confusion in his face.

“I had to let him go, he would have killed you the minute I fell asleep. There just wasn’t any way I could stand guard over
both of you the whole night.”

He nodded. “It’s alright,” he said. “I reckon if he got caught once, he’ll get caught again.”

“Pete, he took the black. We’re alone out here.”

“I know.”

“We’ve still got two canteens of water,” she said. “I wouldn’t let him take the water.”

“That’s a point in our favor,” he grinned feebly. He knew immediately that the chances were slim to none. But, she had done
the right thing, the only thing, that she could have. She had saved the two of them, and that in itself was hope of a sort.

“We need to eat,” he said. “If we’re going to walk the rest of the way across these staked plains, we need to eat.”

The mention of food caused her to realize how hungry she was. But how were they to eat when all their supplies had been captured
by the Comanches the day before?

“But what?” she asked.

“We’ve got them,” he pointed to the dead horses.

“Pete…I couldn’t….”

“You will,” he said. “Horse meat is good red meat, Indians eat it all the time. I’ve eaten it myself. Cooked right, it ain’t
much different than beef. Can you build another fire?”

She nodded, reluctantly.

He waited for her to cut and gather more stalks before moving, with a great deal of effort, to one of the dead horses. Cutting
from the haunches, he managed to slice out two fair-sized slabs of meat.

Spearing the meat and turning it slowly over the fire, the “horse steaks” were soon ready for tasting.

“You go first,” she said.

He cut a slice from it and chewed on it carefully avoiding its heat. It wasn’t as tasty as he told her it would be, but he
made a face like it was.

“It could use a little salt and pepper,” he said, with a shy grin, “but it’ll do.”

Reluctantly she followed his example. She chewed in silence for a time, not giving any indication as to what she thought of
the horse flesh.

He chewed while watching her. Waited.

Finally, she finished a piece and said: “It’s not too bad.”

“See.”

“Well, I suppose as long as I don’t think of its source…”

“Heck,” he said. “Comanches will ride a horse until it’s played out and then eat the dang thing for supper. They get double
use out of the ponies that way.”

“I hear they eat dog, as well,” she commented by making a face.

“Well now, dog is a different thing altogether, in my book it is,” he said. “But, I suppose if a body got hungry enough. .
..”

“Not me,” she shuddered. “This is as far as I’d go.”

“Don’t be too sure,” he teased.

They ate until they could eat no more, washing down the taste with careful amounts of water.

“We have to be real careful from here on out,” he suggested. “I know that there is water out there somewhere, but just exactly
where, I’m not sure.”

“I understand.”

The effort of preparing the meal and eating it had left him tired.

“Let me rest just for a minute and then we must get started.”

“What are our chances, Pete?”

He had not been fully prepared for the question. It was one that he had been mulling over ever since he had awakened. Without
horses, and with a limited supply of water, and with his wounds, the land was even more dangerous to them now than it had
been. But, he reasoned, it was not an opinion that needed sharing right at this point.

His gaze searched the open plains before them; he saw nothing that offered him hope.

“Well, it’s most likely we’ll happen across water. And there are antelope and rabbits and deer, so most likely we’ll get a
chance at meat. I’d say, we got just as good a chance as anybody else,” he said.

He saw a flicker of doubt in her eyes, saw the corners of her mouth drop in resignation.

“In other words,” she said, “we’re in bad shape.” He had to admire her grit.

“I suppose that’s one way of putting it. But, I’m not ready to cash in my cards just yet.”

He stood to his full height, ignoring as much as possible the pain in his shoulder.

“I look at it this way,” he said. “We still got weapons, we got water, and we got our feet. There’s nothing out there except
land. We walk across enough of it, we’re bound to get to somewhere.”

His courage offered her reason for hope. She found herself wanting to hold onto him, wanting to put her arms around him and
gather in his strength for her own.

“Do you know how to weave?” he asked.

“Some.”

“Good, then go and cut a fist full of those yucca leaves and I’ll show you how to weave them into a
hat. You’ll need head covering—this sun can get intense.”

He helped her with the project and when she finished, she put it atop her head.