Vengeance Trail (20 page)

The day was warm and pleasant, and he was growing accustomed to riding saddle horse and found himself enjoying it. The big
steel-dust beneath him, the weight of the pistol on his hip, the bedroll tied behind the cantle, and the stock of the Winchester
just behind his right leg—all gave him the sense of being a lawman. A true lawman.

He would be in Ardmore by first light of morning. If Eli Stagg was there, Caleb Drew told himself, the law would be prosecuted
as well as he was capable of doing. Even if it meant someone dying.

Cherokee Tom sent a wire to the Texas Ranger station in Pecos. It read:
A man who calls himself Stagg and represents himself to be a Deputy U.S. Marshal from Judge Parker’s court in Ft. Smith, Ark.,
has this day passed through here. He has stated to me, that he waited here for 3 days hoping for a rendezvous with one of
your men and some prisoners. I believed this man to be an imposter from the first, but have no proof. He has now left this
place stating that he is on the trail of his quarry. I consider my duty complete in this matter—Thomas Blue Feather, City
Marshal, Ardmore, The Indian Nations.

Cherokee Tom paid fifty cents to have the wire sent. It was a feeling he had about the man that had caused him to spend that
much money to send a wire—an instinct—one that felt as strong as cheap whiskey. Life on the border was a mean and temporary
thing, he reasoned. Might not hurt to let a fellow lawman know that there was trouble afoot—he’d expect the same if the tables
were reversed.

Eli Stagg wasted no time in clearing the town. A man gets nosy, especially a lawman, there wasn’t any telling what could come
of a thing like that. He was plum getting tired of waiting for the reward to come to him. He figured he’d just have to track
it down. Tracking was something he was good at.

The first light of dawn lifted clear and cold over the shabby town of Ardmore. Cherokee Tom was already blowing steam off
his second cup of coffee when the door rattled open.

“Are you the city marshal?”

“I am.”

“My name is Caleb Drew, I’m a U.S. Marshal out of Ft. Smith. I’m looking for a man.”

“Ardmore has had its share of Federal men from Ft. Smith lately,” said Cherokee Tom.

“Tell me about the other one,” said Caleb Drew.

“Was through here yesterday. Left yesterday. Did not seem to want to stay around once I asked him his business. Said he was
on the search for a Texas Ranger and some prisoners. I didn’t believe his story a whole hell of a lot, but he was wearing
a badge, just like you.”

“Did he give his name?”

“Said his name was Eli Stagg. Carried a big Creed-more.
Could kill almost anything from a long ways off with a gun like that.”

“Then I am on the right trail,” said Caleb Drew.

“Would you like some of this coffee?”

“I would. Is there a place I can get some breakfast?”

“There is. I’ll go with you so’s we can talk.”

They ordered eggs and fried ham, black beans and more coffee.

“How’d this fellow strike you?”

“As a man who didn’t mind killing much. But anymore, this whole dang territory is filling up with such low life.”

“Well, I plan on tracking him down. He murdered a deputy of mine.”

“You’d best shoot him in the back if you get a chance, or anywhere else. A man like that, I would not trust nor give any opportunity
to.”

“How’s the trail from here to Texas?”

“It’s a good road, but bandits along the way. Camp off the road a good distance, and don’t light too many fires, and you should
be alright.”

“Well, I had better be on my way,” said Caleb Drew, draining the last of the coffee in his cup. “You have a fine little town
here from what I see.”

“It’ll do, I suppose,” said Cherokee Tom. “Not many places that’d hire a part Indian to run their law. That much I appreciate.”

Caleb shook the lawman’s hand and headed for the door of the restaurant.

“Marshal,” said Cherokee Tom. “You be careful where you bed down at night. They’ve got snakes in Texas big as your leg.”

They had walked for two full days without sighting a single living creature. The journey had been slow and arduous. Pete was
weak from the loss of blood and the grievous wound, and they both suffered the lack of food. Their progress had been only
half of what it should have been.

They had gathered mesquite beans and pounded them with rocks and ate them. They had also found some banana yucca and gathered
and roasted the fruit from that plant. And they had been careful with the water. But they could not ignore the fact that Pete
Winter’s condition seemed to be deteriorating.

He had considered sending Katie on alone in hopes of finding a ranch. But he knew that without knowledge of the land, she
would most likely become lost and perish. As for himself, he now held little hope that he would survive. He had had two straight
nights of feverish dreams, dreams that saw him attending his own funeral.

He saw himself lying in a black casket wearing a black suit and white shirt and black cravat. He saw the casket being lifted
into a glass-sided hearse that was pulled by four black horses through a town that he did not recognize. He saw the hearse
climb a
small barren hill where there was a graveyard. He saw a woman in a black dress crying, and when the wind lifted her veil,
it was Katie Swensen. Henry Dollar was there too, standing next to Katie Swensen. The older lawman’s face was grim and full
of sadness and he wore a dusty suit and held his battered old gray Stetson in one hand.

That’s how the dreams went for two nights running.

He knew that somehow he had to save Katie. She did not deserve to die in the middle of nowhere, with no one to mourn her passing.
She was too young for that.

He had tried several times to use his right arm, but without success. The bone had been shattered and if it healed at all,
it would heal badly. He knew, and had known from the moment he had been struck by the Comanche’s bullet, that he would never
again be able to use the arm. He avoided thinking about it as much as was possible, but was not always able to ignore the
fact that he was, and would be, crippled.

In spite of everything, Katie Swensen had not complained, nor shown any loss of resolve to find rescue. In addition to carrying
her own weight, the canteen of water, and the extra pistol, she tended to him whenever they had rested, or bedded down for
the night.

She had slept close to him, using her body as a way to keep him from becoming chilled. She had for-gone some of her own drinking
of the water in order to dampen his fevered forehead, and allow him extra to drink, knowing that he was in greater need.

They came to an arroyo and climbed down into it for the shade.

After several minutes of rest, he said: “Katie, I’m sorry that this has happened.”

“Try not to talk, Pete. There’s nothing you can say that will change our circumstances.”

“That’s true enough,” he said. “But, if only I would have been a little more cautious, we might not be in this situation.
I feel to blame and I want you to know that I am sorry.”

“Sorry? Why should you be the one to feel sorry? It was my decision to have run off with Johnny Montana. It was my blindness
that led me to stay with him through everything. I thought I was in love.” She laughed at the notion.

“Pete, you just will never know how foolish someone can be when they think that they’re in love. Pray that nothing like love
ever comes your way.”

She closed her eyes and remembered her papa, remembered how often he would make her wishes come true. It seemed to her now
that she had always relied on men to make her happy.

She had relied first on her father. Later, it was the young suitors, boys really, who were willing to do anything for her,
anything to make her happy. And then there was Johnny.

She had relied most on Johnny to make her happy. And now, as she lay in the only shade for miles and in the middle of nowhere,
she realized that she had never been truly happy, and that her reliance on men had always left her wanting.

How strange, she though, that she was now in the most desperate situation of her life, and a man was relying on her—not for
his happiness, but for his survival.

She would save him, she promised herself. She would save him, or they would die together.

“Katie…are you alright?”

She opened her eyes.

“You were trembling,” he said.

“I was just thinking about everything, about how strangely things turn out.”

He came to her and placed his good arm around her shoulders.

“I know things look terrible bad, I won’t lie to you about that. But, I think if we can last another day or two, we’ll come
up on something.” They both knew that it was more brave talk than reality, but neither acknowledged it. Nonetheless, it felt
good to her to have him hold her.

He felt her warmth and softness against him, as he had for the past few nights when she lay close to him. It was the greatest
comfort to wake up and have her there, just as it was now to be holding her.

He felt the brush of her hair against his face. He lightly kissed her cheek. It seemed a natural matter to him, one that he
could not resist any longer.

She turned her face to him. Her eyes searched his face. Her mouth was suddenly soft and sweet against his own. He had never
had a woman kiss him before. He had kissed a few, but had never had one kiss him. The comfort of it overwhelmed him. He kissed
her back and she let him.

“Pete—” She rested her head against him and placed one hand on his chest. And for a long time, neither of them said anything.

“Seems funny,” he said at last.

“What does?”

“Seems funny that with everything that’s happened, that this would too.”

“I wish that I had never met Johnny Montana,” she said. “It should have been you that I met and fell in love with.”

“Hush,” he whispered. “There’s no need for regretting something that has already happened. I guess we’d all change things
in our lives if we could go back and do it over.”

“I know. But, I made a damn fool of myself over that man and I don’t know if I will ever forgive myself. He used me and I
let him and I feel ashamed.”

“I know you do, Katie. But the good Lord didn’t make any perfect people—including me and you. We’ve got enough to face without
facing the past.”

She sat up and searched his face. “Pete, you can never know the kind of shame I feel about what I’ve done.”

“That’s where you are wrong, Kate. I know what it’s like to feel shame, the kind you’re talking about. I carry my own shame.”

She stared at him with disbelieving eyes. “You are just trying to make me feel better about myself,” she said.

“No, I’m not. What you did, you did because you thought you were in love and it was right to stick by the man you loved. I
did something far worse, I helped hang an innocent man. And I did it because I was being high-minded.”

She could see the pain in his face, the way his eyes looked off to somewhere.

“Why, Pete? Why would you do something like that?”

It was something that he had not spoken of but once since it had happened. It still haunted him.

“I was young and hot-tempered. I rode with a group of vigilantes before I joined the Rangers. I thought we were doing the
right thing—I always thought of myself as doing the right thing. It was a time and place when there were lots of horse thieves
and cattle rustlers, and a big rancher named Wilkens blew hot air into my head about clearing the land of such trash.

“At that time, there wasn’t any law to speak of, not in that part of the country. As it turned out, we caught a fellow we
were sure was a cattle rustler. Wilkens gave the man a kangaroo court and then we hung him. We had caught him butchering a
beef. Found out later from one of of Wilken’s line riders that the steer had died on its own and he had given the man permission
to butcher it for his family—they were squatters. Nothing but starving squatters. The man had a wife and six children . .
.” His voice trailed off.

“The worst of it was,” he continued, “I never told what happened to the man that raised me and gave me this job. I always
felt too ashamed to talk about it. The only other person to know besides you is a man named Henry Dollar. He’s a ranger too,
but more like an older brother.”

“I’m sorry that something like that happened to you,” she said. She stroked his cheek and held him close.

“I’m sorry too, Katie. It is something I will always have to live with. It was Henry Dollar who taught me that a man’s mistakes
can just as easily cause him to become a better man as they can to destroy him. He was right.”

“He sounds like a wise man.”

“More than that, Katie, far more than that.”

She kissed him again.

“What will become of us, Pete?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “But, I’m going to do everything in my power to see that you make it to safety.”

She sighed and said, “Safety from this place will only mean going back to Arkansas and standing trial for my crimes. I am
not so sure I want to be rescued, Pete.”

He made a decision then and there, one that went against the grain of everything he believed in, everything he and sworn himself
to.

“I won’t let it happen, Katie. I won’t let you go back to Arkansas.”

“Pete, you can’t make that decision. You’re a lawman, don’t break your trust for me.”

It was at that moment that a miracle came churning out of a tunnel of dust.

They heard the thing before they could even see it. It was a rattling, clanging, banging apparition that seemed to rumble
up out of the very earth itself.

“What is it, Pete?”

He hushed her so that they both could listen and watch above the embankment of the arroyo.

Through the shimmering waves of heat rising up off the floor of the prairie, the thing came lumbering into view. The nearer
it drew, the louder it became. Finally, they could plainly see it to be a wagon. A wagon with a white canvas top.