by C. J. Petit
“Hello?”
He heard the muffled voice from the first room on the left and opened the door. He was greeted with wild eyes and the sight of a bound woman with a gag.
He ran to her and removed her gag.
“My little girl. My Ethyl! Find her quickly. Her room is next door.”
Gus stopped and raced next door and found an even more unpleasant sight. Ethyl looked at him through frightened eyes. She was naked, and there was blood on the bed. Gus knew what had happened. He grabbed her nightdress that had been ripped off her and covered her as he removed her gag and began untying the knots holding her in place.
She was crying uncontrollably. She didn’t say a word as Gus finally untied the last binding.
“You stay right there, Ethyl. I’m going to get your mama.”
She nodded as Gus left the room.
When he walked in, she looked at him and asked desperately, “How is my Ethyl? Is she all right?”
“No, ma’am. She’s been assaulted. She’ll need you now, ma’am. She needs her mama to take care of her.”
Gus began quickly untying the ropes, and when he got the last binding off, Emma bolted from the room and into Ethyl’s. He could hear the crying.
He took a blanket from the bed and carried it into the next room.
Gus entered the room with the blanket. He handed the blanket to Emma.
Emma was hugging her daughter, and turned to look at Gus. She shouted, “Gus Matthews! His name was Gus Matthews!”
“No, ma’am. My name is Gus Matthews. I think I know who did this. His name is Louis Feldman. He’s a young, handsome man.”
“Yes, that sounds like him. Why would he do such a thing?”
“Because he’s a bad, lazy man, ma’am. I need to get to town and notify the sheriff. Do you have a horse?”
“I have one, but I think he would have taken it because he said his horse had thrown him in the Red River. He was all wet and claimed to just want food and to get warm.”
“He lied to a lot of folks, ma’am. He took advantage of your generosity and good nature. You take care of your daughter. I’ll go and unhitch one of my horses and get back to town as quick as I can. I’ll fetch the sheriff and the doctor. And ma’am?”
“Yes.”
“If I see that bastard, I’ll put a forty-four slug between his eyes.”
“Good.”
Gus left the room and went back to the porch. He stepped down quickly, unhitched one of the horses from the wagon, and leaped onto his back. He raced from the farm and made it to the town in minutes. He found the sheriff’s office and hopped down, throwing the reins over the hitch rail. The sheriff was behind his desk.
“Sheriff, I went out to Mrs. Powers to get some chickens and found both her and her daughter tied up and gagged. The girl had been raped. I’m pretty sure that Lou Feldman did it. That means he’s in the area. I need to go get the doctor, but I don’t know where he is.”
“I’ll bring him. You go back there so I can talk to you after I see Mrs. Powers.”
“Okay.”
He went back outside and mounted the horse and turned him back to the farm.
He arrived a few minutes later.
An hour later, the doctor was examining Ethyl while the sheriff talked to Gus and Mrs. Powers.
“Emma, this young man. Did he wear a pistol?”
“Yes. On the left side.”
“I got a telegram a couple weeks ago from Warren that he had killed a cashier at the savings and loan.”
After what he had witnessed this morning, Gus wasn’t shocked.
“He’s got to be in the area, Sheriff,” said Gus.
“I’ll get up a posse, and we’ll find him, Emma.”
The doctor came out and said, “She’s resting now, Emma. She’ll be all right. She’ll need time.”
“Thank you, doctor. Let me get your fee.”
“That’s all right, Emma. It’s not necessary.”
“I’m a proud woman. I always pay my debts.”
She walked into the kitchen and pulled out her money tin.
“Damn that man!” she shouted.
Gus, Sara, and the sheriff walked in.
“I had twelve dollars in here, and that bastard took it. There ain’t no place in hell hot enough for him.”
“Well, we’ve got to get back, Emma. I’ve gotta form that posse,” said the sheriff.
The sheriff and the doctor left the house.
Emma turned to Gus. This was the final kick to her stamina. She began to cry. Gus could see a mixture of anger and despair. It didn’t last long. Emma was a survivor. She took her apron and cleared the tears from her eyes.
“Thank you for coming and helping. I never did ask why you showed up.”
“I came to buy some chickens.”
“Bless you. Bring your wagon out back.”
Gus had to hitch the horse back into the harness, and then he rolled the wagon to the back of Emma’s yard. There was a large chicken coop that must have held more than 150 chickens, not counting those in the henhouse.
She waved him over.
“How many do you want?”
“You tell me. You’re the expert.”
“Well, you’ll need at least thirty hens and a couple of roosters. I’d recommend more.”
“How much are they?”
“Twenty-five cents apiece. I have too many. Way too many.”
“Do you have cages to transport them?”
“Right over there. We can put a dozen in each cage.”
“Good. How about sixty chickens and three roosters?”
Emma did the calculations in her head. Sixteen dollars! She was flooded with relief.
“Let’s start herding chickens.”
She knew what she was doing. She filled one cage after another until there were five cages of chickens. She had mixed a rooster into every cage, so there were five.
Gus pulled out thirty dollars and handed it to her.
“I don’t have any change, Gus.”
“The extra is for the cages, Emma.”
“This is too much.”
“Chalk it up to my poor negotiating skills.” He smiled at her.
She walked over and hugged him.
After all the chickens were loaded, he climbed on board. Gus waved goodbye to Emma, who waved with a smile on her face, clutching the bills in her hand. She returned to take care of Ethyl.
The rest of the ride, Gus thought about the plague known as Louis Feldman. If only he’d known.
Gus turned the wagon down the access road and brought it to a halt in front of the house.
Rachel stepped down from the porch and waited. Gus pulled the wagon to a stop. The chickens were making a lot of noise.
“Gus, that’s a lot of chickens,” said Rachel as she stepped forward.
He replied, “There’s a reason for it, Rachel. Before I unload them, I need to tell you and Eli what happened.”
He stepped down and walked up onto the porch, following Rachel into the room.
Eli was reading as they came in. He had heard the noise outside.
“I hear chickens,” he said, smiling.
Gus sat on the couch and told them of Lou Feldman’ latest outrage.
“That’s horrible!” said Rachel.
“Then the bastard even took her last twelve dollars. I told Emma that if I ever saw him again, I’d put a bullet through his eyes. And I will, too. He’s hurt too many already.”
“Do you think they’ll catch him, Gus?” asked Rachel.
“Sooner or later, but I wish it were sooner. He’ll hurt more folks till he’s stopped.”
“So, how’d you wind up with so many chickens?” Eli asked.
“Mrs. Powers finally got around to asking why I was there. When I told her that I was there to buy chickens, you should have seen the relief on her face. We went in the back. She had too many. She said they were twenty-five cents each, so I bought sixty and five roosters.”
; Rachel smiled just a little and said, “Let me guess. You overpaid.”
“Well, I had to add something in for the cages.”
She and Eli laughed.
“I’m going to go and unload the chickens and other things. I’ll build the coops tomorrow.”
Gus left to take care of the chickens.
After he had cleared the porch, Rachel said, “That is one amazing man. Eli, he can’t keep spending his own money.”
“I know.”
_____
While that discussion was going on, Gus was busy unloading the wagon behind the barn. The chickens weren’t happy. Once the cages were put down, he threw some feed into each cage to keep the chickens occupied. It was a mistake. There was a flurry of feathers as a war to get the grain erupted.
“Live and learn” was Gus’s comment.
He had the wagon emptied and drove the team back to the other side of the barn, unhitched them, and put them in their stalls. He brushed them down and pulled the wagon into the barn. He walked to the trough, pumped water onto his head, and went inside, where Rachel was preparing to cook dinner.
_____
Lou wasn’t happy. He had left the farmhouse in relatively good spirits. The extra twelve dollars was like a bonus, but he knew that what he had done would bring the wrath of the whole area down on him. He needed to find a way to blend in. He had started growing a beard. It wasn’t helping much. He had taken off his gun belt and just stuck the pistol in his waistband on the right side. He knew the biggest problem was that he was a single man riding alone who matched the basic description that he knew had covered a wide area.
Why had he done it in the first place? He could have just paid the lady for the food and been gone. No one would be the wiser. But he had to have that girl. He had to. She was perfect. Now he was paying for that impulse. He knew that he was being hunted.
____
He was being hunted. Twelve miles to the northeast, a posse of six men led by Kinnick sheriff Zeke Emory had picked up his trail from the farm. Lou had made the mistake of going cross-country to avoid the roads. The roads would have hidden his path among the dozens of other hoofprints. He didn’t know just how good those trackers were.
____
Men on the run make mistakes. Lou had already made far too many. He continued cross-county, avoiding the towns of Kinnick and Chadwick. Now he was making for Hendrick, ten miles north of Chadwick. He was about five miles outside of town. He was hungry again. He should have grabbed more of that Powers woman’s food.
He found another farm. Nicer than the last one. Nice house. This time he wasn’t going to bother playing nice. He didn’t have any time. He rode across in front of the farm and aimed diagonally toward the door. He stopped and hooked his horse to the rail.
He didn’t knock. He just walked into the house. He made no pretense of silence. He had his Colt out and the hammer back. He stepped down the hallway and heard, “Jim? Back so soon?”
He stepped into the kitchen. There was a woman standing there with a little boy. She turned, expecting to see her husband, and was filled with terror at the sight of the dirty, unkempt man standing there with a revolver pointed at her. Her son ran behind her legs.
“What do you want? We don’t have any money.”
“I need some food. Now, I ain’t gonna kill anybody if you do what I tell ya. You got to get a bag and fill it with food. You hear me?”
“All right. Just don’t hurt my son.”
She backed up and took a burlap bag from a pantry shelf and began adding canned goods and some home-preserved foods. She thought it was enough, but Lou wanted something hot, too.
“What you cookin’?”
“Pot roast. But it won’t be ready for an hour.”
“There beef in there?”
“Yes.”
“Throw it in the bag and back off.”
She took a cooking fork and removed the beef roast from the pot and dropped it into the bag. Lou grabbed the bag and began to back off.
Riding down the access road was Jim Linder, her husband. He saw the horse stopped in front of the house and didn’t recognize it. The whole area was still buzzing over the murder over in Warren. He took out his Winchester and cocked it.
Lou reached the front door just as Jim Linder was arriving. Lou heard the hooves, dropped the bag, and turned to the front door. He saw Linder with the Winchester in his hand and didn’t hesitate. He fired. The shot hit Linder in his right side, just below his ribcage. He spun and fell. Lou didn’t wait to see how dead he was. He reached down and grabbed the bag. He stumbled down the stairs, grabbed the Winchester, and stepped up on his horse. He wheeled it around and was riding off when Mrs. Linder and her son came running out of the house.
Lou was gone, but he didn’t know that Jim Linder was going to be all right. The bullet had only hit fat tissue on his waist. Lou thought he had killed three men now. Instead of feeling more guilt, he began to think of himself as a famous killer now. He was a tough guy. Someone to be feared.
____
Lou was just outside Hendrick. He had put his holster back on and reloaded his Colt with all six chambers filled. He needed more ammunition, too. Money first. Ammunition second. Food third.
He had already eaten a lot of the roast beef before tossing it away. He still had the tins, though.
He looked at the savings and loan. It was a lot larger than the one in Warren. To Lou, it meant more money. To a life-long thief, it would have meant trouble. If they could afford a nice building, they would have more security. Probably not a guard, but there would be handguns at different locations. Maybe even a shotgun.
But Lou was new to the business and just saw prosperity and money to be had. He thought a bold plan would be best. He trotted his horse into the streets and stopped at the savings and loan. He unhooked his hammer loop and glanced both ways before stepping inside. As soon as he strutted inside, he pulled the Colt and cocked the hammer.
He shouted, “My name is Lou Feldman. I already killed three men in the past month and don’t care if I kill any more. You!” He pointed the gun at the cashier. “Start piling all the cash from the drawer on the shelf in front of ya.”
The cashier began to do just that as Lou scanned the room for threats. He should have been paying attention to the cashier, but lone robbers don’t have that luxury. As he began his scan, the cashier pulled a loaded Webley Bulldog from the drawer to the right of the cash drawer. All the drawer held was the pistol. He was cocking the hammer when Lou looked back. The cashier began putting more bills on the shelf with his left hand. Being left-handed, Lou didn’t notice.
To his right, a clerk was also pulling a Bulldog from a drawer. He coughed to disguise the hammer being pulled back. Lou quickly turned at the cough. When he did, the cashier pulled out the cocked Webley and pointed it at Lou and fired. The report echoed in the brick building, but the bullet whizzed by Lou’s neck, missing by three inches. Lou turned and fired at the clerk, missing him entirely, but shattering a glass-covered photograph of the bank president on the wall behind him.
Then it was the clerk’s turn. He fired at Lou and missed. His errant shot smashed into the oak wall beyond.
Lou was panicking. He began throwing shots wildly as he exited the building. Lucky for him, the two armed employees ducked to avoid his haphazard blasting.
Lou reached his horse and leaped aboard, turning to the east and racing off. The sheriff had run out into the street carrying a shotgun. He saw Lou racing off. He was a good eighty yards away, but the sheriff let loose with both barrels.
Lou felt the sting of multiple pellets striking his back, barely penetrating the skin. One took off his hat. They hurt, but not badly. But some had hit the back of his horse, and it wanted to run. The horse took off faster than Lou wanted. He knew the horse would be winded in less than a minute. He was almost out of town, and the sheriff was running to get his horse.
Lou saw another horse lashed to a trail hitch in front of a hardware st
ore. The last building in town. Lou yanked on the reins and grabbed his saddlebags as the horse sat, coming to a halt in a cloud of dust. He jumped down and unhitched the horse and climbed on. The owner must have been a giant! Lou’s feet barely touched the top of the stirrups, but he didn’t have time to be picky. He tossed his saddlebags on top of the set that was already there and leaped aboard.