The Vengeance Seeker 3

by Will C. Knott

  “Frank!” Watson called, as he stepped back from the drunk and let him sag back against the wall. He was an ugly-looking fellow at that, he mused as he heard Frank coming from the cell block.

  “What we got here?” Frank asked, stepping into the office.

  “A drunk looking for a home. Lock him up, Frank. I’m going out for a breather.”

  Frank surveyed the long, lanky figure sprawled sideways on the long bench. The fellow’s mouth hung open. A black eye patch, slightly askew, covered his right eye socket. Something was wrong with the man’s face; it looked a little crooked.

  Poor son of a gun, he thought. As he walked over and started to lift the fellow, he glanced at the sheriff. “Remember. I’m off at ten.”

  “I’ll be back in plenty of time. Just going to wet my whistle. How’s our prize boarder?”

  “Asleep. Jesus, it’s awful lonely in there with no other prisoners, John. Maybe this guy will liven things up.”

  The sheriff shrugged and disappeared out the door. Frank grunted as he pulled the drunk to his feet. The man was surprisingly heavy, he noticed as he steered him into the cell block. The man’s muscles were taut, coiled like steel. There was nothing flabby about this cowboy; he had just been too long on the trail, Frank figured, remembering his own days hitting a trail town.

  “In here, feller,” Frank muttered, pulling a cell door open.

  To his surprise he was no longer supporting the stranger. The drunk had abruptly straightened and pulled away. Frank groaned. He knew instantly what was up. But as his hand dropped to the butt of his six-gun, he felt the muzzle of the stranger’s own weapon pressing into his side.

  “Don’t,” the fellow said in a low, powerful voice. “I don’t want to hurt you none. It’s Tinsdale I want. Unlock his cell door. Now.”

  That was what Frank had thought the man wanted. He could have kicked himself into the middle of next week for letting himself fall for that drunk cowboy act. With a sigh, he started down the corridor toward Tinsdale’s cell, the one-eyed galoot keeping just behind him, the muzzle of his six-gun wearing a hole in the small of his back.

  But as he unlocked the door to Tinsdale’s cell and pulled it open, Frank was surprised to see Tinsdale take one look at the stranger and shrink back into the corner of his cell.

  “Hell, Tinsdale,” Frank said. “What’s wrong? Your friend here’s come to spring you.”

  “Like hell he has!”

  Frank turned and looked at the tall, one-eyed stranger. “Hey, what is this anyway, mister?”

  “Never mind,” the man said, waggling his Colt at Frank. “Just get into the cell.”

  Frank stepped through the open door, then turned to look back out through the bars at the man. The fellow was looking coldly in at Tinsdale, the faintest trace of a smile on his ravaged face.

  “Let’s go, Tinsdale,” the man said.

  “I ain’t going with you!” Tinsdale cried. “I … I don’t know you! You maybe want to kill me!”

  “Then you can take your chances with me out on the trail—or you can die right here.” The stranger thumbed back the hammer on his Colt.

  “You better go with him, Tinsdale,” Frank said. “He means it.”

  Tinsdale left the corner of the cell and pushed past Frank and out through the door.

  “Hold it,” said the stranger. He handed Tinsdale a handkerchief and a length of rawhide. As Tinsdale took it, he said, “Gag him, then tie his hands behind him. And do a good job.”

  Frank groaned as he saw Tinsdale approach him. He knew full well that Sheriff Watson was not going to be able to get his whistle as wet as he wanted by ten that night. Midnight was a hell of a lot more likely, which meant he’d be trussed up like a turkey for close to four hours... ! And then Tinsdale, obviously enjoying this part of the business at least, stuffed his mouth with the silk handkerchief and pulled his two hands roughly behind his back.

  Goddamnit! Frank thought, his eyes swinging back to the one-eyed fellow with the six-gun. Who the hell is this son of a bitch, anyway?

  By noon of the next day, after they had nearly exhausted their second relay of horses. Wolf turned north and headed into the high fastness of the Big Horns. He was sure that by this time they had effectively outdistanced pursuit.

  “Where we heading now?” Tinsdale asked Wolf.

  Wolf glanced at him. “Just ride. You’ll know when you get there.”

  That was the last conversation between them until mid-day when Wolf pulled up at a narrow cleft in what appeared to have been a wall of rock. The cleft was hidden behind a tall boulder that seemed to grow like a huge petrified plant out of the ground.

  “In through there,” Wolf said. “I’ll be right behind you.”

  The passageway was narrow and continued for almost a quarter of a mile. There were portions of it so difficult to navigate that Tinsdale had to be ordered on through by Wolf.

  At last the cleft widened. Soon they were riding over a much wider trail and then they entered a lush valley hemmed in on all sides by sheer red walls of sandstone. Ahead of them grassy slopes undulated lushly. There was the smell of pine in the air and the smell, too, of ice-cold streams.

  “Hey, this is some place you got here!” Tinsdale cried, turning about in his saddle to look at Wolf. “What a hideout this would make. It even beats the Hole in the Wall.”

  “Does it?”

  Wolf’s clipped tone sobered Tinsdale and he turned back around in his saddle and rode on, with Wolf beside him showing the way. After less than a mile of riding, they rode up to the modest cabin built close to a cliffside and well into a grove of pine trees. A lean-to served as a stable.

  When they had both unsaddled their horses, Wolf grabbed a long-handled spade leaning against the wall and handed it to Tinsdale. “I’ll see to the horses,” he told him. “You’ll find a grave on the other side of these pines on a small rise facing the valley. Pick a spot for yourself and start digging.”

  Tinsdale looked at the spade and then at Wolf. “You must be loco,” he gasped, taking a step backward.

  Wolf snapped the spade at the man. Tinsdale had to catch it to prevent the handle from catching him in the face. “Take it!” commanded Wolf. “And use it!”

  “You must think I’m crazy! Why should I dig my own grave?”

  “Because,” said Wolf, reaching down for a bucket and starting for the pump, “you’re already a dead man.”

  Tinsdale stood there for a moment, holding the spade. As Wolf began pumping the water into the bucket, he glanced at Tinsdale coldly, his eyes measuring the man.

  Tinsdale turned and walked off through the pines.

  Tinsdale was sitting on the edge of the grave, the spade leaning over his right shoulder while he stared into the hole. Coming up behind him, Wolf stopped and looked past him at the man’s grave.

  “See you got it dug,” Wolf said.

  The man nodded without turning.

  “Let’s go in and get something to eat. We got time yet.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “You can stay here then.”

  As Wolf turned and started back toward the cabin, he heard Tinsdale get to his feet and start after him. Wolf stopped to wait for Tinsdale to catch up with him.

  “Who’s in that other grave?” Tinsdale wanted to know.

  “Kid Curry.”

  Tinsdale swore softly.

  Wolf looked at him. He was a red-headed, freckle faced cowboy not more than twenty one or two. He had clear blue eyes that looked wide and innocent because of the lightness of his eyebrows. Despite his size and age Wolf did not consider him dry behind the ears yet—a curious mixture of man and child.

  But he had been a part of that train robbery. It didn’t matter that he was young or that a crooked jury had set him free. In Wolf’s eyes he was guilty as charged—and doomed.

  After a lunch of jerky, beans and coffee, Wolf leaned back into one of the two wooden chairs he had provided for the cabin and looked across the table a
t Tinsdale. For a condemned man, the young fellow had eaten heartily.

  Wolf waited for Tinsdale to speak.

  “What now?” Tinsdale asked. He was trying not to show his nervousness.

  Wolf shrugged. “I’m not anxious. I’d just as soon wait a while. It ain’t that I like this sort of thing. It’s a nasty business all around. That’s how I look at it.”

  Tinsdale seemed almost pathetically eager to agree. “Why, that’s just the way I see it,” he proclaimed. “This is a nasty business at that. Why don’t you just let me go? I swear, I been punished enough, mister.”

  “Name’s Wolf. Wolf Caulder.”

  “I’ll even go back to that jail in Buffalo, Mr. Caulder.”

  “You would.”

  “I surely would—to await my trial and take my medicine. Yes, I would.”

  “You think that might help those others?”

  Tinsdale looked confused. “What others?”

  “Emma and Josiah Hodkins and their two children—the boy Mark and the girl Sarah. You think if you went back to prison for horse stealing it would help them any?”

  Tinsdale licked suddenly dry lips. “I been cleared of that, Mr. Caulder. Everyone in the gang was.”

  “Were you?”

  Tinsdale nodded eagerly.

  “You had the best attorneys money could buy: John Houk and C. L. Gates, and three of the jurors. That’s why you were cleared, Tinsdale—not because you were innocent.”

  “How ... how’d you know that?”

  Wolf smiled thinly. “Kid Curry.”

  “You made him talk?”

  Wolf didn’t bother to reply.

  Tinsdale sighed, obviously relieved not to have to lie any more. “Well, anyway, Mr. Caulder, it was Charlie Hanks what kicked you. It weren’t me.”

  “Is that right, Tinsdale?”

  “And we didn’t really make so much from that train robbery. The express car only carried twenty thousand we could use. The rest was in bonds.”

  Wolf smiled. “Your lawyers took the bonds, Tinsdale. They had ways of cashing them. And they got almost face value for the lot. Don’t worry. They and those three in the jury were well paid.”

  Tinsdale frowned. “I don’t understand any of that.”

  “It means the acquittal was bought, even though you and the rest of the gang were guilty. I would have been at the trial to testify, but I was in a Denver hospital. Though I don’t see as how it would have done much good even if I had been there to testify. I was just lucky to reach town before Kid Curry cleared out. I missed the rest by a week or more.”

  Tinsdale nodded gloomily.

  “Tell me about the others, Tinsdale. About Luke and Abe Dawson, and Charlie Hanks and his girl, Laura Placer. And tell me about Weed Leeper.”

  “It was Leeper who killed all those people, Mr. Caulder! You know that! It wasn’t us. Weed, he always said the only way to get clear is kill all the witnesses.”

  Wolf nodded, letting Tinsdale run on. He was talking anxiously, eagerly. The stench of death was in his nostrils and he was hoping to outdistance it with his mouth. Nevertheless, Tinsdale, it seemed, was prepared to tell Wolf precious little about either Leeper or the Dawson brothers. He insisted on going on at considerable lengths about Hanks and Laura Placer instead.

  Hanks was a Texan and so was Laura, his common law wife. They both grew up in Concho County where Laura worked her mother’s sheep ranch. Tinsdale had talked with her often about those early days. She rode and dressed like a man, always had from as early as either Laura or Charlie Hanks could remember. But Tinsdale maintained that she had not been in on the Tipton Train Massacre.

  “Who met the train with the horses, Tinsdale—and saw to the relays?” Wolf asked sharply.

  Tinsdale shrugged helplessly. “But she wasn’t on the train.”

  Wolf smiled thinly. “Go on.”

  Tinsdale felt that Laura and Hanks would now most likely be on their way back to Texas. About the rest of the gang he could say nothing with any assurance, he insisted. When at last Wolf was satisfied that the young cowboy had told him all he would, he stood up and looked across the table at the man.

  Tinsdale looked up at Wolf, his face suddenly white. He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again—as if he were trying to convince himself that this was really happening to him.

  “Pull yourself together, Tinsdale,” Wolf said quietly, not unkindly. “You’ve had more of a chance to put your soul in order than Weed Leeper gave those people on the train.”

  Tinsdale looked away from Wolf. “I guess so,” he said. “And I do keep thinking on it—and those two little kids ... and the woman.”

  “And the nester and his wife, and the conductor and the old buffalo hunter. The fellow was on his way to Canada to find himself one last herd. And that nester saved my life.”

  Tinsdale shook his head. “All those people. It was Weed. He’s a madman, I tell you. When we saw what he done ...”

  “Get up,” said Wolf. “We’re going outside now.”

  Tinsdale got up slowly and walked ahead of Wolf out the door of the cabin. He walked like a man in pain. Wolf didn’t have to tell him where to go and followed him silently as he started through the pines. The woods were echoing with the plaintive call of a robin and Wolf could see that the sweet sorrow of the bird’s song was having its effect on Tinsdale. The young cowboy seemed to wilt visibly.

  Just before they got to the grave, Wolf slipped his Colt out of its holster and when they reached the newly dug hole in the ground, he nudged Tinsdale with it, pushing him toward the shovel.

  “Better clean it out,” he told the fellow. “Some dirt’s fallen back into it, looks like.”

  Tinsdale took up the shovel reluctantly and set to work cleaning out the long grave. Wolf holstered his six-gun and hunkered down beside the working Tinsdale and plucked a blade of grass to chew on as he watched.

  He caught the tightening in Tinsdale’s shoulders perhaps even before Tinsdale himself knew what he was about to attempt. As Tinsdale lifted the spade a mite higher than usual, Wolf kept his eyes straight ahead and braced himself. Only when out of the corner of his eye he caught the descending arc of the shovel’s blade did he allow himself to pull back and raise his left arm.

  He was fortunate that the wooden handle rather than the blade caught his forearm. Rolling quickly back and away, he drew his six-gun. Tinsdale started to follow him, then pulled up, the spade still held in his hand. Aiming carefully, Wolf fired. His bullet caught the fleshy part of Tinsdale’s shoulder—as Wolf had intended—knocking the man back, but not off his feet.

  Remaining on the ground, as if he were still groggy from Tinsdale’s blow, Wolf fired a second time, this bullet passing just a few inches to the left of Tinsdale’s cheek.

  Tinsdale dropped the shovel and raced back through the pines. Aiming with great care, Wolf fired a third time, disintegrating a branch projecting just ahead of the fleeing man. It added wings to his feet.

  Slowly, carefully, Wolf got to his feet, listening to the sound of the horse’s hooves as Tinsdale’s mount carried him away from the cabin toward the valley’s entrance. Rubbing his very sore left forearm, Wolf started to walk through the pines. He was in no hurry. It would not take him long to follow, since he had provisions put away all ready to pack onto his horse. And by the time Tinsdale found that narrow passageway again and managed to work his way through it, Wolf would already be on the other side, waiting to follow.

  Three

  Three days later—well behind the tiny cloud of dust that was Tinsdale—Wolf saw ahead of them both the shadow of great hills lying vague behind the heat haze and towering over them, the darker and seemingly closer bulk of the Absarokas. By sundown, Wolf realized, he should have reached the dim suggestion of a town he saw huddled in among the heavy paws of the foothills. Landusky. Wolf knew of the place. The silver that had given it birth had already played itself out.

  The afternoon sun burned like a slow brand on his ba
ck, and as Wolf dipped down to cross a bone-dry creek, he welcomed the sudden respite from the heat. Easing his black up the other side of the steep bank, he was startled to come upon a team of horses and a small covered wagon halted behind a heavy clump of willows.

  Wolf saw the trouble at once. The wooden rim on the right rear wheel had shrunk in the dry heat of the afternoon and the iron tire had fallen off. A rugged-looking fellow in his late forties was straining to lift the wagon so that a young boy—his son, obviously—could pull the wheel off the axle.

  Wolf rode up and dismounted. The two of them were too busy to greet Wolf and while the man rested a moment, Wolf grabbed a long dead branch he had spotted in the willows and fitted it snugly under the wagon’s rear axle, intending to use it as a lever. As soon as the man and his boy saw Wolf’s intent, they returned to their task.

  His back to the wagon and both arms bulging with the enormous effort he was making, the fellow leaned backward and then heaved upward. At once Wolf did likewise with the lever. The wagon lifted and the wheel turned freely. The boy grabbed it and tugged frantically until it dropped off the axle and slapped down into the dust.

  Wolf slowly allowed the wagon to settle back until the axle was resting on the ground. The two men stepped back, breathing heavily.

  “Name’s Dan Tyler,” the fellow said, sticking out a thick, well-callused hand.

  “Wolf Caulder,” Wolf said, taking the powerful hand and shaking it.

  Tyler took out a handkerchief from his rear pocket and mopped his brow and looked over at the wagon. “I thought I was going to drop that before the boy could get the rim off.” He grinned at the boy as he came up to them and brushed his dark hair off his forehead. “Bobby, meet Wolf Caulder.”