by Paul Lederer
“I believe every bit of it, sir,” Dr. Spectros told him. Why he believed it he did not tell Joseph.
The man was here—Blackschuster. And where he came there was silver. His uncanny sense about it, his incessant research into tales, his files of mines and claims had hardly failed him. Blackschuster would not be guessing. The man knew.
It fit together with the story of Melinda Toures’ healing at the hands of an Eastern doctor. Exactly how the tales fit, in which order things had occurred, made no difference. Perhaps Toures had known Blackschuster before, perhaps Blackschuster had presented himself as a healer. Yet these two men had struck a bargain. The life of Melinda Toures for a fortune in lost silver.
“Thank you very much, Joseph,” the doctor told him, rising. “I appreciate your trusting me enough to tell me this story.”
“I don’t know what good it did to tell you, so, yet it relieved my burden somewhat to speak of it.”
“It might have done some good,” Spectros said, swinging the wagon door open for Joseph. “Itais good to share problems. Another man may have a solution which had not occurred to you.”
“I don’t think there’s a solution to this, sir,” Joseph said, shaking his head sadly as he walked down the steps. “Yet I thank you for listening.”
Spectros felt compassion for the huge man. The man who had, in all probability, killed Joseph’s brother was free. Not only that, this very man seemed intent on marrying Dr. Greene’s young daughter. And Dr. Greene, as Joseph had noted, was the man labeled traitor, not Toures.
Spectros sagged heavily into his chair, letting his ivory handled cane slap to the floor. He closed his eyes a moment.
“Is it too early?” he asked himself.
He hardly had his strength back. The New Orleans fight had been brutal.
Did Blackschuster know they were there? Yes, assuredly. Ray had been shot at, and if he had the ear of Toures as seemed certain, they would be wanting to move quickly now.
Spectros felt incredibly tired; though he tried not to dwell on it his back and legs ached. A sudden, intense vision of Kirstina came to him, her mouth open in a curious smile. It was time! It must go no farther. The mad chase must end. Let it end here. Now! This moment. Let him have his Kirstina once more, one moment. There would be an eternity to rest.
Now the struggle must continue.
The old man closed his eyes. The light from the copper lamp flickered low as Spectros let his fingers rest on the stone on his emerald ring.
A flurry of fragmented, brilliantly colored thoughts filled his brain in an explosion of recollection. He rode an orange cloud like a carpet across a purple hued desert. The world froze and he was entombed, for the briefest second in a mountain of blue ice. Tiny birds pecked at the cake of ice and freed him and he came forward, an infant with a man’s legs and mind, crying to the storming, tumbling skies.
A woman appeared, and another. One young, one withered and mummified, and he could not choose between them and they both vanished leaving him in a black void where cold winds howled up bottomless canyons.
Then it was empty beyond emptiness. Silent. Black.
“Was he all right?” Ray asked Joseph.
“What?” The black man was walking, head down, deep in his own thoughts, past the corral.
“Spectros?”
“Oh, yes. I believe the old man was tired, Ray. He seemed to need a nap. The traveling you people do. At his age it can’t be good for him.”
Ray nodded, coiling up his lariat. He and Kesey had been tossing practice loops around a post. Montak came out, removing his leather smith’s apron. He folded it and placed it aside. The long shadow crossed his own.
Montak’s head came up and a broad grin split his gentle features. Ray followed Montak’s gaze and then he too saw him. The tall man with the silver-mounted Colts.
“Kid!”
“Ray. Montak.” Kid Soledad greeted them warmly. He strode forward evenly, taking each of them by a shoulder. “Good to see you boys.”
Kesey had not moved. His eyes flickered this way and that? Where had the man come from? Tall, Soledad was, and set up like an athlete. His shoulders filled his black shirt with solid muscle. His face looked like it had been carved out of oak. Dark, slightly hollow in the cheeks, with a strong chin. And those eyes—Kesey felt something go out of him as Kid Soledad turned those clear, gray eyes on him.
“Hello, Will.”
“You remember me, Kid?”
“Sure I do. Laredo, wasn’t it?”
“It was Laredo, Kid. I was running with that Yount mob.”
“They’re mostly gone now, Will.”
“Mostly.”
That was all they said about it, but Will Kesey remembered the reason some of those Yount boys were gone. He stood in front of him.
Kesey glanced at Ray. Was it all true? Those things Ray Featherskill had told him! It was a dream, a nightmare! No wonder Ray had said folks just walked away from them—and in the wagon there was no one at all. There was no Dr. Spectros just now, only the Kid.
Kesey’s eyes lingered on those twin Colts the Kid wore. The stories about those guns, and the hands which they fit.
“Dinner time!” Dr. Greene had appeared on the porch, in shirt sleeves. He wobbled slightly, perhaps he hadn’t quit drinking that brandy after Toures left.
“Oh,” Greene said, peering into the late sun. “Your friend arrived after all. Bring him along, bring him along. Someone should get Dr. Spectros,” Greene said thickly.
“The doctor is resting, sir,” Kid Soledad said. “I imagine he would prefer not to be disturbed just now.”
They turned and started for the house. Inkada had come around from the well, and he stopped in his tracks, smiling as he spotted the Kid. A shrill, nearly demanding whinny from the stable filled the yard. That and the sound of massive hooves being driven against the wood of a partition.
“You’d better say hello to Khamsin, sir,” Inkada said. “If you don’t he’ll be coming to dinner with us.”
“Yes.” Soledad grinned, threw a hand over Inkada’s shoulder, and together they walked to the stable through the fading light.
Kesey stood, hands on hip, watching.
“Let’s wash up, Will,” Featherskill said.
“What?” Kesey turned numbly to Ray and Montak. “You weren’t kidding a bit about any of it, were you?”
“No, Will, not a bit.”
“I saw that man ten-twelve years ago. Ray—he hasn’t aged a single day!” Kesey’s voice was a whisper, an awed hiss. “Not a day! You weren’t kidding about a bit of it.”
Kesey’s voice trailed off and he stood a moment longer, watching the barn. Then, finally, he turned and followed Featherskill and the giant to the water pump.
Doctor Greene watched his guests eat through a film which covered his eyes, his perception. Twice he spilled his water glass, and when Berta, nervously clucking, left the room, he told Soledad who sat next to him, “It’s gotten too damned hard. All of my friends. All of Natchez. I was born here. They despise me. I can’t—I can’t,” he fumbled for words.
“Perhaps you should consider leaving,” Kid Soledad said. “A doctor should be useful, wanted. With all of the country to the west where there are no doctors.”
“She doesn’t know.” Greene rambled on. “Berta. I can’t even pay my taxes, sir,” he whispered. “I have no patients. None,” he shrugged meekly.
Berta settled into her seat once again, smoothing a napkin on her lap. She ate delicately, and with little appetite, obviously. She declined to look at her father, but from time to time she peeked at Ray Featherskill, liking the quick smile of the blond man, the set of his shoulders, the sureness in his hands.
Soledad finished eating and folded his napkin. Dr. Greene offered him a drink which he refused.
“You will be sharing a room with Dr. Spectros?” Greene asked.
“Yes, sir.” Kid Soledad glanced up, catching the gaze of Kesey who still seemed bewildered. Then
Will’s eyes settled on Berta Greene and he saw nothing else.
“But all of us will be gone for a few days,” Kid Soledad announced. Inkada’s eyes locked with the Kid’s for a moment.
“Gone?” Greene asked, confused.
“We’d like to do some hunting. None of us has been in this country before.”
“I could lend you my dogs,” Dr. Greene said, “if it’s coons you’re after.”
“No, sir, thank you all the same. It’s not raccoons. Perhaps larger game.”
“But you must be careful,” Berta said, her eyes wide. “The swamps are dangerous, even for those who know them well.”
“I promise we shall be,” Soledad assured her. Yet it was Ray she looked at, her lip ready to tremble.
“Excuse me,” Kesey said, folding his napkin hurriedly. “I got to see to my horse.” He tossed his napkin down, eyes going from Ray to Berta and back again before he turned sharply on his heel and stalked from the house.
“Whatever is wrong with Mr. Kesey?” Berta asked.
“Just tired, I expect,” Ray Featherskill answered. “I’ll see to him. Thank you for the meal, Miss Greene. That was some fine feed. Makes me lonesome for my wife and some of her good cooking.”
Montak’s head snapped up and he nearly choked. Soledad suppressed a thin smile. Ray nodded and followed Kesey out the door, planting his black hat on his head.
“I—” Berta got up abruptly, a strange smile on her face. “Would anyone care for coffee?” Before anyone could answer she had picked up her plate and vanished through the white kitchen door.
“Now what was that about?” Dr. Greene wondered.
“Two cases of indigestion,” Inkada said.
Ray found Kesey saddling his horse in the barn. He walked across the hard packed earth, the scent of decaying hay in his nostrils. Kesey turned around, his features sharp in the lanternlight.
“Be sure to bring plenty of ammunition,” Ray advised him.
“Why? You figure I’m planning on a duel or some such? Hell, man, I see how things lay. I’m cutting a trail for Texas.”
“You’re leaving us now?” Ray asked the cowboy. “Now that it’s going to get hot and heavy?”
“That’s not why I’m leaving,” Kesey muttered.
“Then why are you?”
“I got the itch.”
“Anybody can see that. But it’s not the trail itch, Will.” Ray lounged against the wooden partition of the barn. He stroked Khamsin’s neck. “Should’ve heard what that girl had to say about you after you left, Will. I think she has them cow eyes for you.”
“I’m not blind, Ray.” Kesey slipped the bridle on his roan. “I know who she’s been lookin’ at. You.” He shrugged. “I don’t blame her. Hell, what am I to look at? If she knew me better, what I’ve been, she’d likely hate me more.”
“You’re wrong, Will. Plain wrong.”
Kesey looked at the blond man. The lantern light played on the silver conchoes of his hat. The tie string on his holster hung loose as he leaned against the partition, scalloped from the horses chewing at it.
“I’m not wrong,” Kesey said, but he said it hesitantly, as if he was afraid to believe otherwise.
“I know women, Will. She looks at me only because she’s shy to look at you. You ever notice that? A woman’s eyes don’t stick on the fellow she favors. She’s a shy young thing, Will, afraid you’d misunderstand, maybe. But it’s not me she wants—I’ll promise you that.”
“You sure, Ray?” Kesey was frozen, one foot in the stirrup, the other on the ground. “You wouldn’t kid me.”
“Not at all, partner.”
“She’s a doctor’s daughter, man!”
“Will, they call this here a democracy. A doctor’s daughter, I imagine, has more than once glanced at a no-account cowboy.”
Ray winked, grinned broadly and walked away, hat tilted over his eyes. He was at the door when Will answered him.
“I’ll bring plenty of ammunition.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
They rode out the hour after sunset. Long stands of pine and cypress which had been silhouetted against the pale, magnificent orange of a clear dusk, grew together into a black, tangled mat.
Frogs grumped in the bottoms, there was the constant humming of insects in the air. It was still warm, and a whippoorwill called from deep in the glades.
They rounded a bend in the trail, dipping into the willows. A man came up out of the shadows, carrying a long gun. Ray had his pistol in his hand in an instant; Kid Soledad had seen something else in the meager light, however, for he just sat Khamsin’s back calmly.
“You’ll be riding with us?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then come along, Joseph. We’ve a ways to go tonight.”
“I’ll get my mule,” Big Joseph said. In a moment he reappeared from the deep brush, riding a long-eared Missouri mule, rifle across the saddle.
“We were thinking of taking a ride to the Toures Plantation,” Kid Soledad said to Joseph. “Since you’re here, maybe you should take the lead.”
“I will,” Joseph said. “I was afraid you folks might take a wrong turn out here tonight.”
“That’s why you came?” Ray asked.
“No,” Joseph laughed. “Why I came is between me and Dr. Spectros.” Joseph glanced at Kid Soledad. Somehow the man knew, somehow he had guessed.
Silently they rode the deep tangled woods, in places finding thick, milky fog rising from the dark earth. There were tangled vines draped over cypress limbs, and patches of quicksand which Joseph guided them around.
Sometime after midnight, a pale moon rising, they made the high road. The Toures Plantation house cut a stark, square image against the white of the moonlit sky. A hound bayed off in the hollow.
A faint light glimmered in the front parlor, and another seemed to flicker briefly in an upstairs window before being extinguished.
“There’s someone there, Kid,” Ray said quietly.
“I think so too.”
Khamsin stamped once and then settled at a touch of the Kid’s hand on his shoulder.
“There’ll be guards out,” Featherskill guessed. “A couple of ’em I know.”
“The Questlers?” Inkada asked.
“Yes. Keep an eye out, Inkada.”
“What do you want to do, Kid?”
“I want to know what’s going on, Ray. If anything. The man’s around; we all know that. But I don’t want to chase him off. Someone should ride in.”
“I’ll do it, sir,” Joseph said quietly. Kid Soledad shot a glance at the broad-shouldered black man.
“You?”
“Sir, I’m known around here. I’ve got relatives on the Toures grounds. Sharecroppers. They might not like me being here, but I doubt they’d suspect anything.”
“It’s dangerous…” Featherskill began.
“I know it is,” Joseph allowed. “But I’ve lived dangerous. None of the rest of you can get within a quarter mile of the house.”
They watched as Joseph rode off on his jack mule, whistling casually. After a moment the whistling was all they could hear, then that too was gone as the darkness swallowed him up.
“What’s in this for him?” Kesey asked as they dismounted and sat down to wait.
“Toures might have killed his brother,” Kid Soledad told him.
There was nothing for a long hour. Montak fell asleep, propped against a skinned log. The moon floated past. The last light in the house had blinked out. An owl hooted in the deep swamp, but the rest of the world was silent.
“He won’t be back,” Inkada said softly, quietly.
Kid Soledad glanced at the dark man.
“I’ve got a feeling, Kid,” Inkada said. “If something’s up tonight, nobody is going to leave the grounds.”
Inkada might have been right. Joseph’s reason for being on the grounds was plausible enough—he was visiting relatives, yet if something was in the works, Toures would not want him to observe it.
That was what had happened to Big Joseph’s brother—he had simply seen too much.
There was still no sound from the house or near it, though they were all aware Toures would have men posted. Yet suddenly, deep in the swamps a brilliant orange ball flared up for a moment, dying to a pale yellow glow.
“What was that?” Inkada was to his feet, peering into the darkness. It had been a good five miles off in dense forest.
Kid Soledad shook his head, not liking it. “It’s the man,” he guessed. Why, he could not say, but he knew it was Blackschuster.
“There’s few men with a reason for being off in those swamps in the middle of the night,” Ray commented.
Montak stood, hands on hips, wagging his head. He was concerned. None of them knew the swamps, while Toures would know every inch of them. There were bogs, quicksand, water moccasins and alligators out there, impassible thickets and unexpected sinks. In the daylight it was a treacherous, deadly maze; in the darkness it was a nightmare.
Soledad stood suddenly, eager to be moving. “Ray, I want to make sure nothing has happened to Joseph.”
“I’ll take a look,” Ray told him. “Montak? You and me?”
The giant nodded, rising. Inkada had already stepped into the saddle, his dark eyes still on the distant pale glow. Kesey gripped his rifle tightly, looking at the Kid’s moon-shadowed face.
“You’re with me, Will,” Kid Soledad said, swinging onto Khamsin’s back. Kesey looked puzzled.
“You’d trust me behind your back, Kid? Hell, it wasn’t that far back that I would have shot you from there.”
“We all grow,” Soledad said simply.
Ray watched the Kid turn the big black and ride slowly into the blackened thicket, Kesey and Inkada trailing behind. Featherskill had no taste for riding into the guns of the Questler brothers on the Toures plantation, but he wouldn’t stand for seeing one of their men hurt. Just then Joseph was one of theirs.
He knew as well why the Kid had sent him back in, knowing that the Questlers wanted Ray badly. Soledad had to find Blackschuster. Soledad was the only one among them who had a ghost of a chance against the man; and if that was Blackschuster out in the swamps, as seemed likely, it was suicide to go in there without the Kid.