Where No Ravens Fly
After a long hiatus following the death of his wife, Annie Blue, sometime Pinkerton Agent, Deputy US Marshal and freelance detective Lucas Santana is once again called to serve. The smooth-talking, well-read Wyoming private eye is ordered south to Riverton County Texas, to investigate the rumoured growing unrest there. Washington is worried that the ambitions of one man could destroy the peace on that lonely stretch of borderline.
The ambitious Frank Vagg controls the local law on both the Mexican side and the Texas side of the Rio Grande, straddled as it is by his headquarters, the township of San Pedro. Santana’s attractive contact, Henri Larsson, wary at first of the senior operative with the reputation for action, proves to be more of a match than he would like. Santana attracts trouble like horse manure attracts dung beetles and it isn’t too long before he is compelled to use his big Colt. When the lead begins to fly he is joined by fellow Pinkerton agents Joshua Beaufort and Jacob Benbow and the body count grows in the grim, grey borderline county where no ravens fly.
By the same author
Hard Ride to Primrose
Incident at Laughing Water Creek
Wyoming Payday Saturday Night
The Sweetwater Kill
The Far Side of the River
Long Ride to Serenity
Hard Ride to Glory
The Vineyards of Hell
The Dark Trail to Nowhere
Writing as Chris Adam Smith
The Shadow Rider
Shadow on a Dark Mountain
Ride a Long Shadow
Shadow of the Apache
A Man Called Crow
Gunfight at the Nameless Village
Where No Ravens Fly
Harry Jay Thorn
ROBERT HALE
© Harry Jay Thorn 2018
First published in Great Britain 2018
ISBN 978-0-7198-2716-7
The Crowood Press
The Stable Block
Crowood Lane
Ramsbury
Marlborough
Wiltshire SN8 2HR
www.bhwesterns.com
Robert Hale is an imprint of The Crowood Press
The right of Harry Jay Thorn to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. This e-book is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
This one is for Harriet, Toby, Marta and Chris, the young
ones who keep me on my toes, and for my friend David
Wilmot, with many thanks for the lovely hand-crafted
Rio Bravo Bowie knife, a super blade.
PROLOGUE
They prepared the shallow grave just as I had requested. They dug it near to Willard’s Rock close by the small stream that chased the breeze down the mountain. They dug it close to the spot where we had often spent our afternoons picnicking and happily gazing down on our Wildcat Ranch. It was a cold Wyoming afternoon.
County Sheriff Gus Street, Mayor Halloran, US Marshal Harry Beaudine and Joshua Beaufort carried the narrow board upon which her body lay wrapped in a decorated shroud and lowered her gently to her rest. The undertaker’s men filled in the grave and settled a large cairn of rocks over it to protect her body from foraging animals. Later, the blacksmith would come by and place the protective iron railing I had him forge around the grey stoned mound.
We were not regular churchgoers, but the Reverend Morris attended as a friend and led the singing of ‘Shall we Gather at the River’ and her long-time favourite song of the Civil War, ‘Lorena’. A shaman from her tribe stepped forward and caressed the stones with eagle feathers and whispered the chant of the dead.
Later, the undertaker’s assistant would bring the wooden marker bearing her name and settle it in the ground at the head of the grave. It would simply read: ‘Annie Blue. Rest in Peace.’ I had requested that no date be shown: Annie Blue was timeless.
When all was done, I thanked Halloran, the doc and Preacher Morris, and hobbled to our buggy. Gus helped me back up on to the seat and Bart, our dog, settled himself at my feet, making sure his shaggy head was within reach of my caressing hand. My leg was still very stiff and painful from an old wound, and my left shoulder ached constantly, the pain increased by the chill wind rising from the north and bringing with it little flurries of snowflakes. In order to remove the bullet lodged against the bone, which was thought to be a ricochet from the metal frame of our swing seat, Doc Evens had done some necessary digging to find it. The surgery was more damaging than the bullet wound. Annie had not suffered: the round had struck her in the heart and she had died there on the seat next to me while reaching for my falling body. Instantly: no time to even say goodbye.
Two rounds on an early winter’s Saturday evening that would change my life forever.
For the most part, we drove in silence with Pinkerton agent Josh Beaufort and US Marshal Harry Beaudine riding close and silently on each side of us. Passing the rocky outcrop from whence the shots had come, I asked quietly, ‘Any news, Gus?’
The old lawman shook his head. ‘We found two casings over there behind the highest rock, .44.40s. A carbine, we think, seeing as the range would have been too far for a handgun; even a marksman such as yourself would have been pushed with a Colt.’
‘Dead end then?’
‘Seems like it, the ground was chewed up and littered with horse shit so he had been watching the trail for some time. We followed the tracks back until they joined the Blackwater Pike, and there they joined with a hundred others and were lost. Your Sioux friend, Jimmy Eagle, spent days looking for some sign, some inkling of whichaway the shooter might have gone, but nothing.’
‘So, it ends there?’ I was not angry, I had nowhere, no direction in which to aim my anger but I was frustrated by the fact that, because of my wounds, I was counting on others to do what I was so good at. Finding people who had no wish to be found was my job.
‘The Federals are on it, as are the Pinkertons. Something will turn up. You still don’t have any thoughts on it yourself? No one you have annoyed lately, enough to make them want to kill you?’
‘Like I told you and Beaudine, the last two were straightforward seek-and-find cases for Pinkerton, and the only other was for a private client: a petty thief and a wannabe bad man protection artist in Riverside who caved at the sight of me. All three were very minor and resolved without bloodshed. I haven’t fired my gun in the line of duty for two years now, since that shootout in Peaceful when those damned drunken Montana wolvers knifed you and treed the town.’
‘And before that?’
‘West Texas, too far away and too long ago to be connected to this.’ I spoke the words with a great deal of confidence, little realising how time and distance mean very little to a man filled with hate.
CHAPTER ONE
Joshua Beaufort
The hot afternoon sun burned through the large front office window, but the hot Texas air was quickly cooled by a large and innovative electric fan set in the high ceiling of the conference room. Pinkerton, although thrifty, spared no expense when it came to the comfort or security of his top detective squad.
Major Joshua Beaufort, once of the Southern Army of Virginia, was a long-time Pinkerton agent working for the big Scotti
sh detective during the Civil War. He switched his allegiance from the Confederacy to the Union Army in one bold effort to save lives and, in so doing, perhaps shortened the war. In company with a young Union soldier Jacob Benbow, he had returned to Texas and brought about the demise of a smuggling racketeer, Buford Post, who had been fuelling the flames of war by supplying stolen Henry repeating rifles to the south. Thus, the bitter conflict could have continued at an even bloodier pace.
With the peace came other ventures, and his success had earned him the post of Agent in Charge of the San Antonio office and a meeting with Lucas Santana, sometimes known as the Peaceful River Kid. It was a quite meaningless sobriquet, Beaufort knew, and one Santana only used whenever his persona needed a mysterious lift. It was surprising what a made-up name could do for a man or woman in the unsettled and often untamed west: Wild Bill Hickock wasn’t really wild, Sundance was a long way off being a kid and Mary Jane Canary was far from being calamitous.
Beaufort sat at the head of the large leather-topped table already littered with documents and, taking a large wad of papers from a bulky leather satchel, shook more of them onto the table in front of his companions: two of his top agents and a federal lawman. His second-in-command, Jacob Benbow, sorted them and Agent Larsson filed them under their relevant categories. US Marshal Harry Beaudine looked on with some amusement as the three shifted the papers around in some intelligible order, his own office usually being a nightmare of muddle.
‘You got that, Henri?’ Beaufort asked. Henri was the most used name for Henrietta Larsson, one of a growing number of female Pinkerton agents.
‘It’s all a bit of a mess, actually, Chief, but you know what to expect from the Feds: the bigger the case, the greater the confusion, else they wouldn’t need us.’ She looked over at Beaudine. The big man gave her a sheepish grin and returned her green-eyed wink. The four had worked together on several occasions and were comfortable in each other’s company. Besides, were he a younger man, and single, Harry Beaudine might have harboured thoughts that went beyond a working relationship, even at the risk of irritating his old friend, Josh Beaufort. She was a handsome woman, sure enough. Tall and straight without being rangy, short black hair and a masculine kind of face; square, yet somehow attractive on the woman. Dressed as usual in a white blouse and dark skirt, she looked exactly what she was: an efficient no nonsense detective. Her input was always welcomed and very much appreciated by the three lawmen.
‘What more do you need?’ Beaudine asked, after much of the paperwork had been digested and discussed by the trio. ‘Your company is happy to take it on and the government are happy to pay for your services, but we do feel the need for some speed here before matters get out of hand.’
‘The only more we need,’ said Beaufort quietly, ‘is a man on the inside, and I think I know just the man if we can talk him into it.’
‘The same man I’m thinking of?’ Beaudine asked quietly.
‘None other.’
‘Then you had best get on a train and head north.’
‘Who are we talking about here?’ Agent Henrietta Larsson asked, looking from one to the other.
‘Lucas Santana,’ Benbow chuckled. ‘The Peaceful River Kid himself.’
The winter dragged by slowly for me. It took longer for my wound to heal than I had thought. I suspected my inner wound, the loss of my lovely wife, would never heal. Out of necessity I hired an old wrangler, Jesse Overlander, who I had known since the time I had first moved to Blackwater County, to run the Wildcat for me. I told him to take on help if he needed it, as it would be a long while before I would be of any real use. He was an amiable middle-aged man, a fair country cook and good company on the long dark evenings when the demons and the whiskey took a hold of me. Bart approved him, so he moved in to the small but comfortable cabin I had had built for just such a purpose, should hired help ever be needed. With close on five hundred head of prime Wyoming beef and more on the way, I guessed that extra help would have been needed following a long spring and a mild winter, even in happier circumstances.
I pondered long and hard while my wounds healed, seeking answers I could not find. Beaufort’s enquiries had rendered nothing new and Harry Beaudine, fully occupied with problems across the state, had admitted it had been pushed to one side and would remain there unless any new information was received. The reward money I offered for that information was never claimed, and as the winter passed, so did my hope of ever finding the lone gunman who had robbed me so cruelly of my Annie Blue.
And so it was and late.
One early spring evening I was alone in the barn tending to the ranch milk cow. Annie had named her Susan, for some obscure reason, and the big animal was about to give birth. Her bellowing must have drowned out his approach, since the first I knew of his arrival was a loud cough. I turned, reaching automatically for the gun that was not there. I seldom wore a sidearm on the ranch but old habits die hard, or range detectives do not make old bones.
‘Are you ready to get back to work, Lucas, or are you going to spend the rest of your days with your arm stuck up a cow’s backside?’ Pinkerton agent Joshua Beaufort stood in the open doorway with a wide grin on his darkly moustachioed handsome face.
I turned my back on Susan and walked towards him, offering him my hand. He graciously declined, stepping smartly back, and the smile turned to laughter.
‘Come up to the house. She can wait. Probably better off without my interfering, anyways.’
I led the way past his buggy and stopped at the water tank to wash Susan’s insides from my arms and hands.
‘You play nursemaid to every cow you have, personal like?’
‘No, only old Susan; she’s more of a pet, gives us our daily milk and, once in a while, a very sellable lady calf.’
The Wildcat headquarters were not grand, but both comfortable and homely at the same time. It contained Indian rugs, two large bookcases, a gun rack, dining table and leather chairs in the larger room set in front of the big open fireplace, and two bedrooms and a kitchen with an indoor bathroom built to Annie’s specifications. It was clean and tidy; no real thanks to me, but to Jesse’s sister who came by once a week to smooth things over, change the linen and clear out the fireplace. She also cooked us both a meal that was the best grub of the week.
Beaufort stepped past me and picked up the silver-framed sepia-toned photograph of Annie and me that stood atop the piano I had imported from Cheyenne. ‘Lovely lady, Lucas; not sure she would be in favour of you sitting on your backside all winter and spring.’
I shrugged. ‘Leg still aches a little in the cold from that hit I took in Peaceful a while back.’
‘Arm seems well enough to fit a cow’s ass, and there’s no limp now that I can see. Gus Street tells me you ride well enough. Also, you are getting a mite thick around the belly.’
‘Have you eaten?’ I asked, ignoring all comments.
‘Not since a late breakfast in Peaceful.’
‘There’s a bottle on the table. Help yourself, and I’ll get Jesse to take care of the buggy. I guess you will be staying the night?’ I said, hopefully.
‘Maybe a couple; I need a break. Things are pretty hectic in Texas at the moment, but my deputy can handle most of what comes his way.’
‘Deputy? You have a deputy now?’ I took out the makings from my shirt pocket and rolled a neat cigarette. He declined my offer of loose tobacco, preferring instead a tailor-made smoke from a leather cigarette case.
‘Not a deputy in the lawman sense, but as in a second-in-command; it’s just a word, really.’
‘Let me guess,’ I said, ‘Jacob Benbow?’
‘That’s the word.’
‘Top man,’ I said, remembering the young Yankee from a couple of past encounters: one in West Texas and one right here in Peaceful. During both, he had made the difference between life and death for the pair of us in two horrendous shootouts. ‘He still tote that Henry rifle?’
‘Never without it.’ He cross
ed the room to my gunrack, looked at me for my nod of approval, and carefully removed the rifle he had presented me with at the successful closure of the first case we had ever worked together. ‘Lovely piece, the Henry. “Load it on Sunday and shoot all week long”, isn’t that what they used to say? Sixteen rounds of hell. Not so popular now, though; most lawmen carry the Winchester .44.40. I guess it’s easier if you have a saddle gun that fires the same centre fire ammunition as your sidearm.’
I put the coffee pot on the small iron stove that served to warm the kitchen and dining area. ‘I guess so,’ I said.
He set the rifle back on the rack and turned to me, the smile gone replaced by a soulful sadness. ‘I am so sorry, Lucas, so sorry we could not do more. We tried. . . Believe me, we tried every which way, but nothing, not even a hint. Even with the reward, nothing.’
I turned to him. ‘I know you did, Josh, both of you. Even with Beaudine’s office helping. It’s just one of those things we will never know. In our line of work, we cross many trails. Some are long, some are short and many lead us nowhere. Who knows what rocks we turn over in our passing? When you bring a man down you never can tell how many you bring down with him, like ripples from a pebble in a lake, too many to count. You did your best, all of you did that for Annie, and I am obliged, but what is done is done. . . .’
‘As Lady Macbeth once said,’ he interrupted me. The smile returned to his sunburned Texas face, lifting the darkness which had briefly settled around us. ‘I know you are well-read.’
‘Damned right, I am,’ I said.
‘We have a case for you. Might be a tough one, could be a long one but better than punching cows all summer and putting your hand where no man’s hand should ever be put.’
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