Despite what he’d told the deputy about the gunmen being gone, Rasmussen was careful as he stepped into the foyer of the Houston house. He stopped right there, his jaw tightening at the scene in front of him.
A man lay crumpled at the bottom of a staircase leading to the second floor. Next to him knelt a woman, sobbing as she shook him. Her hair was in disarray, and both of them wore nightclothes.
“Charlie!” she said between gasping, choking sobs. “Oh, Charlie, please wake up.”
Rasmussen muttered a curse under his breath. He knew both folks, considered them friends. He slid his Colt back in its holster as he took a reluctant step toward them. “Agnes. It’s Mike Rasmussen. You better let me take a look at him.”
Not that it would do any good. Rasmussen knew that from the pool of blood spreading out around Charles Houston’s body. The edge of that crimson tide was already touching the foyer rug.
“Agnes,” Rasmussen said again. He reached down and took her arm.
She pulled away from him. “He’ll be all right. I know he’ll be all right. He just needs to wake up.”
“Sure, sure. Why don’t you go in the parlor now and let me take a look?”
Agnes Houston finally let him help her to her feet. He steered her toward the parlor and called, “Carl!”
Baird appeared in the doorway. He licked his lips and said, “Yeah, Sheriff?”
“Go get some of the neighbor ladies and bring ’em over here.” Rasmussen added in a whisper, “And do it right damned now!”
Agnes was still too shocked and confused to answer any questions. He didn’t really need her to tell him what had happened. He had noticed several splotches of blood on the stairs, and that was enough to tell him the story.
Somebody had kicked the door open, and hearing the racket, Charles Houston had come to investigate. The intruders had shot him as he stood at the top of the stairs, causing him to tumble down the flight.
That hadn’t been enough to satisfy their bloodlust, though. Judging by the shots Rasmussen had heard and the amount of blood soaking Houston’s nightshirt, the killers must have stood over the body and continued to pour bullets into him until he was shot to pieces.
Agnes Houston could plead all she wanted to, but her husband was never going to wake up.
The sheriff settled her into an armchair.
Several of the women who lived on the street bustled into the house a minute later, casting horrified glances at Houston’s body as they passed through the foyer to the parlor. Rasmussen turned the grieving widow over to their care and went back to the body.
He stopped counting bullet holes when he reached eight. Oddly enough, none of the shots had struck Houston in the face. His features were untouched except for a scrape on one cheek that must have happened while he was falling down the stairs. His eyes were wide open and staring in shock and disbelief.
Rasmussen grimaced and turned away. As he did, a stocky figure hurried across the porch and into the house.
“Is it true?” Judge Ephraim Doolittle asked. “Charlie Houston is dead?”
Rasmussen sighed heavily and pointed at the body with his thumb. “You can see for yourself, Judge. Nobody survives getting shot that many times.”
“Dear Lord, dear Lord,” Doolittle muttered. He was a plump man with the round, pleasantly ugly face of a bulldog and white hair parted in the middle and a little askew at the moment. He had been roused from sleep.
Rasmussen could tell that the judge had dressed hastily; not everything was lined up and buttoned right.
“Who would do such a thing?” Doolittle went on.
“I don’t know,” Rasmussen said. “Everybody liked Charlie. I don’t think he had an enemy in this town.”
“He owned a business. Surely there were disputes from time to time with the public. . . .”
“Bad enough to cause something like this?” Rasmussen shook his head. “I doubt it. I’ll talk to his partner, Jeremy Stone, but I don’t think he’ll have any idea, either.”
“How many men did this?”
Rasmussen frowned. “Judging by the hoofbeats I heard when they rode out of town, I’d say three or four, at least. Maybe half a dozen. Mrs. Houston might be able to tell us more once she calms down some.”
“Then they had a reason. If one man was responsible, he might be just a . . . a lunatic. But if a whole group of men burst in here and did something this terrible, they had a reason, Sheriff.”
“I think you’re right, Judge. We’ll figure it out.”
“This is terrible,” Doolittle said again. “Just terrible.”
Rasmussen couldn’t argue with that.
* * *
Several hours later, the sheriff was tossing and turning in his bed in the rooming house, trying to banish the gruesome images from his mind and go to sleep. The storm was still prowling and rumbling in the distance, when a possible explanation for Charles Houston’s killing occurred to him.
He sat up in bed, stared wildly into the darkness of his room for several seconds, and then lifted a slightly shaking hand to wipe away the beads of sweat that had just popped out on his face.
Chapter Three
Deputy U.S. Marshal John Henry Sixkiller paused on the steps of the redbrick federal courthouse in Fort Smith, Arkansas, as someone behind him called his name. His right hand moved a little closer to the butt of the revolver holstered on his hip. He hadn’t recognized the voice, and during his career as a deputy marshal and before that as a member of the Cherokee Lighthorse, he had made enemies—plenty who wouldn’t mind putting him six feet under the ground.
So it just made good sense to be ready for trouble, even in front of the building where his current boss, Judge Isaac Parker, held court.
John Henry turned and spotted a man hurrying up the steps after him. The fellow didn’t look particularly threatening . . . unless, of course, he were to take off that derby hat he wore and start slapping people with it.
“Something I can do for you, friend?” John Henry asked in a mild voice.
The stranger was huffing and puffing, a little out of breath. “My, you’re awfully tall for an Indian, aren’t you, Mr. Sixkiller? I had a hard time catching up to you.”
“I’m only half Cherokee,” John Henry said, “and some of them are pretty tall, anyway. Despite what some white folks might think, all Indians aren’t short and squatty.”
“No, no, of course not. I didn’t mean that. I just mean it’s a hot day to be chasing someone.”
“I don’t recall asking you to chase me,” John Henry drawled.
The man ignored that and stuck out a hand. “I’m Calvin Ettinger.” Then he added, “From Harper’s Illustrated Weekly,” as if John Henry ought to already be aware of this fact.
“Oh,” John Henry said. “That explains it, then.”
“Explains what?”
“In a checkered suit like that, I didn’t much think you were from around these parts. Now that I know you come from back east, it all makes sense.”
Anger flashed in Calvin Ettinger’s eyes. He was half a foot shorter than John Henry, but he didn’t appear to be afraid of the bigger man.
“I’ve been sent here to Arkansas to do a story about you, Marshal. The famous Indian lawman. I hope I can count on your cooperation.”
“I never figured on being famous, and like I said, I’m only half Cherokee. Maybe I’ll half cooperate.”
“You don’t like me, do you?” the journalist asked.
“I don’t know you, Mr. Ettinger,” John Henry said. “But I do know my boss, and I know he won’t like it if I keep him waiting. So I’ll say good day to you.”
“Wait a minute,” Ettinger said as John Henry turned away. “Do you think you could find a few minutes to talk to me later?”
“That all depends on what Judge Parker has to say,” John Henry told the man over his shoulder.
Once he was inside, John Henry took off his broad-brimmed, cream-colored felt hat. He wore a faded blue work sh
irt with the sleeves rolled up over muscular forearms, denim trousers, and comfortable boots.
He wasn’t an exceptionally big man, but he was more powerful than he looked and moved with catlike grace. His thick dark hair came from his Cherokee father, his startlingly blue eyes from his white mother.
Some people looked down on half-breeds, but he had never felt the least bit inferior to anybody. He had been raised to have a quiet confidence in himself, to not look for a fight . . . but to take no guff from any man. He was good with his fists and good with his gun, but never drew the weapon unless he intended to kill somebody with it.
Somebody who needed killing . . .
Parker’s clerk told him to go right in and see the judge. John Henry hung his hat on a hat tree and went on in.
The goateed, solemn-looking federal jurist was at his desk, signing a stack of papers. He glanced up at his visitor and without saying anything used his eyebrows to signal that the deputy marshal should sit down.
“Is that a stack of arrest warrants, Judge?” John Henry asked as he sat in the Morocco leather chair in front of the desk and cocked his right ankle on his left knee.
“As a matter of fact, it is,” Parker said as the pen continued to scratch on paper. He set one of the documents aside, dipped the pen in the inkwell, and signed the next paper in the stack. “Some days it seems like I sign these from the time I get here in the morning until I go home at night.”
“There’s lots of crime in the territory,” John Henry observed. “Lots of lawbreakers to bring to justice.”
“Indeed.”
“I reckon I’m going after some of ’em?”
“Not this time.” Parker replaced the pen in its holder and flexed his fingers to work a cramp out of them. “I’m sending you to Kansas.”
That was a little unusual but not unheard of. Parker and the deputy marshals who worked for him were sometimes referred to as the law west of Fort Smith, and Kansas was definitely west of Fort Smith. So Kansas fell under Judge Parker’s jurisdiction.
“Trouble up there?”
“I wouldn’t be sending you if there wasn’t,” the judge said. “A gang of outlaws has been busy holding up trains in the vicinity of Kiowa City. They’ve stolen the mailbags from the express cars, along with other things, of course.”
“Messing with the mailbags makes it Uncle Sam’s business,” John Henry guessed.
“That’s right.” Parker clasped his hands together in front of him on the desk and leaned forward slightly. “However, while the train robberies are the official reason I’m assigning you to this case, Deputy Sixkiller, that’s not the only reason.”
“There’s more to it than that, eh?” John Henry nodded. “Can’t say as I’m surprised. If I can speak freely, Judge, you look a mite worried.”
“I am worried,” Parker said. “Very worried. I received a letter from an old friend of mine, a Kansas state court judge named Ephraim Doolittle. He lives in Kiowa City, and he claims there’s more to what’s going on up there than a simple gang of train robbers. The holdups are just to keep them in funds. They’re really after something else.”
“What might that be?”
“Vengeance. Blood for blood.”
John Henry sat up at that statement and leaned forward. He had chased down train robbers before, and while he would again if that was necessary, this job was starting to sound a little more interesting. “I’m listening, Judge.”
“In the past three weeks, two men from Kiowa City have been murdered. In the first attack, five armed, masked raiders broke into the man’s house and gunned him down in front of his wife. He was shot twenty-seven times.”
John Henry let out a low whistle. “It takes a powerful hate to do something like that. Who was this fella, and what did he do to make somebody that mad at him?”
“His name was Charles Houston. He and a partner owned the local hardware store.”
“Business dispute?” John Henry guessed. “The partner hired some hardcases to do him in?”
“No. They were best friends.”
John Henry shrugged. “Sometimes friends fall out.”
“Yes, but that wouldn’t explain the second killing. A man named Lucas Winslow lived in town but owned some acreage out in the country that he farmed. He drove out there every day in his wagon to work in those fields. One evening last week he didn’t come home for supper. His wife sent their son out to the farm on a mule to look for him.”
“And he’d been shot, too?”
Parker shook his head. “No, someone sank a post into the ground, tied Winslow to it, and worked him over with a knife until he bled to death. He was still alive while they were doing it to him. Most of it, anyway.”
John Henry’s casual attitude was gone now. “That’s even worse than shooting a man all those times while he’s already unconscious or dead.”
“Yes, and it makes you wonder what the killers are going to do next. Wonder . . . and worry.”
“Any connection between Houston and Winslow?”
“Winslow was an occasional customer at the hardware store. So they were acquainted. But according to both men’s wives, they weren’t close friends. They didn’t go to the same church. Winslow was a Baptist, Houston a Methodist.”
“Yeah, there’s a real denominational gulf there,” John Henry said dryly.
Parker wasn’t amused. “There was only one real connection between the two men, and after Winslow’s body was found that connection was brought to Judge Doolittle’s attention by the local sheriff, a man named Rasmussen.”
The judge paused and John Henry waited, knowing from experience that he had to let Parker get around to these things in his own way.
“A little more than a year ago, Houston and Winslow both served on the jury for a trial in Kiowa City,” Parker said after a moment. “An outlaw named Henry Garrett was charged with murder, convicted, and sentenced to hang. The sentence was carried out a few weeks later.”
“Henry Garrett,” John Henry repeated. “I think I remember the name. He had a gang working with him. If some of them are out to settle the score for him, why would they have waited a year to get started?”
“There’s more to the situation. Henry Garrett’s older brother Simon was also an outlaw. In fact, he was the one who put the gang together when Henry was just a boy. Several years ago, Simon was arrested and sent to prison for armed robbery. He was behind bars when his brother was hanged.”
“But he’s not now,” John Henry guessed.
“That’s right. He served his sentence and was released a month ago.”
John Henry leaned back in his chair and propped his right ankle on his left knee again. “Well, there you go. Simon Garrett got out of prison, rounded up his old gang, and now he’s going after the members of the jury that sent his brother to the gallows.”
“As well as Judge Doolittle. According to Sheriff Rasmussen, who was there for the hanging, Henry Garrett threatened all of them on the day he was executed. His last words were that he would see them in hell.”
“So now you want me to head up to Kiowa City and put a stop to it?”
“That’s exactly what I want you to do, Marshal Sixkiller, hopefully before another innocent man is killed.”
John Henry got to his feet and nodded. “I’ll be starting today, Judge.”
Considering the possibility that that nosy reporter from back east might be hanging around waiting for him, he slipped out the courthouse’s back door.
Chapter Four
The quickest way to Kiowa City was by making railroad connections. Sixkiller loaded his big gray horse Iron Heart into a boxcar and rode the rails, studying the reports on the case and the background about Kiowa City that Judge Parker had given him.
The town was located on the Union Pacific Railroad. In fact, Kiowa City owed its very existence to the railroad. It had sprung into being as a crude tent city during the line’s construction, the sort of “hell on wheels” settlement that was common on the
frontier in those days.
At first, it was nothing but a squalid conglomeration of saloons, dance halls, brothels, gambling dens, and hash houses where a man was equally likely to die from bad whiskey, the pox, or a knife between the ribs.
Then the herds of longhorns began to arrive from Texas, filling a vast swath of cattle pens that appeared seemingly overnight. For months the sounds of hammering and sawing could be heard around the clock as men labored under the merciless sun to build a town, and then more men took their place and worked by lantern light to continue the task.
After a time, the railhead moved on, and with it went the herds. But by then the roots of a real town had been put down, so Kiowa City—named after the Indians who’d been fought off several times during the dangerous first few months of the settlement’s life—survived.
Farmers and ranchers moved in, drawn by seemingly endless stretches of open, fertile land. Businesses thrived. The Indian trouble faded away.
From time to time, savage marauders still plagued the area, in the form of white outlaws instead of Kiowa war parties. Trains were stopped and held up, banks were robbed, and occasionally a family traveling alone by wagon would be set upon and killed, all their belongings looted.
The area wasn’t as dangerous as it once had been, not all that long ago, but it wasn’t exactly civilized, either.
When the train reached the last station before his destination, John Henry got off, put his saddle on Iron Heart, and led the horse down the ramp from the boxcar.
He was ready to ride now.
Unlike some lawmen who liked to strut around with a star pinned to their vest, when John Henry started a new assignment and rode into a new place, he preferred have his badge and bona fides tucked away where nobody could see them.
A lot of time, he was able to pick up important information about the case before anybody found out that he was actually a star packer for Uncle Sam. It had worked before and he hoped it would work again.
After leaving the train, he swung wide and approached Kiowa City from the south. The terrain was flat for the most part, broken only by low, rolling hills, so he was able to spot the line of telegraph poles that followed the railroad quite a while before he reached them.
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