Another young man, an itinerant named Oscar, and Bronson were the only other Anglos in Texas Jack’s Saloon. There were two Mexican locals in the game, and they talked now and then between themselves in Spanish.
The other players tossed their antes onto the felt-covered card table. The air was thick with the aromas of smoke and whiskey. The lighting was dim as candles flickered in the oxygen-deprived atmosphere.
As bets were placed, Smith took up a little chatter. “You’re new here, my friend,” he said to the kid. “Got a name?”
“Yeah.”
Smith didn’t take kindly to rudeness. “Can you share it with us?”
“Don’t matter.”
Smith was getting ever more annoyed, and it began to affect his judgment. He decided to improve his hand.
“I wouldn’t do that, mister.” Strong had seen the card start to travel toward Smith’s sleeve.
“You accusing me of something?” Smith barked.
“Only if that card goes any further.” Strong had already seen the pearl handle peeking from under Smith’s armpit. He locked his eyes on Smith’s. “Don’t be foolish.”
Oscar pushed back from the table. The two Mexicans did likewise. There was total silence. It had grown about as quiet as a prairie grave. Had the young man without a name actually had the temerity to challenge Smith? Would Smith back down? Everyone knew that he cheated, but no one had ever called him out.
Smith’s left hand quivered a bit, then he dropped the card on the table. Meanwhile, his right hand started toward his hidden pistol.
“You really don’t want to do that.” Strong’s voice was commanding for one so young.
Smith looked at him inquisitively.
Strong caught the unspoken question. “Because, if you do, you’ll be digesting a .44 caliber bullet deep in your intestines.”
Smith raised his hands. He’d never encountered anyone like Strong. He stood up from the table and began to turn. As he turned, he reached inside his coat for the pistol. The sound of the shot was loud in the near-silence. He was dead before he hit the floor.
Strong holstered his revolver, scooped his winnings into a bag, and left a fair amount for Oscar and the Mexicans. As he strolled from the table, he gave the barkeep a couple of dollars for Smith’s burial. He turned to face the saloon patrons as he reached the door. “If a Texas Ranger captain named Long Luke Dunn stops by here lookin’ for me, tell him I’m waitin’.” He pointed south.
As he exited, he caught the eye of a pretty, red-headed young woman at the end of the bar. He gave a hint of a smile and tipped his hat. “I’ll be back.” Be back with a bigger than life reputation was what went through his mind.
He rightly figured it was a good time to get out of Laredo. No lingering and certainly no time for whoring. No telling how close Luke was by now, and he needed to find an appropriate killing ground for an ambush. He still regretted missing Luke back near Nuecestown. He’d forced that shot. He needed to be patient; he knew better than to force a shot.
No one paid him any never-mind as he walked to his hotel to gather his belongings. He hadn’t expected to have to shoot the card shark, but there didn’t seem to be any displeasure over what he’d done. Strong gathered he must have rid the town of a problem. He saddled the roan and took the trail south toward San Ygnacio. There were plenty of places along that route where he could lie in wait for Luke. So long as the folks at the saloon in Laredo would tell Luke that he could find Strong by heading south, that would work just fine.
As Strong headed out of town, he passed a lone rider on a big black horse. The man was fully outfitted in black and armed to the teeth. He tipped his hat to Strong as they went by each other. Strong felt as though it was some sort of professional courtesy. There was that sort of sense among men running afoul of the law.
Strong was so focused on heading south that he didn’t figure to get acquainted with any newcomer. There was something rather ominous about the man he’d passed, though Strong was so into his own evil that it didn’t especially bother him. He kept his horse headed south out of Laredo.
***
Dirk Cavendish had traveled from the Arizona Territory through New Mexico and the heart of the Comancheria. He managed to waylay a couple of mail riders along his route and even robbed a train single-handedly.
Turning due south, he’d soon found himself wending his way along the Rio Grande, traveling mostly at night despite his unfamiliarity with the territory. He was of a mind to eventually explore opportunities on the Nueces Strip as far as Corpus Christi. From what he’d heard, it was a place where he felt he could lose his past. It was his past that weighed on him. Everything might be right, if only he could put it out of the dark recesses of his soul.
Cav, as he was called by friends and enemies, had been born and raised in the broad ranch lands near the Absaroka Range of the Rocky Mountains up in the Montana Territory. His mother was part Sioux and his father, the son of a trapper known as Bear Man Cavendish for his inclination to take on the beasts with naught but a hunting knife, tried his hand with moderate success at raising horses and cattle. If skill with a knife was genetic, Cav inherited the genes. He loved working with knives. He even learned to throw knives with unerring accuracy. Both knives and guns fascinated him, but he much preferred the former.
One summer, when Cav was only fourteen, his mother passed away in childbirth. It wasn’t uncommon on the frontier where medical help was limited at best. She was likely just a bit too far past her prime to be having babies. Cav would have had a brother. He had two teen sisters, Cora and Belle. The girls were as wild as the mountains they were raised near, and they made a habit of flirting with about any man who came near the ranch, or on rare trips to Bozeman.
With his mother gone, Cav’s father began to inflict himself on his daughters. Cav learned to knock before entering, as his father and sisters might be romping naked among the blankets in the only bed in their cabin. In fact, Cav mostly took to sleeping in the stable, even in cold weather. The arrangement didn’t seem morally quite right to Cav at the time, but he really didn’t know any better. He simply had never received any teaching in such things. Aside from day-to-day ranch chores, he whiled away the hours with knife and gun. He became so good with blades that any knife became an extension of his hand. They were like part of his body.
He could just about hear the faint giggling, grunts, and cries of pleasure emanating from the cabin most any night. Occasionally, he heard his father lay a whip on the girls. That was one of his new deviances, apparently designed to lend excitement to their play. They screamed, much to his father’s delight. Cav noticed welts on his sisters’ arms and on their wrists from being tied up. It hurt him to see them hurt, but neither complained. Likely as not, they were fearful of what might happen were they to refuse their father’s advances.
One evening, Cav had just settled in among a couple of blankets, when Cora appeared in the stable doorway.
“Cora?” Cav whispered.
“Where’s your clothes?” she gasped.
It was a warm night, and Cav slept with next to nothing on. He sat up as Cora approached him.
“I’ve waited so long for this, Cav.”
What was she saying? This seemed so wrong, but his own teen physical urges had already begun to come into play. He was confused and conflicted. It was wrong. It was terribly wrong.
She stood over him. Waves of her seductive charms were sweeping over him. Her aroma was alluring. He felt guilt, but it was tainted with a testosterone-heightened urge. He strove to resist. Cora was about to make Cav a willing victim.
As if on cue, Cav saw the silhouette of his father standing in the doorway to the stable.
“What do you think you’re doing, you no-good sonofabitch?” his father yelled.
Cav had never seen his father this angry. With one stroke from the back of his hand, his father swept Cora aside. She tumbled helplessly across the floor. Cav’s father lifted him by his throat and slammed him
to the ground. He began kicking the boy. “You pervert. Don’t you ever touch your sisters.” He kicked Cav again.
Cav had no idea what pervert meant. He tried to get up, but his father laid him out with another punch. Notably, Cav was taller than his father by a couple of inches, but he didn’t have the body strength to match the man.
Cora had stood to one side, naked and horrified. Cav’s father turned to her and leveled her with another punch. The strong odor of cheap whiskey hung in the air. “What you lookin’ at, you little whore?” He prepared to hit her again, only this time he’d grabbed a shovel. He raised it high.
Cav was in a panic. He feared for Cora’s life. In a heat-of-the-moment thing, Cav grabbed a pitchfork and, with all his strength, shoved it deep into his father’s back. The prongs shoved clean through to his chest. It was like a stabbing with a handful of knives. Cora gasped. Cav’s father’s eyes bugged out as he crumpled forward into a heap, pretty much killed instantly. He slumped in a spreading pool of blood on the straw-and-dirt-covered floor of the barn.
Cav tossed a blanket at Cora. “Cover yourself. Get to the cabin and tell Belle we’re leaving.” He left his father there, the pitchfork still protruding from his back. He paused to think about what to do next, then followed Cora to the cabin.
“What are we going to do, Cav?” Cora had already run inside and shared the not-so-tragic news with Belle.
“I can’t stay here. They’ll hang me sure as shootin’.” In the emotion of the moment, he was trying to be realistic about their circumstances, especially his own. “You two can’t take care of this place by yourselves. You must leave. It doesn’t mean anything to us anymore.”
“But where do we go?”
Cav was trying to sort out his own next move. He’d begun gathering travel essentials, especially his father’s guns. He took special care to pack his knives and wore one in a sheath on his belt. He threw extra clothes, venison jerky, coffee, and his all-important whetstone into his saddlebags. He’d travel light. Most important, he knew where his often-drunken father had stashed what little there was of the family fortune. He pried up a floor board and pulled out an old leather sack.
Cav poured the contents on the table and divided the lean bounty equally among the three of them. “Look, I’ll guide you up to Bozeman,” he told the girls. “There ain’t much to the place, but I hear it’s growing.”
The girls started packing while Cav hitched up a couple of horses to the decrepit but serviceable wagon gathering dust behind the stable. He tied his father’s best three horses behind the wagon and threw the tack in the wagon bed, along with his saddlebags and his sisters’ bags.
Within the hour, they were on the rough trail to what there was of Bozeman, Montana. It took better than two days, but they made it. Cav saw to it that Cora and Belle were put up at the only boarding house in the town. Little did he know that the place doubled as a brothel. The weather was getting chilly, so he decided to spend a bit of his birthright on some clothes and a warm coat. He was partial to black, so he bought a black shirt, vest, bandana, and some black trousers. He already had a black hat.
After settling his sisters in, Cav stopped by the local saloon. He sidled up to the bar and ordered a whiskey. He’d never had whiskey before and was taken aback by the burn in his throat. He noticed the barkeep smile, as he likely often did when someone drank their first whiskey. Through whiskey-burned vocal chords, Cav asked advice. “If I was looking for opportunity a long ways from this place, where might I go?”
The barkeep was used to this. Normally, he’d advise going to the gold fields of California. He sensed a different sort of earnestness in this young man. “You’re Cavendish’s boy, aren’t you?” He made eye contact. “Okay, you’re leaving. If I were you, I’d head south to Arizona. You’ve gotta watch for savages, but that’s just how it is. Oh, and I’d get a deck of playing cards and learn how to play.”
“Much obliged.” Cav threw a coin on the bar.
“Your old man’s all right, isn’t he?”
“He’s not well. Maybe someone could check on him after I leave.”
Cav bid farewell to the barkeep and headed to the boarding house. His sisters were seated in the dining area. “You are going to be on your own now. I’ll write to you when I can. I’m headed south to a place in Arizona. They call it Tucson. When I get settled, I’ll send for you.”
Somewhere deep inside, he doubted that would happen. It really wasn’t in his constitution to be a caregiver. He’d especially avoided any emotional intimacy since his mother had passed. Cav loved his sisters, but only because he was supposed to. Besides, he’d witnessed their depravity with their father, and that tainted his feelings with a sense of pity.
Cora and Belle, at age sixteen and fifteen respectively, were quite comely young ladies and they’d be able to take care of themselves. It wouldn’t be long before they’d be servicing the population of miners, hunters, and trappers, plus an occasional Crow Indian.
Cav knew what the girls would do. He could hardly blame them for the life choice they’d made. Maybe they’d find happiness with one of their customers.
He’d taken what he could of value from the ranch. Given that he’d murdered his father, the authorities would soon be looking for him. He didn’t exactly cotton to jail time or possibly a hangman’s noose, so he’d be heading far to the south. Tucson sounded increasingly attractive. As he looked outside at the turning leaves and hints of winter’s onset, he rather looked forward to a warmer environment. Yes, Tucson would work.
He had taken the three horses from the ranch. Somehow, as he rode south, he managed to avoid the Arapahoe, Crow, and Lakota Sioux indigenous to the region. He had plenty of time to keep his knives sharp and to become fairly dexterous with the card deck.
He still had some of the money from his father’s modest savings, but was concerned that he’d need more when he got to Tucson. It was while he was thinking about his need for more money that Lady Fortune took him across the path of a stalled train. He’d never done anything illegal other than kill his father, but this was an opportunity to quickly solve an immediate problem.
He calmly walked his horse along the tracks until he reached the train. It was then that he noticed the passengers were milling about outside and were in some distress. Seems they had been robbed. The train crew lay dead, along with a couple of passengers. Three others were wounded.
Cav pulled up to the group. “Howdy. What happened?”
“We…we was robbed. They blocked the train and rode down hard on us shooting and carrying on.” The women were crying, and one was cradling the body of a man who apparently had been her husband.
A coldness swept over Cav. “Did they get all of your valuables?”
“No. But nearly so.”
Cav drew one of his pistols. “Sorry for your misfortune, but I’ll be happy to relieve you of the rest.” He almost couldn’t believe he was doing this. Yet it seemed natural to him, as though it were in his bones.
The passengers were incredulous, but too weary with the shock of what had already happened to them. They gave up what little they had left. Cav took their money, but left the watches and necklaces they offered.
One of the men decided he’d had enough. He inched over to one of the dead railroad men whose rifle lay beside him near the tracks.
Cav caught the man’s movement out of the corner of his eye. “Don’t!” Too late, the man reached for the rifle, and Cav put two bullets into him. He hadn’t bargained for having to kill anyone. He’d become a train robber and now a murderer twice over in the span of a mere month’s time.
It took him nearly three weeks, but he made it to Tucson, Arizona, which was part of an area that had recently been ceded to the United States from Mexico. There was a lot happening in Tucson, as it had become a gateway to the California Gold Rush and an important stage station on the San Antonio-San Diego Mail Line. He didn’t hang there long, however, as he heard of riches to be had in the silver mines arou
nd nearby Tombstone. He had to watch for Apache and bandits roaming the area, but he found his way to the burgeoning town.
Tombstone was already the stuff of legend, as it had become a haven for reputed gunslingers and gamblers looking to make a quick fortune.
It was in Tombstone that Cav began to forge his reputation. It began one afternoon at a friendly card game. Cav had learned the rudiments of poker fairly quickly and enjoyed games with small pots. He didn’t win a lot of money, but most folks could keep their tempers in check when the stakes weren’t especially high.
Then it happened. One afternoon, Cav found himself sitting at a game with three other gentlemen. Early on, he sensed that the three knew each other but were pretending they didn’t. It raised an alarm in his brain. They were all grizzled and disheveled, apparently from hard days on the trail.
Cav won a couple of hands, and then began to lose. After about a dozen more hands during which he’d lost about four dollars, a handsome sum at the time, he paused.
“Is there a problem, son?” The oldest of the three growled the question with a nearly toothless smile. He took a swig from a bottle of whiskey. He’d nearly finished the contents. Even watered down, the whiskey was likely potent.
Cav noticed these men were carrying impressive personal arsenals. Each had one or more pistols, and at least two of them had what appeared to be Bowie knives. “By chance, you fellas know each other?”
“Would that be a problem?”
Cav looked around the saloon. A couple of men at the bar had paused in their lavishing of affections on a scantily-clad woman to pay attention to the obvious discomfort that seemed to be brewing at Cav’s table across the room.
Nueces Justice Page 7