by Bill Dugan
When they reached the mess wagon, he filled Cookie in, and it was the old man who suggested Ted take her to the O’Hara farm. “They got no kids of their own, but it would be best for the girl to have somebody around her. You cain’t stay here and watch her all day. She don’t want an old geezer like me around here, neither. Maybe Mrs. O’Hara can get her to open up a little.”
Rather than ask them, Ted decided to bring the girl, in a way giving them no choice. They seemed decent enough people, and it was hard to think they might turn her away. At least it was worth a shot. Ted threw a spare saddle on his second horse and boosted her into the saddle. It was a two-hour ride, but there was nothing else he could do, not if he considered the girl’s condition and the reality of his own life at the moment.
As they left the wagon behind, Ted chose not to say anything. The girl knew what he was planning, because he knew she heard everything that was said. She was terrified, and he understood that, but she was a liability he couldn’t afford.
She frowned at him now and then, but said nothing for the first hour. She watched him from the corner of her eye, never looking directly at him, but never letting him out of her sight for a minute. Once, he heard something off the road ahead and told her to stay put while he checked it out. It was nothing but a stray cow caught in some brambles, but when he rode back to her, the stark terror on her face was unmistakable.
And every time Ted looked at her, his heart broke. Terrible bruises on her cheek and forehead had turned an ugly purplish black. Her hair was matted, and there was no brush to pull the burrs and knots loose. Even five feet away, Ted could smell the fire on her, an acrid stench, ashes and smoke, smelling like death smelled. The way the killing fields of Shiloh smelled.
Ted chewed at his lower lip until it was raw. He kept working his tongue over the skinned flesh, almost enjoying the sting of it. It made him feel alive, at least. And on that one point, he needed constant reassurance.
For the rest of the ride, the kid kept glancing at him, as if she wanted to say something, but didn’t know how. Ted waited patiently. He thought about prompting her, giving her an opening, but he didn’t know how. Finally, he decided that someone else, someone she didn’t associate so directly with the fire and her father’s death, would have to make the breakthrough.
When they reached the O’Hara place, the yard was quiet. O’Hara heard their horses and came out of the barn. He had a shotgun with him this time and carried it cradled in his arms. It was obvious he was uncomfortable with the weapon. And equally obvious was the fact that he wouldn’t stand a chance against anybody who knew how to use a gun.
He recognized Ted when he got closer, and the anxious frown relaxed a little. He looked at the girl, then at Ted, as if to ask who she was.
“Cotton,” he said. “See you’re still here.”
“That surprise you?” Ted asked.
“I wouldn’t be, if I was you.”
Ted nodded.
“Come on down.” He walked toward the porch and Ted walked his horse to the hitching post, slipped out of the saddle, and helped the girl to the ground. He tied both horses and started onto the porch, but the girl grabbed his arm.
“What’s the matter with her? And who is she?” O’Hara asked.
“I don’t want to answer the first question right now, and I can’t answer the second one.”
O’Hara seemed confused for a moment, then shrugged it off. “Come on in.” He stepped into the house, then stood in the doorway.
“I’ll be along in a minute,” Ted told him.
To the girl, he said, “Listen, these are good people. They can help you, if you let them.”
She shook her head.
“Look, somebody’s got to take care of you. You must have folks somewhere. We have to get in touch with them, and you need to stay someplace while we do.”
Again, she shook her head.
Ted was about to shout at her, thinking maybe that would jar her loose from whatever had its claws in her, when Millie O’Hara appeared on the porch.
“Mr. Cotton, what’s going on? Why don’t you two come on in out of the sun?”
“I was asking her the same thing,” Ted said.
Millie stepped off the porch, and her husband started to follow. She heard his boots on the porch and turned to him, shaking her head. “You go on inside, Kevin, I’ll take care of it.” She stepped between the two horses. One glance told her something terrible had happened to the girl. She shooed Ted away. “Go on inside. Talk about cows, or something,” Millie said.
Ted, grateful for the dismissal, stepped away. The girl still grabbed his sleeve, but Millie gently untangled her fingers from the cloth. Even as he backed away, Ted saw the fingers close over Millie’s wrist. The skin of the woman’s arm turned white on either side of the grip.
O’Hara waited in the doorway, stepped aside for Ted, then gestured toward the table. “Pull up a chair,” he said.
When Ted was seated, O’Hara sat opposite him. “What happened?” He asked the question in such a way as to suggest he already knew the answer.
“Conlee killed her father and burned the place to the ground. I think the girl was raped. The bastards left her in the burning house. Nearly got myself barbecued getting her out.”
“It might have been better if you left her.”
Ted didn’t believe what he’d just heard. “Are you crazy, man?”
“What’s going to happen to her now?”
“She must have family. We can find them, see that she gets there, wherever that happens to be.”
“Cotton, this is a hard country. Hard things happen. It’s nobody’s fault, it’s just the way it is.”
“What was I supposed to do? Walk away from it?”
O’Hara shrugged. “I would’ve. For all you know, Conlee’ll come back for her. He doesn’t usually leave witnesses.”
“No! No way in hell would I leave that girl there. What kind of man are you, O’Hara?”
“A man who understands reality, Cotton.” He sighed. “Look, I don’t mean to sound harsh, but you’ve got to face facts, man. You can’t go traipsing across Kansas on some sort of fool’s errand with that girl trailing behind you. You’ll probably get yourself killed anyhow, but even if you don’t, you can’t have her along.”
“I was hoping you and your wife would take her in. Just until we can find her family.”
O’Hara shook his head. “Sorry, Cotton. I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“It’s a mistake, that’s why. I don’t need Conlee comin’ after me. I’m doin’ okay here. That’s the way I want to keep it.”
“What about tomorrow? What about next week?”
“I’ll worry about that later.”
“And when Conlee runs out of farms to burn? What then? What happens when it’s Millie’s turn to provide a little fun for those animals? What do you do then?”
“It won’t come to that. I mind my own business. That’s how I get along in the world.”
“What about the sheriff? Can she at least stay here until I get him to take her?”
“He won’t. Tom Mitchell’s a practical man, just like I am. We’re on the edge of the knife here, Cotton. If we forget about that for a second, we’re finished.”
“You’re already finished, you ask me, O’Hara. You make me sick.”
“Oh, I do, do I? From what I hear, you’re no great shakes standing up to Comanches. What makes you think Conlee is any different?”
Ted kicked back his chair and stood up. He was so furious he could merely shake his head. Words escaped him. And deep inside was the hot and heavy truth that O’Hara just might be right. It sat there like a ball of molten lead in his gut. He turned and walked to the door.
“You better think about what I just said,” O’Hara called.
Ted pushed open the door and stepped onto the porch. Millie was just coaxing the girl up the steps. The girl was hanging back, and Millie squeezed her arm, just the way the gi
rl had squeezed her own a few minutes before.
“Come on, Margaret. It’s okay. Come on with me. You need something to eat. You’ll feel better.”
“Forget about it, Mrs. O’Hara, she’s coming with me.”
Millie looked stunned. “What do you mean? She can’t. She needs someone to look after her.”
“Your husband won’t let her stay.”
“He what?”
“He doesn’t want her here. Says it’s too dangerous. He won’t let her stay.”
The girl darted up the steps and wrapped her arms around Millie’s waist. She buried her face in the woman’s skirts and started to sob.
“We’ll just see about that, Mr. Cotton,” Millie said. “Come with me, child.”
She barged through the door, the girl hanging on for dear life, and Ted followed. O’Hara was sitting at the table, his eyes staring off into some unseen distance. He glanced at Millie, but said nothing. Ted noticed that O’Hara’s eyes were red-rimmed, and the Irishman must have realized it, because he swiped a big paw over them, then let it land on the table with a thud.
“Mr. Cotton tells me you want to throw this child to the wolves. Is that right?”
O’Hara looked at his wife, but remained silent. “Answer me, Kevin O’Hara. Is that right?”
“What else can we do, Millie? What else can we do?”
“We can stand up for ourselves. We can say this has gone far enough. We can say no more, dammit. No more!”
“What’s come over you, woman?”
“What’s come over we, is it? You can sit there and ask me that? It’s not me wants to throw this poor child away like a piece of trash. Suppose it had been me, and not this girl. What then? Would you throw me out?”
O’Hara stared at her as if she’d lost her mind.
“Answer me, Kevin. Would you? Would you throw me out, too?”
“Of course not. You’re my wife, Millie. I could never do that.”
“Then you’ll not do it to her, either. Not as long as I’m living in this house, you won’t.”
“But …”
“No, Kevin. There are no buts. Not this time. I’ve stood by and watched you, and all the others; the sheriff, Darren McGovern, Jason Hillyer, one by one, you caved in, like tenpins. And now, Ralph Conlee’s the only man in this territory who does what he wants to do, because you men don’t have the spine to do what you ought to do.”
“You’ve no call to talk to me that way, Millie. Not in front of strangers.”
“Oh, and who should I talk to that way, if not the man I married? What happened to you, Kevin? You were always a good man. I didn’t want the world. I was lucky to have you. That’s what I used to think. But now …”
She turned to the girl. Stroking her hair, she turned away from the two men. The girl was sobbing quietly, her knuckles white where her fingers dug into the folds of Millie’s skirt.
“Don’t worry, child, you’ll be safe here.” Then, turning back to O’Hara, she said, “Won’t she, Kevin? Won’t she be safe here?”
O’Hara nodded.
“Then tell her, dammit. Tell her she’ll be safe here. Tell her Conlee and those animals of his will never lay a finger on her again. Tell her, dammit. Tell her now!”
O’Hara looked at Ted. But Ted was as stunned by the onslaught as O’Hara. He shrugged.
Getting up from his chair, O’Hara walked toward Millie. He put a stiff arm around her, then knelt down beside the girl. “It’s alright, honey. Don’t you worry. Nobody can hurt you here. Not now.”
But his voice shook, and Ted knew the man was trying to convince himself more than the girl.
“Look,” Ted said, “I’ll have Cookie bring the wagon. He can stay here with you. An extra man won’t hurt.”
“That’s a good idea,” Millie said. “Maybe we can convince some of the others, too. Maybe it’s time everybody took a good look in the mirror. It would be nice to like what we see, for a change.”
18
FOR NEARLY A WEEK, Ted crisscrossed the countryside, looking for something, anything, that would lead him to Conlee and his men. There was plenty of evidence that he had passed through, but the trail was always cold. There were rumors, but the Kansas hills seemed to be as fertile soil for them as for any other crop.
Then, on the sixth day after he’d pulled Margaret Reynolds from her burning house, he got lucky. Ted picked up the trail first thing in the morning. Tracking wasn’t difficult, because Conlee and his men rode like they had nothing to be afraid of. And from what Ted had seen so far, they were dead right.
The desire for revenge was burning like a hard, bright jewel on the edge of the horizon. What had been purely personal, an eye for an eye, Conlee’s life for Johnny’s, had become much more. It was still personal, but Ted was starting to look at things in a new way.
He could sense that Jacob would disagree, but Jacob lived in some other world, where men were perfect and the rules worked. The more Ted looked at it, the more clearly he understood that rules existed precisely because men like Ralph Conlee existed. Without them, rules wouldn’t be necessary.
But rules on paper were worthless. Worthless, too, was a man with a badge who wouldn’t use a gun. It seemed so elementary, and yet it came as a revelation. It seemed almost like Ted was the first man to understand that rules had to be enforced, that blood had to be spilled in defense of those rules, if it were necessary. And it could not have been more necessary than this time. Ralph Conlee had been grinding the law, the good book, and just about anything else anyone held sacred under his heel for so long, it no longer seemed to matter to anyone.
But Ted wasn’t going to let it go. He couldn’t. Not as long as he could breathe. He didn’t owe these people anything. But it went beyond that. He owed Johnny, and he owed Margaret. And, most of all, he owed himself. Life had played a rather cruel joke on him, and he had stood there like a village idiot, second-guessing himself, and wondering why everyone was laughing. He might as well have let the drool run down his chin.
He knew that his worst mistake would be underestimating Conlee. The man might be little better than a monster now, but he had led a brigade of guerrillas for four years. He had stayed alive and, presumably, had kept a few of his men alive as well. Given the meat grinder the War Between the States had been, that was no little accomplishment. It didn’t earn Conlee respect, but it sure as hell made him a dangerous man to buck.
Riding after him on a crisp, bright morning, Ted felt like his whole life had somehow been preparation for what was about to begin. It was almost perfect in its biblical simplicity. He was David going after Goliath. But it was easy to identify with a winner. Becoming one yourself was another matter.
Common sense told Ted that Conlee must have some sort of permanent camp within a day or two’s ride. Even guerrillas had to sleep someplace.
Past midday, Ted passed the still-smoking ruins of a small homestead. He reined in and walked to the edge of the foundation. The only thing still standing was the stone chimney. It pointed at the sun like an obscene finger. Among the ruins, the remains of someone’s life. An old piano, its strings snapped and curling like tormented snakes, sat in what had been one corner of the house. Hunks of metal, tarnished by the heat of the blaze, dotted the heaped ashes. Most were no longer recognizable.
Ted stepped into the wreckage. His boots kicked up clouds of ash. Still glowing coals winked as the air hit them. He could feel the heat through the soles of his boots. Walking over to the corner, he touched several of the piano strings. His fingers came away black. He rubbed the ashes between his fingertips, then licked them clean. The bitter taste made him thirsty and a little angry.
In another corner, a mound of ash caught his eye. He stepped around what must have been a chair, its covering gone, its stuffing charred away to wispy curls of ash, and nudged the mound with his toe. A skin of ash collapsed, like glass breaking without a sound. He turned away from the bones.
He’d seen things like this before, in Texas.
The Comanches made torching an art. But that was different. That was, after all, war of a sort. This was something else again. This was plain evil, the kind of evil Jacob and Ellie Quitman didn’t want to admit existed.
Ted backed away from the bones, nearly tripping over something hidden in the cinders. He bumped something with his shoulder, a pipe of some sort, maybe a clothes rack, and it teetered. He spun around, reaching for it with both hands, lost control, and it tipped back and past him. It cracked against something that sounded like stone. Ted didn’t want to turn around, but he knew he had to.
Stripped of its covering of ash, the skull stared at him with that final, permanent grin.
Stepping over the rock foundation, he looked beyond the ruined house, past the chimney. A fenced-in garden, mostly vegetables, but sporting a few flowers, looked desperate against the afternoon sky. Ted walked to the fence and leaned over to snatch at a flower. It came away reluctantly, and then only after he pinched the stem between thumb and fingernails. Holding the flower in his hand for a moment, he wondered who had planted it. He knew only too well that someone who had cared for the garden now lay there in the ashes. As he walked back past the ruined house, he stopped for a moment and set the flower on its stem on the foundation. He thought of Ellie, and for a second was tempted to say a prayer.
But the temptation passed. Praying was now for other people.
Remounting, Ted pushed on past the ruined homestead. The road was pocked with prints from recent, heavy traffic. He had seen more than a dozen men the day before, but there could have been more. To keep himself from worrying about what he would do once he found Conlee’s camp, he concentrated on the search.
Another hour’s hard riding brought him within sight of several columns of smoke. They were three or four miles ahead, and almost certainly marked some sort of camp. Ted cut off the road and into the open plains. If the war had taught him anything, it was that risk was unavoidable, but only a fool took risks he didn’t have to.