by Ralph Cotton
Peerly shrugged. “Hell, I don’t know,” he laughed behind his hood. “But it’s not.”
“I’m not . . . a whore . . . ,” Julie managed to say in a strained distorted voice, still stunned, blood oozing from the deep gash in her purple swollen jaw.
“Oh, I understand!” Kiley laughed. “It’s not a whore. You men remember that now. This fine upstanding lady crawling around in the dirt is not a whore.”
“Like hell you ain’t!” Peerly leaned down, raised the lower edge of his hood and spit on her. “If you wasn’t before we started, you damn sure are by now!” He stepped back and gave her a sharp kick in her side. “You smell like one too.”
“That’s enough, men,” the parson called out in his smooth, strong baritone voice. Without calling Conlon by name he pointed at him and said, “You, go torch that barn. Everybody else get mounted.”
“What about the house?” Conlon asked. “Can’t I torch it too?”
“Just the barn,” said the parson. “It’s bad luck torching a house in broad daylight.”
Conlon shrugged. “Can I have another go-around with her?”
“No,” said the parson. “You all had your turn. That’s all you get.” He walked over to where Julie lay gagging, rolled into a ball, trying to catch her breath.
“I—I’m not . . . ,” Julie said, barely able to get the words out.
“Sure, I understand,” said the parson. Stooping beside her, he clutched a handful of her hair and twisted her battered face around until she faced him. “We found the boy on our own,” he said. “It looks like you wasn’t lying after all. So we’re not going to kill you.” He shook her roughly by the hair, seeing that she was once again losing consciousness. “Listen to me! We’re going to let you live. You’d be wise to leave this country. Do you understand? There’s nothing to keep you here, unless of course you’re seeking vengeance.” He stared deep into her eyes as if he might discern something from them.
Julie couldn’t answer, but she nodded in reply when he shook her again.
“Now, that’s a smart girl,” said the parson. “See, this war is ending but we’ll all still be here. Look in any direction and there’s we’ll be, looking back at you, remembering what we all did to you today. We’ve all seen you, but you haven’t seen us. Do you understand?”
Julie nodded before he had time to shake her head.
The parson smiled behind his hooded mask. “That’s it; you learn fast. Now, we don’t want the army to come looking for us, and we don’t want any act of vengeance from you or any of your kin. If the army comes snooping around, we’ll come looking for you. Understand?”
She nodded again.
The parson reached around and patted her on her bare behind. “Good girl . . . You know your place. I like that in a woman.” He looked around at the other hooded faces, nodding, giving them a smile they could not see. Then back to Julie, he said, “There’s a whole lot of Free Kansas Militia in these parts. Nobody will ever identify us. As soon as you’re able to ride, get the colonel and Shepherd Watson buried and clear out of here.”
“I will,” she rasped as she nodded her head in agreement with him.
The parson grinned to himself and said to her, “And always remember, dear Julie, ‘Vengeance is mine,’ sayeth the Lord.” He patted her almost affectionately on her naked breast.
Again she nodded, this time feeling him turn loose of her hair and stand up. She stared at his boots, his hand-tooled Mexican silver spurs covered with tiny engraved flying horses, their wings like those of angels. Then she quickly turned her swollen eyes away, and lay back on the ground, lest he see by the look on her battered face that she would never forget those tiny flying horses.
“Let’s ride, men,” Plantz called out from atop his horse thirty feet away.
The parson looked down and smiled to himself, seeing Julie lie back in the dirt as if resting on a comfortable bed. “That’s the spirit, lie there and relax . . . Reflect on what I’ve said to you.”
Julie did not answer or nod. She closed her eyes against the glaring sunlight and lay very still until she heard the sound of their horses trail off into the distance. A few more minutes passed before she ventured up stiffly onto her palms and sat in the dirt looking blurry-eyed all around herself. Sixty yards away the barn had already started to tremble on its frame, giving in to the high-licking flames, sending black smoke boiling upward across the clear Kansas sky.
To her right she saw the body of Jed Shawler lying in the dirt where the men had thrown him after finding him hiding in the woods a few miles from the house. “I’m . . . sorry,” she said quietly, as if she might have saved him somehow. Looking away from Jed’s body she saw her father and Shep lying where they’d been pitched to the ground that morning.
“Oh, Pa,” she cried softly under her breath, forcing herself to crawl slowly and painfully to the colonel’s side. “Why us? Why us?” she sobbed when she’d stopped and raised the colonel’s lifeless head, cradling it to her dirty naked bosom. She turned her eye to the sky and said in a sobbing, broken voice, “All I ever wanted was to get to know my pa . . . to spend some time together.”
Hugging the colonel’s cold face against her, she noticed for the first time that her silver rose had been taken from around her neck. She turned her swollen eyes in the direction the riders had taken. “Oh, Pa,” she sobbed, “look what they’ve done to us. They even took my rose necklace.”
On the ground a few feet away lay a ragged wool blanket the men had used to drag items from the house and stuff them into their saddlebags. Julie crawled over, picked it up and threw it around herself and crawled back to the colonel’s side. “I know you and Shep . . . need burying, Pa,” she whispered painfully. “But let’s just lie here . . . real quiet for a while.” She’d hardly gotten the words from her mouth before the black silence overtook her once again.
On a wide stretch of grasslands, Baines Meredith stopped his big black stallion and looked all around as he lifted his canteen, uncapped it and raised it to his lips. When he lowered the canteen he made the slightest nudge with his knee. The stallion took the signal and made a complete turn, giving Baines an opportunity to gaze back along his trail through his dark wire-rim sunshades.
He saw no signs of being followed, but he would check again.
Raising his wide-brimmed hat, he ran his fingers back through damp gray-black hair that hung loosely past his shoulders. Lowering his hat back onto his head, he managed to look back again without appearing to check the trail. All right, that’s enough, he told himself, knowing that too much caution could be as deadly as no caution at all.
“Let’s go, Joseph,” he murmured, giving the slightest touch of his knees to the stallion’s sides. Joseph moved forward once again, as if on his own, the rising drift of black smoke from the Shawlers’ place reflecting in his caged eyes.
No one had seen Baines Meredith cross the dry winter grasslands, but had someone been watching they would not have guessed he’d even seen the black smoke drifting eastwardly on the high thin air. If he had seen it, he’d certainly made no effort to rush toward it. Instead, he deliberately kept the stallion pointed straight ahead in the direction of Umberton, and only eased the big animal over gradually until he’d reached the stretch of bare woodlands separating the Shawler homestead from the open plains.
Inside the shelter of woodlands, Baines turned the stallion off the worn path and stared back along his trail once again. The horse scraped a restless hoof on the ground.
“Settle down, Joseph,” he said in a whisper, patting a gloved hand on the stallion’s powerful withers. “Let’s not get in a hurry and forget ourselves.”
The stallion settled reluctantly, blowing out a hard breath. Baines swung down from the saddle, took a short stick of hard sugar candy from his saddlebags and broke it into two pieces. “The only place hurrying ever takes a man is to his grave,” he whispered, holding the first piece of candy to the stallion’s warm muzzle. “Now, you remember that
, my friend.”
The second piece of candy he stuck into his own mouth, and sucked on it while he watched the trail and listened to the stallion chomp his treat into a sweet mush and swallow it. Rubbing the stallion’s muzzle for a moment, Baines worked his piece of candy over into his jaw, then swung back into his saddle. Satisfied that no one lurked along his trail, he nudged the stallion forward and did not stop again until he reached the edge of the woods looking out upon the yard.
“What have we here?” he whispered to the stallion, seeing the collapsed barn still burning. He saw the bodies of the two elderly men, and the woman, only partially covered by the ragged blanket, lying slumped over one of them.
Baines expertly slipped his repeating rifle from the saddle boot and laid it across his lap, his thumb cocking the hammer quietly as he heeled the stallion forward. Looking around closely, he stopped the stallion a few yards away, stepped down silently, walked over and looked down at the three corpses. He’d already gotten an idea of what had happened from the many fresh hoofprints in the dirt.
Rifle in hand, he reached down, took the edge of the blanket and raised it carefully, seeing Julie’s nakedness, her cuts and bruises. But more importantly, he saw her breasts rise and fall slightly, and he heard a soft moan escape her parched, blood-crusted lips. With a dark grimace he looked again at the many hoofprints as if judging how many men had been there. He didn’t have to wonder what the men had done. The signs were obvious, he thought, looking back at the naked woman for a moment as if unable to keep himself from doing so. He saw the thin cut along the side of her throat where her rose necklace had been ripped away from her.
“Damn it, young lady,” he said under his breath with a sigh. “If you only knew how bad I hate doing a good deed for anybody . . .”
But here goes, he thought. He gave the stallion a hand signal, bringing the big animal forward toward him while he stooped down, scooped Julie into his arms, blanket and all, and carried her to a bare-branched oak tree a few yards away. Julie came to just long enough to look into his face with blurry swollen eyes and ask in a broken voice, “Who—who are you?” She shivered, even in the warming sunlight.
“I am your hero for the day, young lady,” he replied. But feeling her tense up as she began studying his rough rawboned face, he continued in a more somber tone, “Don’t worry, ma’am; I am not out to do you harm.”
He felt her go limp in his arms as he lowered her onto the ground and leaned her back against the tree trunk. Even though he knew she couldn’t hear him, he said to her battered face, “You’ve taken worse than just a bad beating, ma’am. I believe we better get you to a doctor as soon as I take care of things here.” He turned and walked to the bodies of the colonel, Shep Watson and Jed Shawler while he rolled his shirtsleeves up past his elbows.
Against the bough of the tree, Julie drifted in and out of a stupor, at one point hearing a faint sound of rocks clicking as Baine piled rocks atop the three bodies, and at another point feeling herself lifted upward and settled onto Baines Meredith’s lap, atop the stallion. Moments later when she reached another foggy state of consciousness, she felt herself cradled in his arms, the blanket falling loosely from around her.
“Who are you?” she asked in a weak voice, struggling with the blanket, trying to raise a loose corner in order to cover herself.
Without answering her, Baines Meredith said, “I put a spare shirt on you before we left, ma’am. You’re dressed, sort of, anyway.”
Julie realized that beneath the blanket she remained naked from the waist down, but she felt herself slipping away again before she could do anything about it. “Water?” she moaned.
“Of course,” said Baines. With his free hand he lifted a canteen from his saddle horn, uncapped it and held it to her cracked, bruised lips. She sipped sparingly. When he took the canteen away from her lips, he judged her state of consciousness and asked, “Do you feel like telling me what happened?”
“No, not now. My jaw . . . feels broken,” she said stiffly. She touched her fingertips to the side of her battered face.
“It’s up to you,” Baines said, understanding her reluctance.
“They wore masks,” Julie said in her broken voice, a trickle of bloody water running down from the corner of her mouth. Her swollen eyes took on a cautious look as she searched Baines Meredith’s rough, weathered face. “I—I promised I’d move on, and I will, as soon as I’m able.”
“I expect it’s up to you, ma’am, whether or not you move on,” Baines said. “But don’t figure you owe the men who did this any promises.”
Julie gave him a cautious, questioning look.
Baines read her look and said, “No, ma’am. I can understand your fear, but believe me, I had nothing to do with any of this. I’m Baines Meredith, all the way from Denver. I saw the smoke from the barn burning and rode in to see about it. As soon as I get you to a doctor, I’ll see to it someone comes back with a shovel, to do some burying.
Having little choice but to trust him, Julie forced her suspicions aside, let out a breath and looked closer at his face as recognition came to her. “Baines Meredith, the manhunter?” she asked, her jaw throbbing in pain, her entire body aching and trembling beneath the blanket.
“The same, ma’am,” said Baines, staring straight ahead, sunlight glinting off his wire-rim sunshades. “Now, try to rest some more and not let yourself think about anything. We’ll be in town before you know it.”
Chapter 9
In Umberton, Baines Meredith rode straight to the sheriff’s office and slipped down from his saddle with Julie half-asleep in his arms. Heads turned toward him along the mud-crusted boardwalks, watching curiously as he reached out with a gloved hand and knocked soundly on the rough plank door. He waited for a response from inside, but none came.
“We don’t have a full-time sheriff,” said an old man who appeared as if out of nowhere, a short pocket knife in one hand and a whittled stick in the other. “We have a sheriff who rides between here and Spotsworth . . . comes through here about once every week or so, unless he goes on to Rulo.” As he spoke he studied the sleeping girl curiously, seeing her sore and battered condition.
“What about a doctor?” Baines asked. “Last time I came through here there was a doctor named Addison. He treated me two years ago when I rode through here.”
A light came on in the old man’s eyes. “You must be Baines Meredith! I remember now. Old Doc cut a rebel bullet out’n you.”
“Right you are,” said Baines, a bit hurried. “Where can I find Dr. Addison?”
“I’m afraid old Doc took ill himself and went back to Louisville, to die among his kin,” the old man said. “But we’ve got a young doctor who rides circuit out here. He’s due through here most anytime now.”
Baines looked all around without expression, his dark shade lens hiding his eyes. “Who should I best take an injured woman to until the doctor gets here?”
“What happened to her?” the old man asked, taking a short, curious step forward.
Baines gave him a flat cold stare from behind the shades.
The old man got the point. “Sorry, I reckon I’m just too nosy for my own good.” He pointed the whittled stick toward a white clapboard two-story house sitting back a few yards from the mud-rutted street. “Constance Whirly’s boardinghouse is about the best treatment a body can get in Umberton. Constance runs it by herself now that her husband is dead. She’s also birthed most babies around here since Doc Addison left.”
“Obliged,” said Baines.
“Want me to—?” The old man stopped short of asking if Baines needed help, seeing him turn, walk back to his horse and step smoothly up into his saddle without disturbing the woman asleep in his arms. “Well, anyway,” the old man said, “I’m Merlin Potts . . . If I can be of any assistance, just holler out.”
Baines rode the stallion at a slow pace to the white clapboard boardinghouse, his hidden eyes looking back and forth from behind his shades at the faces of
curious onlookers. At a hitch rail out front of the boardinghouse he stepped off and walked along a plank walkway toward a wide porch. To Julie’s sleeping face he whispered, as if she might not really be asleep, “You can wake up now; they’re all behind us.” He studied her closely, yet he saw no change in the bruised, battered face lying cradled in the crook of his left arm.
Ahead of him, a tall woman wearing a long gingham dress, sleeves rolled up to her elbows, stood on the porch in the open doorway, her hands on her hips. “Death rides a black horse,” she whispered under her breath, seeing the young woman lying limp in the rider’s arms.
Her bearing and attitude turned bristly toward Death; however, upon seeing Julie’s swollen face as Baines stepped down from his saddle and up onto the porch with her, Constance relented and said, “My Lord! What’s happened to this poor child?”
“Where to?” Baines said, walking past her through the open door, into the cooler shaded house.
See, Constance told herself, taken aback, Death waits for no invitation . . . Yet, hurrying alongside him, she said, “Downstairs here.” Then she moved past Death and directed Baines to a room just off the entrance foyer. “This will be more convenient for her than the stairs, once she gets up and around.”
“Obliged,” Baines said sincerely, seeing the woman had already taken on the responsibility of looking after the injured woman, in spite of the strange looks she’d given him.
“Lay her down here for now,” Constance said, gesturing toward a small sofa. “I’ll have a regular bed brought from upstairs this evening. I rarely use this room for boarders, except when I get too crowded with stockmen and drummers.”
“I’ll pay extra, ma’am,” Baines said, his expression revealing nothing.
“Now, you just hush,” the woman scolded him, indignantly, suddenly putting Death out of her mind. “I didn’t say that to gig you for more money. This poor woman is hurt. What kind of person would I be to charge extra for a person in need?” Looking more closely at him, Constance saw something familiar in his face.