The Drifter's Revenge

by Owen G. Irons

  Coombs was in no rush; there was no sense in hurrying. Reaching the outskirts of town we settled into a plodding pace. The horses blew steam from their nostrils. Behind us their tracks were deep and well defined in the snow. The skies held clear as we rode without speaking for mile after long mile. I didn’t mind the silence. It gave me time for long reflection on my aimless life.

  I had left home early, intent on making my fortune in the vast West. Everyone knew there were fortunes to be made. There was gold, silver, open land free for the taking, buffalo and beaver. I never made my fortune; the West was too big for me, it seemed.

  Then against all odds I found a woman I might have cared for, who might have cared for me. But now Nina was lost to me as well. What did she think, I wondered? Had this been enough to convince her I was a murderer, had perhaps indeed killed Ben as Bobby had insisted? Maybe so; who knew?

  I would never see her again anyway, so it did not matter.

  ‘There’s a creek up ahead,’ Coombs said, pointing toward a long stand of cottonwood trees and willow, all now gray and barren. Their pattern indicated that they were lined along a water source. The trees were maybe a mile off. ‘We’ll pull up there for a while. My butt can only take so many hours in the saddle anymore.’

  ‘Sorry I had to trouble you to make the ride,’ I said with a grin.

  ‘I am, too,’ he sighed. ‘When I was younger, Ryan … hell, down in New Mexico I tracked a renegade white man for three days. And that was across desert in August … well,’ he added, his voice trailing off, ‘that was a long time ago.’

  ‘Did you catch him?’ I asked the lawman. ‘The renegade?’

  Coombs looked sideways at me from under those bushy eyebrows. ‘Caught him and hanged him.’

  I nodded and we fell into silence. After a few more minutes had passed beneath our horses’ hoofs, I said, ‘It can’t be much fun – a man your age – having to hit the trail. Not in this kind of weather anyway.’

  Coombs continued to eye me as if my words had a secret meaning. He shrugged heavily at length and answered, ‘It never was no fun. As to having to do it now, no, Ryan: it’s no fun at all. I kind of resent the people who make me have to get out of my warm little jailhouse and go hunting for them.

  ‘But,’ he continued more wistfully, ‘what else could I do anyway? They don’t pay lawmen nothin’, so you can’t save nothing. I can’t afford a parcel of land and I don’t know if I have the ambition to start all over again.’

  Again a silence descended on us. The snow wasn’t deep, but the wind had increased, making it uncomfortable. There was no timber to break the blowing wind. I saw only here and there a gray, spindly stand of willows or dead cottonwoods and here and there a big old lonesome oak standing on some small hummock, seeming to survey the empty, noiseless plains.

  ‘We cut off here,’ Coombs said, and I saw we had neared the stream he had indicated earlier. I nodded and we started down a sandy trail. Deer and elk had used it, breaking up the snow. Ahead I could see the coldly glistening silver of the creek through the iron-gray trunks of the thin trees.

  We pulled up as we reached it. It was wider than I had thought, maybe fifty feet or so across to the far side. Here and there were ice-fringes where the sun could not reach the shadowy coldness. The murmuring sounds the water made in passing were pleasant, almost melodic.

  It wasn’t enough to make me forget that this man, like him or not, was the one taking me back to be hanged in New Madrid – for I had no doubt that Alton McCallister would see that I did hang even if he had to bribe the judge and every possible juror.

  I swung down and stretched my back. I placed my hat on my saddlehorn and listened to the wind and the river. Holding my manacled hands before me I waited for Marshal Coombs’s orders. He looked up and downstream as if expecting an ambush. I figured it was a habit left over from the days when wild Indians were plentiful in these parts. He turned toward me.

  ‘You go ahead, Ryan,’ he instructed. ‘Just bob your head and drink like a bird.’

  ‘I can’t do much else,’ I said with a grin, gesturing with my manacled hands.

  He stood away from me and watched, his rifle in his hand as I knelt and bowed my head to the creek, sipping at the icy water.

  ‘It’s fresh and sweet as it could be,’ I said sitting back on my heels. ‘Now if you happen to have a sausage and a loaf of bread, we could have a little picnic while the horses have their fill.’

  Coombs’s mouth approached a smile. ‘Don’t talk to me about food just now. I missed my breakfast this morning – and I’m going to miss my lunch.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, rising awkwardly. I waited for more instructions.

  ‘Now get back by your horse while I drink.’

  I nodded and retreated to where the black stood, impatiently waiting for his turn to drink. Except I didn’t go back quite as far as the marshal believed. And as he took his tin cup and bent to the creek, I moved forward even more. I eased up on him silently, just hoping his head wouldn’t turn. But something on the far bank had caught Coombs’s eyes and he rested on his knees, looking at it for just a few seconds too long, and when I figured I was close enough to make my move, I tried it.

  There was no choice about it. I didn’t relish the idea of hemp tightening around my neck. I leaped to him and shoved my boot against the small of his back. Hard, with all the strength I had. Coombs had seen me at the last second. His startled eyes lifted to me and he tried to grab for his Winchester, but he was too slow. He yelled something that might have been a curse and plunged face forward into the racing icy water of the creek.

  My last glimpse of him was when he had reached nearly mid-stream and he came up coughing and choking, his hair plastered down on his skull. He shook his fist at me violently as the current swept him away.

  I didn’t wait around. Coombs might run up against a snag or a rock and get himself out of the water faster than I thought he could, sodden clothing and all. I mounted the black, grabbed the reins to the marshal’s horse and rode away from the river without glancing back.

  Half a mile away I halted the black and swung down. I went to the marshal’s saddle-bags and searched for the key to the handcuffs I was wearing. I had no luck. He must have kept the key in one of his pockets. That left me with yet another problem. I took the marshal’s canteen and a few small items from his saddlags – a stub of a pencil, a box of spare ammo and some woolen socks.

  That left me with the question of what to do with Coombs’ horse. I fully intended to return to New Madrid, but not as a prisoner. I still had business to settle with the railroad.

  But for now I needed somehow to slip back into Billings. If I timed it right and arrived in darkness I thought I could get away with it. Not many people there knew my face, nor did anyone but the sheriff know my horse, and he certainly wasn’t expecting me back there. The stocky bay that Coombs rode was a different matter; it could be known to any number of people in Billings. Clumsily, with my manacled hands I uncinched Coombs’s saddle, letting it fall to the ground. I slipped the bay’s bit and slapped it on the flank. It took off, startled, and ran for a hundred feet or so. Then it stopped, looking back at me with offended eyes.

  Unless the horse doubled back toward the river, and it seemed more likely it would just continue on home to New Madrid, Coombs would never find it on this day. If he did, his butt would be a lot sorer than ever riding it bareback to his office without even reins to guide the horse.

  I didn’t have time to worry about things like that. The marshal had treated me right, but I knew he would shoot me if it came to the point where he thought it was necessary to do so. I nudged my horse’s flanks with my boot-heels and started quickly on my way, doubling back toward Billings.

  The first thing, of course was to get the irons off my wrists. I thought there was one person I could trust to help me.

  The sun was riding low in a cloudless purple sky when I came to the outskirts of Billings, but it was still not dark enough fo
r my purposes. I remembered a shallow pond just on the outskirts where dense willows grew and I could hide my horse and myself and I started in that direction, watching as early lamps began to flicker on across the town.

  Finding myself in among the heavy willow brush I swung down and tried to plan my moves. It would take a deal of caution and a lot of risk to accomplish what I had in mind. I was squatting down, my hat tilted back on my head when I felt eyes on me and saw a shadowed figure nearer the pond. I whirled and almost drew my gun before I saw it was a kid with a fishing pole. Maybe one of the ones I had met the other day, I couldn’t be sure. He stood there in the lengthening shadows, his frayed straw hat casting a long shadow across his face.

  The kid was eight years old or so, and something about him made him look a little dull-witted. His mouth was turned down heavily. His forehead seemed unnaturally knobby.

  ‘Hello,’ I said. He took a cautious step toward me.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked, still frowning.

  ‘Why, I’m just waiting for my friend. I’m going to play a trick on him.’

  ‘What friend?’ he asked uncertainly. He didn’t appear to be frightened, just curious. I held my hands beneath my coat and he hadn’t noticed the handcuffs. I decided to try something risky. The man I needed to see had tools and I thought could be trusted. Why not send a message rather than trying to slip into town unseen?

  ‘My friend is a man named Pez. Do you know him?’

  The kid shook his head. His mouth hung open loosely.

  ‘The man with the beard who works at the hotel. You might have seen him up on the roof patching it up.

  His eyes brightened. ‘I know him! He lives in the tool shed behind the kitchen. Sometimes he gives me bent nails.’

  ‘Does he? Well, he’s my friend. I want you to take something to him.’

  I fished awkwardly in my pockets, turning away from the kid. First I handed him a dime which caused his eyes to brighten even more. ‘This is for you if you do what I’m asking, all right? If you don’t, I’ll have to come and take it away from you.’ His head nodded vigorously and he studied the dime in pleased amazement.

  ‘Can you read, boy?’ I asked.

  ‘No, sir. I haven’t managed that yet,’ he said doubtfully, apparently fearing that he might lose the dime.

  Glad of that, I hastily scribbled a note to Pez, using my saddle as a desk top. ‘Pez, I’m cuffed. Bring tools to the pond back of town. Ryan.’ Folding it, I gave it to the boy and warned him, ‘Don’t stop to buy any penny candies or anything, before you find Pez.’

  He promised he wouldn’t and I watched as he dashed off, weaving his way agilely through the willow brush. I wondered if I hadn’t made a mistake, but then again, most kids are more trustworthy than adults. No matter, there had been no other choice. I settled in to wait.

  The dying sun made the pond a violet mirror. Somewhere I heard a coyote bark and an anxious farm dog barked back angrily, warning the wild creature. It was growing colder by the minute, the sky losing all of its color except for a long crimson pennant hanging limply above the western horizon.

  I heard someone approaching and I yanked my Winchester from its scabbard and slid deeper back into the shadows. A low whistle sounded from twenty or thirty feet away. I whistled back, hoping that it was Pez, hoping he was alone. It was. In a few minutes the lanky, gray-bearded trapper emerged into the clearing where my horse stood and looked around with narrowed eyes.

  ‘I’m over here, Pez,’ I said, stepping out of the heavy shadows.

  ‘What kind of scrape have you gotten yourself into, Ryan?’ he asked with a tolerant smile. His eyes took in the manacles at a glance.

  ‘Some old trouble caught up with me. I’ll tell you sometime. For now’ – I held out my hands – ‘can you get these off?’

  ‘Sure.’ He was carrying a canvas bag with tools borrowed from the tool shed at the hotel, and a lantern. I walked to him as total darkness began to settle. Pez told me, ‘I’m going to have to have some light. Them willows should shield it from anyone in town. Anyone does happen to spot it, it won’t look no brighter than a firefly.’

  Squatting he struck a match and lit the wick to the oil lamp. The wick was turned down so low that barely a fizzle of light could be seen. I had to move close to it so that Pez could work. From his bag he withdrew a hammer and chisel.

  ‘Roll that rock over here,’ he instructed me, nodding toward a head-sized piece of granite near my feet. ‘I’ll strike the chain first. That way if anyone does come up on us, you’ll at least have use of your hands.’

  I nodded and moved the rock nearer to the lantern. Pez crouched. Glancing up at me and then down at the chain placed across the rock, he positioned the chisel and struck down with the hammer. The ring as it struck seemed ominously loud, but the chisel cleaved the chain neatly with one stroke.

  ‘Keep an eye out now,’ Pez said. He had taken a hacksaw from the bag and now, intent and knowledgeable, he went to work at the cuffs themselves. It seemed a long time, but in only minutes Pez had freed my wrists from the cuffs. I rubbed my chafed wrists and thanked him.

  ‘It’s nothin’, Ryan. If it wasn’t for you I’d likely have starved or frozen this winter. I really would like to hear your story – but not here and now. Next time we meet.’

  ‘Next time we meet,’ I promised, shaking his hand warmly. He nodded, smiled, and turned to toss the handcuffs out into the pond where they sank out of sight with a small plunk no louder than a fish breaking the surface.

  ‘Good luck to you, son,’ he said, and then with his lantern extinguished again and his canvas bag in his hand, he too disappeared into the night and the woods, leaving me alone. I wasted no time climbing back aboard the black and circling away from the town. Who knew – the kid might have said something about the strange man giving him a dime. I hoped I had caused Pez no trouble.

  On my own again I headed out on to the prairie. Now I could just glimpse the rising rim of the moon cresting the western horizon to begin its lonely skyward climb. There was a faint sheen of moonlight glimmering on the snowy ground, enough for me to avoid prairie dog holes and other obstacles.

  I felt like a free man again, but I wasn’t free in any sense. I was wanted by the law and needed to get south, away from Montana and my troubles. But I wasn’t ready to go just yet. I couldn’t leave just yet. There was still unfinished business to be attended to. I guided my black horse westward once more. Once again riding to where no sane man would wish to go.

  Where I was honor bound to ride.

  TEN

  The great iron horse rested a quarter of a mile from the trestle spanning the maw of Yellow Tongue Gorge. By the moonlight I could see its great powering wheels and the diamond stack rising above the barrel of its mammoth fire-breathing chest. Now the iron horse stood inert, still, awaiting the prompting of the engineer’s whip to roar to life and thunder its way westward toward Pocatello and other points west, south and north as the railroad’s silvery web of rails joined together distant towns and outposts.

  On the far side of the gorge I could see that the rails the train would follow into Idaho had already been joined with the western tongue of the trestle. They had done it. The train – in the public imagination – would roll on, a great stride toward the building of the West. It would be welcomed, cheered. Praised by front-page editorials in the newspapers. The railroad itself would be honored and applauded as a benefactor, a bringer of a lifeline to the struggling communities.

  No matter that this train was a cheat, a destroyer of men, a death train. Would any of the lumber-jacks, engineers, surveyors and laborers who had brought the train this far ever be paid? I doubted it. How many of those left behind by it would be willing to trail after it, let alone attempt to take the mighty Colorado Northern to court for their money? They had no chance, I knew. The railroad would laugh at them as it had laughed at me. And if they fought too hard they would be killed, as Ben Comfrey had been killed. As they had tried
to kill me.

  The stars were bright in a cold sky despite the sullen half moon among them. The trestle was a huge black timberweb across the dark chasm of the Yellow Tongue Gorge. Something about it humbled me even as I shook with anger. Men had made something larger than themselves and that was always admirable, remarkable really. I had had a small part in it. I wished the killing urge were not on me.

  Because I planned to kill this magnificent creation.

  I knew the railroad camp as well as anyone; the darkness of the night didn’t bother me. I set off on foot, hearing the sound of a man cursing, the chorus of music from another bunkhouse. A door slammed. The camp was alive with men, but no one was standing guard on this cold night in this isolated country.

  I made my way to the storeroom without being seen and breached the flimsy hasp on the door easily. I did not light a match. Starlight shone feebly through the single high window in the shed, but I searched mostly by touch. Knowing where the coal oil was kept, I eased that way, my finger searching the shelves where I knew there would be a can that I could fill from the fifty-gallon drums.

  Someone passed outside – two men talking in low voices. I could not catch the words. I crouched down and let them pass. When they were gone I began again. My fingers slid over various objects until they touched the smooth curved steel of a coal oil can. I hefted it and found that it was nearly full. Good, that saved me one step. I unscrewed the cap and sniffed it to reassure myself and then started out again. I found myself smiling as I reached the door, slid out into the night and made my silent way back across the railroad camp. For a man who abhors destruction of any kind normally, I was enjoying myself vastly.

  ‘It won’t be long now, Ben,’ I whispered. ‘They should have paid us.’ Instead of treating us like dogs, shooting Ben Comfrey dead in the snow.