“I didn’t think the rangers ever left Texas,” Posey said.
“Scout is actually an army scout assigned to me,” McDonald said. “No better tracker anywhere. We figure we owe you for taking out most of Spooner’s gang. If anybody can make it through the Bighorns, it’s Scout here.”
“I figure he’d be gone a month or more,” Posey said.
“I can do a month standing on my head, and besides, my wife will be glad to be rid of me for a while,” Scout said.
“I need to get Evan to Santa Fe before we head out,” Posey said.
“We’ll leave right after we have some breakfast,” Scout said.
“By the way, I never did thank you for the watch,” Posey said.
“Small price for ten dead outlaws,” McDonald said.
Scout kept them moving at a fast pace for several hours. Posey’s horse had no trouble keeping up, but Evan’s smaller horse lagged behind a bit.
Around noon, Scout called for a break.
“We’ll rest the horses for one hour,” Scout said. “We’ll likely be early and have to wait for the train.”
Posey leaned against a tree and rolled a cigarette.
“Are you in the army?” Evan asked Scout.
“I scout for the army, but I ain’t in it,” Scout said. “That’s how I came to scout for the rangers. They sort of made a loan of me where needed. I kinda found a home with the rangers, but the army still pays me.”
“Could I join the army?” Evan asked.
“Don’t see why not, when you is old enough.”
“Even though my uncle is an outlaw?”
“What your uncle does has got nothing to do with what you do,” Scout said. “Each man gets judged on his own actions.”
“What about being a marshal or Texas Ranger?” Evan asked.
“A man can be whatever he wants to, good or bad,” Scout said. “It’s his choice. But first you got to grow up. When you do, you’ll make the right choice for what suits you best.”
“What’s your real name, Scout?” Evan asked.
“Sebastian O’Leary,” Scout said. “But no one calls me anything but Scout, even my wife and five kids. Now we best get moving.”
Evan looked at the hundred or so men laying track at the construction site, having never seen so many men working in one place before.
“Down the track a ways is where we catch the train,” Scout said.
A thousand yards from where the men were working, Scout, Posey, and Evan dismounted.
“Keep your eye on the tracks coming from the east down yonder,” Scout told Evan. “You’ll see the train long before it gets here.”
“How?” Evan said.
“You’ll see,” Scout said.
While Evan watched the tracks in the distance, Posey rolled a cigarette and lit it with a wood match.
Scout came and stood beside Posey.
“He’s a good boy,” Scout said. “What’s going to happen to him?”
“My brother in Santa Fe is a territorial marshal,” Posey said. “He’ll see the boy is pardoned of any crimes he may have been forced to commit by his uncle.”
“And then?”
“I don’t know.”
“If the boy is agreeable, when we done with this, he could come back with me,” Scout said. “My oldest boy is about his age, and he’ll earn his keep and go to school.”
“Ask the boy,” Posey said.
“Hey, Marshal, Mister Scout, I see clouds of black smoke,” Evan said.
“That would be the iron horse coming to take us to Houston,” Scout said.
It took about ten minutes for the three-car train to arrive, and when it slowly rolled past them, Evan was bewitched at the sight of the massive locomotive, riding car, and boxcar.
When the train finally halted, Posey said, “Evan, let’s get the horses loaded into the boxcar. Slide open the door and pull down the ramp.”
The engineer left the car and walked to Posey. “Are you Marshal Posey?”
“I am,” Posey said.
The engineer nodded. “Let’s go to Houston,” he said.
Evan stared out the window and watched the countryside whiz by at fifty miles an hour, so fast it all appeared to him as a blur.
“We’ll make Houston by seven o’clock tonight,” Scout said. “After they take on water and coal, we’ll head out directly to Santa Fe.”
“Just us?” Evan asked.
“The railroad owes the rangers a great deal,” Scout said. “We fought Indians, robbers, and everything in between for them, so paying us back a favor don’t bother them none.”
“How far is Santa Fe from Houston?” Evan asked.
“About nine hundred miles,” Scout said. “We’ll make the trip in about fifteen hours or so.”
“Nine hundred miles,” Evan said with wonderment as he looked out the window.
Grinning, Posey lowered his hat over his eyes and took a nap.
“This is Houston,” Posey said as they exited the train at a rear platform.
It wasn’t yet dark, and Evan stared at the massive city in front of him. “I didn’t know a town could be so big,” he said.
The engineer approached Posey.
“You have time to grab some supper,” he said. “But I’d like to leave around eight-thirty.”
Scout and Posey watched Evan eat a second helping of apple pie at a restaurant a few blocks from the railroad station.
“I never ate at a real restaurant before except for that little place in Mexico with you, Marshal,” Evan said.
“Then this is your first,” Posey said. “Now, if you don’t want a third slice, I suggest we walk the horses for a bit before we leave to stretch their legs.”
Fifteen hours later, around one-thirty in the afternoon, the three-car train pulled into the Santa Fe railroad depot.
“Let’s get the horses and walk to my brother’s house,” Posey said.
At the boxcar, Posey shook the engineer’s hand. “Appreciate the help,” he said.
“Return the favor and catch that son of a bitch,” the engineer said.
“It’s a good stretch of the legs to my brother’s house,” Posey told Evan. “The horses can use it.”
As they walked the horses from the railroad station to the Posey home, Scout said, “Me and the boy discussed it while you was taking a nap, and he’s agreeable to coming back to Texas with me if that’s all right with the law.”
“Ask my brother, but I don’t see why not,” Posey said.
When they reached Dale’s home, the screen door opened and Sarah came out and stood on the porch. She didn’t need to say a word; her face said it all.
Trouble.
“He took Erin,” Sarah said. “Tom Spooner took Erin.”
Posey rushed up to the porch and she grabbed him, put her head on his shoulder, and burst into tears.
In the parlor, Posey smoked a cigarette and said, “Tell me what happened from the beginning.”
Posey and Sarah were on the love seat.
Scout and Evan stood quietly in the corner of the room.
“Two . . . nights ago . . . it was the middle of the night,” Sarah said. “I don’t know how they got into the house. There—”
“How many men?” Posey asked.
“Two. One was Tom Spooner,” Sarah said. “That’s what Dale called him. The other man, Dale said was an outlaw called Pepper Broussard.”
Posey nodded. “Back up and tell me what happened.”
“Dale heard a noise in the house,” Sarah said. “He got his gun and went to see what it was. He lit the lantern in the living room and went to check the bedrooms when there was a scream. Erin was screaming in her room. I got out of bed and Dale was in Erin’s bedroom. He was saying something like, ‘Please don’t hurt her,’ or something like that. I stood behind Dale and the man with the scar had a gun to Erin’s head.”
Posey said, “And then?”
“The other one, Spooner, he came up behind me
and put his hand over my mouth,” Sarah said. “He tied me and John to a chair and put gags over our mouths so we couldn’t scream.”
“Sarah, where’s Dale?” Posey asked.
“At the doctor’s office.”
“Why?”
“They tied Dale’s hands behind his back to a chair where I could see him,” Sarah said. “And gagged his mouth. The man with the scar, he said he wanted to kill us all, but Spooner said he had something else in mind. Dale was in a nightshirt and Spooner saw the wound in his leg. Dale was still limping, but it had healed nicely. He took his knife and stabbed Dale right in the wound, right down to the bone. Then Spooner said if we want to see Erin again, we were to tell you he’ll been waiting for you and to come alone. He said if he saw anyone else besides you, he’d kill Erin on the spot.”
“Spooner said that? He’d be waiting for me?” Posey asked. “Did he say where?”
“No.”
Posey put the cigarette out in the glass ashtray on the table in front of the love seat and then stood up.
“This is Scout,” Posey said. “At least that’s what they call him in Texas. The boy is Evan Broussard, Pepper Broussard’s nephew, but don’t hold it against him. He’s a good boy and he’s helped me. Watch him until I get back.”
“I’ll go with you,” Scout said.
“Jack, he could lose the leg,” Sarah said.
Dale was in a back room on the second floor of Doctor Baker’s office. He was conscious, but heavily sedated on morphine when Posey and Scout arrived.
“He lost a great deal of blood and he’s very weak,” Baker said. “And infection has set in on the bone. He sat in that chair until morning when his deputies came to the house. About six hours in that chair, bleeding from an open wound, it became septic.”
“Could he lose the leg?” Posey asked.
“There is that possibility.”
“Can you do anything to save it?”
“I’m doing all I can for him here,” Baker said. “As soon as he’s stable, I’m sending him to the big hospital in Minnesota.”
“Can I see him?”
“Just for a minute. I’ll take you to him.”
Baker led Posey to a back bedroom, one of four. Dale was on his back, propped up with pillows in the bed.
“I keep his head high so his lungs stay clear,” Baker said.
“Is he awake?” Posey said.
“Yes, but in sort of a fog.”
Posey stood over the bed. “Dale?” he whispered. “It’s Jack.”
Slowly Dale opened his eyes. They were glazed over as he focused on Posey.
“Jack?” Dale said.
“I’m here, brother,” Posey said.
“They took my little girl, Jack,” Dale said. “They took Erin.”
“I know,” Posey said. “I’m going after them. Dale, it’s important for you to tell me what Spooner said as best you can remember.”
“He said if we wanted to see Erin alive again, I was to tell you he’d be waiting for you,” Dale said. “And to come alone.”
“Where, Dale? Did he say where?”
“I asked him that,” Dale said. “He said you’d know. Then he put a gag in my mouth, shoved a knife into my leg, and left. What did he mean, you’d know? How would you know, Jack? How?”
“I got a lead on him, Dale,” Posey said.
“A lead? Where have you been all this time?”
“On his trail. Texas, Mexico, and I’ll find her, Dale. Don’t you worry about that. I’ll find her.”
Dale reached for Jack and tried to sit up. “She’s just eight years old, Jack,” he said.
“That’s enough,” Baker said. “Marshal, you lie down now and rest.”
“Don’t worry, Dale,” Posey said. “I’ll get her back.”
Posey left the bedroom and found Scout outside the doctor’s office.
“Let’s get Evan,” Posey said.
At the kitchen table, Sarah poured coffee for Posey and Scout.
“Where’s the boy?” Posey asked.
“With John in his room,” Sarah said and took a seat at the table.
“We’re going after Erin first thing in the morning,” Posey said.
Sarah looked at Scout. “You and . . . ?”
“Call me Scout, ma’am,” Scout said.
“Just the two of you?” Sarah asked.
“Spooner is crazy, but not stupid,” Posey said. “He’ll know if more than one or two came after him, and we’ll never get Erin back.”
“I’m going with you,” Sarah said.
“Impossible,” Posey said.
“She’s my daughter,” Sarah said.
“When was the last time you rode a horse?” Posey asked.
Sarah looked down at the table and didn’t answer.
“Your place is with Dale,” Posey said.
“No disrespect intended, ma’am, but where we going is no place for a lady,” Scout said. “I’ve been tracking for near twenty-five years, and I give you my word we’ll find your little girl.”
Sarah stared at Posey and Scout, and then she burst into tears.
“Where are we going?” Evan asked as he, Posey, and Scout walked along the wood sidewalks of Santa Fe.
“Here,” Posey said as they reached the federal marshal’s office.
Posey opened the door. Two of Dale’s deputies were seated at desks.
“We need maps of Wyoming Territory,” Posey said. “Any and all.”
Posey studied the maps spread out on Dale’s desk.
“Show me,” he said.
Evan put a finger on the map. “I been there three times, and I got a real good memory,” he said. “We rode to here, this little town called Buffalo about a day’s ride from the pass in the mountains.”
“South, east, north from Buffalo?” Posey asked.
“East mostly and maybe a bit to the north,” Evan said. “I think my uncle called it Johnson County.”
Posey and Scout studied the maps.
“Where do you enter the mountains?” Posey asked.
“My uncle called it the red wall,” Evan said. “About here on the map I figure.”
Evan touched a spot on the Bighorn Mountains.
“Red wall?” Posey said.
“Red sandstone,” Scout said. “I seen it before.”
“Then what?” Posey asked.
“Maybe halfway along the red wall is a V-shaped canyon that narrows to like a funnel shape,” Evan said. “You follow the funnel maybe a day and a half and you come to this hidden valley. That’s where they hide out. They got a cabin there and everything.”
“Cabin?” Scout said.
“Yes, sir, a right big cabin,” Evan said. “I slept in one of them. Last year my uncle and Spooner rustled a hundred head of cattle off a ranch in Casper. Spooner laughed that the rancher never even knew it.”
Posey looked at Scout. “Do you think you can find it?”
Scout nodded. “I can find it,” he said.
Posey looked at the map. “The railroad can take us to Cheyenne. We’ll ride the rest of the way north to Buffalo and start from there.”
“I can take you,” Evan said. “I know the way.”
“Can’t allow that, son,” Posey said. “Maybe if you were eighteen or close to it, but you’re too young.”
“But I’ve been there,” Evan said.
“Listen to the marshal, Evan,” Scout said. “I’m depending on you to come back to Texas with me. I can’t put you in danger like this before you have the chance to grow up. I’ll find the pass.”
“Take those maps back to the house,” Posey said. “I’m going to see my brother.”
“All I wanted was revenge on Tom Spooner for setting me up for a prison stretch,” Posey said. “And then to return to the farm to dig up the money I buried there back in ’seventy-seven and disappear. Maybe go north to Montana or south into Mexico. I lied to you to get the pardon, and I had no intentions of keeping my end once I killed Tom Spo
oner.”
“What money, Jack?”
“After the war, all those places me and Tom raided to get even for what they did to our parents. I never spent a penny of it, Dale. When me and Spooner split up, I didn’t take a nickel of all the money we robbed that had nothing to do with losing the farm. I let Spooner keep it all. I buried the money in a strongbox along the south wall we dug up one summer to make a new field. Remember?”
“I remember.”
“Right under the giant tree we built the wall around rather than cut it down and dig up the stump,” Posey said.
“I know the tree,” Dale said. “How much did you bury?”
“Twenty-two thousand in gold coins.”
“Jeeze.”
“I figured after I killed Tom, I’d be on my merry way with my pockets full of gold,” Posey said. “But something happened.”
Dale sat up a bit against the pillows. “What happened?” he asked. “What happened, Jack?”
“I . . . it’s the respect people pay to the badge you pinned on me, Dale,” Posey said. “I can’t explain it, but people look at you different when you wear one of these.”
Posey tapped the badge on his shirt.
“In Texas, the rangers helped me find where Spooner sometimes hides,” Posey said. “A little town called Nuevo across the Rio Grande in Mexico. Spooner hides there sometimes and terrorizes the farmers who live there. I killed about ten of Spooner’s men. That’s why he came for Erin. He figured if he had Erin, I’d come after him, and he figured right.”
“You killed ten of his men?” Dale asked.
“I spared a few, plus a boy. Broussard’s nephew. He’s just a kid, but he knows where Spooner’s hideout is in the Bighorns,” Posey said. “I told the boy you would get him a pardon for riding with his uncle, even though he had no choice after Broussard murdered his parents.”
“Murdered his parents? How old is the boy?”
“Fourteen.”
“Aw, hell, Jack, he doesn’t need a pardon, he needs a set of parents,” Dale said.
“A Texan, a scout for the army, is going to take him back to Texas to live with his wife and five kids,” Posey said.
“Got it all figured out, Jack.”
“Not all,” Posey said. “That money I buried.”
“It doesn’t belong to anybody anymore, Jack,” Dale said. “I wouldn’t know who to return it to, so you might as well keep it.”
The Devil's Waltz Page 18