The trail to Trinity is rugged and as dangerous as hell. Sage Paxton rides it only out of the direst of necessities, to avenge his murdered parents. Sage has decided that their killer will not see another day, and bad weather, a lame horse, a crooked army officer and outlaws will not keep him from his prize. A woman came close but she turned out to be as crooked as the rest, a beautiful vulture at heart.
Nothing else matters now, not even his own life. Before the end of the day he will have his vengeance against his parents’ killer and his own brother …
THE TRAIL TO TRINITY
By Owen G. Irons
A Piccadilly Publishing Western No 2
Copyright © 2015 by Paul Lederer
First Smashwords Edition: January 2016
Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information or storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.
This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book. Cover © 2016 by Ed Martin
Series Editor: Ben Bridges ~*~ Text © Piccadilly Publishing
Published by Arrangement with the Author.
Chapter One
Mesa Verde was off to his right, the town of Tucker behind him. Sage Paxton—for that was the lone rider’s name—could see neither of them through the hammering sheets of wind-driven rain, nor was he looking for them. He did give occasional thought to the town of Tucker, barely remembering a thing about the squat little collection of faded buildings but the warmth and comfort of the dry bed he had occupied only the night before.
Just now Sage was as wet and cold as a man can get. He was draped in his black rain slicker, wearing leather gloves. These were small protection from the elements, did little to keep him warm. Beneath him was a wet saddle, slick and cold. The insides of his legs were damp with water. The rain had built itself up into a kind of fury, lashing his face with an almost personal rage.
Sage knew he should have listened to those who advised him against riding on such a day, to remain where he was, toasty and comfortable in his bed, but he felt the time had passed when he could abide delay or justify his own reluctance to continue on that lonesome trail to Trinity.
The dull-witted kid with the gapped teeth had looked at Sage, looked to the darkening skies outside the stable and shaken his head. ‘Mister, you ain’t got to go nowhere this bad.’ The stable hand was a kid on the poor side of half-bright and Sage had shrugged off this advice as he would have almost any comment he had to make. It just went to show Sage that his own daddy had been right when he had told him, ‘Son, you can learn something from almost every man.’
For the rain did not pour down, it hammered against Sage’s poncho. The sky beasts crackled and roared. When the lightning flared, the land went to a strange yellow-white, when it flickered out the world became a black, featureless place hung with ozone and battered by a constant, raging wind.
‘I ain’t got to go nowhere this bad,’ Sage muttered to himself.
But he did. The impulse to reach Trinity was irresistible, the drive to reach it as soon as possible like a thrust between his shoulder blades, impelling him onward through the blustering, icy cold of the night.
Then his horse went down.
Sage felt the gray misstep, falter and then its big body seemed to cramp up, and before Sage could pull back on the reins, get the horse’s head up, it rolled on him and he was thrown roughly to the sodden black earth. Stunned, soaked through in a few new places, he yet saw by the animal’s silhouette that it had struggled to its feet and was standing head down, reins dangling.
‘Why, you stupid nag,’ Sage said through chattering teeth as he pushed himself to his feet. Then he saw that the gray was standing with none of its weight on its right hind leg in the classic posture of a wounded horse. Sage moved stiffly toward it in the cold shower of the rain.
‘What have you done to yourself now?’ he breathed. The gray horse winced at even the light touch of Sage’s hands on its hock. The tendon was strained if not torn. Sage straightened up and stood, hands on hips. His situation, which had been pitiable before, now had become desperate.
‘Can you hobble on it?’ he asked the horse, his words unheard even by himself above the din of the storm. Because they had to keep moving, to find some place to be on this savage and dangerous night. To remain where they were was death.
Gathering the horse’s reins, Sage trudged on, carrying the sullen anger that only comes to a man who knows he is responsible for his own troubles.
Sage had some idea of where he wanted to go, a dimmer notion of the direction he needed to take and little hope of reaching it. Up along the juncture of the Vasquez River and Clabber Creek the army had established a garrison. If he could reach the outpost he could at least find shelter and warmth which were now becoming critical as the temperature dropped and the soaking rain continued to fall. Hat streaming water before his eyes, rain sheeting the ground, the mud thick underfoot, Sage Paxton started in that direction leading his crippled horse with only the occasional sharp beacons of lightning to guide him.
It seemed days, years, although it was actually only four or five slogging hours later that he reached the fort perched on an outcropping above the rain-swollen, madly rushing Vasquez River.
He approached the front gate and shouted out his name and situation above the swish and swirl of the wind and the driving hiss of the rain to a guard in his miserable shelter on the parapet above.
This man yelled something to a second soldier below who apparently was dispatched to ask a third if the infidel at the gates could be admitted. As if, Sage thought sourly, he looked like some sort of assaulting force instead of the miserable, sodden wretch he was.
He knew it was the army way, and he waited patiently, taking some comfort in the way that the log palisades of the fort protected him from the roughest thrusts of the buffeting wind.
After a while he was admitted to the empty interior of the fort. There were no soldiers visible across the yard, no horses. Everyone was a little smarter than he. They were all tucked away, respectively, in their barracks or stables.
‘Didn’t no one want to wake the captain,’ his soldier guide yelled as they crossed the stormy yard. ‘The first-shirt said for you to shelter up in the sutler’s store if it’s still open!’
Too weary for answering, Sage only nodded his head.
A dim lantern showed in the oilskin-covered window of what he took to be the sutler’s store, since that was their announced destination. A man in civilian clothes appeared briefly on the covered plank walk before the store, looked up and down, shook his head and went back inside.
‘That’s Mr. Kiebler—he will take care of you!’ the soldier shouted above the storm and then departed for warmer, drier places. Sage nodded again. Whether the man would help him or not, he was already in a better place. If he had to sleep outside under the awning, he would. He would be drier, and the heat from the interior of the building could be felt radiating, if only slightly, through the wall.
Loosely wrapping the reins of his suffering, put-upon horse around the hitch rail, he went up on to the boardwalk, rapped on the door and waited. The sign on the door had been turned to read ‘Closed’, but his knock was answered almost immediately by the man, Kiebler, who looked Sage over and took his arm.
‘For God’s sake, man! See to your horse and then g
et inside. Didn’t your momma ever tell you not to stand around in the rain?’
‘She probably did; I probably didn’t listen,’ Sage answered. When he returned from the stable he was tugged inside to find himself dripping cold water on the wooden floor of the sutler’s small store. There was an iron stove in the center of the room and Sage was inexorably drawn to it, shedding his slicker as he went.
‘I’ll take that,’ Kiebler offered. He was a small, pot-bellied man with alert, flickering blue eyes and a hairline which time had pushed far back on the crown of his skull. He hung the slicker on a row of pegs along the wall apparently used for soldiers’ coats. Sage stood shivering by the stove, slowly letting the heat seep into his bones.
‘Blustery night out,’ Kiebler commented, as he returned to the stove to hold his hands over it.
‘More like the devil’s tangle,’ Sage said without a smile.
‘Well, then, lucky I wasn’t out in it. I’ve got my safe haven and I mean to stay inside it. Let the younger, wilder men try to best a night like this.’ The wind rattled the oilskin coverings on the window and caused the floor to shudder a little. ‘You had a reason for being out in it?’ Kiebler asked, glancing at Sage Paxton’s stove-brightened face.
‘I’m riding to kill a man,’ Sage answered.
‘Must be a killing that can’t wait,’ Kiebler said, as if the matter had no interest for him. ‘I was about to fix myself something to eat now that the soldiers have all been shut down in their barracks. Will you join me, Mr—?’
‘Paxton, Sage Paxton. Yes I’d be happy to have some of whatever you’re eating.’
‘That remains to be seen,’ Kiebler said, lifting his shaggy eyebrows. ‘I’m hardly a French chef.
‘Paxton ... it seems like I’ve heard that name somewhere before.’
‘Not from me,’ Sage answered with a smile.
‘No, no,’ Kiebler’s face was thoughtful. ‘I’ll get to my cooking. Would you care for a beer while you wait?’
‘I could do that,’ Sage answered gratefully. His eyes had been going around the store, seeing the stock on its well-tended shelves, wondering that the sutler kept so many various items there.
‘You’ve sure got yourself a variety of goods,’ he said.
‘Never enough,’ Kiebler said from behind the counter where he had selected a tin of corned beef which he was now opening. ‘Stuck out here as they are, these soldiers ache to spend their money on payday. This is the only place they can come to to divest themselves of their army scrip.’ Kiebler smiled faintly and returned to the stove with the open tin of corned beef and a frying pan.
‘I see you carry tins of peaches,’ Sage said.
‘Those sell well. To men stuck on an army diet of beef and beans, anything different is special. I also do well with pen and paper, pocket knives, tobacco and beer as you can imagine, and with civilian clothes for those boys who are being discharged and want to wear almost anything that is not army blue.
‘Fresh fruit they cannot get enough of—when I can procure it—and potatoes.’
‘They buy potatoes from you? On an army post?’ Sage asked, not understanding. ‘Surely they have those for the soldiers.’
‘They do,’ Kiebler said, stirring the corned beef. ‘Mashed potatoes, boiled potatoes. A lot of the men here tell me that once a potato has been in water it no longer tastes like the potatoes they have known. Those boys—mostly from the South—want whole potatoes they can cook on a stick over an open fire until the skin is black and crusty. I get a nickel apiece for potatoes.’
‘A nickel.’
‘I know,’ Kiebler said with a quick smile as he dabbed the corned beef on to two tin plates and brought out a crusty loaf of bread from somewhere. ‘Five cents for a potato when I buy them for twenty-five cents a ten-pound sack doesn’t seem fair, but whatever a man can’t easily get has value. The going rate is a nickel a spud, and I always run out of them before the end of the month.’
‘I see—then you were wise in buying the government license for this store.’
‘I suppose,’ Kiebler said, scratching at his earlobe. ‘You know, Paxton, these things always seem like a cushy deal to others once they’re done and finalized, but believe me, scraping up the money for the license, calculating the distance between the western forts and whatever suppliers you might have to wrangle with, the delays in shipping, I couldn’t recommend it to anyone wishing to get rich quick.’
‘Not even at a nickel a spud,’ Sage commented, finishing his poor meal.
‘Not even at a nickel a spud.’ Kiebler rose, taking Sage’s dinner plate with him. ‘We don’t have dessert on the menu,’ the storekeeper said.
‘I see a lot of candy around,’ Sage commented.
‘Candy I have. The younger troopers, especially, spend a fair amount of their pay on it. The army doesn’t offer dessert with its meals either, not on this post at least. We have no baker and little else. We’re on the very fringe of the so-called civilized lands.’
‘And the candy’s hard for you to come by,’ Sage guessed, rising in his wet jeans and sodden shirt.
‘You’ve no idea—seems you’re starting to appreciate the difficulty of the business.’
‘Enough so that I won’t even ask you what you sell that saltwater taffy for.’
Kiebler grinned as Sage let loose a long-stifled yawn and stretched his cramped arms overhead. The lantern was burning low. The world outside was still in chaos. ‘You can make yourself a bed on those empty potato sacks over in the corner,’ Kiebler said, indicating a stack of burlap bags. ‘I don’t suppose the army would like a civilian bunking in the barracks, even if you wanted to go back out into the storm to walk over there and explain yourself.’
‘No, I don’t suppose so either. The first sergeant directed me over here.’ He finished the beer in his bottle. ‘What do I owe you for dinner and a drink?’ He thrust his hand into the pocket of his wet jeans.
‘They’re on your tab,’ Kiebler answered.
‘I can’t take any of your goods without payment,’ Sage objected.
‘I didn’t say I wouldn’t expect payment,’ Kiebler said. Sitting on a stool the old man explained, ‘Look, Paxton, you seem to be stuck here for at least a day or two. There’s not a horse to be had on an army post, as you know, and your own mount doesn’t appear up to even walking across the parade ground. You’ve got to let it heal up before you travel on.
‘In the meantime, if you’ll agree, I could use your help on a short run I have to make up to Barlow, a little place up in the hills not far from here. A man named Mackay grows apples and cherries, and he being so far from markets, I can cut a fair deal with him for his produce. I don’t know how he made any money before the fort was built.’
‘Can’t he bring his apples down and sell them directly to the soldiers?’
‘No, he can’t. My warrant gives me exclusive rights to such commerce.’
‘Mackay doesn’t object to that arrangement?’
‘Wouldn’t do him much good if he did. The army’s strict about matters like that—outside purveyors—it keeps things like bad whiskey from making their way on to the post, anything else that might be considered harmful. This way if a soldier gets sick from anything there’s only one man to look at—me.’
‘And you don’t provide whiskey?’
‘I do not. It’s so stipulated in my warrant. I’ve posted a copy of it on the wall over there so that I can refer any trooper who wants me to do a little smuggling that the subject is taboo. It would ruin me to be caught dealing in whiskey, stolen goods, shoddy merchandise of any kind, and I won’t.
‘No, Paxton, Mackay can’t do business with anyone but me, and he’s happy to do it. We both make a fair profit the way things are arranged.
‘Now, get some rest. I’m going to be turning the lantern out. Tomorrow I’ll expect you to be helping me load sacks of apples and boxes of cherries up at Mackay’s farm. Don’t look so glum, Paxton. Look at it this way: this man yo
u want to kill, whoever it is, will not have gotten away during this storm. By the time you reach Trinity, he should be waiting for you still ... unless someone else has already done the job for you, and then there’s no need to rush at all.’
Sage spread the empty potato sacks in the corner until he had a good-enough bed. Stripping off his wet outer clothes he lay down, grateful for the lingering warmth the dying fire in the iron stove emitted. Sometime later he heard Kiebler approach his bed and throw a blanket over him, and Sage closed his eyes as the storm continued to fuss and bluster beyond the flimsy walls of the store.
The stove still glowed a deep cherry red when Sage, unable to sleep, sat up in his rough bed sometime later and rubbed at his head vigorously. Why had he agreed to help Kiebler? Well, because the man had done him some favors and what the sutler said about Sage’s horse not being able to travel on just then was quite true.
Also true was the fact that his quarry was likely to have remained in Trinity and not braved the storm to run away. No, he would be there, unless as Kiebler had said someone else had already done the job for him.
But that would not do, Sage thought, as he again rolled into his bed, pulling his blanket tightly around him. It would not do at all to have someone else kill the man. It had to be Sage, and it had to be face to face.
The wind rattled in the reaches of the little building and the night temperature dropped still more. Sage was able to fall off to sleep this time, warmed by the inner glow of his impending revenge.
Chapter Two
They were on their way to Mackay’s farm by the time the first light had begun to shine through the remnant broken clouds the storm had left in its passing. They had made their departure before the fort was awake, Kiebler believing that a stealthy departure had the advantage over lingering to explain matters to the company commander.
The little storekeeper had also bargained with the corporal in charge of the stable to keep Sage’s gray horse warm, fed and doctored if possible. There was a heavy bribe involved in this agreement. Three sheets of saltwater taffy.
The Trail to Trinity (A Piccadilly Publishing Western Page 1