The Trail to Trinity (A Piccadilly Publishing Western

by Owen G. Irons

  ‘Find her another place then, and be damned!’ he said before huffing off toward his house. Kiebler watched him go with a sort of disgusted resignation. Gwen’s tensed body seemed to have relaxed a little.

  ‘Where next?’ Sage asked.

  ‘Where next?’ Kiebler asked, turning on the bench seat to glare at Sage Paxton. ‘There is no next! There’s no other place close by, and I’ve got to get back to my store. It’s not like I’m some footloose cavalier who can run around the country looking for a place to put the girl.’ His look seemed to place Sage in that category, one he was not prepared to shoulder.

  ‘You said you’d try to do something for her,’ Sage said.

  ‘And so I have, Paxton. I have tried and failed—now it’s up to you. You’re the one who brought this down on us.’

  It was a hell of a rough way to speak in front of the girl, and must have left her feeling smaller and more helpless than ever.

  ‘You can’t be thinking of just abandoning her,’ Sage said, realizing that he himself sounded as if they were trying to drop an unwanted dog along the road.

  ‘How can I... ? Look, Paxton, I’ve got work to attend to, and plenty of it. I gave it my best shot. It didn’t work out, all right? If you think you can do better, be my guest. You’ve no place to go, nothing to do anyway.’ Kiebler had begun to mop at his face with his handkerchief. The little man did have a kind heart; this was probably tearing at him.

  ‘Where’s the next village?’ Sage asked sharply. ‘In the direction of Trinity, I mean. I can’t be doubling back.’

  ‘There’s a place called Drovers’ Springs not more than twenty-five miles west,’ Kiebler said. He glanced across his shoulder to the north. ‘You should be able to make it before the new storm sets in.’

  ‘On a lame horse,’ Sage said, feeling distinctly put-upon.

  ‘I’m sure you’ve ridden more than that much in a day,’ Kiebler said with a touch of resigned anxiety.

  ‘I’m sure I have but not with a lame horse carrying double and a pack of outlaws behind me.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Kiebler asked, thumbing his spectacles up on his nose.

  ‘What do you think I mean! Do you think that Austin Szabo is just going to give it up, shrug his shoulders and go back to Barlow town?’

  ‘No,’ Kiebler said, pausing before he spoke, ‘I suppose he won’t.’

  Sage sat there in the twisting wind, his horse standing three-legged beneath him, and looked across the gray-white frothing river beyond which lay the trail to Trinity, once toward the farmhouse where the sullen Mike Currant had returned to his sweeping, and once at the girl with the unhappy, confused eyes, who had turned her head to look hopefully toward him.

  ‘Oh, the hell with it all,’ he muttered. ‘Step down, Gwen, we’ve got a long way to travel.’

  While Kiebler turned his team back toward Fort Vasquez, his face reflecting relief and shame at once, Sage Paxton started his gray horse into motion. With the girl riding behind him Sage allowed the horse no freedom to step out, but kept a tight rein on the injured animal. As a result their pace as they plodded toward the distant town of Drovers’ Springs was incredibly slow.

  Sage kept the horse to the riverside trail, which now and then became hidden by the risen water of the river in flood. The girl’s grip around his waist was light but secure. Sage scolded himself mentally for actually finding the thought of her against him comforting and oddly cheering. Not that there was any real cheer in Sage’s heart just then—he was grim, a stalking wolf. He could not remember when he had last actually felt cheerful. He wanted to apologize to Gwen for the constant scowl he wore, the grouchiness of his manner, but he would not. He didn’t need to draw her closer to him. They would not belong together, and things were suitable as they were.

  The rush of the river was a constant presence on his right, gurgling, slapping, eddying, rushing or milling depending on the mood of Nature and the river channel’s composition. The Vasquez was wider now, more placid, though he would not have wished to cross it even here.

  The sky began to darken, shading his mood. The storm clouds were moving toward them far too quickly. Not again! He could not be caught out on the trail again on such a night as he had endured. He hurried the gray on a little more rapidly.

  ‘How far is it to Drovers’ Springs?’ he asked, turning his head.

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve never been there. Didn’t Mr. Kiebler say that it was twenty-five miles away from Currant’s place?’

  That’s right, he did. I think that it was more of a guess than anything else.’ Sage turned the horse slightly and ducked his head. They were moving through an area now rife with willow trees and spotty sycamores. There would be clearer riding farther away from the river, but he did not wish to lose his way. The river provided direction; the trees provided cover.

  ‘How far do you think we’ve come?’ Gwen asked, her words muffled against his back.

  ‘Not half that,’ Sage said, and then added unkindly, ‘I can’t expect my horse to make any speed traveling like this.’

  Her grip on him loosened, tightened and loosened again. Was she thinking that he wanted her to get down? He touched her hands where they joined around his waist in what he hoped was a reassuring gesture. He did not want her to dismount. He would leave no woman alone, afoot in the wild country, especially this one who might still be pursued by a dark-hearted gunman.

  Why then had he bothered to say anything at all? Just putting sound to his own unhappiness, he decided. He would have apologized under normal circumstances, but a contrary part of him felt like he owed her no apology.

  Glancing up, Sage saw that the sky was nearly roofed over now with dark, threatening clouds. He swallowed a curse. He could do nothing about it but continue, guiding his horse carefully, slowly—for now and then he could feel the gray drag its leg and hesitate as if it would like to pull up, which was probably the case.

  Instead he kept it moving on. Was Kiebler’s guess of twenty-five miles on the shy side or was it much farther? How often could the storekeeper have visited Drovers’ Springs, if he ever had?

  It was likely that he had never actually been to the plains settlement. What would he have gone there for? Someone had once told Kiebler of the place, and that someone had probably been guessing at the distance himself.

  Something tapped against Sage’s hat and he thought at first that it was only a bit of dry detritus falling from the overhanging trees, but after that first tap a steady sound like gravel sifting downward began and, as the wind picked up and the clouds lowered, Sage knew that it had begun to rain again.

  The river’s face became pocked with thousands of pits.

  Gwen had only her waist-length leather jacket and her low-tugged black Stetson to keep the water off her, Sage little more. He still had his black slicker tied behind with his bedroll, but he was reluctant to stop and recover it—or offer it to Gwen. The rain was not as insistent as it had been the day before, not so heavy, the wind not gusting with such ferocity. It did shake the trees around them and rattle the brush along the river, but maybe, he thought, it would hold back for a little while, even lighten up some as they wove their way out of the weather’s reach. Faint hope, but Sage clung to it as the gray, now clearly unhappy and stiffening, carried them along the riverside trail.

  ‘Sage!’ Gwen yelled out and he turned to look at her. Beyond Gwen he could see an onrushing horseman in a yellow rain slicker weaving his way through the woods. He was coming on with a purpose. Reflex alone caused Sage to heel the gray horse sharply. There was no choice, it was do or die, and the gray plunged ahead as rapidly as it could, dividing willow brush, veering around trees.

  The clouds were low, wind-tormented. The rain cut his visibility to almost nothing. Appearing suddenly like a black bar across the trail a low-hanging sycamore bough manifested itself. Sage half-turned, hooked his arm around Gwen and ducked under the bough, tugging the girl down with him.

  That was close, it was ve
ry close. Had he been riding any faster he would never have ... the man behind them was riding faster, much faster, leaving him less time to react. Pounding up the trail in pursuit, he came to the same bough, and there was nothing he could do to avoid it.

  There was a muffled but distinct cracking sound above the storm’s constant dirge, and Sage saw the man fall to the earth. He already knew the man would not be getting up again. The crack had proven that his neck was no match for ten inches of sycamore wood struck at speed. Sage turned his laboring gray and rode back that way, halting within a few yards of the man in the yellow slicker. His head was turned around unnaturally, his dead eyes looking nearly across his back at Sage Paxton. Nearby a confused bay horse circled and then halted.

  Sage slipped to the ground, Gwen behind him as they approached the man through the falling rain. ‘Who is it?’ she asked in a taut whisper. ‘Do we know him? Is it Austin Szabo?’

  ‘No,’ Sage said, crouching down over the body. ‘It’s Mike Currant.’

  ‘Currant! But why would he bother to come trailing us this far? What did he want of us?’

  ‘He wanted to see if you wore a petticoat under your jeans.’

  ‘What does that mean? You make no sense, Sage,’ Gwen said dully.

  ‘No, I don’t. Forget it; I don’t know what I meant either.’ He rose, looking around through the screen of the gray rain. He expected no one else; there should be no one else. But then he hadn’t expected Mike Currant either.

  ‘Do we have to bury him?’ Gwen asked through chattering teeth. The wind was buffeting them more roughly now.

  ‘No, I won’t waste the time on him. We have to keep moving,’ he said, looking skyward.

  ‘Well, it will be easier now,’ Gwen told him. He looked at her with a question in his eyes. ‘We’ve got two horses now, haven’t we?’ she said, gesturing toward the bay Mike Currant had been riding.

  Sage nodded glumly; he supposed that was something. ‘The gray will appreciate it,’ he said, stroking the horse’s damp muzzle as it nudged him.

  ‘Do you want to ride the bay?’ Gwen asked, her eyes bright and almost eager. Sage shook his head.

  ‘No, I’ll stick with the gray. I know his ways.’

  ‘All right.’ She gathered up the wet reins to the standing bay and said, ‘I don’t suppose we have to ride together now, if you aren’t of a mind to.’

  ‘Yes, we do,’ Sage said, whisking the water from his saddle. He reached for his tied-down slicker.

  ‘Why?’ she asked with what was nearly a smile. Sage nodded toward the crumpled figure of Mike Currant.

  ‘We still don’t know where Austin Szabo is. If a farmer like Currant could follow us, it’s a pretty sure bet that a wild-country man like Szabo can.’

  ‘He’d never find out,’ Gwen objected. ‘He doesn’t know we started from the fort.’

  ‘How many other places are there you could have gone? And how many other ways than in Kiebler’s wagon? He’ll remember passing the wagon on the trail.’

  ‘And follow this morning’s wagon tracks? The rain has probably washed them away.’

  ‘Maybe, but it hasn’t washed Kiebler’s memory free.’

  ‘Szabo wouldn’t hurt the old man!’

  ‘Wouldn’t he? You told me yourself that Szabo had no fear of the soldiers there, and Captain Rowland is away now. Szabo is a murderous man, and Kiebler won’t be able to protect himself well with saltwater taffy.’

  Gwen shivered again, and Sage couldn’t guess if it was the driving cold rain or the thought of meeting Austin Szabo in the open land which had caused it. He tossed her his slicker. ‘Slip into this—it’ll help some.’

  She made her way into the black slicker, rolling up the sleeves, cinching it around her as tightly as possible, but it was still outrageously large on her. She looked like she was wearing a black tent.

  Sage didn’t spare a smile. ‘Onward,’ he said.

  Side by side they plodded on, their horses equally tired. Currant’s bay had been ridden hard and long. It was difficult to hold any sort of conversation above the constant storm.

  Sage was soaked to the bone. He could get no wetter. He wished he had taken Mike Currant’s rain slicker from the body, but he could not have. It was too much like looting the dead. It was nearly dark now, and it was not all because of the low, smothering clouds: it was getting close to sundown. They were going to have to cross the river, like it or not. They could not afford to miss Drovers’ Springs. There was no other place to survive the night that either of them knew of for a hundred miles. If they missed that small outpost, they were going to die.

  At each wide spot in the river, where the water flowed more shallowly and it seemed that the current was slower, Sage paused to peer out across the Vasquez. There was no telling where concealed sinks awaited the unwary traveler, where the current looking placid at one moment might rage and swell the next.

  ‘We’re going to have to risk it at some point,’ he muttered to Gwen through the rain.

  ‘Can’t we just take the ferry?’ Gwen Mackay asked, lifting a pointing finger.

  Frowning, his forehead furrowed, Sage looked toward the south where a light flickered in the dusky gloom. A ferry boat, drawn by lines which were towed by mules, was making its slow, current-buffeted way across the face of the turbulent Vasquez River not half a mile from where they sat.

  Gwen, bless her, did not smile and Sage answered lightly, ‘We’ll give that a try first.’

  He had been thinking of plunging the injured gray into the raging water, trying to cross under terrible conditions and now they were in sight of a ferry boat! That meant two things—safe passage and progress toward finding Drovers’ Springs, for certainly no one had constructed a ferry crossing out in this wilderness on a whim. It was built to serve the needs of the townspeople nearby.

  ‘Good thing you saw that,’ Sage said. Gwen nodded.

  ‘Good thing I did, because I don’t know if I would have even attempted crossing the river on horseback.’

  ‘Well, here it is and here we are—let’s get over there and see where it’s going to take us next.’

  That was a large question for Gwen. As far as Sage was concerned there was only one way to travel on from here, and that was down the lonesome trail to Trinity to its eventual bloody end.

  Chapter Five

  The town of Drovers’ Springs, when they reached it after a fairly hazardous crossing on the river ferry, was about what Sage had expected. He had been to finer-looking towns, visited worse. The streets, what few of them there were, were awash with red mud. The gray fronts of the buildings fronting the main street looked melancholy, seeming to droop under the burden of the rain.

  Sage had his traveling money still—enough to provide for one man riding what might be a one-way trail to Trinity. He had not accounted for a traveling companion. The horses were taken care of first. The gray horse’s limp had grown more pronounced again. With the horses in the care of a good stable, they slogged across the muddy road and up one block to the local hotel. On its front window ‘Drover’s Rest’ was painted in ornate red and gilt lettering. Gwen hesitated at the doorway.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Sage asked the little girl in the outsized black rain slicker.

  ‘I haven’t got any money,’ Gwen answered, looking down.

  ‘I know that,’ Sage answered. ‘I can lend you enough for a room.’

  ‘I couldn’t take money from a man,’ Gwen said in a pathetic little voice. Rain was streaming from the hotel’s awning, the cold wind was still gusting. Sage was wet clean through, and chilled. His mood was getting no better.

  ‘Follow me in or stay out here for the night—it makes no difference to me.’

  He opened the door and tramped into the warm white interior of the hotel. He heard a smaller pair of boots clicking along behind him as he crossed the floor toward the desk. The man behind the desk had a shiny head and wore gold-rimmed spectacles. He had already gestured for a boy to mop their t
racks from the oak floor.

  ‘Double room, sir?’ the desk clerk asked.

  ‘Two singles. Do you have baths here?’

  ‘They can be brought and delivered in less than an hour.’

  ‘Fine,’ Sage said, as two keys were slid across the counter toward him. ‘Have’—he glanced at the unhappy figure of Gwen Mackay—‘a bath sent to each room.’

  Their upstairs rooms were opposite. Gwen tried to thank him, but Sage only nodded and entered his room. Stripping down as soon as he entered, he wrapped himself in a spare blanket which was folded at the foot of the bed. There was still a deep chill on him; he had hopes that a hot bath would return him to something near human comfort. A tapping at the door summoned Sage and he swung the door open to find a hotel employee, a kid of sixteen or so.

  ‘Thought maybe you had brought my bath,’ Sage said.

  ‘That will take a while, sir. Do you require anything else?’

  ‘Coffee and a small whiskey. And’—he glanced toward the sodden pile of clothes he had left on the floor—‘can anything be done to dry those out?’

  ‘If you’re not in a hurry I can have them hung up to dry in the kitchen, and ironed by morning.’

  ‘No hurry, I don’t need them to go to bed in. I thank you, son,’ Sage said, slipping the boy a small tip. The kid took the tip expressionlessly, nodded and scooped up the bundle of Sage’s rain-heavy garments.

  A different worker delivered a quart pot of hot coffee within ten minutes along with a glass containing two fingers of good Kentucky bourbon. Sage tipped this boy too with a coin drawn from his dwindling purse. This was high living for him, but, he pondered, he might not have any further use for money soon.

  He didn’t allow himself to dwell on that. After drying his hair with a rough towel he drew his blanket still more tightly around him and seated himself in a corner rocker, sipping coffee and occasionally whiskey while waiting for his bathtub and hot water to be delivered, feeling for the moment like a king snug in his own tiny kingdom.