The Trail to Trinity (A Piccadilly Publishing Western

by Owen G. Irons

  ‘You, Marshal, and you, Sage, slide on over in the direction of the doorway, will you? I want to make as little mess as possible in my house. Beryl’s getting a little tired of cleaning up.’

  Chapter Eleven

  Neither brother was truly surprised at Charlie Cable’s appearance. But his savage intent to shotgun them down in their own house was more than a little disconcerting.

  In a steely voice, Brian Paxton said, ‘The only messes Beryl needs to clean up around here are the ones she’s made herself.’ From the corner of his eyes, Sage could see the woman easing away from them.

  ‘I didn’t come here to talk,’ Charlie Cable said, descending two more steps. Brian glanced at Sage and, without need for further communication, they threw themselves as far away from the twin muzzles of Cable’s shotgun as possible, Sage rolling toward the front door while Brian flung himself to the floor behind the table resting in front of the sofa.

  Charlie Cable’s shotgun roared and belched flame. The table where Brian had dived was torn to splinters at this range. Sage had never stopped in his rolling and now came up behind the heavy leather chair which had been his father’s, and with his Colt in his hand, blazed away at Cable through the smoke left behind by the shotgun blast.

  He heard Cable grunt and the second load of buckshot was loosed in Sage’s direction. Sage hid his head away again as the big old chair was torn to ribbons of leather and balls of white stuffing. Sage waited, counting to three, but Cable had decided against reloading the scattergun. He flung it at Sage then ran for the front door of the house, banging it open to the night.

  Sage rose again, fired inaccurately at the fleeing Cable and simultaneously saw that Brian had not risen from his hiding place. ‘Brian!’

  ‘I’m all right,’ Brian said, though it was plain to see that he had been struck in both arms and his chest by the shotgun pellets.

  ‘Let me help you!’ Beryl was screaming. ‘Oh, Brian, let me help you!’

  ‘All right,’ Brian panted, getting to his feet with the aid of the table. ‘You can help me, Beryl—by grabbing your coat and getting out of here. And don’t ever come back, for any reason!’

  Still panting, Brian sagged back on to the sofa, which was smoldering from the hot lead that had been poured into it. He took a quick look under his blue shirt, assessing the damage, and yelled at his brother:

  ‘What are you doing standing there, Sage? Get after him!’

  Feeling like a commanded soldier given his instructions, Sage Paxton turned sharply on his heel and followed Charlie Cable out into the dark of night. Behind him he could hear Beryl whimpering her innocence, her love, and the sharp rebuffing bark of his wounded brother.

  Standing for a moment near his gray horse Sage listened to the night whispers. He thought he could hear a horse racing away, its hoofs’ racket muffled by the distance. ‘Let’s see how near to healthy you really are,’ Sage said, swinging aboard the gray.

  He turned the horse sharply away from the hitch rail and spurred it immediately into a full run. There was no moon in the sky, few stars to light his way, but Sage knew this route as well as any man alive and he raced on at the top of the horse’s speed across the long grass valley, heedless of any obstacles.

  After a while he forced himself to slow. It was that or run the big gray into the ground. Finally pulling his horse to a full stop, he patted the shuddering horse’s neck and listened. He could hear no more of the horse which Cable had started in this direction, though Sage was sure that the man could not have gained ground on him, not the way he had been riding.

  ‘Is he hiding out from us?’ Sage asked the horse. Charlie Cable had proven himself to be quite capable of shooting from ambush. Would the bad man have given up his mad rush toward freedom to patiently set up among the trees and take his second chance to dry-gulch Sage? Not in this light, Sage decided, glancing toward the barely glimmering stars set in the blackness of the sky.

  Sage started on again, a little more carefully. His initial mad dash after Cable had been prompted by the knowledge that the man had nearly taken his brother’s life. Having only just on this day found his brother, remembered the sort of man Brian Paxton truly was, he had let anger take the reins of his pursuit.

  Care and a reasonable speed was a better approach in his hunt for Charlie Cable. It bothered Sage a little that Cable had stopped, or at least slowed. Sage had figured the man for a race to Trinity. Possibly he still had associates there, but that seemed unlikely. The game was up now, and Charlie must know that. Where would he go?

  Judge Cable’s ranch was not likely. It seemed Cable had disowned his son, perhaps for antics like this.

  Brian had said that he had reports of Cable being involved in other dark business, the judge must have heard the rumors as well. A man of Judge Cable’s stature would not have been able to stomach the idea that his son had gone bad, hit the outlaw trail.

  Where then would Charlie go? Into Trinity, hoping to find help before Charlie Cable could be recognized by Deputy Harvey? That, too, seemed more unlikely the more Sage thought about it. That left ...

  Sage suddenly reined his horse to another halt, looking toward the eastern, forested hills. Someone had been staying there, Sage knew because of his last visit there with Gwen. Perhaps Charlie Cable had clothes there, loot from some of his earlier depredations, even another, fresh horse staked out among the trees.

  It suddenly seemed more likely than not, and so Sage turned the gray horse toward the cabin in the pines.

  With the exception of Brian, Sage Paxton knew those hills and their secret paths better than any man alive. Cable had likely not taken the time to explore the woods as Sage had when he was a boy. Why would he? Therefore, it was safe to assume that Charlie Cable knew only of the front road which ran directly to the cabin’s door, and had no other plan in mind for escape but to use the same trail when he deemed the time right.

  He would be watching that trail all the time he worked, gathering his possessions or saddling a new horse, maybe even be comforted by the fact that no one ever showed up on his heels. Cable would be constantly working, but constantly alert. But it would do him no good to keep watch. There were hundreds of ways to approach the cabin, and Sage Paxton now rode one of them.

  The trees were close in the night, trying to crowd him from his trail. He passed the huge gray boulder that he had climbed as a kid. He could clamber up to its heights with relative ease, whereas Brian could not. It gave Sage a sense of superiority in those young years.

  Emerging from the trees, he could see the home cabin. Behind the window a single dim light showed, a moving light as if someone were searching the place with a single candle, which Charlie Cable undoubtedly was doing, retrieving his gear and any stolen loot he might have hidden there.

  Behind the house stood Cable’s chestnut horse, looking weary and unhappy, though its ears perked at the sight of the gray horse Sage rode. Sage swung down from the saddle. And now what?

  His choices were limited. He did not care for the notion of kicking in the door and blazing away in the night. Pausing only momentarily, he made his decision. Charlie would not remain long inside; he was in a hurry to depart the area. Sage decided to simply wait for him to emerge, hands probably full, burdened by whatever he had stowed in the cabin.

  He slipped behind a huge twin-pine tree. Resisting the urge to sit and rest, he stood with his rifle at the ready. Charlie Cable, he thought, you might be a fine cattleman, and a great lover, but you’re not too good at hide and seek.

  Sage did not need to plumb the depths of his patience; within minutes he saw the dim light extinguished and a harried-looking Charlie Cable round the house in the deep darkness. Charlie pulled up short, dropping the gunny sack he had been toting in his right hand. He had seen a second horse standing beside his chestnut. Now he muttered, ‘Who the hell...?’

  ‘You shouldn’t even have to guess, Charlie,’ Sage Paxton’s voice said from out of the depths of the black night. ‘You shoul
d have taken more care with your planning. You shouldn’t have stowed your goods here, but then again I guess you never figured on needing to retrieve them so soon.’

  ‘Sage Paxton! Damn you,’ Cable breathed.

  ‘That’s who, and I’ve got you in my sights, Charlie. If you shuck your guns I might even let you live, though it goes against the grain seeing as you shot my brother down.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Charlie answered with a sneer, ‘I’m sure I’d get a fair trial in Trinity after shooting their marshal.’ Sage knew that the man was stalling, trying to find Sage’s figure in the night against the background of black trees.

  ‘It’s that or I gun you down where you stand,’ Sage said, figuring that he was still giving Cable a better chance than he had given Brian Paxton.

  ‘Oh, the hell with it! The hell with you,’ Cable said, as he drew and fired. His shots came remarkably close, plucking at the bark of the tree not a foot from Sage’s head. It was close, but not close enough—Sage, who had kept his Winchester’s sights trained on Charlie Cable, triggered off.

  Cable dropped straight to the ground without a scream, a curse or a groan, and lay there as his startled chestnut horse sidestepped away from the fallen body. After taking a minute to be sure, Sage stepped forward from the trees. The sound of the echoing shots had died away to silence in the night. Working in that silence, Sage collected the possessions Cable had been carrying and tied them to the back of the chestnut. Harvey could sort through whatever was in there and return what stolen goods he could identify among them.

  Cable’s body he left on the earth where it lay. He felt no need to transport the remains to Trinity, nor could he stop now and take the time to bury him even if he had a shovel, which he did not. There was just no time.

  There was still unfinished business to be taken care of on this cold night.

  The temperature had dropped dramatically as Sage had expected it to as he trailed out of Trinity on the icy night. Cresting out the hills he spotted the tiny dark house which was now faintly illuminated by a rising crescent moon.

  Harvey had been at the office when Sage had ridden in. After listening to Sage, he dropped the burlap sack on his desk and said, ‘That’s heavy enough. There might be something in there to help somebody out.’ Harvey pushed away from his desk and stood, looking worried. ‘I’ve got to get someone to rouse the doctor and send him out to your ranch. You think Brian is still all right?’

  ‘I think he is—now. He might have to spend a day or two out at the house if you can handle things.’

  ‘I can,’ Harvey answered, before admitting, ‘but everything is a lot easier for me when Brian is around. You wouldn’t know this, Sage, but your brother is a good lawman and a well-respected one in this town. We’d hate like hell to lose him.’

  Harvey was already in motion to find some help before Sage had stepped into leather once again. It was time to end things, to finally find the end of the long trail to Trinity ...

  The small house remained dark as Sage Paxton approached it on his now heavy-legged gray horse. The big animal had given Sage its all, and outside of its weary stride still showed no sign of the earlier damage to its leg.

  Now, how to do this?

  Sage was sitting on his horse, considering the best way to go about things. He didn’t wish to startle the old ladies by banging on their door at this hour. As he swung down from his saddle, the door opened a few inches and then was filled by the slender form of Gwen Mackay, illuminated only by the high-riding moon, which sent pale rays of light against her nightgown-clad form. He walked toward her automatically, and without thinking of it, felt his arms go around her slender warmth to draw her near.

  ‘I thought you might come back. I was watching for you.’

  ‘Get your riding clothes,’ Sage said in a whisper.

  Stepping away, Gwen asked in an answering whisper, ‘Why? Have you found another place for me to stay?’

  ‘Do you like it here?’

  ‘I like my aunts well enough, but I can tell I’m interfering with usual ways. They don’t know exactly what is to be done with me.’

  ‘I do,’ Sage answered. They still were speaking in whispers. ‘Get dressed. I’ll outfit your horse.’

  ‘Where you’re taking me?’ Gwen asked hesitantly. ‘I won’t be alone, will I? I don’t like being alone, Sage.’

  ‘You won’t be alone,’ Sage Paxton promised.

  The girl scuttled into the house, moving silently in the darkness. Sage went to find and outfit the bay horse Mike Currant had unintentionally willed to her back along the Vasquez. Sage waited with the horses for only a few minutes. When Gwen exited it to clamber aboard her horse, still no light had been seen within.

  ‘Did you tell them?’ Sage asked as he mounted his gray.

  ‘I didn’t want to wake them up. I left a note on the kitchen table.’

  ‘That’s going to come as a shock,’ Sage said, turning his horse to follow Gwen from the yard.

  ‘Not much of one, I don’t think. I think it’ll ease their minds not to have to worry about me. I’ll come back in a day or two to explain’—she paused—‘if that will be possible. I don’t even know where you’re taking me.’

  ‘It’s possible,’ was all Sage said in reply.

  They rode on in silence to the barren crest of the hill and started on once again toward Trinity.

  ‘Well?’ Gwen asked when they were near enough to town to see its lights. ‘Where are you taking me, Sage?’

  ‘First there’s some business to be gotten out of the way,’ Sage said, glancing skyward. ‘I killed a man tonight. I have to go and tell his father, Judge Cable is his name, how it happened.’

  ‘Sage, how terrible for you! And for his father.’

  ‘Somehow I don’t think it will be that much of a shock to Cable. He’s been watching his son go bad for a long time. And,’ Sage said, now looking directly into Gwen’s eyes, ‘there’s another, private matter I need to talk to him about.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Gwen asked curiously. A slight inkling of Sage’s thinking caused a small smile to show at the corner of her mouth.

  ‘I told you that his name is Judge Cable, didn’t I?’ Sage said, now looking away uneasily from the small woman at his side.

  ‘I think I know what you’re hinting at,’ Gwen said. ‘But if it’s what I think— Sage, have you even asked the girl?’

  ‘We haven’t even gotten there yet,’ Sage Paxton answered in a dry voice.

  ‘And it don’t look like you ever will,’ a rough voice said from out of the darkness as a man appeared on the trail ahead of them from behind a patch of high-growing sumac.

  Austin Szabo, rifle at the ready, rode directly toward them, halted the fancy black horse he was riding and said, ‘I’ll have my woman back now, Paxton.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Sage sat his gray horse, finding he was shivering a little. From what he knew about Austin Szabo, there was little doubt that the man would shoot if it seemed called for. With another man, Sage would have talked, bargained for time, but Szabo’s steely glare was fixed on Sage, measuring the position of his gun, gauging his intent.

  ‘I said I will have my woman, Paxton. You just ride along and maybe you’ll live to see the sunrise.’

  Sage still had not decided on a tactic—if there was one possible. At his side a defiant Gwen McKay shrieked, ‘I’m not your woman and you’ll never have me!’ At the same time she slapped heels to the flanks of her bay horse and the startled animal bolted ahead. At its first leap, Szabo stretched out an arm to grab the horse’s bridle. It was just enough of a move, just enough of a distraction for Sage to draw his Colt and fire point blank, without remorse or the time for it, into Szabo’s neck. It was a close shot, but all that was needed as Szabo’s own black reared up and dropped the dead outlaw to the ground from its back.

  Gwen brought her pony under control and backed it to halt beside Sage, who had swung down to examine Szabo’s body.

  ‘Is
he dead?’ she asked a little shakily, as Sage stood, dusting his hands together.

  ‘He gives every indication of being so,’ Sage said through dry lips. ‘And not a single person on earth to care or mourn him.’

  ‘Why would anyone even bother—the sort of man he was? Sage, can we ride away from him?’

  ‘That’s a fine idea,’ Sage Paxton said in a low voice. He swung aboard his horse again. The long trail to Trinity had finally ended—hadn’t it? There was no one left to hate; no one to kill. He wondered briefly if it had all been worth it, but then he glanced at the dark-eyed woman riding beside him, a wavering smile on her face, and he knew that it had been. He would ride through hell for Gwen.

  ‘Now you’ll have to report two dead men to the judge,’ Gwen said, as they reached Trinity, circled it toward where Sage knew Judge Cable’s modest house stood. Sage was briefly thoughtful.

  ‘I’ve considered that, but, no, I think I’ll just let Austin Szabo’s death go unremarked in every way. If I change my mind, I’ll talk to Harvey, or to my brother.’

  The judge, wearing a nightshirt tucked into his trousers, answered the door himself as if he had been waiting for some night visitor. Leading them inside, he asked, ‘It’s Charlie, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ Sage had to tell him as they entered a room bright with firelight. He saw the expression on Judge Cable’s face; it was only rueful.

  ‘I told Charlie all of his life to avoid bad company, but I never thought the one to do him in would be wearing satin and lace. That’s the way it was, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Just about,’ Sage answered. ‘I’ll tell you about it, if you like.’

  ‘He tried to kill Brian Paxton!’ the judge said when Sage was almost finished with his tale. It was the only time during their visit that the judge showed any real emotion. For the most part Cable had only stood, wagging his head heavily, staring into the fire.

  The story seemed short in the re-telling. Sage fell silent. He did notice Gwen glancing at him to see if perhaps Sage had changed his mind and would continue, to tell the judge about the death of Austin Szabo. When he did not, figuring Cable had received enough troublesome news for one night, she was obviously relieved.