Damnation Valley

by William W. Johnstone

  “He’s that, all right,” Breckinridge said grudgingly. “I have to give him that much.”

  “And there was the added inducement of Carnahan’s. . . companion.”

  Something about the way St. Vrain said that made a chill go through Breckinridge, even though it didn’t really surprise him.

  “You’re talkin’ about the gal travelin’ with him.”

  St. Vrain inclined his head and said, “An attractive young blond woman. Carnahan made it known among the freighters that they could enjoy her company during the journey, in return for the added safety of traveling with them.”

  “There ought to be a special place in hell for varmints like him,” Charlie Moss said.

  “I’m in business, gentlemen, which means I don’t debate morality. I must admit, though, I felt some sympathy for the young woman.”

  “But not enough to put a stop to what Carnahan’s doin’,” Moss snapped.

  Breckinridge raised a hand to keep Moss from saying anything else. It was a rare day when Breckinridge Wallace was the voice of reason, but Breck knew it wouldn’t do any good to get in an argument with a powerful man like St. Vrain.

  “Did she seem to be all right? Other than what Carnahan was makin’ her do, I mean.”

  St. Vrain shrugged again and said, “She appeared to be healthy enough. Of course, in that line of work, it’s unlikely she’ll stay that way for a very long time. But she did not seem to be . . . mistreated physically.”

  Breckinridge nodded, glad to hear that Ophelia was bearing up under the hardships she’d been made to suffer. He thought about Desdemona and Eugenia, up there at the Garwood trading post, and was glad as well that they didn’t know what their sister was going through. Sooner or later, they were bound to find out about it, but at least they were being spared that worry for the time being. They were probably doing plenty of worrying just about whether or not Ophelia was still alive. Breck wished there were some way he could get word to them that she was.

  “Two weeks ago they were here, you said?”

  “Approximately. I couldn’t tell you the exact day they left.” St. Vrain laughed. “Well, actually, I suppose I could, since there are records of my dealings with those freighters. I consigned some goods to their wagons. Bent and I have a store in Santa Fe, too, you know, and our own wagons deliver merchandise there. But sometimes I need to get goods there while our wagons are not available, as in this case. Would you like for me to check in my office and see what I can find out?”

  “That’s not necessary. We’ll be headin’ on to Santa Fe first thing in the mornin’ anyway, so it don’t really matter when Carnahan left. I reckon it’s all right that we stay here tonight, let our horses rest a mite, and pick up a few supplies?”

  St. Vrain smiled and said, “That is why this fort exists, my friend.”

  Moss said, “I don’t reckon we’ll have any trouble findin’ the way to Santa Fe?”

  St. Vrain waved a hand in the general direction of the broad, rutted path that ran past the fort and didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to.

  * * *

  Spending the night at Bent’s Fort gave Breckinridge and Charlie Moss the chance to have a meal they hadn’t cooked themselves over a lonely campfire, and wash it down with some beer, as well. The buildings that lined the fort’s walls sort of ran into each other and had doors between, so a fella could walk from the store into the saloon and on into an eating place without ever going out into the plaza. Breck and Moss were at a table sawing chunks off steaks when a man came up to them and said, “Did I hear tell that you gents are looking for Judson Carnahan?”

  “Judson?” Breckinridge repeated. “I never heard him called anything but Jud. But yeah, we’ve been tryin’ to find him for a while.”

  “Mind if I sit?” the stranger asked as he gestured at the empty chair beside the table. He was tall, thin, and lantern-jawed, dressed in a threadbare dark suit.

  “Help yourself. You know Carnahan?”

  The man settled himself at the table and cast a thirsty gaze toward the mugs of beer sitting in front of Breckinridge and Moss. He licked his lips and then said, “Indeed I do. We grew up together in the same town, back in Ohio.”

  “Ohio, eh?” Moss said. “I figured he was born and raised in hell.”

  Breckinridge motioned one of the serving girls over and told her to bring a beer for the newcomer. He figured the man might talk more if his tongue had the proper lubrication. Although, he and Moss already knew Carnahan was headed for Santa Fe. Breck wasn’t sure what else they needed to know. But there was no telling when some bit of knowledge might come in handy.

  “Our town wasn’t hell, but Judson’s father might as well have been the Devil. He terrorized his wife and children and anybody else who crossed him. Judson was the oldest, and he became the old man’s willing accomplice. Probably because he knew that if he didn’t go along, he’d be just another target for his father’s wrath.”

  The man stopped and picked up the mug the girl put in front of him. He took a long swallow, said, “Ah,” and licked his lips again.

  “So Carnahan was raised to be bad,” Breckinridge said.

  “Actually, I believe he was born that way. But having his father for an example certainly didn’t help matters. When Judson was fifteen, his twelve-year-old brother tried to stand up for himself.” The man paused. “Judson beat him to death. Then he left town and none of us ever saw him again. Everyone agreed it was only a matter of time until he killed someone. It’s a shame to say so, but I think most people in town were grateful that it was a member of his own family and not someone else. Although the boy didn’t deserve it, of course.”

  “And you just happened to run into him out here?” Breckinridge asked.

  “That’s right. I clerk for Mr. Bent and Mr. St. Vrain. Everyone who comes through this part of the country stops here sooner or later. I see old friends from back home now and then.”

  “Like Carnahan.”

  The man shook his head and said, “Good Lord, no. Judson Carnahan was never my friend. I’m not sure he ever had any friends. Just victims.”

  “He ain’t changed much,” Moss said.

  “No, I don’t suppose he has. You men clearly know him. I was going to warn you that if you knew him only by name and hadn’t made his acquaintance, you needed to be careful.”

  “We know him,” Breckinridge agreed. “Did you talk to him while he was here?”

  The man responded with a vehement shake of his head.

  “I kept my distance. As I said, we weren’t friends back home, and I didn’t particularly want to remind him of those days. I, ah, felt sorry for the young woman with him, but there was nothing I could do for her, you understand.”

  He was right about that, Breckinridge thought. This man was no match for Carnahan and would have just gotten himself hurt, if not killed, if he’d tried to interfere, and that wouldn’t have done Ophelia a bit of good.

  Finding out a little about Carnahan’s background was interesting, but it didn’t really change anything. No matter what sort of stock a man was bred from, or how he was raised, it was still up to him to choose between good and evil. Nothing in Jud Carnahan’s past could ever excuse the things he had done.

  “If you don’t mind my asking,” their newfound acquaintance went on, “just what is it you intend to do when you find Judson?”

  “We’re gonna get that girl away from him,” Moss said. “And then we’re gonna kill him.”

  The man gave a dubious shake of his head and downed the rest of his beer.

  “I’d wish you luck, but I’m not sure that will be enough,” he said. “Not against a man like that. If I were you . . . I think I’d turn around and go back where I came from. It’s too late to save that girl from whatever Carnahan has turned her into, and I’m not sure even two men such as yourselves can kill him.”

  “Anybody can be killed,” Moss protested.

  The man stood up, gave them a pitying look, and walked
back toward the saloon part of the establishment.

  Moss grunted and then said, “You reckon he’s right, Breck? Is what we’re doing just a waste of our time that’s gonna get us killed?”

  “I ain’t sure,” Breckinridge said, “but we’ve come too blasted far to turn back now.”

  Chapter 25

  Bunks were available for sleeping in a big room that ran along one of the walls, and Breckinridge and Moss took advantage of that. This was their first night spent indoors since leaving the trading post on the Yellowstone all those weeks ago. They were up early the next morning, had a good breakfast including a pot of coffee, bought some supplies in the store, and then got their mounts and packhorse from the stable. The sun was almost up, and it was time to hit the trail.

  “You reckon Carnahan plans on stayin’ in Santa Fe,” Moss asked as they rode away from Bent’s Fort, “or will he move on again?”

  “Hard to say, but my hunch is he might stay put for a while. By now he’s bound to believe we ain’t followin’ him no more. By all rights, he should’ve given us the slip half a dozen times in the past two months. We’ve been lucky.”

  “And stubborn as all get-out,” Moss said.

  “That, too,” Breckinridge agreed with a grin.

  That morning, while they were buying supplies, one of the clerks in the store had mentioned a wagon train that had left the fort several days earlier. Breckinridge asked about it, thinking it had been longer than that since the freight wagons had pulled out and Carnahan and Ophelia had gone with them.

  “No, not the freight wagons,” the clerk had explained. “This was a bunch of immigrants planning to take up farming down there in New Mexico. I’m afraid they’re going to be disappointed. That land’s not really suited for farming. But you can’t tell that to folks who have their hearts set on it.”

  “The Mexican government lets American settlers come in?” Breckinridge asked. “That sort of thing led to a big fight somewheres else, didn’t it?”

  “Over in Texas, you mean.” The clerk nodded. “Yeah, that was part of it. But the Mexes let some gringos in. That’s what they call us, gringos. Means foreigners. You got to be careful down there, though. They’ve got their own way of doing things, and if you don’t follow their rules, you’re liable to wind up in a Mexican prison. That’s pretty much the same as them dumping you in a deep, dark hole that you’ll never climb out of.”

  As Breckinridge and Moss rode southwestward, paralleling the main trail but not following it precisely because they wanted to avoid the deep ruts, Breck thought about the wagon train ahead of them. The freight wagons, along with Carnahan and Ophelia, had been gone from Bent’s Fort for long enough that the two men had no chance of catching up to them. That immigrant train was a different story, though. Those heavy wagons and the stolid oxen pulling them didn’t move very fast. Breck expected to come up on them before they got to Santa Fe.

  He and Moss didn’t run into anyone for the first couple of days of the journey, which surprised Breckinridge a little since the Santa Fe Trail was supposed to be so heavily traveled. Around midmorning on the third day, after coming down through a steep pass in an offshoot of mountains from the main body of the Rockies, they were crossing a broad, open flat when Breck spotted something up ahead.

  “What’s that?” he asked, pointing to a number of low mounds to the left of the trail.

  “I dunno,” Moss said. “Looks like . . . Good Lord, Breck, those look like graves! Pretty recent ones, at that.”

  Breckinridge agreed. As they came closer, he was able to make out that small, crude wooden crosses had been erected at the head of each grave—because that was clearly what they were. Not only was the dirt mounded where it had been turned up and replaced, but rocks had been stacked on them, too, to form cairns.

  The burial sites were about a hundred yards from the trail. Breckinridge and Moss detoured over to them and reined in to get a better look.

  “No names on the markers,” Moss commented. “Not even a date. It’s like they’re sayin’ somebody’s buried here, but whoever put these up didn’t know who they were or when they died.”

  “That’d be my guess,” Breckinridge agreed. He counted. “Fourteen graves. That’s a heap of dyin’.”

  “Who do you reckon they were?”

  Breckinridge had to shake his head as he said, “I don’t have any idea. But we know what was ahead of us on the trail: those freight wagons, and that wagon train full of settlers.”

  Moss looked over at him. “You reckon somebody jumped those freight wagons and killed everybody? Are you sayin’ Carnahan and the gal could be buried here?”

  “It’s possible,” Breckinridge said, although he didn’t want to believe it was true. He wanted Jud Carnahan dead, sure, but he wanted to be the one to kill him. And after everything Ophelia had gone through, she might have preferred death, but he still hated to think about her winding up in a lonely, unmarked grave out here in the middle of this wilderness.

  On the other hand, once you were dead, it didn’t really matter much to you where you wound up, he thought bleakly.

  They scouted around, looking for any other clues that might tell them what had happened here, but there was nothing. Just those fourteen graves. Maybe if they kept going, they would find out the truth, Breckinridge thought . . . or maybe not. It might remain an unsolved mystery.

  It certainly did for the rest of that day and most of the next. But late in the afternoon of the fourth day after leaving Bent’s Fort, Breckinridge and Moss heard something that made both of them rein in, sit up in the saddles they had bought at Fort John when they traded for the horses, and listen intently.

  “Blast it, that sounds like shootin’,” Moss said after a moment.

  Breckinridge nodded and said, “Yeah, and a bunch of it, too.”

  “Are we about to ride into the middle of a war we didn’t know about? The United States declared war on the Mexes, maybe?”

  “Could be, but that don’t sound like quite enough guns to be a battle between two armies. We need to find out what it is, though.”

  Breckinridge kneed his horse into motion again. Moss was right behind him. They rode hard, although not at a full gallop because the packhorse had to keep up. Ahead of them, the trail dropped down through a wide, gentle, natural cut in a ridge that stood up across the terrain like a stair step.

  At the bottom of the slope, where the trail leveled out and ran through a field of boulders, about twenty wagons were stopped. A haze of powder smoke hung over the scene. As Breckinridge reined in, he saw more puffs of gray smoke from behind many of the boulders where hidden gunmen were shooting at the wagons. Return fire came from the wagons. The battle seemed to be a standoff.

  “Somebody was waitin’ to ambush that wagon train!” Moss exclaimed.

  “Yeah, looks like they shot the lead oxen on the first wagon, and that brought the whole thing to a stop,” Breckinridge said. “Those pilgrims are stuck there.”

  “Can you make out who’s behind the rocks? Injuns?”

  Breckinridge held a hand over his eyes to shade them from the sun and squinted.

  “I see some coonskin caps and felt hats,” he said after a moment. “Those are white men. Bandits, I reckon.”

  “I can’t abide a thief,” Moss said. “What are we gonna do?”

  “Well, there’s two of us and probably twenty or thirty of them. Those ain’t very good odds.” Breckinridge smiled as he lifted his rifle, swung a leg over his horse’s back, and slid to the ground. “What say we try to whittle ’em down a mite?”

  Moss dismounted, too, and they put rocks on their horses’ reins to keep the animals from wandering off. Then, carrying their rifles, they trotted along the edge of the ridge until they could see behind the boulders where the ambushers were hidden.

  “Try to pick off the ones farthest away from the trail first,” Breckinridge said. “With all the shootin’ goin’ on, maybe they won’t notice what we’re doin’ until it’s too
late.”

  “We’ll be shootin’ ’em from behind, in no warnin’,” Moss pointed out.

  “I reckon they gave up the right to expect anything like that when they started tryin’ to kill those settlers and loot the wagon train. ’Cause you know that’s what they’re after.”

  “Couldn’t be anything else,” Moss agreed. Grimly, he added, “I spotted a few fellas lyin’ next to the wagons, and they weren’t movin’.”

  “Yeah, I saw the same thing,” Breckinridge said as he rested his rifle barrel on a rock and drew a bead on one of the bandits. “See that fella in the green flannel shirt? He’s my meat.”

  “I’ll take the varmint to his right, in the tall hat.”

  They aimed carefully and then squeezed the triggers. The rifles’ blasts blended in with the continuing roll of gunfire across the plains.

  The ball from Breckinridge’s flintlock crashed into the back of the man in the green flannel shirt and drove him forward against the rock behind which he had hidden. He bounced off, dropped his rifle, and collapsed in a limp heap. A few yards away, the man Moss had targeted had slumped forward over his rock and was pawing at it, trying to hold himself off as blood welled from the wound in his back. He slid down until he was on the ground and unmoving, too.

  Breckinridge watched the other men attacking the wagon train to see if any of them had noticed the two men who’d been shot down. None of them seemed to. They continued firing at the wagons as if nothing had happened.

  After reloading, Breckinridge and Moss picked out two more targets. These men went down under the deadly accurate fire, as well.

  The ambushers were hidden on both sides of the trail. Breckinridge counted ten men on the near side, including the four he and Moss had killed, or at least put out of the fight.

  “We get many more of ’em, they’re gonna start to notice,” Breckinridge said. “Let’s move over to the other side of the gap and see if we can ventilate a few of’ em over there.”