A Trail Too Far

by Robert Peecher

  A TRAIL

  TOO FAR

  ◊

  ROBERT PEECHER

  For information the author may be contacted at

  PO Box 967; Watkinsville GA; 30677

  or online at

  mooncalfpress.com

  This is a work of fiction. Any similarities to actual events in whole or in part are purely accidental. None of the characters or events depicted in this novel are intended to represent actual people.

  Copyright © 2018 Robert Peecher

  All rights reserved.

  For Jean,

  Who reads first.

  Table of Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  1

  The long prairie grass shimmered blue and then green as it moved with the breeze, rippling as if the hills and wide open stretches were alive, a shiver moving along the back of a stretching animal.

  The lone rider followed the wagon tracks through the tall grass, keeping to a safe distance where he would not be seen. They called him Pawnee Bill, not because he had any Injun in him, but because he lived down on the banks of the Pawnee River in southwest Kansas. But that wasn't strictly true, either. He never really lived anywhere. Pawnee Bill drifted, mostly, and what he drifted toward always was trouble. If trouble wasn't where he was going, he manufactured it when he got there.

  Presently, the trouble Pawnee Bill intended to manufacture had to do with the daughter of a sod buster.

  For a week, Pawnee Bill and two hillbilly horse thieves from Arkansas, Chess Bowman and Dick Derugy, had been camping out at Six Mile Stage Station. They were on the dodge, riding stolen horses, and were trying to decide which way was best to go next when the daughter of a nearby farmer arrived on the afternoon stage. She was returning from a year spent with an aunt and uncle in Kansas City attending a women's school, and she was now coming home, accompanied by a young man she'd met in Kansas City. The pair were seeking her father's blessing on a marriage.

  But at the stage station, she caught Pawnee Bill's eye. Pretty girls in real dresses were a rare sight on the Kansas prairie. More common, the women looked little better than over fed men, their skin battered by the winds and cooked by the sun, their hands rough from hard work. But Susan Raleigh had soft, pink skin, and pretty blue eyes, and curly blonde hair, and Pawnee Bill decided when he saw her that he would have her.

  Tommy Raleigh, Susan's older brother, drove the buckboard to the station to collect her and young Matthew Rose, who intended to marry her. When the three left out from the station in the buckboard, Pawnee Bill mounted up on his horse and followed them.

  Pawnee Bill was a stout man, strong but not particularly tall. He carried a mean look on his face the way a snake does, nature intervening to offer protection to those who would be prey. As such, for most of his adult life, folks gave Pawnee Bill a wide berth even in those places where he did not have a reputation. And those places were running low. After the sacking of Lawrence, Pawnee Bill had been steadily building a reputation for hard violence. If Kansas was bleeding, as Horace Greeley claimed, Pawnee Bill was one of them making the wounds.

  He sat his horse on a grassy hill overlooking the farm where the buckboard wagon stopped. An acres of waist-high corn, some wheat, other vegetables. A few heads of cattle, and enclosure of horses. It was not a bad little farm, but the family lived in a sod house. Pawnee Bill had contempt for sod houses. People living in dirt was something he could not understand.

  When they came to the prairie just a few years before, the Raleigh family brought with them enough timber to frame out windows and a door and a good support beam for the roof. The roof itself was made of timber, and there were shingles. But the rest of it was all cuts of sod. The barn, though, was all made of timber. This was one more reason why Pawnee Bill hated sod busters. Putting up hay for cows and horses and stowing the wagon in a better building than the one where the people lived was just plain foolishness.

  Marking the spot where the sod house stood, Pawnee Bill mounted his horse and made the trek back to Six Mile Station.

  "They'll have money," Pawnee Bill told Chess Bowman and Dick Derugy. "Money and valuables. I guarantee they brought valuables with them from back east."

  "You don't even know how many menfolk they might be," Dick Derugy said. "Might be the two you saw, surely she's got a pa, and on a farm like that there could be six or seven brothers."

  Pawnee Bill shook his head in disgust. They were camped about sixty yards from the station, outside of the enclosure that housed the station house, the stables, the paddock, and the eating house and rooms for rent for stage passengers. There were not passengers letting rooms presently, and the three drifters could have had a room except that they had little money for anything beyond meals. Now, sitting around their campfire within sight of the stage station, Pawnee Bill was working out his plan.

  "It don't matter how many menfolk they might have," Bill said. "We have two six shooters and a rifle a piece. By my count, that's a total of more than eighty rounds of ammunition we can fire between us before we ever have to reload a gun. They ain't going to have eighty menfolk in that tiny old sod house. The pa, three brothers, and that man what rode in on the coach with her. That's all it'll be. Hell, I could kill all of them by myself."

  Pawnee Bill took a drink from his jug. "Besides, you're thinking about it all wrong, Bill. The question ain't never how many men folk are there. The question always is how many womenfolk are there."

  Bill guffawed at his own joke, and Dick had to give him a grudging smile.

  "Well, you're right about that," Dick Derugy said. "Maybe the ma'll be as pretty as the daughter."

  Chess Bowman sat quietly and listened to the other two talk. He didn't mind stealing horses. He'd been at Lawrence and Osawatomie, so he didn't mind murder and wasn't scared of a fight. But violating women didn't sit right with him.

  "I might sit this one out," Chess said. "You boys go on without me, and I'll just wait for you here."

  "We ain't coming back here when this is over," Pawnee Bill said. "My plan is to ride out west. Let the station manager and the hands see us go that away. Then we'll cut north to the farm. We can make it look like Cheyenne Injuns did it, burn 'em out, scalp 'em, loot the house, drive off their stock."

  "You're talking about killing everyone there," Chess said.

  Pawnee Bill looked surprised. "Well, yeah. If you're going to try to cover something up by making it look like Injuns did it, you can't very well leave witnesses alive to say different."

  In the firelight, Chess looked at Dick to read his old friend's thoughts. He'd known Dick since way back. They'd come up from Arkansas together to join the Border Men in Missouri and help with the free-staters in Kansas. They met Pawnee Bill on the Lawrence Raid, and they'd ridden with him for most of the time since, sometimes joining the pro-slavery militia and sometimes doing their own thing.

  Pawnee Bill's own thing seemed to be getting more reckless and more brutal.

  Dick Derugy's face showed no indication of surprise or disgust.

  "You're okay with violatin' women?" Chess Bowman asked.

  Dick's head lolled back and forth from one sh
oulder to the other in an indecisive fashion. "It's been a long time since we've been up to anything," Dick said. "I'm feeling restless. You ain't got to do anything you don't want to do."

  ***

  The next morning Pawnee Bill, Dick Derugy, and Chess Bowman took their breakfast and coffee in the station house.

  "We're headed west," Pawnee Bill told the station manager and his wife, who did the cooking. "Going to ride west to see what we can get up to in Denver City. I ain't never been there, but I've heard tell that there ain't better saloons until you get to San Francisco."

  The station manager said he'd been to Denver City.

  "Easy for a man to get into trouble there. You boys be careful."

  An hour later, the three men rode west, making a production of waving goodbye to the station manager as they did.

  They rode two miles west and then cut off the stage road and headed north. Pawnee Bill had done enough wandering in the prairies that he was pretty good at finding his way in a land where men could get easily turned around. To Dick and Chess, accustomed as they were to mountains and hills and trees to serve as landmarks, one rolling hill covered in long grass on the prairie was no different than any other, and the few trees that dotted one bottom were indistinguishable from the trees dotting another bottom.

  After a couple more hours, Pawnee Bill led them directly to a buffalo trace. "This is what I was looking for," he said. "We can follow this and come up on them." But they topped a hill not far from the farmhouse and there encountered just a few yards away Matthew Rose and Thomas Raleigh, Susan's father, in conversation.

  Thomas Started when he saw the riders appear on top of the hill.

  "Hello there," he called to them. "Are you lost?"

  Pawnee Bill, who knew his own appearance and how people took him, put on as big a smile as he could and rode directly to the two men. Dick and Chess held back at the top of the hill, neither knowing how to deal with the unexpected appearance of the two men.

  "No, we ain't lost," Pawnee Bill said as he reined in his horse in front of the two men. "We know exactly where we are. But we did not expect to see you here."

  "I have a farm here," Thomas Raleigh said. "My home is not far from here. Are you looking for something or someone? Is there something I can help you with?"

  Pawnee Bill threw a leg over the side of his horse and slid down out of the saddle. He opened up a saddle bag and reached a hand inside. He had there a knife he acquired some years ago when he traded with Cheyenne Dog Soldier. He'd given the Cheyenne a half-drunk bottle of foul whiskey. He liked the knife but had already made up his mind it would be the evidence he would leave to convince others that whatever he did here to these sod-busters would be blamed on raiding Injuns.

  "I do have something you could help me with," Bill said, his hand still in his saddlebag.

  The younger man wore the appearance of a city dweller, not the sort of man who would handle himself in a prairie fight. Sod busters, generally, weren't much for fighting, but they were typically tough men. So Pawnee Bill decided his first victim needed to be the older man.

  Thomas Raleigh stepped forward to see what Bill had in his saddlebag, and in a quick turn, one fluid motion, Bill Pawnee spun in the spot, drawing the knife from the saddlebag, and sliced a deep gash right across Thomas Raleigh's midriff. The older man clutched at his stomach as it opened up and spilled blood. Now Bill lunged for Matthew Rose. Just moments ago, Matthew Rose had confessed to Mr. Raleigh that he was seeking the older man's blessing to marry Susan. And now, inexplicably, Thomas Raleigh was doubled over and bleeding to death.

  Matthew Rose was too slow to process the sudden violence. He never even moved. Pawnee Bill clutched him by the front of the shirt, and with one hand he dragged Matthew Rose toward him, and with the other hand he plunged the knife into the young man's throat.

  Both men were dying, but neither man was dead, when Pawnee Bill began to slice skin and hair from the tops of their heads. His throat full of blood, Matthew Rose squirmed and spluttered but made no real sound. Thomas Raleigh screamed and cursed, but Pawnee Bill was strong and there was no way the man could put up a fight.

  In just a couple of minutes, the gruesome work was finished, and Pawnee Bill let out a hoot of victory.

  "Come along, boys!" he shouted up to Dick and Chess. "This ain't even the fun part!"

  Pawnee Bill climbed back into the saddle and started for the farmhouse. Dick Derugy bounded along to catch up to him, and Chess Bowman reluctantly followed behind.

  Two more rolling hills brought them to within sight of the farmhouse. Tommy Raleigh and his younger brother Doug were both going through the vegetable patch, baskets in hand, and picking what was ready. Doug was just fourteen years old, but Tommy was twenty. The middle brother, Joe, was digging potatoes in the potato patch.

  Outside the sod house, Susan Raleigh and her mother were snapping beans.

  "When we ride down there, I'll get the two in the vegetable garden," Pawnee Bill said. "Chess, you go after the one digging potatoes. And Dick, you get those women and don't let them get away. Try not to bust up their faces if you have to be rough with them. Especially the younger one from the stage station."

  Chester Bowman had a sick feeling. He knew what Pawnee Bill was planning, and what Dick would do, too. He didn't even mind killing them – folks got killed all the time. But for Chess, there was some invisible line, and violating women was on the other side of that line.

  They rode down the slope at an easy pace, drawing the attention of all the remaining Raleigh family members. But they did not look particularly threatening, just drifters riding across the prairie. Visitors were uncommon, but not unheard of.

  "I guess that was your pa we was just talking to out across the hills over there," Pawnee Bill called to Tommy Raleigh, the oldest male at the homestead. "He invited us to stop by here and maybe get a bite to eat. We've been riding for a while."

  Tommy eyed the strangers with suspicion, but Pawnee Bill's ruse – that Tommy's father had sent them – too him off his guard.

  But Mrs. Raleigh, with a pit in her stomach, knew immediately that something was wrong. Her husband would never have invited three strange men to their home when he was not there. He might have walked with them, but he would not have sent them on ahead.

  "Susan, go into the house and get the scatter gun over the mantle," Mrs. Raleigh said. "Be sure there are shells in it, and bring it to me, directly."

  Pawnee Bill rode to the edge of the vegetable patch. He was close enough that both of the brothers there would be easy targets. His hand was already on the grip of his .44 caliber Colt Army. Bill waited just a moment while Chess and Dick got close. He noticed the girl had gone inside the sod house, but it didn't worry him any.

  In a moment Chess would be up to the boy with the spade.

  Tommy Raleigh started to say something, but Pawnee Bill didn't hear it. Chess's horse stopped at the edge of the potato patch, and Pawnee Bill jerked his Colt from its holster. He shot Tommy in the chest at such close range that it snapped the young man backwards and he fell to the ground.

  Chess was watching Pawnee Bill, waiting for the moment. When Pawnee Bill shot the boy, Chess drew his revolver. But the boy in the potato patch started to run, and Chess had to ride after him. The horse easily caught up to him, and Chess simply leaned over and fired a shot right into Joe's back. The boy fell forward, and Chess reined in his horse. He leapt from his saddle and holstered his revolver. Chess used his Bowie knife to cut Joe's throat.

  Doug, the youngest of the Raleigh boys, also started to run, but Pawnee Bill turned in his saddle and fired a shot. The first shot struck Doug in the back of thigh. Doug limped and stumbled until Pawnee Bill fired a second shot that exploded into the back of the boy's skull.

  Dick Derugy came out of his saddle like lightning, and before the mother even had time to react to the slaughter of her children, Dick knocked her in the side of the head with the barrel of his Colt Army, leaving her senseless and
sprawled over a basket of beans.

  Susan Raleigh stepped out of the sod house with the shotgun leveled at Dick, and he shot her in the stomach. Susan fell back against the door frame, and Dick Derugy took the shotgun by the barrels and jerked it from her hands.

  "What did you shoot her for?" Pawnee Bill demanded. "I told you not to touch them."

  "She had this shotgun," Dick said.

  "You can't take a shotgun away from a girl?" Pawnee Bill demanded, storming toward Dick and the injured girl.

  Pawnee Bill shoved Dick out of his way and snatched Susan Raleigh by the wrist. He dragged her into the sod house. Shot though she was, she still fought, and Pawnee Bill used his knife to cut her throat.

  Then he came out and took the girl's mother into sod house.

  When it was over, and both Pawnee Bill and Dick Derugy had done to the mother what they came to do to the girl, Bill went around and took the scalps of all of the Raleigh family.

  Chess Bowman refused to go into the sod house, but he collected straw from the barn while Bill and Dick looted the house.

  Other than a couple of pocket watches and a good Enfield rifle, there were no valuables in the house. Each man took a spare horse from the herd, and the other animals they stampeded away from the farm to wander out across the prairie until someone found them or they became some predator's dinner.

  When they were finished with all they cared to do, Dick and Pawnee Bill set the straw inside the house alight, to burn everything in the sod house that would burn. Bill left his knife beside the body of one of the boys. Then the three men rode east.

  2

  The old man couldn't be found in his upstairs office above the mercantile, but some people on the street directed Amos Cummings to the saloon down the street. The saloon offered a free lunch buffet, and Albert Huntsdale took a meal there just about every day. It was his excuse to get an early start on his drinking.

  The street was crowded with people, all seeming to be in a hurry to get somewhere, but Amos Cummings did not think any of them could relate to the rush that he was in. He was bordering on desperation. His spring and early summer were marred by delays and disappointments.