"Cromwell, you are in a mood to run today," Rab said out loud to the horse. "A young hawss don't want to be cooped up, even in a pasture up under the cottonwoods with a clear spring nearby."
Rabbie Sinclair wasn't given much to praying for things outside of his control, but he hoped he would find Martha Cummings before nightfall.
"Them men will spend the day on the dodge," Rab told the horse. "But come nightfall they're going to hunker down somewhere. If we don't find Miss Cummings before then, they'll have had at her for sure."
He'd seen what could happen to women who were taken by tribes, beaten and used horribly. Some never got over the shock of it. Martha Cummings was a strong woman. Stronger than her husband. What Pawnee Bill and Mickey Hogg might do to her would probably not break her spirit, Rab thought. But if she fought them, they would likely take what they were after and then kill her. She might easily make herself troublesome to them.
With these concerns in mind, Rab let the horse run.
31
A day's ride west of the Point of Rocks there on the north bank of the Dry Cimarron there is a long, green canyon surrounded by two high bluffs that weaves its way up to a spring, and from beyond the spring the canyon continues and narrows and fans out. When the rains come and the water is high, mountain streams will run down to find those narrow channels and combine with the spring to fill the arroyo that runs through the center of the canyon. But in dry times, the spring runs but the stream gives out before it reaches to the Dry Cimarron. The spring is about two miles into the canyon, north of the Cimarron, and near the spring the canyon is thick with cottonwoods. It is a beautiful spot among the rocky foothills, and the water from the spring is fresh and clear. It is not a place where a man expects to find the ravaged and broken body of a brave and beautiful woman.
Rab Sinclair arrived at the canyon on the morning of his second day away from the campsite at the Point of Rocks. He rode throughout the day that first day, but at dusk he had to stop. He had desperately hoped he would find Martha Cummings before nightfall, but when night came he knew he could not go on. In the night, he might easily pass by some track or sign that would lead him in the right direction.
He had to force himself not to think of what sort of night Martha Cummings was enduring.
Early the next morning he mounted and began to ride again, and by mid-morning he spotted the canyon.
The opening to the canyon seemed a natural choice when Rab came upon it. Animals had cut a clear path through the cottonwoods and over the Dry Cimarron leading directly to the mouth of the canyon. The natural trail suggested to Rab that there would be water in the canyon, and knowing that Pawnee Bill and Mickey Hogg had lost a canteen, Rab suspected finding good water would be a priority for them.
He rode Cromwell over the dry riverbed and up to mouth of the canyon. There at the opening, where flood water sometimes poured out into the Cimarron, the slopes on either side were not particularly steep, nor where they very high. Cottonwoods sprang up here and there along the slopes. The canyon curved just beyond the mouth, and from there it stretched straight back for half a mile. In the middle of the canyon, in the bed where a stream sometimes ran, there was a solitary cottonwood. Rab rode toward the lone tree, keeping a watch for any movement. There were few places in the canyon to hide, no crevices in the walls nor large boulders where a man might seek shelter.
Rab rode past the cottonwood tree, and beyond it the canyon bent hard one way and then the other and disappeared around the bend. Here the walls were steeper. Rab rode slowly. The Hawken rifle stayed in its scabbard, but he slipped his Colt Dragoon from its holster and let it rest across his lap as he walked Cromwell, the reins loosely held in one hand.
He worked his way through the bends in the canyon and again came to a place where it ran straight for some distance. The canyon was wide, fifty or sixty feet wide in most places, and deeper into the canyon there was a thick stand of cottonwoods growing up out of the dry stream bed. The grass around the cottonwoods was thick. Rab knew that the vegetation proved there must be a spring at that spot, but the canyon continued on deeper past the cottonwoods. There had to be other springs farther along, or streams higher up that fed into the canyon and helped to carve it away over the centuries.
When he arrived at the running water of the spring, Rab dismounted and left Cromwell to drink.
His intention was to look for signs among the trees or in the grass that Pawnee Bill and Mickey Hogg had camped here with Martha Cummings the night before.
But he drew back in shock when he saw the body under the canopy of the trees.
She was stripped. Her face and body were bruised and bloody, showing that the two men had beaten her. Rab saw the evidence, too, that they had defiled her.
His heart sank at the sight of her.
"Ma'am, I am sorry to you that I could not catch you up in time to prevent this," Rab said.
Rab cut away the canvas from his bedroll and wrapped her body in it. He could not bury her here, in the spring canyon, because a flood would wash away the body. He would spare her one last indignity by finding a decent place to bury her.
He searched around the area for tracks that might indicate which way Pawnee Bill and Mickey Hogg had gone.
"Finding Miss Cummings was just one of our chores," Rab told the horse. "We've still got work to do to finish what we came out here for."
He found hoof prints in the damp soil near the small stream that came from the spring. The prints were a mess, indicating that the horses had been picketed here overnight. Rab counted at least four horses. After some time, he discovered tracks that convinced him Mickey Hogg and Pawnee Bill had ridden out of the canyon.
"All right old hawss, I hope you're ready for a run," Rab said to the roan, patting his black face. He took a look at the canvas wrapped body. "I'll come back for you, ma'am."
He swung himself into the saddle, and horse and rider bounded back down the canyon and out into the valley of the Dry Cimarron.
He knew the men had not gone back east, or he would have passed them, so he held the reins lightly and let Cromwell run at will off to the west, toward the rocky mesas and rough country that gave a traveler to know he was coming nearer to the great mountain range in Colorado Territory.
He rode west, following along beside the river valley, all the rest of that day and the next. He still saw occasional sign that Pawnee Bill and Mickey Hogg were somewhere ahead of him. He found their tracks at springs where he stopped. He found the remnants of a campfire and an empty can of beans.
Though he had seen the tall mesas rising on the horizon in front of him, it seemed that the landscape changed quite suddenly. He left behind the flat, wide open expanse of the desert grassland and was in among the rocky mesas they led directly to the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of Colorado Territory. By late afternoon on the second day, with the sun already dipping behind the rising mesas, Rab Sinclair rode through rough and hilly country dotted with gambel oak and large rock outcroppings.
Rab was considering stopping for the day as Cromwell picked his way along through the rocky terrain beside a tall mesa shooting straight up into the sky, but it was at that moment that Rab smelled smoke.
He pulled the reins on the horse. "Whoa, boy," Rab whispered. He took another deep breath through his nose. There was no question, he smelled smoke on the air.
Rab slid out of the saddle and tied a long lead, staking it into the ground in a place where Cromwell would have room to find both shade in the shadow of the mesa and grass to eat. He removed the horse's saddle. Cromwell was noticeably miffed that he wasn't getting rubbed down after a long day of riding.
Then he drew out his Hawken rifle from its scabbard and took up his old possibles bag with balls and gunpowder for both the Hawken rifle and the Colt.
"I'll be back, Cromwell," Rab said to the horse, stroking his neck. "I'm off to get what we've come all this way to find."
***
The mesa rose up in terraced slopes, and it
was easy for Rab to climb one slope to the next until he reached the jagged, vertical outcropping that topped the tiers of the base of the mesa. He crouched low, hoping to avoid being seen, and tried to move from one scrub oak to the next to hide his movement.
As he climbed higher he lost, and then found again, the scent of the smoke. From the higher vantage point he could not see any sign of the men he was seeking, so he worked his way around to get a look at the other side of the mesa. And there, hiding themselves in a small canyon between two large rocky outcroppings, Rab found Pawnee Bill and Mickey Hogg. They were sitting beside a small campfire. They had a skinned rabbit on a spit over the campfire. They had four horses picketed outside of their campsite.
Hanging would have been his preference, but there were no good trees in the valleys between the mesas.
Rab saw no point in ceremony. There were two of them and one of him. He did not come all this way for a fair fight. He came here to kill these men. So he cocked back the hammer on the big Hawken rifle and pulled the rear trigger to set the front trigger. He picked out his target carefully. When he was sure his shot would tell, Rab gave just a touch the front trigger. The Hawken cracked its thunderous boom and a small cloud of white smoke drifted in front of Rab's eyes so that he could not clearly see. But he did not need to see to know what he'd done.
Mickey Hogg screamed in terror when the fifty-caliber lead ball smashed into his abdomen. He flung forward, knocking over the rabbit they'd intended or dinner and falling into the fire. The coals of the fire burned him, and Mickey hollered all the more. Pawnee Bill ducked down beneath a rock. Unwilling to break cover, he kicked Mickey Hogg out of the fire and onto his back. Mickey's clothes were singed and burned through in some places, and his exposed arms were burned badly.
"Bill, I'm shot!" Mickey called out. "He's done for me, Bill. I'm dying here."
Rab poured out a measure of powder into the gun and rammed another fifty-caliber ball down the barrel. He placed a percussion cap on the nipple and raised up the beavertail stock to his shoulder. Again, he pulled the rear trigger, the one that set the front trigger and made it a hair trigger pull. Then he looked down the sights for Pawnee Bill.
"Who's out there?" Pawnee Bill called from behind his rock fortress.
Mickey Hogg was roiling in pain, his hands clutching his lower abdomen where the big shot had done sickening damage. The damage was done on purpose. Having seen what they'd done to Martha Cummings, Rab intended to give both men time to consider their imminent death. He could have put that fifty-caliber ball in Mickey Hogg's chest and blown the man's heart right out his back, but Rab's sense of justice was learned from men whose justice earned them the title "savages." Mickey Hogg's wound was fatal, but it would certainly take him hours and it might take days to die of the havoc done to his intestines. Meanwhile, he would suffer the physical pain with the knowledge that the only end for it would be death.
Again Pawnee Bill hollered out from behind the rock where he was hiding. "Is that you Sinclair? Answer me!"
"It is Rab Sinclair. I've come to kill you for what you did to that woman and her family."
"I didn't have nothing to do with none of it. Every bit of it was Mickey Hogg, here, and you've done for him."
"You was there, just the same," Rab said. "I'll be killing you, too."
Mickey Hogg wasn't willing to put up an argument to Pawnee Bill's lie. He was kicking at the dirt with his heels, squirming on his back, and sobbing at the pain.
"Well, I ain't coming out from behind this rock," Pawnee Bill vowed. "Any killing you plan to do from here on you'll have to come down here and do it."
"That's fine," Rab shouted back to him. "I'll be glad to get a closer look at the both of you."
Just over the top of the rock, Rab could see the barrel of a Colt waving back and forth. Pawnee Bill had armed himself, but it would be a small miracle to hit Rab at this distance.
Rab was leaning against the rocky outcropping of the mesa, but he was not really behind it. He had no need of breastwork from his vantage. If Pawnee Bill came out from behind his rock and tried to get off a shot, Rab would have him right away.
"What are my choices here?" Pawnee Bill shouted.
"Damn few," Rab said. "If you like, you can stand up and I'll shoot you where I am. Or you can stay hiding behind that rock and I'll come down there and shoot you."
Pawnee Bill laughed in spite. "You're right. Them ain't many choices. I thought them folks didn't go for killing."
"A man's mind changes pretty fast when he sees his son's throat cut," Rab said. "No one raised an objection to my coming after you."
"Maybe a trial?" Pawnee Bill said. "I'll toss out my gun and ride back for a trial."
"You've had your trial," Rab said. "I done judged you."
"What about my partner, here? What about Mickey? He needs a doctor."
"I could get him a thousand doctors, and none of them could help him. What he needs is a box maker and a preacher. But he'll not get either of those. I intend to leave both of you for the birds and the animals."
"That's a kindness to the birds and animals, I suppose," Pawnee Bill said.
Bill was looking about for any chance of escape. But the horses were well away from the protection afforded by the rocks. He'd have to clear open ground to get to them. And none of them were saddled. Bill knew, too, that he'd never hit the young guide from this distance. A sick feeling overtook him when he realized he was trapped. Even with a gun in his hand he could not fight his way out of this.
"You can't just kill a man like this," Pawnee Bill shouted.
"Ask Mickey Hogg if I can kill a man like this."
Bill did not reply, and at that moment Rab saw that Pawnee Bill had pressed his face against the side of the rock and was inching his head up to try to get a look. Rab took careful aim, and as soon as he saw Pawnee Bill's face appear he touched the trigger on the Hawken. The gun again spit fire and thunder. The ball struck the rock right where Pawnee Bill was trying to get his look, and Bill started screaming. The ricochet of the lead ball sliced across his face, knocking his eye out of the socket.
Pawnee Bill threw down his gun and pressed both hands against his face. Now Pawnee Bill was screaming, and he fell away from the rock, landing on his knees by the campfire.
Rab set the Hawken down against the rock outcropping and hurried down the terraced slopes toward the place where Mickey Hogg and Pawnee Bill were suffering from their wounds. He drew the heavy Colt Dragoon as he went and cocked back the hammer.
He slid down the loose rock and soil of the biggest slope and then hurried down the next one. He pointed the Dragoon at Pawnee Bill in case the man went for his own six-shooter.
Just a few yards away from the rock where Bill had been hiding, Rab broke into a run and jumped out, landing on the big rock that had been Pawnee Bill's protection.
Bill, with his hands covering his eyes, heard Rab but did not see him.
"You've shot my eye out!" Bill shouted.
Rab took careful aim with the Dragoon and shot Bill in the stomach. Pawnee Bill stumbled backwards and he dropped one of his hands to the fresh wound.
"I've come for you Bill, to pay you back for all the evil you've done," Rab said.
He sprang from the rock and kicked Pawnee Bill in the knee, dropping the man to the ground. Rab put his own knee into Bill's throat and pulled from its sheath his heavy Bowie knife. With one hand he took Bill by the hair. Pawnee Bill began to scream, begging for mercy, but his pleas mingled with his sobbing, and whatever he said was lost.
Rab slid the knife blade into Bill's hairline and lifted away his scalp while the man sobbed and cried out.
Dying though he was, Mickey Hogg witnessed the horror of Pawnee Bill's final moments, and he began working the fastener on his scattergun, trying to get it undone from his belt so that he could get off a shot.
As the Bowie knife sliced clear and Pawnee Bill's scalp came loose, Mickey Hogg got the shotgun off its swivel rig and tried to
find the strength to raise it up. He’d already bled so much and was in such pain, and he felt weak all over. But he did not want to be scalped alive.
Rab Sinclair turned on Mickey Hogg and saw the scattergun in his hand. Rather than try to clear the distance before he could get the hammers cocked and the triggers pulled, Rab kicked his boot through the fire, sending a spray of red hot coals all over Mickey Hogg's face and torso.
Now Rab stepped over the fire and closed the distance between him and Mickey. He grabbed Mickey by the wrist, turning the scattergun away, and swung his Bowie knife as hard as he could into the bend of Mickey's elbow. The knife cut deep and Mickey's arm went limp. The scattergun fell away.
Rab grabbed a handful of Mickey Hogg's hair and took a second scalp.
It was savage justice, maybe, but it was the justice of the land that had come for Mickey Hogg and Pawnee Bill. Rab Sinclair was simply the vessel in which that justice was carried.
"You've both been given what you deserved," Rab Sinclair said over their cries. "Now I'll give you mercy."
He drew the Dragoon and fired a shot into each of their heads, killing them and ending their suffering.
Rab riffled through their belongings until he found a burlap sack he could drop the scalps into. He took the leads of all four horses and walked them around the big mesa, back over to where Cromwell was picketed. Rab had no desire to stay in this place, and even though the sun was nearly set, he saddled the blue roan and pushed the four horses out in front of him. He was three days away from the Point of Rocks and the campsite. He hoped that by the time he arrived he would find the Cummings party had already joined another wagon train and would be on the way to Santa Fe.
32
Rab Sinclair buried Martha Cummings beside her son up on the table rock overlooking the Dry Cimarron valley. It seemed right to him that she should be laid to rest in that place.
A Trail Too Far Page 24