by Jory Sherman
“Well, what did you find out?” he asked Galoot one day, upon his return from town. Jed had been gone from Junction City for over a month.
“Some things,” Galoot said. “Just keep your shirt on, Jed.”
Galoot had taken his burro with him and come back with foodstuffs, whiskey, and a newspaper from Topeka. When they finished putting up the staples, Galoot pulled out his pipe and lit it. Dusk was coming on and it was quiet, with only the throaty burble of mourning doves over by the creek to fill the silence and the far-off yap of a coyote to punctuate the stillness of late afternoon.
“Well?” Jed ventured.
“First of all, Hoyt went on back to Abilene.”
“What about Jellico?”
“Dunno. No sign of him, but Hoyt rode back alone, with his tail tucked between his legs.”
“Colter?”
“Colter’s up to something. He and them two hard-cases are still in town, like they was waiting for someone. Or something.”
“What do you mean?”
Galoot puffed on his pipe and drew in a mouthful of smoke, which he released in a long thin plume that shredded to wisps in the breeze blowing off the creek.
“Colter’s bought himself a little dry goods store right smack-dab in the middle of town. The store’s got big glass windows in it so that he can see everything on the street. And the store is right across the street from the Junction City Bank. Them two hardcases, Burns and Norton, work there. Only, there ain’t no work. Colter’s got a sign on the door that says Closed For Repairs. And he keeps the inside dark, so’s nobody can see much of what goes on in there.”
“You think he’s planning to rob that bank?” Jed asked.
“I wouldn’t be a bit surprised. But that don’t bother me much right now. There’s something else you got to know, young feller.”
“What?”
“Do you know a man named Lester Amory?”
Jed shook his head.
“Well, he’s staying at a little boardinghouse near the edge of town. He’s rode up all the way from the Rio Grande Valley, just to see you.”
“Me? Why?”
“I don’t know. But my uncle knows the lady at the boardinghouse, the one who owns it. He stays there from time to time. She says this Amory is willing to pay a handsome sum to anyone who will bring you to him, or him to you.”
“What do you think?”
“He’s not the law. Lady says he’s a cattleman and she knew him a long time ago. In fact, he’s married to her sister.”
“What is he, then?”
“He’s a cattleman and he hates Silas Colter with a passion. But he’s not talking to his sister-in-law, or to my uncle. He will only talk to you.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Jed said.
“No, well maybe this will,” Galoot said.
Galoot took his pipe out of his mouth and looked at it for a moment. Seconds ticked by. Finally, Jed could stand the silence no longer.
“What, Galoot? I’m ready to have a fit.”
“He says he might be able to help you with the law, get them to drop the charges against you.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. But I think you ought to meet with him. Tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes. My uncle’s bringing him here.”
“Here?” Jed’s jaw dropped.
“Amory will be blindfolded. So he won’t know where we are.”
“Damn, Galoot. Are you crazy? It could be a trap.”
“Might be. He’s coming alone. And one more thing. He says he’s got a message for you.”
“For me?”
“Yeah, from your ma down in Waco.”
Jed let out a long sigh. He looked up at the sky, at the shadows stretching out from the sod house, at a hawk floating over the creek, its wings fixed in a long slow glide. Then he looked at Galoot and shook his head.
“Where’d you put that whiskey you brought, Galoot? I could use a taste right now.”
Galoot grinned as dusk began to steal the light from the day and the sky in the west turned crimson as if the fires of hell were being banked by some unseen demon.
CHAPTER
20
JED HELPED THE MAN KNOWN AS GALOOT TACK BLAN kets up over the windows of the soddy after lighting penny candles inside the single room. The flickering light flung their shadows on the walls as they moved around inside, shadows that danced and writhed like the stories told around an ancient campfire inside a cave.
“You wait here, Jed,” Galoot said. “It’s time for me to go out and meet my uncle, bring that Amory feller in here.”
“Is your uncle coming here with him?”
“No. He’ll stand guard some distance away.”
“You don’t want me to see him or meet him, do you?
Your uncle, I mean.”
“No. Not yet.”
Galoot slipped out the door, leaving Jed alone with his thoughts. The frogs and the crickets had long since gone silent as the fingernail of moon rose high in the sky, casting a dull pewter light on the sawgrass, the gama, the grama, the bluestem, and the profusion of wild weeds that grew up around Robber’s Roost with its forlorn sod dwellings.
He heard Galoot walk around the shanty, presumably to see if the candlelight showed through the darkened windows. Apparently, he was satisfied because Jed heard his footsteps recede as Galoot walked away to meet his uncle and the man bearing a message from Jed’s mother.
He missed her. He wished he was with his mother now, listening to her low, scratchy voice as she spoke of old times in Kentucky, of her own mother and father, her brothers and sisters. Only she had come to Texas, with his father, leaving her family behind. And she pined for them, especially after his father left. Later, she learned they had gone to Tennessee and then to Arkansas where they all drowned in a flash flood that roared through the hollow where they lived near a town called Green Forest. In the shadows on the wall, Jed saw her shape as she sat in a rocking chair, her gray hair lit by soft golden lamplight, their cat curled up at her feet on a small round rug she had made from scraps of heavy cloth. He wondered how she was faring, all alone, without Dan there, or him, to help, to bring food, to tend to the chickens and cows, the goats.
After a time, Jed heard the soft pad of footsteps and his blood quickened. He stood up and waited in the center of the room, his hand on the butt of his Colt. It could be a trick, he thought. Maybe this Amory was a bounty hunter or a lawman using deception to find him.
He wondered at himself, at the strangeness of the suspicions he harbored. For he had always been a trusting person, and now he was thinking like a criminal. Like a man on the run. Like a man in hiding.
“Jed,” Galoot called, from outside the door. “Comin’ in.”
The door opened and a man stepped inside the candlelit room, a black bandanna tied around his head, covering his eyes. Galoot entered just behind him and closed the door.
“Just a minute, Mr. Amory,” Galoot said, “and I’ll take that bandanna off.”
Jed noticed that Amory wasn’t armed. He wore no coat, but only a blue chambray shirt, cotton trousers, a short-brimmed Stetson, crimped in front, dusty boots. His hands were those of a workingman, rough as tree bark, scarred at the knuckles and pocked with nicks and furrows. As the bandanna came off, Jed looked into a face without guile, a face bronzed by sun and scoured by wind. The man had hazel eyes that flashed with flecks of gold and green in the flicker of candlelight.
“Jed Brand,” Amory said, holding out his hand. “I’m Lester Amory from down on the Nueces.”
“I’m Brand.” Jed shook his hand.
“Sit down, sit down,” Galoot said, an amiable lilt to his voice as if inviting the two men to afternoon tea. “Les, you pull up a box right there. Jed, you know where to sit.”
The men all sat and Amory leaned forward, looking into Jed’s eyes.
“You don’t know who I am, do you, Mr. Brand?”
“No, sir, I don
’t. I’m told you have a message for me from my mother.”
“Indeed, I do. But first, let me tell you this. I have a ranch down on the Nueces River. I raise beef cattle. A man named Silas Colter contacted me a while back, saying he could sell my beef at top dollar in Kansas if I would drive them up to Abilene. Those cattle you drove up from Waco were mine. I own the Two Bar Seven.”
“The Two Bar Seven?” Jed’s mind was racing.
“That’s right. Sound familiar?”
“Well, sir, the cattle me and my brother drove up to Abilene from Waco wore the Two Bar Eight brand on their hides.”
“Do you know what a running iron is?”
“Yes, sir, but it’s a crime to use one. And, I never have.”
“I know you haven’t. I sent three of my best drovers with that herd. I expected them back two weeks ago.
When they didn’t show, I rode up north to Waco and found out what had happened, both to my herd and my cowboys. They were good hands. Honest boys. Like sons to me, they were.”
“What did you find in Waco?” Jed asked Amory.
Galoot was hanging like a trapeze artist on every word between the two men as the candles flickered and flapped their yellow flames. A light, susurrant wind brushed against the soddy, sniffing like a vagrant wolf at all the windows and the cracks in the door.
“There’s a little town south of Waco called Belton,” Amory said. “There, I found the bodies of my three hands. The constable took me to where they were found.
He also showed me the running iron which changed the ‘seven’ in my brand to an ‘eight.’ In Waco, I learned that Colter had hired you and your brother Dan to drive the herd to Abilene.”
“Dan and I didn’t know any of that, Mr. Amory.”
“I know. Your mother was very hospitable, very worried. Then Dan’s body was hauled down to Waco. Your mother buried him last week.”
Jed felt the sudden rush of tears spill from his burning eyes. His throat constricted, ached as if he had swallowed a firebrand. He broke into sobs, his body shaking, his grief pouring from him in a gush of weeping.
“I-I’m sorry,” Jed said, recovering. He wiped his eyes dry with his sleeve and turned, red-eyed, to Galoot.
“It hit me all at once, Galoot.”
“There’s things you got to ride out, Jed.”
“I told Ellen, your mother, that I was going to try to find you and your brother when I first talked to her. Later, someone brought her one of those flyers with your name on it, offering a reward. Ellen was devastated.”
Jed swore under his breath.
“She told me you were innocent, that you would never murder anyone, much less your own brother.”
“That’s true.”
“I told her about Silas, and what I had found out about him in Belton and in Waco. The man has a long criminal record. We don’t even know if his real name is Colter. He uses many names, apparently.”
“He’s here,” Jed said. “In Junction City.”
“I know that now. The army man who brought me to you told me. Tomorrow, I’m going to ride into Abilene and talk to Marshal Smith and demand that he arrest Colter for rustling and murder. I’ll tell him you’re innocent. I feel sure that you will be exonerated, the bounty on your head lifted and the charges against you dropped.”
“Why don’t you have the sheriff here in Junction City just arrest Colter?” Jed asked.
“That’s a funny thing,” Amory said. “Or, maybe not so funny. I spoke to the sheriff when I first rode in here, looking for Colter. But I also talked to a man named Hoyt when I was in Abilene, who told me he had lost your trail over here in Junction City. Hoyt told me the sheriff here was a friend of Colter’s. The sheriff, Clifton Robinson, served with Colter and another man who’s hunting you, a man named Jellico, in the Civil War.”
“What? Do you mean Jellico and Colter are friends?”
“That’s what Hoyt told me. And Sheriff Robinson, as well. Have you ever heard of a man named Quantrill, Jed?”
“No.” Jed shook his head. “Who’s he?”
Galoot cleared his throat and spoke up.
“You never heard of Quantrill’s Raiders, Jed?”
“No. Never heard of him.” Jed looked at both men, wondering why they both knew of Quantrill and he had never heard of the man. “Who is he?”
“Quantrill led a group of men, soldiers, who were stationed in Missouri. They raided Lawrence, Kansas, early in the morning after the war had started. They went in there about five o’clock,” Galoot said, “and started shooting and looting and burning down the town.”
“That’s right,” Amory said. “Quantrill and his men murdered about a hundred and fifty men and boys. Colter rode with them, and so did Sorel Jellico, Fred Burns, and Ralph Norton.”
“I never knew that about Jellico and Colter,” Galoot said. “I swan, it’s a wonder Colter can even show his face in Kansas.”
“Well, not many people know it. But Hoyt did and so did Marshal Smith. And, of course, Sheriff Robinson knows, because he rode with Quantrill, too. But they all had different names then, and they covered their tracks.”
“How did you find out about Robinson?” Galoot asked.
“Bear River Smith told me when I was in Abilene. He said he had been doing some checking. Robinson went by a different name and Smith can’t prove anything, but he told me to be on my guard.”
Jed looked at Amory in confusion.
“It looks to me,” he said, “like I’m outnumbered here. How big was this Quantrill’s army?”
“About four hundred men,” Amory said.
Jed hung his head in despair. He thought about Colter and now saw him in a different light. It reminded him of stepping on a cockroach in his mother’s kitchen and then seeing hordes of them stream out of the woodwork, running in all directions. He had been a small boy then, but the sight of all those roaches terrified him.
Listening to Amory now brought back that same feeling.
Jed was, once again, terrified at what he was facing. One of the candles hissed and sputtered out, plunging part of the room, where Amory was sitting, into darkness. He could no longer see Amory’s face and the man’s silhouette had a sinister look.
Jed wondered if he could trust anyone anymore.
And that included Amory.
And maybe Galoot, as well.
CHAPTER
21
JED FELT THE DARKNESS CLOSING IN ON HIM, PUSHING deep into his heart, into his mind. What had seemed fairly simple before, getting Colter, now seemed like an impossible task. He knew now he was not only facing Colter and his two henchmen, but a host of others as well, most of them as faceless as Amory was now.
“How can you or I, Mr. Amory, beat these men? They’re all over the place, like cockroaches.”
“I think we might have an ace in the hole,” Amory said.
“What do you mean?” Jed asked.
“Cal Garner. He was one of the U.S. marshals that Colter murdered in Abilene.”
“How does that help me?”
“Cal has a brother, Luke Garner, who’s also a U.S. marshal. He should be in Abilene by tomorrow. And he and his brother Cal were both born and raised in Lawrence. Their father and another brother were both murdered there when Quantrill staged his raid. I think Luke will want to help.”
“I know that story,” Galoot said. “I always wondered if it was true.”
“It’s true, all right,” Amory said.
“I haven’t heard it,” Jed said.
“It was just one of the horrible incidents that happened that day in Lawrence,” Amory said. “But this one was truly horrifying and cruel. There were four men holed up in a house. Two of them were Cal and Luke’s brother and their father. Jellico was the leader of the band of raiders waiting outside. They asked the men to come out and surrender. They said they wouldn’t be hurt. They said they just wanted them to surrender. So finally, the four men and their women came out onto the porch. Jellico asked the men
to step off the porch and follow him and his men to safety. The men got off the porch while the women stayed there. Then, without warning, Jellico and his men opened up and they shot all four men dead while the women looked on. Then Quantrill’s men rode away without blinking an eye.”
Jed swore under his breath.
“So that’s what I’m facing,” he said. “A merciless bunch of murderers.”
“Pretty much,” Amory said. “But you just sit tight here with old Galoot until I get back from Abilene. Galoot, I’ll be at the boardinghouse within the week. I may have Marshal Luke Garner with me when I come back.”
“You tell my uncle that,” Galoot said, “and we’ll keep an eye out for you.”
Amory got up from the wooden box he was sitting on.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a wallet.
“Jed, I’m offering a reward for Colter. Dead or alive. But in the meantime, I want to give you some money on account, just in case you run into him and put him down.”
“Keep your money, Mr. Amory.”
“Why?”
“I’m no bounty hunter.”
“It would be honest money,” Galoot said. “Deserving and all, if you get rid of Colter and his gang.”
“No,” Jed said. “I’m not a killer. I’m hunting Colter for killing my brother. But I won’t take blood money. And that’s that.”
Amory put his wallet back in his pocket. He shook hands with Jed and wished him luck. Then he and Galoot turned and walked out the door.
“See you in a while,” Galoot said.
Jed heard no more after their footsteps faded. The two men did not talk outside where the sound carried far on the night air. He stayed inside, thinking over all that Amory had told him. At least, he thought, there was now some hope that he might be cleared of the murder charges and no longer be a wanted man.
Galoot returned a short while later. He lit a lantern and snuffed out the candles. Jed watched him, wondering if he was ever going to speak.
“Well, did Amory and your uncle get off all right?”
Galoot sat down, a faint smile on his lips. He dug out his pipe and began to fill it from a pouch he took from his pocket.