by Jake Logan
“There’s no telling where it ended up,” Slocum said. “For the twister to carry away a couple hundred pounds of dead weight was nothing. That strongbox might be miles from here.”
“Git yerself on over there, Slocum. Take a horse. Not the stallion. That one’s mine. Take the gelding paint. He’s sturdy enough to git you there an’ back, even if he’s seen better days.”
Argument would get him nowhere, so Slocum went to the corral behind the stage depot and found the paint nervously pawing at the ground. Why it hadn’t bolted and run off when the tornado hit was anyone’s guess. Maybe it had and Underwood had retrieved it. That was unlikely, but Slocum was seeing a powerful lot of things he couldn’t understand. After saddling, he stepped up and started the horse walking slowly in the direction of the fort.
In spite of the stationmaster’s soothing words, he expected to be received like some kind of criminal.
He wasn’t far wrong.
3
“Sergeant, throw this man in the stockade!” Captain Legrange’s handsome face turned beet red from anger. “If he resists, shoot him. Hell, if he resists, call me and I’ll shoot him!”
The enlisted man looked at Slocum and obviously would have preferred kissing a rattlesnake to taking away Slocum’s six-shooter before putting him into the stockade.
“Can I get a couple men to help, Captain?”
“Forget it,” Legrange said, grinding his teeth together. The ruddiness faded from his face as he got a better hold of his emotions. “There’s got to be some way of recovering our payroll.”
“Send for another, sir,” the sergeant said. He sucked in his gut and stared straight ahead, coming to attention when the captain’s ire turned toward him.
“It would take a month and a ton of paperwork. We’ll get next month’s payroll before we see replacement for this month’s.”
“Sir!” The sergeant braced himself. “What should I do with him?” The man’s eyes darted in Slocum’s direction, then snapped back straight in front of him.
Captain Legrange began chewing on his lower lip as he thought. Slocum considered letting the man stew until he came to his own conclusion, but that might not work out too well. He might lash out again at the man bringing the bad news.
“I know you’re spread mighty thin, Captain,” Slocum said, “what with the tornado destroying half of Gregory the way it did.” He looked around. Fort Stockton had escaped the ravages of the twister, except for hailstone damage and torrential downpour, but most of the company had been sent to find survivors across the countryside.
“What’s your point?”
“Might be we can find the box, if we hunt for it.” Slocum shrugged. “But you know how unpredictable a twister is.”
“Sergeant, has Major Conrad returned yet?”
“Still on patrol, sir.”
Legrange cursed and chewed some more on his lip. Slocum wondered if the chow was that bad at the fort for the officer to seek a new source of fresh meat. That brought a small smile to his visage, and the angry officer saw it immediately.
“What’s so funny, Slocum?”
“There a reward for finding the payroll?”
“You’re an employee of the stage company. You’re getting paid already.”
Slocum held his tongue. He wasn’t being paid because there was no stagecoach to drive. Until a new one was built or driven in from Fort Worth to Buena Vista and finally to Gregory, he was unemployed. Not for the first time since reaching Fort Stockton, he thought about just riding on. Let Underwood swear out charges against him for horse stealing, since the tired old paint belonged to the stage company, but he ought to get some bonus for almost dying in Butterfield’s employ.
“We were held up, but the robbers got chased off.”
“You chased them off? Without a guard?”
“The passengers joined in, leastways until one was killed.”
As Legrange berated him more for losing not only the cavalry’s payroll but a passenger as well, Slocum caught a flash of red from the corner of his eye. He turned and saw a woman with flame red hair retreating into an office. Her face was turned from him, but from what he could see, she was shapely and moved easily, with a liquid stride that made her hips sway just right.
“Slocum!” The captain’s bark made the sergeant brace even more stiffly. Slocum merely turned his attention back reluctantly. He had served with CSA officers who thought shouting was the only way to get their men’s attention. From his experience with them, they were less effective than a leader who calmly . . . led.
“Seems as if an attempted robbery out on the road is a military matter, payroll or not,” Slocum said. “With the entire county destroyed, the sheriff has his hands full.”
“I can’t leave the fort until my superiors return. I’m in command.”
Slocum knew Legrange itched to arrest him, to get out in the field and recover the payroll, to do things a garrison officer never did. For that he approved. Any officer unwilling to get into the field at the head of a column of soldiers wasn’t much of a commander. Legrange went up in his estimation. Just a little. If only the officer wasn’t so intent on throwing him behind bars.
“Sir,” the sergeant said. “I can lead a small detachment.”
“We’re down to bare bones now, Sergeant Wilson. What do you have in mind?”
“We got three men locked up right now, sir. Nothing serious. Failure to appear for a parade—”
“Folkes was drunk.”
“And he’s sobered up now, sir, after being locked away for three days. The other two aren’t up on serious charges. Send them out on patrol and erase their charges.”
Slocum was getting to like Sergeant Wilson, too. The noncom was looking out for his men. Drunk and failure to report were hardly major charges but might see the soldier drummed out of the Army.
Legrange looked hard at Slocum, then glanced in the direction of the offices where the red-haired woman had gone. From the look of uncertainty replacing his anger, the officer was close to making a decision.
“Do so. I’ll sign the orders, Sergeant. Find that damned payroll. And if you have any trail, which I doubt, track down these road agents. But recovering the payroll is paramount.”
“Understood, sir.” He threw a snappy salute to his commanding officer. Legrange returned it, did an about-face, and marched away.
Slocum waited a moment to follow Sergeant Wilson to see where the captain went. While he walked away from the offices at first, he soon changed direction and went to the office the woman had ducked into.
“That Legrange’s office?”
“What?” Sergeant Wilson glanced over his shoulder. “Yeah, it is. He said he’d get my men from the lockup.”
“You depend on those three?”
“They’re shirkers, that’s for certain sure, but they aren’t getting paid while they’re locked up and they owe me money from last week’s poker game.”
Slocum laughed at that. Wilson’s motives might go beyond simply sticking up for his men. Whatever drove him, he was doing the right thing. Slocum lengthened his stride to keep up with the smaller man’s rapid double time pace.
Before they got to the guardhouse, Wilson started shouting to free the three prisoners. By the time Slocum came up behind the sergeant, he had the trio lined up, squinting into the sun because they had been plucked from the jail’s dim interior so quickly.
“Listen up, I got the captain to let you out. You’re goin’ back in and this time you’ll get lashes if you so much as look cross-eyed at me.”
Slocum turned away as Sergeant Wilson continued upbraiding his men, letting them know they needed to stay on the right side of the bars and that they had to pay him what he had won in the poker game. As Wilson shaped up his soldiers, Slocum saw the red-haired woman standing with Legran
ge in the doorway leading to his office.
He pulled down the brim of his hat to shield his eyes from the bright Texas sun. The two were standing mighty close together. One could say they were pressing against each other. Then the woman whirled away in a flurry of skirts and rounded the side of the building. In less than a minute, she returned, driving a buggy. Legrange lifted his hand, as if to wave to her, then checked his action. He stared across the parade ground to where Slocum watched, then vanished into his office.
“Get saddled, and do it before sundown, you lazy layabouts!”
“What kinda rations we takin’, Sarge? The slop they give us in there’s more criminal than anythin’ we done.”
“Folkes, you ever heard the old saying, ‘An army travels on its stomach’?”
“Cain’t say I have.”
“I’ll rip out your belly by reaching down your miserable throat and then put it back by stuffing it up your ass if you don’t quit complaining. Stop by the mess hall and grab whatever you can carry with you. Move!” Wilson barked out his command, stood with his balled fists on his hips, and shook his head. “Can’t imagine how I ever thought those slackers would ever pay me what I won.”
Slocum didn’t point out that they weren’t likely to pay anytime soon if they didn’t find the strongbox carried away by the tornado.
Instead, he said, “I’m not sure my horse can keep up with your fine cavalry ponies. That old paint is one short gallop away from a glue factory.”
“We’ll ride slow. Better being out on the trail than in the post.” Wilson looked around. “Not a bad assignment, not like Fort Davis, where the outlaws and Indians get away slipping across the Rio Grande. We actually catch some robbers and killers, time to time.”
“Before the Rangers?” Slocum saw he had touched a sore point with the sergeant. The Texas Rangers prided themselves on their efficiency at catching crooks and seldom had good things to say for the U.S. Army, save when it suited them.
“Mount up. Folkes and his Gold Dust Twin partners are ready.”
The trio rode across the parade ground, stuffing hardtack into their mouths and chasing it down with water from their canteens. Wilson’s exaggerated sigh preceded his order for them to refill the canteens before leaving the post. Slocum followed them to a water barrel, drank until he thought he might bloat, then shoved the cork in his own canteen when it was full. This was the first time he had taken to the trail in West Texas with enough water. As he slung the canteen across his saddle and fastened it down, he heard Captain Legrange bellow for Wilson.
The sergeant rode to his commander and silently listened for over a minute. The captain gestured, pointed, then Wilson snapped a salute toward Legrange to signify he understood his orders. Slocum wondered what more the officer had to say to his noncom. He reckoned he would find out in due time.
“You’re the scout, Slocum,” the sergeant said. “So lead on.”
Slocum got his bearings and cut across the prairie in the direction of the main road leading to Gregory. The sun was hot on his left side by the time he reached the road and found the track left by the twister. It had pulled up mesquite by the roots, no mean feat since the taproots could run a hundred yards or more into the ground.
“Yes, sir, that tornado came by,” Folkes said. “Lookee there. That looks like part of the stagecoach.”
Slocum followed the soldier’s gaze and had to agree. He trotted to the spot and saw the door had been ripped from its hinges and spun through the air, not as far as he might have thought but still a quarter mile from the road.
“The strongbox is bolted to a large brass plate. Find high ground and look for any reflection off it,” Slocum said.
The three soldiers started to obey until Sergeant Wilson bellowed for them to stop.
“He’s not giving you orders. I am.” Wilson glowered at Slocum, making him wonder what the captain had said before they left Fort Stockton. The sergeant had been civil enough toward him until Legrange had given his final orders.
“So whatcha want us to do, Sarge?” Folkes curled one leg up and around the saddle horn. Wilson forced him to assume a more military demeanor by glaring hard at him.
“I want you to ride south and look on the far side of the road. Find a hill, look for bright light like Slocum said.” He sent the other two in different directions north of the road. When they were out of earshot, Wilson turned and said, “Don’t ever try that again.”
“You ended up doing what I wanted,” Slocum said. Wilson started to give him what for when Folkes fired his pistol in the air.
“What the hell’s he doing?” Slocum asked. “Might be he found the road agents that killed my passenger.”
“He’d run like hell if he did that. Folkes is not only a lousy poker player, he’s got a yellow streak a mile wide up and down his back.” Wilson kicked his mount to a gallop. Slocum followed at a slower pace. His ancient gelding wasn’t up to such exertion.
“Lookee what I found, Sarge. It’s a body|”
Wilson looked down at the body lying facedown on the ground. A huge red spot on the back of the man’s coat showed a bullet had gone clean through his body.
“That’s my passenger, the one the road agents shot down,” Slocum said. He surveyed the countryside and hardly believed this might be the spot where the ambush had happened. More likely, the tornado had picked up the man’s body and carried it here, although they weren’t far from the main road.
“What’s his name?” Wilson asked.
“Don’t know exactly. Rafe Stanton said his first name was Fred. Stanton was the only one to get away alive after the twister sent the stage sailing through the air.”
“The only one who survived but you,” Wilson corrected.
“He ought to have a wallet on him. The outlaws lit out after they killed him.”
“Now why’d they do a thing like that?” the sergeant asked. “Piss poor way to rob a stage.”
“Might be they saw the tornado coming and hightailed it,” Slocum said, but he didn’t believe that. The tornado hadn’t struck for some time after the passenger had been gunned down. “The road agents were in that direction, firing toward the road.”
“They piled up rocks to stop you?”
“No rocks left,” Slocum said, looking toward the distant road. He wasn’t sure this was the spot where the ambush had occurred. The tornado had rearranged the way the prairie looked. “I moved some of the rocks. The wind might have sent the rest of them sailing.”
“Happens,” Folkes said. “I seen a rock go clean through three walls in town a couple years back. Twister picked it up in the street and flung it wild like, like it was shot from one of them slingshots you read about in the Bible.”
“You don’t look like a God-fearing man to me,” Wilson said.
“Brung up that way. Drifted from the true path.”
“The wind blew the body this far,” Slocum said, intent on why they had been sent out from the fort. He dismounted and rolled the passenger’s body over. The face was smashed in, and from the way the body oozed rather than flopped, the bones had been pulverized. “No telling how long he spun around in the wind or what he hit along the way before getting spit out here.”
“Folkes, go through his pockets. It’s nothing you haven’t done before,” Sergeant Wilson ordered.
“He . . . he looks like a spook. No blood, bones pokin’ through his cheeks like that.”
Slocum dropped to his knees and pulled back the tattered coat. He fished around until he found the wallet. As he held it up, Wilson snatched it from his hand.
“This is official. I got to verify his identity.” Wilson leafed through the greenbacks and looked at Folkes, then Slocum, as if daring them to stop him from stuffing the bills into his pocket. Neither said a word as the sergeant did so, then pulled out a letter and unfold
ed it.
He scowled and his lips moved as he read. Then he looked up.
“This here letter says our dead man is Fred Sampson.”
Folkes jumped as if he had been poked with a needle.
“Why, that’s the captain’s—”
“Shut up,” Wilson snapped.
Slocum stared at the sergeant, waiting to hear an explanation of the man’s importance. He didn’t get it.
“Sampson’s widow’s got to be told,” was all the noncom said. He tucked the wallet under his broad leather belt and stood, staring at the body. “No doubt he was shot clean through the heart.”
“It was either a lucky shot or somebody good with a rifle pulled the trigger,” Slocum said. “The road agent had to be a hundred yards away.”
“No reason to find the spot where the road agents hid,” Wilson said.
The land had been cut up, entire sections shifted around, denuded of vegetation in places and debris piled up in others. The tornado was capricious the way it dipped down to ground and then bounced along, dispensing destruction willy-nilly.
“We ought to bury Mr. Sampson,” Wilson said. “Not able to take him back to Gregory or the fort, not when this’d happen ’fore we got a mile.” He nudged the dead man’s arm. It flopped about, the bones turned to dust.
Folkes turned away and retched. Slocum had seen worse in his day, but nothing quite this peculiar. The tornado had turned Fred Sampson into a meat sack.
“Better get started, but we don’t have a shovel. You didn’t bring one, did you, Sergeant?”
“Find a piece of the stagecoach and use that to scrape a hole deep enough.” He shook his head. “That poor son of a bitch is so mangled up, the coyotes wouldn’t even touch him.” He shook his head again as he went to find large enough pieces of the stage to use.
It took longer finding more than splinters than it did digging a hole in the prairie. The heavy rain caused by the tornado made digging easier than it might have been until they dug down and found a layer of caliche, but Slocum didn’t find it pleasant—or easy—to roll Fred Sampson into the grave. Folkes was almost frantic in his haste to cover the body and hide it from his sight. Slocum stood back and let the soldier work.