Ralph Compton The Convict Trail

by Ralph Compton

  “Seem like.”

  “Will we make it, Marshal?”

  “We’ll make it. Maybe we’ll arrive with no prisoners because I’ve had to gun them all, but we’ll ride into Fort Smith with our hides intact, nineteen, twenty days from now.”

  “The judge doesn’t want them rannies dead. He wants them to hang.”

  “He doesn’t always get what he wants, Sam.”

  “Hope our grub holds out.”

  “It’ll hold out. If it don’t, I’ll kill some meat along the trail.”

  The old man shook his head. “Ain’t like me to hear footsteps in the fog, but Fort Smith . . . well, it’s a long ways from har to there.”

  Kane smiled. “It’s a long ways from har to anywhere.”

  “I’ll get the fire started. Coffee, salt pork an’ pan bread for supper, same for breakfast, until the flour an’ coffee run out.”

  Kane’s smile stretched into a rare grin. “Sam, what would I do without you?”

  “Starve to death, most likely.”

  The marshal left the cabin and walked to the wagon. The rain was still heavy and lightning shimmered in the dark clouds without sound.

  Kicking aside a tangle of legs and feet, Stringfellow moved closer to the side of the cage. “How long you gonna keep us out here?” he demanded.

  “Not too long, Stringfellow. Once Mr. Shaver has the grub ready, I’ll take you into the cabin and feed you.”

  “The old coot is mister, an’ I’m Stringfellow.”

  “Uh-huh, that’s about the size of it.”

  “The cabin don’t have a roof, damn you. We’ll be as wet in there as we are out here.”

  “Stringfellow,” Kane said, “I’m not concerned with your comfort. I was ordered to escort you to Fort Smith. How you get there was left up to me.”

  “Hey, Kane!” Joe Foster yelled from the rear of the wagon, his young face made old by hate and anger. “If I ever get an even break with you, I’ll—”

  “You wouldn’t even come close,” Kane interrupted, smiling. “All over the West, Boot Hills are full of tinhorns like you.”

  Foster opened his mouth to speak again, but Stringfellow cursed him into silence. “Your time will come, Joe,” he said finally. “Maybe not tonight, maybe not tomorrow, but it will come. Now shut your trap.”

  Amos Albright looked at Kane, then ran a slimy tongue over his top lip. “Hey, Marshal, you gonna find us a woman soon, maybe a little Indian gal, huh? All you got to do is th’ow her into the back o’ the wagon an’ let’s have at her.”

  Albright had the face of a cadaver, a tallow skin that never took the sun and red-rimmed yellow eyes. His wet, loose-lipped mouth always hung slack, as though his jaw were broken.

  Kane said, “You enjoy abusing women, don’t you, Albright? You ever bite them on the shoulders?”

  “Sure I do, an’ I bite hard. Hot little gal expects that from a man. What do you do, Marshal, huh? What do you do to a woman?”

  Albright started to cough, gagging on his own lust. Kane ignored him and stepped into the cabin. “I seen your smoke—smelled it too,” he said to Sam.

  “She’s smokin’, all right, but there’ll be enough fire to bile the coffee an’ cook the grub.” The old man handed Kane the coffeepot. “Fill that from the water barrel, Logan. I’d do it my ownself, but this danged rain is a misery. My old knees is stiff as a frozen rope with the rheumatisms.”

  Kane took the pot and said, “You set close to the fire an’ warm up them bones, Sam.”

  “Know what I really need, Logan? Brown paper, vinegar and an Irish potato. You soak the paper in vinegar and then make a poultice of shredded potato. Spread the poultice on the knees and cover with vinegar paper. It’s a sovereign remedy for the rheumatisms.”

  “We don’t have any o’ that, Sam.”

  “I know we don’t, so getting me the coffee water will have to do.” His eyes lifted to Kane’s face. “You be careful out there, Marshal. I heard them boys talkin’ to you an’ none of them has a good story to tell.”

  Kane walked to the wagon, lifted the tin lid of the water barrel and filled the pot. The convicts sat soaked and miserable in the wagon, saying nothing, but all eyes were hard on the marshal, their hostility hanging like black bile in the air, crowding Kane so close he could almost smell its vile stink.

  He made to step back to the cabin but stopped in his tracks when he heard the soft fall of hooves on the wet ground behind him. Kane carefully laid the coffeepot at his feet and turned, his hand close to his holstered gun.

  “Trusting man, ain’t you?” a voice said from the darkness.

  Kane spoke in that direction. “You ought to know better than ride into a man’s camp without announcing yourself.”

  “Never occurred to me.”

  Leather creaked and hooves thudded as the man rode closer. But now, as the darkness opened up, Kane saw three riders, not one as he’d first supposed.

  “Stop right where you’re at,” he said. “I can drill ya clean through from here.”

  The rain hissed around him as the riders drew rein. He made a quick study of the three men. They were wearing yellow oilskin slickers and looked alike as peas in a pod. All wore black plug hats, broadcloth pants tucked into English riding boots, and in the V formed by the lapels of their slickers, Kane saw rounded, celluloid collars and tightly knotted ties.

  All sported sweeping mustaches and thick burn-sides, but they didn’t seem to be Western men, although the Winchesters across their saddle horns looked frontier enough. They sat their saddles, patient men, watching Kane with shadowed eyes, as if the steel-bladed rain that hammered on their hats and shoulders did not exist.

  “Behind you, Marshal. On your left.”

  Sam’s voice carried across the distance. Kane did not turn, knowing the old man would be standing outside the cabin with his rifle.

  “What can I do for you fellers?” the marshal asked. “I can offer you coffee, not much else.”

  “We’re traveling,” the only rider who had spoken so far said. “We’ll pass on the coffee.”

  His accent was hard to place and Kane wrestled with it.

  The man tilted his head, his chin jutting in the direction of the wagon. “Who are they?”

  “Convicts.” Kane pulled back his sopping vest and showed the star. “I’m Deputy Marshal Logan Kane. These men are on their way to a hanging at Fort Smith.”

  “The American people hate to see that,” the rider said. “White men caged like animals.”

  “They’d hate it a sight worse if them white men ever got loose.”

  Stringfellow and the others were crowded close to the wagon’s iron bars, intent on the three riders as though they thought their saviors had arrived.

  Never a man to stand in one place for too long, especially in a downpour, Kane was all through with it. “Mister, state your business or ride on.”

  “State my business?”

  “Did I just hear an echo?”

  The rider eased himself in the saddle. His gaze slid off Kane, moved to Sam and lingered for a moment. Then he sighed and said, “My name is Carmine Provanzano. These are my brothers, Vito and Teodoro. We’re from New Orleans.”

  “Fur piece off your home range, ain’t you?” Kane said.

  “Like I told you, we’re traveling.”

  “Well, it’s been right nice talking with you,” Kane said. “But I’ve got prisoners to feed.”

  He moved to lift the coffeepot, but Provanzano’s voice stopped him. “Marshal, my brothers and I are part of a large and successful business family. Mostly our commercial interests are centered on the New Orleans docks, but in recent years we’ve branched into the banking and hospitality industries, among others.”

  Kane badly wanted his coffee and the scant warmth of Sam’s smoky fire, and now he was irritated. “Mister, what’s all that to me, huh?”

  One of the other men spoke. “We’re hunting a man. We think you might have seen him.”

  De
spite himself, Kane was interested. “What man might that be?”

  Carmine waved a dismissive hand at his brother. “Later, Vito. I’ll tell him when the moment arrives. First a little background on our . . . ah . . . problem, Marshal. After hearing me out, you may be more inclined to help.” He leaned forward in the saddle. “Have you ever heard the word ‘Omerta’?”

  “Can’t say as I have.”

  “It’s the code my family lives by. It is a strict rule of honor that is never taken lightly. But one of our family recently broke that code.”

  “And now you’re lookin’ to get even, huh?”

  “No, that man is dead, but not at our hands.”

  Carmine’s horse tossed its head, the bit chiming. The mounts of the other brothers moved restlessly, perhaps scenting coyote or bear in the wind. Lightning shimmered, illuminating the planes of Carmine’s face, making the shadows pooled in his cheeks and eye sockets darker.

  For an instant, Kane thought he was looking at a skull. “If the ranny who broke your rule is dead, why are you huntin’ another man?”

  “The man who shamed us was married to our sister. He used this relationship to steal a considerable amount of money from the family, thirty thousand dollars to be exact. He left our sister and fled New Orleans, then headed for Texas, thinking he could lose himself in that vast land. But he was wrong. A man like him, dressed as a gentleman and spending money freely, is always noticed and commented upon. Before long, word got out, all the way to New Orleans, and when he was told of this, the man panicked and made his way to a dung heap called Fort Worth.”

  Kane picked up the coffeepot, a signal that he was no longer interested. Carmine saw this and spoke with more urgency. “In Fort Worth, the man was befriended by a cripple named Barnabas Hook, an executioner by trade.”

  Now Kane was listening intently, the coffeepot in his hand.

  “Hook, if that was his real name, promised the man he would protect him, that he could travel with him to a place of safety in the Indian Territory. Later, the local constabulary found the man dead, cut in half by a shotgun. His money and all his possessions were gone and there was no sign of Hook. All this we were told in Fort Worth.”

  “So now you’re hunting this man, Hook?”

  “We want our money back. It belongs to the family.”

  The man called Vito said, “Did you meet Hook on the trail? He’s already a dead man from the waist down and he travels with a woman and young girl.”

  Kane had made up his mind about two things: the three men facing him had a killing in mind, and he would say nothing to endanger Lorraine and Nellie.

  “There are many trails in and out of the Territory,” he said. “I never came across a man who fits your description.”

  A sudden flare of anger in his face, Vito opened his mouth to speak again, but Carmine cut him off. “Then we will take up no more of your time, Marshal. You have your duties and we have ours.”

  But the man didn’t leave right away. He kicked his horse into motion and rode up to the cage. “Are any of you men Siciliani?” he asked.

  The six convicts were silent, their faces puzzled. Kane guessed they were probably trying to figure out what “Siciliani” meant, as was he.

  “No? Then that’s too bad. There’s nothing I can do for you.”

  Carmine swung his horse away from the wagon, touched his hat to Kane, then led his brothers into the black cavern of the night.

  The marshal was uneasy. He had the feeling he’d meet the Provanzano brothers again, and their next meeting would not be so civil. He was certain they knew he’d lied to them about Hook and they were not men to forget such a slight.

  Chapter 7

  Kane fed the prisoners two at a time, herding them into the cabin under a sky splintered by lightning and heavy with rain. Later he spread Sam’s slicker over the top of the wagon cage and added some fallen pine branches. It was a meager shelter, but it kept out the worst of the downpour.

  Stringfellow and the others made no complaint, a fact that bothered Kane. He was more troubled still when the prisoners huddled together after they were returned to the wagon, Stringfellow’s whisper thin as a razor in the darkness.

  Standing as close as he dared to the wagon without seeming to listen, Kane could hear nothing. But then Stringfellow’s voice rose a little and he heard the man say, “Joe, you’re gold dust, true-blue.” He looked around the circle of shadowed faces. “Ain’t that so, boys?”

  A murmur of agreement . . . then silence.

  The rustling pines were alive with wind, and rain hissed on the grass like a snake. Despite the constant shimmer of lightning that filled the clouds with golden fire, there was no thunder and the quiet night closed around Kane, mysterious and oppressive. The air was thick, hard to breathe and smelled of decay and the memory of ancient death.

  The marshal walked back to the cabin through a wind-tossed darkness that slapped at him and gave him no peace.

  Sam Shaver looked up when Kane stepped inside. “Get them boys bedded down for the night?”

  Kane nodded. “They’ll be snug enough, I reckon.”

  “Got your plate ready. Set and eat.” The old man’s eyes wandered over Kane’s rangy body. “You’re soaked to the skin, Logan. Get that vest an’ shirt off’n you and I’ll be dryin’ them at the fire.”

  “I’ll be all right.”

  “For oncet do as I say, Marshal. Last thing the old judge needs is a deputy with the rheumatisms.”

  Kane crowded beside Sam, under the token shelter of his spread-out slicker. He was suddenly tired and didn’t feel like arguing with the old man tonight. He stripped off his vest and shirt, revealing the roped muscles of his wide shoulders and the flat planes of his chest. His upper body bore the white, puckered scars of three bullet wounds, and, unseen under his canvas pants, there were two more.

  He took the coffee and plate of salt pork and bread Sam passed to him and set the cup on the floor between his legs. He had no appetite for food, but ate quickly, just to put it away and please Sam. After he’d eaten, Kane built a cigarette and lit it from the fire. He dragged deep, then laid the back of his head against the wall, tendrils of blue smoke curling slowly from his nostrils.

  Sam had spread out Kane’s steaming shirt near the fire, and now his eyes angled to the marshal. “Something bothering you, Logan?”

  Kane did not make light of it. “Heard Stringfellow whispering to the others. He’s up to something, and I think it involves Joe Foster.”

  “Two of a kind,” Sam said. He held the shirt up to the feeble flames of the fire. Without lifting his eyes, he said, “We got our hands full, Logan, an’ no mistake. Men like Buff Stringfellow and them others, they weren’t born with a sense of what’s right and what’s wrong. They see themselves as the strong an’ they figure they have a God-given right to prey on the weak, an’ they exercise that right often. A man like ol’ Buff, he’ll kill a man, woman or child with nary a twinge of conscience. Destroyin’ a human being means no more to him than gunnin’ a jack-rabbit.”

  Sam’s eyes sought Kane’s in the shifting, scarlet gloom. “Men like them out there, they don’t know the meaning of mercy. They don’t give it an’ they don’t expect it for themselves. We can’t try to understand them, because men like us can’t begin to comprehend what they do and why they do it. Up in the Territory when they raped that Cherokee farmer’s wife and daughter, they kept using the girl’s body even after she was dead. Amos Albright an’ Joe Foster did that. Reuben Largo, the one who calls hisself a preacher, used his knife on the mother and hung what he’d cut off’n her in a tree where she could see it while she lay bleeding to death.”

  Kane tossed the stub of his cigarette into the fire and immediately began to build another. “What do you do with men like that, Sam?”

  “Just what we’re doin’. You hang ’em if you can, an’ if you can’t do that, you put them away in jail until they rot.” He smiled slightly. “Hell, I’m philosophizin’ so much, I s
ound like the judge.”

  Often God’s tender mercies seem so small, they go unnoticed. But when he woke, Kane whispered a prayer of thanks that the dream had again not haunted his sleep. Despite the rainy discomfort of the cabin, he felt rested and refreshed as he buttoned into his damp shirt and vest and stepped outside for the coffee water.

  The prisoners were fed breakfast and loaded in the wagon without incident. Kane helped Sam hitch the mules and an hour later, under a gray sky, they reached the Red.

  Kane was still smarting over the dollar-ninety-seven the ferryman had charged him and he planned to lower that price considerably on the return trip.

  The ferryman’s name was Bill Young, but his regular customers called him Fat Willie and he didn’t seem to mind. He was a beached whale of a man with pouched slits for eyes and a shaved head that looked like a bullet.

  “River’s high,” Sam said to him from his perch on the wagon. “Ain’t that unusual for this time o’ the year?”

  Young, wearing only filthy red long johns tucked into a pair of untied work boots, scratched his belly and said, “Yeah, it’s unusual, an’ so is the rain we’ve been having. It’s getting so a man can’t even depend on the weather no more.” He looked up at Sam. “You crossing?”

  “Don’t that seem obvious?” Kane growled, the very sight of the fat man irritating him beyond measure.

  “I long since learned that nothing about folks is obvious,” Young said. His eyes wandered over the prisoners in the back of the wagon, revealing speculation, greed maybe, but no surprise.

  Kane decided that a man in Young’s line of work must have seen everything, good and bad, of which the human race is capable. He leaned forward in the saddle. “I’ll pay you a dollar-fifty to take us across.”

  The fat man laid one of his chins between his thumb and forefinger and frowned. “That don’t cut it, Marshal. What we have here goes under the category of dangerous cargo, I mean them prisoners an’ all. I charge a premium for that.”

  “How big a premium?” Kane felt his anger simmer somewhere under his hatband, but it was quickly coming to a boil.

  “Well, I’m always one to help the law. Let’s say two-dollars-fifty-cents, an’ that’s with the regular customer discount, since you crossed afore.”