A Western Romance: Paul Yancey: Taking the High Road (Book 8) (Taking The High Road Series)

by Morris Fenris

  “Better’n a lot,” agreed Paul soberly.

  Suddenly the desperado turned on Teddy, with the demand, “How old’dja think I am?”

  “Uh. Well—sorry, but I’m not a very good judge of age…”

  “You?” he asked Paul.

  A shrug. “You got a lotta wrinkles on your horns,” was as far as he would go.

  “Huh. I was born in 1827.”

  Teddy did the figuring. “Forty? You’re only forty years old?”

  With a sort of grim satisfaction, Catamount resumed his position and surveyed the two at the table. “That’s what wine, women, and song’ll do t’ a man,” he chortled.

  “Or just plain hard livin’,” muttered Paul, “brought on by robbin’ banks and shootin’ targets. All right, t’ proceed: Can’t see your folks callin’ you Catamount up and down the hills. What’s your Christian name?”

  He pulled a face. “Beauregard. Beauregard Paramore Clemens.”

  Writing furiously away in the lamplight, Paul managed to quell his snicker. “I see why you changed it. So, then. You had a perfect childhood, prob’ly brought up in a godly way, everything goin’ smooth as cream. What happened t’ set you off on the wrong road?”

  “War happened,” said Catamount quietly. “But, b’fore that…”

  The heyday of the American gunfighter, whether gang member, outlaw, marauder, or masked bandit, ran the gamut of years from the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s, and covered a territory that ranged west of the Mississippi, north to south. Glorified by print press into romantic icons, most of the desperadoes of a later time, such as John Wesley Hardin, “Texas Jack” Reed, Marion Hedgepeth, and the like, ended up, not as folk heroes, but as very very dead.

  That Catamount Clemens had already managed to persevere this long, after committing too many crimes to list, was a tribute to his staying power. And his survival skills.

  “It all got started with a knife,” he said now, in a faraway voice.

  Mr. and Mrs. Clemens had decided to send each of their children to a local country school, upon reaching a certain age and ability, in order to gain social expertise and learn how to mix with others. Grown past his need for a tutor, young Beau attended regularly, until one fine spring day when he was assaulted by another, much larger student. Beau was being blamed for writing graffiti that insulted one of the girls. When the boy attacked him, Beau retaliated. With a knife.

  “Charlie Edmonds almost died,” Catamount finished that reminiscence. “And I was expelled.”

  His next brush with transgression came a year or so later, when he challenged their former slave to a wrestling match. Beau won. As of course he would. What black man would have a chance in such unequal circumstances? The day after, he was, according to his story, ambushed on his way home from a relative’s house by the man he had bested. Beau pulled out his pistol and fired several shots. That was his first killing.

  Aided and abetted by his father, who professed a horror of the crime but still loved his youngest son, Beau went into hiding for a while, till things cooled down.

  At the age of twenty, it was a drunken bar fight and another man shot to death. Only the power, influence, and wealth of Mr. Clemens kept Beau out of jail that time. Since the deceased had been a drifter, without family in the area and without any credentials to speak of, no charges were filed.

  His father, aging fast, was beginning to despair of this son who might have been a changeling left on their front stoop, for all the familial responsibility he bore.

  “Pa give me a stern talkin’ to,” said Catamount. He picked up his coffee cup, discovered only dregs, and moved to freshen the leftovers. “He was mad, he was disappointed, he was still holdin’ out hope—y’ know, all the things parents say t’ their kids, hopin’ to encourage. But I reckon I was just a bad ’un, Paul. I was a wild seed, and nobody knew what t’ do with me.”

  “Some time b’hind bars mighta helped change your behavior!” Raintree couldn’t help calling out. “Rich men’s sons—Jesus! They got the world handed t’ ’em on a silver platter.”

  Paul and Teddy exchanged glances.

  “Let him maunder on,” Catamount responded. “Ain’t doin’ no harm. I ain’t payin’ no attention t’ him, anyway. He’s just a mouth with legs.”

  A choke of laughter, and Teddy picked up her own mug.

  “Reckon he’s right, though, in a way. Spoiled youngest, not fit t’ do much of anything. Not even much t’ do on the plantation, since Pa and my older brothers ran things, and the slaves took care of the actual work. That’s when I took t’ gamblin’.”

  The gambling sent him farther afield, north and east, depending on where the games were being held. So the next two killings, over a charge of cheating at the poker table, took place where no one knew him and no one could find him. Beau escaped by the skin of his teeth after that episode.

  By then, his patient father had had enough. With plenty of inheritance cash in his pockets, and a portmanteau packed with his worldly belongings, Beau had been literally thrown off the property where he’d grown up.

  “Kinda kept on a-driftin’ on, after that,” mused the outlaw. “No price on my head yet, no warrants out for my arrest, cause I’d been able t’ lay low. But once makin’ my way from here t’ there, it b’came mighty temptin’ t’ fall int’ sin.”

  Several more poker games, around the mid-South, with two more murders and a quick getaway. Then had begun the bank robberies, and stage holdups. Not that he really needed the cash. He was just plain beginning to like the excitement, the thrill, the adrenalin rush.

  “Kinda like a drug. Just couldn’t get away from it. And, o’ course, along with the cards and the stickups came the wenchin’. Left some mighty purty girls b’hind me, on the road. Huh.” His big fingers were crumbling one of the cookies he hadn’t yet even tried to taste.

  An argument over some trivial event in one town, and bullets flying; an assignation with a saloon girl in Abilene, and her pimp shot and killed; a run-in with a Texas trail boss and two of his vaqueros, and the Mexicans left bleeding in the dust.

  “And then Ft. Sumter got fired on,” said Catamount, “and the south went up in flames.”

  The handwriting was on the wall. Their antebellum way of life was one that must, of necessity, pass on, and all its antiquated customs with it. The lazy, leisurely days of plantation living were gone forever.

  Significant change never comes easily. Often there is upheaval, and bloodshed, and great cost.

  Of Beau’s three brothers, two were killed during the First Battle of Chattanooga, and the remaining one severely wounded at the Battle of Vicksburg. His two sisters survived relatively unscathed, eventually marrying veterans who returned with bodies impaired and spirits broken. Both parents were killed when a neighboring town was shelled and nearby plantations overrun.

  “Rose Hill Plantation was, o’ course, gone,” said Clemens in a soft, no-nonsense tone of voice, as if the losing of his home could cause no more hurt or humiliation. “Burned down, slaves run off, land stolen away by carpetbaggers.”

  “You never went back?” Teddy felt a pang for the displaced outlaw, killer or not.

  “Nothin’ t’ go back to, honey. Just ashes and waste, everywhere around. You gettin’ all this down, writer man?” he diverged to ask.

  “Every last iota,” Paul assured him. He had paused, once or twice, to sharpen his pencil again. But he had managed to keep up with the telling of this story.

  From over by the fire, a series of rattling snores had ensued, startling enough that words stopped and motion halted.

  Shaking her head, Teddy rose and went to cover her slumbering father with his blanket. “Anybody want more coffee, as long as I’m up?”

  “Yeah, me, toots,” piped up Raintree, cheery as ever. “I’ll take a cup.”

  Her look at him dripped contempt. “Anybody but you. You can die of thirst, for all I care.”

  “Oh, now, sweet little thing, you’d shed giant tears if’
n you had t’ stand over my grave.”

  “Not a chance.” Swiping her hands together, as if dusting away any impression he might have left, she refilled empty cups and resumed her seat, anxious to hear what came next.

  “You’d come out west by then,” Paul guessed, massaging his cramped fingers.

  “Swung through Texas, up t’ Kansas with some of the cattle drives, over int’ Colorado. Always some place t’ go, always a card game t’ sit in on, or a bar t’ belly up t’.”

  Elbows on table, chin in hands, Teddy was watching and listening with her whole heart. “Didn’t you ever want go back to Mississippi, see how your family was getting on? Weren’t you ever lonely?”

  “Naw.” Hazel eyes, deep-set under brows as bushy as his hair and beard, stared straight into hers. “A man like me ends up not havin’ a family to see, or a place t’ go t’. This, here—” the gesture of his hand indicated their cozy surroundings, “this’s my home. Made it mine, when I come t’ this area two years ago.”

  “Hidin’ out,” singsonged Raintree. He was rolling his skilleted head back and forth against the wall behind him. “Hidin’ out, no guts t’ get back int’ civilization and face the music for what he’s done.”

  “Huh. And you’re so much better?” demanded Clemens. Aroused and angered, he surged to his feet, ready to do battle. “You may know my history, bounty hunter. But I know yours. How many men have you killed, Vince? How many households have you burnt t’ the ground? How many women have you raped? How many kids have you left orphans?”

  His knees were bent, with his bootheels on the floor, so that he could beat his bound hands upon the wool of his trousered thighs, in time to each word: “None. None. None.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Raintree’s narrowed glare sought out the man he intended to bring to justice. “All them Wanted posters list Dead or Alive. When I haul in some outlaw, don’t matter t’ me if he’s sittin’ in his saddle or layin’ over top of it. So—yeah. I’ve shot down a few, tryin’ t’ escape.”

  Catamount heaved a sigh before returning to his chair. “We’re all cut from the same cloth. Killers don’t change; jist the circumstances do. And you’re as guilty of murder as I am.”

  Another flurry of wind and rain spat against the windows, rattling the glass. On the hearth, the fire jiggled and danced in the downdraft.

  Into the heavy silence, Paul asked if there were any more to this biography.

  “Not much. It was always easier throwin’ a gun on somebody if I got mad. And I lost my temper a lot, in those bad days.”

  “So this is—what? Your conscience talkin’? Your past speakin’ up with apologies?”

  With his thumb the outlaw rubbed at a stain on the wooden table top, giving him time to consider. “Maybe both. Maybe, what you write from what I’ve told you—well, maybe that’ll make some other young punk change his mind b’fore he takes this path.”

  Teddy reached out a small sustaining hand to cover Paul’s, still crabbed with its pencil. “If he’s tryin’ to make amends…”

  Sucking in a deep breath, Clemens suddenly resumed his tale. “Left a string of murders all across the southwest. T’ my credit—if you can call it that—most of ’em were as immoral and wrong-headed as I was.”

  “You make it sound like you were playin’ vigilante,” said Paul, carefully keeping any accusatory tone from his voice.

  “No, not that. Jist tryin’ s’ stay alive.”

  Eventually, roaming through the lowlands, and then the mountain range higher up, he had stumbled upon this place. He’d brought supplies, salvaged, rebuilt, strengthened. And settled in, safe from retribution. Or so he’d thought.

  “Knew there’d be bounty hunters all over, tryin’ t’ hunt me down. It was only a matter of time.” He chuckled roughly, then coughed. “Only figured I’d have a little more time than I did.”

  “Ain’t no time like the present,” was Raintree’s contribution. “You ready t’ go on in willingly now, you old galoot, or you gonna fight me on the matter?”

  Paul rolled his eyes. “Damned pesky gate-crashers. Worse’n a swarm of mosquitoes.”

  “Do you have any names you want included in Paul’s report?” Teddy asked gently. “Any messages you want to leave?”

  “Can’t think of none. Reckon that’s about it. And I’m almighty tired. Feel like a drain after all the water’s run out.” Clemens stood, yawning and stretching his burly arms wide.

  Taking a minute to re-read what he’d written, gathering up his materials, Paul also rose. “I thank you for givin’ me this opportunity, Catamount. Should be one helluva story, once I’ve got it all put t’gether.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I’m thinkin’, too.”

  “A legacy,” added Teddy. Despite his shady past and absolute criminal deeds, she couldn’t help liking the man. Blood tells. It just told too late for Beauregard Clemens.

  The hour was late, the storm still sizzled and sputtered, and the cabin full of four accidental guests seemed, despite its size, crammed to overflowing. Their host spent some time getting everyone settled, making sure they were as comfortable as possible.

  His extra bedroom went to Teddy, as the lone female, for her privacy and convenience.

  On her way to it, with her warm flannel nightgown and necessities in tow, she had smiled up at Paul. “In case I gotta remind you, Mr. Newsman, I won the bet.”

  “Bet? Oh. About findin’ our quarry.”

  “Ahuh. So I get to choose the stakes.” Lifting her hand, she smoothed a forefinger across his thick eyebrow, down the blade of his cheekbone, and very lightly over the outline of his lips. “I’ll let you know,” she whispered, and slipped away.

  Earlier, through the cold dash of rain, Paul had escorted her to the outdoor facilities, then later made another trip, revolver in hand, while the bounty hunter took care of business. Once settled back inside, he was fastened securely by both ankles and covered with his blanket to spend a less-than-comfortable night. Raintree was philosophical. You take the good with the bad, and you deal. You just deal.

  IX

  Morning dawned crisp and clear, with a mid-June sun ready to shower summer’s blessings down upon those souls still shivering from last night’s storm. Paul came slowly to life, realizing that the fire had died down and needed replenishing, that the coffeepot must be filled with water and ground beans and set to boil, that hunger would demand a hearty breakfast.

  He scrubbed at disheveled hair and darkening beard, extended arms and legs to start blood flowing and muscles moving, then crawled out of his blanket to begin the usual camp chores.

  At the sounds of water being poured and wood being arranged, Raintree stirred and sat up, croaking a request for some time in the outhouse.

  “When I’m done here,” Paul answered shortly. As if he would let the needs of this disgusting meddler, whose morals stank as much as the unwashed clothes he wore, come before the needs of everyone else!

  Teddy was next to emerge, with a shy smile, fully dressed and looking, to Paul’s enamored eyes, as sweet and delicate as a mountain gentian. After her return from the outdoors, Raintree began making more impatient noises about being given the same opportunity himself.

  “Unless you want a damn mess t’ clean up,” came the threat no one wanted to take lightly.

  By then, Ezra was pulling himself back into coherence, with a cough and a splutter to greet the break of day. “Oh, hell, shut up your caterwaulin’,” he growled. “I’ll take you out, in jist a minute. Is any of that there coffee ready yet, son? Need t’ get my ol’ heart t’ goin’ again.”

  Paul, busy at the cook stove with flour and melting lard, grinned over his shoulder. “Not unless you want it half-raw,” he warned. “Should be ready soon, thought. Teddy, wouldja mind checkin’ on Catamount, make sure he’s still part of this world?”

  Snapping his suspenders and throwing on his coat and gun belt, Ezra worked to untie the knots holding Raintree prisoner. “All right, get up and
motatin’.” His Colt .44 prodded the man to his feet, somewhat wobbly after his night of bondage, and the two of them started outside.

  “Catamount? Mr. Clemens?” Teddy was knocking at the bedroom door, a bit apprehensive. Had all this confession and story-telling been too much for the outlaw? Had he collapsed somewhere inside, while everyone else was blissfully sleeping?

  The door suddenly opened. “Yeah, I’m still alive and kickin’,” he informed his guests. “Jist need a little time to start the blood pumpin’ again.”

  As he lumbered out to take a seat at the table, Teddy eyed him thoughtfully. The man looked as if he’d been dragged through a knothole. Backward. Bleary-eyed, pasty-skinned, clothing as wrinkled and smelly as her father’s disgraceful old pipe.

  “You doin’ okay?” she wondered aloud.

  Yawning, he brushed back wiry hair and beard. “Yeah, honey. Jist tired, that’s all. All that palaverin’ plumb wore me out. You got any of that coffee ready yet, son?”

  “Soon.” With bacon frying in the pan, and flapjacks ready to be, Paul was about set to relinquish his job as short-order cook to someone more capable. Teddy, for instance.

  Guessing the direction of his thoughts, she sidled up beside him and took the two-tined fork from his hand. “I’ll help.”

  “Bless you, my child.” Grinning, Paul bent enough to plant a quick smack on her cheek. Then, after a second’s consideration, another on her nose. Then, quickly, a peck on the lips. “Oh, hell,” he finally muttered, and dragged her right into his arms for a bone-crushing, eye-popping hug and a hearty kiss to go along with it.

  The best part was that she responded fully and exuberantly. The worst part was that it only left him wanting more. Hard and horny and ready for action, maybe he could take her into that bedroom after breakfast, and explore every fascinating part of her more thoroughly, so that—