Late afternoon had turned pitch black, except for that brilliant sheet of white rain—which abruptly changed.
At first, the hailstones were maybe the size of his pinky fingertip. They stung, but his body had been so numbed by the freezing rain and brutal wind that he found the hail less painful than the rain. Moments later, however, those hailstones had become larger, growing into the size of dollar coins, mothballs, and a few even larger. One slammed into his shoulder and knocked him into the mud. He wanted to lay down, stay there, but if he did, in minutes he would be covered by thousands of hailstones, so he used the Winchester to push himself up, noticing the stock of the rifle sank three or four inches into the muck. It took all his strength to pull the rifle free.
He grimaced as stone after stone smashed into his head, his back, his thighs and calves. Finally, he was moving, slowing down, his teeth chattering.
So this is how it ends, he figured. Either freeze to death or catch my death from pneumonia.
Just when he thought he might as well just sit down and die, a new sound came to him. The roaring of a locomotive.
His eyes widened with hope. He figured he had somehow made a crazy loop and come back to the Fort Worth–Denver City tracks. He could hop the train, if he could just find it. Searching for the locomotive’s headlamp revealed nothing, but the hail had stopped as abruptly as it came. The wind hit the side of his face. Then the other side. The wind blew him down . . .
And he understood that he had not circled back to the railroad line. It was not the roaring of a locomotive that he heard. “Tornado!” he yelled.
The wind drove him back into the rain.
He rolled over and crawled across cactus and sagebrush, ripping his shirt, hauling the .50-caliber rifle with him. Crawled desperately for his life. He couldn’t see anything. His ears seemed to pop with pressure. But he sensed that he was moving.
Keep moving.
Keep moving.
Stop and you’re dead.
The wind intensified, and the rain—thankfully no longer huge chunks of awful ice—washed all over him. He had no sense of time, not anymore. Could not recall how long he had been in the storm. James Mann just knew that he had to keep crawling.
His shirt was ripped open. He wasn’t sure if that was blood running down his chest or just icy rainwater. The roaring of the twister seemed to die away, but the rain came down and down and down and down.
He moaned, prayed, begged, but, mostly, he crawled. Kept crawling and pulling the Winchester with him. He thought he had lost one of his boots, but did not stop.
Suddenly, his head bumped into something solid. He reached out, fingered wood, then air, something cold, then another piece of wood. Slats of some kind. No. Not slats. The wood felt round.
Wagon wheel spokes.
He gripped them with his right hand and pulled his body along. Sensing shelter, he dragged his battered, soaked, freezing body underneath the wagon. What kind of vehicle, he couldn’t tell, but decided that it had to be some old buffalo hunter’s wagon, left behind so many years ago or maybe some abandoned wagon along one of the military roads.
It didn’t matter, for the wagon’s floor, old as it must have been, did not leak much. It wasn’t exactly like he was sleeping in his own bed or under a roof, and the ground was soaking wet. He could hear running water cutting a trench underneath the wagon. Yet it was as close to shelter as he would come, and he thanked the Lord for it. He moved to what he believed must be the center of the wagon, drew up into a ball, still clutching the rifle, and squeezed his eyes shut.
The rain did not lessen.
The storm did not leave.
Yet somehow, James Mann fell asleep.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Mackey’s Salt Works
“Know ’im?” Sergeant John Hashtula asked.
Jackson Sixpersons glanced at the bloated body, shook his head, and pulled the tarp—no pine box for this outlaw—over the man’s head to reduce the smell. Yet he could assume this man had been shot during the bank robbery across the border in Greenville, Arkansas. The McCoy-Maxwell Gang kept getting thinner all the time. Like most outlaw gangs, these days.
“The men with him?” Sixpersons asked.
The sergeant thrust his jaw northwest toward Muskogee, Sixpersons guessed, in the Creek Country, where John Hashtula hung his hat.
Hashtula was older than even Jackson Sixpersons. He had run the Choctaw Lighthorsemen back when Sixpersons was riding for the Cherokee Lighthorse Police.
In the early days in the Nations, after the tribes had been removed from their Southeastern homelands, the Cherokees, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles had formed their own police forces, most of them taking the name of Lighthorse, named after General Henry “Lighthorse Harry” Lee of the white man’s Revolution against King George.
Actually, the Cherokee police force dated to 1797, although they wouldn’t begin calling themselves “Lighthorsemen” until the 1820s. Sixpersons figured, giving the lesser brains of the Creeks and Choctaws, those tribes naturally borrowed the “Lighthorse” name for their own tribal police. In 1844, the Cherokee National Council had made things official, by authorizing a Lighthorse company—a captain, lieutenant, and twenty-four policemen—empowered to arrest Cherokee fugitives. By 1874, the Cherokees had their own prison at the national capital in Tahlequah, but that was the year the white man’s government in Washington City had consolidated the Indian agents for the Five Civilized Tribes.
Muskogee’s Union Agency had become the headquarters—a slight to the superiority of the Cherokees and Tahlequah, Sixpersons knew in all his heart—and in 1880, Colonel John Q. Tufts, the Union Agency’s Indian agent, had organized a new group of policemen. So Hashtula and Sixpersons moved from their Lighthorse police to the United States Indian Police.
Hashtula had his job with the U.S.I.P. Sixpersons also had his commission as a deputy marshal for Judge Parker’s court.
“Muskogee,” Sixpersons said.
Hashtula nodded.
“Four men?” the Cherokee asked.
The Choctaw shrugged. “Five, six, ten?” He pointed toward the white men and Indians working at the salt stills and springs. “They don’t know.”
“You find a trail?” Sixpersons asked.
Hashtula’s head shook. “They’re good.”
The trail ended at the salt works. McCoy, Maxwell, and what was left of their gang could be riding to Muskogee. Or west, deeper into Indian Territory. They might follow the Arkansas River on up into Kansas. More than likely, they would catch the first Katy train and jump off somewhere in Texas. Either way, once they were out of the Nations, they were out of Sixpersons’ jurisdiction, which meant that he would go on to Muskogee, even though he clearly knew what he would find. Some white men—four, five, six, ten?—had sold their horses and tack at one of the city’s livery stables and hadn’t been seen since. Nobody would remember them at the depot, and maybe they would have taken separate trains. Certainly they would not have boarded the train together. But if Link McCoy and Zane Maxwell had sold their horses, that meant they had hurried south to Texas.
Judge Parker and the marshal would be disappointed, but until McCoy and Maxwell returned to the Nations, there wasn’t anything Sixpersons could do. Against those bad men. Yet the white men in Fort Smith weren’t all stupid. They had given Sixpersons plenty of other warrants. He would meet up with the posse at Eufaula and start hunting. Link McCoy and Zane Maxwell would have to wait.
For now.
Denison, Texas
Jeff White barged through the batwing doors of the Railroaders Saloon, stopped only long enough to see Link McCoy, and stormed over to the corner table where he nursed a beer alone. Uninvited, White pulled up a chair, sat heavily down, and slammed a newspaper on the table.
“Spell your name wrong, Jeff?” Sarcasm accented McCoy’s voice.
“What this says is that the McCoy-Maxwell Gang made off with more ’n a thousand bucks!” He slid the paper angrily toward McCo
y’s beer stein. “You give me and Tulip jus’ a hunnert.”
Ignoring the paper, McCoy picked up the stein, and sipped his beer. He waited for the barmaid to walk by, and when she stopped, and looked at White, McCoy said, “Bring him a whiskey. And you might as well bring me another pilsner, sweetie.”
With a smile, she hurried back to the bar.
Only then, did McCoy turn the Morning Call & Telegraph around and read the story on the front page. It didn’t take long. Texas didn’t really care much about what the McCoy-Maxwell Gang was doing in the Indian Nations or Arkansas, which was why the law pretty much left the gang alone in Denison and over in the Hell’s Half Acre district of Fort Worth.
He counted two paragraphs and three typographical errors. Maybe four. “Wouldn’t be the first time a newspaper has made a mistake. Or a bank official lied.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time some smart dude has cheated me, neither,” Jeff White said. “And—” Dumb as he was, White was smart enough, savvy enough, and experienced enough to shut up when he heard the saloon gal coming up behind him.
She placed the shot glass and bottle in front of White, and the new beer beside McCoy, and took the empty stein and McCoy’s greenback away.
Before White could say something else, McCoy cut him off, his voice a cold whisper. “Most of those boys we left dead in Arkansas and at the salt works had been riding with Zane and me a lot longer than you, White.” He let those words sink in.
“What are you sayin’?” White reached for the bottle. He didn’t bother with the shot glass.
“Meaning I ain’t knowed you long enough to miss you when you’re gone.”
“If yer cheatin’—”
“Drink your whiskey. Take your bottle back to your room. Get drunk. And keep your mouth shut. The paper’s wrong. We got four hundred bucks from that robbery. They probably hadn’t found the gold-filled sack Clete McBee died for. Go on. The whiskey’s on me.”
White swore, slammed the bottle on the table, and reached for the Morning Call & Telegraph.
“Leave the newspaper,” McCoy said.
The outlaw cursed again, but obeyed.
McCoy made sure he left the saloon, watching him through the front window as he stormed across the boardwalk, crossed the muddy street, and made his way toward the hotel across the street.
Only then did McCoy sip his beer, then pick up the newspaper again. He wasn’t vain. He didn’t care about what the ink-slingers wrote about him or Zane Maxwell, and could care less if the newspapers reported he had stolen $400 or $4 million. But above the newspaper fold, and far more detailed, was another article.
That one, he read with interest.
Fort Worth, Texas
Twenty hours on a Fort Worth–Denver City train was about as much as Millard Mann could stand, and when he stepped out of the coach onto the crowded Fort Worth depot, his clothes reeked of cigar smoke and sweat. The air around the cow town didn’t make him feel any better, but he knew where to go.
The first man he saw was heading across the street toward the nearest saloon, and he didn’t like it one whit when Millard Mann stopped him.
“Who was the yard boss when the southbound came in the other night?”
“How in the—” The railroader must’ve seen something in Mann’s eyes that warned him. His tone changed quickly, and he took a couple steps back. “On the F.W. and D.C.?”
Mann’s head nodded.
The railroader wet his lips. “Flannery Finn. Be my guess.”
“Where do I’d find Mr. Finn?”
The railroader shrugged. “If he ain’t in jail or Boot Hill, try the café yonder.” He pointed.
“Thanks.” Carrying his grip and Winchester, Millard weaved through the porters, passengers, and greeters, stepped down the steps, and waited for an omnibus to pass before crossing the busy street toward the Iron Rail Café.
The place was packed, and the smell of greasy food and hot coffee reminded him of the last time he had eaten. But food could wait. He picked out Flannery Finn instantly, and moved quickly, turning sideways to avoid a petite blonde carrying plates of food, and squeezed between two seats at the counter. “Finn.”
He was a big, burly Irishman with red hair, a full beard, and a face pockmarked with scars. The man crushed out his cigarette in the runny yokes of what remained of his eggs, and turned. “Who wants to know?”
“Mann. Boss a crew in the Panhandle.”
“I boss the yard at Fort Worth. And I’m eatin’ me breakfast.”
“You’ve finished eating,” Mann pointed out. The grip fell to the floor, and as Finn began to rise, the barrel of the Winchester found itself between two buttons on the center of the big brawler’s chest.
The Irishman sank into the stool. A few diners nearby decided their stomachs were full, and left in a hurry.
Millard smiled. “My treat, by the way.” Holding the rifle with one hand, the stock braced against his hip, he fished a dime from his vest pocket and dropped it on the plate near the cigarette and leftover crumbs. He had fetched two coins from that pocket. The forefinger and thumb of his left hand held a Morgan dollar. “Information?”
Flannery Finn smiled. “Now what can I bloody well do for a kindly gentlemen like yeself?” His massive left hand came up, palm open, underneath the coin.
“Any riders on last night’s southbound F.W. and D.C.?”
Finn understood the meaning was vagabond freeloaders. “Aye. There was one.”
Millard breathed a little easier, but did not lower the rifle. “Where might I find him?” His finger tightened on the trigger.
The big man’s laugh boomed across the café. “I left the cur dog with Doc Gertrude. Across from the Donovan Brothers mercantile on Weatherford.”
Millard felt the blood rushing to his head, and he had to fight for control. Finn’s eyes turned troubled, and the grin vanished.
Millard Mann spoke, though his words were quiet. “You . . . beat . . . up . . . a . . . teenaged . . . boy?”
Just about everyone in the café stopped eating. Most of them, including Flannery Finn, held their breath.
“Are ye off yer bloody rocker?” Finn pushed up his Irish cap. “A boy? ’Twas a man full grown. A brute named Clanton that I’ve warned ten thousand times not to let me catch him ridin’ on our line’s dime ag’in. He deserved ever’ busted bone I give him, he done. Ask anyone in Fort Worth, and ye’ll hear it true. Flannery Finn doesn’t beat up children.”
“Be glad you didn’t.” The coin dropped into the Irishman’s ham-sized palm. Millard picked up his grip, and backed out of the café, never lowering the Winchester’s barrel until he was out the door.
An hour later, Millard Mann sat on a bench in the shade at the depot, grip at his side, ’73 Winchester across his lap.
He had found Clanton at the doctor’s office above the bank next to the mercantile on Weatherford Street. He had given Millard the news . . . as best as he could with his jaw broken and teeth busted, plus four broken ribs and a fractured skull.
After Clanton finished his confession, Millard decided the hobo had been lucky. He would probably have killed the bum.
According to Clanton, James had boarded the boxcar at the water tank by Comanche Springs. They had gone maybe a mile or two before the boy leaped off. Clanton didn’t say why, but Millard knew. The sorry cuss had probably tried to rob James of everything he had, which wouldn’t have amounted to much—except for the Winchester ’86 rifle.
A mile or two from the stop, and just a few miles from home. And there sat Millard, some three hundred miles south of McAdam. He prayed that the frightening experience with Clanton would have ended James’s dreams of . . . of . . . of whatever he planned on doing and sent the boy back home.
Yet even as he closed his eyes and clasped his hands, even as he prayed his hardest to God, he knew James would not have gone home. He would have taken off.
But where?
CHAPTER EIGHT
Along the north fork
of the Red River, Texas
“Reckon that twister blowed his carcass here?”
Spit. “Else he sprouted from all that thar rain.” Spit.
“Is he dead?”
“Shore oughta be.”
Instantly, James Mann came awake, realizing that those voices were not from a dream and that he wasn’t dead. He fought to grip the Winchester, trying to find the lever, but slammed his head into something hard, which knocked him back down onto the cold, soft, soaking ground.
He remembered he had found shelter underneath a wagon out on the Llano Estacado.
As stars and blazes of orange and white and red circled around him, laughter rang louder than the sudden pounding in his head.
Har! Har! Har!
Har! Har! Har!
Forcing his vision to clear, James made himself lift his head and shoulders, and the rifle. Two figures squatted just ahead of him on the wet ground, between the two left wheels of the wagon. When he had stumbled onto the wagon during the fierce storm, he had thought the vehicle was some old abandoned relic from those wild and woolly days. The two figures told him otherwise.
Both wore buckskins and slouch hats still soaking wet from the rain. One had a full beard—thick, greasy, and silver—and no teeth. The other, much, much younger, had a mouth full of pearly whites and no beard, not even stubble. Just mud. His unkempt hair was the color of corn silk, his eyes a deep blue. The old man had only one eye.
James wished he would put a patch over that hole in his face.
“Careful with that cannon, bub,” the old man said, pointing a finger—or what was left of a finger, the pointer missing the first two joints—at the Winchester. “Barrel’s clogged with mud. Pull that thar trigger, an’ I expect she’ll blows up in yer face.”
The younger one cleared his throat. “Iffen we wanted you dead, the devil ’d be introducin’ hisself to you by now.”
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