Neither man spoke for a long time. Long enough time went by for them to both lean braced by weary arms against the side of the wooden tank to gaze at their reflections in the now-still surface of the water, disbelief tautening their ravaged features.
“The land will be here, Arliss, but if we get ourselves killed, we won’t be. And if we don’t get to Emma sooner than later, Emma won’t be either.” Tucker looked at the glowing remains of the ranch house in the dawning light. “I met the man, Arliss. He’s smooth, he’s smart, and he’s ruthless. I could see it in his eyes. Sized me up the second I saw him, made it all seem like them being there was legal and neat and tidy. About the only thing I can give him in the way of a compliment is that he didn’t seem keen on being anywhere near Grissom’s two hired thugs.”
“At least you done for one of them,” said the old man, scowling at his grubby fingernails.
“Yeah,” said Tucker. “At least there’s that.” He took stock of the place and there wasn’t much to it. Other than Jasper, Gracie, and Julep, who had all escaped the flames by busting free of the night corral, there wasn’t much else of value about the place.
They rummaged in the smoking debris, but other than a bit of warmth from the climbing sun, and the cooling, restorative effects of the water, Arliss and Tucker realized they were headed for a world of hurt.
They couldn’t go to town because as impediments to Tarleton’s plans, Tucker knew, they’d probably be disposed of somehow, shortly after arriving. And Bentley Grissom wasn’t exactly a fan of either of them, for some of the same reasons. Plus, Vollo, his remaining lackey, was off the beam as far as Tucker was concerned. The smelly little man would probably lunge at him the first chance he got, try to sink his teeth into his face like a crazed dog. And then there was Marshal Hart, whom Tucker wasn’t sure about.
“What do you think we should do, Arliss? We haven’t got a pot to pee in, nor a window to toss it out of.”
The old man snorted and looked up at Tucker, one eye squinted in the sun. “I ain’t heard that one in a long time.”
“My old gran. She was full of them. You’da liked her.”
“Yep, I reckon I would have.” He coughed, spat a clot of black phlegm. “I like a woman who has a way with words. She taken?”
Tucker nodded. “Long time ago. By the bite of a hydrophobic dog, of all things.”
“Oh, that ain’t no way to go, ’specially for a lady. I am truly sorry to hear that.”
Tucker nodded. “Only worse way is for someone to marry someone they hate, and for all the wrong reasons. That’s enough to make someone do something crazy.” He looked at the old man. “I can’t bear to think of Emma like that.”
“Well, let’s take stock. We got the animals and we got water. Clothes? Not much. Cold weather? Plenty. And it’s fixing to snow.”
“You are a font of happiness and glad tidings—you know that?”
“I have been called a lot of things in my long years, but never a fountain, or whatever you just said. But I do have an idea or two—for food and for shelter—whilst we recuperate.”
“I’m all ears.”
“Good, ’cause I’m all mouth.” Arliss winked. “Now, that smoking mess over yonder?” He nodded toward a heap of blackened timbers set off from the house and barn. “That was the smokehouse. I reckon we could dig in there, find a few cooked slabs of venison, beef, and a ham or two, if we root hard enough.”
“That sounds good to me.” It was Tucker’s turn to cough. He did so until he doubled over. Arliss pounded a bony fist feebly on his back. “Easy on me, Arliss. I think you just hastened along a few blisters in the healing process.”
“Well, excuse me all to hell. . . .”
“Now, that’s the Arliss I have come to know.” Tucker straightened, dragged a soot-grimed hand across his eyes. “How about shelter?”
“Hunting camp, north of here. Beyond the river valley and up a ways, there’s a plateau. Camp’s on the rim. Good hunting grounds. I ain’t been up there since Emma’s pappy died, oh, two years or more ago, but we used to have some wild times up there. Course, only as wild as you can have when a growing girl child is snoozing in the other room.”
“Emma went with you men to hunting camp?”
“Course she did. Who’s going to take care of her? Why, we three raised her. Her maw died when she wasn’t nothing but a nubbin.”
Tucker nodded, changed the subject. “Well, I’d guess that whoever set this blaze—and that could be any number of folks—might just come back to take a look-see at their handiwork. What say we skedaddle?”
Arliss pushed to his feet. “First, the meat.” He led the way and the ragged pair hobbled to the burned-out smokehouse. Within minutes they were rewarded with two hams, a number of cuts of beef, and two venison shanks. The cuts were all burned and crispy on the outside, but they knew the inside would be just fine. And might have to serve them well for some time to come. “A stroke of luck, this stuff.” Arliss smiled and patted the meat.
They unwrapped a length of old worn lariat from its task as a forgotten temporary replacement hinge on a gate. They used the old rope to bind the meats, and a few more short lengths served as makeshift reins. They climbed aboard the horses, Arliss on Gracie, who had, despite the fire, gained weight at the ranch. It seemed to Tucker she’d lost years of age. Tucker rode Jasper, and Julep the mule carried the awkward load of meats in uncomplaining silence.
As they rode north for the hunting camp, Arliss looked back. “A right shame, boy. This place was a place of love and life for many long years. Shame you didn’t come along sooner. We had us some good times here. Looks like they’re all but gone.”
“I refuse to believe that,” said Tucker. “I will work to my dying breath to make it what it once was.” He turned a steel-hard gaze on Arliss, and the old man returned it.
“Yes, sir, I do believe you believe that. And if that’s good enough for you, then who am I to argue?”
Tucker meant every word he said, and what’s more, it had felt good to him to say such things.
“I ever tell you I was born and reared in the Tennessee hills?” said Arliss.
“No, sir, I don’t believe so.”
“Well, I’m telling you now. I was. And what’s more, my family was forever in cahoots and boiling up in what they called a feud with this other family, the Pendergrast clan. Nasty bunch of vipers they was.” He moved his half-toothless mouth as if he were working a quid of chaw.
“I don’t suppose those nasty Pendergrasts thought the same thing of the Tibbs clan, did they?”
“Oh, now you are fixing to get on my bad side. And once a body goes there, there ain’t no coming back. You avoid that by keeping a civil tongue in that Texas head of your’n from here on out.”
Tucker stifled a laugh. “Yes, sir.”
“Point is, I got me a bellyful of backwoods, back-trail sneak-and-shoot type of living, and except during the war when it come into use, I ain’t had much call to flex them old muscles, except when snipin’ rabbits and squirrels and such.”
Tucker adjusted the rope reins in his hands, urged the horse a quick step up a rise as they approached the river. “What are you saying, Arliss?”
“I’m saying that I think it’s time we take them land boys and that buzzard who hired ’em by surprise, get rid of them any way possible until we get our Emma free.”
“Our Emma,” he’d said. Tucker liked the sound of that. It had been a long time since there was anyone in his life he’d called his own. “Good plan, Arliss.”
“Yep, I got a few tricks I can show you. One thing, though, I ain’t interested in tying up anybody, nor keeping prisoners. I tell you that straight out front.” The old man stared at him for a moment.
“I understand,” said Tucker, nodding. They rode on for a while longer in silence. As th
ey crossed the Rogue River at a low spot on a gravel bar and emerged across the other side, Tucker said, “Arliss, you recall that feeder stream you showed me a few weeks back? When we were chasing fall strays?”
“Yep. That I do. It angles over yonder.” He nodded southwest. “Beyond that rise.”
“That’s where I was when I came upon the Englishman’s surveying team. Not far from there, northward, they’d set up that camp. And it seemed to me they headed back to town most every night, but left it set up. It was a base of sorts for them—a ‘day camp,’ Tarleton had called it.”
“Trespassers, that’s all they are.” Arliss spat more black gunk on the ground.
“Trespassers, yes, but trespassers with a lot of useful gear that they just leave behind every night. Might be it’s under guard, but then again, might be it’s not.”
“You reckon they got guns?”
Tucker nodded. “I reckon.”
“And clothes?”
“Maybe so. It’s been cold. Anything’s possible when you’re in the employ of such a rich man.”
“Well, what are we waiting for, Samuel Tucker? Let’s get ourselves to that camp, see what we can filch from them thieves.”
* * *
By the time they neared the camp, dark had begun to descend. Tucker saw the dim white bulk of the canvas wall tent in the midst of the clearing. Though they probably rode far too close to not have been heard by anyone left behind guarding the spot, Tucker made theatrical motions to Arliss to keep his mouth and those of the horses shut as he approached the tent on foot. Being weaponless wasn’t his favorite feeling.
He crept forward, slower and quieter the closer he drew to the tent. He had gotten to within a dozen feet from it when something inside shifted. He paused, waited, then heard a soft, rasping snore. Whoever was the guard, he had decided to use his time wisely and snooze his way through the long, lonely hours. Hopefully the man was alone and not expecting anyone to show up. But he would probably be armed.
Tucker kept moving forward, ignoring the hot pains from his burns and blisters, from the largely unhealed bullet wound in his shoulder and the knocks to the head he had taken in his tumble with Rummler.
Tucker had almost reached the tent when the snoring inside paused. He held his breath, heard no sound for long moments, then a snorting gasp, and the soft snores continued.
From the sound of it, the man was close by his side of the tent. Just as Tucker reached the canvas to lift it and poke his head inside, he heard a horse blow softly from the east end of the camp. He paused, shocked, until it occurred to him that the camp sentry probably showed up with, or was left with, a horse—just in case he had to ride on out of there, should he be attacked by half-burned woodland savages, thought Tucker with a grim smile.
He waited a sufficient length of time and heard no further horse noises, nor footsteps of someone who had dismounted and might be lurking in the undergrowth. He had a feeling they were alone, and that he was about to come face-to-face with one startled man.
He slipped under the canvas flap easily and paused in the dark. The snoring continued with regularity. He edged closer. Once he neared the sleeping man, he rose painfully to his knees and peered closely along the length of the man, beginning at his feet.
The body seemed to be that of a fat man wearing no gun. Thank God for small favors, he thought, and with all his strength, he grabbed the snoring man by the lapels and dragged him to the ground. The man screamed as if he had been scalded.
“Vollo? Who are you? What do you want? I’m only resting here. I swear it.”
The man was fat, and Tucker couldn’t picture him as anyone he’d seen before, though his voice rang a bell. Where had he heard this one before? Could be he was on the street that day Emma had sprung him from jail. Yes, the more he thought about it, the more he became convinced this was . . . Bentley Grissom. The very buzzard who had caused all of this, the man who had ripped apart the town of Klinkhorn, who had invited the worm of Lord Tarleton into the apple that been life there.
The fat man suddenly quieted and leaned his head closer to Tucker’s face. “You. You? You were the prisoner in Hart’s jail who broke out.” He peered closer. “Good Lord, man, what happened to your face?”
“What’s it to you?” said Tucker. His voice sounded like gravel grinding between river stones.
“Nothing, nothing at all.”
“Then shut up. You’re Grissom, aren’t you?”
“Why?”
“I have a six-gun aimed at your parts, mister. You best answer the question.”
“What if I am?”
“No matter, we’ll get to that soon enough. Right now, though, facedown on the ground, put your hands on your head.”
Tucker ignored the man’s whimpering and trussed him with a coil of rope hanging off a nail on a tent pole. He kept the hemp tight, which induced more whining.
“Shut up or I’ll hit you in your fat head with the butt of my gun.”
Grissom lay silent while Tucker rummaged in the fat man’s pockets for a gun, a knife, anything. And found both, though the knife was a paltry pocket affair more suited to cleaning fingernails and paring toenails. And the gun, a two-shot derringer, was little more than a toy, though it would be capable of killing a man—or at least annoying him—at close range. Tucker figured it would be better than nothing, which was what they currently had.
“What are you going to do with me? You . . . you’re not going to kill me, are you?”
“I haven’t decided yet,” said Tucker, though he was secretly appalled at the prospect. “What’s the story with this place, Grissom?”
“It’s the camp Tarleton’s men use.”
“I’m aware of that. I mean why are you here and where’s the guard? And why did you say Vollo’s name? He here too?”
“I’m here because . . . I just thought I’d check in on my investment and then I got caught up, didn’t realize the time. I figured I’d better lie low here tonight, head back into town tomorrow.”
“And Vollo?”
“He . . . used to be in my employ. I don’t have any idea where that bum can be.”
“Something about that doesn’t sound quite right, Grissom.”
“And another thing, I never said my name was Grissom.”
“I know it is, so stop the act.”
“What do you want? I can practically guarantee anything at all that you might want. I’m good friends with the law in these parts. I’ll see to it that you get a fair trial.”
“For something you and your boys did? Nah, I don’t think so. Now shut your mouth.”
Tucker found a lamp and struck a match from the box beside it. He saw stacked crates. He used a pry bar and a ball-peen hammer from a toolbox to pry off the lids of the rough-sawn crates. Inside were various wood and brass implements such as he’d seen the men using that day in camp.
“Arliss!” he shouted. “Come on in here.”
“You’re friends with that broke-down old man?”
“I said shut your mouth, Grissom.” Tucker kicked the fat man in the haunch and heard a grunt in reply.
He tried another crate and almost shouted for joy. It was filled with food, cooking implements, spices, flour, a pan, sacks of coffee, cornmeal, beans, a coffeepot, and more. Wait until Arliss got a look at it. He hoped it wasn’t too much farther to the hunting camp.
His next crate revealed weapons of the sort he had been hoping to find: two six-guns on a single gun belt, a double-barrel scattergun, a rifle in a leather scabbard. He looked down at Grissom on the ground. The man couldn’t lift his head well, but he didn’t want the brute to gawk at him, to see what he was gathering.
“Well, Grissom, I can’t let you go, and if I leave you here, that plays right into Tarleton’s hands, something I definitely don’t want to d
o. So I guess it’s up to you. You going to come with us or am I going to shoot you now? Only problem is, unless I find bullets stashed in here somewhere, you will die of a slow-to-kill wound, because neither your knife nor your baby pistol is worth a bean.” As soon as he said it, Tucker dug deeper and found shells and cartridges for each weapon in the crate.
The fat man fidgeted on the ground, tried to roll onto his side to get a look at Tucker. Tucker jammed a boot on the man’s back and pushed him flat again.
“Ow! You don’t have a gun of your own? You said you had.”
“Lot of folks say things that aren’t true. Like that I killed Payton Farraday. Not true, and yet when folks are told it enough, they begin to believe it.”
Where was Arliss?
“Okay, okay. But who’s this ‘us’? You got a mouse in your pocket, Tucker?” Grissom laughed, and Tucker had to admire the man’s sand. He was at the center of a whirlwind of badness and he was making jokes.
“Why, Grissom, you don’t think I’d be out here traveling alone, do you? I’m tramping the woods with a full complement of soldiers, federal and state officials, and some Mexican outlaws tossed into the mix for good measure.”
“Now you’re funning me.”
“Maybe. So, what’s it going to be?” Tucker cocked the derringer right beside Grissom’s ear.
The fat man cried out as if he’d touched a hot stove, “Don’t shoot me. Leastwise not with that!”
Just then, a voice that Tucker recognized—and it was not that of Arliss—shouted from close by.
“Hey, you in the tent! I got me an old man out here who’s starting to whimper like a little baby. You best come out, see what he wants.”
“Vollo?” said Tucker.
“Vollo,” said Grissom. Then he shouted the name and Tucker drove the butt of the tiny pistol into the side of the fat man’s head, just above the ear. Grissom grunted.
“Hey! You in the tent, you got my boss man. That’s okay. He’s useless now. They run him out of town anyway. But all I want is you. I know who you are. You should be in jail for killing people. You killed my friend Rummler.”
Ralph Compton Tucker's Reckoning (9781101607770) Page 21