He rode on like that—shouting for Poli, listening for Jay Blue, working himself into a pitiable state of mind. Then he caught sight of the Double Horn Ranch buildings a couple of miles away at the foot of the hills below. The freezing rain started falling hard again. His tracks would be obliterated in no time, in case Jay Blue rode around the canyon to look for him. He didn’t care what Jay Blue thought anymore. Not even Captain Tomlinson. He just wanted to be somebody. Jack Brennan had said he knew who his daddy was. Is. He reined his horse down the slope and rode through the timber toward the Double Horn Ranch.
A feeling had come over Hank. He felt a strong pull toward an area up the Colorado River. He couldn’t say why, or how the urge came to him, but he knew his course before he had even put a foot in a stirrup. Having sent most of the boys out in pairs, he had given Tonk his orders: “Swing around to the Gridiron Branch. I’ll ride past Eagle Bluffs, then meet you at the Narrows.”
“The Narrows?” Tonk said.
“You know the place?”
Tonk nodded. His frown had darkened as he turned to mount. It was as if he had felt the same pull to that place.
Now Hank had Eagle Bluffs behind him, having found no trace of Poli. Not even a buzzard would be flying on a day like this, he thought. Perhaps that was just as well. He cursed his own thoughts, the cold, and that damned competitive streak all the Broken Arrow hands kept constantly alive.
“Poli!” he called.
His head ached, and his throat was raw from yelling. So much so that he had taken to alternating the yells with shrill whistles he sent through his teeth. His bones ached from this numbing cold, especially the old shoulder wound. He was approaching the Narrows when the rain turned to a hard, driving sleet.
He reined his horse to a stop, and could not even say why he had done it. Whatever it was that had drawn him here was behind him. He could feel it. He didn’t want to look. He had passed a clump of bushes on his left, but had not looked at the other side of the brush as he rode past, his eyes busy elsewhere. But he knew he had to look now. Maybe it was nothing. He had gotten false signals from these strange urges before. He set his jaw. His neck was stiff today, so instead of wrenching it around, he reined his horse to the left.
The sight dragged his heart down into the deepest of dark pits, and tears burst from his eyes. He roared in anger and sorrow. He leapt down from the saddle, his boots splashing frigid mud that oozed through the stitching and soaked his socks. He trudged toward the arrow-riddled body, feeling as if he would vomit up the little bit of breakfast he had managed to choke down this morning. He only glanced at the arrows to check for the markings of Black Cloud.
Hank had seen scalped corpses plenty of times before. It was something a man never got used to, but learned to stomach. You just trained your eye away from the grisly abomination intended to break your morale and got on with the sad business at hand. But this was Poli. His head of thick black hair was gone, cut and torn from his bloody skull. Hank knew this scalping was meant for him and that Poli had somehow gotten in the way.
He fell to his knees beside the body of his friend, sobs escaping from his lungs in spite of the heart this frontier had hardened. He could literally feel the pain of the arrow shafts protruding unnaturally from Poli’s chest. He tried to shut Poli’s dark eyes, but the body was frozen, the face encased in a glaze of ice that seemed to have preserved Poli’s last dying visage of fear and pain for all eternity.
“Poli!” he screamed, as he had been screaming all morning. “Goddamn it, no!” He choked on his own words and felt his anger and grief turn to guilt. “What did I bring here?” he asked himself. The remorse shifted to fear as he thought of his boys being out there now. There was only one way to torment him worse than this. And Black Cloud was hanging over them all.
He heard a hoof stamp in a puddle and turned, wild-eyed, to see the rider there, looking down at him. Tonk was pulling his Winchester from the saddle scabbard, his face looking even sadder than usual. The old scout cocked it, fired, pumped the lever, pulled the trigger again, flipped another smoking shell into the mud, and sent a third bullet speeding skyward behind the others.
35
MATT KENYON arrived in Luck, chilled to the marrow, but relatively dry under his black oilcloth slicker. He rode first to the Dunnsworth livery barn to have his horse stabled on the state nickel. He had also allocated the funds to pay for boarding the evidence—that brindle heifer with the WJ brand. The payment seemed to shock the one-eyed man who owned the place, but Kenyon believed in doing things by the book, and standing by his word.
“Where might I find Captain Tomlinson today?” Kenyon asked the stable keeper.
“You might not find him at all,” was the only answer Dunnsworth would offer.
Undaunted, Kenyon stepped out of the livery and looked up and down the cold, muddy thoroughfare of Main Street. Folded in his breast pocket, protected from the weather under his slicker and a wool coat, he carried a warrant for the arrest of Captain Hank Tomlinson on suspicion of murder, signed by a judge appointed by the radical Republican Reconstruction government—the same administration that had disbanded the Texas Rangers and replaced them with the Texas State Police. The judge had read Max Cooper’s article in the Daily Statesman. Kenyon had been working toward this day his whole adult life—and even before.
Matt Kenyon had no memory of his father; no portrait or tintype picture. All he possessed were the descriptions his mother had shared with him. He had grown up listening to his mother’s stories of his father as a kind, brave man; honest, handsome, and honorable. His mother had also told him that one Hank Tomlinson—a Ranger she had never met—had killed her beloved Jim and deserved nothing less than a hangman’s noose.
For reasons he never quite understood or questioned, young Matt grew up fascinated with police work and, by the time he was eighteen, had decided upon a career in law enforcement. Not even the Civil War would stand in the way of his ambitions. Matt had grown up with strong Union sympathies, and instinctively opposed secession, so he left Texas and went to California during the war, finding work as a policeman in the city of San Francisco. It was there that he proved himself as a cop in one of the toughest and wildest towns in the West. In three separate gunfights, Matt Kenyon shot in self-defense, killing lawless men who would have happily added him as a notch to their pistol grips.
It was also in San Francisco that he began earning an extra buck or two as a crime reporter, writing under a pen name. City councilmen and judges read the newspapers, and Matt found that he could sway their attitudes and opinions with his pen. He realized that criminals read the newspapers, too, and that he could often flush suspects out of hiding by planting certain bits of information—or misinformation—in his articles.
He returned to Texas to bury his mother after the war. The way he saw it, she died of a broken heart, and the man responsible for her grief—Hank Tomlinson—still roamed free on the frontier as a respected rancher and town builder. It was at this time that the radical Republican government was forming the Texas State Police, and Matt’s credentials impressed them. He won a commission as a lieutenant, with responsibilities ranging statewide. The Daily Statesman also liked his style—writing as Max Cooper.
When news of the murder of Wes James found its way to Lieutenant Kenyon’s desk, he finally saw the opportunity he had sought since boyhood to avenge his father’s murder and lay his mother’s soul to rest once and for all. The fact that details of the crime came to him in the form of an anonymous letter served only to reveal that Tomlinson had other enemies out there who wanted him brought down for his outrages as the legendary Black Cloud.
Now, standing in the muddy street of Tomlinson’s own town, Kenyon’s excitement was slowly building, like steam pressure in a boiler. Today would be the day. He had the confidence of his experience and the weight of the state government behind him. This was one crime story he would not have to write himself. Every newspaper in Texas would carry the news of the Ranger gone wrong, finally bro
ught to justice by the son of one of his victims.
The warrant gave Lieutenant Matt Kenyon the authority to bring Tomlinson in dead or alive, as he saw fit.
At Flora’s Saloon, Kenyon found the swinging doors latched back and the glazed glass doors shut because of the cold. But there was a horse shivering at the hitching rail, indicating that at least one patron might be drinking in the saloon.
What kind of man would leave a saddle horse to stand in this kind of weather? Then he saw the Double Horn brand in the animal’s wet coat on the left hip, and knew it probably belonged to the owner of that ranch, Jack Brennan. He had questioned this man, a neighbor to Tomlinson, and found him less than helpful. He opened a glazed glass door and entered. Inside, he found only Brennan and the barkeep, Harry.
As the two men stared at him, Kenyon said, “I’m looking for Captain Hank Tomlinson. Police business.”
“Tomlinson ain’t here,” Brennan answered, then went on to explain that one of Tomlinson’s men was missing, having failed to return from a hunt.
The news took an edge off of the resolve Kenyon had honed preparing for the moment of confrontation. He decided to have a snort to warm his belly after the long, cold ride.
“Whiskey,” he said to the bartender, who snarled, but grabbed a glass.
“So, you’re it?” Brennan asked.
“I am what, sir?”
“You think you can take Hank Tomlinson alone?” He began laughing, whiskey sloshing out of his shot glass.
“I’m sure he’ll give up his guns in an orderly fashion.”
Brennan almost choked on the shot he had thrown back. He coughed a few times, then said, “Well, let’s figure the odds. I’d say you have a ninety percent chance of dyin’, and ten percent chance of surviving a bullet wound or two.”
Kenyon was unmoved at the rants of the big rancher. “I’m just here to do my duty. I don’t bet odds. I’m not a gambling man.”
“Oh, you’re gamblin’, alright. With your life.” He filled his empty glass from a bottle on the bar. “I guess you already know about the arrow,” he added.
“What arrow?” Kenyon said, picking up his glass of bourbon.
Brennan looked at the bartender, who had forced a cough. “Well, he’s gonna find out sooner or later, Harry,” the big man said, having sensed the disapproval of the barkeep. He turned back to Kenyon. “An old arrow matching those found in the carcass of Wes James was discovered in the possession of Captain Tomlinson. It fell out of a fiddle case he owned, last night, right here in the saloon, in front of three dozen witnesses.”
The news further brightened Kenyon’s spirits. “Where’s the arrow now?”
“They took it over to the general store to compare it to the others. Then news of Hank’s lost foreman got to town, and the whole Broken Arrow crew left to find him.”
Kenyon threw the whiskey past his teeth, his mind whirling to analyze how the new evidence might bolster his case. He charged out of the saloon, sloshed across the street, and swung open the sweaty glass door to find Sam Collins talking to two pretty women whom he remembered as barmaids. One, in fact, was the bar owner, and Tomlinson’s gal.
“Oh,” Sam Collins said, as if caught doing something wrong. “Officer Kenyon. What can I do for you?”
Kenyon’s eyes caught sight of the two arrow shafts that Collins was attempting to move from view.
“Stop right there,” he warned. “Obstruction of justice is a serious charge.”
The store owner slid the two arrows back onto the counter, becoming instantly defensive. “Sir, you’re addressing an elected officer of the court!”
Kenyon remembered that the shopkeeper was a justice of the peace, but ignored the statement all the same. “Excuse me, ladies,” he said, stepping between them to gather up the two arrows. The palpable enmity of the three citizens failed to concern him much as he got a close look at the arrow shafts.
One artifact appeared much older than the other. Here was the link between Black Cloud from the old days and Black Cloud of here and now. This new exhibit—because it was found in Tomlinson’s possession—could help cinch the case against the old Ranger in the murder of Wes James. And—though he might not ever come to trial for the killing of Jim Kenyon—Texas would know he was hanging for that crime, too, and the murders of two other Rangers, to boot.
Smiling, Lieutenant Matt Kenyon looked up at the bar owner, Flora. Expecting to see a sneer of hatred on her pretty face, he instead found her eyes peering outside through the moisture-fogged store window, a look of surprise quickly shifting to one of outright horror.
Kenyon put his hand on the grip of a Smith & Wesson revolver and turned. The distortions in the glass windows coupled with the condensation on the panes provided a surreal view of a buckboard rolling down the muddy street. The feathered ends of three arrows pointed skyward from the chest of a dead man who could be seen over the sideboards of the wagon. A grim lot of cowboys dragged along with the buckboard. Directly behind the wagon box, staring at the dead body, rode Captain Hank Tomlinson himself.
Kenyon stepped out into the cold, followed by the women and the store owner.
“Oh, Hank!” Flora said. Then she began to cry—apparently in sincere sobs of grief. She stepped right out into the street, dragging her skirts through the mud.
Kenyon looked at Tomlinson, the old Ranger’s face a gathering storm of anger. For the first time, Kenyon began to fear his inevitable clash. He thought for a moment that he would have to draw his firearm here and now when Tomlinson reached into the pocket of his heavy coat. But the old Ranger only pulled out a flask from which he took a long pull, turning the container upside down. Then he got down from his horse.
Still holding the arrows in one hand, Kenyon stepped into the street to get a closer look at the body. The Broken Arrow men—seven of them besides Captain Tomlinson—were quietly getting down from their horses, preparing to remove the body from the wagon.
“Wait,” Kenyon said, before they could lay hands upon the corpse. He compared the arrows in his hand to the ones sticking out of the body, and found a match. “Is this your foreman?” he said, looking at Tomlinson.
“He was my friend,” Tomlinson growled. “You still think I’m Black Cloud?”
Kenyon rolled the stiff corpse to one side and found the back of the dead man’s coat dry. “Looks like he fell back on dry ground. This man was killed before the norther hit yesterday. Where were you yesterday, Captain Tomlinson?”
“He was here in town,” Flora said. “He’s been here two days.”
Tomlinson took her gently by the arm, silencing her. “I rode halfway to Austin yesterday. When I saw the repair crew fixin’ the telegraph line, I came back here.”
“Can anyone verify that?”
“No,” Tomlinson said. His eyes looked like those of a killer right now.
Kenyon was beginning to think this arrest might not go as easily as he had hoped, with seven of Tomlinson’s men standing at his side. He decided to try a change in the plan. “I need to speak with you alone, Captain. Right now, in the store.”
“Kiss my ass,” Tomlinson said. “Somebody killed my friend, Poli, the same way they got that rustler, Wes James. If you think it was me, then I guess you’ll have to do your duty. I’ll be over here in the saloon.” He looked at the store owner. “Sam, take care of Poli. All the finest, you hear?”
“I hear you, Hank.”
When Tomlinson turned for the saloon, a young cowhand followed. Kenyon saw a clear family resemblance in the build and walk of the two, and figured this young man for Jay Blue Tomlinson. The young cowboy grabbed a friend by the sleeve, also a youngster, with a Mexican look to him, though he had blue eyes.
“Come on, Skeeter,” the first cowhand said.
The one he had called Skeeter paused for a while, but eventually spat in the mud and followed the other two Broken Arrow men to the saloon. The rest of the cowboys busied themselves with the body of their dead friend. It was truly a sad sc
ene, especially as it was reflected in the faces of those ranch hands. But Kenyon had other business to attend to. He saw his chance to arrest Tomlinson in the saloon now. The odds would be better there. Tomlinson had only the two youngsters to back him up, and probably wouldn’t risk injury to his own son.
Kenyon looked at Sam Collins and handed him the two arrows. “As an officer of the court, I expect you to properly catalog and store all evidence,” he warned.
“Have you absolutely no sense of decorum?” Collins hissed, grabbing the arrows. “This is a close-knit community. This man was one of us.”
“This is also a murder investigation. Act accordingly.”
With that directive, Kenyon walked in front of the wagon team, crossed the street, and strode long to enter the saloon not far behind Tomlinson and his two young hands. Inside the saloon, the former Ranger went straight for the left end of the bar. Kenyon angled to the right. Though his mind was absorbed with his plans to disarm and arrest Tomlinson, he nonetheless noticed an odd, unexpected exchange among the men in the bar.
Jay Blue Tomlinson followed his father, as one might expect. But the one called Skeeter lagged behind. Then, the big rancher, Jack Brennan, donned a smile and spoke to the young cowhand.
“Hey, Skeeter!” he said. “Come here and have a whiskey.”
And Skeeter joined Jack Brennan at the bar instead of the Tomlinson duo. Not only did this strike Kenyon as odd, but he noted that Jay Blue Tomlinson apparently disapproved, too.
That aside, Kenyon had work to do, and the sooner the better. So, he sized up the situation. To the far left, Hank Tomlinson stood, waiting for a drink. His son stood beside him. Next to them was Brennan, then Skeeter. Taking a moment to gather his gall, Kenyon stepped up beside Skeeter, and he happened to hear words pass between the kid and the big rancher.
“Did you tell ’em yet?” Brennan asked.
“No, sir. Not yet.”
Jay Blue pushed back from the bar. “I heard that, Skeeter. Tell who what?”
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