by R. W. Stone
BADMAN’S PASS
R.W. Stone
Copyright © 2016 by R.W. Stone
E-book published in 2018 by Blackstone Publishing
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Trade e-book ISBN 978-1-4708-6098-1
Library e-book ISBN 978-1-4708-6097-4
Fiction / Westerns
CIP data for this book is available from the Library of Congress
Blackstone Publishing
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A brave man doesn’t admit courage,
A coward don’t admit fear.
—old western saying
Dedicated to my grandfathers:
David Stone and Jacob Kotz
I’ve never known finer men
Prologue
“Vengeance is mine,” sayeth the Lord. Well, that may be so, I don’t rightly know for sure, but I suspect the Lord doesn’t have to handle human frailties like sorrow, anger, grief, hate, and depression. When folks are dealing with such mighty emotions, they need a powerful motivator just to keep going, and as much as I hate to admit it, there’s none better that I know of than a good old-fashioned desire for revenge.
They also say that the ends don’t justify the means. Well, fancy philosophers might have a field day with that one, but if I’ve learned anything in life, it’s that when the means are fair and the end is righteous, then how or why something plays out is fine with me. As far as I’m concerned, what it boils down to is abundantly clear. Namely, you have to do whatever it takes to win, as long as you’re sure of why you’re in the game.
I do know one thing for sure. When the Devil finally confronts the Lord, he won’t care a hoot about rules or justifying the means. Evil doesn’t have any sympathy whatsoever. Evil doesn’t care about feelings, truthfulness, innocence, or playing by the rules. There are no rules where evil is concerned.
When they say, “All’s fair in love and war,” what they really should be adding is: “And all bets are off once the other side refuses to play fair. Anything goes.” Those on the Lord’s side better learn the most important rule there is—in the end righteousness won’t mean a damned thing if we’re all dead and have let evil win out.
Chapter One
The riders came out of the early morning mist at a full gallop, aiming straight toward the Arapaho encampment. The majority of the tribe’s men were away hunting, and they had left behind their women, children, and the elderly. Those remaining in the small camp were taken completely by surprise. Some were simply preparing their morning meals, while others were still asleep in their tepees.
One of the village elders looked up and noticed that a few of the riders seemed to be wearing uniforms of some sort. He was puzzled, because they did not appear to be exactly the same type that had been worn by the US Cavalry officers who a short time ago had granted them permission to settle this area. It made sense to Gray Knife, however, that since the various Indian tribes dressed differently, the White Eyes would, too.
From the way the men were riding and the expressions on their faces, Gray Knife sensed hostility. He assumed that these men had not have been told that his people had a right to be here, so he tried to set things straight.
Quickly grabbing the flag that his chief had received during the treaty ceremony, Gray Knife ran out, waving it by its long pole. His people had been told by the Long Knives that it was the symbol of their trust. He did not speak much English, so as he waved the flag, he shouted out the one important word he had been taught: “Peace.”
It all happened so fast, Gray Knife didn’t even have time to react to the bullet that hit him in the chest, because a sword slash took him by the throat almost simultaneously. He actually stood headless for a moment before his body toppled over backward.
From that point on, it was hard to distinguish between the screams of the helpless Indian victims, the gleeful shouts emanating from the attackers, and the loud, continuous gunfire.
In some nearby bushes, a small redheaded boy remained hidden. He was crouched and paralyzed with fear. The child had risen early that morning in order to surprise his mother by fetching water to start the coffee brewing. At the time, at least from the boy’s point of view, it had seemed a very important task.
The boy’s mother was a widowed Quaker and had taken it upon herself to spread her gospel to the Indians. That calling had taken the two of them from their home in northern Illinois all the way to the Western territory where, after six months of perseverance, stubbornness, and her never-ending insistence, she had finally been accepted by the tribe. The Indians had learned to trust and respect her devotion. She in turn had learned to love and respect the members of a tribe that simply referred to themselves as “The People.”
For the next hour or so, hell had, indeed, appeared on earth. The few young braves present who were able to fight were quickly overwhelmed and butchered. Horrified, the redheaded boy realized it wasn’t going to end with just the men. Women were being shot, stabbed, and clubbed to death as well. No distinction was made between young, old, mothers, or women who were pregnant. Children were stomped to death under horses’ hoofs. The screams seemed never to stop, and blood was spilled in every direction.
Shortly after the attack began and among all the loud commotion, one woman walked fearlessly through the center of the carnage and sternly addressed a small group of men who seemed to be in command. She was petite and attractive and appeared to be in her early thirties. The woman wore a clean white shirt with a large silver broach pinned to it and held a Bible clutched tightly to her chest. She, too, was redheaded.
“These people mean no one any harm whatsoever!” she shouted angrily. “Stop this instant! They are here by permission of our government. You have no right to do this. Stop, I say!”
A tall, heavyset man with a dark black beard looked long and hard at her and then turned to the man on his left. “No right, the lady insists,” he said, laughing. “Clay, what say I teach this Injun lover here what’s right and what ain’t?”
“Be my guest,” the other replied, shrugging.
The black-bearded man suddenly spurred his horse forward, reached down to scoop the young woman up, and rode off into a small nearby wooded area with her. The last time the boy saw his mother, she was kicking and screaming in a desperate attempt to fight off her attacker.
The child stifled a cry and bit down on his lip so hard, he drew blood. His eyes remained glued to the spot in the woods where the man had dragged his mother. He remained hidden in that small bush, the whole time praying silently for help.
To the boy the wait seemed an eternity, but eventually the man with the black beard came out of the woods. Alone. He rode back to the side of the apparent leader of the group. They were now close enough to the bushes for the boy to overhear their conversation.
“So, Brick, you teach her right from wrong?” the leader asked. He was slightly taller than the other man, clean-shaven, and wore a flat-brimmed hat with a calfskin headband.
Even through the bushes, the redheaded boy was close enough to notice the fresh scratch marks on Black Beard’s face and a small cut on his lower lip.
The big man sneered and nodded. He wiped his cheek with a dirty bandanna he had taken out of his pocket. “Well, I’ll tell you, Clay, she was a mite reluctant to learn at first, but I stuck with it until I finally convinced her. She got my point. Know what I mean?”
The leader grinned. “So, I assume she won’t be giving u
s any more problems?”
Brick shook his head. “Not now, not ever.” He held up his hand and opened it to reveal a large silver broach. Smiling, he pinned it to his left chest as if it were a medal or trophy of some sort.
That simple gesture was all the boy could take. His fear was now gone, replaced with a type of anger he had never known before. His life didn’t matter, pain didn’t matter, size or age didn’t matter. The boy was on fire with a burning desire to kill.
“Aaayyyyeee!” he screamed as he launched himself at the bearded man. There was a large rock between the bush he was hiding in and the two riders’ horses. When he emerged from the bush, he leaped onto the rock and suddenly propelled himself over the closest horse’s rump and onto the big man’s back.
A human child has one weapon that is almost as powerful as an adult—his bite—and the boy took full advantage of his primitive instincts. Wrapping his arms around the man known to him only as Brick, he clamped his teeth down hard on the left side of his enemy’s neck and hung on for dear life.
Shots resounded all around him and screams seemed to be heard everywhere, but the yells coming from the bearded man were the only sounds that interested the boy. The more the man screamed, the more the lad bit down. While grabbing onto his foe, the boy’s left hand somehow found the silver broach, and when he was finally thrown from the big man’s back, the broach tore away in his grip.
After he landed on his back, the boy sat up and proudly spit out a large chunk of red-stained flesh from his mouth. Looking up from the ground, he saw the man holding the side of his neck that was now almost completely covered in blood. The boy angrily tried to stand, when the man called Brick reached for a belt axe with his bloody left hand. The tomahawk was a nasty two-sided affair with a blade on one end and a hammer on the other.
“The kid bites deep,” the taller man, known as Clay, commented with a smirk. “That’s gonna leave a scar, Brick.”
It was the last thing the boy heard as the hammer smashed down on his head.
Chapter Two
No one starts out saying: “Someday when I grow up, I want to be a bounty hunter.” I sure as hell didn’t, but I do remember the day it all started.
It all began about six months after the War Between the States ended. I was traveling West, headed for a small valley I had found some years prior. I intended to build up a ranch there, even though the army hadn’t left me with enough cash to buy a steak, let alone a herd of cattle.
On the way I stopped in a small town just long enough for a decent meal and to rest my tired bones in a real bed. As I recollect, for some reason or another the town was called Brannigan’s Mill. Truthfully, I don’t remember ever even seeing a grist stone, let alone a mill.
It was about two in the afternoon, and I had just stepped out of the hotel where I had enjoyed a more than passable lunch. Hot chicken potpie has always been one of my favorites, and when accompanied by a pecan pie desert, no man I know of would ever dream of complaining about it.
I was standing on the sidewalk, right in front of the hotel, lighting up a brand new ten-cent store-bought cigar, when I suddenly heard shots from down the street. I looked up and was startled to find two men in the process of firing their pistols directly into the bank. Their horses had been tethered out front of the bank, and they were mounting up when a young man ran out with a Henry rifle in his hands. I assumed he was a bank teller.
The young man from the bank proceeded to shoot one of the robbers right out of the saddle, but unfortunately, the other one returned fire and killed the teller on the spot with a bullet to his forehead.
The outlaw was too far away for me to hit with a sidearm, and my rifle was in its saddle scabbard. Of course, as luck would have it, my saddle was still back in the livery across town where I’d stabled my horse. Helpless as I was, all I could do was attempt to get as good a look as I could at the robber.
I tried to remember such details as the brown leather vest with conchos the robber wore, the gray fedora hat on his head, and the big bay horse he rode away on. Unfortunately, I couldn’t pick up on much else. Since I was a kid, I’ve always had poor long-distance vision. Things always seem to get a little blurry after a few yards.
I felt at the time that all I’d really be able to do to help out was to report the robber’s description to the local authorities. Going after that outlaw was the town sheriff’s job, not mine. It’s not that I’m particularly selfish, mind you, but I had just finished almost four years of fighting a war for everyone else’s interest but mine. This wasn’t my town, I had no money in the bank, and the robber hadn’t even thrown a shot my way. I wasn’t planning on getting involved. To be frank, I was worn out and just wanted to be on my way.
Then, just as the robber was reaching the end of the street, a woman ran across his path, dragging her young child behind her. She was simply trying to get herself and her little boy out of harm’s way. To my horror, the outlaw rode right over the boy, trampling the child with his horse.
There weren’t many others in the street at the time, but it was immediately obvious to all of us that the boy was dead. He had been run over by a horse and its rider at a full gallop. No way he had survived. The mother held her hands to her mouth as if to scream and then fainted.
The sheriff quickly rode out after the robber but returned alone after only three hours. “I’ll need supplies and a posse equipped for the long haul to catch this one. I’m asking for volunteers,” he said hurriedly. I had no choice. Not after what I’d seen. Later that afternoon about twelve of us rode out after the bank robber.
The outlaw had taken a fairly straight path out of town, but after a half hour or so had hooked left and headed for the foothills. Because the sheriff had been unable to catch him and had returned to town, the robber had a good twelve-hour head start.
That time of year, darkness fell quickly, so we ended up camping sooner than we would have liked.
Among those men in the posse were two or three older men who fancied themselves trail wise. After about three hours or so of sharing chow and coffee, I began to suspect that much of what they claimed to know was bluff and bluster. Since I was still unknown to them and relatively young, they all assumed that meant I was inexperienced.
I kept my opinions to myself, remembering the old saying that a fish dies because it opens its mouth once too often. In the cavalry one of my sergeant’s favorite sayings was: “It’s better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and prove it.”
As long as we seemed to be on the right course, I would ride along, and I really didn’t give a hoot in hell what the posse thought about my opinions. As far as I was concerned, it was all of little importance when compared to catching that man.
I could tell that the sheriff, a rather stout fellow named Hans Wagner, was town bred and raised, and had very little savvy when it came to the trail. As I recall, he seemed trustworthy enough and I had no reason to doubt his bravery. After all, he had been first in the saddle and had quickly ridden out after the outlaw without any hesitation.
While it was true that none of us in that posse could say for sure what really happened during his initial pursuit or why he had suddenly turned back, I was willing, as I’m fairly sure the rest were, to give him the benefit of the doubt. He was their sheriff, they had elected him, and then, as I came to learn, reelected him. They knew the man far better than I did, and they trusted him.
We rose early the next morning and were almost immediately back in the saddle. I was somewhat familiar with this area, having ridden it quite a few times before the war. As we rode on, I tried to pick up any patterns to the fugitive’s escape route. By that time in my life, I’d learned that most men when spooked ride in a straight line. A few others, however, are cleverer than that and use evasive tactics, such as those I’d been taught in the war.
As long as the robber’s trail was obvious, the posse se
emed to have no problems following the sheriff’s lead. There were no complaints until the third day, at which point the robber had cut to the south for a while and then backtracked. The two men who held themselves out to be the posse’s experts on tracking were fooled at least twice, and that cost us a full day.
The same thing happened on day five, and that’s when the griping started. “I have a family I have to get back to,” or “I never thought when I signed on for this that it’d take so long,” were just a couple examples of the sort of complaints the men in the posse began to throw out.
The sheriff tried to keep the group together as best as he could, first, by pointing out his authority, then, by appealing to the group’s civic obligations, and finally, by using threats and other forms of cajoling.
On the sixth day, I’d had enough of the ineptitude. If I’d learned one thing in the war, it was not only to think like your enemy but to try to stay one step ahead of him in your planning. When we came to a rather wide stream and the group prepared to cross, I finally spoke up.
“Mind if I say something, Sheriff?” I asked.
The group had stopped to water the horses and to fill canteens. “Sure, what is it?” he replied.
“I don’t think he went straight across here,” I explained.
“No? Why not?”
“Well, I’ve been noticing how this fellow rides. He usually heads south for a while, but inevitably he returns to a northern track. Twice he’s doubled back the same way,” I said.
“And you think he’s doing it again?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Afraid I’ll have to disagree with you, son. You see, these tracks go right across the stream here, and our men have already found new ones on the other side. He’s obviously going straight across,” the lawman responded.