The Avenging Angels

by Michael Dukes

  After five days and four nights on the trail, the Stringer-Leduc party rode back into Justicia.

  Upon realizing they had aimlessly tracked an empty-saddled horse for five miles, three men doubled back in a northerly direction until they returned to the avalanche site while the others continued on, clinging to the direction Kings had apparently been heading. Using their bare hands and rifle butts, two of the backtrackers had dug desperately, hoping to find Kings’s stiff and lifeless body. The other had milled about, searching the snowy ground for footprints on the off chance that Kings had somehow avoided such a death and struck out on foot. If there had been any to begin with, it seemed the hunted man had swept them out, at least until he reached the tree line. Any hope there might have been of locating his sign amongst the pines was lost when another snowfall broke.

  The others had pressed on, finding the stream and following it onward. Eventually they reached the clearing, where they found the trapper, who had since freed himself and grumpily informed the lawmen that he hadn’t the foggiest as to where their prey had gone.

  Gabriel Kings, it seemed, had vanished again. Still . . . it was a long and hard way back, and winter could be cruel. God willing, it would be.

  The men didn’t know it, but the Mincey party was also despairing of ever catching up to Yeager, though they were still a half day away from turning back.

  Despite these developments, the operation could very well be considered a success. The gang had been broken, and the leader was still running, which made Paul Leduc, who had predicted such a fate to a skeptical Patrick Delaney back in Austin, a prophet of sorts—Louisiana’s first.

  The structural damage inflicted by the outlaws on the town was nothing that could not be repaired. The population had lessened by four. A merchant had been trampled to death by one of the horsemen responsible for the jailhouse explosion, and another had caught a stray bullet fired from an outlaw gun. The other two casualties were deputies, Eli Cutting and Fred Whitehead. Somehow, Diego Arballo had survived his peppering at the hands of H. E. Simmons, though the severity of his wounds made it unlikely he would continue as a deputy.

  And, of course, there was Delaney himself, who’d expired on a boardwalk not long after Stringer and the others pulled out.

  The townsmen and deputies had all been bachelors, which made their deaths, while tragic, a little less so in the knowledge that they left no wives or young ones behind. Stringer recalled that Delaney had a wife named Jane, and he was appreciative, when told, that Sheriff Tom Shepherd had eulogized the detective at the previous day’s shared service.

  Stringer decided he would leave the duty of writing Delaney’s widow to Mincey.

  The possemen dropped their horses off and went their ways, some to the boarding house and others to the saloon. Dobie went to find Shepherd, while Stringer and Leduc walked to the High Grade Hotel, where a whole floor had been cleared and a room sectioned off as a holding cell for the two surviving outlaws.

  On the street, people stopped to stare as the rangers marched past, but the lawmen didn’t stop to give the opportunity or encouragement for questions. As they passed the funeral parlor, Stringer stopped short, then drew closer with Leduc to look upon a photograph that had been posted in the front window of the establishment. It was clear that the subjects of the photo were none other than the five outlaws killed in the raid, seated side by side on a bench as though awaiting a train.

  Leroy Brownwell, Bob Creasy, and Charley Davis had their shirts unbuttoned to show their riddled torsos, but Sam Woods and H. E. Simmons, who had suffered arm, back, and head wounds, were fully clothed. Wrists were folded in laps and boots were crossed at the ankles. Their features were almost relaxed, all but Simmons’s, whose eyes were open and whose death mask made him look dazed and exhausted. Two rifles book-ended the line of dead men, and five pistols, presumably having belonged to each, were laid at their feet, muzzles pointed out toward the viewer.

  The photographer who had arranged them certainly was a theatrical fellow.

  The rangers continued on to the High Grade, where a deputized citizen directed them to the second floor, last room on the right. They encountered more recently appointed deputies along the way, who clutched their rifles and paced as though they expected another attack at any time.

  A fair-haired man wearing round spectacles and a handlebar mustache sat beside the door to the last room on the right. He held a Winchester across his knees and the last bit of a homemade sandwich in one hand. Pulled from his reverie by the approach of the two men, he suddenly straightened and popped the morsel in his mouth.

  “You got ’em in there?” Stringer asked.

  The man nodded. “Yes, sir, we’ve had ’em sequestered here last couple days, since our jail’s, ah . . . bein’ rebuilt.”

  “You got a man outside, watchin’ the winder?”

  “Two men.”

  “Where’s Shepherd?”

  “Down at the jail, last I heard, overseein’ the repairs.”

  “Our two prisoners . . . either of ’em wounded?”

  “One.”

  “How bad?”

  “He’ll live to swing, Captain.”

  “What’s your name, friend?”

  “Rodd, sir. Henry Rodd.”

  “Well, Mr. Rodd, these boys owe the state of Texas a mighty big debt. They’ll be standin’ trial in Austin.”

  “It don’t matter where they swing, Captain, so long as they swing.”

  Leduc spoke up. “Tomorrow mornin’, we’ll be takin’ the prisoners to the railhead just east of here. We’d be obliged if you men could stand one last watch through the night.”

  “Sure thing.”

  They started to turn away, but Rodd stopped them. “There’s one more thing, Captain.”

  Stringer rubbed the coarse bristle on his chin. “What’s that?” he asked, hiding his impatience.

  The townsman seemed uncertain, almost embarrassed to have brought it up. “One of the prisoners has been askin’ for you specifically. Says he’s got something to discuss with you. Something you’d be interested in hearing.”

  Stringer exchanged a sideways glance with Leduc, who appeared only mildly interested. They had dealt aplenty with prisoners seeking a pardon but had only rarely come across the wretch with any information that was actually worth one. What could this fellow possibly have to say or offer? This was a man who might have information concerning Gabriel Kings, however, and seeing as how their efforts hadn’t yet produced Kings’s corpse . . .

  “Open the door, friend.”

  There were two beds inside, with a knit rug on the floor between them. In the beds were the two prisoners, manacled hand and foot to the brass head-and footboards. In the early days of his service, Stringer had come across the bodies of men tied down by Comanches in the same manner, to be roasted under the hot sun—or worse. By comparison, these boys had it much easier, though there was nothing easy about the thought of a gallows in one’s near future.

  The outlaw on the far bed was staring out the window as Stringer and Leduc were let in. He was short and dark, with a pointed black beard below a nose purpled and swollen. Leduc would later discover that Shepherd had given him a good pop at the butcher shop, and that since his capture he had clammed right up. Stringer recognized him as the man he saw riding into town the day before the shooting started, but he couldn’t put a name to the face.

  Neither could he do so for the second man, who only had one shackled arm raised behind his head. The other rested across his chest in a sling. He wore a patchy growth of beard and was considerably taller than his roommate, his feet nearly touching the footboard, and, while the other made a point of ignoring the lawmen, this one regarded them openly. Not with hostility, but interest, looking each of them up and down, as if taking their measure and making up his mind.

  At length, Stringer addressed the wounded man. “They said you wanted to talk. What about?”

  He seemed amused by Stringer’s direct manner. “
So you’re the boss, eh? I recognized you from the way my pal here described ya.” He tilted his head to look beyond Stringer, at Leduc. “Who’s ’at there?”

  “This ain’t a social call, mister. Now, unless you got somethin’ worthwhile to say, we’ll see you tomorrow, bright and early, when we take you down to the railhead.”

  “Oh, I got somethin’ worthwhile for ya, awright,” the man said, shifting in an attempt to sit up straighter. He glanced at the other outlaw, who may as well have been deaf. “And I want a full pardon in exchange.”

  Paul Leduc wagged his head. “That ain’t our department, fella. It’s the court’s, but so long as we’re here, you might as well tell us whatcha got.”

  “Awright, I getcha,” the man said, smiling shrewdly. “Not about to go all in, callin’ me instead. I’d hate to play cards with either of you boys.”

  The lawmen stared at him. Metal clinked against metal as the other outlaw stretched an arm, still feigning indifference to the dialogue.

  “I don’t know how it ain’t yet occurred to Dickie there,” Foss was saying, “but in exchange for a pardon, I’ll give you Gabriel Kings’s neck.”

  That got Dick Osborn’s attention. “You button your damn lip, Foss!” he snapped.

  “How you gonna give us Gabriel Kings,” Leduc demanded, “when no one—not even us—has been able to get a whiff of him?”

  “None of ya knew where he was gonna be a week after this job.”

  “You backstabbin’ sonovabitch!”

  “I’m lookin’ out for my own neck, boy,” Foss said calmly. “You was smart, you’d’a beat me to it.” His attention shifted back to the rangers. “Y’all didn’t come back with his body over a horse, didja? You gimme back my freedom, and I’ll tell you how to get there.”

  “No, no,” Leduc said, leaning forward and clutching the footboard with both hands. His eyes bored into the outlaw. “First, you’re gonna tell us how to get there, an’ only if this don’t turn out to be a wild goose chase, we can start talkin’ about your freedom. Savvy?”

  “I savvy.”

  “Where is he?”

  “I want somethin’ in writin’.”

  “You’ll have it. Where is he?”

  Foss hesitated, for two reasons. First, because it hadn’t been a recent practice of his to do business with lawmen, let alone trust them. Second, because he felt Osborn staring at him with the intensity of fire, but what loyalty did he owe Kings, and why the hell should he step off into the air for him?

  Finally, he shrugged and said, “He’ll be holed up someplace down south on the Frio River—at the Jackson homestead or ranch, one of the two. He’s got a woman there, said he planned to marry her after the job was done.”

  “I will beat the life outta you, Foss.”

  “Jackson’s a common name,” Leduc pressed. “Might be more’n one Jackson family in that area.”

  “Look for the one’s got the most land.”

  Leduc turned, wrenched the door open, and confirmed with Henry Rodd that the nearest available telegraph station was in Springer, a mining town situated along the A.T. & S.F. railway. This meant that Leduc, fresh from the saddle, would have to mount up again and ride thirty hard miles to the southeast and wire Ranger Company D headquarters in San Antonio. For the moment, that hot bath he had been looking forward to would have to wait.

  As the thunder of his boots going down the stairs faded, Stringer focused on the more loyal of the two prisoners, who, if looks could kill a man, would have presently had the murder of Hardyman Foss added to his list of offenses.

  “How come you didn’t come to us with this?” Stringer asked. “What do you think you owe Kings? Or what do you think he owes you? You think he’s gonna come blazin’ into Austin and bust you out? He’s forgot all about you, boy.”

  Osborn glowered at him, as though the question scarcely deserved an answer, but the answer he gave was firm. It was also barbed for the man in the other bed. “I owe him a damn good livin’. I may be a lousy thief and I may have killed a guy or two in cold blood in my time, but I’m no Judas.”

  Stringer left the room, and, as he went down the steps, he wondered at the truth behind the old adage. On the one hand, Foss’s betrayal confirmed it. On the other, Osborn’s fierce allegiance seemed to have contradicted it.

  But Osborn was no saint. He was just one of many cut from the same cloth, and, on a different day, he too might have offered Kings up as a sacrificial lamb.

  Caleb Stringer was still convinced that there was no honor among thieves.

  Ranger Sergeant Mike Donovan was widely held to be a capable man. A native Texan, he had spent the first few years of manhood as an eight-dollar-a-day cowboy, but the life proved too dull for a fellow of his tastes, and so, on a whim, he joined the forty-a-month Texas Rangers in 1875. Since then, he had risen fast in the estimation of his superiors. A survivor of four frontier skirmishes, two apiece with the Kiowa and Comanche, he had also taken part in the quelling of the Mason County War. His career had certainly taken the turn he’d hoped for, but when he was called into company headquarters in the late afternoon of January 14, Donovan received an assignment that dwarfed all the others in scope.

  “You mind if I ask why, sir?” he’d inquired of his commanding officer. Donovan indicated what was written on the paper he’d been handed. “Says here this Arthur Jackson’s a respectable businessman, that the army gets some of its best horseflesh from him. Says he was an officer in the Mexican War . . . family man. What sorta charges we lookin’ at?”

  By way of answering, Captain D. W. Roberts had produced another paper, this one a telegram. “Read that there, Sarge, and you’ll find that Major Jackson might not be as respectable as we might think.”

  The dateline made Donovan frown—town of Springer, New Mexico Territory?

  POSSIBLE GK AT JACKSON RCH STOP SEARCH FRIO R AREA STOP ARREST ON SIGHT STOP KILL IF NECESSARY STOP

  LEDUC

  “We received that just minutes ago. Leduc’s a sergeant in our own Company D. ‘GK’ is Gabriel Kings.”

  “Gabriel Kings? Wasn’t Cap’n Stringer on that case?”

  “Was and still is, and now you are, too. Grab as many men as you think you’ll need and get movin’. With this kind, you never know how long you’ll have to act.”

  That conversation took place yesterday, and it had been nearly an hour since Sergeant Donovan and his two corporals entered the southern gate onto Jackson land, crossing under a sign that declared it as such and glimpsing a sizable group of horses from afar. The property sprawled out on every side, stretching from horizon to horizon, making visibility of the western and eastern fence lines impossible.

  Aside from the animals that eyeballed them as they rode past, their arrival had gone unchecked. After another quarter of an hour and still no sign of the main house, the rangers began to lope their horses. Eventually they reached the yard, and as they slowed down to approach at a walk, a man who could only be Arthur Jackson stepped onto the veranda. He walked to the edge, stood with his thumbs hooked in his vest holes, and waited.

  They came on. The corporals’ eyes roamed the perimeter while Donovan focused on the man, saying nothing until the rangers halted just short of the steps. “Major Arthur Jackson?”

  “I am, sir. Who might you be?”

  Donovan edged back his coat to reveal the star-in-a-circle. “Sergeant Donovan, Company D out of San Antone. Corporals Hume and Gossage, there.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “Sir, does the name Gabriel Kings mean anything to you?”

  Jackson’s expression did not change. “Yes, as a matter of fact, it does.”

  “Is he here?”

  “No, he’s not.”

  There was a beat of hesitation, then Donovan shrugged. “No offense meant,” he said, “but we have reason to believe otherwise, Major. I hope you don’t mind if my men take a look around.”

  “I suppose you’ve got a warrant, Sergeant?”

  D
onovan patted his breast pocket.

  Jackson waved his arm in a broad motion. “Then, by all means, take a look. I have nothing to hide.”

  The rangers dismounted, and Jackson waited while Donovan directed his men to search the grounds, with one starting at the seemingly empty quarters to the right of the house—where the Elías family slept—and the other at the barn directly across. Gossage had his rifle in his hands, and Hume had his pistol out, cocked and ready.

  After hitching his horse, Donovan mounted the steps, unfolding both the warrant and telegram. He stopped just below the major, who regarded him with no hostility and took what was held out to him with a genuine look of confusion. For a moment Donovan considered that he might have been sent to the wrong Jacksons.

  After the major finished reading, a hint of a smile altered his features. “Well, now, what would make your commanding officer—or this Leduc fellow, whoever he is—think that Kings’d be here?”

  Donovan was watching him closely. “I wouldn’t know that, sir,” he replied. “I just go where I’m sent and do what I’m s’posed to.”

  Jackson raised his eyes. “Well, that’s exactly what I wanna know, Sergeant. Why you were sent here. The specificity of this telegram is damned curious, I don’t mind tellin’ you, and a little offensive.”

  The ranger’s gaze swept the yard and found Gossage emerging from the Elías family compound. Gossage paused in his search to look back and shake his head. At the barn, there was no sign of Hume. Donovan shifted his attention back to Jackson and lowered his voice.

  “If it turns out he is here, sir, then my men’ll find out soon enough. If he ain’t, that don’t mean he’s never been.” He paused. “So I’m afraid I’m gonna have to ask you straight out—do you admit to knowing the man?”

  “No, sir, I do not.”

  “You said his name meant somethin’ to you.”

  “Of course,” Jackson said softly, but with a hint of frustration, “as it does to every law-abiding man in Texas. You’d have to ride a thousand miles before you came across someone didn’t know his name.”