The Crimson Trail

by Eric Red

  Halting her horse in the woods outside the ranch, Marshal Sugarland arrived at the house a few minutes after Puzzleface did, in time to see him come out of the corral and enter the house. The place was dark, and there was no sign of Rachel, who Bess considered might have retired. It was very quiet outdoors on the outskirts of the spread, with just the ceaseless musical drone of crickets keeping the lady lawman company. Sitting in her saddle, Marshal Bess kept the house under close surveillance, and caught just a single glimpse of Puzzleface through the window before he disappeared into the next room, and moments later the next person she saw in the window was Rachel, moving through the rooms with a candle.

  Puzzleface didn’t reappear.

  That struck her as odd.

  * * *

  In the early morning hours later that same night, it was dark as pitch at Puzzleface Ranch and there were no lights on in the main house. Out in the darkness, off in the distance, came the quick trot of horses and presently a light appeared, and as the light drew closer it was a coal oil lamp held in the gloved hand of one of three hooded, cloaked figures on horseback, to see their way in the dark. The mysterious trio towed a fourth rider covered in a blanket. Riding up to the back door of the house, two of the hooded riders remained saddled while the third, the one with the lantern, dismounted. Blowing out the lamp, total darkness once again descended. The silence was broken by an urgent knock on the back door of the house.

  The light of a single candle bloomed in the upstairs window of the house and the glow of the flame floated like a fairy past each darkened window drifting ethereally downstairs to emblazon the hallway as Rachel opened the back door and quickly gestured to the riders. The door was held open just a crack so only a witchy trickle of illumination escaped.

  With urgency, the two mounted cloaked and hooded riders helped the blanket-swathed figure out of the saddle into the waiting arms of the one on foot, who handed them off to Rachel, who swiftly ushered the person under the blanket inside the house, shutting and locking the door.

  Immediately the three riders galloped off into the night and were gone, but before the last one got on their horse they relit the lantern and in the glow of the light the face under the hood was revealed as Doctor Jane Stonehill, the Jackson physician, looking into the night to be sure they were not being observed.

  Farther off in the darkness, a lone unseen figure on horseback was watching. The glint of moonlight reflected off a metal seven-star badge. Marshal Bess Sugarland sat in the shadows on her saddle, keeping Puzzleface Ranch under surveillance as she had been all night long. From the clandestine activity she just witnessed, her suspicions had been confirmed that something very strange was going on in Jackson Hole, and Marshal Bess was sure as hell going to find out what.

  CHAPTER 19

  As dawn broke three hundred miles to the southeast in Rawlins, Laura Holdridge sipped her coffee, wondering if the cattle drive would be detained for yet another day. Joe had not returned all night, and she could only assume he was waiting at the telegraph office for a confirmation of the story from his lady marshal friend in Jackson. The trail boss hadn’t slept a wink, feeling with every passing minute that the chance of getting her livestock to Cheyenne became an increasingly remote possibility, like the sands in an hourglass draining her future with every grain. She could ill afford to lose another day.

  Over at the chuck wagon, the outfit was having breakfast. The two deputy sheriffs stationed to guard the drivers and cattle from leaving were having coffee with the wranglers, joking and swapping stories. The local lawmen were all right, just doing their job.

  Presently, the cattlewoman saw two riders approaching from the direction of town, the last place she had seen the bounty hunter ride off.

  It was Noose and Sheriff Roberts. Her heart lifted as she made out the grin on Joe’s face. He wore it all the way up to her when he reined his horse, Copper. “We reached Bess by telegraph this morning. She confirmed the story.”

  The lawman rode up and nodded respectfully. “You and your herd are free to go, Mrs. Holdridge.”

  * * *

  The cattle drive proceeded due east on a southern trajectory throughout the morning. The five hundred head and seven-man outfit pushed on across five miles of rugged hill country, the sky weighted with heavy clouds, until on the seventh mile the prairie leveled out into an open plain and the sun came out, the temperatures rising to ninety degrees. The rovers and the steers began to bake but still they pressed forward.

  In the driver’s perch of her covered wagon, Laura Holdridge had the map of Wyoming open behind her, her brow furrowed with worry as she occasionally consulted it when she saw a landmark, marking their progress with a pencil on the map. Now and then she looked up and scanned her surroundings. There was no sign of the posse Noose believed were tailing them, but she knew if he said so that they were out there.

  When the outfit broke for lunch ten miles southeast of Rawlins, Joe Noose noticed that Billy Barlow was not among the circle of men with the plates and cups. He heard several shots ring out several hundred yards away and looked up quickly. Joe Idaho chuckled. “Relax, Mr. Smith. That’s just Billy practicing his shooting. He’s the worst shot in the outfit, thinks wasting ammo is gonna make him better, but we all know it’s because he needs glasses because his distance vision is poor.”

  “Ain’t nothing wrong with glasses,” said Kettlebone, polishing his bifocals with a dirty shirttail, making them more smeared than before.

  Rowdy Maddox shoveled another spoonful of beans into his mouth. “Dumb kid’s too proud to wear spectacles and one day that’s gonna cause him to get stuck on the wrong side of a longhorn. Stubborn bastard.”

  Another string of evenly spaced shots rang out over the plain, followed by a string of distant profanity. Joe drained his coffee and stood. “Maybe I can give the kid a few shooting tips.” The bounty hunter strode off in the direction of the gunshots, carrying his empty coffee cup.

  Behind him, scowling, Curly Brubaker never took his eyes off Noose.

  Just over the hill, down in a grove, Billy Barlow was facing away from Joe, holding his Remington revolver in a wavering grip, shooting a gnarled oak tree fifty yards off. The gun cracked thrice. He missed all three times, little puffs of dirt appearing far off.

  “May I see your weapon?” Joe held out his hand in a friendly way.

  The rover shrugged and handed it to him. The gun was in very poor condition. “When was the last time this gun was cleaned, son?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Clean it. If you don’t know how, I’ll show you. Otherwise it’s gonna blow up in your hand one day. Here, try mine.” Joe spun his shiny, freshly oiled Colt Peacemaker out of his holster, flipped it around in the air, caught the barrel and held the butt end out to Barlow.

  “You don’t mind?”

  “Take it.”

  Billy took it, testing the weight and heft of the big revolver in his left hand. “Beautiful gun, Mr. Smith.”

  “She and her sister serve me well. Noose tossed the empty metal coffee cup in his hand a hundred feet. It landed on the ground between a rock and broken branch. “You see the cup, Billy?”

  “Sure.”

  “See what’s on the left of it?”

  “Branch.”

  “See how many twigs on that branch?”

  “Three.”

  “Nothing’s wrong with your eyesight. Your shooting technique’s your problem. Shoot the cup.”

  “I can’t even hit a tree.”

  “Try. I want to see how you shoot.”

  “OK.” Barlow shrugged, raised his left arm with the pistol quick and sloppy and yanked the trigger of the Colt, the mule kick of the .45 knocking his arm up as the gunshot exploded and smoke filled the air. When it cleared, the cup sat on the ground untouched. “Told you I can’t shoot for shit.”

  “You’re not doing it right.” Joe reached out and grabbed Billy’s left arm, raising it horizontally. “Do not touch the trigger yet. First
, take the time to aim, don’t be in such a rush. Now look down the sight until you got the notch on the barrel lined up between the notches on the back of the gun settled on the cup. Tell me when you do.” Barlow squinted, impatient, trying to point the Colt at the cup in the grass a hundred feet away. Finally, he nodded. Noose let go of his arm. “Hold that position, nice and easy. Still got the target sighted?” Billy nodded. “Don’t fire.” Joe pushed Billy’s arm holding the gun aside. “Find the target again, line it up like you just did. Don’t point the gun. The barrel is an extension of your arm. See the target. Reach out and touch it with the barrel.”

  More relaxed now, the rover squinted and lined up the shot, then he nodded.

  “Now don’t pull the trigger, squeeze it. Nice and smooth. Like stroking a lady’s hair. ”

  Barlow fired.

  The cup jumped in the air with a flash of lead striking metal.

  “Good shot.” Noose smiled. Barlow let out a whoop of glee. “Shoot it again.”

  The wrangler forgot everything Joe taught him the next time he fired and missed. He scowled, embarrassed. “This gun’s aim is off.”

  Joe laughed. “Your aim is off. This gun is perfect.”

  “I say your pistol’s aim is off, Mr. Smith.”

  “That so?” Joe Noose regarded Billy Barlow with a cocked eyebrow and small enigmatic smile as he flipped open the cylinder and shoved six fresh .45 caliber cartridges into the slots and spun the gun closed with a ratcheting whirr like the castanet of a rattlesnake. “Wanna bet?”

  “Five bucks.”

  “Easy money.” The bounty hunter slid the Colt Peacemaker into his holster and faced the fallen metal cup a hundred feet away. Blindingly fast, he quick-drew the revolver and fanned the trigger, firing from the hip. The first bullet kicked the cup in the air with a sharp ptank. The second shot spun it higher into the sky. Barlow’s mouth dropped as Noose’s second and third shots were direct hits on the cup spinning through the air at two hundred and three hundred feet as each successive bullet kicked it back. Showing off, Joe turned his back, holding the smoking gun, and when he heard the distant impact of the metal cup hitting the ground, swung around, arms extended, elbows locked, holding the Colt in a two-hand grip and without a second’s hesitation plugged the tiny target of the tin cup twice more in tiny distant flashes of sparks. Billy was laughing and clapping as Joe flipped open the cylinder, dumped his empties, slapping in six fresh rounds, closed the pistol and spun it back in his holster in one smooth movement.

  Then his hand came up with an open palm.

  Barlow greased it with a five-dollar bill.

  “Keep practicing,” Joe said.

  “Thanks for the lesson, Mr. Smith,” Barlow said, shaking his head and whistling as he walked back up the hill toward the camp.

  With a smile, Joe turned and loped off a few hundred feet across the grass to retrieve the bullet-riddled mangled hunk of tin that was all that remained of the coffee cup. “Reckon I owe you one of these bucks, Kettlebone.” He chuckled.

  Curly Brubaker jumped out behind Joe with a loaded shotgun. “Hands where I can see ’em!” Noose froze, his jaw clenching. “Go on, stick ’em up!”

  Noose slowly raised his hands, his back to Brubaker. “What’s on your mind, Curly?”

  “I saw your shooting contest with Billy Barlow just now, and if that’s not proof you ain’t who you say you are, nothing is.”

  “I’m turning around, Curly.” Brubaker raised the shotgun but Noose fearlessly turned fully around to face him with a steely gunfighter gaze.

  Curly was in awe. “The way you shoot. Nobody shoots like that. Never seen no man shoot the way you do. Definitely not no rover, where the pay is nothing like the money a man as good with a gun as you makes, if he’s smart, and if there’s one thing I know about you it’s you’re smart, too smart to work this cattle drive for rover wages unless you come for something else. I’m going to ask you one last time to tell me who you really are and if you don’t, I’ll blow your guts out and who you will be is a corpse.”

  Joe Noose didn’t reply. His silence rattled the armed wrangler, who couldn’t shut up. “I don’t know who you are, but I know what you are. A shootist.”

  Noose fixed Curly in his pale-eyed gaze. “If you actually believe I’m a shootist, you realize I could draw my gun and shoot that smoke wagon out of your hands before you had a chance to halfway pull the trigger and my next bullet would be right between your eyes.”

  His hand shaking on the shotgun, Curly started sweating and shaking as he faced the ice-cool bounty hunter with his hands up, deadly calm and still, the coiled spring stance, the unnerving gunfighter gaze glued on Curly.

  “Put down the shotgun, Curly, you’re not going to use it, I can see it in your eyes. You’re no killer.”

  “But you are. What are you doing here? Who are you?”

  “My name is Joe Noose, Curly. I’m a bounty hunter. I’m here to help.”

  “Help? This ain’t none of your business.”

  “Laura Holdridge hired me, so yes, it is my business. I’m being paid to discover the killer in your outfit and that’s what I intend to do, with or without your cooperation.” Joe Noose screwed on his hat and started to leave. “If you want to help, I can use all the help I can get. If not, stay out of my way. Understood?” As he walked back up the hill, Noose delivered parting words. “For whatever it’s worth, Curly, I know the killer ain’t you.”

  The bounty hunter kept walking.

  Joe Noose didn’t get ten feet before Curly Brubaker rushed up behind him. “I want to help.”

  “Thanks.” Noose turned and extended his hand.

  Curly shook.

  * * *

  The only time anybody in the outfit smiled lately was when their trusty cook Fred Kettlebone served up the chow. His tasty trail foods like chili, steak, stews, and eggs reliably lifted everybody’s spirits. The fat man made the best coffee any of them had ever tasted, including Joe Noose, and he made it strong enough to “float a horseshoe,” as he was given to say, which was the way the men liked it. Not surprisingly, given all the troubles of late, the irascible chef in charge of the chuck wagon had become ever more popular in recent days, despite his porcupine personality becoming even more prickly.

  The cattle drive had pushed hard and covered twenty miles by sundown, picking up lost time and helped by agreeable terrain. The sun was just a glowing thread stitching the horizon to the sky as the outfit heard the dinner bell clang and hurried over to the chuck wagon. Joe Idaho collected some wood from the supply wagon and quickly made a roaring campfire, creating a sense of well-being covering the rovers like a warm blanket in the chill night air.

  When the cook served up a heaping helping of spicy trail chili from the steaming pot, a hungry Joe Noose was the first in line and decided to sit with the others. When he settled by the campfire a piece of paper fell out of his pocket. It was a handwritten note. As he lifted a spoonful of the steaming chili to his lips, he read the scribbled words:

  The chow tonight will kill you.

  Dig in. It’s your last meal.

  “Hold it, boys!” Joe dropped the spoon in his metal bowl of chili and set it on the ground, jumping back from the bowl like it was a live rattlesnake and holding up the note. The other wranglers had just sat down or were getting their bowls of food and nobody had taken a bite yet. “Somebody slipped me a note saying the chow is poisoned. Don’t nobody eat it.”

  “What the hell you talking about, Smith?”

  “That your idea of some kind of joke?”

  The other wranglers—Brubaker, Barlow, Idaho, Maddox, and Leadbetter were getting seated around the campfire about to dig in to the chili. All eyes went to Noose, who picked up his chili bowl like it was a bomb that might explode. The bounty hunter tossed the chili in the fire and passed the note to the other cowboys. Suddenly terrified of being poisoned, all of the drovers put down their bowls without eating.

  “What the hell’s wrong with you j
ackasses?” When the cook, Kettlebone, saw the cowboys refusing to eat his chow, he got furious and ran over to the campfire waving his arms, screaming at the men to eat the great food he cooked, until the dirty looks from the circle of paranoid wranglers shut him up.

  Joe Noose rose to his feet and showed Fred Kettlebone the note. “You better look at this, Fred.”

  The cook pushed his spectacles up his nose and squinted to read the note, then he laughed. “This is bullshit. A prank. The chili ain’t poisoned.”

  The bounty hunter picked up one of the ramrod’s uneaten bowls and shoved it in Kettlebone’s fat hand. “You so sure of that, prove it. Eat it.”

  Kettlebone laughed too loud and broke a nervous sweat, seeing the other wranglers rising to circle him with their hands on their pistols in their holsters.

  Shaking his head, Fred Kettlebone opened his mouth and tossed back the entire bowl of chili in one huge gulp. He burped, farted, and smiled, showing them it was safe to eat. “See?”

  The hungry wranglers cautiously picked up their bowls of chili and were about to dig in, but Joe Noose’s eyes remained fixed on the cook. Swinging his arm in a sweeping arc, the bounty hunter knocked all the chili bowls out of the other cowboys’ hands before they took a bite, the men all looking at Fred Kettlebone in shock—the cook had gone into seizures, foam frothing from his mouth, eyeballs rolled up in their sockets revealing the whites as blood poured from his nose and ears, the spasms worsening until he dropped dead face first into the campfire, becoming engulfed by fire as his fat body became a human torch and his roasted corpse was incinerated by the flames before the yelling men piled on top of each other could pull him free.

  In naked horror, the wranglers all backed away from the steaming corpse beside the campfire and the awful stench of burning human flesh, eyeing each other in mortal dread, retreating into the shadows and some drawing their guns. When the bounty hunter looked over his shoulder he saw the horror-stricken face of the cattlewoman framed by the flames of the campfire as she stood paralyzed in a rigor mortis of shock; Laura Holdridge saw the whole thing and couldn’t tear her eyes away from the charred body.