The Crimson Trail

by Eric Red

  Gasps of shock went up around the arena as the cattlemen rose to their feet, and Laura figured there was every chance she was about to get shot, but hell, it was worth it.

  The cattlewoman stepped over and stood above the cattle baron as he emerged from the stinking pile of dung, spitting it out, unable to talk with a mouth full of crap. She couldn’t resist. “Like I always said, Calhoun”—Laura chuckled—“you’re full of shit.”

  That’s when she heard the claps. A few of the cattlemen were actually clapping, others started laughing, and to Laura Holdridge’s stunned astonishment, the entire audience of the Cattlemen’s Association, seven hundred strong, were applauding and cheering, whistling and shouting cries of “Hear hear!”

  It looked like she wasn’t the only one who hated Crispin Calhoun; everybody did.

  Well, not everybody.

  One group of thirteen sour, bitter old cattlemen dressed in funereal black sat with their arms crossed, giving her the same evil look Calhoun gave her, and they were very displeased. She figured these were probably his supporters. But majority ruled, and the rest of the cattlemen on all sides of the arena were giving her a thundering standing ovation that shook the rafters. Apparently realizing they were the minority, the malignant Calhoun contingent rose and walked out under a black cloud.

  Can’t please everybody, she figured.

  The cheers and applause still booming inside the tent was what greeted Crispin Calhoun as he stumbled to his feet and wiped the cow shit out of his ears and eyes. With his sight and hearing back, he could now see and hear why everybody in the Cattlemen’s Association was laughing at him, applauding the sight of him covered with shit. Calhoun crumbled, his priceless expression of unimaginable humiliation was for Laura reward in itself. It was a biblical punishment. Calhoun’s disgrace was complete. His dignity forever lost. His reputation permanently soiled, pun intended. The man was finished. His rancher peers, if he was still a peer after this debacle, would never let him live it down, laughing about it long after he was in the grave; it would never end. Up until a few moments ago he was the most powerful and feared cattle baron in the American West, and now Crispin Calhoun was a joke.

  She didn’t feel sorry for him. He had this coming.

  Covering his ears to drown out the deafening applause that mocked him mercilessly, Crispin Calhoun made his retreat. As he slunk from the arena covered in dung, he threw Laura a parting glance. His eyes were horror holes, and when she saw the bottomless pain in his gaze, she understood what hurt him the very most.

  She smiled. “That’s right, Calhoun, you got your ass kicked by a woman, and everybody saw it.”

  Her words made him hiss like a demon hit by holy water, and the foul little troll of a man scuttled out of the tent and withdrew.

  But before Crispin Calhoun could make his exit from the tent, five men stepped out and blocked his way; the cattle barons in the Cattlemen’s Association he’d ridden the train with were happy men indeed. They had won the bet. Calhoun had lost—not just lost the five hundred steers he’d tried to steal from Laura, but twenty times that number of his own cattle, a debt now due and payable; in his own terms, a million and a half pounds of flesh that this time he had to pay. The disgraced cattleman, completely covered in shit, stood before his well-dressed colleagues, and could do nothing but endure their mocking attentions. Sherman Rutledge reached into his jacket and with a flourish produced the promissory note and crowed, “You owe us ten thousand cattle, Calhoun!”

  Across the tent, Laura saw the comical wretch of an evil cattle baron in conference with five other cattle barons who strutted like roosters and looked mighty pleased with themselves. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but judging by Calhoun’s aspect of misery, the conversation was to his considerable disadvantage. The cattleman squirmed like a cockroach covered in filth, waving his arms like a bug pinned to the wall, but the more he made gestures of protest the more the men laughed, until legal papers and a pen were pressed into his grubby little hands and, defeated, he scribbled signatures.

  The cattle barons pocketed the signed papers in their elegant coats and rejoined the cheering crowd, and these tycoons applauded the cattlewoman on stage louder than anyone.

  Suddenly feeling the weight of Crispin Calhoun’s baleful stare, Laura Holdridge turned her gaze to pick him out of the back of the crowd, and even at this distance, as small as he was, she met the full force of his hellish glare, his foul eyes fixed on her and then he was gone.

  A little voice inside Laura’s brain told her to expect this wasn’t over . . . that perhaps it wasn’t the best idea to lay a hand on a man as powerful and dangerous as Crispin Calhoun, let alone knock him in a big pile of shit. But feeling so good she figured she’d worry about it tomorrow, Laura ignored the voice inside her.

  She was too busy listening to the roar of applause as the cattlemen were still cheering her. Bewildered, Laura Holdridge stood in the middle of the arena where she was the center of attention, looking around her in confusion at all the cattlemen on their feet clapping. Why were they still applauding? Calhoun had left, so it didn’t make sense to keep ridiculing him. Then Laura realized. Her hands went to her mouth. “Oh my God.” They weren’t clapping at Calhoun.

  The applause was for her!

  These men all must know about her ordeal driving her herd of cattle down a crimson trail, the insurmountable obstacles she overcame getting them to Cheyenne, the guts and sheer toughness that got the livestock to auction here today. They were cattlemen, of course they knew. Her husband, Sam Holdridge, had been a member. His counterparts were probably laying bets and giving odds on the chances of his wife’s success or failure.

  The Cattlemen’s Association was cheering her.

  She had been accepted.

  It meant she was one of them now.

  Laura stood basking in the clapping, foot-stomping roar of approval of the cattlemen. It was the proudest, happiest moment of her life. Choked up with emotion, it was all she could do not to cry; as her eyes filled with moisture, it took every ounce of willpower and self-control to hold back the tears. No tears, not today of all days, she told herself. You’re a cattleman. Stand tall in your boots and show them who you are. Instead, Laura Holdridge raised her arms high above her head and waved to the crowd with the biggest smile that showed all her teeth, blowing kisses, curtseying and bowing, spinning deftly on her boots in a graceful rotation to face cattlemen on all sides and the showering of glory she wanted never to end, and as she pirouetted once again she saw Noose.

  Joe was standing at the mouth of the tent leaning laconically against the support with his arms crossed, watching her big moment. Noose was happy for her; she could read it on his face. Breathless from all the adulation, Laura gave him a wave. He gave her a wink. She made another full revolution in the arena to uninterrupted applause. The next time Laura Holdridge looked over at the tent entrance, Joe Noose was gone.

  CHAPTER 29

  When he saw the Tetons, Noose knew he was home. It was early March. Those titanic mountain crags towered so high into the clouds it looked like they held up the sky. He had been gone for almost a year from Jackson Hole, by his reckoning. It had been fall then. Now spring was in the air. Everything was very green. The familiar smells of the Snake River and the whispering pines gave him succor. He had almost reached his destination.

  His vision was blurry and his center of gravity kept shifting so he had to grab the saddle horn to hold on. Joe needed nobody to tell him he was so tired he was delirious. He was ready to fall off his horse. The bounty hunter had ridden a long hard trail and he was tired through and through. The first thing Noose intended to do when he got back to Jackson was sleep for a week. Then he needed some time off. Sometimes, a man had to hang up his guns and spurs and put his feet up for a while. After the Butler Gang, Bonny Kate Valance, The Brander, and taking a ride with Laura Holdridge down the crimson trail, all in a row, Joe Noose needed a break.

  It was hard to keep his eyes
open, so he didn’t try. Copper knew the rest of the way.

  Joe Noose never collected the thousand dollars Laura Holdridge still owed him on the bounty before he rode out of Cheyenne. The satchel with the four thousand dollars was stashed in his saddlebags. The cash was enough. It was never about the money. Not for him.

  It was enough to know he’d helped Laura.

  He hoped he’d see the cattlewoman again. She had the heart of a lion, true spirit, and a real piece of woman she was, a rare breed. Joe Noose and Laura Holdridge’s paths would cross again sooner than he imagined, but there was no way he could know that as he rode through the bright sunshine and fresh crisp air down into the valley.

  A few hours later he was back in Jackson. Copper rode through town. Taking a look around, the bounty hunter got his first look of Jackson in a long time. The town lay at the base of the big valley in the shadow of the Tetons. There were a lot of people out on the street. Now he could fall off his horse if he had to. The place looked just like he remembered it. A few new buildings had gone up, but not much had changed. Copper trotted at a comfortable clip, and Noose saw the stallion was happy to be back in familiar surroundings. The horse went straight to the U.S. Marshal’s office as his owner knew he would.

  The first glimpse he got of Marshal Bess Sugarland was her with an axe. She was chopping firewood by herself in back of the U.S. Marshal’s building. Her attention on splitting logs, she didn’t see Joe Noose sitting on Copper but a hundred feet away.

  Noose was so dog-tired he was seeing double, but two Bess Sugarlands was even better than one. A sight for sore eyes. Right at this very moment, Joe was so happy to see Bess again all he wanted to do was look at her, so he sat on his horse and made the moment last.

  Bess grabbed an armload of chopped firewood and came his way, eyes downcast. Copper whinnied, clearing its throat to get the marshal’s attention. She looked up. Bess stopped dead in her tracks, arms full of firewood. At the sight of Joe, she lost control of her emotions and Noose saw the love flood her face like the sun breaking through the clouds a quick instant before she recovered her composure, then Bess Sugarland was back to her usual self, giving Noose a look of friendly disregard.

  “What took you so long, Joe?” She turned with the firewood and walked back into the U.S. Marshal’s office.

  Acted like she seen him only yesterday. Just like her.

  Joe Noose just smiled.

  It felt damn good to be home.

  Keep reading for a special excerpt. . . .

  Joe Noose hunts down the first known serial killer

  on the American frontier—in this trailblazing

  thriller from acclaimed author Eric Red . . .

  SCARRED FOR LIFE

  A new kind of evil has come to the Old West.

  A killer as cold and hard as the Wyoming winter.

  He wanders from town to town.

  Slaughters entire families along the way.

  With grotesque glee, he brands the letter Q

  upside down in his victims’ flesh.

  Joe Noose knows the killer’s identity.

  He recognizes the killer’s brand. He bears the

  same scar from his childhood—and he’s determined

  to stop this madman once and for all.

  Two U.S. Marshals have agreed to help Joe.

  But they’ve never hunted a killer like this before.

  A sadist who kills for pleasure—and scars you for life . . .

  Look for BRANDED, on sale now.

  PROLOGUE

  The kid was thirteen, younger than the others, but the only one who had killed a man. His outlaw pals Clay, Jack, and Billy Joe were all between eighteen and twenty-one years old; only one of them, Clay, knew his exact age. The others were runaways but the kid was an orphan who had never known his own parents. Even though he was the youngest, he had size on his friends, and at already six feet stood a head taller than any of the other three. If the boy had a name, he didn’t know it, so Billy Joe, Clay, and Jack just called him Kid. The others knew he had been on his own since he could walk and like them, could handle himself. And the kid was a lot meaner. He hit harder in a fight. The Colt Peacemaker in the thirteen-year-old’s fist was, of all of them, the only hand the gun looked like it fit.

  The four youths were robbers, horse thieves, and petty criminals. Over the last year, the motley gang prowled like a scruffy wolf pack across the Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho territories, pulling random crimes and taking down small-time scores. Nothing heavy, kid stuff. Holdups of unarmed civilians the ruffians happened to encounter were their stock-in-trade. For the three years since they joined so-called forces, the young delinquents had stayed a step ahead of the law, avoiding arrest because their crimes were nickel-and-dime in nature, and law enforcement manpower was stretched too thin over the frontier to bother with penny-ante crimes. Plus most folks made them for kids. Kids with dumb luck. But their luck was about to run out.

  Living hand to mouth, sleeping outdoors, roving aimlessly, by spring of 1865 the hooligans drifted to western Wyoming and had the poor judgment to try their hand at something bigger.

  Tonight, the gang was moving up to rustling. The four young outlaws had spotted the small Wyoming ranch with the hefty herd of steer quite by chance when they had ridden off a washed-out trail and cut across a plain, trying to make their way south. It had been noon when the thirteen-year-old kid had spotted the stockade full of longhorns through a thicket of trees and whistled quietly for his friends. Clay had the idea first. Jack and Billy Joe said what the hell. The kid just shrugged.

  None of the greenhorn outlaws had ever rustled cattle before or given thought to how such a crime might be managed or the stolen cattle sold even if it was managed; rustler just sounded good as a word and the young fools figured they could add it to their list of crimes that would be on their wanted poster one day. When they had one. It was a constant source of irritation to Clay that the gang didn’t have a wanted poster. Nobody knew who they were and Clay wanted the gang to make a name for themselves. Trouble was, they couldn’t think of one. Gangs usually had places or last names as the name of their gang and since the four weren’t from anywhere and none of the boys knew their last names, coming up with a name for the gang was proving to be a challenge.

  The youngest didn’t care about making a name for himself for he was amoral and didn’t care about anything.

  The kid thought nothing of their crimes. The thirteen-year-old had no concept of right or wrong. Such notions never entered his thinking, or whatever passed for it inside his thick skull. He just did what he did to survive like he’d always done. The boy couldn’t read. Had not had a day of schooling. Had never been in a church. He trusted in his own speed, strength, and violence. At twelve, he had killed a man and felt neither good nor bad about it other than glad it was the other guy who was dead, not him. The kid rode with the other boys because he just kind of fell in with them; he had no feelings about his friends to speak of; in fact, preferred to be alone. The thirteen-year-old was a brute, a rough figure of a human being God had sculpted out of clay but forgotten to fill in the features.

  They waited until sundown.

  When it was good and dark, the four young outlaws gave their horses a nudge with their spurs. Broke cover as they rode out from where they had waited out of sight in the woods. Drawing their guns, the gang kept low in their saddles and trotted out onto the grounds of the ranch, sticking to the shadows. The place was pretty big. A large buck-and-rail stockade filled with cows. A two-door barn adjacent. A farmhouse on the far side of the corral on the hill. Everything was quiet. The kid looked over the spread in the hazy moonlight and didn’t see any people in the area. Just lots of steers in rows of shoulders and hindquarters and longhorns stretching off into the darkness. One of his friends said something about them having so many cows they weren’t going to miss a few but the kid couldn’t hear or see who said it because he was riding in the rear and saw only the backs of the others’ heads
in the dim. They were riding around the stockade to find the gate and a way to get in, the thirteen-year-old guessed. He just followed the others’ lead, not caring one way or the other.

  The hooves of their horses squelched in the mud. The smell of cow shit was strong.

  A slap of a hand on a mosquito made the kid’s gaze snap front as Billy Joe wiped the bug off the flesh of his neck.

  The kid grabbed the coil of rope in his saddle, not knowing how to rustle a cow but figuring a lasso was probably part of it.

  It was almost too dark to see, but not quite. Resuming his inspection of their surroundings, the kid looked for any sign of people. A quarter of a mile off, the large timber ranch house sat atop the hill overlooking the buck-and-rail cattle stalls. A light burned in a kerosene lamp in a window but there was no movement. He couldn’t see a living soul. The smell of cow dung and dirty cattle hides filled his nostrils. The lowing of the steers was intermittent; sounds of their penned movement covered any noise their horses’ hooves made in the mud.

  His friends’ horses slowed.

  The would-be rustlers rode up to a gate made of hewn wooden posts with a sign atop the youths would have read as Q-RANCH had any of them been able to read.

  Fatefully, the kid regarded the Q letter’s circle and squiggle and thought it reminded him of an upside-down hangman’s noose.

  Seeing the flash before he heard the gunshot, his saddle jerked downward as his horse dropped dead beneath him, tossing the kid headlong to the ground.

  The thirteen-year-old hit hard but his skull was hard. Busy dodging rearing horses, the kid rolled out of the way to avoid getting trampled as hooves of the panicked animals came down and pounded the earth near his head. Then the boy was dodging the falling bodies of Clay, Jack, and Billy Joe as they got thrown from their saddles. The three good-for-nothing nags galloped off into the darkness in fear.