Mississippi

by J. B. Richard

  As the miles added up behind him, the day had faded into night, and too often, his mind had drifted to her. He’d like to see her again, but that was out of the question. He was a hunted man. He couldn’t exactly go courting. He looked up and wished his life were different.

  There were countless stars in the sky. A wolf howled atop a ridge somewhere. In the distance, an orange speck drew his focus. Tired men were often reckless, but their lives were on the line. That glow in the pitch dark was like a beacon to anyone within miles, including the posse. Clint was smarter than that, Porter too. Nothing so far had worked out according to plan. The fire, the rush of the posse at the trade post, Buckhorn’s fall—it was all unexpected. Usually, they could guess or at least had some idea of what a posse might do. This time, they were all thrown off, and after the tragedy of losing an innocent friend, the gang perhaps wasn’t thinking too smartly.

  Those fools had gone and lit a fire. When he rode up, everyone was there around the warmth of flickering light. It seemed a small comfort after so much loss.

  Chuck Connelly was dead, Buckhorn too, and Butch, none of them were sure about. Except that when he’d gone missing, he had the money. Rascal fed another stick to the flames. Those boys must’ve been exhausted, not just their bodies, but their brains too, because not one of the fools looked up. They didn’t hear his horse either.

  Mississippi slid out of the saddle. He marched up to the fire, where suddenly everyone came to life, realizing he had walked right up among them without notice. They all jumped up from around the flames as if he were demanding attention, then dumbly looked around for some magical thing that could have made him appear in a puff.

  Mississippi kicked dirt over the fire.

  “What the hell!” Rascal shoved him.

  He jabbed Rascal in the teeth. “Three miles. That’s how far back I spotted this fire.”

  Rascal held his hand over his lips, mumbling curses. Dutifully, Porter was at his brother’s side, and the faint glimmer of starlight above was just enough that Mississippi could fairly make out Port’s irritable look. Jay stepped back, hands slightly held up, silently letting everyone know he was out of this. When it came to squabbles amid the gang, Jay was never one to directly choose a side. He liked to ride the fence, then slide in behind whoever had come out on top. Spineless.

  Clint stood between the brothers and Mississippi, practically in their faces, noses no more than a few inches apart. Their leader looked mean and awful miserable. Another day had passed—no Butch, no horse, no money—and the posse hadn’t given up yet. They couldn’t leave this area. They had to stay if they wanted to find the cash. A hundred thousand wasn’t penny change to be forgotten, and who could forget the cost of that payoff, which wasn’t theirs yet?

  Buckhorn was dead, Topper a widow, and Butch, whom they’d ridden with for years, was nothing more than buzzard food for all they knew. Unless someone had found him, all shot up and spilling blood everywhere, then helped him for a greedy percent. Or someone killed him in his weakened state, then took the whole bundle, but most men weren’t cold-blooded.

  Covetousness could turn a man mean. Not many, but mountain men lived in that area. An image of those trappers that Mississippi had seen that day at Topper’s when he’d met Jessa flashed in his mind. They’d paid with a gold eagle, and he’d thought then that was strange. When the gang had been cleaning out the safe at the bank, maybe a few of those coins got thrown in with the bills. Was that why they’d lit a shuck and hightailed it out of there after Mississippi fired his gun on one of his companions. Those trappers had recognized what would happen to them if the gang were to suspect them of anything. They had bought a lot of supplies. Had they found Butch or perhaps just his horse with the money?

  “Take it easy, all of ya.” Clint patted Mississippi’s shoulder and, at the same time, Rascal’s. He had seen that glint in Clint’s eyes many times, usually before he drew his gun and shot someone. Mississippi’s hand was on his pistol just in case.

  “Get on your horses, boys. We’re going huntin’… for a posse.” Clint was never one to run for very long, only as long as it suited him. Maybe from birth, those thick, stubby legs and broad middle made him a natural brick wall, a force to be reckoned with. Fists or guns, he was no tinhorn with either weapon. Tactically, maybe not as sound as Mississippi or Porter, but Clint was usually willing to listen when advised.

  There was no moon in the sky, just the stars. That was good for sneaking up. They quickly moved camp deeper into the trees where Topper would be safe. Her man had died helping them. They owed Buckhorn and would take care of her until she decided differently or they found her a safe place to stay. She was one of them. Being a soiled dove made her ugly and unwanted to most who called themselves decent townsfolk. Unforgivable was her sin, according to them who judged her. An outlaw of sorts, the same as Mississippi, Clint, and the boys.

  When they spotted the posse after two hours of searching through the black, Mississippi counted six men sitting around a fire on their saddle blankets. The odds were almost even. He had seen more men in the canyon earlier, at least a dozen. Where were the others?

  “Rascal, go spook their horses.” Clint was studying the posse’s camp. When Rascal had slipped off on foot into the brush, Clint looked over at Jay. “Stay here with your rifle.”

  Mississippi and Porter followed Clint down a short slope spotted with trees and boulders. On a flat patch of ground, they spread out about ten yards apart, covering every angle of that camp.

  A shot fired into the air, and then the ground rumbled.

  “Our horses!” someone yelled. Men sprang up, guns in hand.

  Mississippi stepped around a tree and fired. Guns went off everywhere. It lasted only a few minutes, long enough to fill the air with smoke. Six men lay dead. Reckon they should have stayed home with their wives and babies.

  Jessa popped into his head. Was she at home by a fire or still traveling? Then he thought of Topper back there alone. It didn’t seem safe. Those others in the posse were somewhere. Being a woman might not save her now that she was associated.

  Their horses thundered back along the same trail. There would be hell to pay if anyone hurt her. When they got to camp, it was empty. Topper was gone. The night was too quiet. She wouldn’t have just up and left. Though, her horse was gone.

  “I don’t like this. She should be here.” Mississippi had his iron in hand.

  Clint nodded.

  “Lots of tracks. I’d guess the other half of that posse was here,” Porter said in a snarling tone. He’d always had a thing for Topper. Port was the most handsome of the lot of them. Women liked him or the look of him, not just whores. Ladies, the respectable type, would glance in his direction. He was slick. Women mooned while he spouted love sonnets he’d read in some book. Topper knew it too and wanted nothing to do with him. She’d married Buckhorn, who was uglier than sin, but he’d been a faithful, one-woman man.

  “They went this way.” Jay pointed along the ground, his horse following the tracks.

  “Why take her? Why not stay an’ fight?” Rascal scratched his ear like a dog with fleas.

  Even Porter, who could usually swallow anything stupid his brother said, looked irritated. “Smarten up, boy. She’s bait to lure us in. They’re probably circlin’ back to camp right now, where there’s reinforcements, more guns, a bigger posse. Uppin’ the odds. Only, they’re gonna find them dead ones we left behind. Do I really have to tell ya what they might do then?”

  Porter was right. Topper was in a heap of trouble. Mississippi wheeled his tired horse and sank spurs. He hoped the animal didn’t play out partway there. Poor Topper was probably scared shitless.

  It was fast going since they knew right where the camp lay. A few hours earlier, they had crouched atop the same slope where they were hunkered down now. Maybe the posse expected them to come riding straight in. Only one guard was posted. He sat on his horse, looking into the dark. They had snuck up on foot after leaving the hor
ses near a creek where, if they moved around slightly, the trickling water would mask any noise.

  Topper was on her horse under a sturdy branch, a noose around her neck. Port had been right about that posse. Their friends were dead, and they aimed to take blood for it. Topper was crying hysterically while the sheriff spouted off, demanding to know where the money was. Of course, she didn’t know. None of them did. The money had vanished with Butch and his horse. Maybe Butch had decided to swindle them after Porter had left him. Odds were he was dead, and those trappers had the loot. That seemed more likely, since Butch had been shot a few times and was bleeding, but he was a wily son of a bitch. Mississippi’s mind wavered so damn often, he honestly couldn’t come to a sound conclusion as to what to think about Butch or that missing money. Had those trappers helped him? Being wounded didn’t mean Butch couldn’t still shoot and kill a man. Or perhaps the trappers cut his trail and had just gone after him, but that didn’t cotton with them having the gold eagle. News of the robbery and the amount stolen likely had spread like wildfire. Who wouldn’t want to get their hands on that much cash?

  Hidden behind a rock, Mississippi looked over at Jay, who lay belly long in the dirt with his rifle propped on a tree root and aimed downhill. Mississippi waved two fingers toward the rope holding Topper. Jay gave a nod, then flame stabbed the night. The twine split as the sheriff smacked the rump of that horse. Topper fell. The rope grabbed her throat for a second before it broke. She crumbled to the ground, and a scream flew out of her.

  Mississippi rushed down the slope in a blaze of gunfire. A bullet burned his chin. Another tugged on his pant leg. Then one snagged his sleeve. He grabbed Topper by the wrist, jerked her up, and ran for cover. The closest trees were on the far side of camp. He pitched her into the pines and rolled with her. They sat up in a puff of dust, choking for air.

  The posse, two of them anyway, skinned out on the run. The other three lay dead. Port and Jay thundered through the camp, kicking their horses, after the posse. Clint was holding his shoulder. Blood stained his shirt. Rascal rode in with Clint’s and Mississippi’s horses in tow.

  “You okay?” he asked, and although the light from the few stars in the sky was faint, Mississippi was aware of Topper shaking, tears running down her face. She gingerly touched where the rope had burned a raw mark into her neck.

  “I’m alive,” she said as though she didn’t believe it, and she stared at him. Her eyes were unnaturally wide.

  “Can you walk?” He wouldn’t force her. They would go when she was ready and able, even if it meant butting heads with Clint. He would want to get out of there.

  At the moment, they didn’t know if any of that posse had escaped to get help. But Burnt Cabins was hours away. Then the posse would have the return ride. Mississippi wasn’t too worried, except about Topper.

  She stiffly nodded. He helped her gently to her feet. She still shook from head to toe, and he didn’t blame her. What an ordeal she’d been through. The fear of God had left its mark on her, and it would take some time for her to move past it.

  When Port and Jay rode up, Topper was in the saddle and Mississippi had just thrown a leg over his horse.

  “Ya git ‘em?” Clint’s impatience could be heard in his harsh tone.

  Porter shook his head. “One of ‘em, I think. He rode his horse right off a cliff. I almost didn’t get stopped myself.” He reined in next to Topper. “You hurt bad?” He squeamishly eyed the rope mark. It was an ending they all feared and needed no reminder of.

  “I’ve been better.” Topper wiped at her red eyes.

  The stars above had shifted. Hours had passed. In a few more, the sun would light up the morning. As a group, they turned their horses.

  A day later and strung out in a wobbly line, they headed into the Blacklog mountain range. Hundreds of miles of loneliness. A trapper’s paradise. Nothing but trees and nature as far as the eye could see and then some. If those trappers had somehow gotten their hands on the money, it wouldn’t be hard for them to disappear for a long while. The gang didn’t know that area too well.

  They rode along a narrow trail banked on one side by the mountain’s rocky shoulder. A deep crevasse with sheer stone walls parted the earth on the other side. Mississippi couldn’t see the bottom, only the treetops down below, which were probably a couple miles off. It was called the Devil’s Cauldron. A place where people had vanished. Indians wouldn’t set foot there, said the ground ate men. A place of certain death.

  Mississippi wasn’t a superstitious man. He figured some dumb Apache had fallen into a sinkhole, never to be seen again, therefore starting the legend.

  What worried him was finding Butch or, more so, the money. He was back there somewhere, and they were here, miles—days—from where the trail of Butch’s mare was last seen. The odds of them finding his path again were slim to none. Maybe they should just hunt the trappers. Might find a fresher trail. By this time, Butch’s route would be stone-cold dead. Too much time had passed, and they’d been spun so many different ways that it was hard to tell what direction Butch might have gone in, if he was even alive.

  Giving up, though, wasn’t an option. They had all suffered too much—long hours in the saddle, too little sleep while keeping watch for any posse, being shot at—and to a degree, they’d all sacrificed of themselves. Sweat, blood, and often tears burst out of Topper, who would look toward the heavens and mumble something about missing Buckhorn. Those frustrations would fuel them to go on, because when a man was bitter, he didn’t just walk away. And they were all discontented.

  None of them could agree on the posse. Even Jay, who didn’t usually say much about anything and went along with whatever was decided, was on his feet, pointing his finger in their faces, cutting into the heated screaming, and flatly stating his opinion. Like Mississippi, Jay thought of those trappers and wanted to go back and trail them, figuring they would lead right to Butch and the money. The fact that Jay had such a profound thought shocked Mississippi. He wasn’t much of a thinking man, and Mississippi didn’t think it such a bad idea.

  Rascal shoved past Jay and stood firm in his belief that, after finding eleven men dead, the posse would give up. Mississippi and Porter were rooted on the other side of that fence. Port was nose to nose, baring teeth, and snarling at his kid brother. Mississippi’s fists were balled at his sides, and he could feel the steam pouring out of his ears. Their thoughts were such that murder flared tempers, stoked them red hot, sometimes to the point of not thinking straight. The widows in that town would be crying for blood. Friends and family would want to console.

  It would only take one man to think of revenge. Then he would whisper that word into the ear of a pal. Out of that single thought, a mob would grow. A lynch party on the hunt, with the sheriff likely leading the way, already angered by the loss of one hundred thousand dollars and fellow lawmen. One deputy had been killed at the bank and one other shot and killed at Topper’s. Those men who’d been sent to their graves were his people, deputies, his friends and neighbors. He would want to see this gang hang as much as those widows. Not for their grief, but to prove he hadn’t handled the situation in the wrong way, costing those townsfolk more lives.

  Clint had thoughtfully listened to both sides but said nothing, seeming to stew. He wouldn’t want to make another mistake. Too many had been made already.

  When they touched foot on the mossy bottom of the Devil’s Cauldron, they made camp near a seeping spring. The ground around it was mushy, and Mississippi’s boots sank. There was a half-moon print left behind by someone who had passed by before them. A horse had stood there, right where Mississippi did. Not just any horse either. Butch’s mare had a lazy habit of not completely lifting its back hooves when it walked. Instead, the animal sort of scraped the ground with each step. That smudge of the mare’s was right there at Mississippi’s feet.

  Mad laughter burst out of him. He laughed so hard the others all stared, probably thought he was insane. He couldn’t stop. He laug
hed until he shook, thinking he would rename this spot Lucky. There were no evil spirits or bad luck lurking there. Good fortune. That horse track symbolized dollars, lots of them, a great sum.

  The next morning, they followed the trail of Butch’s mare. Although they were all in weary shape, their spirits had been lifted by greedy thoughts and the fact that they weren’t riding back toward another posse. After arguing with Porter for over an hour about it, Clint had decided to give Topper enough money to rebuild her trade post somewhere else. Of course, that cut would come out of Butch’s share, since he had, according to Clint, caused them all this headache. If Butch was found dead, then they would split it evenly after Topper got her small take. None of them was forgetting that Butch had been shot up, which could happen to any one of them. Their names and pictures were tacked up on a wall in most every town. Mississippi’s hide was worth twenty-five hundred dollars, dead or alive.

  A week later, they weaved through the trees along the aimless path that Butch or his horse seemed to be walking. Within that time, Mississippi had come across another set of tracks, big and unshod. He recognized those—Jessa’s mule. Was she lost? They were a fair distance from the cave where she had tended to him. Who in their right mind would purposely come into this godforsaken backwoods country alone? They hadn’t seen any trappers, just sign of two traveling together. It might have been the two from the trade post, and they were following after Butch, hunting the cash.

  Mississippi briefly puzzled. The gold eagle. If they hadn’t taken it from Butch, from the sum of stolen cash, then where had they gotten it? It came from someone. Who? Topper was the only one outside of Burnt Cabins that traded in furs.