Ralph Compton The Convict Trail Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Historical Note

  Trailblazer with a Tin Star

  The day after tomorrow he’d take custody of six dangerous killers. It was nearly 250 miles to Fort Smith, and not a single yard of it would be easy.

  The marshal smiled, rain beating on his lean, leathery face. As a youngster he’d pushed cattle along the Chisholm and Western trails, routes first forged by others. But now he was about to pioneer his own trail—northeast across plains, mountains, and rivers, a dust-and-cuss journey across an unforgiving land that offered nothing except a hundred different ways to kill a man. With an empty wagon, plenty of supplies, and good weather, the trip south from Fort Smith had been relatively uneventful. But heading back would be different now that fall was starting to crack down hard. Buff Stringfellow and his boys were no bargains either. Six desperate men who would do anything to escape the noose would be a handful.

  “I’m blazing the Convict Trail,” Kane said to himself.

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  First published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library,

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  First Printing, December 2008

  Copyright © The Estate of Ralph Compton, 2008

  eISBN : 978-1-440-64061-2

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  THE IMMORTAL COWBOY

  This is respectfully dedicated to the “American Cowboy.” His was the saga sparked by the turmoil that followed the Civil War, and the passing of more than a century has by no means diminished the flame.

  True, the old days and the old ways are but treasured memories, and the old trails have grown dim with the ravages of time, but the spirit of the cowboy lives on.

  In my travels—to Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, and Arizona—I always find something that reminds me of the Old West. While I am walking these plains and mountains for the first time, there is this feeling that a part of me is eternal, that I have known these old trails before. I believe it is the undying spirit of the frontier calling, allowing me, through the mind’s eye, to step back into time. What is the appeal of the Old West of the American frontier?

  It has been epitomized by some as the dark and bloody period in American history. Its heroes—Crockett, Bowie, Hickok, Earp—have been reviled and criticized. Yet the Old West lives on, larger than life.

  It has become a symbol of freedom, when there was always another mountain to climb and another river to cross; when a dispute between two men was settled not with expensive lawyers, but with fists, knives, or guns. Barbaric? Maybe. But some things never change. When the cowboy rode into the pages of American history, he left behind a legacy that lives within the hearts of us all.

  —Ralph Compton

  Chapter 1

  Deputy Marshal Logan Kane was irritated. A man who had long since lost the habit of smiling easily, the face he turned to his elderly companion was masked by a ferocious scowl.

  “I should have gunned him, Sam. I should have drawed my Colt an’ put a bullet in his fat belly.”

  Up on the box of the prison wagon Sam Shaver leaned to his right, spat a stream of tobacco juice over the side, narrowly missing Kane’s horse, and asked, “What fer?”

  The fact that Sam chose to ignore the obvious irritated Kane further. “Highway robbery, damn it. That’s what fer.”

  Sam was not by nature a questioning man, and now he held his tongue. For a few moments the only sound was the thud of mule hooves and the steady banging of the wooden water bucket that hung from a hook at the rear of the wagon.

  Kane spoke into the silence, his voice cracking with anger. “A dollar-ninety-seven to cross the Red. A dollar-fifty for the wagon an’ mules, thirty-seven cents for me and my horse and”—his simmering outrage reached the boiling point and his voice rose to a shout—“he had the gall to charge ten cents for you. Said oncet you clumb down from the wagon you was considered a pedestrian.”

  Sam’s eyes were on the forested landscape ahead. “In all my born days I never did meet an honest ferryman.” He was quiet for a spell, then seemed to make up his mind about something. Finally he said, “You’re right, Logan. You should’ve gunned him.”

  Somewhat mollified that Shaver had agreed with him, the marshal said, “Maybe on the way back. I’ll put a bullet in his greedy hide and then we’ll be on our way.”

  “Crackerjack plan, Logan. I’ll swear on a stack of Bibles that he drawed d
own on you, to make it look good for Judge Parker, like.” The old man smiled. “I never did cotton to a ferryman with a bald head an’ red beard anyhow. Serve him right fer lookin’ like that, I say.”

  To further justify his homicidal intent, Kane said, “When we go back the way we come, I know he’ll charge us sixty cents for the convicts. He’ll say them boys are pedestrians.”

  “Then you should gun him fer sure, Logan.”

  Kane was silent for a few moments, then said, “Of course, I could refuse to pay. Tell him, ‘Send your bill to the judge and be damned to ye.’ ”

  “You could do that very thing, Logan. Save a bullet thataway.”

  “I reckon it’s something a man should study on for a spell, Sam. I mean, which way to go for the better.”

  “I reckon it is. But remember, it’s no big thing to gun a robbin’ ferryman.”

  “Well, I never shot one o’ them afore,” Kane said, turning the thought over in his mind.

  “There’s always a first time for everything, Logan. But if it does come to a killin’, just don’t let it upset you none.”

  Kane glanced at the sky, an upturned ceramic bowl of pale blue ribboned with streamers of scarlet and jade. The moon was already rising, transparent, hovering above the surrounding treetops like a white moth. “Coming up on dark, Sam,” he said. “Best we find a place to camp.”

  “I been smelling water for the last two miles,” the old man said. “We must be coming up on a creek.”

  The trail was a winding wagon and cattle path, cut through thick forests of pine and hardwood, mostly crowded stands of elm, oak, dogwood and ash. Among the tree trunks grew cacti, ferns and wild orchids that nodded their bonneted heads in a gusting wind. The untouched timber around him had a serenity and permanence that reminded Kane of the columns of an old Spanish cathedral he’d once seen down in the Mexican Durango country. That he’d splattered the church’s ancient oak doors with the blood and brains of the bank robber Pancho Ramos had done nothing to spoil his appreciation of the holy place, then or since.

  Now, among the trees, he experienced the same relaxed inner peace he’d felt in the ancient cathedral, only tonight the stars would substitute for candles, and the smell of orchids for the blue drift of incense. He had postponed his decision on the crooked ferryman until later, and he wouldn’t have to deal with the six dangerous convicts he had to escort back to Fort Smith until tomorrow.

  For the present, he was looking forward to coffee, crisp fried salt pork, skillet bread and his blankets.

  As good as he felt, he dared to hope that just maybe the dream would not come tonight. His mouth tightened under his mustache. Maybe tonight it would leave him alone . . . they would leave him alone.

  “Wash up ahead, Marshal,” Sam said. He was leaning forward in his seat, his eyes searching into the shadowed distance. “Maybe you should ride on ahead an’ take a look-see.”

  Kane kneed his sorrel into a trot and rode up on the wash. Both banks were broken down by the passage of wagons and cattle, and only a trickle of water ran over the sandy bottom. He swung to his right and followed the stream into the trees. After a few yards the banks narrowed to less than two feet, but here the water ran clear and several inches deep. The stream gradually arced to the north, through a clearing about half an acre in extent, roofed by a leafy overhang of elm and post oak. There was grass enough for the pair of mules and his horse, dry firewood aplenty and space to park the big prison wagon. It would do.

  Kane rode back to the road, waved Sam forward, then returned to the clearing and swung out of the saddle. He was a tall, lanky man who moved with an easy, loose-limbed grace. A blue Colt hung on Kane’s right hip and his marshal’s star was pinned to his cartridge belt, left of the buckle and covered by his black leather vest. None of Judge Parker’s deputies wore their stars in plain sight. In the Indian Territory a man with a badge was a prime target for bushwhackers, and there was no point in hunting for trouble.

  As Kane stretched a kink out of his back, Sam Shaver drove into the clearing and looked around. “Good a place as any to make camp, Logan.”

  “It’ll do,” Kane said. “Unhitch the mule team and I’ll rustle up a fire.”

  It was fully dark by the time the coffee bubbled and salt pork sizzled in the skillet. The crescent moon had risen higher in the sky, horning aside the first stars, and the coyotes were talking.

  “How’s the coffee, Sam?” Kane asked.

  The old man lifted the lid off the pot, peered inside, then said, “Let ’er bile fer a spell longer.”

  Kane rolled himself a cigarette, lit it with a brand from the fire, then stretched out, leaning on one elbow. Shifting scarlet light played over the hard, lean planes of his face, and his eyes were lost in the shadow of his hat brim. “Back bothering you any?”

  Sam shrugged. “It comes an’ goes. All depends on where that dang Comanche arrowhead decides to shift. If she digs into my backbone, she do punish me some until she moves again.”

  “Well, if it gets bad, you ride and I’ll drive the wagon.”

  The old man shook his head. “I don’t trust that big American stud o’ yours. If I get th’owed, I could be in a heap o’ trouble. Besides, you’re the deputy an’ I’m the mule skinner. That’s how the old judge set it up.”

  Kane managed a rare smile. “And I’m glad to have you along, Sam.”

  The compliment was sincerely given. Sam Shaver had been an army scout, buffalo hunter, saloon owner and sometime mule skinner. He was in his early seventies but was still a man to be reckoned with. A year before, back in the Nations, he’d out-drawn and killed the Texas gunman Elijah Hawks, a man nobody considered a bargain.

  When he wanted a man to work for him, Judge Parker had few qualms about overlooking the odd killing. He had been impressed enough with Sam’s toughness to sign him up as a wagon driver and camp cook at the same salary as a deputy, six cents a mile to the place of arrest and ten cents a mile for the return trip. The old man had since transported prisoners for famous marshals like Bass Reeves, Frank Canton, Zeke Proctor and Heck Thomas. Kane didn’t know if Sam included him in that elite bunch and he’d never asked.

  As tall as Kane, and just as lanky, Sam checked the coffeepot. “She’s biled, Logan.” He poured a cup for each of them, then removed the salt pork from the fire, forking the meat onto a plate. He mixed flour, sourdough starter and salt into the pork fat, then added water. When the bread mix was ready, he laid it near the fire to bake.

  “Grub will be up soon,” Sam said.

  Kane was building another smoke. “I can sure use it,” he said. His eyes angled to Sam’s bearded face; he was hesitant to ask the question on his mind lest it imply fear, or at least apprehension. Finally he asked it anyway. “Sam, you’re around the other marshals a lot. What do they tell you about Buff Stringfellow?”

  The old man looked surprised. “You don’t know about him your ownself?”

  “Only what the judge said, and he’s not an explainin’ man. He said Stringfellow and five others were arrested for murder, rape and robbery, and sentenced to twenty-five years hard labor at the Little Rock penitentiary in Arkansas. Along the way Stringfellow led an escape in which two guards were killed. Then he and the others lit out for Texas, riding double for a spell until they murdered a rancher and stole horses.” Kane licked his cigarette closed. “Five days ago rangers captured the fugitives without a fight at a brothel in the Boggy Bayou red-light district in Dallas.”

  Sam turned the skillet so the bread would bake evenly. “Rangers don’t give up prisoners easy, but they reckon there’s a chance Stringfellow an’ the others might escape the rope in Texas. But they know fer sure them hard cases will hang in Fort Smith. Judge Parker is not a forgiving man when it comes to the killin’ of his deputies.”

  “How come they didn’t swing the first time around?”

  Sam shook his head. “Don’t know. But the judge can be notional by times. Maybe he figgered that twenty-five years in that Litt
le Rock hellhole was worse than hanging. Men are sent there to be forgotten by other folks and smell the stink of their own rot.” He watched Kane’s eyes. “You ever been in prison, Logan?”

  The marshal smiled. “No, I can’t say as I have.”

  “A penitentiary is a wheel within a wheel, a prison within a prison. Them wheels turn real slow and they steal a man’s youth, and then his soul.”

  “How come you know so much about it, Sam?”

  “I did three years in Detroit when hard old Zebulon Brockway was prison governor.”

  “What fer?”

  “A shootin’ scrape an’ a killin’.”

  “Was it fair?”

  “Was what fair? The three years or the killin’?”

  “The killin’.”

  “A man was coming at me with a Greener scattergun in his hands an’ death in his eye.”

  “I’d say it was a fair fight.”

  “So would I, but the jury didn’t see it that way. Happened that I’d gunned the town’s only blacksmith, an’ that cut them boys up considerable.”

  “Three years is a long time. But I don’t see no scars on you, Sam.”

  “Maybe so, but I got them just the same, deep inside where they don’t show. Maybe Stringfellow knew about Little Rock and decided the rope was better. Quién sabe?”

  A restless wind rustled among the trees and set the fire’s flames to dancing. The coyotes were yipping closer, drawn by the smell of cooked meat, and far out in the moon-slanted darkness an owl asked his question of the night.

  “As to Buff hisself, he’s not a man—he’s a dangerous animal,” Sam said. “And them with him are just as bad. I guess that’s why we’re taking them back in an iron cage. Them boys can’t be around civilized folks. Over to the Ruby Mill Canyon country ol’ Buff shot a Cherokee farmer. Then he and the others raped his wife and daughter. The girl was only fourteen and she didn’t live through it. They murdered her mother afterward. Last I heard, Buff had killed eighteen men, including them two deputies, and I believe it. He’s one bad hombre an’ a dangerous combination—a born killer who’s slick with the Colt.”