The Stranger from Abilene Read online

  “Get out of the way, you idiot!” the woman yelled at Clayton.

  Then she was gone, the careening buggy lost behind a billowing cloud of dust.

  Dazed, Clayton slowly became aware of another face, also female, not beautiful, but pretty enough in a tanned, freckled kind of way.

  “Are you all right?” the girl asked.

  “I think so,” Clayton said. He rose gingerly to his feet. “I don’t seem to have any broken bones.”

  “You’re lucky,” the girl said. “That was Lee Southwell. She thinks she owns the whole county.”

  Clayton smiled, rubbing dirt off his pants. “She always drive like that?”

  “Always. I heard she’s killed three horse teams in the last year.”

  “How many pedestrians has she killed?” Clayton said.

  The girl smiled. “Probably a lot.”

  Clayton retrieved his hat and settled it on his head. He extended his hand. “Name’s Cage Clayton.”

  They shook briefly. “I’m Emma Kelly. I’ve heard of you, Mr. Clayton. Somehow I expected somebody bigger and a lot meaner, like an outlaw—” The girl blushed. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “I know you didn’t,” Clayton said, smiling. “I guess you heard why I’m in Bighorn Point and expected some kind of scary bogeyman.”

  “Something like that.”

  Suddenly the time and inclination for talk faded.

  Clayton tried to fill the void. “I was just about to have breakfast. Would you care to join me?”

  “Sorry. I can’t. I work in the hat shop and I have to get back. I just popped out when I saw Lee Southwell nearly run you over.”

  “Well, some other time?” Clayton said.

  “Yes. I’d like that. Some other time.” The girl lifted her skirts and hurried back to the hat shop, and only the memory of her perfume lingered.

  Now that he no longer needed to hide behind his manly pride, Clayton arched his back and groaned away his aches.

  Damn, that had hurt.

  Mom surprised him.

  A pretty, matronly woman with a large bust and an ass an axe handle wide, she served Clayton a hearty breakfast of buttermilk pancakes, steak, and eggs, washed down with excellent coffee. As she refilled his cup, the woman said, “I saw what happened on the street.”

  Clayton nodded. “An accident, was all.”

  “I never like to speak ill of anyone,” Mom said, “but Lee Southwell is a bad one. If she’d killed you she wouldn’t have lost a night’s sleep over it.”

  She glanced around the restaurant, saw that everyone was fully occupied eating or talking over their coffee, and said, “She’s married to Parker Southwell, a cripple twice her age. He owns the biggest spread in the territory, and some say he’s into some mighty shady dealings.”

  Clayton’s interest quickened.

  Could Parker Southwell possibly be the man he was looking for?

  He tiptoed around the subject.

  “Mrs. Southwell is a beautiful woman,” he said.

  Mom nodded. “She’s all of that, and Park dotes on her. Jewels, clothes, fine horses—what Lee wants, Lee gets.”

  “Lucky woman.”

  “Maybe, but she still has to sleep next to an old man with rotten legs and cold hands.”

  “How long has Park Southwell been in the territory?”

  “He was here when I opened this place, and that was ten years ago.”

  “And before that?”

  “Your coffee’s getting cold,” Mom said.

  The woman turned away, poured coffee for a couple of middle-aged drummers, then stepped back to Clayton’s table.

  “Park Southwell isn’t the man you’re looking for,” she said. “And if he was, you’d never get past his foreman.” She studied Clayton’s face. “Name Shad Vestal mean anything to you?”

  “Can’t say as it does.”

  “He’s a gunfighter out of Texas and fast on the draw, though he doesn’t boast of it. Some say he’s faster than Nook Kelly, and some say he isn’t. Maybe one day those two will go at it and settle the argument, but until then, you step wide around Vestal and Park Southwell.”

  “Seems like sound advice,” Clayton said.

  Mom said, “Yes, and here’s some that are even sounder—get the hell out of Bighorn Point and never come back.”

  Chapter 12

  Fate is not content to inflict one calamity on a man; it loves to pile them up.

  Clayton had dismissed his run-in with Lee Southwell from his mind, but now it came back to him with a vengeance.

  The woman stood on the boardwalk outside the hat shop, beating the small black girl he’d seen beside her in the buggy. Lee’s riding crop rose and fell, cracking across the girl’s back. The woman’s face was flushed with anger, her mouth pinched, white-rimmed with a cruelty bordering on sadism.

  Clayton could not stand still and watch anyone, man, woman, or child—or animal for that matter—abused. The little girl was screaming, begging for mercy, but still the riding crop whop . . . whop . . . whopped on her back.

  Clayton’s long stride thudded on the boardwalk.

  As he got closer he heard Lee yell, “You yanked my hair in there, you stupid little—” She raised the crop again, but Clayton’s arm shot out and his strong hand closed on the woman’s wrist.

  “Enough,” he said. “She’s had enough.”

  Events were cartwheeling past Clayton at a dizzying speed, but his overloaded brain had time to register a strange fact—the street was crowded, but no one stopped. People quickly passed the scene on the boardwalk, their eyes averted.

  Did Lee Southwell instill that much fear?

  He had no time to seek an answer. Displaying amazing strength, the woman had already wrenched away from him.

  A split second later, the crop slashed across his left cheek and Clayton felt blood splash hot on his skin.

  “How dare you!” Lee shrieked. “You laid hands on me.”

  “Leave the girl alone,” Clayton said.

  “Why, you . . . you piece of trash!” The riding crop swung again, this time aimed at Clayton’s eyes.

  He had never struck or abused a woman, but there’s a first time for everything. Avoiding the blow, he moved in quickly, effortlessly picked Lee up, and stepped off the boardwalk. Under the saloon hitch rail, there was a deep puddle of dung and horse piss. He carried the woman there and dumped her in the middle of it.

  Lee slapped facedown into the pungent mess, tried to rise, slipped, and tumbled onto her back. Now the woman was beyond rage, beyond reason. Her hands dripping filth, she opened the small purse she carried and came up with a Remington derringer.

  “You bastard!” she screamed, and fired.

  The bullet missed.

  Using both hands this time, Lee cocked the derringer, her killing eyes never leaving Clayton’s face.

  She fired at the man from Abilene again.

  Another miss.

  Frustrated, the woman threw the gun at Clayton’s head. He dodged it easily.

  “Lie in the piss, Mrs. Southwell,” he said. “Cool off for a spell.”

  “My husband will kill you for this,” the woman said, no longer screaming, her voice flat, an ominous sound, like a copperhead rustling through dead grass.

  “If he does, I’ll hang him for murder.”

  Nook Kelly stood, stone-faced and terrible, his eyes moving from the woman to Clayton and back.

  Kelly raised his gaze to the boardwalk. “Minnie, pick up those packages and help Mrs. Southwell get home.”

  The black girl shook her head. “I sure won’t, Mr. Kelly,” she said. “She’s done beat me for the last time. I ain’t nobody’s slave.”

  The marshal looked at Clayton, at the bleeding cut on his cheek.

  He nodded to Lee. “She do that?”

  “Cut myself shaving,” Clayton said.

  “Uh-huh.” This time Kelly nodded to the woman sitting up in the piss puddle. “You do that?”

&n
bsp; “She needed to cool off, was all,” Clayton said.

  “I could lock you up for assault,” Kelly said. “And you, Mrs. Southwell, for attempted murder.”

  Lee got to her feet. Her expensive silk morning dress dripped and she reeked of piss and dung.

  “But you won’t,” she said to Kelly. “Unless you want this town burned down around your ears.”

  “Your threats wouldn’t stop me, Mrs. Southwell,” he said. “But I think enough damage has been done for one day.” He looked at Clayton. “Do you wish to press charges?”

  Clayton said he didn’t.

  “And you, Mrs. Southwell?”

  “My husband will press his own charges—at the point of a gun.” Her blazing eyes fixed on Clayton. “You’re already a dead man.”

  Kelly smiled. “Good. Now that it’s all been settled amicably, I suggest you go home, Mrs. Southwell.”

  “Minnie, get my boxes and come with me,” Lee said.

  “No, Miz Southwell, I’m done with you.”

  “You ungrateful wench, I could—”

  “Home, Mrs. Southwell,” Kelly said. “I’ll send someone to the ranch with your purchases.”

  “I don’t want them now,” Lee said. “Give them to charity or burn them. I don’t care.”

  After Lee Southwell left, Minnie stepped beside Clayton. In Kelly’s hearing, she said, “Mister, thanks for what you done for me, but you had better get out of town. Shad Vestal will kill you for sure.”

  Clayton smiled without humor. “You’re the second person to tell me that today.”

  “Good advice is worth repeating,” Kelly said.

  He wasn’t smiling.

  Chapter 13

  “You think Parker Southwell is the man you’re hunting?” Nook Kelly said. He sat down on the hotel bed and made the springs squeal.

  “He could be,” Clayton said. “I don’t know.” He smiled. “I’m clutching at straws.”

  “Either way, Southwell won’t forgive you for what you done to his wife.”

  “Figured that.”

  “He thinks the sun rises and sets on Lee.”

  “Heard that.”

  “And Shad Vestal is hell on wheels on the draw-and-shoot.”

  “Heard that too.”

  “I think you should get out of Bighorn Point, Mr. Clayton. I mean the whole town is talking about what you did to Lee Southwell. Everybody was glad to see that uppity snot get her comeuppance, but Park will kill you for it.”

  Kelly reached out, took the makings from Clayton’s shirt pocket, and built himself a cigarette. He waited until the other man lit it for him, then said, “I enjoy having you around, but I don’t want you to die for my amusement.”

  “You told me yesterday that I wouldn’t make it out of the territory alive. I think after what happened this morning, my chances are even thinner.”

  “I can ride with you as far as the Kansas border,” Kelly said.

  “If Parker Southwell is the kind of man you say he is, he’ll track me all the way back to Abilene and kill me there. Or try to.”

  “If Shad Vestal is after you, he won’t try. He’ll do.”

  Clayton made no answer and Kelly said, “Anyway, why I’m here, the mayor wants to talk with you.”

  “Now?”

  “Good a time as any.”

  “What about?”

  “Probably to tell you what a good job you did throwing Lee Southwell in a puddle of horse piss and endangering the whole damn town.”

  The marshal smiled. “Maybe he’s gonna give you a gold medal.”

  “Kelly,” Clayton said, “you got a sense of humor buried somewhere, but I’m damned if I can find it.”

  “A bad business, Mr. Clayton. Parker Southwell is a vengeful man and I fear the worst.”

  Mayor John Quarrels leaned back in his chair and talked to the end of his cigar, not Clayton.

  “Marshal Kelly told me he’s given you a week to find the fugitive murderer and rapist you seek.”

  “Now it’s six days,” Kelly said.

  “It’s not an arrangement I care for, but I will not countermand my city marshal’s decision.”

  Now his cold blue eyes lifted to Clayton. “You know that Mr. Southwell, like your . . . ah . . . employer, is a cripple?”

  “Yes, I heard that.”

  “He tangled with a longhorn three years ago, stove him up badly.”

  Quarrels, tall, slim, his black hair graying at the temples, was a spectacularly handsome man. He had an air of genteel prosperity. His well-cut gray suit had been tailored in Boston, his spotless linen mail-ordered from Savile Row in London. He spoke softly, a man used to command and the obedience of others.

  “The question is, Mr. Clayton, what do we do with you?”

  “Help me find the man who was once known as Lissome Terry,” Clayton said.

  “Whoever he is, he’s not in this town,” Quarrels said.

  “Mr. Clayton thinks Park Southwell could be his man.”

  Quarrels shook his head. “He’s not. Mr. Southwell distinguished himself in the late war as a colonel under General A. P. Hill’s command,” he said. “He’s a brother Mason and true blue.”

  “But you think he’ll try to kill me?” Clayton said.

  “Perhaps I can talk him out of it.”

  “And if you can’t?”

  Quarrels shrugged. “Then get out of town fast. I’d rather say, ‘Here’s where Cage Clayton ran’ than ‘Here’s where Cage Clayton died.’” He smiled. “Catch my drift?”

  Kelly said, “Make him a deputy, Mayor.”

  Quarrels was surprised and displeased, and it showed.

  But the marshal said, “Swear him in as my deputy for six days. Park Southwell has always respected the star on a man’s chest. It might give Mr. Clayton some protection.”

  “It’s thin, Marshal,” Quarrels said.

  “I can get him out of town for a couple of days until this blows over.”

  Anger rasped in Clayton’s voice. “I’d like to remind you two that I’m still here. I reckon I’m capable of planning my own future, and it doesn’t include a star.”

  “Two days, Cage,” Kelly said, using Clayton’s given name for the first time. “I’ll talk to Park Southwell and then do some rootin’ around on my own account. If Lissome Terry is in Bighorn Point, I’ll find him.”

  “And when you do?”

  “I’ll arrest him.”

  “Why the sudden change of heart, Kelly?” Clayton said. “I thought you didn’t give a damn.”

  “Maybe I don’t, but I’m still a sworn officer of the law. If Terry’s here, and you can prove that he done what you say he done, he’ll stand trial for rape and murder.”

  “No matter who he is?”

  “No matter who he is.”

  Mayor Quarrels watched cigar smoke curl above his head. He nodded. “Now that I’ve reconsidered, I think your suggestion is an excellent one, Marshal Kelly. Deputize Mr. Clayton, then send him out of town. It will give me a chance to talk to Park and his missus and calm them down.”

  He looked at Clayton. “Well, what do you say? We can do you no fairer.”

  “Cage, like the mayor said, sometimes it’s safer for a man to pull his freight than his gun,” Kelly said.

  “I still plan on killing Terry,” Clayton said. He looked at Kelly. “That’s a thing you’re going to have to deal with.”

  “I will, if and when that time comes.”

  “And I want another week.”

  Kelly looked for the mayor’s reaction, but the man’s face was bland, almost disinterested.

  “It’s a deal, Deputy Clayton,” Kelly said.

  Chapter 14

  Cage Clayton rode north out of Bighorn Point, then followed Sans Bois Creek east until its fork. He splashed across shallow water and drew rein in a stand of willow and cottonwoods.

  According to Kelly, the terminal of the railroad spur should be less than a mile ahead, in rolling long grass country.

&nbs
p; It was not yet noon, but the day was hot under a hammering sun. Nothing moved and the only sound was the small music of crickets in the grass.

  Clayton swung out of the saddle, eased the girth on the buckskin, and let the little horse graze under the trees.

  He fetched his back up against a cottonwood trunk, laid his hat on a bent knee, and lit a cigarette.

  Around him stretched beautiful country, but it was a lost and lonely land, haunted by the ghosts of vanished buffalo herds and the Indians who had hunted them.

  Clayton smiled. Kelly knew what he was doing. Nobody would look for him out here. This was the end of the earth and the beginning of nowhere.

  “If you get the chance, see what’s in them packing cases in the refrigerator cars,” the marshal had told him. “Maybe it’s only beef, but it could be something else.”

  And Clayton had smiled at the man. “You’re making busywork for me, right?”

  Caught in his own deception, Kelly grinned. “Well, I don’t reckon you’re going to find dead Apaches. But you never know.”

  “And it will keep me out of mischief.”

  “Two days, Cage. You can stick it out that long. I’ll pack you plenty of grub and a bottle of Old Crow, unopened, mind.”

  “Will you have Terry when I get back?”

  Kelly shook his head. “I don’t know. But I’ll try my best to find him.”

  “Man can’t say better than that.”

  “Keep safe out there, Cage. I don’t think Vestal will discover where you’re at, but you never know.”

  “Maybe he’ll wish he hadn’t—if he finds me, I mean.”

  “Cage, Shad Vestal can shade you any day of the week, without even half trying.”

  “I’m that bad, huh?”

  “No, you’re pretty handy with a gun. You proved that in the Windy Hall when you killed Seth Wilson, but you’re not in Vestal’s class. But then, few are.”

  Kelly laid a hand on Clayton’s shoulder. “Remember that and you’ll live longer.”

  Now, pleasantly drowsy among the trees, lulled by the creek’s soft song, Clayton knew his best option was to ride north and forget the whole sorry business.