Ralph Compton The Convict Trail (13 page)

Flickering silhouettes of men, many men, passed back and forth in front of the flames. Their voices and laughter, rough from alcohol, were raucous. A bottle arced from near one of the fires, sailed into the woods and shattered against a tree, followed by a roar of merriment.

The marshal's eyes moved beyond the circles of firelight to where horses were picketed. In the dim light he could not see them well, but there seemed to be as many as there were in Mae St. John's remuda back with the herd.

Kane's eyes strained to see into the darkness. Were they horse soldiers? This was an undisciplined bunch, so cavalry was highly unlikely. A posse maybe? It was possible, but unlikely. Those boys by the fires were drovers and a fair piece off their home range. The family men who formed the bulk of posses never cared to wander far from their wives and kids.

Then who the hell were they?

A tall man walked away from the fires a few yards toward Kane, fumbled with his pants, then arched his back and relieved himself. As far as the marshal could make out, the man wore the typical waddie's rough range clothes, but his wide-brimmed, white sombrero and batwing chaps spoke loudly of Texas.

Was it possible these men were returning to the home ranch after delivering a herd and were now letting off steam? The plains were vast, and the punchers could have passed Kane and the others on the trail without being seen. Or were they headed north?

As the man he'd been watching buttoned up and stepped back to the fires, Kane told himself there was one way to find out—he could go ask.

But something held him back, a sense of wrongness about the men, as though their loud talk and laughter were not expressions of joy, but of threat. Kane had the feeling they were liquoring themselves up for a task they would not normally care to carry out sober. Over by the fires, men were dancing, holding bottles. To roars of approval, a few started shooting into the air.

Kane swallowed hard. This was not a group of high-spirited punchers; it was a drunken mob. And in his experience that always meant only one thing—hemp ropes, shooting and killing.

But who could they be chasing in this wilderness?

Unbidden, a thought crept into Kane's mind.

How had Mae St. John really gathered her herd?

Chapter 13

Logan Kane retrieved his horse and rode north under a brightening sky. The night was shading into dawn as he rode into camp and put up his horse.

Buck was already awake and had the coffee on and a mess of sourdough biscuits baking on the fire in a Dutch oven.

Kane looked around him. The lean-to was empty but there was no sign of Mae. She and Ed Brady were probably out with the herd. Sam was packing his blanket roll into the wagon and for some reason Stringfellow was cursing softly.

Kane strolled to the fire. The eggshell blue sky was streaked with ribbons of scarlet and a single sentinel star was still awake to the north.

“Coffee ready?” Kane asked Buck.

The old puncher nodded. “It's biled.” His eyes lifted to the marshal. “You been riding out.” It was a statement, not a question.

Kane lied easily. “Thought I'd check the trail a few miles up ahead.”

Buck absorbed that, blinking, then said, “Wind's from the south.” He watched Kane nod, then said, “I'd say it's an ill wind.”

Startled, the marshal stared at Buck, a reaction the man noted. “I got a feeling.” He pointed to the star. “See that? It will come up a-lookin' fer me tonight, but it won't see me on account of I won't be here.”

Kane managed a small smile. “Why, where you goin', Buck?”

The man dropped to a knee, lifted the lid on the oven and peered inside. “I don't know the answer to that question an' I never have,” he said.

It seemed Buck was all through talking. Kane poured himself coffee. “Miss Mae around?” he asked. “Or is she with the herd?”

“She's close,” Buck said, never a talking man in the morning.

Kane wanted to gauge the woman's reaction when he told her about the men he'd seen. He circled the camp and saw no sign of her. But then the sound of a woman's singing drifted from the pines and the marshal walked in that direction.

Shadows still lingered among the trees and only now were birds stirring in the branches. The stream meandered to Kane's left and he followed it, the sound of Mae's song reaching his ears from just ahead of him. She was singing “Aura Lee” in a high, sweet voice and for a moment Kane, who knew and liked the song, stopped, listening. Then he coughed loudly and moved closer.

Mae sat beside the stream, her naked back to him, running a wet washcloth over her breasts and shoulders. “Ma'am,” Kane said. The woman did not turn her head, nor did she try to cover herself. “What is it?” she said.

“I surely admired your singing, ma'am.”

“Thank you.”

The marshal hesitated a moment, his eyes on Mae's smooth, ivory skin and the beautiful curve of her back as it narrowed to her waist. Her auburn hair cascaded over her shoulders, the ends damp and curling. He swallowed hard, then said, “We got riders on our back trail, ma'am. A passel of them an' real close.”

Mae's hand stilled, but she betrayed no other emotion. “What manner of men?”

“If I had to guess, I'd say Texas punchers. All of them drunk.”

“How many?”

“A bunch. Maybe eighteen or twenty.”

“Rustlers?”

For some reason that thought had not occurred to Kane. His lawman's instinct had told him the men were not two-bit outlaws planning to lift a herd. They were something else . . . something more sinister and infinitely more dangerous.

“No, not rustlers. At least, I don't think so,” he said. His eyes bored into the back of the woman's head. “Ma'am, how did you gather your herd?”

Mae still did not turn, but her back stiffened. “I already told you, Marshal. Most of those cattle belong to my friends and neighbors from ranches surrounding my own.”

“Ma'am, I got the feelin' your friends and neighbors are right behind us, an' that's a hangin' bunch if ever I seen one.”

If Kane was hoping for a reaction, he wasn't disappointed. Mae reached for her shirt and buttoned into it. Then she turned and faced the marshal. “We're moving out, right now.”

Right then, Mae St. John was more beautiful than Kane had ever seen her. Her damp shirt clung close to her firm breasts and the morning light slanting through the trees highlighted her hair with streaks of burnished gold. Her eyes shone with a light that was all their own, bright, luminous and achingly lovely.

“Ma'am, if that's a rustled herd and them boys want it back real bad, as I suspicion they do, you won't get far. They could be here in an hour, maybe less.”

Mae's eyes hardened, in part anger, part determination. “The herd is all I have. It's all that stands between me and poverty, and I'm not giving it up to anybody.” She took a step closer. “Marshal, let Buff and the others out of the cage. They're all top gun hands and we'll need their skill.”

Kane shook his head. “I can't do that, ma'am. When those Texans get here, we'll give back the herd and hope that I can show my badge an' talk them out of a hangin'.”

“They won't hang a woman.”

“No, I guess maybe they won't. But they'll sure string up Buck and Ed Brady, depend on it.”

“Let Buff and the others out of the cage, Kane, I'm begging you.” Mae moved close and laid the tips of her fingers on the marshal's chest. She tilted back her head, met his eyes and smiled. “I saw how you looked at me back there at the stream. I can read it in a man's eyes when he wants what he sees. Believe me, Marshal, I can be grateful. I can show more ways to be grateful than you ever imagined.”

“Mae,” Kane said, using the woman's name for the first time since he'd met her, “you're giving back the herd you stole and we'll hope to God that's enough.”

“Go to hell, Kane,” the woman snapped. She brushed past him and then he heard her yell to Buck to break camp.

But Mae St. John was too late . . . too late for her and too late for Ed Brady and Buck.

 

The riders swept into camp from all directions, Brady with them, dragged behind a horse. As Kane stepped out of the trees he saw Sam was surrounded and had already unbuckled his gun belt. Mae stood beside Buck, her eyes scared, her lips white.

“Good to see you again, Mae.” This from a big man riding a raw-boned black. “You sure played hob.”

“Good to see you too, Clay,” the woman said. She was obviously scared but was trying desperately to brazen it out. “What brings you here?”

The man called Clay smiled. He was big in the chest and shoulders, dressed in expensive gray broadcloth. His face was ruggedly handsome, the lips under his blond mustache full and sensuous, with a hint of cruelty. He looked what he was, an arrogant, wealthy man who walked a wide path and was used to getting his own way.

“What brings us here?” the man called Clay said. “Why, Mae, I thought you knew. We came to take back the cattle you stole from us.”

Kane walked to the edge of camp. The quick eyes of a small, thin man sitting his horse beside Clay flicked to the marshal, then lingered.

There were twenty riders in the bunch, a few swaying in their saddles, their faces ragged from whiskey and a lack of sleep. Perhaps, more than any of the others, old Buck saw where this was headed. “It's all a misunderstanding, Mr. Cullen,” he said. “A mistake, you understand.”

“You shut your trap,” Clay Cullen snapped. “I'm talking to the lady.”

“Talk to me,” Kane said. He stepped closer to Cullen. The gaze of the small man followed him.

Cullen's head moved slowly in the marshal's direction, as though he was in no hurry to see who had just spoken. But when he did look, his eyes dropped to the gun on Kane's hip. “Who the hell are you?”

“Name's Logan Kane. I'm a deputy marshal for Judge Parker's court.” He eased back his vest, revealing his star. “I'm taking escaped prisoners to Fort Smith to be hanged at the judge's convenience.”

“You throw in with this nest o' thieves?” Cullen asked.

“We're headed in the same direction.”

The small man sat straighter in the saddle, suddenly interested. “You the Logan Kane that killed Jake Grant over to El Paso way?” he asked. He had an odd way of talking, a low, snake-hiss between his teeth.

“That was me.”

“Ol' Jake was fast on the draw.”

“Maybe so, but a man with a six-gun shouldn't go up against a man holdin' a Greener scattergun loaded with double-ought buck. I guess ol' Jake wasn't exactly sure about that rule.”

Cullen turned his head to the small man. “Can you take him, Lewt?”

Without a moment of hesitation he answered, “Sure.”

Cullen nodded, satisfied.

“Take back your cattle and then ride out,” Kane said. “There's no need for violence here.”

He knew the chances were slim that Clay Cullen would pay heed to him, but then Mae spoke and gave herself no chance at all.

“You're taking back nothing,” she said, a flat statement that belied the temper hot in her face. “Clay Cullen, for years you and the rest of them with you here fenced off my best pastures, cut my water and slapped your own brands on my yearlings. You drove off my hands and rustled my cattle and finally pushed my back to the wall. Well, I've now taken what's rightfully mine.”

In the abrupt silence that followed, Kane looked around the circle of riders. They were tough, sun-scarred men raised hard to survive in a land that offered nothing for the taking and where compromise of any kind didn't enter into their way of thinking. In their faces he saw much of the solemnity of judgment but little of understanding and mercy.

Cullen was smiling. “A pretty speech, Mae, and maybe there's a grain of truth in what you say.” The smile slipped and the man's face turned to stone. “You're a rustler and horse thief, and I'm going to hang you, Mae. You and the two with you.” He didn't look at Kane. “As to the lawman, I'll study on that for a spell.”

Ed Brady, his face swollen from the beating he'd taken, spoke for the first time. “Cullen,” he yelled angrily, “let me get closer to you so I can spit in your eye.”

A kick in the head from the nearest rider sent Brady sprawling to the ground.

Time was running out on him fast and Kane had to make a play. Knowing it was hopeless even as he did it, his hand flashed to his Colt, catching the gunman called Lewt and the others flat-footed. “Cullen,” he said, “rein in your hounds or I'll shoot you right off that hoss!”

A moment later something heavy and hard crashed into the back of Kane's head . . . and the ground opened up and swallowed him whole.

Chapter 14

The marshal woke to pain.

His head felt like an anvil being pounded by a hammer, and green and yellow nausea curled in his belly. His eyes fluttered open. A pale blue sky arched above him, smeared by wispy white clouds, and the sun rode high, gleaming like a white-hot double eagle . . . not that Kane had seen one of those in a long while. The judge paid in silver, and little enough of that. Why was he so penny-pinching all the time? Well, it must be said in his favor that the court depended on the federal government for funding that was seldom paid and . . . the judge liked his sherry wine. How much did sherry wine cost? Kane admitted that he didn't know, but he would have to find out soon. . . .

The marshal groaned as he stopped his mind wandering any deeper into the realm of the bizarre. He forced himself to return to sanity, to the thudding agony of his head and a memory that was broken all to pieces. Slowly, he began to fit the fragments together, like a child he'd once seen in Fort Smith do with one of Mr. Milton Bradley's newfangled jigsaw puzzles.