The Stranger from Abilene

There were two boxes in the wagon. The Apaches opened them and Clayton heard their roars of outrage and sorrow. Knowing what he was about to see, he stepped to the wagon.

A young woman’s body occupied each box. Neither showed signs of violence, and Clayton wondered at that until he caught the smell of rotgut whiskey. Then he knew how the women had been killed. Their abductors had gotten the girls drunk and smothered both of them.

“Lipan,” the old Apache said, “coming up from the south.”

“Where are their men?” Clayton asked. “Why didn’t they protect them?”

“Many Apache no longer fight. The Lipan know their days in the sun are over. White men get father, maybe brother, drunk, then take girls.”

Suddenly angry, Clayton limped to the bodies of the dead men. Behind him he heard shots. He turned and saw the Mexicans sprawled facedown in the dirt.

Grabbing hold of the back of the bald man’s collar, he dragged him to the engineer and his fireman. “Who is he?” he said. “Who does he work for?”

The engineer, a burly man with iron gray hair and a bristling mustache, shook his head. He looked terrified.

“Honest, mister, I don’t know. We were told to bring the refrigerator car here and pick up a couple of boxes.” His eyes pleaded with Clayton. “That’s how it come up, and it’s all I know.”

If the engineer did know more, he never got a chance to reveal it. The Apaches jumped on him and the fireman and began to kill them more slowly than the others, with knives, not guns.

Clayton thought the men would never stop screaming. But they did, eventually . . . an eventually that took two shrieking, screaming, scarlet-splashed hours.

The Apaches had no way of destroying the engine or the boxcar, and contented themselves with shooting holes in both.

Clayton was under no illusions. He’d heard that Apaches were notoriously notional, but, judging by the way the cards were falling, his turn was next. In the end they surprised him.

The young Indian brought him his horse, and then they left without a word, taking the wagon with them. One moment the spur had been crowded with Apaches; the next they were gone, as silently and ghostly as they’d come.

The Indians had picked up the dead men’s rifles, but Clayton scouted around and found the bald man’s Colt. He reloaded, shoved the gun in his holster, then filled his cartridge belt. He left the buckskin near the converted boxcar and stepped inside.

The whiskey bottle was empty, which was a disappointment. After witnessing what had happened to the railroad men, he could’ve used a drink.

Clayton used wood and kindling he found beside the stove and filled the pot with water from the pump outside. He put coffee on to boil, then sat at the table.

A quick inspection of his thigh told him the wound was not infected, and it showed some healing. It still pained him, though, stiffening his entire leg.

Later he poured himself coffee and built a cigarette, inhaling deeply. The sight of the two railroaders haunted him. How could men get cut up like that, their guts coiling from their bellies, and still live? And their eyes . . .

Clayton heard the chime of a bit as someone drew rein outside. Then, “Cage, you still alive?”

Nook Kelly’s voice.

“Just about.”

“What the hell happened here?”

“A lot.”

Clayton drank some coffee and dragged on his cigarette.

“Step inside and I’ll tell you about it,” he said.

Chapter 29

Kelly sat in silence until Clayton recounted his capture by Shad Vestal and the Apache attack on the refrigerator car and wagon.

When the other man stopped talking, Kelly poured himself coffee, then said, “That’s Baldy Benton and Luke Witherspoon lying out there.”

“The names mean nothing to me,” Clayton said.

“They work for Park Southwell, or did. Benton was pretty well known, a hired gun from up Denver way. I don’t know anything about Witherspoon.”

“So it’s Southwell who’s killing Apaches and shipping their bodies east.”

“Seems like.” Clayton waited a few moments, then said, “Well?”

“Well what?”

“Aren’t you going to arrest him?”

“No.”

“Damn it, how come?”

“How do I prove it? We don’t have the bodies of the Apache women and that means no evidence.”

“Hell, I saw the whole thing. I can testify.”

Kelly shook his head. “Cage, your testimony won’t carry any weight in Bighorn Point. As far as the good citizens of the town are concerned, you’re a troublemaker who vowed to kill one of their number. And you assaulted Park Southwell’s wife. A jury would figure you had it in for the old man and concocted a wild story about dead Indians.”

“I still plan to reduce the population by one,” Clayton said.

“Which one? You still think it’s Southwell?”

“I thought it was him. Now I’m not so sure.”

“He was a colonel in the war, won a chestful of medals in a dozen pitched battles. You’re looking for an irregular who rode with the James boys.” Kelly drank from his cup. “Park Southwell is not your man.”

“But he might know who is.”

“Yeah, I’d say that’s a real possibility.”

“I’m heading back to town,” Clayton said. “I still have a job to do.”