The Stranger from Abilene

The marshal waited until he was seated on Clayton’s only chair, a cup of coffee steaming on the table, before he spoke again.

“Parker Southwell is dead,” he said. “Dead and buried.”

It took a while for Clayton to register that. Finally he said, “How? When?”

“How—he was shot. When—two days ago over at Smokestack Hollow.”

“Who shot him?”

“The way Shad Vestal tells it, a bunch of white renegades attacked a train up at the spur. Apparently they’d heard a rumor that Park Southwell was shipping gold in a refrigerator car.”

“We know that isn’t true,” Clayton said.

“Don’t we, though?”

Kelly sipped form his cup, then made a face. “Hell, how old is this coffee?”

“Only a couple of days. So, what happened?”

“Again, how Vestal tells it, they tracked the renegades to a dugout saloon in Smokestack Hollow, the gallant Colonel Southwell tied to his hoss. Fearlessly—Vestal’s word, not mine—the old man led the attack on the saloon and got killed in the first charge, him and a couple other men, one of them a fast gun by the name of Benny Petite.”

“And the renegades?”

“Wiped out to a man, along with four women that got caught in the cross fire.”

“It’s a pack of lies,” Clayton said.

“No, it ain’t. I rode out to the dugout and there’s blood and bullet holes everywhere.”

“And the bodies?”

“Vestal said they buried them, along with Southwell and Petite. I saw the grave and there’s surely a bunch of folks down there.”

“Why didn’t he take the old man’s body back to Lee?”

“Too hot, Vestal said. He didn’t want to lug Park’s body through the heat, said it would end up smelling bad and upset his widow.”

“Thoughtful of him.”

“Yeah, and damned convenient. Ties it all up nice and tight.”

Kelly was silent for a few moments, then said, “Needless to say, Shad Vestal is a hero in Bighorn Point and Lee is acting the grieving widow to the hilt. Now there’s talk that the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad wants to erect a statue to the gallant Colonel Parker Southwell outside the church.”

“On a horse?”

“Probably.”

“Southwell must have known it was Apaches attacked the train, and if he didn’t, Vestal certainly would. Why murder a bunch of people in a saloon?”

“Blame Apaches and right away everybody’s screaming, ‘Uprising!’ If the army got involved, questions would be asked, and Southwell’s involvement in the body trade could’ve got him hung.”

Clayton thought for a while, then said, “I’m going back to Bighorn Point. I still have a job to do.”

“Hell, Cage, there’s easier ways to earn a thousand dollars. Rob a bank, for Pete’s sake.”

“It’s not just the money. There’s something else, something I never mentioned to you before.”

“Ah, now you’re getting interesting again,” Kelly said, lifting the makings from Clayton’s pocket. He began to build a cigarette. “For a while there, you really did start to get boring, Cage. So, let’s hear your story.”

“You ever think of getting your own tobacco?” Clayton said.

“No.”

After Kelly lit his smoke, Clayton began to roll his own.

“What I told you about getting a thousand dollars to kill a man in Bighorn Point is true,” he said.

“Ah,” Kelly said, a meaningless sound.

“What I didn’t tell you was that the woman who was raped by Lissome Terry was my mother.”

“Now you’ve surprised me,” Kelly said. “Go on.”

“After Ma died, my father retreated into himself. He became a bitter, remote, and hostile man, obsessed with only one thing: making money. He’d taken refuge in a cold, dark place inside him, and then found he couldn’t live happily in his own skin.”

“And being crippled didn’t help, huh?”

“Not a bit.”

Clayton drew deep on his cigarette. “I think he may have blamed me for being in Abilene that day picking up supplies. Maybe I could have made a difference. I don’t know. Finally, when I was seventeen, I couldn’t bear to stay with him any longer. I rode on down to the Panhandle and signed on as a hand with Charlie Goodnight. Went up the trail three times, kept a distance from whiskey and women, saved my money, and started my own brand by way of Abilene Town.”

“Then you went belly up,” Kelly said.

“Yeah. Pa sent for me, said he’d give me a thousand dollars to get the Rafter C back on its feet if I’d kill a man.”

“Lissome Terry.”

“Yeah. Pa said the fact that Terry still cast a shadow on the earth ate at him like a cancer. He said he saw Ma all the time and she looked angry. He said her soul would never rest in peace until Terry was dead.”

“How did you feel about Terry back then? Did he stick in your craw?”

“I swore that if I ever ran across the man, I’d kill him. But I had a ranch to build, and riding on a vengeance trail was no part of my plans.”

Kelly ground out his cigarette butt under his boot. “The Pinkertons are damn sure that Terry is in Bighorn Point?”

“Seems like. One of their men got too close and disappeared, and they backed off after that. But they still swear Terry is living in the town.”

Kelly rose to his feet.

“All right, Cage, let’s go find him,” he said.

Chapter 35