“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
The hazy peaks of the Sans Bois smudged the horizon as Clayton and Kelly rode across rolling country in the direction of Bighorn Point. Crickets scratched out tunes among the buffalo and lovegrass and heat lay heavy on the land. Only the mountains looked cool.
Ahead of them, two long ridges crowned with a mix of pine and hardwoods formed a narrow canyon, its floor thick with brush and cactus. As Clayton watched, a covey of bobwhite quail exploded from the brush and fluttered into the air before scattering into the long grass. A stray elk or antelope, he figured. A chance for a shot if he were a hunting man.
Kelly turned his head, looked at Clayton. “When Park Southwell came up the trail from Texas ten years ago, he had two partners with him,” he said.
“I didn’t know that,” Clayton said, surprised.
“Me neither until I spoke with J. T. Burke, the editor of the Bighorn Point newspaper. He says the two men with Southwell were John Quarrels and Ben St. John.”
“The mayor and . . .”
“St. John is the only banker in town.”
“You think—”
“Yeah, either one could be the man you’re hunting.” Kelly shrugged. “Well, at least it’s a possibility to consider.”
“Quarrels . . . it’s hard to believe—”
“Men change. Many an outlaw settles down and leads a respectable, churchgoing life.”
“And St. John?”
Kelly smiled. “A pillar of respectability. He has a horse-faced Yankee wife who brought her own fortune with her and he’s a deacon of the church. As far as I can tell, he kisses babies, don’t kick dogs, and he’s down on liquor, whores, and gambling.”
Clayton, thinking, made no answer, and Kelly said, “Shoot ’em both, Cage, an’ then you’ll be sure you got the right one.”
“That was a joke, right?”
Kelly smiled. “Yep, only a—”
The flat statement of the rifle and the thud of the bullet hitting Clayton’s horse happened in the same instant. The buckskin went down as though poleaxed, rolled, and pinned Clayton’s leg under the saddle.
He was aware of Kelly charging toward the canyon, his rifle to his shoulder, firing.
Clayton tried to drag his leg out from under the horse, but the jolt of pain in his wounded thigh stopped him. He cursed, then pulled his gun. Kelly vanished between the canyon walls and Clayton heard the thudding echoes of gunfire.
What the hell was happening?
He saw a drift of smoke on top of the ridge to his left and thumbed off a couple of shots in that direction. But he was shooting at shadows and the range was too great for a six-gun. Pinned like a butterfly to a board, he could do nothing but wait.