CHAPTER EIGHT
The Kiowa could light a fire on top of a snowdrift using icicles for kindling, or so said Clint Cooley. By the time the Indian kicked everyone awake . . . drawing a threat of violence from Fish Lee who could be testy in the morning, the coffee simmered on the fire and strips of salt pork sizzled.
Without a word to anyone, the Kiowa made a sandwich of the salt pork and a slice of sourdough bread and mounted his already-saddled Palouse and rode south, following the Kyle gang’s tracks.
“How far ahead of us are they, do you reckon, Deputy Caine?” Holt Peters said.
“A day, maybe less,” Dan said. “The Kiowa will let us know.”
He looked hard at the youngster, a raw, untested boy. When the chips were down and the ball opened, would he stand his ground and get his work in? Dan had no answer to that question. He had hope, certainly, but harsh reality had a way of banishing that.
Over the rim of his coffee cup, his eyes swept the others, measuring them. He had no doubts about Fish Lee. The old man could be cantankerous at times, but he had sand. Any man who’d stood his ground against Apaches had courage. Clint Cooley had a gun rep but no one knew if it was deserved or not. Had he been in a dozen shooting scrapes and killed five men, or had he killed nobody? Cooley never answered that question, but future events would. Cornelius Massey was a newspaperman and former drunk who favored top hats and frockcoats. He’d killed many a bottle of Old Crow but never a human. He might be a help or a burden. Estella Sweet, now settling her own top hat on her lustrous head, might be stronger and gamer than any of the men.
“Time will tell,” Clint Cooley said.
Dan, surprised, said, “About what?”
“About how far ahead of us the killers are,” Cooley said. “I had to think about my reply before I had an answer to young Holt’s question.”
“Time will tell isn’t an answer,” Fish Lee said.
“I know, but it’s all I got,” Cooley said.
“Finish here and mount up,” Dan Caine said. “I reckon we’ll find out soon enough, maybe too soon, how far Clay Kyle and his boys are ahead of us.”
* * *
The sun was high and a blanket of heat lay on the land when the Kiowa emerged from a distant shimmer and rode toward Dan Caine and the others. For a while, the glimmer elongated man and horse like a skinny Don Quixote on Rocinante and then they slowly settled into the form of the Kiowa and his Palouse, coming on at a canter.
Dan Caine drew rein, and he and the others waited for the man to arrive.
As was his habit, the Kiowa offered no greeting and got right to the point.
“An hour’s ride south of here, one man broke away from the others and rode east,” he said.
“Hightailing it for the Brazos,” Dan said.
“Likely,” Clint Cooley said. “A few years back I’d have said a man in a wilderness of grass who makes a sudden left turn is headed for a whorehouse.”
“There are no houses of ill-repute in this neck of the woods,” Cornelius Massey said. He’d just took a swig from a silver flask and now put it back in a pocket of his frockcoat. He was drinking again. “He’s headed for Austin, maybe. Plenty of cathouses and dancehalls in that fair city.”
Dan considered that and then said, “Fish, was there once a cathouse near here?”
“Not as I recollect,” the old tinpan said. “Too out of the way for whores.”
“Clint, how about you?”
“I don’t know,” Cooley said, frowning. Then, “I heard something from Pete Doan not long after I arrived in Thunder Creek. Maybe it’s just a big story because Pete himself didn’t think it was true.”
“Tell it,” Dan said. “But make it short. I don’t want to burn any more daylight than I have to.”
“Well, the story is that around 1830, an eccentric English millionaire named Glendale or something like that built a tall, Gothic mansion house in the middle of the prairie that he called High Time,” Cooley said. “On account of how it had a steam-powered clock in one of its towers that could be seen from miles away.”
“Why would Glendale build a tall . . . what’s that word?”
“Gothic,” Cooley said.
“Then why did he build a Gothic house way out here in the middle of nowhere?” Dan said.
“Because he wanted to,” Cooley said. He frowned. “How the hell would I know why a crazy Englishman built a mansion house in the back of beyond? It probably isn’t even true.”
“I’m sorry, go ahead with your story,” Dan said.
“There ain’t much more to tell,” Cooley said. “Glendale died and the house fell into ruin. Pete Doan said he heard the story from a feller, who heard it from another feller, who heard it from a circuit preacher that the place had been taken over and turned into a whorehouse with a very high-class clientele.” He shook his head. “Not for the likes of you, Dan.”
“How come I never heard of this place before?” Dan said.
“Because up there in Thunder Creek you lived a sheltered life, Danny boy,” Cooley said.
“Have you ever been there?” Dan said.
“No, I haven’t,” Cooley said. “I’ve never sat at a card table in that particular gentleman’s retreat. As I say, I heard of it from Pete Doan and always reckoned it was a myth.”
“Could be that it’s a big windy made up by some cowpoke,” Dan said. “There are no sporting gents around this neck of the woods.”
“Maybe so,” Cooley said. “But they could come from a long way off if the whores were pretty enough.”
“Hell, in every direction it means at least a week of misery in a stage,” Dan said. “All that to lift the skirts of a two-dollar whore? I don’t think so.”
“Deputy Caine,” Cornelius Massey said, “may I remind you that there’s a lady present and a callow youth.”
Estella Sweet smiled and said, “It’s all right, Mr. Massey. I’ve been around cowboys my entire life, and I’ve heard much worse.”
“And it don’t bother me none,” Holt Peters said with a grin. “This is interesting.”
“You’re in the presence of rough-hewn men, Miss Sweet,” Massey said. “I apologize on their behalf.”
Dan addressed himself to the Kiowa. “We’re in the middle of a sea of grass. How did this, whoever he is, piece of trash know where to leave the trail and head east?”
“I think he’d passed this way before and recognized a landmark,” the Kiowa said. “There’s a boulder chipped away like a stone spearpoint at the side of the trail near where the man turned east. The ones you search for had made camp and the man took his horse and rode away into the night.”
“Kiowa, take me to the place where this man left the trail,” Dan said. “I think maybe the reckoning begins here.”
“We going after him?” Clint Cooley said.
“No, I’m going after him,” Dan said. “You and the others shadow Clay Kyle and his killers, but don’t engage them. I’ll do what has to be done at that cathouse High Time, if it exists, and then catch you up.”
“Dan, let me go,” Cooley said. “When Kyle signs on a hard case, you can bet the farm that the man’s mighty fast on the draw and shoot. I think I know more about that side of the business than you.”
“I’m the leader of this posse and it’s my responsibility,” Dan said. His smile was faint. “I reckon I can get my work in quick enough if I have to.”
“How do you know?” Cooley said.
“I’m guessing,” Dan said. “I shoot at bean cans.”
“So you gun bean cans. Have you ever killed a man?” Cooley said.
“No.”
The gambler shook his head. “I’ll go in your place.”
“No, you won’t,” Dan said. “I need you right here with the others.”
Cooley looked around him at the others. Cornelius Massey, a top-hatted scarecrow on a slat-sided nag and no kind of fighting man. Holt Peters, his fair skin already burned red by the sun, looked what he was, a green boy. Fish Lee, old, skinny, shabby, but tough as whang leather, had far-seeing brown eyes and a well-worn .44-40 Henry rifle that had seen sterling service against Indians and claim jumpers. So long as his health stood up, Fish was a man to ride the river with. Estella Sweet . . . well, she had a pretty face and big tits. As for the Kiowa, he was the best of them . . . and the worst of them.
In all, Cooley decided this was the sorriest vigilante posse that ever hit the trail after a dangerous gang of outlaw gunmen.
“Track them, Clint, but don’t engage until I catch up with you again,” Dan said. “The Kiowa will leave trail-markers so I can follow you.”
“And if you don’t come back?” Cooley said, his handsome face unsmiling.
“I’ll leave that up to you, Clint. You can either give up the chase or pursue and engage as you see fit.”
“I won’t see fit,” the gambler said. “That I guar-on-tee.”
“Dan, be careful,” Estella said, her pretty face concerned. “You could be riding into one of those Texas draw fighters the cowboys all talk about.”
Cooley smiled. “Don’t worry, John Wesley Hardin is in Huntsville.”
“I know where Wes is,” Dan said, his voice suddenly hard, mouth hard, eyes harder still. “He’s wasting away behind bars in a hell prison.”
“Hardin isn’t the only one,” Estella said, her face almost hidden by the wide brim of her hat and her dark glasses. “There’s plenty more of them.”
“No, my dear, there is not.”
This from Cornelius Massey.
“I once interviewed the learned professor Ignatius Overton of San Francisco who’d made a study of a hundred skilled duelists and gunmen,” he said. “He discovered that only one man in a thousand has the dexterity, marksmanship, coolness under pressure, capacity for violence, and love of chaos needed to become a gunfighter. Perhaps, Overton said, it could be one in ten thousand. Such shootists are rare and expensive and that’s why only rich and powerful men can afford to make use of them.”
“You’re right about that, Massey. I’ve known men who got rich selling their guns to the highest bidder,” Cooley said.
“Perhaps you were one of them, Mr. Cooley,” Massey said, angling his eyes to the gambler’s face.
Cooley’s expression didn’t change. “Perhaps,” he said. Then to Dan Caine, “Clay Kyle only rides with the best. If there is a High Time, or even if it’s just a hog ranch, I reckon you could face one of them fast guns.” Cooley shook his head. “Reconsider, Dan, let me take your place. You were a so-so lawman, but you just ain’t cut out for gunfighting.”
“I may not be fast on the draw,” Dan said. “But I reckon I can outlast Kyle’s killer if I need to.” He glanced at the deepening blue of the sky. “It’s time I was riding.”
“Your mind’s made up?” Cooley said.
“Yeah, it is, Clint. Every man has to skin his own skunk.”
“Good luck, Dan,” Estella said. “I’ll say a prayer for you.”
“Thank you,” Dan said. He swung his horse away in the direction taken by Kyle’s gunman.
To his back, Cooley yelled, “Surprise him, Dan. A surprised man always blinks and that’s when you can shuck iron and drill him.”
“I’ll remember that,” Dan Caine said, his voice already sounding distant.
“Dan, good luck,” Estella said again, calling out now.
Dan raised a hand, his eyes on the trail ahead of him.