CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Despite his heroics in the Sierra del Carmen, the Kiowa didn’t consider his job finished until he returned the vigilantes to Thunder Creek, and he took his usual position at point. Dan Caine and the others were in the saddle at dawn, anxious to get back to their everyday lives. A sullen air of defeat hung over all of them. Clay Kyle was dead and the Calthrop family avenged, but they’d failed to free young Jenny, and that was a bitter pill to swallow.
The morning sun was still low in the sky when the Kiowa trotted back and raised a hand. “Wagon ahead,” he said. “Looks like a peddler man.”
“He may have seen Jenny,” Estella Sweet said, excitement spiking in her young voice.
“Maybe,” Dan said, but he held out little hope. If the girl was with Susan Stanton the woman could’ve taken her in any direction.
He met the peddler thirty minutes later, a smallish man driving a wagon that clattered and clanged like a steam locomotive. Jacob Birkin drew rein, looked over the riders, and felt none of the air of menace he’d sensed from Susan Stanton . . . more poised cobra than woman.
“Are you a welcoming committee or new customers?” the peddler said.
“Welcome to this corner of the prairie,” Dan Caine said. “Have you been here before?”
“Have I been here before?” Birkin said. “And have I not traveled over this same ground many times?”
“We’re looking for a girl, young, may be traveling with an older woman,” Dan said. “Have you seen such?”
“Would this young lady be right partial to stick candy?” Birkin said.
“I don’t know,” Dan said.
“Yes, she is!” Estella Sweet said. “When we were younger, I often saw her buy candy sticks at Pete Doan’s store. She liked peppermint.”
“Then could that be the young lady I met last night?” Birkin said. “Was she with a very beautiful woman who wears a corset and skirt and boots, a costume so immodest it surely makes the angels weep?”
“That’s her,” Dan said. “Her name is Susan Stanton and she helped kidnap the girl. Her name is Jenny Calthrop, from a ranch north of here.”
“And didn’t a Texas Ranger tell me, not three days ago, that there is a five-thousand-dollar reward for the girl’s safe return?” the peddler said. “And wasn’t the money put up by a cattleman’s association?”
Clint Cooley said, “Now Black-Eyed Susan has a girl worth five thousand, but she can’t cash in. Young Jenny would spill enough beans to put Suzie’s beautiful neck in a noose.”
“As a peddler who travels the frontier, have I not met females of all kinds from schoolmarms to laundresses, housemaids to dance hall girls, but as soon as I saw the woman you call Susan Stanton, didn’t I know what she was? Will you permit two words in Yiddish . . . fakhman retsyeckh? Does that not mean ‘professional killer’?” The peddler shook his head. “Did I ever in my life think I’d use those words to describe a lady? No, I did not. But God forgive me, now I have.”
“Don’t blame yourself for that, peddler man,” Dan said. “That’s exactly what Susan Stanton is, a killer.”
“How long before she decides that Jenny Calthrop is a burden and gets rid of her?” Cornelius Massey said.
“I was thinking the same thing,” Dan said. Then to Jacob Birkin, “When you left her this morning, did Susan Stanton say where she was headed?”
“North,” Birkin said. “Am I a mind reader?”
Dan said to the Kiowa, “Can we get on her trail and track her?”
“Two horses across long grass. It should not be difficult,” the Kiowa said.
“Then we’re going after her,” Dan said.
“Count me out,” Massey said. “I’m an old man, and I’m tired. I’d just slow you down.”
“That’s no matter,” Dan said. “This is a job for me and the Kiowa. I want the rest of you to head for Thunder Creek and wait for me there. Let me deal with Sheriff Chance Hurd.”
“Deputy Caine, I’d like to go with you,” Holt Peters said.
“No, this is my job,” Dan said. “And even if it wasn’t, I’d make it mine. Hurd took back my star, but he’s a criminal, so what he did doesn’t count. As far as I’m concerned, I’m a deputy sheriff and probably the only lawman within a hundred miles.”
Cooley said, “If it’s all right with you, Deputy, I’d admire to put a bullet in Hurd as soon as I get back.”
“Me too,” Holt said.
Dan shook his head. “Leave the sheriff to me. He wronged me, and he played me for a fool. And worse than that, he was the brains behind the massacre of the Calthrop family. Clint, a bullet is too easy. I want to see him hang.”
“As you say, you’re the lawman,” Cooley said. “But if Hurd tries to make a run for it, I’ll gun him down like the dog he is, and that’s a promise.”
“All right, I can understand that,” Dan said. “Just don’t miss, huh?” Then to Jacob Birkin, “Hey, peddler man, want to do some peddling?”
“Am I not a peddler, and am I not open for business? Is not everything I carry in this wagon for sale?” Birkin raised a forefinger and pointed at the sky. “All merchandise at cost, mind.”
Since Dan was leaving, he was served first, spending his couple of dollars on beef jerky and hardtack, enough to last several days, and a box of cartridges for his Colt. The rest of the vigilantes were not immune to the lure of the peddler, and, as Dan Caine and the Kiowa rode out, they surrounded the wagon, munched on crackers and cheese, and bought stuff they needed and even more stuff they didn’t need, Clint Cooley standing good for young Holt Peter’s lack of funds.
Estella Sweet delicately used the tip of a pinkie finger to remove a cracker crumb from the corner of her mouth and then said, “Clint, do you think Deputy Caine will be all right. I mean, when he meets up with Susan Stanton?”
Cooley thought for a moment and said, “If you’d asked me that question the day we left Thunder Creek, I’d have told you he had about as much of a chance with Black-Eyed Susan as a steer in a packing plant.”
“And now?” Estella said.
“And now?” Cooley said. He smiled. “And now Deputy Sheriff Dan Caine is all growed up.”