It was a miracle Dixon could hold the reins, let alone ride. His neck still pained him from Abbadon’s death grip, and the thought of what that brute might have done to Ruth … He punched the pommel of his saddle.
Barty and Nathaniel bantered out a strategy to hunt down Abbadon, but Dixon doubted they’d find the man. Too much time had passed between when the scoundrel ran and when Dixon rounded up help. Should have gone out on his own, but the land was too vast to search by himself.
“We’d better cover the reserve and the Buffalo Hills.” Barty drew on the frozen ground with a stick and poked at a southern and a northern point. He stopped and rubbed the stubble on his face. “Amazing that Abbadon left no tracks. None, leaving town. How’d he do that?”
Nathaniel shrugged his shoulders. “If I hadn’t been searchin’ right beside you, well I’d have thought you blind. But not a print to be found or anything else. Eerie.”
Dixon leaned on the saddle pommel, arms shaking as the prospect of his own conviction loomed. If he didn’t catch this man, if he didn’t prove Abbadon was the scoundrel he was, chances are the entire town would believe his lies. And Joab Black’s good name would be smeared permanently. “He’ll head for the Bow River.”
“Sergeant, you all right? You look like you’re ready to collapse.” Nathaniel furrowed his brow then scratched the top of his head. “Did he hurt you in your fight?”
Dixon shook his head, but he could still feel Abbadon’s hands about his throat. “He’s evil personified. And Ruth …”
“Hurt?” Barty moved closer and rested his hand on the neck of Dixon’s horse.
“Bruised and scared.” Spoken aloud that way, the words seemed to belittle the encounter. “He knocked the gun from my hand or I’d …” He gripped the reins. “We’d better find him. He’s hurt enough people.”
“We’re off.” The two men mounted and spurred their horses in different directions, while Dixon straightened in his saddle. He needed to ride out too, but his legs remained still at his horse’s side. Abbadon disappeared as though a ghost. And why did he spook at Ruth’s words? At the name of Jesus?
A gentle hand touched his thigh.
He knew who it was without looking, and turned to gaze upon her face, creamy white in the moonlight. “Ruth …”
She took hold of the rein near his mount’s bit and smiled with her mouth, but not her eyes. “You’ll not find him.”
“It’s my fault. Right from the day I was born, I was no good. Every mistake I made, written down in that book of Abbadon’s, and they all point to my hanging.”
“We all deserve death. By God’s mercy, we live.”
Dixon shook his head. “I should have stayed home and helped my mother when I was a kid. That one selfish act … even cost Joab.”
“Abbadon is the Accuser. That is what he does. And that is how he controls people.”
“The Accuser? What do you mean by that?” He shook his head and waved her hand to silence her reply. “He’s a man. A man that is evil, yes, but just a man.”
Ruth tipped her head away.
After taking a deep breath, Dixon sighed. Was obvious she didn’t agree, but women don’t think like men.
He stared in the direction of the river. How could he get out of this mess? Hang it all. He had decided the end of Abbadon’s malicious work was worth dying for, but first he must go through with the chase. Would be easier if he were shot in the process.
He ran his hand over his face. “If there were a God, He’d stop that man and end this misery.”
“There is a God, and one day it will end. But where will you be when that judgment day comes?”
Dixon’s throat choked up, and the pain in his chest deepened. “Not now, Ruth. I can’t get into this now.” He spurred his horse into a gallop down the road to the Bow River. But her words plagued him, chasing him like he did Abbadon. Would they catch him?
The wind whistled in his ears and bit with its cold teeth. He leaned into his horse’s mane letting it whip the sides of his cheeks, a beating for every foolish act he’d ever committed, and yet, not severe enough. These thoughts must stop or they’d work against him.
After a couple of miles, the sides of his horse heaved, and its gait faltered. As much as Dixon wanted to continue running, he needed to spare his animal. Sitting deeper in the saddle, he brought his mount to a jog and continued his search through the river valley at a slower pace.
As the sun sent its early morning rays across the eastern sky, dark blue met strips of bold pink and orange, and by the time the sun crested the eastern horizon, Dixon had scoured the banks of the Bow River south of Gleichen. He then headed straight west. By noon, he’d covered the miles in a zigzag pattern from bank to bank until just south of Carseland. There he stopped to let his horse take a short drink. Hope of finding any fugitive dwindled with every hour; how much more one that never left a track or any indication which way he headed. It was as though the man was spirited away.
Dixon slapped his cheeks to dispel those thoughts and urged his horse across the river. Abbadon likely headed into that hamlet to catch a train. If he hopped on one, there’d be little hope of tracking him. If he sent a wire to Calgary, perhaps they’d catch Abbadon there.
As though on cue, a train whistle blew in the distance. Dixon kicked his horse into a gallop, but the fatigued animal could only go a mile at that speed. Thirty minutes later, he pulled up in front of the telegraph office and vaulted to the ground.
“Been riding hard, I see.” A man poked his bald head out the door.
Dixon loosened the girth on his saddle. “Need to get a wire off to Calgary.”
“Yes sir.” The man stepped back into the office and sat at his desk.
Dixon dictated the message to the man and watched him tap it out. Ruth might be right. The chances of catching the man were slim, but the Accuser? Joab once talked of the Accuser. It’s another name for the devil. Surely Ruth didn’t really believe that this man was the devil himself.
“Sergeant.” The man stood from his desk.
“Yes.” Dixon ran his hand over his face to wipe away his thoughts.
“This ain’t no business of mine, but I’ve been at this work for some time now, and ain’t no one can tail that man.”
Why does everyone doubt? Dixon headed for the door. The smell of his horse’s sweat greeted him. The poor animal stood with his head low and resting one hind leg. Its sides still labored. “Can I buy some hay for my animal?”
The man nodded. “Carl!” A young boy appeared from a back room. “Carl, feed and water the horse outside. No grain. And give him a good rub down.”
“Yes sir,” the boy answered.
“Looks like you could use some coffee,” the clerk said. He pulled a tin cup from under his counter and poured. “Sugar?”
Dixon nodded. “Thanks.” He put a few coins into the clerk’s hand and sighed. “Thank you for everything. So, you’ve heard of him? This Abbadon?”
“The devil, they call him.” The bald man followed him, lips tight and thin.
Dixon rubbed the back of his neck, but his heart pounded in agreement. Dash it all. “Did you see him get on the train?”
“No sir.” The man toyed with his armbands. “Does he have a list on ya?”
Dixon’s jaw flexed. He has a list all right. More than a list, a book of Dixon’s sins. Sins his mother paid for, and others.
“Don’t have to admit it. He’s got a list on everyone. But his day will come.”
That’s what Ruth said. “If you have something on this man, speak up. He’s resisted arrest and admitted to arson. I’ve got enough evidence to send him to jail.”
The little man lifted his eyebrows. “You must be a hard case for him to take such risks. You been talking to someone he doesn’t like?”
Joab. Abbadon had it in for Joab. But the scoundrel let Dixon believe he did Joab in to get to Dixon. “He’s a double-crossing …”
“Now don’t get your gut all tied in a knot.” The clerk shuffled back behind his desk. “I’ll keep an eye out for him, but I imagine you’ll not see him around. Something spooked him well and good. What happened?”
Dixon scanned the western horizon where mountain peaks jutted against blue sky. Ruth’s husband’s testimony scared the scoundrel. But it wasn’t the testimony that made him run. It was what Ruth cried out. He shook his head. Abbadon looked ready to kill Ruth before she uttered that name. “Would the name of Jesus frighten the man?”
“Only name that would. ’Course not everyone believes that. But if you been in the world long enough, you get to know there’s a war going on most people can’t see ’cuz they’re blind.”
Dixon gulped down the rest of his coffee and set it on the desk.
The clerk sunk into his chair and put his hands behind his head. “If I were you, I’d head home and keep the name of Jesus close.”
Dixon touched his hand to his Stetson in a salute and walked out to his horse. He pressed another coin into the boy’s hand. Every town had its legend about some sort of spirit. The Indians said Turtle Mountain, the site of a major coal town, moved. No one believed them, until that April when Frank Slide happened. But that wasn’t spiritual. He’d heard the slide himself in Surbank. It had sounded like a rifle shot. Wasn’t until days later before the town learned about the slide. Pastor Perkins said it was God’s judgment on that wild coalminers’ community. Maybe. Maybe not.
He rested his hand on the pommel of his saddle and breathed in the grainy scent of the prairie air.
There was the folklore of the wetigos, werewolf-like creatures that feasted on human flesh. Most people laughed off such a tale, but then the Calgary Herald reported about that incident in Wabasca, north of Edmonton. A village killed a young hunter whom they thought was possessed by a wetigo spirit.
With a shudder, he looked to the railroad. The North West Mounted Police hung a Cree near Sturgeon Creek who resorted to cannibalism. Rumor was the man had become a wetigo. Possible spiritual warfare could exist, at least in the minds of those who believe it could.
But all this was not getting him any closer to Abbadon. Maybe he should ride on to Calgary. At least he would be able to identify the fugitive, if he were caught. He reached into his saddlebag and took out a stick of beef jerky then he mounted and turned his horse westward.
“Wire from Calgary!” It was Carl, racing to catch up to him. “The train just arrived and no man by your description aboard.”
The clerk was half running, half walking, trying to catch up to Carl.
Dixon frowned. “Can you wire back to hold any vagabonds on that train?”
“Did that already. No one. Chances are he jumped off somewhere between here and Calgary.”
Dixon leaned forward in his saddle and thought for a moment. “I’m riding up the rail line. Could you get the word out to every telegraph station between here and Calgary? Ask them to send police on a manhunt east on this line. We can’t let this crook get away.”
The man hung his head. “You’re chasin’ a wild goose. He’s gone now. Back to his den. Won’t show himself again, at least not in the form you saw him.”
“Just do as I ask.” Dixon resisted shuddering. These people and their ghost stories. Can’t let them get to him. Yet, too much of Abbadon was unexplainable.
“All right.” He waved Dixon away. “Suppose you got to find your peace somehow. Must be pretty bad, what he’s got on you.”
Dixon bristled. Every wrong he’d committed since childhood. Enough to send him to his death. If it didn’t seem so true, he’d say the devil was in it, that he’d been listening to too many old wives tales. “The man ruined a close friend of mine. I’m not letting him get away with it.” Had he not spent the night thinking about destroying that notebook? If Abbadon knew all that about him, then someone else did as well. But, destroying the notebook would not be the end of his guilt.
“That’s how he works. If he can’t get you, he goes for those you care about. ’Course if he already has you, he might be keepin’ you busy to prevent you from finding the truth.” The man lifted his arm as Dixon road away. “The truth will make you free. That’s what the Good Book says.”
Dixon tipped his Stetson and saluted. “I’ll try to remember that.”
With a squeeze of his leg, Dixon urged his horse into a jog. God help him if he didn’t find the reprobate. It was his only road to peace.