Cole eased his horse forward and looked down onto the landscape below him. The stage was nowhere to be seen but he knew it would be approaching soon and he filled his pipe with the last of his tobacco and smoked while he waited.
He figured he had less than an hour to wait before the stage showed up on the horizon. It would have reached the Fort the previous night and was due to leave for Squaw at daybreak. Sam Bowden’s trial had been scheduled for this coming Monday and the judge would be expecting things to go ahead as planned.
As much as was possible that was still Cole’s intention.
Earlier Cole had tethered the horse carrying Em’s body to a tree. He’d collect it later, after squaring things with the judge, and take the old man into Squaw for burial. He had considered burying him out here in the wilderness, amongst the landscape that the old man had wandered so many times in his younger days, but he preferred to have his final resting place close by.
The grave would be easier to tend that way and Cole planned on taking care of the old man’s plot. When this was all over he’d visit with Jessie and together they would make sure there were always fresh flowers to mark his spot.
He figured it was the least he could do seeing as how he owed the old timer his life.
Throwing caution to the wind, Cole had ridden through the night, all the while alert for the remaining members of the posse but the ride had passed without event. They must have long reached Squaw and would not be expecting him to return.
He was looking forward to showing them that was not the case.
He sat there, upon the bluff, looking down on a landscape that was both beautiful and opposing, and waited for the stage. He smoked the pipe until it went out and suddenly felt bone tired, recent events were catching up with him, and there was not one single part of his body that didn’t seem to throb. The bruising of his beating at the hands of Bowden’s foreman had all but healed but the pain he felt now was not due to any physical injury.
It was a mixture of exhaustion and grief and it originated from the centre of his very being.
~*~
‘You really are a stupid son-of-a-bitch,’ Clem Bowden said and shook his head in disappointment. ‘Don’t you ever listen, boy? ‘
‘Goddamn it. They were leading us ragged,’ Sam protested.
He was weary from the long ride and all he wanted now was a drink and then a long uninterrupted period in bed. ‘They weren’t going to find Masters. They went off his trail and led us clean across country. Enough was enough.’
Clem Bowden looked at his son as he had so many times before, a look of distaste in his eyes. He wanted to tell him that those two men were the best trackers in the territory, that they could do things with a gun that would leave him standing, that they were worth twice, no ten times what he was, but instead he said nothing and merely shook his head.
The expression upon his face and his sad sunken eyes spoke volumes, though.
‘Cole Masters is long gone,’ Sam continued. ‘Now let’s leave it at that.’
Again Clem ignored his son and looked at the rest of the men.
They were all equally weary and trail dust clung to them like an outer skin. They were good men all told and Clem knew it wasn’t their fault that they had broken away from Quill and Boyd. They would have been confused, unsure who to take orders from and their loyalties to him would have made them side with his son. Couldn’t really blame them for that but the problem was his son was a buffoon.
Clem considered keeping them in town but decided against it. The posse was too worn out to be of any use to him and he already had a half dozen of his best men stationed in town. If Cole had managed to elude the two man hunters and made it back to Squaw then he had all the protection he needed already here in place. These men needed food, rest and a clean up before they would be of any use to either themselves or anyone else.
‘You men,’ he said. ‘Go back to the ranch. Get yourself rested up.’
Without another word the riders turned and wearily headed back out of town leaving the old man standing there in the street with his son. After a few moments of silence Clem turned to his son and the look of disappointment on his face shone clearer than ever.
He seemed to regard his son they way one looked at a diseased range dog.
‘Pa?’ Sam gave the old man a quizzical look. He didn’t like what he saw in his father’s eyes and at that moment he felt something happen between them that he couldn’t really understand. He felt a strange sensation of expanding space between them and he realized that when this was all over things would never again be the same.
‘What do you want me to do now?’ He asked, not liking the uncomfortable feeling between them.
‘You’re the sheriff,’ Clem snapped. ‘Get over the hotel and get yourself washed up and then get back here.
‘Thought maybe I’d get some sleep,’ Sam said. ‘I’m bushed.’
‘You’re the sheriff,’ Clem repeated with a sigh. ‘The stage’ll be here just after noon with the judge upon it. He’s come here to sit over your trial so I suppose you should be here to explain the situation. When he arrives I want you there to meet him. You can sleep later if you’re not back in the jailhouse.’
‘Yes sir,’ Sam said but cursed the old man beneath his breath.
He was a grown man and as his father had said, the sheriff, of this sorry excuse for a town. He guessed he could pretty much do what he wanted and right now he had a burning desire for a strong drink and maybe a woman before sleeping off the past few days.
There was no use arguing with the old man though and he guessed there would be time enough for pleasures later.
Clem Bowden opened the door of the jailhouse but before entering he turned back and took another lingering look at his son. ‘And stay out of the saloon.’ How well the man knew the boy. With that he went inside and slammed the door behind him.
Sam stood there for several long minutes, an anger seething up inside him that threatened to take all reason from him. He had to resist the urge to burst into the jailhouse here and now and put a bullet into the miserable old bastard he called his father. These thoughts were not new but it used to be that he felt ashamed and would suppress them but now he would like nothing better than to act upon them
He spat into the dust. ‘One day,’ he mumbled and turned and walked away from the jailhouse. He kept his head bowed to the ground as he walked and ignored the sensation of feeling like he was being watched.
~*~
Across the street Jessie watched the exchange between the two men.
Today being Saturday, not a school day, she had been tending to her garden, anything to take her mind off things, when the posse had ridden in to town.
She crouched lower down behind the picket fence Cole had built for her as Sam Bowden turned and walked over to the Rainbow Hotel.
She wondered what had happened. Where were the two men who had led the posse? What had happened to Cole and Em? She didn’t think the posse had caught up with them and although she couldn’t hear what words had been spoken across the street it was obvious from the men’s manner that their mission had not been a success.
She stood back up and looked up and down Main Street. Now that Sam Bowden had gone into the hotel and his father the jailhouse, the street was deserted. It should have been thriving even this early on a Saturday morning but there was a feeling of foreboding that hung like a dark cloud over the town and kept the citizens off the street for all but the most important of chores.
Even the Majestic, usually a hive of sin, seemed quiet and there was none of the usual laughter or music drifting through its batwings.
The town of Squaw was in terminal decline and she knew that it would continue to wither away until nothing remained. The town had a cancer, a powerful malignant tumor that gnawed away at its heart and soul and unless it was cut away then there was no hope.
That cancer went by the name of Bowden.
~*~
Cole had been napping, sat on his horse, when he heard a faint rumble. He looked, squinting against the sun, and he saw the tiny speck in the distance that he knew was the stage. He scanned the landscape for the remainder of the posse but still they were nowhere to be seen.
He took a drink of water from his canteen and spurred his horse forward, taking it slowly as they made their way down the hill to the flatland below.
He checked his Colts and the Winchester and then made sure his badge was visible on his chest. Once again he turned the events of the last few days over in his mind, wanting to get everything clear before he spoke to the judge.
No doubt the Bowden’s would contest his story but he hoped his reputation, as an honest man, a brave man, a good and courageous sheriff would add a little extra clout to his words. And maybe if the town’s folk saw the way things were going they would stand up and speak out. Bowden ruled the town by fear and Cole knew that was always a tenuous grip. Once broken the Bowden Empire would crumble like a sand-fort in the wind. Fear never made a solid foundation for anything worthwhile. It only took one man to stand up and confront it head on and the shackles it provided would fall away. Folk would suddenly find the strength to stand up and speak out against their former masters.
Cole steadied his horse and sat there in the road like some highwayman as the stage approached. All the while he was alert for any riders, he feared Bowden’s men would turn up at any moment and attempt to finish him off here and now.
He wasn’t going to let that happen.
Not after all that had happened.
He sat and waited.
As the stage neared, he raised his empty hands toward the sky to show he had peaceful intend and shouted for the stage to stop. The driver and the man besides him riding shotgun exchanged puzzled looks but pulled the stage to a perfect halt.
‘I’m Sheriff Cole Masters of Squaw,’ Cole said. ‘Have you got the judge on board?’
‘We have,’ the driver, a short podgy man with skin that had been burnt bronze over years of exposure to the elements, said.
‘I need to speak with him,’ Cole said and dismounted and walked towards the stage.