JASPER RODE FOR TWO HOURS before he crossed into Indian country. He started before sunrise as he knew he had to make up some time. Sandy tried to come along with him but Jasper insisted he could take care of these four by himself. He followed their trail with no trouble. The tracks showed they had ridden their horses into the ground and they had to dismount for a time. Jasper smiled to himself. He learned many years ago that getting too much in a hurry causes more trouble than any hurrying is worth.
An hour later he came on Indian Jack’s place. Jack was a cantankerous old man, half-Indian, with three daughters. His wife had long ago gone to the spirit world. He ran a herd of horses he pulled wild off the open range and broke to sell. He also ran a herd of cattle he populated with range cows and a little rustling here and there. The trail of the four men lead to Jack’s ramshackle house.
Jasper spent ten minutes looking the area over from a hill to the east of the ranch house. The morning was bright and cool. Jack’s ranch sat in a saddle of land surrounded by deep green mountain grass and capped with tree lined foothills. Jasper’s eyes searched every visible nook and corner. A few cows grazed near the back of the house, but a bad feeling snaked through his gut when he saw corral gate wide open with no horses inside. Nothing moved, except cow tails swatting flies, so he started for the house. The only sounds were the thump of Coal’s hooves and the creak of saddle leather. A cow lifted her spotted head and mooed when Jasper reined Coal to a stop.
“Easy, Bessie. It’s just me.” Jasper knew the cows were disturbed by the same smell his nostrils caught…the smell of decomposing flesh. He stood on his stirrups and saw a thick patch of flies just past a stack of hay. Jack’s body lay in a crumpled heap just on the other side.
Jasper hit the ground fast and hurried over to Jack. He had been dead for at least a day, maggots already doing their work. Jasper stopped counting bullet holes when he got to ten. Drawing a Colt he went to the front door of the house.
“Hello the house!”
No answer.
He kicked the door open then quickly moved off to the right. He looked into the main room from there, then crossed over to check from the left before he stepped inside.
The kitchen table was flipped on its side. Jasper picked up the leg that had broken off. Two wooden chairs and a stool lay smashed next to the wall separating the living area from the bedrooms. Pieces of crockery were strewn everywhere. A torn woman’s shirt straddled the door that led to the sleeping room. Inside he discovered a skirt that had been ripped from waist to hem and a hand woven blanket on one of the beds had a good sized stain on it the brownish-red color of dried blood. There were no other bodies. Jasper hoped Jack’s daughters had been able to escape but he figured the men had probably kidnapped them.
He went back outside and set to the task of preparing Indian Jack for the spirit world. He found the best of Jack’s clothes he could, clean buckskin pants and a buckskin shirt with a breast plate of red and blue beads forming the Circle of Life. Bands of matching beads circled the cuffs.
After washing Jack’s body, Jasper dressed the old man. Then he found Jack’s best blanket, one made by his wife before she died and wrapped him in it, except for his head, so he could see the spirits when they came to lead him to the campfires in the sky. Jasper did the spirit dance around Jack’s body, chanting, calling the spirits to come so they might grant him passage into the spirit world. Then he carried Jack to the large oak tree in front of the house and laid him in the crook of the tree so the spirits would find him.
When he finished Jasper mounted Coal and continued on the trail until the sun sought the horizon. Angling up an incline to a rock face, he stopped at a shallow cave at the foot of the cliff. He dismounted and set up camp. Then he brushed, fed and watered Coal.
Later, Jasper sipped coffee, watching the sun disappear in the cooling air fragrant with pine and juniper. Shafts of light came through the fading clouds and splashed muted orange, blue and purple hues onto the hills and cliffs, bringing colored memories of his pa and younger brothers. A heaviness descended upon him. His breaking heart urged a flow of tears past his resolve. The faces of his kin were there with him in the darkness, but they were soon replaced by the face of the wounded young man looking skyward. The memory unsettled Jasper’s spirit as if a rift cracked the truth of his universe. He could see the young man’s eyes again but now they were filled with hurt, abandonment and an unanswered question.
When the moon had risen high Jasper heard his brother, Black Feather, come into the camp. He stirred the fire to get more warmth then spread his saddle blanket and laid down close by. Jasper felt at peace and slipped back into sleep.
“Mornin’, Brother,” Jasper said as he squinted into the morning sun, a little embarrassed his brother rose before him.
“Good Morning, Fire Hawk. I have made coffee,” Black Feather offered.
“Ah, it smells good.”
“I’ve heard the news of the death of our father and brothers. My heart hurts.”
“It’s a hard thing.”
“I am filled with the memories of father’s warm heart and the love of our brothers. They accepted me as family as soon as we became brothers.”
“As your family did me.”
“We have come through many good summers and some hard winters.”
“And we still remain brothers.”
“That will be for all time, Fire Hawk. You are looking for the men who killed them.” Black Feather was making a statement, not asking a question.
“I’ve found many of them but four rode here. They went to Indian Jack’s ranch, stole his horses and killed him. They took his daughters, too.”
“We found his daughters and the men who killed Jack.”
Jasper looked at Black Feather. “How are the daughters?”
“Soft Rain is dead. Moon On The Water and Butterfly Wing were violated and tortured. They are ruined.”
Jasper looked at the ground. He loved his brother and his people but their attitude towards raped women bothered him. “Will you ban them and send them into the wilderness?”
“It is our way. We will banish them after they have their justice, as you say.”
“I’ll take them with me.”
Black Feather considered his brother’s statement. “Will you take them as wives?”
“You know I have a wife. One is enough. I’ll employ them until they decide what they want to do. I have to care for our father’s ranch now, too. They’ll be a great help.”
“Maybe that might be good, but they are Jack’s daughters and like him in many ways.”
“I know, but remember who I’m married to. I can handle them.”
Black Feather laughed. “I guess you like trouble because there’s no trouble like a strong minded woman and you are talking about adding two more!”
“What about the men?”
Black Feather’s face turned to stone. “We killed one. We have the others. I was riding to check on Jack so I can relate their full crime to the council lodge.”
“Jack was shot many times. I asked the spirits to take him according to custom.”
“Thank you, brother. After we eat we’ll ride to our village.”
The two men rode slowly, recounting their younger days and remembering their happiness with Pa and the brothers. They talked of the hunting, fishing trips and campfires they all shared. Black Feather told of the contest he and the brothers had to see who could swing the farthest onto the river with a rope that hung on a giant oak next to the bank.
“I remember Caleb trying to swing out, but he was so young and skinny, he couldn’t get enough movement from the rope. He wouldn’t give up, swinging time after time until his arms and hands failed him. Though not strong in his body, Caleb’s heart had the strength of a bear.”
Jasper heard Black Feather swallow hard and looked over to see rivulets of tears. They rode the rest of the way in companionable silence.
Bart Moore sat on his horse just outside the Kentville town limits. One of the governor’s men came by the gang’s cabin and told Bart his uncle wanted to see him. When Bart asked what his uncle wanted, the man only answered the governor wasn’t happy about something.
The nervous stomping of the hooves of his horse echoed the churning in Bart’s gut. He always felt like a failure in his uncle eyes. Uncle Cornell was a no nonsense man. At times he could be down-right mean. Those times brought back the awful ghost of his father.
The memory of his father drove his emotions to the highest levels and to the lowest like a demented yo-yo. Bart winced at the thought of the beatings his used to give him in his early years. The words his father spewed out as his arm swung the strap up and down hurt nearly as much as the beating. But when he turned eleven, his father took an interest in him. Taught him how to cheat at cards, how to drink, how to steal, how to shoot and other things his father said were useful in life. Getting this attention and to be liked by his father thrilled young Bart…until he turned thirteen.
On the night of his thirteenth birthday he shared a hotel room with his father on Bourbon Street. Father took him for a steak dinner and bought him his first drink. In the steamy, hot New Orleans night, a drowsy Bart stripped off his clothes and drifted off thinking his life was going turn out okay. He woke from a hazy sleep when his father and another man came into the room. Both men were drunk. His father lit a lamp while the other man yanked off the sheet and Bart jumped up, embarrassed and trying to cover his privates.
The stranger gave Bart a good looking over. “Yeah, he’ll do nicely.” He handed Bart’s father a wad of money.
Both men came towards him.
Bart instinctively backed away, but they grabbed him and pushed him onto the bed. His father held him down while the other man pulled his hips up and got in between his legs.
“Pap, don’t let him hurt me!”
“It’s okay, Bart. Just relax. You’ll get twenty bucks when this is over.”
Bart started to scream as the man pushed himself into Bart’s bunghole, but his father covered his mouth. Bart gritted his teeth while tears poured from his eyes in anger, humiliation and betrayal. Time went gone to the end of the universe and back before the man finally satisfied himself.
Tortured relief swept through Bart now that no more hands touched him. He was hurt, but he turned to look at his father and the man talking quietly. A rampant fury filled his chest. He pulled the Arkansas Toothpick he kept under his pillow for protection, sprang from the bed and drove the knife into his father’s back. At the same time he pulled his father’s pistol.
His rapist was slow to react and Bart shot him twice in the chest. The man dropped in a heap.
Bart walked to the rapist and their eyes met. Bart shot him in the crotch, then watched blood soak through the cloth and start to cover the floor like an incoming tide.
He turned to his father who squirmed on the floor trying to reach the knife in his back. “You sold me, you son of a bitch.” Bart aimed the gun and shot his father twice in the face. He stood for a long moment staring at his father’s mangled visage.
Yelling outside and banging on the door jacked him out of his haze. Grabbing his clothes and the bloodstained wad of bills the rapist had given his father, he climbed out of the window. Making his way along a series of roofs he found a drain pipe and shimmied down, collapsing in an alley from the pain in his bunghole. He knew he was bleeding but nothing could be done about it at the moment. He crawled to a stack of barrels, hiding behind them while he dressed. He eventually made it to a Creole witch who fixed him up with surprising compassion. He decided to let her live.
Then he headed West to look for his mother. He knew her brother took her to one of the territories when Bart and his father left her. He also knew his uncle was some kind of big shot. It took a while, but he found them.
The coming meeting with his uncle whisked the memory away. His uncle, the governor of the territory, was the most powerful and important man he had ever known. He desperately wanted the man to like him. Bart steeled himself, half- heartedly spurring his horse to trot down the ridge to the governor’s office. He stopped in front of one of the governor’s men.
“’Bout time you got here,” the man said as Moore climbed the steps to the porch. “The ol’ man is like a caged mountain lion.”
Bart swallowed hard and stepped through the door.
“Get in here, Bart!” His uncle called from across the foyer.
Bart walked into the office.
“Close the door.”
He pushed the door shut.
“What in the hell have you done?”
An endless list of crimes flashed through his mind. “I ain’t done nothin’,” Bart sputtered.
“Nothing! You call murder and rape nothing!”
“There ain’t no proof I done such things.”
The governor grabbed papers off his desk. “No? How about a statement from an outlaw by the name of Rich Delton who says he was there and it was all your idea. The Cassidy County judge is considering issuing a warrant for your arrest. ”
Bart felt blood draining from his face but his mouth sneered. “Rich Delton is an idiot and liar.”
“Oh, really? And just how do you know this Rich Delton?”
Bart swallowed the lump in his throat but made no reply.
“Damn, if you weren’t my sister’s son I’d hang you myself.”
“Uncle…”
“Shut up! If you want to live you listen to me and do exactly as I say.” Uncle Cornell handed him a map. “You go out to my ranch and get a bed at the bunk house. Tell the new foreman I said to hire you on. Tell ‘em your name is John Smith. You work and stay on that ranch until I tell you to move. You don’t say anything except ‘yes, sir,’ ‘no, sir,’ and ‘thank you, sir.’ You got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You better because word is Jasper Lee is looking for you. The men you killed were his father and brothers.”
A jolt of fear shot through Bart’s spine.
“He shot a Johnny Stewart and two other cowboys,” Uncle Cornell continued. “He would’ve killed Delton, too, but the Lowell Town marshal stopped him.”
Bart stood mute, fumbling with his hat. “Get out of here!” The governor growled.
The ride back to the cabin left plenty of time for fear to smolder into anger and anger to flame into loathing.
He’s upset over a rape?! No one gave a damn about me getting raped! And murder…he has no idea how many trusting idiots I’ve killed. Bart straightened himself in the saddle and pushed his chest out. I’ve left bodies from New Orleans to here. I took everything they owned and no one knows…no one knows. Those three men and the girl were nothin’. If that old son of a bitch don’t watch it, I’ll show him who’s the most powerful man around here!
He dug his spurs into his horse and galloped to the cabin.
Cornell Norris sat at his desk twirling a pencil as he contemplated the acts of his nephew. He worried about the affect they may have on his goals.
He’d sacrificed, risked, fought, cheated and killed to get control of everything around him...the land, the money, the governorship…and then there’s Bart…a crazy, uncontrollable liability.
Cornell loved his sister. If she hadn’t protected him when they were kids he would’ve ended up as bad as Bart. But she did protect him and she paid hell for it. He couldn’t forget that...wouldn’t forget it, no matter what. We deserve better than what we got as kids and I’m going to see we get it.
Cornell figured when he became senator he’d have enough money to woo the most politically connected single woman in Washington D.C. and start building his political base to make a run for president. When he became president nothing could stop him from becoming the richest and most powerful man in the country.
… but Bart may just be too much of a problem.
The description of the murders in the report, especially the murder of the girl, were just too horrendous. If word got out connecting Bart to those deaths it would ruin Cornell. Ruin any chance of him being US Senator. Ruin any chance of wooing a politically connected woman. Ruin any chance at giving his sister a better life. He would do whatever he needed to do to keep a lid on this.