Just Dalton, page 8
With the talk getting morose Loren changed the subject by telling Cliff and Wes about what they’d done while they’d been away. Dalton reckoned he ought to take more interest in the conversation, which his friends were clearly conducting only in the hope that it’d help him.
So he forced himself to interrupt whenever Loren left out an important detail, and on each occasion everyone listened intently to him and nodded in encouragement. Dalton knew they were indulging him, but he didn’t mind and he found himself interrupting again when Loren failed to mention the map Vaughn had drawn of the area pinpointing the places where the bandits had attacked.
“The marshal had this map that had circles where McKinley’s bandits had been sighted,” he said. “There were also crosses to show the scenes of his attacks. . . .”
Dalton frowned as something about this map felt as if it might be important, but in his befuddled state he couldn’t work out what it was.
“There were two crosses for the early attacks along with a third for Grover’s wagon,” Loren said.
“There were, but that’s not what’s interesting.” Dalton rubbed his brow as he tried to force himself to think clearly. “Stanhope found the first two wagons some time after the people in them had died.”
“He did, but why is that important?”
Dalton closed his eyes and pictured the map, remembering how it had depicted the nearby terrain along with the route that they and many other homesteaders had taken to get here. Then in a moment he made the connection that had been eluding him after which several other connections came to him making him leap up so quickly that the bench rocked and Loren spilled his drink.
Loren snorted a laugh, but Dalton ignored him and he paced back and forth while shaking a fist as he thought through each of his connections. When he still reckoned that they were valid he stopped and faced the bench.
“McKinley had ransacked the first two wagons, but Vaughn said that he wasn’t sure how the people died,” he said.
Loren shrugged. “I took that to mean the bodies had been lying there for a while, so it wasn’t easy for Stanhope to be sure of the exact circumstances.”
“Except I now wonder if he meant that he couldn’t be sure that they’d died a violent death at McKinley’s hands.”
Dalton raised an eyebrow and leaned forward urging Loren to make the connection he’d made. Slowly, Loren nodded.
“Are you saying they got sick?” he asked.
“I sure am,” Dalton said. “They were heading down Cottonwood Pass, just like we all did when we first came here. The two wagons were some distance apart, but it’s possible that they had been riding together. One family fell ill and died first and the second family moved on without them. Then they died, too.
Loren rocked his head from side to side and then turned to Cliff and Wes, who both shook their heads.
“The illness must have come from somewhere,” Cliff said. “It could have been brought here by those unfortunate families, but we’ll never know for sure so I don’t reckon we should mention your theory to anyone else.”
“I agree,” Wes said. “We’ve been wary of newcomers in the past and I wouldn’t want us to be unwelcoming again, especially with Sweet Valley prospering nearby.”
“I don’t reckon that’s what was on Dalton’s mind,” Loren said when Dalton didn’t reply. “If they died from the same illness that plagued Sweet Valley and then Two Forks, it somehow got from their final resting places to the towns.”
Wes shrugged. “As Cliff said, we can’t do nothing about that except hope it doesn’t happen again.”
Loren opened his mouth to explain further, but then closed it, and Dalton didn’t feel inclined to talk through the rest of his theory with people who didn’t have the same concerns as he had. Wes then topped up Loren’s mug with the last of his brew, after which Loren returned to telling the story of their pursuit and defeat of the bandits along with Vaughn’s demise.
Dalton didn’t interrupt him again as he was thinking about his theory. By the time the others had drunk up, he still felt that he was right. With the barrel empty Cliff and Wes made their farewells. When they left them, Dalton sat down beside Loren, who shrugged.
“I know you reckon that Stanhope is the only person who connects the wagons, Sweet Valley and Two Forks,” Loren said. “But he was well the whole time we were with him and he was still healthy when he came here. Just as importantly, the people who’ve done the most traveling around the area were the bandits and they looked to be perfectly healthy, before we killed them.”
Dalton rubbed his jaw and then pointed at Loren. “So what’s your answer?”
“I don’t have one other than to agree with Cliff and Wes that this was a terrible tragedy and it’s not nobody’s fault, so we shouldn’t look for someone to blame, especially as the people who could be at fault haven’t fallen ill.”
Unwilling to dismiss his idea, Dalton jumped to his feet and resumed walking back and forth as he tried to think of a way to refute Loren’s valid viewpoint.
“Everyone reacts differently when they get ill,” he said. “It was the same here. Some people died and some people got better. It’s possible that some people didn’t suffer badly at all.”
“And then there are the people who never got ill in the first place, like us. Stanhope could have been as lucky as we were.”
“We’re not responsible for what happened here. That’s the one thing we can know for sure.”
Loren gave an exasperated expression. Then he raised his hat to run fingers through his hair and spread his hands.
“I wasn’t suggesting we were, but all right, let’s just say that you’re right and Stanhope was one of these people who didn’t suffer like everyone else did. Then, unbeknown to him, Marshal Vaughn and some of the other folks who spent time with him got ill. What are you going to do about it?”
Dalton grinned. “He’s on his way to White Falls and that town is ten times larger than Two Forks. If we don’t stop him, a whole heap of people could end up dead.”
Loren shook his head. “It takes a while to get there. By then he’ll have either succumbed to the illness or be completely cured, so I doubt he’ll still be able to make anyone else ill.”
“I doubt it, too, because he won’t be able to travel far with a bullet in the back.”
Loren rubbed his brow for a while, suggesting he was thinking carefully about what he would say next. He still took deep breaths before he responded.
“Stanhope is an arrogant waste of skin and his trigger-happy antics led to the deaths of two innocent people, but then again, Marshal Vaughn ruled on that and the matter is closed. You’re talking about killing him for something you can’t prove he did, and even if you could somehow prove it, he didn’t even know he was harming anyone.”
“He didn’t just harm anyone,” Dalton snapped waving an arm at Loren. “He killed Eliza.”
Loren stood up. “He didn’t. She got ill and died. If someone had have killed her, I’d join you in traveling to the ends of the earth to find and kill the man who did it, but this is different. What happened was an accident and I don’t reckon she’d have wanted you to react like this.”
Dalton leaned forward. “Don’t tell me what my wife would have wanted. You’re my friend and I thought you’d help me deal with any problem I faced, just like I’d help you, but you’re saying I’m on my own over this.”
Loren sighed and then backed away from Dalton before turning to the wall. He leaned against it, supporting his weight with his outstretched arms and with his lead lowered. He stood there for a long while.
Dalton knew he was hoping that the silence would give his friend time to think and to persuade himself to stop thinking along these murderous lines, but the delay only made Dalton feel more resolute.
“I am helping you,” Loren said at last. “Being a friend doesn’t always mean that you agree with someone no matter what they want to do. It means that sometimes you have to say that they’re wrong, and I’m doing that right now. You’re talking about killing a man for something that wasn’t his fault. That’s wrong.”
“Marshal Vaughn wanted to kill me because of what I did, no matter what my reason for killing his brother was. This is no different. It’s just something I have to do.”
Loren pushed himself away from the wall and turned to him.
“Except you reckoned the marshal was wrong and you were trying to find a way out. You were right about that, and now Stanhope is facing the same situation that you did of having someone wanting to kill him, but not deserving to die. You should treat Stanhope in the way you would have wanted Vaughn to treat you.”
Dalton opened his eyes wide. “I never thought I’d hear you talking like this and defending the man who’s responsible for the death of my wife and a whole lot of other folks, many of them good friends of yours.”
Loren gave a sympathetic smile and lowered his voice.
“The fact that I am talking like this ought to make you realize that you need to listen to me. Your threats against Stanhope are just your grief talking. You must know that, and if you don’t, a few days of quiet reflection are sure to let you realize it.”
With Loren’s calm attitude making Dalton’s irritation grow, Dalton stepped up to him and bunched a fist. Loren made no move to defend himself. For a few moments Dalton gritted his teeth and fought the urge to crunch the fist into his friend’s face. Then he let his hand go slack.
“I guess you’re right,” he said with a sigh. “Perhaps I do need to calm down and not get myself all riled up about doing something when I can’t do nothing to change what’s happened.”
Dalton backed away and raised a hand in acknowledgment of his friend’s attempts to talk him down.
“That’s sensible talking, Dalton. You’ve got some tough times ahead, but I’ll help you in any way I can.”
“I know that.” Dalton turned toward his own house. “But I reckon I need to start helping myself first. I don’t reckon I should avoid spending time in my house any longer. I’ll go there now and spend some time alone with my memories.”
Loren nodded and with them having said everything they could on the matter, Dalton mustered a smile before walking away. When he reached his house, he didn’t carry out his promise and instead he sat on a stump outside in a position where he faced toward the town and the main river.
He sat quietly as the sun lowered and then set. An hour after sundown he walked away from his house and stopped near to Loren’s house. All was quiet and still there, so he headed back to his house where he gathered up the saddlebags that he’d dumped there when he’d returned the previous day.
In short order he got ready to leave and then mounted his horse. With a last check that nobody was nearby he rode off down the hill and around the outskirts of town before moving on to the river.
He stopped for a while in a position where the moonlight sparkled on the water. Then he turned to the east and the distant town of White Falls.
Chapter Fourteen
Dalton rode downriver long into the night, resting up only when the half-moon had set and he lost the light. In the morning he resumed his journey. He rode hunched over in the saddle and paying little attention to his surroundings.
He assumed that Stanhope had gone this way, taking the shortest route to White Falls. As many people journeyed downriver for a short distance there was no point in him searching for Stanhope’s tracks, but as few people ever went all the way to White Falls, he figured he could search for signs of his passage later.
He had enough rations left over from his earlier expedition to mean that on the outward journey he wouldn’t need to waste time hunting. He didn’t care about the return journey and he hoped that the time saved would let him gain on Stanhope.
This was the first time he’d ever left Two Forks alone, with Loren being his usual companion. This time he welcomed the silence as it let him think. Unfortunately on his first day of traveling those thoughts were bleak as he tortured himself with memories of the good times that he and Eliza had enjoyed during their complicated courtship and then short marriage.
At other times he toyed with the idea that Loren had been right and Stanhope was at worst an unwitting player in the tragedy that had unfolded in two different towns. Despite the respect he had for Loren’s opinion, at the end of the day he still felt no urge to turn around and head back to Two Forks.
His only concession was that he would do what Vaughn had promised to do to him: hear Stanhope’s side of the story before he killed him. Three days into his journey, his resolution changed to one in which he would hear what Stanhope had to say about his role in the recent events.
Then, if he gave him proof that he wasn’t responsible for the deaths, he would let him live. He accepted that if Stanhope was then minded to cause trouble for him he could tell people about Vaughn’s allegations, but he wouldn’t kill him just to keep him silent and he would deal with any repercussions that may result.
By the sixth day he’d changed his resolution again to one in which he would kill Stanhope only if he got proof that he was responsible, whether his involvement had been accidental or not. As it was unlikely that he would ever get that proof, he accepted that this journey could be a wasted one and that it probably wouldn’t end with him killing Stanhope.
“I guess you were right, Loren,” Dalton said to himself when he settled down for the night on the seventh evening. “I just needed a few days of quiet reflection to realize I wasn’t thinking straight.”
With that admittance he did something he was sure he had never done before, even when he’d been a child and the folks who had given him a home had punished him for no good reason. He cried.
It was only a few sobs and he soon managed to stop himself before the self-pity got out of control, but he felt calmer afterward. That evening he stood by the water imagining that Eliza’s ashes had drifted down this far and that she approved of his latest resolution.
In the morning he briefly considered turning back before he carried on downriver. He was glad that he hadn’t abandoned his mission as late in the morning for the first time he found evidence that Stanhope had come this way in the form of the remains of a campfire where a few tendrils of smoke were still rising.
The sight made the anger return and when he rode on his mood stayed dark. He searched for Stanhope’s tracks, but only in feverish bursts of activity. He frequently dismounted and paced around as he willed the ground to give him proof that Stanhope was close.
The rest of the time he ignored the passing terrain as he imagined the ways that he’d make Stanhope suffer when he caught up with him. With his thoughts being mainly elsewhere, he didn’t find any more signs that Stanhope had gone this way, but by the evening his anger had burned itself out.
His day spent having troubling thoughts made him accept that if he let anger control his every waking moment, he would no longer be the man Eliza had married, and that meant he could justify only one resolution. He needed to stop Stanhope going into White Falls until he was sure that he wouldn’t make anyone else ill.
He would kill him only if he admitted that he knew he carried a sickness and that his actions had been deliberate. He imagined that he heard Eliza’s voice saying that this was the right way to deal with Stanhope.
After that, for the first time since her death, he got a good night’s sleep. The next day he paid full attention to the terrain as he searched for more signs of Stanhope’s passage. He was rewarded for his attentiveness when in mid-morning he again found an abandoned campfire, and as he’d come across it earlier in the morning than the previous day he judged that he was getting close to Stanhope.
Even better, he didn’t descend into an anger-filled fugue and instead he walked around until he found tracks leading away from the campsite. He rode along beside these tracks and although they were going in the same direction that he would have gone even if he hadn’t have found them, their presence cheered him.
For two more days he stayed with the tracks and all the time the signs that Stanhope had gone this way became fresher. Unfortunately he wasn’t gaining on him quickly enough for him to be sure that he’d catch up with him before he reached White Falls.
His concern grew when in mid-afternoon he heard water pounding against rocks nearby. Trees blocked his view of the river, but it sounded like he was riding by a waterfall. He recalled that the town had been named for a series of waterfalls upriver of the town, and the farthest one from town was around a day’s riding away.
He sped up and with him paying less attention to the ground, he soon found that he was no longer riding beside Stanhope’s tracks. He scouted to either side, but he failed to find them and with his desperation growing he rode farther afield, again without success.
As the ground he was traveling over was soft he reckoned any tracks ought to be obvious, so he stopped, torn between pushing on or doubling back and making sure that Stanhope hadn’t changed direction. He decided that he couldn’t be sure that Stanhope would carry on to White Falls as amid the series of waterfalls there were several places that provided navigable ways across the river.
Stanhope had lived in White Falls and he would know about these crossing points, so he turned around and headed back to the place where he’d heard the rushing water. This was the last time he could remember riding beside Stanhope’s tracks and, sure enough, he soon found them again.
He was pleased he’d turned back as within moments of resuming his journey downriver the tracks veered away toward the river. He followed the tracks through the trees, this development making him feel that he was making progress and that he might soon come across his quarry.
When he reached the river he was close to a waterfall that towered above him and sluiced down on to a multitude of rocks. A calm area of water lay beyond the rocks and it presented a tempting way to cross the river.
