Lost Mountain Pass, page 10
“In this storm? I don’t mean to be redundant, but this one looks like it has some staying power behind it, has probably driven even the most stubborn predator into a cave to ride it out.”
“I don’t think we have any choice.”
Judge Hadesworth grimaced with pain, then nodded. “I’ll do whatever you say, Trusty. My life is in your hands.”
Trusty started to help Judge Hadesworth take off his shirt, but he stopped as soon as he heard someone approach.
“Don’t move, neither one of you.”
Trusty knew the voice. It was Amelia Darby. He looked over his shoulder, the match still burning in his hand. Another flash of lightning reached across the sky with prickly veins that lit the camp like it was daylight, but only for a second. He saw Amelia standing twenty feet from him, still dressed in all black, bound up in widow’s weeds that she had no right to claim, her face twisted into a hateful stare, with the Buntline Special held securely with both hands, pointed straight into the lean-to at the judge. Then she disappeared into the darkness as the lightning snapped away. Trusty let the match fall out of his hand, and it spiraled downward like a falling star. He reached for his Colt, but he was too late.
Amelia fired the Buntline and hit Judge Hadesworth in the chest, putting a quick end to any hope of saving him and any doubt about what Amelia’s true intentions were.
The Darby girl followed the first shot up with another one in quick succession. This bullet hit its target, too, sending Trusty tumbling backward into a ragdoll pile of pain, blood, and surprise.
The darkness reached out and welcomed Trusty, offering him no final moment of heroics or a chance at redemption. The Colt slipped from his hand, and any reaction was lost in the fall to a spindly girl who had spit on the grave of her brothers and family name, perhaps in truth or in deception, to convince him and the judge that she was honest in her attempt to leave the Darby way of life behind. It was a lie. Death had come to visit Trusty by way of an angry young girl, wild as a wolf and mean as a stepped-on snake.
Trusty had no choice but to shake death’s hand as everything around him folded into the most frightening color of black he had ever seen.
Chapter 9
Lost Mountain Pass, Indian Territory, May 1888
There was no otherworldly light, no dreams of angels lifting Trusty to a greater height into heaven. There was nothing that Trusty could remember of leaving the waking world, if that had actually happened. By all accounts it didn’t. He woke up with a start and a cough, opening his eyes to a funny smell in the air. The odor was something unknown, sweetness and an odd medicine smell, mixed with wood smoke and the aftermath of rain. Definitely not coffee or breakfast. He had to wonder if this was hell.
The harshness of daylight forced Trusty to squint. His body felt like every inch of it had been attacked by fire ants. His skin stung, and he ached from the inside out. He closed his eyes again and concentrated on breathing, on being awake and alive. Whether he was safe or not was the last thing Trusty was concerned about. At least he wasn’t dead—which was what he expected to be.
“I knew you would live,” an unfamiliar man’s voice said.
Trusty summoned what strength he could find to open his eyes again. “Who are you?” Even his eyelids hurt. The sun was an unwanted enemy that persisted whether he liked it or not. The image of a man was a blur; black and white paint strokes smeared in sharpening oil. “Where am I?” He reached for his gun, but it wasn’t there.
Trusty struggled to focus on the man sitting across from him. The man was dressed in black from head to toe and looked like he was glowing; the sun was behind his head. The stranger’s face was distorted, not kind or angry. The face seemed familiar, like Trusty had seen it before, but he couldn’t put a name to it.
His weapons had been taken from him. It was an assumption, a reason to be fearful, but he didn’t overreact. If the man wanted him dead, he wouldn’t be awake. He’d already be six feet under. “Who are you?” he said again.
The man didn’t answer. Just stared at Trusty with a blank face and uninterested eyes.
“What do you want?” Trusty tried to sit up, alarm rising from the usual places when something was out of sorts. A sharp jolt of pain forced him back down to the ground. He was lying on a soft bedroll, but the ground was rock-hard underneath him. He was still on the mountain. Still in the camp from the looks of things. It was past morning. Tilting toward late afternoon. The sun was dropping in the west, but that didn’t matter much to Trusty. He was more interested in the man sitting across from him.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” The man was on his feet now, walking toward Trusty. He offered him a mug with steam rising out of it. The sweet smell grew stronger, comforted him with the remembrance of an elixir his mother had given him when he was a boy, stricken with an ongoing cough. Nothing brought fear to his mother’s eyes like a cough that wouldn’t go away.
Trusty took the mug, helped himself to a sip, then spit the liquid out as soon as it touched his tongue. “What the hell is that? That’s the worst thing I’ve ever tasted.”
“It’s not coffee. It’s water, honey, prairie herbs, and a dose of laudanum. Drink it. Your pain will go away.”
“I’ve never had such a concoction. You got any coffee?”
“That’s all I have.”
“Thanks just the same.” Trusty set the mug down on the ground. More pain arrived with the movement and he flinched and moaned unconsciously.
“Suit yourself, Dawson,” the man said as he moved back to the other side of the campfire.
“You know me, but I don’t know you.”
“Everyone knows you, or have you forgot who you are?”
“Where’s the judge?”
“Dead. Don’t you worry about him. I wrapped him up in a blanket so nothing can get to him. There’s a shallow cave a hundred yards down the mountain. I tucked him away until you’re able to ride.”
“I know the cave.”
“It’ll keep the body from stinking too bad.”
“He’s really dead.”
“That’s what I said.”
“No, it wasn’t a question. I was letting it sink in. She really did kill him.”
Amelia Darby’s face flashed in Trusty’s mind, surrounded by black, lit up by a wicked jab of lightning slicing the sky in half, a satisfied sneer on her face, with the Buntline held confidently in her hands. Her eyes were as black as her cloak and as angry as the stormy sky. There was no way Trusty was ever going to forget the sight of that girl as she pulled the trigger. Not until the day he died. She had tricked him and the judge, gained their confidence, encouraged them to let their guard down and feel sorry for her. “I’m such a fool,” Trusty said to himself, under his breath too soft for the stranger to hear.
“Yes, she killed him,” the man said. “She meant to kill you too. I arrived too late to stop her.”
Trusty tried to get up, but the pain forced him back onto the bedroll again. “Where is she? Where is Amelia Darby?”
“I don’t know, but I have my thoughts where she might be headed,” the man said. “We had an exchange and she got away, rode out, and disappeared.”
“She ran off into the night?”
“Into the storm. But that would be Amelia’s way. She wouldn’t let anything stop her once she has her mind set on something. Rain, lightning, a twister, or a deep darkness wouldn’t dare stand in her way. My guess is she knew exactly where she was heading and had an escape plan, a place to run to until things quieted down. She played with you like a big cat smacking around its prey for the fun of it, then ran off after the kill. The only spoil she took with her was the satisfaction of revenge.”
“Revenge. It was always about that, wasn’t it? I failed to trust my gut. I knew I should have never trusted her. I didn’t from the start, but the judge warmed to her.”
“Amelia loved her youngest brother, Rascal, more than she let on I would imagine.”
“She said she hated them all.”
The man shrugged, then grabbed up a cup of coffee and took a sip of it himself. Trusty couldn’t imagine that it was the foul-tasting medicine that had been handed to him.
Trusty didn’t feel threatened by the man, but he wasn’t comfortable either. The man’s voice was soft as butter and his eyes and body movement were hard to read. The stranger was stiff, uncomfortable in his clothes. Denim trousers. A chambray shirt with a defined yoke. Boots with a new shine on them. All black, like Amelia Darby in service of mourning or something bad.
Trusty’s vision was clear now, but he still didn’t know who the man was. He was still a stranger, the face more familiar than the voice. “You sound like you know her pretty well.” Another pain exploded inside Trusty’s body as he moved to get comfortable on the hard ground. His vision paled white and for a second he was blind from the hurt. Another moan escaped his lips even though he fought against it.
“You should drink from the mug that I brought you.”
“How do I know that I can trust you?”
“You don’t know. But you have my word that it will ease your pain and not bring any harm to you. That’s all I can offer you. The risk is yours to take.”
The tincture of laudanum took Trusty into a deep, fit-filled sleep. Pain crashed into hazy dreams that left him floating in a known, but unknown world. As suddenly as he had woken, alive, next to the campfire with certain knowledge that Amelia Darby had killed Judge Hadesworth, he had been transported into a drug-induced stupor that left him lost and afraid, a place he was unaccustomed to visiting.
* * *
Trusty opened his eyes to see stars overhead. The campfire burned steadily next to him, offering the comfort of warmth and the pleasant odor of hardwood burning slow. There wasn’t much pain in his body, but his head felt funny . . . achy like he had been drinking, but different. It must have been the laudanum. He was able to move this time, prop himself up and see clearly.
“Who are you?” Trusty said to the man opposite the fire.
“Amelia Darby is my sister,” the man said, letting the truth of his words dawn on Trusty.
Trusty sat up, relieved for a moment from the pain, and reached for his gun—that wasn’t there.
The man stood up as well. “You have nothing to fear . . . relax. If I was like the rest of my family, you’d already be dead.”
“I’ve heard that song and dance before and look where it got me.”
“I assure you that I mean you no harm.”
Without any weapons to protect himself with, and his current state of injury that disallowed for a successful outcome of a fistfight, Trusty relented, scanning the ground for a rock that might be useful. “What’s your name?”
“Father . . .” he stopped as soon as the word dropped off his tongue. “Michael. Just Michael now. Michael Darby.” He made his way over to Trusty and offered his hand.
Trusty took it and allowed himself to be pulled upward onto two feet. Pain revisited his torso, radiating from his shoulder, from the bullet wound that had been bandaged with the skill of a doctor. He was wobbly and weak, but determined to stand, to face Michael Darby. The pain was distant for the moment. The tincture offered relief, but Trusty was troubled by how it made him feel, not to mention the distant dream he tried to repel and capture at the same time.
On closer inspection there was no question that the stranger was a Darby. He had the same birdlike features as Amelia: a beaky nose, wide-set eyes, and narrow face. His hair was shorn short, recently cut, and black as crow feathers. His clothes looked new, store-bought, not homemade, not worn out. He looked uncomfortable in the black getup, like the material itched or didn’t fit right. Something about the man didn’t seem right about him, but Trusty couldn’t put his finger on what that something was.
“You did this?” Trusty said, pointing to his shoulder.
“I had no choice. You were going to die if I didn’t do something. I could have left you and gone after Amelia, but that didn’t seem to be the right thing to do. I couldn’t leave you to the wolves.”
“You have skills.”
Michael Darby nodded. “I had some training on the battlefield. Blood and stitches are hard to avoid in this world.”
“Thank you,” Trusty said. “You saved me.”
“That used to be my business.” Michael let go of Trusty, allowing him to stand on his own.
“I don’t understand.”
“Why don’t you sit back down. You’re not strong enough to stand very long. I’ll make us some dinner. You’re lucky this mountain is home to a good population of rabbits.”
Trusty didn’t have to be told twice that he was still weak. His bones felt like they were made out of paper. He settled down onto the spot where he had slept. “How long have you been here?”
“A day.”
“A day?” A rush of panic plowed through Trusty, almost propelling him back onto his feet. “We were supposed to be in Muskogee by now.”
“I’m sure someone has already noticed that you’re late.” Michael had produced a pan and a tin drum canteen from somewhere. He set the pan on a grate over the fire and poured water into it. He was not troubled at all about Trusty’s concerns. He was as calm as Trusty normally was—which comforted and bothered Trusty in a way he didn’t understand.
“Judge Hadesworth is a federal judge,” Trusty said.
“Was. He was a federal judge.”
“I don’t want to think like that.”
“You can’t bring him back.”
“I wish I could.”
“We all wish we could change the past, but we can’t. I thought you would have learned that by now.”
Trusty didn’t like the change in Michael’s tone. It was condescending, like a teacher who had no right to grade him. He wasn’t sure he liked Michael Darby at all. “You need to explain to me why you’re here, sir,” Trusty said. “I appreciate it that you helped me, but my experience with the Darbys hasn’t been positive of late, so I can’t exactly say I’m real comfortable right now. Especially when I consider that Amelia said she was the only Darby left in Kosoma. She said she was the last of the Darbys. How can that be if you’re a Darby too?”
“Believe it or not, she was telling the truth. There are no other Darbys living in Kosoma. I was living in Krebs. I was a priest at Saint Joseph’s. My family had long given me up for dead, or hoped I was dead.”
“Dead?”
“Figuratively. I chose a different path than what they wanted me to. One that involved learning, reading, and giving my life over to the way of the Lord. They were ashamed of me, wanted nothing to do with me, and I felt the same about them. I found refuge in the church, but the church did not find refuge in me. The trials and tribulations caused by my brothers continually reached the ears of my superiors, and I was continually looked upon with suspicion. The curse of being a Darby. The recent killing spree in Kosoma cast a bad light on me, and instead of being cast out, I walked away, took off my collar, and left it behind. I had no choice and nowhere else to go. I was tired of living under the roof of people who did not trust me, that judged me for the actions of others. I couldn’t do my job.”
“I saw you when we were on Poor Man’s Hill.”
“Yes, I regret not coming to your aid then. If I had known who you and the judge were, I would have warned you of the danger that you were in. But from a distance, it was hard to tell if you were of her ilk, if you were part of the Darby gang or just bystanders. It didn’t matter much. I had no desire to see Amelia. I was always her least favorite brother.”
“Why’s that?”
“I could always tell when she was lying.”
“How’s that?”
“Because she never told the truth. She would have made a wonderful actor in one of those traveling shows.”
“And you don’t have that skill?”
“I assure you, Deputy, I have no reason to lie to you or bring any harm to you. If I can, I hope I can help you.”
“Help me do what?”
“Bring Amelia Darby to justice. I hope to see her hang for killing Judge Hadesworth.”
Chapter 10
Paris, Texas, May 1888
Vance Calhoun eased along the trail with his head down, allowing the grullo to make his way home pretty much on his own. The reliable horse had made the journey and delivered a drunken Calhoun to his doorstep more than once. The vast darkness of the night had wrapped Calhoun in a black blanket; a stunned look had settled on his face after discovering the bullet-riddled bodies of Haden and Miguel. The extent of Marberry’s rouse was undeniable to acknowledge. Not only had Calhoun been outsmarted, but he had lost his most trusted man in Haden. Sally and Maria would be stricken with the loss of Miguel, and Calhoun was certain that his sister would take him to task for the loss. Walking into the St. Louis railroad man’s trap would be all his fault. And maybe Sally would be right in her attack, in her grief, in her fear. Calhoun knew he had reacted and not thought out his actions. Just like now, plodding along, not paying any attention to what was around him. He could have been riding into another ambush. Marberry was certainly capable of such a thing, finishing what he started. At that thought, Calhoun raised his head, took a deep sniff of the air, and realized that Marberry had the upper hand, that for whatever the reason—whether he blamed Calhoun for Jessica’s death or feared that Calhoun would take the baby—he wouldn’t stop until Calhoun was no longer a threat. A war had been started. A deeply personal war that could only end in the man’s death.
Gladdy O’Connor followed close behind Calhoun, keeping pace but giving the man some distance. “I got your back, boss,” Gladdy had said once they headed for home.
There were two other horses tied behind Gladdy’s ride, Haden’s and Miguel’s—both had stayed close, weren’t taken by Marberry’s raiders. The horses wore lifeless bodies draped over their saddles, heads to the ground, dead as dead could be, shot and killed by Marberry’s men.
