Demon's Pass, page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Epilogue
IF YOU WANT A JOB DONE RIGHT . . .
“It’s my wagon.”
The worker stopped, then turned toward him. “What?”
“This wagon,” Parker replied. “It belongs to me. And the purchase contract says that it will be fit for travel. The way you are packing the wheel hubs, it ain’t fit.”
“Get out of here, kid. Go bother someone else.” The worker turned back to the wheel.
“No, sir, I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to make sure you do that right,” Parker insisted.
The worker had just scooped out a paddleful of grease. This time though, instead of putting it around the wheel hub, he turned quickly and wiped it across Parker’s shirt.
“Hey!” Parker shouted in surprise and anger.
The big man laughed. “Now get out of here, kid, and let a man do his work. Your wagon,” he said, laughing again. “That’s a good one.”
Parker walked over to a drum of coal oil, wet a cloth, and used it to clean the grease from the front of his shirt. That accomplished, he picked up a bullwhip and returned to the wagon. . . .
SIGNET
Published by New American Library, a division of
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First published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library,
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First Printing, August 2000
Copyright © The Estate of Ralph Compton, 2000
All rights reserved
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THE IMMORTAL COWBOY
The saga of the “American Cowboy” was sparked by the turmoil that followed the Civil War, and the passing of more than a century has by no means diminished the flame.
True, the old days and the old ways are but treasured memories, and the old trails have grown dim with the ravages of time, but the spirit of the cowboy lives on.
In my travels—which include Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, and Arizona—there’s something within me that remembers. While I am walking these plains and mountains for the first time, there is this feeling that a part of me is eternal, that I have known these old trails before. I believe it is the undying spirit of the frontier calling, allowing me, through the mind’s eye, to step back into time. What is the appeal of the Old West, of the American frontier?
It has been epitomized by some as a dark and bloody period in American history. Its heroes, Crockett, Bowie, Hickock, Earp, have been reviled and criticized. Yet the Old West lives on, larger than life.
It has become a symbol of freedom, when there was always another mountain to climb and another river to cross; when a dispute between two men was settled not with expensive lawyers but with fists, knives, or guns. Barbaric? Maybe. But some things never change. When the cowboy rode into the pages of American history, he left behind a legacy that lives within the hearts of us all.
—Ralph Compton
Chapter 1
North Kansas, Spring, 1868
The boy’s name was Parker Stanley, and he had heard all the jokes about having a name that was backward. “Putting the horse before the cart, and so forth.” Now, as he sat leaning against the broken wagon wheel, he tried to hang on to his name . . . to hang on to anything that would tell him that he was still alive.
He wasn’t sure how long he had been watching the approaching rider. Heat waves shimmering up from the sun-baked earth gave the rider a surrealistic appearance, bending the light in such a way that sometimes the rider was visible and sometimes he wasn’t. Parker wasn’t that sure there really was a rider. If so, was he human? Or, was he an Angel of the Lord, coming to take him to join his mother and father?
Parker looked around at the burned wagon, and at the scalped bodies of his mother and father. A few of the arrows the Indians had shot at them were still protruding from their bodies.
There was very little left of the wagon’s contents. The Indians had taken all the clothes, household goods, food, and water. They had taken his older sister, too. Elizabeth hadn’t cried, not one whimper, and Parker remember how proud he was of her bravery.
The Indians hadn’t found the little leather pouch, though. It contained all the money from the sale of the farm in Illinois, and was to have been the start of their new life. Parker saw his father hide the pouch, just before the attack began.
How long had it been since the attack? No matter how hard he tried to think, Parker couldn’t come up with the answer. Was it an hour ago? This morning? Yesterday? He had been sitting right here, at this wheel, for as long as he could remember.
The rider reached the wagon, swung down from his horse, then walked toward Parker, carrying a canteen. Parker watched him, almost without interest. When he felt the cool water at his lips, though, he began to drink thirstily, gulping it down in such large quantities that he nearly choked.
“Whoa, now,” the rider said gently, pulling the canteen back. “Take it easy, boy. You mustn’t drink it too fast. It’ll make you sick.”
The rider wet his handkerchief, then began rubbing it lightly on the boy’s head.
“You took a pretty good bump on the head,” he said. “They must’ve thought you were dead. You’re lucky you still have your scalp. They generally prize blond hair like yours.”
The water revived Parker’s awareness, and with it, the realization that both his parents had been brutally killed. He managed to hold back the sobs, but not the tears.
“Your folks?” the rider asked softly.
Parker nodded.
“Cheyenne, I expect. I’m real sorry about this, son,” the rider said.
“There was a white man with them,” Parker said.
“What? A white man? Are you sure?”
Parker thought of the big redheaded man who had cursed when they found no money in the wagon.
“Yes,” Parker said. “I’m sure. He was a big man with red hair and red beard. I’ll never forget him.”
“There’s nothing worse than a white man who has gone bad and thrown his lot in with the Indians.” The rider looked over at the bodies of the boy’s parents. “You stay here, I’ll bury them for you.”
“I want to help,” Parker said, stirring himself to rise.
The rider smiled at him. “Good for you, lad,” he said. “In the years to come it’ll be a comfort to you to know that you did what you could for them.” He looked toward the wagon and saw part of a shovel, the top half of the handle having been burned away. “You can use that, I’ve got a small spade on my saddle.”
They worked quietly and efficiently for the next half hour, digging only one grave, but making it large enough for both his mother and father. They lowered Parker’s parents into the hole, then shoveled the dirt back over them.
“You want me to say a few words over them?”
The boy nodded.
The rider walked back to his horse and opened a saddlebag. Parker watched as he took out a small leather-bound book and returned to the graveside. With his own survival now taken care of, and with the business of burying his parents out of the way, Parker was able to examine his benefactor closely. He saw a tall, powerfully built man, clean-shaven, with dark hair. Parker wasn’t old enough to shave yet, but he knew the trouble it took to shave every morning, and he thought the rider must be a particularly vain man to go to such trouble on a daily basis, especially when on the range like this.
“What are their names?” the man asked, interrupting Parker’s musing.
“What?”
“If I’m going to say a few words, I need to know their names.”
“My ma’s name is Emma. My pa’s is Amon. Amon Stanley.”
The rider cleared his throat, then began to read:
“ ‘I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.
“ ‘Oh God, whose mercies cannot be numbered: Accept these prayers on behalf of thy servants Amon and Emma Stanley, and grant them an entrance into the land of light and joy, in the fellowship of thy saints; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.”
“Amen,” Parker echoed quietly.
The rider closed his book and looked down at the mound of dirt for a long moment, then he looked over at the boy and smiled, and stuck out his hand.
“I’m Clay Springer,” he said. “How are you called?”
“Parker. Parker Stanley. Parker is my first name.”
“Parker Stanley . . . that’s a fine name for a man,” Clay said. “Well, climb up on back of my horse, Parker. We can ride double.”
“Wait,” Parker said. “Can I tell my ma and pa one more thing?”
“Of course you can, son. Take all the time you need.”
Parker cleared his throat, and looked down at the pile of freshly turned dirt.
“Ma, Pa, if all your teachin’ about heaven and all that is right, then I reckon you can hear me, ’cause the Lord has, for sure, taken you into his arms. So, what I want to say is . . . don’t worry none about me. I aim to live the kind of life you would’a both wanted me to live. And I figure, the way things are now, why, you’ll both be watchin’ over me even more’n you would’a if you was still alive.
“And you can set your minds to ease about Elizabeth, too. I aim to find her. It may take a while, but I promise you, if it takes twenty years, I’ll keep lookin’ for her.
“I reckon this is good-bye for now, but, if you don’t mind, I’ll be talkin’ to you from time to time. Oh, I prob’ly won’t be comin’ back out to this place anymore. But, then, I don’t think your souls will be hangin’ aroun’ here anyway.”
Clay stood a few feet behind Parker as he said his final words. He was glad he couldn’t be seen. It wouldn’t be seemly for the boy to see him wipe the tears from his own eyes.
“I reckon that’s it,” Parker said.
“You’ll do your folks proud, Parker, I know you will,” Clay said.
Parker started toward the horse, then he remembered the hidden pouch of money. It was under a loose board in the front of the wagon, a part which hadn’t been damaged by the fire. He started toward it.
“What’re you going after?”
Parker looked back toward Clay. The man had saved his life, helped bury his parents, and even read prayers over their graves. But a sudden cautiousness made him hesitate to tell Clay of the money. What if all the help this man had given him had only been a ruse to see if there was anything of value left? He felt almost ashamed of himself for being suspicious, but he thought it would be better to be safe than sorry. “Just some letters,” Parker said. “I want to keep them.”
“All right.”
Parker moved the board to one side and picked up the small leather pouch. He could feel the hefty wad of bills inside. As he had overheard his mother and father talking about it, he knew they had one thousand dollars left over after buying the wagon and supplies.
Parker slipped the pouch down inside his waistband, then walked back over to the horse. Clay was already mounted, and he offered his hand to help Parker climb up.
The air was perfumed with the smell of rabbit roasting on a spit, while Clay and Parker drank coffee. Parker hadn’t been a coffee drinker before. His ma told him she’d as soon he not drink coffee until he was an adult, and that was what he told Clay when Clay offered him a cup.
“Well, Parker, some folks become adults before other folks,” Clay said. “Seems to me like that time has come for you.”
Clay was right, Parker thought. He was on his own, now. As far as being an adult was concerned, that sort of sped things up. He accepted the coffee. It tasted a little bitter to him, but he was determined to acquire a taste for it.
Clay sipped his own coffee through extended lips and studied Parker over the rim of his cup.
“How old are you, Parker?”
“I’m sixteen,” Parker said.
Clay raised one eyebrow.
“All right, fifteen . . . and a half.”
“Where were you folks comin’ from?”
“Illinois.”
“You got any relatives back in Illinois that you want to go to?”
Parker shook his head. “No, all my ma’s folks live in England and I don’t even know their names. My pa had a brother, but he got killed at Antietam.”
“Bloody battle, Antietam,” Clay said, shaking his head. “Any close friends or neighbors?”
“None I would want to be a burden to,” Parker replied. He took another drink of his coffee. It seemed to him that it went down a little easier this time. “Anyway, I don’t want to go back. I’ve got to find my sister.”
“Older sister? Or younger?”
“Older. She’s eighteen.”
Clay studied the boy for a long moment before he talked. “Boy, you have to face the fact that you may never find her. A group of renegades like that . . . especially if they have a white man riding with them . . . will sell her to the highest bidder.”
“I’ll find her,” Parker insisted. “It may take me a while, but I’ll find her.”
Clay started to caution him against false hope, then he checked the impulse. Instead, he smiled at Parker. “I’m sure you’re right,” he said. “If anyone can do it, you, my stalwart young lad, can.”
“What’s a stalwart?” Parker asked.
Clay laughed. “It means resolute, courageous, determined,” he said.
“Determined. Yes, that’s what I am. I am determined.”
“Well, now, the question is, what are we to do with you?”
“Do with me? Why do you have to do anything with me? Just get me back into a town somewhere and I’ll be grateful.”
“I can’t just turn you out on your own,” Clay said “You’re too young.”
“I thought you told me I was an adult.” Clay cleared his throat. The boy was trapping him with his own words.
“Well . . . you are, as far as I’m concerned. But there’s other things to consider. Your schooling for example. You being only fifteen, you’re going to need another couple of years of schooling, and I don’t think you can get that on your own. Tell you what, I’m going into Independence tomorrow. Suppose we go see the judge and let him decide your case.”
“What do you mean, decide my case?”
“Decide what to do with you,” Clay said.
“Oh.” Parker was quiet for a long moment.
“Mr. Springer, will the judge put me in an orphanage?”
“He may,” Clay admitted. “I believe there is an orphanage in Independence.”
“I don’t want to go to an orphanage.”
“Why not? There will be people there to look after you. You’ll be fed and clothed, and you’ll go to school,” Clay said, trying to paint as attractive a picture as he could.
“I don’t need to be looked after. I can feed and clothe myself.”
“Parker, I don’t know how much money there is in that pouch you’ve got stuck down in your waistband, but I’d be willing to bet there isn’t enough to take care of you until you are full-grown.”
Parker gasped and instinctively felt for the pouch.
“You were right not to tell me about it,” Clay said. “I’ll give you credit for that. But this should prove something to you, I hope. If I were the type person who would rob you, I could have already done it. So even your attempt at secrecy wasn’t enough. See, you’d be better off going to an orphanage.” Clay pulled a blanket from his saddle roll and tossed it over to Parker. “Here,” he said. “Wrap up in this and get some sleep. It’s been a bad day for you, but you’ll see things more clearly tomorrow.”
