The Reckoning Page 2

  When he reached his horse, Butler turned back to Ike. “You’re walkin’ some better, Ike. Ain’t wobblin’ near as much as you have been. What’s it been, a couple of months now?”

  Ike’s eyes narrowed, and he nodded.

  The sheriff swung up into the saddle, as well as an overweight, worn-out old man could, and looked down at Ike. He wiped at his forehead with a dirty gray handkerchief. “Those raiders know about you and Rob, Ike. More and more of ’em have hightailed it on out of here to different states. Some west to Colorado territory, some back east, and some down to Texas. But the ones still around are a hard lot. Wouldn’t surprise me if they were huntin’ you and Rob, or even Sue, right now. Be careful.”

  Ike’s stomach tightened. Big brothers don’t let bad things happen to their little sisters.

  After dinner that night, the three McAlisters sat around the small kitchen table. Ike stared at his brother and sister. “Sounds like the hound of Hell we’re lookin’ for might be holed up in Colorado. Could be Manning.”

  Rob put his coffee down and wiped at his mouth with a dirty napkin. “But Butler wasn’t sure, was he?”

  “No, he wasn’t sure, but he felt strong enough about this outlaw to ride back out here. Says his source ought to know. You both heard him. He said these are likely some of the leaders, or at least one of ’em is.”

  Sue leaned forward, both hands gripping the edge of the table. “How we gonna find ’em?”

  Ike wiped his hands on his trousers as a stab of concern ran through him. “There’s no ‘we’ to it. I figure I’ll head on out to Colorado and look for ’em, and let you two know what I find out.” He rose from the table, standing as tall as he could.

  Sue sprang up and pounded her small fist on the table. Her mouth was contorted with anger. “If anybody’s going, Ike McAlister, it’s gonna be me.” She double tapped a finger on her chest as she said it. “You still ain’t healed enough to be long on a horse yet, and this farm needs someone to work it if we expect to eat regular. Besides, they won’t suspect that a woman’s on their trail. You two big galoots would stand out like sore thumbs and likely scare ’em off if you ever found ’em, or worse yet, get yourselves killed. This is one time I’m not staying behind.”

  Ike dismissed her with a wave of his hand. “You ain’t goin’; you’re just a kid.”

  Sue turned scarlet. “In case you haven’t noticed, Ike McAlister, I’m not a kid anymore. I’m almost nineteen, and I’d be married and probably have a few kids by now if Billy Johnson hadn’t been killed in that raid near five years ago.” Tears ran down her cheeks. “So don’t you dare stand there and tell me I’m just a kid!” She put both hands on the wobbly table and leaned toward Ike, arms shaking.

  Ike tried to stay calm, but his insides heaved and his heart raced. “You ain’t goin’ and that’s that.” The zing of minie bullets rang in his ears, and his forehead glistened. He wiped the memories away with a hankie to his forehead. He was on the verge of losing this quarrel with his sister. He could feel it.

  Sue raised a hand against him. “It’s settled then, that’s all there is to it.” She stuck her chin out and stared her brothers down. “I’ll leave for Colorado as soon as I get packed.” She turned on her heel and walked away.

  Ike watched silently as Sue disappeared to the back of the house.

  Rob said, “Ain’t you gonna go talk to her?”

  “Reckon I will, but she’s right about one thing. We still got to make a living while we’re huntin’ killers. Crops don’t plant or harvest themselves.”

  Rob blurted, “Then you need to help me more out in the fields.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, a red flush spread over Rob’s face. “I didn’t mean nothin’ by that, Ike, I didn’t. I know you’re doin’ the best you can with that leg.”

  Ike white-knuckled his dinner fork and stared silently down at his plate as his face reddened. He wasn’t making headway with either of them. They were supposed to listen to him now that their folks were gone. He pushed himself up awkwardly away from the table and limped out of the room.

  “Ike, come back, I didn’t mean that. Come back.”

  “We’ll pick this conversation up later,” he said back over his shoulder. He hobbled back to Sue’s bedroom. He couldn’t change the past, but he could change the future.

  She was back in their parents’ bedroom, leaning over her mother’s old black walnut dresser, pulling out the few clothes she had. The bureau was one of the only pieces to escape the fire that nearly engulfed the farmhouse after the raid.

  Ike sat on the bedroom’s creaky wooden chair, bad leg sticking straight out. “You’re not gonna do that, Sue. You’re not gonna go out to Colorado by yourself!”

  “Didn’t think you’d like the idea, but I’m doing it anyway, and you know I will, Ike McAlister, one way or the other.” Her voice rose as she finished, and she fixed him with a gritty stare.

  Ike smacked the arms of his chair with both hands. “Damn it, Sue! Nobody never could talk no sense into you, from the time you was just little.”

  She ignored that, and he steepled his fingers together in front of him. His boot beat a restless cadence on the rough, wooden floorboards. “You’re not leavin’ this house. We need you around here.” Ike even believed that on some level.

  She spun toward him, her dirty blonde hair flying in the air as she did. “Those bastards that killed our parents are still out there, Ike, killing other people! How’s me staying here gonna help stop that? I’m sick of leaving the fixing to you. And I’m sick of living in this mess of a place we call a ranch. It’ll never feel like home again with Ma and Pa gone.”

  Ike struggled to control his anger. Nothing was working. She was as stubborn as their mother and took after her in looks and passion. He’d failed to protect her once—he couldn’t let that happen again. “If you leave, don’t think about coming back home again.” That should stop her.

  It had the opposite effect. Sue turned toward him, face aflame. “You left! For that damn foolish war, and look what happened! Our parents and our farm—dead and ruined. And ever since you been back, you keep on leaving, chasing after raiders, yet you haven’t made things right no matter how many you’ve hunted down.” She wiped at her splotchy face with a hand. “I’m sick of sitting here, Ike. For once, I want to feel like I’m doing something with my life.”

  Every word stirred pangs of regret that stabbed Ike’s soul, just like on that fateful day he’d heard from Butler about his folks. He couldn’t stand to lose her too. “You’re stayin’, and that’s all!” He lurched out of her room and slammed the flimsy door behind him. Ignoring the pain in his leg, he limped to the heavy trunk that lay down the hall and dragged it in front of her door. As he listened outside her room, sadness took the place of his anger, and the flush faded from his face. There was no noise from her bedroom. He yelled, “I’m ridin’ out in the morning,” and limped to bed convinced he’d done the right thing.

  ****

  The next morning, Rob followed Ike out to what passed for their barn. “She must’ve rode out before dawn.”

  “Give me that letter.” Ike grabbed it from Rob’s hand and crushed it without reading it or slowing down. When he reached the barn, he gazed at Ally’s empty stall, then glanced at the vacant rail where he always draped her saddle. Volcanic anger flooded Ike’s vision with white light. He looked down at the crumpled letter in his hand and spread it out on a small bench.

  To my big-galoot brothers,

  I’m headed to Denver to see if I can pick up on any talk of Kansas outlaws thereabouts, and then I’ll send word. I’ll leave both your horses at the sheriff’s in town. Good thing it’s a cool morning, makes for a nice walk.

  Sue

  Rob peered into the last stall. “My horse is gone too.”

  Ike nodded without looking up. “Yup.”

  Rob looked up at his big brother. “You think we could catch her at the train station?”

  “Maybe so, but leave he
r be.” Something inside Ike relented, understood his sister’s need. Hadn’t he been doing the same thing for years that she’d just done? “She needs to go. If we catch her and bring her back today, she’ll just leave again tomorrow.”

  “So now we’re just waitin’ to hear from her, then? Is that it?”

  “That’s right.” Ike stared out at the rolling landscape in the direction of Lawrence. The hole in his heart had just gotten bigger. “Looks like we’ll have time to get some ploughin’ in when we get back from town.” Gray early morning clouds scudded across the sky and hid the rising sun. “Let’s get a move on before that storm hits.” He dropped the crumpled letter on the dirty hay and headed out of the barn.

  Chapter Two

  Near Cottonwood, Colorado, Summer 1868

  George Pinshaw slowed his horse as he approached the shady cottonwood glen, eager yet anxious at the same time. He wasn’t much of a horseman, and he strained forward awkwardly in the saddle for a better look as he entered. There he was. Dan Kelly sat at an old campfire ringed with blackened stones on the other side of a small stream. The top hand at Emerald Valley Ranch, just outside of Cottonwood.

  Kelly idly poked at a healthy fire inside a small rock circle with what looked like a branding iron. George urged his mount through the shallow water, dismounted, and led his horse over near the fire pit. A hatbox hung from his saddle horn. Kelly didn’t look up as he drew nearer.

  Pinshaw cleared his throat. Kelly had to have heard him arrive. “Hello, Dan,” he said, as he tied his horse off on a small bush nearby.

  Kelly said, “Sit down,” as he continued to jab at the steady flames in front of him.

  “Well, you could at least look up at me,” George said, as he took a seat across the pit from Kelly.

  Kelly stared over at him.

  Pinshaw felt the man’s gaze piercing the flames between them as if they weren’t there.

  Kelly said, “I see as much as I want to see. As much as anyone’s ever gonna see. I don’t know what you’re thinkin’, but you ain’t holdin’ no aces.”

  A cold sweat soaked Pinshaw’s hatband. He took the hat off and laid it on the ground next to him. It wasn’t a cowboy hat, just a round black bowler, and as the hat lay there in the dirt, it looked silly.

  “You said you know somethin’ I’d be interested in, shopkeeper. What is it?” Kelly held Pinshaw hard with a glare.

  Pinshaw glanced at the large Bowie knife hanging from Kelly’s belt, then quickly looked back up. “I know somethin’ that none of you at the ranch want anybody else to know. That’s what I know,” he said in a voice that sounded thinner than he wanted.

  “I’ll ask one more time, Pinshaw, what’d you want to talk to me about?” Kelly reached down and flipped the leather loop atop his pistol off as he said it.

  George took out a bandana and wiped at a small amount of sweat on his brow. “I know who you all are, and where you come from. And I want money to keep quiet about it. A man’s got a right to profit from diggin’ in the right spot and findin’ what he’s lookin’ for, don’t he?”

  Kelly’s face twisted into an ugly grimace, and Pinshaw wished he could take the remark back. Major Tompkins’ foreman seemed to grow larger as he sat there glowering at him.

  Kelly fished a white cigarette wrapper out of his trousers and began to fill it with dried tobacco. Pinshaw watched in fascination, unable to take his eyes off the simple act as it unfolded. Kelly licked the paper, closed it around the loose tobacco, and put the slim cigarette in his mouth. He took a match out of a vest pocket and struck it against the blackened rock he was sitting on. He brought the flame up to the cigarette. He drew in a deep breath and exhaled a long, steady stream of smoke. “Tell me.”

  Pinshaw took a quick glance around him to see if there was anyone else who could hear him or help him. He wiped at his brow again. “It’s just that I never had much money, and I thought that the major wouldn’t miss some, just a little bit—doesn’t have to be much at all. I heard you all found a bunch.”

  “Tell me.”

  Fear gripped Pinshaw, and he decided to change tactics. He was in over his head. “I just heard some things, is all,” he said in a quiet voice as his eyes darted left and right.

  Kelly stroked his long beard and stared at a rock next to Pinshaw.

  Pinshaw’s hand shook as he brought it up to his mouth and wiped at his scrawny mustache. “I thought you’d want to know that there’s some who say you all were Quantrill’s Raiders.” His voice rose to an almost pitiful squeak. “Not that I care, I just thought you ought to know.” He looked around again. “Is all.” He tried to stop his mouth from saying more, but it refused to cooperate and out came the word, “Bushwhackers.” The word seemed to float in the air toward Kelly. He wanted to reach out and grab it back. He drummed his fingers on his knees as he waited for the foreman’s reply.

  Kelly didn’t move a twitch. In a low voice he said, “Some people say that? I’ll bet it was just one cowboy, am I right?” The face of one particular ranch hand flew through his head. Scratchy.

  “…Yes, you’re right, just one.” Pinshaw’s surroundings closed in. The tall trees all seemed to be leaning toward him. The glen grew darker, as if the day had fled.

  “So we’re Quantrill’s Raiders, are we? Is that what you say?”

  “I don’t say nothin’ of the sort. Just some loose talk a cowboy in the saloon told me is all.” Pinshaw tried to look elsewhere, anywhere else other than at Kelly, but couldn’t tear his eyes away from the man.

  “You sure you didn’t start that rumor? Sounds like somethin’ you’d do.”

  “I’d never spread that kind of foolish talk. That could get a man—” He stopped. His eyes widened, and he sat mute looking at Kelly, who still stared at the same low rock.

  “So what’d he say we did? Did he say we killed innocent men back in Kansas? Is that what he said?”

  Pinshaw licked dry lips. “No, I never heard nobody say that.”

  Kelly took a long drag and blew a large smoke ring across the pit. “Did he say we weren’t really Confederates, just irregulars that people called murderers and robbers?” A strange smile appeared on the ranch hand’s face.

  George shifted on the rock. “No, he never said that neither.”

  “Did he say the Confederacy disowned us, and after the war was over, we took on out of Kansas so we wouldn’t be killed?” Kelly’s voice rose. His smile disappeared, and his eyes narrowed.

  George looked around wildly. “No, I swear, I never heard that.”

  Kelly stuck the iron poker further into the fire. “Did he say that on the way out here we wiped out some Indians we ran across?”

  “No sir, I never heard none of that either,” he said, licking his lips.

  Kelly threw a small stone at a rock across the way as the tip of the branding iron glowed red in the fire. The pebble clicked off the rock and ricocheted to a stop at Pinshaw’s feet. “Did he say we hijacked some of the Reynolds gang’s loot and that’s how the major bought the ranch?”

  The Reynolds gang was a new one. “N-n-no.” Pinshaw glanced left and right. “Me and him was just talkin’ in the Wildfire about a week ago. Nobody never said nothin’ about anything like that.”

  Kelly scuffed a small X in the loose dirt in front of him with the glowing iron. The dirt sizzled and smoked as the red hot metal burnt it up. “Who else heard this hand talkin’?”

  Pinshaw paused. “Nobody else, Dan. Just me.” He dabbed at his forehead with the bandana, then shifted tactics again. It would be safer if Kelly thought other people knew too. “No, come to think of it, there was all kinds of fellas heard him. It’s the talk of the town right now.”

  Kelly straightened up and drew his trap tighter. “It just so happens all of what I just said is true. What do you think of that? You figured it all out. You’re one smart fella. Too smart for your own good.” Kelly got up, went over to his horse, and pulled a rough leather bag off it. He brought it back to the firepit, l
oosened the drawstring, and sat back down without looking in it.

  Pinshaw paled. “I didn’t figure nothin’ out. I don’t know nothin’ either, and if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to just leave it at that, okay? Why don’t I just ride on out of here, like I was never here.”

  Kelly put the bag down and took another long drag on his cigarette. He sat still for a moment. “So if this is all true and everybody knows it, why should the major pay you anything to keep quiet?”

  Pinshaw recognized the corner he’d backed himself into and reversed himself again. “I was just kiddin’ about everyone knowin’, Dan. Don’t no one know but me. And I don’t even know for sure, really.” He scrunched up the bandana in his hands and laughed a nervous laugh that sounded foolish as it disappeared into the trees.

  Kelly’s hand traveled along his gun belt, fingering the tops of bullets as it went. “You know, George, I reckon I don’t believe that. I believe you probably knew all of what I just said already. And I bet you told somebody else about it as soon as you heard it, ’cause that’s just the kind of thing a little dandy like you would do. You’ve always wanted to be a big man, and you ain’t never been one, have you? And you ain’t exactly right in the head, so I’m bettin’ you told someone else, didn’t you?” It was a statement, not a question. “Somebody you probably wanted to impress.” Kelly pulled his Bowie knife out, and with a flick of his wrist, hurled the wide, ten-inch blade past Pinshaw’s head and buried it in the cottonwood directly behind him.

  Pinshaw couldn’t will himself to turn and look over at it, so he sat transfixed, unable to take his eyes off Kelly. Sweat ran down his back. Now what? He switched strategy again. “I did tell someone, and if I don’t come back real soon, I told her to tell the sheriff.” His eyes darted around, looking for an escape route.

  “The sheriff?” Kelly laughed. “That’s the last person anybody ought to tell anything to.”

  “Well, she’ll surely tell him, she surely will.”