“And how would you suggest I proceed, Mr. Dodge?”
“As we haven’t much time to decide on a course of action, it would be my recommendation that we leave this place as quickly as possible. Seek refuge in Fort Worth. I sincerely doubt even the most determined of killers would follow us into Company B’s Ranger camp. Even those bold enough to admit their connection to a man of Nate Coffin’s infamous reputation.”
Her hand shook as she put her own cup aside. She stood, then strode majestically to one of the windows that faced Salt Valley’s central thoroughfare, pulled the curtain aside with one finger, and gazed into a night bathed in gold-tinted moonlight.
“While I must admit to a degree of fear, Mr. Dodge, it is not for my own life, but my son’s. William, you see, is my life.”
“Please believe that I understand those sentiments completely, ma’am.”
“You, and everyone in town, are now privy to my skill with firearms. I can outshoot with rifle or pistol just about any man I’ve ever met, and have no qualms about exercising my God-given ability if forced to do so.”
“An admirable trait, ma’am, but not one I’m sure will help you in this particular instance.”
She turned and hit me with an icy stare. “I find your concern for my safety most comforting, Mr. Dodge, but I’ll not be rooted out of my home again. William and I came here on a wave of personal tragedy. We aim to stay in Salt Valley no matter what comes our way. Do you understand my feelings on this matter, sir?”
Moved to the lady’s side. Touched her forearm and detected no resistance. In fact, she moved ever so slightly my direction. Her shoulder brushed against my chest.
“Marshal Oakley and I are sworn to your protection, both personally and professionally, Mrs. Savage. We’ll do whatever is necessary in service of those oaths. But please be advised, Nate Coffin has placed a sizable bounty on both our heads. In his twisted, murderous mind we are responsible for his brother’s poor choices in life. The man means to have us dead, and killers are likely on their way as we now speak.”
The weight and smell of her became more powerful as she leaned closer and almost whispered, “Let them come, Mr. Dodge. Desperate men might be surprised by a woman determined to protect her son’s life, as well as her own, assisted by a valiant Texas Ranger and a stalwart town marshal.”
Thought dawned on me, at that exact moment, as how there was simply no more to be said on the subject. Realized she would likely not yield, no matter how keen my reasoning. Besides, my growing infatuation with that stunningly beautiful female simply would not allow me to force the issue.
Took her hand in mine, raised it toward my lips, kissed the back, then said, “Your obedient servant, Mrs. Savage.”
She placed her free hand on my arm, then fiddled with a button on my vest. Behind flushed cheeks, she brought her mouth so near my ear I could feel the moist warmth of scented breath. “Please don’t think me too bold, sir. But I must admit you are the first man to inspire an almost forgotten feeling of passionate confusion in my blood.” Then she quickly moved half a step back, and barely breathed, “Your most ardent admirer, Mr. Dodge.”
Surprise doesn’t come anywhere near a description of my feelings at that instant. Backed away in delighted bewilderment, mumbled my thanks for the meal, and hastily retreated for the door.
As I stepped onto her small but immaculate porch, she reached out, lightly touched my elbow, and said, “Do come back at your own convenience, Mr. Dodge.”
Kissed her hand again and hurried to the gate, but stopped before I reached the street, turned, and said, “I would stay on a bit longer, but fear I cannot trust my judgment as to proper conduct at the moment, Mrs. Savage.” Shoved my hat on my head, and damn near ran all the way back to my hotel room.
Spent a sleepless night of constantly raking through every word she had spoken to me, every blissful movement, each and every possibly suggestive gesture. Next morning as I took breakfast with Caleb in my favorite spot on the veranda, explained Dianna’s feelings about our combined desires for her safety.
Old marshal didn’t mince words. Poked a crisp piece of bacon into his mouth and, through grinding bites, grumbled, “You realize, of course, Coffin’s henchmen will come and kill us all, including the child.”
Felt convinced of the rightness of my thoughts on the matter. Said, “Oh, I think we’ll be reasonably safe, so long as we pay attention and don’t do anything stupid.”
“Could use a little more experienced help around here, Lucius. My two deputies aren’t much more than resident loafers who took the only jobs they could get. Both of ’em are the closest things to bar squeezin’s you could dredge up around these parts.”
“I’ll wire Boz this morning, Caleb. Tell him to get back as fast as good horses can run. He should have delivered Buster into the clutches of the Tarrant County sheriff by now. Man loves a fight. He’ll hurry back this way as quickly as possible. Once Tatum arrives, we’ll take turns talking with Dianna until we change her mind.”
Oakley stroked his chin sagely and said, “Most likely all it’ll take to modify Mrs. Savage’s rigid attitude is for something ugly and wayward to occur. We can always hope for the best, but as my ole granpappy used to say, ‘Hopin’ ain’t never gonna make it so.’ ”
Little could I have known that something ugly, wayward, armed to the teeth, and hungry for blood had recently crossed the San Saba River, and would soon fall on all of us like prairie thunder. Bloody death was coming to Salt Valley.
5
“AMAZING WHAT TWO GALLONS OF COAL OIL CAN DO.”
CANNOT BRING TO mind a single circumstance worse than being awakened from a sound sleep by the distant, distinct, and persistent sound of gunfire—lots of gunfire. If you ply the lawdog’s trade for any time at all, such events usually slap you with the unavoidable foggy-minded conclusion that someone has probably died as a result of a rudely applied dose of hot lead. Snapped to consciousness in my hotel room and instinctively knew that the remote blasting I heard came from a spot out past Salt Valley’s sawmill—Dianna Savage’s house.
Sat bolt upright and thumped onto the floor in my sock feet. Got somewhat dressed. Grabbed my pistol belt, rifle, and boots on the way out the door. Stumbled into the hotel lobby still bootless. Burst through the door, dropped to the edge of the boardwalk, and hastily pulled the boots on.
Hit the street just in time for Marshal Oakley to thunder up on a long-legged bay mare. He led an already saddled hay burner for me. Disheveled and flushed, the visibly concerned lawman appeared to have been aroused in the exact same fashion as I had.
Couldn’t help but notice the pained expression on his weather-beaten face. “Gotta hurry, Lucius. Sounds like someone’s trying to level the Savage place.”
Leapt aboard a strange animal and kicked north. Hadn’t even got past the town’s limits when the shooting abruptly stopped. About a minute later, we roared up to what was left of Dianna’s picket fence. The horse was still running when I jumped off, hit the ground like a rabid, slobbering wolf, and broke through her bullet-riddled front door, fully ready to kill anything out of place.
Flew past the shattered entrance and almost stepped on her. Spattered and smeared with splotches of fresh blood from toe to crown, she kneeled on the floor amidst piles of broken glass, splintered shards of wood, and a growing pool of slick gore. Trembling arms encircled the shattered body of young William. Child had all the appearance of a twisted, colorless doll drenched in dark, sticky liquid.
Of a sudden, a sound unlike any I’d ever heard in my entire life rose from somewhere deep inside the distraught mother’s heaving chest and clawed its way past her constricted throat. Something between a screech and an agonized moan, the noise she made caused rippling gooseflesh all over my back, and the hairs rose up on my arms and neck. Closest thing I could compare it to would be the call of the most lonesome mountain lion in west Texas.
“They’ve killed my baby,” she shrieked, and rocked back and forth on bloody knees as she clutched at the dead child. “Oh, my dear God, they’ve killed my baby.” She couldn’t stop saying it. Over and over, the same thing. “They’ve killed my beautiful baby. Sweet forgiving Jesus, they’ve killed my only child. Oh, my God in Heaven.”
Knelt beside the stricken girl and tried to offer some comfort, but in my experience, there is no consolation for such intense agony. She must have wept gallons before Caleb and I finally separated her from the lifeless body of her poor, dead son. As her last fingertip slipped from his cold, limp hand, she moaned piteously and collapsed in a heap at my feet.
We wrapped William’s tiny corpse in a hand-knitted comforter and delivered it into the care of a Mr. Arliss Heavner, who built caskets in Salt Valley and conducted funerals. By then, some of the town ladies had arrived. They swooped in and formed a sweet-smelling knot of weeping sympathy around the devastated Dianna. Shooed all us menfolk outside and away from an agony so pervasive it affected even the hardest of those who appeared on the scene to offer their help and concern.
Caleb and I stood in Dianna’s once-beautiful, now ravaged front yard and rolled ourselves a smoke. He took his first lungful, blew it heavenward, then muttered, “Front of this place looks like twenty men spent an hour firing into it.”
“Couldn’t have been more’n two or three of ’em,” I said, “according to the tracks they left behind. Maybe four. Headed off to the south and west. Arrogant scum didn’t even bother to make an effort to cover their trail. Guess they were in too big a hurry. Bastards did one helluva job. Can’t even imagine how Mrs. Savage survived a fusillade of such deadly intensity and came out of it pretty much unscathed.”
Old marshal lowered his head. “She didn’t come out unscathed. Not by a damn sight.” He took another puff from his smoke. “You know, Lucius, given the trail they left, if we head out now, could probably catch up with ’em ’fore the end of the day. Kill ’em all or, better yet, have ’em swingin’ from a tree limb by this time tomorrow.” He hard-eyed me and waited.
Shook my head and said, “No. While I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment, probably best we stay here till young William is buried. Mrs. Savage will need as much support as can be provided from everyone she knows.”
“Longer we wait, the more difficult it’ll be to catch ’em. You know that as well as I do.”
“Well, with any luck at all, Boz should have my wire in hand by now. He’ll be on his way back pretty damned quick. Man has the uncanny ability to track a water spider across a muddy puddle. Don’t fret. Boz and I’ll find this pack of killers no matter where they run. They’re nothin’ but dead men ridin’ horses.”
To tell the absolute truth, I firmly believed every word of what I said to Caleb that unfortunate morning. But as often occurs, fate has other directions in mind for us, and bides its time for the right moment to show a man what the future has in store. For me, it happened the following afternoon at a tree-shaded graveyard that no longer exists on the far western edge of Salt Valley, Texas.
Back in those terrible times you had to get the dead into the ground as quickly as possible. No letting the dearly departed sit around for a week at a stretch while the family gathered from the four points of the compass. Grief often had to wait till a more convenient day and hour. Not really much time for mourning your losses. Had to put folks in the ground and get on with your life.
Salt Valley didn’t have access to anything like a sufficient supply of ice. As a consequence, there existed no way to preserve young William’s tiny, pitiful corpse at that juncture. So, Dianna and most of the town’s suffering citizens gathered in the Little Angels section of the Pecan Grove Cemetery for her son’s interment, just before dusk the day after his brutal murder.
My God, but the sunset that sad afternoon can only be described as nothing short of glorious. Streaks of red, orange, and soft purple darted across all of heaven, from a molten sun that appeared to boil the earth as it slid out of view on the far side of the world.
A number of those who attended said, a few minutes before dark in the soft shadows of approaching twilight, it appeared to them as though God had provided that stunning evening as a special dispensation for having taken an unblemishedsoul before its time. Dianna asked that I escort her to the graveside. Her innocent child’s numerous wounds had forced a closed coffin.
Grieving girl leaned heavily on my arm. Wept pitifully as the sad-eyed Mr. Heavner read several short passages from the Bible, then led the assembled group in a prayer. Brief, heartrending service ended with a mournful rendition of the old hymn “Yes, We’ll Gather at the River.” Tears flowed from all but the hardest of hearts.
First shovel of clods had barely thumped against the lid on his diminutive coffin when William’s red-eyed mother pulled me away from the moist smell of fresh-turned earth. We stopped beside her carriage, parked near the cemetery’s wildflower-embellished entrance. She gazed off in the direction of a barely visible fingernail of remaining sunlight. God’s glorious orb had blended into the earth’s distant crest and left little more than a sliver of its silent passing.
“We’ll start out after the men who did this tomorrow morning,” she said, without taking her eyes away from the vanishing light.
“What on earth are you thinking, Dianna? You’re not going anywhere.”
She pulled me around so our faces were only inches apart. Even in the advancing twilight I could detect a new, aggressive, and more hardened look at the corners of her remarkable eyes.
“I mean to begin the hunt at break of day tomorrow, Lucius. Be at my house loaded for bear and ready to ride. I’ll be waiting. We’re going after the men who killed my son, before they get too far away to catch.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying. Whoever they are, we know one thing about them for certain. They’re cold-eyed killers who have absolutely no qualms about the slaughter of women and children. Given that knowledge, even approaching such men could be dangerous in the extreme. No place for a woman.”