The Long Trail Home Read online

  His big toe stuck out of his sock and brushed along the sticky wooden floor. He slipped behind the bar and sniffed his way to the unbathed bartender. Sam pinched the man’s nose closed and shoved the barrel of his .44 into his mouth. The startled man jerked up but found his head pinned to the top of the bar. Fortune yanked both revolvers out of the man’s hands.

  “Hey, barkeep, you awake? We want some whiskey over here—the good kind,” someone demanded.

  “He’s still asleep,” another guessed.

  “He ain’t snorin’.”

  “I’ll get the whiskey.”

  Sam hunkered down behind the bar and listened to the man’s boots.

  “How am I goin’ to see which is the good whiskey?”

  “Light a match.”

  “Fortune will shoot me fer sure if he sees a light in here.”

  “Squat down behind the bar to light it. He can’t see through walls, and you’re too far from the door.”

  Sam held one of the bartender’s revolvers in each hand. Only a few feet away, he heard the man fumble for a match. Suddenly the light flared and Sam jammed a barrel in each of the man’s ears.

  The man’s eyes widened.

  The match dropped.

  “Tell them to light a lantern,” Fortune hissed as he forced the man to his feet with guns in place.

  “Light a lantern . . .,” the man managed to choke out.

  “We ain’t goin’ to light no lantern. Use a match.”

  Fortune pulled both hammers back at the same time. “I said light a lantern!” Sam’s captive hollered.

  “Get away from the windows, boys,” one warned. “I want to see what’s goin’ on over there.”

  When the kerosene lantern began to glow, Fortune sat on the bar behind a frightened man with one gun in his ear. The other revolver pointed at the three near the front door.

  “How’d you get in here?” one of them roared.

  “Lay your guns on the floor,” he ordered.

  “What’s he doin’?” one of the men pointed to the bartender, who laid on his back on the bar. Fortune’s revolver stuck in his mouth like a steel sucker.

  “He’s lyin’ real still. I’ve got such a hair trigger on that gun—if he even moves his head a half-inch, it will go off.”

  “But you ain’t got your hand on it.”

  “Doesn’t matter. You so much as stomp your foot, and it will send a lead ball through the back of his brain.”

  “I don’t believe that,” one growled.

  “I doesn’t matter what you believe. It’s what the bartender believes that counts,” Sam added.

  “Do what he says, boys. You ain’t got a gun stuck in your ear,” the one next to Fortune blurted out.

  “We ain’t goin’ to put down our guns and let you kill us unarmed,” another insisted.

  “You ever known Sam Fortune to shoot an unarmed man?” The three spun around to see the grinning face of Kiowa Fox.

  The bartender mumbled something.

  “What’d he say?”

  “I think he said to lay down your guns,” Fortune smiled. “Either that, or he wants me to uncock the pistol in his mouth.”

  The three dropped their revolvers on the floor of the saloon.

  “Now stand up,” Sam ordered.

  “What are you goin’ to do, Fortune?”

  “I’m just goin’ on down the road, boys. I don’t aim for any back shooters to be followin’ me. Kiowa, hunt up all the rope you can find. Let’s tie these boys tight.”

  The man on the bar continued to sweat and stare at the pistol in his mouth while Kiowa tied the four others to their chairs around the poker table. He tied their hands in their laps and their shoulders and feet to the straight-backed wooden chairs, and then he shuffled the cards.

  “What are you doin’?” one asked.

  “Figured you might want to do a little bettin’.” Kiowa dealt out four hands of five cards each. Then he fanned the cards and wedged them into their bound hands.

  “We ain’t takin’ this lightly,” the heaviest of the men sneered. “They hang horse thieves around here!”

  “Since when?” Kiowa challenged. “You four are still alive. Besides, we aren’t taking your horses,” he added.

  Kiowa strolled behind the bar. “How about this one?” he indicated the barkeep.

  “Retrieve my gun for me.”

  Kiowa yanked the gun out of the barkeep’s mouth. “Look at this, Sam—you had this gun clicked only once, not even at full cock. It couldn’t have gone off even if you’d pulled the trigger.”

  Fortune grinned. “Well, I’ll be!”

  “That ain’t funny!” The bartender raised his head straight up, and Kiowa crashed the barrel of the revolver into it. The man crumpled back onto the bar. “I ran out of rope,” Kiowa shrugged. “Shall we leave the lantern on?”

  “Sure, we don’t want these boys to play poker in the dark.”

  A shot crashed into the painting behind the bar and showered Kiowa with splinters. He dove down. The man who had been passed out on the faro table now propped on one elbow and waved an old Walker Colt. Sam dropped to the floor and rolled. The man’s second shot misfired in the barrel of the gun, and the recoil sent the barrel flying back into his temple. Again he collapsed on the faro table.

  “I think he knocked himself out,” Sam informed Kiowa, who crouched behind the bar.

  Kiowa stood up and peered across the shadows. “I liked that ol’ boy best when he was dead.”

  “Yank off his belt and tie his hands to the legs of that table before he resurrects himself again,” Fortune instructed. “I’ll go get the horses.”

  “You steal our horses, and we’ll track you down!” one of the men at the poker table screamed.

  “I didn’t say I’m goin’ to steal the horses, I said ‘get the horses.’”

  Ladosa McKay sat in the front seat of the wagon and watched as Fox and Fortune tossed saddles into the boulders and tugged, pushed, and cajoled each of the six horses through the front door into the saloon. When they had finished they threw the bridles into the rocks with the saddles.

  Kiowa stared at the darkness of the saloon, “You change your mind about the lantern?”

  “Didn’t want those horses kickin’ it over and startin’ a fire,” Sam explained.

  “They’ll get panicky pretty soon,” Kiowa reported.

  “The men or the horses?”

  “Both. Did you nail the doors shut?”

  Sam pushed his hat back. “All the doors and windows.”

  “That ought to make for an interestin’ evenin’.”

  “And who said it’s boring out here on the plains?” Sam swung up in the wagon to Ladosa’s side. Kiowa Fox on the other.

  Sam slipped his arm around her shoulders. “All right, darlin’, take us to Kansas.”

  The wagon lurched forward into the dark June night.

  “Sam Fortune, I cain’t for the life of me see how you ever stayed alive this long,” she said. “It must be your mama’s prayers.”

  Fortune’s voice was soft. “Mama died thirteen years ago. But Daddy is a prayin’ man.”

  “Good,” Ladosa encouraged. “’Cause we might need them prayers tonight. If they get loose, they’ll follow us. A mule wagon is mighty easy to track.”

  Sam hugged her shoulders. “They won’t follow. We didn’t steal anythin’.”

  “Yeah, somehow that don’t seem right,” Kiowa added. “At least we could have taken some food.”

  “You don’t want anything from that kitchen,” Ladosa warned. “The meat’s spoiled.”

  By sunrise they crossed into the Texas panhandle and headed north toward the Canadian River. The heavy clouds kept the air hot and humid. Ki
owa slept in the back of the half-empty wagon as Ladosa continued to drive.

  Her voice sounded sleepy, “We’ve got to buy some supplies if we’re goin’ all the way to Dodge.”

  Fortune studied the treeless horizon. “Maybe we ought to drive over to Antelope Flats and buy some food.”

  “I’ll get arrested if I show up in Antelope,” Kiowa called out.

  “Is there anywhere you could go and not get arrested?” Ladosa questioned.

  “Dry Fork . . .,” he laughed. “But go on into Antelope Flats. I’ll jist hide out back here. Besides, I could use the sleep.”

  “I presume you two are flat out busted, being on foot and all,” Ladosa probed.

  “We’ve got a couple dollars,” Fortune confessed.

  “Let me get this straight,” she brushed her fingers through her long, black, uncombed hair: “You two talk me into leavin’ with you, only I have to provide the rig and the grub?”

  “Mighty presumptuous, ain’t it?” Kiowa called out.

  She wiped the back of her hand across her small, round nose. “It’s sad. Course, it was the best offer I’ve had in months.”

  “Now, that’s sad,” Sam laughed. He glanced back at Kiowa. “We’d better buy some bullets in Antelope Flats . . . if Ladosa can afford it.”

  She slapped the lead lines on the mule’s rump, but the animal kept to its plodding gait. “We need to go to Antelope Flats for your package, unless you’ve already picked it up.”

  Sam stretched out his arms and tried to loosen a dirty, stiff neck. “What package are you talkin’ about?”

  “Piney Burleson has been lookin’ all over the Territory for you, because she has a package for you. Last I heard she was in Antelope Flats,” Ladosa explained.

  “I haven’t seen Piney since I got out of prison.”

  “Well, she told me to tell you about a package from Deadwood, Dakota Territory.”

  Kiowa sat up in the back of the wagon. “You got family in Deadwood, don’t you, Sam?”

  “My older brother and his wife . . . Li’l sis is there with—”

  “Your daddy’s in Deadwood, ain’t he?” Kiowa pressed.

  “Last I heard,” Sam mumbled.

  Kiowa reached forward and slapped him on the back. “Well, they done sent you a Christmas present, boy, and you ain’t picked it up.”

  Sam stared out across the bare panhandle plains. A stiff wind blew from the south. “It’s June.”

  “Piney’s held onto it for months,” Ladosa added.

  “I thought she was in Fort Smith,” Fortune murmured.

  “Nope. She’s up at Antelope Flats. She opened up a . . . sewing business.”

  “Could be a trap,” Kiowa warned. “Someone might jist be using the parcel to get you within shootin’ distance, Sammy.”

  “Kiowa’s got a point. It might not be smart to go where someone’s expectin’ me, just for a moldy fruitcake.”

  “It ain’t a fruitcake. It’s a Sharps carbine.” Ladosa asserted, “And we ain’t goin’ to Dodge City until you pick it up.”

  Sam Fortune jerked around. He felt like someone had kicked him in the ribs. “A what?”

  “Piney peeked at it and told me it was a converted .50-caliber Sharps, saddle-ring carbine. Now, that’s worth gettin’, ain’t it?”

  Sam yanked the lead lines out of her hands and jerked the rig to a stop. “That’s Daddy’s gun!” he blurted out.

  “Well, it’s yours now.” She grabbed the lead lines away and lurched the rig forward.

  “He wouldn’t give that gun to anyone on the face of the earth.” A cold sweat broke across Fortune’s forehead. “Not while there was a breath of life in him, anyway.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Antelope Flats, along the disputed

  Texas/Indian Territory border

  Piney ain’t all here, you know.” The man’s narrow, straight sideburns dropped off below his jowls and made his lower jaw look like a locomotive piston when he spoke. He wore a dark gray, wool suit with a matching vest, dingy white shirt, and stained gray tie. The suit, dusty and slightly wrinkled, lacked the entire right sleeve of the jacket, as though it had been ripped off at the shoulder.

  Sam Fortune leaned against the red-spoked wagon wheel as the two mules drank from the leaky, wooden water trough. Sam’s square, broad shoulders contrasted with his thin face.

  In front of a one-story adobe building with a faded sign that read “The Ohaysis,” stretched a huge patch of prickly pear cactus like a spiny wart on the June-dry dirt. He looked up and down the two blocks that contained every building. Antelope Flats proved a busy town only in the man-made shade. Sam couldn’t spot a tree anywhere.

  He turned to the man with one coat sleeve. “What do you mean, ‘Piney ain’t here’? Where is she?”

  “Oh, she’s here—not here at the Ohaysis—but here in town. Yes sir, I seen her out walkin’ just this mornin’. But she took . . . what you might call ‘a bad fall’ a couple months ago. She don’t think too clear nowadays.”

  “How did she fall?” Sam asked.

  “Well, you know how she liked to wrestle?” The man paused and studied Fortune.

  “Are we talkin’ about the same Piney?” Sam questioned as he reached under the wagon seat and pulled out a thick, black brush. “She’s about six feet tall, thin as a rail, with long, straight blond hair?”

  “Yep, that’s Piney Burleson. Say, I didn’t catch your name.”

  Fortune began to brush down the mules. “I’m Sam.”

  The round-faced man with the flat nose tugged a flour-sack towel out of his back pocket and wiped the sweat off his forehead. “And you’re a friend of Piney’s?” he pursued.

  “Yep.”

  Fine yellowish dust fogged up from the dark brown backs of the mules.

  “My name’s Dillerd. Besides being the proprietor of the Ohaysis, I own a few lots here in town. You interested in buyin’?”

  Fortune observed that the man’s left boot had a heel about two inches taller than the right one. “I just want to know what happened to Piney.”

  Dillerd pulled a folded, worn piece of yellowed paper from his suit coat pocket and waved it to the east. “I got a corner lot right across from the undertaker’s for only seven hundred and fifty dollars.”

  “Mister, would I be drivin’ a wagon like this if I had seven hundred and fifty dollars?” Fortune patted the rump of the mule and tossed the brush back under the wagon seat.

  “I reckon you wouldn’t. But that price is flexible. Just between you and me, I’d settle for $500 for the lot.”

  Sam had a bitter alkali taste in his mouth and was tempted to scoop a palm of water from the trough. “You were tellin’ me how Piney likes to wrestle,” he reminded.

  “Yep. Her and Cammie Woodell was puttin’ on a match in back of Chet Bramer’s farm wagon, right out there by the city well.” His round, brown eyes danced under bushy, graying eyebrows. “Piney was jist about to whip her, but Cammie bit her on the ear, a clear violation of the rules—what there is of them—and you know how Piney hates the sight of blood, especially her own. So she let out a scream that surely could have been heard all the way down to the Mexican border. The team of horses hitched up to the wagon must’ve had sensitive ears, ’cause when the scream commenced, they bolted ahead. Piney tumbled off the wagon and under the back wheel that ran smack dab over her head.” The man with the one-sleeved suit nodded his head as if to punctuate the conclusion of his oration.

  Sam heard a rooster crow, a dog bark, a woman shout. He studied the street as he continued to talk to Dillerd. “The wheel ran over Piney’s head, and it didn’t break her neck?”

  “Nope.” Dillerd pointed a stubby finger at Fortune. “Doc said it didn’t break nothin’ that he could find, but she ain�
��t exactly been the same since.”

  Sam rested his fingers in the empty bullet loops at the back of his belt. “Where does she live?”

  “That second, little white cabin down there behind the hardware. But sometimes she don’t come home for days. The boys find her wanderin’ out on the plains or sleepin’ behind the jailhouse.”

  Scanning across the swirling dust of the only street in Antelope Flats, he spotted a woman in a long white dress enter the tall narrow door of the hardware. “But you saw her this mornin’?”

  “Yep.” Dillerd shoved the folded papers back into his suit coat pocket. “You know I could let a fine gentleman like you have that lot for $250. Anyway none of us gets too close to Piney. She totes a .50-caliber Sharps carbine around mumbling about finding fortune.”

  “Fortune?”

  “That’s what she hollers. But like I said, she is a tad touched.”

  Sam Fortune studied the fine yellowish dust that hung like morning mist above the street. I never in my life knew Piney Burleson to wrestle. All that girl ever wanted to do was dance. My-o-my how she can dance. She was queen of the ball more than once at Fort Smith.

  “You goin’ to look for her?” the man pressed.

  Sam rubbed his thick, sandy blond and gray mustache. “I reckon so.”

  “Well, if you need some place to wash down the dust, remember the Ohaysis. It’s the nicest establishment in Antelope Flats.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Dillerd. I don’t think I’ll be in town very long.”

  The shorter man peered out at the totally barren western horizon. “You ain’t headed out on the plains, are you?”

  “The thought crossed my mind.”

  “A tornado hit out there three days ago. It picked up a grove of cottonwoods and planted them in the next county—if there were counties out there—which there ain’t.”

  “No harm in me leavin’ the rig here while I look for Piney, is there?”

  “Nope. Say, is that half-breed jist goin’ to hunker down in the back of the wagon, or is he gettin’ out? His money is jist as good as the next man’s at the Ohaysis.”