The Avenging Angels Read online

  He longed for a fire, for peace, for a drink of coffee to warm his insides. The first and third could be found just ahead. The second—well, he had just as soon expect the sun to rise in the west. More likely was the chance that he would die a gory death, staring down the barrels of fifty guns, or be dropped through the trapdoor of a gallows. For a dozen years he had known no peace, and with every sunset he knew his fated day was drawing closer.

  At the very least, he was obliged to go dressed to meet it. Three years ago he’d traded his walnut-stocked Navies in for a pair of ivory-handled Peacemakers, which he carried in separate, crisscrossing gunbelts. The one on his right hip was holstered butt-backward and the other, butt-forward, so that it could be drawn in a cross-body or twist-draw, should the right arm become disengaged by an enemy bullet. In addition to these, he had a Bowie knife sheathed to the rear of the left-hand Colt, carried in such a way that drawing one was not an encumbrance to the other. The knife was two pounds in weight and longer than both pistols at fifteen inches, with the single-edged, razor-sharp Arkansas steel accounting for nine of those.

  The musical chiming of his spurs announced his return. He glanced down and around at the men by the fire. There was Brownwell, who had ridden east from St. Louis to his uncle’s home on the Potomac in 1860, just in time to join up. Yeager, still tall, lean, and hungry, squatted on his heels upwind of the coals, warming his hands. Nearby, Sam Woods lay on his back, hands beneath his head, hat hiding his face, and beyond him Tom Seward reposed upon an elbow, reading from Washington Irving.

  Zeller was nowhere to be seen—answering nature’s call, Brownwell explained—and the seventh, newest member of the gang, Dick Osborn, had stayed behind to stand watch over their stronghold deep within the Big Bend country. Kings knew and trusted each of these men, the five with him here in the cold of the Delaware, and the one back home camped atop the watchtower they all called the Rocking Chair. They had all been down the Hoot-Owl and back again, proving themselves worthy of the company and of the times in which they lived.

  Footsteps sounded over loose shale. Moments later Dave Zeller emerged from the darkness, buttoning the front of his pants as he came back into the firelight.

  His membership in the gang, while incredibly valuable, was interesting in more ways than one. As a combination scout, wagon master, and sharpshooter in the 42nd Indiana, he’d learned to survey with stealth and patience, drive horses with the skill of a lifelong teamster, and shoot with deadly precision. Zeller had served with distinction, suffering a wound at Kennesaw Mountain. He was honorably discharged but had no home worth returning to, so he headed west, making whatever money he could at the card tables.

  Sitting in on a fated game in northern Virginia one night in ’66, Zeller found himself opposite a small man in a short top hat by the name of Seward. Zeller was on a hot streak, and the evening’s big loser had been drinking heavily. When the man lost his fifth hand in a row, he called Zeller a cheat and was shot dead for his trouble. The little fellow in the top hat, seemingly unperturbed by his financial losses, advised Zeller to get out of town before the sheriff got word. As justified as Zeller’s actions might have been, the sheriff would have had no mercy on a Yankee with a hot gun. Zeller found Seward’s suggestion respectable, and, after a healthy hour’s ride, the two slowed to a walk. Idle palaver led to recruitment on the road, and shortly thereafter, at a Rockbridge County eating house, Yankee Dave shook hands with Gabriel Kings. Three weeks later, they hit Scarboro.

  A man could wonder for days upon end as to why an old blue-belly from Indiana would throw in with a pack of former grays. Why would he fleece the pockets of the government he’d shed blood to preserve? In actuality, his motives were simple—it was the money and the life that the spending of it brought. Though it was true—he had girded his belly with blue during the late struggle—Zeller was a rebel after Kings’s own heart, without fear and always willing to stand with a six-gun.

  Back in the firelight, Zeller finished his buttoning but remained on his feet. He looked to Kings and asked, “Say, uh, how much you say that train was gonna be haulin’ again?”

  Kings unbuckled his gunbelts and rolled them into a bundle, placing them near his bedroll with the butts toward him. “Well, if what Andy said is true, ’bout ten thousand each run.” He glanced around the campsite, speaking for the benefit of all. “Now, we’ve hit this line, what, twice afore? Pretty fair hauls each time and no trouble in the takin’, but this time around, we should expect some opposition. Railroad guard, shotguns to accompany the safe, three or four at the most. Sid Dillon of the Union Pacific’s tight with the green, so I doubt he’d pay for any more’n that.”

  “His frugality will be his undoing,” Seward said, grinning. “Only four? We oughta be insulted. Give us five or six at least.”

  A short man with a graceful gait and ash-blond hair, Seward had preferred the prospect of adventure and easy money to returning to a financially crippled family law firm in Roanoke. Though his typical demeanor was that of an aloof, scholarly type, he was worth his criminal salt. He’d served with an artillery battalion, and what he learned had proven useful when the dynamiting of a safe or a section of railroad tracks was called for.

  “Hell, he’d pay twice that many if he got wind Jesse James was comin’ outta hidin’ to hit his line,” Brownwell remarked.

  Kings stared at Yeager, who hadn’t said a word in a longer time than usual—even for him. He’d been responsible for gathering much of the information needed for this venture to succeed, and it would be his job to lead the raid on the return run. Maybe he was just going over everything in his head.

  “Why’n’t you give us a tune, boy,” Kings suggested, in the hope of improving everyone’s spirits.

  “Somethin’ Southern,” Woods said from under his hat.

  Kings stabbed the kindling with a stick and looked at Zeller, showing a rare smile. “You don’t object to some music, do ya, Billy Yank?”

  It was said in jest, but Zeller pulled a face. “It don’t have to suit me, Johnny Reb,” he said, smoothing his blankets. “So long as he don’t play ‘Dixie.’ I might have to sleep out of earshot, out of camp.”

  A man who didn’t know Zeller the way Kings did might have taken offense, but he said, “Free country, Dave. Go on and freeze yourself.”

  Zeller grunted. “You forget I come from Indiana. But don’t push me, Yeager.” With that, he rolled over, turning his back to the fire and those around it.

  A moment passed, the flames shuddering under the moaning wind, then Yeager raised the harmonica.

  The first bars of “Oh! Susanna” filled the night.

  Dusk was peeling away in the quick approach of darkness as they rode out of the limestone breaks. Kings led his men north, trotting for a stretch, then slowing to a walk, then back again to a trot. Eventually they would veer a shade to the east, toward a tributary of the Pecos River. From there, he calculated another two days’ ride to where they would await the U.P.

  His primary mount for the past six years was John Reb, a black stallion of mixed Irish Hunter and American Thoroughbred stock, seventeen hands high with three white stockings. A splendid mount, fast as a Kansas whirlwind, and though he was at times wild or aggressive enough to earn a disciplinary bite on the ear, he was as faithful to Kings as a massive dog.

  Kings drew back on the reins a bit to sidle the stallion alongside Brownwell, who sat the back of a hardy chestnut gelding nearly four hands shorter. “Few more days and we’ll reach the Mission,” Kings remarked, then glanced up at the skittish sky. “If we don’t drown afore then. Creasy said he’d be waitin’.”

  Brownwell was a ruddy, powerfully built man, not very tall, with sandy hair and a brushy mustache. The outlaw life hadn’t changed him much from the soldier he’d once been, though Kings remembered he used to laugh more.

  He never would have left Missouri by choice, never would have come to make Kings’s acquaintance had it not been for a double murder charge. The firs
t to feel the sting of Brownwell’s knife was that letch of a landlord who took monthly payments from Brownwell’s widowed mother in any form he could. The Mississippi washed him up two miles down from where the deed took place, and there were schools of fish nibbling at his wounds when a ferryman hauled him out. The second killing came when the town marshal tried to arrest Brownwell, which was an unfortunate occurrence, given that a few generations back a Brownwell girl had married into the marshal’s family. The bond of blood, however distant, couldn’t override the bond the marshal had to the law, and that bond had forced Leroy’s hand a second time. Shortly after he made Virginia, the Confederate States army had been only too happy to have him, and in the company of boys like Gabe Kings and Andy Yeager, Brownwell found occasion to laugh again, though their duty was bloody.

  Working a chaw of tobacco, Brownwell leaned over to scatter a swarm of red ants with a well-aimed stream. “Let’s go over it again,” he proposed, “how we figure to pull this ’un off.”

  Their horses took another half-dozen steps before Kings spoke. “We’ll split into two groups of four. Only, Seward oughta ride on both hits in case the railroad comes up with a second safe for the return run. You, him, Creasy, mebbe one other, and I will hit the U.P. while the others sit tight in Refuge. They’ll hit it again on the return. No matter how much we secure the first time, the U.P.’s bound to assume the return is safe and load it up. The boys’ll meet us back home, we split the proceeds, and that’s that.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  A rumble of distant thunder punctuated the statement. Though the clouds were gathering, Kings could smell no hint of rain on the wind coming from the west. John Reb, excited by the meteorological change, wanted to lope, but Kings had to restrain him to prevent the other animals from overcompensating. With a ways still to go, getting fagged out here on the caprock wouldn’t do.

  The arid, mountainous terrain through which they navigated had, at one point in the world’s history, been totally submerged in ocean water. This was evident in the thousands of tiny seashells pressed into the hard-packed ground and the somewhat eerie graffiti of fish skeletons and ammonites fossilized in the rock faces. Heavy deposits of kettle-gray marl and pale dolomite abounded. Spanish monks, the blue waters of the Pacific their goal, had named the surrounding mountain range la Sierra de Vidrio, or “mountains of glass,” for the way the sun reflected off the darker shale embedded in the limestone.

  The following day they rode from first light clear into the afternoon, stopping only once, for nearly an hour. They started later than usual the morning after, but knew they would have to make up for the few lost hours with an extra mile or five. The horses were rested and strong, refreshed by a wet night, and seemed more eager than the men to be on the move.

  The mountains and the limestone played out, and the vegetation thickened drastically. Trees sprouted up, small copses that offered a scanty but welcome amount of shade on a hot day. The healthy green of desert ferns and tall spikes of yucca stood in sharp contrast to the dull browns and tans of the broken landscape.

  They were close.

  From behind a heavy cover of juniper and piñon, Kings could see that some busy beavers had been at work since the last time he used this crossing. Someone, smelling an opportunity, had built a kind of trading post in the clearing across the water. There were two log cabins, one of them the store with sacks of grain or flour and water barrels against the near wall. The sign above the door read, “Samuels’s Pecos Emporium.” The second cabin was the home of the proprietor, made evident by the curtains in the windows.

  Smoke swirled against the early morning sky from one of the chimneys. In the yard, a few chickens pecked at the barren ground, and in the pole corral yonder stood a roan mule. A man and two small boys moved in and out of the store. Kings observed them all through his field glasses with the patience of a circling hawk.

  The tributary was wide, but not overswollen. Even after the recent shower, Kings estimated that, at the deepest point, the horses would be up to only their bellies in Pecos water. He decided this side of the river would be a good place to stop and rest a few short hours.

  Dismounting, the Virginian tied John Reb to a nearby juniper, then planted a foot in the crotch of the next tree over, a gnarled remnant with a divided trunk. As his men watched with amusement, he took a firm overhead grip and hoisted himself some ten or twelve feet up. His hatless head surfaced in a gap in the foliage, providing a clear view of what lay before them.

  This spot on the river wasn’t likely to receive much traffic, save the odd traveler—perhaps someone bound for the distant border and the freedom it offered. A family on a pilgrimage might use the bumpy road to the west, but not many others.

  Leaning against the branch behind him, Kings dug inside his coat for an old campaigner of a Daniel Swisher cigar. Unlit and well-chewed, it was the last of his stock. Come crossing time, he might have to see if the tradesman had any more. For now, he was content to chew and observe, slowly combing the land with his eyes, east to west.

  By the time his gaze reached the trading post, the soggy cigar had come apart, and he spat it from his mouth.

  CHAPTER 3

  A traveling salesman was the only soul to splash across, fording a few dozen yards downriver from where the gang had stopped to rest, to approach the emporium on a slant. Kings, aloft again with his glasses at midday, watched with amusement as the salesman failed to persuade the tradesman to invest in one of his many elixirs. The transient went on his way after a few small purchases of his own, astride a hammer-headed horse over which he had little control, good for a chuckle. The man couldn’t handle a loop rein to save his life and apparently didn’t know his left from his right.

  When Samuels went inside the cabin for lunch, Kings climbed back down to the temporary camp to find Zeller dozing and Brownwell dealing cards to the others. Kings told them to be ready to move inside an hour, then went to check his gear.

  Samuels was bent over a back hoof of his mule with two nails in his mouth and a hammer in his hand when he heard splashing from the opposite riverbank. The elder of his two sons was squatting close enough to see his every move but just out of reach for one of the mule’s kicks. The younger watched from the top rung of the corral with half the interest of his brother.

  Samuels lowered the hoof and straightened, staring out across the water. From the thicket a man astride a black stallion had emerged. How long he had been watching them, the tradesman did not know, but it unnerved him greatly.

  The rider tapped with his spurs, and the horse started to cross. He had barely entered the Pecos when another rider came out of the brush, then another and another still, until there were six in all. They came single file, army fashion, and sheets of water flew with every bucketing step.

  The lead horseman approached the corral and drew up just short. He sat tall and easy in the saddle, wearing a flat-brimmed black hat over dark eyes. They were hard, emotionless eyes, circling now within a lean, strong-featured face shadowed by several weeks’ stubble. His wavy black hair, strung with gray, reached down to the back of his shirt collar. There were two ivory-handled Colts on his hips, in view of all creation. Sunlight streaked formidably off the blued iron and black gun leather, and his right hand was on his thigh within inches of a pistol.

  Clearly, this was no ordinary pilgrim.

  It was also clear that his was no ordinary horse. The steed was enormous, one of the finest Samuels had ever seen, and looked about half-broken. A four-legged hurricane, stamping and sidling even now, it seemed scarcely controllable under a tight and skilled rein.

  The men and horses spreading out on either side of this figure were not so impressive. As much as they reminded Samuels of a cavalry unit, there was something about them he didn’t trust. All were armed with pistols and rifles, and one had a single-barreled shotgun forked across his saddle bow.

  And here he stood, out in the open, the nearest weapon in the store yonder, with his two boys s
tanding between himself and these strangers. Feeling like a shepherd without his staff to fend off the wolves, Samuels would tread lightly until he knew what kind of men he was dealing with.

  The lead horseman lifted a hand in greeting. It was almost a salute, a gesture that solidified his past as a soldier of some sort.

  “Afternoon,” he said, then turned his attention to the youngster gawking from the corral rung. Man and boy stared at each other for what seemed, to the boy’s father, an uneasy eternity—the man perhaps seeing what he had once been, the boy seeing what he might yet become.

  “Ethan! Come here, son.”

  The boy obediently climbed down and went to his father’s outstretched hand. Samuels passed his youngest son to the other, saying everything with his eyes. Get back to the house and stay there.

  “There something I can help you with, mister?” he asked, once his boys had closed the door.

  The man dismounted and reached over to give his reins to a fellow with a wad of tobacco in his left cheek. “You the proprietor?”

  Samuels stepped out of the corral, closed it behind him. “I am.”

  “Wonder if I could buy a couple smokes off ya.”

  Samuels started to lead the way toward the store. The stranger, who stood about a head taller, fell in alongside. “You and your friends look to be travelin’ awful light,” the tradesman began. “Will that be all, Mister . . . ?”

  “Yessir, we are travelin’ light.”

  Samuels, falling silent, held the door and waved his customer in ahead of him. By then it was nearly half past one, and the animals were anxiously nipping at one another’s ears when the stranger completed his business. With four cigars stuffed into his breast pocket, he went around dispensing carrots, two to a man, before climbing into the saddle.

  Samuels and his sons watched them ride away from the safety of their home. In his right hand was his trusty scattergun, and his left was filled with more coins than he’d expected for the price of the cigars and twelve carrots.