Gunman and the Angel Read online

  On a bluff, Dan watched a Conestoga wagon cross his path a quarter mile ahead, headed west, directly from Tucson. A wagon alone, pulled by two black mules, still twenty miles out from the Colorado, making for the ferry and the river and California – or, just headed to Yuma City. He saw a family of four, Ma on the wagon seat, Pa and the two youngsters walking beside. A boy of about nine, and a girl, some three years older, dressed in a bright-yellow, calico dress. The landscape rolled through brush grass from raw desert toward the river, with juniper and cottonwood, the going easy for the mules.

  The trail Dan travelled went south along the Rio Gila River. He followed it while the wagon rolled out of sight. Overhead, clouds thickened again to bring distant thunder. Lightning speared to the desert on the eastern horizon.

  Dan stopped to pull on his slicker and eat some noon antelope jerky. He felt moisture press against him, the sky about to open. Two months on the trail and he wished for a roof. He wanted a floor, a chair to sit at a table and a knife and fork to eat a steak, or a big spoon for homemade beef stew washed down with whiskey or beer. He wanted a velvet bed to caress his woman and hold her close to him. Kneeling beside Rowdy studying the trail, he almost heard the prance of dancing girls kicking up their legs and the tinkle of piano keys while men shouted and clapped their approval. He felt the gentle hand of CK on the back of his neck as he touched her silky leg. Life with a woman had made him soft, as it did any man.

  Above the noise of thunder, he thought he heard a gunshot.

  A staccato of shots cracked across the sky. He lost count of how many. They came, not from the trail he followed, not down by the shore of the Rio Gila River – the shots came from the direction the family wagon had gone.

  Dan threw himself into the saddle and urged Rowdy to run. It had been close to two hours since the wagon had rolled by. The outlaws could have easily turned back and attacked. He rode on, rocking in the saddle with the gallop, watching wagon-wheel ruts and looking ahead. With a roll of thunder, the sky opened, pouring rain. Clouds blended with smoke from ahead, black wisps boiling up, thin and coiling. A curtain of gray rain blotted the image but the fire soon released smoke, much of it white, rising steam, spreading up and out.

  The gunshots had stopped.

  Dan saw the burning wagon ahead, tucked in a hollow surrounded by juniper. The two black mules were down. Some clothing still burned. Pots and furniture and a saddle were spread about. The Pa lay across the edge of the wagon, bleeding from his back. The boy lay on the ground next to the left, rear wagon-wheel. Dan saw no sign of the girl. Three men in slickers rode out of view, one with the Ma in a green, print dress on his horse ahead of him – Monte Steep. Dan had his Colt in hand. He fired at them but missed in the gallop. They rode out beyond the curtain of rain. He fired again and thought he might have hit something. He grimaced when he realized he might hit the woman.

  Where was the girl?

  His breathing quickened. He was close. His grip on the Colt tightened. He figured the girl was dead too, so he heeled Rowdy off in the direction of the three men who took the woman and galloped out of the hollow. Rain had put out most of the fire, but the wood frame was mostly burned through. As he rode past he heard a small voice.

  ‘Wait. Wait, mister, please.’

  Dan reined in. The girl in the yellow, calico dress crawled out from under the wagon, her arms and face soot black. She shivered and shook, her small face twisted with agony and tears.

  The outlaws were getting away. And they had the woman now. He’d have to come back for the girl. Dan pulled the reins around and went to heel Rowdy. The buckskin was ready to run.

  ‘Please, mister,’ the girl said again. Gagging sounds came from her.

  Steam hissed from the wagon. He didn’t want to stop. They were close.

  She stood in the rain, much of the soot washing away. The yellow dress clung to her spindly body. Her brown-copper hair hung wet and straight to the arch of her back. Her big, green eyes pleaded with him while she stood shivering, her lower lip vibrating.

  Dan felt a flash of thought speed through his head – the ma or the girl?

  Steep was too close. With gritted teeth, Dan heeled Rowdy. After all the years, he had actually seen the man. The hammer of Dan’s weapon was already cocked. The killer would soon be dead. Dan’s horse squealed as it jerked around again, digging in its hind hoofs to run. Dan intended to shoot Tom Baily in the back, then Levant as he rode after them and to the left. Once beside Steep, he’d shoot him through the temple hoping the woman wouldn’t hurt herself falling off. He had never been this close before.

  ‘Mister,’ the girl cried, sounding desperate.

  Dan reined in. Rowdy was confused. The horse turned one way then the other, shook his head, reared back on his hind legs, finally settled and stood. With teeth still clamped tight, Dan swung down from the saddle. They were out of sight now. He holstered the Colt and went to the girl; pulling off his slicker, he slid it around her tiny, skinny shoulders. Tears and rain mixed to wash her face. He held the slicker tight around her and pulled her against him. His heart still pounded in anticipation. There was nothing to her, tall for her age, barely up to his chest, but made up of twigs to look and feel as fragile as she was thin. He was worried he might break some part of her if he held too tight. His thinking was he had to get after the outlaws. He had to get moving.

  Dan saw that the father had been shot twice – in the back and the head. The side of the boy’s skull had been crushed in. They had taken the wife for sport.

  The girl shivered, her face pressed against Dan’s chest. ‘I hid under the wagon while it burned. Covered myself with sand the best I could. They didn’t see me. Pa, Willy – mister, why did they take Ma? They killed our mules; they took our tin box with the copper top. They took Ma. How come them took Ma?’

  ‘I have to get after them,’ Dan said. ‘Now.’

  ‘We go after them together, mister, you and me, got to get them.’

  ‘Come on, then.’

  She shook her head. ‘We got to bury Pa and Willy.’

  ‘Later. We have to go.’

  ‘We can’t leave them in the rain. We got to bury them then go after the killers.’

  Dan pushed her away to look at her face, the slicker around her head making her look angelic. Her green eyes held grief and determination. The girl wasn’t talking about a quick chase. She wanted the burial – and anything else here – finished before they went after the killers, and stayed after the killers, no matter how long it took.

  Dan stared at her. ‘What do they call you, girl?’

  ‘My name is Mandy Lee,’ she said.

  Chapter Three

  With Mandy Lee clinging behind, Dan rode away from the wagon burial site. The shovel with the burnt handle stayed with the skeleton of the wagon. The wagon was too far destroyed for Rowdy to pull. Everything had burned, the charred remains to be left behind. Mandy carried nothing with her. She owned nothing.

  Rain had eased to a heavy mist, but mud smeared the trail. One horse rode heavy. Dan figured them moving back to the Rio Gila River. Maybe they’d head for Mexico now. Take the woman and lose themselves in the Yuma Desert south of the border. Have a few sporting days and nights, then leave her body along the trail while they continued east, coming back to rob and kill. Dan didn’t have much time, and the girl would slow him down. He wanted all three of them dead in the desert. The girl with nothing had become an obstacle.

  Dan reached cottonwoods along the Rio Gila before it became too dark to see clearly. The slender woman’s body lay in a tangle of riverbank brush – her face shot half away, her long, green dress ripped to three strips. Mandy erupted in an outburst of shivering tears when she saw her ma. It looked to Dan like the woman had pulled a gun from one of the men and shot herself, rather than go through what the men had planned for her.

  After the initial shock and bubbling tears, Mandy used tree branches to dig the grave fifty feet away from the river. Dan wished they had brought
the shovel. She worked hard, and Dan helped with the deeper part, using a bigger branch. They wrapped the body in needles and leaves. Dan carried it and gently lay it down. They both used hands and feet to push mud and dirt to cover the body. Dan piled rocks on top and stood back.

  Mandy stood sniffling. Dan held his Stetson in front with both hands. He felt he should say some words, but he didn’t know what words to say.

  The rain had stopped. Clouds kept the night black. The only sound was the gurgle of the river and a swishing breeze that worked along the bank.

  Dan said, ‘Go well on your journey.’

  Mandy said, ‘Amen, Ma.’

  Dan put on his Stetson.

  Mandy shared the one wool blanket, and Dan’s saddle-pillow through the night, her head against his chest near his shoulder, his arm around her. She clung to him like small, shivering kindling, and she wept through the hours. He held her, careful of his strength with her fragility.

  Sometime during the night, she whispered, ‘Who are you, mister?’

  ‘I’m Dan Quint out of Waco, Texas, more recently from Abilene, Kansas.’

  ‘In the morning, we go after those men,’ she said. ‘We hunt them down and kill them like they killed my family.’

  ‘We’d better find you a horse first,’ Dan said.

  Morning dawned bright and clear with a snap to the air, the space near the campsite dominated by the rocky mound of the grave. Smeared and washed out, the mud left no clear trace of a trail. Dan searched both sides of the river, a mile up and down, another mile inland toward Yuma City. The outlaws were in Mexico and gone. The rain left nothing – no horse leavings, no boot or hoof print, no campground. Not even discarded smokes or thrown food. They had covered their tracks well, and Dan was drawing dry again.

  He would start once more, soon as he found a place to leave the girl.

  Just before noon, Dan gave up and decided to move on. Rowdy didn’t like the extra weight. He’d kicked up a little when Dan, sitting the saddle, swung the girl up behind him.

  ‘Here now,’ Dan said. ‘Settle yourself.’

  Mandy clung tight to Dan, but Rowdy did settle and set off at a walk as Dan eased the reins and gently heeled.

  After two hours, Mandy began to twitch behind him.

  ‘Horse hair,’ she said, ‘chewing up the inside of my legs. I got nothing under this calico.’

  Dan reined in. He pulled her off and stepped down. With the blanket behind the saddle, she had a more comfortable ride.

  Dan said, ‘We’ll stop at Gila City, get you a few things, find a ranch or stable for a horse.’

  She leaned out to see his face. ‘Then where we headed, Dan?’

  ‘You ain’t headed nowhere. I’ll be finding a farm or ranch for you to stay.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You got no say, little girl.’

  ‘You must take me with you, Dan.’

  ‘I got to do no such thing.’

  ‘They killed my family.’

  ‘And I’m real sorry about that.’

  ‘I’m going after them.’

  ‘With what? You got no horse, no rigging, no decent travel clothes, no weapon, and no money, none at all. You ain’t even wearing shoes.’

  ‘You can buy me that stuff.’

  ‘I ain’t your pa. I didn’t take you to raise. I found you in the rain, we looked for your ma, and that’s the end of it.’

  ‘They can’t get away, Dan.’

  ‘They won’t.’

  ‘But I got to get them.’

  ‘Nothing for you to get them with.’

  She sat behind him in silence for almost a minute. She leaned out again.

  ‘I have money,’ she said.

  ‘Where? Pinned to the hem of that yellow, calico dress? That’s the only thing you’re wearing.’

  ‘In my pa’s tin box with the copper top. I got eight thousand dollars in there.’

  ‘Only, you don’t have no tin box.’

  ‘They got it, but it’s mine. And I got money in it. Money and a contract that gave my daddy half a silver claim. It’s mine now. It’s mine, and yours if you help me.’

  ‘Help you what?’

  ‘Get outfitted so we can go after them killers and shoot them down.’

  He didn’t like talking to her when she sat directly behind him. He didn’t want to talk to her at all. She was holding him up. She was making him change his plans.

  Moving off the desert, the landscape changed and climbed with ragged foothills. Dan saw a split-log, wooden fence with twenty Texas longhorns milling behind it. The trail became a moist, dirt road. Up ahead he saw a farm with chickens pecking across the yard. As he approached, he saw the farmhouse, a large barn, three corrals – one about twenty feet around, with five horses. A man came out of the barn and shielded his eyes against the sun, watching the buckskin step in. He wore bib overalls and had thin, blond hair around his ears. He watched Dan close.

  ‘Hello the farm,’ Dan called.

  ‘I see you,’ the man said. His expression showed little friendliness.

  Mandy started to slide off Rowdy.

  Dan pulled her still. ‘Don’t step down until asked.’

  ‘Ain’t we welcome?’

  ‘We don’t know.’ He nodded to the farmer. ‘Afternoon. A family wagon was attacked yesterday. The girl back there, Mandy, lost everyone. I’m Dan Quint.’

  A plump woman came to the door of the farmhouse, wearing a brown, cotton dress, her auburn hair tied up in a bun. She stepped to the big porch and clutched her throat. ‘Mercy, a wagon attacked. Invite them to lunch, Meryl. Please.’ She waved away flies around the open door and went back inside.

  Meryl dipped his head at Dan. ‘You heard the missus. Step on down. Help yourself to the well and trough. We got fried chicken and biscuits, and greens from our garden. The school house wagon will be bringing the young’uns from Gila City shortly. We happy to share what we got. Was it Indians? Heard the Apache getting restless.’

  ‘Not this time,’ Dan said. ‘Outlaw killers.’ He clutched Mandy’s upper arm and slid her off the buckskin to her bare feet. He swung down behind her and took Meryl’s extended hand.

  Meryl cocked his head toward Dan. ‘Dan Quint. Seems I heard that name before.’

  ‘Common enough,’ Dan said.

  Meryl stared. ‘You from up north, up around Abilene way? A lawman?’

  ‘I worked security there for a spell.’

  ‘You one of Wild Bill Hickok’s deputies? I hear he’s marshal up there now.’

  ‘No. I never worked for him.’

  Meryl rubbed his chin. ‘Seems I heard that name someplace – Dan Quint. Well, clean up and come on in.’

  During lunch, Dan told the couple about the wagon attack and how the outlaw killers were now riding along the border across Mexico. Mandy remained quiet, but she ate well. Meryl and Ruby had five children aged four to twelve. Their oldest was a girl about Mandy’s age. They had old underclothes and a clean dress and shoes that fit. Meryl agreed they might buy one of his Indian ponies that he traded with the Apache for. He didn’t have a true Mexican or Texas saddle, but he had an old roping saddle he’d throw in with the sale.

  Mandy asked if they had a gun she might buy.

  Chapter Four

  The farmer couple had no guns for sale. All they kept on the farm was a double barrel shotgun and an old Sharps .52 rifle. Lately, the Apache had left them alone, but Meryl said that could change at any time. They were close enough to town that one of the children could ride for help, but the thing about Indian attacks was, help always came too late.

  It was while Dan, Meryl and Mandy walked to the corral that Meryl snapped his fingers. He hooked his thumbs inside the bib. ‘Should have seen it right off – the way you wear your gun. You’re the gunfighter, Deadly Dan Quint. It’s true, ain’t it?’

  Mandy spun to stare at Dan, her green eyes shocked and surprised and open too wide for her fragile, triangular face. The faded-pink dress hung from should
ers to ankles. ‘Dan?’ she said and nothing more.

  Meryl did some staring of his own.

  Dan nodded. ‘None of that means nothing here, Meryl. We just want to buy a horse, so we can ride into town. I got Yankee gold coin or silver coin or paper – whatever suits your fancy.’

  ‘Gold coin,’ Meryl said, still staring.

  Mandy started to open the corral gate.

  Dan put his hand on her arm to stop her. ‘Walk around slow outside first. Let them look at you.’

  Mandy kept the gate closed. She watched the ponies as she dragged her hand along the top rail of the corral. ‘They all look so pretty. Why am I doing this?’

  ‘See which chooses you.’

  Five horses watched her intently. Not one looked away. She continued around the corral.

  ‘I think I know the one I want.’ She circled back to the gate.

  Dan said, ‘Go inside, stand at the gate. Talk low to them. Tell them how beautiful they are.’

  She went in. She leaned back against the closed gate and murmured about how pretty they filled the corral and how she wanted one for her own. Her copper-brown hair glistened in the afternoon sunlight.

  Meryl stood outside the corral staring at Dan’s gun.

  An appaloosa dipped his head. The five horses stood in a group away from the gate. A pinto filly held her head high, looking at Mandy. She snorted and took a step forward. She dipped her head and took another step. Mandy kept murmuring. The pinto stepped to her and pressed her head against Mandy’s chest. To Dan, Mandy looked tiny and fragile next to the pony.

  ‘She’s the one,’ Mandy said. She turned to Meryl. ‘Does she have a name?’

  Meryl grunted. ‘Horses is for work. They ain’t pets.’

  Mandy turned to Dan. ‘I’ll call her Moccasin.’

  When Moccasin was saddled, Mandy mounted the filly for a ride beyond the farm. ‘I can’t be wearing this dress,’ she said. ‘Not for what we got to do.’ She rode off.