Showdown at Possum Trot Read online

  *****

  Around two a.m. there were footsteps in the hall outside the girl’s door. The floor creaked, a heel clicked, then the knob slowly turned. Martha could see it turn in the shaft of moonlight from the window.

  A man came in the room. He bent over Martha’s bed. “I see your eyes open,” he whispered. “Do you feel this under your chin?”

  “Yes,” she said through clenched teeth.

  “I have a little business to conduct here. If at any time you cry out or make noise, you’ll be the first to get shot. Understand?” He pressed the gun barrel harder against her chin.

  She gasped and after a couple of beats, nodded as best she could.

  The man holstered his gun and approached Crissy’s bed. He clasped a rag over her face and she struggled for a bit and then passed out. He lifted her to his shoulder and turned to Martha. “I’m just borrowing her for a while. She’ll be back before long.”

  Martha stayed awake trying to think what to do. She considered waking Rosalie but thought better of it. After about an hour passed she rose from bed, put on some clothes and went out into the night. She walked around behind the Angel Dust, entered the stables and saddled up a horse.

  She mounted, walked him quietly out into the street, and at the edge of town, galloped out into the moonlight.

  *****

  Horse stood at his upstairs window, drinking brandy and smoking cigars. He was there when Martha rode out into the night. He was there two hours later when she came back.

  He watched her ride to the stable. He heard her cross the hall back to her room. He nodded. He clenched his jaw and turned from the window. “Perfect,” he said, and tightened his fist. “Perfect.”

  FIVE

  It was a regular shindig. People were scattered all over the lawn, milling about, talking like jaybirds. The table was spread with fried chicken, potato salad, corn on the cob, and various pies from the ladies of the town. It looked like the Judges Table at the Clarkston County Fair.

  Everybody was there, even the banker, Sterling Jennings, showed up in his bowler hat, formal jacket, and string tie.

  Parson Tull had proved his talent as a golden-tongued orator from his pulpit delivering a spirited sermon of Hellfire and Damnation, mixed in, here and there, with a glimpse of the more compassionate side of the Deity. The congregation was moved to applause.

  At the picnic afterwards the Charles sisters played music and the attendees danced. Charity played fiddle, Hope played guitar, and Faith was on banjo. They sang some Charles Wesley hymns in three part harmony then went secular with the Virginia Reel and Irish Jigs.

  The mood was altogether convivial.

  The sun was shining. There was a gentle breeze off the Pedernalis. There was an air of friendship the likes of which had not been seen in this town for a very long time. All was well.

  Yet certain people were conspicuously absent: Horse was not there, though Martha and Rosalie were.

  Crissy was not there.

  Galen was not there.

  *****

  Crissy looked out to see only blackness. Yet she knew it was daytime. When the birds started singing that meant sunrise was near at hand and that had happened hours ago. Even so, the only thing she saw was darkness.

  It had been hours since she’d had food or water and the ligatures on her wrists and ankles had started to itch her skin and cause tingling to set in on her hands and feet. Clenching her fist or moving her feet didn’t help. In addition to the pain and discomfort a wave of sadness washed over her. What had she done to deserve this?

  She tried to twist her neck around to rub the blackness from her eyes with her shoulder—just a little bit would be better than constantly staring at darkness. By now she could feel the contour of a blindfold on her face. She was not afraid of darkness, only of the person who brought her face to face with it. Who was he anyway? One moment she was asleep, the next she was bumping along in a wagon, and now, some kind of shack, or shed, or lean-to, god knows where.

  How many miles she traveled before she woke up she did not know, but she did calculate she must have traveled at least four miles after she was conscious. That would place her whereabouts quite a ways away, possibly even in the next county.

  She thought about the girls back at Angel Dust. Did they miss her? Of course they did! Was anyone looking for her? She sighed and dropped her head. Who would look for a poor, down-on-her-luck whore. Horse could always get another one. Anyone can do whoring.

  A tear drifted down her cheek and hung at the edge of her jaw. Let it go where it wants, she thought. It is my only companion. I will not shake it away.

  She thought of her mother, her family, her estranged father, the brother who forced her to have sex with him. He said that if she told anybody he would claim she seduced him because she was a sex fiend. She would be blamed for sure, since he was always the favorite, so she kept quiet about it, but the secret burned inside her. Now that she’d proved him right by turning tricks, why would anybody ever believe her? And furthermore, why would they care enough to come and rescue such a worthless person.

  She took a deep breath and shook away the blues. Didn’t she have friends? The other girls loved her, didn’t they? All the men she served so well, and gave such great pleasure. . . would they care if she went missing? Would they?

  She tried to listen for sounds of life. All she heard was a mocking bird, a meadowlark, and an occasional dog bark. And maybe one other sound she couldn’t identify, kind of like whispering.

  Dog bark. That meant she might be close to civilization. Where there were dogs there were other people not far away. She decided that under the circumstances the only senses she had that would help her were her ears and her sense of smell, and there was nothing very special about either. She must keep her wits together. Who else did she have to trust?

  *****

  Horse cornered Martha first thing in the morning. He drug her out of bed and into his office. He threw her on the couch.

  She sat there trembling while he deliberately went to his desk, pulled open a drawer and reached in.

  He looked up at her with stern eyes. He pinched out a sinister smile.

  He left whatever he was touching in the drawer. It made a clunking sound as it clanked against the bottom wood. He moved over to the couch and pushed Martha’s head backwards until it crushed against the sofa back.

  “Think you’re kinda smart, do ya? A little detective, are ya?”

  “No sir,” she stammered.

  “You think I don’t know everything that goes on around here? You think I didn’t see you walk out of here in the middle of the night and ride away from here? What were you thinking?”

  Martha was silent. Her lips trembled.

  He released her head and traced her throat with his forefinger. She swallowed noisily. Her neck moved involuntarily against his finger.

  He strolled back to the desk and drew out a large Bowie Knife. He held it aloft and turned it in the light. The knife sparkled in response.

  “Let me introduce you to my good friend Mr. Bowie,” he said. “He and I have had many trips together and we always stay best friends.”

  He came over to Martha and touched the razor sharp edge to her throat. A drop of crimson released itself under the silver blade. “Don’t move now,” he said, “or Mr. Bowie will have a little too much fun. He’s kinda hungry ‘cause he hasn’t done damage for a long time.”

  “What do you want from me?” stuttered out Martha.

  “I though you’d never ask. Thank you.” He took the knife away from her neck and rubbed it against her shirt. He tossed it in the air and caught it by the blade. He threw it to the floor where it stuck upright and vibrated with a twang.

  “What I want is really quite simple. It will take no effort from you at all. All you have to do is nothing. Nothing. What I want from you is your silence.”

  He reached down and pulled the knife out of the floor. “There are many ways to achieve silence,” he said a
s he flipped the knife in the air and caught it again by its handle. “Some are simple, like never saying anything about what you saw last night.”

  He leaned over her and pulled back her hair. He stuck out his tongue and licked her neck. “You see this one is a little more difficult. If we assume that wet line is the target for Mr Bowie, well then. . . you know how silence might come from that.” He pulled her chin to the other direction and licked the other side of her neck. “But you see, this way is a little more trouble, not much, but a little.”

  He stood back and with one thumb smeared the spittle on her neck. “Your choice,” he said.

  He put a hand up her thigh.

  She groaned, turned her face to one side and closed her eyes. She grunted softly.

  He moved his mouth close to her ear and whispered. “You will tell Rosalie nothing when she asks. But you might suggest that Crissy had been talking about an uncle over in Odessa. Agreed?” The shoulder behind the hand dipped toward her forcing the hand deeper.

  She gasped, grunted, caught her breath and nodded.

  He pulled his hand from her. He wiped it on her blouse. “Now get out of here,” he said.

  *****

  When Martha left the Angel Dust in the middle of the night she had gone directly to Galen. He answered the door in a nightshirt, rubbing his still sleeping face. Jake was not there. He’d left the previous day saying he had left something behind, no doubt and excuse to go back to Lily’s.

  Martha told Galen what she’d seen, how Crissy was stolen away in the night, how after she watched her whisked away, that she went down the stairs, escaped the Angel Dust and rode out to tell the only man she thought might help her.

  “It’s a trap,” he said.

  Martha was bewildered.

  “What Horse wants is to present me with a lethal situation I can’t refuse. He wants you to come tell me, otherwise he’d not let you out of his sight. He wants me to spend days or weeks looking for her and then get shot dead by his gunslinger lying in ambush.”

  She was crying, now. Softly. Crying without sound.

  Galen put an arm around her. “You did the right thing,” he said, “by telling me. I would have been deeply troubled not to know about this and the sooner the better.”

  “But what can you do?”

  He smiled at her. He touched her forehead. “Go find her,” he said.

  *****

  An hour later, Galen struck out loaded with provisions and a long rifle strapped to the withers. He had Sabo at his side, a trusted Native who knew a lot about tracking fugitives. Before sunup they had discovered wagon ruts leading away from the Angel Dust.

  “Let’s hurry,” Galen said, “before the wind strikes up.”

  *****

  So the gathering at the churchyard, though joyous, was full of secrets. Jake didn’t know where Galen and Sabo got off to. Horse, by his absence, obscured the real reason he was not there underneath the cloak of what everyone would think of first: his abrasive, disagreeable personality. Martha was bearing the heaviest freight of all.

  She felt like she was carrying the baby of a rapist. The devil’s spawn.

  SIX

  Jake paid a surprise visit to the Angel Dust. He was dead sure that if any mischief was going on that involved Galen, Horse simply had to have something to do with it.

  He stormed in the front door and went up to the bar, throwing chairs out of his way. Oscar saw him coming and tried to slip away but Jake sent the glasses on the bar crashing to the side and reached over and grabbed him by his collar.

  “Where’s Horse?” he said.

  Oscar said nothing but turned his eyes to the loft where Horse stayed most of the time in his office.

  Jake went under the overhang and called to Horse, “Come down here, Horse-ass, or I’ll come up to get you.”

  He waited a beat. He heard some scuffling above that stopped over near the window.

  He pulled and shot three times up through the office floor.

  “If I’d wanted to hit you, Horse, I could of. So listen to this. The next three bullets will follow your footsteps.” He stood reloading his six shooter waiting for a response.

  Horse came down the stairs.

  “You angry about somethin’?” Horse said.

  “Seems that way.”

  “You need to control that anger of yours.”

  “I did. It’s pointed straight at you.”

  “What evidence you got for wrongdoing on my part?”

  “Just that you’d be capable of any bad thing. You made that cesspool reputation. Dangle your feet in it.”

  Jake met Horse at the stairs, stopping him on the last step. “There are some people missing from this fair town and you’re the only person evil enough to be connected to something like that. I think you know what I’m talking about.”

  “Can’t say that I do.”

  Jake glared at Horse. “I should put a bullet in your worthless hide just because you stink so much,” he said.

  Jake looked around. He walked over to Venus de Milo and stood next to her. He could see Horse start to sweat from across the room. He pointed his gun at her belly. Horse groaned. He moved the muzzle up to her neck. Horse sat down on the last step of the stairs. Jake scraped the tip of his gun slowly downward to her left breast. Horse wiped his face with one hand.

  Jake holstered his gun and walked over the where Horse was sitting. He leaned over and got in his face.

  “Poor Venus. Having to take abuse because of you.” He leaned back and scrutinized the miserable form before him. “You know, she’s just like the rest of the people around you. None of them deserve to be hurt. But you just keep on doling it out, don’t you?”

  Horse stayed silent.

  “Naw,” said Jake. “I got nothing against Venus. She’s suffered enough.”

  Jake paused, waiting. “You got anything to say to me?” he said.

  Horse shook his head.

  Jake turned and as he walked out the door he said. “I’m saving my bullets for you. Horse Diggins.”

  Horse stayed sitting where he was for a long moment, thinking. Directly, he stood, straightened his gunbelt, stepped outside, saddled up and rode out of town.

  *****

  Sabo lead the way, leaning over his horse from side to side, following the ruts of wagon wheels in the dust. At times they disappeared over hard baked land but returned farther down the way. At other times they looked like dotted lines. Sabo had to use his imagination and good instincts.

  The sun was bearing down even as it was not yet eight in the morning and the hot breezes off the prairie were beginning their lazy movement among the infrequent scrub oaks and mesquites.

  Galen’s mind was opening to several lines of thinking. His main concentration was focused on Crissy. He knew she would be disabled somehow, perhaps hidden away in a cave somewhere, held hostage at gunpoint. . . He only hoped she was not in pain.

  Now and then the hair stood up on the back of his neck as he flashed upon Horse and his role in her disappearance. He was certain to have a showdown with him. Horse had earned that much by his recent actions.

  He began to hatch out a contingency plan, how to approach the hostage site, how to deflect the certain ambush, what was the right time of day, position of sun. . . how to maximize the element of surprise.

  *****

  Jake strolled into the Outfitter’s Shop. No one was there but Ruth Ann, sitting behind her counter at the front of the store.

  “Howdy, Ruth Ann,” he said.

  “Howdy, sheriff.”

  “You doing all right?”

  “As good as an old lady can.”

  Jake chuckled. “About as good as it gets,” he said.

  She nodded. “What can I do for you today?”

  “Just a little conversation, if you don’t mind.”

  “Something I got plenty of,” she said.

  “I have a troubled mind.”

  “Yes?”

  “It seems there are p
eople missing from this town and I don’t know why.” He fiddled aimlessly with a pair of scissors on the counter. “Do you know why, Ruth Ann?”

  “Well I might have a few ideas about that, sitting here all day with little to do.”

  “I’d be much obliged.”

  Ruth Ann leaned back and looked out the front window. She nodded in the direction of the Angel Dust across the street.

  “Ever since that Horse Diggins came around the air around here hasn’t smelled the same.”

  Jake put a toothpick in his mouth and picked at nothing.

  “What I mean is, everybody’s a little touchy. They seem to think they have something to worry about. Don’t know if that’s true, but seems that way.”

  Jake clenched the toothpick between his molars and grinded out a little sliver which he removed deftly from the tip of his tongue with his index and third fingers.

  Ruth Ann moved a lady’s hat from the counter to the shelf behind her chair. “I especially feel sorry for those poor little whores over there. I don’t usually waste much love on whores but I can’t imagine what their life must be like having to put up with the shit he is.” She looked out the window again. “And now that Crissy’s gone. . . “

  Jake looked up sharply. “Crissy’s gone?”

  Ruth Ann looked surprised. “I thought that was what you were talking about,” she said, “what with all the commotion around here the other night.”

  “I’m listening,” he said.

  “I was asleep but several people in town must have been awakened by the noise of a wagon leaving out of the Angel Dust headed south of town. Next day, nobody saw Crissy anywhere.”