Darrel Sparkman - After the Fall

Starking turned back from staring at Reeves. He didn’t look happy. “What’s your part in this?”

“The Army sent me here to keep the peace, any way I can. I’m supposed to keep the lid on until they can come to the area in force. And they will come. You know what will happen then. The Army’s rule is that raiders are shot on sight. I have a better idea.”

Starking and his lieutenants bristled at the last statement, some of his men laying hands on their guns.

Reeves pulled his weapon, and said, “If you—”

A voice from the crowd interrupted. “Let’s hear him out.”

Starking called for quiet. “Go ahead, Trent.”

“If you try to take Big Springs by force, you’ll lose good men trying to take the place, and so will they. It’s a natural fortress, and there aren’t many ways to get at it. Thing is, you don’t need to fight for it. I don’t see you folks as raiders, although I can see signs you’re headed that way. You just need a place to live. There’s plenty of room at the Springs and the surrounding area. If you come peaceful, that is. I’ll talk to people and let them know about you. The most important thing is to keep the peace. If people start showing up dead, the deal will be off.”

“We get along all right by ourselves.”

“Really?” He looked around the circle of faces. “Where are your hunters, Mr. Starking? The forest is full of deer and boar, and the flatlands have cattle running free. I don’t see much but rabbits and squirrels in your cooking pots. I see running sores on your children, and they wear rags for clothes. Personally, I don’t think you are doing so well. Know why? Someone has all your best men trying to push honest people off their land, when they should be putting meat in the pot.” The last comment he directed at Reeves, who didn’t speak, just raked his hot gaze over Trent.

Starking nodded his head. “I’m told the country around us is hunted out and that we need to move soon.”

He shrugged. “Another lie. I had several chances at deer, just riding down the trail.”

Reeves, sensing that Starking was starting to listen to Trent, went stomping to his horse. “I’m taking my men with me, Starking, and we’ll take care of Big Springs. I can see you don’t need us anymore.”

Starking’s voice thundered at them. “ Your men? Maybe we’d be better off without you or your men. Hear this. Whoever quits me and goes with you had better not cross paths with me again. I won’t tolerate that kind of loyalty.”

Most of the men stayed, while Reeves and a few of his followers left.

Starking turned back to him. “Light and set, Marshal. It seems we’ve a lot to discuss. By the way, we have one of your Green Jeans in here. He’s in a bad way.”

Walking into the tent, the smell of rotting flesh assailed his nose.

“Not much we could do for him. He’s gut shot.” Starking shrugged and stepped away. Thinking of Gunny, he pulled the blanket away from the man’s face.

Lieutenant Spencer.

“We found him yesterday.” Starking was talking again. “I don’t know what’s keeping him alive.”

Lieutenant Spencer’s eyes fluttered open. Seeing Trent, he tried to speak.

“What happened?” He leaned close to the man’s face, trying to ignore the stench. “Ambush?”

The man nodded assent, finally giving up trying to speak. His breathing was ragged and shallow, fevered eyes holding Trent’s.

He thought for a moment. There weren’t a whole lot of different ways this could happen. “Raiders?”

At this, Spencer became agitated, and feebly shook his head. The effort was too much, and it left him staring with sightless eyes at the side of the tent.

“Guess we’ll never know.” Starking’s voice was non-committal.

He looked levelly at the man. “I’d be real disappointed to find out you had anything to do with this, Starking.”

Another voice cut into the semi-darkness of the tent. “Don’t get your feathers ruffled, Marshal.”

He turned to the entrance, recognizing the voice. It was Gran, the old matriarch from the village he had gone through.

“Do you know this woman?” Starking voiced his surprise.

“I know her.” He was smiling. “She kept me from getting shot awhile back.”

Starking spoke to the woman. “Well, I’m not sure you did the right thing. Today seems to be the day for stories. Let’s hear yours.”

Gran ignored the man, giving her attention to Trent. “We been scouting the hills, like you said to do. Keepin’ watch. We run onto that army patrol you was with, ‘cept they was headed the other direction. They’d been ambushed all right, but from the inside.” She paused to let this sink in. “Someone right in amongst them cut loose and shot them all. We buried all of them, except for this one.”

He tried to absorb his information. There were some in that patrol he wouldn’t trust, but would they be capable of doing something like that? He was missing something. What about Gunny?

Gran continued in her dry, low voice. “When we found that girl you looked at, Lon saw just a piece of a track. It came from a shoe with an odd stitch. Whoever did the shootin’ of the patrol, had that same track. We thought you’d want to know. Don’t know if it helps, much.”

He was lost in thought for a moment. “Did you bury a man with stripes on his sleeves, a sergeant?”

She shrugged, but he could tell he had her attention. “I don’t know what a sergeant’s stripes look like, Marshal.”

“His would have had three stripes pointed down, with two over the top.” He drew the figure for her in the air.

“Nope. They all had just one of those stripes.”

Relief washed over him. “Then it looks like one got away. Thanks, Gran.”

She wasn’t through talking. “Marshal?”

Trent raised his eyebrows.

“You watch your back, son. There’s something not right about this, but we just can’t seem to pin it down.”

He couldn’t disagree with her on that one. “I hear you, Gran.”

“Then hear this, Marshal. Lon may do the job for you. He was supposed to marry that gal you saw. He’s lookin’ for the killer awful hard. It is makin’ him crazy. Just don’t you shoot him by mistake.”

“Gran, if you see him—you tell him good luck and be careful.”

“I probably won’t see him. For some reason, he spends all his time over in this neck of the woods. Do I see him, though, I’ll tell him.”

After she left, he told Starking the story—leaving nothing out.

Starking just shook his head. “Boy, you got a full plate. Talk to your people. Let me know. I’ve got a lot of people here, and we’re all tired. See what you can do for us. Of the ones I can control, I’ll keep them in check.”

Trent left the camp with more questions than answers. He had a cold feeling in his stomach that the answer to his questions was staring him in the face, and he just couldn’t see it. There weren’t many clues, and hardly anything to investigate.

So far, all he had were bodies.

Ignoring his wife’s death, and thinking only of the more recent killings, there was a thread that was tickling his mind. The only connection between the killings he could see was… himself.

The first girl, found within hours of her death, and second girl, killed in the same manner, and near enough to Trent’s line of travel to make it an uncomfortable coincidence.

And he was worried about Gunny—where was Gunny? He’d mentioned joining Trent. But maybe he wouldn’t. More likely, he was trailing the one who ambushed the patrol.

His mind kept at the problem. So, what did he have? Two partial footprints of a moccasin that had been torn and repaired, which pointed to a woodsman, and the fact that the man, and it had to be a man, left little or no trail. This fact pointed to someone trained to hide himself. Army? Special Forces?