Charles West - Lawless Prairie

Clint rode last in the single file of riders, his knees bent like a jockey’s in the short stirrups, a hailstorm of conflicting thoughts swirling in his head. He had never considered himself an outlaw, but he was damn sure one now. He could turn around and hightail it back. Ballenger might shoot at him, but probably wouldn’t chase after him, and maybe he could square things with the warden, explain the situation as it had occurred, leaving him no choice. The guard, Williams, would surely vouch for him. The problem was, running free again across an open prairie, he didn’t want to return to the stone walls and his tiny cell for another three years. The three he had already served were killing his soul day by relentless day until he had come to the point where he feared he might one day explode.

I’ve given them enough of my life , he decided as he followed the outlaws down a grassy draw and across a shallow stream. Three years was enough for the crime that he had committed. His thoughts then went back to recall the reason he had been sentenced to six years in prison. His troubles all started with the purchase of a horse—six horses, actually. Clint’s father had made an especially good trade for the horses with a Texas cattleman who sold off his remuda after a cattle drive. Among the six, the most valuable one was an Appaloosa gelding that caught young Clint’s eye at once. He worked with the horse every day, and a bond between horse and rider was soon created, as Clint spent every second of his free time training the spirited mount.

Clint’s eye was not the only one attracted to the handsome gelding. Judge Wyman Plover, who owned a stable of fine-bred horses, spotted the unusual breed when Clint rode into town one Sunday morning. Immediately coveting the horse, the judge wasted little time before riding out to Arthur Conner’s ranch, determined to own the Appaloosa. Arthur Conner was not a wealthy rancher, and the offer Judge Plover extended was too much to pass on—even knowing it would deeply distress his son to lose the horse.

Clint understood his father’s position, and tried to make the best of it. He resigned himself to the loss of the Appaloosa until he happened to witness the treatment the horse was subjected to at the hands of Plover’s foreman. Clint tried to tell the brutal foreman that the horse responded to a gentle touch. “I’ll gentle the son of a bitch with an ax handle,” the foreman responded, and ordered Clint off the property.

Clint, concerned for the horse, went to see the judge to protest the foreman’s rough treatment. “Mike Burke has been training horses since before you were weaned,” the judge said. “I expect he knows better than you how to train a horse.”

“Not from what I saw today,” Clint had responded heatedly. “He’s gonna break that horse’s spirit.”

His patience with the young man having run out, Judge Plover dismissed him abruptly. “Well, at any rate, I don’t see that it’s any concern of yours, so I’d advise you to mind your own business.” When Clint turned on his heel to leave, Plover called after him, “And don’t be coming around here anymore.”

“You ain’t fit to own a horse,” Clint had muttered in parting.

During the past three years, he had often thought about the price he was paying for his rash actions that followed his confrontation with the judge. He earned his conviction as a horse thief when he removed the Appaloosa from Plover’s corral. And he added the charge of assault when he broke an ax handle across the foreman’s back when Burke tried to stop him. The only satisfaction Clint enjoyed was in knowing the Appaloosa gained his freedom. Hell , he thought as he guided the dun after the four riders preceding him, I’d do the same thing if it happened today.

Bringing his thoughts back to the present, he considered the situation in which he now found himself. One thing he knew for certain was that he must extricate himself from Ballenger and his friends at the earliest opportunity. However, he was reluctant to strike out on his own without weapons and supplies. It might be necessary to ride along with the men until there was some way to equip himself to go it alone. He had to consider himself a real horse thief now, since he was riding a horse stolen from the prison barn. But at the moment, the dun was his only possession. He had no gun, no clothes other than the prison-issued garments he wore, no supplies, and no money. There seemed little chance he could acquire these things lawfully.

As the riders slowed their horses in order to file down through a rocky draw, Clint glanced over at Washburn to catch the brooding simpleton glaring back at him. What in hell did I do to make an enemy out of him? Clint asked himself. I’m liable to have trouble with that one before this is over.

Chapter 2

Pete Yancey stood for a moment, thoughtfully watching the last-minute addition to their small party as Clint adjusted the stirrups on his worn-out saddle. He commented to Ballenger, “I don’t know about that one. Maybe we shouldn’ta brought him along. I got a funny feelin’ about him.” He stopped short of telling Ballenger why he had this feeling about the quiet young man who had immediately volunteered to slit the guard’s throat. Yancey never confided in anyone about the one fear that had haunted him since he was eighteen. Shortly after joining the Confederate army to escape a prison sentence, he had been visited by a black angel in a dream one night. In his dream, the angel had told him that he could not be killed by anyone but one man, and then that man had appeared. Yancey could still see the man’s face clearly after waking. It was a broad, youthful face, and it was distinctive in that a single lock of light brown hair hung down on the assassin’s forehead. In the dream, the killer pointed his pistol directly at Yancey’s head, and Yancey could see the bullet coming straight at his eye as if suspended in flight, deadly and certain. It had seemed so real that he had determined it to be a prophecy. After the dream, he had survived several major battles without a scratch while men were falling all around him, reinforcing his belief that he could not be killed except by that one man. The critical thing for him was to always keep a sharp eye for that man, and kill him before he had a chance to fulfill the prophecy.

But now this familiar face had appeared unexpectedly, looking very much like the face in his dream. He might not have thought that much about it except for the single lock of hair that fell across Clint’s forehead when he removed his prison cap. Coincidence, he told himself, but the man worried him. He decided to keep a close eye on him.

Ballenger shrugged indifferently after Yancey’s comment. “Hell, I expect he’s in the same boat as the rest of us.”

“Whaddaya know about him, anyway? What was he in for?”

Ballenger reached for the coffeepot resting on the coals of the campfire. “Horse thief is what I heard,” he answered. “Don’t know much more. I didn’t have that much to do with him.” He paused to consider what he had just said, then added, “Like Bob said, he didn’t have much to do with anybody. Just kept to himself mostly.”

“I reckon we’ll find out when we get to Fort Collins,” Yancey said. “Might be better if we run him off before somebody spots him in that getup, though.”

“Might at that,” Ballenger allowed, turning to gaze at Clint again. There had been no plan to bring along two extra men on his escape from prison. He had gotten word to Yancey that there would be one other, Washburn. Consequently, Yancey brought weapons and clothes for Ballenger and Washburn only. Now he was looking at Clint in his prison stripes and wondering whether Yancey might be right. There was no sense in advertising the fact that they were escaped convicts.