Ralph Compton - Doomsday Rider

“I’m sure that is the case,” Grant said, “but nonetheless, two cold-blooded murders, one committed during a jail-break, are serious charges indeed.” He fixed Fletcher with a cold stare, his blue eyes suddenly hard. “Major, I wish you to accompany me to Fort Hays, and there you will turn yourself over to the civilian authorities. I swear I will do everything in my power to help you.” He waved a hand toward the remounted Buffalo Soldiers, who were now deploying on each side of the wagon column. “Now, I’d rather not resort to force. But be assured, if need be I will.”

“I’ll go along with you,” Fletcher said, the utter hopelessness of his situation dawning on him. “I don’t see that I have much choice.”

Grant nodded. “You haven’t.” He extended his hands. “Now, your pistols, if you please.”

Fletcher moved his hands slowly to his guns, but Estelle’s shrill, angry voice froze him in midmovement. Grant’s head snapped around in time to see the girl walking purposefully toward Falcon Stark.

In Tennessee, the hill folk called what was about to happen a shiriking—the moment when an angry woman, in front of witnesses, confronts a man she believes has wronged her.

Fletcher had heard of the shiriking, but now he was seeing and hearing it for the first time.

“I’m alive, Father,” Estelle called out. “Your hired gunmen tried to kill me but they failed.” She turned, seeking Fletcher, and pointed at him. “And the only reason they failed was because of him, the man you wanted to blame for my death.”

The blood slowly drained from Stark’s face and the man’s eyes were wild. “Estelle, what nonsense is this? Against my wishes you fled to Arizona with a dangerous lunatic and he’s poisoned your mind against me.”

“The Chosen One is dead, Father, just like my child is dead. It was your hired gunmen who killed my baby, but the real murderer was you!”

Stark took a step toward his daughter. “You poor, demented creature, what has the man standing over there, the convicted killer Buck Fletcher, done to you? You don’t know what you’re saying anymore.”

Estelle stood her ground, her eyes blazing. “You sent that animal Wes Slaughter into the Tonto Basin after me. You wanted me dead so the disgrace of my marriage to the Chosen One and my pregnancy would not jeopardize your bid for the presidency.”

The girl moved closer to Stark, her face a stiff, angry mask. “I was heavy with child when Slaughter made me ride a horse over some of the roughest country on God’s earth. I pleaded with him. I told him I could lose my child. And do you know what he did, Father? He laughed. He laughed in my face and told me that Senator Stark wanted the bastard in my belly dead anyway.”

“This is an outrage!” Stark screamed. He looked around the circle of faces surrounding him, seeking support, but found none. He pointed a trembling finger at Fletcher. “You put her up to this, you damned outlaw and killer.”

The others had crowded closer, their faces a mix of shock, disbelief, and horror, and Countess Vorishilov was clutching her throat, her eyes wide, unable to comprehend what she was hearing.

Then Grant did something that stunned Fletcher, something so remarkable and unexpected he would remember it for the rest of his life.

“Major Fletcher,” the president snapped, his eyes on Stark, hostile and calculating, “is all this true?”

Fletcher had never considered even the remote possibility that Grant, though a soldier’s soldier, would still consider him an officer and gentleman despite everything he’d been told. But it did not seem to enter Grant’s thinking that a former major in the United States Army, a man who had served his country honorably and well, would lie.

“What Estelle says is true, sir,” Fletcher said. “Every word of it—and more.”

“Then tell it to me, man,” Grant said. “Make your report, sir.”

Fletcher knew Grant, and he was aware that the general had never cared for long-winded dispatches. In as few words as possible, he described what had transpired between his being sent to prison for a crime he did not commit, his visit to Stark’s home in Lexington, and the present.

He left nothing out, including his imprisonment by General Crook and his killing of Wes Slaughter, the man who had set him up for the murder of the Wyoming sheriff. And when it was over he summed it up by saying, “I believe Falcon Stark is a murderer, a man corrupted by power, greed, and ambition, and such a man should never be allowed to become president of this nation.”

Stark had listened to all this, his face growing paler with every word. Now, ashen, his half-mad eyes blazing, he took a couple of steps toward Grant.

“He talks about me being a murderer! Look at her! Look at Estelle! She murdered my wife, the only woman I ever loved. She killed her! She took her from me. My darling died from the terrible disease she gave her, and where was the justice? Where was the justice there, Mr. President? Better Estelle had died.” He swung on the girl. “No, better by far if you’d never been born.”

Stark walked toward Estelle, his rifle clutched in white-knuckled fists. “You killed my wife and I killed your child. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. That almost evens the score. But now there’s this!”

Falcon Stark began to raise his rifle, finally stepping over the fine line between sanity and madness. Estelle reached in the pocket of her mackinaw and came up with a .41-caliber derringer, the one Fletcher had seen in the sutler’s store at Fort Apache.

Now he knew what had happened to his missing twenty dollars.

The girl fired as Stark’s rifle swung level with his waist, and when the bullet hit, the man stumbled a single step backward. “Bitch!” he shrieked. He raised the rifle to his shoulder, and Fletcher heard Estelle’s gun click on a dud round.

Fletcher drew and fired just as Stark pulled the trigger. The man’s bullet went wild, but he swung the Winchester back on Estelle, and Fletcher hammered three fast shots into him. Stark, snarling, his mouth twisted with hate, went down on his knees, then fell flat on his face.

Where the hell was Hickok?

Fletcher felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck. He let out a wild, despairing cry: “Bill!”

He turned, trying to locate the gunfighter. But Hickok was not making a play. He stood with his hands spread wide, away from his guns. “It’s over, Buck!” Hickok yelled, his voice urgent. “Listen to me, it’s over.”

It took Fletcher a few moments for the hammering of his heart to subside. Then his shoulders slumped and he holstered his Colt.

Estelle ran into Fletcher’s arms and he held her close, hearing a thud as the derringer slipped from her hand and hit the hard, frozen ground.

“It is over, isn’t it, Buck?” she asked, her tearstained face lifted to his own.

Fletcher nodded, glancing over at the dead man. “It’s over. Falcon Stark was a tormented creature, and in the end his own hate and ambition drove him to madness.”

“I can’t stop hating him, Buck,” Estelle said. “He was my father and he gave me life, but I’ll never stop hating him.”

“That you can’t do, Estelle,” Fletcher said, his voice gentle. “Hate will eat you up from the inside like a cancer.” He kissed the girl on her forehead. “Let it go. Just try to let it go.”

“I’m letting you go, Major Fletcher,” Grant said, one foot in the stirrup as he prepared to mount and follow the retreating wagons. “I promise you, I plan to order a full investigation of your case, including the actions of the prison warden and the circumstances leading to the death of that young lieutenant.”

“His name was 2nd Lt. Elisha Simpson,” Fletcher said, a small elegy for a man he barely knew.