come and left in a mighty big hurry. Five, six, maybe seven of ’em. Made such a mess right here around the wagon it’s hard to tell exactly.”
“Anything else?”
“Well, can say for sure as how the killers rode their animals right up from the river. Got down, walked up here, caught these folks unawares. Shot ’em dead, then lit a shuck away from their crimes. Didn’t waste a single second from the looks of it.”
“Uh - huh.”
A visage of sadness and regret flashed across Glo’s strained, ebon face. “Most like them raids we done made when me’n Mr. Boz ’uz rangerin’ and trackin’ them Messican killers down in Coahuila out on the Rio Salado. ’Member as how we used to storm right into their camps, whilst they ’uz sleepin’, pistols a-blazin’. Kilt ’em all. Learned the method from the Comanche, back when I used to go out and slaughter them folks, too.”
I watched as Boz drew to a halt near the wagon’s tailgate and shot a troubled glance at the ground beneath the back axle. A separate, substantial pool of near-black, gooey, congealed blood had accumulated atop the grass near the wagon’s back entry. Blood that obviously didn’t belong to either the man or woman. Thumb-sized droplets dribbled from cracks in the Studebaker’s wooden bed and splattered atop the still widening pool.
He eased up to the tail flap and pushed the canvas aside with the barrel of his shotgun. Stood for several seconds, staring into the vehicle’s dark, musty interior until his eyes adjusted enough to take in the horror that lay waiting in the vehicle’s rank darkness.
Of a sudden, my friend made a smothered retching sound. “Sweet merciful mother of Jesus,” he said and stumbled backward as though slapped across the cheek by an invisible hand.
“What is it?” I called out, then rushed to my ashen-faced amigo’s side. “What’s in there, Boz?”
Grabbed the heavy canvas cover and flipped it aside. Took a second for my own light-dilated eyes to adjust to the central gloom. The wagon’s horrific contents brought on a stunned feeling not unlike being struck in the chest with a closed fist the size and weight of a blacksmith’s favorite anvil.
Despite a level of self-control most men would never know, or even aspire to, my eyes flashed wide in awestruck horror. I yelped, “Damnation,” and took a step backward to stand shoulder to shoulder with Boz.
Swear all the air tried to rush from my compressed lungs at the same instant. Felt as though my heart and brain had locked themselves into a struggle to disconnect for several seconds. Intellectually, I could acknowledge the ghastly truth of what lay inside that benighted vehicle. But oh, my friends, a heart made tender by an inability to understand such butchery refused to concede that the hellish, unspeakably evil scene was real.
Felled into a hideous, twisted pile, not unlike seedlings caught in a cyclone, the deformed, broken bodies of three bullet-blasted children lay one atop the other amidst piles of dolls in a misshapen, bird’s-nest-like mass. Given the quick, stomach-churning examination I allowed myself of the grisly, macabre scene, there were two boys and a girl.
Blasted nigh to shreds by a hot curtain of concentrated lead, whatever features of youthful beauty that might have existed a few hours prior to our arrival had been effectively obliterated. I kept thinking as how, perhaps, the stack of bodies was just three young girls. Nigh impossible to tell, really. But continued examination revealed the error of my hurried, horrified, initial observations.
When confronted by the surprise and unspeakable terror of certain death, the youngsters appeared to have covered their eyes with tiny hands, as though in denial of the reality facing them. Their childish faces had vanished, for the most part. Legs and arms lay splayed and twisted in monstrous, unnatural ways. Atop thin, childish chests their hands lay shattered beyond any practical use, even if they had managed to, somehow, survive the fiery onslaught. The blasting was so intense it appeared as though hell-sent imps had painted the entire interior of the grisly vehicle with gallons upon gallons of human blood. Not a single inch of available space had been spared the gory coating that seeped through the wagon’s floor and onto the ground below.
Grim-faced, I jerked the flap back into place, took two stumbling steps, then grasped the wagon’s wooden tailgate to steady myself. I coughed, toed at the dirt, and coughed again. Snatched my hat off and slapped a trembling leg with it. Then I rubbed a flushed, dripping face against the sleeve of my shirt.
Jammed the hat back on before I was able to say, “Swear ’fore Jesus, Boz, figured as how, between the three of us, we’d seen just about everything godless men could do over the combined years we’ve shared as Rangers. But, with sweet Jesus as my witness, it’s been a damned long time since any of us has had to look on a scene as appalling as this one.”
Boz swung a misty-eyed gaze toward the tops of the swaying, murmuring cottonwoods overhead then turned teeth-gritting attention onto the toes of his boots. He picked at a frayed spot on his vest. “My, oh, my, Lucius, but ain’t that the Lord’s truth. Truly hoped I’d seen the last of such as this. Makes my heart hurt just to think on it.”
Then, within a matter of fleeting seconds, it suddenly felt as if an iron bar had been inserted into my spine. I straightened and turned. Shook a finger at Glorious Johnson.
Like an angry animal, I growled, “Get after ’em, Glo. Take Bear. Set the dog on these monsters’ trail. Find ’em. Find which direction the bastards who did this came from and where they’re headed. Only a few places men who’d commit such an atrocity can go from a spot as remote as this.”
Glorious Johnson nodded and, as though distracted, mumbled, “Sho ’nuff, Mistuh Dodge. I’ll find ’em. You know I will.”
I continued thinking aloud to myself. “Figure the men responsible for this sorry deed are gonna need a stiff drink and damned quick. Bet all I’ve got, and all I’ll ever have, they’re headed for the nearest cantina.”
Boz toed at the ground beneath his feet. “I agree, Lucius. Men as would murder a woman and three little kids are gonna need a tubful of strong liquor to wash memories of this massacre away. Once you’ve got a bead on these sons a bitches, Glo, get back here quick as you can. Don’t let ’em see you. And whatever you do, don’t try and take ’em alone.”
I gazed into Glo’s strained face. The man appeared to have aged a thousand years in a matter of seconds. He slowly rose to his feet and stared into my hardened visage. He, Boz, and me had ridden together on dozens of other raids and searches. Both men had seen that same grim look on my face before. Hard-eyed, jaw clenched, back teeth grinding against one another.
Better than just about anyone living, Glorious Johnson understood what the look meant. As clear as staring into a traveling gypsy’s crystal ball, he could see the blood-soaked future of the killers in my flint-eyed gaze.
Men who had never heard of Rangers Lucius Dodge, Randall Bozworth Tatum, or Glorious Johnson would pay dearly for the death and destruction they had wrought on the banks of Three Mile Creek. They were dead men on horses and didn’t have the slightest clue that their departure from the ranks of the living had already been written into the golden pages of the Angel of Death’s eternal book.
Those men’s damnable names, and ten times damnable deeds, were already inscribed in flowing script by the blood-dipped finger tip of a dangerous man most people didn’t even know. I could tell what my friend was thinking. For the slaughter of this unknown family, Lucius Dodge’s ruthless, relentless, unstoppable judgment was now focused on them like a narrow pointed shaft of August sunlight falling through the cottonwoods beside Three Mile Creek. Mounted on a blue-gray horse, bony-fingered death was headed their direction—and his judgment was coming damned quick.
Solemn with respect for what he detected on my stony countenance, Johnson grimly nodded. “Yes, suh, Mistuh Dodge, Mistuh Boz. Don’t you be worrin’ none. Me’n ole Bear, we be findin’ ’em fellas as done this horrible thang. Fast as a vengeful God’ll let us,” he said.
Johnson made a clucking sound, snapped his fingers at the dog, then turned and vanished into the thick patch of weeds with the snuffling animal hot on his heels. As he strode away, I barely heard it when he muttered, to no one in particular, “Thankee Lord God for not makin’ me help burry them poor childern. Not sure I coulda took part in such a gruesome task.”
I watched Glo disappear into the curtain of tall grass between the blood-soaked green spot and where we’d left our animals. Then I propped my rifle against the wagon’s back wheel, unbuckled my pistol belt, and draped it over the sideboards.
Set to rolling up my sleeves. “Best see if we can locate a shovel, Boz. Two would be even better. Need to get ourselves busy digging graves. Might as well go on ahead and get these poor folks underground ’fore they get too ripe on us. Time’s a-wastin’.”
Boz stared into the heavens, as though silently hoping for some sort of divine intervention. Perhaps a miracle
