furious. But I didn’t care.
I climbed on Grizz and gave Webb one last look. True to form, his neck was a good bit longer than when I started his last dance with horned Satan. Have to admit something about the sight suddenly sent an icy chill down my spine and made my blood run cold.
I kicked for Devils River. Didn’t bother to look back after I got past the hacienda’s front gate. Not once. Tell you for true my friends, a boatload of years have passed since that fateful night, and I’ve not lost a single second’s sleep over what I did. Truth is, given the exact same set of bloody circumstances and the opportunity, I’d do it all over again the exact same way quicker than a hummingbird’s heart can beat.
27
“I’VE COME FOR MY NIECE.”
THE DAYS CAME, and the days went. Me and Boz and Glo looked after Clementine as best we could for almost two months. We stayed out on the Devils River place a good bit past the time we’d promised Cap’n Culpepper we’d be back in Fort Worth. And while the girl’s physical recovery took place over the short matter of a few weeks, I’m not to this very instant sure she ever really came back to us.
During most of that gloomy, silent period, the stone-faced child took up space in a chair out on the front porch and impassively stared at the river. ’Bout the only time she appeared to perk up occurred every evening when flocks of doves made their way to the water to quench their thirst and bathe. Clouds of the birds swirled and darted over the willows and created an endless, eddy-like, ever-shifting painting against the backdrop of a blazing, color- saturated sunset. Would bet all the money I’ll ever have, Clem didn’t speak a dozen words during that entire time. Seemed to the three of us as though Eagle “Mad Dog” Cutner had damaged her spirt beyond any living human’s poor ability to repair it. He’d robbed her of all the spunk, enthusiasm, and drive we’d so admired when she first came into our lives.
’Course someone managed to discover Axel Webb’s worm-riddled corpse just a few days after I strung his sorry ass up. And while I did mangage to keep under wraps most of our direct involvement in the various events surrounding all those murderous doin’s—especially the part about how ole Ax ended up dangling from a tree limb in his dead brother’s front yard—a goodly bit of the Webb family’s tragic tale of mindless slaughter and madness did manage to spool out like an unwinding ball of twine and go public.
The tragic clan’s saga of jealously, anger, and fratricide eventually hit the front page of damn near every newspaper from the Red River to the Rio Grande. Hell, the heartrending tale was just the kind of thing people still love to read about and spend time gloating over.
Before you could spit we found ourselves knee-deep in a troop of investigating rangers who worked out of Austin, self-righteous committee members of the Texas senate and house, and nigh on every stripe of morbid, inquisitive jackass a body could imagine in his most fevered nightmares.
I was about at the end of my string with those idiots, and had loudly threatened bodily harm to several of the intrusive skunks, when a most singular event occurred. Me and Boz were sitting on our rickety front stoop late one afternoon, locked in heated discussion over the prospects for Clementine’s future, when a fine-looking spring wagon rolled up. Painted a bright yellow, with red wheels, the conveyance was pulled by a matched pair of shiny-coated mules.
A right handsome woman, sportin’ a brace of bone-gripped Colts, occupied the driver’s seat. She removed her broad-brimmed, sweat-stained, palm-leaf sombrero and dropped it on the seat beside her. Ran the fingers of one hand through wheat-colored hair that had begun to go gray on her.
Striking blue eyes twinkled when she offered us a friendly, tooth-filled smile and said, “Which one of you boys is Marshal Lucius Dodge?”
I propped myself against the higher step at my back, waved one hand, and said, “That’d be me, ma’am.”
The lady nodded, tied the wagon’s reins to the brake lever, then climbed down. She sagged against the front wheel, set to jerking at her leather gloves, then flicked a dangling lock of sweat-dripping hair out of one eye.
“ ’Pears you’ve had a long trip, ma’am?” I said.
“Yes. Yes, indeed. Has been a right long haul. You boys ain’t the easiest folks in Texas to find, bein’ as how you’re way’n the hell and gone out here in the middle of nowhere.”
“What can we do for you, ma’am?” Boz said.
She pushed away from the wagon and came several steps closer. She stopped and, with fists clenched on her hips, said, “Name’s Linda McKinley, Marshal Dodge. You can call me Annie, if’n you like. Have a livestock and wagon selling operation up near Tyler way. I’ve come for my niece.”
Well, that got us on our feet, hats in hand, pretty quick. While surprised right down to the soles of my boots, I must admit I was, at the same time, greatly relieved. I glanced over at Boz and could see he shared my feelings.
We invited our visitor up on the porch. Something we’d not done with any of the other invaders who’d recently made our lives a shade more difficult. I offered her a chair. One with the best pillow on it. And dragged up ladder-backed seats of our own.
When everyone got settled, I said, “Can I offer you a dipper of cold water, ma’am? Or perhaps a cup of Arbuckles? Maybe something to eat? Our man Paco sets a fine table.”
“No, thank you, Marshal Dodge,” she replied. “Just like to rest my weary bones a bit.” She bent over at the waist, rubbed her lower back, then scrunched down into the seat’s thick cushion. “ ’S right comfortable. Bet you boys fight over this chair every afternoon ’bout dark, don’t you?”
“Not so much recently,” Boz offered, “Clem tends to like that spot, so we’re more’n happy to let her have it.”
The McKinley woman nodded. “I see,” she said. “And how is Clem?”
Arms laid across my knees, I said, “God’s truth, we’re not sure. Just not sure. Perhaps she’ll do better with you. Us ole bachelors have come to think that, while we’ve walked on eggshells during this entire ordeal, maybe we’re just not at all suited for the task of seeing to certain parts of a young lady’s healing. Woman’s touch might be just what she needs, Mrs. McKinley.”
She flashed another brilliant, friendly smile. “That’s Ms. McKinley, Marshal Dodge. Annie to you boys. Mule kicked my husband in the head several years ago. Didn’t kill him right off. Man took almost a month to turn loose and let go of his life. But in the end, he died. So, with his death and my sister’s violent passing, I’m alone now, and I’d like my niece nearby.”
“She’s asleep right now, Ms. McKinley. Girl sleeps an inordinate amount these days. ’Course we can’t blame her much, given her circumstances of recent.”
The McKinley woman sagely rubbed her chin with the back of one hand. Then, as if she’d thought the question over for quite a spell, she said, “You boys willing to tell me the whole story? No bull. Entire ugly weasel, teeth, hair, and all?”
And so we did. Took nigh on two hours to sort through the whole account and answer all her questions as best we could. We offered to take her out to the spot where we’d buried her sister, but she shook her head, then said, “No. No. I have no desire to see where Elizabeth’s buried. Just knowing you men did the best you could for her is enough. In fact, it’s more than enough.”
We had just finished up with our story when Clem slipped through the front door and came up short when she spotted our visitor. I’d never seen anything like what happened next. The girl fell onto her aunt’s lap, and the pair of them wept as though the world had surely come to an abrupt and painful end. It was so emotional on that porch, Boz and I got to feeling like intruders and crept away. We waited down by the corral with Glo, till all the crying and such finally stopped.
Ms. McKinley proved beyond any doubt that she was all business. The lady only stayed with us one day. She packed Clem’s meager belongings into that wagon of hers and, the following morning, was primed and ready for the trip back to Tyler. We tried to get her to say over a bit longer, at least another day or two. She refused. And to tell the righteous truth, appeared to me Clem was ready to leave as well. Can’t say as how I blamed her any.
Girl still didn’t say much of anything, last morning I laid eyes on her. Even right up to the moment for all the good-byes and such. She demurely shook hands with Boz and Glo. But when she got to me, the teary-eyed child
