Vengeance Trail by Bill Brooks

Author:Bill Brooks [BROOKS, BILL]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781428506435
Publisher: Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

It had taken the better part of a full day for the telegrapher to work up the nerve to tell U.S. Marshal Caleb Drew that he had been threatened into giving Eli Stagg a copy of the telegraph to be sent to the Texas Ranger station in Pecos.

“I think he must have gotten on Al Freemont’s trail,” the bespectacled little man admitted shakily to the lawman. “I seen him riding out right after Al left, and in the same direction.”

“Why’d you wait so damn long to come and tell me?” asked the Marshal.

“Man said if I spoke a word about anything, he’d come back and cut off my head and put it in a sack. Said he’d take it down to Mexico and sell it as a souvenir. Said he could get fifty dollars for a human head. It was something I had to think about.”

Caleb Drew knew that Al Freemont would be no match for a man like Eli Stagg. But, it had been another two days after that before he had a man to send after Freemont to warn him of the danger pursuing him.

When he got the wire that Al Freemont’s body had been found three days out from Ft. Smith, he sat stunned.

“God damn it!” said the dispirited Marshal at the news the telegrapher carried to him. “That poor old man wasn’t much worth a damn anymore, but he didn’t deserve to be ambushed!”

Most days, being a Federal Marshal didn’t mean too much more than having to be political with the right people. But, on days like this one, holding the position was about as appealing as falling down a well.

“Well, I don’t have a soul to send after his killer, and even if I did, it’d be tough to catch up to him with so much of a lead.” He reached in his lower desk drawer, found a bottle of bourbon. It was midday, but a drink seemed called for.

His mind mulled over the situation. There was no hard evidence that Eli Stagg had killed his deputy, but, he reasoned, it didn’t take a detective to come to that conclusion.

Marshal Caleb Drew found himself silently cursing the situation. He absently fingered his own badge with one hand while holding the glass of bourbon in the other. He had played it safe, gotten political appointment, tried the best he could to do right by his men in the field. He considered himself a good man, a good politician, but deep within his soul, he knew he was not a lawman in the truest sense. Not a lawman like ol’ Al Freemont had been a lawman.

He rode a desk and used a pen and attended functions where fried chicken and peas were served, and ladies gave him their opinion on such matters as Temperance and the Pythagoras Society.

He drank tea from little china cups and listened to piano recitals. That was what being a U.S. Marshal had meant for Caleb Drew.

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