The Last Ride of Justice (Preview)

Chapter One

The man loomed over John, red-faced and screaming with rage the blood-curdling Confederate Rebel yell. He turned the musket held across his chest so that its affixed bayonet pointed at John’s heart.

Then, the face transformed into that of a boy, and the scream became one of pain and terror. The bayonet wasn’t on the boy’s rifle but on the one John held. The one he was thrusting into the boy’s chest.

John awoke, trembling, the dying boy’s terror-stricken face as fresh as the day John had killed him. It had been his first kill in the war, not his last, but the one indelibly etched into his brain. He would carry it to his grave. The kid had looked no older than eighteen. Parents waited for him at home and perhaps a sweetheart.

Knowing returning to sleep would be difficult, John rolled over only to see a flame some distance away through the trees. He sat up and felt around the ground beside him until he found and grasped the revolver he always kept nearby when he slept in the wild.

The woods around him were quiet, as though holding their breath, enabling him to hear faint voices, the plodding of hooves, and the creak of leather from the direction of the flame. At least two riders passed by on the road he had taken through the woods. He had left it to find what he hoped was a safe distance to camp. The riders could be some of the penniless ramblers who preyed on others during the lawlessness of the post-war South.

As he hoped, they were going on by. Until his horse neighed a greeting to their horses, and the torch stopped moving and the men were quiet. The light began to move toward him as their horses crashed through the trees. John moved back into the trees with his carbine and pistol. He had to defend himself, but he needed to know how many he was up against first.

There were three of them. They stopped next to his dead cookfire and dismounted. Two started going through his belongings while the one holding the torch looked around nervously.

“Let’s get his horse and get out of here,” said the one with the torch. “He must be out there in the trees somewhere.”

“Relax,” said another one. “There’s only one bedroll here and one saddle he used for a pillow.”

The two had lost interest in his belongings. One went to his horse and started to release it. With a laugh, he called back to the others, “Bring the saddle and bridle. He won’t be able to chase us far without his horse.”

John yelled from the trees, “Get away from that horse and leave my camp.”

The man drew his pistol, but John shot him before he could fire. He heard the crack of gunfire and bullets striking the tree he hid behind. The other two had disappeared to fire at him from the trees across the clearing, leaving the torch to burn dangerously near the undergrowth.

He watched the bushes across from him until the flare of a gunshot appeared. After he fired at it, the shooter fell dead, from his concealment into the clearing. John traded shots with the remaining brigand until he heard the man holler like he had been hit. Fire now smoldered at the edge of the clearing. 

Keeping his revolver aimed at the place in the brush from which he had heard the last man, John warily entered the clearing, retrieved his saddle and bridle, and put them on Scout, who now pranced, nervously watching the fire. He returned to the clearing, grabbed his other belongings, and strapped them to the horse. He rode into the clearing.

The third man squatted in the area farthest from the fire, clasping his blood-soaked right arm with his left. He wore a tattered Confederate uniform coat.

“Are there any more of you assholes around here that I have to watch out for?”

The man looked up at John balefully but helplessly and said nothing.

It was time to go if John was to outrun the flames. The bandits’ horses had long ago fled the fire. “Take your gun belt off, nice and slow, and hand it up to me.” 

The man complied. John wrapped around his pommel and buckled it. He sighed and reached down to the man, who glared up at him. 

“C’mon,” he said. “I hear fricasseed Rebels smell worse than live ones.”

The man glanced at the threatening flames and took John’s hand. John swung him up on Scout behind him. The horse needed no encouragement to crash into the woods to escape the fire. The blaze roared behind them, but fortunately, the wind in their faces kept it from advancing as fast as they could escape it.

An hour later, they sat on Scout on a grassy hillside under a sky decorated with a gibbous moon and a million stars. The inferno that had been the forest they escaped blazed behind them.

“See that farm yonder?” John said, pointing to a group of buildings, sheds and corals. “They oughta be able to take care of that arm. I won’t go any closer. I found out the hard way that these Arkansawyers don’t cotton to us Yankees much.”

He helped the injured man to the ground and watched him limp down the hill. Near its base, he turned and nodded at John before struggling on. John leaned over and scratched Scout behind his ears.

He told Scout, “Tomorrow, we’ll cross a corner of Indian territory to get out of this blasted South and cross into Kansas. A few days after that, we’ll be home—or my old home and your new one. I can hardly wait. You’ll like it there. In the meantime, see that grove of trees? Let’s get a few hours of shut eye until the sun comes up and then we’ll get on our way.”

~ ~ ~

Despite only a few hours of sleep, John awoke early, not only eager but desperate to get home. According to Caroline’s letter, her brother Bobby—John’s childhood best friend—had gotten himself in a passel of trouble, the damn fool kid. Kid? He was the same age as John, but he acted way less mature. 

John breakfasted on hardtack, dried beef, and coffee. He was getting low on food. Another reason to get there. He regretted having waited so long to leave on this journey, but he’d had to wait until he had gotten mustered out of the Army and received his last payout.

He made a wide detour around the farm he had directed the gunman to. His two-week ride from Athens, Georgia, where he had been stationed, had been like running a gauntlet. Though he had been released from the Army and wore civilian clothes, the Southerners had no trouble recognizing him as a Yankee. He’d had had several fistfights and barely escaped a lynching.

As he passed through the tree-covered hills of Arkansas, widely avoiding any kind of human settlement, the memory of the young man he had dreamed of haunted him. He had shot many others—he didn’t know how many died or lived—but that kid haunted him more than most. He had made a point of not looking closely at the others so he wouldn’t see them as real people with parents, wives, and children. They came to his dreams as faceless, ageless ghosts. 

He told himself he had killed only to save his own life and had grown inured to the horror of it. There was no chance of avoiding violence when he was part of a line of soldiers facing another, opposing line. Only when hunkered down in a redoubt could he avoid killing enemies unless they charged the trench. He had hoped he had left that behind, but he had slain two more the night before and another who might die.

He regretted all those deaths, save one: old Mordecai. That bastard deserved it, even though it had led to John’s banishment for four long, bloody years.

He wasn’t sure when he passed from Arkansas into the Indian Territory. The wooded hills looked the same as those in Arkansas. After a time, though, he turned northwesterly, fairly certain that would take him to Kansas soon since he had last camped in northwestern Arkansas. He stopped only to let Scout rest, graze, and drink from a stream occasionally.

About mid-afternoon, not far ahead, he saw a town. Well, only a village, with a single large building that looked like a general store, a dingy little church, and a scattering of houses connected not by a single street but by a dusty open area that would turn to a soupy mudhole within the first few minutes of a rainstorm. 

As he rode up to the big building, a skirling wind drove a dust devil before him. A sign over the main building said “GENERAL MERCHANDISE” in big block letters. A smaller one on the building’s right wing identified it as the “St. Anselmo, KS Post Office.” Good. He was close to home.

The sign over the door on the left wing was the one he had been looking for. It said simply, “Saloon.” He hadn’t had a beer since leaving Athens. He tied Scout’s reins to the hitching rail, tipped his hat to the old men loafing before the general store, and went into the saloon. A half-dozen men stood at the bar and another group sat around a table in the back, playing cards. 

Some glanced at him and returned to their drinks, conversations, or card game. Good. They found him unremarkable. To be that way in the South, he had let his black hair and beard grow out to look less military. Even here in Kansas there were Southern sympathizers. He stepped up to the bar, ordered a beer, and took a tentative sip when it arrived. Like most Western saloons, this one brewed its own beer—and this one tasted acidic.

Nevertheless, he drank it slowly, trying not to make a face, and ordered another. It had been dark inside after the dazzling sun, so he couldn’t see much. Having now been inside for a while, he could see more detail: a few cowboys amid mostly farmers and two dressed for traveling, wearing dusters.

After he had drunk about half his second beer, the duster-clad pair swaggered over to him. He pegged them as violent men who took advantage of the lawless, chaotic South, but more sophisticated than the desperate ones who raided his camp. They resembled each other: craggy faces, unshaven for three or four days, and wearing sardonic grins.

The one with a face pocked by smallpox scars, who appeared to be the oldest, said, “I see you’re a stranger hereabouts, like us.”

He recognized a Texas accent. “That’s right.”

“You musta come a far piece. I’ll ask you like I have the other boys in here: In your travels, have you run across any coloreds?” The way the man said the word made his opinion of Black folk clear.

“Why?”

“We’re bounty hunters,” said the other one. “We’re trying to run down a slave that escaped from a plantation in Arkansas.”

“In case you haven’t heard,” John said, “a war was just fought that freed the slaves.”

Scarface pulled his duster back to display his holstered revolver. Guns weren’t allowed in Arrowhead, where John was bound. He said, “Our clients in Arkansas ain’t heard of that war, stranger.”

The other one said, “If you happen to see a big husky Black, name of Jake Freeman, leave word in here for the Ralston brothers, Hank and Lou. That’s us. We’ll see that you get part of the bounty.”

John turned back to his beer. If he saw Jake Freeman, he’d help him escape.

After finishing his second beer, he bought some food in the general store and set out with Scout, trying to expunge thoughts of the Ralston brothers from his mind. To put himself in a better mood, he reminded himself it was mid-June. The war had been over for over two months, though he had heard some holdout Confederate troops in Texas had not yet surrendered. The way home had been dangerous but not as bad as he’d suffered in the war, especially if he stayed off the roads. Now, he was almost home.

That evening, he camped at the base of a west-facing hill that looked out over a rolling plain. A nearby stream would provide water for Scout. He prepared a dinner of beans and dried pork and lay back for a smoke.

He pulled out the crucifix that he wore on a chain around his neck and thought of the friend who had given it to him four years ago when he was forced to flee Arrowhead: Bobby Lowe. This wasn’t about religion, Bobby had told him. It was to remind him that Bobby, his sister Caroline, and John Hart were best friends. “A trinity,” Bobby had laughed. “Get it?” And the crucifix would bring him back to them.

John wasn’t returning home because he loved the town especially. He took out Caroline’s letter, which was what drew him back, and reread it. Bobby had been framed for a murder, it said, arrested, and would be hanged a month from the time she had written it. She asked for John to return to help them, or if he couldn’t, to share in Caroline and her mother’s pain. The date was a week from then and he was a day away from home.

John had left Arrowhead as an escaped criminal, but Caroline had written to him while he was in the Army to explain that the problem had been resolved and he was free to return. Still, he couldn’t figure out how he could save Bobby. Oh, you dumb kid, he wailed inside. I know you’re a dumbass, but how could you fuck up this bad? You’re not a killer.

After breakfast, he saddled Scout and set off across the prairie. About two hours into the ride, he rode up onto a rise and saw a man racing on foot with two riders in pursuit, but riding in an almost leisurely fashion. They didn’t seem to be in a hurry to catch their prey. 

In fact, he heard them laughing and jeering at the man, though John was too far away to understand what they said. One rode a gray horse and the other a roan. The riders wore dusters, and the running man was Black.

“Let’s go join the party,” John said to Scout, and they raced down the slope onto the plain.

 

Chapter Two

John couldn’t see the men from the bottom of the slope. Another swell in the prairie hid them, so he crossed a shallow creek and raced to the top of the hill. The riders had closed in on the running man. One had lassoed him, pinning his arms to his body, and pulled him off his feet. John had come much closer to the men. Hearing Scout descend the slope, they turned toward him.

 As John approached them, the one with the smallpox scars moved his duster away from his holster, grinned, and said, “If it ain’t our stranger from St. Anselmo. You can see we’ve found our man—I mean, our escaped slave.”

The Black man stood and tried to shrug off the loop of rope. “I’m a free man now,” he shouted. “Let me go.”

Scarface’s hand went to the handle of his pistol while his brother took a blacksnake whip from the pommel of his saddle and shook it out. Both bounty hunters’ attention had turned to the Black man. John withdrew his revolver and pointed it at Scarface’s head.

John said, “Looks like the man agrees with me.”

Scarface glared at John. “You’re asking for an early death, Stranger.”

“It’s not going to happen today. Now, real slow so I can see your hands, unbuckle your pistol belts and drop them to the ground. That goes for you too, little brother,” he said, turning his pistol to the other one who was surreptitiously reaching for his gun. “And drop your rifle scabbards from your saddles.”

Sullenly, the men complied. The younger one yelped and toppled over backward. The Black man had gone behind him, pulled him off his horse, and picked up the pistol belt. He withdrew the revolver and aimed at its owner, who glared up at him from where he was sprawled on the ground.

“Now,” John told the Ralston brothers, “you two ride over there by that stump—or, excuse me, one of you ride and the other walk—and stay there till we’re out of sight. We’ll leave your weapons at the feed store in Waldorf.”

After they had gone to the stump, some fifty yards away, John gathered the rifles and pistols. He handed a rifle scabbard to the Black guy and said, “I reckon this guy’s horse is yours now. “You can ride along with me for a spell if you want.”

“I’ll feel safer once we get away from these fellers. Much obliged, by the way.”

Scarface yelled, “You’re both dead men. And you ain’t gonna die fast.”

John and the other man ignored him and were soon on their way.

“I’m John Hart, by the way.”

“Jacob Freeman,” said the Black man. “It ain’t really Freeman, but I call myself that ’cause that’s what I is now—a free man.”

“That’s a good reason to take the name. You headed anywhere in particular?”

“Yeah, to Colorado. My brother and his family escaped during the war and went up there.”

“I’m headed to Arrowhead, Kansas. You can tag along with me if you want.”

“That’d be most welcome. And do you s’pose anyone there would hire a hardworking Negro for a while? I’m plumb out of money and need to buy some vittles.”

“I suspect we could find something for you to do.” Looking back over his shoulder, John saw that their enemies remained by the stump.

About noon, when they reached Waldorf, John explained, “My uncle runs the feed store. That’s where we’ll leave the bounty hunters’ guns. He was my mother’s brother.”

“You must be close if he’ll do that for you.”

“Sure are. He felt sorry for me because my mother and father both died when I was a little critter and my grandpa raised me.” 

“So you’re going back to see your grandad?” asked Jacob.

“No, unfortunately. When I was in the war, I got a letter saying he had died. Really broke my heart. I loved that old man.”

“I was a orphan too,” said Jacob. “Or the same as. They sold me off when I was six years old. I never seen my folks again. Don’t remember much about ’em.”

When they walked into Winslow’s Feed Store, John’s uncle Fred was behind a counter in the back, frowning over a sheet of paper. He didn’t notice them until they stood next to him. 

Fred started to say, “Can I help you?” but interrupted himself when he looked up and saw John. “Well, I swan. Caroline was right when she said the Rebels didn’t kill you!” He rounded the counter and hugged him.

“Like you told me before I left,” said John, “I’m too mean to die.”

“I guess you proved me right.” He turned to Jacob. “Who’s your friend?”

“Jake Freeman. I met him on the way here. And Jake, this is my uncle, Fred Winslow.”

Jake said, “How do, Mister Winslow.”

“Glad to meet you, Jake. You boys are just in time. Madge just fixed a big pot of chili, and it’s lunchtime.” He called to a man in the rear, “Hey, Pete. Take over for a while, huh?”

“I got a favor to ask you first, Uncle Fred.” John told him about the confrontation with the bounty hunters and how he wanted to leave their confiscated weapons at the store for the men to retrieve.

“You sure you want ’em to have them firearms back?”

“The guns don’t matter as much as the fake information you’ll give them. They’re bound to ask which way we went. Tell them we headed up to Salina. Act like you don’t know me very well. If they knew I was your nephew, they wouldn’t believe you.”

Fred grinned. “That’s smart. They’ll end up a couple hundred miles away from you.”

After lunch with Uncle Fred and Aunt Madge, John and Jake continued west to Arrowhead.

“I ain’t used to this kinda country,” Jake remarked. “Arkansas’s all hills and trees. Here, you can see forever.”

“It’s not as flat as it looks. It’s rolling in some places but you don’t notice it because it’s all the same color. The Comanches knew how to take advantage of that. They’d follow a column of soldiers behind one of those rolls for miles before attacking. They’d hit them from the right side, which made it hard for the soldiers to turn around in the saddles to aim their rifles.”

“Wish they’da come to Arkansas to hunt down some of our sojers.”

Before they reached the Lowes’ home, John explained to Jacob that the twins, Bobby and Caroline, and he were all the same age and best friends. The other children avoided him because he was an orphan who lived with his invalid grandfather. 

“He was sick,” John explained. “A lunger, so I tried to run his farm as best I could, but I was too little to do everything that needed doing. I got in trouble sometimes for borrowing things that weren’t mine. If Mrs. Lowe hadn’t given us food once in a while, we might not’ve survived. I paid them back however I could, chopped wood and stuff. I was coming back home after the war anyhow, but Bobby’s in trouble and I had to come back quicker to be with him.”

They reached the Lowe farm in the late afternoon. Arrowhead’s buildings were barely visible to the west. They stopped their horses outside the neat picket fence and tied them to hitching posts. As they dismounted, John had a flashback to the day he had left. He had stood where Scout did now, looking at the modest home, the windows lit by kerosene lamps.

He stirred when Jacob said, “What is it, boss?”

John shrugged the feeling off. “Just remembering. Wait here for me.”

He walked to the front door. On the way, he saw the grave off to the right. The markings were illegible from that distance, but he knew the name on it: Mordecai Lowe. Bobby and Caroline’s father. He knocked on the front door. And again. When no one answered, he went around back.

Anne, Caroline and Bobby’s mother, sat in a rickety wooden chair, facing away from the house and toward the clothesline hung with sheets and clothing waving in the slight breeze. When he called her name, she didn’t answer. He went to her and took her hand.

“Anne, it’s John Hart.”

She started. “Oh, John, it’s you.” She barely smiled. He was stunned. Though he had left only four years before, she looked twenty years older. Fair like her children, her face was now lined and pale as chalk. Her hair, blond then and streaked with gray, was now completely white. She had worn her hair in a neat bun in those days. Now, escaped locks hung randomly about her face.

Caroline emerged from behind the clothesline. When he left, her eighteen-year-old teenage beauty had had a rather coltish awkwardness. John was surprised at the stunningly beautiful young blond woman who stood before him. Her sparkling blue eyes widened and her broad, full-lipped mouth opened in an exultant smile. She ran over and grabbed him in a tight hug.

“Oh, John,” she cried. “I’ve wanted you back here so badly.”

“And I can’t tell you how much I’ve wanted to be back. But come with me. I want to introduce you to someone.”

He took her to the front of the house and introduced her to Jacob.

“I’m mighty pleased to meet you, ma’am,” he said. “John has told me what great friends you all were.”

John said, “If you don’t mind, Caroline, we’ll rub down and feed and water our horses. I can pay you for the feed. And then Jake and I’ll go down to the creek and wash off some of the trail dust.”

“And, ma’am,” said Jacob, “if you don’t mind me sleeping in your barn tonight—”

Caroline started laughing. “Would you two fools shut up? You won’t pay for anything, and I sure don’t want anybody sleeping in the barn. It’d make the horses too nervous.” She grew serious as she took John’s hand and looked into his eyes. “I haven’t had anyone to take care of, or even to talk to, since they took Bobby away. You’ve seen Mama. She hardly talks anymore, just moves around doing housework like a ghost.”

She brightened again. “Now, go take care of your horses and get back up here to the house.” And turning to Jacob, “You can share Bobby’s room with John if you can stand his snoring. When we were kids, we spent a lot of nights in a tent we made out of blankets in the backyard. John kept us all awake.”

“That was you, Caroline. Bobby and I never snored.”

Laughing, John led Scout toward the barn, Jacob following with his mount.

Back in the house, they found Anne carrying hot water from the cookstove to a bathtub she and Caroline had placed on the screened-in back porch.

Seeming a little more animated, she said, “There’s enough water for a bath, so you take yours, John, while we get acquainted with your friend in the kitchen with a cup of coffee. Then, Jacob, there’ll be water for you.”

While Jacob took his bath, a freshly cleaned John marveled that nothing had changed in the house since he had left at age eighteen, except that everything looked more worn. He sipped coffee as Anne and Caroline worked on dinner. It surprised him to see them frying chicken since the farm had seemed to go into decline.

“You shouldn’t have gone to a big expense for supper for us,” John admonished them. “We’re used to simple meals on the trail. You should’ve saved the chicken for yourselves.”

Anne gave him a wan smile. “This old hen quit laying months ago. I couldn’t imagine a better fate for her than welcoming you home.”

Yes, she had come around since he had first arrived.

Jacob entered from the bath, looking abashed that he wore the same clothes from the trail. John had offered a shirt and trousers of his, but both laughed at how undersized they were for Jacob’s huge frame. John was of average size, with an athletic but not muscular build. Jacob stood at six feet and three or four inches tall, with a strong musculature developed by hard work.

They didn’t speak much during supper. Jacob ate quickly at first and then slowed so the others didn’t know how famished he was. Poor bastard, John thought. He had probably been on the run for days with little or no food.

Anne noticed it, too. She put the last piece of chicken and scoop of potatoes on Jacob’s plate. He nodded at her, abjectly thankful.

After they finished, Jacob said, “I ’preciate you ladies feeding me supper and letting me, a Negro, set with y’all.”

Anne said, “I’m originally from Poughkeepsie, New York, and come from a long line of abolitionists. My parents never took part in the Underground Railroad that I know of, but it became known among runaway slaves that a meal would always be forthcoming at our table.”

Jacob bobbed his head again. “God bless you, ma’am. I’d be mighty proud to help with any work you need done around here. I’m a passable good carpenter.”

“Thank you, Jacob,” she said. “We’ll keep your generous offer in mind.”

While the women cleared the table and washed the dishes, John and Jacob sat on the front porch, where John rolled and smoked a cigarette. After Caroline and Anne finished, they came out to the porch and joined the men.

“There’s something we need to talk about before anything else,” said Caroline. “John needs to know the full story behind Bobby’s problem.”

Jacob shifted in his seat. “I could go out to check on the horses while you folks talk.”

“No,” said Caroline. “It’s not a secret. The more people that know the truth behind it the better. Marshal O’Grady, who’d been our marshal forever—you’ll remember him, John—was a gentle man that everybody liked. A little town like Arrowhead doesn’t need much of a lawman, just someone to lock up a difficult drunk on Saturday night and let him out the next morning, and to make sure strangers don’t wear guns in town. Well, one night just a few weeks before his retirement, he was found shot dead behind the Red Dog Saloon after the place was closed and everybody went home.” She took a deep breath. “They found Bobby passed out drunk just a few paces away with a pistol in his hand.”

“John,” said Anne, “you need to know Bobby had gotten carried away drinking.”

Caroline continued. “The citizens formed a committee and threw Bobby in jail. Topeka sent a new marshal named Nash out along with a half-dozen deputies. Instead of taking Bobby to Topeka or any other town with a courthouse, the new marshal decided Bobby’s guilt would be decided right here by secret ballots. After they were counted, the verdict came in guilty. The date for hanging was set. They’re building the gallows now.”

“How can they do that without due process?” demanded John.

“Nash said crime had gotten out of hand in Kansas with so many jobless soldiers, both native and Southern, that ‘extraordinary measures’ had to be taken.”

“I suppose,” said John, “nobody but the marshal saw the secret ballots.”

“And his deputies,” said Caroline. “I know there’s nothing you can do about this, John, but just having you here—”

“Of course he can,” said Anne. “Once John sets his mind to something, nothing will stand in his way.”

Jacob spoke for the first time. “We oughta go look at the gallows to see if they’s a flaw in it. I seen too many hangings. I’m a passable good carpenter who can tear down as well as build.”