Hell for Leather

Zeke’s horse was getting tired. He had been riding for hours now and it was getting dark. He hoped he had put at least thirty miles between him and the Englishman by now. His horse slowed to a trot and Zeke made no effort to drive him on. A bright moon sat low on the horizon ahead. This was a good sign. If the sky stayed clear, Zeke would be able to press on into the night before stopping. If he could, he would ride until daybreak. Zeke did not enjoy sleep. Nightmares stalked him most evenings. He had seen many things in the War Between the States, things that did damage to a man’s mind.

That was why he had headed west. This landscape was as foreign to him as the Englishman’s accent. It held no memories for him, reminded him of nothing. Even better, it seemed to have no memories of mankind. No monuments. Few people. Fewer buildings. It just went on ignoring men in general and him in particular. He liked that thought. If the land could ignore him, then maybe God would ignore him too. That is, if he even existed. Zeke was doubtful.

Zeke gazed absentmindedly out at the land around him. If there was an argument for God’s existence, this was it. Mountains in the distance. Hills around him. Wide open spaces. Boundless nature surrounded his senses and bathed him in beauty. The cool evening air smelled of fresh water and he drank it in. Closing his eyes, he breathed deeply in and slowly out. A normal man would feel lonely and small in this environment, but Zeke thrived in solitude, even longed for it. He wasn’t a hermit, but the farther he got from other men, the happier he seemed to be. There was a part of him that simply couldn’t trust men to just start killing each other for some stupid reason or another. As for feeling small when faced with such magnitude, Zeke could hardly feel smaller than he already did on a daily basis.

He hoped he would be able to find the girl, but he knew the prospects were not very good. If she had been taken by Comanche, she was probably already dead. If not, he would track them down and bargain with them. He would give them everything he had and in return he would receive absolution.

It wasn’t just the idea of being free from prosecution that drove him forward to danger. More than that, he wanted to look that way station manager in the eye and tell him how sorry he was that his wife had been killed. If he could do that, maybe he would find peace at long last.

Peace. He could hardly remember what that even felt like. He wanted to remember. He wanted nothing more than that. First, however, he would have to find this girl.

If the Englishman’s map was correct, she wasn’t a spoiled rich girl anymore. The attack on the train had taken place in rough terrain. There were steep canyons and perilous drops. The fact that there were few places to find water made it easier for Highwaymen to ply their thieving trade. All you had to do was sit there and sooner or later some hapless, thirsty Pilgrim would happen along. Easy pickings.

Zeke pondered her possible fates. She was either already dead, dying or tied up and wishing she was dead. He hoped she could hold out just a little while longer. His horse had rested enough, he decided. He whipped its haunches and spurred it into a gallop.

Zeke rode late into the night only stopping when clouds began to obscure the moon and it became too dark to see. He unrolled his blanket and used his saddle as a pillow. Lying on his back, he stared up at the night sky. Every so often, the clouds would break and silver light would burst through, illuminating the earth and shining on the clouds. He could see the bright, billowy tops of the clouds stretching up so high they seemed to bump up against the stars. If there is a Heaven, he thought to himself, that’s where it is. Slowly, he drifted off to sleep beneath his vision of heaven, and for once, it was a peaceful sleep.

When he awoke in the morning, he found his horse grazing nearby. He attended to his necessaries, saddled his horse and set out. He would eat breakfast on the trail. With his horse freshly rested and fed, he didn’t feel too bad about running him a little this morning, even if it did make it all the more challenging for him to eat his beef jerky. He was a half a day’s ride from the spot marked on Smythe’s map.

The terrain here was relatively flat, offering him a view for miles in all directions and letting him know if trouble was anywhere near. That would soon change though. Where the train had been attacked, it was much rougher and more confined. This made it easy for folks to creep about. Oddly enough, this was good news for Alaine. At least there were places to hide. If she got away. If she was alive.

Zeke crested a small hill that offered him a view of the landscape. He could see the train tracks a few miles ahead leading into the rough country. He removed a spyglass from his saddlebags and surveyed the area. Nothing. It made him uneasy. He stowed the spyglass and checked his weapon. If there was trouble ahead, and it was all but dead certain there was, he would be ready to meet it, guns up. He kicked his horse in the ribs and steered him towards the tracks.

As he neared the railroad, he eased up on the spurs and let his horse dictate the pace. If he got into trouble, he wanted his mount to have fresh legs. He kept his gaze moving from the tracks ahead to the ground at his feet. If there were any signs that might let him know what was waiting for him, he was bound to find them, but so far he saw nothing.

It was almost noon when he reached the edge of the Badlands. The trees became denser and denser until he couldn’t see more than a few hundred feet in any direction. He was unsettled by this, accustomed as he was to wide open spaces. Still, the pine trees blocking his view brought him some solace. They reminded him of his boyhood in Tennessee, before the war. Before the nightmares.

He inhaled deeply, tasted the scent of the trees. Strange how a familiar smell brought back such vivid memories. He remembered a girl named Rachel. They used to ride together near her father’s farm. He kissed her once against a pine tree. Wanted to marry her. When the war came, he went off to fight and told her to wait for him, but it seemed the agony of waiting was too much for her. He heard she had married a law clerk in Nashville. It was probably for the best, he told himself.

He shut his mind against these flights of fancy and focused on the task at hand. Distractions could kill a man out here just as quickly as a rattlesnake. He turned his attention back to the ground. Horse tracks. He was very close. He drew his rifle and proceeded slowly, though the chances were slim that there was anyone still around. As he moved on, the ground became more and more marked by tracks and he decided it was best to continue on foot, lest he ruin any chance of finding Alaine by destroying the only clues he had.

He dismounted and set his horse to grazing, which was not hard to do. The animal had not stopped for hours now and was eager for a break. Zeke stepped onto the railroad ties between the rails and advanced slowly, his rifle at the ready. Each deliberate step announced itself with the soft ‘ting’ of his spurs. During the war, Zeke’s marksmanship was legendary, but in this terrain where a man could see only about as far as he could throw a rock, rifle skills meant nothing.

On both sides of the tracks, trees offered cover to even the most inept stalker. To the right, a steep hillside rose quickly above the tracks and Zeke kept a wary eye on the ridge above. If there was anybody up there, he was a sitting duck.

Slowly, Zeke moved forward, ready for anything. He strained his senses in all directions for anything that might betray an attacker. At times like these, he had even learned to stop himself from blinking. His green eyes scanned the area ahead while his sharp ears reached out, waiting for anything, a twig snapping, a flock of quail startled, a woodpecker’s alarm call. There was nothing.

At length, he relaxed a bit. He couldn’t imagine why anyone would still be there, but that wasn’t the point. He wanted to be ready regardless. Slowly and carefully he began examining the ground. There was a large commotion of tracks in one area that then headed off to the southwest accompanied by several tracks made by women’s shoes. From what he could tell, there were probably no more than six horses, though he couldn’t be certain. Try as he might, he could not locate a blood trail. This, at least, was good news. Once he had determined the approximate size and direction of his enemy, he set about scouring the ground for other clues.

He noticed that one set of horse tracks led away from the others, toward the steep ridge to the right of the tracks. They had been moving quickly. He followed them some ways into the underbrush and noticed something strange wavering in the breeze. A small piece of blue fabric had been torn from an article of clothing. Zeke knelt down and examined the ground more closely. There was a single set of women’s tracks heading into the hills with horse prints right beside them.

The trail was fairly easy to follow. Whoever had been chasing the girl had been in a fearsome hurry. There were broken twigs and branches everywhere. Zeke hurried on. Even though this chase had happened days ago, he felt a sense of urgency. He also kept his eyes out for the locket, even though he had no real expectation of finding it.

The ground became very steep rather quickly and it appeared the rider had dismounted and continued on foot. Zeke thought he could see tracks going back down, as well, but only one set which meant that the quarry had either escaped or had been caught and carried back down to the railroad. This seemed unlikely to Zeke. The ground was steep and full of small rocks. Trying to carry anything down it would have been difficult. Difficult, but not impossible.

With some struggling, Zeke reached the top of the ridge. He took a moment to locate his horse in the scenery below. It stood still, grazing and swishing its tail. He turned his attention back to the ground, which was much rockier than the gravel below. Finding tracks on this type of terrain was far more difficult, the signs much subtler. The two trails diverged. Whoever had been following the girl was not very well practiced in the art of tracking. Zeke moved off in the direction of the smaller, lighter footprints.

She had been moving fast, he could see. Fast and scared. This was good. Fast tends to survive. He followed the trail up into the hills, which were now made up of larger and larger boulders. Plenty of spots to hide. From what he could gather, the trail led up towards what appeared to be a small cave. If she hadn’t wandered into a mountain lion’s den, whoever this girl was, she was conceivably still alive.

“Hello?” Zeke called out, “Anybody up there?” It was a risky move, hollering like that when he had no idea who was around, but he had no choice. The trail was vanishing into the stones and there were just too many places to hide. He listened for an answer, but there was none except his echo.

“Damn.” he grumbled to himself. The trail was cold. Zeke decided he would have to look around. He was now starting to think that he had a better chance of finding a girl’s corpse than anything else. He didn’t like to think of it, but the odds were against her.

He clambered further up the rocks towards the small cave with his pistol drawn. If the only thing up there to greet him was a mountain lion, he wanted to be ready.

“Hello?” he hollered again, not wanting to startle any wild animal that might have made a home there. Slowly he approached the mouth of the cave with his shooter in front of him. The brightness of the sun made it difficult for his vision to penetrate the cave more than a few feet. He squinted hard and moved in, listening intently for a growl or worse, a roar.

Slowly he stepped into the shade of the cave and his heart sank. A girl’s dead body lay on the ground, her back towards him.

“Damn.” he holstered his gun and moved closer. If she were wearing a locket, he’d take it back to the Englishman. Either way, he intended to bury this poor girl. He knelt beside her and rolled her onto her back. Just as he was beginning to wonder why she had died clutching a fairly large rock, her eyes snapped open and she slammed the rock into the side of his head with all her strength.

If she hadn’t been weakened by hunger and dehydration, she might have killed Zeke. As it was, she merely knocked him unconscious for a minute or two. He came to with a thundering ache in his temple and for a moment, he had no idea where he was. Then he remembered.

“Damn.” he growled and set out on the girl’s trail. He was angry, mostly at himself. How had he let this happen? He had underestimated this girl. He wouldn’t do that again, he told himself. Whoever she is, he thought, she’s pretty clever. No wonder she’s still alive. She had gotten past him, but she wasn’t getting away.

Zeke moved swiftly across the uneven terrain and closed on her fast. When he caught up to her, she was trying to climb up a steep incline, but the gravel kept sliding out from under her. Zeke merely watched. Eventually she gave up and turned around, her brown eyes burning out from her dirty face.