Highwaymen 3 - conclusion

McKenna and the young father returned to a grateful family. Sarah had put the children, Rebecca all of seven years and Leah age eight, to work kneading the evening bread. Though rattled by the horrible events of that afternoon, the three had recovered considerably from the trauma as they busied themselves with the tasks of living.

Captain Ferguson’s discouraging report came as a disappointment to Isaiah’s wife. She had no desire for vindictive retribution; to the contrary, she was utterly thankful for their survival due to Joseph’s fortuitous intervention and his gracious hospitality. Now in this haven of safety, her concerns leaned toward those that would follow, unwary travelers accosted by these same men, encouraged by their inadequate punishment.

Determined to persevere, the family settled in to life on the range with Joseph as their amiable host. Though only a temporary arrangement, McKenna took full advantage of Isaiah’s four generations of agricultural experience and gladly received Sarah’s considerably elevated cooking skills.

Ever resilient, the children carried on without a care, comforted by the trustworthiness of their elders and the instilled notion of divine providence, apparent in their good fortune.

Oftentimes they would call on McKenna to join them at play on top of the sandy plateau, though he usually just settled on a low mound, encouraging them with an occasional comment.

This day, the homestead mesa appeared to mirror their playful demeanor, casting harmless dust devils across the field, seemingly for their sheer amusement alone. From Joseph’s vantage point, he could see the tell-tale swirling of grass and sagebrush as the funnel began to develop, excitedly calling the girls to jump into the vortex as it rose from the ground. With squeals of delight the young pair would run about the open field attempting to keep up with its unpredictable path.

Moments like this enveloped the young widower with mixed emotions, a shared joy at their youthful adventure and a somber reminder of his grievous personal loss. His wife was no more and his children would never return to him but life was not for that which was unchanging, but for the days that are and those that would come. Joseph chose to comfort himself that he’d been given the privilege of witnessing their exuberance of life and a family full of promise.

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With two strong backs to accomplish the task, Joseph and Isaiah quickly remedied the problem of irrigation, digging the irrigation trench with pick-axe and shovel. Accustomed to heavy hauls, McKenna’s draught horses easily retraced the faded ruts with Isaiah’s metal plow, transforming the abandoned field into a once again viable garden. Gleaning every seed from the paltry yield of the hearty surviving crops, the men started patches in the freshly moistened soil to be enhanced further by trips to the feed store later.

In honor of Joseph’s fallen family, Isaiah bordered the rejuvenated field with a stand of three Red Delicious apple seedlings, carefully transported from their former home in the Carolina mountains. Stewart’s tender generosity galvanized McKenna’s resolve, insuring that these fruitful trees would live and thrive in his family’s stead.

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The days passed quickly as the highwaymen’s trial date approached. The Stewarts had considered settling nearby instead of continuing their journey south and west to Raton Pass but their decision was on hold until the outcome of the court could be established. Captain Ferguson asserted his determination to maintain the rogue’s banishment even after their sentences were fulfilled but this was a new nation of laws and such may not support his well meaning intentions. Strong as they were, the Stewarts could not bear even the thought of an accidental encounter with the lecherous trio while visiting town for supplies.

Making the best of their situations, the young family plus one enjoyed each other’s company, cherishing what times they had together.

While Isaiah busied himself organizing the barn, Joseph set about the charge of hunting up some substantial meat for the smokehouse. He searched the living space for his hat but to no avail, while Rebecca, the more rambunctious of the young ladies, stomped her feet on the front porch.

“Rebecca Jane Stewart!” her mother shouted. “Stop all that commotion and beHAVE!!”

As Joseph peered behind the curtains and the scanty furnishings madly seeking his frontier headgear, the childlike thunder mercifully ceased, replaced by the soft tittering of Sarah Stewart.

Distracted by the curious behavior, Joseph ceased his search and turned toward the object of her amused attentions, red-haired Rebecca standing defiantly in the doorway, fists planted in her hips. The little waif was wearing her mother’s oversized garden boots and Uncle Joseph’s cavernous “snake hat”, covering her eyes completely with the brim resting firmly on her tiny shoulders.

Without reservation, she loudly declared, “I AM BEING-HAVE!!”

The two adults burst out laughing with Rebecca quickly joining them.

Joseph knelt down, giving her a kiss and an energetic bear hug. “Alright Tex, your Uncle Joe’s gonna be needing that …ante up!”

With a gentle swat on her behind, he was off in search of game for the week’s meals.

McKenna descended into the valley to follow the flat beside the Purgatoire. For whatever reason, the deer and antelope appeared to be favoring the other side of the river, forcing Joseph to seek out a relatively quiet place to ford the rushing waters. Wanting to avoid a lot of noisy switchbacks to gain access, he sought an egress from the valley that quickly delivered him to the banks.

Locating an open area only a few short yards above the river, Joseph stopped to survey the terrain. Instantly, he recognized the level acreage as the spot where he first had a taste for life in the Purgatory, his campsite some three weeks before.

He turned his horse toward the river, slowly traversing the flat to begin his brief descent at the edge. The clopping hooves apparently alerted some local wildlife in the bush nearby the banks, causing them to flee from their activities and bolt for high ground.

“Coyotes” Joseph proclaimed. “No wonder all the game’s avoiding this side.”

The momentary delay gave McKenna pause, remembering the same preoccupation the scavengers had with that spot on his previous encounter. Raising his head high, he carefully drew air into his nostrils to catch a whiff of their irresistible meal. Only a whisper of the scent could be detected, as the breeze was fleeting at best, but there was no denying the acrid stench of decaying flesh.

Curious, Joseph dismounted to investigate. As he wove his way through the waist-high sagebrush, the odor became increasingly pronounced, causing him to recoil slightly with each step. He took to breathing through the fabric on his sleeve as he parted the final hedge poised along the rim of a shallow ditch.

The sight that greeted him waylaid McKenna with overwhelming revulsion. The reek of decomposition was moderately bearable to the seasoned veteran but the visual siege wrenched all control from his attempts at restraint. Joseph turned from the scene, retching violently.

Several minutes passed as he attempted to regain his composure from witnessing the horror that lay only scant yards away. Summoning his courage, he returned to the trench undaunted.

Through tear-filled eyes, he assessed the dreadful display, making mental note of all that he could for later recount. 

Once again, McKenna would return from his hunting efforts empty-handed but as before, few would blame him for his lack of success.

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Pursued by a cloud of dust, Joseph’s mount ground to a halt before the humble log cabin as he leapt from the saddle and raced inside. Without hesitation, he marched in a straight line to the primitive bookshelf along one of the walls.

Startled by his sudden appearance and determined gait, Sarah ceased her labors and turned to see Joseph rifling through his well-worn family Bible.

“Joseph” she said hesitantly. “Is everything alright?”

Finding the object of his desire, he held up the small, square piece of paper, studying it intently. Without averting his gaze, he responded.

“Sarah …” he paused. “Uh, YES …everything is fine. Can you tell me where I can locate your husband?”

“Why, he should be working around the smokehouse. He wanted to gather some kindling for when you returned.”

“I may need his assistance for a while but I promise that he’ll be back soon.”

The young mother debated whether she should pursue the subject further, weighing her insistent curiosity over Joseph’s blatant anxiety. Respecting his self-imposed reluctance, she refrained.

Carefully placing the sepia card in his breast pocket, Joseph headed out behind the cabin to enlist the aid of his industrious houseguest.

“Isaiah, I’ve found something that you need to see.”

Disturbed by McKenna’s wide-eyed pallor, Stewart dropped the bundle of branches and strode up to meet him.

“Joseph my friend, you look like you’ve been rode hard and put up wet! What’s the matter?”

“Words fail me right now; I’m going to have to show you.”

Without hesitation, Stewart accompanied the sure-footed McKenna to the barn to prepare his horse. As Isaiah hoisted his saddle, Joseph retrieved the rolled canvas wagon cover stored in the barn’s rafters.

With the initial frenzy of discovery abated, Joseph calmly led the way, remaining silent until arriving at their destination.

“I’ve said nothing to Sarah of what you’re about to see. I leave that to you and your discretion.”

“Fair enough Joseph, do you want to give me some kind of inkling?”

McKenna bowed his head.

“Yes … brace yourself!”

Joseph laid the tarp across his shoulders as the pair continued on foot. The sense of impending dread began to build in Stewart’s mind as he caught the first malodorous hint in the air. Before cresting the slight rise at the edge of the fateful ditch, McKenna cleared the path of brush so that he could prepare the site for the inevitable investigation.

Isaiah gasped deeply then let out a tortured groan. His legs buckled, falling to his knees as the heinous sight before him accosted every facet of his sensibilities. Unceremoniously cast into the shallow ravine were the tattered remains of what appeared to be a small family of three settlers, a man, a woman and a young girl.

Unable to rise to his feet, Stewart alternated between brief glimpses of the grievous carnage and uncontrolled broken sobbing. Joseph gave him a comforting squeeze on the shoulder but doubted that it would accomplish the desired effect.

Not only had the bodies suffered the ravages of the merciless high-plains elements but also the fervent enthusiasm of the many predators, great and small, that prowled the region.

Several of the unfortunate party’s limbs were found scattered about the floor of the narrow wash, probably torn free for easy consumption. The horrible spectacle was a mass of desiccated flesh, gnawed bone and shredded clothing, compounded by the presence of such a young innocent among them.

Unable to endure the imagery for more than a brief glimpse, it took some time before Isaiah realized the most ghastly aspect of the appalling event, the undeniable hand of man that brought this family to such a grizzly end.

Each corpse, including that of the precious child, bore the distinctive mark of a bullet to the brain; this ill-fated family had been murdered!

Driven to his feet in outrage, Stewart could now see the final insult to their short-lived dreams; all three had been viciously scalped, a jagged incision circling their heads at the temple. He turned away in despair.

McKenna had methodically cleared away the brush from around the edges of the ravine, gathering rocks to anchor the tarp that would cover the site until authorities could be summoned.

“Joseph …” Stewart choked back his anguish. “I understand why you brought me here.”

McKenna halted his task to listen.

“I’ve been struggling with my anger over our great misfortune at having to endure those wretched creatures near two weeks past. But I see now that our fate could have been considerably worse had we run into the savages that performed this atrocity!”

Joseph sighed; he knew what Stewart was thinking. “‘Tweren’t Indians that did this, they might have taken the horses but they wouldn’t have use for the wagon. So where is it?”

Stewart began scanning the surrounding area, not a single article common to white settlers was even remotely conspicuous.

“Well … then who!?”

McKenna took a deep breath. “Isaiah, have a look at the mother’s dress.”

In the melee of flesh and bone, Stewart hadn’t noticed the cleanly sliced line running dead center of the woman’s floral print house dress.

In an instant, he was back on his knees, devastated by the revelation delivered by this one alarming fragment of familiarity. The scene took on a completely new horror for the broken settler as the nameless faces momentarily assumed the identities of his beloved family.

Joseph rolled out the cover, draping it over the bodies with reverence. Isaiah recovered sufficiently enough to assist, placing stones along the edges. Once secured, they tied marker flags to the brush to make it stand out for easy location.

Having readied the site, they returned to their horses, mounting up for their respective rides. Isaiah would rejoin his family to console them while Joseph set off to alert the Captain in La Junta.

Before leaving, McKenna offered one parting question.

“Do you think they’ll see justice now?”

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Joseph’s account drew great interest from Captain Ferguson and the men of the small town garrison. Tucker’s consistently smug countenance faded quickly as the soldiers’ demeanors turned decidedly hostile, soured by the evidence mounting against their unseemly captives.

Comparison of McKenna’s salvaged photo to the impounded wagon in the livery provided a direct connection between the casualties at Purgatory and the men held in custody. Their slipshod attempt to conceal its identity with a haphazard coat of diluted gray pigment could not mask the custom cut notch of its original owner, a practical addition to help steady his Hawken rifle, both clearly evident in the photograph.

With picture in hand, the Captain went about town interviewing likely contacts, the staff of the Draper, local merchants and several townsfolk. Joseph’s informative waitress remembered the little girl, having complimented her on her lovely bonnet some two months back.

The Draper’s proprietor provided names for the tragic faces; Daniel and Eunice Chandler, parents to six year old Tabitha. They had hailed from far away Baltimore, having made the trip in stages, much like McKenna and his family, as seasons permitted.

Within a few short hours, they had what they needed for just cause, but delayed levying additional charges until the crime scene could be examined first hand.

With Joseph’s guidance, the troop arrived at the site with full intention of spending the night, giving all due respect to the careful disposition of the Chandler’s remains. Many of Ferguson’s men remained haunted by the tragedy for some months to come while others returned with a heightened sense of outrage.

Word quickly spread throughout the citizenry, inspiring many to talk of taking matters into their own hands. As an added precaution, Captain Ferguson ordered the relocation of the prisoners to the nearby adobe ruins of Bent’s Fort for their protection until attorneys could be secured for their defense.

As people began to talk, new questions were raised regarding rumors of other travelers reported missing through the valley and surrounding areas. Moved by what he’d seen below McKenna’s mesa, Ferguson ordered search parties to scour the Purgatory Valley and the Old Santa Fe for likely sites of ambush.

Blue coated men became frequent visitors to the remote ranch, stopping for a hot cup of coffee and fresh biscuits, made by enthusiastic hands. On one such occasion, Master Sergeant Opus Winslow discreetly reported to McKenna that the Captain’s intuitive action had already yielded results further south of their location.

Another five bodies had been discovered entangled among the rocks down river, apparently swept up by seasonal flooding. Little had been preserved apart from the distinctive scoring of their skulls and obvious bullet wounds to the head but a definite pattern had emerged.

“What kind of madness did I stumble upon Sergeant!? Please tell me that it ends there!”

“I’m sorry Mr. McKenna, but I can’t say for sure. We’ve had another detachment trolling the Santa Fe and they seem to have found some random bones, nothing conclusive but they’re definitely human.”

Joseph shook his head. “Let’s try to keep this to ourselves for now Opus; I don’t want the ladies to catch wind of it, agreed?”

The sympathetic soldier nodded, rejoining his men to continue the grim assignment in the valley below.

As tensions mounted, the Governor of the territory became actively involved, bolstering military presence and demanding frequent updates of the Captain’s progress. The investigation soon became national news as reporters from as far away as Boston, New York and San Francisco set up press tents to cover the event.

When the trial finally commenced, the La Junta Telegraph line became abuzz with activity as newspapermen, government officials and curious spectators jammed the wire round the clock.

Emotive orators from both sides of the courtroom commandeered the attentions of an eager gallery with titillating tales of troubled pasts and considerably more disturbing presents. McKenna and the Stewarts made themselves available for the proceedings but had little desire to keep appraised of anything more than the effects of their own testimonies.

The prosecutor made great fanfare of the evidence obtained, parading Sarah’s parted garment in one hand then dramatically seizing the faded, bloody remnant of Eunice Chandler’s in the other. Utilizing the same technique, Joseph’s photo was held high before the jury then, after a strategic pause, compared to a recent version taken of the impounded wagon, replicating the precise angle and distance as the first.

With eight demonstrated victims and another four suspected, it took little time for the jurors to return with a verdict of guilty on all counts!

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Joseph and Isaiah remained in town for the inevitable sentencing decree then mounted up discreetly for the long ride home. Sarah elected to stay with the children through the final phase, preferring the quiet solitude of McKenna’s ranch to the cacophony of voices now common in the streets of La Junta.

As the silent pair approached the humble ranch house, Sarah came through the door to greet them, drying her hands of the day’s wash. She’d made a point of sending the girls out back with the chore of shucking corn so that the men could deliver the news.

“Well …?” she asked.

The men removed their hats. “Guilty” was Isaiah’s response.

Sarah nodded sadly, “And the sentence …?”

Joseph shook his head, gazing at his hatband. “They’re already building the gallows.”

“I see” she said with a somber sigh. “Come inside, the both of you. Supper’s just about ready.”

Epilogue

The wheels of justice took on a feverish momentum in the weeks that followed. Fueled by the heinous nature of their crimes and the public outcry for swift justice, the trio of brigands scarcely had seen the advent of the next moon before they would stand upon the rough-hewn scaffold.

Stewart and McKenna had no interest in witnessing the public spectacle, rather spending their time constructing a new cabin to house the Stewart family at the other end of the plateau. They would become partners in a new venture, ultimately establishing the largest apple orchard in the territory.

As for Tucker’s band and their stifled entrepreneurial aspirations, their unclaimed goods were auctioned off to the highest bidder, commanding a hefty price given their colossal notoriety.

In a bitter irony, their repulsive efforts would serve to line the pockets of every one of their competitors in the small desert town. The publicity of their trial had brought national attention to the depot centered community, drawing hundreds from far and wide to bear witness to the first triple hanging in Colorado history.

Merchants joined forces and inventories in an effort to capitalize on the monumental event, accommodating the festive visitors with all manner of consumable delights and curiosities.

The tumultuous festivities waned just as rapidly as the three men’s bodies cooled in the nearby Potter’s Field, leaving many with profits unseen in their lifetimes.

None would dare praise the despicable acts of their former colleagues, but few could resist raising a glass in toast of their passing.