And Kill Them All (30 page)

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 pulled me down to her level, hugged my neck, pressed her lips to my ear and whispered, “Thank you for keeping your word, Marshal Dodge. I won't ever forget what you did for me.” And just like that, she climbed onto the seat of her aunt's wagon, turned her gaze north, and they were gone.

There was nothing holding us to the Devils River country after that. So, we headed on back to Fort Worth less than a week later. Cap'n Culpepper sure enough laid into us when when he got a chance to rake his spurs across our tender rumps. But, hell, for all the spitting and sputtering, he finally threw up his hands and admitted that crime and criminals were running roughshod over nine-tenths of Texas. Said he hated like blue-eyed hell to admit it, but he needed our singular expertise to do all we could to stem the bloody tide.

Guess I didn't hear anything of Clem for about two years. Then a letter Ms. McKinley wrote caught up with me while I was down in Huntsville to witness an execution. Her short missive mentioned as how Clem had met a young man and that they planned to get married. Must say, I was right pleased.

Number of years passed before I got any word on the girl again. Nothing but an envelope that contained the front page of the
Tyler Tribune
. Return address said as how it had come to me from Ms. McKinley. Dead center of the page, the twenty-four-point headline read, “Local Woman Killed by Oncoming Train.” No doubt about it, that was the worst ten minutes I've ever spent reading anything. Seems a lady named Clementine Webb Stubbs, formerly of Tyler, had stepped into the path of the Texas and Pacific Flyer somewhere out on the outskirts of Longview on the darkest night of the year.

High-balling engineer testified as how he tried to stop the train soon's he spotted the woman in his headlight but just couldn't manage the feat. Said she opened her arms, appeared to wave good-bye, and welcomed death like it was an old friend returning home from a long trip. Said she smiled at him right up to the end. She left behind a grieving husband and two small children.

Given that I knew a bit of Clem's earlier history, I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised, or so grief stricken, by her sad passing. And I know it probably ain't the manly thing to admit, but I broke down and wept like a baby before I could finish reading the full description of her tragic demise.

All that happened almost fifty years ago. But, you know, sometimes now, all these years later, when I'm sitting on the back porch of my little spread out here on the Sulphur River, if the sun gets just right on the western horizon, and the doves come to the river to drink, my heart goes back to that sad girl and all the blood that flooded over her at such a tender age.

The blood, unimaginable abuse at the hands of Eagle Cutner, and youthful disappointment are the only things I can imagine that would bring her to walk into the engine of a fast-moving freight, smile on her face, to meet her own end. My sweet God Almighty, but what else could account for such an action?

I sometimes suppose misplaced love could prompt such a dreadful event to occur. But you know, I'll go to my own grave believing that Eagle Cutner might well have jerked all the love the girl ever had right out of her body with whatever'n hell it was he did to her. Guess I'll never know for certain sure. Any chance of understanding the mystery died on a lonely set of Texas and Pacific train tracks, in the middle of the night, so long ago that I might well be the only person left alive who even remembers.

Oh well, think I'll pour myself a doubled-up beaker of panther sweat, then hit the sack. Cooley Churchpew sold me some special under-the-counter single-malt whiskey from Ireland the other day. Said as how the bottle crossed the Atlantic in the cargo hold of a ship. Being as how a man can easily drive himself to the brink with the kind of thoughts I've been having, maybe the whiskey'll stem the tide of recurrent Clementine memories that have so completely occupied my mind of recent.

Just hope like hell the girl don't show up in any of my sometimes chaotic dreams tonight. Then again, maybe if she was to make an appearance I could ask her why she'd chosen to go to the Maker the way she did. Then again, maybe I wouldn't. Maybe I'd just hold her close, and as a final reminder, I'd whisper into her ear, “It's all right now, darlin'. Everything's gonna be just fine. You can go on and live your life. Live it to the fullest. All those who did you harm, they're gone. No longer amongst the living. I killed them, just the way you wanted. But more important, I sent them to judgment exactly the way they deserved—one and all.”