Vengeance

Chapter 1

The sound of riders woke her up.

This was Sunday, Pa had said she could sleep in and he would get the milking done.

She looked out the window from the loft where she had been dreaming of the wedding next month, her wedding.

Pa, four riders coming in. One of them is that no account Smith kid.

Okay, Krissy. You go back to sleep. I’ll take care of it. You don’t make a peep no matter what. You know I didn’t like the way he looked at you and ma when he was workin’ here. I don’t want him around you at any time.

She rolled back in her ratty old quilt thinking again she was going to have to make a new one once she and Kirk were married. Thinking on Kirk brought a warm feeling and a smile to her face as she slipped off into sleep.

The sound of a shot made her sit up so fast her forehead hit the rafter.

#

Pa, what’s going on?

There was no reply.

She heard horses driven hard for somewhere else. Looking out the window again, she could see the same four riders leaving, pushing all the ranch horses with them. The bump on her head reminded her of the gun shot.

Pa. She crawled to the edge of the loft, looked down and nearly fell out of the loft. The sight of Pa lying on the floor with a growing pool of blood around him shocked her. The large bloody spot expanding on his back brought her around to thinking she needed to help him. The stout trimmed tree trunk she grabbed, which looked more like a hat and gun belt rack, was her ladder out of the loft.

Once on the floor, she moved quickly to her father. He was dead. No, Pa, you can’t be. NO! Looking around she saw dishes and clothes, books and tools, shelves and cupboards, everything that was moveable in the small cabin had been scattered on the floor; shattered, stomped, mashed, kicked, and mixed.

Her dress caught her eye, her wedding dress. The one Ma was making for her, torn to shreds.

MA!

There was no reply.

Moving to the bedroom door the first thing in sight was Ma’s nightgown, blood stained and torn, lying in the doorway. Her mother was sprawled naked on the bed, her throat cut from ear to ear, lying on blood soaked and torn sheets. What she had been through Krissy didn’t even want to imagine, the fear of it playing in her mind like she was actually watching and feeling the horror of her mother’s last moments.

No, Ma! She fell to her knees, her mother’s foot hitting the lump on her head. The pain shot through her body. She stood, her mind focused on only one thing, vengeance. Before turning away she covered her mother’s naked body with the bed clothes.

Going back to her father, she looked for his gun. What do I do, Pa, if they come back for me? Where’s your gun, Pa? Desperately she searched with her eyes. Finally, she rolled Pa over and there was his .44 pinned under his body.

Standing, she closed the door and latched it. The clothes she needed were in the loft. She dressed standing next to her father’s body with her back to the bedroom and the remains of her mother. All Krissy knew was she needed to get to Kirk and his family and in his arms she would be safe.

She tried to buckle her father’s gun belt around her waist. It hit the floor. Slinging it over her head and left arm, it hung butt forward ready to be grabbed by her right hand. She knew how to shoot. Nothing fancy, but she could hit a man sized target at 20 paces. It didn’t much matter, Kirk would protect her.

My mare. Where’s my mare? She ran for the corral and barn. The mare wasn’t there.

Raven. She whistled. Raven. From over the rise beyond the cabin she heard a whinny and the sound of running hooves.

Inside the barn she found her tack and decided bareback was the fastest way to get where she needed to be. The coal black mare rounded the barn and entered. Krissy fumbled the hackamore on the mare, jumped on her back after only two tries, and shouted, Fly Raven. The mare lit out like she was on fire, her mistress was in distress.

After a couple of miles the horse was faltering. Go Raven. I need help. The horse tried to add speed, but there was nothing left.

A half mile from the safety of Kirk’s family, Krissy saw smoke. She reined in the horse as she topped a small rise where she could see the barn and cabin on fire. Nothing moved. A dozen ravens were circling the area cawing loudly. Two bodies were lying like lumps in the front yard. Another was in front of the barn. No horses were in sight. The house was nearly consumed by the fire; the barn had a corner of the roof aflame. In all her fears and anguish she reasoned that because the barn was downwind from the cabin a spark or two from the cabin had been enough to catch the barn roof on fire.

Numbness crept over her as she watched a piece of the roof collapse into the barn. Three pigs, a cow and an old gelding wide eyed with fear ran out of the building. Chickens ran willy nilly all over the yard, bumping into each other. Nothing else moved.

Walking the horse, guiding with her knees, she entered the scene of destruction. The body at the barn was Kirk’s dad. His uncle and little brother were the lumps in the front yard. Without dismounting, she checked the cabin from as close as Raven would go. Two bodies were in the ashes of the still burning home. One of them had Kirk’s gunbelt on. The other still had some unburned gingham showing, Kirk’s mom. A quick check of the barn revealed the location of the other hand, dead behind the edge of the doorway of the burning barn.

She cried, dragging each of the dead, not already burned in the cabin, to the barn and inside as it got hotter and hotter with each passing trip. Alongside the dead hand in the barn was a Winchester rifle, she grabbed it on her last trip. She stepped back with the black horse and watched as the barn roof caved in, engulfing the bodies in a massive funeral pyre. Climbing on the horse, she threw up, again and again, smelling the burning flesh as the horse wandered away from the carnage and flames.

What could she do now? How could she deliver the vengeance those four men more than deserved? Where had they gone? She knew one of them. The other white she would remember. The Indian was riding a McClellan with brass studs all over the top of the cantle and the Mexican’s saddle had silver laid into the skirt. Anyone who saw them would remember them. She knew she would.

Ma, I’m sick. What do I do now? Help me, Pa.

She remembered the gun under her arm and pulled it out. Five rounds, Pa never put a round under the hammer. She did. I’ll need all the firepower I can get. Two rounds were added to the Winchester.

The cabin was still standing when she returned to the ranch. One horse was standing at the water trough, Pa’s. Now she had two horses. The barn would yield its treasures of cash and a rifle with lots of ammunition. Pa only kept enough ammo in the house for ready use. The main supply was in the barn under the trap door behind the wagon. Pa had hidden it beneath a wooden door set in a rock and mortar frame in the ground and then covered with a thin layer of dirt. If you knew where to grab, the handle was easy to find.

She did.

She tried to dig two graves in the flinty soil, but finally gave up and, after salvaging everything she would need, turned the cabin into another funeral pyre for her parents and their dog.

Poor mutt, all you wanted was a bit of loving from time to time. Never bit anyone, except that no account Smith kid. Well, I’ll just bet ya he thinks he has gotten plenty even. I intend to get way out ahead in the game of vengeance. I’ll miss ya, mutt. Ma and Pa, I’m sorry I couldn’t do better by you. I will catch them. I will!

Chapter 2

After packing everything she salvaged on the back of Pa’s gelding, she turned her back on the carnage, and rode into the afternoon sun following the tracks of the four horsemen. Their sign was easy to follow.

After leaving her place, the killers drove the stock about a mile and to meet up with the stock from Kirk’s place they had cached on a pond her pa built in a wide draw, combined the two herds, and moved off to the north as fast as they could push the stock. In a mile or so, she found an old cow from Kirk’s place standing in the shade of a juniper tree breathing hard and staggering to stay up. She knew this critter. It was the cow that had accompanied the family from Missouri more than twelve years ago. They had milked it every season since until this one when she didn’t freshen. They retired her in with the rest of the stock around their barn, she had earned the rest.

After debating with herself for a spell, Krissy decided to leave the cow as she was. Once she was rested she would head for the home place. If she made it she would last a little longer before some pack of four legged coyotes came upon her. She’ll fight’em to her last breath, I’ll just bet.

Go on home, old girl. I’m sure a horse or two will show up to keep you company.

She rode on.

Sundown found her alongside a stream where the herd had watered not long ago. The water was still swirling with mud telling her she wasn’t far behind. Raven, we’re going to have to be careful. We ride up on them killers too fast and I’ll be worse than dead and you will be a part of their take.

The horse cocked an ear downstream and swung her head to look that way. Krissy grabbed her muzzle to keep her from calling her friends. In the quiet she could hear the sound of cows bellering and horses stomping, blended with the voices of cussing men. No worry about Pa’s horse, it only whinnied for him and nothing else.

She turned up stream in the water for a hundred yards or so, until the stream took a sharp turn which would block off any normal sounds she and the two horses would make. After traveling another three or four hundred yards she set up a simple camp.

Stretching a rope between two trees over a lot of grass, she then unpacked the horses and hitched them to the picket rope. She set up a simple camp with the one pot she had alongside a fire pit made by rolling a rock out of position and laid out her blanket.

Checking things over to make sure the horses wouldn’t tangle and her blanket wasn’t on an ant hill or some such stupid thing, she gave a satisfied shrug and headed back down stream, walking. She hadn’t gone much past where she turned up stream when the sound of men’s voices hit her.

We showed them stuck up ranchers how the cat licked the cream didn’t we? she heard the Smith kid say.

We killed two women. If we get caught they’ll hang us. We need to dump everything that ties us to them places.

‘Must be the other Anglo, no accent’, Krissy thought.

Senors, we are in deep trouble, but I know a man who weel buy all thees stock and say nothing. He weel not pay much, but he weel pay.

‘The Mexican.’ Krissy thought to herself, ‘You will pay. I’ll make sure of that.’

Where is this man who will buy?

Four hours to the northeast of the butte over there.

Okay, we ride in the morning.

‘The Smith kid.’

Slowly she moved in on the mixed herd. None of them moved. The horses knew her and made no noise or even so much as turned their heads as she began to circle the camp. Those critters were so tired they weren’t going to be moved. Here they had grass and water. They were set for the night unless she let off a couple of rounds scaring them into moving. She decided against that, knowing the skills to circle back safely or to stand against the killers all by herself just were not in her, yet.

Turning away from the herd, she took the long way around, downstream to a bend, up the bank, over the high ground, and turning left over a wooded crest until she saw the ground slope down to her camp.

She sat down on her blanket and looked over all she had in the world. She was dressed as a man would dress with her pa’s old slouch hat on her head. There were a couple of sixguns and two rifles. Her sheath knife was on her belt and a hide-out in her boot had been chafing her leg all day. There was food enough for a few days and water was always a catch-as-catch-can item when travelling in this country. A bedroll, one long-handled pot, a coffee pot, a cup and a spoon covered all she had. There were also two $20 gold pieces she had taken from the cache in the barn and stashed deep in her pockets.

She cried again.

The next thing she knew was the sun in her eyes. It was over two hours up. Frantically she grabbed her gear and loaded the horses with pack and saddle before she moved off over the same crest she had come down the night before in the dark. From the top she could see the tendrils of smoke coming from the dying fire. The herd was gone. After putting the fire out, she followed the trail. The tracks were clear until they entered a wide wash with many branches. Cow and horse tracks were all over the spots where they left a clear print. After a couple of miles she was all mixed up and not sure of any of the tracks and trails.

Looking around from high ground showed her three separate buttes in three widely different directions, any one of which could be the butte the killers had talked of last night. In this country their separation could be small from this vantage point, but days apart in reality due to terrain. The horse began moving toward the one in the middle.

Why not?

The terrain was up and down, around and over for the next ten miles where a deep wash caused her some problems until she found a way down that showed a way out on the other side a hundred yards downstream. The trickle of water in the bottom filled her horses and her canteen. A few yards up stream she took off her shirt and gave herself a quick wash using her handkerchief for a washrag.

No sooner had she finished buttoning up, Hey, mister, can you give me a hand here. The weak voice from the top of the wash bank opposite startled her.

Looking up she could just see the top of a head and an arm in the air. I’ll be right there, she said in her deepest voice. The man had said mister so he hadn’t seen her naked upper body very well. He would have noticed she wasn’t a mister.

Minutes later she was at his side.

He was an oriental. The marks that could be seen indicated that he had been dragged. A rope burn on one side of his neck showed that a rope was involved and somehow he had survived.

What happened to you? She immediately thought, ‘dumb question, Krissy.’

They drag me behind horse.

You’re lucky you weren’t killed in this country, rocks everywhere.

If they had caught me clean with the rope around only my neck, I would be dead, but I got an arm in the loop before they tightened it.

Who was it?

I do not know. I have never seen them before.

What was their problem with you?

I am Chinese.

And?

There needs to be no ‘and’ for many of my people in this land. A Chinaman is just a toy to be played with until one is tired of the toy or it is dead, so it would seem.

"Well, come on. Let’s get you down to the water and clean you up. I will treat no man