Forgive Us Our Debts...Part2 Free Town sat in the path of the Fort Kearney Rail Road expansion and bunch of niggers weren't going to stop progress and that was that. The mail needed to arrive in Junction City and that meant the cheapest route was straight through Free Town. It wasn't easy for Coltrane to find Lincoln Washington. Not many blacks were living in Kansas and certainly not many were defiant against the Union Pacific. It struck Coltrane odd, Lincoln don't asking how he located him after the war without even knowing his name. To be truthful it was sort of divine intervention. Coltrane was fighting the damn railroad anyway and he knew after the war that the black who saved him worked on a farm not far from Bull Run. Coltrane spoke with the owner of the farm and discovered that the black man's name was Toby and that he was headed for Kansas. Coltrane spent the next two years fighting the railroad and looking for a large black man named Toby. He discovered that there was trouble for the railroad in Washington County in a town outside of Junction City; residents in a black free town had been burned out. Ten black children were killed in the process. He discovered that the mayor of that free town was once named Toby. Coltrane headed for the town. Coltrane knew that the telegraph wire sent news to Topeka telling how he had killed the three men and burned down the sheriff's office in Sweetwater. He figured a posse headed by a certain US marshal would be coming west from Topeka. That would be just fine because he knew of a pass used once by folks headed for Oregon where an ambush would be ideal. So he rode as hard as he could beneath the sandstone Kansas sky and star filled night. If he figured things right the marshal would be James Bennett. He was alleged to have ridden with a bunch of murderous rabble from Kansas during the war that attacked towns in Missouri killing Coltrane's wife. If the posse was headed by anyone else Coltrane would allow it to continue on. He reached the pass early Thursday morning. He was dead tired but located the perfect vantage point. The Spencer was a good rifle and he figured he could drop Bennett and two others before they reached the rocks because the Spencer's rate of fire was around seven rounds within twelve seconds. It was very accurate within 2000 yards so the riders would hear the rifle's echo seconds after the round hit one of them and that would gave him extra time to get off another round. It was late morning when a group of riders slowly rode through the pass. Coltrane placed the eyeglass to his right eye being careful not to let the sun reflect off of the glass. There was James Bennett jawing and unaware of the trap he led his men into. Coltrane lowered the eyeglass and lifted the Spencer to the ready position. The scope on the rifle was a long thin cylinder. Coltrane aimed the cross of the scope on Bennett's skull. Coltrane's wife was a young vibrant woman from the east with apple blonde hair and the bluest eyes that side of the Mississippi. She wanted children and a small house with a rose garden. Bennett's gang raped her repeatedly before smashing her face in with the butts of their rifles. They burned down Coltrane's house and killed his entire live stalk. A tear was in Coltrane's eye when he squeezed the trigger feeling the rifle butt into kick into his right shoulder. Before Bennett's head exploded he had cocked the hammer on the rifle and aimed the scope on another rider, a young man maybe eighteen wearing clothes too big for him. Coltrane squeezed another round that struck the young man in the throat. He cocked the hammer again but this time the other riders were in a panic. They were trying to locate where the rounds were coming. Coltrane struck another in the chest knocking him clean from the saddle. Now the other riders were on foot running for the rocks. Coltrane managed a smile and calmly gathered his equipment before heading to his horse resting in the shade of rocks. He didn't know how satisfaction felt but he was feeling pretty good thinking of how Bennett sold the hair ribbon of his wife to a car dealer in Dodge City eleven months ago. The hair ribbon Coltrane pulled from the pocket of the card dealer after he shot him in the face for refusing to tell him where Bennett resided. Coltrane found out anyway when he went to the home of the card dealer and shot his son in the head just after his wife told him Bennett lived in Topeka and was a marshal. Coltrane left the woman to mourn the lost of his son. Revenge was a consuming thing Coltrane discovered too late but now he was at peace with its need to be fed. Coltrane placed the grandee on over his brown hair and sipped water from the canteen hanging by the horn of his saddle. Even though the sun was in the center of the sky it was cold. Topeka was still a couple hard days ride away and he needed a bath. It would be a few hours before the posse got enough nerve to emerge from the rocks and by that time he would be far enough away that a good Indian scout couldn't follow his trail. He recalled an ex-saloon gal residing in a cow town a good couple of hours away. He could have his bath, screw her and be on his way before anyone was the wiser. Her name was Jenny but she was known as Skinny-Jen. She didn't have much meat on her bones but she had a pretty face and all the right tools for a woman. To have her tell you how many men she slept with would take a good hour not because she had trouble remembering but because she slept with that many. Coltrane was a bit worried because Skinny-Jen knew about the killing in Sweetwater. He thought that was awfully quick for a cow town with no telegraph line to hear. She told him that a group of soldiers came through a day ago on their way to Topeka with the news. "How many soldiers would you say, Jenny?" "You know I think count, Colt," she said as she slipped into the hot bath with him. "A bunch and that's all I can tell you." Coltrane figured a company and put it around 300. They were out of Fort Kearney and that made them Colonel Robinson's men. Colonel Black-Heart Robinson the butcher of Colville. They were looking for Coltrane and would shoot him on sight. The railroad controlled Kansas and that included the United States Army stationed there. "I suppose you can't tell be if they had Spencer Rifles or Winchesters?" A crooked smile worked through her painted lips. Her face reminded Coltrane of a doll with the makeup. Her wet stingy brown hair reached her narrow shoulders. "Spencer Rifles, Colt," she said. "I know guns." He leaned forward and kissed her tasting the lipstick. She smelled good like a woman. "Looks like you a little excited, Colt." She stared down into the bath water. "You know anything about a Mister Charles Caldwell," Coltrane asked her. She nodded and continued soaping his chest. "Railroad man out of Topeka pretty much runs the Union Pacific in Kansas. He has those Pinkerton men doing much of his ugly business." "They hired that sheriff I shot in Sweetwater to burn out the blacks in a free town. They killed ten children." She stopped washing him bothered by what she heard. "You did all this for a bunch of niggers? Colt, what in God's name is wrong with you?" "I don't care what color they were, they were children and that just ain't right." She thought a bit then nodded. "You're right that wasn't Christian. Why you want to know about Caldwell?" "I'm going to kill him because he was just as much responsible as the ones who did the killing." "Honey, you going to wind up in a pine box if you go into Topeka gunning for Caldwell." She found her smile, "so this one's on the house for old time's sake." Pete Jones had to stare at his dead son laying thirty feet from him for three agonizing hours. Someone shot him from high up in the rocks. He sat there in the biting cold for three hours before he crawled out to his son. The others in the posse followed getting to their horses realizing the shooter came down on the other side of the rocks. Pete Jones wanted to bury his son but time was wasting and he was going to kill the son-of-a-bitch that killed his son. So he left his son, his best friend and Marshal Bennett for the birds and followed what tracks remained.
Copyright © 2003 E Rocco Caldwell |