Showdown in Meridian

Cain Kershaw had been riding his paint horse, Patch, for six days since he'd left Tyler, Texas. He hadn't intended to stop for supplies before he got to Evant, but three days of spring rainstorms had kept him holed up under his tarpaulin. He'd run out of corn meal and he was getting low of coffee.

It had taken Cain until almost sundown to find a town. Meridian, Texas wasn't very big, but it was big enough to have a general store. Cain figured he'd buy five pounds of corn meal and two pounds of coffee and that would last him all the way to Evant. He'd stock up again in Evant and then head south for Whistleville. He'd heard there was a huge ranch in Whistleville and figured that ranch would have some work since a lot of young men didn't come back from the war.

After Cain bought his corn meal and coffee and put them in one of the panniers on his packhorse, Jewel, he thought he might treat himself to a drink if Meridian had a saloon. He went back into the general store and asked the owner if there was a saloon in town. The owner said there was a saloon, but it was a rough place.

"Used to be pretty quiet when the war was going on and for a while after. Most folks in town have got over the war and are just tryin' to get on with living. Now, well, there's all these young boys just come back from the war after fighting for the Confederates. Some of them young boys are workin' as cowhands on the Stillson ranch west of town, and they still hain't got over losin' the war. If a man in Union trousers like I see you're wearin' walked in to Talburt's, they wouldn't like it much.

"Talburt's Saloon is just down the street, but If I was you, I wouldn't chance walking in there. It's Saturday and them young boy's woulda got paid today. 'Bout any time now, they'll be comin' in town for a drink and a woman. Marshall Hicks tries to keep the peace, but he's only one man and he can't be everywhere at once.

Cain nodded.

"Well, I'm not lookin' for any trouble. I'll just buy a bottle of whiskey from you and be on my way."

}|{

Cain was riding out of town and passed Talburt's Saloon on the way. What the general store owner had said was evidently true. There were cowponies lined up at the hitching rails in front of the saloon and in front of the apothecary and doctor's office across the street. He heard a piano player in the saloon banging away at "She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain".

He'd passed the saloon when he heard a woman scream, "You let me go. I'm not going anywhere with you."

The sound was coming from a narrow vacant lot between the saloon and a harness shop. Cain looked between the buildings but couldn't see much because the low position of the sun shaded the empty lot to almost the black of night. Cain rode to that side of the street for a closer look as the woman screamed again..

What he saw in the shadows was a man trying to lift a young woman up into his saddle. The woman was fighting him with her fists and feet and kept yelling, "Let me go, let me go."

Like he'd told the storeowner, Cain wasn't looking for a fight, but he wasn't going to just ride on if a woman was in trouble and it looked like this woman was. Cain rode Patch to the hitching rail in front of the harness shop, looped the reins over the rail, and then walked between the buildings to where the man and woman were.

Cain stopped about ten feet from them and calmly said, "Mr., it looks to me like this lady doesn't want to go with you. You oughta let her go."

The man did put the woman down, but then turned to face Cain.

"This ain't none of your goddamned business, stranger. Get back on your goddamned horse and ride away before I make you."

Cain slowly shook his head.

"Well, I never took kindly to any man forcing a woman to do something she doesn't want to do. I think I'll just stay here until you leave the lady be and ride out of town.

The man sneered at Cain.

"You dumb son of a bitch, you don't know who the hell you're dealin' with. If you know what's good for you, you'll do as I say."

Cain smiled.

"Doesn't really matter to me who I'm dealin' with. No matter who he is, any man who forces a woman is no man at all and that rubs me the wrong way."

As the man stepped away from the horse and the woman, Cain was watching his hands. The man was shaking his left fist at Cain and cursing under his breath, but he was being careful to keep his right hand close to the holster on his hip. Cain knew what that meant. The movement of the man's left hand was intended to keep his attention off the man's right hand, the hand that was staying very close to the butt of the revolver on his belt.

A second later, the man grabbed the butt of the revolver and cocked the hammer as he pulled the revolver out of the holster. The instinctive reactions that had kept Cain alive as a Captain in the Union Army went into action without Cain really thinking about it. The man hadn't yet gotten his revolver leveled at Cain when Cain pulled the trigger on his Remington revolver and the bullet plowed into the man's chest.

The man fell down, twitched a couple times, and then lay still. The woman ran up to Cain, grabbed his arm and said, "Mr., you need to get out of Meridian right now and ride as hard as you can. They'll be coming for you as soon as they find Jacob."

Cain started to ask who would be coming for him and why, but the woman had already run toward the back of the saloon.

Cain didn't know anything about Meridian except for what the storeowner had told him. He figured the man he'd just shot was one of those former Confederate soldiers and he probably had some friends in the saloon. Cain ran back to his horse and untied Jewel's halter rope from his saddle horn. He wasn't ready to take on a bunch of half-drunk cowhands by himself and he could replace Jewel and his supplies. In less than a minute he was galloping down the road to Evant.

}|{

Cain kept Patch at a gallop until he figured he was about two miles away from Meridian. He slowed to a walk to cool out Patch and started looking for someplace to hide and rest the horse for a while. He found what he was looking for in a small stand of trees about twenty feet from the road. He got off and walked Patch into the trees, tied him to a low branch, and then walked back out to the road to make sure the horse couldn't be seen.

Cain was walking back to the trees when he heard trotting horses. He looked down the road and saw the outline of a horse and rider and a packhorse against the graying sky. If he ran back to the trees, Cain was sure he'd be seen. If this rider was looking for him, he'd probably shoot first and ask questions later. Cain pulled off his stained hat, dropped down behind a small clump of buttonbush and tried to make himself as small as possible while still watching the horse and rider.

As the rider drew closer, Cain saw that this was no cowhand. This was a woman, and unless he was mistaken, she was the same young woman from the saloon. She had the same brown hair and she looked about the same size. The top part of the dress she wore looked the same too. She'd evidently take off the skirt because she was just wearing pantaloons from the waist down to her knees.

Cain waited until she was nearly at his clump of brush, then ran out to the road and caught the horse's reins to stop her. When he did, the woman pulled a revolver from the belt around her waist and yelled, "Let go of my horse or I'll shoot you."

Cain chuckled.

"You have to cock a revolver before it'll fire, but you don't need that gun. I'm the man who shot the man trying to put you on his horse. I figured you'd run back in the saloon. What the hell are you doing out here?"

The woman put the revolver back into the holster and then got off the horse.

"I did go back to the saloon, but I only went back to get my things. Then I took his gun belt and his horse and started riding after you so I could get away. You left your packhorse behind so I brought her too."

Cain shook his head.

"You didn't have to do that, but you saved me some trouble. You said you wanted to get away. Why would they want you?"

The woman frowned.

"I'll tell you but we need to get as far off this road as we can. They won't figure out he's missing before they start back home tomorrow morning. When they do, they'll start after us. It was easy to follow you because the hoof prints you left were heading out of Meridian. All the other hoof prints were heading into town. Now they'll have three sets going out of town to follow."

Cain didn't want any company, but he couldn't just leave the woman to fend for herself.

"All right. There'll be a full moon tonight so we should be able to see where we're going for at least another hour or two. We should be about four miles from here by then. My horse is over there in the trees."

After Cain mounted Patch and tied Jewel's halter rope to his saddle horn, he took the compass from his vest pocket and turned it until the needle stopped moving and pointed to the N on the dial, then looked up toward the triangle on the compass face that pointed South. He pointed to a slight rise in the ground about two miles away.

"We'll ride south to that rise and then take another sighting."

}|{

Cain stopped about every five minutes to listen for more hoofbeats, but he heard nothing. After doing that three times, he figured the woman was right. All those cowhands would be drinking all night or staying with a woman at the saloon. They wouldn't miss the man until morning.

He turned to the woman then.

"Ma'am, I'm Cain Kershaw. Who are you and how'd you end up like you were back there in Meridian?"

"I'm Cora Howell, and I ended up where I was because of that man."

"Ma'am, that doesn't tell me anything except for your name. Who was the man and how did he get you beside the saloon?"

"He's a man you don't want to know anything about. The less you know the better off you'll be. That's assuming they let us get away. If they don't you'll find out all about him before they kill us both."

Cain shook his head. He'd never understood why a woman couldn't just say what she had to say without making him guess. It was irritating and he didn't stop to think about what he said next.

"Dammit woman, I just asked you two simple questions and I still don't know how or why the hell that man had you. Can't you just tell me what happened?"

"I'm trying to but you won't let me."

Cain reined in Patch and turned in his saddle.

"All right, I'll help you. What is that man's name? Just tell me his name."

"His name is... well, was... Jacob Stillson."

Cain nodded.

"All right, why did he have you beside the saloon?"

"Well, I was just --"

Cain cut her off.

"Stop right there. I don't want to know anything except why he had you beside the saloon."

"Well, he was trying to get me on his horse so he could take me back to his ranch."

"Why would he think you'd go to his ranch with him? Remember, just the reason and nothing else."

Cora frowned.

"Are you always this much of a horse's back end?"

Cain smiled. There was more to this woman than he'd thought..

"Only when a woman won't answer my questions. Now, I killed a man back there because he was going to shoot me for stopping what he was doing to you. I deserve to know why I had to do that. Why did he have you back there."

Cora hung her head.

"He thought I was a whore. I'm not but he thought I was."

Cain smiled.

"Well, you have to admit you're dressed like one."

Cora shook her head.

"No, I'm not. These are my dancing clothes. I just took off the skirt so I could get on this horse easier. A whore wouldn't wear pantaloons like I am. She'd wear a short chemise with stockings so she could lift up the chemise and show the man what he was buying. For some reason, men seem to like a woman wearing stockings."

"So, you were a dancer?"

"Yes, and that's all I did. I just got on the stage and danced to whatever the piano player was playing. I did lift up my dress and show the men my bare legs, but that doesn't mean I was a whore. Jacob just thought I had to be and decided to take me back to his ranch. I said I wouldn't go no matter how much he paid me. That's why he pulled me out of the saloon and was trying to put me on his horse."

Cain nodded.

"Now you're making some sense. He told me I didn't know who I was dealing with. Who was this Jacob and who is the 'they' you said would be coming for me?"

"Jacob Stillson is John Stillson's youngest boy and the Stillson ranch is the biggest ranch around Meridian. His ranch is north and west of Meridian, and they say it takes two days to ride across it in any direction. He also owns most of the businesses in town. He got his ranch by threatening the original ranchers and stealing their stock until they sold him their ranches for a quarter of what they were worth. He bought everything in town except for the bank, the undertaker, the general store, and the blacksmith's shop the same way. I guess he's got enough for now, but people in Meridian know it's not smart to go up against the Stillsons.

"Jacob had two brothers, Jack and Joe. It's them and John who'll be coming after us and he'll probably bring some of his ranch hands too. That's why we need to get as far away from Meridian as fast as we can."

"I can understand why they'd be after me, but why would they be after you?"

"Because they'll think I was the one who caused him to get shot."

Cain shrugged.

"Maybe, but they can't get either of us if we don't let them. Let's keep riding."

}|{

When they reached the low rise in the ground, Cain took out his compass and map again.

"I think we'd best keep heading south. There's a little town called Gatesville on my map. It's about a two-day ride from here. Once we're in Gatesville, you can find a place to stay and I'll be on my way to Whistleville."

Cain figured out the direction they had to travel to get to Gatesville and then sighted that bearing with his compass. About a mile away in that direction he saw a stand of trees. He pointed them out to Cora.

"We need to head for those trees. Trees mean water, so we'll spend the night there and move on in the morning."

About fifteen minutes later, Cain and Cora rode into the trees until they came to a small stream. Cain got off Patch, tasted the water, and then looked up at Cora.

"Water's good so we'll stay here tonight. You just sit tight until I get a fire going. Then we'll have something to eat. You all right with beans and bacon? That's all I got besides some corn meal."

After Cain unsaddled the horses and led them down to the creek to drink, he stretched a rope between two trees and tied the horses to that rope. If he'd been by himself, he'd have just hobbled Patch and Jewel and let them loose to graze. They'd never stray far. It was the other horse that concerned him.

Until a horse got accustomed to not going to a barn or familiar pasture every night, he'd often head back to wherever he came from when loose. He'd seen that with a few new Cavalry horses during the war. A new private on a new horse would turn him into the group of horses at night, and the next morning the horse would be gone.

When he got back to the little clearing where they'd stopped, Cora was wearing a dress. He asked her why she'd changed. She just smiled.

"I saw you looking at me. I don't want you to start thinking like Jacob."

Cain frowned.

"Lady, if I was gonna do anything to you, I'd have done it long before now. Now, while I build a fire, make yourself useful. Get that bedroll on your saddle spread out while I make the bacon and beans. It'll be dark by the time we've finished eating and we need to go to sleep right after that. I want to start at daylight tomorrow morning."

}|{

When Cain woke up the next morning, the first rays of the sun were turning the sky the purple color of pre-dawn. He got up and stirred the fire back to life, then rolled up his bedroll. In the gradually brightening light, he got his coffeepot from the pannier. After walking down to the stream to fill the pot, he came back to the fire, added coffee to the pot, and sat the pot on a bed of coals.

When he went back to the pannier for his skillet, bacon, and corn meal, Cora was awake and sitting on the canvas cover of the bedroll. The blanket was on the ground beside her. Cain asked why she hadn't used the blanket.

Cora frowned.

"I don't think Jacob ever took a bath. That blanket smells to high heaven. I'm not using it until I can wash it out."

"Well, suit yourself, but it's gonna be a couple days before you can do that. The coffee will be done soon and I sat two cups beside the fire. You get that bedroll rolled back up while I fry some bacon and corn cakes."

}|{

The ground was mostly flat, so they made good time. When the sun was overhead, Cain looked for a hill and found one about half a mile away. They rode to that rise and stopped. Cora asked why.

"I figured you ride all the way until sundown. Why have we stopped?"

Cain frowned.

"Just something I've been thinking about. Someone had to have heard when I shot that man, and they'd have come to find out what happened. They'd have told his brothers if they were there. If someone had killed my brother, I wouldn't have waited until morning to go after him no matter what I was doing at the time. I just want to make sure that what you said is true."

Cain opened his left saddlebag and took out the brass telescope with O. C. S. O. engraved on the side. O. C. S. O. were the initials of the Office of the Chief Signal Officer. Usually, these telescopes were used by the Union Army Signal Corps to read messages sent from a distance by flags. Some of those messages were directed to the infantry units before a battle, so Cain also had one because he'd been a Captain in charge of a company of riflemen. When he was mustered out, the Union Army had more equipment than they knew what to do with, so it wasn't too concerned with taking back issued small pieces of gear like haversacks, compasses, maps, and telescopes. Cain had kept his thinking it might come in handy at some point.

He opened the leather case, took out the telescope, and then stretched out the four sections. After doing that, he put the small end to his eye and looked back the way they'd come.

What Cain saw wasn't good. There were six men walking their horses along the same path he'd taken. Occasionally they'd stop and one man would get off his horse and study the ground, then get back on his horse and point in Cain's direction.

Cain estimated the men were about three miles behind them so they probably couldn't see him. What had him concerned was that he figured he and Cora had traveled a little over thirty miles. If these men were following him, they must have ridden through the night. The lanterns hanging from the saddle horns of two of the men told him that was probably what they'd done. They'd have been slow, but if a man walked ahead of the group with the lanterns, they'd have been able to see enough tracks to follow three horses.

Cain looked back at the man who had gotten off his horse to look at the ground. The heat waves coming from the ground made the man's face a little wavy, but he wasn't a white man. He was an Indian. Cain looked at Cora.

"Cora, were there any Indians working on the Stillson ranch?"

Cora nodded.

"One that I know of. He was a Cherokee who was in the Confederate Army in the same company as Jack. After the war, he started working for Mr. Stillson. He used to come to the saloon on Saturdays, have a couple drinks, and then go back to the ranch. That's all he ever did. None of the men would play cards with him and none of the girls would let an Indian spend the night with them."

"Well, we have six men following us and one of them is an Indian. Looks like he knows how to track because they're just three miles or so behind us.

"What you said them not missing this Jacob until this morning must have been wrong. Looks like they missed him last night and rode through the night to find us."

Cain raised the telescope to his eye again.

"What does this John Stillson look like?"

"Well, he has white hair and he's kind of fat."

"What about the two brothers?"

"They look about the same as Jacob, but one has dark brown hair and the other has brown hair that's a little lighter."

Cain handed Cora the telescope.

"There's no man with white hair with them. Have a look and see if you see the brothers or anybody else you recognize."

It took Cora a few minutes to find the men and look at each one.

"The one in front is the Indian from the ranch. That's Joe Stillson on the black horse. The man on the palomino is Jack."

She handed the telescope back to Cain then.

"The other three must be just cowhands from the ranch. They're coming to kill us. John Stillson and his sons have a reputation for taking care of things on their own. That's why Jacob tried to kill you. You stopped him from doing what he wanted to do to me. The Stillsons don't take kindly to anybody stopping them from doing what they want. Even the Marshall stays in his jail on Saturday nights because he's afraid one of them will shoot him like they did the marshal before him."

Cain collapsed the telescope, put it back in the case, and put the case back in his saddle bag.

"So, their father sent his two sons to get us but didn't come himself. Maybe he's burying his boy, though I'd think the brothers would want to be at the funeral."

Cora had an answer.

"From what the girls in the saloon told me, they don't get along all that well. Jack is the oldest and thinks he should get the ranch when John dies. Joe thinks they should split the ranch three ways. Jacob wasn't interested in being a rancher. He wanted to sell the ranch and split the money.

"Jack and Joe didn't like him much because of that. They both wanted the ranch to keep going. They probably think that since he's dead now, that's what will happen except they'll spit the ranch two ways. They probably don't care all that much that Jacob's dead. They're only coming after us because their father told them to."

Cain turned Patch back to his course.

"Well, if they're out to kill us, we need to be riding."

}|{

As they walked the horses toward Gatesville, Cain kept scanning the country for anything he could use for cover. He didn't doubt what Cora had said about the men intending to kill them. If there had been some law enforcement in the small towns in Texas, he could have stopped in Gatesville and explained his situation, but there hadn't been many marshals in East Texas since the war.

The war had pulled most of the younger and middle-aged men from everywhere and many of the small towns had only a citizen's committee to police the town and surrounding area. Those men were all older shopkeepers and farmers with no experience in enforcing the laws. About all they could do was catch the person in the act and then pass sentence without bothering with a trial. Usually that sentence was hanging since there were no prisons around.

The only option Cain saw was to kill the six men before they could kill him and Cora.

He figured if he could find some cover, he could use his Spencer rifle to take down two or three of the men. There was always the possibility that they'd give up and go back to Meridian if they'd lost a few men, especially if at least one of those men was one of the brothers. Even if they didn't go back, they'd have to stop and tend to the men he'd shot and that would give him and Cora some time to get farther away..

The problem with that strategy was that while he could usually hit a man at a hundred yards with the Spencer, he was just one man. He'd have to let them get at least that close before he could be sure of killing them. If they didn't turn back, he'd be trying to take them out with his Remington revolver and the Greener double-barreled shotgun in one of his panniers. Cain didn't figure his odds of being able to kill all six were that great. He had to have another plan.

If those six men had ridden all night, they'd have to stop to rest the horses if nothing else. If he and Cora rode all night, that would put them in Gatesville by sometime the next morning. The Stillson men probably wouldn't try anything in Gatesville. He could set Cora up someplace and then ride on by himself. At least they'd be following him and they'd leave Cora alone. Cain decided that was a better plan.

He turned to Cora.

"We need to put some more distance between them and us. Think you can ride all night?"

"I can ride if we can stop once in a while, but how will you see where we're going?

"It's open country ahead and the moon will still be pretty full tonight. I'll set a point to ride to before the sun goes down. After that, we'll follow a star. I've done it before when I was in the Union Army."

}|{

After Cain had picked out a tree on the horizon about two miles away as his reference point, they began riding again. Cain intended to keep setting landmarks as long as he could see his compass needle. Once the sun went down, he'd have to use the stars.

Once an hour, he stopped and took through his telescope while Cora went off to the side of their path about a hundred feet like he'd told her. She'd be leaving sign that the Indian tracker could use to confirm their route if she was closer.

He found the six men after the first hour and they were no closer. At about dusk, it looked to Cain as if they were getting ready to camp for the night. They were taking the saddles off their horses and building a fire.

He smiled, because by morning he and Cora would be at least thirty miles ahead of them, miles they couldn't make up before he and Cora got to Gatesville.

When Cora came back, she hiked up her skirt, put her foot in the stirrup, and swung up on the horse. After draping her skirt on both sides of the saddle, she looked up and said, "Let's go."

}|{

Traveling at night wasn't new to Cain. Many times during the war his company had traveled during the night in order to be in position for a battle the next day. Cain had learned how to do that and a lot more both during and after the war. In the infantry, traveling at night just took some way to keep them on course. If they were in open country and there was a full moon, they'd used a tree or some other landmark to guide them. If there was no full moon or if they were in the trees, that landmark would be a star in the sky. The star wouldn't be as accurate as a sighting with a compass, but it would do.

Cora began to question Cain once the sun dropped below the horizon.

"How do you know we're going in the right direction? I can't see farther than six feet in front of me."

"Well, see that star right in front of us. We're going to follow it. It'll change position some and that will throw us off our course, but come morning, I'll figure out where we are and set a new course that'll take us to Gatesville."

"I can see the star, but I can't see anything else except for you. What if we ride into something like a hole or a creek?"

"Well, we can't see much, but a horse sees in the dark a lot better than people do. We'll just let the horses pick their way. It'll be slower, but we'll make it."

"You said you were in the Union Army. Is that where you learned how to do this?"

"Yes, but I knew some of it before I enlisted."

"Where did you learn that?"

Cain paused before answering Cora. He hadn't told anyone about his background during the war or afterward. He didn't think Cora had any reason to know.

"Why? Does it matter?"

Cora rode closer.

"It matters to me. Like you said, you killed a man in Meridian when he was trying to take me to his ranch. You said you deserved a reason why you had to do that and I told you. I think I deserve to know at least something about the man who did that other than his name. I still don't know how far I should trust you not to do something to me."

Cain mulled over what she'd said. He hadn't thought about it in his concern for the men following them, but she probably didn't feel all that comfortable following him across country with out knowing at least a little about him.

"My father was a surveyor for the Illinois Central Railroad and was surveying the new route from Cairo north to Chicago. When he got to Mattoon, Illinois there was a lot of land speculation going on because the Illinois Central and the Terre Haute and Alton Railroad were going to cross near Mattoon. He bought some land before the prices went up and built a house so he could move my mother and me there.

"There was a lot of land being bought and sold and it all needed to be surveyed so people would know what was theirs and what belonged to somebody else. The county offered the job of county surveyor to my father so he quit the Illinois Central and became the county surveyor. He laid out how Mattoon would look in December of 1854 and then did surveys when property was bought or sold until January of 1861. He taught me how to survey so I could help him.

"The morning of the tenth of January, he complained to my mother that he ached all over and that he didn't think he could eat anything. The doctor said he had the grippe and to keep him warm. Two days later, he said he was having trouble breathing.

"By the end of the week, he'd died and my mother was just as sick. She lasted another week before she died too. The doctor said they'd both caught pneumonia. The people of the First Presbyterian Church helped me bury them both in the church graveyard.

"I lived in our house the rest of the winter trying to decide what I was going to do. I figured that out in June of 1861 when Colonel Grant -- he was just a colonel then - and the 21st Illinois Infantry camped outside of Mattoon. I sold the house, put the money in the Mattoon Bank, and went and joined the 21st Illinois Infantry.

"I fought through the war and I learned a lot about men and how they do things. Those men out there have probably been through the war but they most likely just went where they were ordered to go. The Indian is a different story. The Indians didn't have to fight in the war. Most didn't. A few did because the Confederacy promised them a better life if they did.

"The Confederate Army used Indians as guides and trackers, and to find out where the Union Army was. They were good at that. From what I've heard, after the war some of those Indians decided going back to Indian Territory wasn't what they wanted to do. In some cases they wouldn't be welcomed back by the tribe because the tribe had decided to remain neutral.

"Now, some are guides and trackers for the US Cavalry chasing down other Indians. Some became cowhands or horse wranglers. There were a few who just like the white Confederate soldiers got used to killing and didn't stop when the war ended.

"They made good soldiers. An Indian can sneak up on you before you know there's anybody around. Usually that's all they did. They'd sneak up to our encampment and count how many men were there, and then go back to the their unit and tell what they'd seen. A few times though, a soldier wouldn't come back from picket duty. When we found him, he'd have been stabbed or had his throat cut and he'd be dead.

"We knew then that an Indian scout had been there and the Confederates now knew our strength. If there were more of them than us, they'd usually attack at daylight. I lost a lot of men in my company when that happened."

Cora said she thought he was just a common soldier, and Cain frowned.

"Well, that's how I started out, but as men got killed, somebody had to take their place. I ended the war as a Captain in charge of a company of Union soldiers."

Cora said he must have been a good soldier, but Cain frowned again.

"I don't know how good I was. We won most of the battles we fought, but I lost a lot of men doing it. I tell myself that's just how wars go, but I still remember all of those men and wonder if they died because I did something wrong."

Cora smiled.

"My grandfather fought in the War of 1812 and he said the same thing. He was happy that the British were finally gone, but he missed the men he'd served with."

Cain shrugged.

"That's just how war is. Some get through a war without a scratch, some get injured and get mostly well again, and some get killed. It all depends upon the circumstances of a battle. If you're in the wrong place or if you're not paying attention to what's going on around you, you're going to get wounded or killed. If you keep your head down and pay attention, you have a chance of coming out alive and unhurt."

"Did you ever get hurt?"

Cain nodded.

"I got shot in the leg during the battle at Stone's River. Wasn't bad though. Just laid me up in a field hospital for a month until it healed up. I figured I was lucky. A lot of men who got shot and didn't die ended up missing an arm or a leg, sometimes two.

"As far as me doing anything to you, right now I just want to put as many miles between them and us that we can so I can get on to Whistleville. That make you feel better?"

}|{

As Cora rode beside Cain and hoped her horse could see where he was stepping, she didn't feel any better at all. The reason is what had happened just as she rode out of Meridian that night.

After Cain had killed Jacob, she'd warned him to leave town and then ran to her room in the back of the saloon to get her clothes and a few other things because she knew Jacob's brothers had seen him take her from the saloon.

She'd tied everything into a bundle and then ran back outside intending to take Jacob's horse and ride out of town. She pulled Jacob's pistol belt from his body so she'd have a way to defend herself, and then saw Cain's packhorse tied to the corral fence. She figured he had enough food in the panniers that she could live for a while, so she stuffed her clothes into one of the panniers and then led the packhorse to Jacob's horse. She got on Jacob's horse and started out of town leading the packhorse.

She thought she'd gotten away unseen, but just as she passed the harness shop, a man came out of the saloon, saw her riding away on Jacob's horse, and then went down between the saloon and the harness shop. A few seconds later, she saw the man run back into the saloon.

Cora had started both horses trotting then because she was sure of what was going to happen next. While she'd told Cain that nobody would find Jacob until morning, she knew that he'd already been found. She also knew that once his brothers heard that Jacob had been killed, they'd start after her.

They'd start after her because that man had seen her riding away by herself. He would have recognized her and Jacob's horse and figured she'd killed Jacob. Those men weren't chasing Cain. They didn't even know Cain had been there. They were chasing her.

When Cain had caught her on the road, she first thought he was one of the Stillson's cowhands and that they'd caught up with her. When she recognized Cain, she had about five seconds to make up a story that he might believe. That story was that the Stillsons would be after Cain, and that she'd brought his packhorse because she figured he'd need what was in the panniers to get away.

The only thing that she'd told Cain that she really believed was that the Stillsons would wait until morning to come after them. She did believe that's what would happen. She was sure Jacob's two brothers would go back to the ranch for more men and enough food to last until they caught her. It looked like they'd done that, but they'd ridden all night instead of waiting to start the next morning.

Cora was thankful that the men had decided to camp for the night. If she and Cain rode all night, they'd probably be far enough away that the men wouldn't be able to find them before they got to Gatesville, and they wouldn't try anything in Gatesville. If there was a marshal in Gatesville, he wouldn't be afraid of the Stillsons like the Marshal in Meridian was.

Cora knew that wouldn't be the end of it though. She'd be a stranger in Gatesville and nobody would miss her if she just disappeared. The Stillsons would just take her some night, ride out of town a few miles and then...

Cora shuddered as the thoughts of what they'd do to her if that happened. If she'd have been a man, she'd probably just be shot and left to rot, but she was a woman. There were six of them and just one of her, and she couldn't fight six men like she'd fought Jacob.

In her mind, she saw them rip off her clothes, hold her down on the ground, and then...

Cora shuddered again. She couldn't let that happen to her. Her only chance was staying with Cain. Somehow she had to convince him to take her with him.

}|{

The sun was just peeking over the horizon when Cain pulled Patch to a stop and then looked over at Cora.

"You're pretty tired, I bet."

Cora just nodded because the worry that her horse would throw her and the worry of what those men would do to her had exhausted her.

Cain smiled.

"Well, we should be almost twenty miles ahead of them by now and I think I know where we are. If we keep riding, we'll be in Gatesville by noon or so. There's a little creek about a mile ahead. We'll stop there, fix something to eat, and rest a little. Then we'll go on."

When they got to the creek, Cain led the horses down for a drink, then used the rope from his saddle to tie them together. It was a little risky, but the horses needed to graze. By tying them together, they'd have to stay together and he was sure Patch and Jewel wouldn't run off. The rope would keep Cora's horse with them.

The risk was that one of the horses would get tangled up in the rope, but they weren't going to be there that long and he'd watch them as they grazed. He took the hatchet from his pannier and went deeper into the trees to find some firewood. They needed a fire so they'd have something hot to eat.

}|{

Cain had picked out a branch of a dead and downed oak tree small enough he could chop it into firewood with his hatchet when he heard Cora scream. He pulled the Remington revolver from his holster and ran toward the sound, keeping to as much cover as he could find while he ran.

He saw the Indian first, the same Indian he'd seen through his telescope before. The man was walking toward Cora and holding a knife. Cora was slowly backing away and holding a long stick in front of her.

Cain didn't know how the man had caught up with them, but there was no doubt in his mind about the man's intentions. He was either going to kill Cora or overpower her and take her back to the other five. Cain stepped out into the open as he cocked the hammer on the Remington.

At the metallic click of the hammer, the Indian turned toward the sound. He scowled and started running toward Cain. Cain let him take four steps before he shot him in the chest. When the Indian didn't stop, Cain thumbed back the hammer on the Remington and shot him again. This time, the Indian dropped the knife and fell to the ground. Cora ran around the man and up to Cain. She put her arms around his waist and put her cheek on his chest.

"He was... he said he was going too... I didn't have any way to fight back."

Cain nodded.

"I know what he was going to do, but he can't do anything to you now.

Cora didn't move away from Cain. Instead, she looked up at him and said, "You said we were almost twenty miles ahead of them. How did he get here so fast?"

"He's the same Indian that was with the other five men. I think he must have ridden all night just like we did and stopped at daylight and made it the rest of the way on foot."

Cora sobbed.

"Well, I'm about to drop in my tracks after just riding one day and one night in the dark. He had to have been riding for a day and two nights. How could he do that?"

Cain was getting uncomfortable with Cora being so close to him. He gently pushed her away.

"I don't know, except during the war I heard that some Indians chewed ginseng roots before a battle. It was suppose to keep them from getting tired and make their hearing and eyesight work better. I never tried it so I don't know if it's true or not. Maybe he was just stronger than the others.

"However he managed it, he got here and the others will be looking for him to come back and tell them he killed us both. That's why he had a knife. He's wearing a revolver on his hip, but he used a knife because a knife doesn't' make any sound. If he'd shot one of us first, the sound might have let the other get away.

I'm going to see if any of them followed us. You get some water from the creek and make coffee while I do that? If I see them, we need to be riding again. If I don't, we can eat something and then ride the rest of the way to Gatesville."

While Cora walked to the creek with Cain's coffeepot, he took out his telescope and scanned the horizon until Cora said the coffee was ready. He put away the telescope and then took the cup she handed him.

"There's nobody out there that I can see. The only thing I saw was a column of smoke way off in the distance, so that might be their fire. I also saw the Indian's horse. It's about a mile from here and tied to a tree. It looks to me like they figured we'd stay somewhere for the night and then sent the Indian to find and kill us both. Like I figured, he rode until he was about a mile from us and then walked the rest of the way. We have some time now, so how about if I fry some bacon and make some corn cakes?'

Cora was still so afraid she needed something to do to take her mind off what had just happened.

"I'll do the cooking. You keep watching for them. They're coming to kill me."

}|{

Cain didn't say anything until they'd finished eating. When Cora started for the creek to wash out his frying pan and their plates, he stopped her.

"Cora, back in Meridian you told me they'd come to get me. Now you say they're coming to kill you. Is there something you didn't tell me?"

Cora sat back down and nodded.

"A man saw me when I rode out of Meridian and he went down to where you shot Jacob. Then he ran back into the saloon. I know Jacob's brothers will think I shot him and they'll come for me. When they get me..."

Cain nodded.

"It would have been better if you'd told me that at the start of this mess."

"I would have but when you stopped me, I thought maybe if I told you they were after you, you'd let me stay with you."

Cain thought for a few minutes. They were already almost three day's ride from Meridian and the Stillson ranch. If the Stillson men had followed them this far and had then sent the Indian to kill Cora, they probably weren't going to give up and go back to Meridian just because he'd killed the Indian. If anything, that would make them keep following him and Cora until they had to stop. They might be just looking for Cora like she'd said, but if they found them together, they'd kill him too.

They were in open country so there were no marshals to help them, and more importantly, no marshals to form a posse and chase down the Stillson men after they killed him and Cora. In fact, it was unlikely anyone would know he and Cora had been in the area at all.

Cain figured he had two choices to save them both. He could either ride on to Gatesville and hope they wouldn't follow them into town, or he could do what he'd done many times during the war. He could set up an ambush and kill them all.

Neither choice appealed to him. If the Stillson bunch did decide to go into Gatesville, some innocent people might get hurt or killed. If he set up an ambush, he was only one man. With the Spencer he might get three before they figured out where the shots were coming from. That would leave two that he'd have to take with the Remington and his Greener. He'd also have to put Cora in a place where she wouldn't be hurt.

He turned to Cora.

"This Stillson, the father of the boys, do you think he'll ever give up?"

Cora shook her head.

"Not if one of his boys was killed."

"What about the two brothers? Will they decide they can't catch us and go back to Meridian? You said they didn't get along with their brother."

Again Cora shook her head.

"They didn't get along, but they always looked out for each other. I've seen Jacob start a fight in the saloon, and both of them went to protect him. Even if they didn't, they'd never go back to their father and say they'd given up. The Stillsons don't ever give up on anything. I don't think they'll ever give up until either they or us are dead."

Cain thought some more and then decided.

"Cora, we can't go into Gatesville. I don't want to start a war there, and that's what might happen. If it does, innocent people might get hurt or killed. I'll have to take them all before we get there.

I'm not sure I can do that all by myself so you'll have to help. Have you ever shot a revolver before?"

Cora shook her head.

"No, my family always lived in a town so I didn't need to."

"Well, you're going to learn, but first we need to find some better cover. Let's pack up and keep riding. They'll have started riding by now, so we have maybe three hours before they catch up to us."

}|{

They rode until Cain found what he was looking for about a mile from where they'd stopped. It wasn't good cover, but the high hill would let them shoot down at the men and the clumps of buttonbush would keep them hidden until the five Stillson men got close enough.

Cain led the horses down the other side of the hill and tied them there so they would be out of the line of fire from the Stillson men. Then he took the Greener shotgun from the pannier, hooked the barrels onto the breach and pinned the forearm in place. The Greener would be his backup if some of the men got too close or if he'd used all the cartridges the Spencer rifle would hold.

After loading the Greener with buckshot and putting a cap on each nipple, he sat it on the ground behind the clump of buttonbush. Then he led Cora to another clump of brush about ten feet away and took the Colt revolver from the gunbelt around Cora's waist.

"Now, to shoot a revolver, you have to cock he hammer first, like this. That puts a cap under where the hammer is going to fall when you pull the trigger. You use both hands, and keep them together because with each shot, fire is going to come out on both sides right here, right where the cylinder meets the barrel, and it'll burn your hand really bad. Try it now, but don't pull the trigger. They're far enough away that they might not hear the shot, but I don't want to chance it."

Cora used both thumbs to cock the hammer and Cain smiled.

"That's what I need you to do. Think you can do that for each shot?'

"I think so. It's not that hard if I use both hands. Don't I have to aim or something?"

"Just point the barrel in their general direction and keep shooting. That'll confuse them so I can take care of them with my Spencer and my Greener."

Cain took the revolver from Cora and eased down the hammer to the notch that released the cylinder. He turned the cylinder until the empty nipple was under the hammer, let the hammer down the rest of the way, and then handed to Colt to Cora.

"You stay behind this bush until you hear me shoot. Then, move to one side and start shooting. You don't need to try to hit one of them. All you need to do is keep shooting until you've emptied this Colt. I'll give you my Remington. It works the same way. Once you've emptied the Colt, you shoot my Remington until you run out. By then, I'll have shot them all and you'll be safe. Now, you just sit tight while I watch for them. I'll tell you when I see them coming."

Cain spent the next two hours on his belly and scanning the horizon with his telescope before he saw riders in the distance about two miles away. There were five of them and he recognized the same black horse and the same palomino horse. Cain followed them until they entered the trees where he'd shot the Indian. A few minutes later then came out of the trees and were riding at a trot instead of walking their horses. They'd found the Indian and figured they were close to Cain and Cora. The trail of beaten down grass he and Cora had left that morning would be easy to follow.

"Cora, they're coming so get ready."

}|{

Cain let the first man get within what he figured was about seventy-five yards, then centered the sights on the Spencer on the man's chest. He took a breath, let out half of it, and then squeezed the trigger. That man fell off his horse, but Cain didn't bother to watch him fall. He yanked the lever on the Spencer open to eject the empty cartridge case, then closed it to load a fresh cartridge. He was cocking the hammer on the Spencer when he heard Cora fire once, and then the click, click, click, click of the Colt as she cocked it again.

After that, Cain returned to being the soldier he'd been in the Union Army. He sighted in on another man, this time on the man on the palomino horse, and pulled the trigger. That man fell out of his saddle and twitched a few times before lying still.

That had all happened so fast that the men hadn't had time to react. Now, they did. As Cain sighted in on a third man and then pulled the trigger on the Spencer, the man on the black horse drew his revolver and fired three shots at the brush Cain was using for cover. The man Cain shot fell to the ground just as Cain felt the searing blow of a bullet hitting him in the left shoulder.

Cain jacked open the lever of the Spencer, closed it, and tried to sight in on another man, but the wound in his shoulder made him slow. When he was able to sight in on one of the men, that man was only about ten feet from him. Cain pulled the trigger on the Spencer, watched the man fall, and then reached for the Greener shotgun.

The shotgun wasn't there, but it had to be. Cain had left it beside him so it would be there if he needed it. He rolled to his side to look for it just in time to see Cora raise the shotgun, pull the trigger, and then fall backwards from the recoil.

Cain knew he'd shot four of the five men, and now he was expecting to see the last man, the man on the black horse, riding up and shooting both him and Cora. Instead, he watched Cora get back up, put the shotgun on the ground, push him onto his back, and started ripping open his shirt. When the pain caused Cain to pull away, Cora yelled, "Hold still so I can see how bad you've been shot."

Cain realized then that the shooting had stopped. He looked at Cora who was looking at his shoulder.

"Did we scare off the last one?"

Cora used a strip she ripped from Cain's shirt to wipe the shallow gouge in his left shoulder.

"He didn't leave. I shot him. They're all dead and you might be too if you don't lay still."

}|{

Cain tried to lie still as Cora poked and probed the wound in his shoulder. When she stood up and walked away, he figured he'd just been grazed. When Cora came back with the whiskey from his saddlebag, he asked her what she was doing.

Cora frowned.

"You were lucky. The bullet just cut a groove in the muscle of your shoulder. It's not even bleeding that bad. I'm going to clean it out and it's going to hurt. Stay as still as you can."

Cora stuck the cork on the bottle between her teeth and pulled the cork from the bottle, then poured a stream of whiskey into the wound in Cain's shoulder. He jerked at the searing pain, but Cora kept pouring.

"I said for you to lay still. The more you move around, the longer this is going to take and the more you're going to hurt."

The whiskey had still burned some, but Cain had gritted his teeth until Cora stopped. He tried to sit up but Cora stopped him.

"Just stay like you are until I come back. I need to get a bandage on this."

Cain heard her walking away and a few minutes later, she came back she was holding two thick pads made of strips of white cloth that had been sewn together. She took one of the pads, poured more whiskey on it and used it to scrub out the wound in his shoulder. When she was satisfied, she poured more whiskey on the other pad and then put it over the wound in Cain's shoulder.

Cora held the pad in place and leaned back.

"All I need now is some way to keep this where it is. You hold it for me."

She left Cain again, and when she came back this time, she had some white stockings in her hand.

"I need you to sit up now."

Cain forced himself up in spite of the pain. Cora took tied the stockings together at the tops and wrapped them around his arm and over his shoulder twice, then tied the foot of one stocking to the foot of the other. She leaned back then.

"That should work, but don't you go using that arm for much for a while. If you start it bleeding again, I'll have to start all over.

}|{

As Cora walked away toward where he'd shot the men, Cain looked down at his shoulder. The pad and the stockings wasn't an actual bandage like the doctor in the field hospital had used on his leg, but it was basically the same. The only real difference was that in the field hospital, the doctor had used bandages specially made for wounds.

How had Cora known what to do? More importantly, Cain knew he'd only shot four of the five men. If all five were now dead, Cora had to have shot the fifth man. She hadn't known how to shoot a revolver until he'd shown her. How had she managed to kill the fifth man with his Greener?

A few minutes later Cora came back with five gun belts over her shoulder.

"I thought we might need these, so when I checked to make sure they were all dead, I took them. Their horses all ran off or I'd have taken their saddlebags too. How do you feel? You're not hot or anything are you?"

Cain shook his head.

"No, I'm not hot and the pain isn't all that bad. I do have a lot of questions though. Let's start with how did you manage to shoot that last man?"

Cora shrugged.

"Well, when I heard you yell, I ran over to see how bad you were hurt. That last man was Joe and he'd stopped coming toward us. When you didn't shoot again, I guess he figured we were dead so he started coming again.

"I'd left both revolvers by the other tree, but your shotgun was there on the ground. It had two hammers just like the revolvers, so I cocked one, pointed it at Joe and pulled the trigger. He wasn't very far away from me by then so it was hard to miss him."

"You're sure he's dead? You might have just hit him with one buckshot pellet. He might be out there waiting."

"I'm sure. There's not much left of his neck and face."

Cain pointed to his shoulder then.

"How did you know how to do this? It's about the same as what the Union surgeon did when I got shot in the leg."

"I learned it from my father."

"You never said anything about having a father somewhere. Was he a doctor? How did you end up dancing in a saloon if your father was a doctor?"

Cora nodded.

"Yes, he was a doctor. He was just on the wrong side of the war."

"He was Confederate?"

"No, he wasn't in the war on either side. My father was brought up in a Quaker family in Philadelphia and learned how to be a doctor there. In 1840, he brought my mother to Meridian. He'd read that Texas was a new state and that there weren't many doctors there.

"Quakers don't believe in slavery, but they believe that killing is worse. What my father thought is that both sides should have sat down and come to an agreement about slavery instead of threatening to go to war. When things started getting bad in Kansas and Missouri, he was worried it would spread to Texas. In July of 1852 when I was eight, he sent me and my mother to live with his sister in Texarkana. He stayed in Meridian and doctored anybody who came to him. At Christmas every year, he'd take the stagecoach to Texarkana to see us.

My mother died in Texarkana the year before the war ended. The doctor said she'd caught the grippe worse than most people. That was probably true because my mother had never been a strong woman. That's why I was an only child. Having me almost killed my mother and she and my father decided they wouldn't try it again.

"When the war ended and all those Confederate soldiers came back and found out my father hadn't gone to be a doctor for the Confederates, they accused him of being a Union sympathizer. He wrote to me and said they told him if he didn't leave town they'd kill him, but people there needed him so he was going to stay. He said I should stay in Texarkana so I'd be safe, but I wasn't going to do that.

"My aunt's husband worked for the stagecoach line, and he got me tickets that would take me from Texarkana to Dallas and from Dallas to Meridian. I got to Meridian, but when I got there, my father told me I couldn't live with him and that I had to use my mother's maiden name of Howell. He said if the men who had threatened him knew I was his daughter, they'd kill me too. That's why I told you my name was Cora Howell. My last name is really Richardson.

"I wanted to stay in Meridian with my father, so I needed a reason to be there and a place to live. My father said about as far from related to him as I could get would be to be a dancer in the saloon. I couldn't really dance, but I went to the saloon and told the owner I'd danced in a saloon in St. Louis. He made me lift up my dress and show him my legs and then said he'd hire me and give me a room in back of the saloon.

"I danced at night and went to visit my father during the day. I told the saloon owner I wasn't making enough money dancing, so I was cooking for Doctor Richardson and doing his laundry.

"That lasted for about two months Then, one afternoon, two men walked into his doctor's office and shot him dead. I found him when I went to cook his supper. I went to the marshal's office and told him what I'd found. He asked a lot of people if they'd seen anybody going into the doctor's office but nobody said they had. That didn't surprise me. Everybody in town including the marshal was too afraid of John Stillson to do anything if anybody from the Stillson ranch might have been involved.

"I don't know for sure who shot him, but I'm pretty sure they were from the Stillson ranch. I'm pretty sure because John Stillson's wife died after my father treated her for dysentery. John brought his wife to see my father, but according to my father, she was so sick she couldn't walk by herself. John carried her from their carriage into my father's office.

"John didn't bring her sooner because my father had told everybody who came to him that a war wasn't the way to settle the issue about slavery. John believed that Texas should be a slave state and said he wasn't going to do business with anybody who didn't believe the same way.

John kept his wife at home until he figured she wasn't going to get well on her own. My father tried everything he knew how to try, but she died two days later. John spread it around town that my father had killed his wife because he was against slavery. I don't think the people in town believed that. That's why I'm sure it was John Stillson or men who worked for him. It was a week after John buried his wife that I found my father dead in his office.

"I didn't dare go to the funeral, or they'd have found me out. I did go to the church cemetery every Sunday and visit his grave. I don't think anybody saw me. At least nobody ever asked me why I was going there. If they had, I was going to tell them that Dr. Richardson had always been nice to me and he didn't have anybody else in Meridian to grieve for him.

"I didn't have anywhere to live except for the saloon so I kept dancing while I figured out what I was going to do. It was then that I found out what Jacob considered a dancer to really be. He grabbed me one night as I was leaving the stage and said he had a dollar if I'd take him back to my room. The saloon owner saw what was happening and told Jacob I was just a dancer.

"Jacob let me go then, but he grinned and said he'd catch up with me later. After that, I made sure where he was before I went to my room. If he was watching me, I stayed on the steps to the stage. I just messed up that night and didn't see him, so I went to my room. He was waiting for me and grabbed me and pulled me outside. I was trying to fight him when you came along."

Cain had listened and as he heard what Cora said, he was developing a new respect for the woman. When he'd shot Jacob, he'd done it because he thought Cora was too small and too weak to fight back. When he'd asked her if she could ride all night, she hadn't hesitated, and other than a few stops she said she needed to make, she hadn't complained or lagged behind.

When he'd found the Indian with her, Cora had looked scared, but she didn't try to turn and run. She was trying to fight back. She'd really proven herself when they faced down the rest of the Stillson men. Cain hadn't believed she could ever shoot a shotgun, but when it was either the last man or them, she'd picked up the shotgun and shot that man out of the saddle.

Cain smiled then because he thought there was one more thing Cora hadn't told him.

"Cora, what did your uncle do for the stagecoach line?"

Cora grinned sheepishly.

"He rode beside the driver."

"I'll bet he carried a shotgun, didn't he? Strange how you said you'd never shot a gun before, but you didn't have any trouble shooting that man. I'll bet your uncle showed you how to shoot a shotgun, didn't he? You'd have to know in order to cock the right hammer and know which trigger to pull."

"He did, but I'd never shot a man before."

Cain smiled again.

"Well, I'm pretty happy you knew how. We probably wouldn't be here if you hadn't killed him."

Cora shook her head and frowned.

"All I did was give you some time. When Jack and Joe and the others don't come back, their father will just send more men to find us. You'll be long gone to Whistleville and I'll be waiting in Gatesville for them to come kill me."

Cain tried to get up and finally managed when Cora helped him.

"They'll have to find us first. I don't fancy spending any more time with a bunch of dead men and this shoulder doesn't hurt that bad. Let's keep riding until we find a place to spend the night."

}|{

Cain had a hard time falling asleep that night and it wasn't because his shoulder hurt. It was because the war was supposed to be over but it wasn't. The people still fighting just didn't wear uniforms that made it easy to tell them apart. Now, it was men trying to take what they could however they could from people who might not have fought but had still been hurt by the war. They'd lost sons, husbands, and fathers or had been forced to give up their crops and livestock to foraging parties from both sides.

John Stillson was one such man. He'd bought one ranch outside of Meridian and then threatened the other ranchers who had suffered through the war until they had to either sell or be killed. John Stillson was worse than the Confederate soldiers he'd fought against for four years. The South had formed the Confederacy to fight for something they believed in. Cain could respect them for that even though that belief was wrong. John Stillson was fighting for just himself and everything he could get his hands on.

Cain had no reason to doubt what Cora had said, that John Stillson would send more men to track both of them down and kill them. If John Stillson had gotten his ranch and several of the town businesses by threatening the owners, he wouldn't be one to just resign himself to loosing all his sons. He'd want revenge on whoever killed his sons, and that meant he'd most likely send another group to find and kill him and Cora.

Once the second group of men found where he and Cora had camped that first night, they'd know he was headed south because the nearest town south of Meridian was Gatesville. That was the reason Cain had picked that direction and that was the reason the next group would ride in that direction. They'd find the Indian and then the other five by seeing the vultures circling in the sky and on the ground. It would be the same as if he'd left arrows blazed into trees to show them where he was going.

He and Cora would be in Gatesville sometime the next day, so he could turn west and ride to Whistleville, but he had no doubts they could make Cora tell them where he was headed. If he left Cora in Gatesville, he might as well have left them a map showing where he was going.

Cain decided he couldn't leave Cora in Gatesville. They'd go there and stock up on supplies, but head west the same day. There was some risk in doing that. People who lived in small towns all knew each other, and any stranger would stand out like a fly in a flour bin. A man and a woman traveling together on horses would be even more suspicious.

The general store owner would know they'd been there, and probably several people would watch them leave. It wouldn't take much questioning to get those same people to say they'd seen him and Cora heading west on the road to Whistleville.

He wondered if the six men had been just chasing Cora like she said. If that was true and he went into Gatesville to buy supplies by himself, the people asked could only say they'd seen one man with a packhorse heading west, not a man and a woman. He could leave Cora somewhere a mile or so from Gatesville where she could hide, go to town and buy their supplies, and then ride east, go around the town, and pick up Cora. Then they'd head west.

Cain shook his head then.

When a second group of men started following them, they'd find the Indian first and then the other five men. They wouldn't believe a saloon dancer could have killed the Indian by herself. It would be easy to follow the trail left by the five remaining horses in the first group of Stillson men. Once they found the five dead men with the big bullet holes from the Spencer in four of them and the buckshot in the one, they'd know she wasn't alone. They'd also know that Union soldiers had carried Spencers so he must have been in the Union Army. They'd start following the tracks he and Cora had left.

They wouldn't have to be Indians to know that they were following more than one horse. Any cowhand knew that each horse leaves a different set of hoof prints than any other horse because of the shape of the hooves, the weight of the horse, and the stride of the horse. They'd know from the hoof prints they found that there were three horses.

The more Cain thought, the more one answer kept coming to mind. Cain didn't like that answer. During the war, the law was what the soldiers in the area deemed the law to be. It didn't matter if the people in the area agreed or not. The men with guns determined what was right and what was wrong. It didn't matter if a woman needed her garden to keep her children fed. Both armies needed food and took it where they found it.

It didn't matter that men were killed during a battle. That wasn't murder once the war began. It was men trying to stay alive by killing the men shooting at them.

Where Cain and Cora were right now, it was the same but a little different. While in theory the law in Texas was written down in books, some men still believed that more men and more guns meant they could do whatever they wanted to do. It didn't matter to those men that what they did was against written laws. All that mattered to them was getting what they wanted.

The right way to stop them meant marshals and posses to bring those men in to face justice in a court. The problem Cain and Cora had was there was no marshal or posse out in the open country between Meridian and Gatesville. The only way to stop Stillson was the same way the Union had stopped the Confederacy.

Cain was only one gun, but he'd had a lot of experience at fighting a war. More men would help, but he and Cora could do it by themselves if they had to. He didn't like it at all, but it was the only way he could figure out to put Cora someplace where she'd be safe and let him get on to Whistleville.

Cain was still thinking about a plan when he finally drifted off to sleep.

}|{

When Cain woke up the next day, he smelled coffee and frying bacon. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, and then threw back the canvas and blanket of his bedroll. Cora was bent over his frying pan when he walked up to the fire.

Cain sat down beside where Cora knelt.

"You said this Stillson got his ranch by forcing out other ranchers and he got his businesses the same way. Are there any of the original ranchers left in town?"

Cora nodded.

"All of them, but they're not in town. Stillson didn't kick them off their ranches. They're still there. They just work for him now and he gets half the profit they make when they sell their beef. It's the same for the businesses. The man who runs the apothecary shop still mixes and sells the medicine. He just has to give half the profits to Stillson. It's the same with the lumberyard and the livery stable. The same men run them but instead of keeping all their profits, they have to give half of them to Stillson. He'd have killed them if they hadn't agreed."

"Why didn't all those ranchers and business owners fight back?"

Cora looked up from the skillet and frowned.

"Would you fight back if you knew you'd be killed and would leave your wife and children without any way to support themselves?"

"He couldn't kill everybody by himself."

Cora turned the bacon strips in the skillet, flipped the corn cake she was frying, and then looked at Cain.

"He didn't have to. When all those former Confederate soldiers came back from the war, he hired them. They're not cowhands. They don't work on his ranch to do anything. They're his own personal army that makes people do what he wants them to do."

"This Marshal Hicks, he's part of it too?"

Cora shook her head.

"I don't think he is. I think Marshal Hicks is just so afraid of the Stillsons that he looks the other way when one of the Stillsons does something. He has a reason to be afraid. The Stillsons killed the marshal before Marshal Hicks and one man can't stand up to as many men as Stillson has. There was no proof they did it, but that was because nobody in town really looked. They were too afraid to look.

"Marshal Hicks did form a posse and track down and arrest two men who robbed the general store. He'll go after anybody who breaks the law unless it's somebody from the Stillson ranch."

Cora poured a cup of coffee and handed it to Cain. Then she forked two thick slabs of bacon and a corn cake onto a plate and handed the plate to Cain.

}|{

While he ate, Can was still thinking about his plan. It seemed sound enough but he couldn't do it unless Cora helped. When he finished, he sat his plate on the grass.

"Cora, I believe what you say about Stillson sending more men to kill us. I thought most of the night about what would be the best thing to do. If I leave you in Gatesville they'll make you tell them where I was going before they kill you. If this Stillson is dead set on killing us both, it won't matter how far or how fast we ride. At some point, his men will catch up to us and kill us both.

"The only way I can see to end this is to go back the Meridian and convince Stillson to leave you and me alone. I can't do that by myself, so I need you to help me."

Cora shook her head.

"We won't get within a mile of the Stillson ranch before they kill us, and even if we did, you couldn't convince John Stillson to do anything he doesn't want to do."

Cain nodded.

"I know that, but we won't have to if we make Stillson come to us. How many men does he have working for him?"

Cora shrugged.

"I'm not sure, maybe twenty. That's about how many men came to the saloon every Saturday night."

"So, we've killed six, well, seven counting Jacob. That leaves fourteen including the father. Stillson will know we probably had at least a day's head start on them so he won't be looking for his boys and the others to come back for at least another couple days. Even if he sends out more men, it'll take them at least a day before they find the campsite the first six used. That'll give us time to get there before they do. They'll think we've kept going toward Gatesville, so they'll let their guard down. When they come, we'll do the same thing we did with the first six. After that, we'll make Stillson come to us.

"The first thing we need to do is ride to Gatesville and buy enough supplies to get us back to Meridian. I'll do that while you wait a ways out of town. Then we'll start back for Meridian."

}|{

Cain left Cora deep in some trees two miles from Gatesville and rode into town by himself. It took him only half an hour to buy a side of bacon, five pounds of corn meal, two pounds of coffee and a five pounds of dry beans. An hour later, he was back where he'd left Cora.

When he rode into the trees, she stood up and mounted her horse. Cain led them out of the trees and back up the way they'd just come and toward Meridian.

}|{

When they rode past the hill where they'd killed the five men, Cain saw vultures climbing into the air when they heard the horses. The big birds were clumsy at first, half running and half flapping their wings, but as soon as they were in the air, they flew high up in the blue sky and then began circling on their wide, long wings and waiting until Cain and Cora rode on. Cain didn't stop. He wanted to get as close to Meridian as he could before any more men came after them.

A while later, they rode into the clearing where the Indian had tried to kill Cora. Cain did stop there. He walked to where the Indian lay and picked up the knife he'd used to threaten Cora. Cora asked why he wanted it. Cain just said he might have a use for it.

The sun was starting to drop toward the horizon when Cora pointed off to their left.

"Over there. I know those horses. They belonged to Jack and Joe."

Cain untied Jewel's halter rope and handed it to Cora.

"I see them. You stay here and don't do anything. I want those horses."

Cain turned Patch toward the two horses. When he was about a hundred feet from them, they looked up and pricked up their ears. Cain slipped off Patch and started walking toward both horses, keeping Patch between him and them. He knew that horses are naturally curious and would either wait until Patch walked up to them or they would come to meet Patch.

As it was, both horses nickered and then walked slowly toward Patch. When they were just two feet away, Cain slipped under Patch's neck and grabbed both sets of reins. A minute later, he was riding back to Cora and leading both horses.

Cora asked why he wanted the horses. Cain just smiled.

"They're going to be part of my bait. Now, let's keep riding. We need to find some water."

They spent the night beside a tiny little creek with barely enough in the way of wood for a fire. Cora fried some bacon and corn cakes while Cain watered the horses. He didn't tie them out that night. He wanted them saddled and ready to ride at first light. There was enough grass around the creek that they could graze a little while tied to the few willow trees that lined the creek bed.

Once they'd eaten, Cain and Cora climbed into their bedrolls. Cain noticed that Cora still hadn't used her blanket. She had to be cold at night, but she was too stubborn to cover up with that blanket.

}|{

Breakfast the next morning was coffee and the extra corn cakes Cain had asked Cora to fry. After putting out their fire, Cain said it was time to leave.

They rode on to a small rise in the ground where Cain stopped and got out his telescope again. For five full minutes, he scanned back up the tracks they were following back to Meridian, but didn't see anything.

He put his telescope away and then smiled at Cora.

"They haven't gotten this far yet. We need to get to where the first six camped that first night. If there are more men coming, that's about how far they'll get if they started at daylight this morning. They'll stay there for the night, and that's where we'll take them."

An hour later, Cain stopped on another low hill and used his telescope. He didn't see anybody that time, but an hour later he did. He looked for a heavy-set man with white hair but only saw six men dressed like cowhands. He put away the telescope and then turned to Cora.

"I don't see a man with white hair, but there are six of them and they're about two hours from where we want to be. We're only about an hour from there. We'll ride a little west and then wait for them about a hundred feet from that camp.

When Cain stopped in the trees, Cora asked if they were far enough away that the horses wouldn't hear them and neigh. Cain smiled.

"I need at least one man alive. If they hear another horse, they'll send one man to find out who's out there with them."

"I thought you said we were going to kill all of them. What are you going to do with the man when you catch him?"

Cain just smiled as he tied their horses to some small trees.

"You'll see."

Cain pulled the Spencer from the scabbard on his saddle, made sure it was loaded with cartridges including one in the chamber, and then untied the Greener from Jewel's packsaddle and loaded it. Then he motioned to Cora.

"We need to get a little closer. You make sure all those revolvers you took from the first five are loaded and ready, just like I showed you before. Then, stay as quiet as you can. They won't be here yet, but I don't want to take any chances or this won't work."

}|{

A little over an hour later, Cain saw the six men ride into the clearing, get off their horses, and walk over to where the first group had built a fire for the night. Cain reached over and touched Cora on the shoulder. She looked at him and nodded. Cain quietly moved to another tree about fifteen feet away and then lay there and listened to the men talking.

"This must be where Joe and Jack camped for the night."

"Yeah, looks like it. Ain't no young whore could build a fire like this an' the grass is still kinda flat where they put their bedrolls."

The man who seemed to Cain to be the leader of the group stepped up.

"We ain't gonna catch up with 'em tonight. We'll stay here and start out again in the morning. Randall, you get some wood and build a fire while the rest of us take care of these horses."

The men started taking the saddles off their horses. The man called Randall pulled a hatchet from his saddlebag and started walking to where Cain and Cora were hiding.

When he passed by the clump of brush Cain was hiding behind, Cain tripped him. When the man hit the ground, Cain slammed the butt of the Spencer into the back of the man's head. The man went down and lay still. Cain pulled the bandana from the man's neck and used it to gag him and tied the man hand and foot with a length of rope he'd cut from the palomino's saddle. Then, Cain turned the man over and slapped him to wake him back up.

When the man opened his eyes, he was looking at the barrel of Cain's Remington revolver. Cain put his finger to his lips and then leaned toward the man and whispered, "You make one sound or move even half an inch, and I'll shoot you in the head, understand?"

The man nodded and Cain went back to his clump of brush to listen.

As the other men carried their saddles to the burned circle on the ground, the leader swore.

"Where the hell is Randall? Anybody see him come back?"

A man wearing a black bowler hat laughed.

"You know Randall. Cain't keep a thought in his head for more'n a minute. He's prolly out there whippin' his willy. Want me to go get 'im?"

The leader shook his head.

"I don't like this. I don't like it at all. I'll go. The rest of you, keep your eyes peeled. We might not be the only ones out here. If I don't come back in a minute or so, you all follow and be ready to shoot."

Cain let the leader take two steps before he pulled the trigger on the Spencer. He was jacking another cartridge into the Spencer when he heard Cora start firing. To his surprise, another man went down. Cora had gotten lucky.

Cain knew he had them confused because the remaining men had drawn their revolvers but were firing in all directions. He shot a third man while Cora kept firing her revolver at a fourth. Cain had sighted in on that man when he dropped his revolver, grabbed his belly, and then fell down. There was a lull in the shots coming from Cora, and then two more that hit the man who was rolling around on the ground. He jerked as each bullet hit him and then lay still. The fifth man turned and ran toward the horses. Cain cut him down before he got half way there.

Cora started to walk to Cain, but he held up his hand.

"Just sit tight until I know none of them are going to get up again."

}|{

When Cain had checked each man and confirmed they were dead, he waved at Cora.

"I'll pick up all their revolvers and gun belts. I think we might need them. You go check their saddlebags for powder, balls, and caps and bring them back here. If any of them have rifles or shotguns, you get them and bring them back too."

When they stopped looking for things Cain figured they could use, they had four Colt revolvers, one Starr double action revolver, one LeMatt revolver, and six flasks of gun powder along with balls and caps. The real find was two double barrel shotguns and a pouch of buckshot..

After Cain put the revolvers, powder, balls and caps in a pannier and tied the shotguns to Jewel's packsaddle, Cora asked him why they needed so many guns.

Cain frowned.

"All those people Stillson took ranches from, do they have guns?"

Cora nodded.

"I think they probably do, but they never bring them to town when they come."

"How about the people who live in town?"

Cora shook her head.

"I don't think they do because there wasn't any need. They had the marshal to take care of any problems until Stillson's men killed him. After that, they were too afraid to go buy a gun at the general store. Stillson always had one man there watching what people bought."

"How many of them do you think you can trust?"

Cora shrugged.

"I don't know. It would depend upon if they believed they could do any good or not. Is that why we need all these revolvers and shotguns?"

Cain looked at Cora.

"Stillson isn't going to give up, so it's time to end this once and for all. If Marshal Hicks is as afraid of Stillson as you say, I doubt he'll do anything to help. That leaves us and anybody on those ranches and in town we can get to help us."

Cora frowned.

"You'll never get Stillson to come to town if he thinks the people in town are going to be against him.

Cain smiled.

"Oh, I think he might if I make him mad enough, and I think I have a way to make him that mad. If we can get enough people to help us, we'll turn Meridian back into a nice town. I hope at least some of them know how to shoot a revolver.

"By the way, you shot two men, one of them three times. How did you do that when you told me you didn't know how to shoot a revolver?"

Cora smiled.

"Well, my uncle taught me that too. I'd just never done it before so I didn't know if I could. By the time you'd shot the first bunch, I'd figured it out."

Cain nodded.

"You did good, Cora. Now, we need to be heading back to Meridian tomorrow morning. I'll turn their horses loose. We don't need them and they'll just slow us down. We still have about an hour of daylight left. We'll ride on until we can't see and then camp for the night."

}|{

When Cain and Cora left the trees the next morning, Cora was leading Jewel and the two horses Jake and Joe Stillson had ridden. Cain was leading another horse with the man he'd tied up now tied to the saddle. At noon, they found the road to Meridian.

Cain pulled the horse the tied man was riding up beside Patch, and then told Cora to bring up the black horse and the palomino that Joe and Jack had ridden. When she did, he took the reins from her and tied the reins of each horse to a d-ring on the man's saddle. After he took the gag from the man's mouth, he looked the man in the eyes.

"I would have shot you back there, but I needed a messenger and you're going to be it. As soon as I untie your hands, you ride back to the Stillson ranch with these two horses and tell Stillson what happened. You tell him the man who killed his three boys will be in front of the saloon in Meridian at noon tomorrow. Then you tell him that if he doesn't come to meet me, that still won't be the end of it. You tell him I won't stop until he and the rest of his men are dead, and that I'll leave them laying where they fall, just like I did his boys and the others.

"You tell him I said he won't know when it's coming. I'll just pick off the rest of his men, one at a time until he's the only one left. Then, I'll take him and I won't make it easy for him to die."

Cain took the Indian's knife from his right saddlebag.

"You see this knife? You know who it belonged to?"

The man nodded his head.

Cain grabbed the man's jaw to hold his head still and then made two long cuts across the man's forehead for form a bleeding "X".

"You tell Stillson I'll use this knife to kill him, and I'll do it slow so he suffers a lot more than the people he threatened.

"After you tell him, you get on this horse and ride away from the Stillson ranch. I don't care where you go, but if I ever see you again, I won't be doing any more talking. I'll just shoot you dead right where you are. You know I'll do it since you watched me kill all those other men. You got any questions?"

The man shook his head, and Cain frowned.

"If you don't do what I just told you to do, after I take care of Stillson, I'll come looking for you. You won't be hard to track down. All I'll have to do is keep asking people if they've seen a man with a scar on his forehead that looks like a big X. Every time you look in a mirror, you'll remember that I'm looking for you and you'll spend your life running like the cowardly dog you are."

Cain used the knife to cut the rope tying the man to the saddle horn. The man wiped away the blood out of his eyes and then dug his heels into the horse's sides.

As the man rode away, Cora rode up beside Cain.

"You think he'll do what you said?"

Cain nodded.

"He wet his trousers when I told him I'd shoot him the next time I saw him. He knows I'll do it and he's too scared not to do what I said. We need to get to Meridian now so we can talk to the people in town."

}|{

At noon the next day, Cain was standing in the middle of the street in front of the saloon. He had the Spencer cradled in one arm and the Greener on the ground beside him.

While he waited on Stillson and his men, Cain looked at the doors and windows of the buildings on both sides of the street.

It hadn't been as hard as he'd thought to convince the people of the town to join him. The business owners had just been waiting on someone to lead them. The saloon owner said he'd do his part because he was tired of Stillson's men tearing up his saloon every Saturday night and then having to clean everything up on Sunday. The undertaker said he'd never had to go out and create business for his shop, but in this case he'd make an exception.

Marshal Hicks didn't join them. He said it would be better for everybody if he was someplace else.

"Mr. Kershaw, I'd be happy to help you, but If I'm here and watch you do what I think you're gonna do and you come out of it alive, I'll have to arrest you and half the town for murder. I don't think the law applies very well in this case. I can help you in a better way though.

"I think I'll take a ride out east of town. I heard there were some Indians stealing horses from a ranch out there I don't think that's true because there hasn't been any Indians seen around here in a couple years, but I have to go check. I'll be back tonight to find out what happened and help clean up what's left."

Cain smiled at the faces he saw in the doorways and windows. Most didn't have guns, but they knew how to use a revolver and Cain and Cora had eleven to spread around. The blacksmith said he'd used a shotgun before, so he took one. The undertaker took the other. They were both outside their buildings behind cover, the blacksmith behind a wagon bed and the undertaker behind three coffins stacked against the side of his shop.

The owner of the general store had sent his wife out in their buggy to talk to the wife of the nearest rancher. She'd come back two hours later and said the wife's husband had started riding to each ranch to ask them to help.

Cora was watching through the windows of her father's doctor's office with a bag of bandages and a bottle of whiskey. Cain had told her to stay there until the shooting stopped, but Cora had the Colt she'd taken from Jacob in her hand. If it looked like Cain needed help, she was going to help him.

All Cain could do now was wait and hope his plan worked.

}|{

At about ten minutes before noon, a lone rider galloped up the street and stopped when Cain pointed the Spencer at him. He raised his hands and said, "You be Cain Kershaw?"

Cain nodded.

"Who's asking?"

The man dropped his hands and rode up to Cain..

"I'm Elija Breedlove and my ranch, well, what was my ranch, is about a mile from here. I seen Stillson and his bunch headed toward town, so I rode about a mile north of them for a while and then came to warn you. Where do you want me?"

Cain didn't want anybody out in the open, so he told the man to go inside the saloon. Then he settled down to wait.

He didn't have to wait long. Right at noon, a group of ten riders came down the street. Cain let them get about two hundred feet from him and then yelled at them to stop. A man with white hair sticking out from under his brown bowler hat yelled, "I'm John Stillson and I'm here like you told my man. Just who the hell are you?"

Cain yelled back.

"My name's Cain and I'm the man who killed those three bastards you call your boys. I'll give you one chance. You turn this bunch around and head out of town and keep going until you're in Arizona Territory and don't come back. You do that and you won't get hurt."

John laughed.

"You stupid son of a bitch, you think you're gonna make me turn tail and run after you killed my boys? You got a set of balls bigger'n a longhorn bull."

Cain smiled.

"Like I said, I'm just giving you a chance to get out of this alive."

Stillson yelled, "Well see about that", and drew his revolver. At that range, the bullet he fired just hit the ground about six feet to Cain's right side, but Cain's Spencer bullet hit John in the right shoulder and knocked him off the horse. He got back up just in time to feel another bullet from the Spencer hit him in the chest. He fell to his knees and then face down in the dirt of the street.

Cain was racking another round into the Spencer when he heard shots coming from both sides of the street. Of the other nine men, five went down. The others turned their horses and started galloping out of town.

They only got to the edge of town before another group of men on horses shot them out of their saddles. The second group holstered their revolvers and then rode into town. One man rode up to Cain while the people of the town came out of the stores and alleys to join them.

"You'd be Cain, I guess. Took us a while to get everybody together or we'd have been here sooner."

Cain smiled.

"Well, you got here just in time. I appreciate the help."

The man took off his hat, wiped his brow, and then put the hat back on.

"I'm Willard Jones. Used to own the ranch that Stillson forced me to sell to him. Said he'd kill me, my wife and my boys if I didn't. The other eight have about the same story. Looks like we don't have to worry about that anymore, thanks to you."

Cain shook his head.

"All I did was kill Stillson. You and the people of the town took care of the rest of them."

Willard smiled.

"Well, you can say that, but you gotta understand something about the people in Meridian. We're ranchers and storekeepers, not soldiers. We aren't cowards either, but we got wives and kids to take care of. By the looks of those trousers you were Union Army, so you knew what to do. We just needed somebody to show us how to run Stillson and his bunch out of town."

The undertaker walked up and handed the shotgun to Cain. Cain shook his head and said, "You earned it, so you keep it." The undertaker took the shotgun back and then looked at the bodies lying in the street and grinned.

"They shoulda rode out of town like you told 'em to. They're still gonna ride out of town, but they'll be ridin' in my wagon. Guess I'll have to take 'em someplace where the diggin' is easy, 'cause I sure ain't gonna bury 'em in the church cemetery. I ain't making any coffins for 'em either."

Cain smiled.

"I'm sure you'll figure out a place to put them."

The owner of the general store spoke up then.

"Mr. Kershaw, what are you going to do now?"

Cain shrugged.

"Well, right now I'm going to put my horses somewhere for the night and then find a good supper and a place to unroll my bedroll. Tomorrow, I'll start for Whistleville. That's where I was headed when I went through Meridian the first time."

Cain felt a touch to his arm and saw Cora standing there smiling.

"You can put the horses in the pen where my father kept his carriage horse. There's some hay left in the leanto so they'll have something to eat. I'll cook you a supper you'll remember and you can sleep on the bed in my father's office."

Cain got off Patch and followed Cora down the street while the rest of the crowd helped the undertaker load the bodies into his wagon.

}|{

Cain unsaddled Patch, Jewel, and the horse Cora had ridden and turned them out into the small pen behind the doctor's office, then forked some hay over the rails.

He found the pump next to the horse trough and pumped about a foot of water into the trough, then went in the back door of the doctor's office. It opened into a small kitchen and Cora was standing in front of a cast iron stove and stirring something in a pot.

She looked up and smiled.

"It's just more beans and bacon, but I found some molasses to give them some more taste, and I'm baking some cornbread to go with them. You go wash up. It'll all be done in about half an hour or so."

}|{

They were done eating when Cora asked Cain what his plans were. Cain shrugged.

"The same plan I started out with. There's supposed to be a really big ranch and some cotton farms around Whistleville. I figured there would be work there. What are you going to do?"

Cora shrugged.

"Well, I'm not real sure. I own the doctor's office now, but I'm not a doctor so all I can do is live here. I don't know how I'm going to support myself though. I'm not going back to dancing in the saloon."

Cain smiled.

"For a woman who isn't a doctor, you did a good job on my shoulder."

Cora frowned.

"I just knew what to do because my father showed me. If you'd been hurt worse, I wouldn't have known what to do. I don't know how to cure diseases or deliver babies either."

"Well, as I remember, the surgeons in the Union Army didn't know how to cure much either. I had more of my men die from dysentery, grippe, and other things than were killed in battle. You'd probably do all right. I'm sure there are some women in town who would help you with babies."

Cora was about to answer when there was knock on the door. She went to answer it, and when she came back, Marshal Hicks was with her. Marshal Hicks asked if he could sit down and when Cora asked if he'd like something to drink, he said he was fine.

"No, but thank you.

" Cain, I just thought you should know that I didn't find any Indians today, but when I came back, Meridian was more peaceful than I've seen it in years. I hear we have you to thank for that."

Cain frowned.

"Does this mean you're going to take me to jail?"

Marshal Hicks smiled.

"Oh hell no. I haven't seen even one dead man and nobody has told me you broke any laws. Even if I thought you had, they'd lynch me if I arrested you. I just came by to say thanks and wish you the best in whatever you're going to do next."

Marshal Hicks stood up then.

"Miss Richardson, I thank you for your hospitality, but I hear there's a town meeting down at the saloon in about fifteen minutes and I really should be there."

When Marshal Hicks had gone, Cora turned to Cain.

"Should we go to that town meeting?"

Cain shook his head.

"You can go if you want, but I'm not part of Meridian. I'll just roll out my bedroll and stay here."

Cora smiled.

"Then I'll stay here too."

}|{

The next morning after Cora fixed griddlecakes for breakfast, Cain saddled Patch, put the pack saddle and panniers on Jewel, and led them out of the pen behind the doctor's office. Cora was waiting on him and walked up with her head down.

"Can't you stay just a day or two more? I kind of got used to having you around and I'm going to miss you."

"Well, if I did, that would put me that much longer away from Whistleville and a job. I still have some money left, but it won't last forever."

"Will you come back to see us once in a while?"

"Probably not. I don't think a ranch foreman would like it if I just left for a couple weeks. Besides, you once asked me if I was a horse's rear end all the time. I probably am most of the time. It was the war. You'll forget about me and find a man who'll take care of you."

Cora didn't say anything more. She just went in the back door of the doctor's office. Cain mounted Patch and rode him out to the street.

When he got to the Marshal's Office, Marshal Hicks was standing in the middle of the street with six other men. Cain recognized the undertaker, the blacksmith, and the owner of the general store. He didn't know the other three.

Marshal Hicks held up his hand to stop Cain.

"I need you to come with me, Cain. Don't worry. I'm not going to arrest you."

He pointed to the other men.

"We just want to get your opinion about some things we talked about at the town meeting. Let's go to my office."

When they entered Marshal Hicks' office, he motioned Cain toward a chair in front of the desk, and then sat down in the chair on the opposite side of the desk. The other six men stood because there were no more chairs.

Marshal Hicks smiled.

"Cain, we had a town meeting last night to decide what we're going to do now that Stillson and his men are dead. What we decided... well, Horace, you tell him."

A short man with thick, wire-framed glasses and a high-pitched voice introduced himself.

"Mr. Kershaw, I'm Horace Trumble, and I own the Meridian Bank. What we talked about is what's to happen with the Stillson ranch and what Stillson owned here in Meridian.

"I'm no lawyer, but I do know banking. If I were to loan you money to buy a ranch or a house, I would write a contract that states what both our legal rights are and you and I would both sign that contract before I gave you the money.

"If you passed away and left no heirs, per the contract you signed I would be within my legal rights to assume ownership of said property for my bank. I could then sell the property and add the profit from the sale to the assets of my bank.

"The problem here is that Stillson didn't borrow money from my bank so there was no contract written except the contract Mr. Stillson wrote and forced people to sign it. I do not have those contracts in my possession and Marshal Hicks didn't find them when he went to the Stillson ranch yesterday afternoon. Therefore I can not verify that they were legal contracts at all even if they ever existed.

It is my considered opinion that since any such contracts do not exist at my bank or with the Marshal's office, they are null and void. We voted on that during the town meeting last night and my opinion was approved. What that means is that ownership of the several ranches and other properties in question will return to the original owners."

Marshall Hicks then cleared his throat.

"Cain, that solved the problem of what to do with the ranches and the businesses in town that he took over. It will be as if none of this ever happened. It does leave the question of what to do with the original Stillson ranch though. We have no idea how that ranch was bought and the original owner left without telling anyone where he was going. I have no idea of where to even start looking for him. What I suspect is that he's dead because Stillson killed him.

"We talked this over in our town meeting and the conclusion we came to was that the ranch belongs to the town of Meridian to do with as we see fit. It's a smaller ranch than most, only about two thousand acres, but it has plenty of water and grass and would make a good ranch for a man just starting out.

"What to do with it was the next problem. After a lot of talking, we voted to give it to you, Cain. The land, the house and barns, all the cattle and horses, it'll all be yours if you'll stay and we want you to stay. It was you who solved our problem with the Stillsons and any man who would do that for us is a man we want to stick around.

"I hear you're headed to Whistleville for that big ranch down there. I've been there and what I can tell you is the Stillson ranch has more water and better grass than any ranch you'll find in Whistleville.

"You'll find that the people in Meridian are a lot more accepting of former Union soldiers too. None of the people and ranchers in Meridian owned slaves, and we've had more than our fill of former Confederate soldiers with Stillson's bunch. We just want to get on with living and supporting our families. We'd like you to stay here and take over the Stillson ranch. Like you told the undertaker when he tried to give you back that shotgun, you've earned it and we'd like you to keep it."

Cain couldn't say anything for a while because he couldn't believe what he'd just heard. These people didn't know him or know what he'd done in the war, and yet, they'd offered him what he'd been looking for, except instead of working for a rancher, he'd own the ranch and everything on it.

Marshall Hicks interrupted Cain's thoughts.

"Cain, you're not saying anything. You aren't gonna turn us down are you?"

Cain shook his head.

"I just wasn't expecting anything like this. It's a lot to think about."

Marshall Hicks grinned.

"Maybe Cora can help you decide."

Cain hadn't seen Cora until she walked up beside him and put her hand on his arm.

"Cain, I want you to stay too. I like you, really like you, but it's more than that. I'll never feel safe again unless I'm with you."

}|{

It took Cain a while to learn how to be a ranch owner because he didn't know much about raising cattle. He solved that problem by hiring Leonard Weems. Leonard was sixty-three and working in the livery stable when Cain went looking for help. Leonard wasn't much good for herding cattle, branding stock and castrating bull calves because of his age, but he knew how it should be done. Between him and Cain, they hired half a dozen local town boys who were between seventeen and nineteen, and those boys became his cowhands.

Cain treated them just like he had his soldiers in the war. He expected a lot, but accepted if a boy did his best. As a result, the boys became men doing a man's job and Cain started making money.

He needed to make money because a year and two months after the preacher in Meridian married them, Cora gave him a son. Eighteen months later, she gave him another son. After a third son, she gave him a daughter and then a second daughter.

Cain taught his boys how to work horses and cattle, but more importantly, how to be men who were kind and fair, always protected women, and wouldn't ever back down from a problem that needed to be solved. Cora taught her girls how to cook, keep house, sew, and raise children, but more importantly, by showing them how to keep a husband happy by making a home he could come home to and helping him when he needed help.

}|{

When the railroad came closer to Meridian, Cain was able to raise and sell more cattle, and the extra profits made it possible for him to add to his ranch. He didn't try to buy the ranches between his and Meridian though. He expanded to the west, south and north. By the time he was sixty, he owned enough grazing land that it took three days to ride from one side to the other in any direction. By then, he'd turned over most of that added grazing land to his sons and sons in law. They'd built their own houses and barns and had their own families to take care of.

Not all of them stayed with ranching though. His second son, Amos, went to Dallas to study medicine and he became the doctor in Meridian. He met and married his wife, Muriel, when he was in school. After they moved back to Meridian, she became his nurse. At first, they lived in the old doctor's office in Meridian, but as Meridian grew, Amos built a new house in the newer part of town and the doctors office was just a doctors office with three rooms with beds for patients.

}|{

As the old saying goes, "The only constant in life is change", and that is somewhat true for Meridian. It's changed by growing some, but many of the old buildings from during and soon after the Civil War are still there and are listed in the list of Texas and US historic places. The ranches around Meridian are still there, though the number of ranchers is fewer and the acreage of each ranch is bigger.

As time went by, more and more of the Kershaw clan opted for the higher education that resulted in jobs with a steady income, health insurance, and retirement plans over the uncertain income of ranching. The ones who remain still ride horses to work their cattle, but usually they drive those horses close to the cattle in horse trailers pulled by four-wheel-drive pickup trucks. It saves time, doesn't require them to spend nights in the open, and it causes less stress on the cattle.

The old spring roundups where calves were roped and branded and the bull calves were castrated now take place in permanent round pens with squeeze chutes where the calves are ear-tagged with a plastic tag with a number and some slow release insecticide to keep face flies in check. They get their shots to prevent diseases at the same time. Castrating is done with a Burdizzo clamp instead of a knife. It's faster, the calves lose less weight and because the clamp is bloodless, almost none are lost to infection or fly infestations.

Such is what most people call progress, but Cain and Cora probably wouldn't agree with all of it. They lived in a time when men were men and women were women, each with separate traditional responsibilities but who worked together to create a home and a family they were proud of.

It was a time when "right" meant something understood by most people instead of the opinion of the person who could speak the loudest and the longest, and a time when men defended what was right with their lives when that was required. It was a time when women were neither subservient to men nor tried to assume the traditional roles that men fulfilled, but were willing to do anything required to keep them and their families safe, healthy, and prosperous.

It's probably a good thing that men have tempered a little and that women have found the strength to compete with men in at least most occupations. That frees both men and women to seek out and find where they fit in today's society. Finding that fit is pretty important to living a happy life, no matter the time period.

The men and women of that time found where they fit in their society with different, but not lower expectations out of life. They only wanted to be left alone to live, love, and prosper by the strength of their bodies and the will of their minds, and to be fondly remembered by family and friends when they passed. That was not a bad set of expectations considering the technology and environment of the times.

Come to think of it, those are pretty good expectations for today too.