anyway.
"The group proved to be the crudest men that we had ever met. My wife, you see, was a very beautiful women and she caught the eye of many a young man back east but somehow it was I who proved able,” he smiled, “to lasso her in. The way many men responded to her beauty was something that I had to put up with everywhere I went, but I got used to it. Men, especially roughnecks like these, would always make crude comments and wolf whistles when they saw her. She would just ignore it and continue on with what she was doing. I think she got used to it after a while too. This group of men was especially rude in this regard.
"Anyway, the next morning I got up and they were still there. Again, it was not entirely unusual for this to happen so I didn’t think anything of it. I just figured that they would get up and be on their way as soon as the sun rose so I went on with my day.
"I remember being more anxious than usual to get to work that day because of the treacherous storm from the night before. I had heard some hail hit the roof the night before and it caused a little worry for the crop. After all, it was my livelihood.” The stranger shuffled uncomfortably. The Sheriff could see that he swallowed hard again so he went to get him some more water. The man’s eyes were reddening and pools welled in his eyes, threatening to pour down the man's face.
“Here, son,” the Sheriff stated with a bit of compassion, “wash that lump down.”
“Sorry,” he said as he drank the water, “this is hard for me. The crops were okay. Some of it had been damaged by the storm, but nothing to worry about. I worked until lunch and walked home. When I worked in the field there were spots where I couldn’t see my house, or even the front yard for that matter. As I approached the house nothing seemed unusual. The hard work from the field had exhausted me and I didn’t even notice that my four head of cattle that I raised for slaughter had been stolen. If I had noticed, it would have served as a warning for what awaited me inside. Though, nothing could have prepared me for the malevolence that I found.”
The stranger grew angry, his brow furrowed, lower lip quivered and the stores of tears that had been welling in his eyes had broken free and flooded his face. A deep sigh signaled his readiness to continue. He shook with rage and spoke in a broken, strained voice.
“They were all dead. My son was shot in the head. Eight years old!” He paused. “He had a stick in his hand like he had charged someone with it. My wife was lying on the table, hand marks around her neck. She had been raped and strangled. And my daughter,” his voice cracked and he heaved for air as his eyes reddened even more, he swallowed hard as he rocked back and forth and stared at the floor, gasping.
“Drink some more water, son.”
He drank the rest of the water with a shaky hand. “My daughter,” his voice grew bitter and quivered, “had been hanged from a beam.” He pointed to the desk without looking. “The rest of that rope is lying on your desk. She had also been raped. Bluh ...” he wept and then choked the word out, "blood," he swallowed, "covered her thighs as the men had broken her womanhood."
He stood to pace. “I took my knife,” his voice became cold as he stared has his open hands, “and cut her down. After loosening the rope from her neck, I held her and screamed to the sky, weeping. Before I left, I cut it into six pieces. The last piece of that rope,” he nodded toward the desk again as he explained, “is lying on your desk and it was meant for the man with one eye.”
The Sheriff shivered as a tingling sensation went down his spine. “Uh …” he stuttered as if he were searching for the words. “. . . are you,” he cleared his throat, “are you sure these are the same men, I mean, I’ve known them a long time and they've never done anything quite like this before. At least not that I know of, anyway.”
“I am without a doubt on the identity of my family’s killers. I tracked these men for weeks before I struck.”
He drew a deep breath, “The same day of the tragedy, I reported everything to the local Sheriff, sold my property, bought that gun, duster and a hat, loaded the gun with six bullets and headed toward Kansas City. He tried to stop me, but I wouldn’t listen.
"It wasn’t very difficult to find them in Kansas City. All I had to do was look for six men, one with only one eye, selling twenty-four head of cattle. Once I found them I followed them here and ...” He had been staring at the ground, and looked up at the Sheriff, “Well, you know what happened next. On your desk lies my gun, one bullet and one section of rope. All were reserved for the man with one eye that you know as Jeb.”
The Sheriff stood and walked toward the desk. He leaned on the desk and stared at the objects in front of him, deep in thought. “You know, son, I can’t say I would have responded any different if I were in your shoes,” he sighed and shook his head, “but the law is the law and I can’t let you shoot that last bullet. I just can’t. The law says that no matter the circumstances, murder is wrong. You can’t just go and kill even for vengeance. God’s law says murder is wrong. You should have let the local sheriff handle it and none of us would be in this mess.”
He sighed heavily again as he leaned forward on his desk. “You know you’re gonna hang for this, don’t you boy?” He shook his head. “There’s nothin’ I can do to stop it.” The sheriff remained leaning on the desk, staring; contemplating the story had just been revealed to him. As he sighed and grunted, his hand slid up the desk and knocked the keys and they fell over the edge.
He kicked the keys clumsily as he straightened and turned toward the cell again. He seemed to be unaware that the keys had been knocked off the desk and that he kicked them closer to the cell of the stranger. “I just don’t know what to do, son. I have to turn you in to the judge, ya’ know.” He started for the exit. “I have to go to the outhouse … call of nature. And I gotta’ think. If you need me while I’m out there just yell and I’ll come running.” It was late at night and the deputy had been long asleep, so the sheriff decided not to bother him to keep watch as he would only be gone a few minutes. Besides, the prisoner ain’t going anywhere; he’s locked up in the cell.
When the sheriff returned, he found that the prisoner had escaped. In a panic he immediately snapped his attention to the top of his desk in the hopes that the gun was still there. To his relief there sat, just the way he had placed them, a new gun, a short section of rope, and the one bullet that he had earlier pulled from the gun.
He couldn’t help but to smile as he locked the jailhouse later that evening, which he did every night that he didn’t have any prisoners, and went home. Somehow, he knew that he would never hear from the Riata Killer again and that Jeb was safe. He shook his head as he walked to where his horse had been and found the spot empty.
He could imagine the man that was just in his cell moments before, a man whose name he didn’t even know, riding away on the sheriff’s horse. Just add horse theft to the list, he shrugged at the thought and he stared at the post his horse had been tied, and I don't even have a name to add it to. “If I wanted to chase him,” he laughed, “I wouldn’t even know where to start.” The sheriff walked home realizing that in the morning he would have to send a wire that the most wanted man ever in those parts had escaped while he went to the outhouse.
Although he often thought of that night and the man in his jail, the sheriff never saw or heard from him again.
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Author lives with his family in Metro Altanta(Acworth), GA works on his novels and short stories in his free time.
Author writes under two names. John Martyn and David Amburgey
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