The Tracker
by Chad Strong

Will Sterling rode on at a walk, his palms sweating. He rubbed them, one at a time, against his thighs, resisting the urge to turn his head and look back. He'd seen the quick glance the sheriff had given him. Yet there was nothing unusual about Will. Nothing unusual about his horse. Just an average-looking young cowboy on an average-looking bay cowpony. Did the sheriff recognize him as the youngest son of August Sterling, and did he know yet of the murder? Will didn't think so.

He drew deep, even breaths, wishing his heart would quit hammering in his chest. He rode out the west end of town without being stopped. His stomach grumbled, but even the tempting smells coming from the café weren't worth the risk of questions, or worse, detainment.

The rising sun warmed Will's back and loosened the night's chill from his muscles. The autumn nights were getting downright cold. Last evening, after a half-night and a full day of riding, Will had surrendered to exhaustion and camped in a small meadow he and his older brother Wayne had often used when hunting deer. It had been their furthest camp from home. Now he had crossed into the next county—unknown territory—and he hoped he hadn't made a big mistake.

Once, Will had expressed impatience at camping for the night. Wayne had stood hipshot with his head cocked to one side. "Tracking at night's a fool's game, little brother."

But the night of their father's murder there'd been a full moon and the big round shoe prints from the man's massive black horse had been easy to follow. The killer hadn't even bothered to disguise his trail.

Will knew that Wayne would've been there with him if he could have. But Wayne was off doing his duty to his country, fighting the southern rebels somewhere in Virginia, last they'd heard.

Will wondered if Virginia had forests like here in Oregon, and if they were able to distract Wayne from his thoughts. Will examined the trees flanking the road in detail, but still felt the press of guilt. His mother was alone on the ranch now with his older sister and only a few hired hands. Father was laid out in an empty stall in the barn until the Marshall could be brought. Father was dead—and they all knew who'd done it. Yet nobody seemed to see the need to hurry.

Except for Will.

Maybe they knew who did it but Will had never seen before the tall, thin man who, after riding into the ranch yard and stepping down from his sixteen hand charger as easy as other men stepped off a fourteen-two cowpony, had a brief conversation with Will's father and then shot him in the chest with a Colt .45.

Will hadn't even seen the gun until after he'd heard the shot and he'd been standing fifty feet away and looking right at them. Will's eyes had darted from his father's crumpling form to the gangly, stork-like man. He'd seen him casually holster his gun, turn his back and mount his horse as Will rushed to his father's side. The man rode away at an easy jog-trot while Will watched the life fade from his father's eyes.

Will's ears still rang with Mother's and Abigail's screams. He still saw the ranch hands holding them back and felt the hands dragging him away from the body. Will remembered pointing toward the man rolling away at a lazy lope wondering why somebody didn't shoot him. He nearly climbed over Crinkly Craig Carson who was herding him bodily toward his mother. He remembered shouting and crying but it seemed nobody heard him. Then his ears and his jaws were trapped fast in Crinkly Craig's work-roughened hands and he was staring into the cowboy's eyes.

"There's only three of us here, Will. This is a very dangerous man. We'll send for the Marshall an' make a posse. You look after yer women folk. You the only man they gots now. Ya hear me?"

It took him a second, but Will finally grasped the man's words. He nodded, and when Crinkly Craig eased his grip on him, Will turned toward his mother and went to her.

Mother and Abigail cried themselves to sleep. But Will could no longer cry and he could not sleep. He wrote a quick note, then crept to the pantry and sawed off hunks of bread and ham from their uneaten dinner, wrapped the food in a clean dish towel and stuffed it in his saddlebags. He took the .44 Henry Father had given him for his birthday last year, grabbed a box of cartridges and slipped out onto the porch.

It was three in the morning. All the hands were asleep in the bunkhouse. His path to the barn was clear. Swiftly, he threw every horse an armful of hay to stop their nickering. His chest tight, he looked over the stall door at his father's body, but couldn't go in. He saddled his gelding and led him away from the barn. The murderer's tracks were big round shadows pock marking the earth in the moonlight and headed west. Certain, Will mounted and followed them along the road that led him up and away from the Sterling Valley Ranch.

"How am I supposed to go hunting without you?" Will had asked Wayne when they'd said their good-byes.

"Heck, Squirt, I taught you everything I know about trackin' and shootin'. You're second in the county only to me!" He'd elbowed Will in the ribs hard enough to hurt, but it was a good hurt that Will still carried with him.

All that was a year ago, and now Wayne was gone and Father was dead and Will was fifteen and would have to be a man for his mother and sister, at least until Wayne came back.

His stomach twisted with guilt again. Maybe he shouldn't have left them with just a note. But Mother would've cried and carried on like she had when Wayne had enlisted. He couldn't wait for the Marshall and the posse—it would take them three days to get to where Will was now. If the wind pushing at his back fulfilled its threat of rain, the man and his tracks would be long gone.

It was daylight now, and those distinctive tracks were easy to follow, even mixed in with others from the town he'd just passed through. Will figured the massive black horse might've been a draft cross, even without the telltale heavy hair around its pasterns. If it was a purebred, it was a breed he didn't recognize.

The road crested a hill and ran down into a heavily forested valley, cutting through the trees as straight as a line down a dun's back before disappearing around a ridge. Will halted at the top of the crest and surveyed the view. Not a soul on the road besides himself, and forested hills as far as he could see, broken now and then by rocky outcroppings. A gap in the trees showed him the glint of a river running along southwest of him.

He clucked his horse forward and set him to an easy lope. He needed to cover some miles and catch up to his prey. Healthy caution made him slow up as he approached the sharp curve he'd seen from the rise. He rounded the corner wondering if he should've loaded the Henry. Wayne had always refused to allow him to carry the weapon loaded—it could be set off accidentally far too easily for Wayne's liking. There was no sign of danger as Will walked on around the bend. He squeezed Sonny back into a lope and was a half-mile down the road when he realized the tracks were gone.

He drew rein and scanned the ground, carefully serpentining back the way he'd come, his heart pounding in his chest and a feeling of foolishness rising in his throat. It had been really easy to this point. Maybe too easy.

At last he found the place where the man had left the road, taking a path overgrown and crowded with trees. Stupid, stupid, Will scolded himself. I rode right by it. Shoving his hat down tighter on his head, he ventured onto the path.

Time to slow down. Time to think like a hunter. It should be easier than finding deer. A horse that size would be hard to maneuver in the bush. Hard to hide. Hard to keep quiet.

A light breeze fluttered dry golden leaves clinging to white-barked poplars while spruce and pine stood still, dark and silent. The underbrush was a mix of golds, browns, and reds, and Will heard the occasional scurry of small critters amongst the fallen leaves. Above him a few sparrows twittered and somewhere an eagle cried.

Stopping in a small meadow, he got down to loosen Sonny's cinch and let him graze the fall grass. Will dug into his saddlebags and chewed off hunks of bread and ham and washed it all down with water from his canteen. He was careful to eat just enough. He didn't know how long he'd be out here.

He gave his horse thirty minutes to graze. He was itching to go once his hunger was sated, but occupied himself with watching the shadows of clouds pass across the ground. The white bark of the poplars turned grey in the cloud shadow, then blazed brilliantly white again as the sun came out. The trunks of the older trees were blotched with black and deeply fissured. The quivering leaves flashed like gold pieces on the branch tips.

If this man was as dangerous as Crinkly Craig had said, there might be a bounty on his head. They'd need it now that Father was gone. For certain Will would bring that magnificent black horse home to keep.

"That would be somethin', wouldn't it Sonny?" he said to his mount as he tightened the cinch. "Not that he'd ever replace you." He ruffled Sonny's black mane and stroked his reddish brown neck. "Well, we gotta get goin', buddy."

Will stuck his boot in the stirrup, swung up on Sonny and started down the trail. Snapped branches and trampled underbrush made the large horse's passing impossible to miss. Will's cowpony had an easier time of it, following the wake of destruction.

The trail descended toward the river valley Will had seen from the rise. He could see the shadow of the crease between the mountain ridges, but not the river itself. The trail became dangerously steep. The black horse's hooves had slipped and scarred the earth on its way down. Will nudged his horse on cautiously, feeling the bay's hooves slide beneath him, tearing up moss and raking across exposed rock. He brought him up on a sizable ledge to let him rest while Will looked around and got his bearings.

The rocky ledge jutted nearly forty feet out beyond the mountain trail and swept steeply down into the valley. Here Will appreciated a nearly unlimited vista—everything except directly back the way he'd come was a grand open view. Orange sunlight sparkled in the mist rising from the turbulent falls spilling out of the hills. From the base of the falls the river meandered along an irregular path, pressing beneath eroded banks, withdrawing from dry exposed stones, shimmering over rippling shoals, and swirling in deep clear pools.

A stray rain drop against his cheek reminded Will that the autumn rains were coming. By spring the melting snow would add to the runoff and the river would become a raging torrent, far different from the placid wanderer it now appeared. Along its approach toward Will, the river slowed, winding down into the marshy bottom land and appearing as still as death in a large bog two hundred feet below Will. Movement caught Will's eye and his heart jumped as he saw his father's killer trying to negotiate the edge of the bog. It appeared the man had thought he could skirt around it but, except at his entry point, the cliff edges were too steep. Will would never have attempted that. The bogs were too dangerous, unpredictable in depth, and completely concealing of horse-maiming hazards like old deadfalls and sharp rocks.

No sooner had the thought run through Will's mind than the big black horse began to flounder. Rearing and pitching, it tried to escape the sucking wet muck. Abruptly the man leapt off and sank to his knees in the quagmire.

Springing off Sonny, Will yanked his rifle from the scabbard, dropped to one knee, and started stuffing cartridges into the long tubular magazine. Shouldering the weapon, he took aim and fired. At that very second the flailing black horse threw itself sideways toward the man and Will's bullet punctured its throat. The horse squealed in pain and flung itself madly about before collapsing into the bog.

"Oh my God." Will said aloud as he rose to his feet, stunned at his error. The horse . . . the magnificent horse. "I'm sorry," he breathed, though neither man nor horse would have heard him.

Tossing Will a glance, the man struggled to examine his downed mount in the mire. He brushed the back of his hand across one cheek. Before Will could shout "No!" the man pulled out a revolver from beneath his long black drover coat and shot the horse through the forehead. Reaching low over the saddle, he then withdrew a long gun, raised it, and fired a shot towards Will.

Will gasped, too late realizing he was skylined to the killer. Sonny grunted behind him and collapsed onto the rocky ledge.

"No!" Will screamed and threw himself down next to his horse. "Sonny!" The bullet had penetrated the heart. The kind of perfect shot Wayne would have insisted upon while hunting deer. Sonny's breathing was labored for a few moments, and then the horse was still.

Tears spilled down Will's cheeks, leaving clean tracks in the grime on his unwashed face. He sobbed loudly, without shame, wetting Sonny's face with his tears. Choking, he sprang to his feet, snatched up the Henry and shook it over the edge at the man below. "I'll kill you! I'm going to kill you!" His words carried well in the clear morning air.

"An eye for an eye, laddie! We be done now! Let it be!" the man called back, and sent him a single wave of his arm as he stepped, stork-like, away from his horse and disappeared behind a bluff of rock and bush.

Will screamed with guttural, primal rage, shouldered the Henry and fired shot after shot at the man's last known position. He fired until the rifle was empty and his hands burned with the pain of trying to hold onto the hot steel barrel. He screamed until his lungs were spent, and finally collapsed onto his knees on the rocks. His chin on his chest, his shoulders heaved, and then he retched his breakfast onto the ground before him.

How could things have gone so wrong? It wasn't supposed to happen this way!

He had no idea how long he'd knelt there when a stiff breeze pushed at him and a pine cone fluttered past him on the ground. The wind renewed its warning of a storm. Will didn't care. He'd just as soon sit right where he was until he died. He wished he were dead instead of Father and Sonny. They didn't deserve it. He did. He'd killed that beautiful black horse that was no more guilty of anything than Sonny. Will had messed up—it was his fault Sonny was dead.

The wind shoved at him in earnest now. Large raindrops tapped on his hat. He had to get off this exposed ledge and seek shelter. He turned to Sonny. There was no way he could move the horse. As the clouds darkened above him, he gently removed Sonny's bridle and undid the cinch. It took a lot of tugging to free the saddle, but eventually Will got everything off the horse. With one last good-bye, he hoisted his gear and lugged it into the forest as the rain began to strike him more fiercely.

A forest was not always the best place to be in a windstorm, but bald exposure was worse than the threat of a tree coming down on him, Will figured. He found a rock ridge covered with moss and draped with ferns that would save him from the worst of the wind. It was flanked by several fir and hemlocks that would keep out much of the rain. There was little sense in looking further. He shrugged into his slicker and then stowed his gear beneath the fir that seemed most dense. Crawling in after them, he made himself as comfortable as possible and pulled the Henry up close.

He was afraid to make a fire in this furious wind, even if it would light in the rain. As he peered out from the green canopy of the tree, every waving branch startled him, every snap of a dead limb rattled his nerves. His eyes strained to decipher movement from movement, shadow from shadow, and he suddenly noticed how much harder it was getting to see. It was now mid-afternoon, but it seemed more like twilight in the deepening darkness.

If his father's killer chose to come back for him, Will feared he would neither see nor hear him coming. It was next to impossible to separate the motion of a live body from all the motion of the trees and shrubs in the wind.

Would the stork-like man come back? Will realized that in all the time he'd spent balling on the ledge, the killer could have crept back and finished him. Why hadn't he? He'd said something about being square now—an eye for an eye. A horse for a horse. More tears slipped down Will's cheeks. He hugged himself against the cold and rocked back and forth in the gathering darkness.

He woke with his slicker choking him, lifting his shoulders from the ground. He didn't remember falling asleep. Will clawed at his slicker, trying to drag himself out of the black pit of exhaustion he'd collapsed into. His hands closed around gauntleted leather gloves. Gasping, he came fully awake and stared into the face of his attacker. The face was merely a shadow in the darkness. Water dripped from the brim of the man's hat onto Will's face and the smell of whiskey and oilskin wrinkled Will's nose. He struggled, but the harder he fought, the tighter the grip at his throat choked him. The hands shook him.

"Be still, lad! And listen well. I'll tell ye this only once."

Will quit struggling, and breathed through his teeth.

"Your heart's hurtin', I understand. But ye understand this—your father and I, we had business between us. And a bad business it was. Your father wronged me and mine in a way he should not have. And he knew the outcome of that wrong, but his greed and his pride pushed him beyond all reason. I delivered the retribution he believed himself beyond."

"What —?" Will began, but a quick, hard shake of those hands silenced him.

"My father took his own life after yours took his land. Land he did not need—only wanted."

"My father wouldn't —!"

"Be silent! Listen and make not the same mistake your father did. In your pain, ye've taken my horse. In turn, I've taken yours. Now let it be. Proceed further than this and it's only your pride. This chase ends here and now. Or it's your life that does. Understand?"

Will did not understand. The grip on his throat was so tight he couldn't speak. He managed a grunt and the barest of nods. The man seemed satisfied. He released Will.

"Ye're a brave lad—use yer bravery where it best serves. Now go home to your women. Be the man they need ye to be. Be a better man than your father."

The man turned and his oilskin coat scraped the low tree branches, knocking a spray of rainwater onto Will's prostrate form. Will tried to get to his knees but his stiff, cold muscles refused to obey him. By the time Will had gotten out from under the tree, the man had vanished into the wind-lashed forest.

What did the stork-like man mean? Will's father had cheated the man's father out of his land? Will couldn't fathom it. August Sterling was well-respected in their county and others. Many people sought him out for his advice and opinion on all sorts of matters. Will couldn't imagine him cheating anyone. The ranch was prosperous—there was no need.

The stork-like man must have been misguided. There must have been some sort of misunderstanding. And just my pride that keeps me chasing you? No! You killed my father, you bastard. I'm going to kill you, and that's justice, not pride!

Will sat huddled within his shelter, shivering, sleeping only in snatched moments when his exhausted body and sorrowing heart let his consciousness slip away.

Morning dawned damp and cool. Low clouds breezed across the sky, concealing and then revealing the sun in irregular, unpredictable bursts. Will ate some of his cold ham and bread and drank from the canteen. Packing his saddlebags with only essentials, he slung them over his shoulder. Picking up his rifle he stepped into the tracks of the black-clad killer.

It was uncanny how the stork-like man had followed Will's trail from the ledge through the pitch black forest to his crude, cramped shelter. But as he walked back out, Will realized his own path had been wide as he dragged his saddle and other gear the clearest possible way through the trees and underbrush. He had taken no care to avoid damaging the plant life, or his saddle for that matter, in his haste to find shelter.

As Will reached the ledge he tried to resist but his eyes pulled him to the lifeless body of his horse. Several ravens were hopping about Sonny's body, pecking at it.

Exploding with rage, Will dropped his burdens and ran toward them, arms and legs flailing. "Get away from him! Get away!"

The ravens took flight and settled in the high branches of nearby trees. They cawed at him. They would wait until he was gone, and then they would return. Will stood stiffly, panting, his heart pounding, his head swimming.

One raven, bolder than its fellows, launched from its perch and arced down toward its interrupted meal. A shadow slipped over Will's head and the largest bald eagle he'd ever seen struck the raven bodily, sending it tumbling into the abyss beyond the ledge. The other ravens squawked and scattered as the eagle swept upward into the sky.

Will recalled Wayne telling him once that an eagle could strike its prey with twice the impact of a rifle bullet. Though he raised his arm to shade his eyes, Will lost sight of the eagle as it flew across the sun. Maybe it had made a dive to catch the raven. Maybe it would return to claim Sonny as its own.

With the ravens gone, the ledge was still and silent. Will didn't want to look, but he saw the damage they'd already done to Sonny. He knew he couldn't leave without allowing them, or the eagle, to do as their natures demanded. Resigned, he turned and went back to his gear. Kneeling, he picked it up. Refusing to allow himself one last look, he started down the rocky slope to the edge of the bog.

The stork-like man had retraced his steps to this point. He would have passed his horse in the dark. Will did not look too closely at the great black charger. He concentrated on discovering where the man had gone from here.

Thick groves of ash trees surrounded the bog, through which Will could see no clear passage of the man. The tracks through the bog itself were a chaotic mess. Continuing on the assumption that the killer was back-tracking himself, Will slogged through the quagmire looking for his exit point. He found where he had likely gone, only to lose the trail in the climb to higher ground. Frustrated, he fought his way back to the bottom of the ledge trail and stood there, soaking wet and breathing hard.

His heart nearly stopped when he suddenly realized that he was standing there, a still, perfect target. His head twisted around at the sound of a bird fluttering through the bushes. His eyes scanned the hillside. The man had warned him not to follow. Was he hiding in the trees up there, just waiting to take his shot?

As he moved for cover his eyes caught something different. A line of bushes led his eye along a narrow horizontal ridge at the base of the mountain, about forty feet above the bog where the ash grove began to transition into a mixed forest of pine and other species. From this angle, the leaves along that sight line appeared slightly lighter in color than the surrounding foliage. Will inspected them closely and found them to be dry. Yet on either side of the line they created, the bushes were still dripping wet. He studied the ground, and at last found a boot print in the rocky soil beneath them. Reinvigorated, Will followed the trail as it skirted the bog. This trail was fresh—the rain had ended shortly before dawn. The killer had obviously passed through afterwards.

The trail led him up the far side of the mountain, where Will stopped to rest and take his bearings. It was beautiful country. Below him ran a narrow gorge, at the bottom of which trickled a small, clear creek. Something moved. Will expected a deer, but the shape rose from the water tall, thin and stork-like—his father's killer!

Instantly, Will dropped to the ground. He laid absolutely still, his heart hammering in his chest. He couldn't hear anything over the blood pounding in his ears. His faced pressed into damp green moss, he dared not move. Several minutes passed before his body calmed enough that he noticed the scent of the earth and the sound of small animals around him. Only now could he trust himself to draw his rifle to his shoulder. He would not make the same mistake this time. He would be sure of his target, and make one single kill shot.

Slowly, soundlessly, he raised his head from the ground just enough to see over the lip of the ridge. The stork-like man was still there. He was sitting on a large boulder, his back angled to Will's position, and appeared to be eating something. Will estimated the distance at just over 150 yards. The breeze was almost non-existent. He could make the shot. Easily.

Tucking the butt of the Henry tightly into his shoulder, he propped his elbows firmly and comfortably into the earth, and sighted his target. He began to breathe slowly and deeply, as Wayne had taught him, becoming one with his weapon, his environment, his prey, himself. He visualized the bullet punching through the ribs, tearing through heart and lungs. Soon the ravens would be picking at the stork-like man's dead flesh.

The stork-like man. A man. Not a deer. Not a source of food. Just a long-limbed lump of flesh and blood left to rot in the woods.

He deserved it. He needed to be put down like the killer he was.

Mother and Abigail would sleep in peace. Wayne would be proud of him for delivering justice to the man who had murdered their father. Father would appreciate the retribution. Father had used that word a lot. He had ranted often of his view of fairness and having the might and right to meet it out.

Wayne would approve of Will's having tracked the man relentlessly. Of not having given up. Of the way he now had his shot set up.

But of shooting a man in the back?

Will nearly called out to the killer, to make him turn around.

The cold dampness was seeping from the earth through Will's clothes, chilling him. With the mountain behind him the autumn sun would never penetrate to his position on the ridge. He would suffer from exposure if he didn't move and warm his body soon. He had to take the shot, make his kill, and get moving home.

Fairness. What was fair and right about killing a man without looking him in the face and both of you knowing why? The stork-like man had given that much to Will's father. As Will watched, the man turned his left cheek into profile for Will, lifted his face, and scratched at the dark stubble under his chin. Again Will nearly called out. But he did not, and instead lay in the cold wetness observing the man as he imagined a god would. He felt like the eagle that had struck the raven, with the power of delivering unforeseen death at any instant.

The stork-like man rose from his boulder, bent, and snatched up his pack from the ground much like a stork would snatch a fish or a frog. He shouldered it and, one at a time, stepped his long legs over a deadfall and began to walk along the creek, away from Will.

Nearly panicking, Will shifted his rifle to follow him. In less than fifty yards the man would be out of range. The open forest allowed Will a number of opportunities for a clear shot. Will took none of them.

"We be done now," he said quietly, just before the stork-like man vanished around a bend in the gorge.

The End

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