The Chocolate Palomino

All that usually took only about ten minutes at the most. While that was happening, Jacob and Aaron would take all the money the bank had on hand, stuff it into more burlap bags, and then come outside and mount their horses.

According to the people Wade had talked to, the gang always rode west and that made perfect sense to Wade. To the west of the area was the Texas Hill Country, acres and acres of tree-covered hills laced through with creeks and rocky valleys. The hills were high enough to provide a vantagepoint for watching the way in and out through the rocky valleys. Most men would have to look for years to find anyone there who didn't want to be found.

Wade wasn't most men. He knew something about moving around in hilly country. He'd been raised on a farm in Tennessee before the war. When war broke out, Wade had enlisted in the Confederate Army and served out the war fighting in the hills of East Tennessee. He'd ended the war as a sergeant leading a small unit of men who operated more as guerilla fighters than as actual infantry. He'd used many of those hills to hide from the Union troops and knew what a hill needed to have in order to keep a small group of men from being surprised.

The first was at least two ways on and off the hill and preferably over relatively smooth and open ground. It did no good to be in a place where you couldn't run away if you had no other choice because your opponent was blocking the only way out. Likewise, it did no good to have to ride up and down hills to get in and out. That only tired horses to the point they'd have to rest before traveling any serious distance.

The second was it had to be close to water. A man could carry enough water to survive for a day or two, but horses needed water every day. If that water wasn't close, there was a daily risk of exposure when watering horses.

The third thing was the hill had to be far enough away from even a small town and especially so in that particular area of Texas. The area had been first settled and then developed by German immigrants who were so-called "Freethinkers" and were also abolitionists. They had been very vocal in their opposition to Texas joining the Confederacy. After the Nueces Massacre where Confederate troops had attacked a group of these abolitionist German immigrants fleeing to Mexico and killed most of them, the people of the area were always on the lookout for any stranger.

It would be the same now since all the Conners Gang were former Confederate soldiers and seemed to only rob banks in towns founded by the same German immigrants. Jacob Conners had even said as much when he robbed the bank in Sisterdale. According to the teller, Jacob had sneered and said the South hadn't run the Freethinkers out of Texas, but he could do his part by taking their money.

What would have made sense to Wade was for the gang to go deep into the Hill Country, deeper than any settlements, but the Conners gang didn't seem to do that. They'd done five bank robberies in eight weeks. If their hideout was very far away, all they'd have gotten done was robbing a bank and riding back to their hideout, and the next day starting out for the next bank.

Each robbery had taken place at about noon, the time when most people would have been eating, including the Marshall and his deputies. There also wouldn't be many, if any, people in the bank or on the street. If the gang started at daylight and got to a town by noon, the Conners gang hide would have to be within about twenty miles of the town they planned to rob.

To keep his men safe, Wade had to learn how to read a map and he'd learned well. He'd looked at the map he'd kept when he surrendered to mark those places where the Conners gang might hide out.

He started by sketching circles with a radius of about twenty miles from each of the towns where the Conners gang had robbed a bank. When he was done, the overlap of the circles gave him a possible location. So far that location was a set of hills near Privilege Creek. He needed to talk to someone who had seen the gang ride off to see if they went south toward his possible locations or if they'd gone west and further into the Hill Country.

His first stop was the Marshal's office. Wade wasn't going to tell the Marshal he was looking to collect the bounties on the Connors Gang. A lot of lawmen in Texas considered a bounty hunter as little better than the men they hunted. He wouldn't get anything from the Marshal if he told him the real reason he'd come to Kerrville. He did need a reason to be there though. Town Marshals tended to be suspicious of any one new in town.

Instead, he introduced himself as a man who was interested in moving his cattle ranch to the Hill Country.

"Marshall Evans, I'm Wade Masterson and I got me a spread down by San Antonio, but I don't got no good water. I figured with all the creeks here water'd be easier for cattle to get to. Other thing is, I'm losing stock to rustlers seems like every year. I figgered the town Marshal'd know if that's a problem here. You got a rustler problem here in Kerrville?"

Marshal Evans looked Wade up and down, and then said, "Mister Masterson", I never saw a rancher wear a revolver in a rig like yours. Looks like it's made for a fast draw, not for riding a horse all day."

Wade had been asked that question before and he had an answer.

"Well, Marshal Evans, I'll be the first one to admit that it ain't comfortable having my holster tied to my leg when I'm ridin' a horse, but I ain't no gunfighter. See, I got shot in the right shoulder at Palmetto Ranch. Rebel minié ball went clean through but it tore up that shoulder something fierce. The doctor done all he could, but that shoulder don't work right now. I'll show you, but don't you think I'm pulling a pistol on you because I ain't. I'm just showing you."

Wade then moved his right hand to his waist and then pulled it back as if reaching for a revolver butt in a belt holster. He got his hand about even with his belly and then grimaced.

"Hurts like fire if'n I try to get it back far enough to grab a revolver butt. When you own a ranch and there's rustlers around, you gotta be able to draw your revolver pretty fast. Wearin' it low lets me reach it without pullin' that shoulder back.

"Now, you got a rustler problem here in Kerrville?"

Marshall Evans wasn't convinced, but he didn't have any proof the man wasn't what he said and he'd served in the Union army during the war and had known men who had similar injuries. It was a rare thing for a man to completely recover after being hit by a minié ball. Most either died or lost the arm or leg. Those who did survive usually had limited use of the part of their body that had been wounded.

He shook his head.

"No, not to speak of. Worst thing that's happened in Kerrville was the Connors Gang robbing the bank."

Wade let his mouth fall open.

"Connors Gang did you say? I remember seeing a wanted poster back in Helotes. Bunch of Rebel boys if I remember right. That was, let's see, maybe two weeks ago. Folks there said they rushed the town Marshal and locked him in his own jail, robbed the bank, and then took off heading east.

"They said the Marshal got himself a posse together and lit out after 'em, but never found 'em. Looked like they musta gone north instead of east. They go back east from here?"

Marshal Evans shook his head.

"No, they headed south. My posse and I didn't find them either. Lost the trail when they rode over the rock trails in the Hill Country. We gave up and came back to town, but I think they'll be caught one of these days. I'd imagine there is a bounty hunter or two looking for them. They killed the bank teller in Bourne and the whole gang is worth six hundred dollars, dead or alive. That's a fortune to a bounty hunter. I don't hold much stock with bounty hunters because they usually don't care much about obeying the law, but if anybody can catch the Connors gang, it'll be a bounty hunter who brings them in. For that much money, I'm tempted to go looking for them myself."

Wade smiled.

"If the bounty hunters up here are like them back home, they'll probably be brought in tied over a saddle. I couldn't care less. All I care about is getting' my stock away from them rustlers and somewhere there's good water and good grazing. I think Kerrville might be a good place."

Wade stuck out his hand then.

"Well, thanks for your time Marshal. I'll be seein' you when I come to town once I find a place."

Wade had the information he needed so he rode out of town a few miles and then found a place to spend the night. Once he'd built a fire and sat the pot of beans and bacon on to cook, he got his map out again and sketched in a circle twenty miles from Kerrville. The circle closed the southern boundary of his suspected location for the Connors gang. Tomorrow morning, he'd ride to that area and find another hill where he could watch that location. If anybody came or went, he'd probably found them.

The only thing that bothered him was what Marshal Evans had said about another bounty hunter. While he didn't consider any bounty hunter to be his friend, he knew of most of the bounty hunters operating in that area of Texas. Most were just as Marshal Evans had said. They didn't let the law get in the way of collecting bounties. Wade knew of at least one who'd collected bounties on twenty wanted men and had yet to bring one in alive.

He'd now have to watch for both the gang and any other bounty hunters. The last thing he needed was to find the Connors gang and then watch another bounty hunter capture them and take them to Kerrville. Well, the absolute last thing he needed was to have some bounty hunter catch up with him after he'd already caught the Connors gang. It wasn't just speculation to think the other bounty hunter might just shoot him and then take them in himself.

Wade grinned then. If another bounty hunter decided to shoot him, that bounty hunter would get a surprise. While Wade's life hadn't turned out like he'd planned, he was good at what he did, good enough that it would be hard to surprise him.

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He was born on a tiny little farm in the hills of Tennessee near Buck Ridge, and had grown up learning how to raise crops and a few head of cattle in the little valley where that farm was located. He happened to be in Buck Ridge with his father getting their team shod when he saw a man standing on a box in front of the general store. Wade had walked over to hear with the man was saying.

What he heard didn't seem right, not right at all. The man said Tennessee had seceded from the Union and that the Union Army was coming to Tennessee to take all the land and make the farmers work for men from the North. He said the Army of Tennessee needed able-bodied men to keep that from happening and said any man who loved Tennessee should go to Tulahoma and sign up.

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Almost five years later, Wade left his rifle in the pile where his unit had surrendered and started walking back to Buck Ridge. He wasn't really sad that the Union had won. Rather, he was happy that the killing had ended and he could go back to being a farmer again.

When he got back to the farm, he found out that there was nothing left. The house and barn were gone, both burned to the ground. The livestock were all gone. The only thing left that meant anything to him were the two low mounds of dirt under the only remaining tree. He didn't have to read the names on the crosses to know who they were, but he still did in the hope he was wrong. He wasn't.

With nothing to hold him to the farm, Wade started walking west away from the farm and away from the land torn to bits by the war. As he walked further, he found even more reason to go west.

There were still a few guerilla fighters who considered themselves to be part of the Confederacy and they hadn't surrendered. They would ride into the area and ambush the Union patrols sent out to catch them. He had witnessed that happening one day when he was walking down a road near Franklin.

When Wade heard the sound of horses ahead, he crouched down in some brush at the side of the road. A little later, three men in Union Army uniforms rode past his hiding place. They'd been out of sight for a few minutes when Wade heard the sound of gunfire and then saw four different men galloping away back down the same road. A few seconds behind them rode the three men in Union Army uniforms. They were firing their revolvers at the fleeing men.

Wade waited until he couldn't hear any more gunfire, and then started walking down the road. A few minutes later he came across two men lying dead in the dust. He assumed the men were guerilla fighters because they wore homespun clothes and each carried two revolvers in holsters on their belts.

That didn't seem odd. He'd heard that the Union Army was hunting down the guerillas. What did seem odd is that the two men had been shot in the back and the revolvers the men carried were still in their holsters. The Union soldiers had killed the two men without taking the time to find out who they were and what they were doing.

Wade walked back up the road about a hundred feet and then started back while looking at the ground just like he had when tracking the Union patrols during the war. It looked to him like six horses had been just walking down the road abreast. The tracks weren't stretched out like they would have been if the horses had been running. He also saw the tracks of the three Union horses on top of the others, so the Union patrol had been following the other men.

At the point where the two dead men lay the multiple tracks, the first horses appeared to wheel around to face the Union patrol. He figured the two dead men had been shot and that's what caused the others to wheel around.

Once the tracks had turned, they led off into the trees on the south side of the road. Wade followed the trail of broken brush and the dirt stirred up by the running horses about a hundred feet into the trees before the trail turned back toward the road. That was why he'd seen the four men galloping back down the road. They'd circled around the Union patrol.

Wade was following that trail when he heard a horse nicker. About fifty feet off the trail stood two horses. Both had saddles and bridles, so they must have been the horses ridden by the two dead men.

As Wade had learned during the war, dead men don't need anything except a grave and they're past caring about anything they left behind. He caught both horses and then led them back to where the dead men lay on the road. He'd realized if a Union Patrol caught up with him, he'd likely suffer the same fate. The only way he could escape is if he was on a horse and if he was armed.

He now had two horses, a chestnut mare and a bay gelding. He only needed one, but he could sell the other horse and have some money to buy some food. The other thing he needed was a weapon, and the revolvers and bowie knives the dead men still had strapped on their belts would do just fine. It didn't take long to unbuckle their gun belts and put one of them on his waist. He left the other man's gun belt and holsters, but took both revolvers and the bowie knife he carried. Those went into the saddlebags of the bay gelding Wade intended upon keeping.

Wade did a quick search of both men's pockets, but found nothing of use except for one pocket knife and a plug of chewing tobacco. After that, he picked up the reins of the chestnut mare, mounted the bay gelding, and then rode on west.

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By the morning Wade rode into Memphis, he'd decided there was nothing east of the Mississippi for him. The damage caused by the war had seemed to be less the further west he went until he got to Memphis, but he figured that was because he'd bypassed the larger cities where battles had taken place. In Memphis, the destruction of the war was obvious and there were a lot of Union troops occupying the city. While he wasn't looking to start any trouble with any Union soldier, he didn't trust that they wouldn't start something with him. He needed to get across the Mississippi River as fast as he could.

He'd have to take a boat across and that required money. It took an hour of dickering for him to sell the chestnut mare, bridle and saddle to a livery stable and at a little after noon, he walked the bay gelding up the ramp of a flatboat being towed upstream by a sternwheeler.

The sternwheeler pulled into shore at a landing south of Osceola, Arkansas to pick up Union soldiers heading home from fighting in Arkansas and Texas. The flatboat also pulled into shore and let down her ramp in order to load bales of cotton for transport north. Wade got off the flatboat then. He was across the Mississippi and that was all that mattered to him right then.

He did have somewhat of a plan in mind though, and he'd developed that plan after talking with one of the crew of the flatboat. The man said that there were gangs of former bushwhackers roaming through Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas robbing stagecoaches, trains, and businesses in small towns.

According to the man, the local marshals could seldom catch them so instead the train and stagecoach companies and the towns offered rewards for the capture of the robbers. He said there were now men who'd fought in the war tracking down and capturing the robbers in order to collect the rewards. He said if the robbers hadn't killed anybody during the robbery, the reward offered by a town was usually between twenty-five and fifty dollars. If the robber had killed someone, the reward could go up to a hundred dollars or more. The train and stagecoach companies offered a lot more, up to five hundred dollars for the worst criminals.

After hearing that, Wade sat down to think. He'd originally planned on starting farming again, but he didn't have enough money. What he did have was the skills to track men and to figure out where they would probably go. The last few months of the war the Confederate Army had lost a lot of men. Wade along with about a dozen other men had been left behind after their last battle, and had decided large battles were so poorly led they were almost a death sentence for the troops involved. They banded together as a small unit of the Confederate Army and picked Wade as their leader. They'd kept on fighting, but basically picked their own targets and planned their own strategy.

By the end of the war, most of that strategy was finding out where a Union Army unit was camped or was going to be camped and then quietly walking around them at night. Wade had become an expert at doing just that. Neither Wade nor any of his men considered themselves to be cowards. They just knew the war was already lost and saw no point in getting themselves killed when it wouldn't make any difference.

Tracking down wanted men didn't seem like it would be much different than tracking down Union patrols, and if he was successful, he could maybe make enough money to buy a small farm and what was needed to run it.

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What he'd learned after riding through Arkansas and stopping at every town he came to was that a lot of the wanted posters he saw were for outlaws wanted in Texas. When he asked one Marshal why, the man said there weren't many actual lawmen in Texas because the towns were spread so far apart.

Most were just town Marshals who were concerned with keeping the peace in the local community. Few had more than one deputy and if they were forced to chase down a criminal they had to rely on volunteers to form a posse. Even with a posse, they wouldn't venture far from the town.

Wade understood that. If the Marshal and several men were away from the town for any length of time, that town was left nearly defenseless. The volunteers in the posse also didn't want to be away from their wives and families for any extended period of time. They were just volunteers and had businesses and farms to tend to.