The Starshine Kid: Arroyo Grande
Part 15 of 20
The Beginning of the End
As Marshal King’s eyes slowly
adjusted to the darkness, he could see a faint ray of light piercing the cave’s
blackened realm approximately seventy-five yards deep within its interior.
After hurriedly securing his horse’s reigns to a large rock, he grabbed his
rifle and proceeded quietly to investigate the origins of the faint beam in the
distance.
Finding a hole the size of a small
youth’s head at the rear of the cave where the ceiling lowered to a point,
Marshal King used a sharp stone to enlarge the opening. The hour time limit for
him to surrender came and went with no rush on the cave by the quartet of
outlaws and no orchestra of rifle fire. The Starshine Kid continued to dig
through the rock layers, finally being able to poke his head out in time to see
a band of peculiar appearing Indians. He presumed they were those that the
Connors’ crew had stolen the horses and cattle from. The natives chased a lone
rider in the far distance, with one Brave trailing closely behind taking charge
of their recovered horses.
After another hour of hard digging
and a tight squeeze through an opening no larger than a fox’s den, Marshal King
was free. He climbed around a narrow rocky ledge to a small perch jutting out
over the opening of the cave and then slithered down the last fifteen feet
carefully, rifle in hand.
“My, my,” he mumbled as he saw three
lifeless outlaw bodies littering a small dune not fifty feet from the cave’s
entrance. Upon a closer examination of the bodies, Marshal King recognized the
signs of the renegade Indians’ handiwork. Clifford Connors, however, was not
among the dearly departed.
He’s escaped again, King thought. Them Indians musta not had the
slightest inkling I was inside. Or… maybe they just plain let me be.
After retrieving his horse from the
cave, the Starshine Kid pursued the lone rider and pack of disgruntled Indians.
Some six hours later Marshal King observed that the Indians’ tracks had
branched away from the distinctive shod tracks of the man they had pursued for
so long. He was not sure whether they had managed to wound or kill Clifford
Connors, leaving him in the saddle of his wandering horse, planned to ambush
him further up the trail, or simply decided to abandon their pursuit. One thing
he was sure of was that his job was nowhere near over until he found Connors…
dead or alive.
The Starshine Kid followed the
horse’s tracks along the rolling hills and stream fed meadows toward the east,
to a place known by wagon train immigrants as ‘Chuck Wagon Flats’, on account
of it being a great open area to stop for a night or two while traveling to the
dreamlands of the west. Behind him, about another day’s ride toward the west,
those same dreamy-eyed immigrants of the 1860’s found it necessary to cross a
dry, rattlesnake infested stretch of washed out lonesome landscape area locals
unofficially called the ‘Arroyo Grande’. This would prove to be those early
settlers’ final testing grounds, a place to prove their determination to reach
the promised land of California with its history of burly fur trappers, gold
fever fortune hunters, instant mining millionaires, railway magnates, and a
population that was growing faster than a Poplar tree along a riverbank. Many
folks these days, however, choose to ride in luxury aboard the trains of the
First Transcontinental Railroad that traversed the Donner Pass and the Sierra
Nevada Mountains.
“To ride the Central Pacific
Railroad’s train across them mountains to San Francisco,” the Starshine Kid
addressed his equine friend, “now that’s a trip to make and San Francisco is a
place to see someday.”
The shadows lengthened swiftly as
the sun set behind the mountains, and the chill of the evening crept across the
horizon like a sheet being pulled over a fresh corpse. Marshal King set up camp
near a large cluster of boulders. “Looks like we’ll be beddin’ down right here
for the night,” he informed his four-legged companion.
As the Starshine Kid rested his head
atop his saddle he could not keep his mind from dreaming of seeing Della once
again. He lay there contemplating his future, wondering if the life of a lawman
could in any way be compatible with a normal family life. The stars brightened
overhead and the fresh smells of the desert plains scented the air. Marshal
King slept peacefully until the fragrance of dawn woke him for another day of
outlaw hunting and its accompanying unknown dangers.
With the sun rising against his
face, Marshal King climbed his mount and continued with his pursuit of Clifford
Connors. The beauty of the surrounding nature was enough to distract any normal
man, but the Starshine Kid was no normal man. He was a dedicated lawman, a
lawman who desired that common folks could settle in the lands of the Americas
in peace and in the shadows of a secure environment. Outlaws were an
unnecessary infestation, an infestation that required those who had the nerve
and determination to rid the land of these types of parasitic annoyances.
Marshal King spent barely half the
day trailing the last of the Connors brothers before capturing the outlaw as he
napped by a spring in the open daylight. The Marshal had wondered if this was
some sort of trap, but the area where Connors napped was as open an area as one
could hope for and there was not an Indian or another outlaw in sight.
The ride back to Iron Creek took a
day longer than Marshal King had wished, but not any longer than could be
expected with a tethered outlaw who possessed a big and noisy mouth. Adam King
knew from childhood that it was those with the least to say that talked the
most. ‘A fool says all that’s on his mind’ he heard an old Indian tell him many
times as a youth, ‘but the wise man waits for the right time to speak’.
Marshal King placed Clifford Connors
in the Iron Creek jail early the following morning. The town was without a
lawman for the time being and the only individual willing to watch the outlaw
was an elderly ranch hand who had volunteered for the task. Adam experienced a
feeling of uneasiness as he exited the jailhouse, but when he heard Della’s
voice he quickly forgot that telltale sign; an instinctive feeling that builds
itself upon years of experience that lawmen possess and is actually an
instinctive process of logical deduction. The type of process that occurs when
a symphony musician reads and plays a note of music without needing to think
consciously of what note is displayed on the music sheet, or the necessary
fingering needed for playing that note on their instrument. It is an automatic
response.
“Della!”
“Adam!”
“I’ve missed you somethin’ fierce,”
Adam’s eyes shined.
“Why, Marshal,” Della toyed with her
man, “I think you are tryin’ to fluster me a bit.”
The two embraced and shared stories
as they walked down the wooden walkway toward the telegraph office. Upon
arrival, Marshal King sent a message informing the US Marshals Service of his
capture of the last Connors brother, along with supporting information related
to the case. Della waited patiently outside.
“Anton sent me a telegram and said
you wanted to meet me here, Adam. Was there any special reason for us to meet
here?”
The Starshine Kid looked a bit
surprised, but he smiled wide and replied, “Your brother told me the same thing…
almost. I think he must have planned this reunion to be in this town for some
reason or another.”
The two laughed.
“My brother is all well now and
headed off to who knows where,” Della informed Adam. “He rode out yesterday
evening in fact.”
“He doesn’t seem like the type of
man to set roots down anyplace too long now, does he.”
They laughed together again.
Later that evening Adam and Della’s
peacefulness was interrupted by an announcement from a man, who looked well
trail dusted and overly excited, as he burst through the doors of the saloon
and yelled, “The prisoner has escaped and there ain’t no one at the jailhouse!
Two horses be missin’ from the livery too!”
*** Part
16: Goodbye Again ***
________________________________
The Starshine
Kid: Arroyo Grande
By Royce A
Ratterman
© All Rights Reserved
Cover Art &
Illustrations by Erlend Evensen
The
characters, locales, enterprises, entities, and events herein are entirely
fictional and intended for educational and entertainment purposes. Content
portrayals do not reflect any actual events, locales, entities, or any
individuals living or deceased.
Dedicated to all of those
who lost their lives establishing peace, safety, and harmony in the days of the
Old West
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