Chapter 1

Basin River Gorge Southwest Missouri May, 1868

“Boy, you take care of your ma and sister. I’ll be back as soon as we get them damned Redlegs and Jayhawkers beat back over into Kansas where they belong, ya hear?” Ezra Crow told his son Eli, as he saddled his horse in the barn while the other men waited for him in the barnyard.

“Yeah Pa, I’ll watch out for them good ‘til you get back. Just be careful out there. Judd Baron said his pa told him there are some bad riders out there nowadays,” Eli cautioned his pa.

“You know how to use that old scattergun and my old Colt’s in the drawer in the kitchen. I done showed you how to use all them firearms, so you watch out for any bad riders, ya hear?”

“Yeah, Pa.”

Ezra Crow and all the able bodied men in southwestern Missouri had been called up by the Missouri State Guard to ride with the militia and run down the outlaw gangs that were still out marauding, stealing, and killing after the war.

Though Ezra Crow was a peace loving man in the later part of his life, his temper always had roots that were tied to a short fuse. He had a family now and he tried hard to keep his anger under control. He wanted better for his son Eli. He sure didn’t want him saddled with an ill temper like his own.

He had met and married a Cherokee woman half his age and they had two children. Their daughter, Rose Elizabeth, is thirteen and Eli is twelve.

Ezra had even preached in church a few Sundays, and tried to show good manners most of the time, until some son-of-a-bitch made remarks about his squaw woman and his two half-breed heathens.

Though leaving his family, Ezra felt at ease about joining the state militia. The command he was assigned to would be sent to patrol the western and southern boundaries of Missouri. They’d not be more than a few days from their homes at any time.

Eli Crow had fed their few chickens, their old mule, and one cow. He carried water for his ma and sister to do the washing and then helped hang it on the line. His chores done, he headed down to the Basin River where the water comes through the gorge out of the Ozark Mountains. The fishing was good here and they needed food to keep from having to kill and eat the last of the chickens, which was about the only thing left.

He had just baited his two hooks with grub worms when he heard a shot fired off in the distance. His first thought was that his ma had shot at a coyote or a chicken hawk. When he heard more shots, he threw down his fishing poles and headed back toward the cabin as fast as he could run. He just knew bad things were happening.

He was too late. His ma was dead, lying in the dirt with her buckskin dress ripped apart and her privates bloodied, her teats carved up and nearly torn from her body. Her throat was cut and her head was bloody where she’d been scalped. Thing he’d heard white men do to squaw women when they were through with them. He looked the place over, calling for his sister, Rose Elizabeth. He knew the men must have taken her with them. He’d heard his pa tell of what happened to girls and women who were taken captive by the raiders. They had even killed the old mule and their milk cow.

Eli got a shovel and buried his ma out on the hillside where she’d always sat and told him and Rose of her life on the Indian Reservation, and the stories of her forefathers in their home camps back in North Carolina. Eli wept as he covered his ma with the cold damp dirt. He took his hat off and spoke a few of the words that he’d heard his pa speak on Sundays. He didn’t know what they meant, but his pa believed in them.

He went to the house and looked in the big drawer in the kitchen; there was the old Colt. He sat at the table, crying as he loaded the Colt’s cylinder with caps, balls, and powder. He went to the cupboard and there stood the old scattergun. He took the ten long brass shells from the sack hung over the double barrel of the scattergun and shoved them into his pockets. Stuffing the Colt in his waist band, he grabbed the scattergun and slung his sack of powder and extra pistol balls on his shoulder. Eli took the big knife his ma told him had once belonged to her own pa, strapping it on his hip as he set out to find his sister, Rose.

He followed their tracks for three days and twice, came close enough to hear them talk. He heard his sister scream in pain and he almost ran to her, but he knew he’d be killed before he got to her. On the fourth day, he was right on their tail as they stopped to pillage another homestead, raping and killing two women and taking two more girls.

That very night, he crept into their camp and cut the throats of four men as they slept, then hid under some deer hide blankets until he could catch more of them asleep.

When morning came, there were only two of the nine riders that woke up. Eli had taken his sister, Rose, and the two girls during the night. He hid them in some willows, after making backtracks and false trails around the camp. One of the bad riders came through a briar thicket, his arms over his head to keep the briars out of his face. He died standing up with his throat cut, just like Eli had found his ma.

Eli took the man’s scalp and dragged him back to their camp. There he took the scalps from the men and strung them from two poles above where the dead men lay. Eli had gotten a good look at the last man. He’d remember his face long enough to track him down and kill him, like the others.

He took four horses, one for himself and one for each girl. He also took their guns, powder, and lead balls along with what little money and coins the men had.

Eli knew he’d never forget what had happened to his ma. He and Rose talked about it, before he left her with the preacher’s family.

“Eli, stay with me. Please don’t leave me. You’re all I got and I know I’ll be safe if you’re here with me.”

“Rose, this is just something I gotta do. I can’t let the last of the men that killed our ma get away with it. You’ll be safe here with these people. There’s enough good folks here to fight off the raiders if they come again.”

“Eli, do you think Pa will ever come back?”

“It’s hard to say, Rose. He may be dead already, or he may be killed in this damned militia fighting. It’s just hard to say.”

“Eli, I wish you wouldn’t talk hard like that. Ma tried to teach us better. You scare me when you talk hard and look off into the dark and never even look at me. You’ve got that look Pa always had when a man talked down on us and Ma. You’ve already killed enough men to have revenge on Ma’s death. Let it go, Eli.”

“Rose, I reckon I’ll never rest ‘til I know that last man is dead with his throat cut like I found our ma. Killing those eight men felt like what I was supposed to do. Sister, don’t hate me for doing what has to be done ... she was our ma. No matter if she was Indian, she was a good woman and she was our ma. I’ll come back one day, when all this fighting and killing is over and we’ll go over to Kansas and start a new life.”

“I hope you do, Eli. I love you, brother.”

“I love you too, sister.”

Eli left his sister, Rose and the other two girls with the preacher’s wife and the women and men of the church as he rode west into Kansas.

Boones Crossing, Kansas September 15, 1872

Boones Crossing, Kansas was situated about 90 miles north and west of Kansas City, Missouri. It was just a small crossroads town that sprang up when the first ATSF Railroad laid a few miles of tracks out on the prairie.

Town Marshal, Dal Hopkins sat on the front boardwalk of his office and jail, on a sleepy early fall day and watched the tall skinny kid ride his horse slowly up the street. He could tell the kid was a Half-Breed and he could see his big Colt pistol hanging down his leg, tied just above his knee.

The kid was tall, maybe even taller than he was, Dal figured. His own son would have been about this kid’s age, had he not been killed during a raid on the local bank a few years back.

Dal remembered it like it was this morning. He’d been tipped off about the raid and had been waiting when the men ran from the bank. He was shot in the side of his leg from behind and fell to the dirt street.

His own son ran to him when he saw his father had been shot. His son was killed as he bent over him ... shot in the back.

Dal shot two of the men as they rode by, before taking another bullet in his side.

Dal watched with keen interest now, as the kid rode right up to the hitching rail in front of him, looking down from his horse and grinning before dismounting.

“You’d be the marshal, I reckon?” the kid asked, in a quiet, slow easy voice that sounded much older than his years.

“I’m the marshal. What can I do for you?”

“I’m looking for honest work and I figured you’d be the first to know of anyone needing a hired hand,” the kid drawled with the hint of South Missouri in his voice.

“Have a seat, the sun feels good and the talk is free. Tell me about yourself and I’ll help you find work, or at least a job that’ll pay room and board.”

“Yes Sir, and thank you,” the kid said with a smile as he sat in the cane-bottom rocking chair beside the Marshal.

“Where ya from kid, and what brings you here?”

“I’m from over in southwest Missouri and I’m looking for a man,” he said, as he squinted his eyes in the morning sun, speaking again in his slow easy voice, not a whisper, but almost.

“Would you be meaning to do harm to this man you’re looking for?”

“Yes Sir, he would be the last man alive that raped my sister and my ma. They killed my ma, cut her throat and took her scalp, they did. I aim to kill him.”

“You said the last man, does that mean you already killed the others?”

“Yes Sir, I did. Cut their throats and took their scalps, like they did my ma.”

“Kid, that would make you an outlaw in some folk’s eyes, taking the law into your own hands like that.”

“Marshal, where we lived back there, there was no law and if I didn’t bring them to justice in the eyes of the Lord, no one else would have. My sister would have been killed sooner or later. I had no choice. If that makes me a bad person, then so be it,” the kid said with the same easy, slow voice, just above a loud whisper.

“So you rode after them and overtook them and killed all of them?”

“I had no horse, but Ma taught me to read trail sign and I followed them on foot, day and night. I listened to my sister scream and wanted to run to her, but I knew I’d be killed. I waited and snuck into their camp. I cut the throats of seven of them as they slept. I made all sorts of tracks around their camp, after I took my sister and two more girls younger than her. I killed one more man when he came tramping through the brush looking for the girls. I dragged him back to camp and took all their scalps and hung them on poles above their heads, so their spirits couldn’t escape into the heavens. I saw the other man’s face and I’ll know him when I see him. I’ve been lookin for him for most of 4 years now. I won’t quit ‘til he’s dead.”

“I could rightly lock you up, just on your own confession, but I’m not. Just don’t be telling that story here in Kansas. Start you a new life for yourself and let the dead lie in peace. You’ve done more than most grown men would’ve done as it is.”

“Thank you, Marshal. I knew you looked like a man who’d listen to my story and offer me just a little help. I don’t need hand-outs. I need a hired hand’s job and pay, if there’s any to be had.”

“How old are you and what’s your name, kid?”

“I’ll be 17 in a week or two ... my name’s Eli Crow. My pa’s name was Ezra and my ma’s name was Little Deer, but pa called her Doe ‘cause she had big black eyes like a doe deer.”

Dal Hopkins listened to Eli talk in his easy, soft voice and was reminded again of his own son. He wanted to help this kid – someway, somehow.

“I’ll let you clean my office and scrub the jail cells where the drunks have puked and pissed on the floors. I’ll talk to the bartender at the saloon. I know he needs his place cleaned. I’ll talk to Sam Connor over at the general store and he’ll let you work some, just on my say so. It’s not much, but by then I’ll have figured out something for you. Can you use that single action hog-leg tied to your hip?”

“Thanks, Marshal. I just knew you’d be a man who’d help. Like I said, I don’t need handouts, I’m asking for work. Pa taught me to handle a gun. I took this fancy Colt pistol from one of the men I killed and I reckon if I was pushed to it, I could keep from getting myself killed.”

“I bet you could, Eli Crow – I just bet you could,” Dal Hopkins said as he looked at this kid and knew he’d just made a friend for life. This was a good kid.

Eli got a bucket of water, a big scrub brush and a bar of lye soap and scrubbed the floors and even the walls and iron bars of the jail cells, then the floors and walls of the Marshal’s office too. The place hadn’t looked nor smelled this good since the day the Marshal moved into it new.

They walked over to the saloon and Dal introduced Eli to Hank, the bartender/owner of the Crossroads Saloon. They made a deal for him to let Eli clean his place up. They crossed the street and went to the general store and met Sam Connor and made the same deal.

Marshal Hopkins liked his new friend more and more as he got to know him.

“Let’s get some food at the hotel, Eli. I’m hungry and I hear your belly growling. This one’s on me.”

“Yes Sir, I’m hungry, but I’ll have to pay you back.”

“You bet you will, Eli Crow. You just bet you will,” Marshal Dal Hopkins told him.

Eli slept in a jail cell free for a week and Marshal Hopkins bought his meals all week for the cleaning. He cleaned the saloon for two days and when he was through Hank made new rules for all patrons. He had signs made and put them on the front door and on the walls inside the saloon. No Spittin On The Floor – No Pissin in the Corner.

Hank paid Eli a half dollar a day for the fine job he did and Sam Connor paid him three dollars for cleaning the general store and repairing the boardwalk in front.

Eli Crow had five dollars in his pocket, more money than he’d ever seen, let alone ever had in his own pockets. He felt good about his new start and found it easy to smile at the townspeople when they greeted him.

Dal Hopkins had seen some of the quiet anger and hatred begin to seep out of Eli in the week he’d been here. He was hoping the young man could get this out of his head and begin to live a life of his own and not feel so hell bent on revenge.

The town folks were beginning to accept the tall Half-Breed kid the Marshal had taken a liking to. All the store owners and shop keepers would speak to Eli when he walked in their store or passed by their front door.

Late on the second Saturday Eli was in Boones Crossing, he was walking back from the stables where he’d helped the livery man unload fresh hay into the barn for the winter. Sam Connor was standing on his front boardwalk, talking to Frank Martin and his wife as they loaded their goods into their wagon. He looked up to see Eli walking up the street toward him and smiled. He was about to comment about him to the Martins, when Eli was stopped by two young men a few years older than him.

Sam couldn’t make out what they were saying, but he could tell that it wasn’t a friendly conversation when one of them shoved Eli to the ground and spit on him. The other boy kicked him in the head and stood over him with clenched fists.

Sam sent a young boy to fetch Marshal Hopkins. He knew this was about to get out of control when Eli came up from the ground in a crouch. With one swing of his fist, he knocked one of the young men out cold. Then he jumped the other one, knocking him to the ground. They rolled and tumbled and fought and scratched until they were nearly in front of the general store.

Eli was bleeding from a cut over his eye, when he stood to protect himself from another kick to the head. He caught the young man’s foot and twisted hard. Sam heard the snap of the leg bone, from the porch, and so did the Martins.

The young man rolled over in pain and pulled a handgun from his belt, aiming it at Eli as he fumbled to thumb the hammer back. Eli stepped in quickly, kicking the gun from his hand, then kicking the man in his mouth. Teeth and blood splattered all over the ground as he rolled over unconscious.

Eli was bent over him, pounding his face when Dal Hopkins ran up to him.

“Eli, for the sake of God – stop, he’s beat,’’ he yelled and Eli turned to see his friend, Marshal Hopkins standing near him.

Dal Hopkins had never seen that look on any man’s face before in his life.

Chapter 2 »