The Daughter, C.B. Cooper [great reads .TXT] 📗

together, but he wouldn’t have to worry about that. They had spent the night camped out along the river and rode out the next day, once again split up into two groups.
The original nine that he had been following since the farm, and the large group, that he guessed belonged to Jarvis and Adams, the men that the sheriff had talked about. The two men that had ordered the murder of Ben Walker, to make sure that no one discovered their deception of the Confederacy and the large shipment of gold that they had stolen.
Sharp knew it wouldn’t be long before he started seeing the wanted posters on the three main men, Joe Jarvis, Nathan Adams, and Russ Connors. Sheriff kendle had already contacted the federal marshals and it was only a matter of time before they arrived to pick up the journal that Ben had been keeping. In it, was all the proof they would ever need, the whole heinous crime written down in black and white. And by killing poor Ben, they had proven their guilt and signed their own death warrants.
The sheriff had implied that there would likely be a high price on each of their heads, “Someone could collect a lot of money for their troubles, and since your gonna kill them anyways…” he’d let the sentence drift off.
“Sheriff, I wouldn’t take money from the government if they gave it to me on a god damned velvet pillow. Those bastards have murdered more innocent people than the small pox. I would, however, like the chance to tell them where they could stick their money.

Sharp had been following their trail in a southwesterly direction for more than a week. They had stayed shy of the few small towns in the area, keeping to themselves and making good time. Once they had dropped down into Texas, they had crossed first the Red and then the Trinity Rivers, it was when Sharp was getting close to the Brazos, that things, once again, got interesting.
The first peculiar thing he noticed was a red tailed hawk, flying in erratic circles. The large bird was obviously an adult, but it’s wings dipped to and froe unsteadily, like a fledgling on its first flight, trying to keep its precarious balance in the air. Then Sharp watched in disbelief as the bird approached a large pecan tree, and instead of landing gracefully among the branches, it smacked head on into the trunk and tumbled to the ground, some forty feet below.
Sharp tugged on the reigns and headed for the base of the tree. That was the strangest damn thing he’d ever seen and it made him want to get a closer look. Swinging down from the saddle he stood over the still body, noting the strange angle of the birds head. “Damn thing broke its neck.” he mumbled to himself.
It was while examining the bird that the light breeze changed direction and he caught the all to familiar smell of something long dead. He instantly became wary. His eyes scanned the area as his nose followed the scent that was becoming increasingly strong as he went. About a hundred feet from the tree he came upon the body of a coyote laying in the tall prairie grass, its stomach grotesquely swollen, a black hole gaped in the middle where it had burst open and its lips pulled back to reveal razor sharp teeth in a death grimace. The body stunk of rotten dead meat, but it wasn’t as strong as what Sharp was smelling.
Visions of finding Gracie’s dead body hidden in the tall grass filled his head as he continued walking into the wind. The acrid stench was getting worse, making his stomach churn, and his eyes burn as they teared up. Yanking his bandana up around his nose he pushed on.
When Sharp finally stumbled upon the camp, he had already past two more coyotes, an eagle, and a raccoon. And that was just on the trail that he cut through the grass, there was no telling exactly how many dead animals there were scattered about, but from the smell, he guessed a lot. Something in the area was killing them. His first thought was the creek that was running nearby. He’d heard of poisonous watering holes in the desert, usually identified by the bones of dead animals that were scattered around, and the lack of vegetation at the pools rim, but he’d never heard of running water being a source of such poison. But, if it wasn’t the water, the only other explanation would be a contaminated food source. That seemed very likely, because all the animals he had seen thus far had been of the scavenger variety.
As he stared at the grisly scene around the camp, the sheriff’s words came back to him, “Rat poison. Lots of rat poison.”
Arsenic. “Holy Jesus.” he murmured.


That night, as he sat by the campfire, he thought about the problem at hand. He had only lasted a few minutes at the site of the death camp, two miles down stream from where he now sat. The sights and smells there were more than he could take, and as he had felt the sickness wash over him, he had made his way to the creek that was beyond the camp. That was when he had made another shocking discovery. The banks of the creek, and the water itself, were littered with dead and rotting animal carcasses. He had heard before, that rat poison made its victim extremely thirsty. The rodents would seek out water where it would mix with the poison in its belly, and essentially eat the thing from the inside out.
Sharp didn’t believe in undue torture, that was one of the reasons he had never used the stuff himself. He preferred using barn cats to keep the rodent population in check, it was a natural and effective method.
He wasn’t sure how Gracie had managed to poison all of those men, but it was clear that she had. And he didn’t feel one bit sorry for those bastards, they deserved everything they got, and more. He hoped they were burning in a lake of fire that very minute, it would serve them right, but something needed to be done with their bodies, they couldn’t just be left out in the open. They were poisonous, murdering, rotten bastards in life, and now they were still at it in death. All the dead animals who had tried to feast on them, was proof of that.
And now, he was going to have the unpleasant duty of disposing of their remains. He couldn’t bury them, not only would that be more work then he was willing to do for them, they were to close to the large creek, he figured the poison would eventually work its way into the water. No, he would have to burn them. And not just them, but all the dead animals in the area. He had to stop the spread of contamination or the consequences would be far and wide.
The next morning, Sharp dug out his oldest set of clothes. The rags had defiantly seen better days, and now, this would be their last. He would burn them too, after his job was done today. He also rummaged around in his pack and pulled out his only set of leather gloves, he would hate to lose them, but they could be replaced. He wasn’t gonna touch any of those bodies without gloves. He also pulled out a white undershirt. He would soak it in the creek and wrap it around his face to cut down on the smell. He shivered as he remembered to horrible odor, he had never smelled anything like it, ever. A good reason to skip breakfast today, he thought, setting water on to boil for coffee. It would have been nice to eat some solid food for the energy he would need, but coffee would have to due. He figured the food wouldn’t have stayed in his stomach long enough to help anyway.
He rode to within a quarter mile of the camp and picketed the horses. Taking the supplies he would need, he set out on foot. This was a day he would not likely forget.
It was long, hard work, and the wet rag did little to cut down the smell, but he stomached it better than he had done the day before. As it was, it took most of the day to finish the work, a lot of time was spent finding and dragging enough dry wood to create the large pyre, then more time still, finding and dragging all the dead animals to the camp and hoisting them onto the pile. He had swept the area in a one mile radius, but lucky for him, most of the carcasses were down at the creek, close to the camp.
Once finished, he stood back and looked over his handy work. Earlier, he had drug the remains of the men into the center of the camp, laying them side by side. Then he had piled all the dry wood he could find on top of them, and finally, topped it off with the dead animal carcasses.
Satisfied with the job he had done, he lit a match and tossed it onto the pile. The flame caught hold and quickly moved along the kerosene soaked wood and within minutes the fire roared, billowing black noxious smoke high into the air.
Sharp bowed his head out of habit, “Lord…” Finally, stumped for words he just said, “I’m sending you this trash, it’s up to you what you wanna do with it.”
He stood back and watched the fire awhile to make sure it was going good, then he shucked his clothes and tossed them into the fire. Slipping his boots back on he grabbed his pack and headed up stream to bathe. In the morning he would set out to find Gracie.
On the surface, the vast countryside was serene, filled with wide open spaces, rugged mountain ranges and breathtaking beauty. But Sharp knew as well as anyone who had spent any length of time in the wilderness, that looks can be deceiving. Danger had a way of hiding in the shadows, and then jumping out at the most inconvenient time. He worried about Gracie, a girl who had barely ever left the familiar surroundings of her home town. Now she was out roaming a strange land in search of blood, blood and revenge.
He found her abandoned camp as the made his way to the creek, upstream from where the men had been killed. There were clear tracks leading into and out of the shelter of the trees along the creek. After he had bathed, scrubbing himself several times with the strong lye soap to get rid of the awful order that clung to his skin, he dressed and went back to study her abandoned camp more closely. It was in the bush around the camp, that something shiny caught his eye. Walking over, he bent to retrieve the large canister from the bushes. It was easy enough to tell what the contents had been at one time, the large evil looking rat on the front gave it away. The container claimed it held two pounds of the poisonous substance, even though it was now empty. Jesus, he had no idea how she had actually managed to slip that much poison to the now dead killers, but she had.
After starting a fire and putting some beans on to cook, he pondered the next problem. There were only eight bodies at the camp down stream, meaning one of the men got away. Sharp had found evidence of the ninth man down by the creek, looked like he had