Short Stories

The Indigo Trail

My hands shook. My heart raced. Tears rolled down my face, leaving tracks in the dirt on my cheeks. My father's cold, dead body lay beside my feet, the bullet wound in his chest still leaking blood. My brother, Elliott, stood before me, his shotgun barrel still smoking. I tightened my grip on my pistol and leveled it at his heart.

"Why?" I demanded. "Why, you son of a bitch!?"

"I-I had to," he replied, his voice cracking. "Please believe me, Aaron"

"Give me one good reason," I growled. "You stole from Daddy, always pushed me around, never helped us out, and you abandoned Mama during the Apache raid!"

In two strides he was across the rough wooden floor and had me by my shirt collar. He pinned me to the cabin wall, my toes barely touching the ground. My pistol clattered to the floor. "You shut your mouth," he demanded harshly. "You shut your damn mouth! You're 14, a kid. You don't know nothin' about that day! She had an arrow in her stomach! It was too late to save her!"

"Seventeen ain't no high and mighty, either," I spat, even though I knew I was digging my own grave.

With that he hit me hard across the face, flung me to the floor, and mounted his Quarter Horse, Streak, pushing the stallion as hard as he could. Once I stopped seeing stars, I grabbed supplies and got on my gelding Midnight Blues, following my brother.

*®*

After five weeks, I lost his trail. The only thing I'd found was a trail of indigo feathers that seemed to follow the hoofprints. Then apparently Elliott and Streak had crossed a herd of mustangs, confusing the tracks and scattering the feathers. It took me three days to find them again. Even with a good bit of food, I went from 110 pounds to 90 pounds. I also hurt and bled in about nine different places from where I'd run into a tribe of Apaches in Arkansas. And they didn't like nobody. It didn't help matters that I'd wounded and killed a few myself. But somehow, Blues was still going strong. He knew exactly where to go when I wasn't sure.

I started collecting the indigo feathers so I could tell when Elliott backtracked. So far, he's done it three times. I was three months into the journey and weighed 79 pounds, the size of my friend's nine-year-old little brother. Fourteen-year-old boys should not weigh eighty pounds.

One day, I stumbled into a thicket where the feathers just stopped. I heard a horse blowing and looked around. Streak, a little skinnier and limping, was tied to the branches on the other side. I tied Midnight Blues beside him and ducked inside. It was about midnight, and my brother was inside snoring.

I swore to myself when a twig cracked under my feet. The sound was like a gun shot. Elliott's eyes snapped open. He rolled on his back and aimed the Colt at me, right between the eyes. I raised my hands and took a step back.

"Whoa, hoss! Please don't kill me," I pleaded.

His eyes narrowed and he cocked the pistol. "Give me one reason why I shouldn't."

"Okay. You can live with killing our old man; he was a drunk. But you'd never forgive yourself if you killed your kid brother."

After a minute, he grudgingly tucked the gun in the back of his belt. I got him to sit down with me to talk. I wanted him to serve his sentence in jail, and I'd earn the money for bail.

"But why? We could go to a new town, new start. Be free," he informed me.

"Because, I promise, it might do you some good," I reasoned. "Man, I've searched for you for over a year. Besides, don't tell me Sheriff Coleton ain't alerted the other sheriffs."

He finally agreed, and we went back to Texas. Elliott was tried for the death of William F. Carr. I thought he'd get a long sentence in jail, so my heart dropped when Judge Rooster announced:

"Elliot Carr is to be hanged for the murder of his father William Carr and assault of Sheriff Jameson in Silver City."

They did it five days later in the town square. Imagine my face when I saw him there, looking tiny with that rope noose around his neck. The pleading in Elliott's eyes broke my heart. And I, 14-year-old Aaron Carr, sobbed when they released the platform, snapping my 17-year-old brother's neck. I broke my promise to him. And, of all things, indigo feathers fell out of his pocket.