He pondered that. He pondered how the news would spread, Ludlow’s daughter nearly bullwhipped—the punishment of a disloyal whore—by her ne’er-do-well brother. Word would race like smallpox around the Hills, infecting everyone. “Hey everybody!” someone would yell in one of the Hills’ many saloons. “Guess how Cass Ludlow ended up with nearly half of his face burned off? Took a blacksnake to his own sister an’ she got the better of him!”
Roaring laughter, and then someone would yell, “Brother an’ sister, huh? I thought that was just a Southern thing!”
More roaring laughter.
The rage and humiliation seared through the rancher from head to toe and then back again. His eyes burned. He lay back in the trail and drew deep, even breaths, trying to relax. Gradually, the fist in his chest unclenched and his left hand did as well. The pain in his arm abated.
He sat up, blew a long sigh of relief. He shook out his arm and opened and closed that hand several times, until the entire arm felt nearly normal again.
He clambered to his feet and walked heavily through the brush to the stream. He lay belly-down on the edge of the bank, doffed his hat, and dunked his head into the rippling water, opening his mouth, swallowing great gulps of the cold water, feeling its cooling freshness push through him, easing the tension in his mind and body, clearing his head.
Finally, he sat up. He rubbed the water out of his hair, set his hat back down on his head. He sat there for a long time, looking around, thinking.
His eyes turned dark again.
They thought they’d gotten the better of him, those two.
The ex-Reb and Ludlow’s own daughter.
They thought they had him in a whipsaw. In a way, he supposed they did—what with the lie Annabelle had told. The one about Cass. The lie about Cass that the Chaney brothers had overheard and would soon spread if they weren’t already spreading it to the other men who’d ridden out from town to collect the dead. The Chaneys after hearing Annabelle’s story—her lie!—would make a laughingstock of Ludlow himself. Casting a blight over his name.
The big, lumbering rancher slowly gained his feet, his big belly jiggling over the silver buckle of his cartridge belt. Standing, he regained his balance, drew a deep breath, and adjusted the set of the hat on his head.
Let them think what they wanted. In truth, the joke was on them. Ludlow had figured to leave the Buchanons alone as long as Annabelle had returned to the Broken Heart with her father and made amends to her brother as well as promised never to see that big ex-Confederate ever again.
But she hadn’t done that. Too bad. She was only hurting herself. Hurting the Buchanons.
She’d been right about one thing. She and her so-called man would be finishing the war, all right. But one of them would be finishing it toe-down while the other one would be dragged kicking and screaming back to the Broken Heart, where once and for all she would learn her rightful place. She would obey her father’s wishes and marry Kenneth Earnshaw.
Ludlow spat to one side, feeling satisfied. Confident. Hopeful.
He might have to endure some humiliation in the meantime, but in the end he would be the last one standing . . . and laughing.
He flexed his left hand a few more times, then walked back out to the trail where the dun stood grazing. He mounted up with considerable effort—still feeling a little light-headed and short of breath, like a small crab was lodged in his chest just beneath his brisket—and put the horse into a trot toward Tigerville.
* * *
Reaching the outskirts of Tigerville, Ludlow checked the dun down to a trot. Even now at mid-morning the main artery meandering through the sprawling, haphazardly arranged village was choked with horseback riders and wagons. There were also the obstructions of timber piles standing here and there along the sides of the street, at places nearly choking it closed, giving passage to only one wagon at a time while the waiting teamsters bellowed impatient curses and shook their fists at one another.
The timber had been hauled in by local sawyers, sold, and dumped, waiting to be cut and split for firewood.
A pig hung by its back feet from a wooden tripod outside a Chinese-run grog shop and opium den, which was a low-slung log shack with a canvas-covered front porch. It was one of the few businesses that hadn’t changed much in the ten years since Tigerville’s establishment, when the entire booming camp was no more than tent shacks like the Chinaman’s, and the streets were choked with fur-clad frontiersmen who’d given up the beaver trade for gold panning. On open fires, pots had bubbled and meat had sizzled.
Back in those days, women were raped in the alleys, screaming, and men were shot and stabbed in the main street, their bodies left where they’d fallen to be stumbled over and trampled by horses and mules until they didn’t even look human anymore. Eventually, they were dragged off by wild dogs or the wolves, wildcats, and bears that slinked into town after sunset, like ants converging on an especially succulent, honey-covered slice of buttered bread.
Indians were still rife in the Hills back then. Feeling sour over the breaking of the treaty that had forbidden such white settlements like Tigerville in the first place, a small party of painted Sioux warriors would sneak into town in broad daylight and smash tomahawks through the brain plates of men or women sitting down to supper or sipping a frothy ale in the street around a fire over which a venison haunch was roasting.
The warriors would quickly, handily slice away the trophy scalp and hold it high while the tobacco-colored savages went howling jubilantly through the streets on their way back to the tall and uncut, where they’d disappear, fleet as fawns and ephemeral as wood smoke.
And there hadn’t been a damn thing anybody could do about it back in those lawless days.
Bringing Frank Stillwell in had been a good idea. It had been Ludlow’s idea after his geologists had found some promising-looking ore deposits in those hills just east of town and which were now honeycombed by Ludlow and Chaney’s King Solomon Mine.
Stillwell and his men had done a good job of turning Tigerville into at least a rough outline of what a civilized town should look like. Women were no longer raped in the back alleys. At least, not as many. There were still killings, but weekly instead of daily, and the bodies were promptly hauled off to the local boot hill cemetery, where words were said over them before they were planted and even given a marker, crude as it often was. Men and women—even quite a few families—felt safe to live and work here now, and to spend their money here. There was even a school, and a couple more doctors were en route to build a hospital with Dahl, Ludlow and Chaney having donated a goodly portion to the Tigerville Hospital Fund.
Ludlow had a hard time believing what he’d heard about Stillwell from Max Chaney himself—before he’d led a contingent of men from the mine out to settle up with the Buchanon boys and their one-armed old ex-Confederate father. That the man had turned tail and run when Hunter Buchanon had bore down on him.
Hadn’t even drawn his pistol until he’d locked himself away in his office. Then, when Buchanon had busted in, he’d thrown himself out a back window and hightailed it like a coyote that had just pilfered a beef loin from a fire grate.
Was even Frank Stillwell afraid of the Buchanons?
Just now riding past the sheriff’s office on his left, Ludlow shook his head in wonderment. Then his thoughts were nudged back to the moment when he saw several men standing outside of a saloon on his right, staring at him incredulously and conversing in low tones. He frowned at them, puzzled. One of the men turned away, and then another and another did, as well, without so much as a smile or pinch of the hat brim.
What the hell?
Most folks in town, even those that hadn’t been here long, knew him and Chaney by sight, them being the town’s founding fathers and most prominent not to mention most moneyed citizens. Most folks waved or yelled a respectful greeting or at least gave a cordial nod.
But these men here had turned away without so much as cracking a crooked smile. Ludlow could see thei
r lips moving but he couldn’t hear what they were saying above the din in the street.
They were talking about him. He sensed that much from their furtive airs.
A sick feeling gripped him. It was as though he’d just taken a big drink of sour milk. Of course they’d learned about Annabelle’s dalliance with that Grayback brigand, Hunter Buchanon. That’s what they were talking about. About how yesterday she’d ridden out with the man who, along with his father and two wild, savage brothers, had laid waste to Tigerville’s police force and disgraced its leader, the infamous and notorious Frank Stillwell.
How they’d run Stillwell out of town on the proverbial greased rail. Leaving Tigerville without a lawman once again . . . just like the wild old days.
Could those men talking behind Ludlow’s back have already heard about Annabelle . . . Cass . . . and the burned barn? Heck, that foul bit of news must have spread as well. Ludlow could read it in the seedy, sneering eyes of other men he was just now riding past.
He felt as though he’d followed up that first swig of sour milk with another, larger one.
Forget it, he told himself, feeling that crab in his chest coming to life again, wrapping a claw around his ticker. Just . . . take it . . . easy . . . Let them talk. Remember, you’ll be the last one standing.
And laughing . . .
At the south end of Tigerville and on an outlying street, Ludlow turned the dun up to a hitchrack fronting a large, sprawling, somewhat rickety-looking but fairly new saloon and pleasure palace identified by a large sign spread across the face of its second story—THE PURPLE GARTER. The Garter, as the place was locally called, served when needed as the Tigerville hospital, since the town did not yet have a bona fide one and the Garter sat next door to Norton Dahl’s office in the second story over a law office.
Ludlow climbed heavily down from his saddle. He was here to see Chaney. They had to discuss their next plan of attack against the Buchanons. Ludlow considered Chaney the warrior of their partnership. The strong arm.
Also, Max had many friends and relatives in these Hills, having come here himself several years before Ludlow arrived. Ludlow tended to keep to himself and see to the ranch more than the mine. He left the mine mainly to Chaney. After all, the mine was Max’s primary business interest here in the Hills, so he spent the bulk of his time here in Tigerville overseeing the daily mine workings as well as the ore shipments to Cheyenne.
Max knew men who knew men who could handle the Buchanons. Ludlow didn’t want to involve his own ranch hands. Not yet. Not that they weren’t capable. He’d hired them, after all, because they were very proficient in many endeavors, not the least of which was range justice. But the Hills were now in the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S. Marshals, and he didn’t want to venture too far into the field of lawless acts—beyond hanging rustlers, shooting claim jumpers, and hazing off squatters—unless he absolutely had to.
Max Chaney was far more daring in that regard. Chaney was, after all, an old outlaw himself and really knew no other way of life. Besides, he liked killing Graybacks, as he’d been in Lawrenceville when Bloody Bill had come calling.
Ludlow slung the tired dun’s reins over the hitchrack. Mounting the boardwalk, he stumbled slightly. His boots still felt heavy. He pushed through the batwings, cursing, then, letting the louvered doors slap back into place behind him, he doffed his hat and mopped his brow with a sleeve of his wool shirt.
“I’ll be damned—look at that,” said a pensive voice in the room’s deep, smoky shadows ahead and on his right.
“Jesus, that’s a lot of blood,” said another voice from the same direction.
Ludlow stepped forward, scowling into the shadows beyond several vacant tables and ceiling support beams from which lanterns and/or bleached wild animal skulls hung. The bar was straight ahead, running against the far wall, and no one was back there as far as Ludlow could tell in the dim light.
There were only a few men in the room—three, to be exact. Two were standing in the shadows near the front end of the bar, by a table at which a beefy, bearded gent in a black immigrant cap sat smoking a pipe and holding a big mug of dark ale—Angus Buchanon’s ale, no doubt.
Brewing ale was the only thing the old, one-armed Rebel was good for.
The only other person in the saloon’s main drinking hall was a small, blond, scantily clad whore. She sat in a chair one table away from the three men, her head and hair both pale, bare arms sprawled across the table before her. Her left cheek was flat against the scarred tabletop.
Her little, plump, pink lips pooched out through the tangled strands of her hair. She snored loudly for such a delicate thing, Ludlow absently opined.
As the rancher approached the three men, he followed their gazes to the ceiling above them. Something dark stained the ceiling’s four-inch-wide, soot-encrusted slats between the stout beams. Whatever dark substance Ludlow was looking at, it was dribbling in thick, intermittent streams from between the slats and onto the floor about five feet beyond the table at which the two men stood and the bearded gent sat.
It had formed a pool.
Ludlow winced as the realization came to him that he was looking at fresh blood. The pool of it shimmered redly in a slender sunbeam slanting through a window on the room’s far side.
CHAPTER 21
As Ludlow stared down in shock at the blood on the floor, he became aware of quick footfalls in the ceiling—throughout the second story, it seemed. Many muffled voices speaking all at once pushed through the ceiling as well.
Most of the voices seemed to be those of women, but Ludlow thought he detected a man’s voice up there too.
“What in God’s name . . . ?” the rancher inquired.
All three men standing around or sitting at the table before the rancher jerked their heads toward him, startled.
“Christ almighty, I didn’t see you there, uh . . . Mr. Ludlow!” said the man standing nearest the rancher. He was a mule skinner named Logan, and he worked up at the mine. Quickly modulating his tone, his eyes flickering sheepishly, he said, “Gave me a start’s all.” He gave a nervous chuff.
“Whose . . . whose . . . blood is that . . . ?” the rancher inquired, staring up at the ceiling again where another drop formed thickly and then dribbled onto the floor, adding to the ever-growing pool.
“Prob’ly Riley Tatum’s blood,” said the other standing man, whose name Ludlow didn’t know but thought he worked at the mine as well. The mine superintendent did all of the hiring and firing, and men came and went all the time. “Tatum took a bullet to his leg and another one to the liver. Both wounds been problematic for the poor sawbones. He was workin’ on Tatum all night, tryin’ to get him to quit bleedin’.
“Just when he thought he got the blood stopped, an’ came down for a quick drink before heading back to his digs next door for some shut-eye . . . though he took Miss Loretta along to help calm his nerves”—the man grinned and winked at Ludlow before quickly becoming sober again—“Tatum burst open again and started bleedin’ all over the place. He been bleedin’ off an’ on like that all mornin’. Seepin’ right through the floor up there. We been watchin’ the blood an’ hearin’ the doc cussin’ a blue streak for over an hour now.”
“I for one didn’t know a man of a sawbones’ education could sport such a blue tongue,” said the man smoking his pipe at the table. He gave a wry snort and lifted his schooner of coffee-colored ale topped with dark foam.
“At least he quit screamin’ finally,” Logan said, giving his head a relieved shake, as though the wounded man’s screams had been quite the ordeal. “Jesus!”
“Any word on Chaney?” Ludlow asked.
The rancher hadn’t seen Max Chaney since he’d returned, wounded, from the 4-Box-B, helped back to town by his two sons. From the sons, Ludlow had learned that Chaney had taken a bullet to the face. The slug had burst when it had cored into the bone of his eye socket, laying waste to his left eye and his left ear as well as making one hell of a
mess of that cheek.
Logan merely shrugged, shook his head. The other two men followed suit.
Ludlow swung away from the three and headed over to the bar. Since there was no bartender, and he’d been yearning for a drink since that crab had come devilishly alive in his chest to crowd his ticker, he walked around behind the bar to serve himself. He found a dusty bottle of labeled bourbon on a high shelf, popped the cork, and filled a shot glass.
He drew a breath and tossed back the entire shot, tipping his head back and squeezing his eyes closed as the bourbon warmed and soothed his insides, taking the hump out of the neck of that crab in his chest.
Logan was eyeing him from where he now sat at the table with the two other men. “You don’t look so good, Mr. Ludlow.”
“You look kinda pale,” said the other man. “You feelin’ all right, Mr. Ludlow?”
The rancher stared back at them, suspicious. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he glimpsed a faint glint of mockery in their eyes, as though they, too, knew about his daughter and the Grayback, maybe even about what Annabelle did to Cass . . . and her burning the barn . . .
Hastily, Ludlow splashed more whiskey into his glass. Again, he threw back the entire shot. “Don’t you boys waste your time worryin’ about me,” he said, slamming the glass down on the bar and scowling through the smoke-laced shadows at the three men now watching him uncertainly. “I couldn’t be better!”
He ran the back of his hand across his mouth, then, with a caustic grunt, he walked out from behind the bar and mounted the stairs at the back of the room.
As he lumbered up the unpainted board steps, two whores came down, brushing past him, also eyeing him with a vague incredulity he did not like. Or did he imagine it?
The first girl, a brunette, was carrying a large metal tray filled with bloody water and several grisly-looking medical instruments. The second girl, a pale, heavy-breasted redhead, carried a large bundle of blood-sodden bedding straight out before her in both hands, tipping her head away from the parcel and making a face.
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