Miller's Ride

by Caleb Rand

  15

  NIGHT FIRE

  Two miles south of Big Windy, Chad and Marlow Frost sat their horses and waited. With the moon in its first quarter, there was just enough light to see by as the truck approached along the narrow bank of the creek. Galt Sherman had harnessed up a strong, reliable mule and, with Duck Fewes and Dexter Pruitt, they were only fifteen minutes behind.

  Chad and Marlow swung alongside as the company continued along the creekside.

  ‘Don’t suppose you got to see the feller that socked you?’ Chad asked of Dexter.

  ‘No. Caught his whiff though … weren’t a Colorado skunk.’

  ‘That’ll be the driver … Porton’s driver. He won’t be wantin’ the coach to get to Alamosa.’

  ‘You reckon he’ll do away with two surveyors … kill ’em?’

  ‘Depends, Dexter. Depends how bad he wants the land. An’ you know, he ain’t got much of a carin’ side.’

  As they neared the Big Windy yard Marlow gave a short, sharp whistle. It was the prearranged signal for Hork Basen, who stepped from behind a grain-shed.

  Marlow called out earnestly: ‘There’s a High Smoke army headin’ this way, Hork, an’ it ain’t a social visit. Just hold your position, an’ don’t drop your chin.’

  Perdi had heard Marlow’s whistle. Holding the .36 carbine, she came out from the house to meet them.

  Marlow rode straight to the veranda steps. ‘Collect lamps. Get as many as you can,’ he shouted.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just get ’em, Perdi. Come on, Chad.’

  As Chad turned he exchanged a warm, intimate look with Perdi. ‘The doc still here?’ he asked thoughtfully.

  Perdi nodded.

  Chad cocked his head towards the wagon. ‘Get him to look at Dexter’s head.’

  Galt helped his friend into the ranch house as Chad and Marlow moved quickly to the store.

  ‘I’ve worked out what you’ve got in mind,’ Chad said. ‘Let’s hope them hills keep sucklin’ wind.’

  Duck Fewes gave Marlow a hand with the lamps, while Chad cut across to the bunkhouse. Enduring the fast, brittle pains of growing, Joe Bridge was still camped out there.

  Chad roused him from his restless sleep. ‘Come on Joe, we might need those guns o’ your pa’s. Get ’em laid out, keep calm, an’ do it like we said. Porton’s men’ll be here within an hour.’

  Chad helped Marlow and Duck load the oil-lamps into their wagon. They forded the creek, rolled into the brush that had blown in from the timber-line. It was from where Marlow expected the High Smoke riders to make their attack.

  Duck pulled wicks from two of the lamps, trickled the oil through the dry, tangled brush. Marlow emptied two more nearer the bank of the creek. The rest they left in the wagon.

  Chad had watched, apprehensive. He thought about the fire that he and Marlow was responsible for at High Smoke. ‘You think we can lose control o’ this?’ he asked.

  Marlow heard the uncertainty. He reached out his arm, pulled Chad down close. ‘Yeah, I do think there’s a chance. But I recall a notice in Quinn’s surgery, tellin’ you not to drink creek-water below Hooper if you didn’t want typhoid. Get the meanin’ Chad? What are we supposed to do, wait on Porton’s next brutal attempt, or for him to burn us out? No, better the cough than the coffin.’

  Not entirely getting the gist of Marlow’s explanation, Chad shrugged. But there was enough for him, and he made his way forward, cautious, keeping low in the brush.

  Marlow waved to Duck. ‘Duck, lose yourself in them trees. Wait for Chad, an’ check your shotgun. Work it well, an’ watch out for me, I’ll be goin’ ahead.’

  Chad moved further into the brush. He hunkered down, one hand holding the Sharps carbine, the other touching the butt of his Colt. He was steady, alert for the first sounds of High Smoke horses.

  They came at a canter, and when he first heard the unmistakable sounds of slapping leather he turned to the creek in a low, fast run.

  ‘They’re comin’ Marlow,’ he wheezed, then fell alongside Duck Fewes. From a stand of crick-willow they couldn’t see more than forty or fifty feet into the darkness.

  The first of the riders pushed his horse through the brush, then carefully forward through the trees. He rode slowly, his eyes straining into the stand of willow, and Chad and Duck stopped breathing.

  The Montana Flathead called Yellow Egger stopped, looked across the creek towards the ranch house. He turned in his saddle. ‘Lights still burnin’,’ he called back as another rider pushed up beside him. Pithy Wilkes was that close Chad could have stabbed his horse with the Sharps.

  More riders then arrived, with Rindy Colman and Barley Mose bunching behind them. From forty feet away Marlow Frost flared another match. Within seconds a layer of flame started to roll its way through the brush. Then, with a soft whoosh, the root tangles went up. A great swath of the land was suddenly lit, roaring wildly, stoked by the foothill breezes.

  Chad and Duck fired as one. Duck used the shotgun, and Chad his Patterson Colt. The first of Porton’s gunmen died as their horses made for the creek, before they could even think of reaching for their own guns. Their terrified mounts reared, threw their riders into the running water.

  ‘There’s guns ahead, get back, we’re trapped,’ someone yelled.

  As Duck was reloading Chad aimed into the shadowed chaos of movement.

  Horses were turning from the flames. Through the swirling smoke they leaped for the narrow bank.

  But ahead of them Marlow had started the second blaze. Porton’s men faced a second onrush of bright fire.

  Hoarse, thick voices yelled above the gunshots and roaring thrash of flame. The horses were squealing, the riders crying out in panic as they whirled their horses in and out of the creek.

  And then quite suddenly the fearful, hellish sounds stopped. Pithy Wilkes and the remaining men gained control of their horses and turned into the relative safety of the darkness. They dug spurs recklessly out to where Brig Porton was waiting. For the Indian riders it wasn’t an ordered retreat – they recalled Chad’s threat to Egger about coming out of the night.

  The brush had become a carpet of roaring fire as it spread towards the distant timber-line. It would stay that way until it reached the creek, where the water ran its course along the low scree. The smoke was dense, billowing where Chad and Duck lay with their backs against the roots of a willow. They heard Marlow’s gun fire, then a rifle cracked once before eerie silence returned.

  Smoke was in their eyes and nostrils, the air teemed with charred fragments of catkin and blowdown. The breeze was working its way round and Chad coughed painfully.

  ‘Let’s get to Marlow,’ he rasped at Duck.

  They stumbled, pulled themselves along the creek-bank to where Marlow had been.

  ‘Marlow, you OK?’ Chad called. ‘Where are you?’ But there was no response, and he felt the jolt of dread.

  The smoke was hurting, he was blinking, rubbing his eyes when his foot pressed into a human limb. He drew back in alarm, but saw immediately that it wasn’t Marlow. It was one of Porton’s men who’d taken a bullet. Chad could see a dark rill glinting across the man’s neck.

  Marlow was slumped between two rocks. The front of his shirt was soaked with blood, but he was still breathing.

  Duck was calling for his help as Chad scrambled forward.

  ‘He ain’t dead, is he?’ he shouted.

  ‘Not yet, but I don’t know for how long. He’s been hit bad and there’s a lot o’ blood. We’ll have to carry him. You take his feet, Chad.’

  They carried Marlow to the wagon, then, as fast and careful as the ground allowed, they made their way back to the ranch house.

  16

  HIRED GUNS

  From his post Hork Basen heard, then saw Chad and Duck Fewes.

  ‘It’s Marlow … he’s alive,’ Chad called out, ‘We’ve left some guns behind, Hork. My Sharps an’ a shotgun. See if you can find ’em … bring ’em back.’

&
nbsp; Doc Quinn was waiting with Rose when they carried Marlow in. They’d been prepared, ready with soap and hot water, clean cloths for bandages and what was left of Quinn’s medical supplies.

  ‘Get him on the table,’ Quinn said, his voice regaining some professional sway. ‘Is anyone else hurt?’

  ‘Yeah, plenty. But not on our side. It was just the three of us out there.’

  The doc looked at Chad. ‘Could have been worse then,’ he said, with a trace of irony.

  Chad nodded, considered the percentage loss to his fighting hand. He looked quickly at Duck and left the room.

  There was thin light pooling from a front window and Chad saw Joe crouched on the veranda. He was behind a stack of logs which he’d built in defence of the house and his sisters.

  Chad nodded at the venture. ‘Where’s Perdi?’ he asked.

  ‘Round back, an’ she’s got a gun.’ There was a glint of nervous excitement in Joe’s eyes. ‘That was some fire you had out there. Good job the wind didn’t change.’

  ‘Yeah, that would o’ brought some heat to your pants,’ Chad said.

  Chad walked to the back of the ranch house. He thought of the remaining High Smoke men. A few of them would think twice about coming back – those wary of the night demons.

  Shaking from her lonely ordeal, Perdi was sitting beside a rain barrel. ‘I know someone’s been hurt, Chad. Who is it?’ she asked.

  ‘Marlow. But it’s over for a while. You can go in now … have some coffee,’ Chad said gently.

  Perdi smiled, sadly. ‘Maybe I will.’

  As Chad went to touch her arm a figure moved out of the darkness beside them.

  ‘Jack,’ whispered Perdi. ‘Where have you been?’

  Chad let his Colt drop from the direction of Jack Meel’s chest. ‘That’s got to be the closest you’ve ever been to dyin’,’ he said with a deep sigh.

  Meel looked poker-faced at Perdi, then his eyes flicked to Chad. ‘Those men you had a go at roastin’? Well, they’ve gone back to Hooper … those that could.’ Chad peered out into the darkness, towards the town, as if expecting to see something. He realized that Frost was right about Meel. The man had seen and heard just about everything. Chad thought he’d ask him if he would have put in a more timely appearance if things had got worse for himself and Duck. But when he turned back Meel had gone.

  ‘Where’d he go?’ Chad was astonished. ‘Thank God we ain’t fightin’ his kind, whatever that is. I think I’ll join you for that coffee.’

  Rose was ready with strong, scalding coffee. ‘The doc’s taken a bullet out of Marlow,’ she said. ‘We’ve moved him into …’ She stopped, uncertain of what she was saying.

  Chad slumped in a chair at the table. ‘Yeah, don’t worry, you’ve done the right thing. Your foreman’s certainly earned the right,’ he muttered tiredly.

  ‘Will they come again, Chad?’ Rose asked.

  ‘Tonight? Maybe, maybe not.’ Chad eyed the guns laid out on the table. ‘Let’s hope that message got to Alamosa. I’d sure like to see some law out here.’

  He didn’t say much for a few minutes, just closed his eyes and thought about his own predicament. He’d got a blood horse, saddle, Sharps carbine and a Patterson Colt that had seen better days. He had access to a bunkhouse cot and some hard-earned, irregular meals. He considered the pointless – or so it seemed – silver deposit in a cattleman’s bank. He didn’t want to, but he drifted into an uneasy, troubled sleep.

  First light flowed slowly from the east. There was a lot of blue in the sky and Chad thought it a chillier start to the day than the one before.

  Dexter Pruitt was standing nearby, watching him. There was a broad dressing wrapped loosely around his head.

  Chad licked his lips, knuckled vigorously at his eyes. ‘Mornin’, how’s that head?’ he asked.

  ‘OK. It was the wrong place if they wanted me to stay down. Ain’t so good for Marlow, though.’

  ‘Worse for whoever put the bullet there,’ Chad sneered. ‘But the doc says he’ll pull through.’

  A wry grimace worked its way on to Dexter’s face. ‘You know they’ll regroup in Hooper … lick their wounds. Porton too, after he’s been back to his ranch.’

  ‘Yeah, I know it,’ Chad murmured, then surrendered to sleep again.

  Porton cracked his whip, swore savagely as his buggy careered away from Big Windy. He was escorted by Mose, Wilkes, and Rindy Colman. Three riders brought up the rear. They rode together, and tight, their spirits cracked and near to breaking.

  ‘What the hell we goin’ to do now?’ demanded Barley Mose. His face was sweaty and grime-streaked, one sleeve was sodden with blood from a wounded arm. ‘They were just waitin’, for Chris’sake. Somehow they knew we were comin’. There’s three dead. Munk took a bellyful o’ shot, an two o’ them Flatheads have run for the hills.’

  For the first time Porton’s voice had a shaky edge. ‘We’ll rest. For a while, we’ll rest. The Feather brothers are comin’ in. They can sort out Big Windy an’ the Bridges … damn ’em to hell.’

  ‘Oh yeah, over from the Jackson tanks,’ Mose said. ‘Good move, boss, long’s they know who they’re fightin’ for. Hear tell that riffraff’s from a long line o’ Rocky Mountain coyotes.’

  Porton swung away angrily, hurled the buggy fast towards his ranch. Fifteen minutes later he crested a low rise, looked down on High Smoke. The ranch house and nearest outbuildings were intact, but his herd had scattered. They were strung out, gathered in small bunches, mostly along the slopes of the creek.

  He saw horses in the yard out back of the house. They were saddled, and he knew Deke and Tom Feather had arrived with their men.

  Rindy Colman reined in beside him. ‘Let’s hope they brought plenty ammunition. What did you do, Mr Porton – tell ’em there’s gold-blossom on Big Windy?’

  ‘Yeah, they sure know how to ride for a dollar.’

  Pithy Wilkes joined the two men. ‘I reckon we’ll move ’em into town tonight, boss. We don’t need ’em here, an’ if you want to keep Hooper nailed down—’

  Porton rounded on his newly appointed foreman. ‘I know what I’ve employed ’em for, an’ where I want ’em,’ he snapped.

  Wilkes was concerned by something other than Porton’s ire. ‘I was just thinkin’ about Frost, that foreman of Big Windy,’ he continued. ‘Him an’ that stranger are sure makin’ trouble. An’ I was thinkin’ about Egger and our men they shot up in town. I ain’t too keen on walkin’ down that main street on my own, if they’re on the loose.’

  Porton looked hard, thoughtfully at Wilkes. ‘How many guns they got back there at Big Windy?’

  ‘I weren’t countin’, boss. It sure sounded an’ looked like a lot, but can’t be more’n four.’ Wilkes looked beyond Porton. ‘Looks like one o’ the Feathers comin’.’

  Porton swung his horse to face the oncoming rider. Deke Feather was riding a tough cow pony. He wore a pelt outfit, was bearded and wore his hair as a pigtail.

  The man from Jackson Gulch country had a reckoning look around him as he rode up. ‘Cow-roast get out o’ hand?’ he sneered from what could be seen of his dark face.

  ‘Havin’ some trouble with neighbours. That’s what you boys been hired for,’ Porton said, concerned that Barley Mose had got them pegged right. For a grain of ore Deke Feather, like his younger brother, wouldn’t think twice about jumping a claim. And if the Feathers got the idea that High Smoke was in for a beating they’d simply join those who were meting out the punishment.

  The riders dismounted in front of the ranch house. One of Porton’s hands took the buggy, while Porton himself led the way straight to his library. Wincing with general bones-ache, he grabbed the whiskey and poured glasses to overflowing.

  Deke Feather leaned back in a chair. ‘It had crossed my mind—’ he began.

  ‘Bet there’s been longer journeys,’ Porton muttered smartly under his breath. Feather attempted to register the barb, then he started again. ‘Yeah, well if you’re cour
tin’ trouble, I want bullets an’ pay for my men now.’

  Porton’s jaw dropped at Feather’s claim. ‘I’ve got ammunition, an’ they can have ten dollars apiece. No more until the job’s done.’

  ‘If my boys are goin’ into town that ain’t much, Brig.’

  ‘Nor’s Hooper,’ Porton retorted.

  Feather eyed his empty glass. ‘An’ me?’

  ‘You can have a hundred. You’ll get the rest when you’re done … same as the others.’

  Feather’s opportunist eyes bored into Porton. ‘An’ a hundred for Tom,’ he rasped, holding up his glass. ‘One more, eh, Brig?’

  Porton went to the bunkhouse where he’d ordered the ammunition to be stored – the few boxes bought up from Galt Sherman. He told Feather’s men to help themselves, then he walked over to where Egger and his remaining Flatheads sat with Rindy Colman and Barley Mose. They were watching the men from Jackson Gulch with open hostility.

  As Porton walked back to the house he wondered about the surveyors. Things were running against him – he was losing control. If the surveyors made it back to Alamosa his hope of gaining a profitable lumber deal with the Border River Commissioners was dead in the water.

  He went back to the library, gritted his teeth as he lowered himself into his chair.

  17

  CIVIL LAW

  Marshal Roman Downs and his deputy, Budge Newton, had been gone nearly a month. They were returning from a land dispute near Ortiz on the New Mexico border. They stopped at the top of a long, sloping bluff, watched, interested, as a supply wagon ran hard towards Alamosa.

  ‘He’s in a hurry,’ said Downs. ‘Recognize him?’

  ‘Nope … nor the wagon. Let’s find out what the trouble is.’

  They rode at a steady lope. After five minutes they met the wagon road, waited to intercept the driver.

  The man carrying Marlow Frost’s message saw one of the men ahead pull aside his coat to uncover a marshal’s badge.