Hired Guns

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  As darkness descended, Luke found a good spot for night camp in a clearing atop a grassy knob overlooking a winding creek that provided cold, clear water to slake his horses’ thirst. He would top off his canteens and water skins before starting out again tomorrow. A fringe of thick pine growth made both a good windbreak should the night air turn chill and also obscured the small fire where Luke cooked some coffee and biscuits.

  The fine meals he’d enjoyed in Helena yesterday and the hearty breakfast he’d stuffed himself with early this morning already seemed like a long time ago. But such were the fortunes of this life he’d chosen, Luke reminded himself. And, besides, he made a mighty fine pot of coffee and his trail biscuits were pretty fair, too, so it could have been worse.

  After he’d eaten, Luke extinguished the flames. The night wasn’t going to get that cold and the sky was clear except for a few stringy clouds trailing across the face of a waning moon. No sense keeping the fire going and taking even the slim chance of it attracting drifters who might be out and about and inclined toward no good.

  Being careful kept a man alive.

  Chapter 6

  Luke rode hard for the next two days, holding to a steady, miles-eating pace aimed at getting him to Hard Rock as soon as possible. He checked his back trail regularly, especially on the first day, but saw no sign of anybody following him.

  The weather stayed fair, neither too hot by day nor too chilly at night. A scattering of clouds hung stubbornly in the sky, but never formed into anything threatening rain.

  As for the land, it gradually grew more rugged. Sharper ridges, steeper slopes, numerous stands of trees yielding to fewer open, grassy stretches. Mountains were perpetually on the horizon, looming higher and denser to the west, with frequent buttes and other rock outcroppings dotting the landscape in all directions.

  Through it all, Luke got a fine performance out of his horses, especially the big paint. Cool streams were frequent and Luke made sure to give them plenty of chances to slake their thirst. Good graze was easy to find whenever he was ready to make camp, and after unsaddling and hobbling the animals where they had access to plenty of it for the night, he additionally gave each a generous scoop of grain from the supplies he had packed.

  In those quiet moments after he’d finished his evening meal, Luke usually stretched out with a final cup of coffee, laced with a splash of bourbon from his saddle flask, and by the campfire light read from one of the books he also made it a point to include in his supplies. Self-educated, always hungry to increase his knowledge and improve his demeanor for settings a bit more refined than the barely tamed frontier where he plied his trade—settings to be found in places like Denver or San Francisco, for example, where he enjoyed spending time when he could—Luke pored through everything from the Bible to Shakespeare to historical accounts to even a few lurid dime novels now and then. It all served to enlighten or entertain, sometimes both, and it transformed those late moments from what might have felt like loneliness to more a welcome solitude.

  On the third night out from Helena, expecting to arrive in Hard Rock the next day, Luke followed his usual routine after he was done eating but the book he’d selected to read from for a while, a collection of stories by Washington Irving, was failing to hold his interest. Thoughts about the job at hand, now close to actually beginning, kept rolling through his mind instead.

  He was anxious to find out more about Tom Eagle—the former sheriff who had “gone bad from greed,” as Parker Dixon described him. It still troubled Luke a bit that he didn’t have a properly issued reward dodger on the man, or hardly anything at all in the way of particulars except for that provided by Dixon. Going after somebody under such circumstances continued to feel uncomfortably close to acting like a hired gun, especially considering the unusually large payment being offered.

  What was more, Luke realized he’d be lying to himself if he didn’t admit that the five grand was largely responsible for him accepting the job in the first place.

  As a result, he had long since decided that how far he’d proceed would hinge on what he found out once he got to Hard Rock. If the people of the town backed up Dixon’s account of things and some of them indicated they would in fact be willing to testify at a trial of Tom Eagle, then that would seal the deal. Luke would go ahead and try to apprehend the outlaw.

  However, if he got conflicting reports on the situation, then he’d be riding back to Helena and returning Dixon’s advance money, minus expenses.

  For some reason, though, the closer he got to Hard Rock, the stronger an odd sort of hunch grew in Luke that—no matter what he found once he got there—simply turning and riding away might not be so easy.

  * * *

  Luke got his first look at the town from the rocky crest of a ridge on the south side of the valley. The cluster of buildings lay toward the east, near the narrow end of the rolling, grassy, teardrop-shaped expanse.

  To the west—the fat, rounded end of the valley—lay some lumpy gray foothills and then the tall thrust of the Flathead Mountains beyond. To the north, slanting across the top of the valley and then curling down like a tail to partly force the eastern narrowing of the teardrop, ran a line of spiky peaks Luke reckoned were the Spearpoint Mountains. Farther east, past the point of the teardrop, from what he could see the land appeared to turn considerably more rocky and barren.

  Cloud cover had thickened during the night, dimming daybreak and casting a dreary chill over the unfolding day. A couple hours before noon, a drizzling rain began to leak down. It was due to this added murkiness that, even with the use of the field glasses he dug out of his saddlebags along with the long, loose slicker now draped over him, Luke was unable to make out the features of Hard Rock very clearly.

  “Still,” he said aloud, speaking to the paint, “it doesn’t appear quite as close to the back end of nowhere as Patton gave me to believe. Of course, this cold rain dripping down the back of my neck might have something to do with that. Right at the moment, any place offering a roof to get under looks mighty appealing to me, and that’s a fact.” Luke tucked the glasses back in under the slicker, leaving them to hang by the lanyard around his neck. Taking up his reins again, he said, “So what do you say we kick up some mud, critters, and hightail it on down there to where we can find ourselves a dry spot?”

  From there, it took the better part of an hour to cover the distance to the town. The rain continued, but at least it never came down any harder. Still, man and horses were feeling plenty cold and drenched by the time they reached the first of the outlying buildings.

  Luke scanned the layout as he steered the paint down the main street. General store, pair of saloons, barbershop, café, boot repair shop, hardware store specializing in mining tools, telegraph office . . . all the standard businesses you might expect for a small town serving ranchers, farmers, and miners. Down the line, Luke spotted a small brick building with a sign nailed above its door: SHERIFF. Beyond that he saw a barn and some corrals that marked the town livery stable.

  What Luke didn’t see, however, was any sign of life.

  In this weather, it wasn’t surprising that no one was moving on the street. But equally absent was any sense of movement or activity inside the buildings, on the other side of the blank windows that stared back at him like empty eye sockets. Given the dreariness, there should have been the glow of lanterns in at least some of those windows. And since it was still the noon hour, surely the café ought to be doing some business.

  Yet, as Luke rode by, it stood as silent and vacant-looking as everything else. The same for both of the saloons.

  On both sides of the street, emptiness. No signs of life. Silence, except for the steady hiss of the rain, the splatter of the drops hitting the muddy street.

  Luke plodded on toward the livery barn, figuring to get himself and his horses in where it was dry even if there was nobody there to welcome them. As he moved along, he continued to sweep his gaze from side to side. Adding to the eeriness was the
fact that he had no feeling anyone was looking back out at him. Nor did he get any hint of menace.

  He’d been in ghost towns before—old, withered, leftover shells of places, some of them thriving communities at one time, but now gutted and abandoned and left to the elements. Hard Rock had that same abandoned feeling. But it was more like a fresh, very recent development. Like everybody had just simultaneously packed up and lit a shuck, all at once. Only what sense did that make? What could cause such flight?

  Reining up in front of the livery barn, Luke gave a loud shout. “Hellooo! Hello, is anybody around?”

  Nothing. No kind of response.

  After a minute, the paint chuffed somewhat impatiently, as if to say, What’s the point of standing here waiting in the rain when it’s clear nobody is in there to answer?

  “Reckon you make a good point,” Luke muttered under his breath.

  He swung down from his saddle, walked up to the wide double doors, and shot back the two-by-four that had been slipped through metal brackets on each side to hold them shut. Pulling one of the doors open wide, Luke immediately felt the release of warm, dry air washing out over him. And mixed liberally in this was the familiar smell of horse—not just one or two horses, but several of them. Not a stale, lingering scent, either, but rather a fresh, current one. While his nostrils were assessing this, his ears picked up the scuff of hooves and a few curious snorts from deeper inside.

  For the first time since arriving in town, despite all its oddities, a bolt of alarm stabbed into Luke. Heightening this came the awareness that he was standing silhouetted in an open doorway—something he instantly changed by hurling himself to one side and hitting the ground in a diving roll!

  Chapter 7

  Luke rolled to a stop, bumping against some bundles of straw in a pool of thick shadows off to one side of the door that was still closed. He quickly pushed into a crouch, coming to rest on one knee with both Remingtons gripped in his fists. He froze in that position for several seconds, keeping his breathing shallow, his slitted eyes darting from side to side, exploring as far as he could into the shadowy cavern that was the long, high-ceilinged barn.

  The sound of more hooves scuffing the floor and a restless chuff here and there reached his ears. The rain continued to patter down outside. No hint of any human presence, inside or out.

  Luke tried again. “Hey! Hello! Anybody in here—anybody at all?”

  More of the same. Nothing.

  He rose slowly up out of his crouch, took a couple steps forward. He pouched the iron he’d been holding in his right hand, kept his left filled. By now his eyes had adjusted to the gloom inside the barn. He could make out his surroundings pretty well.

  A long aisle extended straight back, with horse stalls on either side. At the rear was a wide, fenced off area with a loft overhead. Each of the stalls—twelve in total, six on each side—appeared to have a horse in it. And more were milling around in the fenced area at the rear.

  The fact that none of these animals seemed unduly agitated, like they would be if they’d been without food or water for a long period of time, indicated to Luke they must have recently received proper attention.

  But from who? And where was that caregiver now?

  Movement from the doorway snapped his head around and he saw the paint entering with a tentative step, its nostrils flared at the scent of the other horses already present.

  Luke grinned. “Sure, why not. Why should they be in here where it’s dry and warm and you two are still stuck out there in the rain, right?”

  He walked over, took the paint’s reins, and led it on in, the dun following on its tether. Near the bundles of straw, there stood a hand pump and a widemouthed wooden bucket. Luke led his horses over, pumped some fresh water into the bucket, then stood by while they dipped their heads and noisily drank. When they’d had enough, he led them a little farther into the barn and tied them to an upright post near where the rows of stalls began. They’d grazed recently enough not to have to worry about that for the time being. Nor did Luke deem it necessary to strip them of their saddles and gear right away—not until he’d poked around some more to try and find an answer to what was going on in this mysterious place.

  He pulled his Winchester from its saddle scabbard and then walked back to the doorway. Standing at its edge, exposing only a slice of himself, he gazed out once more through the rain and surveyed the town. Nothing had changed. Still no sign of activity, no hint of anyone being behind the flat, lifeless facades of the buildings that lined the street. From this new perspective, he could see that, behind the structures along the right side of the main drag, lay a cluster of houses that constituted the residential district. Same story there. Dull, dark windows, no “lived in” look whatsoever.

  To the left, near the top of a slight slope, catty-cornered across from the jail building, stood a building Luke hadn’t noticed when he first approached the livery barn. It was a church. Recently whitewashed, sturdy-looking, with straight, clean lines and sharp angles. From the roof peak over the front entrance, a bell tower rose tall and proud.

  Luke’s interest sharpened. Other than its obvious purpose, there wasn’t really anything that different about this building . . . and yet there was. Somehow, it didn’t appear quite so un-inviting. Plus, Luke asked himself, what was a church? A place of worship, yes, obviously. But often, also simply a gathering place. A place where a large section of townsfolk could meet, could come together in order to discuss and make plans for the community as a whole . . . Could it be that’s what was going on now? Was that where everybody was—all gathered in the church for some kind of town meeting?

  It seemed a little far-fetched, probably just some wishful thinking, Luke told himself—yet it was something that might explain all the emptiness everywhere else. Drawn by that thought, nudged along by the frustration of having no better idea, Luke pushed out of the doorway and started walking toward the church.

  At the front door he paused, feeling suddenly uncomfortable carrying a rifle and having the Remingtons strapped around his waist. But, considering the strangeness of the overall situation, he decided it was of minor consequence. Finding the door unlocked, he worked the latch, pulled it open, and stepped inside.

  He found himself in a rather cramped foyer directly under the bell tower. A set of wide double doors leading into the church proper were standing open and through them Luke could see rows of pews on either side of a center aisle leading up to the pulpit. Unfortunately, what he also could see was that the pews and the rest were as empty as every place else he had encountered in Hard Rock so far, save for the horses in the livery barn. A herd there, but no flock here.

  Luke felt like swearing, but in deference to where he was, he held any epithet in check. Instead, useless though it seemed, he once again raised his voice in a shout. “Hellooo! . . . Reverend? Anybody?”

  The same lack of response he was getting used to but found no less frustrating. Before turning to leave, Luke walked a few steps farther into the church and ran a hand across the back of one of the pews. His fingers disturbed a faint layer of dust. So the church may not have been abandoned for very long, but it had sat empty for days, maybe close to a month.

  Back out in the foyer, Luke glanced over and noticed a closet-like room to one side. Stepping over and pulling open the door to the little room, he saw a rope extending down through a hole in the ceiling and tied to a metal hook on the room’s back wall—the rope that led up to the bell in the tower.

  On a whim, Luke leaned his Winchester against the door frame and went into the room. He untied the rope and gave it a light tug, until he felt the resistance of the heavy bell up above. A roguish smile touched his lips. Instead of going around wasting his breath shouting in all the doorways he came to, why not raise a kind of shout that the whole town could hear? Luke had no explanation for most of what he’d encountered so far, but the presence of the horses in the livery barn and the evidence of their recent care meant that somebody had to
be close by.

  He went to work pulling the rope and setting the church bell to clanging and clamoring for a full minute or more, drowning out the sound of the rain and making the little room and the whole foyer tremble from the reverberations. When he figured he’d made enough noise, Luke re-tied the rope to its hook, retrieved his rifle, and left the little room. Then, flipping up the collar of his slicker and pulling his hat down a little lower over his eyes, he passed through the foyer and stepped back out into the rain.

  Whether as a result of the bell or merely because they’d decided it was time to make their presence known anyway, several men were gathering down along the base of the slope when Luke emerged from the church. Three were directly in front of him, fanned out slightly apart from one another. Two more were off toward the livery barn, as if they had just emerged from there. In the other direction, off toward the main street area, a full half dozen more were in evidence—four advancing from the nearer buildings, two others hanging back, planted in the middle of the street. All wore grim expressions well suited to otherwise hard, rugged features and all were heavily armed, brandishing their weapons openly.

  It didn’t take a lot of study for Luke to determine that here, very clearly, was not the local merchants’ welcome committee.

  Chapter 8

  “Just hold it right where you are, mister. Shuck your hardware and stand easy, there won’t be no trouble.”

  These words came from the centermost of the three men directly in front of Luke. He was a thick-bodied individual with close-set, piggish eyes, and a wide, sneering mouth set in a bloated face. He held a long-barreled shotgun, butt resting on one hip, and behind the open folds of his slicker could be seen a set of bandoleers crisscrossing his swollen gut.