by Caleb Rand
Mower rose defensively fast. ‘It was a killin’, an’ like I told you. It was those trigger men o’ yours who found him.’
‘But who told them where to look, Mower?’
Mower started back, his eyes slitted and treacherous. ‘Half the goddamn town witnessed what happened here.’
‘Yeah, I’m sure they did, you son-of-a-bitch,’ Ogden growled. ‘But who witnessed the killing? Let me tell you like it is,’ the Bolas man continued. ‘Foote and Shoeville rode into Bolas together. Shoeville was spitting tacks, but he’d settle for the go-ahead to look at the Bolas herds. He was after Bluestem strays . . . even offered a few men for the tally. He wasn’t interested in gunplay . . . not at that point.’
Ogden pushed Mower back down into his chair. ‘It was about then that the good sheriff’s more spineless side started to show. I know he was nervous of those two fellers Mollie Broad had hired. He said he was finished with his job, and he meant it. I thought he’d be coming back to town to get roostered.’
‘You’re tryin’ to intimidate me into somethin’, Bruno. I know it. But you’re not goin’ to.’ Mower attempted to assert himself. ‘I’d a quarter interest that’s now a third. Turner Foote might have been content to walk out . . . go back for some small bunce to top up his lawman’s pension. But not me. I’m not goin’ anywhere.’
Ogden raised the chilliest of smiles. ‘How’d you know he was walking out? I didn’t say that. Was it fear made you shoot him? Another Elmer Broad number, eh? More bullets in the back. How long was it before Shoeville came back and you had to shoot him too?’
‘The man was goin’ to sell you out . . . sell us all out.’ Mower was stiff with worry. He put a shaking hand to his face, wiped across his mouth. ‘For Chris’sakes, Bruno, I tried to talk him out of it, but he went for his gun.’
‘That’s what they all say. Had no choice.’
‘Keep your voice down,’ Mower said, looking towards the cells. ‘I told you, Shoeville’s in there. The doc’s been tendin’ him. So, Foote’s dead,’ he continued. ‘Well, he might have got shot by anybody. He wouldn’t have been without enemies. It might’ve been on account o’ nothin’ more’n Shoeville’s anger. He got prised away from here . . . him an’ his friend the titty bottle. There would’ve been a witness or two saw that.’
‘That man Chalk’s no fool,’ Ogden said. ‘Him and the other one rode into Bluestem last night and took that old metis up into the hills somewhere. The place was crawling with my men, and he was on top of them . . . hiding in the goddamn hayloft.’
Mower’s worry increased with the purposeful look in Ogden’s eyes. ‘I’ll put Shoeville on the Whiterod stage when it pulls through,’ he said. ‘Let the law there handle things.’
‘And bring investigators to Hog Flats? United States marshals looking up past killings and referencing tally books? I don’t think so, you half-wit. Hell, they’ll be checking the back trails of every man on my payroll! I ought to shoot you now.’
Mower sucked air through his teeth. ‘If anythin’ happens to me, the law will have enough evidence to hang you out to dry, Bruno. There’s papers an’ tally books, an’ every steer what’s passed through my pens has been checked an’ cross checked. A balanced book. Double entry, they call it at the rail-head. Somethin’ you wouldn’t know about.’
Ogden eased his nickel-plated Colt from its shoulder holster. ‘Maybe. But I’ve another way of balancing my book, Mower. Simple, single entry stuff. Besides, I can always burn Todo Mercantile down. That should rid us of your precious paper reckonings.’
‘You’re not scarin’ me away from what I’ve gathered.’
‘Then there’s the girl,’ Ogden continued blatantly. ‘Maybe you’ll have to kill her too? Like father, like daughter, eh?’
Mower considered a moment. ‘I can’t understand why you’re so goddamn fussed about that,’ he countered. ‘You’ve been forced to make a cull before.’
‘That’s true enough. But no more than a handful. And no women. That’s best left to the likes of you.’
‘You reckon you can collect my share of Bolas an’ then ride across to the Broad place an’ get that too?’ Mower demanded. ‘You really think that?’
‘Bolas? Huh,’ Ogden laughed. ‘I’ve already got Far Creek and I’m not expecting much trouble from Bluestem. But I can pull out now if you want. Leave you and Marge to run Bolas together. That would suit, wouldn’t it?’
Mower got to his feet again as a sudden thought struck him. ‘Marge came in last night. Told me Chalk and company are shacked up somewhere near the snowline.’
‘One of the old line cabins, probably. I’ll tend to that,’ Ogden said – as the street door opened and Mollie Broad entered with a gust of fierce heat off the street.
‘Can I see him?’ she asked without preamble.
‘He’s a killer,’ Mower replied. ‘I don’t know that I should let you anywhere near.’
‘He’s about as much a killer as you are straight and fair-minded, Mr Mower. Let me in there.’
Ogden’s mouth twisted with suppressed mirth. ‘Nothing much wrong with your judgement lady, I’ll say that.’ With that, he donned his hat and walked from the office, slamming the door behind him.
‘I’ll have to search you,’ Mower said, with another wipe of his lips.
‘If you do, I’ll be one of the last things you ever touch.’
In reply, Mower said nothing, backing off towards the desk to open a drawer. ‘But you’ll have to be locked in,’ he said, dangling keys in his hand.
‘Then get on with it.’ Mollie’s voice was cold, devoid of any association.
When the cell door clanged behind her, Mollie stood looking down at Shoeville. She waited until the passageway door closed against Mower, then hurried across the cell, bent to the injured man. ‘Ben, what are we going to do? What can I do?’
Shoeville rubbed his chin, tried to make himself easier on the crude cot. ‘There’s a good man in Will Chalk. Get him to do something.’
‘OK. They’re saying that Mower’s going to get you aboard the Whiterod stage.’
‘Well, that’s a tad better than lying here waiting for Ogden’s lynch mob,’ Shoeville said regretfully.
‘I’ve brought something for you.’ Mollie went into a deep side pocket of her calico skirt, drew out the bone-handled pistol. ‘Now you can hide it. If Ogden does come for you, you can shoot him first.’
‘Mollie.’ Shoeville swallowed hard. ‘I didn’t kill Foote. It happened just like I said, an’ I’m not going to break out of here an’ give Mower, or one of his deputies, the chance to shoot me down me for something I didn’t do.’ He was quiet for a moment. ‘Where did they find the sheriff? I’ll wager it was the same place they found your pa,’ he said.
‘How’d you mean, Ben?’ Mollie’s face reflected a blend of anger and uncertainty, something else. ‘What are you thinking?’ she asked quietly.
‘Your pa was killed before Bruno Ogden showed up in Hog Valley . . . White Mesa.’
‘I understand that.’
‘So it’s someone else we should be worried about . . . always should’ve been. Someone with a gutful of bitterness who’s prepared to take an’ destroy until the Broad name’s nothing more’n a memory.’ The muscles on Shoeville’s jaw corded with the effort to control his emotion. ‘I’ve had time to do some thinking, Mollie, an’ no one would take to what I came up with.’
‘Then this might help. Take it,’ Mollie said, pushing the pistol into his hands.
‘When’s the stage coming?’
‘Three days.’ Mollie’s eyes were getting brighter with anticipation. ‘It’s coming up from Tyler’s Post.’
‘Get word to Will an’ tell him all this. Like I said, I’ve done some thinking . . . getting an idea together,’ Shoeville offered. ‘Tell him I’ll be looking out for him somewhere on the road.’
‘Are you sure? Are you up to all this, Ben?’
‘Huh. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger�
��, your pa used to tell us. It was usually end o’ the day, as we fell from our saddles, battered an’ bruised, starving an’ parched, too weak to stand.’
Mollie shaped a wistful smile. ‘Will said I had to tell you, they cut the herd from the canyon. Do you think there’s going to be a day soon that holds something good?’
‘Yeah. I reckon most stuff averages out.’
Watching from a street-fronting window of the Bello Hotel, Ogden saw Mollie hurry from the jailhouse across to the livery stable. Ten minutes later, shielding her eyes against the bright sun, she emerged, turned left in the direction of Marge Highgate’s house.
Sensing a confrontation was near, the man continued to wait, and when Mollie eventually reappeared in riding gear and wearing a range hat, he knew for sure.
‘Deavis.’ His voice was harsh as he turned back into the room. ‘Gather the men. We’ve got some closure to make. Now.’
When he stepped out on to the boardwalk, beneath the hotel’s overhang, Mollie Broad was long gone. But she was there in the distance, a small, rising curl of dust. The destination was beyond doubt, and Ogden smiled icily.
The Bolas riders were cantering past Todo Mercantile when the front door opened and Marge Highgate stepped out, hands on hips, confrontationally.
Ogden curled his lip, realized she’d been doing the same as him, watching the goings on.
‘Come on over here,’ she called out.
Ogden hauled in for a moment. ‘Sounds like you’ve got yourself a dog to command,’ he said, making no attempt to hide his irritation. ‘Try that manner with Mower all you please, but never on me.’ He kicked his sorrel cruelly, swung away in a cloud of choking dust and set off again.
Chapter 14
Mollie put her horse down to the flats and kicked hard towards Bluestem. With Ben Shoeville in jail, she felt more alone than she had done for many years. The religious faction she’d grown up with, recommended a lifelong promise to one man. She knew now, that was likely going to be Ben.
Two figures emerged, ghostly and shimmering in the mirage on the colourless flats. Mollie’s expectations were raised that it was Will Chalk and Latchford Loke. But her hopes were dashed when one of them lifted his hand, a gunshot cracked out and almost immediately, two more riders appeared. They were Bolas gunmen in pursuit of their quarry. If I can see them, they can see me, she thought, realizing if Ogden’s bunch was out searching, then Will was probably still free.
Will had been right after all, her thoughts continued. The real trouble starts now. An Ogden-led Bolas had given ample warning of their intentions. With Ben Shoeville behind bars, Bluestem was reduced to a couple of strangers who had nothing to gain but their lives. And only if they fled Hog Flats.
Mollie pushed on. The Bolas riders were converging on her now and she knew that only down in the safety of the barracks, or up in the foothills, could she elude them. Her horse swerved in and out of a steep-walled gully and she lay prone along its neck, encouraging it in the direction of Condor Pass. She came to rolling sand hills, then a rising, angled bench which gave a clearer view of the valley. In the distance, where creeping sand met the flat, parched rangeland, she picked out the blurred smudges of her own Bluestem buildings. And Ogden’s riders were there, spread in a long picket of vigilance.
Acting on impulse, Mollie took to the old cattle trail that led a tortuous route over the flats. It was the way herds were brought when the Meckler Apache had once controlled all the valley.
She saw tracks and reined in to take a closer look, speculated on whether the two horses could be those of Will and Latch. She went on, trotting her mount up a low rise for a better viewpoint, hauled back in near panic at confronting a group of dismounted Bolas riders.
She turned about, but Bruno Ogden and Copper John were already there to cut off her retreat. They sat their blowing mounts and stared her down.
‘Out looking for someone, Miss Broad?’ Ogden’s voice was level, unruffled.
‘She’ll know where they’re holed up,’ Copper John grated.
Mollie dismounted. With the reins looped around her wrist, she walked towards Ogden, thankful that Will was still free. Copper John attempted to intercept her, but she stepped around him, loathing showing across her face.
‘Tell your gunman to get out of the way, Ogden,’ she said. ‘I’m getting to the grinder man, not his monkey.’
Copper John looked quizzically at his boss, then turned aside. The other unhands backed off, leaving Mollie facing up to Ogden. He stopped patting his sorrel’s glossy neck and pushed his Stetson back from his face.
‘So much for the quality of your hirelings,’ Mollie started. ‘More guns than guile, eh?’
‘We’ll find them. There’s time,’ Ogden murmured. ‘Shoeville’s in jail for murder, and Bluestem’s depleted of a workforce. I don’t see there’s much you can do.’
‘Nor you, Ogden. Not as long as I have a single man somewhere out there,’ Mollie retorted.
‘They’re probably half way home by now . . . wherever that is,’ Ogden said and laughed.
‘I wonder if you’ll find it as amusing when they’re suddenly standing in front of you . . . perhaps with a US marshal along. You could be in their sights right now.’ Mollie looked disgustedly at the group of Bolas men. ‘Was it one of these heroes who shot Sheriff Foote in the back?’
Ogden chose to let the question go as he dismounted. ‘I said, we’ll find them. In this country they’ll probably lose themselves,’ he said.
Mollie lifted her chin, peered thoughtfully out across the flats, at Condor Pass, the distant high mountains. ‘In the middle of all this, Ogden, you’ll grow old never getting out of harm’s way.’
‘Hell lady, it never would have come to this if you hadn’t imported a brace of gunmen.’ A sudden anger engulfed Ogden and he grasped Mollie’s arm. ‘Why?’
‘Why? Why?’ Mollie was incredulous. ‘It’s you who’s paying these men to plunder and kill,’ she countered, pulling herself free. ‘But if it is like you say, then it’s gunmen against gunmen.’
‘The law of the open range.’ Ogden tapped his shoulder-holstered Colt.
‘That’s more or less what Will Chalk told me, and I wouldn’t listen . . . at first.’
‘Ah, and now you know. And when they turn up, they’ll know what to expect.’
‘None of them’s going to greet you with an outstretched arm . . . a handshake, Ogden.’
The Bolas men stared uncomfortably at each other. Mollie’s words had touched a nerve with most of them. They knew that as long as one Bluestem rider stayed alive, their own lives would relentlessly be in peril.
‘You’ll be asking me to buy Bluestem before much longer,’ he sneered.
‘Never. I’ll make it a gift charter to the Indian Affairs Bureau before selling to you.’
‘Hah, what’ll you gift them?’ Ogden taunted. ‘A two-by-four ranch house and a couple of ramshackle barns? Hell, where’s the beef? The Indians with nothing have got more’n you.’
‘The steers can be driven back to where they belong,’ Mollie retorted. ‘Perhaps there’s one or two of your men would be glad to work for a straight brand.’
‘Yeah, she knows where they’re hiding’ all right,’ Copper John snarled. ‘Get her to say it, instead of all this jawbone.’
‘You keep quiet.’ Ogden spoke without turning his head. He was watching Mollie, saw the tough, resolute streak in her that matched his own. But it didn’t make any difference. Bluestem had to be taken over, incorporated, subsumed in Bolas holdings. He’d gone too far to rein in now.
‘Well, do you Miss Broad?’ he asked. ‘Do you know where they are?’
‘No. Any case, would I likely tell you?’ Mollie stood resolute, held her head erect. Surrounded by Bolas gunners, she knew the situation was bad, but she had no thought of giving in.
‘No to what? You won’t tell me where they are, or, you don’t know where they are? Which is it?’
‘No, to everything.’
‘Then return to White Mesa,’ he snapped and shoved her towards her horse. ‘Show up anywhere near here again, and I’ll let my men deal with the problem.’
‘This is my land,’ Mollie flared. ‘You put the boundary of Bolas at the Cholla . . . and that’s a way off my place. If you trespass here again, I’ll avoid any sheriff or marshal’s office and report to the army at Tyler’s Post. They’re always looking for an uprising to put down.’ Mollie leaned down towards Ogden, spoke in a lower, ominous tone. ‘And the only reason I’m riding back to town’s because it’s where I left my gun.’
Ogden shook his head as though he’d misheard. Then he reached for his horse, started to haul himself up into the saddle.
Impulsively, and because it was what he was being paid for, Copper John stepped up to Mollie. ‘Get yourself mounted up, like you been told.’
Mollie took a quick breath, reached for the plaited quirt that was looped around the pommel of her saddle. Quickly, and in one movement, she turned and lashed Copper John across his face. ‘Don’t you dare tell me what to do on my own range . . . ever!’
‘Leave her be. Saddle up and get the hell out of here, now,’ Ogden’s voice brought the gunman around, eyes narrowing as he stared into the muzzle of the man’s carbine.
‘I ain’t paid to care for you, Ogden, an’ I don’t really understand what all this is about,’ Copper John started, the blood streaming brightly from the wound on his face. ‘But you tell this girl she’s that close to losin’ her hide.’
‘Reckon she knows that.’ Ogden waved his rifle, then looked at the others. ‘All of you, ride to Bluestem and wait for me.’
Mollie knew then that conflict was inevitable. For a distracting moment she was glad that Ben Shoeville was in jail . . . out of harm’s way.
‘I think you ought to be gone, lady,’ Ogden walked his horse up close to Mollie’s.