Incensed, Clell sat up and began working at the knotted rope around his ankles. “You son of a bitches, that was real damn funny. You’re damn lucky I didn’t come up shootin’.”
The others continued to laugh at Clell, but Pitt wasn’t smiling when he warned, “Next time you’re on guard, and I catch you sleeping, I’m gonna cut your damn throat.”
Knowing Pitt did not waste words on idle threats, Clell was immediately contrite. “Ah, hell, Pitt, I only closed my eyes for a few minutes right at sun-up. There wasn’t nobody in sight nowhere. Honest to God.”
“That’s the only warning you’re gonna get,” Pitt stated evenly. No one doubted his word.
Fry watched the reprimand from the doorway of the cabin. While Clell got to his feet and removed himself from Pitt’s menacing glare, Fry walked outside and stood looking first in one direction and then the other. “If there was a war party moving through this valley last night, they were mighty damn quiet about it.” He turned to look at Pitt. “Whaddaya think, Jack?”
Pitt scowled and glanced at Wiley before answering. “Nobody heard anything all night. I don’t see no smoke anywhere up or down the valley. I think Wiley and Mendel got spooked and just thought they was seeing Injuns—more’n likely it was just a coon or some varmint.”
Both men immediately got their backs up at that. “Wait a minute, Pitt,” Wiley protested. “I reckon I know a damn arrow when it’s stickin’ in a fence rail right beside my hand. And I ain’t never seen a coon that was handy with a bow and arrow. Hell, Mendel almost got one in the leg.”
“That’s a fact,” Mendel exclaimed. “It damn shore warn’t my imagination. It was Injuns, all right.”
Fry thought about it for a moment. There was certainly no indication that a war party had raided the settlement during the night. There was only one way to get to the bottom of this. “We’ll saddle up after breakfast and ride over to Colefield’s place.”
* * *
Katie Mashburn stood at the corner of the corral watching Luke work with a black-and-white paint that had been given to him by his uncle, Angry Bear. Luke was quite skilled in working with horses, and Katie enjoyed watching him. He was able to stay on the wildest of mustangs, and yet he had a gentle touch when breaking them. As a result, the two ponies that belonged to him followed him around like puppies.
On this morning, Luke was working with a halterlike bridle on the paint to train the pony to respond to the reins. One hard pull, and it cut the animal’s wind off, causing it to stop. It didn’t take long before the paint got the message and was soon responding to a light touch of the reins.
Deciding she had dallied too long, Katie turned to go back to the cabin, when she caught sight of the line of riders rounding the corner of the cornfield and coming up the wagon track. The militia, she thought, and she glanced back at Luke. He had seen them before she had and was already walking toward the corner of the corral, where his bow lay on the ground.
Katie rested her hand on her ever-present pistol, unconsciously reassuring herself. She had hoped to avoid ever having to meet the valley’s newest arrivals, preferring to let her father fawn over them. But first thing that morning, Rufus had gone over to Nate Wysong’s store to pick up some supplies, so she supposed she was going to have to see what the soldiers wanted. Maybe, she thought, they would pass on by. But she discarded that thought when the lead horse turned off the track at the corner of the garden and headed up the path toward the cabin. “Damn,” she murmured and took a couple of steps away from the corral to stand waiting for Fry and his men.
“Good morning to you, ma’am,” Fry called out. “Is this the Colefield place?”
“It is,” was Katie’s succinct reply.
“Are you Mrs. Colefield?” Fry asked, aware of the obvious difference in ages between the young woman facing him and the man introduced to him earlier as Rufus Colefield.
“Hardly,” Katie replied evenly. Anxious to speed them on their way, she said, “If you’re looking for Pa, he ain’t here.” She didn’t like the way the eight men had spread out in a line and seemed to be looking the place over.
“I’m Captain Fry, ma’am,” Fry went on, still trying to charm his way past the obviously cold reception from the young woman. “We’re just out on a patrol this morning, trying to make sure all you folks up this way are all right.” His words were met with a dispassionate stare. “I heard you might have had some trouble with Indians last night.”
“No trouble,” Katie stated flatly, staring unblinking at Fry, her hand still resting on her pistol. Luke climbed over the top rail of the corral and moved to her side, his bow in his hand.
Recognizing the boy as the young half-breed who had accompanied Rufus Colefield to the church that first day, Fry began to form a clear picture in his mind of the “war party” that had attacked Wiley and Mendel the night before. It might have amused him had he not felt such disgust for the stupidity of the two men. He glanced at Pitt, and Pitt met his gaze with a slight nod of his chin. He, too, had focused on Luke’s bow and the quiet confidence displayed on the boy’s face.
Knowing then that the woman and the boy knew full-well that two of his men had been snooping around their cabin the night before, Fry felt he should offer some form of explanation. “We had several scouts out last night looking for signs of Indian raiders. Two men checked on your place just to make sure you folks were all right.”
Katie could not suppress the hint of a smile that nudged the corners of her mouth. “Well, now, that’s mighty reassuring, Captain,” she said, making no attempt to hide her sarcasm. “I’ll give you and your men some advice. Folks who don’t have mischief on their minds usually call out to identify themselves before coming up to the cabin. If they come sneaking around after dark, they stand a good chance of getting shot.”
Fry wasn’t at all comfortable with the dressing-down he was taking from the young woman, but he was resolved to watch his manners for now. “Yes, ma’am,” was all he trusted himself to respond, then, “If you folks are all right, we’ll be leaving now.”
As the riders wheeled about to leave, there were two who lingered a moment longer than the others. There was no mistaking the lust in the eyes of Wiley Johnson. He found himself intrigued by the joyless face of the young woman. While Wiley gawked at Katie, Mendel was sizing up the half-breed boy at her side, realizing that he and Wiley had turned tail and run from a fourteen-year-old with a bow. It didn’t sit well with him, for he knew he and Wiley were going to take a real ribbing from the others. After glaring at Luke for a long moment, he reined his horse around and called to his partner, “Come on, Wiley.”
Katie stood watching the eight self-proclaimed soldiers until they loped out of sight around the corner of the cornfield. Then she turned to Luke and said, “You watch yourself around that bunch, Luke. I don’t like their looks. I think Monk’s right; that’s just a bunch of riffraff looking to leech off of the valley all winter.”
Luke nodded. He didn’t voice it, but he had not missed the lust in Wiley’s eyes when the dingy-whiskered degenerate had leered at Katie. He felt reasonably certain that Wiley was one of the men who had snooped around the cabin the night before. Luke decided it might be a good idea if he kept an eye on this so-called militia unit.
* * *
“If you two ain’t a pair of jackasses,” Fry snarled in disgust after they had ridden out of sight of Rufus Colefield’s place. “So you were attacked by a whole war party of wild Injuns, were you? Arrows flying thick and fast, right?” Several of the men grinned, anticipating the tongue-lashing Fry was about to administer to Wiley and Mendel. Trask snickered, delighted to see someone else take the brunt of the gang’s scorn for a change. Fry went on. “Injuns raiding the whole valley! Well, there was your war party back there. A snotnosed young’un with a bow and arrow sent you two a’running.” The more he ranted, the more the stupidity of the two galled him. “Dammit, Mendel, I told you not to let anybody see you scouting around. I know Wiley goes loco
when he gets the scent of a female, but I thought you had enough sense to keep a rein on him.”
If Wiley was insulted by Fry’s remark, it wasn’t evident by the lecherous smile on his face. He was already fantasizing about the melancholy young woman with the .45 strapped around her waist. She must have some mighty fine stuff she’s trying to protect, he told himself. The thought brought a smile to his face. He closed his eyes for a second while he fantasized Katie helplessly forced to submit to a lustful attack. The image held a great appeal for Wiley, for he could picture himself as the perpetrator. The scene excited him, and he would play it over and over in his mind during the next few days. Right then, however, his fantasy was interrupted by the harsh scolding from Fry, and he was forced to bring his mind back to the present.
“Dammit, Wiley,” Fry was saying, “if you foul up before we’re ready to clean this valley out, I’ll shoot you myself.” Fry and Pitt had huddled several times over the prospects of sacking the little settlement. They both agreed that it was prime for the plucking, but, as long as their militia ruse was successful, there was a good argument for staying with their original plan of laying up here for the winter and not striking until spring. The only thing that might ruin it would be if one of the men pulled some damn-fool trick like Wiley had almost attempted. Most of the inhabitants of the valley had accepted Fry and his men with childish faith. But there were a few who were openly skeptical. The woman they had just left and the old trapper, Monk Grissom, came to mind.
“We need something to make these people think we’re really protecting them,” Fry said, thinking out loud.
“We need an Injun raid,” Pitt returned. He had been thinking about Wiley and Mendel’s frightened retreat from Colefield’s cabin the night before. When Fry’s expression questioned the seriousness of his remark, Pitt continued. “You said there was one man that didn’t come to the meetin’ the other night because he had a place way down at the south end of the valley.” Fry nodded, already seeing where Pitt was going. Pitt went on. “Why don’t we take those Injun ponies we took from them Snakes and pay him a little visit? We burn him out, and I’ll bet the rest of these folks’ll feel real good about having some militia around.”
“Especially when we go up there and chase the Injuns away,” Fry replied, smiling.
* * *
John Cochran filled a basin with water from the wooden bucket by the step. He dumped the few little knotty potatoes he had dug up from the garden into the basin to wash. “That’s about it for the potatoes,” he said to his wife, who was watching him from the door. “Them last two or three hills on the far end of the row just kept on making potatoes, but I reckon they finally played out.” When she made no comment, he looked up to find her gazing past him toward the pasture.
“Somebody’s coming,” she said then.
John turned and squinted into the setting sun, shielding his eyes with his hand. “Seven . . . eight of ’em,” he said. “Now, I wonder who that could be.” A few years ago, his first concern would have been Indians, but he was not worried about Indians at the present time. He had made his peace with the band of Shoshonis on the western side of the pass and was accustomed to occasional visits from small parties from the reservation. The riders crossing the pasture now appeared to be white men, possibly from the settlement. But if they were, he didn’t recognize any of them. “Stay inside, Ruth, till I find out who they are.” His wife stepped back inside the cabin and pushed the door shut. John walked out from the front step to meet the strangers.
“Evenin’,” Simon Fry called out as they reined their horses to a stop a few feet from Cochran.
“Evenin’,” Cochran returned. “What brings you fellers out this way?” He looked the eight men over from left to right and back again. There was something strange about the way they stared back at him with almost identical blank expressions, save for a slight smile here and there. John found it odd that several of the men seemed to be having trouble controlling their horses—horses that looked like Indian ponies.
“We’re with the territorial militia,” Fry informed him. “We’re making calls on every settler in the valley to see how many fighting men we can call on if we were to have Indian trouble.” He flashed a wide smile for John’s benefit. “Are there some more menfolk living here that we can count on in a pinch?”
Cochran was too surprised to answer Fry’s question. Instead, he exclaimed, “Militia? Well, I’ll be go-to-hell.”
Fry waited a long moment for John’s response, his smile still in place while Cochran scratched his head in wonder. When Cochran still did not answer, Fry asked again, “How many rifles can I count on here?”
Ignoring the question again, John asked one of his own. “Is the Injuns raidin’? I ain’t heard nuthin’ down this end of the valley.”
Fry could hold a phony smile for just so long before he began to lose his patience. “Dammit, man, are you the only one here or not?”
Fry’s impatience did not faze Cochran’s unhurried manner. He took a moment to marvel once more at the eight men looking down at him before he finally responded. “Ain’t nobody here but me and the missus. Hell, they coulda told you that in the settlement—saved you a ride all the way down the valley.”
Fry’s smile returned. This time it was genuine. “No trouble at all. We had to ride down here anyway, to chase the war party off.”
“War party? What war party?”
“Why the one that’s fixin’ to burn your place,” Fry replied and nodded to Pitt. Without hesitating, Pitt turned the rifle that had been resting across his saddle, pointing it directly at John Cochran’s forehead. The look of surprise became a permanent feature of the dead man’s face as Pitt’s rifle ball made a neat black hole just above Cochran’s eyes.
The sudden report of the rifle set off a chorus of hoots and wild laughter as the rest of the men exulted in the bloodletting. Without waiting for further word, they sprang from their saddles, intent upon the looting that was to follow. Just for the pure enjoyment of it, both Hicks and Caldwell fired their pistols into the body of the mortally wounded settler.
A muffled gasp from inside the cabin, followed by the sound of a bar falling into place behind the door, triggered a wild look in Wiley’s eyes. “Let’s git a look at the missus,” he sang out in joyous lust and led the charge toward the door of the cabin. He was only a step ahead of Mendel and Clell.
Finding the door closed tight and barred with a piece of pine timber, the mob’s fever only became more intense, and it turned into a playful competition to see who could break into the cabin first. Soon it became a frantic contest as they circled the cabin, trying to break through the locked shutters, throwing their shoulders desperately against the door. Hicks and Caldwell scrambled up on the roof in an effort to dig through from above.
Patiently watching the chaos that had developed around the rude log structure, Fry and Pitt remained in the saddle. “If they don’t break into that cabin pretty soon, we’ll burn it down,” Fry remarked casually. “I don’t intend to hang around here all night.” Dismounting, he said, “Let’s take a look around to see if there’s anything worth keeping.”
There wasn’t much. John Cochran, like most of the settlers in Canyon Creek, had barely been scratching out enough to survive, hoping to eventually realize the potential offered by the fertile bottomland. It didn’t take more than a few minutes’ time to see that the raid was not going to produce any stock worth keeping. Other than a half-dozen chickens, there was a saddle horse and a team of oxen. Fry decided to simply shoot the oxen, so he and Pitt put them down while the other six men continued their frantic efforts to gain access to the cabin. “We can say we recovered the horse,” Fry said, “if anybody gets nosy.”
John Cochran had constructed a solid door for his cabin, mounted with strap hinges on the inside that were fashioned from the rims of a wagon wheel. And it wasn’t until Mendel discovered Cochran’s ax by the woodpile that the gang of outlaws was successful in chopping their way
through. There was little doubt about who among them lusted most for something female. That was Wiley. For it seemed that his every waking thought was below his belt. But Mendel had an urge, too, and he was the one wielding the ax. He was as determined as Wiley to have first crack at the woman.
As Mendel chopped away at the thick pine door, Wiley flinched with each blow of the blade as it took bigger and bigger chips from the wood. His eyes wide with anticipation, he trembled with impatience, unable to contain his lust. “Let me spell you a while, Mendel,” he begged.
“Just stand back and gimme some room,” Mendel replied with no thought of stepping aside when he could feel the ax working at the last remnants of resistance. Two more solid blows, and he was through. Even as the last chunk of wood fell away, Mendel quickly reached through the hole and lifted the bar.
There was a mad scramble to be first to squeeze through the open door, but Mendel managed to edge in ahead of the others, with Wiley right behind. Mendel’s reward was to come face-to-face with John Cochran’s terrified wife, allowing him no more than a split second before Cochran’s rifle went off almost in his face. The sudden discharge of the weapon startled the surge of leering renegades for only a few seconds before Wiley sprang forward and snatched the rifle from the terrified woman. Behind him, the others crowded in, stepping over Mendel, who lay choking to death from the wound in his throat.
Wiley pulled the woman back toward a corner of the cabin. “Sorry, boys, you’re just gonna have to wait your turn. I reckon I got her first.” He nodded his head toward his friend lying in agony on the floor. “Maybe somebody better take a look at ol’ Mendel there.”
“Just git on with it, Wiley,” Clell Adams said. “You ain’t the only one’s rutty, and you ain’t got the only claim on the woman.” He stepped back and bent down to take a look at Mendel. The wounded man’s eyes were bulging wildly as he grasped his throat with both hands in an effort to stop the blood that was strangling him. Clell gazed at him dispassionately for a few seconds before announcing, “Ain’t nuthin’ we can do for him. He’s chokin’ to death.” He turned his attention back to Wiley and the woman in the corner, leaving Mendel trying to beg for help but unable to speak through the blood in his windpipe.
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