After making sure that Trask was no longer a threat, Clay Culver stood up and softly said, “There’s another one, Monk.” He listened for a few moments to the murmur of voices inside the church. He heard a couple of shots from the riverbank and answering fire from inside. Then, moving with the grace of a great cat, he pulled himself up on the roof and crawled up to the ridge, taking cover beside the stone chimney. He lay there for a while, waiting for the next shots to come from the river, watching the bank intently. In a few seconds, he spotted two muzzle flashes in the darkness as shots rang out. Bringing his own rifle to bear on the dirt mound near the water’s edge, he began to lay down a blanket of fire, cocking and shooting without pause.
Stunned by the sudden attack from the church roof, both Fry and Pitt dived for cover at the base of the mound. With bullets snapping angrily over their heads, kicking up dirt and snow around them, Fry yelled, “That damn fool! What the hell’s wrong with him?”
Pitt was already crawling toward the horses. “That ain’t Trask. They got some help from somewhere, and whoever it is has got the angle on us.” When Fry just lay there, still confused, Pitt commanded, “Come on, dammit! We can’t stay here. He’s bound to hit one of us sooner or later.” As he struggled along on hands and knees, he pictured Clell’s corpse, and he had a pretty good idea that this was the work of the same man.
Riding low on the necks of their horses, Fry and Pitt galloped down the riverbank, whipping their mounts unmercifully. The hail of bullets—from the roof as well as from inside the church—continued to speed them on their way. Fry yelped involuntarily when he felt a slug smack against the cantle of his saddle. Pitt, hearing his partner’s cry, didn’t bother to look around to see if Fry had been hit. He just tried to lie lower on his horse’s neck and urge it to go faster.
Back at the church, Jim got to his feet and walked outside to glimpse the two outlaws galloping out of sight around the bend in the river. Satisfied that there was no further threat from them for the time being, he called back to those inside to let them know they could come out. Then he looked up at the roof to see who his unexpected ally might be. There was no longer anyone there. He turned to walk around the building just as his benefactor came around the corner, and the two met face-to-face.
The man he faced was big—not wide and bulky like Pitt but towering like a solid oak tree. Dressed from head to toe in animal skins, with long sandy hair to his shoulders, he carried a rifle in each hand and wore a belt that held a long skinning knife and a hand ax. Jim didn’t doubt that he was facing a genuine mountain man.
As the shaken settlers of Canyon Creek filed out of the church, thankful to again breathe the cold night air, the two riflemen shook hands. “Looks like you folks were having a right lively prayer meeting,” the mountain man commented dryly.
Jim laughed. “You could say that. Glad you could make it.”
“My pleasure. Clay Culver’s the name,” he said, then puzzled over Jim’s sudden expression of surprised amusement.
“Jim Culver,” Jim returned, a wide grin spreading across his face.
Clay was startled for a moment. Before he could reply, however, Reverend Lindstrom and Nate Wysong rushed up to greet him. “Clay Culver!” the reverend exclaimed. “You’re a welcome sight. You came along at a most opportune time. Jim here sure needed the help.”
“Reverend,” Clay acknowledged. Then, glancing back at Jim, he commented, “Yeah, looks like he wasn’t getting much from inside.”
“Well, we better go help the women round up the children,” Lindstrom replied sheepishly. He and Nate turned to leave.
“Reverend,” Clay stopped him. “There’s a dead man round at the back of the church you might want to take care of. If the weather turns warm, he might start to stink.” Turning back to Jim, he squinted slightly, as if trying to see him better. “Culver, you say? I’ve got a brother James back in Virginia.”
Jim couldn’t stifle a chuckle. “Have you, now? Are you sure he’s still in Virginia? He might be standing right in front of his big ol’ dumb brother right now.”
“Well, I’ll be go-to-hell,” Clay uttered, flabbergasted. “James? Is that really you?” He grabbed Jim by the shoulders and looked him over at arm’s length. “Well, I’ll be go to . . . Last time I saw you, you were just a skinny kid. I would have never known it was you.” He laughed delightedly.
“Well, I’d have never known it was you, either. The last time I saw you, you’d just come back from the war.” He smiled. “And you didn’t look like something that lives in a cave.”
They hugged then and pounded each other on the back in joyous reunion until finally interrupted by Lettie Henderson’s insistent tugging at Jim’s sleeve. “I see you found your brother,” she said, “but Steadman Finch is getting away.”
“Who’s this?” Clay asked.
“This is Lettie Henderson. She came out here looking for one of the men who just rode off down the river. Lettie, this is my brother Clay.”
She favored Clay with a brief smile, then turned abruptly back to Jim. “He’s getting away,” she insisted.
Clay glanced at his brother, a question in his eyes. The young lady seemed to presume responsibility on Jim’s part. He looked back at Lettie. “Young lady, don’t worry your head about those two. I’ve got a debt to settle up with them for murdering Monk Grissom.”
“You go on back with Mary,” Jim said. “Me and Clay’ll see to it that those two’s murdering days are over.”
Satisfied, Lettie stepped back and looked at the two brothers, both tall and strong. Then she smiled at Jim and said, “You be careful. Don’t do anything foolish.”
Jim didn’t reply but flushed slightly as he turned away, only to confront Clay’s wide grin, which caused his blush to deepen in color. He knew there would be additional conversation on the subject of Lettie Henderson.
Chapter 14
Jack Pitt wasted little time preparing for the war he knew was coining. As soon as he and Fry pressed their exhausted horses back to Jed Springer’s cabin, he pulled his saddle off and threw it on one of the fresh horses in the tiny corral. Directing Fry to do the same, he hurriedly explained. “We might have to get the hell outta here, I wanna have a fresh horse under me.”
Fry didn’t respond right away. Instead, he stood seemingly stupefied, staring at the slash across the cantle of is hand-tooled saddle, the result of Jim Culver’s rifle. In a moment, his eyes crinkled in anger. “I paid a lot of money for this saddle,” he fumed.
Pitt had no time for Fry’s lament over his fancy saddle. “Would you rather have caught that bullet in your ass? To hell with that saddle. We’ve got to get moving.”
Fry didn’t reply but immediately did as Pitt suggested. Without looking to see if Fry was following his instructions, Pitt charged into the cabin and started stuffing food and supplies into two canvas saddlebags. Following behind him, Fry duplicated his big partner’s actions. “Take all them extra cartridges,” Pitt said, “and that salt pork.” Fry didn’t ask questions. When it came to fighting, Pitt was boss.
Picking out the two best horses left, they hurriedly tied on their sacks of supplies. After the packhorses were loaded, they led them around to the back of the cabin and tied them with their saddled mounts. Confused at this point, Fry asked, “What are we tying them up for? We’d better get the hell going.”
Pitt cocked his head sharply and squinted at his partner. “Hell, we ain’t running. We’ll wait right here and see if those son of a bitches come after us. I’ll make sure it costs ’em if they do.” He gestured toward a window on the side of the cabin. “That’s as good a spot as any for your rifle.”
Fry was confused and not at all comfortable with the idea of being holed up in a cabin with someone shooting at him. It was not the same as it was back at the church, where he and Pitt had the others pinned down. “I thought we were going to get away from here while we had the chance. What did we pack up the horses for?”
Already watching the rid
ge east of the cabin for signs of pursuit, Pitt shifted his eyes briefly to give Fry an impatient glare. “It’s gonna take a little more than that little set-to back at the church to make Jack Pitt run. We got the horses ready in case things go bad. I ain’t planning to have to use ’em.”
“Damn, Pitt, I don’t know if that’s a good idea or not.” Fry was fairly certain he had correctly read the handwriting on the wall, and it told him it was time to save his ass. “We’re outnumbered pretty bad now. I think it’s time we get ourselves away from here.”
Fry’s whining was beginning to irritate Pitt. At that moment, he wished Caldwell or even Trask were here instead of Fry. Fry was supposed to be the brains of the partnership, but he wasn’t much good in a gunfight unless all the odds were stacked up in his favor. Pitt turned his attention away from the ridge for a few moments to explain the situation to Fry. “In the first place, maybe you ain’t noticed, but the snow’s already ass-deep in some of those passes. We don’t wanna be floundering around out there in the snow unless we ain’t got no other choice. If we have to, the horses are ready. In the second place, we ain’t really outnumbered. There ain’t but two of those bastards we’ve got to worry about. The rest of them farmers ain’t gonna help ’em. So get your rifle up to that window. If we’re lucky, we’ll get ’em both when they come riding over that ridge. And when we finish with them two, I’m gonna bum Canyon Creek to the ground.” Satisfied that he’d done all the explaining necessary, he turned his attention back to the ridge and waited, knowing the two men would be coming.
At his position by the side window, Simon Fry sat waiting. His rifle ready, he stared at the stark white hillside some seventy yards in front of the cabin. Fidgeting nervously, he glanced at Pitt, who was gazing intently at the ridge. Stubborn fool, he thought. Fry wasn’t comfortable with Pitt’s assessment of their situation. He felt cornered, and Fry never enjoyed being cornered. Sometimes Pitt didn’t have enough sense to know when the game was up and it was time to run. The minutes passed, and it seemed that everything just became more and more quiet. The wind that had moaned without pause throughout the night suddenly ceased, and there was no sound at all outside the cabin. It was as if the valley had died. Fry suddenly received an urgent call from his bladder. “I’ve got to take a leak,” he announced.
“Take a look at the horses while you’re out there,” Pitt said without looking around.
Cradling his rifle on his arm, Fry pushed the snow away from the door and went outside. “We’re going to need more firewood, too,” he called back to Pitt as he rounded the comer of the cabin, his eyes still concentrating on the silent ridge before him. It had stopped snowing during the night, and, looking up, he could see a break in the clouds. It would be sunup pretty soon, with a definite possibility that the sun would actually break through. Hours had passed since he and Pitt had fled from the church. Where are they? Maybe they’re not coming after us. He discarded that notion immediately. They would come. Maybe they were getting organized, waiting for daylight. There were enough of them to put a ring around the cabin and shoot it to pieces. I’ll bet Pitt never thought of that. Damn stubborn fool. If they’re waiting for daylight, we ought to be hightailing it out of here, leaving them nothing but an empty cabin to shoot up.
Propping his rifle against the wall of the cabin, he proceeded to relieve the pressure on his bladder while constantly looking left and right, alert for any sign of attack. The horses stamped impatiently, complaining about standing all night with saddles and packs, watching the man to see if he was going to remove their burdens. The dark sky was already beginning to fade to gray, and still all was deadly quiet. Then, off in the distance, the quiet was penetrated by the mournful howl of a lone wolf. It seemed to strike a death knell in Fry’s mind. To hell with this, he thought. Pitt’s crazy. I’m not going to wait here to be executed.
His decision made, he untied the horses. As quickly and quietly as he could, he hitched both packhorses to one line. Then, leading his saddled horse, he led the packhorses away from the cabin. When he was far enough to feel that he had not been discovered, he stepped up into the saddle and guided his horse down along the water’s edge. Several hundred yards up the river, with still no sound of alarm behind him, he kicked his horse hard and headed for the pass at the upper end of the valley. “All right, Pitt,” he uttered aloud. “Be sure you hold them off for a good long time.” Feeling gratified that he had made a prudent decision, he urged his horse to pick up the pace. Pitt was a handy man to have around, but he had outlived his usefulness. Fry always felt that the best way to handle trouble was to be somewhere else when it happened.
* * *
Clay Culver crawled back down from the crest of the ridge to where Jim waited with the horses “I reckon they’re in there. There’s a fire going in the fireplace. There’s some horses in the corral, including the ones they rode off on. But the saddles are off. They mighta threw their saddles on a couple of fresh ones. Probably around back of the cabin; I could see tracks leading around there.”
Jim nodded. He looked back over his shoulder. Already thin fingers of sunlight were finding their way through the scattered clouds to light the tips of the tallest pines. They wouldn’t have much longer to wait until the sun climbed over the eastern slopes of the valley, casting a brilliant glare across the snow-covered ridge. With that blinding light behind them, the two brothers planned to move down the ridge on foot, hoping to advance to within a few yards of the cabin before having to take cover. While they waited, Clay offered his brother a strip of dried venison. Smiling, Jim accepted, and the two of them chewed away at the tough, leathery meat as if the coming fight were no more than a rabbit hunt.
While they waited, Clay pressed Jim for news of the family, especially their parents. “I kept telling myself I was going to go back to see the folks,” Clay confessed. “But it seemed like something always kept me from going. And now it looks like I’ll be scouting again for the army come spring, what with the Sioux getting riled up over the wagons going through their territory to the country above the Yellowstone.”
“Ma and Pa are getting pretty old,” Jim said. “Pa took sick two years ago, and he just never seemed to get over it. John pretty much runs the farm. I guess it’ll be just him and Stephen now, since I don’t aim to go back to face an army trial.”
“You said that lieutenant shot at you first. Surely they won’t charge you if it was self-defense.”
“Maybe,” Jim allowed. “But they were coming after me for horsewhipping the son of a bitch in the first place, and I’m not willing to trust a bunch of army officers with my life.”
Clay was in the midst of telling Jim about the two years he had spent living with the Blackfeet when the sun’s light suddenly burst forth across the hilltops. “It’s time,” he announced. “We’d best move on that cabin while the sun’s right behind us.”
* * *
Inside the cabin, Pitt squinted against the blinding light of the sun as it reflected off the snow-covered hillside. “Damn,” he cursed, trying to scan back and forth across the ridge. He realized then why the two riflemen had waited. “They’ll be coming soon,” he called back to Fry. What the hell is he doing out there? “Fry,” he yelled. “Better git your ass in here. They’ll be coming soon.” He turned his attention back to the ridge, but, when a few minutes had passed with no response from his partner, he yelled again. “Fry!” When there was still no response, he began to worry. Maybe he had been wrong. Maybe they weren’t waiting to have the sun at their backs. They might have snuck up behind the cabin and caught Fry outside.
Seized by a new sense of caution, Pitt backed away from the window. His rifle held ready to fire, he tiptoed to the back window. Being careful to keep his body to the side, he peeked through the cracks in the closed wooden shutter. Although his view was limited, it was apparent that there was no one behind the cabin. Sudden anger overcame caution, and he flipped the latch on the heavy shutter and flung it open to verify his immediate suspicion.
“That low-down, thieving coward,” he growled. Fry had run, and he had taken both packhorses with him. Pitt caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye and turned to aim his rifle at a stand of willows near the water. Just in time, he realized that it was his horse ambling in the trees, stripping willow leaves from their branches. You’re gonna rue the day you ran out on Jack Pitt, he silently promised Fry. First, there was this business to take care of here. He hurried back to his post by the front window in time to catch a glimpse of Jim as he dived for cover behind a lone pine halfway down the ridge.
“Dammit!” Pitt swore, angry at having been caught away from the window. He rose up and shot at the pine but was forced to duck back immediately when two quick slugs from Clay splintered the window frame inches from his head. He scrambled to the other side of the window, trying to see where Clay’s shots had come from. He searched frantically, trying to make out some irregular shape in the glistening hillside. There he is! But he was not quick enough. Before Pitt could draw a bead on him, Clay disappeared from his view, blocked by the comer of the cabin. Pitt tried to see around the edge of the window and was immediately dusted again—this time from Jim’s rifle behind the pine.
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