Montana Territory

by Charles G. West

  CHAPTER 13

  “I ain’t got three rooms upstairs,” Bodine said, “unless I move Josie outta hers. You wouldn’t want me to do that, would you?” He was ready to do just that if Booth insisted on it. He had been mighty happy to hear they wanted to move in, happy to have all that money he was sure they were carrying that much closer to him. He would get a little more of it if they did insist on moving Josie to the pantry behind the kitchen.

  “Ain’t no need to move her, we don’t need but two rooms,” Booth said. “Me and my brother can share a room, and Trip can take the other one.”

  “If that’s what you want,” Bodine said. “Course, you know when I rent those rooms, I charge by the head, so you and Jesse would pay the same as Trip.”

  “I ain’t surprised, you old skinflint,” Booth replied. “I’ll bet you don’t rent those rooms out more’n five or six nights a year.” When Bodine started to defend his policy, Booth stopped him. “Don’t start your whining, we’ll pay you for the damn rooms.”

  “Damn right,” Trip spoke up, “We can afford it. Now, how’s about we go back downstairs and get some breakfast?” Without waiting for any response from his partners, he started back down the steps with his usual cocky swagger, even in light of the steepness of the stair.

  Behind him, Jesse hesitated a few seconds to speak softly in his brother’s ear. “I don’t know about you, but I’m gettin’ tired of hearin’ him brayin’ about how he can afford everything. He keeps it up and Bodine’s gonna think we’re the ones that killed them Quakers for sure.”

  “Yeah, I’m gettin’ a little tired of it, myself,” Booth replied. “But I don’t know if it makes a helluva lot of difference, as far as Bodine’s concerned. I think Bodine’s already figured we did that job and the only thing on his mind is how much of it he can get his hands on before we leave here.”

  “About that,” Jesse responded. “How long you think we oughta hang around here waitin’ for that jasper to take a shot at one of us? You know it ain’t gonna be long before a hard winter decides to roll over those mountains and freeze this river valley up. I’d sure as hell like to spend the winter in someplace besides this tradin’ post.”

  “I know what you’re sayin’. I feel the same as you.” He paused at the top of the stairs to let Trip and Bodine get a little farther ahead. “Let’s stay in close here for a couple of days and see if Hawk gets tired of waitin’ and decides to take a fool chance to get at our money. And there ain’t no doubt he’s got his mind set on gettin’ every cent of the money. He got Tater’s share, and that’s a pretty good payday for most low-down killers. But not this bastard; he wants it all. So, if he makes a play to sneak in here, he’s in our backyard. If we can catch him inside this place, he ain’t got a chance against all three of us.”

  Jesse shook his head, unconvinced. “I don’t know if he’s dumb enough to do that, but I know I’m tired of him tailin’ us.” Frustrated, he followed his brother downstairs to breakfast.

  * * *

  The morning was not as frustrating to Hawk. His one goal for the moment was to relocate his camp closer to the trading post. He postponed the worry about how he was going to attack the three outlaws, now that they had holed up in Bodine’s. He would worry about that later. So he went back to the ravine where he had made his camp and loaded Rascal again. Then he headed back toward Wolf Creek, but circled around the trading post, opposite the direction he had taken when he had approached Bodine’s cabins. It was his opinion that the three he followed were most likely headed for Helena. That was the closest town of any size, and the trail Booth had taken from the Sun River led to Helena, some twenty-five or thirty miles from Wolf Creek. So Hawk circled to the upstream side of Bodine’s until he struck the trail leading to Helena, about two miles from the trading post. The trail crossed the river at that point, and he selected his new camp on the other side, far enough down from the crossing so as not to be seen by anyone on the road.

  While he went about the business of making his camp, he considered the idea that had occurred to him earlier. Since his present situation was akin to having Booth and his two partners secure in a fort, while he waited around on the outside, his possibilities were strictly limited. He felt strongly that they were ultimately going to Helena. He could gamble on that assumption and ride on to Helena to wait for them there. He knew people in Helena. It would be easy to know when three strangers rode into town, and they would not likely be as cautious in the town. Of course, it wouldn’t be any easier than catching them crossing this river right here, he had to admit. “If I don’t,” he said aloud, “I’ll end up followin’ them to Helena, anyway.” He was not ready to admit that he didn’t know how he was going to accomplish the goal he had set for himself.

  * * *

  Unknown to Hawk, there was another influence working to become instrumental in his war with Booth Corbin. It started when Trip Dawson sat down at a table next to Josie Johnson. “I reckon you and me are gonna be seein’ a lot of each other,” Trip whispered in her ear.

  “Oh, is that so?” Josie replied, at once coquettish. “And why is that?”

  “’Cause I just moved into the room next to yours,” Trip answered, “and I’m gonna be needin’ a lot of your time.”

  “Put your money where your mouth is,” Josie came back. “I don’t waste my time on big talkers.”

  “You don’t need to worry about the money,” he said. “Hell, you oughta be payin’ me.”

  “Ha! Why is that?”

  “’Cause you’re settin’ beside the fastest gun in Wyomin’ Territory,” he crowed. “There’s a lot of women that’d pay for a chance to be with me.”

  “Well, you ain’t in Wyoming Territory now,” she said. “Anyway, if you’re so fast with a gun, how come you and your two friends moved into the store ’cause you’re scared of that Hawk fellow out there?”

  Her comment was the perfect spark to light Trip’s fuse. “The hell you say!” Trip blurted. “Who told you that? The only reason we moved in here was because Booth and Jesse were gettin’ worried they might get shot at. That ain’t me. I ain’t scared of nothin’. Matter of fact, I’d dearly love to draw that jasper out in the open to face me. Then we’d see who was faster with a gun.”

  “Pshaw, that’s just big talk,” she said. “You just tell me when you’re ready to come see me, and we’ll see how much man you are.”

  “I reckon we’ll see about that right after I finish my breakfast,” he replied. “Then we’ll see if you’re worth spendin’ my money on. After that, I think I’ll take a little walk around the front yard to see if that jasper wants to take a shot at me.”

  “You hear what that fool’s tellin’ her over there?” Jesse asked his brother. Sitting at a table close by, it was impossible not to hear some of Trip’s boasting.

  More intent upon the tough strip of bacon on his plate, Booth paid little attention to Trip’s boastful talk. “He’s just tryin’ to impress Josie, so she’ll think he’s somethin’ special. I don’t know why he cares, she’s just a damn whore. You pay your money and she gives you a ride. She don’t care about anything else. He thinks there ain’t nobody faster’n him with that Colt he wears. He can walk around out in the yard all he wants. Hawk ain’t likely to come ridin’ up to face him to see who’s the fastest with a handgun. He’s more apt to take a shot at him with that Winchester he carries. Matter of fact, it’d be kinda interestin’ if he was to draw Hawk out in a gunfight—might give one of us a chance to get a shot at him.”

  “Maybe it would be a good thing if he did draw Hawk out and got himself shot, as long as he wasn’t carryin’ his share of the money on him. Hawk’s already got Tater’s share, I don’t wanna see him get Trip’s, too.” Jesse said it with recent discussions about Trip in mind. With the demise of two of their gang, the brothers had considered the possibility of ending their ties with Trip as well. The cocky gunman was promising to become more of a liability to them. He was fast with a gun, but the trouble was his h
and was faster than his brain, and there were occasions when that had caused unnecessary problems. It was Trip who shot Brother Adams and started the massacre of the families on the mule train. Jesse and Booth had not planned to kill all those people, even though they agreed afterward that it might have made their escape easier. It was also Trip who had killed Grover Dean and his wife at that little trading post on the Teton River. The two brothers had talked about the possibility that Trip could go off half-cocked sometime and cause a real problem.

  “We’ll see if he goes struttin’ around the yard out there like he’s braggin’ about,” Booth said. “As long as he’s keepin’ that money in his saddlebags where Hawk can’t get his hands on it, he can do what he pleases to impress that whore.”

  When breakfast was over, Booth and Jesse remained in the saloon while Trip and Josie went back upstairs. In no hurry to go anywhere, the two brothers took time to have a couple of shots of whiskey. “To settle that tough bacon down,” was Booth’s explanation for it. They were still sitting there when Trip came back down and sat down to have a drink with them. “Well, did you get your wild hairs smoothed down?” Booth asked, and winked at Jesse.

  “I reckon,” Trip replied smugly, “for the time bein’, I reckon.” He sat there for a few minutes after his drink, then got up out of his chair. “I’m feelin’ a little cooped up in this place, like I’m in jail. I’m gonna take a little walk outside and get some air. I’ll go over to the corral and make sure that feller is takin’ care of the horses.”

  “It ain’t bad for a jail, though, is it? You’d better watch yourself walkin’ around out there,” Jesse warned, with a wink for Booth. “That Hawk feller might be hidin’ out in those cottonwoods, waitin’ for a chance to catch one of us outside.”

  “I ain’t worried about him,” Trip declared. “Matter of fact, I hope to hell he is hangin’ around out there someplace. I’d like to invite him to come on out and we’ll settle this thing for good. Then we can get on down to Helena, where there’s more goin’ on.”

  When he walked out, Jesse looked at Booth and said, “Maybe that problem we talked about might get took care of.”

  A few minutes later, Josie came downstairs, on her way to the kitchen to help Dinah Belle. “You and Trip weren’t upstairs very long,” Booth said to her as she passed by the table.

  She shrugged indifferently. “He was havin’ some problems, said it was because he was in a killin’ mood and that messed up his thinkin’ about anything else. Said he was gonna go huntin’ for Hawk. He paid me double, though.”

  “That was probably to keep her from tellin’ anybody,” Jesse said after she left. He and Booth both had a good chuckle over it.

  Outside, Trip sat down in one of the three rocking chairs on the porch. He reasoned that if Hawk was set up on the wagon track up on the bluff, he might take a shot at anyone who walked out of the store. Sitting in a chair, near the front door, he figured he wouldn’t present an easy target, so he stared hard at the cottonwoods on both sides of the path down to the store. This would be the most likely spot for a sniper to hide, so he scanned the trees from one side and back to the other, straining to see any movement. After a quarter of an hour, he got up and stepped down off the porch, his whole body quivering from the anticipation of a sudden shot. There was nothing, no sign of anyone.

  He turned to go to the corral when suddenly he heard a horse on the path behind him. His hand dropped at once to his Colt. He spun around as he did and fired a shot that barely missed the startled rider. To save himself from a second shot, the rider slid off his horse to keep the horse between him and his assailant. “Don’t shoot! I give up!” Mose Avery yelled. “I just wanna go to the blacksmith.”

  Realizing at once the error in his judgment, Trip holstered his weapon. “You ought to know better than to slip up behind a man like that. You can damn sure get yourself killed.”

  “I’m sorry, mister,” Mose explained. “I just rode down the path to the store, like I do every time I come to trade here. And it bein’ broad daylight, I wasn’t lookin’ to sneak up on nobody.”

  By this time, the gunshot had summoned Bodine and the two brothers. Out on the porch by then, Bodine yelled, “Mose! What the hell’s goin’ on?”

  Trip quickly answered for him. “Feller here slipped up on my blind side and I had to fire a warnin’ shot to keep him from crowdin’ me.”

  “Well, business ain’t so good that I can afford to have you kill off my regular trade,” Bodine said, more than a little irritated. “Some of the boys are a little touchy right now, Mose. I’m awful sorry about that.”

  “It was just a warning shot,” Trip claimed again. He looked at Booth and Jesse gaping at him in disbelief, and he decided he didn’t want to hear what they had to say about it. So, he turned and continued on his way to the barn and the corral.

  While he was standing by the corral, he kept looking around him in case he might see some sign of a hidden sniper. Tom Pointer came from the barn. “What did you shoot at Mose Avery for?” Tom asked.

  Trip turned to give him a hard look. “I didn’t shoot at him. If I’da shot at him, he’d be dead.” Not wanting to discuss it with him, he turned abruptly and started back toward the store. Before reaching the porch again, he stopped in the front yard and yelled out as loud as he could, “Hawk! If you’re snoopin’ around out there, why don’t you come on and face me, man-to-man, fair and square!”

  When he went back inside, Reuben Pressley walked over from his forge to talk to Tom. “What’s wrong with that feller?” he asked Tom. “He acts like he’s plum loco. He took a shot at Mose.” He looked over toward the store, where Mose was still standing, apparently uncertain if it was safe to move. Reuben waved and called out, “Come on over, Mose.”

  Back to Pressley’s remarks about Trip, Tom said, “I asked him why he shot at Mose and he claimed he wasn’t shootin’ at him—said it was a warnin’ shot.”

  “My ass,” Reuben scoffed. “He just flat-out missed.” They both turned to welcome Mose as he led his horse over to them.

  “I surely didn’t mean to rile that feller up like that,” the timid little man started to explain. “He liked to scared me half to death.”

  “He’s got a burr up his behind about some feller that shot one of that bunch that rode in here the other day,” Tom said. “He’s wantin’ to shoot somebody, and that’s a fact.”

  “I was thinkin’ about gettin’ me a little drink of likker while I had you take a look at the right-front hoof of my horse,” Mose said. “But I ain’t so sure I wanna go in the saloon now.”

  “Come on,” Pressley said to him, “and I’ll take a look at that hoof for you.” He turned back to Tom when he walked toward his shop and declared, “Matter of fact, I plan to stay away from all three of them jaspers.”

  * * *

  About two miles upstream from Bodine’s trading post, Hawk paused when he heard the report of a pistol. At two miles, it was faint, but he thought it sounded like that made by a Colt .44. He continued to listen for a while, but decided it was nothing meaningful, so he went back to work disguising his camp. The crossing was shallow enough, so he could keep Rascal in the water and ride parallel to the bank for close to seventy-five yards before coming out downstream from the crossing. By doing that, he left no tracks from the road when coming from or going to his camp.

  Once he had finished his camp to his satisfaction, he turned his mind back to the task of settling with the three outlaws. His aim was still to recover as much of the money as possible and return it to the survivors of the massacre. But he was not dumb enough to think he could walk into that saloon again without being shot at on sight—by Booth and his partners, and possibly Bodine as well. So, he finally accepted the fact that he had to play a waiting game, watching for any opportunity that came his way. With that in mind, he figured it time to go back to make sure they were still there.

  Since his camp near the Helena trail was upstream from the trading post, he would approa
ch it from behind the buildings, reaching the corral and barn first. Under cover of the trees that lined the river, he was able to ride close to the corral before thinking it necessary to dismount and leave his horse. So he dropped Rascal’s reins underneath the branches of a large bur oak tree and advanced the rest of the way on foot. Right away he was able to confirm the fact that Booth and the other two were still there, for all their horses were in the corral. That was actually all he could expect to find out. Then he got a glimpse of someone moving about in the barn, so he moved a little closer. He was handicapped by the fact that he had never seen the two men with Booth up close, and he didn’t know their names. But he had seen them when he had hidden behind the empty cabin next to the one they had occupied. It was in poor light, but he felt confident that he would recognize the man who had been jawing back and forth with Tater. He wore his pistol low in a fast-draw holster. In a few minutes, he recognized Tom Pointer coming back out, carrying a bucket. There was no sign of any of the three he sought, nor did he really expect to see them outside the saloon.

  He watched Tom walk back to the store and go inside. There was no one else outside the store. There was someone over at the blacksmith’s shop. He recognized Reuben Pressley, but not the man with him. A second look at the little fellow told him he was not one of Booth’s men. He wondered then about the pistol shot he thought he had heard. There was no evidence of anything having happened in that calm setting. He decided at that moment that he was not willing to sit and wait for the three to come out of Bodine’s. It’s time to bring them outside, he thought, got up from his kneeling position on the riverbank, and went directly to the corral. While keeping an eye out for anyone coming toward him, he opened the gate wide and walked in among the horses.

  * * *

  Sitting at a table on the saloon side of the trading post, Bodine’s three special guests were passing some time in a three-handed poker game. Trip Dawson’s streak of winning hands was beginning to wear on the nerves of the two brothers. So, when he spread a ten-high straight before him on Jesse’s call, Jesse threw his two pair in disgust. “You ain’t that lucky! I swear, if I knew for sure you’ve been cheatin’, I’d shoot you!” Seeing Tom Pointer walk in the door, he invited him to make it a four-man game. Tom wisely declined, saying he had chores to do, and went back outside.