Nest of Vipers (9781101613283)

by Sherman, Jory

  He waited outside his lean-to, listening to the forest sounds, looking up at the stars through the pines, and waiting for the moon to rise.

  He pulled out his small pocket watch and held it close to the lantern light. It was nearly eight o’clock, and he could hear deer and elk moving around through the timber. An owl floated overhead on silent pinions and he thought he heard the croak of a frog. Then it was quiet and he listened for any sound coming from the road.

  A half hour later he heard the soft scrape of hooves coming from the direction of the road. He sat up and cupped a hand to his right ear. Then he heard a chinking sound as a hoof struck a stone. Minutes later he heard low-pitched voices.

  Then, a short silence.

  “Looks like Joe left the porch light on for us,” he heard Brad say.

  Joe smiled.

  There was a rustle of cloth and the creak of leather as one of the riders dismounted and picked up the candle.

  Joe heard horses coming his way, stepping through the timber, crunching dead pine needles and fallen pinecones. Then, there was no sound at all. As if the horsemen had stopped and were looking at his lantern. He could not see through the darkness beyond the spray of lantern light. He drew his pistol, just in case. But he had heard Brad’s voice, hadn’t he?

  He waited and eased the hammer back as he gently squeezed the trigger so that the mechanism would not make a loud click. A moment later, he heard the muffled shuffle of horses moving toward him.

  “You aren’t going to shoot me, are you, Joe?” Brad called from the fringe of light. “I know you cocked that hogleg of yours.”

  “Come on in, Brad. The welcome mat’s out. Such as it is.”

  Three riders moved into the cone of light and Joe stood up, thumbed the hammer of his pistol to half cock, and holstered the weapon.

  “Howdy, Joe,” Brad said as he eased himself down from the saddle.

  “Howdy. I see you still got our prisoner there.”

  Wilbur dismounted and then Julio hit the ground.

  “Maybe an ally more than a prisoner,” Brad said. “Been waiting long, Joe?”

  “This is my third night. What you got there behind your saddle?”

  Then Joe looked around and saw that all three saddles had boards under their bedrolls.

  “A little surprise for Jordan Killdeer,” Brad said.

  “You saw him?”

  “Julio and Wilbur saw him. Gave him my message.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Not much he could say. We’ve got him by the short hairs, Joe.”

  “So?” Joe stepped in close to Brad so that he could look into his eyes.

  “I reckon he wants those three hundred head of horses I offered to sell him for five bucks a head.”

  “What?”

  “It was an offer he could hardly refuse,” Brad said.

  Julio stepped in close to stand next to the lantern. “Did you hear what happened with Trask and Canby, Joe?” he said.

  Joe shook his head. “No. What happened?”

  “Brad, he killed them. In Denver.”

  “Holy smoke. Must have been after I left town.”

  “It was in the newspaper,” Wilbur said.

  “Did the police . . .” Joe started to say.

  “My name wasn’t mentioned, Joe. Curly got away though. He was upstairs in the saloon with one of those dance hall gals.”

  “Whooeee,” Joe said. “That’s two less we have to worry about.”

  “Curly’s the one I want.”

  “Is Jordan coming down here?”

  “If he wants to buy the stolen horses back, he’ll come,” Brad said.

  “Then Curly will probably be with him.”

  “And a couple of hired guns, too, most likely,” Brad said. He turned to his horse and untied his bedroll. He set the boards down flat on the ground.

  “Stack those boards together,” Brad told Julio and Wilbur. “We’ll nail them together in the morning.”

  After the horses were unsaddled and hobbled, the men sat in front of Joe’s lean-to. They had set out their bedrolls under the pine branches and the horses were on a patch of grass.

  “What’s the box for?” Joe asked. “And the gunny sacks?”

  “If I tell you now, Joe,” Brad said, “you won’t sleep too good tonight.”

  Julio laughed.

  Wilbur put a hand in front of his mouth to keep from laughing out loud.

  “What’s so funny?” Joe asked.

  “Nothing,” Julio said.

  “And, there’s a roll of heavy twine,” Joe said. “And a hammer and nails to put the box together, I suppose.”

  Brad didn’t explain. “We’ve got a lot to do come morning,” he said. “If you’re hungry, Joe, we brought grub.”

  “I could eat. Want me to build a fire and make us some coffee?”

  “Might not be a bad idea,” Brad said. “Julio can help you, and Wilbur can start unpacking the grub.”

  They ate by the campfire and talked about everything except what Brad had planned. But he did say something before they all crawled into their blankets.

  “I don’t know when Killdeer will get down here,” he said. “But I want to be ready for him when he does come.”

  “I wish you’d tell me your plans, Brad,” Joe said.

  “When the time comes, Joe.”

  “Yeah, your time. Not mine.”

  “Well, you’re a detective, Joe. Detect.”

  Joe walked over to the stack of boards and picked them up and examined them.

  “Not a very big box,” he said.

  “Big enough,” Brad said, and then crawled under his blanket after coiling up his gun belt and setting it next to his bedroll.

  “Big enough for what?” Joe asked as he stooped to enter his lean-to.

  “If I tell you what it’s for, will you stop pestering me?”

  “I would,” Joe said.

  “It’s going to be a snake box,” Brad said.

  “A snake box? What in hell’s a snake box?”

  “Good night, Joe,” Brad said. He took off his hat and lay his head down on his rolled-up saddle blanket. In moments, he was asleep and Joe was lying in his blankets, staring up at the thatch of spruce boughs. Through the needles he could see tiny specks of light from the stars.

  He dropped off to sleep wondering what a snake box was. He decided then that Brad Storm was more than slightly crazy. He was a full-blown lunatic, for sure.

  THIRTY

  Toby Dugan and Cletus Hemphill prowled the saloons from Randall Avenue clear to Central and even on Capitol Avenue for the kind of men Jordan had told them to find. Jordan didn’t want drunks. He didn’t want army deserters. He didn’t want weaklings or cardsharps. He wanted tough, rugged men who lived by the gun and did not care how they got their next dollar.

  They even bailed a man out of jail that they knew would fit the bill. He had been arrested for fighting and had gotten thirty days for disorderly conduct. This man hailed from Montana where he was still wanted for armed robbery. His name was Terry Wheeler.

  It took them three days to find three more men. One of them was a drifter from Kansas who had worked for a stage line and gotten fired for beating up a driver who owed him money. Lenny Holbrook rode shotgun for the Western Freight Company based in Casper and had a big chip on his shoulder. He had beaten the stage driver to a pulp with the butt of his Colt pistol and was known to have been a suspect in a number of robberies around town. He mostly rolled drunks and was just the kind of man who would fit in with Jordan’s scheme. He had been a cattle drover and worked on the railroad for a time. He was mean and muscular, just like Cletus and Toby.

  On the second day of scouting for gunmen to ride with them down to Colorado, they ran into a man wandering down Randall toward th
e center of town. He was carrying a worn-out saddle, a bridle, and a blanket and was covered with dust. They stopped and talked to him.

  “Where’s your horse?” Toby asked.

  “Wore him out comin’ down from the Badlands,” the man said. “Had to shoot him this morning.”

  “You got money for another horse?” Cletus asked him.

  “I can get pretty close, I reckon. Figured to trade my hogleg for a good mount.”

  “Where you headed?” Toby asked.

  “No place in particular. What’s it to you?”

  “If you trade your pistol for a horse, you’ll be ridin’ nekkid,” Toby said.

  “I can always pick up a two-dollar chunk of iron that’ll shoot.”

  “How’d you like a free horse and good pay for a job wranglin’ a bunch of horses?”

  The man dropped his saddle onto the ground and adjusted the folded saddle blanket on his left shoulder. He squinted up into the Wyoming sun as he looked up at Toby.

  “I’d be beholden,” the man said. “You makin’ such an offer?”

  “Maybe. What did you do up north?”

  “What I could. I traded my rifle for that horse what foundered just to get this far.”

  “So, you’re a tradin’ man,” Cletus said.

  “Not by choice. It’s just the luck of the draw, I reckon. Say, who are you fellas?”

  “I’m Toby Dugan and this here’s Cletus Hemphill. What’s your handle?”

  “They call me Jinglebob, but my name’s Randy McCall.”

  “We got a bunkhouse out at the ranch where you can wash up and get some grub. You can pick out a ridin’ horse and go on the payroll before sundown.”

  Jinglebob grinned and held out a hand. Toby shook it.

  “Climb up behind me,” Cletus said. “You can leave that saddle where it sits. We’ll get you a better one.”

  They found their fourth man on the third day. His name was Jake Fenimore, or at least he said it was, and he had gone through five of the six whores at a crib on Central when Toby and Cletus saw him sitting outside a tobacco shop with a plug in his hand. He was cutting off a chunk with a big bowie knife, and he wore his pistol low on his hip.

  “You occupied?” Toby asked him when they rode up.

  “What do mean by ‘occupied’?” Jake said.

  “Gainfully employed,” Cletus said.

  “I’m a bouncer at a cat house,” Jake said.

  “Good pay?” Toby asked.

  The man shrugged. “I get by. Some of what I earn comes by way of trade.”

  Cletus laughed.

  They introduced themselves and found out that Jake owned a horse and a Sharps carbine and didn’t care how he made money. He drank some but wasn’t a drunkard. He’d had a few scrapes with the law and was a quick draw. He had robbed a bank with some outlaws who roamed Nebraska, but when two of them were arrested, he headed west with a few dollars in his pocket.

  Jake was just the kind of man Jordan would take a liking to once he got to know him.

  They paraded the four men in front of Jordan on the fourth day. Jordan looked them over and asked a few questions.

  “This could work into a permanent job, boys,” he told them. “I need you to help us drive three hundred head of horses from Colorado up here and then to Fort Laramie. Interested?”

  They all nodded.

  “Thirty a month and found, but maybe a bonus if you happen to plug a certain man when we get down to where the horses are ranged.”

  “What man?” Jake asked.

  “The man I’m buying the horses from,” Jordan replied.

  “When do we leave?” Jinglebob asked.

  “Tomorrow morning,” Jordan said. “It’s a good three days’ ride, some of it up in the hills.”

  When the men left the house, Jordan spoke to Toby and Cletus.

  “You got us some good men there, boys.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out a roll of bills. He handed each man a twenty-dollar bill. “I appreciate it.”

  “We got grub ready to pack and the other men have bedrolls. You have to buy one of them a rifle.”

  “I’ve got a rifle I can give him,” Jordan said. “He the man who lost his horse?”

  “Yeah,” Cletus said. “Good man.”

  “Who doesn’t know how to take care of his own horse.”

  “He bought a broken-down sway-backed nag. I think he was in a hurry to light a shuck,” Toby said.

  “All right. We’re set then. We’ll head for Wild Horse Valley at sunup. Bring plenty of ropes and ammunition.”

  “You figure you can put Storm down?” Toby asked.

  “I’m counting on it. The man is a damned thorn in my side. He thinks he’s pretty smart, but I think we can outgun him with you, Cleet, and this bunch.”

  “I think we can, too,” Toby said.

  After his men left, Jordan opened his safe and took out two thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills. He put the bills in a small leather case and set it on the table. He went to the gun cabinet, unlocked it and took out one of the rifles, a Remington .30 caliber. He opened a drawer under the cabinet and found a box of cartridges. He set these on the table and then lifted another pistol off a peg. This one he would hang from his saddle horn. It was a Smith & Wesson .38 and didn’t weigh as much as his sidearm.

  “Just in case,” he said to himself.

  He walked outside and stood for a long moment gazing at the mountains. They seemed like the backbones of a huge dinosaur in the purple haze of afternoon.

  “I’m comin’ for you, Brad Storm,” he said aloud. “I’ll hang your scalp in my lodge, you bastard.”

  Just saying the words gave Jordan confidence.

  He fished a cheroot out of his pocket, bit off the end, and lit it with a wooden match.

  The smoke wafted away in the breeze.

  He ground up the stub of the cigar, which he had cut off, and scattered the tobacco to the four directions. Just as his Cherokee ancestors had done.

  His body was half white, he often thought, but his heart was pure Indian.

  It was the Cherokee in him that would make sure that this sale would be Brad Storm’s last transaction.

  He smiled at the hazy mountains.

  He was sure that they smiled back at him.

  THIRTY-ONE

  By the time the others woke up, Brad was sitting on a log with a knife in his hands. He had started a fire and put the coffeepot on to boil. Stacked on the ground were five or six long sticks, tree branches he had cut down. He had one of these in his hands and was sharpening the forked ends. The branch had been shaved of bark and limbs and was free of leaves.

  Joe was the first to walk over. Wilbur and Julio were relieving themselves at trees some distance away.

  “What’re you doin’, Brad?” Joe asked.

  “Trimming up this bunch of forked sticks,” Brad replied.

  “What for?”

  “We’re going to catch rattlesnakes with these, Joe.”

  “Rattlesnakes? What in hell for?”

  “A surprise for Jordan Killdeer,” Brad said.

  Joe sat down on the log a few feet from Brad. He rubbed his forehead.

  “Brad,” he said, “I know you’re in charge of this case. And you do a fair job of detective work. Sometimes. But you’re way too unorthodox, not only for my tastes but for the police and court system. I don’t know why Harry ever hired you, and I sure don’t know why he holds you in such high esteem.”

  “Harry doesn’t like to get dirt or mud on his boots,” Brad said.

  “But he has other detectives who work for him. He has operatives who follow the rules and do their jobs in an orthodox manner.”

  “I don’t know, Joe. Harry doesn’t discuss his other agents with me. He just calls on me when he’s got
some dirty work for me to do.”

  “Look, Brad, you go about things all wrong. I’m a range detective. That means I dig up evidence and make arrests. Once we had witnesses located, we should have gone to Cheyenne, maybe asked for police help up there and arrested Jordan Killdeer, hauled him back down to Denver and seen to it that he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to hang. A simple, straightforward procedure. Time-tested. Tried and true.”

  Brad stopped whittling on a forked stick, picked up another one that had not been sharpened, and tossed it to Joe.

  “Make those ends real sharp, Joe,” Brad said.

  “Are you trying to run away from the facts, Brad?”

  “No. I’ll just ask you this question, Joe. Was your wife raped and murdered? Did you have any horses stolen?”

  “That’s two questions.”

  “Just answer either one, Joe.”

  “So, you think because it’s personal, you can just do anything you want, is that it?”

  Brad picked up another forked tree limb and began to shave the end of one fork into a point.

  “Harry hired me because I get the job done, Joe. In my own way. Orthodox or unorthodox. I solve cases for him. I do what a detective agency is supposed to do. Find the criminals and put them out of business.”

  “Did you ever bring any criminals into court? Did you ever deliver a live culprit to Harry or anybody else?”

  Brad paused and looked up through the pines at the sky. “Not that I recollect,” he said.

  “See? That’s what I mean. You kill whoever you track down. You don’t follow the rules.”

  “Joe, I kill only when I’m forced to. I don’t back shoot, and I don’t bushwhack.”

  “He who lives by the gun, dies by the gun, Brad.”

  Brad began to shave wood with the blade of his knife.

  “He who doesn’t live by the gun, dies from the gun,” Brad said, and his blade went whick, whick, whick.

  Julio and Wilbur walked up out of the timber and watched Brad and Joe for a few seconds. Brad looked up at them.

  “Get your blades out and pick up a couple of these forked sticks,” Brad said. “Sharpen the tips of the forks like that one I did.”