Riders of Judgment

by Frederick Manfred

  Hunt lifted up the braided portion in his lap and rolled it back and forth between palm and knee. He put it to his nose and smelled. The reata was rich with animal musk. And clean. He just barely managed to hold back an impulse to bite it, wolflike, hard, vicious.

  He worked the braid some more. Sweat, body oil, its own moisture soon made each thong shine glossy where it showed in the braid. He looked down at the coiled piles of thongs still left to do and saw that if given another hour he could get the reata finished before the train pulled into Casper.

  Bat down the aisle got up and bowlegged toward him. Bat’s seamed leathery face was drawn too from lack of sleep and his pale blue eyes brooded. Bat’s hand toyed with the brass tops of the bullets in his cartridge belt. With his gun butt sticking out, his elbows jutting, his knobby ears bent forward as if by clothespins, Bat had the blunt look of a bulldog.

  “Hi,” Bat said, and sat down across from him.

  “Hi.”

  Bat got out his makings and rolled himself a cigarette. He lighted up. “Walrus wants to know what’s eatin’ you.’’

  The question griped Hunt. He liked being a loner. He took pipe from mouth. “Nothing, Wildy. Just that I think two’s a crowd.”

  “Walrus in command is all right with you then?”

  Hunt looked down the aisle to where Walrus and all others sat together in the back end of the car. He saw their eyes hard on him. “I have no quarrel with Wallace Tascott.”

  “And it’ all right that Texas Ike is to act as captain of the Texans?”

  “I have no quarrel with Ike either.”

  “And it’s all right too that you’re to act as captain of the other half?”

  Hunt allowed himself a sliding smile. “I have no quarrel with myself either.”

  Bat looked out of the window. The trucks below the chair car cracked through another deep dip in the roadbed. The jolt tossed Bat’s hat to the back of his head, revealing a balding grizzled dome. A single pale vein wriggled exactly down the middle of his forehead, dividing in two just at the level of his blond eyebrows. “You ain’t carryin’ a grudge agin anyone here then?”

  “No.”

  “I’m asking because Walrus wants to be sure this raid goes off as planned.”

  “Somebody think it ain’t?”

  Bat flicked a look back at the Texans. “We’re beginning to wonder about them.”

  “Why?”

  “They’ve asked Ike if we got warrants for Cain and his bunch.” “What did you tell them?”

  “That we did.”

  “Good.”

  Bat gave Hunt a close look. “You have got the warrants, hain’t you, Hunt? From the federal government?”

  Hunt held steady under the look. “You worried about it?”

  “You have got them warrants, hain’t you, Hunt?”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  Bat nodded. Bat looked out of the window. April-pale prairies slid by but Hunt noticed that Bat didn’t seem to see them.

  Hunt went back to working his reata.

  Bat crushed out his cigarette. “Hunt, I guess I got a question to askt you.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Before this ever came up, I take it you didn’t like Cain none.”

  Hunt smiled, velvet. “What gives you that idee?”

  Bat persisted. “You didn’t, did you?”

  “Don’t we all hate him now?”

  “Not like you, Hunt.”

  Hunt clopped out his pipe. He got out his tobacco pouch and spilled in a fresh load. He lit up. He held silent.

  Again Bat pressed in. “Not like you, Hunt.”

  Hunt decided to play a little with Bat. “Well, Wildy, you know how it is with me. Killin’ is my specialty. I hire out to do it. I don’t do it on my own, but for others. You know. For the government. For the law. For private business concerns. I look at it as a business proposition.” Hunt smiled, thin. “Maybe that’s what gets you.”

  “Mabbe.”

  “When I’m hired to exterminate rats, I don’t play favors.”

  “You sure are warlike, all right. I’ve knowed men that would kill if they had cause. But you seem to kill for the love of it.”

  Hunt looked over at his Winchester standing in the near corner. It was an exact duplicate of the one he’d left behind in Hidden Country the time he and three others raided a cabin hoping to capture Cain, an 1886 carbine,. 38-56 caliber. He loved that particular model. It burned him that Cain had got hold of the other.

  Hunt said, “You like Cain, don’t you, Wildy?”

  “I do.”

  “Let me ask you something. If Cain is so dummed honest, how come he keeps running around with a known crook. And the chief of the Red Sashers t’boot.”

  “Well, he and Harry is brothers.”

  “Sure. But blood don’t have to run that thick. That a man has to stick close to an outright crook.”

  “Well, that’s true.”

  “Sure. And another thing. What would you say if I told you that Harry now lives with Cain?”

  “No!”

  “Sure. Harry lives with Cain now. Which makes it even worse.”

  “You mean they’re living together in Cain’s cabin on the Shaken Grass?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean.”

  Bat’s face saddened over. “I got to give you that. Harry is a rascal.”

  “Harry is a rustler.”

  Bat sat still a while.

  Hunt braided.

  Bat said finally, “How come you was so careless as to leave a trail in that other Hammett killin’?”

  “Dale’s? I didn’t. I couldn’t’ve. I went barefooted.”

  “In that terrible cold? With all them pricklepear underfoot?”

  “I went barefooted.”

  “How come they got out a warrant for your arrest then?” “

  Some range bum thought he saw me.”

  “Did he?”

  “He couldn’t’ve.”

  “Hunt, how many men have you actually killed?”

  Hunt shrugged a smile. “I don’t cut notches.”

  “How many?”

  “Can’t rightly recall. Never bothered to count ’em.”

  “How old was you when you made your first killin’?”

  “Seventeen. He was a dead-tough devil-mean man and he needed killin’.”

  “Was that Gramp Hammett?”

  “It was. I gave him a deadhead ticket straight to hell and I ain’t regretted it.”

  “Hunt, what have you got agin the Hammett bunch?”

  “Are you trying to work me about them?”

  “Hunt, I’ve heard you’ve gone as much as five days without food when out on one of your killing bees. How can a man who weighs near two hundred pounds go without eating that long?”

  Hunt couldn’t resist it. “I run like the loner wolf does. When I got meat, I eat. When I don’t, I wait.”

  The rails clicked monotonously beneath them. The chair car rolled. A horse whinnied loud on the stock car behind them. A veil of black smoke wisped past the window and after a moment the smell of burning coal was in the car.

  Bat cocked his grizzled head to one side. “You never married, did you, Hunt?”

  “No.”

  “But you’ve had you she-stuff?”

  “Oh, I had me she-stuff all right. One. A schoolmarm.” Hunt snorted as he jerked a thong into place in the braid. “She sure was smooth people, too. She once wrote me a letter. It turned out to be as long as the governor’s message, all about reforming, and that was enough for me.”

  “That was Abigail Adams the schoolmarm from Boston, wasn’t it?”

  “It was.”

  Bat got to his feet. “Then you ain’t got a mad agin anybody here?”

  “Why should I have? We’re going to clean out the rustlers, ain’t we? And burn the courthouse records?”

  “Hunt, something is burning you.”

  Hunt said nothing.

  Bat sighed. “
Well, God knows, I wouldn’t blame you if there was. Me, I wish I’d never’ve agreed to come on this trip. It ain’t going to be easy to shoot down a man who’s sided you on the trail. So maybe it’s all in my head that things ain’t going bore-smooth.”

  Hunt

  Hunt braided. He was almost done.

  Something was burning him. As long as any male Hammett blood was left alive on earth something would always be burning him. He still had Cain and Harry to get, and Dale’s two bull calves. There was also this record of a warrant for his arrest at the Antelope courthouse that had to be wiped out.

  Hunt’s lips thinned. His mustache moved under his sharp nose. He pulled viciously on the thongs. Once he jerked too hard and had to undo a portion of the reata and rebraid it.

  Gramp Hammett’s words he’d never forget. “Old Abraham in the Bible was wrong to let Isaac go, even if Isaac was his first and only son by Sarah. Abraham should have gone ahead and killed him.”

  His mother had burned it into his mind. Over and over. Ma Keeler always told it the same, eyes burning, mouth set in hatred. She had heard Gramp say it and she swore to avenge him for it.

  That wasn’t all. Dad Keeler already had been bad enough without having high-headed Gramp around to egg him into being devil-mean.

  … One day Ma and Dad had a fight. Dad was getting the worst of it and he threatened to take the boy, little Link, and drown him if she didn’t shut her trap.

  “What!” Ma gasped.

  “Yes. Drown him. You think more of him already at two than you ever did of me your lawfully wedded husband.”

  “Did our dear neighbor Mayberry give you that idea?”

  “Gramp Hammett? What if he did? A good idee is a good idee.”

  “Him and his way of making women the equal of cows.”

  “But he’s right. If you want peace in the house you should probably drown the first boy.”

  “You monsters.”

  “Well, ary a man kin see with half an eye that ever since Link’s come I ain’t been nothin’ more to you than a dirty toad. Nothin’. I might’s well be married to a sawhorse for all the good you’re to me now.”

  “You murderers. My little baby boy.”

  “What good is he to me so long’s I’ve lost you?”

  “What beasts you men are! Monsters! ‘Of course, Keeler, if you want to know the truth, and you want yourself a good obedient wife, you should really drown that firstborn boy. I’ve bred cattle and read Shakespeare, and that’s what I’ve come to see.’ What an awful thing to say.”

  “I wish I’d a had the guts to ha’ follered his advice. Maybe you’d a knowed your place by now.”

  “My place.”

  “Where is the boy?”

  “What?”

  “I say, where is the boy?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Give me him.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “Well, by Grab, I’ll soon know where he is if you won’t tell me.”

  “No.”

  “Ah. There he is. Behind the hollyhocks there. C’mere, Link. Your dad’s got something for you.”

  “Stay away from him, Linkie.”

  “C’mere, boy. Look what yore dad’s got for you.”

  “Linkie! Stay away! Run! He’ll kill you!”

  “C’mere, boy. See?”

  “Oh, my baby boy, run run, he’s going to kill you!”

  “That’s it, boy.”

  “Help! Help!”

  “Come, boy, we’ll go see if you can swim.”…

  Beyond that, Hunt’s mind would not go. At that point his mind always became a whelming rage of hate, blixon hot. At that point all the milling tails of hell let go in him.

  His trigger finger worked involuntarily. He found himself gasping for breath. It was all he could do to keep his arms from windmilling in the presence of others. His eyes misted over black-red. The little Adam in the back of his head who always laughed at things he did disappeared. He was drowning again. Christ the Son might be his friend, because Ma had taught him so, but God the Father was an enemy.

  There was a song which sometimes ran through his head:

  I dreamt I went to heaven and saw my darling there,

  She played a golden harp and had a ribbon in her hair.

  I dreamt I went to kiss her, call her Abigail,

  And woke up broken-hearted with a yearling by the tail.

  Forgive me, Mother dear, it’s you who’s best for me,

  Forgive me, dear my love, you are the girl for me.

  Gradually the sharp cracking of the rails fell away to a clicking. The chair car began to ride with less of a rolling motion.

  Hunt looked out and saw they were approaching the stockyards on the outskirts of Casper. He looked down at his hands and saw that he had come to the end of the four thongs. They’d come out about even. Except for the final knot, the leather reata was done.

  Clayborne

  Right from the start, overgrown Clabe sensed they were in for trouble. Things kept happening.

  Gun belt slung from the shoulder, coat over an arm, the raiders slowly shuffled down the aisle of the chair car and out the door and down the iron steps into the chill air of dawn.

  Ike took a breath and shuddered. “Why do them damn Yankees always keep it so frio up here,” he griped in his low drawling Texas voice. “A man kin hardly swallow in this freeze.”

  Despite his wry neck, tubby Walrus managed to whirl around sharp. “You boys getting cold feet?” The major leaned forward from his toes, as if getting set to strike with his fists.

  Ike’s face hardened over instantly. He stared back, slow, young.

  “If you are,” Walrus continued, “you can get right back aboard and go back to mother.”

  Ike stared back, slow, measuring.

  Jesse spotted the trouble and limped over. “Here, here,” he growled, good-natured, “here, we’re among friends. Let’s get along.”

  Big Clabe wished he had complained about the cold. Almost. Because he just might have accepted Walrus’s offer to go back to mother. Clabe didn’t care much for Walrus either. It was that thick stiff neck. Walrus’s neck was enough larger than his head so that he could back out of his shirt without unbuttoning his collar.

  Clabe looked up to where the mountains to the south loomed blue and green, with silver night mist still sliding down the canyons and ravines. Clouds with rain falling under them rode high above the peaks. Showers were always high in that part of the state.

  Clabe thought of his sweet little wife Liza still probably asleep in their warm bed, curled up like a warm puppy under the suggans. He longed to be with her. His soft blue eyes closed in memory of her warm smells. “If I could just lay my hand on her hip,” he thought, “if I could just put my big hand on her little hip I’d ask for no more.” It continually astounded him that her little body could accommodate his big one. Their mating was like the coupling of a St. Bernard with a lap dog.

  Walrus strutted back and forth. “All right, men, let’s get moving. You there, get a couple of them planks by the chutes there. Stand them up to the flatcar and roll down the wagons.”

  Quick hands brought planks. The ropes lashing down the wagons to the floor of the flatcar were loosened. Wheels rolled.

  The last wagon, however, somehow got out of control. It slipped sideways and with a crash its gears landed on one of the planks.

  Walrus exploded. “Holy Moses and the prophets! There goes another half hour. When we’re already two hours late. Should have been out of here before it got light. Now we’re liable to be seen.” Walrus threw a nervous look toward Casper. Some of the chimneys were already pouring smoke into the gray dawn.

  “Don’t worry,” Jesse said. “By now my men’ve got the telegraph wires cut between here and Antelope.”

  “That won’t prevent a man on horseback from getting through.”

  “I’ve got that taken care of too. Mitch is riding down from the north to join us at Irv Hornsby’s r
anch. He’ll keep a weather eye peeled for strange riders.”

  Clabe stood looking north, across the tree-fringed Platte River, gun riding heavy on his hip. Out of the corner of his eye he could see his silver star. It rode winking on his vest. Clabe thought of his former cowboy chums Cain and Harry and Timberline and all the rest. They were probably, right now, still sleeping under the stars, not knowing that a small army was coming for them and would probably kill them before the week was out. He felt awful thinking about them.

  Walrus barked, “Come on, you big clabberlipped dreamer! Pitch in a little, will you?” Walrus stood under Clabe’s elbow, glaring up at him. “We can use some of that muscle to help lift the wagon off the plank.”

  With a groan, hating him, Clabe turned to help the men.

  Walrus next pointed toward the stock cars. “You men over there, Ike and the rest of you, let’s get them horses off. Hurry now. March.”

  Glowering, Ike and his Texans pitched in. They moved with a quick and swaying walk. They wore their guns low and tied down. The heavy guns were sometimes in the way and caught on things.

  “Rustle now, you men,” Walrus clipped. “We’re burning daylight”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Clabe watched the Texans. The thought struck him that their guns were as handy to them as hammers were to carpenters. The major had better be careful not to rile them up too much or there’d be another civil war.

  Walrus bawled, “Bat? Come here. There’s still more to unload from the baggage car. The dynamite to blow up houses with.”

  “Cornin’,” Bat said.

  When the wagons were finally loaded and most of the men had mounted their horses, Clabe discovered he had been given a small pony to ride, a bay. Clabe looked over to where Ike sat easy, insolent, on a great rangy black. Clabe said, friendlylike, “How about trading?”