Riders of Judgment

by Frederick Manfred

  Hunt found himself at the head of ten men, among them big Clabe and knobby Bat Wildy. Hunt didn’t like either one and was sorry they had been assigned to his bunch. He thought them too sympathetic to Cain. They should have been left behind with the horse guard.

  Hunt led them across a greasy stretch of mud, then through a clump of willows, then down across the shallow murmuring Shaken Grass, then up another greasy bank and onto the north ridge. Skulking down, spurs gingling, clothes brushing through sagebrush and greasewood, they filed in a long curve until they were directly in line with the barn. Here they picked up Mitch and two of his boys hiding behind a rock. From there on, carefully keeping out of sight behind the barn, Hunt led them straight down the ridge, across the creek again, and in through the corral. At no time could any one of them have been seen from the cabin. They moved on toe tips. They entered the barn, one by one, quietly.

  “At last!” Hunt exclaimed softly. “Now we’ve got him hived!”

  A horse whinnied in a far stall.

  “Go over and pet that critter down,” Hunt whispered, fierce. “You, Clabe. Quick.”

  Moving slow, Clabe swung his long legs over a manger and got in beside the horse. It was a dun buckskin. It seemed to know Clabe. “It’s Cain’s Bucky,” Clabe said after a bit. He petted the horse; rubbed its nose. “Here now, Bucky. Quiet, boy.”

  “Good,” Hunt said. “You fellows line up along the windows. Careful. Don’t wipe off any of the dust or cobwebs. Stay well back, three feet at least, so they don’t catch sight of your face or your shadow moving.”

  Bat said, “They’s three more hosses in a box stall back there.” Hunt whirled. “Where?”

  Bat said, “Looks to me like they is strange hosses.” Bat shivered. “Maybe Cain has company.” Bat pointed at the harnesses hanging on the wall. “Two of them is trotters.”

  “He can’t have,” Mitch said, “we watched all night.”

  Bat said, “Another thing. Where’s Cain’s black riding hoss? Maybe Cain himself ain’t here.”

  Hunt said, “Cain rode the black into a pile of staves last fall.”

  Mitch said, “When I dropped in on them last Thursday, they talked about him having a new hoss by the name of Whitefoot. Had white hoofs.”

  Bat went over to look. “No hoss with a white hoof here.” Again Bat shivered. “I got a hunch Cain’s gone.”

  “But he can’t be,” Mitch cried. “We watched all night.”

  Hunt fixed Bat with a hard eye. “What are you up to, Bat?”

  Bat wouldn’t look him in the eye.

  “Balls of fire! What an army this has turned out to be. Half of ’em secretly sidin’ in with the enemy.”

  A meadowlark whistled cheerily out in the pasture south of the barn. The men listened, their eyes meeting fleetingly. For a moment the birdsong seemed to bring them back to themselves.

  Walrus came puffing in to check their position. “Everything shipshape here?”

  “No,” Hunt said, swearing. “There’s three strange horses in here. And Bat here thinks Cain ain’t t’home because his riding hoss ain’t here.”

  Walrus’s wind-burnt face darkened over. “And we just spotted a buckboard standing in the yard on the other side of the house. Where the lane comes down off the road there.”

  “That means somebody is here we didn’t expect. Somebody with a pair of trotters and a buckboard.”

  Walrus whirled around on Mitch, wry neck turning with his body. “I thought you said you watched the place close.”

  “I did.”

  “Who’s this in the buckboard then?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you know? Do you know if Cain is home?”

  “Well, so far as I know I think he is. We heard a lot of singing in the cabin last night. Till late. We thought we heard him.”

  “You saw no one leave?”

  “Not one.”

  “You’re sure now?”

  Mitch rolled his sloping shoulders. “Well, I wouldn’t swear absolute of course. The snow was falling heavy now and then. And it was plumb dark.”

  “Holy Moses and the prophets!” The major swelled until he looked tall. “That means he maybe did get away.” Walrus stood thinking. His brown eyes wicked wide, almost went cockeyed. In his black overcoat, for all the height of the men around him, he bulked large in the barn.

  Bat said, eager, “Maybe we better not shoot on sight. Could be some of our men stayed overnight. Like Mitch did the other night.”

  “That’s so. Damn this cow country courtesy anyway.”

  Hunt swore too. “Blast you, Mitch. Here’s still another time you bulloxed up the ball.”

  Mitch couldn’t hold up to them. Slowly his eyes slid off to one side. Slowly his eyes heated over with hate.

  Walrus said, “Any of you men ever see these hosses before?”

  After a silence, Clabe called from the stall where he was busy making friends with the dun buckskin. “I think… that sorrel there… belongs to Timberline.”

  “You sure?” Walrus asked eagerly. “You sure? Because he’s on our list too.”

  “It’s his hoss… all right.”

  “What makes you think so?” Hunt questioned close.

  “Well… he’s a big man… and I just naturally notice… the hosses of other big men.”

  “Let’s hope you’re right.” Walrus stomped around in the alley. The hay crackled underfoot. “Just the same I think I better countermand that order to shoot on sight. We wouldn’t want to shoot down one of our own boys. Men! Until we’ve found out who’s in the cabin, make sure of them first as they come out.”

  Hunt bit at his mustache. “Maybe we should head for Antelope first anyway, now that we’re not sure who we got hived up here.”

  Walrus was emphatic. “No. If Clabe here is right we at least got Timberline in there. And we want him. It won’t take too long.”

  Hunt shrugged and went back to his post at the window.

  Walrus left to tell Ike and Jesse of the new development.

  Hunt and his men waited. They watched through the dusty windows. They couldn’t spot their own men behind the bridge, or on the bench across the meadow, but they knew they were out there. It was warm in the barn. Morning light increased very slowly. It was going to be a dark gloomy day.

  “Somebody’s up!” Mitch whispered, loud. “I just saw a puff of smoke.”

  Hunt watched too. A bit later another puff rose from the largest of the two low chimneys. The wind shoving down from the northwest caught it and trailed it southeast along the ground. After another wait, the second chimney began to throw smoke.

  Mitch said, “Now he’s got the cookstove going. In a minute now somebody’ll come out for fresh water from the crik behind us. That is, if they do like they did the other morning when I stayed over for breakfast.”

  Hunt said, “Ready with your rifles, men. Get a crossfire on the door if you can.”

  They waited.

  At last the door opened.

  “Ah!” Hunt exclaimed softly, almost gleeful. “Here they come. Get the dead drop on them, boys! And don’t shoot until I give the word.”

  A bowed old man came down the stoop with a bucket in hand. He took a few steps toward the barn and then stopped for a look around. His hat was tossed back, revealing a balding dome. He sniffed the air like an old wolf enjoying yet one more morning of life. He set the bucket down on the ground and casually unbuttoned his pants and peedoodled in a low drift of snow. He shuddered halfway, once, deep. He threw a look up at the clouds, then toward the Big Stonies to the west. He shivered again as he finished and buttoned up. Then, picking up his bucket, he drew his overcoat up close around his neck, pulled down his hat over his old nose, and came on toward the barn.

  Hunt and his men waited, ready to let fly.

  “Hey!” Mitch suddenly whispered, loud. “That’s Old Hambone our cook!”

  “Who?”

  “Hambone. You remember him? The roundup last fa
ll when Cain and his boys came over and cut their cattle out of the bunch we was holding on the bench? Hambone was our cook then.”

  Hunt watched the old man’s shambling walk. He wiped clean a corner of the dusty windowpane for a closer look. “You’re right. I remember him now.”

  Bat said, shivering, trembling, “God! Good thing we didn’t shoot on sight at that. Good Old Hambone.”

  Mitch said, “He’s coming without his gun too. That probably means nobody suspects nothing in the cabin yet.”

  “Can’t shoot… an unarmed man,” Clabe said, slow, dull.

  Hunt was suspicious. “What’s he doing staying out here with Cain? You sure he knows which side his bread is buttered on?”

  Bat said, “Oh, well, with Hambone now there ain’t no sides. He’s a cook and is over and above such digglements as range wars.”

  “Not so loud,” Hunt whispered. “Here, Mitch, let’s you and me form a reception committee around behind the barn. Out of sight. The rest of you keep watching the house.”

  Hunt and Mitch stepped outside in back. They waited, rifles at ready at the hips, tense.

  Presently the sound of dragging boot heels came to them. A moment more and the peak of Hambone’s hat, then his old leathery face, then the rest of his old bowed body, came around the corner. Hambone saw them but it didn’t seem to register with him at first. He walked until Hunt’s Winchester caught him in the belly. Then he stopped, bent over the rifle.

  “Not a peep out of you!” Hunt said, low, deadly. “Or it’s a oneway alley through your guts.”

  Hambone only blinked.

  “Step this way.” Mitch grabbed Hambone by the belt and pulled him forward and then shoved him into the barn.

  Hunt grabbed Hambone by the collar of his overcoat and drew his face up to his, almost choking him. “Who’s in the cabin there with you?”

  Mitch said, “Yeh, what you doin’ stayin’ here at Cain’s?”

  Hambone blinked. Slowly he came to. His wise old eyes rolled around, looking at all the armed men, then narrowed to slits.

  One of the raiders in the barn took a bead on Hambone.

  Hunt waved the gun down. “None of that now. He’s all right. On the dead square.”

  Hambone cleared his throat with an old man’s wet cough. He shook his head sadly. “Me for the luck of a lousy calf. For the first time in years a man offers to make me breakfast and then I run into a sight of men bent on killin’ me.” He continued to shake his head. “And I sure was looking forward to them splatter-dabs of Cain’s too.”

  Hunt’s eyes opened with burning light. “Ah! Then Cain is in the cabin after all!”

  Too late, Hambone realized he had let something slip. “My God! Look what I have gone and did.” Hambone looked down at the bucket in his hand. “Now I do have a turrible dry.”

  Hunt said, “Yes, old man, you might as well know it. This is hell with the hide off.”

  Cain

  Inside the log cabin, Cain had about a dozen crisp brown pancakes piled up, when Timberline showed at the door, stooped over, bald pate against the doorheader. His red whiskers were askew and wild, his red pig eyes were squinted down at the griddle, and his pug nose was working overtime like a pig’s snout.

  “Mornin’.” A smile cracked across Cain’s face. “I was about to call Your Bullship.”

  “Uh.” Timberline stomped over to the gray wash basin. He dipped in his fingers, wetted his lips and the tip of his nose, and dried himself off on the sack towel.

  “You can set out the cups and plates,” Cain said. “Three sets.”

  “Who’s left us?” Timberline shuffled back to the table, and from one stance, using his long arms, set the table.

  “Harry. Sometime in the night.”

  “Uh.”

  “Hambone went to get some fresh water for the coffee.”

  “Uh.”

  “You know how an old coosie is. Got to have the best for his coffee.”

  “That’s a gut.”

  They sat down and helped themselves, each taking four cakes. Cain liked to spread his around in his plate in the shape of a four-leaf clover and then pour on the strap molasses. Timberline fancied his pancakes all in a pile with the molasses streaming down the sides.

  After Cain had made another batch of pancakes, he began to wonder what was keeping Hambone so long. “The old man don’t get fits in the morning, does he?”

  “Hambone? Naw, not that I know.”

  “It’s sure taking him a long time to get that bucket of water.”

  Cain got up and peered out of the window looking toward the creek. “Trouble is, my barn is in the way. Can’t quite see if he fell in that water hole in the turn there or not.”

  “He’ll show,” Timberline said, mouth full of pancakes and molasses. “He likes cakes even better than I do.”

  Cain stood troubled over his stove. “Something’s wrong out there,” he said finally. He remembered waking to the sound of what he thought was a wagon wheel cracking against stone. Could Hunt be out there trying to pick them off like he got Dale and all the others? Yet what would Hunt be doing with a wagon?

  On a hunch Cain stepped to the back window. Hambone’s buckboard stood where he’d left it the day before, at the end of the lane beside the house. Wal, it couldn’t have been Harry driving off with it in the night.

  Gooseflesh pimpled out over his arms and body. He felt it. He looked down at the bumps. When the animal in him roused up it was time to take notice. It hardly ever missed. It always knew better than he did. Something was wrong. He nodded to himself.

  He reached around and began untying the strings to his leather apron. “I’m going out and hunt the old man up. He didn’t take his gun with him and something could have happened to him.”

  Timberline looked up from his gorging. His small eyes blinked. He looked at the sizzling griddle and then at the bowl of mix on the back of the stove. He shoved back his chair with a crash and got to his feet. He spoke with his mouth full, spraying bits of food to all sides. “Better let me see. No use ruining prize pancakes. I can make coffee, or boil a potato, but pancakes that float like calf slobber, that I can’t make.”

  Cain hesitated.

  Timberline put on his hat and started for the door.

  Cain said, “Better hitch on your belt and gun.”

  “Why?”

  “Wal, I got a feelin’ somebody’s out there. Somehow.”

  “Sure somebody’s out there. Hambone is.” Timberline stared down at Cain. “It ain’t gettin’ you finally, is it, Cain?”

  “No. Just a strong feeling somebody’s out there waiting for us, is all.”

  “Naw.”

  Timberline stooped out through the door and headed slowly for the barn, shambling along easy.

  With half an eye Cain watched through the window as he caught up three new steaming fluffy brown pancakes and flipped them onto the platter. About a dozen yards from the door, Timberline stopped and cocked an ear toward the barn. It struck Cain that Timberline looked exactly like a red bear up on two legs listening intently at something.

  Cain poured some more batter.

  The next time Cain looked up, he saw Timberline still standing motionless and listening. He was about to tell Timberline to get a wiggle on, when a shot, then a whole barrage of shots, cracked across the yard. First one bullet, then a hail of bullets, whacked into the side of the cabin. Two of the windowpanes right in front of Cain’s eyes shivered into a shower of pieces. Chinking fell to the floor. Still looking out, out through the new blanks in the window, Cain saw Timberline, in a great slow fall, slide to the ground. From the barn windows and the barn door rose puffs of gun smoke.

  “Hell’s fire and little fishes!” In a whip, Cain tore off his leather apron and buckled on his gun and cartridge belt. “I was right!” He ran to the heavy log door, jerked it open, and left-handed let fly a hail of bullets of his own, working over the barn window, knocking out the panes, and then the barn door, hoping to c
atch some of the unseen enemy. Immediately more shots cracked from the barn and bullets hit all around him. Smoke trailed out of the windows. From the cracking reports he knew they were using high-powered rifles. They had a better chance to hit him, taking dead aim, than he them. He jumped back inside and slammed the door shut. Quickly he ran to the window again. He saw Timberline slowly turning on the ground, saw him inch toward the cabin, bloody fingers scratching in the ground. There was blood on Timberline’s bald pate and his right hand looked badly shot up.

  He smelled something burning besides gunpowder. Looking around, he saw that his last batch of pancakes was burning on the griddle. The room was almost full of the burning stink. Two swift lunges and he was beside the stove. He jerked the griddle to the back. He lifted a stove lid and flipped the black crisps into the galloping flames. Then, reloading his .45, and grabbing up the Winchester by the fireplace—the same gun Hunt had left behind in Hidden Country—Cain ran back to the window looking out onto the barn. He stood well back so they couldn’t catch a glimpse of his face or his moving shadow.

  He watched Timberline. The men in the barn were still taking potshots at him. Every few seconds pellets of mud sprayed all around him.

  Cain agonized with him. The stricken giant was still crawling slowly, very painfully, across the yard toward the cabin door. He’d come a dozen feet, leaving a sloughing rut across the snow-sloshy yard. The rut was like the trail of a giant slug in mud.

  “Poor devil!”

  Cain boiled inside. Yet he stood calm. He took stock of the situation. Hambone was already caught and so was out of the fight. Timberline lay wounded on the ground outside. Even if he did manage to crawl to safety, he’d be in no condition to help. And only God knew where Harry had gone. He hoped Harry wasn’t too far away, that he would hear all the gunfire and come on careful to take stock of things and then go for help. One word and the whole county would come piling down to help him. He had no doubt about who the invaders were. They were killers hired by the big cattlemen. Hunt was sure to be in the mob. Maybe even Jesse and Mitch. Maybe even some of the big cattlemen from around Cheyenne and Casper. If so, it would mean his cabin was at that very moment completely surrounded, that besides the gunmen in the barn there’d be some behind the bridge to the west and others up on the ridge to the south. The long low meadow to the southeast would be left unprotected. For a reason, too. The killers would hope he would make a run for it that way and thus catch him in a crossfire.