Thunder Wagon (Wind River Book 2)

by James Reasoner

  "Oh, hell," Cole whispered fervently. Despite Billy Casebolt's insistence that the rampant rumors were probably false, there were Chinese in Wind River.

  Now, Cole thought in dismay, things were going to get really interesting . . .

  Chapter 2

  Ben Jessup heard the dogs barking and the commotion in his corral and knew something was after his stock again.

  Wolves had come down out of the mountains a couple of weeks earlier and gotten one of his milk cows, and he didn't want that to happen again. Only one of the remaining cows was dependable when it came to producing milk, and with youngsters in the house, milk was a necessity. The baby was still nursing, of course, but the other four children were too big for that.

  Jessup rolled over on the thin mattress of straw ticking. His wife, Laverne, stirred restlessly beside him. Jessup sat up, reached over, and patted her reassuringly. He swung his legs out of the bed and winced as his feet touched the planks of the floor. At this altitude, even summer nights were sometimes cold. Tonight certainly was.

  A stocky man with graying blond hair, he stood up and moved carefully across the main room of the log-and-sod cabin. Not much starlight filtered in around the closed shutters and through the few remaining chinks in the walls. Jessup and Laverne had spent long hours plugging the chinks with mud, making the cabin as tight as possible for the winter that would arrive in a few months. Even autumn weather in the high country of Wyoming Territory could be brutal, or so Jessup had been told when he began preparing to move his family out here.

  He didn't regret the decision, not for a minute. Life back in Omaha had been stifling. Jessup had never known anything except cramped rooms and a boring existence in a store clerks apron. Out here a man could walk outside, look proudly at the fields he had planted, the crops he was going to harvest, and know that the air he pulled deep into his lungs smelled of freedom.

  Of course, there were minor annoyances, like the wolves that sometimes raided the place and carried off chickens or, in the case of their last visit, pulled down a cow. But Jessup knew how to deal with them. He was already wearing his pants and his long underwear, so all he had to do was find his boots and stomp into them.

  Then he went to the entrance of the cabin and reached up for the Henry rifle hanging on pegs above the door. He kept it loaded, but the occasions for its use had been few so far in the two months since he and his family had arrived here. A couple of times, he had gone into the foothills with his oldest boy, eight-year-old young Ben, and shot a deer for fresh meat. The only other times the Henry had been fired were when Jessup was chasing off wolves, and he hadn't hit any of the fleeing gray shapes. Still, a few blasts from the rifle were usually enough to spook the wolves and make them run away. Jessup was confident tonight would be the same.

  He lifted the latch on the door and pushed it open enough to step out. Pausing before he did so, he looked back over his shoulder and saw his children, nothing but vague shapes in the faint starlight as they slept on their pallets.

  Jessup didn't have to see them to know them, however. Young Ben there by the wall, with Hank beside him, and on the other side of the room Molly and Sadie. The cradle beside the bed shared by Jessup and Laverne, and the baby, little Matthew, lying there tucked in among the quilts Laverne had made. A smile tugged at Jessup's mouth for a second.

  Then he turned and went to see what was causing the commotion among the stock.

  * * *

  Lon Rogers leaned back in his bunk and gently strummed the strings of a guitar. He had never been much of a hand for playing, could barely pick out a tune on the guitar, in fact, but he liked to strum it while he was singing. He began to hum.

  The bunkhouse of the Diamond S ranch, some ten miles northwest of the settlement of Wind River, was filled with the sound of men talking and laughing, punctuated by the slap of cards on a rough-hewn wooden table in the center of the big room as half a dozen punchers played poker. The talking gradually died away as Lon started to sing. Men turned to watch him, and even the card game was momentarily forgotten.

  Lon sang of things they all knew: sagebrush, dust on the trail, lonely hours under the stars as they rode night herd. He sang about stampedes and young lives lost and girls left behind, long winters and short summers and hopes that faded too soon. But the words spoke, too, of blue skies and good horses, freedom and friendships that lasted.

  Some of the songs were old ones, others newly composed on the trail drive from Texas up here to the Wyoming Territory. Lon sang, and the others listened and were quiet.

  As he finished a song and strummed the last rough chord on the guitar, a voice said gruffly from the doorway, "Mighty nice singin'. I wish you were as good with a rope and a brandin' iron as you are with that gee-tar, boy."

  Lon looked up and saw Kermit Sawyer standing there with a shoulder leaned casually against the door frame. The old cattleman was smiling, and Lon knew the comment about his skill with a rope and a branding iron was more a matter of habit than anything else. Sawyer wasn't one to over praise his hands—or anybody else, for that matter.

  "Thanks, Mr. Sawyer. I'll try to do better at the brandin' next time."

  Sawyer nodded. "You do that."

  He was a husky man, a little thicker now around the middle than he had been in his youth, but still possessing an air of vigor that belied his years. His thick hair was as white as the snow on the peaks to the north. Time, wind, and sun had tanned and weathered his rugged features. He wore a black shirt and black trousers. Tonight, here at the headquarters of the ranch he had established, he wasn't wearing the pearl-handled revolver he usually carried, which was his only concession to any sort of fanciness. Everything else about Kermit Sawyer was strictly utilitarian.

  An oldtime cattleman, Sawyer had left his ranch in Texas to his daughter and son-in-law following the death of his wife and decided to start over in Wyoming. Taking part of the vast herd he had built up over the years, as well as the more fiddle-footed members of his crew, he had started out on the long drive up the Western Trail, forging new trails of his own when the old one ran out.

  Sawyer had reached his destination only to get involved in the schemes of a crooked individual who had caused a great deal of trouble. That was over now, and the Diamond S was a thriving ranch, here in this high valley watered by a meandering creek.

  The whole thing had been good for Sawyer, Lon knew. The haunted look that had been in his eyes for months after his wife's passing was almost gone now, at least most of the time. A new challenge had been exactly what Sawyer needed. And Wyoming was a challenge, no doubt about that.

  "Frenchy," Sawyer said now to his foreman, "I want three men to ride up to the north range tomorrow and check out those draws. I got a feelin' some of the cows have been strayin' up in there, and I don't want 'em gettin' caught in that brush."

  The foreman, a tall, lean, dark-complected man who hailed from New Orleans, nodded and said, "Sure, Mr. Sawyer. I'll go myself and take a couple of good men with me."

  Sawyer grunted in acknowledgment and started to turn away. He paused in the doorway, however, and looked back. "Take Rogers with you," he told Frenchy. "Maybe if there's any cows stuck in those draws, he can sing 'em out."

  Lon flushed, not sure whether to feel angry or embarrassed. Sawyer had a way of getting his goat. The old man hadn't even wanted to bring him along on the trip from Texas, Lon knew. But Lon had raised such a ruckus that Sawyer had finally caved in. Lon's widowed mother had cooked and kept house for the Sawyers for years, and she had stayed behind on the ranch in Texas. Lon knew that before the group bound for Wyoming Territory had left, his mother had extracted a promise from Sawyer to look after her son, and Lon had a feeling Sawyer resented that a little.

  As far as Lon was concerned, he didn't want any special treatment. He had always carried his own weight, he told himself, and he wasn't going to start doing things different now. Sawyer would get that through his thick skull sooner or later.

  "I'll be glad to
go with you, Frenchy," Lon said. "If it's all the same to you, though, I reckon I'll leave my guitar here. Don't need it to chouse a few ol' steers out of a gully."

  Frenchy glanced from Lon to Sawyer and back again, then grinned. "Whatever you say, kid."

  Sawyer nodded curtly and left the bunkhouse. Lon relaxed in his bunk again and placed the guitar on the floor beside him, sliding it under the bunk so that it wouldn't get stepped on during the night. Morning would come early and the day would be a long one, he knew, so he rolled over with his face to the rough plank wall and closed his eyes.

  That was when the distant popping sound of gunfire drifted in through the still-open door of the bunkhouse.

  Lon rolled back over and sat up sharply. The other hands had heard the gunfire, too, and several of them stood up and started toward the door. Kermit Sawyer appeared there before any of them reached the opening. Grim-faced, the rancher said, "Sounds like trouble at one of those sodbusters' places, down on the flats."

  "We goin' to take a look, boss?" asked Frenchy.

  Sawyer hesitated. "Ain't none of our business," he said after a moment. "And I'm sure as hell not anxious to start lookin' out after a bunch of farmers."

  Lon stood up. "Those farmers have got families, at least most of 'em," he said.

  Sawyer's cold blue eyes snapped over toward the young man. He said, "It was their decision to bring women and kids out here, not mine."

  "Yes, sir, I know that—" Lon began, smarting somewhat under Sawyer's implied reprimand.

  "Take half a dozen men and ride down there," Sawyer interrupted, looking at Frenchy. "Don't start swappin' lead with anybody if you can help it, though."

  Frenchy nodded and reached for his gunbelt, which was coiled on his bunk.

  "I'll go with you," Lon said as he stepped forward.

  Frenchy looked at him and said dryly, "Somehow that don't surprise me. Don't forget your gun. You're liable to need it."

  Somewhere far out there in the night, guns continued to crash.

  * * *

  Ben Jessup tried hard not to sob in fear. He wasn't frightened so much for himself. The hard knot of terror in his stomach was for his family.

  He crouched just inside the open shed alongside the corral where his mules and cattle milled around nervously. From time to time he spotted one of the flitting shapes coming closer to the cabin, and when he did he threw a couple of shots at the vague target, knowing he was a lot more likely to miss than to hit anything. With each blast of the rifle, his fear grew. The Henry held fifteen shots, and he had already used eight of them. He didn't have any extra cartridges with him, either.

  Jessup's breath came fast and harsh in his throat. He flinched as a gun went off somewhere in the darkness and the slug chewed splinters from the shed wall just above his head. His face stung as the splinters dug into his skin. He blinked and pawed at his eyes with one hand, not sure if any of the splinters had struck him there.

  He heard the slap of running footsteps and forced his head back up. One of the raiders was headed straight for the front door of the cabin. Jessup jerked his rifle up to his shoulder, but before he could fire, the door opened a little and a shotgun went off with a dull, heavy roar. Flame geysered from the twin muzzles of the weapon. The man running toward the cabin was caught by the double charge of buckshot and flung backward like a rag doll.

  Jessup wanted to shout exultantly. At least one of the bastards wouldn't live to raid again, and he had Laveme to thank for that. The shots had awakened her, and she had been ready with the family's scattergun when the Indian almost reached the house.

  So far, Jessup hadn't gotten a good look at the raiders, but he was sure they were Indians. No one else would have any reason to attack this isolated farm.

  When he bought the land from the McKay woman, she had assured him that the Indians in the area were peaceful. Shoshone, that was what Simone McKay had called them, Jessup recalled.

  There were rumored to be Sioux in the area, too, and they weren't so placid, from everything Jessup had heard. But the Sioux were supposed to have recently withdrawn farther north and east, leaving this vicinity to the Shoshone for the most part. And Jessup kept coming back to the fact that the Shoshone were supposed to be honoring the treaties they had signed with the white man's government.

  Somebody ought to tell that to those savages running around his farm in the darkness, Jessup thought with a half-hysterical laugh. Maybe they just didn't know they were violating the treaties.

  Sure. Jessup was really going to believe that . . .

  He had come out of the cabin some fifteen minutes earlier, expecting to see wolves trotting around the corral, and instead he had seen some shadowy shapes that definitely weren't wolves. They had been moving toward the corral gate, and Jessup figured out immediately that they intended to let his stock loose. He had called out, "Hey, there! Get away from that corral!"

  And then one of the savages had shot at him.

  Nobody had ever taken a shot at Jessup in all the years he lived in Omaha, but there was no mistaking the flash of fire and the explosion that split the night and the bloodcurdling sound of a bullet whipping through the air within inches of his ear.

  Instinctively, he had fired back, then ran toward the shed because it was closer than the house. Now he wished he had retreated to the cabin. It would have given him a lot better cover for one thing, and for another he would be in a better position to defend his family.

  Faintly, he heard scared crying coming from inside the cabin, and his heart felt like it was going to swell up and explode. Those were his kids in there, terrified out of their wits, and he had to do something to protect them. Maybe he could reason with the savages, he thought. They already knew where he was, so calling out to them wouldn't give away anything.

  "Hey!" Jessup shouted. "Hey, listen to me! I don't know what you want, but you can have it! You want my stock, you're welcome to it! Just go away and leave us alone! We haven't hurt anybody!"

  There was no reply except another shot that made Jessup crouch even lower.

  "Please!" he cried. "Take what you want, just don't hurt us!"

  It was too late for that, he sensed. One of the raiders had been killed by that shotgun blast, and for all he knew he had winged some more of them. They wouldn't go away until they had avenged the damage that had been done to them. He had heard enough gossip about bloodthirsty war parties of the red savages. They were all doomed, him and Laverne and the kids . . .

  Another figure darted through the starlight. Jessup raised up on his knees and tried to draw a bead on the running man. He squeezed off a shot, feeling the stock of the Henry kick back hard against his shoulder, then worked the lever to jack another shell into the chamber. The figure he had seen had gone to ground, and Jessup had no idea if he'd hit the man or not.

  Something scraped in the dirt behind him.

  As he started to spin around, warning bells going off in his brain, he knew he had overlooked a threat. They had kept him busy by running around the corral until one of them had a chance to sneak up on him. He let out a shout of fear and rage as he tried to bring the rifle around.

  A strong hand came out of the shadows inside the shed, grabbed the barrel of the Henry, and wrenched it aside. At the same time, the raider stepped closer to Jessup and thrust out with his other hand. Jessup saw starlight flicker on the wide blade just before it buried itself in his belly.

  He screamed. There wasn't much pain, just a spreading iciness in his middle as the knife was ripped one way, then the other, tearing through his guts. The raider ripped it free so that Jessup's insides could spill out behind it, then brought the blade forward again as Jessup stumbled forward. This time the luckless settler felt the point of the blade penetrate his chest and scrape gratingly on a rib. A white-hot explosion filled his body as the knife sliced into his heart. Jessup thought again of his wife and children, and then died.

  It was merciful, in a way, because he didn't have to hear the boom of the s
hotgun and the rattle of rifle fire and the screams of his family as the raiders burst into the cabin and went about their grisly work. Nor did he smell the smoke or feel the heat of the flames a little later as the cabin burned fiercely, sending a garish red glow high in the night sky.

  * * *

  Frenchy, Lon, and the rest of the Diamond S punchers knew what to expect before they ever reached the farm. They had heard the shots and then seen the fire in the darkness, and Lon's heart was thudding in his chest as he rode into the small yard between the cabin and the shed and the corral. He hoped somebody had been left alive.

  But he knew that wasn't likely, and it didn't take long for the cowboys to prove that fear correct.

  The fire had died down, leaving what had once been a sturdy cabin nothing but a smoking, smoldering heap of rubble. The flames hadn't spread to the shed and the corral, which was empty; whatever stock had been inside the pole fence had been driven off by the men responsible for this atrocity. A dark shape lay huddled in front of the shed.

  Frenchy dismounted while the rest of the hands stayed on their horses, rifles held ready for use. The Diamond S foreman turned the man over, grunted, stood up.

  "Dead," Frenchy said. "They gutted him good."

  There was a horrible smell lingering in the air, something more than woodsmoke. Lon shuddered as he realized how much the smell reminded him of branding time. He called out, "Frenchy . . . in the cabin . . ."

  "I expect we'll find the rest of this poor devil's family," Frenchy said. "It'll probably be morning before things cool off enough in there for us to be sure. We can get started on the buryin' then."

  One of the other hands spoke up. "Somebody better ride back to the ranch and tell the boss what happened."