Fatal Justice

by Ralph Compton

  “As if that’s not enough,” James groused on, “you should see the earl cavorting with his lady friends. It’s not unusual to see him riding with two or three at once, and all so intimate.”

  “It’s scandalous,” the wife said.

  James nodded. “They are wickedly naughty, those British. What they need are good spankings when they are growing up.”

  “Or to spend nights in the doghouse,” the wife added.

  Ash asked about the Kanderwolds and was informed they had a small cabin near Black Canyon.

  “Why they settled there is beyond me,” James remarked. “Black Canyon is a dark, brooding place. No one ever goes there. Even the Indians avoid it.”

  “We tried to talk them out of it,” the wife revealed. “But Rohesia wouldn’t listen. She didn’t want to live near anyone, she said. And her with a husband who can hardly get around.”

  “The woman is pigheaded,” James said bluntly.

  “Or it could be she doesn’t want to impose on others.” The wife came to Rohesia’s defense. “She doesn’t want nor will she accept pity on account of Arthur.” To Ash the wife explained, “That’s her husband. A nice enough man. But all he does is sit and stare.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “No one knows. From remarks Rohesia has dropped I suspect a brain fever was to blame.” She clucked in sympathy. “That poor woman. She must do so much herself that a husband would normally do.”

  “She’s pigheaded,” James repeated.

  “Now, now.”

  “You know I’m right. If she’d had the sense to live near the rest of us, we could help her. As it is, it takes half a day to get there.”

  It took Ash five hours. He followed the directions James gave him but finding it took some doing. The canyon was dark and brooding and heavily wooded, and the trail in not much of a trail at all.

  The cabin stood in a small glade. Awash in sunshine, it seemed out of place. Even though it was summer smoke curled from the stone chimney.

  A few sniffs told Ash why: food was being cooked. He dismounted and stepped to the front door and knocked.

  It was a minute before a reedy voice called out, “Who’s there?”

  Ash remembered the trick Lonnie had played on him in Mobeetie.

  “My name is Grant, ma’am. I’m up here fishing and need a place to stay for the night.”

  “We don’t offer lodging.”

  Ash had been told she didn’t and had his reply ready. “Would it be all right if I camp in the clearing, then? I promise not to disturb you and to be gone in the morning.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’ve come a long way. I won’t be a bother. I promise you won’t even know I’m here.” Ash thought he heard someone else say something but he couldn’t be sure.

  “It would only be until morning?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I only aim to fish one day and then try another spot. I’ll pay you for the privilege if need be. Please, ma’am. My horse is tuckered out and so am I.”

  Again muffled voices murmured.

  “Very well.”

  Ash thanked her and set about stripping his saddle and saddle blanket and untying his bedroll and spreading it out. He used a rock to pound picket pins into the ground and tied the horses so they wouldn’t stray off. The whole time he was aware that the front curtains had parted and he was being watched. He pretended not to notice.

  A corral on the far side of the cabin held three horses. One was a fine black stallion.

  Ash went into the forest to gather firewood. The woods were unnaturally still and quiet thanks to the high canyon walls that blocked much of the wind. They also plunged the canyon floor into deep shadow for most of the day.

  Only after Ash had a fire going and was opening a can of beans did the latch rasp and the front door inched open. “That you, ma’am?” he said when no one came out.

  She emerged, the perfect portrait of an elderly matron, her snow-white hair in a bun, her stout body draped in an ankle-length homespun dress. She had a nice smile and blue eyes. Troubled eyes. “Did I hear you say your name is Grant?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I’m Rohesia Kanderwold. My husband, Arthur, and I live here.” She clasped her hands. “It isn’t often we get anyone out this way.”

  “I can see why. You’re as far off the beaten path as you can get.”

  “So are you, Mr. Grant.”

  Ash noted the suspicion in her tone. “Ma’am?”

  “You say you’re up here to fish, but the best streams for trout are clear on the other side of Estes Park.”

  Ash had his reply ready for that too. “That’s not entirely true, ma’am. An old-timer told me of a stream in this very canyon. He says no one has ever fished it. I’ll have it all to myself.”

  Rohesia patted her bun. “You’re certainly welcome to do as you please but I fear you’ve come all this way for little reward. My husband has fished that stream a few times and only ever caught a few fish.”

  As casually as he could, Ash remarked, “I was told your husband is a cripple or some such.”

  “People can be so crude,” Rohesia criticized. “But no. Arthur spends most of his time in a special chair but he can move around when he has to. In fact, the doctor insists he try and get a little exercise each day.”

  “Special chair?”

  “Wait here. I’ll introduce you.”

  Ash filled a pot with the beans and didn’t look up until he heard creaking.

  Out of the cabin came Rohesia, pushing a wheelchair. Sturdily built of oak, the chair had oversized wheels that could use greasing.

  The man in the chair wore a floppy hat with a wide brim. From under it spilled long gray hair. A blanket had been draped over the lower half of his body. His shirt had a high collar that had been pulled up and covered the lower half of his face. The only part of him Ash could see clearly were his cheeks and his blue eyes.

  “Mr. Grant, I’d like you to meet my husband, Arthur,” Rohesia introduced them.

  “How do you do,” the man said, his voice thin and raspy.

  “Arthur isn’t a cripple, Mr. Grant,” Rohesia went on. “He has a heart condition. He must be very careful not to overexert himself. He is also nearly always cold. Something about the blood not circulating as it should. Which is why he is bundled up.”

  Ash stood and offered his hand. Arthur Kanderwold reached from under the blanket and touched his fingertips but didn’t shake. The hand was immediately withdrawn. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  “My wife tells me you are here to fish.”

  Ash pointed at the fishing pole and gear he had bought in Denver before setting out. He’d hated to spend the money, but he got them cheap and he needed them to make his lie believable. “I’ve been told the fishing in Estes Park is excellent.”

  “That it is,” Arthur agreed, “although not many come all the way to Black Canyon to try their luck.”

  “So your wife was saying. She also said you’ve fished the stream here so you must know the best spots.”

  “As a matter of fact,” Arthur responded, “I know one that will do nicely. A pool where the canyon bends, about half a mile past our cabin. There’s a bank for you to fish from. I’ve caught a few trout there. It’s quiet and peaceful and restful as anything.”

  “Sounds perfect. I’ll head up tomorrow and spend the day.”

  “I wish you success,” Arthur Kanderwold said.

  Rohesia coughed. “Well, we can see you’ve put your supper on. We’ll leave you to your meal. Perhaps tomorrow after you come back you can visit and talk a spell. It isn’t often we have visitors.”

  “I’d like that,” Ash said. They certainly were proving to be friendlier than he had been led to believe. “It’s very gracious of you.”

  Rohesia smiled. “I get lonely out here sometimes. I’m so far from anywhere, with only the animals and the wind for company.”

  “You have me,” Arthur said a bit gruff
ly.

  “Of course I do,” Rohesia quickly answered. “It’s just that you are all I have. There’s no one else. No women to sit at tea with. No one else to talk to unless it’s the rare traveler like Mr. Grant here.”

  “Take me in. I’m getting cold.”

  “Yes, dear.”

  Ash felt sorry for her. But then, she didn’t have to live here. Or did she? he wondered. Maybe she wasn’t permitted a say in the matter. Shrugging, he sat back down and waited for his beans to cook.

  The curtain parted. Someone was staring out at him again.

  After eating, Ash stretched out on his back, fully dressed, and pulled a blanket to his chin. Moving slowly so it wouldn’t be obvious to the watcher in the cabin, he drew his Remington revolver and held it on his stomach. That was how he slept. The slightest noises awakened him, from crackling in the brush that might be deer to the hooting of an owl.

  Ash didn’t bother getting up at the crack of dawn. He slept in. It had to be nine or ten when he finally stirred and sat up. Almost instantly a familiar craving came over him. His first act every day was always the same. Holstering the Remington, he turned to his saddlebags. He caught himself just in time and glanced at the cabin.

  The curtains were parted.

  Ash stretched and stood. He needed an injection, needed it badly. Without one, he would quake all over and his muscles would cramp. But not in front of the Kanderwolds.

  Forgoing breakfast, Ash collected the case that held his rod, and the fishing basket. Keeping his back to the front window to block their view, he transferred the morphine kit from his saddlebag to the basket. Then, shouldering the rod case and with the basket under his arm, he sauntered around the cabin to a narrow trail that wound into the canyon’s gloomy depths. He whistled and acted as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

  Once out of sight, Ash went faster. The craving had become a hunger he could hardly hold at bay. His chest wasn’t hurting. There was no pressure at the moment. But he had to have morphine. He had to. His mouth went dry and he broke out in a sweat. He started to shake. He wouldn’t make it to the spot Arthur had told him about. Stopping, he broke open the kit.

  “Damn.”

  Ash had forgotten to fill the hypodermic after using it the day before. He had done that more and more of late, a sign he was becoming lazy. Or was it something else? He was shaking so much that he could barely hold the needle steady. The hunger had become a searing need that tore at him like the claws of a wild beast.

  “Hurry, damn you.” Ash was being a fumble fingers. He might as well have butter or grease smeared on his hands. It took him twice as long as it should but at last he had the hypodermic ready. Rolling up his sleeve, he held the needle above a vein.

  This was the moment Ash lived for, the moment when he was on the cusp of pure heaven. He stabbed in the needle and winced. The wince soon changed to a smile as the morphine coursed through his blood. There was warmth and tingling and the precious pure ecstasy he couldn’t do without.

  For Ash the feeling was akin to that moment when a man was with a woman and crested in release. He moaned as the morphine took full hold. Slumping onto his side, he immersed himself in the sensation.

  Ash would have been perfectly happy to lie there for the rest of the morning. With great reluctance he sat up, put the kit in the basket and continued on.

  The trail seldom saw use except for wildlife. It paralleled the stream to the bend Arthur had mentioned. The pool was about ten feet across, the water bathed in sparkling sunlight and so clear that Ash could see the bottom. A quicksilver streak confirmed there were fish.

  Ash set down the rod case and the basket and was straightening when a gun hammer clicked.

  “Twitch and you’re dead.”

  Chapter 25

  Ash turned to stone as a hand groped at his waist and relieved him of the Remington revolver. He heard it thud to the ground.

  “Turn real slow and sit real slow.”

  Again Ash complied. He was extremely calm. The morphine’s doing, he figured. When he beheld the man holding an old single-shot Sharps rifle on him, he hid his surprise. The eyes were the same and the gray hair was the same but the man had changed into buckskins. “Marion Judson. You looked different in the wheelchair.”

  “I scrunch up to hide how big I am.”

  “And the real Arthur Kanderwold?” Ash asked.

  “My sister’s husband died about ten years ago. He’d been sick a long time. Some kind of blood sickness.”

  “Whose idea was it for you to pretend to be him?”

  “Rohesia’s. She’s smart, my sis. She figured that if anyone came looking for me, they’d never suspect an invalid. So when I need to hide out I come here and play the part of Arthur. It’s worked real fine.”

  “She doesn’t object to the killing and the robbing you do?” Ash had his hands at his waist, close to his open jacket.

  “Not at all. She feels the same as I do. She hates them as much as me.”

  “Hates who?” Ash stalled. The longer he could keep the killer talking, the better his chances.

  “All the people moving to the mountains. It used to be so wonderful. Hardly a soul anywhere. Just the forest and the valleys and the animals and the Indians. It was paradise.”

  The implication jolted Ash. “You haven’t been murdering folks for their money?”

  “Hell, no,” Judson said gruffly. “What do you take me for? I do it because I hate what they’re doing to the mountains.” He gazed about the pristine canyon as a man might gaze fondly on a lover. “You’ve got to understand. I was one of the first. I came to the Rockies back in the thirties with a fur brigade. I saw these mountains as they used to be before all the people came along and spoiled everything. Them with their cities and towns. Laying waste to the timber. Scouring the earth for gold and silver and coal. It used to be so beautiful but they’ve made it ugly.”

  “That’s why you killed all those people?”

  “Can you give me a better reason? They soil the wild places like a baby soils its diaper.”

  Ash was dumbfounded.

  “Back when I started I’d hoped that if I killed enough it would scare a lot of the rest off and they’d go back to wherever they came from. But it didn’t work. More and more kept coming and I couldn’t stem the tide.”

  “Yet you kept on killing anyway.”

  Judson shrugged. “I still had my hate. I couldn’t keep it pent up. I had to do something or I’d bust.”

  “The only thing you could think of was to murder innocent men, women and children?”

  “Don’t look at me like that,” the mountain man growled. “How am I any different from those whites who wiped out whole Indian villages? Or who shoot game for the fun of it and not for the meat or the hide?” Judson spat in disgust. “I hear tell another ten years and they’ll have pretty near wiped out the buffalo.”

  “It’s no reason to kill.” Ash edged his right hand to the underside of his jacket.

  “I can’t think of a better one.”

  “So now what? You shoot me for coming here to fish?”

  “No. I shoot you because your name isn’t Grant. It’s Thrall. You’re that ex-lawman who has taken to collecting bounty money. I can read. We get the newspaper late but we get it and I know all about how you found the Fraziers and blew out their wicks.”

  “The paper never described me.”

  “No, it didn’t. But there’s a rumor going around that this Thrall has something the matter with him. The rumor has it he looks sickly.” Judson gestured. “If you looked any more sickly you’d be six feet under.”

  Ash swore. He should have known word would spread. People loved to gossip and he was a popular topic thanks to Horace Smithers.

  Marion Judson laughed. “Never thought of that, did you? Never thought that I might figure you to come after me, what with the money on my head. Truth is, I expected you long before this.”

  Ash bowed his head. No, he hadn’t thought of th
at. He should have. Once he would have. Back before he was shot he always thought one step ahead of those he was after.

  “You fixing to cry?” Judson mocked him.

  “No,” Ash said softly.

  “Most of the time when I shoot people I do it because of the hate inside of me. With you it’s not hate. It’s disgust.”

  Ash’s fingers were under the jacket.

  “You sit there and look at me like I’m scum. But you’re worse. At least I have a reason. You kill for money. That’s all. To fill your poke you take a life. The real scum here is you, not me.”

  “There’s more to it,” Ash said. His fingertips brushed the Remington pocket pistol.

  “You only shoot wanted men so that makes it noble?” Judson took a step. “I’m going to enjoy this. I’m going to enjoy it more than anything.”

  Ash chose that moment. He looked up, past Marion Judson at the trail to the cabin. “Why did you bring your sister with you?”

  “What?” Judson started to turn.

  Ash drew. He had always been quick and he was quick now. He shot Judson in the chest and the mountain man took a step back but didn’t go down. The Sharps boomed and Ash felt a searing pain in his left shoulder even as the impact slammed him onto his back. He thumbed back the hammer and aimed and fired a second time. It seemed to have no effect.

  Judson roared and charged him, holding the Sharps aloft like a club. Ash scrambled aside and the stock struck the ground where he had been lying. Heaving onto his knees, Ash jammed the pocket pistol against Judson’s ribs and fired again. That should have done it. That should have brought Judson down. But the mountain man swung the Sharps and caught Ash across the chest.

  The next instant cold and wet enveloped Ash like a glove. He had been knocked into the pool. He came up sputtering, half expecting to be shot as he broke the surface.

  Marion Judson was on his side, twitching. He was fumbling with a cartridge, trying to reload.

  Ash’s feet found bottom. He had held on to the pocket pistol and now he centered it on Judson’s face, pulled back the hammer and squeezed the trigger.