by Will Henry
She had been born far out in the Pacific islands, on the big island of Hawaii, itself. Her father had been a German, Helmut Kimmell, of München, in the old country. Her mother was what she called a Polly Neezhun, which she spelt out for me, p-o-l-y-n-e-s-i-a-n, and she was part Japanese and some Korean, as well. Miss Kimmell had read the Wyoming schoolteaching ad in a Chicago paper, whiles living in Missouri, with German kin.
It was then my turn to tell, and I quick found out that Glendolene had already heard all the old rustler killing lies that littered my life in Wyoming, getting them from the Millers even in the short day there with them. It was particularly from Victor Miller who, Glendolene said, had his own eyes to follow her with and was thus jealous.
"Now, Tom," she warned me, "young August is all right, but you must watch Victor. It is pathetic the hungry-calf way he tags after me, and it's very plain what he suffers."
"You meaning to say he's horny-dog serious?" I grinned.
"A boy that age? They're the most serious. Worse yet, he knows I'm fond of you and that upsets him."
"You been talking of it, you two?"
"No, no, I talk only as is required about the house."
"Keep your ears open." I had not had a right feeling about this Miller stop, all along. Miss Kimmell seemed to have sensed it, too. "How about Miller, hisself?" I asked. "He done or said anything off-color?"
"You mean to me? Or about me?"
"You," I said, "and me."
"With me there has been nothing. Oh, he looks, but that's all. As to you, I would have to guess."
"Guess then."
"Be careful of him, Tom; it is a way he looks at you when you are walking away or when he thinks you're not watching him. But he hasn't said anything that I have heard."
"I'd rather bet your hunch," I said. "I get the same feeling. I will clear out soon as they show from town."
"Oh, no," she said quick and in that throaty way of hers. "Stay the night, Tom; oh, stay the night."
I thought I was plumb wearied of her up to then, but I wasn't. The blood begun to get thick in my wrists again and to pound along the sides of my neck cords.
"How?" I said. "You're in the house with them. I am in that blasted tent with Gus and Vic. It ain't workable."
I saw a wink of pink-yellow light down at the bend of the road, passing the Nickell place. "Yonder they come, anyway," I said. "Don't say a word of what we've talked. These people are maybe not my friends, remember it that-away."
"Oh, Tom!" she cried softly. "Have you any friends?"
"There's you," I laughed.
"No, no, you know what I mean."
I did know and lost the laugh. "There's John Coble," I said. "He is the whitest man and best friend there is."
"One friend?" she asked, small voice doubting.
"Iffen he's the right one, you don't need any other,"
I answered her. "Johnny Coble's the right one."
The wagon was turning off the road, we heard voices. "Tom," she said, "when the house is asleep, I will come out to you. Where will it be?"
I didn't know where it would be, but I knew where I would be; I wouldn't be there. Still, I gave her a place. I wanted her calm and content, not flustering in front of the Millers.
"The little shed off the main barn," I said. "It's fresh filled with prairie hay. Bring a blanket, as it's summer-cure, and prickly. It will stick you like thistles."
She laughed the teaser laugh. "I thought you 'hands' slept in hay and straw and thought it 'prime fixtures.' "
"Fixings," I said. "Prime fixings. But we don't sleep like you do."
"Oh? How is that, western man?"
"Well, ma'am, we leave our clothes on."
"Mr. Horn—!"
"Smooth people," I said, "hold it down; they are here." And I stepped off the low plank veranda to hand Dora Miller down from the wagon. I wasn't that total attentive to it that I missed the long flat cardboard carton propped on the seat beyond her. I knew that box.
It was a Winchester rifle, model of 1894.
Jim Miller thought he had the box covered with his missus's lap robe. He never caught me spotting it. Nor did I leave on that I had. I didn't need to. I could mind read those end-label stickers. I knew what would be stamped on them, along with the serial number and the length of the barrel: it would be the caliber.
And it would read 30 W.C.F.—.30-30 Winchester.
The killer s caliber—just like Tom Horn's.
Dark Horseman
It was a bad dream.
I was with Victor Miller and we were tracking an Apache hostile. I couldn't recognize the country. It was one minute like the Chugwater or Sybille, next it had turned to the Gila or San Pedro or White River, only to plunge into a strange, dark hole in the rock and it was Lodore Canyon and I was with Isam Dart and Matt Rash. But always it came back to me and Victor tracking the Indian. Suddenly, there he was.
"No!" I yelled. "Christ's sake, don't shoot!"
I could see it was the wrong Indian, wasn't even any Indian, was instead the old German, Al Sieber. But the Miller kid shot true, and the poor crippled Old Mad was down and we were off our horses bending to turn him over onto his back—and, Christ Jesus—it was Willie Nickell.
Next morning, before leaving for school, Glendolene Kimmell said no word about me not keeping our meet the past night. She had to be hurt over it; you cannot do that to a woman you've been with. But I was in a position that morning "neither to defend, deny, nor tell a fancy lie," as the poem goes. I had lain out the whole night up on the ridge watching the ranch. Miller had got the new .30-30 rifle he'd gone to buy, but who knew what else he had "bought" in town? Or sold. Just before day, I had slipped into the tent with the boys, and they never knew it. But things felt "closing in" on me, that fine morning of Wednesday, July 17. I wanted to get clear of there. And did so. The dust from the schoolmarm's buggy hadn't settled back before I was in the I-M spring wagon, going the other way.
At the home ranch, I found Mr. Coble away, in Cheyenne. Duncan Clark was there and told me Coble had left word for me to "loop the Sybille and the Chug," as beef was again counting some short up there. I-M beef, that is.
I told Clark I knew it. When the foreman then asked me about Jim Miller and Kels Nickell, I told him there was so much hate between the two of them up there it made it hard to dig out the truth. "I will tell you one thing, Dunc," I said, swinging up on the big dark Cap horse. "Somebody is going to get hurt up there. I will ride wide of it this trip, as I do not care to get caught in the cross fire."
"You afraid of them farmers?" Duncan Clark squinted.
"It's a blood feud," I nodded, turning Cap away. "A man's a fool not to fear such fights. You ordering me to go that way again?"
"Go your own way, Tom. You know the pasture."
"All right. I will check Billy Clay's place on Mule Creek. I may go by Johnny Bray's, up the creek. I will cross on over to the Sybille and check Berner Creek. Tomorrow I'll turn around and come home over Marble Top. I may be in Friday, Saturday for certain. Anything else?"
"Yes, we would like you to check the Colcord place."
"I can do that today, going out."
"Be careful, Tom. We don't want you seen over along the Sybille. Work back of the settlements along that way, but stay low. There is a lot going on over there. If it is known you are on the drainage, you won't see a cow of any brand. You know those bastards over there."
'They won't see me, Dunc. Hasta la vista."
Contrary to what I told Duncan Clark and to my own hunches, I did go back up by way of the Nickell place. I kept getting these twinges from my sombra, the first hard, ones in two years. But all I saw up there was Victor Miller on his ribby plow horse crossing the Nickell back pasture. I frowned over it some, as the kid was carrying a sack of grub and an old pair of field glasses. Playing at being Tom Horn, I guessed, and I gave it a wry grin and circled on to miss him. I wish to God I had done it different.
But for then, when it ought to hav
e been warning me at its lifetime sharpest, my sombra failed me.
It let me set there unseen on my horse watching young Miller skulk toward the rock ridge above one-mile gate, on the Nickell place, permitting the lad to go past me without halt nor hail to let him know he'd been spotted. Whether or not Victor Miller was guilty—and it was never to my mind proved either way—of the terrible thing that happened next day at one-mile gate, I, Tom Horn was certain-sure guilty of letting the boy ride on when I should of least have suspected he might be bound on some such dark business, and when I might thus have stopped him so easily from it.
Well, we all know the brand of pitch the road to hell is tarred with. Likewise, that if wishes was dealers, everybody would draw to his inside straights. The way it works, no man has eyes both ends of his head. He saddles the best horse he's got and hopes the son of a bitch won't stumble in front of the stompede.
It ain't in me to hate a kid.
Nor to hold against him that what is the fault of his father. As to Jim Miller, he may see me down another road. When he does, he had best have his things in order, he won't get home to straighten them out.
That day that was to change my cowboy world, though, I just rode on checking my pastures until dark. I camped late, making no fire on Mule Creek.
Next day, Thursday, July 18, the fatal day, I went on still riding directly away from the Miller-Nickell ranges up into the Sybille country. I was up there most of the day. Even rode as far as the Divide and to the heads of the Chugwater. In all the time not one soul, except a young cowhand drifting through, saw Tom Horn that ever came forward to testify to it. That lone other rider was unknown to the country, just my luck. He said his name was Charley Starrett, but he was shook bad by recognizing me for an I-M Ranch pasture rider when he rode up on me, and he took off without leaving no address.
Other than for this one Starrett fellow, God picked a mighty bad time to let my Apache training protect me so utter perfect from being seen. But as I told the court later, I was being extra careful to stay low and at the same time comb that whole country for Mr. Coble one fine and final time. It was knowed to both him and me at that time that Tom Horn had worked himself out of a job in the Sybille and the Chug country, and I wanted only to be certain there wasn't any more cow thiefs to "notify," before traveling on to some new country and some other employer.
I guess I dawdled over the ride, not wanting to get home and ask for my time. I didn't make it back to the home ranch until Saturday afternoon, having started that morning from Blue Grass spring. The date was July 20.
Duncan Clark wasn't there. Mr. Coble was yet in Cheyenne. Jack Ryan and his missus, the caretakers, was up at the main ranch house. A hired hayer, fellow name of Carpenter new to me, was at the barn and horse corral. I turned the Cap horse into the corral, thinking Carpenter and his hay crew were looking at me a little dark. At the house, I went into the kitchen. The Ryans was there and looked startled to see me.
"What the hell's going on?" I asked. "Them fellers down to the hay barn staring at me like I had the smallpox, and now you folks backing off as if I'd stepped in something and walked it on your kitchen floor. What is it?"
"You ain't heard?" Jack Ryan said.
"I ain't even been seen, let alone heard, since leaving here Wednesday noon," I answered. "Heard what?"
Mrs. Ryan, pale as a bed sheet, answered.
"They've found little Willie Nickell murdered up to one-mile gate," she said. "Been dead since Thursday."
"Shot in the back," Jack Ryan said. "Three hundred yards paced off. He was wearing Kels Nickell's coat."
Mrs. Ryan raised floured hands, wiped at her nose and eyes with wadded apron.
"He wasn't but fourteen years old," she said.
I looked at the two of them, and they was looking back.
Jack Ryan set his jaw, fearful but determined.
"Where was you Thursday?" he said. And we all three stood there and let the kitchen clock tick.
Gravel Blood
I didn't care a damn bit for Ryan's question.
I told him so and he said, "Why, hell, I only meant I hope you wasn't near the Nickell place Thursday."
"Was I you, Jack," I warned him, "I would watch my mouth. Things are apt to get a little tight around here."
I went back down to the hay barn, thinking I had best get into Cheyenne and talk to John Coble. But Carpenter told me he understood the boss had gone on East, and so I decided to ride into Laramie instead. There, I could at least get the "town drift" to this Willie Nickell shooting. It was getting to me that others than Jack Ryan might be asking where at was Tom Horn last Thursday.
"What horses have you got up in the barn?" I asked Carpenter. He told me there was only some broomstick ranch mustangs mostly, but that Pacer was ready. "Get him out for me," I said. "Tell Dunc Clark I took him."
"Anything else?" Carpenter said, eyeing me.
"Yes, tell him I've gone into Laramie to learn what I can about the Nickell murder. Who the hell would kill a fourteen-year-old kid? Son of a bitch."
"Maybe," Carpenter said, "they wasn't meaning to kill Willie. He had on his dad's old sheepskin coat, and was riding that plug Kels generally uses. Feller could have thought he was shooting Kels."
He was watching me funny, and it made me more than ever want to get to town and sort the thing out with whoever might be looking for me. "Get the Pacer horse up," was all I answered Carpenter. When he did so, I piled on the big gelding and kicked him into a high lope for Laramie.
On the way, I ran through my mind the places I had been on Thursday, and since. Clay's ranch, the Colcord pasture, Johnnie Bray's place, the Allen and Waechter ranches near Mud Spring, the main Two Bar pasture, Rudolf Hencke's home grass, a part of Dr. Stevens's outside range and, damn, it all come out the same in every solitary instance: not a person who could helpfully testify to seeing me had done so. Of course there was the drifter, Starrett. But hell, I needed—or damn well might come to needing—local people. Ones that the folks hereabouts might know and incline to listen to. And maybe even such good witnesses couldn't have helped me, or might not have wanted to, God knew.
The lame words of Jack Ryan came back to me. And the funny looks of the hayer, Carpenter. Damn again. These were friends of mine and John Coble and the Iron Mountain ranch company. What might Tom Horn expect of suspicion among his enemies? Or even just among the people who didn't even know him but hated the Wyoming stockmens association and all its members, and them that rode for them? I shook my head and hit Old Pacer a lick with the braided Mex quirt. My sombra was starting to talk to me.
And more. Chance was starting to run against me.
I rode into Laramie the entire way twenty-two miles of it, and never saw another person that Saturday afternoon. It is of course a wide and lonesome country. But you will not ride twenty-two miles of it on the main Laramie road one time in fifty of a Saturday and not see somebody either coming or going along it. I came within sight of the city feeling edgier and edgier.
Who in God's name had killed the Nickell kid?
And how could I prove it wasn't me?
In Laramie, I left Pacer at the livery barn and worked about the town. I didn't hear a thing that would make me any glummer, however. Quite the opposite. People I trusted told me various encouraging things. There was naturally some talk of Tom Horn but nothing like I had expected. I was pleased aplenty but did not let down. It was still way early for getting careless. Meanwhile, I listened:
Willie had been sent the early morning of July 18 to catch up to a sheepherder Kels wanted to hire. He had not come home that night, but the family thought little of this as Kels had told the boy to go all the way into Iron Mountain if he needed to, to come up with the man.
Morning of the nineteenth, young Fred Nickell found Willie's body at one-mile gate below the ranch house. Mary Nickell had collapsed. A man had ridden hard into Iron Mountain to telegraph the law. Sheriff Shafer and county coroner T. C. Murray had got out to the Nickell pl
ace within a few hours. They had taken stenographer Robert Morris to record findings. Deputy Pete Warlaumont was along.
The officers went over the ground and came up empty.
They had gone back to Cheyenne with no clues, filed no charges, made no arrests.
Willie's body was carried to Cheyenne by rail. Dr. Cook and undertaker Alex Trumbull escorted it the whole way. Burial services had been private, but turned out a huge crowd.
The coroner's inquest got under way directly.
Main findings as follows:
Kels Nickell and surveyor John Apperson examined the body. It was on its back but twisted sort of sideways, like it had been turned over. A ragged brace of bullet holes, not three inches apart, was in the back about opposite the heart. Bleed marks showed the boy to have run about I seventy-five feet after he was hit. Where he fell, the spurt of the blood squirted a four-foot circle.
Dr. Amos Barber, assisted by Doc Conway and Dr. G. P. Johnston, did the postmortem. They said: "The body was in an advanced state of decomposition when examined, being swollen and discolored. Death was produced by two gunshots, either of which these examiners jointly feel could have been fatal."
Time of death was laid at approximately six a.m. to seven a.m. the morning of Thursday, July 18.
It was believed the assassin inspected the body after the fact of the shooting. Loose gravel from the road was found stuck by dried blood to the face and front of the shirt. But as the body was on its back when discovered, the killer must have come down to it and turned it over from the way it fell, which would have been facedown. The coat and shirt had also been pulled away in a manner to expose the exit holes of the bullet wounds, as if for inspecting to be certain of fatality. A little rock was said to have been wedged under the head of the boy, but the officers rejected this, as no such stone was found by them.