Massacre Canyon

by William W. Johnstone

  “Just rode in this afternoon,” he told her as he thumbed back his battered old hat to reveal thinning salt-and-pepper hair. Mostly salt.

  “And you’ve already been involved in a shooting and a near-knifing. You never change, do you, Preacher?”

  “No, ma’am. And I don’t intend to, neither.”

  It was true that change came slowly, if at all, to Preacher. Like Elizabeth Langston, he didn’t show his age, but the discrepancy was even greater in his case. He could have passed for fifty, instead of three decades older than that.

  Since the days when he had been one of the most famous mountain men of the fur trapping era, Preacher had gotten a little scrawnier. His hair was a little whiter, his permanently tanned skin a little more leathery. He wasn’t quite as spry as he had been in his younger days . . . which meant he was still faster, more agile, and more dangerous than nine out often men he encountered. He still wore fringed buckskins, but instead of the flintlock pistols he had once carried, he wore holstered Colt revolvers on both hips. He was fast and deadly accurate with them, too, although not at the same level as Smoke and Matt Jensen, the two young men who were the closest thing to family he still had.

  The bartender brought a bottle and two glasses to the table. Elizabeth poured the drinks for her and Preacher.

  “This is the best stuff in the house, you know,” she said.

  “I’m sure it’s mighty good.”

  “But it’s all who-hit-John to you, isn’t it?” she asked, smiling.

  Preacher sipped the whiskey and smacked his lips in appreciation.

  “Yeah, but it’s good who-hit-John.”

  Elizabeth laughed, then grew more serious as she asked, “Did you mean what you said earlier about always trying to oblige a woman?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then I have a favor to ask of you.”

  “Ask away.”

  She looked at him over her glass and said, “I need you to kill some men.”

  Chapter 21

  The mining claims around Deadwood were all located in the deep, heavily wooded gulches formed by Deadwood Creek and the other streams in the area. Over the past few years, since the settlement’s first boom, many of those claims had been consolidated and taken over by various mining companies and syndicates. It was hard for an individual miner with his pick and shovel, his pan, and his long tom sluice to compete against companies that could afford the latest equipment and the workers to use it.

  But some small claims still existed, and one a couple of miles up the gulch from Deadwood was being worked by a man from West Virginia named Frederickson and his four sons. The youngest son, Billy, was only nineteen years old and had recently gotten married to a girl a couple of years younger named Margaret, who was known as Mattie.

  “My daughter,” Elizabeth Langston said to Preacher as they sat at her private table, after telling him briefly about the Frederickson clan and their mining claim.

  Preacher had wondered where she was leading with this tale, and now he had an inkling.

  “You’re sayin’ she didn’t want to marry this boy Billy Frederickson?”

  Elizabeth shook her head.

  “No, not at all. It was Billy’s idea, but Mattie went along with it quickly enough, even though I didn’t give my permission. She didn’t care about that. I think my disapproval made her even more determined to go through with the marriage.”

  “Yeah, young’uns are like that,” Preacher mused. “I never knew you had a daughter, Elizabeth.”

  She smiled thinly and said, “A woman who’s in the saloon business . . . among other things . . . tries to shield her children from the less savory side of her life. In my case, Mattie is my only child, so I was even more protective of her. She’d been in school in Philadelphia, but she ran away and came out here on her own. She wanted to be with me.” Elizabeth gave a small shrug. “I couldn’t argue with that sentiment, even though I worried a great deal about letting her stay here. As it turns out, I was right to worry.”

  “She got mixed up with Billy Frederickson and then hitched to him.”

  “That’s right. I tried to explain to her what a primitive, unpleasant business it would be to live on a mining claim, but with the stars in her eyes, she couldn’t hear me.”

  “Well,” Preacher said slowly, “I’ll allow it’s prob’ly a rougher life than what she’s used to, but it was her own choice, unless you’re claimin’ this here Billy Frederickson done kidnapped her. That’d put a different face on things, I reckon.”

  Elizabeth shook her head again.

  “No, like I said, she went out there of her own free will. But what she found waiting for her . . . well, it was worse than just the hardships of living on a mining claim. I started to hear rumors, so I tracked them down. A lot of people in this town owe me favors, Preacher. I heard the same story, independently, from several different sources. It seems the Fredericksons . . . the father and all four sons . . .” She had to draw in a deep breath and visibly brace herself before she could go on. “It seems that they subscribe to a theory of sharing everything equally. All of them regard Mattie as their wife . . . with all that entails.”

  For a moment, Preacher just stared across the table at her. He didn’t trust himself to speak. When he finally did, he said, “That’s a mighty rotten thing.”

  “Yes,” she agreed with a faint, humorless smile. “I’ve been told that Mattie tried to leave, but they wouldn’t let her. One of them watches her all the time while the other four work the claim. You can see why I want you to go out there, kill those bastards, and bring my little girl back to me.”

  Preacher had a hunch that even if he killed the Fredericksons and returned Mattie to her mother, it wouldn’t be as simple getting her back as Elizabeth seemed to think . . . or hope. There were other angles to consider, too.

  “Most folks’d go to the law with a problem like this,” he said. “You’ve got a sheriff here in Deadwood.”

  “Yes, and he’s a good man, too,” Elizabeth agreed, “but Mattie and Billy Frederickson are legally married. You know that the authorities won’t step into something like this. In the eyes of the law it’s a private matter between husband and wife.”

  She was probably right about that, he decided. Even though civilization was breaking out all over the frontier these days, in many cases the simplest, most effective thing was for a man to stomp his own snakes.

  Or for a woman to do likewise. If he went along with what Elizabeth was asking, he’d be the boot and she’d be the one doing the stomping.

  As if sensing his hesitation, she reached across the table and clasped his left hand in both of hers.

  “I know it’s a terrible thing to ask of you,” she said. “To kill those men—”

  “I ain’t worried about killin’ any varmint who’s in need of killin’,” Preacher interrupted her. “And from the sound of it, them Fredericksons sure fall into that bunch. You’re talkin’ about five to one odds, though . . . and I ain’t as young as I used to be.”

  “I’ve known you for fifteen years, Preacher,” she said. “I don’t think you’ve aged a day in that time.”

  “It ain’t always the years. It’s the miles, and I been a whole heap of ’em.”

  “You’re also the man who used to slip into Blackfoot camps and cut the throats of a dozen warriors while they slept. You’re the Ghost Killer.”

  “Was. Anyway, you’ve maybe been listenin’ to too many stories. You know how some folks like to blow a thing up bigger’n it really is.”

  “We can talk around and around this, Preacher. What it comes down to is, will you help me and my daughter? I won’t insult you by saying that I’ll make it worth your while—”

  “Good,” Preacher said.

  “But I can tell you that I’ll be in your debt for the rest of my life.”

  Preacher sat there with a frown on his rugged face. If what she had told him was true, the Fredericksons were skunks and needed to be dealt with as such.
And it was true that he and Elizabeth had a history. She hadn’t really appealed to that, hadn’t asked him to help her for old times’ sake, but he couldn’t really escape that aspect of the situation, either.

  “I’ll have to look into it,” he finally said. “Make sure that what you’ve been told is the truth.”

  “I’m convinced it is, but I can understand why you’d want to be, too,” she said, nodding.

  “Then, if somethin’ needs to be done, I’ll do it. Can’t promise that all five of ’em will wind up dead, though. If there’s only one man guardin’ Mattie, it shouldn’t be too hard to get her away from him.”

  “Then they’ll come into town, demand that Billy’s lawful wife be returned to him, and the sheriff won’t have any choice but to go along with what they want.”

  She was probably right about that. But just because something was legal didn’t mean it was right. Preacher had learned that a long time ago.

  “We’ll see,” he said. “Anyway, if they’re the sort o’ hillbillies and ridge runners who’d do such shameful things to start with, there’s a mighty good chance they won’t let this be settled peacefully.”

  “They are,” Elizabeth assured him. “You’re going to have your hands full, Preacher. And I want you to be careful.”

  “That probably ain’t gonna be possible, neither,” the old mountain man said.

  Chapter 22

  Preacher had been all over this part of the country long before anybody ever thought of finding gold here, and once he had seen a place, tramped over it with his own two feet or ridden it on one of the fine gray stallions he had named Horse, he never forgot it. So when Elizabeth Langston told him where the Frederickson claim was located, he had known right where to find it.

  The next day after the encounter with the crooked gambler in the O.K. Saloon, Preacher rode out the gulch west of the settlement and took one of its branches that veered off to the northwest. He had a long, coiled rope hanging from his saddle horn. He wasn’t sure how or even if he would use it, but it might come in handy.

  He rode to within half a mile of his destination, then reined in Horse and swung down from the saddle.

  “You’re gonna have to stay here, fella,” he told the gray stallion as he looped the reins around a sapling. “But there’s plenty of grass to graze on. I’ll try not to be gone too long, but when you’re wadin’ right into trouble, ain’t no tellin’ just how long it’ll take.” He turned toward the slope and added, “Come on, Dog.”

  There was no telling, either, how many big, wolflike curs called Dog had been his trail companions. Some had been descendants of the original Dog, but eventually that line had died out. Preacher had a knack for finding similar animals, and at times he even wondered if the same spirit animated all of them. That was a fanciful notion, to be sure, but he had seen enough strange things in his life not to rule out too many possibilities, no matter how far-fetched they might be.

  The current Dog followed him now as he climbed up the brushy slope on the side of the gulch. In places the slant was so steep that he had to grab hold of tree trunks in order to pull himself higher. When he was about halfway to the top he figured that was far enough and turned to follow the gulch toward the Frederickson claim.

  As he approached, he heard men’s voices and the metallic sound of a pick digging into rock. Smoke rose up the slope toward Preacher. When he judged that he was right above the diggings, he eased his way down closer. Dog came along behind him, moving as quietly as the old mountain man.

  After a few minutes of getting into position, Preacher hunkered on his heels and parted some branches in the brush. That gap allowed him to gaze down on the Frederickson claim. From that vantage point, he couldn’t see into the shaft they were digging into the hillside, but the sounds told him two men were working in there. Two more men knelt beside the creek with pans and searched for gold that way, not far from a pole pen where a couple of mules grazed.

  That was four of the five West Virginians accounted for. The fifth one was most likely inside the crude cabin they had built, guarding Mattie Langston. Or Mattie Frederickson now, since she was married to the youngest Frederickson brother. It looked like the girl’s mother had been right about that part, anyway.

  Preacher’s eyes narrowed as he studied the layout. He thought there was a chance he might be able to reach the cabin by approaching it from the upstream side. Getting in there could be difficult, though. The back wall didn’t have a window in it, and there was a very good chance the side walls didn’t, either. Nobody would go to the trouble of putting windows in a primitive log cabin like this when all they did in it was sleep and eat and take advantage of a foolish girl.

  The two men he could see working in the stream were both young, not much more than twenty. That meant the patriarch of the Frederickson clan was in either the shaft or the cabin. The best thing to do might be to lure them out, get them all together where he could see them.

  Also, he wanted a better look at Mattie before he started killing people over her.

  “Come on, Dog,” he said quietly to the big cur, who hadn’t made a sound.

  It didn’t take them long to get back to where he had left Horse. He untied the big stallion, swung into the saddle, and started riding along the stream at a deliberate pace, like a man who had all the time in the world and not a care in it, either.

  He even started singing an old song in a surprisingly good voice. He wanted the Fredericksons to know he was coming. Men working a mining claim sometimes got a mite jumpy about strangers coming around.

  He rounded a bend in the creek and saw the cabin and the diggings in the hillside up ahead. The two men beside the stream set their pans aside and picked up the rifles that were handy. The weapons were fairly new Winchester repeaters, Preacher noted.

  One of the men called, “Pa! Wiley!”

  As Preacher continued his steady approach, two figures emerged from the shaft. One was thick-bodied and heavy-shouldered, with just a fringe of graying brown hair left around his ears and the back of his head. The other was about thirty, brawny and dark-haired. Both men wore holstered pistols. Their shirts were wet with sweat from the work they’d been doing.

  None of the four men Preacher could see looked quite young enough to be Billy Frederickson, who had wooed and wed Mattie Langston. The young couple must be inside the cabin, Preacher decided.

  And Billy must have heard his brother call out from the creek, because the door opened and he appeared, a tall, lanky youngster with a shock of sandy hair. He had a rifle in his hands, too.

  Preacher saw movement just beyond Billy. A flash of a pale, heart-shaped face surrounded by dark curls. That had to be Mattie. Preacher didn’t really get a good look at her, though, before Billy moved a little and blocked his view. Preacher didn’t think it was deliberate, but that was the result, anyway.

  “Better hold on there, stranger,” the elder Frederickson said as he held up a hand with the palm turned toward Preacher. “This is our claim. I’d be askin’ what you’re doin’ here.”

  Preacher brought Horse to a stop and rested his hand on the saddle horn as he said, “Why, I’m just a-ridin’ up this here gulch. What’s it look like I’m doin’?”

  “If you’re just passin’ through, where are you bound for?”

  “I ain’t exactly sure. I thought I’d scout a ways along the crick and see if I could find a likely claim that ain’t took yet.”

  One of the younger men standing at the edge of the stream laughed and said, “You’re about five years too late, you old coot. All the good claims are played out, except for the ones the big companies gobbled up. We’re breakin’ our backs workin’ this place, and barely makin’ enough to keep beans in the pot.”

  “You hush, Thurlow,” Frederickson said. “What we make or don’t make ain’t any business of this stranger.” He jerked his head toward the north. “If you don’t have any reason to be here, just pass on through.”

  “Well . . .” Preacher rubb
ed his grizzled jaw. “Speakin’ of beans, it’s gettin’ on toward midday, and I could use somethin’ to eat. Seems like I smell somethin’ cookin’. Thought I caught a glimpse of a lady in there. Your wife, mister?”

  He addressed the question to Frederickson, but it brought a laugh from Billy.

  “Shoot, no, she’s my wife!” He stepped aside to reveal Mattie standing there in a drab shirt and long skirt with an apron over them. Her face was flushed, probably from cooking, and the look in her eyes reminded Preacher of a rabbit with its foot caught in a trap.

  She was a girl who needed help, all right. He had no doubt of that now.

  “Get back in that cabin!” Frederickson roared at his youngest son. “Take that trollop with you.”

  Billy’s face darkened with anger. He said, “You got no call to talk about her like that, Pa. I know I said it was all right to—”

  “Hush up and do what I told you!”

  Glaring, Billy moved back into the cabin. He herded Mattie ahead of him. The door swung closed behind them.

  “You’ll get nothing to eat here, mister,” Frederickson told Preacher.

  “I could pay you—” the mountain man began.

  “Wouldn’t matter. We’re on short rations right now, until we take enough gold out of the ground to buy more. Sorry. You’ll have to go on your way.”

  “All right,” Preacher said. “Didn’t mean to cause no trouble.”

  He heeled Horse into a walk and started past the men, whistling a tune as he did so. One of the Frederickson boys asked, “Is that a wolf followin’ you, mister?”

  “Naw, he’s a dog. Might have a little wolf blood in him, though. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.”

  “Keep movin’,” Frederickson growled.

  Preacher suspected that the old man might have one of the boys follow him, just to make sure he didn’t double back. So he rode along the creek for a good two miles before he stopped. He didn’t think any of them would have followed him that far.

  The Fredericksons were on edge, especially the old man. That was a good indication he knew he was doing something wrong.