Dead Before Sundown

by William W. Johnstone

  But the shots stopped after a few minutes, and after a few more minutes during which Joseph and Charlotte talked animatedly, the two of them resumed their wandering. Palmer continued spying on them, staying out of sight.

  That went on the rest of the day. As dusk began to settle down over the rugged landscape, the Marats made camp again. Palmer climbed to a ridge where he could watch them.

  As he settled down to a cold supper, he told himself, not for the first time on this long day, that he was acting crazy. He should have been twenty miles closer to Calgary by now. Somebody, either his former partner Yeah Mow Hopkins or that vengeful old-timer Stevens, would be on his trail, and lingering around here was just giving them a chance to catch up to him.

  But the mystery of those guns Marat had mentioned was an intriguing one, and Charlotte’s beauty was intriguing as well. Often, guns were worth their weight in gold on the frontier, and if that was the case here, Palmer wanted to get his hands on some of that loot.

  Marat and Charlotte had stopped where the ground swelled up into a thick stand of pine trees on top of the ridge. Palmer’s horses were on the far side of those pines, picketed so they could graze but not wander off.

  The shadows were already thick enough to hide him, so after he had eaten, he crawled over to a spot where he could look down the hill at the camp. He placed his rifle on the ground beside him as he lay on his belly.

  They had built a big fire again, just as they had the night before. They wanted to be found, Palmer realized as he avidly watched Charlotte prepare supper.

  That was why they had been wandering around all day. Someone was supposed to meet them in this area, but they didn’t know exactly where.

  So they just drifted, thinking that sooner or later they were bound to run into whoever was searching for them.

  They had built the fire for the same reason, to guide whoever was supposed to rendezvous with them to the camp. That would be the person, or persons, who had the guns, Palmer speculated. The situation made sense now, even though he didn’t know all the details yet.

  So all he had to do was sit back and wait, he told himself. When the right moment came, he would make his move.

  In the meantime, he had to suffer the torture of watching Charlotte Marat walk around down there. Her long dark hair, the curves of her body in the tight-fitting shirt and jeans, the sensuous grace with which she moved … those were maddening reminders of just how long it had been since he’d been with a woman.

  The smell of coffee and bacon didn’t help matters, either. He was hungry for more than Charlotte.

  Guns, he told himself. Gold. He tried to keep his thoughts focused on the things that were truly important.

  Under the circumstances, he couldn’t help but be distracted. So he didn’t know anyone else was around until the cold, unyielding ring of a gun muzzle suddenly pressed against the back of his neck and a harsh voice ordered in a whisper, “Don’t move, you son of a bitch, or I’ll kill you.”

  Palmer’s breath froze in his throat, and his heart seemed to stop dead in his chest. He knew how dangerous it was not to pay close attention to everything around him, and yet he had done that anyway, had let his brain be consumed by thoughts of the woman, the guns, and the gold.

  Now he might pay for that mistake with his life.

  “Take it easy.” He forced the words out between suddenly dry lips. “There’s no need to shoot.”

  “We’ll decide about that,” the man holding the gun against his neck said.

  From the corner of his eye, Palmer saw a hand pick up his rifle. At the same time, somebody else plucked the revolver from the holster on his hip.

  He still had a knife and a small hideout gun on him, but they wouldn’t do much good if he was outnumbered, as he seemed to be. He put the number of his captors at three, maybe more.

  The gun muzzle went away from his neck. He heard men moving around and figured they had stepped back so they could cover him better.

  He was thinking about flipping over and reaching for that hideout gun, even though he knew it was a foolish move and would just get him killed, when the man who had spoken before went on in his gravelly voice. “All right, get on your feet.”

  Suddenly, something about that voice struck Palmer as familiar. He knew he had heard it before, although not any time recently. As he climbed awkwardly to his feet, well aware that guns were pointing at him while he did so, he wracked his brain in an attempt to figure out who the voice belonged.

  The memory burst on his brain like an exploding shell. He started to turn around to see if he was right, but the voice snapped, “Hold it! Don’t try anything funny.”

  “I wasn’t going to,” Palmer said. “Owen? Owen Lundy? Is that you?”

  He heard air hiss between a man’s teeth in surprise. “What the hell? Who are you?”

  Convinced now that he was right, Palmer said, “It’s me, Owen, Joe Palmer. I haven’t seen you since Chicago, but I heard you were up here in this part of the world.”

  “Joe Palmer?” The gravelly voice was confused. “Can’t be. I heard Palmer got hisself hanged over in Alaska.”

  Palmer laughed. “You heard wrong. It’s me, all right. Let me turn around, and you can see for yourself.”

  A moment of hesitation went by before the man said, “All right, but take it slow and easy. Keep your hands where I can see ‘em, and no tricks.”

  Palmer kept his open hands elevated to shoulder height and swung around so he could look at the men who had snuck up on him. Three of them stood close by, covering him with pistols and rifles, while farther back, dim blurs in the shadows, several more men waited.

  The moon had risen and provided enough light for Palmer to see the man who took a step toward him holding a leveled revolver. The man had a craggy face, along with white hair and bushy side whiskers, under a black Stetson. Palmer knew him without any doubt as Owen Lundy.

  “Last time I saw you, you weren’t dressed like a cowboy, Owen,” Palmer said with a smile. “It was in a dive on State Street in Chicago, and you looked like a real swell.”

  “Well, as I live and breathe,” Lundy said. “By God, it really is you!” He lowered the hammer on his gun and holstered the weapon. With a motion to the men with him, he went on, “Take it easy, boys. This is Joe Palmer, an old friend of mine.”

  Lundy stepped forward and held out his hand. Palmer clasped it firmly.

  “It’s good to see a familiar face out here in the middle of nowhere, Owen,” he said. A thought occurred to him. “I’ll bet you’ve got something to do with that pair camped down there, don’t you?”

  One of the other men grated a curse and started to raise his rifle again, saying, “He knows what’s going on, Lundy. We can’t take any chances—”

  “Put that gun down,” Lundy ordered harshly. “I told you, this man can be trusted.”

  “Maybe so,” another man put in coolly, “but I ain’t fond of the idea of carving another share out of the payoff.”

  “Nobody said anything about that,” Palmer responded before Lundy could say anything. “Whatever you fellas have going on, I don’t want to horn in on it.”

  That was a bald-faced lie, of course. If there was money involved, Palmer damn sure wanted to dip his fingers in the pie. But it would be unwise to let these men know that right now.

  “You let me worry about the shares, Radford,” Lundy said. “Unless you think you’d rather start runnin’ things around here.”

  The threat in Lundy’s voice was unmistakable.

  “I never said that, Owen,” the man called Radford replied. “This job’s gone all right so far with you in charge.”

  “Yeah,” the other man said, “except for that business with Blake.”

  “Jericho?” Palmer said, remembering Lundy’s old partner. “Is he here, too, Owen?”

  “No,” Lundy said with a grim edge in his voice. “He didn’t make it.”

  “The soldiers killed him,” Radford said.

 
Lundy’s head turned. “That’s enough.” He looked again at Palmer, who sensed the tension in the air, and went on, “You’d better tell me what you’re doing here, Joe. It’s one hell of a coincidence that two fellas who know each other from the old days in Chicago wind up bumpin’ noses in the Canadian Rockies.”

  “Not so much of a coincidence,” Palmer said. “I was on my way to Calgary to look for you. I’d heard that you and Jericho were operating around there now.”

  Lundy considered that. “What’s your connection with those two ‘breeds?”

  “There’s not any, except that I met them last night. We just talked and then went our separate ways, though.”

  “Did they tell you what they’re doing up here?”

  “Not a word.”

  “But you’ve been trailing ‘em, haven’t you?” Lundy’s words held a cunning tone. “You think you’re on to something that might wind up with a big payoff.”

  Palmer didn’t bother denying it. “They mentioned something about guns.” His brain made the connections between everything he had heard. “And you’re supplying them, aren’t you, Owen? What did you do, slip down across the border and steal a shipment of rifles from the U.S. Army? Is that how Jericho got killed?” His excitement grew, but he tried not to let it show. “Those two kids are carrying the money to buy those guns from you, aren’t they?”

  “You always were a smart son of a bitch,” Lundy said. “You think you’ve got it all figured out.”

  “I don’t?”

  “Not all of it. We didn’t steal a shipment of rifles from the Army.”

  “No? Then what did you steal?”

  “Just four guns,” Lundy said. “Four very special guns.”

  Chapter 15

  Meg already had a small fire going and the coffee brewing when Frank rolled out of his blankets the next morning. His muscles were painfully stiff as he climbed to his feet. He tried to tell himself that was because he’d slept on the cold, hard ground.

  But that wasn’t completely true, and he knew it. Sleeping on the ground might have made it worse, all right, but at his age, his muscles would be stiff and slow to loosen even if he’d spent the night in a four-poster feather bed.

  Meg poured a cup of coffee and handed it to him with a smile. He thanked her, sipped the hot, strong brew, and asked, “Where’s Salty?”

  “Taking a look around outside the canyon.”

  Frank frowned. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. We don’t want to draw attention to this place.”

  “He said he’d be careful not to be noticed.”

  Frank knew the old-timer meant well. And Salty was an experienced frontiersman who knew how to not be seen when he didn’t want to be.

  But it still seemed like an unnecessary chance to Frank. He was about to go looking for his friend when he saw Salty slipping into the canyon through the brush barrier across its mouth.

  “Nothin’ stirrin’ out there this mornin’,” Salty reported when he came up to the small, almost smokeless fire that Meg had built.

  “You didn’t see anybody?” Frank asked.

  “Nope, and nobody saw me, neither, if you were worryin’ about that,” Salty replied. “It’s plumb peaceful in these parts.”

  Just then, as if Fate were enjoying having a horse laugh at the old-timer’s expense, the sound of shots suddenly racketed through the early morning air. They blasted out with incredible swiftness.

  Frank and Salty stiffened. Meg came to her feet in alarm. The gunfire sounded as if it was no more than half a mile from their campsite.

  “That’ll teach me to open my dadblasted mouth,” Salty said during a lull in the firing. They waited to see whether the fight was over or if it would resume again.

  After a couple of minutes, another round of firing began. Again, the shots pounded out with breathtaking speed.

  Salty looked at Frank and said, “Them ain’t regular guns goin’ off.”

  Frank had already figured out what was going on. He shook his head and said, “Not guns. Gun. Just one. I’ve heard that sound before. The last time was at Yuma Prison.”

  “It’s one of them devil guns,” Salty said.

  “Devil guns,” Meg repeated. “What’s that?”

  “A Gatling gun,” Frank said. “A rapid-firer. It has revolving barrels and can spit out about three hundred rounds a minute.”

  The distant hammering sound of the shots stopped again.

  “Somebody’s trying it out or demonstrating it for somebody else,” Frank continued.

  Salty said, “I thought the soldier boys were the only ones who had them guns.”

  Frank shook his head. “No, other people can get their hands on them, too. Like I said, the guards at Yuma had one mounted on a wagon.”

  Salty and Meg didn’t ask how he came to know about the arms possessed by the guards at the infamous territorial prison down in Arizona, and Frank didn’t offer an explanation. He had put that trip to Ambush Valley behind him.

  “What do you reckon is goin’ on?” Salty asked. “Why would somebody have a Gatlin’ gun up here in the middle o’ nowhere? Ain’t no Injun fights in these parts anymore, are there?”

  “No, the Indian threat is over. Anyway, the Mounties are responsible for law and order in this part of Canada, and I’m not sure if they have any Gatling guns.” Frank rubbed his jaw as he frowned in thought. “Those smugglers I saw had some heavily loaded pack mules with them. Those crates could have had some broken-down Gatling guns in them.”

  Salty pounded a knobby fist into a callused palm. “Dadgum it, I’ll bet a hat you’re right, Frank! Those varmints could’a stole them devil guns somewhere, and they’ve come up here to sell ‘em.”

  That sounded like a reasonable explanation to Frank. Another idea occurred to him as well, but before he could say anything about it, Meg spoke up.

  “Could this have anything to do with those men who grabbed us yesterday, Frank?” she asked. “Those … what did you call them? Métis?”

  “I think that’s exactly what’s going on here,” he said. This morning’s developments had jogged his memory. “The Métis have always had trouble with the Canadian government. Their leader, a man named Louis Riel, led two rebellions in hopes of gaining a separate country for the Métis, or at least more power for them in the Canadian government. Neither war amounted to much, though. Canadian troops put down the first rebellion, and the North West Mounted Police took care of the second one. Riel was arrested, tried, and hanged. I remember reading about it in the newspapers.” He frowned. “But that was more than a dozen years ago. I haven’t heard anything more about the Métis since then.”

  “Some folks have mighty long memories,” Salty pointed out. “Maybe some o’ the ones who followed that Riel fella want to try again to break away from Canada.”

  Frank took up the thought. “In which case, they would need arms. Like some Gatling guns.”

  The three of them stood there looking at each other for a long, silent moment. Finally Meg said, “I think you’re probably right, Frank. But if all that’s true, it doesn’t have anything to do with us. There’s nothing stopping us from heading for Calgary as fast as we can and trying to find Joe Palmer so we can get Salty’s money back.”

  Frank nodded slowly. “You’re right,” he said.

  But despite that, the situation nagged at him. He was convinced the theory they had come up with was correct: The smugglers had stolen some Gatling guns, probably from the U.S. Army, and brought them north into Canada to sell to rebellious Métis.

  The question remained, what were the Métis going to do with them?

  The answer couldn’t be anything good. The more Frank thought about, the more his gut told him that innocent people would die if those Gatlings fell into the wrong hands.

  His instincts told him he ought to look into this, but did he have any right to drag Salty and Meg into what was potentially a very dangerous mess?

  He pondered on this while they ate their breakfast a
nd then tended to the horses. After the second burst of shooting, the Gatling guns were silent, which meant the deal had been concluded, Frank thought. In the end, he decided that he didn’t have any right to ask his companions to risk their lives.

  Besides, he didn’t know for sure that what was going on in this stretch of mountains had anything to do with a budding rebellion by the Métis.

  There were practical matters to consider, too, and Frank addressed those after breakfast.

  “I think we ought to hole up here for the day like we planned,” he said. “That’ll give those folks, whoever they are and whatever they’re up to, time to move on out of these parts.”

  “You’re not gonna go lookin’ for ‘em?” Salty asked.

  Frank shook his head. “I reckon not. There’s no reason for us to get mixed up in their business.”

  Salty frowned as he raked his fingers through his beard. “Well, I, uh, been thinkin’ about that, Frank. You know I used to do some range detectin’, and I helped out the law more’n once, and it sorta rubs me the wrong way to stand aside when there’s somethin’ shady goin’ on.”

  “We don’t know that there is,” Frank pointed out.

  “No, but there’s one thing you can be dang sure about…. Anybody who wants to get his hands on one o’ them devil guns is plannin’ on doin’ a whole heap of killin’.”

  That was exactly the thought that had gone through Frank’s mind earlier.

  Meg spoke up, saying, “I think Salty’s right, Frank. Now that I’ve thought about it, I’m not sure we ought to just ride away from here. What if those people are planning to use those guns to ambush a bunch of Mounties or even attack a town full of innocent people?”

  “It’s not our job to stop them,” Frank said, playing devil’s advocate even though he leaned toward agreeing with both of his friends.