Trial at Fort Keogh

by Charles G. West

  “That’s what I figure,” Clint said. “I know I’m ready to get back to ranchin’.” He started to head for the door, but Hope came into the room then, so he paused while her father relayed the news to her.

  “Well, thank goodness,” Hope declared. “Maybe we can live a normal life for a change. There are no more Yeagers, Clint’s no longer a wanted criminal, and Ben’s healing up just fine, according to Rena.”

  Standing by the door, with one hand still on the doorknob, Clint gave her a grin. “I reckon the next big news around here will be a weddin’.” He refrained from saying that it wouldn’t necessarily be good news to everyone.

  Hope flashed him a painful expression. “And just who might be getting married, Mr. Cooper?”

  He was suddenly overcome by a feeling of awkward- ness when he felt all eyes in the kitchen, including Rena’s, were fixed on him. “Why, I figured . . . ,” he stammered, puzzled by Hope’s stern look.

  “You figured what?” she demanded. When he seemed lost for a reply, she said, “You figured I’d marry Justin Landry, right?” He shrugged helplessly, his usual joking manner suddenly missing. “I declare, you’re dumber than a rolling pin,” she lambasted.

  He felt extremely uncomfortable. He had not meant to make her angry. His little teases never bothered her before. Evidently she was not in the mood for playful gibes about her courtship with Justin Landry. Maybe it was the wrong time of the month to be teasing her.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he finally managed. “I’d best get back to work. Bobby Dees said that section close to the house is about grazed out. I wanna save as much of the hay we’ve got, in case we get a heavy snowfall and they can’t get to the grass. I told him I’d ride out with him to pick a new spot.”

  “Why don’t you give it one more day before you start ranging very far out from the house?” Valentine said.

  “Do what Papa says,” Hope told him, still looking irritated.

  “You’re the boss,” Clint said to her father, then went out the door, mystified by the atmosphere he had just left in the kitchen.

  Behind him in the house, Hope looked at her father and shook her head, exasperated. “Dumber than a rolling pin,” she repeated.

  “You can’t very well blame him,” her father said. “Isn’t your relationship with Justin serious?”

  She shook her head impatiently. “I can’t think of anything worse than being married to a soldier.”

  “Why don’t you tell him how you feel?” Valentine asked. He already had plans for Clint’s future, and it would make him happy if the two were married.

  “I’m not going to tell him,” Hope insisted. “If he can’t decide on his own, then how can I be sure he really loves me?”

  Standing just inside her bedroom door, the solemn Crow housekeeper listened to the conversation between the young woman and her father. She thought of the young man under discussion, and the many times she had seen the wistful look in his eyes. Rena knew long before this point that Hope did not desire to be the wife of the lieutenant. She was convinced that Hope would make Clint a good wife, if he had the nerve to ask her. Rena knew what was in his heart, but she also knew he was afraid to tell Hope, afraid she would reject him, and possibly be insulted. So he would forever keep silent.

  Rena shook her head sadly. She cared about both young people.

  * * *

  Where is the son of a bitch? Simon Yeager wondered to himself, growing more angry and impatient as the hours passed without a trace of the man he hunted. It had been two days now since Yeager fled Miles City, and he had spent both of those days watching the comings and goings on the Double-V-Bar Ranch. So far, there had been no sign of Clint Cooper. He watched the crews going out into the prairie, and their return in the evenings. At night, he moved in closer so he could see the night-herders ride out. The longer he watched with no sighting, the more frustrated he became, and the closer he moved in. Soon it became so infuriating that he was almost driven to ride boldly into the ranch, shooting everyone in sight. Only the thought of all he could lose by doing so kept him from surrendering to the notion.

  Finally his patience was exhausted, and he decided that if he didn’t sight Clint riding out with the crew the next morning, he was going to risk working his way all the way into the ranch yard and finding him. It had become obvious to him that Clint was staying close to home, afraid that he might face an ambush. It would be risky, but Simon was confident that he would have the element of surprise working in his favor. His only regret was that the killing would have to be done quickly, and then he would have to run for it before anyone there had time to get after him. He would have much preferred to kill Clint slowly and painfully. Mace deserved that much at least.

  Now with darkness setting in, there was nothing for him to do but to return to his camp, hidden in a deep gully at the base of a low ridge one half mile south of the ranch yard.

  * * *

  Morning brought low clouds, dark and heavy with moisture. It was Ben’s guess that snow would be falling before noon. He said as much to Clint. “Nothing for you to worry about,” Clint teased. “You’ll be sittin’ up here in the bunkhouse with a good fire goin’ and Milt bringin’ you coffee whenever you want it.”

  “Damn right,” Ben replied. “What are you goin’ to be doin’ today?”

  “Well . . .” Clint paused to reflect. “I had planned to ride out near the Parson’s Nose to make sure Jody and Shorty rounded up those strays Charley said he saw on his way back from town.” He shrugged. “But I made the mistake of tellin’ Mr. Valentine I was gonna do that. He wants me to stay close to the house for at least a couple more days. So I reckon I’ll give Hank a hand and clean out some of those stalls in the barn while he splits up some more firewood for Rena.”

  “You’re doin’ so much of Hank’s work he’ll be afraid you’re takin’ over his job, for certain,” Ben said, laughing. “He’s always worryin’ about gettin’ fired.”

  “If he knew nobody else wants his job, he might be askin’ the boss for a raise.” Clint got to his feet then. “Well, I ain’t gettin’ those stalls cleaned out sittin’ around here, jawin’ with you. I’ll be back later on to see if you’re dead yet.” He pulled his coat on and started for the door.

  “Strap that forty-four on,” Ben told him.

  “I ain’t goin’ anywhere but the barn,” Clint said, “and it gets in the way when I’m ridin’ a shovel or a pitchfork.”

  “You don’t never know when you’ll need a gun,” Ben called after him as he went out the door.

  “I might slip on some of that horse shit and accidentally shoot myself in the leg,” Clint joked, “or shoot Hank.”

  “One of these days you’re gonna learn to listen to me,” Ben yelled, but Clint was already out the door and hurrying across the yard to the barn.

  When he got to the barn, Hank had already gone behind the smokehouse, where a large mound of sawed lengths of wood was waiting to be split in sizes the stove could handle. Clint had to laugh when he saw a rake, a shovel, and a pitchfork propped conspicuously against the wall of the first stall, left there by Hank.

  In case I forgot what I promised to do, Clint thought. He pulled his heavy coat off and laid it across the top of the stall, unaware of the dark figure standing in the shadows of the last stall.

  * * *

  A wicked smile spread slowly across the harsh face of Simon Yeager when he saw the man he hunted walk right into the barn where he was hiding. It could not have turned out any better. He had managed to sneak up behind the barn to find no one around except one man, and that one had gone off somewhere to chop wood. He had just started to move through to the front of the barn, with the thought of getting a better look at the house and bunkhouse, when Clint walked in. Afraid that he had been spotted, he ducked quickly into a back stall, his pistol drawn. But there was no reaction from Clint to indicate he had seen him. In
stead he picked up the rake and went into the first stall.

  Yeager could scarcely believe his luck. His victim was not even armed. He moved out of the stall and cautiously inched his way along the stalls, making his way to the first one. He could hear the sweep of the rake as Clint skimmed off the loose hay on top of the muck beneath. As Simon neared the first stall opening, he thought about his plan to strike quickly and make a run for it. Since there was no one else around, he saw an opportunity to take a little more time killing Cooper and to give himself the satisfaction of seeing him squirm before he finished him off. More than anything else, Simon wanted Clint to know who killed him and why.

  Clint propped his rake against the side of the stall and had reached for the pitchfork when he heard a pistol cock and a voice behind him.

  “Keep your hands offa that pitchfork.” Clint froze. “Now you turn around real slowlike.”

  Clint recognized the voice at once. With no choice to do otherwise, he turned around to see the hulking form of Simon Yeager, his face fixed in a crooked smile as he gloated over his triumph. “You thought you was gonna get away with murderin’ my brother, didn’tcha? Now you’re gonna learn that nobody gets away with that.”

  “I didn’t murder your worthless brother,” Clint said. “You heard what the witnesses said, the ones that didn’t lie. Your brother cheated and drew before the count went to three, but he’s dead anyway.”

  Simon had total advantage over him; there was nothing Clint could do to save himself from being shot. But he had no intention of giving Yeager the satisfaction he obviously sought of seeing him grovel and beg for his life.

  When am I going to learn to listen to Ben? he thought.

  “You and your brother together aren’t worth a shovelful of this muck I’m cleaning outta this stall.”

  “Why, you smart-mouth son of a bitch,” Simon spat. “I’m fixin’ to spatter your brains all over that wall behind you. Then let’s see how big you talk.”

  Defiant to the end, Clint replied, “You’d better take good aim, ’cause I’m comin’ after you, and I guarantee you, I’ll be on you before you get off the second shot.”

  “Is that a fact?” Yeager responded, pleased by Clint’s defiance. It made the execution more enjoyable. “Well, let’s see if you’re just blowin’ hot air.” Very deliberately, he aimed the .44 at Clint’s forehead. Clint crouched, hoping to survive long enough to spring at his antagonist before he fired a second shot. Yeager’s smile widened into a sneer.

  Less than a second after, however, his eyes suddenly opened wide in shock and he recoiled with a startled grunt from the impact of the pitchfork in his back. In reflexive action, he squeezed the trigger, but the shot went into the loft floor above him. Stunned, he staggered backward, almost colliding with the determined Crow woman behind him. It was enough time for Clint to charge into him, planting a shoulder into his midsection. The force of Clint’s attack was enough to send them both crashing against the side of the stall, causing the pitchfork to swing wildly back and forth as they struggled for possession of the gun. Impeded from deep penetration by the heavy coat Simon wore, the tines of the fork had not caused lethal damage.

  Like the powerful bear he resembled, he fought ferociously to maintain possession of the pistol, but he wrestled with an antagonist who was just as powerful as he was. It appeared that the deadly contest could go either way until the Crow woman planted her feet solidly and swung the shovel in stoic determination, catching Yeager with the blade in the back of his neck. It was enough to cause him to lose his grip on the pistol, and Clint snatched it away from him. Yeager made a desperate lunge for it, only to be met with a bullet at point-blank range, dropping him dead on the barn floor with a black hole in his forehead.

  It was over.

  Still in a state of shock, he sat down on the floor and stared at the Indian woman smiling down at him. It didn’t strike him until later that Rena was, in fact, actually smiling. After a few minutes, when not a word was passed between them, he finally regained control of his senses.

  “You saved my life,” he said earnestly. “If you hadn’t stuck him with that pitchfork, I’d be dead now.”

  “Everything all right now,” she replied.

  “Yeah, thanks to you, everything’s all right now,” he agreed. “Where did you come from? I didn’t even know you were in the barn.”

  “Chickens make nest in barn. I look for eggs,” she said. She didn’t feel she should tell him that she believed that she was guided to the barn to look for eggs. She had found none when she had checked several days before that. “I go cook now,” she said as Hank ran into the barn, having heard the shots.

  “What was the shootin’?” Hank blurted. Then, before Clint could answer, he saw the body lying in the stall. “Lord have mercy! Who is that?”

  “Simon Yeager,” Clint said. “You’d best run up to the bunkhouse and tell them before Ben tries to strap his gun on and come staggering down here.” He turned to Rena after Hank took off at a run. “Rena, I wanna thank you for what you did. I’ll never forget it, I promise.” As he gazed at her, the always stoic Crow woman quickly looked away when her eyes began to mist and a tear formed in the corner of her eye. Astonished, he wondered, could the always solemn woman have deep emotions after all? “Rena, what is it?”

  “Dust from hay get in my eye,” she lied. “I go tell Hope and Mr. Valentine what gunshots were.”

  “Good,” he said. “I’m surprised Mr. Valentine isn’t down here already. I’ll stay here and help Hank when he comes back. Then we’ll see if we can dig a big enough hole to bury that murderin’ devil.”

  “Don’t bury near garden,” Rena said. “Make soil bad.”

  Clint couldn’t help laughing. “It might at that,” he replied.

  The end of the threat from Simon Yeager was just one of several things on the Crow woman’s mind as she started to leave. There was another issue that she had felt was not her concern, and she paused at the barn door to make up her mind whether or not she should speak. Deciding, she turned back toward him and said, “You must ask Hope to be your wife.”

  “What?” Clint exclaimed, hardly believing what he had just heard.

  “You don’t ask, she never say yes,” Rena said, then turned on her heel and walked out of the barn, leaving a truly astonished young man. As she walked briskly back to the house, she questioned the wisdom of what she had just told him.

  Every mother wants the best for her son, she told herself. Hope will make a good wife when she stops acting like a silly girl.

  Thoughts of a wedding between Clint and Hope caused her to think back on the past, a past that was not always happy. She knew that Clint did not remember much about Clayton Cooper, his father—but she remembered Clayton Cooper very well. The tall, glib, white scout had charmed a young Indian girl into marrying him, then had abandoned her two years after the birth of a baby boy. He had left for Wyoming Territory, taking the child with him, for no reason she could think of. Perhaps it was because she adored the child, and he knew that she would be devastated by the loss.

  Clayton Cooper was not capable of real affection for anyone other than himself, as evidenced by the small C-shaped scar he left on the boy’s neck when he hurled a hot metal cup at him to stop him from crying. The child was barely a year old at the time.

  It was years later when she happened to see a young man in Ogallala, where she worked as a housekeeper for a man named Nathan Wood, who owned a dry- goods store. He had come in to buy a bandanna, and when he removed the old one, she noticed a C-shaped scar just below his left ear. It struck her as an unusual coincidence, and when the store owner asked his name, she was virtually stunned. He left, unaware of the shocked Crow woman standing near the window.

  When Mr. Wood’s wife decided she didn’t need a housekeeper anymore, he recommended Rena to Randolph Valentine, who was in town to purchase cattle. Her relations
hip with Valentine and his daughter, Hope, was a good one. But the miracle she often prayed for happened when Valentine decided to hire Clint and Ben in Ogallala, the place where she had discovered her son was alive. Now, as she started to open the kitchen door, she decided there was no point in telling her strange story to anyone. Who would believe it? Anyway, she had a feeling that she had a permanent place in Clint Cooper’s life. He had promised her that.

  * * *

  Once again, things were back to normal on the Double-V-Bar. Ben was making amazing progress in coming back from his wound, a recovery he attributed to Rena’s skills as a surgeon. The cattle looked to be in pretty good shape as the winter wore on, encouraging Valentine to estimate a high percentage of healthy cows come spring. Clint was content to be back in the saddle, overseeing the running of the ranch, so much so that he thought nothing of the fact that Sunday came with no visit by Justin Landry. It struck him as odd, however, when the next Sunday rolled around, and again there was no sign of the lieutenant. Finally his curiosity got the best of him and he decided to remark on the subject the next Sunday.

  Valentine had sent for him to talk about the advisability of moving the cattle back up to the northeast section where there was more shelter from the trees. When the discussion was concluded, Rena was handy with the cup of coffee she always had ready for him whenever he came up to the house. Hope came in, poured herself a cup, and sat down at the table with him. Clint couldn’t resist the opportunity to tease her.

  “I don’t know what it is,” he began, “but something don’t seem right around here.” She gazed at him, questioning, but did not reply. “It’s like something’s missin’.” When she still was not interested enough to bite, he asked, “Rena, today is Sunday, ain’t it?” The stoic woman paused, holding a large wooden spoon over a pot of boiling potatoes. She looked at him but did not answer.

  “If you’re talking about the fact that Justin Landry doesn’t call on me anymore,” Hope said, finally rising to the bait, “why didn’t you just ask?”