Dead Man's Guns

by Paul Lederer

  Tess’s heart suddenly jumped. For riding along the road now, not toward them but away, she saw the buckskin horse well enough. It was Andy’s. And riding it was a man with a blue shirt much like the one Ned Browning had been wearing. There was no point in shouting; she would not be heard. No point in waving; she would not be seen, and so she simply watched as Ned rode down the mountain, feeling her heart ride with him.

  Ned Browning had searched the empty cabin and then walked out into the bright sunlight to ponder. Where had the women gone? Had they been aboard the timber barge after all, concealed somehow so that he had missed seeing them? Andy had been told to make sure that the women were on board. Orson would not have left them behind if they were in danger. No, they were safe. The question was, what should he, himself, do now?

  He was not going to wait idly at the cabin with all of the activity that was certainly taking place downriver. He considered matters and decided that he might be of use at Hoyt’s Camp. It seemed possible that Lyle Colbert would send some men to disrupt matters at the sawmill. Furious at having the timbermen defeat his river chain, he might see a chance of denying them success if his riders could get there overland ahead of the barges.

  It was far from certain that Colbert would attempt any such drastic step, since as everyone knew, the barges would not be making a second trip and the timbermen would find themselves back in the same position as they were previously. Still, Ned did not know Colbert, did not know how the man’s mind worked. He might take the practical route and simply use patience to defeat the loggers, or he might be the sort to retaliate in a fury at the revenue he had been deprived of. There was no way of knowing. Ned decided to be on hand when Colbert made his intentions clear. If he could reach Hoyt’s Camp soon enough.

  In the lean-to stable behind the cabin, Ned found Andy Blight’s buckskin horse and Orson’s shaggy gray. That animal looked to be nearly Orson’s age. It eyed Ned morosely as it champed on a twist of hay. Reaching for Andy’s saddle, Ned rigged up the younger horse and started down the mountain toward the town of Hoyt’s Camp.

  The forest depths were cool, the sun a flickering apparition behind the ranks of pines. Only here and there when the forest thinned did golden rays of light strike the dark earth. The road was a winding corridor through primeval time.

  Or so it seemed until the mounted men emerged from the trees on either side of the road, flanking Ned Browning’s way.

  There were five of them. Their leader seemed to be a man riding a paint pony. He wore a wide-brimmed black hat, white shirt, a belt studded with silver conchos. He had a dark, sharp-featured face and a narrow mustache.

  ‘Who are you and where are you going?’ he asked Ned.

  ‘What’s all of this?’ Ned asked, feigning complete surprise. He knew full well who they must be, but none of them could know him. The man from the barroom fight was not among them.

  ‘You will answer,’ the Spanish-looking man said coldly.

  ‘Sure. I’m Ned Browning. Just a traveling man, heading for Hoyt’s Camp. I heard there might be work there.’

  ‘A traveling man … a saddle tramp, you mean?’ the leader of the gang asked.

  Ned shrugged and grinned sheepishly. ‘If you care to put it that way,’ he answered.

  ‘He’s riding from the Bright property,’ one of the other riders, a red-faced man with jug-handle ears said with a scowl.

  ‘What are you doing up here?’ their leader asked in a soft voice.

  ‘Saw a cabin. Figured I might get some grub,’ Ned said. ‘Like I say, I’m just dragging the line and a meal is hard to come by. But there was no one home.’

  ‘I don’t believe him,’ the red-faced man said sourly. ‘Let’s put him out of his misery.’

  Santana, for that was who their leader was, shook his head negatively, emphatically. No, they would not kill a man they did not even know. Santana did not approve of indiscriminate killing. He had once ridden with a man called ‘Wild Bill’ Buckley who had killed sixteen men that Santana knew of. One night Buckley had gotten himself drunk and senselessly shot down a fanner whose looks he didn’t care for. That was the one that they hanged ‘Wild Bill’ for. When Santana killed it was not on a whim; killing was a business.

  ‘No,’ Santana said calmly. ‘We have other work to attend to.’ He turned his attention back to Ned. ‘If I were you, traveling man, I would find myself a meal in Hoyt’s Camp and then travel on. This is going to be bad country to be in for a long time.’

  Ned said nothing. The riders rode past him, the red-faced man’s horse brushing against the flank of Ned’s buckskin. He turned in the saddle to watch them ride away. He was not so concerned with what they might do now that he knew that Tess was not at home. There wasn’t much he could have done to stop five armed men anyway. He started the buckskin down through the long stand on pines toward Hoyt’s Camp.

  The sawmill stood on the river bank where the elbow bend ended and the Snake began to widen and slow as it spread out across the land. Here, there was still a stiff current to turn the massive wooden waterwheel which powered the saw. Just now the first of the three barges was unloading its timber and the mule skinners whose animals would be used to tow the empty barges back upstream were dickering with the boatmen. The sawmill owner was directing his men, counting board feet and estimating his profit.

  Lyle Colbert sat in his surrey, watching the activity with narrowed eyes. He was estimating how much revenue he had lost and calculating how much more he would charge the loggers for their next passage once the chain was again fixed in place and guarded by a substantially larger crew. They hadn’t beaten him, and they must know that as well. All they had accomplished was to spit in his eye. Lyle Colbert wasn’t the sort to forgive.

  By now, Santana should have reached the Bright house and the men in the boats he had sent across the river would have begun re-affixing the chain before they stormed the homes belonging to Lofton and Mack Paulsen. The loggers would not have a happy homecoming.

  The timbermen had shot their wad. They could have this brief moment of satisfaction, but that was all they were to gain by their recklessness. The river belonged to one man – Lyle Colbert – and he would reclaim it. He would not strangle the life from the timber camps, for he needed that revenue, but he would make sure that no man from the upriver camps again had the audacity to challenge his authority.

  If a few of the loggers had to die before his point was made, well, so be it.

  Santana’s men had searched the Bright house, finding it empty. Combing the nearby woods they found no one. The property was unguarded. The red-faced man, the one named Jeter stamped from the house to face Santana who sat his paint horse, surveying the countryside.

  ‘Nothing, no one,’ Jeter said. ‘Want me to torch it?’

  ‘No,’ Santana said. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘That’s what Mr Colbert wants,’ Jeter complained sulkily. Santana did not like this one. He was too anxious to kill, to destroy, too lazy to think ahead.

  ‘I am aware of what Mr Colbert wants,’ Santana said in a chilly voice. ‘It is not yet time for it.’

  ‘I don’t know what in hell you mean,’ Jeter said in exasperation.

  ‘Of course you don’t,’ Santana replied disparagingly. ‘I will explain, although I owe you no explanation. I have been hired to find and eliminate Frank Lavender. Obviously he is not here. Probably he went down the river on one of the barges. Eventually he will return to this house, but if it is burned to the ground, there will be nothing for him to return to. Do you understand? I intend to wait here for the return of Frank Lavender. After I have killed him, then I will burn down the house with him in it.’

  EIGHT

  Andy Bright was half-full of whiskey when Ned Browning located him in the saloon. Ned’s mouth tightened and he strode across the plank floor of the place to the bar where Andy Bright stood, his elbows hooked on the scarred surface of the bar. A few apparently bored fellow drinkers were listening to Andy’s tale of the run
ning gunfight on the trip downriver. Men glanced at Ned, but no one reacted to his presence.

  ‘Where’s Tess?’ Ned demanded without any preliminaries.

  ‘Frank! How are you, Frank?’ Andy said expansively.

  ‘Where’s your sister?’ Ned asked roughly.

  ‘At home,’ Andy replied with a few drunken blinks.

  ‘No, she isn’t. I just came from there. I told you to make sure that she went along with the barges.’

  ‘Not home?’ Andy said blankly. ‘’S funny. She said she was going to stay there. Mother Rose refused to come along, so Tess decided to stay with her.’ Andy’s mood shifted as Ned continued to glower at him. ‘What was I supposed to do, hog tie her!’

  ‘Never mind,’ Ned said, not to placate Andy, but because he knew that he was going to get no further information from the drunken timber-man. Tess was still on the mountain, had to be, but somehow he had missed her. ‘Andy, I’ve got your horse.’

  ‘Keep it,’ Andy said, waving his hand at Ned. ‘I’m going to buy me a new one anyway. It’s payday, you know, thanks to you.’

  Ned Browning didn’t respond. There was no point in talking to someone as drunk as Andy Bright was just then. Andy, on the other hand, was feeling garrulous. He continued talking, loudly enough for everyone in the saloon to hear him.

  ‘As soon as my Dad gets his money from the timber we’re going to hire us some men, and they won’t all be lumberjacks, either! They’ll be fighting men. Lyle Colbert doesn’t know what kind of a fight he’s in for.’

  When Ned pushed his way out through the green door into the open air, Andy was still regaling the men in the saloon. They were standing for it, apparently, because Andy was setting up drinks all around. Ned wondered idly what Orson Bright would think of this. Not only was Andy drunk, spending much money, but he had more or less challenged Lyle Colbert in public.

  He gave it no more thought. Riding to the sawmill, he encountered Mack Paulsen and Billy Lofton who were watching the barges be unloaded. He inquired about Tess.

  ‘No, Frank, she never did come downriver. We thought maybe she was with you,’ big Mack Paulsen said, concern showing in his eyes.

  ‘I couldn’t find her. Where’s Orson?’

  ‘In the mill office.’

  ‘If you see him,’ Ned said, ‘warn him that there’s some of Colbert riders up near his house. I imagine they’ve sent some men up to your places too.’

  ‘We’ve all been kind of expecting that,’ Lofton said. ‘We’re looking to recruit some help before we start back up the mountain.’

  Ned didn’t know how much help men hired off the street would be in a fight with Lyle Colbert’s professional gunmen, but he said nothing. His only concern now was Tess’s safety.

  He started the weary buckskin horse back toward the tall timber. He rode warily now, knowing that Colbert’s soldiers were around. He had gotten away with a lie the first time he had encountered them. There was no way they would believe him again.

  The day was growing cool, the breeze freshening, swaying the ranks of tall trees. The sun, lowering now, was filtered to near darkness by the pines. He had ridden two or three miles, turning the question this way and that before a notion occurred to him, and when it did, he wondered at his own stupidity for not having thought of it before.

  Tess had been warned that the Colbert riders might be headed for their property. She was a smart girl, and if she could not run, because of Mother Rose, she would have found a place to hide. Where? The answer now seemed fairly obvious.

  Amos Shockley and Bert Smart lived in a shack deep in the timber. Ned had never seen it, but Tess certainly knew where it was located. No outsiders sent to the Bright place would be likely to guess where the shack was. With increasing hope and growing concern, Ned Browning urged the buckskin horse on. The day was growing cooler, darker. A deepening gloom settled across the land.

  Santana had sent his band of men back to Colbert’s stronghold. They were of no use waiting around the Bright place. They could be better utilized elsewhere. Their assigned task was different from Santana’s own. He had been hired to do one job, and he intended to fulfill his contract to kill Frank Lavender. And if what everyone had told him was correct, Lavender would not leave Tess Bright. They would be back, and Santana would be there waiting when they did come.

  Santana walked out of the shadowed house into the yard where he watched the sun dropping slowly toward the western horizon above the dark ranks of trees. The Snake River itself was dark in this light, only here and there glinting silver where a stray shaft of sun touched its surface.

  Turning in a slow circle, Santana surveyed the land around him. It was a rugged, heavily forested land. Inhospitable, if highly profitable for those who dared to challenge it. He wondered.…

  And then he saw it. Santana’s body stiffened, he squinted, watching the sky intently, and slowly he let a smile part his lips. There was a thin wisp of smoke rising from somewhere along the forest flank. Wind-whipped, it did not rise high or remain for long. It was bent by the breeze and then quickly dissipated by it. But it was there, quite definitely there. Santana walked to where he had left his horse tied, whistling as he went.

  Tess knew she should not have started the fire in the iron stove. But Mother Rose was deathly sick. The old woman had protested that she was not ill, but her condition became undeniable as they sheltered in the shack, waiting for the men to return. Mother Rose had begun to tremble, and after placing all the blankets Tess could find over her, she still shivered. Her face was nearly blue, and night was going to settle soon, bringing the chill of the high mountains with it.

  In the end, casting caution aside, Tess had started a fire in the stove, more concerned with Mother Rose’s life than that some raiding party might see the smoke rising from the iron pipe. She sat now beside Mother Rose’s bed, holding the old woman’s cold, bony hand. She watched the red and gold of the low flames behind the grate of the potbelly stove, realizing that the warmth it was casting off might not be enough to keep away the long, long chill hovering near Mother Rose.

  The day grew darker, the night birds began to chitter, sounding as if they were shivering in the cool of evening. An owl hooted – only once – and far, far away a timber wolf raised a mournful howl to the skies.

  The door to the shack was kicked open and the room was flooded with cold air. Spinning around, Tess rose to her feet. The tall, dark man stood in the doorway, a smile of triumph on his lips. He closed the door softly behind him and said:

  ‘Sit down, Tess. I haven’t come to harm you or the old woman.’

  The tall man walked across the small room, warmed his hands at the fire for a few minutes and then pulled one of the straight-backed wooden chairs to the far corner where he sat, only watching.

  He had not come to harm her, he had said. Tess wondered, then why was he here? She thought she knew, and as she remained seated next to Mother Rose, a chill as deep as that which had fallen over the old woman entered her heart. She knew why he had come and there was nothing in the world she could do to stop it from happening.

  When Ned Browning saw the thin wisps of smoke rising above the trees, he knew that his guess had been right. Tess and Mother Rose had chosen to hide in the line shack. But if they were hiding, why then start a fire to advertise their presence? He did not try to understand it without information to work with, he simply started the buckskin up along the winding trail toward the shack.

  The prints of another horse were evident on the trail. Most of the trail was littered with pine needles, but here and there the dark earth was clear of debris, and there he could see clearly imprinted hoof prints even in this poor light. One rider. That was a puzzle. The horse was not the old gray, because Ned had seen the animal in the lean-to shelter at the Bright house.

  Who, then?

  A lone horse seemed to indicate that it was not a Colbert rider. Why would they have separated? It was puzzling, but again Ned Browning did not take the time to specul
ate when he had nothing but wild conjecture to work with. His sole concern was making sure that Tess and Mother Rose were safe.

  That did not mean that he was not approaching the shack with caution. He had to assume that he was tracking an enemy, only because he had so few friends and he knew where most of them should be at this moment.

  He should have suspected, might have known: pausing at the verge of the twilight-darkened timber he saw the paint horse standing before the tumble-down shack. It cocked its head curiously toward Ned. The man he had taken for the leader of the raiding party had seemed to be a cut above the rest of the rabble. A different sort of hunter. He had found Tess and he was waiting … waiting for.…

  Who was he waiting for? It could not be Ned himself, since Ned was unknown to him and the gunman believed that Ned was well away from the mountain. For the return of Orson, Andy and the men? That could be, but then why choose to face them single-handedly?

  Ned swung down from the buckskin horse, palmed his Colt and eased toward the door of the shack. Within, a low fire burned. The interior walls were painted with moving light and shadow. No one was speaking.

  What now, then?

  There was no good way to go about this. Ned merely stepped to the door, gun in hand and toed it open. He took in the situation with a glance. Tess sat in a wooden chair beside Mother Rose whose body was heaped with blankets, her face pale as ivory. Across the room sat the dark man Ned had met on the trail. The pistol in his hand was cocked and ready.