Massacre at Powder River

by William W. Johnstone

  A broad, mocking smile spread across Hodge’s face. “Well now, what do you think, boys?” he asked. “Should I give this famous gunfighter a chance and let him stand up? Or should I just kill him where he sits for being so stupid as to let himself get caught in this predicament?”

  Matt made no move toward his own gun, but he did smile up at Hodge and his smile was even colder and more frightening than Hodge’s smile.

  “You aren’t going to let me stand, are you, Hodge?”

  “No, I ain’t.”

  “I didn’t think so. And this isn’t the first time some coward challenged me while I was sitting down. So,” Matt continued. “You might say that I was ready for it. You see, I already have my gun out, and I am pointing it at you, right now.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Hodge asked. “Hell, your gun ain’t out. I can see your gun in that fancy holster, plain as day!”

  “Oh, I’m glad you noticed. That is a nice holster, isn’t it? I had that made, especially for me, down in El Paso.”

  “Mister, you ain’t makin’ no sense at all. What gun do you have pointed at me?”

  Matt brought his hand up from under the table. His fingers were wrapped around a small pistol.

  “Well, now, that would be this gun, Mr. Hodge,” Matt said. “It is a Derringer, two barrels, forty-one caliber. It doesn’t have that much range, but hell, how far are you from me, anyway? Six feet? Ten feet? They say that’s about how far Lincoln was from John Wilkes Booth when he killed him with this same kind of weapon.”

  Hodge stood his ground for a moment longer, his eyes narrowing, a muscle in his cheek twitching, and sweat breaking out on his forehead.

  “That—that—where did that gun come from?”

  “Oh, I can’t give away all my secrets now, can I, Mr. Hodge?”

  “Ha! Looks to me like you have a problem,” Hodge said.

  “And what problem would that be?” Matt asked.

  “You can’t count.”

  “Why would you say that?”

  Hodge smiled. “You’ve only got two barrels on that gun, and there are three of us.”

  Matt looked down at his pistol, then at the three men. “Damn if you aren’t right, Hodge. There are three of you, and I have only two barrels.”

  “Which means,” Hodge said, his confident smile growing broader, “That you can’t kill all three of us.”

  “You’re right again. I can’t get all three of you,” Matt said. “So here’s what I’m going to do. Since you seem to be the only one smart enough to have figured that out, I’m going to let you live, but I’m going to kill the other two.”

  “What?” Carter shouted. “The hell you say!”

  “I tell you what,” Matt said. He cocked the pistol. “Why don’t I just shoot them now and get it over with? I believe I can kill both of them before you can kill me. Shall we try it?”

  “No!” Carter said. He pulled his pistol and pointed it at Hodge. “Hodge, you put that gun away, now! You think I’m going to let him shoot us, just so you can shoot him?”

  “He’s bluffing,” Hodge said. “He can’t kill all three of us.”

  “I ain’t worried about all three of us, you dumb son of a bitch!” Carter said. “I’m only worried about me. Get your hand away from your gun, now, or I’ll blow your damn head off myself!”

  Hodge moved his hand away.

  “Good move, Mr. Hodge,” Matt said. He turned the pistol toward Carter. “Now, you are making me nervous. I would appreciate it very much if you would put your gun back in its holster.”

  “All right, all right, I’m doing it,” Carter said, holstering his pistol. “Come on,” he said to the other two. “Let’s go.”

  The three men left the saloon, but Matt was reasonably sure that he hadn’t seen the last of them. He finished his lunch and then went outside. He had just stepped down from the boardwalk when the first shot came. It hit the support post right beside him. Then, even as he was locating the shooter, who was just behind a watering trough on the opposite side of the street just in front of the feed and seed store, there was a second, then a third shot. All three shots came from different locations.

  Matt darted into the space between the saloon and the leather goods store that was adjacent to The Lion and The Crown. With his gun in hand, he backed up against the wall of the leather goods store, then looked back into the street. He wasn’t the only one who had been stirred into action, because the street, which had been crowded with pedestrians a moment earlier, was emptying quickly as everyone hurried to get out of the line of fire.

  So far he only knew the location of one of the shooters, that being the one behind the watering trough across the street. That there were two more convinced him that these had to be the same three men who had braced him in the saloon earlier.

  At the far end of the street, Gordon Prouty, unaware of the drama being played out before him, came into town driving a wagon. The right rear wheel was squeaking badly, and he knew he was going to have to pack the thing with grease.

  As the wagon continued on into town, everyone was aware of its presence, from the squeaking axle to the sound of the wheels rolling on the hard dirt, to the rattle of chains, tongue, and doubletree, to the clopping of the horses’ hooves. It drew the attention of all, and they worried about Mr. Prouty for fear he might get caught in the crossfire. For the moment, though, there was no crossfire as the attention of everyone, even the shooters, was on the wagon.

  Matt used the distraction of the wagon to run back to the alley. A ladder was attached to the rear of the leather goods store and, holstering his pistol, Matt climbed to the top. Then, bending down at the waist so not to be silhouetted against the sky, Matt ran to the front of the building and stood behind the false front. Looking around the edge of the false front, he saw that the wagon had passed all the way through town and was now at the far end of the street and turning into the lumberyard.

  Matt had hoped that from this vantage point he might be able to see the shooter behind the watering trough, but he couldn’t. In fact, he wasn’t even sure the shooter was still behind the trough.

  “Where’d he go?” Matt heard somebody shout. “Hodge? Decker? Either one of you see ’im? You have any idea where he went?”

  The call came from the roof of the apothecary which was just across the street from Matt. Matt stepped out from behind the false front.

  “Are you looking for me?” he called.

  “There he is!”

  Matt recognized the one on the roof of the apothecary as Carter. And Carter, even as he was shouting to the others, took a shot at Matt and missed. Matt shot back and didn’t miss. Carter fell from the roof of the drugstore, landing on the boardwalk that passed in front of the store. He hit so hard that he actually broke some of the planking.

  Decker and Hodge both shot at Matt, and though both of them missed, they came close enough to cause him to drop back down behind the false front for both cover and concealment. This time he saw where both shots came from. One of the shots confirmed his belief that one of the shooters was still behind a watering trough. The other came from just inside the front door of the Chinese laundry.

  Hurrying to the rear of the building, Matt climbed down the ladder, then ran several buildings up the street. Moving up through the gap between Sikes’ Hardware Store and the lumberyard, Matt looked back down the street. He saw Hodge peering out from the front of the laundry, and Decker rising up to look over the watering trough. Both men were focusing their attention on the false front of the leather goods store. That was where they last saw him, and that was where they believed him still to be.

  Taking advantage of the fact that they were focusing on where he wasn’t, Matt managed to dart across the street, unseen by either of his adversaries. Moving between two buildings, Matt was now able to move down the alley on the opposite side of the street from where he had been. Reaching the back of the Chinese laundry, he saw two Chinese men and three women standing out bac
k with terrified expressions on their faces. When they saw him, they became even more frightened, but he held his fingers to his lips, then, by motions, let them know that he was a friend.

  Matt started to open the back door, but one of the men shook his head, then signaled that he should enter another way. Following him, Matt was shown a small half-door on the side of the building. Smiling and nodding, the Chinese man pointed, indicating he should go into the building that way.

  Matt did as he was directed, though he didn’t know why until he got inside. Then he saw that this way enabled him to be behind a freestanding shelf, out of sight of Hodge. Had he come in through the back door as he had planned, Hodge would have seen him the moment he opened the door.

  “Decker!” Hodge called. “Decker! Do you see him?”

  “No!” Decker’s voice came back.

  Matt stepped out from behind the shelf.

  “Drop your gun, Hodge,” Matt said.

  “Son of a bitch! How’ d you get in here?” Hodge’s cry fell somewhere between surprise, anger, and fear.

  “Drop it!” Matt called again.

  “The hell I will!”

  Hodge fired at Matt, the bullet flying past Matt’s ear. Matt returned fire and Hodge, now with a bullethole in his chest, was propelled backward through the front door, back out into the street. He fired two more times, almost in reflexive action, both bullets going into the dirt. He fell flat on his back.

  “Hodge, what happened?” Decker shouted, rising up from his position behind the water trough.

  “I happened,” Matt said, stepping out through the front door of the laundry.

  “You!” Decker shouted. Lifting his pistol he began shooting. His shooting was so wild and erratic that Matt wasn’t in any danger, but he knew that innocent people in the town were, so he fired back, once.

  One shot was all it took.

  With the shooting stopped, and the gunsmoke of the several discharges drifted away, the townspeople gradually began reappearing. Some gathered in front of the apothecary around Carter’s body, which was lying in, and not on, the boardwalk. Others were collected in front of the Chinese laundry, staring down at Hodge. Still more stood congregated at the feed and seed store, looking down at Hodge.

  Marshal Drew checked all three bodies, then came over to talk to Matt, who was leaning against a hitching rail with his arms folded across his chest, just looking out at the people. Marshal Drew was unable to discern any expression of excitement, fear, or anger. There was absolutely nothing to indicate that he had just been in peril, or that he had just killed three men. From the expression on Matt’s face, he might have been observing the commerce of a normal day.

  “I heard what happened between you and these three men back in The Lion and The Crown,” Marshal Drew said. “You gave them every opportunity to walk away from it, and they didn’t. These are the same three who tried to hold up the stagecoach, aren’t they?”

  Matt nodded.

  “They must have been pissed that you broke it up.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t think revenge had anything to do with it. In fact, I don’t think they were even trying to rob the stagecoach.”

  “Really? Then what the hell were they planning?”

  “I think they were there to kill me,” Matt said. “And when it didn’t work that day, they came back.”

  “For the reward?”

  “Yes.”

  “There will be more coming after you, won’t there?”

  “There will be until I can get to the source of the reward.”

  “Sam Logan?”

  “I suppose so,” Matt replied.

  “What do you mean, you suppose? Everyone says it is Logan.”

  “Over the years I’ve learned to trust nothing that I hear and only half of what I see,” Matt said.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Over the several days since young Winston Churchill had been given access to a horse, he spent at least four hours a day in the saddle. He gained confidence and poise, but he also learned the meaning of the term saddle sore. However, he neither complained nor even mentioned it, bearing up stoically in order to continue with this, his newfound passion.

  By now, Winnie had become not only a familiar sight around the ranch, but a favorite of the cowboys as well. He joined them as they attended to their regular duties, such as seeing that the cattle were moved around the ranch to water and grazing areas, mending the fences, even branding when necessary. He was invited to eat in the cookhouse with the other cowboys, and he became a regular at mealtimes, learning not only to eat but to relish the cowboy fare of biscuits, beans, fried steak, and especially apple pie. And though he was used to drinking tea, he was teaching himself to drink strong, black coffee.

  “They call it grub,” he explained to his mother. “And it is quite tasty.”

  “Heavens,” Jennie said. “How can anyone eat something that is called grub?”

  “You can eat it if you are a cowboy,” Winnie said.

  “I see,” Jennie said with a smile. “And you are a cowboy now, are you?”

  “Yes.”

  “What makes you a cowboy?”

  “Mama, I have given blood, toil, tears and sweat on the range. I believe that makes me a cowboy.”

  Jennie leaned down and kissed Winnie on the forehead.

  “I certainly won’t question that,” she said.

  Believing that the time had come to put his plan into operation, Teasdale rode out to Logan’s headquarters at Nine Mile Creek. Following the ritual which would let the lookouts recognize him from some distance, he rode up the coulee until he reached the shack. Word had already reached Logan that Teasdale was on his way in, so he was waiting out front.

  “If you’re here to complain that I ain’t brought you no more cows from the Frewen ranch, I already know that I haven’t,” Logan said. “And there ain’t likely to be any more either, till we get rid of that bastard Jensen.”

  “That’s why I’m here,” Teasdale said. “I think I know how to get rid of him.”

  “Yeah? Well you’re going to have to let me in on it, ’cause I sure as hell ain’t figured out a way, yet. We’ve got a five thousand dollar reward out on him. Six men have tried to kill him and all six are pushin’ up daisies.”

  “Mr. Jensen appears to be a man of extraordinary acumen, reflexes, and nerve,” Teasdale said.

  “If you mean he’s harder to kill than cockroaches, I agree.”

  “I do have a plan in mind, though,” Teasdale said. “It isn’t one that I wanted to use, but I believe it may be our best chance. Indeed, it may be our only chance.”

  “What is it?” Logan asked.

  “Frewen’s sister-in-law and nephew are here, visiting from England. The nephew is a ten-year-old boy, the son of Lord Randolph Churchill. His name is Winston. If Winston were to be abducted ...”

  “To be what?” Logan asked.

  “Taken,” Teasdale explained. “We could set up a scenario whereby ...”

  “Look, you’re goin’ to have to talk English to me. What the hell is a scenario?”

  Teasdale sighed. “What I am trying to say is this. The boy goes riding just about every day, and he is getting bolder and bolder, which means he is going farther and farther from the house. If you would send a couple of men out to abdu—to grab him—and bring him here, we could lure Jensen into a situation that would allow us to take care of him once and for all.”

  “What you are saying is, you want us to use the boy as bait, and set a trap for Jensen,” Logan said. “Is that it?”

  “Yes, that is exactly what I am saying.”

  “Then why didn’t you say so in the first place, instead of all this other blather—scenarios and that sort of thing?”

  “Never mind,” Teasdale said. “The point is, you know exactly what I am talking about.”

  “All right, where will the boy be?”

  “I can’
t tell you that, because I don’t know, exactly. All I know is that he is doing a lot of riding, all over the ranch. I think there will be several opportunities to find him out on his own, and when you do, all you have to do is take him.”

  “What if he don’t want to be took?”

  “It is obvious that he will not want to be taken,” Teasdale said. “But he is a ten-year-old boy, so I expect you to be able to deal with it. But, and this is very important,” he said, holding up a finger to emphasize his point. “I don’t want the boy hurt. If he is hurt, he will be useless to us as bait.”

  “All right,” Logan said. “If he is wandering around out there on his own, like you say he is, we ought not to have no trouble in snatching him. But what do we do after we get him?”

  “Get a message to Moreton Frewen, telling him that you have the boy, and that you will only release him to Matt Jensen.”

  Over the last several days of riding on his uncle’s ranch, Winnie was beginning to be able to find his way around. He discovered that it was very easy to navigate by positioning particular peaks and rock formations. But as a final fallback, he knew that the Powder River ran right behind Frewen Castle, so he could never get lost as long as he followed the water ways. Going out, he would keep the Powder River to his right. If he rode off on an exploration, he knew that he only had to reverse his course and return to the river, then he could follow it back. Today, he planned to be out for most of the day, and he had prepared for it by bringing a lunch prepared for him by the ranch cook. It consisted of a biscuit, fried chicken, and a piece of cake. Reaching the junction of the Powder River and William’s Creek, he turned northwest to follow the creek for a little way before he dismounted to eat his lunch. From there, he had a magnificent view of the Big Horn Mountains to the west and the Black Hills to the east. To the south lay the Powder River Basin, several hundred thousand acres of rich and well-watered grassland that made Johnson County ideal for raising cattle.

  The thing that made this area good for cattle also made it good for game, and he could see deer, bighorn sheep, elk and antelope wandering around the area. Finishing his biscuit and chicken, he picked up the cake. The cook had wrapped it in a piece of cloth to keep it moist.