While sitting there eating his cake, Winnie listened to the babbling of William’s Creek as it made its way another quarter of a mile to empty into the Powder River. He had never been anywhere that he considered more exciting or beautiful than this ranch. He thought about the journal his teacher had asked him to keep and realized that it had been a long time since he had posted anything in it. It was just that there had been so much going on that he had not taken the time to get around to it, but he had brought it with him today, and he took his journal and a pencil from his saddlebag and began to write.
When one thinks of the American cowboy one might think it to be a romantic thing, a man on horseback in the open plains, surrounded by purple mountains highlighted by a golden sunset. I know that was my idea when first we arrived here. But in the time I have been here, I have learned that it is not as I thought it was.
I still consider the American cowboy to be a noble person, but now I realize that the nobility is in the work that he is required to do. The work is most arduous and the cowboys who come back to eat their “grub” in the cookhouse in the evening are tired from a long day of moving cattle from one spot to another, mending fences, pulling cows from quicksand, and chasing down the calves that wander off. They do this sometimes with a kerchief tied over their noses to combat the dust, or with their hats pulled down low to stop the rain, and while freezing in the cold winter blasts, or sweating in the almost unbearable heat of summer.
I don’t say that they do this without complaint, for the cookhouse is filled with complaints of the day, but they are complaints without rancor. In fact, complaining is the cowboy’s way of communicating, for they are delivered in a manner that is designed to elicit more laughter than sympathy.
I have come to believe ...
That was as far he got when he looked up and saw three riders approaching him. Thinking they were some of his uncle’s cowboys, he waited until they got very close. Only then did he realize that he had never seen any of them before, not even in the cookhouse at meals.
“Hello, boy,” one of the riders said.
“Hello, sir,” Winnie replied, trying not to show his nervousness over this unexpected meeting. He closed his journal, then lay it down under a rock to keep the pages from blowing.
“Would your name be Winston Churchill?”
“It is, indeed,” Winnie answered with a relieved smile. If they knew his name, then surely they would mean no harm to him.
One of the riders approached very close.
“That’s a nice-looking horse,” the rider said. “Is it yours?”
“It is a loan from Sir William,” Winnie said. “But he has been given to me to use while I’m here, so I have named him. I call him Tudor Monarch.”
“That’s a pretty high-falutin name,” one of the riders said. That same rider reached out and took the reins of Winnie’s horse.
“Excuse me, sir, but why did you take the reins of my horse?”
“Winston, get mounted. We’re going to take a little ride together.”
“I’d rather not take a ride with you, if it is all the same to you,” Winnie said. “I have my ride planned for the day. It is necessary that I do that so that Uncle Moreton and Mama will always know where I am.”
“Don’t worry about that. We’ll tell them where you are.”
The other two riders came up very close, and Winnie knew that he was in great danger.
“Am I being abducted?” he asked.
“If that means are you being snatched up, the answer is yeah, that’s what we are doing.”
“To what end?” Winnie asked.
“To what end?” The rider that was holding the reins to Tudor Monarch chuckled. “Did you hear that, Grant? He wants to know to what end. Ain’t he about the damnedest talkin’ boy you ever been around?”
“I’ll tell you to what end,” Grant said. “There’s a group of us that wants your uncle to do somethin’ for us, and we figure he will do it if he knows that’s the only way he’ll see you alive again.”
“What is it you wish done?” Winnie asked.
“We want him to send Matt Jensen to come fetch you,” Grant said. “Do you think your uncle will do somethin’ like that?”
“I don’t really know Uncle Moreton all that well, so I can’t tell you with honesty whether he will or will not do what you ask.”
“You better hope that he will do it, boy,” one of the other riders said. “Because if he don’t, we’ll send you back to him, belly-down, on this horse.”
Donnie Lewis was looking for strays when suddenly three men rode out of a coulee with guns drawn and pointed at him. All three were wearing yellow kerchiefs.
“Whoa!” Lewis said, throwing his hands up. “What do you want? I ain’t got no money and I ain’t herdin’ no cows!”
“We want you to do something for us,” one of the riders said. “We want you to deliver a note to Moreton Frewen.”
“What kind of note?”
“Why should it matter to you what kind of note?” the rider asked. “The only thing that should matter to you is this. If you deliver it you live, if you don’t you die.”
“Now, tell me, cowboy, what is it to be?” one of the other men asked.
“I’ll deliver the note,” Lewis said.
“Yeah, I thought you might.” The rider handed him a folded piece of paper. “How fast is that horse?” he asked.
“I beg your pardon?” Lewis asked.
“How fast is that horse?” the rider repeated. “Do you think he is fast enough to get you out of rifle range in a minute?”
“I—I don’t know.”
The rider pulled his rifle and cocked it. “You better hope he is. ’Cause in one minute I’m going to take a shot at you. So I suggest you get goin’ now.”
Lewis jerked his horse around, then slapped his legs against the side of the horse, urging him into a gallop. He leaned forward, not only to urge the horse to a faster pace, but also to present a smaller target in case the man actually did shoot at him.
A minute passed, and there was no bullet. Either the man didn’t shoot at him, or Lewis was far enough away now that if he did shoot, the bullet was far wide of its mark.
Forty-five minutes later, Lewis showed the note to Myron Morrison, thinking it might be better to go show it to the foreman first. Morrison read the note, then with compressed lips and narrowed eyes, looked back up at Lewis.
“Where did you get this?” he asked.
“Three men come up on me,” Lewis said. “It was them that give this here note to me, tellin’ me that if I didn’t deliver it, they was goin’ to shoot me. As soon as they let me go, I hightailed it out of there. They said give it to Mr. Frewen, but I figured maybe it would be better if you done it.”
“Thanks a lot,” Morrison said, sarcastically.
“I mean, you don’t mind bein’ the one to show it to ’im, do you? Bein’ as you are foreman and all.”
“All right,” Morrison said. “I’ll take the note to him.”
Morrison walked from the bunkhouse across the yard to the huge log edifice. When he pulled the doorbell chain, Benjamin answered.
“Yes, Mr. Morrison?” Benjamin asked in his stiff, upper tone British voice.
“I have a note here that Mr. Frewen needs to see.”
“Lord Moreton is in the drawing room at the moment; if you would like, I can deliver the note to him,” Benjamin said.
“I’d like nothing more in this world than for you to give this note to him,” Morrison said. “But I don’t think it is something you are going to want to do.”
“Oh, heavens,” Benjamin said. “Very good, sir. If you would come this way?”
Frewen was in the drawing room looking at the latest figures that he was preparing to send to his business partners back in England. The figures were not good. The Powder River Cattle Company was operating at a severe deficit.
“Lord Moreton?” Benjamin called from just outside the door to the drawing room
.
“Whatever it is, Benjamin, let it wait, please,” Frewen said. “I need to get this report ready to go. Though God knows I wish I didn’t have to.”
“Mr. Frewen, I expect you had better take time for this,” Morrison called in through the door. “It’s pretty important.”
“All right,” Frewen said. He pushed the book of numbers to one side, then turned toward his foreman. “What is it? What do you have for me?”
Morrison handed the note to Frewen. “Donnie Lewis brought it in a few minutes ago. He said that he ran across three men and they gave it to him.”
With an anxious feeling, Frewen unfolded the note.
Frewen—
We’ve got the boy. If you want to see him alive again, send Jensen to junction of Nine Mile Creek and the Powder River at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. He must be alone. If we see anyone with him, we will kill the boy. If he does not show up we will kill the boy.
“God in Heaven,” Frewen said. “Do you think anyone would actually be so low as to kill a boy?”
“Yeah, I think they would,” Morrison said.
Frewen read the note again, then let out a loud sigh of frustration. “I don’t understand. Why do they want Mr. Jensen to come to Nine Mile Creek?”
“It’s pretty obvious,” Morrison said. “They want him there so they can kill him.”
“Oh, my!” Frewen said. “Then I am being asked to choose between the life of my nephew and the life of Mr. Jensen.”
“Yes, sir, I’d say that’s about it,” Morrison said.
Frewen leaned back and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I—I don’t know where to go with this,” he said.
Chapter Twenty-four
When Matt went into the parlor of Frewen Castle, he saw Jennie crying and Carla trying to comfort her. Morrison was standing near the fireplace while Frewen was sitting in a big leather chair with his head leaning forward, his forehead resting on his fist.
“What’s wrong?” Matt asked.
Frewen held the note out toward Matt.
“Read this,” he said.
As Matt took the piece of paper from Frewen, he looked over at the crying women, and wondering what it was about, he read the note.
After he read it, he handed it back.
“What do you make of that?” Frewen asked.
“We don’t have any choice, Mr. Frewen,” Matt said. “I have to go.”
Matt walked over to where Jennie and Clara were sitting together on a leather sofa. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I will find Winnie for you.”
“Oh, Matt,” Jennie said. Standing, she embraced him, pulling him hard against her. Matt could feel her tears against his cheeks. “Please, Matt, please bring Winston back safely to me.”
“I will,” Matt said. “I promise you, I will.”
“Matt, you do know that they are using the boy for bait, don’t you? They are setting you up to be killed.” Frewen said.
“It won’t be the first time a trap has ever been set for me,” Matt said.
“I’m sure it isn’t. But this one—I mean, to use young Winnie as they are doing is so—diabolical,” Frewen said.
“I’ll grant you that it is,” Matt said. “But they have made a big mistake.”
“How is that?” Frewen asked.
“They’ve given away their hand.”
“I’m the one that is at fault here,” Frewen said. “I let him, indeed I encouraged him, to feel free to ride anywhere on the ranch. It just never dawned on me that he would be in any danger. I mean, what would they want with him? If something happens to my nephew because of me, I will never forgive myself.”
“I am going to find him, Mr. Frewen. I am going to find him and I am going to bring him home safely.”
“Do you think you can do that?” Frewen asked. “Tell me the truth, now. I don’t want you saying just what you think will make me feel better. I want to know if you really think you can do it.”
“Yes, he can,” Jennie said. “I know Mr. Jensen. And I am convinced that he will be able to find and rescue Winnie.”
When they brought Winnie to the little house, they put him over in the corner next to the fireplace. He had seen some of the line shacks during the last several days of his rides around the ranch, and this was just like a line shack, though perhaps a little larger than most he had seen. It couldn’t actually be a line shack though, because it was at the head of a long, deep ravine, or coulee, as he had heard the cowboys call such things.
There were at least six men in the shack, all wearing yellow kerchiefs. And though the men who had abducted him had not been wearing yellow kerchiefs at the time, they had since put them on. This gave them a sense of camaraderie and belonging, as if they were soldiers in an army. Four of the men were playing cards. One of the four, a man without a beard, but with a long, bushy, dark black mustache, had identified himself as Sam Logan. Logan, Winnie knew from the conversations he had overheard, was the head of the gang of rustlers who had been stealing cattle from his uncle. One of the men was cooking, while the sixth was sitting on a bunk, cleaning his gun.
Winnie was frightened, but he was also curious about such men as these, and he watched and listened.
“Hey, kid,” one of the card players said. “I hear you are from England. Is that right?”
“That is correct,” Winnie said.
“Ha,” the questioner said. “‘That is correct,’ he said. You reckon all kids from England talk like that?”
“It ain’t just the kids. You’ve heard Teasdale talkin’, ain’t you? Always so prim and proper.”
Suddenly, and unexpectedly, Logan hit the man who had just spoken with a wicked backhanded slap. The blow left the man’s lip bleeding.
“What the hell did you do that for?” he asked, and taking off his yellow scarf, he used the corner of it to dab against the cut on his lip.
“Because you’ve got a big mouth, Poindexter. And you don’t know when to shut up,” Logan said.
“What did I say? All I said was ...”
Logan glared at him, and Poindexter suddenly realized what he had done.
“Oh,” he said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean nothin’ by it. I won’t say anythin’ else.”
“Yes, that’s probably the wisest thing for you to do,” Logan said. He threw down his cards. “Deal me out. Clayton?”
“Yeah?” Clayton replied. Clayton was the one who had been doing the cooking.
“How much longer till we can get some grub?”
“These beans is all done, and I’m takin’ off some pan cornbread now,” he said.
Logan stepped over to the stove, got a bowl of beans and broke off a piece of cornbread. Getting a spoon, he carried the bowl with him and stepped over to squat down beside Winnie.
“Boy, you been listenin’ to what we was talkin’ about?” he asked, as he took a spoonful of the beans.
“No, sir, I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening. Should I have been? I’m too frightened. I suppose I have just been wondering what was going to happen to me.”
“Nothin’ is going to happen to you if ever’one does what they are supposed to do,” Logan said. He broke off a piece of cornbread and dropped it in his bowl, then scooped it up along with some beans. “Uhhmm. These beans ain’t bad. Clayton used to cook for a big ranch, now he cooks for us, and he makes a lot more now than he used to.” Logan turned to call toward Clayton. “That’s right, ain’t it Clayton? You’re makin’ a lot more now than you used to?”
“A lot more,” Clayton said.
“You hungry? You want somethin’ to eat?”
“No, sir,” Winnie said. “I had a rather good lunch before your three men came to get me. Besides, I am too frightened to eat, now.”
“You’re scared, huh?”
“Yes, sir, very much.”
“Well, I’ve got to hand it to you, kid. You ain’t showin’ it much.”
“I have been taught to keep a stiff upper lip.”
“A stiff upper lip
?” Logan said. He chuckled and ran his finger across his mustache. “What does that mean? I’ve never heard that used before.”
“It is a British idiom,” Winnie explained. “It means to remain undaunted in the face of danger and adversity. It is best expressed in a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Would you like to hear it?”
“Yeah, let me hear it.”
Winnie began to say the poem as if presenting it in a class of declamation.
“‘Forward, the Light Brigade!’
Was there a man dismay’d?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Some one had blunder’d:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die,
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.”
“What is that about? What do you mean, the ‘valley of death’?”
“It refers to a regiment of British cavalry led by Lord Cardigan against the Russians during the Crimean War. There were six hundred who started the charge, and nearly half of them were killed,” Winnie said.
“I’ll be damned,” Logan said. “And you think that was good, do you?”
“I do not think it is good that so many were killed,” Winnie said. “But I think the fact that they showed honor, courage, and kept a stiff upper lip is to be admired.”
“And I think they were crazy. If I had been there, you had better believe that I wouldn’t have done anything so crazy.”
“What would you have done?”
“I would have run away,” Logan said.
“You would do so at the expense of your honor?” Winnie asked.
“Ha! Honor? Kid, I’m a rustler and a murderer. To me, the only honor is in staying alive.”
Massacre at Powder River Page 20