"That matches with what the front desk clerk at the lodge reported," said Walt Early, the sheriff's deputy. "He—the desk clerk, that is—came running out at the sound of all the shooting and—"
"Running out?" Walburton questioned acidly.
"That's the way he said it." Early shrugged. "If he had any smarts, I imagine he came out a little cautiously. Anyway, right after the shooting lagged, he said, he saw a man duck out from behind that big rain barrel and run away off to the west."
"When we heard the clerk coming down from the lodge," Kate explained, "is when we first realized the remaining ambusher out there had taken flight."
Kate, J.D., the two lawmen, and Belle Braedon were gathered in the Blazes' suite at the lodge. An hour had passed since the ambush down at the horse barn. Walburton and Early—accompanying, as promised, the body of Oliver Braedon and his grieving widow on the wagon trip from the ranch—had shown up about a half hour after the shooting was over.
Repairing to the suite had been a way to gain some privacy for their subsequent discussion, to get away from the display of freshly dead bodies (mostly for Belle's sake), and to allow Kate and J.D. the chance to clean up a bit after scrambling for their lives on the floor of the horse barn.
"What a night," the sheriff lamented now, as he clamped a palm to the back of his neck and squeezed the knots of tension forming there. "In just a handful of hours, we've got shootings and knifings and dead bodies scattered from Hell to breakfast."
"I'm sure I speak for the Widow Clemens as well as myself," Belle responded coolly, "when I express our deep regret for how much the murders of our husbands must add to your inconveniences."
Walburton's face reddened around his scowl. "Please, Mrs. Braedon. Surely you know I didn't mean it that way."
When lanterns had been lighted throughout the horse barn to help facilitate the investigation into what had occurred there, a third body—in addition to the two shot by J.D. and Kate—had been discovered. It was identified as that of a young man named Virgil Clemens, who worked as a wrangler and stable hand for the lodge. He was found in an empty stall with his throat cut. According to his wife, he was working late to care for a sick horse. As a result, he evidently was happened upon by the ambushers when they arrived to lie in wait for the Blazes and subsequently killed to silence him from giving anything away.
"Your husband was a fine man and young Clemens was one of the most likable fellas in town," the sheriff continued. "Losing them is a tragedy for our whole valley. It's my job to try and keep things like that from happening around here, and it's a responsibility I don't take lightly...I hope you can pardon me if, in my anger and frustration, I spoke carelessly."
Belle sighed, her tone thawing. "Of course, Sheriff. I know you and Oliver were friends from way back. I'm sorry I snapped at you like that."
Walburton shook his head. "No need to be sorry. The stress and grief you're suddenly burdened with makes it perfectly understandable...What's less understandable," he added after a moment's pause, "is the question of whether or not the rifleman out at the ranch earlier and the ambushers here at the lodge are connected in some way."
"What connection could there be, Sheriff?" said J.D. "There was little similarity to the way the ambushes were set up, and the targets were certainly different."
"But there's still a common element to both," Deputy Early pointed out. "No offense, but that would be you and your wife. First, you were scheduled to show up out at the Braedon ranch for dinner. Then, obviously, you'd be coming back here to the stable and lodge once you returned from the Bar OB."
"That's pretty slim commonality, if you ask me," said Kate.
"And as far as the Blazes being invited to dinner," Belle added, "only a very few people even knew about that.
Early spread his hands. "Just making an observation, ma'am."
"All I know," said Walburton, "is that two murders in one night—and that's discounting the pair of ambushers you two shot, which I'm willing to write off as self defense—is something I damn sure don't want to spread any farther."
J.D. mustered up his own scowl. "Well, now. It's mighty big of you to 'write off' us blasting those two bushwhackers as 'self defense'. What the hell else would you call it? You know, Sheriff, you got a real knack for putting things in a way that a body could take exception to without trying very hard."
"You're talking to an officer of the law, mister. You'd better ease up a little there," advised Early.
J.D.'s nostrils flared. "I don't like being accused of something unfounded, that's all. And I like it even less when it comes in a smarmy, beating-around-the-bush kind of way. If somebody's got something to say to me, say it straight out."
"You want it straight?" the sheriff said. "Okay, here it is: Just because I didn't catch on to your names right away out at the ranch, don't mean I can't put one and one together when the bullets start flying and add it up to who you two really are. The notorious man-and-wife gunfighting duo, the Blazes. Wherever and whenever you show up, the spent cartridges and corpses start piling up in a hurry, ain't that right?"
"So what if it is?" Kate snapped back. "We never went out of our way to deny that or make it a secret. We even used our real names on the lodge register. But we came here strictly on vacation—a long overdue honeymoon, if you must know. And we never went for our guns until that pack of curly wolves tried to blow our brains out!"
"Maybe so," Walburton allowed. "And maybe it's nothing out of the ordinary, for you two, to have men come gunning for you in order to try and settle past differences."
One corner of J.D.'s mouth lifted in a thin smile. "Actually, it is. You see, folks we have serious differences with usually ain't left in any condition to show up again at all."
"So, having had a good look at the two men you killed tonight, you're still sure you never ran into either of them before?"
"We already answered that. No."
Walburton turned to Belle. "I'm sorry to have to ask you this again, ma'am—just like I was sorry to've had to ask you to look at them in the first place, out there in the barn—but you're sure you didn't recognize anything about those men, either?"
"Not a thing."
"With all due respect, ma'am, I can't help but ask you one more thing." The sheriff gestured toward the Blazes. "How it is, I wonder, you've chosen such violence prone friends?"
"Sometimes," Belle replied, "circumstances make those kinds of decisions for us. J.D. and I became friends a long time ago, in another place and at another time, when we both were leading rather different lives. Earlier today, strictly by coincidence, we encountered each other again while he and his wife were out enjoying a picnic and Oliver and I happened by on a buggy ride. Somehow it didn't occur to me to get clearance from the local law before inviting the two of them to dinner."
If there'd been any doubt, the way Belle blatantly avoided the rest of the details associated with that "buggy ride" made it plenty clear she still had reasons for holding back.
"And under the circumstances," Belle went on, "I consider running into each other again today to be my good fortune. No matter your opinion of the Blazes, Sheriff, right about now I view them as perhaps the only true friends I have in this whole valley."
Walburton looked like he wanted to say more, but couldn't decide what it should be. Finally, he settled for a disgruntled sigh before saying, "Very well. Have it your way. I need to go check in on the Widow Clemens...We'll talk again tomorrow."
Chapter 9
"Okay," J.D. said as soon as Walburton and his deputy were gone. "Now that we've done our ducking and dodging for the local law, it's time for some straight talk and straight answers...Belle, we can start with where we had to leave off back at the ranch when you indicated you knew those three men who were chasing your buggy this morning."
"Actually, I only recognized one of them," Belle corrected him. "His name is Hiram Woolsey. He's from San Francisco."
"Hiram?" J.D. echoed.
"Describe him
," said Kate.
"He's quite tall and thin. Narrow face with heavy brows and a beaklike nose. Long black sideburns. You'd remember if you saw him."
Kate and J.D. exchanged glances. Then, turning back to Belle, Kate said, "That was one of the riders chasing your buggy, alright. The one J.D. and I tipped out of his saddle, the only one we managed to get a very close look at. Unfortunately, he's not one of the ones we blasted down in the barn a little while ago."
"So what was his connection with you back in Frisco?" J.D. asked.
"He works for the Ballard brothers, Frank and Alfred. They own and operate a string of houses...like the one I worked at...in several locations on the coast. He handles problems for them."
"And you rate as a problem?"
"So it would seem. I never understood, until I told them I was leaving the business to get married, how iron-fisted the Ballards were about controlling the girls they had set up in their houses." Belle's gaze shifted somewhat anxiously to Kate. "I realize it's not a very ladylike thing to discuss but, as J.D. said, it's time for straight talk."
"I agree," Kate replied.
Belle nodded. "All right. The fact is, I was quite good at what I did, and very popular. I made the Ballards a lot of money. Which is not to say I didn't get my own reasonable cut in the process. Still, I never saw myself as so damn important to their operation. Hell, they have lots of popular girls. But part of the iron-fisted thing, apparently, is about sending a message. That's the only reason I can think of for them to put so much effort into trying to stop me from leaving before they were the ones to decide they were done with me."
"How did they try to stop you?" asked Kate.
"At first it was just talk. Telling me I was being foolish, that I'd be sorry and would come crawling back. Then there were veiled threats about their 'investment' in me, and how I owed it to them to stay in the game. But it didn't turn seriously threatening until just before Oliver and I were getting ready to leave the city. Hiram and two thugs—neither of the two men who were with him on the trail this morning—accosted us outside our hotel room. Oliver responded to the threats from those original three by striking Hiram and knocking him down. Luckily, Oliver was armed with a pistol at the time, which he drew to back off the other two."
"Good for him," said Kate.
"Too bad he didn't use his pistol to open up on the whole bunch and do for 'em permanent-like," added J.D.
"No one can argue that, not if it would have prevented Oliver from lying over at the undertaker's now, as we sit here talking about it," Belle said glumly.
"So after the trouble in San Francisco," said Kate, "you didn't see or hear any more from this Hiram character until today?"
Belle shook her head. "No. Nothing. Oliver and I thought that whole business was behind us. When those riders showed up this morning, practically right in our back yard, it was a shock."
"How, exactly, did they make their play this morning?"
"Other than the setting, not all that different from the way they threatened us in the city. The one big difference, unfortunately, was that they were prepared for Oliver to be armed. He wasn't wearing a sidearm, though, only a rifle under the seat of the buggy. You see, we were returning from having ridden out to look at the location for the new house Oliver is going...was going...to build for just the two of us. With Clay already running most of the day-to-day activity, Oliver wanted us to get away from the current ranch headquarters so we could share our time together more quietly and more privately."
Belle paused for a moment, composing herself, then continued. "At any rate, when Hiram and his men put in their appearance they all were openly and heavily armed and all had their guns drawn by the time we saw them. They came out suddenly from behind some rocks and blocked our way. When Oliver was forced to rein up our team, Hiram and his men crowded in on either side and demanded he throw down any weapons he had. Oliver had little choice but to comply.
"Then they started in with the threats. Hiram did the talking. Told me how much trouble he'd gone to in order to find me. How mad the Ballards were for the humiliation and expense I was causing them, how what I'd done was putting ideas in the heads of some of the other girls and how I needed to be taught a lesson and held up as an example to get rid of those notions in anybody else."
The muscles at the hinges of J.D.'s jaw bunched visibly. "And they aimed to accomplish that by running you over a cliff and killing you?"
Belle shook her head. "I don't think that's what they set out to do. Things got more out of hand than they were ready for. You see, one of the riders—not Hiram—reached out with his knife and cut the reins of our team. Then he claimed he would spook the horses and stampede them into a panic if I didn't cooperate by climbing down and riding away with them. I'm pretty sure it was only supposed to be just another threat, a way of getting me to do what they wanted...
"Only that's when Oliver did something reckless and totally unexpected. He's the one who made our horses take off by suddenly whistling and shouting and slapping them across their rumps with his hat. He told me afterwards he thought he could whip the team into breaking away from Hiram and his men and making it onto the range of a neighboring ranch where we'd catch the eye of some friendly wranglers who'd help get the team stopped and, simply by their presence, discourage Hiram's bunch from keeping after us."
"Reckless, like you said. But also gutsy, you got to give him that," J.D. allowed.
The expression on Belle's face showed strains of reliving the experience as she finished relating it. "What Oliver didn't figure, though, was that the team would take out across the hogback like they did, and then stick with it even after the ground turned so rocky and treacherous. By then, it was too late for us to try to jump clear, and the horses were panicked out of control."
"It was a close call, no two ways about it," Kate summed up.
"Too close, and all for so little," Belle added bitterly. "It only bought poor Oliver a few more hours before he fell victim to those same bastards, anyway...All because of me."
"Don't do that to yourself," Kate was quick to say, in a stern tone. "You've been telling us how Oliver loved you and accepted everything about your past. Well, then that meant also accepting the danger associated to it. Neither Hiram nor the Ballard brothers were secrets to him. And as far as danger, he didn't build one of the biggest cattle spreads in this mountain valley without standing up to plenty of risks long before he ever met you."
"Thanks for the encouraging words," Belle replied softly. "And you're right, Oliver faced plenty of risks and dangers building the Bar OB to what it is today. But those kind of things he knew how to deal with. Hiram Woolsey he wasn't so sure about...
"I don't mean he was afraid of him. Not in the normal sense of the word. But the fact Hiram made it clear he was willing to kill me if he had to—rather than let me get away with leaving the Ballards like I did—was a kind of ruthlessness that unnerved Oliver. What was more, exactly because of that, because of the way I was linked to Hiram, we were reluctant to turn to the sheriff for help out of concern that too much of my background would be revealed. In the old days, Oliver would have rounded up some of the men who rode for his brand and they would have gone after Hiram strictly on their own. But some kind of explanation would still have been owed, plus the law would've caught wind sooner or later."
Belle paused, her gaze touching Kate and J.D. each in turn. "Please believe it wasn't the main reason behind inviting you to dinner but, once Oliver had time to consider how the two of you hire out to help folks in trouble and how successful you've been at it, well, he was planning on asking for your help. Naturally, we would have been willing to pay whatever—"
"We don't make a habit of charging money to friends who find themselves in a jam," J.D. said tersely.
"Especially not now that Hiram has made it personal by springing an ambush on us," added Kate. "In fact, you might even go so far as to say you couldn't stop us from going after that skunk in order to remove him as an
y further threat to you...not to mention making him pay for cutting down Oliver."
"The only thing is," said J.D., running a thumb knuckle back and forth across the point of his chin, a habit he had when pondering hard on something, "I ain't all the way sure ol' Hiram or his boys are the ones who shot Oliver."
Nobody said anything for a long minute. The two women sat looking at J.D. like he'd just babbled something in a foreign tongue.
"When Sam Ruckner came here with Belle's note," J.D. explained, "he said Oliver Braedon had been hit by two rifle rounds. You also referred to a rifle, Belle, when you were telling us about the shooting at the ranch. And then the sheriff once again said 'rifleman' just a few minutes ago when he spoke about Oliver getting shot."
"So what of it? What are you getting at?" Kate wanted to know.
"If no one actually saw Oliver get shot, how is it everybody is so convinced he got it with a rifle?" asked J.D.
Belle answered, "While young Jorge was the first one to reach Oliver, there were several other men close enough to have also heard the shots. I think Sam was one of them, as a matter of fact. Anyway, they all agreed it was a rifle. By the sound."
"Okay. That makes sense." J.D. nodded. "To a practiced ear, a rifle shot sounds distinctly different from a pistol."
"Anybody who's been around guns much at all knows that." Kate eyed J.D. "I still don't see the point you're trying to make."
J.D. shrugged. "It's simple enough, really. The men who laid for us—men we know to have been associated with Hiram Woolsey—were all packing handguns only. And when we checked out the two horses left behind by the pair we killed, neither of 'em were fitted with a saddle scabbard. So unless Hiram was the only one who bothered to keep a long gun within reach—which I'd say ain't likely, him coming from a big, crowded city where pistols and in-close belly guns are the more common weapons—I'd be willing to bet there wasn't a rifle in the whole stinkin' bunch."
Blaze! Western Series: Six Adult Western Novels Page 23