“Looks like you got yourself in a hell of a pickle,” Ethan remarked as he handed his pa the mug of water through the ragged ventilation hole.
Grabbing the mug, Jacob drained it in two long, slurping gulps. “Jesus,” he gasped, lowering his head and belching loudly. “I’m too dry to spit and too withered to stand. Cut this rope, boy. I got business to attend to.”
“Ben?”
“That whelp’s gone too far this time. I’m gonna peel him, Ethan, soon as I get my fill of something cold to drink.”
“That’s what I figured, but I can’t let you do it.”
Jacob cocked a brow questioningly. “You reckon to stop me?”
“I’m not even going to try.” Reaching for the object in his belt, Ethan handed it through the ventilation hole.
“What the hell’s this?” Jacob exclaimed, but Ethan knew he’d already recognized it.
“It’s Ma’s old butter knife. You can use it to cut yourself free.”
Jacob’s curses exploded from the privy like the shriek of a dull saw biting into wood. Ethan waited for it to taper off, then said: “I sent Ben over to Gerard’s until you cool off. While you’re hacking away at that reata with a butter knife, I’m going to town and sell my pelts.”
“Boy,” Jacob growled low in his throat, “you draw that Bowie of yours and cut me loose, or I’ll hunt you both down and beat the crap out of you. And you know I’m gonna find you. Montana ain’t big enough to hide a couple of pups like you ’n’ Ben.”
Ethan sighed. “I reckon that’s what you’ll have to do, then,” he said, turning away.
“Boy!”
Ethan stopped but didn’t look around.
“By, God,” Jacob grated. “If this knife was sharp enough, I’d throw it at your yellow spine just to see if it’d stick.”
“I expect you would,” Ethan admitted. “That’s why I gave it to you.” He walked back around the house.
The bay was still standing at the corral, the mule beside, long ears flagging in the afternoon heat. Stepping wearily into his saddle, Ethan reined toward the trail that led back to the top of the bluff, the mule following docilely.
Chapter Two
Barely ten years settled, the town of Sundance was already showing the effects of a constant high plains wind and half a score of harsh Montana winters. It lay on the prairie like a scrap of cloth dropped by a passing zephyr, curved around the east side of a knoll called Cemetery Hill.
The graves had been there first—five oblong rips in the sod, halfway to the top. The O’Keefe family—father, mother, three sons. They’d been bound for the gold fields, became lost, then froze to death. At least that was the conclusion of the men who’d found them the following spring—old Gerard Turcotte and Jacob Wilder and Jacob’s oldest.
Ethan had helped dig the graves, solemn of eye but hardly shocked by the brutality of the deaths, the unfairness of such loss. Theirs hadn’t been the first graves he’d helped dig.
There hadn’t been much to salvage, and no one wanted the dilapidated wagon or wolf-chewed harness, so they’d left everything where it lay. Later that summer, a man named Ira Webb used the lumber from the wagon to build a dugout on the leeward side of the hill. He established a store to serve the area’s hunters, but also carried a few items that might appeal to a settler—lamps, milk buckets, and the like. People passed. A few stopped but none stayed until the cattlemen started drifting in with Texas dust in the creases of their clothing. The grass here was rich, water plentiful in the rivers and creeks that flowed out of the Rockies to the west. With half a dozen cattle ranches within a hundred-mile radius, the town’s roots finally began to take hold. In 1878, the ninety-plus residents of the community decided to call their town Sundance, and a delegation had been sent to Helena to apply for a charter and a post office. Five years later, the town’s population had doubled, and there was even talk of someday enticing the St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba Railroad to build a spur line into town. Ira Webb’s old dugout had been turned into a community icehouse, and streets had been scraped out of the sod like a giant game of tic-tac-toe.
Sundance’s survival, and its growth, had always amazed Ethan, who still vividly recalled the emptiness of the land on the day they’d buried the O’Keefes. He kept expecting to ride in someday to discover the whole town gone, citizens and buildings alike swept away on the wind, only the hill and its lonely graves remaining.
It was still light out when Ethan rode into town, although the sun had already made its descent behind the Rockies. He kept the bay to a lazy, dust-scuffing jog as he made his way down the center of Hide Street, its name an irritating reminder to a lot of the newer citizens of a time when hunters and traders had ruled over this region of Montana. Cemetery and Culver Streets ran east and west, and a narrow track, little more than an alley, ran north and south to parallel Hide Street on the west.
Sam Davidson was just closing up shop when Ethan reined in at the mercantile. The storekeeper paused with one hand on the CLOSED sign, his expression hardening. His gaze shifted briefly to the mule and its load of pelts, and he grudgingly jerked a thumb toward the rear of the building. Ethan nodded and rode into the alley beside the store. Davidson met him on the loading dock out back. Dipping his chin coolly, he said: “Wilder.”
Ethan hesitated with his right foot already loosened in its stirrup. “Sam,” he replied cautiously. “How’ve you been?”
Davidson was staring at Ethan’s mule. “Those hides aren’t going to bring much, this time of year.”
“Probably not,” Ethan agreed, dismounting. “But I wanted to get away for a spell, and figured I might as well make some money while I was at it. These are summer pelts, all right, but taken up high, near the Continental Divide.”
Davidson glanced suspiciously at Ethan. “You’ve been away?”
“Nearly two months.” After a moment, he added: “What’s going on, Sam?”
“Aw, hell, nothing that’s any of my business. Besides,” he sniffed, acting embarrassed, “you always were the sensible one.”
“The sensible what? You’re talking in circles.”
“Then maybe I ought to shut up and take a look at those skins. You say you trapped these up high?”
“Near timberline.”
“That’s up there, all right. Much snow on the ground yet?”
“A fair amount for as hot as it’s been down here all summer.” He loosened the near-side pack and heaved it onto the dock at Davidson’s feet. He knew the storekeeper had changed the subject, but was too tired to care why.
Davidson cut the leather thong holding the hides together, and the bale sprang open. He started to rifle through the pack, then suddenly stopped, eyes widened. “Damn,” he said softly, dragging a hide easily ten times the size of those around it to the side. “Where’d you get this grizzly?”
“Same place I got the wolves,” Ethan replied, rolling the second bale off his shoulder, onto the dock. “There’re two more in this pack, but they aren’t for sale.”
Davidson ran his fingers through the long shoulder hair. Several strands pulled loose, sticking to his hand. “Just as well, I guess, but if this was winter prime, I’d offer you fifty dollars for it.”
“If it was winter prime, I’d want seventy-five.” Ethan replied, grinning.
Davidson dropped the bear hide, picked up a wolf. “Well, you know there isn’t any market for summer hides, but the Cattlemen’s Association will pay you a three-dollar bounty on your wolf skins. They don’t care how poor the pelts are as long as it gets rid of a few more calf killers.”
“Three dollars apiece suits me.”
“Then throw these hides inside the storeroom, and I’ll get your cash and a receipt.”
It took only minutes to complete the transaction. Returning to the alley, Ethan straddled the bay, grabbed the mule’s lead rope. No one was around when he rode inside Palmer’s Livery, so he stabled the animals on his own, rubbed them down with a burlap sack to dry their sweaty ba
cks, then fed them and made sure their water buckets were full. Leaving four bits on the hostler’s desk, he went back outside, arching his spine against the stiffness of muscles attached too long to a saddle. It was full dark now, the street nearly deserted, the night air chilly after the heat of the day.
Several businesses were still open, but it was Ira Webb’s Bullshead Saloon—run-down and wind-scoured, but swank compared to the dugout he’d started in—that caught Ethan’s eye. A weary smile flickered across his face. He was tired, but not that tired.
It was quiet inside the Bullshead, too, and Ethan wondered what day it was. He’d lost track in the mountains, where time didn’t have the same meaning as it did down here.
Besides Ira standing on the sober side of a plain bar, there were only two other people in the saloon when Ethan walked in. One was a stranger, sitting at a table near the back wall. The other was Tim Palmer, who owned the livery where Ethan had just stabled his animals. Palmer and Ira were standing hunched over the bar in private conversation, but Ira grinned a welcome when he saw Ethan.
“Well, hell, look what the wind blowed in!” the bartender hollered, voice rumbling down the bar like loose bricks.
Palmer’s expression didn’t change. He stepped back as Ethan approached, as if afraid of catching something contagious.
“Howdy, Ira . . . Tim,” Ethan greeted.
Pushing away from the bar, Palmer said: “We can finish this later.” He stepped wide around Ethan and walked to the door. Pausing there, staring at the street, he said: “Where’s your horse, Wilder?”
“I put my horse and a mule up in that back stall of yours. I left my money on your desk. Fifty cents, right?”
Palmer turned slowly, his mouth working as if trying to form words in a foreign language. Then he just shook his head and stalked out the door.
“What the hell’s he so prickly about?” Ethan asked.
“Aw, hell, Palmer was born with a burr up his ass. Ain’t nobody yet figured out how to pry it loose.”
“I’ve never seen him that way before.”
“I have,” Ira said dismissingly. Reaching under the bar, he brought out a quart of Kentucky bourbon. “Come on and have a snort of good stuff. It’s too damn’ quiet in here.”
Slowly, stung by Palmer’s reaction, Ethan leaned into the bar. “What’s everyone so touchy about?” he asked, then briefly related his experience with Davidson, before the storekeeper found out Ethan had been in the mountains trapping most of the summer.
Ira poured two glasses to the top, then corked the bottle and put it away. He stared at the slowly swirling liquor for a moment, then picked it up and took a long sip. Lowering the glass, he said: “Folks is uneasy lately. Been some killings down south nobody knows much about, but . . . well, I reckon it’s Joel that’s got Tim and Sam so riled up.”
“Joel? My Joel?”
“One and the same.”
Ethan chuckled. “Hell, Ira, Joel’s too lazy to rile anyone.” He waited a moment, smile fading. “What’s he done?”
“You know Lou Merrick . . . does handyman work around town?”
“I’ve seen him.” Ethan felt a heaviness in the pit of his stomach. He’d seen Merrick’s daughter, too, a solid girl of ample proportions, hair as blonde as corn silk, skin pale as a dawn sky. Suzie Merrick was pretty, for a fact, and sure to attract all the attention she wanted . . . .
“Maybe he didn’t do it,” Ira said philosophically, but then he shrugged and added: “Lou says he did, though. Says Joel’s been hanging ’round, talking bold and trying to get his little girl to walk out to the barn with him.”
“How old is Suzie Merrick?”
“I believe she’s sixteen.”
“Joel ain’t but eighteen.”
“I know, but he’s a Wilder, and . . . well, you know what folks think of your pa.”
Ethan’s lips thinned. “They thought pretty highly of him when they first came out here. If it wasn’t for Pa, half this town wouldn’t have survived their first winter.” His anger swelled. “It was Bar-Five beef that kept them from starving, Ira, and coal from that vein above the home place that kept them from freezing.”
“I’ve ate many a steak off of Bar-Five beef, Ethan, and was damn’ glad to get it, but folks ain’t so dependent on your family no more, and I’m thinkin’ it kind of grates on some of ’em that there was a time when they was.”
“Where’s Joel now?”
“I don’t rightly know. He rode out a couple days ago. Sheriff Burke went looking for him.”
Ethan scowled. “Why’s Jeff sticking his nose into it?”
“Hell, Ethan, I guess that’s what’s got folks so worked up. Now, I ain’t sayin’ he did it, mind you, but the night Joel rode outta here in a huff on account of Lou chasing him off, that gal, Suzie, come up with two black eyes and a whopper of a busted lip.”
“Bullshit, Ira. Joel never hit a woman in his life.”
“Joel’s a good kid, but he’s young and . . . well . . .” Ira shifted his weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “There’s them that’ll say all you Wilders are heavy-handed. Your daddy sure is, so it ain’t much of a stretch for ’em to think Joel’d be capable of roughing up a woman.”
Ethan’s grip tightened around his glass. He wanted to deny Ira’s accusation, but knew he couldn’t. Not after what he’d just left back at the Bar-Five—Ben on the run and his pa having to saw his way to freedom with a butter knife to escape a privy where he’d been trapped for nearly eighteen hours. The truth was, the citizens of Sundance had no idea how rough and woolly Jacob Wilder and his boys could get when they weren’t hemmed in by the niceties of civilization.
“Your pa’s got some hard edges on him, Ethan. He rubs a lot of folks the wrong way. I know you’re different, and maybe Joel is, too . . . .”
“No, we’re not so different,” Ethan said stonily. “It chaps me to remember how happy everyone was to see us that first winter, though. We gave those people those beeves, Ira.”
“I know you did. I was one of ’em, and I ain’t forgetting it. But a lot of these folks today wasn’t here back then. They don’t know how close a lot of us came to starving and freezing that year. And it saddens me to say, but some of them that were here want to act like it didn’t happen. Like they’re ashamed they had to take help from a man like . . . well, like your pa.” After a pause, he added: “On the other hand, I seen that little Merrick gal the other day, and she surely does look like a cross between a raccoon and a duck. Her eyes are black and her upper lip is swollen damn’ near past her nose. Someone hit her square in the face, Ethan, and Lou Merrick swears it was Joel.”
“Did anyone see Joel do it?”
“Nope, but he was seen riding off afterward. Whatever did happen took place in Merrick’s barn, where Suzie’d gone to meet your brother. Folks are whispering that maybe Joel wanted more than she was willing to give, she being a fair-to-middling Christian and all.” He studied Ethan closely. “You got any idea where he’s at?”
“Joel? Maybe.” Ethan was thinking of Gerard Turcotte’s cabin on the Marias, below the Bar-Five, but, before he could mention it, a chair scraped roughly across the wooden floor behind him, and Ira said—“Hell.”—under his breath.
Ethan turned to look. “Who’s that?”
“Calls himself Nolan Andrews, if you want to believe him. Drifted in here a few weeks ago from Colorado.”
“He’s a long way from home.”
“I’ve heard it whispered that he was sent for, although he ain’t mentioned as much to me. Passes himself off as a speculator in land and cattle, but he seems a mite too quick-tempered to be successful in such a position as that.”
Nolan Andrews was a solid man. Not fat, but short and heavy. Like a boulder. He was round-faced and dark-skinned, with a whisker-shadowed jaw and heavy black brows. He wore a dark suit with a string tie and a pleated white shirt, although both articles looked well worn and were powdered with trail dust. His eyes were hooded
, his pace lethargic. Leaning on the bar with one elbow, he looked Ethan up and down. “You Wilder?”
“No wilder than most,” Ira replied, then ducked his head and snickered. Ethan grinned but didn’t say anything.
With elaborate effort, Nolan seemed to pull himself together. He took his arm off the bar and stood straighter, and a hot-coal look came into his eyes. “You’re cocky for an old fart, bar dog. It could get you in trouble.”
Ira’s good humor vanished. “You want another beer, Andrews? Something to take back to your table with you?”
“What I want is a bottle of that good stuff I saw you hide under the bar.” He turned to Ethan. “And I asked you if your name was Ethan Wilder.”
Ethan turned back to Ira. “Joel wasn’t at the ranch when I passed through there this afternoon, but I’ve got an idea where he might have gone. I’ll swing past there tomorrow . . . .”
“Yeah, you’re a Wilder,” Nolan interrupted, voice raised. “You’re not as big as I expected, though. I’d heard you were twice the man your pa is, but, even as runty as that old blow-hard is, he’s not that short.”
A familiar warmth flowed up Ethan’s spine, exploding at the base of his skull. He glanced briefly at the revolver on Nolan’s hip, a nickel-plated Colt with pearl grips.
“Like it?” Nolan asked, sneering. He drew the revolver and held it up to the light. “Tuned by an expert. If you cocked it, you’d swear something inside was broken, it’s that slick.” He returned the piece smoothly to its holster, as much a show of proficiency as pride in the firearm itself. “Of course, you’re never going to touch it. This gun doesn’t leave my side. Ever.”
“Must make taking a crap an awkward exercise,” Ira remarked dryly.
A muscle twitched in Nolan’s cheek, but he kept his eyes on Ethan. “Fact is, Wilder, I’ve been waiting for you to get back. I’ve got some business to discuss with you.”
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