Chapter 15
Ben held the buckskin to a steady pace, one the sturdy gelding was capable of maintaining for hours without rest. His entire plan was dependent upon a great deal of luck, but there was very little choice available. Just as he would, he reckoned Cheney naturally veered off the road when he decided to make camp at night. None but a few of the stage swing stations served the passengers meals, so there was little reason for Cheney to stop overnight at one of these stations. The others changed the horses, and the coach moved on right away, allowing passengers time to get out and stretch while it was being done, but little else. So in the event that he overtook Cheney, he had to keep an eye on likely places to leave the trail to make camp. He would be more careful tomorrow in this regard, for he knew he was too far behind to be concerned at this point. Come sunup, he didn’t plan to be this far behind the ponytailed murderer, because he intended to ride on through the night until his horse demanded a rest. If Cheney wasn’t in as big a hurry as he, then he should be able to close the distance between them considerably.
His ride was made easier with the help of a full moon that lit the road ahead of him. He rode on through the night until he deemed it due time to rest the buckskin. The moon was dropping closer to the hills before him, and he decided that he needed some rest himself. So he left the road when he came to a narrow stream, and followed it up a ravine for about a hundred yards or so. There were no trees along the stream, but there were thickets of berry bushes that were thick enough to provide a screen for his fire, and plenty of grass for his horse. He pulled the saddle off and hobbled the horse, so it could graze while he built a fire and roasted a little venison to go with the coffee he always had to have. After he had satisfied his hunger, he brought his horse closer in and tied it to a bush while he got a couple of hours of sleep.
On his way again at sunup, he rode into a land of endless prairie, with the Black Hills still visible behind him. High grass and rocky defiles with no trees as far as he could see, it was a forbidding country. There was no place to hide, and throughout the morning he constantly scanned the horizon all around him, searching for some sign of another rider. He was alone, it seemed, no one else on the endless prairie but himself, and a seemingly never-ending wind that blew cold in his face. The possibility that Cheney had changed his mind about Cheyenne, and might even now be off in another direction, persisted in worrying him. It was then that he was startled by the sound of a rifle, somewhere in the distance, and he pulled the buckskin up to listen. There were no more shots, only the one, and as best he could determine, it came from the direction he was heading. Cheney? Maybe. One shot could mean he had killed an animal of some kind, an antelope possibly. There was also the distinct possibility that it was not Cheney, but an Indian instead. No matter which, Ben was bound to find out. His concern, however, was how to get close enough without being seen from a mile away, and he could see no possibility of that as he gazed out across the empty land. Too bad it was early in the day, instead of evening when he could use the cover of darkness. In the end, there was no decision to make. If he was going to honor his promise to Cleve, he had to overtake Cheney.
Congratulating himself for bringing down the antelope with a shot that had to have been at a distance of one hundred and fifty yards, maybe more, Cheney smiled in anticipation of some fresh roasted meat as he carved up his kill. As soon as he cut a few strips off the carcass, he secured them on a couple of branches from a large bush by the stream that meandered down through a grassy draw. After he placed the makeshift spits over the fire, he went to the stream to rinse the blood from his hands. He had had no intention of stopping this early in the day, but a man had to take the opportunity for fresh meat when it was presented. Already, he could smell the aroma of roasted meat, and the thought occurred to him, I wonder if there’s anyone around that might have heard that shot. Just to satisfy himself that he had not attracted a Sioux hunting party, he climbed up to a rocky table jutting up out of the north side of the draw and looked back over the way he had come. The wind sweeping across the prairie grass was the only living thing he could see as he sat there for a few minutes. Just about to return to tend the meat roasting on the fire, he suddenly caught movement out of the corner of his eye, and he jerked his head around to focus his gaze upon it. Antelope? Possibly, but he could tell now that it was a single object, and it would be unlikely there was just one antelope without some others close by, so he waited.
Closer now, he could see that it was a man on a horse, and apparently not an Indian, judging by the hat and what looked to be a stock saddle. “Well, well,” he chortled. “Looks like I’ve got company for breakfast.” He hurried back down to his horse and took his rifle and a pair of field glasses from his saddlebag, then scrambled back up to the rocks. His visitor looked to be about three hundred yards away at this point as he trained the field glasses on him. “Scar-faced son of a bitch!” he blurted involuntarily when he recognized the rider. His initial reaction was panic, but he quickly recovered when he realized that Ben was following the Cheyenne road, and might not even be trailing him. He quickly discarded that thought when he thought about Shorty and the others. The bastard’s after me! How the hell did he know I was heading to Cheyenne? That question disturbed him the most because it conjured eerie images of a man who seemed half demon. “I don’t care if he’s the devil himself,” he announced in an effort to bolster his determination. He told himself that the advantage was his. The menacing messenger that had killed his three partners could not know that he was waiting for him, so he could not be aware that he was riding into an ambush. “Come on, then,” Cheney urged. “I’ll be ready for you.” He looked around him, quickly evaluating his position, and decided right away that he was already in the best place to bushwhack the unsuspecting rider. If he continued on the same track, he would follow the road through a ravine that would put him some thirty feet below Cheney’s perch on the rocky table.
Watching Ben’s progress through the field glasses, Cheney planned to take no chances on letting him get away. He would hold his fire until the dreaded hunter was too close to miss. When his target advanced to within one hundred yards, he aimed his rifle at him, but did not pull the trigger as he trained the weapon along Ben’s path, waiting for him to ride down into the ravine. He picked a spot on the trail below, just beyond a stone ledge that would block his view for only a few seconds. He aimed his rifle at that spot and waited for Ben to reappear from behind the rocks. When the buckskin’s head appeared, he rested his finger on the trigger, poised to squeeze it, but held up suddenly when the horse came out of the ravine with an empty saddle. At once, his panic returned and he looked all around him frantically to see if he was about to be attacked. Seeing no one, he fled from his perch, scrambling down the side of the draw, too fast, for he stumbled and went head over heels to land at the bottom. He wasted no time to see if he was injured, but staggered to his feet and ran for his horse.
Ben made his way up toward the rocky ledge, half walking, half crawling at the steepest part near the top. Minutes before, when approaching the point where the road dipped through a ravine, he had suddenly been startled by a flash of light. Moments later, he had seen the same light again, but this time he was able to pinpoint the location, and realized that it was the sun’s reflection off a glass. And whoever was watching him through it looked to be in an ideal ambush position. He had noticed that there would be one point on the road where vision would be blocked by a huge outcropping of rock, and chances were that neither of them could see the other. When he reached it, he had slid off his horse and given it a slap on the rump, while he scurried along a gully that led up to a rock ledge. Upon reaching the top, he was in time to see a man running for his horse, a long yellow ponytail bouncing back and forth as he ran. Cheney! he thought, and got off one quick shot that caught the gunman in the leg, causing him to fall and his horse to bolt.
Caught in the open then, Cheney was lucky that Ben could not scramble over the rocky shelf in time
to take advantage of his vulnerability. In only seconds, Cheney managed to crawl to the stream and roll over behind the low bank with a couple of shots from Ben’s Winchester kicking up dirt beside him. In the next several minutes, a dozen or more shots were exchanged before both men realized they were wasting cartridges in a standoff. An empty lull settled over the ravine as both men considered their options, each wondering if it would be wise to dig in and wait for the other to make a move.
Lying flat behind the low cover of the stream bank, Cheney tried to determine how badly he was wounded, while still unable to understand how Ben knew he was there. It only added to the fear he held for the man with the horrible scar across his face. He couldn’t help thinking back to the ambush that took the lives of Bull and Shorty, and how the scar-faced demon seemed to rise out of the ashes of the burned-out house. Well, he won’t seem so damn scary when he shows himself from behind those rocks, he told himself in an effort to bolster his courage. The numbness that had seized his leg when he was first hit had now given way to a throbbing pain, and he could feel a pool of blood welling up in his trouser leg, causing a new fear that he might bleed to death. Lying flat to keep from exposing any part of him to the rifle fire from the outcropping at the upper edge of the ravine, he pulled a large bandanna from his coat pocket and tied it tightly around his leg, just above the knee. When the bandanna failed to stop the flow of blood completely, he began to panic, and thoughts of bravado gave way to cold fear and the urgency to run for his life.
Rolling over on his stomach, he started to crawl as best he could toward a thicket of bullberry bushes that hung over the edge of the stream, thinking that if he reached them, they might afford enough cover for him to stand up and look to see where his horse had fled to. He cursed himself for not tying the animal by the stream, as he pulled himself laboriously along the rocky streambed, leaving a trail of red water behind him. It occurred to him that there had been no shots from the rocks for some time. Encouraged by this, for he pictured his adversary lying behind the outcropping, keeping his head down, he kept struggling until at last he gained the clump of bushes.
With the thick bushes between him and the point from where Ben’s rifle fire had come, Cheney slowly raised himself high enough to expose his head and shoulders over the bank of the stream. When there was still no fire from the mound of rocks, he got to his feet. He was acutely aware of a trickle of blood as the pool that had welled up in his trousers emptied to run into his boot. Carefully pulling a few of the branches apart, he peered through at the rocks on the side of the ravine. There was no sign of anyone. He’s keeping his head down, he thought, further encouraged by the lack of any shots in his direction after leaving the stream. Shifting his gaze a little, he spotted his horse, patiently grazing on the top of a low ridge approximately fifty yards distant. I can make that before the bastard finds out I’m not pinned down behind the bank anymore, he thought. Concealing himself as long as possible, he inched his way along the bushes to the end of the thicket. Then he worked his way around it, to stop dead in his tracks when he came face-to-face with the scar-faced executioner, his rifle held ready to fire and aimed at his belly. Panic-stricken, he froze, unable to react.
“I’ve got a message for you from Cleve Goganis,” the grim avenger said calmly. “He’s waitin’ for you in hell.”
Cheney finally made a move. Almost paralyzed by what he knew was sudden death, he tried to raise his rifle, but was cut down before he could bring it past knee-high. He slumped to the ground, dead, but to be absolutely certain, Ben pumped three more rounds into the body before turning away. “That’s the last of’em, Cleve,” he said, and took the piece of cardboard from his pocket and crossed out Cheney’s name. He tore it up then, symbolically putting an end to his passion for vengeance. As he watched the pieces flutter to the ground, scattered by the cold wind, he suddenly felt very tired.
He had taken a hell of a chance, guessing that Cheney was crawling along the streambed, and would be unable to see him run across a two-hundred-yard clearing to cut him off. At the time, he didn’t pause to consider the certain consequences if he had guessed wrong. He just wanted it over and done with. He stood there, looking down at the corpse with the long sandy ponytail for a few minutes more before relieving it of its rifle and gun belt, and suddenly he realized there was nothing left to drive him on. Cleve was gone. Mary, Victoria, and the boy were settled for the time being with Malcolm. Maybe he could be of some help to them, but he didn’t suppose they really welcomed it, since he was a wanted criminal. I guess I’ll decide what I’m gonna do after I’ve thought about it some. Then, with the extra gun belt over his shoulder, and a rifle in each hand, he went in search of the buckskin. Coming from behind the thicket of berry bushes, he was startled to find his horse standing there, with the barrel of a Winchester lying across the saddle, looking at him.
“Lookin’ for your horse?” Ike Gibbs asked. When Ben dropped Cheney’s rifle and started to react, Ike warned him. “Don’t even think about it. I’ll cut you down before you can cock it, and I know you ain’t cocked it after your last shot. I pay attention to things like that. Besides, you’d just shoot your horse full of holes. So drop that other rifle and let that gun belt slide off to the ground.” Ben realized that he had no choice; the man had been smart enough to use the buckskin for cover, so he did as he was told, still wondering what the man’s intentions were. He should have guessed.
“My name’s Gibbs,” Ike went on. “I’m a U.S. deputy marshal. That marshal you killed was my partner, so if you don’t wanna get shot in the head, you’d best behave yourself and do like I tell you.”
“I didn’t kill your partner,” Ben stated unemotionally.
“Well, now, all I’ve got is your word on that. Ain’t that right? And, Mr. Ben Cutler, with the string of men you’ve killed, there won’t be nothin’ left but women in the territory if you ain’t stopped. And that’s what I’m here for. So let me tell you what the plan is. I’m intendin’ to take you back to Deadwood right now, since the sheriff there was the one that telegraphed for help in catchin’ you. We’ll see if we can’t get the straight on what happened there with them three men you shot.” He shook his head as if perplexed. “I swear, Mr. Ben Cutler, you have been one busy son of a bitch. Maybe you can start by tellin’ me who this poor jasper is you just shot back there in the bushes.”
Ben didn’t answer at once, still in a state of indecision over whether he gave a damn about being in the hands of the law again. He considered the lanky deputy waiting patiently for an answer to his question, his eyes showing no evidence of fear or even excitement as he held his rifle trained on him. Ben decided at that moment that Ike wouldn’t hesitate to cut him down at the slightest provocation. “His name’s Sam Cheney,” Ben finally answered. “Since you seem to have watched the whole thing, maybe you noticed that he was hid back there, fixin’ to bushwhack me.”
“Is that so?” Ike responded. “Now, why do you suppose he’da wanted to do that?”
” ’Cause he knew I was comin’ to get him for killin’ two friends of mine,” Ben replied honestly.
“Who might that be?” Ike asked.
“Cleve Goganis and Jonah Marple,” Ben answered. His gaze shifted briefly to the weapons lying at his feet.
“Best you forget about those guns,” Ike warned him. “My orders are to bring you in, dead or alive. Don’t make much difference to me which way you choose, but I’m kinda interested in hearin’ your side of the story—a helluva long story at that, with a string of dead people left behind. Then if you’re still feelin’ lucky, you can make your move after we’re done talkin’, and I’ll shoot your ass and tell ever’body ’bout how you nearly got the jump on me.” Ben almost had to smile.
“All right,” Ben said, “here’s my side of it. That piece of of shit over there, and his three partners, shot my friends, Cleve Goganis, and Jonah Marple, set Jonah’s house on fire, and threw their bodies in the middle of it.”
“Why would t
hey wanna do that?”
“They were paid to do it by Garth Beaudry,” Ben replied. “But I ain’t got no proof about that part of it, just what a lady overheard ’em talkin’ about.”
“How do you know it was those four that actually did it?”
“Eyewitness saw ’em when they done it.”
Ike studied the scarred face intently as Ben stated his case in simple phrases, with no embellishment and no evasion. Ike was convinced that these were the facts as Ben believed them to be. He had to remind himself that his prisoner was a one-man death squad—judge and jury—and one might be inclined to forgive him for the executions of all of them, except one. And that one was the bone that was sticking in Ike’s craw, deputy marshal Graham Barrett. “How’d you happen to get the drop on Barrett?” he suddenly asked.
“I didn’t kill Barrett,” was Ben’s sober reply.
“Graham Barrett was the best in the marshal service,“ Ike pressed, hoping to trip Ben on his own ego. “It’d be a helluva good man to get the drop on Barrett.”
“I didn’t kill Barrett. Sioux Injuns got him, northwest of Ogallala, near the Niobrara River,” Ben said, again without emotion.
Ike shook his head, perplexed by Ben’s somber responses. “To hear you tell it, you’ve just been ridin’ the territory and punishin’ them that needs punishin’.”
Ben thought for a brief second before replying, “That’s about the size of it.”
Left Hand of the Law Page 22