Left Hand of the Law

by Charles G. West

  “From what Lieutenant Shufeldt tells me, you owe him a lot,” Chambers said.

  “I reckon I do,” Ike said. “Maybe I can figure out some way to pay him back.”

  It was the first real snow of the season, about four inches, and it was not even really winter yet. Oblivious of the snow, Ben knelt in the pines that formed a thick belt around the mountain, watching a small gathering of deer as they made their way down the slope toward the stream below. Having already selected a young doe as his target, he patiently waited for the deer to emerge from the thick pines before taking the shot. Cartridges were precious and he did not intend to spend more than one for his kill. Many random thoughts crossed his mind while he waited. He was glad to have finished his hut before the current snowfall, and he was confident that it would serve him well throughout the coming winter. Thoughts of Victoria often found their way into his musings, and he was reminded of a promise he had made to Malcolm Bryant that he would supply him with fresh meat from time to time. It was the night he had left Malcolm’s house to go after Sam Cheney’s gang of murderers. I didn’t get much chance to go hunting, he thought. Maybe I could take them some fresh venison now. I expect they’d be glad to get it.

  He had to admit to himself that it had been difficult to stay away from Deadwood during these last few weeks since he had left Ike Gibbs in the hospital. It would have been foolhardy to chance being seen in Deadwood, since he had escaped Ike’s custody. On several occasions he had ridden in close to the gulch, just to see if the town was totally dead because of the damage the fire had done. He had been surprised to see the determination of the people to rebuild the town, with new construction already well under way. I ought to check on Victoria and her mother, and Caleb, he told himself, still trying to convince himself that the only reason was to see if they needed help in case they found it necessary to leave Malcolm’s house to find a place of their own. They had no source of income that he knew of. I’d best see if they’re all right. The decision made, he raised his rifle and dropped the unsuspecting deer. Then I’ll settle with Garth Beaudry.

  It was late afternoon when he guided the buckskin up the street carved into the hillside overlooking Deadwood Gulch, unable to ignore the excitement he felt from the prospect of seeing Victoria again. He reminded himself that he had told Malcolm he’d be back to get Barrett’s horse, so there was reason enough for his visit. His thoughts were interrupted when he approached Malcolm’s house, for there were a couple of buggies and several horses gathered in the front yard. Undecided then as to whether or not he should continue, he pulled his horse to a halt while he thought it over. In a few seconds, a man came out of the house, climbed aboard his horse, and proceeded down the hill toward Ben. Ben guided his horse to the side to give the man approaching room to pass.

  “Howdy, neighbor,” Ben called out when the man was beside him, trying to sound as cordial as he could and knowing he would get the usual startled look in return.

  “Howdy,” the man returned, his face reflecting the shocked expression Ben had anticipated.

  “What’s the trouble up at Malcolm’s house?” Ben asked.

  “No trouble, at least not yet,” the man replied. “They’re having a wedding.”

  “A weddin’?”

  “Yep, a wedding,” he replied. “There was bound to be one before much longer, as scarce as women are around here.” He chuckled at his remark. “Well, I’ve got to get back to my store. If you hurry up, you might get there before the food’s all eaten up”

  Ben sat stunned for a few minutes after the man rode away. He had been telling himself all along that she would most likely marry, but now that it had happened, it struck him like a blow from a hammer. She had always complained about her lack of beauty, but Ben knew that all women in Deadwood were beautiful, no matter how plain they were. I wish her well, he thought, and turned his horse around. Victoria, her mother, and Caleb were obviously doing well and were in no need of his help.

  He started back down the hill, nudging the buckskin into a lope, then drew back on the reins. “They’re friends of mine,” he announced. “I at least oughta wish’em the best of luck.” Turning his horse again, he rode on up to the yard and dismounted, where he again had second thoughts about proceeding. The house looked to be full of guests, and he wondered if he should risk an appearance. He didn’t want to spoil Victoria’s big day. In the anguish caused by the unexpected wedding, the venison he carried had been forgotten. Remembering then, he considered staying long enough to contribute that to the party. Then he could pick up Garrett’s horse and be out of everyone’s way. Crestfallen, he changed his mind again. “I’ve got no business here.” He stepped up in the saddle and turned the buckskin back toward the street.

  “Ben?”

  The voice came from behind him and he recognized it at once. He turned to see Victoria coming down the porch steps. “I thought that was you. Where are you going? Aren’t you coming in?”

  “I didn’t wanna spoil the weddin’,” he explained.

  “Nonsense,” she said. “You’re not going to spoil anything. I’m so glad to see you. We were worried about you. We didn’t know if you were all right or not. But I can see that you are, so we can all quit worrying now.”

  “Well, I won’t stay,” he said. “I don’t wanna keep you from your guests. I just wanted to wish you the best of luck. You deserve it.”

  “Why, thank you. I appreciate that,” she said, while favoring him with a look of astonishment. Then it occurred to her. “Ben, I’m not getting married. Mama and Malcolm are.” She watched in amazement to see the transformation that took place in the scarred face. Smiling then at the message she read there, she said, “I planned some time ago that I was going to marry you, whenever you got over that scar on your face and got around to asking me. I think it would be the best thing for both of us. And Caleb practically worships you, so what do you think?”

  “I think I must be dreamin’,” he sputtered. “I mean, yes, hell yes.” Then he remembered the job that he had resigned himself to do, and he wasn’t sure if Victoria was even aware of the role her husband had played in the murders of her father and Cleve. “There’s some unfinished business with Garth Beaudry that has to be done.”

  Again she looked puzzled. “Well, it’s too late to do anything about Garth,” she said. “Garth’s dead. He was shot by a young man who worked for him.”

  It was the second time he had been stunned in the last few minutes. “Then I reckon there ain’t nothin’ else to attend to.”

  “Are you going to get down off that horse so I can hug you?” she asked. There was no necessity to repeat the question. “You know, the parson’s still inside.”

  Read on for an excerpt from the

  next thrilling historical novel

  by Charles G. West,

  OUTLAW PASS

  Available from Signet in October 2011.

  “Mose said you were lookin’ for me,” Adam Blaine said when he met his father coming from the barn. “If you’re still worryin’ about those missin’ cows over on the north range, I found ’em this mornin’ holed up in a ravine near the creek.”

  “No,” Nathan Blaine replied. “I figured you’d find’em. I knew they wouldn’t be far. Mose always blames the Indians when we’ve got cattle missin’. I keep tellin’ him that if there’s one or two missin’, then it might be hungry Injuns cuttin’ out some of the stock—but not when we’re talkin’ about twenty or thirty at a time.”

  Adam smiled, picturing the worried face of the old Indian scout. Mose Stebbins had come to work for Adam’s father when his eyesight began to fail him and he no longer trusted himself to lead a cavalry scouting party. The old man had gone on many a hunting trip with Adam in the mountains to the north and the Absarokas to the south. Now his eyes were no longer sharp enough to be accurate on shots of any distance. Never one to admit to this weakness, he always tended to give Adam the longer shot, saying the young man needed the practice.

  “I co
unted thirty-two head,” Adam said, “all bunched up together.”

  “I figured,” his father repeated. “That ain’t why I sent Mose to find you, though.” He waited for Adam to step down from the saddle. “I think it’s time you went to look for your brother.”

  “Yessir,” Adam replied without emotion. Jake, three years his junior, had been away from home for more than a year. That in itself was not cause for concern for Adam and his father. Jake had sent a message that he was planning to leave Bannack and head for home that very day. Now, two weeks later, Jake had failed to show up from what should have been a five-day ride at most. There was no concern on his father’s part for the first week. Jake was always his free-spirited son, prone to drift with the wind, and Nathan was not surprised when he didn’t show when he was supposed to. Never content to work at raising cattle, Jake had hurried off to join the horde of other dreamers when news of a major gold discovery in Bannack reached their little settlement on the Yellowstone. Adam had to smile when he remembered Jake’s promise on the day he left: “I’ll find enough gold to buy all the stock we need to make the Triple-B the biggest cattle spread in the Gallatin Valley.”

  His father had responded with the statement that the Triple-B was already the biggest. “But if you have to chase your tail in a circle around Bannack, go to hell on. When you run outta grub, come on home.”

  Nathan’s claim was not an exaggeration. The Triple-B was the largest, because it was the only cattle ranch in the valley. He had built it up from its simple start as a small herd he had driven up from his home in Briscoe County, Texas. The old man was now fully aware that his was a situation that was bound to change soon. More and more settlers were showing up on the trail that led from Fort Laramie to the gold strikes in Bannack and the more recent one in Virginia City. These were not the folks that worried Nathan; they were just passing through. It was the people looking for space to build new homes that concerned him, and the fertile land of the Gallatin Valley was a strong attraction to many of these farm families. Nathan knew the fences would come, and his free range would shrink with each new arrival. John Bozeman, along with Daniel Rouse and William Beall, was already rumored to be thinking about laying out a town. For now, there was room for everybody, but how long would that be the case? These were the issues Nathan would deal with in the not-too-distant future. His concern on this day, however, was for his son and what trouble he might have gotten himself into in the mining camps.

  In sharp contrast to Jake, Adam was as steady as a granite cliff. Taller by a couple of inches and with a powerful frame, Adam was truly Jake’s big brother, and Nathan was confident that his elder son would ensure the continued success of his ranch long after he was gone. Adam had been getting his younger brother out of scrapes since they were boys, so it was not unusual that Nathan was sending him to find Jake once again.

  It was all the same to Adam. Unlike his brother, he never crowded his mind with thoughts of places he had not been. To him, life was what you made it, with whatever tools or weapons were at your disposal. He didn’t fault Jake for being a dreamer. That was just the way Jake was. In fact, Adam sometimes envied his younger brother’s longing to see the valley beyond the next mountain or to follow the river to its beginning. Jake often teased his brother about his emotionless approach to each new day and the work that was waiting to be done. But he knew and appreciated the fact that the rock that was Adam was always there to lean on. Mose said Adam was soulful, born without a funny bone, but Nathan suspected his son’s serious approach to just about everything was due to his mother’s early death and the subsequent burden that had fallen upon him to look after his younger brother while doing a man’s share of the ranch work. It was Adam who had convinced his father to let Jake follow the prospectors to the gold fields. “He’ll get it out of his system pretty quick,” Adam had predicted, “when he finds out all his hard work won’t result in much more than a little grub money.” As it turned out, however, Jake had evidently stuck with it longer than Adam had figured. And according to the message he sent, he was coming home with a little more than “grub money.” Adam wasn’t surprised in one respect, knowing how important it was to Jake to prove that he was his own man and was not dependent upon his father or Adam to make his mark. Still, it was hard to picture Jake with a pick or shovel in his hand. No matter what he did, though, Jake was always going to be Jake—wild, sometimes to the extent of recklessness—and that was more than likely the reason for his failure to arrive when he said he would. Maybe he had encountered a saloon along the way that had tempted him to risk some of his fortune on cards and women. It wouldn’t be the first time. I wouldn’t be surprised, Adam thought. Well, I’ll go see if I can find him.

  “I figured you’d be ridin’ Bucky,” Nathan Blaine remarked when he walked into the barn, where Adam was securing his saddlebags on a red roan named Brownie. Bucky was Adam’s favorite horse and almost always his first choice when considering a ride of any length.

  In response to his father’s comment, Adam turned to gaze at the big bay gelding in the corral. “I decided it’d be best to let Bucky rest for a few days,” he said. “He’s tryin’ to get a split hoof on his left front, and I’m hopin’ it’ll heal on its own, given a little time. Tell Mose and Doc not to work him till I get back.”

  “I will,” Nathan responded. “Here,” he said, and handed Adam a roll of bills. “You might need some extra money in case you have to bail your brother out of jail or somethin’.” Then he gave him a small pouch. “There’s three gold double eagles in here. That ain’t but sixty dollars, but you might need it in case they won’t take any paper money in that damn place.” Adam nodded, took the money, and put it away in one of his saddlebags. Nathan stepped back while his son climbed up in the saddle. “You be careful, Adam.”

  “I will, Pa,” Adam said, and slid his Henry rifle into the saddle scabbard. With no further words of parting than this, Adam wheeled the roan and set him on a southwest course toward the Yellowstone. His father spun on his heel and returned to the house, confident that Adam would find his brother. Passing the back corner of the corral, Adam saw Mose and Doc replacing a broken rail. He pulled up when he was hailed by Mose, who walked out to meet him.

  “Boy,” Mose addressed him—he always called him “boy.” Adam figured the old man would always think of him and Jake as the two scrappy little fellows in their childhood. “You be damn careful, you hear? There’s a lot of wild, godless outlaws preyin’ on the hardworkin’ folks around them diggin’s. You mind your back.”

  “I will, Mose. I’ll find Jake and be back here before you know I’m gone.”

  Mose remained there for several minutes, hands on hips, watching Adam until he turned Brownie toward the river. Of Nathan Blaine’s two sons, he admitted to himself that Adam was his favorite. Maybe it was because Adam had always been interested in learning everything Mose had offered to teach him, whether it was stalking and killing an elk or knowing a horse’s mind. Unlike Jake, who openly flaunted his self-reliance, Adam seemed secure in a quiet confidence that he was prepared to handle whatever confronted him. In spite of their differences, Mose had to concede that the two brothers were close. He attributed that to Adam’s maturity and the fact that he had more or less watched over his younger brother since their mother died. His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Nathan Blaine calling for him from the house. I don’t know how long this place would survive without me to take care of everything, he thought as he turned and started toward the back door of the house.

  Adam arrived at the bank of the Madison River at the end of the second day’s travel, his first day having been shortened considerably by his late departure from the Triple-B. He made his camp a hundred yards up a stream that emptied into the river, where the light from his fire might not be noticed by anyone passing by. After an uneventful night, he was out of his blanket at first light and saddling the roan, preparing to ride for ten or twelve miles along the river before stopping to rest his horse a
nd have his breakfast. Following an already well-traveled road, the roan maintained a steady pace, so much so that Adam decided to push on until Brownie showed signs of getting tired. Consequently, it was close to noon when he decided that the horse had earned a good rest.

  While he sat by his small fire, drinking a cup of coffee and gnawing on a strip of jerky, he watched idly as the red roan nosed around in a patch of green lilies at the water’s edge. There had never been any reason for him to travel to Alder Gulch, so all he knew about Virginia City, Nevada City, and the other towns along that gulch was what he had heard—that they were wide-open and lawless towns with thousands of new people streaming in every day. Based on these stories, he had halfway expected to meet other travelers on the road along the Madison, but so far, he was the only traffic. Back in the saddle, he continued his journey.

  Leaving the river, he followed the road up into the hills for another nine or ten miles before sundown once again called for him to make camp. Virginia City couldn’t have been more than another half day’s ride, he figured, and Bannack was supposed to be about sixty miles beyond Virginia City. And although Jake was supposed to be in Bannack, Adam planned to start looking for his brother in the saloons and bawdy houses in Alder Gulch and Daylight Gulch before moving on to Bannack. If he was lucky, he might find him holed up there, delayed by a run of luck at the poker table or a “fancy lady” who happened to catch his eye. He shook his head and sighed, much like a harried parent thinking about a rambunctious child, as he guided the roan toward a stand of cottonwood trees that suggested the presence of some form of water. Sure enough, he found a small stream cutting a shallow gully between the trees. In short order, he had his horse taken care of and a fire glowing cheerfully. With his coffeepot bubbling on the edge of the fire, he broke out his frying pan and started to prepare some more of the jerky he had brought. It was then he noticed the ears perking up on the roan grazing nearby, followed a few seconds later by an inquisitive nicker. Knowing it could have been a mountain lion or a bear out in the darkness that had caused the horse to inquire, he nevertheless casually rolled away from the firelight, drawing his rifle from the saddle behind him.