by Caleb Rand
‘Goddamn it,’ he said as a sudden thought struck him. ‘Out of the way,’ he warned the hound as he moved forward. He pointed the barrel of the carbine down at the man’s head. ‘You ain’t related to that railroad tinhorn who tried to stiff me, are you? That’s the only trouble I been in lately.’ But Will knew he wasn’t, that he was stone dead.
Near the man’s outflung hand, he saw the glint of a Colt. Pushing the tip of his gun barrel hard into the side of the man’s face, he prodded with his toe. He rolled the body, upturned the face to the gently swirling snowflakes. ‘Jesus, he ain’t much beyond majority.’ Will looked hard at the man’s gunbelt. ‘An’ he ain’t ever made a dollar from the saddle,’ he suggested.
Will lifted the body and heaved it up and over the claybank’s saddle. Then he picked the man’s Colt from the snow. ‘A Remington, but this ain’t a brand I know,’ he said, slapping the horse’s flank gently. ‘Reckon it’ll go back to where it gets fed. That’s where I’ll find it.’ He stood back and watched the horse move off down the trail, the bulk of the dead man draped across the saddle.
There was moonlight now, and Will stepped up to the point of the ridge. He pulled the collar of his coat tight around his neck and peered through the falling snow. The door to his cabin was open and a wedge of thin yellow light fell across the front of his corral. There was still some distance between them, but he thought he recognized a paint mare. It was sniffing the air, pawing the slush, watchful and impatient.
‘Who the hell rides you?’ he wondered moodily.
As a town, Polson wasn’t much of a size or style. There was a hotch-potch of single and double-storey dwellings that faced each other across a broad street, a livestock pen, livery stable and two or three stores. It supported one lodging house and two saloons. One had a sign that said nothing more than, Beers and Spirits. The other was called Sentence Hotel, because the owner sometimes pitched a drunk customer into a sleeping shed that ran along the back.
It was just short of midday when Will rode in. He tied his mule at the hitching rack and stepped up to where a wide door had replaced the batwings. Rio had a look about and decided not to go in.
Two of the men at the bar were strangers, the third was Circuit Sheriff Abe Dancer. The fourth was called Buckham Sendaro, a fur trapper from the Missions.
‘Didn’t figure on seen’ you around this late in the year, Will,’ Abe Dancer said.
‘Sorry to disappoint you, Sheriff.’ Will wasn’t going to say any more. Since he’d last spoken to Dancer, he’d killed two men. So talking trouble didn’t seem the thing to do. Besides, Sheriff Dancer was doing his own thinking. As far as he was concerned, Polson was the end of the line in more ways than one. He was married now and father of a little boy, and he wanted no trouble. But he couldn’t help but wonder what had brought Will Stryker down from the hills.
‘Mail wagon’s about due,’ he commented, still wondering.
Will grinned. ‘Nothin’ much changes around here, does it?’ he said jokily.
There was a curious, dark silence for a few minutes, until a raised voice issued from the street.
‘We got a passenger, Sheriff.’
Sendaro moved over to the door and looked through the snow-frosted glass. ‘Yep,’ he said. ‘There’s a passenger out there all right. Don’t look like he’s goin’ any further.’
Everyone moved to see the day’s interest. But Will refilled his glass.
Sendaro glanced at him. ‘You ain’t the enquirin’ sort, are you, Will?’ he said.
‘I’ve seen dead men. Most of ’em have been fairly cold.’ Will swallowed his drink and turned towards the opened door. The two strangers came in carrying a body between them. They looked around, then uncaringly laid it out on the floor. Abe Dancer returned with a man who was obviously the wagon driver.
‘About seven, maybe eight miles out,’ he was saying. ‘I come round a bend and there was this sodden claybank totin’ the stiff. I figured it was headed this way … somethin’ for you, Sheriff.’
Dancer stared disagreeably at the dead man. Why didn’t they let the goddamn horse keep going? he thought. ‘Anybody know him?’ he asked, but the heavy silence returned. Sendaro glanced quizzically at Will, and Dancer noticed it.
‘He’s been shot up some,’ the driver said. ‘I’d say from early last night.’
At Dancer’s sharp glance, the man flushed up a little. ‘I used to drive an ambulance for the infirmary at Billings,’ he said. ‘I can always tell you, how long.’
‘Hmm. In this weather, the horse probably hadn’t come that far,’ Dancer said.
Will had a guess at what the sheriff was thinking. He knew there weren’t too many places the dead man could have come from; not if his horse had joined the wagon road west of Polson.
‘Well, he weren’t backshot,’ Will remarked dispassionately.
‘That ain’t surprisin’,’ Sendaro said. ‘This boy’s Slender Madge, an’ he don’t make his livin’ pullin’ meat from traps.’
‘So that’s Slender Madge, is it?’ Dancer said. ‘I wonder what he’s doin’ in these parts. He’s a young gunny an’ wanted for murder.’
Will swore under his breath. He was right about the man who attempted to kill him not being a ranch worker. ‘Yeah, can happen to the best of us,’ he murmured and looked to Sendaro.
‘Who do them animals belong to outside? That knob-head yours, Will?’ the trapper asked as if to break Dancer’s train of thought.
‘Yeah, an’ the red tick. Just be careful what you say about him. I stopped just short o’ killin’ the last man who upset him.’
Sendaro raised an eyebrow. ‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ he said appreciatively.
‘I wonder who this owl was workin’ for?’ Will said, trying to hide the anticipation.
‘If he used the stable, old Caddo might be able to tell us who’s payin’ the bill,’ Dancer said.
The sheriff knew that even if he discovered something from the livery man, he’d more than likely keep quiet about it. It was part of the non-involvement pact he’d made with himself.
Will knew it too, knew he’d have to go and speak to the old man himself.
9
SECOND ENCOUNTER
A drafty, not so long-standing structure lay at one end of Polson’s broad street. Outside, a lantern hung over a barely legible sign that designated it the livery stable. In front was a windowless little room in which a stove glowed cherry-red.
‘Hay’s for the takin’ an’ there’s grain if you’ve a mind. But that’ll be four bits extra,’ a voice crackled out of the gloom.
‘That’s a price to pay,’ Will offered in return.
‘Take it or leave it, mister. But you so much as stick a finger in my corn bin without payin’ an’ I got somethin’ here that’ll open your belly from the back.’
‘I got me a mule outside … dog, too. If you give me what I want, an’ tend to ’em, I won’t burn this place down around you. You hear me, you decrepit old goat?’
‘I hear. Is that you, Will Stryker?’ Caddo demanded.
‘Yeah, it’s me. Out o’ season, I know, but it’s me.’
‘You should’ve said straight off,’ Caddo said. He appeared swathed in a fur robe, under a felt hat had a scarf wrapped tight around his ears. He lowered the barrel of his scattergun and screwed up his face. ‘What is it you’re after?’ he asked, not missing Will’s bespoke sidearm.
‘I want to know about a group o’ men. One of ’em was no more’n a kid. He carried a leg-strapped .44 Remington an’ rode a claybank. Gunfighter, some say. You remember ’em?’
‘Yep, I remember ’em. They rode in a couple o’ days ago. One of ’em weren’t goin’ to pay for grain. He was a mean son-of-a bitch.’
‘Ridin’ a paint was he, this mean son-of-a-bitch?’ Will asked.
‘Yep, an’ he took my piggin’ buckboard. Gave me a dollar for the use of. Can’t think of what for. It’s tied up back o’ the lodgin’.’
‘Than
ks, Caddo,’ Will said. ‘How much you charge for lettin’ me sleep in the lean-to?’
‘Hee, hee. I should be payin’ you to go in there.’
Will smiled. ‘Why, ain’t it got a cot?’
‘It ain’t hardly got a roof, but you’re welcome,’ the old livery man guffawed.
After seeing that his mule was tended to, Will got himself an icy sluice from the trough. Then he thought he’d get some hot food at the hotel, maybe wheedle some meat for Rio. If he got lucky, he’d be killing three birds with one stone.
There were few sidewalks in Polson and Will trod the drifting snow between the scattered buildings. He didn’t go straight to the hotel, thought he’d bend around, get a look at Caddo’s buckboard.
Maybe it was luck, maybe something else, but as he got close, the back door of the lodging house opened. A slight figure came out and looked across the town, turned towards Will as he approached. His mouth worked silently and then he gulped. He was taken by surprise and fixed for something to say.
On the slight rise of the steps, Linny Jule was caught the same way. But she was more ready, was the first to overcome it. ‘Will,’ she said, uncomfortable surprise edging the pleasure. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘This is my home town. Well, the town that’s nearest my home. It’s where the trouble is,’ he added, foreseeing a smile from Linny. ‘There’s a passel o’ jayhawkers staked out at my ranch. I don’t know what it is they want, but I’m catchin’ up with ’em. They’ve been stabled here in town.’ Will shrugged and irritatedly pulled the skin cap from his head. ‘Still, that ain’t nothin’ to do with you, Linny,’ he said. ‘Anyways, I thought it was Kalispell you were headed for. You still runnin’?’
Linny knew there was no sense in stalling, putting together a story. ‘Yes, I am still running, Will. And all this is to do with me,’ she said.
‘How’d you mean?’ Will asked, with a quizzical shake of his head.
‘It’s my pa, that’s up at your ranch,’ she said, discomfited but direct. ‘I thought the place belonged to a horse scout. I didn’t know what was going on, until I saw something with your name on it.’
Will took a step forward, his face now chewed with deep confusion. ‘Your pa … you didn’t know … what the hell?’ he hemmed and hawed.
A bloodless mark showed along Linny’s bottom lip, where she’d bit hard. ‘Please believe me, Will. It was Ashley Cameron. He told Pa of you and me at the cabin in the Flatheads,’ she said. ‘He made heaps of it … thinks that you took something that was his … something that belonged to him.’
‘Sorry, Linny, but your pa must be some backward son-of-a-bitch. You ain’t one of his chattels.’
Linny gave a feeble smile. ‘I tried to reason with him,’ she said. ‘I told him the truth … what really happened, but he didn’t believe me. He won’t see any sense. Now he wants to take away from you … take something that’s yours.’
‘You told him my name an’ he followed me all the way here for that?’
‘No.’ Linny shook her head sadly. ‘He followed me to Kalispell, because I’m his daughter. You were the excuse. He always thought that possessions were cheap … there for the taking. Lives too, sometimes.’
‘Well, my piece o’ land an’ my house might be cheap, but they certainly ain’t there for the takin’. It’s my home,’ Will assured her, bluntly.
‘What are you going to do?’ she asked, slow and fearful.
Will took a moment to answer. ‘Don’t know yet,’ he said. ‘But gettin’ back what’s mine seems reasonable.’
‘I can try again. Make him listen to sense. I’ll have to stand by him. For a while anyway.’
‘If he’s aimin’ to stay on my land, it won’t make sense to stand in front of him,’ Will said with explicable anger.
Linny’s dread increased. ‘He brought some men with him. They’ll be there,’ she said.
‘Not quite all of ’em. Your pa sent out a welcomin’ party. He needs their help to get you back to Snowshoe, does he?’
‘No. They’re mustang runners. He would have found wild horses and herded them back. He saddle-breaks them for the RCMP.’
‘Yeah, I remember, you told me,’ Will said, with a bleak smile. ‘So if you stay, his sojourn won’t be a total waste o’ time.’
‘It’s how he sees it. It’s another reason for what he’s done.’
‘Give me credit for not understandin’, Linny, but right now, your pa an’ his men have got their boots under my table. So reason don’t figure with me.’
‘Promise me you’ll go talk to him, before you start shooting.’
‘Well it ain’t goin’ to be a duel, Linny. For someone so off beam … so pig-headed, he ain’t goin’ to be easy to talk to. But I’ll try. By the way,’ he added, ‘there’s a paint mare in my corral that I think I’ve seen before. You know it?’
Linny was taken aback. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I think I do. She wasn’t saddle broke when I last saw her, though. I guess Pa must have thrown more than a loop at her.’
Will looked outraged as he considered what Linny was saying. ‘Has he raised a hand to you again?’ he asked.
‘No. For a while, he’ll be content with just getting me back.’
‘You takin’ the buggy out there?’
‘Yes, I just told you. Circling the timber, it’s two hours ride. I want to be there before dark.’
‘I know how far it is, Linny,’ Will retorted, his voice short and sour. ‘You tell your pa that this time I ain’t turnin’ around. Not on my own land. Tell him he’ll have to find someone better’n Slender Madge. He’ll understand.’
10
PURSUED
Up on the snow-swept ridge, Will had waited until Larris Jule’s henchmen had ridden from his ranch before he made a move. He was hoping that Linny would have a serious go at negotiating on his behalf. Tell her pa that he’d got it wrong, that Will Stryker was a gentleman, and that he should have his cabin and land back.
And an apology would be fine, Will thought scornfully. He swore and heeled the mule forward, told Rio to leave the pretty, winter-coated rabbits alone. He approached his cabin from the east, through a deep scoop under the trees, where he was screened by the drifting snow. The hound stayed off, keeping to the higher ground where the footing was more firm.
When he came into the open he saw the buggy that Jule had hired for Linny. In the poled corral, the Overo paint turned and looked ruefully at him. Then it cast a blue eye on Rio, and Will remembered where he’d seen it before. It was in the next stall to where he’d stabled his mule at Kalispell.
He wasn’t going to get close up to the cabin because the paint decided to sound its unease. He leaned forward in the saddle, pulled kindly at one of the mule’s ears. He’d wait, stay hidden until Linny’s pa stepped on to the narrow stoop.
Larris Jule had wondered about the disturbed horse and, in less than a minute, he emerged cautiously from the cabin. But the paint was settling, and there was no noise except a fractious snort, and Will levering the action of his carbine.
A magpie rose from the trees and Larris Jule’s jaw dropped. He whirled to face the sound of the mechanism that grated sharp across the snowy clearing.
‘I’m Will Stryker, an’ I want you off my land,’ Will called to him clearly. ‘Killin’ ain’t what I’m after, so I’m hopin’ you’ll think wisely about it.’
Jule held a Winchester at his side, had its barrel point to the ground. ‘Have we met before?’ he asked. ‘I don’t remember.’
‘Hardly met. It was up in Kalispell. There was a red tick coon hound. His owner died tryin’ to protect him. Perhaps you remember that,’ Will retorted.
Jule’s wary eyes narrowed as he recalled the event.
‘An’ you know what I’m thinkin’ now, Mister Jule?’Will persisted. ‘I’m thinkin’, what’s a coon hound, an Overo paint an’ your daughter got to share? Why, I’ll tell you,’ he said before Jule had time to think. ‘They all get to be bullied an’
beat by a thievin’, cowardly snipe-gut.’
Will could see the anguish as the man turned to face his daughter who’d come into sight from the cabin.
Jule made to spit in the snow at his feet, but he didn’t take his eyes off Will. ‘As for your land, there’s some folk in Polson reckon this place was abandoned. So I reckon I got me a claim an’ you’ll be startin’ over,’ he said spitefully.
Will almost smiled. ‘I told Linny I wasn’t leavin’ this piece o’ land again.’
Jule did smile. ‘Then you told her wrong.’
‘You know I can take you, Jule. You’re relyin’ on Linny bein’ here to stop me.’
‘No. I’m relyin’ on my men,’ Jule retained his stinging smile. ‘You think I’d send ’em into town knowin’ you were comin’ back?’
Will had a hard, accusing look at Linny, as Jule continued, ‘They should be turnin’ back over the ridge about now. One of ’em’s Madge’s uncle. He’ll be real pleased to see you.’
Linny jumped from the stoop. ‘Get away, Will. He’s serious mad an’ he’ll see you dead. Please go,’ she pleaded.
Will heeled the mule a couple of steps towards Jule and Rio followed close. ‘I’ve done nothin’ to harm you. But from now on, I’m takin’ the benefit of this bein’ a godforsaken an’ lawless territory,’ he said with quiet menace.
‘Meanin’?’ Jule sneered.
‘I’ve changed my mind about not wantin’ to kill. I’m goin’ to take you one by one,’ Will vowed.
Jule made a hostile sound from deep in his throat, violently swung up his Winchester. The coon hound blinked its inquisitive eyes, then it pulled its mouth tight around its fangs and snarled.
Jule went to move off the stoop, but Will had guessed at his intention. He quickly dismounted before warning him. ‘You raise a finger to that dog, mister, an’ so help me, I’ll cut it off an’ give it him to piss on.’