by John Legg
He started down the hill, walking in great loping strides. He looked forward to this. The Spanglers and the Cochranes were a nasty bunch of men and deserved to be brought to heel. Their last several escapades, after a winter of inactivity, had been brutal and far-ranging. They had held up two trains between Rock Springs and Rawlins. A few days later they had killed two coal miners in a fight in Rock Springs, then busted up a brothel in Wamsutter, killing one of the girls. They had kidnapped three other women who worked there and dragged them north to an area of strange sand dunes. From what Morgan had been able to figure, the gang had kept the women there more than two weeks, abusing them constantly before dispatching them. A few miles east, the gang had killed a family of Cheyenne consisting of a middle-aged warrior, his younger wife, her aged mother, and two grandchildren.
They were not done yet, though word had gotten back to the U.S. marshal’s office in Cheyenne and Morgan had been dispatched to hunt them down. Morgan tracked them from one place to the next, learning that they had been continuing their reign of terror. They had robbed a bank in Rock Springs and two travelers east of town. A family trying to homestead a speck of land a few miles northwest of Rawlins was wiped out by the gang after the seven had taken their pleasure with the wife—and her nine-year-old daughter.
The gang had committed other crimes as well, but the rape of the girl was the one that had sent Morgan’s rage boiling. He had picked up the outlaws’ trail a few days later, with some solid leads, and that was when he began pushing himself and his horse hard. In the past three days he had had no more than four hours’ sleep a night, but none of that mattered now. Not to him. All he could see in his mind was the naked, battered body of that little girl. His cool gray eyes narrowed in the darkness at the remembrance.
He stopped at the cabin door. As he had figured, the string to the latch was out. The ones inside were expecting their friends back, he assumed. He had counted on that. He eased the string forward until he heard the latch snick softly. He paused, but there was no change in the sound of talking from inside. He eased out both pistols.
With a cold, cruel smile, he kicked the door open and stepped inside, eyes sweeping the lantern-lit interior in a heartbeat. Ronny and Rog Cochrane were sitting at a rickety table; Manny Spangler was half sitting, half lying on a cot, facing the door, his back braced against the wall. Spangler wore no shirt or boots, sitting there in his dirty trousers and filthy union suit and crusty socks. All three men were drinking whiskey. The two Cochranes were shoveling beans into their mouths as well. They were fully dressed.
“Evenin’, shit balls,” Morgan said evenly in a deep, strong voice. Then he calmly shot Manny Spangler cleanly through the forehead. “You other two assholes’re under arrest.”
“What the hell’d you kill Manny like that for?” Ronny Cochrane asked. He did not seem incredulous. He was vying for time.
“Just to show you two cornholin’ peckerwoods that I am of no mind to fool with you. Either you do what I tell you, when I tell you, or I’ll shoot you dead just like I did your pustulant friend over there.”
“Who the hell are you?” Ronny asked. He was worried now. There was absolutely no fear in this tall, hard-looking man with the star on his chest. Indeed, the marshal looked like he was out for a buggy ride with his sweetheart—except for the two big Smith and Wessons in his oversized paws.
“Deputy U.S. Marshal Buck Morgan. Now both of you ease out your pistols and toss ’em toward the back of the cabin. You with the spoon in the air, just stay the way you are. Big mouth, you first.”
“But I...”
Morgan shot him in the face, the bullet punching a neat round hole through his right cheekbone. Ronny was slammed back out of his chair.
“All right there, shit ball,” Morgan said evenly, looking at Rog Cochrane, “your turn.”
Rog Cochrane was the youngest of the three Cochranes at twenty-three, according to the wanted papers out on him. Right now he looked even younger—and scared to death.
Morgan realized the young man was frightened and hoped to use that, so he waited before drilling him, which had been his first inclination. “You need a gold-embossed invite, boy?” he asked harshly.
Cochrane shook his head slowly, looking as if he thought his head might fall off if he moved it too much. He finally managed to close his mouth, which had been open in anticipation of the spoonful of beans that still dangled in midair.
“Then drop the beans and lose the pistol.” He clicked back the hammer on one of his guns.
Cochrane dropped the spoon, which landed in the beans with a soft splat. He jerked his arm downward, toward his pistol, but just as quickly stopped. Then he moved his hand down ever so slowly, eased out his revolver, and held it out with two fingers on the grip.
“Fling it back behind you and then stand.”
Cochrane did so. He licked his lips in fear as he looked at Morgan.
“Where’s your other piece?”
“I don’t…”
Morgan shot Cochrane in the upper right arm. “I’ve got no time or inclination to pussyfoot around with a shit ball like you. Not after what you did to that little girl up outside of Rawlins.”
“Belly gun,” Cochrane squawked.
“Get rid of it.”
With his left hand, Cochrane pulled his shirt open, revealing a five-shot, .31-caliber, silver-plated Colt pocket revolver. He took it out and tossed it away.
Morgan nodded. “You got another piece on you?” he asked.
“No,” Cochrane said firmly.
Morgan shrugged. “If you’re lyin’ to me, you’ll be sorry for it.”
“I ain’t lyin’.”
“Sit down.” When Cochrane did Morgan slid away one of the Smith and Wessons. With the other lazily trained on Cochrane, Morgan checked the other two men. Both were dead. Morgan poured himself a drink at the table and gulped it down. As he set the glass down on the table, he asked, “Where’re the rest of the boys?”
Cochrane hesitated, and Morgan could see in his eyes that the young outlaw was building a lie. Morgan shot him in the other arm.
“Son,” Morgan said, his voice flat and firm, “you got yourself one chance to come out of this alive. And that’s if you stop your bullshit. Now, where’s the others?”
“South Pass City,” Cochrane said hastily. “Either there or Atlantic City. We was low on supplies, and I think Jess wanted himself a harlot.”
“There’s some left over there?”
“Not many,” Cochrane said with a shrug that sent a roaring blast of pain down both arms. “But there was a few last time we rode through.”
“When do you expect ’em back?”
“Tomorrow. Maybe the day after. Depends on what they find to do there.”
“You’re in deep shit, boy, you know that, don’t you?”
Cochrane nodded. “You gonna bring me back to Cheyenne?” he asked.
“That’s my intent. After all the shit you and your cronies pulled you’ll swing sure as hell. I’d just as soon send you across the divide here and now, but I reckon boys like you are best brought to justice properly, as an example to others.”
“I don’t think I’ll make it,” Cochrane said fatalistically. “And if my friends find you, you won’t make it neither.”
Morgan smiled, and the coldness of it sent a wrenching blast of fear up Cochrane’s spine. “We’ll just see about that.”
Chapter Three
Wind River Reservation, Wyoming Territory
April 1874
Orville Ashby hated the journey to Cheyenne from the reservation. It was long, tedious, and blazing hot in summer, and frigid in winter. Still, the railroad made it a lot better than it could have been.
The first part was the worst. To start, there was the ride into Flat Fork, a festering sinkhole of a town just off the reservation. The place had little other purpose than to serve the soldiers from Camp Brown. Because of that, it was a town full of places of degradation. Brothels and saloons a
bounded, and there were precious few decent places of any kind. One of them was the station for the Hogg stage line.
Ashby boarded one of the creaking, dusty, worn stages at nine in the morning after a twelve-mile, three-hour ride from the agency quarters up near the camp. The town was just far enough from the fort to keep the soldiers from heading there too regularly or too readily, but Ashby thought it was nothing but a pack of trouble to get there when he was in a hurry.
Then there were eight days in the jolting, shuddering coach, mostly eastward and then south to Rawlins. The coach had to get across the Popo Agie, the Little Popo Agie, Twin Creek, Beaver Creek, and then the Sweetwater River. It was, Ashby had thought every time he had had to make this journey, an awful lot of water for such a dry, desolate place. It was odd to him how the land could be a virtual desert, yet there were streams and rivers crossing it. The water that flowed, though, seemed to have no effect much beyond its banks.
At last Rawlins came into view late in the afternoon—just about the time Ashby thought his spine would be driven upward by his buttocks until it poked out the top of his head. When he alit from the coach he felt like a sailor just returned from a long ocean voyage. His legs were wobbly and he had trouble walking. He made his way to the nearest hotel and slept the night through.
After a hearty breakfast in the morning Ashby boarded the train. Two days later he picked up his bag and left the train in Cheyenne. With a decidedly more cheerful air, he walked up Central Avenue to Seventeenth Street. Turning west up Seventeenth, he walked a short distance to the office of U.S. Marshal Floyd Dayton.
A tall, pudgy young man turned from a file at the sound of the door. “Can I help you?” he asked.
Ashby set his carpetbag down and brushed some of the dust off his suit coat. “I’d like to see Floyd—Marshal Dayton—please,” he said quietly.
The young man pushed the file drawer closed and turned to face Ashby. The star on his dark vest glinted dully in the sunlight streaming through a side window. He wore a pocket Colt revolver in a small, cross-draw holster on his right hip. Ashby did not think he looked much like a deputy U.S. marshal.
“Marshal Dayton’s busy,” the young man said. His voice was one that could be expected to come from such a man, a man whose look was soft, clean-shaven, fastidious.
Orville Ashby was not by nature a hardcase. On the other hand, he was a man who had overcome his share of adversity in life. While not much of a fighter, he was not about to be trod over by this young pup. Not after the interminable journey he had made to get here. “If you’re going to lie, son,” Ashby said flatly, “you had better learn to do it a lot more convincingly than that.”
The deputy’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t take kindly to strangers calling me a liar,” he said in a huff. Then he sighed. “But since you’re a stranger, and one who looks like he could use himself a bit of a break, I’ll overlook it for now. But you best go on now before I have to take some drastic steps.” He tried to look fierce, not knowing he looked like a fool instead.
“Your arrogance is ill-directed, son,” Ashby said evenly.
“Why, you cantankerous old bastard,” the deputy said in disbelief. Herman Obstfelt was terribly affronted. Here he was, trying to be polite to this man, while at the same time trying to get rid of the visitor without getting Dayton involved. That would bring him up considerably in Dayton’s eyes, Obstfelt figured. But this filthy stranger—who looked like he had spent two weeks sleeping in his clothes—wanted to give him a hard time. Obstfelt was not about to put up with such behavior, even if it did mean working up a sweat.
“That I am,” Ashby agreed. “And growing more damned cantankerous with each passing second. Now go tell Floyd that Orville Ashby’s here to see him.”
“I see that sterner measures are called for,” Obstfelt said, cracking his knuckles. He didn’t like to fight so much as he did intimidating people, which he thought he did mighty well. He was generally the only one who thought that way.
“Look, son,” Ashby said in exasperation, “I’m too old for getting into scraps, and I’ve had a long journey. All I want to do is talk some business with the marshal and then be on my way.”
“Like I said,” Obstfelt noted testily, “he’s not here. Now you best be on your way. I’ve lost my patience with you. Any more lip from you and I’ll have to pitch you out into the street.”
Ashby sighed. “Best get to it, then,” he said wearily, “since I’m not going anywhere voluntarily.” Obstfelt grinned a little and cracked his knuckles again. He stepped forward, purpose stamped on his bright, pudgy face. A moment later he was on his seat on the floor, a hand held to a suddenly bloody nose. “Floyd!” Ashby shouted. “Floyd, you back there?”
“What in the flying Jesus is all the ruckus about out here?” Marshal Floyd Dayton bellowed as he tore open the door of his office at the back. Then he stopped and grinned. “Orv, how’re you doing?” He stepped forward, hand outstretched.
“Passable. You?”
Dayton patted his broad stomach with a hard hand. “Fat and sassy as ever,” he said with a laugh. He looked down at Obstfelt, disgust flickering on his face. “Get up, boy. You look ridiculous down there.” Obstfelt got up, trying not to touch his bloody hand to his clothes. “I want to press charges against him,” he said, pointing a shaky, bloody index finger at Ashby. “For what?” Dayton asked with a low laugh.
“For assaulting a marshal. A federal marshal.”
“Just for poking you in the snout?” Dayton said, laughing more. “You realize how stupid you’re going to look in some court when a judge asks how this old man”—he winked at Ashby—“was able to knock a spry young feller like you on your plump ass?”
“I see nothing humorous in this,” Obstfelt said stiffly.
“Oh, hell, boy, don’t be so damned pompous. If you hadn’t been acting so high and mighty, none of this would’ve happened.”
“I was not acting pompous. I was…”
“Like hell,” Dayton said, still enjoying the tableau. “I know just what you were doing. You were trying to run roughshod over Mr. Ashby here.”
Obstfelt looked stricken but kept his mouth shut. Dayton was still laughing, but it soon wound down. “Now, Herm, go clean your face up and then fetch us a bottle.” He paused. “Unless you’d rather have something else, Orv?”
“Right now coffee’d be fine for me,” Ashby said. “You do look a mite overdone. Had a good trip, did you?”
“Just wonderful.”
Dayton laughed again. “I bet. All right, Herm, go fetch us a pot of coffee. Might as well bring a bottle, too. There’s no law I know of to prevent a man from flavoring coffee with a dose of snakebite medicine.”
“Yessir,” Obstfelt said dejectedly. He clumped off and out the door.
“Jesus, Floyd, where’d you ever dredge him up?”
“I needed somebody to help me with the paperwork and all that. Herman came highly recommended as a secretary. Then, damn fool that I am, I let him talk me into making him a deputy. He doesn’t really do any law-enforcing, but he likes to strut around Cheyenne with his shiny badge and that little pistol of his. Impresses the ladies, I hear. Or at least a certain class of ladies.”
Ashby laughed. “I guess it would. But he’d better watch his mouth around folks, or one day somebody’s going to clean his plow good for him.”
“He’s a big boy,” Dayton said with a shrug. “If he can’t take care of himself, he’ll have to suffer the consequences. Come on, let’s go on in back and take a load off your feet.” Dayton turned and walked toward the office at the rear.
Ashby grabbed his bag and followed, wondering about his friend. Floyd Dayton had put on some weight since Ashby had last seen him, and he looked mighty comfortable with city living. Not that Ashby thought there was anything wrong with that; it was just that it didn’t seem to suit Dayton, or at least the Dayton that Ashby had known all along.
There was something more about Dayton, though, and Ashby cou
ldn’t quite put his finger on it. He thought it might be the fancy clothes, or the aroma of expensive toilet water that drifted on the air behind the marshal as he walked.
The two sat, Dayton behind his desk, Ashby in a plump chair in front of the desk.
“I take it you didn’t come here just to pay an old friend a visit, Orv,” Dayton said, lacing his fingers behind his head.
“No, no, I sure didn’t. That trip is a back-breaker. Or maybe I’m just getting old.”
“I know the feeling.” Dayton sighed. “Well, despite your reckless speed in getting here,” he said a little sarcastically, “I figure you can wait a few more minutes.”
Ashby shrugged, then asked, “Why?”
“Old friends ought to have a few minutes for visiting before getting down to business. Time for a toast, at least.” He grinned. “Besides, I’d rather wait until Herm gets back here with the coffee and such so we won’t have to worry about him interrupting us.”
“Herm don’t get here in the next two minutes, I’m liable to fall asleep sitting here.”
“It’s hell getting old, ain’t it?”
Neither was all that old—both in their mid-forties. But each man had been through a lot in life, and that had taken its toll. Both knew that and accepted it, but both had a little trouble dealing with it. Just because they accepted it didn’t mean they had to like it any.
Ashby could feel himself nodding off when Obstfelt finally bustled in, carrying a large coffeepot and two cups. He set the cups down, filled them, and then put the coffeepot on the end of the desk. From his back pocket he pulled a bottle of whiskey, which he put down on the desk in front of Dayton.
“Anything else, Marshal?” Obstfelt asked, only barely able to keep the surliness out of his voice.
“You hungry, Orv?” Dayton asked. He was enjoying himself, as he always did when he was giving Herman Obstfelt a hard time.