The Sundown Chaser

by Dusty Richards

  “All night. Can you eat?”

  “I think so. I wonder where he went.”

  “Who?”

  “Chickenhead.”

  “The law went right after him, but they lost the trail.”

  “Maybe he’s a spirit.”

  She shook her head vehemently. He could see the anger in her brown eyes. She knew he was not a ghost. No reason for him to pry. She’d said she’d felt Chickenhead’s wrath.

  “What did the doctor say about me?”

  “A rib in your side stopped the bullet and then the bullet went out of you. He said the rib would heal.”

  “It’s why I feel like I was kicked by that mule.”

  She nodded. “I am sorry. I needed to get you a place—”

  “Hey, I’m not mad. You did so good. I had no one.”

  “I learned that morning at the store they were trailing you—I still owe a man for that horse they stole—”

  “We can pay him. How much?” He squeezed his left elbow against his fiery side—the pain was sheer hell.

  “Seven dollars.”

  He about laughed, but realized it would only add to his suffering. “It wasn’t much of a horse?”

  She shrugged and smiled. “It was a horse.”

  Thunder made him turn an ear. More rain coming. Tired, he lay back down, realizing he was soaked in his own sweat. “Take some money and when you go there, pay him.”

  He stared at the underside of the cedar shakes. Here and there in the room, water pinged into a tin can she’d set out to catch the drip.

  “I have some chicken soup,” she said, and came back with a turtle bowl of steaming broth.

  “Oh, I don’t know—”

  “I know it hurts you to get up. But you must get your strength back.”

  He met her worried look. “You’re thinking he’ll come looking for me?”

  “Both of us.”

  Both of us echoed through his mind. It felt like lightning running though his entire body as he sat up again with her help. With his back propped up with a pillow stuffed with straw, she sat on the edge of the bed and began to feed him from a spoon.

  “Mary, it’s none of my business, but why does he bother you?”

  “I live alone. I have no gun.” She straightened her back and delivered another spoon of the tasty soup to his lips. “I am a rabbit. He is a hawk. Do I need to say more?”

  He swallowed the sip of her hot liquid and nodded. “There’s a rifle over there. There is a small loaded .30-caliber pistol in my saddlebags—be very careful. It is loaded. So is my handgun.”

  As she lifted up another spoonful, she said, “My dog Blacky hates him. He usually warns me.”

  He remembered the friendly dog from the first night he’d stayed there before she came home. So it wouldn’t only be him that Chickenhead sought, but her as well.

  “You had a husband?” he asked softly.

  “Yes. He died and so did my two children, three years ago. There was a plague on our land and many of my people died. I was very sick, but I lived.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You have a wife? A family?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve been separated from her for fifteen years. I just learned that she died five years ago. My son Travis, they say, is dead. My daughter Rosie is married, lives down in Texas. I am looking for my oldest, Herschel. They say he’s in Montana.”

  “Oh, that is so far away.” She shook her head.

  “I know, Mary. But I need him.”

  “What for?”

  “To run a large ranch for me.”

  “How long since you have seen him?”

  “Fifteen years.”

  Her eyes narrowed and she set the empty bowl in her lap. “Will he do that for you after all that time?”

  “I never have prayed much in my life, but I’ve been praying about that.”

  FIVE

  DEALING with hard-nosed men like Pleago, Herschel decided, was a pure waste of his time. The man would never heed his stern warning to leave the county. That was all right; he could rot in prison for being an accessory. Next time, he’d get no warning.

  From Pleago’s place, Herschel and Art rode east to look over the spot where they’d found Wally’s body. They followed cow tracks over rolling ridges bristling with pines, and crossed the broad, grass- and sage-covered valleys with bubbling streams. The water was cloudy from the runoff of the day before.

  “What’re we looking for?” Art asked.

  “Like the man said, we’re looking for anything you can hang your hat on. I have a suspicion he was shot elsewhere and dumped on that road. Maybe even before the rain came in. No hat, no gun, and no money on him according to the boy at the funeral home. Being broke ain’t no crime, but maybe whoever shot him robbed him as well.”

  They reached the Soda Springs Road, and Herschel told Art to spread out. “You take that side, I’ll take this one. We’ll ride through this sage and bunchgrass alongside the road. We may or may not find anything. Just look.”

  “How far do you reckon those store robbers got to?” Art asked as they reined their horses through the pungent low sage.

  “Ain’t no telling. I’m hoping I get word where they are after Phil sends out their description today by telegraph. They probably went through the Crow reservation and headed for Wyoming. There’s plenty of places to hide and folks to hide them in the Big Horn Mountains and especially on south of there. Or they could have headed for northwest Nebraska. No law in that country either.”

  “I know you’ve been down there after some others.”

  “Be a great cow country. Grass belly deep on a good horse. But those homesteaders can’t keep horses for all the thieves.”

  Art shook his head. “That would be a bad deal.”

  “You know a guy named Hatch that lives up here near the Soda Springs schoolhouse?”

  “Hatch—hmm.”

  “Shultz or Perk, one of them, said that Wally was what Hatch and his bunch called him.”

  “Wait. Roscoe Hatch. He runs some cattle up here somewhere.” Art twisted around to try and get his bearings. “I met him one time in a Miles City bar. Kind of a rough guy. He never bothered me, but he got into a couple of fist scraps over there when I was around. I’d call him a big bully.”

  “I wonder what his connection to Wally would have been.”

  “Can’t answer that.” Art reined up his bay and swung down. He looked off down a cow track that went east, then bent over and picked up an empty brass casing. “There’s two here might be connected to something.”

  Herschel rode over and joined him. “What caliber?”

  “A .38 Smith and Wesson.” After Herschel turned them over in his palm, he followed Art’s stare to the east. “What do you think?”

  “Like you said, something to hang your hat on, right?”

  Herschel nodded. “Wally’s body was a quarter mile or so north of here. Suppose you brought the body over there, dumped it, and started back. Then you recalled firing two shots, and reloaded off the road.”

  “Of course in a million miles of Montana, finding two empty casings is like locating a needle in a haystack.”

  “You’re right, but my gut feeling is we need to ride out on this cow trail. Maybe it will lead us nowhere, but we don’t have anything either.”

  Art agreed.

  Long past noon, they found themselves on a ridge looking down on a dark log cabin and some badly decayed pens. The place could have belonged to an early settler who ran off in the Sioux War some years before the Little Big Horn battle.

  “There’s horses down there,” Art said.

  “Trouble, too.”

  Art frowned at him. “How is that?”

  “Arnold, he’s a farmer over south and east of here, told me yesterday in the café that he saw two hard cases riding clear of the road in his country to avoid attention. One of the horses that they were leading was a bald-faced one.”

  “Holy Christmas. There’s
one down there, ain’t there?”

  “You can see him a mile away.”

  “Reckon who they are?”

  “No telling. But I once tried to sell a horse to a drifter who came by my place one time, and I felt certain he was on the run needing bad to swap a worn-out pony for a fresh one. All I had was a sweet bald-faced horse and a rough Roman-nosed bronc about half broke. He laughed at me. Said a lawman could see Baldy a mile away. He took the bronc and, man, he left my place making a show that folks would have given good money to watch his ride.”

  “And the sheriff just seen Baldy.” They both laughed.

  “Keep your wits about you, they may put up a big fight,” Herschel said as they dropped down off the steep hillside on their horses.

  “Anton’s deal went easier this morning than I thought it would.”

  Herschel shook his head. “But that business ain’t over either. It’ll be harder than that to get him to move on. But I’ll ship him to the pen if he don’t move. We don’t need that trash in this county.”

  “You’re right.”

  Herschel reined up at the halfway mark where a point jutted out for their horses to rest. With care, he checked the five rounds in his .44—Art did likewise. Words weren’t necessary between them. His partner wasn’t missing any details or movement around the cabin, nor was he. Then, with a nod, he booted Cob on. It could be that their next move might alert the ones in the cabin.

  There were few windows in those first cabins settlers built, but without much wind, sounds carried. The snort of the horses, the creak of leather, spurs jingling, even a horse testing a bit, made sounds that could jar a man living on the edge. Of course, these men might be innocent of anything but passing through. However, most folks took the main roads to get where they were going, not the back ways.

  On the flat, Herschel looked at the bald-faced horse in with the others when they rode past the pen. Good-looking horse. They rode on.

  When they were twenty feet from the door, Herschel reined up Cob. “Hello the house,” he called.

  He could hear some quick conversation inside.

  A tall man with a black beard cracked the door. “What the hell do you want?”

  “My name’s Herschel Baker. I’m the sheriff in these parts and I need to talk to both of you.”

  “What about?”

  “Your horses.”

  “They’re our damn horses.” The man turned and hissed over his shoulder.

  “There’s two of them,” Art said to Herschel.

  “I guess you have a bill of sale for all of them,” Herschel said to the bearded man. “Come on out here. I want to see the two of you in the daylight.”

  “What if we don’t?”

  “I’ll roast you out.”

  “Hell, what’ll we do?” The man at the door about closed it. “All right, we ain’t got nothing to hide. We’re coming out.”

  “Good. Don’t try nothing. You won’t survive it.”

  Whiskers came out with his hands held up, followed by a short redheaded kid—maybe older than he looked.

  “Watch ’em,” Herschel said to Art, and his deputy moved his horse so he was off to the side. Both men were unarmed, so Herschel signaled for them to put their hands down. When Art was in place, he dismounted.

  “Now what’cha need?” the short one asked with a curl of his lip.

  “Names for starters.”

  “I’m Doff Porter. He’s Clyde Snyder.”

  “I counted six horses in the corral. Any of them stolen?”

  “Hell, no. We bought them horses.”

  Herschel looked pained. “You have any brand inspection papers?”

  “There ain’t no brand inspector where we bought them.”

  “Montana law says you need one or a bill of sale.”

  “Where in the hell would we find one?” Porter asked. “We ain’t seen anyone in days ‘sides you two.”

  “You ride the side roads, there ain’t much of anyone going to see you either except a ranch hand or two. Where did you boys come from anyway?”

  “Miles City.”

  “That’s easy to check on. I know the sheriff over there. Who did you buy them off of at Miles City?”

  “Ah, we got them in the Dakotas.”

  Herschel narrowed his eyes, looking hard at them. “I think you came out of Nebraska with them ponies.”

  The two frowned at each other and then shook their heads.

  “Dakota,” Porter said.

  “Art, go inside and look that cabin over.”

  “We ain’t got nothing to hide. What do you want out of us anyway?” Porter asked, his voice at a higher pitch.

  “I think we need to make a ride to Billings tonight. You boys and these horses can come along. We’ll check around on your story and see if we can find the truth.”

  “Mister, I ain’t a damn liar.” Porter puffed up like a banty rooster.

  Herschel nodded. “You better not be.”

  Art came out holding a hat and a slicker in his hands. “This belong to either of you?”

  “Naw, it was here when we got here yesterday evening,” Snyder said.

  “Where exactly did you find it?” Art asked the pair.

  “It was on the floor in a wad when we got here. We just throwed it aside,” Porter said.

  “This hat belong to either of you?” Art asked.

  “No, we said it was here when we got here. We don’t know whose it is.”

  “Herschel, you better take a gander at this slicker. It’s got two bullet holes in the back and some blood on the inside.”

  Deep in thought, Herschel stepped over to the doorway and looked at the rubber slicker. Lots of dried blood.

  Then Art handed him a well-worn, water-stained envelope that he’d taken from the side pocket. Herschel read where it had been forwarded several times to a Wallace Hamby. At last, it was sent to General Delivery, Billings, Montana.

  Herschel nodded. That must be the dead man. He turned to the pair. “You know anything about this coat and hat?”

  “I said it was here—”

  “Get your things and saddle up. We’re all going to Billings. Looks to me like there’s more to this than those horses out there.” He looked over at Art with a serious nod, knowing there were lots more questions that needed to be answered.

  SIX

  WITH his chest bound in Mary’s bandages, as long as Thurman didn’t use his left arm, he felt better. She’d been applying some of her herbs on the wounds, and she told him it was healing. After a sponge bath and her shaving him, he’d felt half alive and had stopped taking the laudanum. He worried about addiction. Too many soldiers injured in the war could never ever quit it. How long had he been resting there? A week.

  Anxious to move on again, he sat on the stump and whittled. Her future worried him the most. Leaving her behind for that worthless Chickenhead to abuse again bothered him. He pulled too hard on the cedar stick in his left hand, and his side complained. The marshals had lost Chickenhead’s trail, and there was no sign of Thurman’s good red horse. That was a big loss with him facing such a long ride.

  Mary came from the spring with a canvas pail full of water. “You look deep in thought.”

  She stood with the rope bale in both hands. “What’s wrong?”

  “I need to get on. They won’t find Red, but—”

  Her dark eyes looking concerned, she shook her head. “You can’t ride a horse yet. That would hurt you too much.”

  “Exactly.”

  “What say I buy a buggy that’s for sale and we hitch Ira to it and go to Fort Smith? You can get that reward and can find yourself a better horse there.”

  “How much will the buggy cost?”

  “Harness and all, fifteen dollars.”

  He closed his eyes at the thought of being jostled around on a buggy seat all day, but that was an answer. Not a bad one either.

  “That’s plenty cheap enough. How far is Fort Smith by buggy?”

  “Thre
e-four days.” She wrinkled her straight nose as if to say that was nothing.

  “When you go to buy the buggy, buy some material for a new dress for you and the food supplies we’ll need.”

  She acted affronted. “This dress is good enough.”

  He shook his head. “Not to go to Fort Smith with me.”

  She set the bucket down, stepped over, swept off his hat, and kissed him on the forehead. “Thank you, Thurman Baker. How far is Montana from Fort Smith?”

  He half closed his left eye to stare at her for an answer. “You’re wanting to go all the way up there?”

  She looked around the area. “I don’t see anyone else around here who’s going to take care of you.”

  “Six weeks to three months by buggy, which is the way we will be going most of the time.”

  “Depending on how much your side can stand?”

  “That, too. I can carry the water—” He started to get up.

  She elbowed him aside. “I am the woman. I carry the water. Besides, I want you well enough to ride in that buggy tomorrow.”

  “We’re leaving that soon?”

  “I can make the dress while we are on the road. What else is to keep us here?”

  He reached over with his right hand and petted Blacky, who had become his companion. “He better go, too.”

  “Fine. I have an aunt in Sullyville. Can she go, too?”

  He chuckled and shook his head. “No. We only have a buggy if you can buy it.”

  “Money talks in these mountains. I’ll ride Ira over there and get it.”

  “Here’s a twenty-dollar bill.”

  She made a face. “That bill is too big to trade for a twelve-dollar buggy. He will think I am too rich. Besides, he won’t have any change for it either.”

  “Keep the twenty for supplies. Let me see.” He took all the change out of his pocket, found some pesos, a few singles, and a five-dollar bill. “Will he take that?”

  “Sure, and he’ll think he got all my money.” She laughed and ran for the cabin. “I’ll get ready.” In a short while, she caught Ira and bellied up on him.

  Thurman looked up at her as she tossed her thick braids over her shoulder. “You better buy some moccasins, too. There’s lots of things to cut your feet where we’re going.”