Rampage of the Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  Sally held the binoculars to her eyes for a moment.

  “I see him,” she said.

  “Next time they come after us, shoot him. Take your time, get a good shot. But you need to kill him.”

  “All right,” Sally answered. She handed the glasses back to Andy.

  “Whoa, hold it,” Hank said. “You’re giving that job to her?”

  “Yes.”

  “But she’s a woman.”

  Pearlie and Cal laughed.

  “What is it?” Hank asked.

  “She may be a woman but when it comes to shootin’,” said Pearlie, “’bout the only one here better’n she is with a rifle would be Smoke his ownself. And I’m not all that sure he’s better.”

  “Smoke,” Andy said, lowering the binoculars. “Looks like ole’ Walkin’ Bear’s got ’em worked up into comin’ again.”

  “All right, everyone, get ready! They’re coming back!” Smoke warned.

  Looking around, he saw that Sally had repositioned herself. No longer behind the wagon wheel, she was now behind a fallen tree, resting the barrel of her rifle on the log. She thumbed back the hammer, then sighted down the barrel.

  With Walking Bear in the lead, the Cheyenne started another attack.

  The Indians came again, their horses leaping over the bodies of the warriors and horses who had fallen before. Sally waited for a good shot, but Walking Bear was bending low over his horse in such a way as to keep behind his horse. It was difficult for Sally to get a good sight picture, and the first time she fired, she missed.

  Quickly, she jacked another shell into the chamber and waited for another opportunity.

  For some unknown reason, Walking Bear sat upright for just a second, and that gave Sally the opening she was looking for. She squeezed the trigger and her bullet hit Walking Bear right in the middle of his chest. She saw the look of surprise on his face; then she saw him drop his rifle and clasp his hand over his wound. He weaved back and forth for just a second before tumbling from the saddle.

  When the others saw their leader go down, they stopped and milled about for a moment, uncertain as to what they should do. One or two started forward, but it wasn’t a concerted charge and, like Walking Bear before them, they were shot down.

  By now well over half their party lay dead on both banks of the river, in the water, and on the sandy beaches of the island. They had started the fight with the numerical advantage, but realized now that they were outnumbered.

  One of the Indians turned and started riding away. Almost instantly, the others followed.

  “Run! Run, you cowards!” Andy shouted, shooting at them as they fled.

  The other cowboys began shooting as well, making certain to give the Indians a good send-off. Then, they began laughing and congratulating each other on the good fight.

  “If you want to know who gets the most congratulatin’, it should be Miz Sally,” Andy said. “When she took ole Walkin’ Bear down, she took the fight right out of ’em.”

  “Let’s hear it for Miz Sally!” Billy shouted.

  “Hurrah! Hurrah!” the others called.

  With all the laughing and self-congratulations, the men forgot all about Hank, until Sally spoke up. She saw him over by his brother’s body, hanging his head in sorrow.

  “Hank,” she said. “We want you to know how sorry we are about LeRoy. He was a good man.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Hank said.

  Chapter Eighteen

  A range in Wyoming

  A small herd of no more than one hundred cows moved through the darkness, watched over by three riders. A calf called for its mother and, in the distance, a coyote sent up its long, lonesome wail. The moon was a thin sliver of silver, but the night was alive with stars…from the very bright, shining lights all the way down to those stars that weren’t visible as individual bodies at all, but whose glow added to the luminous powder that dusted the distant sky.

  “Damn, Bobby, but it’s cold,” one of the riders said, the vapor of his breath glowing in the moonlight.

  “Yeah, well, I tell you, if it wasn’t this cold, we prob’ly wouldn’t of been able to steal these critters. They’d of been someone watchin’ ’em,” Bobby said.

  “Pat’s right, though. Stealin’ cows on a cold night like this is damn near as hard as punchin’ ’em,” a third rider said.

  “Well, now, let me ask you this, Deekus. Would you rather be ridin’ out here in the cold tonight, pushin’ cows we’ll be gettin’ five, maybe ten dollars a head for? Or would you rather be punchin’ cows for someone at twenty dollars a month and found?” Bobby asked.

  “Hell, you put it like that, I can take bein’ cold for a while,” Deekus said.

  “Hey, Deekus, what are you goin’ to do with your money?” Pat asked.

  “I’m goin’ to a whorehouse and get me a woman,” Deekus said. “What about you?”

  “I don’t know, get some new duds, I reckon.”

  “Duds? You goin’ to waste your money on clothes when you could get you a woman?”

  “Why, dress me up in some new duds and I can get me a woman without payin’ for it,” Pat said.

  “Whoo, boy,” Deekus said, laughing. “Did you hear that, Bobby? We got us a lover boy here.”

  Bobby laughed.

  “Yeah, well, you just watch,” Pat said. “You spend all your money on a woman and it’s over with. You make yourself look good so’s a woman wants you, why, you can get you a woman anytime you want, and you still got your new duds.”

  Bobby laughed again. “Seems like ole Pat has got it all figured out,” he said.

  The calf’s call for his mother came again, this time with more insistence. The mother’s answer had a degree of anxiousness to it.

  “Damn,” Bobby said. “I told you we should’a left the heifer and her calf alone. Now I got to go get ’em back together.”

  “Hell, why bother? It’ll find its own way back.”

  “I don’t think so. And if it starts settin’ up too much of a racket, well, the three of us won’t be able to handle the rest of the cows,” Bobby said, slapping his legs against the side of his horse and riding off, disappearing in the darkness.

  “Bobby’s as bad as an ole mama cow himself,” Deekus said, “watchin’ out for ’em like that.”

  “Yeah, but he’s prob’ly right. In this cold, we don’t need the cows givin’ us any trouble.”

  Suddenly, from the darkness came the sound of a gunshot.

  “What was that?” Pat asked.

  “Sounded like a gunshot,” Deekus answered.

  “Bobby must’a seen a snake or something.”

  “At night?” Deekus asked.

  “A wolf maybe?”

  The two boys waited for a moment longer, but heard nothing else.

  “He ought to be back by now, shouldn’t he?” Pat asked.

  They were quiet for a moment longer. Then Deekus called out. “Bobby? Bobby, you out there?”

  “Bobby?” Pat shouted, adding his own call.

  “I don’t like this,” Deekus said.

  “What do you think is going on?”

  “I don’t know, but I think we better check.”

  Pulling their guns, Deekus and Pat rode into the night in search of their friend.

  A moment later, gunshots erupted in the night, the muzzle flashes lighting up the herd.

  “Jesus! What’s happening? Who is it? They’re all around us!” Pat shouted in terror, firing his gun wildly in the dark.

  “Throw down your guns!” a voice called from the dark. “Do it now, or we’ll kill your friend, then we’ll kill you!”

  “Pat, Deekus, do what they say!” Bobby called from the darkness. “They’re all around you!”

  Neither Deekus nor Pat reacted, and there was another shot from the dark.

  “Oww!” Deekus called out as a bullet hit him in the shoulder. He dropped his gun.

  Seeing Deekus hit, Pat threw down his gun as well. He put his hands in the air
.

  “We quit! We quit!” he called.

  The two young men sat quietly as they watched over a dozen riders materialize from the dark.

  “Who are you?” Pat asked.

  One rider rode in front of the others. He was a powerfully built man with hat pulled low over a bald head and brow-less eyes.

  “The name is Staley, boys. Will Staley,” the rider said. “You should’a known better than to steal them cows in my country.”

  “Staley? What are you doin’ here? You ain’t the sheriff no more,” Pat said.

  “Nope, I ain’t,” Staley said.

  “Then that means you got no jurisdiction over us.”

  Staley chuckled. “No, all that means is that the judge and jury got no jurisdiction over me.”

  “The judge and jury got no jurisdiction over you? What are you talkin’ about?” Pat asked.

  “I’m talkin’ about hangin’ you boys as cow thieves,” Staley said. “When I was sheriff, I had to have a judge give me the word to do it. Now, I don’t need nobody’s word.”

  “What?” Deekus asked, suddenly understanding what Staley had in mind. “No, what are you doing?”

  “Get ’em over there under that tree,” Staley said.

  “Wait, you can’t do this! You got no right!” Pat said, but even as he was calling out in terror, Staley’s men were coming toward him.

  Within minutes, Deekus, Pat, and Bobby were sitting on their horses, their hands bound behind them. Three ropes were tossed over an outstretched tree limb; then the nooses were looped around the necks of the young cattle rustlers.

  “You boys got ’ny last words?” Staley asked.

  “You got no right to do this, Staley,” Deekus said. “You ain’t no lawman.”

  “You had no right to steal them cows,” Staley replied.

  “Stealin’ a few cows ain’t the same as murder and you know it. What you’re doin’ here is no more’n murder.”

  “That your say?”

  “That’s my say,” Deekus said.

  “What about you other two boys? You got ’nything to say before you go to meet your Maker?”

  Bobby and Pat gritted their teeth to keep from crying out in terror. They looked at Staley and his riders through eyes that reflected their panic, but they said nothing.

  “All right, you boys don’t want to say nothin’, I’ll go along with that,” Staley said.

  Staley looked at the three men who were behind the horses of the rustlers. He nodded, and all three struck the rustlers’ horses. The three horses leaped ahead, and the ropes that hung down from the tree pulled the rustlers from their saddles. The limb creaked and bent, but not before jerking the men up short. Pat and Bobby died quickly, but Deekus didn’t. He hung there for several minutes, lifting his legs up as if by so doing he could ease the pressure on his neck. He made guttural, gurgling sounds and his eyes were opened wide in terror. One of the men pulled his pistol and pointed it Deekus.

  “No!” Staley called out. “Let ’im die natural.”

  It took almost another full minute for Deekus to die. Finally, he quit twitching and hung there as quietly and as still as the other two.

  “Put the signs on ’em,” Staley said. “We’ll leave ’em here as a warnin’ to other cow thieves.”

  One of Staley’s men rode up to the three dead rustlers, then pinned a sign onto each one of them.

  COW RUSTLERS

  CAUGHT AND HUNG BY THE

  CATTLEMEN’S PROTECTIVE

  ASSOCIATION

  “That’s, good,” Staley said. “Now we’ll take the fifty cows back to Dawkins and collect our pay.”

  “Fifty cows? You mean we ain’t goin’ to take ’em all back? They’s about a hunnert cows here,” one of Staley’s deputies said.

  “No, you are mistaken. I only see fifty cows here,” Staley said pointedly.

  The deputy realized then what Staley was saying. “Oh,” he replied, nodding in agreement. “Yeah, now that I recount them, fifty is all I get as well.”

  Trent Williams was standing at the front window of the bank, looking out onto Salcedo’s main street when he saw Staley and his men riding back into town. They made a rather imposing sight, ten men, all wearing long trench coats and wide-brimmed hats pulled low over their eyes. Stopping in front of a building that bore a sign reading CATTLEMEN’S PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION, Staley dismounted, then gave the reins of his horse to one of the others. All the rest of the men rode on down to the livery, but Staley, after raking the bottoms of his boots in the edge of the board porch, went into his office.

  Williams turned away from the window and saw Gilbert, his chief teller, dealing with a customer. The customer, a woman, received a deposit slip, then turned toward the door. She smiled and nodded her head at Williams.

  “Mr. Williams,” she said.

  “Mrs. Rittenhouse,” Williams replied.

  Williams waited until Mrs. Rittenhouse left the bank. Then he called out to his teller.

  “Mr. Gilbert?”

  “Yes, Mr. Williams?” Gilbert replied.

  “I’m going to be out of the bank for a short while. You handle anything that comes up.”

  “Yes, Mr. Williams.”

  Williams returned to his office, got his hat, then left the bank.

  When Williams stepped into the building belonging to the Cattlemen’s Protective Association a few minutes later, he saw that Staley had the door of the little stove open and was throwing wood into the flames. Though the fire was going, it had not yet built up enough heat to push back the cold, and Staley was still wearing his coat.

  “Sheriff Staley?” Williams said.

  “I’m no longer the sheriff,” Staley said.

  “I’m sorry. You were sheriff for so long that it seems natural to call you that.”

  “What do you want, Williams?”

  “I, uh…” Williams cleared his throat. “Did you get my telegram, Sheri—uh, Mr. Staley?”

  Staley turned toward him. “Yeah, I got your telegram,” he said.

  “Then you know that I have a proposition for you.”

  “I believe what you said was that you had a profitable proposition for me,” Staley said, emphasizing the word “profitable.”

  “Yes. Indeed, it could be very profitable,” Williams replied.

  “How profitable?”

  “Five thousand dollars profitable,” Williams said.

  “Seventy-five hundred,” Staley replied.

  “Seventy-five hundred?” Williams gasped. “What makes you think it should be seventy-five hundred dollars? You don’t even know what the proposition is. Five thousand dollars is a lot of money, Mr. Staley.”

  “Yes, it is a lot of money,” Staley agreed. “And it doesn’t matter what the proposition is. If you are willing to pay me five thousand to do whatever it is you want done, that means you are making a lot more money than you are going to be paying me. I want seven thousand five hundred dollars from you or we don’t do business.”

  Williams stroked his chin for a moment as he contemplated the demand. Finally, he nodded.

  “All right, seventy-five hundred dollars,” he said. He pointed to Staley. “But I can only pay the money after the job is done.”

  “What is the job?”

  “There is a herd of cattle coming up from Colorado,” Williams said. “I need that herd.”

  “I see,” Staley said. “You say you want the herd but…”

  “I didn’t say I want the herd, I said I need the herd,” Williams replied. “Everything depends on it. Especially your”—he paused as if saying the amount of money was distasteful to him—“seventy-five hundred dollars.”

  “Uh-huh,” Staley replied. The stove was beginning to put out a little warmth now and he took his coat off to hang on a hook on the wall. He was wearing a pistol belt and the holster was hanging low on the right side. The pistol was kicked out so that as his hand hung naturally, it was no more than an inch or so from the butt. Staley turned toward Wil
liams.

  “You aren’t talking about buying this herd, are you?”

  Williams shook his head in the negative.

  “So what you are asking me to do is steal the herd?”

  Williams let out a nervous sigh before he answered. “Yes.”

  “You do know, don’t you, that I own the Cattlemen’s Protective Association?” Staley said. “Stealing cows is not my business. My business is running down the outlaws who do steal cows, and dealing with them. In fact, we just came back from running down the outlaws who stole cows from Eric Dawkins.”

  “You found them?” Williams asked.

  Staley nodded. “Found ’em and hung ’em. They’re danglin’ from a tree near Cobb’s Crossing right now as a warnin’ to anyone else who thinks they can get away with stealin’ cows.”

  “I see,” Williams said nervously. He put his finger to his shirt collar and pulled it away from his neck.

  “And now you are asking me to steal cows?”

  “I, uh, I’m sorry,” Williams said. “I was led to believe that I could do business with you if the price was right.”

  Suddenly, and inexplicably, the frown on Staley’s face was replaced by a smile.

  “We can do business if the price is right,” he said.

  “Seventy-five hundred dollars?”

  “Ten thousand.”

  Williams was silent for a long moment. Then, finally, he nodded.

  “Ten thousand,” he agreed.

  “Write out a letter, hiring me to recover your stolen herd,” Staley said.

  “What? No, you don’t understand. The herd isn’t stolen, it’s…”

  “No, you don’t understand,” Staley told him. “If I’m goin’ after those cows, I’m not going to be left hanging out to dry. You’re going to write a letter hiring the Cattlemen’s Protective Association to recover your stolen herd.”

  “Wait a minute,” Williams said. “If anything goes wrong, that would automatically transfer all the guilt to me.”

  Williams smiled. “Yeah, it will, won’t it?” he said.

  “All right, all right. You’re a difficult man to work with, Mr. Staley, but I don’t see as I have any choice. I’ll do as you say.”