Powder River

by S. K. Salzer

  At last she came to the narrow trail that curled up the mountain to Billy’s cabin. By now Byron was lathered and beginning to labor, but she urged him on, though the road was steep. Like the horse, she was breathless and her heart boomed in her ears. What am I doing? Billy Sun is nothing to me, only an amusing interlude in the crushing boredom of my life. I don’t want to see him hurt, but what do I lose in the event? On the other hand, if I am discovered, Richard will divorce me and I will lose everything. I will be cast out in the hedges. Odalie saw herself in rags, begging for food on the streets of New Orleans, but she did not slow. Her husband and his men killed Jack Reshaw and Ranger Jones, and she believed they meant to kill Billy and Nate, too. Anyone who stood in their way would be eliminated. She was not in love with Billy, but she could not let any harm come to him. Odalie had done many things in her life she was ashamed of, and thus far she had managed to forgive herself, but if she let a good man die because of her cowardice, a man who loved her, then she might as well be dead herself.

  The cabin came into view, lit by a shaft of morning sunlight slanting through the pines. She rode full speed up to the door and slid from the saddle. Her hair had come unpinned and hung to her shoulders, and, like Byron, she was winded. She ran to the door and entered without knocking. The one-room line shack was empty, the bed where they had passed many delightful hours unmade. She ran to the pole barn and found it too unoccupied. Billy’s horse was gone. Where was he? She returned to the cabin and sat on the bed, feeling desperate. Where would he be this time of day? Only one possibility came to her. He had to be at the line shack he and Nate shared farther down the valley, but could she ride there without being discovered? Richard’s henchmen may be watching; they may be outside Billy’s cabin even now. Wildly, she looked around the primitive room as if seeking an answer from the rough log walls. She felt light-headed and the room began to swim. Stay calm, she told herself, breathing deeply. Stay calm and find a way to warn him. There must be a way to warn him.

  Billy Sun

  Billy and Nate were sleeping when the killers came. One kicked in the door while two others ran in with guns drawn. One man stopped at the foot of Billy’s bed, the other at Nate’s. They were black shadows in the gray, predawn light.

  “Get up, chief.” The gunman closest to Billy kicked the bedframe. “You boys are going for a ride.”

  “Where are we going?” Billy said. “What do you want?”

  “I said get up. Put your pants on, but don’t bother with your boots. Where you’re goin’ you won’t be needin’ ’em.”

  Billy’s mind raced. There were these two, the one by the door, and probably more outside. There was a chance, slim, but a chance. “All right,” he said. “Give a man a minute to wake up.” He yawned and extended his arms over his head as if stretching but in fact reaching for the loaded revolver hanging in its holster from the bedpost. Billy’s attackers detected his purpose just as his fingers closed around the cold, wooden grip. The gunman by Nate’s bed fired first. Billy felt the wind from his bullet on his cheek as he pulled the trigger, striking his would-be killer squarely in the shoulder. By now Nate had grabbed his sidearm from under the bed and opened fire on the other intruders, one of whom shot wildly, sending a bullet into the wall with a spray of splinters. The failed assassins tried to flee but arrived at the door at the same instant, getting jammed in the frame. Billy shot again, hearing the thud of a bullet striking flesh, before they managed to break free. Billy and Nate jumped from their beds and continued firing from the cabin door as the three men ran, stumbling, toward a fourth, barely visible in the tree line, holding the horses. Billy counted four animals, including a distinctive sorrel with a star and stockinged hind feet. Nate groaned beside him.

  “Are you hurt?” Billy said.

  Nate’s face was ashen and shining with sweat. “I’m shot,” he said, falling back against the wall and sliding to the floor, his hand on his left shoulder. A stain was spreading on his red undershirt.

  “Bad?” Billy would not desert his friend, much as he wanted to ride after their attackers.

  Nate shook his head. “No. Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “Take off your shirt.” Even as he spoke Billy heard the horses crashing through the brush.

  Nate unbuttoned his shirt clumsily with one hand. “Who were they?” he said. “Did you recognize them?”

  Billy shook his head. “I didn’t see their faces, but I know who they are or who sent them and you do, too. At least we hit a couple of them.” He pointed to a black spray of blood on the door frame and adjoining wall. “They were stupid. They should’ve done us in our sleep like the cowards they are.” Billy walked to the door. “Say, what’s that?” Still in his stocking feet, he went outside and picked up a long gun, a carbine, leaning against the side of the cabin. He turned it over in his hands. Engraved on the walnut stock were the initials FC. He held the gun out to Nate, now shirtless, sitting on the earthen floor.

  “Well, that makes it simple, don’t it?” Nate said. “Hell, we knew it was Canton anyhow. Question is, what are we going to do about it?”

  Billy nodded. “That’s the nut. It’s up to us. The law won’t do nothing; Red Angus told me as much.” He kneeled by Nate to examine his injury. Blood oozed from the red, meaty hole and there was no exit wound. The bullet must be lodged in the bone. “Do you think you can ride?” Billy said.

  Nate’s face was white and getting whiter by the minute. “What choice do I have?”

  “We’ve got to get you to Doc Dixon.” Billy took his canteen from the same bedpost that held his empty holster and gave it to Nate. “You rest up while I saddle the horses. We’ll get you right and then we’ll get the men who did this. This, and Jack and Ranger too.”

  Lorna

  One candle burned on the table. The darkness suited the diners’ moods. Lorna had made lentil soup with pork hock and corn bread, but the meal had not been met with enthusiasm. Bean or dried vegetable soups had been on the table every night since her return because those were the only recipes Lorna could manage.

  “Does it disappoint you?” Lorna said, glaring at her father and Cal, both of whom looked down at their bowls. “I’m sorry if my cooking isn’t up to your standards.” She burned with resentment, which she did not try to hide. Just a few short months before she had been in London, wearing fine clothes, eating splendid food, and keeping company with sophisticated people. Now her days were nothing but hour after hour of endless toil—boring, grinding women’s work. She suspected that was the reason her father brought her home, to be his char. She could be in New Orleans, or Grand Isle; instead she was here, cooking, cleaning, washing dishes, scrubbing clothes. It was intolerable. She was meant for better things.

  Cal dropped his spoon into his bowl. “Didn’t Odalie Faucett teach you anything about cooking in all that time you were with her?”

  Bright spots of color appeared on Lorna’s cheeks. “Lady Faucett didn’t know she was preparing me to be the family charwoman, and I didn’t, either.” She paused, then banged her fists on the table, rattling the dishes and flatware. “I hate the kitchen, I have always hated it. I hate scrubbing floors, I hate washing and mending clothes, I hate tending the vegetable garden. I am not meant for this drudgery, and I will not do one more day of it!” She threw her spoon across the room, where it clattered against the window glass. “You’ll have to hire someone else to do your slave work, Pa, and there’s an end!”

  Dixon looked across the table at his daughter’s angry face. She was a beautiful woman, but she was a shrew. He was furious, but at the same time he felt he had no one but himself to blame. He had never showed her a father’s love, never given her the attention a daughter deserved.

  “Lorna,” he said, trying to keep the anger from his voice, “I know you’ve had a heavy burden since Mrs. MacGill died. I was unprepared for that; I had no idea the poor woman was so ill. In fact, I rather thought she was improving. I never intended that you should—” He was interrupted by a
firm knock, once and then again. Dixon got to his feet and his eyes met Cal’s. These were dangerous times for unexpected callers. After a short hesitation, he crossed the room and opened the door. There stood Billy Sun, supporting a second man who was barely conscious.

  “Billy!” Lorna stepped toward him, but Dixon raised his hand to stop her.

  “I’m sorry to come to you with this, Doctor,” Billy said, “but Nate has been shot. Can we come in?”

  “Of course,” Dixon said. “Come with me.” Dixon led the way as Cal and Billy half carried Nate through the house with Lorna following. They took Nate to Dixon’s surgery and placed him on a sheet-covered table. Dixon took Nate’s wrist and felt his pulse, then began cutting off his shirt with scissors. The wool fabric stuck to Nate’s shoulder wound, which oozed blood as Dixon pulled it free. When he asked Lorna to go to the kitchen to heat some water, she responded immediately.

  “Who did this, Billy?” Dixon said.

  “It was Frank Canton. Him and three others ambushed us this morning at the cabin. They broke in when me and Nate was sleeping. Meant to kill us but we got the drop on ’em. We managed to hit at least two before they got away.”

  Dixon raised his eyes from his bloody work. “Are you sure it was Canton?”

  Billy nodded. “I’m sure. He left his gun behind. Not only that, I recognized his horse. It was him all right.”

  Lorna returned carrying a steaming basin and a stack of white linen rags draped over her forearm. She set them down, then turned to Billy with shining eyes. “At least they didn’t hurt you. That jealous little tyrant. . . .”

  Billy looked at her sharply. “Sounds like you got someone particular in mind.”

  Lorna flushed and touched her throat. “Well, no. I don’t, that is, no.”

  Billy smiled, but there was no warmth in his green eyes. “Do you know something about this? If you do, you’ve got to tell me.”

  Lorna shook her head, color rising, as Billy and her father waited for a response. She was saved when Nate released a low moan, drawing their attention. Dixon began searching the wound with a Nelaton’s probe, an ingenious device with an unglazed porcelain head that released an audible clink when it hit up against a bullet or other bit of metal. Many times in his career Dixon had sent thanks to the dead French surgeon, Auguste Nelaton, who invented it. It had helped him find and remove scores of bullets and iron arrowheads. In this case, though, it had yet to yield the desired result.

  “Will Nate make it?” Billy said. “He don’t look good.”

  “Coin’s still in the air,” Dixon said. “I need to get the bullet, and I’ll have to put him under for that. Billy, you and Lorna wait in the house. Cal, I want you to help me.” Dixon fished a key from his coat pocket and gave it to his son. “Get the chloroform.”

  Cal unlocked the medicine cabinet and took out a blue glass bottle.

  “Lorna and Billy, wait in the house,” Dixon said. “Please, do as I ask.” He uncorked the bottle and soaked a handkerchief. The room filled with the scent of ripe apples.

  Billy put a hand on Nate’s undamaged shoulder. “Good-bye, my friend,” he said. “I’ll see you on the other side.” He held the door as Lorna passed through, and they stood together in the dark hallway, listening through the closed door as Dixon gave his son instructions. “Cover his mouth and nose with the handkerchief and keep your head turned. Be careful not to breathe in any yourself.”

  Billy took Lorna’s arm. She stood close to him, but it was too dark to see her face. “Let’s go to the kitchen,” he said. “You can make coffee and tell me what you know about what happened today.”

  “I don’t know—”

  “Stop it!”

  His gripped tightened and she flinched at the anger she felt in him. He repeated the words in a softer voice. “Stop it, Lorna.”

  * * *

  They sat at a small table. The kitchen was dark but for two candles burning in tin wall sconces on either side of the room. Lorna sniffled and blew her nose in a white, lace-trimmed kerchief. Her eyes were wet and red rimmed from crying.

  “So Faucett knows about Odalie and me?” he said.

  Lorna nodded.

  “How do you know this?”

  Lorna squeezed shut her eyes. It was an exquisitely painful memory, one she could barely stand to recall, even now. “I overheard them talking in the library. Fred Jolly followed Odalie one day when she went to your cabin.”

  Billy remembered a spring afternoon when she was so late he thought she wasn’t coming, and his overwhelming joy when at last Odalie appeared, windblown and happy. “I thought maybe I was being followed,” she said, “so I took the roundabout way, just in case. No one could’ve followed Byron on that run!” And they had fallen onto his bed with their arms around each other, laughing.

  “Did you tell Odalie about what you heard?” he said.

  “No. I thought about it. I should have told her, I know I should have, but I was angry.” She twisted the handkerchief in her hands, and when she spoke it was a whisper. “I couldn’t stand the thought of the two of you together. I still can’t.”

  Billy barely heard her, his thoughts were racing. Was Odalie in danger too? Jealousy might have been the reason for the attack on him and Nate that morning, but he didn’t think so. If that were his motive, Faucett wouldn’t have tried to kill Nate, too. Beyond that, Odalie didn’t mean that much to her husband. He wouldn’t go to the trouble of killing for her. No, it was the range war that stirred Faucett’s passion, hatred for “squatters” who encroached on “his” land. Still, Lorna should have considered Odalie’s safety.

  “Did you ever think of her?” he said. “If Richard was angry, he might hurt her, too.”

  Lorna shook her head. “No. My only concern was for you.” She covered her face with her hands, and Billy saw by the heaving of her shoulders that she was weeping again.

  “Don’t cry,” he said gently. He felt pity for this young woman he had known since the very moment of her birth. “What happened today wasn’t because of me and Odalie. I’m pretty sure of that.”

  Lorna dried her eyes with the back of her hand and raised her face. His tone had given her hope. “Billy, let’s get out of here, just you and me, no one else. Those men meant to kill you—for whatever reason—and they’ll try again. What happened today will only make it worse. Please, Billy, please—before it’s too late.” She pleaded with her eyes.

  Billy laughed shortly. “Everybody keeps asking me to leave. I’m not going, Lorna. You go if you want to—you probably should—but this place, Absaroka, is my home. I won’t let men like Richard Faucett and Frank Canton drive me away. I’m staying.”

  Lorna’s face changed. “You are stubborn and prideful. Go ahead, get yourself killed, and you will, too. See if I care!”

  Their eyes met across the table. The kitchen was even darker now; one candle had burned out, the other was guttering. “I’m sorry, Lorna. I never wanted to hurt you, never, but it seems like that’s all I’ve ever done. From the very beginning.”

  “Oh, please, spare me your pity.” Lorna fairly spat the words. “Plenty of men would be happy to have me. I’ve had many offers, I can tell you, even from the sons of British lords!”

  “I don’t doubt it.”

  “I hate you.”

  “I don’t doubt that, either.”

  Lorna’s bitter smile became a sneer. She wanted to hurt him. “If you think Odalie cares for you, you’re a fool. She may have made love to you, but you mean nothing to her. Believe me, I know her very well. If she cared about you, she would have told me.”

  Billy was quiet, his face in shadow.

  “Odalie Faucett would never cast her lot with an Indian,” she continued. “That’s all you were to her, a good-looking half-breed who broke her husband’s horses.” She paused but still he said nothing. Lorna pounded the table with her fist. “Say something, damn you!”

  Billy pushed back his chair and got to his feet. “I’m going to the barn t
o see to our horses. Tell your father where I am, when he’s done with Nate.”

  Odalie

  Early in January, Richard Faucett had sent Fred Jolly south to Colorado to buy conditioned horses for his army of cattlemen. They had to arrive ready to ride and primed for hard going, for it would have aroused suspicion if he and the other ranchers were seen preparing their horses so far in advance of spring roundup. Faucett also dispatched a cowboy from Texas back to his home state to assemble a legion of gunmen, twenty-two to twenty-five in number, with the story they were being hired to track down a band of outlaws.

  Faucett took for himself the two most prickly tasks. First, he arranged with Union Pacific Railroad officials for the transport of fifty armed men and horses from Cheyenne to Casper, which would be the launching point for Faucett’s expeditionary force. Starting in northern Johnson County, the regulators, as they called themselves, would march southward, eliminating rustlers along the way. From there, they would continue south and east, through Converse County, and then west, through Natrona. Once the transportation was arranged, Faucett turned his attention to negotiations with Amos Barber, Wyoming’s acting governor, to ensure that city and country officials would not be able to enlist local militias to halt the invaders’ advance.

  All this planning kept Faucett at his desk. One warm evening Faucett was sitting in his study by an open window, writing intently, when Odalie entered in a draft of jasmine-scented perfume. She rarely disturbed him at work. In fact, they rarely occupied the same room. The tension between them was palpable, yet never discussed. But this afternoon she had learned of the attack on Billy and Nate Coday at the line shack in the mountains. Only now did she fully realize how dangerous Richard was, the depths to which his hatred would lead him.