Powder River

by S. K. Salzer

  The heat was becoming unbearable, and the smoke was choking him. He had to make his move. Billy raised his .45 and fired a single shot. Let them think I’ve killed myself rather than burn alive.

  Billy took his Winchester in one hand and his revolver in the other and ran for his life, flying through the dying wall of flame and glowing embers of the north wall. Smoke rolled off him as he raced across the flat plain that lay between the cabin and the ravine.

  “There he goes!” a man yelled, and the bullets began to fly, whizzing by his head or striking the ground around him, sending up fan-shaped sprays of dirt and rock. Billy had only fifty yards to go until he reached the ravine. There he could take shelter. There he would find a chance, his only chance, to hold them off.

  Only twenty yards left. His lungs burned with effort and the effects of the smoke but he did not slow. Despite the pain, his heart soared. He was going to make it! At the same time, Even so, a question formed in his throbbing brain. Where was Frank Canton? Had he seen him with the others? He wasn’t sure; he couldn’t be certain . . .

  Five yards to go! Billy jumped into the dark of the ravine, his Winchester over his head, feeling pure joy as his feet felt the ground. I’ve made it! I have a chance!

  He landed on the soft, sandy soil and crept forward toward the V bend where he could see both means of approach. There he would make his stand. He heard the Texans yelling and cursing as they ran toward him. Soon Billy would be in a good place to take care of them once and for all. He smiled as he reached the bend.

  Frank Canton was down on one knee, his carbine at his shoulder. Billy tried to raise his Winchester, tried to get a hip shot off, but he was too late. Canton fired, hitting Billy square in the chest. He felt it like the kick of a mule, and fell back onto his back. There was no pain. He lay still, unable to move any part of his body except his eyes. He fixed them on the evening sky and waited, hearing Canton walk toward him. Billy Sun’s last view of this world was the face of Frank Canton, gazing down on him above the barrel of his carbine.

  “Good-bye, chief,” Canton said as he pulled the trigger.

  Odalie

  Hardy stopped to rest the horses when they were within ten miles of Dixon’s ranch. Odalie complained but he insisted. “We’ve done thirty miles in eight hours,” he said. “I don’t want to kill them.”

  Odalie made a sound of impatience and jumped down from the buggy, pacing on the frozen ground. The eastern sky was beginning to lighten. What if Richard and his army of assassins had beat them? What if Daniel and Billy were already dead? If that had happened, if Daniel was killed, Odalie thought she would take up a gun and shoot Richard herself, and to hell with the consequences.

  They were stopped by a creek that widened to a frozen pool. Hardy broke the ice and led the horses to drink. After they had taken their fill, he gave each a nosebag of grain. When they were done eating he checked their feet. Rob was kind to animals, Odalie noticed, in this he reminded her of Billy Sun. Both men were so very different from Richard, who could not manage his mounts without the whip and the spur. She pictured her husband with his self-satisfied smile and well-tailored suits of Scottish tweed, and she hated him.

  After an hour they were under way again. The horses moved with a new energy, and Odalie knew Rob had been right to rest them.

  “These people mean a lot to you, don’t they?” he said.

  “Yes, I suppose they do. More than I realized.”

  They traveled in silence until at last the Dixon ranch came into view, tranquil in the blue morning light. Odalie sighed with relief, for she had feared they would find a smoking ruin. A light burned in the kitchen of the white, two-story frame house and the rest of the outbuildings—barn and attached corral, a small wooden shed, a windmill, a pump house, and, some distance from the house, a privy tucked away in the sagebrush—appeared undisturbed. To her eyes, the modest Dixon property was more inviting by far than her own stone castle.

  Hardy drove the buggy up to the front door and Lorna opened it even before Odalie could climb down. Though partially concealed in her skirts, Odalie could see a pistol in Lorna’s right hand.

  “Odalie!” she said, eyes widening in surprise.

  “I must see your father at once.”

  Even as she spoke she heard the barn door slide open. She turned to see Dixon walking toward them, cradling a rifle in his arms. Odalie realized she had never seen him with a gun before.

  “Lady Faucett,” he said. “I would say I’m surprised to see you, but nothing surprises me anymore.” His eyes cut to Hardy. “Who’s your friend?”

  “Daniel, this is Rob Hardy, the ticket agent and telegrapher at Olympus. He’s just brought me from there, we’ve been traveling all night. You can trust him. We’ve come to warn you of—oh, I hardly know how to explain it—Richard and the WSGA, including Frank Canton, they’ve assembled a kind of army, that’s the only word for it, and they say they’re going to kill all the so-called rustlers in Powder River country. You and Billy are on their list. It’s true, I heard them planning it.”

  When he showed no reaction, she looked pointedly at the gun in his arms. “But maybe I’m telling you something you already know? Has something happened?”

  He came forward and took her by the arm. “Odalie, I could use coffee and I’m sure, if you and Mr. Hardy have been traveling all night, you could, too. Mr. Hardy, take your horses to the barn, give them whatever they need, then join us in the house. Keep your eyes and ears open and come for me at once if you see anyone coming.”

  The kitchen was warm and well-lit, and for the first time Odalie could see how exhausted Dixon was. He was unshaven and his eyes were sunken. Even Lorna’s lovely face was pale and drawn with fatigue.

  “What is it, Daniel? What’s happened?” Odalie said again.

  Dixon sank down in a chair and ran a hand through his hair, making it stick out at all angles. Odalie felt a great wave of tenderness for him. She wished she take him in her arms and hold him, give him some peace and comfort. It seemed to her he had had precious little of that. He was a kind man who deserved a better hand than Lady Fortune had dealt him.

  “I’m aware of Lord Faucett’s expeditionary force,” he said, “and his plans for me and my family, but, unfortunately for your husband and his associates, they misjudged the good citizens of Johnson County. The people are mobilizing against them—oh, a few of the businessmen may support him, but the average man, the homesteader, the small ranchers and farmers, are coalescing in a way Richard and the WSGA did not anticipate. They’ll be in for a big surprise when they reach Buffalo, if they make it that far.”

  “I’m very glad to hear it,” Odalie said, sitting across the table from him. Perhaps her telegram from Olympus had been received after all.

  Dixon continued. “The hell of it is my son Cal. Somehow your husband reeled him in, offered him money, five thousand dollars, if he would kill me.”

  Odalie gasped. This was unspeakably vile, even for Richard.

  Dixon continued. “Cal took his money, but then I guess he couldn’t go through with it. He killed Nate Coday, though. Poor Nate, he’d been shot and was weak as a kitten. He couldn’t possibly have defended himself.” Dixon shook his head and rubbed a hand across his eyes. “Cal, I don’t know where he is now and frankly, I don’t give a damn. I don’t care what happens to him.”

  Odalie reached across the table to take his hand when Rob Hardy threw open the door and ran into the room, flooding the kitchen with cold air and sunlight.

  “Riders are coming!” he said, pointing to the north.

  Dixon jumped to the window, pushing aside the curtains. Odalie followed; three wagons and a handful of riders were gathered on a hilltop about a mile distant.

  “It’s them.” Dixon turned back to Odalie and said, “Can you handle a gun, Lady Faucett?”

  “I can. Quite well, as a matter of fact.”

  Dixon smiled for the first time since they arrived. “I suspected as much. I’ll take the fr
ont room, Lorna, you stay here in the kitchen. Mr. Hardy, if you’ll cover the south side, that leaves the upstairs bedroom only. Odalie, will you take that window?”

  She nodded.

  “When they get in range, I’ll give a signal and we’ll open up. We’ll let them know we’re here and we won’t go down without a fight.”

  Richard Faucett

  He sat on his tall black Thoroughbred, smoking his pipe and squinting in the noonday sun. Despite his regal appearance, Faucett was frustrated. For almost thirty-six hours he’d been staring at a harmless-looking white frame house that had turned out to be an impregnable, miniature fortress with a gunman at every door and window. They should have burned it down a day ago; instead, here they sat, paralyzed. Each time they tried to advance on the house, defenders drove them back with well-aimed shots. Two of his men, Texans, had been hit, and one was seriously injured. Faucett was angry, hungry, and cold. Despite the sun, a sharp April wind penetrated his overcoat of fine Irish frieze like whey through cheesecloth. Again, the Englishman was reminded that no amount of money or the fine goods it purchased could guarantee comfort in this harsh land.

  “What shall we do, sir?” Jolly said. “How much longer shall we wait?”

  “Shut up, man. I’m trying to think.”

  Tom Horn, seemingly impervious to cold, lay on his back in the sun with his hat covering his face. The hat concealed a smile. Horn did not like Faucett and enjoyed watching the fat Limey twist. This expedition had turned out to be a disaster of the first water, just like he, Horn, had tried to tell Faucett it would be, but the great lord wouldn’t listen. The thing had been wrong from the get-go, starting with Faucett’s decision to break his army up into separate “raiding parties.” It only diminished the force’s impact and left the men confused and fragmented. Who knew what was happening and where? Had Canton’s group taken Billy Sun and the Lazy L and B boys? No one knew. Also, as Horn had cautioned, the people of Buffalo had not welcomed Faucett’s invaders as saviors, neither had they retreated to their homes like scared animals taking to their holes. No, the citizens were massing in the streets and mounting a stout defense. Even the miserly Tom Raylan had thrown open the doors of his mercantile, offering guns, ammunition, blankets, and bacon to any man willing to fight the WSGA invaders.

  Not only that, but folks they were counting on, men who’d promised to lend manpower and muscle, had shown the white feather at the last minute and backed out. Could be they’d even thrown in with the rustlers. Horn wouldn’t be surprised. Yes, he’d tried to warn him, but Faucett knew better, so let him stew in it for a while. Next time, he’ll know Tom Horn was a man worth listening to.

  “Uh, Lord Faucett?” Albertus Ringo said.

  “What do you want, Ringo?”

  “We could build a go-devil. Thataway we could get at ’em without getting shot up ourselves.”

  “A what?” Faucett said.

  “Go-devil. We could cut down them trees, use the lumber and a couple hay bales to build up one of the Studebakers, then shelter behind it when we roll it toward the house. An ark of safety.”

  Faucett made a sound of disdain. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Not so fast,” Horn said, rising from the ground. “It might work, and it’s sure worth a try. We’re not getting anywhere like it is.”

  Faucett looked from the house to the Studebaker, then back to the house. “Oh, hell, go ahead and build your ark-devil or whatever you call it. Just get me close enough to do what I came for. If I can’t get Billy Sun, at least I can watch Daniel Dixon die.”

  * * *

  From the house, Dixon and the others watched Faucett’s men chop, hammer, and wire logs to the gears of a wagon until the sides were six feet high. Platforms fixed to the wagon’s sides held hay bales for extra coverage. Within twenty-four hours they had built a sort of moveable breastworks that was big enough to provide cover for all twenty of Faucett’s men. At noon, as the men were finishing, Frank Canton and the two Texans rode up on lathered horses. The Texans dismounted and made for the chow tent while Canton went directly to Faucett, drowsing on a camp chair before a warm fire.

  “Well?” Faucett rousing as Canton dismounted. “What happened? Did you bring me that damn half-breed?”

  Canton upended and drained his canteen. He’d give twenty dollars for four fingers of whiskey. “I had to finish him. He might have got away otherwise. Bill Sun, he was a brave man. In the end, it seemed a shame to kill him.”

  “Please, spare me your recriminations, Canton. He was a renegade and a thief of the first water. He got what he deserved.”

  “Cal Dixon is dead, too,” Canton said. “Sun took him out.”

  Faucett shrugged his narrow shoulders. “If he’d done what I paid him to do, we could have avoided this nonsense.” He waved his hand toward the white house. “I shouldn’t have used him. He was weak, and I knew it.”

  Canton turned his head to spit. His mouth tasted of bile and dirt and his clothes smelled of smoke. “Yeah, that was a mistake. I don’t know many men who could kill their own father. I don’t think I’d want to know a man like that.”

  Ringo approached to say the go-devil was finished. After a brief inspection, Faucett ordered it forward. The men put their shoulders to it, and it began to move, inching slowly over the bumpy ground.

  Faucett looked on with a smile. “By God, this just might work. In an hour or so we’ll be in range.”

  “What’s your plan?” Canton said.

  Faucett walked to a tarpaulin-covered box, away from the fire. He threw back the canvas and pulled out a stick of dynamite.

  “Dynamite?” Canton shook his head. “Faucett, you don’t want to do that. Hell, there’s probably women in that house. That daughter of Dixon’s, Lorna, she’s probably in there. You’ll blow her to bits.”

  “I don’t care about that, Mr. Canton. Anyone in that house is an associate of Dixon’s, and therefore my enemy. Yours, too, I should think.”

  Canton raised his hands, palms out. “I signed on for killing rustlers and thieves, not women.” Canton wasn’t sure Dixon deserved this, and he’d been thinking of the three men caught in the line shack with Bill Sun—Kinch and the kid, Comstock, and the Mexican—he wasn’t convinced they deserved to die, either. Their only crime was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong company.

  “No, I’m not for it,” Canton said. “This ain’t right.”

  “Sheriff, these things are never simple. I should think you knew that.” Carefully, Faucett returned the stick of dynamite to the box and mounted his horse. “But cheer up, soon you’ll have your money. Perhaps that will soothe your conscience.” Faucett turned his horse and kicked him into a trot. Tom Horn joined Canton, and together they watched Faucett ascend the hill to monitor the devil’s progress.

  “You know, Horn, I’m sorry I got us into this,” Canton said. “There’s no honor in it.”

  “Yeah, things haven’t turned out so good,” Horn said, “and now I think Lord Richard’s in for a nasty little surprise himself. Lady Odalie’s in that house. I saw her myself at the upstairs window, and you know what?” He grinned at Canton. “She’s a damn fine shot.”

  Dixon

  Dixon sat at the front window, watching the contraption roll toward them. It was coming slowly, but it was coming and there was no way to stop it. A knot of fear tightened in his stomach. He trained his field glasses on the lone horseman on top of the hill. Faucett. Dixon wished he hadn’t sold the needle gun a buffalo hunter had given him years ago as payment for setting a broken arm. With that weapon’s great power and range, he could easily pick Faucett out of his saddle, even at this distance.

  Odalie came down the stairs, still wearing the blue traveling suit she had worn for days, even though it was stained with road dirt and perspiration. As the day warmed, she had unbuttoned the top buttons of her jacket and kept it so, revealing the lace of her chemise.

  Dixon heard her enter the room but he could not look at her.
He did not want to see the exhaustion on her face, or the emotion he knew he would also find there. Bad things happened to women who loved him. First, his wife, Laura, and their infant daughter. Then Rose. Now, he feared the same fate was about to befall his daughter, Lorna, and this woman, Odalie. He vowed to save them, no matter the cost.

  “Daniel,” she said, placing her hand on his shoulder. “Let me talk to Richard. He doesn’t know I’m here. Let me go out there and talk to him.”

  “No,” he said. “It’s out of the question. Those men are killers. They don’t care who gets hurt.” Days before Dixon had asked Sigge Alquist to deliver a letter to Colonel Smith at Fort McKinney, informing him of the threat to the people of Johnson County and Buffalo asking him to send troops. He had no way of knowing if the message had been received, or how the colonel would respond if it were.

  “Daniel,” Odalie said. “Look at me.”

  At last he complied. He had never seen her in a dirty dress, and her hair was half down, but she was beautiful. Again, he noticed the silvery skin below her eyes that so reminded him of Rose. He found it difficult to speak.

  “If I appeal to Richard, if I promise to go with him, I think he’ll leave you and Lorna alone. It will give him an out, a chance to save face in front of his men. He doesn’t want this, not really. Let me try.”

  “Odalie, I don’t believe that, but suppose you’re right,” Dixon said. “What happens then? Do you really think you and Faucett can return to The Manor and carry on as before? After everything that’s happened?”

  Odalie took his hands. “I don’t know. I can’t think that far ahead. I’m just thinking about right now, about how to stop him!”

  Dixon had never admired her more than he did at that moment. She was a brave woman, and far from stupid. She had to know Lord Richard Faucett would have special plans indeed for the woman who had betrayed and made a fool of him. He was not about to let her sacrifice herself for him.