Judgment at Red Creek

by Leland Frederick Cooley

  “You’ve flushed them out alright,” he said, “but we can’t go riding down there and accuse this man Harmer and whoever he takes orders from. There’s no doubt he shot those two men without a chance, probably because he knew he couldn’t trust them as far as he could throw a steer uphill.”

  John Bates glanced at Jakob Gruen who had been working beyond his capacity to contain his grief. “Jakob and I have been thinking too,” he said. “Even if we get proof, what can we do against the likes of them, what with the marshall dead?”

  “It’s a problem,” Clayt agreed, “but suppose we find a way to get proof first, then figure the best way to get it to the law.”

  Henry was skeptical. “How do you figure on just getting the evidence?”

  “Before I tell you,” Clayt replied, “I want you to know that I don’t want to hear any arguments. Unless you shoot me in my tracks, I’m going to try it.”

  Henry seemed about to protest but Clayt’s grim, set mouth made him pause. “Well, get it said. After we hear it we’ll figure out whether to back you or pray for you.”

  “First off,” Clayt began, “we know they’re hiring at the Gavilan. If I show up, they won’t know me from Adam’s off ox. I’m just a stranger looking to hire on somewhere. I’m a buff hunter for the railroads. With the herds cut to ribbons now, I’m out of work.” He paused half expecting some reaction. None came as the men listened in silence.

  “I’m going to ride in and make it easy for Harmer to put on a new hand. Once on, I’ll work and listen. When I’ve got enough to stand up with the law—if I do—then I’ll drift on south, circle around, just in case, and get back here. Then we can figure out the best way to use what I’ve found out.”

  He paused again, and again there was no reaction. Henry and the others seemed to be assessing his chances for success.

  “We’ve got to get the goods on Harmer and whoever gives him his orders. That’s the first thing. If we don’t do that, and follow father’s advice, than all we can do is wait for more of the same.” He looked at each man in turn. “If we wait for that, we might as well pack up and move on—and if we do that, they win and we’ll lose and keep on losing. That’s the size of it, no matter how we look at it.”

  Oss couldn’t believe his ears. “Good God, Clayt! No wonder you didn’t want to tell me what you were chewing on! Are you loco? You’ll be dead the first day. You’re no cowhand!”

  On his feet, he thrust out a threatening finger.

  “You don’t want any back talk? Well, Clayton Adams, you just wait and see what you’re going to get from your mother and Nelda when you bust out this hornet’s nest! Your Dad gone. Fern gone, and you a likely next. What right have you got to think that you won’t get flushed out and killed, too?”

  Henry Deyer rose and rested a hand on Oss’ shoulder. He had known Clayt since his early teens. He had never met a more modest, self-possessed, and confident lad. From the time he had learned to handle a repeating rifle, Clayt had been the best game hunter in the party as their wagon train made its way north along the Pecos from Texas. Clayt had ridden point with him. He was a born scout. When he got his Smith and Wesson forty-four, he practiced drawing until he was much better than just good. Several of the men had said to Asa, “That boy of yours is a natural. Let’s hope he don’t get too all-fired handy with it.” Asa knew his son and he had no cause to worry. Clayt may have been born to guns but he was no compulsive killer.

  When Oss seemed about to berate Clayt again, Henry took him by the arm. “Cool down now, boy. Clayt’s making the only sense there is. I don’t expect those mad coyotes are going to come down here and ask if we’ve had enough. They’ll be back again when the dam’s fixed, but one thing’s for sure: They won’t surprise us twice!” Urging Oss to follow him, he added, “Let’s have no more talk now.”

  At the midday meal Clayt’s decision brought wails of protest.

  “You’re head of the family now,” his mother pleaded. “If anything happens to you there’s only Henry and Oss and Nelda. Fourteen are dead. Mike Nathanson and Thad Jones are just barely hanging on. Five others are only able to work part time. I’d rather walk away from all of this than face the chance of you getting hurt. Half the families are sick to death and frightened. If you didn’t come back, they’d pack up and leave. That would be the end of your father’s dream!”

  Clayt spoke gently. “Leave for where?”

  “I’m a school teacher, Clayt. I taught all three of you. I can still teach...in Texas...or even back where we came from originally, in the Carolinas. There’s still family there.”

  Nelda got up and came around behind Clayt. Circling his neck she pulled his head back close to her.

  “Don’t do it, Clayt. I know how you feel with father gone. You don’t care about danger anymore. That’s how we know you felt when Hazel Coates died. We watched you and prayed that someday you’d see that one of the other girls could love you.”

  Smoothing his thick dark hair she pleaded, “It’s foolish, Clayt. Let’s just go on with our lives. I know father would have wanted it that way.”

  Clayt reached up with both hands and loosened his sister’s embrace. Rising from the chair, he said, “We aren’t going to bring the dead back to life. We can’t stop living. And I can’t go on living in peace with myself if I don’t do what I know Father would have really wanted. We’ve got to get proof and find a way to bring the guilty parties to the law.”

  He gazed at his mother and sister, and spoke gently.

  “I promised father, and I promise you, on his grave,” he said, “that I’ll be alright—and I’ll be back. Count on it.” He moved around the table to his mother. Leaning down he kissed the top of her head. The overt show of affection brought on new tears.

  “Don’t pester me any more now,” he said quietly. “Just keep me in your prayers.”

  Before he retired, Clayt put together his saddle roll. It contained blankets, extra clothing, spare boots, and oil-skins. The single-action forty-four was snugged in its holster with the full ammunition belt. He packed it in his saddle bag. The Winchester repeater with a full magazine was eased into the deerskin saddle boot. In the left bag he stored jerked venison strips, a razor sharp Bowie knife, matches, small personal care items, and several boxes of spare ammunition.

  “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” he said half aloud, as he undressed and turned in.

  Chapter Four

  The Red Creek settlement was dark except for a light in the Deyer cabin when Clayt checked his saddlebags and bedroll one last time and mounted. In his haste to get an early start and avoid more pleading, he did not notice that one of the horses was missing from the dozen saddle-broke work horses kept in the corral.

  On the far side of the dam, he turned his mount downstream a hundred yards to the small cemetery. He dismounted, dropped the reins, and walked along the fourteen newly mounded graves, pausing at the last three which held his father, his sister, and Oss’s young brother, Ned. He stood longest at his father’s grave and silently reconfirmed his promise. Crosses had not yet been made to identify the victims. On the way along the rows he had passed the grave of Hazel Coates. He had loved her since she was fifteen and he was eighteen. Three years ago, almost overnight it seemed, tick fever had taken her. Standing as he did now, he could still feel the pervasive emptiness that displaced the quiet eagerness that once had given the promise of new meaning to his life. Their marriage was also a part of the dream.

  Mounted again, he reached the top of the trail just as the sun was slanting over the long grassy rise that marked the edge of the high plains to the east.

  Suddenly, from behind a stand of piñions, Oss appeared mounted on his horse. Clayt let out a surprised grunt.

  “What kind of damned foolishness are you up to?”

  “I’m going to ride with you for a way.”

  “You’re going to do no such thing! This is my show. I’m riding alone, Oss. Now turn that nag around and get back down there. Your best
job is to keep Mom and Nelda quieted down.”

  “That’ll be like telling the sun to stand still.”

  “Well, try anyway!”

  Oss threw up his hands. “I’ll promise you one thing, Clayt, if you’re not back in a reasonable time, I’ll be riding out to look for you.”

  “And that’s something else you’re not going to do,” Clayt snapped. “I love you like a kid brother but if you get too stiff-necked I’ll take you by the scruff and the seat of your britches and fetch you back myself. This is my show. I’m looking for work, not trouble. If you come riding in, you’ll get us both shot. You saw what those people can do. Now get on back down there. I promised Mom and Nelda I’d be back. I promise you that, too. And you’d better promise me you’ll not come riding down to Gavilan like a one Indian war party. We don’t know what kind of hands Harmer has down there, but we know what kind two of them were. Now get on back down, Oss. I’m going to be just fine. I’ve got my whole story set.”

  Oss remounted and watched glumly as Clayt rode away and disappeared in the lingering predawn gloom.

  Clayt reached the trail intersection in a little over an hour and headed south. Another hour and a half brought him to the Santos ranch. It was no more than a shabby collection of sagging sheds, a corral, and a weather-eroded one room adobe.

  As he neared the place, two men who were leading a pair of horses toward the corral gate, stopped. After a few words, they turned quickly and led them out of sight.

  Clayt tied up at the hitching rail next to a lone saddled animal. As he dismounted the ornaments on the saddle caught his eye. Without appearing to, he noted the details of both the saddle and the bridle. They were new and heavily ornamented with silver.

  He recalled the bartender’s comment. The outfit most probably was Harmer’s. He had intended to ride on through but now, with what could be a stroke of good luck, he decided to pretend to be stopping for coffee.

  Rosita Santos, a heavy, once pretty girl, was holding the tattered burlap drape aside. Raising his hat, Clayt said, “Buenos dias, Señora. Yo quiero comprar café. Es possible?”

  Before the woman could answer, a scowling, heavy-set man appeared from around the corner.

  “Who are ya, and who are ya lookin’ fur?” he demanded. Struggling to conceal his anger, Clayt replied in an even voice, “My name’s Clayton. In Las Vegas I heard about possible work on a new spread down-valley.”

  Jake Harmer did not miss a detail of the stranger’s dress or his mount. The animal did not have the wiry look of one that had done much range work. Neither did the man himself.

  After a deliberately prolonged silence, he said, “What kinda work do ya do?”

  “Whatever needs to be done. I’ve been buff hunting. Not much doing now, with the government and railroads mostly buying beef. I’ve done some wrangling and trail riding—and some smithing and carpentering.”

  As Clayt spoke, not the rough argot of the typical cowhand or plainsman, suspicion narrowed Harmer’s eyes still more.

  “Where ya from, Clayton?”

  “I told you. I came from Vegas.”

  “Before that!” he snapped. “Where was ya born?”

  Clayt managed a patient smile. “I was born in an old Murphy wagon on the trail west of Independence. My father was a preacher from Virginia. My mother was a schoolmarm. We got as far as Council Grove and my father died. We turned back to St. Louis. I got some schooling there. Six years ago I started working my way west.” He shrugged and deliberately broadened his smile. “Now you know all there is to tell.”

  Jake Harmer continued to study the newcomer. A schoolmarm for a mother would explain the fellow’s manner of speaking—except that it sounded a bit more south, somehow.

  “Can you handle a six-gun?”

  “Depends. I favor my Winchester,” he replied, indicating the rifle in the saddle boot.

  “Can you rope and bust out a bronc?”

  “If I have to.” Clayt was about to say that he had broken the mount he was riding when he realized with a start that the man who had to be Jake Harmer was looking at the Red Creek brand.

  “I’d sure like to bust out one of my own soon,” he said, hoping his improvised story would hold water. “My horse went lame a couple of days back. I borrowed this one from some settlers at a place called Red Creek. Met two of them on the trail and went down there with them. Left twenty dollars in good faith. I’ll take this nag back as soon as I can.” He managed a humorless grin. “Lame or not, they still got the best of the bargain.”

  Harmer’s fixed gaze relaxed a bit. He reached for a plug of black tobacco and bit off a corner. Clayt waited until he had settled the quid in his unshaven cheek, then with a convincing show of respectful affability, he said, “Can I ask your name?”

  Harmer returned the plug to his pocket. “Name’s Harmer. Jake Harmer. I’m foreman of the new Gavilan spread down at Mesa Roja.” He spat and the impact raised a small explosion of dust. “I’m takin’ two horses from here to add to our string. You lead one and ride with me,” he said. “I’m short-handed. I’ll talk to T.K. Oakley about puttin’ ya on. He’s the new sup’rintendent.”

  The muscles in Clayt’s middle relaxed. “Be obliged,” he said.

  He forced down a half mug of near undrinkable coffee. Harmer sucked a big swig of pulque out of a bottle on the table and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. He put two nickels on the table. “I’ll stand for this. Let’s go.”

  The ride with the extra horses on lead passed with little talk. Clayt’s careful attempts to draw Harmer out were not successful. What information the man imparted was useless. It concerned general plans for a half-million-acre spread. When Clayt observed that a ten-thousand-head start-up herd would need a lot of gramma grass and water, Harmer agreed. “In the dry season, it’s gonna take every damned drop from the Pecos and everything that drains into it.”

  “Those settlers in Red Creek seemed to have good water,” Clayt said.

  “Not now they don’t,” Harmer replied with a mirthless smile.’ ’We blew up their dam and shot ’em up a little. They won’t be stealin’ more water now.”

  So there it was! Clayt’s jaw muscles corded as he fought to control his outrage. When he could manage himself he said,’ ’Seem like there’d be enough water for everybody... if nobody hogs it.”

  “The hell there is!” Harmer growled, turning in his saddle to give him another of his periodic scrutinies. “Them sodbusters in Red Crick got no claim to land or irrigatin’ water. The Gavilan’s owners got preemtion rights on territorial land and all the water, too. There’s gonna be no room for water thieves on any live stream when our herds are built up. That’s what we’re gonna git inta their dumb heads!”

  Harmer was lying. Clayt was certain the cattle syndicates had no intention of paying the government a dollar fifty an acre for the thousands of acres of federal land they would need, even though payment was necessary under the Preemption Act. The Homestead Act was another thing. The government could enforce it. That’s why, three years ago, his father and Henry had filed and paid the fees after Congress passed the bill over Southern opposition. All the settlers had chipped in. The land was owned in common, or would be when it was patented in two more years. The simple truth was, the cattlemen would be the illegal squatters and would get away with it because there was no way to stop them.

  It was midafternoon when they rode into the Gavilan ranch headquarters and turned their mounts loose in the corral. Harmer pointed to a small adobe. “Put yer stuff away and come over to the house.” He indicated a large U-shaped tileroofed adobe on which a recent addition had been made. It stood in the shade of a stand of old sycamore trees.

  Clayt beat the dust from his clothes and washed as best he could in the watering trough. When he approached, Harmer was standing on the porch talking to a tall, middleaged man dressed in a well-cut, black broadcloth suit. A blue silk cravat was secured around a clean white collar. As he came closer Clayt could see the man wa
s graying at the temples but his obsidian eyes, his heavy eyebrows, and his handlebar moustache were as jet black as his full head of coarse, straight hair.

  Clayt stopped by the stairs and waited. Harmer glanced at him but made no effort to introduce him. Instead he jabbed a thumb in his direction.

  “This fella calls himself Clayton. He’s lookin’ fur work. We’re still short. I kin use him if you say so.”

  Clayt held his breath while Oakley gave him an impersonal sizing up. He hoped he would not be asked any questions. It was a lot easier to remember the truth. Lies made slip-ups likely. He felt no real uneasiness about making up a story. In this case, he thought, God Himself would have agreed that the end justified the means.

  Finally Oakley turned away. “Put him on and try him out.”

  As Oakley turned to go inside, Clayt caught a glimpse of a young woman moving through an inner room. Probably Oakley’s daughter, he thought.

  Harmer joined him and pointed to the bunk house about fifty yards away. “Git on over there and ask Buck Tanner to show you where to put yer bedroll.” As Clayt started to move away, Harmer stopped him.

  “Say—you got a first name, ain’t ya?”

  “They call me Clay,” he replied, deliberately leaving off the T.

  Harmer nodded. “Alright. See Buck, then git over to the cookhouse and git some grub. Chow’s down reg’lar at sunup. Ya git a half hour fur it.”

  Buck Tanner, graying, square built and a bit paunchy, was the sort his father characterized as having a “born friendly face.” The old professional welcomed Clayt warmly. While he was putting his things in order on the bunk, and in the old wooden box nailed to the wall that served as a storage shelf, Buck Tanner explained his position at the Gavilan.

  “Don’t know what to expect now,” he said, “what with the new owners and all, but I’ve still got good days left in me, even if it’s only workin’ as tallyman. We’ll see, but I used to be trail boss fur the old owners. Drove many a better’n six-hundred-head herd north to the railroad.” He shrugged.