“It wants to be left alone,” Nora replied. Heading for the cabin, she added: “That doesn’t seem like a lot to ask for any more.”
Chapter
28
Rose spent three days combing the northern reaches of the Crow reservation but didn’t find anything sporting an A-Bar-E brand. She returned home late on the third day to discover several extra horses in the corral, packs and piles of gear stacked outside the fence. Although she loosened the Smith & Wesson in its holster as a precaution, she’d already recognized Gene Sidwell’s bay and the seal brown mare belonging to Lew Parker.
Lew wandered out of the barn as she rode up, looking as ragged as any derelict after his winter trapping. His hair was long and unkempt, his beard like a shaggy bib covering the front of his shirt. He wore a poorly cured wolf-hide vest over a threadbare shirt, and knee-high buckskin leggings over his trousers.
“Dang,” Rose said, eyeing his attire. “You look like you been rode hard and put up wet.”
Taking her in a bear hug, Lew lifted her clear of the ground. “Hello, Rose. Gimme a squeeze.”
“Here now,” she said, cuffing the side of his head. “Put me down. What’s got into you?”
“I been six months in those hills and ain’t seen a woman since we left here last fall.”
“Well, don’t go gettin’ no randy notions around me.” She pushed him away. “What you’ve seen or ain’t seen since you passed through here ain’t my bailiwick.”
“Why, I never said it was,” Lew replied solemnly. “It was a friend I greeted, that’s all.”
“Well … shoot.” She thrust out her hand. “All right, ya dang’ horse thief. How’d you fare over the winter?”
“We done all right,” he said, shaking her hand formally. “We found a sheltered valley with plenty of grass for the horses and enough meat to feed an army. It was cold, though. Froze the ears off a couple of the pack horses.”
Rose told him about the cattle she’d found below the bluffs, and of the huge losses suffered by ranchers across the northern tier of the nation.
“Nora told us you lost your herd, too,” Lew said. “I’m sorry to hear about that.”
“It was a rough winter,” she agreed, “but we come through with our ears intact.”
Lew laughed. “I’ve got some meat and coffee in my packs. Let’s find a place along the crick and fix ourselves something to eat?”
“You got to be joshin’!” She turned to the cabin, noticing for the first time that its chimney and stovepipe were smokeless, the single window dark as the eye socket in a skull. “When’d you get in?”
“Last night, but I didn’t get booted out until this afternoon. I consider myself fortunate to have spent one night under a roof, although I’ll admit I didn’t get much sleep.”
“I’ll be damned,” Rose said. She’d been looking forward to sleeping inside tonight herself, with a fire to warm her toes and a rope-sprung bunk to cushion her slumber.
“If it’s any consolation, we didn’t take many hides,” Lew told her. “The furs were prime, but once the big freeze hit, it took all our efforts just to keep us and the horses alive. I doubt we’ll clear more than a few hundred dollars, and that won’t be near enough for Gene to buy a freight outfit.”
“Is that what that fool has in mind, a freight outfit. As if there’s a teamster in this territory that ain’t scramblin’ for whatever business the railroads has left like crumbs on the floor?”
Chuckling, Lew said: “Come on, let’s camp out under the stars like a couple of kids in the back yard. It’ll be fun.”
“You been out ’way too long, Lew Parker, if that’s your notion of fun!” Rose called after him, then turned to strip the saddle from Albert’s back.
But Lew was right, and even Rose had to admit she had a good time. She’d always enjoyed Lew’s company, and she found it especially refreshing tonight, after her long winter’s confinement with only another woman’s voice, another woman’s point of view. They didn’t see Nora at all, but Rose heard her sharp, happy squeal a couple of times right before sunset. Later Gene came out in just his long-handles to rummage through his panniers for something or the other, but he took no notice of the campers along the creek. He looked quite a bit less woolly than Lew, which surprised Lew more than it did Rose.
“Nora must’ve cut his hair and made him shave,” Lew said in wonderment. “I swear I’ve never seen a woman have a spell over a fella like she has over Gene.”
“Casting a spell over a man ain’t hard work if you can stomach the consequences,” Rose replied. “It always made me feel a mite queasy, though.”
Lew had kindled his fire about a hundred yards from the cabin to increase the lovebirds’ sense of privacy, then whipped up a meal that came largely from his own packs. They had meat from a black bear he’d shot in the hills and spotted pup—a concoction of rice and raisins—along with biscuits, coffee, and some early greens.
They bedded down with the sun and let the fire die out. It was a mild spring night, the stars twinkling and the creek running fast and furious. Overhead the budding cottonwood limbs swayed in the breeze.
They slept late the next day, burrowing deeper into their blankets as the sky grew light. Although Rose considered the weather agreeable, she knew there were some who’d be put off by the frost that clung to the rocks along the creek when they awoke. Eating another meal over a smoky campfire was more than she was willing to endure, however.
“Enough’s enough, dang it,” she declared, pulling on her boots. “I don’t know about you, but I aim to eat breakfast at a table this mornin’, even if I got to throw a bucket of water on them two rabbits to do it.”
“I ain’t arguing with you,” Lew replied, skinning into his clothes.
Gathering their gear, they headed for the cabin. The buckskin had showed up again during the night and was standing hipshot in front of the barn, its head drooped sleepily.
“You want me to lasso that critter for you?” Lew asked manfully. Rose had mentioned last night how she’d been unable to catch Davey’s little gelding since its return.
“You’re welcome to try,” she said, thinking it might be fun to watch. “They’s a lariat in the lean-to.” She set her bedroll and rifle aside, then headed for the corral to turn the stock loose for the day.
“That horse is too small to be so hard to catch,” Lew said, lifting his voice so she could hear. “Likely a man could run it down afoot if he ….”
Rose paused with one hand on the gate, the abrupt silence pulsing with intimidation. Cautiously she looked over her shoulder. Lew lay on the ground in front of the lean-to, his long hair splayed out in the dirt. The buckskin hadn’t moved, but it was standing straighter, its head up, ears laid malevolently backward. Taking a deep breath, Rose slowly pivoted, though careful to keep her hands away from the Smith & Wesson.
“Did you think I’d forgotten you?” John Stroudmire asked. He stood above Lew like a vulture, wearing a tall-crowned black hat and a tan, ankle-length range coat, brushed back to reveal the ivory grips of his Merwin Hulbert revolvers. He held a length of firewood in his left hand, but tossed it casually aside.
“If you killed him, I’m gonna take it personal,” Rose said thickly.
“We’ve some unfinished business, you and I. My regret is that I’ve waited this long to see it through.”
“We don’t have no business together. Why don’t you just ride on outta here?”
“An armed woman presents a delicate situation,” Stroudmire went on in an eerily conversational tone. “I could’ve killed you easily that night in the Silver Star, yet had I done so, I would have hanged, for no other reason than your gender.”
“I imagine if they’d’ve hung you it would’ve been for other reasons, like that little girl that got trampled over to Powderville last summer.”
“A hangman’s noose won’t
be a concern today. What happens here will remain in this yard forever.”
“Dang, Stroudmire, are you hearin’ anything I’m sayin’?”
“After today,” he assured her, “petty little cowboys won’t snicker into their drinks when I sit down at a table, or speak of roses with thorns when I pass them on the street. After today, I shall be vindicated.”
“Jesus,” Rose breathed.
“I’ll offer you a rare opportunity, Missus Edwards,” he said calmly. “I’ll allow you to draw your pistol first. Can anything be more fair?”
“I can think of a few things.”
“Shall we proceed?”
“Dammit!” She glanced at the cabin. It seemed they were talking loud enough to wake the dead, yet there was no sign of Nora or Gene. Then she sucked her breath in sharply, her eyes suddenly ablaze. “What’d you do to ’em, Stroudmire?”
“What’s your preference?” he inquired. “We could count backward from ten, draw our pistols on one?”
Rose’s pulse roared in her ears. “You son-of-a-bitch!” she yelled, her hand diving for the Smith & Wesson.
Stroudmire moved at the same time, although neither of them was very fast. Despite her best attempt, Rose quickly found herself locked in a three-way struggle between the Smith & Wesson, the gripping leather of the holster, and her own gut-wrenching panic. Even Stroudmire, who made his living with six-shooters, had to separate leather from steel with the ball of his thumb against the top of his holster. In a land of rugged terrain and hostile weather, speed was seldom as important as a good, tight-fitting sheath to hold a revolver snugly in place.
But Stroudmire was still the more practiced of the two, still the swifter. He was leveling his pistol before Rose could even loosen hers. He fired casually and without aim, and the heavy .45 slug smashed into the gatepost at her side. Rose jumped at the Merwin Hulbert’s bark, loosening her grip on the pistol. The buckskin started and swung its hips toward Stroudmire, its ears flattened. Stroudmire took a step forward, then another. He was smiling, a taut little upward curl at each corner of his mouth. His eyes sparkled with triumph. The buckskin hunched its croup as if in anticipation of another shot.
Rose wrapped her fingers around the Smith &Wesson’s grips but dared not draw it. “Shoot, you bastard,” she hissed. “Get it over with.”
Lifting his arm, Stroudmire thumbed the hammer back to full cock. “Who did you really think was the quickest, Missus Edwards?”
She would have said he was and made it unanimous, but, as it turned out, they were both wrong. Stroudmire settled the Merwin Hulbert’s sights on her breast. Rose wanted to close her eyes, but couldn’t; it was as if a morbid curiosity compelled her to watch to the bitter end. And then the stunted gelding that had once belonged to Dirty-Nosed Dave struck so fast that Rose barely saw the flash of its hoofs. She did, however, hear the crisp snap of Stroudmire’s right arm, saw his face go pale as the Merwin Hulbert spun out of his hand as if spring-loaded, landing a good thirty feet away. The gunman staggered, then caught his balance.
“Damn horse,” he muttered with no more emotion than if he’d nicked himself shaving. Using his left hand, he reached for his second pistol, carried butt forward on his left hip.
“Wait!” Rose shouted, yanking the Smith & Wesson free. “Don’t be a fool, Stroudmire. I’ll shoot!”
But Stroudmire didn’t even hear her. At this moment in time, he was like a machine—precise, methodical, without conscience. He’d forgotten the buckskin as he had the arm that hung crookedly at his side. He was unaware of Rose as a human being, immune to any threat she might pose, incapable of being approached or recalled. He had come here to kill. Nothing else mattered.
A chill gripped Rose’s heart. Her mouth went dry and the Smith & Wesson’s muzzle began to waver. As if through a haze she saw Stroudmire’s weak-side Merwin Hulbert clear leather, watched the barrel begin its long ascent to level. A whimper escaped her. Then the Smith & Wesson clapped like thunder, and, twenty feet away, Stroudmire stumbled backward from the bullet’s impact. Blinking swiftly, he glanced down not at the finger-size hole that had appeared in his vest, but at his own ivory-handled .45 that refused to come to taw. Rose watched in disbelief as he struggled to tighten his fingers around the smooth grips, to bring up the muzzle.
“God damn you,” Rose quavered, cocking the Smith & Wesson a second time. She held the pistol in both hands to steady her trembling aim; her finger tightened on the trigger. “God damn you for making me do this.”
Chapter
29
Nora and Gene were alive. Rose could have fallen to her knees and shouted hallelujah, so great was her relief when she discovered the pair tied together on Nora’s bunk, naked as jaybirds. Pushing open the cabin door to peek inside had been the hardest thing she’d done since the morning she cut Muggy down from the lightning-scarred pine to bury him.
There was a bruise on Nora’s cheek, an ugly gash across Gene’s forehead that had stained the mattress with blood. Their fingers were swollen like fat sausages from being bound too tight, but there was nothing wrong with them that time wouldn’t heal.
Lew remained unconscious for nearly an hour after Rose and Gene brought him inside and laid him out on Rose’s bunk, but, once he came around, he refused to stay in bed. Lew was mad clean through for having allowed Stroudmire to get the drop on him.
“The son-of-a-bitch should’ve gone ahead and shot me for being so stupid,” he grumbled from his seat on the stoop.
“Stroudmire won’t be shooting anyone any more,” Gene said. He looked at Nora, and the two of them quietly slipped away.
“Stay with me,” Lew said, grabbing Rose’s wrist when she started after them. “I’m feeling kind of woozy yet.”
She jerked her arm away, growling: “I ain’t no dummy, Lew Parker. I know what they’re doin’.” But after a pause she sat down again. Rose waited until she figured Gene and Nora had had enough time to load Stroudmire’s body onto a pack horse and take it away, then abruptly stood. “I’m gonna bust if I sit here much longer. I think I’ll turn the horses loose.”
“You’d best hold off until we talk this through,” Lew said. “We may not want to take time to catch those horses if we decide to cut our pins.”
“I ain’t runnin’,” Rose replied curtly. “That slick bastard ain’t chasin’ me off my property, alive or dead.”
“Killing a man creates complications, Rose, even if it was self-defense. A lot of people heard you threaten Stroudmire in Miles City last year.”
“We ain’t takin’ him to Miles City or any other place. If Gene and Nora ain’t buryin’ him, I’ll get a shovel and do it myself.”
“I’m not suggesting we take him in. I’m just wondering if maybe we ought to leave Montana for a spell. They say California’s nice.”
“I reckon not,” she replied coolly.
“You’re as bull-headed as a stump, Rose.”
“Maybe, but I ain’t runnin’.” There was movement at the barn and Rose touched her pistol, but it was only the buckskin. Letting her hand fall away, she said: “I must’ve come close to shootin’ that jughead a dozen times since he came back. Now I reckon I’ll have to feed him until one or the other of us dies of old age.”
“It’s a small price to pay,” Lew remarked somberly. He looked away, but not before Rose noticed the scrunched look of pain that flashed across his face.
“You got a headache, Lew. I could hot up some tea if you’d like.”
“I’ve got a dent in my head you could lay your finger in. Hell, yes, I’ve got a headache.”
Rose went inside to kick up a fire in the stove. Nora and Gene returned by the time the tea was ready, and Nora passed out crackers and huckleberry preserves for breakfast. They stood in the yard and ate, talking about what they should do. It was Nora who made the final decision.
“Rose and I will stay here. Str
oudmire and his gear is buried, and you boys can turn his horse loose along the river for someone else to find. Gene and Lew will go on to Junction City like they planned and sell their furs. If we all act like nothing’s happened, no one should suspect anything.”
“Oh, they’ll suspect plenty,” Lew said. “Rumors will float up and down this valley for another twenty years.”
“Let ’em talk,” Rose said stubbornly. She noticed Gene watching Nora closely, but Nora gave him a quick shake of her head. As soon as they finished eating, Gene and Lew went to the corral to saddle their horses and rig their packs. Rose and Nora remained behind.
“Are you sure?” Rose asked, seeing the mist of tears in her friend’s eyes.
Nora shrugged angrily. “Who the hell is ever sure?” she snapped, then went inside.
• • • • •
By the end of the month the killing of John Stroudmire seemed as far away to Rose as last January’s blizzard. At first she’d worried that the incident might trouble her sleep, as the Indian she’d killed up on the Musselshell had, but her nights passed uneventfully.
Unfortunately Nora didn’t fare as well. It wasn’t Stroudmire’s death that bothered her. If anything, she seemed to approve of that.
“There’s no telling how many innocent lives you’ve saved by what you did today,” she’d told Rose on the evening of the shooting.
Yet as the season progressed it became evident Nora was slipping into a blue funk that not even the warming temperatures of spring could cure. Rose suspected the problem was twofold—Gene Sidwell and the loss of their cattle—but she couldn’t think of anything that might help.
“Maybe we should go on a picnic,” she suggested one day in late May. “We can shoot at empty tin cans and practice our road agent spin.”
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