A Reason to Die

by William W. Johnstone

  All he could do was sit and wait.

  * * *

  Clementine edged up to the side of the opening of the ravine and waited until Junior moved up close behind her. “Go over to the other side, and when I give you the signal, we’ll rush in there at the same time.”

  With no hesitation, he went to the other side of the mouth of the ravine while she stood ready to react in the event Perley was inside and shot Junior when he walked across the opening. When Junior reached the other side without incident, she could still not be sure Perley wasn’t in the ravine. He just might be too far up it to see Junior when he’d crossed the opening.

  With that in mind, she whispered across to him, “When I say go, we’ll charge in there together, all right?”

  “All right,” he whispered back.

  “Ready, set, go!” she sang out, then hesitated just a moment to make sure the big ox ran into the ravine ahead of her. As narrow as the ravine became, she felt sure his huge body would be enough to protect her from any gunshots Perley might fire down at them. She need not have worried. Junior charged recklessly up the dark, narrow gulch with no sound of gunfire, until he suddenly went down to land hard on the gravel path. Clementine dropped to her knee immediately, ready to fire, but she had not heard a shot when he went down, and still there were none.

  In a moment, Junior grunted. “What the hell?” He began to get up.

  When Junior got to his feet, she saw a lump on the floor of the ravine and realized he had tripped over Jesse’s body. They were too late. Perley had fled. She moved up beside Junior and knelt down beside the body of her nephew to make sure it was him. Then she yelled to her brothers waiting above. “Coleman! He ain’t here no more. I found Jesse. He’s dead.” She heard a wailing like that of a coyote and recognized the voice of her brother, Beau.

  She shrugged, thinking they had already figured that Jesse was dead. She had never been especially fond of Jesse, anyway. She had always liked Brice best, and that thought reminded her of her intention to settle with Perley Gates on that account.

  “We’ll bring the horses around,” Coleman yelled down. “Then we’ll find that bastard.”

  * * *

  Perley waited, watching the mouth of the ravine a hundred yards away. There was no sign of the outlaws for more than half an hour, then two riders showed up leading two extra horses. It had finally stopped raining, but Perley was not aware of it. His watch on the ravine had been intense. He saw Clementine and Junior come out of the ravine to take the reins of their horses, then the four of them seemed to be deciding what to do. It was a fair guess that whatever their plan, finding him was number one.

  When Clementine and Junior mounted up, Perley retreated back along the bluff to the trees where Buck was tied. He remained there, where he could see them through the trees, wondering if they could see the tracks he had left when he’d bolted from the ravine.

  It appeared that they were not interested in scouting his retreat, for one of them, a man riding a flea-bitten gray, started straight toward the river. The other three followed him to cross over to the Texas side.

  Now I’m in Oklahoma and they’re in Texas, Perley thought. That’s just the opposite of what I need. It occurred to him then that they may have decided to take their attack straight to the ranch. He had no doubt that Clementine knew how to lead them there. He couldn’t let that happen.

  As early as it was, the four killers would catch the family before they could finish breakfast.

  His next move was dictated by a sudden fit of retaliation by Beau Cobb.

  When the four riders came out of the river, they found themselves riding through some cattle bunched together. Unable to control his temper, Beau drew his rifle and started shooting cows as fast as he could. Perley felt he had no choice. He steadied his Winchester against a tree trunk and drew a bead on the shooter probably one hundred and fifty yards away.

  Riding beside Beau, Clementine was startled when she heard a dull thud and he suddenly threw his arms up in the air and dropped his rifle. By the time she heard the report of the rifle that killed him, he was already falling out of the saddle. Stunned for a moment, she wasn’t sure which way to turn until Coleman wheeled his horse and pointed toward the opposite bank.

  “There!” he shouted while raising his rifle in a frantic attempt to get off a shot before the shooter disappeared.

  Excited, the gray provided an unsteady platform to shoot from and his shot was nowhere close to his target.

  “Look out!” Clementine shouted at her brother. “That son of a bitch can shoot! Get to some cover!” She was all too familiar with Perley’s skill with a firearm, having encountered it at the railroad depot in Atoka.

  Coleman ignored her warning, firing two more shots in Perley’s direction. When no more shots came from Perley, Coleman kicked the gray hard and charged toward the river, his anger driving him on.

  Across the river, Perley climbed into the saddle when he saw Coleman galloping toward him, undecided whether to take a shot at him or not. It would be easy to simply wait to see if the man was angry enough, or fool enough, to keep charging straight toward him. If he did, Perley could hardly miss.

  Then Clementine and her big sidekick took off after the man on the gray, causing Perley to hesitate. If they started out to chase him, at least he could lead them away from Triple-G cattle. Had he shot the man on the gray, they might have pulled back deeper into the herd for cover, making it risky for him to shoot at them without hitting the cows. In spiteful intention to harm the Triple-G, they would likely continue to kill his cattle on their own.

  That made sense. Giving Buck his heels, Perley galloped out of the trees and followed the river west with all three in pursuit.

  With nostrils flaring, the big bay’s hooves pounded the sandy riverbank in a steady beat that maintained a sizable lead on his pursuers. He held the willing horse to the pace for longer than he normally would have, but when Buck began to strain after a couple of miles, he knew he was going to have to let up on him. The flea-bitten gray chasing him was proving to be a stout horse, but he figured it had to be near spent as Buck. He had to assume that the man riding the gray would push it even harder if he let up on Buck, maybe even killing the horse in order to catch him.

  Knowing that he wasn’t going to chance foundering Buck, Perley looked for a spot to take his stand. At a trot now, he decided on a grove of cottonwoods where a narrow stream emptied into the river, even as his pursuer closed the distance between them. Pulling Buck into the trees, he grabbed an extra cartridge belt then slid out of the saddle and released Buck to go down to the river for water, figuring the horse would take care of himself. If it happened that one of the outlaws found Buck, they would not likely shoot him, and if they tried to ride him, Buck would throw them.

  Perley gave the bay a slap on the rump to encourage him to trot upriver a little way. No sense in making it too easy for them, he thought while he crouched down behind a low knob in the stream bank. It wasn’t the best of defensive ramparts—not much cover from the river if one of them came up from there—but it would give him plenty of cover from a head-on attack. Whether it had been his intention or not, it looked like he was in a war.

  With his anger a little more under control, now that he had galloped over two miles along the river bluffs, Coleman was able to think more sensibly. When he saw that Perley had taken cover, he realized that he was galloping straight into an ambush. He had already seen the man’s accuracy with a rifle. He reined the gray back and turned to wait for Clementine and Junior to catch up to him.

  When they pulled up beside him, he pointed and said, “He’s gone to cover up yonder in that creek, behind that hump in the bank ’bout a hundred yards.”

  “Whaddaya figurin’ on doin’?” Clementine asked. “I thought for a while back there that you was hell-bent on gettin’ yourself shot like Beau did.”

  “I thought about it,” Coleman admitted, “but I wanna make sure I kill that son of a bitch. He’s to
re our family all to hell. He’s gotta die!”

  She could see that he was getting himself all worked up again, so she repeated her question. “Whaddaya figurin’ on doin’?”

  “Hit him on three sides.”

  “That makes sense to me. He ain’t got much cover on either side of him.” She stared at the hummock her brother had pointed out. “It don’t look like there’s a helluva lot of cover for us on either side of him.” She met his gaze then. “Who’s goin’ to sneak around on the sides and who’s gonna take it from the front?”

  “Maybe me and Junior oughta work our way in on the sides,” Coleman said. “You can get yourself set up here where there’s cover, you bein’ a woman and all.”

  “Horsefeathers!” She reacted in disgust. “I’m as good a shot as either one of you. I’ll work my way in a lot closer to that knob he’s hidin’ behind. I can make it plenty hot for him, and he won’t have time to worry about you two.”

  “Maybe he’s right, Aunt Clem.” Junior spoke for the first time since they had caught up to Coleman. “Might be better if you stayed back here where it’s safer.”

  “Shut up, Junior,” she scolded. “Damn you. I ain’t your aunt.” She turned to Coleman and ordered, “Let’s quit pussyfootin’ and get down there and kill that son of a bitch before he wipes out our whole family. If we get goin’, we can trap him in that little ditch he’s holed up in. Coleman, you go on down the river. Might be a good idea to cross over to the other side, else you might find yourself too close to him when you get even with that creek.” Without pausing for his comments, she instructed Junior. “Junior, you circle around thataway till you strike that creek. Then work your way back along the creek till you can get a shot at him. And don’t take too long to get there.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Junior said with a grin, and started out immediately, heading north to take a wide circle back to the creek.

  Clementine looked at Coleman, her expression needing no words to convey her question as to what he was waiting for.

  He wasn’t comfortable with the way she had taken charge of the situation. Though always brash, she had never been so bold as to take command over him, and he didn’t like it a bit. He didn’t take the time to argue with her because he couldn’t think of a better way. “All right. I reckon that’s about what I was fixin’ to do.” He left his horse there, thinking it better to go on foot, ran toward the river, and waded across.

  After they settled with Mr. Perley Gates, he intended to have a little talk with his sister about who was the boss in this family.

  She waited and watched until he made it to the other side of the river before she nudged her horse forward, carefully picking a way through the trees that would give her the most protection from a shot from the stream. She wanted to get as close as possible and lay enough fire down to keep Perley busy, too busy, she hoped, to watch his flanks.

  * * *

  While his pursuers were making their plan of attack, Perley was making plans of his own. With his knife and his hands, he was busy digging away at a rifle rest in the sandy bank from which to fire. As soon as he was satisfied with that, he started digging away at the bank behind him, making a big enough hole to back out of the stream without having to stick his head up. Since the stream curved on both sides of the spot he had settled on, if they intended to come at him from the sides, they wouldn’t have a clear shot until they got pretty close to him. The hole he was digging behind him might come in handy if it got too hot for him in the creek.

  He had just about finished it when the first shot from Clementine’s rifle snapped a laurel branch over his head. He pressed up close against the bank, peeking through the slot he had carved in the dirt for his rifle. In less than a moment, he saw the muzzle flash as a second shot rang out. In quick succession, he answered with two shots from his Winchester. They were answered, in turn, with two more from a location a few feet to his left. Even so, he felt sure all those shots were from one rifle, convincing him that what he suspected was accurate. Two others would be coming at him from the sides.

  My first two must have been too close for comfort. He shifted his aim to the left.

  More shots went back and forth for a little while until he decided the other two outlaws had probably had enough time to circle around to sneak up the stream and come at him from the sides. As a couple more shots threw dirt flying from the stream bank, he backed into the notch he had dug behind him and crawled back under the bushes that lined the stream. Hidden by the bushes, he lay flat on the ground and waited and listened.

  Across the river, Coleman waited, too, straining to see up the stream in the first rays of light. Although the rain had stopped, a blanket of heavy dark clouds hung low over the river valley, still making eyesight a little difficult. When he felt sure Clementine had stopped shooting, he waded into the river at the mouth of the stream, ready to shoot at the first sign of Perley.

  A couple dozen yards above the trapped man, Junior made his way down the stream, closing on the spot where the shots had come from. His rifle at the ready, he plodded impatiently along the bed of the stream, anxious to be the first to sight Perley. With nerves set on hair-trigger anticipation, both men converged on the spot in the stream from which Perley had fired. Nervous fingers rested on triggers as they closed on their target, ready to fire before he had time to react.

  Suddenly, they saw a shadowy figure in the morning gloom and reacted immediately, firing at the same time, only to feel the impact of a rifle slug as it tore into their bodies. Coleman was knocked backward to land in the shallow stream, while Junior was dropped to his knees, both men fatally wounded, stunned, not realizing they had shot each other.

  A surprised witness to the double execution, Perley couldn’t believe the scene he had just witnessed. Lying flat under the boughs of a large laurel bush, his Colt .44 in his hand, his plan had been to get a shot at the first one to close on his position in the stream. With his .44 still ready to fire at the first sign of movement, he inched forward until he could see down into the stream. The first body he saw was Coleman’s, lying flat on his back. When he turned to look upstream, he fired without thinking, for he discovered Junior on his knees, facing him. His shot slammed into the huge man’s chest and he keeled over to fall facedown in the water. Perley realized then that Junior was already dead before he’d shot him.

  Still shocked somewhat by the unbelievable ending of two of the three stalking him, Perley had to remind himself that the third member was still out there in the trees somewhere—and that third member was the woman Clementine. His natural reluctance to cause harm to a woman did not enter his mind when he formed the picture of an angry Clementine and the ruthlessness with which she regarded the death of young Link Drew’s mother and father. I’ll be just as dead from a bullet from her gun, he told himself as he returned to his original position in the stream. What would she now do, he wondered?

  She immediately told him. “Coleman!” she called out, maybe some forty or fifty yards away. “Coleman, are you all right?” She called out again. “Junior?” It didn’t appear that she was going to advance toward the stream until she knew for sure she wasn’t walking into a trap.

  Perley decided to answer. “Yep, we got him. Come on in.” He got a reply immediately.

  “To hell with you!” she shouted in reply, not fooled a moment by Perley’s attempt to disguise his voice.

  As soon as he heard her, he ran to the river for his horse, wondering if she would run now that she no longer enjoyed the advantage. Even so, he cautioned himself to be wary of running into an ambush. It would be a mistake to underestimate the woman’s determination to kill him. She had relentlessly dogged him, making her seem more determined than before to settle with him.

  Once in the saddle, he guided Buck carefully through the trees until he sighted her crossing a ridge over two hundred yards away. She was evidently pretty sure her companions were dead, because she was leading their horses behind her. It was then Perley discovered a more app
arent reason for her flight. He turned to see his two brothers, followed by Ralph Johnson and Sonny Rice, riding up from the river.

  “Looks like we got here too late for the party,” Rubin said when he pulled up beside Perley. “I knew when we heard the shootin’ that you didn’t wait till you talked to us before you jumped right into ’em.”

  “I didn’t have any choice,” Perley said. “I don’t think they were willin’ to wait for you boys to get to the party.” He wasn’t prone to admit that he had started the shooting by accident when he ran into Jesse in that dark ravine.

  “Where are they now?” Rubin asked.

  “There ain’t but one of ’em left,” Perley answered. “That crazy woman, and she just disappeared over that ridge yonder, leadin’ two horses.” He pointed to the last place he had seen her. “I reckon she took off when she saw you comin’.”

  “How many were they?” John wanted to know, surprised that the woman was the only one left. “Did you kill the rest of ’em?”

  “Nope, two of ’em shot each other,” Perley replied. When his answer called for an explanation, judging by their blank expressions, he told them how it had happened.

  Rubin shook his head, amazed, when Perley recounted the whole encounter with the outlaw gang. “So there’s nobody left but that crazy woman, and she took off for Indian Territory, it looks like. The question now is what to do about her. Chase her, or decide she’s had enough?”

  They talked it over for a few minutes, and the general opinion was that she most likely wanted no more contact with the Triple-G.

  “If she’s got any sense at all,” Rubin concluded.

  Perley went along with the conclusion, even though he wasn’t quite comfortable with the thought of Clementine giving up on her determination to seek vengeance for the destruction of her gang.