by Ralph Hayes
Rawhide Justice
When O’Brien, a handsome young drifter comes across Uriah Cahill downed beside his camp-fire and about to be torn apart by a pack of wolves, he steps in and dispatches the marauders with deadly shots. Cahill explains that he is on his way to join a buffalo-hunting outfit run by Elias Walcott and persuades him to come along.
The unexpected death of one young hunter raises questions about the company’s foreman, McComb, who is unwilling to let anyone stop him winning Walcott’s daughter. But when it becomes clear to O’Brien that the desirable Molly Walcott has fallen passionately in love with him, he and Cahill decide it is time to move on.
Fate however, has other ideas. O’Brien and Cahill hear of a large grazing herd of buffalo near Wichita, but their erstwhile boss Elias gets the same news. The lure is irresistible to both parties and they set off towards what looks to be a bloody confrontation.…
By the same author
The Tombstone Vendetta
Fort Revenge
The Last Buffalo
Texas Vengeance
Coyote Moon
Rawhide Justice
Ralph Hayes
© Ralph Hayes 2016
First published in Great Britain 2016
ISBN 978-0-7198-2138-7
The Crowood Press
The Stable Block
Crowood Lane
Ramsbury
Marlborough
Wiltshire SN8 2HR
www.crowood.com
This e-book first published in 2016
Robert Hale is an imprint of The Crowood Press
The right of Ralph Hayes to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
CHAPTER ONE
At the age of ten Cyrus McComb had set the family dog on a cousin and then calmly watched from a porch chair as the animal mauled the other boy. His other, more regular entertainment was pulling the wings off blue-bottle flies, and poking his father’s pigs with a sharp stick from the safety of a barbed-wire fence. More recently, in adulthood, and prior to his joining Ogallala Hide Company as a buffalo hunter, he had become a wanted man in three states and the Indian Territory for robbery, rape and murder. His present employer, Elias Walcott, had no knowledge of this law-flouting background, and had made McComb a foreman over his riflemen.
On a clear crisp April morning, after McComb had been with the hide company for just over a year, the company was out on another hunt. A long line of mounted men sat their nervous mounts at the crest of a hillock that looked down on a long slope to a large herd of ‘shaggies’ a hundred yards distant. The hunters were downwind of the herd, and the buffalo were not yet aware of their presence. McComb was situated near the centre of the line of horses, and an acquaintance of his named Luis Navarro was on his right. Out in the front line Walcott walked his mount slowly, looking his men over. They bristled with Remington lever action, Henry and Hotchkiss rifles. Behind them, stood several long hide wagons, harnessed to dray horses.
Walcott reined in down the line near McComb and Navarro. ‘I’ve said this many times before. Hunting is the most honourable of professions, and the first one that God ever gave to man. Be proud that you are a part of it.’ He moved on his saddle and it squeaked under his weight. Down the line the mount of a man named Spencer whinnied and jerked around for a moment.
‘That all-knowing God placed us on this Earth to tame and dominate the lower beasts and make them submit to our own use. That’s what we’re about here. Your predecessors competed up close with the dread saber tooth and came out victorious as the greatest hunters the world has ever seen. Feel his pleasure in your accepting the mantle of those heavy-browed ancestors who began this holy war against the base creatures that cohabit our world with us.’
Spencer, a thin young man, was busy trying to keep his horse under control. Other horses were also guffering impatiently now. McComb turned to Navarro.
‘If that sonofabitch starts quoting scripture, I swear to God I’m going to fire off this rifle and ride on down there by myself.’ He was big and thick set, a brawny man with a lantern jaw and hard, piercing eyes.
Navarro grinned. He had fled to Mexico six months ago to avoid arrest by the Federates for a list of serious crimes, and had befriended McComb upon his arrival with the company.
‘I will break into his office one day and steal his goddam Bible, you wait and see. He will be yelling about it for a year!’ Spencer continued in a thick accent.
McComb looked toward Spencer down the line. ‘Looks like Spencer can’t handle that mount of his.’ He gave a crooked grin.
Navarro nodded. ‘Isn’t he the hombre you warned away from Walcott’s daughter?’ He knew that both McComb and Spencer had tried courting Walcott’s blonde daughter Molly. McComb grunted. ‘That little weasel ain’t got the chance of a snowball in hell with that girl. She’s sweet on old Cyrus here. So I had to enlighten him, that’s all.’ He leaned over toward Navarro. ‘When we get down there in the action, keep an eye out for Spencer. You might find it entertaining.’
Navarro gave him a quizzical look just as Elias Walcott raised his hand high above his head.
‘All right gentlemen. Go make some money for the company.’ Then his arm came heavily down.
In the next moment all hell broke loose. The long line of riders erupted in a chorus of deafening screams and yells, and spurred their mounts down the slope toward the big herd. Halfway there the buffalo began stampeding away from the danger, but it was much too late. In seconds the riders were galloping in among the herd, rifles barking out as animals began falling all around them. The roaring of the stampede mixed in with that of the riders’ horses and the firing of rifles. Men could not hear themselves call out to others, nor the roaring of their rifles firing. Dust swirled into nostrils and eyes as buffalo fell all around the hunters, kicking and grunting in the high grass, making the ground shake when they hit.
In the middle of the mêlée the dun mare of the young fellow Spencer began bucking violently. Before he understood what was happening Spencer was flying through the air with shaggies all around him. Then he hit the ground hard. Within seconds of the fall a big hulking bull thundered past Spencer. One of its hoofs staved in his skull just before another animal ran directly over hum, breaking ribs and severing his spine. He was dead within moments of his skull being mashed.
McComb and Navarro were near by, and saw the whole thing. But then they were firing at the last of the herd, following it a short distance down the valley. In a few minutes the firing tapered off and the herd was gone over a distant hill. The valley floor was littered thickly now with big black shapes of shaggies. Riders were slowly returning to a central area where most of the killing had taken place. Elias Walcott was riding among them, congratulating individual hunters.
Navarro spurred his mount over to McComb, staring toward the body of Sam Spencer. A hunter had dismounted and was kneeling over it.
‘Did you see that?’ Navarro said soberly to McComb.
‘I saw it,’ McComb said easily, out of breath slightly from the action.
‘Is that what you meant,’ Navarro added ‘when you said to watch him?’
McComb put his finger to his lips. ‘Come on, let’s take a look.’
They rode over to where the grizzled hunter bent over Spencer. The older man looked up at them and shook his head.
‘He’s all busted up,’ he reported.
‘Damn!’ McComb snapped out. He and Navarro dismounted and stood over the corpse. ‘That boy was going to be as good as they come.’ Navarro gave him a narrow look. In the next instant, Walcott rode up.
‘McComb! I want you back here showing them new boys how to get the skinning done.’ He loo
ked down at Spencer. ‘What the hell happened here?’ The hunter that had been kneeling over the young man spoke up.
‘He was bucked off his mount, Elias. He’s bought the farm.’
‘I don’t understand it,’ McComb was saying soberly. ‘Spencer was a damn fine rider. Wasn’t he, Navarro?’
Navarro looked quickly from him to Walcott. ‘Uh. Yes, cierto. One fine hombre, boss.’
Walcott dismounted too. ‘Well. This is a dangerous occupation, boys. I reckon Spencer knew that.’
A rider came toward them across the open field, leading an unmounted horse. He stopped beside Walcott.
‘We corralled Spencer’s mount,’ the lanky young man said to his boss. ‘And I think that we figured out what caused all the trouble.’ He handed down a small handful of burrs to Walcott who took them. He stared hard at them.
‘You mean you found these…?’
The hunter nodded. ‘That was stuck up under the animal’s saddle blanket,’ the other man said. ‘Some low life put them there. Probably as a joke.’
‘God in Heaven!’ Walcott muttered, staring at the burrs.
‘Jesus y Maria!’ Navarro said under his breath. He glanced at McComb, and McComb gave him a dark warning look. Then he turned to Walcott.
‘I swear to God, Elias, I’ll look into this. I promise you. And if I find the bastard that did this, he’ll wish he never heard of our outfit.’
‘I appreciate that, McComb. I can always count on you in matters like this. Now go show them boys how to get a nice clean skin off these beasts. Segar, you and Cheyenne get this body aboard one of the hide wagons. We’ll give him a decent burial back in town.’
McComb nodded to Walcott and walked his mount off with Navarro beside him. Navarro looked over at Mccomb as they rode.
‘You wanted the girl all to yourself,’ he said quietly, referring to Molly Walcott.
McComb met his gaze with a diamond-brittle one. ‘You did good back there.’
‘How did you manage it? The burrs?’
McComb shrugged. ‘I distracted him. Just before we all got ready to go. Told him I was fixing his blanket.’ A hard grin. ‘The weasel believed me.’
‘I am glad I never visited the girl.’ Navarro cast him a wry look.
‘The dumb kid couldn’t really ride, or he wouldn’t have fell off his mount,’ McComb offered. ‘It’s his own damn fault. I didn’t know he would get his head stove in.’
‘But now you have Molly to yourself, yes?’
‘Listen. All this that’s gone between us.’
‘Yes?’
‘That don’t never go past you and me. You understand me?’
Navarro swallowed when he saw the look in McComb’s eyes. ‘Of course, compadre. We are amigos si?’
McComb did not respond. They had arrived at a group of men who were slicing hide off buffalos with big Bowie knives. McComb reined in.
‘Come on, I got to show these new recruits how to skin a shaggy.’
Then they were both dismounting to join the others. A short distance away, Spencer’s mount was being led past with its lifeless rider slung over its saddle.
A little later that same day, about two days’ ride from Ogallala, out in the Wyoming Territory, a young man riding an appaloosa stallion reined in at the crest of a low ridge. He leaned forward on his saddle, scanning the terrain ahead. His name was O’Brien, and he was seeking his future in this remote wild country. He reached forward and patted the neck of the stallion.
‘I know, it’s been a long day. It will be dusk pretty soon. I think there might be a stream up yonder another hour. We’ll make hardship camp there.’ He had just purchased the big, brawny horse a week ago in Laramie, and was still getting acquainted with it.
He spurred the gray-mottled mount down a gradual slope onto a broad meadow fringed with cottonwoods. He was a tall wide-shouldered young fellow in his mid-twenties, wearing fringed rawhide tunic and trousers, and a dusty Stetson over long, shoulder-length hair. His eyes were deep piercing blue, and he wore a neat mustache typical of the time. The few women who had encountered him had considered the young man handsome, but with a caveat: he seemed like a man you did not just go up to and introduce yourself without an obvious invitation.
In less than an hour’s ride farther in the end of the day, O’Brien crested a knob hill and got his first look at the small stream he knew about from previous travels through this country. This was where he intended to spend the night. But as the sun set behind him and the sky began to darken he squinted down and saw the camp fire near the creek. A drama seemed to be unfolding there.
A man stood a few feet from his fire with a rifle in hand; he was surrounded by a pack of gray wolves.
‘Oh-oh,’ the rawhide man grunted in his throat.
A dead wolf lay almost at the man’s feet, but two others now charged at him. No snarling, no noise at all. Just deadly business as usual. The man fired the rifle and one of the two was stopped short of him, yelping and twisting as it hit the ground beside him, almost knocking him to the ground. The second animal reached him, and did knock him off his feet. Then two more were on him as he now used the rifle as a club, swinging wildly as they tried to grab at his arms and legs to tear flesh.
O’Brien’s appaloosa guffered nervously as its rider quickly dismounted and slid a Winchester 1866 lever-action rifle from its saddle scabbard on the horse’s flank. He quickly reached into the ammo belt at his waist and inserted a few more cartridges into the chamber of the long gun. Then he was on one knee, finding the besieged camper in his sights. Light was fading, and O’Brien realized that to save the man’s life he had to act fast.
Another wolf now lay stunned beside the man but three were on him, growling now and tearing at his clothing. Fortunately he was wearing a sheepskin jacket and thick trousers.
O’Brien found a big wolf in his sights, one was up near the man’s head and neck. The Winchester barked out in the dimming light, and the wolf at the man’s throat jumped spasmodically into the air, and fell heavily to the ground, where it lay thrashing about.
The fallen man and the other wolves searched the immediate area with their eyes, but only a couple of the wolves actually saw O’Brien. The ones on the man went back to their attack. O’Brien fired again, and a second animal jumped wildly and fell. Now there was only one wolf on the man, and it now moved away, looking right at O’Brien and his mount. The others did, too.
‘Be careful. They see you,’ the man called out. O’Brien could see dark patches on his clothing where blood had seeped through.
The words were no sooner out of his mouth than two of the remaining four wolves began a headlong rush at O’Brien. He fired at the first one at fifty yards, and it jerked sideways and fell, shot in the head. By now the second one was thirty yards away and then twenty. O’Brien fired without aiming, and the animal was hit in the chest, exploding its heart. It still came on and almost knocked O’Brien over, he could smell the iron scent of its pelt as it brushed past him. Then it fell dead behind him.
Now a last bold wolf made a desperate charge at him, but was brought down halfway through its rush. It kicked and jerked on the ground for a moment as O’Brien re-sighted on the last one. It looked at O’Brien darkly, making up its mind. It looked down at the fallen man. But when it realized what had happened to its pack, it quickly turned and ran into the nearby woods.
It was over.
The appaloosa guffered and buckled nervously, eyeing the dead wolves all around them.
‘I know,’ O’Brien told it, touching its muzzle. ‘It’s all done now.’
A moment later he was aboard again and riding on down to the campsite. The other man had regained his feet.
‘You come along at a good time, stranger. I had myself buried with quarters on my eyes.’
O’Brien said nothing. He looked the fellow over, then dismounted and picketed the stallion to a sapling. He walked over to the other man, and examined his clothing and wounds. The man just watched him
. He was middle-aged, with a grizzled-gray beard and a long bony face.
‘My name is Cahill,’ the fellow announced, showing yellow teeth. ‘Uriah Cahill.’
‘I got some bear grease for them wounds,’ O’Brien told him. ‘They ain’t bad.’
He walked over and threw a chunk of wood on the fire.
Cahill followed him over there, moving his arm and making a face. In the next few minutes O’Brien retrieved a small bag of bear grease from a saddlebag, helped Cahill get his jacket and shirt off, and applied the grease to a couple of deep wounds. When he was done he went and got a pan to fry some rabbit meat in. While he was cooking it over a low fire, Cahill joined him.
‘Much obliged, stranger.’
‘I got enough rabbit for two.’ He poked at the fire.
‘I didn’t get your name, young man.’
O’Brien turned the dark-blue eyes on him. The name is O’Brien.’
‘You done some fancy shooting there. You a hunter?’
O’Brien poked at the fire. ‘You writing a book or something?’
Cahill grinned. ‘You don’t talk much, do you?’
‘When it serves a purpose.’ It was dark now, and O’Brien served up some rabbit meat and corn dodgers. Cahill supplied some hot coffee. They ate in silence for a long time. When they were finished, and their implements had been washed with creek water and the appaloosa settled in, they sat together under a starry sky. O’Brien was unwinding from a long day’s ride.
‘Are you feeling better?’ he asked at last.
Cahill nodded. ‘I’m fine. I owe you my life, mister.’’
O’Brien gave him an acid look. ‘Forget it.’
Cahill sighed. ‘I’m a simple mountain man. Trapper. But it’s all worked out around these parts. Now I got to do something to earn a living. Or starve.’ A small smile.
O’Brien looked over at him. He was beginning to like the man. ‘I done some trapping myself. Most of it back in the Shenandoah Valley.’
‘Oh, you’re from the East.’
O’Brien didn’t pause to think about it but he felt at ease with this fellow.