by AmyFleming
“I don’t like this,” Frank said. “Nobody is supposed to get hurt.”
“Nobody will get hurt, Frank. We’ll take the gold and then they’ll be free to go.”
Frank didn’t reply.
“In for a penny, in for pound,” Dredger said. “There’s some rope over with my things. Tie them up and put them down on the ledge. With the cliff overhanging them, nobody will see them.”
Frank nodded slowly.
“You’re not taking me anywhere,” Branigan said.
Dredger looked Luc straight in the eye and shot him in his left leg. “I’ll kill you like I killed your father, Branigan. But first I’ll kill Annie if you give me any more trouble.”
*****
Alec got Charlotte to stop at the jail where he picked up a shotgun that he strapped on his hip beside his police revolver. He looked in the jail cell. Luc was gone. Luc would have to wait until later. Right now, he had to go and find out what was happening on Crow Mountain to that gold shipment.
*****
Charlotte returned the Oldsmobile to Alec’s shed and let herself in his house. She tried to pass the time by playing the piano, but she had too much nervous energy to finish a song. She went to the window that had a view of Crow Mountain. Dredger’s ranch was around on the backside of the mountain and all she could see was rock and snow and sky.
Through the window, she saw the stationmaster come up the path to the house and knock on the front door. She went to the door to tell him the sheriff wasn’t home.
Sam Wilberforce looked like he was in shock. “I have an important telegraph for the sheriff from Galveston, Texas. Do you know where he is?”
“He’s gone up to Crow Mountain. He said he’d come back here as soon as he can.”
“Miss Fraser, this is a very important telegram. He needs to see it as soon as possible.”
“Give it to me, Mr. Wilberforce. I’ll be sure he gets it.”
After the stationmaster left, of course, Charlotte opened the telegram. What she read was shocking. Laura Wallace and her family had been murdered the night of the Galveston Hurricane. The main suspect was a young cowboy from the area, Otto Dredger. He had never been located or arrested. If he was being held in Bandit Creek, the sheriff in Galveston wanted to be notified.
Charlotte realized that Alec, Luc and Annie were all riding to meet a murderer. She had to warn them.
*****
Charlotte sped down the road out of town and turned down the road that led past the Branigan place. The Oldsmobile was an old car, but it still had a lot of power. Charlotte, not familiar with the maze of old mining roads leading up to the cliffs, just kept turning towards the creek. She knew the exact place Dredger would choose to attack the shipment, right beyond Deadman’s Gap where the cliff overhung the road to the mine.
The road was barely more than a track through the trees. It curved sharply and led across a meadow and up a steep cliff.
Charlotte tried to see across to the Dredger property, but the trees blocked her view. She stopped the car at the top of a ridge beside a row of trees. She went to look back over the creek wondering what was going on, wondering if Alec was safe.
She walked through the trees and from the top of the rise she could see directly across the creek to the road that led to the mine. There was a cliff towering above the road, but from where she stood, she could see Tommy sitting on a ledge below the cliff, legs hanging over the side.
With a start, she recognized the ledge. It was the ledge Otto Dredger had taken her to, the day they went out riding. But he had said no one could see them from the ledge, and there it was, as clear as day. She wondered for a moment if Otto Dredger knew the ledge was so visible.
Charlotte could make out the Deputy, Frank, beside Tommy and behind them were two other people, someone in a black dress bending over someone else who was lying on the ledge.
There was something about that black dress…
The shock of recognition hit her and her breath caught. It was Annie Hamilton, and something was wrong.
Charlotte spotted Alec Forrest as he climbed along the cliff from the north. He wouldn’t be able to see the people below him on the ledge.
Mr. Dredger was the only one on the top of the cliff when Alec broke out of the trees and approached him. Charlotte could see the two men talking. Alec was walking about, checking out something on the top of the cliff.
As Alec leaned over to pick something up, Dredger approached him from behind, a gun in his hand. Charlotte shouted out a warning, but her voice was lost in the wind.
Time stood still as Charlotte watched Dredger creep up on the Sheriff. Alec must have heard something, because he turned in Dredger’s direction and Dredger shot him.
Alec fell, his shotgun falling to the ground beside him. Then Dredger dragged him to the edge of the cliff and rolled him over the edge. Charlotte stared in shock. Finally, she knew how Alec must have felt when he’d watched his parents murdered. His body dropped about ten feet, to the ledge below.
Dredger took Alec’s shotgun from where it lay on the ground and fastened it to the back of his saddle. Charlotte saw him pull his pocket watch out of his vest. He was watching the time, waiting for something.
Charlotte could hardly believe what she was seeing. She knew Otto Dredger wasn’t going to let anyone down on that ledge survive the day.
She’d watched him shoot Alec and there hadn’t been a thing she could do about it. She had to believe Alec was still alive. But Dredger was going to kill him. She ran back to the car, and drove as fast as she could along the bumpy tracks.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Dredger checked the dynamite in the holes along the face of the cliff and then he checked his watch again. Everything was going according to plan. He still had an hour before the gold shipment was due to appear. Too bad Annie and Branigan and the sheriff had come up onto his property and stuck their noses into his business, but he would take care of them. No stone would be left unturned at the end of this day. He smiled at his own joke. No stone would be left unturned, but a few would fall.
***
Alec landed heavily onto the ledge. A few bushes softened his fall, but the force of the drop sent pain shooting through his body. The last thing he saw before he passed out was Luc and Annie.
***
Alec wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but gradually he became aware of someone shaking him. His deputy, Frank.
“Sheriff, are you okay?” Frank asked.
Alec shook his head, trying to clear his senses. He could move his arms and his legs but the warm blood spreading across his chest was a bad sign. “Can’t you see I’ve been shot?” he asked.
The deputy gave him a look of despair. “I didn’t know what I was getting into. Otto Dredger hired me for the day to keep people away from the cliff while he was doing some blasting. Nobody was supposed to get hurt. Now Dredger is going and shooting people.”
“Who else did he shoot?” Alec asked.
Frank gestured over at Luc Branigan who was lying on the ledge. Alec pulled himself up on one arm to look over at Luc. Annie Hamilton and Tommy Dredger were beside Luc.
“What’s going on here?” Alec asked.
Frank made a bandage out of his bandana and tied it against the wound on Alec’s chest.
“Dredger shot Luc Branigan. And he said he shot Branigan’s father. I bandaged Luc up, but he needs to see a doctor. So do you.”
“What is Dredger doing up here?” Alec asked.
Annie answered. “He wants to rob the gold shipment coming from the mine today.”
Alec looked over at Frank, who nodded his head.
Tommy looked scared and confused, “No, he’s not. He is blasting to make a pasture.”
Alec glanced at the boy, who was looking at the path that led up to the ledge. Otto Dredger came down the trail.
“What’s going on Dad?” Tommy asked. “I saw you shoot Luc. What happened to the sheriff?”
“Everythin
g’s okay, son. It was an accident when Luc got shot.”
The boy looked more frightened than ever.
“Come over here, Tommy,” Annie said. The boy went to sit beside his mother.
“Recognize this place, Annie?” Otto Dredger asked. Alec looked over at Annie who just looked appalled.
From his position on the ground, Alec watched Dredger. The man looked confident as if he was in a mood to boast. “This is where I brought Annie, the first time -- the first time I had her. Right on that rock, right where you’re laying now, Branigan. Annie and me. I was just sad to find out someone else had her first. I always suspected that someone was you, Branigan.”
“You’re disgusting, Dredger,” Annie said.
But Otto was talking to Luc. “So when she turned out to be carrying that baby, it didn’t bother me at all that she ended up in the whorehouse. It was where she belonged.”
“You made me think you loved me,” Annie said. “You made me think you were taking care of my boy. I paid you money every month.”
“I made you think a lot of things. Like I believed the boy was mine. He could have been, I guess, except for those big brown eyes. No, those are Branigan eyes. They are exactly like your father’s eyes, Branigan.”
Dredger walked over to the edge of the cliff and looked up the valley. He checked his watch again. And then he looked down at Annie. “You were so useful to me up there, Annie, above the bar. What’s the pastor saying? What’s the deputy saying? What are the miners saying? You were a goldmine to me, honey.”
“You used me. You just used me.”
“We all make choices, Annie. Choices to live, choices to survive. You made your own choices,” Dredger shrugged. “But now you’re leaving town. You won’t be of any more use to me.” He laughed, a bitter twisted sound. “Nor the boy. He was how I kept you under control.”
Alec moved his shoulder. Dredger’s shot had cut just under his shoulder blade. With the bleeding stopped, he knew he’d be all right. Dredger saw Alec move and then turned to him. “I had no idea it would be so easy to shoot you, Sheriff.”
Alec hoped that Dredger would continue to boast, to impress them all with just how clever he was. Dredger probably felt safe because he planned to kill them all by the end of the day.
“Why did you do it, Dredger? Why did you kill the teacher?” Alec asked him.
“So you figured that out, did you? I thought you were convinced it was Branigan.”
“All the evidence pointed at him. The hat, the calves he sent off at the train station. The fact that he was always riding out with her in his wagon. And they had some falling out. Yes, it could have been him. But when her husband was killed while Branigan was in jail, I knew he wasn’t the killer.”
“I didn’t know she was married,” Luc said. “She said I was getting too familiar with her and she didn’t want us picking her up from the school anymore. In a way, I blame myself that she died.”
Alec kept talking. Maybe if he distracted him, he could get Dredger to let down his guard. “So then, I asked myself, who was it who tried to convince me it was Branigan? Why, that was you, Dredger.”
“That doesn’t mean I killed anyone,” Dredger said.
“I knew it was you, Dredger. I just couldn’t figure out why.” Alec eased himself away from the rock and took the locket out of his pocket.
“Do you recognize this locket, Dredger?”
“That’s my wife’s locket.”
“You gave it to your wife. And who is the picture inside?”
“It’s my sister, Laura.”
“No, it isn’t Dredger. It’s Laura Wallace and this locket was hers, wasn’t it?”
“So what if it was?”
“Laura Wallace is dead,” Alec said. “And her whole family. Neill McArthur recognized her picture. I bet Eileen recognized it too.”
Dredger looked hard at him. “So what if they are dead?”
“Maybe you can explain to me how you came by Laura Wallace’s locket. And her daddy’s watch. You probably thought the Wallaces would be overlooked with everyone else who died during the Galveston hurricane, didn’t you?”
“A lot of people died in that storm,” Dredger answered.
“But their ranch hands got back to the ranch before the storm and found them dead. You were just lucky no one came looking for you.”
“They were the first people I killed, Sheriff. But it was self-defense.”
“Self-defense?”
“That’s right. No jury would ever convict me. Wallace had a big ranch near Galveston, in Texas. I grew up right beside that ranch. We had a little ranch, but the big outfits like Wallace, they didn’t want our little spread cluttering up their range. Wallace and a bunch of his men accused me of cattle rustling. They gave me two weeks to leave Texas or they would hang me.”
“I waited for a week. It was a Friday night and all of his men were in town. I said my goodbyes to my family. I went by Wallace’s place and told him I wasn’t a cattle rustler, but I was leaving anyway to keep my family safe.”
“He was really civil to me and said I was doing the right thing. He said to me, ‘Otto, at the end of the day, all you have is your family.’ And then I shot him. Just like that. While he lay there dying, I went in the house and one by one, I shot his wife and all his children. Including Laura.”
“Laura was his oldest daughter and she was a schoolteacher. We were the same age and we’d gone to school together.” Dredger sounded regretful. “I always hoped we would end up together. I didn’t want to kill her but she’d have the law on me so I shot her.”
“Wallace had this pocket watch.” Dredger took the watch out of his vest. “He was so proud of this watch. I took it off him and I took the locket off Laura too. I went through the house and took all the cash and food I could find. I took the two best horses out in the corral and then I rode out of there.”
“Didn’t anyone come after you?” Alec asked.
“The date was September 7, 1900. The next morning, the biggest hurricane that ever hit Galveston came rolling in. I just kept riding and then when the wind came up, I took shelter in a cave. After it was over, I kept riding north until I reached this place in the mountains. Home, sweet home,” Dredger added with a smirk.
“I never dreamt that someone from Texas would come up and find me here after ten years,” Dredger concluded.
“Did Eileen recognize you?” Alec prodded.
“No, not at first, anyway. It turns out that Eileen McArthur was born Eileen Devlin. She was from Galveston and she remembered Laura Wallace because Laura was her teacher. And she knew Laura had been shot. I guess she recognized Laura’s picture from her locket.”
“Is that why you killed her?”
“I brought her up here one evening, to show her the view. She took exception when I tried to kiss her. The way she treated me, she certainly was suspicious about something. Then my wife’s locket went missing. Eileen is the only one who could have taken it. So, I started asking her questions. That girl had a lot of secrets. In the beginning, I never knew she was from Texas, let alone from Galveston, but she told me. One day, I asked her who her favorite teacher was growing up. And without thinking, she said Laura Wallace. I watched her for a couple of days after that and then I saw her with the locket. So I decided it was safer for me if she just disappeared.”
“You killed her because the locket was missing?” Alec prodded.
“And she complained about that one little kiss to the pastor. And I didn’t want any trouble from her.”
“Then her husband was killed,” Alec said, “We found his body this morning. Branigan was already in jail. It was too much of a coincidence, so I was sure Branigan hadn’t killed Eileen McArthur. It was you who killed her husband, wasn’t it.”
“Yeah, I killed her husband,” Dredger admitted. “Somehow, her husband knew about that locket. He came to me and told me he was Eileen McArthur’s husband. He asked me about Laura Wallace and the whole Wallace family. He
had a letter Eileen sent to him telling him about finding the locket. He accused me of stealing his money from Eileen’s trunk. I was getting so close to robbing this gold shipment. I didn’t want him getting in the way.”
“What do you need this gold for anyway, Dredger?” Annie asked. “You have the biggest ranch around here.”
“You can’t ever have too much money, Annie. I learned that back in Texas. Besides, this is not Texas. When I left Texas, I swore I would go back and set up there again. Wallace thought he was driving me out of Texas, but I had every intention of returning. That’s why I need the gold.”
“So everything you’ve done, all these years, is to get back at Wallace.” Alec had his confession now. If he wasn’t injured he could do something about it. After all of Dredger’s boasting, there wasn’t anything left to say.
Alec watched Annie. She looked back at him, from where she was crouched next to Luc who was lying on the ground. She looked at Dredger and then she looked at the crevice at the back of the ledge. She knew Dredger wasn’t going to let any of them live to tell the tale of his exploits.
Dredger took his watch out of his pocket and looked at it again. “Time to set off the dynamite.” He unfastened the watch from the chain on his vest and flung it over at Branigan.
“Here Branigan, you can hold this for me,” Dredger said. “I guess I’ve learned my lesson about taking jewelry from a dead man. I never thought anybody would ever recognize it.”
Dredger picked up the dynamite and started up the cliff. Tommy crept closer to his mother. Dredger turned and said, “Tommy, I want you to stay down here with the deputy and your mama. You need to help to keep them down here so they’ll be safe.”
“Make sure they all stay here,” Dredger said to Frank. The Deputy looked unhappy but he trained his gun on the ground beside Alec.
The first blast came in a few minutes. The ledge shook with the blast and then some rock fell from the face of the cliff, skittering on the rock as it fell into the valley below.
“We’re going to die up here,” Annie said. She turned to the deputy. “And you’re going to die with us. Do you think Dredger will leave anybody here alive? Anybody who knows about all his killing?”