Stranger in Thunder Basin (Leisure Historical Fiction)

by John D. Nesbitt

  The florid face and puffy hands put Ed in mind of a story that Emerson the blacksmith had told him about a man who ate a peach and got a hornet in his mouth. He got stung a few times before he could get the hornet out, and the poison spread through him. His face and neck and hands swelled up, and his throat closed almost to the point of choking him to death. Emerson said it was a sight to see, like a dog that got bit by a snake, and he liked to tell the story.

  “You don’t look like you’re very busy,” said the boss.

  “I’m bound to go in and help the cook any time now.”

  “What’s he got for you?”

  “Ah, there’s always somethin’.”

  Ramsey lifted his chin and looked around. “Where’s Bridge?”

  “I think he’s still out with the crew.”

  “Well, I need a man to do a job. It’ll take a little while, so maybe it’ll have to wait till tomorrow.” He focused his stare downward on Ed. “You see, I’m going to be bringing a new bride onto the ranch, and I need a few things cleaned up.”

  “That sounds wonderful, sir. I’m happy for you.”

  “So am I. But I need to get things ready.”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ve got a bunch of old things to burn. Mostly papers, but some other things as well. A couple of broken chairs, some old crates, that sort of thing.” He waved with his left hand, and his diamond ring flashed.

  “That might take a while, if you don’t mind my saying so, sir. I could get an early start on it in the morning, though, and get it done before any wind comes up.”

  Ramsey looked around and off in the distance again. “Some of this stuff is in the cellar. George could show you where it is, and you could haul it up to night. Have everything ready.”

  Ed did not like the feeling he was getting from the conversation. He looked past Ramsey and saw George, hatless as always, standing in the shadows of the ranch-house porch. Coming back to Ramsey, Ed saw the man gazing away with a spiteful expression on his face, as if the last thing on his mind was his new bride.

  “Sounds like a good idea, sir.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Burn this trash in the morning, but get it ready now. I could get out of cuttin’ up all those spuds, which I hate anyway. I’ll go tell Pat.” Ed stood up.

  “Nah. You go ahead and do the kitchen work. We can do this other job tomorrow. Have you seen Herm?”

  “Not at all. I thought he was out with Bridge.” Ed hoped Pat didn’t hear him.

  Ramsey shook his head. “I don’t think so.” Then, looking at Ed as if he were a perfect fool, he said, “Go in and help the cook.”

  Ed did as he was told, making short work of the potatoes and leaving them in a gleaming white pile. He laid down his knife, put a pained expression on his face, and said, “I’ve got to go out back.”

  He put on his hat and left through the back door toward the out house, but instead of going in he went around it and scrambled up the hillside. As he climbed, he thought about Ramsey, Bridge, and circumstances in general. Something always seemed wrong at the King Diamond Ranch, and it seemed even more so at the present. Thinking he might see something if he watched the ranch yard for a while, he took a seat where a small outcropping of rocks gave a little shade and might absorb his form.

  Nothing moved in the yard below. He assumed Ramsey and George were in the big house, but he had no idea what they might be up to. Going into the cellar with George had struck Ed as ominous, and he wondered how much of the story about the bride and the cleanup was real. Ed figured he might find out in the morning.

  Still nothing moved in the yard. Lifting his gaze and scanning the higher land, Ed saw something that gave him a jolt. A man on horse back was coming out of the high brush on the trail in from the main road and was riding south toward headquarters. Ed articulated the form that he had already recognized. It was Cooley.

  Ed kept still and hoped Cooley wouldn’t see him. He decided that as soon as Cooley rode past the bunk-house, this spot would be out of view. He could scamper down the hillside, in through the back door, and be rattling plates while Cooley was putting his horse away.

  His luck didn’t hold out, though. The blocky rider’s hat brim went up, and in the next moment Cooley was trotting the brown horse up and across the slope toward the outcropping of rocks.

  Ed kept his seat. If he stood up he would have a better pull at his gun, but he hoped that wouldn’t be necessary. Meanwhile, there were a few rocks at hand that were smaller than George’s head and might be useful if it came to that.

  The hoofbeats sounded on the dry ground as the big-hatted rider came closer. The horse was sweating along the neck and around the saddle blanket, and specks of froth showed on the bit. Dust rose as Cooley pulled the horse to a stop.

  Ed hoped the man would make fun of him for getting drunk and not taking his turns at the parlor house, but Cooley’s meaty face carried a sour expression, and his gravelly voice had a sharp tone.

  “What are you doin’ up here spyin’?”

  Ed widened his eyes. “Not spyin’ at all. Came up here to see if I could catch a breeze. Hotter’n hell in the bunk house, and I just cut up a heap of spuds. Ask Pat.”

  “I don’t have to ask Pat a damn thing. I’m askin’ you.”

  “Well, I told you all there is to tell.”

  Cooley swung down from his horse, seemed to miss his balance on his boot heels, and caught it. He was standing downhill from where Ed sat and was at almost the same eye level. He took a heavy breath and said, “You haven’t told me what I asked.”

  “I’m sorry, but I did.”

  Cooley pulled off his riding gloves and stuffed them in his vest pocket as he spoke, rough as always. “Listen here, you little son of a bitch. I don’t like snoops. Nobody does. So out with it, before I beat you to a pulp.”

  “I don’t know what you’re getting at.”

  The big man’s lower lip hung down, and a fleck of saliva jumped out as he said, “The hell you don’t. I want to know what you’re spyin’ on.”

  “Well, to tell you the truth, I’m lookin’ out for you.”

  Cooley frowned. “The hell you are.”

  “The hell I’m not. That fella you shook up in the Rimfire the other night, he’s plenty mad at you. I heard he bought a box of rifle shells and was headed out this way.”

  “You really are stupid, aren’t you, to think I’d believe that.”

  “Why not? It’s the truth. Ask anyone in town.”

  “Ask Pat. He knows as much about it way out here.”

  “Don’t take my word for it then.”

  “I damn sure won’t, and you’re gonna answer my question if I have to shake you till your teeth rattle.” Cooley’s own lower teeth showed as he spoke.

  “I’ve told you as much as I can. That fella’s got a vengeance.”

  “Forget that fairy tale. You know what I’m gettin’ at.”

  “Not yet.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you. You’re nothin’ but a no-good little spy, and I know it.”

  “If you think I’m like that fellow Hardy, you’re wrong.”

  Cooley had his tongue between his lips, then drew it back. “I don’t know what kind you are, but I know you’re a snoop.”

  “That’s more than I know.”

  Cooley’s face grew hard, and he seethed. “Look here, kid. You’ve got one more chance, and then I’m going to smear you on this hillside.”

  “All right. I’ll answer anything.”

  The big man’s words came slow and strained, as if through clenched teeth. “I want to know what you want to dig up about Mort Ramsey.”

  As Ed heard the words, the world around him began to swim—Cooley and the brown horse directly downhill in front, the hazy sky beyond them in the distance, the ranch headquarters below. He pulled in a breath and said, “How did you know?”

  “Never mind how I know. But you want to find out something about Mort Ramsey, and I want to know what
, and why. Now you can tell me, or you can let George get it out of you.”

  Jeff. That’s who it had to be. He must have been listening earlier, when Ed and Ravenna were talking. It was the only time Ed had said that name out loud. There would have been plenty of time between the moment of the one-sided fistfight and the time Cooley left town. And Jeff would have loved passing it on.

  “How do I know you won’t beat me up and then give me to George anyway? I might as well get one beating instead of two.”

  “To tell you the truth, I don’t care. Now quit stallin’.”

  “All right. It went like this. Hardy told me the boss had it in for one of his top men. That didn’t sound fair to me, so I thought if I could find out which one—”

  Cooley reached over to grab Ed by the shirt. His grasp missed as Ed moved, and he grabbed again. “Damn you, I’ve had enough of your—”

  “Look out! There’s a snake!” Ed’s words were sharp as he pulled his feet up under him.

  By reflex, Cooley turned in his stooped position. Ed pulled free, and with his right hand he brought a rock up and around, then down on the back of Cooley’s head. It stumbled the man and knocked his hat off. Ed hit him again, and Cooley went to his hands and knees. Ed dropped the rock and with both hands picked up a larger one. As Cooley lifted his right hand and reached back for his pistol, Ed brought the rock down on the base of Cooley’s skull and laid him out.

  Now the world was quiet again. The horse had snuffled and snorted, run about thirty yards, and stopped where it now stood with the reins trailing. Down in the ranch yard, nothing stirred.

  Everything came to mind at once, and Ed had to take a deep breath as he tried to get his thoughts in order. Cooley had just come from town, and he had not yet talked with either Bridge or Ramsey. That meant he hadn’t told anyone what he heard from Jeff, or at least what he had developed as an urgent theory since the night in the parlor house. Meanwhile, Bridge had to have come back yesterday if he took a crew out today, so he wouldn’t have heard it in town, much less here. Still, Ed wondered if Ramsey had heard something. Wanting Ed to go into the cellar with George sounded suspicious, but as Ed reasoned it out, Ramsey wouldn’t have told him that much if he was really onto him, and he wouldn’t have told Ed to go in and help the cook.

  Ed was trying to settle down his breathing. It was taking a few minutes to absorb the idea that he had just clobbered the big man to death, but he needed to act fast. He couldn’t stay out on this hillside with a dead man and his own horse in plain view.

  As Ed went for the brown horse, he tried again to pull himself together and get things in their places. Ramsey and the brute were in the big house, and Pat was in the bunk house. Cooley would not have come within their view before he turned off and came this way. If Bridge had taken a crew of men to cut hay, they were off to the southwest, and they wouldn’t have seen Cooley come in either. That left two men unaccounted for, the ones who hadn’t come back yet from town. Unless they knew that Cooley set out ahead of them, no one knew where he was—except Ed. He needed to keep it that way, and he couldn’t waste time or effort.

  First, the hat. He mashed it down with his boot soles, then stuffed it under the slicker tied on the back of Cooley’s saddle. Then he took down the rope, looped it around Cooley’s chest and snugged it under the armpits, tied it to the saddle horn, and led the horse by the reins. The brown was a good ranch horse and had dragged plenty of steers, so he leaned into the weight and went to work.

  After a couple of hundred yards, the land began to slope downhill, and Ed stopped the horse when he could no longer see to the south and west. Relieved to be closed off from view, he took a minute to catch his breath. He was out in the middle of a huge grassland, with no trees for miles, and he couldn’t drag this body as he had done with the deer. For one thing, he didn’t have a carpet of snow, and for another, he didn’t want to leave a trail. He needed to get the body loaded on the horse, and he still had no time to lose.

  Cooley was wearing a belt in addition to his gun-belt, so Ed took off the regular belt and, winding it around the horse’s ankles and buckling it, he made a set of hobbles. He positioned the horse so that the body lay along its left side not far from its hooves, and he took the rope off to get it out of the way. Then he tried to lift the body. At first the shifting, dead weight seemed impossible, but Ed concentrated his strength and made a little more progress each time. After about five tries he got the dead man’s chest onto the seat of the saddle, and from there he was able to hook the left arm around the saddle horn. With a deep breath he got a new grip, then pushed and lifted until he had the load slung across so he could tie it down. He did not like treating the body the way he had to in order to get it tied off so it wouldn’t slip, but he told himself it was only a body now, and his work was just a task.

  When he was satisfied that the load wasn’t going to shift and fall off, he unwrapped the hobbles and set out leading the horse. He went north to some bro- ken country he knew of, and when he found a crevice that was wide and deep enough, he untied the burden and pushed it in. Then he tossed the belt and hat in on top.

  He had made sure that both gloves stayed in the man’s vest pocket, and now he gave the saddle a careful looking over. No bloodstains were visible, so he set off leading the horse.

  Walking along, he tried to sift things out and decide what to do next. He reached a high spot on the plain, and as he stopped for breath he saw that the sun was within half an hour of going down. He knew he was in a tight spot. If he walked back to the ranch, with or without the horse, he would get in after dark, and others would have already come in. If he rode the horse, he stood the chance of arriving just as Bridge and the others were riding in or putting their horses away. If he rode like hell, he might be able to get in ahead. Then he would have to decide what to do with the horse and saddle.

  He rode like hell. By now he had learned a few different ways to come in off the range, so he went around to the far end of the buildings. Seeing that the others had not come in and left their mounts, he stripped the brown horse and left it in a corral where he didn’t think the others would notice it in the dark. Then he put the saddle and bridle on a rack and left the barn through the back way. When he stepped into the bunk house, Pat was still the only man there. He was sitting at the table looking the other way, and he turned around sharp when the back door opened.

  “Where the hell have you been?” he asked, a cigarette dancing in his lips.

  “Oh, the boss called me over and told me the long story of how he’s goin’ to bring in a new bride and wants to get the place cleaned up.”

  Pat finished a puff on his cigarette. “He ought to haul away that trash pile as well.”

  “That was one of the things he talked about.” Ed still didn’t know what to think about going into the cellar. It had flitted in and out of his mind for the last couple of hours, and it reminded him of another of Emerson’s stories. It concerned a man in Sacramento who was in the habit of picking up old drunks and vagrants and offering them the price of a bottle to go dig a hole to bury trash. Once the victim dug the hole, the man killed him and buried him in it, but not until he did unspeakable things to the man. When the police caught up with him, he had more than a dozen of them buried along the river. Now with Pat’s mention of the trash, Ed liked the idea of the cellar even less.

  “It’s well he should think of it. I’ve told him about it a few times already.” Pat drummed the table top with his fingers. “Those others ought to be comin’ in any time.”

  “The ones from town?”

  “Well, them too. But I meant Bridge and the crew.” It was after dark when the men who had been cutting hay filed into the bunk house. None of them, including Bridge, seemed in a good mood, but they washed up and took their places as Pat laid out the grub.

  A strained atmosphere hung above the supper table as the meal progressed. The other two riders did not come in, and of course Cooley didn’t either. Pat said all three were pr
obably still laid up in a whore house.

  Bridge, who had finished ahead of the others, had rolled one of his thin, tight cigarettes and was smoking it. He shook his head. “Those other two wandered off the first night. Herm’s by himself.”

  “Unless he’s with a girl,” said Pat, with a little “heh, heh.”

  Bridge lowered his cigarette and, with his voice low and steady, directed his words at Pat. “When I said he was by himself, I meant he wasn’t with them other two.”

  “Oh, sure,” said Pat. “I understood you.”

  “He’ll be in sooner or later,” Bridge said in the same calm tone. “If he’s not in by mornin’ I’ll be surprised.”

  The moon was up when Ed went to the out house at midnight. He opened and closed the door, then ran soft-footed down to the corrals. Cooley’s horse, no doubt hungry, came right up to him, and he turned the horse into the corral where the others fed out of a hayrack and had access to a water trough. Then he hurried back to the out house, opened and closed the door, and went into the bunk house.

  He heard the normal sounds of men breathing and snoring. There was no way of knowing whether Bridge was awake, just as there was no way of knowing whether he would really be surprised if Cooley wasn’t in by morning. But he had said one thing that was dead certain. Herm Cooley was by himself.

  Chapter Ten

  The cook’s noises in the kitchen woke Ed as usual, and when he rolled out of bed to get dressed, he saw that Bridge was already seated at the table, wearing his hat and smoking a cigarette. Smoke was gathering around the overhead lamp, which made Ed think it might not be Bridge’s first cigarette of the day.

  A couple of other hands were getting up as well, so Ed took his time and arrived at the table after they did. In the six weeks he had been working at the King Diamond Ranch, he had tried to remain inconspicuous, so he avoided being alone in Bridge’s company or looking straight at him unless Bridge was talking to him. Ed’s method seemed to work all right, as the foreman paid him very little attention. This morning Bridge was sitting in his habitual place at the end of the table and facing the front door, so Ed took a seat across from him and down a couple of spaces.