Stranger in Thunder Basin (Leisure Historical Fiction)

by John D. Nesbitt

  She gave him a quizzical look.

  “You still have that inventory, don’t you?”

  “Yes. Do you want me to get it?”

  “I have something to add to it.”

  “All right. Give me a minute.”

  When she came back, she had the sheet of paper in one hand and an envelope in the other.

  “This just came for you,” she said, handing him the envelope as she sat down.

  All it had on the outside was two lines of lettering printed by hand:

  Edward Dawes

  Litch, Wyoming

  He set it aside and reached into his boot.

  “I want to add this to the inventory,” he said, setting the bone-handled sheath knife in its scabbard on the table.

  She sat with the pencil poised. “What should I call it?”

  “A hunting knife.” He drew it out and showed the shiny, curved blade about five inches long. “Bone handle, curved blade, leather scabbard. I had it in my warbag before and didn’t think of it.”

  He set the bare knife on the table, and as Ravenna wrote down the notations, his eyes lit on the letter he had set aside.

  “Let’s see what this is.” He saw that it was an envelope with a letter inside, not just a piece of paper written on, folded up, and sealed. He picked up the knife and with very light pressure cut the folded edge of the envelope. Inside was a sheet of paper enclosing a smaller piece wrapped in tissue. He unfolded the letter and read it:

  Edward:

  It wasn’t until after you left, and I thought about how surprised you seemed by the conversation, that I realized you may have come to ask about more than what we spoke of. Further, I admit that I was still protecting myself against what others might say or think.

  So I send you this. It is the only one I have, or had, as it is now yours.

  I thank you again for understanding.

  L.C.

  Ed began to unwrap the tissue. He could tell it was a photograph, about two inches by three. When he had it unwrapped, he turned it over, and a face looked back at him. It was a studio portrait of a man thirty-five or forty years old, before his hair turned gray. His hair was neatly combed, and he was clean shaven. He wore a dark suit and vest with a white shirt and light-colored tie. From beneath dark brows, a pair of eyes looked at Ed—the eyes of a man who years ago had cared for him like a father.

  “What is it?” said Ravenna, coming around to his side and looking on.

  “Pa-Pa.”

  She took a few seconds to respond. “There’s no question, is there?”

  “No, none at all.”

  The buckskin stepped out at a brisk trot in the cool of morning. As Ed left the town of Litch behind him, he realized he could not take for granted that he would see the town again or any of the people in it. He brushed the thought from his mind and tried to think only of what lay ahead. Even at that, he did not have a definite plan because he did not know how things would take place. His idea was to confront Mort Ramsey, give him a chance to confess, and decide from there. It hadn’t worked with Bridge, and Ed doubted that it would work with Ramsey, but he would give him a chance if the chips fell that way. As Ed saw it, a man deserved to have his say. Ed was not going to snipe and run in the style of a hired killer.

  He came to the valley of dead cottonwoods in early afternoon. Once again the leafless trees looked spectral, and in their placement along the winding course of the creek bottom they had the appearance of a procession of ancient skeletons.

  Ed swung down from the horse and led it through the abandoned prairie dog colony to the water-hole. The afternoon was hot and dry as his boots moved through the brittle grass, but thunderclouds were forming along the hills far off to the west. It was the time of year for heavy thunderstorms, and he recalled the hailstorm he and the others at the Tompkins Ranch had seen the year before.

  Keeping an eye on the clouds when he mounted up again, he rode through the broken country until the trail rose and came out in the broader terrain. The King Diamond Ranch was still a few miles off, and raindrops began to patter in the dust and raise the smell of rain coming to dry country.

  As the drops started coming down heavier, Ed looked for a place to find shelter. He didn’t care to get all his gear wet, much less get pelted by hailstones, and he didn’t want to ride into the ranch headquarters soaking wet like a muskrat.

  Off to the west a couple of hundred yards, he saw where a gully rose up to a rocky overhang. It looked as if he could get out of the worst of the shower there, but if the water began to come down in heavy sheets, he would have to look out for a flash flood. The clay on the underside of that rock looked as if it had been carried away by gully-washers.

  He spurred the buckskin down into the gully, which was still only speckled damp and dry, and came up under the ledge of rock. A few drops sprayed in from the north, but for the most part, it was a good natural shelter. Ed dismounted and kept an eye out for snakes as the buckskin edged closer to the dry wall.

  The rain came down but not in torrents. It was settling the dust, washing off the sagebrush and cactus, soaking into the black roots of the buffalo grass. As far as Ed could see in any direction, which was a mile at the most because of his position, the wide land was taking in the moisture.

  Movement caught his eye. Movement and shape, off to the east along the trail he had been riding. A man on a horse. Whoever it was, he hadn’t been on the trail a minute earlier. He had come up from lower country to the east, had cut the trail, and now was headed north.

  At first it looked like a figure in a cape, as if a rider of death had come up from the graveyard of cottonwoods, but then Ed saw that the man was wearing a dark slicker, wet now, and billowing out with the wind to make him look like a hunchback. The man’s profile was hard to determine, and he wore no hat. He kept his face turned from the brunt of the wind-blown rain, and he did not seem to have the easy posture of a practiced rider of the range.

  For a moment the wind slackened. The slicker lost its billow, and the rider faced the trail ahead of him. As Ed identified the hatless head, he realized it was the first time he had seen George the brute on horse-back. Ed breathed a long sigh, as quiet as he could make it. This little hideout was a good place to be—much better than having the brute in the dark slicker coming up the trail behind him.

  Chapter Fifteen

  All the way in on the trail from the main road to the ranch headquarters, Ed kept an eye on the tracks ahead of him. The rain had penetrated the loose dirt about half an inch and the hard earth quite a bit less, so it was easy to see where each step of the horse had cut through the damp to the dry.

  When the trail turned and went south down the open slope to the ranch buildings, the tracks did not waver. As Ed came to the bunk house, he saw that the rider had taken the horse straight on down to the barn.

  One thing at a time, Ed thought. Unless Pat the cook had been ordered to shoot him on sight, Ed could ask a couple of questions and try to find out how things stood. But he was sure of one thing, after having seen George out on the trail. They were expecting him here at the King Diamond. With his stomach tightening, he swung down at the hitching rail and tied his horse. He crossed the bare dirt, paused on the stone doorstep, and opened the door.

  “Anybody home?” he called. Then, as the door swung the rest of the way open and his vision came around, he saw a man sitting at the table, facing the door as Bridge had done. But it was not Bridge. It was someone thicker in build, but not as big as Cooley. Ed recognized the form and then the sarcastic voice.

  “Well, look who comes in the door. It’s our little two-fisted Romeo.”

  “I didn’t expect to see you here, Jeff.”

  “Land of many surprises. Where did you expect to see me—in Ashton?”

  “Now that I think of it, this is the most likely place. Mindin’ the main chance, aren’t you?”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Probably nothing—for you.”

  Je
ff stood and looked over his shoulder at the cook, who slouched by the stove smoking a cigarette. “Pat,” he said, “this is the guttersnipe I told you about.”

  “I know.”

  Jeff stepped into the open, away from the end of the table. He was not wearing a hat or a gunbelt. “Come here, boy. Stand right here.” He pointed at the space about an arm’s length in front of him.

  “What for?”

  “So I can give you a lesson. Did you bring the boxing gloves?”

  Ed swallowed hard. “I didn’t think to.”

  “Stand over here then. Don’t be afraid.” Jeff flicked his eyebrows in a smirk.

  Ed slid a glance at Pat, who was looking at the end of his cigarette. Then he brought his eyes back to Jeff and took three steps forward and to his left. Turning square to face him, Ed raised his chin. “Go ahead. Throw the first punch.”

  Jeff smiled. “Not me. Not here.” He rocked back onto his heels and forward again. “Now look here, boy. You don’t tell me. I tell you. And when I tell you to do something, you do it.”

  “Why should I?”

  “Didn’t that little girl tell you? I’m the foreman here now.”

  Ed felt his head begin to swim, and he shook away the sensation. “You can leave her out of it. And as for you bein’ foreman, I didn’t come back here to take orders.”

  “Leave her out of it? I wouldn’t do that for the world. When a fella’s got a good thing, he wants his friends to be happy for him.”

  The pressure was rising. “I don’t like the way you talk.”

  “That’s because you don’t understand. You’re just a boy.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “She knows what a man is.”

  Ed felt his chest rising, his fists doubling. He didn’t have an answer.

  “She knows all about it. The farmer in Crete taught her, but I taught her better.”

  “You’re just a dirty peeping—”

  “Easy, boy. Get used to it. She’s going to have my baby.”

  A blood rage broke loose. Ed threw himself at Jeff, swinging, but the stocky man was waiting for him and caught him with a punch that knocked off his hat. Ed felt the blow, sharp and heavy on his temple, but it seemed distant in his blind fury. He kept swinging until he closed in on the man, and then he grabbed him and threw him to the floor. Jeff came up with both fists ready and his head lowered, and a menacing look on his face that reminded Ed that in Arkansas they fought for real.

  Jeff came on with a rush, battering Ed’s head and forearms with a series of right and left punches. Ed fell backward, toward the open doorway, and Jeff piled on. Holding Ed’s shirtfront with one hand, he punched with the other. Then he shifted his left hand, grabbed Ed by the hair, and dug his thumb into Ed’s eye socket.

  Ed erupted with a primal burst of strength. He threw Jeff to one side, rose from the threshold, picked up the heavier man in a bear hug, and slammed him to the floor. He picked him up again, and Jeff twisted away, spilling out through the doorway and rolling in the dirt. Ed jumped after him, picked him up a third time, and slammed him for all he was worth. Then he straddled Jeff and sat on him, pinning the man with his weight on the man’s abdomen and both hands on his throat.

  “Take it back!” he commanded, his throat dry and harsh.

  Jeff blew a puff of air and a small spray of spit.

  “I said take it back!”

  “Puh–puh-puh...”

  Ed thought the man was going to finish the word, but instead he spit at Ed’s face and bucked with his hips, as if he expected to throw Ed off. But Ed hung on. He tightened his grip on the man’s throat and slammed his head on the stone doorstep half a dozen times, until the body went limp beneath his hands.

  Ed pushed back and sat on his heels. He did not look straight at Jeff, but from a sideways glance he saw the still body of a man who would rather fight to the finish than take back an empty taunt. It was too bad, but he asked for it.

  Ed pushed himself to his feet, straightened up, and looked around. Just inside the doorway, Pat the cook was smoking his cigarette down to the pinched end.

  “He was goin’ to kill you.”

  Ed spoke between heaving breaths. “Well, he didn’t get to.” Ed gave another quick once-around. “Where’s everyone else?”

  Pat motioned with his hand toward Jeff’s lifeless body. “He put ’em all to pilin’ hay. I think he wanted ’em out of the way for this.”

  “It’s just as well.” Ed was sure now that they had been expecting him all along. He pulled in a long, deep breath and tried to settle himself down. His hands were shaking, and his knees felt as if they were going to give out. “Is Ramsey in the big house?”

  “I don’t know. You’ll have to go see.”

  That was Pat—wait to see who came out on top.

  Ed stepped inside the bunk house and found his hat. After putting it on, he checked to see that the sheath knife was still on his belt, halfway around from his pistol. Having gotten most of his wind back, he went out into the sunlight and turned to go to the ranch house.

  Nothing moved in the yard. Ed wondered if George the brute had finished with the horse and had come to the house, but he did not see any footprints or turned earth to suggest it. The man could have come the back way, of course.

  Ed raised his eyes and glanced around. With the storm having passed over, the afternoon had cleared. The sun was bright, and the air was fresh. At times like this, after a summer storm, it was common to hear meadowlarks, but at the moment no sounds came on the clear air. Nor did any sounds come from the corrals or barn—no hooves thumping on rails or posts, no horses nickering. A dead silence hung over the whole yard, as if the gables and dormers of the lodgelike house had frowned everything into muteness.

  As Ed went up the heavy plank steps to the porch, he saw that the door was ajar. Drawing his pistol, he nudged the door with the toe of his boot. A faint jingle made him wish he had taken off his spurs. The door moved without a noise from the hinges. There came only the sound, or the movement of air that seemed like sound, of the heavy wooden object swinging inward.

  He drew his gun and took a step inside, then another, sending the faint ring of a spur with each step. The door to the office area ahead was open, but the room was not lit, and the partial view of the desk did not show anyone sitting there. Maybe the master was waiting in another room or in a dark corner of this one. Maybe the brute was still in the barn and had not come in the back way. Maybe they were both in the cellar.

  Ed took another step, trying to set his foot down softly so as not to make a sound with the spur. Now another step. His eyes were adjusting to the dark interior, and he could make out the open beams of the vaulted ceiling.

  Wham! A rushing force hit him sideways on the right, knocking the gun from his hand and sending it in a thumping rattle across the floor. He felt his arm pinned to his side as a demonic shriek pierced his ear. He smelled the rank odor of man-sweat, and he felt the chin of the brute dig into his shoulder as he was lifted from the floor.

  He kicked, he squirmed, he swung with his left fist. The brute shook him and tightened the hug. Ed swung again, and his fist glanced off the side of the brute’s sweaty head.

  “Hold still,” came Ramsey’s voice, “or I’ll stick this gun in your mouth and pull the trigger.” When the struggling subsided, the click of a pistol hammer sounded, as if Ramsey had been waiting for the moment to make his emphasis.

  Ed could not find the floor with his feet. The locked grasp of George the brute held him up like a sack of grain or a quarter of beef.

  “We’ll take him to the bridal chamber, George. But before we go, let me tell you this, young snoop. You do what you’re told.” His tone of voice changed as he said, “Just hold him for a minute, George.” Then he addressed Ed again in his commanding tone. “Like I was saying, you do what you’re told. You’ll see why we call it the bridal chamber. When you put a gun to a man’s head, he’ll do anything to keep you from pulling the
trigger. Anything. So just do what you’re told. Let’s go, George.”

  The brute relaxed his grip in order to heft the burden and get a new purchase on it, and when he did, Ed exploded. With a burst of power, he kicked and twisted, then pounded George square on the cheekbone. Then he hooked a boot behind the brute’s knee, and with that as his base he pushed with his whole body, driving his right shoulder at George’s chest.

  The brute staggered and took a step backward. Ed twisted again, punched him in the face, then wedged his left arm between them and shoved. The brute toppled and hit the floor, and Ed broke free from the tangle.

  George was back on his feet right away, grabbing at Ed and blocking any chance Ramsey might have had to pull the trigger. This time the brute grabbed Ed’s left forearm and settled on it with the iron grip of his right hand. Ed twisted his arm down, around, and up, breaking the grip but allowing George to close in on him. The brute was bringing his right arm up and around, skidding off Ed’s shoulder and hooking around his neck.

  Ed’s left arm had slipped in back of the brute’s waist, while his right hand had fumbled for the sheath knife. Now he could feel the bone handle in his grip. George’s arm was closing on his neck, the sweaty wrist like a vise, bringing Ed’s face against the brute’s chest. Ed drew his hips back to give himself room, but he hung on to George’s waist to stay aligned, and then with an upward thrust, he drove the knife blade into the brute’s midsection.

  The hammerlock relaxed, and a more inhuman cry than before filled the vaulted room. The brute dropped to his knees, then slumped over to his side on the floor.

  Ed searched in the dusky shadows, expecting a bullet any second, but instead he heard a scramble and saw a human form go through the office doorway. The light closed off, and the door slammed. Ed put his hands on his knees and bent over, pulling in air and trying to catch his breath all over again.

  Some light was coming in through the front door—not enough to reach into the darker recesses but enough to let Ed see that George the brute was finished. Ed walked to the body, leaned over, wiped the blade of his knife on the dead man’s shirt, and put the knife in its sheath. Standing up, he looked around for his gun. His head was moving up and down as he continued pulling in deep gulps of air. He found where the gun had fallen, picked it up, and put in his holster.