by Paul Lederer
Rolling Thunder
Paul Lederer writing as Owen G. Irons
ONE
It was a sad and miserable day made more miserable by the steady fall of the cold rain across the graveyard. The aspen trees clustering near to the plot trembled in the gusting wind. Tyler Holt, buried six feet deep in the ground, felt none of it, saw none of it.
Someone had burned his name into a flat piece of wood, using a poker iron or some such instrument, and tacked it to an upright pole at the head of the grave. The marker wouldn’t last long, nor would memory of Tyler. But I stood there now, remembering him, as the heavy drops of rain fell, slapping at the black slicker I wore.
I heard the press of approaching footsteps against the debris of the untended graveyard and my hand dropped automatically to the walnut grips of my holstered Colt revolver. I did not draw in that split second as had once been my reflexive habit, and was relieved that I had not when I saw the person who was approaching, her face half-hidden under a dark-red hood, her mouth grim, her blue eyes unhappy and angry at once. I lowered my hand and waited for Mary Ford to approach me through the strengthening rain, her small boots tentative over the rough ground, her fists clenched.
‘Don’t do it, Tom,’ she said, halting a yard from me, the rain screening her young face. ‘Don’t kill my brothers. It wasn’t their doing despite what you may have heard.’
‘I haven’t heard anything except that Tyler was shot down by a mob,’ I said. The gusting wind was rattling the branches of the forlorn trees now, and rivulets of cold water snaked down the slope of the tiny graveyard. Distantly, thunder boomed above the Rocky Mountain peaks, their heads hidden in the massed clouds.
‘My brothers weren’t there,’ Mary said urgently. Her arms lifted slightly and for a moment her fingers stretched out as if she would take my sleeve. Her eyes searched mine, looking for belief. ‘It was the whole town … that mob that went to Tyler’s ranch and killed him.’ She waited for my response. Lightning crackled behind her, illuminating her starkly, briefly, and then a second heavy peal of thunder rolled across the dark land.
‘Please, Tom, don’t kill Ben and William.’
‘I didn’t come back to kill your brothers, Mary,’ I said, finding my throat tight as I looked into the eyes of the girl I had once loved and then lost. ‘I’ve come to kill a town.’
The desk clerk at the Stratton Hotel looked like he was afraid to give me a room key, more afraid not to, when I entered the building, scarring the oak floor a little with my spurs in passing. I was dripping rainwater; the sky outside was dark, the lobby smelled of stale cigar smoke and vaguely of women’s powder. I hardly paid any attention to the fat man behind the desk as he asked me to sign the hotel register. I was still thinking about the look in Mary’s eyes as I walked past her, leaving her standing in the iron gray of the rain-swept day. It was horror I saw in them, it seemed. But a woman’s eyes never express only a single emotion, and I thought for a moment I had seen a hint of her former caring. But it’s not hard for a man to delude himself if he lets himself get caught up in blue eyes. I had walked away from her; it was for the best. You can’t go back, a wise man had once told me.
But here I was – back in Stratton, Colorado after a miserable week on the trail. I was back and by now all the town knew that Tom Quinn had returned and that he was still carrying his guns.
Something had gone wrong in this town. It had started out healthy and clean, breathing new life where there had been no civilization before. Now it seemed that a cancer had grown within it, dark and virulent. A group of dark riders had managed to threaten, bully and, almost with impunity, kill those who opposed them.
I knew this because I had guided the first settlers into the region, hemmed with tall stands of pine trees standing sentinel beside long, grassy valleys with sweet water running off the Pocono watercourse from the flanks of the Rocky Mountains, dividing into a dozen nourishing silver rills. I was proud to have brought families and hard-working young ranchers onto the hidden plateau that not many men had seen before. The land was plentiful and rich and the enterprising few I had led here had begun to build with youthful energy – a church, a school, stores and truck farms; a few cattle had been driven into the high valleys, enough to provide Stratton with all the beef it needed.
Then, from what I had heard, a man named Shelley Peebles had arrived. Looking out across the lush valleys, he realized he was looking at much more than a settlement, he was seeing land that could support thousands of head of steers with the deep grass and plentiful water. He began driving cattle up from Texas before he had purchased so much as an acre of land. With him he brought a dozen gunhands willing to ply their trade.
The settlers in the valley were forced to sell their small landholdings bit by bit. Those who refused to give up their hope for a new life in the West were harassed, burned out and sometimes shot out of hand on the feeblest of excuses.
Peebles had also brought along his own group of professional men – an attorney, a judge and a marshal who took office without opposition because there was no one among the young families willing or able to stand up and oppose him. Not with so many armed men willing to do Peebles’s bidding for a few tainted dollars.
Tyler Holt, rest his soul, was one man who could not be ridden over. A Civil War veteran with four years of fighting behind him, his entire life spent struggling against the harshness of nature and men’s ways, he had brought his wife, Sadie, and their three children to Stratton at my insistence. He thought he had found paradise in those high valleys where the peaceful wind drifted through the cedars and pines. He had taken my hand and shaken it firmly, his thanks reflected in his eyes beyond any words he could have spoken.
The next year they shot him dead in the dusty yard of his ranch house.
Tossing my saddle-bags to one side of the small upstairs hotel room I stretched out on the bed, hands behind my head. I stared at the pine-slat ceiling, watching the collected shadows and memories that imagination painted there. I was tired and angry and lonesome. I believed I could sleep.
They would not try to kill me before morning.
Dawn was harsh in its rising. The storm had broken and the glare of new sunlight was brilliant against the peaks of the snow-capped Rockies where the light struck first, making them appear like distant, bright golden beacons.
I hadn’t slept much. All night the streets had been alive with the curses of brawling drunks, the sounds of breaking glass, and twice, gunshots until long after midnight. I stood looking out the window at the alley below me, littered with bottles, broken crates and garbage. A man slept huddled in the doorway of the harness shop opposite. The dream I had had for Stratton Valley when I first guided the new settlers in, a clean new town on a beautiful land, had long faded, the town itself turned into a nightmare hellhole. Stratton was no better than the places most of the hopeful new people had left in the East. Worse, maybe, now that Peebles had moved in and declared himself king.
I rinsed off, dug a clean blue shirt from my roll, strapped on my Colt and went downstairs. The restaurant was across the lobby through swinging doors, and I strolled that way. The desk clerk – a different one – watched my passing with hawkish amusement.
It was early still, and the steamy interior of the restaurant was mostly silent except for the clinking of silver against plates, a few murmured conversations between scattered diners. Stratton was a late-rising town, as it would be after its long nightly revelries. I caught a flicker of notice in the tired eyes of an aproned, doughy waitress and seated myself at one of the small round tables covered with red-checked cloths. I took my hat off and placed it on one of the spare chairs. The waitress brought me a cup of coffee without having been asked. I nodded my thanks.
‘What
will it be this morning?’ she asked, attempting a smile.
‘Whatever’s up,’ I replied. ‘As long as it’s warm.’
‘Hotcakes, eggs and ham?’ she suggested.
‘That’ll do the job,’ I answered. She shambled away, scribbling the order down on a pad. My interest had already been drawn to the other end of the small restaurant. Even from the back, the young man clearing off one of the tables looked familiar and when he turned, a tray of dirty dishes in his hands, I saw that I had been right.
As the aproned man trudged past me I said, ‘How’s things, Toby?’
Toby Trammel glanced at me and nearly dropped the tray of dishes. He opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out for long moments.
‘Tom,’ he said at last, resting the tray on my table. ‘Tom Quinn!’
‘Unless I’ve got a double,’ I said with a smile. Toby wiped his right hand on his apron and we shook. The uneasy, fair-haired man before me looked nothing like the cocky youngster I had last met. He seemed uncertain, glanced at the kitchen as if someone might scold him for pausing in his work. Toby Trammel had been one of the best young wranglers I had ever seen. Obviously embarrassed by his present circumstances, he turned his eyes down.
‘Good to see you, Tom. Really.’
‘I’d like to talk with you, Toby. When do you get off work?’
‘I’ve been here since five. I generally get off by noon unless there’s a real rush.’
‘Let’s say noon, then. I’m in room 10. Come up then.’
‘Sure, Tom, I’d like that,’ he answered, still looking around nervously. The waitress had emerged from the kitchen, and Toby, looking as frightened as a schoolboy, hefted the tray and hurried away.
Breakfast was hot, filling and well-made, but I couldn’t enjoy it much. The hotel, the restaurant, the town had an ominous aspect, as if something heavy were about to collapse. Later, I went out onto the street and strolled down the plankwalks, studying Stratton. Broken windows, sun-faded paint, chipped sidings. When I had left, the town had been bustling with new merchants building their shops, with families shopping in the street, with cowhands from the outlands, tipping their hats to strolling ladies.
When I left there had been Mary Ford standing, watching as I rode out on my paint pony.…
I stood watching the town for a long while. Ne’er-do-wells, gunmen, whiskey-soaked men lounging on the corners, waiting for the saloons to open. A sycamore-tree I had planted in the plaza stood broken, neglected and sere. Beyond were the new redbrick buildings of a courthouse and jail, erected in my absence. I had no wish to see these symbols of Shelley Peebles’s new kingdom.
I wandered back through the sad town, amazed that what I had built from nothing had come to such degeneration. I could just ride away, leave it to the barbarians, but I still felt a sense of obligation to the people of Stratton, a desire to avenge the desecration of the frontier promise I had offered them.
After cleaning and oiling my guns, I stretched out on my hotel bed and dozed a little while, waiting for Toby Trammel.
The knock on my door was timid, nevertheless I fisted one of my Colt revolvers before I answered it. Toby entered the room looking like a ghost of his former self. Always eager, brash and confident, he now looked ready to jump at his own shadow. He had been at my side on the way West and we had spent many nights around lonely camp-fires, drinking coffee and watching the long, starry skies. Now I hardly recognized him.
‘Sit down, Toby,’ I said, gesturing toward the single wooden chair in the room. I sat on the bed, placing my Colt on the scarred table next to it.
‘Tom … it’s so good to see you.’ His voice faltered, and I realized then that it was shame that was causing his embarrassment.
‘Want a job, Toby?’ I asked without preliminaries.
‘Real work?’ he asked. An eager grin formed rapidly, rapidly fell away as questions gathered in his eyes.
‘Real work, likely fighting work,’ I said honestly. ‘I intend to take Shelley Peebles down.’
‘It can’t be done!’
‘Maybe not,’ I admitted, ‘but I think I can do it.’
‘He has an army of men.’
‘I know that,’ I said and Toby’s smile lingered a little longer now as he saw the intent in my eyes.
‘You’re crazy, you know,’ he said.
‘I’ve been told that before.’
I could see the uncertainty begin to build again in Toby’s expression. I tried to give him a way out. I didn’t want to Shanghai anyone into a game he didn’t care to play. It was risky business I was talking about. No man weighs his own life lightly or wishes to sacrifice it to no end.
‘I know I’m asking a lot. I’m promising nothing, Toby. Also,’ I went on, ‘I know you have steady work, a comfortable life.…’
‘Oh, damn you, Tom!’ Toby exploded as if he believed I was toying with him. He smiled apologetically, ran his hand over his pale, thinning hair and then wiped his hand on his chest as if he were still wearing an apron.
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes briefly before going on. ‘We were working for Tyler Holt – Barney Weber and me – and then they came and shot down Tyler because he refused to sell out his parcel to the Peebles syndicate, and the ranch folded. There was no work left in the valley for those who were on the wrong side of Peebles. We had no choice but to run or to take whatever job we could find.
‘Barney and me, we didn’t even have enough silver in our jeans to make a run. I went to work in the restaurant washing dishes because that was all I could find. Peebles comes in from time to time just to show me off as an example of what can happen to anyone who’s tried to go up against him.’
‘What happened to Barney?’ I asked.
‘He’s mucking out the Tabor Stables at the far end of town,’ Toby said, regaining some of his composure. ‘We figure to try drifting out of the country together when we have enough cash to set ourselves up somewhere.’
‘Do you think that Barney would want to work for me too?’ I asked carefully. Beyond the window the Colorado skies had cleared. A few puffy clouds drifted slowly past, shadowing the long country in moving patches.
‘Tom, are you serious about trying to shut down Peebles? About cleaning up this town? By yourself?’
I nodded again, returning my eyes to Toby. ‘I built this town. I have the right to destroy it.’
‘What would …?’ he hesitated. ‘Have you talked to Mary?’
‘I saw her. She seems to think I want to kill Ben and Will.’
‘Do you?’
‘Were they in on it? In on Tyler’s murder?’ I asked without answering his question.
‘I don’t know.’ He shook his head. ‘It was a crazy night with gunfire erupting everywhere across the range. Barney and I were riding night-watch on the herd. We had to choose between holding the cattle and leaving them to stampede or rushing to the main house to defend it.’
He said it miserably, and I considered that he must have suffered many nights of guilt over his decision to stay with the herd.
‘It was your job, Toby,’ I said.
‘Yes, it was,’ he said almost gratefully. ‘Tom … I don’t know what you have in mind, but I’m with you if you need me. I haven’t the money to ride away, and what I’m doing now is killing whatever I have left of a soul.’
‘What about Barney?’ I asked.
‘Do you want to talk to him?’
‘I’d appreciate it if you would ask him, Toby. You two are long-time partners. Be honest with him. Explain how things are, let him know there’s a huge risk involved.’
Toby rose, still looking uncertain. I asked him:
‘You and Barney. You still have your six-guns and a couple of horses?’
‘Yes,’ Toby said with a returning grin. ‘Those are the last things a man in this country would sell.’ Then: ‘Tom – you do have a plan, don’t you? I mean.…’
‘Yes, Toby, I do have a plan. But I can’t promise you that it will
be easy. Nothing is going to be easy from here on.’
TWO
It didn’t take them long to come after me. I crossed the rutted main street of Stratton at the noon hour, and entered a shady alley behind Sturdevant’s general store on my way to Hugh Sinclair’s stable where I had put the gray horse I now rode up for the night. The alley was so narrow that I could have stuck out both arms and touched the sides of the buildings. It was deep in shadow and cool since the sun could not reach it. A dozen steps into the alley I heard boot-steps behind me and, before I could swivel around, two thick arms were thrown around me. From ahead a second man appeared, a confident smile on his thin lips, an axe-handle in his hands.
I threw an elbow back, causing the man holding me to grunt with surprise, then I stamped down hard on his instep with my boot-heel. He relaxed his grip a little and I was able to raise my arms inside his and break his grip.
The man with the axe-handle was strides away from me, his hickory club raised high. Instinct at times like those causes a man to try to duck, to run, but either is a bad choice. You go forward. I charged into the man with the club, throwing my shoulder against his chest. He couldn’t lever the axe handle against my skull as he had intended once I was inside its arc. I kept my legs moving and drove him to the ground, swinging my fist into his jaw.
The first man was now rushing into the fight, wanting to help finish me off but I rolled away from the stunned man on the ground and slipped my walnut-gripped Colt from its holster. The ratcheting sound of the hammer being drawn back seemed loud even in the middle of the Stratton day.
Will Ford threw his thick arms skyward and halted in his tracks. Rushing a man with a club is one thing; I wouldn’t recommend charging a cocked and loaded Colt .44.
Breathing heavily, I rose and stepped away from Ben Ford, kicking the axe-handle out of his grip. Sullenly Ben remained where he was. He wore no belt gun, I saw, nor did Will. ‘Get up,’ I told Ben heavily. ‘Then both of you against the wall and tell me what this is about.’
‘You came to kill us,’ Will said in a high-pitched voice that did not match his bullish frame. ‘What do you expect us to do?’