3
The women were told to go into the house, but neither John nor Bull made the mistake of telling them to stay down low and out of trouble. These were frontier women, and they might have told their husbands—in a ladylike manner, of course—where to stick that suggestion.
Ginny and Roz were upstairs, sitting by a window, each with a Winchester rifle. Connie was at the side of the house, also upstairs, with a long barreled ten-gauge goose gun, loaded up with buckshot. At the range she would be shooting from the bedroom window, she could do terrible damage with the big goose gun, and she definitely knew how to use it.
“Rider comin’!” the shout came from the barn.
“Damn fools,” John said. “Don’t they know that the advantage is ours because we hold the high and protected ground?”
“They’re riding with hate guiding them, John.” Bull spoke out of the darkness.
“What if the girls are with them?” John asked, a sick note to his voice.
“I thought about that,” Sam said. “I got a couple of punchers ready over there in those trees . . . with ropes.”
“I bet they’ll be sorry when they drop a loop over one of those gals,” Matt said. “Sorry, Bull, John.”
“No need for sorry when you’re right,” Bull told him. “I hope they do jerk my girls out of the saddle. When I get through working on their fannies, I think they’ll have a brand new outlook on life.”
“The boys?” Sam questioned.
Bull hesitated. The pounding of hooves grew louder. “I honestly don’t know,” he replied, and then there was no more time for talk.
The area around the house and barn and bunkhouse filled with what seemed to be fifty or more riders, although all knew it was not that many. The dust made anything hard to see. Connie drew first blood. A duster-clad and hooded man carrying a flaming torch burst out of the dust and drew back his arm to throw the torch through a window of the house. Connie sighted him in and blew him clean out of the saddle.
There wasn’t a whole lot left of his upper torso when he hit the ground. The powder load pushing buckshot very nearly tore him in two.
Matt lined up a rider just as Bull lined up the same one. Both men fired, and the rider threw up his arms, his pistol sailing away, and he hit the ground and did not move.
“Get this rope off of me, you no-good son of a . . .” The pounding hooves obscured Scarlett’s last few words.
“You are in deep road apples, girl,” Bull said through clenched teeth.
“I busted my ass!” Petunia squalled over the sounds of battle and galloping horses.
“Not nearly as bad as I’m goin’ to,” John muttered.
Ginny Carlin led a galloping rider and squeezed the trigger. The .44-.40 slug knocked him out of the saddle and rolling on the ground. Roz Sutton broke the shoulder of another night rider and put him out of action for a time.
A rider very stupidly tried to ride onto the porch, and John stood up, reversed his Winchester and gave the outlaw the butt of the rifle smack in his teeth. The mask flew from his lower face and pearlies went sailing all over the place. The rider dropped from the saddle to the porch, unconscious and in need of false teeth.
“Bastard,” John said.
The first wave of the ill-conceived attack was broken, and the night riders cleared out, at least for the time being. The daughters of John Carlin and Bull Sutton were brought kicking and biting and scratching and cussing up to the porch.
“I think I’ll go help with the wounded,” Sam said.
“Me, too,” Matt echoed.
Each father had a big hard hand clamped down tight on the back of a young lady’s neck, the men’s wide leather belts were already removed and dangling from the other hand.
“I’m gone!” the two punchers who had brought the girls to the porch said in unison.
“You bastard! You’re not gonna hit me with that . . . WHOOOEEE!” Scarlett hollered as the leather impacted with tight jeans.
“You miserable son of a . . . OUUCCHHHH!” Petunia bellered as the whapping sound drifted out across the dust-covered front yard.
“DADDY!” Scarlett bellered. “WHOOOOEE!”
“PAPA!” Petunia shrieked as the leather popped again.
“In the house!” Bull said, and the leather cracked again, and Scarlett jumped and hollered.
“Move, girl!” John yelled, and the belt came down hard, and Petunia whooped and bellered her outrage, her indignation, and her pain.
The cowboy, Batty, put his hands to the rear of his jeans and grimaced at just the thought.
About five minutes passed, during which time the butts of the young ladies were thoroughly blistered by angry fathers swinging wide leather belts. The sobbing girls were then handed over to their mothers. If Petunia and Scarlett expected a velvet hand to comfort them in their time of need, they were sorely (in more ways than one) disappointed.
“WHOOOEEE, MAMA!” Scarlett let out a shriek. “I’ll be good, Mama. I promise.”
“WOWEEE, MAMA!” Petunia bellered, as a belt was applied to her backside. “I’ll be a lady, Mama. I’ll be good. I swear I will!”
A shot from out in the darkness slammed into the wall of the bunkhouse and sent everybody scurrying for cover.
“We can wait you out,” a voice called. “It might be a week before anybody from town come out to check on you.”
“He’s right about that last bit,” John said, from his position behind the stone railing on the front porch. “But wrong about everything else. Come the dawn we can spot them and flush them out. I thinned the trees and cleared the rocks and filled in the gullies around this place years ago to prevent just such a thing from happenin’. Just keep your heads down. It’s goin’ to be a long night, boys.”
The ladies, after seeing to it that Petunia and Scarlett were in no condition to run away (the girls would be sleeping on their stomachs and doing precious little sitting down for several days), went to the kitchen, located in the center of the house and well protected, and helped the cook fix plenty of strong coffee and lots of sandwiches. The men in the bunkhouse had their own fixin’s for coffee and sandwiches and could safely relay them to those in the barn.
The defenders of the grounds settled in for a long wait through the night’s darkness.
All except for Matt and Sam. “We’re going to do some head-hunting,” Sam told the ranchers. “Don’t worry. We were both schooled in this beginning way back when we were no more than babies.”
“I believe it,” Bull said, knowing the fierceness of the Cheyenne warrior and suspecting rightly that both Matt and Sam had been initiated into the Cheyenne Dog Soldier society.
The blood-bonded brothers took off their boots and spurs and slipped into moccasins. They left their rifles and took only pistols and knives. Within seconds, they were lost from view, moving as silent stalking ghosts through the occasionally gunshot-punctured night.
Sam drew first blood. He moved up behind a duster-clad night rider and left him sprawled in his own blood, his throat cut from ear to ear. Sam waited by the dead man, knowing that Matt would be on his target within seconds, if he wasn’t already there and doing the deed.
“Oh, my, God!” the call reached Sam. “They done got amongst us. They done sliced Hal’s throat wide open. They’s blood ever’-where.”
Matt, like Sam, waited motionlessly on the ground, not fifteen feet from the man who had shouted out the frightful warning.
Matt used to kid Sam about the tomahawk he carried in his saddlebags. But Matt knew the war axe, in the hands of someone who had been trained to use it, was a fearsome weapon, and Sam was well-schooled in this particular method of killing. Matt was no slouch at it, either.
A man that Sam had seen around town over the past week or so reared up a few yards from him. Sam waited. The man slowly looked all around him, attempting to see through the murkiness. When his back was fully toward him, and the man paused for a moment, Sam flung the war axe with deadly accuracy. The head em
bedded in the man’s skull, and he threw out his arms and fell to the ground without making a sound.
Matt had heard the dull smacking sound and knew his brother had cut the odds down by one more.
“Ace!” the almost panicked whisper came from Sam’s right. “Ace. Answer me, boy. Where is you at?”
Assuming that the man you are hailing is the one now with a war axe in his head, Sam thought, lying motionlessly on the ground, he is probably in Hell.
“Anybody seen Petunia or my sister Scarlett?” the mule-voiced Wanda brayed into the night. No way in hell could she manage a whisper.
And the voice came from no more than a few yards away from where Matt had slipped.
Oh, Lord! he thought. Please, don’t let me have to put up with taking her prisoner this night.
“Them down yonder put a rope around both of them,” a man said. “I seen ’em jerked out of the saddle.”
“Damn,” Wanda said, and moved on her hands and knees directly toward Matt.
Matt tensed and silently cursed. This was no time for a struggle of any sort. If the girl came up on him, he would have to pop her on the jaw and hope for the best. But he did not want to hit a woman. Even Wanda or Willa.
Well, not too hard anyway.
“Maybe they got away,” Wanda said. “I’m gonna circle around and check.”
“You be careful,” Hugh called, but he was some distance away.
“Yeah, yeah,” Wanda said, and crawled right up nose to nose with Matt.
Sam’s eyes had adjusted to the night, and he could see what was happening below him on the ridge. He had to inwardly struggle to keep from laughing.
Wanda’s eyes widened in fright and shock, and she opened her mouth to let out a squall when Matt’s fist caught her on the side of the jaw. Wanda dropped like a rock.
“What was that?” the question was flung out from below Matt.
“I didn’t hear nothin’ a-tall. You’re imaginin’ things, Billy.”
Matt got to his knees and, trying hard not to grunt, managed to get Wanda across his shoulders. The young woman was no light-weight. She certainly hadn’t missed a meal since being born. And to make matters worse, she needed a bath really bad.
Sam made sure his brother had a clear path to the top of the ridge by taking out the last sentry in that area and then suddenly appearing at Matt’s side in the night. Matt had been expecting him and was only a tad startled. “You bringing in an early Christmas gift, brother? What do you have there, a calf ?”
“Very funny,” Matt returned the whisper. “This heifer is not petite, to say the least. We’d better not go back the same way we came up.”
“Agreed. The creek is our best shot. I’ll work point. But for God’s sake, keep that one quiet. If she starts braying, we’re dead.”
“You want her?”
“Thank you, no. I had a pet cougar one time. Once was quite enough.”
Once off the ridge and close to the creek, the brothers had to stop and stuff a bandanna into Wanda’s mouth to keep her from squalling and bellering, then they had to stop again to truss her up tight with their belts to keep her from scratching and kicking. Matt had dropped her unceremoniously on the ground, knocking the wind from her.
“I hope my pants don’t fall off,” Sam bitched.
Wanda kicked out with both tied boots, and Sam narrowly missed getting his bell rung.
“Girl,” Sam warned. “You are beginning to try my patience.”
Behind her gag she mumbled something terribly profane. Matt hoisted her to his shoulder with a grunt, and they started along the creek. They left the creek and called out to the rear of the bunkhouse.
“Matt and Sam, coming in with Wanda.”
“Better you than me,” Lars said.
The brothers slipped through the darkness and made the front porch. “I got another one for you, Bull,” Matt said, dumping the bound girl on the porch. “Good luck.”
“I don’t know whether to thank you or hit you,” the rancher replied.
Matt backed up.
Bull reached down and jerked the girl to her boots. He sniffed once and wrinkled his nose. “Damn, girl. Have you gone on strike against bathing?”
She fought her bounds and tried to push words past the gag in her mouth. It was a good thing her father couldn’t make out all the words. The few that he heard were quite enough.
“This is the strangest situation I have ever been in,” Sam whispered to Matt, as both of them knelt at a far end of the porch, behind the rock railing. “We are surrounded by people wanting very much to kill us, and the fathers of the girls are ignoring that fact and concentrating on dealing out punishment to their daughters. I don’t know why I ever let you talk me into this.”
Matt ignored that last bit, knowing that a dynamite charge couldn’t drive Sam away from this private family war. He was just as curious as Matt to see the outcome.
“We have a skunk on our hands, Mother,” Bull called into the darkened house. The lamp lights from the kitchen could not be seen on the outside. “Fix up lots of hot water so’s we can get the stink off of her.”
Wanda muttered curses and tried to kick her father, and that got her a pretty good pop on the jaw from a big, work-hardened palm. The blow stilled her muffled, profane mumblings and brought tears to her eyes. Bull reached up and tore the gag from her.
“You get popped everytime you cuss me or yell out to your no-count brothers and friends,” he told her. “You understand that?”
Wanda understood it. She stood with her hands at her sides and her mouth closed. For a change.
“Now get on inside the house and take a bath,” her father told her. “You can wear some of Petunia’s clothes she left behind. You don’t sass me or your mother; you don’t cuss me or your mother; you don’t do nothin’ except what we tell you to do. Your days of runnin’ high and wide are over, and you’d damn well better understand it. Do you?”
“Yes, Papa,” she said humbly.
Bull opened the door, and she walked in with him right behind her, followed by John Carlin. In the kitchen, she joined her sister and Petunia. Both of them were scrubbed clean and wearing dresses and very subdued.
While the bath water was heating, John asked, “What made you kids think you could get away with this wild scheme?”
“Our brothers,” Wanda and Petunia said together. Scarlett nodded her head in agreement.
“The boys hate us that much?” Bull asked, his tone gentle but firm.
“Yes, Papa,” Scarlett said. “You probably won’t believe this, but at first none of us girls wanted anything to do with their plans. I won’t pretend to excuse what we did by laying all the blame on them, but they had to work on us for a time before we agreed to go along with them. But only after they agreed that you and Mama wouldn’t be hurt.”
Neither Bull nor John believed all that she’d said, but neither of them wanted to give up entirely on their daughters. Still, they didn’t trust them any further than they could see them. These girls were schemers and connivers. But maybe not as vicious as their brothers. Time alone would tell that. But neither man held out much hope.
The girls all started babbling about how sorry they were and how it would never happen again and to please forgive them and how much they loved their mamas and papas and so forth and so on. The husbands looked at their wives and saw that the women didn’t believe a word they were hearing from their offspring. It was a depressingly bad act. The tears were put-on, and the eyes of the girls were evil and hard. The parents let their turncoat kids run down, and the room fell silent.
“Take your bath and get upstairs with Petunia and Scarlett,” Bull told the girl. “Don’t try to run. We’re all operatin’ on a short fuse and trigger fingers are itchy this night.”
The men walked through the darkened house and stood for a moment in the room that led to the porch.
“You believe anything they said?” John asked.
“No,” Bull said, a weary note in h
is voice. “I don’t trust any of them. But I’ll give them one more chance. Even a mean dog deserves that.”
“And when they turn on us again?”
“I hoped you wouldn’t ask that.” Bull pushed open the screen door and stepped out onto the porch, picking up his rifle. He turned to his half brother. “’Cause I damn sure don’t know the answer.”
4
The gang left their dead where they lay and pulled out sometime during the night. The ranch hands dragged the bodies in and buried them in unmarked graves. No one knew any name to put on the markers. The rider with the busted jaw and no front teeth was trussed up and handed over to Tom Riley and his deputies. He refused to say who he was working for or where the gang was hiding out.
“They’ll have changed hideouts by this time,” Matt said. “Probably outside of this county.”
“I’d bet they’re south of us,” John said. “Just across the line in Utah.”
“Can you prove it was your boys?” Tom asked both men.
Bull shook his head, “Not unless the girls swear statements. You can ask them.”
Tom did and the girls all said their brothers had planned the raid but did not come along. The girls said they just came along for the adventure of it. They didn’t think anyone would be hurt, and surely no one would be killed. It was just a hoo-rahin’, that was all. Surely the marshal didn’t think they would take part in doin’ harm to their parents?
“Lyin’ little no-good’s,” John said, his big hands balled into fists, anger ready to boil to the surface.
“You heard at least one of our kids out yonder, didn’t you, boys?” Bull asked Matt and Sam.
“Hugh,” Matt replied. “But I didn’t see him.”
“You boys stay here with John, if you don’t mind,” Bull said. “I’ve got more hands than John, and a couple of them are as salty as any who ever sat a saddle. Tom brought me word that I’ve got four more men in town. Cowboys, not gunfighters. But they know how to use guns. John’s more shook up over this situation than I am. He’s still undecided, but I know what I’m going to do.” Without adding anything to that, he swung into the saddle and fell in behind his wife and their errant daughters, the girls sitting in the bed of a wagon, on lots of hay. They all glared hate at the blood brothers.
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