The Guns of Hanging Lake

by Short, Luke;

  Sophie put her fork down. “If you know that, you don’t need me, do you?”

  Traf gave her a withering look. “That’s right,” he said dryly. “All Dickey and I have to do is ask every old man we see if his name is Caskie.”

  Sophie felt her face go hot, and she said, “You don’t have to be so sarcastic, Traf.”

  “You ask for it.” He leaned forward and said quietly, “Too far from mother, Sophie? Been gone too long already?”

  “That’s not fair!” Sophie said furiously. “I haven’t even thought of mother! It’s just that I’m doing what men should be doing!”

  “Your luck is just bad, Sophie. You and Benjy were the only people who got a good look at Caskie.”

  Sophie, still angry, said, “All right. I spoke without thinking. But if you think this trip gives me any pleasure, you’re wrong! I can’t wait to get away from you two clods, but especially you! I’ll hate every minute of it, but I’ll do it.”

  Traf said quietly, “Maybe I spoke without thinking, too, Sophie.” He reached across the table and put his hand on hers. “Easy does it.”

  Sam and Farney Bartholomew and Jim Fears reached the Cooper Pass relay station in early morning of the second day out. No one answering to the old-timer’s description had passed in the stage or on horseback, the station owner said, so they took the steep winding road that led to Kean’s Ferry. At the next relay station it was the same story.

  The third station down, built of adobe, was located at the edge of the foothills, and close to a stream whose bed was made up of smooth black boulders, which gave it its name of Slippery Creek. The station was also a general store, and it was into the store that they went. A long counter ran the length of the narrow room, and behind it shelves held staples of groceries and bolt goods. A heavy-set middle-aged man was stretched out on the counter asleep, his pillow a pile of saddle blankets. At their entrance he roused, sat up, and swung his legs down on the customer side of the counter. Sitting there, he yawned and scratched his head.

  Fears as usual was the spokesman, and he asked, “An old fellow with two mules come by here this morning?”

  The storekeeper nodded. “Bought some grub.”

  “He say where he was going?”

  “Didn’t have to. He was prospecting.”

  “That means anywhere, don’t it?”

  “Well, he was asking about the country to the north. Said he was tired of baking his brains out on the desert. Asked if the creek had any fish in it and I told him higher up, where it comes out of Williams Lake.”

  “He heading for there?”

  “Never said, but I told him how to get there.”

  “Well, how do you?”

  He yawned again, and said, “Sounds like you’re looking for him.”

  “He’s got some claims down south we want to buy. Now, how do we get to Williams Lake?”

  “Mile, mile and a half up the road there’s an old growed-over loggin’ road. Comes in from the north. It’s hard to pick up in all that brush, but if you look careful you’ll see stumps from the cutting. Keep north on it and don’t pay no mind to the feeder roads.”

  Sam thanked him, and then Farney bought a couple of plugs of tobacco, which he pocketed on his way out, trailing Sam. Perhaps it was only idle curiosity that made the storekeeper follow them and stand in the doorway as they mounted.

  When they had crossed Slippery Creek, Farney said, “He got a good look at our brands, Jim,” and the three of them laughed. They had all stolen or bought horses whose brands they purposely didn’t vent.

  In their way of thinking, these three men were pretty much alike, but it was Jim Fears who was the leader.

  Ten years back, Tom Gore, trail boss of a big herd, was assembling his cattle at Fort Griffin in preparation for the drive north. In a saloon, the Bartholomew brothers had approached him, identified themselves, and made him a proposition. In exchange for four hundred head of cattle, they would not bother him on the drive north. If he refused, they promised him trouble.

  Gore refused, and got the trouble all during that drive. A succession of man-caused stampedes, undoubtedly done by the Bartholomew brothers, had scattered his herd time and again, and each stampede resulted in the loss or crippling of many cattle. By the time he brought the herd to the end of steel, he concluded he would have been better off if he had paid the brothers their tribute, or hired them as trail hands.

  Gore never forgot them, and when he was made ramrod of the Bar B and saw the vast potentials of rustling from an innocent, inexperienced young Englishman he had sent for the brothers and established them on the far side of the Gabriels. Their place was a way station where the Bar B cattle, spotted by Gore, had their brands altered and in due time were driven northwest for shipment of the main line of the Great Western.

  The Bar B crew, following Gore’s example, made little of the obvious loss of cattle. As Gore put it to them, Braden was a rich foreigner, and whoever was rustling his beef was a hungry American. Jim Fears, top hand on the Bar B crew, was sharp enough to put two and two together, and he braced Gore. Fears told him that any foreman could stop the rustling, and since Gore hadn’t he must be behind it. Fears wanted in, and Gore agreed. Fears quit and joined the Bartholomew brothers at Reverse B’s.

  With Fears’ knowledge of Bar B’s vast range and the working habits of its crew, the rustling increased until even Braden noticed it and politely admonished Gore to be more watchful. In Tom Gore’s opinion, the brothers were a capable front for the operation, but Jim Fears was the acting head of it.

  Now, not long after recrossing Slippery Creek, the three men picked up the tracks of the old-timer’s mules, since now they knew what they were looking for. The tracks, plain enough over tracks left by the stage team, led them to the logging road which, as the relay station man had told them, could be easily followed by the old stumps.

  When darkness fell, they picketed their horses in a small open park and slept until the moon came up. Saddling up again, they rode on through the night, and eventually from the high ridge they spotted Williams Lake ahead and below them, the moon mirrored on its waters.

  7

  It was barely daylight when Traf finished the diamond hitch on the loaded pack horse, lifted Sophie’s saddle from the stall partition, and moved around to her black gelding. He was putting the saddle blanket on the black when Dickey, saddlebag in hand, sauntered down the runway and halted, watching him.

  “We’re saddling up to go where?” Dickey asked sourly.

  Dickey was in a surly mood this morning, and Traf thought he knew the reason why. Dickey, supperless, had spent the evening drinking, and by the smell of him Traf judged that his breakfast had been preceded by more whiskey.

  “Why, we’re headed west looking for an old boy named A. Caskie. He’ll be riding a mule and leading a pack mule loaded with a tent and prospecting gear.”

  “Who said?” Dickey grunted.

  “I just said. Didn’t you hear?”

  “I mean who told you?”

  “I asked around.”

  Traf lifted Sophie’s saddle onto the black and Dickey started across the runway heading for his stalled horse. The saddlebag bumped against his leg and Traf heard the sloshing of liquid inside it. That would be more whiskey, he thought disgustedly, but he wasn’t anxious to do anything about it. As long as Dickey could sit in his saddle and show his badge, that was all that was required of him.

  After saddling Sophie’s horse, Traf saddled his own. He mounted, took the reins of Sophie’s horse, and led him out the runway into the street and turned toward the hotel.

  Sophie, with whom he had breakfasted earlier, was waiting outside the hotel, her buckskin jacket buttoned up against the chill of the October morning. At breakfast she had been civil enough, but only that. She hadn’t referred to their quarrel last night, but then she didn’t have to, Traf thought grimly. Until they found Caskie he would be saddled with a girl and a drunk, neither of whom wanted to talk to him or to e
ach other.

  Sophie led her horse to the stone stepping block, climbed it, and mounted. As they approached the feed stable they saw Dickey was mounted, waiting for them with the pack horse. When they were even with the stable Dickey made no move to join them, and Traf reined in.

  Dickey said, “The man wants his money.”

  “Give it to him, then,” said Traf.

  “I can only pay for deputies,” Dickey said in a surly voice.

  “All right, deputize us, Russ.”

  “Me deputize a woman? It’s never been done.”

  “Then pay up. We’re doing the work free that you’re paid to do.”

  Dickey swore under his breath, but he stepped down and went into the stable office.

  Sophie had listened to this exchange in silence, but when Dickey went into the office she said, “I don’t think that’s fair, Traf. The poor man doesn’t earn much.”

  “He earns enough to take on a skinful of booze every night. This’ll go on his expense account, just like the booze that’s in his saddlebag.”

  Sophie looked surprised and said, “You’re making that up.”

  Traf wheeled his horse over to Dickey’s, reached out, unbuckled the flap of the saddlebag, and lifted out a quart of whiskey. He held it up for Sophie to see just as Dickey came out of the stable office. Dickey halted and said sharply, “Put that back in there.”

  “Yes, sir,” Traf said in mock respect.

  The mood for their day was thus set.

  They too, like the others looking for Caskie, had to rely on the information they could pick up at the relay stations. Two of the stations, miles apart, could not remember Caskie and his mules passing by. The driver of an eastbound stage that they met in the foothills in late afternoon had not passed him.

  It was after the stage left that Dickey said jeeringly to Traf, “What do we do now?”

  “Keep going. He had to water his mules somewhere, so why not at the relay station?”

  Dickey scowled and looked at Sophie. “Let’s put it to a vote. I’m for turning back. How about you, Sophie?”

  “If I have to vote, it’s for going ahead.”

  “So let’s do it,” Traf said, and he put his horse in motion.

  It was late afternoon when they came to the Slippery Creek relay station. As they reined up and Sophie saw the sign, “General Store,” she said, “I’m hungry, Traf. Can’t we get something in here?”

  Traf dismounted and handed her down. “Want to water the horses while we’re inside, Russ?” he asked.

  Dickey nodded resignedly, and Traf turned and followed Sophie into the store. At first sight it appeared to be empty, but Traf heard the sound of a broom being used in an adjoining room. While Sophie went up to the counter, Traf stepped through the doorway into the dining room, which the proprietor was sweeping out. It was a bare, strictly utilitarian room with only a plank table and heavy benches. A curtained doorway led into the kitchen.

  At Traf’s entrance, the agent put his broom aside, hoisted his suspenders, and said, “Want something, mister?”

  He was a balding man of middle age with a storekeeper’s pallor and a weary attentiveness.

  Traf asked his question and saw the attentiveness turn into a look of astonishment.

  “You’re the fourth man today that’s been looking for that old coot,” he said.

  Traf came alert. “He stopped here then?”

  The storekeeper nodded and told him of his conversation with Caskie the day before, and of directing him to Williams Lake via an unused logging road.

  When he finished, Traf said, “But you’re not sure he went there? His name’s Caskie, by the way.”

  “Nope, I’m not sure he went there.”

  “About these three men looking for him earlier—what did they look like?”

  The storekeeper’s descriptions meant nothing to Traf. The brands on their horses that the storekeeper had noted were familiar to him by hearsay, but he could not relate them to the men described. Their reason for wanting to find Caskie—to buy some claims from him—sounded improbable, but it was possible. But how had they picked up Caskie’s trail? And what did they really want with him? Did they believe Caskie had killed Braden, and were they out to avenge the murder? Or did they believe that Caskie had talked to a third man on the depot platform? If they believed that, were they on the same errand he himself was on—to find Caskie and bring him back to identify the killer? That was unlikely. One conjecture remained. If Caskie could identify the killer, they were out to kill Caskie before he could talk. Moreover, the real killer had to be one of these three, for he had to identify Caskie before killing him.

  When Traf went into the store area with the storekeeper he found that Sophie had helped herself to a strip of jerky from the cluster hanging behind the counter and had dipped into the cracker barrel. The storekeeper refused to take any payment, and both she and Traf thanked him for the food and the information.

  At the pole corral behind the store Dickey had just finished watering the horses. They held a conference. Traf told Dickey what the storekeeper had said. At the mention of the three men who were only a couple of hours ahead of them and on Caskie’s trail, Dickey at first looked surprised, and then scowled thoughtfully.

  “Describe them,” he said.

  “No. It would only be second-hand. Go get it first-hand from him. You’re the deputy.”

  Dickey swore softly and pushed past Traf, who could smell the reek of whiskey as he went by.

  They watched him weave his way uncertainly around the corner of the station, and Sophie said, “He’s been drinking, Traf.”

  “Why do you think he brought the stuff along?”

  Sophie sighed, and then she asked, “What do these three men mean? Do you believe that about claims?”

  “No. It sounds like something they made up as a reason for hunting the old boy.”

  “But why are they hunting him?”

  Traf shook his head. “I don’t know for sure.”

  “Maybe for the same reason we are?”

  Traf was slow in answering. Should he tell her his suspicions, which would only scare her? Well, she had to know sometime, and he would rather it came from him than from Dickey.

  “No, Sophie. I’m guessing they’re not hunting him for our reasons. They’re hunting him to kill him.”

  Sophie’s face was utterly still as she looked at him. The brim of her hat shadowed her dark eyes, but Traf could see the fear reflected in them for an instant; then it was gone.

  “I see,” she said calmly.

  “Want to go back now, Sophie?”

  Sophie frowned. “What’s changed?”

  “All we have to do is follow them. They’ll take us to Caskie.”

  “But they don’t know he’s there. Neither do you. If he isn’t, then you’ll still need me, won’t you? No, I won’t go back.”

  “I can’t promise you what we’ll walk into.”

  “You’d be a liar if you did,” Sophie said bluntly.

  At that moment Dickey rounded the corner of the station and made his uncertain way toward them and halted. “From the way he described them I can’t tell. But I got a hunch why!”

  “So have we,” Traf said. “We’ve got to get to him first if we can. So let’s move.”

  They mounted, crossed Slippery Creek, and picked up the tracks of the three men. By the time the tracks had led them to the old logging road it was getting toward dark; Sophie, Traf noted, looked exhausted.

  They traveled till darkness fell and then made camp right on the old logging road. Traf built a small fire immediately and Dickey rustled up more wood. While Traf was unloading the pack horse, the thought came to him that tomorrow they would be hunting not one man but four.

  8

  After arriving at Williams Lake the night before, A. (for Asa) Caskie spent the morning prowling through the timber of the lake shore until he came to an open grassy park where a herd of deer was grazing. Before dismounting, he noted t
he wind direction, then stepped out of the saddle, dragging his carbine from its scabbard. He tied his mules, and moved through the timber till he was within range, picked out a spike buck, and downed him.

  By mid-morning Caskie had his camp made just inside the timber at the edge of the park. He turned out his hobbled mules to graze, skinned out and hung up the carcass of the young buck, dragged in a plentiful supply of downed timber against the chill nights, and built his fire. Afterward he got a battered kettle from his pack. Then he took the deer’s tongue and a strip of meat from each side of the backbone and cut them up, and having filled the kettle from the lake he put it over the fire.

  Since all was in order and his grub cooking, Caskie did what he had been dreaming of for the last six months in the desert; he fished for the rest of the day with a handline he carried in his pack. Of the hundred-odd fish he caught, he kept only half a dozen. He had them for his supper, smoked a pipe, and then lugged his saddle and blanket roll to the fire. As he unrolled his blankets and put his carbine beside them, he saw that the mules coming from the water were halted at the edge of the meadow staring at the fire, perhaps wanting companionship.

  Stripping off his moccasins, he placed them beside the carbine, put his hat on the saddle horn and crawled into the blankets. With his saddle for a pillow, his feet warmed by the fire, he drifted off into sleep, a contented man.

  Caskie had no idea how long he’d slept when he was roused from deep sleep by the sound of the hobbled mules trying to move swiftly. As they came down, both front feet together, their hooves made a drumming sound that shook the ground, and they grunted with the impact.

  Caskie lay there a moment wondering what his hanging meat had attracted. One of the cats, or a bear?

  The fire was merely glowing now, and Caskie, curious, came out of his blankets, pulled on his moccasins, picked up the carbine, and faded back into the timber. The moon shed its light on the lake and the meadow and he could see the mules halted, shoulder to shoulder.