The Guns of Hanging Lake

by Short, Luke;

“Yeah, he come in that night. I remember lookin’ close at him to see if you’d marked him up. He had a lopsided face, I remember, but no cuts.”

  “Was he alone?”

  Tim put both hands on the bar and briefly hung his head in thought before he looked up. “Yeah, when he come in, he was alone. Went up to Tom Gore—he was at the bar. Gore got a couple of cigars and took his bottle over to a table. I remember, because Dickey looked mean enough to slug me if I’d asked about the fight.” He paused and said reflectively, “Funny, I ain’t seen him since that night. Must be out of town.”

  “Wouldn’t know. Been out of town myself,” Traf said. He paid for the whiskey and cigars, took the tray and went across the room. Everything was explained now. That night of the fight, he and Dickey, after receiving Schell’s telegraphed message at the depot, had parted in the street. While Traf headed for the stable, Dickey headed for the saloon and Tom Gore. It was that night that Gore got his information on where Caskie had left the train, and Dickey had given it to him. Why had Dickey withheld this information, Traf wondered. The fact that he had, only shored up Traf’s conviction that Dickey was not to be trusted.

  Once Traf was seated and the drinks were poured, Benjy Schell said, “Now tell me.”

  Caskie studied Benjy Schell with covert curiosity. He was thirty-five, maybe, with a steady gaze from blue eyes that held quiet authority. His nose was snub, his mouth wide, with full lips. There was about him an air of confidence that his job gave him. He must be a good man, Caskie thought, if men older than himself worked under him and liked him.

  “Remember that old drunken prospector Dickey telegraphed you about?”

  “Yeah, and why did he?”

  Traf lifted his hand, thumb out, and pointed it toward Caskie. “That’s him.”

  Benjy looked at Caskie searchingly, and then said, “Well, I couldn’t know what was hiding behind that much fur.” To Traf he said, “Why is he my uncle?”

  Traf told him the whole story then, starting with Braden’s murder. As the story progressed, Benjy asked questions. When Traf began to tell of Dickey’s visit with Gore, Caskie came alert. Traf finally told of his own conclusion that Gore would replace the old Bar B crew with his own men, and would run off most of the Bar B cattle with the help of the man who had killed Braden.

  He finished by saying, “This Uncle Asa Hardy business is to explain why Caskie is hanging around Bucksaw. Two of the five men that jumped us at Hanging Lake are still around. They might suspect what really happened—that Caskie walked away during the night so he could meet us later. The story that he’s your uncle ought to hold water. Your crew believes he’s your uncle, and now Stapp and some other people do. Uncle Asa is going to hang around until he spots Braden’s killer.”

  Benjy Schell was silent. Traf knew that all he had told Benjy must be difficult for him to comprehend immediately. He had left a seemingly peaceful community, and while he’d been gone murder had been done, another murder attempted, other men had been killed, and a plot uncovered. Traf was interested in Benjy’s reactions.

  Benjy took a long drink from his glass, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and eyed Traf coldly. “You never did mind pickin’ on women. Is Sophie sick or half crazy with that business? That’s why she ain’t here, isn’t it?”

  For a moment, Traf was speechless. Anger well up in him, but it died just as suddenly.

  It was Caskie who spoke in his calm, high-pitched voice. “She’s down the street buyin’ some stuff.”

  Benjy’s hard glance was still on Traf as he said, “Like medicine, maybe?”

  20

  Jim Fears, with five of the Reverse B crew, rode into the Bar B after dark. Through the slackening rain, Fears could see that the bunkhouse was dark and the only light showing was the lamp in Tom Gore’s office.

  As they approached the office, the door opened and Gore stood framed in the doorway, an unlit lantern dangling from his hand.

  Fears reined in and the others gathered alongside him. Gore stepped out into the misting rain and handed the closest man the lantern. “The bunkhouse is cleaned out, boys. It’s all yours. The cook’s gone too, but you can rustle up some grub in the cook shack.” He looked over at Fears. “Come on in, Jim.”

  Fears stepped out of the saddle and handed the reins of his horse to the nearest man, then moved toward the office door. The others, without saying anything, put their horses in motion heading for the barn and corrals.

  Fears stepped past Gore and said dryly, “There’s some dry land left, after all.”

  As he peeled off his shabby slicker and took off his sodden hat, Gore went to the table and poured their drinks. “Meet anybody?” he asked.

  “No, we split up. Who’d be out in this weather unless he had to be?”

  Gore came over and offered him his drink. “Well, I was. I pushed a bunch of stuff into that timber by the old sawmill. It’s a nuisance working ’em alone.”

  Fears took his drink and, standing, immediately downed half of it. Gore took the chair by the desk, and afterwards Fears sat down and looked around him. Nothing was changed since he was a Bar B hand. His meetings with Gore after he quit had always taken place away from the Bar B so that Braden would never have a hint they were seeing each other.

  “Nothing’s changed,” Fears said.

  “No, but it still keeps out the rain,” Gore said. He took a sip of his drink now and asked idly, “Get over your spook, Jim?”

  Fears felt sudden anger stirring in him, and he said flatly, “Would I be here if I hadn’t?”

  “Well, you can get over it for good,” Gore said. “Dickey was here askin’ me about the fight at Hangin’ Lake. He said we got Caskie in that fight. He’s buried with the others in that mine tunnel, like I told you he was.”

  “He goin’ to do anything about it?”

  Gore gave him a thin smile. “What can that booze-head do about anything? No, he can’t touch us. We killed Caskie because he killed Braden. Let Dickey take it from there.”

  “You think he will?”

  Gore said irritably, “Why, hell, no! Kitch and Loosh killed Caskie, and they’re dead. Who’s there to bring to trial?”

  Fears took another drink from his glass and didn’t answer.

  “What kind of a proposition did you put to the crew, Jim?”

  Fears looked surprised, and said, “Why, the one you told me to. Seventy-five per cent for us, twenty-five per cent for them.”

  “Any kicks?”

  “Why, it’s found money. Who’d kick?”

  “I’m kicking,” Gore said quietly.

  Fears looked at him blankly. “About what?”

  “About the way we split our seventy-five per cent.” He paused. “We don’t divide it half and half, Jim.”

  The only sign of anger in Fears that Gore could detect was the darkening of his already dark face. “How do we split it then?” Fears asked quietly.

  “Fifty per cent for me, twenty-five for you, twenty-five for the crew. That gives you as much as all of them together get.”

  Fears was silent a moment, too angry to speak immediately. When he had control of himself, he said, still speaking quietly, “When did you decide this?”

  “Why, from the beginning,” Gore said easily. “We just didn’t talk about it.”

  “We’re talking about it now, and I don’t like it.”

  “You have to like it,” Gore said thinly. “Think about it a minute.”

  “I already have. We split even steven, or you go it alone.”

  “No, it’ll be the way I said. And you’ll go along.”

  “Just who’s going to make me?” Fears asked.

  “I am,” Gore said. “I told you to think about it a minute.”

  Fears regarded him darkly and thought about it for a long minute. Finally he said, “I killed Braden. And now you’re the only one that knows it.”

  “Simple, isn’t it?”

  “Not that simple,” Fears said flatly. “Only Caskie sa
w me at the depot, and he’s dead.”

  “And you don’t think he talked to Dickey before we got him?” Gore asked sardonically. “Hell, Dickey knows Caskie talked with you there on the platform. He just doesn’t know it was you.”

  Jim said bitterly, “All this couldn’t be happening if I hadn’t got Braden.”

  “And who told you to get him?” Gore retorted. “Who had the big idea? Who saw the chance?”

  Gore shook his head and his blue eyes were cold. He said quietly, “Keep talkin’, Jim, and your twenty-five per cent will shrink to fifteen. Tell me now, do you want to argue some more about it?”

  Fears sighed and said tonelessly, “I’m done talkin’.”

  “Well, I’m not. So let me do some,” Gore said. “I put up the money for the Bartholomews to buy the Reverse B. I brought ’em there. I covered up the losses to Braden. I talked him into shippin’ light this year and holdin’ most of the stuff that could have gone to market. I’ve taken care of Dickey. From start to finish, this was my own idea. But I’m only takin’ half. All right, you got rid of Braden. The rest of your job is cattle movin’ and changin’ brands, puncher’s work. Still, you get a quarter of everything we move. I think I’m overpayin’ you. I’m not askin’ you if you think it’s fair, I’m tellin’ you it’s more than fair.”

  He stood up now and said coldly, “Go get some grub. You’ll start before daylight. You and a couple men can handle the stuff I shoved in the timber. Leave the others here.”

  Fears got up and put his glass on the table. He looked stonily at Gore. “You ain’t comin’ with us?”

  “Have I ever?”

  “No, but you never was in this hell of a hurry before,” Fears said boldly. “We need every hand we can get.”

  Gore said contemptuously, “What’s more important, me chasin’ cattle with you, or me bein’ seen in Indian Bend? If any cattle were stolen, I don’t know anything about it. I was in Indian Bend.”

  Fears went over to a chair, caught up his slicker and hat, and started for the door.

  “Jim!”

  Fears halted and turned to look at Gore.

  “For twenty-five per cent, you could say much obliged.”

  “I said I was done talkin’,” Fears replied. He turned and let himself out into the rainy night.

  21

  Sometime in the night the rain petered out and morning brought a beautiful fall day, but it was not beautiful for Dickey. His cold was worse, bringing a racking cough with it, his shoulder hurt, and he had a raging fever. As he lay wheezing on his cot in the kitchen of his deputy’s quarters, he wondered gloomily if he was getting blood poisoning. Maybe he would even lose an arm, and that would end his usefulness to anyone, including himself.

  It was with these gray thoughts riding him that he took his first drink of the day, and then, clad only in his filthy underwear, his arm in a dirty sling, he rummaged around his kitchen cupboards to round up something for breakfast. He ate the bread while his coffee boiled, and then took his coffee back to the cot. Because his lungs seemed to fill up when he lay down, he sat up in bed with his back against the wall. What he needed was a woman to take care of him, he thought. Right now he was no better off than a sick old dog lying in a cold corner of a barn.

  His whiskey-laced coffee down, he sat gloomily reviewing the events of the past week. Nothing had gone right for him and nothing was likely to, and he’d been a fool to let Traf Kinnard persuade him to go along with the scheme. Even if Caskie was able to identify Braden’s killer, what was in it for Dickey except more work? If any reward was offered by Braden’s estate, it would undoubtedly go to Caskie or Traf. All he got out of it was a hole in his shoulder and a case of the grippe.

  After pulling the blanket up around his shoulders, he dozed feverishly until past noon. When he wakened he realized he was out of whiskey, and the thought was intolerable. After painfully dressing himself, he stepped out the door into sunlight so bright he had to squint his eyes against it. His fever was drenching him with sweat, and as he crossed the still muddy street to the hotel saloon, it took real effort to move each leg ahead of the other.

  The town was stirring again after the rain, but Dickey didn’t notice it. In the saloon, which held half a dozen customers, he bought a bottle and stumbled toward a chair at one of the tables. Wheezing to catch his breath that wouldn’t go deep, he came to the conclusion that he was really sick, sicker than he’d ever been. The men standing at the bar were wavering as if he were looking at them through moving water.

  When Tom Gore came into the saloon, saw Dickey, and came over to the table to take a chair across from him, Dickey didn’t recognize him immediately.

  Gore, scowling, said, “Not speakin’ to me today, Russ?”

  “Sure. I just ain’t feelin’ good, Tom. Have a drink.”

  “You look like you could use one too,” Gore said. He went over to the bar, got a glass and some cigars, and returned to the table. Dickey, eyes closed, was thinking, What was it I wanted to ask him? For the moment he couldn’t remember.

  Standing, Gore took the bottle and poured a big drink into each glass, then sat down. “Drink up,” he said.

  Dickey opened his eyes, saw the whiskey, and lifting it in a trembling hand, drank it. In seconds sweat seemed to gush from his whole upper body, but the shivering stopped. What was it? Even if the shivering had stopped, his fever was worse. He couldn’t keep anything in his mind long enough to name it.

  As he watched Gore across the table there were two of him, and both images were blurred. He saw Gore’s head turn to look at the swing doors and both images raised a hand in a loose, waving gesture. Dickey took another drink, and he started to shiver again. He turned his head now to see who Gore was waving at, but his eyes wouldn’t focus. I got to get back to bed, he thought.

  His head slumped down on his chest and he closed his eyes, but that was no good. There were whirling balls of light that seemed to be aimed right into his skull, and they made him dizzy. Forcing his eyes open, he looked at his hand resting on the table. There were two left hands, and Dickey studied them with sick drunkenness. Where was he, and what was happening to him? His breathing was shallow and fast, smothering him. He was aware of voices now. One voice he picked up in mid-sentence saying, “—to meet my uncle Asa.”

  Dickey tried to raise his head, but couldn’t.

  And then a different, high-pitched, gravelly voice said, “Howdy, Mr. Gore. Glad to meet you.”

  Dickey knew that voice, and then, eyes closed, head down, he said loudly, “Caskie! Caskie! How’n hell are you?”

  But Caskie was dead, wasn’t he? No, Caskie had left, but Dickey couldn’t remember from where. He made a great effort to raise his head but couldn’t manage it, and now a voice said, “What the hell’s the matter with him, Tom? Who’s Caskie?”

  “He’s sick and drunk,” Gore said quietly. “I’ll take him over to his place.”

  “Want some help?”

  “No, I can make it.”

  Somebody lifted Dickey from his chair, hurting his shoulder, and he felt his arm held around somebody’s neck. Open your eyes, he thought, but he couldn’t. He felt the sweat pouring from his forehead down through his eyebrows and over his eyes. He was walking, and then his closed eyelids turned red for some unaccountable reason.

  “Just take it slow,” a voice said close to him. Who was this?

  The ground became uneven, and he was lifted by his belt and then the red of his eyelids turned to gray again. Now he was shivering.

  He felt himself eased into a chair, and a voice asked quietly, “That was Caskie, wasn’t it?”

  Yes, it had been Caskie, Dickey thought. Where was he? He muttered, “Caskie, speak up again.”

  Gore, standing over him, took a chance. “I’m right here, Russ. I ain’t seen you since I cut out at Hanging Lake.”

  Is that Caskie’s voice, Dickey wondered. He couldn’t be sure, because his ears were ringing and sounds seemed to swell intolerably and then d
iminish to almost nothing. He made another effort to open his eyes, but when they were open they wouldn’t focus. That blurred mound down there must be his belly, he thought. Where was he?

  He felt his hand lifted and the familiar shape of a bottle came into it.

  “Drink it,” a voice said.

  He tried to raise his arm and couldn’t, and now he felt a hand over his. Another hand lifted his arm, and then the bottle neck rattled against his chattering teeth before the hot liquor poured into his mouth. After three swallows he moved his head away and fought for breath. The liquor unfurled in his stomach with a soft explosion.

  Who would help him? Who had he been talking to? Why was there this whistling in his ears?

  Then a voice close to his ear cut through the ringing. “This is Caskie,” it said. “What do you want me and Traf to do? Tell me what to do, Russ. Tell me what to do.”

  It took some seconds for Dickey’s fuddled brain to register this. Caskie wanted to know what he was to do. How did he know what Caskie was to do? Then the voice at his ear said, “This is Traf, Russ. Traf. Traf. What do you want us to do?”

  Traf and Caskie wanted to know what to do.

  The fleeting memory came, slid away into delirium, and came again. It was raining. Something about field glasses.

  “This is Traf, Russ. Tell me and Caskie what to do.”

  In his delirium, a picture of Caskie looking from a high window came from the storage vault of his memory, slid away, was replaced by the image of a barking dog, and then came back again. This time he knew the high window was in the top floor of the big house at Bar B. And suddenly he knew why Caskie was looking through the field glasses.

  Again the voice in his ear said insistently, “This is Traf. Tell me what you want me and Caskie to do.”

  With exhausted effort, Dickey mumbled, “Big house. Field glasses.” Then out of his sick need and the fever and exhaustion, he mumbled one more word, “Bed.”

  Gore lifted him out of the chair, carried him, feet dragging, past the cell block and put him down on the cot in the living quarters. After covering him with a blanket, he looked down at Dickey’s red, sweat-drenched face. Then he did what he had been wanting to do for the last twenty minutes. Fist open, he cuffed Dickey on one jowl and then backhanded him on the other. Dickey didn’t even flinch; he was unconscious.