Black Wind Pass

by Rusty Davis

  “I am going to kill you, Carrick,” Oliver hissed in a low voice. “You will regret this for whatever time you have left to live. All of you will!”

  “You’re gonna die tryin’, Oliver, so I hope you try real soon.” Carrick pulled Oliver’s jacket open and extracted a paper from the inside pocket. He looked down and scanned it quickly. “Reb, kill this one first if he blinks the wrong way.”

  “Bein’ shot maybe made you talk sense for once,” she replied. “I thought you’d never come ’round to my way of thinkin’.”

  Carrick regretted the next step, but it had to be done. He handed the paper to Jessie Lewis. “Look at that, ma’am.”

  The document, which already had the signatures of Rebecca and Jessie Lewis upon it, stated they gave all rights to their land to Francis Oliver in consideration of the upcoming marriage between Oliver and Jessie Lewis. It was witnessed by a few Lazy F hands, or so it said. They had already either signed it or made their marks. It was dated that day. The forged document gave the impression that it was the document Reb and Jessie were en route to sign, but gave a very different outcome from anything the women had been planning.

  “Francis, what is the meaning of this?” Jessie asked, as though she were the school teacher scolding an errant pupil. She waved the paper in the air. He said nothing. She leaned closer and waved the paper under his face. Silence lengthened. “Francis, I demand an explanation! This is not the paper we agreed upon. This is some kind of a fraud! How can it have my signature when I never saw this until now and it is not what we agreed upon, but the opposite? I want an explanation because I know what this looks like!”

  The man was cornered. “Die an old maid then and lose your ranch, too!” Oliver roared. He turned his horse. “Your day will come, Carrick, and, when it does, you will deserve it!” Carrick backed away, ready for the man to pull a gun; hoping that he would. Instead, he galloped away. His men followed.

  Carrick, Reb, and Jessie dismounted in a nearby grove of trees. When the wave of tears had stopped, Jessie Lewis demanded to know everything, with Reb echoing every word. Carrick told them the story, leaving out Ramsay’s name.

  “Didn’t know how to explain it, Jess. Didn’t think you’d listen.”

  “We were going to be married,” she insisted. “I . . . I was certain there was something more than the land that he wanted! Oh, I am such a fool. Carrick, I don’t understand. Why? Why, in God’s name? He was going to be my husband; he could have used the range for grazing in any way he wanted.”

  “Ma’am, you were on your way to town to sign an agreement that he was going to sign as well. I read what Reb wrote, and that paper would have given Reb control over the land. Once that was signed, there would be no chance for him to control that land as long as Reb was alive. Must be something other than a place to graze his livestock that’s driving him. He doesn’t want to use it; he wants to own it. If he married you, as your husband he would control the land no matter what you wanted. But that paper with Reb’s name on it knocked that deal apart. I guess this was what he thought of next. I don’t know why. With Jones gone, there’s no Double J pushing him. I can’t figure his game, Jessie, but I’m sorry about it.”

  “There is no fool like an old one,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t believe it. I thought . . . He made it seem so real.” Another stream of tears followed.

  “Ma’am, he fooled me and you. Only one of us never got fooled.” He nodded at Reb. “If she hadn’t been so all-fired stubborn, among other things, we might have found out too late what he was planning.”

  “I wish I was wrong, Aunt Jess,” Reb said. “Now I want to shoot that weasel more than ever.”

  Carrick mounted up, scanned the road for other travelers, and then was back, urging them to move. “Ladies, I think we better move along. Oliver had five riders with him. There’s three of us. I think we need to get back to the ranch and start preparing for trouble. I’m not sure how Oliver is going to take this, but I know we have to be ready for anything. I been bracin’ for a war with Double J, but, as of right now, the biggest enemy we have is Lazy F.”

  Hoofbeats pounded into the Bar C yard even though it was hours before dawn. “Carrick!” The shaky notes of a woman in fear. “Carrick!”

  Reb, whose turn it was on watch, opened the door for Eileen Ramsay. “He’s here; we sleep in shifts these days. What’s wrong?”

  “He has to save Colton. Francis Oliver and a bunch of Lazy F riders calling themselves vigilantes took him. They went to Lincoln Springs to hang him!”

  “Hang who?”

  “Colton!” shouted Eileen, running over to the groggy Carrick who had been sleeping on the floor by the door and was awakened by the voices. In the two weeks since their run-in with Oliver, he had had little more than cat naps.

  Lazy F had come to their place with about twenty riders, she said. They claimed they had proof Colton had rustled beef and stolen horses. With the circuit judge in town, they went to get him convicted and hung.

  “Can’t you do something? You and he were friends. Rory, you have to help me.” Reb noticed the way the woman touched Carrick close, like they had been very close at one time. Carrick had never mentioned her. Then again, Carrick never said much about anything. She kept her thoughts to herself as Carrick mounted, leaving Eileen in Reb’s care.

  “I got to get my kids,” she said. “Don’t trust those men.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Reb said. “We’ll be here when you bring Ramsay back, Carrick. Get goin’.”

  Morning had broken on the trail. Lincoln Springs looked empty, until Carrick saw the crowd by what had to be the town’s hanging tree.

  Firing his gun twice to scatter the crowd, Carrick rode into the mass of townsfolk. Hands behind his back, resignation stamped across his face, Ramsay sat on a horse with a massive rope noose draped about his neck. The other end ran to a huge limb twelve feet off the ground.

  “Let the man be,” Carrick called out. The crowd stood back from the armed man on horseback.

  “Can’t do that, Carrick,” said Sheriff Dan Hill, trudging forward. “Jury found him guilty of stealing. Judge passed sentence. Thieves hang out here. This ain’t vigilantes, Carrick. It’s the law. The man got caught up in this range business, grant you that, but if he had clean hands he wouldn’t hang. He ain’t got ’em. Stand aside.”

  “What did he steal?” Carrick challenged. He noticed Oliver absent from the mob. Others do his work for him, he thought.

  “There were cows with the Lazy F brand butchered by his fire,” said Hill. “Five horses in his corral with Double J brands. Top stock, too. He was caught dead to rights. Judge sentenced him. You goin’ up against the law, Carrick? If you are, we got room on that branch for one more. Law may not be what you want, but it’s the law.”

  Emboldened by the sheriff, the crowd moved in. Carrick noted that several well-armed riders had gathered at the back of the crowd. If he was a betting man, he would bet they were from the Lazy F. He scanned the mob looking for a weak spot, a way out.

  “Rory. Rory!” Hearing his friend’s voice, Carrick moved his horse closer to Ramsay.

  “Colt, I got a spare rifle the other side of me. Not sure we can make it, but we can try. Sidle over so I can cut that noose off of you.”

  “It’s over, Rory.”

  “Colt, I’ve come out of worse.”

  “Carrick, listen to me! It’s over. We’ve been living on what we could steal for a couple of years. I lied to you the other day. Only thing I ever did with the railroad is steal from it. A man pays for a man’s mistakes, Carrick. I’ll pay for mine. You want to make it right; you make sure Oliver never gets his hands on more dirt than he can hold when he lays dyin’.”

  “Colt! You can’t give up. Eileen? Your kids?”

  “Maybe folks will be kinder knowing their man died like a man, Carrick.” Ramsay’s voice was starting to quiver. “You take care of ’em, Carrick. I know Eileen thought about waitin’ for the war to end and yo
u to come back, and maybe that would have been best but I love the woman, Rory. I know this is gonna break her heart, but tell her I love her. Tell my kids I died like a man. Do that, Carrick!”

  Carrick nodded. He wanted to fight; he wanted to stop it, but he realized his friend had crossed a line years ago. Francis Oliver waited only until Colt had refused his blood money before striking against him. For that, Oliver would pay.

  Ramsay was pleading with Carrick. “The longer I wait for this Carrick, the worse it gets. They can say anything they want, but none of ’em are going to see me tremble. Got that? Now can I get this done before they tell my kids that Colton Ramsay couldn’t die like a man? Carrick? Please?”

  Dan Hill had sidled up near Carrick. His childhood friend’s eyes were pleading with him. There was only one brand of mercy left for Colton Ramsay. Carrick raised the gun and fired four quick shots.

  The horse galloped away. Its burden jumped from its back, floundered briefly, twitched, and eventually was still. The crowd, which had started to flee at the shots, pushed closer until Carrick, atop a nervous Beast, waved his gun at them.

  “Easy, Carrick,” said Hill. “You fight a mob at a hangin’ you end up gettin’ hung. Ain’t what your friend wanted.”

  Carrick wasn’t heeding the voice of caution. Beast kept back the crowd. Hill walked over to Ramsay’s dangling body. He nodded at Carrick. Standing in the stirrups, Carrick cut down his friend. He laid the body over his own saddle.

  “Taking my friend home,” he announced to no one in particular. “Anyone got a problem, I’ll accommodate you when I’m done.” He turned his back. Beast plodded away.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The small slope behind the old Bar C house was crowded. Folks Carrick didn’t know and almost everyone he did know had come to bury his friend. Eileen and the kids were there. He had dug the grave. The territory had sent a preacher to bury Jackson Jones; no one came for Colton Ramsay.

  Carrick stepped forward. He had no words. The words were blasted to pieces in unslaked rage and misery. But somebody had to say something. “Son,” he said looking down at the box by the hole’s edge. He had made the coffin. “You were my friend. This world’s a worse place without you. You don’t ride off too far from the river, hear, ’cuz the rest of us will be comin’ across in a little while. And, God, you didn’t make ’em any better than him. Maybe he was a little wild and maybe he did things that were wrong, but he never hurt anyone and he never broke his word to a friend. Let us remember how he died, and not forget until we make it right.” There was a pause. Only Reb, next to him, knew he was barely keeping his tears within. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, thou art with me; I am the resurrection and the life. We will meet over the river. God bless, Colton. Amen.”

  Bad Weather had appeared. He helped Carrick lower their friend’s body into the hole. Carrick grabbed a shovel, hoping no one saw the wetness in his eyes as the clods of dirt crumbled against the wood of the coffin until the job was done. Some of the folks who came to bring food for the Ramsay family walked back to the Bar C house. Carrick remained at the grave alone until it was filled and the wooden cross Reb made was put by Colton’s head.

  “Not your fault, Carrick,” Reb said when she walked over after he had adjusted the cross. Carrick had told her, now that it no longer mattered, that it was Ramsay who warned him of Oliver’s plan to kill them and take the land.

  “Maybe it ain’t in Aunt Jess’s Good Book, Reb, but there’s a law that says a life for a life. It may be later than sooner, but Francis Oliver is going to pay.”

  Jessie Lewis insisted that Colton Ramsay’s family move in with her. “That man (what she called Francis Oliver these days) had him killed because he helped you, Carrick. This is the least I owe your friend’s family.”

  Eileen had gratefully accepted the offer. Reb was not sure she liked a woman at the ranch who was so close to Carrick, but there was nothing she could do about it. Carrick rode out to where the remnants of Ramsay’s crew remained. Some had scattered the day their leader was hung.

  “Got an offer,” he said when they were assembled. “Me and the Lewis women gonna run Bar C until they kill us or we put Double J and Lazy F in their places. There’s no safe place on this range until this ends; you got to take sides with somebody. Me and the Lewis women don’t care what you did. We’d both be powerful grateful for the help, but it’s your business. It’s work, it don’t pay much, it’s dangerous, and we all might be dead in a week.”

  “Hard to turn it down when you say it that way,” said Pete Doherty, one of the older hands. “Saddle up, boys. Bring the women and kids. Double J or Lazy F are gonna wipe us out sooner or later. Colt was a good man. Gets hard to swallow when men turn on their partners. I’m going down fighting.”

  In the end, nineteen riders, eight with families, rode with Carrick. Jessie and Reb watched the motley parade of horses, carts, and a few cows trundle into the farm yard. Everybody unpacked into the bunkhouse.

  “Quite an army you found there, Carrick. Bet Lazy F is shaking in its boots. They gonna run when it gets tough?” Rebecca Lewis commented critically, standing next to Carrick amid the confusion.

  “Probably can’t fight any better than a woman,” replied Carrick, staring out across the valley but not quite controlling the smile that split his scruffy beard.

  Reb, glad at last that he seemed to hear something she said, moved in front of him. “Remind me again who it was got shot, cowboy?” she challenged. Their eyes locked for a moment, then with a wicked grin she turned away to show the new hands where to settle in, not looking back. A stunned Jessie watched her niece saunter away with a sashay in her walk she was certain she had never seen before.

  Carrick watched her go, feeling the stirring of a tomorrow that might be a long string of todays away amid the ache of a past that was gone. He was sure that wild Wyoming wind was blowing again, the kind that blew new hope into the worst of fools.

  The bulk of Easy Thompson was unmistakable as he slowly rode up to the ranch. He was a big man. He was also, Carrick knew, a big threat because of his loyalty to Double J in general and Jackson Jones in particular. Even though the vitality and energy that made Double J an imminent threat to the Lewis ranch had been sapped with the death of Jackson Jones, the outfit was still the valley’s largest. Unless the widow sold the spread, sooner or later, the drive for conquest Jones had started would begin again. It was, as Carrick had realized, the law of the range.

  “Miz Lewis,” Easy said, tipping his hat to Jessie.

  Jess Lewis smiled for the first time in days. “Mr. Thompson, you have not been on our ranch in a year and more. I’m so glad you remembered the way. You should visit more often.”

  “Need to talk to this man here.”

  “Please don’t shoot him today, Mr. Thompson. A lot of work has piled up around here and he will use any excuse to shirk his share.”

  Easy Thompson took his hat off, threw his head back, and laughed. “If you insist, I guess I can wait until tomorrow, Miz Lewis.”

  “Good! Now have your talk. Men talk; women work! When you are finished talking, permit me to show you around.”

  Thompson looked over the Lewis ranch as Jessie wandered off toward the barn. “You settlin’ in here like you were a-gonna stay.”

  “Happened that way. Ramsay was a friend. Family’s here.”

  “Don’t live out no more in that shack that crazy old man built by the pass?”

  “Nope. Thought it wasn’t proper to stay here with the women, the way gossip gets, but life changes what’s necessary. The way things are on this range, there’s no way I’m leavin’ ’em alone. Not safe.” The real reason he lived in the shack was no one’s business. After whatever he did when he was shot, nightmares didn’t seem like they mattered anymore. Thompson didn’t need to know that, either.

  “Heard about Oliver. Ran into Dan Hill the other day and he believes what you say, but Oliver denie
s every word and he’s got witnesses say he never left the ranch that day. Shame what he did to a fine woman like Mrs. Lewis. Sorry, in a way, about your friend. He wasn’t much good, but he was better than some of what killed him. Surprised it ended that way. He knew what he could get away with—understand, Carrick? Double J wasn’t going to ride him down for a steer or two a year. More work than it would be worth. Surprised he ever got greedy with Lazy F.”

  “He didn’t.”

  Thompson waited for elaboration. None came. “He went like a man, they tell me. Awful good of Miz Lewis to take in his family. She’s a fine lady.”

  Carrick, who knew Ramsay’s crimes were used as a pretext by Oliver because Ramsay had sided with Carrick, felt uncomfortable with the knowledge that he had a hand in his friend’s death. “Easy, you didn’t come here to talk about Colt. Maybe you came to tell me why someone from Double J was dumping salt in that water hole a while back? As I recall, the boss was pretty upset about it and you were nowhere to be found. I know a lot happened since then, but I never heard an explanation.”

  “I never ordered that!” Carrick wondered if an earthquake could approximate the sound of Easy’s voice when he was angry.

  “Who did?” asked Carrick quietly, trying not to rile Easy; they didn’t need any more enemies than the ones they already had.

  Easy Thompson looked embarrassed. “I don’t know.”

  Carrick was not sure he heard right. “You didn’t do it?”

  “Carrick, use your head for something more than a place to set that hat. Neither Jackson Jones or me would have ever done anything that sneaky. Jackson Jones was a straight-up man! If he wanted you off the land, you and the ladies would have been off the land. Only one we can figure did it was Lazy F, but nobody saw Larry Gordon anywhere near Lazy F. No extra money turned up in his bedroll. Maybe Double J has spies; maybe one of the hands missed something. Now can we talk about something important?”

  “Ruining a water hole is pretty important to us, Easy.”