Hell's Jaw Pass

by Max O'Hara

  He’d found her at last, his dear Emily, kidnapped by the Cheyenne when she was only eight years old. She was a beautiful, dark-haired, dark-eyed, full-grown woman now, who went by the name of Melissa Ann Thornburg. She had a half-breed boy, born when she’d been in Sioux captivity, named Pete.

  She and Pete had a good ranching life over in Dakota Territory, on land left to them by the man Melissa Ann had married after she’d left the Sioux she’d lived with for fifteen years.

  Melissa Ann and Pete—the two bright spots in Stockburn’s life.

  He hadn’t seen them again since he’d first discovered his sister at last, after nearly twenty years of searching. But he knew where she was. He would see her and his nephew again soon.

  But only for a short time. He had to mind the black beast wallowing at the bottom of the well of his being.

  He blinked away the disturbing image of the beast. As he did, he stared through the opening between the stable doors. The moonlight was gone. It had been replaced sometime during his musings by the faint light of the false dawn.

  Since he’d spied no movement out there in the past two hours, maybe the killer would not show. Or maybe Stockburn had been wrong about him and Lori having been followed.

  Maybe.

  At any rate, he thought he could risk a few winks now. He’d need a little sleep behind him when he took to the trail again at sunrise. He had the nagging urge to revisit the sight of the rail-crew massacre.

  His investigation of the sight had been interrupted by the ambusher. He wanted to go over the sight one more time, more slowly and thoroughly.

  At that sight lay his only hope of gathering any solid clues as to the identity of the killers. He had several half-formed opinions on the matter, a few sketchy ideas of which direction to look in, but as yet he had no solid clues.

  He hoped that would change after he’d scoured the sight of the massacre.

  He closed his eyes and was almost instantly asleep. It was an intentionally shallow slumber, his senses still attuned to the world around him. If footsteps sounded, or if one of the horses so much as snorted uneasily, he’d be instantly awake.

  He must have unconsciously sensed the sun’s rise, because when he awoke and strode to the open door, the lemon orb was painting the eastern sky behind the toothy, darkly silhouetted peaks an amazing array of reds and yellows.

  He led Smoke into the stable, gave him a handful of oats, and saddled him. He shoved the Yellowboy into the scabbard then led the horse outside and over to the back of the church.

  He dropped Smoke’s reins then opened the back door quietly, not wanting to wake Lori. He was glad to find her still asleep.

  Moving quietly, he gathered his gear—his war bag and saddlebags. He left enough coffee for her to brew a pot for herself when she awoke. As he started back to the door, she stirred, opened her eyes, and stretched.

  “Is it morning?”

  “Still early,” Stockburn said. “Go back to sleep, darlin’. I’m sorry I woke you.”

  She sat up a little, frowning. “Are you leaving?”

  Wolf nodded. “Work to do.”

  “Detective work?”

  “That’s what I’m here for.”

  “Can I come with you?”

  “No. Too dangerous, Lori.”

  Lori looked around the small quarters. “I don’t want to stay here alone.”

  “You’d best go back to town. Get yourself a room in that fancy hotel. I’ll pay for it.”

  Lori shook her head. “Word will get back to my family. They’ll come for me.”

  Stockburn considered it. “All right. I’ll head back here mid-afternoon. We’ll ride into Wild Horse together.”

  Lori drew her mouth corners down and nodded. She lowered her gaze, frowning, troubled. She raised her sad eyes again to Stockburn and said, “And what then, Wolf?”

  He moved to the bed, crouched down, and gave her arm a squeeze. “One day at a time, kid.”

  He winked and went out.

  CHAPTER 27

  As soon as he’d given the morning work instructions to his two brothers and the ranch hands, Daniel Stoleberg returned to the house and strapped a gun and holster around his waist, still an awkward maneuver with one hand despite his having had nearly ten years to practice it.

  He cursed until he finally got the damn thing secure, then grabbed his hat off the tree by the door.

  He’d just turned to the door when a voice sounded atop the stairs behind him. An all too familiar one. One with a grating tone to it. “Daniel, where are you going?”

  He turned and winced when he saw Grace standing atop the stairs holding the kid, who was gooing and gawing and making all sorts of other nonsensical sounds and noises. He was staring with his wide brown eyes—his mother’s—down the stairs at Daniel, pointing at his father with one wet, crooked finger.

  To Daniel’s mind, it was an accusing finger despite the broad, happy smile on the boy’s red lips.

  “I’m heading to town, Grace.”

  Grace’s forehead creased. “What on earth for?”

  “Business.”

  He reached for the doorknob but stopped again when Grace said, “I was hoping you could keep an eye on your child for an hour or so while I lie down . . .”

  Your child.

  She hadn’t emphasized the words. Grace was too subtle for that. Just speaking them in a normal tone was enough for her. Just reminding him very subtly that the kid was his responsibility as much as her own despite her and Carlton having agreed to formally raise him, was enough castigation.

  Daniel knew that his sister-in-law took some kind of devilish pleasure in shaming him for his past sins despite the rest of the family having forgiven him. He didn’t know why she did. Maybe she was just bored. She’d been out here with Carlton for five years, but she’d never taken to the ranch.

  You’d think that imagining she was dying from some mysterious illness all the time, one imagined ailment after another, would be enough to keep her busy. But, no—she had to harass her husband’s younger brother—a cripple, no less.

  A cripple with a dark past. A disloyal past.

  “I’m sorry, Grace,” Daniel said. “You’ll have to tend your child. Your child. The one you agreed to raise, remember?”

  Again, he turned to the door. He got it partway open this time before he again stopped on the heels of Grace’s shrill voice plunging down the stairs at him, badgering. “You’re up to no good, Daniel! I don’t know what it is, but I know it’s no good. You’ve been leaving on horseback much too often these past few weeks. And I saw you ride out late last night. I know because I couldn’t sleep, and I was rocking by the window upstairs.”

  Daniel froze. Anger flared in him. It was probably good those snakes had killed half the nerves in his legs. Otherwise, he’d likely run up the stairs, grab his infuriating sister-in-law by her skinny neck, and wring the life out of her.

  Then who would raise the kid?

  He sucked back his fury, taking a long deep breath and blowing it out.

  He turned to Grace, casting a frigid smile at once insolent and mocking. “Business, Grace. Just business. Enjoy the day. Why don’t you take the kid outside? Might be one of the last nice ones we have in a while.”

  He winked at her, causing her pale cheeks to flush with fury, then jerked the door open and went out. He made his stiff, limping way to the stable and had one of the stable boys saddle his favorite horse, Two Dot, named for the two splashes of white paint on each side of the dun’s otherwise brown hindquarters.

  He mounted up, rode out through the wooden portal and a little over two hours later rode onto the main street of Wild Horse. It was a few minutes shy of one. The street was mostly deserted. Not that Wild Horse could ever be called bustling, but it was quieter than normal because most folks were settling in for their mid-day meal, which always began a little earlier and lasted a little longer in the generally sleepy town.

  Daniel could smell the aromas of various fo
ods wafting in the wood smoke billowing down over the roof tops, shoved low by downdrafts. Ordinarily, the smells would have made him hungry. Today, they did not.

  He had too much on his mind.

  Why had Lori had to show up out of the blue and throw a jackrabbit into the wheel spokes of everything?

  While Lori weighed heavily on him, she was actually the least of his worries.

  He rode along the brightly sunlit, nearly deserted Wind River Avenue, and reined up in front of Hennessey’s Wind River Saloon & Gambling Hall, sitting on the south side of an east-to-west cross street from the Continental Restaurant. A dozen or so horses stood drooping their heads and tails at the two hitchracks fronting Hennessey’s.

  Daniel slipped his dun in between a mouse brown gelding and a calico mare, the gelding giving a sudden start and lurching to one side, brushing up against the horse on its left.

  “Easy, easy,” Daniel said, testily, and stepped stiffly down from the saddle.

  Once on the ground, he paused, leaning forward against the stirrup, waiting for feeling to return to his legs. Riding always made them number than usual. He closed his eyes, drew a breath. He was a young man, only thirty, but the two-hour ride weighed heavy on his brittle body.

  “Need any help?”

  Daniel opened his eyes. The town marshal, Watt Russell—a fat, useless man—stood on the boardwalk near the three steps rising to the door of Hennessey’s place. He scowled with concern at Daniel from beneath the brim of his battered black Stetson.

  His tall, mustached deputy, Chet Diggs, was just then stepping out of Hennessey’s, behind Russell. The deputy’s eyes found Daniel standing between his horse and the mouse brown gelding, and Daniel saw the faint glint of mockery in the deputy’s dull blue eyes.

  Men were essentially wolves. You learned that when you were crippled. Other men looked at you like younger, stronger wolves eyeing one of the weaker ones in the pack, pleased by their own dominance. Some pitied you, but that was even worse.

  Russell studied Daniel with pity in the old lawman’s eyes hooded by wrinkled droopy gobs of sun-browned flesh. Chet Diggs, a former sodbuster and cattle rustler as useless as Russell, felt buoyed by Stoleberg’s obvious weakness. He stepped up beside Russell and feigned a look of concern but could not quite wash the mockery from his gaze.

  “I’m fine,” Daniel said, reaching for Two Dot’s belly strap and feigning a smile of his own. “Just loosening the latigo cinch is all, so my horse can take some water. Thank you for your concern, gentlemen.”

  Diggs turned to Russell and chuckled.

  Russell did not look at his deputy nor respond to the insolent laugh. The marshal kept his concerned, curious gaze on Daniel. “You in town alone, Daniel?”

  “Yes, I’m in town alone.” Scowling, feeling the heat of anger in his ears, Daniel stepped up onto the boardwalk and set his lone hand on the hitchrack for support. “You got a problem with that, Marshal?”

  “No, no,” Russell said, wagging his head and holding his hands up, palms out, “no problem at all. I was just wondering if you’re all right, is all. Looked like you might’ve been having a little trouble there.”

  “Thank you for your concern, Marshal,” Daniel said crisply, shoving away from the hitchrack and maneuvering his feet to Hennessey’s door. “I assure you I was having no trouble at all.” He fashioned a taut smile. “I am just fine.”

  “Here to see Mister Hennessey, I see.”

  Daniel hadn’t missed the subtle accusatory tone in the marshal’s voice. At least, he’d thought the tone had been accusing. Or was he just getting paranoid?

  “There a law against that?” Daniel asked.

  “Nope, nope.” Russell held up both hands and shook his head. “No law against having a conversation with the man, I reckon.” He chuckled softly but without mirth. He stared into Daniel’s eyes until Daniel flushed and turned away, knowing right then and there that he had not imagined the castigation in the old lawman’s voice.

  “Go to hell, you fat fool,” he felt like saying but did not.

  Diggs looked at Russell again and laughed.

  Casting a hard glare at the deputy over his right shoulder, Daniel climbed the three steps and limped through Hennessey’s front door.

  Wolves.

  As soon as Daniel was out of earshot, Russell would have a good laugh with Diggs. Unlike Diggs, he wasn’t stupid and ill-mannered enough to laugh in his face, for Daniel came from one of the two most powerful ranching families in the area.

  But old Russell would mock him behind his back, all right. Everyone did. Why should Russell be any different?

  That was why after the accident he rarely rode to town.

  He stopped just inside Hennessey’s door and looked around the saloon’s sunken floor. A smoke haze obscured the crowd of men and a few of Hennessey’s pleasure girls enjoying Hennessey’s free lunch counter while nursing beers and/or whiskey shots.

  A team of mule skinners must have pulled in on the train, for eight of the burly, bearded men in checked shirts, suspenders, and canvas pants sat at a large table in the middle of the room, near the big, ornate, horseshoe-shaped bar, eating pickled eggs and sandwiches of cheese and sausage slapped between thick slabs of grainy brown bread while swilling beer from buckets, playing cards, and generally loudly and good-naturedly cavorting around the table covered in red and white oilskin.

  A doxie in a short, low-cut red dress sat on the lap of one of the mule skinners, her arms around his neck, talking and laughing into his right ear while he somehow managed to play poker, drink beer, and eat his sandwich while flirting with the girl—a plain-faced brunette named Clara.

  Yes, Daniel knew her name. He’d been here before, mixing pleasure with business.

  Clara glanced at him now and smiled.

  Daniel looked away from her, his ears warming slightly.

  Several men stood at the bar, one boot propped on the brass rail. Men occupied most of the tables to Daniel’s left and right. Two bartenders toiled behind the mahogany. Two other girls were making the rounds, parrying butt swats and out-and-out fondling.

  Daniel looked closely around the room, hoping to see Hennessey down here so he wouldn’t have to climb the stairs. The saloon owner was usually down here this time of the day, milling with the crowd, laughing with his customers and keeping an eye on the chuck-a-luck and poker tables against the wall to the right, as well as on the roulette wheel and on the one-eyed fellow, Darl Murphy, who dealt faro on days he wasn’t working as a brakeman for the Union Pacific.

  Daniel saw two bouncers, one sitting in the overlook chair near the chuck-a-luck layout, and the other playing a game of solitaire near the bottom of the stairs running up the rear wall, on the bar’s left flank. That was the fellow who screened all visitors headed for the second floor, accepting money for the jakes the pleasure girls had enticed into a romp in one of the upstairs cribs.

  Daniel made his way down the three steps to the carpeted floor of the drinking and gambling hall. As he started toward the bar, a man coming down the steps behind him accidentally knocked into him, almost sending him sprawling onto an occupied table to his left.

  “Oh, hell—sorry!” came the apology. The man glanced at Daniel over his shoulder, gave a deferential pinch to the brim of his brown derby hat, then continued with another man, chatting obliviously, to a recently vacated table off the front of the bar.

  Daniel got his feet solidly beneath him, feeling the heat of anger warm his cheeks. He cursed under his breath.

  Wolves.

  He continued forward, ignoring the predictable stares from the tables he passed.

  “Poor bastard,” he heard a man mutter beneath the room’s low din.

  Daniel approached the bar, waved a hand to catch the eye of one of the bartenders, and said, “Where’s Hennessey?”

  The bald barman, who wore a black silk band around his upper right arm, tipped his head back and jerked his chin to indicate the closed door on the second-floor ba
lcony, near the top of the stairs. The door had a brass plate attached to it. Daniel knew from previous visits that Kreg Hennessey’s name was etched into the plate.

  Daniel turned to the stairs and cursed. He hated stairs. He hated them even more at the moment because he still hadn’t fully recovered from the ride to town from the ranch headquarters.

  He considered asking the barman to send someone to fetch Hennessey but nixed the idea. He didn’t want anyone doing him any favors. Besides, he needed to talk to Hennessey in private, behind closed doors.

  They had important, private matters to discuss. They’d have to discuss them upstairs.

  Dammit!

  Daniel headed for the stairs.

  When he was ten feet from the bottom of the broad, carpeted staircase with ornately scrolled banisters, a man’s voice rose out of the room’s general din, pitched with insolence and brash mockery. “Well, well, well—to whom do we owe the honor of a visit from the crippled Stoleberg boy—Daniel Stoleberg himself?”

  CHAPTER 28

  Daniel stopped and turned unsteadily.

  Three men sat at a table eight feet away. All three regarded him mockingly with eyes glassy from drink. The man who’d spoken—Sheb Grissom—smiled more brightly, more insolently than the others.

  Daniel had fired the puncher from the Tin Cup crew earlier in the year for drunkenness and general disobedience not to mention sloth. He was a ne’er-do-well who occasionally got ranch work when warm bodies were needed for the spring roundup, though he’d rarely remained on any one ranch for long.

  Daniel had given the man a chance despite Grissom’s reputation, because he’d had cows to gather from the winter pastures and calves to brand. McCrae usually got first pick of the puncher crop because he could afford to pay better. It hadn’t taken Daniel long to realize his mistake in hiring Sheb Grissom.

  “How ya doin’, crip?” Grissom was a wiry, ugly man with close-cropped sandy brown hair and a square, bony face with two bulging brown eyes. He smiled an exaggerated, death’s-head smile as he lifted his half-full schooner of beer in mock salute. “Still limpin’ around the Tin Cup while the real men do the work?”