Thunder Valley

by David Robbins

  “Something like that,” Axel said with a smile. He was still smiling as he reached the steps and thrust the dagger he had slipped from his boot into Carver’s gut. Simultaneously, he snatched Carver’s six-shooter from its holster.

  Carver staggered, cried out, and gamely tried to grab his six-gun.

  Axel shot him in the mouth. He bounded past the falling foreman, flung the front door wide, and was well into the hall when a shout came from the far end.

  “What was that gunshot? Who’s there?”

  Olander appeared in the doorway. He wasn’t armed, and on seeing Axel and Brule, he backpedaled and yelled at someone behind him, “Run! Get out of here!”

  A woman said something.

  Axel burst into the kitchen.

  Olander was pushing a brown-haired woman in an apron toward the back door. Shielding her with his body, he thrust a hand at Axel. “Don’t! Please!”

  Axel shot him in the chest.

  The woman screamed and clutched Olander as he started to fall. “Timothy! Timothy!”

  Axel raised the revolver.

  The woman looked up, her eyes brimming with tears, her lower lip quivering. “Why?” she bleated.

  “It’s what I do,” Axel said, and shot her.

  Brule came to his side and stared at the bodies. “Damn, you’re quick.”

  “We have to fetch our own hardware. It’s in the bunkhouse.”

  Brule nudged Olander. “He ain’t wearin’ a revolver. Pretty stupid, if you ask me.”

  Axel looked around. “Do you see a rifle or a shotgun in here anywhere?”

  Brule turned right and left and shook his head. “What do you want one for, anyhow? They’re already dead.”

  “It would have made it easier.” Axel stepped to the counter. A bowl of fresh-cooked corn and a platter of potatoes were next to an oval china plate heaped with thick slices of beef. Beside the plate was the butcher knife the woman had used to carve the beef. “They were about to sit down to supper.”

  Brule came over and hungrily licked his lips. “I might have some of that myself. I didn’t get to finish my beans, thanks to Ritlin.”

  “Have this instead,” Axel said, and whirling, he buried the butcher knife in Brule’s throat.

  27

  Roy fingered his Winchester as the pair of strangers approached the farmhouse. He didn’t like the looks of them. “Get inside,” he said to Andy.

  “I’m practically a grown man. I’ll stay.”

  “Do as I say,” Roy insisted. “Get your squirrel rifle and stand inside the door and be ready to cover me if need be.”

  Andy brightened. “You can count on me, Pa,” he declared, and dashed inside.

  Roy levered a cartridge into the chamber and stood so the porch post partially shielded him. He rested the Winchester’s barrel on the rail. “That’s close enough,” he hollered when the riders were fifty feet out.

  The pair drew rein. The burly one wore a bear-hide coat and a floppy hat. The gun across his saddle wasn’t a rifle, as Roy thought; it was a shotgun. The younger one wasn’t much older than Andy. He wore short-barreled Colts in holsters cut low so he could slide his fingers into the trigger guards as he drew. The young one wore a short-brimmed black hat, a green shirt, and checkered pants.

  “You’re not very neighborly,” the man in the bear coat said.

  “What do you want?” Roy demanded.

  The young one had flinty features and eyes that glittered like shards of glass. “I don’t like his tone,” he said to the big one. “You want I should show him how useless that rifle of his is?”

  “Simmer down.” The burly man smiled at Roy but there was no warmth in it. “Folks call me Shotgun Anderson. This here is Kid Slade. Could be you’ve heard of us.”

  “Can’t say I have,” Roy said.

  “We’re bounty men, of a sort,” Shotgun said. “We get paid to track people down.”

  A premonition wrenched at Roy’s gut. “Once you’ve found them, then what?”

  Kid Slade snickered. “Not too bright, is he?”

  “Keep your trap shut,” Shotgun Anderson said, and went on smiling at Roy. “We’re lookin’ for a gent by the name of Rondo James. We asked around in Teton last night and we were told he’s stayin’ with you.”

  Roy imagined the news was all over town. He didn’t say anything.

  “It won’t do any good to lie to us,” Shotgun Anderson said. “We’d like to get this over with, so where is he?”

  “Answer him, dirt farmer,” Kid Slade said. Suddenly he stiffened.

  Out of the corner of his eye Roy saw Andy step into the doorway with his rifle. “Since when does Rondo James have a bounty on his head?”

  “It’s a private bounty,” Shotgun Anderson said.

  “Is that even legal?”

  “That’s neither here nor there,” Anderson replied, and squared his wide shoulders. “I’ll ask you again. Where’s Rondo James?”

  Roy saw no reason not to tell them. “He’s not here and I don’t know when he’ll be back.”

  “You expect us to believe you, dirt farmer?” Kid Slade said.

  “I won’t tell you again,” Shotgun Anderson snapped at him.

  “You’re too damn nice,” Kid Slade said.

  “I want the two of you off my property,” Roy said.

  Shotgun Anderson said, “I don’t suppose you’d let us look in your barn before we go?”

  “I will not,” Roy said.

  Shotgun Anderson nodded as if he expected Roy to say that. “I believe you that he’s not here. So we’ll go. But there’s somethin’ you should know. We’ve never once not gotten our man. We’ll get Rondo James too. It might not be today. It might not be tomorrow. But we’ll get him.”

  “Leave,” Roy said.

  The big man wasn’t done. “So long as you and yours stay out of it, you won’t come to harm. But get this through your head. I’ll only bend so far. Then I’ll let the Kid have his way, and trust me when I say you don’t want that.”

  Roy did some taunting of his own. “What makes you think you two are a match for Rondo James?”

  “All the men we’ve buried,” Shotgun Anderson said without any trace of boast. He raised his reins. “Think about what I said. We’ll be around.”

  “You can bet your ass we will,” Kid Slade said.

  Roy cradled the Winchester in the crook of his elbow and watched them depart. “This just keeps getting worse and worse.”

  Andy came to the rail. “I’d have shot that snot-nosed one if he’d pulled on you.”

  Only then did it hit Roy that his son could have killed a man, at his suggestion. “What was I thinking?” he said out loud.

  “Pa?”

  “Take the rifle in. They’re leaving.”

  “They’ll come back, though, won’t they?”

  “As surely as the sun rises and sets.”

  “You should have let me gun them,” Kid Slade grumbled. “They wouldn’t have got off a shot.”

  Holding his English-made double-barreled shotgun by its walnut stock, Shotgun Anderson slid it into his saddle scabbard.

  “If your brain was half as quick as your hands, you’d be somethin’ else.”

  “Just because we’re pards doesn’t give you the right to insult me.”

  “Damn it, Kid,” Shotgun said. “When will you get it through that puny thinker of yours that you have to use it for more than a hat rack? With them dead, what reason would Rondo James have to come back?”

  Some of Slade’s anger faded. “Why didn’t you say that before?”

  “I shouldn’t have to spell it out. We’ve been doin’ this long enough, it should come to you.”

  “I pull my freight,” Kid Slade said.

  “In the killin’ you do,” Shotgun acknowledged. “But there’s more to it than that.” For him it was the thrill of the hunt. He’d always loved hunting. When he was a boy on his pappy’s place in Arkansas, he’d spent every waking hour off in the woods hu
nting every critter that lived. There wasn’t an animal that he hadn’t killed at one time or another. That included birds and reptiles, too.

  He remembered the time he’d learned that Arkansas had its own coral snake. Well, sort of. The snake’s territory bled into Texas. It was so rare, hardly anyone in Arkansas had ever seen one. Three and a half months of hunting, it took, until he found one and killed it. He was so proud, he’d skinned it and hung the skin on his wall.

  Then there was the ivory-billed woodpecker. It’d taken him near half a year to hunt that one. It was a pretty bird, mostly black and white with a red crest and a long beak. After he’d shot it he’d admired it for a while and then tossed it on a garbage heap.

  His hardest challenge had been a panther. Most had been killed off. He was eighteen when he journeyed to the southeast corner of the state after the newspaper gave an account of a panther that killed a few sheep. The local hunters were after it but didn’t have any luck. They’d scoffed when he showed up. But he showed them how it was done, and the panther hide hung next to the snake skin.

  Of course, neither had a head.

  Anderson never used a rifle or a revolver. When he was eight his grandpa had given him an old shotgun. He’d loaded it with buckshot and shot a rabbit that was in his ma’s vegetable patch, and he never forgot the sight. The rabbit exploded into bits and pieces. Buckshot didn’t just put a hole in something, like a slug would do; it blew what you shot to bits.

  Ever since, a shotgun was Anderson’s weapon of choice. The one he had now cost more than most folks earned in a month of Sundays but it was worth it. When he shot a man in the chest with both barrels, it blew them in half.

  Now that he thought about it, Anderson supposed it was inevitable that he’d go from blowing animals to hell to blowing men to hell. Hunting animals became too easy. It lost the thrill it used to have. He’d needed more of a challenge. So when he heard about a bounty placed on a robber’s head, he hunted the robber down and blew it off.

  Not long after, the incident happened that set him on his current course.

  A gentleman came to see him. Someone he’d never met. The gentleman had heard about him killing the robber for the bounty and wondered if he’d do the same “unlegal-like,” as the man put it. It seemed the gentleman had a cute heifer he was fond of and another gent was grazing on her pasture, so to speak. The gentleman had held out five hundred dollars and asked would he or wouldn’t he?

  Anderson would.

  Now here he was, twenty years later, and he’d lost count of the heads he’d blown off and been paid to do it.

  Only five years ago he’d taken up with Slade. He’d completed a job in Texas and gone into a saloon for a drink and there the Kid was, leaning against the bar and bragging about shooting someone in the next town over. The Kid dressed colorful, and he liked that. The Kid could kill, and he liked that. But most of all he liked how damn quick the Kid was. He’d never tell the Kid to his baby face but Slade might be the quickest alive.

  That the Kid never seemed to age was peculiar. No one would guess to look at him that he was ten years older than he appeared to be.

  Shotgun realized his partner was talking to him.

  “—in blazes are we headin’ west? Are you fixin’ to spend the night in town?”

  “I am,” Shotgun confirmed.

  “Shouldn’t we keep an eye on the Sether farm?”

  “We’ll pick up some grub and head back in the mornin’. Only we’ll swing wide and come in from the south so the Sethers ain’t likely to see us.”

  “And then what? It’s not as if Rondo James will ride up to us and say, ‘Here I am.’”

  “You say the stupidest damn things,” Shotgun Anderson said.

  “Didn’t you hear me when I said I don’t like it when you insult me?”

  “I don’t like your smart mouth.”

  Kid Slade’s jaw muscles twitched. He glanced at his companion’s shotgun, and said nothing.

  After a while Anderson said cheerily, “This will be easy. It always is when we don’t have to track them all over creation, and we don’t have to track Rondo James.”

  “You’re certain he’ll come back?”

  Shotgun glared. “You were standin’ right next to me in that saloon when the barkeep said James is stayin’ with the Sethers while his horse heals.”

  “How do we know it ain’t already healed and Rondo James is gone?”

  “From the way Sether was actin’. He was nervous. I saw it in his eyes.” Shotgun Anderson chuckled. “All we have to do is keep watch on the Sether place, and when Rondo James shows up, blow him to hell.”

  “I reckon as how you’ll want to do it in the back, him bein’ so damn quick and all.”

  “At last you’re usin’ your noggin,” Shotgun Anderson said.

  “That Rebel is as good as dead and doesn’t know it.”

  28

  Rondo James was glad to leave Teton. He’d searched and searched and not seen any sign of four men who were always together and who may be the assassins. Either they weren’t in town or there was some other explanation. He finally figured maybe they were roving Thunder Valley, looking for someone else to prey on. With that in mind, he bought supplies, saddled up, and began his own sweep, starting along the north side and working his way around to the south.

  Rondo didn’t push his horse. It wasn’t General Lee, and its stamina left considerable to be desired. After a couple of miles of hard riding, it had to rest or it was worthless for the rest of the day.

  Rondo fought shy of the farmhouses. Although the farmers hired him, he’d gotten the impression that more than a few weren’t happy about it. Apparently they had a low opinion of shooters.

  They weren’t the only ones. While the newspapers tended to glorify shootings, ordinary folks took a dim view of men who killed other men unless they wore a badge.

  Rondo didn’t think that entirely fair. It wasn’t his fault he’d been forced to take lives to preserve his own. It wasn’t as if he went round looking for people to shoot. Well, until now.

  Staying alert for tracks, Rondo came across the hoofprints of cows and a few horses and once the boots of a farmer.

  Not once did he come across a set of four shod horses riding together.

  Toward sunset Rondo sought a spot to lay up for the night. A cluster of oaks was convenient. He moved to the center, where he was sheltered from the wind and his small fire was screened from prying eyes. He put coffee on to boil and spread out his bedroll.

  His supper consisted of jerky and crackers. With the crackling flames and coyotes yipping in the distance, he chewed and toyed with the notion of riding to the Sether place in the morning to check on General Lee. He wasn’t more than a couple of hours away.

  Rondo stayed up late. He thought about the war and his wanderings and the people he’d met. Few were as nice to him as the Sethers. Most folks regarded him with suspicion if not downright dislike once they found out who he was.

  “I never wanted this,” Rondo said to the stars. He bit off a piece of jerky and slid a hand into his slicker and felt his poke. They’d paid him half in advance and would hand over the rest when the job was done.

  Rondo would be the richest he’d ever been. He’d have enough to put down on a homestead, were he inclined to settle down.

  Another idea he had was to head for South America. A man could lose himself down there. He could start over, make a whole new life. Leave the Civil War and all his uniform stood for behind.

  Were he willing.

  And the truth of it was, Rondo wasn’t. He had never been a cheek-turner. He’d go to his grave resenting the North and all it stood for.

  Sleep eventually claimed him. He woke only once, and thought he heard horses off in the night.

  Daylight found him in the saddle. He didn’t see a soul until he reached the road and spied a solitary rider to the west, heading for town.

  Rondo was surprised to see two buckboards in front of the Sether farmho
use. They had visitors. Rather than disturb them, he rode around to the barn.

  General Lee was in his stall, his hoof wrapped and dry, as it should be. The abscess was almost healed.

  Rondo decided to give the Palomino a few more days before he threw a saddle on.

  Figuring to slip off unnoticed, Rondo climbed back on and was riding around the rear of the farmhouse when the screen door smacked open and out came Martha Sether.

  “Mr. James! Hold on, if you please. You need to have a word with my husband.”

  Rondo drew rein. “I don’t want to intrude when you have company, ma’am.”

  “It’s important,” Martha said.

  Wheeling his animal, Rondo rode over. “I don’t have anything to report yet.”

  “We do.”

  Rondo climbed down. “Who else is here, if you don’t mind my askin’?”

  “The Klines and the Beards.” Martha held the door for him. “Thank goodness I happened to look out the window and saw you.”

  Voices drew Rondo to the parlor. The moment he appeared, silence fell. Their expressions troubled him. “I came to check on General Lee,” he said.

  Roy got up from the settee where he’d been sitting between Tom and Moses.

  Tilda and Irene were in chairs.

  “All of you look as if you’ve lost your best friend,” Rondo said.

  Roy winced. “Not our best but a good man, nonetheless. Tim Olander and his wife, Myrtle, were murdered yesterday.”

  “No,” Rondo said.

  “So were his foreman and four of his punchers and maybe someone else,” Tom Kline said.

  “Maybe?”

  “They found blood in the kitchen that they can’t account for,” Moses said. “It didn’t come from the Olanders.”

  “How did you find out?”

  Roy said, “A cowboy brought the news to us this morning.”

  Rondo remembered the riders he heard in the middle of the night, and wondered.

  “A terrible thing,” Irene said. “To be slain in their own home. No one is safe anymore.”

  “We came over to talk about what to do,” Tom said. “We have to take steps.”