by Jack Sheriff
The Killing at Circle C
When Daniel Sagger flees from his home, leaving his wife with her throat cut, his son Will can reach but one conclusion: his father is a callous murderer. But this is a crime so horrific it beggars belief, and when Will rides into town to talk to his friends, he discovers an ever-thickening web of intrigue.
Why have men from Hole In The Wall been talking to his father? Who is the mysterious Amos Skillin who has been plying his father with drink? What part do Beebob Hawkins and Texas Dean play in the mystery?
Knowing that he must ride to Hole In The Wall to discover what lies buried in his father’s past, Will Sagger heads out with gunsmith Jake Cree and Deputy Slim Gillo. They are destined to ride through hell and to face desperate outlaws in a blazing, bloody climax.
By the same author
Brazos Guns
Midnight Hawk
Bury Him Deep, in Tombstone
The Man From the Staked Plains
Incident at Powder River
Black Day at Hangdog
Kid Kantrell
Starlight
Billy Sundown
The Killing at Circle C
JACK SHERIFF
ROBERT HALE
© Jack Sheriff 2004
First published in Great Britain 2004
ISBN 978-0-7198-2270-4
The Crowood Press
The Stable Block
Crowood Lane
Ramsbury
Marlborough
Wiltshire SN8 2HR
www.bhwesterns.com
This e-book first published in 2017
Robert Hale is an imprint of The Crowood Press
The right of Jack Sheriff to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Dedicated to Christopher Hurst, grandson number one, always a country boy.
Chapter One
How do you talk sense into your pa when he’s gone missing after killing your ma, slicing her throat open in the cold wet hours before dawn when he’d ridden home from town with a bellyful of harsh whiskey and a mind addled by weeks of worry?
How do you explain to a younger sister that the bloody sight that met her terrified gaze when she walked through from her bedroom – disturbed by the fading rattle of hooves, nostrils twitching at the raw, coppery smell – would fade with time, the nightmares that would so many times bring her bolt-upright in her bed cease, the hatred for a grey-haired man wither and be replaced by warmer memories?
‘And why,’ Will Sagger whispered, ‘would I waste my time doing any of that if the ageing man somewhere out there with what’s left of his dignity is running away from a crime he didn’t commit, each haunted night since then spent staring up at a necklace of stars and visualizing a dangling noose ready to be jerked tight around his corded throat if ever he’s caught?’
Why?
Who had done this?
Those last questions were thought, not spoken, for halfway between home and town at this hour there was nobody to give an answer. Last night’s moon was a fading crescent in pale-blue skies. Under the trees the air was already richly scented as the fast-rising sun warmed grey-green leaves bright with the freshness of early spring, the silence as yet unbroken by the hum of insects. The more pungent aroma of Sagger’s cigarette cut sharply into that still, fresh air and, with a gesture taut with contained anger, he flicked it away. Beneath him, his bay horse moved restlessly, one ear flicking and, with a distant smile, Sagger touched it lightly with his heels and moved across the coarse grass and out on to the trail.
As he rode towards town, carrying with him the news that he had tried hard to keep within the confines of Bar C until grief faded and there was a return to sanity, Will Sagger struggled to come to terms with tragedy. But, most of all, he tried to figure out if the one glaring anomaly in Daniel Sagger’s hurried departure carried some hidden meaning, or was the oversight of a man hit by panic; to decide if his pa had broken the habit that had been with him since the 1870s – more than a decade – out of desperation or in a silent scream for help?
Two days had passed since the killing, and to the outside world Bar C, the small cattle ranch the stricken Daniel Sagger had ridden away from, remained unchanged. Day-to-day work had continued as usual under the guidance of long-time foreman, Dave Lee Nelson; spring roundup was still some weeks away, and the three hands retained over the winter months were not yet overworked with chores.
At dawn on the first day, Mary Ann Sagger had been buried in the small plot behind the ranch house. It was then that Will had gone into the bunkhouse with the three ’punchers and asked them to stay around the ranch; to keep the news of what had happened under their hats. As far as he knew, the men had complied. Wages weren’t due for a couple of weeks, and he’d guessed shrewdly that all three were still bust from their last month-end spree.
Another day had dragged by, and he had kept that for Becky. Ten years old, tow-headed and pigtailed, she had become a little girl in a calico frock who wandered aimlessly about the yard in bright sunlight looking at the world through wide blue eyes that saw only horror. In time, that would change. Will Sagger gave himself to her for that day, gave her the comfort of an older brother’s embrace when it was needed, at night sat with her in the warm lamplight while she tossed and turned her way into an uneasy sleep haunted by terrible dreams.
He had done what he could for what was left of his family, yet still he continued along the lonely trail south with trepidation. Bar C was an hour’s ride north of the town of Ten Mile Halt, which was located on Beaver Creek some way south of Sundance. He’d deliberately stopped halfway to rest and gather his thoughts, but all he’d achieved was to create more turmoil in a mind worn out with too much thinking. And with the town shimmering some way ahead but too close for comfort in his present state, he was still mentally juggling words. Quite soon he would be talking to gunsmith Jake Cree, a long-time friend; to Red Keegan, who had stood like a rock behind the bar in his saloon and tried to curb Daniel Sagger’s drinking; to Marshal Cliff McLure, who would perhaps look with suspicion at the time elapsed between killing and Sagger’s ride to town – and he had no idea what he was going to say.
So it must be Jake Cree first. The easy way out. Troubles told first to a willing listener who would weigh them with wisdom, balance truth against lies, the possible against the improbable. And it was down the south side of Ten Mile Halt’s main street that Will Sagger rode, to tie the blood bay at the rail still deep in shadow and push his way through the familiar door with its jingling bell into a room smelling of metal and gun oil where a man with sharp blue eyes waited behind a stained counter.
‘Jake,’ Will Sagger said – then his throat locked, and he braced his arms on the oily timber top and after two days the tears came and Jake Cree came fast around the counter and in a room seemingly walled with rifles and other weapons of death a tall man rested his head on a shorter man’s broad shoulder and wept without shame.
Chapter Two
In the back room they sipped hot, strong coffee. Jake was perched on a work bench, muscular and aproned, ready for a day’s work but his bearded face lined with deep concern. Will Sagger sat on a stool, hunched with the effort of holding back his grief. He had told his story, seen the shock hit Cree, watched that shock fade and the wheels begin turning in the mind of the man who had been Daniel Sagger’s friend for more than twenty years.
Now Cree said flatly, ‘Daniel wouldn’t kill Mary Ann.’
‘Not unless he was crazy.’
‘And was he? I took a drink with him a week ago. He was worried, but wouldn’t say why. Had he slipped further?’
‘Not noticeably.
But it seems he rode to town that night, came back so late everyone was asleep. . . .’ Sagger shrugged, bent to his coffee.
‘What was getting to him, Will? What was turning a good man into a drunk?’
‘I asked him several times. He wouldn’t say.’ Sagger looked up. ‘So maybe we need to look further back, at times before he had a family; maybe we need to look at the younger Daniel Sagger.’
‘Before my time.’
‘Christ, Jake, he must have talked, reminisced.’
‘We all do. But what truth is there in that kind of talk? When a man’s looking down his back-trail, how do you sift hard facts from tall tales?’
‘With hindsight. Or is it foresight? I don’t know. But maybe something he said about the past will make more sense in the light of what he’s done.’
‘And what has he done? Gone missing for two days—’
‘Rode out fast with his wife still bleeding her life away—’
‘Or been taken.’
Sudden silence.
‘How many horses did you hear?’
‘None. Becky woke first. Went through. Found . . .’
Words failed him.
‘Where were you, Will?’
‘Sleeping.’
‘There’s some who’ll find that hard to believe, you a few feet away in the next room. A man rides home to Bar C full of liquor, clatters into the yard. Then a woman’s murdered. You mean to tell me there was no argument? Did he just walk in and slit her throat?
‘Pa didn’t kill her!’
‘Someone did. But unless he was Banquo’s ghost he’d have anounced his presence. And he did. He woke Becky.’
‘The hands heard nothing.’
‘They were used to Daniel riding in late. One more time would have no more impact on their dreams than a warm spring breeze. Besides, they were across the yard in the bunkhouse.’
‘Jake,’ Will Sagger said, ‘what the hell are you suggesting?’
Cree shook his head. ‘Not a damn thing. What I’m doing is preparing you for what you’re going to face when you talk to Ciff McLure.’
Sagger rose from the stool, put the cup on the work bench, looked through the uncurtained rear window and across the scattering of tar-paper shacks on the outskirts of Ten Mile Halt. He’d told Jake Cree the truth, but with badge-toting Cliff McLure that might not be such a good idea. Why risk complications that could lead to trouble? Mary Ann Sagger had been laid to rest. If he told McLure pneumonia took her to her grave, there would be compassion, not suspicion. And Jake Cree would keep his mouth shut.
‘Why would Pa be taken, Jake?’
‘I shouldn’t have said that.’
Sagger swung to face the gunsmith, met the clear blue eyes, saw the barriers come down.
‘But you did. And you suggested what Becky heard was more than one horse. So who are we talking about?’
‘Go talk to McLure.’
‘With the truth?’ Sagger’s laugh was brittle. ‘Hell, what is the truth?’
‘McLure is the law, he’s got sharp ears and a deputy with a long nose. Also, your pa’s been spending a lot of time with his elbow on Red Keegan’s bar. So when you’re finished with McLure and Slim Gillo, we’ll cross the street and I’ll buy you a drink.’ Cree drained his coffee, his eyes suddenly clear and knowing. ‘I can’t see you letting this lie, Will. You’re going after your pa. When you do you’ll need all the information you can get.’
Cliff McLure was a long beanpole with a lean waist and hips sharp enough to cut through his sagging leather gunbelt. His roll-top desk, safe, window ledges and almost everything else in the room at the front of the jail were filmed with dust. Even his thatch of coarse hair looked as if it had been dusted with grey, but the rack of guns against the back wall glistened with an oily sheen, the notice board with Wanted dodgers, election notices, railroad timetables and scrawled reminders was well kept, and the marshal’s deep-set, tawny eyes were as bright as brass buttons.
‘You’re no stranger to me, Will, but this wild story you’ve rode in with knocks me back a couple of steps, leaves me winded. Your ma dead and buried after a knifing, you say – and your pa gone?’
‘Two days ago.’
McLure hitched his pants, and pulled at his lean jaw.
‘And your reading of this . . . situation?’
‘Nobody broke into the house. Everything points to Pa cutting Ma’s throat, getting back on his horse and hightailing. I don’t believe that.’
‘No, I’d be mighty hard pressed to think that of your pa. But you say getting back on his horse? Does that mean he’d just got off it?’
‘He’d been into town, rode home in the rain full of drink and—’
‘You saw him?’
‘No, I was asleep.’
For a moment McLure looked at Sagger in silence, lips pursed. Then he gestured him to a seat and said, ‘Will, tell me what you know, not what you surmise.’
Will Sagger sighed. ‘I woke up when Becky started screaming. I went through. She was in the middle of the living-room, looking down at Ma.’ He shrugged helplessly. ‘She was flat on her back, covered in blood . . .’
‘What time did your pa go out?’
‘Early afternoon.’
‘And that’s the last you saw of him?’
Sagger nodded.
‘So, your ma stayed up late—’
‘With me, waiting for him.’
‘—Becky was in bed, then you started yawning and your ma told you she’d wait on her own and you went to your room and the next thing you know your sister’s screaming?’
‘Right.’
McLure folded his rawboned frame into his swivel chair, shook his head several times and seemed to drift off. After some thought he said, ‘What beats me is how nobody there heard nothing. Where was Dave Lee Nelson?’
‘Asleep. He came running across the yard in his underwear when Becky’s screams began raising the roof.’
‘Will, I see your dilemma. Assuming your ma was wide awake, if a stranger walked in with you in the next room, she’d’ve commenced hollering – and that didn’t happen.’
He reached down to slide open a drawer, inserted a lean hand and brought it out with two jolt glasses on his fingers, reached for the half-full whiskey bottle on the shelf behind him and poured two large measures. He slid one to Will Sagger, tossed back the other, and sighed.
‘That leaves your pa walking in – either on his own, or with somebody. I’d go for the second alternative – but if that’s the way it was, who did your pa bring into his home, and what the hell happened in there?’
‘I’ve spent two days thinking about it,’ Will Sagger said. ‘If there’s an answer, it’s buried deep.’
McLure had his finger poked into his empty glass. His lips were thrust out as he absently moved it over the desk’s scarred surface.
‘Man rides out,’ he said softly. ‘Everyone goes to bed except Mary Ann. Nobody hears a damn thing. Then Becky’s screaming, and Mary Ann’s dead. . . .’ He looked up, head cocked quizzically. ‘We don’t know for sure your pa came home, do we?’
‘We don’t know anything, for sure.’
McLure swore softly. ‘No, and if he didn’t come home that leaves Mary Ann keeping as quiet as a mouse when a stranger walks into the house and approaches her brandishing a knife – and now we’re going round in circles, that idea already chucked out with the rest of the garbage.’
McLure waited, thought some more, then slapped his hands flat on the desk.
‘Will, is there anything you’re not telling me?’
Sagger eased back in the flimsy wooden chair, rocking almost imperceptibly in his contemplation so that the loose frame creaked, creaked, creaked. . . .
He realized that, since talking to Cree and McLure, his snap judgement of the happenings at Bar C had developed more holes than an old tin colander. The clear picture of his drunken pa taking a knife to his ma and hightailing had been swept away – had to be, for sanity to prevail. In
its place he could see stark black and white images that came and went in flashes like stormy scenes briefly revealed in the flicker of sheet lightning: a black-clad stranger sneaking in under cover of darkness, knife glittering; his pa riding in with an old pal after a night’s carousing, a chance meeting degenerating into something wicked; his pa again, this time watching white-faced and helpless while an old enemy cut his wife’s throat, then being forced, at gunpoint, to ride away with the killer.
Who? Why? What in the name of God had gone on, two nights ago, when death visited the Bar C?
‘Will?’
Blinking, he jerked back to reality, to the present.
‘No.’ He shook his head, yet even as he did so he was remembering that one lasting image that had stuck with him for the whole of the two days and suggested to him, from the beginning, that his pa was leaving a message. It was nothing, yet it was everything, because for the man who was Daniel Sagger it was completely out of character – but, at that moment, it was not something that Cliff McLure needed to know.
‘No,’ Will Sagger said again, ‘there’s nothing else.’
Chapter Three
Most days Red Keegan kept customers out of his saloon until Lou, the one-eyed, gammy-legged swamper had grumbled his way around dim room and sunny plankwalk with his head at a permanent tilt, a broom jabbing like a spear with careless disregard of passers-by and a bucket of soapy water ready to drench those the broom had missed.
That morning Jake Cree crossed the street first and leaned over to whisper in Lou’s ear while Will Sagger slipped by on his blind side. Then, with a wink and another sly word that drew a grudging smirk from the cantankerous old fellow, Cree followed Sagger.
Still troubled by Cliff McLure’s final question and his own less than honest answer, Sagger walked straight across the room and slapped a hand on the bar. Red Keegan emerged from the shadows at the rear with his jaw jutting aggressively, took one look at Sagger’s face and served up a glass of cool, foaming beer. A second followed as Cree approached the bar, and Keegan stepped back, wiping his hands on his apron.