“Yeah? And maybe you’ll get a bullet in that sick brain of yours,” Smiley retorted. Sanchez liked to taunt all of them, but he seemed especially partial to Smiley, possibly because the rotund and balding miscreant always responded predictably. Skinner was too dim-witted to realize he was being baited. Tom Larsen, like Slade, would most likely shoot him if his taunting irritated him. So he picked Smiley for most of his amuse- ment.
“I’ve a good mind to shoot both of you,” Slade said, finally tiring of Sanchez amusing himself by baiting Smiley. “You sure about what you saw, Smiley? There ain’t but one man in that barn they’re workin’ on? ’Cause if we ride down there and somebody starts shootin’ from inside that barn, I swear, I’ll personally make sure you get hit.”
“There ain’t nobody else,” Smiley insisted. “I rode all around that place. If there was somebody workin’ inside that barn, I’da seen him.”
“All right, then,” Slade ordered. “We ain’t doin’ no good just settin’ around this fire. Let’s get goin’ and welcome these homesteaders to the territory.”
• • •
“Somebody’s comin’,” young Elliot Cochran an- nounced.
“Where, son?” John paused, giving his axe a rest.
“Yonder, by the bank,” Elliot said, and pointed toward the trees lining the creek upstream. Everyone stopped to look.
“I see ’em,” John said when he spotted the five riders breaking free of the trees along the creek.
“Who do you suppose they are?” Mabel asked, shading her eyes with her hand while she gazed at them.
“Why, I don’t rightly know,” her husband replied. “But you and Ann best go in the house till we find out. Take Skeeter and Lucy with you. Elliot, look inside the barn door and bring me my carbine.” They all did as they were told. When Elliot brought the cavalry rifle and handed it to his father, he took a firm stand beside him. “You’d best run on in the house with your brother and sister,” John told him.
“I’ll stand by you, Pa,” Elliot insisted.
It was too late to argue with the boy. The five riders were already approaching the cleared yard before the barn, so John remained standing in front of the barn, his son beside him.
“Afternoon,” Slade called out when they drew up before him. “Looks like you folks have done a lotta work on the place.”
“Afternoon,” John returned. “There’s a lot left to do. Where are you fellers headin’?”
“Nowhere in particular,” Slade said, then very deliberately reached inside his coat and pulled the Colt revolver from its holster.
Although he was standing there, holding his Spencer carbine by his side, John was too surprised to act before the .44 slug slammed into his chest. Elliot screamed in shocked horror as his father dropped to the ground. He turned to run but got no farther than a few yards before a bullet from Tom Larsen’s pistol struck him in the back.
“Now,” Slade calmly said to Smiley, “if what you said is a fact, then there ain’t nobody in that house but two women and two young’uns, right?”
“That’s right,” Smiley assured him. “There ain’t nobody else around.”
Always eager to use his knife, Sanchez stepped down and knelt beside John Cochran. “I take his scalp. Anybody comes along after we leave will go looking for Injuns.” He pressed the point of his skinning knife against John’s hairline, causing the dying man to make a feeble effort to resist. “Hey,” Sanchez announced, “he ain’t dead yet.” The discovery seemed to please him. “I finish him off after I scalp him.” He took pleasure in knowing the man would experience the pain of having his scalp lifted before he was mercifully killed. “I get the boy next.”
Unwilling to wait while Sanchez enjoyed himself, the other four rode on toward the house, where the two horrified women sought to protect the children and themselves. Paralyzed by the shocking scene just witnessed, Mabel could not think until Ann screamed, “Get the shotgun!” Only then did Mabel seem to remember the weapon by the fireplace, and she went at once to retrieve it.
“Take the children into your bedroom!” she told Ann as she opened the breech to make sure the gun was loaded. Then she took a stand facing the front door and cocked the hammers. There was nothing else she could do, so she waited, tears streaming down her face at the thought of her husband and firstborn lying dead on the ground. In the bedroom, used now by Ann and Cole, her sister huddled in the corner with Lucy and Skeeter close up under her arms.
Slade wasn’t sure what might be waiting for them inside the cabin, but he was damn sure they were going in. With guns drawn, the five outlaws dismounted and cautiously approached the house. Slade didn’t hear any sounds coming from inside, but he could picture the terrified women and children trying to find someplace to hide. Stepping up to the stoop that served as a front porch, he slowly lifted the latch, but it was bolted on the inside. He took a step back then and motioned to Skinner.
“Bust it open,” he directed. The oversized brute grinned, eager to exhibit his bullish strength. He stepped forward and sized up the door, pressing one giant palm against it to get an idea of the thickness. Satisfied, he backed away a couple of steps, lowered his shoulder, and charged the door. The massive blow splintered the doorframe and the door swung open to bang against the inside wall. The simpleminded giant had a wide, self-satisfied grin on his face when he was met with a full load of buckshot from both barrels at a range of no more than six feet. The force of the shot was enough to send him staggering backward out the door to collapse in the front yard. His companions reacted instantly, pumping half a dozen shots into the defiant woman, killing her before she dropped to the floor.
“Hot damn!” Smiley blurted facetiously. “Reckon she’s dead?”
Not particularly grieved by the loss of Skinner, Tom Larsen remarked caustically, “That big half-wit finally made himself useful.” Seeing no one else in the front room, he looked at Slade. “Looks like the place is ours. The rest of ’em is hid in here somewhere. Let’s root ’em out.”
“I want to see the young woman,” Sanchez said. “I hope she don’t have no shotgun.”
“I expect we’ll find her and the young’uns in there,” Slade said, and they all turned toward the closed bedroom door.
• • •
Cole looked up at a gray sky as he neared the center of the valley. It had not snowed in the last two days, but it looked as if it might soon.
Not before I get home, anyway, he thought.
If he remembered correctly, the knoll he had just left behind was about four miles from the cabin he and John had built. When he got to the creek, he would be on his land. The thought made him eager to get started on his own cabin, the house where hopefully a son would be born sometime in the summer. The thought of his wife caused him to nudge Joe with his heels, asking for a little faster pace.
Spotting a wisp of smoke in the distance, he knew that now he couldn’t be more than two miles from John and Mabel’s place. John had said that he might burn out some of those brambles and sage if it didn’t snow. He wanted to clear off enough brush for a garden, hoping to plant it in the spring. But when the wind shifted toward him, there appeared to be a little more smoke than he had first seen, and he suddenly had a cold feeling in his gut. He had no explanation for it, but something told him that the smoke was an indication that something was wrong. He nudged Joe into a lope.
As he rode along the bank of the creek, the first sign he saw that told him his feeling of alarm might be justified was the remains of a fairly recent campfire. He saw tracks of several horses close by, which increased his concern. As he approached the last stand of trees that blocked his view of the cabin, he kicked the Morgan into a full gallop, no longer able to contain his apprehension. And when he left the cover of the trees, he cried out involuntarily when he found the smoking ruins of the cabin. The barn was still standing, but his last desperate hope was shatter
ed when he saw the bodies of John and Elliot lying where they had been shot down. He was almost overcome with revulsion when he saw that they had been scalped.
Indians! They had been attacked by Indians!
Indians had been known to take white women captive in the past. This thought was all he had left to hope for. Leaving the bodies, he ran toward the house, only to have the last of his hopes disappear when he found Skinner’s body lying flat on his back before the front door, his pants legs singed from being so close to the burning house. His neck, face, and upper chest looked to have been torn apart by a shotgun blast at close range. Still, there was enough left to recognize him as the huge man whom Cole had been threatened with in the hotel dining room. He was easy to identify. The man called Slade had called him Skinner.
So this was not the work of an Indian war party, after all. The gang of murderers has come back to destroy my life, he thought. But how could they have known this was his place? He turned and looked at the pile of burned timbers with only two partial walls still standing. His heart pounded with the dreadful scene he might find if he entered the ruins, but he knew that he had to go in. He had to know for sure.
Suffering a reluctance that he had never known before, Cole went into the smoky ruins of what was left of John Cochran’s dream, stepping over charred timbers and debris as he made his way into the front room. The first body was in the middle of the floor, burned beyond recognition, and he sobbed as he knelt beside it. Judging by the size, he knew that it had been Mabel, since Ann was much smaller.
After a moment, he rose to his feet and forced himself to go into what had been his and Ann’s bedroom. There he found her. The sight of the fragile body, which was, like Mabel’s, burned beyond recognition, was too much for him to stand. He sank to his knees helplessly, his heart beating as if about to burst from his chest, and great sobs of despair choked his throat so that he could barely breathe. Unlike with Mabel’s body, there was not a shred of clothing evident, making it impossible not to imagine the torture she must have suffered before her death. He dropped from his knees, no longer able to remain in that position, to sit beside the charred body of his wife, amid the ruins of his life. For without her, there was no life. Drowning in total despair, he sat there beside her for over an hour, lost, with no reason to go on.
He sat inside the burned house until the afternoon began to drain away into evening. A snort from the big Morgan gelding reminded him that there were still responsibilities to take care of, and he realized that his horse wanted water but would not move as long as his reins were on the ground. Drained of tears and grief, Cole strained to pull himself together.
“I’ve got graves to dig,” he announced to his grieving soul, and he got to his feet.
The bodies of Lucy and Skeeter were in the corner of the room, both heads shattered by gunshots at close range. He had to pause and take a deep breath when he thought about the precocious little rascal who used to dog his every step. He quickly told himself to keep his mind on the chore to be done and went at once to the barn, where he knew he would find a shovel. In the barn, he also found the carcasses of John’s two horses. The murderers had evidently thought the pair not worth their trouble.
It was well after dark when he finished digging the one large grave. He had thought about digging Ann’s grave apart from the others, but he changed his mind when he decided it would be better for her to be with her family, and not alone. When he finished filling the grave, he said a few words over the dead. For the most part, it was an apology to them all, especially to his beloved Ann, for not being there to protect them. He would forever feel guilt over their deaths.
Although he had not eaten since early that morning, he had no desire for food, not even coffee, but he felt a weariness that seemed to drain his very soul, so he lay down next to the grave to sleep, reluctant to leave Ann’s body.
When he woke up, he found that a light snow had fallen during the short night. He sat up and looked around him at the darkened ruins and the unfin- ished barn, looking cold and dead. He knew that he needed to leave this place. His grief was turning more and more toward bitterness, and his sadness from the night before, when he just wanted to crawl into a hole and die, was replaced by a desire for revenge. He swore on the grave that he would not rest until all who had participated in the murder of his wife and family had died by his hand.
His mind, so severely dulled by the grief and despair that had taken it over, began to function logically again. There remained four men to be dealt with, four debts to be paid. He was certain of the number, remembering that there had been six men who baited him in the hotel dining room. He had killed one during the brief shoot-out, and another was now lying dead on the ground near the house. He commanded his brain to remember the other faces, especially Slade Corbett with the silver hatband. He didn’t know the names of the other three, except the tall, serious-looking man they had called Tom. He would remember the other two by their faces. One was a pudgy man with a shaggy beard, and the other looked to be Mexican.
With something to drive him on now, he scouted around the house and barn, looking for the tracks that would tell him which way they headed when they had left. They had apparently not worried about being followed, for after a short scout around the clearing, he found the unmistakable tracks of six horses that the light snow had not been able to cover up. They led to the north, following the Chugwater. Once he was certain there was a trail to follow, he returned to the ruins of the cabin to search among the ashes for anything he could use. There was nothing of value left. The murderers had taken everything, so he was left with nothing except his horse, his weapons, and the clothes he wore. He was not without some money, however, provided the outlaws had not found the canvas bag he had buried in a corner of the back stall in John’s barn. It contained three hundred dollars, his total fortune, left to him when his father passed away four years before. It was intended to be used to build a cabin and buy seed to plant. Now it would be used to hunt four men.
Crow Creek Crossing, he thought, and wished to hell he had never heard of it. It would remain in his brain forever with the end of the pleasant life of Cole Bonner with his dreams of family and prosperity.
As he prepared to leave, he suddenly paused. So caught up in his grief, he had given no thought toward Walter Hodge and his family. Surely someone would have seen the smoke coming from this direction, and possibly heard the gunshots. Their house was no more than two miles away. Why had they not responded? The sobering thought struck him then that perhaps Walter and his family had suffered the same fate as his. Though the tracks he found leaving the scene of the massacre led in the opposite direction from Walter’s place.
Still, he had to make certain, so he turned Joe and headed toward Walter’s farm.
Chapter 4
To his relief, he spotted Walter Hodge driving a horse and wagon from his wheat field, heading toward his barn. Seeing the lone rider approaching from the south, Walter’s son, Sammy, signaled his father. Walter pulled his horse to a stop and turned to follow Sammy’s outstretched arm. Both father and son watched intently until the rider came close enough to identify.
“Hey-yo, Cole,” Walter sang out when Cole was near enough to hear his greeting. There was no indication that Cole had heard, for he did not acknowledge but continued to approach them. Close enough now to see the grim expression on their young neighbor’s face, Walter was pressed to ask, “What’s wrong?”
Having already learned what he had come to confirm, Cole was not interested in wasting time before returning to pick up the trail left by the killers. So he quickly told Walter what had happened. Walter and Sammy were both horrified to hear of the murders and professed to have been totally unaware of the tragedy that had taken place. They claimed there had been no hint of smoke, saying that it probably had been after dark when the cabin was burned, and the wind had evidently been blowing in the opposite direction.
“And
you heard no gunshots?” Cole asked.
“No,” Walter said, shaking his head in disbelief. “Maybe for the same reason we didn’t smell any smoke.” He kept shaking his head sadly. “Frances will be devastated. I’m so sorry for your loss,” he added. “I’ll get Frances and we’ll get over to your place right away.”
“Ain’t no use,” Cole stated grimly. “Ain’t nothin’ left but the barn. I buried everybody.”
“You must be about spent,” Walter said. “Come on up to the house and let us get you something to eat or a drink of likker, maybe.”
“No, thanks,” Cole said. “I just came over to make sure you folks were all right and let you know what happened. I’ve got to get back while there’s still some daylight left.”
“What are you gonna do?” Walter asked. His immediate concern was his family and if they were in danger.
“The same thing you’d do, I reckon. I’ll be goin’ after them.” Sensing Walter’s concern, he told him that he suspected that he was targeted because he had killed one of the gang. And the tracks he had found indicated that the killers had headed on, following the Chugwater. “Just the same, it wouldn’t hurt to keep a sharp eye out for any strangers.”
Then he turned his horse abruptly and started back at a lope, leaving Walter and his son to stare after him, still staggered by the unthinkable tragedy.
“You be careful,” Walter called after him. Cole did not acknowledge him. “I didn’t like the look in that man’s eye,” he said to Sammy. “He’s liable to be ridin’ into his own death. Damn, that’s sorrowful news. We best go tell your mother.”
He didn’t express it to his son, but the incident was certainly tragic enough to make him question his family’s safety. He had counted on John Cochran and Cole Bonner to be there in time of need or danger. Now he was the lone man again.
• • •
Crow Creek Crossing Page 5