Rowlett's jaw tightened. The hardcase was right, of course. Any man with busted kneecaps and elbows wouldn't be capable of putting up a fight. That was why he would have to go ahead and jump them, he decided. He would rather force them to kill him than be trussed up and dragged off like some sort of animal being taken to market.
A few feet away, the young cowboy who had been punched in the stomach by Rowlett lifted his head. All the drunkenness had been knocked out of him. Rowlett's punch had started the process, and the unexpected gunshot had finished it. The cowboy was stone-cold sober now.
And as he saw Rowlett facing the guns of the two hardcases, he knew how wrong this all was. He and his pards had picked a fight with the big man, sure, had goaded him into striking back at them, but there weren't any hard feelings involved in a thing like that. Hell, he thought, it was just something to pass the time on a boring night when the winds were howling and the snow was falling outside.
Chances were that when it was all over, they would have bought Rowlett a drink, then he could have bought one for them, and by the time the snow cleared in a day or two, they would have all been good friends. That was the way these things were supposed to go.
But then those two hard-faced hombres had horned in, and the cowboy knew that wasn't right. Nobody who packed as good a punch as Rowlett deserved to be dragged out of a place at gun point and taken off to face who knew what kind of ungodly fate. That just wasn't fittin' . . .
Just before Rowlett could fling himself into the gun muzzles of his would-be captors, the young cowboy lurched to his feet and shouted, "Leave him alone, you sons of bitches!" He clawed under his coat for the revolver holstered on his hip.
The gunman with the Colt swiveled at the waist and fired in the same motion, a tongue of flame licking out from the barrel of his gun. The slug drove into the cowboy's chest just as his fingers touched the butt of his own weapon. He was driven backward by the impact of the bullet, grunting as he was flung off his feet. He was dead before he hit the puncheons of the floor, drilled through the heart.
"Watch out!" yelled the other hardcase as Rowlett twisted in a blur of motion. He triggered a shot that sang harmlessly past the big man's head. Rowlett's fingers closed around the neck of the whiskey bottle he had almost emptied. He threw it as hard as he could at the man with the Starr.
The man jerked his head to the side, but the bottle still hit him a glancing blow, staggering him. He stumbled into his partner, who cursed and shoved him away. That moment gave Rowlett the time he needed, though, to lunge across the space between him and his enemies. He batted the Colt aside with one hand and clamped the other around the man's neck.
With a savage roar, Rowlett swung the man around and thrust him toward the other man, just as the second hardcase jerked the trigger of the Starr again. The bullet struck the man with the Colt in the back at almost point-blank range. He tried to scream, but the only sound that came out of the throat with Rowlett's hand locked around it was a choked groan. The man dropped the Colt and flung his arms out spasmodically as death throes shook him uncontrollably.
Dying or already dead, it didn't matter to Rowlett. He tossed the man aside as he scooped up one of the chairs at the barrel table. The man with the Starr tried to cock the gun and get off another shot, but Rowlett brought the chair crashing down over his head before he could manage to fire. The chair was heavy and sturdily built, but it shattered from the impact anyway.
So did the gunman's skull. Moaning, he dropped the Starr as he went to his knees, then he pitched forward, his hands groping at his ruined head. His face smacked the floor. He twitched and kicked a couple of times, then lay still.
"Dear God above," breathed McRaney into the sudden silence. "Ye've killed 'em both, man!"
"I damn sure hope so," Yancy Rowlett said as he dropped the chair leg in his hand, all that was left of the broken piece of furniture.
The cowboy whose nose had been broken by Rowlett crawled over to his gunshot friend. "Sandy’s dead!" he said thickly. "He's dead!"
The youngster was indeed staring sightlessly toward the beams of the ceiling, the front of his shirt and coat sodden with blood. Rowlett glanced at him and grimaced. The cowboy had given him his chance with that foolhardy move, and for that Rowlett was grateful. But there wasn't a damned thing he could do for the dead man now.
Instead, Rowlett bent over and picked up the Starr and the Colt that the hardcases had been packing. He opened his bearskin coat and tucked them behind the broad leather belt he was wearing. No one in the room objected to him taking the guns. He turned to McRaney and said to the Scotsman, "I'm sorry. Didn't mean for your place to get shot up like this."
There were still a few drops of spilled whiskey clinging to McRaney's leathery skin. He wiped them off as he said, "I reckon those two skally-hooters'd be bounty hunters, th' way they was talkin'. Ye're wanted by th' law, are ye?"
It was a rather foolish question under the circumstances, Rowlett thought, the kind that could get a man killed. But after all that had happened, he was willing to give McRaney the benefit of the doubt. The Scotsman was too rattled to be thinking straight.
"Those two may have thought they'd get paid for taking me back to Montana," Rowlett said, "but the law's not after me. That's the truth, for what it's worth."
One of the would-be miners began, "But then why—"
The look Rowlett gave him made him think twice about indulging his curiosity. He swallowed hard and looked down at the floor. It was obvious from his expression and those of his companions that all of them were glad none of the stray bullets had hit them.
Rowlett reached inside the bearskin coat again and brought out some more coins. This time they were twenty dollar gold pieces. He dropped one of the double eagles on the bar and asked McRaney, "That enough to pay for the damage?"
"Well, I dinna kin . . ."
"Old habits are hard to break, ain't they?" Rowlett chuckled and added another double eagle to the first one. "That's more than enough, and the extra's to make sure you folks never saw me come in here."
The cowboy who had been knocked unconscious was starting to stir around and moan a little now. The other one had put his dead friend's head in his lap and was cursing in a soft but heartfelt tone. He broke off the litany of profanity at Rowlett's words and looked up angrily at the big man.
"You're to blame for Sandy bein' dead!" he accused. "If it wasn't for you, those gents wouldn't have started shootin'—"
"Kid," said one of the miners, "you'd better shut up. This ain't smart."
Rowlett wasn't losing his temper, however. He said to the young cowboy, "I'm sorry your pard got killed, son. I truly am. But it won't bring him back for you to go shootin' your mouth off about this around the Territory." His voice hardened. "You understand what I'm sayin'?"
The young man glared at him for a couple of seconds longer, then nodded jerkily. Rowlett sighed. He didn't know if he could count on all the witnesses to this unpleasantness keeping quiet about it or not, but there wasn't much else he could do. He had stopped here hoping to get a drink, a hot meal, and a place to sleep while the storm blew over. Instead, all he'd gotten was more trouble.
"I'm leavin' now," he said, "and like I told you, you never saw me. Forget I was ever here. Better for everybody that way."
McRaney stared at him. "Ye can no' mean ye're goin' back oot in tha' storm! 'Tis blowin' up a blizzard! If ye go oot in tha', ye're doomed."
Rowlett glanced at the sprawled bodies of the men who had tried to capture him and smiled humorlessly. "Not likely," he said. "And I don't fancy the idea of stayin' here with them. No, I reckon I'll be movin' on." He pulled the hood of the bearskin coat back over his head and turned toward the door.
McRaney sputtered, "But . . . but where'll ye go?"
Yancy Rowlett paused at the doorway and looked back. "Maybe I'll try to make it to that town you mentioned earlier. What was it called again? Wind River, that was it." He pulled the door open and the night howled. "I'll
try to make Wind River."
Then he was gone, pulling the door shut behind him, and outside the storm raged on and inside the dead stayed dead while the living said a little prayer.
For themselves—and for the people in the settlement called Wind River . . .
Chapter 2
Kermit Sawyer slapped his gloved hands together, trying to warm them as he strode across the wide yard between the bunkhouse and the main building of the Diamond S ranch. The middle-aged Texan glanced at the sky to the north, which was filled with thick clouds over the mountains. It was hard to tell, in fact, where the jagged peaks ended and the ominous-looking sky began. To Sawyer it was all just a wall of angry gray.
The ranchers craggy features were set in a worried frown. Down in Texas, in the upper Colorado River country where Sawyer had established his first spread and spent most of his life, blue northers had come roaring down through the Panhandle nearly every year, bringing with them snow and ice. So it wasn't like Sawyer had never seen cold weather before.
But winter up here in Wyoming Territory was different, Sawyer sensed. When the snowstorms came, they would be unlike anything he had ever experienced before.
Well, that was all right, Sawyer told himself as he hurried toward the bunkhouse in the dawn light, the cold wind cutting through his heavy jacket. The real reason he had brought half his herd and a bunch of proddy young Texas cowpokes all the way up here to Wyoming was that he had needed a new challenge after his wife passed away.
In the six months or so since he had established the Diamond S here in the foothills north of the settlement of Wind River, Sawyer had overcome several obstacles placed in his way by both nature and man—and he was happier than he had been in a long time.
Man was born to trouble, Sawyer recalled hearing some sky pilot say. And if the storm lurking up there to the north was as bad as it looked, there would soon be plenty of trouble on the Diamond S.
Sawyer shoved the bunkhouse door open and stepped into the overheated air inside the long, narrow building. Fires burned in black, cast-iron stoves at both ends of the room. The crew had already eaten breakfast before sun-up, and now they were pulling on gloves and heavier coats. Sawyer left the door open behind him, letting in some of the chill from outside.
"The boys about ready to ride, Frenchy?" Sawyer asked his foreman, a tall, lean, broad-shouldered man with a saturnine face.
"Sure, boss," Frenchy LeDoux replied. "How long you reckon we got 'fore that blizzard comes in?"
Sawyer shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. "I ain't no judge of these damn Wyoming winters," he said. "I figure the worst of it'll be here tonight or tomorrow, but I could be wrong. I want all that north range swept today anyway. Move the stock down to the lower pastures."
The cattleman wasn't sure how much good it would do to move his herd. The Diamond S was laid out across a broad, shallow valley with mountains rising to the north and a steep bluff dropping off to the south. To the east and west were low foothills. Sawyer was hoping the peaks to the north would block the worst of the storm, but whatever bad weather made it over the heights would be funneled right down through his spread.
Last summer, when Sawyer had first laid eyes on this place, he hadn't thought about that. And to tell the truth, it probably wouldn't have changed his mind if he had. During the summer, the grass here was thick and good, and his cows had fattened up nicely on it. During the fall, he'd had a crew haying from dawn to dusk, and the barns were full. Sawyer had no doubt he and his men and his cattle would make it through the winter just fine.
But there was still that nagging voice in the back of his head, telling him that he had never seen winters like the ones up here.
Frenchy and the other riders were ready to go. Sawyer stepped aside to let them troop out of the bunkhouse. As one of the cowboys passed him, the white-haired rancher reached out and took hold of the young man's arm.
"You be careful out there, Lon," Sawyer said. "You freeze your tail off and I'll never hear the end of it from your mama back down yonder in Texas."
The slenderly built young man, who had curly brown hair under his cuffed-back hat, grinned at Sawyer. "Sure thing, Mr. Sawyer," he said. "One of these days, though, you're going to have to tell me why you're so all-fired scared of my mama."
Sawyer's bushy eyebrows pulled down in a frown. "Hell, boy, you ought to know that better'n me. She raised you, and all she did for me and the missus was cook and clean. Didn't stop her from expressin' an opinion when she had one, though—which was most of the time."
Lon Rogers grinned and said, "You're sure enough right about that, Mr. Sawyer. I reckon not even freezing to death would get a fella away from her permanent-like. So I'll try not to."
Sawyer clapped a hand on Lon's shoulder. "You do that, boy."
Lon went out with the other men, and Sawyer heaved a sigh as he watched him go.
Lon had never been much of a hand down in Texas, but he had grown up a lot since coming to Wyoming. Sawyer had brought him along only because the youngster had made such a pest of himself about coming. Lon did his work pretty well now, though, and Sawyer figured in time he might even turn into a top hand. Sawyer was willing to give him that chance, while at the same time keeping an eye on him. He had to remember that promise he'd made to Lon's mama—not that he was likely to forget.
Sawyer squared his shoulders and went out after the rest of the crew. There was work to be done, and he had never been the sort of rancher who sent his men out to do what he was unwilling to tackle himself.
But as the north wind hit his face, a chill went through him that had nothing to do with the cold. Sawyer gave a little shake of his head, fought off the feeling, and headed for the corral with the rest of the men.
Lon Rogers tried not to shiver inside his thick coat as he rode along the edge of the foothills to the northwest of the ranch headquarters with Frenchy and two more of the hands. Frenchy had split up the crew, sending some of the men to work through the pastures of the valley itself while other men covered the hills on each side. There were a lot of small side valleys where the longhorns liked to hide.
The stock should have been moved before now, Lon figured. But such precautions were pretty much unnecessary down in Texas, and he supposed Frenchy and the boss just hadn't gotten around to it until now. The autumn here in Wyoming had been fairly mild; that had probably lulled the Texans into thinking things might not be as bad as they had heard.
There was no mistaking the look of those clouds to the north. There was a storm on the way, the worst one so far.
"Whenever you come on any strays, start 'em toward the center of this valley," Frenchy instructed Lon and the other two men as he reined his horse to a halt. "The boss and some of the boys'll be waitin' there to make the gather and head 'em south. Best look sharp. You know how some of those old mossyhorns like to hide."
"Sure, Frenchy," one of the other men said. "This here's just like spring round-up."
"Only a hell of a lot colder," said the other man with a grim chuckle.
Frenchy nodded. "That's right. We'll split up here, and each one of us will take one of these side valleys. Don't go in so far that you can't get back out before dark. I'm just hopin' that norther holds off that long, so we can all get back to the ranch 'fore it hits."
"Mr. Sawyer wants us to get all the stock, no matter how long it takes," Lon pointed out.
"I'd rather lose a few head than have any of you boys freeze to death," Frenchy said, "and I reckon the boss feels the same way. But we'll save as many of 'em as we can. Let's get busy."
Waving to each other, the four men split up, each of them heading for a gap in the hills that led to some of the smaller valleys. The thick, gray clouds overhead made the daylight dim and shadowy, and it wasn't long before Lon lost sight of the others. Of course, they would have been lost to view once the hills closed in around him anyway, but somehow he felt more alone, like he was the only one in hundreds of miles of this bleak landscape.
&
nbsp; The thing to do, he told himself, was to keep his mind on the job that had brought him here. As he rode through the hills he watched closely for cattle, finding only one small bunch in the first hour. The animals tried to stand with their rumps toward the wind, but the way the wind swirled in this little valley, that was difficult.
Lon circled them on his sure-footed pony and shouted at them, trying to get them moving. The cattle were stubborn, though, and he finally had to use his coiled lasso to slash at the rear end of the old steer who appeared to be the leader of the bunch. That started the longhorn plodding toward the east, and the other animals followed. Lon rode along behind, still shouting and taking a swipe at the rump of any laggers, until the cattle were trotting briskly toward the central valley.
They would keep moving for a while, Lon knew, so he swung his horse around and rode west again, deeper into the hills. He ran across two more jags of cattle and started them on their way as he had the first bunch. He would drive all of the stock ahead of him on his way out of the valley, later in the day.
With the clouds completely obscuring the sun, it was difficult to keep track of the time. Lon's belly told him when it was the middle of the day, however, and by then he had found between thirty and forty cattle and started them moving east.
He didn't stop to eat lunch; that would have been a waste of valuable time. Instead he delved into his saddlebags and found a couple of biscuits and a hunk of sausage that the ranch cook had prepared that morning. His fingers clumsy and awkward in the thick gloves, Lon unwrapped the food and ate in the saddle as he turned back to the east himself.
It was time to get the hell out of there and go home.
The clouds were even thicker now, Lon judged. It looked more like dusk than the middle of the day. And as he swallowed the last of the biscuits and sausage and wished he had a cup of hot coffee to wash down the food, he saw something white drifting down through the air in front of him. His horse shied away from it a little.
Wolf Shadow (Wind River Book 3) Page 2