“Yeah,” Chrisman replied glumly.
A lone man came riding in on a beautiful, high-stepping midnight black with stocking feet. The man was dressed in expensive and tailored clothing, his boots highly polished and costing more than the average cowhand made in six months. The man wore two guns made especially for him, hand-tooled and engraved. 45’s.
Charlie chuckled softly.
“You find something funny about this, Starr?” Hugo snarled at the gunfighter.
“Oh, yeah, Mister Bigshot Rancher. I sure do. He told me just a few months back that he was goin’ into business in this part of the state.”
“Who told you?” Carl yelled at him.
“Watch your mouth, boy,” Charlie told him, “ ’fore I take a notion to slap it off your face.”
“Why, you . . .”
“Shut up!” his father told him. “You’re outclassed, boy.” He looked at Charlie. “You know that duded-up feller?”
“Shore do.” Charlie turned to walk up the boardwalk toward the stranger stepping down from the saddle in front of Simmons’ General Store.
“Well, who is he?” Hugo called.
Charlie turned around, a smile on his face. “That, boys, is one of the richest men in the U-nited States, one of the best gamblers in the world, and one of the fastest guns. He owns railroads, factories, huge cattle ranches, and no tellin’ what else. That, boys, is Louis Longmont.”
Mayor Dale almost swallowed his cigar and Chrisman’s knees got so weak he had to sit down.
“And the sheep coming in belong to him,” Jack Linwood said softly.
“Lord have mercy on us all if anyone messes with his sheep,” Jimmy said.
“He don’t look like much to me,” Carl Raner said, a sneer on his face.
“Boy,” his father told him. “Shut your damned mouth and get the hell back to the ranch!”
* * *
“So I take it the situation around here is very volatile,” Louis said.
“Quite,” Sam said. “And it’s imperative that we all act with as much restraint as possible in order to avert a very calamitous end.”
“What the hell did he say?” Jimmy asked Jack.
The sheriff shook his head. “Don’t ask me. Sounds like his mouth hurts him.”
So as not to appear to be taking sides in anything, the men had decided not to frequent either the saloon or the hotel dining room or Juan’s place. They met in the sheriff’s office.
“Well,” Louis said, “I have done an exhaustive study on sheep ranching and know for a fact that if properly handled, sheep do no harm to the range. I have sheep on my ranch in Montana and other than a few isolated incidents, the cattlemen in that area have left me alone.”
“What happened to them that didn’t?” Linwood asked.
“My people buried them,” Louis said.
* * *
“Get off this range,” a Box H hand told a Lightning puncher. “You boys is causin’ all this grief to folks, so just get off this range.”
“We got strays over here,” the hand stood his ground. “And we aim to get them and push them back onto Raner’s ground. And you can go right straight to hell, cowboy.”
“You’re the one who’s goin’ to hell, slick,” the Box H man said, and jerked iron.
Both men got iron out and both men fired, wounding each other, although not seriously. Both took their stories back to home range, each one saying the other drew first.
“Now just settle down,” Pete told the hand. “This is what them behind the night-ridin’ wants. They want us to kill off each other. Just settle down.”
“Let’s go get them boys,” Blake Vernon’s sons said to their father. The goofy one, Hubby, nodded his head and slobbered on his shirt, his eyes shining with a madness-induced viciousness. Hubby liked to kill. Made him feel good. He’d killed a lot of people in his life, although no one knew about it ’ceptin’ his father and his brother Lane, and they covered it up. Dewey was kept out of it ’cause he was kind of goody-goody. So Hubby felt like he had a license to kill.
And Hubby wasn’t nearly as goofy as he liked people to think. But he had learned early on that the goofier he acted, the less work he had to do around the ranch and the more mischief he could get into without fear of punishment. As a child that mischief was the tormenting of animals; as he grew older, it turned into the killing of drifting cowboys, and the burning down of houses, especially when someone was in them, sleeping—Hubby liked to hear people scream in pain—and rape.
Hubby could read and write and figure. Hubby could think and Hubby could reason. Hubby was a cold-blooded killer who knew exactly what he was doing and enjoyed every moment of it.
“I’ll think on it,” Blake said. “As a matter of fact, it’s my notion that Pete Harris is behind this whole damn night-ridin’ business, tryin’ to get me and Hugo at each other’s throats. How’s Harry?”
“He’s fine. It was just a nick,” Lane told him.
“Get some of the boys together,” Blake said, getting madder by the minute. “We’re riding over to see Pete.”
But before they could get saddled up, a hand came busting up, fresh from talking to a Circle V supporter from town. “Boss!” he yelled. “They’s about ten thousand sheep just a few miles outside of town, comin’ in from tracks’-end . . .”
Blake threw his hat on the ground and cussed. Hubby jumped up and down in excitement. He liked to kill sheep. They were so stupid they just stood there and looked at you while you blowed their brains out.
“. . . But that’s just half the story, boss,” the hand panted. “The sheep is owned by Louis Longmont and he’s in town.”
“Louis Longmont!” Blake yelled.
“Right, boss. Himself in person.”
Blake picked up his hat and leaned against a corral post. It was beginning to come together now. Sure. Bodine and Sam had been stopping by over to Pete’s regular, ever since they rode into this area. Pete brought them in. Had to be. Then Charlie Starr just accidentally shows up. Crap! That was no accident; Pete sent for him. Now Louis Longmont shows up with thousands of sheep. And there was all that free range just north of Pete’s place and Pete had just filed for it, and got it. That no-good . . .
Blake calmed himself. “Rocky, saddle my horse. Couple of you boys come with me. I’ve got to palaver some with Hugo. Rest of you boys break out the ammo from the house. Clean up your guns and fill any empty loops in your belts.”
“We ridin’ tonight, boss?” Frisco, the foreman asked.
Blake nodded his head. “Probably. But it’ll be late. So get some rest. Come on, Kirk, Rich—let’s ride.”
They didn’t get two miles from the house before the long-distance shooter with the Springfield knocked Blake off his horse. If Blake had not turned his head at the last possible second, the big slug would have blown his brains out. As it was, Blake had a graze on his noggin and a whale of a headache.
“Get him!” he roared from the ground, holding a bandanna to his head.
Kirk and Rich didn’t get him, but they got close enough to recognize the horse and the vest on the man. They rode back to their boss.
“It was Coop,” Rich said. “We both recognized his horse and that fancy vest of his. No doubt about it.”
Blake cussed. “Kirk, ride for the Lightning. Tell Hugo about this and tell him I had it figured it was Pete. Tell him to get his boys together and ride for my spread. We hit Pete tonight.”
“I’m gone, boss!”
* * *
Pete had moved his herds to a more protected area, an area where two or three good punchers could contain them for a week or more. Pete stood on his front porch and stared out over that part of his holdings that he could see. He had a funny feeling in his guts. Last time he’d had this feeling, his place had been hit, and hit hard, by Utes.
Millie came to his side. “What’s wrong, Dad?”
“I don’t know. I just got a bad feelin’, is all. Where’s your brother?”
&
nbsp; “He’s been gone all day. Said he had to check over in Devil’s Canyon for strays.”
“Girl, go fetch Shorty for me. Move, girl. Hurry.”
She could sense the urgency in her father’s voice and she ran toward the foreman’s quarters. Shorty came running.
“What’s up, boss?”
“Shorty, you’ve been with me a long time. You remember the last time them Utes came at us?”
“I sure do. That was a heck of a fight.”
“I had this same feelin’ that afternoon, Shorty. Get the hands gathered. Millie, you and your ma break out the rifles and load them up. Get all the ammo from the chest and get ready to pass it out to the boys. Then you and your ma get to makin’ sandwiches. A lot of them. And lots of coffee.”
“Right, Dad.”
The hands gathered, Pete said, “I’m hopin’ I’m wrong, boys, but I got a gut hunch they’s trouble on the wind. And it’s comin’ straight for us. We’ve done this before, so you all know where you’re supposed to be. Get ammo and sandwiches from inside the house and start gettin’ into position. Put the horses in the barn and cut the others loose. We can round them up in the mornin’.”
“Boss,” a hand named Forest said. “There ain’t been no sign of hostiles around here.”
“Oh, I think we’ve been surrounded by them for a long time and just didn’t know it,” Pete replied. “Now get some food and water and get into position.”
* * *
Matt and Sam stepped out of their shack on the edge of town and looked up at the deserted main street. Not one horse was tied to a hitchrail. The afternoon stage had come and gone; no one got off, no one got on.
“I don’t like it,” Sam said. “There’s always some hand from the Box H in town, having a drink or buying some tobacco, or just hanging around talking. Something’s wrong.”
“Have you been consulting the bones again?” Matt needled him with a smile.
“The only bone I’m going to consult is when I put my fist up against your head,” Sam fired back.
“You’d just break your hand.”
“Point made,” Sam scored one. “Brother, what we talked about this morning . . . were you serious?”
“It has to be considered.”
“It would be a terrible thing. Matt, you have no proof.”
“I know it. It’s just something that I’m going to check on. For now, let’s keep it between us.”
“And tomorrow we do a little snooping?”
Tomorrow we do a lot of snooping.”
Sam nodded his agreement. “You talked last with Louis Longmont. What’s his position in all this?”
“He says he won’t get involved unless his camp or his sheep are attacked. Then he said, somebody will pay the piper.”
“Did you take a good look at that bodyguard of his when he drove the wagon in for supplies?”
“Yeah. I’d hate for him to hit me. I think that’s one of the biggest men I’ve ever seen.”
Dusk was settling over the land. The brothers walked up to the sheriff’s office, where they had their meals sent from one of the two eating places, always alternating so as not to show partiality.
Simmons had closed his store. The Red Dog and the Plowshare were open, but had no customers. Impending trouble seemed to hang thick in the air. The brothers stepped into the sheriff’s office and took in the grim looks on the faces of Linwood, Charlie, and Jimmy.
“I take it that we are not alone in our feeling that something is terribly wrong,” Sam said, pouring a mug of coffee. He handed that to Matt and poured one for himself.
“I ain’t usually wrong in my hunches,” Charlie said. “And I got a bad feelin’ about this night.”
A lone horseman came riding slowly into town. The men in the sheriff’s office watched him dismount at the Red Dog.
“That’s Grove from the Lightning spread,” Linwood said. “And he’s ridin’ with his saddlebags full and bedroll tied on. Come on. Let’s find out what’s goin’ on.”
“I quit Raner,” the puncher explained. “That’s what’s goin’ on. That damn sniper tried to kill Blake Vernon today; grazed his head. He says it was Coop from Pete’s place. I don’t believe that. Coop couldn’t hit a bull in the butt with a bass fiddle. Worse shot I ever seen. And I’ve known Coop for ten years. He ain’t got no damn Springfield long rifle.”
“You’re not ridin’ for the brand anymore, Grove. What’s up for tonight?”
Grove hesitated for a moment. He sighed. “They’re gonna hit the Box H tonight. Blake and Raner is convinced Pete and his hands is behind all this night-ridin’.”
“And you?” Charlie asked.
“I don’t believe it. Pete’s always been the peacemaker. He’s always the one who says wait and cool off before you act. But I’ll tell you who’s been actin’ queer of late, and if it’s repeated, it didn’t come from me. That damn Dewey Vernon is doin’ a lot of lonesome ridin’. I been seein’ him from the north end of Devil’s Canyon clear up toward the South Fork. Something is goin’ on that he don’t want his pa to know about.”
The lawmen exchanged glances, each one thinking: that could be the D. But who is the R.?
“I got me a job offer workin’ on a spread down on the Gunnison,” Grove said. “I’m havin’ me a drink and pullin’ out. Good luck to you boys.” He stepped into the saloon and bellied up to the bar
“Let’s ride,” Jack said. “We might get there in time to head this off.” He consulted his pocket watch. “But I doubt it,” he added.
Fourteen
The Circle V and Lightning men hit the Box H ranch an hour after dark. Almost sixty hands struck the ranch hard, coming at the defenders from all sides.
But Pete had had plenty of time to station his men. When the call came that riders were coming hard, Pete’s men lit torches that had been positioned around the yard and then ran back to cover. The first volley from the Box H hands emptied five saddles; two of those who hit the ground did not move. One of the other three tried to limp away into the darkness. Rifle fire hammered him to the ground. He did not move.
Coop was on the front porch of the ranch house, with Pete. Robert had returned and was stationed at the back of the house. Coop was using a shotgun and was taking a dreadful toll on the raiders. He wasn’t much good with a rifle or short gun, but he could play all kinds of hell with a shotgun, and this night he did just that.
Becky and Millie were frontier women, not a pair of shrinking violets. They both had rifles and knew how to use them. Both had experienced Indian attacks and outlaw attacks. They stood their positions and calmly picked their targets amid the wind-whipped torchlight and the swirling dust.
The ranch defenders broke the initial attack, sending the night-riders back out of rifle range. The Circle V and Lightning crews left five dead on the grounds of the Box H and several more wounded. They were gearing up for another charge when Sheriff Jack Linwood and his deputies rode up.
“That’s it!” Jack shouted. “This is the law talkin’. The first man on either side to fire another shot gets arrested for attempted murder of a peace officer, and by God I’ll see that man put in prison for the rest of his life.”
“Them stinkin’ skunks in the ranchhouse tried to kill me today,” Blake shouted through the night and the settling dust. “Pete sent Coop to bushwhack me.”
“You’re a damn liar, Blake!” Pete Harris yelled. “And if I was gonna send somebody, it sure as hell wouldn’t be Coop.”
“He’s right about that, boss,” Frisco, the Circle V foreman, said. “I forgot that Coop couldn’t hit a barn if he was standin’ inside it.”
“You want to file charges, Pete?” Jack yelled.
“No. Just get these polecats off my range and order them to stay off. Now and forever.”
“We got wounded and dead,” Raner hollered.
“Then drag ’em out of here and get gone, God damn you!” Pete shouted.
“Back your men off,” Jack yelled. “I want to he
ar them ride out. Blake and Raner, you and your foremen and a couple of hands stay and gather up your wounded and dead. Everybody lay down your rifles and shove iron back into leather. Now do it!”
The Circle V and Lightning hands backed off and rode out. Linwood and his men rode in. Raner and Blake and their sons and their foremen came in and began gathering up horses and loading the dead and wounded. The Box H hands held their positions and waited.
“It ain’t over,” Hugo Raner promised. “All you done this night, Linwood, was put the showdown off for another day.”
“I ain’t got nothin’ to gain by makin’ war on you or nobody else, you damn fool,” Pete yelled from the porch. “Now think about that on the ride back home.”
“You want it all!” Blake said from his saddle. “We know all about you sendin’ for Bodine and Two Wolves. We know you sent for Longmont and them damn stinkin’ sheep.”
“You’re crazy!” Pete said. “Crazy as a lizard!”
“Where’d you hear that crap?” Bodine asked from the saddle. “And that’s what it is, crap!”
“Are you callin’ me a liar, Bodine?” Blake asked.
“No, I’m not,” Bodine eased the tension some. “What I am saying is that whoever told you that Pete sent for me and Sam doesn’t know what in the hell they’re talking about. And Louis Longmont can’t be bought. He’s already a millionaire ten times over.”
“Now think about this,” Sam said. “If neither of you are behind the night-riders, and Pete isn’t . . . who is? And why?” Sam looked at Dewey, standing beside his father. “And why have you been doing so much lonesome riding?”
“What—what?” his father sputtered. “What do you mean by that? What are you accusin’ my boy of here, anyway?”
“I’m not accusing him of anything. But he’s been spotted—more than once—ranging miles from his home base, and at some unusual hours, too.” Sam wasn’t sure about that, but he thought he’d toss it in for spice.
Blake stepped down from the saddle. “Is that true, boy?”
The young man shuffled his boots in the dirt and refused to answer.
“I asked you a question, boy. I expect some sort of answer.”
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