“Where are they?” Sam called.
He got his answer when a shot rang out and the citizen slumped to the street, a smoking hole in the back of his coat.
Matt walked to the batwings, pushed them open, and lifted his .44. He plugged the deputy who’d killed the citizen, the slug stopping the man in his tracks and sending him twisting to the street, the pistol dropping from his hands.
“The rooftops, boys!” a woman yelled.
A deputy lifted a rifle and took aim at the woman standing in the doorway of the general store. Matt and Sam fired as one. The rifle dropped to the awning, bounced, and fell to the street. The deputy fell right through the awning, his left boot catching on a rafter and holding him there head-down, dangling and dead.
The shoulder-shot deputy staggered out, a gun in his left hand and an oath on his lips. Matt stepped out of his lurching way and tripped the man, sending him stumbling out into the street. His own people filled full of lead.
“Jesus!” came the cry. “We kilt Benny.”
Matt pulled the sheriff to his knees and stuck a gun under the man’s chin and cocked it. “Tell your men to throw down their guns or you die right here, right now.”
The sheriff’s mouth was busted and bleeding, but he managed to get the words out, for all the good it did him.
“You go to hell, Les!” a deputy said. “Who cares if your brains gets blowed out? More money for us.”
“Real loyal group of men you have, Sheriff,” Sam said, after they dragged the sheriff back into the saloon. “Faithful and true right to the end, I’d say.”
Matt dragged the barkeep to his feet. “Get some rope,” he told him.
With the sheriff hog-tied, the brothers went headhunting, leaving out the back door and walked through the alley. A woman held out a platter of hot buttered biscuits to them through an open window.
“It’s little enough I can do if you boys clean out this den of thieves and murderers. There’s not a decent man among those who call themselves lawmen.”
“We’ll do our best,” Sam assured her, as the brothers partook generously of the treat. They walked on, guns in their right hands and their left hands filled with biscuits.
A hard-faced man with a Remington in each hand stepped around the corner of a building. His eyes widened with shock at the sight of the brothers, munching and chewing, melted butter dripping from their hands.
“What the hell . . . !” he said.
Matt laid the barrel of his .44 across the man’s face and knocked him reeling. He whacked him again for good measure and tossed his guns into the weeds.
The brothers slipped into the space between buildings where the deputy had popped out of and made their way to the street. A man with a rifle spotted them and yelled, “There they are!”
Matt winged him. The man yelped and dropped his rifle. It clattered on the boardwalk. His mistake was in reaching for it. Sam shot him clean and the lawless, on-the-take deputy sprawled on the boards. He would take no more.
“God damn you!” the shout came from a vacant store across the street. “Who are you people?”
“Matt Bodine and Sam Two Wolves!” the barkeep hollered.
All was quiet for several moments, then the sounds of galloping horses came to the brothers. The last two deputies had made the wisest of choices and were hauling their ashes.
They pulled the deputy with a knot on his noggin to his boots. “You want a biscuit?” Sam asked him. “I’m full.”
The man cussed him. “I demand a trial!” he said. “I think it’s going to be a very short one,” Sam replied.
The citizens of the small town were tossing a rope around a tree limb when the brothers swung into the saddle. They had the mayor, the sheriff, and one deputy up on horses, their hands tied behind their backs. None of the men looked very happy. All of them gave Matt and Sam a thorough cussing.
“Bless you boys!” a man called. “You’re welcome back anytime.”
Matt and Sam waved at him and rode out of town. They had decided to return to Dale. The trail of the outlaws was just too cold to follow. But they had cut the size of the Raley gang down by four.
* * *
The stink of the remains of the charred hotel was strong as the brothers reached the edge of town. They rode slowly by the burned-out hotel. Clean-up had begun, and bodies were still being pulled from the rubble. The brothers stepped down from the saddle and handed the reins to the liveryman with instructions to rub the horses down and feed them. The brothers walked up the street to the sheriff’s office.
Pete Harris, Hugo Raner, and some of their crews were standing on the boardwalk across the street from the ruins. The men were hard-faced and grim-appearing. Deputies stood between them, so the men could not get too close to one another. Pete spoke; Hugo did not.
“It was set deliberately,” Charlie said. “I sniffed out the kerosene. Real strong smell near the back of the hotel. Some of the rags didn’t burn. Looks like the fire was set in the rooms of Robert and Denise.”
“How many died?” Sam asked.
“We still don’t know for sure,” Jack said. “Only a few made it out. They had to jump from the second floor. One of them is in bad shape. Doc says it’s a miracle the man is still alive. His back is broke.”
Matt told the lawmen what had gone down in the county north of them.
Jack smiled. “Ol’ Les got hisself hung, huh? Good. Couldn’t have happened to a more deservin’ person. Them folks up yonder will elect them a sheriff proper and Raley and his bunch will have to hunt a new place to roost.”
“And that’ll be here in this county?” Sam asked.
“I ’magine. That’ll make it some easier for us to find them and get rid of them.”
Charlie had walked over to the ranch owners and joined Jimmy in keeping the two factions apart.
“What’s goin’ on over there?” Matt asked.
“Raner’s blowin’ off steam,” Jack said. “Blamin’ it all on Pete and the sheepmen and farmers.”
“The fire?” Sam asked.
“Ever’thing,” Jack replied. “I didn’t try to enforce the gun law. Even Pete was actin’ like he might bow up at that. I talked it over with the town council, and they said to hell with it. Ever’body in town is armed, so I couldn’t very well set no double standard.”
“That trash son of yours is responsible for this, too,” Raner yelled at Pete. “He corrupted my good girl.”
Pete said nothing in reply. His eyes were full of sorrow as he looked across the street at the rubble.
“Have they found Robert and Denise yet?” Sam asked.
“Not yet,” Simmons said, taking a break from the clean-up work. “But they’ll be pulling out what’s left of them within the hour, I imagine. That’s the last section.”
As the charred boards and rafters were pulled away, they were watered down and then loaded into wagons, to be transported outside of town and dumped.
“Here they are!” a man shouted, then he staggered out of the ruins, sick to his stomach at what he’d just seen.
Raner walked across the street. Pete stayed away, not wanting to view the terrible sight. Their kids had given the men all sorts of grief; but they were still flesh and blood, no matter what they’d done.
“Where’s Blake?” Matt asked, after looking around and not spotting any Circle V hands.
“Good question,” Jack replied. “He ain’t been seen in three days, and neither has any of his hands. Both Raner and Blake has hired on more men at fightin’ wages. It’s gonna blow wide open any hour and there ain’t nothin’ none of us can do about it except stand back and let her bang. Then we can go in and pick up the pieces.”
“And help bury the dead,” Sam added.
“Yeah.”
Hugo Raner broke down and wept as what was left of his daughter was removed from the jumble of charred wood. He got control of himself and pointed a finger at Jack Linwood. “You want war?” he screamed. “By God, I’ll give you war! Th
ere won’t be a goddamn nester or sheepman left alive in this county. I swear on the bones of this dead girl of mine, I’ll kill ever’ damn one of them.”
“No farmer or sheepman started this fire, Raner,” the sheriff called across the expanse of street. “You know that.”
“No, I don’t know that!” Raner yelled. “What I do know is that we didn’t have no trouble in this county ’til them damn nesters and sheepmen come in. That’s when the trouble started. And that’s who will pay!” He pointed at Pete. “And you’ll pay with them, Pete. You sucked up to them and took their side. That makes you no friend of mine.”
“I lost a child in there, too, Hugo,” Pete called.
“Damn lousy no-good is what you lost!” Hugo yelled.
“Good, good,” Dale said, a smile on his face as he sat listening through the open window of his bank office. “That’s the kind of talk I like to hear.”
“Now we just sit back and let them kill off each other,” Chrisman said. “Then we go in and pick up the gold and silver and live like kings for the rest of our lives.”
“Yes,” said Hugo. One of us will, he thought.
Chrisman smiled. One of us will, he thought.
Raner continued cussing farmers, sheepmen, Bodine, Two Wolves, Pete Harris, and Jack Linwood as his daughter’s charred body was wrapped in a blanket and placed in the bed of a wagon. He got his horse and swung into the saddle.
He rode over to where Matt and Sam were standing with a knot of men and women on the boardwalk. He opened his mouth to hurl more threats and Jack cut him off short.
“Don’t say no more about what you’re gonna do, Hugo. You’re carryin’ a load of grief now, and you’re sayin’ things that I just don’t believe you mean. Take your daughter and go on back home. Get drunk. Shoot at rocks and trees and the sky. Get it out of your system. But don’t threaten me no more this day. Get out of here.”
Raner swung his horse’s head and galloped out of town, his crew right behind him, the death wagon rolling slowly along.
“I’ll go get my boy now,” Pete said.
“Did you bring a wagon?” Matt asked.
The rancher shook his head. “We’ll bury him here in the town cemetery. Now. Today. No big service. Get a box ready, Shorty. Then go fetch the preacher.”
“Right, boss,” the foreman said, and walked off toward the undertaker’s place.
Matt and Sam walked across the street with the rancher, both men pulling on gloves. They helped Pete pull out the remains of his son—identified by a ring on his right hand—and place the body in a blanket. It was gruesome work and the men were relieved when it was over and done with.
Pete looked at them, and nodded his thanks, and the brothers walked to their shack to clean up.
The brothers bathed, shaved, and dressed in clean clothing, then strolled back up the street to the livery. They made sure their horses were getting all the grain they wanted, then walked to Juan’s café for something to eat. Doc Lemmon walked in and joined them.
“There is a terribly cold-blooded killer in this town,” the doctor said. “I agree with Charlie Starr: that fire was deliberately set . . . set knowing that innocent men and women would die a horrible death.”
“Oh, it was either Chrisman or Dale or somebody they hired,” Sam said. “They felt they had to get rid of Robert Harris and Denise Raner. Sooner or later those two would have become a thorn in their sides.”
“Yeah, I’ve always believed that Robert was a little too quick to confess. He was holding something back. What, I don’t know.”
“Whatever it is, he’s taking it to the grave,” Doc Lemmon said.
“Yes,” Sam said. “And that’s the way Dale and Chrisman planned it.”
“I wonder who else they want silenced forever?” the doctor mused aloud.
As before, something didn’t add up in Matt’s brain. Something was very wrong, and it was nagging at him. It was something that had happened this day, or something he’d seen or heard, but he couldn’t pin it down. But it would come to him, he was sure of that.
The only thing that bothered him was that it might come too late to do any good. Or to save a life.
Maybe his or Sam’s.
Twenty-one
Raner scarcely got his daughter in the ground before he struck and struck hard. He personally led an attack on a farmhouse and wiped out every person there. He and his men shot every hog, cow, horse, chicken, and dog, then burned the house and outbuildings. And Raner and his men made no effort to hide their tracks. They led straight back to the Lightning range.
“Yeah,” Rusty the foreman told Matt and Sam the next morning. “We was all out for a ride last night. We seen that damn nester’s place go up in flames, and then we rode over and seen what had happened. Then we come back to the spread.”
“Why didn’t you report it?” Matt asked.
“’Cause I hope ever’ damn hog-farmer and sheepman in this county gets the same treatment, that’s why, Bodine.”
Matt and Sam could do little except stare at the man. The coldness in the foreman shocked them both. This was not some wild-eyed savage, not some person brought up in a totally different culture, but a man who, probably, was brought up much the same as any other western born-and-bred person. What had changed him into this child-killer? Neither man had a clue.
“I’ll tell you this, Rusty,” Matt said, his words hard as flint. “If I wasn’t wearing this badge on my chest, I’d kill you right now.”
Rusty paled under his tan. “I told you we rode by. That’s all we done.”
“Wrong, Rusty,” Sam told him. “The boy you bastards trampled lived long enough to identify a half a dozen of you scum. He recognized Buck because of his missing front teeth. He recognized your mustang. He saw Hugo Raner in person. Oh, don’t worry, Rusty. The little boy died. So his word won’t go in a court of law. But you people won’t kill off all the farmers and sheepmen. It’s backfired on you, Rusty. Now, wherever you go, the word’s gone out among the farmers. Any hand riding a Circle V- or Lightning-branded horse . . . they’re going to shoot you out of the saddle. Or I will,” he added softly.
“God damn it, we was here first!” Rusty flared. “We tamed this land. We fought Injuns and outlaws and storms and floods. The cattlemen belong here.”
“But there’s two things you didn’t do, Rusty,” Matt told him. “And that’s where cattlemen like me and Sam here, and my dad and lots of others, got it on you. You didn’t file on it, and you didn’t buy it. Now you think you can keep it at the point of a gun. You might for a while; but not for long. Decent people are not going to put up with the killing of women and children. But you wouldn’t know anything about that, Rusty, because you don’t work for a decent man, and if you ever had a streak of decency in you, it’s long gone.”
“You get off Lightning range and you go to hell, Bodine!” Rusty turned his horse and rode away.
“I have a plan,” Sam said, with a very wicked smile on his lips.
“Let’s hear it, brother.”
A moment later, both men rode back toward town, both of them laughing.
* * *
Nearly every citizen in town turned out for it—with the exception of two—and Pete Harris and all his family and crew rode in, as did Louis Longmont, all the sons and daughters of sheepmen and farmers, and all the hands from the Spur, Horseshoe, Bar K, and Double D. By the end of the day, three hundred and seventy people had filed on and now owned fifty-nine thousand, two hundred acres of Circle V and Lightning range.
* * *
“They done what?” Hugo screamed.
Blake Vernon repeated what he’d been told.
“They can’t do that!” Hugo bellowed.
“Well, they done it,” Blake told him. “Last week. And every man, woman, and child who can carry a board and swing a hammer is provin’ up on it right this minute.”
“You bring your hands with you?”
“No. Just a few.”
“Well,
hell, man! Go get them ready and let’s go show them people who’s boss.” He jumped up and reached for his gunbelt, swinging around his waist.
“Sit down,” Blake said softly. “Don’t be a fool. This was planned out careful. There’s two U. S. Marshals in this area out of the Denver office. We show any kind of force and we’re in big trouble with the U. S. Government. They’ll send troops in here. And that is something I sure don’t want.”
Hugo Raner picked up a whiskey bottle and hurled it across the room. Then he sat down in his chair and cussed.
* * *
“It’s all coming apart!” Chrisman said, mopping his sweating face with a handkerchief. “It’s out of control! Getting rid of two or three people on the land is one thing, but Jesus Christ, Dale, now we’ve got over three hundred people squatting.”
“You’re giving me a headache, Chrisman,” Dale said. “Please shut up and sit down. We have to think.”
Chrisman sat down, but he didn’t shut up. “It was a dumb move on our part not to file with the rest of the town.”
“I realize that now. But they haven’t filed on the land where the vein runs—north or south of the river. Our plan can still work.”
“On top of everything else, Dale, now we have a Pinkerton man in town from St. Louis.”
“What the hell does he want?”
“The remains of two people who died in the fire, he says.”
“But they were all shipped back by train. I personally gave money for that.”
“Obviously, two weren’t. Why else would he be here?”
“It’s just a mix-up. The bodies are in some train depot somewhere. My God, they must be stinking by now.”
“Well, he’s sure asking a lot of questions.”
“He’s mistaken; he’s looking in the wrong spot. Everybody who died in that fire was identified and either buried or shipped back to their families. Forget him. He’ll soon move on.”
“What do we do about the land-filing?”
Dale shrugged. “Nothing we can do, Chrisman. It’s just a ploy, that’s all. Most of those people won’t prove up their sections. Conditions will settle down. We just have to wait and be careful.”
Gunsmoke and Gold Page 17