Hard Ride to Hell (9780786031191)

by Johnstone, William W.

  The Colonel’s mansion was one of the first things that had been built. It was at the western end of the settlement on a slight rise, so that it looked east along the main street. That was the way the town was designed, so the Colonel could step out onto his verandah in the morning and watch the sun rise over what he had made, the creator surveying his creation in all his godlike power.

  Randall knew that people were eyeing him and his companions warily as they rode along the street toward the big, three-story mansion. There were plenty of reasons for that wariness. The riders were lean from the trail, covered with dust, hard-bitten faces stubbled by a week’s worth of beard. They looked like a pack of wolves, Randall thought, and that’s exactly what they were: the Colonel’s gun-wolves.

  The fact that their leader had a baby cradled in his arms just added a touch of confusion to the townspeople’s reactions.

  They reined to a halt at the wrought-iron gate between two stone columns that sat in front of the mansion. Holding the baby carefully, Randall swung down from the saddle. He looked up at the other men and said, “That’s it. You’ve done your job. I’ll see you later with your pay.”

  Page said, “Now that we’re back, I don’t mind tellin’ you, Randall . . . you didn’t have to kill Dwyer.”

  “If you think you’ve got a score to settle with me, Page, we can take it up later.”

  Page shook his head and said, “I didn’t say I had a score to settle with you. I’m just sayin’ you didn’t have to kill him. You shot him because you wanted to. Because he shot that squaw.”

  Randall drew in a deep breath.

  “Leave it alone, Page.”

  “Sure.” Page lifted his reins. “But you know what you did, and why.”

  He turned his horse away. One by one, so did the other men.

  Randall swallowed the anger that tried to come up his throat. He recognized its bitter, sour taste. He turned to the gate, opened it, and went up the flagstone walk to the house.

  The door opened before he got there. A woman stood there, fair-haired, serenely beautiful, seemingly younger than the strands of gray among her blond hair said she really was. She smiled and said, “Welcome back, Mr. Randall.”

  “Mrs. Dayton,” he said with a curt nod. “The Colonel’s expecting me.”

  “Indeed, he is. He’s waiting for you in the library.” She moved aside to let him pass, adding, “He’s expecting you to have the young woman with you as well.”

  “It’s a long story,” Randall said.

  A long, ugly story.

  But the end was in sight now.

  Chapter 27

  Colonel Hudson Ritchie wore a cream-colored suit, the sort of getup that Southern plantation owners wore, but that was the only thing he had in common with those Confederate sons of bitches. He had put many of their homes to the torch, back when he was wearing the blue of the Union cavalry, and as far as he was concerned, they deserved all the devastation that he had brought upon them.

  He was a good-sized man, medium height but broad-shouldered, with some of the vitality of youth remaining to him despite the fact that he was getting on in years. A fringe of gray hair worn long remained around his ears and the back of his head. Otherwise his scalp was smoothly bald. His forehead bulged slightly, which he had always taken as a sign of his superior intelligence. His brain was so large that his head wasn’t quite big enough for it.

  He stood at the window in the library with a snifter of brandy in his hand. Since this room was at the back of the house, it didn’t have a view of the town—his town—but from it he could see the mountains on the far side of the basin and all the rich landscape in between. He was already a rich man, but this basin, along with the help of his friends and associates back in Washington, was going to make him wealthy beyond compare.

  That wealth would open the doors to even more power. In a few years, he would be in Washington himself, he thought. It was only a matter of time. And once he was there, there was no limit to what he might achieve. Even, if he dared to think about it, the White House....

  A door opened, but it was the one leading into the library, not the corridors of power in the nation’s capital. Mrs. Dayton said, “Mr. Randall is here, Colonel.”

  Ritchie turned away from the window. He set his brandy on the desk, where the volume of Machiavelli he’d been reading earlier lay closed. He stood ramrod straight as the big man came into the library carrying a baby.

  Ritchie almost called his subordinate “Lieutenant.” Randall had carried that rank by the end of the war, and some days the Colonel had trouble remembering that those days were so far in the past.

  Randall stiffened as well, and Colonel Ritchie knew the man’s first impulse was to come to attention and salute. Such formality was no longer required, of course, but once something like that had been ingrained in a man, it was hard to forget.

  “Colonel,” Randall said. “It’s good to see you again.”

  “And you, Randall,” Ritchie said in his smooth, powerful voice, a voice meant for making speeches. “I see you have the lad.” Right to business, as always. “Where is his mother?”

  Randall drew in a breath. His back stiffened even more. He said, “I’m sorry to have to tell you, Colonel, that I don’t have the woman. She was killed on the way here.”

  Anger boiled up inside Ritchie. He knew better than to let it control him, so he suppressed it and said, “Your orders were to bring both the woman and the child to me, Mr. Randall.”

  “Yes, sir, I know. I made my best effort to do so. Her death was . . . unavoidable.”

  The Colonel sensed that Randall was lying to him, or at least shading the truth. That was unacceptable. He snapped, “Tell me exactly what happened, in detail. Start at the beginning. I’ll decide whether or not your failure to follow orders was unavoidable.”

  For the next few minutes, Randall gave him the same sort of report he would have expected about a military campaign. That was the way the Colonel planned his operations, and that was the way he expected them to be carried out. The raid on the Assiniboine village sounded like it had been conducted properly, but when Randall told him how the Indian woman called Wildflower had died, it was all the Colonel could do to keep his rage from exploding.

  In an icy voice, he said, “You were derelict in your duty, Randall. You should have kept a close personal guard over the woman at all times, and if you were unable to do so, you should have delegated that assignment to a man who could be trusted.”

  “Yes, sir,” Randall said. “You’re absolutely right. I take full responsibility.”

  “As well you should.” The Colonel forced himself to move past his anger. “However, all is not lost. Thanks to the precaution you took of making sure the woman’s body isn’t discovered, we can proceed almost as planned. You’re certain the body won’t be found?”

  “We buried her at the bottom of a ravine and then caved in the bank on top of the grave,” Randall said. “No one will ever know what happened.”

  “Very good. I’ll dispatch a fast rider immediately. Within a week’s time, my demands will be delivered to this Assiniboine chief Two Bears. If he wishes to see his daughter and grandson again, he and his tribe will vacate the land they currently occupy, title to which will be transferred from the government to the railroad so construction can begin.”

  Randall looked down at the child in his arms, then raised his head and asked, “Sir, why didn’t your associates in the Ring just use the army to run off those redskins? Why go to the trouble of kidnapping the woman and the little boy?”

  “I’m not in the habit of explaining my tactical decisions to subordinates, Lieu—Mr. Randall.” The Colonel picked up the brandy snifter from the desk and drained what was left of the smooth, fiery liquor. “However, since you and I have been together for so long, I’ll make an exception this time. The same strategy occurred to me. The Assiniboine weren’t even granted that land by treaty, so there wouldn’t be a problem of breaking it. But they’ve bee
n friendly with the white settlers for many years, and with the army as well. My associates believed that it would look bad in the public eye to force them off the land that is traditionally theirs.” Scorn dripped from the Colonel’s voice. “You know it’s politicians making the decisions, not soldiers, when the first consideration is how something looks. But after the scandals of a few years ago, they’re leery of appearing too greedy, I suppose. They’d rather pull strings behind the scenes.” The Colonel’s brawny shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. “I’m a practical man, Randall. I have to cooperate with those who can assist me in achieving my goals. The Assiniboine will leave their land seemingly of their own free will, and the boy will be restored to his grandfather.”

  “What happens when Two Bears finds out he won’t be getting his daughter back?”

  “By then construction of the railroad will already be underway. The only way for the Assiniboine to reclaim their land would be by going to war against the United States, Randall.” The Colonel smiled. “Some ragtag band of redskins against the combined might of this great nation? The very idea is ludicrous. We’ve crushed all the Indian opposition so far, and we’ll continue to do so.”

  “They’d be the ones who’d look like they turned hostile,” Randall mused. “Nobody would care if the army wiped them out.”

  “Precisely. And so progress continues, as it was ordained.”

  Randall nodded slowly and said, “Thanks for telling me all this, Colonel. That’s pretty much the way I had it figured, but it’s nice to know for sure. What do I do with the baby?”

  “Give it to Mrs. Dayton. She’ll care for it.”

  “Him, Colonel. Little Hawk’s a boy.”

  “What? Yes, of course,” Ritchie said peevishly.

  “He’s still nursing. You’ll need to find a woman whose tits have milk.”

  “Don’t be crude, Randall. I leave everything to Mrs. Dayton. She’ll handle the situation.”

  “Yes, sir,” Randall said.

  The Colonel gave him a nod of dismissal. Randall started to turn away, then paused.

  “Colonel, again, I’m sorry for what happened.”

  “We’ll make the best of it,” Ritchie said. “And we’ll succeed in achieving our goals.”

  “There’s one more thing. . . .”

  “Well? Spit it out, Lieutenant.” The Colonel didn’t bother to correct himself this time.

  “Even though they never caught up to us, it’s possible that some of the Indians trailed us here. They might still cause trouble.”

  The Colonel smiled and said, “There’s a simple way to handle that problem.”

  “Sir?”

  “If you see one of the filthy red heathens, Randall, just kill him. That’s all. Just kill him.”

  Preacher leaned forward in his saddle to ease stiff muscles and looked out over the basin spread before him. It was a beautiful place, and he remembered riding through here a number of times in the past, starting in his fur-trapping days as a young man. He hadn’t visited these parts in seven or eight years, though.

  There was one very important change since the last time he’d been here.

  “There’s a doggone town down there now,” he said to Standing Rock. “That’s new.”

  “White men are everywhere,” Standing Rock said. “Like lice.”

  Preacher grunted.

  “That’s one way to look at it, I reckon. But the trail leads straight toward that settlement. That’s bound to be where those varmints took Wildflower and Little Hawk.”

  For the past couple of days, Preacher and Standing Rock had been pushing the rescue party hard. Even at that faster pace, they hadn’t been able to catch up to the kidnappers. The gunmen just had too big a lead.

  Preacher was confident that they would have caught up sooner or later . . . but now it looked like the kidnappers had reached their destination. The whole thing still made no sense to him, but he had a hunch all the answers could be found in that settlement he hadn’t known existed until now.

  Standing Rock said, “We will ride in and force the white men to tell us where my wife and child are. Someone there will know.”

  “Hold on, hold on,” Preacher said. “You can’t just ride into a settlement, start grabbin’ folks, and demandin’ answers.”

  Standing Rock lifted his rifle.

  “That is exactly what I mean to do,” he said.

  “Yeah, and you’ll get yourself killed mighty quick-like, too. For one thing, if the men we’re lookin’ for are there, and I’m bettin’ they are, they’ll be on the lookout for us. For another, if a bunch of Injuns go in there actin’ hostile, folks won’t take the time to find out why you’re upset. They’ll just commence to shootin’. You’ve got enough sense to know that, Standin’ Rock.”

  “Then what do you think we should do, old man?” the warrior asked.

  Preacher scratched at his beard and said, “I’ll tell you what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna find a good place to camp that’s still a ways outta that town, but not too far off. Then you and your men are gonna squat right there for the time bein’. Stay outta sight and don’t let anybody know you’re around.”

  “And what will you be doing while we do that?” Standing Rock asked, sounding doubtful.

  “Why, I figured I’d take a look into that town and see if I can find out what’s what,” Preacher replied. “Those varmints don’t know I was there when they attacked your village, and they don’t know I been trailin’ ’em with you.” A grin stretched across his whiskery face. “Besides, who’d ever suspect a harmless ol’ geezer like me of lookin’ for trouble?”

  Chapter 28

  Irene Dayton was waiting outside the library doors when Randall came out with the Indian baby. She’d been eavesdropping, of course. She always did. She considered that part of her job because it helped her take care of the Colonel.

  Randall said, “The Colonel told me to give him to you.”

  “Of course,” Irene said with a nod. “I’ll take him.”

  She held out her hands, but Randall hesitated and didn’t give her the baby just yet. Instead, he held the little boy under the arms and lifted him so he could look into the youngster’s round face.

  “He’s a fighter,” Randall said. “Yells all the time, and if you try to do something he doesn’t like, he’ll kick you.”

  Irene smiled and said, “All babies are like that, Mr. Randall. Well, most of them, anyway. If a baby is too quiet and docile, it’s a sure sign there’s something wrong.”

  “This one’s fine, then. I wouldn’t call him quiet and docile, not by a long shot.”

  He handed over the child, adding, “His name’s Little Hawk.”

  “I know.” Irene brought the baby close to her, her right arm around his bottom, her left hand supporting his head. “When did he eat last?”

  “It’s been a while. I’ve been giving him pieces of bread soaked in sugar water.”

  “He needs more than that. There’s a Mexican woman, the wife of one of the laborers, who gave birth a couple of weeks ago. She should have more than enough milk. I’ll send for her.”

  “Fine,” Randall said with a nod. “Thank you.” He started up the hall toward the front door, then paused and looked back. “Take good care of him.”

  “Of course, Mr. Randall,” Irene said with a smile. “Don’t worry. He’ll be fine. I know how important he is to Colonel Ritchie.”

  Randall just grunted and went on out of the house.

  Irene headed for her quarters. The Colonel had expected to keep the Indian woman and the baby together and had a room set aside for them on the third floor where they would have been under guard around the clock.

  However, Irene liked to prepare for any eventuality, so she had taken the liberty of preparing a place for the child in her room. True, it was only an empty crate with the lid pried off, half-filled with blankets so it would be nice and soft. A crude, makeshift excuse for a cradle, to be sure, but she thought the baby would be comfortable
enough in it. At this age, they didn’t care about much except getting enough to eat and having a good place to sleep. Irene would see to it that Little Hawk had both of those things.

  Randall had gotten attached to the baby while they were traveling here from the Assiniboine village. Irene had been able to see that in the big man’s eyes. Well, it came as no surprise. Even the most hardened gunman’s heart might melt slightly after being around a child.

  She wondered if having the baby around might melt the Colonel’s heart, even the tiniest bit.

  “Oh, no,” she said aloud as she asked herself that question.

  Nothing could melt Colonel Hudson Ritchie’s heart.

  Preacher could tell that the settlement hadn’t been there for very long. Six months, maybe. No more than a year, for sure. Many of the buildings looked new. The weather had hardly faded the raw lumber.

  Some of the buildings along the main street were still empty, too, and Preacher could tell by looking that they had never been occupied. They were waiting for businesses to move in.

  The houses and cabins along the side streets were different. They had people living in them. Smoke rose from their chimneys. It took a lot of citizens to build and run a town of this size, and unless some disaster happened, likely it would just get bigger. Once ranchers and homesteaders moved into this lush basin, there would be plenty of support for the town.

  One thing was missing, though, and Preacher’s eyes narrowed as he thought about it.

  “Howdy, old-timer!”

  The friendly voice calling to him broke into his musings. He looked over and saw a man standing in front of the bat-winged entrance of a saloon. Unlike some of the other buildings in town, this one was occupied and open for business.