Mustang (A John Cutler Western Book 5)

by H. V. Elkin

  Confusion. Dave Baker was a complex man and his feelings did not fall into a single category. Two of the mares in this band had once belonged to him, and maintaining the value of his property was even more important to him than it was to Harmon. Estate value was not a matter of greed to Baker. It was one way he showed his neighbors that he was as good as they were. He was proud that he did not have the smallest ranch in the area, proud that it had been acquired through more difficulties than the others. Nobody ever gave him a start in life. What he had, he had earned through being smart and knowing how to work hard, what he had represented, for all his white neighbors to see, what he was. Their future generations would try to prove their lack of bigotry by pointing to him and saying things like, “Why, look at Dave Baker. A finer man you’d never hope to see.” It was a great accomplishment in 1896 to be a success in the white man’s world, to have beat him at his own game. So pride had something to do with Baker acquiring more horses. Besides that, as he had said before, he identified with the stallion.

  Like Baker, the stallion had carved out his own property by cleverness and diligence. The stallion stood out among horses as an exceptional animal. For that reason, Baker hated to think of the stallion being captured and made to conform to the world of man. And finally, Baker had something the others in the hunting party did not have, something he would never admit to them, something he did not realize made him truly superior, and that was a sense of poetry. He saw in the wild horses a symbol of what the West had always been about—the freedom, the independence, the living of life to its fullest, the sense that what you had depended entirely on who you were, not on who you knew or what you inherited from your father—the things that were changing, that some of the others in the hunting party were working to change, that Dave Baker would defend if he had to till his dying breath.

  Excitement. For all of them there was the thrill of the chase, the possibility of success, of winning against the odds. And Mesteño had proved himself a worthy adversary many times before tonight. This was the closest he had ever been to capture. And now that feeling of excitement supplanted all the others as it looked like the odds might once more be turning in the stallion’s favor.

  The snow had made it easy to track the herd. Thanks to the snow, the horses were now in danger of capture. But could it be? Was Mesteño using the very thing that had been his disadvantage to assure his success and victory again?

  When the mares might have sensed the hopelessness of their predicament and finally stopped their circling, when any other band of mustangs would have given up, they did not slow down. If anything, they increased their pace. When the moon hit just right, the riders could see the reason for this senseless behavior. Mesteño was merciless in the way he urged them on, wagging his head, nipping at their flanks. And as their speed picked up, they kicked up more snow until they were lost in the cloud they made. Now the riders could see nothing but whiteness. They fired their guns wildly in the air, never knowing when was the right time to do so, never knowing where the horses were in all that whiteness. The snow cloud rose high and spread to the riders until they could barely see each other.

  Then, faster than molten lead poured from a crucible, there was a movement between Harmon and Chase. The force of it caused Chase’s horse to rear, the unexpectedness of it throwing Chase to the ground opposite the thunder. In the confusion and the blindness of it, the riders had to let their horses decide where they would go. It was either that or, like Chase, risk being thrown and trampled. They were all caught in a white hell. There was the danger that could not be seen and was more frightening for that reason, the frightened sounds of the riders’ horses, and the sound of the thunder that no bullet could stop.

  Then, like the subsiding of pain, the thunder was in the distance and the whiteness began to settle.

  “Anyone hurt?” Harmon yelled into the growing silence.

  He was answered with a chorus of yells, some angry, some joyful at the fun of the adventure, some confused. But only Chase was hurt and had acquired a limp in his right leg, a hurt that his anger overrode.

  “Damn it, Ben, we should’ve shot ’em when we had the chance!”

  Harmon ignored this. “Everyone who can still ride, we still got a trail to follow and a cloud of snow to see. They got to tire soon. And they’ve been workin’ harder than we have. Let’s go get ’em!”

  A yell of agreement but not as confident as Harmon. And they created their own cloud as they rode off toward the retreating herd. No one yelled anything while they were still in pursuit. There was still hope for victory, one which they held onto through sheer willpower over the three-mile chase, until the cloud disappeared ahead of them and the sound of the mustangs was blurred in the snowy landscape. The mustangs were not too tired to outrun the fresher horses of the hunters. The mustangs had more to run for. The riders pulled up. Harmon looked back to see Chase, who had recovered his horse, and was racing to catch up.

  “Why’d you stop?” he asked when he pulled up alongside Harmon.

  “It’s no use,” Harmon said. “We can’t catch ’em.”

  “Well, I can!” Chase pulled a rifle from his saddle boot.

  “I don’t want that mustang shot!” Harmon yelled. “You can’t catch him, I’m tellin’ you! But even if you could, I want that horse alive!”

  “Ben, you’ll never get Mesteño alive, don’t you get that?”

  Harmon looked down at his saddle horn and shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I ought to let you try your way.”

  “No!” Ellen shouted, her eyes shining. “No, Pa! You can’t have an animal like that killed!”

  “Don’t want to, girl. Don’t really want to. That’s a very valuable piece of horseflesh for the man that can get him. Don’t want him killed at all. But maybe, like some say, we got to think how we’re gonna keep the stock we still got. Maybe it’s time to start thinkin’ about that.”

  “Now you’re talkin’,” Chase said. “I’ll set out after those broomtails tomorrow, and I’ll bring you back the head of that stallion, Ben. Wait and see if I don’t.”

  “No, Pa!”

  Harmon looked at his daughter. “I don’t know what else we can do, Ellen. Tell me, what else can we do?”

  She looked away in confusion. “I don’t know, but . . .”

  “Guess I feel a lot like Ellen does,” Baker said. “Part of me, anyway, hates to see the horse penned. But I guess I’d rather see that than have him killed. Not sure anyone could get close enough to kill him, but I wouldn’t want to see it happen anyway.”

  “How we gonna stop him otherwise, Dave?” Harmon said. “We gave it our best shot tonight, didn’t we?”

  “Maybe when the snow’s gone,” Ellen said.

  “Snow, hell!” Chase spat out. “There wasn’t any snow the other times, was there? And you’ll never get that horse into another surround. You know as well as I do, he don’t make the same mistake twice.”

  “Maybe I got an idea,” Baker said.

  “You got one, Dave, I’m listenin’,” Harmon said.

  “Now I know all you folks want to get Mesteño on your own. But maybe it’s time we got some kind of expert in here to help us.”

  “Dave, what you think somebody else’s gonna do that we ain’t tried already?”

  “Well, can’t rightly say, not bein’ an expert myself.”

  “Well, there you are. Ain’t no one’s gonna be able to take Mesteño alive.”

  “There might be. It’s worth a chance for what you call that valuable piece of horseflesh.”

  “What, Dave? What chance?”

  “Well sir, I hear tell of a man named Cutler.”

  Chapter Two

  Cassidy was outside the Hole-in-the-Wall Saloon in Thermopolis, Wyoming. He stepped over one of the puddles that had once been snow and made his way through the mud to the well at the corner of the boardwalk. He stopped there and looked up at the sun, squinting his eyes in a way that made him look amused.
He wiped some sweat from his forehead with his shirtsleeve and thought that sweat was good and he was glad the sun was getting warm again. He took the bucket from the edge of the well and let it drop to the water below, then reeled it up and drank from it.

  A big man with dark whiskers came out of the saloon with a bottle in his hand.”Hey, Butch, you too good to join the rest of us?”

  Cassidy looked up from the bucket and grinned. “Figured I’d have the chaser first and get it over with.”

  “That stuff’ll kill you if you’re not careful. Better get in here and wash it down with some good medicine.”

  “Be right there, Curry.”

  The man named Curry turned to go back inside when his attention was caught by something in the distance behind Cassidy. “Now what in the hell is that?!”

  Cassidy turned in the direction Curry was looking.

  Sloshing through the mud down the street were two sleek black mules pulling a small covered wagon. The wagon jingled as it moved, not from the wheels, it seemed, but from metal objects inside it. A magnificent bay gelding walked at the rear but was not tied to the wagon. On the wagon seat rode a man and an animal. The animal was some funny-looking kind of dog. It had a curly, rust red coat with a tinge of black on its back, and a head shaped something like a hatchet. But it was too big to laugh at.

  As the rig drew nearer, the man became clearer. Under his flat crowned sombrero were thick black eyebrows and eyes with a perpetual squint, probably from always looking across long distances. That part of his face that was not covered by several days’ growth of beard had chiseled features, and the skin looked like it was made out of leather. He had broad shoulders and a barrel chest. He was big enough to make the wagon look like a child’s toy. As he neared, the man looked straight ahead, never looking to left or right and apparently not paying any notice of Cassidy or Curry.

  “If that ain’t a bitch of a sight!” Curry said but without a trace of humor. “What you make him for, Butch?”

  “Trapper.”

  “Trapper?! Now, what the hell would one of them be doin’ here?”

  Cassidy grinned. “Maybe he come after you, Kid, ‘cause you’re so ornery.”

  “Huh!” Curry rinsed his mouth from the bottle and spat the liquor onto the boardwalk. “Like to see him try it.” He went back into the saloon.

  The wagon pulled up by the well and the man looked down at Cassidy. The man’s face was expressionless and hard.

  “Howdy!” Cassidy said, still grinning.

  The man did not grin back. He was the kind of man who carried a heavy weight on his shoulders. “Howdy. I’m lookin’ for the Irish Bar.”

  “Well, it’s right down the street there past the Meat Market. But, by the looks of you, you might be more comfortable here at the Hole-in-the-Wall if you’re lookin’ to wet your whistle. The Irish is as close as Thermopolis gets to bein’ fancy.”

  “Thanks, but I got to meet a fella there.”

  “Well, okay. They won’t turn you out. It ain’t that fancy.”

  “This place got a livery?”

  “Just keep on goin’ past the Irish.”

  “And a barber?”

  “Not a regular one, no. But there’s a fella who cuts hair when he’s not buildin’ coffins.”

  The man nodded. “Much obliged.”

  “This fella you’re lookin’ for, you want me to keep my eye out?”

  “Black man named Baker. Dave Baker.”

  “Okay. If I see him, I’ll send him over.”

  “Much obliged.”

  The man nodded and his mules proceeded down the street. Cassidy watched him go, then put the bucket back on the edge of the well.

  Curry opened the saloon door. “Butch, we’re drinkin’ it all. You better hurry.”

  “Well,” Cassidy shrugged, “guess it ain’t the only waterin’ hole in town.”

  “You still figure that guy’s a trapper?” Curry watched the wagon, with the bay behind it, moving down the street. “Better horse than most trappers got.”

  Cassidy nodded. “Well, that’s okay, ‘cause the man’s one hell of a trapper.”

  “Yeah? You figure he’s come to set some traps for us, Butch?”

  “Well, I’d just as soon he didn’t, if you want to know the truth.”

  “Don’t you worry none. Ain’t a man in the Bunch that can’t handle a smelly trapper.”

  “Wouldn’t be callin’ the kettle black if I was you, Kid.”

  Curry grinned slightly. “Guess I can call a trapper anything I want to.”

  “Better you didn’t this time.”

  “Yeah? Why’s that?”

  “That man’s John Cutler.”

  Curry’s smile disappeared as he looked at the wagon turning into the livery. “Oh,” he said.

  Iris Shannon was at the bar when Cutler walked through the door of the Irish. She smiled at him, the familiar smile that only he ever got out of her, because no man was less of a stranger to Iris Shannon than John Cutler. It had been almost two years ago when he first walked into her Elkhorn Bar in Tensleep farther north. He looked then much as he looked now, a man who carried a lot of trouble around with him and, she knew for a fact, there was something about him that drew him to more trouble, even attracted it. She knew more about Cutler than anyone else. She knew about the obsession that kept him restlessly moving onward. She knew what he needed at any given moment, whether it was whiskey or conversation or Iris’ bed. Yes, she knew John Cutler very well indeed. And he was the only man she gave a damn about anymore. In fact, he was the only man she had given a damn about in a long time.

  She had come to distrust men after her father committed suicide when most of his cattle froze to death in that bad winter ten years ago, that time it was said you could walk six hundred miles on the bodies of dead animals. A lot of men went bankrupt that winter, but not many killed themselves about it. But Iris had survived the tragedy, worked her way up to being the owner of five saloons—Tensleep, Cheyenne, Casper, Laramie and this one in Thermopolis—and it had made her strong, strong and invulnerable. It had nurtured in her an independence still hard to find in women and she was not about to let any man break through her defenses. Until John Cutler came along.

  She once tried to figure out what made him so different. Did she pity him for the tragedy he carried in his own heart? Was it because he had as much reason to want to commit suicide as any man but did not? Or was it that John Cutler was the first man to respect Iris’ independence, posing no threat to the freedom she enjoyed? They would come together periodically, drink, talk, make love, and then he would go off on some job or other, and when he returned he did not ask her what she had done in his absence, and she did not ask him. It was all of that and one thing more. They both traveled a lot. Cutler’s work could take him hundreds of miles away. Iris’ saloons kept her moving from one to another over ten thousand square miles of Wyoming. But they still seemed to find each other. Cutler had never been in the Irish before, and he had no way of knowing Iris would be here at this particular time, but here she was, and there he was. Iris felt that kind of thing happened often enough so that, however much might be wrong in their separate lives, there was something right about the parts they shared whenever they came together.

  All of that was contained in a second of time. All of that was behind the smile she gave him.

  He did not smile back. He knew Iris did not expect it of him. Cutler seldom, if ever, put on a show for someone, but it was with Iris that he was most comfortable being himself. And a woman like that could make a lot of men uncomfortable. With her beautiful gray eyes, her flaxen blonde hair, a trim figure almost always accentuated with a Paris gown, she was the kind of woman most men figured they could never have in a million years. They felt lucky just to stand beside her at a bar and have a drink. But Cutler was comfortable being with her always. It was not her looks so much as it was the way she never asked foolish questions, the way she never asked anything of him and whatever she s
aid or did always seemed to be the right thing at the right time. There was a place inside him that was tormented and cold, but Iris seemed to warm it up and settle it down a little. Right now, though, he needed a couple of other things first. He knew that she knew what they were.

  “Snips,” she said to one of the men at the bar, “go get your scissors and razor. You’ve got a customer.”

  The man turned to Cutler, nodded and left.

  “Harriet,” she said to one of her girls at the bar, “would you see that tub in the back room gets filled with hot water?”

  “Sure, Iris.” The girl went about her business.

  “Bob,” she said to the bartender, “bring out a bottle of the Kentucky stuff, will you?”

  The bartender nodded, reached under the bar and brought out a bottle of good bourbon. Iris nodded to Cutler and the bartender slid the bottle along the bar to the trapper.

  Cutler pulled out the cork with his teeth and took a long drink from the bottle. He felt the stuff go down his throat all the way to the cold spot. It helped, but it would take most of the bottle before he would be fit company for Iris.

  “See you when you’re ready,” she said softly and went over to a table to talk with some men who were playing cards.

  Cutler took another drink and looked around. He would have known this was one of Iris’ places, even if he had not recognized the name outside, even if she were not here. The Hole-in-the-Wall Saloon down the street had been a plain sandstone building with big windows in front. The inside, if it was like most other saloons, was nothing more than a place for men to come together and drink and play poker. It would have a bar and tables that were old and scratched up because, supposedly, all men cared about was good liquor, cheap beer and a winning hand. Iris’ Irish Bar was different. It was not open to the outside. The small windows were partly covered with heavy drapes and there was a thick wooden door. It gave you the feeling you were entering a special place. Once inside, there was a shiny, polished bar, chairs in good condition, tables with green felt. The walls were papered and there were paintings of cattle drives and women. As in all her other places, there was a large glass chandelier that dominated the room. It was not exactly like home, for the customers had homes, so they got away from home by coming here. But it was comfortable like home. And Iris made them feel like welcome guests. Business was always good in her saloons, and extra good when word got around that she herself was in residence.