West of the Big River: Boxed Set of Eight Western Novels

by James Reasoner

  "I can help drive the cattle back," I volunteered.

  "Need you comin' with us, Charlie. You seen this Hanks bastard and can identify him. We need to be sure we got the right ones when we string 'em up."

  I made my way to where Monte tried to crop at some grass. The horse had danged near been ridden into the ground but still allowed me close to him. Any excuse for not going after the fleeing rustlers would have suited me just fine. In this, Monte failed me with his willingness to be ridden some more. Before I mounted, I reloaded my six-shooter.

  Rusty rode over and looked down at me. He pursed his lips, thought a second, then said, "We ain't lawmen. If both of us tell Horace we're not gonna go chasin' off after them cattle thieves, he'll quit."

  "Him and Blue will go after them by their lonesome," I said.

  Old Blue Harnois had drifted down from Alberta. Whispers around the campfire hinted that he had frozen to death up north and then been resurrected as a walking corpse. The cold never bothered him the whole time he rode for the OH, and when he had smashed his hand with an ax while chopping wood a month back, there hadn't been a flicker of pain. Bleeding like a stuck pig, he had finished adding to the woodpile before tending the wound. Not so much as a flicker of emotion crossed his face the whole time. He stood tall and scrawny and so pale he was whiter than bleached muslin, blue eyes colder than ice and white hair about gone from his head. The halo around his bald dome floated long and free when the wind blew, giving him a curious look. If one of the riders of the Apocalypse showed up in Montana, he wouldn't look much different from Blue.

  Some of the wranglers thought he wasn't human. Others claimed he was a corpse come back to life. I thought he kept a whole lot bottled up inside, and I didn't want to be around when the cork popped. Looking at him sitting astride his stallion, grinding his teeth and looking ready to kill, Blue wasn't going to return to the ranch without a scalp hanging at his belt. All this time he had been a keg of Giant Blasting Powder. Horace or seeing the rustlers or losing the cattle — something — had lit the fuse.

  "Him and Horace will go on, no matter what we do."

  "Let 'em," Rusty said. He eyed Blue and shuddered. Some things are scarier than dying. Blue Harnois had become one of them.

  "I won't quit the OH. Mr. Phillips has been good to me, fair and not playing favorites. Horace speaks for him out here, so goin' against Horace is goin' against Mr. Phillips."

  "You weren't never in the army, Charlie? That's the way a soldier talks."

  "A man's got to be loyal to those deserving it. If it means ridin' with a man goin' crazy, well, nobody ever said doin' the right thing was easy. Simple, yeah, but not easy."

  Rusty grumbled but made no move to leave. Stepping up, I rode to where Horace and Blue argued over the tracks they'd found cut in the muddy forest floor.

  "How far ahead do you think they are?" I asked.

  Horace looked me over, then nodded slowly.

  "Glad you're along, Charlie. This might be a long hunt." Horace saw that Rusty had joined us. "You, too, Rawlins. Four of us can take the whole gang."

  Over Blue's objections, he lit out following a set of tracks leading due south and ignoring those veering away to the southeast. There was going to be a whole lot of head butting between the foreman and Blue, and it wouldn't be far off. All I hoped for was not riding into a shooting gallery with the sniper who had shot the marshal at the other end and me as target.

  Chapter Nine

  "It's the wrong trail," grumbled Blue. "The wrong damned trail. I told you so." He wheeled his horse about and began backtracking.

  Rusty and I exchanged glances. The way Blue had been talking ever since we left the forest at the end of the meadow, it was a wonder he hadn't started frothing at the mouth like a rabid dog. His face had turned from its usual pale to a sickly gray. I'd seen men with consumption who looked better, but they coughed up a lung and trembled something fierce. Blue might have been chipped out of ice. Gray ice now that he had been on the wrong trail.

  "You two better help out with the tracking. This ain't what I do best," Horace said.

  We rode side by side, the three of us, while Blue trotted ahead. We had to reach a branching canyon to find the rustlers' real tracks. The afternoon was turning downright cold with wind whipping off the Crazies and cutting through my soul. It hadn't occurred to me to bring along gloves. Even the leather work gloves used for roping and branding, not that I did my share of those chores, would have kept my fingers warmer. Constantly flexing my fingers and rubbing my hands against my coat and thighs prevented frostbite from setting in. What would help even more was if we'd camp for the night so I could do some sketching.

  The majestic land all around defied my ability to properly capture it for others, but I wanted to try. The hills, the tall peaks, those fascinated me with their endlessly changing look. Clouds and storms, and this time of year, blowing snow, made every look different, even from one only a minute earlier. It's the same way with horses and wranglers and Indians. Capturing their essence rather than precise detail mattered most to me. I fancied that I stole a bit of their souls and put it on canvas.

  To do that I had to have the proper number of working fingers on each hand and not suffer too much from frostbite.

  "Damn, but this wind is gettin' fierce," I said.

  Ahead the canyon branched back toward the southeast. I had a decent image of the land in my head. The outlaws had scouted the entire area more than anyone from the OH, this stretch of mountains being miles away from the spread. Taking that canyon toward Utica afforded them a chance to disappear in the town, if they were known to the townsfolk. Strangers always stuck out like a sore thumb, but if they split up and traveled in pairs or rode solitary, nobody would much notice. The town always had more than its share of drifters going hither and yon.

  "Being at canyon bottom makes it darker, too," Rusty added. "Soon we won't be able to see the ground, much less the tracks."

  "There are some caves to the right," Horace said, taking the hint. "A fire in the mouth will keep us warm and the cave safe enough if the rustlers double back."

  That hadn't occurred to me. Horace had it all wrong. I shivered again as new worries hit me like the full force of the winter wind. We camp in a cave and that marksman settles down a couple dozen yards away. Shooting fish in a barrel would be harder. The firelight would show us off to good advantage, and there'd be only one way we could run. A decent marksman can take one snapshot after another as his quarry runs toward him.

  "Blue!" Horace stood in the stirrups and yelled. "We're campin' fer the night! Over to the right."

  For a moment Blue paid no attention. Shoulders hunched and head slightly bowed against the wind, he kept riding like he took energy from the harshness. Then he silently drew back on the reins and turned his stallion's face toward the canyon wall.

  "Surely am glad he's on our side," I said. "Those rustlers better run like scalded dogs with Old Blue after them."

  "What's got into him, anyway?" Rusty asked. "He never was a likable cuss, but he's actin' like he's the Grim Reaper."

  "Him and Early was partners," Horace said. "Special partners, if you get my drift."

  "Never knew that about him and Early. That can sour a man on wantin' the law to catch 'em," Rusty allowed.

  "Why didn't he want to help bury Early?" Partners took care of each other, even when one died.

  "Can't say," Horace said. "Blue hinted at losin' his family and a whole lot more up north durin' one winter. Not the weather what killed them, if I read him aright. Retribution keeps him warm."

  "For now. What if we don't find the cattle thieves?" I'd heard tell of steam boilers on locomotives that lost the safety valve. Pressure mounted until rivets popped. Blue had the look of a man who wouldn't much care who died, as long as someone did.

  "We will," Horace said. The note of doubt in his tone made me press my right elbow in tight to my side to feel the outline of my six-shooter holstered under my coat.

>   None of us was much of a trailsman. That's a special talent reserved for a few hardy trappers. The Rockies were once brimming with mountain men able to withstand impossible hardship, endure winters that would freeze another man's balls off, and then go to Greenriver or wherever the rendezvous was with a pack load of pelts. Drop any of them in the wilderness with nothing more than a knife, and he prospered. Fighting Indians and nature, tracking and trapping, they did it all better 'n most white men ever could.

  Those skills weren't as necessary now that the railroads had come through, ranches stretched over dozens of sections of land and the town mercantile sold fancy cloth from Europe, French champagne and even oysters from San Francisco that wouldn't kill you outright if you indulged. It hardly seemed that civilization had intruded the way it had, but not a one of us on the OH could hold a candle to the least of the mountain men when it came to survival skills.

  'Course, they wouldn't be much good herding beeves or growing crops. Needs changed. Beaver hats had gone out of fashion while eating fine beef in St. Louis and New York raised on Montana ranches commanded top dollar. The only way things could change more would be having the railroads spread even more, making it easy as falling off a log to get from Montana to St. Louis in three or four days. Even now stagecoaches were seen less often as towns grew up around railroad depots.

  "There's a cave big enough to put up our horses and us, too." Rusty rode ahead to see if the cave had an occupant already. The notion of sharing a bedroll with an angry bear stirred out of hibernation by our intrusion added to my desire to be somewhere else. Sitting in Gus' Watering Hole had become a pleasure I hadn't appreciated over much. Until now.

  "They'll be miles ahead of us by the morning," Blue said.

  "Better that than dyin' out here so they'll always be miles ahead of our froze up corpses," Rusty said. "If we don't bring 'em to justice, who will?"

  For a moment I thought Blue was going to throw down on him. The Canuck's left hand reached around behind and grabbed his coattail to pull the coat away from his holster. Fingers on his right hand lightly tapped against the side of the holster, getting blood flowing in them to limber up for a quick draw and squeeze back on the trigger. Horace saw the eruption and stepped between the men.

  "Rawlins, fetch wood for a fire. Blue, you got anything we can eat?"

  Blue rose onto the balls of his feet, then settled down. He let his coat flop back over his six-shooter. Without a word he began rummaging through his saddlebags and found a bag of oatmeal and a couple airtights of peaches.

  I let out breath I hadn't known I was holding, then took the horses deeper into the cave, wary of stepping on anything that rattled or roared. The musty smell told me bats nested here, but the cave went back into the mountainside a long way. If they still hung around and hadn't moved to follow the insects to warmer climes, they were far back in the cave. I secured the bridles with rocks, then unsaddled the grateful horses. Rather than go back and face an angry Blue, I tended the horses, cleaning them and seeing that they were comfortable enough in the dark cave.

  While the others fixed our pitiful dinner, I gathered what foliage I could for the horses. Their provender was as slim as ours. By the time I settled down by the fire to warm my hands, a pot of coffee boiled and the oatmeal had been dished out onto tin plates. The lumpy oatmeal tasted as bad as anything Texas Pete had ever fixed, and I couldn't cram enough of it into my mouth. It had been so long since I'd had anything to eat, my stomach thought my throat had got itself slit. That the oatmeal was hot added to my pleasure spooning it in and swallowing. Half an airtight of peaches washed it all down.

  "We got a hard day of ridin' ahead to catch them," Blue said.

  "I got a look at one of them varmints," I said.

  "Josiah Hanks," cut in Horace.

  "He's the one," I agreed. "But he might be ridin' with others who ain't rustlers. When we catch up — and we will, Blue, we will — we have to get him to finger the others in the gang."

  "If there's men with Hanks, they're rustlers and deserve to hang. Hell, they're worse. They're killers." Blue glowered at me. In the firelight his pale face had taken on more gray highlights. Capturing that complexion on canvas would give most anyone seeing it the whim-whams.

  "I heard tell of a robbery down in Colorado where it was downright hard to figure out who was the road agent and who was the hero."

  "Go on, Charlie, you're joshin' us," said Rusty, always my faithful straight man. "Either a man's a hero or he's a robber."

  "Well, it was like this," I said, swinging into the story. "An old lady was on her way to visit her daughter. She carried fifty dollars in her handbag — all the money she had. Her daughter was laid up and feelin' poorly. The money would save her from a world of pain and pay off doctor bills.

  "They was outside Denver when the passengers got edgy about the chance of road agents. One man was obviously a gambler. He told the old lady if she worried about the money to stick it under the seat cushion. 'But a robber will know a lady like me's not travelin' without money,' she protested. 'Take this," the gambler told her, passing over three greenbacks. "If we get stopped and road agents take that money, they'll think it's all you have in the world."

  "She thanks him. The other two passengers, one a cowman and the other a tinker laughed at the old lady and the gambler. They laughed until the stagecoach was halted. Gunshots caused them all to fear for their lives.

  "From outside came the cry, 'Stand and deliver. Everyone out of the coach.' Sure enough, three heeled robbers covered them as they stepped down. While two of the armed robbers eyed them from above bandannas pulled up to hide their faces, their partner worked down the line, taking everything the cowman and the tinker had. Watches, rings, money, yes, they took every last nickel. From the gambler they took a twenty-dollar gold piece."

  "The old lady's money was safe in the stage, under the cushion," Rusty said. "That was real smart on the gambler's part."

  "That's what you'd think, but the robbery took a turn. The road agent took the three dollars from the old lady but wasn't satisfied. Him and the other two whispered back and forth. Trouble was brewin' for certain until the gambler stepped up. He joined in their circle, whisperin' as hard as the road agents. They pushed him back toward the coach, and he went straight for the cushion and the old lady's money.

  "'You can't take it!' she cried. 'That's all I have to my name!' The gambler shushed her. The road agents left in a cloud of dust, their horses gallopin' off faster 'n any racehorse you ever did see. So what do you reckon happened then?"

  Blue stared into the fire. His thoughts rode miles away, and he hardly listened. Rusty scowled, but Horace spoke up first.

  "They shoulda hung the bastard, that's what they shoulda done. He was as guilty as them robbers."

  "The driver herded them back into the coach and wanted nuthin' more 'n to get away. The robbers had taken everything but a life, and the driver wanted to avoid losin' his own."

  "What did they decide about the gambler?" Rusty asked. "Looks like they could take the time to find a tree and string 'im up."

  "Or drag him along behind the stage," said Horace. "A couple turns around his neck would work jist fine."

  "That all was discussed," I said. "The cowman was especially vocal about that. Even the old lady, who had a soft heart, found herself leanin' toward havin' the gambler throwed into jail when they got to Denver. But there was more to the story."

  I paused for effect, letting the crackle and pop of the fire fill the gap between words. Right about now, if we'd been on a drive, someone would pass around a bottle and I'd wet my whistle. Horace had rousted us so fast that morning nobody had time to pack a bottle or even a flask. Leastways, Blue or Horace didn't offer up any popskull they might have in their saddlebags. Rusty never kept a pint longer than the first couple miles on the trail, and I had been run pillar to post. The last taste I'd had was back in Mr. Phillip's kitchen and his brandy. All I could do now was remember how that brandy tasted.
I even remembered Gus' bitter beer with some affection. I licked my lips as if I had drained a mug at the Waterin' Hole and went on.

  "The gambler says, 'If you're fixin' on hangin' me, let me slip off my boots first.' This perplexed them. The other passengers' eyes got bigger than china saucers when he pulled out a thousand dollars, ten one-hunnerd dollar bills. They stared, not knowin' what to say.

  "'I been a gambler all my life,' he says, 'and I doubt you gents played anything but solitaire. Poker is a game of bluffin' and knowin' what the other fella will do. This lady staked me to fifty, and I always split my winnin's right down the middle with those what stakes me.' He gave the old lady five of them hunnerd dollar bills."

  "But he didn't have to tell the road agents where her fifty dollars was hid," protested Horace.

  "He did," I said solemnly. "The highwaymen had took all the money and it wasn't enough for them, so they was fixin' to have their way with the woman. The gambler swapped her fifty for her virtue. They was so satisfied with this, they never thought to search for more, so the gambler kept his boots on and his cash in his poke."

  "So that squared him with the rancher and the tinker?" Horace moved a bit closer and thrust out his hands to warm them on the dying embers.

  "It did," I said. "The tinker had a bottle and said, 'To show you there's no hard feelin's, we'll all take a drink. 'Cept fer the lady, of course.' They passed that bottle around 'til it was drier than an Arizona desert, then tossed the empty out. 'Here's to the gambler that pays his stakes!' They all shook hands, realizin' how appearances can be deceivin'."

  "So you're sayin' when we catch them rustlers, they might be decent men?" Blue glared at me.

  "Not a bit of it," I said. "That was just a story I heard from a buddy down in Colorado. But if we overtake a bunch of men and Hanks is ridin' with 'em, might be that they aren't the same as he is. A clever outlaw hides among honest folks whenever he can."

  Blue grunted, then lay back on his bedroll, pulled the blanket up over his shoulder and snored loudly in a few minutes. Horace and Rusty argued over how to prove the men we were trailing were the rustlers. For my part, I worried less about those men being innocent and more about if they were stone killers.