Powder Burn

by William W. Johnstone

  Figuring it worth a try for their efforts, the older boy, the one who had read the sign for her, risked offering a suggestion. “Mr. Morris, down at the general store, would give me and Raymond a penny apiece for helpin’ load supplies.”

  Never one to suffer children or pets, Hannah drew the skinning knife from her belt and retorted, “Get your sorry little asses outta here before I cut your ears off.” One step toward them was enough to send them running.

  Her one thought after the bodies of her brothers were removed from public humiliation was to seek out the man who was responsible for their death. No longer concerned about the supplies she had come to town to buy, she climbed back on the wagon and drove it straight to Sam Harvey’s barbershop, where she found him in the process of giving the Reverend Edward Garrett a haircut. Even though the times when she had been to town were few, Hannah Cheney was easy to recognize and was often the topic of amused comments whispered behind her back. One look at her face told Sam that this was not a friendly visit. She had obviously seen the coffins, and since she was a formidable threat, he stepped around behind the chair to position the preacher between himself and the obviously infuriated woman. “Is there something I can do for you, Miss Cheney?” he asked politely, knowing full well the reason for her visit.

  “Yeah, you son of a bitch, there’s something you can do for me. Who told you you could stick my brothers at the edge of town like a damned circus sideshow?”

  “Now, don’t blame me,” Sam replied at once. “It wasn’t my idea at all. I never had anything to do with it, anyway. I just sold him the coffins. He did the rest, I swear. He wouldn’t let me clean ’em up or nothin’.”

  “Him bein’ Will Tanner,” Hannah charged in contempt. “Damn Oklahoma marshal, callin’ hisself the sheriff, is he? He ain’t no damn sheriff in Texas. Where is he?”

  Stunned to that point by the blunt language of the woman, Reverend Garrett had been struck wide-eyed and speechless. Finally finding it difficult to listen to her profanity without reprimanding her, he found his voice. “Look here, young lady,” he blurted, “that’s no language for a respectable woman to use. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

  Hannah recoiled as if just noticing him. “Who the hell are you?” she demanded.

  “He’s the preacher of our new church,” Sam answered for him.

  “The preacher?” Hannah responded, staring hard into Garrett’s eyes. “Well, let me tell you something, Preacher,” she said, and drew her skinning knife from her belt. “You set there with your mouth shut, or I’ll geld you, so you can sing like an angel when you get to heaven.”

  Shocked, Garrett started, “Why, I never . . .” but could not finish when Hannah drew the .44 she wore on her hip and aimed it at his nose. He sat there in terrified silence until she turned her attention back to Sam again.

  “Where is Will Tanner?” she demanded.

  “I swear, I don’t know where he is,” Sam replied. “He mighta took a room over The Cattleman’s, but I don’t know that for sure.”

  Without holstering her pistol, she turned abruptly and marched out of the saloon. “Hell hath no fury . . .” the preacher mumbled to himself, still in shock.

  Sam wiped the beads of sweat away that had suddenly appeared on his forehead. “That’s the maddest I’ve ever seen a woman in my entire life,” he said. “I don’t know where Will is right now, but he’d best be ready for a heap of trouble.”

  * * *

  Will had not taken a room at The Cattleman’s as Sam Harvey had speculated, preferring to sleep in Caleb Smith’s stable with his horse while he remained in town. Much to Ellie Garvin’s distress, however, he did declare Moe’s back corner table to be the temporary Sulphur Springs sheriff’s office. “Whaddaya gonna use for a jail?” Moe wanted to know.

  “I ain’t sure right now if I need one,” Will replied. “But if I do, I’m thinkin’ about that storeroom on the back of your saloon. You ain’t usin’ it for anything, are you?”

  “Well, no, not right now.” Moe hesitated, almost as uncomfortable with Will’s presence as his wife was. “But I might need it before long.”

  “Well, I don’t expect to be needin’ it, or your table here, for very long,” Will tried to reassure him. He figured to see Ike Cheney and his son Rubin in town as soon as word got to them that Luke and Buck were in boxes at the north end of town. His official plan was to attempt to arrest them. Realistically, however, he anticipated a gunfight, and hoped that he would still be standing when it was all over. Practically thinking, he knew as long as there were two of the Cheney family alive, the town of Sulphur Springs and the surrounding ranches would be in danger of rustling and murder. Apparently, it had become his lot to take care of the problem. The one dilemma he had failed to consider was Hannah Cheney, and the first hint of it came in the next minute.

  “Uh-oh,” Moe muttered, standing at the front window of the saloon. He turned toward Will, who was sitting in the unofficial sheriff’s office drinking a cup of coffee. “Here comes your first official business, and it ain’t gonna be no picnic.”

  “Cheneys?” Will asked, getting up from his chair.

  “The daughter,” Moe answered. “She’s comin’ this way, and she don’t look like she’s comin’ to get a drink. I don’t see no sign of Rubin or the old man, but it looks like she’s got those two coffins in the back of her wagon.”

  That was disappointing news to Will, for he was anxious to get the issue settled with the Cheney men, so he could get back to Fort Smith. He had no choice but to listen to the daughter’s complaints about having her brothers on display, he supposed. But at least she should take the news back to her father, and that was all he had planned for. This would turn out to be his first exposure to Hannah Cheney’s method of complaining.

  He remained standing by the back table, waiting until she appeared in the doorway. Expecting to hear the irate complaints of a grieving woman, he was taken completely by surprise when she pushed through the door, her .44 revolver still in hand, and upon spotting him, immediately started shooting. As soon as she raised the weapon, his reactions had been automatic. Consequently, he had been quick enough to turn the table over and dive for cover behind it while bullets were flying all around him, gouging the heavy tabletop and ripping splinters from the wall behind him. The only thing that saved him, however, was the woman’s rage, causing her to empty her gun in her haste to punish him. She seemed startled when she heard the click of the hammer on an empty cylinder. Well aware of his good fortune, Will was quick to take advantage. He charged toward her before she could even think about reloading, so she threw the empty weapon at him, which he easily dodged. He reached her as she was pulling her knife from her belt, and lowered his shoulder, driving her back through the door to land on the porch. The impact of her body against the boards knocked the wind out of her as she fought frantically to retain possession of her knife.

  He wrenched the skinning knife from her hand and stood back while she struggled to her hands and knees and tried to get breath back in her lungs. She had not even asked if he was Will Tanner, just assumed as much and opened fire. He glanced at the wagon behind her and saw the coffins in the back. His bait was gone, but his message would be sent. When she started showing signs of recovering, he gave her warning. “If you get up from there, I’m gonna knock you flat. I’m gonna let you get by with tryin’ to shoot me. I’ll give you that for losing your worthless brothers. So get on your wagon, take your brothers back, and bury them. There’s been enough killin’ over this trouble, and there will be no more cattle stolen from the J-Bar-J and Williamson’s and Thompson’s range. Take that message back to your pa, then you and your family can move on outta this territory. If I find you still in that cabin on Kettle Creek tomorrow, I’ll clean you out like I would any other pack of coyotes. You understand?”

  Knowing she had been whipped, she said nothing for a long moment while still struggling to get her wind back. Her voice seemingly subdued, she spoke then. “I’l
l have my gun back, and my knife.”

  “Sorry,” he replied. “I’ve got a rule that says anytime women try to kill me, they don’t get their weapons back. Get on your wagon now, and get on back home. And the lot of you be gone tomorrow. I might not be in such a forgivin’ mood like I am today.” She made no move to resist, got to her feet, and with his rifle aimed at her back, walked outside. Consumed by sullen anger, she climbed up on her wagon, moving slowly as she favored the soreness in her muscles, a result of his tackle.

  A hell of a note, he thought as he stood watching her until the wagon was out of sight. I come back here for a visit, and I end up destroying a whole family. It was not something that would weigh heavily on his conscience, however, no more than the destruction of a nest of rattlesnakes might. He reminded himself that the J-Bar-J and the town of Sulphur Springs were in danger as long as Ike Cheney and his kin were in the vicinity. The next step would be to wait for Ike’s move. He and Rubin would either show up here in town, or they would figure their losses great enough and move on. Will hoped they would move on. At any rate, he knew his job was to wait them out and ride out to Kettle Creek in the morning if they didn’t show up in town tonight. His thoughts were interrupted then by a question from Moe Garvin.

  In the midst of the sudden assault by the irate woman, Will had forgotten the owner of the saloon. “What the hell am I gonna do if Ike Cheney and his son come back here and shoot the place up? I’ve already lost a mirror and two lamps, and look at that table that woman shot to pieces.” He came out from behind the bar, where he had taken cover during the shooting, in time to meet his wife coming from the kitchen.

  “I thought we were all gonna die!” Ellie exclaimed, still holding the shotgun she kept in the kitchen. She calmed down a little when she saw that her husband was all right, then turned her attention to Will. “Will Tanner, I’ve always found you to be a fair and reasonable man. But if you stay in Sulphur Springs much longer, I’m afraid we’re all gonna be dead. I know Moe won’t say it, but I will. We’d appreciate it if you’d take your temporary sheriff’s office someplace else. Maybe the Dixie House has a table for you down the street.”

  Will knew she was deadly serious in her request, and he felt bad for her, but he tried to explain that to leave The Cattleman’s now would leave them on their own when Ike showed up. “I’m really sorry, Ellie, but I can’t leave Moe to face Ike Cheney by himself. If he’s gonna come lookin’ for me, this will be the first place he’ll look. And if he does decide to come after me, he won’t take long to do it. If he doesn’t show up today, I’ll ride out to his place in the mornin’, and I hope we’ll settle it out there.”

  She knew he was right, but at a loss for a reply, she turned abruptly and returned to her kitchen. Ain’t nothing as enjoyable as a visit to the old home place, Will thought facetiously.

  CHAPTER 6

  Ike Cheney was standing outside the cabin when Hannah drove the wagon across the shallow creek and pulled up before the door. Hearing her arrive, Rubin came from the cabin to stand behind his father, although not too close. He was still wary of a sudden fit of rage from the old man. Without a word, Hannah stepped down from the wagon seat, walked around to the back, and dropped the tailgate. Then she stood back for them to see. Expecting to find supplies to be carried into the cabin, both father and son were stunned to discover the wagon’s gruesome cargo. “How did you? . . .” Ike stammered, but he couldn’t finish, unable to understand how she could have gotten the bodies. “They was shot at the J-Bar-J,” he said, and turned at once to confront Rubin, who was as baffled as his father. “Leastways, that’s what you told me.”

  “They was,” Rubin insisted. “They shot ’em in the barn.” He continued to gawk at his two brothers.

  “You went to the J-Bar-J?” Ike turned back to Hannah. “I sent you to town.”

  “I went to town,” Hannah said, speaking calmly. “That’s where I found ’em, stood up against that big tree near The Cattleman’s, propped up for ever’body to see. There was a sign that said this is what happens to cattle rustlers and murderers in Sulphur Springs. It was signed by Will Tanner, and it said he was the sheriff.” She waited then to see her father’s reaction, knowing it would be as she imagined.

  “That son of a bitch,” Ike growled through teeth clinched in overpowering anger. “He’s got the whole town stirred up against us now.” The knuckles of his hand were turning white from the tightness of his grip on the side of the wagon as he gazed down at his two dead sons. “Did you see Tanner?” he asked after a moment.

  “Yeah, I saw him,” Hannah answered, then told them about her confrontation with the deputy marshal.

  “Damn,” Ike cursed softly when she had finished. “How many men did he have with him?” he asked, thinking of Rubin’s accounting of the gunfight at the ranch.

  “He was by hisself when I saw him,” Hannah said. “He mighta had some men upstairs, but nobody came down when the shootin’ started.”

  “By hisself, huh?” Ike pondered that for a moment. He turned to Rubin. “Are you sure there was all them extra men waitin’ for you and your brothers when you rode out to that ranch?”

  “Sure I’m sure,” Rubin replied. “That was the reason I had to run for it, that and the fact that my cartridges was running out.” That was the story he was sticking to. He could not tell his father that he didn’t know if there were extra men there or not because he had run as soon as he had heard the shooting. “I couldn’t count all of ’em in the dark, but there was a-plenty of ’em. I reckon I coulda stayed till my cartridges was gone, but I thought you needed to know what happened.”

  Ike considered that for a few more moments, wanting to believe Rubin was telling the truth. “Maybe,” he allowed, “Tanner had men from Thompson’s and Williamson’s spreads.” That seemed a reasonable assumption since all three ranches had been victims of their rustling.

  “Maybe he got up a posse in town,” Hannah speculated, “since he’s gone and made himself sheriff.”

  “Maybe,” Ike allowed. The many possibilities were beginning to sound like the vigilante activity that had forced him to leave Montana a few years back. It might be the sensible thing to do to heed Tanner’s warning and get out while there were still some members of his family left. Still, there was the gnawing worm of vengeance eating away at his innards. It would be difficult to live with the knowledge that Will Tanner had killed three of his sons, and no Cheney had settled the debt. To make sure he had heard Hannah right, he asked, “And he told you he was comin’ out here tomorrow to make sure we were gone?”

  “That’s what he said,” Hannah replied. “I figured we’ll be waitin’ for him to show up, if he didn’t have no better sense than to come.”

  “I don’t reckon he’s plannin’ to come out here by hisself,” Ike said, still thinking about the possibility of vigilante activity. “I don’t think this Tanner feller is that big a fool. We’ll pack our stuff up and move on outta here tonight before him and his posse show up in the mornin’. That’ll keep him off our tails till I can get a chance to settle his bacon once and for all. He ain’t gettin’ away with killin’ my sons.” He paused to look at his wife, who had come out when she heard them talking outside the cabin. She was sobbing dry tears over the pitiful sight of her dead sons. “We’ve got graves to dig before we do anything else,” Ike said.

  “It’s a mighty poor time of year to set off to find another place to stay,” Hannah said, still in favor of waiting for Tanner and his posse to show up.

  “I know it,” Ike said. “And it’s a mighty poor time to get hemmed up in a half-rotted little line shack by a posse, too. They’d shoot this little cabin to pieces and we wouldn’t stand a chance. We’ll worry about findin’ us a new camp somewhere else, and then I can settle with Will Tanner when he ain’t surrounded by a posse. So you go on and help your mama get everything packed up. Me and Rubin will dig a couple of graves for your brothers.” She did not respond right away, the frown on her face giving evi
dence of her reluctance to run. “Don’t worry, honey,” he said, “I’ll see to Mr. Will Tanner, but I want him to know who’s killin’ him, and I wanna take my time doin’ it. He’s a dead man. It’s just a matter of when, so go along now.”

  She could understand that, and she knew that when her father promised something, he wouldn’t stop until it was done. It was in line with her feelings for revenge. “Why don’t you let me help Rubin dig the graves, Pa? There ain’t no call for you to do it.” She was concerned about his tendency to think he was as good as any man, in spite of his age.

  Knowing what she was thinking, he couldn’t help a faint grin. “I ain’t as old as you think. I’ll most likely wear your brother out tryin’ to keep up with me.” He turned to his wife then. “Get done with your good-byes and help Hannah pack up our possibles. I wanna find a place to camp while it’s still daylight.”

  Rubin got a pick and shovel from beside the door of the cabin, where they had been left after digging Levi’s grave. He followed his father to a rise near the creek bank and the mound of fresh dirt that marked Levi’s final resting place. “We’ll lay ’em beside their brother,” Ike said.

  “You gonna dig two graves?” Rubin asked, remembering the hard-packed ground he had labored in before. “Looks like it’d be easier to put ’em in one hole.”

  “We’ll dig two graves,” Ike answered him emphatically. “They’re your brothers, and they’ll each have their own graves. That way, Levi won’t be no more important than Buck and Luke. I’d do it the same if it was you we was fixin’ to bury.” When Rubin’s expression revealed his obvious disagreement, Ike said, “Here, gimme that pick. You can do the shovelin’. That’s the easy part.” He snatched the pickax from Rubin’s hand and set in to work on the hard ground, attacking the tree roots he encountered with a vengeance, intent upon setting an example for his son.