Powder Burn

by William W. Johnstone

  “Then, what happened to the firewood?” Hannah asked. She was not so sure that Tater was wrong. Will Tanner was a different breed of devil.

  “I don’t know,” Lynch replied, clearly trying to keep from becoming rattled by the simple, but mysterious theft of the wood. “Maybe an Injun sneaked up here and took it.”

  “I’m tellin’ you, there’s somethin’ scary about that man,” Rubin cautioned. “He don’t work like a regular lawman. Besides, if it was an Injun, he’d most likely go after the horses. He wouldn’t be stealin’ the damn wood.”

  That simple observation caused them all to think about their situation and wonder if they were, in fact, in a dangerous position or not. Finally Hannah tried to put things in perspective for them. “You men are lettin’ that deputy spook you. He ain’t but one man, and there’s four of us. If he had a posse with him, they’d have surrounded this cabin and started yellin’ for us to come out before they started shootin’ the place up. A posse woulda played hell tryin’ to slip up that narrow trail without us hearin’ ’em in the first place. So if he’s out there, there ain’t no way he can come and get us without gettin’ himself shot. I thought that’s what we came up here for in the first place—to set up an ambush. Hell, let him come.”

  “I reckon you’re right,” Lynch said. “We’ve got the upper hand on this game he’s playin’, but I’m thinkin’ we might better check on the horses, in case that is some Injun snoopin’ around out there.”

  “What about the firewood?” Tater asked, still uneasy about that strange little incident.

  “Damn the firewood!” Lynch exclaimed, frustrated now by something he had no answer for. “Like Hannah said, if it’s Tanner snoopin’ around out there, we’ve damn sure got him outgunned. You and me and Rubin will go out back to make sure the horses are all right, just in case it is an Injun. Come to think of it, it might be a good idea for one of us to stay with the horses to make sure nobody steals ’em. We can spell one another off until mornin’.” He was about to continue when he was suddenly interrupted by Hannah.

  “Listen!” she exclaimed, holding her finger to her lips to silence him. “Listen,” she scolded, holding up her hand when they did not respond at once. When the men realized what she wanted, they all stopped talking and listened for whatever had caught her attention. In a minute they understood, when the clear call of a nighthawk was heard. In a few minutes’ time, they heard it again, only this time it seemed to come from behind the cabin.

  “Injuns!” Tater exclaimed in a loud whisper. “They’re goin’ after the horses!”

  There was no necessity for anyone to wait for orders—they immediately snatched up their rifles, all aware of the fact that they’d be in a hell of a fix without their horses. “Get out there before they run off with ’em,” Hannah cried. “I don’t fancy travelin’ outta these mountains on foot.”

  In a show of bravado, Lynch told Hannah to stay inside the cabin while the men took care of the Indians. She made no objection because she already intended to stay inside, not being anxious to step outside in almost total darkness. Lynch went to the door and lifted the bar, but eased the door open slowly, lest there be something outside waiting. When there was no reception of any kind, he pushed the door wide and stepped outside. He had to pause for a few moments before his eyes adjusted to the darkness, the only sound to reach his ears that of the constant waterfall from the cliff above them. After the moments passed, he decided there was no one waiting to take a shot at him. “Come on,” he said, and stepped down off the porch, hoping they were not already too late. Rubin and Tater followed close behind him and they heard the bar falling into the two angle iron brackets on the inside of the door. “Leave the damn bar off the door,” Lynch called back to Hannah. “We might need to get back in a hurry.” There was no response from inside, and there was no sound of the heavy timber being lifted from the door, either. “Ornery bitch,” Lynch mumbled before turning his focus upon the corral and the small barn beyond. “Keep your eyes peeled,” he cautioned. It was unnecessary advice, for both Rubin and Tater were already straining to see in the darkened canyon as they followed close on Lynch’s heels.

  The cabin was only a few steps away from the corral, but there was no sound that told them the horses heard them coming. “Oh Lordy,” Tater gasped when they found the corral empty. All three men immediately dropped to a knee and looked frantically all around them, but there was nothing and no one there. Not sure what to do, they backed up and huddled together. “We’re in a heap of trouble now,” Tater moaned, still suspecting it was Will Tanner’s doing. “Whadda we gonna do? He’s done run our horses off.”

  Lynch was every bit as desperate as his two partners, but he attempted to maintain some sense of control of their situation. “Whaddaya mean, he? We don’t know it’s Tanner,” he said. “If it was him, we’da most likely got shot at. Looks more like some Injuns snuck in here and stole the horses. You heard ’em callin’ back and forth between each other, didn’t ya? What we’ve gotta do is get on their trail before they get very far, and hope there ain’t too many to handle.”

  “Get on their trail?” Tater retorted. “I can hardly see my feet in this dark canyon. How the hell are we gonna track our horses?”

  It was hard to argue that point. Lynch was at a loss for an answer for a few moments while he thought about it. Rubin spoke up then. “It might be hard to find any tracks before daylight, but there ain’t but one way outta here, unless they led those horses straight up the side of this canyon. And I believe we’da heard ’em if they tried that.”

  “Well, now, that sure makes sense, don’t it?” Tater allowed. “But what did they want with the firewood?”

  “I don’t know,” Lynch replied, tired of hearing the question, “and I don’t give a damn. Let’s get down that trail. They ain’t been gone very long. Maybe we can catch ’em before they get to the mouth of the canyon. If we don’t, we ain’t got a chance of gettin’ our horses back.” He was thinking their only hope was the fact that the trail was too narrow to permit the horses to pass any way other than single file. And that might enable them to catch the horse thieves before they managed to get them all through. “Come on!” he yelled again, and started running toward the trail out of the canyon. When they ran past the cabin, he paused just long enough to tell Hannah what was going on and gave her instructions to remain there to guard the cabin. He was thinking the Indians might already have their horses and he didn’t want to give them the chance to double back and steal everything else. All their saddles, extra ammunition, and supplies were in the cabin.

  Down the trail they shuffled, as quickly as they could in the dark confines of the narrow canyon, barely able to see more than fifteen or twenty feet in front of them. Halfway down, the passage shrank to its tightest place, where a massive shelf of rock jutted out from the steep side. This was the place Lynch was desperate to reach, for it was the one place on the trail that might slow the horse thieves up. If the Indians were already past that point, he knew there was little chance he would catch them, and the four of them would be in dire straights for certain. Just before reaching the spot where the trail looped around the jagged rock, he stopped suddenly, causing Tater to bump into his back. “Hush up!” Lynch whispered. “Listen.”

  “We caught ’em,” Rubin whispered, for they could hear the sound of their horses bunched up in the trail ahead. “They can’t get out. Somethin’s got ’em bottled up.”

  “Careful,” Tater warned. “We don’t wanna let ’em hear us comin’. We don’t know how good they’re armed.”

  “That’s a fact,” Lynch seconded. “Take it real slow.”

  They inched cautiously along the canyon wall, their rifles ready to fire the moment they saw the first Indian. After moving a few feet farther, they began to make out the dark forms of the horses as the confused animals struggled to move past one another, stymied by the confines of the cramped passage. “What the hell? . . .” Lynch uttered suddenly, for there was no s
ign of any Indians. But the passage was so dark they couldn’t be sure the Indians weren’t hiding among the horses. “Watch ’em, boys,” he warned. “They might be waitin’ to jump us.” They stood ready, watching the tangle of horses, but there was nothing to indicate the presence of any Indians. Finally, Lynch proclaimed, “There ain’t no Injuns in here. They musta got spooked when the horses wouldn’t pass on through the canyon.” As he spoke, one of the horses backed away from the others, turned, and padded slowly back toward the three men. It was soon followed by another.

  Confident now that there was no one in the narrow passage but the horses and the three of them, Tater made his way through the remaining horses to get to the front of the bunch. He was halfway convinced that one of them may have stumbled, maybe getting trampled by those right behind him, and consequently created the blocked trail. When he worked his way through to the lead horse, however, he found the animal standing, unharmed. “I swear . . .” he started, then called back, “Whaddaya make of this, Lynch?”

  “Make of what?” Lynch replied as he and Rubin worked past the horses to join Tater, who was gaping at the two stout tree limbs blocking the passage at its narrowest point. Considerably less dumbfounded than his simple partner, Lynch yelled, “Look out!” He instantly raised his rifle and looked frantically from right to left, knowing at once that they had been led into a trap. Startled by Lynch’s sudden outcry, Rubin tried to run back the way they had come, but was hampered by the horses, still bunched up, and blocking the passage. In panic, he backed up beside Lynch and Tater.

  “I expect we can make this a whole lot easier if the three of you drop those rifles on the ground,” Will said. His voice, though calm and solemn, seemed to cut through the darkness like the shaft of an arrow, startling the three trapped men.

  “The hell you say!” Lynch exclaimed, and fired his rifle in the direction he thought the voice had come from. His shot caused an immediate reaction from Tater and Rubin, both men firing their weapons in aimless panic, hoping to hit something, if only by accident. Their reaction resulted in frightening the already confused horses blocking the trail.

  “You’re all under arrest, and if you do like I tell you, nobody has to get killed,” Will said when the horses settled down again, his voice still patient. “But the first one who cocks his rifle again is gonna get shot, so drop ’em. I ain’t gonna ask you again.” Knowing there was no chance of chambering another cartridge before he could pull the trigger, they did as he commanded.

  “Tanner, is that who you are?” Lynch asked. He had no intention of surrendering that easily. He was wearing a Colt .44 on his hip, and he figured he had a chance if he could determine where the deputy was hiding. He seemed to be directly above them, but it was too dark to see him. But if he could get him to talk some more, he thought he had a pretty good chance of hitting him. “I figured you’d show up here, but I didn’t expect you before tomorrow. They told me you’re the one who shot my son down in the middle of the street, over in Fort Smith. I expect you didn’t give him much of a chance, either.”

  Will was not inclined to have a conversation with the man, suspecting Lynch’s taunting was a ploy to expose his position. But he couldn’t resist answering the charge. “He drew on an officer of the law. Don’t make the same mistake.” As soon as he said it, he quickly rolled over on the rocky shelf he was lying upon in time to be out of the way of the shots Lynch immediately fired at the sound of his voice. Without hesitation, Will fired in return, putting a .44 slug in Lynch’s shoulder, rolling back to his original position as soon as he pulled the trigger. His quick reaction saved him from being hit by the shot Rubin fired at his muzzle flash. Before Rubin could fire a second shot, Will knocked him down with a .44 slug dead in the center of his chest. He was still determined to take Jack Lynch back to Fort Smith for trial, so he had aimed for the shoulder. In Rubin’s case, he had not had the time to be so accurate, what with the sudden jostling of the startled horses when the shots went off. With a third cartridge already chambered, he aimed his Winchester at Tater, ready to fire again, depending upon the outlaw’s reaction. Having witnessed the lightning-fast response to his two partners’ attempts to resist, Tater immediately threw his hands up in surrender. “Unbuckle the belt and let it drop,” Will ordered. Still being jostled about by the frightened horses, Tater did as he was told, then stepped back against the tree limbs blocking the trail. He figured it was a long way back to Fort Smith and maybe there might be opportunities for escape somewhere on that ride. There could be a hangman’s noose waiting in Fort Smith, but it was a better gamble than the one Rubin Cheney had just taken. His decision was a wise one, for the phantomlike lawman suddenly dropped down from the dark ledge above to land astraddle one of the horses, then slid off to face the confused outlaw. “Sit down next to him,” Will said, and motioned toward Lynch, who was lying back against the side of the passage, groaning in pain. Then he checked to make sure Rubin was dead and not playing possum.

  Once he had picked up their weapons, including the pistol that had dropped from Lynch’s hand when he was shot, Will methodically emptied all the rifles and pistols and wrapped the ammunition in Rubin’s coat to protect it. Then he laid the weapons in a pile and put the bundled cartridges on top to shield them from the weather. The weapons were too much to carry while trying to march two prisoners back to the cabin. When he had secured all of the prisoners, he figured to come back to pick them up. For now, there was little else he could do, so he started the confused horses back toward the cabin. At the narrowest point in the trail there was not enough room for the horses to turn around, so he had to back the lead horses until there was room. Soon all the horses were on their way back up the trail. The last one to leave was carrying Rubin’s body. He then ordered his prisoners to get on their feet. “I can’t get up,” Lynch complained. “I’m wounded, bleedin’ bad. I can’t walk.”

  “I shot you in the shoulder,” Will said. “You ain’t hurt that bad. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with your legs. Give him a hand,” he said to Tater. To be sure, he asked Tater who the man was that he had killed.

  “Rubin Cheney,” Tater answered.

  “Cheney?” Will repeated, surprised. That put a new twist on the story. He knew that there was one of the Cheney boys who had fled from Texas with his sister and the old man. So that meant there was no one left of ol’ Ike Cheney’s offspring but the daughter, Hannah. And it figured that she was the woman Wilbur Greene had reported to be riding with the three outlaws. It also solved the puzzle over where the two extra outlaws had come from after two of the original four had been killed. It was not the only puzzle to figure out, however, for he could not account for the old man, himself. Where was Ike Cheney? When he peered through the crack in the window shutter, he had been able to count only three people, and he had been certain that he was trailing four. Maybe there were really five, and Ike was inside the cabin with Hannah. What about her mother? he wondered. Was she in the cabin, too? “If that’s Rubin Cheney, then I reckon the woman in the cabin is Hannah Cheney,” Will said. “Is anyone else in there with her?”

  “Nah,” Tater answered at once. “Ain’t nobody in the cabin but Hannah.”

  “Shut your mouth,” Lynch growled painfully at Tater. “You don’t hafta tell him nothin’, you damn fool.” Tater shrugged indifferently. He didn’t see that it made much difference if the deputy knew there wasn’t anyone in the cabin but the woman.

  “Your friend there is Jack Lynch,” Will said. “What’s your name?”

  Tater paused to think about his answer. After a moment, he answered. “Wilfred T. Hancock.” He had started to answer “John Smith,” but decided he might as well name himself something fancy. And the fanciest name he could recall at the moment was that of the president of a bank Scorpion Jack Lynch and his gang had robbed in Kansas.

  Will snorted, almost chuckling. He would have bet on John Smith. He had to give him credit for originality, however. “What’s the T stand for?”

  “Tate
r,” was the immediate reply, without thinking about it.

  “All right, Tater,” Will said, “help your friend along, there, and start walkin’ back up that trail.” With his Winchester aimed at their backs, he followed the two outlaws up the narrow passage. He still had major problems to overcome and he knew he was extremely lucky to have succeeded to this point. Luck had been a big factor in the shoot-out just completed, and he was still counting on luck to enable him to capture the woman holed up in the log cabin. It might not be so easy, he thought, remembering the fury of Hannah Cheney when he confronted her in The Cattleman’s Saloon in Texas. His plan was to tie Lynch and Tater up in the small barn while he attempted to get Hannah to surrender. And the first step to complete was to get them in the barn without Hannah taking a shot at him when he crossed the clearing. At least, he still had the advantage of darkness. But he had to admit that Dan Stone might be right in always trying to convince him that he was at a disadvantage when tracking outlaws alone. Right now, he thought, I’d even welcome ol’ Alvin Greeley with his sagging shoulder to give me a hand. Jim Little Eagle would have been his choice, and he knew that he should have taken Jim’s offer to help before coming after Lynch.

  His luck was still holding when they reached the waterfall and the pond, for the horses were milling aimlessly around the cabin. Whether that distracted the woman holed up inside or not, Will couldn’t say, but there was no indication he and his prisoners were seen when they crossed the yard to the barn. Inside the small shedlike structure, he wasted no time tying his prisoners to two separate poles that supported the roof at each end, using the rope he had left there before when he had let the horses out of the corral. He took a quick look at Lynch’s wound. The bullet had made an ugly hole in the right shoulder, just below the collarbone. There was already some swelling, but the bleeding had slowed to a stop. Will decided it was not a threatening wound and could stand to wait a little while before receiving medical attention. This in spite of Lynch’s moaning and insistence that he needed help. Will had other things on his mind: Hannah Cheney holed up in a stout log cabin.