Way of the Gun (9781101597804)

by West, Charles G.

  “Howdy, Bris,” Bill Sullivan greeted them when they walked up to the bar. “You bring in a load of logs?”

  “Yeah, as a matter of fact,” Bris replied. “We need us a drink of whiskey.” While Sullivan reached for three shot glasses, Bris remarked to his two companions, “Man’s got a helluva memory. I ain’t been in here but once or twice before.”

  Jim grinned at Carson. “Yeah, everybody talks about what a memory Sullivan’s got.” He picked up his glass. “Let’s sit down at that table over there. We might want another drink.” Bris and Carson followed him over to a table near the center of the barroom. Two men sitting at a table next to theirs looked up when they sat down. “Harvey,” Jim greeted one of them.

  “Howdy, Jim,” Harvey returned. “You been busy at the sawmill?”

  “Not as busy as I’d like to be,” Jim replied. He didn’t bother to introduce Carson and Bris. It was all the same to Carson, and Bris was already eyeing a rather tired-looking woman two tables over. Catching his eye, she got up from the table and left the two prospectors who had seemed more interested in getting drunk even after she had invested fifteen minutes of her time.

  “Hey, darlin’,” she said to Bris, who was grinning from ear to ear. “My name’s Annie. You lookin’ for a little companionship?”

  Bris just continued grinning for a long moment before answering, “No, honey. I’m just a looker, I ain’t a doer. My pickle ain’t good for nothin’ no more but passin’ a little water now and again, but I’ll give you a quarter for a little peek at your merchandise.”

  “Huh,” she snorted, disappointed. “Ain’t you the big spender? For twenty-five cents you can take a look at my foot.” When his response was nothing more than a continuation of his happy smile, she nodded toward Carson. “What about him?”

  “I don’t know,” Bris answered. “Why don’t you ask him?” He had a feeling he already knew what Carson’s answer might be, but he was content to delay the woman’s departure. He didn’t have the opportunity to be this close to a woman as a rule.

  “What about it, stud?” Annie asked Carson, who had been listening to the conversation between Saylor and Harvey Johnson, the postmaster.

  Distracted momentarily when the woman jabbed him with her finger to get his attention, Carson said, “Reckon not, ma’am, but it’s awful temptin’.” It was far from tempting, but he didn’t want to hurt her feelings. Disgusted, she abruptly got up and returned to the table with the two prospectors where there was still hope as long as they continued to drink. His attention went immediately back to the conversation between Saylor and Johnson.

  Noticing Carson’s rapt attention, Harvey paused to say howdy to him. “Don’t believe I’ve ever seen you in town before,” he said. “My name’s Harvey Johnson. I’m the postmaster here in town. You a friend of Jim’s?”

  Saylor answered for him. “This is John Carson. He’s been working with Bris, cuttin’ timber. Been working for me for over two years. He just doesn’t get into town much.”

  Carson shook Harvey’s offered hand. “Couldn’t help hearin’ what you were tellin’ Jim a minute ago,” he remarked, “somethin’ about a range war.”

  “I reckon you could call it that,” Harvey replied. “From what I heard, there were some folks killed.” He paused to think. “Carson,” he repeated, “something familiar about that name.” Then he remembered. “I know what it is. I got a wanted notice for a fellow named Carson—only that was his first name—Carson Ryan, if I remember correctly. It’s been up with the other notices for a long time.” He chuckled then. “He’s wanted for murdering a U.S. deputy marshal. I don’t reckon that was you, was it?”

  The postmaster was obviously making a joke, but it caused the blood to chill in Carson’s veins. He attempted a weak chuckle in response. “Well, I know I ain’t ever shot a deputy,” he said. “Where was the range war you were talkin’ about?”

  “Oh, it wasn’t around here,” Harvey replied. “It was on the other side of the Big Belt Mountains, on farther east somewhere around the Crazy Mountains is where I make it to be. It’s a wonder there ain’t more killing in that country, ’cause there isn’t much in the way of law on the open range.”

  Carson’s brain was already frantically working over a variety of situations that he truly hoped had nothing to do with the friends he had left in that area. Harvey’s next comment almost stunned him.

  “Fellow name of Cain was one of the ones got killed, is what I heard,” Harvey said. “Owns a big spread south of the Musselshell.”

  “Mathew Cain?” Carson blurted, unable to accept it as fact.

  “Mighta been. In fact, I think that was the fellow’s name,” Harvey said. Noticing the obvious impact his comment had made on Jim’s friend, he asked, “You know him?”

  Aware then that both Bris and Jim were watching him, waiting for his reply, Carson nodded slowly before uttering a simple statement. “I know him.” It was obvious that Jim and Bris wanted more, but that was all Carson cared to impart at that particular moment. His mind was racing. There was more to think about than Mathew Cain alone. Who else might have been killed? What about Justin, and Frank and Nancy, Shorty . . . Millie? He thought about Lon Tuttle. Had a full-blown war broken out between the two ranch owners? He knew that he had to have answers for those and many other questions. And even though his time at the M/C had been brief, he felt a deep obligation to help the people there. He looked up to find Bris studying him intently. The grizzled little man sensed that he was about to lose his partner. His concern spread rapidly to fill Jim Saylor’s eyes as well, and both men waited silently for Carson to speak. “I’ve got to go,” he stated simply. “I owe them.”

  He had never been a man to take obligations lightly, so he deeply regretted leaving Jim and Bris on such short notice. But in all fairness, he reminded himself, he had told them in the beginning that he might leave after the first spring. That fact did not help the feeling of guilt he was left with. Jim had provided a job for him when his prospects were slim, and Bris had proven to be a good man to work with, so it was hard to tell them he wasn’t going back to the camp in the mountains. Jim made it easy for him, however, which Carson greatly appreciated. “I know you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do,” he told him after they left the saloon. “It ain’t none of my business what you were doin’ before you came to Helena, but I think I know you well enough to know that whatever you feel is right is what you’ll do. So I wish you good luck. If you get back this way, come and see me.” He paid him all the wages he had earned and hadn’t collected.

  Bris surprised him. He had really expected him to be extremely disappointed that he was leaving so suddenly, but if that was in fact the case, the little man concealed it well. He seemed almost cheerful in his parting comments. “Well, John, I reckon you turned out to be a pretty good worker. If you hadn’t, I’da run you off after the first week,” he said with a laugh. “Next one Jim sends me to break in, I ain’t gonna let him come to town a’tall.” He stuck out his hand. “Don’t go gettin’ into no trouble.”

  As a precaution, he had left nothing he really needed back in the lumber camp, so he felt it unnecessary to return. It would be easier to part company right away, as far as he was concerned, so he said his farewells that night. And when morning came, he was already gone.

  Chapter 12

  Millie Cain stood with her sister and brother-in-law beside the graves of her father and elder brother, her face a mask of vengeful determination, her eyes dry of tears, as she watched Mule and Shorty filling in the graves. She only glanced at her sister for a moment, when Nancy began to sob anew, her gaze turned then toward her younger brother when Lucas grabbed a shovel and began helping to cover the bodies. All that’s left of the men of the Cain family, she thought, a terrible burden to place upon the shoulders of one so young. At least Frank was there. His was not the strength of her father and Justin, but he could be depended upon to
stand and fight, unlike those who had deserted Mathew Cain when he most needed their support. I wish I had been there, she thought as she went over the accounting of it in her mind.

  Thinking of that fatal day, she knew that there had been no way to convince her father to let Justin and the men handle it. It was not in Mathew Cain’s nature to sit safely by the fire when outlaws threatened his range. He had insisted upon leading the party that rode after the rustlers who made off with around five hundred M/C cattle. He and Justin, along with four of the men, headed straight for the Musselshell River, knowing full well they would find the missing portion of the herd on the old Bar-T range. It had been over a year since Lon Tuttle had been found hanging by the neck in his barn. The man who supposedly found him was Tuttle’s foreman, Tom Castor, who surmised that his boss had taken his own life. Mysteriously, a man Tuttle had supposedly fired returned to help Castor run the ranch. Shorty said the man’s name was Duke Slayton, and he brought men with him, one who wore an eye patch. A few weeks later, reports reached them that Castor had been killed when he came off a bucking horse and broke his neck. An awful lot of bad luck, she had thought with some suspicion.

  She gazed at Lucas as he worked steadily with the shovel, hoping the labor would keep his tears from flowing. Unconsciously, she let her hand drop to rest on the handle of the .44 Colt she now wore constantly. She, unlike her sister, Nancy, was prepared to go to war—and there was no doubt in her mind that this was a war. This demon, Duke Slayton, had succeeded in taking over Lon Tuttle’s spread, and was surely planning the same for the M/C. There was no choice but to fight for what her father had built. She was sending Lucas to Big Timber to telegraph the governor of the territory and the federal marshal just as soon as the funeral was over, but she knew help from them would be too long in coming. Still, it was the right thing to do, to notify the law, and it would also remove Lucas from danger. She knew that he would have been a help in defending their home, but if he should fall to the same fate as his father and brother, it would be the end of the Cain line of males.

  Duke Slayton would come. She was certain of that, for there seemed to be too few to stop him from pillaging the M/C, just as he had taken the Bar-T. And he had to feel secure in the knowledge that he had already eliminated the strength of the M/C. Well, it’s not going to be such an easy time of it, she promised herself. She looked at the men standing respectfully around the graves, and felt confident that the defense of her home was not going to be like the ambush that took her father and Justin. She recreated the scene in her mind, as Shorty had related it. Duke Slayton had been waiting for them, knowing Mathew Cain would come after his cattle. The ambush had been well planned, with riflemen hidden in the rocks on both sides of a wide ravine. When the shooting started, every gun seemed to have been aimed at her father and Justin. They fell immediately. Shorty said there must have been half a dozen bullet holes in each one of them. He took cover in a narrow gully and yelled for Pruett Little to find a place to shoot from on the other side, but Pruett and the other two took off, leaving Shorty, Mule, and Clem to fend for themselves. “The last I saw of that coward was his big ass flattened on his horse’s neck, flyin’ out the mouth of that ravine,” Shorty had said. “The good Lord was lookin’ out for me on that day. I don’t know why, ’cause I ain’t ever done nothin’ to catch His eye. I know them bastards up on the sides of that ravine knew it was gonna cost ’em to root the three of us outta that gully. I guess they figured we wasn’t worth the risk. We got the horses in there with us and waited till dark. Then we got Justin and Mr. Cain across their saddles and rode outta there.”

  When the graves were filled, Millie thanked Mule, Clem, and Shorty for their loyalty and they humbly responded. “It’ll be getting dark pretty soon,” she said. “So, Lucas, you’d best saddle up and get started.”

  “I don’t know, Millie,” Lucas protested. “I think I’ll do more good if I stay here. It ain’t gonna do no good waitin’ for the law to do anything.”

  “You need to go,” Millie said. “It’s important to let the law know what’s been going on here. I’d send Lizzie’s boy, but he’s too young.”

  “Millie’s right, Lucas,” Shorty told him, knowing why she didn’t want him there. “It’s important to let them know.” Lucas went reluctantly to the barn to saddle up.

  Next she turned to Frank. “Shorty and I think we need to get ready for a visit, and more than likely it’ll be tonight. I don’t know why they’ve waited this long. We figure it won’t be like an Indian raid. We’re not going to worry about them trying to run the horses off, or stealing cattle. They’re coming to get rid of us first. Then they won’t have to worry about the rest. What do you think? Is that about the way you figure it?” She didn’t really care what his thoughts were at this point, for she relied more on Shorty’s, but she asked his opinion for his and Nancy’s sake. He replied that he agreed. It was what he was thinking best to do.

  The question now was where to put their strength. Should they basically defend the house or the barn, or both? Millie was reluctant to lose either. And how many would come against them? Shorty said as best he could determine there were at least eight or ten firing from the sides of that ravine. When she asked for opinions, Mule was the first to respond. “There’s a lot of blind spots in the barn,” he pointed out. “Might be easy for somebody to sneak in without us seein’ ’em.”

  “Mule’s right,” Clem said. “We might need at least four good shooters, one on each corner.”

  “Well, you three are the best shots,” Millie said. “Maybe you should be in the barn. If we put one more with you, that doesn’t leave much but Frank to defend the house.”

  At that point, Lizzie spoke up. “You give me gun. By God, they not gonna take my kitchen. I’ll give dem a load of buckshot.”

  Her comment caused Nancy to speak as well. “I know how to use a gun. Frank and I can defend the house with Lizzie.” Her statement was followed by one from Lizzie’s young son, Karl, who pointed out that he was a good shot with his .22 Remington when it came to rabbits and squirrels. In number, they could therefore have four in the barn and four in the house, but they finally decided to send Karl to the barn, and Millie would post herself in the house. Shorty suggested that he and Clem should ride out to the north ridge to keep a lookout until Lizzie called them in to eat. Then they would go to their respective posts and wait for whatever might come during the night.

  The night passed peacefully, with no visits from the gang of outlaws who had taken over the Bar-T, and when morning broke, it was to find eight weary souls to greet the light of day. Millie went down to the barn to tell Shorty and the others that Lizzie would soon have some breakfast for them. “I sure thought that bunch of bushwhackers would come sneakin’ around here last night,” Shorty said. “Reckon maybe they ain’t plannin’ on hittin’ us after all? Maybe they figure it ain’t worth the risk of gettin’ shot at.”

  “I don’t know,” Millie said, equally surprised. “Maybe they want us to think they’re not coming after us, and they’ll hit us when we aren’t prepared.”

  “Maybe so,” Mule commented. “That’s why I think we’d best keep waitin’ for ’em. And I don’t think it’ll be much longer, because they’ve got to think about the army or the law comin’ down on ’em if they wait too long.” They were all agreed then, and took turns getting a few hours of sleep during the day. Just as before, when darkness fell, everyone went to their assigned posts to wait out the night.

  * * *

  Duke Slayton had been busy during the time since Lon Tuttle had ordered him off his ranch. Never one to limit his ambitions, he saw a quick and easy way to acquire the biggest herd in Montana Territory. With the scarcity of law in the territory, he saw no reason why he couldn’t take cattle from the M/C and move them with Bar-T stock up to Canada where he would establish his ranch, free from U.S. marshals. It made sense to him, enough to encourage him to return to Wyoming to recru
it a gang of outlaws to follow him. One of the first he encountered was Bad Eye, who was lying low in an old hideout of theirs near the Rattlesnake Mountains. Bad Eye wasn’t the only felon on the run from the law at the hideout. Sid Perkins and his brother, Roy, were there as well, having been flushed out of Oklahoma Indian Territory by a posse of deputies from Fort Smith. Soon he picked up a couple more recruits who, like the Perkins brothers, were without prospects. In time, he had enlisted a sizable gang of men and considered himself ready to make his assault on the two ranches he had targeted, so he led his pack of assassins north to Montana.

  Castor was easy. Duke didn’t have to spend much time convincing Tuttle’s foreman that he had a lot more to gain if Tuttle was out of the picture. Duke was especially pleased with himself for thinking up Tuttle’s death as a suicide so word of a murder wouldn’t spread through the territory. Once Tuttle was gone, Duke moved his men in, and after that, it was only logical to eliminate Castor. Duke wasn’t interested in sharing command of his dynasty, and Castor was under the impression that this was their original agreement. With Carson Ryan out of the picture, and everything in place at last, the moment he had been waiting for was at hand. He was ready to wipe out all traces of Mathew Cain and his family.

  * * *

  Sid Perkins dropped to a knee beside Duke on the dark ridge to the east of the ranch house. “There’s some of ’em in the barn,” Sid said. “Looks like they mighta split up.”

  “I ain’t surprised,” Duke said. “They knew I’d be comin’ after ’em.”

  “Why don’t we just let ’em hole up in there, and we go after the cattle?” Sid asked. “If they try to stop us, we’ll catch ’em comin’ outta the house.” He was not opposed to wholesale murder, but he didn’t quite see the sense in putting the house and barn under siege.