“What do we do now?” Frank asked.
“I reckon we’ll go to war,” Shorty answered him, “if you don’t wanna lose all your cattle.”
“That’s another thing we talked about,” Millie said. “Me, Nancy, Lucas, and Frank—we talked it over and decided all of us own the cattle. Since Papa and Justin are gone, we need you, and Mule, and Clem, so we think it’s fair if all of us own equal shares in the ranch—Lizzie, too.”
Her statement caught Shorty without words for once in his life. When he finally remembered some, he exclaimed, “You mean that?” She nodded and smiled. “That’s mighty generous of you folks,” he said. “Wait till I tell the fellers in the barn!” It occurred to him then that they were no doubt wondering why he had never returned. “I’d best go get ’em, anyway, ’cause we’ve got to decide what we’re gonna do to keep our cattle.”
Nancy spoke up then to remind them that Lucas had been sent to Big Timber to contact the law. “Should we wait till we hear from them?” she asked. “Maybe they’ll send a posse to go after that bunch of murderers.”
“By the time a posse got here,” Frank answered her, “our cattle would be in Canada.”
“Frank’s right,” Carson said. “We need to stop ’em before they cross the Musselshell. Why don’t you get the boys ready to start out at first light in the mornin’ and head for the river? Maybe you can catch ’em before they round up a sizable herd and try to cross.”
With no better idea of his own, Shorty nodded, then asked, “What about you? You’re ridin’ with us, ain’tcha?”
“Reckon not,” Carson replied. “I don’t like the odds. There ain’t but four of you against them, so I expect I’ll leave now before they get too far ahead. Maybe I can cut the odds down a little better tonight.”
Relieved when he understood Carson’s meaning, Shorty nodded and said, “That would sure help some.”
“You be careful you don’t go get yourself killed,” Millie blurted. When she saw the look of surprise in the faces of Nancy and Carson, she flushed slightly, then quickly added, “We need all the guns we can get.” She received a disapproving glare from her sister then, so she grimaced and said, “I never thanked you for saving my life. I appreciate it.” Nancy’s eyes shot up toward the ceiling.
“You’re welcome, ma’am,” Carson said.
“And quit calling me ma’am,” Millie responded. “I’m not your mother, or your aunt.”
“Yes, ma’a . . . I mean Millie,” he said, confused, wondering how he had happened to make her mad this time. Looking at Shorty then, he said, “I’d best get goin’. I’ll see you sometime in the mornin’.”
* * *
Even in the darkness, he had very little trouble following the tracks of the gang. As he suspected, they made straight for the largest concentration of M/C cattle, and they found them dispersed over a broad valley by a creek some five or six miles north of the M/C ranch house. When he caught sight of the herd, he held back to try to see how the rustlers were going to organize their drive. Watching from a low line of hills, he saw two of the men split from the others and ride out, one to the east to round up a pocket of strays, the other to the west, toward him, to do the same. It appeared that the other rustlers planned to hold the main herd there in the valley until the strays had been brought back. Carson took only a few seconds to decide his plan of attack.
He dismounted and, under the cover of darkness, moved in among a small bunch of cattle that had gathered in a pocket at the mouth of a shallow ravine. There was no feeling of conscience or guilt for what he was about to do. This was war, and these men had killed Mathew Cain and his son. They had made the rules. Now they were to die by them. He stood waiting for them, his rifle ready.
Not quite able to determine what the upright object was in the midst of the group of strays, the rustler continued to approach, until suddenly the object moved and a rifle shot ripped the darkness, leaving an empty saddle. Wasting no time, Carson ran back to his horse and galloped toward the eastern side of the herd.
“What the hell?” Roy Perkins blurted when he heard the shot. “The damn fool will have us in a stampede,” he cursed, for he first thought the man had fired his rifle to get the strays moving. The main herd, bedded down before him, were starting to move about, frightened by the shot. There were no more shots after the first one, so he decided to wait to find out the reason for such a stupid act. In about fifteen minutes, he heard another shot, this time from the east of the herd, and he realized what was actually taking place. “Sid!” he yelled to his brother. “We got some trouble! To hell with the strays, let’s get this bunch movin!”
“What about the rest of the boys?” Sid yelled back.
“They can hold ’em off while we get this herd movin’,” Roy replied, not realizing the two he had sent to chase strays were dead. “They can catch up with us before we get to the river.” Pulling his pistol then, he fired a couple of shots into the air to get the cattle started. When Sid and Bad Eye did the same, they soon had a stampede pouring over the dark prairie.
Racing along the flank, Carson managed to overtake the lead steers and turn them away from the river. The rustlers behind the cattle could not guess why they had turned to the east. Intent upon catching up to the lead cows, Sid whipped his horse brutally to gain on them. When he succeeded, he was surprised to find a rider already ahead of him, but in the darkness, he could not tell who it was. “You’re turnin’ ’em, damn it!” he shouted to the dark horseman.
“I sure as hell am,” Carson replied, and leveled his rifle at the approaching rider. Sid came out of the saddle to land hard on the ground when the .44 slug ripped into his chest.
Behind the herd, Roy and Bad Eye heard the shot. “What the hell’s goin’ on?” Roy demanded. The cattle were continuing to turn in a circle. There were no more shots on either flank, and none behind them. “Where the hell are Mutt and Fred?” he asked, referring to the two men who were supposed to be catching up to them.
Bad Eye stood up in his stirrups and pointed behind them. “Look yonder!” he exclaimed. Roy looked in the direction pointed out to discover two horses with empty saddles following them. “They got us surrounded!”
Not certain what was happening, nor where the rest of the men were, Roy wasn’t sure what he should do. Something had gone dreadfully wrong. “We need to get up ahead and see where Sid is,” he decided.
“I don’t like the look of this,” Bad Eye declared. “I already got a hole in my shoulder. I don’t need another’n. Let ’em have their damn cows.” He wheeled his horse and kicked it into a hard gallop. His retreat served to incite the others to think about the possibility of more victims, and thinking Bad Eye might be right, they took off in another direction.
“Wait!” Roy shouted, but they were long gone. “Damn you,” he cursed, furious over the desertion when he wasn’t sure if his brother was in trouble or not. He turned his horse toward the front of the herd, which had been successfully turned back on itself, causing the cattle to mill around and eventually settle down again. At the head of the bawling steers, a dark figure sat his horse, patiently waiting. “Sid?” Roy called out. “Is that you?”
“Yeah,” Carson answered.
“What the hell happened?” Roy asked as he approached. He didn’t realize his error until there was little more than twenty yards between them. With no time left for questions, he went for his gun, but was not quick enough to draw his weapon before the rifle already aimed at him took his life.
Carson checked to see if Roy Perkins was dead, and then he stood staring down at him for a few minutes. He had never seen the man before, but he had killed him as he would kill a rattlesnake, to prevent him from doing more harm. By his count, four men were dead, and there was no sign of the others. The herd had settled down to mill about peacefully, and it appeared the threat was ended. Suddenly he was very tired, and he remembered that he had not slept since the da
y before. He took his saddle off the bay and released it to graze, knowing it would not stray far away from him. Then he sat down and reloaded his rifle, content that he had done all he could to avenge the deaths of Mathew and Justin Cain. The decision to be made now was whether to wait for Shorty and the others to show up in the morning or to move on, since he had ended the war by himself. Weary, he leaned back against a low hummock and closed his eyes. He didn’t open them again until the sun came up to awaken him.
* * *
Bad Eye wasn’t sure where he had ended up after almost running his horse to death the night before. But he had made it to sunup with no sign of anyone on his trail. His problem now was the stinging from the bullet hole in his shoulder and the gnawing of an empty stomach as he walked through a grassy ravine, leading his exhausted horse. He had nothing to eat in his saddlebags, not even the makings for a pot of coffee, or a pot to boil it in, so he felt as if he might expire if he didn’t get either a cup of coffee or a drink of whiskey pretty soon. Seeing a double row of sage and small trees ahead, he hoped to find a stream. Halfway down the ravine, he spotted smoke from a campfire. At once alert, he proceeded more cautiously lest he walk into an ambush.
Maybe, he thought, I best back away and take a wide circle around it. But the hint of a rabbit roasting over the fire caught his nostrils and reminded him that he wanted to eat. He hesitated, undecided for a few moments, until a voice called out, “You comin’ on in, or you gonna stand out there smellin’ the coffee?”
Startled, Bad Eye started to back away but decided he’d already been spotted, so he might as well find out if the camp was friendly or not. “I’d sure like to have a cup of that coffee, if you’ve got some to spare,” he finally responded.
“Sure, come on in and have some,” the man called back. “Maybe you could eat a little somethin’, too,” he added when Bad Eye led his horse down by the fire. “You look like you been on the run,” he said, nodding toward the bloodstains on Bad Eye’s shirt.
“Yeah, I ran into a little bad luck a ways back,” Bad Eye offered as explanation.
The man grinned at Bad Eye’s obvious nervousness. “You ain’t got to worry about me,” he said, making a quick judgment on a man out in the middle of the prairie, with a bullet hole in his shoulder, walking an exhausted horse, with no sign of anything to make camp with. “I been on the run before, and I’ve been shot before. So sit down and drink some coffee.” When Bad Eye confessed that he didn’t even have a cup to drink out of, it caused his host to laugh. “Mister, you’re really on the run, ain’tcha?” He couldn’t help taking a look back the way Bad Eye had come. “You ain’t led the law down on my camp, have you?”
“Nah, it ain’t the law I’m runnin’ from,” Bad Eye answered, “and I’m sure I lost ’em last night.” He took the cup offered him, feeling that he had been lucky to chance on an obvious outlaw, like himself, and one who could sympathize with his plight, even though he looked more Indian than white. “Where’re you headin’?” he asked.
“I’m lookin’ for somebody,” Red Shirt replied, “somebody I need to settle a score with, and I ain’t had much luck in findin’ him. The son of a bitch rode with me for a couple of days before he turned on me and left me with this damn hole in my side.” He pulled his shirt up to show an ugly scar. “Damn near killed me, but I’ll find him one of these days.”
The man looked pretty dangerous. Bad Eye felt sure it was going to be bad news for the man he was after. “You think he’s in this part of the country somewhere?”
“That’s where he was headin’,” Red Shirt replied. “He was ridin’ with a man and woman, headin’ this way. I got a little unfinished business with them, too.” One of them had fired the shot that destroyed part of his lung, leaving him unable to breathe without pain.
It would be an almost impossible coincidence, but the thought popped into Bad Eye’s mind. “Carson Ryan,” he blurted, remembering that Duke Slayton had told him of a run-in with Carson on the Musselshell.
Red Shirt almost dropped his cup when he heard the name, the muscles in his arms tensed to the point where his veins stood up as if to burst. His face transformed into a mask of black hatred. “You know where he is?” he demanded.
The sudden look of the man frightened Bad Eye, causing him to stammer in his reply. “I know where he might be, but I didn’t lay eyes on him myself.” He wondered if the mysterious force that methodically killed the cattle rustlers could have somehow been connected to Carson. He told Red Shirt how to find the M/C, but said that he couldn’t go with him. “Once you get to Sweet Grass Creek, you ought’n have any trouble findin’ the ranch.”
“I ’preciate the information,” Red Shirt said, and got to his feet to fetch the coffeepot. “Lemme fill that cup for you.”
“Much obliged,” Bad Eye said, and tilted his head back to drain the last swallow, never realizing that Red Shirt was still standing directly behind him until he felt a powerful hand grab his hair and the razor-sharp knife as it sliced his throat. He didn’t go back to the M/C with Red Shirt, but his scalp made the trip.
* * *
The range war between the M/C and the Bar-T was effectively over after the night of the avenger was ended. When Shorty and the others arrived at the site of the battle, there was no longer any enemy to fight. Instead, they found a sleeping warrior in the midst of a large herd of M/C cattle. They could not appreciate the magnitude of his accomplishment until they started rounding up the riderless horses and finding the bodies. When the total tally was complete, there were four bodies, one less than the gang of raiders who had left Duke Slayton behind at the ranch. It served to cast a different light upon the person who was John Carson, and not completely to his liking. He had no wish to be defined as a one-man war party.
Shorty and Mule decided it best to move the cattle to the south range until some arrangement could be worked out to round up the Bar-T cattle, since there was no more Bar-T. There were decisions to be made, one of which was whether to combine the two spreads or keep them as two separate ranches. As Shorty put it, “There’s sure as hell gonna be a job for ever’body.”
One who was not certain as to whether or not he would be a part of the newly formed partnership of cattle owners was John Carson. There was still the matter of a wanted poster with the name Carson Ryan on it, and he could not see any possibility of proving his innocence. Frank and Nancy begged him to stay on. They tried to convince him that no one of the few who knew his real name would ever tell the authorities, should they ever arrive at the M/C. “Doggone it,” Nancy pleaded, “we need you—Frank needs you, Lucas needs you—they can’t run it without your help.” Shorty, Clem, Mule, they all supported her argument. Only Millie kept her thoughts on the matter to herself, keeping her distance from the boy who had morphed into a man. All were unaware of the danger lurking along the ridge that lay north of the house that Mathew Cain had built in the form of a half-breed Lakota outlaw who watched the house, waiting for an opportunity to seek his revenge. He was patient, for he had searched for a long time to find Carson Ryan, and he would not jeopardize his chance of success by acting in haste.
Red Shirt’s patience finally paid off. Early one morning, the crew of men came out of the bunkhouse and saddled the horses, all except Carson. The men mounted up and headed out toward the east range. Red Shirt remained in his lookout position on the lower end of the ridge until Carson finally came from the bunkhouse and walked toward the barn. Red Shirt’s heart began to beat rapidly. At last his chance had come when there were none of the other men to help Carson. He quickly descended the ridge, circled the smokehouse, and approached the barn.
Carson pulled his saddle off the rail in the tack room. His mind was not on the chore he had assigned himself that morning. Rather it was on the moment the day before, when Millie had come to the barn to check the chickens’ nests for eggs, and he had turned around quickly to catch her staring at him. He had caught her
eye on other occasions, and just as she did on those occasions, she had turned immediately away. This was what he was thinking of on this morning when he heard a tiny squeak from the back barn door. Determined he was going to face her down this time, he walked out of the tack room only to be confronted by the business end of a .44 Winchester in the hands of what appeared to be a ghost.
“You’ve changed, Carson,” Red Shirt gloated triumphantly, knowing Carson was helpless to make a move. “It took me a helluva long time to find you. You’ve caused me a lot of pain and trouble. This time, I ain’t gonna throw my rifle aside, so say your prayers. I got a new scalp lance since I saw you. I’m gonna tie your scalp right at the top of it.”
“You’d better take damn good aim,” Carson said, “’cause I’m gonna be on you before you get off the second shot.”
Red Shirt grinned in evil anticipation. “I will,” he said, and raised his rifle.
The shot reverberated loudly in the confines of the barn, but Carson felt nothing as he steeled himself for the impact of the bullet. Astonished, he saw the grimace on Red Shirt’s face as the half-breed staggered against the side of a stall. He tried to lift his rifle again, but was stopped cold by a second shot that slammed the side of his head. “Damn you! Damn you!” Nancy Thompson screamed. “This time you’ll stay dead!” To be sure, she shot the already-still corpse for a third time. She looked at Carson then with eyes wild in panic. “You have to stay alive, John Carson. If you don’t, Millie never will get married.” Her knees started to fail her then and she would have fainted had not Carson rushed to catch her. The revolver she held dropped to the floor of the barn.
The sound of gunfire brought Frank and Lucas running from the house with guns at the ready. They were met by Carson coming from the barn with Nancy in his arms. “I think she’s all right,” Carson quickly assured Frank. “After what she just did, I ain’t surprised she fainted. She sure as hell saved my life.” He placed Nancy in the outstretched arms of her husband, and told them what had caused her distress.
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