“That suits me,” Brownie quickly agreed, “but it might not hurt to shoot him first to take some of the fight outta him. From what he looked like taking target practice, he might just be a handful.”
Eager for the fun to begin, they left their horses on the ridge and made their way as quietly as possible down the slope toward the unsuspecting camp. Lon took the lead, his pistol drawn, and Brownie followed close behind holding a coil of rope. “You be quick with that rope when I jump him,” Lon whispered.
“I’m right behind you,” Brownie replied.
Moving with great caution, the two assailants inched closer to the sleeping figure by the fire. Lon stopped and held up his hand when Colt’s horse snorted and blew. He watched closely for signs of movement, but there was no indication that the horse had awakened the sleeping figure. After a moment, he waved Brownie on and continued his silent stalk of their intended victim.
Reaching a point about fifteen feet away, Lon nodded to Brownie. When Brownie returned the signal, Lon suddenly split the stillness of the night, yelling at the top of his voice. “Git up from there, sleepyhead!” and pumping two shots from his pistol into their victim. Without giving time for the prone figure to respond, both assailants dived upon the body, only to find they had attacked a blanket wrapped around a saddle.
Stunned by their discovery, they were both rendered motionless for a long moment. “What the hell?” Lon uttered. The next sound he heard was that of a Winchester cranking a cartridge into the chamber.
Whirling around at once, Lon tried to get a shot off, but he was not fast enough to counter the .44 slug that shattered his sternum and sent him over on his back. Screaming in pain, he dropped his pistol and rolled over on his elbows and knees. With no threat from him for the next few seconds, Colt turned his rifle on Brownie, who had dropped the rope and was fumbling with his revolver in an attempt to draw it from his belt. The front sight of the pistol had snarled in his shirt, holding it fast. Colt waited, his rifle aimed squarely at Brownie’s chest, watching with bemused patience while Brownie struggled to free his weapon from his shirt. Noticing that Lon was now up on his hands and knees, and struggling to get to the pistol he had dropped in the sand, Colt, with one quick motion, sent the fatal bullet into Lon’s body. Lon collapsed heavily. Back to Brownie again, Colt cranked another cartridge into the Winchester’s chamber. Still struggling unsuccessfully to free the front sight of his pistol, Brownie saw the futility of his efforts, and promptly decided to run for his life. Colt unhurriedly raised his rifle and stopped the terrified man with a bullet in his leg. Brownie tumbled in the sand on the stream bank, holding his leg and wailing in pain.
Colt casually walked over to the fallen man and stood over him for a long moment before speaking. “Shut up your crying. I ain’t gonna finish you off just yet.” Fearing for his life, and uncertain what the stoic rifleman had in store for him, Brownie could do nothing but cower at the tall man’s feet. “Get on your feet,” Colt ordered.
“I can’t,” Brownie groaned. “You done put a hole in my leg.”
“If you don’t get up from there, I’m gonna put a hole in your other leg.”
“All right, all right,” Brownie protested painfully, “I’m gittin’ up!” He dragged himself over to a willow tree and pulled himself up on his feet.
Colt reached down and picked up the rope Brownie had dropped. Following the wounded man to the tree, he ordered him to put his hands behind his back. In response, Brownie made one more desperate attempt to jerk the pistol from his belt. Colt casually cracked him on the side of his head with the barrel of the Winchester. Yelping with the pain, Brownie meekly obeyed Colt’s orders. Once Brownie’s hands were securely tied around the tree at his back, Colt took the rest of the rope and bound him head and foot to the tree. Then he grabbed the stubborn pistol by the handle and yanked it from Brownie’s belt, ripping the shirt in the process. Satisfied that Brownie would be there waiting for him, he then climbed the slope to fetch the horses they had left there.
After a few minutes, he was back. He released Brownie from the tree and untied his hands. Prodding him in the back with his rifle barrel, he shoved him toward Lon’s body. “Drag him over here,” he ordered. Limping heavily, Brownie took a few steps toward his late partner, then suddenly made a move to get to his horse. Before he could take two steps, Colt was right behind him and tripped him with a kick of his foot. Brownie fell on the ground. He tried to break his fall, but landed face-first in the sand.
“You don’t learn very fast, do you?” Colt said, as he grabbed him by the back of his collar and jerked him to his feet. “Now drag him over here,” he said. When Brownie balked, and stood sullenly staring at the rifle leveled at his midsection, Colt said, “The only reason you ain’t dead is because I want you to tell your boss that I mean business. Now, if you don’t drag him over, like I told you, I’m gonna shoot you and be done with it.”
Realizing only then that Colt was not planning to finish him off, Brownie became eager to obey. He grabbed his late partner by the ankles and dragged him over to his horse. At Colt’s order, he lifted Lon’s body up to lay across the saddle. Once the body was resting across the saddle, Colt instructed Brownie to mount up and take Lon back to the Rocking-D. After pulling both rifles from their saddles, Colt said, “When you get across the creek on Rocking-D land, you might wanna tie his hands and feet together to keep him from sliding off of that saddle. You tell your boss this is the price he’ll pay for slaughtered McCrae cattle. Next time I catch you on Bar-M or Broken-M, I ain’t likely to be in such a generous mood.” He stepped back then and watched as the would-be assassin splashed across the stream leading Lon Branch’s horse behind him.
Standing now in the cold darkness of the November night, Colt felt a chilling sensation run the length of his spine, a feeling that had nothing to do with the temperature. He had just killed a man. It had all happened so fast that there had been no time for conscious thought, but now as the sound of Brownie’s hoofbeats faded in the gloom, the sober realization struck him. He had taken a man’s life. The fact that it was a life that needed taking did little to minimize the impact it would forever have on his life. What choice did I have? he asked himself. They came to kill me.
He had to admit that he had prepared himself to kill. Leaving prison, he had promised his dead father that his death would be avenged. He wondered now if Lon Branch had been the man who shot his father. Would he ever know who murdered his father? Well, there’s no turning back now, he thought as he returned to his camp to pack up. There’s gonna be a war. His thoughts went to Vance and his uncle. How could he confine the war to himself and Drummond, and not endanger their families? He decided, by letting Brownie go, Drummond might see that the war was with him, not his uncle, and not Vance. I’ve started it, so be it. Let the devil get ready for visitors.
It was almost daylight by the time Brownie urged a tired horse into a gallop to cover the final fifty yards from the gate to Drummond’s front porch. He jumped down from the saddle, wincing as he landed on his wounded leg, and staggered up the steps, forgetting the customary respect usually shown his boss’ front door. After repeatedly banging on the door, he suddenly found himself facing an irate Alice Flynn, who had been stoking the kitchen stove in preparation for cooking breakfast.
“What is the matter with you?” Alice shrieked at Brownie. “Have you lost what little sense you had?”
“Lon!” Brownie blurted. “He killed Lon!” He pointed at the corpse draped across the horse. “And he shot me,” he added, pointing to his blood-soaked trousers.
Only slightly more concerned than if he had reported he had killed a snake, Alice cast a disgusted glance at the body. “Mr. Drummond ain’t up yet—” she started.
“I’m up,” a gruff voice came from behind her in the hallway. “What the hell is going on?” He stepped past Alice to confront Brownie.
“He shot Lon,” Brownie repeated excitedly. “Killed him, and shot me in the leg.”
&
nbsp; “Who did?” Drummond demanded.
“Colt McCrae,” Brownie blurted.
Drummond didn’t say more for a moment. He glanced down at Brownie’s bloody leg, then shifted his gaze to the body lying across the saddle, his anger growing rapidly. Turning to his housekeeper, he said, “Alice, go on back to the kitchen and fix breakfast.” When she had left them, grousing to herself about the riffraff her employer hired, he turned back to Brownie. “What in the hell happened? I sent you two over there to take care of that convict, and you come back here like a dog with your tail between your legs?”
“Nothin’ we could do, Mr. Drummond. He was waitin’ for us. We never had a chance.” Brownie groaned to draw attention to his wound. “Poor ol’ Lon—that bastard cut him down before he could get off a shot.” He remembered then the message he was told to deliver. “He said to tell you that anybody else ridin’ on McCrae range would get the same.”
“Oh, he did, did he?” Drummond responded, his face twisted in an obvious display of his growing anger. This was not the way Frank Drummond wanted to start his day, by hearing of the incompetence of the two he sent to do what he considered to be a simple job. At the moment, his anger was more a product of Lon and Brownie’s failure than the threat of one ex-convict. Feeling no sympathy for the wounded man standing chastised before him, he glowered at Brownie while he considered the next course of action. “Get on back to the bunkhouse before you get blood all over my front porch,” he finally said. “Take Lon with you. Pete will have to have somebody dig a hole for him, I guess. Tell Pete to patch you up if he can.” Then he paused, thinking of a better plan. “No, tell him to take you in to see the doctor.” It wouldn’t hurt to let the sheriff know that this ex-convict was on a shooting rampage. Drummond could build on his justification for killing Colt McCrae, and maybe his brother and uncle, too, if they got in the way. From the talk he had heard, the whole town of Whiskey Hill would like to be rid of Colt McCrae. “Tell Pete to come see me before he goes,” he said, dismissing the wounded man.
When Pete Tyler, the foreman of the Rocking-D, pulled a buckboard up before the house, Drummond came out to meet him. Ignoring the silent suffering man on the seat beside him, he gave Tyler instructions. “When you take Brownie into town, make sure everybody sees him. As soon as I get my breakfast, I’m going into town to see the sheriff. But here’s what I want you to do first. Pick a couple of the men you trust, and send them on out to find that damn McCrae jailbird, and take care of him. Understand?”
Pete nodded. He understood. “I’ll take care of it,” he said. Lon and Brownie had always been the boss’ choice for doing any dirty little jobs that needed doing. But Pete had a crew of eight more men, and in his opinion, any one of them would have been a better choice than those two saddle tramps. He climbed up on the buckboard, turned the horse around, and headed back to the barn where two of his men were loading wire on a wagon.
Not having been privilege to Pete and Drummond’s conversation, Brownie complained when Pete turned back toward the barn. “I thought we was headed for the doctor’s. My leg is painin’ me somethin’ awful.”
“Hell, you ain’t gonna die,” Pete replied. “I coulda took that bullet outta your leg myself, but I’m gonna take you to the doctor. So stop your bellyaching.”
Pulling up before the two men loading the wagon, Pete called them over. “You two ain’t gonna mend no fences today,” he told them. “I’ve got somethin’ better for you to do.”
“What the hell happened to you?” Lou George asked, looking at Brownie.
“That’s what I want you and Jack to take care of,” Pete answered for Brownie. He then gave them the order to eliminate Drummond’s problem.
Lou looked at Brownie and grinned. “So, you and Lon tried to kill a snake and got yourself bit,” he jeered.
“You’d best watch yourself,” Brownie groaned. “He’s a mean one.”
“Is that so?” Lou sneered. “We’ll see how mean this sidewinder is. Hell, me and Jack here, why, that’s what we specialize in—pullin’ the fangs outta rattlesnakes like McCrae. Ain’t that right, Jack?” Jack Teach grinned wide and nodded.
“Well, make damn sure you get the job done. Mr. Drummond already sent Brownie and Lon to take care of it. Lon came back across his saddle and Brownie, here, shot up, and the job ain’t done yet.” He looked back at Brownie seated on the buckboard and added, “And Mr. Drummond ain’t too happy about it.”
Chapter 5
J. D. Townsend leaned back in his chair, using an open desk drawer for a footstool. Having just consumed a plate of fried potatoes and biscuits spiced with sawmill gravy from the Whiskey Hill Kitchen, he was resting his stomach, his head already nodding. His chin was almost ready to settle on his chest when the door was suddenly flung open. “Dammit, Stoney,” he started, thinking it was his deputy. But when he jerked his head up, it was to see Frank Drummond striding into his office, followed closely by Deputy Stoney Yates.
Almost asleep moments before, J.D. was wide-awake now. Barely avoiding catching his boot heel in the open drawer, the sheriff lurched to his feet. “Mr. Drummond,” he stammered, “what can I do for you, sir?” He aimed one quick glance in his deputy’s direction and received a helpless look in return.
“Sheriff.” Drummond’s booming voice filled the modest office. “We’ve got a helluva problem in Whiskey Hill, and I need to know what you’re going to do about it.”
“Why, of course, Mr. Drummond,” J.D. replied nervously. “I’ll sure look into it.” He hesitated a moment. “What is it?”
“We’ve got a murdering renegade shooting and killing like a wild Injun,” he charged. The sheriff’s eyes grew large as saucers. Drummond continued. “My foreman just took one of my men to Dr. Taylor’s office with a gunshot wound. And Lon Branch is dead, shot down on my range by that murdering convict, Colt McCrae.”
“Damn!” J.D. exclaimed, at a loss for words. He glanced again at his deputy, who stared back with the same mystified expression. “We’ll certainly look into it,” he repeated. The sheriff knew what everybody else in town knew, that he held that office for only as long as Frank Drummond permitted. Drummond owned most of the town, and almost all the land surrounding it. The sheriff, the mayor, and the town council answered to Drummond.
“I want you to do more than look into it,” Drummond remarked. “I want you to ride out to McCrae’s ranch and arrest him. I’m a law-abiding man, so I’ve told my boys to let the law handle the murdering son of a bitch. But they’re gonna stay alert in case he tries to bushwhack somebody else. I will protect my property.”
“Yes, sir,” J.D. said, “that’s just what I was thinkin’.” He motioned to his deputy. “Stoney, get on your horse and bring the bastard in.”
Stoney Yates stood motionless, not sure which way to jump. “Where do I go to look for him?” he finally asked.
“Hell, I don’t know,” the sheriff answered. “His uncle came to town to pick him up. I expect that’s as good a place as any to look.”
Although his face was absent of expression, Drummond watched the uncertainty between sheriff and deputy with amused satisfaction. He felt he had successfully planted the image of Colt McCrae as a reckless killer, and as long as the law was actively looking to arrest McCrae, any action taken by his men would seem justified by the citizens of Whiskey Hill. Although ruthless in his drive to own the territory, Drummond was smart enough to know the importance of keeping a facade of legitimacy for the people to see. There was no value in owning a town if there were no people to run it.
There had been a modest swell of concern from the townsfolk when Sam McCrae had been killed, and word had gotten back to Drummond that some thought he might have had something to do with it. Drummond had felt it necessary to call on Mayor Roy Whitworth to assure the folks that he not only had nothing to do with the killing, but had sent his men out to hunt for the killer. After all, Drummond had suggested, Sam was his neighbor, and would be missed. Now, if his men did the job they w
ere sent to do today, the thorny problem of Colt McCrae should be settled. Afterward, Drummond expected Vance McCrae to turn tail and run. That would leave only Burt McCrae to stand against him, and the old man would soon wilt under Drummond’s constant pressure, especially with no way to get to water. I couldn’t have planned it better, he thought as he left the sheriff’s office. If I’d known it was going to work out this well, I’d have shot Lon and Brownie myself. He walked down the street to see if the mayor was in his office.
Bill Wilkes sat up straight, listening. He motioned for Tom Mosley to keep quiet. Something, a sound or smell, had caused the horses to blow and snort. Bill put his coffee cup down beside the fire and got up to take a look. Peering out at the darkness surrounding the campfire, he said, “Somethin’s spooked the horses, maybe a coyote sniffin’ around. I think I’ll have a look.”
Tom nodded and remained where he was seated. He and Bill had ridden winter nighthawk for many years for Sam McCrae, and now for his son, Vance. There was always something prowling around out there in the darkness, but most of the time it wasn’t worth worrying about. He and Bill had rounded up eleven strays late that afternoon, and since they were close to Rocking-D range, Bill was probably worrying about the number of cattle that had been shot over this way. I’m getting too damn old for this, Tom thought. My bones are getting so they feel the cold more than they used to. He had no sooner had the thought than he heard a voice behind him.
“Well, lookee here, Lou, ain’t nobody guardin’ these cows but two old men.” Jack Teach walked into the circle of firelight, an insolent sneer upon his stubbled face. Tom tried to scramble to his feet, but was shoved firmly back down on his behind. “You just set there, old man, if you don’t want your head cracked open.” He called back over his shoulder, “Hey, Lou, where are you?”
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