Range War in Whiskey Hill

by Charles G. West

  “I don’t think I’m torn up inside,” he said. “At least I ain’t spittin’ up no blood, but somethin’s awful wrong in my side. I think I mighta busted a rib or somethin’.”

  “Just lie back,” she told him when he started to sit up. “Let me clean up some of that blood so I can see the wound.” The words were unnecessary, for as soon as he attempted to rise from the pillow, the room began to spin, and he sank back. She shook her head like a mother chiding a child. “You’ve lost a helluva lot of blood. Ain’t no sense in gettin’ frisky till you build up your strength again.”

  After removing his shirt and cleaning the wound, she held the lantern close to his side while she examined the seriousness of it. Then she rocked him halfway over on his side and took a look at his back. Her diagnosis confirmed, she told him, “You got two holes in you. I guess that’s good news unless you got shot twice.” He shook his head. “Well,” she continued, “it looks like the bullet went clear through.” After a few moments more with a washcloth and a basin of water, she said, “Now I reckon we need a little drink.” She went to a cupboard in the kitchen and returned with a bottle of rye whiskey. She offered it to him, but he declined, thinking whiskey wouldn’t sit too well on his stomach under the circumstances. She turned the bottle up and took a short drag. “That’s powerful stuff,” she allowed, then splashed it liberally over the two bullet holes.

  “Damn!” Colt swore. “That’s worse than gettin’ shot.”

  “My late husband said whiskey was good for a wound. Maybe he’s right.” She chuckled. “His belly musta been plumb full of wounds, ’cause he sure treated ’em regularly.” She put the bottle aside. “I’ll just wrap a bandage around you now. Then I’ll scare you up somethin’ to eat.”

  “Pearl, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate . . .” He paused and stumbled for words. She cut him off.

  “Don’t waste your breath. You just get yourself rested up.” She stood gazing down at him for a few moments, then shook her head as if exasperated. “I reckon I’ve got a weakness for wounded critters,” she said, and went into the kitchen to fix him something to eat.

  “Somethin’s gone wrong,” Burt McCrae said. “He shoulda been back long ago.” He stood on the porch peering out into the darkness. His worry was justified. Colt should have returned from town hours before this. He looked down at Bill Wilkes, who was standing at the foot of the porch steps. “Bill, saddle up. You and I better go see what happened to Colt.” Bill immediately turned to comply. Burt called after him, “Tell Tom to keep a sharp eye while we’re gone.” Going back inside, Burt told Susan of his concerns for Colt. “Me and Bill are goin’ back to see if we can find him. Tom’ll stay here to look after things. How’s Vance doin’? Any change?”

  “I think he’s doing a little better now that he’s finally been able to sleep a little,” Susan replied. “Do you think something bad has happened to Colt?”

  “Well, he oughta been back by now,” was all Burt would offer. “We might be gone awhile. Ask Rena if you need anything.”

  Even in the dark, it was hard to miss the upturned buckboard and dead horse near the midpoint of Pronghorn Canyon. The moon, still high overhead, shone a faint light upon the scene of the ambush with the supplies Colt had picked up scattered about the canyon floor. “I was afraid of that,” Burt said. “They jumped him, all right.” After searching a wide area around the wreckage, they found no trace of his nephew.

  “I reckon that’s good we didn’t find no body,” Bill offered. “You don’t suppose we coulda missed him on the way, him being on foot?”

  “I don’t see how we coulda,” Burt replied. “Nah, he got away, but where did he go? He might be hurt.”

  “Maybe Drummond’s men carried him off,” Bill suggested.

  “They’da shot him right here. Nah, he’s out there somewhere on foot. No tellin’ where.” Burt looked around him again, trying to pierce the darkness.

  They searched both sides of the ravine in the shadows, but to no avail. It was too dark to pick up any hint of a trail. Finally, when the moon began its descent beyond the foothills, they admitted defeat. “We’ll have to come back in the mornin’,” Burt said. They managed to unhitch the buckboard from the carcass of the sorrel. Although it had suffered some damage, they were able to hitch Bill’s horse to it and haul the supplies back to the Broken-M.

  “You’re looking a little more ornery than usual this morning,” Mary Simmons greeted her friend when she arrived for work.

  “Do I?” Pearl replied. “Well, might be there’s a reason. For one thing, though, I’m sure tired as hell this mornin’.” She gave Mary a little wink. “I’ve got a man in my bed for the first time since Henry died.”

  “Pearl Murray!” Mary exclaimed. “Shut your mouth!” She giggled mischievously. “Maybe I oughta start going to that church of yours.”

  With little time before Oscar might join them in the kitchen, Pearl didn’t carry on with her little joke. “It ain’t as good as you think. I slept on a blanket on the floor.” Mary’s smile turned to a look of puzzlement. Pearl glanced out the kitchen door to make sure they were alone before whispering, “Colt McCrae is lying in my bed, shot through the side.”

  Mary was stunned. She took a step backward as if jolted off balance. “Who . . . ? How . . . ?” she started, scarcely believing her ears.

  “Drummond,” Pearl whispered, “at least some of Drummond’s hired killers.” She went on to relate the happenings of the night before when they had hidden Colt under her feet in the church.

  “Oh, my Lord in heaven,” Mary gasped. “How bad is he hurt?”

  “I ain’t really sure,” Pearl replied, “but I don’t think he’s gonna die. At least he looked some better this mornin’. I reckon he needs a doctor, but I didn’t think it was a good idea to try to get Dr. Taylor to come see him.”

  Mary stood there frowning for a long moment, still trying to absorb the disturbing news. “No,” she then agreed. “You’re right. We can’t take a chance on Oscar or J.D. finding out where he is. I’ll come over to help you after work. I’ll have to help Mama with supper first, but I’ll slip out and get over to your place as soon as I can.”

  “I figured you would,” Pearl said, then winked as Oscar walked into the room. She had expected Mary to volunteer her help, knowing she had a weakness when it came to Colt McCrae, even though she refused to admit it.

  “Figured you would what?” Oscar asked, overhearing Pearl’s last remark.

  “Put an extra cup of cow shit in the coffeepot,” Pearl shot back, causing Mary to giggle.

  “I swear, Pearl,” Oscar said, shaking his head in wonder, “you’ve got a worse mouth on you than some of them gals down at the bawdy house.”

  “Hell, if I was a little younger, and a whole lot prettier, that’s where I’d be,” Pearl said. “Probably make a whole lot more money.”

  The fever of the hunt was developing in the fearsome man known only as Bone. A keen-eyed tracker and a hunter of men, he prided himself on his unfailing ability to run his prey to ground, and his pleasure was the brutal execution of the victim. Over the years, his passion had become a game to him in which he was pitted against his quarry, winner take all, and the stakes were a man’s life.

  On this morning, he was more than a little irritable. It was galling to him that he had not been successful in tracking down a wounded man on foot. Even though it had been at night, he should have run him to ground easily. Working alone now in the early morning light, he followed the obvious tracks that led away from the rim of the ravine. Here and there, he discovered smudges of dried blood where Colt had placed a hand on a rock or bush for support. So far, the trail was easy to follow as it led down toward a shallow creek running parallel to a deep gully rimmed with thick brush.

  Crossing the creek, Bone dismounted when he reached the edge of the gully. This was the place where he had effectively lost the trail the night before. In the light of day, small patterns of blood were detected in the grass,
telling Bone’s experienced eye that his man had stopped there for a while. “Colt McCrae,” he pronounced softly, trying to picture the wounded man as he had rested there. Bone liked to know everything about the prey he hunted. He had questioned Drummond extensively about the uncompromising ex-convict, and from what he had been told, he couldn’t understand why McCrae had chosen to run instead of standing to fight. “He was out of cartridges,” Bone suddenly surmised. As he knelt beside the bloodstained grass, he scanned the wall of brush that lined the rim of the gully, looking for signs that might tell him McCrae had pushed through. Something caught his eye as it skimmed past, causing him to stop and look more closely. The sun had reflected off something metallic. Bone hurried to the spot. A slow smile formed on his whiskered face as he reached down and pulled a Winchester ’73 rifle from under a serviceberry bush. “Well, now, there’s a nice little bonus,” he said, checking the rifle over. The discovery of the weapon also told him that his quarry was hurt badly. Otherwise, he would hardly have knowingly left his rifle.

  Pushing through the brush, Bone led his horse carefully down the steep slope to the bottom of the gully, where he found more blood. Looking toward the end of the gully, he could see that it came out to a narrow road and the church beyond. “Son of a bitch,” he growled, for it occurred to him then that McCrae had in all likelihood made his way to the church, and may have been hiding there after all. “That son of a bitch,” he uttered, thinking of Dewey Jenkins. “Lying, Bible-thumpin’ son of a bitch.” He got on his horse and followed the gully out to the road and on to the church.

  Pushing the door open, he strode inside the empty building. As it was little more than a one-room cabin, there seemed to be no place to hide. Maybe he didn’t come here, he thought, hesitating. Walking toward the back of the room, he looked down the rows until his gaze stopped on a thin dark streak running under the benches. Moving quickly down the row to get a closer look, he immediately confirmed his suspicion. It was dried blood. He traced it back two rows to its origin. Standing up straight again, he paused to re-create the scene in his mind. That was just about where that mouthy bitch stood up and told me to get the hell out of here, he thought. He was not immediately angry. Instead, he almost chuckled at the irony of having been buffaloed by the woman, knowing that, in the end, he would have the last laugh.

  Outside the church, he looked around, searching for anything that might give him a clue as to where McCrae went from there. In the small churchyard were many tracks from hooves, wagons, and buggies. It was a simple task to determine fresh tracks from old ones for a tracker of Bone’s skill, the job made considerably easier because the ground was not yet frozen. He was left to decide which might have been McCrae’s conveyance away from there, for he was sure he didn’t walk. All vehicles went the same way from the churchyard, so he got on his horse and followed the narrow lane back to the road. It was there that he had to make another decision, which he knew could be no more than a guess.

  Stepping down from the saddle again, he examined the clear tracks he was able to distinguish from the multitude left there—old and new, some going in one direction on the road, some the opposite. Finally, he decided upon the tracks cut by what he guessed to be a farm wagon, reasoning that it would be the natural thing to lay a wounded man in a wagon bed. Climbing back in the saddle again, he followed the wagon tracks, leaning low on the side of his saddle to keep his eyes sharply focused on the impression left by the wheels.

  In less than a half mile, several of the various tracks split, and the wagon tracks forked off on a narrow trail, making them much easier to follow. After approximately another mile, Bone topped a rise to discover a modest farmhouse tucked between a brace of cottonwoods on the opposite side of a narrow creek. He pulled his horse to a stop while he took a few moments to look the place over before riding in.

  At first glance, there appeared to be no one about, but while he watched, a woman came to the door and called out to someone that breakfast was on the table. Seconds later, a man appeared in the entrance to the barn and walked toward the house. Recognizing the man as the one he had called preacher the night before, Bone cracked a satisfied smile and nudged his horse with his heels. Entering the yard at a fast walk, Bone looked right and left to make sure there was no one else to be accounted for as he rode up to the tiny porch.

  Dewey Jenkins paused when he heard his dog barking at something in the front yard. Hearing a horse snort then, he turned and went back to the front door. The shock he had experienced the night before, when the dark intruder had suddenly stalked into the church, returned to freeze his heartbeat again. As sinister in morning light as he had been in the dim lantern light of the church, the man looked to be the devil’s special lieutenant. Dewey was stunned speechless.

  His lip curled into a sneer, Bone casually threw a leg over and stepped down from the saddle. Standing before the porch steps, his long black coat open to reveal two pistols, he peered out from under his leather hat brim with eyes black as coal. “Hello, Preacher,” he said softly. “I believe you’ve got somethin’ that belongs to me.”

  Finding his voice, but stumbling over his words, Dewey was at a loss as to how he should respond. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t rightly know what you mean.”

  “Don’t make me get nasty with you, Preacher,” Bone said, pulling his coattails apart to clear his gun butts. The gesture was not lost upon Dewey, who swallowed hard. “That wounded coyote you hid under the bench last night, where is he?” Bone insisted.

  “There ain’t no wounded man here,” Dewey replied.

  “Is that a fact?” Bone responded. He stepped up on the porch. “I reckon I’ll have to see for myself.” He pushed the frightened man ahead of him as he forced his way inside. “Where is he?”

  Hearing the confrontation at her front door, Vera Jenkins was now aware that something was wrong. Coming from the kitchen, she almost fell when her husband was shoved into her. Recognizing the evil specter from the incident at the church, she shrieked in horror. Determined to find what he was convinced was there, Bone pushed her aside so he could peer into the bedroom. Finding no one there, he shoved Dewey aside and thrust his head inside the parlor door. “Where the hell is he?” he demanded, his anger mounting.

  “Who?” Vera cried, terrified.

  Bone shot a quick sneer in her direction. “You know damn well who,” he snarled. “And I better find him gawdamn quick. You’re wastin’ my time.” He started toward the kitchen, only to be confronted by Dewey’s fourteen-year-old son. The boy, hearing the commotion in the hallway, had quickly run to fetch the shotgun over the fireplace. Like unbridled lightning, Bone reacted. Before the startled boy could raise the shotgun, Bone drew both pistols and pumped four slugs into the unfortunate young man’s chest.

  Screaming hysterically, Vera Jenkins rushed to her fallen son. A widening stain of dark red blood spread across his woolen shirt as she cradled his head in her arms, screaming his name over and over. Bone turned a casual head toward Dewey to judge his reaction to the slaying. The stunned father had bellowed out involuntarily in response to the sudden explosion of gunshots. His eyes blind now with rage and grief, he charged toward the merciless killer. Prepared for just such a move, Bone stepped deftly aside and struck Dewey on the back of his head with his pistol butt. The defenseless farmer went down hard. Bone stood over him for a few moments until he was sure Dewey wasn’t going to get up right away. When he was sure there was no immediate threat from that quarter, he walked over beside the sobbing woman and picked up the shotgun. Spotting a cake of corn bread on the table, he reached over and broke off half of it. He stood watching the woman cry for a few minutes, while he casually ate the corn bread. When he thought she had cried enough, he bent low, his mouth scant inches from her ear. “Where is he?” Bone whispered. “Is he in the barn?” When she was unable to reply, he said, “I’ll go have a look.” His visit ended, he turned and walked out the door, calling back over his shoulder, “He brought it on hisself. He shouldn’t
a come at me with that damn shotgun.”

  In the saddle again, Bone rode into the barn. Quickly checking the stalls, he saw there was no one there. Realizing then that he had wasted the morning by following the wagon tracks, he swore in disgust and flung Dewey’s shotgun over into one of the stalls. Although it was he who had guessed wrong in tracking Dewey, he nevertheless blamed the unfortunate farmer for leading him astray. Wheeling his horse angrily, he headed back to the house.

  Storming back into the kitchen, he found the devastated parents kneeling on either side of their dead son, grieving hysterically. Bone hesitated for only a moment before stalking over and with his foot, kicked Dewey over on the floor. “You’ve wasted enough of my time, damn you. Now I want some answers. Who carried Colt McCrae away from that church?”

  Dewey looked up at the grim executioner, his eyes dazed and streaming tears. Suddenly overcome with rage, the likes of which he had never known before, he roared through clenched teeth, “You murderin’ son of a bitch!” Charging up from the floor, he went for the insolent devil that had taken his son’s life. Unaccustomed to dealing with gunmen like Bone, he received a sharp rap across his temple from Bone’s pistol barrel, knocking him to the floor again.

  “You don’t never learn, do you, sodbuster?” Bone hissed in contempt for the man’s feeble attempts to retaliate. The act caused Vera to scream hysterically. With a look of total disgust, Bone reached down and grabbed the sobbing woman by her hair. Dragging her away from her son’s body, he stuck his pistol barrel against her cheek. “Now, by God, I’m fixin’ to send you to hell with your son if you don’t tell me what I wanna know.”

  “Pearl!” the terrified woman cried. “Pearl Murray. Pearl took him!”

  “Who the hell is Pearl?” Bone demanded. “Took him where?”

  Dewey answered. On all fours, with his head hanging almost touching the floor, he was a beaten man. “She’s the woman who told you to get out of the church,” he uttered painfully. Ashamed to have told, he lied, “She took him to the doctor,” hoping to save Pearl a visit from the savage killer.