Shorty paused to consider that, then asked, “Reckon why he didn’t just stay on the road to Helena?”
“Hell, I don’t know,” Nestor replied. His impatience with the two partners he had enlisted was growing with each mile. On another occasion he might have been oblivious to Shorty’s inane remarks, but after his humiliation the night before, he was in no mood to be tolerant. “Maybe he thinks it’s a shorter distance ridin’ straight up the valley.”
Keenum and Doyle were two of the three men who had been drinking with him the night before when Hawk walked into Grainger’s. Both men were drifters, Shorty wanted in Nebraska for bank robbery, Walt in Texas for stabbing a dance hall woman. Between the two, there weren’t enough brains to fill the head of a lizard, but they provided Nestor with two extra guns and they agreed to ride with him for a split of the money they found on the two bodies. With no idea if it was true or not, Nestor told them that Monroe was carrying a great sum of money. He figured that after the job was done, he’d be inclined to pay Shorty and Walt in lead and continue on to Helena alone, where he was not well-known. “We need to hang back a little farther,” he said. “I don’t wanna take a chance on them seein’ us. I don’t wanna catch up to ’em before they’ve already set up for the night. If we catch ’em in their blankets, it’ll be like shootin’ fish in a barrel.”
“That’s the way I like it best,” Shorty said, a foolish grin spreading his whiskers. Matching Shorty’s grin, Walt agreed, and they stepped up into the saddle and followed Nestor over a low rise beside the road in the direction the tracks led. Unseen by Nestor, his two partners exchanged winks at the sight of his one bundled foot dangling beside his right stirrup. They were not above enjoying a bit of amusement watching him grimacing and cursing his sore foot, but they took care to hide it from him. Nestor was in no mood to endure ridicule or japing at his expense.
After a ride of about two hours, they came upon the ashes of a small fire beside a tiny stream. “That’s about what I figured,” Nestor said. “I figured they oughta been stoppin’ pretty soon to rest their horses and this was the place.”
“That’s what I figured, too,” Walt said. “’Cause it was gettin’ about time to rest mine.”
They dismounted and Shorty went immediately to inspect the ashes of the fire to see if there were any with a little life left to make it easier for him to start another one. “Hell,” he cursed. “They threw water on the fire.” He looked around him. “There ain’t nothin’ close enough to worry ’bout startin’ a prairie fire.”
“We ain’t gonna be needin’ to build a big fire, anyway,” Nestor muttered, really no more than speaking his thoughts aloud. “We ain’t gonna be here long.” He looked at the sun, already well past midday, thinking he wanted to catch up to Hawk before hard dark. His concern was that the rangy scout might hide his camp so well that he wouldn’t be able to find it after dark. He hoped that Hawk didn’t expect him to come after him, and so far, there seemed to be no real effort to hide his trail. But he wasn’t willing to discount the possibility that the wily scout might try to lead him into an ambush. So in spite of his urgency to settle the score, he forced himself to be cautious.
“I hope we’re gonna be here long enough for a cup of coffee,” Walt declared. “I can’t go all day without somethin’ to keep the sides of my belly from rubbin’ together.” He pulled a frying pan out of his “war bag” and some salt pork to slice. That was enough to encourage Shorty to start searching the underbrush for kindling. It was not long before Walt’s coffeepot was boiling over in the fire and there was bacon sizzling in the pan. It was difficult for Nestor to keep from brooding over the two brainless partners he had to rely on to help him settle the score with Hawk. Watching them, he was reminded of a Sunday school picnic—at least what he imagined one would be like. He would have no trouble shooting both of them as soon as Hawk and Pratt were dead. He had no real quarrel with Monroe Pratt, but he didn’t plan to leave a witness, either.
It seemed longer to Nestor than the hour he had allowed to rest the horses, but when it was finally time to mount up, he wasted no time arousing his partners. Both men had taken advantage of the time after their stomachs were content to take a nap. So with a bitter spleen and an aching foot from bearing his weight while he used his good foot to kick both of them awake, Nestor started out again, his hired gunmen following.
* * *
It was close to twilight by the time the three would-be assassins reached the Missouri River. Nestor had planned his time just right. He had figured Hawk would camp at the river and in the dusky light of evening, the tracks he followed could still be seen. He pulled up when they were within about one hundred and fifty yards from the cottonwoods lining the river. Shorty was the first to spot the smoke. A thin gray ribbon of smoke was barely discernable drifting up through the branches of the tall trees. Nestor was satisfied that the timing was just as he had planned. In another hour, the smoke would be invisible and it might have been much harder to locate the camp. “Reckon it’s them?” Shorty asked.
“Who the hell else would it be?” Nestor replied. He could feel his heartbeat quicken with the prospect of having the opportunity to leave Hawk for the buzzards to feed on. “As long as nobody don’t make a move till I tell ’em,” he said, finishing the thought out loud. Looking around them, he spotted a low grassy swale a few yards away. “All right, we’re gonna set awhile over there and let those boys bed down for the night. Then we’ll move in closer and see what’s what before we start shootin’. I don’t want nobody gettin’ outta there alive.”
“You got nothin’ to worry about, Roy,” Shorty responded. “Me and Walt know how to handle a gun. Reckon how much money that Pratt feller is totin’?”
“I hope he’s totin’ as much as you said he was,” Walt said.
“He is,” Nestor assured them. “Don’t you worry about that. He came all the way over to Bozeman to find Hawk and Hawk ain’t about to lift his hand lessen he gets paid for it.” They rode over to the swale and dismounted and Nestor cautioned them, “You can let them horses graze, but hold on to them reins. I don’t wanna be chasin’ no horses when I’m ready to move in closer to that river.” There were no trees close to the swale to tie the horses to and Nestor wasn’t even willing to hobble them for the hour or so they would be there.
The time ticked away at a snail’s pace for Roy Nestor, his mind filled with the hatred he felt for Hawk. He would never think to admit it, but that hatred was fueled by a huge dislike for anyone who was better at his craft than he was. And now the son of a bitch has shamed me, made a fool of me, in front of a whole town. The thought of it triggered a wave of pain in his right foot. He would kill him and leave this part of the country, go someplace where nobody knew him, and he would leave no witnesses behind. As he thought it, he looked over at Shorty and Walt, exchanging tall tales like two simple children. No witnesses, he repeated to himself.
Finally it was time. A dark moonless sky settled over the prairie. All three men checked their rifles to make sure they were fully loaded before climbing into the saddle. Nestor led them at a slow walk to a point almost a hundred yards upstream of the camp. They tied their horses there, lest they might alert Hawk’s and Pratt’s horses. Hobbling painfully on his heavily bandaged foot, Nestor led them through cottonwoods and bushes until they reached a point where they could see the slowly dying fire through the trees. Nestor paused there only a moment before cautiously moving closer until they spotted the horses by the water’s edge. At first, the two men were nowhere to be seen, causing Nestor to be more cautious. There were no bedrolls or blankets close by the fire. Thinking he may have been tricked, he hesitated, suddenly afraid he was about to walk into an ambush. What if the son of a bitch is circling around us? he thought, and unconsciously looked behind him. But there was nothing behind him except the two anxious faces staring back at him. He never spotted us, he reassured himself. He was certain of that.
“Yonder they are,” Walt suddenly whispere
d, “just outside the firelight. Their fire’s died down some. That’s why we didn’t see ’em right off.”
“I see ’em,” Shorty whispered. “Let’s get the job done.”
“Hold on!” Nestor cautioned. He could see the two blanket rolls just outside the light of the fire, but they didn’t look big enough for a man Hawk’s size. He knows we’re following him! The question he asked himself now was, what would he do if he was in Hawk’s place and didn’t want to bed down where anyone could surprise him in the open? He took another long look over the clearing and the campsite. There were no high bluffs to hide under at this point in the river, except for one spot where the channel had cut off one side of a low hummock. His attention was immediately drawn to it. A slow grin spread across his face. That was where they were hiding, and anybody who came charging into the camp, looking to catch them asleep, would be sitting ducks. They could pop up from behind that hummock and blast away. He couldn’t help but chuckle to have seen through the trap Hawk had prepared. He was especially amused by the added touch Hawk had gone to, placing the two blanket rolls just outside the light of the fire. By doing so, it would appear that the two men felt they were hidden while they slept. It was an old trick and Nestor was onto it. He looked again toward the hummock. They would be well protected from anyone slipping up on them from either side. But not from anyone on the other side of the river, he thought. “I’ve got ’em,” he whispered. “Follow me, we’re gonna cross over.”
“Cross over?” Walt questioned. “What for? Hell, we’re close enough to pick ’em off from right here.”
“That ain’t them,” Nestor explained. “They just want you to think it’s them. They’re hidin’ behind that hump over there by the river, so we’ve got to get behind them.”
“Oh,” Shorty muttered. “They thought they was gonna outsmart us.”
They backed slowly away from the edge of the clearing until well out of sight, should anyone in the camp happen to be looking their way. Hobbling as fast as he could manage, Nestor led them into the water and started across. His two partners followed, but not without complaints, most of them from Shorty when the water reached up to his armpits before gradually becoming shallow again. “If I’da knowed we was plannin’ on takin’ a bath,” he joked, “I’da brung me a bar of soap.”
“Hell, you don’t own a bar of soap,” Walt chided.
“Keep your voice down!” Nestor scolded, and started back downstream along the bank, almost ignoring the wet bundle that served as bandage for his right foot now, as he anticipated the pleasure of catching Hawk with one of his own tricks. When they reached a point opposite the hummock he had spotted, he crawled down halfway to the water’s edge, straining to make out details in the dark bluff created by the river in times of high water. The smug smile returned to his surly face when he began to make out the shapes of the two sleeping campers snuggled up under the bank. He had ridden on patrols with Hawk, enough to know some of his tricks. Well, this ol’ dog knows some tricks, too, he thought. “Yonder,” he whispered, and pointed.
“I see ’em,” Walt whispered back, and moved up beside Nestor, trying to get a clear line of fire. “Might have to get down closer to the water to get a better angle, though.”
“I got ’em now,” Shorty almost blurted out, “right there under that bluff, sleepin’ like a couple of babies.” He scrambled down closer to the water beside Walt, then looked back at Nestor when a random thought occurred to him. “How can we tell which one is Hawk?”
“It don’t make no difference, dummy,” Walt said. “We’re fixin’ to shoot both of ’em.”
“Oh, okay then,” Shorty replied, thinking that he might have thought of that, given enough time.
“Take dead aim and wait till I shoot, then pump enough lead into them two bodies before they get woke up enough to know what hit ’em,” Nestor said. “I’m puttin’ my first shot into that one on the left.” He wasn’t sure why, but he somehow sensed that the body lying closer to the edge of the depression was Hawk because it was in a position to return fire quicker than the one back up under the bank. Only, there ain’t gonna be no time to return fire, he thought. “Everybody ready?” He squeezed the trigger that released the first round of .44 slugs to descend upon the hapless victims like a blanket of relentless fire.
The peaceful riverbanks were turned into a hailstorm of lead as Nestor’s wishes were fulfilled, with the continuous barking of the three rifles and the screaming of the frightened horses. The attack was so intense that there had been no opportunity for return fire. The body that Nestor had assumed to be Hawk had finally rolled out of the hollowed-out depression and lay still by the water’s edge. “That’s enough!” Nestor finally had to shout to stop his two partners caught up in the sensation of killing. “They’re done for. You’re just throwin’ away cartridges now.”
It was deathly silent again until Walt released a joyful oath. “Hot damn,” he drawled, which prompted Shorty to perform his imitation of a howling wolf. It was cut short by the impact of a rifle slug between his shoulder blades, causing him to stagger a few steps forward before collapsing facedown in the water. Confused when he heard the report of the shot that killed Shorty, Walt made the mistake of standing stone-still, making him an easy target. He dropped to the ground, the victim of a bullet in his chest. Quicker to react and lucky to have been standing with Walt between him and the rifles firing from the slope behind them, Nestor hit the ground immediately and rolled as fast as he could into the river. With no cover available to him, he was in no position to return fire, even if he was sure where the shooters were. His only option was the river, so he clawed and crawled his way into the dark water while rifle slugs probed the surface all around him. As soon as he reached water deep enough, he went under, dragging his rifle behind him, the soggy bandage on his foot leaving a tail as it unraveled. The only emotion that registered in his brain was the desperate need to run for his life, so he held his breath as long as he possibly could and swam as best he could, using only one arm. Even in his desperation to escape, he could not release his rifle, so he continued to struggle until the water suddenly became too shallow to swim under any longer.
Knowing he was going to have to wade the rest of the way to the other side, he slowly raised his head above the surface to see where he was. With his knees drawn up under him, he crouched in the shallow water and peered back toward the bank from which he had fled. It was too dark to see anything other than the dark outline of the slope beyond the trees. It occurred to him then that that was a good thing because it meant Hawk couldn’t see him, either. Trying to make as little noise as possible, he rose up and started making his way to shore, scanning the bank as he did, in an effort to determine where they had left the horses. He recognized a bent-over tree they had passed, so he left the water and headed toward the tree. Only then did he remember his bandaged foot, when he stepped on dry land and he felt the dull throbbing return. “Damn,” he cursed, reminded that he had been outfoxed by Hawk again, and the bitter bile of defeat returned to his throat. He paused for a second to consider another attempt to avenge himself. He didn’t like the odds with surprise no longer in his favor, and he was now outnumbered two to one. He looked at his rifle and wondered how much the soaking in the river might affect it. Maybe it wouldn’t shoot at all until thoroughly dried out and oiled. The same applied to his pistol. He didn’t really know, and it would be bad to find out when it was too late. These were the thoughts that went racing through his brain as he continued to make his way as fast as he could through the bushes where he and his partners had left their horses.
He felt a wave of relief wash over him when he found the horses right where he remembered. He told himself that it would have been impossible for Hawk to have somehow circled around and stolen the horses. Still, it was a thought that had occurred, since everything else had gone wrong. It took precious time for him to untie Walt’s and Shorty’s horses and retie them to a lead rope behind his saddle, but he was reluctan
t to leave two good horses and saddles behind. Up in the saddle and ready to ride, he had one more thought. Hawk and Pratt had been waiting in ambush on the other side of the river. Maybe they had come across already and maybe they hadn’t. Their horses were on this side of the river. Should he go back and make a try to run their horses off, even possibly steal them? He didn’t consider that idea for more than a second or two, thinking it a good chance he might get shot in the process. He turned his horse back the way he had come, intent upon putting as much prairie between himself and Hawk as possible. After a full gallop for about a quarter of a mile, he reined his horse back to a lope, concerned about the possibility of stumbling in the darkness. When he became convinced that he had managed to escape the trap set for him, the intense hatred for the man called Hawk flared up in his veins, fueled by the knowledge that Hawk had bested him again.
* * *
Behind the would-be assassin, Hawk and Monroe moved down to the water’s edge to check on the two bodies lying there. Hawk took hold of Shorty’s boots, dragged him out of the water, and turned him over. “Ain’t no question about this one. If the bullet didn’t kill him, he likely drowned himself.”
“This one’s dead, too,” Monroe said, staring down at Walt. He remained unmoving for a long moment.
Hawk was puzzled by Monroe’s apparent trance until it occurred to him that he was reacting to the realization that he had killed a man. It was plain to see that he had never done it before. “It ain’t an easy thing, killin’ a man, even one as low-down mean as these two, but they were set on killin’ us. We just beat ’em to it this time. Next time it might be our time to catch a bullet.”
Monroe blinked a couple of times, as if waking from a dream. Then he finally looked up at Hawk and said, “These were two of the men with Nestor in the saloon in Bozeman. You think he has anyone else with him?”
Hell Hath No Fury Page 8