“I’m Buck,” a big red-headed one with a ragged beard grinned and spat tobacco juice to one side, “and this is my amigo, Pug.”
Pug, a smaller one with a dirty ponytail, nodded with a grin of missing teeth.
Kruger smiled. “You two look like you can do some damage.”
“We aim to,” Buck said, putting both freckled hands on his saddle horn. “We can use the money. You just tell us what to do, and we’ll get her done.”
Kruger and some of the other ranchers chuckled. “Now there’s the kind of attitude I like.”
“I ain’t seen many women up in these parts,” Buck complained. “Is it all right if we help ourselves to the farmers’ pretty ones while we’re shootin’ and burnin’ things down?”
“Be my guest,” Kruger nodded with a wink.
“Aw, now, Hurd,” one of the other ranchers objected, “hurtin’ their womenfolk don’t seem right—”
“It’ll move them settlers out much faster,” Kruger argued, “and what do we care about a bunch of farmers’ daughters? Buck, consider that a little extra treat.”
Some of the gunfighters raised a cheer.
“Now let’s get started,” Kruger snapped. “Hemmings, you take part of these men; Rawlings, you take some of the others and go south. Some of you Texans stay with me. Today we spread out, cut fences, and scatter livestock. When it gets dark, we’ll fire some barns. In a few days, these settlers will move out of here so fast you’d think their drawers were on fire.”
The men roared with laughter and broke into three groups, spreading out across the county.
From a small foothill in the distance along the base of the Bighorn Mountains, Diablo leaned on his saddle horn and watched the dust rise up from the horses’ hooves as the crowd broke into three groups and rode out. Dawn was just bathing the prairie with a pale pink glow. Probably no one had missed him, and if anyone did, they’d think he was with one of the other groups. He guessed what the men were up to, but he hadn’t come to tear down fences and chase terrorized calves. Such mischief was beneath his dignity.
In a way, he felt a little sorry for the settlers, but they should have known better than to trespass into ranch country and put up barbed wire that would injure cattle and horses. Farmers needed to stay in more civilized places and not subject their women to the dangers of the frontier. He thought of his own mother and frowned. Yes, a damned farmer had brought a fragile white woman into a hostile area, and she’d died by her own hand after that Indian uprising, her rape, and Diablo’s birth.
He must not think of his mother. After all, he’d never known her except what the old Santee woman had told him. Women. That made Diablo remember the fragile girl with the almost-silver hair. If he hadn’t stopped it, she would have been raped last night by that brute. Now he couldn’t decide if he had saved her to protect her or was merely saving her for his own revenge. What was her name? Sunny. Well, if she was Kruger’s daughter, she would be part of his revenge. There was no room in his heart for pity when anger and revenge were what drove him. The feel of the slight girl in his arms last night came to his mind unbidden, and he frowned. Her skin had been soft and her figure rounded. Her hair had felt like silk, and she had smelled of soap and the faint scent of lilacs. He felt the need arise in him and was angry with himself.
“You ugly monster,” he muttered, “you ain’t ever gonna get a woman like that unless you take her by force.”
Diablo frowned. No, he wanted more than that. He wanted . . . he wasn’t sure what the hell he wanted because he’d never had any contact with women except for Cimarron Durango and a couple of very drunken whores. There had to be more to women than that.
“Stop thinking about her,” he muttered and reminded himself again that he was here for one thing and one thing only: revenge. He had waited and thought of nothing else for fifteen long years. Certain men were going to die, but not quickly. He would kill them as his Sioux warrior father might have and make it long and painful. These white men were going to reap what they sowed.
Soon the last snow on the mountain peaks would be melted, and the farmers should be planting now. However, within a few brutal days, they would be lying dead in their own cabins as the Texans picked them off. The settlers didn’t stand a chance against hired guns. No doubt Buck and some of the others would rape a few of the prettier women. Rape. Diablo thought of his own mother and winced. Rape was always the ultimate revenge and so disgraceful that many women, like his own mother, would kill themselves, especially if they found themselves with child after the terrible event. His mind did not want to go into the horror of his own past, but he couldn’t control the memories of a terrified boy. Women weren’t the only ones who could be raped.
Now Diablo rode along a hilltop, saw movement in the valley below, and reined in his blood bay horse, watching. A man wearing striped overalls ran toward a barn, while another man on a paint horse pursued him. It wasn’t his business, Diablo reminded himself; he was in Wyoming on his own mission. Yet after a moment, he felt forced to help the poor settler, and he turned his mount down into the valley, riding along behind a string of straggly brush. The rider below him laughed, and the wind carried the sound up the hill. Diablo recognized that laugh. It brought back memories of that day fifteen years ago.
Diablo saw a flash of light as the man on horseback pulled a pistol and shot the running man in the back. The farmer stumbled and went down. The big man on the paint horse dismounted and walked over to the prone body, kicked it with his boot, laughed again.
Diablo winced. Shooting a man in the back was loathsome, but he knew the rider was capable of worse than that—far worse. Silently he rode toward the man who was intent on staring down at his victim. Some poor nester, Diablo thought as he dismounted and walked toward the killer, his soft moccasins making no sound.
“All right, drop it!” Diablo snarled.
The huge man called Smitty turned slowly, surprise on his unshaven face.
“I said drop it, or I’ll kill you right here and it won’t be a clean kill.”
Smitty’s face paled. “Who—who are you? Are you one of them Texas gunfighters? Ain’t you on our side?”
Diablo frowned, looking down at the dead man and the little cabin and barn in the distance. “You shot him in the back, you bastard.”
“Remember, we’re just supposed to clean ’em out; don’t matter how we do it.”
“I’m not here to kill settlers and farmers,” Diablo growled. “Drop your gun belt.”
Sweat broke out on Smitty’s pale face and ran down his crooked nose and dripped off his fat chin. “Look, I’ll let you take credit with Kruger. That’s fifty extra dollars in your pocket with none of the work.”
Diablo merely smiled without mirth. “Take a good look. You don’t even know me, do you?”
The middle-aged cowboy peered at him and shook his head slowly. “God, I’d remember that face—I mean—”
“Yeah, this ugly face,” Diablo agreed. “Think back fifteen years. Know me now?”
Smitty’s hands began to shake, and his eyes widened as he seemed to recognize Diablo. “Some—some rustlers and an Injun kid, there was an Injun kid—”
“And you laughed when you made them dance on air, and then you all turned to the kid.”
“Oh, God!” Smitty moaned, “I—I didn’t mean nothin’ by it. I was just followin’ orders.”
“You loved every minute of it,” Diablo snapped. “You laughed while you were doing it.”
“We was all drunk.” Smitty’s face was white as milk. “That was a long time ago; we thought you was dead.”
“One thing you forgot, you and the others, was that I might survive and come back. Now mount up.”
“What—what are you gonna do with me?”
“I’m going to give my friends justice, but first, you’re gonna bury this poor devil.” Diablo motioned toward the dead farmer.
“Then how will I claim my fifty dollars?” Smitty objected.
&nbs
p; “You can’t spend fifty dollars in hell.”
“What?”
“Shut up and dig,” Diablo ordered.
“But I ain’t got a shovel.”
“Then use your hands,” Diablo said.
The other man looked like he might argue, then got down on his knees in the plowed dirt and began to dig. Sweat poured off his pale face and dripped off his crooked nose. His shirt turned dark and wet with his labor.
Diablo glanced up at the sun. He didn’t have a lot of time to make this a proper burial. Besides, neither one of them were fit to read a Bible over the dead man. They were both lost souls bound for hell, and Smitty was going tonight. “All right, that will have to do. Turn him face up and put him in the hole.”
Smitty was sweating profusely as he obeyed. “I was just followin’ orders,” he whined.
“Now take off your shirt and cover him up, you rotten bastard. I don’t cotton to throwing dirt in a dead man’s face.”
Smitty blinked and obeyed. His bare skin was fatty and milk white under the shirt.
“Maybe his folks will find him and give him a proper service.” Diablo watched until Smitty was finished, trying not to remember how a small, injured half-breed boy had tried to bury his friends with his bare hands because he had nothing to dig with. He didn’t want to remember that day, but never an hour passed that he didn’t. Maybe when he killed all the men involved, he could forget it. “Now get on your horse.”
“I at least ought to get a trial,” Smitty whimpered.
“You didn’t give those three cowboys a trial.”
“Let’s talk this over,” Smitty begged as he mounted up on his paint horse. “My God, you can’t just kill me.”
Diablo swung up on his own horse. “Those cowboys begged, too, and you laughed, you and the others. The world needs to be rid of scum like you. Now get riding.”
It was near sundown when Kruger led some of his posse toward his ranch, satisfied with his day’s work. They had raided three nesters’ farms, tearing down their fences and shooting anyone who tried to interfere. By nightfall, the word would have spread across Johnson County, and farmers would begin to pack up and move out. Some might try to organize and fight back, but there was always tomorrow to deal with the braver ones. A few barns burned and people shot would terrify even the most stubborn ones.
It was dusk as they rode toward the big ranch gate with the K Bar sign hanging overhead. There was something hanging from the sign that threw distorted shadows across the road. It was a big white object, dangling and swaying from a rope that creaked and shadowed the riders as they approached the gate and reined in.
“What the—” Kruger spurred his sorrel horse closer. The horse snorted and shied from the dangling object. Kruger stared and blinked. It was a heavy, shirtless man, swaying in the wind, his back toward the riders. Then as he rode closer, the body swung slowly around so that Kruger saw the unshaven face. “Oh, my God!”
A yell of surprise and horror came from the riders behind him as he looked upward. It was Smitty at the end of that rope, his eyes wide and staring, his usually florid face pale as flour. Blood ran out of his crooked nose. Kruger stood up in his stirrups, reached out to touch the body. It was still warm.
The other men rode up beside him, looking in hushed silence for a long moment as the body swayed in the wind and the rope creaked. “Goddamn, what’s happened?”
Kruger ground his teeth in rage. “Some of them damned clod-breakers got more balls than we thought. It’s an insult, a spit in the face, lynchin’ a K Bar hand. The damned farmers are sendin’ me a message. Joe, you and Wilson cut him down.”
Joe and his other man obeyed. Smitty fell like a bag of potatoes onto the trail. “What’ll we do with him, boss?”
Kruger shrugged. “He’s no good to me now. Just bury him someplace.”
Joe squatted down to look at the body, then up at him, a frown on his weasel face. “We ain’t gonna do no service or anything?”
“Naw, we ain’t got time for that.”
“But, boss,” Wilson objected, “he worked for you almost twenty years.”
“Yeah, but he ain’t no good to me dead.” Kruger shrugged. “Now the rest of you, let’s get some food and a little rest. Tonight, we’ll get even with them nesters. We’ll burn every one of their barns in the county. Me, I’m going over to see if I can get Sorrenson to join us. We can use him and his cowboys.”
Kruger was still cursing as he turned his horse. How dare the nesters show any guts? He had expected them to pack up and run like frightened rabbits. If the farmers killed any of Kruger’s men, it might be the Texas gunfighters who backed off.
It was dark as he rode over to Sorrenson’s place and dismounted.
Old Swen was out on the porch in the moonlight. Swen frowned. “What brings you here?”
“A little problem,” Kruger said.
Sunny came out on the porch just then.
“Dad—” She paused when she saw Kruger.
“Hello, dear,” Kruger doffed his hat and gave her his warmest smile. She had never looked so lovely and desirable.
“Hello, Uncle Hurd.”
“You know, you could just call me Hurd.”
She didn’t say anything.
“Umm,” Hurd sniffed. “Smells like you’re cookin’ up something good for your dad. You gonna invite me to stay for supper?”
“Sure,” she said, but she didn’t look happy about it. “It’ll be ready as soon as I put the biscuits in.” She turned and went back into the house.
Kruger watched her go. He wanted her more than he ever had, wanted her more than a bigger ranch and more cattle. “Your girl is turning into a real beauty, Swen. It’s about time she was married.”
Swen shook his head. “No, I’ve saved a little money, Hurd, in spite of hard times. I’m gonna send her back east to her aunt. Sunny can live with her and go to college.”
Kruger snorted and sat down in the porch swing. “Now why does a girl need to go to college? She’d make a good rancher’s wife and give a man some fine sons.”
“Why did you come by?” Swen asked, evidently wanting to change the subject.
“We’re startin’ to give them nesters trouble.”
Swen frowned. “I don’t want to hear about it. You know I’m a great one for live and let live.”
“Aw, I was hoping you’d changed your mind and you and your crew would help us run them out. After all, they’re stringin’ barbed wire across all these lands we always run cattle on.”
“They got rights, too,” Swen said.
“You gonna say that when one of them clodhoppers wants to marry Sunny or runs you out of business ’cause they’re plowin’ up all the grass we graze our cows on?”
“I’m just talking about what’s right, Hurd.”
“I ain’t got the luxury of worrying about right,” Kruger sneered, “and you ain’t either. If it wasn’t for me helping you out, you wouldn’t still be in business.”
“I’ve had some hard luck,” Swen admitted. “But I’ll pay you back someday.”
“Not if the nesters crowd you off the land,” Kruger argued.
Sunny stuck her head out the door. “Supper’s on.” She did not smile.
Kruger stood up. “Good. I’m so hungry, my belly thinks my throat’s been cut.”
He followed her into the house, Swen coming along behind him. Kruger watched the girl walk ahead of him. He wanted her. He had always wanted her, and by God, he would have her. He hadn’t cared about his homely first wife; he had married her for the little money she’d inherited and brought her out to the wilds of Wyoming, knowing she was frail and not the sort to be a rancher’s wife. It was the son he’d lost that pained him. What good did it do for a man to build a rich empire if he didn’t have sons to leave it to? Yes, he would marry Sunny. They would have a dozen sons to take over this state some day. For the last four years, that was all he’d been working toward.
“You keep a fine house, Miss Sun
ny, real homey.” He looked with approval at the homemade curtains, the tidy living area, and the table loaded down with steaming food.
“Remember,” Swen said proudly, as he pulled out a chair, “she won the blue ribbon in the pie-baking contest at the county fair last year.”
“I remember,” Kruger nodded as he sat down. “Not only pretty, but a great cook, too. Miss Sunny, you’ll make some man a good wife.”
She didn’t say anything, only started dishing up the stew and hot biscuits; then she turned toward the cupboard for some homemade jam.
Kruger watched her. The lamplight caught the brightness of her hair and the soft curves of her figure. Yes, he was enlarging his kingdom so he could lay it at the feet of this beauty. There was only about twenty years’ difference in their ages—well, maybe a little more than that, but everyone said young girls preferred mature men, especially those with property. He desired her more than anything else in this world, and Hurd Kruger was used to getting what he wanted.
“Hurd, you had a reason for coming?” Swen asked as he took a biscuit.
“Later,” Kruger shook his head and dipped into his stew. He didn’t want to upset the lovely Sunny by telling Swen about Smitty’s lynching yet. If he couldn’t persuade Swen and his crew to join him, he still had plenty of help to set fires to a bunch of the farmers’ barns tonight.
After supper, he thanked Sunny profusely and took Swen outside to tell him what had happened to Smitty.
Swen filled his pipe. “The nesters fighting back?”
“Yes, damn them. Didn’t expect it. I’ll get even with them tonight.”
Swen shrugged. “Smitty was a varmint with no conscience. I hate to say it, but he deserved it.”
“Swen, damn it, whose side are you on? I thought you and your men might reconsider and join us.”
Swen shook his head. “I’ll have no part of it.”
“You used to go along with me.”
“Don’t remind me.” Swen lit his pipe, and the fragrant scent drifted on the cool spring night. “I ain’t never forgot what we did that long-ago night.”
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