Tame the Wild Wind

by Rosanne Bittner

  Faith hardly noticed the cold, or the fact that the sky was growing darker to the west. A spring snowstorm was coming, but it didn’t matter, as long as she could lie in Gabe’s arms tonight and know that the town was free of Joe Keller and his men. The crowd seemed jubilant, and they began to gather around the remaining three deputies, some talking of a hanging.

  Faith noticed blood on Gabe’s face and all over the front of his shirt. “My God!” She stood frozen as Bret ran to him and handed him a towel, which he pressed to the wound across his left cheek.

  “I’m all right,” he told Faith when he reached her. He holstered his gun and put an arm around her. “It’s just a flesh wound.”

  “Half an inch, and the bullet would have been in your brain,” Bret said. She put her arms around both of them. “He’s all right, Faith, and Keller is dead. So is Kuzak. Thank God.”

  The crowd began to get over their shock and loosen up, some actually cheering.

  “Hang the bastards!” someone shouted. More people gathered around the other three deputies, and Faith let go of Gabe, suddenly concerned, turning to stop the angry crowd. Finally Gabe shot his gun in the air to get their attention. He stood behind Faith, who looked pleadingly at the once peaceful group of people who had suddenly become vigilantes.

  “Don’t do this!” she begged. “Gabe has helped rid us of the corruption in this town. We wanted Keller gone because we wanted peace. We hardly needed a sheriff before Keller came here, because we are Christian, civilized people. If you hang these men, you’re no better than Joe Keller!”

  “Well, what the heck are we supposed to do with them?” one man asked.

  Gabe faced them, all three men standing there barefoot and shivering as much from fear as from the cold. “You men don’t mind getting out of town and never coming back, do you?”

  “N-n-no,” one replied, rubbing briskly at his arms.

  “We’ve got no reason to be here now, not with Keller gone,” another spoke up.

  Gabe turned to Bret. “Any of these three harm you when they took you off to jail?” he asked her.

  To Faith’s surprise Bret actually reddened. “No,” she answered, looking down at Kuzak. “It was that one.” She looked back at Gabe. “Thank you. Ben would have been proud to know you.”

  Gabe nodded, understanding her deeper pain. Faith had told him about the rape.

  Buck walked over and put an arm around Bret. “Come on back inside the saloon, Bret. You’ll catch sick out here.”

  Bret scowled at him. “Listen, you, I never get sick.”

  Buck laughed in the peculiar cackle familiar to everyone in town. He took Bret’s arm and led her back into the saloon, and Gabe addressed the remaining crowd. “Let these three get dressed and then take them over to the jail. We will keep them there until I settle with Tod Harding. If we let them go now, they might try to warn him. Once I get things straight with Harding, they can leave.” Several men with guns goaded the three men back to the bunkhouse, others in the crowd beginning to feel braver now that someone had come along to rid them of their hated sheriff. Faith hoped she could continue to convince them it would be wrong to lynch the remaining deputies.

  Gabe turned to Jack Delaney. “Let’s go send that telegram to Tod Harding to come to Sommers Station.”

  “Gabe, your face. You should see a doctor,” Faith told him.

  “Not yet. I want to send that telegram first.” He watched the crowd. “The rest of you keep an eye on anyone in town who works for Harding. Do not let any of them leave. I want to surprise Harding. He might not come at all if he knows what has happened here.”

  “Who the hell are you, mister?” one man asked.

  Faith realized then that a lot of these people had no idea what had been planned here today, who Gabe was. “This is Gabe Beaumont, my husband. I’ve known for several days that he was still alive. Tod Harding and Joe Keller had him falsely arrested over five years ago and sent off to prison in Indian Territory.”

  Murmurs and whispers moved through the crowd.

  “I’ll be damned,” someone said.

  “He really is Indian!” said one woman.

  “You’ve all seen what my husband did here today,” Faith told them. “He did it for Sommers Station. We have our town back, and Gabe is going to try to help me convince Tod Harding to turn the deeds to the railroad property back over to me. But first we have to get him here, and he can’t know that Gabe is still alive. It’s all a very long story, and when we get that newspaper going that I have planned, I will tell it to all of you in the paper. A man who works for the Rocky Mountain News has written me about coming here to start a newspaper of his own, so Sommers Station will soon have its own special news. I want all your help in deciding what we should call it. We’ll have a town meeting soon, and there will be many things to decide and also to celebrate.”

  People smiled then, some coming up to thank Gabe while the town undertaker ordered others to help him carry Keller and the deputies’ bodies to the morgue. Faith walked with Gabe to the telegraph office, clinging to his arm, still reassuring herself he was all right.

  It was over—almost. Gabe still had Harding to contend with. “You know you can’t kill Harding, don’t you?” she reminded him. “He’s too powerful a man. The law would come after you for certain. Everyone in town will back you up for what happened here today. But Harding is another story. He has a lot of people behind him who can pull strings.”

  “Don’t worry about Harding. I promised Judge Parker I wouldn’t kill him. There are other ways of getting what you want out of a man.”

  “Oh? Like what?”

  “You don’t want to know. Don’t forget I’m half-Sioux Indian.”

  Faith could almost hear the beating of drums, the cry of a warrior. She suspected he was right. She didn’t want to know how he would get what he needed out of Harding, but she did enjoy the thought of Gabe making the man sweat. Harding had always been so pompous and arrogant, always the man in charge. Facing Gabe Beaumont would be something quite different for him.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Faith waited at the depot, her heart pounding. If things didn’t go right, Gabe could end up in a lot of trouble at the hands of Tod Harding. He did not want to meet the man there in public. Everyone knew he had some kind of plan, but he did not want to be seen riding off with Harding.

  The train came steaming into the station, bell clanging, steam hissing, cars rumbling. The engine chugged past the station and came to a halt, and Faith watched as passengers began to disembark. Finally she spotted Harding, dressed dapper as ever, carrying a fancy new carpetbag as well as a briefcase. She hurried over to greet him, pretending friendliness and concern. “Mr. Harding.”

  The skirts of her deep-brown velvet dress made swirls in the snow as she approached him, and she kept the hood of her cream-colored woolen cloak pulled up over her head, wondering if spring would ever truly arrive this year.

  Harding turned, scanning her curiously, wondering why on earth Faith Beaumont had come to greet him. He supposed there was truly a town emergency for Faith to be the one to come for him. He nodded to her. “Faith. What on earth is going on?” he asked. “I received a wire in Omaha from my bank cashier that there had been an emergency and I should come right away and bring the deeds to my railroad property. Has the bank been robbed? Why are my deeds needed?”

  “Did you bring them?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “I’ll explain at the house. Please come with me.” She led him to a buggy, climbing in and taking up the reins herself. She drove around the back side of the depot, a block past the rooming house. Harding thought it a little strange that she didn’t take the main street, but he supposed this strange emergency had something to do with their unusual route. She drove along the back street, past her house, past a few stores, the saloon, the blacksmith’s, to the livery.

  “Wait a minute. You said we were going to your house,” he told her.

  “We will s
oon. There is someone you must talk to first.”

  “Look, Faith—”

  “You will understand soon.”

  “Look, if you’ve brought in someone willing to lend you money to buy back your property, it will do you no good. I do not intend to sell.”

  “We shall see, Mr. Harding.”

  Faith drove the buggy to the livery, and the door at the back of the building opened. Buck stepped out and held it open while she drove inside. Then Buck closed the door.

  “What the hell is going on?” Harding asked.

  Faith turned to him, leveling a pistol at him. “Get down, Mr. Harding.”

  He looked at the gun, his eyes wide with surprise. “What in God’s name are you trying to pull?”

  “I have killed men before, Mr. Harding, Indians and outlaws. As far as I am concerned, you are no better than an outlaw yourself. You are a thief and a liar. Now, please get down.”

  He gave her a scathing look before climbing down. “I think it’s time I made sure you left town.”

  Faith threw down his briefcase, and Buck opened the front door to the livery. Faith snapped the reins to the sleek roan mare that pulled the buggy, then drove it outside. Buck closed the door, and Harding stood in bewilderment.

  “Will you please tell me what is going on?” he asked Buck.

  “I won’t. But somebody else here will.”

  Harding looked around, his eyes taking a moment to adjust to the semidarkness inside the closed livery. He wrinkled his nose at the smell of horse manure and hay. “This is crazy. I don’t see—”

  Gabe stepped out from the back room, where Buck usually slept. He wore a wolfskin coat that came to his hips, and he held a rifle in his hands, pointed at Harding. “Well. We meet again, Mr. Harding.”

  Harding’s mouth fell open, and he felt suddenly lightheaded. “Gabe Beaumont!” he said in a near whisper. Everything was beginning to fall into place now. “Look, Beaumont, I did find a soldier who said you’d killed that lieutenant. I don’t even remember his name, but those were legitimate charges. You deserved—”

  “Shut up, Harding!” Gabe cocked the rifle. “Just shut up. We both know the truth, and it is taking all the willpower I can muster not to pull this trigger and open up your belly! That judge you paid off never hanged me, and the judge who came after him was honest and fair. He saw right through it all and let me out.”

  “And if you murder me, you’ll be right back in prison or feel a rope around your neck!”

  “Oh, I don’t intend to murder you, Harding. I intend only to make you wish you were dead!”

  Harding felt pinpricks of fear rushing through his blood. “What are you talking about?”

  “We are going for a little ride. I have a horse all saddled for you. You can go out sitting on it, or I can slam this rifle across your skull and take you out hanging over the horse’s back. Which way do you want to go?”

  “Go where?”

  “None of your business.”

  Buck brought up the horses. “Climb up,” he told Harding.

  Harding kept his eyes on Gabe. “Do you have any idea how cold it is out there? Where are we going?”

  “I know how cold it is, and I told you it’s none of your business where we’re going.” Gabe came closer, handing the man a clean bandanna. “Put this in your mouth.”

  “What?”

  Gabe rammed the barrel of his gun against the man’s neck. “Put it in your mouth!”

  Harding began to sweat in spite of the cold. “Where are Joe Keller and his men? They’ll have your hide for this!”

  “Keller’s dead, and so are three of his deputies,” Buck answered. “The other three was run out of town. Now, put the goddamn bandanna in your mouth.”

  Harding felt sick to his stomach. Keller dead! The whole town must have planned this! He looked into Gabe’s eyes, and he knew that Gabe was the one who had killed Keller. “What is it you want?”

  “You messed with my woman and shattered her dream,” Gabe answered. “You stole five years from me and Faith, kept me from the son I did not even know I had. If your orders had been followed, I would be dead, and you would eventually have taken everything from Faith. Now, put that bandanna in your mouth. When we are away from town, I will tell you what I want.”

  Harding realized he had no choice but to cooperate. He shoved the bandanna into his mouth, and Buck tied another bandanna around him from behind so that he was soundly gagged. “That ought to keep your mouth from blabbin’,” he told Harding. “Now, put your hands in front of you.”

  Harding obeyed, feeling more terror by the moment. The look in Gabe’s eyes was devastating. Surely he meant to kill him. Buck snapped handcuffs around his wrists, then ordered him onto the horse. Harding barely managed to get his foot in the stirrup, he was so shaken. Finally he sat astride the horse, and Gabe climbed onto his own black gelding. Buck handed him the reins to Harding’s horse, then handed up the man’s briefcase. He opened the back door to the stables, and Gabe rode out, leading Harding’s horse behind him, headed for the distant hills.

  • • •

  “Please don’t do this! You have no right!” Harding begged. He stumbled, falling into snow, and cried out when a rock struck his knee. “Please, Beaumont, I’m freezing!” He was barefoot, and he wore only his long johns. Gabe had uncuffed him and removed the rest of his clothes, which they’d left at the place they’d made camp, in a cave cut out of a canyon wall. When Harding had resisted, Gabe had landed a hard fist into his middle. Between the two men there was no contest. Gabe was bigger, stronger, certainly more skilled—and he was full of hatred and vengeance. The Indian in him almost enjoyed the man’s abject terror. Tod Harding represented all that Gabriel hated about white men, and this one had messed with his woman.

  Now Harding’s wrists were cuffed again, and a rope was attached to the cuffs. Gabe had led him outside and forced him to walk behind his horse for close to two miles. The calm day had turned ugly, a bitter wind coming down off the mountains, bringing with it snow and sleet. Harding’s long johns were wet.

  “There is a nice warm fire back there in the cave,” Gabe reminded Harding, yelling above the wind. “You could be sitting beside it. All you have to do is go back there and sign all those deeds over to Faith.”

  “I bought that property fair and square! I paid the railroad thirty dollars a lot, and I even paid Faith three dollars a lot for the work she had put into improvements.”

  “You knew all along she’d never pay two-fifty a lot. You let her put all her hopes and dreams into that land, and then you stole it from her! That would not have been so bad if you had not brought in Keller and his men and tried to take over the whole town!”

  “Help!” Harding screamed. “Somebody help me!”

  “Yell all you want, Harding. No one will hear you out here, especially with this wind.” He rode a little faster, forcing Harding to run or fall and be dragged. “Agree to sign over the deeds and bring us no trouble, and you can be sitting by the fire in that cave with a blanket wrapped around you,” he shouted to Harding. “You are lucky it is spring and only twenty degrees. If it was winter, it might be twenty below zero. Perhaps you would like me to remove your wool underwear and let you run naked in the wind. I have seen Indians do it. I have done it myself. It makes a man strong. But, then, you are not used to such things. Perhaps to make you cooperate, I will have to cut the bottoms of your feet and make you keep walking on them. The cuts will freeze. Soon your feet will freeze and perhaps you will have to have them cut off.”

  “All right! All right! Take me back to the cave! Please! I’ll sign the goddamn deeds!”

  Gabe halted his horse. He was plenty warm, in his winter moccasins and heavy wolfskin coat. He turned to look at Harding, enjoying the sight of him with great pleasure. “I would not change my mind if I were you.”

  “I won’t!”

  “And if you send someone after me, I will tell everyone the truth about you, what you have already done
to me, how you swindled Faith out of that land, how you tried to take over the whole town, falsely sent me to prison. I’m sure Judge Parker will back up the charges against you.”

  “I didn’t know Keller would go that far!” Harding answered. “I swear it! I just gave him the job of sheriff because he got voted out in Cheyenne and he’d done me some favors there.”

  “How well I know.”

  “It’s the truth! I didn’t know Keller was harassing people, killing people, threatening others. He took advantage of a favor. That’s the God’s truth! All I did wrong was buy that land out from under Faith.”

  “And get me out of the way first so I could not help her! What else did you plan for her, Harding? Did you plan to try to get into her bed? Faith Beaumont would never let the likes of you touch her!”

  “You’re right,” Harding answered, frantically hoping to calm the man down. “She never let me get near her. She’s a fine woman, Beaumont. And smart. She’s smart. Somehow she knew I had something to do with what happened to you. She accused me of it. She’s a hell of a woman, Beaumont. A hell of a woman. That’s what attracted me to her, but she’s not for somebody like me. She’s not a woman who wants to be pampered and live in a castle. She likes to do things on her own. I never touched her wrongly, Beaumont. I hope you know that.”

  Gabe grinned in a sneer. “I know what you wanted to do. And I know what Keller and his men were planning to do! Do you know one of them raped Bret Flowers when they put her in jail? They shot her good friend Ben for no reason and killed a young boy who was unarmed—shot him in the back!”

  Harding shook his head. “I didn’t know they were doing those things. I swear.”

  Gabe turned his horse and rode closer to the man. “How many others have built up railroad land, brought in people to make more money for the railroad, only to get swindled by men like you, Harding? How many men like you have lined their pockets richly by cheating the government and the people alike?”