by Matt Cole
‘Ma said that?’
‘Many a time. Meant it, too.’ Casey shook his head as he answered.
‘I guess we just weren’t right for each other.’ Frank shrugged and threw up his hands.
‘I think there’s more to it than that.’
‘Can you mind your own business, kid?’ Frank replied.
‘Nope,’ Casey grinned. ‘Never could, according to you. What happened, Frank?’
‘For some reason, Marlene got the notion that I was too stubborn. That I wouldn’t bend, and couldn’t be talked out of something once I’d made up my mind. Said she couldn’t live with that. Said if I didn’t learn to bend, then one day I would snap and that would be it. Curtains for Frank Daniels. Funny critters, these women.’
CHAPTER 6
SHOTS FIRED
The chair splintered when it crashed down on Solly Murdock’s hard head, causing his knees to buckle and his eyes to roll in their sockets. But Solly hadn’t earned his reputation of being the toughest of all the Murdock gang, friends or cousins for nothing, and as the breed came at him to follow up his advantage, Solly slewed to one side, delivered a chopping blow to the side of his neck, and danced out of harm’s way.
‘That’s the stuff, Solly!’ roared Henry Lowe, waving a bottle high. ‘Tire him out beatin’ up on you. He might have a stroke and you’ll win.’
This was meant to goad Solly on, for he was a renowned rough-houser and dearly loved to win. He knew that Henry had money on him, but that wasn’t what was important. Winning was everything, but this outsized half breed seemed to have the same attitude.
Solly heaved a table at his adversary, who snatched up a bottle and hurled it, missing Solly and taking out another window.
From the doorway, Trader Wilson watched angrily and anxiously.
At Fort Wilson, where wild men came in and out of the mountains all the time with furs to trade and raging thirsts to quench, brawls were as common as dishwater. Few ever lasted long, and the damage was rarely extensive. This was different. Although both brawlers were brimful of booze, they were both powerful, fierce men who showed no sign of easing up and no consideration whatever for the furnishings.
Wilson was tempted to try and stop the fight. His men were there, ready to help if he gave the word, but the trader hesitated. He wasn’t too scared of either brawler, mad and mean as they were. It was the tawny-haired ‘trapper’ yelling encouragement to the man named Solly that bothered him.
The strangers did not look or act like real trappers. They had hit the post late that afternoon with a fortune in prime pelts from the previous winter and spring.
At first, Wilson had shown some reluctance to handle such a major deal with men he didn’t know, but the leader of the band had made it plain there could be trouble if he refused. Wilson named a price, it was accepted, and pelts and cash exchanged hands. The strangers settled down to enjoy themselves. Most of the bunch had gone out to the whores’ camp along the river, but the toughest-looking pair had chosen to remain at the post, drinking and raising hell. Eventually they ran up against the fort’s meanest customer.
The breed was as big as a house. He had lost his shirt in the ruckus, and his muscular torso gleamed in the fire glow like oiled bronze. There was tremendous power in those heavy shoulders and arms, and he was mean as a rattler as he brushed furniture from his path to close with Solly again.
Solly Murdock’s only handicap was a full load of booze. His timing was a touch off and his strength was not quite up to scratch.
Solly took a ferocious elbow smash to the jaw and a stunning punch to the throat. Then he did what any red-blooded man would do when things were looking bad. He went for the eyes with his thumbs.
He found one. The Indian was instantly blinded in his left eye.
He went berserk.
Even Henry Lowe was impressed with the breed’s awesome display of savagery as he hurled himself into big Solly. Fists, feet and knees slammed in with a drumbeat sound that shook the room. Solly was head-butted, elbowed, kneed in the groin, spat on, bitten and head-butted again.
Big Solly was down.
The breed had him by the throat and was choking the life out of him.
The crowd cheered this on. No fight could be too rough for these hard-case mountain men. Naturally they were for the local boy, and if Solly had been prepared to go for the eye, then he had to be prepared to accept the consequences.
Solly fought desperately for breath. His lungs were on fire, and a red mist swam before his eyes. He tried for a knee in the groin but missed. His strength was ebbing fast. The one-eyed breed leaned close, his lips split in a wolf grin of triumph which exposed teeth that looked strong enough to crush bone.
The breed’s thumbs were probing deeper into Solly’s bruised neck. It was plain to everyone that Solly was through. That included Henry Lowe.
Nobody saw him draw, as every eye was fixed on the life and death drama in front of the long bar. The shot crashed through the big room like a bomb going off. A sudden black hole, round, neat and exactly centered, appeared in the breed’s forehead. Legs still straddling Solly, he stared at nothing for a long, shocked moment, and then tumbled stiffly to one side.
Choking and wheezing, Solly struggled to a seated position in the stunned silence, worked some saliva around his mouth, and spat in the dead face.
The mob was ready to be outraged until they looked at the gunman. Lowe now had a Colt in each hand, and the only way to describe his expression was eager.
He wanted them to try something. Please, he thought.
Only Wilson dared to offer a word of protest.
‘That wasn’t rightly fair, mister, what you done.’
Henry Lowe trained one Colt squarely on Trader Wilson and said, ‘Say that again?’
Rugged though he was, the trader went white and dumb. He still did not know who the stranger was, but he was an experienced judge of bad character.
‘What a dump!’ Lowe sneered, lowering the gun. ‘Let’s get out of here and go find some real fun, cousin.’
Solly’s thick legs were shaky as he followed the broad-backed figure. He couldn’t see straight, and he wheezed like a mule with consumption. But he was alive, and for that he was grateful.
‘Know what I was thinkin’ when the lights was goin’ out, Henry?’
‘What?’
‘That I plan on seein’ my wife up north. Imagine what a fool I would have been to let that redguts do me in. . . .’ He managed a wheezing chuckle. ‘Milly would never forgive me.’
As they mounted up and Henry Lowe glanced back at the lights, he was still half hoping somebody might come after them.
‘Seems to me you’re slippin’ a bit, cousin,’ Henry said. Then he slapped his thigh and grinned. ‘Dang. Just remembered.’
Big Solly looked confused as he said, ‘What?’
‘I clean forgot to settle my bets.’
That broke them up, and they galloped off for the river, laughing like maniacs and shooting their guns into the night sky, survivors as they always were.
There was news waiting when they reached the whores’ camp. The previous day, Henry Lowe had left a man behind to keep watch. The scout had returned now, with the news that five men were camped on their tracks, following their sign.
‘What do we do, Henry?’ Solly asked impatiently.
Nobody could ever accuse Henry Lowe of indecisiveness. He turned to his female cousin, Rhonda, and said, ‘Kill ’em, of course.’
It was the following night, and the Daniels brothers had made camp just a few miles downstream from Fort Wilson. All was quiet up above as Rhonda Lowe and five of the gang’s other henchmen paused to look up at the faint glow of the campfire.
‘Greenhorns!’ she hissed. ‘Who else would light up a beacon to show us where they are? This will be too easy to get any satisfaction out of it. Let’s get it over.’
The face of the knoll was thick with shrubbery. It was almost as though nature wanted to assist the kille
rs. The outlaws climbed up the slope with the aid of the undergrowth, like small bears. Six bears. Sending six of his men, or five men and one woman, to deal with the five pursuers showed that Henry Lowe had been in a generous mood. Normally one or two would be regarded as enough.
Rhonda reached the rim first. She was a slender, athletic woman with the characteristic tawny hair and feral green eyes of the Murdocks, she was a cousin, that glittered as she parted a screen of brush to peer towards the campsite. Though she was a woman, she was treated like one of the men and didn’t act or dress like a typical woman.
The fire burned merrily. Around it were scattered figures, wrapped in their bedrolls. A line of horses on a picket rope was dimly visible in the background. It was all Rhonda Lowe could do to suppress her contempt for such carelessness. Greenhorns indeed? These jokers were begging to be killed.
Her men were now spread out on either side of the camp, guns glinting in eager readiness.
‘No tricky stuff,’ Rhonda instructed. ‘We just go straight in shootin’. Understand me?’
Heads nodded, and the bad men advanced with no more noise than a moonrise.
A tree to the right moved.
But it wasn’t a tree. It was a big man – a very big man – and he was holding a shotgun.
This stunning fact barely had time to register before both barrels of the shotgun erupted in a fierce fireball and Rhonda Lowe fell.
Instantly, other hidden guns erupted in a head numbing roar. Outlaws were tumbling, screaming desperately, trying to fight back. It wasn’t easy as the Daniels had the drop on them. They had been lying in wait for more than two hours, ever since Frank had glimpsed the outlaws making their way south along the river.
One man got to put two bullets close to Frank Daniels, but he was quickly shot to pieces by Casey and Urban, firing from different positions.
CHAPTER 7
BLACK STONE FOR THE DEAD
Frank Daniels moved swiftly through roiling tatters of gunsmoke as he glimpsed two dark figures retreating towards the slope. His .45s were fully loaded again, and he was riding a crest of violence. In the uncertain gloom surrounding him men were hurt, dead, fighting and yelling. The chaos made sense of a kind to him.
One of the Murdocks reached the slope first and started down through the brush, hand over hand. Suddenly Frank loomed above him, looking impossibly huge to the descending outlaw. Frank made sure their eyes met before he opened up.
‘For my dear mother, Dorothy Daniels!’ he roared. Twin Colts belched fire and the man below him gave a faint, weak cry as he plummeted down the slope into the rocks below. The other man instantly gave up trying to climb down and just let himself go. Frank’s scorching lead hunted his rolling, frantic figure. He was rewarded by a sharp yell of pain, but the hellion made it to the safety of the rocks and was gone into the brush like a startled jackrabbit.
As Frank swung back into the fray, one of his brothers was hit: Urban had been fighting it out with an outlaw positioned behind a deadfall. He was taken from behind by Rhonda Lowe, who drove four soft-nosed slugs into his back before Frank could get to him.
Rhonda hit the ground with a dead meat thud but managed to survive Frank’s shotgun blast and was still alive and moaning as Casey sprang across her to reach Urban’s side. But it was already too late for Urban Daniels, and there were tears in Casey’s eyes as he swung with gun in hand, meaning to finish off his brother’s killer.
Frank’s shout held him: ‘No, kid! We want that bitch of an outlaw alive to talk!’
So Casey settled for slamming his boot heel into the wounded woman’s face, before swinging away to search for more targets.
There weren’t any. The battle was over. The tally of bad men was one wounded, one escaped and four shot to death. And there was Urban Daniels staring sightlessly at the sky.
They buried Urban where he had fallen, using saddle shovels to scrape out a grave among the trees and stones. To clear the burial site, they dragged three outlaw corpses away and tossed them down the vine-covered slope where their companion lay.
Thin moonlight filtered down as Frank stood bare-headed, reading from Hugh’s bible. They could not believe that their brother Urban was dead. Now there were only four of them.
They had cost the enemy dearly, but four dead scum did not go anywhere near making up for the loss of Urban.
‘All he ever wanted was to drift,’ Hugh said afterwards. ‘I hope they let him do it where . . . where he is now.’
Frank put on his hat and left them standing by the rock-covered grave.
He approached the wounded prisoner with a thin strip of piano wire taken from his saddle-bags in his hands. Rhonda Lowe made a feeble attempt to brush the big hands away as they reached for her, but the effort was in vain. The outlaw woman found herself jerked into a seated position by the wire now tightly encircling her neck.
‘Easy, Frank. I believe that outlaw is a woman,’ said Virgil.
Frank spat. ‘This is no woman, no matter what she looks like.’ Frank turned to Rhonda and leaned close. ‘Name!’ he demanded.
‘Go fry!’ Rhonda shot back with hate.
The wire tightened, and Rhonda’s eyes bulged. She stared into the bronzed face before her and saw no hint of mercy. She was not a woman of great courage. She signaled frantically, and when the choke wire was eased, she blurted out her name.
‘Rhonda . . . Lowe.’
Frank’s eyes widened fractionally.
‘Wife or cousin?’
‘Henry’s. . . ? Yeah . . . cousin.’
‘And you were one of them, weren’t you?’ Frank declared.
‘W-what? One of who?’ Rhonda asked.
‘You were at the ranch were our mother was butchered,’ Frank said through clenched teeth.
‘No . . . no. . . !’
The wire jerked tight.
‘Frank! She is a woman, for God’s sake,’ Virgil said again. ‘What would Mom think of you treating a woman like this?’
Frank relaxed the wire.
‘Start talking, you low-life, good-for-nothing . . . woman!’ Frank growled. ‘I want to know where Henry Lowe and the rest of the Murdock Gang are, and where they are heading. How many men are in the gang? I want to know everything, and you are goin’ to tell me.’
Rhonda Lowe had always considered herself tough, as tough as any man. Not so much as her cousin, Henry, maybe, but tough enough. She resolved not to say anything more – but by the time Frank Daniels was through with her, she had told them everything she could think of, and was begging for an end to her agony. Her wounds were not of the type she could recover from.
Frank took a moment, pulling away from the hands of Virgil who knew what Frank was thinking of doing, and finally decided to grant her last wish.
Almost daintily, he looped the piano wire around the woman’s neck. The wire cut deeply into the skin with his first vicious twist. Rhonda Lowe’s body leapt like a convulsing fish on the end of a line. Frank held his grip remorselessly as Virgil and Casey turned away until the fish stopped struggling and flopped back to earth, floundering and dying.
With his brothers watching now in ashen-faced silence, Frank held the pressure for a further half minute to make sure. Then he released the wire and put it in his pocket. At the same time, he took out a small black stone.
Frank Daniels dropped the stone on the dead woman’s stomach.
‘Daniels?’ Henry Lowe looked perplexed. ‘Is that name supposed to mean something to me?’
The survivor of the bloody battle in the south, a mean-faced Murdock Gang member – Honus McCord – with snaggled teeth and half an ear shot away, had to take another slug of rye before he could reply.
‘I dunno, Henry, but that is what the big fella said afore he blasted Zeke: “For my dear mother, Dorothy Daniels!” That’s what he said. Then he damn near blew Zeke’s head offen his shoulders. . . .’
‘Yeah, we heard all of that the first time you told us,’ Henry snapped. His eyes were frosty as
he stared at his cousin. ‘Daniels. . . .’
‘Blue Springs Creek, Henry.’ It was bad old Uncle Birch Murdock who spoke up. ‘Daniels was the name of that old lady you went to when you was lookin’ for horses.’
Henry Lowe turned to face his uncle, one of the founders of the gang.
‘Are you sure of that, old man?’
‘Certain sure. I lined up the raid for you, remember?’
With a nod, Henry began moving around the campfire, watched by a pack of silent outlaws. Murdock’s Gang was well accustomed to pursuit, but not to heavy losses. Judging by the survivor’s account of the ambush, they had lost heavily. They were waiting for him to tell them what they should do about it, what they should feel, what they should think.
‘Daniels?’ Henry Lowe muttered. ‘Five of ’em . . . huh?’ He stopped before Honus McCord. ‘And one of ’em was a really big man, you say?’
‘Big, Henry, big.’
Henry scratched his head. ‘As big as me?’
Honus McCord shook his head. ‘Bigger.’
Again it was Uncle Birch Murdock who interrupted.
‘That handle, Frank Daniels, that rings a bell with me, nephew. Seems I heard him spoke of from time to time. You know? Like he might be somethin’ special.’
‘He will be especially dead before he gets to be any older and bigger,’ Henry Lowe promised, turning to Honus McCord again. ‘How long do you figure it would take us all to get back to the place you ran away from?’
There was a chill note of censure in Henry Lowe’s words. Honus McCord swallowed uneasily.
‘Maybe two hours. . . .’
‘We cain’t go back, Henry.’
The man who spoke was big Solly Murdock, cousin to the survivor and Henry Lowe’s long-time gang member. But even Solly could not tell the leader what he could or could not do.
‘Solly, shut your mouth or I will shut it for you.’
Henry Lowe was mad; it was a long time since he had been so mad. What had happened downstream had taken the shine off the success of the big fur raid. All he wanted right now was the chance to even accounts with these Daniels.