by Eric Red
The first faction of wranglers called it a day and hung up their spurs, trudging to the chow line, whispering to one other.
The second group of wranglers had pounded stakes into the ground near the supply wagon and strung a lariat between them to fix a rope hitch for the horses, then took off the saddles, hanging them on the wagon. This tight-knit outfit, the biggest group, ignored the new hired hand, Joe; they looked through him like he was invisible, but Noose up on his horse was actively listening to every word he could make out, which wasn’t much because everybody was whispering.
There was a lot of hushed talk going on, Joe noticed, and he wondered why; obviously these men had something they didn’t want not just him, but each other, to hear.
The bounty hunter remained in the saddle, pretending to be occupied as the other rovers dismounted, heading straight for the chuck wagon. Raucous and raunchy laughter now ensued. The wonderful smell of grilled beef and roast corn filled the air; if it tasted as good as it smelled, Joe thought, that meant the chow would be good on the trip.
The cook’s name was Fred Kettlebone, one of the names so far Joe had put a face to. He was fat and jolly, had a moon face, thirty or thereabouts, with a big mouth on him, always busting his saddle mates’ britches. On the trail today while the herd had stopped to graze, Noose had seen Kettlebone wrestling a wayward steer back into the fold with just his bare hands, and Noose figured the cook’s fat was probably mostly muscle. It smelled like he was a great cook.
It was deep country dark out here under the stars. From up in the saddle, Joe had an unobstructed view of the men gathered around the chuck wagon but knew they couldn’t see him; fifteen feet from the flames of the huge campfire everything fell off into pitch-black, and Noose and Copper were over a hundred feet away. The outfit sat around the chuck wagon, grabbing their plates of grub and digging in with appreciative noises. His stomach was growling. The longer Noose watched from on top of Copper, the more the good smell of the food was making him hungry, so Joe dismounted. He took a few minutes to rub down his horse, then put the feed bag on him, making sure his friend was fed first, and ambled toward the chuck wagon.
It was time to find out who he was riding with.
* * *
“What took you so long, pardner?”
Joe Noose had just helped himself to a heaping plate of food—steak and mashed potatoes and plenty of it—and joined the rest of the outfit seated around the campfire, returning nods of greeting from a few of the eight cowboys, and sat on the ground when the grizzled wrangler named Wylie Jeffries asked him the question.
“Had to take care of some stuff,” Noose replied. “I’m the new guy. Hope I didn’t hold you boys up none.” Joe cut into his steak and dug in.
“Hold us up?” Jeffries chortled. “Son, at chow time, this outfit waits on each other like one hog to another.”
“Pretty good chow, eh?” Frank Leadbetter said with a mouth full of food.
“That’s a fact.” Joe smiled, keeping one eye on his food, one eye on the men.
“Hey, Kettlebone, the new man likes your grub!” Leadbetter yelled toward the chuck wagon.
There was crashing of metal pots followed by a string of expletives over at the chuck wagon. A twangy, high-pitched voice hollered back. “Well why the hell wouldn’t he? My food’s best in the West. Tell the new hand he lucked out, him hooking up with this outfit.”
The rovers all stopped smiling at that last comment, eating a few bites in thoughtful silence.
A big, rugged, gregarious wrangler, still chewing, looked Joe straight in the eye, leaning forward to extend his hand. “Curly Brubaker.”
Noose forcefully returned the manly shake. “John Smith.”
Brubaker didn’t let go of his hand. The wrangler’s grip tightened and so did his stare. “What’s your real name?”
“Just told you.”
A ripple of laughter went through all of the wranglers.
“We’ll get it out of him, won’t we, boys?” Brubaker winked at the others.
Joe looked up and saw eight sets of eyes looking at him.
Charley Sykes, a lanky good-times cowboy type, patted Joe on the arm. “Relax, we’re just funning with you, Smith. So where did Mrs. Holdridge find you?”
“She didn’t. Her husband did. I hired on with Mr. Holdridge in Calgary two years ago when he needed those three hundred head brought to Bar H. That’s how Mrs. Holdridge and I met.”
Curly was watching Joe carefully, sizing him up. Noose returned the favor. Took a few mental notes about Curly based on his quick first impressions. Noose believed first impressions were the most important; if you listen to your instincts, you know just about everything you ever need to know about a man in the first five minutes you say hello. Brubaker was clearly the oldest cowpuncher in the outfit, pushing fifty or thereabouts. Ten years older than the next oldest man, judging by the faces in the firelight of the campfire. He looked to have seniority over these men. Noose guessed Curly was now the outfit’s master sergeant, its present leader, which came as no surprise with his experience. He’d have to add that to his notes in the murder book.
“You must be hard up for cash to sign onto this jinxed drive.” The rangy, pockmarked rover Idaho smirked, throwing a joking glance at his buddies.
“Eh?” Joe acted innocent, chewing a tender piece of juicy steak, charred black on the outside and red within. “Why do you say that?
A pall fell on the outfit.
“You saying you don’t know?” Rowdy Maddox asked incredulously.
“Know what?” Joe looked at the faces. “Let me in on the big secret, boys.”
As Noose studied the eight wranglers he saw a lot of head-scratching and shifting on the ground as the men exchanged glances, unsure of what they should tell the new hand, or who should be the one to tell him. It was uncomfortable.
Curly had not once taken his eyes off Joe, his finger under his nose in a gesture of contemplation.
A big meaty hand fell on Joe’s shoulder, smelling of spices. Noose looked to see Fred Kettlebone looming over him in his blood-smeared butcher’s apron, clutching a gore-covered cleaver. The heavyset cook wore tiny spectacles on his broad face, reflecting bonfire flames. “Hi, new fellow, I’m the cook, Fred Kettlebone. What’s your name?”
“Smith. John Smith”
“What’s your real name?”
“Why does everybody ask me that?”
“I’ll call you Smith if that’s your pleasure. Four of our wranglers have died on this cattle drive, Smith. That’s what nobody’s telling you.”
Joe made an expression of mock horror. “Four men have died on this drive?”
“And counting. More to come.”
A few of the wranglers got agitated and raised their voices at the cook. Leadbetter, who looked little more than a young teenager, got furious. “Goddammit, Kettlebone, you shouldn’t even be saying crud like that, it’s bad luck is what it is.”
The cook threw his head back and laughed with a sound like a braying donkey. “Bad luck was the day we all signed on to this drive of the damned in the first place. Come on, Frank, you can’t be so stupid as to think this is anything like over. You know the killer is gonna strike again. Just a question of who and when.”
“Did you just call me stupid?” Leadbetter leapt to his feet and got in Kettlebone’s face, clenching his fists.
Behind his tiny spectacles, Kettlebone didn’t break the stare-down but lowered his voice. “Thinking this killer won’t kill again isn’t just stupid, greenhorn, it’s suicidal. Whoever the killer is, he’s not going to stop until he kills each and every one of us. To think otherwise is—yes, kid—stupid.”
Leadbetter spat on Kettlebone’s boot.
Joe Noose just sat calmly on the ground, munching his grub, looking up at the two men standing over him about to fight, studying the other rovers jumping to their feet to cheer them on. He figured he was going to have a lot of entries in the murder book tonight.
T
he atmosphere was charged with cowboy testosterone as the rawboned teenage rover cricked his neck, readying for a fistfight, and leaned even closer to the cook. “What I want to know is why you know so much about this killer, always telling us what the killer’s thinking, what the killer is about to do, and such and such. What I want to know is why you know so much about him.”
“Consider your next words very carefully, my friend,” Kettlebone whispered.
“I think you know so much about this killer because the killer is you, Kettlebone.”
“Take that back.” The cook’s porcine eyes, magnified behind his spectacles, glittered with hate.
“Or what? You gonna hit me with your meat cleaver?”
“No.” Kettlebone dropped the cleaver on the ground. “I’m going to hit you with this.” The cook punched the young rover in the face, hard.
Staggering back, Leadbetter’s hands flew to his nose, cupping it to stop the gushing blood. “You broke my damn nose, you son of a bitch!”
“Take it back.” The cook advanced with a crazed look in his eyes, so angry he was about to cry.
“It’s broke!”
“I ain’t no killer. You take it back.”
The men went for each other other’s throats and began grappling.
Joe Noose set down his plate, shot to his feet, and wedged his huge frame between the two fighting men—grabbing each by the throat in one huge cow-hoof-sized mitt, he pulled them apart effortlessly, tossing them with each arm in opposite directions, where both wranglers landed hard on the ground. “Break it up!” the bounty hunter growled, rearing to his full height, towering over the other men, who stared in astonishment at his sudden ferocious display of force. Everyone fell silent as Joe’s pale blue gaze traveled like rifle crosshairs across the faces of the rovers.
Joe Noose’s squinting eyes turned deadly, and what he said next he said to each and every man in the outfit, looking from face to face, making eye contact with each and every one. “Well, one thing I’ll tell you boys. Somebody tries to kill me on this cattle drive, he can consider himself warned. He’ll find I ain’t so easy to kill. And if a man tries to shoot me, I shoot him and the man standing next to him. Understood?” The bounty hunter didn’t raise his voice because he didn’t need to.
Noose was a truly dangerous man, a killer by nature, and when he showed that side of himself, everybody recognized it. Now, he showed that side. He lifted the lid and gave the outfit a quick glimpse of the brutal side of himself, capable of savage violence. He didn’t have to pull a gun; it was all in his eyes.
And as Noose looked back and forth among the faces of the wranglers, it was the eyes he was studying, and the ones that had fear in them were the men he would rule out first as suspects. Cowards were not capable of the killings that plagued this cattle drive; the cold, brutal murders that showed premeditation. Two men had fear in their faces after Noose got tough with them a moment ago. Tonight, Joe would be crossing them off his list of suspects.
“Tough guy,” Curly Brubaker replied. His eyes showed amusement but no fear.
“Tough enough,” Joe replied.
“We’ll see how tough you are, Smith, or whatever your name is. It’s three hundred hard miles to Cheyenne. And from what I saw today, your cowpunching skills are a little rusty.”
The outfit disbanded, and headed for their sleeping rolls. Fred Kettlebone grabbed the plates and washed them in the water barrel, avoiding Joe’s gaze as Noose lingered, watching the wranglers depart into the darkness before heading off back to his horse and his own sleeping roll.
“Smith.”
Joe turned. Curly walked out of the shadows and walked up to Noose. They were almost eye level with each other as the other man spoke first. “I’m telling you straight to your face that I believe you are not who you say you are. I don’t know what your story is, but I know what it ain’t. See, I was on the Bar H Ranch the day Sam Holdridge brought in the herd from Canada and I remember the face of every man on that crew. Not one of ’em was you.”
“I—” Joe was about to claim he left the cattle drive in Wind River.
Curly put up his hand. “Save your breath. It’s enough for you to know I got my eye on you. You bring any trouble to this outfit, I’ll end you, and if you think Mrs. Holdridge can protect you, think again.”
“You got bigger problems than me on this trail, Curly.”
“Think I don’t know that?” Brubaker said tragically, raw pain in his eyes. For a moment the tough ramrod fumbled, like he didn’t know what to do or say.
Noose saw an opening and he took it. “I’m not your problem, Brubaker, you have my word on that. But maybe I can help.”
Like a switch had been thrown, Curly’s eyes went cold. “You’re not part of this outfit, Smith. Stay out of our business.”
Before Joe Noose could say anything more, the ramrod had turned and stormed off back to the wagons. The bounty hunter was alone in the big outdoors by the chuck wagon, so for a few moments he gathered his thoughts, listening to the nearby lowing of the cattle. The cloud cover making the night so dark had passed and now the moon was bright enough to read by.
Reaching into his jacket, Joe Noose took out his murder book and pen, and on the page marked “Suspects,” he scratched out the names Wiley Jeffries and B.J. Barlow. Then, by the name Curly Brubaker, he scribbled a question mark.
CHAPTER 6
Nearby, while the others slept, another man in the outfit was writing. His fingers scribbled with a pencil on a piece of notebook paper in the moonlight . . .
A new guy joined the outfit today. He should have chose himself another outfit, any outfit. Bet the boss lady didn’t tell him the rovers on this crew are getting murdered. The new guy calls himself Smith but the talk among the boys is that ain’t his real name. He looks like he can take care of himself. He’s going to be harder to kill than the others.
But I’ll bury him deep just like I did McGraw and Johnson and Fullerton and Wade. Nobody on this cattle drive makes it to the end of this trail alive. He may be big but he’ll never see me coming. None of them saw me coming. Mister, whoever you are, you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time. Because now I’m going to have to kill you.”
The hand tore the paper out of the notebook and struck a match. Holding the paper over the flame, he watched as the fire consumed it to ash.
CHAPTER 7
Joe Noose slept with one eye open that night.
The big cowboy hardly needed to be concerned, because his loyal horse Copper was a very light sleeper, especially when it sensed danger abroad, as it did in this outfit; whenever the stallion sensed mortal threat, it kept watch over his master while he slumbered. The bounty hunter was stretched out on his bedroll with his head on his leather saddle less than three feet away from Copper’s hooves while the horse half-dozed on its feet with its its eyes open, hooves that would have launched at the head of any man who attempted to interfere with its owner. The first night, no one did.
It was cold, and Copper appreciated the blanket that Noose had tied over his back and belly. The horse wondered if its owner needed it more, seeing the smaller blanket wrapped over the man at his hooves with his head on the saddle. Copper sensed Joe wasn’t asleep and was feeling the same danger the stallion did. Copper had full confidence that Joe would deal with any threat the way he always did.
Cold though the clean night air was, it was much warmer than the long ride over the last few months had been, through the dead of winter, a chill that remained in the stallion’s bones. The bullet wound in its shoulder from last summer still ached, and its leg was stiff tonight. Copper knew it had almost died when it had been shot, and only the love and care of its master kept it alive. Then when winter came, they had gone off on another adventure. The horse had worried much about his master during that time over their eventful journey, but now the business was done, its owner was back to his old self.
Wherever Joe Noose was, Copper belonged, happy with his master riding in the sadd
le on his back.
Over its long night of semi-wakefulness, the horse remained alert to its surroundings; many other new, strange horses slumbered nearby, tethered to the rope hitch. Copper enjoyed the company of many mares, and the stallion felt a tingle by the female horses’ proximity, like a pleasant itch it wanted to scratch. Copper heard the sleep-breathing of the other animals, and knew it was the only one awake. Farther off, out of sight, the horse felt the presence of the vast amount of cattle, also slumbering. Night birds and coyotes and other creatures made sounds out there where the horse could not see. The hours passed slowly and agreeably for Copper, who with the whole world asleep, felt close to his master by his hooves, knowing they were the only ones who were, on and off, awake, keeping one another company. It was all the companionship the bronze stallion ever wanted and would ever need.
Then the sky began to brighten and Joe woke and fed Copper a carrot as all around the strange horses and cattle and men began to stir.
* * *
After a quick breakfast and pots of coffee served at the chuck wagon, the cattle drive moved out before the sun broke over the big mountains. While Noose saddled Copper, he observed his surroundings closely and saw Laura Holdridge exit her covered wagon—the trail boss being the only member of the outfit who had her own private quarters, since the rest slept in the outdoors, or in tents when it rained. The woman was up first with Fred Kettlebone, the cook, a few minutes before the eight other wranglers had risen. Soon the smells of eggs and beans and coffee floated over the clearing and Joe saw the half-asleep rovers stagger their way toward the chuck wagon. With a pat to Copper’s head, Joe sauntered off to join the others.