Once a Renegade

by Peter Brandvold

  Once A Renegade

  Ben Stillman 6

  Peter Brandvold

  Once A Renegade

  (Ben Stillman 6)

  Kindle Edition

  Copyright © 2019 (as revised) Peter Brandvold

  Wolfpack Publishing

  6032 Wheat Penny Ave

  Las Vegas, NV 89122

  wolfpackpublishing.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, other than brief quotes for reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover photography by Rick Evans Photography

  eBook ISBN 978-1-64119-906-3

  Paperback ISBN 978-1-64119-907-0

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  Contents

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

  A Look at: Once Upon A Dead Man (Sheriff Ben Stillman Book 7)

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  About the Author

  For my good friend, Ben Pensiero,

  remembering the Arizona years.

  I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed.

  Inaction, no falsifying dream

  Between my hooked head and hooked feet:

  Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat.

  —Ted Hughes, “Hawk Roosting”

  Once A Renegade

  Chapter One

  TATE MUELLER HAD just dropped a stout chunk of aspen in the back of the lumber dray when a rifle cracked on the knoll behind him. He whipped around, heart pounding, almost losing his balance.

  "Damnit, Tommy!" he yelled. "What in the hell are you shootin' at?"

  "Rabbit," came the cool reply, followed closely by the sound of a spent shell bolted out of a rifle breech.

  Mueller sighed with exasperation. "Will you cut it out? You damn near gave me a heart stroke, all your fool shootin'. What in the hell are you doin' up there, anyway? You should be down here helpin' me and Hoyt load this wood."

  Mueller jerked a thumb at the stocky, heavyset man to his left. Hoyt Jackson was stooping to heft another of the logs he and Mueller had sawed from the thirty-foot aspen they'd felled. He'd frozen on his haunches to stare with a vexed expression at the knoll where Tommy Falk stood with his smoking rifle, outlined against the blue Montana sky studded with high, puffy clouds.

  "I'm huntin', you old coot," Falk said in that grinning, arrogant way of his. "If I left it up to you two, we'd be eatin' beans and your lousy corn cakes again tonight."

  "You can hunt later, you lazy snipe," the stocky Jackson said, his canvas coat flapping open as he carried another log to the wagon. "Right now, we got work to do. If you don't do it, I don't care how many rabbits you shoot, you ain't eatin' nothin'. And you'll be sleepin' in the privy with the snakes."

  He dropped the wood in the dray with a bang, dust puffing up from the gray box boards, the two winter-shaggy Percherons jerking in the traces. Glancing at Mueller, Jackson gave a cunning grin.

  "Not only that," Mueller said, eyeing the kid still standing on the knoll, and drawing a big knife from his belt sheath. He flicked his thumb across the razor-sharp blade, a villainous light flashing in his gray eyes. "We'll hold you down and cut off those lovely locks you're so friggin' proud about."

  "Anyone messes with my hair again," Falk said as he started down the knoll, auburn locks bouncing on his shoulders, "they're gonna get a bullet through the brisket."

  "You think you're fast, kid," Mueller said, "but you ain't that fast. In my day, I'da cut you down to size by now, had you talkin' sweet. Hell, you'd be pourin' my coffee mornin's." He smiled at Jackson standing next to him, both older men leaning against the wagon for a badly needed rest.

  "The hell I would," Falk said as he stood his rifle against a rear wheel of the wagon. He lifted his flat-crowned black hat and ran a gloved hand through his beloved mane, flinging it out from his collar. "You were fast, all right, Tate. Fast at playin' grabby-pants in the bunkhouse at night."

  Mueller's expression soured, color drawing up out of his scruffy salt-and-pepper beard. He moved toward the kid, wide-bladed knife in his hand, growling, "Why, you little varmint. I'm—"

  "Hey, hey," Jackson said, grabbing Mueller's arm with one hand and pointing eastward with the other. "Look there."

  Mueller turned to gaze down Jackson's finger, squinting against the golden spring light reflecting off snow patches scattered amidst the bluestem and buffalo grass. About fifty yards away a horse and rider moved down off the stony southern ridge, meandering through the scattered pines and aspens. A pack mule followed on a lead line, lumpy white panniers draped across its back.

  "Who in the hell's that?" Tommy Falk asked.

  Mueller chuffed dryly, scowling. "Shambeau."

  "Who?"

  "Louis Shambeau," Jackson said, the antipathy in his scowl matching that of Mueller's. "Half-breed hider. Metis. Part Indian, part French, and probably a whole lot of other things." He stepped forward and cupped his hands around his mouth. "Hey, Louis! Get the hell out of here. This is Bar Seven range now. It ain't open no more." Waving his right arm, he gestured southward. "Go on. Go home, breed!"

  "Where's he live, anyway?" Falk asked.

  "Missouri River country, as far as anyone knows," Mueller said.

  "Go on!" Jackson yelled. "Get the hell out of here, Louis!"

  But the words could have been shouted off the edge of the world, for all the effect they had. The man riding the spotted horse and trailing the mule didn't so much as turn in his saddle.

  "Playin' deaf, are ye?" Mueller growled. "He hears ye, Hoyt."

  "I know he hears me."

  Suddenly two rifle shots exploded behind them. Jackson and Mueller gave a start, ducking and turning to look. Tommy Falk was holding his Winchester in the air and grinning, smoke curling from the barrel.

  "Damnit, kid!" Mueller raged.

  Lowering the rifle and jacking out the spent shell, Falk said, "Bet he heard that."

  Mueller turned his look eastward again, toward the dark, hatted figure of Louis Shambeau slouched in the saddle. The trapper was now looking their way as he rode at the same slow, deliberate pace as before.

  "Yeah, you heard that, didn't ye, breed?" Falk whooped, lifting on the toes of his undershot boots, swinging his Winchester in the air.

  Shambeau looked toward the men for several more seconds, then turned away as his horse began descending a brushy swale. In a few seconds he was gone.

  "Trappin' Whitetail Creek, no doubt," Jackson grouched.

  "Why do you boys hate him so much?" Falk asked through his perpetual grin, the light flashing off his large white teeth.

  Jackson only glanced at the kid as he turned back to his work. " 'Cause he's a dirty half-breed, that's why. I lost a
brother to those red niggers in sixty-two, and another in sixty-four." He spat and leaned over a stout log. "Get your butt over here, kid, and give me a hand!"

  When they finished loading the aspen, they decided to have lunch before felling another tree. Tommy Falk took his grub sack and sat on a log in the wagon box. Jackson sat on a stump, spreading his food in his lap. Mueller sat on the ground nearby, legs crossed Indian-style.

  They ate leisurely, Jackson and Mueller engaging in desultory conversation, Tommy Falk lost in his own thoughts, looking owly. He didn't like being sent out on woodcutting detail, especially when it meant being away from the ranch headquarters for several days at a time. Besides, woodcutting was beneath him. He was a good horseman, the best on the Bar 7 roll. He should be home breaking that new remuda of broncs Mr. Hendricks had brought in. And at night he should be in Clantick doing the mattress dance with the hurdy-gurdy girls at Serena's Pleasure Palace and Mrs. Lee's place.

  Instead, here he was, in the middle of the Two-Bear Mountains, doomed to cut wood all week with two old coots who not only couldn't cook but could bore the hide off a grizzly bear.

  "Good Lord, look what he's doin' now," Jackson carped to Mueller, eyeing the kid disdainfully.

  Finished earing, Falk was smoking a cigarette with one hand, combing his hair with the other, his hat resting on his left knee.

  "Jesus Christ, he's half girl."

  'I'd say he's more than half." Jackson laughed, shaking his head.

  "Go to hell," Falk said with an air of strained tolerance. "Girls love my hair. I've been diddled more times because of my hair than the two of you could count with your shoes off."

  Jackson reached over and tapped Mueller's knee. "Maybe he's got a point, Tate. You know, those girls in the Drovers do seem to fawn over him. Maybe you and me should grow our hair out." Grinning, he removed his hat and ran his hand over his thinning gray pate. "Think I'd look good with hair as long as the kid's?"

  They both laughed but stopped abruptly when they saw the kid standing in the wagon and frowning at something in the distance behind them.

  "What is it?" Mueller asked.

  "It's your buddy again," Falk said.

  "Shit!" Jackson groused, standing and moving out away from the aspen copse and casting his gaze westward. The trapper was heading back the way he'd come, climbing the grade toward the stony, pine-studded ridge. "Sure enough. There he is."

  "Must of checked his traps down at the Whitetail," Mueller said.

  "Cheeky devil," Jackson muttered. "Thinks he can just waltz through here anytime he wants."

  "Ain't it government land?" Falk asked. He was enjoying the older men's anger. It was something, anyway.

  "This is the Bar Seven range, you stupid snipe," Jackson lashed, swinging an angry look at the kid. "Mr. Hendricks has lease papers on it."

  "So what harm's it do—him trappin' on it?"

  Neither Tate nor Mueller found reason to answer such a stupid question. They stood watching the half-breed climbing the grade toward the ridge, their jaws set, eyes squinting against the noon sun, muttering angry oaths under their breaths.

  At length, when the trapper was only a few yards from the pines and aspens studding the ridge's northern slope, Falk's rifle cracked again. Tate and Mueller jumped.

  "What the—? Damnit, kid!"

  "What the hell you shootin' at, you crazy snipe?"

  But when Jackson turned away from Falk's self-satisfied countenance, he saw for himself what the kid had been shooting at. He'd been shooting at the trapper's pack mule.

  And he'd hit it.

  The animal was down on its knees, thrashing, trying to regain its legs, its agonized brays caroming on the wind. The trapper had halted his agitated horse and was looking back at the mule. He turned his head toward the three woodcutters. He looked their way for a long time, sitting stiffly in his saddle, keeping his frightened horse from bolting with one hand gripping the bridle reins.

  "Jesus Christ, he shot the mule!" Jackson exclaimed.

  The kid laughed. "I bet he heard that, too."

  Mueller turned to look at the kid. Falk stood on a log in the wagon box, looking toward the trapper and grinning, holding his rifle down low at his side.

  "Why, you crazy devil." Mueller chuckled haltingly. "What in the hell... what in the hell you go and do that for?" He chuckled again nervously and swung his gaze back to the fallen mule.

  The trapper had dismounted and was tying his fiddle-footed horse to a pine branch. He shucked his rifle from his saddle boot, and Jackson and Mueller got fidgety, their legs springy, ready to seek cover if they had to.

  But the trapper only walked back to the mule, knelt down, and inspected the still-thrashing beast. After a while he stood, stepped back, jacked a shell in the rifle's breech, and took aim at the mule's tossing head.

  Smoke puffed from the barrel. A half-second later the report reached the woodcutters' ears.

  The mule's head went down, its legs still kicking but with less insistence than before. Finally the animal relaxed and lay still.

  The trapper spent the next several minutes stripping the panniers from the mule's back and transferring hides from the mule to the horse. There was only so much room on the horse, however, which already had a good-sized stack of hides strapped to its back, behind the saddle. Shambeau ended up leaving most of the panniers with the mule.

  When the transfer was complete, he stood at the rear of his mount and stared at the woodcutters, who'd been watching the procedure in bemused, snickering silence. He stood looking their way for half a minute, but it was too far for the woodcutters to see the expression on his face, a dark blur beneath his black stocking cap.

  "Serves ye right!" Mueller said at last. "Now get the hell out of here, and don't come back."

  "Yeah, ye greasy snipe!" Jackson put in, waving an arm.

  Tommy Falk gave a rebel yell, laughing.

  Shambeau turned, stepped into a stirrup, and mounted. He rode up the mountain, not glancing back, and disappeared over the ridge.

  "Well, I bet that's the last we'll see of him," the kid said proudly, still grinning at the spot on the ridge where the trapper had gone.

  "Greasy snipe," Jackson groused.

  Mueller chuckled uneasily.

  Chapter Two

  THE WOODCUTTING CREW chuckled off and on for the rest of the afternoon about the trick the kid had pulled on the Metis trapper. About five-thirty they called it a day, gathered their saws and axes, piled into the wagon with the kid riding on top of the logs, and headed down the mountain to the line shack nestled in a hollow.

  The shack was used mostly by line riders, but in recent years woodcutting details from the Bar 7 bunked in it, since it was about halfway between the ranch and the best wood on the range. There was no use going all the way back to the ranch every night—a rough ride across several creek forks and ravines—when they could sleep here, close to the forest.

  When the men had unloaded the wood, stacked it neatly under one of the pole arbors built to keep it dry while it seasoned, they hurried inside to whiskey and supper. The kid had shot a fat mule deer buck on the way down the mountain, taking only the hindquarters, and Jackson fried three hefty steaks in bacon grease and butter, adding a splash of whiskey for flavor.

  When they finished eating, Jackson and Mueller poured fresh whiskies and settled into a cribbage game at the rough-hewn table. The kid sat on his cot, back to the wall, smoking a cigarette and taking occasional sips from the tin cup on the floor by his feet.

  Suddenly Jackson's face turned red and he leaned over the table as though choking. Squeals of laughter rolled up from his throat, and he slapped the table with his left hand.

  "What the hell's so funny?" Mueller asked him.

  Jackson jerked his thumb at the kid and shook his head. He lifted his head, his eyes rheumy from both laughter and whiskey, catching his breath. "I hear the shot an' I turn around and there's the kid, that damn rifle o' his smokin' again. Then I turn back ar
ound and see that mule"—he lowered his head, laughing again, and slapped the table—"rollin' around in the brush like a big damn fish on a stringer!"

  Mueller chuckled around the cigarette stub wedged in the corner of his mouth. He cut his eyes at the kid, who was combing his hair again, sober-faced. "Kid, you got a devil streak in you."

  "You don't know the half of it, old man," the kid said evenly, with a bored, tired air. He wished these old farts would forget about the mule. It had been fun, but it was over, for chrissakes. Now Falk wanted to be left alone so he could imagine what the other Bar 7 boys were doing in town right now, which whores they were making time with.

  "You just better not try something like that on the wrong hombre." Mueller shook his head.

  The kid looked at him pointedly. "Why not?"

  "'Cause the wrong hombre might take exception, twist your horns for you, not to mention put a bullet through your brisket."

  "I'd like to know what hombre's gonna do that."

  Mueller chuffed wryly and shook his head.

  "What if I shot your mule, Mueller?" the kid said stubbornly, his tiger blood quickening. "What would you do about it?"

  Mueller looked at him, eyes darkening. "In my day, kid, you talked to me like that, I'd come over there—"

  He stopped suddenly when a horse nickered outside.