Day of Reckoning Read online

“Wait a minute, I ain’t all that good at cipherin’,” Cooper said, “but even I know that if we divide two hunnert ’n thirteen dollars up into four equal parts, you ain’t goin’ to come up with no ninety dollars apiece.”

  “Sure we will,” Callahan said. “Countin’ the money you ’n Morris already got, we can come up with ninety dollars apiece, easy.”

  “You ain’t got no right to take any of our money,” Morris said angrily.

  “I’m not taking any of your money.”

  “The hell you ain’t. You just said you was goin’ to.”

  “How much money do you have now?” Callahan asked.

  “I told you before, I got seventy dollars.”

  “By the time we get this all divided out, you’ll have ninety dollars, ’n that’s twenty dollars more’n you got now. So how is that takin’ any of your money?”

  “Well, all right,” Morris said. “I guess I didn’t look at it like that.”

  A few minutes later the four men rode away, leaving behind them a team of mules, a wagon loaded with pots, pans, and notions, and a dead peddler.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chugwater

  “What do you mean you’re going with us?” Duff asked when he came back to Meagan’s dress emporium and saw that both Meagan and Ina Claire were wearing jeans, flannel shirts, wide brim hats, and, significantly, holstered pistols.

  “I thought I spoke my words pretty clearly,” Meagan said.

  Duff was carrying two canvas bags, and he lay them down on one of the dress tables.

  “Meagan, no, I’m going to have enough trouble looking out for Ina Claire. Having to look out for both of you is going to make my job even more difficult.”

  “Ina Claire and I will look out for each other, and you look out for yourself.”

  “Meagan . . .”

  Meagan held up her hand. “Suppose I give you a good reason for taking us along with you. If I can give you such a reason . . . and if you will consider it honestly, will you change your mind about taking us?”

  “All right, what is the reason?”

  “You’re the one who stopped Callahan and Manning and put them in jail in the first place, aren’t you?”

  “Aye, that I am.”

  “Don’t you think he might be looking for you?”

  “Aye, he might be. But he’ll nae be looking for me as hard as I’ll be looking for him.”

  “Do you think he’ll be looking for a man traveling through the countryside with his wife and his sister-in-law beside him? Or would, perhaps, that just be another family out on the road? That wouldn’t arouse any interest at all, let alone suspicion.”

  “Wife and sister-in-law?”

  Meagan smiled, then reached over to put her hand on Duff’s cheek. “My darling husband, I think it is just wonderful of you to take in my sister like you have done.” She put her arm around Ina Claire’s shoulder. Smiling, and getting into the idea, Ina Claire leaned against Meagan.

  “Yes,” Ina Claire said. “After all, you are my favorite brother-in-law.”

  Duff stared at the two of them for a moment as if they had lost their minds, then he laughed. “Suppose I take my little family down to Mountain View Café for dinner?”

  * * *

  When the three of them stepped into the Mountain View Café, Meagan and Ina Claire drew curious stares. Because Meagan owned the dress shop, she hardly ever allowed herself to be seen in public dressed in anything but the latest fashion. Meagan was a very pretty woman, and wearing such attire was a very good method of advertising her dresses. But this was a total change from how she was normally seen.

  After they took their table, Meagan glanced at those who were staring. “I may have cost myself a lot of business coming in here like this,” she said quietly.

  “That’s why I wanted us to come here,” Duff said with a sly smile.

  “What?” Meagan asked, clearly shocked by his comment.

  “If you are going to force me into doing something I would rather not do, like taking you with me, then I want you to have to suffer the consequences for it.”

  “I can’t believe that you, of all people, would say something like that to me,” Meagan replied, though the smile on her face proved that she wasn’t really angry with him.

  “Maybe you should begin selling denim trousers for women,” Ina Claire suggested. “Who knows, you might start a whole new fashion.”

  “Ha! Can you see women wearing waist overalls? No, my dear, not in one hundred years will we ever see women wearing Mr. Levi’s trousers as a fashion,” Meagan replied.

  “I wish it would become something that women would wear. You can do ever so much more wearing trousers than you can wearing a dress.”

  “Well, that is true,” Meagan admitted. “I have to admit that when I accompanied Duff in the delivery of some cattle to Fort Laramie, I wore such garb as I find myself in today. And I’m sure I would not have been able to make the drive had I been wearing a dress.”

  “Aye, ’n ’twas a fine cowboy ye made, too,” Duff said.

  “Cowboy? Cowboy? Duff MacCallister, I might have been dressed like a cowboy, but I’ll have you know, I was no cowboy!”

  Duff laughed. “Right you are, Meagan, ’twas not a cowboy I stole a kiss from in the moonlight.”

  “Duff MacCallister!” Meagan gasped. “How can you say such a thing in front of this child?”

  Ina Claire laughed. “Well, if you are going to pretend to be Mr. MacCallister’s wife, don’t you think he might have to kiss you from time to time? Even in front of me?”

  “That is true,” Meagan said, joining Ina Claire in laughter.

  “Ina Claire, m’ lass, ’tis good to see you laughing,” Duff said. “But, I’ve a suggestion for you.”

  “What is that?”

  “If you are to be my sister-in-law, dinnae ye think ’twould be better if ye’d be for calling me Duff?”

  “All right, Duff,” Ina Claire replied.

  When the diners at the adjacent table finished their meal and departed, Duff glanced over and saw that they had left a newspaper behind. He stood up.

  “Where are you going, Duff?” Ina Claire asked.

  “It would be my guess that he’s going to retrieve a free newspaper,” Meagan said. “Since I’ve become quite familiar with this . . . ‘character’ . . . I can tell you from firsthand experience that anything you may have heard as to how frugal a Scotsman might be is all true.”

  “I heard ye talking to the lass, but because I am careful with money doesn’t mean I’m parsimonious. ’Tis a reasonable man I be, and if chance grants me the opportunity to take advantage of a free newspaper, then ’twould be foolish of me . . .” Duff glanced at the newspaper, then stopped in mid-sentence. Something had caught his attention.

  Meagan and Ina Claire exchanged a glance, as if questioning each other about Duff’s interrupted dialogue.

  “There is a story in the paper of Zeke Manning and Clay Callahan,” Duff said after a moment of reading.

  “What is the story?” Meagan asked.

  “’Twas to hang, they were, but they escaped jail on the night before, murdering the jailer and the hangman as they did so. The story says ’tis believed that two unknown men helped them escape, but ’twould be my thinking that those men would be none other than Dooley Cooper and Pogue Morris.”

  “It was Ina Claire who put all the names together,” Meagan said.

  “Aye, ’tis thanks to Ina Claire.”

  “Then see? I’ve already been of help to you, and we haven’t even started yet,” Ina Claire said with a triumphant smile. “Aren’t you glad you’re taking me?”

  Raw Hide, Wyoming Territory

  The dirt streets were covered with layer upon layer of horse droppings that, over time, had broken down into an emulsified muck. The result was a stench so strong it overpowered everything. To an Easterner, the smell may have been unbearable, but to men like Callahan, Manning, Cooper, and Morris, it was so much a part of the
ir personal history that they barely noticed it.

  Picking their way through the malodorous ooze, they crossed the street and stepped up onto the boardwalk in front of the Wrangler Saloon, where they made use of a brush shoe-scraper that was nailed to the boardwalk just for that purpose. Callahan stood for a moment outside looking over the batwing doors into the shadowed interior of the saloon.

  “Any law in there?” Cooper asked.

  “None that I can see,” Callahan replied. “’N if there was, I don’t think they’d know anything about us.”

  When the four rough-looking and unkempt men stepped into the saloon, all the patrons looked at them pointedly. Most of the saloon customers were working cowboys, and they could tell in one quick glance that the four armed men who had just come in rode for no brand.

  Callahan knew that everyone in the bar was eyeing them with curiosity, but he also was aware that there would be no one in here who would challenge any of them, especially since none of the saloon patrons were wearing pistols on their hips.

  Unlike the polished bar of some of the better saloons Callahan had seen, this one was made of unpainted, rip-sawed lumber. Its only concession to decorum was to place towels in rings spaced about five feet apart on the customer side of the bar. But the towels looked as if they had not been changed in months, if ever, so their very filth negated the effect of having them there.

  When the four men stepped up to the bar, the bartender, with a dirty towel thrown across one shoulder, moved down to him.

  “Yeah?” he said.

  “Whiskey,” Callahan said.

  The bartender took a bottle from the shelf behind the bar and poured four glasses, passing the bottle across them without spilling a drop. Each man paid for his own drink, plopping down ten cents apiece, and then, taking the shot glasses with them, left the bar and found an empty table.

  “You said you had an idee as to how we could get some more money,” Cooper said.

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “I hope it ain’t another peddler,” Manning said.

  “What are you complainin’ about?” Callahan asked. “If we hadn’t pulled that little job, you wouldn’t even be able to afford the whiskey you’re a-drinkin’ now.”

  “Callahan’s right,” Morris said. He chuckled. “’Cause I damn sure wouldn’ta bought nothin’ for you.”

  “What do you have in mind?” Cooper asked.

  “One of the places I checked out before we tried that place in Archer was in Bordeaux,” Callahan said.

  “The one in Archer didn’t work out all that well for you, did it?”

  “No.”

  “Why’d you wind up choosin’ that one?”

  “The LaFarge brothers said they knew it well, and knew it had a lot of money. And things were going well until MacCallister come along.”

  “MacCallister?” Morris said.

  “Yeah. Duff MacCallister. He’s the one that stopped ever’thing.”

  “Wait a minute. Are you talkin’ about just one man?”

  “He ain’t like no normal man,” Manning said. “That son of a bitch stood right in the middle of the street ’n kilt both the LaFarge brothers, ’n woulda kilt us iffen we hadn’t give up when we did.”

  “Is he a deputy sheriff or a bounty hunter or some such?”

  Callahan shook his head. “I don’t know who the hell the son of a bitch is. But if I ever find out who he is, I’ll damn well make ’im pay for what he done to us that day.”

  “Yeah, well, we’ll just have to keep on the lookout for him. Right now I’m more interested in getting some money,” Cooper said. “You say you checked out Bordeaux?”

  “Yeah, they got a nice little bank and it should be just right for us. And unlike Archer, it ain’t close to no big town. There ain’t no railroad or even a telegraph that comes to it, so it would take a long time before any word could get out as to what happened. It’s more’n likely that there ain’t nobody there that’s even heard of what happened down in Archer, let alone heard of us.”

  “What about the Lady Harlie?” Manning asked. “Bordeaux ain’t all that far from Hartville. It could be that they heard about that job.”

  “Hell, they still think it was one o’ the deckhands that took the money,” Cooper said with a little chuckle. “We don’t have to worry none about that.”

  “And we didn’t leave no witness back at the peddler’s wagon,” Morris said. He smiled. “I think Callahan is right. This may be just the job for us.”

  Callahan held his glass out. “Drink up, boys. We’re about to come in to some money. If we’re lucky, a lot of money.”

  Twin Pine Ranch

  There were three wagons filled with building material. Half a dozen men pulled away the charred timbers and the blackened contents of what had been the main house at the ranch. Ina Claire was staying at Sky Meadow now, but she, Duff, and Meagan had ridden over this morning just to see what was going on.

  This was the first time Ina Claire had been back since the night of the fire, and at the sight of what had been her house, her eyes welled with tears. Meagan put her arm around Ina Claire, drawing the girl close to her.

  R.W. Guthrie, who owned the company in Chugwater from which all the building material came, walked over to greet them.

  “Hello, Duff, Miss Parker,” he said. Then he turned his attention to Ina Claire.

  “Miss Culpepper, I want to tell you again how sorry I am for what happened to your mama and papa.” He pointed to the pile of blackened timbers. “And I want you to know that we are going to build this house back, exactly the way it was, and it will be fully furnished and ready for you whenever you are ready to come back.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Guthrie,” she said. Then she called out to the men who were working.

  “Thank you, all of you,” she said.

  “You’re mighty welcome, Miss Culpepper,” one of the men called back, and the others seconded his comment.

  Ina Claire saw something familiar lying in the middle of the blackened residue, and she went over to pick it up. It was a bisque, porcelain doll, and though its dress had been partly burned away, the doll itself had survived the fire. Ina Clair brushed away the soot and ash.

  “I remember when I got this doll,” she said with a wistful smile. “Papa was still in the army then. We were at Fort Lincoln, and Mrs. Custer gave me this for my sixth birthday.”

  Meagan took the doll and examined it. “It’s an exquisite doll,” she said. “I’m glad it survived the fire, and I promise you that when this is all over, we, you and I, will make the most beautiful dress any doll has ever worn.”

  “Delight will like that,” Ina Claire said. “She’s very vain you know, and she enjoys pretty clothes and people making over her.”

  “Delight?”

  “The doll’s name. I named her,” Ina Claire said, smiling for the first time since they arrived at the burned-out house. “Her full name is Delightful Charm Culpepper. But I always called her Delight.”

  Meagan laughed. “I must say, Ina Claire, that is the most inventive and ‘delightful’ name I have ever heard for a doll.”

  “Now you’ve done it,” Ina Claire said. “You’ve given her a big head.”

  Meagan laughed again, and then Ina Claire walked over to Thunder and put the doll into the saddlebag.

  After their visit as they set out toward Sky Meadow, Ina Claire looked back at the men, still busily working. It had been sad, seeing the house like this. But she held close to her heart R.W. Guthrie’s promise that the next time she came back to Twin Pine, the house would be just as she remembered. It was, she thought, a testament to the esteem in which her mother and father were held in the community.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Bordeaux, Wyoming Territory

  Before they reached the town of Bordeaux, Callahan, Manning, Cooper, and Morris split up. Cooper and Morris gave the town a wide berth so they could approach it from the north, and Callahan and Manning rode in from the south.

&
nbsp; “You sure this is the bank we want, Callahan? It don’t seem to me like there’s many folks goin’ in ’n out of it,” Manning said as they approached the bank.

  “We don’t care how many people are in the bank, we only care about the money that’s in the bank,” Callahan replied.

  “Yeah, well, that’s what I’m talkin’ about. If there ain’t many people, then there ain’t goin’ to be much money.”

  “Ha! The ranchers ’n farmers around here got plenty of money, don’t you worry none about that.”

  “Here comes Cooper ’n Morris,” Manning said.

  The two men Manning pointed out were approaching the town, riding in from the north. As soon as all four met in the middle of the street, Callahan gave the others a nod, then they cut their horses toward the Brown Dirt Cowboy Saloon. There, they dismounted in front of the establishment, looped their reins over the hitching rail, and went inside.

  Because the sun had been so bright, it took a few seconds for their eyes to adjust to the dimness. Their noses were assailed by the smell of beer, tobacco smoke, and unwashed bodies. As it had been some time since any of the four of them had had a bath, the odor of unwashed bodies was lost on them.

  “Find us a table where we can talk,” Callahan said. “I’ll get us a bottle.”

  When Callahan stepped up to the bar, a young woman approached him. She was dressed in a way that was designed to best display her assets, and those assets were worthy of such display.

  “Hello, cowboy. I haven’t seen you in here before. Would you like to buy me a drink?” She put her hand on his arm.

  “No,” Callahan replied gruffly. He pushed her hand away from his arm. “Get the hell away from me.”

  Hurt by the hateful response to her friendly greeting, the girl turned away.

  “There was no need for you to treat Suzie like that,” the bartender said.

  “Shut up ’n give me a bottle ’n four glasses,” Callahan said.

  “That’ll be two dollars,” the bartender replied, making no move to get a bottle.