Snake River Slaughter Read online

  “Cooter?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Tell me, Cooter, how do you know that Sam Logan is dead.”

  “’Cause I seen him get hisself that way,” Cooter said. “This feller Jensen, he had us all dead to rights. Made us throw our guns and our shoes over the edge of the canyon. Only Logan, he didn’t throw all his guns down. Turned out he had him another’n, and what he done is, he drawed that gun against Matt Jensen. That was about as big a mistake as you could make, ’cause Jensen shot him down, dead.”

  “Where is Logan’s body?”

  “As far as I know, it’s still a’ lyin’ up on top of Bruneau Canyon,” Cooter said. “What with no horses, and no boots neither, me and Mole wasn’t able to bring him back home.”

  “What were you doing up on top of Bruneau Canyon?” Terrell asked.

  Cooter’s eyes widened. “Why, don’t you know? I figured we was up there, workin’ for you. I mean Logan never told us that, but that’s what I figured. That’s what Jensen figured too, only I didn’t tell Jensen nothin’ except that Logan give us ten dollars apiece to—uh—take care of Jensen and the other feller that was with him.”

  “What do you think he meant by ‘take care of’?”

  “Take care of. You know. Kill him.”

  “And you were willing to kill Jensen for ten dollars?”

  “That’s all the money Logan give us,” Cooter answered. “Only thing is,” he started, then he let the sentence hang.

  “The only thing is what?”

  “Well, sir, he said he’d give us ten dollars apiece once we got the job done, only he got hisself kilt, so we never got no ten dollars.”

  Cooter did get the ten dollars. In fact, he not only got the ten dollars, he was the one who rifled through Logan’s body and he got the rest of the money as well, keeping it all for himself. The fact that he didn’t share the money with Mole was what enabled him to be so generous with Logan’s horse.

  Instinctively, Poke realized that Cooter had taken the money, if not for himself, at least for the two of them. He stared accusingly at Cooter until Cooter, guiltily, cut his eyes down.

  “Why should I give you ten dollars?” Poke asked. “If you didn’t have sense enough to collect the money before you started, that’s your problem. Besides, if I understand the deal you had with Logan, it was that you was bein’ paid ten dollars to kill Matt Jensen. Is Matt Jensen dead?”

  “No, sir, he ain’t dead.”

  “Then what makes you think you should get any money?”

  “I thought maybe you would give me some money for bringin’ you the news that Logan is dead.”

  “If Logan never showed up again, I’d have a pretty good idea that he dead, don’t you think?”

  “I reckon so,” Cooter said, dejectedly. He brightened as he got an idea. “Maybe you got somethin’ me and my friends could do to make a little money.”

  “Why should I hire you?” Poke asked. “You had one simple job to do, and you couldn’t do it.”

  “You ever seen Matt Jensen?” Cooter asked.

  “Can’t say that I have.”

  “Well, killin’ him ain’t a simple job, I can tell you that right now.”

  “Be on your way,” Poke said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “And don’t speak to anyone else about this until I figure out what to do.”

  “Don’t worry, there ain’t neither one of us goin’ to say nothin’ about it,” Cooter promised.

  “Stay where I can get hold of you,” Poke said. “If I can find some way to use you, I’ll let you know.”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Terrell. We’ll be ready whenever you need us,” Cooter said.

  Poke said nothing, but he repeated the dismissive wave of his hand.

  A bottle of whiskey sat on his table, and he pulled the cork from the bottle, then poured himself a glass.

  “Damn you, Jensen, you’ve got more lives than a cat,” he said as he raised the glass to his lips.

  Coventry Manor was a huge house with two parlors, a formal dining room, a big kitchen, with servants’ quarters just off the kitchen, two parlors, a library, an office, and, as Matt had just learned, ten bedrooms.

  “Tyrone has his own room attached to the bunkhouse. The wranglers all sleep in the bunkhouse, there are servants’ quarters downstairs, and these ten bedrooms up here,” Kitty said. “I sleep up here and I must confess that it sometimes gets lonely, when I’m up here, all by myself,” she said, pointedly.

  “So, that brings us to where you are going to sleep,” Kitty said. “Of course, now that you are here, maybe it won’t be quite as lonely as it has been.”

  “I can see how it might be a bit overwhelming sleeping in a place this big,” Matt said, not quite sure how to respond to Kitty’s inference.

  “Go ahead, choose your bedroom. You can have—any—bedroom you want,” she said, setting apart and emphasizing the word “any.”

  Although Kitty didn’t come right out and say so, Matt knew that the offer of any bedroom he wanted inferred her bedroom and her bed. Matt did not respond to it, acting as if he did not understand the implied invitation.

  Kitty was a beautiful woman, and Matt was a healthy man. If it had been any other woman, any other situation, he would have taken her up on it in a heartbeat. With any other woman, they could enjoy each other, taking and giving no more than necessary. But Kitty wasn’t any other woman, and if he accepted her invitation to his bed, she would expect more than a pleasurable interlude. And she would have a right to expect more. After all, she was someone who had shared a part of his childhood, a connection that was important to him. But Matt knew that he could not give her what she really wanted.

  “I’ll take this bedroom,” Matt said, selecting one that he knew was not hers.

  There was a momentary expression of disappointment on Kitty’s face, though she recovered so quickly that Matt wasn’t entirely certain he had even seen it. She smiled at him.

  “You’ve made an excellent choice,” she said. “When the Duke of Warwick visited us, this was the room he selected.”

  “Will sleeping in this room make me a duke?” he teased.

  “Matt, as far as I am concerned, you were a duke when I first met you back in the orphanage,” Kitty replied.

  Matt went in to look over the room that would be his while he was here. It was quite large, and though Matt had stayed in some rather impressive hotel rooms from time to time, he had never spent the night anywhere in a room that was more elegant than this. The room had a huge, four-poster bed, a dresser, a chifferobe, and a desk. Matt chuckled softly. He didn’t have enough clothes with him to fill one small drawer, let alone all the space that was available to him.

  After breakfast the next morning, Kitty invited Matt to take a ride with her.

  The barn where Spirit had been boarded for the night was unlike any barn Matt had ever seen. It was very big, with extremely generous size stalls. There was fresh water and feed at each stall, and the barn was kept so clean and fresh smelling that it was more like a hotel than a barn.

  “Ha!” Matt said as he began to saddle Spirit. “I’ll bet you’ve never seen anyplace like this, before.”

  Spirit whickered.

  “Oh no you don’t,” Matt said with a little chuckle. “Don’t go getting used to living like this. Trust me, Spirit, you won’t be seeing another barn like this one.”

  With Spirit saddled, Matt led him outside. He had been there only a few minutes when Kitty rode out.

  “What do you think of my horse?” Kitty asked, taking in her horse with a wave of her hand.

  “I would say you are particularly well mounted,” Matt replied.

  Kitty laughed. “You would say that, no matter what, just because you are nice.”

  “No,” Matt replied. “I mean it. He is just what you look for in a good-bodied horse. He has long, sloping shoulders, short, strong back, long underline, and a long, rather level croup.”

  Kitty clapped her hands. “My,” she said. �
�You do know horses. Where did you learn?”

  “I learned from a man named Smoke Jensen.”

  “Jensen. Your last name is Jensen,” Kitty said. “Of course, we never knew each others last name in the orphanage. Is Smoke Jensen family?”

  “You might say that,” Matt said. “You will remember that I ran away from the orphanage?”

  “Oh, yes, of course I remember. Captain Mumford said you had died in the mountains, but none of us believed that.”

  Matt chuckled. “I nearly did die,” he said. “But someone found me, then took me in as if I were his own. And the funny thing is, he wasn’t really that much older than I was at the time. He was a father, big brother, friend, whatever you want to call him. And he taught me everything I know.”

  “So you took his name?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why, I think that is wonderful. Did he teach you how to ride?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good, let’s see how well he taught you to ride,” Kitty said. “Now, catch me, if you can.”

  Suddenly Kitty’s horse exploded forward as if it had been shot from a cannon. Matt did not expect it, so by the time he realized he was being challenged, she was some distance ahead of him. Instead of heading for the road, Kitty galloped across the lawn, the hooves of her animal throwing up divots of grass. Matt had no choice but to dash after her.

  Kitty was heading directly for the stone wall that surrounded the estate. The wall was high, not insurmountable, but high. Had it been an ordinary fence, or a row of shrubbery, it would not have presented much of a challenge.

  But this wall was made of stone, and it was at least three feet wide. If the horse missed the jump, it could be fatal for the horse, and possibly for the rider as well. Kitty and her horse took the jump as if the animal had wings.

  “Come on Spirit, don’t embarrass me,” Matt said, squeezing his knees against Spirit. “Damn, I didn’t mean that, boy. Embarrassment is the least of my worries. Just don’t kill yourself.”

  Spirit made the jump as well, and Matt saw that Kitty had stopped just on the other side to look back toward the wall. She laughed when she saw Matt make the jump, then she urged her horse on, and it was all Matt could do to keep up with her.

  Kitty maintained the gallop for about mile or so before she finally pulled up to a trot, followed by a cooling walk, then ending the ride at a grass-covered point that overlooked the Bruneau River. From this overlook, the river was about one hundred feet below.

  It was obvious that Kitty had visited this spot many times, because there was a bench that overlooked not only the river, but also the Owyhee Mountains. Sitting on it, she invited Matt to join her.

  Kitty was quite an attractive woman. Bareheaded, her blond hair glistened in the sun. Her eyes were shining, and her full-breasted figure was displayed to advantage in her riding habit.

  “I’m impressed that you made the jump,” Kitty said.

  “You are the first visitor I’ve had who has been able to make the jump. Most of them go around when they see the rock wall.”

  “I confess that I thought about going around myself,” Matt replied with a laugh.

  “I shouldn’t do that—challenge my visitors to make that jump, I mean. I would hate to think that my vanity might cost a horse its life.”

  “It wouldn’t be your vanity, it would be the vanity of the rider who took the jump unless they knew they could make it.”

  “I suppose that’s right,” Kitty said. She looked at Spirit. “That’s a fine horse you are riding as well. You call him Spirit?”

  “Actually, he is Spirit the second,” Matt said. “My first horse was also named Spirit, but he was killed. He was such a special horse to me that I like to think that he—or his spirit, at least, is living on. Somehow, I think this horse understands that he is carrying on the name. I know that sounds silly.”

  “No, it doesn’t sound silly at all,” Kitty said. “Since I’ve become involved with horses, I’ve learned a lot about them. Horses understand us, not only our words, but our very thoughts. If you named this horse to honor your first, then this one knows exactly what you have done, and believe me, he carries the name proudly.

  “I think that is a very nice thing to do,” she added.

  “Oh, I believe you all right. It’s like the jump he just made. I don’t think, once he saw the challenge, there is any way I could have held him back,” Matt said.

  “Then the two of you seem well matched,” Kitty said. “You are obviously one who is up to a challenge. Otherwise, you would not have responded to my letter.”

  “Well, once I read the letter and knew who you were, there was no way I wouldn’t come.”

  “I wasn’t sure you would even remember me,” Kitty said.

  “How could I forget you, Katherine? You were the prettiest girl there.”

  Kitty laughed, her laughter as melodic as wind chimes stirred by the breeze.

  “I think you may be doing a bit of flattery there. Especially since everyone knew how taken you were with Tamara,” Kitty teased.

  “Ahh, well now Tamara was an older woman, and you know how boys are often intrigued by older women,” Matt replied with a laugh of his own. “As I look back on it now, it’s hard to think of a fourteen-year-old as an older woman. But at the time, that’s exactly what she was.”

  “Tamara was the oldest of all the girls then,” Kitty said. “She was sort of the mother hen to the rest of us. Or at least, she was our big sister. I really missed her when she left the home.”

  “What happened to you, after you left the home?”

  The smile left Kitty’s lips. “Don’t you know?”

  “No.”

  “Matt, I went the same path as Tamara, and every other girl who left the home. Like all the others, I was sold into prostitution,” Kitty said.

  “What do you mean you were sold into prostitution? How can you sell somebody? Isn’t that like slavery?”

  “It is exactly like slavery,” Kitty agreed. “But Mumford, and the people he sold us to, had a clever way of getting around it. Mumford charged all the girls for room and board, then he arranged for Madam Crockett to loan us enough money to pay off the fee we owed to Mumford.”

  “Madam Crockett?”

  “Emily Crockett. She owned what she called a ‘boardinghouse for women’ there in Soda Creek. The boardinghouse was a whore house, and we were bound to Madam Crockett until the loan was paid off. And of course since we also had to make a living out of what were getting, it took quite a while to pay off the debt. Some of the girls never got it paid off.”

  “You did.”

  “Yes, I did eventually get her paid off, but it took four years. By that time I knew no other profession, so I went into business for myself. That’s what I was doing when Tommy came along,” Kitty admitted. “After his first wife died, Tommy became one of my regular customers. I don’t know how, or why, but, for some reason, Tommy fell in love with me.”

  “It’s not that difficult to understand why,” Matt said. “You are a beautiful woman, Katherine. And I don’t mean just your physical beauty.”

  “You are just being nice to me, for old times’ sake.”

  “No, really, you are a very beautiful woman.”

  “I wouldn’t have been, if Tommy hadn’t come along when he did. By now I would be worn and haggard looking—or I would be dead.” She sighed. “So many of the girls who were residents of Mumford’s Home are dead now.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Matt said. “I didn’t mean to bring up unpleasant memories.”

  “I don’t know if I would call it unpleasant memory, as much as I would call it a simple fact of life,” Kitty said. “And, for me at least, it didn’t turn out all that unpleasant. I wasn’t in love with Tommy, not in the way a young girl dreams of falling in love. He was very good to me, and I did love him in my own way.” Kitty sighed. “But then, I’m not sure that someone like me—someone who has been on the line, can ever actually be ‘in love’ with
someone.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short, Katherine. You have a lot to offer. You’re husband was a very lucky man.”

  “Marcus certainly didn’t think so.”

  “Yes, Mr. Gilmore told me a little about Marcus Kincaid,” Matt said. “I gather he was not all that pleased with the fact that you married the man who had been married to his mother.”

  “I think that is what you would call an understatement,” Kitty replied. “I’m sure he believes that, somehow, I tricked Tommy into marriage, in order to get out of the life, and have all this,” Kitty said. “And I must confess that he is half right. I was anxious to get out of the life, and Tommy seemed like a good way of doing it. I knew Tommy, I knew that he was a very nice man, and I thought it would do no harm. But I swear to you, Matt, I didn’t really know who he was, and I knew nothing about all this until after we were married,” she said, taking in the land with a sweep of her arm. She laughed. “He told me that he didn’t want me to know about it beforehand, because he wanted to be sure that I was marrying him for him, and not for his fortune. Bless his heart, he didn’t know that I would have married him if he had been a stable hand just to get out of that situation.”

  They were quiet for a long moment, then Kitty chuckled. “Now I find myself in another situation, fighting off rustlers to hang on to this ranch.”

  “In your letter, you said the rustlers were taking their toll of your stock.”

  “Yes. But what is worse is that they have killed two of my riders. “I would gladly give up every horse I own if I could change that.”

  Kitty’s eyes welled with tears and when she began wiping them with the back of her hand, Matt gave her his handkerchief. “Thank you,” she said, dabbing at her eyes. “One of the riders was a boy named Hank. Hank was just sixteen years old. Matt, he was raised in an orphanage, just as you and I were. It kills me to think of that, and then to realize how young he was when he was killed.”

  “Think of it this way, Katherine,” Matt said. “At least he was out on his own when he was killed. That means he died free and proud. And you and I, more than most, can understand that.”

  Kitty nodded. “Yes,” she said. “I can understand that.”