The Intruders Page 19

  But Adam had no intention of keeping things quiet. Just the opposite. He was a locomotive barreling forward with his horn blaring the entire way.

  Charles had indulged his nephew long enough. Any spark of paternal feeling he may have felt for him had died when he packed the boy off to boarding school and then West Point all those years ago. His love for his sister had faded as he began to forget what she even looked like. She was just a far-distant memory to him now and nothing more.

  His nephew may be barreling toward him now, belching the black smoke of rage and blaring a horn of fury, but he was still, at his heart, only a train.

  And just like all trains, it needed a track to ride on lest it derailed. A single gap anywhere along its route could spell disaster for the train and all the passengers it carried.

  Charles Hagen drew in a deep breath of crisp, early morning air. He had lost John Bookman and he had lost Fred Montague. He knew Adam was responsible for both deaths and he intended on making him pay.

  He had invested in Adam and Bartholomew and Caleb as he handled all his investments. With an eye toward the future. Bart was in Denver, managing the company’s interests there. Caleb was working for a prominent banking house and learning the game of high finance. He had already been quite successful in expanding the company’s holdings in various industries and Charles always looked forward to his letters, telling of one new venture or another.

  He had invested his daughters wisely as well. Deborah had married into the powerful Forrester family of Colorado, and Elena’s beau in Philadelphia was well on his way to a partnership at one of the finest law firms in town.

  Pondering the great expanse of his life while he watched another herd go to market had done his old heart a great deal of good. He was sixty now, and although he had the drive of a man half his age, his body had a habit of reminding him of his years.

  He brought his horse about and looked at all he had built. The rolling grazing fields. The tree line he had helped clear with his own hands. A ranch that would take a day or more to ride if one were to attempt to do so.

  And as the first rays of sunshine began to spread across the eastern horizon, King Charles Hagen felt like a man renewed. He may have lost his two best men, but by God, he had his sons and his daughters’ men. He would summon them home at once and give them new charges to expand his empire once and for all.

  And this weekend, when his men had returned from the market, he would use the chaos of the Albertson march to wreak havoc on Adam’s saloons. Bookman may have failed in his task, but King Charles Hagen’s new men would not. Their actions would turn a peaceful march into a full-blown riot that would result in every building Adam owned being put to the torch, including that blasted laudanum den he prized so much.

  He listened to the wind as he trotted back toward the ranch house. The place was deserted for the first time in as long as he could remember. Oh, there still were a handful of men tending to the animals grazing in the far-off fields, but the empty bunkhouses and the area around his home would allow him some solitude. He planned to put his time alone to good use.

  He tied his horse to the hitching rail instead of bringing her into the barn because he might want to go for a ride later.

  But the old mare fussed when he wrapped the leather rein around the post. He stroked her muzzle and told her to steady down, but she would not be placated.

  Hagen had always known her to be an animal of quiet temperament and easy disposition. She never fussed like this unless she had caught the scent of something on the wind.

  He did not bother going for his guns yet, as it might just be the coming of a storm. He smelled the air himself, but it did not feel like rain to him.

  That was when he saw what the mare had sensed. A flash of movement in the tree line. It was hard to make out at first, especially in the weak light of dawn, but it was there. Men on horseback riding through the pines, hoping the shadows of the trees would keep them hidden.

  It had, but not for long.

  He was not able to get a close enough look at them to see how many of them had come onto his property, but it did not matter, for one trespasser was one too many.

  No one came on his land without permission. He would see to it that every single one paid for the infraction with their lives.

  He was about to turn back to get his horse when he felt an incredible tightness envelop his arms and chest. The pain was excruciating, and he found it impossible to move. He had seen his father die of a heart attack and wondered if he might be facing the same fate. Perhaps it was just easier to give into it, not fight it. Dying alone on the ranch he loved was a better fate than he probably deserved.

  He would pitch forward and allow nature to take its course.

  But when he tried to fall forward, he found that he couldn’t. He overcame his initial shock about the paralyzing pain to see that he was being gripped tightly about the chest by two large, black arms holding him in place. He struggled to get free, but it was no use. He was not going anywhere, no matter how hard he fought.

  Being unable to take a full breath was bad enough, but the applause that followed his failed attempts to break free chilled him to his core.

  “Well done, Uncle.” Adam Hagen clapped as he came out of the ranch house. “Never let it be said that King Charles went down peacefully.”

  His nephew took his time walking around to face his uncle. He even had the audacity to be smoking one of his cigars.

  “Enjoying yourself, mister?” Charles managed to say before the arms tightened around him once more.

  “Can’t say that I am,” Adam admitted. “While we were waiting for you inside, I looked around the old place, tried to drum up some kind of memory from days long past that would’ve tugged at my heartstrings and made me call the whole thing off. Finding no good memories in the house, I even went upstairs to look out the window at the land I once thought of as mine. No luck there either. Everywhere I looked, I found another spot where you yelled at me, berated me, told me I wasn’t good enough. That I’d never be as good as Bartholomew or Caleb at anything. I remembered wanting to be sad to leave this place the day you packed me off to boarding school, but I couldn’t.

  “I was glad to be rid of you.”

  Charles was finding it harder to get a decent breath and saved what he could as he said, “I gave you money. My name.”

  “Money,” Adam repeated. “The one thing that matters less to you than I ever did is money. You used it like you used everything else you valued in your life. As a weapon. As a tool to keep inconveniences at bay. Inconveniences like me.” Adam peered into Charles’s eyes. “I might not have been your son, but I was your sister’s boy. Your blood. Didn’t that count for anything?”

  “I tested you,” Charles rasped. “I pushed you to be straight and good. Not crooked and rotten.”

  “As straight and good as you turned out to be,” Adam said. “Like having Bookman try to smother me when I was hurt. That’s what finally turned me from being a nuisance to a nemesis. That’s the day I decided I wasn’t just content with being a thorn in your side. I wanted to pull you down off your throne. Off all this.”

  “I’m bored.” Charles struggled for more breath. “Are you going to talk me to death or just kill me?”

  “Killing you would be a waste of all my time and effort, Uncle. I don’t want you to die until I can show you how I’ve finally managed to defeat you. Bookman died because of you. Montague died because of us. But you will die because of what I have done.”

  Charles fought to remain conscious as his breathing became more restricted. God, this man was strong!

  “Don’t let him pass out yet, Ben,” Adam said. “Let him breathe a little so he can see the next part for himself.”

  King Charles opened his eyes and saw Adam holding a document before his eyes. He had seen it before and recognized it immediately. “That’s my will. How in the devil did you get hold of it?”

  “Montague gave it to me.” Adam beame
d. “And before you protest, you can rest assured his betrayal didn’t come easily. I used his fondness for young girls against him and forced him into doing it. I think that’s why he killed himself. He knew I would be moving against you, and soon, so he did not want to be around when the bad news reached you. A cowardly way to go out, but I can understand it.”

  The big man’s hold on him may have loosened, but he still found it hard to get a decent breath. “You’ll never get this ranch. Bart and Caleb will fight you every step of the way.”

  “They won’t have much to fight with,” Adam told him. “Those men you saw in the pines are associates of mine. They’re in the process of adding something extra to all your troughs and grain, something that will wipe out your remaining herds within a matter of days. A fever, or a fungus of some kind. The Celestials are a secretive bunch, but they assured me you’ll be wiped out in a week.”

  Charles summoned up all his remaining strength and tried to lunge at Adam, but the brute’s grip held firm.

  Adam held the will in front of him like a shield. “I got Fred to show me your old will, and needless to say, I didn’t like what I read at all. I wasn’t mentioned anywhere in the entire document. Had it been drawn up since our falling out, I could hardly blame you, but you had it drawn up ten years ago. So, I had Fred make some minor revisions.”

  Adam flipped the pages for him as Charles continued to struggle in vain to get free. “I’ll get the mines and the ranch and the steel and the shares in the railroads and everything else you own. Bart and Caleb can continue on as salaried employees and the girls will still get their stipends. I’m not a total monster.”

  “It’ll never hold up in court. A judge will—”

  Adam flipped to the last page, which bore Fred Montague’s stamp over Charles Hagen’s signature. It was a perfect match for his own.

  “It’ll hold up, Uncle. I had Montague date it to the week I returned to town, back when you and I were somewhat civil to each other. The boys will find this among your personal effects and in Montague’s office.”

  He folded the last will and testament of Charles Hagen and slipped it into his inside coat pocket. “I did it, Charles. I finally used one of your biggest weapons against you. The late Fred Montague and the law. I ended you the same way you’ve ended so many others.”

  Charles Hagen was leaning quite forward now. The black man’s hold on him had slacked, but he still could not breathe. The pain in his chest grew worse with each thud of his heart.

  “Set him down easy, Ben,” he heard Adam order. “We don’t want to make Moore or Emily’s job too hard, now do we? Any blemishes on his face might raise suspicion. It would also ruin the funeral. And we want our fallen king to look regal for those who come to see him, don’t we?”

  Charles felt himself being softly lowered to the ground. He tried to get back up or even crawl away, but his limbs refused to cooperate, and his mind was beginning to dim as the darkness fast approached. The sort of darkness not even the sun could chase away.

  It took all his strength and will to force his right hand to grab a handful of dirt and grip it tightly. “Mine,” he whispered. “Always . . . mine.”

  The last thing he saw before his mighty heart failed him was the sight of his nephew looking down at him, smoking a cigar and flicking an ash his way.

  Fortunately, the darkness took him before the ash hit.

  * * *

  Adam Hagen tucked his cigar in the corner of his mouth and squatted to check the old man’s pulse. He felt the wrist first, then placed two fingers on the side of his neck. Neither place revealed a pulse. He held his hand beneath the nose to see if he could detect a breath but could not.

  The vacant eyes half-open told him the whole story.

  King Charles Hagen was dead.

  Adam rose to his full height and dusted off his hands atop his uncle’s corpse. He looked at Ben. “Well done, my friend. Well done indeed. But our day is not over yet. We still have much to do.”

  He looked down at his uncle’s body and searched his own soul for some remorse. Some pang of guilt that might have caused him to feel sorry for what he had done to this man. Some regret over their relationship souring. Some memory from days long past of some kindness he had shown him in his life.

  But he felt nothing.

  No remorse. No guilt. No joy.

  All he saw was an obstacle that had fallen. Something that had been blocking his path to power had now been removed. He was not King Charles Hagen any longer. He was just a dead old man holding a handful of dirt.

  He stepped over the body and went back into the ranch house to finish his purpose and bring an end to his torment.

  CHAPTER 25

  The following afternoon, Trammel turned into a gust of wind as Dr. Moore and Emily examined the corpse of Charles Hagen.

  Trammel and Hawkeye kept the cowhands at bay. “Let them work, boys,” Trammel told them. “No one’s cheating you on seeing him. There’ll be time enough for that when they’re done.”

  Some of the men kept their distance, leaning on the corral as they hid their tears. He wondered which one of them had been the first to find Hagen when they returned from the drive. It must not have been a pretty sight. The birds had already been at him, and, given the number of feathers scattered all over the area, the cattle baron had been the last meal for one of them.

  “Sheriff Trammel,” Dr. Moore said. “Come take a look at this.”

  But Trammel did not dare move. The men of the Blackstone Ranch were not happy at seeing their former boss being picked at in the open like this. Not by birds or by doctors.

  “I think it’s time to let these boys place Mr. Hagen’s remains on Miss Emily’s wagon, Doc. They want to make sure their boss is tended to as soon as possible.”

  He began to protest, but a soft word from Emily quelled it in time. Trammel could tell the men were anxious and scared, and he could not blame them. Charles Hagen was the kind of man who seemed to be indestructible. To find him dead would have been bad enough. But to see his remains defiled by nature was too much to take.

  Hawkeye turned and said to the doctors, “They’re getting restless.”

  Emily and Moore stood up together and took their medical bags with them. She said, “Could some of you men be so kind as to help me bring Mr. Hagen to my buckboard?”

  Twelve men stepped forward with long pieces of burlap to cover the body and wrapped it tightly. One of them said, “Burlap ought to keep the birds away when we ride with you into town, ma’am.”

  With six men on each side, they picked him up as gently as if he was simply sleeping and carried him over to Emily’s buckboard and placed him inside. The men stood back in a ragged line and removed their hats.

  The man named Mackey felt compelled to remove his, too. Hawkeye followed his lead.

  One of the men said, “We’d like to ride into town with you and stay there while you tend to him, ma’am. We won’t be a bother, I promise. We just don’t think it’s fitting to leave him alone, him not having any blood kin to tend to him and all.”

  She glanced at Trammel for approval. “If it’s fine by the sheriff, it’s fine by me.”

  The men scattered to grab their mounts for the ride back to town, but stopped when Trammel said, “Wait.”

  The men stopped where they were and turned to face him. It was clear to him they were all itching for a fight. Any excuse to unburden themselves of the pain they were feeling, as if hitting someone else could help rid them of it.

  Hawkeye tensed beside Trammel, but Trammel made a point of looking each man in the eye as he spoke. “Anyone who wants to go into town with Mr. Hagen is welcome to do so as long as they agree to one thing. No trouble of any kind from any of you. I’ve heard all the same rumors you boys have, and I’m looking into them. You’ve got my word on that. Adam Hagen accepted my word, and he’d expect all of you to do the same thing. If you want to tend to Mr. Hagen, tend to him. But no drinking. No fighting, and no acts of vengeance.
I’ll give you boys all the leeway I can, but not if you cause trouble. Keep your guns in their holsters and no hell-raising. I don’t want to put any of you boys in jail at a time like this, but I will if you force it.”

  He looked each of them in the eye in turn again as he said, “Any questions about that?”

  They all silently shook their heads.

  Trammel did not believe them, but he did not have enough men to stop them. “Go ahead, then. Mount up.”

  The men went for their horses and Hawkeye relaxed some. “That could’ve gone either way, boss. I don’t know how you do it.”

  “Neither do I,” Trammel admitted. “Mount up and lead them into town. I’ll bring up the rear and grab any stragglers who might think about going after Adam.”

  As Hawkeye went to get his horse, one of the older ranch hands approached him. He had a thick gray mustache, but no beard. His skin was as weathered and worn as an old saddle. The skin around his eyes was wrinkled and sat in a permanent squint. The slouch hat he wore had seen countless winters and summers.

  The people back East had an image of a cowboy as a square-jawed Adonis with two guns on his hip and a beautiful lady to protect. But Trammel knew that the man who was walking toward him now was what a real cowboy looked like.

  “Afternoon, Lonnie,” Trammel said and offered his hand. “I’m sorry about Mr. Hagen.”

  Lonnie shook his hand. “Thanks for allowing some of the boys to ride in with him. The rest of us’ll tend to the herd while they’re in town. When we’re done here, we’d like to ride in with them, but the others will ride out peacefully. That’s a promise. I just don’t want you or your deputy getting jumpy, thinking we’re riding in for any other purpose.”

  Trammel appreciated the thought. “You’ve only got about twenty men or so left?”