Blood Valley Read online

And that’s how Rusty got to be Sheriff of Puma County.

  “Raise your hand, Cotton Pickens.”

  I raised my hand and was sworn in. It was a sight more fancier badge than the one I pinned on to Rusty’s shirt. He sure was proud of it, though.

  “What else?” I asked, polishin’ the fancy badge with my shirtsleeve.

  “A whole lot more,” the Marshal said. “This was the easy part.”

  The Marshal, he took him a deep breath. “Now listen up, I got to re-cite you something, from memory. As a legal swore-in Deputy U-nited States Marshal for this here district of the Territory, this here is what you can and cain’t do. First thing you got to remember is this: You got to bring ’em in, alive or dead. It don’t make no difference. But you got to bring ’em in ’fore you can collect any re-ward money. And they don’t stink so bad—most of the time—if they’re alive. But bring ’em in.

  “Now then, a Deputy U.S. Marshal can arrest a person with or without no warrant first issued, if you got knowledge that a crime has been committed, about to be committed, or somebody is thinkin’ on committin’ a crime. You can arrest for murder, manslaughter, assault, with intent to kill or maim, attempts to murder. Arson, robbery, rape, incest, burglary, larceny, adultery, horse-stealin’, cattle-rustlin’, changin’ brands, someone gettin’ all up in your face and bein’ smart-mouthed, obstructin’ justice, willfully and maliciously placin’ obstructions on a railroad track, and just about anything else you can think of. You have the full power of the U-nited States government behind you, and you don’t have to listen to no pissant district judge. You can do anything you wanna do with an Injun. You understand all that? Good. Now where’s the outhouse? I gotta take a crap!”

  The smile on Rolf Baker’s face changed to a real frown when I rode up and he spotted the U.S. Marshal’s badge pinned on my shirt. But the frown quickly disappeared and he was all smiles again as he shook my hand.

  When I’d looked in the safe once more, back at the office, I’d found a packet of papers, rolled up tight and tied with string. I hadn’t said nothin’ to the boys, savin’ the papers to read by myself later. And they all dealt with A.J., Matt, and Rolf. The sheriff who’d been killed last year had himself a suspicion that the Big Three wasn’t exactly on the up and up, and he’d done some diggin’. He hadn’t come up with much; just enough to make me have a little naggin’ suspicion in the back of my mind that Rolf Baker wasn’t on the clean side, as he would like me to believe. Lots of things just weren’t addin’ up in my head.

  The sheriff had seemed to think that the Big Three had come here from New York City. Why he thought so, I didn’t have no idea. But I was gonna find out the truth, if I could. Now, as I wasn’t tied down in town no more, I could roam, and that’s what I intended to do.

  ’Cause something about that U.S. Marshal’s badge sure caused worry to jump into Rolf’s eyes. And he wasn’t by hisself, neither. The only one who didn’t have worry in their eyes upon spottin’ the badge was Pepper, and she fairly squealed with delight. But Martha and Jeff, they didn’t like it at all.

  It was just real odd. And it made me suspicious as all get-out.

  On this trip, I had packed me a bedroll and several days worth of grub. I was gonna stay out in the valley, or beyond, just movin’ around, lettin’ people see me in my new capacity.

  Pepper didn’t see it, but some of the softness had been sliced off of her family’s friendliness towards me. It was enough to put me on the alert, and I didn’t like it at all. I had me a gnawin’, sick feelin’ in my belly that wasn’t put there by none of Miss Pepper’s fried chicken. It was there ’cause now I believed that Rolf and Jeff was all mixed up in something real bad.

  What, I just didn’t know. But the Federal badge on my chest meant that I was gonna have to be the one to find out—or Rusty would and then share it with me.

  But any way it was cut, it might mean the end of me and Pepper . . . if I waited. So I decided to wade right in and take the plunge, so to speak.

  Me and Pepper, we went for a stroll down by the little creek that ambled along not too far from the main house.

  “Pepper, I got me a plan. Now you might not like it. If you don’t, say so.”

  “Let me say something first, Cotton.” Now she had a worried look in her eyes.

  “All right.”

  “Something is wrong here at the ranch.”

  “What?”

  “I . . . don’t know for sure. I was riding yesterday, on the north range, high up. I crossed Jeff’s tracks and decided to follow him, thinking maybe we could sit and talk like we used to do. Something we haven’t done much of lately. Then I was giving my horse a rest when I spotted several riders heading my way. I pulled into a stand of timber and watched them. They reined up and waited.”

  “Was you close enough to them to recognize any of them?”

  “Yes. They were gunfighters. I recognized that Stamps person and that Dundee man. There were two more that I’d seen in town.”

  Waldo Stamps and Clay Dundee.

  “You’re sure you were on Quartermoon range?”

  “Oh, yes. Positive. But then . . . Jeff and my father rode up and dismounted. They talked with the men at length and father gave them something. Cotton, it was money!”

  Well, there it was. The sheriff who’d been killed was right, and my own hunches had been correct. But I wished they wasn’t. All I could do was give out with a long sigh.

  “What does it all mean, Cotton?”

  I was truthful with her. “I don’t know yet, Pepper. But it can’t be nothin’ good. Does your father or brother know you spotted them?”

  “Oh, no!”

  “Your ma?”

  “No. No one else. You’re the first I’ve told about it.”

  “Keep it that way, honey. Don’t let on to nobody. I think that’s best for the time bein’.”

  “All right. Whatever you say. Now what was it you were going to tell me?”

  “Pepper, I don’t want no great big fancy weddin’. I just want a little simple one.”

  “So do I.” She spoke soft, her words just audible over the burbling of the little crick. “But what is this leading toward?”

  I took me a deep breath. “Pepper, let’s e-lope. Tonight!”

  That kiss she planted on me was answer enough.

  There’s some sort of sayin’ about the best-laid plans of people. But I disremember exactly what it is. But it sure applied to me that comin’ night. Me and Pepper had agreed to hightail it out of the county as soon as the house got dark with folks in bed. But when I got to Pepper’s bedroom window, I could hear the sounds of cryin’ from somewheres in the house and Rolf was sittin’ in a chair by the window, and he was plumb unfriendly towards me.

  “There is no need to sneak about in the night, Cotton,” he said, a hardness to his voice. “Pepper has changed her mind. Changed it about a lot of things.”

  “Yeah? Well, I didn’t figure you was here to give away the bride.”

  “You will no longer be welcome at this house, Marshal Pickens. And there will be no wedding. Now, or ever. Is that perfectly clear to you?”

  “Real clear. But I would like to hear it from Miss Pepper herself.”

  “My daughter is, at the moment, indisposed.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  Rolf glared at me. I could almost feel the heat from his eyes. He was some hot. “Look, you ignorant saddle bum, ride out of here. Keep riding. If you have any sense at all—which I doubt—you’ll ride clear out of the state. Now do you understand all that? Is that clear to you?”

  Sure was. In a way. So I tipped my hat and tipped on out of there. But Rolf Baker was forgettin’ one important item. As a sheriff, I had me some power; but as a U-nited States Marshal, I had me a hell of a lot more power. And now I had me a plan.

  I didn’t think it was Pepper who’d changed her mind; I felt her daddy had done that for her. And not allowin’ her to speak to me had just made me mad as hell.


  So, Mister Rolf Baker, let’s just see what New York City has to say about you.

  At dawn, I rolled out of my blankets and made me a pot of coffee for breakfast. Then I broke camp and kept on ridin’ south. I’d had a few hours sleep after hours of hard ridin’. By noon, I would be a full county away from Doubtful.

  The sun was right up over my head when I rode slow down the dusty main street of the town. I had stopped about two miles out of town and took me a bath in a little creek. Man, but that water was some cold!

  I told the boy at the stable to leave Pronto alone; just give him all the corn he could eat and be careful doin’ it. He bites. Although I doubted he would bite a young boy.

  I got me a room at the hotel, shaved, and changed out of my dusty clothing. Then had me a cafe-fixed meal. At the telegraph office, I identified myself to the agent.

  The Marshal who had swore me in had give me a whole batch of government scrip—to use in place of money—and I laid some of that wad down on the counter.

  “Grease your tappin’ finger, Mister Agent, ’cause you got a lot of messages to wire out of here.”

  I was in that town for the better part of three days before I got replies to most of my inquiries. And when I added them all up, it didn’t make for no real pretty picture.

  They had thought themselves to be mighty slick young men, Matt and A.J. and Rolf. But when you skimmed off the grease that rose to the top of the stew, all they turned out to be was swindlers, foot padders, con men, and murderers. I seen right there and then why they didn’t want no telegraph wires runnin’ out of their valley, and why they chose such an out-of-the-way place to settle down in.

  And the wives of the Big Three? Well, I couldn’t prove it, but after a whole batch of wires from California, it looked like, when you compared dates, that the three women was mail-order whores out of San Francisco.

  The description of one of them filled Martha to a T. So she wasn’t no hotsy-totsy fine lady from New Hampshire; she was a saloon girl from the Barbary Coast. Her real name was Cindy Meeker. And if it was true, and I suspected it was, she had her a shady past.

  According to the wires I got, and there was a whole slew of them, the young men had been borned in what was known as the Old Brewery in New York City . . . in the old Five Points section. I didn’t know what that meant; I was just readin’ what was wrote down for me, and the telegraph agent was probably glad to see me go. I ’bout ruined his writin’ hand. The U.S. Marshal’s office in far-off New York City had give me a good batch of background on the Old Brewery.

  Coulter’s Brewery, as it was originally known, had been built back in 1792. Then, in 1837, the big place was turned into a tenement house, with more than a hundred rooms in it. The hallways was known as Murderer’s Row. Lots of kids that was borned there didn’t even see daylight until they was well into their teens. It must have been quite a place.

  Hell-hole would probably be a better name for it.

  Folks was killed there for no more than a penny, and that was proved by the police. Before the good women of the Ladies’ Home Missionary Society moved in and bought the place back in ’52, it was estimated that there was a murder a day for fifteen years. Over five thousand killin’s. When the police finally moved in on the place, in force, they toted out more than a hundred sacks of human bones.

  This, then, was what Matt and A.J. and Rolf had been borned into or moved into. A world of thugs and murderers and rapists and the whole scummy lot of such people. I couldn’t even imagine what it must have been like, not in my wildest dreams—or nightmares, as the case would be.

  They was the sons of whores and worse. And they had the best teachers in the world for crime. And they all three learned their lessons right well.

  They moved out of the Old Brewery, according to the wires I got back, when they was young men, and began to educate themselves. But their hearts remained black as sin. The three of them formed up a gang and killed for money . . . killed, among other things. Really, there wasn’t nothin’ the three of them wouldn’t do for money. Nothin’ at all.

  They made them a small fortune and then the coppers got on their trail after a particularly savage rape, murder, and kidnappin’. The three young men headed out west.

  The rest was history. They dropped out of sight and become cattlemen, gettin’ rich and powerful doin’ it.

  I guess Rolf figured that I was the perfect patsy for his daughter. As Sheriff, married into his family, he figured I’d play along with whatever he done, and the Big Three had probably drew straws or high carded it or something to see who was gonna be the bad guys and who would be the nice one. That was just head-thinkin’ on my part. I didn’t know for sure. But when I hung on the U.S. Marshal’s badge, that changed the whole picture.

  Seemed like the messages from back east and from California never would quit comin’ in . . . all of them about Rolf and A.J. and Matt and their once-loose women. And them women had been rounders . . . bad through and through. There wasn’t no tens of thousands of dollars of reward money on the men’s heads, not like what was on the James Gang, say, but there was a right smart amount of money involved.

  I didn’t want no reward money for this. I couldn’t never look at Pepper again if I took money for turnin’ in her father. So, me? Hell, I didn’t know exactly what to do.

  I wired back to the U.S. Marshals’ office in New York City and told them that maybe I had something on the men. . . . I’d let them know.

  It just seemed to me that I’d lost Miss Pepper no matter which-a-way I turned or done or planned to do. One thing was for certain in my mind, however, and that was when I finally made up my mind what to do with the Big Three, when it was over, and if I was still alive, I wasn’t gonna stay in the valley. Not without Pepper.

  Well, I was in love, but I could get over it.

  Least that’s what I tried to convince myself.

  Chapter Four

  I took my time headin’ back, just lookin’ around. Really, I was checkin’ out the country for a place to settle, and I found me a nice little valley about fifty miles south of Doubtful. The valley was all lush and green and pretty with wildflowers; had a little stream runnin’ through it. I found me a place where a cabin would fit nice. It was all a wild and beautiful and lonely place.

  And the quiet valley fit my present state of mind right well.

  Now, I knowed I wasn’t no thing of beauty, but I guess I was sort of wild and uncurried, and it looked like I was gonna stay lonely. I guess I was feelin’ sorry for myself. And that ain’t something I often do.

  But damnit, a man needs a woman and vice versa. A man who don’t never take a woman for wife grows old bitter-like, all dried up and sour-actin’. And I didn’t want to turn into no withered old sour apple.

  I picketed Pronto and climbed me a little hill, place I’d thought the cabin would fit, and hunkered down, lettin’ the wind blow gentle on me, while I squatted amid the grass and sweet-smellin’ wildflowers.

  “Now, you just wait a minute, Cotton,” I said aloud, speaking to the big empty—it really wasn’t empty, of course, but it felt that way. “Pepper’s pa told you she didn’t want you around no more. But you never heard it from her. So until she speaks the words, just pull yourself together and straighten up some.”

  Pronto, he nickered low and lifted his head, lookin’ at me, like he sorta understood what I’d just said. And then all of a sudden, his ears come up and he tensed.

  When he done that, I come up and rolled, hittin’ the ground just as I heard the boom of the rifle. The slug slammed into the ground right where I’d been, with another one right behind that. I rolled towards the slim protection of a little fallen log. Another round sent splinters flyin’. Rollin’ again, I jerked out Pronto’s picket pin and we went runnin’ into a stand of timber. Jammin’ the picket pin deep, I shucked out my rifle.

  Whoever it was that’d been trailin’ me was plenty good, and I had me an idea who it might be.

  Haufman. />
  Takin’ me a big swallow of water from my canteen, I looped the canteen straps back around the saddle horn and commenced to get my bearings.

  It had to be Haufman. For I’d heard it said that once you done him a hurt, or humiliated him, he was on your trail forever; bastard didn’t forget nothin’ . And I sure hurt and humiliated him plenty good.

  Pronto was protected from anything but a stray bullet, and I was in a good position in the thick timber. But I wasn’t really sure just where the shots had come from.

  Squattin’ behind a tree, I studied the terrain above me, then pondered a while on where I’d been hunkered down when the slugs struck. I thought I knew just about where the German might be shootin’ from.

  With that in mind, I thought, all right . . . so now what? We could spend the whole rest of the day pot-shootin’ at one another and never hit nothin’ except air.

  “Well, Cotton,” I muttered, “let’s us just take the fight to him.”

  I slipped out of the far end of the timber and then, with the woods to my right, began workin’ my way up the hill, always stayin’ low, behind plenty of good cover.

  Then the timber abruptly came to a halt and, for a minute, I figured I wasn’t no better than I had been. But then, lookin’ around, I seen where I had a better view of his approximate location. I made up my mind to just sit tight for a time.

  He fired a couple more times into the timber, just to keep me honest, I reckon. But his smoke gave me his exact location, and it was a good one, so I thought at first glance.

  Just then the wind picked up right smart and I seen where Haufman—if it was him—had made his second mistake. His first mistake was takin’ a shot at me and missin’.

  The wind moved the bushes behind where he was; moved them enough so’s I could see the rock wall behind his location. Grinnin’, I eared back the hammer on my Henry. Ricochets are something terrible to hear, and they make ugly, rippin’ wounds. So I just leveled that Henry and let it bang as fast as I could pull and lever.