Montana Gundown Read online

  “You believe us about what happened, then?” Frank asked.

  Carlin shrugged. “I heard Hal tell you that Miss Faye’s not a liar. I agree. Since her story jibes with yours, I reckon you’re tellin’ the truth.”

  “What’s Embry going to do with those bodies he had you bring in?”

  “He told some of the boys to wrap ’em up real good and put ’em down in the root cellar for the night. In the morning he’s going to put them in a wagon and take them to town. He said Marshal Trask can turn them over to Baldridge. ‘Let Baldridge take care of his own trash,’ he said.”

  “That’s liable to stir up even more trouble.”

  Carlin shook his head and said, “The trouble’s already stirred up. Bushwhackin’ Hal and the rest of us this mornin’ was bad enough, but goin’ after the boss’s daughter ... The storm’s gonna break now, that’s for sure.”

  Frank tossed his hat on the bunk, sat down, and clasped his hands together between his knees.

  “You don’t think Baldridge sent those men over here to attack Miss Embry, do you?” he asked. “That wasn’t the way it sounded to me. I think they showed up on their own.”

  Carlin thumbed his hat back and leaned a shoulder against the bunkhouse wall.

  “Well, you’ve got to remember, I’ve been around here for quite a spell, and I remember how things used to be. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the boss and Baldridge were amigos, but they got along all right most of the time. Baldridge is sort of a stuffed shirt, but would he order a couple of gunhawks to ride over here and rape a young woman?” Carlin shook his head. “I don’t think he would. I just don’t think so. But he hired the sort of skunks who’d do such a thing.”

  “That’s a good point,” Frank agreed. “He has to bear part of the responsibility. I’ve got another question for you. How did those men know that Miss Embry would be there at that waterfall this afternoon?”

  “I don’t have an answer for you, Frank,” Carlin said. “I don’t have any idea.”

  It was an intriguing question, Frank thought, and he had a feeling that the answer might be important. For the time being, though, there were other things to consider, and one of them was uppermost in Salty’s mind.

  “When’s supper?” the old-timer asked.

  As if someone had been waiting for the question, the sound of a dinner bell being rung floated through the evening air to the bunkhouse. The cowboys headed eagerly for the door.

  “Mrs. Embry cooks for the whole crew?” Frank asked Carlin as they left the building and started toward the main house.

  “That’s right. The boss hires a chuckwagon cook for roundup and when we drive the herd to Great Falls, but the rest of the time Miz Embry handles the cookin’, and she’s mighty good at it, like Hal told you.”

  “She’ll have to go a ways to beat that fella Solomon at the Feed Barn in Pine Knob,” Salty commented.

  Carlin laughed and said, “Yeah, that crazy ol’ coot can rustle up some mighty good grub. Miz Embry runs him a pretty close race, though.”

  “From what I can see, Hal’s a little sweet on that Katie Storm,” Frank said.

  “Maybe,” Carlin allowed, “but that gal’s got a mind of her own, and she and Miss Faye don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things, so I don’t figure anything’ll come of it. Hal generally listens to his sister’s advice.”

  And that was one of the things Katie didn’t agree with, Frank thought, recalling her comment about how Hal needed to stop listening to his father and sister all the time.

  Mary Embry stood next to the iron triangle that hung from the porch roof. An iron bar was attached to the iron piece at the end of a cord. That was what she had rung to announce that supper was ready, running the bar around and around the inside of the triangle. The ranch hands took off their hats and nodded politely to her as they trooped in.

  When Frank reached the porch, he asked, “How’s your daughter doing, Mrs. Embry?”

  “Faye is resting,” Mary said. “She doesn’t have much of an appetite tonight, so she’s not coming down to supper. I’m sure you can understand that.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Frank, Salty, and Carlin went inside. Carlin led the way to a large dining room dominated by a long table that practically filled it up. The center of the table was covered with platters heaped high with food. Frank saw fried chicken, roast, and ham, along with greens, potatoes, bowls of still-steaming biscuits, thick chunks of butter, gravy, molasses, and pots of stew.

  Mary Embry must have cooked all day to put together a spread like this, Frank thought, although some of the food could have been left over from the midday meal.

  Jubal Embry sat at the far end of the table, reminding Frank of pictures he had seen in books of English kings. The table wasn’t round, and these rough cowboys weren’t exactly knights, but the comparison wasn’t that much of a stretch. Cattle barons like Embry ruled their spreads sort of like feudal monarchs.

  Except for Embry, all the men stood up when Mary came into the room. She motioned them back into their seats and took the empty chair at the near end, opposite her husband. None of the men had started filling their plates yet, so Frank figured they were waiting for something.

  Mary confirmed that guess by saying, “Will you please say grace, Jubal?”

  Embry looked a little pained by the request, but he heaved himself to his feet as everyone else at the table bowed their heads.

  “Lord,” Embry intoned, “thank you for this bounty you’ve put before us and the good friends we’re about to share it with. Bless us and this food, and thank you for watchin’ over my children today when they were in danger.”

  Mary cleared her throat.

  Embry made a face and went on. “Thank you for sendin’ these strangers to share our hospitality ...” He gave Frank and Salty a hard look. “And protect us from wolves in our fold. Amen.”

  Mary frowned at him as everyone looked up, but Embry seemed not to see her.

  “Dig in, boys,” he told the crew.

  “That was a good prayer, Mr. Embry,” Frank said as he reached for the fried chicken. “Especially that last part.”

  Embry grunted and said, “You think so, do you?”

  “That’s right,” Frank said. “Of course ... it helps if you know who the real wolves are.”

  Chapter 11

  The night passed quietly on the Boxed E, and when Frank and Salty went into the ranch house the next morning, they found that Mary Embry was just as talented with breakfast as she was with the day’s other meals. Salty waxed eloquent about how good the flapjacks were, and Frank thought the coffee was some of the best he’d had in a long time.

  Jubal Embry was still surly, and Faye didn’t come down for breakfast, although Mary mentioned that she had taken a tray up to her daughter and that Faye’s appetite was back.

  As the men were lingering over their coffee, Embry said, “Hal, I want you to pick three of the men and take those carcasses into town.”

  “You still intend to turn them over to Marshal Trask?” Hal asked. “Can’t we just bury them here?”

  Embry scowled and shook his head. “I’ll not profane our buryin’ ground by plantin’ those two polecats in it,” he rumbled. “They’re Baldridge’s men. Let Baldridge take care of ’em.”

  “They’re probably getting a little ripe by now, even after being kept in the root cellar overnight,” Hal pointed out. “They’ll be worse by the time we get them to town.”

  “That’s Baldridge’s problem. Are you gonna do what I told you or not?”

  Hal sighed. “Sure, Pa. I always do, don’t I?” He looked around the table. “I should pick three men to go with me, you said?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Then I’ll take Frank, Salty, and Gage.”

  “Blast it!” Embry burst out. “I meant three of our men, and you know it. Morgan and Stevens don’t count.”

  “We’d be glad to go,” Frank said. “And since I’m the one who shot t
hose fellas, the marshal’s liable to want to talk to me, even if it did happen outside his jurisdiction.”

  “Frank’s right, Pa,” Hal said. “Besides, if they come with me, that frees up two of the other hands for their regular work.”

  “All right, all right,” Embry said with a curt gesture. “Take ’em. That means I won’t have to look at ’em for a while.”

  The men went out to the corral a short time later. Salty was grumbling about the way Frank had volunteered them for this grim chore.

  “That’s just how I wanted to spend my mornin’, playin’ nursemaid to a couple o’ decomposin’ gun-wolves,” he said as he saddled his pony.

  Since he’d been riding Goldy lately, Frank put his hull on Stormy to give the sorrel a chance to rest.

  “Maybe we can stop and have dinner at the Feed Barn while we’re in Pine Knob,” he suggested.

  That made Salty’s spirits perk up.

  “Seems like the bullets fly a hell of a lot in this part of the country,” he said, “but I got to admit, there’s good eatin’ everywhere you look!”

  Hal hitched a team of draft horses to the ranch wagon and drove it over to the root cellar’s entrance.

  “You three will be outriders,” he told Frank, Salty, and Carlin. “I can handle the wagon.”

  Salty wrinkled his nose when one of the ranch hands lifted the cellar door. “Them varmints are a mite fragrant already,” he said.

  “Better get used to it,” Frank said. “It’ll get worse before we get to town. Is there an undertaker in Pine Knob, Hal?”

  “Yeah, and I don’t envy him his job,” the young man replied. “Not one little bit.”

  They got the blanket-shrouded shapes into the back of the wagon. Hal climbed to the seat and took the reins again. He turned the team toward the settlement and got the horses moving. Frank and Salty rode on one side of the vehicle as it rolled along the trail, Gage Carlin on the other.

  Since the Boxed E had been invaded twice the previous day by forces from the B Star, the four men kept a close watch on the rugged, beautiful landscape around them. Brady Morgan and some of the other regulators might try to set up another ambush.

  Frank knew that if that happened, he would fight back along with the others without any consideration of whether or not Brady might be his son. Salty was his friend, and now Hal and Carlin were, too, and he would do his best to protect them.

  Nothing happened on the way to Pine Knob, though, except that the bodies in the back of the wagon began to stink even worse, as Frank had known they would. Growing up on a ranch, he had experienced the smell of dead animals at an early age.

  Not until he was in the war, though, had he encountered the stench of thousands of dead men littering a battlefield. A man never forgot that experience, although the lucky ones were able to put it aside and not dwell on it.

  In the more than three decades since then, death had followed Frank enough that, while not exactly friends, he and the Grim Reaper had to be considered close acquaintances.

  When they reached the settlement, the citizens of Pine Knob who were on the street cast curious glances at them, then some of the townspeople grimaced as they caught a whiff of what was in the back of the wagon. The vehicle rattled across the bridge over Loco Creek. Hal brought it to a stop in front of a frame building with a sign on it that read FINNEGAN’S UNDERTAKING ESTABLISHMENT—OMAR FINNEGAN, PROP.

  “Gage, ride on down to the marshal’s office and let him know what we’ve got here,” Hal said.

  Carlin nodded and trotted his horse along Main Street.

  Hal set the brake, looped the reins around the lever, and climbed down from the seat while Frank and Salty dismounted and tied their horses to a hitch rack. A mostly bald man with a fringe of graying red hair around his ears appeared in the doorway of the undertaking parlor and asked, “Is it some work ye have for me, young Embry?”

  “That’s right, Mr. Finnegan,” Hal replied. “Two men.” He didn’t provide any details of how the men had died.

  Finnegan pointed to the alley beside the building and said, “Take them around back, if ye would. We’ll unload them there.”

  “All right. I, uh, never delivered any bodies before. I wasn’t sure where we were supposed to take them.”

  Finnegan looked curiously at Frank and Salty, as if recognizing that they weren’t regular Boxed E hands.

  “I’m glad ye brought some help wi’ ye. My assistant’s not here right now, and we can use the extra hands.”

  Hal climbed back onto the wagon and drove it around behind the building. Frank and Salty walked along the alley rather than untying their horses and mounting up again. Finnegan went through the undertaking parlor and met them at the back door.

  “I ain’t too fond of this,” Salty muttered as he and Frank lifted one of the corpses to carry it into the undertaking parlor. “Carryin’ a dead body ain’t very good luck.”

  “Better than being carried,” Frank pointed out.

  “Well, I reckon I can’t argue about that. But I still don’t cotton to it.”

  They took the corpses into Finnegan’s spacious back room, which had several coffins stacked along the wall and a couple of tables where he did his work. They had just placed the bodies on the tables when Marshal Roy Trask came through the building from the front room, followed by Gage Carlin.

  “What’s all this about?” the lawman asked. “Who are these men?”

  Hal pushed his hat back and said, “We don’t know their names, Marshal, but I’ve seen them with Brady Morgan. Pretty sure they work for Baldridge.”

  “Let’s take a look.”

  “Before I have a chance to prepare them, Marshal?” Finnegan asked.

  “Right now,” Trask said.

  Finnegan shrugged and undid the lashings that held the blankets around the bodies. He pulled the blankets back to uncover faces that were gray and doughy in death.

  Salty turned away, muttering and shaking his head.

  Trask studied the dead men for a moment, then motioned for Finnegan to pull the blankets back into place.

  “I’ve seen them before, too, and you’re right, Hal, they were with Brady Morgan.” Trask turned to the undertaker. “I guess that makes Gaius Baldridge responsible for the cost of burying them, Omar.”

  “I’ll make a note of that,” Finnegan said.

  “Are you going to send a rider out to the B Star with the news?” Hal asked.

  “First of all, I want somebody to tell me what happened to these men.”

  “I shot them,” Frank said.

  Trask frowned at him and said, “Don’t think I didn’t notice that you’re back, Browning. I told you and that old pelican with you to get out of Pine Knob, and I don’t like it when folks ignore me.”

  “We left like you told us,” Frank said. “But you didn’t say anything about not going back to the Boxed E. When we did, we found these two about to attack Miss Faye Embry. There’s a good chance they would have killed her, too. When Salty and I stepped in to put a stop to it, they put up a fight.”

  “And you gunned ’em both down?”

  “That’s right.”

  Trask rubbed his heavy jaw and frowned in thought. “One of those hombres was called Royal, the other was Dodds. Supposed to be pretty slick on the draw, both of them.”

  “Not slick enough,” Salty said. He took off his hat and showed Trask the lump, which had gone down some overnight but was still visible. “One of ’em walloped me with a pistol and gave me this goose egg. You ask me, I’d say they got what was comin’ to ’em.”

  Hal said, “I hope you’re not thinking about causing trouble for Frank here, Marshal. I’m convinced he saved my sister’s life.”

  “If this happened on the Boxed E, there’s nothing I can do about it,” Trask replied with a shake of his head. “I just wanted to get the facts straight for when I talk to Gaius Baldridge.”

  “You’re going to send for him?”

  “I don’t have to. He’s a
lready in town. He’s waiting for the stagecoach that ought to be rolling in pretty soon.”

  “He’s leaving town?” Hal asked in surprise.

  “I don’t think so. He doesn’t have any bags. It’s more like he’s waiting for somebody.”

  “More hired guns, prob’ly,” Salty suggested.

  “Could be. As long as they don’t try anything in town, it’s none of my business.”

  Frank understood why the marshal felt that way, but he thought it was unlikely that Trask would be able to maintain that stance of neutrality forever. Sooner or later—probably sooner—the hostilities between the Boxed E and the B Star would spill over into Pine Knob.

  And once blood was in the streets, it was impossible to put it back.

  “I’ll go find Baldridge and let him know what happened,” Trask went on. “Last time I saw him he was over at the stage station, waiting.”

  “Was Brady Morgan with him?” Hal asked.

  Trask shook his head. “No, just a couple of the regular B Star hands brought the buckboard in. Baldridge drove his buggy himself.”

  The marshal left. Hal said, “I’m sort of curious to see who Baldridge is meeting on that stagecoach, if that’s what’s going on. You need us for anything else, Mr. Finnegan?”

  The undertaker shook his head. The four of them walked through the undertaking parlor’s front room and stepped onto the porch. The stagecoach station was located diagonally across the street. Marshal Trask was walking toward it, not getting in any hurry. Clearly, he wasn’t looking forward to breaking the news to Gaius Baldridge.

  In the middle of the street, Trask stopped short and looked toward the east. Frank heard the same thing the marshal had: the rumble of hoofbeats and the rattle of wheels. A Concord stagecoach being pulled by a six-horse hitch came into view, trailing a cloud of dust behind it.

  “Does the stage road go right past the B Star?” Frank asked Hal.

  The young man shook his head and said, “No, it comes up from the south through Granite Pass about halfway between here and Baldridge’s headquarters.”

  “That’s why he had to come here to meet the stage, then, instead of just having it stop at his ranch.”