Live by the West, Die by the West Page 7

  “I’ve heard that from other people.”

  “It’s true. And good with short guns, too. Very good. As good and probably better than most of the hired hands on the payroll.” He met Smoke’s eyes. “There’s something you ought to know. Dooley has hired a back-shooter name of Danny Rouge.”

  “I know of him. Looks like a big rat. But he’s pure poison with a rifle.”

  Cord looked toward the bunkhouse, where half a dozen gunhands were loafing. “Worthless scum. I was gonna let them go. Now I don’t know what to do.”

  Smoke could offer no advice. He knew that Cord knew that if Dooley even thought his daughter’s attackers came from the Circle Double C, he would need all the guns he could muster. They were all sitting on a powder keg, and it could go up at any moment.

  A cowboy walked past the big house. “Find Del for me,” Cord ordered. “Tell him to come up here.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You want me to stick around and help you?” Smoke asked.

  Cord shook his head. “No. But thanks. This is my snake. I’ll kill it.”

  “I’ll be riding, then. If you need help, don’t hesitate to send word. I’ll come.”

  Smoke was riding out as the foreman was walking up.

  Smoke rode back to the site of the attack. His people had already righted the buggy and hitched up the now calmed horse.

  “I’ll take it over to the D-H,” Smoke offered. “I’ve got to get my horse anyway.”

  “I’ll ride with you,” Lujan said.

  “What are we supposed to do?” Silver Jim asked. “Sit here and grow cobwebs? We’ll all ride over.”

  Bobby had returned to chasing strays and pushing them toward new pasture.

  The foreman of the D-H, Gage, met them halfway, leading Smoke’s horse. “You boys is all right,” he said. “So I’ll give it to you straight. Don’t come on D-H range no more. I mean, as far as I’m concerned, me and the regular hands, you could ride over anytime; but Dooley has done let his bread burn. He’s gone slap nuts. Sent a rider off to wire for more gunhands; they waitin’ over at Butte. Lanny Ball found where them tracks led to McCorkle range and that’s when Dooley went crazy. His wife talked him out of riding over and killing Cord today. But he’s gonna declare war on the Circle Double C and anybody who befriends them. So I guess all bets is off, boys. But I’ll tell you this: me and the regular boys is gonna punch cows, and that’s it . . . unless someone tries to attack the house. I’m just damn sorry all this had to happen. I’ll be ridin’ now. You boys keep a good eye on your backtrail. See you.”

  “Guess that tears it,” Smoke said, after Gage had driven off in the buggy, his horse and the horse Smoke had borrowed tied to the back. “Let’s get back to the ranch. Fae and Parnell need to be informed about this day.”

  * * *

  Rita regained consciousness the following day. She told her father that she never saw her attackers’ faces. They kept masks and hoods on the entire time she was being assaulted.

  Cord McCorkle sent word that Dooley was welcome to come help search his spread from top to bottom to find the attackers.

  Dooley sent word that Cord could go to hell. That he believed Cord knew who raped and beat his daughter and was hiding them, protecting them.

  “I tried,” Cord said to Smoke. “I don’t know what else I can do.”

  The men were in town, having coffee in Hans’s café.

  Parnell had wanted to pack up and go back east immediately. Fae had told him, in quite blunt language, that anytime he wanted to haul his ashes, to go right ahead. She was staying.

  Beans and Charlie Starr had stood openmouthed, listening to Fae vent her spleen. They had never heard such language from the mouth of a woman.

  Parnell had packed his bags and left the ranch in a huff, vowing never to return until his sister apologized for such unseemly behavior and such vile language.

  That set Fae off again. She stood by the hitchrail and cussed her brother until his buggy was out of sight.

  Lujan and Spring walked up.

  “They do this about once a month,” Spring said. “He’ll be back in a couple of days. I tell you boys what, workin’ for that woman has done give me an education I could do without. Someone needs to sit on her and wash her mouth out with soap.”

  “Don’t look at me!” Lujan said, rolling his dark eyes. “I’d rather crawl up in a nest of rattlesnakes.”

  “Get back to work!” Fae squalled from the porch, sending the men scrambling for their horses.

  * * *

  “There they are,” Smoke said quietly, his eyes on three men riding abreast up the street.

  “Who?” Cord asked.

  “The Sabler brothers. Ben, Carl, and Delmar. They’ll be gunning for Lujan. He killed two of their brothers some years back.”

  “Be interesting to see which saloon they go in.”

  “You takin’ bets?”

  “Not me. I damn sure didn’t send for them.”

  The Sabler boys reined up in front of the Hangout.

  “It’s like they was told not to come to the Pussycat,” Cord reflected.

  “They probably were. No chipped shoes on any of your horses, huh?”

  “No. But several were reshod that day; started before you came over with the news. It’s odd, Smoke. Del is as square as they come; hates the gunfighters. But he says he can account for every one of them the morning Rita was raped. He says he’ll swear in a court of law that none of them left the bunkhouse–main house area. I believe him.”

  “It could have been some drifters.”

  “You believe that?”

  “No. I don’t know what to believe, really.”

  “I better tell you: talk among the D-H bunch—the gunslicks—is that it was Silver Jim and Lujan and the Hatfield boy.”

  Smoke lifted his eyes to meet Cord’s gaze. Cord had to struggle to keep from recoiling back. The eyes were icehouse cold and rattler deadly. “Silver Jim is one of the most honorable men I have ever met. Lujan was with me all that morning. Both Hatfield and Bobby are of the age where neither one of them can even talk when they get around women; besides he was within a mile of me and Lujan all morning. Whoever started that rumor is about to walk into a load of grief. If you know who it is, Cord, I’d appreciate you telling me.”

  “It was that new bunch that came in on the stage the day after it happened. They come up from Butte at Hanks’s wire.”

  “Names?”

  “All I know is they call one of them Rose.”

  Lujan came galloping up, off his horse before the animal even stopped. He ran into the café. “Smoke! Hardrock found young Hatfield about an hour ago. He’d been tortured with a running iron and then dragged. He ain’t got long.”

  NINE

  Doc Adair, now sober for several days, looked up as Smoke and Cord entered the bedroom of the main ranch house. He shook his head. “Driftin’ in and out of consciousness. I’ve got him full of laudanum to ease the pain. They burned him all over his body with a hot iron, then they dragged him. He isn’t going to make it. He wouldn’t be a whole man even if he did.”

  No one needed to ask what he meant by that. Those who did this to the boy had been more cruel than mean.

  Bobby was fighting back tears. “Me and him growed up together. We was neighbors. More like brothers than friends.”

  Fae put her arm around the young man and held him, then, at a signal from Smoke, led him out of the bedroom. Smoke knelt down beside the bed.

  “Can you hear me, Hatfield?”

  The boy groaned and opened his one good eye. “Yes, sir, Mister Smoke.” His voice was barely a whisper, and filled with pain.

  “Who did this to you?”

  “One of them was called . . . Rose. They called another one Cliff. I ain’t gonna make it, am I, Mister Smoke?”

  Smoke sighed.

  “Tell me . . . the truth.”

  “The doc says no. But doctors have been wrong before.”

  “When
they burned my privates . . . I screamed and passed out. I come to and they . . . was draggin’ me.”

  His words were becoming hard to understand and his breathing was very ragged. Smoke could see one empty eye socket. “Send any money due me to . . . my ma. Tell her to buy something pretty . . . with it. Watch out for Bobby. He’s . . . He don’t look it, but he’s . . . cat quick with a short gun. Been . . . practicin’ since we was about . . . six years old. Gettin’ dark. See you, boys.”

  The young man closed his good eye and spoke no more. Doc Adair pushed his way through to the bed. After a few seconds, he said, “He’s still alive, but just. A few more minutes and he’ll be out of his pain.”

  Smoke glanced at Lujan. “Lujan, go sit on Bobby. Hog-tie him if you have to. We’ll avenge Hatfield, but it’ll be after the boy’s been given a proper burial.”

  Grim-faced, and feeling a great deal more emotion than showed on his face, the Mexican gunfighter nodded and left the room.

  Hatfield groaned in his unconsciousness. He sighed and his chest moved up and down, as if struggling for breath. Then he lay still. Doc Adair held a small pocket mirror up to the boy’s mouth. No breath clouded the mirror. The doctor pulled the sheet over Hatfield’s face.

  “I’ll start putting a box together,” Spring spoke from the doorway. “Damn, but I liked that boy!”

  * * *

  The funeral was at ten o’clock the following morning. Mr. and Mrs. Cord McCorkle came, accompanied by Sandi and a few of their hands. Doc Adair was there, as were Hans and Hilda and Olga. Olga went straight to Ring’s side and stood there during the services.

  No one had seen Bobby that morning. He showed up at the last moment, wearing a black suit—Fae had pressed it for him—with a white shirt and black string tie. He wore a Remington Frontier .44, low and tied down. He did not strut and swagger. He wore it like he had been born with it. He walked up to Smoke and Lujan and the others, standing in a group.

  “Bobby just died with Hatfield,” he told them. “My last name is Johnson. Turkey Creek Jack Johnson is my uncle. My name is Bob Johnson. And I’ll be goin’ into town when my friend is in the ground proper and the words said over him.’

  “We’ll all go in, Bob,” Smoke told him.

  The preacher spoke his piece and the dirt was shoveled over Hatfield’s fresh-made coffin.

  “Cord, I’d appreciate it if you and yours would stay here with Fae and Parnell until we get back.”

  “We’ll sure do it, Smoke. Take your time. And shoot straight,” he added.

  The men headed out. Four aging gunfighters with a string of kills behind them so long history has still not counted them. One gunfighter from south of the border. Smoke Jensen, from north of the border. The Moab Kid and a boy/man who rode with destiny on his shoulders.

  They slowed their horses as they approached Gibson, the men splitting up into pairs, some circling the town to come in at different points.

  But the town was nearly deserted. Hans’s café had been closed for the funeral. The big general store—run by Walt and Leah Hillery, a sour-faced man and his wife—was open, but doing no business. The barber shop was empty. There were no horses standing at the hitchrails of either saloon. Smoke walked his horse around the corral and then looked inside the stable. Only a few horses in stalls, and none of them appeared to be wet from recent riding.

  The men gathered at the edge of town, talked it over, and then dismounted, splitting up into two groups, one group on each side of the street.

  Smoke pushed open the batwings of the Hangout and stepped inside. The place was empty except for the barkeep and the swamper. The bartender, knowing that Smoke had on his warpaint, was nervously polishing shot glasses and beer mugs.

  “Ain’t had a customer all morning, Mister Smoke,” he announced. “I think the boys is stayin’ close to the bunkhouse.”

  Smoke nodded at the man and stepped back out onto the boardwalk, continuing on his walking inspection.

  He met with Beans. “Nothing,” the Moab Kid said. “Town is deserted.”

  “They are not yet ready to meet us,” Lujan said, walking up.

  “We’re wasting time here. We’ve still got cattle to brand and more to move to higher pasture. There’ll be another day. Let’s get back to work.”

  * * *

  The days passed uneventfully, the normal day-to-day routine of the ranch devouring the men’s time. Parnell, just as Old Spring had called it, moved back to the ranch and he and Fae continued their bickering. Rita improved, physically, but was not allowed off the ranch. And to make sure that she not try any meetings with Sandi, her father assigned two to watch her at all times.

  Bob Johnson was a drastically changed young man. Bobby was gone. The boy seldom smiled now, and he was always armed. Smoke and Charlie Starr had watched him practice late one afternoon, when the day’s work on the range was over.

  “He’s better than good,” Charlie remarked. “He’s cursed with being a natural.”

  He did not have to explain that. Smoke knew only too well what the gunfighter meant. With Bob, it was almost as if gun was a physical extension of his right arm. His draw was oil-smooth and his aim was deadly accurate. And he was fast, very fast.

  Old Pat rode out to the branding site in the early morning the sixth day after Hatfield’s burying.

  “Hans just sent word, Smoke. Them Waters brothers come into town late yesterday and they brought a half dozen hardcases with them.”

  “Hans know who they are?”

  “He knowed two of ’em. No-Count George Victor and Three-Fingers Kerman. Other four looked meaner than snakes, Hans said. ’Bout an hour later, four more guns come in on the stage. Wore them big California spurs.”

  “Of course they went straight to the Hangout?” Charlie asked.

  “Waters’s bunch did. Them California gunslicks went on over to the Pussycat. McCorkle’s hirin’ agin.”

  Smoke cursed, but he really could not blame Cord. Every peace effort he had made to Hanks had been turned down with a violent outburst of profanity from Dooley. And Hanks’ sons were pushing and prodding each time they came into town. Sonny, Bud, and Conrad Hanks had made their brags that they were going to kill Cord’s boys, Max, Rock, and Troy. They were all about the same age and, according to Cord, all possessing about the same ability with a short gun. Cord’s boys were more level-headed and better educated—his wife had seen to that. Hanks’s boys were borderline stupid. Hanks had seen to that. And they were cruel and vicious.

  “We’re gonna be pulled into this thing,” Hardrock remarked. “Just sure as the sun comes up. There ain’t no way we can miss it. Sooner or later, we’re gonna run up on them no-goods that done in Young Hatfield. And whether we do it together, or Young Bob does the deed, we’ll have chosen a side.”

  “I’m curious as to when that back-shootin’ Danny Rouge is gonna uncork,” Pistol said. “I been prowlin’ some; I ain’t picked up no sign of his ever comin’ onto Box T range.”

  “Hanks hasn’t turned him loose yet.” Smoke fished out the makings and rolled him a cigarette, passing the sack and the papers around. He was thoughtful for a moment. “I’ll tell you all what’s very odd to me: these gunhawks are drawing fighting wages, but they have made no move toward each other. I think there’s something rotten in the potato barrel, boys. And I think it’s time I rode over and talked it out with Cord.”

  * * *

  “You would have to bring that to my attention,” Cord said, a glum look on his face. “I hadn’t thought of that. But by George, you may be right. I hope you’re not,” he quickly added, “but there’s always a chance. Have you heard anything more about Rita’s condition?”

  “Getting better, physically. Hanks keeps her under guard at the ranch.”

  “Same thing I heard. Sandi asked to see her and Dooley said he wouldn’t guarantee her safety if she set foot on D-H range. He didn’t out and out threaten her—he knows better than that—but he came damn close. His sons and my sons are
shapin’ up for a shootin’, though. And I can’t stop them. I want to, but I don’t know how, short of hogtyin’ my boys and chainin’ them to a post.”

  “How many regular hands do you have, Cord?”

  “Eight, counting Del. I always hire part-timers come brandin’ time and drives.”

  “So that’s twelve people you can count on, including yourself and your sons.”

  “Right. Cookie is old, but he can still handle a six-gun and a rifle. You think the lid is going to fly off the pot, don’t you, Smoke?”

  “Yes. But I don’t know when. Do you think your wife and Sandi would go on a visit somewhere until this thing is over?”

  “Hell, no! If I asked Alice to leave she’d hit me with a skillet. God only knows what Sandi would do, or say,” he added drily. “Her mouth doesn’t compare to Fae’s, but stir her up and you’ got a cornered puma on your hands.”

  “How about those California gunhands that just came in?

  “I don’t trust them any more than I do the others. But I felt had to beef up my gunnies.”

  “I don’t blame you a bit. And I may be all wrong in my suspicions.”

  “Sad thing is, Smoke, I think you’re probably right.”

  Smoke left McCorkle’s ranch and headed back to the Box T. Halfway there, he changed his mind and pointed his horse’s nose toward Gibson. Some of the crew was running out of chewing tobacco. He was almost to town when he heard the pounding of hooves. He pulled over to the side of the road and twisted in the saddle. Four riders that he had not seen before. He pulled his Winchester from the boot, levered in a round, and eared the hammer back, laying the rifle across his saddle horn. He was riding Dagger, and knew the horse would stand still in the middle of a cyclone; he wouldn’t even look up from grazing at a few gunshots.

  The riders reined in, kicking up a lot of unnecessary dust. Smoke pegged them immediately. Arrogant punks, would-be gunslicks. Not a one of them over twenty-one. But they wore two guns tied down.