A Wolf in the Fold

Chapter 18

I did not use the trail. I could not risk being spotted. Then there were the two Texas Rangers to keep in mind. They complicated things. They could be anywhere, at any time. Rangers were notorious for popping up when you least expected and least wanted them to.

I swung to the south and was winding down a canyon toward the foothills when a strange sound reached my ears. I drew rein and listened. It sounded like two rocks were being smacked together, and it went on and on until I gigged Brisco and warily led the mare lower.

The canyon widened. Boulders and brush choked the bottom, but there were few trees since there was no water. I veered to where the shadow from the canyon wall was deepest.

The sound grew louder. Much louder than the chink of Brisco’s and the mare’s hooves. Soon I heard voices, although I could not tell what they were saying. I came to a bend and stopped. After swinging down, I looped Brisco’s reins around a bush. He was well trained and would not go anywhere. I was not sure of the mare, so I secured the lead rope to a boulder.

Sliding the scattergun from my bedroll, I loaded both barrels and stuck extra shells in my pocket. On cat’s feet I glided along the wall. At the bend I peeked past the edge.

Three horses stood in a row, their reins dangling. A fourth, a pack animal, was nearby.

Two of the three riders were attacking the base of the canyon wall with picks. The third watched, a shovel in his left hand, the long handle across his shoulder.

I could scarcely credit my good fortune. The three weren’t prospectors. They weren’t townsmen. They were cowboys. Specifically, LT cowboys. I remembered them from when I was out to the ranch. Whether they took part in the slaughter of the Butchers was unimportant. They rode for my enemy, and anyone who worked for my enemy became an enemy whether they wanted to be an enemy or not.

One of the punchers stopped swinging his pick, stepped back, and wiped a sleeve across his sweaty face. “I hate this. I just hate this.”

“Don’t start, Jack,” said the cowboy with the shovel.

“Hell, Brennan, you hate it as much as I do,” Jack snapped. “We’re punchers, not desert rats. We signed on with the LT to herd cattle, not play at being pocket hunters. I’d rather swing a rope than this damn heavy pick.”

The third cowboy lowered his pick. “Complain, complain. That’s all you ever do, Jack.”

“Tell me you like doing this, Porter,” Jack challenged. “Tell me it as if you really mean it.”

“We get paid extra,” Porter said. A red bandanna rode high on his neck. His clothes were caked with dust.

Jack would not relent. “I don’t care how much extra she pays us. She should hire someone else to do her damn collecting.”

Brennan snorted like a bull. He had the shoulders of one, too. “Will you listen to yourself? Name me one other outfit where the punchers make as much as we do? Ninety dollars a month. That’s twice what most hands earn.”

“Admit it,” Porter said to Jack. “You like the extra money as much as we do. So quit your belly-aching and get back to work.”

“What if those two Texas Rangers find us?”

“They’re in town, Jack,” Porter said. “We saw them in front of the livery, remember?”

“They could have followed us,” Jack sulked.

Brennan leaned on the shovel. “But they didn’t. We kept a sharp watch. No one knows we’re here except Mrs. Tanner and her son.”

“And Seton,” Porter said. “Don’t forget Bart Seton.”

“Why she hired him on, I’ll never know,” Jack groused. “He hardly does a lick of work. Spends most of his time up at the house. And don’t tell me she’s giving him quilting lessons, neither.”

Porter glanced down the canyon. “One of these days that mouth of yours is going to get you shot. If Seton heard you say that, he would bed you down, permanent.”

“Bart Seton doesn’t scare me,” Jack declared.

“Then you are a natural-born fool,” Porter said. “Bart Seton would scare anyone with a lick of common sense.”

“Enough jawing,” Brennan said. “The sooner we fill those packs, the sooner we can head back to the ranch.”

Filled the packs with what? was the question on my mind. They had chipped quite a pile from the rock wall. Ore of some kind. Glittering streaks gave me a clue. Not yellow streaks, but grayish streaks.

Jack and Porter stepped to the wall and resumed chipping away. They were intent on what they were doing. Brennan had his back to me.

Straightening, I went around the bend. I made no attempt to hide. I strolled toward them as casually as you please. When I was an arm’s length from Brennan, I halted, leveled the scattergun, thumbed back both hammers, and smiled. “Howdy, boys.”

Brennan whirled so fast he almost dropped the shovel. Porter and Jack stopped swinging their picks and their jaws dropped down to their belts.

“Don’t let me interrupt,” I said. That close, the vein gleamed brightly. Not solid silver, but a rich vein nonetheless. It ran along the bottom of the wall from where Porter and Jack were standing for another twenty yards. Seven sizable pockets had previously been dug out.

“It can’t be!” Brennan blurted. “You’re dead.”

“No, you are.” I let him have a barrel full in the face. His head exploded like a melon. The stump of a neck and the body swayed, then pitched backward, the shovel clattering noisily. I swung the scattergun at the other two. “Who’s next?”

Jack and Porter threw their picks down and their arms into the air. “Don’t shoot, Parson!” Jack bleated. “Please don’t shoot!”

I circled so I was in front of them and far enough back that they couldn’t jump me. “I’m no Bible-thumper. My name is Lucius Stark.”

Porter’s eyes about bugged out. “Who did you say?”

“Are you hard of hearing?”

“Lucius Stark the Regulator?” Porter was horror-struck. He took a step back. “What do you want with us?”

“I need answers. Which one of you wants to go on living?” I did not say how long.

“I do!” Jack cried.

I emptied the second barrel into Porter. At that range the buckshot did not spread much. The blast lifted him off his feet and smashed him against the wall. As limp as an overcooked noodle, he oozed to the ground. His chest reminded me of chopped beef.

Jack had shrunk into a crouch with his arms over his head. “Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me!” he wailed.

“Stand up.”

Quaking like an aspen leaf, Jack obeyed. He mewed like a kitten when he saw me reloading.

“How long have the Tanners known about this silver vein?”

He glanced at Porter, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “I can’t rightly say. Months, I reckon.”

“How many months?” I prodded. “Think real hard.”

“The first I heard about it was four or five months ago. But others knew before me. The one you should ask is Ben Winslow, the LT foreman.”

“Could it have been eight months?” I recalled Hannah saying that her husband vanished about that time.

“I reckon it could.”

That tallied with the number of pockets if you counted the one they were digging. “The Tanners send some of you out here once a month for silver, is that how it goes?”

Jack had to think about it. “Now that you mention it, yes. But you keep saying the Tanners. It’s always Gerty who does it, as far as I know.”

“Lloyd didn’t know about the vein? Her son doesn’t, either?”

“I can’t speak for them. I’m only telling you what I know, and what I know is that Gerty always sends us.”

“Why was Everett Butcher murdered?”

“Was he?”

I took a half step and pointed the twin muzzles at his face. “You can join your friends right this instant if you want.”

“Honest, mister!” Jack squawked. “I heard about him going missing, sure. But no one ever said he was murdered.”

“Were you in on killing the rest of the Butchers?”

He tried. He looked right at me and spoke much as Moses must have when he came down from Mt. Sinai with those tablets. “As God is my witness, I had nothing to do with it.”

“How many hands were with her?”

“Only a few.”

Two lies. I was sure then. But I had a few more questions. “Why doesn’t Gertrude file a claim on this silver? Why keep it secret?”

“You would have to ask her.”

Although I pretty much had the next answer figured out, I asked anyway. “What does the ore have to do with accusing the Butchers of being cow thieves?”

“Again, you would have to ask Gerty.”

“I will,” I informed him. When the time came. Right now I lowered the scattergun as if I had changed my mind, but I did not lower it all the way.

Jack’s relief was amusing. He sought to gild the cage by saying, “Listen. I won’t say a word about you shooting Brennan and Porter. I’ll get on my horse and ride out of the valley and never come back. I swear on my ma’s grave.”

He should not have mentioned graves. I blew off his right foot. He screamed as he fell and flopped about like a fish out of water, only a lot worse, caterwauling like a gutted wildcat all the while. I put up with as much as I could, then walked up to him and rapped him on the noggin. He was only out for a few minutes. In that time I went through the pockets of his friends. It proved profitable. Porter had sixty-five dollars on him; Brennan had over a hundred.

Two of their horses had run off. I didn’t mind. It fit with my plan. The remaining horse and the mule I added to the string behind the mare.

Jack stirred and opened his eyes. He looked about him, his eyes glazed, uncomprehending until he saw the blood. “Oh God!” he wailed, and blubbered like an infant.

My shadow fell across him and he jerked back in terror.

“Who did the girl?”

“What?” He was shaking so bad, his teeth were chattering.

“Calm down and concentrate. Which one of you raped and killed Daisy Butcher?”

“I told you, I wasn’t there.”

I blew off his left foot. This time I let him thrash and convulse until he lay spent and whimpering. Then I stomped on his left arm to get his attention. “Once more. Who raped Daisy Butcher?”

Tears flowed down his cheeks. He broke into great, racking, pathetic sobs. “Why won’t you believe me?”

“Because you’re a lying son of a bitch.”

He had a shred of spunk left. “You have no right!” he shrieked.

“I do it because I can, boy, and that’s all the right I need.”

Jack’s brow puckered and he blinked tears away. “I don’t understand.”

“We’re born with the right to do as we please. But those who run things don’t want that because if we do as we please, we upset their apple cart. So they make laws that say we can’t do as we please, and if we break those laws, they send tin stars after us to blow out our wicks.”

The loss of blood had turned him pale and weak. “I never thought of it like that.” He gave his head a vigorous shake. “I feel sleepy.”

“That’s normal.”

“Finish me,” he pleaded.

“There’s no rush.” I stepped back and hunkered. The key now was to keep him aware. New pain would serve, and he had a lot of body left.

His eyes swiveled toward me. “Right or not right, how can you do this to someone?”

“I told you. I don’t live by the same rules as everyone else. But then, you don’t entirely live by them yourself, or you wouldn’t have helped Gertrude Tanner wipe out an innocent family.”

“They were rustlers!”

“No, boy, they weren’t. She lied to you just as you’ve lied to me. And lies always come back to bite us in the ass.”

“Please end it. I can’t take any more.”

“Sure you can. I’ve whittled on some for hours. You, I figure it will be thirty minutes yet before the loss of blood sends you to hell, where you belong. Between now and then I can do a lot of whittling.”

“What do I have to do? Beg?”

“It would go in one ear and out the other.” I hefted my knife.

He grasped at a straw and it was a good one. “What if I told you where Gerty keeps the silver she hasn’t shipped off on the stage yet? Would you give your word to get it over with quick?”

I kept my word.