Dakota Ambush

Chapter Five

At that moment, five miles out of town, Ian McCann, his son Leo, and McCann’s two hands, Curly Dobbins and Slim Toomey, were moving thirty head of cattle along the Fullerton and Ellendale road when they approached a barrier—a gate that was stretched across the road. Leo, who was in front, stopped.

“What is it, boy? What did you stop for?” Ian called up to his son.

“Pa, the road is blocked!” Leo shouted back.

“What do you mean, blocked?”

“There’s a gate acrost it!”

“Dobbins, Toomey, you two boys watch the animals,” Ian said to his two riders, then, slapping his legs against the side of his horse, Ian rode past the little group of cows until he reached the front and saw the gate. There were two men standing in front of the gate.

“I’ll be damned,” he said. “What the hell is this, anyway?”

“What does it look like? It is a tollgate,” one of the men said.

“Who are you?” Ian asked.

“The name is Bleeker. I’m in charge of the toll-gate. You want to pass this way, you are going to have to pay a toll.”

“What are you talking about? This ain’t no toll road. I’ve done come this way dozens of times. It’s a public road.”

“It passes through Denbigh land. That makes it a toll road,” Bleeker said.

“All right. How much are you talking about?”

“A dollar each for each one of you, and a dollar for each of the critters that pass through. Except your horses. We won’t charge you nothin’ for the horses,” Bleeker added with an unpleasant laugh. The other rider laughed with him.

“Mister, are you out of your mind? I’ve got thirty cows and four men here. You’re saying you want thirty-four dollars. I don’t have that much money and I wouldn’t give it to you if I had it.”

“We can work something out,” Bleeker said.

“Like what?”

“We’ll take three of your cows.”

“I’m getting twenty dollars a head for these animals from the Indian agent in Fullerton. That would be sixty dollars.”

“Yeah, well, you ain’t exactly in Fullerton now, are you? You are on Denbigh land. Here, your cows are worth ten dollars a head, and that means you are getting a bargain. You owe us thirty-four dollars, but I’m willin’ to take thirty.”

Ian shook his head. “The hell you are. We’ll just find some other way.”

“Too late,” Bleeker said.

“What do you man, too late?”

“You don’t understand. You’ve done come this far on Lord Denbigh’s road. That means you already owe thirty-four dollars whether you go through the gate or not.”

“You’re crazy. I’m not going to pay you thirty-four dollars, and I’m not going to give you three cows.”

Suddenly and unexpectedly, Bleeker drew his pistol.

“What the hell, mister!” Ian shouted in fear. “We ain’t neither one of us armed!”

Bleeker pointed his pistol at the head of one of the cows and pulled the trigger. The cow dropped, and the others began bawling and milling about in fright, and if it had not been for Dobbins and Toomey, they might have scattered.

“If you had been reasonable about it, you could have given us three cows and gone on. Now it’s still going to cost you three cows, plus the one you just lost.”

“You’re crazy!”

“Shall we cut out the three cows? Or do you want to choose?” Bleeker asked.

“I told you, I’m not giving you three cows!”

Bleeker shot a second cow and once again, Dobbins and Toomey had to move quickly to control the remaining cows.

“Stop it!” Ian shouted. “For the love of God, man, what are you doing?”

“By your reckoning, you have just lost forty dollars, all because you would not pay the thirty-four dollars toll. Now, do I shoot another one? Or do you give up three cows?” Bleeker asked.

“Yes, yes, take them! Take them and be damned!” Ian said.

“Twenty-five head?” the Indian agent said when McCann brought in his herd. “I thought we agreed upon thirty head.”

“I had thirty head when we left home,” Ian said. He explained the run-in with Bleeker.

“Ah, yes, he works for Nigel Denbigh,” the Indian agent said. “That explains everything.”

“It explains nothing,” Ian replied in frustration. “Who the hell is this Denbigh anyway? And what gives him the right to collect tolls on a public road?”

“You could say, I suppose, that might gives him the right,” the Indian agent said. “Right now, he is not only the biggest and wealthiest rancher in this part of Dakota, but he also has the biggest army.”

“Biggest army?”

“Yes. You would have to go all the way back to Fort Lincoln to find more men under arms than Lord Denbigh has on his ranch.”

“Lord Denbigh?”

The Indian agent chuckled. “He’s from England,” he said. “I take it that over there he’s a lord or some such thing.”

“Yeah, well I don’t like it,” McCann said. “I don’t like it one little bit. That son of a bitch cost me one hundred dollars today.”

Prestonshire on Elm, the Denbigh Ranch, Dickey County, Dakota Territory

The bane of Elm Valley, in fact the curse of all of Dickey County, was Lord Nigel Cordell Denbigh, 6th Marquess of Prestonshire. Denbigh was a tall, slender man who was always fastidiously dressed. He kept his hair, which was brown and graying at the temples, perfectly coiffed, and his pencil-thin mustache well trimmed. The women of his social set back in England all agreed that he was handsome, though they also added that he was flawed in some way, rather like a stem of fine crystal, with a small imperfection that at first glance couldn’t be seen. The more one saw of Denbigh, though, the more the imperfection, not of physical form, but of personal character, became evident.

It was because of that imperfection that Denbigh had been asked by his family to leave England. Having been challenged to a duel by a jealous husband, Denbigh exercised his right to choose weapons, selecting a dueling pistol. Most duels fought among gentlemen used the rapier, the reason being that the duels were rarely, if ever, fatal. It was understood among members of the peerage that the application of a dueling scar would be enough to satisfy the honor of the aggrieved. Using a dueling pistol turned the duel from a gentlemen’s event to an act of murder by code.

Because of that, few gentlemen were skilled in the use of the dueling pistol. Denbigh, however, practiced constantly with the pistol, and on the day of the duel, killed his adversary, Lord Cedric Belford, with one well-placed shot. Denbigh was ostracized, not only for compromising Belford’s wife, but also for taking unfair advantage of his prowess with a particular weapon when he was rightfully called to account. Wanting to avoid further embarrassment to the family, not only from the untidy effects of the duel, but from his other scandals as well, involving seduction, slander, betrayal, and personal greed, Denbigh was asked to leave England.

The pain of his departure was eased, however, by the provision of several thousand acres of land on the Elm River in the Dakota Territory, U.S.A., as well as a very generous yearly stipend. He had arrived in New York approximately two years earlier, accompanied by his manservant Tolliver and carrying a grip with thirty-five thousand pounds sterling. He was pleasantly surprised when he discovered that after the monetary exchange, he wound up with over a half million U.S. dollars.

At first, Denbigh had been bitter and angry about the expulsion, but as he grew more acclimated to the situation, he came to the belief that his being sent to the United States was the best thing that could possibly happen to him. He soon realized that he could have much more power, influence, and wealth here than he ever could back in England. Giving his ranch the grandiose name of Preston-shire on Elm, he began to expand his holdings, buying out land adjacent to his own until his ranch surrounded the only road into the town of Fuller-ton. Then, realizing it would take a veritable army to run his fiefdom, he began hiring men, not only workers for his ranch, but men with whom he could form his own militia.

For the moment, his rather large army was a drain on his resources, though he had so much money that he was in no danger of running out anytime soon. But despite the fact his private militia was costing him money, they paid their way by virtue of not only establishing but extending his personal power. And he also knew that they would, when all his plans were put into operation, pay for themselves.

It was Denbigh’s dream—though it was a dream that so far he had shared with no one—to carve out a large, feudal estate, encompassing all the farms and ranches in the entire valley into his sphere of control, assimilating the land as his own, and employing the small landowners as serfs, beholden only to him. At the moment, he was examining a map of the valley with certain areas marked off, land that he owned, and land that he planned to acquire by whatever means possible.

He heard a discreet cough from behind him.

“Yes, Mr. Tolliver, what is it?”

Henry Tolliver, a short and rather rotund man with a bald head and protruding lips, was Denbigh’s personal valet, the son, grandson, and great-grandson of maids and valets who had served the Denbigh family for nearly one hundred years. Tolliver had come to America with Denbigh.

“M’lord, Mr. Butrum wishes an audience,” Tolliver said.

Butrum was one of the latest men to join his militia, Denbigh hiring him after reading an article in the San Francisco newspaper describing him as: “With a pistol, faster than thought, and in disposition, a man who can kill without compunction.” As of now, Butrum was Denbigh’s highest-paid employee.

Denbigh chuckled at the distaste Tolliver had for Butrum, most clearly demonstrated by the tone in his voice.

“Mr. Tolliver, why do I get the impression that you don’t much like Mr. Butrum?”

“Perhaps, sir, it is because I do not like the man,” Tolliver said.

“Why not?

“I find his demeanor most unpleasant.”

“He kills people for a living, Mr. Tolliver,” Denbigh said. “Someone who kills for a living can hardly be expected to have a very pleasant disposition now, can he?”

“No, sir,” Tolliver replied.

“Henry, I find our Mr. Butrum unpleasant as well,” Denbigh said, softening his words. “Not only Butrum, but every one of these cowboys, those who work for me and those who don’t. You have to understand that they are not like you and me. Whereas we have generations of culture bred into us, these men are wild and uncouth, little more than animals really. But for now, I need them. I find myself in the unusual position of being dependent upon those who are far inferior. Now, if you would, please show Mr. Butrum into the study.”

“Yes, m’lord,” Tolliver replied.

Tolliver left the room and as he did so, Denbigh rolled up the map that he had been examining so that Butrum could not see it. He did not believe that Butrum was intelligent enough to discern the meaning of a map marked out with crosshatches, but he had no wish to discuss the matter with him.

Ollie Butrum had buck teeth, eyes so pale a blue that they were almost colorless, pale skin, and yellow hair. In a world of gentlemen, he would be marginalized, not only for his innate ugliness, but also because of his intelligence, which was minimal, and his demeanor, the antitheses of the proper etiquette and decorum that so occupied the world in which Denbigh was raised.

But the Dakota Territory was not a world of gentlemen, and if a gentleman wanted to survive in this world, he needed an ally like Butrum, either as a friend, or better in this case, as a loyal and subservient employee.

“Mr. Denbigh,” Butrum started.

Denbigh said nothing, but held up his finger.

“I mean Lord Denbigh,” Butrum corrected.

“Yes, Mr. Butrum, what is it?”

“The paper come out again.”

“I expected that it would,” Denbigh said. “Though he is a thorn in my side, one must confess that John Bryce has more courage than the rest of the town combined. He wrote another scathing article about me, I suppose.”

“Scathing?”

“Bad.”

“Yes, sir, he did,” Butrum said. “But that ain’t all he wrote.”

“Oh? What else did he write about me.”

“Well, nothin’ else in the newspaper, but he did write a letter to someone and Clem Dawson, the fella that works down at the post office, he copied it down.”

“Did he now? And where is the copy of the letter Bryce wrote?”

“I’ve got it,” Butrum said. “Dawson give it to me ’cause he thought you might want to see it.”

Denbigh took the letter from Butrum and began to read.

As Denbigh read the letter, doing so silently, Butrum walked over to the liquor cabinet to examine its contents. The cabinet was filled with bottles of various wines, liqueurs, and whiskeys. He started to reach for one of the bottles, but was stopped by Tolliver.

“The liquor in this cabinet is not to be touched, sir,” Tolliver said. “That is a reserved cache.”

“There is some rye whiskey in the cabinet, Mr. Tolliver,” Denbigh said, not even looking up from the letter he was reading. “You may serve that to Mr. Butrum.”

“Yes, sir.”

Tolliver poured a glass of the rye whiskey, turning his nose up slightly at the aroma. Butrum took the glass, tossed it down, then held the glass out for a second serving. Tolliver poured another drink, then looked over at Denbigh, who had finished the letter and was now deep in thought.

“Is something troubling you, sir?” Tolliver asked.

“Mr. Butrum, have you ever heard of Matt Jensen?”

“No, I ain’t,” Butrum said as he turned the glass to his lips.

“Have you, Mr. Tolliver?”

“Only what I have read,” Tolliver replied. “And from what I read, he must be quite a magnificent fellow.”

Denbigh chuckled. “I suppose that’s all in how you look at it,” he said. “If he is on your side, he is magnificent. But if he is against you, it could be quite troubling.”

“And is that likely to be the case, m’lord? Is Mr. Jensen likely to be against you?”

“If the newspaperman has his way, it might be.”

“I can take care of the newspaperman for you,” Butrum said. “And this time, there won’t be no comin’ back the way he did after Slater and the others did their little job.”

“No, that’s all right. We’ll let him be for a while.”

“Whatever you say. You’re the boss,” Butrum said. His voice had the high-pitched quality that was common in very small people.

“Don’t leave just yet,” Denbigh said. Pulling a piece of paper from his desk, he began to write. “See to it that this telegram is sent, will you?”

“Yes, sir,” Butrum said.

After Butrum left, Denbigh returned to his map and began studying it again, though this time his mind was on something else. He was thinking about the man to whom he had just sent the telegram.

Lucas Meacham.

Denbigh had employed Meacham’s services once before, and if there was anyone he had ever met, or even heard about, who was more deadly than Ollie Butrum, it was this man.

Meacham had once killed an entire family for Denbigh—father, mother, four kids, and a grandmother thrown in for good measure. He had a reputation for being deadly accurate with his shooting, and absolutely merciless with his killing. And though Denbigh had never met Matt Jensen, he knew it was going to take someone like Lucas Meacham to make certain that Jensen did not become a problem for him.