Snake River Slaughter

Chapter Twenty-five

Awakening fairly early this morning, Matt got out of bed and went downstairs, then stepped out onto porch even as a rooster began crowing. To the east, the rising sun was an orange-red ball just clearing the rounded domes of the Bruneau Dunes and touching the Snake River to turn it into a flowing stream of molten gold. He watched as the hands hitched a team to a wagon, then began loading it with hay. It took about ten minutes to load the wagon, then he watched as Jake and Crack started driving down to the field where the saddle horses were gathered for shipment to the army.

He could smell the aroma of bacon and biscuits coming from the cook house, and recalling the season he had worked as a cowboy in Wyoming, he almost wished that he was staying in the bunkhouse with the other men, rather than in the too elegant and too soft bedroom upstairs.

From behind him, he heard Maria, the house cook at work, preparing breakfast. The aroma of brewing coffee drifted out onto the porch, and that caused him to go back inside and step into the kitchen.

“The coffee smells good,” Matt said.

“Señor, if you go into the dining room, I will bring you a cup of coffee,” the cook offered.

Matt chuckled. “Maria, you have a very good way of getting unwanted people out of your kitchen,” he said. “I will get out of your way and, thank you, yes, I would love a cup of coffee.”

“Oh, Señor, now you make me feel bad,” Maria said.

“Do you mean I make you feel bad because you actually do want me to stay in your kitchen?”

“No, Señor. I do want you out of my kitchen,” Maria answered. “But you make me feel bad because you know that I want you out.”

Matt laughed, then went into the dining room to wait for his cup of coffee.

Upstairs, the cock’s crow had awakened Kitty, but she had not yet gotten out of bed. She stretched, then looked at the patterns formed by the shadows cast on the wall by the morning sun as it peeped through the aspen tree that grew just outside her bedroom window. The tree limbs were moving gently in compliance with a soft early morning breeze, and she could track their movement across the wall.

Through the open window, she could hear the men talking, and even though it had been very late when she was finally able to go to sleep last night, she felt a sense of guilt knowing that she was still in bed while the men who worked for her were already at work.

It had now been a little over a month since the last rustlers had hit Coventry, and ten days since Poke Terrell was killed. Clearly, with that evil man gone, and with all shipment horses safely confined in one field, the worst was over. It had been a peaceful ten days, and now, for the first time, Kitty was beginning to feel confident that she was going to get her horses to market in Chicago. Nevertheless she wanted to keep Matt around until the horses had been safely delivered.

The question she had asked Matt last night had been interrupted, and the opportunity to ask it had never repeated itself. This morning, upon reflection, she was glad that she had not been able to ask it again. Deep down inside she knew what the answer would be, she knew that he would tell her that he was going to be moving on, and she didn’t want to actually hear it expressed. She knew inherently that no deeper relationship between them was ever going to happen. Matt Jensen was not the kind of man who could settle down, and it would be like caging a wild bird and if she tried. Besides, if he did settle down, it might very well kill that which she loved most about him.

On the other hand, only two days remained until she could load the horses onto the train. Then she and Matt would share a private car all the way to Chicago. If that was all of Matt Jensen she could get, she would take it with gratitude for the opportunity.

Smiling at that pleasant thought, she got out of bed and dressed to go down to breakfast.

“Well, good morning,” Matt said, lifting his cup of coffee in greeting.

“Good morning yourself,” Kitty answered. “Did you get up with the chickens?”

“What do you mean get up with the chickens?” Matt replied. “Who do you think woke the rooster up this morning?”

Frederica came into the dining room with a cup of coffee which she handed to Kitty.

“Uhmm, thanks, Frederica,” she added. “Does Maria know I am up?”

“Si, Señora.”

“Did you sleep well?” Matt asked, as Kitty took her first swallow of coffee.

“Yes, I slept like a log,” Kitty lied.

“Señora, Maria has breakfast ready. I can serve you and Señor Yensen now if you want,” Frederica said, returning to the dining room.

“Yes, thank you, Frederica,” Kitty replied.

“Are you ready for Chicago?” Matt asked.

“Oh, yes,” Kitty answered. “Not just because I will be able to sell the horses, but because I’ve never been to a city that big. Actually, I’ve never been to any big city. Oh, Matt, can we stay for a few days to just visit?”

“When do you have to pay off the loan?”

“I have to pay the bank by the fourth of July.”

“That’s not for two more weeks,” Matt said. “Sure, we can spend some time in Chicago.”

Jake and Crack drove the wagon up to the five-acre field, then stopped.

“Where are the damn horses?” Jake asked. “Hell, last night they filled the field. Now I don’t see a damn one.”

“They’re prob’ly all gathered around the creek. We just can’t see them because they’re below the rise,” Crack said.

Jake stood up in the wagon, put his fingers to his mouth, and let out a loud, piercing whistle.

He got no response.

“Even if they were below the rise, I should be able to see ’em by standin’ up here on the wagon seat like this.”

“Drive on up there, Crack,” Jake said.

Crack slapped the reins against the back of the team and the wagon lurched forward. When they reached the crest of the rise, they not only saw that all the horses were, indeed, gone, they saw why they were gone.

“The damn fence fell down,” Crack said.

“Fell down hell. Look at it. It was took down,” Jake said.

Matt and Kitty were still at their breakfast and making plans for the trip to Chicago when Tyrone Canfield stepped into the dining room.

“Good morning, Tyrone,” Kitty greeted, smiling at her foreman. “Have the men recovered from the party last night? I hope they had as good a time as I did.”

Kitty’s smile left when she saw the expression on Tyrone’s face.

“Tyrone, what is it?” she asked. “What is wrong?”

“They’re gone, Mrs. Wellington,” Tyrone said.

“Who’s gone?” she asked. “Good heavens, are you talking about the men? Where have they gone?”

“No not the men,” Tyrone said. “The horses we put together to ship to Chicago. They are what is gone. Ever’ last damn one of them.”

“But that can’t possibly be,” Kitty said. “Five hundred horses? Not even the rustlers ever took that many.”

“Five hundred and twenty-three to be exact. When Jake and Crack went out to take some hay to ’em this mornin’, there weren’t none of them there. At first, I thought maybe they might have found a break in the fence, and just wandered back out into the field. But I went down to have a closer look at the field. The fence at the south end of the field? The one we put up yesterday? It hadn’t just been broke through by the horses. The fence had been taken down.”

“Tyrone, I noticed Asa riding out this morning,” Matt said. “Is he the one who discovered it?”

“No,” Tyrone answered. “Well, the thing is, I don’t know if Asa saw that the horses was gone or not. Even if he had, he prob’ly wouldn’t of told us. I fired Asa this morning.”

“You fired him?” Kitty said.

“Yes, ma’am. You remember, Mrs. Wellington, you give me the authority to hire and fire. Asa needed firin’.” Tyrone gave no explanation as to why he fired him.

“You are right,” Kitty said. “I did give you the authority, so I won’t question it now. If you fired him, I’m sure you had a good reason.”

“Yes, ma’am, I did.”

“Tyrone, is it possible that Asa might have taken the fence down, then run the horses back out onto the range in anger over being fired?” Matt asked.

“I wish that was it, Matt, then all we would have to do is round ’em up again,” Tyrone replied. “But the truth is, he rode off no more than a couple of minutes before Jake and Crack did. He wouldn’t have had time to take the fence down and run off all the horses before Jake and Crack got there. No, sir, these horses was stole.”

“Rustlers?” Kitty said in a distressed voice. “I thought with Poke Terrell gone, that we were through with rustlers.” She sighed, then sunk back in her chair. “Oh, Matt, what am I going to do?” she asked. “That was more than half of my saddle horses. I don’t have enough left to meet the terms of the army contract.”

“I’m sorry Mrs. Wellington,” Tyrone said, contritely. “I should have put some night riders out. But there hadn’t been nothin’ happen for more than a month now, and what with Poke Terrell dead, well, like you, I just sort of figured that we wouldn’t be havin’ no more trouble.”

“No, no, Tyrone, you mustn’t blame yourself. It isn’t your fault. If I had thought we needed night riders, I would have asked you to put them out.”

“But you shouldn’t have had to ask me, Mrs. Wellington, that’s the point,” Tyrone said. “I’m the foreman, it’s my job to look after things like that.”

“Don’t worry about it, either one of you,” Matt said. “I’ll find the horses and we’ll get them back.”

“How are you going to find them?” Kitty asked with a sense of defeat. “This isn’t the first time we’ve had horses stolen and we’ve never been able to get them back before.”

“They’ve never stolen this many before,” Matt said. “This time they took over five hundred horses. That’s going to be a lot harder for them handle.”

“But there is no telling where the horses are now,” Kitty said.

“It doesn’t matter where they are now. I’ll get them back,” Matt insisted.

“Matt, I know you are just trying to make me feel better. But I don’t see how you are going to find them.”

“I know you have some wonderful horses, Kitty. But they can’t fly, can they?”

“Fly? No, of course not.”

“Since they can’t fly, they are going to have to go over the ground and that means they will leave a trail,” Matt said. “And there are five hundred of them, which means the trail is going to be as easy to read as if the rustlers left arrows painted on the ground.”

“Yes,” Kitty said, brightening a little. “Yes, I guess that is right, isn’t it?”

“They can’t have that big of a lead on me, and with five hundred horses to drive, it’s going to slow them down. I don’t think it’ll take more than a couple of hours for me to find them.”

“What are you going to do when you do find them?” Kitty asked.

“I’ll bring them back.”

“You can’t drive five hundred horses all by yourself,” Tyrone said. “We’ll come with you.”

“No,” Matt said. “Get the men ready. Once I find the horses, I’ll need them. But for now I don’t want you to come with me. Too many men along with me will make it harder to track.”

“What if there are people watching over the horses when you find them?”

“They won’t be watching over them long,” Matt said.

“Sure they will. If they’ve gone to all the trouble of stealin’ ’em, they aren’t goin’ to just leave ’em somewhere without watchin’ over ’em,” Tyrone said. Then, he suddenly realized what Matt was implying.

“Oh,” he said. “Oh, I see what you mean. But, in that case, I would think you would want some help.”

Matt shook his head. “Tyrone, this is what I do,” he said. “I don’t want to get you or any of your men killed, and I don’t want to be worrying about you and the men because that might take my mind off what I’m doing and get me killed. Do you understand?”

Tyrone nodded. “Yeah, I reckon I do,” he said.

“Good. You just have the men ready to come bring the horses back, once I have recovered them.”

“All right, Matt, whatever you say,” Tyrone said resolutely.