I'm Off to Montana for to Throw the Hoolihan (Code of the West) (5 page)

“I musta. He ain’t shootin’ back. I blew that torch right out of his hands. Did you see that shot?”

“We all leaded him down pretty good. He’s got more holes than an old maid’s weddin’ dress.”

“Didn’t take us long to eliminate that gunslinger.”

“He ain’t much.”

“We ought to just blast that farmer.”

“Boss says we have to drive ’em out alive.”

“The boss ain’t here.”

“We cain’t leave this one up here, or someone will come lookin’ for him. Let’s pack his body down to the river. They’ll blame it on the Indians.”

“Light yourself a torch, Tennessee. Go see if he’s dead.”

“I ain’t lightin’ no torch and gettin’ myself shot, no sir.”

“But you said you nailed him.”

“Maybe he’s only mostly nailed. What if he has the strength to pull the trigger? You go check him out.”

“You boys are about as brave as the ladies’ missionary soc
iety.”

“We ain’t stupid.”

“And I ain’t goin’ to sit here sprawled in the brush until mornin’.”

“Okay, here goes,” one of them shouted. “I’ll jist hold this here torch in my hand.”

Mister, you aren’t goin’ to be within five feet of that light.

A sulfur match flared up. Some twigs began to burn about fifty yards straight in front of Tap. He didn’t shoot but aimed the rifle about five feet to the left of the flames.
Make your move, boys.

“I say he either hightailed it out of the country, or he’s la
ying there dead.”

“Let’s find his horses. We ought to make somethin’ out of this.”

“Spread out. We won’t find a thing all bunched up.”

Tap could hear boot heels breaking sticks, coming toward the horses. He waited near Roundhouse.

“I think them horses is over here, boys,” the man hollered.

A match flickered near Roundhouse’s rump, all that sep
arated Tap from the gunman. He jabbed the gray horse in the ribs with the butt of his rifle. His head tied to a tree, the big gelding whinnied and threw a hind-legged kick.

The match flicked to the mud and died as one hoof caught the man in the pit of the stomach. The other crashed into his shoulder. He tumbled backwards, and it was once again pitch dark.

“Tennessee? What happened? Where’s them horses?” a voice to the right shouted. “Tennessee?”

“That horse coldcocked him with a kick. I seen it from here. You cain’t sneak up on a horse in the dark.”

“Grab a torch and let’s find them horses. If that ol’ boy ain’t shot at us by now, he’s dead.”

Another match flared up. This time the man held the flicke
ring light far away from his body. “Here’s Tennessee in a mud puddle, sleepin’ like a baby. This horse’s got saddlebags stuffed full of possibles. Looks like I’m goin’ to get that steel-gray after all,” he hollered. The man never saw the rifle barrel swing out of the shadows. If he had been conscious when he tumbled to the ground between the horses, he would have seen Tap’s boot step on the dropped match.

The scene turned to complete darkness.

“Cow Town, is that you?”

“I’m to your left, Mase.”

“Donnie-Bill, are you at the horses? Donnie-Bill?”

“This ain’t good, Mase.”

“Donnie-Bill, where are you?”

“What if that gunslinger’s part Indian? Them Indians is sneaky. He looked sorta dark-skinned. That daughter of his was Indian for sure.”

“We should’ve finished ’em off down by the river.”

“Don’t want no part of shootin’ women and kids.”

“Well, someone got Donnie-Bill.”

“Maybe the horse kicked him too.”

The voices edged closer as Tap searched the ground around his boots. He found a short piece of wood about the size of his arm and tossed it into the dark on the far side of the creekbed.

“He’s tryin’ to get away.”

Revolvers roared. Flames flashed.

One gunman was no more than fifteen feet from Tap. On the third shot at the phantom enemy, the barrel of Tap’s rifle caught the back of the man’s skull and dropped him to the ground.

The other gun grew silent also.

“Mase?” came a whisper.

A year ago I would have shot all four of you without even stoppin’ to see who you were. Cow Town, you’re mighty lucky I’m a changed man.

“Mase, I’ll meet you at the horses,” came the rasping, hu
rried croak.

Your horses or mine?

From the sound of the steps in the night, Tap could tell that the one called Cow Town was retreating up the creekbed. Within a few minutes he heard a horse ride east.

At least he left you your horses, boys.

When Tap was convinced the rider was well in the distance, he lit a match and examined the men on the ground. All three were still unconscious, lying facedown in the mud, sticks, and leaves.
The Pothook-H must be mighty hard up to hire bushwhackers like you. Can’t figure you for a ranch crew.

Pulling his knife from his boot, Tap cut the suspenders on the first two men and tied their hands behind their backs. The third man didn’t have suspenders or a belt, but Tap di
scovered a large Bowie knife in a scabbard at the back neckline of the man’s soiled canvas jacket. He yanked out the buckhorn knife and then pulled the man’s coat up over his head, pinning it to the ground with the knife.

You might as well have a reminder of how close you came to gettin’ that blade. Providin’ you three don’t wake up in the dark and start blastin’ each other.

Tap mounted Roundhouse and rode up the creek.

And I was plannin’ on makin’ camp here. I have no idea where I’m headed. It’s too dark to trail. Too dark to ride. Cow Town rambled east, but there’s a canyon entrance to the north. The draft horse seemed to ride right up this dry creekbed. But that was before the drizzle. Even if there are some traces of tracks, I’m not going to read them until da
ylight.

He had gone less than a hundred yards when he thought he smelled smoke. He trailed the aroma across the cree
kbed to the north and into some sort of meadow. He lit a match and swung low to look at the ground.

A fire? This meadow’s been burned. Maybe lightnin’. But that isn’t meadow grass, is it?

Tap slipped down to the ground and lit another match. He plucked up a few stalks of tall plants that had escaped the fire.
Wheat? Someone’s farmin’ up here? The Quakers. Those boys said the Quakers got burned out at a place called Badger Crick or Badger Canyon, Badger something. At least the crops were burned out. Where’s the farmhouse?

Tap rode north across the burned field, as his nose led him t
oward the source of the smoke.

There’s a mouth of a small canyon up here somewhere.

The clouds began to break. A sliver of moonlight enabled him to see a few dark shadows of some structures ahead of him. A smoke column drifted up from a stovepipe protruding out of the big white canvas roof of a half-built log house. Next to it was a shed with no roof. A little corral behind the house held some stock. Tap spotted a couple draft horses among the other animals.

His rifle across his lap, he called out to the darkened tent, “Ho, in the cabin. I come in peace, brothers. Anyone home?”

There was no reply other than the sound of milling animals in the corral.

“Friends,” he called out, “I just waylaid some bushwhackers down the creek. I’m not one of them. Anyone in there I can talk to?”

Still no reply.

“Look, folks, I know you’re in there. Someone has been tendin’ the fire. I’m lookin’ for a good friend of mine named Lorenzo Odessa. I have reason to believe he was brought this way with a couple of big draft horses after his pony was shot up on Cedar Mesa.”

“Tap?” a voice called out from the tent.

“Lorenzo?”

“Just a minute—we’ll be right up.”

Up? Where are you? In a basement?

“Tap, did you say you killed them bushwhackers?”

“They’ll have some powerful headaches come mornin’, but I didn’t kill ’em.”

A deep masculine voice responded, “Praise the Almighty. You didn’t take a life.”

A bearded man in dark overalls opened the tent flap and peered out into the night. “Welcome, friend. I’m Ezra Miller.”

“And I’m Tap Andrews. I’m runnin’ the Slash-Bar-4. Odessa’s my foreman.”

The man turned to a boy about twelve who peeked out the canvas flap that served as a front door. “Peter, put Brother A
ndrews’s horses in the barn.”

“Don’t pull the saddles, son. I might need to ride in a hurry.”

“Are you sure it’s all right to light a lantern?” a woman’s voice asked.

“Yes, ma’am. Three of ’em are laying unconscious in the mud, and the fourth hightailed it for home.”

“Children, you stay down anyway,” ordered the woman.

Tap stayed at the tent flap until a lantern flickered into a dim glow in the large tent-topped building. He stepped i
nside. The right half of the room had carpets spread across the dirt and enough furniture crammed in it to open a mercantile. The left half of the tent was an eight-foot-deep hole, a dug-out room accessible by a small wooden ladder. A woman who looked to be in her thirties, dressed in a long black dress, climbed up first.

“Please excuse the rather bizarre accommodations, Brother A
ndrews,” the man explained. “Mrs. Miller will boil some coffee. You’ll have a bite to eat, won’t you?”

“I don’t want to inconvenience you none, ma’am.”

“Brother, if you don’t let her feed you, she’ll be depressed for a week.”

“In that case I’d love something to eat.” Tap studied the room, then called out, “Lorenzo.”

“I’m down here with the young’uns, Tap. My leg’s busted, and it takes me a spell to make it up the ladder.

“What’s goin’ on here?” Tap stepped over to help Odessa pull up into the main room. His right leg was splinted and wrapped in strips of a bed sheet.

“Let’s have a cup of coffee. I’ll try to explain what I know.”

Tap, Lorenzo, and Ezra Miller sat at a long, narrow oak table as Mrs. Miller hurried around the iron woodstove that served as coo
kstove as well.

“You get shot?”

“Nope. But let me take it from the beginning. When did you pull into the ranch?”

“Monday evenin’,” Tap reported.

“Monday mornin’ I’m ridin’ circle tryin’ to keep ’em bunched close to headquarters like you said, and I discovered tracks where a couple dozen head had been driven off.”

“Shod or unshod ponies?”

“They were wearing shoes, all right. Why?”

Tap realized how wet his clothes were as they steamed in the heat of the tent. “I ran across an Indian hoofprint out on the prairie.”

“Anyway,” Lorenzo continued, “I discovered some cows grazin’ up on that cedar mesa.”

“I gathered them yesterday,” Tap informed him.

“They was still there? Good. I couldn’t find a soul, so I began to round them up, and then a blast came out of the cedars and dropped my pony on top of my right leg. My knee hit the rocks. My dead bushytail parked his corpse right on top of me. I got my carbine and squeezed off a couple shots, but I was sufferin’ some terrible pain. There was no way I could pull that leg out from under the horse. I expected someone to come chargin’ out of the cedars to finish me off, but no one appeared.”

“They just rode off?”

“I reckon. I yanked on that horse for a couple hours. Finally I got desperate and fired a shot, tryin’ to attract someone’s attention.”

Ezra Miller stepped forward. “My son Peter and I were hun
ting logs and heard it.”

“Huntin’ logs?” Tap questioned.

“We’re building our cabin, but long, straight logs are hard to find around here.”

“So that’s why the draft horses—to pull logs home with.”

“Yes. We drug the horse off Brother Odessa and brought him to the farm.”

“These folks know how to doctor a man, Tap. Couldn’t have done better if I was in Dodge City.” Lorenzo patted his injured leg. “Ezra was going to drive me back to the ranch in their wagon, but some bushwhackers started throwing lead into the canyon. We were waitin’ it out.”

Tap pushed his hat back and wiped moisture from his bushy eyebrows. “I ran into this bunch down near the river yesterday mornin’. They claim to be ranch hands at some place called the Pothook-H.”

“I was told that ranch went under during the hard winter of ’79,” Ezra reported. “This land is open for homesteading now. According to the county records, the Pothook-H is abandoned.”

“Maybe someone thought our place was abandoned too. They left the ranch gate open and the front door of the house swingin’ wide.”

“They did what?” Lorenzo flipped his shaggy blond hair back out of his eyes.

“Someone opened the yard gate and the front door to the house. We had cows in the yard, on the porch, and in the house when we got there.”