Way of the Gun (9781101597804) (23 page)

As a precaution, he had left nothing he really needed back in the lumber camp, so he felt it unnecessary to return. It would be easier to part company right away, as far as he was concerned, so he said his farewells that night. And when morning came, he was already gone.

Chapter 12

Millie Cain stood with her sister and brother-in-law beside the graves of her father and elder brother, her face a mask of vengeful determination, her eyes dry of tears, as she watched Mule and Shorty filling in the graves. She only glanced at her sister for a moment, when Nancy began to sob anew, her gaze turned then toward her younger brother when Lucas grabbed a shovel and began helping to cover the bodies.
All that's left of the men of the Cain family,
she thought, a terrible burden to place upon the shoulders of one so young. At least Frank was there. His was not the strength of her father and Justin, but he could be depended upon to stand and fight, unlike those who had deserted Mathew Cain when he most needed their support.
I wish I had been there,
she thought as she went over the accounting of it in her mind.

Thinking of that fatal day, she knew that there had been no way to convince her father to let Justin and the men handle it. It was not in Mathew Cain's nature to sit safely by the fire when outlaws threatened his range. He had insisted upon leading the party that rode after the rustlers who made off with around five hundred M/C cattle. He and Justin, along with four of the men, headed straight for the Musselshell River, knowing full well they would find the missing portion of the herd on the old Bar-T range. It had been over a year since Lon Tuttle had been found hanging by the neck in his barn. The man who supposedly found him was Tuttle's foreman, Tom Castor, who surmised that his boss had taken his own life. Mysteriously, a man Tuttle had supposedly fired returned to help Castor run the ranch. Shorty said the man's name was Duke Slayton, and he brought men with him, one who wore an eye patch. A few weeks later, reports reached them that Castor had been killed when he came off a bucking horse and broke his neck.
An awful lot of bad luck,
she had thought with some suspicion.

She gazed at Lucas as he worked steadily with the shovel, hoping the labor would keep his tears from flowing. Unconsciously, she let her hand drop to rest on the handle of the .44 Colt she now wore constantly. She, unlike her sister, Nancy, was prepared to go to war—and there was no doubt in her mind that this was a war. This demon, Duke Slayton, had succeeded in taking over Lon Tuttle's spread, and was surely planning the same for the M/C. There was no choice but to fight for what her father had built. She was sending Lucas to Big Timber to telegraph the governor of the territory and the federal marshal just as soon as the funeral was over, but she knew help from them would be too long in coming. Still, it was the right thing to do, to notify the law, and it would also remove Lucas from danger. She knew that he would have been a help in defending their home, but if he should fall to the same fate as his father and brother, it would be the end of the Cain line of males.

Duke Slayton would come. She was certain of that, for there seemed to be too few to stop him from pillaging the M/C, just as he had taken the Bar-T. And he had to feel secure in the knowledge that he had already eliminated the strength of the M/C.
Well, it's not going to be such an easy time of it,
she promised herself. She looked at the men standing respectfully around the graves, and felt confident that the defense of her home was not going to be like the ambush that took her father and Justin. She recreated the scene in her mind, as Shorty had related it. Duke Slayton had been waiting for them, knowing Mathew Cain would come after his cattle. The ambush had been well planned, with riflemen hidden in the rocks on both sides of a wide ravine. When the shooting started, every gun seemed to have been aimed at her father and Justin. They fell immediately. Shorty said there must have been half a dozen bullet holes in each one of them. He took cover in a narrow gully and yelled for Pruett Little to find a place to shoot from on the other side, but Pruett and the other two took off, leaving Shorty, Mule, and Clem to fend for themselves. “The last I saw of that coward was his big ass flattened on his horse's neck, flyin' out the mouth of that ravine,” Shorty had said. “The good Lord was lookin' out for me on that day. I don't know why, 'cause I ain't ever done nothin' to catch His eye. I know them bastards up on the sides of that ravine knew it was gonna cost 'em to root the three of us outta that gully. I guess they figured we wasn't worth the risk. We got the horses in there with us and waited till dark. Then we got Justin and Mr. Cain across their saddles and rode outta there.”

When the graves were filled, Millie thanked Mule, Clem, and Shorty for their loyalty and they humbly responded. “It'll be getting dark pretty soon,” she said. “So, Lucas, you'd best saddle up and get started.”

“I don't know, Millie,” Lucas protested. “I think I'll do more good if I stay here. It ain't gonna do no good waitin' for the law to do anything.”

“You need to go,” Millie said. “It's important to let the law know what's been going on here. I'd send Lizzie's boy, but he's too young.”

“Millie's right, Lucas,” Shorty told him, knowing why she didn't want him there. “It's important to let them know.” Lucas went reluctantly to the barn to saddle up.

Next she turned to Frank. “Shorty and I think we need to get ready for a visit, and more than likely it'll be tonight. I don't know why they've waited this long. We figure it won't be like an Indian raid. We're not going to worry about them trying to run the horses off, or stealing cattle. They're coming to get rid of us first. Then they won't have to worry about the rest. What do you think? Is that about the way you figure it?” She didn't really care what his thoughts were at this point, for she relied more on Shorty's, but she asked his opinion for his and Nancy's sake. He replied that he agreed. It was what he was thinking best to do.

The question now was where to put their strength. Should they basically defend the house or the barn, or both? Millie was reluctant to lose either. And how many would come against them? Shorty said as best he could determine there were at least eight or ten firing from the sides of that ravine. When she asked for opinions, Mule was the first to respond. “There's a lot of blind spots in the barn,” he pointed out. “Might be easy for somebody to sneak in without us seein' 'em.”

“Mule's right,” Clem said. “We might need at least four good shooters, one on each corner.”

“Well, you three are the best shots,” Millie said. “Maybe you should be in the barn. If we put one more with you, that doesn't leave much but Frank to defend the house.”

At that point, Lizzie spoke up. “You give me gun. By God, they not gonna take my kitchen. I'll give dem a load of buckshot.”

Her comment caused Nancy to speak as well. “I know how to use a gun. Frank and I can defend the house with Lizzie.” Her statement was followed by one from Lizzie's young son, Karl, who pointed out that he was a good shot with his .22 Remington when it came to rabbits and squirrels. In number, they could therefore have four in the barn and four in the house, but they finally decided to send Karl to the barn, and Millie would post herself in the house. Shorty suggested that he and Clem should ride out to the north ridge to keep a lookout until Lizzie called them in to eat. Then they would go to their respective posts and wait for whatever might come during the night.

The night passed peacefully, with no visits from the gang of outlaws who had taken over the Bar-T, and when morning broke, it was to find eight weary souls to greet the light of day. Millie went down to the barn to tell Shorty and the others that Lizzie would soon have some breakfast for them. “I sure thought that bunch of bushwhackers would come sneakin' around here last night,” Shorty said. “Reckon maybe they ain't plannin' on hittin' us after all? Maybe they figure it ain't worth the risk of gettin' shot at.”

“I don't know,” Millie said, equally surprised. “Maybe they want us to think they're not coming after us, and they'll hit us when we aren't prepared.”

“Maybe so,” Mule commented. “That's why I think we'd best keep waitin' for 'em. And I don't think it'll be much longer, because they've got to think about the army or the law comin' down on 'em if they wait too long.” They were all agreed then, and took turns getting a few hours of sleep during the day. Just as before, when darkness fell, everyone went to their assigned posts to wait out the night.

* * *

Duke Slayton had been busy during the time since Lon Tuttle had ordered him off his ranch. Never one to limit his ambitions, he saw a quick and easy way to acquire the biggest herd in Montana Territory. With the scarcity of law in the territory, he saw no reason why he couldn't take cattle from the M/C and move them with Bar-T stock up to Canada where he would establish his ranch, free from U.S. marshals. It made sense to him, enough to encourage him to return to Wyoming to recruit a gang of outlaws to follow him. One of the first he encountered was Bad Eye, who was lying low in an old hideout of theirs near the Rattlesnake Mountains. Bad Eye wasn't the only felon on the run from the law at the hideout. Sid Perkins and his brother, Roy, were there as well, having been flushed out of Oklahoma Indian Territory by a posse of deputies from Fort Smith. Soon he picked up a couple more recruits who, like the Perkins brothers, were without prospects. In time, he had enlisted a sizable gang of men and considered himself ready to make his assault on the two ranches he had targeted, so he led his pack of assassins north to Montana.

Castor was easy. Duke didn't have to spend much time convincing Tuttle's foreman that he had a lot more to gain if Tuttle was out of the picture. Duke was especially pleased with himself for thinking up Tuttle's death as a suicide so word of a murder wouldn't spread through the territory. Once Tuttle was gone, Duke moved his men in, and after that, it was only logical to eliminate Castor. Duke wasn't interested in sharing command of his dynasty, and Castor was under the impression that this was their original agreement. With Carson Ryan out of the picture, and everything in place at last, the moment he had been waiting for was at hand. He was ready to wipe out all traces of Mathew Cain and his family.

* * *

Sid Perkins dropped to a knee beside Duke on the dark ridge to the east of the ranch house. “There's some of 'em in the barn,” Sid said. “Looks like they mighta split up.”

“I ain't surprised,” Duke said. “They knew I'd be comin' after 'em.”

“Why don't we just let 'em hole up in there, and we go after the cattle?” Sid asked. “If they try to stop us, we'll catch 'em comin' outta the house.” He was not opposed to wholesale murder, but he didn't quite see the sense in putting the house and barn under siege.

Duke quickly set him straight. “Because I want ever' last one of 'em dead,” he said. “Don't leave nobody to tell about it.”

Sid shrugged. “You're the boss,” he said. “Whaddaya wanna do?”

Feeling much like a general directing his troops, Duke issued the order for attack. “Go to the other side of the barn and tell Bad Eye I said to get his boys down there and root 'em outta there. Take them kerosene lanterns and throw 'em in the hayloft. Burn the bastards out into the open. Then we'll take care of the house.” He wanted the barn taken care of in order to surround the house without having to worry about someone shooting at them from the barn.

“I don't know . . . ,” Bad Eye responded when Sid relayed Duke's orders. Like Sid and some of the others, Bad Eye didn't understand Duke's obsession with destroying the M/C. He was more interested in stealing the cattle and horses and skedaddling across the line into Canada. “Well, hell, if that's what he wants to do, we'll try it,” he finally said.

Inside the darkened barn, near the front door, Clem Hastings squinted in an effort to see better. Then he issued a whispered shout. “There's somebody movin' in them cottonwoods by the creek.”

“Where?” Shorty asked, coming over from the opposite corner.

“Yonder,” Clem said, and pointed.

Shorty saw them then. There were now two figures moving stealthily from the shadows of the trees. Both men raised their rifles to train on the two shadows, but held their fire. “What the hell are they totin'?” Shorty asked. “Lanterns?” It was obvious then what their intentions were. “They're thinkin' 'bout burnin' us out, but there ain't no way they're gonna get that close. You take the one on the right. I'll take the other'n.”

Two rifle shots split the nighttime quiet, and the two lanterns dropped to the ground as the men carrying them crumpled beside them. Without waiting for orders from anyone, the remaining men in the cottonwood grove returned fire, doing little damage beyond ripping chunks of wood from the side of the barn. “Stop your damn shootin',” Bad Eye yelled. “You're just wastin' cartridges.” He turned to Sid then. “You and Roy get down there and grab them lanterns. Maybe you can get up to the middle of the barn where they can't get a bead on you.”

Sid exchanged glances with his brother, then told Bad Eye, “The hell you say. You want them lanterns, you go get 'em. I don't feel like commitin' suicide tonight.”

Bad Eye didn't reply, unable to think of what he should do, but he didn't plan to commit suicide, either. He needed Duke to tell him what to do. “I reckon we'll just wait and see if one of 'em sticks his head out,” he finally said.

On the ridge on the other side of the house, Duke waited impatiently, having heard the shooting at the barn. “What happened?” he asked one of the men closest to him. He had hoped to see the barn blazing by then.

“It's hard to see, but it looks like a couple of our boys got shot,” the man called back to Duke. “I reckon they were tryin' to sneak down to the barn.”

“Go tell Bad Eye that he's gonna have to take his men and charge that barn. If he don't, they're just gonna sit there all night. He's gonna have to charge 'em.”