Powder River (18 page)

Jack laughed. “A shotgun? You'd be better off with a rifle.”

“I'm not accurate as you. I feel better with this.” He tapped the gun with his foot.

“Who wrote this list?” Jack said. “Jimmy Anable tell you that?”

“They don't know who wrote it, but it's the names of people marked for death. Jimmy saw it with his own eyes.” Jimmy Anable was one of Sheriff Angus's deputies, as were, occasionally, the Allen brothers. “Your name's right at the top, just after Billy Sun's. Nate's up there high, too; I'm farther down. Jimmy said most of the boys are on it.”

“Where'd this list come from?”

Ranger raised his hands, palms up. “It turned up the other night at the Occidental. Somebody found it on the floor and took it to the sheriff. ‘Kill List' was right there at the top above the names. Could be someone dropped it on accident or—”

Jack interrupted “—left it on purpose, to get us running around like a bunch of old women.” Jack leaned over to rub the pup's yellow head. “Don't get your pants in a bunch, Ranger. It's bullshit, that's what it is. Some fool's idea of a joke. Forget it. I'll come by the house soon to see how you're getting along. Maybe me and Davey can help you with that floor.” Jack turned and picked his way to the boardwalk, cursing the mud that clung to his shiny boots.

Ranger called, “Jimmy said the writing could be Frank Canton's.”

Jack raised his hand over his shoulder but did not turn. Ranger's news had bothered him more than he let on.
What the hell
,
I could use a new gun. Maybe I'll pick one up before I leave town.

Jack left Buffalo on a Wednesday morning, the first day of December. He'd finished his business on Monday and spent Tuesday shopping for supplies and Christmas presents. He got a fine new coat for Sara—a green plaid because the color looked pretty with her red hair—and a toy drum for Davey. She wouldn't be happy but the boy was not ready for a gun, though Jack bought one for himself, a Winchester carbine. It felt good in his hands, well balanced and with a good heft but not too heavy. He put it at his feet in the wagon, just as Ranger had done. He thought he might be acting overly cautious, but what the hell. No one ever died of that.

The day was sunny and warm for December. Jack was in high spirits but maybe a little sorry he hadn't stopped by George Munkres's place for one of those yellow pups. Davey would love a pup, and it would be good for him to take responsibility for another living creature. Might help him grow up some. The boy still cried easily and had a worrisome habit of hiding behind his mother's apron strings, but Jack didn't fault him overmuch. Davey'd never had a pa around to show him how a man should act. Well, Jack would see to that.

He'd been on the road for several hours when he encountered Sigge Alquist, a fat, cheerful Swede who carried mail back and forth between Buffalo and settlers at the head of Powder River. Jack pulled his team off the road so the mail wagon could pass.

“Good to see you, Reshaw,” Alquist said. “I ain't seen another soul on this road for days. Damnedest thing.”

Jack took off his hat to wipe his brow. “Didn't you see Ranger Jones? He left two days before me, traveling this very road. He'd a been moving slow, had his wagon loaded down with lumber.”

“No, didn't see him. Haven't seen nobody. Like I said, it's peculiar.”

Jack felt a tickle of alarm. The road to Buffalo was well traveled, especially at this time of year. Alquist should have passed several teams along his route; certainly he should've seen Ranger.

“So how's things in town?” Alquist said. “Hoppin' I bet you. I read your letter in the
Bulletin
a while back
.
Haw! I reckon that shook 'em up some, and good for you, I say. You boys just keep stickin' it to 'em. Yep, that's what I say.” He slapped the reins down on the horses' backs and went rattling on his way. Jack moved his team back on the road, feeling uneasy.
Why didn't Alquist see Ranger? Where was everybody?

Jack was not making good time. His spring wagon was heavy and traveling no more than four miles per hour. He tried whistling, “Turkey in the Straw,” to keep his spirits up, but it didn't work. In fact, the sound was so thin and small it made him feel even more alone, so he stopped. He squinted up at the sun. It was mid-afternoon and he was barely halfway. It was going to be a long day.

He headed down an incline, so steep he had to ride the brake all the way to the bottom. The first shot came as he was urging the team up the other side. It hit him in the fleshy part of his upper arm, passing through his body and striking the off horse in the crop. The animal screamed and lunged but did not fall. As Jack hunkered down and grabbed for the rifle, a second shot hit him in the side of the head, taking off most of his cranium. He died instantly, falling back onto the bed of the wagon where his bloody head came to rest on Davey's drum.

A young boy riding a saddle trail found Jack's body days later. The killer had led the team off the road and down into a gully where he shot both horses, still in harness. He did not steal any of Jack's supplies, which were still in the wagon. It had rained since the murder and the cargo was wet and mud splattered.

Sheriff Angus and Deputy Anable discovered Ranger's body the day after Jack was found. The weather had gone cold, and Ranger's body was frozen solid though it was clear he had been dead longer than Jack. He, too, had been shot from behind with a rifle at close range, twenty feet at most. The floorboards for his bride's new home were still in the wagon, along with the body of a yellow pup.

Anable released a low whistle. “What you think, Red? Is it the list?”

Angus walked around the wagon, eyes on the frozen ground. He found the prints of a single man, a number eight boot, but the tracks of two horses, one of them barefoot, or unshod. There had been only one set of tracks, man and horse, at the site of Jack's murder, but if he went back he felt sure he would find signs of a second rider on an unshod horse nearby, perhaps a lookout. “You don't want to know what I'm thinking, Jimmy,” he said. “I don't want to say it and you don't want to hear it.”

The murders of Jack Reshaw and Ranger Jones put the people of Buffalo in an uproar. Killings were not uncommon, but most of these were drunken shoot-outs in town or in front of witnesses. Unsolved killings were rare. The last one anyone could remember was August Schmidt's years before. Many rumors were flying around, and Sheriff Angus heard all of them. Breathless citizens came to his office to report things they had seen that were unremarkable at the time but now seemed suspicious. Mail carrier Alquist reported his meeting with Jack on the Buffalo road the day of his death. “He kept askin' me if I seen Ranger, and he seemed bothered when I said I hadn't. Not only that, but he seemed nervous, not himself. Like he was scairt of somethin'.”

The most interesting report came from Mrs. Spicer, a ranch wife from south of Buffalo who had been on her way to town with her young daughter the day Jack was killed. Mrs. Spicer was on the alert because she had two hundred dollars with her that day, money she would use to purchase the family's winter supplies. She also had a gun concealed in the loose hay her husband had spread on the wagon floor to keep their feet warm.

“I saw two men, Sheriff,” she said, “riding hard from the south. They were pretty far off but they wore handkerchiefs over their faces, I could see that clear enough, and it struck me as odd as there wasn't much wind that day.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Spicer.” Angus was only half listening. He was doing paperwork and anyway he and Deputy Anable had heard many such reports in the past few days, none of them useful. “Lots of men wear kerchiefs against the elements,” he said. “I do it myself.” But as she stood to leave, Mrs. Spicer said something that caught the sheriff's attention.

“One of the men sat his horse in an unusual manner. Straight as a rifle barrel. It was peculiar.”

Angus looked up from his paperwork. “Did you get a look at him?”

“I told you, they wore handkerchiefs. Weren't you listening?”

“What about their horses? Did you notice them?”

“Well, as a matter of fact, I do remember one of them. It was a sorrel, very fine looking, with a blaze and white stockings on his hind feet.”

Angus and Anable exchanged a look. Mrs. Spicer had just given a perfect description of Frank Canton's horse, Fred.

“And their hats? Did you notice those?” Angus said.

She gave him a look of disgust. “Horses don't wear hats.”

“The men,” Angus said impatiently. “Did you see their hats?”

“Oh, yes. One of them wore a big, round hat like the greasers wear.”

Tom Horn, Angus thought. Horn and Frank Canton. As he suspected, it had finally started in earnest; the WSGA had unleashed its assassins upon its enemies. “I see,” he said, getting up and escorting Mrs. Spicer to the door. “Thank you for coming by. I have no doubt the men you describe are long gone by now, long gone. Don't worry yourself about them.” He gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “Still, I wouldn't mention this to anyone else, if I were you.”

She regarded him with narrowed eyes. “Why not?”

“I just wouldn't. I'm going to keep an eye out for them, in case they come back. If they do, it wouldn't be good to let them know they'd been seen, would it? Killers like that? I'm only thinking of your safety, Mrs. Spicer.” He opened the door and hurried her out into the late afternoon cold.

“Sweet Jesus!” Anable said. “She described Canton and Horn to a fare-thee-well. What are you going to do, Sheriff? Do we arrest them?”

Red Angus sat in his chair and covered his face with his hands. He was a hard man, who'd left his Kansas home at age twelve to enlist in the Union Army. He had worked as a freighter through west Kansas when it was Indian country, fought the Cheyenne with the Nineteenth Kansas Volunteer Cavalry, labored as a teamster in Guatemala and as a cowboy in California and Wyoming. Red Angus was no weak sister, and he'd tried everything, including things he was not proud of, to stop the trouble coming, but it was here. He was no match for Frank Canton and Tom Horn, and he knew it. Canton and Horn were killers, natural born. He did not want to tangle with them, and he sure as hell didn't want to arrest them.

“Sheriff?” Anable said. “What are you—”

“I heard you, dammit! Let me think.” Angus was still thinking when the door opened and Billy Sun stood in black silhouette against the red and salmon sky.

“Hello, Billy.” Angus spoke as if he had been expecting him. “Come in, sit down. We need to talk.”

Billy removed his sheepskin coat and hung it on the wall. With a nod to Anable, he took a chair across the desk from the sheriff and placed his hat, brim up, on the desk.

“You look tired,” Anable said.

“Deputy, you can go on home now,” Angus said. “We're done for the day here. Thanks for your help.”

“Sheriff, I'd like to—”

“No. Just go on home, Jimmy. Me and Billy want to talk, the two of us. I'll see you in the morning.”

Reluctantly, the deputy took his hat and coat and left. Angus pulled his soft leather bag of makings out of his coat pocket and offered the bag to Billy, who shook his head. Angus started rolling himself a cigarette.

“What are you going to do, Sheriff?” Billy said. “You know what happened to Jack and Ranger. You know who killed them and why.”

Angus drew on his cigarette and exhaled a cloud of blue smoke. “I don't know who killed Jack and Ranger, and neither do you, Billy. Let's not be going off half-cocked on this thing now. Let's not be throwing around unfounded accusations. This is a serious business.”

“I was afraid you were going to say that,” Billy said.

The two men looked at each other across the desk. The room was growing dark. When Angus drew on his cigarette, its glowing orange tip matched the color of the setting sun, its fiery glow filling the room's lone window.

“Now Billy, I know Jack was a friend of yours, and Ranger, too. They were good men, both of them, and I'm damn sorry for what happened. Everybody is. You might think you know who killed them, but—”

“Frank Canton and Tom Horn.”

Angus slammed his open hand down on the desktop. “There, you see? That's what I'm talking about—don't go around saying that, Billy. Do not do it! Jesus Christ, man—you're going to get yourself killed and a lot of other people, too.”

“Not if you arrest them and put them in jail where they belong. If you don't, you're probably right. They'll try to kill me, and Nate, too. People will die.”

Angus got to his feet and walked to the window. He spoke with his back to Billy. “Sun, why don't you get out of Johnson County for a while? Go back up north. That's where you came from, right? You used to work for Nelson Story up Bozeman way? Go back there. Man like you, with your talents, you could find work in no time.”

He turned from the window to look at Billy, who said nothing.

“Take Nate Coday with you, come back to Wyoming in a year or two,” Angus continued, “when things cool down. We got us a big old mess here, and you don't want to get caught up in it.” Angus took two steps toward Billy and looked into his eyes. “I'm saying something important to you, Billy. I hope you'll take my advice.”

Billy smiled. “So, you're in Faucett's pocket, too? You're going to stand by and watch while his hired guns take out his enemies one at a time?” He shook his head. “I thought better of you, Red. So did Jack. I'm glad he isn't here to see this.” Billy stood and went for his coat.

“Now just you wait one god-damn minute!” Angus's face was red with anger. “I'm not in Faucett's pocket—I'm not in anybody's pocket. But what's happening here is bigger than one man, even a sheriff. Suppose I did bring them in, Canton and Horn? I couldn't make charges stick. What proof do I have? Faucett's fast-talking Philadelphia lawyers would have them out like that.” He snapped his fingers. “And then what? Dammit, Billy, do like I said. Go away for a while. You and Nate, don't make any more trouble.”

“We're not the trouble, Red.” He shrugged his shoulders into his coat. “We're trying to make a place for ourselves in this country just like everybody else. You know that. I'm only sorry you don't have the sand to do your job. I thought you were a better man.”

Billy walked out, closing the door firmly behind him. Angus watched him cross the street to the livery stable. The sheriff felt low, lower than a snake's belly.
If only I'd been successful last winter. If only I'd got Sun instead of his horse, none of this would be happening. That damn Indian.

Angus walked back to his desk and rolled another cigarette.