Montana Revenge Page 4

  “Stop!” Herschel shouted, and reined up the roan at the foot of the hill. He piled out of the saddle and hit the ground running. In his heart, he knew the other two were already beyond the corrals fleeing on their horses. Damn the luck. He headed for the wounded one, a small man in his forties with gray beard stubble on his pained face, when a voice behind him commanded him to drop his gun.

  Ready to face down the challenger, he spun on his boot heels, six-gun at his hip ready to fire. He found himself staring at a hard-looking woman, thirty or so, in the doorway, dressed in a wash-faded, long-sleeve, black dress buttoned to the throat and holding a double-barrel Greener on him.

  “Put the gun away!” he ordered. “I’m the law.”

  Her eyes hard as rock coal and her mouth drawn in a thin line, she never moved at his words, only stuck the shotgun out farther.

  “Put the damn thing down,” said Herschel. “Now!”

  “It’s your chance, Felton,” she said, looking past Herschel at the wounded man on the ground.

  “Let it go—I’d never get on my horse.” Lying on his side, he waved her efforts away and shook his head in defeat.

  “If you can run, you better now,” she said.

  “That sumabitch is the damn law. Don’t make it worse for you, Bertha.”

  “I’ll sure send him to hell.”

  “Naw, he won’t bother you. He come for me and them.”

  Herschel holstered his pistol and waited until she let the muzzle down. Then, after a stern look at him, she dropped her square chin and snorted out the end of her sharp nose. “Worthless damn law, took my man, now Felton.”

  “Lady, I never took anyone, except that stage robber. You better go see how bad he’s hurt.

  “Where’s the loot?” Herschel asked, standing over him.

  “On that dun hoss they led off. Sumabitch, this hurt.” He was holding his bloody pants leg and wincing in pain as he rocked on his butt.

  “Who were they?” Herschel asked, looking off in the direction they’d ridden.

  “Smith and Jones.”

  “Mister, you want to live, you better get a tongue in your head.”

  “I don’t figure my life’s worth much anyway if that shotgun guard dies.”

  “You cooperate, I might do you some good.”

  Kneeling on the ground, the woman ripped open his pants hem and looked in anger at his wound. “Tell him. Hell, they won’t never know.”

  “They come by here couple of weeks ago.” Felton closed his eyes as she bound his leg up in some bandages ripped from her petticoats. “Said they needed some help— sumabitch, that hurts, too.” He motioned to her bandaging.

  “Got to stop the bleeding,” she said with a scowl.

  “Go on.” Herschel waited, seething inside over the fact he only had one of the three robbers and the moneybags were gone. Then he spotted a loose dun horse coming around the shed, trailing a lead rope. It wore a diamond hitch, and Herschel nodded in approval. In their hasty flight, those two hadn’t gotten the loot after all.

  “Sumabitch!” Felton swore at the sight of it.

  “I told you they’d never get away with it,” she said privately to Felton.

  “Would have if it wasn’t for him,” Felton said.

  Herschel nodded. One outlaw and the money taken back would be enough. “Who were those other two?”

  “Casey Ford and Jim Riggs,” she said, helping Felton to his feet.

  “He got a horse to ride?” Herschel asked her.

  “Why, he can’t—”

  “He better or he’s going belly-down back to Billings.”

  “My Gawd, mister, you’re damn sure tough.” The look of disapproval on her face was as cold as any blizzard.

  “Tough ain’t got nothing to do with it, lady, I’ve got a job to do. Go get him that horse.”

  She wrinkled her sharp nose at him, swept back the wind-loosened, fine black hair that had escaped her severe bun, then gathered her dress to go after the horse. Be a long ride back—but the distance made no mind; he had one of the three outlaws and the money.

  Long past three in the morning, he rode the weary roan horse up the dark street. His man was in a jail cell, the moneybags were locked in the office safe. He dropped heavily to the ground in front of his own barn, found his sea legs, stretched his stiff back, and rolled the aisle door aside in a long creaking noise. He promised himself he’d grease it, and in the darkness fumbled with the still-wet latigos. At last the girths were free, and he lifted the heavy saddle and pads off the roan. A strong smell of sour horse sweat filled the air. He set the saddle on its horn and turned in time to be tackled around the waist.

  “You’re safe!” Marsha cried.

  “Safe and sound,” he said, throwing his arms around her and kissing the top of her head. A rush of euphoria filled him. He was back with her and it was no dream. To savor the moment, he rocked her in his arms.

  “Oh, I’ve worried all night about you.” She hugged him harder and buried her face in his chest.

  “Now, you can’t do that. I’d say a sheriff is going to spend lots of his time on this job out looking for bad guys.”

  “If anything ever happened to you—”

  “Marsha, ain’t nothing going to happen to me.”

  “Did you get them?”

  “One, and the money.”

  His arm in her grasp, she headed for the house under the stars. “Good, I have some food in the oven. You must be hungry.”

  “I am starved.” He smiled down at his wife. Marsha and the girls were the stars in his life. Shame he’d missed getting Ford and Riggs, too. Then another spear stabbed him—the lynching of the carefree Texas cowboy Billy Hanks.

  FIVE

  ART Spencer walked into the office and picked up the paperweight—a piece of polished petrified wood. With a pained expression on his face, he looked troubled when Herschel glanced up from his report for the county treasurer on the past month’s county jail food and other expenses.

  “What’s up?”

  “Guess you better come downstairs and see for yourself. Rath Mannon and his boys are down there. They brought you something you need to see about.”

  His mind still on the figures, he pushed himself away from the desk and strapped on his six-gun. Then, with his Boss of the Plains Stetson hat on, he slipped into his suit coat. Been cool outside. What did Mannon want? Tough old man. Folks spoke about Mannon’s overuse of the running iron, but nothing was ever proved against him.

  “What’s on his mind?” Herschel asked his chief deputy going down the stairs to the lobby.

  “He’s got more story to go with the Hanks lynching.”

  “Figure they did it?” He looked over at Art.

  Art shook his head. “He says no.”

  Wind caught Herschel when he stepped out the front door. In the street, he could see the family of boys all mounted and an extra horse. Out in front, with a week’s black whiskers on his hard-chiseled face, Rath Mannon sat a big gray horse, grasping the saddle horn in both hands. His dark Injun eyes could have bored a hole in steel plates.

  “Rath.” Herschel nodded to the three Mannon sons, ranging from their twenties to a kid in his teens. “What can I do for you, boys?”

  “We had a horse stole at the dance Saturday night. I first figured he’d broke loose. Boys’ll tell you the same thing. So Harry, he’s the youngest, rode home double. I was mad as hell at all of them, me a-thinking they was so stirred up about the dance they hadn’t hitched him up better. Good horses don’t grow on trees, you know.”

  Herschel nodded. “I’m listening.”

  “Well, we heard about that Hanks—the Texan being hung. . . .” Mannon acted like he wanted the go-ahead to continue.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, me and the boys never hung him.”

  “Never accused you of it. What happened next?”

  “Yesterday, the bay we call Sam showed up. The one we thought got loose.” Mannon turned in his saddle and
indicated the empty kack on the bay horse. “That’s his rig.”

  Herschel nodded and walked over to look at the outfit. “He came home, huh?”

  “Most horse’ll come home, sooner or later. We never bothered nothing on him. Earl recognized the saddle. It was made in Lampasas, Texas. It’s Billy’s, all right.”

  “I’ll need the saddle and his things for evidence.”

  “Sure, sure, but we brung that pony and rig here like it was, ’cause we never hung that boy. I don’t want no talk either about the Mannons doing that. If Hanks had needed a horse, we’d loaned him one. He knew that.”

  “You and your boys left the dance together when it was over?”

  “Earl stayed and rode home with Miss Kelly, Barbara Ann, then he came to the house. Me and the other boys, we left when it was over—we had work to do Sunday.”

  “This horse was gone then?”

  “Yeah, I already said how mad I was about him getting loose. Must have been about eleven when we discovered him gone—I didn’t check my watch.”

  “Didn’t see anyone or anything?”

  “I said, we don’t know a damn thing about the lynching.” The impatience rose in his voice.

  “When I accuse you, I’ll let you know,” Herschel said. “Earl and Hanks had a scrap, as I recall, out at the City Park last fall.”

  Earl booted his roan forward. Not near as Indian-looking as his pa, he wore leather cuffs and looked the part of a fancy-dressed drover. “Me and him had a disagreement is all.”

  “Nothing a black eye and a bloody nose wouldn’t heal?” Herschel’s words drew some laughs.

  “It was over after that. I hated to hear he was dead.” Earl met Herschel’s gaze. “Us Mannons didn’t lynch him.”

  “None of you heard a word about lynching him while you were up there at the dance or anytime before that?” Herschel looked at them for any sign.

  The row of riders under their wide-brimmed hats all shook their heads. Cold-eyed as fish, almost like they’d been practiced at it.

  “Anyone see this horse coming back to your place?” Herschel looked at them, and when they didn’t answer, he continued. “What I mean is, where was he for two days?”

  “He just showed up,” Rath said.

  Herschel went to undoing the girths. Art, who’d been listening all the time, removed the bridle and put the halter back on the horse. Why did Herschel suspect they knew more than they were saying? He looked down the street trying to tie all he’d learned from them together; then he finished ungirthing the rig and lifted it off the horse. Now wasn’t the time to press them, it could wait until he found out more.

  Saddle and pads in his hands, Herschel nodded to the riders. “I want to thank you for bringing this in. It may not prove anything, but if any of you learn of any new leads, let me know.”

  “You’re convinced we done the right thing, bringing him here for you to see?” Rath asked, reined his horse up close.

  “Rath, it was the right thing. I don’t know who lynched him, but I aim to find out.”

  “Well, the Mannons never did it.”

  “Thanks.”

  Rath jerked his horse around and booted him up close to Herschel. “I ain’t convinced you believe us, Baker?”

  Unmoved by the threat, Herschel looked him in the eye. “I ain’t convinced I know who killed that boy.”

  For a full five seconds, Rath held his contemptuous gaze at Herschel; then, at last, he turned the horse around. “Let’s go, boys. We’ve done our piece here.”

  The riders and the spare horse galloped away.

  “Tell me something,” Art said from behind him. “Why in hell was Billy’s rig on their horse?”

  Herschel watched them disappear in the street traffic. “One of two things. Either someone aimed to point the finger at them as the lynchers, or they did it and now they’re covering it up.”

  “They never said where that pony came from. Hell, they’re all cowboys enough to backtrack a shod horse.”

  “I thought about that, too. Let’s get this upstairs and look through his things.”

  “I forgot to tell you, Paul Allen at the Bar 9 is sending you Hanks’s war bag. Told me so at the funeral.”

  “Good, grab a newspaper.” Herschel’s arms full of the saddle, he went sideways in the courthouse front door.

  When he was upstairs at last in his office, he put the saddle down on the floor and stretched his tight back muscles. “What’s the headlines say?”

  “Sheriff refuses citizens’ offer of assistance—” Art frowned and shook his head as he read on. “This fella at the Herald must not like you. Instead of bragging on the recovery of the money, he’s saying you should have taken a posse and got all of them.”

  “I guess that’s his privilege.” Herschel knelt down and unbuckled the saddlebags. His hand closed on the six-gun and holster wrapped up in a belt with ammo loops. He drew it out to examine the weapon. The rubber grips with a rearing horse were typical of most .44/40-caliber Colts.

  “‘Our inexperienced lawman’—why, this son of a bitch needs this article shoved down his throat,” Art said.

  “Maybe he’s right. I haven’t been sheriff all that long.” He took out a handful of old letters from the saddlebags and stood. At the desk, he smiled at an angry Art and set the Colt down beside him. “Opinions are free.”

  “Not when they smear a hardworking man’s reputation.” His deputy was slapping the newspaper with the back of his fingers and scowling.

  “Get a chair. You can’t change what’s in type and we need to read Hanks’s letters.”

  “I can damn sure make him retract it.”

  Herschel stopped, seated himself, and grinned big at the red-faced man. “We’re the law now. No strong-armed business. I’ll drop by and meet this man if I find the time. Phil, come in here. We need to read some correspondence.”

  “Don’t read the damn paper, it’ll only make you mad,” Art said to the younger member of the team.

  “These are Hanks’s letters,” Herschel told Phil.

  “Mannon and his boys brought us his saddle a while ago, seems it got on one of his horses. Start reading with us and see if there are any clues as to who hung him.”

  “I was out getting the mail,” Phil said, scooting up a captain’s chair to the big desk. “I miss much?”

  “Just another piece of the shattered plate I’m trying to put together for the answers to who hung him.

  “Who’s the new reporter down at the Herald?” Herschel asked, beginning to read the flowery handwriting on a page of stationery.

  “Ennis Stokes,” Phil said.

  “Guess I’ll meet him.” He turned back to read the letter in his hand.

  Dear Billy,

  It has been some time since any of us down here have heard from you. I hope this letter finds you fit and fine. Shane Coburn, who returned last year after spending a winter up on the Big Horn, told us it was worse than anything we ever see in Texas day in and out, cold and snowy. I really can’t understand why a young man like you with such a bright future would consider such a frigid place to live. Why, I shiver at the thought of it.

  Your Uncle Harry died this past spring. Weak heart they say. Two weeks ago Madge Dayton’s son George was killed in a buckboard wreck with some broncs that a twelve-year-old never should have been driving. Nonetheless, Madge is very depressed. All the ladies at the Stone Creek Baptist Church are trying to comfort her.

  Your sister Twaine is marrying Joey Ruckers in the fall. I know you hate Germans, but Joey is a nice boy and has his own farm down by Kerrville. Your father is not doing well, but he insists that you are busy and not to bother you. I doubt you would make it in time to see him alive if you came at once.

  Your mother

  Moore Ann

  “He has a sister named Jo Anna who lives in Mason, Texas.” Art turned over the envelope. “Her last name’s Lincker.”

  “May be why his mother said he hated Germans. His sisters all mar
ried them,” Herschel said and laughed, picking up another letter from Hanks’s mother.

  He was halfway through it when he stopped—I guess you have not found a proper young lady yet to accept and wear your grandmother’s golden wedding band. Herschel closed his eyes. He leaned back in the chair and wondered where the ring was. Might be in the war bag. No telling. Hanks might have hocked it somewhere, with all the intentions in the world to go back for it.

  Be just like a mother to give her sugar-foot son his grandmother’s wedding ring hoping he would use it on some girl and settle down. Mothers had their own ways and schemes. Why, they all must have sat up at night thinking how they might work on a wayward progeny. His late mom included. His own sister about died of shock when he wrote to her that he was marrying Marsha, and three pretty young girls came in the deal. All he could think about was that Hanks had tried to please his mom—he’d proposed to Clare Scopes. But she considered him too wild to ever break to marriage traces and settle down. Maybe if she’d accepted his offer, he’d still be alive. Damn.

  “Finding anything?”

  “Just news about Texas,” Phil said, not looking up from his reading.

  “He must have written some. They answer him and then complain he don’t write enough,” Art said.

  Herschel handed him the letter he’d read about the ring. “Maybe we can find this and return it to his family.”

  After a minute or so, Art agreed. “I recall, too, he had a pocket watch. He gave it to me to hold one time when he was about to ride a big bronc down at the City Park. I’d know it on sight. It had a silver case and a big D engraved on the cover. Stood for his grandfather’s family on his mother’s side.”

  “He give you his jackknife to hold, too?”

  “No. I never seen it, but Bar 9 boys, I bet, can identify it.”

  “Phil,” Herschel said, “start a list of his things we haven’t found. I want every little store and saloon in south central Montana to have a copy of the items when we get them all and to be on the lookout for them.”

  “Wonder what that ring looks like?” Art asked.

  “No telling, but leave that off. I don’t want the killers plumb spooked off.” Seeing the question in Phil’s look, he went on. “It was his grandmother’s ring, his mother mentioned it. She thought he might use it and settle down.”