Montana Revenge Page 5

  “Why, I’d bet he could of had any girl in the territory that he wanted,” Phil said, and shook his head. “He could sure dance.”

  “Hmm,” Art snuffed. “Dancing is like roping, you got to practice a lot to ever get good at it.”

  “I ain’t got anyone to practice with.”

  “Why, Phil, I bet Kate could show you how in a minute,” Herschel said, thinking how his eldest could teach his deputy to dance.

  “But she’s just a girl.”

  “Better take his offer. That’s some little girl,” Art said, amused, and picked up another letter.

  “All I want to know is how to dance.” Phil looked at both of them.

  “Hell, we know your intentions are honest.” Herschel stood and stretched. “Ask her, she may be flattered enough to show you how.”

  “Sure. Sure.”

  “I can see you now, cutting a rug in two,” Art said and never looked up. “We’re going to know it all, I guess, when we get through reading all of this.”

  “It ain’t spelled out a thing about why he was hung or who hated him. Has it?”

  “No.”

  “I’m going to ride up and see Barley. He may have learned something. Phil, did you get the descriptions to the printer for the Ford and Riggs posters?”

  “I did that when I got the mail.”

  “Good. You get time, look over the expense list for last month. I’ll ride up and see what Barley’s found out.”

  “Can I go stick that reporter’s head in a thunder mug?” Art made a grim face at him.

  Herschel laughed and shook his head. “No. Ignore him. He’s chosen a different route to go than ours. And controversy sells papers. And if he sells enough, his ad sales will go up.”

  “What if I tell people to not buy ads in it?”

  “That sounds like the last bunch’s strong-arm tactics.”

  “I figure if the big outfits hadn’t lost so damn many cattle last winter—why, I’d bet he’s on their payroll.”

  “I doubt they’ve got much to pay. Cowboys all over are out of work. That pair we got in there now held up that grocery for food to get back to Texas.”

  “I don’t have to like his insinuations about you and the job you’re doing as sheriff.”

  Herschel clapped Art on the shoulder, then went to the wall. He unchained a .44/40 Winchester from the rack of six and put the chain and lock back on the rest.

  “Taking a long one?”

  “I needed it yesterday.”

  Art nodded. “Don’t take any chances.”

  Herschel got a box of cartridges out from the drawer and began filling the receiver. “I’ll try not to.”

  “Anything else we need out of these letters?” Phil asked, gathering them in a pile.

  “Yeah, save them,” Herschel said. “What we really need to know is who killed Billy Hanks.”

  SIX

  AT mid-afternoon, Herschel reined Cob up in sight of the Deer Creek Store. The big roan dropped his head and snorted in the road dust. Several rigs and horses were parked around the log building and pens Mike Melloncamp used for his store and trading business. There was something going on and he’d bet it was a fistfight, the way a circle of onlookers had formed around the action. Or they were having a cockfight.

  When he rode up, he could hear them taking sides and cheering the fighters on. Big Mike, in a red-checkered flannel shirt, was holding up one post on the high porch and gazing off at the altercation.

  “Howdy, Herschel,” he bellowed.

  Twisting in the saddle, Herschel looked back at the two shirtless fighters dodging in and out to give each other glancing blows. When he turned back, two boys in their teens came around the corner of the store, saw him, and looked shocked at the discovery. They fled the porch and went around the building like he’d sicced a big dog after them.

  “Them two out there been at it long?” he asked, dismounting and loosening the girth.

  “Naw.” Mike took a toothpick out of his mouth for a pointer. “The skinny one’s Berry Kirk. The taller one is Wayne Farr.”

  “What’s it all about?”

  “Hell, who needs a reason to fight at that age? Got into it about nothing, I suppose.”

  “They fight often?”

  “Oh, that Kirk boy, he stays on the prod a lot. They won’t hurt each other. Ain’t got any sticks or singletrees to use on one another.”

  Herschel wiped his mouth with his calloused hand and considered his next move. Should he consider fist fighting as disturbing the peace, or just two big boys settling nothing, as Mike called it? Be unpopular with the crowd to stop it. He took off his hat and beat his leg.

  “Let ’em fight awhile,” Mike said, no doubt seeing his concern. “Take some of the piss out of ’em. Come on in, I’ve got fresh hot coffee.”

  “Who were them two boys on the porch when I rode up?” Herschel asked, going inside after the broad-shouldered storekeeper.

  “Guess that was the Cross brothers—Sidney and Roman.”

  “Strange, they spooked like wild geese upon seeing me.”

  “Hell, the sheriff of Yellowstone County don’t come out here often enough. I’d run, too.” Mike poured him a tin cup from the granite pot on the stove.

  “Not unless you had something to hide.” He thanked him with a nod and took the steaming cup.

  “I sure don’t know anything that they’re into. Their old man is a damn gray-back and he’s still fighting the war after all these years. Why in the hell did such a reb ever come to Montana for, I’ll never know.”

  Herschel went to the front window and watched Kirk pile into the bigger Farr in a windmill of fists. Kirk sent his opponent to the ground and then moved in to kick at him.

  In a swift second, Herschel was out the door. “Berry Kirk! Berry Kirk!” He didn’t get the boy’s attention. “Kirk, this is the sheriff talking. Get up here. Right now!”

  Kirk was rawboned. His ribs stuck out of his snow-white narrow chest with some black hair in the center. He glared with a hard look in the direction of the store. The obvious disdain was written on Kirk’s face. For a moment, Herschel considered setting down his coffee and going down there to get him. But he bided his time, and finally Kirk said, “I’m coming.”

  Putting on his pullover shirt, he tucked the tail in. He was followed closely by his bunch of five fans. Boys his own age or younger.

  “What do you need?” Kirk asked. Someone handed him his vest and then his hat as he dressed at the foot of the steps.

  “Were you at the dance last Saturday night at Sharky?”

  Kirk shrugged and swept his dusty black hair back to put on his hat. “Yeah, sure, lots of us were—” He got vocal backing out of the handful of others in the crowd. Satisfied with their support, Kirk nodded. “Why’re you asking me?”

  “Someone or some party hung Billy Hanks after the dance.”

  “Why ask me?” He chuckled. “I never done it.”

  “You must be glad he’s dead.”

  Kirk blinked at him and drew up defensively. “I said I never done it.”

  Herschel looked off at the pines on the ridge to the east. “I never said you did. But someone knows who did it. Do you?”

  “Hell, no.”

  “Guess you have an alibi for that evening?”

  “I went home early. I’ve got friends will tell you I did.”

  Herschel could see the heads nod in the crowd. “You and Hanks have a fight up there?”

  “No. I never had no fight with that Texan.”

  “Not ever?”

  “Not ever.”

  “I kinda take it you like to fight. And Billy Hanks did, too. If you’re lying to me about never having a fight with him, I won’t take it kindly.”

  His arms folded over his vest, Kirk spoke. “We never had no fight at the dance last Saturday night.”

  His shoulder to the post, Herschel took a sip of the hot coffee, but he held Kirk in place with his hard gaze. “What did you and Billy fight
over?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  “You’re mighty young to be having memory problems. You carry a grudge against him?”

  “No.”

  “Any of the rest of you see or hear of any vigilante talk up there?”

  The hats, from bowlers to Stetsons, all shook no.

  Herschel ran his tongue over his molars, then said, “Anyone who knows anything about this lynching and don’t come forth will be prosecuted with the lynchers. That will be a murder charge, too.” He took another sip of coffee looking into the young faces. “So anyone knows even a peep better get it off their chest right now.”

  “Maybe them Mannons can answer that,” a boy in his late teens spoke up.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Danny Egelstone.” He removed his bowler in an instant. His freckled face shone in the midday sun.

  “Why would they know?”

  “He stole their horse—sir.”

  “He did?” Herschel asked, looking hard at the youth of sixteen or seventeen.

  “Sure did. That old man was mad as a hornet, too. Cussing and fussing around the womenfolk as well.”

  “About someone stealing it, huh?”

  “Yes—sir.” Egelstone was supported by more head nods in the group.

  “You see him or his boys do anything about it?”

  “No—sir.”

  “Anyone see that loose horse on Sunday?”

  “Naw, it never was loose. They got that damn horse back when they hung him.”

  “Guess you boys would all testify in court to that;

  Hanks stole Mannon’s horse and they hung him?”

  “We-we never saw that part—” Egelstone turned back to the others, and they all shook their heads.

  “Wonder why he’d steal a horse anyway, he had one of his own?”

  Hats shook again, and they all looked down at their boots and brogans acting uncomfortable. “I want each one of you to sign a list inside the store, so I can call on each of you when we have a grand jury hearing.”

  “Why? We never did anything,” one of them complained as they filed in the store.

  “That may be right so, but someone did and someone knows who hung him.” He finished the coffee and looked off toward the defeated fighter. Farr was climbing stiffly on his horse.

  “Hold up, I need to talk to you, too.”

  “I don’t know nothing.”

  “You know, I’m getting about tired of hearing that. A hundred folks at a dance and no one knows how Billy Hanks got hung.” He stepped down and walked over to look at the fight’s loser. There would be one black eye for certain. And his other cheek would be purple by morning.

  “What was the fight over?” Herschel squatted down on his haunches.

  “Aw, nothing.”

  “Don’t tell me nothing. You two were fisting it out about something not five minutes ago.”

  “Nothing.”

  “Damn it, Wayne. I’m not buying your answer.”

  “All right.” Farr glanced up at the store. “I told him to stay away from my sister.”

  “He courting her?”

  The freckle-faced youth of sixteen or so shook his head. “He’s too old for her.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Fourteen.”

  “She like him?”

  He shrugged. “I guess if I was fourteen, I’d think he was something. You know what I mean?”

  “What’s your folks think?” Herschel wished for a stick to whittle on when he shifted his weight to the other leg.

  “Aw, I guess they don’t care. I just don’t like him, don’t trust him, and this ain’t our last fight.” His green eyes cut an angry look at the store.

  Herschel could see Kirk and his followers were coming outside. Big shots laughing and chests thrown out like banty roosters—swaggering conquerors would be the term. A bunch like that led by a tough troublemaker could get into lots of things—even a lynching.

  “Sheriff?” Kirk shouted at him from the porch.

  Herschel nodded, half-turned to him.

  “You better make damn sure and see he signs that list in there, too.” Kirk was pulling on a pair of thin black gloves, using his fingers to fit it and preparing to mount a bulldog dun stud horse. “I got to be there, he does, too.”

  “I’ll do that.” Thanks for telling me how to do my job. He gave them a touch of his hat and the Kirk bunch rode out.

  “I never hung Billy Hanks.” Farr’s green eyes looked hard at him. “And I swear to God, I don’t know who done it. But they must’ve been ready.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Hanks didn’t leave till the whole thing was over. I was taking sis home in the buckboard and I saw him ride out on that good pony of his. He left laughing and a-waving at everyone, especially the women. ’Course I went north and he went south—well, down the creek, and I figure he went south after that at the crossing.”

  “Didn’t leave with any female?”

  “Naw, him and that good horse was all I saw in the night. But lots of folks were leaving then, too. It was coming, that rain. You could see the lightning and I figured we’d stayed too long as it was and would get wet. But it was slow getting there.”

  “No idea who hung him?”

  “No, sir. But if I hear something I’ll send word.”

  “Good. You know my deputy Barley Benton?”

  “Sure, I bought a Crow horse off him last year.”

  “You tell him and he can tell me. Save you a trip.”

  “Hanks was a nice fella. A little wild, but he sure turned heads. Still, I think he was a gentleman—” Farr pursed his lips together and shook his head.

  “I guess you’re telling me more so than Berry Kirk.”

  “Guess I am.”

  “Thanks. Better go put your name on the list in the store. I wouldn’t want Kirk saying I treated you better than him.” Herschel rose to his feet and nodded at the youth as he led his horse past him for the hitch rack.

  “Me, either.”

  Big Mike knew nothing more than rumors about the death. So Herschel rode over to the Bentons’. Barley’s Crow wife, Heart, straightened up from her gardening and wiped her copper face on her sleeve. With a big smile, she gathered her many skirts and started for the gate, looking pleased to see him. Heart was a full-blood and some thirty years younger than her husband. Before Herschel found Marsha, he used to be envious of his friend finding such a lovely young Indian girl for his bride. Wife number three for Barley, the other two had died. One from cholera in Omaha and the other in childbirth in Kansas.

  She hushed the barking stock dogs, and they came slinking over to sniff Herschel and the horse when he dismounted and loosened the girth.

  “I will make some coffee for the sheriff,” she said when he finished, and clutched his arm possessively guiding him to the low-roofed cabin.

  “Where is he?”

  “Went to find Danberry and ask him about the lynching. That was a bad deal. Wasn’t it?”

  “Danberry wasn’t home?”

  “No, it was strange. Barley said his wife didn’t know where he went. But he thinks he went on a big drunk.”

  “I don’t know him. Just heard his name.”

  She looked at the open log rafters and shook her thick braids with the coffeepot in her hands. “Oh, he’s a drinker at times. Fell out of the wagon coming home from Billings one day last summer. His horses went home without him and all the food and feed was fine. Meanwhile, he had wandered off, and the neighbors finally found him the next day panning for gold.”

  “Panning for gold?”

  “Oh, yeah, he must have had some whiskey on him ’cause he was still drunk.”

  “Whew. Barley tracking him down?”

  “Sure, his wife was worried.” She sat down across from Herschel.

  “Got a good garden started?” he asked.

  “Fine one with all the rain. How’s your life with girls and a wife?”

  He
nodded, thinking about them. “Very nice, except I need a pony.”

  “Barley can find you one.” She smiled big.

  “I was afraid of that.” He turned at the dogs barking again.

  “I bet that’s him coming now. Stay seated, I’ll tell him you’re in here. He knows Cob.”

  Barley came in, hat in hand, and hugged her. “Just the man I need. We better ride up and talk to Danberry.” He shook his graying head.

  “What is it?”

  “You need to hear his story about Saturday night.”

  Herschel stood and finished the hot coffee in the thick mug. “Thank you, looks like I better run,” he said to Heart.

  She smiled. “Come any time. You at least talk, he never does.”

  Outside, he girthed up Cob and listened to Barley’s conversation with his wife.

  “He needs a pony,” Heart said to her man when he was mounted.

  “We can find him a good one or three good ones, I bet,” his deputy said, reining his horse in closer.

  “I ain’t sure I don’t need three, but one for now would be great,” Herschel said.

  “We get back, I’ll show you one I traded for.”

  Herschel agreed, swung in his own saddle, and they hurried off. Close to Barley’s stirrup and the roan matching his bay’s gait, he spoke to him. “What’s this all about?”

  “I want Danberry to tell you.”

  “About the hanging?”

  “Yeah, let’s lope.”

  An hour later, they found Fred Danberry bailing out buckets of sour-smelling wet grain from weathered gray barrels to his squealing hogs. He wore only his red underwear and pants. The sty’s powerful aroma struck Herschel’s nose, and he nodded to the red-eyed man who still looked hungover. Danberry shook his head in defeat at the sight of Herschel.

  “Howdy, Fred,” Herschel said, and the man wiped his hand on the seat of his pants before he shook with him. “Barley says you’ve got something to tell me.”

  “Aw, I ain’t too proud of it.” He shook his head and looked off to the hills in the north. “Guess I was drunker than I imagined when I was leaving that dance Saturday night.”