Thunder Valley Read online

  THAT WILL SHUT ’EM UP!

  “I’ve heard the stories.” Rick wagged his chin at the man in gray. “How many is it they say you’ve done in? Forty or fifty or some nonsense?”

  “Saloon talk,” Rondo James said.

  Rick tilted his head and put a hand to his ear. “I don’t hear you sayin’ you’re sorry.”

  “And you never will.”

  Rick eased his hand down to his revolver. “Last chance, Reb, to walk out of here breathin’.”

  “Rick, don’t,” Dorsey said.

  “Shut the hell up!” Rick glanced at his pards for support.

  “Any of you want to try him on for size?”

  “It’s your fight,” a rough-looking cowhand said, “but we’ll back your play.”

  “Did you hear that?” Rick said to the man in gray. “When you ride for the Bar H, you ride for the brand.”

  “A man can die for a brand, too.”

  “Enough of this,” Rick spat. He went for his six-gun.

  Dorsey saw it all. He saw Rondo James’s hands flash and heard the boom of a pearl-handled Navy and Arn Richter was sent tumbling as if he had been kicked by a mule, a hole in his forehead spurting scarlet.

  With a loud oath, the puncher on Rick’s right clawed for his smoke wagon.

  Rondo James shot him in the face.

  THUNDER

  VALLEY

  DAVID ROBBINS

  A SIGNET BOOK

  SIGNET

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

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  First published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Printing, April 2012

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Copyright © David Robbins, 2012

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  ISBN: 978-1-101-58025-7

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  Printed in the United States of America

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  ALWAYS LEARNING

  PEARSON

  To Judy, Joshua, and Shane

  Table of Contents

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  1

  The armpit of creation, some called it. There was a plank saloon with a room in the back for the owner to sleep in, an outhouse that on a windy day could spread stink a mile, and a chicken coop.

  Three horses were dozing at the hitch rail when the rider trotted up and drew rein.

  He was astride a grulla, his saddle as weatherworn as he was. Of middling height, he wore a brown shirt, brown pants and a brown coat with sleeves that were too short. His hat was frayed, his boots scuffed. Nothing about him was remarkable except his face. Long and narrow, it was marred by a deep scar that split his left cheek, and by an eye patch over his left eye.

  Dismounting, he tied the reins off and strode into the saloon. He didn’t push the batwings lightly. He slammed them open and marched to the bar and pounded it. “Tonsil varnish, and make it quick.”

  The bartender was a rake handle with a lower lip that drooped. He took his time stepping to the shelf lined with bottles and he took his time finding a glass and he took his time pouring. “I don’t take to being bossed around,” he said as he set the glass down.

  “Do I look like I give a good damn what you take to?” the man with the patch said. He swallowed the Monongahela in a gulp and barked, “Give me another, you turtle.”

  The bartender bristled. “I’ll have you know my name is Hanks. I own this place. It’s the only whiskey mill in a hundred miles so you’d better stop growlin’ at me or you’ll go thirsty.”

  The man with the patch moved his coat aside. High on his right hip was a holster and in the holster a Remington revolver with walnut grips. “You have any notion who I am, you peckerwood?”

  “How the hell would I—” the bartender began, and stopped. He stared at the man’s scarred face and his own blanched. “Wait a minute. That patch. That scar. You’re him, ain’t you? You’re One Eye Smith.”

  “I only go by One Eye,” the man with the patch said. “Don’t ever call me by my name.”

  The bartender couldn’t move fast enough. He refilled the glass and offered a sickly smile. “It’s on the house for the grief I gave you.”

  “Ain’t that downright sociable,” One Eye said, and laughed a cold laugh.

  “I didn’t know who you were when you were poundin’ the bar.”

  “How many people in these parts or anywhere else have a patch like me and a scar like me?” One Eye said. “When it comes to brains you’re a lump of mud.”

  “Whatever you say, Mr. Smith, sir.”

  “I just got done tellin’ you I don’t like the Smith part,” One Eye said, glowering with his good eye. “I’m commencin’ to think you’re too dumb to live.”

  The bartender’s throat bobbed. “How about all your drinks are on the house? How would that be?”

  “Tryin’ to bribe me, huh?”

  “Why, no sir. I’m only bein’ sociable, like you pointed o
ut.”

  One Eye’s right hand flicked and in less than the blink of the barman’s eye, the Remington was leveled at him. “Now I’m pointin’ this.”

  “Please, no.”

  One Eye snorted and the Remington returned to its holster.

  “Give me the bottle and shut your cornhole. I am tired of your stupid.”

  The barman went to say something but shut his mouth and placed the bottle next to the glass.

  Gripping it by the neck, One Eye turned and walked to a corner table where three men were playing cards. They had seen the whole thing.

  “You shouldn’t ought to pick on Hanks,” said the tallest. He wore black. Black everything: black hat, black shirt, black pants, black boots. Which made the ivory-handled Colt on his hip and the silver conchos on his black gun belt stand out that much more.

  One Eye pulled out a chair. “Are you tellin’ me what to do now, Ritlin?”

  Ritlin looked up from his cards. He was uncommonly handsome. He had the kind of face that made women look at him twice. Then they noticed his eyes. There was no emotion in them. They were as flat and empty as the eyes of a rattler.

  “Be very careful,” he said quietly.

  One Eye Smith colored slightly at the cheeks but he didn’t say anything.

  “This is a fine start,” said another cardplayer. He had an ample belly and thick arms and a great moon of a face that was nearly always smiling. Except for the Smith & Wesson on his left hip and the bone-handled knife on his right hip, he had an air of perpetual friendliness. “I didn’t ask all of you here to bicker.”

  The last of them now raised his head. He was compact and wore clothes typical of a cowhand. But there was nothing typical about the nickel-plated Merwin Hulbert revolver in a cross-draw rig to the left of his belt buckle. “Why did you send for us, Brule?”

  “Because we’re all the best of pards, Axel,” Brule said cheerfully.

  One Eye snickered. “The hell we are. We’ve worked some jobs together. Doesn’t mean I’ll lick your boots.”

  Ritlin sat up straighter in his chair and set down his cards. “The problem with you is that you were born with a lemon in your mouth.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “You have a sour disposition,” Ritlin said in his quiet way. “You go around miserable and do your best to make everyone else the same.”

  “Strange thing for you to say,” One Eye declared. “You’re hardly a daisy.”

  Brule let out a sigh. “You two are always clawin’ at each other. I, for one, am tired of it. And to answer Axel’s question, I sent for you because I thought you might be interested in a job.”

  “Now that I like,” One Eye said.

  “Tell us,” Ritlin said.

  Brule filled his glass and settled back in his chair. “To start, the man we work for wants us to keep it quiet. No one is to know.”

  “What else is new?” Axel said. “Most of the work we do, we can’t hardly crow about it or the law would have us doin’ strangulation jigs.”

  “True,” Brule said. “But this time our employer doesn’t even want us talkin’ about it among ourselves.”

  “That’s just stupid,” One Eye said.

  “We have to talk it over to do it right,” Ritlin said.

  “Who is this lunkhead?” One Eye asked.

  “In a minute.” Brule made a tepee of his hands. “As another precaution, we’ll meet with him once, and after that, I’m the only one who will have any contact with him.”

  “What if somethin’ happens to you?” One Eye interrupted.

  “Then any of you can go see him,” Brule said.

  “I want to know about the money,” Axel broke his silence. “How much are they offering?”

  “You’re always only interested in the money,” Brule said. “And for this job it’s five thousand dollars.”

  One Eye whistled. “Not bad. Makes for a nice split.”

  “Each,” Brule said.

  Ritlin, One Eye and Axel sat straighter, and One Eye said, “Did we hear that right?”

  Brule nodded. “Five thousand dollars for each and every one of us.”

  “Why, that’s—” One Eye started ticking off the fingers of his left hand with his right as he counted.

  “Twenty thousand, altogether,” Axel did the addition for him.

  One Eye whistled.

  “That’s more than we’ve ever made for all our jobs put together,” Ritlin said.

  Brule chuckled. “When he told me, I about wet myself, I was so happy.”

  “That much money,” Axel said, “the job is either big or there’s extra risk of the law.”

  “Yes and no,” Brule said. “All we have to do is persuade a bunch of hayseeds and some ranchers to move off their land.”

  “That’s it?” One Eye said.

  “How many is a bunch?” Axel asked.

  “Eleven families,” Brule answered. “Nine farmers and two ranchers. The ranches are small outfits and neither is a gun crowd.”

  “Hold on,” Ritlin said. “There are women involved then.”

  “There are.”

  “And kids.”

  “A lot of kids, yes.”

  “I am goin’ to like this job.” Ritlin smiled, and a flicker of pleasure came into his dead eyes.

  Brule stabbed a finger at him. “You do any of that, you do it so no one knows, you hear? The man we’ll be workin’ for doesn’t want us attractin’ attention.”

  “You haven’t said about the law,” Axel said.

  “That’s the beauty of it,” Brule said. “There’s a small town not far from the valley but it doesn’t have a tin star. It’s called Teton.”

  “I’ve been there,” Axel said.

  “Besides a few dozen townsfolk, there’s mostly timbermen and a few old-timers from the trappin’ days. Nothin’ we have to worry about.”

  “The county sheriff?” Axel asked.

  “He’s a week to ten-day ride there and back. That leaves the federal law, and we know how thin those marshals are stretched. They send for one, it could be a month of Sundays before he shows up.”

  “God Almighty,” One Eye said. “This job will be as easy as takin’ puddin’ from a baby.”

  “Don’t jinx it,” Axel said.

  Ritlin asked, “How much in advance? My poke is about empty.”

  Brule laughed. “You’re the one who has to pay the whores more for what you like to do to them.”

  “I don’t do to them what I’ll do to them in that valley.”

  A frown replaced Brule’s smile. “I just got done tellin’ you. You can’t do that this time. Why you have to anyway is beyond me. It’s—”

  “What?”

  “Nothin’,” Brule said, and cleared his throat. “To answer your question, we each get a thousand, in advance. The rest will be paid when the job is done.”

  One Eye chortled. “That’s more than I’ve had at one time in all my born days.”

  “Money always puts me in a good mood,” Axel said.

  One Eye was about to reply when he glanced toward the bar and his good eye narrowed. Lowering his voice, he said, “That Hanks is listenin’. Look at how he’s got his head tilted our way.”

  Brule pushed his hat back and stretched and contrived to peer over his arm at the barman. “Could be he is. But so what? I haven’t said where or who.”

  “I don’t like it,” One Eye said.

  “Me either,” Axel said. “He might gab and word will get around, and later someone with a tin star will link us to them.”

  “All right.” Brule rose and walked over to the bar, smiling, as always. “Say there, Hanks,” he said good-naturedly. “I’ve got a hankerin’ for some of that brandy you sell. Got a bottle?”

  “Sure do,” the barman said. He turned to the shelf and selected the brandy and turned back and held the bottle out. “Here you go.”

  “I’m obliged.”

  “Want me to open it for you?”


  “I want you to die.” Brule’s hand came up holding the bone-handled knife and he thrust the nine-inch blade into Hanks’s chest. Hanks’s mouth gaped and his eyes showed their whites and he melted to the floor without a sound. Just like that, he was dead. Brule picked up a cloth Hanks had used to wipe the bar and cleaned his blade of the blood. Sliding it into its sheath, he turned. “Happy now?”

  “Pleased as punch,” One Eye told him, and showed his yellow teeth. “I hope we get to spill a whole heap of blood before this is done.”

  “Just so we’re paid,” Axel said.

  Ritlin was interested in something else. “This valley you mentioned. The one near Teton. What’s it called?”

  “Thunder Valley.”

  2

  The sun was hot on Royden Sether’s dusty face. He mopped his sweaty brow with his sleeve and said, “Get along, there, Samson.”

  The ox bent and the plow lurched. Powered by its massive muscles, the curved blade cut into the earth like a hot knife through wax, spewing dirt to either side.

  Samson was in his prime. He’d cost Roy a pretty penny, as his wife liked to say, but Samson was worth every cent. Some of Roy’s neighbors preferred horses for plowing. Not Roy. Oxen were slow but they were stronger than a horse and could go all day without tiring.

  Roy was so intent on his plowing that he didn’t realize someone had come out on the field until a hand plucked at his overalls. He glanced down into the freckled face of his youngest son. “What is it, Matthew?”

  Matt was ten. He had Roy’s shock of yellow hair and Roy’s square chin but his mother’s blue eyes. “Ma says she needs you to come to the house.”

  “Can’t it wait?” Roy hated to break off in the middle of plowing; he liked to see a job through to the end.

  “She says you have to come now.”

  Roy knew Matt was quoting her. He brought Samson to a stop and stepped out of the ribbons. “What can be so all-fired important?”

  “Ma didn’t say.”

  Roy hurried toward the distant white farmhouse. Their hundred and sixty acres might not seem like a lot but it was still a good quarter of a mile from the outer fields to the house.

  Their plot was situated near the west end of Thunder Valley. An early settler bestowed the name on account of the frequent spring thunderstorms with their ear-shat-tering thunderclaps.