Thunder Valley Page 3

  “My handle is Rondo James.”

  A hush fell. The cowboys became statues. Dorsey, too, stood immobile with disbelief. Finally a puncher at a table blurted, “You can’t be. He’s been dead goin’ on six or seven years.”

  “No,” the white-haired man said. “I’ve been layin’ low. I got tired of all the peckerwoods like Rick and wanted peace and quiet.” He nodded at Dorsey and started toward the batwings.

  “Hold on, mister,” Rick called out more shrilly than was his wont. “You ain’t apologized yet.”

  Rondo stopped. “Let it drop, for your own sake.”

  “Listen to you,” Rick said. “Treatin’ me as if I’m second-rate.”

  “You are.”

  Rick looked at his friends. “Did you hear him, boys? Sounds like he’s full of himself, don’t it?” He motioned and other punchers spread out.

  “In God’s name, stop,” Dorsey intervened.

  “Stay out of this,” Rick warned.

  “Now that I think about it,” Dorsey said, “Rondo James was supposed to have white hair, just like this gent.”

  “So?” Rick said.

  “So it’s Rondo James, damn you.”

  “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.

  A cowhand at a table cleared a Starr revolver from a holster.

  Rondo James shot him in the face and backed toward the batwings.

  Other Bar H hands stabbed for their six-shooters. A tall drink of water got off a shot and missed, and like lightning, Rondo James shot him in the face.

  A puncher in a cowhide vest fumbled his revolver free and Rondo James shot him in the face.

  Two Bar H hands who were playing poker heaved to their feet and grabbed for their hoglegs and Rondo James simultaneously shot both in the face. Then he was at the batwings and the batwings opened and swung shut and Rondo James was gone.

  Dorsey gawked at the crumpled form of Richter and the other bodies and summed up the situation with “Sweet Jesus.”

  4

  “Who would do such a thing?” Tom Kline asked in bitter sorrow.

  Roy Sether didn’t have an answer. He stared at the slaughter and was speechless.

  Nine hogs lay sprawled in dark pools. Each had had its throat slit, and the pen reeked of blood. Flies crawled in black legions. None of the hogs had been carved on; no meat had been taken.

  “It makes no damn sense,” Tom said. He was thickset with curly brown hair and a small nose that looked as if it had been pushed in. “Explain it to me.”

  “Like you say,” Roy found his voice. “It makes no damn sense.” He glanced at Irene and said, “Sorry.”

  “That’s all right,” Irene said. “It makes no damn sense to me, either. Wanton killing, is what it is. Cold, sheer wanton killing.”

  Tom stepped to his prize boar and placed a hand on the lifeless bulk. “My babies. My wonderful babies.”

  Roy coughed. Tom and Irene didn’t have kids. Once Tom had confided that it wasn’t for a lack of trying. The doc said they couldn’t, for some medical reason or other, and they’d have to live with it.

  “Whoever it was must have snuck in last night,” Tom said. “I was out here about six in the evening and the hogs were fine then.”

  “Your dog didn’t bark?”

  “That old hound of mine?” Tom said, and gestured at the wrinkled specimen snoozing in a pile of straw. “He can’t hardly get around anymore. And he’s half blind, to boot. He’d only bark if something walked right up on him.”

  “Or someone,” Irene said.

  “Did you look for sign?” Roy asked.

  “I found a few prints but I ain’t no tracker,” Tom said. “Hell, I don’t hardly ever hunt.”

  “I do.” Roy went out and scoured the ground. It took a while but near the rear of the barn he found what he was looking for. “There was more than one horse.” He sank to a knee and examined the ground. “The shoes were shod so they were white. Looks like they headed thataway.” He pointed to the west, toward Teton.

  “You’d have thought it would be Injuns,” Irene said.

  “How can white men do this to other white folks?” Tom lamented. “To kill a man’s hogs like that, then just go?”

  “Maybe they were liquored up,” Irene speculated. “People do mighty strange things when they’re liquored.”

  “We should go after them,” Tom said. “I get my hands on them, I’ll thrash them within an inch of their lives.”

  “You’ll do no such thing,” Irene said. “They cut our hogs, what’s to keep them from cutting you? Besides, how would you tell who it was? It’s not as if they’ll be wearing signs that say ‘hog killer.’”

  “She’s right,” Roy agreed. “We have no way of knowing who to blame.”

  “It has to be strangers,” Tom said. “No one who lives there would be this cruel.”

  “Listen to you,” Irene said. “Half of the people in Teton on any given day are passing through.”

  To Roy it was clear she didn’t want Tom to go because she was afraid, and he didn’t blame her. Anyone who would massacre hogs wouldn’t think twice about doing the same to the man who raised them.

  Tom swore and kicked the ground. “I wish we had law in this country.”

  “We have a sheriff,” Roy said.

  “Hell, we’d have to go all the way to the county seat,” Tom said. “Ten days there and back. Never knowing when hostiles might jump us. Or a griz might decide we’re its supper. And then what could the sheriff do, anyhow?” Tom answered his own question. “Nothing, is what. Them that did it would be long gone.”

  “Get word to the federal marshal,” Roy suggested.

  “What good would that do?” Tom retorted. “There’s no telling where he is. And do you honestly think he’s going to ride all the way here over a bunch of hogs? He’s got his hands full with people-killers.” Tom bunched his fists. “I tell you, if I could find the vermin who did this, I’d take the law into my own hands.”

  “You would not,” Irene said. “I wouldn’t let you.”

  “There’s only so much a man can abide,” Tom said angrily. He came out of the pen. “I need a drink.”

  “At this time of day?” Irene said.

  “Don’t start on me, woman.”

  Roy followed them to the house. It was white like his and it was about the same size as his but theirs had a wider porch and a swing instead of rocking chairs.

  Tom bid him sit and went inside with Irene.

  Roy sat back and spread his arms. As hard as it was on the Klines, it was just hogs, after all. The Klines still had their crops and a few cows and a whole lot of chickens. So they’d get by.

  It was the viciousness that troubled him. Never in a million years could he do such a thing. Yet there were p
eople out there who could, men who thought no more of snuffing out a life, any life, than he did of sneezing.

  Roy supposed that the reason he was so troubled was that it could have been his place they struck.

  It’d been his idea to come west. Martha had been perfectly content in Ohio. He was the one who’d yearned for a new life, who’d listened to all the stories about the glories of the frontier and wanted to see them for himself.

  Martha had objected at first. She’d mentioned Indians, and he’d assured her most of the hostiles were on reservations. She’d mentioned outlaws, and he’d pointed out that outlaws mostly went after banks and trains and left ordinary folks alone. She’d mentioned bears and cougars and other beasts and he’d promised they wouldn’t settle anywhere that wild beasts ran rampant.

  Eventually Martha gave in, and here they were.

  The door opened and out came Tom, carrying glasses of beer.

  He gave one to Roy and sat. “Irene is going to lie down. She’s feeling poorly.”

  “How are you holding up?”

  “I’m mad,” Tom answered. “Mad as hell that there’s not a blessed thing I can do about my poor babies.”

  “I heard tell that Mr. McCarthy, who runs the general store, has a hog,” Roy recollected. “She had a litter a while back.”

  “Say, that’s right,” Tom said. “Could be he’d sell me a few.” He swallowed, and frowned. “’Course, it’ll be years before I’m back up to where I was.”

  “If there’s anything I can do,” Roy offered, knowing full well there wasn’t.

  “That’s decent of you,” Tom said. “I’ve got to say, the best part of coming here is having you as a neighbor. You’re as good a friend as a man can have.”

  Roy shrugged. “I just do as the Good Book says. Or try to, anyhow.”

  “How about going to town with me?” Tom said. “We’ll take my buckboard. Maybe bring back some of McCarthy’s litter.”

  “To Teton?” Roy hesitated. With a bunch of hog-killers on the loose, he didn’t care to leave Martha and his kids alone.

  “No, Cheyenne,” Tom said, and snorted. “Of course to Teton. What’s the matter? I’d go alone but it might not be wise if whoever killed my hogs is still around.”

  “How wise is it to leave your wife alone?” Roy asked.

  Tom gnawed on his bottom lip. “You have a point. Could be that whoever killed them is still close by.”

  Roy stood and stepped to the edge of the porch and gazed the length and breadth of Thunder Valley. Here and there pockets of woodland broke the flat of the valley floor, and there were gullies and other places riders could hide.

  “What are you looking at?” Tom asked, coming over.

  “I think we should get word to all the farmers and the ranchers,” Roy proposed.

  “That’s easy enough to do.”

  “And organize a search of the whole valley.”

  “From end to end? Why, Thunder Valley is ten miles long and five miles wide. That’s, what … ?”

  “Fifty square miles,” Roy said.

  “A hell of a lot of country to cover,” Tom said.

  “They were your hogs,” Roy reminded him. “Don’t you want whoever was to blame caught?”

  “I’d like to see them strung up by their thumbs and gutted,” Tom said.

  “Well, then.”

  “But covering the whole valley would take a week or more. I have my planting to do.”

  Roy shrugged. “You’re the one who thinks the hog-killers might be close by.”

  “Let’s hope to God they’re not,” Tom said.

  5

  The Teton Range of the Rocky Mountains was a spectacular sight to behold. Ten of its peaks thrust more than two miles into the sky. Grand Teton thrust the highest, at over thirteen thousand feet. It was unusual to find so many high peaks so close together. It was unusual, too, that unlike the ranges to the south and the north, the Tetons had no foothills.

  The range was broken by canyons that generally ran from west to east. And it was in one of those canyons, in the shadow of a broad six-thousand-foot mountain, that the town of Teton nestled.

  Ninety-three souls lived there year-round. The owner of the general store and his wife and eleven kids made up more than a tenth of the population. Then there was the blacksmith and the hotel owner and the timber mill owner and the workers in his employ and a parson and many more.

  There was a main street, either dusty or muddy depending on the weather, lined by businesses with false fronts and boardwalks. The rest of the buildings were made of logs, as trees were plentiful and easy to cut and shape.

  Situated as it was on one of the main trails between Colorado and the prairie states to the east, and Montana Territory and Oregon Country to the northwest, Teton was a stopping point for settlers and prospectors and other travelers.

  The hotel was seldom empty, and the six saloons were seldom closed.

  The four men who showed up early on a sunny morning rode down the middle of the main street, making way for no one. They drew rein at the Grand Lady, named after the highest peak, and dismounted.

  “Ain’t been to Teton in a coon’s age,” One Eye said as he wrapped his reins.

  “Me either,” Axel said. “Last time was in the dead of winter. The snow was piled eight feet deep.”

  “What in hell were you doing up here at that time of year?” Ritlin said.

  “Huntin’ a man.”

  Brule breathed deep of the pine-scented air, and smiled.

  “I like it here. I like it a lot. Any of you care to guess why?”

  “There’s no law,” One Eye said.

  Brule nodded and rubbed his hands together. “It’s enough to make a man drool, the things he can get away with.”

  “Like killin’ hogs,” Axel said.

  Ritlin stepped onto the boardwalk and shook his head at Brule. “What the hell were you thinking? Hogs, of all things.”

  Brule patted the bone-handled knife on his left hip. “We had to start somewhere.”

  “But hogs?” Ritlin said. “Most farmers value their cows more. We should have killed cows.”

  “Whatever puts fear into them,” Brule said. “We get them so scared that when they’re given the choice between stayin’ and leavin’, they pick leavin’.”

  “But hogs?” Ritlin said again.

  Brule shrugged. “I never could stand any critter that oinks. Pigs, hogs. When I heard that squeal as we were ridin’ by, it gave me the idea to sneak on in and pay my respects.”

  One Eye laughed. “Don’t ever pay your respects to me. I like my throat as it is.”

  They entered the Grand Lady. It was early yet and only a few men were drinking at the bar. At a couple of tables card games were under way.

  “Lively little whiskey mill,” One Eye said.

  Brule bought a bottle and they adjourned to a corner table.

  Ritlin, as always, sat with his back to the wall. So did Axel.

  “Now, then,” Brule said after he had filled their glasses, “suppose we get down to business. We have three months to clear the hayseeds out. I reckon that’s more than enough time.”

  “Hold on,” Axel said. “You told us we’d get a thousand in advance.”

  One Eye nodded. “And we ain’t seen the money yet.”

  “We will,” Brule told them. “The man who hired me, the man we’re to have all our dealin’s with, will be here in a few days to personally hand us the money.”

  “That’s more like it,” Axel said.

  Brule looked about the room, then leaned forward on his elbows and said so only they would hear, “Now remember. We scare off as many as we can. Those that won’t go, we buck out in gore.”

  “We should buck them all out,” Ritlin said.

  “Massacrin’ all those families would stir up the whole countryside and bring the federal marshal down on our heads,” Brule said. “We do this smart.”

  “Any lawman shows up, he’ll wish he hadn’t,”
Ritlin said.

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

  “Easy for you to say. You like doves.”

  “Damn it, Ritlin,” Brule said. “You do any of that, you take them off where no one will find their bodies. You hear me?”

  “I’m not stupid,” Ritlin said.

  One Eye sat up straighter and bobbed his chin toward the entrance and said, “Lookee here.”

  A man had come hurrying in. He wore a cap and high boots that marked him as a timberman. He crossed to the bar and said something to the men who were drinking that caused them to gather around.

  “What’s this?” Axel said. “He must have news of some kind.”

  “Maybe about the hogs,” One Eye said.

  “Let’s have a listen,” Brule said, and rising, he led them over. Some of the cardplayers had also stood and were converging.

  “… God is my witness,” the newcomer was saying. “I was delivering a load of wood. That’s how I know.”

  “And you saw it?” a townsman asked.

  “You saw him?” said someone else.

  “Well, no,” the timberman said. “But I saw the bodies. He shot each and every one in the face.”

  Brule shouldered in among them. “Hold on. What’s this about? Who shot who?”

  “You won’t believe it,” the timberman declared. He was enjoying the attention.

  “Try me,” Brule said.

  The timberman took his time. He helped himself to a swallow of liquor from a glass the bartender had given him, and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “It’s like this,” he said. “There’s a settlement north of here a ways, called Savage.”

  “I’ve been there,” One Eye said.

  “Is there anywhere you haven’t been?” Axel asked.

  The timberman appeared annoyed by the interruption. “Some cowhands from the Bar H got into a scrape with a leather-slapper, and you won’t believe who. I didn’t hardly believe it myself but I talked to the barkeep, Dorsey, and he swore by his mother’s grave that it was him.”

  “Him who, damn it?” Brule said.

  “Rondo James.”

  “The hell you say.”

  Ritlin galvanized into motion, his dead eyes glimmering with sudden interest. Shoving surprised patrons out of his way, he strode up to the timberman. “You’d better not be lying, mister.”