Slocum and the Widow's Range Wars Read online

  “Maybe someone there knows them?”

  “Yes. I’ll send a letter to the sheriff down there. Is there anything I can do for you?”

  “No—” She chewed on her lower lip, and then she raised her head to regain her composure. “Do you have any idea why they thought Hank was this outlaw McGraw?”

  “No, ma’am, and no one I can find saw them ride into this country.”

  Her brows furrowed at the man’s words. “No one saw them ride in?”

  “No one. So they must have had someone and someplace to hide them. There’s always a criminal element around that’ll do any underhanded thing for money.”

  “Thank you, Sheriff Grimes. I appreciate all you’re doing.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, and doffed his hat. “You’re a brave woman for all you did. We can handle it from here on.”

  She nodded. Or I will. With her skirts in her hand, she headed for the whitewashed schoolhouse and the noisy children playing tag around the perimeter.

  Inside the schoolhouse, crowded with folks that looked sad when they saw her, she spoke to the auctioneer, Taylor Nichols. A burly man with a rasping laugh and a drawl, he greeted her with his usual smile. “Why, certainly, Miss Nelson, I’ll be proud to sell your things next Sat-a-day. But pardon me, ma’am, ain’t it a little early for doing that?”

  “No.” She thanked him and started to move away.

  He laughed out of obvious nervousness and nodded. “Guess you’d know better’n anyone when to have it. I’ll be there with my help at daybreak on the day of the sale. And ma’am, thank you. I sure liked your man and this is a sad day in all our lives.”

  “Yes,” she agreed, and went to look for Mathew. He was the gunsmith in town and Hank’s close friend—she needed his advice. At last she saw him in the corner of the classroom talking to a rancher named Brothers. Mathew Gilliam was in his early forties, a widower, with enough gray on his temples to make him handsome. Of medium build, he still looked athletic, and walked straighter than most men, many of whom were cowboys.

  “I’m going back to Texas,” she explained to him. “I need a pistol.”

  He nodded as if in deep thought as they stood together. “No bigger than your hands are, I’d suggest a .32-caliber Colt. They’re about two thirds the size of a .44.”

  “Sounds good. I want two and a holster for them.”

  Mathew looked at her in shock.

  “Not here,” she whispered in his ear. That cut off any words.

  “I’ll have them,” he said under his breath, sounding uncertain about the whole matter.

  “Excellent, I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Yes….”

  At eight the next morning, when he unlocked the front door of his shop, she came in dressed in a divided riding skirt and a man’s shirt, with a felt hat on her shoulders caught at her throat by a rawhide cord.

  “You’re up early,” Mathew remarked.

  “Yes, Watson over at the blacksmith shop is shoeing two horses for me.”

  “Going back to Texas?” he asked, walking behind the glass case. Without a word he drew out a pistol and put it on the counter. “That’s one of the .32s I have. Feel it. I’m not your father nor your keeper, but going off to Texas by yourself is not a wise thing to do even armed.”

  “I understand your concern, but we all have to do what we have to do.”

  “I know, Belle, but you can’t run down cold-blooded killers. Why, land’s sake, you’re a woman.”

  She examined the revolver, making certain it was unloaded, then aimed it and squeezed off the trigger with a snap. It was much easier to handle than the heavier revolvers. “I’ll take it and the other one.”

  “It’s a little fancier.” He shook his head. “It don’t match that one.”

  “Get it out.” She turned and watched a buggy go by. Her worst fear was that Grimes would move the wounded man before she talked to him.

  Mathew set the walnut box on the counter. The silver-plated Colt had a mother-of-pearl handle. She leaned over and studied the firearm in the felt-lined box—not touching it. “How much? Bottom dollar.”

  “One-fifty, and I can’t sell it any cheaper even to you, Belle.”

  “I’ll take it. Where’s the holster?” She removed the pistol from its case and hefted it. “Just right—cartridges?”

  Looking upset, he set a box of .32 shells on the counter.

  “The holsters?” she said, busy loading the copper cartridges in the side gate. “They’ll need to be cut down.”

  The Colt loaded, she spun the cylinder around so the hammer was on the empty chamber, then set it on the countertop. She took the two-gun holster set from Mathew and strapped it around her waist.

  “I can cut it down,” he said, looking at the obviously too large fit.

  “Do that. I’ll be right back.” She picked up the pearl-handled .32 and, with her gun hand close to her leg, headed for the door with him yelling after her.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Never mind, I’ll be right back.” She frowned with impatience at him and went out the front door.

  Doc Green’s office was half a block away. Grateful there were few people on the boardwalk, she nodded to Mrs. Ripple, who never noticed the pistol in her hand. At the foot of the stairs she looked around, saw nothing out of the ordinary, and took the stairs two at a time grateful the new hem cleared her boot toes.

  The door was unlocked and she pushed inside the office. No one was there. Good. She slipped in to the hallway wondering which room held the man she wanted. With a hard swallow she took the pistol in her left hand and dried her right palm on the side of her skirt. Then, with the gun back in her right hand, she continued on tiptoe. A man’s hard cough told her someone was in the next room on the left.

  A tough-looking man blinked at the sight of her, then frowned in disbelief when she brought up the pistol.

  “Who in the fuck’re you?”

  “I’m asking the questions here. I shot you once and will again unless you start talking—now, who are you?” She punctuated her threat by cocking the pointed gun at him.

  “Lady, lady, put that gun down.”

  “Talk.”

  “You’re going to hurt yourself—” His words were cut off by the shot she fired in to the pillow beside his head. Wide-eyed with fear, he bolted upright and held out his unbandaged arm to stop her in the smoky haze. “All right. My name’s Turk Hayes. Go easy with that damn gun. Jim Talbot was the fella you killed. Wesley Harrigan was the fella got off. There.”

  Her eyes watered from the gun smoke and the smoldering pillow on the bed. But she had the names she wanted. “Whose place did you hide out at before you came to ours?”

  “He might kill me.”

  “I can do that.”

  Hayes shook his head in defeat. “You know, you’re one tough bitch. Olsen, Mars Olsen.”

  She turned and heard the man sigh in relief behind her back. At the doorway, she turned back to him, hearing the rush of feet coming up the stairs—her time would be short. “Where was Harrigan headed?”

  He’d poured the water pitcher on the smoking pillow and now looked up at her. “To get the hell away from you, I guess.”

  The red-faced deputy broke in to the office, holding the rest back with his left arm, gun in his other hand. “Who’s shot?”

  “A pillow, I think,” she said, and turned sideways for the startled crowd to make room for her passage down the staircase. They looked at her in silent disbelief as she went past them.

  “It’s all right folks. No one’s shot,” the deputy announced as she strode away down the boardwalk for the gun shop.

  “You shoot him?” Mathew asked, looking around to see if anyone had trailed her to his store.

  “No, only the pillow beside his head.”

  When she offered no more information, he laid out the adjusted holsters for her. She put the rig on and slid both guns into the holsters. After adjusting the buckle and settling i
t on her waist, she paid Mathew, who looked hard at her the whole time. He held the money she’d given him in his hand, still looking surprised. “I have one more gun you might need.”

  “Yes?”

  “It’ll fit in your boot.”

  She nodded, both pistols loaded and strapped around her waist.

  He set a small handgun on the counter. “It’s called a Ladysmith.”

  She nodded again, and he put two boxes of shells for it on the counter. “How much do I owe you?”

  He waved her away. “My gift. I don’t approve of your goals, but I think you’re the most beautiful woman in the world and I’d do anything for you. I have thought that ever since he brought you here.”

  “I never knew that,” she said, looking the .22 over.

  “Well, now you do. All those times I drove out to see Hank, well, it really was to catch sight of you.” He stretched his arms over his head and covered a yawn. “Guess you know there ain’t no fool like an old one.”

  “Mathew, I never considered you old nor foolish and I really think a lot of you. Thanks for the compliment. I’m flattered.”

  “Guess there ain’t no talking you out of selling out and giving up on this crazy business of finding his killers?”

  “I couldn’t live out there. Too many reminders. Bad memories of that day would haunt me.”

  He agreed in defeat. “Belle, you ever need anything, I mean anything, let me know.”

  She reached over and pulled him against the counter. With a quick kiss to his cheek, she smiled at him. “I will, Mathew. I will.”

  A week later, she sat cross-legged on the ground in the predawn looking at the crude shack and the stinking pigpens of a moonshiner named Olsen. Using a forked stick for a gun rest, she had both of her rifles loaded beside her. The first target she aimed to shoot at was a whiskey barrel on the bench beside the cabin doorway. Mars Olsen was going to get up early this morning.

  The report of the rifle echoed across the hillside. She heard someone in the house begin cursing, and she aimed the next shot at the keg, which was already spouting out a stream of liquor from the first hole. A grizzly figure in gray long handles rushed out and bear-hugged the barrel to take it to safety. Her second well-placed bullet struck a stave and made the man drop the barrel on his toe. Then, with him yowling and hopping around on one leg with his foot in his hand, she splintered the door facing with another bullet close by his head.

  Wide-eyed, he threw his hands in the air looking for her. “I give up.”

  “No,” she shouted. “You get out of this country and don’t come back. Forever.”

  “But my clothes—”

  Her next bullet, near his foot, made a puff of dirt and he danced sideways, hands still high. “Get on that mule of yours and don’t stop till you get out of Wyoming.”

  “I hear yah. I hear yah. I’m going.” She put the rifle to her shoulder and sent another bullet in to the ground near his foot. After that, he really ran for the corral. Using a rope for a bridle, he bellied over the circling mule while whining and crying, “She’s gonna kill me. Crazy gawdamn bitch. She’s gonna kill me.”

  He rode off flailing his mule. With the smell of pigs in her nose, she recalled it was the same odor that had filled the outhouse that day. All the grunters soon were turned loose. She went to the cabin, found a can of kerosene, and spread it over the cabin’s contents. At the doorway she struck a match on the door facing. When she tossed it on the coal oil, it went up with a whoosh.

  Her rifles in the saddle boots, she swung up on the gray horse Hank had called Thunder and pulled on the lead to Sandy, the bay horse under the packsaddle. She looked back at the raging fire and nodded in approval. All she lacked was settling with Harrigan—it would be a long ride to Texas.

  1

  Cheyenne shone in the mid-afternoon sun. The railroad hub sprawled out to the fort. Another hot August day. Slocum sat on his haunches near the loading pens dickering over cattle prices with cattle buyer Hap Brehnam.

  “They’re all threes and fours?”

  “I said that once, Hap. You can gate-cut any that ain’t.”

  “I can’t use them calves.” Hap pushed the narrow-brim hat back on his head. “You say that they’ve got lots of Durham blood in them?”

  “All mottled-faced or roans.”

  “How many head?”

  “They drove two thousand up here, so taking an eight-percent death loss—say eighteen hundred.”

  “All steers?”

  “Yes. They’re damn good cattle. They’ve put on some good weight up here. Be big frames.”

  “All right, I can use them if they aren’t—”

  “Exactly like I said they were. We can take the train over to Rawlings in the morning and a stage north to the headquarters. You can see them for yourself. Let’s go have a drink.”

  “Just what I need.” Hap put his hat back on, refitted it to suit himself, and rose. “How did you get hooked up with Butch and Tom Izzer on this deal?”

  “I needed some work and they needed a manager.”

  “I mean, I remembered back in Dodge you made some drives; then after that, I didn’t see you. Figured you cut out a place of your own when that good graze opened up north of Ogallala.”

  Slocum shook his head. “Guess I have itchy feet.”

  “There was some good-looking gal—what the hell was her name—Lucy VanDamm—had a bunch of cattle in the Cherokee Strip. You worked for her, I remember.”

  Slocum nodded as he recalled playing tag with her naked in a great high feather bed. Lucy VanDamm, there was lots of woman there. Him swatting her bare butt with his hand and her howling like he was killing her, until they both spilled apart laughing themselves into tears. Hard to forget a redheaded woman with that many freckles on her ass.

  “She married a businessman from New York,” Slocum said. “And sold out.”

  “Damn, I always figured she was hotter than a wildcat.”

  “She’d sure win that race all right.” He paused to open the Longhorn Saloon’s batwing door for Hap, and stared back at a woman riding a gray horse astride and leading a packhorse. Her looks were striking, and something in her eyes told him she was searching. Two guns strapped on her waist, a rifle under each fender skirt, this was no ordinary woman. The pistol in the holster on this side was silver-plated and had a mother-of-pearl handle.

  “See something?” Hap asked.

  He took one last look after her and then shook his head. “Nice gray horse.”

  They went to the bar, ordered a bottle and two glasses, then retired to a side table.

  After two drinks, Slocum shook the man’s hand and promised to meet him in the morning.

  “Don’t tangle with no wildcats,” Hap said, and raised his third glass to him.

  Curious about the gray horse’s rider, he worked his way down Lincoln Boulevard looking over the horses in the various liveries. In Clancy’s Finest Irish Stables, he spotted the gray in a tie stall with the bay. He walked down the alleyway, and a swamper came out chewing and spitting tobacco to help him.

  “Whatcha need?”

  “The gray? Who rode him in?”

  “A fine lady did if it’s any of your business.”

  Slocum reached in his pocket, took out a silver dollar, and flipped it in the air. “Heads you win, tails I kick the dogshit out of you for the answer.”

  “Heads. Her name’s Belle Nelson and she’s staying at the New York Hotel.” He spat aside a large quid of tobacco and turned back holding his overall suspenders in both hands.

  “Heads it is.” Slocum tossed him the coin and he caught it with both hands.

  “You want to leave a message?”

  Slocum shook his head. Why did a fair-headed woman wearing guns and riding a gray horse have him so curious? Was it the verse in the Bible, in Revelations, about a stranger riding a gray horse? Striding back up the street, he looked in the plate-glass windows of each eatery until he saw her head in the lamplight. No mistaki
ng her wheat-colored hair or the face—where had he seen her before? That was the attraction, he’d known her in another time—another place—but where? Then he was inside the café, looking around as if searching. Then he strode over with his hat in his hand.

  “Ma’am, is this seat taken?” He indicated the chair opposite hers.

  Her blue eyes searched around, as if looking to see how crowded the place was, and she saw seats available at other tables. When she looked back at him, her lashes narrowed and she lowered her voice. “You obviously want to talk to me.”

  “Yes, Belle.”

  “That voice. We’ve met before. Sit down.” She nodded to the chair. Then, with her arms folded, she sat back to look him over. “Where?”

  “I’ve been asking myself that for an hour. When I saw you come riding up Lincoln out there.”

  “How did you remember my name?”

  “Honestly, I asked the swamper at Clancy’s. But Nelson didn’t fit.”

  She tossed her hair back. “How does Jarnagan work?”

  “Justin Jarnagan—hmm, had a tomboy of a daughter could ride anything that breathed.”

  She made a face, looking uncomfortable. “He called me Butcher.”

  “Butch Jarnagan, you won the big stake race at San Antonio on a little mare I owned called Señorita. I owe her a plate of food.”

  “You made me so mad selling her after that race. I could of won a lot more on her.”

  He ordered coffee from the waitress, who brought Belle a plate of fried steak, potatoes, bread, and green beans.

  “You can order food, I’m in no hurry,” she said, indicating her portion.

  “Fine, then you bring me the same thing,” he said to the waitress. He turned back to Belle. “Your father?”

  “Killed in a wagon wreck. Horses ran off. About six years ago.”

  “Well, your husband then?”

  “Shot two weeks ago by some bounty hunters who thought he was an outlaw called Tray McGraw.” She dropped her chin and shook her head. Then, using a napkin, she wiped her mouth as if to keep herself from crying. In the end she blotted her wet eyes with it.