by Lyle Brandt
They had to ride with all dispatch to warn the puppeteer who pulled their strings.
Fetching three horses from the livery had taken precious time, first to rouse the proprietor, demanding animals, then getting their mounts saddled and ready for the road. Now, finally, they were en route to Hebron Stark’s place outside town, with Rogers praying that his tobiano gelding wouldn’t stumble, pitching him headlong into the night, breaking his damned-fool neck.
It seemed to take forever, covering three miles between Cold Comfort and the spread their lord and master called Stark Acres. Lights were burning in the house as they arrived, and some of Hebron’s hands were circulating through the shadows, wrapping up their daily chores and smoking, hand-rolled quirleys glowing in the night.
One rangy shooter tried to stop them climbing up three steps onto Stark’s elevated porch, but Tilton flashed his badge and glowered when the lookout tried to laugh it off. Reluctantly, they were admitted to the big house while a black butler went off to fetch the man in charge.
“Well, what in hell’s the matter?” Stark demanded when he finally appeared, wearing a robe made from some shiny fabric Rogers didn’t recognize offhand.
They had agreed beforehand that he’d do the talking, and he kept it short: the trail boss and one of his pistoleros barging in, first at the marshal’s office, then the mayor’s house, forcing their hostages to point them toward Stark’s place. Instead of going off half-cocked, as Rogers had expected, Stark seemed calm and thoughtful, saying, “No one’s seen them around here.”
“Not yet,” the marshal blurted out. “It didn’t sound like they were joshing, though.”
“I’m not disputing your account, Mayor,” Stark replied, observing the formalities despite what Rogers viewed as an imminent threat. “I’ll be prepared. You rest assured of that.”
“And us, sir?” Hazlet interjected, making Creed Rogers scowl. What was the point of making plans if no one stuck to them?
Instead of telling Luke to shut his pan, Stark said, “It’s your call. Head on back and wait it out or stick around and see it done. Just don’t get underfoot.”
“I’m staying put,” Rogers declared, before the lawmen had a chance to put their two cents in.
Stark nodded. “I’ll have Erasmus bring you one drink each, but that’s the limit. You’re not getting spoony on my dime when I may need you thinking straight.”
* * *
* * *
JAY COTHRAN DIDN’T keep the old man waiting. That was never wise, and most particularly not when there was action in the offing.
Stark wasted no time in getting down to business. “Jay,” he said, “it seems we might be having company tonight.”
The foreman didn’t ask how Stark knew that. He’d seen the three chuckleheads from town arrive, demanding time with Mr. Stark as though they had any authority beyond their phony jobs.
“How many, boss?” he asked instead.
“Can’t answer that,” Stark said. “They only had eleven men before you plugged the shine. Leaves ten all told, and I’d expect their boss to leave half of them sitting on the herd, in case we try something.”
So, five, no more than six. Jay didn’t speak the numbers. Stark was capable of counting on his own and didn’t care for yes-men as a rule—as long as everyone in his employ did just exactly what he ordered them to do, without delay.
“We’ve got ’em four to one,” Cothran said.
“Not counting household staff and green hands,” Stark reminded him.
“So, two to one.”
“Still should be good enough. I’ll join you for the party.”
“Yes, sir.” Jay tried to keep his face deadpan, but something must have shown despite his best effort.
“You disapprove?” Stark asked, cocking one eyebrow at him.
“No, sir. Not at all. Just thinking about you taking a big chance on the firing line.”
“I’m touched by your concern,” his master said, not sounding touched at all, but working up to angry.
Cothran tried to head him off from that. “No disrespect meant, sir.”
“And none inferred. Just bear in mind who built this place and who’s in charge of it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“When trouble shows up at my door, I kick it in the rear.”
* * *
* * *
IT WAS WELL past midnight when five horsemen made their approach to Stark Acres. They couldn’t see the house or any other buildings yet, but knew they had to be within a mile unless they’d gone badly astray.
Riding a few yards back from Gavin Dixon at the point, Bishop was watching out for pickets, at the same time thinking about those they’d left behind, guarding the herd. Dividing up their forces was a risky play, but he’d have likely done the same thing if some twist of fate had placed him in command.
On balance, he preferred receiving orders to pronouncing them. That way, at least, if someone else got hurt or killed, it wouldn’t be his fault.
Bishop had no idea what they were riding into, but he took for granted that they’d be outnumbered and outgunned by men who knew their home ground inside out and how to make the most of it. In any deadly fight, offense and defense both had certain drawbacks, but attackers normally lacked cover, charging at an enemy who’d had time to prepare, plot interlocking fields of fire, and take advantage of familiar ground they lived and worked on every day.
The fight for Malvern Hill in 1862 came instantly to mind. Both sides were equal, call it eighty thousand men at arms, but General Lee’s troops were attacking fortified Union positions, with three gunboats on the James River supporting General McClellan’s troops on land. When it was over, there were nearly twice as many Rebels dead as Yankees. A lieutenant general on the winning side opined, “It wasn’t war. It was murder.”
Bishop hoped that wouldn’t be their fate tonight, but there was nothing he could do about it now. Ahead of him Dixon had raised a hand to halt the drovers trailing him. They grouped around their trail boss, narrowing their eyes when they at last detected signs of human habitation on the plains.
Toby saw lighted windows but no movement on the grounds.
And here we go, he thought, drawing his rifle from its saddle boot. No turning back.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
JAY COTHRAN FINISHED tamping down the powder in his Whitworth rifle’s barrel, followed it with a heavy bullet and a cotton patch to seal its hexagonal bore, and then stowed the ramrod underneath the weapon’s barrel. Mr. Stark supplied repeating rifles but the Whitworth suited Cothran, reaching out to twice the normal range of Winchesters and Henrys, accuracy heightened by the William Malcolm telescopic sight.
The scope wouldn’t help Cothran much at night, he realized, but if Stark Acres faced invasion, as the boss surmised, and if one of their adversaries passed between Jay’s hideout and the barn or bunkhouse, where lamps cast their light, he should be able to reach out and knock them down.
And failing that, he’d use the Winchester that lay beside him or fall back upon the Colt Open Top pistol riding on his hip. Jay was prepared for anything and didn’t plan on letting any cowboy get the drop on him.
Some of the other hands on Stark Acres seemed apprehensive over facing armed invaders, but the prospect didn’t worry Jay at all. He’d been expecting this when Mr. Stark sent him to rile the drovers up and force their hand. When he had dropped one of them at their camp, all that had followed from it was foreseeable—and, in Jay’s mind, a welcome consequence.
What was the point of working for a man like Mr. Stark if Cothran never got to throw his weight around?
Jay figured he’d get one shot, maybe two, out of the Whitworth before he was forced to set it down and turn his hand to the repeaters for whichever adversaries were still drawing breath. By then, with any luck, he would have dropped two men out of the five
or six who meant harm to his boss and to the property over which Cothran exercised a measure of authority.
He’d prove his usefulness once more, and that would bring its own reward in terms of job security.
But if he failed . . .
That did not bear considering.
Jay had the roof of Mr. Stark’s ranch house staked out, accessed via a ladder at the rear. The curved ceramic tiles beneath him radiated heat despite the hour, after soaking up the sun all day, making a pleasant contrast to the cool night breeze that brushed against Jay’s face. He had no worry about sliding off the roof, positioned as he was, but backing toward the ladder when the time came would require sure-footedness.
All Cothran wanted was sufficient time to pick at least one target, preferably two, before he had to take the fight down with him to ground level and be done with it.
“Come on, you bastards,” he muttered to no one. “Come ahead and get it done.”
* * *
* * *
THE LIGHTED HOUSE and barn were still three hundred yards ahead when Mr. Dixon halted them and dismounted. The others watched him from their saddles, waiting till he said, “We’ll leave the horses here, tethered around those sugar maples yonder. Come back for ’em when we’re done.”
Or not, thought Bishop, if they finish us.
It wouldn’t matter in that case, but he disliked the thought of Compañero falling into Stark’s hands, either being worked to death or maybe shot outright. He decided then and there to tie a slipknot in the Appaloosa’s reins, so he could pull it loose at the approach of strangers.
Bishop owed that, at the very least, to the friend who’d carried him halfway across the country.
When all their animals were settled and the men’s weapons double-checked, they got final instructions from their boss. Dixon was going straight in, up the middle, with Deke Sullivan and Paco Esperanza. While they closed the gap, Bishop’s assignment was to flank Stark’s layout from the east while Gorch circled around the west.
Given the longer distances his flankers had to cover, Dixon gave them both a five-minute head start. His parting order: “If you come on any guards, try not to let them sound a warning.”
That was open to interpretation, Bishop taking it to mean that they were on their own, relying on their personal initiative. A sentry taken by surprise could be coldcocked—a fist or gun butt should be satisfactory—but judging how long any given man might lie unconscious was a gamble. One measure of miscalculation could be fatal for the Circle K’s riders.
The only “safe” alternative was murder.
Bishop mulled the possibilities: a killing blow, instead of one that sent an adversary off to dreamland. Otherwise, all he could think of was the knife sheathed on his belt, its blade six inches long and single-edged, or strangulation with bare hands. The more time it required to put one guard away, the greater risk his boss and fellow drovers faced.
Bishop had only stabbed one man—a drunk in Waco who had tried to knife him in a bar—and that wound wasn’t fatal. He had used the drunk’s own sticker, turning it against him in their tussle, and no charges had been filed, although the city marshal had suggested in the strongest terms that Bishop hit the road. He had a memory of seeing red, then rinsing crimson from his hands and feeling no regret to speak of as he put Waco behind him.
Knifing someone with intent to kill was different, but once he drew the knife there could be no other result. Leaving a sentry wounded, crying out in pain, would contravene his orders and most likely get him killed.
Do what you have to do, he thought. Then live with it.
* * *
* * *
HEBRON STARK BUCKLED his pistol belt, twin Smith & Wesson Model 3 six-guns holstered on either hip. Around behind, two dozen leather loops held .44 S&W American cartridges, polished with a chamois cloth until they gleamed by lamplight.
In his tanned, big-knuckled hands he held a lever-action Spencer carbine, seven .45-70 cartridges loaded into its butt magazine, one more in the chamber and ready to fire once he cocked the hammer. It measured forty-seven inches overall, the barrel just a smidgen under twenty-two, weighing eight and one-quarter pounds. Its maximum effective range, according to the manufacturer: five hundred yards.
If all of that firepower let Stark down, he had a Remington Model 95 derringer in a vest pocket, both barrels loaded with a .41-caliber short rimfire cartridge. Meant for close-up killing with its stubby barrels, the Model 95 had an effective range of only ten feet, give or take.
If all else failed, Stark also had a bowie knife, its twelve-inch clip-point blade honed to a shaving razor’s keenness with a whetstone, then a leather strop.
Each weapon in his private arsenal had drawn blood in the past and, if tonight turned out the way it seemed to be heading, would draw more yet.
That prospect did not frighten Stark.
In fact, it made him smile.
He had enough dependable gunmen on hand to do the job without him, under Jay Cothran’s direction, but Stark realized that any shirking of participation in the coming fight would undermine his personal authority downrange. New hires would start to doubt him first. Veterans who’d been around much longer, sharing risks with Stark, would recall how he’d fought beside them against Indians and outlaws, running squatters off his open range. Still, seeds of doubt would put down roots like weeds among the red tiles on his roof.
A reputation, once procured, had to be nurtured like a garden, or eventually it would wither on the vine and fade away. He dared not place the whole burden on Cothran’s shoulders, or before he knew it, Stark’s hands would begin to see Jay as their boss in all but name.
And that would never do.
Stark moved along the hallway from his office, past the dining room and parlor toward his home’s front door. Outside, the night was nearly still, his men under instruction to keep quiet, on alert for enemies who could appear at any time, from any quarter.
It had been years, Stark realized, since he had felt so vital. So alive.
* * *
* * *
CREED ROGERS CHECKED his Colt Model 1855 Sidehammer revolver’s load, confirming there were five .31-caliber rounds in its small cylinder, and wondered what in hell he was thinking.
He’d been wondering that same thing since he left Cold Comfort with Harley Tilton and Luke Hazlet, riding out to Stark Acres on a borrowed horse from the livery stable. The very last place he belonged was at the site of an impending mortal combat, yet he’d placed himself in harm’s way and it was too late to back out now.
Rogers had never shot a man, had never even fired a bullet at another human being. Come to that, he hadn’t been in any kind of fight at all since he was twelve, maybe thirteen years old, and wound up losing that one badly, carrying the shame of it until he’d left home to escape by studying the law.
The problem, he supposed, was goddamned greed.
He’d been confronted by a situation in which a man with wealth had promised him a measure of authority, albeit in a godforsaken piss-pot town, and he had grabbed for that brass ring as if his life depended on it.
Now, Rogers supposed, it might.
The Colt Sidehammer was a small weapon, suited in that regard to his dwindling courage. It measured just eight inches overall, including its three-and-one-half-inch octagonal barrel, and weighed one ounce over a pound. Colt’s Manufacturing Company had produced forty-odd thousand of them between 1855 and 1870, carried most often as a hideout gun by men who put their main trust in some larger firearm. Its effective range was estimated at twenty-five yards, and the three times he’d fired it, Rogers hadn’t hit his target once at one-fourth of that distance.
Pitiful.
Right now, he could be at home, waiting to hear who’d won the battle of Stark Acres—or perhaps he should have picked some compass point at random and departed
from Cold Comfort altogether. With his law degree he could have started over somewhere else and tried to leave his past behind.
But now it was too late for that.
No one around him knew how many cowboys would be coming after Hebron Stark, or when they might arrive, but the conviction that they would come was a universal constant, from the Big Man down to his household staff and the old man who mucked his stalls. None of them seemed as troubled by that prospect as Creed Rogers was—except, perhaps, for Harley Tilton and Luke Hazlet.
Neither of the lawmen seemed to be anticipating all-out war with anything but dread, though Rogers saw that they were fighting to conceal their fear. As he thought of all the times he’d seen them throw their weight around Cold Comfort, lording over men and women who accepted Stark’s will as judgment from on high, their apprehensive posture seemed ironic now.
In other circumstances, if he had been safe himself, Rogers might well have laughed at their discomfiture, watching them squirm and try to hide it, but having his own life riding on the line—the only thing he truly cared about—had stolen the mayor’s sense of humor and replaced it with a brooding premonition of disaster.
Had he brought this down upon himself?
Undoubtedly, he thought, and pushed that thought away as if some stranger had addressed it to him with hostile intent.
If he could only live to see another sunrise, Rogers promised faithfully to change his ways, move on, and find himself another life.
But that required him living through the fight to come, and he supposed that only Hebron Stark’s hired guns could save him now.
* * *
* * *
ROGERS MIGHT HAVE been surprised to learn that Gavin Dixon—whom he barely knew, but who had turned his small world upside down—was saddled with misgivings of his own.
