Branded

by Eric Red

That wiped the smile off Emmett’s face and he nodded soberly. “Their families are innocent. He should just be killing the men who rode in the gang, the men who actually wronged him. Left their families out of it.”

  Bess shook her head in fierce disagreement. “Quaid shouldn’t be killing anybody for any reason!” she retorted. “Nobody has the right to take justice into their own hands. That’s murder, five we know about, and it’s against the damn law. Law takes a hard view of vigilante vengeance. And speaking of wrongs, we know for a fact from Joe that Abraham Quaid got away with lynching three boys who were likely not even of legal age, meaning this old man is just as bad as that gang you’re saying wronged him. If that gang was acquitted, probably it was for good reason. You’re telling me this sheriff you talked to says he knew the gang stole the cattle, burned the ranch? How the hell does he know that? The sheriff—what’s his name, Conrad?—also said they killed Quaid and the three of us both know that’s bullshit. Use your head, Emmett, you’re a damn U.S. Marshal! We ain’t even positively identified The Brander’s victims yet, for Chrissakes. We don’t know they are the gang. About the only thing we do know is Abraham Quaid is alive and on the loose and we need to put an end to him before he puts an end to any more innocent folks.” Finished, Marshal Bess stared straight ahead, chin out, as she rode, figuring she put paid on the conversation.

  Then Joe Noose spoke up, softly but with force of conviction. “He’s hunting down the gang, Bess, I’m convinced of it. We may not have ID’d those dead men but they’re the gang, all right. I’d stake my life on it. Quaid’s a vigilante, not a nut, and he’s killing for a reason, with a purpose. That’s good for us to know if we’re gonna catch him, because one thing I’ve learned is you got to know how your enemy thinks so you can think two steps ahead of him.”

  “I agree with Joe,” Emmett vigorously added.

  “Okay, let’s say you are right and The Brander is targeting these specific individuals,” Bess argued. “What’s our next step?”

  “We need their names,” Noose replied. “That sheriff ’s office in Consequence or the local district court will have their names in the arrest and trial records. Then we need to find out these boys’ locations if we can, and get there before The Brander does. Quaid has found some but not all of this gang, so he’s a good tracker, but I’m a better manhunter than he is. I savvy where The Brander’s going now, it’s the places the rest of the men in that gang are. What we need to do is get there first and intercept him. You’re the marshal, Bess, it’s your call, but you brought me along on this manhunt for my expertise in helpin’ you find this individual and I say that’s how we find him. That’s how we kill him.”

  On her horse, Bess mulled it over then rubbed her chin. “Well . . .” With a sigh, she expelled a cloud of warm breath in the cold air. “I don’t have any better ideas.” Shrugging her assent, it was decided.

  Noose nodded, tugging on the reins to steer Copper in the right direction, and the others did, too.

  “We’re riding to Consequence.”

  * * *

  Three miles on, the trio came to a large cattle ranch in a deep valley. As they rode closer, they saw the stockade contained at least five hundred head of longhorn steers. A few wranglers were riding their horses among the bulls working the huge herd.

  One figure stood out, that of a tall, blond woman with flowing golden hair under her Stetson, saddled astride a mighty brown Belgian stallion that made both appear gigantic. In her long brown duster, sheepskin chaps, and matching boots, she was a vision of leathery coloration, and only the white of her pearl-handled holstered revolvers broke up the chiaroscuro of her dynamic appearance. Riding around the ranch, she gave orders to the men with a hearty confident authority. Periodically her laugh rang like a bell across the plain. The lady appeared to be the only woman on the property and she was clearly in charge. Soon her head swung in the direction of the three approaching riders, and even at a great distance Joe Noose could see the charismatic flash of her piercing blue eyes. As the three manhunters closed in, the cattlewoman rode up to meet them. The strangers received a down-home welcome from a beautiful outdoorsy woman in her thirties, her healthy strong-boned freckled face flushed with spirit and vigor. “I’m Laura Holdridge. This is my ranch, the Bar H.”

  Bess nodded, introducing her companions. “This is Joe Noose, our tracker.” Noose nodded. “This is Marshal Emmett Ford.” Emmett tipped his hat. “And I’m Marshal Bess Sugarland, out of Jackson.” Opening her coat, she displayed her seven-star badge on her bosom. It glinted in the sharp daylight.

  The cattlewoman’s face erupted in a huge wide grin of admiration, sheer delight in her blue eyes. “A woman U.S. Marshal! I’ll be damned! You’re the first woman lawman I ever set eyes on, and it’s about time there was one. I think that is just damn splendid. I’d like to shake your hand.”

  With a charmed grin, Bess Sugarland extended her arm across the saddles and shook Laura Holdridge’s hand, exchanging a strong firm grip of feminine simpatico. “You run this ranch by yourself, Mrs. Holdridge?”

  “Yes. Used to run it with my husband, Sam. Lost him last year. Now it’s just me.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Sam, he taught me everything about the cattle business there is to know. But keeping this spread running keeps me on my toes, Marshal, that’s a fact.”

  “My daddy was a U.S. Marshal. I was his deputy. Learned how to be a lawman from him. Kind of like you, I suppose.”

  “Yes, indeed.”

  The women laughed with an immediate camaraderie, cut from the same mold. Noose enjoyed watching them bond. His kind of gals.

  “Well,” said Laura in her gregarious Wyoming manner. “I welcome you three with open arms to stay for dinner and spend the night here at the Bar H Ranch if you’ve a mind to. It’s getting late, and my ranch beats freezing your asses off sleeping out on the trail. We got lots of room, plenty of good food and drink, and I’d sure appreciate the company.” Her eyes took on a serious look. “But I’m guessing from the purposeful attitude I see y’all have that you aren’t just passing through for no reason and are on some important business. State it. How can I help you?”

  “We’re hunting a killer,” Noose said. Laura swung her blue gaze to the big bounty hunter, and it was plain from her impressed expression she found Joe handsome—plain to Bess, anyway. “A killer who brands his victims with a Q branding iron,” he added.

  Taken aback, the mortified cattlewoman’s brows knitted curiously. “A Q brand, you say? Brands human beings? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

  “Our best information is it’s an old man we’re looking for. Sixty, seventy, mebbe eighty. Missing three fingers of his right hand. You seen or had any dealings with anybody recently fitting that description?”

  “No, sir.” She looked distantly out at the wintery horizon, recollecting or brooding, her thoughts hard to read. Finally, she shook her head. “Somebody fitting that description, I’d remember. He have a name?”

  “We think Abraham Quaid.”

  She brushed a lock of gilded hair from her eyes in the icy breeze. “That name is not unknown in these parts.”

  “Do you know him?” asked Bess.

  “Just by name,” Laura replied. “Wish I could be of more help. Maybe some of my crew has seen the man you’re after. Feel free to question any of my boys here on the ranch. Course, not all of them are on the ranch. Have ’em on half duty now. We’re all getting geared up for a big cattle drive to Cheyenne. Have to move this stock after the thaw.” She swept her arm out at the vast, sprawling stockade packed with steers stretching across the spread. A few wranglers were far off in the distance, rounding up some of the herd, like specks of black pepper on the salt white tableau of the landscape.

  “Thanks,” Marshal Bess said. “We’ll have a word.”

  Seeing Copper looking longingly at the water trough a few hundred yards away, Noose tipped his hat to Laura and trotted away on his horse. The marshals
and cattlewoman kept talking as he rode off a short distance.

  Joe Noose watered Copper at the trough by the stockade and his horse drank thirstily. Sitting in his saddle, the bounty hunter swept his pale gaze across the large herd of cattle in the corral. He counted over a hundred. Hundreds more were grazing around the ranch. It was going to be a long, hard drive for the attractive lady cattle baron after the thaw, and she would have her work cut out for her running a herd this size across Wyoming during mud season. She seemed up to the task.

  Copper was still drinking. Noose looked back across the stockade to where Marshal Bess was sitting on her horse engaged in animated conversation with Laura Holdridge. Marshal Ford had parked his mare beside her, listening intently to their discussion. From the smiles Bess shared with the cattlewoman, Noose could tell that they liked each other.

  The bounty hunter swung his gaze back to the rows of steers lowing and milling in the stockade, forests of horns across acres of land. The Bar H brand was seared on their backs.

  He squinted, noticing something strange.

  Many of the cows bore a different brand.

  Q.

  Brows furrowing, he flipped the reins, leaned his hip in the saddle, and trotted his horse across the frozen ground over to where Bess and Emmett sat on their horses with Laura Holdridge. The female marshal turned her face to him as he approached, and she lost her smile when she registered the hard expression on her best friend’s face. The bounty hunter’s gaze was fixed on the cattlewoman as he rode up and halted Copper, but he tipped his hat politely.

  “Mrs. Holdridge, may I ask you a question?”

  “Go right ahead, Mr. Noose.”

  “I noticed there are two brands on your cattle. Your Bar H Ranch. But also a lot of your steers bear the Q brand.” Quick glances were exchanged between the two marshals, who then looked at the bounty hunter.

  “True,” Laura replied.

  “Back in Wind River we checked with the Wyoming Cattlemen’s Association and the only Q brand in the territory is Abraham Quaid’s ranch. Maybe you heard that a year ago his cattle was rustled and his ranch was burned down by a gang who shot him.”

  The cattlewoman’s eyes clouded with sadness and she nodded grimly. “I heard that. My work on the ranch keeps me here most of the time so I never had cause to visit the Bar Q ranch, but word travels.”

  Joe Noose looked at her hard. “They never found the cattle, but I just did. How did your corral come to be filled with rustled steers, Mrs. Holdridge?”

  “I bought them.”

  “Bought them?”

  “Cash on the barrelhead.”

  “Bought from who?”

  “Judge William Black.” The widow saw by their shared glances that her three visitors did not know the name. “He’s the district judge over in Consequence. Bill Black sold me the cattle last fall. I have the bill of sale if you want to see it.”

  With a shrewd smile, Bess nodded. “I’d rightly appreciate that, Mrs. Holdridge.”

  CHAPTER 23

  “Right this way, then.”

  Dismounting and tethering their horses, Noose, Bess, and Emmett followed Laura as she climbed out of the saddle and led them across her spread to an imposing two-story ranch house of elegant gingerbread design, the brown pine exterior shining with freshly oiled boards, rising proud and weathered against the landscape. A pack of friendly golden Labrador hounds barked as they approached and the widow cattlewoman leaned down to pat them. “Ignore those rascals, they wouldn’t hurt a soul.”

  Despite themselves, the animal lovers Noose and Bess shared a smile and both crouched down to give a friendly pat to the affectionate dogs before rising and following Emmett to the open door of the ranch house.

  Inside, the living room was well-carpentered hardwood, the furnishings masculine and western but with a woman’s touch evident from hand-sewn curtains and quilted throws on the couches and knitted rugs on the floor. The smell of freshly brewed coffee wafted in from the kitchen over the scents of wood and a log fire. It was good to be inside out of the cold, and Noose pulled off and pocketed his gloves, rubbing his hands to warm them. He stomped the snow off his boots along with Bess and Emmett at a pad at the front door, then walked inside.

  “What a beautiful house!” Bess gushed, unable to restrain herself. It was more house than she had ever seen. She looked around the room with admiration.

  The hardy blond Laura returned a warm smile. “Thank you. My husband, Sam, built this house with his bare hands, from the foundation, when we staked our claim here fifteen years ago. It has good bones. His. He’s everywhere you look in this place. That’s Sam.” She pointed.

  A large oil-painted formal portrait of Sam and Laura Holdridge hung over the massive fireplace. The impressive couple were attractively rendered dressed in fine attire standing at each other’s side against the same mountain view visible outside, the ranch house in the background. Her late husband was a big, rugged, bearded, and commanding man who looked like a cattleman, she his equal in stature, and in the painting as probably in life, the Holdridges looked like a powerful couple who belonged outdoors and with each other. “He passed last winter,” Laura said with softness tinctured with grief.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Bess replied. “We all are.”

  “Well. Let me get you that bill of sale for those cattle. My office is in here.”

  The trio followed the cattlewoman into a small room that served as an office, filled with ledgers and books on the cattle business. Dust motes floated in the soft daylight filtering in through the window curtains. A huge map of Wyoming, complete with topographical dimensions, was framed on the wall. Noose looked it over as Laura went to fetch the bill of sale. Beside a kerosene lamp that sat on the desk, a large leather-bound folder lay open. The cattlewoman sorted through a pile of well-organized papers and plucked one out, handing it to Marshal Bess.

  “Here it is,” Laura said.

  Bess held the bill of sale and looked it over, Noose and Emmett peering at it over each of her shoulders. It was a standard notarized cattle purchase order, in official typeset, transferring 102 longhorn steers for the price of fifty dollars a head. It was stamped as paid. There were signatures on the line over the name of the purchaser, Laura Holdridge, and the seller, William Black.

  “He’s a judge, you say?”

  “The only judge for hundreds of miles, Marshal. Not a lot of people in his jurisdiction out here in these parts. If there was anything crooked about this transaction I swear on the Bible I knew nothing about it. I bought the head from a circuit judge so of course I figured it was as respectable and legitimate as can be.”

  “Nobody is accusing you of anything unlawful, Mrs. Holdridge. We’re just a little confused about the chain of events regarding this purchase. Probably it’s all legal, but we’re—” Bess paused.

  Noose rubbed his chin, finishing her sentence. “Wondering how this judge came into possession of stolen cattle. Best believe, Bess, we need to have us a conversation with Judge William Black, get a few things straightened out.”

  “Everybody round here calls him Bill. Bill Black. His house is built right next to the courthouse in Consequence. Can’t miss it.”

  “You’ve been a lot of help, Mrs. Holdridge.”

  “Y’all still want to question my hands?”

  “We’ll ride back if we need to,” said Bess. “First, our next stop is riding out to Consequence directly and talking to a judge about some cows.”

  Laura held up her hand with a bemused scolding gaze. “Now, just hold on there, Marshal Bess. It’s near sundown. You’d be riding in the pitch-dark for two hours y’all head out to Consequence now. Now why don’t y’all use your heads, accept my hospitality, stay the night here at the ranch and have dinner with me. Then tomorrow at first light, have a good breakfast and ride out to town.” Her warm force of personality shone out of her twinkling blue eyes. “Otherwise I’ll have to shoot y’all.”

  * * *

  Dinne
r was served at a large oaken table in the rustic luxurious dining room before a roaring fire in a fireplace big enough for a man to stand in. Coal oil lamps hung on the walls filled the room with a gorgeous firelight. Outside the huge glass windows, the spectacular view of the towering mountains of Yellowstone Park covered with snow changed in the failing light from blue to purple to black. Then it was just moon and stars.

  Around the table, Noose, Bess, and Emmett sat with Laura drinking expensive red wine brought in from the wine cellar. Noose had never tasted anything like it, his palate accustomed to whiskey and beer of the harsher variety, not the sophisticated flavors of what the cattlewoman called a pinot noir, a word he couldn’t pronounce any better than he could read the French words on the label. A man could get used to this, he thought. He exchanged slightly embarrassed glances with Bess and Emmett, both of whom were on their second or third glasses by the time the food arrived, brought in by ranch cooks; juicy thick steaks, heaping mashed potatoes, blackened gold succulent roast corn, fresh salad, and several plates of different cooked vegetables. Laura Holdridge, their generous and expansive hostess, didn’t have to tell them twice to dig in. She clearly was enjoying the company and said so.

  Over dinner, the cattlewoman asked many questions of Bess about the growing town of Jackson, then about her background growing up as a marshal’s daughter; inevitably that conversation led to the violent and dangerous terrible events that transpired when Bess first met Noose on the same day they both met Frank Butler and his gang, and Laura listened enthralled as Bess recounted the adventure that led to her becoming the first woman U.S. Marshal. The cattlewoman was incredibly impressed by the tale.

  Turning her attention to Joe Noose, she eyed him with keen growing interest, hearing of his exploits.

  Noose took the measure of the bigger-than-life cattlewoman he sat across from during dinner, and liked what he saw. Laura was very wealthy and money suited her; she was a natural aristocrat—he had met a few—who displayed a class and character and mettle that was equally down-to-earth, a self-made woman who had come from nothing and built an empire with her own hands, yet had no airs about her person. The bounty hunter knew many rich upper-crust East Coast snobs who took the train from New York and Philadelphia to Victor, then traveled over the Teton Pass and vacationed in Jackson Hole, wanting to see and get a taste of the Great American West. Many were decent folks to be sure, and a few had even bought ranches, but some rich people behaved superior to the Wyoming cowboys, farmers, and townspeople and felt their money made them better than the locals they treated like shit-kickers. Those East Coast aristocrats were soft. There was nothing soft about Laura Holdridge but her body, judging from her lovely figure, and inside she was harder than pig iron. A Wyoming woman through and through. As the evening progressed, he decided he liked her down to the ground.