From the front, he heard hard banging on the door, and the sound of Jace’s voice, shouting what they’d rehearsed. “Open up Danner, we have a warrant for your arrest. This is Deputy Nate Clacker from Plains. I have a posse with me, and the house is surrounded. Judge Winthrop signed the warrant, and you’re charged with rustling mavericks from the Double T and Lazy S.”
Clampton shook his head at Jace’s mistake. The Plains deputy was named Nace Clacker, but he was a new hire there, and Danner did all his business in the closer town of Bison. He probably wouldn’t notice the difference.
Clampton and Cabe pressed against the log wall as a nightstand light came on in the bedroom. Through the partly opened window, they could hear loud whispers between Danner and his wife. Clampton risked a quick peek, knowing the reflection from the inside of the pane would make him hard to see. Danner had his rifle, and he was buckling his belt after pulling on his pants in a hurry.
He pulled his head back as Danner’s wife looked towards the window. It was possible she might be thinking of an avenue of escape. He cupped his mouth and shouted around the side of the house, to discourage that thought, raising his voice pitch, trying to conceal his twang. “We got you surrounded.”
He half expected to see a rifle barrel poke out from under the lower window sash, but he wasn’t about to take a second peek inside. He and Cabe had their pistols ready. If the glass pane was made of clear Smart Plastic, it might be proof against a pistol bullet, but it should pass the higher caliber rifle slugs from Danner’s rifle.
There was scuffling on the wood floor, as Jace beat on the door again and repeated his shout of leading a posse, and having a warrant. Then they heard Casey Danner call to her children. “Randy, Trish, Safe Room, now. Hurry.”
Cabe removed his hat and took a quick look through the bedroom window. “They’re out of the room.”
Clampton warned Jace by transducer. “He’s in the living room I think. Have some of the others yell for him to give up, so he hears other voices.”
In seconds, there were multiple voices calling for Danner to surrender to the “posse.” Jace repeated there was a warrant for his arrest from circuit Judge Winthrop, the district judge presently conducting court hearings in Plains, which was also in Calder County. It was common knowledge that he really was hearing cases there this week, for various criminal and civil charges brought against individuals from the surrounding area. The Danner ranch was between Bison and Plains, and warrants might plausibly be served by the sheriff’s office from either town.
They wanted Danner to think this was a repeat of charges of rustling spring calves during last year’s roundup. The same charges brought previously, of which he was acquitted in a Bison court last winter. He’d won that legal battle, and had been out on his own recognizance while waiting for that trial to start last year. He’d only been away from his ranch for a few days total for that bit of legal harassment. He’d expect the same treatment this time in a Plains court, and the Stock Growers Association, comprised of other small ranchers, had paid his attorney fees then.
Danner shouted to the men in front. “I was acquitted of those charges by a jury in Bison. I can’t be tried again, you know that.”
Jace had the prepared answer. “New charges. From the spring roundup this year. Reports are that you have spring calves already carrying your microchip brand. If you have an auction bill of sale for them, you can show it to the judge. I don't know you, and I frankly don’t give a damn either way. I just have to bring you in to earn my pay.”
“I’ll ride in tomorrow afternoon. You didn’t have to come out here in the middle of the damned night to arrest me. I’m always here. Where would I go, I have a family? I’ll show up in Plains tomorrow.”
“It don't work that way. You might hide the calves if we leave you on your own. Come on out, unarmed, and saddle your horse. You need to come with us.”
Clampton knew the trick had worked when he heard him tell his wife to fetch his shirt and boots. He waved Cabe back from the window before the woman returned to the bedroom. They heard her enter, and both men started slightly when the window suddenly slammed down. They heard it latched, and then her steps leaving the room.
He waved to the two men at the other window to go around the side of the house. To Cabe he said, “Let’s get around to the front. I want to watch him surrender, then see the look on his face when he spots me walking up to him.” They led their horses to the front corner where they waited.
“OK. I’m coming out, I’m not wearing a pistol, and my rifle is staying inside.” He switched on the dim porch light, and saw the man on the porch suddenly back away into the yard, to get out of the light and away from the gun slit that suddenly slid open in the door.
There was the sound of a cross bar of the heavy door being removed, and the creak of hinges. Danner, hands raised, stepped onto the creaky boards of the eight foot covered porch that stretched the width of the small ranch house. Two handmade rocking chairs were to his left, with a simple bench for the kids to sit with them.
There were men on both sides of him. He counted eight men waiting for him in front, which matched the count of horses he’d seen through the slots in the shutters. The deputy, now out of the light in the yard, had said there were a dozen men, and he’d heard at least one voice from the back, and the sounds made by two or more horses there. They really did have the house surrounded. He didn’t want a gunfight, not with his family at risk.
Jace, still acting his role as the Plains deputy, called him down off the porch, and two men posted to each side of the door, pistols out, shoved him roughly forward, with the other men following them down off the porch, walking past the tethered horses.
As he approached the supposed deputy, Jace told him, “Turn around so I can tie your hands.”
Danner protested. “You said I have to saddle my horse. Besides, it’s a thirty-five mile ride into Plains. I’ll need my hands free for a half-day ride, particularly in the dark. I’m not armed, search me.”
Then Jace made the dumb mistake Clampton had feared he’d make. “You won’t need your hands Danner, because we don’t have to ride all the way to Plains. We flew out on a livestock shuttle. Turn around.”
That was literally true, but no sheriff’s office could afford to buy and operate a livestock shuttle, particularly one large enough to hold a dozen men and their horses. Only a handful of the largest ranches in this region owned any of those.
Danner caught it immediately, but needed to let his wife know something was wrong since he was now unarmed. He spoke loudly, “Show me the paper deputy, the warrant signed by the judge, or was that left on the shuttle? I have a right to read what it says when it’s served.”
Damn! Wish I had my PU army body armor right now, he thought. Or just my plasma rifle would do. He’d been forced to surrender that equipment before his discharge. Two dozen of these thugs wouldn’t be enough to take him if he had that equipment.
Jace, caught off guard by his demand, had holstered his pistol in order to tie Danner’s hands with a section of rope, which he’d looped through his gun belt. He glanced to the left corner of the ranch house, where he expected Clampton to be, probably seeking a helpful transducer communication from the man in charge, some words of explanation to use.
Danner, combat trained instincts already heightened, saw the glance away and went into action the instant the so-called deputy was distracted. The other seven men had just stepped off the porch. They were several steps behind, so the closest man was right in front of him, and he only had a rope twisted around his fingers.
With a quick leap forward, Danner used his right hand to grab the rope and shove both of the man’s hands up towards his face and way from his gun. Jace had the piece of rope looped around his hands, held a foot apart, because he’d been prepared to cinch and bind the prisoner’s wrists together as soon as he turned around.
Using his left hand, Danner pulled Jace’s holstered pistol, and stepped around and behin
d the man, slipping his right arm around his neck and using him as a shield. This happened before the two men closest to his back could react to Jace’s squawk of surprise. As it happened, they too had glanced back, perhaps anticipating Clampton would start giving the orders now.
“Casey, shut and bar the door.” He pointed the pistol at the others from behind his human shield, and pulled the man a couple more steps back with him. “Stay where you are. You ain’t no posse from Plains. I should have known sheriff Ackerman would be smart enough to come himself to serve a warrant on me, and not do it at night. I know him by sight, and he knows I’ve been raided twice in the dark. I recognize two of you boys as Double T hands, and I’ve seen you in Plains, picking up supplies in a company truck.”
Jace tried to keep up the act, “Sheriff Ackerman deputized volunteers, like he always does…” he was thumped lightly over the head with his own gun barrel, crumpling the crown of his hat.
“Shut up,” he told his hostage. Danner yelled to his wife, who had not closed the front door as he’d told her to do. “Get back inside Casey. You can cover them from there.”
She had his rifle, waving it back and forth at the backs of the men in front of the house, with their horses partly in the way. It was an old lightweight 7.62 mm semiautomatic weapon he’d bought as war surplus, originally purchased as a varmint weapon for range wolves and cougars. Their pump shotgun was over the mantelpiece, which at this range its spread would have been better for her poor aim. Using either of those weapons would be safer for her if aimed from the gun slits, so she wouldn’t be so exposed, standing halfway onto the porch and trying to cover so many men. She only had a ten round magazine, which Danner desperately wished was the new one, the one with thirty rounds capacity that he’d purchased after the second raid.
He tried to get them to stand down. “You men drop your guns, and move away from the house towards the corral. Leave your horses hitched where they are.” Those horses partly shielded their backs from Casey, and she from them. However, he only had six shots from the weapon he’d taken to help cover her. As he feared, they didn’t appear ready to drop their guns.
It was just his bad luck, he thought, this cowboy didn’t own a run-of the-mill seventeen round semiautomatic. His experienced eye saw that five of the others had such weapons in their hands. The high quality six shot long barrel pistol he presently held suggested it was more of a skill weapon than the rapid firepower of the other handguns. That realization gave him a troubling sense of dread. This man didn’t strike him as brainy, but he might be a good man with a gun, a fast draw that didn’t need a high rate of fire to take down an opponent. That could mean other hired guns came with him. Where were the other four men?
The fact that the seven men in front of the house didn’t appear to be overly concerned about the hostage he now held, and the glance his “shield” had made was the final clue for Danner. The real boss of these men was over on the side of the house, in the deeper shadows. He looked over that way now. Too late.
A pistol gleamed in the glow from the front porch light, and even as Danner fired left handed, he saw the flash from the barrel. His shot hit the corner of the house, close to where the shooter’s face should be, in the shadows. He was startled by the unmistakable sound of his rifle firing, accompanied by a soft grunt, then immediately by the scream of an injured horse.
He screamed, “No!” as he saw Casey clutching her chest and sagging, reflexively firing another round down into the floorboards of the porch. His next shots at her assailant at the corner were more accurate, because he’d switched the gun to his right hand, and was running towards his wife, firing at the coward who had shot her from hiding. The other men, at first reacting by ducking when the shooting started, opened up on Danner, hitting him multiple times.
Danner fired off his last round, not in his defense at his closest assailants, but at the figure that had shot his wife, as he pulled back around the corner of the house. He staggered to her and fell forward; the empty pistol dropped, and he flung his outstretched arm over her still form. They both took their last breaths together, on the dusty porch.
Clampton came around the corner, picking splinters from his left cheek at the near miss of Danner’s initial left-handed shot. Had the pistol been in his right hand, he might not have missed the head shot. He was thoroughly pissed.
“Jace, you could screw up a happy dream. We had him out of the house unarmed, and you stupidly tipped him off about how we got here on a damn shuttle. Then let him take your gun. If the horses weren’t in my way I’d have started shooting at him first, and risked blowing your stupid head off.”
“Travis,” one of the other men caught his attention. “Check out your hat, man.”
He lifted it off his sweat soaked hair and saw there was a bullet hole through the wide left brim, and the slug had nicked the crown. He had barely pulled his head back in time from the following shots.
“Crap! Jace, I ought to take the fifty-five dollars outa your pay to replace this. Now what can we do to clean this mess up? This sure as hell ain’t going to please Mr. Egerton.”
Cabe looked confused. “Whut do ya mean Travis? Danner’s dead, and that’s whut we were here for, to kill ‘em.”
“Not like this. His grieving widow and crying kids were supposed to spread the tale of his being hung for rustling, to scare the other land grant holders. The Double T and Lazy S heifers we brought along would be found mixed with his beef by the sheriff, to back up the rustler suspicions for his lynching. He might gain some sympathy on the spring calf issue, but not if he has branded heifers from other ranches. It would be assumed he hadn’t had time to change out the microchips with his own. This night’s work ain’t going to generate the sense of justice Mr. Egerton wanted for a rustler that got acquitted. We had to kill the woman because she sure as hell was going to shoot some of you if you tried to hang her man.”
“We didn’t shoot her, Travis, you did.” Jace noted.
“And Jace, I suppose you think he wasn’t going to put one of your own bullets into your thick head with your own gun if a shootout started? My shooting his wife drew his attention to me, giving you men time to take him down.” He made it sound like he’d made the decision to shoot her from concealment a noble act, done for the benefit of rest of the men. They knew better.
“I want my horse replaced, or taken to a vet to be patched up.” That came from Sheb Dooly, whose horse had been hit in the left rear quarter, a through and through shot, caused by the first reflexive trigger pull when the Danner woman was shot in the chest.
Clampton finally had a plan in mind. “Sheb, you and Cabe start back to the shuttle now, before that horse gets too weak to walk there. It’s only three miles. We can’t leave it behind to be traced to you, and we can’t waste time to drag it away and leave the marks.”
Jace picked up his pistol and reloaded, as he heard what would happen next. He didn’t like his role.
“Jace, use that skinny knife you keep in your right boot, and dig all the bullets out of Danner, and his wife. Otherwise, some of you’ll have to toss away your guns to avoid ballistic checks. I intend to keep my gun. I paid a lot for it.”
“Dig out your own slug, Travis.” Jace challenged.
Clampton would have none of that. “The shooting had to start because you let Danner get your gun, after you slipped up and let him know we were no posse. You dig ‘em out, and don’t leave any behind. I have other things to arrange.”
“Like what?”
“Like, put our three heifers in his feed lot, then, see that those two,” he pointed at the bodies, “appear to have died and burned up in a fire and not from gunshots. Also, find those two brats and see that they can’t tell anyone their story about visitors and a shooting either.”
One man, not particularly squeamish, still questioned that need. “Dead kids will spark a bigger stink than a dead wife. Until Danner came out and the shooting started, we all had our bandannas up, except for Jace. They couldn�
��t have seen any of us anyway, because we heard the woman order them into some hiding place, a Safe Room she said.”
“Yeah, and we’re going looking for them now. This will be an accidental fire while they slept, and none of them escaped. Don’t shoot the kids when you find them. We have enough gunshot wounds to hide.”
Clampton led five men through the house, starting at the kid’s room, and checked under their bunk beds, and under their hurriedly cast aside blankets. Looked in cupboards, closets, the attic, bathroom linen closet, tub, dirty clothes pile, fireplace wood box, and even behind curtains. Not a sign of them was found, and of course, they never answered reassuring calls, soon followed by threats that they had better come out.
Jace came in, hands and knife bloody, six deformed bullets in his fist. “I have them all out, five from Danner, and one from his wife. Want yours for a souvenir?” He asked that sarcastically.
Without comment, Clampton selected the only .45 in the man’s hand, and slipped it in his pocket. “We’ll drop the slugs from the air when we’re over the river. We need to stoke the wood in the kitchen stove with a bunch of that sappy fire starter wood, which throws off sparks. Put that laundry basket close by the front of the stove and leave its door open. That’s where the accidental fire starts. Put Danner and his wife in bed, pull off his boots, pants and shirt, and cover them up. Bring in some loose dry straw from the barn, not clumped in a bale that might not fully burn, and we’ll scatter it around lightly to spread the fire faster. It’ll all burn up and leave no visible trace. This house is entirely hand made of dry lumber and logs so it’ll go fast. Glad they couldn’t afford Smart Plastic for their starter home, since that crap won’t burn.”
Koban Universe 2: Have Genes, Will Travel Page 2
