Clampton answered with a good-natured sounding complaint. “Damned noisy cattle guard spoiled my nap. We must be a mile from the house. I could have slept a little longer.”
Ackerman pointed. “Not that far.” A smoky smudge on the other side of a line of trees, barely a quarter mile ahead, proved Travis wrong.
As the trail curved around the trees, where the wrong-brand heifers had been tied before they’d approached the house last night, Clampton looked intently as the house appeared, concerned that the fire might not have consumed the entire ranch house. Flames sometimes didn’t burn all of the available fuel, leaving odd spots relatively undamaged.
He’d worried needlessly. The roof had burned completely through, and had fallen into the house to feed the fire. Even the logs on three sides had fallen almost fully into the interior flames, perhaps pulled there by the collapse of the roof trusses. The porch, sagging towards the fallen front wall it had sheltered, was more-or-less intact, compared to the rest of the roofing. The rear wall half stood, but it was smoldering in the morning breeze.
There were five men and three women in front of the house waiting for them. The women looked red eyed, and the men grim faced. The two sheriff vehicles halted close to the barn, to spare the waiting people from the pall of red dust that followed along, and everyone climbed out, looking at the ruins of the house.
The first bad news came quickly, which was no news at all to one man present.
“Sheriff, we can see what we think are two bodies in what’s left of the bed in Bryce and Casey’s bedroom. It’s hard to tell by looking from the outside.” That was spoken by Danner’s nearest neighbor, Jeff Chastain.
One of the women let loose a sob. It was Sharon Chastain, Jeff’s wife. She had been very close with her neighbor, Casey.
Her voice cracking, she added hopeful words, “There’s no one in the kids bunks.”
Jeff looked meaningfully at the sheriff. “They ain’t showed up yet.” The implication was obvious.
Carlos Mendoza, the Plains Fire Chief, asked if anyone had searched any part of the inside of the house. None of the eight had felt the urge to search the charred grime for what they expected to be bad news. All they had done was futilely toss water from the well and dirt from the yard on the last of the flames, to douse the remainder of the dying fire when they arrived hours after it started.
Jeff, who had arrived first and called the other three neighbors on the way, estimated the fire had burned for about two hours before he saw the glow, when he rose just before dawn that morning.
While the sheriff interviewed the neighbors, and asked if they’d heard any activity, such as riders or shooting, as happened for the two previous raids on the Danner ranch. They had not, but none of them lived closer than three miles, and they slept through if there had been any shots.
Mendoza commandeered the three deputies, and the coroner's assistant joined them, as they donned jumpsuits and gloves, and selected tools to move debris and started a search that none of them wanted to conduct.
Clampton brought up the subject of why he was along. “Sheriff, I know this is going to come up, and I heard the questions you asked the neighbors, about past vigilante actions against Danner. He was acquitted of rustling in Bison, but that time he’d had plenty of opportunity to conceal any stronger evidence than the two calves he had in his possession.”
All eight of the neighbors promptly protested, and came to the defense of their deceased friend. Clampton held his hands up, as if to wave them down, and turned back to Ackerman.
“It will take time to check all of his stock roaming 160 acres, but I have a chip scanner, and two men with me to help. There are well over a dozen head in the feedlot over there that we can check. Even on foot, we might move them over to the fence lane leading to the loading chutes, and close that gate. Or, if we use some of Danner’s feed sacks, they might just come over on their own. We could also borrow and saddle three of his horses from the barn to ride.”
Chastain was outraged. “His damned body ain’t even cold and you want to try to prove he’s a thief. And use his property to help you do that.”
Ackerman, perfectly aware of the powerful men he owed for his job as sheriff, and who lined his pockets with credits from time to time, calmed the man down. “Jeff, they don’t need to use his horses. The feed was bought give to that stock, to fatten them up for market. That’s why they’re in a feedlot. I think if these boys put some feed in just one of the three troughs by the fence, they’ll come over here on their own to eat. These boys can sit on the fence top and reach over to scan them as they bunch up to reach the trough.”
Chastain wasn’t happy. “Clampton just wants to besmirch Danner’s reputation when he can’t fight back.”
The sheriff had a reasonable answer. “If they find calves with his chip brand, and there are records of a sale at auction, then it proves he had a clean herd.” He was certain there would be planted animals found.
“Sheriff, you know damn well us independents birth calves from our own cows, always fenced on our property. We shouldn’t need to buy our own property back at auction, fattening the pockets of the big outfits.”
“Jeff, they share those auction sales with you small outfits.”
“That’s crap and you know it. The split is based on total head owned. We don’t get close to what we’re due.”
“Well, I’m only the sheriff, Jeff. I don't make planetary law, and I don't try cases in court. I serve warrants and make an arrest when a judge hands me the paper. Or when I find free-range cattle or horses with another ranch’s brand, illegally in the custody of another man, or inside his fences. If these boys don’t find any here, then they wasted their time and no harm done.” He waved Clampton and the two cowboys to go do what had been proposed.
The search of the ruins of the house first confirmed that two people, burned beyond recognition, were in the main bedroom on the burned out bed, covered by the ashes and char of the fallen roof. Zack Goldman, the young coroner’s assistant, had brought body bags with him. With the reluctant assistance of, and obvious revulsion on the part of the deputies, they helped him place the charred-to-the-bone remains in the bags. The bags were zipped sealed, and Goldman admitted that it would take DNA, dental, or medical records for a positive identification. Next, they started looking through the remains of the other bedroom.
One of the cowboys poured feed corn, found in the barn, into just one trough, as the sheriff had suggested. The animals watched this warily, since they were never fed in the mornings, but they came over at a trot when the men moved away. Finding feed in only one trough, they crowded in eagerly, with the largest pushing the smaller animals aside.
With his two cowhands to help shove the seven to eight foot wide horns of the mature cows and steers aside, Clampton managed to lean over from the top of the high fence to get the chip reader close enough to the raised crest, or hump over the shoulders, to read the chips embedded there. It was frustrating, because he knew exactly which animals he wanted to read, but the smaller and less assertive heifers, planted in the lot last night, couldn’t get to the feed until the more dominate animals had their fill, or could be chased away.
Without horses, the men were reluctant to get in among them on foot, even though most of the Giant Longhorn breed was relatively docile. But big animals, crowded close while feeding, with one bull that wanted to assert his dominance thrown into the mix, they stayed on top of the fence. The cows were seven feet high at the shoulders, too high to reach easy with the scanner from the ground, and the bull and steers were nearly nine feet at the hump. At a ton, to a ton and a quarter, you didn’t want to be stepped on, or squeezed between them when they pressed tight to feed.
Finally, he instructed the cowhands to use a rake and a shovel to prod the larger stock to move away, and the heifers he wanted to scan finally pushed their way to the trough. Two of the neighbors, determined to watch for any trickery by men from the Double T, were shocked when the flipped up
scanner screen revealed first one, then two other brands from nearby ranches. These animals were not out in the wide-open grass and scrub of the rest of Danner’s land, where a torn down fence might allow some open range cattle access to his land. These were in a smaller feedlot, where it would be simple to remove an old microchip brand, and insert your own. These heifers couldn’t be in this lot by accident. A pocket hand scanner like Clampton’s was a common companion of any small rancher, clipped to a belt, stowed in a saddlebag, or hung over a saddle horn by a leather strap. Small outfits were very conscious of the frequent charges of rustling levied against them, and they were alert for planted cattle.
One of them spoke up. “There’s something queer about finding these in the feed lot, on the same day the Danner’s die in a fire.”
Clampton had a retort. “Yeah, it means he didn’t have time this morning to swap out the chips.”
“No, I mean they could have been planted here. Danner’s no thief, and he sure as hell didn’t put ‘em in there. He’d have chased them out to open range, like we all do when we find other brands on our land.”
“So you think someone planted them on the day they die in a fire? What for? The law can’t prosecute a rustler that’s already dead, so there’s no advantage to frame him. Besides, you got here at dawn, before the fire died, since you helped put it out. Perhaps you and Chastain brought ‘em with you to avoid your own lynching if they were found on your property by an investigation. While we’re out here, we might need to check your livestock too.” He gave the neighbor, a farmer whose name he hadn’t caught, a nasty laugh. Both men turned away.
Seeing their reactions, Clampton wondered if terror raids like this would work to drive off nesters and small ranchers. It might possibly work better than lynching a man, with the wife left alive to defend the integrity of her dead husband. Even with evidence of theft left behind, a lynching might make some folks wonder if the evidence justified the vigilante action. An honest landowner might see no reason to leave the region if they were not involved in rustling. Driving them off was what Edgerton wanted. Fear for their families might do that.
Thus far, most of the ten or twelve men found hung or shot to death in Calder County, were apparently caught changing brands, had stolen horses with them when caught, or had killed branded cows for the meat and hide. One hand from the Lazy S was found shot in the back, near a recently abandoned camp, with a makeshift shack at the edge of an arroyo. He’d apparently stumbled on some sort of illegal activity while looking for strays at roundup time.
No one denied some level of rustling was happening; even the land grant holders had losses through cut fences, and they of course brought charges against those they caught or if they had evidence against them. However, the bulk of the news stories, fomented by the big cattlemen that owned or controlled the new broadcasts, made sure it sounded like there was twice the number of crimes, painting Calder County as a hotbed of criminal activity. The same editors heavily publicized the trials that ended in acquittals of small operators, making the allegation that convictions of the guilty in Bison was almost impossible, due to collusion between the thieves and the elected or appointed officials, and with the dishonest citizens that sat on juries.
The truth, of course, was that weak or blatantly unfair cases were repeatedly brought to court in Bison. Danner’s trial had been one of those unfair cases, because he was found with three winter calves in his small herd, which he’d micro chipped with his brand. The calves were paired with three of his legally branded cows, although technically, he was in violation of planetary law. In Bison, the heart of the Stock Growers Association, they refused to support that unfair law.
As Clampton went looking for Ackerman, who was checking the barn for kids possibly hiding there in fear, he heard a shout from Deputy Clacker, who was helping lift debris, tossing charred remains into the yard. Because of the casual disturbing of potential evidence of arson, it was obvious the Fire Chief had bought into the conclusion that this fire was an accident. He’d declared that it clearly started in the kitchen, at the wood stove with its still open door, and obviously after the family had gone to sleep. Most likely, a slow smoldering fire had asphyxiated the family in their sleep in a painless fashion, he said. The only fact that didn’t fit that theory was that the two kids had not been found in their own beds, or found at all. Until now.
“Sheriff, we found a concealed trapdoor in the floor of the pantry, under a burned rug.”
The three women had been standing over by the well, sitting on a bench there, hauling up cool water from time to time for the men working at the house. The day was doing to be another hot dry dusty one. At the shout, they gained hope and started for the house, just as Clacker and Chief Mendoza used a crowbar to pry the trapdoor open. Goldman had been standing guard over the two adult body bags, using them as his excuse to not sort through the burned house. He walked over to the two men, as did the other two deputies working on the search.
Goldman stood between the apparently frozen-in-place deputy and Fire Chief. After one glance down, he saw what they already knew, and in an act of compassion, he turned and held his hands palms out towards the approaching women, to forestall them. He shook his head. “They’re gone too ladies. I’m sorry.”
They put arms about one another and cried, walking back to the bench by the well. Their hearts had broken for the loss of the entire Danner family, their friends.
Clampton on the other hand was elated, and he had to avoid a grin. He wanted to call Edgerton, but didn’t want to be overheard, not even by the two hands he brought with him. He wasn’t sure they would support him or the boss in killing an entire family this way. That was why Travis was paid five times what they earned. Plus a bonus he and the other eleven men would be paid for how the night’s work had turned out. It wasn’t a perfect result, but it appeared it had rattled the neighbors, who now wondered if the family had been killed and burned out by a more successful night raid this time.
Having families of their own, the Danner’s fate frightened these people, and now finding the three heifers made them wonder if this was more than an accident. If Danner had been lynched for having them, they would probably have been more angry than afraid, convinced the man was framed. An inherently peaceful man might be driven to risk his own neck, but not the necks of his entire family.
Clampton would propose this new tactic to his boss, one that would earn him and the men he’d hired more such bonuses. Dead and burned out families or ambushed ranchers would suit him just fine, and earn him the big bonuses he wanted. He wondered how many burnouts or killings would be needed, and how much he could earn.
Chapter 2: Your Partner is WHAT?
Clampton was growing impatient. It wasn’t a difficult shot because of the distance; rather it was the man’s erratic and jerky movements. He just didn’t move or ride smoothly while working with his cattle or guiding his horse. That was probably because he was a damned dirt farmer at heart, and uncomfortable on horseback and certainly jittery around the big longhorns. Phillips raised twenty-eight longhorns just as a sideline, furnishing a bit of beef for him and his wife and kids, using them as barter with neighbors for other commodities, and from cattle sales he earned a bit of cash to buy seed at the inflated Chisholm import prices. His jerkiness would be cured in a moment.
Finally, the man stepped down off his horse, after laboriously and clumsily herding his stock through a gate and swinging it shut. He had a parked tractor ready to start turning over the soil of another fifty acres of land, which he intended to plant now that his livestock was in a new pasture. The man paused to tie up his horse, and took his refrigerated canteen from a saddlebag for a cool drink. Clampton waited until the man stepped clear of his horse, and gently squeezed the trigger. The 200-grain slug kicked his Spragler .30-06 back as it streaked away.
It was nearly two seconds before the heavy slug tore through the man’s back, and the spray of pink showed the bullet’s messy exit path, as seen through Clam
pton’s scope. He congratulated himself, since there wouldn’t be a need for another shot, which if the first one was heard, could give someone a better sense of where the next shot originated.
He wasn’t completely callous, however. He’d not wanted to hit the horse with the slug’s exit, because the animal was too fine a ride for just a farmer. Perhaps the horse would be sold to a real cowhand now. With Phillips dead, and his widow left to run the place and kids to rear, it wasn’t likely this farm would still be a going concern in a few months.
This was Clampton’s third hit in as many weeks, with Jace claiming two other bonus payments from the same five wealthy cattlemen paying for them. The other men he’d taken with him on the Danner raid were still on the payroll, but they spent their time right now working as cowhands, some on the Double T some on the Lazy S, staying near Calder County, which was heating up with the recent killings. The other men were primarily hired for muscle and extra handguns in a fight or shootout if it came to that, and Clampton knew something big was being planned. Many new hires were former military vets, discharged for a variety of reasons, from insubordination, drunk and disorderly, fighting, and AWOL. Others were lifelong criminal elements and cutthroats, both on Chisholm, and from other worlds, who had never qualified for military service.
It had been decided by the bosses that unless things heated up with counter attacks by the small ranchers and farmers, wiping out entire families kicked up so much bad publicity that even the controlled media couldn’t completely ignore the stories. They nevertheless managed to put a negative slant on such coverage, concerning the character of the victims.
Koban Universe 2: Have Genes, Will Travel Page 4
