Such as Blythe Danner, who was always described as a known rustler, and his wife Casey, who had once worked as a “comfort girl,” in Bison bars and gambling parlors. She wasn’t hired to go to bed with men, but she got them to drink, sing, dance, gamble and have a good time, helping them spend their money and give her tips. She was made out to be pretty much a whore by the CCA mouthpieces. Her kids were supposedly neglected, and they died in a tragic fire when their mom reportedly left a dirty laundry basket next to a blazing stove, and she likely went to bed drunk. Neighbors disputed that, but they had no reporters willing to take down or record their words for print or broadcast.
Clampton levered the spent shell out, and picked up the brass in his gloved hand, sliding it into a breast pocket. He slid the rifle into its scabbard, and led his horse out of the stand of low trees and brush where he’d staged his ambush. He wasn’t rushing, and he was still screened from the farmhouse and barn, but he wanted to be off the property into open range before a chance encounter happened to complicate matters.
In another four days, he had a double hit scheduled. It was for two sheepherders located over a hundred miles to the east, a father and his grown son. That would entail another shuttle ride, flying with smelly cattle as the pretext for the trip. The breeder cows were being sold to one of the other rich cattlemen, simply as a cover for his flight. This particular cattle baron had a sheep infestation, and because the sheep didn’t belong to a land grant owner and were not fenced in, they were a problem because they were browsing open range, which cattle had used for over a century. Shooting, or running off the sheep was part of the deal, if there was no one around to see him after the two men were killed.
Clampton rode back to his latest base of operations in the town of Trail's End. He pulled up to a Lazy S horse corral and barn near the outskirts of town, where he changed horses, a black hat for a brown one, a new kerchief, changed boots, and swapped out his Spragler with an identical rifle with scope.
He hid the used weapon, hat and boots in a concealed compartment under the malleable Smart Plastic floor. He’d discarded the brass shell casing in a stream he’d crossed earlier. The sophisticated concealed compartment opened only for his DNA and handprint. He tossed the used shirt and neckerchief into the electric stove that he and Jace used as an incinerator. He set it to cycle through the complete destruction of his old clothing, leaving ashes that were then automatically blown out the side vent into the corral, to be mixed with the horse trod dirt there.
Donning an already dusty, but distinctively patterned and colored shirt he had placed in a wall locker the night before, tying on a new bright neckerchief, he rode to his favorite Trail’s End saloon, Shaunassy’s, for whiskey, women, gambling, and making certain he was noticed.
If some remote witness had seen him near the dead farmer’s property that morning, he wouldn’t match that description now, and although his rifle was the same caliber, it had not been fired recently, and it wouldn’t match ballistics if tested. The money used for these precautions was considered business expenses, paid in addition to the completion bonuses for each hit.
He needed to stop at a company owned store to buy a couple more shirts and neckerchiefs, and another pair of boots to swap out after a hit. Nothing he ever wore to a hit that could be recognized or traced made it back to where he slept that night. Rumors were already afoot about his possible role in recent killings; although he and Jace made sure, their own alibis were solid when the other man was on a stalk. They had men that would lie for them, but having the word of solid citizens, who didn’t directly work for the cattle barons, was even better.
The wealthy men were smart and careful, and they took few chances. Unknown to their hired killers, there were even contingency plans to eliminate their hit men, if that proved necessary.
Clampton, unaware he too was expendable, was happy to be earning so many bounties, but he wasn’t the type to put a lot of money away. He had started to wonder what he could do to maintain that level of income after they thwarted the president’s land grants, keeping the range open. That was what the wealthiest men on Chisholm wanted, and their continued wealth at the expense of the “lesser citizens” would be assured. The plan forming in Clampton’s mind was to use his knowledge of rustlers and their trade, to steal cattle from his former bosses, once his employment was no longer required.
In the meantime, things were going perfectly and a dozen land grant holders had left Calder County, and not just those that had suffered some tragedy, but knew tragedy could visit them at any time. The Stock Growers Association was losing the battle.
Yet, the war was about to begin.
****
Jeff Chastain addressed the men that had come to Bison tonight, to decide what action to take. “They killed Castro Santiago yesterday. A farmer that had a mere handful of cattle, and who was doing exactly what the land grants were supposed to achieve. He intended to use two thirds of his land to raise crops, and yet he was targeted for murder. None of us is safe because the big outfits, particularly those operating in Kingsland, will never share any portion of the range, and they don’t want fences. Without fences, they will suck the life out of any competition for land use, and open range and the spring calves law they rammed through the legislature guarantees we will stay under their thumbs. They’ve killed small ranchers, farmers, sheepherders, and one pig farmer. It’s our turn to act.”
There were shouts of agreement and a call for retaliatory action.
Garman Franklin was direct and to the point. “I think we need to kill Egerton and Gregos. They’re the most outspoken critics of small outfits, and made the most claims of rustling. Combined, they’ve hired at least fifty thugs, who intimidate us every time we go to an auction, come into Bison or Plains to buy supplies, or just to get a drink in a bar or a meal. We all know it’s someone on their payroll doing the killings. I say take them out.”
There were strong words of support for that proposal, proving these once law-abiding men had come to accept the need for violence, even killing.
Jeff offered a cautionary word, “Garman, any of you here, do you have any idea how to get close to those men? They don’t socialize with us and they only mix in public once a year at roundup, and that’s nine months away. Their estates are so wide open we can’t approach them without being intercepted, and having to talk to some low level hired hands, or men like Travis Clampton or Jace Wilkins, who clearly would like to provoke any of us into a fight we wouldn’t survive. We can’t get to them, but we can get to their profits, their cattle. And some of their hired hands spend a lot of time alone on the range or in small numbers. They also get drunk often and stagger out of the bars and whorehouses late at night, just as vulnerable as we are, when we’re working on our own ranches and farms. We can get to them.”
So it was that night that good men became vigilantes, and decided to return ruthless act for ruthless act. They moved quickly, and organized their first action.
****
Five men crept closer to the three men sitting around the campfire, eating their supper, and drinking their imitation coffee. They were three of the men hired by the Lazy S to intimidate and raid the smaller outfits, but they were also required to work for their extra pay between jobs bullying nesters and ranchers, and cutting their fences. They had been ordered to drive a few hundred head of mostly Lazy S cattle, across a nearby stream while the water was still low and slow. They would be driven towards better forage before a forecasted front brought rain to the mountains, and raised the stream level in a day or two, preventing the cattle from crossing on their own to fresher pastures. This was part of the low maintenance required for longhorns, since they couldn’t predict distant weather.
These men were rather poor at being cowboys, and at covering their tracks after acts of vandalism. They had cut fences a day before at several spreads, on their way to the mesa where the livestock they were told to move were located, and had first driven the cattle they found inside the cut f
ences out onto the open range.
They shot and slaughtered one of the heifers they drove off, and were eating steaks from the spoils of their theft. They had also been easily tracked, since they didn’t head back to town or the Lazy S, and safety.
The five men, guns drawn, suddenly stepped into the circle of light of the campfire, and caught the men leaning against their saddles eating. Not having much experience at this, the intruders came in without firing a shot.
Jeff Chastain told them, “Freeze, don’t move, you damned rustling fence cutters.”
They expected to disarm, and then properly hang the three men as rustlers, and known killers. They planned to use the tree next to where they had crudely butchered the heifer they shot, as a testament as to why they were hung.
The problem with that expectation was that these killers had participated in multiple lynchings and ambushes, and each of them knew exactly what the outcome of surrender was. One threw his mess tin at the nearest man, another his hot coffee, and all three reached for their guns, as they rolled away to their sides.
The smattering of gunfire from the startled vigilantes was almost too late. One of the men on the ground got off a few panicked shots and hit one of his assailants in the thigh before a return shot caught him in the face and he dropped his semiautomatic and fell back. The other two, slightly slower, died under a hail of bullets as they drew their guns.
“Jake, are you hit bad?” Chastain was breathless and stunned at the rapid turn of events. He’d shot the shooter in the face, and saw that he wasn’t dead, but the bullet had struck him to the left of his nose, and he was bleeding and moaning, holding his hands to his face. Getting ready to hang the men would have allowed Chastain time to come to grips with what they were doing and why, telling these men why they had to die. This raw violence left him sickened, and shaking from reaction.
Jake Tisdale clutched his bleeding thigh with his left hand, and looked at the man that nearly managed to kill him. He aimed a shaky pistol and shot the wounded man once in the chest, and again in the side of his head, killing him.
“I’ll live, if someone can help me stop the bleeding.”
“Holy shit.” Another man said. “They didn’t even hesitate, despite being outnumbered and under our guns.”
Chastain admitted, “The next time we can’t wait like that, to announce why we want them, not unless we have a lot more of us and catch them flatfooted.”
Tisdale, gritting his teeth as a belt was cinched above his wound, said, “They were sitting on the ground, eating. How much more off guard could they have been? I’ll just shoot the bastards in the back next time, the same way they do to us from hiding, on our own property. The only reason they’ve been able to hang any of the men they killed is that they surrendered to them, hoping they’ll get their day in court. We’ve learned the hard way they have no interest in the legal system. Any more than I do now.”
The range war had expanded, with the weaker side striking its first blow against the Chisholm Cattleman’s Association. They represented more ranches and farms than the big outfits, but had fewer men than the major operators could afford to hire. Even honest sheriffs would have been overwhelmed at the bloodshed to come, but those “lawmen” of Bison, Plains, Trail’s End, and the Marshal from Cayuga, were often far from honest and unbiased. Most of them were indebted to the rich and powerful CCA. They publically blamed the original targets of the violence for the retaliatory violence, the members of the SGA, the Stock Growers Association.
****
Four months later, Tisdale had to offer his dismal assessment. “Jeff, we’ve taken out sixteen of their men, most of them the ones we know were specifically hired to attack us or our property, and we’ve killed or changed brands on perhaps three hundred head of their cattle on the open range.”
Then he shook his head. “You know we can’t keep playing this sort of tit for tat game with them. They’ve hired at least three times as many men as we killed, and we’ve lost twenty-three people, some of them women and kids from defenseless squatter families. None of the poor squatters ever went with us on our retaliation raids, or even knew who we were. The hired thugs have killed at least as many of our cattle, which hurts us worse, since the big outfits have several million head spread around Kingsland.”
Chastain agreed. “I know. It’s been particularly bad for the sheepherders, who feel like outsiders from those of us that largely raise cattle. They have a valid gripe, because we haven’t gone after the men that kill their stock or their people, at least not nearly as hard as we have those that hit cattle ranches and farms. We were adversaries in the past, and only the fear of attacks brought us together. They’ve threatened to pull out of the SGA and stop paying their share if they don’t see progress in slowing the attacks on them, or unless we get federal help.”
Tisdale laughed sourly. “Forget federal help. President Birmaldi can’t override the other two branches of government, which are mostly in the pockets of the big cattle ranchers. He doesn’t have a militia to send anyway, and if he did, he’d probably need the approval of the House and Senate to do anything.”
The other man nodded. “That’s why I’m looking to hire help from off world.”
“Damn it, Jeff, we can’t afford to pay a hundred hired killers to match the CCA, and I don't think we want more men of that type on Chisholm. Egerton or Gregos will simply offer them more money than we can pay to switch sides, and we’ll end up with more professional killers after us, with no compunctions when they can simply pick up and leave to escape justice or revenge if they don’t live here.”
“Jake, the people I’m in contact with said they’re not professional gun fighters, but they insist they can beat any men they may have to face. So far, just two of them have proposed to come to Chisholm. They didn’t ask for a huge sum of money in Hub credits, not compared to what we hear the other side pays, and we only pay twenty-five percent to get them here, and another twenty-five when they start to work. And even then, that’s only if they agree that we have a fair and reasonable complaint. I don't know how in hell an outsider will verify that. In any case, we only pay the remainder of the 10,000 Hub credit contract for each of them if they deliver what we both have agreed upon at the start. We can pay 5,000 credits just to get the two of them here, and make a decision after meeting them.”
“How did you contact them off planet? Snail mail by cargo ships? We know the Cattlemen’s Association owns that damned Artificial Intelligence computer Jeeves, which monitors communications and the planetary internet. If they trace that contact to you, or your ranch, you’re a dead man, as will be your family, and your Circle-C brand will be up for grabs. They don't know who leads the opposition thus far, so don’t get careless.”
“I’m being careful to use public internet links and never the same one twice, and only for a short time. Have you ever heard of Instellarnet?”
“Nope, sounds like a variation of internet.”
“Except it connects real-time to other worlds. The only link to reach that external network is on Queensland, and I reach it indirectly by an address that doesn’t even belong to the Chisholm internet system. I was told by the people I reached that the untraceable computer link is installed in Canyon City, at the Veteran Affairs club.”
“In the damned capitol? You sure you ain’t really talking to the damned AI the CCA bastards have in their headquarters there? Besides, how far away can these men be if you can reach them real-time with light speed signals? They have to live in one of mining camps in this system.”
“No, the man I’ve spoken with, in person by the way, says the link uses a new technology that has instant long-range connectivity.”
“Bullshit. I’m saying it could be the CCA’s AI doing the talking. They have the money for a high level system.”
“Nope. This man displays a spontaneous sense of humor, and no AI has that. He claims a returning wounded veteran from fighting the Krall on Poldark installed a gadget for him, in the web
server at the VA center in the recreation hall there. That’s the access point to their network. It uses some sort of alien technology based on faster than light tachyon modulation, whatever in hell that crap means. This alien technology supposedly helped win the war with the Krall. This guy and his partner are from Koban, located outside Human Space, and I assume they both have the genetically enhanced abilities, which we heard about on the war news.”
“That planet has to be almost a thousand light years in the galactic spinward direction from us. They’ll need two months to get here even if there was a direct flight, and there won’t be commercial flights like that to a Rim World like us.”
“Not coming commercial. He claims they have alien technology advantages for his ship. Says it’s about a one day trip for the nine hundred or so light year Jump.”
“I’m telling you. It sounds like bullshit to me. Do you plan to meet him at the spaceport in Canyon City? Even making that trip will draw attention to you, and leave you vulnerable over there on your own.”
“Give me some credit Jake, he doesn’t have me sold yet. He’s going to have to meet me in Cayuga. I can pick the time and place, and I’ll have representatives from the Stock Growers Association office over there with me. None of us travels unarmed now days.”
“Want me to go along?”
“Nope. I need you to keep the action going here, and conduct a raid at a time when I clearly have an alibi by being seen in Cayuga. I don't think I’m suspected of being part of the opposition vigilantes, or else I’d be dead. But a raid here when I’m there will make it seem less likely.”
“Are you sure we want to get mixed up with Koban genetic freaks? The Hub still has the death penalty for what they did.”
“He says they call themselves Kobani, and reminded me that Hub laws don’t apply on a Rim World unless we adapt them on our own. I checked. We don’t have any such gene laws. He looks normal on screen, he’s young and extremely confident, and his name’s Ethan Greeves. I think I can judge people fairly well from a conversation, by their eyes and expressions, and he doesn’t sound hard-bitten. In fact, he’s polite and strikes me as barely old enough to buy a drink. His partner, who I haven’t seen, is named Kit. I think the boy’s being sincere, and the price is affordable for us.”
Koban Universe 2: Have Genes, Will Travel Page 5
