Riders of Judgment

by Frederick Manfred

  One of the men expressed the opinion the members had better remember that some Americans prided themselves in the fact the U.S A. offered the poor of the world a chance at a new start.

  Walrus snapped,“Well, not out my way it don’t. On my range, farms for the poor is a romantic absurdity. It’s just not poor man’s country. You either got to be big or get wiped out.”

  High-headed Jesse nodded over his booming brandy snifter. “It’s like I always say—you can’t squeeze eight married couples into the same bed.”

  Autocratic Allen Stone, the field manager for Scottish bankers, shook his head sadly. “The devil of it is, the rustlers are using the good small ranchers as a screen. My men on the scene who keep me posted report that the names of rustlers just do not appear on the membership rolls of that new Bighorn Farmers & Stockgrowers Association.”

  Walrus nodded. “Which means we’ll probably have to wipe out the good with the bad if we should have to make a move.”

  Bluff Enoch West lipped his cigar, groused, “The devil of it is, none of us old-timers’ve got clean hands. Some of us got our start just like these boys are trying to get their start now. When the longest rope got the maverick. Every time we point a finger, we point at a mirror.”

  Irving Hornsby blew an enormous cloud of cigar smoke toward the ceiling. For a second the room dimmed with it. Irv had a ranch back on the Salt Creek. He was a short heavy-bellied man. For all his bowed worklegs, he was a man of considerable learning and experience. He had graduated from Harvard; had traveled the world; had tried all sorts of enterprises and had made small fortunes out of them; had finally come back home to try ranching. He was now married and had a big family of nine children. Allen Stone had once jokingly said of him that he was “a man who had experienced every thrill in life except religion and childbirth.” He was a hard drinker, a hard rider, had a violent temper when aroused, and was known to have killed at least three tough Texas cowboys in gunfights. Irv had been having trouble with the new settlers too. “The poor buggers haven’t got the money to buy barbwire and fence in their property. No. What they do instead is turn a furrow around the margin of their homesteads and call that a fence.” Irv took a long sip. “Well, naturally, my cows aren’t so smart they can play the furrow is a fence. So what happens? When some of my dumb cows stray across this play fence, those buggers shoot them down, claiming they’re protecting their land. The loss from such killings has just been terrible out our way.” Irv took another drink. “And it wouldn’t be so bad if they’d just kill for their own table use, but they kill just to kill. Boys, that has just got to stop or we can close up shop and apply for a room at the poorhouse.”

  Stone brushed ashes from the front of his tuxedo. “One thing 1 must add. My clients and 1 want to go on record to the effect that the hanging of Cattle Queen and Avery Jimson was a bad mistake.” Stone turned to Jesse.“Yes, Jesse, lynching that woman was a horrible piece of business. It gave the opposition a moral point, gratis. It was not necessary. She could have been scared off, chased out, instead.”

  Jesse reared up. His bad leg was no better and his temper was shorter. Also, Lord Peter still had not sold the Derby property to him.“Goldurn it, Allen, what the blazes are you going to do? Sit still and see your property ruined right before your eyes with no redress in sight?”

  “Hear! hear!” Lord Peter called out from his leather chair.

  “I say!” Lord Cecil echoed from his chair. With an easy languid gesture he flipped ashes from his Norfolk jacket. Like Lord Peter, red-faced Lord Cecil used his home in the upper Big Stonies basin more as a royal hunting lodge than as ranch house. Every fall he held elaborate hunting parties for his roving Mayfair friends and every summer his country home was loud with endless house-partying. He shipped fox and hounds from England and hothouse flowers, both plant and human, from Boston. Young British elegants who hardly knew the difference between a steer and a heifer discussed with much enthusiasm the latest bonanza, cattle raising, over port and nuts. The visiting chaps and chippies all said they loved the raw West and only wished there was some way of getting rid of that eternal smell of horse manure.

  Hunt said, “Dead men tell no tales.”

  “I don’t know as to that, Hunt,” Bat Wildy said, twisting uneasily in his chair.“I ain’t hardly ready for such doings yet.” Bat was a former cowboy who had struck it rich late in life.

  Jesse broke in. “Say, Bat, how does your team of elk get along in the city?”

  Bat had tamed a pair of elk bulls and had driven into town for the meeting. It was Bat’s way of leveling himself up to the lords. “Oh,” Bat said, “all right, I guess. Have a little trouble on the corners. They go too fast.” Bat caught the hint of humor in Jesse’s question.“But I tell you what really throws them. All them geldings in the livery barn. They can’t make hide nor hair of them.”

  Chuckles went around the jammed room.

  Clayborne Rodney said,“We’ve been here an hour now beating around the bush. Now by golly, what I want to know is, just what are we supposed to be up to, meeting here?” Clayborne, or Clabe as the boys called him, was a great hulking cowboy. He had soft eyes the color of bluebird eggs. He’d married a pert little spitfire named Liza who had insisted he quit dirty cowpoke work. He loved Liza very much, was anxious to please her, and had got himself the local U. S. Marshal’s job. She thought being marshal a sight more respectable. Clabe himself, however, didn’t care much for it. He didn’t tell Liza, but he knew it would eventually pit him against his old buddies. He was a simple-minded man, tender and true as a woman, and was totally miscast as an officer of the law. “It sounds to me like you fellows all got a wholesale killin’ in mind.”

  Walrus barked from his end of the table, “Well, what else?”

  “No!” Clabe exclaimed. Clabe had difficulty showing outrage.

  Governor Barb spoke up quietly from his corner. He’d once been a doctor and had sat observant during all the talk. He was a well-built man, always neat and close-shaven, had a keen eye, a duke’s bold nose, and gold teeth. He liked Clabe. “Well, now, perhaps not to that extreme, Clabe. Though it has become a question of life or death for some of us ranchers. It’s either them or us. That’s why we’re meeting here tonight to see what can be done.”

  “I don’t believe in wholesale killin’s,” Clabe said, depressed.

  Walrus barked, “We simply have to take the gun to them, Clabe. It’s that or quit.”

  Senator Thorne put in his two bits’ worth then too. “It’s that, or declare an insurrection in Bighorn County and call out the National Guard.” In polite circles Senator Thorne was a sort of fop—there was always a faint hint of perfume about him—but out on the range he could be as rough and as ready as the next. He was very vain; loved to do the grand thing; had an overbearing manner; and had a very jealous disposition. He was a close friend of the President and had talked him into investing heavily in his ranch near the Big Stonies. Senator Thorne continued. “Why, it’s got so bad up our way, one small rancher just to the north of us by the name of Holdout Johnson has cows that throw twins almost every time. Sometimes even triplets, by God. Yes. While my cows just outside his fence are always barren. Poor things, my cows seem to miss motherhood so much they spend most of their time hanging around Holdout’s corral, envying his cows their numerous progeny, lamenting their own childless fate.” Senator Thorne coughed, spat a brown gob into a spittoon at his feet. “Well, you know what we did about that. My foreman Tine Breader made a call around that way one day and threatened to hang Holdout if his cows got any more twins. Yes, gentlemen, we’ve simply got to stop a situation where small bands of cattle belonging to one-time cowboys grow beyond the natural rate of increase.”

  Governor Barb said,“Making the cowboy prove ownership at the stockyards when he comes in to sell his beef hasn’t really worked. It hasn’t smoked out the rustler, since the rustler uses a fence. And it’s angered the honest little rancher, since now his beef is looked upon with suspicio
n too at the market.”

  Jesse sighed. “Compared to now, it sure was good in them old days.” Jesse sipped from his brandy snifter. “Them days, all a man had to do was brand his calves when dropped, ship his beeves when fat. He could keep the calf tally on a shingle. Why, the checkbook was the only book kept and the balance or the overdraft at the bank showed the whole business.” Jesse sighed again, deep. “Yes, times has sure changed.”

  Walrus snapped, “Them organizing into an association of their own and planning that early roundup, an illegal roundup … I say that’s the last straw.”

  Stone nodded over his cigar. “Yes, I’m afraid the glory has departed all right.”

  Irv raised, eyes fiery. “Not if we fight, it won’t be.”

  Jesse said, “That’s what I say.”

  Stone said, “Well, what do you suggest we do?”

  Walrus whacked the table with his puffy hand. “I guess it’s time for me to trot out my plan.”

  “What plan?” Stone asked, gray brows lifting high over florid cheeks.

  “Make a surprise march on Antelope, the capital of Bighorn County. Secretly. Imprison the present sheriff, the district attorney, the district judge. Impound all the records at the courthouse. Hold a new election to put in our own men. Start with a new slate in our favor.”

  Governor Barb asked, quietly, “What are you going to march with?”

  “Why, ourselves,” Walrus roared. “Arm our foremen and our loyal cowboys and ourselves. And if that ain’t enough, get Texas Ike here to bring up a delegation of some of his Texas toughs.”

  Stone exploded at that. “Why, you’re suggesting civil war!”

  “So I am. It won’t be the first one we’ve had in this country.”

  “But … but … that sort of thing just can’t be done!”

  “Then are you prepared to give up all your holdings? Because that’s just what you’ll have to do if those nesters and rustlers get their way up north. Let their idea get a foothold in one county and it’ll sweep the whole state. Or, if not that, they might even decide to secede from us. And you know what that means to Lord Peter, and the governor and the senator here. Clean out what holdings they still have left along the edges of Bighorn County. For myself, I say: Wipe out this nest of insurrection and save our way of life.”

  This was too thick for Stone. He got to his feet very perturbed. “I say … but my clients just will not have any part of inciting armed civil war.” Stone stood trembling a moment; then, with a low curse, he muttered, “I just won’t hear any more of this,” and lunged out of the meeting.

  Walrus smiled. “Anyone else want to pull out? Because this meeting was called to see what we could do about putting down that insurrection in the north.”

  No one else got up.

  “Good. Good.” Walrus leaned forward from the edge of his chair. “All right, now I further propose”—he drew a slip of paper from a vest pocket—“I further propose that we exterminate some twenty of the rebel leaders.”

  Everyone drew a sharp breath.

  “How?” Clabe finally asked.

  Walrus went on.“Either by shooting or hanging. Hunt, here, has drawn up a list for us. From Cain Hammett the boss of the illegal roundup to his brother Harry Hammett the chief of the rustlers.” Walrus looked over at Hunt.“I see some have been checked off. I presume this means they’ve already been got rid of.”

  Gray eyes glowing, Hunt nodded grimly over his pipe.

  Bat shook his head. “Well, you’re probably right about that Harry Hammett. I know him well. Used to ride with him. How such a nice feller can house such a hellish mind is something I just never have been able to savvy.”

  Walrus turned to Texas Ike. “Think you can round up some Texas fighters for us?”

  “Reckon.” Ike had hair as red as carrots, a boyish smiling face, and eyes that were grave and old-gray. “What’s there in it for my boys?”

  “One thousand dollars apiece. All expenses paid. Fifty dollars’ bounty to each fighter for every rustler killed, no matter who kills him. That sound all right to you?”

  “Reckon.”

  “Wait a minute,” Bat said.“Who’s going to pay all this money?”

  “We’re going to pass the hat round-robin.”

  Jesse smiled knowing at Hunt. “Well, Hunt, after we get through burning the records in the courthouse up there, you won’t have a worry in the world.”

  Hunt’s gray eyes half-closed.

  Irv said, “Yes, when we get through with it, Antelope will be known hereafter as the doomed city of the plains.”

  “Hear! Hear!” Lord Peter called.

  Walrus turned to Governor Barb. “Suppose, before we get there, suppose Sheriff Sine calls out the state militia to help him put down civil insurrection in Bighorn County?”

  “Well … I think we can handle that.”

  “How?”

  “This way. Send out an order to all state company commanders that they shall obey only such orders to assemble their commands as may be received from my office.”

  Walrus smiled. “Ain’t that in direct violation of the laws of the state?”

  “Perhaps.”

  Walrus turned to Senator Thorne. “What about you, John? In case of extreme necessity, can we count on the President to order the federal troops out as needed? As you can see, I want all bets covered.”

  “I think I can promise you the fullest co-operation from the President’s office.”

  “I say!” Lord Cecil called.

  Again Walrus smiled.“That too is in direct violation of the laws of the land, is it not?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “All right. Good. Good. Remember now. The raid must be kept a surprise to be effective. It must be made quickly and efficiently and secretly. Afterwards we won’t care what happens. Because then we’ll be in control.”

  Hunt

  Wednesday.

  Dawn was just breaking.

  Both the train and the Platte River emerged from a rocky gorge. The shining rails curved off to the left, hugging the base of the Bear Creek Mountains, while the rippling river immediately swung off to the right, going far out across a low narrow valley just now greening over with early April grass.

  Going along at a little more than twenty-five miles an hour over an uneven roadbed, the special train from Cheyenne rolled and pitched, sometimes violently, first the blunt engine, then in order down the line, the baggage car, the chair car, the caboose, three stock cars loaded with saddle horses, a flatcar heavy with wagons and camp equipment. Everyone in the chair car complained about the rough jolting ride. Reading was impossible. Even to keep a small object outside the window steadily in eye was difficult. Only the large outlines held steady, the looming dark green mountains immediately to the south, the occasional ranch-house buildings along the way, the great rising sweeps of prairie going north on and on forever. Gun belts hanging from hooks overhead swung back and forth with every roll of the car.

  Hunt sat alone. He’d reversed the front seat and so, riding backwards, had a view of the whole chair car all the way to the rear. Two lamps burned above him, adding some to the light of breaking dawn. Pipe in mouth, puffing on it now and then, he was busy working fresh rawhide into a tight neat braid. The smell of the rawhide pleased him. Every now and then an involuntary smile worked back into his lean cheeks.

  Halfway down the aisle were the Texas fighters Ike had hired, some twenty-five of them. They sat apart, silent. Every now and then their keen eyes flickered over him and then looked away. They ’d managed to get but short fitful naps during the night and were owly. Smoke hung gray and thick above them against the brown wood ceiling.

  Hunt didn’t like Texans. He’d spent several years in Texas as a marshal and had come to know them a little. He and a Texan just didn’t hit it off. He sensed that these devil-may-care toughs were like all the others he’d known. They were suspicious of all northerners, held human life of little value, and were clannish. When aroused, a Texas cow
poke could be terrible in a fight. At the same time, grudgingly, Hunt had to admit that as horsemen they were top hands. They could sweep around a herd in great style, never missing a point. After all it was the Texans who’d taught the boys in Colorado and Wyoming and Montana how to ride the range. They’d been the best.

  In the back of the rocking car sat the rest of the raiders, some thirty-five of the local boys: Walrus, Jesse, Bat, Clabe, and certain select cowboys who could be trusted. A friendly newspaperman from Chicago had also joined the party. To make sure of the National Guard and the state militia, both Senator Thorne and Governor Barb had stayed behind in Cheyenne.

  The trucks under the chair car whacked into a sharp dip in the roadbed. The jolt almost shook the pipe out of Hunt’s mouth. Some of the hairs in his mustache moved on his pipestem. Biting down, he managed to keep his pipe fixed firmly between clenched teeth. He set his back in a bow, ready for the next jolt.

  One of the Texans, a beardless boy of some seventeen years, opened up a blue duffel bag and began to mend a brown sock. It took him a while to thread the eye of the dancing darning needle. The jolts from below kept throwing him off just as he was about to make an entrance with the wetted end of green yarn. He concentrated. Gradually the pink tip of his tongue worked out of the corner of his mouth; began to ululate like uneasy proud flesh. Finally the boy got the needle threaded. He slipped a much-pocked darning egg into the sock. Slowly, with infinite patience, he worked a neat green weave across the ragged heel of the sock.

  Hunt jerked the four thongs of his braid into a round even tightness, each thong in turn. He took pride in the rawhide reatas he made. He liked to fondle giving leather. Soft leather felt alive; bristly hemp felt dead.

  Over the years he had become an expert at selecting just the right kind of hide for reata-making. The best came from old skinny starved cows. Such hides usually had little or no fat, and much glue. He’d even worked out a recipe, and it went as follows: “Split the hide in two. Cut off arms and legs. Soak both halves in cold water until thoroughly wet. Cut narrow strip along outer edge, circlelike, around and around, toward the center, until gone. Same for other half. Divide strips in half to make four thongs sixty-seventy feet long. Soak in water again until soft. Stretch each thong on pegs as tight as possible and let dry. Scrape off hair with knife. Slice off thick sections. Braid into round rope. Grease with tallow. Work it often, the more the better.”