Riders of Judgment

by Frederick Manfred

  It was damp inside. Potatoes with long pale sucker stems rolled queezily under his hands. He scuttled across them.

  He found himself smiling. They would wait, and wait, for him to pop out of the front door. They wouldn’t figure him ducking into the dugout. Waiting and waiting for him to pop out, they might even get the notion he’d shot himself rather than run the crossfire in the meadow. To help the idea along, he fired off his .45 a couple of times into the house behind him. He reloaded.

  Smoke followed him into the dugout after a minute. He choked in it. The air became acrid, close. He burrowed his nose down into the potatoes. They stunk like rutting toads.

  Smoke next seemed to come out of the dirt floor. He waited. “They’ll think me dead by now.” He waited until he could feel heat on his rump.

  The time had come. “Well, boys, here’s where I play a lone hand in a dark room with my eyes shut. So long, Tim.”

  Gasping, he raised. He pushed against the low dirt roof. When it didn’t budge, he bowed his head and set his back against it. With his short powerful haunches he heaved his whole body up. Dirt trickled into his neck. He heaved again and the low roof poles gave way and his head popped through. Dirt rolled off his dark hair. He winked; cleared his eyes. He took a mighty breath before flames and smoke could follow his head out. Then smoke puffed up around him; hid him for a second. He rammed up his shoulders and climbed out.

  “There he goes!” a voice shouted from the rise in front of him.

  Cain legged it for all he was worth around to where the low plume of smoke streaked across the meadow. He ran, shaking lead out of his .45 as he went, trying to hit the sudden forms rising out of the sagebrush on the ridge, trying to lay down a covering barrage for himself. Bullets whistled and whined past him from all sides. He slipped once in a cow plotch; regained his balance. His feet were suddenly wet. When his .45 clicked empty he stuck it inside his belt.

  The moment he got inside the twisting plume of yellowish-black smoke, the shots fell off. The smoke hid him. It was hard to breathe. Holding his breath, he ran hard, bowed. For so short a man he bounded along with incredibly long strides. He willed himself into great speed.

  Running, he was minded of the many times he had ridden in the clouds under the Old Man and the Throne with Lonesome under him. He stepped on a pricklepear cactus. It stung all across the sole of his foot. He stepped on a tiny sagebrush. It tickled. He kicked through a pile of horseballs and sent them rolling. The ground was damp underfoot, sweet with wet grass and snow-candied wild clover. His feet became sopping wet up over the ankles.

  “By golly!” he thought. “I’m almost there! I’m going to make it!”

  At the end of the meadow, near the mouth of the ravine, he noticed the smoke lighten more at his feet than above him. He saw his socked feet stroking.

  Then, too late, he saw that the smoke plume didn’t go up the ravine as he’d thought; that a countercurrent of wind coming out of the ravine seemed to push it up and away from the ridge.

  And also too late, after he was in the ravine a half-dozen steps, he saw two men, Hunt and Mitch, crouched over and waiting for him in the side gully. They were down on one knee and had dead aim on him. They had seen him emerge, feet first, a good dozen steps before he’d seen them. He quick tried to jerk up the Winchester for a running snap shot.

  But he was too late. Their barrels both blazed and two punches hit him in the chest, each like the kick of a horse hoof. The punches stopped him in full flight. The two colliding momentums caused him to fly up. It looked as if he were trying to leap up over the bullets. He landed, tottering. Again the two barrels blazed. And again two separate kicks caught him square in the chest. They knocked him over on his back.

  He fell with the Winchester gripped tight in his hand.

  Good-bye, boys.

  Hambone

  They came running out of their holes, from behind the barn and the bridge and the rise. They closed in. Hambone swung behind the limping Jesse to see what there was to see.

  They circled Cain from a distance, rifles cocked and at ready, still afraid he might strike. Yellowish-black smoke from the burning cabin streamed past; rose and fell over both them and him.

  Hambone left from behind Jesse and went up close. Cain’s trigger finger still worked. His right hand was gripped white around the barrel of the Winchester.

  Mitch saw the finger move too. He shot. He shot again. Then some of the others shot too.

  Hambone tolled his old leathery head. He cried, “You cowards! Can’t you see he’s dead at last? Or are you shooting at his ghost?”

  “I’ve killed diamondbacks before,” Mitch snarled.

  “Who are you to talk?” Hambone cried.

  “That’s enough out of you too, you old buzzard, or you’ll get some of the same.”

  “This is a free country,” Hambone cried. “Or ain’t it?”

  Hunt walked up. He sat down on a heel and looked at the Winchester in Cain’s grip. He looked for a mark. He found it. He threw aside the rifle he was carrying and with both hands jerked the Winchester out of Cain’s hand. Hunt said, “At least I got back my favorite .38-56.”

  Hambone said, “Yes, I guess it is finders keepers at that.”

  “What do you mean by that remark?” Hunt demanded, leveling the Winchester on Hambone.

  “This is a free country,” Hambone cried. “Or ain’t it?”

  Irv Hornsby came up. His face was flushed with liquor. Irv gave the body a kick. Blood momentarily welled out of the wounds. Then Irv got out a card and wrote on it in pencil and pinned it to Cain’s vest. It said:

  Cattle Thieves Beware!

  Hambone snorted. He reached down and ripped it off and tore it to bits. “I dare you to put another’n on him,” he said.

  Walrus came strutting up. His neck was crooked to one side. He walked around the body twice. Gradually a new look came over his chub face and he stood a while. Black smoke swooped down over him and the body; then it raised to the sky.

  Jesse said, “He was a brave man. Game to the end. It was almost a shame to kill him.”

  Walrus snorted. The motion shook all of him. He said, “Yes, and if I had fifty men like him I could lick the whole state inside of a year.”

  Hunt snorted too. He set the Winchester stock down to the ground. He turned his back on Walrus and the crowd.

  Hambone looked down at Cain. “Maybe he was a rustler once years ago when he worked for Jesse. I don’t know. We all made mistakes when we was boys. But grown up he was my friend and I knew him to be honest. He was the whitest man that ever wore boots. He was the nerviest man I ever knew. I never knew him to start a fight. Yet, when one was started, I never knew him to back down. That is the best I can say for any man.”

  Ike came up, light-footed, young face like he was at his mother’s funeral. After a while he said, “If they’re all fighters like that up here, we Texans might as well quit.”

  Jesse said, “Too bad he was on the wrong side.”

  Then they all relieved themselves on the young light green grass in the meadow. Hambone would not join them.

  The meadowlark landed nearby. It hopped onto a clod; then onto a stone. Its yellow breast shone in the low dusk. It whistled wild, pure, clear, nervously opening and shutting its tail, flashing its white tail feathers. “Wheu! Wheu! See you in the morning, men!”

  Hunt turned. “That durn bird has been in my ear all day.” He took a snap shot at the meadowlark. He missed. The meadowlark soared off into the high dusk over the land.

  “Well, men,” Walrus said at last, strut coming back, “on to Antelope, the doomed city of the plains.”

  Later in the night, after the invaders had been surrounded and captured near Antelope by the army Harry had raised, Sheriff Ned Sine and Harry came out to Cain’s cabin. They came with their horses sobbing for breath and dripping wet.

  Hambone met them with a lantern. He showed them where Cain lay. Some new snow had fallen and the wind had blown a little
drift off Cain’s nose. Light from the swinging lantern momentarily quickened Cain’s half-lidded staring eyes.

  They stood looking down at him.

  At last Hambone said, “So long, cowhand, and good ridin’. You was the best. We’ll never forget you so long as we live.”

  Harry went white then, and he turned around and threw up in the snow. “I come too late,” he said.

  Hambone gave Harry a steady look. He said, “Now, now, Harry boy, don’t take it so hard. You know you did the best you could.

  “No,” Harry said, “no, I didn’t. I should have come sooner.”

  “But how could you, Harry?” Sheriff Sine broke in. “It was already too late when we ran into the raiders south of town there. You know that. He was already dead by then.”

  “I know that,” Harry said. “I don’t mean then.”

  “What!” Sheriff Sine said. “When do you mean then?”

  “I mean I should have come back sooner from Irv Hornsby’s.”

  Hambone reared back. “What the hell was you doing t’ Irv’s? He’s on the other side.”

  “Mitch told us they was having a party there. And I got a wild hair in the night and snuck over to have a look at it. You know how it is when you’re full a beans.”

  “When you might have known the kind of party Irv might throw?”

  “Yes,” Harry said. “When I might have known.”

  Hambone stared at Harry in the lantern light. So did Sheriff Sine.

  Harry cried. He hid his face. “Oh, Cain. My brother, my brother.”

  Hambone put a hand on Harry’s shoulder. “Now, sidey, now.”

  Harry said, “But when I got to Irv’s, the party had already left. And then I knew for sure, but too late, what kind of party Mitch meant. So I came back as quick as I could. But it was too late. Too late.”

  At that Hambone let out a big gushing sigh. So did Sheriff Sine.

  Hambone said, “It’s all right, Harry. Don’t take it so hard, boy. You did the best you could.”

  “Too late. My brother. My brother.”

  Sheriff Sine couldn’t stand to look at Harry. He turned. He looked at the dead man a while. Then, groaning, he got down on one knee and rolled the body over. He counted the bullet holes in reverent awe. “There’s at least thirty holes in this man. One for every year of his life.”

  Harry again turned and threw up.

  Sheriff Sine searched the body. He found the little red stock book. After he had read it aloud in the lantern light, he said, “He sure put up a fight, all right. Holding them off all day alone. From the last count the coroner and the doc made, he got five of them and nicked at least a dozen others.”

  “Yeh,” Hambone said, scuffing the ground with a boot toe, trying to think of something to draw Harry off his grief, “yeh, he put up a fight all right. But what I’m wonderin’ is, what state will Hunt Lawton do his peace-officerin’ in next?”

  Sheriff Sine slowly got to his feet. “Hunt Lawton ain’t goin’ to no other state. We’ve got him behind bars now. With witness galore agin him.”

  Hambone shook his old head. He watched Harry out of the corner of his eye. “Ned, you know damn well you’ll never bring Hunt to trial. Nor any of them other’n either.”

  Sheriff Sine stiffened. “How do you figure?”

  “There’s too much power behind them. Them millionaires in the East own them big alligators our state legislators. Body and soul.”

  “We’ll try Hunt here if I got anything to say about it.”

  Hambone smiled, sad. His old head continued to swing back and forth from his hump spine. “No, you won’t, Ned. They’ll claim they can’t get a fair trial in this county. Which they won’t of course. So their lawyers will ask for a change of venue to another county. And once they’re out of this county, they’re gone. You know that.”

  Sheriff Sine swore.

  “Swear all you want to, Ned, but they’ll get off.” Hambone watched Harry. “Oh, they probably won’t bother us much again. Make another raid. But they’ll get off.”

  Harry finally got up enough courage to look down at Cain again. Slowly Harry settled on his heels beside him. With just barely touching finger tips he closed his brother’s half-lidded staring eyes.

  Hambone nodded to himself. He said, “What burns me, though, is that that snake Hunt should get off. Them other’n was fightin’ for what they thought was their right. They thought they had a side. They thought they had to do it. So they did it. But Hunt, he came here and killed just to kill. While wearin’ a star. And that’s wrong. That’s plumb wrong.”

  Harry stood up. His face was still white. “Will you go get a wagon, Hambone? So we can ride him into town?”

  Hambone said, “I’ll be glad to.”

  Rosemary

  They were in the cemetery. It was a very cold day. Everyone puffed white breath.

  Wearing black, Rory stood with Joey on one side of her and cousin Harry on the other and baby Cain in her arms.

  The wooden hearse backed slowly through the crowd. The pallbearers picked up the bodies and carried them carefully across the slippery ground and set them beside the open clay graves.

  Rory saw that Cain’s pine-board coffin was closed. In her mind’s eye she could still see his grim face and his bullet-ridden body. The baby casket in which Timberline’s burnt stump of a body lay was also closed.

  The crowd was as still as mice and as grave as owls. Beyond and above a little grove of seedling cottonwoods rode the Big Stonies. The white peaks were combing out a huge bank of fleecy clouds.

  Hambone led Cain’s cow pony, Bucky, beside the grave. The dun buckskin was saddled. A black-hair quirt hung from the saddlehom.

  Rory felt the crowd around her. They had come to honor him. Her tongue moved behind her teeth. Her teeth tasted bitter.

  Reverend Creed stood in black, short, bowlegged. He was a cowhand turned preacher. He had an old face, stiff, like the sides of a woman’s old leather purse. He raised the Bible in his hand and spoke quietly in the hush.

  “These men have been sent into eternity. We know why. They fought the invaders and lost their lives to them. Yet by fighting they saved the homesteader way of life in Bighorn County. One of them died early in the fight. The other prevailed until the sun went down. Together they died so that others might survive. We lost a dear brother in the flesh, but we gained a hero in the spirit in return.”

  Reverend Creed’s voice raised some. “We all know what happened afterwards. By holding on bitterly all day, Cain Hammett gave his neighbors time to rally and beat back the invaders and later surround them. We all know too that it took a presidential order to save the invaders from certain death. Had not the President sent out the U. S. Army and put the invaders in jail, they would all have been massacred. We do not condone killing and we are glad lives were saved. But now that they are safely behind bars we hope that justice will be done.”

  Reverend Creed’s voice soared. “It is doubtful that the world will ever remember the names of the invaders, yes, even the senator and the governor and the President who aided and abetted the invaders. But the world will never forget the name of Cain Hammett. Wherever cattle graze or homesteaders live, Cain Hammett will always be remembered as the man who alone overthrew the feudal system of the old frontier and turned the cattle kingdom into a free country. In future times to come the story of Cain Hammett and his bravery will always be quoted in history. Our children and our children’s children will point to him as the coolest and bravest American of them all.”

  Reverend Creed’s voice became solemn. “He was a true hero. He fought to save his own life, yes. He fought to save the lives of his boys, yes. He fought to save all our lives in Bighorn County, yes. But he did more than that. He fought not knowing his side would win. That is his true glory. He fought because he was a man and because bravery was expected of him. He fought because he had lived by a code and because he wanted to die by that code. Though his heart might be in mortal anguish, though th
e terror of death might be in his throat, he fought anyway, calmly and well. He shed his blood that men might once again learn that you cannot force a free people to accept something they do not want.”

  Reverend Creed closed his Bible. He gestured.

  The pallbearers silently lowered the two bodies into their graves.

  Reverend Creed said, “We stand at his grave. Now it is for us to examine our own hearts. Some of us do not have clean hands. Yes, the cattle barons made an illegal attack upon us. But on our side of the fence our hands are not clean either. By no means. Some of us have stolen. Some of us do have blood on our conscience. Some of us have coveted our neighbor’s ox and ass. The same enemy that rode with the invaders rides with us. He is the Devil.”

  Reverend Creed picked up a handful of clay. He crumbled it in his hand. In turn he scattered the clay over the coffins deep in the ground. One of the larger crumbles hit the top of Cain’s pine box. A tiny wisp of steam spurted out of a crack into the cold air. The inside of the coffin was still warm from having been in church. The puff rose and vanished against the clouds over the Big Stonies. Rory saw it and thought of the time when Cain went to get her a bighorn.

  Reverend Creed said, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us. Amen.”

  Rory wept bitterly. Wearing black, she stood with Joey on one side and cousin Harry on the other and baby Cain in her arms.

  She thought: “And I am left with Joey, Harry’s boy. And with little Cain, Dale’s boy. While Cain is but a memory.”

  Reverend Creed touched her shoulder. “I commend you to God.”

  In hushed silence, old Hambone unsaddled Bucky from the wrong side. It was solemn announcement that none of the mourners present had been Cain’s equal in life.

  At Wrâlda

  December 8, 1956