“Uh, no, sir,” Leon stammered. “Carrie ain‘t got no horses here.”
“She might be hid out with some of these other folks here,” Red suggested. “She’ll show up somewhere. This town ain’t big enough to hide in.”
“Reckon you’re right,” Yarborough said. “Anyway, what was your name?”
“Bloodworth, Leon Bloodworth.”
“Right, Leon,” Yarborough continued. “We’re gonna put these horses up with you. Water ’em good and feed ’em some grain. They ain’t had any in a while. We’re gonna stay a few days in town, so you just start us up a bill and we’ll settle up when we’re ready to leave.”
Leon hesitated, wondering if he should tell Yarborough that his usual policy was to collect his stable rent in advance when it came to new customers. He couldn’t bring himself to do it when he met the penetrating stare of Flint Yarborough, seeming to dare him to demand money. “Yes, sir,” Leon finally muttered. “I’ll take good care of ’em for ya.”
“Good,” Yarborough said. “We’ll just leave ’em with you and you can pull the saddles off and stow our gear in your tack room.” Feeling in complete control now, he turned and started walking back to the saloon. “Come on, boys. Let’s see what the town has to offer. We might wanna stay here permanent. They ain’t got no sheriff now. Maybe I’m the man for that job.” It was an idle comment, but the thought of taking over the town, like Big Steve Long had done in Laramie, had entered his mind. He could see that Cheyenne was already growing and could provide a lot of opportunity for a man like himself to get rich. If he did make a move like that, he’d have to be a little more careful about it than Long had, ending up with a rope around his neck.
The four unwelcome guests walked out of the stable. They left a shaken Leon Bloodworth watching them and wondering what they might do if they found out that John Henry Black was not dead.
* * *
Gordon Luck was not at the sawmill when Harley and Carrie got to the river. One of the young boys who worked for him told Harley that Gordon was repairing some benches in the church building. Harley thanked them and headed for the church, explaining to Carrie that Gordon was a preacher as well as a sawmill man. When they got to the church, they found evidence that Gordon had been working there—a couple of benches were upside down and braced underneath with new lumber—but he was not there.
Harley and Carrie walked back outside and stopped on the steps when they heard Gordon call from the house behind the church. Harley called back and in a few seconds they saw him walking to meet them.
“Harley,” Gordon called out, “I thought that was you. Who’s this you’ve brought with you?”
“This is Carrie Green,” Harley answered.
“Oh, yes, I shoulda guessed that,” Gordon replied. “I’ve been too busy at the sawmill to get into town for the past few days, but I heard you’d come to live with Douglas and Martha. I was powerful sorry to hear about your husband, and I was hopin’ I’d see you in church this comin’ Sunday.” He nodded toward the door of the church. “I’ve been busy fixin’ up some of the benches, so you won’t take a chance on landing on the floor.” He smiled broadly at Carrie, but was puzzled by the grim expressions on both their faces. He was somewhat surprised to find the young lady in Harley’s company to begin with, so he guessed there might be an explanation coming. “What brings you out this way today?” he asked, becoming more serious.
Harley glanced at Carrie, not sure how much of the story she was willing to divulge. “Well, in the first place, we came to tell you ’bout some bad trouble in town. I know you heard about the shoot-out that landed John Henry Black on his back in the hotel.”
Gordon nodded.
“Well,” Harley continued, “the feller that done it has come back to town, and he’s brung three gunmen with him.”
“Oh, my Lord . . .” Gordon started. “That ain’t good news. Have Arthur and the others got the vigilance committee together?”
“No, they ain’t,” Harley replied. “That’s why we stopped by to let you know what’s goin’ on. Tell you the truth, I don’t think anybody wants to tangle with these four fellers. They’re a mean bunch.”
“What about Cole Bonner?” Gordon asked. “From what I heard, he was the one that did most of the shootin’ when that one feller was killed.”
“Cole went after that Womack feller, but he ain’t come back. And since Womack is back in town with his three friends, I’m afraid Cole mighta run into an ambush and got himself killed.”
Gordon scratched his head while he considered the problem. Finally he asked, “So you’re tellin’ me that the town is in the hands of four outlaws and nobody’s gonna go up against ’em?”
“That’s what I’m tellin’ you,” Harley said. “I told Leon Bloodworth I’d tell you what’s goin’ on, in case you wanna see if you can get the vigilance committee together again. I thought about helpin’ if you did, but I’m obliged to take Carrie somewhere safe.” He turned to look Carrie in the eye. “And right now I’m thinkin’ about goin’ back to Medicine Bear’s village. I’d go somewhere to look for Cole, but I ain’t got any idea where to start.”
The indecision was apparent in Gordon’s eyes as he thought the situation over. He had responded to the call before to rid Cheyenne of outlaws. Like Arthur Campbell and Douglas Green, he was not eager to face up to four hardened killers again. He had done his part in helping to build a law-abiding town. Let someone else take a turn. “Are you plannin’ to take Mrs. Green, here, to that Crow camp?” He directed his next question to Carrie. “Is this all right with Douglas and Martha?”
Harley shrugged, hesitant to answer.
Carrie smiled at him and said, “Everybody’s gonna know soon enough, Harley.” Then to Gordon, she said, “It’s all right with Douglas and Martha. They asked me to leave, and not to come back, and I said I would.”
“Why in the world would they ask you to do that?” Gordon exclaimed.
“They had their reasons,” Carrie said and left it at that.
Gordon was astonished to think the Greens sent her away. “Maybe they’re concerned for your safety,” he suggested. There was an extended period of silence while he tried to determine what he should do. After he thought it over, he decided he’d let the town take care of itself. “I’ll defend my sawmill and my church, but the citizens of Cheyenne are gonna have to take care of their own.”
He looked at Carrie and shook his head as if apologizing. Then another idea struck him. “You don’t have to go with Harley to live in a Crow village, if you don’t want to. You can stay here at my house. I’ve got a spare room all fixed up to suit a lady. It was gonna be for me and my bride, but she changed her mind about marryin’ me, so nobody’s usin’ it. I don’t sleep in there, so it’s just like brand new.” In fact, he had closed the door to the room so as not to be reminded of it.
Harley looked at Carrie to judge her reaction to Gordon’s invitation. He could see that it had caused her to give it some thought. “Well, that might be more to your likin’ than goin’ back to an Injun village.” Thinking Gordon seemed sincere in the offer, Harley waited for a moment while Carrie considered the suggestion. “You would be far enough from town, so nobody would likely know you were here. ’Course, it’s up to you. You know Moon Shadow and Yellow Calf would welcome you for as long as you wanted to stay.” At least for as long as that little camp of old folks can make it before they’re forced to go to the reservation, he couldn’t help thinking. He was afraid that time would not be far off. The young men had gone and he didn’t know how much longer he would be able to supply the camp with meat. He was getting long in the tooth, himself.
Finally, Carrie spoke. “That’s a mighty generous offer and I thank you for it.” Shifting her gaze to Harley then, she went on. “It sounds like a wonderful opportunity for me, but Gordon doesn’t know the whole story. And he should hear it before he agrees to take me in.” Turning back to Gordon, she said, “I was a prostitute before I married Robert Gr
een and that’s the reason I had to leave Cheyenne. Douglas and Martha found out and kicked me out of their home. I ain’t a prostitute anymore.”
Her forthright admission had the effect on Gordon that Harley expected. He was struck speechless for a long moment.
The sudden silence was interrupted by a comment from Harley. “That oughta give a preacher somethin’ to think about, I reckon.”
It gave Gordon plenty to think about, all right, but he tried to approach it with the forgiveness that a Christian should embrace. He questioned her on how she became a prostitute and she was quite frank with her answers. After hearing of her abandonment at a tender age, with no one to take care of her and no place to go, he found he did have some compassion for her plight. Since she assured him that she had sought forgiveness for her sins, and had traveled a sin-free path since meeting Robert, Gordon decided that the offer was still good.
“It ain’t like I’m askin’ you to marry me or anything else beyond just givin’ you a place to live,” he rationalized. “And since you ain’t a whore no more, ain’t nobody got any right to say anything about you rentin’ a room in the parsonage.”
“How much is the rent?” Carrie asked.
“Maybe you could help with the cookin’ and washin’,” Gordon said.
Both parties nodded their agreement and shook on it. Harley pulled the saddle off the sorrel and turned it out with Gordon’s horses. After he had parked her saddle in the barn, he went inside the house where Gordon was showing Carrie around. When he walked in, he overheard Carrie comment that it was obvious the kitchen could use a woman’s touch.
She’ll be running this house in a week’s time, he thought and smiled. “Well, I reckon I’d best decide what I’m gonna do,” he announced.
“Why don’t you stay here, too?” Gordon asked. His question brought a hopeful look to Carrie’s eye.
Harley shrugged. “I reckon I could at that,” he allowed. “I swear, I’d like to go look for Cole, but I’m blamed if I know where to start.” The thought of his friend lying wounded or dead on the cold unforgiving prairie was not an image that rested easy in his mind. After he considered it for a few minutes, he decided. “What the hell? I reckon I’ll stick around. I’ll sleep in the barn with my horses.”
Carrie nodded and smiled at him. She knew she would be a lot more comfortable with Harley there, at least until she became used to the arrangement. It didn’t strike her as a permanent solution to her problems, but for the time being, it sounded better to her than going back to live with the Indians.
CHAPTER 9
Never suspecting the possibility of what had taken place in Cheyenne while he had continued on to Iron Mountain, Cole reined the bay gelding to a stop on a low rise just short of Chugwater Creek. As best he could figure, he was about two miles south of Raymond Potter’s trading post. If he had guessed right, he should reach the store while Womack and his partners were sitting around the fire, drinking Potter’s whiskey and playing cards. He could have gotten there much earlier, but purposely had waited until later in the day. With odds of four to one, he needed to catch the outlaws when they were least on guard. He was counting on total surprise, since there was no reason for them to suspect that anyone was trailing them.
With a nudge of his heels, he signaled the bay forward.
Guiding his horse around a tight turn in the creek, he came in sight of the trading post, a group of three weathered board buildings that made up the general store and saloon. It had been some time since he had been to Potter’s Place, as everybody called it. The combination general store and saloon being the closest trading post to old Medicine Bear’s camp near the forks of the Laramie and North Laramie Rivers, Raymond Potter’s tendency was to cheat his customers whenever he could, and Cole preferred to ride a little farther, to Fort Laramie, when he had hides to trade or a craving for a drink of whiskey that wasn’t watered down. Aside from that, Potter seemed to cater to people on the wrong side of the law, and as a rule, you could expect to run into one or more men on the run from some lawman. It was the reasoning behind Cole’s notion that Womack and his friends were most likely headed there.
As he approached the store, he held the bay to the western bank of the creek in order to come up on the blind side of anyone happening to be at the front door. Taking no chances, he held his rifle ready in case there was no time for introductions. While the bay plodded slowly across the side yard, Cole glanced at the horses in the corral beside the barn. Half a dozen horses were there, plus the four tied at the hitching rail in front of the store. That immediately captured his attention. Maybe he had not been as far behind the men he tailed as he had at first assumed.
It might have been a mistake to delay his arrival until suppertime. On the other hand, maybe the riders he trailed rode in on four of the horses in the corral. For there were no packhorses at the rail, and he was sure he had followed six horses from the shack on the Laramie.
He dismounted and looped his reins over the rail, his rifle still at the ready while he checked the horses tied there. None looked as if it had recently been ridden hard. So far, there was no indication that anyone had seen him ride up, so he paused for a moment to decide how best to proceed. He knew he could recognize Womack, but he had no idea what his three friends looked like. His immediate concern was what to do if he didn’t see Womack inside. On the other hand, Womack’s three friends didn’t know him from Adam, either, so he figured he’d just trust his reactions to do the right thing.
Inside the saloon Raymond Potter was leaning on the end of the bar talking to a heavyset man with a full gray beard. Two of the three small tables in the room were occupied with two men at each table and all conversation in the room halted briefly when the door was swung open and Cole walked in. He shifted his gaze quickly, scanning the entire room, hoping to recognize Troy Womack at once, fully aware of the need to react instantly if he did.
After a second, the conversations resumed when everyone had determined the new arrival was no one they knew and, consequently, of no concern.
Cole immediately came to the conclusion that he had been wrong in guessing Womack and his friends had headed there. He didn’t see Womack anywhere in the room, and Cole was struck with the thought that he might have made a serious mistake. Womack and his friends might have gone anywhere, maybe even Cheyenne! He had gambled on the idea that the wounded outlaw was interested only in clearing out of the territory. What if he and his companions had turned back toward Cheyenne?
Cole found himself thirty-five or more miles from Cheyenne with a horse already tired from the present day’s ride. Damn! he thought, feeling he had been a damn fool for chasing snowflakes while his friends in Cheyenne might be suffering the vengeance of Womack and his three partners. With an urgency to get back to Cheyenne as quickly as possible, he started to turn about-face and delay not a second more, when Potter caused him to hesitate.
“Ain’t seen you in a long spell,” Potter greeted him. “You comin’ in or goin’ out?”
Thinking he might confirm what he had already decided, Cole answered. “I’m lookin’ for somebody. I’m supposed to meet Troy Womack and three other fellows here today. Don’t reckon they got here yet.”
Potter looked genuinely at a loss. “Troy who?”
When Cole repeated the last name, Potter shook his head. “Don’t know nobody by that name.” He turned toward the patrons at the tables. “Anybody know a feller name of Troy Womack?” No one did, so Potter turned back to Cole. “Well, they ain’t showed up yet. Matter of fact, there ain’t been no four fellers ridin’ together, showin’ up around here. You sure you was supposed to meet ’em here?” Cole did not respond, so Potter asked, “Whatcha gonna have while you’re waitin’? I’ve got some good corn likker that’ll damn-sure cut a rut in your throat.”
“Later maybe,” Cole lied. “I’ve got something to do first.” He turned around and headed straight for the door.
When the door closed behind him, Potter commented to the
man with the gray beard. “Well, ain’t that somethin’? He’s been in here before, but it was a while back. Looks like he’s gone plum Injun.”
Outside, Cole stepped up into the saddle, turned the bay’s head back toward the way he had come, and started out along the creek bank at a lope. It was too much to ask of the horse to ride through the night, but he would push him pretty hard until stopping to make camp. Even with a stop to rest, he figured he could reach Cheyenne before noon the next day.
As he rode into the shadows of the cottonwoods along the creek, he could not help feeling that he should have stayed in Cheyenne instead of going after Womack. He was worried about Harley and the merchants in town, about the Greens and Carrie, but he was especially concerned for Mary Lou Cagle’s safety. And it forced him to admit that he always had a feeling that it was a job he wanted—to take care of her. Headstrong and seemingly untamable, she nevertheless was who he wanted in his life, not just for now, but always. The problem was he had nothing to offer her, living more like a Crow warrior than a man capable of settling down and supporting a wife. He had tried to embrace the life of a farmer before his wife was killed, but he knew he was not suited for working the soil. With Ann gone, he had let the land he bought on the Chugwater go back, anyway.
That was when his existence as a hunter and avenger began. It might be too late to change that, he thought. Picturing Mary Lou in his mind, he had to admit he was not confident that she would be inclined to cast her lot with him. She had turned Gordon Luck down, and he was a strong representative of the new town’s citizens. Frustrated as always when he had these thoughts, Cole shook his head and tried to free his mind of them.
* * *
Massacre at Crow Creek Crossing Page 15
