Curse of Skull Canyon

by Peter Brandvold

  “Why, look there,” Madsen said while he and Brocius played two-handed poker. “The kid really does have a hand with babies!”

  He chuckled and shook his head.

  “Keep him quiet, kid,” Brocius said. “If there’s anything I can’t stand it’s a squealin’ crib rat.” He dropped a card onto the table, looked at his partner, and said, “You’re tryin’ to fill a straight, aren’t ya? By god, I know you are!”

  Madsen chuckled as he refilled both their whiskey glasses.

  May was making gravy at the range, stirring flour and water into the grease. As she did, she glanced over her shoulder at Lonnie. She appeared sick with worry. Her expression was a vaguely beseeching one, as well. The plaintive cast to his mother’s gaze made Lonnie feel even worse than he had before.

  She apparently wanted him to do something. To save them, somehow.

  But, how?

  When supper was ready, May began setting the pots and pans on the table. The men cleared away their cards and money. “Time to tie Junior back up,” Brocius said.

  “Oh, can’t he please eat at the table with us?” May implored, wringing her hands. “I can’t stand to see him tied down there against that post!”

  Lonnie looked down at little Jeremiah. The boy was dead asleep, his little, pinched-up face turned toward Lonnie.

  “Besides,” May added, “I’ll probably need him to quiet little Jeremiah when he wakes up for another feeding in an hour or so.”

  “Oh, I reckon,” Brocius said, his voice thick with drink. “Can’t hurt nothin’. He knows what’s at stake, if’n he tries anything.”

  When all the food was steaming on the table, Lonnie handed little Jeremiah over to his mother. He took his father’s old place at the head of the table, since Brocius was sitting in Lonnie’s usual place. May returned from the bedroom, closed the door quietly until she heard the soft snick of the latch, then removed her apron and sat down beside Brocius, who had already started filling his plate.

  Again, May glanced at Lonnie. When the boy met her gaze, she gave him a faintly crooked smile then looked away. Lonnie frowned.

  She was trying to tell him something.

  What?

  Lonnie looked at her again, but now she wouldn’t look at him as she passed the potatoes to him. She followed with the gravy bowl, still not looking at him. She was telling him something, all right, but for the life of him, Lonnie couldn’t decipher what it was.

  The Pinkertons wolfed their meals and then slid their plates away to continue their poker game. As May began to clear plates from the table, she glanced at Lonnie, giving that crooked smile, that same obscure look as before, and said, “Lonnie, honey, would you please fetch me a pail of water from the rain barrel, so I can wash these dishes?”

  She held his gaze for about one second with her own. It was as though her eyes were burrowing into his. And then she smiled and turned toward the dry sink.

  “Hey, wait a second,” Brocius said, scowling at Lonnie. “Where’s the rain barrel?”

  “Out back,” May said offhandedly as she scraped food scraps into a wooden bucket. “Lonnie knows where it is. While you’re out there, honey, please grab a few more chunks of wood off the stack, too, will you?”

  “I’ll go,” Brocius said, starting to heave himself out of his chair. “That kid ain’t leavin’ the cabin.” He stumbled backward a little, drunkenly, before getting his boots set beneath him.

  “Yeah, you go,” Lonnie said, glaring at the man. “Just because you’re rich don’t mean you’re above a few supper chores. I think I’ll sit in Pa’s rocker.”

  Madsen chuckled as he tossed out another poker hand. “The kid sure has sass. I for one ain’t gonna be at all sorry to, uh . . .” He glanced at Lonnie pointedly then gave a fleeting devilish grin.

  Brocius pulled his pistol and aimed at Lonnie. “You’re gonna fetch the water and the wood. I’m just gonna tag along to make sure you don’t get no ideas.”

  “What ideas?” Lonnie scoffed.

  “Any ideas,” Brocius said, clicking his Colt’s hammer back. He wagged the gun toward the door. “Move.”

  “I so hate guns,” May intoned, looking at Lonnie. There was something strange in her eyes again. “Lonnie, you know how much I hate guns. Please be careful!”

  “I will, Momma, I will,” Lonnie said, heading for the door.

  CHAPTER 51

  Brocius opened the door and backed outside onto the stoop, holding his cocked revolver on Lonnie.

  Lonnie walked out onto the stoop, down the steps, and around the cabin’s west front corner, heading for the rear. Brocius followed, his pistol aimed at Lonnie’s back.

  Halfway to the cabin’s rear, Lonnie stopped suddenly. A thought occurred to him. Behind him, Brocius’s foot thuds stopped. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothin’,” Lonnie said, his heart lurching, hands tingling.

  His mother always kept one of her husband’s old Confederate pistols in the drawer of a table near her bed. Lonnie had given her the pistol when he’d started staying away from the cabin overnight. He’d wanted her to have a way to protect herself if she ever needed to. He’d tried to teach her how to shoot the old Navy Colt, but she’d refused, regarding the old, brass-cased pistol as though it were a coiled diamondback.

  Had she hidden the Colt out here somewhere? Is that what she’d been trying to tell Lonnie?

  Probably not. He couldn’t imagine her touching the gun much less finding the nerve to steal out of the cabin with it.

  Still, Lonnie turned to the woodpile with his heart thudding in his ears. He stopped dead in his tracks again. His heart lurched violently into his throat. The brass of the pistol’s case glistened in the late-afternoon light angling down from the western ridges. She’d partly covered the gun under a couple of split logs. Lonnie could see the small screw at the base of the brass trigger guard.

  He glanced behind him. Brocius stood off the cabin’s rear corner, staring at Lonnie, head canted to one side.

  “Will you stop your gallblasted fidgeting around, kid? I know what you’re tryin’ to do. You’re wonderin’ if you’re fast enough to take me. You’re wonderin’ if you can get this pistol out of my hand.” Brocius grinned darkly. “Go ahead. Try. Save me havin’ to tie you up for the night just to shoot you in the mornin’.”

  “I’ll get the water first,” Lonnie said, grabbing the wooden bucket that hung from a nail in the side of the steel-banded rain barrel.

  “Just to save time, I’ll grab some wood.”

  Anxiety ripped through Lonnie like lightning. If Brocius grabbed the nearest top logs off the woodpile, he’d find the gun . . .

  Lonnie’s mind scrambled. He didn’t know how he did it, but he found himself turning and giving the man an angry scowl and saying, “Yeah, make yourself useful. Here, I’ll load you up.”

  Lonnie grabbed a couple of split logs off the top of the woodpile, to the right of the gun partly hidden on the pile’s second tier.

  “Hold on, hold on!” Brocius snapped, holstering his pistol. “Just remember, I’m faster’n greased lightning, so don’t you try a damn thing—understand? Less’n you want your ma and little brother joinin’ you in the same ravine.”

  When Brocius had holstered the pistol, he held out his arms. Lonnie grabbed several split logs off the pile and laid them across the man’s chest. Next, Lonnie plucked up the log over the old Navy Colt. Lonnie grabbed the Colt, clicked the hammer back, and aimed the revolver at Brocius’s chest.

  The Pinkerton’s eyes snapped wide and he took one step back, dropping the wood at his feet.

  “Call out or go for your pistol, and I’ll gut shoot you,” Lonnie said, narrowing one eye and curling his upper lip, grinning with challenge. “Go ahead. Save me a lot of trouble.”

  Brocius stared at him, mouth half open. Shock glazed his eyes. He held his hands just above his hips, half open, palms down.

  “You with me, now? Or do you want to make a play?” Lonnie took two ste
ps back, so the Pinkerton couldn’t easily lunge at him and wrestle the Colt out of his grip, like he’d done before. Lonnie didn’t know if the old cap-and-ball would still fire. He’d fired it about a year ago, and it had worked fine. Still, he wasn’t sure.

  Lonnie grinned, fury surging in him on tidal waves of hot blood. This man had been going to kill him. He’d probably been going to kill Lonnie’s mother and little brother, as well.

  But now, Lonnie had him dead to rights. He was amazed at how light-headed and powerful that made him feel. This time, he would not squander his opportunity of removing this scum from his ranch cabin.

  What he’d do with the two Pinkertons, he had no idea.

  First things first . . .

  “Easy, kid,” Brocius said, nervously licking his lower lip, staring at the revolver in Lonnie’s hand. “Just take it easy, now. You don’t wanna do this. You might have me . . . for the time bein’ . . . but you’ll never take down Madsen, too. You’re gonna end up gettin’ your ma and little brother killed.”

  “Nah,” Lonnie said, his mild expression belying the anxiety churning in his gut. “I’m gonna end up gettin’ you killed if you don’t slip those pistols from their holsters and toss ’em back behind you. Real slow! Use just your thumbs and first fingers.”

  Lonnie aimed his Colt at the man’s head, narrowing one eye as he aimed down the barrel.

  “Easy, now—easy, easy, easy!” Brocius slid the guns from their holsters and tossed them out behind him.

  Lonnie wagged his own Colt toward the front of the cabin. “Nice and slow. If you call out, try to warn your partner, I’ll shoot you in the back. If you don’t think I will, you’re dead wrong.”

  “Tough guy, huh?” Brocius said as he started to walk toward the front of the cabin. “We’ll see about that.”

  Having learned his lesson from before, Lonnie followed the man from seven feet behind, so Brocius couldn’t turn and grab the gun before Lonnie could shoot him. They walked around the cabin’s front corner. Brocius glanced over his left shoulder as he headed for the porch.

  “Just keep movin’,” Lonnie said softly, so Madsen wouldn’t hear him from inside.

  Brocius climbed the porch steps.

  “Stop at the door,” Lonnie said behind him.

  “Whatever you want, kid. Whatever you want.”

  When he’d stopped before the door, Lonnie walked up behind him. He pressed the pistol against the small of the man’s back and tightened his finger on the trigger. He was ready to shoot if Brocius began to make any quick move. Any quick move at all.

  It would be easy. It was almost frightening how easy it would be to kill this man, Lonnie thought. His life and his mother and little brother’s lives were at stake.

  “All right—open it,” Lonnie said.

  CHAPTER 52

  Brocius tripped the latch, shoved the door open.

  Lonnie pushed Brocius inside. Madsen was sitting at the table, rolling a quirley. He frowned up at Brocius, looked at Lonnie. He lowered his gaze to the gun in the boy’s hand.

  “Stand up—slow-like,” Lonnie said, keeping his pistol aimed at Brocius. “If you stand too quick or reach for your gun, I’ll shoot your partner.”

  Madsen’s face turned brick red. “What in the hell?”

  The sudden outburst gave Lonnie a start. He took his eyes off of Brocius for half a second.

  A half a second too long.

  Brocius whipped toward him and nudged the Colt wide just as Lonnie fired. The bullet sliced through the air along Brocius’s right cheek and clanked off an iron kettle hanging from a ceiling beam.

  Brocius reached for the Colt, grabbed it, but Lonnie didn’t let go. As he tried to pull it back away from Brocius, in the corner of his right eye he saw Madsen lurch to his feet.

  As he did, Lonnie’s mother screamed, “No!” and swung a cast-iron kettle around hard. It slammed against the back of the man’s head with a loud, crunching thud. As Madsen fell forward, grabbing his head with both hands, Lonnie stumbled backward, tripped over a table leg, and fell to the floor.

  He still had the pistol in his hand.

  As Brocius came toward him, eyes wide and filled with fury, Lonnie started to click the hammer back.

  “Oh, no you don’t!” the rogue Pinkerton snarled, and kicked the pistol out of Lonnie’s hand.

  The old Colt flew back over Lonnie’s head. He saw it bounce off an arm of his father’s rocking chair and fly to the floor on the chair’s other side.

  He heard his mother screaming and Madsen yelling, but there was nothing he could do for his mother now. Brocius kicked Lonnie in the side and then strode past him, reaching for the pistol.

  Ignoring the ache in his ribs from the man’s savage kick, Lonnie lunged for him. He grabbed him around the waist. Brocius cursed as he twisted around and flew backward. His head hit the side of the hearth with a dull smack.

  “Oh!” Brocius said, wincing.

  Lonnie saw the Colt lying on the floor.

  “No, you don’t you little devil!” Brocius kicked at Lonnie, who avoided the man’s scissoring feet as he dove for the Colt. He hit the floor on his belly and chest. He grabbed the Colt, clicked the hammer back, and swung around just as Brocius gained his feet and lunged for him.

  Lonnie gritted his teeth and fired.

  Brocius stopped with a jerk.

  Lonnie shot him again. He saw the two holes in the man’s wool vest. Blood oozed from them. Brocius looked down at the blood. He staggered backward, flaring his nostrils at Lonnie.

  His tone pitched with surprise, the rogue Pinkerton said, “Why . . . why . . . you killed me, you little . . .”

  He let his voice trail off as he dropped to his knees, looked at Lonnie again then fell forward to hit the floor on his face. He shook, as he died, spurs rattling.

  Lonnie heard violent scuffling sounds. Madsen cursed tightly.

  There was the muffled pop of a pistol. Lonnie’s mother screamed.

  “Momma!” Lonnie shouted.

  He gained his feet and ran to where Madsen lay atop May Gentry, facing her. Lonnie’s mother lay taut against the floor, her head tipped back. She was wincing, her eyes squeezed shut.

  Little Jeremiah’s squeals issued from the bedroom.

  “Momma!” Lonnie yelled again, staring down in horror at his mother, who lay shockingly still beneath Madsen.

  “Get off her, you bastard!” Lonnie screamed, cocking the Colt again and aiming at the back of the man’s neck.

  But then Madsen turned and looked up at Lonnie. He had a faraway look in his eyes. As he continued rolling backward off of May, Lonnie saw the blood on Madsen’s chest. Flames from the close gunshot licked at the man’s shirt and vest. Acrid smoke filled the air.

  Lonnie also saw the gun as the man drew his hands away from it. Now only May Gentry’s hands were on the gun—Madsen’s own Smith & Wesson. Her right index finger was curled through the trigger guard.

  Lonnie’s mother opened her eyes and stared up at Lonnie. Her eyes were glazed with shock. She looked down at Madsen and then up at Lonnie again. Her dress was bloody, but it didn’t appear to be her own blood.

  Madsen sighed. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he lay still.

  “Momma!” Lonnie cried as he dropped to the floor and threw his arms around May Gentry’s shoulders, holding her tight. She tossed the gun away and returned the boy’s hug, sobbing quietly against his shoulder.

  Lonnie held her like that for a long time.

  Finally, May drew her head away from his, and tried a little smile though her eyes were still bright with the awe of what they’d both been through.

  “Lonnie,” she said in a thin, faraway voice, “would you mind . . . looking in on . . . your brother?”

  Lonnie laughed at that. It was as though a dam had burst inside him. Relief washed through him like a warm soothing wave.

  “Sure, Momma,” he said, rising. “I’d be happy to.”

  He went into the bedroom, plucked th
e screaming infant out of his bassinet and carried him outside, away from the smell of wafting gun smoke and spilled blood. He walked out into the yard, jostling his little brother in his arms.

  The thuds of an approaching rider grew louder. The sun was down but there was still enough light left in the valley for Lonnie to see the blonde rider gallop under the ranch portal and into the yard.

  Casey stopped Miss Abigail just beyond Lonnie. She stared at him, wide-eyed.

  “I heard the shooting,” Casey said, her voice trembling. “I thought . . .”

  She swung down from the saddle and walked over to where Lonnie stood holding his baby brother.

  “Everything’s fine,” Lonnie said. He couldn’t quite believe those words himself, so he said them again. “Everything’s . . . fine.” He frowned at her. “I told Calhoun not to let you come after me.”

  “What was he going to do—hog-tie me? Thanks to the skills you taught me, I tracked you here.”

  “Did you find Halliday?”

  Casey drew her mouth corners down, and nodded.

  “Where’s Calhoun?”

  “I don’t know. He wanted nothing to do with Skull Canyon. I’d venture to say that after I left him, he headed in the opposite direction—rather quickly.” Casey heaved a sigh of relief. “Oh, Lonnie.”

  She threw her arms around him and Jeremiah, who had quieted considerably. The baby poked his tiny index fingers up at Casey and gurgled contentedly. She squeezed one of the little fingers and gave Lonnie and the baby another hug.

  “You know, you’re gonna make a good father someday, Lonnie Gentry.” She kissed him straight on the mouth, then brushed her nose against his.

  Lonnie was not so stunned by all that had happened that he couldn’t appreciate the rich suppleness of the girl’s lips on his. Every taut muscle in his body turned to warm mud.

  “If the curse of Skull Canyon don’t get me first,” he said.

  “You forget that old legend,” Casey said. “If there’s really a curse, it’s a curse on bad men. Good men ride out alive. And you’re one of the best men I’ve ever known, Lonnie Gentry.”