by Paul Lederer
Six Days to Sundown
Paul Lederer writing as Owen G. Irons
ONE
Montana was bleeding. To the west, the sky cast scattered colors against the leaden sky, like reflections from a shattered stained-glass window. Deep umber, washy violet and hazy crimson streaked the clouds and sketched crazy shadows across the land. To the east, the far-running sky was steel-dust gray, cold and somber. A ground mist was beginning to rise from the long prairie flats as the pursuers spurred their horses forward.
Casey Storm lay head downward in the coulée where he had faltered, stumbled and plunged into its sandy depths. He could do nothing to help himself, to lift himself up, to try to scramble onward. His race was run and he had lost to the Shadow Riders.
Why they wanted to kill him he still did not know. He only knew that they would do that if they found him again.
His own horse, the big buckskin he had been riding for three years, had nearly run itself to death before a chance shot from his pursuers stopped the big horse in its tracks and sent it rolling head over heels with Casey given only a split second to kick free of the stirrups and leap from the tumbling animal. He had managed to keep his grip on his Henry repeating rifle, but there were only three rounds remaining in its tube magazine, hardly enough to hold off the Shadow Riders. At a rough count there had been ten or twelve of them when they first emerged from the shadowy haze of twilight time. All of them wore black slickers and were faceless in the gloom.
Casey had reined in, lifting a hand to the men, hoping to find trail information and possibly even a camp with hot coffee, his own supplies being nearly depleted. Instead, when the riders were still fifty yards away, one of them had shouldered his rifle and begun to fire. Prudence inspired Casey to slap spurs to the big buckskin’s flanks and begin an all-out run across the long-grass plains, rifle bullets pursuing him.
After his horse had gone down, Casey had run on in a crouch, his breath coming in short gasps, his heart racing wildly until at last he had tripped over an unseen root and fallen sprawled against the sandy bluff of the coulée.
He could hear them coming still, their horses now at a walk, knowing that he was on foot. He could hear muttered words being exchanged, though none came clearly. The sky continued to darken and the colors faded to a uniform grayness, tending toward blue-black. Never had a man prayed more for night to envelop the world, for the icy darkness to settle than did Casey. He did not move, look back, try to position himself for a last desperate struggle. He lay face down in the sand as the shadows mingled and pooled beneath the willow brush that clotted the coulée bottom. He knew the Shadow Riders would kill him without hesitation if they found him.
They had already proved that.
Who they could be, why they wanted him dead he could not guess. He had only recently ridden into the Montana country out of Cheyenne, Wyoming, where things had gotten a little too tight for him, partly because of his own carelessness. But this band of nameless, faceless men had swarmed upon him without cause like a group of enraged hostile Indians, and there had to be a reason for it.
Casey wondered at that moment as the sky faded and he lay helplessly against the cold earth if he would live long enough to discover what that reason was.
Now, lying as still as a dead man he could hear them speaking in low tones, hear nervous horses pawing at the earth on the rim of the coulée, shaking their heads so that their bridle chains rattled. One man’s voice was appreciably louder than the others, reckless and angry.
‘We’re not going to find him on this night! Probably broke his neck when the horse rolled.’
‘Shut up, Earl!’ a second man hissed. ‘We’ve got to find him.’
‘You couldn’t find a mountain on a night like this. Besides, it’s going to rain. I tell you he broke his neck.’
The second man responded crossly. ‘Keep your voice down. You’ll make targets of us all if he’s lurking out there.’
One of the riders had walked his pony so near to the edge of the coulée that a few small rocks followed by a trickle of sand washed down across Casey where he lay.
The man called Earl laughed loudly. ‘Targets? If there’s a man living who could pick us out in this blackness, I’d give him a medal!’
‘Just quiet down,’ the other said impatiently. ‘We’ll keep looking. McCoy wants him dead, you know that.’
‘And what McCoy wants he gets,’ Earl answered bitterly.
‘So long as he’s paying my wages – and yours.’
Their horses rested now, seeing nothing ahead of them but the pitch blackness of the night plains, Casey heard them turn their mounts and ride away. He had been confining his breathing to slow, labored puffs. Now, as the sounds of the Shadow Riders dimmed and were swallowed by the night, he sat up, wrapped his arms around his knees and took in a series of deep, resuscitating gulps of cold air. The small effort brought stabbing pain to his side and he realized that he had probably broken a rib or two in the tumble from the buckskin’s saddle.
Very cautiously he rose to his feet, looking around carefully, listening intently. The riders had gone, but it was possible they had left a watcher behind. Seeing no one, hearing nothing, he started down the flank of the sandy wash toward the brush-clotted bottom. In the darkness he fought his way through the knots of willow brush and sumac to the far side, climbed painfully up the opposite bank and on to level land again, his arms and face scratched, his ribs aching in protest.
The few words he had heard exchanged between the riders had done nothing to illuminate him. He knew no man named McCoy, so why would he – whoever he was – want Casey dead? He only knew that he had blundered into trouble and that he wanted now to get as far away from it as possible.
Trouble, after all, was the reason he had left Cheyenne. A man hopes that trouble can be left behind, but it seemed to cling to Casey Storm like a plaster. Standing on the bank of the coulée, his rifle in his hand, he looked up into the darkness, but the moon was hidden in the tumult of the skies and no stars winked on to give him his bearings. Utilizing the prevailing wind as his rough compass, he began trudging slowly westward. Hatless, injured and lost, he walked on through the cold Montana night.
An hour later it began to rain.
Lightning illuminated the crooked sky and thunder racketed so near at hand that it was deafening. The rain fell in silver pellets, driving against Casey’s shoulders and face with such violence that he was tempted to curl up embryonically against the cold, sodden earth and let the night have its way. To do so would have been suicidal; there was no way of knowing how long the angry storm would continue to rage. The temperature was dropping rapidly. He had to find shelter, any rough refuge. A thicket to cut the biting wind, a hollow log! Anything at all.
He had heard all the stories about these north plains storms which rose like angry beasts and could blanket the world in minutes with snow, of the ten-foot drifts and men who had sacrificed their ponies, cut them open to crawl inside of them for their body heat in a last desperate attempt to survive. It was not snowing, not yet, but these tales manifested themselves luridly in his mind as he struggled on against the cold, buckshot rain and grappling wind. His boots groped their way forward. The earth underneath their soles was growing sodden and slick. His head was bowed necessarily. The rain was a driving, blinding force. He staggered more than walked on. He had no sense of direction and little energy left. He could not defeat the elements by will alone. Once he did stop, lifted his face to the tumult of the Montana sky and shouted, ‘Damn you, McCoy! Whoever you are, I curse you.’
He stumbled on then, his legs leaden, effectively blinded by the dark of the storm. Casey walked for miles – or was that only in his mind? Time and distance had lost their meaning as
the rain continued to fall, the lightning to crackle with blinding brilliance at one moment; in the next allowing the night to sink back into Stygian darkness.
He halted abruptly. Stumbling on, his feet frozen, lungs filled with cold air that made each breath seem life-threatening, he had not noticed that the wind was now at his back! Had he been wandering in circles? He knew this could happen even to experienced trailsmen in territory they knew well. Casey did not know this land intimately. He paused, wiping the cold water from his eyes. The storm had shifted direction – that was all there was to it. Or so he convinced himself. At any rate there was no choice but to continue, to seek shelter. Or to lie down and die.
Some time near midnight it began to snow.
The temperature plunged with appalling suddenness, harsh sleet began to cut at Casey’s face like icy daggers. Then the snow began. Huge, fluffy flakes at first and then a constant, impenetrable veil of twisting, wind-driven snow. Casey bowed his head and plunged on once again, seeking shelter, any poor shelter.
With his head bowed to the forces of the storm, in the near-complete darkness he walked directly into a solid, waist-high object and stumbled back, gasping in pain as fire shot through his injured ribs. Like a blind man seeking, he stuck out searching fingers and found the object again. It was the lowered plank tailgate of a wagon.
Peering into the wrath of the storm he could make out the distinctive shape of a covered wagon’s canvas roof and hear the fabric snapping against the iron bands supporting it. Abandoned? Occupied? Either way it made no difference to Casey Storm. He shouted out as loudly as he could above the battering rush of the storm and painfully clambered up on to the tailgate and into the wagon.
‘Come one inch nearer and I’ll blow you apart,’ a man’s voice said with soft assurance.
‘I’m hurt and half-frozen to death.’
‘It’s a tough life,’ the quiet voice responded.
The thinnest gleam of light from somewhere showed the man in silhouette to Casey and winked briefly on the barrel of a long gun aimed at his mid=section. ‘Why are you still here?’ the stranger demanded, when Casey made no move to depart.
‘I’ll perish out there for sure,’ Casey said, with more calm then he felt. ‘I suppose it’s no worse to die quick from a bullet than to freeze to death in a blizzard.’
‘Are you asking for mercy! A McCoy rider!’ the man in the shadows laughed.
‘I’m not one of them. They ambushed me and left-me afoot,’ Casey said.
‘I can’t take the chance of believing you,’ the man replied. The sound of the rife being cocked was clear and sharp in the night even with the wind continuing to batter the flimsy canvas cover of the wagon and the weird moaning of the storm.
‘For God’s sake, Dad,’ a second voice said, invading in the stand-off. ‘At least hear the man out!’
The voice was a woman’s, a young woman’s. Casey heard the rustling of heavy robes and sensed rather than saw the young lady sit up in her night bed.
‘We can’t descend to McCoy’s level.’
A match was struck and a candle lit on the floorboard of the covered wagon. By its flickering light Casey saw the grim, long-jawed man in a buffalo coat holding his Sharps rifle, his scowl deep and pouched eyes fierce. The woman who had struck the match and lighted the candle was tiny. Her dark hair was in disarray around her shoulders. Her eyes, too large for her face, were wide with concern or simple curiosity. She held her blankets just below her chin protectively.
‘He doesn’t look that dangerous to me,’ the girl said around a heavy yawn.
‘I have only one question for you,’ her father said to Casey. ‘If you give me the wrong answer I’ll plug you. Is your name Deveraux?’
Casey’s lips narrowed. What answer did the man want? Which was the correct answer to save his life? He decided on honesty.
‘I’ve never heard the name before,’ he replied honestly.
‘Then you’re the wrong man,’ the older man said grimly, raising his rifle butt to his shoulder.
The girl reached out through the smoky light of the wagon’s interior and pressed the rifle barrel down.
‘Dad,’ she said, ‘he can’t help it if he’s not Stan Deveraux.’ Returning her wide dark eyes to Casey Storm, she said, ‘I still don’t think he looks dangerous enough to kill. Let him tell his story.’
The storm raged on outside as Casey, at a gesture, lowered himself to sit cross-legged on the planks of the wagon bed. The candle guttered and scattered shifting shadows across the white canvas roof. Quietly, Casey told them what had happened, how he had been jumped by a group of men – one of whom’s name was Earl – and heard them talking about McCoy having sent them to kill him. ‘They killed my horse and left me to die,’ he concluded.
The man with the rifle ran his fingers through his longish salt-and-pepper hair and frowned with one corner of his mouth. ‘They must have thought you were Deveraux,’ he said after some reflection.
‘You believe me?’ Casey asked with relief.
‘I disbelieve you less,’ the older man answered dryly. ‘That’s far from saying you’re welcome here.’
‘Do you mind if I ask just who Stan Deveraux is? And just who this McCoy is?’ Casey said. ‘If it’s not my business, just say so. But I can see that I’ve walked into trouble and I don’t even know what it’s about.’
‘You’re right,’ the man with the rifle answered. ‘It’s not your business. If you’ve no hand to play, there’s no need for you to understand the game.’
‘All right,’ Casey shrugged. Outside thunder boomed again as close lightning illuminated the shadowed wagon. ‘Whatever you say.’
‘So long as I’ve got this .50 Sharps, you are correct,’ the old man said. ‘It is whatever I say. Now I suggest you just be on your way to wherever it is you’re going.’
‘Tonight!’ Casey was aghast. ‘A man would die out there on a night like this.’
‘Could happen,’ the old man said without sympathy. ‘Should have stayed out of the north country if you weren’t equipped for it. This is nothing compared to our deep winter storms. I’d say you have a good chance of lasting till morning.’
‘Dad?’ the girl spoke again. ‘You’ve said many times when men came calling that you wouldn’t turn a dog out on a night like this. Why are you doing it now?’
‘Why?’ the man replied peevishly. ‘Because we don’t know what we’ve got here – a snake, a wolf, a back-shooter … and I’ve got you in here, Daughter.’
‘He still doesn’t look dangerous to me,’ the girl said, and yawning again, she rolled up in her blankets against the chill of the night.
The girl’s father continued to glare at Casey Storm and Casey lifted both hands and said, ‘I’m going to make a move now. Don’t get over-anxious with that buffalo gun.’
The man did not reply although his frown deepened as Casey reached under the skirt of his coat and very slowly, using only his thumb and index finger, removed his Colt revolver from its holster. This he slid across the floor toward the feet of the mistrustful stranger. Using a boot he nudged his Henry repeating rifle in the same direction. The watching man lifted one eyebrow, but he did not move a muscle.
‘I’d die out there tonight, and you know it,’ Casey said in answer to the questioning stare. ‘Let me curl up in a corner of the wagon and I’ll pull out in the morning.’ Without waiting for an answer, Casey withdrew into the farthest corner of the covered wagon and curled up in a tight ball, using his hat as a pillow. There was a movement behind him but he did not open his eyes to discover the cause. Then a blanket was thrown over him and the older man growled, ‘All right then, damn you! Marly was right, I guess; she usually is – you don’t look that dangerous to me either.’
With the morning the Shadow Riders returned.
TWO
When Casey Storm awoke, stiff, sore and disoriented, sunlight was streaming in brightly through the flaps of the covered wagon’s canvas. Sitting up in his blank
et, he found himself alone. His host- if he could be called that – and the girl were gone. Surprisingly, Casey’s rifle and Colt revolver were near at hand on the plank floor of the wagon. He checked their loads and tucked the revolver back into its holster. Rubbing his head he rose unsteadily. The tumble he had taken had not seemed that painful at the time, but overnight muscles had stiffened, bruises had deepened.
He heard the sounds of movement outside, of horses stamping, people speaking in confident if not cheerful voices, the bark of a dog. Apparently then, when he had arrived in the snowstorm of the previous night he had stumbled not upon a single wagon, but into a camp of settlers. He folded the blanket he had been given, picked up his rifle and opened the canvas flaps.
Squinting into the sunlight, brilliant in the blue sky and mirrorlike as it reflected off the new-fallen snow, he saw that he had been right. There were dozens of men and women, a few children at their breakfasts on wagon tailgates, hunched around low-burning fires, leading teams of horses to their harnesses. Perhaps, then, his luck had finally changed for the better. Surely someone in this group would be willing to let him travel along with them if he offered some assistance in return.
Casey had to sit down on the tailgate and swing himself carefully to the ground. His battered body could do no more. In other times he would have simply leaped off, confident in his youthful strength. That was before yesterday. Today he felt already old, weary and hungry.
No sooner had his boots touched the ground than people began to pause to look at him, to point him out, to whisper. What sort of camp was this? Were they all as suspicious of strangers as the man he had met last night? Tugging his hat lower against the glare of the morning, he trudged across the camp toward the nearest fire, hoping for a cup of coffee if nothing more. The snow underfoot was already thinning, the ground underneath unfrozen. His boots left muddy imprints behind him as he approached a group of settlers. The young woman turned to meet him.
‘Coffee?’ Marly asked.
‘It’s what I was hoping for,’ Casey said to the big-eyed girl he had met but not been introduced to the night before. He offered her a smile as she poured a cup from a steaming gallon pot kept warm on the dying fire’s embers and offered it to him. Apparently his charm was not working on this particular morning. He received not the slightest hint of a smile in return. She was dressed in a pair of men’s black jeans and a flannel shirt. The bulk of a heavy buffalo coat made her appear fuller than she actually was. Casey remembered that much about the previous night’s experience. When her blanket had slipped briefly from her shoulders, he had had a glimpse of strong-appearing, but very slight arms. He thanked Marly by name, but she turned away without responding. Her dark hair was done in unusual fashion, separated into two twists, not quite braids, that hung down her back. Perhaps it was all that she had the time to do with it out here, under these conditions.
