Six Days to Sundown

by Paul Lederer

  THREE

  The wind from the north was chilling, shifting the horses’ manes as it passed. The stacked cumulus clouds, like massive white battlements against the blue sky, cast long cloud shadows in their slow progress over the long prairie where melting snow mirrored the bright sun.

  Marly had taken over the driving chores, guiding the team of horses deftly, the reins loose in her gloved hands. Ahead of them the long line of wagons arrowed westward leaving deep muddy ruts behind in their passing. Casey Storm glanced at a slowly circling golden eagle, high aloft, soaring effortlessly on the air currents, and repeated his question.

  ‘What is this all about, Marly? I have to know all of it if I’m going to have any chance of helping you out.’

  ‘Father’s the one you should talk to,’ Marly said.

  ‘It’s going to be a while before I have the chance to talk to him,’ Casey said, glancing into the interior of the wagon where Jason Landis, smothered with blankets, tried to sleep off his pain. ‘Let’s start simply: where are you people from? Where are you going? Who is McCoy and why is he trying to prevent you from it?’

  ‘Simply?’ Marly smiled, as if Casey had made a joke. She returned her dark eyes to the broken trail ahead and said apologetically, ‘All right. I’ll do my best. But this has been going on for so long that it can’t be simply explained.’

  ‘Try,’ Casey urged. Marly nodded her head resolutely and told him.

  ‘We were all small shareholders on about a thousand acres of land near the Yellowstone. Dirt farmers, I guess you’d call us,’ Marly said. ‘For most of us it was our first chance to own our own land. We tilled the soil, grew our small crops. It was a rugged life – we lived in soddies and got soaked every winter!’ Marly laughed as if she were thinking about a time long past.

  ‘Go on. What happened?’ Casey prodded.

  ‘What happened,’ Marly said with seriousness, ‘was that one day a man named Gervase McCoy sent two United States marshals and about a dozen hired gunmen to our farm. You should be talking to Father about the legal situation … but,’ she went on, after a moment’s hesitation, ‘the upshot of it was that through the Bureau of Land Management McCoy had somehow been granted legal title to all of our property and we were given two months to appeal or vacate.’

  ‘So, of course, you did appeal.’

  ‘Of course we did not!’ Marly said in a fiery voice. ‘It would have required sending a delegation to Denver! The hearing would have taken at least six months and by then our untended farms would have been in ruins through neglect. It was not certain that we would have won anyway. McCoy had the money to hire legal experts. We did not.’

  ‘I see,’ Casey commented, although he did not – entirely. The wagon slued across a particularly muddy patch of earth, churned up by the heavier wagons ahead of them. Marly’s face which had grown grim now relaxed as the team found its footing and they proceeded more easily onward.

  ‘Where was I?’ she asked absently.

  ‘You were telling me about McCoy.’

  ‘Yes. Well, things weren’t moving along quickly enough for Gervase McCoy and so he decided to accelerate them. We began to be attacked by night-riders. Crops were trampled, stock driven off, two men were shot from ambush.’

  ‘Why didn’t you just pack up and leave then? Since you couldn’t win in court and weren’t prepared to fight?’ Casey asked.

  ‘Why!’ Marly laughed again, but there was no humor in it. ‘You’d have to understand how things stood. With no crops, virtuality no food – all we had was our root crops, potatoes, parsnips and such – and what meat the hunters managed to bring in. Most of our horses and oxen had been run off by McCoy’s men.’

  ‘The Shadow Riders,’ Casey interrupted.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘That’s what I call them.’

  ‘I see. All right. It suits as well as anything else, I suppose,’ Marly said. ‘I don’t know where they all came from – Joe Duggan says that he believes them to be army deserters. He might be right. I know McCoy can afford to pay them a lot more than the army ever could!’

  ‘You were going to explain—’

  ‘Have you no patience?’ Marly said, but she said it lightly. ‘When you went to school did you expect to get your education in one day?’

  ‘Actually, I did have hopes,’ Casey replied with a rueful grin, reflecting briefly on his unhappy school days.

  ‘Nevertheless,’ Marly went on, slowing the team as they reached a muddy dip in the trail, ‘Father and a few of the other men – Joe Duggan and Mike Barrow among them – decided that they were fighting a losing war with McCoy, and voted to pool the few resources we had left to purchase new land with an uncontestable claim farther west. Father and Duggan found a large parcel on the Little Missouri not far south of Fort Benton. Father said it was lush with buffalo grass, green and golden as they surveyed it from a knoll at sundown.

  ‘The last owner had been a failed English landholder who had grown tired of the American West and sick of Montana winters and was willing to sell out at almost any price offered. The deal was struck, the town-to-be christened Sundown and our destination was set. We had sixty days to reach Sundown, and that seemed to be plenty of time for us to organize.’

  ‘It all sounds propitious,’ Casey commented. ‘What went wrong?’

  ‘What?’ Marly released another of her humorless laugh. ‘Everything that could go wrong. The Englishman, it seems, sold us homestead land, not property that he legally owned.’

  ‘But you have legal title now.’

  ‘Oh, yes! Father was determined that we wouldn’t be displaced again. We have legal title – under the Homestead Act. Do you know anything about that?’

  ‘Not much,’ Casey admitted.

  ‘It was enacted to prevent people from claiming large tracts of land speculatively. Never intending to live on it, to use it for anything but turning a profit.’

  ‘That much I knew,’ Casey said.

  ‘It was intended to help families, hard-working people without a square inch of land to call their own, to settle the wide country.’

  Casey cut her short. She was growing too angry again. He touched the tiny woman on the shoulder and she shifted her wide eyes to him, attempting a smile.

  ‘What happened, Marly?’

  ‘Well,’ she said with a shrug, followed by a sigh, ‘in order to claim land under the Act, it’s required that improvements be made, that one can show that the claimants are actually residents there.’

  ‘To prevent the land-grabbers from gobbling up the Territory.’

  ‘Yes, exactly. That is where the second part of our battle began. McCoy now covets Sundown and the surrounding country. I think the man is crazy! He wants to own all of Montana.’

  ‘Someone must have told him what was happening,’ Casey said thoughtfully.

  ‘That idea has passed through my mind. And Father’s.’

  ‘But you said you had two months to reach the Little Missouri, Marly. Two months to prove-up on the land. Obviously with all these building materials, you all expected to reach Sundown and build some kind of settlement to prove your claim. Why then …?’

  ‘Why then?’ she replied with a hint of mockery. ’You got a taste of it last night. I told you that our stock was driven off. To assemble new teams of horses out here we found ourselves compelled to deal with the Lakota Indians. A simple disagreement over language turned into a conflict.

  ‘Joe Duggan said that he had met the Indians’ price for their horses, but that they were demanding whiskey and rifles as well which obviously we don’t have even if we were inclined to trade them.’

  Casey nodded. He watched the mismatched team drawing the wagon, understanding now how they had been roughly assembled, why Marly had difficulty from time to time managing the ponies which they must have tried to break to harness nearly overnight.

  ‘Still …’ he said.

  Marly held up a gloved hand and reminded him, ‘I know, you still don’t
understand – but you weren’t there, and I did say you couldn’t expect an education in one day.’ She smiled weakly. ‘Day after day McCoy’s snipers harassed us. Our food supplies grew low. The winter began to settle in – you’ve seen what these snowstorms can be like. We holed up for some time, fearing the Indians who seemed to have found their whiskey somewhere. Mrs Troupe was due to deliver her baby in a few days and her husband, rightly, refused to leave for Sundown, and Troupe is the man who owns the lumber wagons. Oh, Casey,’ she said, using his name for the first time that he could remember, ‘it was grueling.’

  ‘But now?’

  ‘But now,’ Marly answered, ‘we have only six days left to reach the new landholding. If we do not occupy it, prove up on it by then – by law, it falls back into the public domain and I can assure you that though I do not know what legal maneuvers he will use – Gervase McCoy will lay claim to Sundown.’

  Casey Storm fell silent. He watched the slow miles pass, the cold sun riding high in a pale sky. The eagle had drifted away and become only a lost harbinger against the lonesome sky. What had he, himself, drifted into? He was no one’s savior, but only a rambling man with troubles of his own clinging to him. Why had Jason Landis passed this burden on to him? Casey had nothing to do with these sodbusters’ problems, did not wish to inherit them, nor to tangle again with the Shadow Riders.

  He wished that he were this Stan Deveraux the settlers had depended upon to aid them. Casey still did not know a thing about Deveraux, although he had a fairly good idea now of who he was, and why they had sent for him. Casey glanced at the wide-eyed girl with the unruly dark hair, her face intent as she guided the team of horses, urging them along the rutted, muddy road to nowhere. To Sundown.

  He looked at her and silently cursed himself.

  ‘They’re out there,’ Casey said in a low voice that barely carried above the clopping of hoofs and the creak of the wagon’s axles.

  ‘I know they are,’ Marly said, glancing briefly to the north. ‘What can you do about it, Casey?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m not Deveraux.’

  ‘No,’ she agreed quietly, ‘but Deveraux is not here. You are, and Father has assigned you the task.’

  Assigned or not, Casey felt that he had an obligation to help the settlers get through to Sundown. To help Marly reach her destination and fulfill her hopes for finding a new home. He had her briefly halt the covered wagon as he climbed down and untethered Checkers. The scabbard on the Appaloosa’s saddle was fitted to the Sharps .50 that Jason Landis carried and so Casey socketed it there. Additionally he carried his own reloaded Henry repeater and, of course, his belt-gun. It made more sense to ride out loaded for bear than to meet the wild things unarmed.

  Briefly he rode the Appaloosa alongside Marly, studying the broad land. Checkers was frisky and eager, but the horse sensed its rider’s unaccustomed mannerisms; perhaps the different weight or use of heels and knees than his true owner. However, it settled in obediently after a mile or so and Casey told Marly, ‘I’m going to circle north and then trail behind for a way. I doubt McCoy has given up this easily.’

  ‘All right,’ Marly said, her face determined and set. ‘Did you have the time to talk to Father?’

  ‘He’s still asleep,’ Casey said, not mentioning that he had doubts the old man would ever awaken again.

  The country had begun to change. Low, folded, snow-streaked hills lifted from the plains. Pine trees, scattered but impressive in their height, stippled the land. Casey rode away from Marly silently, regretfully. Guiding Checkers up the slope of a low knoll he took the time to simply sit the pony and sweep the distances with his eyes. There was no sign of trailing riders, no sign at all of human habitation. The scent of the pines was rich and deep. A colony of crows raised a racket in the forest. Far to the west Casey could make out the silver-blue ribbon of Pocotillo Creek where they must halt to water their stock. He could make out no trace of the upper Missouri, but even farther to the west he could see the snow-crowned Rocky Mountains, their shadowed flanks deep purple in this light, massively impressive even at this distance.

  Casey rode the spotted horse eastward, watching the backtrail. The wagons had begun to diminish in perspective, becoming the size of toys against the vast sweep of the prairie. An incoming rider emerged from the trees and Casey’s hand dropped automatically to his holster. The lady drew up her horse.

  ‘Don’t shoot! I give up,’ Holly Bates said with an impish smile. She drew nearer, her blonde hair loose, her hands light on the reins of her white-stockinged sorrel.

  ‘What in the …! What are you doing out here?’ Casey managed to ask with a critical shake of his head.

  ‘They say it’s a free country,’ Holly answered lightly.

  ‘Hardly the point,’ Casey said, more roughly than he intended.

  ‘No,’ Holly said, slightly abashed now. ‘I might have been looking for you.’

  ‘But you weren’t,’ Casey countered.

  ‘No,’ Holly laughed, brushing back a tendril of pale hair. She now wore a divided riding skirt, blue blouse and heavy black leather jacket. ‘I had to get off the wagon – you try riding eight hours a day with Abel.’ Casey assumed that she meant the albino who drove her rig. ‘He’s a mute, you know?’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘He is. Sometimes it’s a blessing, but it doesn’t do much to promote conversation.’

  ‘Why did you hire him?’ Casey asked.

  ‘I sort of inherited him from my family,’ Holly told him. ‘Abel isn’t capable of holding many jobs. My father took him in years ago out of pity. He’s been around since I was a little girl.’

  ‘Holly – a woman riding alone out here – it’s totally reckless,’ Casey said.

  ‘Isn’t it! But then, I’m a reckless sort of woman, Mr Storm.’ Holly laughed again. The breeze shifted her light hair. Her eyes blue and merry, so different from Marly’s wide dark eyes – reflected amusement and the same proud confidence Casey had noted in her before. She smiled again, pursing her lips prettily and Casey could see what Marly had meant about every man Holly met falling in love with her. It wouldn’t have been that difficult. Casey forced a growl into his tone.

  ‘Let’s catch up with the wagons. We need to be there when they make camp on the Pocotillo.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Holly said, again without a hint of seriousness – perhaps she was just one of those people who managed very well making their way frivolously through life. ‘That’s where they intend to fire you, isn’t it?’

  Casey’s smile was rueful. ‘I don’t know. If Joe Duggan and Barrow have their way, I suppose so.’

  ‘Don’t you care?’

  ‘Not much. So long as someone will let me borrow a pony and loan me some grub.’

  ‘May I ask …?’ Holly hesitated. ‘Where is it that you are going, Mr Storm?’

  They had started their horses down the slope, following in the wake of the wagons. The pine trees began to thin again and they found themselves on the muddy flats. Casey answered eventually, ‘It’s growing too late in the year for it now, but I always thought that I wanted to cross the Rockies. Once they could be breached, there’s a new world to be found. What sort of world, I don’t know. Some sort of new world.’

  ‘You’re a drifter, then,’ Holly said, condensing the rambling explanation Casey had given her.

  ‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘Only that.’

  ‘So are we all,’ Holly said, with what seemed to be genuine understanding. Their horses had settled into a cadenced, evenly paced walk. ‘But tell me, Mr Storm – are you drifting toward something or away from something. Someone, perhaps?’

  Casey didn’t answer. He did not care to revisit Cheyenne in his mind. He smiled faintly and they rode on in companionable silence as the clouds drifted away and the shadows beneath their horses’ legs grew longer. He found himself if not loving, then liking Holly Bates. She seemed to intuitively know when not to trespass further into a man’s private thoughts, and G
od knew she was beautiful enough with her pale hair drifting, erect, trim figure sitting easily in the saddle.

  Why then was he uneasy?

  In the first place it was certain that she had not ridden out looking for him, an excuse she had lightly made. It was equally certain that she had not wandered away from the wagon train, ridden out so far just for a brief respite from Abel’s company. There was no reason she couldn’t have traveled ahead and had a conversation with some of the women – or men – with the wagons. Riding out here alone was reckless, and the woman knew it. The Shadow Riders were all around them. Killers. Holly was hardly a stupid woman. It made no sense unless there was another, deeper reason behind it.

  Like wishing to meet someone else out here. McCoy? One of his men? A secret lover in the enemy camp? Could she be involved with the badmen in some way? Casey could not come up with a logical reason how that could be so. Why?

  Then again – damn all! – he had only fallen into this dark web the night before. He did not know his enemies from his friends – assuming he had any of those. By the time they reached the wagon camp on the Pocotillo where the horses were being watered, the fires built under the shelter of the towering jack pines, his temples were pounding with a pain nearly equal to the constant tomrment of his injured ribs.

  He wanted desperately to trust someone!

  But then again that was what had started all of his troubles back in Cheyenne.

  There was no one left to trust.

  Marly was there watching as Casey and Holly rode into the sheltered camp and swung down from their ponies. The look in her wide, dark eyes was not judgmental, but only resigned. The tin cup of coffee she might have been saving for Casey turned in her hand and was emptied out on to the ground.

  ‘Uh-oh,’ Holly said, ‘she’s jealous.’

  ‘She doesn’t even know me,’ Casey Storm grumbled, swinging down to lead Checkers to the Landis wagon.