Six Days to Sundown

by Paul Lederer

  ‘Garrett’s a good kid,’ Casey murmured.

  ‘He must be,’ Deacon Lowe said, tugging Casey’s robe back over him. ‘Get some rest now.’

  ‘My horse …?’ Casey’s voice was barely audible.

  ‘The Appy’s fine, we’ve got him staked out with our own ponies.’

  The firelight continued to glow dully. The snow continued to fall beyond the mouth of the cave. Casey fell off once again into a deep, somewhat less troubled sleep.

  There was no one there when Casey awoke. An odd sound had awakened him, iron striking stone. Peering into the darkness of the dawn-lit cave he saw the source of the sound. Checkers, tethered loosely to a boulder that had fallen from the roof of the cave, was stamping his feet impatiently. There was no sign of Deacon Lowe and Mary.

  They had obviously left to continue their vagabond ways. What else could they have done? Take him with them to slow their travel on their trek toward their destination, whatever it might be? Sitting up with his head aching, Casey saw that they had left a few things behind for him. A waterskin and a small bag of provisions – jerky, parched corn and some small roasted Indian potatoes. Gratefully, he made his breakfast from these.

  Casey found his saddle, blanket and bridle placed neatly in a corner of the low-roofed cave and got to work. With his side aching, his ribs still sore, it was not a simple task to saddle Checkers, but it had to be done. Rolling up the bearskin, he tied it behind the saddle with piggin strings.

  When he led the Appaloosa from the confines of the cave it was still snowing. Swirling, obscuring skirts of snow, not heavy, but constant, and promising to be long-lasting, twisted down, blurring the land to near invisibility.

  Which made his slow exodus safer – no man could see him through the screen of the snowstorm, but also brought with it a nearly insurmountable problem: how was he now supposed to be able to find the wagon train again? No landmarks were evident, and might have been of little help, since he did not know the country that well. Nothing was visible through falling veils of snow except the occasion dark trunks of the scattered pines he passed.

  His only hope was to once again find Pocotillo Creek where he had left the wagon train, cross it and continue in the general direction of Sundown. He was traveling slowly, but the lumbering wagons would be moving even slower – assuming they had not halted to try to wait out the storm. No, he reflected, they could not do that. They could not afford to miss their deadline. All of their hopes for a new future would be lost if they could not reach the new land-hold on schedule.

  Casey rode on through the snow-caused darkness of the day, once again using the constant north wind as his rough compass. His new wound burned with an intensely hot fury despite the freezing chill of the storm. Checkers moved without eagerness, but with a certain stolidness. The Appy, too, was dogged in his approach to the present dilemma.

  No sun, no moon, no hint as to his direction guided him through the flurrying snowfall. The wind grew heavier, more intense and the depths of the storm he rode through now grew more darkly obscured.

  When the ghostly rider rushed down upon him, his rifle fire brilliant against the shadowed tangle of the storm-blanketed day, Casey shot him dead.

  SIX

  How the Shadow Rider had found him, Casey could not guess. He could only suppose that it was sheer chance. Perhaps the man himself had been lost in the swirl of the falling snow and gotten separated from his comrades. The muzzle of his rifle had flared out against the darkness, spewing a red-orange dagger of flame in Casey’s direction. Casey had drawn his Colt, and not quickly but quite deliberately shot the gunhand down as he charged out of the confusion of the day.

  The raider took the bullet high in the chest and his surprised eyes went cold as he tumbled from the saddle of his paint pony, dead even before he hit the ground. Weak, cold and slightly dazed, Casey holstered his revolver and swung heavily from the saddle, his movements infinitely cautious – he could not afford to tear open his side again just as it was beginning to heal.

  With a shadow of regret, Casey approached the dead man, now face down in the snow, understanding that the raider, too – whoever he had been – somewhere had friends and family, perhaps a wife, son or daughter to whom he would never return.

  The rifle that Casey found beside the fallen, furclad warrior, the one he had used to fire at Casey, swept away all of those compassionate reflections. The man he had shot was no soldier, no warrior for a cause. He was nothing but a cold-blooded murderer.

  The rifle was the .50 caliber Sharps that Casey had loaned to Garrett Strong.

  Gritting his teeth, Casey picked up the buffalo gun, swung heavily back into the saddle and started once more on his way without a backward glance at the raider who was now being slowly covered by the constant, soft fall of the snow.

  Checkers seemed well aware of the landmark ahead long before Casey saw it. The Appaloosa lifted his head energetically, tugged at the reins with a toss of his neck and hastened his pace as Casey guided it through the grove of oaks to where they came upon Pocotillo Creek once more. There was no way of determining if he was upstream or down from where the wagon train must have crossed, but at least Casey now had a general idea of his direction, and glancing at the sky, it seemed actually to be lightening. Perhaps the storm would break.

  For now he let Checkers drink from the creek although he remained mounted. Casey did not wish to tempt fate by dismounting and mounting unless it was absolutely necessary. His wound was still in the early stages of healing. And, he still had some water left in the skin that Deacon and Mary had provided. Some day, if possible, he would find the old man and his Sioux wife again and let them know how deeply he appreciated their gifts.

  He decided to travel west, only west in hopes of crossing the wagon train’s trail again. He rode the reluctant pony across the icy creek as the snow continued to fall, obscuring all. It did seem lighter now, but perhaps that was only wishful thinking. Still the land was deeply shrouded, and now the cold began to smother the heat of Casey’s body, seeming to slow the flow of his warming blood. If he could reach the Little Missouri … then what? He was not thinking clearly and knew it. How far was the river? Which way would he turn then? North or south? Assuming he even recognized the river, did not mistake it for another, the Marias River for example. He did not know this country, and under these conditions he was riding not only visually blind but unguided by experience.

  There was an army post, Fort Benton, the settlers had told him, near the junction of the Marias and the Upper Missouri Rivers. Therefore, logic indicated that if he should strike either of the rivers he could follow it upstream and eventually reach Benton even if he could not again catch up with the wagon train.

  Assuming he could last through the bitter night.

  Casey kept his head bowed to the brunt of the cold north wind. His mind, though seemingly as bruised as his body, continued to sort through the facts as he knew them, coming to only vague conclusions which presented even more questions. If Fort Benton was as near to Sundown as he had been told, why had not someone among the settlers ridden to the army post seeking protection? No one had mentioned a word about this apparently obvious strategy.

  Why, exactly, was Gervase McCoy so intent on destroying these people’s hopes for a new life? Could he be that land-greedy when he already owned thousands upon thousands of acres? Yet he had taken his own money, hired this band of killers, the Shadow Riders, when he seemed to have no real need to own Sundown. Casey had been told that Joe Duggan suspected that the riders were army deserters. How could Duggan know that? Could the troops have deserted from Fort Benton?

  It was a real possibility, of course. To live out on these lonesome plains without any of the amenities of civilization, under the constant threat of Indian attacks – although these had greatly diminished in the past few years – was not the life most men would choose. And, of course, many of the troopers had not chosen the life for themselves. It was common practice in those times for judge
s wishing to rid their bailiwicks of malcontents and troublemakers to offer them the choice of a prison sentence or a hitch in the army. The plains were rife with army deserters.

  Casey’s head was spinning – more from confusion than from the blood he had lost and the trials of the night ride.

  ‘I suppose it’s what I deserve,’ he thought. ‘Getting mixed up in people’s affairs, uninvited, without any real understanding of the situation.’

  He rode on doggedly, angry with himself, tired of the mad chase, knowing all the time just why he was doing it. He rode with the image of the big-eyed little girl, Marly Landis, if not in the forefront of his mind, at least lingering like a haunting memory that could not be banished.

  He had promised her that he would not ride away, and he meant to keep that vow!

  Sometime after midnight the snow began to ease noticeably. Once Casey thought he caught the glow of the moon through the hazy curtain of the clouds, and after another hour, with Checkers showing his exhaustion, the first star showed itself, blinking on through the filmy haze of the dying storm. The snow was a foot deep under the hoofs of the weary Appaloosa, and the wind still had a biting edge to it, but he believed now he could survive the night, that hope lay somewhere across the long land ahead of them. The run-down soddy, when it appeared out of the darkness, was a welcome sight. The shanty, with half of its roof fallen in was some sort of shelter. Checkers could go on no longer on this night; that much was obvious by his halting gait. Casey was not sure that he could go farther himself as much as he would have wished it.

  The night was windless now, silver-cold as he tramped across the snow beneath the stars and light of the half-moon. He held both of his rifles in his hands, eyed the sod house and entered it. This once had been someone’s hope for a new life on the far prairie; now fallen into disrepair as someone’s hopes must have done. The floor inside, where the roof had failed was frozen mud and snow, but in a far corner where nature had not yet completely savaged the structure, he found a dry corner, and after leading Checkers inside, Casey curled up beneath his bearskin robe and slept the night away in relative comfort.

  Morning sunlight through the gap in the fallen roof was so bright as to be nearly startling when Casey awoke. By the angle of the sun he knew that it was still early and, as he sat up stiffly, rubbing his head, he reached for the bag containing what remained of the provisions Deacon and Mary had left for him. He was faring better on this morning than Checkers. There seemed little hope of finding graze for the horse though perhaps the northern-bred Appaloosa was clever enough to paw away the snow and find some poor forage.

  Standing in the doorway of the tumble-down shanty, Casey could look over the brilliant snowfield and guess that the thicker fall would stick to the ground this time. The scattered pines stood lonely sentinel across the land. A featureless, barren sycamore tree formed a stark, corrupt shadow against the pale sky. There was still some color along the line of the eastern horizon, but it was time to be moving on.

  Only two days remained to reach Sundown.

  With difficulty he managed to saddle Checkers and lead him out into the brilliant glare of the morning. Carefully he searched the wide land with his eyes, seeing nothing of the wagon train, seeing nothing of the McCoy men. As he rode on it struck him as odd that he had not crossed any new hoofprints in the snow if the Shadow Riders were still in pursuit. Unless Casey himself was well off their course – and he did not now believe he was – there should have been some sign of the McCoy men.

  Unless McCoy already knew exactly where the wagons were headed and he did not need to pursue them, had just been following a pattern of harassment. Casey shook his head heavily. There was no one to confer with, someone who might be able to enlighten him.

  How could McCoy know about Sundown? Why should he care?

  Casey guided the Appaloosa through another stand of more closely growing pine trees atop a low knoll and found – miraculously – a small patch of lightly snow-covered grass and let Checkers do his best with it as he swung down to survey the land once more.

  He still could not make out the Upper Missouri or the Marias, any sign of human habitation. Nor could he discern the wagon train or any pursuing riders. Nor Fort Benton! Nothing but the long snowy plains and the distant upthrust of the Rocky Mountains. Feeling totally lost, he wandered back to stand beside the unhappy Checkers who continued to try to feed himself with the poor, frozen graze.

  McCoy knew where the wagons were going. He felt sure of that.

  Casey tried to think back to the smattering of information he had been given. Hadn’t Marly said something like, ‘Father and Joe Duggan found a parcel of land on the Upper Missouri’. Then Duggan could have passed the information on to McCoy. But why would he? Casey rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand. Maybe he had conjured up that suspicion just because he personally disliked Duggan. Was it possible that Duggan had been working for McCoy all along? Casey rubbed his head once more as if that could stimulate thought. What if McCoy had instructed Duggan to lead the colonel to Sundown and convince him that this was the spot for the settlers?

  None of it fitted, and yet it did in a jumbled sort of way.

  ‘Joe Duggan thinks that the raiders are army deserters.’ Marly had told Casey. What would have given Duggan that idea?

  Duggan along with Mike Barrow had been insistent on driving Casey away from the wagon train so that Duggan could take charge once Jason Landis had been shot. Was it really a Shadow Rider’s bullet that had hit Landis during the furious fight, or had someone used the battle as a screen to try murdering the colonel?

  And just who in hell had suggesting hiring Deveraux, whom Casey Storm suspected was the Cheyenne gunfighter, Tad Chaney? Garrett Strong had told him that Mike Barrow and Joe Duggan had anted up the money to hire the notorious killer between themselves.

  As far as that went, where had Deveraux got to? Casey supposed that the gunman could have just taken the money and run off with it, but men in Deveraux’s profession had to keep their bargains if they were to continue to be hired.

  ‘Horse,’ Casey said wearily, as he remounted Checkers, ‘I can’t make sense out of any of this. All I know is that something is very rotten here.’

  Checkers did not care enough to twitch an ear to listen. Checkers was as weary as Casey Storm and much hungrier. They continued their westward ride.

  An hour along the trail they found the dead man.

  One of his arms was outstretched, his body curled up tightly, face hidden by snow. Checkers chuffed and backed away unhappily. At first Casey supposed he had discovered the final resting place of Garrett Strong, but as he swung down wearily and approached the dead man he found that it was not Garrett.

  The man was youngish-old. His features, pale and now drawn down in rictus, were those of a person of thirty or so, but his frozen beard was gray.

  Casey knew him.

  It was Virgil Troupe, the man whom he had met only briefly with the wagon train; he who owned the freight wagons that carried the sawn timber for the new town of Sundown. He who had delayed the start of the settlers’ trek westward because his wife had been in the labor of childbirth. A man looking to build a new life with a young wife and a newborn child now destined to spend eternity sprawled on the frozen plains, subject to the cruel use of the scavengers.

  Casey rose, cursed silently and looked around. There were no traces of wagon-wheel ruts, none of passing horses. Virgil Troupe, then, had been killed before or as the snow fell. However grimly, the body did mark the trail for Casey. He had no implements for the task of burying Troupe, and the ground – had he any tools – was frozen. Nothing could be done. A quick search of the body produced nothing that might give aid or comfort to Troupe’s widow.

  The brief investigation did provide two intriguing, quite disturbing bits of information: Troupe’s revolver, a Remington .36, was still holstered, fully loaded. And the single shot that had killed the freighter was to the back of his skull. The man had bee
n taken by surprise without a struggle and executed at close range.

  That made it very unlikely to Casey that this was the work of the Shadow Riders.

  It was someone connected with the wagon train who had done it, had to be.

  Weary to the point of emptiness, Casey swung back into the saddle and continued his lonesome trek.

  The rising sun warmed his back and glittered off the fallen snow, but the warmth did not reach his bones or stir the chilled blood in his veins. He wished more than once that he had never fallen into this confused, melancholy situation. Had he never met the Shadow Riders he might have passed all of this trouble by now and made his way into Idaho. There were even moments, now, that he considered turning his back on the tangled, unfathomable situation and leaving the strangers to their own problems. And he might well have.

  Except for the promises he had made.

  Sullenly, Casey made his way westward, the weary pony slogging its way through the snow. At noon, or near to it, Casey picked out the silver-blue glint of running water through the pines. He took it for the Upper Missouri River, or the Little Missouri as it was also called, and his eyes, heart and energies all seemed to come back into focus. Oddly, Checkers’s lethargy also seemed to lift and, as they made their way down out of the low foothills, their spirits were higher.

  They came along the lone rider in the shadowed valley.

  A man completely unfamiliar to Casey Storm was riding parallel to the river, leading a pack horse which seemed well provided with provisions for long-riding. He hailed Casey first, lifting a leather-clad arm in greeting. Hesitantly Casey approached the man, wary of yet another ambush. The Montana country had not been kind to him thus far. He continued forward slowly, his Henry repeater across the withers of his horse, glancing north and south, east and west for other concealed men. There seemed to be none, so Casey angled Checkers up beside the man on the sorrel, cautious but curious.