Dead Before Sundown

by William W. Johnstone

  “Well, we appreciate the help,” Frank said. “We can offer you some coffee and something to eat, if you’re hungry.”

  “That sounds mighty fine.” Russell leaned his head toward the canyon mouth. “You don’t think those varmints are liable to come back?”

  “I’ll stand watch,” Salty volunteered. “Y’all go ahead.”

  He muttered something about circus cowboys as he walked off.

  As the others started back toward the fire, which had burned down and gone out during the battle, Frank told Meg and Russell, “You two go on. I’d better do something about those bodies.”

  The two dead men lying on the canyon floor where they had fallen, plus the one lying sprawled just outside the brush barrier, were grim reminders of what had happened here. Frank still couldn’t be certain why the men with the Gatling gun had tried to kill him and his friends, but there was no doubt about their deadly intentions.

  He walked over to the corpses, retrieving his hat along the way. The first man he came to lay face down. That was the one Frank had shot in the belly.

  Frank rested his hand on the butt of his Colt as he got a toe under the man’s shoulder and rolled him over. The chances of the bushwhacker still being alive were practically nonexistent, but it never paid to take chances.

  Sure enough, the man’s beard-stubbled face had the lax looseness that came with death. Frank hunkered next to him and went through his pockets, but the search didn’t turn up anything except a plug of tobacco, a few coins, and a harmonica.

  Frank held the harmonica in his fingers and looked at it for a long moment, wondering what songs the man had played on it around a lonely campfire at night. His mouth tightened into a grim line. He tossed the harmonica on the man’s chest. Thinking about such things didn’t do any good. They were just reminders of what a waste it was when a man took a wrong turn in life and went down a trail that ended with him dying by the gun.

  Frank had taken his own wrong turns, some by choice and some he’d been forced into by circumstances, and someday his own trail would end the same way.

  He stood up and walked over to the other man who had fallen from the rimrock. This one had turned over as he plummeted and landed on his back, splitting his skull like a watermelon. His face was unmarked, though.

  Frank didn’t recognize him, either, although he knew the type. This one, like the other man, was a hardcase, an outlaw, the sort of man who would steal a Gatling gun from the Army and smuggle it across the border into Canada for God knew what reason … although money was bound to be involved somewhere. The dead man didn’t have anything in his pockets except the makin’s and some folded, greasy greenbacks.

  Frank went back to the first man, took hold of his legs, and dragged him over next to the other corpse. After he fetched the body outside the canyon, he and Salty could put the corpses next to the canyon wall and collapse part of it over them in a makeshift burial. Maybe Reb Russell would give them a hand, if he didn’t mind getting his fancy duds a mite dirty.

  Thinking of Russell made Frank glance toward the camp. Meg had gotten the fire going again and was heating up the coffee. He saw her and Russell talking.

  Frank didn’t trust the stranger. Why was someone dressed like Russell wandering through these rugged Canadian Rockies by himself? That didn’t make a lick of sense as far as Frank was concerned.

  But there was no denying that Russell had helped them out of a bad spot. If he hadn’t given them a hand, they might not have been able to drive off the attackers.

  Maybe after he’d had his coffee and something to eat, Russell would go on his way, leaving them in the canyon. Frank wasn’t going to count on that, though.

  And he wasn’t going to take his eye off the man who called himself Reb Russell for very long, either.

  He walked back to the brush across the mouth of the canyon. Salty stood there looking up and down the valley.

  “Nobody movin’ as far as I can see,” the old-timer said. “Frank, I want to tell you again how sorry I am for gettin’ you and Meg into this mess.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Salty. Like we told you, nobody forced us to come along.” Frank nodded toward the dead outlaw who lay out here. “Ever see him before?”

  “Nope. Looks like a typical hardcase, all gun and no brain.”

  Frank nodded. “Same as the two inside the canyon. You still think Palmer was with this bunch?”

  “I got no earthly idea. It makes sense, though, and these are just the sort of ornery, no-good varmints he’d throw in with. He worked for Soapy Smith, after all, and Soapy was about as bad as they come.”

  “You want to roll some rocks down on these three?”

  Salty scratched at his beard. “I’d rather leave ‘em for the wolves.” He sighed. “But I reckon that wouldn’t be fittin’. We already left that fella you had to kill yesterday.”

  Frank took the dead man’s shoulders while Salty got his feet. They carried the corpse into the canyon and placed him with the other two.

  “Give us a hand, Russell?” Frank called over to the man.

  Russell joined them right away. “Are you going to bury them?” he asked.

  Frank shook his head. “No shovel.” He pointed to some loose talus rock on the slope above the dead men. “We’ll start a little rock slide and cover them up that way.”

  “Sure, I’ll help you.” Russell started to climb, with apparent disregard for his clothes.

  He and Frank took their rifles up the slope and used the Winchesters to pry loose some of the rocks. Salty and Meg stayed on the canyon floor. Once the rocks began to move, they picked up speed and dislodged more stones and dirt. Almost immediately, Frank and Russell had a small-scale avalanche going that swept down and raised a cloud of dust as it covered the bodies of the dead men.

  They slid back down to the ground and joined Salty and Meg. The old-timer took his hat off, and the others followed suit.

  “Lord, I ain’t much for speechifyin’,” Salty said, “and I reckon it’s more’n likely these fellas went the other way instead of up yonder to your homestead, but wherever they wind up, we’re puttin’ that in your hands. It ain’t for us to judge. Amen.”

  “Amen,” Frank repeated.

  Salty clapped his hat back on his head. “Now that’s done, let’s get after them skunks. I sure don’t take it kindly when somebody shoots at me.”

  “You’re going after them?” Russell asked.

  “Dang right we are. I got a suspicion there’s a fella with ‘em who owes me money.”

  “Do you even know why they tried to kill you?”

  “We’ve got some ideas,” Frank said without going into what those ideas were.

  “Well, if you don’t mind the company, I’d be glad to come along with you,” Russell said. “I’ve got my horse right outside the canyon, and I left my pack animal with my supplies not far from here when all the shooting started. I won’t be a burden to you.”

  “You don’t have any business of your own to tend to?” Frank asked, trying not to sound too suspicious.

  “Yeah, but those fellows headed east when they left here, didn’t they? That’s the way I was going anyway. I’m bound for Calgary.”

  Frank decided to be blunt. “What for, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  Russell grinned. “Sure, it’s no secret. There’s talk that some of the cattlemen in those parts are fixin’ to put on a big rodeo there. I plan to take part in it.”

  “A ro-day-o?” Salty said. “I been to the one down in Pecos a bunch o’ times. You mean to say they have such things up here in Canada?”

  “They have rodeos anywhere there’s a bunch of cowboys gettin’ together,” Russell said. “There are ranches here in Canada just like there are down in the States. Say, Mr. Stevens, if you’ve been to the rodeo in Pecos, you might’ve seen me. I won the saddle-bronc ridin’ there, three years runnin’.”

  Salty’s eyes widened in recognition. “Why, fry me for a gopher!” he exclaimed. “I kno
wed there was somethin’ familiar about you. You rode that dang Razor horse four or five years ago, the one ever’ body said was a killer and couldn’t ever be rode!”

  Russell nodded. “That’s right. The purse was a mighty good one that year.”

  Salty turned to Frank. “I know this boy now, Frank. He’ll do to ride the river with.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Frank said. He had long since stopped being surprised when people ran into folks they knew out here on the frontier. The West, and that included this part of Canada, too, he supposed, was a vast place, but at the same time it was possible to encounter someone you might not have seen for years. The network of mutual acquaintances stretched over hundreds, even thousands, of miles.

  Frank went on, “You’re welcome to ride with us, Russell, but I warn you … we’re liable to run into more trouble.”

  “That’s fine. Nothin’ I like better than a good scrape, Mr. Morgan. And call me Reb.”

  Frank nodded. “All right, Reb. Just as long as you know what you’re getting into.”

  He wished he could say the same thing for himself.

  And despite the opinion of Reb Russell that Salty had expressed, Frank didn’t fully trust the young man. There was something about him that still didn’t ring true.

  As they headed back to the fire, Salty said, “They let you wear that kind of getup to the ro-day-o these days?”

  Chapter 21

  “What are you talking about?” Joseph asked as he stared at Anton Mirabeau in surprise.

  “Those men have no right to that gold,” Mirabeau replied with a confidence that bordered on arrogance. He thumped a fist against his buckskin-clad chest. “It belongs to the Métis!”

  Joseph waved a hand toward the crated weapons. “We gave it to them in return for those Gatling guns. You know that, Anton.”

  “And you know how hard we worked for it. You know the price that was paid.”

  Joseph scowled. He knew, all right. Shooting had broken out during several of those robberies. Friends of his had died, gunned down by the law. Almost as bad, he had to live with the fact that innocent people also had been killed.

  But such tragedies had happened before and no doubt would happen again before his people finally achieved their freedom, he reminded himself. There was always a price to be paid for everything in this world.

  “What are you suggesting?” he asked coldly. “That we go after them and steal the gold back from them?”

  An eager grin stretched across Mirabeau’s bearded face. “Exactly!”

  “What about honor?”

  Mirabeau shrugged and said, “They are Americans,” as if that excused anything he and his friends might do.

  Joseph looked over at his sister. Charlotte was chewing her bottom lip worriedly. He knew the prospect of more violence bothered her, too, but he also knew she didn’t like to go against what Mirabeau wanted.

  Like everyone else, she still had the idea in her head that one day he would be her husband.

  Though his jaw was tight with anger, Joseph said, “There is nothing I can do to stop you, is there?”

  Mirabeau shook his head. “No.” He turned to the other men. “Mount up. They will have gotten far enough ahead of us by now. We’ll circle around in front of them and set up an ambush. Wolverine Rock would be a good place.”

  Several of the men nodded in agreement. They swung up into their saddles.

  Mirabeau turned back to Joseph and Charlotte. “The two of you can follow us and bring the mules and the guns.”

  From the sound of Mirabeau’s voice, Joseph was no longer in charge of this mission. Injured pride welled up inside him, but he forced it down.

  “You don’t want us to come with you?”

  “Someone has to bring the guns along,” Mirabeau said. He was trying to sound reasonable, but Joseph knew the real reason for the decision. Mirabeau no longer fully trusted him. He was afraid that Joseph would do something to ruin his plan.

  “Fine,” Joseph said. Go get more blood on your hands, he thought. It won’t be the last, will it?

  Mirabeau nodded and waved his companions into motion. They headed down the valley, riding hard. They would have to set a fast pace in order to reach Wolverine Rock ahead of the American outlaws. Fortunately for the Métis, this was their homeland. Mirabeau had hunted and trapped all over these mountains. He knew all the shortcuts.

  “This could turn out badly, Joseph,” Charlotte said. “I wish Anton were not so stubborn.”

  “But he is, and we cannot change him.”

  Joseph began gathering up the reins of the pack mules. The Gatling gun that had been used earlier had been disassembled and returned to its crate. All the crates had been closed up and lashed to the animals again. He waited until Charlotte had climbed into the saddle of her horse and then handed some of the reins to her. He took the others.

  They started down the valley, leading the mules. Their pace was much slower than that of Mirabeau and the other men. Joseph supposed that when they were done with their ambush—when they had finished killing the Americans and stealing back the chests of gold—they would either wait at Wolverine Rock or return for him and Charlotte.

  There was nothing to say, so they rode in silence. The sun moved toward its zenith. It was almost midday, Joseph judged, when the sound of gunshots in the distance came to his ears.

  Charlotte heard them, too. She caught her breath, stiffened in the saddle, and said, “I pray that Anton is all right.”

  Sadly, Joseph was no longer certain he shared that sentiment.

  Joe Palmer gave in to his curiosity and asked, “Say, exactly how much are those gold bars worth, anyway?”

  Lundy grinned over at him as they rode side by side. “Tryin’ to figure out what your share’s gonna be, Joe?”

  Palmer shrugged. “Seems like that would be an important thing to know.”

  “Well, you know the same as I do that it all depends on how much you get for it. There’s not a set price.”

  “You’re bound to have a pretty good idea, though,” Palmer insisted.

  “It ought to be in the neighborhood of fifty thousand dollars,” Lundy said.

  Palmer let out a low whistle. “That’s a lot of money. Ten grand apiece since there’s only five of us left.”

  “Hold on a minute,” Lundy said, his voice hardening. “You’re not figuring the same way I am.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Jericho and I were taking thirty percent.”

  “Jericho’s dead,” Palmer pointed out.

  Lundy shook his head. “That don’t change anything. I’m still taking fifteen thousand.”

  The tone of his voice made it clear that Palmer, or anyone else, was going to have plenty of trouble on his hands if that decision was challenged.

  “All right,” Palmer said. “So that leaves thirty-five grand to split four ways.”

  “You weren’t in on the whole deal. Five for you, ten each for the other fellas.”

  Palmer had to swallow an angry curse. He glanced over his shoulder at the other three outlaws. He didn’t know any of them personally, but he recognized the wolflike intensity with which they were watching him. They were listening to the conversation with great interest.

  “You know what?” Palmer said, recognizing the razor-thin line he was walking. “That sounds mighty fair to me, Owen. I’ll be just fine with that split.”

  Lundy grunted. “Good. Because that’s the way it’s gonna be.”

  The valley had narrowed down as they headed east. Rugged, snow-capped peaks still loomed to the north and south, but ahead of them, Palmer could see a gap where the trail sloped down to the flats. They would still have to ride through some foothills, but they were about to leave the mountains at last.

  A large rock squatted on the left side of the trail. Something about it struck Palmer as familiar, and after a moment he realized what it was.

  The rock generally had a rounded shape, but it thrust out sharply
toward the trail like an animal’s snout and on top of it were two knobs that looked like ears. Most of the rock was dark in color, but a lighter band encircled it.

  “It looks like a wolverine,” Palmer said with a grin.

  “What?” Lundy sounded confused.

  “That big rock up yonder.” Palmer pointed. “It looks like a wolverine’s head.”

  Lundy began, “Yeah, I guess it—”

  He stopped short when smoke puffed from behind one of those earlike knobs and a bullet made a flat whap! as it passed through the air between them, near their heads.

  A fraction of a second later, one of the men riding behind them let out a pained grunt. Palmer whipped his head around in time to see the man topple out of the saddle with a black, red-rimmed hole in the center of his forehead where the bullet had struck him.

  “Move!” Lundy yelled as he kicked his horse into a run. “Somebody’s shootin’ at us!”

  That seemed pretty obvious to Palmer. He heard the wind-rip of another bullet past his ear as he leaned forward to make himself a smaller target.

  “Hyaaaahh!” he shouted at his horse as he urged the animal into a gallop. Lundy had gone to the left, so Palmer went to the right. When you were under attack, it wasn’t smart to bunch up. Make your enemies split their fire.

  The other two outlaws were scattering as well. Palmer heard the flat crack-crack-crack of rifle fire now and saw a cloud of powder smoke rising over the odd-shaped rock. Some bastards had gotten up there and set up an ambush for them.

  Palmer had a pretty good idea who they were, too. Those damn half-breeds were trying a double cross, he thought as he rode swiftly toward some trees.

  His horse suddenly lurched underneath him. Palmer cursed bitterly as he felt the animal going down. He kicked his feet out of the stirrups and let go of the reins. He was thrown clear as the horse fell, but after sailing through the air for a few feet, he slammed into the ground so hard that he was stunned and all the breath was knocked out of his body.