Damnation Valley

by William W. Johnstone

  “Desdemona, I’ve told you about shooting at the fence,” Garwood said. “It’s supposed to protect us from enemies outside, not serve as target practice inside.”

  “I know, Papa,” she said as she lowered the rifle, grounded the butt, and started reloading. “I just wanted to show Mr.—What is your name, anyway?”

  “Breckinridge Wallace,” he introduced himself. “My friends call me Breck.”

  “I just wanted to show Mr. Wallace that I can shoot just fine,” Desdemona said as she slid the ramrod down the rifle’s barrel and tamped the load in place.

  “Maybe we’ll have to have us a turkey shoot one o’ these days and find out who’s better.”

  “Anytime,” she said.

  Grinning, Morgan clapped a hand on Breckinridge’s back and said, “Don’t just stand there holding those pelts, Breck. Let’s go on inside and talk turkey.”

  * * *

  They came to a suitable arrangement with Garwood for the purchase price of the pelts, but not before Morgan did some spirited haggling with Eugenia. Breckinridge thought both of them seemed to enjoy it, though.

  Once the furs had been carried in so they could be examined and a deal settled on, Charlie Moss, Richmond, and the other men lined up at the bar on the left side of the trading post’s main room. It was made from wide, rough-hewn planks laid across the tops of barrels, but it served its purpose just fine. Ophelia Garwood and a stout Indian woman stood behind the bar and handled the chore of filling tankards with beer for the thirsty men.

  Absalom Garwood sat at a table with Breckinridge, who stretched his long legs out in front of him and crossed them at the ankles. Morgan and Eugenia stood at a long table where the furs were piled, finalizing the details of the arrangement.

  “When I first came out here,” Garwood mused, “I hid my girls away, not wanting anyone to know there were women here. I thought it would just cause trouble and put them in danger. I have several Mandan men and women who came out with us to work for me, like Rose behind the bar there.”

  “Rose?” Breckinridge said.

  “It’s not her real name, of course,” Garwood said with a shrug, “but it’s certainly easier for me to say and remember. At any rate, I worried that I should have left the girls back in St. Louis instead of bringing them with me, but their mother passed away, God rest her soul, and we had no other family there to look after them. Besides, I wanted to keep them with me.”

  “Reckon I can understand that,” Breckinridge said. “You’re not hidin’ them now, though.”

  “Desdemona convinced me that I wouldn’t be able to keep their existence a secret forever. I must say, she really took to the frontier life. She altered a pair of buckskin trousers and a shirt belonging to one of the Mandan braves so that she could wear them, and she claimed one of the rifles she brought out here as part of my trade stock.”

  Breckinridge nodded. “Old Betsy.”

  “She doesn’t really call it that. She was just having a bit of sport with you. She’d read about Colonel Crockett’s pet name for his rifle, I suppose.”

  Morgan came over to join them at the table while Eugenia went into a room at the back of the trading post. He held out a hand and said, “It’s a pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Garwood . . . and with your daughter.”

  “Eugenia has a sharp mind and sometimes a sharp tongue, as well. I trust she didn’t take advantage of you, Mr. Baxter?”

  “No, I think we’re both satisfied with the deal.”

  “Sit.” Garwood waved a hand at one of the empty chairs. “I’ll have Ophelia bring us some ale.”

  He signaled to the blonde, and a minute later she carried over a tray with three mugs on it. When she bent over to place the tray on the table, the square neckline of her dress sagged enough to draw Morgan’s eyes to the upper swells of her ample bosom that showed above it. Breckinridge saw his friend looking and hoped Garwood wouldn’t notice, too, and take offense.

  He didn’t appear to, not even when Morgan’s gaze followed the sway of Ophelia’s shapely body as she walked away.

  “To your health, my friends,” Garwood said as he lifted his tankard of ale. After they all drank, he went on, “Now that you’ve sold those pelts, what are your plans? Are you going to head back deeper into the mountains and trap more beaver?”

  “Actually, we’re looking for someone,” Morgan said. “A man named Jud Carnahan.”

  Garwood frowned in thought, pushed out his lips, and shook his head. “The name means nothing to me, I’m afraid.”

  Breckinridge sat forward and wrapped both big hands around the mug. “Then he hasn’t been here?”

  “I can’t say that conclusively. A great many trappers have passed through this valley on their way farther west. Some told me their names, and some didn’t. This man Carnahan may have been one of the ones who didn’t.”

  “That makes sense, I reckon,” Breckinridge said. He was vaguely disappointed. He had hoped to be able to pick up Carnahan’s trail here. According to Morgan, Carnahan and the other men he had recruited for another trapping expedition—which probably meant another murder and robbery expedition—had left St. Louis first. They should have come through here before Morgan stopped at the trading post the first time. He hadn’t asked Garwood about Carnahan then because at that point he didn’t know if he would be able to find Breck—or even if Breck was still alive.

  “This Carnahan . . . he’s a friend of yours?”

  Breckinridge grunted. “Not hardly.”

  “Then you’re not looking to renew an old acquaintance with him,” Garwood said with a shrewd look.

  “I suppose you could call it that,” Morgan said, “if renewing an old acquaintance includes killing the no-good skunk.”

  Garwood cocked a bushy eyebrow in surprise. “He must have done something terrible to make you feel that way. You don’t strike me as a normally vindictive young man.”

  Breckinridge said, “Carnahan did plenty of things. Whatever happens to him, he’s got it comin’. I was hopin’ he’d been here and you could tell us which way he went.”

  Garwood took another drink of ale and then licked his lips. “You see, there’s the problem,” he said. “I have a strict rule about not involving myself in any feuds or disagreements among my customers. As long as they conduct themselves peacefully while here at Fort Garwood, their behavior elsewhere is no business of mine.”

  “You might not feel that way if you knew everything he’s done,” Morgan said with a note of anger in his voice. He reached down to slap the wooden peg that took the place of his lower right leg. “Carnahan’s responsible for this.”

  “Then I can see why you bear a grudge against him. But it’s not my grudge.”

  Morgan leaned forward in his chair, and Breckinridge could tell that his friend was about to make some other heated comment. Before he could say anything, though, all three of them turned toward the bar, where loud, angry voices had just been raised.

  Chapter 4

  Two of the men standing at the bar were jawing back and forth at each other. One was a rawboned, straw-haired man Breckinridge knew only as Cabe. He had never given an indication whether that was his first or last name. The other was a stocky gent named George Donnelly, whose broad face always seemed to be sunburned. They were upset with each other about something, and it didn’t take Breck long to figure out what that was.

  “You need to apologize to the lady!” Donnelly yelled at Cabe.

  “What for? I didn’t say nothin’ I’m sorry about.”

  “You did the next thing to callin’ her a whore!”

  “I never did,” Cabe insisted, “and you’re the one makin’ the gal blush now.”

  Donnelly turned to the bar and jerked a curt nod to Ophelia. “Beggin’ your pardon, miss. I was too plainspoken. This no-good bas—this no-good varmint has got me seein’ red, that’s all.”

  Ophelia looked upset about the men arguing in front of her, but Breckinridge thought she didn’t seem too wo
rried about it, as if that was just the way she thought she ought to react.

  “Please,” she said, “there doesn’t need to be any trouble here.”

  “There won’t be none if he just says he’s sorry for bein’ rude to you,” Donnelly insisted.

  Cabe shook his head. “I done told you, I ain’t sorry. I just asked if she ever went for a walk with the fellas who stop here at her pa’s tradin’ post.”

  “Yeah, a walk in the moonlight,” Donnelly said with a sneer.

  Cabe turned toward the bar again. “I’m done arguin’ with you, you thickheaded skunk.”

  Breckinridge wasn’t surprised by what happened next. He was already starting to get up when Donnelly grabbed Cabe by the shoulder, yanked him around, and smashed a fist into his face.

  The blow sent Cabe flying backward. He crashed into Charlie Moss and one of the other men, Ben Pentecost, and would have fallen to the puncheon floor if they hadn’t caught him.

  “Hold on just a minute—” Moss began.

  Cabe wasn’t in any mood to hold on. As soon as he got his balance, he charged at Donnelly, roaring in anger. Donnelly tried to block the left that Cabe hooked at his belly, but he wasn’t quite fast enough. Cabe’s fist sunk into his midsection, and as he started to double over from the punch, Cabe brought his right up in an uppercut that landed under Donnelly’s chin and lifted the man off his feet.

  Richmond and the other member of the group, John Rocklin, caught him. Donnelly shook his head like a dazed bull, reached up to grasp his jaw and work it back and forth, and then tackled Cabe. Both of them went down this time.

  By now, Breckinridge, Morgan, and Garwood were up and moving toward the bar. Garwood shouted, “Take it outside, you men! I won’t have you busting up my place!”

  Cabe and Donnelly ignored him, of course, as they rolled around slugging, kneeing, and kicking at each other. They crashed into Pentecost’s legs and knocked him down. He yelled as he toppled over, and when he landed he lashed out at both combatants.

  Breckinridge had seen things like this plenty of times before. Even though the men all seemed to get along most of the time, a full-fledged brawl was on the verge of breaking out. And not surprisingly, a pretty girl was the cause of it. Nothing else caused men to lose the ability to think straight so quickly and completely.

  His long legs carried him across the room in only a few steps. He bent down, intending to grab hold of the two men, haul them upright, and shove them away from each other. That would leave the third man on the floor with nobody to fight, and maybe this fracas would be over before it got too bad.

  Instead, a wildly flailing leg came up and a boot heel planted itself in the middle of Breckinridge’s belly. Breck was bigger than all the other men, but that didn’t mean they were lightweights. The kick had plenty of force behind it. With the air driven out of his lungs, Breck doubled over, gasping for breath.

  Whoever had kicked him hadn’t meant to, and Breckinridge knew that. But instinct still told him to strike back, and as soon as he had enough air back in his body, he yelled angrily and grabbed the man who happened to be at the top of the struggling knot at the moment. Breck didn’t shove him away. He threw the man along the area in front of the bar.

  Which knocked Richmond flying like a pin in a game of ninepins.

  Breckinridge swung around to give the same treatment to one of the others, but he turned just in time to catch a fist in the face. The punch rocked his head back and made a red haze drop over his vision. He roared again and struck out at the man in front of him, not knowing or caring who it was.

  Vaguely, he heard somebody shout his name—maybe Morgan—but he ignored it and waded into the melee, bellowing and lashing out at anybody within reach of his long arms and bruising fists. The fray surged back and forth, and although Breckinridge was too caught up in the heat of battle to realize it at the time, the fight soon turned into an effort by the other men to bring the rampaging beast he had turned into under control.

  Men hung on his arms, trying to hold them down. He shook them off like a giant grizzly bear shaking off tormenting wolves. Someone else jumped on his back. Breckinridge reached behind him, caught hold of the man, and heaved him up and over his head in an amazing display of raw strength. Breck slammed him down on top of the bar.

  Another man tackled him from behind, getting hold of his legs around the knees. At the same time, two opponents rushed him from the front, lowering their shoulders and barreling into him. That was finally enough to take Breckinridge off his feet. All of them landed in a welter of arms and legs. The others piled on in an effort to keep him down.

  Breckinridge climbed out of the pile, flinging men right and left. Everything that had happened to him in the past few years . . . all the danger, disappointments, and despair . . . had formed into a great festering boil inside him, and now that boil had burst, filling him with blinding, white-hot rage. He couldn’t think straight. Didn’t want to think straight. He just wanted to lash out.

  Someone was there in front of him. He grabbed the figure in both hands, lifted it off the floor, poised to throw whoever it was across the room.

  A voice that was cool and controlled but tight enough to show some strain said, “You’d better not do it, mister, or you’ll be sorry.”

  His chest heaving from both exertion and anger, Breckinridge stood there spraddle-legged and tried to push aside the red curtains of fury in his head. Gradually he became aware of Morgan and the others yelling at him. As his vision cleared, he realized, with a shock that rattled him to his core, his hands were wrapped around Desdemona Garwood’s upper arms and he was holding her with her feet dangling almost a foot off the floor.

  He had to look past the barrel of the flintlock pistol she was pointing at him in order to see her pale, furious, freckled face. With the weapon’s muzzle only inches from his face, the barrel looked about as big around as a cannon.

  “Are you going to put me down, you big lunatic?” she asked. “Or am I going to have to blow your head off?”

  Breckinridge suppressed the impulse to just open his hands and drop her. He was still pretty far gone, but he was thinking straight enough to realize if he did that, the jolt might cause the gun she was holding in both hands to go off. At this range, the pistol would put a good-sized hole in him.

  Instead, he lowered her until the soles of her high-topped moccasins were on the floor again. Then he let go of her and took a step back.

  “Miss Desdemona,” he managed to croak, “I’m sorry—”

  Morgan clomped up beside him on the peg and said, “Breck, what the blazes got into you? You could’ve hurt somebody.”

  Breckinridge scrubbed a big hand over his face and then looked around.

  “I didn’t kill nobody or break any bones, did I?”

  “You didn’t kill anybody. I wouldn’t swear to it about the broken bones, though.”

  The other six men in the party were scattered around the trading post’s main room, battered and bruised. Some were lying on the floor, groaning and only semiconscious. Others leaned on the bar or sat in chairs, shaking their heads groggily.

  The man called Cabe sat at one of the tables, leaning forward so that his head rested on the wood. Slowly, he raised it and glared at George Donnelly.

  “This is all your fault, Donnelly,” Cabe said. “If you hadn’t got your back up ’cause you were tryin’ to impress that yaller-haired girl, none of it would’ve happened!”

  “You didn’t have to be so blasted rude to her,” Donnelly shot back from where he was propped up against the bar. “Anyway, I didn’t know Wallace was gonna go hog wild!”

  “Both of you shut up,” Morgan snapped. He turned to Breckinridge. “Are you all right now, Breck?”

  “Yeah, I ain’t loco anymore.” Breckinridge had a few aches and pains, but he knew he could take a lot of pounding in a fight and never feel it much. His recuperative powers had always been astounding.

  More important, he had control of his emoti
ons, at least for the time being. He looked at Desdemona and told her again, “I’m sure sorry—”

  She cut him off with a scornful sniff. She had lowered the hammer on her pistol, and now she set the weapon on a barrel.

  “We have a barn out back if you’re going to insist on acting like an animal.”

  Breckinridge shook his head. “No more trouble, I swear.”

  “I’ll believe that when I see it,” she said coolly. She turned and walked across the room to where her younger sister Eugenia was standing with a worried expression on her face.

  Ophelia was still behind the bar. Breckinridge might have been mistaken, but he thought she wore a faint smirk, as if she were satisfied that a bunch of men had gotten into a huge brawl and she had been, at the very least, what had started it all off.

  * * *

  “I wouldn’t blame you, Mr. Garwood, if you told us the deal was off,” Morgan said later as he and Breckinridge sat with Absalom Garwood again.

  “Business is business, and a deal is a deal,” Garwood replied. “Besides, there was no real damage done except to your associates.” He smiled. “If there had been, I would have taken it out of the price I’m paying for the pelts, I assure you. But as it is, you’re welcome to spend the night. Assuming, that is, that you meant it when you said no more trouble, Mr. Wallace.”

  “I meant it, all right,” Breckinridge said. “I don’t rightly know what came over me. I swear, I don’t go crazy like that all the time.”

  “He’s telling the truth,” Morgan said. “He doesn’t.”

  “Are you going to continue looking for the man you mentioned before? Carnahan, was it?”

  Breckinridge nodded. “He’s out here somewhere, and we’re bound and determined to find him.”

  The other men had gone back outside as the day waned. Now Charlie Moss came into the trading post and said, “Cabe’s gone.”

  Morgan frowned. “What do you mean, Charlie?”

  “He left. Took his gear and walked off downriver. Said he wasn’t going to have anything more to do with any of us, especially Donnelly.” Moss shook his head. “I knew he was the sort to hold a grudge, but I didn’t expect him to do that.”