The Poacher's Daughter

by Michael Zimmer

  THE

  POACHer's

  DAUGHTER

  Copyright © 2014 by Michael Zimmer

  Published in 2016 by Blackstone Publishing

  Cover design by Djamika Smith

  Book design by Kristen M. Gully

  Published in conjunction with Golden West Literary Agency

  April 2013

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing, 2016

  2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

  Paperback ISBN 978-1-5046-8537-5

  Trade eBook ISBN 978-1-5047-2576-7

  Blackstone Publishing

  31 Mistletoe Rd.

  Ashland, OR 97520

  www.BlackstonePublishing.com

  DEDICATION

  I would like to dedicate this novel to the very many individuals who made it possible. A very small sampling of those include: Cathay Williams (Buffalo Soldier); Nellie “The Angel of Tombstone” Cashman (nurse and prospector); Margaret Heffernan Borland (first woman to boss a trail herd to Kansas, 1873); Mary Fields and Miss Charley Parkhurst (stagecoach drivers); Annie Oakley and Lillian Smith (sharpshooters and rivals); Rose “The Rose of Cimarron” Dunn, Pearl Hart, Belle Starr, and Laura “Rose of the Wild Bunch” Bullion (cattle rustlers, horse thieves, bank and stagecoach robbers); Miss F.M. Miller, Miss S.M. Burche, and Mamie Fossett (deputy U.S. marshals, Oklahoma and Indian Territory); Ellen Liddy “Cattle Kate” Watson (unjustly accused of, then hanged for, cattle rustling by the local Cattleman’s Association); Martha Jane “Calamity Jane” Cannary (muleskinner, stagecoach driver, sharpshooter, nurse, prospector, and, altogether, probably the most colorful of them all).

  And last but not least, Vanessa Zimmer (biker, mountain woman, sharpshooter, journalist, and adventurer, who would have fit right in).

  My thanks to all of these, and the thousands of others.

  Horse Thief

  1885

  Chapter

  1

  Rose Edwards spotted the horses as soon as they rounded the bend along the Yellowstone River, about a mile away. She paused in her work to watch, easing back from the edge of the bluff where she wouldn’t be easily seen.

  The horses were a motley bunch—paints, bays, buckskins, sorrels, and blacks. They were being driven upstream at a swift trot by four wranglers. Three of the horsemen were with the herd. The fourth rode about fifty yards in advance, a rifle balanced across the pommel of his saddle. Rose watched until they turned the horses away from the river, toward the mouth of a side cañon where a trail led through the bluffs to the short-grass country above, then returned to her shoveling.

  It was a warm day, but she was shaded by an old, lightning-scarred pine, and a gentle breeze kept the sweat across her brow to a minimum. The pine stood on a knoll above the broken, yellow-gray bluffs that flanked the river and gave it its name. It commanded a spectacular vista of rolling plains, jutting buttes, and distant, snow-capped mountain peaks. Just yesterday she’d come up here with a cup of tea to sit and gaze out across the windswept miles and daydream, but that seemed like a lifetime ago. Behind her, down the long, easy slope to the meadow where the Edwards’ homestead had stood, the charred walls of her cabin still smoldered. The barn—a small picket shed with a sod roof—had also been set ablaze, although without hay to fuel the burning brand tossed inside, the fire had soon smothered in the thick dust of the dirt floor.

  The mob had been more thorough in setting fire to the house. After tearing the interior of the cabin apart in their search for Muggy’s gold, they’d shoved what furniture the Edwards owned into the center of the dwelling’s single room and doused it with coal oil. Then they’d trooped outside, where one of the masked vigilantes had tossed a sputtering torch through the door. Within minutes flames were soaring sixty feet into the night sky, embers darting like fireflies. Some of the tiny cinders fell into the dry grass surrounding the cabin, and soon a prairie fire was racing toward the open county to the east, where it might have burned all the way to Junction City if a thunderstorm hadn’t blown up shortly before dawn and extinguished it. The rain had been too late to save the cabin, though.

  Rose kept her back to the tilted walls and collapsed roof of her home as she shoveled the final spadeful of dirt over Muggy’s grave. She knew she ought to cover the site with stones, but she was exhausted after last night’s ordeal, her shoulders aching from digging in the rocky soil. Nor was she feeling overly charitable toward the body she’d just interred. Muggy had been a poor husband in her estimation, and she blamed him not only for his own death at the hands of a lynch mob, but also for bringing the mob to her door.

  Muggy’s christened name was Robert Thomas, but Rose doubted if half a dozen people in all of Montana Territory knew that. He’d been called Muggy for as long as she’d known him, and even signed their marriage certificate that way. Not that theirs had ever been a traditional marriage. Muggy had spent the last eight months up in Helena, gambling and drinking all night, then shacking up through the day with a Jane-about-town called Daisy LaFee. In all that time he hadn’t sent a single dime, not even a letter, down the trail to his wife. Rose had been contemplating a divorce for months—they’d been married a little over four years, and he’d been away for all but a few weeks of that—but she’d been afraid he might sell the homestead out from under her if she attempted it.

  The place wasn’t much, Rose supposed, but she was fond of it. She’d worked hard to make it a home, cultivating a fair-size garden along the creek, raising enough truck to haul a wagonload of corn and squash into Billings every fall, which she traded for staples to see her through the winter. It had been a good life, though spartan and lonely.

  She was still debating how to finish the grave when she heard the clatter of hoofs on the trail leading up from the river and remembered the horses. Although alone, she wasn’t particularly worried. A Sharps rifle leaned against the trunk of the ancient pine, and Muggy’s Smith & Wesson revolver, wrapped in its holster and cartridge belt, lay close by. She could handle both proficiently.

  Rose cinched the Smith & Wesson around her waist, then went over to stand beside the Sharps. It wasn’t long before a cowboy on a lathered pinto hove into sight. He acted surprised when he spied the smoking hull of the cabin. Butting a lever gun to his thigh, he came forward at a walk, but hauled up when he spotted Rose. Then he grinned and lowered the rifle. Under the sprawling limbs of the old pine, Rose also relaxed. Leaving the Sharps behind, she walked out to meet him.

  The rider pulled up at the foot of the knoll. “Ye be all right, Rosie?” he called.

  “Hello, Wiley. Yeah, I’m still kickin’.”

  Wiley Collins laughed, then lifted his gaze. His expression sobered when he saw the grave. “Muggy?” he asked.

  “Uhn-huh.”

  “How’d it happen?”

  “Vigilantes. They followed him down from Helena.”

  Wiley’s expression darkened. “I’d heard he’d been up to the Last Chance,” he said, referring to Helena’s old moniker from its days as a tented mining community. “I sure never expected this.”

  “I doubt if he did, either,” Rose replied with unexpected bluntness, sweeping a strand of blonde hair from her eyes. She was tall for a woman, but not overly so; stout without being fat. Sturdy, Muggy used to call her when he was feeling charitable. She had an old gray dress hanging over the tailgate of a small wagon beside the barn, but was wearing the heavy duck trousers, faded blue shirt, and mule-ear boots she normally donn
ed for gardening. A sweat-stained hat lay on the ground beside the Sharps. She’d washed her gardening clothes yesterday and hung them on the line to dry, which was why they’d escaped the fire. The Sharps and the Smith & Wesson had belonged to Muggy, and had been tossed out of the cabin’s rear window by one of the vigilantes soon after the mob broke in. The rest of her clothing and household articles had perished in the flames.

  “Did they say why they hung him?” Wiley asked.

  “They weren’t specific. There was some mention of missing gold, but ….” She shrugged, letting the words trail off. She felt baffled by her lack of emotion, the absence of grief. There were shades of anger that came and went, but they were never overpowering. It was as if she’d found a squirrel lying dead under the old pine that morning, rather than her husband. “I reckon it was bound to happen sooner or later,” she finished lamely.

  They were distracted from their conversation by dust billowing above the lip of the coulée that was the head of the trail. Soon, horses were spilling out of the gulch as if from the earth itself. Rose counted twenty-seven head, but could have missed a few in the powdery confusion. The wranglers turned the herd east, away from the cabin, and let it spread out to graze. While two of the men stayed with the horses, a third loped his mount toward Rose and Wiley.

  “Why, ain’t that Shorty Tibbs?” Rose asked, glancing at Wiley with a trace of amusement in her light blue eyes. “Last I’d heard, you’d sworn to have his liver on a stick.”

  “Aw, now, Rosie, ye know how it is. Fellas get in a row from time to time, but they patch things up. Besides, I’d feel mighty bad if I shot him. His mother’s an awful sweet person. I met her down in Texas once, some years back.”

  Reining up alongside Wiley, Shorty said: “Hello, Rose.”

  “How, Shorty.”

  He glanced at the cabin. “Was it lightning? We saw some over this way about dawn.”

  “It wasn’t lightnin’, ye dolt,” Wiley Collins said. He pointed out the grave with his chin. “The vigilantes got Muggy last night. Rosie’s buryin’ him.”

  Shorty looked genuinely distressed as he removed his hat, revealing a forehead that was as white as a fish’s belly and a bald, freckled pate where only a few wispy strands of curly brown hair remained. “Rose, I am truly sorry. Muggy was a fine man.”

  With a flash of irritation, she said: “Shorty, you’re a dang’ liar. You know as well as me Muggy was a scoundrel.”

  “That may be, but he was your husband, and you’ve always treated me kindly. I had a wife myself when I was younger. She died giving birth. The boy died with her.”

  “Aw, hell.” Rose looked away. “I didn’t mean to be so snappy, and I’m sorry about your wife. I didn’t know you’d ever had one.”

  “She’s been gone almost fifteen years.. He returned the hat to his head. “What’ll you do now, if you don’t mind my asking. If you’re thinking of rebuilding, I’d be proud to help.”

  “Hold on, hoss,” Wiley said quickly. “We’ve got these ponies to deliver, lest ye’ve forgot?”

  “I ain’t forgot, but I won’t leave a woman in a bad fix, either. Especially Rose.”

  “That’s all right, Shorty,” Rose interjected. “To tell you the truth, I ain’t decided yet what I’m gonna do.”

  “Why don’t you ride along with us?” Shorty offered. “We could use an extra hand, and I’ve seen you ride. You’re as good as any man.”

  “Naw, you boys go on.” She grinned to take any sting out of her refusal. “Likely you’re needin’ to jingle your spurs some, anyway.”

  “Now, Rosie, I know what ye’re thinkin’, but it ain’t so,” Wiley protested.

  “Aw, the hell it ain’t,” Shorty said, winking at Rose. “Wiley’s right, we can’t tarry, but you’re welcome to ride along, if you’d like. You know me ’n’ Wiley, and those two jaybirds”—he inclined his head toward the horsemen still with the herd—“they’re good men. That short, skinny fella with the sombrero is Garcia. The other one is Jimmy Frakes, from the Sheridan range. They’ll give you no trouble. But if you’re set on rebuilding, why, I’d be glad to help with that, too. We’ve gotta run these horses down the Musselshell to Two-Hats’s place, but I could be back inside a week.”

  Rose eyed the two men thoughtfully. Wiley Collins was the taller of the pair. He had an unruly mop of sandy hair that curled out from under his hat, and eyes as blue as a mountain lake. He was broad through the shoulders, lean in the hips, clean-shaven when time permitted.

  Shorty Tibbs stood about five foot seven which was only a shade under average, but he was of slight build, which gave him a smallish appearance. He was quick and sure in action, and had a forward roll to his shoulders that made him look as if he was always traveling just a little faster than his bowed legs could keep up with. He had dark eyes, a black mustache, and a face weathered to a deep walnut hue.

  Although the idea of traveling with them was intriguing, Rose was leery. She knew Wiley as a randy sort, and suspected not too many evenings would pass before he’d try to slip into her blankets, Muggy’s recent death notwithstanding. Nor would it be the first time, if she allowed it. It had been lonely with Muggy gone so much, and Wiley had passed through on a fairly regular basis.

  Still, as much as she loved this place, this little homestead above the Yellowstone, it occurred to her that it might be time to move on. A yearning for something different had been building inside of her for some time now. She knew she could raise another cabin, with or without Shorty’s assistance, she just wasn’t sure she wanted to.

  “What do you say, Rose?” Shorty asked, leaning forward in his saddle.

  She glanced at the corral, where her strawberry roan gelding, Albert, was watching the horses across the trail with high-headed interest. Yesterday there’d been a pair of mules in the corral, and Muggy’s bay last night, but the vigilantes had taken everything except the roan, leaving Rose with a warning to clear out before the end of autumn.

  “All right,” she said impulsively. “I’ll come ride the Owlhoot with you two roosters. Why not?”

  “That’s a girl,” Shorty said, grinning.

  And despite some misgivings, Rose couldn’t help a smile of her own. It was about time, she thought, that she sought some adventures of her own, instead of always listening to the tales of others, told to her as they passed by her door. About damned time Rose Edwards found some tall tales of her own to spill around the hearth.

  • • • • •

  Hers was a pretty sorry outfit upon which to go see the elephant, Rose reflected, backing off for a broader view. Albert stood hipshot beside the corral, his graying muzzle drooped toward the ground. On his back was a Mother Hubbard saddle with a high, flat horn. Although solid and well-made, the rig had seen hard use over the years; web-like cracks that no amount of oiling would ever close tracked the heavy leather mochila, and the stitching was frayed.

  The rifle scabbard under the right stirrup strap was patterned for the lever-action carbine she’d lost to the vigilantes, and was a poor fit for the long-barreled Sharps, but it would have to do. She’d folded the gray dress she’d worn last night, a chunk of lye soap, and a couple of rags for washing—all that had escaped the fire—into her saddlebags, then dug up a tin money box from the northeast corner of the cabin, having to burrow through a section of collapsed roof to reach it. The box, buried under several inches of loose soil and a twenty-gallon water keg, had survived the blaze but yielded only $6 and some change, the deed to the land, and her marriage certificate. Wrapping the money and legal documents in a rag, Rose stowed them in her saddlebags.

  Her bedroll was an old Hudson’s Bay blanket she’d cinched over Albert’s back and hips on cold winter nights. It was worn and mouse-chewed, but, as with the rifle scabbard, it would suffice. The larger hand tools—spade, axe, hoe, and bucksaw—would be left in the barn. She’d backed the wagon inside, too,
where it would be sheltered from the elements. She could return later with a team and haul everything into Billings to sell if she didn’t rebuild.

  She still needed a heavier bedroll, a slicker to shed the rain, and a good knife to replace the one she’d lost in the fire, but what she wanted most was ammunition for the big, single-shot Sharps. All she had was the cartridge Muggy had kept chambered—a .44-90. The Smith & Wesson revolver held a full wheel of .38-caliber rounds, plus another twenty or so in the loops of her cartridge belt, but, even with that, she’d be handicapped if they ran into trouble. And Rose had little doubt that, sooner or later, they would. Neither Wiley nor Shorty would tell her where the horses they were running up to Two-Hats’s trading post had come from, but she figured they were Crow ponies, stolen off the reservation south of the Yellowstone.

  The Crows, who had always been on more or less friendly terms with whites and had scouted for the cavalry during the late Sioux hostilities, ran sizable herds. It had become fairly profitable for horse thieves to slip onto the reservation and steal a few head whenever the fancy struck them. Rose had seen Indian ponies selling openly on the streets of Billings, Bozeman, and Miles City, and even though everyone knew where they came from, no one except the military seemed to care.

  It took thirty minutes to ready her outfit. While she was doing that, Wiley and Shorty returned to the herd to switch mounts. By the time Rose got there, Wiley was champing at the bit.

  “Let’s go!” he barked. “By God, if this is what it’s like to travel with a woman, I’m regretting it already.” He jerked his horse around and rode off at a gallop.

  Reining alongside, Shorty said: “That’s just Wiley. Don’t pay him any heed.”

  “I didn’t hear nothin’ from him I ain’t already heard twice from Muggy,” Rose replied. “I never paid him no mind, neither.”