Rolling Thunder

by Paul Lederer

  ‘Were Ben and Will Ford here that night? The night Tyler was killed?’

  ‘I don’t know, Tom,’ Sadie said with soft sadness. ‘I just don’t know. It was midnight. Most of them wore masks. I just don’t know.’

  I touched the brim of my hat and rode away. For a brief moment I caught a glimpse of Julia Holt in the open doorway, hands clasped, watching after me. I had no idea what her memories of me were, what unintended sins I might have committed by bringing the Holt family here to the unhappy fringe of civilization. Neither of these lonely women had the spirit left to fight their sadness.

  I did hope that Julia would be the one to find the twenty-dollar gold piece I had left on the table under my saucer knowing that Sadie, out of pride, would run out into the yard, calling after me.

  At the moment, as dusk purpled the sky and I returned to the cut-off, I forced myself to banish these concerns from my mind and concentrate on what I had come back to Stratton to accomplish: ruin Shelley Peebles and destroy the hell-town he had erected over lost dreams.

  THREE

  There was a faint, oddly comforting glow showing in the slit windows of old Gil Stratton’s stone house – my house. I could smell woodsmoke and sourdough biscuits. The yard was rough and dry, but clear of weeds. The boys, I thought, had done a remarkable amount of work in a short time.

  I hailed the house before riding in. True, it was my house, but I knew Barney and Toby Trammel would be inside with nervous trigger fingers, expecting anything on our first night in the long valley. The smoke from the chimney would tip off any roaming Peebles rider that someone was encroaching on what they perceived to be their range.

  I swung down, loosened the cinches on the big gray horse and stamped into the house, the boys having opened it wide for me.

  ‘We’ve got the stable mostly cleared out,’ Barney Weber said, and offered: ‘Want me to put your horse up for you?’

  I nodded my appreciation and looked around the stone cabin, finding it swept and as neat as could be expected after a year of disuse. There were no curtains and such. Neither Gil Stratton nor I had ever had a woman around to worry about trifles. Nevertheless, this was a fine homecoming. The woven leather-bottomed chair fit me just right and Toby had brought me a mug of coffee. He sat opposite me on one of the stiff wooden chairs surrounding the table, without asking questions, but I knew what was on his mind – what were we going to do next?

  ‘Tomorrow,’ I told them after Barney had returned from putting my horse up, ‘I’d like you boys to mow what hay you can. Stack it in the stable. I don’t want the ponies grazing out in the open.’

  They nodded their understanding. We didn’t want our mounts shot or stolen by raiding Peebles gang riders. I went on. ‘It might be a slow process, because I think it’s best if one of you scythed while the other stood watch in the pines with a rifle at the ready, I have no idea what this mob might consider doing once they realize that I’m here to stay.’

  ‘You won’t be here, Tom?’ Toby Trammel asked, frowning slightly.

  ‘No. I have to go into Stratton, to the freight office. I’m expecting a shipment. I’ll take the mule along to haul it.’

  ‘We have plenty of supplies,’ Barney said, his freckled face puzzled.

  ‘This is something else, Barney. Something I’ve had planned since before I rode back in.’

  Neither man made a comment, or so much as blinked. They had confidence in me. I only hoped it wasn’t misplaced trust. I thought about laying out my plan for them, but did not. There would be time to warn them later. What I had in mind was going to raise hell in the big valley. I was going to war not only against Peebles, but his entire, rat-infested town.

  I lay awake long after midnight, thinking mostly of Mary Ford. I couldn’t help myself. I slept fitfully until just after false dawn had grayed the eastern skies, and then realized that my dream had continued until Mary’s beautiful face had altered, becoming the young fearful-eyed Julia Holt’s. I swore at myself as I rose in the silence of the morning. A man can be such a fool.

  The night-birds were still singing as I trailed out of the stone cabin’s yard, leading the pack mule. I frightened off a small herd of deer that had been peacefully grazing among the cattle. Silently I apologized to them; I had not meant to disturb their breakfasting.

  When I would approach cattle quietly feeding on the dew jeweled long grass I would silently hie them before me, drifting them south. The dumb animals had no idea why I was doing it, but a few would lift up confused bovine heads and lope away toward the south. I had nothing against these animals either, but their owner had chosen the wrong land to graze them on. This was my land, my grass, my water, and though I did not begrudge it to any animal, none of it could be taken over by Shelley Peebles for his own gain.

  He was, simply, a murderer, a thief and a pirate.

  The sun was full in my eyes when I turned toward the town of Stratton. The land here was grassy knolls, a bit of trickling rill, scattered pines and a few white-oak trees. I never heard the first gunshot until I saw lead explode into the leather of my pommel. Then the rolling thunder of a long gun echoed down the valley. Instantly I went low across the withers of my gray, who, startled already, leaped into a run at my urging. The confused pack-mule followed us blindly as we raced for the shelter of the pine-woods.

  That shot had been no accident, no warning bullet. It had been intended to kill. The marks man had missed his intended target only by inches. There were other guns firing – some from the forest, some from a distant site I could not determine as I raced headlong into the pines, slowing my mount only to keep him from crashing recklessly into the trees.

  I swung down, unsheathed my Winchester ’73 and went to my belly, watching the long valley for signs of movement while I kept an ear open for any sounds behind me. Nothing but the tips of the cool pines moved. Distantly a crow cawed; the gray horse, circling impatiently, pawed at the ground. But there were no other sounds in the silent mountain valley.

  Someone called out and my fingers twitched on the lever of my long-gun.

  ‘Don’t shoot, Tom!’ a familiar voice called out.

  I didn’t relax, but got to one knee in a ready firing position.

  ‘Did you hear me, Tom?’

  ‘I did! Come ahead with empty hands.’

  From the deep shadows of the blue woods Ben and Will Ford emerged, both with their hands held high so that I could see they were carrying no weapons. I rose unsteadily, my rifle at belt-level.

  ‘What is it?’ I growled at Mary’s brothers, the hammer on my Winchester still drawn back, my finger still curled around the cold trigger.

  ‘It wasn’t us, Tom,’ Will Ford said, his thick body stiff with emotion. ‘We were coming out to talk to you … to apologize, actually. We saw some men across the creek in the boulders. They started to shoot at you, and, well … we fired back.’

  ‘It’s true,’ Ben Ford said. ‘Tom, would we have come in if we wanted to kill you?’

  ‘No,’ I had to admit, ‘I suppose not. I guess I owe you boys an apology, too.’

  ‘We had a talk with Mary last night,’ big Will Ford said, crouching down on his heels. ‘She told us that you promised her that you wouldn’t hunt us down.’

  That wasn’t exactly what I had said, but I let it pass. Ben Ford went on quickly:

  ‘We were never out at the Holt place the night Tyler was killed, Tom. Honest! Our family lost its holdings, too. Land you had given to us. Me and Ben, we’ve been up half the night thinking things through, and well – we couldn’t have been more wrong than we were jumping you back in town.’

  ‘We were scared,’ Will Ford, so big that you’d think he could never be scared of anything, added.

  ‘Do you mind telling me why you boys just didn’t drift away after all the trouble started?’ I had dusted off my jeans and gathered up the reins to my gray horse and those of the doleful mule. ‘Most people did.’

  ‘It’s kind of shameful,’ Ben Ford said, his fa
ce shy and distant in the dappled shade. ‘And you might not want to hear it.’

  ‘Well?’ I prompted. His bearish brother answered.

  ‘We got to keep a little of the land we had left,’ Big Will said, ‘so long as we didn’t go up against Peebles, Kit Stacy and that bunch.’

  ‘And you agreed?’

  ‘That’s the part that’s shameful, Tom. Yes, we agreed. Ten acres beats the hard road.’

  ‘Tell him the rest of it, Will,’ Ben prompted. The big man couldn’t look me in the eye. Somehow, I already knew what he was going to say. Still, it was punishing when he did.

  ‘Shelley Peebles wants Mary. So long as he has that hope …’ he shrugged heavily, ‘we have the little bit of land that is ours.’

  It took me a while to digest what they were saying to me. A man goes away for a year and so much can change. I read all sorts of innuendo into what they were telling me, not telling me. In the end, I only replied, ‘I see,’ even though I could see where their shame was coming from.

  ‘Now what?’ I asked with resurrected strength as I swung aboard my horse.

  ‘Tom …’ the brothers glanced at each other, ‘we were hoping you might tell us.’

  ‘Do you want jobs?’ I asked without irony. ‘I can’t promise much in wages, but there could be a lot in the way of satisfaction.’

  ‘You’re going to take him on, aren’t you? Peebles, I mean,’ Will asked with a smile creasing his broad face.

  ‘Yes,’ I answered simply.

  ‘He’s got a dozen gunslingers,’ Ben said worriedly.

  ‘Yes, I know. Do you want jobs or not?’

  Big Will spoke for both of them. ‘I guess we’re both pretty tired of being who we have been, Tom. If you’ll have us, I guess we’ll go along for the ride.’

  I got my first look at Shelley Peebles in Stratton that sun-drenched morning. I had expected a man larger than life, wide-shouldered as a bear, mean-eyed and dangerous-looking. He was none of those. He was mild-looking with a thin mustache and a small revolver riding high on his hip beneath the skirts of a tailored gray suit. He could have been a banker or a minor public functionary. I had to remind myself that this was the man who had orchestrated the death of Tyler Holt, driven away dozens of young settlers and likely planned to have me killed in the long valley earlier that day.

  He watched with seeming indifference as the Ford brothers and I picked up the goods I had ordered weeks ago from the freight office and strapped them onto the unprotesting, brown-eyed mule.

  Only once did our eyes lock across the rutted street. I liked none of what I saw in his stare. The man wanted me dead. Was it his lust for Mary, the land, the challenge to his authority that burned in those eyes? All of these, I guessed. No matter – a war had begun. The first pawns had been offered. My advantage was that, at the moment, he could not know what my next move might be.

  ‘Anything else, Tom?’ big Will Ford asked as he strapped down the mule’s burden.

  ‘Yes. Ammunition, and plenty of it.’

  It was already late afternoon before we returned to the valley. The Fords and I had paused to have breakfast. It was there that Ben pointed out the Missouri gunfighter, Kit Stacy. The blond man in fringed buckskins with guileless blue eyes, not more than twenty years old, at a guess, sat watching his steaming coffee-cup dreamily as if he had not a worry in the world.

  ‘Don’t let his looks fool you,’ Will muttered. ‘A sneeze will pop that Colt from his holster.’

  I nodded without answering, drinking my own coffee.

  Sadie Holt had told me that the gunman had prevented the Peebles night-riders from burning down her home. That proved nothing except that the man from Missouri had some sort of conscience. I couldn’t expect him to give me the same sort of consideration. Not if what I had heard about him was the truth.

  As night fell and the peaceful sounds of the larks in the pines announced the end of day, I began to lay out my plan for the men gathered. Toby Trammel and Barney sat nearest to the fire. Big Will Ford had taken the other leather-bottomed chair, leaving Ben Ford to seat himself on the Indian rug in the corner of the stone house. We were running out of chairs! But I’d rather have that happen than to run out of fighting men.

  ‘In the morning.…’ I began, and got no further as Toby Trammel, quick and alert as an Apache, put his finger to his lips and crossed to the horizontal slit window.

  ‘Someone’s coming,’ Toby whispered.

  Every man reached for his weapons.

  ‘Can you tell who it is?’ Big Will Ford asked.

  ‘No!’ Toby hissed. ‘See if they hail the house. Otherwise they’re up to no good.’

  I myself had the walnut grips of my Colt in hand and my finger against the cold blue steel of the trigger. Crouched low, I waited. A voice sang out:

  ‘Tom! Hello! It’s Randall and George Holt here. Can we come forward?’

  With relief, a little shakily if I have to admit it, I holstered my revolver and opened the door to greet Tyler Holt’s sons.

  ‘Come on in, boys,’ I said.

  Both boys, each with determined but shy faces, tramped into the room. For a moment there was a heavy indecisiveness in the air as the groups confronted each other. It was especially palpable when the sons of Tyler Holt looked into the eyes of the Ford brothers, who had been implicated in the night-raid that had killed their father. I tried my best to defuse the situation.

  ‘Find a seat, boys, wherever you can. We’re all here for the same purpose – to take down Shelley Peebles and his mob.’

  ‘As you were saying, Tom,’ Toby Trammel said, helping me along, though the awkwardness continued to hang heavy in the room.

  ‘Just a minute,’ I said lifting a hand. I studied the faces of Tyler Holt’s young sons. ‘Do you boys know what is at stake here? What could happen to any of you?’

  ‘Our mother told us that you were going to kick Shelley Peebles out of his britches. That’s why we’re here, with her blessing, Tom. How could we do less? The man killed our father.’

  I didn’t like the idea of Sadie and young Julia being left alone across the notch, but I only nodded my head, grateful for the young men’s support which might very well be needed – and resumed.

  ‘I don’t know if any of you boys noticed what I packed in from the freight office today. If not, I’ll tell you right now. It was dynamite.’

  There was a brief, puzzled pause as they glanced at each other. I went on. ‘I’m going to blow up the Pocono River headwaters and drive Peebles and his land barons out of this territory.’

  FOUR

  ‘You’re crazy, Tom!’ big Will Ford said.

  ‘Likely,’ I agreed, ‘but that’s what I’m going to do – cut off the water to the entire range and the town of Stratton itself.’

  ‘But you can’t …’ Randall Holt began.

  ‘Sure I can,’ I said almost cheerfully. ‘I’ve got the dynamite. As some of you know, I worked for the railroad for months clearing roadbeds, and I haven’t forgotten my training.’

  ‘Tom!’ Toby said, now looking fearful as he half-rose from the Indian blanket he had been sitting on. ‘Peebles will come looking for blood. Beyond that, you haven’t a legal leg to stand on!’

  ‘Do I not?’ I countered. ‘I hold the water rights to the Pocono Basin, Toby. It’s my understanding that I can do what I like with the river. If they contend that I’m wrong, they can let the courts sort through it. Even with Peebles’s hand-picked judge in place it will take years to adjudicate. Myself, I have the time – but there will be a lot of thirsty steers and a lot of dry people in Stratton.

  ‘I’m taking this valley back for the people who worked for it,’ I said, growing more intensely angry than I had meant to. ‘If any one of you wishes to leave, he is free to go out that door. You’re in for a war, men, if you stick with me. Otherwise – no hard feelings, no regrets. I hope our trails cross again somewhere down the line.’

  Not a man rose to leave.

  �
�All right,’ I said. ‘Come morning we are going to raise some hell! Check and load every weapon you have, because this will not come easy.’

  I was up with the dawn. Barney Weber had been up even earlier and started the coffee boiling on the stove. I poured a cup from the gallon pot, stepped out onto the porch and watched the new sun flush the high snow-capped peaks. There was a frost on the long grass and a chill breeze stirring. I saw Barney across the yard, returning from the stable. There was a worried look in the freckle-faced kid’s eyes. He stamped up onto the porch to stand beside me for a minute.

  ‘Couldn’t sleep?’ I asked.

  ‘Not a minute. I started the coffee and went out to look in on the horses.’

  ‘I thank you for both,’ I told him. The pine-trees were beginning to sway in the stiffening wind that always rose with the dawn up here. I glanced again at Barney’s nervous eyes and then turned my gaze away toward the vast distances.

  I told him quietly, ‘Barney, what I said last night still goes. Any man who wants to leave can. Without any questions. Without condemnation.’

  He hesitated a long time before he answered, our eyes still distant from each other’s. ‘It’s just … Tom, men are going to die up here.’

  ‘Likely.’

  ‘Maybe a lot of men. I don’t want to be one of them.’

  ‘Nor do I, Barney.’ I did meet his eyes directly now and said, ‘I told you why I was going to fight this out. That doesn’t mean you have to. You can ride out now, leave before any of the others are awake, with no shame attached to it – if you have a mind to.’

  I wondered if that was not why he had been out in the stable, saddling his pony, hoping to slip away while we were still asleep. ‘I’m kinda frightened, Tom,’ he murmured.

  ‘So am I,’ I admitted. ‘Every man makes his own choices. You do what you think is right.’

  Again the wind gusted coldly. There were clouds massing in the high canyons and I wondered if it would rain again. My coffee had grown cold before I reached the bottom of my cup. I waited for Barney to tell me what he wanted to do. The truth of it.