The Guns of Hanging Lake

by Short, Luke;

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  The Guns of Hanging Lake

  Luke Short

  Prologue

  When the loaded cattle train pulled into Indian Bend from the south on this chill October night, its engine halted at the water tank past the depot. The clamor of the cattle in the long line of stock cars behind made a bedlam of the midnight hour.

  Len Stapp in the lamplit bay of the depot cursed and hunched closer to his key, whose rattling was drowned out by the noise, and he knew he would have to ask for a repeat after the train pulled out.

  The caboose at the far end of the train was lamplit, and when its door opened the lamp inside threw a dim rectangle of light on the caboose platform. This light increased as a man in worn and dusty range clothes carrying a lantern stepped through the door and halted with his back to the handrail. Following him came a young woman dressed in a divided skirt and buckskin jacket that were as dusty as the man’s clothes were. Holding up the lantern and moving toward the steps, the man said, “Better go down backwards, Sophie.”

  This the girl did, and once on the ground she looked up at him. The lantern light was unkind to her tired face, but it took nothing away from her dark eyes, her wide friendly mouth, and narrow, slightly upturned nose. The dim reflection from the caboose’s red tail lamps made her face appear flushed now.

  Above the din of the bawling cattle, Sophie Barrick called to him, “Take care, Benjy. And don’t drink all of the whiskey in Kansas City.”

  “Made a promise I’d do it. Take care of yourself, Sophie.”

  She waved to him and turned away. Instead of heading for the faraway depot, she cut out into the night for the dark street that paralleled the tracks.

  When Benjy turned to re-enter the caboose there was a man standing in the doorway. He was a tall, stooped old man dressed in a filthy buckskin jacket and pants that held buckskin patches and he wore Indian moccasins whose tips curled up at the toes. His thick white hair needed cutting and his month’s beard was the same color as his hair, but it was patchy, giving him the appearance of a mangy dog. The skin of his upper face and forehead was weather-burned and he stank of whiskey and a decade of campfire smoke.

  “Sleep it off, old-timer?” Benjy asked.

  “Yes, damnit,” the old man grumbled in a high-pitched, gravelly voice. He pushed past Benjy and stepped down on the same side of the train as Sophie had. Halting, he breathed in the chill night air and then started for the distant depot, wondering where he could get a drink of water. He remembered draining the water bucket in the caboose before he went to sleep, but that was way back down the line and many hours ago.

  As old Caskie went down the long line of cars filled with bawling cattle, their racket flayed his raw nerves. He moved with an easy grace that belied his white hair, for he was by preference a walker in a land of riding men. As he moved up alongside the cars he could hear the soft clink of the double eagles in his pocket. He didn’t want to count them now, but by their very weight against his thigh he could tell that he hadn’t spent much of his modest bonanza on this drunk.

  When he reached the depot platform and mounted it, he saw by the light from the telegrapher’s lamp in the depot bay two men dressed in cowmen’s clothes talking. Caskie, intent on reaching the water tank before the train pulled out, paid them no attention. He had almost reached the far end of the platform when the train’s whistle blew, and Caskie, though he was seldom a train traveler, knew this was a signal that the train was about to pull out.

  Cursing, he turned and swiftly headed back for the caboose. The whistle seemed to stimulate the cattle to a more frantic bawling. As he passed the bay window he exchanged glances with the telegrapher inside, and then his attention shifted to the two men he had passed. One was now lying face down on the platform, the other kneeling by him.

  Caskie veered toward them and the kneeling man, aware of his presence, looked over at him.

  Caskie halted and called, “What’s the trouble?”

  The kneeling man stood up now, and Caskie in the light cast by the telegrapher’s lamp got a good look at him, noticing first the excitement and glitter in his green eyes. He was a swarthy man and stocky, wearing a sheepskin coat, old and buttonless. He was already moving as he called excitedly, “He’s had a heart attack! I better get the Doc!”

  He broke into a run just as the engine gave a tug, which in turn sent a clanking of the link-pin couplings down the line of cars, from one car to another.

  Caskie watched the man go around the depot corner, then he looked at the man lying on the platform. The train began to move and Caskie made a quick decision. He could do nothing to help the man with the heart attack, even if he stayed. If he remained here it would mean leaving his gear in the caboose and likely losing it forever. Besides, what business was this of his?

  The decision made, Caskie loped down the line of cars, which were already moving slowly forward. When he reached the caboose he swung up on the steps, then he turned. As the caboose passed the platform, old Caskie could see the body still sprawled on the planks. Why hadn’t the other fellow told the agent about the heart attack? While the caboose was pulling past the telegrapher’s window, Caskie hoped the man inside would look up so he could see Caskie pointing to the prostrate man. Caskie had his arm lifted, but the telegrapher did not raise his head as the caboose vanished into the night.

  1

  “You can see for yourself, Traf. It was done with a knife. It went in and up under the lowest rib.”

  “Looks like it,” Traf Kinnard agreed somberly. Abe Pemberton drew the blanket up so it covered the still young face. Tom Gore, the third man, turned away first and moved toward the wide doorway that led onto the loading platform of Pemberton’s Hardware Store. Traf and Pemberton came up and halted beside him in the doorway and all of them looked out into the sunny October noon.

  They were as dissimilar as three men could be. Pemberton, a small harried-looking merchant of fifty, whose white shirt sleeves were held up by black sleeve guards, came barely above the shoulders of Traf Kinnard, who was tall enough so that few men could look levelly into his wide-spaced amber-colored eyes. His was a long-jawed face under straight black hair, and at the moment the lips of his wide mouth were straight and grimly set. He was dressed in worn range clothes and his tan duck jacket, rain-shrunk from past weather, had a split seam that had been unable to contain his wide shoulders. He was a year over thirty, big-boned and solid but not heavy, and he gave the impression of a man who found it hard to be patient for very long.

  Tom Gore said, “You shipping the body back to England, Abe?”

  “We’ve got to get him underground, Tom. Maybe later when we know what the family wants.”

  Gore only nodded. He was a lean-faced, bleach-eyed Texan, all stringy muscles and angular bone. He wore range clothes similar to Kinnard’s—not new, not patched, but well used. A man of forty, his leathery face now held a look of quiet vindictiveness which was not strange, since he was the foreman of the ranch owned by the man lying dead in the dusky room behind them.

  Traf looked from one man to the other and asked, “Dickey back from roundup yet?”

  Pemberton said with distaste, “He’s back. Back in the saloon too. I can tell you as much about it as he can. All he knows is what I told him.”

  “Then tell me,” Traf said.

  Out of habit, Pemberton tugged at his shirt sleeves, which remained firmly anchored by the sleeve guards. “To begin with, all we’ve got is Len Stapp’s story, Traf. He was on night
shift at the telegraph. Snyder came in to relieve him at six this morning. Stapp didn’t go out the street door. He headed for the platform door to see if the cattle in that last train had messed up the depot platform. He almost tripped over young Braden. Dead. Him and Snyder carried Braden inside and laid him on one of the benches, then Stapp tried to find that damn deputy and couldn’t.”

  Gore said, “Dickey had to stay until the last critter was loaded.”

  “Yes,” Pemberton said. “Then Len Stapp came to me and I picked up the body.”

  Traf said impatiently, “How could Braden get knifed fifteen feet from Stapp, and Len not know it?”

  “All right,” Pemberton said calmly. “Just remember, this is Len’s story. Braden came in around midnight and asked if he could hop one of the stock trains to New Hope. Stapp told him to take the next one and never charged him fare. Young Braden went out on the platform to wait for the next train. Stapp forgot him.”

  “Anybody else on the platform?”

  “Not then, Stapp says. When the train come through and stopped for water, Stapp saw a man come from the caboose end. He crossed the platform toward the engine, but then the whistle blew. He turned around and started back for the caboose. Then he stopped to speak with someone on the platform.”

  “Braden?” Traf asked.

  “Stapp reckons so, but his back was to him and he didn’t even try and see.”

  “Did Stapp hear what the man said?” Traf asked.

  “Couldn’t. Not with the racket the cattle was makin’.”

  “What did this man look like?” Traf asked.

  “Stapp didn’t know him. Said he was white-haired, with a chopped-off white beard. Tall. Wore a buckskin jacket and Indian moccasins. Prospector, maybe. Wolfer, maybe, because he had a knife in his belt. Stapp figured he was ridin’ the caboose, because he was in a hurry to get back to the end of the train when it started.”

  Gore spat out onto the platform and then asked thinly, “You find any money on Braden?”

  “Plenty. I’ll turn it over to you, Tom.”

  Traf said, “Are you saying he killed him for money and didn’t have time to collect it, Tom?”

  “What else makes sense? And that don’t make much.”

  “Remember that row at roundup, Tom? Remember why Braden was takin’ the train?”

  Gore nodded. “To bring Sheriff Vance back here from New Hope.”

  “A lot of people heard him say he was going, didn’t they?” Traf asked.

  Gore confirmed this was so by a nod, and then Pemberton said, “What’s all this?”

  Traf was the one who answered. “Why, Dickey was brand referee. A lot of Dickey’s calls went against Tony Braden. Finally, Braden blew his top. He said he was leaving to bring in the sheriff.”

  Gore said, “When I got him alone, I told Tony to telegraph Sheriff Vance. Braden said he’d reported rustling of Bar B beef before and Vance hadn’t done a damn thing about it. He said he was going in and tell him face to face and bring him back. I told him to try the telegraph one more time. Just before he rode out of our camp he said he’d think about it.”

  “So he changed his mind about going in?” Pemberton asked.

  Gore shrugged. “Don’t sound like it, if he asked Stapp for a train ride.”

  “But to all those men that heard the row it sounded as if he was going in to bring Vance back, didn’t it?” Traf said.

  “Sure did,” Gore agreed. “And looks like that’s what he tried to do.”

  “So the whole damn roundup knew he was leaving.”

  “They sure did,” Gore said.

  “Then anybody rustling his beef and wanting to stop that trip could have knifed him?”

  “They sure could,” Gore agreed again.

  They were silent a moment, considering what had been said. Traf broke the silence. “When do you bury him?”

  “Tomorrow at two.”

  Traf nodded, turned, and went back through the storeroom into the store, walked down the nearest aisle and stepped out onto the boardwalk into bright sunshine.

  The harsh light of early afternoon was anything but kind to this small cattlemen’s supply point of Indian Bend. Across the dusty road was the depot where Anthony Braden’s body had been found. Since the railroad stock pens were at Lime Creek Flats ten miles to the south where the roundup always took place, the depot was only useful to house the telegraph office and to shelter an occasional passenger. All of Indian Bend lay this side of the tracks, and beyond the depot was unbroken prairie that stretched to the foothills of the Gabriels to the far west.

  Traf turned down the boardwalk heading for the two-story frame Stockmen’s House on the corner. Even though he had seen Tony Braden dead, it was still difficult for him to accept it. Three years ago, on the death of Traf’s father, he had returned from the north to take over K Cross. Anthony Braden, in Traf’s absence, had bought the old Finch spread and renamed it the Bar B, paying far too many English pounds for its vast acreage. The initial overpayment for land had been a mistake that young Braden had never been able to live down. He had been taken advantage of, and the people of the Indian Bend country saw no reason why they shouldn’t take advantage of him again and again. To begin with, his speech and his mannerisms were utterly foreign to them. In their eyes, he was a roistering gullible youngster who was paid to stay out of England—a remittance man.

  Traf remembered their first meeting, which occurred at a ford on the River Cheat some miles below the Bar B. Traf approached the ford, and at sight of a fisherman standing just below the shallow riffles he reined in to watch. Braden had a long delicate rod and he was fly-casting expertly and often, and to no avail. From the bank Traf could see what he was after, for the dorsel fins of several big fish were poking out of the shallow riffle.

  After watching for a few minutes, Traf put his horse into the shallow ford and, of course, scattered the fish. Young Braden was furious and said he was “bloody damn rude.” Traf explained that the trout he was after were German Browns and were spawning at this season, so they would not even take bait, let alone fly.

  That was the beginning of a real friendship. Tony Braden had turned out to be one of the most likable, well-read, hot-tempered, generous, and wild young men Traf had ever known. Over three years they had traded books, horses, opinions, and experiences until they were the firmest of friends.

  And now he was dead. Murdered.

  2

  The burden of the investigation of Braden’s murder was on Deputy Sheriff Russ Dickey’s shoulders, and if Traf knew his man, Dickey would shrug it off. Tony, as the youngest son of a titled British family, had been envied, resented, and put upon by most of Indian Bend, and by Dickey in particular.

  As Traf passed Parson’s General Store, he observed the line of cow ponies and buckboards racked from there to the corner doors of the Stockmen’s House. No wonder the street was empty, he thought. Everybody in the country was celebrating the finish of roundup.

  Long before Traf reached the Stockmen’s House bar, he could hear the babble of talk and laughter coming over and under the swing doors.

  When Traf shouldered through the doors, he halted inside just clear of them. This was a big, high-ceilinged room, with a bar to the right and half a dozen round tables for cards on the left. At the moment there was a fog of tobacco smoke that hung just over the heads of the men thronging the bar. Most of the chairs around the tables were filled, and Traf threaded his way through the crowd, speaking and nodding to the men who greeted him.

  As he had expected, Russ Dickey was there, seated at the rear table along with another man. Dickey was a big man of perhaps thirty-five with a heavy-jowled gross face. On his vest was the badge of the deputy sheriff of Ritchey County. Because the county seat of New Hope and its sheriff were forty miles away, Russ Dickey was in effect the only law in Indian Bend and the surrounding range. In Traf’s opinion, he was a man of arrogance and monumental stupidity.

  Dickey was talking to Clete Fannin, a
n old puncher Traf had known since childhood. Both men had glasses and bottles in front of them and were smoking cigars.

  When Dickey saw Traf, the expression on his smiling face altered subtly; his glance shifted back to his companion and his smile suddenly seemed strained. He’s remembering yesterday, Traf thought. When Traf halted by the table, Fannin looked up at him and said, “How are you, Traf?” in an amiable tone.

  “Good, Clete. Can I take Russ away from you for a minute?”

  Dickey, hearing this, said jovially, “Take a chair and tell me what’s bothering you, Traf.” Then he added, “Unless you want it private.”

  Traf hesitated only a moment, then said, “No, it isn’t private, Russ.”

  He pulled out a chair and sat down. The racket of the talk in the crowded room made him hitch his chair closer to Dickey, who gestured toward the glasses and bottles and cigars in the middle of the table.

  “Help yourself,” he said.

  Traf took a cigar. As he lit it he was conscious of Clete watching him with a careful curiosity.

  “Just came from Pemberton’s,” Traf began.

  Dickey nodded soberly. “Queer way to kill a man, ain’t it? I mean, queer for this country.”

  “Well, a knife doesn’t make any noise,” Traf observed. Then he asked, “You send word to the family, Russ?”

  “I telegraphed Sheriff Vance. He’ll do it.”

  “You got any notion who did it?”

  “Maybe. But not why.”

  “The why’s easy enough,” Traf said quietly. “Braden was aiming to bring Vance back here, and somebody didn’t want him to.”

  Dickey’s heavy face scowled. “You mean over Braden’s claim yesterday at roundup? That somebody was changing his brand?”

  Traf nodded. “Why else would he be hopping a freight at midnight? The whole country is rustling Bar B beef. You know it and I know it.”

  “Suspect it,” Dickey corrected.

  “Still, Braden’s dead,” Traf replied. His eyes remained on Dickey. “You said you’ve got a notion who did it, Russ. Well, who?”