The Guns of Hanging Lake

by Short, Luke;

  Well, drunk or not, untrustworthy or not, Traf thought, Dickey had brought him the pieces that had put the puzzle together.

  18

  The rain held on through the night and into the next day. Dickey had come down with a cold, so he had to borrow a bottle of Traf’s whiskey to fortify himself on the ride with Traf to Bucksaw. On the whole, it was as miserable a ride as Traf could remember. As they came down from the high country to the prairie, every depression held a sheet of water dappled by the still falling rain.

  While he rode, Traf reviewed what Dickey had told him yesterday afternoon. There were many questions that remained unanswered, because Dickey hadn’t stayed sober long enough to answer them, and he was well on his way to getting drunk again. But miserable or not, he must answer them.

  Traf said to him, “Russ, you said yesterday that the help at Braden’s big house had quit. Did Gore pay them?”

  “I never asked that, but I don’t reckon so. If he couldn’t pay the crew, he couldn’t pay the help, could he?”

  “So the house is empty?”

  “Tom said they’d quit, so I reckon it is.” He hiccuped, and glanced at Traf with an alcoholic curiosity. “What if it is empty?”

  “Well, a man could break in there without a couple of women screaming for help.”

  “You aim to?” Dickey asked in a puzzled voice, and added, “Remember, you’re talkin’ to a deputy sheriff.”

  “I’d thought about it,” Traf said calmly.

  Dickey was silent a moment, and Traf could hear the hushed sound of raindrops striking his slicker.

  “Not to steal anything,” Dickey said. “That don’t sound like you. Then what for?”

  “From one of those high windows a man with binoculars could get a pretty close look at the buildings and corrals, couldn’t he?”

  Dickey frowned. “Sure, but why?” he asked, and then he sneezed.

  “You said Gore let the crew go, but he’d be bringin’ in some men on his own. What if one of them is Braden’s killer?”

  “He wouldn’t show himself,” Dickey said.

  “He would if he believed Caskie was dead, and Gore’s sure to tell him.”

  Dickey thought about this and then said, “You put Caskie with binoculars at one of the windows, is that it?”

  Traf nodded. “As soon as we know he’s there, you go out with Caskie and make the arrest.”

  Dickey was silent for a long moment; and then he said, “Sounds like it’s worth a try. Sure, why not?”

  He fumbled the bottle out of his slicker pocket and took a long drink. He held the bottle up and looked at Traf inquiringly. Traf shook his head and Dickey tucked the bottle away.

  By the time they reached Bucksaw in mid-afternoon, Dickey was thoroughly drunk again. They reined in at the head of the lane to the house and Traf saw that Dickey was swaying in his saddle.

  “I think you better put off meetin’ Caskie, Russ. If Mrs. Barrick sees you, she’ll order you off the place.”

  “Yeah,” Dickey agreed. “Bring him over to the office later.” Then he asked, “When do you and him figure on hittin’ Bar B?”

  “Tomorrow night. Is there a dog around the place?”

  Russ thought a moment. “Used to be, but I reckon he belonged to one of the hands. He wasn’t there yesterday.”

  Traf nodded and Dickey put his horse in motion, heading for Indian Bend and bed. Traf rode down the lane past the house and stalled his horse in the barn; afterwards he went to the back porch of the house. He had taken off his hat and slicker and was shaking them when Sophie opened the door.

  “I didn’t even think you’d try to make it today, Traf.”

  “Isn’t Benjy due back today?”

  “That’s right. But Uncle Asa and I could have met him. Come in.”

  Traf threw his wet slicker and hat on a porch chair and followed Sophie into the kitchen. She was wearing an apron over a maroon, long-sleeved dress, and Traf immediately caught the good smell of cooking apples.

  She went over to the cupboard, got down some cups and saucers, filled the cups with coffee at the stove, and came over to the table and sat down across from Traf.

  “Why did you really come in today, Traf? Not to meet Benjy, did you?”

  “Well, you’re going to take Caskie with you to meet the train, aren’t you?”

  “Wouldn’t it look strange if I didn’t? After all, the story is he came here to see Benjy.”

  “Then how are you going to get it across to Benjy that Caskie’s his uncle? There may be people watching, certainly Len Stapp.”

  “I’ve thought about that,” Sophie admitted. “When Benjy gets off the train I could throw my arms around him and whisper it to him.”

  Traf smiled faintly. “That news would hit the saloon before the train pulled out. All of a sudden you hug your foreman when the whole town knows he’s been wanting to marry you since you cut off your pigtails. If you hugged him, he’d faint.”

  Sophie smiled ruefully. “Oh, I know it, but what other way is there?”

  “Let me do it.”

  Sophie looked at him with skepticism. “And the whole town knows you and Benjy aren’t very friendly. Why would you be meeting him?”

  “Why, to pick up the bank draft for the beef I shipped. He’ll have it.”

  “Of course,” she said. “Oh, Traf, would you go in my place?”

  “That’s why I came in today.”

  “Well, that’s settled then. Now, what’s been happening, Traf? I feel left out of everything. Has Dickey showed up at your place?”

  “Yesterday. Good and drunk. But he brought some news, Sophie.” Traf told her of Dickey’s talk with Gore and Gore’s stated reason for sending the men after Caskie. Dickey, as ordered, had told Gore that Caskie had been killed in the fight and had been buried along with the others, and Gore seemed to believe him. But the real news was that Gore had let the crew go and would hire a skeleton crew of his own.

  Traf then told Sophie what he had deduced from this information: that Gore had set the stage for a large-scale rustling scheme. Nothing else made sense of firing the crew, for Braden’s bank would willingly advance money to pay them.

  Sophie listened intently, her coffee forgotten. When Traf had finished, she was silent a moment, her dark eyes brooding. Then she said, “Tony’s killer should show in that new crew, shouldn’t he, Traf?”

  “Why not? The only man that can identify him he thinks is dead.”

  “What do we do now?” Sophie asked.

  “Let’s get Benjy first,” Traf said.

  “Oh, heavens, I forgot!” Sophie rose. “Let me get into some warm clothes, Traf. I’ll only be a minute.”

  She left the room, and Traf thought, What do we do now? That’s a good question. With Dickey’s information that the big house at Bar B was empty, the idea of putting Caskie there with glasses could be carried out. That is, it could be if Dickey on his long binge had the correct information from Gore. Dickey was pretty much of a nothing, an unreliable drunk. But they had trusted him thus far, and he had not betrayed the trust … or had he? How had Gore managed to get men on Caskie’s trail before they were on it? Stapp knew what Benjy’s telegram said, but so did Dickey. Which one of them had passed on the information?

  Traf, finding his coffee cold, went over to the sink, threw the coffee in it, and poured himself a new cup. As he went back to the table, Maud Barrick entered the kitchen. She greeted him coldly and Traf said pleasantly, “Fine afternoon, isn’t it?”

  Mrs. Barrick came over to the table, put her hands on the back of a straight chair, and said, “Trafton, what have you done to Sophie?”

  Traf noted she was gripping the chair so tightly that her fingers were white, and her dark eyes held an undisguised anger.

  “Done? How?” he asked.

  “She defies me in everything. I told her to wait until after my nap and I’d help her with the applesauce. She went right ahead without me. I just now told her it was such a foul day she
should let you meet Benjy. She’s dressing now to go to meet him. She even ordered the buggy hitched when I told her not to go. I ask you again, what have you done to her to set her against me?”

  “It’s not what I’ve done, Maud. It’s what you’ve done,” Traf said.

  “Explain that!” Maud Barrick said sharply.

  “I aim to. You’ve sheltered her and bossed her and protected her the way you would a kitten, Maud. These last few days she’s been out from under you. She must like the feeling.”

  “But she acts as if she hates me.”

  “She doesn’t hate you. She just hates the things you tell her to do, but mostly the way you tell her.”

  “She’s my child. I have the right.”

  “She’s your child, but not a child. She’s twenty-four years old, not twelve.”

  “I suppose you’ve been telling her that?”

  “I told her that when she gave me back my ring two years ago.”

  “But what happened on that trip, that dreadful trip, to change her?”

  “Why, she was scared most of the time, for one thing. She slept on the ground, and she ate mighty sorry grub. She slept in dirty clothes alongside three stinking men. She was shot at. She saw men killed. Wouldn’t all that change you?”

  “All that did change me,” Maud Barrick said almost sadly. “I swore none of it would ever happen to a child of mine.”

  “If there’s no fire, there’s no steel, Maud,” Traf said gently.

  The sound of Sophie coming down the stairs silenced them. Mrs. Barrick, her eyes sad and despairing, moved over to the stove as Sophie entered. Sophie was wearing a man’s rubber raincoat over a dark suit. She had tied a scarf around her head to protect her hair.

  “Uncle Asa’s coming,” Sophie said. “I saw him from the upstairs window. Let’s go, Traf.” She came around the table and both of them started for the back door.

  “Don’t forget to get the sugar, Sophie,” Mrs. Barrick said.

  “And the bolt goods and the thread and the writing paper and the work gloves,” Sophie said calmly. “No, I won’t forget, mother.”

  Mrs. Barrick gave Traf a look that seemed to say, “See what I mean.” It was as if she’d spoken the words. Traf only nodded.

  On the back porch, Traf got into his slicker, put on his hat, and they hurried to the buggy halted at the gate. Traf’s horse and Caskie’s were tied behind the buggy. Caskie slid to the far side of the seat to give Sophie the near side. Traf noted as they hurried through the rain that Caskie had covered the saddle of his horse with a slicker and the saddle on Traf’s horse with an old tarp. As Traf handed Sophie into the buggy, he said, “Hello, Uncle Asa.”

  Caskie brought a false balefulness into his eyes and said in that gravelly, high-pitched voice, “After all, it is my name.”

  Traf grinned. “That’s right, Uncle Asa,” and Caskie grinned back.

  19

  Traf left Caskie’s horse tied to the buggy, put the tarp in the buggy trunk and closed the lid, untied his horse, and mounted. The road to town was a river of shiny mud, and Traf kept his horse at the rear wheel so as not to splash mud on Sophie and Caskie. Traf heard Sophie say, “You didn’t have to hitch up, Uncle Asa. I saw you, you know.”

  “It was somethin’ to do,” Caskie said. This wait is getting the old boy restless, Traf thought.

  Caskie let Sophie off at Pemberton’s Store and then he and Traf went to the feed stable to shelter their horses. Afterwards, they sloshed through the mud back to the depot. Sophie, Caskie said, wouldn’t come over to the depot. They would find her in Pemberton’s.

  Inside the depot, which held half a dozen people waiting to meet the train, Traf led Caskie over to the window behind which Len Stapp was writing at his desk. “Making a guess, Len?” Traf asked.

  “She’ll be close to on time,” Stapp answered. It was a dull day for Stapp, and now he rose and came over to the window.

  “This is Benjy’s uncle, Len. Name of Asa Hardy.” The two men shook hands and Traf watched Stapp. There was no hint of recognition on his face.

  Now Stapp looked at Traf. “Ever find that old coot you was looking for, Traf?”

  “Never did,” Traf said. Stapp’s question reminded him of the speculation he and Sophie and Dickey had made in the tunnel at Hanging Lake as to how the men hunting Caskie knew he had got off at Kean’s Ferry. He remembered Dickey saying the information had undoubtedly come from Stapp. “Len, did Tom Gore know we were hunting the old boy?”

  Stapp frowned and said, “Not from me, Traf.”

  “You tell it around so he could find out from somebody else?”

  “And get myself thrown in jail and lose my job? On Sheriff’s Office business, I got to keep my mouth real shut.”

  “Sure,” Traf said easily. Stapp sounded virtuous enough to be lying, he thought. Well, why not? He himself had just lied to Stapp. At any rate, Stapp, who had just shaken hands with Caskie, had not recognized him.

  As Stapp was about to speak in elaboration, they heard the distant whistle of the train. Stapp turned immediately, moved over to his slicker and hat hanging on a nail, and put them on. Taking down a message hoop from a nail on the wall, he went to his desk, picked up the paper he had been writing on, folded it and pinned it to the hoop, and then opened the office door that led out under the platform. He stood there looking up the tracks.

  Traf touched Caskie’s arm and said, “Let’s go.”

  They headed for the platform door and Traf said in a low voice, “We got an audience, old-timer. You stay by the door here out of the rain. I’ll meet Benjy and bring him over to you.”

  Caskie only nodded, opened the door and stepped outside. They were followed by a couple of women who put up umbrellas. Traf followed. The overhang of the depot roof provided a short stretch of shelter from the rain. Traf looked up the tracks and saw that the train was closer than he’d thought it would be, probably because the rain muffled its whistle.

  Stapp moved out to the edge of the platform, carrying the message hoop. The engine coasted past the water tower, and as it approached the platform Stapp raised his hoop. As the engine eased by, the fireman extended his arm from the cab window and let the momentum of the train run his arm through the loop of the hoop, which Stapp then released. The locomotive coasted by and then the freight cars passed at an ever-slowing pace. When the lone passenger car in front of the caboose approached the platform, the train ground to a clanking creep.

  Traf moved out into the rain, and saw Benjy Schell, warbag over his shoulder, standing on the car platform above the brakeman on the lowest step. Stapp, Traf noticed, had moved out of the rain, but the trouble was, he had moved over to stand beside Caskie. This’ll have to be good, Traf thought.

  Then the train stopped and the brakeman stepped down. The square-faced, square-bodied Benjy Schell, dressed in the same range clothes he had left in, followed him to the platform.

  “Hi, Traf,” Benjy called unenthusiastically in answer to Traf’s wave. They did not offer to shake hands.

  “Hello, city slicker,” Traf said, at the same time noting that the brakeman had moved a short ways down the platform and was stooping to look at the car’s axle while some people got off the car.

  Traf said quickly, “That man beside Stapp is your Uncle Asa Hardy, Benjy. Shake hands with him and hug him and talk family until we get away from Stapp.”

  Benjy looked over Traf’s shoulder, saw Caskie, and said sourly, “What is this?”

  “Sophie said to smile and go over to him. Now, make it good. Give me your warbag.”

  Immediately Benjy craned his neck, then smiled and called, “Uncle Asa! Well, I’ll be damned!” He handed Traf his warbag and brushed past him and, hand extended, he moved over toward Caskie, Traf following.

  “Surprised, Benjy?” Caskie said, putting out his hand. They shook hands warmly, and Benjy put an arm around Caskie’s thin shoulders and gave him an affectionate hug. The train passengers and the people meeting them looked inc
uriously at this show of affection as they passed.

  “You bet I am, Uncle Asa. What are you doin’ down here?”

  “Sold some horses east of here. Figured I might as well see how you were doin’.”

  “Well, I’m eatin’,” Benjy said. “How’s Aunt Harriet?”

  “Kind of poorly, but she’s gettin’ around,” Caskie said.

  “And Cousin Minnie?”

  “She’s with us still. Don’t look like she’ll marry, Benjy.”

  Stapp, who had heard enough of this, said, “Hi, Benjy,” turned, and went into the depot.

  When he had closed the door, Benjy said, “Who the hell are you, Uncle Asa?”

  “Let’s go get a drink,” Traf cut in. “That looked pretty good.”

  “Good for what?” Benjy asked.

  “I’ll tell you in the saloon,” Traf said.

  Benjy turned up the collar of his jacket and the three of them hurried around the corner of the depot and cut across the mire of the street. The train began to pull out before they reached the Stockmen’s House saloon. Indian Bend looked like a deserted town, for there was not a person in sight, and not even a dog or a horse.

  Except for a couple of cowhands at the long bar, the barroom too was deserted. Traf gestured toward a far table and Benjy and Caskie headed for it while Traf went up to the bar. The balding bartender left the punchers and came over to him, saying, “How are you, Traf?”

  “Kind of wet, Tim. Give me a bottle of labeled whiskey, half a dozen cigars, and some glasses.”

  The bartender took a tray from the back bar and assembled the whiskey, glasses, and cigars. As Traf reached in his pocket for money, he said idly, “A little quieter today than the day roundup ended, isn’t it?”

  Tim grinned. “Damn, I missed that. I hadn’t come to work yet.”

  “Did you work that night, Tim?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Did Dickey come in that night?”

  Tim answered with a question, “It was you and him that started that free-for-all, wasn’t it?”

  “Me, mostly.”