Black Wind Pass

by Rusty Davis

  “Those Lewis people paid you to kill Jackson?”

  “Luce, I didn’t kill him. I got no reason to kill him. Them Lewis women gonna have their own protection and it ain’t me. Anyhow, your husband was going to sit down and talk range limits with them. Why would they hurt him when they were waitin’ for that to happen?”

  Her eyes were snapping angry; not a trace of a tear or mourning. She turned to Easy. “Well? Is he telling me the truth or not, Easy? What’s this about range limits?”

  “I don’t know, ma’am. The boss and one of them Lewis women met the other day in the storm; he was telling me something about it yesterday. Don’t know what he was thinkin’ on that, ma’am. Had a look at your husband, ma’am. No proof this man did it; no proof he didn’t other than his word, whatever that’s worth. Don’t think nobody’s enough of a fool to kill a man and bring his body to his ranch. You that much a fool, Carrick? You figure maybe she’d protect you? That how it is?”

  “Mr. Thompson!” Carrick watched Lucinda Jones, whom he knew as a flirty, almost giggly, girl, stand tall and proud. Her voice ripped through the house. It could flay a man’s soul from the sound alone. “If you have something to say about me and my conduct as Jackson’s wife and now his widow, say it now! Then I can remind you who, as of this very moment, is now running Double J.”

  Easy Thompson hemmed and hawed and looked a lot at the floor. “Didn’t mean nothin’, ma’am. Sorry.”

  “I want to be alone,” she said. “Go! Both of you! Get out of my sight!” The men left. They passed Petersen on the way, pasty-faced and sweating. “You, too!” they heard her roar a moment later.

  Easy Thompson gripped Carrick’s arm hard as they stepped back outside. In the distance, someone was calling out his name. Not a good sign. “I want to hear the whole story.”

  “Told you the whole story, Easy. Woke up. Heard shots. No idea where they came from. None at all. Found your boss.”

  “Was he riding to see you?”

  “Me?” The skepticism in Carrick’s voice was genuine. “Don’t know he knew where I lived.”

  “He did,” Thompson said. “He was talking about riding up to the pass near you a couple days ago. Talked about seeing what was going on at that old shack. Maybe he came to see you and you shot him dead and you’re trying to cover it up with some tale.”

  “Not me, Easy. Boss and I didn’t walk away friends the other day, but I respected the man. Sounded like he and Reb had some kind of understanding the other day, but I can’t say I got the straight of it. I don’t take a gun like the one that killed him and hide out like some sniper and take pot shots. Not much sign to read where I found him. If you say he was heading out that way, maybe he was, but I can’t say for certain sure which direction he was facing when he was shot, or where he was going. The horse had wandered a bit. He was blown clear off it. Somebody hit him, then hit him after he was dead and down. Hit him twice like that. Look at the holes in him, Easy. Big holes. Everything I own is on me. Somebody had a buffalo gun or some such. Not me. I never had one. I killed your men when they pushed it, Easy. Jackson pushed everybody, but he hadn’t pushed me yet.”

  Easy Thompson’s glare examined every inch of Carrick, as if there would be evidence of a lie seeping through somewhere. He breathed in and out, as if there was a whiff of a lie he could catch on the wind. “Don’t trust you. You come and go like some ghost. You got to the boss the other day without anyone seeing you. No trick at all to get him on the open range. He’s been changin’ about them Lewis women and I don’t know why.”

  “And if I wanted him dead I could have done it the day I first came here and left with none of you the wiser.”

  Easy Thompson was not quite convinced. He had been loyal to Jackson Jones since the day Jackson picked him to run Double J, and he gave his life to the ranch. The man in front of him was a threat. He was sure of that. Carrick watched Easy judge him, weigh him, and measure him.

  “Longer you stay, longer I got to worry about a hangin’,” Easy grumbled. “Better git. Take the back road out the pasture. Don’t want the men to know until you’re gone. I hate vigilantes. Jackson Jones gave me everything, Carrick. I was about as far down and out as a man can get, and long past the age when a man gets second chances, Carrick. The boss hired me and made me his foreman because he trusted me to do the right thing; the thing he would want done. That’s the only reason you’re breathin’ now. He would not want me to kill you if you didn’t do it. But I’m not convinced. Gonna have a few boys go out and see what there is to see, Carrick, and if I see you anywhere near the place where he was shot, I’ll take that as an admission of guilt and you hang. They come up to that shack of yours, they got the right to look around. Clear?”

  Carrick bristled. He had nothing to hide, but he had his rights.

  “Lookin’s one thing, Easy. Touchin’s another. They come when I’m not there, they’re thieves and I got the right to shoot them. Hear?”

  Two wills collided in silence.

  “Don’t think about ridin’ off,” Easy threatened, looming closely into Carrick’s face. “If you leave this range, Carrick, you can’t go far enough I won’t hunt you down.”

  “Not leavin’, Easy. Not yet, anyhow. Got work to do first.” Defiance glared back.

  “Git then.”

  Easy Thompson called the riders to the bunkhouse. While they were going one way, Carrick saddled a well-fed Beast and rode slowly out of Double J. Now that he was, for the moment, safe, he felt the regrets flow through him. Jackson Jones was a giant of a personality, a man who was going to stamp Wyoming in his image. It might have been for the better; it might have been for the worse. At the end, he thought Jones was starting to understand the character of the Lewis women and respect them. Now, he would never know.

  He wondered what Jones’s death would do to the rivalry with Lazy F. Lazy F? He’d forgotten Francis Oliver entirely. He rubbed the back of his neck and shook his head from side to side. He’d probably managed to get all the ranches in the valley mad at him the same day, but he might as well play it out. Anyhow, Reb and Jessie needed to know that with Jackson Jones dead, anything could happen next.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Rebecca Lewis never much liked milking the cows, but with the few hands they had out checking to see what animals they still had, she was the entire crew to do all the chores. Aunt Jess did what she could, but Aunt Jess also did all the cooking. She had hoped Carrick would help, since he was supposed to be working for them even if all he got were meals, but like all men he’d rather ride a horse than get off of it and work. Usually, he at least showed up, but today he hadn’t even ridden in from the shack where he was holing himself up. Things between them were not really clear. She knew he cared about her; she cared about him. But what was that compared with everything going on around them? It wasn’t the time for talking about all that. Maybe when the ranch was safe, if it was ever safe.

  She was grumbling to the cows about men and their foolishness and such when she saw the rider coming fast up the trail. Francis Oliver plain as day, alone. He never rode alone. With Double J trying to push him out, and men like the Crowleys riding around, it was only common sense that he went about armed and escorted. Alone? He must be up to something sneaky; must have thought one rider would never be spotted, whoever it was he was trying to hide from.

  Reb fumed. She had one more cow, and a cow won’t give milk any faster than it will. She finished, dumped the milk in the buckets they used to store it until they made cheese and butter, and ran to the house. Nobody was going to bother Aunt Jess when Reb was around—especially Francis Oliver.

  She burst into the door and stopped cold. Francis Oliver was not only alone, he was wearing a suit—a real Eastern style suit with a vest—and was holding a bunch of flowers. His hair was slicked down with something to the point where it looked silly. He had a patch of dirt on one knee of the pants of the suit. Aunt Jess had a look on her face that Reb had never seen before. At first, she was a
fraid Aunt Jess was really sick, maybe apoplexy caused by something Oliver said to her.

  Reb strode over to confront him. She wished she had grabbed her rifle on the way. “What are you doing to Aunt Jess? Get out of here before I kick you back to your own range where you belong.”

  “What are you doing here?” Oliver replied. “Carrick promised me that he would . . . Drat the man!”

  “I live here and what did Carrick say about me? And what are you two in cahoots about? Get off my land!”

  “Reb!” Aunt Jess was shouting. Aunt Jess never shouted. “Could we sit, please? Francis? Rebecca? Please?”

  They went into what passed for the parlor. It had a padded chair Aunt Jess used for her Good Book reading and two other delicate ones that had come with them from Tennessee and two big solid ones that had been there. Reb wondered for the first time if Carrick had made them. Aunt Jess took the padded chair. Oliver sat on a delicate one. Reb perched in one of the heavy ones, wondering if the fragile wooden chair could handle Oliver’s bulk and hoping that it couldn’t.

  “Now,” said Aunt Jess, with finality in her voice. “Reb should understand what is being discussed, Francis. This is her home. I am the only family she has in the world, and this is a very important decision.”

  “As long as she don’t point no guns.”

  “No guns, I promise.”

  “She can stay.”

  “Well, thank you for letting me stay in my own home!” Aunt Jess held up a hand. Reb stopped, chastened.

  Aunt Jess turned to face Reb, who did not notice the slight tears in Aunt Jess’s eyes and the almost dazed look that was still on her face. “Mr. Oliver has asked me to marry him, Reb. What do you think of that?”

  “You’d do anything to get this land, you conniver!”

  “Rebecca Lewis!” Jessie could not restrain her impatience. Did Reb know how insulting it was to assume that no one could want to marry her for herself but only for the land of which she more or less had custody for the past nine years? She realized again how true it was that the young never understood anything except themselves. Even her Reb. She would not allow sadness to tarnish this moment, this day. “Reb, I know that you have suspected Francis of many things and that you are looking out for my best interests. I think that while the land may be important to Francis, I think that Mr. Oliver and I have perhaps not understood one another in these recent weeks. Am I right, Francis?”

  “Ma’am, I’ve wanted to find the right way to say it so you wouldn’t laugh. I ain’t a spring chicken and I don’t have fancy stuff around the house but it gets awful lonely over there and I guess it does here, too, and it ain’t right that two people are lonely when we can do somethin’ about it.”

  Reb was spellbound. Aunt Jess looked like a silly girl at a county fair. But she looked happy. Very happy. Happy in a funny way Reb had never seen before. Reb was irrationally angry. How could Francis Oliver make Aunt Jess this happy when Reb couldn’t? How come no man ever said or did anything that made her feel this way? She wanted to throw the man out, but she couldn’t do that to Aunt Jess. She sat and fumed. It was a while before she understood what they were saying.

  “Reb, I have told Francis I will marry him, but I do not know that we have yet settled at a date.” Jess did not tell Reb about the lonely nights. About wondering if her life had a purpose once Reb married. About her quiet thoughts she never shared with her niece. She could not explain that Oliver’s proposal seemed like fate intervening.

  “Been waitin’ a long time, Jessie,” spoke up Oliver. “June, now. Summer’s good for weddin’s.”

  Hoofbeats drummed outside. Reb rose to see what else could possibly be going wrong. Carrick burst in.

  “Done it myself!” said Oliver. “Fat lot of help you were.”

  “Jessie?” asked Carrick.

  “Everything is fine, Mr. Carrick!”

  “It is not,” burst out Reb, who turned on Carrick. “Is this some plan of yours? Pretending about me? Is that snake paying you?”

  “Reb,” Jess interjected, “I know this is a very sudden announcement, but I think I knew what Francis was trying to say, but I wasn’t really sure because, like a man, until today he never actually said it!”

  Anger overflowed restraint. “You get married. What about me? We live here, Aunt Jess! Lazy F’s run down. That house is a shack. I’m not getting run out of here. This is mine!”

  “Reb, let me think! Never thought at my age I would be asked to get married again. Now, girl, let an old woman enjoy herself.” Carrick wanted to remind her that she wasn’t old, but figured keeping his mouth shut would be in his best interests.

  Reb stalked out of the house, slamming the door behind her.

  “I got to see to her,” Carrick said. Looking at Oliver, he said commandingly, “No weddin’ dates. Nothin’. Not until Reb is settled.”

  “Mr. Carrick? I’ve been all of her family for so long, she needs some time. You might want to wait a while until she cools off. Francis, we can wait for her to come around and understand.”

  Oliver’s smile was forced. “Of course, Jessie,” he said. He glared at Carrick. “Go ahead, son. I won’t abduct her!”

  Reb was standing at the edge of the horse barn. “What do you get out of this?” she flung at him as he approached. “I should have known you were up to something. Trying to pretend you liked me when you were partners with him! Another one like him, are you? Trying to get your range any way you can?”

  “Reb, listen for a minute!”

  “Why are you helping him?”

  “Not helpin’ him. I went to Lazy F the other day. Your aunt knew. He told me about this. He said he was embarrassed to ask in front of you. I was supposed to take you ridin’, let him have his say. That’s all. What if he means it?”

  “Aunt Jess should hit him over the head with his flowers.”

  “That would do a lot of damage,” Carrick remarked drily.

  Reb’s eyes were wet. “Maybe you think all of this is funny, but how would you feel, cowboy, if some old geezer was proposing to your aunt and you can’t even get a decent cowboy to come around and then you come around and now . . . I don’t know what you are up to now! How do you think that makes me feel? The girl that nobody wants! What do you know about feeling that way? And now I’m going to lose everything I ever had and end up with nothing.”

  “That ain’t the way it is. Listen, Reb, you . . . I mean you got to see, girl. Can’t you understand, Reb? I . . . I mean . . . you . . . I . . .”

  “You what?” Snapping mad eyes bored holes through any good intentions he may have had.

  There were things Carrick didn’t have a clue how to express about feelings for a woman, and being face to face with the woman herself while she was so angry she was about spitting nails didn’t make it easier. Her glare could have melted iron. Carrick did what all cowboys do in the face of a woman’s wrath—change the subject.

  “Um, Oliver claimed he was after your Aunt Jess, not the land. He said it over and over. Maybe . . . Look! I figger we tell him you want a paper with writing saying you control the land when your Aunt Jess marries him; maybe we see if he meant it. Then you are protected.”

  Mistrust was plain on Reb’s face. She knew he had something else he was going to say. She was mad at him. He could have said something nice that men say to girls, whatever that was. No! She really didn’t want to hear anything he had to say. Then she thought about it. If Aunt Jess was off her feet because Francis Oliver surprised her, she’d protect Aunt Jess better than ever. She was sure Oliver was a sneak and a liar, but Aunt Jess was lonesome and Carrick was every bit as much a sentimental fool as every other cowboy on the range—either that or he was Oliver’s partner in trying to fool both women into giving up their ranch. It was up to her to do the thinking.

  Leaving Carrick to follow in her wake, Reb stalked back into the house. Carrick all but snickered when Reb announced the very specific terms under which she would allow her Aunt Jess to be married.
Francis Oliver was not very happy, but once Jessie instantly agreed he had no choice.

  When all of the angry words were over, Carrick dropped the news. “Jackson Jones is dead,” he said, looking straight at Oliver, who seemed as surprised by the news as the rest.

  “How?” said Reb. “He was fine the other day in the storm.”

  “Shot down. Cold-blooded murder. Killed this morning.”

  “I was on the ranch until I came here, Carrick. Ask my men. Ask any of them. Ask all of them! Never went near his ranch.”

  “He wasn’t killed there; he was killed out on the range in the open. Anyone could have done it. Not me you got to answer to, Oliver. You got to answer to Double J. Bet they’re going to come calling real soon.”

  Francis Oliver was pale and shaking. Alibi or not, he would be the major suspect unless he could prove otherwise, prove it fast and prove it well. With expressed regrets he left the ranch. As Oliver rode away, Carrick noticed the wistful look on Jess’s face and the sad and angry look on Reb’s visage. Maybe there was something he ought to do about it, that is, if the range didn’t erupt in violence.

  Even when the struggle for who owns a piece of land is waged at its fullest, the demands of a ranch can distract all comers. Despite fears that Jones’s killing would launch a war, days went by with no new provocations from Double J—no answers either, Reb remarked archly on yet another unsuccessful attempt by Carrick to talk to her. Francis Oliver had stopped by to say that Easy Thompson had been there to see him, and accepted Oliver’s alibi. There had been a railroad man at the Lazy F that same morning, and, if the man was telling the truth, there would not have been time for Oliver to ride to the hills and back to Lazy F.

  Francis Oliver had agreed to let Reb write the terms of the agreement for the land, amazed a woman could write and seemingly more than a little afraid of words on a paper. Reb had labored on the words that would protect her. She thought about asking Carrick, once, but decided she wasn’t sure she could trust what he might say. She was, as usual, on her own.