The Hanging of Charlie Darke
Page 11
Wade fired another fusillade, shattering the glass in the window where he expected me to appear. I kept my head down until it was over then risked a quick look. He saw me and fired again.
‘Boot’s on the other foot,’ he shouted.
‘What d’ya mean, Wade?’
‘You’re in there with the dead people. I’ll tell the posse you killed them.’
‘It won’t work,’ I called. ‘They know I didn’t have anything to do with killing Charlie Darke or trying to ambush Annie.’
‘Perhaps so, but who are they going to believe killed my pa and brother? Me or you.’
‘You think I have some reason to kill them?’
‘You’re a saddle tramp who spotted an opportunity. All you had to do was stop Chet marrying Annie then step in yourself. Land and railway money there for the taking.’
‘Uh-uh, Wade. That doesn’t work. I was sent here by Annie’s uncle. Perhaps you didn’t know that but other people do. Besides, there are people in town who know of your connection with Cole Grant. He was a killer. It won’t take them long to tar you with the same brush. Besides which,’ I shouted, ‘your pa’s still alive.’
There was silence for a moment, then, with a less certain voice, he called back, ‘Guess I’ll just have to come in and finish both of you off before the posse gets here.’
All the while the conversation had been going on I’d been busy. I’d gone to take Duke Barton’s gun from its holster and found him dead. I rolled him half-way over and found the hole in his back that had done for him. There was a lot of blood on the floor under his body. I went back to the window and balanced his pistol against the frame with the barrel sticking out for Wade to see. I had just completed that task when Wade made his declaration of intent to ‘come in to finish us off.’
At the same moment I saw dust rising from the town trail. There wasn’t sufficient for it to be a hard-riding posse, but whoever it was, Wade hadn’t yet seen them. I could see him down by the water-trough reloading his rifle, every now and then raising his eyes to the house to make sure I wasn’t trying to make a break for it.
Then I recognized the rig that was approaching the ranch. It was Annie’s. I couldn’t let her ride into the gun battle without any warning. I fired a couple of shots at Wade Barton hoping she would have the sense to stop where she was until the fight was over. Wade fired back and I was showered with particles of glass and wood. I fired again, using Duke Barton’s gun, then chanced another look up the trail.
To my dismay, rather than the rig pulling in for safety, it seemed as though the horses had been whipped to a greater speed. Annie was in dreadful danger if she got within Wade’s rifle sights. I had to act immediately if I was to have any chance of saving her.
I fired towards the water-trough again and drew an answering two or three slugs. Then I dashed into the bedroom and out through the window, using the same escape route that Wade had used earlier. The water-trough was directly in front of the house so my journey from the back window, along the side to the front corner of the house, was undertaken unobserved. As I pressed myself against the rough timbers I could hear voices. It wasn’t Annie demanding to know what the shooting was all about, it was a man. I recognised Dan Bayles’s voice and recalled that I’d asked him to escort Annie home.
‘Stop that shooting, Wade,’ I heard him call, ‘and put down your gun.’
‘Can’t do that, Dan,’ Wade replied. ‘There’s a man in there just killed my pa and my brother.’
‘Killed your pa?’
‘That’s right. And now I’m going to kill him.’
‘That’s a job for the law, Wade.’
I didn’t catch Wade’s answer but his gun began to swing up on Dan Bayles.
‘Wade,’ I shouted. He spun, expecting me to be in the doorway. I shot him, thrice. Each bullet staggering him backwards until he crumpled in a heap beside Annie’s rig.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I remained in Beecher’s Gulch for several weeks after the killing of Wade Barton. On the first night I was offered the hospitality of the sheriff’s office, without the option of refusal. However, once Wade’s connection with Cole Grant was established, and Roly, the Silver Star ranch hand, had told how Wade and Cole had planned, in cold blood, to kill me, my innocence, of which Dan Bayles had little doubt, was pretty well established. Added to that were the shells from Cole Grant’s rifle at the scene of the attempted murders of Chet and Annie, and the actual murder of Doc Cartwright. Incidentally, when, following my directions, they recovered Cole’s body, it was in such an advanced stage of rigor mortis that, in addition to the difficulty it presented them in extracting it from the crevice in which it was lodged, in a macabre twist of fate, his left hand was fastened tightly around the barrel of the rifle, as though even in death he could not deny its ownership.
I returned to Annie’s ranch the next day and helped out around the place as best I was able. I didn’t get involved with the cattle, she had drovers enough to handle that business and my appearance among the herds might well have been misinterpreted. I didn’t want anyone thinking that I was trying to establish some superior position. To this end, to establish some sort of camaraderie, I bunked down with the cowboys at night. However, I took most of my meals with Annie. We liked each other, Annie and me, but, as I’ve said before, she was easy to like.
Chet survived. He stayed two days at Annie’s after the death of his father, then he was transported home to be nursed back to health by an aunt, his mother’s sister, who was sent for from Ohio. By coincidence, she arrived at Beecher’s Gulch on the same stagecoach that brought Caleb Dodge to town. I had written to him, outlining the events that had left his niece a widow, and felt that, with a sizeable ranch to run, some family advice would be in order. Despite the discomfort of travelling with a leg that wouldn’t bend and a crutch, Caleb had set out immediately to assist Annie, although, when he arrived, his first words to her somehow put a different slant on his prompt attention.
‘Annie, m’dear,’ he said, ‘I’m sure sorry for your loss, but Wes here is married and we can’t keep him from his wife too long.’
‘Can’t ever recall you saying that during six months on the trail to California.’
‘Hummph!’ he grunted.
Annie laughed. I’d told her about Marie, Sky and Little Feather and she’d accepted it. Perhaps, like her uncle, she harboured misgivings against the theory of a man having three wives, but she never formed any objection into words. In her own way, like me, she was a survivor. In this new land, survival wasn’t just about getting food into your belly and finding protection against nature and disease, it needed a mental toughness that was equal to, if not greater than the physical durability. It was about moving on; reaching for a goal; knowing when to persevere with your principles and when to shake off those memories and events that hindered; and in those few days after Charlie Darke’s death I knew Annie would be OK.
She’d cried when I told her about Charlie Darke, for that lot fell to me as I knew it would, but I never saw those tears again. She laughed sometimes and smiled a lot and her jaw set with determination in those quiet moments when I knew that thoughts of her future were being challenged by the losses in her past. I couldn’t help her with that, that was a job for Caleb.
As it happened she never did marry Chet Barton. Several years later I learned that the events of the summer of 1869 changed both of them, and an awkwardness in company with each other kept them apart. Chet married an Ohio girl, a family friend of the aunt who had come West to nurse him back to health, and Annie married Clayton Deane, MD, who replaced Doc Cartwright in Blackwater. She sold the ranch, northern strip and all, to Herman Lowe. The first thing he did was to plant a flower-garden on the spot where his wife had died. Before his death he became the largest landowner in the valley, buying much of the Silver Star range from Chet Barton who spent much of his time in the East.
Dan Bayles let it be known that he couldn’t continue as a law officer, but he
agreed to hold onto the job until a new sheriff could be appointed. A couple of days before I left Beecher’s Gulch he called me into his office and handed me a slip of paper. It was a banker’s order for $200 made payable to me.
‘Cole Grant had a price on his head for the murder of two lawmen in Montana. You can redeem that for cash in any bank in the Union.’
Collecting money for killing a man who deserved nothing more didn’t sit easy with me. I wasn’t a bounty hunter and didn’t want to get the sort of reputation with a gun that would make me a target for all the trigger-happy saddle tramps across the Plains. But then, I reasoned, I’d earned nothing that summer. Caleb Dodge had given my scouting job to someone else, and I’d come here, to Beecher’s Gulch, with no other incentive than to do a favour for my friend.
I tucked away the slip of paper. Money in the pocket is a useful aid to survival; besides which, I have three wives to support.
Copyright
© Will DuRey 2006
First published in Great Britain 2006
This edition 2012
ISBN 978 0 7090 9874 4 (epub)
ISBN 978 0 7090 9875 1 (mobi)
ISBN 978 0 7090 9876 8 (pdf)
ISBN 978 0 7090 8026 8 (print)
Robert Hale Limited
Clerkenwell House
Clerkenwell Green
London EC1R 0HT
www.halebooks.com
The right of Will DuRey to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988