“Hunting, for Christ’s sake. In this weather? That man’s going to be the death of me yet.”
A half hour later he was bathed and dressed, but he still hadn’t worked up any enthusiasm for Magnusson’s hunt. Oh, well, give the sadistic bastard another story to tell at the Cheyenne Club, he thought as he headed for the dining room.
“Where you going, Charles?” the devil himself hailed as he passed his office.
Wingate walked back to the trophy-laden study. King was standing in the middle of the room decked out in a buffalo coat and a fur hat. He was smoking a fat cigar and holding a rifle, caressing its glistening walnut stock with a white rag. Another, similar weapon stood against his desk. A hot fire popped in the hearth.
Wingate frowned. “Am I too late for breakfast?” he asked meekly.
“Oh, not at all,” Magnusson said. “I thought we’d go out to the bunkhouse for breakfast. I like to rub elbows with my men now and then. Keeps me in touch. Besides, the cook out there can whip together the best chuck you’ll ever taste in your life. A real treat.”
“You don’t say,” Wingate said, crestfallen. He’d been looking forward to prunes stewed in French wine, cheese croissants, and Minnie McDougal’s wonderfully airy omelets.
Magnusson rubbed the rag down the stock of his rifle and nodded at the other gun leaning against his desk. “There’s your rifle, Charles. Fetch it up and treat it like a baby. It might just save your life today.” He looked at Wingate and grinned wolfishly.
When Wingate had decked himself out in a borrowed coat and hat like Magnusson’s, he hefted the heavy beast of a rifle—it must have weighed fifty pounds!—and followed the rancher outside. The dour and brooding Randall Magnusson brought up the rear.
They moved down the slope behind the corrals toward the bunkhouse—a long, narrow building of logs, with two brick chimneys sprouting thick gray smoke smelling like bacon.
Magnusson knocked and opened the door.
“Boss,” Rag Donnelly said as though startled. He was sitting at the table nearest the door and the first of the two stoves, drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette. His hat was off, exposing the fresh bandage on his ear.
There were seven or eight other men in various stages of dressing and washing, crowding around the farthest stove. They regarded their visitors from the Big House with subtle suspicion, cutting their eyes at Rag.
A big, gray-haired man with a bushy mustache and deep-sunk eyes stirred a pan of potatoes sizzling in bacon grease. A cigarette drooped from his lips, a grimy towel was thrown over his shoulder, and the thick gray hair on his chest grew out of his long johns.
“Have a seat, boss—just about to throw some vittles on the table,” he said with too much exuberance, his eyes on Rag.
“Just thought we’d come out and see how badly you’re poisoning my men, Lute,” King said, throwing his mittens on the table beside Donnelly. “Hope we haven’t interrupted anything.” His gaze circled the room, and he realized what was wrong. Men were missing—more than should be out on the line at this hour.
“Where is everybody, Rag?”
“Who’s that, boss?”
“You know who.” Magnusson’s voice became tight, his eyes hard. “The men you’re paid forty dollars a month to keep track of.”
Donnelly looked at the other members of his crew. He was in a bad position. To keep his men’s respect he couldn’t go tattling on their every indiscretion. Some things had to stay between him and them. He had no choice now, however. If they couldn’t see that, fuck ’em.
He gave a sigh and looked at Magnusson. “They ain’t come back from the roadhouse yet.”
“They ain’t come back from the roadhouse yet,” Magnusson mimicked, lowering his eyes to his foreman’s chest and giving several short, thoughtful nods. He lifted his cold eyes again to Donnelly’s, and it was odd how the foreman had never before noticed the reptilian cast in those unblinking eyes. “How many went?”
“Twelve.”
“You know I never allow more than half a dozen men off the ranch at one time.”
“I know that, Mr. Magnusson, but they must’ve slipped off while I was up at the house last night. When I got back, they were gone and there was nothin’ I could do about it. I figured … well, I figured they’d be back long before now. Hell, long before sunup! They know they get their pay docked for this kind of horseshit.”
Magnusson’s eyes were on the table now, and he was pursing his lips. His earlobes poking out from under his beaver hat were bright red. His face was mottled white.
“Swell. Just swell,” he said woodenly. Then his head jerked up. His face twisted savagely and he shouted, “Send someone out to fetch them, goddamnit!”
Donnelly remained calm, though his face blanched. It wasn’t the first time he’d taken both barrels of Magnusson’s fury.
He spread his hands apart, opening them, smoke from his cigarette curling and uncurling above the table. “I did that, Mr. Magnusson. I sent Press Johnson out. They should all be back in about an hour or so.”
Magnusson pursed his lips and exhaled through his nose. “Very well. Make sure they know they’re due a visit from me this evening, as well as a very substantial dock in pay.”
“I will, sir. They’re good men, sir.”
Magnusson laughed scornfully and regarded the cook, who’d been standing there watching and listening to the conversation with his cigarette dangling from his mouth while the potatoes burned. As if throwing a switch, Magnusson returned to his old offensively ebullient self.
“Well, Lute, serve up the grub. We don’t have all day, ya know. Mr. Wingate here has talked me into taking him hunting, haven’t you, Charles?”
CHAPTER 23
FATHER AND SON Magnusson each shot one whitetail and one mule deer respectively by ten o’clock in the morning. They left both animals to the wolves, however. It was too early to start packing meat. They wouldn’t start retrieving what they shot until they were ready to head home. Until then, they’d hone their aim on moving targets.
“Plenty of game in Dakota, Charles,” King intoned as they traversed a nearly featureless prairie. “Plenty to shoot for sport, plenty to shoot for food. Besides, what we don’t kill the damn Indians will.”
“Indians around here?” Wingate asked, glancing around cautiously and squinting his nearsighted eyes, tiny dark marbles buried in the heavy, florid flesh of his face. He sat his high-stepping Arabian stiffly, chilled to his soul in spite of the buffalo robe that reached his calves.
“Not as many as there used to be, praise the Lord. We had to run off a whole damn village when I first came. Greasy beggars kept stealing cattle. They’d shoot ‘em, butcher ’em, and devour them—all on my land! Can you believe such arrogance?”
Randall offered his two cents’ worth. “When an Indian butchers an animal, he don’t leave nothin’ but the hoofs, and sometimes he even takes those. Those people eat everything,” he added with disgust.
“Are they dangerous?” Wingate asked.
“Can be when they’re sober,” Magnusson replied.
“I’ve never see one, just read about them.”
Magnusson took several puffs from his cigar. “Well, if we see one, I’ll have Randall shoot him, and you can tell your New York friends how you got to see an Indian up close.”
“Only good Injun’s a dead Injun,” Randall said. “Ain’t that right, Pa?”
They passed a few derelict sodbuster shacks—Magnusson had had nothing to do with running the yokels off, he laughed; the weather and the tough prairie sod had done that for free!—and followed a game trail into a ravine through which a frozen creek snaked.
They followed the creek south. Randall brought down two more deer but missed two coyotes bounding up the opposite ridge. Frustrated, he shot a porcupine from a tree.
Wingate took a couple of shots, but the game was practically out of sight by the time he’d snugged the heavy gun to his cheek. The kick of the big rifle nearly threw him from his
saddle. King and Randall turned away, but he could feel them grimacing.
“Where are we heading now, King?” he asked as they cantered single file along the creek. He was ready for a nap followed by a brandy and a soft chair by a hot fire.
“While we’re in the area I thought we’d pay a little visit to a … a friend of mine.”
“Wouldn’t be that greaser friend of yours, would it, Pa?” Randall asked, grinning.
“Mexican, Randall,” Magnusson corrected facetiously. “Greaser isn’t nice.”
Randall laughed. “After last night, I had a feeling we might run into that gre—I mean Mexican—today.”
Wingate had no idea what they were talking about, but he’d become so inured of their double-talk and intrigue, playing him for the mindless dandy, that he didn’t insist on an explanation. He distracted himself with fantasies of a sparking fire, Spanish brandy, and a naked Suzanne sprawled on a damask-covered couch until a small gray shack and an outhouse appeared around a bend in the creek. A tarpaulin weather cover fronting the shack afforded shelter to a single black stallion.
Smoke lifted from the chimney, and as they rode closer, Wingate saw there was a man outside in front of the cabin, his back to the approaching visitors. He was scraping a very large hide nailed to the cabin, right of the door.
A thick, sickening odor hung in the air like an invisible curtain. It emanated from the chimney, Wingate could tell, and he found himself yearning for a strong wind to blow it all away before he puked.
They rode up to within ten feet of the man. Still he didn’t turn, but continued working on the hide, giving little grunts as he scraped.
Magnusson leaned forward, hands on his saddle horn. “Mighty trusting for a man of your profession, aren’t you Del Toro?”
The Mexican snickered and kept working. “You announced your arrival an hour ago, amigo. All your shooting. No one shoots as much as you and your boy, señor. It got so annoying I felt like doing some shooting of my own, in your direction.”
Magnusson ignored the comment, regarding the hide nailed to the cabin through its four spread paws, large as dinner plates. “What do you have there, a griz?”
“Sí—old man oso. He came calling on me last night as I slept, so I let him in.” Del Toro snickered again. There was no voice to it—just air trapped and released by his tongue. It sounded like a noise a self-satisfied reptile might make.
“Pity the bear that comes calling on you, José,” Magnusson said, impressed by the image he was conjuring.
“Or men, uh?”
Del Toro turned for the first time, giving the visitors the full impression of his lean, grinning face, small teeth glinting like nailheads within the wild mustaches drooping around his mouth, blue coyote eyes flashing. He wore his wolf coat with its big silver buttons and his black hat, snugged over a homemade wolfskin liner with ear flaps tied under his chin. The flaps were in the shape of a wolfs paws.
If it weren’t for the startling blue eyes and cold-blooded grin, he could have been a preposterously displaced hony-onker from Old Mexico, Wingate thought. He associated the sickly sweet smell with the gunman, with killing, and he had to swallow hard to keep his breakfast down.
Still grinning, Del Toro held up his wide-bladed skinning knife, examined it, then wiped the blood and tallow on his breeches and stuck the knife in his belt sheath.
Pulling a cigarillo from his coat pocket, he said, looking at Randall, “One of you gentlemen has a light?” He stuck the cigar between his teeth and grinned, his eyes on Randall.
Magnusson and Wingate turned to see how Randall was taking it. Not well. It was obvious by the lad’s flat eyes and slightly curled upper lip that he did not like Mexicans, and this one least of all. His mouse-brown gelding bobbed its head and lifted a foot, but Randall held the gunman’s gaze. His face turned slowly red.
Del Toro said, “Uh, you got light for this greaser, amigo?”
“Plum out o’ phosphors,” Randall said tightly.
“Give the man a light, Randall,” Magnusson said as though chiding an ill-mannered youngster.
“Why should I?”
“Because I told you to,” King said.
Wingate could tell he was enjoying his son’s discomfort and wondered if there was anyone’s discomfort King would not enjoy—except Suzanne’s.
Finally Randall dug around in a coat pocket for a box of matches. Del Toro stepped forward and allowed the young man to light his cigar, the gunman taking his time about it, puffing smoke.
Looking around at the stark gray cabin and outhouse fronting the creek, Magnusson said, “I sure am sorry to keep you holed up out here in this old trapper’s cabin, Del Toro, but it’s probably best for both of us if we’re not seen together.”
Still puffing, trying to get a good draw, Del Toro turned away from Randall’s match. “How good of you to be concerned for both of us. But it’s really not so lonely. You know—this may be hard to believe and you probably think José drinks too much out here by himself—but a man and a very beautiful girl pass this way on horseback just about every day.”
He pointed to the buttes behind the visitors. “They ride along the ridge there. Just riding for the thrill, I think. The girl always waves real big and smiles. Muy bonita. I think if it weren’t for the man, she would even come and visit me in my cabin.”
He took the cigar from his lips and smiled.
Magnusson did not return it. His face had grown dark. A muscle in his cheek twitched. “That’s my daughter,” he said, voice taut as razor wire.
“I thought she looked familiar.”
“She’s off-limits.”
“Sí, you told me, señor. Maybe you better tell her that. I think she finds me … curious. Your daughter looks to me like a very curious girl.”
Magnusson just stared at him, wide-eyed with outrage.
“Yes, very curious,” Del Toro prodded some more.
Randall turned to his father and said with disgust, “Pa, this man here is—”
“Shut up, Randall,” Magnusson said. To the gunman he said, “I’ve hired you to do a job. See that you do it”—his lips curled back revealing his big yellow teeth—“and get the hell out of here, you insolent bastard. Get the hell back where you came from!”
Magnusson was light-headed with fury. He was thinking, “If he so much as touches a hair on her head …” The thought was as repellent as the stench of the Mexican’s cooking.
“Easy, senor. Hey, easy. I was just making conversation. Telling you I don’t mind being housed out here like a wild dog in this goddamn gringo winter. That’s what you wanted to hear—that I am keeping warm and fed and reasonably happy while you and your friends are singing and dancing in your big house.”
Del Toro gave an exaggerated shrug. “You are worried about me. I tell you not to worry. That’s all, you see? Comprende? I am an easy man to get along with.”
Magnusson’s fury was a confused, slippery thing that threatened to get away from him, turn him into a babbling idiot. He felt as though he’d been cut down at the knees. He felt an instinctive, repulsive fear of this man. He wasn’t sure how to counter it. Nothing he could say would make him feel better, would give him back the advantage, and you didn’t try to kill a man like this without plenty of help.
He stammered, hating the hesitant trill in his voice. “Just do your job,” he finally managed, thoroughly flushed.
“Sí, senor. Is that what you rode out here to tell me?”
Magnusson had been thrown so far afield that he had to expel considerable energy in recalling the original intention of his visit. Then he remembered last night, Suzanne’s birthday party, and the insolent white bastard who had threatened him in his own house.
All of this was getting too goddamn close to home.
To Suzanne.
“I’ve got a name to add to your list. To the top of your list. You’ll be compensated appropriately—don’t worry.”
Del Toro studied him expectantly, like a hawk
perched in a dead tree waiting for another mouse to happen by.
“Mark Talbot,” Magnusson said. “You’ll find him on the Circle T ranch on Crow Creek. When you’ve killed him, dispose of the body somewhere it won’t be found.” He was thinking of Suzanne and decided right then and there to send her away again until deep summer.
Del Toro smiled with his eyes.
“The sooner the better,” Magnusson added. To the others he said, “Let’s go,” and reined his horse around.
Randall had already turned around, facing back the way they had come. “Pa,” he said with an ominous air, looking off.
Following his son’s gaze, Magnusson picked out a man in a sheepskin coat and tan hat riding furiously along the creek, giving his horse the quirt and spurs. It was Rag Donnelly on a buckskin.
“Mr. Magnusson!” he yelled as he approached the tarpaulin shelter, slowing to a canter, his exhausted mount blowing and snorting.
“Rag, what the hell?” Magnusson yelled.
When the horse came to a sloppy-gaited walk, Donnelly lowered his head to take a deep breath, then tipped his head back, his big, rugged face thoroughly flushed. He regarded Magnusson for several seconds while he caught his breath. He swallowed hard.
“W-would’ve sent a rider but I wanted to come and tell you myself.”
“Tell me what?” Magnusson said impatiently.
“It’s the men—the ones that didn’t come home last night.”
“What about them!”
“They’re dead.”
Magnusson mouthed the word silently before saying it out loud. “What are you talking about?”
Donnelly shook his head. “Every single one of ’em. Press Johnson found Gutzman’s roadhouse burned to the ground and the men along with it.”
“Burned?” Magnusson said, the force of the exclamation throwing him forward in his saddle.
As if following Magnusson’s thought process, Donnelly shook his head. “It weren’t no accident. Press said what’s left of the logs is riddled with lead, and several of our men and Gutzman are layin’ outside, shredded like they been hit by a hayrake. There’s shell casings galore.”
Dakota Kill Page 20
