Frontier America

by William W. Johnstone

  * * *

  Sheriff Woods saw them ride into town, their horses laboring as they pulled them to a hard stop in front of Walter Creech’s shop. He left his office and hurried over to intercept them. Seeing the sheriff, Jesse Tice demanded, “Where’s my son?”

  “Just like I told you, Mr. Tice,” Woods replied. “I had Walter Creech take care of the body, so it wouldn’t come to no harm. He’ll turn him over to you. There ain’t no charge or nothin’.”

  “Damn right there ain’t,” Jesse said. “Now, where’s the son of a bitch that shot him?” he asked as Creech walked out of his shop, having heard the commotion.

  “You’re welcome to take your son, Mr. Tice,” Creech said. “I took the liberty to clean away some of the blood. It was about all I could do for him.”

  “Go in there and see,” Tice told one of his sons, and Samson, the eldest, immediately obeyed. Tice turned back to the sheriff and demanded again, “Where’s the son of a bitch that shot him?”

  “I can’t say,” Woods answered. “He left town right after the gunfight, so I don’t know which way he went.”

  “He went out by the stable, Sheriff.” Surprised, Woods turned to see Walter Creech’s six-year-old son pointing toward the north road to Austin, the road that Tice had just ridden into town. All attention turned immediately to the boy, who stood there grinning, still pointing north, thinking he had been helpful.

  Creech quickly turned him around and sent him back inside the shop. “Go back to the kitchen with your mama,” he told him. “Go on, now,” he prodded when the boy was reluctant to leave. A glance in Woods’s direction told him the sheriff was not pleased with the boy’s efforts to help.

  “I just rode in on that road!” Jesse Tice bellowed. “How long has he been gone?”

  “I don’t know,” Woods answered. “He lit out right after the gunfight,” he lied.

  Samson came back out the door at that moment, so Jesse waited to hear what he had to say. “Sonny’s in there,” Samson reported. “He’s laid out on a table with a sheet over him.”

  “Where was he shot?” Jesse asked.

  His son responded with a blank expression, then answered, “In the Two Forks Kitchen is what they said.”

  “No, you jackass,” Jesse retorted. “Where was the bullet hole?”

  “Oh.” Samson paused. “Right square in the middle of his chest.”

  “Like the witnesses said,” the sheriff was quick to point out, “Sonny was facin’ the man who shot him. It was a gunfight, fair and simple.” He declined to mention the part when Sonny had attempted to shoot Cullen in the back, thinking that might not set too well with the grieving father. To give the old man a little bit of satisfaction, he said, “Sonny got off a shot, grazed the other fellow’s arm.”

  Jesse considered that for a moment, then said, “You ain’t never told me that feller’s name. What does he call hisself, this hotshot gunslinger?”

  “I don’t know that that’s important,” Woods stammered. “The main thing is he’s gone from here to who knows where.”

  “I got a right to know who killed my boy!” Jesse stated forcefully.

  “Cullen McCabe,” Woods blurted, when all three Tice men dropped their hands to rest on the handles of their guns. “But he’s long gone now,” he said, in an attempt to derail the old man’s thoughts of vengeance. “Here comes Jim Tilly,” he said, nodding toward the owner of the stable, walking toward them. “I had him keep Sonny’s horse for you. I reckon you wanna put Sonny’s body on his horse and take him home now.”

  “I reckon that can wait,” Jesse replied. “I’ll get Sonny and his horse as soon as we get back. A man shoots my son has to answer to me. Get mounted, boys.” Samson and Joe were quick to climb into their saddles. Without another word, Jesse wheeled his horse and led his two sons out the north road to Austin.

  Left to puzzle over their departure, the three men involved looked at one another helplessly. Walter Creech was the first to speak. “Well, I never . . . What am I supposed to do with the body? There ain’t no tellin’ when he’ll be back for it.”

  Jim Tilly shook his head in wonder. “Well, I reckon I’ll have to feed his horse.” He smiled at Walter. “I don’t reckon you’ll have to do that with the body.” He laughed at his joke, but the other two didn’t join him.

  “I hope McCabe ain’t wastin’ no time,” Woods said. “I tried to hold Tice back as much as I could, but my jurisdiction ends at the city limits. Ain’t nothin’ I can do to help him outside of town.”

  * * *

  Unaware that he had a three-man posse on his tail, Cullen was intent upon creating some distance between himself and Two Forks, nonetheless. It always paid to be cautious, but he figured if Jesse Tice was looking for him, he would likely go downriver, hoping to find his cabin. If he was lucky, maybe Tice wouldn’t find his cabin. He had left nothing in it that he couldn’t afford to lose. He never did when he was going to be gone even for as long as a day. That was the reason he could decide to ride on to Austin when he got O’Brien’s telegram, instead of having to return to his cabin.

  It was only a full day’s ride to Austin from Two Forks, but he had gotten a late start, so he would ride until dark and camp overnight, then arrive at the governor’s office before noon tomorrow. He already had a spot in mind, a creek about twenty miles from Austin, where he had camped before. As he had estimated, the sun was settling down behind the trees guarding the creek when he approached it. A whinny from Jake told him that the bay was ready to take a rest. “I reckon we could both use a little rest,” he told the horse as he turned him off the road and walked him upstream about forty yards to a small grassy opening. After relieving his horses of their burdens, he let them go to the water before he went about the business of a fire and supper.

  He settled for beef jerky and coffee on this night. He had treated himself to a big breakfast late that morning, although his pancakes had been allowed to get cold. And he would most likely buy a meal in Austin tomorrow, so jerky and coffee should do for tonight. When he had finished his supper, he let his fire die down to no more than a warm glow. It was not a cold night and there was no use to build up a fire that would announce his presence to anyone passing in the night. Normally, if he knew someone was trying to track him, he would take precautions to keep from being jumped in his bedroll, maybe roll up a dummy blanket near the fire while he found a place to hide. He gave it some thought, still of the opinion that, if Tice and his sons went after him, they would more than likely head south of Two Forks, looking for his cabin, instead of heading north. In view of that, he figured the odds were against their catching up with him before he got to Austin in the morning. That would be the time to be extra careful. With that thought in mind, he poked the fire up a little, so it would be easier to start up again in the morning, then he turned in, planning to start early the next day.

  * * *

  Although they pushed their horses hard, Jesse and his sons were making a slow process of their pursuit of Cullen. It was too dark to follow any tracks on the well-traveled road to Austin. Determined to catch up with him, however, Jesse continued on into the night, stopping at every creek and stream to send his two sons to look for a camp, Joe upstream and Samson downstream. It was the only way he could be sure they didn’t pass by McCabe’s camp in the darkness, and he naturally assumed his son’s killer would have to stop for the night. It was the third such search that produced results. Joe came back to the road to announce, “I found him, Papa! ’Bout thirty-five or forty yards up the creek. I woulda shot him, but he’s kinda curled up against a tree, and I was afraid if I missed, he’da found some cover.”

  “You done right,” Jesse said, having already decided that he should have the first shot at his son’s killer. “Tie these horses here, and we’ll all three slip up on him. Samson, you cross over to the other side. Me and Joe will come at him on this side. Don’t nobody get too trigger-happy and shoot before we all get close enough. I wanna make sure there ain’t
no chance we’ll miss, so watch for my signal. If I wave my hand at you, just stay where you are until you hear me shoot. Then you can cut loose.” All three experienced hunters, they took to the banks of the creek and moved quietly upstream toward the sleeping man.

  When they were within about fifteen yards of the camp, Jesse signaled a halt. He was now able to understand why Joe had not chanced a shot. Their target had spread his blanket up close around the base of a sizable tree, in effect, giving himself protection against anyone sneaking in to take a shot at his back. Pretty slick, Jesse thought, but it don’t protect him from the front. “We need to cross over to the other side with Samson,” he said to Joe. He waved his arm back and forth several times before Samson saw his signal and waved back to signal he was waiting.

  Samson looked back when he heard them coming up behind him. “What’s the matter?” he whispered.

  “There ain’t no clear shot comin’ up on him on that side,” his father answered. “But he’s wide open from this side.”

  “Where’s his horses?” Samson asked. “I don’t see no horses.”

  “Most likely in that grass on the other side of the trees. Make sure you don’t shoot that way,” Jesse cautioned. “We can always use a couple of good horses. We’ll wade across the creek before we start shootin’. Be careful and don’t go splashin’ across and wake him up before we’re ready.” Eager to begin the execution, they carefully entered the thigh-deep water and pushed silently across, their rifles ready. After advancing undetected to within ten yards of their sleeping victim, Jesse pulled the trigger of his Henry and set off a barrage of .44 slugs that ripped the unprotected target as well as the tree trunk to splinters. “That’s enough!” Jesse shouted when the sudden silence signaled that all three magazines were empty. With a hoot and holler from Joe and Samson, the three Tice men hurried up the bank to witness the damage. Only seconds later, they were stopped cold to stare at the bundle of tree branches wrapped in an old blanket, now shot to pieces. “Watch out!” Jesse blurted, trying to look in every direction at once. “He’s tricked us! Get back to the creek!”

  Looking wildly from side to side, expecting bullets to start flying, both sons ran back to the creek and the cover of the bank. Two steps ahead of them, their father hunkered down under the creek bank, desperately searching the darkness enveloping the creek. “Where the hell is he?” Joe asked frantically while hurrying to reload the magazine on his rifle, dropping several cartridges in his haste.

  “This don’t make no sense,” Jesse mumbled, then ordered, “Get back to the horses! He’s up to somethin’.” He didn’t have to repeat it. They ran back down the creek bank, recklessly crashing through berry bushes and laurel branches, not at all in the stealthy manner used in their advance upon the camp minutes before. “Keep your eyes peeled!” Jesse called out unnecessarily. When he arrived mere seconds behind his two sons, it was to find them standing dumbfounded in the little gap where they had left the horses. But there were no horses. “What the . . .” Jesse started, then looked around him frantically, thinking it wasn’t the right place.

  “He stole the horses!” Samson whined. He and his brother started searching the bushes in a wide circle. “This is where we left ’em.” He turned to his father. “What are we gonna do?”

  Already working on that, Jesse said, “We’re gonna find us a good spot to protect ourselves, ’cause he’ll be comin’ after us, sure as hell.” They started combing the bank at once, looking for a spot they could defend from all directions, and hopefully, one that would not permit McCabe to get too close without being seen. Thinking they had very little time to find that place, they quickly settled for a deep gully close to the edge of the water. With little room to spare, they hunkered down in the gully to await the attack they were sure was coming. Their rifles reloaded, they sat facing in three different directions, their eyes searching the dark shadows under the trees. Still, there was no sign of attack. Hours passed with not a sound from the trees beyond that of a whisper of a breeze that tickled the leaves of the trees along the creek bank.

  The first rays of the new day caused Samson, who was facing the east, to blink as the trees and bushes began to take shape and separate from the veil of darkness of the night just passed. As he stared, bleary-eyed from the night of constant vigilance, he suddenly detected movement in a stand of berry bushes. Quick to react, he raised his rifle and fired, startling his father and his brother into action as well. “I got him! I got him!” Samson bellowed. “I saw him drop!”

  “Be careful, damn it!” Jesse warned when both sons started to scramble out of the gully. “You mighta hit him and you mighta missed. He might be playin’ possum.”

  “I can see him where he fell!” Samson exclaimed. “He’s still layin’ in the bushes. He ain’t moved.”

  “You be careful,” his father repeated. “He might be tryin’ to pull a trick on us. Spread out,” he ordered when they left the protection of the gully. “You see the first little wiggle, cut down on him.”

  They continued to advance, slowly and cautiously, halfway expecting McCabe to suddenly spring up and start blazing away. When within several yards of the bushes, it became apparent that Samson had been right when he claimed he’d shot him. Although still dark in the shadows of the trees, they could make out the motionless body, and it showed no signs of moving. On a signal from Jesse, they suddenly parted the bushes to thrust their rifles through, ready to fire a volley into the carcass of a young deer. “Damn!” Jesse cursed, and paused to look around him as if expecting to see someone laughing at their foolishness. He dropped to one knee in an effort not to present such an obvious target. Joe and Samson did the same, taking the cue from their father. “What are we gonna do, Papa?” Samson asked.

  Jesse didn’t have an answer for him, so he took a long moment to try to come up with one. He feared that he and his sons were caught in an ambush, but he couldn’t understand why McCabe didn’t spring it. He had killed Sonny—what was he waiting for now? “We need to find our horses,” he finally decided. “We find them and we’ll most likely find him. He musta got in behind us and took our horses back where his are tied.” Looking into the faces of his two sons, he could see they were still uncertain, so he reminded them, “He still ain’t but one man against three of us. We’ve just gotta find where he’s hidin’, and I’m bettin’ that’s back there on the other side of his camp where he had his horses.”

  Once again, they followed the creek back to the campsite. Approaching it cautiously, they found no one there, so they continued on past the line of trees to the prairie beyond where they had figured his horses were. There was no sign of him or the horses. It was now to the point where all three Tice men were not only confused, they were uncertain about what was happening to them. McCabe had to be playing games with them, but for what purpose? “That son of a bitch has found him a hole to hide in,” Jesse finally announced.

  “It must be a big hole,” Joe commented, “if he’s got all the horses in it with him.”

  “He couldn’ta got very far from here,” Jesse said. “We’ve just got to find him.” They started a search then, up one side of the creek and down the other, checking out every likely place to hide all the horses. The sun was high in the sky when it finally registered with them. “He stole our horses and took off.” The reality of it struck with the force of a sledgehammer: while they were sneaking up on his camp to kill him, he had simply circled behind them, taken their horses, and ridden away in the darkness. Left on foot, twenty miles from the town of Austin, and more than that from home, they were helpless to do anything about it. Their only option was to walk back to their farm, which was about a twenty-five-mile hike. In any case, it made no sense to start out for Austin, even presuming that was where McCabe was heading. They would need money and horses for that, two items they were now short of.

  Both sons stood gaping at their father while he was obviously trying to think until Samson asked, “What are we gonna do, Papa?”

&nb
sp; Jesse cocked an eye in his direction, as if irritated by the question. “What the hell do you think? We’re gonna start walkin’. He skunked us good and proper and there ain’t nothin’ else we can do.”

  “I’m hungry,” Joe complained, “and that’s a long walk without somethin’ in my belly.”

  When Samson said he was hungry, too, Jesse said, “I reckon we’d best go back and butcher that deer you shot. We might as well have us a good breakfast before we start for home.” Three dejected-looking avengers turned and walked back along the creek to the spot where the deer was killed. To a man of Jesse Tice’s violent nature, it was just as painful to have been so obviously outfoxed as it would have been to have gotten shot by the man who killed his son. He vowed to store the name Cullen McCabe in his memory and hope for the opportunity to cross his path again one day.

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of over 300 books, including the bestselling series Smoke Jensen, the Mountain Man, Preacher, the First Mountain Man, MacCallister, Flintlock, and Will Tanner, Deputy U.S. Marshal, and the stand-alone thrillers The Doomsday Bunker, Tyranny, and Black Friday.

  Being the all-around assistant, typist, researcher, and fact-checker to one of the most popular western authors of all time, J. A. JOHNSTONE learned from the master, Uncle William W. Johnstone.