He left through the kitchen’s back door and made his way eastward along the rough track that paralleled Promise’s Main Street. It would lead him to Reg’s house eventually, and he wouldn’t have to worry about bumping into folks back here. He wasn’t in any mood to listen to their townie whisperings, but he had to see for himself what had happened at the marshal’s place.
Varney was around Promise. Gunnar could feel it. That vicious brute was as close as close could be. He had done for Millie, and Gunnar was sure he’d downed the marshal and his wife. Who was next? Varney had said all those years ago that he was going to find his way back to Promise and make them all pay.
But nobody had believed he’d ever survive prison. Hell, most folks, Gunnar included, thought the law would come to its senses and hang the bastard, if only as a safety measure.
He kept up a brisk pace, walking toward the McDoughty home. Hester had said the killings took place in the kitchen. He’d never been in their house, but he figured there was a back door that led to the kitchen, same as most other houses in town. He’d forgotten to ask Hester who was the law now but guessed it was the Dover boy. He regularly acted as deputy and filled in when Reg wanted a day off, usually Sunday.
He wasn’t certain what shape he’d find the house in—it could have been scrubbed clean, knowing some of the biddies in town, or it might still be a bloodied mess.
Hester had told him that the couple had been buried together in a single box. Odd that, given how they seemed to feel about each other. But then who was Gunnar Tibbs to judge them? They’d been laid to rest the very next day, as the reason for the killings seemed obvious to one and all. But that didn’t sit right with Gunnar. Again, it was far too coincidental, given that he felt sure Skin Varney was on the loose and around Promise once more.
Gunnar glanced about, and while he saw no one, that didn’t mean somebody wasn’t spying on him from afar through grimy windows. He stepped up onto the small back porch and looked in through a glass pane. He did not expect to see anyone, and in that, he wasn’t disappointed. They’d had no children who lived, and so he assumed the couple would be laid to rest alongside the graves of their dead offspring.
He tried the knob. It gave, and he pushed open the door. A stale, thick smell wafted into his face. The house hadn’t been aired; no windows had been left open that he could see. He shoved the door open and had a moment of uncertainty. Several fat bluebottles roved the space, and one thumped against a pane of wavy glass in the thin sunlight. He saw dark brown and red stains along the floor to his immediate left, and more of the same farther in.
The wall, low and close to the floor, and the cabinet front beneath the dry sink were spattered with the same age-crusted gore. Gunnar held his breath. He took one step inside, but kept his hand on the door.
The scene, hastily cleaned at best, was still awful. There seemed little he could learn from the mess, but something deep down in Gunnar’s gut—what his old mama called a person’s “witchy sense”—roiled and flopped in his belly like a head-caught snake. And it told him he was right—Skin Varney was guilty of this. Sure as day and night didn’t come at the same time.
He left the room and closed the kitchen door behind him quietly, not because anyone out there might hear him, but because it seemed the thing to do. He might not have liked ol’ Reg McDoughty, not as a marshal nor as a man, but that didn’t mean others didn’t, least of all his wife. Nobody should die in such a manner. And especially not at the hands of the likes of Varney.
Gunnar stood at the bottom of the steps and stroked his beard and mustaches in thought. He had intended, while in town, to buy more victuals, more pipe tobacco and chaw, but he was put off the notion of shopping.
After seeing the blood in that house, poorly cleaned up by the townsfolk, and knowing the personal possessions of that couple would likely be frittered out among them all, he wanted to get out of Promise. Sure, they would show no outward judgment of one another as folks filched the goods of the couple and squirreled them away in their own burrows, but they were townies, and as such, there would always be talk.
Gunnar had lost any desire to mingle with them, to pretend he was interested in their questions, to listen to the gossiping at the mercantile. No, not today, and maybe not for a long time to come. He felt an urgency to get back on the trail homeward. He was confused and needed time to think.
He reckoned he and the kid could wiggle by for a while yet. Coffee, beans, and flour were all in decent stock at home, too, even with two of them eating off the supplies instead of one.
Gunnar ambled along the same backyard route, avoiding the eyes of people he knew too well and had known for so long. When had he become so settled? As a younger man, he’d rambled and roved all over the vast Shining Mountains, trapped beaver and traded with the natives. Heck, he’d once blown half a winter’s fur earnings at a single trappers’ rendezvous.
Then he’d sniffed for gold and silver throughout the same hills even farther southward, on the trail of lost Spanish gold, though he never found much. That changed when he came to Promise, however, back when it was little more than a dugout trading post by the now-dry Chalk River.
He’d detected color on his claim in the hills and grabbed rights to two adjacent claims. He knew his life there in Promise, Wyoming Territory, would be short-lived, for he would soon make his fortune. But it had taken a little longer than he anticipated, so he built a cabin and told himself he might as well live in some bit of comfort, at least until his fortune was made. That had been thirty-one years ago.
Gunnar sighed, then winced as a rock twisted under his moccasin and a hot jag of pain lanced up his gammy right leg. “Damn rheumatics,” he mumbled, and kept walking, shifting his rucksack to his other shoulder.
He wasn’t keen on leaving the kid alone at the cabin. If what he suspected about Skin was true, he needed to get back and make certain the kid was where he had left him—hopefully digging away at finding color in the rocks—and then they’d make for Horton’s place. He had to warn his old pard.
When he’d found out a month or more back in town from the Dover kid that Skin Varney was soon to be let out of Tin Falls Prison, Gunnar had told Horton that the snaky man might well make his way back to Promise.
“Why on earth would he do that?” Horton had asked, shaking his head. “Seems to me a man who lived that long closed up tighter than a bull’s backside would find better things to do than wander back to the place where his life wobbled off the rails.”
“You’re thinking like a man who has sense—not much but some.” Gunnar had smiled, then said, “Thing with Skin Varney is he’s a man who’ll spend his last penny to make certain you don’t get it.”
“What’s that mean? How come you know so much about Skin Varney? And why would he want anything to do with Promise anymore? Was a posse of us townsfolk who ran him aground, a whole crew.”
“Was a posse of folks from Promise who helped, as you’ll recall. Me and you, though, we did more than any of them others to get to him.”
Horton had nodded. “I’ll allow, as how I lost an eye in the effort.”
“And I caught him in the end. I didn’t lose much, but I had to put up with his god-awful palaver waiting on the rest of the posse. He swore me up one side and down the other, said he’d get me and everybody else in town if it was the very last thing he ever did.”
Pulled from his memories, Gunnar offered the cold afternoon a grim chuckle as he walked back alone to his cabin from Promise. “When did I ever get to be an old-timer?” he asked the trail, squinting up at the hills ahead. “Me and Horton. Old. Huh, who’d have thought it? As much as can kill a man out here in the wilds, and we two fools managed to live through it. So far anyway.”
His words hung in the still air. The urge to let Horton know of the danger, warn him once more that Skin Varney was amongst them, suddenly became overwhelming.
Gunna
r Tibbs quickened his pace homeward.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Horton!” Gunnar ambled closer to the shack. “Horton Meader! You got company, and I brought somebody! Don’t answer your door wearing nothing but a drunk smile, you rascal. This here’s a gentleman. We got to give him a decent impression or we’ll be embarrassed.”
They stood at the edge of the clearing. Fifty feet before them, Fletcher saw a squat cabin, not unlike Gunnar’s in basic size, but in appearance, the two small abodes couldn’t be more different.
Where Gunnar’s home was tidy and resembled a handsome chalet with a clean front yard and tidy trails leading around the place to an outhouse, a woodpile, and shade trees overhead, this one looked to have been carved out of raw rock and trees and earth by a distracted giant many long years before.
Gunnar yelled again. “Come on, Horton, wake up! Got news for you—good, bad, and otherwise.”
They waited a moment longer.
“Either he’s hungover from drinking too much alone last night, or he’s got his head stuck underground, sniffing around for gold. Happens. Why, I recall a time not long ago I come bumbling back out of my own diggings and was surprised to see I’d worked clean through all the daylight hours of that day.”
As they advanced toward the cabin, Fletcher noticed that Gunnar held back a bit, peered left and right as if expecting somebody to jump out at him. They came to a halt behind the half cover of a pair of ponderosa pines, each trunk thick as a man’s head.
“What’s wrong?”
“Don’t know yet.” Gunnar’s voice was low and he held out a hand to keep Fletcher back behind him, as he pulled out his revolver. “Something ain’t right.
“Stay here.” He gave Fletcher the hard eye, but Fletcher shook his head and, without taking his eyes from Gunnar’s stern gaze, pulled out one of his father’s revolvers and set it at half cock.
“Together, right? That was the whole point.”
Gunnar stared at him a moment longer, then growled low. “Do what I say and stay behind me. We get to the door, you take the right side. I’ll shove in through the left. And always watch behind.”
Fletcher nodded agreement.
They continued to advance toward the cabin. Nothing moved.
“Camp robbers,” said Gunnar, “should be squawkin’, but they ain’t.”
It took a few moments before Fletcher realized the old-timer was referring to the gray jaybirds that always seemed to yammer away at Gunnar’s place.
They reached the cabin and took up their positions flanking the door.
Gunnar shouted, “Horton! You in there, you old reprobate?”
Again, there was no reply. Gunnar licked his lips, fluffed his beard, and with the knuckles of his left hand shoved the door inward. Only the top half of the Dutch door swung. He waited a moment longer, then peered in.
Fletcher craned his neck a few inches to his left to see. The room was dark, and a thin light from a window somewhere out of sight shone on a tabletop. He spied a lone gray tin cup on what part of the table he could see.
Without warning, Gunnar jerked the handle on the bottom half of the door and shoved his way in, revolver rigid before him.
In their brief time of acquaintance, Fletcher had never seen Gunnar move so quickly or fluidly. It was as if he’d shed twenty years.
“Okay” came his voice from inside.
Fletcher followed him in.
“You stay in here, keep an eye, see what you can find. I’m going to scout out the back door.”
It was then that Fletcher noticed another Dutch door in the back wall. Gunnar opened it with his same caution, then disappeared outside. Fletcher waited to hear signs of distress from outside. After a few moments of silence had passed, he stalked the room, eyeing the contents without touching anything.
It appeared much as Gunnar’s cabin had to Fletcher on first notice—the unclean home of a man long used to living alone. But on closer scrutiny, he realized that Gunnar lived a much tidier existence than his friend did.
Where Gunnar’s home was merely cluttered and heaped with all manner of items, from pine cones and rocks and half-finished whittling projects and clothes, Horton’s was a crusty jumble of many of the same items, but tinged with dust and the accumulated dirt and grime of someone who didn’t give much thought to cleanliness.
The clothing was stained, soiled, and torn; the socks reeked a vicious odor all their own. The low tabletop alongside the woodstove bore sigs of rodent droppings, unwashed spoons, and a crusty bowl and plate.
The floor, where Gunnar’s was planked and worn smooth from years of being trod upon, here was dirty and crusted with curls of wood shavings and bark bits, especially by the woodstove. The room smelled of sweat and greasy food poorly cooked and woodsmoke and dust.
The man’s bed sat, as did Gunnar’s, in the farthest corner. Though it was dark there, the mass of blankets and fur scraps was arranged such that even when Fletcher prodded it with a long stick that looked to be a walking staff he’d found leaning against the wall, nothing moved. There was no body, sleeping or otherwise, within it, he discovered as he flipped the blankets.
“Well,” said Gunnar, sighing as he clumped back into the room. “Maybe ol’ Horton is off at his diggin’s. But the place sure don’t smell good. He’s usually fresher than this.” He waved an arm and let it drop. “And look at them bottles. I’d say he’s been sipping more than usual, even for him. Oh, boy. Got to have a talk with that fella one of these days.”
Fletcher thought that perhaps Gunnar could follow his own impending advice regarding the excessive consumption of alcohol, but he held his tongue.
“Maybe we should visit him at his diggings, just to be sure?” said Fletcher, not quite certain that was what he wanted to do. The man he’d not yet met seemed as uncouth a brute as he’d likely yet encountered on his adventures in the West.
“That’s where we’re headed next. You see anything odd in here?”
“Nothing save for the obvious,” said Fletcher, then winced as Gunnar gave him more of that hard stare.
“Follow me, boy. And keep your eyes on our back trail. I won’t feel cozy about any of this until we find Horton.”
As they walked up a well-worn trail, Gunnar grew more lively. “You’ll like ol’ Horton. He’s a good fellow. Known him a long time. Yonder’s his outhouse. Take a peek. See if you can see what’s different about it.”
“Must I?” said Fletcher.
“Yep. You’re getting a schooling, and I’m the teacher—don’t forget.”
Fletcher sighed and walked over to the small structure. “It looks surprisingly well-built.” He reached the far corner and looked up at the view, uninterrupted from the rim of a most impressive vista. Then he looked back at the outhouse. “There’s no door.”
“Yep,” said Gunnar, smiling.
“Oh. Huh, your friend is a fellow who knows how to enjoy a view, I take it.”
“He does, indeed. Ol’ Horton likes most everything. Except for the things he don’t.”
They walked on, passing several mounds of chippings, scatters of timbers, and the beginnings of shafts in the graveled slope leading to nothing but a shallow hole.
“What happened here?” said Fletcher.
“Diggin’s. Horton gets bored easy. He’ll no sooner commence a new hole than he’ll get to be convinced that the spot next to it is the mother lode of all mother lodes. Can’t never teach him that you got to stick with a thing in life. He’s fiddle-footed and persnickety, is Horton.”
“He’s stuck with mining all these years. And with you as a friend.” Fletcher suppressed a grin. “That alone takes perseverance, I imagine.”
It took a couple of steps before Gunnar’s eyebrows rose. “Well, now, if the greenhorn ain’t gone and dug himself up a sense of humor!” He cackled and walked on up an incline and ro
unded a bend. His laughing jerked to a stop along with his walking.
He stood staring at something Fletcher could not yet see. He huffed to a stop beside Gunnar. “What’s the matter?”
There before them, not twenty-five feet up trail, next to the black opening of a mine, lay a man’s body, slack stony face staring up at the sky. A bubbled black clot of gore marked the center of his forehead.
“Oh . . . oh, no. Horton . . .” Gunnar’s voice wheezed out, a hoarse, low whisper. He rushed forward and stood looking down at his friend’s body.
Fletcher kept back, his stomach bubbling, his scalp prickling. He raised his revolver and looked around, turning in a circle. Was the killer close by? “Is he . . . ?”
By then Gunnar had knelt beside Horton’s shoulders and rested a hand on his chest. “Course he is. Head shot.” His voice cracked as he spoke. He looked at the pistol in his hand and, as if it were a writhing rattler, Gunnar flung the gun from himself.
Fletcher noted the spot where it landed, intending to retrieve it later. He kept watch, turning slowly in place, looking for sign of anything that might indicate they were being watched. The sounds coming from Gunnar, though low and muffled, were those of raw mourning, and Fletcher felt a great wash of sadness in sympathy for the mountain man.
Fletcher gulped back a hard knot in his throat and turned around once more. As he faced the grisly scene, he noted something odd about the face of the broad slab of rock beside Horton’s body.
Something on the broad face, as long as a man and half as high, looked not unlike symbols, letters, man-made scratchings.
Had Horton done this in his final moments? As quickly as Fletcher thought it, though, he knew this was not the case. Horton had been shot in the head, after all. How many men could function in such a state? None, he wagered.
Ralph Compton Guns of the Greenhorn Page 17
