Once a Renegade

by Peter Brandvold

  "Well, what did you want me to do about it, Walt?" the woman brusquely retorted, eyes afire. "If he wouldn't come, he wouldn't come. The men tried to bring him, and he pulled a gun on them! That's why they're all gathered in die corral like cattle."

  Hendricks glanced at Stillman and shrugged.

  Stillman turned to Evans and McMannigle. "Well, let's go see what we can do, Doc." As he turned his horse toward the bunkhouse, Leon and Evans following, Stillman turned back to Mrs. Hendricks. "Where are the dead men, Mrs. Hendricks?"

  "The boys laid them out in the blacksmith shop, in their coffins. They're ready to be buried as soon as you're done with them." The woman's voice grew stern. "Then maybe we can all get back to work around here." She hit Dave Groom and her husband with a visual lance, then wheeled and headed into the cabin.

  Stillman glanced at Hendricks, who only shrugged and raised his hands, palm up.

  "And people ask why I never married," Evans muttered as he followed the sheriff and McMannigle onto the log bridge traversing the creek.

  The three men reined up before the bunkhouse. McMannigle said he'd check out the two dead men while Stillman and Evans tended the kid. He kneed his horse toward the blacksmith shop.

  Stillman and Evans dismounted their horses and looped their reins over the tie rack.

  "I better check it out first, Doc," Stillman said, motioning for Evans to stay back.

  Stillman knocked on the door, keeping to the side in case the kid, in his delirium, squeezed off any rounds.

  “Tommy, it's Sheriff Stillman. I'm here with Doc Evans. Can we come in?”

  There was no reply. Stillman glanced at Evans, then at the corral where the cowboys watched him silently.

  Stillman lifted the latch and the door squawked open on its rusty hinges. Peering into the musty shadows, he called, "Tommy?'

  Evans stayed outside by the horses as Stillman disappeared into the bunkhouse. After a minute Stillman called to him. Clutching his black medical kit, Evans stepped through the door and walked about halfway down the row of bunks. Stillman was standing in the aisle, looking down.

  Evans followed the sheriff's gaze to the kid lying on a lower bunk. Falk lay on his side, knees drawn nearly all the way to his chest, clutching a blood-soaked pillow to his head. He was breathing heavily and grunting and gritting his teeth. The knuckles clutching the pillow were bone-white.

  On the floor beside the kid was a whiskey bottle and a silver-plated, scroll-engraved .45. Stillman picked up the gun and the bottle. He unloaded the gun, tossed it onto a distant bunk, and looked at the bottle. It was nearly empty. Glancing at Evans, he shrugged and set the bottle on the small table near the kid's head.

  "The doc's here now, Tommy," Stillman said. "I'll leave you two alone here in a minute, but I'd just like to ask you one question."

  The kid was wheezing and clutching the pillow. "I... I just wanna be left... alone...."

  "I understand that, Tommy, but—"

  "An' I'm gonna... I'm gonna kill that son of a devil!"

  "I can understand your sentiment there, too, Tommy, but you're not going to have to. My deputy and I are going to hunt him down and bring him to justice. But I need to know why he attacked you boys last night."

  " 'Cause he's crazy, that's why!" the kid shrieked, for the first time opening his eyes and glaring at Stillman.

  "No other reason?" Stillman said. "He just broke into your cabin, killed the two others, and scalped you—for no reason whatsoever?"

  "Just plumb loco's what he is ... damn that devil to hell! Look what he done to me!" The kid brought his knees to his chest tightly, convulsing with pain. "Ohhh! God, it hurts!"

  "Easy, there, son," Evans said. "I've got something that's gonna make you feel better."

  The kid swallowed and sucked a sharp breath. “The only thing ... only thing that's gonna make me feel better is putting a bullet through that madman's brisket!"

  Stillman glanced at the doctor. Evans returned the doubtful look.

  "Well, I'll leave you two alone," Stillman said to the kid. To Evans he said, "Leon and I'll go up and check the cabin and try to cut Shambeau's trail from there. You'll probably head back to town later."

  "Probably," Evans said, keeping his voice low. "There's really not much I can do except clean the wound and give the kid laudanum for his pain. It's just gonna take some time to scab up and heal. Won't even bandage it. It needs air."

  "When you get back to town, will you stop by the school and tell Fay what's going on, let her know I'm tracking Shambeau? No telling how long it'll take."

  Evans nodded. "Be careful, Ben. The man who did this has to be insane."

  "Or madder than hell... about something," Stillman said.

  He walked over to the blacksmith shop and found Leon standing before two open coffins propped on sawhorses. The deputy's arms were crossed on his chest as he pondered the bodies critically.

  "What's it look like?" Stillman said.

  "One was shot in the chest, right through the heart. The other had his throat cut."

  Stillman walked over to the coffins and peered into each. He pursed his lips and shook his head.

  "What'd the kid say?" Leon asked.

  Stillman sighed. "Said he has no idea why Shambeau attacked them." He shook his head. "It just doesn't add up. I've seen ole Louis in town on several occasions, even talked to him some. He was odd, the way most loners are odd. Didn't have a whole lot to say. But he didn't seem crazy. Didn't seem violent."

  Leon nodded. "I traded with him some back when I had that roadhouse down by the Misery. He was a quiet fella. Like you said, maybe a little odd the way all those old mountain men are odd, but he didn't seem crazy. I couldn't see him doing somethin' like this unless ..."

  Stillman looked at his deputy staring into the coffins. "Unless he was provoked?"

  Leon raised his brows and nodded.

  "Well," Stillman said after a while, "I guess it's time to go and have a little chat with Louis himself."

  The two men turned from the coffins and headed for their horses. They were untying their reins from the hitch-rack when the cowboys filed toward them from the corral.

  "Listen, Sheriff," one of them said. "Me and the boys been talkin' it over. Why don't you let us track this half-breed for you?"

  Stillman glanced at Leon, then returned his eyes to the cowboy. "I appreciate the offer," he said with a friendly smile, "but it's my job. I'll do it."

  He started to poke his boot through a stirrup but stopped when another man said, "You don't want to have to stay out in these mountains, trackin' that maniac. Why don't you deputize us; let us do it? You can go on home, where it's nice and warm, and we'll bring ole Louis back to Clantick to stand trial."

  A smile pulled at the corners of his chapped mouth, and his slitted green eyes sparked a grin. "Unless of course he resists arrest. Then I reckon all bets are off."

  The others smiled and snickered, shifting their feet, hooking their thumbs in their cartridge belts or fingering the butts of the hoglegs on their hips.

  "You boys sure are generous," Leon quipped.

  "And I appreciate it," Stillman said. "But like I said, no thanks."

  "Aw, come on, Sheriff," the first man argued. "He killed two of our friends and scalped the kid. Now, the kid I never really cared for, but he's a Bar Seven man just the same, and we stand together. When that looney trapper attacked those boys, he as good as attacked us all. Now I say we have a right to settle this ourselves."

  Stillman shook his head and was about to say something when another man cut in. "What the hell do you care, Stillman, if we do your job for you... nice and quiet-like? We'll hunt the man down, give him the necktie party he deserves, and keep our mouths shut. No one will know."

  "But justice will sure as hell be served!" whooped a man from back of the group.

  The others answered with whoops of their own.

  "All right, quiet down!" Stillman shouted.

  He waited for quiet. The
Bar 7 men eyed him angrily.

  "Now, my deputy and I are going to handle this. I appreciate your sentiment, but the fact of the matter is none of us really knows what happened out there last night. I intend to find out. This is a matter for the law, and since I'm the law, it's in my hands."

  He lifted his arm and swept an angry finger across the crowd. "And if I see any of you out there, I'm going to haul you back to the hoosegow for interfering with lawmen in the performance of their duties. Do I make myself clear?"

  No one said anything.

  Stillman waited.

  A square-jawed man with gray sideburns stared at him disdainfully, then wrinkled his mouth in a sneer. He spat, turned, and headed back toward the corral. The others followed him, sneering over their shoulders at the lawmen.

  When he and Stillman had mounted their horses, Leon said, "I'd say you got through to them real good."

  Stillman gave a rueful snort and gigged his horse back across the creek. He reined the bay to a halt before the house. Hendricks and his foreman, Dave Groom, were standing on the gallery drinking coffee.

  "Hendricks," Stillman called. "Where's this woodcutting shack?"

  When Hendricks had told him, Stillman said, "Make sure your men stay home, will you? If they interfere with me, I'm going to hold you personally responsible."

  Then the sheriff and McMannigle gigged their horses southeastward along the creek.

  Behind them, Hendricks cut his eyes at his foreman dubiously.

  Chapter Six

  IT WAS AN EARLY noon when Stillman halted his horse on the two-track wagon trail rising through scattered aspens. He pointed at the cabin resting on a bench about a hundred yards above him and Leon, nestled among lodgepole pines.

  The sun was bright, the sky clear and huge, the air crisp and sweet with the smell of pine resin. Steam lifted from the horses' backs; it had been a long, uphill climb.

  "That must be it."

  "Sure enough." Leon nodded.

  His breath puffing in the air, Stillman gigged his horse ahead. Leon followed, his hand resting on his gun butt. It was doubtful the killer would have returned to the scene of the crime, but the fact that a murder had been committed here made both men edgy.

  They rode around to the front of the cabin and dismounted. When he'd tied his horse to the hitching post, Stillman followed McMannigle inside where only two small windows offered light. Both men stood inside the door, looking silently around at the three pools of blood on the floor.

  Finally, Stillman turned and inspected the door hanging in the frame by only half of one leather hinge. The wood around the edge was splintered, as was the frame.

  "Kicked in."

  "He should've tried the latch," Leon said wryly. "I don't think it was lockable."

  "Wanted to scare hell out of 'em, I guess."

  "I have a feelin' that's just what he did, too. Probably cut the throat of the man standing here by the door, shot the other one there across the table. Shot the kid here and scalped him."

  "Why do you suppose he scalped the kid?"

  Leon shrugged. "Well, he's half Injun."

  "He didn't scalp the others."

  "The others didn't have much to scalp."

  "There's a point." Stillman was looking around the room, at the bloodstains and broken furniture, at the cobwebs before the dirty, sashed windows, thinking it all through.

  Grisly violence had happened here, and he just couldn't believe it was all due to a man going crazy. There had to be a more concrete reason than that. There usually was.

  Finally, he sighed and turned to Leon. "I'm gonna have a smoke."

  He turned and stepped through the door. He walked over to the small corral next to an arbor and stood with his back against the poles.

  As Leon kicked around through the trees, looking for tracks and anything the killer might have left behind, anything that might give them a clue as to why this had occurred, Stillman rolled a cigarette and smoked it, pondering the cabin, trying to imagine all that had happened last night.

  Finally, Leon wandered up and accepted the tobacco and papers Stillman offered. As the deputy built a cigarette, he said, "Found what looks to be his trail. He rode in from the east. Tied his horse by a big lodgepole pine right over yonder, about fifty yards up the mountain, and walked to the cabin. When he finished his business, he walked back to his horse, mounted up, and headed back east."

  Leon struck a match and touched it to the quirley. "The ground's still damp from snowmelt and probably freezes every night. He left a good, clear trail. We shouldn't have any trouble runnin' him down."

  Stillman nodded, staring absently at the cabin. After a while, he looked at his deputy. "Tell me what you know about him—Shambeau."

  McMannigle took a long drag and blew it out slowly. "I heard he was born in Canada. His old man was a French trapper—a voyageur. His ma was Cree. When they both died, he lit out on his own and he's been alone ever since.

  "At least, this is what I heard from other trappers and hiders. He used to stop by my roadhouse and trade hides for whiskey. Friendly enough, but he wasn't a talker. Always smelled like skunk. Must've used skunk oil in his lanterns back home, wherever home was. He never said and I never asked. I assumed it was probably down in the breaks somewhere. Probably has two or three cabins along his traplines."

  Leon chuckled and flicked ashes from his cigarette. "A few times he offered me hides for an hour with my girl, Mary Beth, in my back room."

  Leon chuckled, sucking in another long drag, and shook his head. "I told him I didn't do things that way, and he looked at me like I was daffy. How could I not think I was getting a deal?" Leon laughed again, dropping his chin and shaking his head.

  "Ever see him violent?"

  "Never. Surly, but not violent. Used to sleep on my floor, disappear first thing in the morning. Never heard a peep out of him. Never stole anything, and he had plenty of opportunities. Others like him sure did—wood, hay, horses." Leon glanced at Stillman, his right eyebrow cocked. "But I have a feeling if he ever got mad, he could do some damage. He ain't no little guy."

  "I reckon that's what happened last night."

  "Someone put a burr under his blanket?"

  "Let's find out."

  Stillman dropped his quirley stub, rubbed it out with his heel, and headed for his horse.

  It was getting late in the afternoon, and they were crossing a high saddle when McMannigle reined his gray gelding to a halt, sniffing the air.

  "What is it?" Stillman said.

  "Do you smell smoke?"

  Stillman reined Sweets to a stop and took several deep breaths. "Yeah, I think I caught a whiff of something. Where's it coming from?"

  Quickly they dismounted and led their horses back down the game trail they'd been following until they were no longer visible from the other side of the divide. Stillman grabbed his field glasses off his saddle and crawled to the brow of the mountain, feeling the damp chill of the ground penetrating his denims and union suit.

  They were a couple thousand feet high, and a fresh dusting of snow lay in the short, tawny grass and on the low-growing junipers. The sun was sinking, stretching shadows across the surrounding snub-nosed peaks, and the brittle breeze smelled tinny.

  Adjusting the glasses, Stillman swept the small bowl beneath them from left to right. Bringing it back left, he lingered over an aspen copse. A thin shadow of what looked like smoke rose from the trees.

  "I think we have our man," Stillman said. "Of course, it could be some line rider or another hunter."

  "What is it?"

  Stillman handed the glasses to McMannigle, who'd crawled up beside him. "Have a look at those aspens down there."

  McMannigle took a long, careful look. "Yep, that's smoke all right. A cook fire, no doubt."

  "Kind of careless, wouldn't you say?"

  "No more careless than the trail he left—if it's him."

  "Well, there's only one way to find out"

  "How do you want
to do it?"

  Stillman drew his revolver and filled the empty chamber beneath the hammer, then spun the cylinder. Glancing down the saddle, he said, "Why don't you follow this ridgeline into those pines over there, come in from the south? I'll head over to the left and follow those shrubs into the aspens. Looks like some boulders and other good cover that way."

  "All right. I'm going to get my rifle."

  'Take these back to my horse, then, will you?" Stillman said, handing the glasses to Leon.

  "You got it," the deputy said, turning away.

  "Leon?"

  “What's that?"

  "Let's try to take him without shooting. We only know half the story so far."

  "I hear that," McMannigle said, and headed down the hill to the horses idly cropping grass.

  Stillman took another peek over the ridge, then stood and followed the brow of the saddle eastward, keeping low so the sky wouldn't outline him. When he saw that he was screened from the aspens, he crossed the ridge and headed down the other side, crouching behind boulders and shrubs.

  At the base of the hill, he stopped behind a cedar, taking a reckoning and waiting for Leon to get into position on the other side of the aspens. He figured the deputy would need at least ten minutes.

  Finally, he moved through a clump of junipers and cedars, staying low, his revolver held out before him. When he made the aspens, he slowed even more, watching his feet and avoiding branches, and crept from one tree to another.

  The smoke from the cook fire got heavier. It smelled like aspen and roasting meat

  When he'd walked about twenty yards into the copse, he came to a slight clearing fronted by a deadfall log. On the other side of the log, a column of smoke rose.

  Stillman crept closer, extending the Colt, bringing more of the bivouac into view. There was a ring of stones at the fire's base. An aspen spit arced over the coals. Skewered on the spit, a small rabbit cooked, the juice dribbling into the coals and sizzling.

  On another deadfall right of the fire, a riding saddle with a throw rope and a pack saddle had been draped. A rusty coffeepot sat on the log as well, its top lifted. Below it sat an uncorked, hide-covered canteen.