It's Your Misfortune and None of My Own (Code of the West) (6 page)

Pepper glanced into the bag and flipped through the co
ntents that had been poured out of the little velvet bags.

“Where’s the cash, Selena?”

“Weren’t no cash in there.” Selena lunged toward the knife.

Pepper locked her left arm around Selena’s neck, shoved her free hand down the decollete bo
dice and yanked out a wad of bills.

“My, look what I found.” She shoved the money into the leather suitcase and twirled back out into the hall.

“I’ll kill you. You—you witch,” Selena jeered.

“Not in my house,” April Hastings boomed.

“Pepper, I’ve just about had it with you tonight. You know I can’t keep a girl who insults the customers and abuses the other girls. Now get down there and apologize to Beckett. I can’t afford to lose the business of that whole bunch.”

“I ain’t goin’ to apologize.”

“You most certainly are. Now I told you to—”

“You aren’t tellin’ me nothin’—ever again. I quit."

“Then you’ll be out of that room by breakfast.”

“It will be a delight.” Pepper slammed and locked the door to her room.

She spent the night in the rocking chair, facing the door, with a blanket wrapped around her, a Remington .41 rimfire, pearl-handled pocket revolver clasped in one hand and the leather valise in her lap.

During the long night she re-read the letters from Zach
ariah Hatcher several times and examined every item as she carefully put them back in the velvet bags. At daylight she was packed, dressed, and waiting when Stack Lowery came to her door.

“Miss Pepper? You need a ride som
ewhere? I’m headin’ out to buy some supplies.”

“You goin’ east or west?”

“West, I reckon. The pass is still washed out toward the east.”

“I’ll ride with you for a while. I’ve got to find some rancher over there.”

With both her suitcase and Suzanne Cedar’s valise in the wagon, Pepper hugged Danni Mae Walters, Paula St. Lucie, and Nevada Young. She nodded at April Hastings who sat with no sign of emotion on the porch of her establishment. Selena Oatley didn't show.

“Can you drive up there by that grave, Stack?”

“I reckon so.”

When the two-horse wagon reached the grave site, he stopped the team. “You gettin’ out?”

“Nope. I just needed to say somethin’.” She looked down at the fresh dirt and sighed.

Darlin’, you yourself said that Mr. Zachariah Hatcher d
eserved to be greeted by his fiancée, and I’m goin’ to see that he is. Now you know I ain’t stealin’ your man, cause, you never had him. Besides, you’re up there frolickin’ past them pearly gates. Maybe he won’t know the difference between one green-eyed blonde and another.

She reached up and wiped her tearless eyes.

3

T
ap Andrews ranged up through Utah, across the northwest corner of Colorado, arriving at the North Platte River on September 21, 1882. He turned east, crossed the Michigan River, and rode into a small settlement called McCurley.

He made a few inquiries, bought a short black horse, e
xtra saddle, and as many groceries as he could carry on the horse. Then he headed north on a trail that took him past Sentinel Mountain to Pinkham Creek. From there he turned due west to begin the ascent to Lawrence Creek.

Finally he stopped at the base of a deep canyon to rest the horses. He rolled his jacket and tied it behind the cantle. Pul
ling a piece of jerky out of his brown deerskin vest pocket, he surveyed the countryside.

“Okay, ponies, this is our new home. This country just begs for cows. Mountains, va
lleys, streams, thick grass. Oh, sure, it’s all brown now. But can you imagine how it looks in the spring? And we’ll have plenty of privacy. We haven’t seen a house or fresh wagon rut for twenty miles. Arizona bounty hunters will never come up here. No wonder Hatcher bought this place.”

He walked the horses up the trail for a co
uple of miles. Then he tightened the latigo, swung back into the well-worn saddle, and rode straight up the creek until he spotted a wood-frame house and huge barn tucked back against a bluff of the Medicine Bow Mountains. About a half-mile away flowed a slowly moving stream.

At least, I think this is Hatcher’s place. It looks deserted e
nough.

Stopping the horses, he soaked up the view. He took a deep breath and sighed.

“Brownie, I just didn’t know there were still places like this around. I mean, I always hoped there was . . . I always pretended that someday I’d quit driftin’ and buy me a spread like this. But sometimes, I got to thinkin’ a place like this didn’t exist anymore.”

He stopped and tied off both horses to a post in the midst of a packed-dirt yard.

“Boys, you wait out here, and I’ll check the place. I’m not sure Hatcher had time to fix it up for company. I’m not even sure he’s been here. That old boy down at McCurley’s store and hotel sure didn’t bat an eye when I told him I was Zach Hatcher.”

As he walked across the wooden porch, he heard the ra
ttle of pans inside the house.

Someone’s home. Maybe this isn’t Hatcher’s place. I could have got it all wrong .
 . . or maybe he has a cook . . . or hired hands.

Staying on the left side of the doorway so that he would be hidden from anyone swin
ging the door open, he pounded on the heavy oak and shouted, “Ho! In the house, anyone home?”

There was no answer.

He banged and shouted again, “
¡Hola! En la casa! ¿Quién es usted?
”

There was still no answer.

Tap drew his Colt out of the holster, but he changed his mind about cocking it.

“Look, I heard you in there .
 . . Now I’ve got to talk to you. Does the name Zachariah Hatcher mean anything to you?”

Pans crashed.

“Look, I’m comin’ in now, and I have my gun drawn. All I want to do is talk,
comprende
?”

With a .44 Colt in his right hand, Tap lifted the latch on the door and slowly swung it open. The hinges squealed. The stil
lness of the house seemed to amplify the sound. The air smelled musty and tinged with old smoke. A big room had few furnishings.

“Hello? Anyone home?” Still ca
rrying his drawn Colt, Tap stepped toward a back room. A rough pine four-poster bed hunkered against a window, with a long dresser built right into the wall.

“Hello,” he announced again. Tap slapped the bed co
vers. Dust fogged the room. Gently he walked back out into the big room and then around to the kitchen. Cupboards stretched from floor to ceiling.

He found a newer cookstove on the far wall, a six-foot-square butcher’s block in the very center of the room, and a pantry without a door on the left side. A couple of pans li
ttered the floor. A back door propped open several inches with an old boot led outside.

“What in the world?” Andrews mumbled. “Why would Hatcher leave the door open?”

Sensing movement to the right, he whirled and pointed his .44. He stared into the slitted eyes of a huge gray and white cat lounged on the counter. Its front paws tucked under its shoulders.

“What are you doin’ here?”

The cat calmly peered back at him.

“So, Hatcher has a cat? Perhaps he left the back door ajar so you could go and come as you please.”

He scooped up the cat, which seemed content to cuddle in his rough, callused hands.

“What’s your name? I mean, what will I call you? I su
ppose I should know your name. If Hatcher told Miss Cedar . . . I’ll wait until she mentions it. But why a cat way out here?”

A dark shadow raced across the kitchen floor. The cat sprang out of his arms, claws pr
otracted. The feline returned from behind the butcher block, a mouse clutched in its teeth. It scurried out the back door and into the yard.

“A little dinner outside? You proved your point. We can use a mouser. But no eatin’ in the kitchen, you understand?”

He turned back to the big front room. “It surely doesn’t look like anyone’s been here, not even that Cedar woman.”

He opened all the shutters and windows that weren’t stuck and propped both the front and back doors open.

“That ought to air it out . . . Come on, ponies, let’s see what your house looks like.”

Tap led the animals to the huge barn next to some stout co
rrals. The tall gable-roofed structure smelled of dried manure and old hay but it was clean, neat, and seemed as if it had been used more recently than the house.

“Would you look at this. She’s a beaut. Clean stalls.  Plenty of hay upstairs. Although it looks like last year’s crop. And a water pump right in the barn.”

Within a few minutes he had the horses stripped down, rubbed off, watered, and placed in a stall with some hay. He was surprised that the leathers in the pump had not dried out and cracked.

He carried the supplies to the house, hunted for a broom, and began to clean up. With every sweep of the broom, dust fogged the room, but a slight breeze began to clear the air. He hung the bedding on the corral fence and beat it with the broom. Then he tossed the mattress on the roof of the front porch.

This might be a big waste of time. But I’ll enjoy it for one night at least. Then I’ll head down the road and see if I can find Miss Suzanne Cedar. I surely would like this to work out. With the right woman at his side, a man could sit up and watch the rest of the world go on by.

He was scooting a big chunk of split red fir into the crac
kling fire when he heard riders approach. Instantly, he grabbed up his Winchester, cocked it, and then stepped to the open doorway. Two punchers rode into the yard from the north, circled between the barn and the house, and then drew up at the hitchin’ post.

If these boys knew Zachariah Hatcher, I’ll have a lot of e
xplainin’ to do. Here’s a good test.

He set his Winchester in the doorway and walked toward the men. “Evenin’, fellas,” he called. “What can I do for you?”

“Are you Hatcher?” the taller of the two asked.

“That’s what folks have been calling me. Boys, come on down and sit a spell. The coffee’s not hot yet, but I got the water warmin’.”

“Thank ya, we appreciate it.” The short one in the black shirt loosened his red bandanna and shook out the dust.

Walking with them back to the house, Tap asked, “Can I do anything for ya?”

“Mr. Hatcher, we is just sort of wanting to welcome you to the neighborhood. My name’s Wiley, and this here’s Quail.”

“You take to sleeping on the roof?” Quail motioned to the mattress on the shingled roof of the front porch.

“I just got this place, and it needs freshin’ up. I figured a little air and sunlight would do it good.”

“We’re a bit dirty for house visitin’,” Wiley offered. “Maybe we ought to drink that coffee out here.”

“Boys, do you work for an outfit around here?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Let me tell you somethin’ right up front. Punchers are welcome inside my house any day of the week, you understand?”

“Thank ya, that’s right neighborly.”

“Bankers, on the other hand, don’t get further than that scrub cedar down the road. Now make yourself at home, and we’ll wait for that coffee to boil.”

“Mr. Hatcher, we came down—”

“Now, Wiley, I don’t much cotton to being called Mr. Hatcher. You can call me Zach. Or just use my nickname—Tap.”

“Tap?”

“As in tapadera.”

“Well, sir, we work up across the state line on the Ra
fter R Ranch. We were ridin’ the drift line and thought we’d come down and introduce ourselves. We’ll surely try to keep the Wyoming beef off your range. Sometimes in the blizzards, they wander down this way. They’ll all be branded Rafter R.”

“It’s going to take me a while to build the place up,” Tap o
ffered. “I hope to have several hundred head running by early next summer.”

“What’s your brand goin’ to be?”

Brand? I don’t even know if I’ll be here tomorrow.

“I’m thinkin’ of making it the Triple Creek Ranch. So I’ll burn a TC with a wavy line u
nderneath. Is that going to look too much like any others around here?”

“Nope. Don’t think so.”

Quail stood up and walked over to the coffeepot which hung on an iron hook at the front of the fireplace. He poured himself a cup of coffee and turned back to Tap. Steam rose from the blue enameled tin cup. He waved it under his chin to better enjoy the full aroma.

“Now, there’s one other thing you ought to know.”

“What’s that?”

“The big augur up on Rafter R is a fe
llow named Fightin’ Ed Casey. Ever heard of him?”

“Nope. But I presume he got his name ho
nestly.”

Wiley nodded. “You’re right about that. He had his eyes on buying this place himself, so he don’t intend on being real neighborly. He won’t take too kindly to your coming over the line lookin’ for strays and the like. But you won’t get no tro
uble from us. We jist thought it fair to warn you.”