Authors: William W. Johnstone
Sidewinders (3 page)
CHAPTER 4
Scratch let out a startled curse as he and Bo hauled back on their reins.
“They don't seem too fond of us here, either,” Bo said. “Come on!”
He wheeled his mount and raced toward a wooded knob about a quarter of a mile away. He remembered that elevation well. When he and Scratch were young, they had waited up there with long-barreled, muzzle-loading flintlock rifles and shot wild turkeys that Scratch would call up with an uncannily accurate gobbling sound. Those birds had put food on the table for the Morton and Creel families more than once.
Bo and Scratch had snuck up there with jugs of corn liquor, too, and every now and then they'd even been able to persuade young ladies to accompany them to the top of Turkey Mountain, as they called it, for some sparking.
The important thing at the moment was that the knob was the highest ground around here. If they could reach the top, they could throw a few carefully aimed Winchester rounds over the heads of their pursuers and make the men back off. Bo didn't want to hurt anybody who rode for his father if he could help it.
“Why'd they start throwin' lead at us?” Scratch called over the pounding rataplan of hoofbeats. “They weren't close enough to recognize you!”
“Don't know!” Bo replied. Scratch was right: this couldn't be the same sort of misunderstanding that they had run into in the settlement.
But no matter what had prompted the attack, Bo didn't want to let the men get any closer. So far they were just wasting bullets by blazing away with handguns, but if they stopped and pulled out rifles it might be a different story.
The drifters were mounted on strong, speedy horses, and they reached the knob well ahead of their pursuers. The horses took to the slope valiantly, but when it grew too steep, Bo and Scratch had to dismount and lead the animals.
While they were doing that, the gunmen thundered closer. Bo heard several slugs racket through the tree limbs, but none of the bullets came close enough to represent a real threat.
As soon as they reached the knob's fairly level top and hurried onto it, the shooting stopped. The men down below couldn't see them well enough from that angle anymore. Bo and Scratch dropped the reins and pulled their Winchesters from the saddle boots. They trotted back to the edge and crouched behind a couple of tree trunks for cover.
Bo aimed downslope and fired, keeping his barrel tilted enough that he knew the shot would miss the pursuers as they approached the knob. He levered another round into the rifle's chamber and fired again. Scratch followed suit. Bo wanted to get the attention of the men who had chased them, and he knew the shots ought to do it.
Sure enough, he heard shouted curses as the men reined in. One of them ordered, “Fall back, damn it! If we charge 'em, they'll cut us down!”
Bo cranked off another couple of rounds to reinforce that idea. The men wheeled their horses and galloped back the way they had come, veering off into some trees.
“Looks like they're splittin' up,” Scratch commented as the echoes of the shots rolled away. “Couple of 'em ridin' off to the east.”
“They'll circle around and come up on the other side of the knob,” Bo predicted. “That way they can keep us pinned down up here.”
“Until it gets dark, anyway. Once it does, we can slip out.” Scratch looked around. “You remember this place, don't you, Bo? This is good ol' Turkey Mountain.”
Bo grinned and said, “I was just thinking about that. We had some mighty good times up here, back in the old days.”
“Damn right. I recollect when you brought Maryâ”
Scratch stopped short. Bo didn't want his old friend to feel bad about it, so he said, “That's all right, Scratch. It was a long time ago.”
“So long that the hurt's wore off?”
“Well, no,” Bo admitted with a shake of his head. “I don't reckon that'll ever happen, at least not completely. But it's not as bad as it once was. I can think back on how I brought Mary up here to ask her to marry me, and it puts a smile on my face and warms my heart. There's some pain there, too, but the warmth helps.”
“Hard to understand all the twists and turns that life takes, ain't it? The sky pilots like to say that everything happens for a reason, even if we ain't wise enough to see it. I'd like to think that's true, but sometimes it's mighty hard to dab a loop on that idea.”
“That's why it's called faith,” Bo said. He leaned forward suddenly and peered into the distance to the west. “Somebody else is coming.”
Two more riders had come into sight. Maybe they had heard the shots and wanted to find out what was going on, Bo thought.
His eyes narrowed as he realized that something was familiar about one of the newcomers. The man was still too far away for Bo to make out any details. He said, “Keep an eye on those varmints in the trees, Scratch. I want to get my spyglass.”
“You recognize one of those other fellas?”
“Maybe.”
Bo hurried back to where they had left their horses with the reins dangling. He took a telescope from his saddlebags and returned to the tree. Leaning his rifle against the trunk, he extended the spyglass and lifted the lens to his right eye. It took him a minute to locate the two riders through the glass, but when he did their faces sprang into sharp relief.
Bo felt a sharp tingle of recognition go through him. One of the men had craggy, powerful features and crisp white hair under a black Stetson. His face was the color of old saddle leather, a permanent tan that testified to how many years he had spent working outdoors. He still rode tall and straight in the saddle despite his obviously advanced age.
It had been ten years since Bo had seen his father, but John Creel hadn't changed a whit.
Before Bo could tell Scratch what he had seen through the glass, one of the men in the trees yelled, “Hey! You
hombres
up there on the knob! Come on down with your hands in the air, and I promise we won't hang you!”
hombres
up there on the knob! Come on down with your hands in the air, and I promise we won't hang you!”
“Hang us for what?” Scratch shouted back. “We ain't done anything!”
“That's just what I'd expect one of Fontaine's men to say, you lyin' cattle thief!”
Scratch looked over at Bo and said in amazement, “They think we're rustlers.”
“That would explain why they started shooting at us,” Bo said. “I think they must be Star C punchers. One of those men riding up from the direction of the ranch is my pa.”
Scratch let out a low whistle.
“So the old man's still alive,” he said. “I'm mighty glad to hear it, Bo. Mr. Creel ought to be able to straighten all this out.”
One of the men who had taken cover in the trees suddenly galloped out into the open and raced back to intercept John Creel and his companion. For all he knew, he was risking his life by doing so, but clearly he wasn't going to let his boss ride right into danger without being warned.
“I'm going down there,” Bo declared.
“They're liable to start slingin' lead at you,” Scratch said.
Bo shook his head.
“I don't think so. You heard that fella say that if we surrendered, they wouldn't hang us. I'm hoping the same holds true for shooting us.”
“It's a big risk.”
“I'm willing to run it.” Bo tossed his rifle over to Scratch. “You stay here until you see it's all right, then you can come down and bring the horses.”
“Are you sure about this, Bo?”
Bo stepped out from behind the tree, held his hands out at his sides where they were in plain sight, and started walking down the slope.
“I'm sure,” he said over his shoulder to Scratch.
“I'll cover you,” the silver-haired Texan said. “If any of those varmints gets trigger-happy, I'll part his hair with a slug and make him duck.”
Bo walked a few more steps, maintaining a steady pace, then raised his voice and called, “Hold your fire! I'm coming down!”
“Keep your hands in the air!” ordered the spokesman for the group in the trees. “I'll blow a hole through you if you reach for a gun!”
“Take it easy. My name's Bo Creel.”
Although he couldn't make out the words, he heard the sound of several men exclaiming in surprise. Then the spokesman said, “Keep comin', and keep those hands in sight.”
He didn't sound much more friendly now than he had before Bo revealed his identity. Bo wasn't sure the man sounded
any
friendlier, when you got right down to it.
any
friendlier, when you got right down to it.
A hundred yards away, John Creel had stopped long enough to listen to whatever the man who'd ridden out to warn him had to say. Then he promptly ignored it and kept riding. That came as no surprise to Bo. His father had never been one to let somebody else tell him what to do.
Bo reached the flat and started forward with his hands still half-raised. The men who had shot at him and Scratch emerged from the trees and rode toward him. John Creel and the other two men came on in that direction, too. Bo stopped and waited where he was, figuring he might as well let everybody come to him.
They did. The two groups rode up and reined in. Several men had their guns out and held the weapons leveled at Bo.
John Creel's blue eyes, set deep in pits of gristle, stared at Bo for a few long seconds before he barked, “Put those guns down, you blasted fools! That's my son.”
A big redheaded man in the other bunch said, “You mean he was tellin' the truth about that?” Bo recognized the voice as that of the man who'd been doing the talking.
“I think I know my own flesh and blood.” John moved his horse forward a couple of steps and rested his hands on the saddle horn. He gave Bo a curt nod and said, “Bo.”
“Pa.” Life on the rugged Texas frontier had made them not very demonstrative with family. “Good to see you again.”
“Hendry, why were you shootin' at my son?” John demanded of the redhead.
“When we spotted him and his friend, we figured they were some of Fontaine's men,” Hendry replied. “We weren't tryin' to kill 'em, just chase them down so we could find out what they were doin' on Star C range, boss.”
At the time it had sure seemed to Bo that Hendry and the other men had been trying to kill him and Scratch. But he didn't see any point in continuing that argument.
John repeated, “Friend? Scratch is with you?”
“Sure,” Bo said.
The corners of John's mouth twitched slightly in what passed for a smile. He said, “Be good to see that rapscallion again. I reckon he's still as feisty as he ever was?”
“Pretty much.”
Hendry said, “I'm sorry we threw lead at your boy, Mr. Creel. We didn't know it was him.”
Hendry was twenty-five or thirty years younger than him, thought Bo, and yet the fella was calling him a boy. He supposed he understood, though, considering that Hendry worked for Bo's father.
“Anyway,” the burly redhead went on, “you know what they've been sayin' in town. It ain't like Bo Creel is exactly welcome around here!”
John's leathery face hardened even more than usual. He glared at Bo and demanded, “What do you have to say for yourself about that, son?”
“What I have to say is that I don't know what in blazes is going on around here,” Bo responded. “Avery Hollins and Jesse Peterson acted like they thought I was some sort of monster, and some fox-faced young firebrand sicced his friends on us and said he was going to hold us for the law. Then he yelled something about a couple of girls who got hurt . . . ?”
John didn't answer Bo's implied question. Instead he said, “That fox-faced gent you mentioned . . . did he have blond hair? Dressed sort of like a cowboy, but fancier?”
“That sounds like him, all right,” Bo said.
“Danny Fontaine!” Hendry spat out the name as if it tasted bad in his mouth.
“And some of that salty Rafter F crew, more than likely,” John said.
“He's the one you've been having trouble with?” Bo asked.
“He's one of 'em,” John answered in a flinty voice. “Mostly it's his pa. Damn carpetbaggin' Yankee.”
“The war's been over for fifteen years, Pa,” Bo said.
“A Yankee's always a Yankee, no matter how many years go by,” John said.
“Maybe so.” Bo was getting mighty impatient. “But you still haven't told me why everybody in these parts seems to think it's all right to use me and Scratch for target practice.”
“It's mostly you,” John said. “Scratch just happened to be trailin' along with the wrong hombre. And you can't blame people for bein' scared and upset. I reckon everybody in the county has heard about what happened by now.”
“And what is it I'm supposed to have done?”
Bo's father squinted at him and said, “A fella matchin' your description killed a couple of saloon girls, one in Cottonwood and one right there in Bear Creek. Choked 'em and then hacked 'em to pieces with a knife.”
Bo was so shocked by what he'd just heard that he almost missed what his father said next.
“That's why they've started callin' the killer The Butcher of Bear Creek.”
CHAPTER
5
5
For a long moment, Bo could only stare at John Creel and feel horrified. Finally, when he was able to speak again, he said, “Do you really believe I'd ever do a thing like that?”
John snorted.
“No flesh and blood of mine'd be capable of such a thing,” he declared.
“Well, I'm glad to hear you feel that way,” Bo said. “You understand there's been a mistake somewhere.”
The redheaded cowboy, Hendry, said, “Maybe. But you got to admit, the fella Barney Dunn described sure looks an awful lot like your boy here.”
Bo couldn't restrain his irritation anymore. He said, “I'm old enough to be your daddy, so I'd appreciate it if you'd stop calling me a boy . . . son.”
Hendry flushed with anger and started to goad his horse forward. John Creel moved his mount to get in Hendry's way.
“Settle down,” he snapped. “There's no point in startin' another ruckus. We'll get to the bottom of this, don't you worry about that.”
“If the shooting's over,” Bo said, “I want to let Scratch know it's all right to come on down.”
“Go ahead,” John said with a nod. “There won't be any more gunplay.”
Judging by the glare on Hendry's face, he wasn't necessarily in agreement with that statement. Bo could tell the redhead wanted to reach for the Colt on his hip.
Turning to face the knob, Bo took off his hat and waved it over his head so Scratch would know it was all right to come down the slope. He put the hat back on and swung around to face his father again.
John nodded toward the redhead and said, “This is Pete Hendry. He signed on to ride for the Star C a while after you were here the last time, Bo. Your brother Riley's my foreman, but Pete's
segundo
these days.”
segundo
these days.”
Before Bo could respond to that introduction, Hendry said, “Don't bother tellin' me you're pleased to meet me, mister. The feelin' ain't mutual.”
“Then I won't waste my breath,” Bo said. To his father, he went on, “Tell me more about the trouble you've been having with those Fontaines, Pa.”
John shook his head.
“We can talk about all that later, back at the ranch house. Pete, you and the boys go on about your business.”
Hendry didn't look pleased about being dismissed, but he said, “Sure, boss.” With another sullen glare directed at Bo, the segundo turned his horse. He told the other punchers, “Come on. We need to check those hill pastures to make sure no more stock has
strayed
onto Rafter F range.”
strayed
onto Rafter F range.”
Bo knew from Hendry's tone of voice that the man wasn't worried about the cattle straying. What he really wanted was to see if any of them had been driven across the line by Fontaine hands. From the sound of it, John Creel had a rustling problem on his hands.
The cowboys rode away, leaving Bo standing there alone with his father while they waited for Scratch. The silver-haired Texan had led the horses down from the knob and now walked toward them, leading the two mounts.
“Scratch still carries them fancy guns, I see,” John said. “Most of the time when a fella packs an ivory-handled iron, it's mostly for show.”
“Not Scratch. He's mighty good with those Remingtons.”
“I remember,” John Creel said with a nod. “You were always pretty fast, too. It's a wonder the two of you didn't wind up as gunfighters. Hired killers.”
“We were both raised better than that,” Bo pointed out.
John grunted in acknowledgment of that comment.
“Howdy, Mr. Creel,” Scratch said as he walked up.
“Scratch,” John said with a nod of greeting.
“It's mighty good to see you again. Were those some of your hands takin' those potshots at us?”
“That was all a misunderstanding,” Bo said. “They thought we were rustlers working for a fella named Fontaine. Seems it was his son who started that ruckus on the bridge in town.”
“You mean there's a feud between the Creels and these here Fontaines? That'd explain some of it, I guess.” Scratch frowned. “But not the way Avery Hollins and Jesse Peterson and all the other folks in town acted.”
“That's because that's not all of the story,” Bo said. His face and voice were grim. “It seems that most of the people in these parts are convinced that I'm a murderer. They think I killed a couple of saloon girls.”
“What! That's crazy. You never done such a thing!”
“You know that, and I know that,” Bo said dryly. “Convincing everybody else will be the trick.”
Scratch looked up at John Creel, who was still mounted.
“You don't believe that, do you, Mr. Creel?” he asked.
“Of course not,” John said gruffly. “But enough people do that it's gonna cause a heap of trouble around here if you stay, Bo.”
“Are you telling me to run, Pa?” Bo sounded like he couldn't believe it.
“You ought to know better than that,” John snapped. “Creels don't run from trouble. Sometimes, though, it's smarter to ride around it.” He lifted his reins. “For right now, both of you come on back to the ranch with me. You ought to know the whole story before you make up your minds what to do next.”
“That sounds good to me,” Bo said. He took the reins of his horse from Scratch and swung up into the saddle. Scratch mounted, as well, and the two of them fell in alongside John as the patriarch of the Creel family started west along the stream toward the headquarters of the Star C.
Bo tried to bring up the subject that was uppermost in his mind, the accusations leveled against him, but John wasn't having any of it.
“Wait'll we get back to the ranch,” he said, and Bo knew his father well enough to be aware that there was no point in arguing.
“Well, how about the rest of the family?” he asked. “Will you at least tell me how everybody's doing?”
“Reckon I can do that. They're all fine. Riley and Julia are grandparents.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah, their boy Chad and his wife, Sunny, got themselves a little boy.”
“That makes you a great-grandpa.”
“Yeah, I know, and I will be again, sometime in the fall. Davy's wife, Hannah, is in the family way, too.”
“I'm glad to hear it,” Bo said. “Davy is Cooper and Desdemona's boy, right?” He had close to a dozen nieces and nephews, and it was hard for him to keep up with all of them, what with him being away from home so much. He supposed he had missed out on a lot by drifting for all those years . . . but he had experienced a lot of things he would have missed out on otherwise, too.
“Yeah, Davy is one of Cooper's sons,” John went on. “He's got the twins, too, and that girl, Barbara Sue.”
For the next quarter of an hour, John brought Bo up to date on all the family happenings. Bo enjoyed hearing about it, even though nothing really exciting had happened to the Creel family, just the mundane things that wove together to form the tapestry of life.
Clearly, though, other things had been going on around here that weren't so mundane. When Bo was caught up on all the lives of all his kinfolks, he said, “What about this trouble with the Fontaines? Are you going to tell me about that?”
“I don't see why I should,” John replied bluntly. “There's not a blamed thing you can do about it.”
“Scratch and I aren't exactly strangers to trouble, you know.”
“That's right,” Scratch added. “We been known to walk right up and introduce ourselves to it.”
“I don't doubt it,” John said. “But you've got your own problems right now, Bo. You don't need to be takin' on anything else.”
“If it has to do with my family, then the decision's already been made for me,” Bo insisted. “I'm involved.”
John sighed and said, “All right, you might as well know what's been goin' on. About five years ago a fella named Ned Fontaine bought the Winthorp spread.”
“What happened to Jim Winthorp?” Bo asked, referring to the cattleman who had owned the range to the west of the Star C. “I didn't think that old-timer would ever sell out. He'd been in these parts just about as long as we have.”
“He wouldn't have sold out,” John said, “but his widow did after the consumption took Jim.”
Bo shook his head solemnly.
“I'm sorry to hear that. Jim was a good man. Pioneer stock, all the way to the bone.”
“That's true. Fontaine's a different story. He's from back East somewhere. Fancies himself a shrewd businessman.”
Scratch put in, “Every Yankee I ever saw who called himself a shrewd businessman was really just a cheap crook.”
“That's Ned Fontaine,” John said. “He stays just inside the law, as far as anybody's ever been able to determine, but I'm damn sure some of my cows have wound up with his brand on 'em. Not only that, but his sons are always stirrin' up trouble with our men. It's got to where our crew can't hardly go into Bear Creek without windin' up in a ruckus of some sort.”
“We saw one of the Fontaine boys, according to your segundo,” Bo said.
John nodded and said, “Danny. He's the younger one. The older one is Nick. There's a girl in between 'em in age, Samantha. Danny's a hothead, always lookin' for a fight. Nick's quieter, but he's the more dangerous of the two. He's killed three men in gunfights. Fair fights, accordin' to the law, but every time the other fella was pushed into it. Nick Fontaine is pretty slick on the draw.”
“Sounds like you've got the makin's of a range war here,” Scratch said.
“Not if I can help it.” John Creel's voice was emphatic. “Nobody wins in those damned things. A lot of innocent folks die, that's what happens. But if Fontaine pushes me hard enough, he won't leave me any choice.”
Bo said, “I hope it never comes to that.”
“You and me both, son.” John nodded ahead of them. “There's the ranch.”
Bo had already seen it, and he felt the warmth of memory spreading through him as he gazed at the old home place. The original ranch house was built of logs and sat atop a rise that sloped up gently from the creek. Several additions constructed of roughly planed and whitewashed lumber sprawled around it, connected to the main house by covered dogtrots.
Beyond the house was a large barn surrounded by corrals. A blacksmith shop and smokehouse were also on this side of the creek, which could be crossed by means of a sturdy footbridge, although the stream's banks were low enough and it was shallow enough that it could be waded or ridden across without any trouble except during spring floods.
A long, low bunkhouse sat on the other side of the creek, along with a cook shack for the hands. A short distance upstream was another large frame house where Bo's brother Riley and his family lived. Bo knew that a couple more houses belonging to his brothers Cooper and Hank lay out of sight around a bend in the creek. His nieces and nephews who were married probably had cabins scattered over the range.
Several men stood at the corral fence, watching a rider try to stay on the back of a pitching, sunfishing bronc. The cowboy lost his seat and sailed into the air, drawing groans from the spectators as he crashed to the ground. Two more punchers dashed forward and lassoed the bronc, pulling it away so it couldn't trample the cowboy who'd been thrown.
The approach of Bo, Scratch, and John caused several dogs to bound toward them, barking. One of the men who stood at the corral fence turned to look and then started toward them. He was tall and slender, with a loose-jointed stride that Bo would have recognized anywhere. He knew the man was his brother Riley.
As Riley came up to them, he asked his father, “Did you find out what all that shooting was about, Pa?” Without waiting for an answer, he swung his gaze to the two men who had ridden up with John Creel, and his face hardened to stone as he said, “Bo?”
“That's right, little brother,” Bo said with a smile. He was the oldest, so all his brothers were “little brother” to him. “It's mighty good to see you.”
Riley Creel didn't return the greeting. Instead, he turned back to his father and said harshly, “I thought you said that if he ever dared to show his face around here again, you'd tell him to rattle his hocks off Star C range, Pa. You said as far as you were concerned, he wasn't even a Creel anymore!”
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