Sins of Summer (26 page)

A gray dawn hovered over the mill site when he reached it. His eyes searched the area carefully, but he could see no movement
except at the cookshack, where the men had gathered for breakfast. His timing had been just right. He tied his horse to a
sapling, walked to the cookhouse, and opened the door.

A dozen or more men, Milo and Louis among them, were seated at the two oilcloth-covered tables wolfing down slabs of meat,
cornmeal mush, and biscuits, and taking great draughts of coffee to wash down each mouthful. Only the cook noticed Ben standing
in the doorway.

“Have a seat, Waller. Fresh batch of biscuits coming up.”

“Thanks, but I’ve had breakfast. I’ve got business with Milo. I’ll wait until he’s finished.”

Idle talk ceased abruptly and all eyes turned to stare at Ben.

“Business with me?” Milo’s big jaws continued to chomp on the food he had in his mouth. “I ain’t doin’ no
business
with a killer. Ya come to the buryin’?”

“You know why I’m here. Finish your breakfast and come on outside.”

Milo laughed, but his eyes were mean. “Now wouldn’t that jist put the frost on yore balls? The donkey man’s callin’
me
out and
he
done the killin’ a poor Sid.”

“That isn’t what this is about and you know it.”

“I think ya kilt old Sid ‘cause yore whore was shinin’ up to ’im. Ya scared ya’ll lose yore pecker hole,
donkey man?”
Milo laughed extra loud. The look he gave to his friends produced a chorus of guffaws.

Controlling himself with great effort, Ben spoke calmly.

“You’ve not only got a filthy, rotten mind, you’re a mewling coward. Only a low-down, sneaking sonofabitch shithead fights
a woman.”

Ben’s words had the effect he intended. His contempt washed over Milo in a chilling torrent, and Milo jumped to his feet,
his eyes wild, his teeth bared. He felt the steel-gray eyes stabbing into him, but he was too angry to realize the danger
he was facing.

“Yo’re fired!” he shouted. “Get the hell off my land.”

“I don’t work for you. I quit the minute I saw what you did to Miss Dory. You low-life bastard, you beat her almost senseless.”
Ben took a few deep breaths. It wouldn’t do to let his anger rule his head.

“That’s family business and none of yores,” Louis shouted.

“And that makes it all right?” Ben shouted back, his aroused voice overriding Louis’s. “For Christ’s sake, Louis, use the
few scrambled brains you lay claim to. It’s any man’s business to protect a woman from a goddamned snake.” Ben’s blazing eyes
never left Milo’s flushed face. “I want to see if this flap-jawed loudmouth who uses his fists on a woman has the guts to
face a man.”

“She had it comin’. She’s just a slut, a whore an’ not even a good’n.”

The muscles along Ben’s jaws rounded into hard knots. He took a long, deep breath to steady himself.

“You’d goddammed better believe that the next time you call her a whore you’d better hang onto your balls. Because if you
hit her with that word again, it’ll be the last time they’ll be of any use to you.” He spoke in a low, controlled voice.

Milo stared numbly at the cold-eyed man, shocked by the lethal hatred in his face. He opened and closed his mouth as if he
were strangling. He glanced at the men around from him. There were very few smiles or encouraging grins on their faces. Despite
his bravado, Milo wondered for the first time if he had bitten off more than he could chew.

“By gawd, I’ll call ’er what I want. Come on, boys. Let’s learn this flop-eared jackass some manners.”

Several men got up to follow Milo, then stopped in their tracks. The man in the doorway had dropped into a crouch, a revolver
in his hand.

“You”—Ben waved the gun at the men behind Milo—“stay out of it. It’ll be just me and him.” His voice and his eyes were coolly
threatening.

“Ya talk big with a gun in yore hand,” Milo sneered. “Hell, I ain’t no slick-handed gunfighter.”

“And I’m not going to be jumped by a pack of wolves. Call off your dogs. If you don’t have the guts to take me on say so,
and I’ll shoot your pecker off here and now and be done with it.”

Tinker and several of the men got to their feet.

“They’ll not jump you,” Tinker said. Then to the men standing with Milo, “Stay out of it. Hear? If they fight it’ll be fair—no
gouging of the eyes, no biting. Fists and feet, that’s it. I’ll shoot the first man that noses in on either side.”

“Sounds fair to me.” Ben slammed his gun down into the holster.

“There ain’t goin’ to be no fight,” Louis roared, his face fiery red and contorted. “I ain’t payin’ wages fer ya to stand
‘round watchin’ a hard-peckered rooster a fightin’ fer a hen. Get to work.”

Ben was suddenly out of patience with the senseless exchange. He ignored Louis. His eyes, glittering like sunshine on steel,
were pinned to Milo.

“Just you and me,
horseshit,
unless you’re scared.”

All eyes were on Milo. He glanced at the faces of the men who stood with Tinker and knew that what Waller had said had set
them against him. He still had his friends. He couldn’t lose face in front of them. Every man in the cookhouse was waiting
to see if he would accept the challenge. He outweighed Waller by thirty pounds and had the longest reach of any man in the
camp. With the dirty tricks he knew, he should be able to whip him. Then the sonofabitch would pay for sticking his nose in
where it didn’t belong.

“I’m goin’ ta bust ya up; I’m goin’ ta stomp yore ass in the ground.” Milo laughed harshly and headed for Ben.

“It’ll take more than bragging to do it.”

Ben backed out of the doorway and into the space in front of the cookhouse. It was now daylight. Milo came out, followed by
Louis and the rest of the men. They quickly formed a loose circle.

Ben took off his vest and turned up his shirt sleeves, being careful not to reveal the bandage on his arm. While he worked
at the buckle on his gunbelt, a fierce love of battle welled up inside of him. During his six years in prison, he had fought
to stay alive; fought older, bigger and stronger men. He had learned to fight with his brain as well as his fists. He never
underestimated an opponent and always avoided getting in close until he found out if he was up against a puncher or a grappler.

“Ya’ll never work in the Bitterroot again,” Louis snarled. His eyes blazed with a queer, leaping light and his teeth bared
a little. “I’ll see to it. We didn’t pay ya wages to go sniffin’ round a bitch in heat.”

“Only a sorry piece of stinking horseshit would talk that way about his own sister,” Ben said, his voice heavy with contempt.
He took the few steps necessary to hand Tinker his vest and gunbelt, then turned to see Milo charging him with a bellow of
rage.

Ben just had time to sidestep and swing a jarring right to the mouth that flattened Milo’s lips against his big square teeth.
The blow would have stopped a bigger man, but it merely slowed Milo. Roaring with anger, he swung a huge fist that caught
Ben in the jaw. As Ben rolled with the punch, his foot lashed out, the heel of his boot connecting with Milo’s shin.

Ben threw up an arm to weather the windmilling attack of arms and fist. A fist landed on his wounded arm and another on his
chin. Pain shot through his arm like fire. He backed away. Milo lowered his head for another charge and Ben let him come on.
Before Milo could land a blow, Ben’s fist came at him with such force that his head snapped up and his body arched backward.
Milo staggered, then planted his feet wide apart and became as rooted as an oak tree. Before Ben could back away, Milo’s big
fist thudded against his cheekbone, opening a gash.

Milo was bleeding from the nose and mouth. Ben moved around him, then came in low, hitting him so hard in the stomach with
his head that Milo lost his balance and fell heavily to the ground, dragging Ben down with him. Gnashing teeth tried to grab
at some part of Ben’s face or neck. Milo’s arms were locked around Ben’s body. They rolled. Milo brought his head forward
in short raps, striking Ben in the face. Blood spurted. Ben brought his knee up between Milo’s legs, but without leverage
the blow rendered only enough pain to cause Milo’s arms to drop from around him. Agile as a cat, Ben sprang to his feet.

A rock-hard fist caught the slower-moving Milo in the mouth as he got to his feet. He staggered back, then plunged in to throw
punches. Milo was a rough-and-tumble fighter. Ben had spring steel and rawhide in his rangy frame. He moved in and hit, but
danced away from Milo’s grappling arms.

Suddenly Milo grabbed Ben by his arm, his wounded arm, and slammed him against the wall of the cookhouse. Ben’s head hit hard,
then the ground flew up and hit him. Milo moved in to stomp his face with his heavy boots. Ben rolled and staggered to his
feet. He blinked, shook his head to clear it.

The determination to survive that he’d known while in prison surged through him in full force. He’d not let this hunk of low-life
beat him down. He ducked under Milo’s swinging arm and lashed out with his fist. Milo caught the rock-hard fist in the mouth
and reeled back. A tooth was sheared off. He backed off in surprise, and spit it out of his bloody mouth.

“Is this the best you can do, you stupid ox? Now I know why you only fight women.” Ben taunted and waited. Blood flowed from
the deep cut above his eye, from his gashed cheekbone, and from his nose, where Milo had battered him with his head.

Realizing that a front tooth was gone, Milo roared with rage and charged. Ben crouched and put all his strength behind the
fist he sent into Milo’s stomach. Milo’s head came down as he grunted. A knee rose up to meet his chin; a fist hit him behind
the ear. He went down on one knee. A boot heel caught him on the jaw, knocking his head to one side. He swayed, but didn’t
go down.

It was only during this brief breather that Ben heard the cheers from the men. He didn’t know if they were for him or for
Milo.

Milo was not finished. He quickly scooped up a handful of loose dirt and flipped it with a quick motion toward Ben’s eyes.
Ben shuttered his eyes just at the right time and took the dirt in his face. Almost babbling now with pain and insane rage,
Milo rose and barreled toward his enemy. Ben stepped aside and with as much strength as he could summon, aimed a blow at the
place he realized was Milo’s weakest spot: the pit of his stomach. He heard the whoosh as the air was knocked out of him.
Milo doubled up, grabbed his gut and fell heavily to his knees.

Ben was on him lightning fast. He grasped a handful of Milo’s hair and held the battered head erect. Then, holding him there,
he slapped him until his face streamed with blood. The first slap was a backhanded blow across his mouth that split his lips
and Ben’s knuckles even more. The second blow, a hardened cupped palm, smacked him across the ear. stunning him.

“Now, you son of a bitch, you know how Dory felt when you were hitting her.”

Showing no pity, Ben delivered blow after blow. They rocked Milo’s head on his shoulders until it bobbed as loosely as a cork
on a string. When his eyes glazed over, and wet began to seep through his duck britches, Ben stopped. He put his foot against
Milo’s chest and shoved hard. Milo toppled face down in the dirt. For a second or two Ben stood looking at him. Milo had wet
his britches and from the smell of him, his bowels had let loose too. With his foot on his head, Ben pressed his face into
the dirt.

“You filthy pile of horseshit, you sorry excuse for a man, this is where you belong, in your own filth, in the dirt, like
a damned belly-crawling snake.”

Ben staggered as he walked away. There was a period of taut silence while he scanned the faces of the men gathered to watch
the fight. There were sly grins and furtive glances in Louis’s direction. Ben understood that. Louis had the power to send
them packing, and most of them needed the money they earned to support their families.

“Get the hell off this land!” Louis charged up to him, but was smart enough to back away when Ben raised his fist. “Ya ain’t
movin’ in an’ takin’ over down there even if ya are sleepin’ with that whore!”

Ben took a giant stride forward and hit him. As tired as he was, the force behind the blow sent Louis reeling back in surprise,
his heels digging into the ground for purchase. When he righted himself, he put his hand to his mouth and brought away blood.

“That’s a sample. You’ll get a hell of a lot worse if I hear of you calling her that name again. And… I won’t stop until I…
gouge your eyes out.”

The dead certainty in Ben’s voice hit Louis like a blow between the eyes. The threat left him standing with his mouth open.
He watched as Ben took his gunbelt from Tinker and strapped it around his hips. With his vest in his hand he went to the horse
tank and doused his head in the water, lifted it, and doused it again.

Ben took his time leaving, and when he did, the crowd of silent men was still watching him. He mounted his horse, turned him
toward the trail, and rode back toward the house.

From where Steven Marz viewed the fight, it seemed to him that the majority of the men were rather pleased—more than pleased,
even elated—that Milo was getting the beating of his life. The sight also afforded Steven a great deal of satisfaction. What
the man had done to Dory was unforgivable and had been the driving force in the decision he himself had made.

By the time the fight ended, Steven realized the camp was like a powder keg ready to explode. Unless Waller could talk some
sense into James, he’d kill Milo over what he’d done to Dory.

It isn’t going to work, George. Wishful thinking will not make it so.

He needed to plan a way to leave without having to explain why he was going. Louis would see to Milo, then make tracks for
the high country to watch the men use the steam engine to reel logs to the flume.

He decided to make his move during the noonday meal while the men were in the cookhouse. He was leaving sooner than he had
expected, but there was nothing to be gained by waiting. He was glad that he had planned ahead. Fifteen or twenty minutes
was all the time he needed to get his things together.