Unexpected (2 page)

He
had a way with animals. His mother mentioned it when he was a child.  They always seemed to listen to him without hesitation
.   Christ, that was a long time ago,
he thought to himself.  He could barely remember her face now.  He did recall that she was a beautiful woman and his father was quite handsome.  They were both long since dead.

About
forty minutes later, as he rounded the foot of the rocky cliff above a small valley. His horse’s ears perked up finally hearing the men.  Only it wasn’t a friendly conversation like he thought in the beginning.  He’d heard laughter and assumed.   Now it was clear that it was mocking, not jovial. Furthermore, seeing a man with a rope around his neck looped over the branch of a tree made it pretty clear that he came upon a lynching party not a friendly crew.

He pulled up
on the reins and watched from a distance. No one seemed to even notice he was there.  They were too involved in the execution.

His dark eyes lightened slightly
, and unnaturally, to sharpen their focus as he examined the scene more closely.

About
a five hundred yards off there was a group of men around a long since petrified gnarly oak tree; six to be exact. Some of them were standing, some still on horseback, but all with weapons drawn. His eyes went back to the man with the noose around his neck. He was sitting on the back of a bay horse while the gang taunted him. His hands were bound behind his back and it looked as though his neck was stretched to the limit without killing him, at least, not yet. The intimidation and show of weapons was an overkill judging by the victim’s helplessness. “Well, this looks unfair,” he murmured.  His horse’s ears flicked back listening to the familiar deep tone from his master.

The stranger’s
expression was impassive, but that wasn’t unusual. He’d seen all kinds of horrible things that men do, twisted things, so nothing surprised him anymore. It didn’t mean he wasn’t going to interfere, because he was, especially seeing the young man trussed up like a pig for slaughter.  It also looked like he’d been worked over pretty good before they strung him up.  This whole picture was perverse to him.  If this man did something horrific, he needed to be brought to justice not taunted and tortured.  He’d expected California to be more civilized after the gold rush had passed several decades ago.  Lynch mobs weren’t as common as they used to be and he didn’t like it when the odds were completely unbalanced.  Furthermore, he could tell that this lone man was not a criminal.  It was the whole demeanor of the mob.  If it was a revenge killing they wouldn’t be so damn arrogant. This was definitely something else.

Well, this
ought to be fun
, he thought to himself meaning the opposite. Then he finally smirked. It had been a long time since he called anything fun, but this was more along the lines of self-ridicule.  There was a time when he was younger and more stupid, that he’d think this was entertaining.  He’d even sought out things like this so he could kill someone. That was a long time ago. Killing wasn’t fun anymore. He valued human life too much now.

As for his
smile, he wasn’t very expressive at the best of times.  He rarely smiled these days but he sure as hell could look fierce when the need came up. He shook his head again. This time, to erase old memories, and sighed heavily.
So much for company and a fire
.

He studied
the movement of the men a moment longer sizing them up, seeing who the worst threat was, and which ones he had to worry less about. He knew there wasn’t much time left for the young man as he started planning things out quickly. At the same time a familiar feeling welled up just below his chest that told him that he needed to beware.  Some people would call it a gut feeling, but for him it was a little different.  Not only did it warn him, it excited him. Yet he didn’t need the warning; the scene below sort of spoke for itself. Everyone was armed except for the poor bastard about to lose his life. It was clear these men had no honor. Most likely they were thieves, or worse.  Guns for hire. That alone pissed him off. Men like that weren’t just greedy, they were bloodthirsty.

Interestingly, t
hey were still too engrossed in their entertainment to even notice him uphill with the sun receding at his back, and he cast a large shadow. Even in the distance, he could be spotted easily enough. It just gave him an indication of how stupid and cocky they were. Apparently they didn’t seem to worry about someone intervening, so they weren’t on guard.

He had to give it to the lone man about to die. He was brave, or acting like it. He stared straight ahead
, stoically, shoulders squared and proud, not saying a word as they shot their revolvers off in the air and mocked him.  The horse under him flinched and jostled about with the gunfire, stretching his neck further despite the man holding him. If that kept up, he’d be hung before they did it intentionally.

Now, his
time for watching and studying was over. This wasn’t going to end well for that man if he didn’t do something soon.

“Ah hell
, I’d better get busy.” He swung his long leg over the back of the horse, dismounting, before removing his rifle from the custom deer-hide sleeve strapped to animal’s girth. He’d better get set up before things turned sour for the young man. “Get behind the bluff,” he said to his stallion as he shouldered his rifle and turned back to the lynch mob.

The horse snorted and pivoted away to do as his master said. The pack horse followed suit. He
then moved up against the foot of the cliff, where rock face met rubble, positioned himself, and steadied his rifle barrel on an outcrop. Patience was a long acquired virtue for him and he would wait until the right time to start killing. 
You never know, maybe they would let the fella go after a moment of tormenting
. 
Yeah, right
, he thought to himself as he listened to the conversation.  He leveled the barrel on who he thought was the worst threat, and cocked the hammer. His eyes now lightened to a golden yellow with his pupils dilating wide.

“Come on Ryker, just say yes,” taunted Elroy Langdon, the leader of the group.  “It’s that
, or I hang you and visit that pretty little sister you have.”

“Fuck you Elroy,” the man on the horse returned bravely.  “I told
that slug you work for that my family’s land isn’t for sale.” Christ his lip hurt.  He could taste his own blood now, and he was sure he wasn’t looking too pretty after being jumped by Butch’s gang.

Elroy released a cackle that sounded odd coming from him. His men
followed with chuckles. “Well, you can sell it to him, or die.  If you die, your sister inherits.” He pulled his horse in front of him to get close and grinned showing rotten teeth riddled with chewing tobacco. His left cheek bulged from the wad in it. He hadn’t shaved in a week and he probably hadn’t washed in that long either. “I know I won’t have any problem convincing your sister to say yes,” he said moving his free hand over the crotch of his pants to show his meaning. “She’s got a ripe little body, your sister.  I bet she’s never known a man.  By the time we’re done with her, she’ll know plenty.” The others cheered that comment and made rude remarks.

Ryker ran his sharp blue eyes over the older man in contempt, turned his head slightly
, as much as the noose allowed, and spat on ground. Inside he was raging over those comments, but he wasn’t going to let on. They were looking for a reaction—a sign of weakness so they could taunt him more. Like Hell. He wasn’t going to give them one. The noose was chafing his neck, his hands were bound so tight behind his back that his wrists were burning and cramping, and he was scared as hell but he wouldn’t give an inch to them even though he wished he could kill them all for talking about Josie like that. “She’ll shoot you before she’ll let you in the door.”  It was true.  She was damn good with a gun. Their father made sure both of them were. His father fought in the Mexican American war in ‘46 and trained them well. He also made sure that he faced his fears and didn’t give anything to the enemy. He was scared, hell, he was terrified, but he was going to die and he damn-well was going to go with dignity.  No one would tell his family he was a chicken shit. 

Meanwhile
Ryker’s indifference began to piss Elroy off and he dropped his tobacco speckled smile.  Elroy was told to scare the shit out of him, but nothing was working. Ryker was sitting there staring him in the eye looking as calm as could be. It looked like he would have to turn up the heat. “Maybe I should just shoot bits and pieces of you before we hang you,” Elroy said grinning as he leveled his revolver at his left shoulder.  “Sooner or later, when I get to the vital parts, I’m sure you’d sign that deed over.”

Ryker’s eyes steadied on Elroy’s but he never said anything. It wasn’t worth it.
It was hard enough looking at him. He swore the man got uglier every time he saw him.  When he smiled it just made things worse.

Then
something past Elroy’s left shoulder suddenly caught his attention and he thought he saw a shadow against the bluff a ways off.  He didn’t know how the hell he saw that, because, for a man about to die, he should be concerned more with the gun Elroy was waving at him.

At first he thought he was seeing things because the rope was so tight it strangled him every time his horse shifted clouding his vision in darkness. It was all he could do not to pass out.

His doubts vanished when, a
few seconds later, there was another movement. He wasn’t sure if it was friend or foe, but right now he didn’t have much of a hope in hell.  If it was a friend, there wasn’t much he could do here.  They were outnumbered.  Furthermore the sun was all but gone and if the stranger were armed, there was no way he could see in the dark let alone do the distance for an accurate shot.

Cogan did move
as Ryker saw.  He braced his long thick muscled legs and steadied the rifle with unmatched skill.  He shut his left eye to focus his right, stilled his breath, and caressed the trigger with a calloused finger.  He was hoping he didn’t have to kill anyone, but he knew better.  He’d lived a lifetime of killing not to trust his instincts.

“Nothing to say huh?”
Elroy cocked his gun and pulled the trigger.

Ryker grunted and pinched his expression
in pain as the burning agony of a bullet ripped through flesh and bone.  His horse startled under him and the man holding him steady could no longer control him. Unfortunately, Elroy wasn’t smart enough to think of that. The noose constricted and Ryker felt his windpipe compress. A second later he heard the distinct report of a high powered rifle followed by what sounded like a woman screaming.  He would later find out that it was Elroy. Then things went black.

***

“Josie!”

At the sound of her name, Josie lift
ed her head from the garden where she knelt to see her little ten year old brother Thomas, run through the gate into the garden. Normally she wouldn’t be out so late, but with them being shorthanded, she delayed picking of their peas until the sun set because other chores took priority.

“Josie!” he repeated with rising pitch.

It was the panic in his voice this time that sent a wave of fear through her. With the way things were lately, they had to be concerned. Then she saw his face, pale with horror. She gathered her skirts and stood up. “What’s wrong?”

“There’s a man at the front
—” He pointed toward the corner of the house with an expression of rising alarm on his face “—He’s got Ryker on a horse.  It looks like he’s dead!”

A wave of white terror passed through her.
It was routine for her older brother to go check the cattle early in the morning, before sunrise. It was also usual that it would take him half the day or more if there was trouble with them, so she wasn’t getting worried even though the sun was setting. They only had about five hundred head, but grassland was getting sparse and so were the watering holes.  It wasn’t as if the cattle were their mainstay because their father made a lot of money in the gold rush in Northern California.  He was one of the few that survived the madness. They weren’t rich, but they were pretty well off. After that, their father homesteaded in the South.  They had prime land which had a creek run through all year round.  He built the two story house they lived in now.  It was large, painted white with blue trim, had five bedrooms and running water from a gravity fed well from the creek. He’d put a garden in the back for their mother that Josie was working in when her brother found her. She loved her house as did the rest of her family, and had no intention of leaving it despite Butch’s threats. 

She already knew that this incident
with Ryker was because of the men that wanted their land.  Ryker refused to sell when Butch came calling last year.  Their father turned him down before, but that didn’t stop him from running all their help off the land and burning down the bunkhouse. Except for her aunt who stayed with them because she had no other family, no one else would come work for them. In the last six months the visits from Butch’s men became more threatening. He was getting desperate.  It was only a matter of time before he went after one of them
.
They would fight him with their last breath
.
It would be a cold day in hell before they gave up their father’s land. “Go in the house,” Josie ordered her younger brother as she ran by him.  She may have sounded in control, but inside, dread consumed her.  She could barely get her legs to work out of fear that Thomas was right.