Ralph Compton Showdown At Two-Bit Creek Read online

  Crawling much slower now, Fletcher saw the tree line only a few yards away. He believed he must be among the Woodville Hills and that the Lazy R lay to the west. There was no chance of making it there tonight.

  In fact, there was no chance of making it there at all.

  Maybe he should just let the coyote take him. That was nature’s way and the way of this land. The strong survived, and the weak perished. That had been long ago ordained, and there could be no changing of it.

  But it was not in Fletcher to give up so easily. Hate was driving him now, the desire to avenge himself on Higgy Conroy and the two who rode with him. And in Fletcher’s world, hate, the most primitive of all emotions, was a powerful force. The three had tortured him and left him to die alone like a wounded animal.

  He would not let that happen. He would not die this way.

  He crawled forward, the coyote snapping at him, confident now. Fletcher’s left hand, pushing through the snow, hit something hard. He dug the object out with frantic fingers. It was a rock, a piece of hard volcanic stone, heavy and jagged, tossed onto the plain eons ago when the smoking land was still forming, red hot with lava.

  A man wounded and unarmed is prey. But a man armed, even with just a rock, is a different proposition entirely.

  When the coyote darted in to attack, Fletcher swung the rock in his fist. He missed the animal, and it took only a single step backward before darting in again, going for Fletcher’s face.

  He swung the rock again, and this time connected. The heavy stone smashed into the coyote’s shoulder blade just above the left front leg, and the animal yelped in pain and tumbled into the snow. It got to its feet quickly and drew back, teeth bared in a frustrated snarl.

  There are clearly defined limits to coyote courage, and this animal had reached them. The human had gone from victim to aggressor. He had the capacity to inflict pain.

  Fletcher pulled back his left arm and threw the rock, hitting the animal in the ribs. There was not much power behind the throw, but it was enough.

  The coyote yelped and ran, its tail between its legs, and was soon lost in the trees, where perhaps there was easier prey.

  Fletcher lifted his head and roared in triumph. It was a primordial sound, more animal than human, a ritual cry torn from his throat that had its origins in the darkest recesses of the human subconscious, its roots stretching back to the dawn of time and ancestors who hunted great tusked beasts using lances tipped with chipped stone.

  Bleeding, hurting, drifting in and out of consciousness, Fletcher dragged himself into the trees.

  The night was cold, the snow falling steadily. There were dead leaves lying among the aspens and loose underbrush, and Fletcher reached into his pocket for matches, thinking to start a fire. But he found only two, both of them wet and useless.

  Shivering violently, he burrowed deep into the tangled underbrush, pulling leaves over him. Weak and badly wounded as he was, he managed to drag only a few leaves over his chest and belly, and they provided little warmth.

  Snow drifted from the treetops, lying in thick patches here and there among the aspen roots, and frost was forming on their trunks.

  Lying on his back, trying to control the uncontrollable shaking of his body, Fletcher calculated the temperature must be hovering at around zero. He was numb from the neck down, and frost was thick on his eyebrows and mustache.

  Vainly he tried to drag more leaves over him, then gave up, the effort exhausting him even more. He was tormented by visions of the cabin on the Two-Bit, its warm fire, stew bubbling in the pot and the welcoming smell of coffee.

  He closed his eyes, so used up he drifted off into a restless, pain-wracked sleep.

  At some time during the long night, his parents came to him, asking him where were their graves, complaining that the markers were long gone.

  “I don’t know!” Fletcher called out aloud, a sound that startled the night animals as they scurried around the forest floor. “It was so long ago.”

  A Sioux without hands stood over him, holding up his bloody stumps, wailing for things lost, and then big, laughing Sergeant Shamus Mulrooney, killed at Shiloh, took his place. The sergeant saluted and told him that the battery was limbered up and ready to move out.

  Colonel Jonathan Ward appeared at Mulrooney’s elbow. “On your feet, Major Fletcher,” he said. “The battle is won, and it is time we were moving on.”

  Fletcher tossed and turned under his thin blanket of leaves, his mouth moving in soundless whispers. Around him snowflakes drifted like white feathers, silent among the trees, and the night grew colder.

  “Beggin’ your pardon, Major, but you really must come with us,” Sergeant Mulrooney pleaded. “You have suffered many wounds and grievous harm, but your battles are over, and the time of peace is at hand.”

  Slowly, painfully, Buck Fletcher struggled to his feet. “I am ready, Colonel,” he said. And to Mulrooney: “Mount the men, Sergeant. Let us move out.”

  Wakefulness, driven by the cold, came to Fletcher as he stood among the aspen trees.

  The night had gone, replaced by a gray dawn, and still the snow fell. Fletcher had no way of knowing how close to death he was, and, if he had known, he would have cared little. He was a man at the end of his strength, and he no longer had a grip on reality, drifting between hallucinations, wandering, stumbling, falling among the trees.

  The land around him lay quiet and beautiful in its snowy mantle, uncaring of him, offering him nothing.

  “Fletcher! Buck Fletcher!”

  Fletcher heard the voice and peered out from the trees at the flatland. Two people sat their horses, standing in the stirrups and looking in his direction.

  They had come for him! Higgy Conroy was back!

  Panic and terror gripped Fletcher. He ran, falling, getting up, falling again among the trees, the fear growing in him. They would hurt him again, drag him behind a horse then feed him to the coyotes.

  He lurched against an aspen, resting his fevered brow on the frosty bark. The battery wasn’t limbered. The guns were scattered, the horses gone. Sergeant Mulrooney stood before him, his face white as chalk. “Our line is broken, Major! Flee for your life!”

  Fletcher tried to run, stumbled and fell, then rose painfully to his feet again. He heard distant bugles as the Reb cavalry came on hard and fast.

  The riders were almost upon him.

  “Go away!” he screamed. “I don’t want to be fed to the coyotes!”

  He ran blindly through the trees. Then, when his strength could take him no farther, he fell headlong. The ground opened up under him, and he was plunging deep into a mine shaft lined with glittering quartz. Little Chinese men in cone-shaped hats laughed and prodded at him with sharp sticks, and then, looking down, he saw far below him a lake of fire.

  He screamed. And screamed again.

  Chapter 19

  Buck Fletcher woke.

  He was staring up at a ceiling familiar to him: rough pine planks nailed together in a shallow inverted V, other beams acting as crosswise supports.

  He turned his head and saw Pa’s stove warming him with its deep cherry-red glow. He smelled coffee and something else ... the subtle fragrance of a woman’s perfume.

  He was in the cabin at Two-Bit, and he had no idea how he’d gotten here. A man’s voice came to him then.

  “Ah, our patient is awake.”

  Matt Baker’s smiling face swam into view above the bunk where Fletcher lay. “How do you feel?”

  “Like hell,” Fletcher replied sincerely.

  Baker nodded. “The bullet in your shoulder was deep,” he said. Then, matter-of-factly: “I had to dig it out from the other side. Made the cut just above your shoulder blade. Then I spent the best part of a day picking little chunks of quartz out of your chest. Tricky,” Baker added. “But I had some experience of doctoring when I rode with the Texas Rangers a spell back, and it all ended quite well, I think.”

  Baker was wearing his gun, and he looked tired. “T
hat shot to the shoulder saved your life though,” he said. “Savannah and I heard it while we were out searching for you. It led us to your hideout in the trees—eventually.”

  “Savannah? Is Savannah here?” Fletcher asked incredulously.

  The woman, even more beautiful than Fletcher remembered, stepped beside Baker. “I’m here, Buck. And I don’t plan to leave ever again.”

  Fletcher struggled to a sitting position. “Your ... your memory?”

  Savannah bit her lip. “Buck, I’ve something to tell you. But wait until you’.ve had some food. It will help you regain your strength.”

  Fletcher ran a hand over the thick stubble on his chin. “How long ...”

  “Six days,” Baker said. “Hell, man, I thought we’d lost you a time or two. It was mighty close.”

  “You mean I’ve been lying here, flat on my back, for six days?”

  “On your back, sometimes on your side, but always flat, yes. And six days, yes.”

  Fletcher shook his head. “Hell, it seems all I’ve done since I came back to the Dakota Territory is sleep for days at a time.” He glanced out the window, where lingering shadows clung to the surrounding pines. He had no idea if it was day or night.

  “What time is it?” he asked Baker.

  “Close to daybreak.” The man pulled out his pocket watch. “Five-thirty, to be exact.”

  The pup jumped onto the bed and began to lick Fletcher’s face. The big man rubbed the dog’s head and said, “Hey, how are you, little feller?”

  “You know,” Baker said, smiling. “You ought to give that animal a name.”

  Fletcher shook his head. “He doesn’t care what I name him. Probably has one for himself all made up already.”

  “I’d call him Lucky,” Baker said. “Like you, he’s lucky to be alive.”

  Savannah brought a bowl of thick soup and sat on the side of the bunk. “Open wide,” she said. “I’m going to feed you.”

  “No need for that.” Fletcher grinned weakly. “I think I can manage.”

  Baker and Savannah watched him eat. When the bowl was empty, the young woman refilled it. Fletcher ate that too.

  Savannah brought him some coffee, and Baker dropped tobacco, papers and matches onto the bunk. “I know you’re a smoking man,” he said. “Never took to the habit myself.”

  He watched Fletcher build a smoke, then said, “Want to tell us what happened?”

  Fletcher thumbed a match into flame, lit his cigarette, then, as briefly as he could, told Baker and Savannah about his visit to the Lazy R and the raid on the PP Connected. “On my way back, I found a quartz seam running right through a butte on Connected range,” he said. “I figure there might be a million dollars worth of gold in that seam. Maybe a heap more.”

  Then, trying his best to understate it, he told how he’d been shot by the mysterious rifleman, then shot again by Higgy Conroy and dragged behind the gunman’s horse.

  “After Conroy left, I made it into the trees where you found me, I guess,” he said. “Though I had to tangle with a hungry coyote before I got there.”

  Baker nodded. “Figured on something like that. In addition to your other miseries, and they’re considerable, you’ve got bite marks all over you.”

  Fletcher finished his cigarette and looked around. “Use the soup bowl. I’ll wash it out later,” Savannah said.

  He did as he was told, stubbing out the butt in the bowl, then said, “Okay, how come you two were searching for me?”

  Weak and light-headed as he was, Fletcher noted the look that passed between Baker and Savannah. He got the impression that these two knew each other, not just from meeting here in the Territory, but going back a ways. That puzzled him and put him on guard.

  “We’d ridden down to see Amy Prescott,” Baker said finally. “I’m real surprised we didn’t pass you on the trail.”

  “It’s a big country,” Fletcher said. “And I kept mostly to the trees.”

  “Well, when we got to the PP Connected, I guess I don’t need to tell you what we found.”

  Fletcher nodded. “I know what you found: the ranch destroyed, the winter feed burned. But I don’t believe that was any of Judith Tyrone’s doing.” The gunfighter struggled to a sitting position, wincing as the pain in his side and shoulder stung him mercilessly.

  Again Baker and Savannah exchanged a darting look, and again Fletcher wondered at it.

  “Amy told us you’d ridden out earlier that morning, but as it was getting on to dark, we spent the night and then took off after you at sunup,” Baker said. He shook his head. “That little lady sure doesn’t cotton to you, Buck. She blames you for what happened to her ranch—says you’re in cahoots with Judith Tyrone.”

  “She’s wrong about that, and I told her so,” Fletcher said. “I was just as surprised as the rest of them by the attack.”

  Baker studied Fletcher’s face intently for a few moments, reading something, then said, “Anyhow, I figured you’d ridden back here. But then we heard a shot and did some serious searching, quartering back and forth across the whole area. Didn’t find anything though.

  “We made camp and tried again at first light. An hour or so later we saw a wild man running halfnekkid in the trees, a ranny wide in the shoulders and downright homely, and I said to myself, ‘That’s just got to be ol’ Buck.’ And so it was. Savannah and I loaded you onto the back of her horse, and, well, here you are, and here we are.”

  “The wild man thanks you,” Fletcher said dryly. Then, more sincerely: “You saved my life.”

  Baker nodded. “Strangely enough, like I said already, Higgy Conroy saved your life. If he hadn’t plugged you, we may never have found you.”

  Savannah sat on the edge of the bunk. “Buck, are you sure that butte with the gold is on PP Connected land?”

  Fletcher smiled. “Sure I’m sure. I was there.”

  “Then that explains a lot,” Savannah said, her eyes bleak.

  “What do you mean?” Fletcher asked.

  Baker said, “Judith Tyrone is assembling tons of heavy mining equipment at the Lazy R: drills and scalers, support timbers and some mighty big wagons to haul them. Not only that, but she’s been hiring miners, teamsters and Chinese laborers by the dozen.

  “She means to have that gold, Buck. It will make her a lot richer a lot faster than selling tough range beef in Deadwood.”

  Fletcher shook his head. “No, that impossible. Judith Tyrone would never—”

  “Buck, listen to me,” Savannah interrupted urgently. “You asked me earlier about my memory, and the answer to that question is—I never really lost it.” She reached out and touched Matt Baker lightly on the hand.

  “Buck, Matt and I are Pinkerton agents. Matt’s been an agent for six years, and as for me, well, this is my first case. Somehow or other, Judith Tyrone got wind of the fact that I was asking some highly personal questions around Buffalo City and set her hired killer on me, the man with the high-powered rifle. I don’t know who gave her the information, but I suspect it was that English landscape painter. He and Judith are mighty close.

  “When you found me in the snow that day, I was running from her hired killer, trying to make it to Deadwood, where there was law and I’d be safer.”

  Fletcher, his face stiff as his anger grew, asked roughly, “What about your memory?”

  “After you saved my life out there, I put it around that I’d completely lost my memory. I thought it was the only way to get Judith Tyrone and her killer off my trail.

  “Later, when I left you in Buffalo City, I was acting on orders from Matt. He told me I’d be safer if I got clear out of the Territory.” She smiled. “I got as far as Cheyenne and then came back a week ago. Buck, I didn’t feel right about leaving you here to face Judith Tyrone. She’s more than a match for you, more than a match for any of us if we stand alone.”

  Fletcher shook his head. “I don’t believe a word of this. I think you two are in cahoots, and maybe that butte full of gold is the reaso
n.”

  “No, Buck,” Savannah said. “It’s not like that at all.”

  But Fletcher was beyond listening to reason. “Maybe it’s you two who are behind the whole thing: the range war and all the killings.”

  “Right,” Baker said, “and that’s why we brought you all the way here and worked for days to save your ornery hide.”

  The logic of that hit Fletcher, and he looked from Baker to Savannah, his face puzzled, his anger easing.

  “Listen, Buck,” Baker said. “Judith Tyrone, sometimes known as Edith Wilson, Anna Grant, Mary Ann Branch and many others, is afraid of nothing and cares for no one except herself.”

  Fletcher opened his mouth to protest, but Baker held up a hand. “Listen to me until I’m through. Savannah and I have followed Judith’s trail all the way from Boston. She’s been married six times, and all of her husbands—men decades older than herself, with money in the bank—died under mysterious circumstances.

  “Oh, the law investigated, of course, hinting darkly of poison and such, but nothing criminal could ever be proved. One thing Judith does very well is cover her tracks.

  “But the son of her last victim wasn’t willing to give up so easily. He asked the Pinkerton Detective Agency to investigate. The job was given to Savannah and me, and we tracked Judith to Richmond, Virginia, but then we lost her for a while. About a year ago, we learned from another Pinkerton agent that she’d met an elderly rancher named Deke Tyrone in Denver and that he’d asked her to marry him. We recognized Judith’s old, familiar pattern, and we followed her here.”

  Savannah watched Fletcher build another smoke, his face frowning in thought, then said, “Matt and I believe Judith hired a killer to murder her husband so she could inherit his ranch. She knows her looks are fading, and this was her last chance to make it big.

  “But the Lazy R wasn’t enough for her. She wanted more. Judith is a lady who loves to travel—London, Paris, Rome—and she’s a big spender. That takes money, a lot of money, so you can imagine her joy when Pike Prescott played right into her hands. When he tried to move in on the Lazy R, she had her husband shot down and blamed it on Prescott.