Ralph Compton Showdown At Two-Bit Creek Read online

  Soon, when the big snows came, the Two-Bit would freeze hard as iron, and the land would be locked in tight. But right now the going across the plain was easy, and Fletcher set a brisk pace.

  At noon they stopped south of Strawberry Ridge and sheltered in a grove of aspen to boil coffee and eat cold bacon sandwiches Savannah and Amy had prepared the night before.

  Graham spiked his coffee with a generous splash of bourbon, declaring it to be “a heart starter,” and offered the bottle to the others.

  The Connected hands took the marshal up on his offer, but Fletcher and Matt Baker declined.

  “Here,” Graham said, looking at Fletcher suspiciously, “you ain’t one o’ them temperance fellers, are you?”

  Fletcher smiled and shook his head. “Just never much took to whiskey, especially this early in the morning.”

  “Always do your drinking on an empty stomach,” Graham said. “Them’s words of wisdom, and I give them to you freely.”

  Fletcher nodded. “A gambler feller told me the same thing not too long ago.”

  “Wise man,” Graham said approvingly.

  They mounted again. Now that the Lazy R was getting closer, Fletcher and the others rode warily, their heads turning this way and that as they constantly scanned the surrounding hills.

  There were the tracks of cattle everywhere, but Fletcher saw just one small herd in the distance, moving like gray ghosts in single file along the aspen line at the base of a hill.

  When they were a couple of miles from the Lazy R, Matt Baker rode up alongside Fletcher and Graham. He nodded to the west and then the east. “We got company,” he said.

  Fletcher turned and saw riders flanking them, rifles drawn. Two rode on their left, a single rider to the right. They kept the same pace as Fletcher and the others, making no attempt to close the distance.

  “I guess Judith Tyrone’s taking no chances,” Fletcher said grimly. “She wants to keep an eye on us.”

  He leaned down in the saddle and slid the Winchester from the boot under his knee. One by one, Baker and the PP Connected hands did the same.

  If the Lazy R riders were impressed by all this fire-power, they didn’t let it show. They kept their distance but still matched the pace of Fletcher’s party.

  The outriders stayed with them until they rode up to the Lazy R ranch house—and into a scene of roaring chaos.

  Six huge freight wagons, five of them hitched to eight-ox teams, the other to mules, crowded the front of the house, their springs creaking under the weight of mining equipment, great, steel-rimmed wheels scarring the earth into deep, corrugated ridges of mud and slush.

  The wagons were loaded with massive drills and more mundane tools like picks and shovels, sluice boxes and wheeled ore carriers. But what caught Fletcher’s attention were the iron barrels of high-powered water cannon, called in these parts hydraulic monitors, some of them twenty feet long, their gaping muzzles a foot or more across. These would be attached to nozzles of a smaller diameter, forcing out jets of water at tremendous pressure.

  Not for Judith Tyrone the slow, laborious and expensive process of digging gold from a tough quartz seam. She was planning to use water cannon to blast the mesa apart—and time was running out on her. She had to do it now, before the creeks and ditches around the mesa that would supply the water froze.

  Bitterly, Fletcher realized that hydraulic mining on such a massive scale would scar and poison the land for generations. But that obviously meant nothing to Judith.

  She wanted the gold, and she didn’t care how she got it.

  Scores of yammering Chinese coolies in their cone-shaped straw hats and pigtails were already climbing onto the wagons. The cursing, profane bullwhackers were uncoiling their bullwhips, getting ready to move out.

  Fletcher saw three of Judith’s riders sitting their horses among the wagons, watching him and the others, and he caught the small movement of a curtain at a window in the ranch house. Judith had lost heavily on the attack on the cabin, but evidently she still had men enough to put up a fight if it came to that.

  Graham reined up alongside Fletcher. Matt Baker, tense and wary, rode up on his left. The PP Connected hands fanned out behind them, Savannah and Amy in the middle of them.

  One of the Lazy R riders, a tall man in a black hat and black and white cowskin vest, rode up to the door of the ranch house. He leaned from the saddle and rapped on the door sharply. A few moments later, Judith appeared, and Fletcher saw her nod and say a few urgent words to the man.

  Then she walked from the house toward Fletcher and the others, settling a shawl around her slim shoulders.

  To Fletcher, she looked breathtakingly lovely this morning. Her auburn hair was piled on top of her head, kept in place by green ribbons that matched her velvet riding outfit.

  He experienced a few seconds of doubt as the woman walked, smiling, toward him.

  Could this beautiful creature really be a cold-blooded killer?

  The doubt passed as quickly as it had come. The evidence was all around him.

  Judith stopped about ten paces from where Fletcher sat his horse. Her beautiful smile grew even more dazzling. “Why, Buck, how nice to see you again. And you too, Marshal Graham.”

  Graham was flustered. He touched his hat brim and said, “And it’s real nice to see you again, Miz Tyrone.” The man opened his mouth to speak further, but couldn’t find the words. He let it go, glancing over at Fletcher helplessly.

  “What brings you here, Marshal?” Judith smiled, pressing home her advantage. “As you see, you caught me at an inopportune moment.” She waved a hand toward the waiting wagons. “As you can see, I’m about to do a little gold mining.”

  “No, you’re not!”

  Amy Prescott kneed her horse forward, her eyes blazing. “That gold-bearing mesa is on PP Connected range, and you’ve no right to be there.”

  “Well, I do declare.” Judith gasped, putting a slender hand to the base of her throat. “You bold-faced thing, coming here of all places after you ordered my husband killed and tried to take over my ranch!” Judith turned to Graham, her eyes just as angry as Amy’s. “Marshal, do your duty and arrest that woman.”

  Graham was confused, and it showed. “Well, ma’am,” he faltered, “Miz Prescott has a point. I mean, if the mesa is on her land.”

  “Of course it’s on land she once claimed,” Judith flared. “But after she attacked the Lazy R and we retaliated in self-defense, she abandoned her ranch. She has no legal right to the mesa or to anywhere else in the Territory, for that matter.”

  Delicately, Judith touched a lace handkerchief to suddenly reddened eyes. “Marshal Graham, sometimes I think they’re all ganging up on me to take my ranch.” She looked at the marshal pleadingly. “You’re the law in this country. Can’t you do something?”

  “Miz Tyrone,” Graham said, suddenly drawing on a hitherto hidden reserve of strength and resolve, “I must ask you this. Did your hands attack Mr. Fletcher’s cabin last night?”

  Judith was shocked. “Why, no, of course not. My men were all here at the ranch getting our mining equipment ready.” She looked up at Fletcher. “Buck, who would do such a thing?”

  Fletcher, unimpressed by Judith’s acting skills, let it go. But Matt Baker quickly stepped into the waiting silence. “Show her the letter, Graham.”

  The lawman’s reluctance made him hesitate. His hand went to the inside of his coat and then dropped. “I—I—don’t know,” he stammered.

  “Show her the letter!” Baker snapped, his face livid.

  Slowly, Graham took the letter from his pocket. “We ... we found this letter, Miz Tyrone. It appears to be written by you to one Birmingham Bob Spooner, promising him five hundred dollars to kill your husband.”

  There was a limit to even Judith’s acting, and her face paled. “Let me see that,” she said unsteadily.

  “You can read it just fine from there,” Baker said. “Hell, it’s your writing.”

  Judith took a cou
ple of steps toward Graham and quickly scanned the letter that the lawman held up for her. “That’s a blatant forgery,” she said. “I would never write a letter like that.” She looked at Graham, her eyes pleading. “Don’t you understand, Marshal? I loved my husband very much.”

  Again Graham was flustered, his confidence shredding under the melting gaze of this beautiful and apparently devastated woman.

  He wasn’t going to carry out the plan!

  Fletcher stepped in, his voice harsh, determined to succeed where Graham had failed. “That’s not what Birmingham Bob says, Judith. He confessed to everything: killing Deke Tyrone on your orders and the murder of Pike Prescott and many others.” He smiled tightly. “Bob is quite eager to sacrifice you to save his own worthless neck.”

  “That’s a lie!” Judith screamed. “He’s dead. His horse came back and—” She stopped, realizing what she’d said, her face stricken.’

  The teamsters on the wagons were watching Judith intently, unsure of exactly what was happening. Even the normally talkative Chinese had fallen silent.

  “What about his horse, Judith?” Fletcher prompted, his words dropping like chunks of ice into the sudden pool of quiet.

  Judith took several steps backward, toward the house. “That fool!” she screeched. “That idiot! I told him to destroy the letter.”

  Matt Baker turned to Graham, who was sitting his horse, his long, melancholy face stunned. “Arrest that woman, Marshal.”

  Graham, rooted to the spot, eyes wide and unbelieving, didn’t move.

  Then Fletcher saw it.

  Judith made a single, all but imperceptible motion with her left hand, a slight wave that the others did not see. “Watch out!” he yelled.

  It was too late.

  The man in the cowskin vest cut loose with his rifle, and Fletcher heard the bullet slam into Graham. The marshal gasped and toppled to his left, falling against Fletcher’s arm as he tried to bring up his Winchester.

  Fletcher pushed the lawman away, and Graham went over the other side of his saddle and hit the ground.

  The firing had become general, and one of the Connected hands went down. Aiming quickly, Fletcher fired at the man in the cowskin vest. The bullet hit home, and the Lazy R rider reeled in the saddle. Fletcher cranked another round and fired again. This time the man threw up his arms and fell backward over his horse.

  A Chinese coolie was hit by a stray round. He stood up in the back of a wagon and clutched at his bloody chest, screaming. A moment later, a bearded bullwhacker was burned across the arm, and he immediately made the air around him sulphurous with profanity.

  The Chinese and the teamsters had signed up to be gold prospectors. It was no part of their agreement with Judith Tyrone to get involved in a gunfight.

  The lone mule skinner whipped his team into motion, and one by one the big ox wagons followed suit and started to creak and sway across the muddy ground, hell-bent on getting out of the line of fire.

  Beside him, Fletcher heard Matt Baker’s rifle bark and saw a Lazy R hand go down. Gates, cranking and shooting his Winchester like an expert, cut down the remaining rider, then slammed shots into the ranch house, where men were firing from the windows.

  As the battle raged, Judith Tyrone had not moved. But now, as she saw her men fall, she turned and ran for the house.

  She didn’t see the mule-drawn wagon that killed her.

  The mules were cantering fast across the mud, the heavy drill on their wagon bouncing high as the wheels hit the rutted ground. The teamster up on the seat was cracking his whip, yelling at the mules, urging them into an even faster gallop.

  Judith, intent only on reaching her men inside the house, ran blindly in front of the straining mules and was knocked down by their flying hooves. She fell heavily, screaming in terror, as the mules pounded her into the ground. Then the wagon wheels, shod with steel and each as tall as a man, rolled over her. The screams became an agonized screech that ended in an abrupt, echoing silence.

  The wagon rolled on, leaving behind a crushed, broken and bloody thing in the mud. A single glance over his shoulder convinced the mule skinner that it would be a bad idea to stop, and his wagon rolled across the level ground without slowing, snow flaring from its spinning wheels.

  The woman’s horrible death had shocked everyone into stunned immobility.

  It was Baker who was the first to recover. He cupped a hand to his mouth and yelled, “You in the house! It’s all over. Your boss is dead. No point in continuing the fight. No point in more of you dying.” He paused for effect, then added, “But if you’re hell-bent on dying, we can accommodate you.”

  A few tense moments passed. Then the door of the house opened, and four men walked outside, their hands in the air, apparently impressed by Baker’s harsh logic.

  Savannah walked past Fletcher’s horse and ran to where Judith’s body lay in the churned-up mud. She glanced at it and turned away quickly, her hand going to her mouth in horror.

  While Baker and the two surviving Connected hands covered the Lazy R riders with their guns, Fletcher went to Savannah and took her in his arms.

  The woman buried her face in his chest and sobbed. “It’s so terrible,” she whispered. “Even Judith Tyrone didn’t deserve a death like that.”

  “It’s over, Savannah,” Fletcher said. “It’s all over now.”

  He was almost out on his feet, his side hurting like a red-hot brand. But he knew that at this moment Savannah needed strong arms around her more than anything else in the world, and so he held her close.

  “Buck,” she said, “why did she have to die like that?”

  The gunfighter shook his head. “I don’t know, Savannah. I once read a book about a universal force called karma. The Buddhists believe that if you do evil things in life, you put out such bad karma that it will eventually come back on you, only ten times worse.”

  He smiled, tilting up her chin, his big, hard hand thumbing away tears from her eyes. “Now, I don’t know if all that’s true. But I guess it’s one explanation for why Judith died that way.”

  Fletcher paused, his face thoughtful. “It was a reckoning,” he said finally.

  “Buck, over here!”

  The gunfighter turned and saw Matt Baker beckoning to him as he kneeled beside the prone form of Marshal Graham.

  “Will you be all right?” Fletcher asked Savannah.

  The woman nodded. “I’ll be fine now.”

  Fletcher left her and stood over Graham. The lawman was still alive, and he indicated that Fletcher should come closer. The gunfighter kneeled beside him, quickly assessing Graham’s wound.

  The man had been hit low in the right shoulder. There was no exit wound, so the bullet was still in there.

  “Will I live?” Graham asked, smiling weakly.

  “You’ve been hit hard,” Fletcher said. “But I reckon it will take more than a shoulder wound to kill an old warhorse like you.”

  Graham nodded. “I didn’t expect something like this, Buck. Miz Tyrone could have walked away from it. We had no evidence, just a pack of lies.”

  Fletcher shrugged. “We had a bum hand all right, but all we could do was play the cards we were dealt. It was her own guilty conscience that killed her in the end.”

  “We have to get Graham to a doctor,” Baker said urgently. “And there’s a Lazy R gunman still alive, though he’s in a bad way.”

  “I may be all shot to pieces,” Graham protested, “but I’m still able to conduct my affairs. This ranch”—he waved weakly toward the house—“and all the assets pertaining there to, is now the property of the federal government until I can establish whether or not Deke Tyrone had any heirs.”

  Graham looked at Fletcher, his sagging eyes determined. “Buck, I also declare the horses, saddles and guns of the men killed at your cabin to be the property of the United States government.”

  Fletcher smiled. “Exceeding your authority some, aren’t you, Graham?”

  The marshal’s long face
was sly. “Maybe so, but I’m the federal law around here, and what I say goes.”

  Fletcher didn’t feel like arguing the point, so he nodded. “You tell them United States government fellers to pick those horses up right quick, because I’ll be riding on pretty soon.”

  One ox-drawn wagon still remained in front of the house, the driver either braver, or more likely slower, than the others.

  Baker ordered the man to clear a space in the back for Graham and the wounded Lazy R gunman and to carry them to the doctor in Buffalo City.

  Later, Fletcher watched the wagon leave, Graham waving a limp hand as he lurched away across the snow.

  “What are we going to do with them?” Baker asked, nodding toward the four captive gunmen.

  “I’ll deal with them,” Fletcher said, his face set and grim.

  The four men stood tense and wary, covered by the rifles of Walker and the other Connected hand.

  These were hired guns, working for wages, with no stake in Judith Tyrone’s scheming. Fletcher, being a member of the same fraternity, was inclined to be charitable.

  “You four get your horses and ride on out of here,” he said. “You can clear the Territory by nightfall. If you don’t, I swear I’ll hunt down each and every one of you and kill you.”

  One of the four, a tall man with quiet eyes, nodded and said, “You can’t say it fairer than that. All we want to do is put distance between us and this country, and we don’t ever want to come back here. It just ain’t healthy for a man.”

  The four gunmen rode out a few minutes later, and Fletcher and Baker watched them go.

  “Think they’ll be true to their word?” Baker asked.

  Fletcher nodded. “They’ve got no other choice. There’s no one around anymore to pay their wages.” The gunfighter smiled. “And besides, they know I’ll keep my word.”

  Later, just as night was falling, they buried Judith Tyrone and her two gunmen in a patch of open ground behind the ranch house.

  As Gates held up a guttering oil lamp against the growing darkness, Baker turned to the others and asked, “Anyone want to say anything?”