William Johnstone - Snake River Slaughter

“She’s s’posed to hang out with me. That’s her job.”

“It’s the job of all the girls in the Sand Spur, but she’s near ’bout the onliest one I ever see you with.”

“Maybe you got it backward,” Prew teased. “Maybe she’s sweet on me.”

“Ha! I can see that,” Timmy said.

Suddenly, their banter was interrupted by the sound of a gunshot coming from the darkness.

“What the hell is Hank shootin’ at?” Prew asked.

“I don’t know,” Timmy answered.

“Hank? Hank, what is it you are shootin’ at? A cougar?” Prew called out.

“Hank? Where you at?” Timmy called. “What the hell? Where’s Hank? How come he ain’t answerin’ us?” Timmy asked.

“Maybe we’d better go see what’s goin’ on,” Prew replied.

Timmy and Prew were both wearing guns, and though sometimes in town they liked to wear them low and kicked out in the way of a gunfighter, neither of them had ever done anything but take a few pot shots at a rabbit now and then. Nevertheless, both men drew their pistols, then rode out into the darkness to check on Hank.

Before they had gone too far, gunshots erupted in the night, the herd of horses illuminated by the muzzle flashes.

“Rustlers!” Timmy shouted.

“Let’s get out of here!” Prew said.

Firing their own pistols, even though they had no target, the two young men tried to run, but within less than a minute, both had been shot from their saddles, and once again, the night was still.

Sitting quietly in his saddle after having dispatched a few other riders to take care of business, Poke Terrell saw one of those riders, Sam Logan, appear from the darkness.

“What was the shooting?” Poke asked.

“It was just like you said. She’s got night riders out watchin’ over her herd.”

“How many of ’em was there?” Poke asked.

“They was three, but we took care of all of ’em.”

“Good. Now, round up seventy-five horses, and let’s get out of here.”

“Say Poke, I heard that these here horses is worth a hunnert dollars apiece,” Logan said. “How come we only been getting’ twenty-five dollars apiece for ’em?”

“Because to us, twenty-five dollars apiece is all they are worth.”

“Why is that?”

“This here is the only horse ranch in the county. You want to take ’em in Medbury to sell, do you? Or maybe to Glen’s Ferry or King Hill?”

“No. More’n likely the horses would be recognized there.”

“Then don’t you think it would be better to sell them to someone who will give us twenty-five dollars a horse and not ask questions? Poke asked.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Logan said.

“Maybe you aren’t as dumb as I thought.”

Out in the dark, Jason Prewitt crawled on his stomach until he reached Timmy.

“Timmy! Timmy!” he said, whispering as he shook the body. He was afraid to speak any louder because he was afraid he would be heard.

Helplessly, Prew lay in the dark and watched the rustlers round up the horses, then take them away.

“Son of a bitch,” he said to himself. “That’s Poke Terrell.” Prew reached for his pistol, but his holster was empty. He had lost his gun somewhere in the dark.

Not until they were gone did he get up. Favoring the wound in his shoulder, he found his horse, and rode back to the big house to report the robbery.

Mrs. Wellington wasn’t going to like this. She wasn’t going to like it at all. The only reason there were nighthawks out at all was to prevent just such a thing from happening. At least, that’s what they were supposed to do. But they failed.

The next day

“I arranged for Timmy’s body to be sent back to Missouri where his family is. He’ll be goin’ out on tomorrow’s train,” Tyrone Canfield told Kitty. Tyrone Canfield had been foreman of Coventry on the Snake for eighteen years, long before Kitty had married Sir Thomas Wellington. Thomas died three years earlier, but, at Kitty’s request, Tyrone had stayed on as her ranch foreman.

“What about Hank?” Kitty asked.

“Hank, being raised in an orphanage and all, I done like you said,” Tyrone replied. “I made arrangements to bury him in the cemetery in town.”

“Not in Potter’s Corner?”

“No, ma’am, he’ll have him a spot right in the middle of the cemetery.”

“Good.”

“You’re a fine woman, Mrs. Wellington. You’ve always had a soft spot in your heart for orphans.”

“Yes, I have,” Kitty said, without further explanation.

“How is Prew?” Tyrone asked. “The doctor was just comin’ out when I left to go into town.”

“The wound was in his shoulder and the doctor got the bullet out. He said Prew will be all right if the wound doesn’t fester,” Kitty said.

“We lost another seventy-five horses,” Tyrone said with an expression of frustration in his voice. “Prew saw them this time, and he said he was sure that the leader of the bunch was Poke Terrell. I told that to the sheriff but he won’t do anything about it.”

“Who is Poke Terrell? I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of him,” Kitty said.

“No, he is not the kind of person you would likely meet,” Tyrone said. “He is a scoundrel who hangs out in the Sand Spur Saloon. They say he used to belong to the Idaho Auxiliary Peace Officers’ Posse. If so, that doesn’t speak very well for him or the posse.”

“Does Marshal Sparks know that Terrell is the one who has been stealing my horses?”

“I told him that Prew said he saw him.”

“Is the marshal going to arrest Terrell?”

Tyrone shook his head. “No ma’am. For one thing, he says that an identification, made in the dark, wouldn’t hold up. To tell the truth, Mrs. Wellington, I think the marshal would like to do something about it, but it is just too overwhelming for him.”

“If you ask me, the whole thing is just too overwhelming, not just for Marshal Sparks, but for all concerned,” another man said, coming into the room then. “I have told Kitty that the best thing she can do is sell all the horses off, now. In fact, I think she should sell the land too.”

“Hello, Mr. Kincaid,” Tyrone said.

“Tyrone,” Marcus Kincaid replied with a nod.

“Sell the land to who, Marcus?” Kitty asked. “To you?”

“If you would like to sell it to me, I would be happy to buy it,” Kincaid replied. “After all, it was my land long before it was ever yours.”

“It was never your land,” Kitty said with the long suffering sigh of someone who had been through this argument many times before. “It was Tommy’s land, to do with as he saw fit, and he saw fit to leave it to me.”

“He left the land to you after only one year of marriage,” Kincaid replied. “He was you husband for one year, he was my stepfather for twelve years.”

“He was never your stepfather.”

“He was my stepfather in all but name.”

“I will admit that after he married your mother, he treated you as his own son, but he never adopted you. Anyway, why are you complaining? It isn’t as if he abandoned you. Even before he died, he divided all of his holdings in two, and gave you half.”

“Yes, including all his money in England which he gave half to me, and half to you,” Kincaid said. “That would have been over half a million dollars for each of us. But the family back in England has prevented either one of us from collecting our rightful inheritance.”

“Then your anger should be with those in England, not with me.”

Kincaid held up his hand. “Kitty, Kitty, I don’t want to fight. We’re on the same side here. I just heard that you had another episode of rustling, and I came out to see how you are doing. And to be honest, I am also suggesting that you may have taken a bigger bite than you can swallow.”