William Johnstone - Snake River Slaughter

“Where were you during all this time?”

“Like I told you, I was standin’ just outside the door, watchin’.”

“Why didn’t you help?”

“I tell you true, Poke, if I had stuck my nose into it, I’d be dead too. Jensen is that fast. Besides, I didn’t figure you sent us over there for no duel.”

“I sent you over there to take care of Jensen, and I didn’t care how you did it.”

“Your complaint is with Madison, it ain’t with me.”

“Really,” Poke said sarcastically. “How am I going to complain to Madison if he is dead?”

“You can’t, I guess,” Logan admitted.

“That leaves only you.”

“But think about this. Iffen I had got myself kilt as well, then how else would you know that Jensen and Gilmore will be takin’ the train to Medbury this mornin’?”

“How do you know they will be taking this morning’s train?”

“What I actual know is just what I found out from the station agent. And that is, that Gilmore bought hisself two tickets for this mornin’s train. I’m just figurin’ that the other ticket is for Jensen.”

“I think you are right. Good job, Logan.”

“Thanks.”

“I just imagine that if you were on the train most of the night, then you probably haven’t eaten, have you?”

“No, I ain’t. I ain’t et nothin’ since lunch time yesterday.”

“Would you like breakfast?”

“Yeah, I believe I would.”

Poke spread some butter on his biscuit but as Logan reached for it, Poke took a bite of it himself. “Go over to the bar and grab yourself a pickled egg and pig’s foot,” he said. “Then after you eat, come back and see me. I’ve got another job I want you to do.”

“If it has to do with Matt Jensen, there ain’t no way I’m goin’ to do it by myself,” Logan said.

“You won’t have to be by yourself.”

Although the tracks of the Union Pacific generally follow the Snake River west across Idaho, when they reach a point twenty miles west of American Falls, the railroad is at the farthest distance from the river and the Snake can no longer be seen. On the north side of the tracks is a lava desert that is black and craggy, leading northward toward a barren and ugly escarpment that thrust upward as if in some way the land had formed waves, like the sea.

Matt sat next to the window, looking out at the barren land. He had read, somewhere, that this desert was what the surface of the moon might look like if one could take a balloon high enough to ever reach that heavenly body. But as he continued to study the denuded and uninviting terrain, he wondered how anyone could ever suggest that this was similar to the moon. The moon was bright and shiny, sometimes silver and sometimes gold. This was dark as coal.

“When you see land like this, it makes you wonder what would ever have attracted someone to settle out here, doesn’t it?” Gilmore asked, noticing the intensity with which Matt was studying the terrain outside the train.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Matt replied. “In a way the area holds some appeal just in its awesome starkness, and, if not appeal exactly, then it certainly creates interest.”

Gilmore chuckled. “I’ve never heard it put that way before, but you may have a point.”

“Tell me about this man, Poke Terrell,” Matt said.

“He used to be on the right side of the law,” Gilmore said. “Sort of,” he added.

“What do you mean, sort of?”

“Poke Terrell used to ride with Clay Sherman and the Idaho Auxiliary Peace Officers’ Posse.”

“The Idaho Auxiliary Peace Officers’ Posse? What is that? I’ve never heard of it.”

“Supposedly, they are sort of a permanent posse, and from time to time they have made their services available to one sheriff or another. But there are some who say they are nothing but a bunch of mercenaries, willing to sell their guns to the highest bidder.”

“What do you think about them?”

“If Poke Terrell is any example of the caliber and quality of the men who belong to the Idaho Auxiliary Peace Officers’ Posse, then I would say that mercenary is not a strong enough word for them. I would say they are a band of hired assassins.”

“What about Marcus Kincaid?”

“Marcus Kincaid? He isn’t a problem. Why do you ask about him?”

“Katherine mentioned in her letter that he wanted her ranch.”

“Yes, but he isn’t her problem. Poke Terrill is. Poke is the dregs of the earth, and one wonders how he has avoided prison all these years. But Marcus Kincaid is totally different. If you met him in a social setting, in someone’s home, say, or at a club, or in the lobby of an elegant hotel, you would no doubt think him to be a fine fellow. He is affable, charming, wealthy, well-read, everything one needs to be a first class citizen,” Gilmore replied.

“That’s the kind of description you would give to someone who is running for governor,” Matt said.

“Yes, I suppose it is, isn’t it? But Idaho is sure to be a state some day and when it is, I would not be the least bit surprised to see Marcus Kincaid running for governor.”

“And he is Katherine’s stepson?”

“Katherine? Oh, you mean Kitty Wellington. No, he was never her stepson.” Gilmore chuckled. “That would have been awkward at any rate, since Marcus Kincaid is two years older than Mrs. Wellington.

“The way this relationship came about, is that Kitty was married to Sir Thomas Wellington, and prior to his marriage to Kitty, Sir Thomas Wellington was married to a woman named Mary Kincaid. Mary Kincaid came into the marriage a widow, and with a young son, Marcus. Sir Thomas never officially adopted Marcus Kincaid, but he treated him as his own.

“Mary died four years ago, and shortly thereafter, Sir Thomas married Kitty, but by that time, Marcus Kincaid was on his own, having received a ranch and a rather large sum of money, in the form of an outright gift, from Sir Thomas.

“Sir Thomas and Kitty were married for only one year before he died. His will left Coventry on the Snake to Kitty, and that is what started the trouble. Marcus Kincaid was convinced that the ranch should have gone to him.”

“Katherine’s husband was called Sir Thomas?”

“Yes, he was British, and since he never became an American citizen, he was able to keep his title. I must say though, that he wasn’t vain about it. He never insisted upon being addressed by his title, though his friends and business acquaintances did so out of respect for him. He was a fine man.”

“What, exactly, did he leave to Katherine?”

“He left her Coventry on the Snake and Coventry Manor. Unfortunately, as you read in the letter, he left her land rich and liquid asset poor. He had less than five thousand dollars in his American account—he was used to transferring funds here from England, as he needed them. But once his brother learned that Sir Thomas had died, he went to court and got an order preventing any more funds from being transferred.”

“What is Coventry Manor?”

“It’s the house where Mrs. Wellington lives. That is, if you can call it a house. It’s bigger than any house, or hotel for that matter, that I’ve ever seen.”

“If I understood her letter, Katherine didn’t start raising horses until after her husband died.”

“That is true, and she had to take out a loan in order to do it,” Gilmore said.

“Is she having trouble meeting the loan?”

“She is not in default yet. But don’t get me wrong, Mr. Jensen, taking out the loan was not an imprudent thing to do. Mrs. Wellington is a very good business-woman. In fact, she is a much better business person than Sir Thomas ever was. And, of course, that makes Marcus Kincaid’s claim that it should all belong to him, even more untenable. He actually took his claim to court, you know, suing Mrs. Wellington for ownership of the ranch. The court decided in Mrs. Wellington’s favor.”