William Johnstone - Snake River Slaughter

Marcus’s act of courtesy surprised Matt, but he said nothing until he heard the sound of the carriage driving away. Turning back toward Kitty, he saw a very strange look on her face.

“Katherine, are you all right?” he asked, reverting back to the name by which he had known her.

“Yes, I’m fine,” Kitty said.

“What did he want?”

“Nothing in particular.”

Matt knew that Kitty’s response was disingenuous, but he didn’t press the matter.

“You said I could speak with Prewitt?”

“Oh, yes. See Tyrone Canfield. He is the ranch foreman and his office is at the end of the bunkhouse. Tell him I said to take you to see Prew. I never go into the bunkhouse myself. I consider that to be the private quarters of the men who work for me.”

“And I’m sure they appreciate that,” Matt said.

Matt walked across the lawn and down to the bunkhouse. He had seen a lot of bunkhouses in his life, had even spent about eight months in one when he worked as a cowboy, but he had never seen one like this. It was much larger than any he had ever seen before, painted white, with a red roof. A porch stretched down the length of it, onto which opened at least ten doors and twice as many windows. The porch had a roof, supported by a series of pillars that were set every ten feet. There were also benches and rocking chairs on the porch, many of them with cushions. It was obvious that Kitty, and probably her husband before her, treated the ranch hands with kindness and respect.

Matt tapped on the door to the office and it was opened by a white-haired man with steel blue eyes. He was weathered and bowlegged and he held the stump of a pipe clenched between his teeth. “I take it you are Mr. Jensen,” the man said.

“Mr. Canfield,” Matt said, extending his hand.

“Call me Tyrone,” the man replied.

“Only if you reply in kind.”

“What can I do for you, Matt?”

“Katherine said you would take me to Prewitt.”

“Sure, right this way,” Tyrone said, stepping out onto the porch and walking down to the next door. He pushed it open, then stepped inside.

“Prew, you awake?” he called.

“Yeah, I’m down here,” a voice answered.

The inside of the bunkhouse was as nice as it was outside. There were at least ten potbellied stoves down the center aisle of the dormitory, all of them sitting in sandboxes. Because it was summer, none of the stoves were lit, but the smell of last winter’s fires still lingered, not strong enough to be unpleasant, but just enough to suggest the warmth the stoves provided.

Now, gourds of water hung from the rafters, the evaporation of the water helping to cool the interior. Every bed had a foot locker and wall locker, and there were decorations on the walls.

“How is your shoulder,” Tyrone asked as he and Matt approached.

“Still a little sore,” Prew answered. “I can’t complain though, seein’ as what happened to Timmy and Hank.”

“Prew, this is Matt Jensen. He’s a friend of—”

“Matt Jensen!” Prew said. “I know’d Miz Wellington was goin’ to ask you to come out here. I’m sure glad you did, and I’m real pleased to meet you.”

Prew stuck his arm out to shake hands with Matt, but he jerked it back with a quick spasm of pain.

“Ouch,” he said, reaching up to grab his shoulder.

“Let me do the reaching,” Matt offered, sticking his own hand out. Prew smiled broadly as they shook hands.

“I’ve read about you,” Prew said. “You’re the first famous person I’ve ever met.”

“Fame is relative, Prew. There are a lot more people who have never heard of me than there are people who have.”

“Yeah, I reckon that’s probably right,” Prew said.

“Prew, I want you to tell me all you can remember about the night you were shot.”

Prew told how he, Hank, and Timmy were riding nighthawk, when Hank rode off to check on a colt. He told of hearing a gunshot in the night, then getting no response when they called after Hank.

“Me and Timmy rode right into it, Mr. Jensen,” Prew said. “One minute we was lookin’ for Hank, and the next minute there was bullets flyin’ all around. I don’t remember actually gettin’ hit. I just remember lyin’ on the ground with my shoulder hurtin’.”

“But you saw the rustlers?” Matt asked.

“Yes, sir, I seen ’em all right. Only thing is it was dark, so I couldn’t say for sure. But I’ve seen Poke Terrell a lot of times in the Sand Spur, and, in the dark, this feller looked a lot like him.”

“Did you recognize any of the others?”

“I thought one of them might have been Sam Logan,” Prew said. “But then since Logan works for Poke, it might be I was just thinkin’ it might be him.”

“He don’t work for Poke any more,” Tyrone said.

“He don’t?”

“Nope,” Tyrone said. “Matt killed him.”

“The hell you say,” Prew replied with a wide grin. “When? Where?”

“Yesterday afternoon,” Matt said. “Up on the top of Bruneau Canyon.”

“Damn. What was he doin’ up there?”

“He was trying to kill Mr. Gilmore and me,” Matt said.

Prew laughed. “Good for you. You know what? I think gettin’ you to come help her is ’bout the smartest thing Miz Wellington has ever done.”

Chapter Thirteen

“How long have you been here, Tyrone?” Matt asked when the two men returned to his office.

“Well, I worked for Sir Thomas for fifteen years before he and Mrs. Wellington were married. They were married for a year before he died, and I’ve been with Mrs. Wellington for the last three, so, all told I’ve been here nineteen years.”

“So you were here when Marcus Kincaid was living on the place?”

“Oh, yes, I was here, all right. I was here when he and his mama come to live here. He was just a sprout then. No more than twelve or thirteen, I would say.”

“What do you think of him?”

“Well, his mama, Miz Mary, now she was about as fine a woman as you’d ever want to meet.”

“I’m asking about Marcus Kincaid.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, do you like him?”

“Matt, you have to understand my position here.

I’m the foreman, he was family. It was never my place to like or dislike him.”

“Perhaps. But I’m not family. So you can tell me what your honest opinion of him is.”

“He was a handful as a boy. Always gettin’ into some kind of trouble. I think he broke her heart so many times that it’s a wonder she didn’t die before she did. But Sir Thomas, he never gave up on him. No matter what kind of scrape Kincaid would get hisself in, Sir Thomas was always there to take care of it for him.”

“What kind of scrapes did he get in?”

“Once when they were all supposed to be in church, Kincaid snuck out and took Mr. Ebersole’s surrey that was parked out front, drove it like a bat out of hell, and wound up wreckin’ it and breaking the leg of one of horses. The horse had to be put down. But Sir Thomas bought Ebersole a new surrey and a new team. Then another time, Kincaid burned down the girls’ toilet at school. It was all kid stuff, you understand, but it was mean kid stuff.”

“I’m more interested in him as a man than as a kid. What do you think of him now?”

“I think he is a low-down, conniving, sorry example of a man,” Tyrone said. “I know for a fact, that before he died, Sir Thomas split all his holdings in half. He gave half of it to Kincaid, even though Kincaid wasn’t his. And he told Kincaid that the other half he was goin’ to leave to Mrs. Wellington. ’Course, he was still alive at the time, I don’t think he had any idea he would be leavin’ it to her so soon.”

“But Kincaid wasn’t satisfied with that?”