William Johnstone - Snake River Slaughter

Maybe she shouldn’t have told him.

No.

Whatever was causing Matt’s hesitance in deepening the relationship had nothing to do with her past life. She was sure of that.

She heard the clock strike one before she finally fell asleep.

At half past one in the morning, the Auxiliary Peace Officers approached Coventry on the Snake. Sherman held up his hand to halt the band, then he pointed. The moon was bright, and several horses could be seen bunched together in one field.

“Scraggs, you and Grimes go down and take a look. If there is anyone watching over the herd, take care of them. If no one is watching, come back and let me know,” Sherman ordered.

Sherman, and the other men with him, waited as Scraggs and Grimes checked out the herd. One of the men took out the makings and started to roll a cigarette but Sherman rode over and knocked the makings from his hand.

“You light up a cigarette and you may as well just ride down there and tell them we are here,” Sherman said.

“Sorry, Colonel, I wasn’t thinking,” the man said.

“A man in this business who doesn’t use his head, can easily lose his head,” Sherman said.

“I know. I’ll be more careful from now on.”

“You damn well better be. It’s not just yourself you are putting in danger. It’s all of us,” Sherman scolded.

About five minutes after Scraggs and Grimes had ridden down to check the herd, they returned.

“What did you see?” Sherman asked.

“Nothin’, Colonel,” Scraggs reported. “There ain’t nobody down there at all.”

“Are you sure? You mean to tell me there is not one rider watching over the herd?”

“That’s what I’m sayin’ all right. Me’n Grimes rode all the way around. I’m tellin’ you, there ain’t nobody out there watchin’ ’em.”

Sherman smiled and nodded. “Damn, they are making this too easy for us. All right, Scraggs, take Carson, Anderson, and Burnett with you. You four go down to the south end of the field and take the fence down. The rest of you, move on down as quietly as you can, and start driving the herd south, away from the house.”

“How many are we going to take?” Scraggs asked.

“Why, we are going to take all of them, of course,” Sherman replied.

“All of them?”

“At least all of the horses they have gathered here. According to Marcus Kincaid, they were goin’ to gather all the horses they were planning on shipping in one small field. These are all saddle horses, the field isn’t all that big, so this has to them.”

“Hah,” Scraggs said. “And without nobody watchin’ the herd, this here is goin’ to be about the easiest thing we’ve ever done.”

As Scraggs and the men with him rode out to take down the fence, Sherman led the rest of his men into the field with the horses, then spread them out around the herd. Because there were so many of them, the herd was easily moved and within less than five minutes the field was completely empty as the horses moved at a rapid trot away from the main house. Within another ten minutes, the entire herd had passed over a low lying ridge two miles to the south, and nothing remained of where they had been but the un-cropped grass, moving in a gentle, night breeze.

“Prew, Jake, Crack, you boys wake up,” Tyrone said as he walked through the bunkhouse just after dawn.

All he got in response was a few disgruntled groans from the men whose names he had called.

“Come on get up, get up. This day is half over,” he called.

“Damn, Tyrone, don’t you ever sleep?” Crack asked, and a few of the others chuckled.

“Yeah, I sleep when it’s dark, and I’m awake when it’s light. If you hadn’t stayed up till midnight last night, you’d be all rested, and ready to go, now.”

“Midnight? We was all in bed by ten o’clock. You know that, you was right here with us.”

“As far as I’m concerned, ten o’clock is damn near midnight,” Tyrone said. “Now, come on, everybody get up. We have to feed the horses.”

“Can’t they eat grass like every other horse in the world does?” Prew asked, groggily.

“It’s your fault,” Tyrone replied.

“What do you mean, it’s my fault?”

“You’re the one that pointed out to me that there are too many of them put into too small a field.”

“Yeah, but you said there was enough grass for a few days.”

“There probably is, but I think we should get some hay out for them anyway, just in case.”

“Those damn horses live better than we do,” Jake said. “They get their breakfast in bed.”

“You want breakfast in bed?” Tyrone asked. “I’ll be glad to bring you breakfast in bed.”

“Really? Yeah, you do that, I might feel more like gettin’ up this morning.”

“All right, I’ll get you a handful of hay, right now,” Tyrone said, and the others in the bunkhouse laughed.

“Serve that hay with some bacon and eggs, and I might just take you up on it,” Jake said, sitting up and rolling out of bed.

“I have some coffee in the office,” Tyrone said, softening his tone a bit. “You boys can grab yourselves a cup before you come out to the barn. Then, soon as you get the hay out, you can come on back for breakfast.”

“That sure was nice of Miz Wellington to throw us that party last night,” Prew said.

“And to actually dance with us. Who would’a thought a lady like that would dance with regular hands like us?” Crack asked.

“I hear’d tell they was a time when she done more’n just dance with cowboys,” one of the newer hands said.

The laughing banter in the bunkhouse stopped as all the hands looked over toward the speaker.

“You need to watch that mouth of you’rn, Asa,” Prew said.

“What? What did I say? Are you boys sayin’ you don’t know that our boss lady used to be a whore?” Asa chuckled. “Folks say she was the best lookin’ whore in Ketchum.”

“Asa, there’s no need for you to help the boys this morning,” Tyrone said, his voice almost conversational.

“What do you mean, there’s no need?”

“I mean, you don’t work here any more,” Tyrone replied. “So, there’s no need for you to help out. In fact, why don’t you just gather your tack and get on out of here now?”

“You can’t fire me.”

“Yeah,” Jake said. “Believe me, Asa, Tyrone can fire you.”

Asa looked incredulous over the reaction of all the hands. “I can’t believe this. I tell the truth about something and you want to fire me?”

“Not just want to, Asa. I did fire you,” Tyrone said.

“How’m I goin’ to go? Shanks mare? You know I don’t have no horse of my own. The horse I’m a ridin’ belongs to the ranch.”

“You can ride your horse into town. Just leave it at the livery,” Tyrone said. “We’ll pick it up, later. And, Asa, if I go down to the livery and find out that you didn’t leave the horse, I’ll see that you are hunted down and tried as a horse thief.”

“All right, all right,” Asa said angrily. “I don’t want to work for no damn whore anyway.”

Crack stepped up to Asa then and, without another word, knocked Asa down.

“What the hell was that for?” Asa asked, lying on his back and rubbing his chin.

“I just didn’t want you to leave without somethin’ to remember us by,” Crack said, and the others laughed.

“And, Asa,” Prew said. “If word gets back to us that you’re talkin’ about Mrs. Wellington, I guarantee you, you’ll get a lot more than a punch on the chin.”

“I’ve never seen such a bunch of…”

“A bunch of what?” Jake asked.

Asa rubbed his chin and looked into the glaring faces of the other hands.

“Nothing,” Asa said. “I’m going.”