William Johnstone - A Good Day to Die

A Yankee stranger in Hangtown, Sam Heller was little better than an outcast, a pariah. A dead shot and relentless foeman who kept coming until an opponent was beaten or dead, Sam had won grudging respect from sullen and resentful neighbors. A respect borne largely of fear, but no less real for that. He was known as a man not to be trifled with, best left alone.

Sam was on good terms with Captain Ted Harrison, commanding officer at Fort Pardee. On several occasions, he had interceded with Army brass to mitigate some of the rigors of Hangtree’s status as occupied territory. It had won him few friends.

On this fine Saturday morning in late June, he’d saddled his sure-footed steel-dust stallion at first light and rode out, following the long slanting slope into the highlands. Riding the hill country alone, he climbed to the summit of the Upland Plateau, topping the rim of the elevated landform covering much of north central Texas. Part of it cut diagonally southwest across Hangtree County, dividing it in two. North of the line was highlands, well-wooded hilly country. South lay vast, grassy plains.

Most of the population of the county lived on the flat, the ranch lands of Long Valley, watered by the North and South Forks of the Liberty River. The twin forks joined east of Hangtown, flowing southeast across the state.

The uplands were more sparsely settled. Some—not many—ranches and farms could be found there, most sited within ten miles or less of the plateau’s south rim. It was wild country, well-wooded timber broken up by hills and ravines.

At midday, Sam trailed south, a fine, fresh-killed buck deer slung across the back of his horse. He’d had good hunting that morning.

In his full adult prime, Sam was a rugged, raw-boned Titan, six feet two inches tall, broad-shouldered, deep-chested, and long-limbed. He looked like a Viking on horseback, with a lion’s mane of shaggy yellow hair and dark blue gunsight eyes. He wore a battered slouch hat, a green and brown checked shirt, brown denims, and boots.

An unusual sidearm hung in a custom-made holster at his right hip, a sawed-off Winchester Model 1866 rifle called a mule’s-leg. Even cut down at the barrel and stock, it was still as long as his thighbone.

A pair of bandoliers loaded with spare cartridges was worn across his chest in an X. A Navy Colt .36 revolver was stuck in the top of his belt on his left side, worn butt out for a cross-belly draw. A Green River Bowie–type knife hung in a sheath at his left hip. Tied to the left-hand side of the saddle by rawhide thongs lashed to metal rings piercing the leather was a long, flat wooden box with a suitcase grip at one end. Its contents were a welcome equalizer to a man alone.

Set at the edge of the no-man’s-land that was the Staked Plains, Hangtree County was a thoroughfare for outlaw gangs, renegades, hostile Indians, and even north-ranging Mexican bandidos.

Sam was an outlander, but he had business in that part of Texas. Important business—government business. And he meant to see the job through.

The hostility leveled at him by the townfolk was a bit wearing at times, and on such a day it was pure pleasure to ride off by himself into the hills and do some hunting. Deer, an animal more savory and less dangerous than Man.

When the hunt was crowned with success well, that was a goodness. Gutted and wrapped in a canvas sheet, the carcass of a fat buck was slung head down behind the back of the saddle and tied in place by some lengths of rope.

Dusty, the horse, didn’t mind. He was used to Sam’s ways and the scent of blood and death, animal or human, bothered him not at all. He was a warhorse.

Sam headed Dusty south toward the rim of the plateau, some miles distant. He had breakfasted at dawn before riding out. Since then, he’d refreshed himself on the trail solely with beef jerky and canteen water. His empty belly rumbled its displeasure.

Back in town, he’d sell the fresh kill to the butcher, after first having cut out some prime venison steaks. The cook at the Cattleman Hotel would grill those cuts of meat over a charcoal fire, serving them up the way Sam liked, charred at the edges and red and juicy on the inside. With fried potatoes and some cut up fresh tomatoes— man! Sam’s mouth watered at the thought. He could all but taste it.

A game trail wound south through low hills shaped like sombrero crowns, overgrown with green woods. Sam followed the twisty path. Strong sunlight shone through leafy tree boughs. A bushy-tailed red squirrel darted along a branch, startling a bird into flight.

The hills shrank into mounds, low and squat, as he rode along the trail opening into a stretch of rolling fields. The sun was hotter without the shade to buffer it, but not too hot. Sam basked in its welcome warmth.

Reaching into his left breast pocket, he took out a corncob pipe and a leather tobacco pouch. Tamping the pipe bowl full of rough-cut, shredded tobacco, he struck a self-igniting lucifer on the side of his pant leg and lit up, puffing away. Smoke clouds wreathed his head as the mixture in the pipe glowed orange-red, and he enjoyed the sharp, tangy bite of the acrid smoke, venting clouds contentedly.

The ground sloped upward, rising toward a ridge running east-west. The trail entered the wooded incline, putting Sam once more in the shade. He crested the hill, pausing at the top.

Beyond lay a shallow valley, another ridge, and another. The series of ridges and valleys stretched some miles to the southern edge of the plateau.

Behind the nearest ridge a line of smoke rose into the sky, a thin black streak climbing into the heights. Sam drew slowly on his pipe, frowning. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. And where there’s fire, there’s usually people—which in these parts means caution.

He hadn’t ridden that way before, having topped the plateau early that morning, several miles farther east. Sighting his prey, he’d tracked the buck northwest into conical hills. Returning, he’d taken a different trail, one that went directly south, instead of retracing his original route along the southeast.

He’d chosen those hunting grounds to take him away from human habitation, to where the wild game was. In the upland, a small homestead could easily be nestled out of sight in a pocket draw or under the lee of a hill.

Sam’s frown deepened. He’d forgotten to draw on his pipe and it had gone out. He exhaled softly across the lip into the bowl, blowing it clear of cool gray ashes. He stuck in his thumb, wedging the remains of the coarse-cut tobacco deep into the bowl, hardpacking it in place for later. A thrifty man, he was. Waste not, want not. He put the pipe back in his breast pocket, buttoning it shut.

The touch of his heels against Dusty’s flanks started the animal forward, down the far side of the hill. He crossed a valley, uncomfortably aware of its openness. He started up the opposite slope, dotted with stands of timber, and zigzagged uphill, angling from one clump of trees to the next, using them for cover.

Nearing the crest, he reined Dusty to a halt and got down from the saddle. Taking the reins in one hand, his left—his right was his gun hand—he led the horse toward the summit. “You’re an old woman, Sam Heller,” he said to himself, “but ...”

The ridgeline was rocky, with gaps in it. Approaching on foot, Sam neared the top without skylining, avoiding silhouetting himself against the blue backdrop where he could be seen by somebody on the other side of the ridge. Covering himself and the horse behind a rocky outcropping, he crouched and looked around.

The valley below was wide and deep. A dirt road ran along its middle, stretching east-west. A real road, not a game trail, making it Rimrock Road, the main thoroughfare running east-west across the south end of the plateau.