Kinsman of the Gun Read online

  The old man was gone.

  Long before Curly reached the blackened ruins, the smoke stung his nostrils. He got down from his horse and stood close to the chimney. A monument of defiance, it had refused to collapse. At his feet lay a ragdoll with red hair. The face was smudged.

  He squatted next to the charred wood and stared. Rayburn would wonder where he was. That was OK, he said to himself. Let him wonder. He stood and walked the circumference of the ruins. He didn’t know why he did it. It was as if he was expecting to find something, but there was nothing to find. There was nothing left of the dream that brought these homesteaders to Wyoming.

  He didn’t hear the horse approach until it was almost upon him. He rose quickly, his hand on his revolver. He expected to find Rayburn, maybe Treutlin. He expected trouble.

  ‘Andrew, what are you doing?’

  ‘I don’t know. I really don’t know. I’ve just been wandering. Somehow this is where I’ve ended up. What are you doing here? Whose place was this?’

  ‘The Davis family. I didn’t know them. Some of your pa’s men burned them out last night. I’m like you. I don’t know why I came here. It seems like I’ve been here for hours.’

  Andrew reached for the canteen tied to the saddle horn. He offered it to Curly. First Curly drank, then Andrew.

  ‘I reckon they came here looking for a new start,’ Andrew said. ‘I’m sure they didn’t expect this.’

  Curly stared at him. Andrew’s face was a dark red. His eyes had some sort of glaze.

  ‘Are you all right? Do you need to see Doc Grierson?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘You talk as if you actually care what happened to this family.’

  A gust of wind came out of the north and carried the smoke higher. It swirled against the blue sky and vanished. Andrew dismounted and walked to the ruins. He ran the toe of his boot through the ash.

  ‘Curly, do you ever think about how things have turned out in your life?’

  ‘Can’t say I do. What’d be the point? You ain’t old enough to be asking questions like that. Those are questions for old men that haven’t got much time left on their clocks. Have you been drinking something besides water? You ain’t gotten into dope, have you? Man, if you’ve gotten into dope, your old man is gonna be fit to be tied.’

  ‘No, I haven’t gotten into dope.’

  ‘I hear tell Rose has gotten into it. You got a hankering for Rose? I bet she misses you something terrible.’

  ‘Curly, I’ve been running. At least trying to run.’

  ‘What are you running from?’

  ‘I could have stopped something bad from happening, and I didn’t. Far to the west of here I met this old man—’

  ‘What old man?’

  ‘He said he was a gold prospector. He had a Sharps. It was a fine looking rifle. For a moment I thought he was going to shoot me with it. Instead, we talked. He was a strange old man. And then he was gone.’

  ‘Andrew, you’ve been in this sun too long. It’s addled your brain, not that you have much of one.’

  ‘I’m supposed to be your boss. You’re not supposed to talk to your boss like that.’

  ‘You’re the boss, son. That’s not the same. Besides, your old man ain’t my boss no more.’

  ‘You’ve quit?’

  ‘I’m not working for him anymore,’ Curly said, and he stared at the lonesome chimney. ‘Not after this. I haven’t told him. I don’t like the way things are heading. I ain’t going back to your pa’s ranch and when I don’t go back, I reckon he can figure things out.’

  ‘You remember that farmer I shot in the Two Rivers?’

  ‘I ain’t likely to forget.’

  ‘I can’t get him out of my mind. I had convinced myself I was a hotshot with a gun. I knew I could never be like Peter. He’s brilliant with numbers. He knows more about finance than Father does, even though Father will never admit it. For some reason, Father doesn’t think Peter is much of a man. Father was at Gettysburg. Did you know that?’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘He was. He has talked about Pickett’s charge, about the men that died in the open field. Father sent many a Reb to meet his maker. Somehow I think he has the idea that, to be a man, you’ve got to prove yourself with a gun. Maybe the war gave him that idea. I guess I proved something with a gun. At least that’s the way Father looks at it.’

  ‘You proved you can take care of yourself.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have been there in the first place.’

  ‘It’s over with. Everyone knows it was self-defense.’

  Andrew picked up the doll and went back to his horse.

  ‘Just where do you think you’re going?’

  ‘Wherever these wagon tracks lead. This doll belongs to somebody. I want to make sure she gets it back.’

  ‘It looks like the tracks lead to the Anderson place. If I was you – and I sure am glad I’m not – I don’t think I’d set foot on their spread. When they find out who you are—’

  ‘You said I can handle myself. I’m not worried.’

  ‘You should be.’

  Andrew followed the tracks of the wagon wheels. Curly shook his head and mounted.

  ‘I’m coming too. Maybe I can keep them from filling you full of holes.’

  Chapter Four

  Jeremy Anderson and Lem Davis stood in the yard in front of the porch and surveyed the late afternoon sunburned sky the way farmers do when they look for any sign of rain. They did not have to look hard. No clouds. A steady wind might blow some rain their way, but no wind stirred. Anderson still wore the black suit, dust-covered from the trip into Cheyenne. It was his only suit, and he didn’t like wearing it.

  ‘I hate imposing on you like this,’ Davis said. ‘I had no idea you were in town for a funeral. I bet you were surprised to return and find us here.’

  ‘You’re more than welcome to stay as long as you want,’ Anderson said.

  ‘We won’t stay long. I’ve decided to take the family back to Ohio.’

  The acrid smell of smoke still clung to Davis. His shoulders sagged. Normally he would have stood taller than Anderson, but not today. He had not reached forty, but he looked much older. His wife, Victoria, looked even older. Their life had been hard, and he blamed himself. He shouldn’t have made her come West. She said there was nothing wrong with the land in Ohio, but he thought there was something better in Wyoming. She wouldn’t say it, but she was bitter. He knew it.

  And then there was little Caroline. He would never forget her face when the flames devoured their home, when the flames, orange-red and menacing, wrapped around the chimney that refused to collapse. She did not cry. She simply stared, a vacant look in her small green eyes. He wanted to protect their home, but there was nothing he could do. He could not go up against Swearingen’s men without getting killed. Getting killed would not help his wife and daughter.

  ‘Are you sure that’s the best thing to do?’ Anderson asked.

  ‘Right now it seems like the only thing to do.’

  ‘You can build back. I’ll help. I’ve got three strong sons. They’ll help. And there’s plenty of neighbors. They’ll all help. That’s what neighbors do.’

  ‘Those men who burned us out – they said if they ever found us on our place again, they’d kill us. I believe them.’

  ‘Lem, we’ve got to stand our ground. This land is our land. We can’t let them push us off.’

  ‘Victoria doesn’t like it out here. She never wanted to come in the first place. Now she’s scared. And little Caroline. I don’t want her to go through something like that again.’

  Far down the narrow dusty road two riders appeared. At first Davis and Anderson thought their eyes might be fooling them. Who would be calling so late in the afternoon? They grew nervous.

  ‘Looks like we have more company,’ Anderson said.

  ‘I don’t recognize them. They don’t look like homesteaders.’

  ‘I’m going to get my rifle.’r />
  ‘Do you have an extra one?’

  ‘I’ve got a Remington pistol. You and me and my three boys ought to be enough to run them off if they try to cause any trouble.’

  Anderson went inside the cabin and, followed by his sons, soon returned and handed a shotgun to Davis.

  ‘I keep the pistol in the dresser, but it ain’t there. I can’t believe it just got up and walked off. My wife keeps telling me I’m getting forgetful. Maybe I took it to the barn and left it there. But this shotgun will get the job done.’

  The riders drew closer. The sons, Asa and Cash and Alex Anderson, held their rifles tightly, and their father sensed the tension.

  ‘These men may not mean any harm,’ Anderson said. ‘So don’t start shooting unless it’s called for. But, just in case, spread out. If they try anything, we’ll make it hard on them.’

  The riders stopped near the front steps.

  ‘I’m looking for Mr Davis,’ Andrew said.

  He held the doll. Suddenly a young girl cried.

  ‘Caroline, come back here!’ a woman shrieked.

  Her mother, panic on her leather-lined, weather-beaten face, reached for her, but she jumped down the steps.

  ‘Millie! You found Millie!’

  Andrew lowered the doll and the young girl took it and held it close. He had never seen a face that looked so happy.

  ‘Mister, I don’t know who you are,’ Davis said, ‘but that’s a kind thing you’ve done.’

  ‘Are you Davis?’

  ‘Indeed I am.’

  ‘I’m sorry you had trouble,’ Andrew said.

  He removed the leather satchel his mother had given him and tossed it at Davis’s feet.

  ‘What’s that?’ Davis asked.

  ‘It’ll pay for lumber, for essentials.’

  ‘I’ve decided to take my family back East.’

  ‘Don’t let people run you off your land,’ Andrew said. ‘Stay and build something.’

  ‘Who are you?’ Anderson asked.

  ‘Andrew Swearingen. This is Curly Pike.’

  ‘Swearingen. Why, you’re the man who killed Sven Burleson in the Two Rivers. And it was your father’s men—’

  ‘We don’t want any trouble,’ Curly said. ‘That’s not why we came here. We’ll move on.’

  ‘No, wait,’ Anderson said. ‘This is the damnedest thing. I feel like I oughtta kill both of you, but something’s telling me not to. Have you eaten? The womenfolk are rustling up some food.’

  ‘You would let a Swearingen enter your home?’

  ‘Today I would. I don’t plan to make a habit of it though.’

  Andrew and Curly went inside the small cabin and removed their hats. The windows were small and the room was almost as dark as if it were night. A kerosene lamp burned dimly in the middle of a rough-hewn pine table. The young girl sat on the floor and hugged her doll. Meta Anderson stood at the dry sink beside her mother and Davis’s wife. She stared at Andrew.

  ‘John Tisdale worked for you,’ she said.

  ‘He worked for my father.’

  ‘We’ve just come back from his funeral,’ she said.

  ‘John Tisdale was a good man,’ Curly said. ‘It’s hard – it’s hard to see a man like that get killed.’

  ‘You know who killed him, don’t you? Mr Swearingen, it was your foreman, Rayburn, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Meta, that’s enough questions,’ her father said. ‘I’ve asked these men to have supper.’

  Meta walked past Andrew and out the door.

  ‘She took John Tisdale’s death awfully hard,’ her mother said.

  Davis handed the leather satchel to his wife. She opened it.

  ‘Where did all this money come from?’

  ‘It looks like we’re ranchers once again.’

  ‘Silas Taylor has a sawmill and lumber yard in back of his general store,’ Andrew said. ‘You’ll find all that you need there.’

  Andrew thought that Davis’s wife would look pleased, but she didn’t. If anything, her face conveyed disappointment, resignation.

  After finishing cornbread crumbled into glasses of buttermilk, Andrew and Curly drank coffee.

  ‘I guess you boys know there’s going to be a range war,’ Anderson said. ‘Men like your pa don’t want to share the range with folks like us. We’ve bought our land fair and square. We have a right to it, but some men just don’t look at it that way.’

  ‘Your old man wants a war,’ Davis said. ‘No two ways about it – that’s what he wants.’

  ‘The lynching of that Darton boy set the wheels of war into motion, and now Davis getting burned out—’

  ‘What if someone pays for what happened to the Darton boy?’ Andrew asked.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Anderson said.

  Curly set his coffee cup down on the table. The cup came down hard, harder than he intended.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Curly said.

  ‘What if someone steps forward and accepts punishment for what happened? Will that prevent a war?’

  ‘Maybe, for now. I can’t say for sure,’ Anderson said. ‘I think a war is inevitable. It might be put off for a brief spell. Who knows? But it’s coming. No two ways about it.’

  ‘It’s getting late. Come on, Curly. Thank you for your hospitality. You’re good people.’

  ‘Mister, you’re planning to do something,’ Davis said. ‘Just what is it?’

  Andrew did not answer. He and Curly went outside and climbed into their saddles. Only then did Andrew notice that Meta Anderson stood in the lengthening shadows of the low-slung porch. Her stare froze him.

  ‘John was a good lawyer,’ she said. ‘Your father wanted him to manipulate the law. He wasn’t content with the thousands of acres he already owned. He wanted more, and he wanted John to use the law to help him get more. It didn’t matter if people got hurt, if people lost every penny they had. When John wouldn’t do it, when he wouldn’t follow orders, your father had him killed. You know exactly what happened. Rayburn pulled the trigger as sure as you’re sitting on that horse. I don’t expect you to admit it. Tell Rayburn he’s not going to get away with it.’

  ‘I don’t plan to have any more conversations with Rayburn,’ Andrew said.

  ‘Ma’am, let the law handle this thing,’ Curly said.

  ‘The law has had plenty of time to handle this thing. The law has done nothing.’

  ‘Come on, Andrew,’ Curly said.

  Meta stood on the porch long after the riders disappeared into the twilight. The western sky was red. John always liked this time of day. She had heard him say it many times.

  ‘One of these days I’m going to build a cabin – a log cabin – on this big prairie,’ he said. ‘It’s going to have a front porch and in the evening you and I are going to sit in rocking chairs on the front porch and watch the sun drop into the fire of the western sky. We’ll do that every evening – well, maybe not in the winter. I’ve heard it gets pretty cold out here. But we’ll grow old in that cabin, with lots of children and grandchildren.’

  ‘John Tisdale, you ain’t a rancher. What are you going to do with a ranch?’

  ‘I’m going to make a home, Meta. A home for you and me. And we’re going to sit on the porch and watch the fire in the sky. Of course, if any of our neighbors need a little legal help, well, I am a lawyer. I’ll find time to help them.’

  She listened. She heard his words again.

  I hear you, John, she said to herself. I’m on the porch. But, John, I’m alone. I’m so alone. I don’t think I’ll ever feel any different. Not all the memories in the world are going to change that.

  Shopkeepers finished counting the money in their registers and were ready to go home. Twilight settled on Cheyenne. They were eager to escape the heat of their stores. They went outside, closed the doors behind them, and turned the locks. They did not expect to see the riders coming slowly down the street.

  ‘Who’s that with Zeke Stuart?’ one asked.

  ‘Da
mned if I know.’

  ‘No, wait – it’s that McPherson fellow and one of his friends.’

  ‘They’re bringing someone back.’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘No, I don’t believe it.’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Oh, damn, it’s the sheriff. He’s the one tied across the saddle.’

  Benjamin Payne examined his accounts ledger on top of the counter in his haberdashery. He could not see the figures well in the dim light, but he was pleased. Business was good. He did not need to read the figures. It was interesting how one thing led to another. Success in business had led to success in politics. He never planned to run for mayor. It was not something he had prepared for, but things had just worked out. And Cheyenne was booming.

  He sensed a movement outside. He heard the voices of his fellow shopkeepers. Something was going on. He left the counter and stepped onto the sidewalk. Riders moved slowly down the street. One of the horses bore a terrible burden.

  The riders stopped in front of the sheriff’s office. Stuart’s eyes were red. He could not see clearly. Tears mixed with the dust, and he rubbed his eyes and looked at the front of the jail building. Never again would he see Harrison walk through the door. Why – why would anyone want to kill him? He remembered what the minister had said at John Tisdale’s funeral. He had spoken at many funerals. Violence had taken many lives.

  Silas Taylor came out of his general store and saw the crowd that gathered around the horsemen. He walked toward them. Suddenly the mayor was by his side, breathing heavily.

  ‘I can’t believe something like this has happened,’ Benjamin Payne said. ‘Poor old Mitch. Can you imagine what it’s going to do to our image? And to business? This is not what this town needs.’

  ‘It’s not what the sheriff needed.’

  ‘That’s what I meant.’

  Silas walked faster and left the mayor behind. By the time he reached the group of bystanders, Timothy Monroe, bareheaded, stood next to Stuart.

  ‘Son, come inside the jail.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Ezra said. ‘Listen to the preacher. Owen, you stay with him. I’ll take care of the sheriff.’