Chapter 3
Chapter Three
“Stubbs, I don’t care what brings you onto these fellas’ property, but I got enough trouble on my hands,” Zeke Vernon snapped. “I don’t need no more. And from the looks of things, there’s been enough killing for today.”
The sheriff and his men nudged their horses across the clearing. Caleb watched Zeke slide his Winchester into its scabbard and dismount, a considerable drop for his diminutive person. The deputies stayed on their mounts, their rifles in hand.
“Just cuz the judge pinned a tin star on your sorry ass, that don’t mean nothing to me,” Frank Stubbs growled. “Me and this mangy coyote got something to settle.”
Caleb felt Henry bristle beside him, but his partner was holding his tongue…for the moment.
Zeke’s bushy eyebrows bunched up over his dark eyes, and his glare was deadly.
“Whatever yer beef is, you’ll have to settle it without any shooting.
This here is 1878. This is the new minted state of Colorado.
Ain’t you heard? We ain’t unlettered savages in Elkhorn no more. We’re all civilized now.”
Caleb took exception to the sheriff’s rosy view of Colorado, but he kept his opinion to himself.
Zeke Vernon had taken the badge after the previous sheriff of Elkhorn—a no-good, murdering snake named Grat Horner—met his untimely demise at the wrong end of Caleb’s smoking Colt.
A veteran of the war between the North and South, Zeke had come to Colorado looking for riches and a place to forget the violence he’d left behind.
So far, he’d found neither. But in Caleb’s eyes, he was a good man, and as solid as mountain ice in winter.
Their miserable neighbor wasn’t giving up. “You can’t civilize a coyote or an Injun. Don’t matter none, though, cuz I can’t decide which one Jordon is.”
“Shut it, Stubbs,” Caleb barked. He’d had more than enough of the man. “I’ve told you before, and this is the last time I tell you. You ain’t welcome here. So go find that nag of yours and clear out.”
Stubbs glared at him, spittle forming at one corner of his mouth. “I shoulda taken care of you the last time I saw you.”
“Well, you missed your chance to put a bullet in my back. Now, dust.”
The sheriff stepped between them, looking burly and fierce as a bulldog in a street fight. Built like a squared-off block of oak with legs, the former miner stared Stubbs down. His massive bush of beard, mustache, and eyebrows obscured most of his flushed face, but it was clear he meant business.
Zeke unhooked the thong over the Remington he'd taken to wearing cross-holstered. "You heard him. Git."
Stubbs snorted, swung his ugly mug toward Caleb, and then settled on Henry. “This ain’t over, Jordan.”
“Any time, neighbor,” Henry replied coolly.
Without another word, Stubbs stomped up the hill.
Before the man had disappeared into the forest at the top, the sheriff turned to one of his deputies. “Follow him until he rides off a ways. I don’t want him changing his mind and thinking he can pick us off from them trees.”
“While you’re up there,” Caleb added, “you’ll find a nice-looking horse, a mule, and a dandified fella with a couple of holes in him.”
“Bring ’em back down here,” Zeke ordered, turning to the other deputy. “You go with him. And don’t let that sidewinder plug either of you.”
As the deputies urged their mounts up the hill, the sheriff eyed the wounded outlaw, who was lying with his eyes half-closed, a grimace on his face.
“Getting pretty good at this, Zeke,” Caleb said.
The sheriff frowned at him. “Three dang months I been stuck doing it, thanks to you.”
“Seems like you’re thriving, friend.”
“Thriving?” He yanked off his stovepipe hat. “Just look at that. My hair’s falling out faster than it can turn gray. I can’t hardly sleep. I can barely take a drink at the Belle without thinking some low-down varmint is sneaking up to shoot me in the back.”
Henry handed Rivers’s pistols to the sheriff. “They say that’s why Wild Bill Hickock always drank with his back to the wall. So no dirty dog could get the drop on him.”
“And you see what good that did him! Pushing up daisies in North Bumdingy.” Zeke shoved the guns into his saddlebag and motioned to the trees Stubbs had disappeared into. “And now, thanks to you, I got another new friend to watch out for.”
John Rivers moaned, drawing their attention.
“Always glad to see you, Zeke,” Caleb said, turning away from the outlaw. “But how’d you happen to be near here?”
The sheriff kept his eye on the wounded man. “Didn’t happen to be. I come looking for you.”
“All the way out here?” Henry asked.
“When we got to your cabin, we seen you two riding south, way off down the valley. We followed and lost you for a while, but then we heard the shooting. Reckoned you’d be at one end of that noise.”
“You reckoned right. But that don’t say why you came looking for us.” Caleb gestured up the hill. “Looking pretty official, hauling two deputies along with you.”
Zeke looked from Rivers to the two men lying dead in the clearing. “Come to ask if you seen a gang of outlaws. We got word that Mad Dog McCord and his outfit could be in the area. This wouldn’t, by any chance, be them fellas?”
“This is why you were born to be a lawman, Zeke. You’ve got all the right instincts.
” Caleb pointed to the body draped over the partially butchered steer.
“That there is Lenny Smith. That one over there is Gustav Humboldt. Your boys are up collecting the remains of the late Slim Basher. And this handsome fella is John Rivers.”
“I don’t know no John Rivers,” the outlaw groaned.
“You knew who they were?” Henry cut in, wide-eyed, paying no attention to Rivers.
“I recognized ’em just before the shooting started.”
Zeke gazed at each of the outlaws in turn, then turned back to Caleb. “No sign of Mad Dog hisself?”
“Yep, he was here. Lit out and left his pals to face the music.”
“I don’t have no pal named Mad Dog.”
“Shut up,” the sheriff snapped. “Nice fella, that McCord. Which way was he headed?”
“He went on a direct line away from the shooting.” Caleb gestured south. “But that don’t mean he’ll keep going that way.”
“Reckon I’ll have to send a couple of deputies after him…” Zeke paused. “Unless you and Henry’d be interested in a few extra dollars. I believe there’s a bounty on Mad Dog. Dead or alive too.”
They both shook their heads.
“We got a barn to finish before winter and a cabin for Henry and a—”
“What in tarnation?” Zeke asked, surprised. “A separate cabin?”
“Hell, yeah,” Henry replied. “This one lives like a dang monk. If one thing is outta place, he throws it out in the corral. Who wants to live like that?”
Zeke was about to reply, but Caleb kept going. “And we got a crew driving some cattle up from Texas for us. They could be coming in any day now. Thanks, but no, Sheriff. We got too much to do here.”
“Well, have it yer way. I’ll send a couple of fellas, but I ain’t holding out much hope. These deputies I got now mostly couldn’t find their asses with both hands.”
Zeke tied the hands of John Rivers as Henry went for the blackguards’ horses. Caleb dragged the corpse of the butcher over to the gear by the fire, but before he could go for Humboldt, the sheriff stalked over to the fire and picked up one of the saddlebags.
Just then, the deputies appeared at the top of the hill. One was leading the mule, and the other had the dead outlaw draped over the saddle of the handsome dun.
Zeke grinned at Caleb. “I’ll take these carcasses and that sorry sonovabitch Rivers into town. You done made me look like a hero again, Marlowe.”
Caleb recalled the first time he had Zeke go to town with the loot he’d collected from the Wells Fargo stage robbers.
Telling tales in Elkhorn’s saloons about Caleb’s exploits gunning down road agents and killing giant cougars with his bare hands had cast Zeke in a shared glow of celebrity and earned him a bonanza of free drinks.
The sheriff watched his men descending the hill. “Judge Patterson will sure as hell bust a gut crowing to the governor how we’re keeping our part of the state safe.”
“Glad to help,” Henry joined them, leading the horses up. “Be sure to tell him this Rivers fella is my personal gift to him…seeing as the judge got me sprung from the county jail up in Denver.”
Caleb gestured toward the gear at their feet. “I’m keeping one of them rifles, some of the ammunition, that mule, and the supplies. I can use ’em.”
“Seems fair.” Another thought occurred to the sheriff. “When we rode by your place, it looked like that barn was near built.”
Caleb nodded. “Henry and me are figuring if the snow holds off, we might try to throw up another outbuilding for grain, as well.”
“Ha!” Zeke slapped him on the arm. “So them rumors are true.”
Caleb had a bad feeling about what was coming. “What rumors?”
“The rumors about the Christmas Gala.”
“What Christmas Gala?”
Zeke tried unsuccessfully to look innocent. “Why, it ain’t no secret that the Ladies’ Event Planning Committee has already started meeting.”
Caleb didn’t go in search of news, but news from Elkhorn had a way of finding its way out to him. He knew who’d been coaxed into being chairwoman of the Ladies’ Event Planning Committee.
“A dress-up gala?” Henry looked entirely too enthused. “With dancing and all?”
“I hear tell they’ve already gone and started ordering decorations from Denver and St. Louie, even.”
“Sounds like a real high society affair,” Henry responded brightly.
“With them shiny new boots and hat,” Caleb said to Zeke, “it’s a dead sure thing you’ll get an invitation.”
“Dang right.” The sheriff was looking at him expectantly. “Maybe I’ll find me a wife there too. It’s high time, ain’t it, for respectable fellas like us to be settled with a family?”
Ignoring him, Caleb pulled the two Winchesters from their saddle holsters and began to inspect the weapons. He was already sorry he’d let Zeke draw him this far.
“So she already talked to you?”