Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Caleb climbed down from Pirate, his buckskin-colored gelding, and glanced up at the new sign, smartly painted and telling the world—or Elkhorn, anyway—that Malachi Rogers Livery. Horses Bought, Sold, and Boarded was a moneymaking concern.
The livery itself was sound and well-kept.
It was a large, wood-plank barn with a good-sized loft space for hay.
Under the beams of the loft, the left side of the building consisted of a small office space with a cot, and beyond that was a row of enclosures for oats storage.
The back wall had stalls for horses, and on the right, doors opened out to a large, fenced area.
The owner was known in town to be a skilled blacksmith, and his forge and anvil sat under wide, overhanging eaves facing the corral.
It was the kind of place Caleb respected. Built carefully. Meant to last.
The son of Malachi Rogers hurried out into the moonlight, trailed by one of the many barn cats prowling the property. The boy’s sleepy expression brightened immediately when he recognized Caleb.
“Hullo, Mr. Marlowe.”
“Gabriel.” Caleb handed him the reins to Pirate and Doc Burnett’s gelding before gesturing toward the six riderless horses carrying grim burdens across their saddles. “Need the sheriff fetched.”
Gabe Rogers—tall, dependable, and already carrying himself more like a man than a boy despite his fourteen years—stared wide-eyed at the bodies.
“Hope nothing bad happened to Doc’s daughter.”
“Just saw her safely home.”
Gabe visibly relaxed at that.
“I was a little worried, letting her take Doc’s horse after dark.” He shrugged. “She don’t seem like a woman willing to take no for an answer.”
A faint smile tugged at Caleb, despite the long night. “Stubborn as mountain weather.”
Truth was, during the entire ride into town, Sheila Burnett had barely spoken two words to him.
Which had suited Caleb just fine. Though the silence between them had carried enough chill to freeze whiskey solid.
Still, somewhere beneath her anger and shock and pity for the rustlers, he’d seen something else too. Not weakness. Heart.
“Gabe,” Caleb asked, “you remember when Doc came for his horse?”
“Sure do. Yesterday at dawn. Pa was fixing to shoe his regular mount, so Doc took the dun instead.”
“Was he alone?”
“No, sir. Rode out with a miner.”
“Know him?”
The boy shook his head. “Seen him before, but I don’t recall his name. He don’t bring his horse here when he comes to Elkhorn. He must do business with them fellas at the other end of town.”
Doc had been gone less than a day.
Riding out to some of the claims in the hills, seeing to a broken bone or a cut or whatever needing tending, and then riding back to Elkhorn could take at least a day. Caleb decided Miss Burnett was worrying for nothing. Hell, Doc could show up anytime.
Still…
Doc hadn’t mentioned his daughter might be coming out.
And that troubled Caleb more than he cared to admit.
The distant yipping of coyotes echoed through the hills above town, drawing his thoughts back to the immediate problem.
Sheriff Horner.
Three buildings farther down Main Street, lamplight spilled from the jailhouse windows. Caleb rubbed tiredly at the back of his neck.
“Fetch Horner,” he told Gabe. “I’ll wait here.”
The boy ran off obediently.
Caleb leaned one arm against Pirate’s saddle and surveyed Elkhorn, trying turn his mind to other things and not let his history with Elkhorn’s new sheriff further ruin what had already been a tough night.
The town was changing fast.
Stacks of fresh lumber glowed pale beneath the moonlight between the hardware store and butcher shop. New buildings were springing up faster than corn in June. Hotels. Gambling halls. Boardinghouses.
Civilization.
And civilization always came carrying trouble behind it.
Down the street, a handful of men were standing around jawing in front of the Belle Saloon.
With the front doors wide open, he could see the whiskey and the brandy were flowing, the card tables were full, and the dice tables were crowded with miners falling over themselves looking for a reason to be back working their claims in the morning.
He knew most of them would wake up with empty pockets, a pounding head, and a sick feeling that they’d surrendered the rewards of all their digging without so much as a fight.
With the silver mines producing nearly instant fortunes, the men working them were looking for any way they could find to blow off steam, as the riverboat fellas say.
And there were people arriving in town on a daily basis.
Bounty hunters, outlaws, traveling salesmen, and folks just looking for whatever job they could get their hands on.
Between them and the miners and the wagons pushing west toward Mormon country and far off California, Elkhorn’s streets were constantly filled with the worn, the tired, and the hopeful.
Caleb’s gaze shifted toward a building across from the jail.
It too had a smart, important-looking sign, illuminated by a flaring streetlamp in front.
H. D. Patterson, Justice of the Peace, and below it in smaller letters, Land and Mine Sales, Side Door.
Here, Judge Patterson’s clerks handled all of the local area’s legal business.
And this was where, four months ago, Caleb had bought his spread outside of town.
At the time, three miles outside town had seemed plenty far enough away from Elkhorn’s noise and ambition.
Now he wasn’t so certain. Already the town felt too close. Already he could feel change pressing outward into the valley.
He’d built the ranch searching for peace. Some days he almost believed he might actually find it there.
His attention drifted toward the dead rustlers tied across the saddles. He didn’t recognize any of them. Spring always brought drifters into the mountains—men too restless for honest work and too desperate to stay straight long.
Caleb looked at the fellow who’d given him the letter. The one with the letter for his mother.
He’d need to come back into town to mail it when Red Annie O’Neal was due to come through. She was the only star route carrier for the postal service that he’d trust with a letter. He’d heard too many stories of mail and parcels getting lost with Wells Fargo and the other overland stagecoach lines.
He figured this knothead surely wouldn’t begrudge him a few days to send it off.
Strangely enough, though, that simple task weighed heavier on him than the gunfight itself.
The sound of ragged coughing drew his attention toward the jail. Sheriff Grat Horner emerged onto the boardwalk fastening his gun belt while two deputies followed behind him.
Caleb’s jaw tightened immediately.
Unfortunately, he knew Grat Horner from another life. And time hadn’t improved the man.
Beneath the same droopy, chaw-stained moustache, those wobbling bulldog jowls hung a little lower, maybe. Nearly as tall as Caleb, he was twenty pounds heavier, at least. And the blackguard loved to throw that weight around.
A bully with a badge, these days, but Horner hadn’t been wearing the tin star back then.
Like too many men of his ilk, he knew that being the law in a town flowing with silver or gold gave a clever man plenty of opportunities for putting some of it in his own pocket.
And it appeared this miserable bastard was living high off the hog here.
To be sure, he was dressing better. But those fancy new boots, gold brocade waistcoat, and new black suit didn’t add a lick of value to him.
Horner had once worked as hired muscle for a powerful rancher up near Greeley. Caleb remembered all too clearly the homesteader they found dead in a field after daring to settle disputed land.
Shot down beside his mule, a bullet in his back.
Caleb had tracked the killing straight to Horner’s employer, but a ranch full of hired guns and a town unwilling to challenge powerful men ended that pursuit quickly.
That day, he learned some badges protected justice. Others merely protected power. That was the day he decided it was time to take up a different line of work.
Months later, when Caleb eventually found his way to Elkhorn, he heard right off that the town was looking to establish some semblance of order. There was no law officer, and the miners were raising hell. Somehow, they needed to contain the chaos.
Caleb had different plans and wanted no part of it.
But not long after, he was surprised to see Grat Horner tipped back in a chair in front of the jail, a star on his lapel and his feet up on a barrel.
The fact that this low-down, poor excuse of a hound dog was their newly minted sheriff only proved that Elkhorn was desperate.
Watching the Horner approach now, Caleb found himself wishing he’d left the rustlers up in the ravine for the wolves.
“Busy night, Marlowe?” Horner asked, eyeing the bodies.
“Not my choice.”
“Who are they?”
“Just six upstanding citizens out for a moonlit ride, I guess.”
Horner glared and spat in the dirt. “You don’t know ’em?”
Caleb shook his head. “Came for my cattle. Didn’t expect to see me out there, I’d say.”
“Didn’t expect to end up dead, neither…I’d say.”
“We all end up dead, sooner or later, Sheriff. You should know that.”
Horner’s eyes narrowed and then flicked for a moment to the two gleaming pistols holstered at Caleb’s hips.
These were new guns. Colt Frontiers. Caleb was not one to change with every newfangled thing that came along.
But a gun dealer in Denver had convinced him that the action and balance and precision of the weapons were as good or better than his old Peacemakers.
And since it used the same .44-40 bullet as his Winchester rifle; carrying only one type of ammunition was a convenience he’d appreciate.
Caleb had tried them out, and they were smooth and accurate. So he bought them.
So far, he hadn’t killed anyone with these guns. But the night was still young.
“I hear you own a stake a few miles out.”
Caleb said nothing in response. It wasn’t a question.
For the past few months, they’d been two mountain rams circling each other. Each one knew the other was around, encroaching on his territory. Each keeping his distance, knowing it was inevitable they’d be locking horns.
Horner spat, wiped tobacco juice from his chin with a big hand, and waved at the dead rustlers. “So you hold that it was self-defense. Any witnesses?”
Caleb decided to keep Doc’s daughter out of it, not that she’d be much help. “My dog.”
“You ain’t wearing a star no more, Marlowe.”
“And that one you’re wearing don’t mean nothing to me, Horner.”
The sheriff’s eyes narrowed. “You’d best get used to it. Cuz like it or not, I’m the law in this town.”
“And there’s a snake in every woodpile.”
Behind Horner, the two deputies edged away from the sheriff, making room for any gunplay that might develop.
“You keep poking that woodpile,” Horner growled, “and you’re gonna find that’s a rattler in it.”
As the two men stared hard at each other, Caleb knew he could drop all three. From the Badlands to the Black Hills and beyond, it was known how fast and how deadly he was. Then the sheriff blinked.
“Lucky for you I don’t rile easy, Marlowe.”
“Blessed,” he said dryly.
Horner turned his head and barked at his deputies, “See what those boys have on ’em. The judge’ll want something to put on them death certificates.”
The two men moved around Caleb toward the dead men.
“Well then, I’ll leave you to it.”
“Not so fast. That don’t mean this is over. I can’t just turn you loose.”
Caleb frowned. “Why?”
“I don’t decide who’s at fault.”
“Who decides?”
“Judge Patterson.”
“Then I’ll come back in the morning and talk to the judge.”
“Nope. You ain’t going nowhere, Marlowe, until he says you can go.”
“I ain’t running.”
“Maybe not. But I still ain’t turning you loose.”
Caleb’s patience thinned dangerously, but without even looking, he knew the deputies would have their pistols trained on his back.
For one dangerous heartbeat, the street went completely silent, and Caleb knew exactly how quickly this could end. Three dead men. Maybe four.
But Gabe Rogers stood too near the line of fire.
And Caleb had spilled enough blood already tonight. More than enough.
The sheriff mistook his silence for surrender.
“Lucky for you,” Horner drawled, “I’m feeling generous tonight.”
Caleb looked at him steadily.
“No,” he said quietly. “Lucky for you, the boy’s standing there.”
The deputies stiffened. Even Horner’s smug expression faltered slightly. Then the sheriff recovered and jerked his chin toward the jail.
“Like it or not, Marlowe, you’ll be enjoying the hospitality of my jail tonight. Now, unbuckle them Colts slowly.”
Caleb held Horner’s gaze another long moment before finally reaching for the leather thongs securing his pistols.
And deep down, he felt that old familiar weariness settling over him again—the exhausting knowledge that no matter how far west a man rode, trouble always seemed to find him eventually.