Hard Winter Read online

  Muttering an oath, Bitterroot refilled his glass from the jug. He could have taken my whiskey, like he’d done Walter’s, because I wasn’t about to pour that stuff down my throat.

  “MacDunn’ll have to find his fence posts somewhere else. And since he hasn’t paid me for that second load, we’re square.”

  Well, I didn’t like that no better than Bitterroot Abbott, because I figured the major would have me cutting down posts, and my hands were blistered already.

  “If you blokes will excuse me, I’ve work to do.” He reached for the jug, but Bitterroot put his hand on it, and gave him a hard look. Burke swallowed, then turned, and headed for the door. He stopped when something made me ask him a question.

  “How did your boss find out what you was doing?”

  “Someone wrote him. I do not know who.”

  I had a pretty fair inkling, but I didn’t say so. Reckon if Tommy’s hands had healed enough to work fence, he could write a letter to the Northern Pacific.

  * * * * *

  Waited till noon the next day, when Bitterroot’s hangover allowed him to saddle his horse. We rode back to camp, empty-handed, me glad to get out of those mountains, away from those woodcutters, all that sawdust, and that screaming steam donkey.

  Rode to our camp, and stopped, staring.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “That double-crossing, little . . .” Bitterroot Abbott swung off his horse, and walked to the fence line.

  What was left of the fence line.

  Tommy had poured coal oil over the remaining posts, and we found nothing left but smoldering ash and charred stumps. Sections of wire had been roped, and pulled down. Not all of it, mind you. Likely didn’t have time or inclination to tear down that much fence. There was still a solid line from the base of the mountain to near the line shack, and other sections had been left alone. But what remained wouldn’t keep cattle in.

  Or out.

  The wagon hauling the barbed wire was gone, but Bitterroot picked up the trail. It climbed into Sun River Cañon.

  “You come with me,” the gunman ordered me, and told Walter to raise dust, get to Gene Hardee’s camp on the far side of Castle Reef, tell him what happened here.

  * * * * *

  “He had help.” Bitterroot’s voice sounded harder, louder within the cañon walls.

  We rode on, side-by-side. I didn’t look over at him.

  “You hear what I said?”

  “I heard you.”

  I wasn’t that green. Now I never amounted to much of a tracker, but I could tell from the signs that at least two riders had destroyed much of our barbed wire fences, and another man was leading a horse—Midnight Beauty—while Tommy drove the wagon up the trail alongside the river, climbing higher into the mountains. Besides, Tommy and his pard had left a calling card at the line shack, the letter I’d written for Tommy to John Henry, stabbed with a butcher’s knife in the front door. I’d found it, took it down, and tossed it in the fire.

  Bitterroot spit. “Did you know what he was planning?”

  “No.”

  I hadn’t knowed. Didn’t expect it, but maybe I should have.

  “You know who helped him, don’t you?”

  * * * * *

  The tracks led off the road, through a clearing to the cliff’s edge. Tommy and John Henry were long gone, but the mules grazed nearby. I dismounted, handed my reins to Bitterroot, walked to the drop-off. Peering over the side, I found the wreckage of the wagon, reels of barbed wire and barrels of staples smashed against the boulders some two hundred and fifty feet below.

  The wind blew cold.

  Kissin-ey-oo-way’-o.

  I might have said it out loud. I know I thought it. The wind felt bitter, hard, even with me dressed in that new heavy coat the MacDunns had bought for me. The wind blew cold. But that wasn’t really why I stood there, shivering.

  * * * * *

  “The war ain’t just coming, boy,” Bitterroot told me as we rode back down the trail, pulling the mules behind us. “It’s started. Your pard just fired the first shot.”

  I didn’t think so. The way I saw it, Major MacDunn pulled the trigger when he ordered miles and miles of Haish’s barbed wire. Maybe he started it when he killed Mr. Gow’s prize bull during the grassfire. ’Course, I knew better than to tell Bitterroot Abbott any of what went through my mind.

  “It’s going to be a bloody winter. So you need to decide before we get back to the ranch who you plan on siding with.” He reached over and grabbed my rein, stopping, staring at me.

  “I’d hate to have to kill you, boy. Never wasted a bullet on a kid your age, but I will, if it comes to that.”

  Without saying a word, I looked at him, waiting for him to release my rein, which he did, with a heavy sigh.

  * * * * *

  “I don’t blame your friend much,” Bitterroot said. “Tommy did what I would have done, likely, had my face been beaten all to hell. And I don’t blame Gow, either. He’s just fighting to survive. Mostly, though, I don’t blame Major MacDunn. He’s got good reasons.”

  We’d reached the end of the cañon before he spoke again, following the rolling hills now, Castle Reef looming over our shoulders.

  “Had me a wife once.” Bitterroot’s words surprised me, and I looked over at him. He kept staring straight ahead, talking. It’s funny sometimes. Folks you hardly know will tell you something deep in their gut. Guess it can be easier to tell a complete stranger something like that than it would be to tell your closest friend or loved one. I don’t know why. It ain’t the same with me, I guess. I never told anybody nothing, hardly, except Lainie. Told her everything. Most everything. And now, I’m telling you. Even what I never told your grandma.

  “Oh,” Bitterroot said, “I don’t count that Cree squaw I had. Don’t count that concubine I had in Bannack City, either. Her name was Karen. Green eyes. Full of soul. She was a full woman, all woman, kind of woman. . . . Well, you’re too young to know of such things. I had her, though. Married her. And let some tinhorn from Saint Paul steal her from me.”

  The horses snorted. I could see their breath. No sound for the next mile except the wind.

  “Yes, you’re damned right,” Bitterroot said when we neared the line shack. “Major MacDunn’s got mighty good reasons for fighting to keep what’s rightfully his.”

  * * * * *

  Nothing left for us to do but ride back to the ranch, tell Major MacDunn what had happened. Gene Hardee had gathered up his bunch of wire stringers, and we all returned to the Bar DD, leaving behind a few worthless miles of wire fence.

  * * * * *

  ’Course, me being so young, I wasn’t privy to the conversation between Gene Hardee, Major MacDunn, and Bitterroot Abbott. Didn’t really want to hear what was being said. Didn’t really want to have to talk to Lainie, but she cornered me in the barn.

  “Tommy quit.” That was the first thing she said to me. “He just rode off in the middle of the night.”

  I put my saddle on the peg, turned, saw she’d been crying. Probably crying since Tommy up and lit a shuck.

  “Have you seen him?” she asked me.

  “He write any letters?” Dumb thing to ask, and you wouldn’t have heard any sympathy in my voice, but I had to know for sure.

  “What?”

  “Before he left. He write any letters? Other than the one I wrote for him.”

  She blinked. “Mother said he gave one to Frank Raleigh when Father sent him to Helena.”

  Frank Raleigh was a quiet cowhand for the Bar DD. First fellow I ever saw wearing woolly chaps.

  “Why?” she said. “Why did you ask that?”

  “No reason,” I lied. That settled things for me, though, truthfully. I already knew Tommy had told the railroad officials what the hackers were doing on the sly.

  “Did you see him? Where would he have gone?”

  I let out a deep breath, trying to think how to answer.

  “He thinks he’s a monster!” She started cryi
ng again.

  “Tommy just. . . .” The words came hard for me. “He just needs . . . to . . . sort things out. For himself.”

  She shut off those tears, looked up at me. “I guess I do, too,” she said.

  * * * * *

  I had things to sort out myself.

  Weather turned colder, wind blew harder, skies turned grayer. Gene Hardee sent us out to cowboy, but he kept a lot of folks at the ranch headquarters. Bunkhouse filled up with all sorts of cowboys. Frank Raleigh. A man of color named Greene. Frenchy Hurault, the Métis. Busted-Tooth Melvin and Paul Scott. And a lot of guys whose names I can’t remember. And me, of course, and Walter Butler, Ish Fishtorn, and Camdan Gow.

  Bitterroot Abbott wasn’t there, though. The major had sent him down to Helena the day after we rode back. It wasn’t till later that I learned why he had gone.

  It was just a bad time. Gloomy. I got to punch some cattle, check on water holes, work on the back of a horse—things I was good at, even gentle a few rangy bronc’s. Only my heart wasn’t in it. I felt sad, and lonely.

  Seemed that everybody in the Bar DD bunkhouse felt the same way.

  Waiting for a war.

  Ish would clean that big Centennial rifle just about every night, and other hired men did the same, oiling their pistols—if they owned a revolver—or rifles, filling the empty loops in their shell belts.

  Waiting for the war.

  I felt bad for Camdan Gow.

  He was still on the Bar DD, doing chores. Nobody talked to him. It ain’t that they treated him like a prisoner, but more like they just pretended he wasn’t around. Except for Mrs. MacDunn. She was always protecting him, keeping him safe, making sure he didn’t hear what was being said about his daddy.

  But Camdan wasn’t deaf, wasn’t stupid. He knew. He was just a good boy, didn’t cotton to violence. Just like his old man.

  * * * * *

  The wind blew cold.

  The morning they came, a couple of days after we turned the bulls loose, I was in the corral, working hard with a currycomb on Crabtown. His coat was a mess, just thick, unruly, like he was some rangy mustang running wild in the mountains.

  “Major MacDunn!” Busted-Tooth Melvin called out, and I heard the pounding of hoofs. Well, I dropped that currycomb, scrambled up the corral, and just froze there, perched on the top rail, when Mr. Gow rode up with a half dozen men. They reined up near the main house, Tommy and John Henry closest to me.

  Ish Fishtorn and a couple of boys walked from the bunkhouse, Ish holding that big rifle at the ready. Other men stayed by the bunkhouse, where they could fine shelter. Me? I had no place to hide. If folks started shooting, I figured I was dead.

  * * * * *

  Seemed like a month passed before Major MacDunn walked outside, a double-action revolver in his right hand, cocked, but the barrel hanging alongside his leg.

  Camdan Gow ran from the bunkhouse, and nobody tried to stop him. He pulled up right beside his daddy, who looked as if he had aged ten years since last I saw him.

  Mrs. MacDunn stepped through the doorway.

  “Get inside, Blaire!” the major barked.

  Mrs. MacDunn stepped out, away from her husband, defying him, and the major’s ears started turning redder than mine ever did.

  Then Lainie ran out of the house, stopping beside her mother. Even from where I was, I could tell they’d both been crying.

  Time passed. We waited for the war to commence.

  As the wind blew cold.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Mr. Gow made the first move, reaching inside the coat of his Mackinaw, stopping for a moment when Major MacDunn started to raise his pistol barrel. John Henry put his hand on the butt of his revolver. So did a couple other of Gow’s men, and Ish eared back the hammer of his Winchester.

  I tried to swallow, but didn’t have nothing in my throat but a dry, cold dread.

  Mr. Gow’s and the major’s eyes locked, and slowly Gow withdrew a fringed elk-hide pouch, which he tossed at the major’s boots. I heard the jingle of coin when the pouch landed in the dirt.

  “I owe you, William, for damages to your fence. I trust you will find that sufficient.”

  Looking a bit surprised, Major MacDunn lowered the revolver, but kept it cocked, kept his finger in the trigger guard.

  “I had nothing to do with that wanton destruction, William. These two . . .” He shot a quick glance in Tommy and John Henry’s directions. “Well, they took matters into their own hands. For their own reasons.”

  Mr. Gow wet his lips. John Henry and Tommy just stared ahead, not blinking, barely breathing.

  “I pray we may discuss matters in private, William. As civilized men.”

  “Get off my land.” I could barely hear the major. His fingers tightened against the revolver’s butt.

  Mrs. MacDunn gasped, and the major glared at his wife, then looked back at Mr. Gow with cruel eyes.

  “Your land?” Mr. Gow let out a hollow laugh. “This so-called MacDunn Empire is open range. You’re nothing more than a general manager, serving at the pleasure of the board of directors, and the shareholders, of the Dee and Don Rivers Land and Cattle Company. I have written a formal complaint to Sir Alistair Shaw in Aberdeen. You might not have a job by spring.”

  “My land.” The major lifted the revolver again, ignoring his wife’s plea. “I said get off.”

  “We have always had an understanding, William. This is open range.”

  “Which I control.”

  “I do not detest barbed wire, William. You have every right to fence off some pasture. I understand that Granville Stuart has done the same in the Judith Basin. Barbed wire fences are no longer only for farmers. Many Texas ranchers are protecting their water holes, some pasture.”

  “Get out of my sight!”

  “For God’s sake, William. I pray for peace. After the fire, after . . . well . . . I sent Camdan back here, after arduous discussion with my wife, hoping his presence would alleviate any tension . . . .” He took a deep breath, and slowly exhaled. “William, we were friends in Scotland.”

  “This is not Aberdeen!”

  “The range you chose to fence is range that we agreed the Bar DD and the Seven-Three Connected would share. I needed that land after the fire. You knew that. You could have . . .”

  “This is not about land, you fool!”

  Mr. Gow gripped his saddle horn, his face masked by bewilderment. His horse pranced nervously. Another one of his riders—the colored man who had driven Mrs. Gow to the Bar DD to get help during the fire—let his hand drop near the rifle in his scabbard.

  Mr. Gow’s Adam’s apple bobbed.

  “Please, William. Allow us to talk privately.” He glanced at Camdan, then at Lainie. He made himself look away from Mrs. MacDunn.

  I guess the major realized Mr. Gow wasn’t a fighting man. Suddenly he laughed, lowering the hammer on his Bulldog revolver, shoving it inside his waistband.

  “Tristram, I don’t blame you at all. Your own wife’s turned crazy as a loon.”

  Now, Mr. Gow’s face flushed.

  “It’s lonely country,” the major said, grinning without humor. “It is not like Scotland.”

  Suddenly Tommy shot me a hard look.

  The crooked smile vanished from the major’s face. “But you come here fancying my wife!”

  Groaning, Mrs. MacDunn took a step toward the major, but Lainie saw that look in her father’s eyes, a look that scared her, and she grabbed her mother’s arm, pulled her back.

  “William,” Mr. Gow pleaded.

  “Don’t call me William. I should kill you right now.”

  He sounded sadder, older, worn out, Mr. Gow did, when he spoke again. “I am sorry if I have led you to believe . . . I . . . it is not fair to Blaire to . . .”

  “Missus MacDunn, Gow. She’s Missus MacDunn to you!”

  Another eternity passed.

  “Mister Gow?” the black rider asked. He was ready and willing to pull his rifle, and draw blo
od.

  Mr. Gow’s head shook tiredly. “I have never desired anything from your wife except her friendship,” he said, and this time he turned to look at Mrs. MacDunn. “I am sorry if I led you to believe otherwise. She is a friend. A dear friend. As you once were, William.” He looked back at the major. “But I love my wife. I love my family. And I love what I have tried to carve in this wilderness for them.”

  He looked down at his son. “Catch up your horse, Camdan. It is time we go home. Quickly, Son.”

  “I have seen enough bloodshed on this frontier,” Mr. Gow said when Camdan had disappeared inside the barn. “I had prayed you would have, too, after those lynchings a few years back. I detest violence. You know that. There will be no war on the Sun and Teton Rivers, Major MacDunn. At least, I shall not start it. I will find winter grass elsewhere. In Canada. If it’s not too late.”

  He shot his arm out toward Tommy and John Henry.

  “These men admitted to me their handiwork in the ruination of your fence. I have fired Kenton, have banished them from my range. Yet I trust you will show mercy, will not press charges. There is enough money in that pouch to replace your precious wire. The boy, I believe, has been hurt enough.”

  Camdan rode out of the barn, and Mr. Gow tipped his hat at Mrs. MacDunn. Her lips mouthed the words—“I am sorry.”—and the 7-3 Connected riders loped away, disappearing over the hills, leaving behind John Henry and Tommy, whose horses took a few nervous steps, wanting to run after the other riders, wanting to get away from the Bar DD.

  I felt the same way.

  * * * * *

  What happened? Nothing. Not really. Well, maybe everything.

  My heart pounded against my ribs, but I could breathe again. We watched the dust fade, then John Henry, his hand still on the butt of his revolver, turned toward Major MacDunn.

  “Well?” His words were icy. “What’s your play?”

  The major stared at him, started to look at either his wife or daughter—I’m not sure which—but stopped.

  “Get out of my sight,” the major said. “If I ever find you on MacDunn range, I will hang you both. Jim Hawkins!”