Holmes on the Range Page 23

  “So what makes you think Bob’s around here, anyway?” Gustav asked.

  “It’s pretty much like you said,” Weller replied, his tone still a tad wary. “I turned bounty hunter when I couldn’t hunt up a job. Headed down to Biddle cuz word was Hungry Bob had passed through there a few weeks back. I managed to find an old mule skinner who’d spoken to him—or someone like him—in a roadhouse. Said this feller was very interested when he heard about the Bar VR—its size and its reputation for unfriendliness in particular. And that got me thinkin’ the VR’d be the perfect place to hole up, cuz most fellers like me would be too scared to set foot there.”

  “So you came up here and got to trackin’.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And?”

  “No sign of Hungry Bob—though I was sure I’d finally caught up to him when I saw your fire here.” Weller grinned. “And I stumbled across something other than you two fellers, as well.”

  “The cattalo,” Old Red said.

  “You seen ‘em, too?”

  “Not just seen ‘em—Otto here almost got himself pulped by ’em.”

  Weller laughed, and it was such an infectious sound I had to join in even if the merriment was at my expense.

  “So them hairy things back there was cattalo?” I said, pleased that I’d finally laid eyes on the rare critters.

  Cattalo is hybrid stock, a cross between cattle and buffalo. Breeding them had been quite the craze out West—until folks figured out what a stupid thing it is to do. The buffalo blood gives you big, meaty offspring that can withstand winter cold better than any steer. But it also gives you unsightly, unpredictable brutes that are as foul-tempered as your average cow is dull-witted. On top of that, cattalo calves take a harsh toll upon their mothers, their buffalo humps presenting challenges of delivery cow anatomy is not designed to overcome.

  If raising cattalo was just plain dangerous—which it is—no one would bat an eye. But so many of the calves and mothers die in labor it makes the whole business unprofitable, which is why cattalo ranching came and went in the blink of an eye. Exactly why a herd of the misbe-gotten creatures should be lingering around the Cantlemere was but one more mystery to throw atop the heap we’d already built up.

  “Well, them big bastards sure lived up to their reputation for bein’ ugly and mean. I can see why Uly’d have a soft spot for ‘em, him bein’ ugly and . . .”

  A thought slammed into my gut like a fist, knocking the air out of me. I stood, walked around the fire, and bent over, my butt cheeks pointed at my brother.

  “Kick me in the ass,” I told him.

  “What?”

  “You heard me. Kick me in the ass. Believe me, I deserve it.”

  “Oh, stop actin’ like a fool, Otto. Just tell me what you’re talkin’ about.”

  “Alright, you had your chance,” I said, reaching into my Levi’s and pulling out the scrap of paper I had tucked away there. I gave Weller as quick a rundown on the receipt as I could—how it went from the cellar to Boudreaux’s pocket to the fireplace to our hands—then read it out loud.

  ill of Sal

  nnuery 20, 1893

  tallo

  00—payed

  cfersin

  klin Dammers

  “Why would McPherson be buyin’ tallow from Frankie Dammers?” Weller asked when I was done. “You got all the beef fat you could want right here on the VR.”

  “That’s just what we’ve been thinkin’,” I said. “Except I was readin’ this wrong. It’s t-a-l-l-o on here, not t-a-l-l-o-w, like it oughta be. I figured Dammers couldn’t spell—he sure as hell didn’t know how to write January or paid or even McPherson. But tallo ain’t just misspelled. It’s a different word entirely—only the first few letters got burned off in the fire. What we’ve got here is a receipt for—”

  Gustav might not know his way around the alphabet, but he figured out where I was headed quick enough.

  “Cattalo.”

  Weller chuckled and shook his head. “You sure you don’t wanna kick his ass?” he said to Old Red.

  “Later,” my brother mumbled, his thoughts focusing elsewhere. “Lady Clara said the VR was her father’s ‘last grand gamble.’ I reckon that’s what he’s rollin’ the dice on—hybrid stock.”

  “Who’d be dumb enough to put any money in cattalo anymore?” Weller asked.

  “It ain’t a matter of bein’ dumb,” Old Red said. “It’s a matter of bein’ a thousand miles away. Them folks in England only had one way of knowin’ what was goin’ on out here.”

  “Perkins,” I said.

  Gustav nodded. “He was probably sendin’ the board one letter after another sayin’ the ranch is fit to bust with big, beefy cattalo—only they had to keep it quiet so as not to tip off the competition, or some such nonsense.”

  “Meanwhile, Perkins and the McPhersons was milkin’ the VR for every penny it was worth,” I threw out.

  “Could be. But don’t forget—the Duke and them others have been goin’ over the books ever since they got here.”

  For once, I was a step ahead of my brother.

  “Oh, pshaw. That’s easy enough to fake. You just do two sets of account books—a real one for yourself and one that’s doctored-up for everybody else. Hey! That’d explain all those empty ink bottles we found in Perkins’s office the night we snuck in there! And I bet that’s why the bill of sale for them cattalo was in the cellar. Perkins hid the VR’s real records down there. After Boo popped up with the receipt, the McPhersons put a bullet in his brain and moved the ledger books to a better hidin’ place.”

  Old Red gaped at me a moment before a small smile curled his mustache at the edges.

  “That’s some fine deducifyin’, Brother.”

  I grinned back. “Well. . .I was a clerk for a spell.”

  “And that’s sure come in handy lately.” Old Red’s smile slid off his face. “I think you’re wrong, though. At least about who killed Boudreaux. Perkins knew the Duke and the rest of ‘em were comin’ months ahead of time. The receipt says those cattalo were bought in January, and the Hornet’s Nesters were hired to fix the VR up a few weeks after that. So who sent word ahead? It had to be somebody who knew the board was sendin’ folks out to look the place over in the spring. And I guarantee you this: That somebody’s in the castle at this very moment.”

  “But the Duke and Brackwell and Edwards—their families have all got money tied up in the ranch. Why go to all this trouble to steal from themselves?”

  “Somebody ain’t ready to stop playin’ cowboy.”

  I gave my brother the same cocked-headed look of confusion dogs give calliopes, velocipedes, or anything else they can’t quite understand.

  “Somebody doesn’t want the Sussex Land and Cattle Company gettin’ out of the cattle business,” Old Red explained.

  I was about to point out that Gustav seemed to know an awful lot about this somebody when Weller spoke, breaking his long silence.

  “I ain’t followin’ this at all—and I thank God I don’t have to. I’m sorry for whatever predicament you two have got yourselves in, but it’s no concern of mine.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

  Weller and I turned to stare at Old Red.

  “Jim, you didn’t happen to bring along a reward notice for Hungry Bob, did you?” he went on.

  Weller nodded slowly and pulled a sheet of folded paper from his canvas coat.

  “Take a look,” he said as he handed the notice over. “Not that it’ll make any difference. There ain’t no way ol’ Bob’s mixed up in this mess.”

  I leaned in to get a look—and to offer my services as reader—as Gustav spread the paper out. But my brother didn’t care what was written on that poster. His only interest was the photographs printed across the bottom. Both were of Bob Tracy, one looking straight ahead, the other in profile.

  He had an unsettling look about him, with a shaved head and dazed grin and eyes alight with the inner fire of in
sanity. Yet it was his enormous, mole-encrusted beak of a nose that really put a shiver down my spine.

  Weller was wrong. Hungry Bob was as mixed up in our mess as a man could get.

  “Sweet Jesus,” I whispered. “I don’t believe it.”

  “Don’t believe what?” Weller asked, blinking at the flyer in confusion.

  Old Red answered him by slipping his fingers into his vest pocket and pulling out the folded neckerchief stuffed within. He unwrapped it carefully, gradually revealing the very nose depicted on that poster.

  Thirty-three

  SEPARATE TRAILS

  Or, I Head Back to HQ Without Old Red . . . but I’m Not Alone

  It being a little unlikely that even a man as peculiar as Hungry Bob Tracy would take to roaming around without his own nose, we quickly concluded that the Colorado Cannibal would be feasting no more. Naturally, Weller wanted to know how we’d come by Bob’s smeller, and Old Red had me unspool the story. When I was through, Weller threw out the question that was weighing heaviest upon him.

  “So. . .y’all think that nose is enough to collect the reward on?”

  Even as I’d been tale-spinning, this very thought had been bouncing around the back of my mind. Having an essentially sunny, hopeful disposition, I’d leaned toward the affirmative. Naturally, Old Red was less optimistic.

  “If the law paid out good money each time somebody walked in with a nose, every greedy hard case in the West would take to carryin’ around sheep shears and snippin’ off nostrils,” my brother said. “Nope, if you want that reward, you’re gonna have to go in with more than this.”

  Gustav patted his vest pocket, where he’d returned Hungry Bob’s neckerchief-enshrouded remains.

  “What more is there?” Weller asked, staring at the lump in my brother’s vest as if it already contained a heap of cash. “We don’t even know how that Boo got hold of Bob’s nose in the first place.”

  “Actually, I’ve got a thought on that—though it takes a little theorizin’ to lay out.”

  I couldn’t be sure, as dark as it was around our little fire, but it looked like Old Red gave me a sly smile. I think he’d decided once for all to make a break with Mr. Holmes on the advisability of talking out your theories.

  “A while back, I was dumb enough to show Spider that trail I found back up towards HQ,” he said. “One man, on foot. Well, let’s just say the McPhersons went out and got hold of that man. . .and it was Hungry Bob. They might feel a touch nervous about turnin’ him in. They’ve got a lot to hide out here. So they killed him. But Boudreaux had ideas of his own, and he set off to collect the reward for himself. Only he didn’t want to drag in a whole body—not with Uly and Spider likely to get on his tail. So he had the same idea as you, Jim. Try collectin’ on the nose.”

  A part of me wanted to nod, a part of me wanted to shake my head. It was like taking a taste of underflavored soup. I knew something was missing, but I couldn’t quite figure out what.

  Weller had an entirely different concern. “Alright, let’s say all that’s true. How does it get us closer to the rest of the body?”

  “Well, here’s the thing,” Old Red said. “I saw that trail a few days before Perkins got ground into chuck. If the McPhersons laid their hands on Hungry Bob, I’d think Perkins would want a say in what to do with him. And Uly might be a lot of things, but he ain’t rash. I figure he’d want to simmer a bit before throwing away anything as valuable as ol’ Bob. So if they roped Bob in, they’d probably corral him someplace for a spell before puttin’ a bullet in him. And they couldn’t hold him at headquarters—not with us Hornet’s Nesters there.”

  “The line camp,” Weller jumped in with a snap of his fingers. “You think they kept Hungry Bob there.”

  Gustav shrugged. “It’s the first place we oughta look for his body, anyway.”

  “We?” Weller and I blurted out together.

  “Jim’ n’ me,” Old Red explained. “Jim’s gotta go to the line camp to look for Hungry Bob. I gotta go to find out if I’m right about what Boudreaux was up to. I’m sorry, Otto—that means you’ll be headin’ back to HQ alone.”

  “Oh, does it now?” I said, peeved to find my brother sliding us this way and that like so many dominoes.

  “Most likely the Peacock’s gonna be back tomorrow mornin’ with a marshal from Miles. You’ll have to slow things up till I can get there.”

  “And how am I supposed to do that? Hold everybody at gunpoint half the day?”

  Old Red turned away from the fire and began balling himself up in his sugan.

  “You could always try talking everybody to death,” he said through a big yawn. “I’m sure talked out, that’s for sure. I’ll be turnin’ in now, boys. I suggest you do likewise. We’re gonna need an early jump on the day tomorrow.”

  He was snoring within seconds—which didn’t necessarily mean he was asleep. I harbored the strong suspicion that he was simply avoiding more questions.

  If he was faking, he got away with it. Weller quickly wished me a good night and turned Old Red’s solo snores into a duet. Though agitated, I was too tired to stay awake and stew, and within minutes that duet became a trio.

  When I awoke the next morning, Gustav and Weller were already about ready to ride. I gathered my gear fast but without enthusiasm, for the prospect of splitting with my brother troubled me deeply. The McPhersons were no doubt sniffing after our trail, and it made me nervous to have Weller watching Old Red’s back instead of me. It didn’t settle my nerves when I noticed that Gustav—who could usually stare into a tornado without blinking—seemed a touch spooked himself.

  “You be careful, Otto,” he said gravely, walking up and offering me his hand as I got set to horse myself.

  “You be careful, Gustav.”

  As we shook, I saw that he’d already taken steps to follow that advice—sticking over the top of his trousers was the grip of a gun, no doubt borrowed from Weller.

  My brother nodded, we unclasped hands, and I hefted myself atop Brick. Moments later, Gustav and I rode our separate ways facing the unspoken possibility that we would never see each other again.

  I headed east a while before swinging north, avoiding the trail we’d ridden down the previous day. I kept to gullies and creekbeds mostly, doing my best not to stay in the open for long or present a clear outline against the horizon. I thought I was doing a pretty good job, too—until Brick jerked in his bridle and began to fall.

  The sound of the gunshot didn’t reach me until Brick was almost to the ground, by which time another bullet was whipping off my hat and putting a crease across my scalp. I didn’t even hear that second shot. I was too distracted by other sounds and sensations—Brick’s scream, his body curling into the dirt, my own being catapulted from the saddle, and a sudden jarring pain across my backside as I slammed into the sod.

  I rolled to a stop far beyond the VR or Montana or America or even the earth, journeying to some distant plane that knew neither light nor sound. I can’t say how long I stayed there, but it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. A hum rose out of the stillness, and from that grew a throbbing, and from that formed a noise so terrible it jerked me all the way back to the Bar VR.

  It was the anguished cry of a horse, close by and hurt bad. I blinked open my eyes to see white puffs of cloud lazing overhead in a perfect blue sky.

  “You sure I got him?” someone said.

  “You saw it,” came the gruff reply. “That second shot brained him.”

  A familiar clop-clop grew louder, and the voices did the same. The two men were mounted, and they were headed my way.

  “There’s Brick,” the first fellow said. Thanks to my still-scrambled brains, the words echoed in my head like a shout from a well. Yet I caught enough of the man’s speaking to know I’d heard his voice before.

  My body was atingle with pain and shock, but somehow I managed to get my hand moving down to my holster. When it got there, however, it found nothing to grasp. I’d lost m
y iron in the fall.

  “His body must’ve—” the second man said, his words cut off by another whinny of pain from poor Brick.

  “. . .over there,” the first man was saying when the horse quieted down again.

  I rolled over on my stomach and took a look back toward Brick. He was lying about twenty feet away, kicking his legs in a feeble attempt to right himself. Smack-dab between us was my gun.

  I snaked toward it slowly, still so woozy from my tumble I feared I’d pass out before I could be shot to death.

  The sound of approaching horses grew louder.

  I stretched out my hand.

  I don’t know if the first fellow saw me or heard me, but he called out “Hey!” just as my fingers wrapped around the gun’s grip. I looked up and saw a gray Stetson appear over Brick’s heaving belly.

  I pulled the trigger, sending a slug as low into that hat as I could. The Stetson sank out of sight, and I heard a squeaking of leather and a dull thump that told me a man had just slipped from his saddle.

  I kept the gun pointed over Brick, waiting for another hat to sling lead at. But the only target I got was empty sky. The sound of pounding hooves filled the air, growing fainter with each second. I pushed myself to my knees just in time to see a man on horseback disappear over a nearby ridge. I caught only the briefest glimpse of him, but that was all I needed.

  I’d just missed a chance to kill Spider McPherson, and he’d just missed a chance to kill me. I encouraged Spider to keep going with another shot from my .45. Given the distance between us, it was a pointless gesture—though one I took satisfaction in making.

  After that, I began creeping slowly around Brick. The horse lived only a few more moments, dying in agony before I could bring his suffering to a merciful end myself. When I rounded his heap of a body, I found that fate had been kinder to the man I’d shot.

  It was Tall John Harrington, and from the mess that had been made of his head, it was plain he couldn’t have experienced a single second of pain. Lying next to his body was a Winchester carbine.

  I’d killed men twice before and felt neither pride nor remorse—both instances had simply been matters of strict necessity. I didn’t feel any more moved now, even though I’d once considered Tall John a compadre. I couldn’t help but be disappointed in the man, but that’s as deep as my sorrow ran. I was a lot more broken up about what had happened to Brick.