Hanging Woman Creek (1964) Read online

  “You’re right in the middle of the rustlers,” Stuart said, showing his irritation. “You’ve got them all around you out there.” He paused. “You’ve even been shot at.”

  “Looked like it,” I agreed, “and maybe that’s what it was. Well, I’ll fight for any stock I’m riding herd on, and I’ll do as good a job as I know how, but I’m not a man-hunter.”

  After that they left me. I finished up my meal and ordered more coffee. Compared to what we made at the line camp it was mighty weak stuff, but it was still coffee. I was paying no attention to anything around me when suddenly a girl spoke to me.

  Well, I’d been so taken up with listening to Stuart and Justin that I hadn’t noticed that girl before. She had come in after I had and was sitting at the next table. Now I saw that she was a right pretty girl.

  “I beg your pardon, sir. Could you tell me how to reach Otter Creek?”

  “Where on Otter? That’s a long stretch of creek, ma’am.” And then I added, “And nothing out there a lady could go to.”

  “I want to go to Philo Parley’s place.”

  She was slender, and got up mighty stylish, and she had the look of a thoroughbred.

  “Are you kin?” I isked.

  “Kin?” She looked puzzled, but then her face cleared. “Oh, yes! He is my brother.”

  Turning around in my chair, I said, carefully as I could, “That ain’t much of a place, ma’am. I mean Farley’s doing all right … or was last I saw him, maybe a year ago, but he built that cabin himself and he wasn’t much of a builder.

  “He’s got him a few cows, and some good horses, and given time he’ll make out, but I wouldn’t say it was any place for a city woman.”

  “He needs help.” The way she said it was matter-of-fact, no nonsense about it. “If I can help him, I shall.” And then she added, “There is no one else.”

  “Is he expectin’ you?”

  “No. I knew he would tell me not to come, so I just came anyway.”

  “I’m going that way, ma’am,” I said. “I work for Justin, and he has a line camp out on the Hanging Woman. I can take you out there, but I’d suggest you stay here in town instead, and let me ride over and tell him.”

  “That’s rather silly, isn’t it? Why should he make a trip in here for me? If he needs help, that would be time lost, and I am sure time is important to him.”

  Now, when a woman gets that look on her face there’s not much point in arguing with her, but I made one last attempt to get the straight of things. “Did he tell you he was in trouble?”

  “No … but from the tone of his last letters, I knew he needed help.”

  She did not have to convince me of that. Philo Parley was a slim young Irishman from the old country, a good man, too. He had been a soldier on the Northwest Frontier of India. He had come to Montana four or five years ago and, after looking around, had picked that site near Otter Creek and homesteaded it. And he’d had trouble.

  There were a couple of ranchers over that way that didn’t take favorably to nesters of any kind; and then there’d been a passing war party of young bucks who had decided he was fair game.

  The Khyber Pass apparently had taught him a few things, and the Sioux lost a warrior and two horses, with another buck wounded, before they decided to let him alone.

  As for the ranchers, they had done nothing, but I knew they weren’t taking kindly to his homesteading there, and they had made the usual comments about losing stock. Such comments were occasionally based on fact, but often as not they were just preliminary to some action against the nester. What had followed I had no idea, for I’d been gone from the country for some time.

  I left the girl in the restaurant and went out on the walk.

  Bill Justin was there, talking to Roman Bohlen. Bohlen was a big rancher, a rough, hard man, too autocratic for me to work for, although I’d worked beside him on roundup crews. He was a good hand, fed his outfit well, paid top wages, but he was a brusque, short-spoken man whom I never cottoned to. However, he was probably the most successful rancher around, and he carried a lot of weight.

  He looked at me, a straight, hard look. “Didn’t know you were a ladies’ man, Pike,” he said. “Who is she?”

  Sort of reluctantly, I told him. “She wants to go out to her brother’s place.”

  It wasn’t until I’d said it that I remembered Bohlen had been one of the men who had said a lot about Parley. In fact, he had done everything but flatly accuse him of rustling.

  “Don’t take her out there,” he said, and that brusque way of his fired me up. Anyway, he wasn’t my boss.

  “She asked me, and I’m taking her,” I said.

  Roman Bohlen’s eyes turned mean. “By God, Pike, I told you—”

  “I heard you,” I interrupted, “and what I do is none of your damned business!”

  For a minute there I thought he was going to take a punch at me, but he just shrugged and said, “Take her, and be damned.”

  As I turned away I heard him say, “If he worked for me, Justin, I’d fire him.”

  “I’d play hell getting anybody else for that camp, and you damn well know it. Besides, he’s a good man.”

  “Maybe … I just wonder why he’s so willing to take the job. And he must be kind of thick with Parley to be taking that woman out there.”

  Whatever was said after that I didn’t hear, and didn’t want to hear. I was afraid I’d go back and take a punch at Roman Bohlen; and if I did, I’d get licked. Bohlen was as big as Butch Hogan, but a whole lot faster. Fact was, he had whipped Hogan a year or so back, and whipped him beautifully. I’d seen it.

  Right then it came to me that I’d better get busy with Eddie Holt. If he could show me something about fighting, I’d better have him do it. It was beginning to look as if I’d need it.

  When we rode out of town I wasn’t thinking about the woman beside me. I was worrying some about what Roman Bohlen had said about Parley. Bohlen was a good hater, and when he made up his mind to believe something, there was no changing him.

  Ann Parley drew a deep breath. “Oh, this air!” she exclaimed. “It’s no wonder Philo loves it. It’s such a beautiful country!”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, but I wasn’t thinking about the air or the country just then; I was thinking about Roman Bohlen.

  Chapter Eight.

  She was slim and tall, and she had the kind of red hair they call auburn—a lot of it. Her eyes were almost violet, and there were a few freckles over her nose.

  “You come clear from Ireland?” I asked presently.

  “Yes.”

  “You must think a sight of him.”

  “He’s my brother,” she said. Then she added, “Although he’s almost like my father, for he always took care of me.”

  “No other kinfolk?”

  “Oh, yes, there’s Robert. He is the oldest, but he’s never been well. He was thrown from a horse when he was a boy, and he’s been crippled since.”

  We rode on, putting the miles behind us. She sat her horse well, and I was not surprised, for the Irish have many good horsewomen among them, and Philo was a fine hand with any kind of horse flesh, too. He had gentled some bad ones, and I really mean gentled. He was not given to rough-breaking them the way we in Montana did.

  She was a lady, every inch of her, I could see that, and there was something clean and fine about her that made a man look twice.

  “You took a chance,” I said, “speaking to a stranger that way.”

  She flashed me a quick smile. “But you are not exactly a stranger, Mr. Pike. You were pointed out to me. And when your name was mentioned I remembered my brother had written about you.”

  “Who pointed me out?”

  She hesitated briefly, and then said, “It was Mr. Fargo.”

  “Jim Fargo?” I was plain astonished.

  “He … he works … worked for a firm our lawyer sometimes employs. When our lawyer discovered I was coming to Miles City, he suggested I look him up. Mr. F
argo would have taken me himself, but he was busy. He pointed you out, as I’ve said.”

  We went on talking, and somehow the miles slipped away quicker than ever before. She got me to talking about myself, and I told her about Eddie, and how we met, and what he had advised, and what I had been thinking about a place of my own.

  “It won’t be no use, though. I ain’t got the cash, and ain’t likely to get it.”

  “But you know cattle. Couldn’t you pool your knowledge of cattle and range conditions with someone who has capital?”

  “How would a plain cowhand meet somebody like that?” I said.

  But then I commenced to think about it. All of a sudden I was getting all sorts of ideas in my head that had never been there before, and each one made me think of others.

  It was true that a lot of the biggest outfits in Wyoming were furnished with foreign financing and managed by local cattlemen. We talked about that, and she began asking questions about the country and where her brother lived and all, and she had a way of hitting on the right question every time, so telling her about it was easy. First thing I knew I was telling her what was wrong with her brother’s operation, and the trouble he was in with the big outfits. Most particularly, I told her about Roman Bohlen.

  She asked about rustling then, and how it was done, and I explained to her the use of a running iron or a cinch ring, and gave her some examples of how brands were altered, something every cowhand knew.

  Whilst I was explaining this to her it came over me how easy it would be to turn Bohlen’s KB brand into that Rafter 88 Chin Baker had mentioned. It looked to me as if that brand had been selected with a good deal of care.

  When the sun went down I headed into the trees along the Tongue. When we got down, it took me only a few minutes to put up a lean-to for her where she could sleep. Then I put together a fire, for I had a pretty good idea nobody was going to bother a man with a girl along. Not in that country, at that time. You could steal cattle or shoot a man and maybe get away with it, but if you bothered a decent woman you stood a good chance of getting lynched … even outlaws had been known to lynch a man for that.

  We sat out by the fire talking a long time after we finished eating. Seems there’s nothing like a pretty woman to inspire a man to talk a lot about himself. One thing sure, I decided after I rolled in my blankets, she was learning a whole lot more about me and about Montana than I was learning about Ireland or her.

  We were getting close to Parley’s place when she spotted the first PF steer. Now, it’s second nature for a cowhand to read brands. He rides across country and just naturally notices the brand on every crittur he passes, and without seeming to pay them any mind. He does it without thinking, because he has done it for so long. But this girl, she picked out that first PF very fast, and she was quick enough to make the connection.

  “That must be Philo’s brand.” She hesitated only a moment there, and then added, “And it could be changed into a Rafter 88, too, couldn’t it?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” And then, so she’d know what the situation was, I added more reluctantly, “And so could the RB, Bohlen’s brand be changed to Rafter 88.”

  “Of course.” She was thoughtful. “So that is why he suspects Philo.”

  “Not entirely. A good part of it is because no rancher likes a homesteader … a squatter. Whether they kill the rancher’s beef or not—and some do—he suspects them of it. What he hates just as much is the grass they use or plow up, and the water they may fence in.”

  “Is water so important?”

  “Uh-huh. There’s a-plenty now, because we had a good year, and there’ve been rains in the Big Horns lately, but in a dry year it can make things mighty mean. Ma’am, you get set for trouble if you figure on staying. Those ranchers don’t like your brother a bit.”

  She looked at me. “You ride for a big ranch, and you don’t have anything against him.”

  “No, I like him. He goes his own way, minds his own business, and he stands up for his rights. But that’s all the more reason they don’t like him.”

  I drew rein. “It ain’t far now, Miss Parley, and I’d better tell you something. Back there in Miles City they are fixing to set up some vigilantes, and if they do, Roman Bohlen will have his say about them and what they do.

  “There’s nothing halfway about Bohlen. He’d rather lynch two honest nesters than miss one thief. And anyway, vigilantes have a way of gettin’ out of hand. They start out to make the country safe, and then they carry on to settle old scores. You tell Philo he’d better stay close to home. If Bohlen has his say, Philo will be on the list.”

  “Philo? But that’s absurd! Philo would never steal anything, least of all a cow. Why, he’d never even have need for such a thing. It’s ridiculous!”

  “Tell that to Bohlen.”

  It was only an hour later when we rode up to the house.

  Philo came to the door and stood there, shading his eyes at us. He was a sandy-haired man, taller than me, lean and wiry-looking. He had a quick way of walking, a manner a man might think was nervous until you knew him better. Whatever else they might say of him, I don’t think Philo Parley had a nerve in his body.

  He came a couple of steps toward us as we rode into the yard, looking as if he couldn’t believe what he saw.

  “Ann?” He spoke her name in a startled, unbelieving tone. “Ann!”

  She was off the horse and in his arms quicker’n you could say scat, so I swung my horse to leave.

  He looked up suddenly, pulling back from her. “Pike, don’t ride off that way. Get down and come in.”

  “Got to get back,” I said. “I’m overdue and Eddie will be worried.”

  “Is that the Negro?”

  “You seen him?”

  “He was by this way.” He gave me an odd look. “I had no idea there were two of you over there.”

  “I’ll be going,” I said. Yet I held my horse. “Anything I can do, you just call on me.” I said that to her, to Ann Parley. And then I rode away.

  But at the edge of the yard I almost drew up. My eyes were on the ground and I saw it plain as could be. Not one track, but a dozen. Swinging my horse to the trough, as if on a sudden notion to water my horse, which I did, I took a careful look about.

  There were more tracks at the water trough, some old, some new. And all of them were of those small hoofs wearing leather shoes.

  A moon was hanging low and a coyote was singing when I splashed through the ford and came up to the bench above the Hanging Woman. There was no light in the cabin and I drew up, suddenly scared.

  “Eddie?” I called it low. “Eddie Holt?”

  His voice came out of the darkness near the woodpile, close by but so soft I could hardly believe he was there.

  “Man, am I glad to see you!” I could sure hear the relief in his voice. “There’s been trouble, trouble enough.”

  “I’ll eat,” I said, “and you can tell me.”

  When I’d stripped the gear from my horse I went into the cabin, where Eddie was laying things out, using a candle hooded by a tomato can.

  “I can trip the propper from under it,” he explained, “and it snuffs the candle. Mostly I been eating before dark, then laying out until late. I sure enough know why that Oliver had him a back door rigged.”

  Eddie had baked a mess of beans and pork, and while we ate he told me there had been several shots at the door. They had broken the globe to our coal-oil lamp, and they had almost set the cabin afire.

  And then a few nights ago there had been night riders.

  “Night riders?”

  “Uh-huh … wearing sheets like them Kluxers from down south. I guess they figured I’d scare.” He chuckled. “I ain’t been afraid of ha’nts since I was a boy an’ was scared by an owl.”

  They had come the first night and ridden circles around the cabin, crying eerily into the night. When Eddie grew tired of it, he called out that when their throats got dry they could drink at the creek. At that they’d real
ly got mad, and warned him to leave before I got back, or they’d hang both of us.

  That didn’t sound like Chin Baker Or Shorty Cones. Baker could have gone to shooting right off. It sounded more like some of Bohlen’s hands.

  For the next few days we worked hard, staying together most of the time, separating only when necessary, and never for long.

  Day by day the weather grew colder. Frost came, and the leaves turned red and gold. Overnight it seemed the cottonwoods turned from green to sun golden candles, shimmering in the slightest breeze. There was white frost on the meadows, and the tracks of a horse left a dark line across the meadows until the sun took the frost away.

  We drove more cattle in, working dark to dark, up before the sun and no sleep until after the sun was down; and all the time we rode loose in the saddle with our rifles to hand. We saw nobody, strangers or anyone else.

  Then, after we’d had a few warm days, we took some time off and sharpened up the scythes and cut hay in the meadows. We put the rack on the wagon, and hauled the hay up to the corral and stacked it. I’d cut hay as a boy, but was no hand like Eddie, who swung that scythe with long, easy strokes and laid the hay in neat swaths.

  And then one night there was a skimming of ice in the barrel at the corner of the cabin.

  Two or three times when we quit early, Eddie began showing me something about boxing. He had done like he said, and had rustled up some boxing gloves before leaving Miles City—got them from Charley Brown, in fact. There was a flat place under three trees, and we boxed there. We filled a bag with sawdust from where we’d been using the cross-cut saw cutting up logs for the winter.

  He started showing me how to punch straight, to jab, and to cross, how to work in a clinch, how to tie the other man up. And he added a few wrestling tricks, no good in a boxing ring but very good in a street fight.

  That Eddie was as smooth as you ever saw. He never seemed to hurry or take any pains, yet I couldn’t have bit him with a handful of seed corn. But I took to it right from the start. Fighting was something I had always liked, and Eddie knew how to teach.

  “All scientific boxing is,” Eddie said, “is just a lot of things men have learned over the years. A straight punch is faster than a swing, because it’s the straightest line to what you’re aiming at. And you don’t punch at something, you punch through it.”