“HOHO, HERE WE go!” the ever-ebullient Jason Anders bellowed as he jerked his trousers up and bent down to pick up an end of the aspen log. “This one here’ll be the last of the day,” he said as he lifted his end while Charlie lifted the other.
Keith was gathering kindling in the creek bottom behind them.
“Still a lot of sun yet, Jason,” he called to the stocky, gray-bearded man as he and Charlie made their way to the wagon, the log riding their shoulders.
“I know, but it’ll take you and Charlie a good hour to get back home, and I don’t want to make you late for supper.”
Charlie glanced over his shoulder at the old man behind him. “Layla said it’d be all right if we stayed overnight at your place, Jason.”
“She did, did she?” the old man said, chuckling. He knew the boys liked staying at his place whenever they got the chance. They enjoyed his stories about the old days trapping in the mountains, about the Crow Indians Anders had once lived with, and about the buffalo, once so plentiful but growing fewer and fewer every year.
“Well, I’d like that, I would,” Anders said under the weight of the aspen log, “but I think it’s best you go on home. I don’t like the idea of your sister spending the night alone. Now, if all three of you wanna come back sometime, sleep on the floor of my cabin, that’d be fine.” He gave a devilish chuckle. “Maybe I’ll even let ye sample some of my plum wine.”
He chuckled again as Charlie dropped his end of the log atop the pile they’d already stacked in Anders’s wagon. The old man shoved his end even with the tailgate, puffing and red-faced as he heaved.
“Whew! That’s tough work,” he said, producing a red handkerchief from his back pocket and dabbing his face. Like both Keith and Charlie, the bachelor rancher was shirtless, and his leathery skin and the tufts of bristly gray hair on his chest glistened in the bright sunlight washing through the trees.
“You should let me carry the heavy logs, Jason,” Keith said, as he dropped an armload of kindling in the wagon. “I’m able.”
“Yeah, I know you are, lad. But next year you’ll be even more able.” Anders ruffled the boy’s hair. “I don’t wanna play you out too soon!”
“Well, we’ll follow you back to your ranch, help you unload,” Keith said.
“Sounds good, boy.”
Anders reached for the shirt he’d hung over an aspen branch but stopped when he saw riders approaching from the north. There were seven or eight of them following a trail along the base of a rocky butte. It wasn’t hard to recognize the black-clad Loomis riding out front atop his steeldust.
“Now where in the hell’s he headed?” Anders muttered aloud.
“Loomis,” Keith said darkly.
“Yep.”
The riders appeared about to pass on by. Then one of the riders saw the wagon and called to his boss. Loomis turned toward Anders and the boys and reined up, raising a halting hand to the others.
He paused for a moment, scrutinizing the three woodcutters, then spurred his mount in their direction, his riders following close on his heels.
Watching the men approach, Keith pointed and said, “Hey, that’s Mr. Lang. What in the heck’s he doin’ with Loomis ?”
Anders did not reply. Looking edgy, he watched the riders descend the ravine and come on through the brush. Loomis drew rein under a cottonwood, and Anders stepped out in front of the boys, flapping his shirt out, then pulling it on over his head—a torn, washed-out cotton tunic with rawhide ties at the neck. The two geldings harnessed to the wagon shook their manes and nickered nervously.
Anders donned his floppy-brimmed hat and gave Loomis a curt nod. “Afternoon, Loomis. What can I do fer ye?”
He cut his eyes at Gregor Lang, whom he knew only to hail on the trail now and then. Of opposing temperaments—Anders liked to drink and kick up his heels a bit— they were not friends. In fact, Anders had never cared much for the Bible-slapping Scotsman, and couldn’t understand why Emil Carr had wanted his daughter to marry the grim man.
“I’m still looking for the man who murdered my son,” Loomis said coldly, staring straight into Anders’s eyes. Cutting his look at Keith and Charlie, he said, “I’ve been told he’s at the Carr ranch.”
“Who told you that?” Keith said angrily.
Sitting his mule far right of the others, as though at once separate and one with the group, Gregor Lang glanced down, frowning sheepishly.
“Why, the good Mr. Lang did,” Loomis said, giving the Scotsman a condescending, lopsided grin. “Says he saw him there just this afternoon, frolicking with your sister down by the creek.”
Keith looked both puzzled and angry. “Mr. Lang?”
Anders reached out and placed a gnarled hand on the boy’s shoulder. To Loomis, he said, “I don’t know what’s going on here, but whatever it is, you leave that girl alone.”
“Anders, this is none of your affair,” Loomis said in a threatening voice. He looked at Keith and then at Charlie, who stood back by the wagon box, his expression fearful and confused.
“Boys,” Loomis said, “is Lang telling the truth? Has Lou Prophet been holing up at your place?”
“No!” Keith spat. “Mr. Lang’s an old liar.”
Lang looked up quickly, jerked out of his reverie. “He was there this afternoon. They were... they were down by the creek.” His voice rose, deep and quavering. “Doing the devil’s deed.”
One of Loomis’s riders chuckled. “Doin’ the devil’s deed,” he said, glancing at the others, who, too, were grinning.
“How ‘bout you there, idiot,” Loomis said, lifting his gaze to Charlie. “Has Lou Prophet been holing up at your place?”
Charlie jerked a frightened look at Loomis, working his lips, his eyes wide, the sweat running down the dirt and sawdust streaking his face and bare, hairless chest. He fidgeted, sliding his eyes to Keith and Jason Anders, muttering, “I don’t, don’t—”
“I don’t, I don’t’ what?” Loomis mocked. “Is he there or isn’t he?”
“No, he’s not!” Keith yelled, bolting several steps toward Loomis. “And even if he was, it wouldn’t be any of your goddamn business!” His face and eyes aflame with exasperation, the boy turned to Lang. “Mr. Lang, you’re a goddamn, no-good traitor!”
Lang’s own eyes blazed as he lifted a condemning finger at Keith. “You hold your tongue, boy. Your sister’s been—”
“Oh, shut up, Lang,” Loomis said tiredly. Then, turning to the rider beside him, said, “Lasso the squirt, Quint. We’re takin’ him back to the Crosshatch.”
“You’re what?” Anders said, stepping up beside Keith and pushing the boy back behind him.
“You heard me, Anders. I’m taking the boy. I was heading for the Carr ranch to take Prophet myself. But this’ll bring him to me. Now get out of the way. Like I said, this is none of your affair.”
“You’re not taking this boy, Loomis!”
“Get out of the way, by God!”
Shaking out a loop from his lariat, the rider edged his horse toward Anders, who was shielding Keith with his body.
“Loomis,” Lang said haltingly, “you can’t... no ... this isn’t right....”
“Lang, I told you to shut up.”
“No, I didn’t want this “
Shaking his head and scowling, at the end of his patience, Loomis casually drew one of his gold-plated pistols, thumbed back the hammer, raised it at Lang, and fired.
“No!” Lang yelled.
At the same time, the bullet took him through the chest. He leaned back in his saddle, clutching his reins, chin rising, mouth and eyes wide. His startled mount turned sharply right to run away, and the sudden move threw Lang’s already dead body out of the saddle. It hit the ground in a twisted heap. The mule headed down the trail, kicking and braying.
Loomis turned to Anders, who watched him, red-faced with indignation. “Get away from that boy, Anders, or you’ll get the same as Lang.”
Anders turned around and pushed Keith toward the creek behind them. “Run away, boy! Both of ye! Run!”
Loomis leveled his pistol at Anders’s retreating back and shot him through the spine. The gray-bearded man fell forward with an angry yell. Keith, who’d started to run away, turned back around at the shot.
“Jason!”
The boy stopping to stare in horror at the dying Anders gave Loomis’s rider all the time he needed to drop the loop over Keith’s head and shoulders and draw it tight, pinning his arms to his sides.
Keith fought the rope, spewing epithets at the rider, but the man only laughed and jerked the boy to the ground.
“No ... goddamn you ... lousy sonso’bitches!”
Meanwhile, Charlie had run toward Keith but stopped and fell to his knees when Loomis leveled his gun at him. He grabbed his head in both hands and stared at the rancher in confused terror, his mind refusing to comprehend all that had happened in only seconds, knowing only horror.
While Loomis’s rider dismounted and tied Keith’s hands and feet together like a calf for the branding, Loomis told Charlie, “Go on home, idiot. Go on home and tell your sister and Prophet what happened here. You understand, idiot? And tell Prophet if he wants the boy, he’ll know where to find him.”
With that, he swung his steeldust around, set his jaw, and rode back northward, his riders following. Rung over the rump of a horse, Keith wailed and screamed.
Behind him, Charlie knelt by the wagon, staring after his brother until the boy and theriders had disappeared around the butte, only their dust and Keith’s echoing screams lingering over the trail.