EARLIER THAT SAME day, Mark Talbot’s train steamed into Canaan screeching and hissing. Talbot disembarked with his war bag, wincing at the cold, which stung his face like a resolute slap.
He stood looking around to get his bearings while the only other passengers disembarking, two drummers in store-bought suits and muttonchop whiskers, hurried around the freight depot, no doubt in search of a warm spot to light.
But for the shiny new train tracks curving along the river buttes south of town, everything appeared pretty much as it had before Talbot had left. Sod and log shanties and clapboard shacks sat willy-nilly around the central business district of false-fronted stores and the livery barn with its fragrant sprawl of paddocks and corrals. The red train station and water tank abutted the settlement on one end, the lumberyard on the other.
Everything had the same feeble look of impermanence, and Talbot wondered how long it would take Canaan to decide to thrive or return to the sod.
His shoulders screwed up against the cold, he started toward the false fronts of the main street. The frigid air funneling up his thin cotton breeches told him he wasn’t dressed for this kind of weather. Before shopping for new duds, he decided to shore himself with a stiff drink.
A gruff voice said, “I’m guessin’ you’re gonna freeze up solid within the hour, and I’m gonna have to find a place to hide your body from the rats until the ground thaws.”
Talbot turned. A dozen feet to his left, before the frosty station-house doors, stood a round bear of a man with gray sideburns and a tin star.
“It is a mite chilly,” Talbot agreed with a grin.
“You might want to think twice about lettin’ that train go.”
There was an ominous note in the big man’s voice. Talbot knew that, with his shaggy beard and hair and mismatched seaman’s clothes, he’d been pegged as riffraff, and that he’d just been invited to leave.
Talbot smiled pleasantly. “Don’t worry, I’m not here to rob a bank or hold up the stage. I’m from here, born and bred, and I’m comin’ home.”
The sheriff tipped his head and squinted as he considered the newcomer. After a moment he said thoughtfully, “I thought you looked familiar. You’re … you’re …”
“Mark Talbot.”
“Sure, Owen Talbot’s youngest boy. Didn’t recognize you under all that hair.” The sheriff moved forward and held out his hand. Talbot could smell the liquor on his breath.
“Jed Gibbon,” he said as Talbot shook his hand. “I ranched out in the sandhills before my water and credit dried up. I knew your pa, a good man. Used to play poker with him winters. Damn shame how the smallpox took him and your ma. You couldn’t have been more than twelve.”
“Fourteen. My brother was sixteen, but he grew up fast after the folks died—having to fill in for them and all.” Squinting, Talbot studied the sheriff. “Oh, sure,” he said. “I remember you. You treated me and Dave to hard candy and soda pop when you and Dad were chin-deep in cards. I don’t know why I didn’t recognize you.”
“Yes you do,” Gibbon said with a self-deprecating laugh. “What brings you home?”
Talbot shrugged and smiled wanly. “Just homesick, I guess. Decided to come back and see if my brother, Dave, had room for me on the ranch.”
Gibbon’s eyes dulled and his face fell. “You … you didn’t hear, then?”
“Hear what?”
“No one sent you a telegram?”
Frowning, feeling his gut roll, hearing a high-pitched inner scream, Talbot said, “I doubt it would have got to me if they had.” He studied the sheriff keenly. “What’s this about, Sheriff?”
“Aw, shit,” Gibbon grumbled, looking off. He rubbed his chin with a gloved hand, looking away. At length he nodded his head toward the street. “Come on. Let’s go back to the jailhouse. It’s warm there and we can talk.”
Talbot followed the big man up the street, feeling his heart drumming in his chest, trying not to anticipate the bad news he knew he was about to hear.
Inside the jail, Gibbon shed his big coat, hung it on a nail by the door, and added a stout log to the potbellied stove. A fire was already burning and the room was warm. A blue enamel coffeepot gurgled on the stovetop shelf.
“Coffee?” Gibbon offered, gesturing to it.
Frowning, Talbot absently shook his head. Gibbon found a tin cup and emptied its dregs into a wastebasket. He filled the cup three-quarters full of hot coffee and topped it off from a flat bottle he produced from a desk drawer. Indicating the chair before his desk, he said, “Have a seat,” then collapsed with a sigh into his own swivel rocker, which squeaked with his weight.
“Come on, Sheriff, spit it out,” Talbot said impatiently.
Gibbon took a deep breath, sat grimly back in the chair,
and stared at his coffee. His face was pale. “Your brother’s dead.”
Talbot gazed into the sheriffs eyes, absorbing the information, feeling his stomach flip-flop and his heart wrench. After several seconds he squeezed his eyes closed and leaned forward in his chair. Slowly he rested his elbows on his knees and laced his hands together.
“How?” he asked quietly.
“He was shot.”
Talbot lifted his head sharply. He’d expected to hear that Dave had had an accident or fallen ill with such common killers as influenza or pneumonia or smallpox. He’d never expected to hear that his brother, an eminently peaceful man, had been shot.
Not here … not at home!
“Did I hear you right?”
Gibbon had folded his hands over his hard, prominent belly. He was staring at the scarred desktop littered with pencil stubs, scrawled notes, and cigarette makings. He nodded slowly.
“Who?” Talbot asked, feeling anger grow heavy in his loins.
“Don’t know for sure.”
“When?”
“’Bout five years ago.”
Feeling sick, Talbot rested his head in his hands, trying to work his mind around the idea of his brother being dead for five years.
Five years …
Talbot stood and walked to the window, gazed out at the street. Horsemen passed. Lumber drays and buckboards rattled over the icy ruts. There was a sleigh parked before the mercantile; a small dog sat on the seat, gazing at the store for its owner.
“Tell me about it,” Talbot said.
Gibbon sighed again and leaned forward. He rested his elbows on the desk and started building a cigarette.
“We had some trouble here about five years ago,” he began slowly. “Your brother was one of the first ones killed.”
Talbot turned sharply away from the window. Sweat beaded on his forehead. “First ones?”
Gibbon nodded as he shook tobacco from his pouch. “We ended up with about seven dead altogether. It all started when a new outfit moved in. It had more cattle than its government allotments provided grass and water for. Instead of culling its herds, it tried culling the smaller ranchers around it.”
A grim cast to his eyes, Gibbon twisted the ends of his cigarette and scraped a match along a drawer bottom. “Your brother included.”
Talbot gritted his teeth. “Who runs this outfit?”
Gibbon touched the flame to the end of his cigarette. Blowing smoke, he said, “King Magnusson. He’s from Missouri.”
“Magnusson,” Talbot repeated, frowning. “Where have I heard that name?” Then it dawned on him, and he pictured the lovely dark-eyed Suzanne. How could the father of such a delicate, beautiful creature have killed his brother?
He tried working his mind around the question as Gibbon continued his story. “Several of the smaller ranchers got together to stand against this Magnusson,” the sheriff said. “But it’s harder than hell to fight against guerrilla tactics. And that’s what these guys were using. They’d strike at night or first light, kill a man or two, burn a cabin, steal a few cows, and disappear before anyone knew what happened.”
“Figured they could squeeze the others out without actually having to kill everybody, that it?” Talbot said.
“That’s it,” Gibbon said, sitting back in his chair and
crossing a leg over a knee. The cigarette smoldered in his right hand.
“I’m assuming you did something to stop it.”
Gibbon flushed and inspected his quirley. “Well,” he said tentatively, “the army had somethin’ to do with that.”
“You called the army in?”
Gibbon nodded. “The smaller ranchers put together a small army of their own, and were about to raid the compound of this outfit.” His tone grew defensive. As he spoke, he stared at the floor.
“They … they wouldn’t listen to me. Not that I had that much to say. I was new then, you understand, and someone had shot my deputy. Blew his head clean off his shoulders.” Gibbon wagged his head and snapped his jaw at the memory. “Christ.” He looked at Talbot as if for understanding.
Talbot frowned. “You arrest anybody?”
Gibbon lowered his gaze once more. “No. The army came in, Magnusson hemmed and hawed and denied everything he’d done, said it was the small outfits stealin’ from him that started the whole mess in the first place. Which it probably was—who knows? It helped, of course, that one of Magnusson’s main investors was in the territorial legislature. He’s governor now.”
“Christ,” Talbot sighed, shaking his head. “So they got off scot-free.”
“What the hell was the army gonna do? They’re soldiers, not judges and juries. Besides, they had the Injuns to worry about. They weren’t about to waste their time out here in the middle of nowhere. When everyone went home and things looked settled, they went back after Sitting Bull.”
“You arrested no one for killing my brother, then,” Talbot said. His tone was accusatory.
Gibbon raised his shoulders and spread his hands defensively. “Who was I going to arrest, for Christ’s sake? Your
brother was found out by one of his stock wells with two bullets in the back of his head—at least a week after he’d been killed.”
He looked at Talbot and blinked nervously, licked his lips. He seemed to wait for a reaction. Receiving none, he said, “There’d been a good rain, so by the time I got out there, there were no tracks to speak of. No shell casings. Nothing. Period. I had nothing to go on. And that’s the way it was with all the other killin’s. It was one godawful mess around here!”
“So you called the army and they called it a draw and everyone went home,” Talbot said tightly. “Except my brother and the six other dead.”
Gibbon swallowed. His eyes retreated to his desktop. “That’s right.”
“Then the men who killed my brother are still out there.” Talbot felt as though a saber had laid open his chest, exposing his beating heart.
“I reckon that’s right,” Gibbon allowed, nodding. He took a long drink of his toddy. After several seconds he mustered the courage to raise his gaze to Talbot, whose face was ashen with befuddlement and rage.
“I hope you’re not thinking of getting even with the Double X,” he said, his voice gaining an authoritative tone. “King Magnusson will screw your horns backward and twist your tail but good. Besides, your brother was killed five years ago. It’s been quiet around here now … mostly. I don’t need any trouble.”
Talbot looked at him. “What do you mean, mostly?”
“It’s still the frontier,” Gibbon said defensively. “Things are bound to happen now and then.” He inspected the coal of his cigarette and lifted it to his lips, taking a long, contemplative drag. Around the smoke issuing from his lips, he said
directly, “The best thing for you to do is go get yourself a hot bath and hop the next train out of here.”
Talbot walked over to the stove and stared at the glowing iron. His mind was numb, his body sick. A blade-like chill caressed his spine. He crossed his arms against it, vaguely aware of the cold sweat on his forehead and above his lip.
Dave has been dead for five years.
Talbot knew enough about land disputes to know how messy they were. The men who pulled the triggers were often not the only ones responsible for the killings. They were just your average soldiers riding for whoever was paying the wages and giving the orders.
But the man who’d hired Dave’s killer was still around, smug in his certainty he’d gotten away with murder. And that man was lovely Suzanne Magnusson’s father.
No matter where you were, it seemed, life was one war after another.
Watching him struggling with the news, Gibbon said, “It’s a terrible tragedy, but your brother’s dead, and nothin’s gonna bring him back. If you try to get even with Magnusson, you’ll not only be instigatin’ another war, but committin’ suicide. You’ll be compoundin’ the tragedy, understand?”
“I understand,” Talbot said absently, knowing the man was right but feeling the urge for vengeance just the same.
“Good,” Gibbon said, brightening. He scrutinized his blotter. “Now there’s another train due in at four-ten tomorrow.”
Talbot opened the door and said, “Maybe I’ll be on it, maybe I won’t.”
He closed the door behind him and squinted against the cold wind, not sure of anything anymore.