CHAPTER 6
Trotter’s directions were accurate—Hawk found Hound Creek with no trouble. The task now was to find Dubose’s shack. There were several cabins near the creek’s confluence with the river, none of which attracted Hawk’s interest. They were obviously homes built by settlers, as witnessed by the plowed fields and the presence of small children playing near the creek. The place Hawk looked for would stand alone, a good distance from any other structures, no doubt tucked into the trees to avoid being conspicuous. It was a good mile and a half before he came to a bend in the creek with a dense growth of trees on both sides. Instinct prompted him to be cautious in approaching the bend, for it was not possible to tell if there was a dwelling there or not. So he turned Rascal away from the bank with the intention of circling around the trees to approach the bend using them for cover.
It was well hidden, for he didn’t see it until he had ridden into the trees. When he did, he immediately pulled his rifle and dismounted. Tying the horses on a laurel bush, he made his way from there on foot until reaching a point behind a large cottonwood that allowed him an unrestricted view of a small shack built of logs and the tiny clearing it occupied. He waited there for a few minutes to be sure. There were no animals about and no sign of life from the cabin, so he decided it was empty. He walked out from behind the tree and walked directly to the door, noticing as he walked the many hoofprints close about the shack. They were recent prints, enough to have been left by maybe half a dozen horses, which would account for three men with a packhorse each. He had found Dubose’s shack, there was no doubt about that, and he and his two partners had already gone.
The door was closed, but there was no lock on the chain holding it so. Bowing his head to keep from bumping it, he stepped inside and stood for a few moments looking around. He couldn’t help wondering how Blossom could have thought she might be happy under such rustic conditions. His attention was attracted to the hole in the middle of the floor with the loose boards lying beside it. It was a definite message, along with no lock on the door, that the occupants were not coming back. Further evidence were the few empty cartridge boxes, discarded carelessly about. No need to waste any more time here, he thought, and turned and went out the door.
Now it had turned into a job of tracking, a job he was damn good at, and the main reason he was always assured of employment by the army. He looked around the small yard briefly before going back for his horses, hoping to find something unusual in one or more of the hoofprints. It always helped if there was a nick or mark of some sort to identify a horse in the event its tracks became mixed with others. It was of no importance at this point in the chase, but it might be later on if they joined with others on a common road. He found one print after only a few minutes that showed a V-shaped notch in the shoe that looked to have been done by a file. “That’ll do,” he announced, then knelt down to examine droppings that were fresh enough to have been left that morning. They didn’t tell him exactly how much lead the outlaws had on him, maybe half a day, maybe more, he was not really sure.
Leading his horses, he walked along the creek until the many tracks came together to form a definite trail away from the shack. When he was certain this was his trail, he stood looking in the direction it was leading, a path across a wide, rolling prairie that would appear to be heading toward Judith Gap. It made sense to him because it was a direction that would take them toward the Yellowstone River, a journey of at least four days, with nothing in between here and there. He climbed up into the saddle and gave the buckskin a pat on the neck. “Let’s get started, Rascal.”
* * *
The trail left by six horses was not difficult to follow, for they were the only tracks he saw across the expanse of rolling terrain before him. Judging by droppings left occasionally by their horses, he couldn’t see that he was closing any of the distance between the three and himself. There had been no rain for some time, so water opportunities, other than a couple of almost-dry streams, were rare. It had been quite a while since he had traveled this plain, but he remembered that Wolf Creek was about a day’s ride from Great Falls. He had gotten a late start because of the time lost on Doc Sumner, but he still planned to make Wolf Creek in one day and maybe catch the outlaws in camp. It would be a long day for his horses, but he could give them a rest and good water there.
It was already after dark when he caught sight of the trees outlining the curves of the creek as it cut through the prairie. The three gunmen were not there, but near the bank of the creek, he found the ashes of their fire. They had stopped there, but evidently decided to push on, most likely planning to camp for the night at the Judith River. That was only about twenty miles farther, but it might as well be a thousand, for he couldn’t push his weary horses any farther on this night. Dubose and his two friends were pushing their horses as hard as he was pushing his, running as if someone was chasing them. Having to camp here overnight resulted in putting him a full day behind. He thought about leaving Rascal’s saddle on him and riding through the night, but scolded himself right away. The big buckskin had never failed him. He could not in good conscience run him to death. Besides, he told himself, I’d have to leave my packhorse behind. Frustrated, he pulled the saddle off the horse and left him to graze while he pulled out his coffeepot and a half-dozen slices of sowbelly. He went to his bedroll determined to rise before sunrise the next morning.
True to his intentions, he was awake and up before first light the next day, planning to rest the horses and eat breakfast by the Judith, twenty miles distant. With still no rain, he had an easy trail to follow east of the Little Belt Mountains, rising off to his right. When he reached the Judith, that trail led him straight to their campsite of the night before. From there, the trail followed the Judith for six or seven miles before leaving it to head straight south toward Judith Gap.
He made camp that night beside the Mussel-shell River at a point where two creeks formed a Y before joining the river. It was a camping spot used by Sioux and Crow hunting parties alike and one that he had camped at before while scouting for a cavalry patrol looking for one of those Sioux parties. He remembered the names of the creeks, Jawbone Creek and Antelope Creek, but he couldn’t recall now which was which. As he built his fire on the ashes of the one the gunmen had built, he recalled another occasion when he had ridden with a cavalry patrol a day south of there on the Yellowstone. That patrol had nothing to do with Indians. It was a search for three white men who had robbed the bank in Bozeman. They never caught the robbers, even though Hawk had led the patrol right up to the door of a hangout for any manner of riffraff. It was known by all the soldiers as the Big Timber Hog Ranch, but it was not a place where soldiers were welcome. They definitely catered to those on the wrong side of the law. Rather than one building, the Hog Ranch was a compound of four cabins surrounding the main saloon, built like a fort, but with no wall around it. Lieutenant Meade had commanded that patrol and he decided Hawk had led them off on the wrong trail. Hawk was of the opinion at the time, and still was today, that Meade was concerned with breaking into a civilian business—that plus having been more than twenty days in the field with provisions for fifteen. He simply wanted to go home, as did his soldiers. Meade ordered the search but the three outlaws were not found. Hawk remembered telling him he was a damn fool for giving up the search. Meade never assigned him as a scout on patrols he commanded after that, which was fine with Hawk. As he sat there on this night some two years later, he tried to recall the name of the man who owned the complex. “Jacobs,” he recalled, sure of it then. “Oscar Jacobs, that was the man’s name.” Bringing all that back to mind caused him to think of something that might be no more than coincidence. But if these three he was tracking now continued in the same direction, they might strike the Yellowstone near the same saloon where Lieutenant Meade gave up the police action—where the Boulder River joined the Yellowstone. “Helluva coincidence,” he allowed. The more he thought about it, the more interesting it became. Three men robbed that bank, he thought, and now I’m trailing three men again. And so far, it looks like they’re heading to the same place I lost them last time. “Helluva coincidence,” he repeated. He would know for sure if that’s all it was by that time tomorrow because it was one day’s ride to that hog ranch.
* * *
Unaware of the avenging scout, still one day behind them, the three men he trailed were sitting down to a hot meal, having arrived just thirty minutes before. Oscar Jacobs sat down to join them. “It’s been a long time since you boys have showed up here,” Oscar said. “I’d damn near forgot about you, figured you’d done got yourselves hung, or you were doin’ time somewhere.” He paused to signal his cook. “Pearl, bring me a cup of coffee when you come back from the kitchen.”
“Got you a new cook since we was here last,” Dubose commented.
“I reckon that’s right,” Oscar said. “I expect old Myra Beatty was doin’ the cookin’ last time you were here. Myra died, so I had to get me another cook. And this one’s a good one. You tell me, how’s that stew?”
“Just barely fit to eat,” Hog replied with a wide grin on his face. “I don’t expect I’ll want more’n another plate or two.”
Oscar laughed with him. “I’m gonna have to charge you double. How long you boys gonna be here? I’ve got a room ain’t nobody in right now, make you a good rate on it.”
“Not long,” Dubose answered. “At least, I ain’t. Red and Hog can decide for themselves.”
That was good news to Oscar because he was at that moment recalling the last time the three of them had come to visit. A full cavalry patrol had followed, looking for them. Oscar’s people had managed to hide the three of them, but only because the officer in command of the patrol didn’t seem to want to thoroughly search the compound. “Who’s chasin’ you this time?” Oscar asked.
“Hell, what makes you think anybody is?” Dubose answered. “We’re just relocatin’ ourselves and as long as we were passin’ this close, we thought you’d like our business. Like I said, I’ll be movin’ on in the mornin’.”
“You boys splittin’ up?” Oscar asked, visibly surprised. He nodded at Pearl when she set a cup of coffee before him. “You three have been runnin’ together for a long time, ain’t you?”
“That’s a fact,” Dubose replied. “And I expect we’ll get back together again sometime. We just think it’s a good idea to split up for a while.”
Oscar understood at once. “You’ve got the law on your tail again. I swear, Dubose, the last time you boys were here I had soldiers turnin’ the place upside down lookin’ for you. Scared the hell outta my whores and sent more’n a few of my customers runnin’.”
“Now, hold on, Oscar,” Dubose said. “I told you, ain’t nobody chasin’ us, and for damn sure there ain’t no soldiers after us. We’re just taking precautions in case there was somebody after us, just bein’ smart, that’s all. Besides, that one time you’re talkin’ about, nobody found us, so you didn’t get in any trouble with the army. And accordin’ to my memory, I recollect that you got a mighty generous bonus for hidin’ us.”
Oscar calmed down a little at that. “I have to be a little more careful these days,” he said. “There are so many more settlers movin’ into this section of the Yellowstone that the army is even more particular about businesses like mine. And there’s too many people that know about this place, more’n when you were here before.”
“Well, you done a good job hidin’ us that one time,” Hog said. “That’s why we came back this time, instead of takin’ our business somewhere else. So we’ll take that room tonight.” He flashed Oscar a wide grin. “You still got that hole under the floor in your smokehouse?”
“Yeah,” Oscar replied. “It’s still there and we’ve had to use it a time or two.”
The thought of it made Hog laugh. “Soldiers lookin’ under every bed and behind every door, and we were settin’ there right under their feet.”
“It was mighty damn crowded, though, as I recollect,” Dubose commented, “especially with you takin’ up half the room.”
“Is Lizzie Malone still workin’ for ya?” Red asked. “If she is, I might wanna stay a couple more days. How ’bout you, Hog?”
“Reckon not,” Hog replied. “I’m gonna head out in the mornin’, too. I’m thinkin’ I ain’t seen my wife in a couple of years, not since we hit that bank. I think I’ll see how she’s doin’.”
“Lizzie’s still here,” Oscar said. “She had a baby about five months ago.” He chuckled. “Might be yours, only I don’t reckon so, ’cause it ain’t got red hair, and you’ve been gone longer’n that. She ain’t been back but a month or two. She’s livin’ in the house with the red door, her and her young’un. She’s a little bigger’n when you saw her.”
“She wasn’t much bigger’n a hickory switch last time I saw her,” Red recalled. “Can she still eat corn on the cob through a picket fence?”
Oscar laughed. “Yeah, she’s still got all her teeth, at least all her front teeth.”
“Well, I’ll stay with you for a day or two more,” Red decided. He looked at Hog, still stuffing stew in his mouth as fast as he could. “I didn’t know you was married. You ain’t never said anythin’ about havin’ a wife.”
“I ain’t never said nothin’ about a lot of things,” he stated, and returned his attention to the almost-empty plate. There was a given amount of safety when riding with two other gunmen, but he had been thinking about their little partnership and the fact that they were forced to run again. They used to move around unnoticed, but now that they had killed a lawman, he feared they would begin to catch the interest of the federal marshals. That would mean there would be increased efforts to run them to ground. And if that happened, he liked his chances better apart from the other two. He wasn’t sure if it would be of help to him if he did get caught, but he was hoping his ace in the hole was the fact that he didn’t kill anyone in Helena. Red shot the sheriff and Dubose shot the girl, JoJo. It had been almost two years since he had seen his wife. Now might be a good time to go back to see how she was doing, that is, if she was still living in that humble little cabin on Stinking Creek outside Coulson. There wasn’t much chance anybody would be looking for him there.
“Well, boys,” Oscar announced, “sounds to me like you’ve been doin’ some hard ridin’ and you could use some relaxation. And you’ve sure as hell come to the right place for that. I got four houses out behind the saloon with three ladies in two of ’em, two ladies in one of ’em, and just one lady in the other one. That’s the cabin with the red door, that’s where Lizzie stays.” He winked at Red. “Just don’t get too rambunctious, or you’ll get the baby to cryin’, and that young’un can howl like a coyote.” Turning to the others, he said, “Dubose, you and Hog can take a chance on the other cabins. Take a look. If you don’t see nothin’ that appeals to you, try one of the other cabins. Just like it was before, you pay your money, you get one ride. If you want all night, she’ll tell you the price, ’cause it’s a different price for different ones. I know I don’t need to tell you boys this, but I’ve got a man that sees the ladies don’t get treated too rough. That’s him over there at the end of the bar.” He nodded toward a mountain of a man, leaning against the bar, casually nursing a glass of beer. “His name’s Ned, and he can throw a horse. So enjoy your stay, the saloon stays open all night.”
“We plan to,” Hog said while eyeing Ned. He had already speculated on the brawny, bull-necked giant stoically watching the crowd in the barroom. “Will he come runnin’ if any of the women get rough on us?”
Oscar enjoyed a chuckle at that. “Yep, it’s been known to happen.”
* * *
Despite doing most of the talking the night before, Hog was the only one of the three who slept in the room they rented. Content with the huge supper and a few drinks of whiskey afterward, he walked up the stairs to the room, planning to get a good night’s sleep, so he would be ready to get started early. The kitchen was open early, so he was among the few early risers to the breakfast table the next morning. He had almost finished when he saw Red walk in the door. “Red!” he called out when Red didn’t appear to notice him.
“You already et?” he asked Hog when he came over to the table.
“Yeah, I’m fixin’ to get on my way. It’s a two-day ride to Coulson from here.”
“Have you seen Dubose this mornin’?” Red asked. When Hog said he hadn’t, he seemed surprised. “Was you fixin’ to ride off without sayin’ squat to anybody?”
“Tell you the truth, I didn’t think I’d see either one of you this early, since neither one of you made it back to the room last night. And like I said, Coulson’s a two-day ride. I didn’t wanna get started too late.” Eager to change the subject, he asked, “Did you tie up with that little bucktoothed gal?”
“All night long,” Red replied with a satisfied grin. “And I aim to go back this mornin’, but I got to have some grub first. That little gal can sure drain a man’s strength.”
Hog laughed. “Well, damned if you ain’t a regular stud horse, all right.”
“Sounds like it, don’t it?” Red replied, this time with a grin more sheepish than satisfied. “For a fact, I went to sleep after the first ride and I wouldn’ta woke up for the second one if that baby hadn’t set in to bawlin’. I ain’t complainin’, though, I paid her for all night, so that young’un helped me get my money’s worth. I swear, I’d marry that woman if she was to ask me.”
“You gonna stay here a spell?” Hog asked.
“For a while, I reckon, at least till Lizzie don’t look so good to me anymore.” He laughed, but then turned serious. “Tell you the truth, I ain’t so sure about splittin’ up like I was. Right offhand, I don’t know where I’d wanna go.”
“It’s the smart thing to do,” Hog tried to reassure him. “Once you shoot a lawman, you know damn well there’s gonna be lawmen lookin’ for you. And right now, they’ll be lookin’ for three men travelin’ together. It’s best we scatter till they’ve had a chance to give up on us, like they did after that bank holdup. Then maybe we can join up again.”
“I reckon you’re right,” Red allowed. “Seen Dubose yet?” he asked, forgetting that he had already asked.
“Nope, but I expect he’ll be draggin’ in here before long—when that whore kicks him out, or asks for more money. But I’m about ready to make some tracks, so tell him I’ll see him sometime.” He got up from the table. “So long, Red.” He turned and walked toward the door, eager to go before Red had a chance to ask to go with him to Coulson. Until that trouble in Helena cooled off, he preferred not to be caught riding with the man who shot the lawman.
* * *
It was late afternoon when Hawk rode through an open gate and followed a trail up to the large building in the center of a complex that included four small houses around it. Hawk remembered it from the time he had led a cavalry patrol up to the front door. There was no gate at that time, but everything else seemed as he remembered it. The nerve center of the complex was the saloon, so he guided Rascal up to a crowded hitching rail and dismounted, pulling his rifle as he did. He stood there for a few moments, looking over his saddle at the corral next to a barn beyond the houses, searching for a Palouse among the horses penned up there. There was no sign of the horse, and he at once feared he was too late, they had come and gone. That is, if they had come there in the first place. The obvious trail he had followed since leaving Hound Creek had soon disappeared when he came to an often-used freight wagon track that ran beside the river. He spent some time looking for the print with a notch filed in the shoe, but with no luck. Running on a hunch, anyway, he had come straight to the Hog Ranch. If I’m dead wrong, he thought, at least I’ll have a drink.
“What’ll it be, mister?” the bartender asked when Hawk stepped up to the bar. Hawk ordered a shot of whiskey and put his money on the bar. “First time in the Big Timber?” the bartender asked as he produced a glass and poured.
“I was in before, a while back,” Hawk said while he scanned the room from one side of the large room to the other.
“Our policy musta been different when you were here back then,” the bartender said. “Lotta things have changed, so I reckon you didn’t know we don’t allow no firearms inside the saloon or the dining room.”
“No, I didn’t know that,” Hawk said as he continued scanning the faces at the tables, looking for any of the men he had seen in Sophie’s Diner. “I’ll leave ’em outside next time.” He brought his attention back to the bartender. “I’m lookin’ for some friends of mine—said they were gonna be here. Maybe you’ve seen ’em—Zach Dubose, Hog Thacker, and Red Whitley?”
The bartender immediately became cautious. “A lot of men come in here. I don’t ask any of them their names. I didn’t ask you your name. That just ain’t anybody’s business in the Big Timber Saloon.” He paused for a few moments before asking, “Are you a lawman?”
“Nope,” Hawk replied. When he did, he noticed the bartender’s nod toward the kitchen door. In a few moments more, he was joined by a huge man with a sullen grin on his wide face.
“This gentleman was unaware of our policy of no guns, Ned. Maybe you can help him.”
“Is that a fact?” Ned asked Hawk. Standing half a head taller and wide as the piano over against the wall, he leered down at Hawk. “I’ll take that Winchester and the Colt and put it somewhere safe for you, then you can have ’em back when you’re ready to go.” Accustomed to relying on his obvious powers of intimidation, he continued to grin.
“Thanks just the same,” Hawk replied, “but I might be needin’ ’em before I’m ready to go.”
Ned, outwardly surprised by Hawk’s apparent disregard for his imposing physical image, was stumped for a response at first. But after a moment, he regained his sense of authority. “Look here, mister, you ain’t been in here long enough to get drunk, so I reckon you’re just downright dumb. When I say I’ll take your weapons, that ain’t no suggestion, so if you don’t want me to break your back for you, you’d best hand ’em over right now.”
Hawk looked the menacing hulk over for a moment before replying. “All right, Ned, I understand that you’ve got your job and I respect that. But I’ve got a job to do, too, and I’ve got a hunch I’m liable to need my weapons to get it done. If the men I’m lookin’ for ain’t here, then I’m sure not gonna bother anybody else. And that’s fair enough, ain’t it?”
Still scarcely believing the stranger’s attitude, Ned replied, “All right, you crazy son of a bitch, you can’t say I ain’t warned you.” He braced himself as if getting ready to attack.
“Hold on a minute, Ned, there ain’t no need for you and me to get into a tussle over this. These men I’m lookin’ for are outlaws and murderers. They shot a young girl and the sheriff in Helena. You oughta be helpin’ me find ’em, if they’re here.”
Confused by Hawk’s calm attitude, Ned could only fall back on what he considered his responsibility, and that was to throw troublemakers out. With no further warning, he suddenly lunged, intending to ram his shoulder through Hawk’s midsection. His mistake was in underestimating Hawk’s quick, animallike reflexes, for Hawk immediately sent him reeling with a sharp kick to the brute’s knee while ducking to avoid his bull rush. Before Ned had time to recover, he went crashing headfirst into the edge of the bar. Stunned, he was knocked backward to land on his behind. Like a great cat, Hawk stood ready, watching for his prey’s next move, poised to deliver the deciding blow with the butt of his rifle. He glanced at the bartender briefly to make sure there was no threat from him. There was none, for the bartender was as stunned as Ned, after seeing what he had previously thought unlikely. Hawk turned his attention back to Ned, who struggled as if trying to get up, before sinking back against the bar, unable to clear his head. Hawk again looked at the bartender and calmly said, “Now, that was damn unnecessary.” He turned and walked back out the door.
Outside, he looked around him. His intention now was to search the four houses. He still saw no sign of the Palouse, but he didn’t discount the possibility that there might be more horses grazing in the pasture behind the barn. He started with the closest house to the saloon and wasted no time in his search, aware there would be some efforts to intercept him. Not bothering to knock, he walked in the door to surprise two women sitting in a small parlor. “Don’t mind me, ladies,” he said, and went through another door that led to a couple of bedrooms, one with an open door, one with the door closed. He opened the closed door to startle a couple in bed. One glance at the confused man and he knew he was not one of the men he sought. “Pardon the intrusion,” he said, and closed the door again. Out in the short hallway, he saw a back door, so he left the cabin through that door.
Knowing time was his enemy, he hurried toward the back door of the next cabin. He could not be sure how far he could get before some form of retaliation was set in motion against him. He was counting on Ned being the total protection for the hog ranch, but he could not be sure of it. His results at the second house were like those at the first, with no sight of any of the men he chased. Cabin number three had no customers, which occasioned him to be offered an invitation to have a drink with the two women there. He politely declined, saying he was currently occupied with a pressing endeavor, otherwise, he might have accepted.
He was rapidly becoming discouraged after leaving the two women and it didn’t help matters when he could see the disruption he had left behind him. Women and customers were outside in the yard trying to find out what was going on. It was becoming apparent to him that he had been wrong in thinking the three had come here. Standing in front of the last possibility, he stared at the door, painted a bright red, thinking it likely another empty cabin. He held the Winchester ready to fire quickly and walked in the door. There was no one in the small parlor, and he paused when he thought he heard someone crying. He stepped into the hallway to find the identical two-bedroom arrangement like the other cabins, and both doors were open.
With his rifle ready, he cautiously moved up beside the first door to peek inside. The room was empty except for a crib with a baby sleeping inside. He moved along the wall to the second door and he could hear the soft sounds of crying he had heard in the parlor. Making a sudden move inside the door, prepared to shoot, he was surprised to find a woman alone, sitting on the side of the bed. After a closer look, he saw the start of a fresh bruise on the side of her face, and her nose was swollen. When he saw her obvious suffering, he forgot for the moment his disappointment at finding none of the three he hunted in the complex. “Are you all right? It looks like you got some rough treatment.”
“That redheaded bastard,” she fumed. “He got mad when my baby cried again and took it out on me. He said he was gonna kill my baby.”
Her statement immediately triggered his reactions. “You say, redheaded? Did he have red hair?”
His questions seemed beside the point to her, but she answered. “Yes, he’s got red hair.”
“What was his name?” Hawk asked.
She looked at him as if he might be simpleminded. “Red,” she answered. “At least, that’s what they called him.”
“Was his name Red Whitley?”
“I think so,” she said. “Yeah, that’s the bastard’s name.” She looked up at Hawk and asked, “Are you a lawman?” Hawk said he was not, so she continued. “He went out the window when he heard you come in the parlor. He started acting funny before that and he looked out the front window and saw people standing around the other houses. He thought the law was after him, so when he heard you come in the door, he went out the window. And he didn’t pay me. He owes me for all night and he didn’t pay me.”
Hawk went at once to the window. There was no one in sight between the house and the barn. He was about to go out the window when a shot was fired and the slug ripped a chunk of wood from the side of the window frame, forcing him to duck back into the room. Another shot sent a bullet whistling through the open window to impact the wall opposite. “Get down on the floor!” he ordered Lizzie, and ran to the front door.
Outside, he circled around the house to a back corner. He was not sure where the shots had come from, so he was hoping the shooter would throw another one at the back window. A few seconds later, it came, but Hawk was still not sure where it had come from. His guess would have been the barn, but it didn’t seem like it came from there. The only other possibility was a smokehouse beside the barn. He waited for another shot to confirm it, but none came. When, after a long minute with still no more shots, he feared Whitley must be on the run. With thoughts of losing him after coming so close, Hawk left the corner of the house and ran to the barn, thinking he might be in time to stop Whitley from galloping out the back.
Even in his haste to keep Whitley from escaping, he deemed it not worth the risk to go charging in the open door of the barn. So he stopped short of the opening and inched his way slowly along the wide door, listening for something that might tell him what lay in wait for him. There was no sound. He had to make a move, so he got flat on the ground, rolled over a couple of times, and came to a firing position on his stomach, clear of the barn door. There was no one in the barn, and there was no back door. Stumped, he suddenly thought to look up at the hayloft. Too late, he thought. If he was hiding in the hayloft, I’d be dead right now. He was left standing there, outsmarted, or outmaneuvered, he didn’t know which. There was no place else the shots could have come from. He went back outside the barn and looked behind it at the wide pasture. His gaze settled on the smokehouse. It didn’t seem likely, but it was the only place left, so he went to check it.
A small log structure, maybe twelve feet square, the smokehouse had no windows and only one door. He went to the door and found it had no lock on it, which struck him as unusual. Maybe there was no meat in it, he thought. He stood aside and suddenly threw the door open wide, waiting a moment for any shots that might come through it. But there was no one in the smokehouse. He went inside and looked around the dark interior. There were a couple of hams hanging there, but otherwise it was empty, so he turned about and started out, but stopped after taking a few steps. He backed up a couple of steps, then started forward again to see if he felt it again. He was sure then. He knelt down and felt around in the dirt that served as a floor until he found it, a slight ridge in the earthen floor that hid a trapdoor. It had evidently not seated itself firmly in place, due, no doubt, to a hasty entrance.
Hawk got to his feet and backed away from the trapdoor. With his rifle aimed at it, he spoke out. “All right, Red, you can come outta that rat hole now. You’ve run as far as you’re gonna run.”
There was a long silence before he heard the muffled response from inside the hole. “Who the hell are you?”
“Somebody who saw you shoot Sheriff Porter Willis down in Helena,” Hawk answered.
“You a lawman?” Red called back.
“Nope. But if you come on outta there peaceful-like, I won’t shoot. I’ll take you over to Bozeman and turn you over to the army at Fort Ellis.”
“So I can hang for killin’ that son of a bitch? That don’t seem like a good bargain for me. If you ain’t a lawman, why don’t you just mind your own business and get the hell away from here?”
“You might not hang,” Hawk said. “Sheriff Willis ain’t dead, so you got a chance to live if you come on out. I ride scout for Major Brisbin. He’ll take my word for it, if I tell him Willis ain’t dead.”
“Is that so?” Red replied sarcastically. “You tryin’ to take me for a fool? He’s dead, all right. I shot him right in the gut. I’ll tell you what, why don’t you come down here and get me?”
This wasn’t going well, as far as Hawk was concerned. He meant what he said when he offered to take Red to Bozeman, but he glanced over his shoulder at the small crowd of people that had gathered about fifty yards away in front of the saloon. “I could just starve you outta that hole. I doubt you took any grub in there when you jumped in, but I ain’t got the time to fool with you that long. So I reckon I’ll just set this smokehouse on fire and burn it down on top of you. You oughta roast just fine, just like a ham, baked in the oven.”
Red took some time to think about that, but he still was not of a notion to surrender without a chance to save his life. “All right,” he finally said. “I’ll come out, but you’ll have to help me. That damn door’s so heavy I can’t lift it by myself, not from in here. You need to grab that ring and help me lift it. All right?”
“All right,” Hawk said. He hadn’t seen a ring before, but he dug his hand in the loose dirt and, sure enough, there was a ring. This must have been what I stepped on, he thought. “I found it. Let me get my feet set in front of it and I’ll raise it up.” Then he tested the weight a few times to see how heavy it really was, lifting it no more than an inch or two, just enough to define the four edges of the door. Now that he knew the width, he quietly moved to the rear of the door where he guessed the hinges to be, propped his rifle against the wall, and checked to make sure his Colt was riding loose in the holster. Straddling the door, he bent forward and took hold of the ring. “All right,” he called out. “You ready? Here we go.” With one mighty tug, he jerked the door open wide. The result was as if he had opened the door to hell, itself, when a barrage of .44 bullets roared up out of the opening. Using the door for protection, Hawk waited until he counted six shots. A thought was triggered in his mind of something he had noticed on that day in Sophie’s Diner, the first time he saw the three. When Red and his friends left the dining room and picked up their firearms at the door, one of them slapped on a belt with two guns. He couldn’t be sure, but he was going to bet that it was Red who wore two guns. Most men only load five cartridges in their handgun, leaving the hammer resting on an empty chamber, so they don’t accidentally shoot themselves in the foot. So he was going to assume that Red emptied one gun, thinking Hawk was standing in front of the door. When he discovered that he wasn’t, he fired one shot from his second gun, so Hawk would feel sure he was empty. “You’re wastin’ my time, Red,” Hawk said. “If you wanna live, throw both of those guns outta there, then climb on out.”
“I ain’t got but one gun,” Red persisted, “and I just emptied it.”
“Is that a fact?” Hawk came back. “And you didn’t even think about reloadin’ it? Like I said, you’re wastin’ my time, so if you don’t throw two pistols outta there right now, I’m gonna empty my rifle into that hole and you can take a chance that none of the bullets hit you.” He cocked his rifle so Red could hear it.
“All right, all right,” Red quickly replied. “I’m comin’ out.” He tossed his two pistols out of the opening. “I give up.”
“Come ahead,” Hawk said, and held his rifle ready to fire. In a moment, he saw Red’s head and shoulders emerge from the dark hole. Anticipating a sudden attempt, he aimed his rifle at him, ready to react in case he was foolish enough to try something. Out of the hole and on his feet, Red suddenly wheeled around and fired a fraction of a second too late, for Hawk’s bullet caught him square in the chest before he could aim the derringer pocket pistol he carried. He staggered backward out the smokehouse door, his shot striking one of the two hams hanging from the rafters to cause it to swing back and forth. Hawk walked out to make sure he was dead. He was. “I gave you your chance,” he said. This one’s for the sheriff, he thought as he looked down at the still body.
He picked up Red’s weapons and cartridge belt. They were worth money in trade, and since he was not going to be receiving pay from the army for a while, he was going to need money to pay his expenses. He received a bonus when he thought to search Red’s pockets, and found two hundred dollars. “Damn,” he remarked, expecting to find a dollar or two. “I expect it’s only right for you to pay my expenses for huntin’ you three bastards down.”
He looked toward the front of the little hog ranch complex to discover a somewhat larger group of spectators, the gunshots having brought additional gawkers. Leaving the body for someone else to deal with, he walked back to the cabin with the red door. Looking in the open window, he saw Lizzie sitting on the floor, holding her baby. “You can get up now,” he said. “It’s all over. Come over to the window.” She did as she was told, afraid not to. “Here, Red wants to settle up with what he owes you, plus a little extra for the whuppin’ he put on you.” He handed her fifty dollars.
She was speechless for a moment, but that didn’t stop her from eagerly accepting the money he held out to her. “Thank you, sir,” she finally managed. “Thank you!”
“He didn’t say where his two friends were, did he?”
“No, he didn’t say anything about ’em,” she said. “I know they both left here this morning. I’m sorry I can’t help you.” He nodded and turned to walk away. “Thank you,” she said again. “I don’t even know your name.”
“You probably don’t need to know it,” he tossed back over his shoulder, and kept walking. He saw no use in working on a reputation for himself, especially with the clientele of a whorehouse. There were most likely a lot of customers who considered themselves handy with a gun who might like to gain a reputation at his expense.
The spectators stepped aside to clear a path for him as he walked back to the front of the saloon, where his horses were tied. No one made a sound until he had passed. When he turned the corner of the saloon, coming to the front, he was disappointed to find Ned standing by the rail. I ain’t got time for this, he thought. He did not hurry his step, but continued walking toward the massive brute, now sporting a bandage tied around his head. Hawk shifted his Winchester up to grip it with both hands. Ned watched him, but said nothing until Hawk reached his horse.
“I figured you might wanna know somethin’ I heard those two friends of his talkin’ about,” Ned said.
Caught completely by surprise, Hawk nevertheless managed to maintain his indifferent manner. “Yeah? What was that?”
“They were talkin’ about splittin’ up, to make it harder for the law to track ’em down.” This captured Hawk’s attention at once, so Ned continued. “I don’t know where the feller named Dubose was headin’, but the other one, the heavyset one, told that one called Red that he was goin’ back to see his wife in Coulson.” He shrugged. “Anyway, I thought you mighta wanted to know that. They both rode outta here early this mornin’.”
Hawk could hardly believe the huge man’s contrite manner. “Much obliged,” he said. “I appreciate the information.” He climbed up into the saddle. “I’m sorry we got off to a bad start.”
“Me, too,” Ned replied. “When I thought back about what I heard them talkin’ about, I got to thinkin’ that maybe you had a good reason to come after ’em.”
“You’re right. A mighty fine young girl is dead because of them.” He backed Rascal away from the rail. “And they shot the sheriff in Helena.” He wheeled the big buckskin and rode away.