House of Winslow 14 The Valiant Gunman Read online

  They were staring at him, and he said nervously, “Two of them died—and one of them was Willis.”

  Hope gasped, grabbing at Zane’s arm. “Zane! It can’t be!”

  “I—got him with me, sister. Tied on a horse back there. He’s dead.”

  Amos said at once, “We’ll have to take him to town.”

  “We can’t do that, Pa,” Zane said. “They’ll know he was shot stealing cattle.” He hesitated, then suggested, “How about if we bury him, wait a few days, and then tell people he got killed in an accident?”

  Amos shook his head firmly. “No. We can’t do that. The scripture says, ‘He that covereth his sins shall not prosper.’ We’ll take him in. Where’d you leave him, Zane?” When the boy told him, he said, “You got to stay out of this, Zane. I want you to get away from the ranch. All I’ll tell the sheriff is that he rode off, and he come back shot. I can say I found him almost back to the ranch. That won’t be a lie.”

  “But I want to stay here, Pa!”

  “You can come back in a few weeks.” Amos shook his head. “Arrow is going to know Willis was shot, but they can’t prove it.”

  Hope agreed with their father. “Yes, Zane. You have to stay clear of this.”

  “You go back and take him off the horse, son. Og and me will put him in the wagon. Take the horse with you.”

  ****

  Sheriff Rider lifted the tarpaulin covering the dead man. He studied the face, then let the tarp drop back in place. Walking to the front of the wagon, where Hope and Amos sat, he asked, “Where’d you find him, Amos?”

  Hope spoke up. “He was about a quarter of a mile from the house, up on the rise above the creek, Sheriff. He was sprawled on the ground and his horse wasn’t there.”

  Rider’s face was sad. “I hate to see this, Miz Malloy.” He chewed the edge of his mustache. “I got to tell you, he was probably shot by one of the Arrow hands. Ash Caudill and his crew caught a bunch of rustlers making off with their stock.”

  Hope looked at him steadily. “He’s dead, Sheriff. There’s no proof that he was a rustler—but if he was, he’s paid for it.”

  “I guess that’s right, ma’am.” Rider reached out his hand toward Hope. “Let me help you down, Miz Malloy. I got to file a report. It’s out of my territory, but the U.S. Marshal will want to know about it.”

  Amos sat in the office beside Hope, and the two of them told the sheriff the truth—that Malloy had been gone from the ranch for several days. “He was talking to some of the small ranchers and farmers, I expect,” Amos said.

  “He did that, all right,” Sheriff Rider nodded. “I talked to Gus Miller, and he said Malloy was at a meeting at Dutch Shultz’s place. But nobody saw him after that.” He gave them a sharp look. “Mr. Head is gonna tie this to the rustling, you know.”

  “I thought he might, but none of us know anything about that,” Hope said. She was hoping that the sheriff would not ask them how they happened to find her husband’s body and was relieved when he did not.

  As they left the office, the sheriff said kindly to Hope, “I’m right sorry about your husband, Miz Malloy. Let me know if I can do anything.”

  “Thank you, Sheriff Rider,” Hope said. They left Malloy’s body at the funeral home, and the next day there was a brief ceremony at the graveside with more people than Hope expected. The crowd was composed of church friends and townsfolk who’d come for her sake and out of respect for Amos. She felt nothing as the coffin was lowered into the raw mouth of the grave, and afterward she forced herself to respond to those who came to express sympathy.

  As they drove out of town, Hope sighed, greatly relieved to have the ceremony over with. “I’m glad we left Cody at home, Pa. He didn’t need to be there.”

  “No. It’s been rough on the boy.”

  When they came in sight of the ranch, Amos put his arm around Hope. “Well, Daughter, looks like we’ve got to start over again.”

  She was silent for a moment, then staring straight ahead she burst out, “I’ll never let a man touch me again, Pa!”

  Amos looked sharply at his daughter. Her face was tense, her lips drawn into a tight line. “Well, Daughter,” he said gently, “I guess you got good reason for that.” A great sadness came over him, for he knew that Hope had a deep capacity for love.

  She’ll never know what it means to love a good man, he thought as they pulled up in front of the house. No man will ever lay a hand on her—not the way she is now!

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  A MAN’S DREAM

  Dan Winslow never had any trouble remembering how he celebrated his thirtieth birthday, for on the first day of the year 1874, he was run out of New Mexico by a posse.

  Not that the posse had a great deal of legal standing, being composed of twenty or so hardcase gunmen that a big rancher named Angus McClellan had recruited to throw against the small army of punchers hired by Olan Deal. The two ranchers had fought over a huge slice of land—too small for both of them but just right for one—and it had been by pure chance that Winslow had hired out to Deal instead of to McClellan. For years he wondered what his life might have been like if he had chosen the winning side in the range war, but he well understood that no man could go back and change things.

  Dan Winslow had enlisted in the Confederate Army at the age of seventeen and had fought all the way through to Appomattox. After the war, his father, Sky Winslow, had tried to persuade him to stay in Virginia and help rebuild the plantation, Belle Maison. But four hard years of war had done something to Dan, and he’d left Virginia for Texas.

  Somewhere along the way during the war, a dream had been birthed in him—one which he never shared with any of his family or his companions in arms. All his life he had been intrigued by stories he heard from those who went west, and at some point between Manassas and Gettysburg, he’d made up his mind that if he lived through the war he would become a cowboy.

  It had been a pleasant enough dream, one that could make him forget the carnage of war and the loss of friends. As he trudged along the roads to battles, with barely enough clothing to cover him and shoes tied on with strings, he would turn his mind to the open spaces of the western ranges. He could see himself riding a fine horse, sitting tall in a Mexican saddle shimmering with silver, and wearing a pair of matched Colts tied down low. Many nights as he sat around a campfire waiting for the battle at dawn, he blotted out the grim knowledge that the odds were against his being alive for the next campfire, and he dreamed of owning a herd of cattle, watching them grow and prosper.

  It was a fine dream for a Confederate soldier, for after the first excitement of enlisting, when the young women came with pies and cakes and lemonade to see them off to battle, there was little but a bloody struggle that most of them knew could not be successful.

  Manassas, Seven Days, Fredericksburg, Second Manassas, Chancellorsville, Antietam, Gettysburg—

  The gray ranks grew thinner, while the armies in blue swelled, always coming with fresh men and gleaming new equipment. Later, men would say that the miracle of that time was the spirit and determination of the scarecrow men of the South who never gave up.

  During those turbulent years, Dan said nothing of his dream, not even to his brothers, Mark and Tom, who were in the same regiment. In his letters home, he spoke not at all of his dream. Once, he mentioned his desire to go west to his sister Pet, but she paid it little heed, being so much in love with a young man named Thad Novak that she was not hearing too well.

  Only to one individual did Dan ever truly reveal what was inside him, and that was to a young corporal from Texas. His name was Logan Mann, and he joined Dan’s company late in the war, after most of them realized it was lost. Mann had been attached to General Hood’s Texas Brigade but had been wounded at Gettysburg. He’d recovered slowly and was assigned to Dan’s Virginia Company, since Hood had gone on to fight in Tennessee.

  When they first met, Logan was a slight young man of twenty-four with brown eyes and dark brown hair. On h
is first day in camp, he was put on guard duty with Dan Winslow, and Dan discovered that Mann had the same ideas he did about heading west.

  “I’m aiming to get me a few head of cattle, Dan,” Mann had said as they peered out across the river, keeping a sharp lookout on the bluecoats camped on the other side. “Get me a place somewhere in the Panhandle, not too big. Then I’ll just set around and let them fat up. Drive them to Abilene, sell them, then go back and do it again. That’s what I’m going to do soon as we whip the Yankees.”

  Dan had said at once, “Why, that’s what I’m going to do, Logan!”

  From that moment the two had marched together, forming one of those friendships that sometimes occur in wartime, forged by hardship and danger. Since Logan had been a puncher before the war, Winslow liked nothing better than to listen as the small man spoke of ranching and cattle. Nor was Mann reluctant to dwell on that time, though he didn’t realize that the present hardships were causing him to romanticize the life of a cowboy.

  He would speak of the work as a sort of pleasure—riding a fine horse, drifting along lazily as the cattle plodded on, gathering around a campfire with good fellows who knew how to laugh, and going into the small Texas towns and shooting them up with a boundless energy.

  What he had forgotten—or chose not to remember—was that he had been a dirty, overworked laborer who fried his brains under a prairie sun, or rode endless miles in rain and wind to mend fences or look for lost calves. It was much more pleasant to think of himself and his fellow punchers in a slightly heroic image—hard-riding, fast-shooting young men, as they appeared in some of the fiction of the day.

  Dan found a book about the West by Mark Twain on the body of a dead Yankee major, and read it by the light of the fire to Mann. “This Mark Twain fellow thinks the West is a sorry place, Logan,” he commented once as they ate parched corn and washed it down with an imitation coffee made from roasted acorns. “Listen to what he says—” Dan tilted the book and read: “ ‘Sometimes we have the seasons in Nevada in their regular order, and then again we have winter all the summer and summer all winter. It’s mighty regular about not raining though, but as a general thing, the climate is good—what there is of it.’ ”

  “Aw, that’s in Nevada, Dan!” Logan protested.

  “He says it’s worse in Texas,” Dan grinned. “But I’ll be glad to get there, no matter how hot or dry or wet it is.”

  The next week, Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia—what was left of it—tried to break out of Richmond. Harried by the legions of Grant, they were brought to bay, and two days later, Grant and Lee sat down in the parlor of Wilmer McLean. When Robert E. Lee left that room, the Civil War was over.

  When General Lee broke the news to his troops, Dan Winslow was one of those who crowded around him to shake his hand. He was standing no more than five feet away when Lee said with a voice shaking with emotion, “Men, we have fought through the war together. I have done my best for you. My heart is too full to say more.” Lifting his hat, he rode through the weeping army to his home in Richmond.

  That scene stayed with Dan Winslow, but he wanted to forget the war, and after a brief visit with his family, he’d left for Texas. His intention was to find Logan Mann, because the two of them had spoken many times of being partners. But Mann had gone down toward the Mexican border, and Dan found a job on a ranch in the northern section, close to the border of New Mexico Territory.

  He learned his new trade with enthusiasm, and though he made no money and the work was hard, it was a welcome relief from the war. The months turned into years, the scars that the war had put on him began to heal, and he became a good puncher. He had been around guns all his life, and the violence of the war had hardened him. It was a rough life, and he slipped into the ways easily, becoming a hard-drinking, fighting man.

  In 1872 he left Texas, drifting to New Mexico where he got a job with the huge Slash W spread, owned by Olan Deal, one of the pioneers of the cattle business. Deal’s troubles with Angus McClellan had already begun, and the two outfits went to war over grazing and water rights.

  It was a bitter time, worse than the Civil War for Dan, for then he had gone to war with noble ideals. The range war, however, was a matter of money, none of which would go into the pockets of the men who fought and died in it.

  In the end, McClellan had won, for he had better political connections. It was due to these that he managed to get his own man put in as U.S. Marshal, and that official chose a posse from McClellan’s men and hit the Slash W on January 1, 1874, wiping out half the crew. Dan managed to fight his way out, along with a few more punchers, and slipped back over the border into Texas by the light of a pale moon.

  As he rode along that night, nursing a bullet crease along his ribs, he thought bitterly about his life over the past nine years. He had one dollar and sixty-five cents in his pocket, the clothes on his back, and the horse he rode. No more than that—for nine years of his life!

  Making a dry camp, he crouched over a small fire to keep from freezing, and as the Texas wind whistled across the plain, numbing his face, he found that he had given up on most things. Finally he threw a stick onto the fire, watched it ignite, then stared at it until it was consumed. Bitterness welled up in him, and he said hoarsely, “I guess that’s what dreams are good for, to bring a man down!”

  ****

  No ranches hired in winter; in fact, most of them had to lay men off. Dan Winslow found a job of sorts that allowed him to survive the winter. He rode into a little town called San Isadore and asked the owner of the livery stable to let him sleep in the barn.

  The owner, a rotund fat man with the vein-netted nose of a heavy drinker, gave him a quick glance. “Busted and broke?” he asked.

  “Just so,” Dan shrugged.

  “My name’s Boley Minton.” He stood there a minute, rubbing his stubby whiskers, then said, “Shore, you can sleep here tonight. Clean the place up and I’ll take you out for a good meal.” When Dan nodded, Boley said, “I’ve got an errand. Anybody comes in, take care of their horse, will you?”

  Dan cleaned the stable out, his stomach aching from hunger. Three customers came in, and he stabled their horses. When Minton came back at five o’clock, his face was rosy from his visit to the saloon, and he moved carefully. Looking around, he said with surprise, “That’s a good job you did, Winslow. Let’s go eat.”

  He took Dan to a cafe, ordered them both a steak with beans and potatoes. Dan made no attempt to conceal his hunger. While he ate, he took the money he’d gotten from the customers and handed it to Minton. Dan didn’t notice the surprised expression on the man’s face, being too occupied with his food.

  After they had finished their pie and were drinking coffee, Minton asked him about his plans. When Dan told him he didn’t have any, Minton said, “You can get work around here in the spring.” His black eyes narrowed and he added, “But I guess you’ll get hungry before then. Tell you what, I know most cowboys get their feelings hurt if they’re asked to do any work without a horse. But you can work for me until spring—just for bed and board,” he added quickly. “You can fix up a room I been using for harness, and I’ll give you five bucks a week for tobacco.”

  Dan said at once, “You’ve got a man, Minton.”

  “You won’t get rich at it.”

  “I didn’t get rich in the Confederate Army, and I didn’t get steaks like we just had. I’m grateful for the offer.”

  It worked out very well for both of them. It gave Minton a chance to spend all his time at the saloon drinking, and Dan Winslow gained weight on the regular food. The work was negligible, and he spent long hours reading or just dozing in his bunk. It was the easiest time he’d had for the past thirteen years. The war years had demanded every ounce of his strength, and the years he’d spent punching cattle in Texas and New Mexico had been harder than he’d realized.

  The days were dull and slow, and he took long rides when the weather permitted. Sometimes at nights he would go to the salo
on, not to drink, but just to be with men of his own kind. It was a peaceful time for Winslow, and one night as he was standing outside the livery stable, he had one of those unusual moments that come to a man. He had put aside all ideas of ever having a place of his own, but now it came back to him, came with such force that he could not understand it. He had no money, no real job to speak of—and yet somehow he knew that he was going to try for it.

  He said nothing to Minton and knew no other men that he could share it with. He thought of writing to his family, but pride kept him from asking for help. For weeks as winter began to wind down, he thought of it; then when spring came, he said, “Got to thank you, Boley.”

  “You moving on?” the stable owner asked with surprise. “Well, I wish I could have paid you more, but winter’s a pretty dull time for business. Might do a little better now,” he said hopefully.

  “That’s charitable of you, Boley,” Dan smiled. He liked the little man, but his mind was made up.

  “Going to get a job, I guess. Go out to the Running Y. Tell Tal Bonner I said you’d be a good hand. He’s a fair man, though he works his men hard.”

  The next day Dan rode out to the Running Y and got a job. For the next year, he worked harder than he’d ever worked in his life and spent nothing. He stopped smoking, and bought clothes only when the rags he wore no longer covered him or kept him warm—and then he bought used ones for a few cents or took the cast-offs from the other hands. Boots that he normally would have thrown away he mended himself. He avoided barber shops, cutting his own hair, hacking it off with a pair of shears. On the few occasions he did go into town for ranch supplies or for his own bare necessities, he didn’t even look at a saloon. Once his business was finished, he simply turned his back and rode out.

  It wasn’t easy, but as he scrimped and saved every penny, his dream came back to him, stronger than ever. He had a restlessness that drove him to work when other men were taking it easy, and the other hands all thought he was crazy.