Falcon and Wolf 7

 

Chapter 7

 

Dusty cleared his holster with his revolver, but it was too late, and he dropped it as he tried, futilely, to fend off the rapidly descending hooves aimed at his head. Darkness took him.

Blackwind neighed in triumph.

He returned to his herd to chivvy them about a bit.

 

oOoOo

 

Big Bill Weston and his oldest son, Hank, approached towards the front of the property.

The rhythmic chatter of the Gatling gun at the back of the house had him pause, confused. Weston, like his sons, had no knowledge of anything military, and wondered what mechanical noise it might be. It sounded like a printing press, or maybe the sodbusters had some sort of mill.

He jumped when he heard the rebel yell; that he had heard before, and he gave an involuntary shudder. He gritted his teeth. They could not frighten him with noise.

“Hey! Little girls!” shouted Weston. “You should have gone home!  Now you let me in like good girls, and I’ll help you pack. And maybe my sons will teach you what real men are like.”

“Your sons wouldn’t know!” shouted Ida. “To be real men, they’d need a father, not just a tup!”

“So help me, I’ll burn you out for that!” yelled Weston.

“Weston,” called Douglas, “This here is Marshal Sam Douglas, and I’m going to arrest you if you don’t go home right now.  You’re already a wanted man for harbouring a known criminal; your son, Willy is here, under arrest, and by the sounds out back, your other sons are having a bad time of it. Leave your guns and go home peaceably.”

“Him no stay peaceable even if him comply,” said Wolf, who had returned, whilst Luke checked their battle scene.

“I have to give him the chance,” said Douglas.

Weston set dynamite charges of his own on the log gateway, and retreated to set the charges off.

The tree shattered, spraying splinters everywhere, but Weston and Hank were not fool enough to be anywhere that was at risk.

Weston ran in, and threw a stick of lighted dynamite at the door of the shack. Ida, at the window, saw it coming, and pulled open the door enough to throw the contents of the chamber-pot on it, and dodged back, but not before Weston had fired, winging her arm.

She cried out in pain, as Luke came in from the back.

“That’s it, I’m not going to try to treat,” said Luke, catching Ida as she swayed, half swooning.

“I’ll see to it, you kill them,” said Kalina.

“I did tell them to lay down their guns,” said Douglas.

“Well, they’ve refused, and are now on my property,” said Luke. “And have wounded my bride.”

He moved to the window.

“Weston!” he called. “You wounded my wife. I cry havoc; no surrender, no mercy.”

Weston responded by lighting another stick of dynamite and throwing it. Luke’s Winchester cracked, shooting the dynamite stick, throwing it back towards Hank and Weston, and setting off the charge. Hank hit the dirt, with a cry as his father dodged into the barn. Then Hank was up and running for the barn, a step or two behind his father.

“Well, let us see what they manage in there,” said Luke.

“More booby traps?” asked Douglas.

“The same as the one out back,” said Luke. “I take no pleasure in this senseless killing, you know; but when good people are threatened, like Mrs. Barton, and like other settlers, if people want to play rough, I’ll play rougher.”

“It saves sending the army in, I suppose,” said Douglas. “What about the last brother, Martin Weston?”

“I won’t mess with him if he doesn’t mess with me,” said Luke. “But feel free to threaten to call me in, if he’s unco-operative when he inherits.”

At that moment, the barn exploded in a barrage of noise and light. Luke and Wolf ran outside where buckets of water stood, throwing them up onto the roof of the claim shanty. It was already well wetted, but they worked to put out any burning debris, using wet gunny sacks to beat out anything which landed. Luke picked up and threw a burning piece of wood which had landed near the Gatling gun.

Douglas assisted, and the girls ran with shovels out of the front to beat out anything burning out there. Fortunately, the stand of cottonwoods was too far for the explosive debris to reach.

Hank’s tall figure staggered out of the barn on fire. Ida grabbed a wet sack and ran to beat out the flames on him, one-handed, as her other arm was bandaged and in a sling.

“I won’t see anyone die like this,” she called to Kalina, who came to her aid. Wet sacks, having rolled him onto his front, and a couple of buckets of water saw the flames out. Well-doused, they pulled the sodden, burned figure of Hank into the house.

The men came back in.

“If he lives, he was aiding and abetting his father in shooting you and trying to blow the house up,” said Luke.

“If he lives, he will have the reminder that some sodbusters have a military background,” said Douglas.  “I’ve heard it said Hank never dared cross his father; if he’s his own man, the way things are run might be different. He had a mother in his life, for eleven or twelve years.”

“Oh, I won’t make feud if he’s ready to be peaceable and law abiding,” said Luke.  “Is it substantially over?”

“I think so,” said Douglas.

“Guess I’ll make us all a hot drink then,” said Luke. “Ida! You rest that arm!”

“I’ll probably feel worse tomorrow,” said Ida. “I’m all strung up and it helped to have something to do. I’ll make coffee.”

Luke nodded, and wrapped his arms around her.

“I might have lost you,” he said.

“I’m harder to lose than that,” said Ida.

He went to aid Kalina, who was cutting the clothes off Hank. The good woollen shirt and thick denim trousers had saved his torso from the majority of the burning; his hat had protected his head and face, somewhat, and it was mainly his arms and hands, with some burning on the face and neck.  Luke slathered on salves, and covered the burns with good white linen bandage, and wrapped the man in blankets to keep him warm to prevent him going into shock.

“He’ll live,” he said, after Hank had gratefully swallowed a dipper of water. “I won’t tie you up if you give your parole.”

“I… I do give it,” said Hank, hoarsely. “I don’t know what happened, but, hell, I sure appreciate you not lettin’ me burn to death when I came along with Dad to scare you all out.”

“Handsomely enough said,” said Luke. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s finished. But start up your daddy’s games and I’ll come back.”

“I won’t,” swore Hank.

Luke curled up with Ida in his arms to drink coffee; and Kalina sat very close to Wolf.

“I wonder if Jed and his lady heard the row clear across the valley,” said Luke.

“He’ll likely ride over, if he did,” said Ida. “It’d make him a nice farmstead, you know.”

“It would; though it’s a bit far out for a sheriff,” said Luke.

“He said to us, he was through being sheriff, if he could be threatened over his wife,” said Ida.

“It occurred to me he wasn’t cut out for it,” said Luke. “Well, reckon Weston’s kin owe him some for the kidnapping of Mrs. Barton; a couple of heifers and some work on the land would go a long way, I should think, to paying for her fear and discomfort. And rebuilding the barn they broke a little bit.”

“Your explosive booby-traps did that,” said Ida.

“No; they did not ought to have been in the barn to set them off,” said Luke.

 

oOoOo

 

The occupants of the cabin dozed in more or less comfort until the morning; when Luke, Wolf, and Douglas went out to see the extent of the damage.  The small garden plot had the bodies of Chad, Judd, and those waddies who had joined the attack and had been cut down by the Gatling gun. There were signs outside the wall of the cattle they had brought stampeding, but back towards Weston’s lands, not across the crops. They circled round to the stand of cottonwoods, Luke consulting a rough map to pick up caltrops as they went. He had brought a bucket to put them in for this purpose. The horses of the invaders still milled about, limping, as Dusty had not managed to let them out.  Luke and Wolf collected them, and led them to where they shied at the grisly remains of the three who had died; the man with the cut arm had managed to escape and had high-tailed it back to the bunkhouse he called home.

“Well, I’m glad that your beautiful horse is safe, but I can’t think what this fellow who dropped his gun was thinking, not to shoot,” said Douglas.

“I can tell you the last thing that went through his mind,” said Luke.

“Oh, what’s that?” asked Douglas.

“Blackwind’s shoes,” said Luke.

“That doesn’t help,” said Douglas.

“I don’t know; it helps me to cope with how close my beloved friend was to being shot,” said Luke, leading the horses through the gap in the wire using the blazed trees. “Let’s get these saddles off, so they can roll.”

He spent some time making a fuss of Blackwind, as well as freeing the other horses from their harness, with aid from Wolf and Douglas.

“They can stay here with the others whilst all this is sorted out,” said Luke. “You can sort out the rights and wrongs of ownership, Marshal; it’s what they pay you for.”

“Why, thank you so much,” said Douglas.

“You’re welcome,” said Luke. “Well, the undertaker will do well out of it. Such a bloody senseless waste, but that’s what greed brings. Just on a smaller scale than when it’s a government that sets out to steal, and goes to war.”

“A cynical outlook.”

“Can you tell me I’m wrong?”

“No, not really,” said Douglas. “You’ll help me haul the bodies into town, at least?”

“Aye, I’ll do that,” said Luke. “And take Hank to a doctor and Willy into your custody. The doctor can take the bullet out of Willy’s knee; I’m not going to do so. The bounty is for him alive, it doesn’t say undamaged.”

“True enough. And him, I want to take to the railhead where there’s a jailhouse,” said Douglas.

They made their way back towards the farmstead, and the site of the barn.

The barn was gone, though its remains were still smouldering. The head and torso of what had been Big Bill Weston had been thrown clear of the barn in the blast, and had lodged in an old tree. Of his legs, there was no sign.

“I guess he always did want to go up in the world,” said Luke.

“Now, that was in bad taste,” said Douglas.

“So was the determination to threaten and bully a pair of young women, and to shoot my Ida when she heroically risked opening the door to put out the dynamite, knowing that though the door was covered with a blanket, the walls were not, and splinters from them would be blasted off, cutting up anyone inside,” said Luke. “I have no patience with the petty greed of men so used to having their own ways that they’ve become petty despots of the sort our Constitution was made to avoid having. People are used to the protection of the law, but the law can’t be everywhere, and people like this threaten the law with retribution on their families. It’s gotten so that American people have forgotten that we are all the law, within our rights under the constitution, and that despots are not permitted, and should be shot like all other vermin.  We came away from Europe to avoid Tsars and the like, and it’s the responsibility of everyman to see that such men are dragged down by the rest of us.”

“Oh, when you put it like that, I can’t disagree,” said Douglas.

 

oOoOo

 

Luke drove the prairie schooner into town, to the church, as a charnel cart, with Hank beside him, to be taken to the doctor. Hank had promised to make sure Martin did not start a feud. The Marshal drove Willy in his buggy.

“Martin left to work in town to escape Dad,” said Hank, coughing. “He didn’t like how rough he can be… was, I mean.  He was better to me, I did as I was told, an’ shut my eyes and ears.”

“Well, now it’s time to be a man,” said Luke. “I don’t think your old man’s any loss, nor Willy, nor Judd; I heard him laughing about watching my sister and my bride burn.”

“It ain’t been a happy family,” admitted Hank. “I guess we’ll just have to put up with sodbusters.”

“Mixed farming brings benefits to ranchers, too, with crops grown locally, and cheaper for it,” said Luke. “You don’t need the whole valley for your beeves, there’s room for everyone.”

“Well, I guess I’ll be finding that out,” said Hank, who had also received a blistering warning from Douglas over keeping the peace, and being released on his own recognisance.

 

Jed Barton and his Lily were delighted to take on the farm, especially with some cattle, and work done by the Weston men. The power of the Weston family was broken, and times would change.

Luke turned down a star in Barton’s place; and he and Wolf rode as outriders to the railhead, to see a reluctant Kalina and Ida back on the train home. They were also acting as guards to Jake Kelly, and Wily Willy Weston.

The Gatling gun had been oiled, sewn up in oiled cloth, and cached in the mine shaft.

Just in case.

And Luke pulled down a ‘wanted’ poster for a train robber named Barney Magree, dead or alive for three thousand dollars, and his gang for various amounts.

“Reckon he’ll do for us, Wolf?” he asked his partner.

“Reckon he will,” said Wolf.