The Killing at Circle C Read online

  ‘Both Beebob Hawkins and Texas Dean have rode with that stinkin’ bundle of rags, Amos Skillin. They know him well, they’re afeared of him – and, knowing those two hard bastards, that’s a sobering thought. Anyway, it seems Skillin’s been sendin’ his outlaw cronies down regular from Hole In The Wall with the aim of takin’ Daniel Sagger back with them. Why, Beebob couldn’t or wouldn’t say, but those owlhoots were ordered to take him, one way or another. To that end they began by askin’ him real nice, over the weeks and maybe half a dozen wearisome rides down from the hills. It moved on to some hard, impatient talk that turned threatenin’, and maybe even involved violence that Daniel Sagger was able to handle. But when nothing those owlhoots could throw at Daniel looked like workin’, why, Amos Skillin rode down from the hills hisself, and he acted.’

  ‘Acted how?’

  Gillo was sitting on the steps leading to the cells, all arms and legs, tin cup held in both bony hands. He shrugged.

  ‘According to Beebob, Skillin used a woman and a little girl to get his way. That’s all he knows, or is willing to let on.’

  ‘I guess,’ Cliff McClure said, with a sideways look at Will Sagger, ‘we can fill in the rest of the story without Beebob’s help.’

  For Will, the bits and pieces coming from Beebob Hawkins and his sidekick had added to his own hazy reading of the weeks’ happenings, the mention of a little girl being used telling him how a ragged outlaw who had lost patience with the hard men he rode with had come down from Hole In The Wall to plumb the depths of cruelty.

  Had it been done by guile? Will Sagger could see no other way. Somehow, Amos Skillin had walked from Red Keegan’s saloon with his arm around a drunken Daniel Sagger’s shoulders and talked the rancher into taking him into his home. The ride from Ten Mile Halt had been under the stars, Daniel’s thoughts – if his head was clear enough – probably of nothing more than sharing a hot supper. At Bar C, Skillin had found Mary Ann Sagger in her night clothes, waiting up for her man, and with one swift stroke of a razor-sharp knife – the drunken man alongside him bewildered and helpless at the speed of the attack – he had cut the woman’s throat and revealed the extent of his treachery.

  In the sudden, terrible silence, all that would have been heard was the ticking of the clock, perhaps the soft sound from the adjoining room of a sleeping girl’s slow breathing. The woman lay dead in a slick pool of blood and, as her husband looked on in horror, the man with the bloodstained knife in his fist grinned savagely and with the fingers of his other filthy hand struck off the only two alternatives.

  That same bloody knife gets used on your daughter.

  You go with me now.

  ‘What could he do?’ Will Sagger said hoarsely, as the images swamped him with emotion.

  ‘The best he could, the only thing he could do, in the circumstances,’ said Cliff McClure. ‘Over the weeks, he did the groundwork by warning you of trouble ahead. On that night, he left his clear message.’

  ‘A ’73 Winchester,’ Sagger said.

  ‘For a young man to earn,’ McClure said. ‘The hard way.’

  Chapter Five

  Four men rode back to Bar C.

  They rode at midday when the sun was bright and warm but the air still holding the crisp freshness of a Wyoming spring. Two, Will Sagger and Dave Lee Nelson, were riding home. A third rode with a duty to perform, a lean and dusty man with a battered hat and run-over boots and the badge of authority that was to be a form of protection; a battered tin emblem that would glint in the sunlight and cause those who saw it from afar to have second thoughts.

  According to Cliff McClure.

  With the reputation of the infamous outlaws who used Hole In The Wall as a refuge already unsettling his stomach, Deputy Slim Gillo doubted that, but McClure had a young deputy able to fill in, and Gillo wasn’t paid to think. And Cliff McClure had threatened to slam young Will Sagger in a strap-steel cell for his own protection if he didn’t agree to Gillo riding along.

  The fourth man had closed shop, selected the finest rifle from his rack and, with the fancy six-gun at his hip and a paper package tied behind his saddle, brought his frisky roan gelding dancing out of Ten Mile Halt’s livery barn to tuck in behind Slim Gillo.

  Jake Cree, the gunsmith, was taking flowers to a grave and going looking for an old friend.

  The hour’s ride passed mostly in silence, each man alone with his thoughts as he allowed his horse to drift into a position on the trail that would avoid the worst of the dust.

  Nelson, realizing Sagger did not wish to be disturbed, ignored the young man riding alongside him and deftly rolled a cigarette that lasted for a number of miles before being flicked into a creek.

  Gillo stayed alert, his eyes scanning the far horizons. Cliff McClure had expressed the opinion that, with two days passed, Amos Skillin and Daniel Sagger would be long gone – but he’d been wrong before and Gillo figured he’d be shirking his responsibility if he took the marshal’s word as gospel.

  In cattle terms, Jake Cree rode drag, stoically enduring the dust from the three riders ahead of him while he squinted sideways at the distant purple smudge that was the southern tail of the Bighorn Mountains, the fainter line of Owl Creek Mountains further to the west – and Hole In The Wall.

  That last – a notch in the mountains leading to a hell hole inhabited by cold-blooded killers who considered themselves the Robin Hoods of the West – he couldn’t see, but as he looked ahead to where Will Sagger rode alongside his foreman, the gunsmith knew that out of sight was not out of mind. Young Will Sagger was casting too many glances across his left shoulder, his eyes squinting too intently into the far distance. Hole In The Wall was dominating his thoughts. The kid was impatient to ride.

  They gathered in the living-room at Bar C, each man averting his eyes from the hideous dark stain only partly covered by the Indian blanket thrown down days ago by Will Sagger. The house was empty. Becky had been taught at home by Mary Ann and, in the days since the killing, Will had found neither the time nor the inclination to give thought to her schooling. Now he knew she was off somewhere on the open range, a young girl alone with her piebald pony and an aching heart but watched over closely by Bar C hands, and as he looked at Cree he knew the gunsmith was sharing his thoughts.

  ‘Cath will look after her,’ Cree said.

  Quickly, standing with his back to the big stone fireplace and mantel over which the gleaming Winchester ’73 rested on padded iron hooks, Will Sagger arranged for one of the hands to take the girl into town and deliver her safely to Jake Cree’s wife where she would remain until Sagger’s return. Nelson would stay on at Bar C, hire men for the spring roundup, buy in thirty or more horses for the remuda, haul the heavy chuck-wagon out of the barn for a check over and ensure that the day-to-day ranch work continued without a hitch.

  Jake Cree and Slim Gillo would ride with Will Sagger.

  ‘And with the easy decisions taken care of,’ Sagger said, ‘we’ve got some hard planning to do. I reckon a pot of hot coffee might make thinking easier.’

  But Dave Lee Nelson, understandably disgruntled at being left out of the chase, was ahead of him, the big foreman already in the kitchen rattling pots. What he had to do in there took no time at all: Becky had breakfasted long after her brother rode out, the stove was still hot, the coffee bubbling. When Nelson came through, four brimming cups balanced on a square of timber, the aroma of the java filled the room instantly and with its familiarity pushed the horror of what had happened a little way into the background.

  ‘This is the way we all figure it, I reckon,’ Sagger said, ‘with a lot of help from Slim there, and his talk with Beebob Hawkins.’ He took one of the cups, drank, gathered his thoughts and emotions, and went on, ‘Amos Skillin rode down from Hole In The Wall to talk to Pa. Two nights ago he came riding out here – with Pa – stayed long enough to complete his bloody work then lit out, taking Pa with him. If we’re right, then we’ve got the name of the killer, and we know where they’ve
gone.’

  ‘What we don’t know, is why the hell it happened,’ said Slim Gillo, a gaunt figure outlined against the bright window as he sipped his coffee.

  ‘Which, if you’ll excuse my bluntness,’ Jake Cree said, from the comfort of a deep chair, ‘makes not a blind bit of difference. We’re gathered here to plan how we go after Daniel Sagger. If we want answers, that’s the only way we’ll get them.’

  ‘Good points, all of them,’ Sagger said. ‘Slim’s right, we don’t know the reasons for what went on. And Jake, I reckon your arrow hit home when you said it makes no difference. What we do know is we’ve got Beebob Hawkins and Texas Dean scared of Amos Skillin—’

  ‘What we’ve got is me sayin’ those two are afeared of that renegade,’ Gillo said, ‘and maybe I’m right. But either way, I suspect them of bein’ hock deep in this mess – maybe forced into it by that ugly renegade and his evil crew – and if we bear that in mind we won’t get any rude shocks.’

  ‘More wise words,’ Cree said. ‘With those two unpredictable bastards already gunning for Will, keeping one eye on our back-trail makes a lot of sense.’

  ‘If you fellers are so darn clever,’ Dave Lee Nelson said, ‘when are you going to get to the point?’

  Cree chuckled softly. ‘I can see why Daniel made you foreman, Dave. I guess we’ve trampled back and forth over the main issue without once putting a boot on it hard enough to hold it down.’ He leaned forward to place his empty cup on the table. ‘So, what about it, Will?’

  ‘Well,’ Sagger said, ‘that’s two of my closest friends telling me bluntly I’m sitting wasting time drinking hot coffee when we know who’s going, where they’re going, and why. You’re both right. We’re going round in circles. The only thing we don’t know is what happened here, and we find that out by talkin’ to my pa. So, Dave, I reckon getting to the point means deciding when to go. And the best time to go is right now.’

  Nelson nodded his satisfaction and again headed for the kitchen. ‘I’ll fix up some provisions, fill a couple of canteens for each man.’

  ‘Me,’ Jake Cree said, ‘I’ll go run my eyes and hands over the horses, check the boxes of shells I picked up in a hurry on the way out.’ He looked at Sagger, said softly, ‘I know for sure I packed a couple of boxes of .44-.40.’

  Sagger nodded. He watched the little gunsmith go out into the sunshine and clatter down the steps to where the horses were tethered, then turned and, with feelings akin to reverence, took down from its hooks the shining Winchester ’73. This, he knew, would need no scrutiny, no last-minute checks. He was cradling it in both hands, but could smell fresh oil; and when he slid his hand around the stock and worked the lever, the movement of the empty breech was smooth, the metallic click softened by lubrication lovingly applied by Daniel Sagger.

  And that, Will Sagger realized, was just two days ago. How many more days would it be before he saw his father again? Would he ever again see him alive? And, alive or dead, what violence would he, Jake Cree and Slim Gillo encounter before the puzzle of a brutal killing was solved, the reason for one man’s slide into heavy drinking and flight to the devil’s cauldron that was Hole In The Wall finally understood?

  His bruised and bloodied jaw clamped tight to bring on the pain that drove those desolate thoughts from his mind, Will Sagger turned away from the stone fireplace with his father’s rifle in his hands and strode across a packed dirt floor stained with blood to begin a ride into uncertainty, and danger.

  Chapter Six

  Midday. Clear blue skies, the sun directly overhead, no breath of wind to cool the skin.

  They’d pulled off the trail to rest the lathered horses, tethering them close to a shallow pool fringed by coarse grass and flattened to a glassy sheet by the scorching heat of that spring day, then sunk down in the scant shade beneath the trees to smoke a cigarette and stare their separate ways into the limitless distances.

  Amos Skillin, a renegade clothed in filthy rags with wild eyes rolling under a battered sombrero, twin pistols tied down, a battered Sharps carbine in a saddle boot and his rough hands and the huge Bowie knife in its fringed scabbard still stained rusty red with a woman’s blood.

  Daniel Sagger, a lean, dignified man with a single Smith & Wesson Schofield at his hip, a man who, on a rainswept night, had ridden home drunk from Red Keegan’s saloon in Ten Mile Halt to be torn apart by grief and rage.

  Had been. He was able to say that now with feelings approaching exhilaration for, in two days and through searing pain that exploded from whiskey-fogged memories of his terrible frailty and his wife’s savagely mutilated body, something had happened to Daniel Sagger. Loath though he was to concede that it had taken tragedy to bring about the return of integrity and manhood – to bring him, like a steer caught at the end of a tight rope, snapping back to his senses – he knew that two days on the trail without the spurious escape offered by Red Keegan’s cheap liquor had cleared his mind, sharpened his senses, and prepared him mentally and physically for the forthcoming battles.

  As he pulled on his cigarette and listened absently to the movements and the crude hawking and spitting of the renegade who had taken Mary Ann’s long hair in his filthy hands and hissed like a snake as he cut her throat, Sagger could feel the strength singing through his body, could look ahead with an alert mind unfogged by strong drink or confused thoughts. And he needed that clarity. For there would be battles, and bloody ones, against foes as yet unnamed and others who were ghost riders emerging unexpectedly from a hazy past. It was a past he had ridden away from twelve years ago. One of the ghost riders was a former compadre. And still he did not know why that old trail partner needed him. . . .

  ‘Another day,’ Skillin said, the harsh voice cutting through his thoughts. ‘Another day too long when all this could’ve bin finished weeks ago without any blood spilled.’

  ‘Finished?’ Sagger rolled over and came to his feet, sending the cigarette hissing into the flat pool. ‘To be finished there has to be a start, and I’ve been told nothing.’

  ‘All you need to know.’

  ‘Wrong. In a month I’ve been driven half crazy by men bringing terse messages from Cajun Pride. That was finished, the two of us ridin’ the owlhoot, and it seems after twelve long years it still hasn’t sunk in. We were together, then we split. That was final.’

  ‘You split.’

  ‘Same difference.’

  ‘Until now.’

  ‘Why now?’

  ‘That’s up to Cajun.’

  ‘And what about you?’

  Skillin was up off the ground now, his stubbled face turned to Sagger, the weight of his pistols tugging at his loose gunbelt as weirdly out of kilter eyes looked the other man up and down with undisguised contempt.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, with a challenge in his grating voice. ‘What about me, now?’

  ‘I think what happened back there was a maverick losing patience and going berserk. You weren’t getting your way, the long shadow of Cajun Pride was like a black storm cloud threatening to burst over you and, like a rabid dog, you went plumb crazy.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘You were acting on your own, the Cajun Pride I knew would never condone what you did – and what happens to rabid dogs is, they get a bullet in the head.’

  ‘You think you can do that? You think you can pull your iron fast enough to put a hole in my head?’

  ‘Fast enough?’ Sagger’s laugh was mocking. ‘There’s a while to go, and I don’t think you can stay awake long enough to stop me.’

  ‘Yeah, but nothing’s changed,’ Amos Skillin said, eyes rolling, face contorted with insane glee. ‘If I die, your little girl—’

  ‘Everything’s changed.’ Sagger snapped the words. He took a fast stride forward, clamped one hard hand on Skillin’s right forearm and with the other took a bunched fistful of shirt front, thrust out his head so that his face was inches from the renegade’s grimacing countenance. ‘You had me over a barrel. I was a weak fool too drunk, too damn
slow, to stop a crazy bastard from slicing my wife’s throat. But, as drunk as I was, I could see that bloody knife in your murdering fist glittering wet and red and I knew that unless I got you out of that house, and fast, then the next to die would be my beautiful little Becky.’

  Sneering, Skillin jerked his arm from Sagger’s iron grip, pulled his shirt free and stepped back. ‘She’ll still die—’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Beebob and Texas. Back there in Ten Mile Halt. And they know what to do, when to do it . . .’

  For an instant, Daniel Sagger was silenced. Then his thoughts raced, he recovered, and he said, ‘No. Back there it was your deck, your deal. I played the hand your way, you won the pot. But now I’m dealing, and in this game you’re on your own and if I shoot you dead there’s nobody to know, nobody to care, nobody likely to go back to Bar C and risk his neck committing murder on the say-so of a dead man.’

  ‘Then I’ll drop you now, where you stand,’ Skillin snarled.

  ‘Do that. Make your play. But if you drop me, what then? Do you ride on without me, face Cajun Pride’s rage?’

  For a long moment the hot still air was electric, both men as tight as coiled springs, right arms bent, fingers flexing. Then Skillin straightened, shook his head, made a half turn.

  ‘Maybe,’ he said, with sly, sideways glance, ‘Cajun Pride ain’t the man he used to be.’ And then he spat into the pool, turned his back on Daniel Sagger and walked to where his horse was standing hip-shot, dozing in the heat.

  Maybe he isn’t, Sagger thought, watching the filthy renegade tightening the cinch and climbing into the worn saddle. Cajun Pride had been a hard man, a fast gun, a reckless fool who chased pretty women and other people’s cash and looked back to roar with mocking laughter at the posses floundering on his trail. But if that buccaneering spirit had grown weary, if Cajun Pride had hung up his guns, Sagger thought – then what in hell’s name does he want with me that’s so important he sends a messenger like Amos Skillin?