Pete (The Cowboys) (2 page)

Pete didn’t understand where everyone could have gone, but he’d worry about that later. He needed a place to shield his nakedness and shelter from the sun. He leaned over and let himself fall from Sawbones’s back into the wagon. He felt dull, throbbing pain when he landed on the hard wooden floor. He collapsed and went to sleep.

Pete awoke twice during the day. Finding both food and water inside the wagon, he ate, drank, and went back to sleep. He awoke and ate once during the night. By the second day, the pain from his sunburn was intense, but the pain in his head had subsided a little. Movement caused his head to pound violently, but he couldn’t remain still, wondering why a wagon amply supplied with food and water had been abandoned. He could see nothing from either end of the wagon but a wide expanse of blue sky. When he sat up, he saw a distant brown ridge in the front, another even more distant behind.

After a quick look though its contents, Pete decided that nothing had been removed from the wagon. Clothes, food, weapons—everything a man needed for a trip through the Wyoming Territory—was here. He opened a trunk and looked through the clothes inside. All men’s clothing in the style of an Easterner, a tenderfoot, but the clothes looked about his size. He’d apologize to the owner when he returned, but Pete didn’t hesitate to take advantage of his good luck. Using almost the last of his strength, he managed to put on underwear, shirt, pants, and socks. Despite the pain of having clothes rub against his sunburn, he sighed with relief. At least now he wasn’t naked.

He found a quilt, lay down, and pulled it over him. Tomorrow he’d be strong enough to climb down from the wagon. Tomorrow he’d discover where he was.

Pete leaned against the side of the wagon as he looked down at the body of a young man who had been dead about two days. The body lay near the front of the wagon, invisible from the direction Pete had ridden in from. Pete figured he’d been killed the day he himself had been shot. Pete couldn’t figure out why the man had been killed and the wagon left on the trail. Or why nothing had been taken. The man looked like an Easterner. He wore a suit too fancy for anyone out here. His hair had been smoothed with Italian oil, his face shaved close. He had every appearance of a dude, a man who would be out of place in the Wyoming Territory.

Being careful not to move too quickly, Pete knelt down and opened the man’s coat. Much to his surprise, the man’s wallet was still in his pocket. It held $200. Searching the other pockets, Pete found a small bundle of letters addressed to Peter Warren, Springfield, Illinois. Even the man’s pocket watch and chain had been left, the name Peter Warren inscribed on the back of the watch. Pete felt uncomfortable wearing a dead man’s clothes, but it was obvious Peter Warren wouldn’t need them.

Pete felt like he’d stepped into the middle of a game with new rules. Every killer he knew would do nearly anything for money. Yet the men who’d killed Peter Warren had left over two hundred dollars in the wallet, a trunk full of clothes, a perfectly good wagon, supplies, and equipment worth more than a thousand dollars. Someone very powerful had ordered this killing, someone powerful enough to enforce the order that nothing be removed from the site.

Pete put the wallet and letters inside the wagon. After he fixed himself something hot to eat, he would search the wagon more thoroughly. He hoped to find something that would tell him what this man was doing in Wyoming and why someone would want to kill him.

Afterwards, he’d figure out how he was going to bury him.

That afternoon Pete searched the wagon systematically, paying special attention to the trunk. He found nothing there but more clothes, personal items of jewelry, a large family Bible, and several dozen letters tied together with a string. He combined them with the ones he’d found in Peter’s coat pocket, put them in order according to the dates, and read them all straight through.

After he’d finished, he sat deep in thought for nearly an hour before reading them all through again. Now he knew what a twenty-six-year-old hardware store owner from Illinois was doing in Wyoming Territory. He had inherited the Tumbling T, a large cattle ranch started by his uncle. If Peter didn’t want the ranch, or didn’t show up by noon on September 4, 1886, the ranch would go to a relative of his uncle’s wife.

Or anyone strong enough to hold it. Pete knew what it meant if the rightful owner didn’t show up. A range war to claim some of the best grazing land east of the Big Horn Mountains.

Someone obviously didn’t want Peter Warren to inherit. But Pete still didn’t understand why nothing had been stolen, why all the identification had been left on the body. Obviously the murderer wanted whoever found Peter to know who he was. Pete couldn’t figure out how that could benefit anyone, but it must somehow.

Instinct urged Pete to collect food and weapons and head down the trail as fast as he could. But the manner of the killing bothered him. Peter Warren’s gun belt was rolled up behind the wagon seat. A rifle lay on the wagon floor. Clearly the man hadn’t been expecting trouble. Nor had he realized he faced it before he was killed. He’d had no opportunity to reach for his weapons.

That argued that someone he knew, possibly a friend, even a member of his family, had killed him. That bothered Pete even more. You couldn’t depend on much in life, but a man had to be able to depend on his friends and family.

What should he do?

He could turn everything over to the nearest sheriff or law officer, but there wasn’t one nearby. Besides, they might start thinking Pete had killed this stranger. The fact that he was wearing Peter Warren’s clothes wouldn’t help his position.

Besides, it was quite possible no lawman would care about a stranger. The sheriff might just keep the money, sell his belongings, and pocket the money for them as well. That went against Pete’s principles. According to the letters, Peter’s young wife was expecting him any day now. She might need his money. Now that he was dead, she might need it even more. Few things were important to Pete, but family was sacred. His had been killed by Indians when he was five. He had never stopped missing them.

It was obvious Peter had wanted his uncle’s ranch. He had meant to show up on time. Pete had heard rumors of rustling in this area, but he hadn’t paid any attention. He’d quit ranching when he left Texas and never intended to start again. But rustling was common. If a man couldn’t protect his own cows, someone would rob him blind.

Still, Peter’s wagon and food had saved Pete’s life. He felt he owed Peter Warren something. Maybe he would try to find his wife, tell her what had happened, return the money, letters, and other personal items. But the main thing occupying Pete’s mind was finding the thieves who’d shot him and getting his money back. He’d worked too hard and too long in too many gold-fields to let some sneaking cowboys take the profits. He wasn’t as good with guns as a couple of the orphans he’d been raised with, but he was good enough.

Still puzzled as to why the killer had wanted Peter’s body found and identified, Pete decided he would burn the wagon and bury Peter where no one would find him. Tired from so much thinking and planning, Pete went to sleep.

He spent all the next day looking for a place to bury Peter. He spent the next two days digging the grave, a third day moving the body. He spent the next day in complete rest. His sunburn didn’t hurt any longer, his wound had continued to heal, and his headaches were reduced to a dull throb. He had been fortunate to survive the gunshot. Sean had always said Pete was the most hardheaded man alive. Well, his hard head had saved his life.

He made a meticulous study of the area around the wagon, wondering what had happened to the two mules that had drawn it. He found the prints of two riders, presumably the men who’d killed Peter. He studied the hoofprints until he felt certain he would know them again no matter how imperfectly made.

The day after that he harnessed Sawbones to the wagon. The horse objected to such treatment, but Pete finally convinced him to pull the wagon to a clump of willow and boxelder that bordered a stream. He discovered the missing mules grazing there. He decided to leave them there and burn the wagon. He couldn’t take a chance on being hanged as a horse thief. Though it went against the grain, he would use Peter’s money until he caught up with the thieves. But he would pay it back. Pete had done a lot of things he wasn’t proud of, but he’d never stolen from a dead man and didn’t intend to start now.

Pete had another important task. He had to go back to his camp and see if he could discover anything that might help him identify the men who’d robbed him and left him for dead. Taking all of the food and clothing, he headed north.

What he found convinced him the men who’d robbed him had also killed Peter. That made no sense, but hoofprints didn’t lie. The same horses had been in both places. Pete headed south.

Anne Thompson fought as hard as she could against her Uncle Frank and Cyrus McCaine, the wretched excuse for a man to whom her uncle had sold her, but the two men were much stronger than she was. The other men sitting their horses in front of the Tumbling T ranch house didn’t intervene.

“You can’t force me to marry him,” Anne said to her uncle. “I’m already married to Peter.”

“That’s a lie,” her uncle replied. “You haven’t seen that boy in more than ten years.”

Anne wrapped her hands around the step railing. “I married him by proxy. I signed the documents three months ago.”

“Then where is he?” Cyrus McCaine demanded. “He was supposed to be here before today if he wanted this ranch. I say he doesn’t want it. I say he doesn’t want you, either.”

Cyrus was fifty-four, rich, and mean-tempered. Anne’s uncle had sold her to him to become his third wife. Cyrus’s first wife was said to have died of a blow to the head she received when she fell from a horse. His second wife had run away and divorced him from the safety of St. Louis. Anne had no intention of becoming the third Mrs. McCaine.

Even though she hadn’t seen Peter since she was seven, Anne remembered him as her only real friend. When it became clear her uncle meant to marry her off to the man willing to pay the most money, Anne had asked Peter to marry her. Marriage to a man she barely remembered was better than being the wife of Cyrus McCaine.

“You can’t force her to marry a second husband,” Dolores said. The ranch housekeeper and cook had tried to protect Anne from her uncle, but Belser held Dolores back.

“She ain’t going to have a second husband,” her uncle growled. “She’s lying, like she always does when she doesn’t want to do something.”

“She’s not lying about signing the papers,” Dolores said. “I saw them.” She tried to break away from Belser, but she couldn’t.

“It’s illegal to force me to commit bigamy,” Anne said. “The sheriff will arrest you if you try.”

“You ain’t got no husband,” her uncle repeated. “If he was going to be here, he’d be here to get this ranch, not because he wanted to marry some—”

Anne let go of the post long enough to slap her uncle. “Don’t say it! Don’t ever say it again. If you do, I swear I’ll kill you!”

Apparently the fury, the pure hatred she felt for him, surprised him so much that he closed his mouth. He didn’t dare hit her in front of so many men. They wouldn’t lift a finger to keep her from being forced to become the wife of a savage old bastard like Cyras, but they wouldn’t put up with his hitting her. Anne didn’t understand that. She’d rather be beaten regularly than have to spend one night under the same roof as Cyrus McCaine, much less in his bed.

Cyrus gave a tug, but Anne had renewed her hold on the post. She was only seventeen and petite, but she was strong.

But not strong enough. Cyrus held her while her uncle pried her fingers loose from the post.

“You wouldn’t do this if the foreman were here,” Dolores said again. “It’s not lawful.”

“We’re the law out here,” Cyrus said, “and what we say goes.”

Anne was all too aware of the truth of that statement. The Wyoming Territory was thinly settled, mostly by powerful men who owned large ranches. They had long ago become accustomed to taking the law into their own hands to deal with rustlers, thieves, and property disputes. It was only one step further to dealing with women.

Anne could see only one end to this struggle, but she intended to fight every step of the way. She still had half an hour. Peter could still arrive, though she’d lost hope he would.

He was supposed to have arrived eleven days ago. When he was a week overdue, she feared he wasn’t coming. She didn’t understand. His letters had promised her he would arrive in time to claim his inheritance. By the time Cyrus and her uncle arrived that morning, she’d given up hope.

Peter had probably decided that running a hardware store, even one that was losing money, had to be easier than running a ranch. He had been her last hope. With her father killed by a grizzly and her mother dead from pneumonia, she was at her Uncle Frank’s mercy. He’d never treated her like a cherished niece, only someone to be ashamed of. From the moment her mother died, he’d thought of nothing but finding her a husband … for a price.

Anne’s father had been Carl Warren’s foreman. The two men had come to Wyoming together, established the ranch together. After her parents’ deaths, Carl had given Anne a home, let her call him “uncle.” She had been safe as long as he lived. He was dead now. If Peter didn’t show up, Belser, Carl’s wife’s nephew, would inherit the ranch. He didn’t like Anne. He wouldn’t care if she were forced to marry Cyrus.