Powder River (20 page)

Early in January, Richard Faucett had sent Fred Jolly south to Colorado to buy conditioned horses for his army of cattlemen. They had to arrive ready to ride and primed for hard going, for it would have aroused suspicion if he and the other ranchers were seen preparing their horses so far in advance of spring roundup. Faucett also dispatched a cowboy from Texas back to his home state to assemble a legion of gunmen, twenty-two to twenty-five in number, with the story they were being hired to track down a band of outlaws.

Faucett took for himself the two most prickly tasks. First, he arranged with Union Pacific Railroad officials for the transport of fifty armed men and horses from Cheyenne to Casper, which would be the launching point for Faucett's expeditionary force. Starting in northern Johnson County, the regulators, as they called themselves, would march southward, eliminating rustlers along the way. From there, they would continue south and east, through Converse County, and then west, through Natrona. Once the transportation was arranged, Faucett turned his attention to negotiations with Amos Barber, Wyoming's acting governor, to ensure that city and country officials would not be able to enlist local militias to halt the invaders' advance.

All this planning kept Faucett at his desk. One warm evening Faucett was sitting in his study by an open window, writing intently, when Odalie entered in a draft of jasmine-scented perfume. She rarely disturbed him at work. In fact, they rarely occupied the same room. The tension between them was palpable, yet never discussed. But this afternoon she had learned of the attack on Billy and Nate Coday at the line shack in the mountains. Only now did she fully realize how dangerous Richard was, the depths to which his hatred would lead him.

“What are you working on, darling?” she said, affecting her usual airy manner. He covered his writing when she came to kiss his cheek.

“Some figures Jolly wanted for spring roundup.”

She sat on the black upholstered sofa and gave a great yawn. “How dreary. You know, Richard, I believe I'll return to Denver. I need a few items to finish my spring wardrobe. You won't be needing me for anything just now, will you?”

Richard returned to his work. “No, of course not. In fact, that's a splendid idea, Odalie. Yes, do go, as soon as you like, and stay as long as you like. I'm busy and I know how easily bored you are.”

The Chinese serving man tapped lightly on the door and entered with a small bow. “Mr. Canton here to see you, sir.”

Odalie wrinkled her nose. She had never tried to hide her dislike of the former sheriff. “I'll go now and start packing. I'm sure you and Frank have much to talk about.” She passed Canton in the doorway, stepping to the side to give him a wide berth. Canton made a show of examining the sole of his boot.

“Did I step in something?” he said, smiling.

“I don't know, Mr. Canton.” She spoke softly, returning his smile. “Did you? Perhaps that explains it.”

“Well, I guess we can't all smell sweet as your Indian buck, if that's what you like—and I suppose you do. What I hear anyhow.”

Richard, still at his desk, looked up from his writing. “What are you two talking about?”

Odalie laughed though her heart was pounding. “We were just discussing men's colognes.”

* * *

The two men sat in armchairs, separated by a low table, before the window. It was still open though the late winter evening had gone cold. Faucett held a snifter of brandy, Canton a glass with three fingers of whiskey. Reaching across the table, Faucett handed the former sheriff the document he'd been working on when Odalie interrupted him.

“This is it?” Canton said.

“Yes,” Faucett leaned back in his chair. “Seventy names. I don't care whether they die by the noose or the gun, so long as it's done.”

Canton's eyes ran down the page. “Seventy? I didn't think there'd be so many. Sheriff Angus and his deputies, all three county commissioners, Joe DeBarthe at the newspaper. I know these men.” He took a mouthful of whiskey. “I didn't think the list would be this long.”

Faucett crossed his short legs, jiggling his foot impatiently. “Are you losing your nerve, Frank? Because if you are, it's not too late to back out. Just return the money I gave you, and I'll enlist someone else. There's no shortage of candidates.”

Canton cleared his throat. “No. No, Lord Faucett, I'm not backing out. We can't let the rustling go on like it is, but what happens if the locals call out the militia or the national guard? What happens then?”

Faucett waved his hand. “Don't worry about that. I told you to leave those things to me. Barber has issued an edict saying no armed force may be mobilized until he gives authorization. And he won't. I have his word.”

“And what happens in Buffalo? All the people, how do we manage that?”

“First, you take the courthouse and seize the weapons there.” Faucett gestured with his snifter toward the paper in Canton's hand. “Then tend to your list, disable the opposition. The telegraph lines will be cut, of course. Once our opponents are out of the way, once the people see the lay of the land, they will rise to support you. Already we've had many pledges of allegiance, many offers of wagons and horses and supplies. The honest cattlemen of Wyoming are hot to reclaim what is rightfully theirs! Things will be as they were meant to be, as they were when I first arrived here. This country was not created for grubby little men with dirty hands and dirty families who get by on stealing the livestock and holdings of others. It was not!” Faucett banged his fist on the upholstered arm of his chair.

Canton said, “I'm surprised to see Dr. Dixon on the list.”

“Are you? And why's that? That red renegade, Sun, is his protégé, is he not? Are they not, as you Americans say, in cahoots?”

“Well, they're friends. But Dixon has never been involved in rustling, far as I know, and besides, he's a good doctor, the only one we got. We need him.”

“Paugh!” Faucett got to his feet. “Physicians are a dime a dozen. He supports Sun and that lot and he's got to go—I advise you not to argue with me on this, Canton. Anyway, you needn't deal with him yourself. I've arranged for someone else to take care of the good doctor.”

Faucett went to his desk, selected a cigar from a gold-plated humidor, clipped and lit it, turning it in his fingers and drawing until it glowed to his satisfaction. Its aroma filled the room but Faucett did not offer one to his guest. Instead he walked to Canton's chair and stood before him, looking down as he spoke. “You and your men made a mare's nest of that business at the line shack, Frank. You were supposed to take care of Billy Sun and Nate Coday, and instead you let them get away,” he said. “How did that happen?”

Canton had been expecting this but, even so, beads of perspiration popped out on his forehead. “It just did.”

Faucett shook his head. “I'm disappointed, Frank. I thought you were an able man.”

“I am. I don't know what happened; maybe Sun knew we were coming. Maybe someone warned him.”

“And who would do that?”

Canton shifted in his chair. Only one candidate came to mind, but he wasn't prepared to introduce that line of conversation with her husband. “I don't know.”

“You say that often, don't you, Frank? ‘I don't know, I don't know,' over and over.” Faucett turned and went back to his chair. “All right. I'm a reasonable man. You're allowed one mistake. You hear me, Frank? One.”

Odalie, listening breathlessly on the flagstone terrace outside the window, had heard enough. She turned and ran on cat's paws to the kitchen door, praying Chang did not see her. She made it through the kitchen undetected and flew up the stairs to her room. Soundlessly, she pulled her suitcases from under the bed and began to pack. The time had come.

Dixon finally got the bullet but not without a lot of digging. The slug was lodged firmly in the bone, and Dixon had to employ the screw, a difficult instrument and one he turned to rarely, to work it free. He dropped the bloody, misshapen chunk of metal in a basin, where it landed with an oddly cheerful clink. No artery had been severed, but bits of Nate's nightshirt had been driven deep into the wound and these had to be removed with forceps along with shards of splintered bone. As was his custom, Dixon talked to the unconscious Nate during the operation. This was a habit he had acquired during the war and, more than once, a patient told him he had heard and been comforted by Dixon's voice during the procedure. At first, Dixon was skeptical, but many times the man had been able to repeat words or phrases Dixon had spoken.

After the operation, Dixon and Cal moved Nate to a bed in a darkened corner at the rear of the surgery. Dixon glanced at the clock: two thirty. His eyes burned and felt as if the lids were lined with sandpaper. He wanted sleep and the cool comfort of clean white sheets, but first, he had to talk to Billy.

“Stay with him, Cal,” Dixon said. “When he wakes up, give him morphine sulfate, one-half drachm. Later, when he's able to take it, beef tea every two hours, or as he tolerates. You know what to do.”

Cal nodded. “Do you believe Frank Canton did this?”

“I don't know what to believe. When we moved, I thought the killing was done here. I've always loved Powder River country, ever since your mother and I first saw it twenty-six years ago. I've always thought of it as a place where our children could grow up in peace. Now the killing has come again, only this time we don't have the Indians to blame it on.” Dixon shook his head. “It's such a waste. Things could be so different.” He noticed Cal was wearing his gun.

“What's that for?” he said, gesturing toward Cal's hip.

Cal touched the holstered weapon. “It seemed like a good idea, what with Billy and Nate showing up like that. You never know who's going to be next.”

“You're probably right. Where is Billy?”

“I heard him tell Lorna he was going to the barn.”

Dixon nodded wearily and walked to the door. “I'll ask her to relieve you in a few hours.” Before leaving he turned back to his son, sitting at Nate's bedside in the darkness. “Thank you, Cal. You were a big help to me tonight. I do count on you, you know.”

“Do you? You've never said.” Dixon could not see Cal's face but he heard a strangeness in his son's voice.

“I haven't said many things to you and your sister I should have,” Dixon said. “I'm sorry for that. I hope it's not too late to make things better.”

Silence followed.

“Good night, Pa,” Cal said. “Don't worry, I'll see to things here.”

* * *

Dixon found Billy in the barn, sleeping soundly under Heck's saddle blanket on a mound of fresh hay. He thought about letting Billy rest—he and Nate had been worn out when they arrived—but Dixon decided he'd want to know the result of Nate's operation. Dixon leaned down and shook Billy gently by the shoulder. He woke with a start, sitting up with straws of hay clinging to his long black hair.

“What—oh, Doctor, it's you. How's Nate?”

Dixon sat beside him. “It took longer than I expected, but I got the bullet and cleaned the wound out well. Coin's still in the air, infection is always a risk, but I'd say his chances are good.”

Billy's shoulders sank with relief. “I'd take it real hard if anything happened to Nate. He's like a brother to me.”

Dixon looked down at his hands. “Are you sure it was Canton who attacked you this morning? I mean, are you sure enough to say it?”

Billy turned to him with surprise. “Doc, you know what's going on. There's no way around this. It was Canton, and Faucett sent him. It's the range war Faucett and them are forever gassing on about. It's started.”

“Could be,” Dixon said. “But, as you say, Faucett's been ‘gassing on' for a long time now. It's never been clear to me he'd actually go through with it.” He hesitated. “Is that what this is about, a range war, or is there something else between you and Richard Faucett?” He raised his eyes to meet Billy's. “Something personal maybe?”

“You mean me and his wife? Is that what you're asking?”

“I guess I am.”

Billy stood, brushing the hay from his clothes and hair. “Are you going to counsel me about getting in bed with another man's wife? How bad things come of it?”

Dixon shook his head. Rose was married to another man when he fell in love with her, so he didn't feel qualified to lecture Billy on that particular topic. “You're a grown man, you don't need any advice from me. But there is talk, and Odalie Faucett is the kind of woman a man might kill for. It occurred to me that might be the cause of what happened today.”

Billy's face went dark as Heck's blanket. “I don't talk about Odalie, Doctor. Not with anyone, not even you. Anyhow, what happened to me and Nate this morning wasn't about that. I'm sure of it. It's about the roundup, about rights to the range. I figure Faucett and them plan to pick us all off, one at a time, pop! pop! pop! and with our early roundup coming, things are heating up. Way I see it, nobody's safe. Again, not even you.”

Dixon had had the same thought. Everyone knew Billy Sun was practically a member of the Dixon family. If it really was the range war, if Faucett and the WSGA planned to get rid of the “rustlers” and their associates, Dixon could well be a target.

“I'm going to the Lazy L and B,” Billy said. “I'll call the boys in. We'll go on getting set for the roundup, but our guns will be ready. If Faucett and his hired shooters come for us, they'll have a fight on their hands. They don't scare me. Besides, we have the law on our side.”

Dixon said, “Billy, I wouldn't put much store in Red Angus and his deputies. You'd best go into this clear-eyed.”

“I understand,” Billy said. “But it's the sheriff's job to get involved. That's why the people of Johnson County elected him. Maybe he'll surprise us.”

“Maybe.”

Outside, the rooster crowed. Dixon got to his feet and knocked the hay off his trousers. “I'm going to get some sleep. Are you leaving now?”

Billy nodded. “Can Nate stay with you till he's ready to ride?”

“Of course. We'll take good care of him. Come and get some breakfast before you go.”

The men were walking to the house when Lorna ran out the door, flushed and breathless. “Pa!” she said. “Oh, Pa! I was just now coming for you. I went to the surgery to relieve Cal, like you told me, and Nate, he was down on the floor all in blood. He's dead, Pa—Nate's dead. And Cal's gone!” She gestured toward the tracks left by Cal's horse, a hard-hoofed animal he kept unshod.