Sins of the Father (10 page)

 

“What is it, Jess,” Sara asked.

“A change in plans. Looks like it’s another lucky day for Eddie Sloan.”
“What happened?” asked Tony.
“A good friend of mine, Sheriff Steele down in Timber, Texas has been ambushed and shot. It seems that a ranch war has erupted between two ranch owners and my friends in Timber are square in the middle of it.”
“I know Sheriff Steele,” said Sheriff Eaves, “and I know Marshal Reedy. Reedy can handle it.”
“Maybe he can, but he’s about to get some help,” replied Jess, as he swung up into the saddle. “It was a nice visit but I have to ride fast and hard.”
Jess nodded to everyone as he took off out the east end of town and headed in the direction of Timber, Texas. He figured it would take him at least three days of hard riding to get there. It was times like this that he appreciated the two fine long horses that Cal Hardin had given him.

F

rank Reedy and the three deputies, along with Marsh Carsen, Alfred Calahan and Roland Johnston were drenched from the rain that had not let up on their way back to Timber. The three men who volunteered for the posse had split off from Reedy and the three deputies about a mile out of town and headed for their respective homesteads. Reedy and the three deputies all had their slickers pulled up tight

around their collars and their hats tilted down. That’s probably the only reason why Marshal Reedy or the other three deputies didn’t see what they normally would have noticed. They were only about three hundred feet from the single main street of Timber when they were stopped by four men, each of them wielding a scattergun. The four men were Treat Knudsen, Richard Braun, Fred McAllister and Lester Kennedy.

“Hold up there, Marshal. Don’t any of you try for your weapons or we’ll open up on you with these here scatterguns,” said Treat Knudsen.

Reedy knew a bad situation when he was in one, and four scatterguns going off all at once would definitely be as bad as it gets. He knew that they had no chance. Their slickers were in the way of getting to their pistols.

“Men,” Reedy said to the deputies, “don’t try anything. They’ve got the drop on us. We’ll have to wait for another time.”

“Shut up and get off those horses, one at a time,” said Knudsen. “McAllister, grab their reins.” McAllister took the reins of each horse as Reedy and his deputies dismounted. Then, they walked Reedy, Banks, Abel and Buck right down the middle of the street and through the mud and up the two steps to the jail. There were two men armed with scatterguns guarding the front of the jail. Dale Tombs and Gus Gilroy had been sitting in rocking chairs and they stood up as Reedy and his men got to the wooden walk under the overhang of the jail.

“Well, I’ll be damned. Marshal Frank Reedy himself, come to pay us a visit in our new jail cell. What do you think of that, Gus?” asked Tombs.

“I think it’s mighty nice of the Marshal here to come and stay a night or two. The food’s real good, Marshal. All the bread and water you boys can choke down.”

Knudsen prodded Reedy with the barrel of the scattergun and Gus Gilroy opened the door. Reedy and his three men walked into the small office. There were two more armed men inside. Vernon Foster and Leonard Sand had been playing poker before Reedy and his men had been walked down the street, but they were now standing up and holding rifles. They were not taking any chances with Reedy and his men. Foster opened up a jail cell and Knudsen pushed all four of them into the one cell. Vernon Foster locked the cell door.

Reedy took off his hat. “This cell ain’t big enough for four men. Why don’t you put two of us in the other cell?”

“Because we don’t have to do anything you say, Marshal. You ain’t running things around here anymore than Sheriff Steele is,” responded Knudsen.

“Where is the sheriff?”

 

“Why, he’s all laid up over at the Doc’s place.

He’s taking a slow walk to hell.”
“You men will hang for this, I can promise you
that, said Reedy. There will be more marshals
looking for me if I don’t check in regular.”
“Oh, we’ll be checking in for you over at the
telegraph office since you’ll be unavailable. We’ll
make sure your message says that everything is just
fine and that you don’t need any more help.” Tex, who had been sleeping in the other cell, was
now awake and moaning. Buck walked over to look
at Tex who was lying on the floor, wounded in two
places and still bleeding.
“Tex, it’s Buck, can you hear me?” Buck asked. Tex just moaned again, not opening his eyes. He
moved a little and then fell off to sleep again. Reedy
and the four men took off their slickers and two of
them sat on the bunk and the other two sat on the floor. Knudsen and the other three men with him left, leaving Vernon Foster and Leonard Sand in the jail.
Vernon locked the door after they left.
“Me and my men could use some hot coffee,”
said Reedy. “We’ve been riding in that downpour all
day.”
Vernon and Leonard looked at each other as if
the other one was supposed to decide what to do.
Vernon sat back down, leaving it up to Leonard to
decide whether or not to make a pot of coffee for the
four wet men. “I guess I can make a pot of coffee for
you. I’d be wantin’ a hot cup right about now if I was
you boys. Just make sure you sit still and don’t give
us any reason to shoot you ‘cause those are our
orders.”
“Orders from who?” Reedy asked.
“Orders from the new boss in town, Mr. Rance
Madden.”
“So now he owns the town?”
Leonard looked over at Reedy with a glare. “You
want this coffee or not?”
Reedy knew that if he pressed it, his men
wouldn’t get any coffee and quite frankly, they
needed something to warm them up and so did he.
They were shivering badly from the damp cold.

R

ance Madden had made Jed’s Saloon his new office. He stayed there with several of his men planning his next move. He had been informed that Marshal Reedy and his two deputies along with Buck were locked behind bars at the jail. That left Madden with an open hand to do whatever he was willing to do without interference from the law. Pattie had spent most of her time cooking for Madden and his men, and Jed, a timid man, kept serving them whiskey. Once in a while Pattie would say something to Madden, but whenever she did, one of Madden’s men would shove her back into the kitchen. One time they shoved her so hard she fell to the floor and

banged her head on the corner of a cabinet, leaving her with a large knot on the top of her head. The knot had gone down somewhat but not her temper. She was still furious about what Madden had done to Sheriff Steele and she would never forgive Madden for it. Sometimes her temper would flare and she thought that she would lose complete control and get herself shot or even worse, raped and shot. The only thing that kept her in check was the thought that she had been lucky enough to get the telegraph message sent to Jess before Madden had taken complete control of the town. She prayed that Jess would get the message and she knew that if he did, he would come and help. She also knew that it meant a lot of men would die, but she didn’t care anymore. As far as she was concerned, Madden and every one of his men deserved to die. She would do it herself if given a gun and the opportunity to carry it out. But that would not happen. She had to rely solely on Jess Williams receiving her plea for help.
Madden was sitting at a large table with

Knudsen, Braun, McAllister and Kennedy. Madden was a smart man and he knew that he needed to strike again while Thornton was down.

“Men, I think that tomorrow morning we go out to the Thornton ranch and attack. Have the men stay as far back as possible and use rifle fire and try to pick off some more of Thornton’s men. If we get two or three, that will put him way down in force. We have him out-numbered at this point and I want to keep it that way. I’ve sent for several more men who should arrive at different times in the next several days. The more men we have, the better off we will be.”

“That sound’s like a good plan, boss,” replied Knudsen. “How man men do you want me to take out there?”

“Take seven men out there and be careful. Be out there before first light and get your men hunkered down. Wait for any movement in the morning and once you see two or more men visible, open fire and get as many of them as you can, and then ride out fast and hard. I don’t think Thornton will send any men to chase after you. They will want to re-group and wait for more help.”

“I see it that way too,” said Knudsen. “We’ll outsmart them and before long, we’ll burn the place to the ground. Okay, boys, let’s go and find four more men. We have our orders and we need to bunk down on the trail to Thornton’s tonight so we can hit him at first light.”

The four men walked out of the saloon. Jed brought Madden another whiskey. Pattie was looking at him from behind the doorway of the kitchen. She was glaring at him.

“Get your ass back to cooking, woman, before I come over there and give you another knot on that thick skull of yours,” exclaimed Madden.

“And why don’t you take your men and leave town now, before something even more terrible happens. You can’t escape the law forever. Do you really think that no one will ever find out what you’ve done? Do you think no one will ever come through this town again? Maybe that someone will be a marshal or a lawman and what will you do, kill them all? Don’t you think someone will get suspicious eventually? My god man, are you crazy?”

Madden’s face got beet red and he threw the coffee cup at her. She ducked into the kitchen, the cup shattering on the wall. “Keep your ass back there, woman! I swear, if you keep pissing me off, I’ll let my men have a go at you!”

CHAPTER
13
T

T
HORNTON RANCH WAS
just coming alive at first light. Henry Thornton was waiting for the hot coffee to finish and he could hear a few of his men stirring slowing. One of his men, James Malloy, went out to use the outhouse. Mack Packerd had been heading for the outhouse, but Malloy had beaten him to it and he decided to just roll a smoke on the front porch while waiting for Malloy to finish his morning constitution.

Treat Knudsen nodded at his men to spread the signal. The other seven men knew not to shoot until Knudsen fired first. Knudsen took careful aim at Packerd and fired. The slug hit Packerd right in the middle of his gut. Within seconds, dozens of rifle rounds were being fired at the Thornton ranch. Packerd took two more slugs, finishing him off for good. Several slugs splintered the wood of the outhouse and Malloy stumbled out, firing his pistol with his right hand and holding up his pants with his left. He took three slugs, two to the chest and one in the leg.

Ezra Black was running from the bunkhouse and trying to get to the house to protect Thornton. He made it to the porch but was gunned down—four rifle slugs slamming into his back. Henry Thornton ran upstairs, grabbed his Winchester, and was firing from the upstairs window. There were three more of his men in the ranch house and they were all returning fire now, but then, all of a sudden, the firing that had been raining down on them, ceased immediately. A few of Thornton’s men were still firing and Thornton ordered them to stop. Once they did, Thornton could barely hear the noise of horses running. He couldn’t see anything because the horses were running away back behind a rise and into the woods.

Thornton went down and outside to check on his men. Ezra Black lay on the porch next to Mack Packerd, and James Malloy lay dead just outside the outhouse. Amazingly, none of his other men were hit but that now left him with only seven good men. Certainly not enough to hold off any more attacks from Madden’s men, and he knew this was Madden’s work.

Toby Hewitt walked out of the ranch house with his rifle across his arm, smoke still coming from the barrel. “Boss, do you want us to go after those men out there?”

Thornton didn’t have to think long about his answer. “No. You’d probably be out-numbered and you’d probably never catch up to them. They planned this well, using rifles from a distance to pick off a few of us and then run like hell knowing that we would not be able to mount up and ride fast enough to catch up with them.”

“You figure it was Madden’s men?”
“Who else would it be? I’m sure it was Madden who ordered this attack. For now, we’ll have to hunker down here at the ranch and post guards twenty-four hours a day. We can’t afford to lose any more men. I’m going to have to send for some more men but I have a hunch that if we go into town, we’ll end up like Ezra and the other two men we lost here.”
“Boss, why don’t you let me sneak into town tonight and see just what’s going on. After I get back, if you don’t think it’s safe to go into Timber, we can send a rider to Red Rock to send for more men.”
“That sounds like a good plan but you be real careful. Don’t take the normal trail into town. If any of Madden’s men see you, they’ll shoot you on sight and I can’t afford to lose you.”
“I’ll be real careful, boss. I’ll arrange for the guards and head out at dusk tonight.”
“All right, but I suppose we need to dig some more graves. Bury these three out back next to the other seven we lost the other day. That’s ten good men dead in only a few days and all because of one greedy bastard.”
Toby Hewitt, who was now the lead boss over the other six men left, ordered Stumpy Watson and Victor King to do the first round of guard duty. He took the other four and they dug the graves and buried the three dead men. Henry Thornton slowly walked back into the house and made coffee, his head hung low as he mourned the loss of his men.

T

reat Knudsen and the other seven men rode into Timber about an hour after sunrise. They stabled their horses and headed for the saloon. When they got there, the seven men headed straight for the bar but Knudsen walked over to where Madden was sitting, eating bacon and eggs, all cooked up by Patti Nate, grudgingly.