The Wild Gun Read online

  Cord waited.

  When the horse’s head was down and his target’s chest was exposed, he held his breath and squeezed the trigger.

  A moment later, perhaps a half second later, Earl fired his rifle.

  Cord saw the man he had shot throw up one arm and reel in the saddle. He thought he saw a puff of dust rise off the man’s chest.

  The first rider, James Rowan, spun around and dropped his binoculars as Earl’s bullet ripped through his upper arm and entered his chest cavity. He gasped for a last breath as the main artery to his heart severed and his lungs filled with blood. The bullet ripped through his back and blood gushed through a fist-sized hole.

  Rowan’s rifle slid from the pommel and struck the ground, muzzle first. He clutched at the hole in his chest before he slumped over and fell sideways out of his saddle.

  The man was dead before he hit the ground.

  “Come on,” Cord said to Earl as he slid backward, his rifle now at his side. He slid his hand up and grabbed it by the slightly warm barrel to keep the muzzle out of the dirt.

  Neither he nor Earl reloaded, but both slid backward like lizards in reverse.

  Then Cord rose to his feet and ran, hunched over, back to where they had left their hats.

  Cord and Earl did not look back, but they heard distant shouts from what must have been the ranch house.

  They ran fast and fell to their butts when they reached the trees. They quickly put on their hats. Then, still hunched over, they retreated to the place where they had tied their horses.

  Both were out of breath when they climbed back into the saddle.

  They sheathed their rifles and rode well away from the Weatherall ranch, toward the foothills and the mountains. They put spurs to their horses and galloped on to what Cord knew would be a safe haven.

  “I got him, Cord,” Earl said when they reached the safety of the foothills.

  “I know,” Cord said. “You shot well.”

  “You got your man, too. I saw him fall.”

  “That’s only two,” Cord said. “There are more. And some of them will be hunting us.”

  “I’m ready for them,” Earl said.

  Cord didn’t say anything as they coursed through the low foothills and began to struggle up into the mountains. At one point, Cord stopped on a hill and looked down at the 2Bar2 Ranch. He saw men running around and saddling horses. They were tiny images, barely visible, but he knew he and his brother had put fear in those men down there.

  Horace would know who had killed two of his men, Cord thought.

  Now it was only a question of who would be next to die.

  Cord pulled a stalk of rhubarb from his pocket and began to munch on it as they climbed ever higher up a mountain and entered heavy timber. Elk arose from their beds and moved away from them like wraiths in the shadowed solemnity of pines, spruce, fir, and juniper trees. Beams of sunlight glanced over the fallen pine needles and a hush rose up around them as they traversed a long stretch of flat ground beneath a massive outcropping of limestone rocks.

  Now Cord would wait for nightfall and strike again under the cover of darkness.

  SIXTEEN

  The men on the 2Bar2 heard the shots like distant cracks of a bullwhip. They all turned their heads in the direction of their lookout, James. They heard two shots, close together, and wondered what they meant.

  Horace looked at Harley Davis, who was pumping well water into a trough in one of the corrals.

  “Finish up there so you can check on who fired those rifle shots,” Horace told him.

  “Finishin’ up,” Davis said and stopped pumping water into the trough. His horse was close by. He mounted up and rode off in the direction he knew James Rowan had been posted.

  He returned twenty minutes later, his face drawn and pale.

  “James is dead,” he told Horace. “So is Will Corwin. One bullet hole in each man.”

  “Any sign of the shooter?”

  “Nope. He got clean away. Nary a sign of any shooter.”

  “It was that damned Wild,” Horace said. “Gather up all the men, Harley. I want to talk to all hands.”

  “Yes, sir,” he said and rode off to gather up all the hands on Weatherall’s ranch.

  Horace sent men out to retrieve the dead lookouts and their horses and bring them back for burial. When they returned, he looked at the bodies and felt his anger rise in him.

  He told the small assemblage of men what he wanted.

  “I’m upping the reward money for anyone who kills Wild,” he said. “Two hundred dollars. Harley,” he said to Davis, “I want you to bring in our man on the JB Ranch. You know who I mean. He’s no longer needed there, but I need him.”

  Davis nodded and separated from the other men. “I’ll go get him,” he said to Horace.

  “The rest of you may notice that our numbers have thinned. I expect more men soon, and more horses, when my brother, Abner, gets here from Missouri. In the meantime, I want you to put most of our stock out to pasture and hunt down Cord Wild. That’s my main priority. Be careful and hunt hard. I want his scalp and his hide.”

  The men dispersed as Harley rode off toward the JB Ranch.

  Horace left for town a half hour later with cash from his safe. He wanted to see the banker who held the mortgage on the JB Ranch, one Jeremy Conway, at the Cheyenne Bank & Trust. He wanted that ranch and he meant to buy up the mortgage and foreclose on Jesse’s widow.

  • • •

  Ernesto noticed that Danny Larrimore had been more secretive since the death of their boss, Jesse Barnes. Ernesto had had suspicions about Danny for some time, but when he saw him ride out, away from the ranch house and corrals, he followed at a distance.

  Danny rode to a grove of oak trees out of sight of the house and stayed for some time. Then he rode back to the ranch, taking a different route.

  Ernesto went into the grove and looked at all the trees. Two of them grew close together and he saw a note in the crotch where the two trees joined. He retrieved it and read it.

  Widow broke. Needs another loan. Daughter offering to go to work. No sign of Wild.

  Ernesto put the note back.

  A rage built up in him. Danny had betrayed them. He thought about the ride with him when they’d tracked the stolen mares.

  Danny had known where to go. Yes, he glanced at the tracks, but he knew all along that he was leading Jesse into a trap. It was the same when they reached the gully. Danny had seen the tracks leading away, but had not seemed surprised.

  He wished Wild were here. Danny was a dangerous man. Nobody knew much about him, but he was from somewhere in Missouri.

  He must have known Horace Weatherall and gone to work for Jesse just to spy on him.

  The thought that Danny was a traitor to the brand made Ernesto sick to his stomach. He felt as if he would puke just thinking about such a betrayal.

  And he didn’t know what to do about it. He could tell Abigail, but then she would be even more devastated. He could confront Danny and call him out, but that would be perilous. Danny was fast on the draw and he was a dead shot.

  If only Cord Wild were here, Ernesto could go to him. Cord would know what to do, and if Cord confronted Danny, then Danny was a dead man.

  Ernesto decided to keep silent about Danny for now. None of the other men would dare go against the quick-drawing traitor, so Ernesto would just wait until he could talk to Wild. That was the safest thing to do, and the smartest.

  He would just keep an eye on Danny for any suspicious activity. That was what he could do until Wild returned.

  He hoped it would be enough to keep Abigail and Lelia from any harm.

  But when Ernesto tried to find Danny late that afternoon, there was no sign of him anywhere on the ranch.

  He went to the bunkhouse and saw that Danny’s footlocker was
unlocked. He opened it and saw that it was empty. He asked the other men if they had seen Danny and they all replied in the negative.

  Danny was no longer on the JB Ranch.

  He was gone, and Ernesto walked around in a daze and with a heavy heart for the rest of the day. He had a secret and he could tell no one but Cord Wild.

  SEVENTEEN

  Horace rode back to the ranch just before nightfall. He had persuaded the banker to sell him the JB mortgage, which would be in arrears in less than a month.

  Danny Larrimore was waiting for him, and the two entered the house. As Horace closed the door, he called out to one of his men.

  “Bring Jessup to the house,” he said.

  “What’s up?” Danny asked.

  “Any sign of Wild at the JB?” Horace asked. He waved Danny to a hard-backed chair and sat down in one covered in buffalo hide with a baronial backrest and large stuffed arms.

  The front room was stocked with rifles and pistols hanging on pegs, and a couple of Currier & Ives prints of New York streets hung on the wall in wooden frames. He also had a large painting of a racehorse with four white stockings and a blaze face.

  “Didn’t see him.” Danny took off his hat and looked at Horace with pale blue eyes that looked vacant and cold.

  “Too bad,” Horace said. “He killed two of my men today.”

  “The hell you say.”

  “Shot ’em down like dogs. Neither man had a chance.”

  “That don’t sound like Wild. He usually works in close and gives a man a chance.”

  “Not this time. He was some distance when he fired. May have had somebody else shoot the other one. The fellers who went out there found where they both lay down and fired their rifles.”

  “The hell you say,” Danny said again.

  “So I called you back in for a tracking job.”

  “Wild?”

  “Yes. I want you to hunt that bastard down and kill him. And I’m offering you a generous reward if you bring me back his head. But keep the amount of the reward to yourself.”

  “Will do,” Danny said. “How much of a reward?”

  “Five hundred dollars.”

  Danny whistled. “That’s more money than I’ve seen in a long while.”

  “My way is clear to take over the JB Ranch. I bought up the paper today at the bank. Just a matter of time before the land is in my hands.”

  “You still got money left from that Missouri bank job?”

  “Yeah, I do. I’m a saver and I’m frugal,” Horace said.

  “You are, I know.”

  There was a knock on the door.

  “Come in,” Horace called.

  Bart Jessup opened the door and walked into the front room. “You called for me?” he said to Horace. Then he saw Danny, who rose from his chair.

  “Bart, what in hell are you doin’ here?” Danny asked. “I thought you was with Abner.”

  “I was,” Jessup said. “He’s on his way, with thirty head of horses.”

  The two men embraced briefly.

  “Have a seat, Jessup,” Horace said.

  “That true? Your brother is a-comin’ here?” Danny asked.

  “So Jessup said. He can tell you all about it later. I wanted you to know he was here and that Abner will bring more men with him.”

  “Sounds like you got it all figured out, Horace,” Danny said.

  “Most of it. It all depends on you right now.”

  “Just point me where Wild was and I’ll get to trackin’,” Danny said.

  “Bart,” Horace said, “you saw where Wild and the other man lit out when they killed my men this morning.”

  “Yeah. We found signs in a clump of trees, then some trampled grass. That led us to where they tied their horses. They were pretty slick.”

  “Take Danny out there and show him. Maybe he can track Wild down before he does any more damage.”

  “Sure. We got plenty of daylight left,” Jessup said.

  “Fine. Danny, I’m counting on you.”

  Horace rose from his chair, dismissing the two men. They both left and he walked to the window and watched them as they talked over old times.

  Danny and Jessup had grown up together back in Missouri. Both had been with Horace when he started robbing banks. Later, Jessup had gone to work with Abner, while Horace had brought Danny to Wyoming. Both were good hunters, but Danny was the better tracker.

  Now, all he had to do was wait for his brother to arrive with the horses stolen from the Wild ranch, and for Danny to kill Cordwainer Wild.

  He rubbed his hands in anticipation of the wealth that would one day be his.

  And his alone.

  EIGHTEEN

  Cord reined up as they left the timber. They had to cross a bare, almost grassless stretch of ground. He dismounted, handed his reins to Earl, and walked back to a large spruce tree.

  “What are you doing?” Earl asked.

  “Cutting us some brooms,” Cord said.

  As Earl watched, Cord crawled under the tree and drew his knife. He cut off two long-needled branches and returned to his horse. He handed one of the branches to Earl.

  “Follow me in single file,” he said, “and drag that branch behind you. Switch it back and forth like I do.”

  They rode across the open spot, brushing away their tracks behind them. When they reached the timber on the other side, Cord halted and looked back.

  “Good job,” he said.

  “No tracks that I can see.”

  “You never know who might be on your trail up here,” Cord said.

  They saw more elk in the next stand of timber. The cows arose from their beds, and their young ones traipsed after them as they slunk away over deadfalls and around brush until they were all gone.

  The Wild brothers climbed higher, past large rocky outcroppings, and Cord stopped over one of these where the ground was flat.

  “We’ll stay here,” he said as he dismounted and tied Windmill to a grassy spot where a small juniper grew.

  Earl dismounted and found a spot for his horse. Cord heard him talk to the animal and call the gelding “Louie.”

  “That the name you gave that horse, Earl?” Cord asked.

  “Yeah. That’s his name.”

  “Didn’t you have a puppy named that when you were just a tyke?”

  “Yeah, I did. Louie died, so I gave the name to my horse.”

  They sat and leaned against two pine trees. Cord chewed on a stalk of rhubarb while Earl gnawed on hardtack.

  “Do you think they’ll come after us?” Earl asked.

  “Likely, they’ll look for us. I don’t think any of Horace’s men are good trackers. Not here in the mountains.”

  “Good. I’d hate to be surprised by any of ’em ridin’ up on us.”

  “We’ll go back down early in the morning,” Cord said.

  “Not tonight?”

  “Let ’em sleep. Before dawn, those who are up for early chores will be drowsy and the rest will be asleep. He has only a few men left, I reckon.”

  “That sounds okay to me.”

  They were silent for several moments. Then Cord finished his rhubarb and wiped his hands together.

  “How do you feel about killing a man, Earl?” Cord asked.

  Earl thought about that for several moments before he answered. “When I shot that man, I wasn’t thinking he was human,” Earl said. “I didn’t have no feelings at all until I saw him fall off his horse.”

  “And then what?”

  “It was kind of like killin’ a chicken. Or a coon. I felt, well, kind of good that I had done it.”

  “Didn’t you think about the man? That you cut his life short?”

  “Not right then I didn’t. Later, I felt kind of sick inside. Why? What do you feel whe
n you kill a man?”

  “It’s a heavy weight on a man’s shoulders, to take a human life,” Cord said.

  “So, you feel bad afterward?”

  “I don’t think of just that one man, but of the whole human race,” Cord said.

  “You do?”

  “When you take a life, you are subtracting something from the earth, from the entire universe. Then I wonder about all the people who are alive, who were born just like us and raised and taught to obey the government and its laws. And I wonder why some men break those laws and are caught and hanged or shot in front of a firing squad. And I begin to think about men and civilization itself. I wonder why people are born and then they die, either of old age, of disease, or at the hands of another.”

  “Holy cow, that’s a lot to think about,” Earl said.

  “It is. But that’s what I think about. And I think about the preacher who talks about heaven and another life after this one.”

  “Do you believe that stuff, Cord?”

  “I think about it. Everything on earth dies. We are here for a very short time. I wonder why.”

  “Why do you think?”

  “It doesn’t make much sense to me that we are born and given life, and then die. What is our purpose in being here in the first place? Or is there something beyond this one? Is there such a place as heaven or the Happy Hunting Grounds? If so, what do we do there? What would be the purpose of that kind of life?”

  “Boy, you really think deep, don’t you?” Earl said.

  “I wonder what happens with all of men’s accomplishments after they die. What happens to the minds of men who wrote books or composed beautiful music or painted pictures? What happens to the music? Does it go to heaven where others can enjoy it, or does it just stay here?”

  “I never thought about any of that stuff,” Earl said.

  “Well, I do. All the time. Especially when I have to kill a man and cut his life short.”

  “Do you feel guilty?”

  “We picked those men off like squirrels,” Cord said. “I feel bad about just shooting them down like that.”

  “How come?”

  “They didn’t have the chance to defend themselves. They were not allowed to spend those last few moments of life thinking about why they were going to die. They had no chance to think about eternity.”