“You’ll find him in Cheyenne. He’s the son of a bitch that got us into this. If I’m goin’ down I want him to go down, too.”
“I appreciate the information,” Matt said.
“Are you just goin’ to stand there and watch me die?” McCoy asked. “Aren’t you even going to try and patch me up?”
“There’s nothing I can do for you,” Matt said.
“You son of a bitch! You are enjoyin’ it, ain’t you? You are enjoyin’ watchin’ me die!”
Matt remembered the description the sheriff had given him of Jarvis’s wife and daughter.
“They had both been raped, Matt. Then their throats was cut and they bled to death. Not only that, we found ’em both naked. The sons of bitches didn’t even have the decency to cover ’em up.”
“Yeah,” Matt replied. “I am.”
McCoy drew a few more ragged gasps, then stopped breathing. When Matt knew he was dead, he pushed the two bodies out of the cave opening, letting them fall a hundred feet to the rocky ground below. Then he climbed down after them and, finding their horses, threw the two bodies over the saddles. He had no idea whether he had matched the right body with the right horse or not, but he didn’t care.
Looking through the saddlebags, he found a little over six thousand dollars in each bag.
The next day, Matt rode into Livermore with the two bodies draped over their horses. Stopping in front of the sheriff’s office, he was met by Sheriff Garrison and a couple of his deputies. In addition, curiosity had drawn at least a dozen townspeople to the sheriff’s office.
“Who did you get?” Sheriff Garrison asked.
“Sullivan and McCoy,” Matt said. He opened his saddlebag. “And I’ve recovered twelve thousand dollars that was taken from the bank.”
“Twelve thousand?” one of the townspeople replied. “Hell, that’s just a little over half the money that was took. Where is the rest of it? Are you keepin’ it?”
Matt fixed the questioner with a stare that caused him to gasp, then begin to wilt in fear.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” he said.
“How did you mean it?” Matt asked.
“I meant, that is, I was just wonderin’ where the rest of the money is, is all. I wasn’t actually thinkin’ you kept it or nothin’.”
To the townsman’s relief, Matt turned his attention back to the sheriff.
“Before McCoy died, he told me that Plummer had gone to Cheyenne.”
“I’ll wire the sheriff there,” Sheriff Garrison said.
“You can wire him if you want to,” Matt replied. “But I am personally going after him. I will send what money I find on him back to the bank here.”
“You’re a good man, Matt,” Sheriff Garrison said.
Matt left the bodies with the sheriff, then remounted Spirit. He looked back toward the man who had asked him about the rest of the money, but the man wouldn’t meet his gaze.
Clucking at his horse, Matt rode out of town at a trot. He had a long way to go.
Chapter Four
Powder River Cattle Company Ranch, Taney Creek
First week of May 1884
Paul Graham, Phil Bates, Emmitt Carol, and Cooter Miles were in the Taney Creek line shack. They had come up two weeks ago to make preparations for the spring roundup.
“What do you mean? Are you trying to tell me you’ve never even had a woman?” Graham asked Emmitt.
Emmitt cleared his throat in embarrassment. “I’m only sixteen. I ain’t never really had the chance to do it. I wouldn’t even know how to go about gettin’ a woman interested in me.”
“Hell,” Bates said. “There ain’t nothin’ to that. All you got to do is go to a whorehouse. If you got the money, whores don’t care how old you are.”
“I don’t know about that. Mama said she didn’t want me seein’ any whores.”
“Where is your mama now?” Cooter asked.
“She’s down in Denver.”
“Then what your mama don’t know won’t hurt her none, will it?”
“Tell you what, boys,” Graham said. “How ’bout the next time we all go into town together, we get this boy broke in. We’ll chip in and buy ’im a whore.”
“Buy him a whore? Hell, most of the time, I don’t have enough money for my own whore, why should I pay for the boy?” Bates asked.
“Because we got to get him broke in good, and I figure the best one to handle that would be Cavalry Mona,” Graham said.
“Ha!” Cooter said. “Yeah, Cavalry Mona. Now, I would be willin’ to help pay for that.”
“Why do they call her Cavalry Mona?” Emmitt asked with some trepidation.
“They call her that ’cause near ’bout ever’one in the United States Cavalry has rode her, at least once,” Bates said.
“I don’t know,” Emmitt said. “Is she pretty?”
All three of the other cowboys laughed. “Is she pretty, you ask? Hell, boy, you don’t go with whores ’cause they’re pretty. You go with ’em because they are there.”
“What do you say, Emmitt? You ’bout ready to become a man?
“I—I think I’d better go down to the creek and get us some water,” Emmitt said, taking the bucket and going outside.
Bates laughed a low, knowing laugh. “You know what I think? I think our Emmitt ain’t all that fired up ’bout beddin’ Cavalry Mona.”
“Who knows?” Graham teased. “I’m thinkin’ maybe we’ll be able to talk him into it,” Graham said.
“Whose time is it to cook breakfast?” Bates asked.
“It’s your time,” Graham and Cooter both replied.
“Well then, I’d better get started.”
“I’ll give you a hand,” Graham offered.
The two men started putting together what they would need for breakfast. Bates got out the flour and lard for biscuits, Graham started carving off pieces of bacon.
“I wonder what the hell is keeping Emmitt with the water,” Cooter said. “Maybe I’d better go take a look.”
“Hurry back, I ain’t got enough water to roll out the biscuits with,” Bates said.
Graham got out his book and started writing.
“You’re always writin’ in that book of your’n,” Bates said. “What is it you’re a-writin’, anyhow? You writin’ a story or somethin’? You goin’ to publish a book and become famous? ‘Cooking on the Range with Two Gun Pete,’” he teased.
“I’m not writin’ a book. I’m just takin’ notes is all,” Graham said.
Bates walked over to the window and looked outside. “That’s funny,” he said.
“What?”
“Well, there ain’t neither one of ’em come back yet, and I don’t even see either one of ’em down to the crick.”
Graham walked over to look as well.
“Maybe I’d better go see what’s keepin’ ’em.”
“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” Graham said.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t like the looks of this. I think there might be someone out there keepin’ ’em from comin’ back in.”
Suddenly, a fusillade of shooting erupted and bullets crashed through the window.
Bates moved over to look through the window. “Damn! It’s the Yeller Kerchief rustlers!” he shouted.
“Bates, you better get down.”
There was another episode of heavy shooting, and Bates cried out.
“I been shot! Graham, I been shot!” Bates said.
Bates went down and Graham went over to check on him. Bates had been hit in the stomach and in the side. He was groaning softly.
“Bates? Bates?”
Bates tried to get up.
“No, I think you’d be better off if you don’t move. Wait, I’ll see what I can do about stoppin’ the bleedin’.”
Staying low on the floor, Graham crawled over to the bunk and pulled off a blanket. Returning to Bates, he tore the blanket into a couple of strips and wrapped them around Bates, covering the wounds.