Nest of Vipers (9781101613283) (8 page)

FIFTEEN

Julio cracked open the shotgun and removed the two shot shells. He put those in his jacket pocket and laid the gun on the bar top behind him.

“Buy you a drink, Sperling,” Brad offered.

“No, by gum, I'll buy you a drink, Sidewinder.”

Sperling strolled to the bar. Joe got off his stool and offered it to Sperling.

“Thanks,” Sperling said.

The men standing in front of the bat-wing doors dispersed and sat down at tables around the body of Avery.

“Looks like we're going to have a busy day. What's your pleasure, Mr. Sperling?” Chet Macklin asked. “The usual?”

“No, I'm working, Chet,” he said. “I'll have a beer to wash down the dust.”

One of the men at the table got up and walked to the bar after hearing what the others wanted to drink.

“We'll all have beers,” the man said. “I'll wait and carry 'em over to the tables.”

Joe poured a beer for Sperling, flicked off the excess foam and brought it to him.

“I'll pay for the boys at the tables, too,” Sperling said. He laid a pair of twenty-dollar bills on the bar.

Sperling picked up his glass and raised it in a toasting gesture. “I don't know why you killed that jasper, Sidewinder, but I didn't like the cut of his jib.”

“It's Brad Storm. You sound like you might have been a sailor once.”

“Ah, yes. I sailed the seven seas when I was just a pup. Then, in Rangoon, I saw real gold, and I came back to Coloraddy to dig it out of the ground.”

“You bought horses from that dead man and two others?”

“Yeah. They kept me supplied. We wear out horses pretty quick with all the haulin' and road buildin'. They sold 'em to me cheap.”

“They're horse thieves,” Brad said.

“Well, you know the old sayin', ‘Never look a gift horse in the mouth.' I didn't look too hard at the brands, and they had papers on 'em. Gave me bills of sale and all.”

“If you look real close at some of those brands, you can see they've been altered, Mr. Sperling.”

“Oh, call me Todd, Brad. Everyone else does. Well, some of the brands did look funny, but when I mentioned it to Curly and Nels, they just said they got 'em off'n a ranch in Laramie.”

“Were they the men who first offered you horses at a cheap price?” Joe asked.

“Matter of fact, no,” Sperling said. “Feller came down here from Cheyenne, name of Jordan Killdeer. He rode a fine horse and told a good story. Said he was overstocked on his ranch up there and was willing to provide us with horses for as long as we were workin' our mines and pannin' the streams. Free delivery and all. I took him up on his offer and next thing I knew, we had horses, good horses, to do the haulin' and draggin'.”

“Was that the last time you saw Killdeer?” Brad asked.

“Yep. He never come back. 'Stead, he sent them three: Curly, Abel, and Nels.”

“I think those three men raped and murdered my wife, Todd,” Brad said. “And stole a dozen head of horses while I was down in Leadville with my ranch foreman, Julio there.”

He nodded toward Julio.

Sperling looked at him and Joe, then swung back around to drink his beer and address Brad.

Macklin was busy filling beer glasses while the man at the bar carried them to the tables two at a time.

“That's tough,” Sperling said. “But them three fellers struck me as hard cases right from the start.”

“Well, they're gunslingers, all right, and cowards,” Brad said. “One of 'em cut my wife's throat with a knife.”

Sperling stiffened and squinched his eyes shut as if he had been stabbed himself.

Joe tapped Sperling on the shoulder to get his attention. Todd swung around to face Joe.

“Mr. Sperling, my name's Joe Blaine, and I'm a range detective. Would you be willing to testify in court about your dealings with Jordan Killdeer and those three men?”

“Range detective, eh?” Sperling said. “Well, I don't know. I don't have much truck with the law and courts and such.”

“These men are criminals, Mr. Sperling,” Joe said. “They deserve to be hanged for their crimes.”

“If you served me with a judge's subpoena, I'd show up, of course. Just don't like leavin' the diggin' for too long at a stretch.”

“It may not come to that, Todd,” Brad said. “Joe is a detective who goes by the book. If I had my way, I'd just catch the thieves and hang them from the nearest cottonwood.”

“Hell, that's my kind of justice, too,” Sperling said. “Far as I know, horse thievin' is still a hangin' offense, and if you catch one of 'em, you don't need no trial. Just a good rope and a hangin' tree.”

“We're trying to do it right,” Joe said, lamely.

“What about the stolen horses?” Sperling asked.

“You'd lose them,” Joe said. “Not only are they evidence, but they must be returned to their rightful owners.”

“So, no matter what happens with those hard cases and Killdeer, we lose our horses,” Sperling said.

“Yep,” Brad said. “The horses have to be taken back to their rightful owners.”

“Kind of makes us all into criminals, don't it?”

“You wouldn't be prosecuted, Mr. Sperling,” Joe said. “Only the outlaws would hang.”

“Well, I guess we're between a rock and a hard place, looks like to me. But I reckon you got to do what you got to do.” He looked at Brad, a questioning look on his face.

“You ain't a detective, are you?”

“Yes, I am,” Brad said. “Julio and I work for the Denver Detective Agency. And right now, so does Joe.”

“Hmm, so are you goin' to take our horses away and leave us horseless?”

Joe started to say something, but Brad raised a hand to silence him.

“No, Todd. You can keep the horses you bought in good faith until we wrap up our case against Killdeer and his hirelings. But it's likely you will lose them somewhere down the road.”

“Looks to me like we don't have no protection whatsoever,” Sperling said.

Brad finished his beer and stood up. “From now on, Todd, you might want to look that gift horse in the mouth and check out the men you deal with in the future.”

“You bet I will,” Todd said.

“Let's go, boys,” Brad said. “I want to track the two men who got away.”

“I hope you catch 'em,” Sperling said.

Macklin picked up the twenty-dollar bills and left some change in front of Sperling. Sperling looked at it, scooped it up, and stuck it in his pocket without counting it.

“Good luck in finding the gold,” Brad said.

“Oh, it's in there. In that big rock out there and glitterin' in the creek.” Sperling stuck out a hand and Brad shook it.

“So long,” Brad said.

He walked out, followed by Joe and Julio.

“Now there goes a man you'd ride the river with,” Sperling said to Macklin.

“I never saw nobody draw a hogleg as fast as he did,” Macklin said.

Moments later, Brad, Joe, and Julio were riding out of town.

“We could have wrapped up the case right there, Brad,” Joe said. “We had plenty of witnesses and lots of stolen horses as evidence.”

“Then who would go after Killdeer and his men? The Denver police?”

“Well, we would, I reckon.”

“We have a case on paper, Joe. A few horses with switched brands. We don't have the men to send to the gallows. Just drop it, okay?”

“You ain't much of a detective, Brad. Not in my book.”

“You're right, Joe. I'm a cattle rancher and playacting as a real detective. But I've got a stake in this case, too. I lost something I'll never get back, even if a hundred men hang from the gallows tree.”

Joe sighed deeply and hung his head.

The tracks of Curly and Nels were easy to follow for some distance. Then they disappeared in the waters of a creek.

“We could split up and see where they come out,” Joe said.

“We could,” Joe said. “But we'd waste a lot of time. We're heading for Wild Horse Valley. If my hunch is right, we'll find where the thieves keep the stock they stole.”

“What good would that do?” Joe said.

“If we find stolen horses there, we'll have what I'm looking for.”

“What's that, Brad?”

“An ace in the hole, Joe.”

They rode off to the southwest through thick stands of timber. There was no trail. There was only the silence of the high country, the tall peaks with snow on their lofty reaches, and jaybirds squawking whenever crows flew through the trees.

Brad touched the swatch of cloth in his pocket and tears welled up in his eyes.

He felt the presence of Felicity once again as he gazed at the skyline and breathed deeply of the scented thin air.

There was the scent of pines, of course, but there was also the faint aroma of lilacs in bloom.

SIXTEEN

They saw the thin plume of blue-gray smoke before they reached the wide trail leading down into Wild Horse Valley. As the three riders approached the edge of the plain that formed a ridge above the valley, they could smell the faint tang of burning hide and heard the squeal of a horse.

“Looks like we hit pay dirt,” Joe said.

“We'll know soon enough when we look down into that valley,” Brad said.

They reached the top of the ridge and looked down into the lush valley below. To their amazement, there were hundreds of horses and more grass than they had seen in a long while.

Columbines bloomed on the hillside below them. The light breeze jostled their delicate petals and wafted their aroma to the riders. Yellow-winged butterflies danced on invisible waves and flitted onto flowers and sage. Below, they saw two men around a hot fire. One was holding a haltered horse while the other was wielding a branding iron. Both men looked up at the three riders.

“Uh-oh,” Joe said, “they've spotted us. What do we do now?”

“Wave at them,” Brad said. “Wave like you were real friendly.”

He raised his hand and waved at the two men at the branding fire. Julio waved, too. Joe hesitated and finally gave a desultory wave.

“I don't get it,” Joe said.

“A friendly wave puts them at ease. Now we can ride down and talk to them.”

“Unless they shoot us first,” Joe said.

“They might think we're new blood,” Brad said. “Working for Killdeer.”

“Sometimes, Brad, it's really hard to follow your thinking.”

“Uh-huh. Sometimes it's even hard for me to follow.”

Brad urged Ginger forward, and the three of them rode slowly down the steep slope. Brad kept his gaze locked onto the two men, who continued to perform their branding tasks. The horse that was getting the hot iron humped up its back and lashed out with both hind legs. The man holding the rope jerked down on the halter and bowed the horse's head. A small puff of smoke arose from the horse's hip.

“I don't look for gunplay,” Brad said, “but be ready in case things go haywire.”

“They're both packin' six-guns,” Joe said.

“Probably in case they run across a rattler,” Brad said.

Joe opened his mouth, but clamped it shut as if he had thought about a retort and decided against it.

“Howdy, fellas,” Brad said as the three of them rode up on the two branders.

“Howdy,” Wilbur Campbell said in a pleasant tone of voice.

Jack Trask scowled as he buried the business end of the running iron deep into the pulsating bed of glowing coals.

“You come down from Cheyenne?” Campbell asked.

“No, we rode in from Denver,” Brad said.

“Denver? Well, I declare,” Campbell said.

“Wil, you shut your mouth,” Trask said. “We don't know who these fellers are.”

Brad shifted his gaze to Trask.

“Who do we have to be?” Brad asked.

“Unless you work for Jordan, you have to be gone from here,” Trask said.

He stepped away from the fire ring and spread his legs apart. His right hand floated above the butt of his pistol.

“So, you must work for Jordan Killdeer,” Brad said, a faint smile breaking on his face.

“If he sent you, mister, you'd know that,” Trask said.

“In a way, Jordan did send us,” Brad said.

Trask's hand opened and dipped down closer to his pistol.

“What's that supposed to mean?” Trask asked.

“Oh, Jack, you ask too many questions. They work for Jordan or they wouldn't be here,” Campbell said.

“I ain't so sure. You didn't answer my question, mister,” Trask said.

“Well, we're looking for horses and it looks like you got plenty here,” Brad said.

“We don't sell 'em,” Trask said. “We just keep 'em here to graze.”

“Are those running irons you got in that fire?” Brad asked.

Trask's hand dipped and his fingers wrapped around the butt of his .45.

Brad drew his pistol in that instant and all could hear the snick of the hammer as he cocked it back.

“Jack,” Brad said, “if that iron leaves its holster, your lamp goes out real quick.”

Campbell swore under his breath.

Trask stiffened and froze, the pistol fully in his grip but still in its holster.

“What the hell?” Trask said.

Joe and Julio drew their pistols. They cocked them and aimed them at the two men.

“Drop your gun belts,” Brad ordered.

“Jesus,” Campbell said. He unbuckled his gun belt and dropped the rig to the ground.

Trask twitched, his hand still on the butt of his gun.

“Make it quick, Jack,” Brad said. “I got a hair trigger on this Colt.”

“Shit,” Trask said, but he lifted his hand and began to unbuckle his gun belt.

“What's this all about?” Wilbur asked. “Who are you fellers?”

“Keep your guns on them, Joe,” Brad said. He swung out of the saddle and walked over to Trask. He kicked his gun belt a foot away, then turned on Campbell and bent down to pick up his gun belt. He dropped it next to Trask's.

“Step out, Jack, and keep your hands high. You,” he said to Campbell, “take that halter off that horse and hand it over.”

“Jesus,” Campbell said again. But he did as he was told while Trask stepped closer to Joe and Julio.

“Light down, Joe,” Brad said. “Julio, you keep them covered.”

Joe slipped out of the saddle.

“What are you going to do, Brad?” Joe asked.

“It's what you're going to do, Joe.”

“Me?” Joe said.

“Dig out your braces, Joe, and clamp this man's hands behind his back,” Brad said.

“Handcuffs?”

“Yeah, handcuffs.”

“All right. They're in my saddlebag.”

“Cuff him up,” Brad said.

“You the law?” Trask asked.

“You might say that,” Brad replied. “We're detectives and we work with the law. I'm arresting you for horse stealing.”

“I didn't steal none of these horses,” Trask said.

Campbell handed the rope and the halter to Brad.

“That's right,” Campbell said. “We didn't steal no horses from nobody.”

“Tell it to the judge,” Joe said as he returned with two pair of handcuffs. He stuck one set in his back pocket, then stepped up to Trask. He spun him around and jerked both arms so that his hands were behind his back. He clamped cuffs on both the man's wrists.

The horse they had just branded whirled and trotted back to the herd.

There was a whicker from somewhere in a nearby clutch of horses.

Brad looked toward the sound and narrowed his eyes.

The horse whickered again, and he saw movement as one of them started toward him.

“Rose,” he said. “Come here, girl.”

The bay mare broke away from the other horses and walked toward him. Her head swayed from side to side and hung inches from the ground.

“Come on, Rose,” he said as he stepped toward the horse.

“That is the horse of Felicity,” Julio said.

“His wife's horse?” Joe said, slightly aghast.

“Yes,” Julio said.

Rose walked up to Brad. He rubbed her forehead and patted her neck. He spoke to her in baby talk. Then he walked around to her rump and looked at the brand.

Rose neighed softly as he returned and stroked her head with a gentle hand.

“Joe,” Brad said, “here's the proof you need. Rose's brand has been switched with a running iron. Looks like you caught the criminals red-handed.”

“Me?” Joe said.

“Come over here, Joe. Julio, you watch 'em.”

“I will shoot them both if they try to run,” Julio said.

Joe walked over as Brad slipped the halter over Rose's head. He patted her topknot as he adjusted it. He handed the end of the rope to Joe.

“You got something on your mind, Brad?” Joe said. “I wish you'd let me in on it.”

“I want you to take that feller named Jack back to Denver and lock him up. I want you to take Rose with you as proof. And be sure to pack those running irons with you.”

“Just me?” Joe asked.

“Just you, Joe. I'm going to make the other one take me up to Cheyenne to deliver a message to Killdeer.”

“What?”

“You heard me. I figure the other feller might be more obliging than Jack there.”

“How do you know that other feller won't double-cross you?”

“I don't,” Brad said. “But if does, I'll kill him.”

“You don't know what he'll do, Brad.”

“Oh, I can figure a man pretty close, Joe. Besides, we have a long ride ahead of us and I can be pretty persuasive when I set my mind to it.”

“I'll grant you that.”

“Meanwhile, when you get to Denver, put all the names down that we know and charge them with horse stealing.”

“But . . .”

“Tell the judge we have proof and witnesses. Harry will make sure the charges stick.”

“I don't know,” Joe said. “It looks pretty ragtag to me.”

Brad walked back toward Trask and Campbell. Rose followed as he tugged on the lead rope.

“It'll all work out. Meet me back here in about a week and a half. Julio and I will be waiting for you.”

Joe spoke to Campbell.

“What's your full name?” he asked.

“Wilbur Campbell. You going to arrest me, too?”

“No, I'm not going to arrest you, but I'm going to give Brad here a set of handcuffs you can wear when you go with him up north.”

Joe slipped the set of handcuffs from his back pocket and handed them to Brad.

“Thanks, Joe,” Brad said. “I might not need them. Mr. Campbell here won't want to run away because he knows I'll shoot him dead if he tries it.”

Campbell's face went pale as if all the blood had fled to his toes. He gulped a dollop of air.

“Where do you keep your saddles and bridles?” Brad asked.

“Yonder in them trees where the creek runs,” Campbell said. “There's a little log shed we put up that's got all our tack.”

“And a wagon?” Brad asked.

“We got two wagons,” Campbell said. “Same place, where the creek comes in from the bluffs.”

“Good,” Brad said.

“What's this about ridin' up north?” Campbell asked.

“Why, you and I and Julio are going to Cheyenne and pay Jordan Killdeer a visit. You've been there, haven't you?”

Campbell nodded.

“You know where Killdeer lives, too, don't you, Wilbur?”

“Yeah. I know where he lives, and I know where he works, both on his ranch and his gambling hall.”

“Wil, you talk too damned much,” Trask said. “Keep your mouth shut.”

“Jack, if you open your mouth once more, I'll whop you with the barrel of my gun,” Brad said. “What's your full name, by the way?”

“John Trask. People call me Jack.”

Brad turned to Julio.

“Julio,” he said, “you and Wilbur catch up a couple of horses for these fellers. Put saddles on them and then come back here.”

“We got our own horses,” Campbell said. “They's in a corral in back of the little cabin where we keep our tack.”

“That'll do,” Brad said.

“Jordan will kill you if you show up in Cheyenne,” Trask said. He watched Julio and Wilbur walk toward the stand of timber below the bluffs where the creek entered the meadow.

“That'll be pretty hard for him to do, Trask,” Brad said.

“Oh? Why is that?”

“Because Jordan is never going to see me in Cheyenne. The first time we meet, it'll be right here in Wild Horse Valley.”

Joe's mouth dropped.

Trask looked puzzled.

“And, the next time you see me, Trask, I'll be looking up at you standing under a rope on the gallows.”

“You won't ever make it back to this valley if you go up to Cheyenne,” Trask said.

“I wouldn't bet on it, Trask. Do you know who you're talkin' to?”

“Some no-account detective, I reckon,” Trask said.

“Yeah. He's a detective all right. But he's known in these parts as the Sidewinder. Maybe you've heard of him.”

Brad slipped a hand inside his shirt and shook his rattles.

Joe and Trask both jumped. Trask's face turned bone white and his knees gave way. He staggered to regain his footing.

Brad smiled and gripped the rattle to silence it. Rose whickered and bobbed her head as she pawed the ground with her right hoof.