Ralph Compton the Evil Men Do (4 page)

The wilds south of Sweetwater were as picturesque as they were dangerous. Browned by the heat of summer, the high grass of the valleys rippled in the wind.

Higher up, ranks of pines and scattered oaks covered ever steeper slopes. Near the summits, firs and aspens were common.

The region teemed with wildlife. Antelope bounded off in incredible leaps, deer sniffed and bolted. Elk stayed in the deep thickets except in early morning and at dusk, when they came out to graze. In the autumn, when the males were in rut, noisy battles were fought over harems a Turkish sultan would envy.

Or so Marshal Fred Hitch had heard. He wasn't keen on the outdoors himself. Give him his office and his flask and he was content. But now here he was, trailing behind Tom McCarthy and Tyree Johnson, on their way to Cheyenne.

Fred was fit to be tied. He disagreed with the mayor and the council. His going wouldn't prove a thing. It certainly wouldn't improve the town's reputation, no matter what Horace Crittendon claimed.

Fred suspected there was more to it. Crittendon was as shady a character as the year was long. Fred wouldn't put it past him to have concocted the feeble reason for
him to go in the hope that he might never make it back. After all, Fred had threatened to go to the newspapers.

“If I make it back . . . ,” Fred said, and imagined himself pistol-whipping Crittendon. But who was he kidding? “Damn me and my nice nature anyhow.”

“What was that?” Tyree called from up ahead.

“I was talkin' to myself,” Fred admitted.

“I hear tell that old folks do that a lot.”

Fred pressed his lips together to keep from remarking about kids who were too big for their britches.

A pair of red hawks wheeled high on the air currents. The male uttered a piercing cry and the female answered.

Fred rubbed a kink in his neck. He wasn't one of those who admired animals on general principle. Some folks would look at those hawks and think how grand they were, soaring so nobly in the sky. All he saw were hawks.

Tom McCarthy sat his saddle like a man going to the gallows. He hadn't objected when the kid tied his wrists. The man seemed to have given up on life. He didn't care about anything.

Fred cared. About breathing anyway. And there were plenty of things in the wilds that could do them in.

Rumor had it some young Cheyennes or Arapahos were on the warpath. Fred couldn't recollect which. A few outlaw gangs plagued the territory too. And then there were grizzlies and buffalo and cougars and wolves, to say nothing of rattlers, which loved the hot weather.

Sweetwater wasn't three hours behind them, and Fred missed his office more than anything.

Unconsciously Fred placed his hand on his Smith & Wesson. Not that it would do him much good, as poor a shot as he was. A Winchester jutted from his saddle scabbard, but he wasn't much better with that. Guns never interested him much, not even when he was young. Whenever his friends wanted to go hunting, he'd always made excuses to bow out.

Fred's interest in the law didn't stem from any childish hankering for gunplay.

He liked helping folks, was all. Being a lawman was one of the few jobs he could do that let him lend a helping hand when an occasion called for it. He wasn't smart enough to be a doctor, and was squeamish about blood besides. And as he'd told the kid, his poor memory would make him a poor pastor.

Fred almost wished he was back East somewhere, where being a lawman was easier. There weren't any hostiles to worry about, and few outlaws. Gangs like the James brothers and the Youngers were few and far between. A lawman could live out his days without ever having to resort to violence. Fred liked that. He'd tried his best to do the same and until the kid showed up, had succeeded.

It was Tyree who called a halt when the sun perched on the western horizon, blazing the sky with vivid streaks.

Fred stripped his bay and gathered wood for the fire. Tyree got it going using a fire steel and flint like what the old trappers used. And it was Tyree who filled the coffeepot and put coffee on to brew.

“What do you plan to eat?” Fred asked. It had occurred to him that they hadn't brought a packhorse. He had some grub in a saddlebag, but it wouldn't last the whole trip.

“Tonight it will be beans,” Tyree said. “Tomorrow may- be I'll shoot a rabbit or somethin' else.”

“Beans will do,” Fred said, although he wasn't all that fond of them. He had a cousin who could eat beans three meals a day for the rest of his life. Fred couldn't think of any food he liked that much. Well, except whiskey. But whiskey wasn't really a food.

McCarthy hadn't said a word since they left Sweetwater. He sat at the fire as he'd sat his horse, miserable as could be.

It upset Fred just looking at him. “How about you?” he said to draw McCarthy out of himself. “You ready for some beans?”

“He better be because that's what we're havin',” Tyree
said. He had a can of Brick Oven Baked Beans and was prying at it with an opener.

“You must be awful hungry,” Fred said to McCarthy. The man hadn't eaten a thing at the jail.

McCarthy just sat there.

“Pay him no mind,” Tyree said, working the opener. “I've seen this before. Some of them when they're caught stop eatin' and talkin' and pretty near everything else.”

“They give up on life,” Fred said.

“It's their own fault. I wouldn't be after them if they hadn't done somethin' stupid like your friend here.”

“Haven't you ever done anything stupid?” Fred asked. “I know I have.”

“I can't think of anything, no.”

“How about shootin' that chestnut? I wouldn't call that an act of brilliance,” Fred remarked.

“It was an accident. Accidents ain't stupid. They just happen.” Tyree bent the lid and sniffed the beans. “What are some of the stupid things you've done?”

“Letting Crittendon talk me into this was the latest.”

“He didn't give you much choice. I was surprised that you let him run roughshod over you. You're the marshal. You should have had more say in what you do or don't do.”

“You'll find when you get older that there are a lot of things you have to do that you don't want to.”

“Not me,” Tyree said. “I live as I please. If I was the law and your mayor got uppity with me, I'd tell him to go to hell and I'd find me a job marshalin' somewhere else.”

“I guess I like Sweetwater too much to risk havin' to give up my badge,” Fred said.

“You like makin' excuses—that's for sure,” Tyree said. “If you ask me, you could do with more gumption.”

Fred was about to say that Tyree was a kid and what did kids know?—but the boy was right. He wasn't a coward, but he was short on grit when it came to standing up for himself.

“I learned younger than most that a body has to look out for himself because no one else will,” Tyree said as he spooned the beans into a pot. “It's sink or swim and that's no lie.”

“That's sort of harsh,” Fred said.

“Did you have a ma and a pa growin' up?”

“Most do.”

“Not me. No sisters, nor no brothers neither. No cousins or kin came to help me out. It was me and only me.”

Fred tried to imagine what it must have been like to have no one to depend on. To be totally alone. “There must have been somebody. Who raised you?”

“I was in an orphanage until I was ten,” Tyree said, stirring the beans. “You ever been to one?”

“Can't say as I have, no.”

“Wretched places,” Tyree said. “There's hardly ever enough food. The clothes are hand-me-downs, the blankets so thin, in the winter you shiver all night long. The man who ran the one I was at had a hickory stick he loved to use. Switched me once for not makin' my bed right. Thirty times, he hit me. I counted each and every one.”

“My word.”

“That's all right,” Tyree said, and grinned at a memory. “I got back at him the night I snuck off. I stuck a cat in his room while he was sleepin'.”

“A cat?”

“He was allergic, they call it. Put him near a cat and he couldn't hardly breathe. Once one got in the orphanage; we didn't see him for a week. The cook said he'd swelled up somethin' awful and kept chokin' and coughin'.”

“You shouldn't have.”

“When someone has made your life a livin' hell, you give him some hell back.”

“What did you do once you were out?”

“I wound up in St. Louis and lived on the streets. Fell
in with some pickpockets. Got to where I could lift a purse without the person knowin' it was lifted. I was there about a year and a half when the police shot a couple of my friends. The police there take a dim view of those who help themselves to others' money.”

“It's their job to protect folks.”

“There you go again,” Tyree said. “Anyway, I went to look for my pa's brother. He'd sent me a letter once at the orphanage. Just a couple of lines sayin' how sorry he was about my pa and my ma. He never came to see me, though. Would you believe he lived in a fancy house? And was well-to-do? I asked him right out why he didn't adopt me and he claimed it was because he'd never been married.”

“It's usually married couples who adopt,” Fred said. “I think it's a rule.”

“If you ask me, he was makin' an excuse, like you do. But he dug out my pa's bowie and my grandpa's saber and gave them to me. Out of guilt, I suspect.”

“Thank you for lettin' me know all this,” Fred said. He felt he was beginning to understand the boy better.

“Don't know why I am,” Tyree said. “Except there's nothin' else to do. I don't have cards or dice with me.”

“I'm not a gamblin' man.”

“I'm plumb shocked.”

“So, how'd you start huntin' men for bounty money?”

“It was my uncle's doing. I told him I was lookin' for work and he took me to Mr. Benteen.”

“Hold on,” Fred said, doing the arithmetic in his head. “That would have been when you were twelve?”

“Slightly over. Mr. Benteen laughed at my uncle and me and said we were crazy, but my uncle asked him to give me a chance and Benteen owed him a favor.” Tyree gestured at McCarthy. “And here I am.”

“You ever think of doing somethin' else?”

“No.”

“There are safer professions.”

“The one I have is fine.”

“You could clerk or cowboy or do any of a hundred things.”

“No, I said,” Tyree snapped. “This suits me down to my socks, and serves a purpose besides.”

“Which is?”

“None of your damn business.”

Fred pretended to be interested in the blossoming stars. The boy was fickle. Friendly one minute, not friendly the next. It promised to be a long ride if they couldn't get along better.

Off in the distance a coyote yipped.

“That reminds me,” Tyree said. “We'd best be on our guard against wolves. I saw some fresh sign earlier.”

“The only wolf attack in these parts I ever heard about was when they went after a rancher's bull once.” Fred was convinced the bull initiated the ruckus when it attacked the wolves as they crossed the pasture where it was kept.

Tom McCarthy broke his long silence by looking up and saying, “You should be more worried about the Arapahos who left the reservation. They killed and scalped a man over in the Wind River country.”

“You know that for a fact?” Fred said.

“Remember that cavalry patrol that passed through Sweetwater a week ago? A sergeant told me about it.”

“Injuns don't worry me none,” Tyree said.

“They should,” Fred said. “We've taken their country from them and they resent it. Can't say as I blame them.”

“Now you're excusin' killin' and scalpin' by a pack of redskins?” Tyree shook his head. “What will you do if you're jumped by a grizzly? Say you understand why it's eatin' you while it's eatin' you?”

“That's just silly,” Fred said.

One of the horses nickered, and a few moments later all three were staring into the night with their ears pricked.

“Somethin' is out there.” Tyree stated the obvious.

A deep, rumbling growl came out of the dark. Then, from a different spot, came another.

Fred leaped to his feet and yanked his Colt. Not that it would do much good. “You had to mention wolves, consarn you.”

“I did, and here they come,” Tyree said.

The mere notion of a wolf pack hurtling out of the night at them sent a spike of cold down Marshal Hitch's spine.

Back when he was younger than Tyree, his father had made him go on a hunting trip. His first, and his last. He could barely hold the big rifle his father used, but his father insisted he try to down a deer. He hadn't wanted to. He liked deer. Deer came around their place a lot, and he'd liked how the young ones gamboled and frolicked.

Fortunately for him, or perhaps not so fortunately, their hunt had been brought to an early end by a grisly incident he'd never forget.

It involved a mountain man, one of the old breed who'd refused to change his ways when beaver hats went out of style. He lived alone high in the mountains, and one day he stepped out of his cabin to go to a nearby spring for water. A grizzly had had the same idea. It'd taken one look and charged. The mountain man had left his Hawken inside and tried to reach it, but the griz brought him down and set to eating him—while he was still alive.

The grizzly dined its full and wandered off.

Shortly after, one from their hunting party came upon the mountain man and hollered so as to bring the rest. When Fred and his father got there, a hunter was on his hands and knees, retching. The others looked sickly.

Fred's father had gone over, so Fred tagged along. It never occurred to any of the men to stop him. The next he knew, he was standing next to what was left of the mountain man.

The memory was seared into his brain.

Incredibly, the man had still been alive. How that could have been when most of the man's innards were missing was a mystery. The grizzly had eaten him out, leaving a blood-filled cavity. Not only that, but the bear had ripped off an arm and crushed a knee.

The horror of it had almost crushed Fred. Bile had risen in his throat and he came close to pitching to his hands and knees as the other hunter had. Somehow he'd stayed upright as the men talked about how terrible it was and one of them tried to get the mountain man to say whether there was anything they could do for him.

“I just want to die,” the man had gurgled.

No one wanted to shoot him, though.

“It's a shame,” Fred's father had remarked.

Another hunter said something that had stuck with Fred too. “This is what a wild animal can do to you. It's why we'll all be a lot better off when there are a lot fewer of them.”

The men completely forgot about Fred until his father, taking a step away, bumped into him and exclaimed, “Oh my word. My son.”

They whisked him off, but the harm had been done. To this day, the mention of a wild-animal attack caused his heart to leap into his throat.

Now, out in the dark, several shapes appeared, slung low to the ground. Three pairs of eyes glowed in the firelight like demons from the pit.

Tyree whipped out his Colts. “If they come any closer, I'll shoot.”

“No,” Fred said. “You'll only make them mad.” A wounded animal was far more dangerous.

Tom McCarthy startled Fred by laughing and saying the strangest thing. “If they attack, I'll let them kill me.”

The largest of the wolves slunk closer, its entire head appearing out of the dark, but not the body. It lent to the illusion the head was detached and floating in the air.

“One more step, you mangy beast,” Tyree said. “My pistols will bring you down. You and your friends.”

“Don't shoot,” Fred said quietly. “They don't often attack unless they're given cause.”

“If they do they might go for our horses.”

There was that possibility, Fred admitted. And their horses were picketed and would be easy prey.

“Simpletons,” McCarthy said. “I am being taken to my execution by simpletons.”

“What do you know?” Tyree said.

“This,” McCarthy said, and stood. Waving his bound arms, he hollered at the top of his lungs, “Go bother someone else, damn you! Scat! You hear me? Leave us be!”

Fred braced for a charge.

With a loud growl, the large wolf pawed the ground, then wheeled and loped away, its long tail trailing. The other wolves did likewise, vanishing like four-legged ghosts, with no more sound than real spirits.

“See?” McCarthy said, sitting back down. “That's all it took.”

“You had no way of knowin' that would work,” Tyree said. “You could have gotten us killed.”

“I'm going to die anyway,” McCarthy said. Closing his eyes, he lapsed into the same sorrowful state as before.

Tyree shoved his Colts into his holsters, hunkered, and picked up the big spoon he stirred with. “If you don't want to tag along, you don't have to.”

Still staring after the wolves, Fred said, “Are you talkin' to me?”

“He's right about one of us bein' a simpleton. You have no business bein' here.” Tyree stirred, took a taste, and said, “Sometimes they heat up slow.”

Fred moved to where he could sit and watch the direction the wolves had gone. They might decide to come back. “What was that about me not taggin' along?”

“Ain't it plain? You don't want to go to Cheyenne. You reckon it's a waste of your time. So why bother?”

“The mayor and the council want me to.”

“Who says you have to go all the way? Stay here. Camp out. Or go to a friend's and stay with them for a couple of weeks. Then report back that you helped me deliver McCarthy.”

Fred became suspicious of the youngster's motive. “Why are you tryin' to get rid of me all of a sudden?”

“I'm tryin' to do you a favor.”

“Well, that's decent of you, but I'd better see this through,” Fred said. He added, “As much as I don't want to.”

“See? You shouldn't let those others boss you around. Are you the marshal or a sissy boy?”

“Now, see here,” Fred said.

Tyree busied himself with the beans. He would stir and taste and wait, then stir and taste and wait some more.

Fred was content to hold his hands to the fire and warm himself. He couldn't remember the last time he had spent a night outdoors. It might have been that elk hunt in the mountains. He never went hunting after that. His father was disappointed. He said Fred was breaking the family tradition. Fred's father hunted and his father before him and his father before him. “And now there's you,” his father had said, crestfallen.

Fred refused to change his mind. Shooting an animal never appealed to him. Oh, he'd do it if the critter was trying to tear him to pieces or eat him. But otherwise, it was let bygones be bygones, whether two-legged or four.

A shooting star blazed the heavens. Fred watched for more, but there were none. When he looked at the boy to see if the beans were ready, the boy was looking at him.

“What?”

“Why are you so nice to folks? I saw how you were in town. You had good cause to be mean, but you weren't.
You were always nice. I figured maybe you were yellow, but you didn't spook when those wolves paid us a visit.”

“I was plenty spooked inside me,” Fred assured him.

“You're a puzzlement,” Tyree said.

Fred decided to enlighten him. “It's not in my nature to be mean to folks. Oh, I can get mad now and then. But usually I do to others as I'd like them to do to me.”

“Where'd you pick up a peculiar notion like that?”

“It's in the Bible.”

“Ain't that the one that says we shouldn't kill?”

“It is.”

Tyree snorted. “Whoever wrote it never lived west of the Mississippi.”

The baked beans were finally hot enough to suit him. The boy spooned some out for each of them and sat eating his slowly, chewing each mouthful so long Fred thought it was comical. As for him, he practically gulped his food. Baked beans had never tasted so good. He attributed that fact to going most of the day without food or drink. Which he would remedy later.

McCarthy barely touched his meal. He'd fallen back into his deep depression. Fred mentioned that he needed to keep his strength up, and McCarthy replied, “Whatever for?”

After their meal they turned in. It was sort of pleasant for Fred, lying there with his blanket to his chin, the stars sparkling overhead and the creatures of the night serenading the stars with their cries and hoots and howls.

Fred waited until he was sure Tyree and McCarthy were asleep before he slipped his flask from his saddlebags. He'd brought two full bottles besides. He could go without his comforts if he had to but not without his Monongahela. Taking a sip, he smiled and said, “Ahhh.”

Life was good, for the moment. But he mustn't fool himself into thinking this was how it would be the whole way. The wilderness was treacherous. About the time a man let down his guard, he'd find himself in peril for his life.

Folks were always saying that was bound to change. A new century was a decade off. The railroad was spreading over the West, making travel safer. New inventions were making life easier. Not long ago the newspaper crowed about how Cheyenne had electric lights and then prattled on about how one day everyone would have electric lights in their homes, as well as other marvels.

It sounded too good to be true, and Fred had learned long ago that usually meant it was. All those marvels wouldn't come free. People would have to earn more to keep up, meaning they'd have to work longer hours, which to Fred's way of thinking put them in thrall to their purse. Money became their master, and he disliked having anyone or anything lord it over him.

Listen to me,
Fred reflected with a wry grin.
Thinking I'm halfway smart.

His grandpa had always said a man should know his limits, and Fred knew his. His mind worked slower than some. He often had to chew on an idea like a dog worrying a bone before he could make up his mind what to do.

He liked his life to be easy and would do whatever he had to in order to make it stay that way. Sometimes he compared himself to a prairie dog that liked to lie at the entrance to its den and watch the world go by, wanting no part of it.

Fred chuckled and drank. The kid would brand him as silly, but he didn't care. He was what he was.

The kid. Fred glanced over at Tyree Johnson, who let out little snores. Now, there was someone who hadn't had it easy. His parents murdered when he was an infant. Raised in a hellhole of an orphanage. And here he was, making his living by going after hard cases who were as likely to do him in as agree to be taken back to face justice.

No, sir, that kind of life wasn't for Fred.

He felt sorry for Tyree. From the sound of things, the boy never had anyone treat him halfway decent. That uncle had proven next to worthless. Tyree needed
someone to take him under a wing and show him that life wasn't always as cruel as Tyree's had been. Show him there was goodness in the world if a person looked for it.

One of Fred's few regrets was that he'd never had any kids of his own. But to have kids you needed a wife, and Fred was about as attractive to the opposite sex as, say, sour milk. He'd tried a few times in his younger days to strike up an acquaintance with females, but they never showed any interest. One lady told him flat out that he bored her. That his conversation was dull. That he'd never amount to much because he had no ambition. She was the last one he tried to woo.

He didn't need the humiliation.

But Fred would have liked a kid. A boy more than a girl. He was so bad at getting along with females that he'd probably be bad at raising a daughter. But a boy, now. He'd been one once, so he should be able to raise one.

McCarthy put an end to Fred's musing by rolling over and muttering in his sleep, something about stabbing someone.

There was another sad case. A moment of rage, and his life was forever changed.

Yet another reason Fred was glad he was so even-tempered. Rage never got a man anywhere except the gallows.

Fred's eyelids were growing heavy. Capping his flask, he replaced it in the saddlebag and made himself comfortable. Gradually he felt himself slipping into welcome slumber.

Then a scream pierced the wilds, far off, a shriek of pure terror.

Fred sat bolt upright. His skin prickling, he glanced at the others, but neither had heard it. He was sure it was a human who screamed and not an animal.

He waited in tense expectation for the scream to be repeated, but the night had gone deathly quiet. The scream had silenced the other cries. Even the animals knew death when they heard it.

Uneasy, Fred settled back down. He held the blanket close and sought to drift off, but his nerves were on edge. When a horse thumped a hoof he sat up again, but it was nothing.

“Damn Crittendon anyhow.”

He shouldn't cuss, Fred told himself. It was one habit he hadn't gotten into, largely because of his mother. She'd washed his mouth out with soap more than a few times to discourage him. That, and her observation that folks cussed because they were immature.

Tyree cursed a lot, Fred had noticed. He'd like to break him of it, but the boy wasn't his responsibility. They'd only be together as far as Cheyenne and then they'd get on with their individual lives. Which suited Fred fine. He could get back to his marshaling and his office and the peace and quiet he loved.

Now if only he could get to sleep.