Hero's Stand Read online

  * * *

  Washakie, Shoshoni Chief, got to his feet, stood for a moment watching the lone rider making his way through the outer ring of lodges, then walked slowly forward to meet his visitor. A wide smile spread slowly across the old chief’s face as he recognized the buckskinclad figure exchanging greetings with familiar faces he passed on his way to Washakie’s lodge.

  “Ah . . . What brings White Feathers to visit me this morning?” Washakie called out, greeting Monk with the name the Shoshoni knew him by—the name inspired by Monk’s full shock of snow-white hair.

  Monk mirrored Washakie’s grin as he threw a leg over and slid to the ground. “I just wanted to see if Chief Washakie had grown so old that he was rooted by the cookfire,” Monk joked.

  Washakie laughed. “When I am as old as you, then I will sit by the cookfire.”

  The two old friends clasped arms in greeting. Then Washkie led Monk back to his lodge. While the chief’s wife scurried around to place some boiled meat before them, they exchanged casual conversation about the season and the hunt. This continued for a little over half an hour before Monk broached the reason for his visit to the Shoshoni village.

  There was genuine surprise in the lined face of the old chief when Monk told him that there had been reports of raiding by Shoshoni war parties within the last week. “None of my young men have left the village on war parties,” Washakie said with no uncertainty. “We have no time for war now. We are at peace with the white man. Now is the time for hunting. Soon the mountain passes will be clogged with snow. You know this, White Feathers. We do not make war on the white families in the valley.”

  “I know this,” Monk replied. “I didn’t say I thought your young men had killed a white couple. I said there had been reports that it was done by Shoshonis.”

  “Some of our own people are missing,” Washakie said. “Nine from our village have not returned from a visit to our friends the Bannocks. Walks Big and his wife and son, his brothers and their families—all should have been back many days ago. I fear our enemies, the Crows, may have killed them. For several days now, we have sent scouting parties out to look for them, but we have found no sign of them.” He shook his head. “No sign at all.” Then he shrugged. “The Bannock village is on the Wind River—nowhere near the little valley where the white families live.”

  Monk was sure this was the straight of it. He had known it before riding up here, but he had wanted to hear it confirmed by Washakie’s own words to be doubly sure. There was no doubt in his mind now who had murdered John Cochran and his wife. He resolved to see to it that Simon Fry and his sorry bunch didn’t get away with it even though he had no actual proof. The more he thought about it, the madder he got. That lowdown collection of saddle tramps and cutthroats . . . The way that slick Fry has the people of Canyon Creek eating out of his hand . . . It made Monk’s blood boil. Well, I’ll fix their murdering asses. He couldn’t do it alone—he knew that—but when he got all the men of the valley together, there ought to be enough for a hanging party.

  At Washakie’s insistence, Monk lingered a while longer to visit with the chief. But as soon as he deemed it not impolite to do so, he said his good-byes after offering his hopes that Walks Big’s family would soon be found. Promising that he would return soon for a longer visit, he stepped up into the saddle and was soon moving back down the trail at a serious pace.

  Chapter 6

  “Here he comes!” Hicks announced in a loud whisper as he scrambled down from his perch on the rocky ledge above the six lounging men.

  Jack Pitt pushed his hat up from over his eyes and sat up. He kicked Wiley’s boot to awaken him. “Git up, Wiley!” Turning to the young man sitting against a scrubby pine trunk behind him, he said, “Bring up the horses, Caldwell. You and Wiley hold ’em till I git back.” With a nod of his head toward Hicks, he signaled for the lookout to follow him. “Let’s go have a look.”

  Crawling out on the ledge where Hicks had stood watch, Pitt flattened his huge body against the rocky shelf. Far below, entering the north end of the narrow pass, Monk Grissom urged his horse along the old game trail.

  “There he is,” Hicks whispered.

  “I see the old fart,” Pitt shot back. “Been to see his Injun friends, and they probably told him they didn’t kill nobody—like you could believe anything an Injun would tell you.” He watched Monk’s progress for a few moments more before pushing back away from the edge of the ledge. “I reckon he figures he’s gonna tell all his neighbors that there wasn’t no Injun raid,” he said sarcastically.

  “He can’t prove nuthin’. It’s our word against his’n,” Hicks said. “Why, hell, when Fry gits through sweet-talkin’ them folks, they ain’t gonna believe that old coot.”

  “Maybe so, maybe not,” Pitt replied, never taking his eyes off the lone rider entering the pass. “I know one thing for sure: he ain’t gonna find many folks to talk to if we send his nosy ass to hell.” Backing away from the edge of the rock, he got to his feet. “Come on with me, Hicks. We’ll ride over to the other side of the canyon. The rest of you boys git down there in the rocks on this side.”

  * * *

  When a man has survived in Indian territory as long as Monk Grissom, it’s damn certain that it’s due to a lot more than pure luck. This is especially true in the lofty mountain ranges of the Rockies, where there is no shortage of things to put a man under. In addition to hostile Indian tribes, there are grizzlies and rattlesnakes. There are snowstorms and blizzards in the winter, shale slides and raging rivers in the spring. Monk had known men to die from a simple fall from a horse while trying to follow a hazardous mountain trail. He knew that he had received his fair share of luck over the years. He also knew that his thick shock of white hair was well-rooted to the top of his head because of a sense of danger that served to alert him when there was no physical evidence to warn him. Some might call it instinct. Monk simply knew it as a sudden uneasy feeling deep in his gut that told him things weren’t as they should be. Making his way through the narrow pass, he had that feeling now.

  Reining his horse back to a slow walk, he scanned the ridges on each side. Hard impersonal walls of gray granite rose above the fringe of aspen to stand silently watching him with no sign of life, neither bird nor beast. It was as if the ticking of the celestial clock had paused, and time stood still, with nothing moving about him and his horse. He felt his gut draw in and a slight tension throughout his entire body. Something wasn’t right. The buckskin confirmed it and would have warned him earlier if Monk had been paying closer attention to the horse’s ears. Monk noticed them now. Pricked up sharply, flicking all around, the horse’s ears searched for the source of sounds inaudible to Monk.

  Monk squinted hard as he continued to search the ridges on each side, trying to force his aging eyes to a sharper focus. There was no feeling of fear. Monk had long ago outgrown a dread for the long, dark trail that sooner or later every man was obliged to take. For this reason, he never considered the option of turning around and hightailing it back the way he had just come. Another reason was the fact that cutting through this pass was the quickest way back to warn the people of Canyon Creek. To go around would add two days to the trip, and Monk felt an urgency to get back and put a stop to the murderous plans of Simon Fry and his militia before they killed someone else.

  Approaching the south end of the pass, he pulled his rifle from the deerskin case and laid it across his saddle. The muffled thud of his horse’s hooves on the beaten-down grass of the old game trail seemed to be the only sound in the entire valley. Moments later, his horse snorted, the buckskin stallion sensing the presence of other horses.

  Monk didn’t wait for further signs. He promptly jerked the reins over to his right and kicked his horse into a gallop toward a stand of aspens at the base of the ridge. Shots immediately rang out behind Mm from the rocks on the eastern side of the pass, and lead balls snapped through the air around him like angry bullwhips. Lying low on his horse’s neck, Monk u
rged the buckskin on. The trees and cover were only fifty yards away now. I might make it, he thought just before the lead ball smacked into his horse’s belly. The buckskin screamed and kicked its hind legs high in the air before bucking and stumbling, throwing Monk over its head.

  He landed hard, the wind knocked out of him for several minutes. The excruciating pain he felt when he tried to scramble up told him that he had broken some ribs. Ignoring the pain, he hobbled to his feet and went for his rifle, which was lying a few feet away. Rifle in hand, he limped toward the safety of the trees, now only yards away. The salty taste of blood in his mouth now told him that something more than ribs must have busted inside, and he silently cursed the luck.

  I’m gittin’ too damn old for this, he thought as he struggled to gain the cover of a large boulder at the base of the trees. The thought had barely registered, when he was confronted with a new danger. From behind the very boulder Monk sought for cover, a man stepped out to face him. In that instant, Monk recognized the insolent sneer of the youngest of Simon Fry’s gang. Both rifles fired at almost the same time. Monk’s Winchester may have been a half-second behind, but it put a hole in Hicks’s belly before Monk himself stumbled to the ground with a bullet lodged deep in his right thigh.

  “Damn fool,” Jack Pitt uttered as he stepped out from behind the boulder. Unconcerned with his partner, who was now seated on the ground, doubled up in agony, Pitt calmly walked over to stand beside Monk, his rifle now pointing directly in the face of the old trapper. “All right, boys,” he called out, “this old coon is treed.” Looking down at Monk, he said, “I told you to keep your nose outta our business. Now you’ve done shot one of my boys.” He glanced back at Hicks then. Still holding his hands over the hole in his stomach, trying to stop the profuse flow of blood, the wounded man rolled over on his side, moaning. Pitt looked back at Monk. “Gut-shot. I reckon you kilt him.” There was no indication of concern in the matter-of-fact statement.

  Monk stared defiantly at the muzzle of the rifle no more than a foot from his nose. Well, what the hell are you waitin’ for? he thought, surprised that Pitt hadn’t already put him under. His buckskin britches were soaked with the blood from the wound in his thigh, but he felt more pain from his broken insides. Feeling tired and old, he accepted the obvious fact that he was about to cash in his chips. It was not a thought that overly alarmed Monk, but he did regret the fact that he had been unable to warn the other folks in Canyon Creek about their militia. At least he was now free of the one thing he feared most: dying of old age, helpless and feeble, dependent upon the kindness of others. What the hell is he waitin’ for?

  While Pitt continued to stand over him, a self-satisfied smile on his broad face, Monk began to slowly move his hand up across his chest, as if to hold his broken ribs. When Pitt glanced away momentarily as Trask walked up, leading the Indian ponies they had ridden, Monk made a sudden move to pull his pistol. For such a big man, Pitt’s reactions were unusually fast. He put a lead ball into Monk’s brain before the old trapper could clear his pistol from his belt.

  “Well, I reckon that’s one old buzzard that ain’t gonna bother nobody no more,” Clell Adams commented as he stooped over Monk’s body. “He sure ain’t carryin’ much of any value, and that’s a fact.” He picked up Monk’s pistol and examined it.

  “If you weren’t such a lousy shot,” Wiley Johnson said, sneering, “we coulda had a good horse.”

  Pitt, still standing over Monk’s body, looked up at that. “I shoulda knowed that was your shot that hit the damn horse,” he said, glaring at Clell. “It’s a wonder you didn’t hit me and Hicks.”

  The mention of Hicks called their attention to the wounded man lying several yards away. Clell, anxious to end the discussion about the dead horse, immediately got up and went to look at the young outlaw. “How bad is it, boy?” he asked, kneeling down beside Hicks.

  “It’s bad,” Hicks forced through gritted teeth. “It’s hurtin’ awful bad. I got to see a doctor.” The words had no sooner left his lips than he convulsed in a sudden spasm, causing him to dry-heave as if his stomach were trying to empty itself of the blood that had filled it.

  “A doctor!” Clell exclaimed. “You know there ain’t no doctor around here.” While still kneeling beside Hicks, Clell looked up at the others, who had now gathered around their wounded partner. “He’s been gut-shot. There ain’t nothin’ anybody can do for him. He’s as good as dead.” Looking back at the horror-stricken young man, Clell callously asked, “You got any strong feeling’s ’bout who gits that little bay of your’n? I kinda fancy that horse myself.”

  “I reckon I’ll decide who that horse belongs to,” Pitt quickly inserted. “You can have his pistol—since you can’t seem to hit what you’re aiming at with yours.”

  “This old codger was carryin’ a right nice rifle,” Wiley Johnson commented, having picked up Monk’s weapon. “A Winchester 66, and in damn fine condition, too.”

  “I reckon that rifle belongs to me,” Pitt quickly informed him, “seein’ as it was me what shot him.” Still standing motionless over the body, he added, “Anybody got any objections?”

  “Why, hell, no, Pitt,” Wiley immediately replied. “I ain’t got no objections.” He stepped forward at once and handed the rifle over.

  Taking Monk’s rifle in hand, Pitt propped it against the rock he and Hicks had hidden behind, his gaze shifting back and forth, looking for objections from any of the others. There were none. Not even Fry would chance going up against his massive partner when Pitt’s mind was set on something.

  “Seems fair to me,” Wiley said. “Let’s take care of Hicks and git the hell outta here. Somebody mighta heard them shots. We ain’t too far from that Snake camp.” He elbowed Clell aside and bent down to look Hicks close in the eye. The wounded man’s eyes were glazed with fear and the terrifying realization that he was dying. “We’ve got to git moving, boy.”

  Hicks’s eyelids fluttered nervously, his words halting and choked by the blood threatening to strangle him. “Don’t leave me, Pitt. . . . Don’t leave me. . . . I can ride.” His words trailed off.

  “Why, hell, no, son,” Pitt replied, his voice suddenly soothing. “I ain’t gonna leave you.” He glanced up at Clell and nodded.

  Understanding Pitt’s signal, Clell stood up. At the same time, the others, who had gathered around Hicks, backed away a step or two so as not to chance a spattering of blood. Without any more hesitation, Clell pointed Monk’s pistol directly in Hicks’s face and pulled the trigger. The pistol failed to fire. Clell cocked it again and tried again, with the same results. Hicks cried out in horror. His eyes, glazed and unfocused moments before, were now wide with frightened clarity.

  Clell, unconcerned with the terror that clutched at Hicks’s very soul, held the pistol up and examined it. “If that don’t beat all,” he said. “Hell, it’s loaded. Maybe the firing pin is broke.” He stuck the barrel back in Hick’s face again and tried once more, with still no discharge of the pistol.

  “Shit, Clell,” Pitt uttered in disgust. He pulled his own pistol from his belt and shot Hicks in the back of the head. “Let’s git mounted.”

  “Ain’t we gonna bury ’em? At least, poor ol’ Hicks.” This was Caldwell, who had been closest to Hicks, primarily because he was about the same age as the deceased.

  “What if somebody finds ’em?” Clell wondered. “It don’t seem like a good idea to have ’em find Hicks a’layin’ right next to that old trapper. They’d know fer sure it was us what done it.”

  “You can stay here and dig him a hole if you want to,” Pitt said as he reloaded his pistol. “Damned if I’m gonna do it. Thinking better of it after a second thought, he turned back to face Clell. “You’re right,” he said. “It wouldn’t do for one of the town people to find the two of ’em here.” He looked around him at the barren walls of the pass. “Drag ’em both over behind those rocks. The buzzards’ll take care of ’em before anybody finds ’em.”

  “Wha
t about the horse?” Clell wanted to know.

  “Hell, leave it lay. The buzzards’ll make short work of it out in the open like that.”

  * * *

  Young Luke Kendall walked his pony slowly up the path from the river. The gray mare hobbled across by the water’s edge nickered a familiar acknowledgment, and Luke’s pinto answered. The two horses knew each other well. “Monk!” Luke called out. There was no answer. He called out several times—still no answer. Luke was puzzled to find the mare still hobbled where he had left her the day before. Monk had evidently not returned from the Shoshoni village. He had said he would return from Washakie’s camp before sundown the night before. He and Washakie must have gotten started talking about the old days, Luke thought.

  He slid down from his pony and removed the hobbles from the mare so she could run a little bit before he hobbled her again. “You two can visit for a while,” he said, leaving the horses to run free while he walked up to the cabin. He wasn’t concerned that they might run off somewhere, leaving him afoot. The pinto wouldn’t stray far and, upon hearing a low whistle from Luke, would come to him immediately.

  It occurred to him that Monk might have returned that morning and decided to leave the mare hobbled where she was. But after checking the cabin and finding nothing but cold ashes in the fireplace, he concluded that Monk had not been back. It’s a good thing you got me to watch the place for you, Luke thought and made himself comfortable while he sat watching the horses run.

  As he sat there, the daylight began to fade away with the sinking of the sun below the mountaintops. Soon the lengthening shadows would engulf the chilly river valley, and it would be pitch black. A worrisome thought invaded Luke’s reverie. Why isn’t Monk back? Maybe his visit to Washakie’s camp was so enjoyable that he had forgotten he had a place to look after in the valley. Monk was long in the tooth, but he still liked to stomp and snort once in a while, especially if he happened upon some firewater. Washakie himself did not approve of the white man’s whiskey, but some of the younger bucks would occasionally sneak off to imbibe the fiery liquid. Monk may have joined in. Still, Luke began to feel uneasy about Monk’s absence. If he isn’t back by tomorrow night, I’d better go to the village to find him. With that thought, he got to his feet and whistled for the pinto.