Merriweather Rides West Read online

Early next morning as the sun was peeping over the horizon to the East, Jacob woke up to find that Sam was already busy cooking eggs and ham.

  ‘You slept in, my friend,’ Sam laughed. ‘Those burros of mine and that good horse of yours are already itching to be on the trail. My guess is that those two long-eared critters know where we’re headed and are looking forward to the welcome. They know more about what’s ahead than we could ever know.’

  Though Jacob had his doubts about the ability of dumb beasts, he didn’t argue; he was too busy bracing himself for his morning dip in the creek.

  When he emerged the old man dished out his breakfast, which he attacked with relish.

  ‘We should hit the trail as soon as maybe,’ Sam speculated. ‘It isn’t so far ahead, but the sooner we get there, the better it will be. I’m really looking forward to meeting with Stan and Beth again. They’re really the salt of the earth, those two young folk. They’re dead set on making a life for themselves out here and they deserve it too. None more so.’

  Sam got everything together and soon they were on their way. Twenty miles wasn’t far, but Sam didn’t believe in hurrying. So they ambled along at a slow but steady pace through a landscape of gently rolling hills and low vegetation. Sam talked as the wagon rolled along, but he didn’t say much. Jacob sat beside him on the wagon and surveyed the land. He still felt wary and suspicious that Adam Kirk might be on his tail.

  ‘Lookee there!’ Sam pointed towards a low rise.

  Jacob looked, but saw nothing in particular. ‘What am I looking at?’ he asked.

  ‘You see that ridge?’ Sam said.

  ‘I see it,’ Jacob said.

  Sam was smiling under his beard. ‘That marks the boundary. When we top the rise you’ll see the spread all neat before you, my friend.’

  They pushed on to the top of the ridge and saw the cabin. Only it wasn’t particularly welcoming. In fact it looked bleak and deserted. Sam drew his team to a halt and reached for his spyglass. ‘Well, I’ll be damned!’ he exclaimed. ‘You hear what I hear?’

  ‘I can’t hear a thing,’ Jacob replied.

  ‘That’s what I’m telling you,’ Sam said. ‘The sound of silence. The place is deserted. No smoke from the fire. No cattle bellowing, no horses neighing, no stock grazing. Just a few hens pecking around.’ Sam wrinkled his brow and looked at Jacob with deep concern. ‘You know what this means?’

  ‘I guess it means your friends Stan and Beth have gone,’ Jacob thought, but he didn’t say it out of respect for Sam’s feelings.

  ‘What it means is that Stan and Beth have vamoosed,’ Sam said anxiously, ‘and they’ve taken the stock with them. Now, why would that be?’

  ‘Why don’t we take a looksee?’ Jacob suggested. He got down from the wagon and drew the Winchester carbine from its sheath.

  Sam looked at the Winchester with concern. ‘I don’t think you need that, my friend.’

  Jacob nodded. ‘I hope you’re right, but I’m taking it anyway.’ He hefted the Winchester on to his shoulder and they walked down the hundred metres to the cabin.

  ‘Still and quiet as the grave,’ Sam muttered as they approached the door. There was no need to knock or call out – the door was swinging open, and there was obviously no one at home.

  ‘Wait here,’ Jacob said. He gave the door a nudge with his Winchester and went inside.

  No sign, no sound . . . no one.

  Sam followed him in and stared around in astonishment. ‘Well, I’ll be danged,’ he muttered. He went over to the fire pit and bent down, ‘Ashes are cold. Those folk haven’t been around for some days.’

  Jacob peered round the room. It looked domesticated and well lived-in, though somewhat basic. There was even a spinning wheel. He went through to the second room. There was a rough-hewn table with two tin plates on it, but no sign of food. He went through to the third room and saw a bed and a rail with clothes hanging from it. He turned to see Sam standing in the doorway.

  ‘What do you think?’ he asked Sam.

  Sam shook his head. ‘I don’t like to say what I think. This whole thing is deeply suspicious, two good people suddenly up stakes and leave their property without their valued possessions.’ He fixed his eyes on the younger man. ‘What do you think?’

  Jacob took another look around the room. ‘You’re not going to like this, but it seems to me like those good people were scared off the property. They were just scared to death. That’s what I think.’

  Sam Critchley had suddenly become a different man. He drooped at the shoulders, and even his white beard seemed less vibrant. He pulled out a chair and sat down unsteadily. ‘What do we do now?’ he asked with an air of hopelessness.

  ‘Why don’t you rest up for a few minutes and I’ll go outside and take a look around?’

  Jacob went to the door and looked and listened. Nothing but the sowing of the wind. He went to the wagon and untethered the burros. Then he untied his horse and let it free in the corral. So far so good. He turned to the west and saw the lake. Something drew him towards it, and as he approached he saw the flies and guessed what he was about to find. He braced himself and walked towards the lake, and the flies rose in a vicious swarm.

  He went back to the cabin and saw Sam standing in the doorway staring at him.

  ‘Don’t tell me what you found,’ Sam said. ‘I can see it on your face.’

  Jacob nodded. ‘Dead,’ he said flatly. ‘Been dead for several days. You don’t want to see that, Sam. A man and a woman, both stone dead lying by the lake.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  Sam looked down at the two bodies and the tears ran from his eyes to the corners of his mouth and mingled with his beard. Jacob put his arm over the old man’s shudders to comfort him.

  ‘Tell me,’ Sam wailed, ‘who would do a thing like this to good, generous people? It’s inhuman. Shot in the back of the head, too!’

  Jacob looked down at the two corpses. The woman was still leaning forward and the man had fallen to his side after the fatal shot. This wasn’t just a killing; it was an execution!

  ‘What do we do now?’ Sam asked him.

  Jacob wasn’t sure. He didn’t need to be. He raised his head and looked across the lake and saw three riders and each of them had Winchester rifles pointing in their direction.

  ‘Stay where you are!’ one of the men commanded. ‘Don’t make a move or we might have to shoot you.’

  ‘Don’t shoot!’ Sam pleaded. ‘We come in peace.’

  ‘But do those hombres come in peace?’ Jacob muttered without lowering his carbine. ‘What do you want with us?’ he shouted across the lake.

  ‘I think you know what we want!’ the man shouted back. ‘Just stay where you are and lower your gun if you know what’s good for you.’

  ‘I think you should tell us who you are before I do that,’ Jacob said.

  The man gave a low growl of laughter. ‘I’m the sheriff of this county,’ he said, ‘and I’m investigating a crime. And who are you, and what are you doing here?’

  Then Sam shook his beard and spoke out: ‘I’m Sam Critchley,’ he said. ‘I guess you might have heard of me.’

  The sheriff nodded. ‘I’ve heard of you, Mr Critchley, and I’ve seen you speaking in town. And who is this gun-toting friend of yours?’ he pointed his gun at Jacob.

  ‘This is a good friend,’ Sam piped up. ‘We just dropped by to visit our friends Stan and Beth, and came upon this tragic scene.’

  ‘Well,’ the Sheriff said. ‘You just stay where you are and we’ll ride right round.’

  The three men mounted their horses and rode round the lake. Jacob lowered his carbine but kept his trigger finger close to the trigger.

  The sheriff looked down from his horse and raised his rifle to his shoulder. His two sidekicks looked down at Jacob like he was something dredged up from a polluted river. Jacob grinned back at them and decided he didn’t care too much for their style.

  ‘How come you just showed up here, Mr Critchley?’ t
he Sheriff asked in a slightly more amiable tone.

  Sam nodded. ‘Jake and I have been riding this way together for the last several days or so and we decided to stop by and talk to my friends Stan and Beth, and when we came up on the place we stopped to say hello and this is what we found.’

  ‘And since we’re talking coincidences here, how come you turned up out of nowhere?’ Jacob added.

  The sheriff gave a twisted grin. ‘That’s because it’s my job. Mr Whatever your present name happens to be.’

  ‘The name’s Merriweather,’ Jacob said. ‘Jacob Merriweather.’

  The sheriff cocked his head on one side. ‘And unless I’m very much mistaken you rode with Black Bart, who happens to be on trial for murder in Silver Spur right now.’

  ‘Well, that’s true, too,’ Jacob confessed, ‘but I’m not with him right now. I happen to be here talking to you.’

  The sheriff wrinkled his nose and glanced at his sidekicks as if to say, ‘We’ve got a real wise guy here.’ ‘Well now, Mr Merriweather, I have something of a difficulty here.’

  Jacob nodded. ‘I think we all have a difficulty here, Sheriff. We’ve told you why we’re here, but we haven’t worked out why you and your two amigos are here. Don’t you think it might clear the air a little if you told us what brings you to this particular place by the lake at this precise moment? Were you just passing by, or is there some other reason?’

  The sheriff paused for a long suspicious moment and then shrugged his shoulders and nodded. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘you made your point. If you and Mr Critchley have been on the trail together for the last several days, you couldn’t have been here when these two good people were shot to death.’

  ‘Well now, Sheriff Olsen,’ Sam said, ‘since we cleared that aside, maybe it would be possible to work together to solve this dreadful crime.’

  Sheriff Olsen looked somewhat thoughtful for a while. Then he seemed to make up his mind. He turned to one of his sidekicks. ‘This here is Chuck Yorktown. We call him Yorkie. Why don’t you tell these folk what happened, Mr Yorktown?’

  Yorkie eased himself in the saddle and looked somewhat nervous. Then he cleared his throat and began to talk in a twittering hillbilly tone.

  ‘I was riding home no more than a few hundred metres away from here when I heard the shots.’

  ‘You heard the shots!’ Sam said.

  ‘Yes, I heard the shots loud and clear,’ Yorkie agreed.

  ‘When was that?’ Sam asked him.

  ‘That was three days back,’ Yorkie said. ‘That’s when I heard the shots,’ He looked sort of hangdog and ashamed.

  ‘And did you see anyone?’ Jacob asked him.

  ‘Well,’ Yorkie said looking even more hangdog. ‘I wasn’t armed. I had no weapon, so I kept myself quite still.’

  ‘So what happened next?’ Jacob asked him.

  ‘Then I heard them riding away. So I pushed forward towards the cabin and that’s when I saw these two dead corpses.’

  ‘You say you heard the killers riding away?’ Jacob said. ‘Like I said, did you see them?’

  Yorkie wrinkled up his face and looked round warily as though the killers might be hiding in the brush somewhere close at hand. ‘Well, yes, I did sorta see them. They were riding off the stock and I heard them laughing. What sort of man shoots folks dead and then rides off laughing?’

  ‘Someone who enjoys killing,’ Jacob suggested. ‘And I assure you there are such people.’

  ‘People like Black Bart,’ Sheriff Olsen put in.

  ‘So what do we do next?’ Sam asked.

  ‘If I might make a suggestion,’ the second sidekick said in a thickly accented voice. Jacob glanced at him and realized he was part Indian.

  ‘This here is Running Deer Johnson,’ Sheriff Olsen introduced. ‘He’s the best tracker from here to the Rocky Mountains. What is your suggestion, Running Deer?’

  Running Deer looked at Jacob with a half smile as though he thought Jacob was the only one in the group with an ounce of savvy. ‘The first thing we do is we give these poor dead souls a decent burial.’

  ‘You mean like we hoist them on to a wagon and drive them into town?’ Sheriff Olsen said.

  ‘Since we haven’t got a wagon and these poor stiff corpses are beginning to stink something bad, the best thing to do is to bury them here on the property. I guess they won’t complain about that. And if you want, we can put up a cross to mark the spot.’

  Everyone looked at Sam who, they thought, was the authority on such matters. Sam tugged his beard as if to make his thoughts flow free. Then he wagged his head. ‘I guess that’s the best thing to do,’ he said. ‘We can wrap the bodies in whatever we can find and give them a respectful burial. I guess that’s what they would prefer.’

  They found the necessary tools in the outhouse and got to work on the graves. Running Deer and Yorkie did most of the digging, and old Sam made a passable cross to erect over the site. Then they all stood round with their hats in their hands and their heads bowed as Sam said a few well chosen words, after which Running Deer chanted an Indian song for the dead that none of the others could understand.

  It was now well into the afternoon and they gathered round Sam’s rig while he cooked up a meal. Although burying folks who had been dead for three days was a somewhat gruesome task it didn’t take the edge off their appetites, and they all chewed away with gusto.

  ‘Now, boys,’ Sheriff Olsen said, ‘we need to ride back to town before sunset or camp right here and wait till morning.’

  Sam shook his head. ‘Well, sir, I’d like to look inside the cabin and search for evidence. The killers must have had a reason, and I aim to find out what it is.’

  ‘Maybe I should join you in that,’ Olsen said. ‘The sooner we get on the trail of those killers the better.’

  ‘That’s good thinking, Sheriff,’ Running Deer piped up. ‘And while you’re doing that maybe I should look for signs. Three men on horseback shouldn’t be too hard to track even after three days, and we can round up any stray cattle we come across.’

  Jacob chose to go with Running Deer, and it didn’t take long to find the cattle since they were grazing not far from the spread. There were six head of cattle.

  ‘Well, that was easy enough ,’ Jacob said. ‘What do we do with these beasts?’

  ‘Leave them here to look after themselves,’ Running Deer said. ‘But take a look at this.’ He dismounted and knelt down on the ground.

  Jacob got down from his horse and looked at the signs. ‘What do you read, my friend?’ he asked.

  Running Deer straightened up. ‘I see five horses,’ he said. ‘Three with men on them, the other two being led.’

  ‘So the killers took the horses with them.’ Jacob said.

  Running Deer looked at him and grinned. ‘That was a damned fool thing to do, because stolen horses show up somewhere sooner or later and the hombres who did those killings will show up with them.’

  Running Deer mounted up again and rode on quite slowly, examining the ground for signs and he soon stopped his horse and dismounted. ‘Lookee here,’ he said, holding up a small discarded bottle and then a small brown object. He handed the brown stub to Jacob. ‘One of the killers smokes small brown cigaritos.’ He held the empty bottle to his nose and sniffed. ‘Cheap whiskey,’ he said, ‘like the hooch they sell to the Indians. It makes them mad!’ He handed the bottle to Jacob who took a sniff.

  ‘That stuff would drive anyone crazy,’ Jacob concluded.

  ‘Good we found these,’ Running Deer said, as he stowed away the evidence in a leather bag. ‘Those killers were mad or drunk.’

  ‘And they were also careless,’ Jacob added. ‘So what do we do now, my friend? Do we go on tracking them down?’

  Running Deer pulled a sceptical face. ‘We could track them all the way to Kingdom Come and back, but then what do we do, shoot it out with them?’

  ‘So we go back and report to the sheriff?’ Jacob said.

  ‘I guess t
hat’s what we must do,’ Running Deer agreed.

  That night all five of them sat round a fire Sam had built up not too far from the cabin. Nobody wanted to take shelter in the cabin since they thought it might be somewhat spooky!

  Come sun-up Sam was astir. He had been over to the cabin and found a few more supplies, and they all enjoyed a full hearty breakfast, after which Sheriff Olsen called what he described as a ‘Council of War’.

  ‘Now, Mr Critchley, how do you figure this?’ he asked.

  Sam looked at the fire and then up at the sky. Then he shook his head. ‘Well now, Sheriff, I’ve been thinking on that.’

  ‘And what conclusions have you come up with?’

  ‘Well, I have to confess this whole thing has thrown me way off balance. But one thing’s for sure, we must catch those cold-blooded killers before they kill other folk.’

  There was a murmur of approval from the others. For some reason known only to himself Jacob was particularly keen to track down these cold-blooded killers. Maybe it was the thought of Black Bart’s ruthlessness that made him eager to track them down, or some other reason, he couldn’t be sure. But whatever it was, the sight of that cigarito stub and the reek of that hooch whiskey had stiffened his resolve.

  They rode back along the trail until they came within sight of the township of Buffalo Bluffs close to the River Platte and no more than ten miles from the murder scene.

  ‘Are you boys coming into town?’ Sheriff Olsen asked them.

  ‘I think I’ll just set up camp right by the river,’ Sam said. ‘That’s my usual place. I need to think a bit and meditate on what’s happened, and for that it’s best to be alone.’

  ‘In which case,’ Jacob said,’ I guess I should ride into town and find some place to bed down and maybe have a bath.’

  ‘Well, there’s a good hotel in town. They call it The Grand. And since it’s the only decent hotel in town I guess it’s the grandest you’re gonna get,’ the sheriff said.

  ‘In that case, I guess I’ll have to put up with it,’ Jacob reflected.

  ‘Come to my office in the morning,’ Olsen said. ‘I think we might have a few things to talk over.’