Chapter 7

            Outside Sloan’s house were tethered three horses that Jacob Putney didn’t recognize, although one seemed familiar, a swaybacked old gray that looked out of place wearing a saddle.  The other two, a bay mare and a roan gelding, were decent enough mounts.  Putney couldn’t think who might own such a trio, and didn’t much care; if they had business with Sloan, it was none of his until Sloan said it was.  He rode past the sprawling one-story house heading for the sod-roofed barn and the corral, aiming to get his horse settled and find himself some food.

            The last few days he had spent ranging the countryside around the ranch, checking on the herds, searching canyons and dry washes for strays.  It was dull, dirty, tiring work, but Putney had his reasons for doing it that went beyond the wages paid by Bennet Sloan.  The way Putney figured, nobody could keep track of all the cattle out on the range, so what was the harm if a few were never found?  Talking discreetly with the hired drovers, Putney got a group of like-minded men together.  When opportunity presented itself, they would drive a couple of strays, mostly unbranded, to a camp in the backcountry.  Once they assembled a large enough herd, they planned to take their “lost” cattle to Colorado, to sell to miners or the Army.  Until then, it meant hard work and toadying up to men like Ben Sloan, who played at being lord of the manor even though his boots had horseshit on them like everyone else’s.

            In the barn Putney yelled for Dixon the groom, then began to unsaddle his mount.  Dixon failed to appear.  “Lazy son of a bitch,” Putney grumbled, and went looking. 

            He found the man on the other side of the barn, hitching a two-horse team to a wagon.  “Goddam it, Dix,” Putney said, “I’ve been hollering myself hoarse looking for you.  I’ve got a horse needs a rubdown and her feet checked.”

            Dixon, a slack-jawed dullard a few years past forty, poked his unkempt head up from the shaft of the wagon where he was attaching the singletree.  “What’s that, Mr. Putney?” he said.

            “Why don’t you listen, you dumb bastard?  I said my horse needs looking after.  And what the hell are you doing here, anyway?”

            The groom gazed at the wagon and team as if he feared the question was a trap.  “I’m hitching up the wagon,” he said.

            “I can see what you’re doing; I mean, why are you hitching up this old, broke-down buckboard when there’s a perfectly good one in the shed?”

            Comprehension dawned on Dixon’s face.  He nodded and said, “Mr. Sloan told me to,” then went back to connecting the singletree to the traces, unaware of the flush of anger climbing Putney’s cheeks.

            Putney seized the front of Dixon’s shirt and pulled him upright so as to stare him in the eye.   He took some pleasure from the man’s fearful expression; Putney’s reputation around Sloan’s ranch was both well-known and well-earned.  He said, “Boy, you are every kind of stupid, ain’t you?  Now you tell me why Sloan wants this wagon hitched to these horses, or I’ll whip you like a broke-dick mule.”

            Dixon’s eyes were wide and his voice high and thready as he said, “Three fellows came to see Mr. Sloan.  Then Mr. Sloan called me into the house and told me to hitch up the old wagon, cause the three fellows needed it.  I don’t know why, Mr. Putney.”

            “What three fellows?  From town?”  Putney loosened his grip somewhat, already losing interest.  Of course Sloan wouldn’t loan out his best wagon…

            His attention snapped back to Dixon as the groom said, “Just that boy from Haney’s.  I don’t know the other two.”

            “You mean that Irish turd?  He’s in there with Sloan right now?”  Dixon nodded but said no more; both of Putney’s fists were knotted in his shirt now, and his eyes were wild.

            Putney’s thoughts were racing as Dixon hung, quite forgotten, in his grip.  That was where he had seen that old gray plowhorse: it belonged to Haney’s former kitchen boy.  The other two mounts had to be for Mulvehill and his partner, though he couldn’t imagine what they would need with Sloan’s old wagon, and he didn’t really care.  His only concern was how best to kill all three of them.  Even in the red haze of rage, he knew it was a bad idea to storm into Bennet Sloan’s house and start shooting.  In the first place there was the matter of a weapon; the kid from Haney’s still had Putney’s revolver, and Putney himself had to make do with the ancient pocket pistol the kid left behind.  It was a poor substitute—unreliable, inaccurate, and small caliber to boot.  A couple of the drovers had noticed the absence of Putney’s Navy Colt and remarked on it; Putney gave out that he had lost it in a poker game, which he found less humiliating than the truth.  At any rate, should he try to take all three of the men at once, his chances of killing them before one shot back were small.  Secondly, and less important in his calculations, the law would be after him in no time.

            “Mr. Putney, sir?” wheezed Dixon.  Putney glanced at him and realized he was still twisting the man’s collar into his throat.  He shoved Dixon back and the groom stumbled against the wagon, holding the front wheel for support as he rubbed his neck.

            “Now listen, Dixon,” Putney said.  “You get on with your work like Sloan told you, hear?  And when those fellows come out, don’t you say a word about this, or mention me at all.  Those boys owe me, and I intend to collect, so if you let on that I’m around, I’ll kill you.  Get me?”

            While Dixon nodded and hastened to finish hitching the wagon, Putney ran for his horse, still waiting in the barn to be unsaddled.  If Sloan saw the horse, he might call for Putney, and cost him the element of surprise.  He grabbed the reins and led the animal into an empty stall, leaving the saddle in place so he’d be ready to follow Mulvehill and his boys when they left, then pulled his rifle from the scabbard under the right stirrup.  He hated to use a rifle in close quarters if it came to that, but he trusted it more than the little pocket pistol.

            The clatter of hooves and tack from behind the barn told him that Dixon had the team harnessed and was bringing them around to the front of the house.  Putney took up a position just inside the barn door, where he could peer around the frame and keep an eye on the house without being seen himself.  He saw Sloan step out, followed by Mulvehill and the others, and he raised his rifle halfway to his shoulder, of a mind to shoot now and to hell with the consequences.  Then he got a grip on himself; the range was long and if he fired now he might take down one of them, but the others would scatter and take cover and he wanted them all dead.  Better to watch and follow at a distance, try to get them out of the view of witnesses.

            Mulvehill and his tall friend mounted their horses, while the boy climbed to the wagon seat and Dixon tied the aged grey to the tailgate.  At this distance Putney could not hear what they said, but they traded handshakes with Bennet Sloan before setting off back toward Corrinne.  When they were out of sight Putney left his post and hurried over to the ranch house, rifle still in hand. 

            He found Sloan already back in his office, writing at his desk.  Dixon was there as well, standing meekly before the desk as though he were waiting for instructions.  Putney cleared his throat and shouldered his way past Dixon.  “Mr. Sloan,” he said, “I just got back in and I noticed those men leaving in the old buckboard.”

            Bennet Sloan, a weatherbeaten man of middle age, looked up over half-moon spectacles with keen eyes of brown.  His grey hair and expensive clothes spoke of his success, but the gnarled hands and tough frame told of the hard work he had done to earn it.  “Yes, that’s right,” he said.  “Levi Dobson sent them out here looking for a wagon.  What of it?”

            “I was wondering when they might be returning it.”

            “They’re not, as a matter of fact.”

            “No?  Where are they taking it?”

            Sloan raised his eyebrows at Putney’s impertinence.  “They said they had some supplies to haul, but not where they were going.  What business is it of yours?”

            Impatience tinged the older man’s tone, but Putney was growing impatient too.  With every passing minute, Mulvehill got farther away.  “Whatever business it is, it’s mine, Mr. Sloan, so give me my wages and I’ll be about it.”

            They locked eyes for a few moments until Sloan threw down his pen and said, “So that’s how it is?”  He reached into a desk drawer and withdrew a thick sheaf of bills.  “The way I reckon it, you’re due for seventeen days pay; that comes to fifty-one dollars.”  He peeled a few bills off the roll, which looked no thinner without them, and held them out to Putney.

            Putney did not take them.  He said, “Actually, the way I reckon it, you owe me a bonus for a job well done.”

            Sloan snorted and dropped the fifty-one dollars onto the desktop, then put the rest back into the drawer, saying, “Do you now?  Let me tell you something, Jacob.  I’ve been a cattleman for a long time, long enough to expect my hands to sell the odd stray out from under me, but I’ll be damned if I’ll let them steal my cattle and pay them extra money for the privilege.”  He slammed the drawer shut and straightened up, cocking his hands on his hips.

            Putney nodded and gathered up the money on the desktop, tucking it into the pocket of his coat.  “Fair enough,” he said.  “Can’t blame me for trying, can you?”  He grinned at his employer.

            He was still grinning when he withdrew his hand from his coat pocket.  In it was the little pistol, which he extended over the desk.  When he pulled the trigger, the muzzle was less than a yard from Bennet Sloan’s forehead, and the pistol ball made a neat round hole in it.  Sloan’s head snapped back and his body collapsed into the chair behind him, rocking slightly on its rear legs before coming to rest with Sloan draped in it as though taking a nap.

            Putney turned to look at Dixon, who stood with his mouth open, trying to comprehend what he had just seen.  Putney shot him in the chest, and when the groom clutched his wound without falling, Putney fired again, hitting him in the throat.  Dixon fell face down, making choking noises that soon stopped.  In the quiet that followed, Putney listened for any sound of alarm, but the other hands were still out rounding up strays and the cook either hadn’t heard the shots or wasn’t in the house.  In any event, no one came to investigate. 

            Putney came around the desk and pulled open the drawer from which he had been paid.  He took out the wad of bills and stuffed it into his coat pocket with his paltry fifty-one dollars.  He tossed the small revolver onto the desk, then went to the row of pegs behind the office door and from them removed Bennet Sloan’s gunbelt, with its twin holsters that held matching Colt Dragoon revolvers.  He buckled it on himself, settling the belt into a comfortable position a couple of notches tighter than Sloan had worn it, and rubbing the smooth handles of the pistols, enjoying the feel of them.

            Then with one last glance around the room, he stepped over the still body of Dixon the groom and pulled the door shut as he set out after Tom Mulvehill and his crew.