Valley of the Lawless Read online

  VALLEY OF THE LAWLESS

  by

  LEE MARTIN

  www.lachesispublishing.com

  Published Internationally by Lachesis Publishing, Inc.

  Rockland, Ontario, Canada K4K 0E3

  Copyright © 2012 Lee Martin

  Exclusive cover © 2012 Laura Givens

  Inside artwork © 2012 Louise Clark

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written consent of the publisher, Lachesis Publishing Inc., is an infringement of the copyright law.

  Published in E- and print editions

  by Lachesis Publishing Inc., Rockland, Canada.

  A catalogue record for the print format of this title is available from the National Library of Canada

  ISBN 978-1-927555-04-0

  A catalogue record for the Ebook is available

  from the National Library of Canada

  Ebooks are available for purchase from

  www.lachesispublishing.com

  ISBN 978-1-927555-03-3

  Editor: Barbara Brett

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any person or persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Dedication

  To James Liontas, dean and founder of Peninsula University Law School, my alma mater. Jim is a true maverick, whose daring and fearless determination have made him a success in every endeavor, because he was always willing to bet the farm. From a young G.I. to a Masters in Chemical Engineering and many years as a business executive, always with integrity and a clear sense of justice, Jim has the admiration and respect of all who know him.

  VALLEY OF THE LAWLESS

  Chapter 1

  The sound of gunfire echoed in the green hills of northern Wyoming Territory. Matt Landry reined his blue-roan horse to a halt and reached for his Winchester, drawing it from the scabbard. He listened intently, his grey-blue eyes shadowed by the wide brim of his black Stetson.

  His big frame was tense, his hard square jaw jutting as he looked slowly in all directions. The cool afternoon breeze was rustling his dark brown hair, cropped to his collar. His leather jacket and vest were suddenly too warm.

  Again the shots rang out. They came from the north, where the distant blue mountains were draped in a mist against rising dark clouds.

  New to this part of the territory, Matt was not yet aware that two years ago in 1876 Custer had met his defeat only seventy miles north of where he was now riding. Ranches and settlements were widely scattered in this newly opened range, and trouble could descend on him at any second.

  The creak of his saddle leather had never been so loud, the smell of his horse's sweat never so strong. He worked the lever on his Winchester, sending a shell into the chamber that seemed to ring across the land.

  Matt turned his gelding toward the echo of the gunfire and rested his repeater on the pommel. In his early thirties, he rode easy in the saddle. But he was weary, not having slept well for all of the nights enroute. He had ridden over two hundred miles north from Cheyenne to be married, despite his misgivings.

  As he rode up a grade he discovered he was on a cliff. He looked north up the deep, rocky canyon lined with high walls crested with dark pine. A wide, busy stream was running fast and swift through the rocks hundreds of feet below.

  He heard the gunfire once more. Then he saw it on the far side to his right: a spring wagon racing along the edge of the ridge, fighting to avoid the terrible plunge.

  Matt reached in his saddlebag and drew out the army spyglass he had carried for years. He held it to his right eye and adjusted it.

  A man with a woman wearing a shawl around her head were on the wagon seat along with a large black dog bouncing in the bed on barrels and boxes. Crowding the wagon were a dozen riders, shooting and cracking whips. The man was holding back on the reins as the wagon raced along the rim, but the riders were whipping his horses to higher speed and driving them closer to the edge of the cliff. Now the driver was firing back at them.

  Suddenly, the man grabbed at his face and was knocked back over the seat into the bed with the crazed dog. His team veered to his left and ran right off the edge.

  Helpless and out of range, Matt could only stare as the wagon hovered in space like some giant bug. The team of bays fought the air struggling and kicking as they fell, carrying the wagon with them.

  The woman's scream echoed along the canyon walls.

  Matt started down a steep deer trail, unable to tear his gaze from the falling wagon. It seemed an eternity as it bounced off the canyon walls for several hundred feet, then continued in wild disarray another hundred feet toward the bottom.

  The horses crashed into brush along the cliff wall. The woman was propelled off the wagon and thrown on top of them like a rag doll, falling the rest of the way on the back of one of them. The dog rode the wagon until it broke apart, throwing the animal wildly toward the creek, while the man's body rolled into the grass.

  Matt reined up in the cover of the brush, watching the dust rise around the horrible destruction. He saw the riders watch for signs of life for some time before they turned and disappeared from the cliff's edge.

  His mouth dry and stomach churning, Matt returned his spyglass to the saddlebag. He rode the dangerous path all the way down into the canyon and headed up the creek. The woman's scream was still echoing in his ears. No one could have survived that fall.

  When he came on the scene, he reined up.

  The wagon had smashed into pieces that were thrown in all directions, along with luggage and barrels of flour and other supplies. The dead man lay in the grass near the creek. He appeared to be a rancher in his forties, wearing a Sunday-go-meeting coat and string tie.

  The dog was in the water, fighting the current, its white nose pointed upward. The creek was some fifteen feet across and set with rocks and branches.

  The woman had landed on the horses, then rolled into the grass some eighty feet further up the canyon. Wearing a blue cape and white dress, she lay still as death. Her golden hair gleamed in the morning sunlight, and her face was turned away from him. The dead horses were in the rocks above her.

  Matt dismounted, leaving his roan ground-tied, and walked over to the dead man. A bullwhip had cut his face and throat, strangling him before he ever left the wagon seat—an accident perhaps, or cold-blooded murder.

  Turning, he saw that the black dog was caught by rocks and tangled in floating branches and was sinking fast, its white nose barely above water, white paws clawing at the surface. It was a miracle it was alive, and Matt needed to find something alive before he wept.

  “Hold on, fella,” Matt shouted.

  He unbuckled his gun belt and waded into the deep swirling water. The current went up to his waist, and he was fighting it as he caught the animal by the back of the neck. He freed it from the debris and started pulling it back toward shore. As he fought the fierce water and slippery bottom he began to wonder if he was going to make it.

  With great effort he staggered out of the raging current, jerking the big dog with him. As he collapsed on the wet bank the animal dropped to its belly nearby. Its eerie brown eyes gleamed as it growled at Matt.

  “Hey, it wasn’t me,” Matt said, breathing hard.

  The animal flashed its teeth, curling its lips back.

  Matt struggled to his feet. He was chilled through, but he pulled on his six-gun and walked through the debris from the wagon. He picked up some blankets and covered the dead man, then walked over to the woman.
He would have to bury them both. The horses were dead, and there was no easy way to get the bodies out of the canyon.

  As he knelt he saw the glitter of sunlight in her flaxen hair. It lay in great waves about her pretty white face. Her eyes were closed under long lashes. Under her torn cape she was wearing a white lacey outfit that looked like a wedding dress. She looked to be in her mid-twenties. In a sad moment of thought he reached to stroke her left cheek. She was still warm but lifeless. Uneasy, he draped a blanket over her.

  As he slid his hands beneath her and started to lift her from the grass he heard a moan and found himself staring into large, blue-green eyes. They gazed at him unseeingly as her lips parted.

  He drew back. “Thank God, you’re alive.”

  “My husband?” she whispered.

  “He didn’t make it.”

  “I hurt so bad.”

  “Do you feel anything in your legs?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Fighting tears of joy that she was alive, he was on his knees as he inched down past her hips. He put his hands on her through the white dress and layers of petticoat, pressing down on her thighs.

  “Feel that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you wiggle your toes? How about your fingers?”

  She nodded as she fought for new breath.

  He returned to kneel near her waist. “I’m going to carry you down to the creek. If anything hurts too much, holler.”

  She moaned as he slid his hands beneath her and lifted as gently as he could. He drew her up into his arms and staggered to his feet, trying not to hurt her. She was surprisingly light as her head rolled against his chest, her flaxen hair about her face.

  He carried her over near the dog, which had sniffed the man’s body and then retreated to where Matt had left it. He set her down on another blanket, then pulled it up around her as she lay on her back. She was gazing at him with more clarity.

  “It was Target riders,” she murmured.

  Matt sat back on his heels, startled. He had come all this way to marry Adriane Driscoll, a sweet and lovely young woman whose father ran the huge Target Cattle Company near Wrangler.

  “How do you know that?” he asked.

  “Their faces were covered, but Will said they were from Target.”

  He drew her blanket up more closely and touched her soft hair to spread it from her face. “For now, you just rest.”

  “Will was whipped around his eyes. That’s why we went off the cliff.”

  “Whoever they are, they might come back. I’ll bury your husband as best I can, then make a travois and try to get us away from here. We’ll camp down the canyon.”

  “Please, a marker, a cross.”

  “Later. Right now, the game is survival.”

  As he stood up he paused to stare down at her as she spread the blanket and cape to touch the lace on the front of her dress, fingering it with her eyes closed.

  He reached down to cover her with the blanket once more and set about with the unpleasant task of burial. He used a shovel from the wagon and made the grave close to the foot of the ridge and covered it with brush. He whispered a prayer.

  Then, using parts of the wagon and some of the rope from the supplies, he made a travois. The woman again moaned when he moved her, and he feared that she might have broken bones or internal bleeding. He tied her on the travois with some of the supplies and led his horse back down the canyon, out of sight of the ridge. The big dog trailed, still wary of him.

  Clouds were darkening the sky, and it was early evening when he stopped. The canyon was narrower, but the ridge overhang gave protection from anyone riding above. He unsaddled and tethered his roan. He made camp in a hollow of the cliff wall and built a fire in a circle of rocks, using brush and some cow chips. Soon the flames were blazing hot with stench.

  The dog lay nearby, watching.

  The woman rested in her blankets, tears trickling down her face as the shock slowly left her. Now she was wracked with pain and sadness. Matt knelt to give her water from his canteen while waiting for the coffee to brew in the big iron pot he had salvaged.

  “I had just met Will McClain,” she said, softly. “It was arranged by mail. His wife had been killed a year ago when he first got here. I came in on the stage yesterday, and we were married this morning in Wrangler. My name is Bonnie, Bonnie McClain.”

  “Matt Landry.”

  She wiped tears from her face. “The delegate to Washington?”

  He nodded. “But I gave that up.”

  “You don’t look like a lawyer. You look like some drifting cowboy. Or a gunfighter.”

  “You ain’t far off. My brothers are all lawmen, and I reckon I feel better out here with a six-gun than back in Cheyenne with a suit you can’t sit down in. But listen, do you think you can eat? There’s coffee and some hardtack. And I saw some beans in one of those sacks.”

  “I’ll try some coffee.”

  “You get any sign you’re bleedin’ internally or if anything’s broken, you let me know right off.”

  He poured hot coffee for her and held it close.

  She rose on her elbow and took the cup in her trembling hand, sipping it slowly and closing her eyes for a moment. Then she lay back, the cup at her side.

  Matt threw the dog some hardtack. It hesitated, pulled the bread between its front paws, and sniffed it, but it didn’t eat a bite.

  “He sure is careful,” Matt said.

  “Will said he got him from some medicine show man who was going to jail for stealing from the crowds. He said Blackie was trained to steal things from people, but he didn’t want Blackie shot, so he took him.”

  “Sounds like he was a good man.”

  She closed her eyes, biting her lip. “Will’s family is really going to be hurt. The attack was so brutal.”

  “Do you think your husband hit any of ’em?”

  “I don’t know. It was all happening so fast. They had chased us for a long time, whipping our horses. They were firing into the air, not at us. But when we got close to the cliff, Will got afraid and started shooting. That’s when they turned the whip on him.”

  By the light of the flickering campfire he fed her beans and hardtack, but she could barely swallow. Matt admired her pretty features, her small turned-up nose, and the way her eyes glistened in the firelight like crystal. Tears were still trickling down her face.

  “What made you come out here? I mean, a good-looking woman like you could have had anyone. Why marry a stranger?”

  She flushed. “It’s a long story. What about you? Why did you get involved in politics when all your brothers were lawmen?”

  “I guess I was the black sheep all right.”

  That brought a smile to her face. “And why did you come this far north?”

  “Have some more coffee.”

  She gazed at him curiously, but she was too tired to care. She lay back in her blankets, moving carefully. He knelt to cover her, resting his hand on her burning face. She allowed a flickering smile to cross her lips, then closed her eyes and fell asleep.

  Matt chewed on some hardtack but had no appetite. He watched over her for hours as she moaned in her sleep, keeping the fire hot as the chill of night settled in. He listened to the rushing, icy stream some sixty feet away and down a slope.

  He thought of Adriane and how he had met her in Cheyenne at a party for the governor. She had worn blue silk and was charming everyone there, including Matt, who had been lonely. He had been startled when she had turned her attention on him, and before he knew it they were making plans.

  “You’ll love Father,” she had said. “And my brother, Kerby. They have one of the largest cattle companies in Wyoming Territory. And someday you’ll share in it, Matt, but right now you have to make all the right contacts. I have to go stay with them now, but when you come we’ll be married and head right back to Cheyenne.”

  Matt had squirmed when she and the governor made political plans for him extending far beyond b
eing a delegate in the fight for statehood. Yet he had been so enamored of her that she could have led him anywhere.

  “Don’t worry, Matt,” Adriane had said in the shadows one night. “Father will back you all the way to the governor’s seat.”

  Matt had been flattered, but now he just shook his head. Staring into the flickering flames, he thought of ways to tell her that here was where he wanted to be. Here the stars filled the sky at night, more glorious than any glitter in Cheyenne or Washington. And here a man could ride free in the wind and wear leather and buckskin.

  Out here, however, there was danger from marauding Sioux and Cheyenne. But there were elk and deer, pronghorns and cottontails, wolves and coyotes, grizzlies in the mountains, fish in the streams. Sometimes, a man could stumble on roaming herds of buffalo and perch on a rock, watching them pass all day. And there was grass everywhere for a man’s herd. She was a rancher’s daughter. She would understand.

  At length he slept off and on, sitting up against a rock. His rifle lay across his knees, his blankets around him. A chunk of hardtack was still on his plate next to a cold cup of coffee near his feet.

  He sensed something moving near him and carefully peered from under his hat brim. The dog had sneaked around the campfire and was closing in on him. It lapped Matt’s coffee from the cup. Matt grinned but remained still, eyes nearly closed. It sniffed Matt’s plate and then carefully seized the hardtack with its teeth and backed away. Its eyes gleamed in the pale light as it waited for Matt to move. Then it turned and trotted back to where the other chunk of hardtack still lay in the grass. It was Matt’s he wanted. Matt grinned, and he slept a little more.

  Soon it was raining hard and persistently. They were sheltered by the cliff, and the dog came in out of the rain. It wouldn’t come near the fire as long as Matt was watching it. Lightning flashed, and the rain became so heavy it was loud and droning, beating the ground and rushing silt to the creek below. Matt slept fitfully.

  He awakened just as dawn was breaking. The dog was in the deep grass, growling softly. The fire had died down, and Matt rose to one knee, letting his blankets fall from around him. Bonnie was still asleep. The rain was only a drizzle now.