Guns of Wolf Valley Read online

  “ONE OF THE BEST WESTERN WRITERS TODAY.”

  —Western Horseman

  A TOWN CALLED PARADISE

  “Defy me and you defy the Lord, Falon!” Jessup’s voice boomed. As he spoke, he swung the whip out and cracked it in Falon’s direction.

  “Father Jessup,” said Falon. “It’s plain to see the man is drunk and talking out of his head. Whip him if you have to. But then give him to us. We’ll see to it he never causes any trouble here again.”

  “Brother Lexar, you step out here and wield this whip for me. This man is a drunkard and will be punished.” Looking at Chapin, who came running with a pair of iron tongs, Jessup said, “We’ll not be using the tongs today. Instead, Brother Lexar is going to whip this sinner until he cries out long and loud for God’s mercy!”

  Jim Heady shouted, “Don’t bet on it, you big tub of—”

  Falon and his men winced as the first crack of the whip resounded and a bloody red welt appeared across Heady’s back. Heady let out a long, shrill, agonizing scream, then began sobbing and crying aloud, “Oh, God, no! Please! No more! God have mercy! Oh God! Mercy! Mercy!”

  Guns of Wolf Valley

  Ralph Cotton

  A SIGNET BOOK

  SIGNET

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014, USA

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  First published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Printing, November 2004

  10 9 8 7 6 5

  ISBN: 978-1-101-65098-1

  Copyright © Ralph Cotton, 2004

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK — MARCA REGISTRADA

  Printed in the United States of America

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

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

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  ALWAYS LEARNING PEARSON

  For Mary Lynn…of course

  Table of Contents

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Part Two

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Part Three

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1

  Christian Ellis brought the big bay to a halt at the water’s edge. He wasn’t thirsty, nor was the horse, yet he stepped down from the brush-scarred bay with his canteen in hand and let the animal poke its muzzle into the creek. He sank the open canteen into the cold water as if letting it fill while he himself sipped moderately from his cupped hand and looked off across a slate gray sky. To the west a boiling darkness had spread the width of the horizon. A streak of lightning licked down from the storm’s black belly like a snake giving warning before its strike. But right then the coming storm was his least concern, he thought, turning a wary eye to the wide dissolute land surrounding him.

  Only moments earlier something across the creek had caused a covey of birds to rise from within the shelter of towering pine. He’d watched the hard batting of wings as the birds raced away on the wind. Since then a white-tailed doe and her fawn had broken cover and crossed the creek less than fifty yards ahead of him, exposing themselves to him in a way no creature of the wilds would do without good reason, storm or no storm. Ellis pushed back his broad-brimmed flop hat, raised his cupped hand and rubbed water around on his face while he guardedly searched the woods across the shallow creek. Someone was there; he had no doubt.

  Indians…? He didn’t think so. No Indian would have stirred up the wild life that way. Then who…? He considered as he sipped a mouthful of water, spit it out in a stream and wiped his gloved hand across his lips. Whoever it was they had to know he’d seen them scare up the birds and the deer, he reminded himself. After all that, it would have only been good manners to show themselves to a fellow traveler.

  Even as he considered the situation, from within the cover of the tree line he saw four horsemen ease their animals into sight and nudge them slowly toward him, riding abreast, spreading out as they crossed the shallow rippling creek. Trappers, he surmised, noting the ragged road clothes and dusty rawhides they wore, each of them with a stack of wolf pelts draped over his horse’s rump. They carried their bedrolls and trappings piled high and tied behind their saddles. They carried themselves with a menacing air. Three of them carried rifles across their laps. All of them carried pistol butts in tied-down holsters. Not good…

  Standing up slowly, Ellis reached his right hand inside his faded black riding duster, took out a wadded bandanna, dried his mustache and eased the bandanna back inside his duster. Only this time, when his hand went inside the long frayed duster, he wrapped it around the bone-handled butt of the long-barreled Colt he carried in a shoulder harness under his left arm. From the west, thin raindrops blew in ahead of the storm and dotted his black duster sleeve. The wind strengthened.

  A few steps ahead of the other three riders, a man with a dark beard called out without stopping his horse, “Hello the creekbank.”

  “Hello the creek,” Ellis called out in reply. Then he stood silent with a trace of a polite smile on his face. Yet, as he’d spoken he’d swept his broad-brimmed flop hat from his head with his left hand in a gesture of courtesy and held it down in front of him, using it to hide the big Colt as he slipped it from beneath his duster. A single larger raindrop blew in, this one landing coolly on his bare cheek. Wind licked at his hair.

&nbs
p; The bearded man did not see Ellis’s big Colt, yet something in this stranger’s bearing instinctively caused him to stop his horse fifteen feet away in the clear rippling water. The other riders drew to a halt behind him. “We’ve been watching you the past ten miles or so, mister,” said the bearded man, without offering to introduce either himself or the other riders. As he spoke he looked Ellis up and down.

  “I thought as much,” Ellis said flatly. “Now what is it I can I do for you?” From the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of lightning as it twisted in the distant blackness.

  Jerking his head back toward the three men behind him, the bearded man said, “Me and the boys here take wolves for bounty. But we’re also what you might call gatekeepers for these parts.” Without taking his eyes off Ellis, he gestured a hand taking in all of the northern mountain line. “From here on up, there will be no law to protect you. You’ll do as you’re told if you want to feel welcome up here.” He spoke above the growing whir of wind.

  Ellis only stared in silence. From the blackness came the rumble of thunder. More thin raindrops slipped in and appeared silently on his duster sleeve.

  “Yeah,” said one of the other three men, the only one without a rifle across his lap. “We’re what you might call the welcoming party up here.” He spread a nasty grin, and his hand rested on his pistol butt.

  “Shut up, Singer,” the bearded man barked over his shoulder at him. “I’m the one doing the talking here.” He leveled a harsh stare at Ellis, and added, “We kill off wolves, keep away bummers, undesirables, Injuns and whatnot. It costs us a lot of time and expense to do all that.”

  “I bet it does,” Ellis commented quietly, keeping both his smile and his poise in place.

  The bearded man cocked his head slightly to one side and asked, “Do you understand what I’m getting at, mister?”

  “I believe I do,” said Ellis, his eyes going from man to man, sizing them up, already knowing trouble was upon him. “I believe you’re saying I owe you something for traveling through here.”

  “Call it a road tax if you will, for providing safe traveling for pilgrims such as yourself.” The man grinned and added, “I can see you do understand the ways of the world clear enough.”

  “I understand all right,” said Ellis. “Problem is, I allow no money for such expenses.”

  The man shrugged as if not realizing what Ellis meant. “We can sympathize with a man being short on cash, times being such as they are.” He eyed Ellis’s horse and said, “We just lost our pack mule two days ago. I always say, a good riding animal is just as good as legal tender when a man finds himself in a spot.”

  “Funny, I always say that myself,” said Ellis. His smile remained as he continued to stand in silence, leaving the man unsure of what to say or do next.

  Finally the man cleared his throat and said, “So, if you have no cash, we’ll be obliged to take the animal off your hands.”

  “There he stands,” said Ellis, giving a nod toward the big bay. “Take him whenever you’re ready.”

  But in spite of his invitation, the riders made no move forward. Studying the resolve in Ellis’s cold gray eyes, the bearded man said, as if it had just dawned on him, “You’ve got a gun cocked behind that hat, don’t you?”

  “You can count on it,” said Ellis, his smile still showing beneath his broad dark mustache.

  Tension set in upon the riders. The first sheet of rain blew in mildly, the hissing sound of it moving up the creek. Duster tails fluttered sidelong, as did the horses’ mane. Not backing off, the bearded man said firmly, his hand tightening on his rifle stock, “Mister, there are no exceptions. Everybody pays.”

  “I don’t,” said Ellis. “Be advised of it and move on.”

  “You better do some quick counting,” said the bearded man. “There’s four of us. We are not men to argue with.”

  “Nor am I,” said Ellis, still smiling. “Now either take that horse like you threatened to or ride away. I don’t want to see or smell any of you on my trail again.”

  As the man’s hand tightened on his rifle stock he asked, “Who are you, mister? I like to know who I kill.”

  “My name is Christian Clayton Ellis. Any other questions?”

  Lightning twisted and curled, the body of the storm having drawn closer. “CC Ellis!” one of the riders said as if suddenly stricken with awe. His words were followed by a hard clap of thunder that caused the creekbed to tremble for a second. The other riders looked stunned at the realization.

  “You’re one of them long riders, ain’t you?” said the man with the beard, his hand already coming up with the rifle, his thumb cocking it on the upswing.

  “I am,” Ellis said calmly. With his hat in his left hand he swung open his black duster as his right hand streaked forward with the big Colt.

  “Hold it!” the bearded man shouted, trying too late to call off what he and his men had started. But Ellis had already triggered the first shot into action, the first bullet blasting through the bearded man’s chest and sending fragments of his heart spraying through the back of his shirt.

  Left to right Ellis’s Colt rose and fell with each blast, the first two shots finding their targets easily, one lifting a man from his saddle as he let go of his reins. The next shot caused a horse to rear, its rider holding firmly on to the reins as he flew from the saddle, his horse rising high on its hind legs and splashing down onto its side in a high sheet of water. But as Ellis’s third shot leveled and exploded toward the man carrying only a tied-down pistol, Ellis felt a burning pain stab his side, another along the side of his head as the man drew and got off two shots before slumping in pain himself. Blood spewed from a gaping wound in the man’s right shoulder.

  Ellis raised his Colt again with much effort, feeling the world began to wobble beneath his feet. He watched the young man spur his horse away along the center of the shallow creek. The man whose horse had fallen with him arose from the water and ran limping away behind the rider calling out, “Singer! Wait! Help me!” But the rider wasn’t about to turn back for his wounded comrade. Nor was his wounded comrade about to look behind him. If he had, he would’ve seen his horse rise up, shake himself off, run in a wide circle around the creek and come lopping along at a slow trot, following him.

  Ellis managed to get off one more shot at the fleeing men, but he hadn’t really aimed it. The shot was meant to keep them running; and it did. Then, as soon as the two were out of sight, Ellis allowed himself to slump to his knees, rain pelting him, his side and his head bleeding steadily. Pain racked him until he rolled into a ball on the wet gravelly creekbank, feeling the world turning dark around him. Of all times and places in this world for a man to get shot, he thought to himself, catching a glimpse of the high desolate land with the storm moving in above him, why did it have to be here and now? He had business.…

  Young Dillard Mosely and his yellow hound, Tic, moved with caution across the creek, loose wolf pelts that had fallen from the horses’ backs bobbed and floated past them. When Dillard eased onto the flat sandy bank in a crouch, the hound went off a few feet and raised a paw and sniffed curiously toward one of the two bodies that lay bobbing gently in the shallow water. “Mister?” Dillard inquired softly, seeing no sign of life from the man lying in a ball with his pistol clutched to his bloody stomach. He looked all around, first at the two bodies lying in the rippling water, then at the three horses standing a few yards away, their reins hanging loose, Ellis’s big bay standing off by itself, away from the other two. “Holy moly!” the boy whispered breathlessly, feeling rain run down the back of his neck. He looked at the hound, who had ventured over with his neck stretched out only inches from the gaping exit wound on one of the dead men’s back. “Tic! Get away from there!” he said. The hound backed away grudgingly but continued to probe the air surrounding the dead, rain dripping steadily from his drooping ears.

  Dillard heard a low moan come from the man on the bank, and the sound startled him so badly it sent him
scurrying backward, causing him to slip on the wet ground and fall solidly on his behind. Noting the boy’s action, the hound looped through the water and stopped beside him. “Stay back, Tic!” Dillard whispered, regaining his courage and curiosity. He stood up in a crouch and wiped a hand across the wet seat of his trousers. From beside him he picked up a short stick, ventured forward with it and poked the man carefully in his ribs.

  “Get out of here, kid,” Ellis managed to say in a strained raspy voice, thinking that at any moment the two men might return, see his condition and come to finish him off. Blood filled his eyes and ran freely down his face.

  “You—you’re alive!” Dillard stammered, his heart pounding furiously in his chest. The stick flew from his hand; he jumped back a foot. Tic growled low and took a defensive stand beside him. “Don’t—don’t you want help, mister?” he asked.

  “No…get away!” Ellis said with much effort, unable to explain himself. Pain held him locked in its grasp, yet he wiped a hand across his bloody eyes and forced himself to look off in the direction the two fleeing men had taken.

  Seeing him search along the creek, Dillard said, “Don’t worry, mister. They’re gone.”

  But the boy’s words didn’t satisfy Ellis. He struggled against his pain and pushed himself up onto his knees, feeling warm blood oozing between his fingers as he pressed his left hand to his wounded side. Rain ran down him in bloody streaks. “I said…get away from me!” he growled, managing to jiggle the Colt in his right hand, trying to frighten the boy.

  It worked, he told himself, his gun slumping as he watched both the boy and the dog scurry backward a few feet, turn and run splashing across the shallow creek. And stay away…He was unsure if he had actually said the words or only thought them. He felt the world turn dark around him once again, this time as he began trying to drag himself to the cover of a large boulder lying half sunken in the ground.

  From the other side of the creek, Dillard Mosely stopped only long enough to look back and see the man crawling, dragging himself with his gun hand, the gun still in it. As Dillard watched, he saw the man stop, stretched out on the wet ground. The man appeared to go limp, the gun relaxing on the ground in front of him. “Come on, Tic! Hurry!” Dillard said, turning, then running as fast as he could along the wet slippery path toward the house sitting up on the hillside a hundred yards away.