Massacre at Idyll Valley Read online

  Rosa met her half-way to the house, took the bucket from her hand and brought it to the sink where she washed it, dried it, and hung it shiny and dry for the next milking. Rosa had come to the farm after her brother Sanchez died in the gun battle at the end of the Horse Diggins reign of anxiety. She’d stayed behind after the funeral to help Lily and then just stayed on, attached to the running of her farm.

  They ate quietly. News of the massacre at Idyll Valley had reached them but Lily had taken a bold stand to remain on her farm, just the two of them. She did, however, polish up her Winchester, load the magazine, and stand it by the door just in case. Jackson Charles had offered her a room at his family home and restaurant, the Rusty Bucket, saying that there was a darkness that had descended over the whole region now that a murderous gang was somewhere nearby.

  “You get accustomed to the dark,” Lily had said, “when the light goes away.”

  After dinner Rosa went out to the chicken coop. The evening light was fading but she wanted just enough time to bring in some eggs for breakfast next morning. She had to fumble a bit but managed to find seven fresh eggs to put in her basket.

  Lily was cleaning up after dinner washing dishes when she heard Rosa shriek. She grabbed the Winchester and ran out back. Rosa stood transfixed, staring out beyond the rock fence, a basket of mostly broken eggs on the ground.

  Lily looked out to see a man on a horse, just standing there, still as a stone.

  Lily cocked the lever. “What’s your business,” she said.

  No answer. She tried to make out more about him: was he armed? Was he the kind of person who meant harm? But the light was dim and she couldn’t tell very much. The man then appeared to shift slightly which gave Lily the impulse to fire one shot.

  The man fell off his horse and lay still on the ground.

  The women came up to the man. They turned him over and saw he was wounded in the left leg and left arm. Rosa gasped. “You just fired one shot,” she said.

  “These are not mine,” she said. “I fired over his head.” She turned and looked at Rosa. Her eyes flashed worry. “He came with these,” she said.

  They helped him to his feet and walked him to the barn, one on each side.

  Rosa returned to the house for a lantern while Lily threw saddle blankets over some hay strewn upon the floor. She lifted him arm by leg by midsection onto his bed. He rolled his eyes her direction.

  “What’s your business,” she repeated.

  He made an attempt to speak but could not.

  Rosa came with the lantern.

  She tore the clothing away from his wounds and washed them in clean water. The wound near the shoulder entered outside the bone and exited out the back. The one in the leg, however, had no exit wound.

  “Bring my hunting knife,” she said.

  She placed a moist cloth over the two wounds in the shoulder, tied them round with twine. While she was dressing the wounds she stole glances to measure him with her eyes. He was about five feet eleven, sandy hair with a somewhat lighter scruff on his face, thin but decked with a modest amount of muscle. He had workers hands which proved he’d done some manual labor, maybe hoeing, or digging. Blacksmith shop, perhaps. His eyes were light blue/grey reminding her of intelligence.

  Rosa returned with the knife but had to nudge Lily to break her concentration.

  Lily sighed. With a cloth she removed the chimney from the lantern and ran the knife blade through the flame and back, through and back several times. Wiping off the suet and waving it in the air to cool the blade she felt the muscle around the wound for the bullet. The slug had penetrated the outer thigh and lay under the skin on the back side of the leg.

  She looked up, turned the man’s face to her and said, “I have to remove the slug.”

  He nodded.

  She scrubbed the skin with coal oil from the lantern and pushed the knife blade quickly in. The man uttered a hoarse scream and turned away. She rested, then announced the next move. “One more,” she said. She felt for the slug with the fingers of her left hand through the unbroken skin, then with her right, plunged the blade until she felt the slug scraping its tip. This time the man uttered nothing but he twisted involuntarily, then remained still. She withdrew to a gush of blood that spattered her face.

  “Artery,” she said, and pressed hard against the wound until the bleeding slowed.

  With a cloth Rosa wiped Lily’s face. They waited.

  Lily’s hand was pressing against the spot she’d found massaging the muscle in different places to slow the artery bleeding. Now, one hand occupied with the artery, with her other hand she reached in the wound but couldn’t quite get to the slug. She separated one finger of her left hand from its place on the artery and pushed the slug in the direction of the hand inside the wound until she could hook it with her finger and manipulate it out the open gash.

  “Bring me a smooth stone.”

  “How big?”

  “A lady’s fist.”

  Lily held the pressure on the artery until Rosa returned. “We have to leave this wound open,” she said, “otherwise it’ll get infected.”

  She pressed the stone against the spot over the artery, placed a clean dressing over the wound and wrapped the whole thigh with stone and dressing closed inside, tight with torn cloth.

  She placed his wounded appendages on pillows above the level of his body to reduce swelling and covered him with a blanket.

  She offered food.

  He nodded in gratitude, tried to speak, but waved his hand in refusal.

  He turned his head to one side and fell into a deep sleep.

  SEVEN

  Three days ago, Lily sat by the makeshift bed watching her stranger. A night and a day had passed and still the man wasn’t speaking. Lily came and went like breezes at the door, almost as quietly. She brought water, little bits of cornbread and a plate of beans, most of which lay undisturbed. Now it was the day before the Town Hall Meeting where Galen was to make his little speech.

  The wounds festered and drained and Lily had to scramble to keep up with dressing changes and hydration. Even though there was no conversation she was convinced she was getting to know this man really well. His presence, though shrouded in mystery, was somehow comforting. She judged him intelligent but a man with a troubled past, scarred by life’s injustices, perhaps, yet resilient enough to survive two gunshot wounds and ride however many miles it took to come this far. Any way you look at it he was a man with a deep undersurface.

  Late that evening he finally spoke. There was only the light from the lantern turned low and Lily, accustomed to the quiet of evening, was startled by his voice.

  “I owe you,” he said in a tone that rasped like a rusty hinge.

  She was wiping the sweat from his forehead as he spoke and she almost jumped away. She resumed her motions while she fumbled for something to say. “It’s nothing,” she said.

  “Then nothing makes something,” he said. He coughed and struggled to regain his voice. “And that something must have been what I needed. I think you saved my life.”

  “The Lord saved you, I’m sure. I just did what I’d do for anybody.”

  “Which must be why you’d be generous enough to do it for the likes of me.”

  “You might deserve it,” she said. She paused. “You might not. Doesn’t matter.”

  The man shifted his weight a little. He looked into her eyes. “You don’t know me,” he said. “You might not be so kind if you did.”

  “I can tell a lot about a man. You have your rough spots but you have some good points.”

  “Can you measure my rough spots well enough?”

  She was silent. She put away the cloth and began gathering plates and cups.

  He watched her motions with restrained admiration. “Be careful,” he said, “they’ll be coming after me. And you don’t want to get in the way of that crowd.”

  “What crowd?”

  He turned his face away, struggled to sit, gave up and
collapsed back down. “Soon as I get well enough I should leave you.”

  “Why?”

  “Every second I’m here is another second somebody’s looking for me. If they find me here you’ll be their target.”

  “Who is ‘they’?”

  “They are your worst nightmare.”

  “They have a name?”

  “Dry Creek Gang.”

  She gasped. “How do you know them?”

  It took him a minute to respond. She waited. Eventually he said, “I was part of them.”

  Lily had a hard time holding back her astonishment.

  “Why would you be a part of that horrible bunch?”

  The man pursed his lips and drifted his eyelids half shut. “I left that gang after. . . after they cut down that whole town.”

  “Idyll Valley?”

  “Women and children. I told Boss I was leaving and he shot me twice. I managed to put a shot into his hand and got away. But only because I have a fast horse could I manage to get to a set of boulders and hide.”

  “Then come here?”

  “That took two days and you saw the shape I was in when I got here.”

  She pushed a lock of hair back from his face. “What is your name?”

  “Tallmountain. Johnny Tallmountain.”

  “Indian name.”

  “Choctaw. Grandfather was Choctaw.”

  She watched his face. She watched him breathe. She absorbed his good and bad as best she could. She touched his cheek and his shoulder. She took a deep breath.

  Then she asked her question, “Where are they hiding?”

  EIGHT

  Jake arrived in Durango looking like a desert weed, blown in on a very dry wind. His skin was burned red and crisp, peeling like birch tree, and his clothes smelled of dead animals.

  He went to the closest building that looked remotely like a hotel and rented a room with a bath where he soaked his wizened body for three steamy hours and three bitter whiskies which he’d ordered before, anticipating the necessary length of this ritual of cleansing and resurrection. He burned his clothes in the alleyway out back but not before he’d bought an entirely new set, after which he looked like a Drug-Store Texan out of place in Colorado.

  He went to the general store, rounded up some supplies and placed them on the counter. “You must be just arriving for the county fair.”

  He looked up to see a young woman with long brown hair secured in a tight waist at the base of her neck by a gingham bow. “Don’t know nothing about your fair,” he said, “just came to live here a spell.”

  She tilted her head to one side and looked up at him. “You must have been out in that desert a long time.”

  A playful smile curled at the edge of his lips. “How’d you guess?”

  “Cause you look like all the rest of those hackers who wander in here. It’s always true they come from somewhere way east of here.”

  “Well I did. I did indeed, and I wouldn’t recommend crossing that scorpion infested territory to my worst enemy.”

  “That bad?”

  “Every bit and more.” He leaned on the counter. “And who might you be?”

  “I might be the proprietor’s daughter,” she said.

  Jake looked sideways. “That’s what they call you? Proprietor’s Daughter.”

  “Naw. But you’re not getting my name that easy.”

  He laughed. “Well said,” he conceded. “Smart lady. Just ring me up for all this stuff I found lying about around here and I’ll be on my way.”

  She rung him up. Took his money. “Going away mad?” she said.

  “If you mean insane,” he said, scooping his new belongings into a burlap bag, “that’d be about right.” Then he slipped out the door.

  All this before he’d even seen his house. He didn’t even know if it was still standing or if it might be washed off the mountain by some angry avalanche. He wound his way up the trail on his one remaining horse and indeed, the house was still standing. Only problem was, there were two drifters sitting on the front porch.

  “Afternoon,” Jake said.

  “Don’t allow no trespassers here,” they said.

  He looked at them cockeyed. Their clothes were soiled, their hats scruffy. They had uncontrolled beards dangling from their faces and a shotgun across one lap. A half-empty bottle of whisky stood between their chairs.

  “How do you like this cabin?” said Jake.

  “None of your business how we like it,” the shotgun guy said.

  “Like the view?”

  “Don’t care much.”

  “Like the stream running nearby?”

  “Don’t go there. Why your damn questions?”

  “It seems this cabin is wasted on the two of you.”

  “It works.”

  Jake moved his horse forward.

  “Stand right where you are,” said the shotgun guy.

  “No trespassers?” Jake said. “That what you said?”

  “You heard me.”

  “That would mean you have to leave.”

  The man put one hand on the gun stock. “We’re not going nowhere,” he said.

  “Ah, but you’re wrong about that because that’s exactly what’s going to happen.”

  “The sheriff said we could be here.”

  “You can send the sheriff to talk to me once you get out of my house and go back to wherever the hell you came from.”

  “Not your house.”

  “Got the deed.”

  The two drifters looked at each other. “Any house unoccupied for longer than six months is open territory.”

  Jake leaned forward in his saddle. “That’s a crock of shit.”

  “Open territory.”

  “Territory just got closed,” he said.

  The man reached for his shotgun but Jake drew first and shot a hole in his upper arm near the shoulder. The man screamed. The second man went for a Derringer in his boot but Jake shot the whisky bottle into a million pieces which had the effect of rapidly discouraging the second man.

  “Reach any further and the next shot will plug that black heart of yours.”

  The man sat back.

  “Seems like it might be time to toss your guns in the yard,” he said.

  They hesitated.

  He cocked his gun.

  They jumped and, reluctantly, did.

  “Now off with you both and don’t come back.”

  As they hobbled down the hill Jake shouted after them. “Like you said, no trespassers here.”

  NINE

  The town hall meeting brought everyone to the church at the end of Main Street. Parson Jebediah Tull was in rare form passing through the crowd with his long-barrel jet-black Remington strapped to his side. News had reached the town several days before that the gang responsible for the massacre at Idyll Valley was known as the Dry Creek gang named for the place the organizers first came together. No one knew, however, who the leaders were.

  Jebediah called the meeting to order and called on the Sheriff to give some general safety rules. Galen reminded everyone to keep their powder dry, their guns on hand, not to get hairtrigger fever for fear of hurting someone they loved.

  “Are we just going to sit here and wait for them to come attack our town?” asked George Higgins, General Store owner.

  “I have an announcement regarding that,” said Galen.

  “Let’s hear it.”

  Galen stepped down from the pulpit and stood in the aisle. “Gangs of that size have a hard time hiding, so they tend to move around. That way they are hard to find even if you’re tracking their movements. They tend to hide out in canyons or deep valleys between mountains, usually with an outlet out the back in case they get approached by some threat.”

  “Sounds like you’re saying they can’t be found,” said Bill Hampton of Hampton Stables.

  “No. Just if you find them you better be prepared for some serious fighting with lots of men.”

  “We can’t just sit around,�
�� said Rosalie of the Angel Dust.

  “But sounds like you’d need an army if you were serious about going head to head with them,” said Jackson Charles.

  Galen had been walking up and down the aisle. He stopped half-way and spoke. “They are way too strong for confrontation. It would be foolish to try. And any attack failure would result only in provoking them into coming in and wiping out the town.”

  “We have to get into the head of the leader. Already we can tell that he’s vindictive. That’s what happened to Idyll Valley. And he seems to have a second man who is a pathological killer. It’s not our best hope to attack or to provoke.”

  “What can we hope for?” said Rosalie.

  Galen turned his back on the congregation and walked up to the altar. He turned and faced the people. “We need a little more information. Tomorrow morning I will take Sabo, who some of you know is a great tracker, and try at least, to find where they are. Maybe they’ve left the county to pursue banks or stages elsewhere. At least I will be able to tell you if they are hold up close by.”

  “You could get killed,” said Martha.

  “Could,” said Galen, “but not if we’re careful and stay out of range.”

  The hall was quiet. The plan, which had its faults and its dangers, wafted over the heads of the audience like a toxic cloud. No one seemed to want to leave, locked in a clench of dissatisfaction.

  At the back of the church, in the last pew, someone sat in stone silence, observing with an icy precision all that had transpired in the meeting but saying nothing, keeping hidden in the deepest chambers of the heart, imprisoned there by a powerful reluctance, a cold secret that were it known would be explosive.

  The secret?—the location of the Dry Creek Gang.

  TEN

  Jake sat on his porch. His view covered the town of Durango, the Animas River Valley formed by the San Juan Mountains and the winding course of the river itself. To his left was a bottle of fine whisky. To his right was a double barrel shotgun. Ahead of him was the oncoming winter.