Trial at Fort Keogh by Charles G. West

Author:Charles G. West
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2014-10-27T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

The ride back to the fort had not been a pleasant one for Simon Yeager, since it was absent the satisfaction he had anticipated. He found it hard to accept the premise that Clint Cooper was not hiding someplace on that ranch, and they had just been unsuccessful in finding his hiding place. He was there; he had to be. The man was wounded—how badly, he wasn’t sure—but he would need help from someone.

Maybe that whore at Ernie Thigpen’s saloon near the fort, he thought. He might have gone there instead of back to the ranch. He remembered Mace saying that the whore seemed to treat Cooper like something special. When I get shed of these damn soldiers, I think I’ll pay her a little visit.

There was also the possibility that Clint was holed up at the line camp on the northeast edge of the Double-V-Bar range. He decided he would send Curly and Blankenship out there to check on it. Bringing the army in on the search for Clint had been a good idea, but it was especially frustrating to Yeager when it produced nothing. Maybe the wanted notices that he was going to wire might make it difficult for Cooper to go to any of the settlements along the Yellowstone Valley to hide. Assuming that he would be trying to hide.

He’d damn sure better be, he thought, because I’ll be coming for him. There was also one more on his list as well—Randolph Valentine needed to pay for his remarks.

When the column had come in sight of Fort Keogh, Yeager pulled up beside Justin. “All right, Lieutenant, I reckon I’ll be cuttin’ out here.”

Justin was somewhat surprised, for he had assumed that Yeager would ride in with the column and report to the major. “Don’t you want to talk to Major Kinsey?” Justin asked.

“There ain’t nothin’ to talk about,” Yeager said. “We searched the damn ranch and didn’t find a damn thing. That about covers it, don’t it?”

Justin couldn’t argue with that. It was concise, to say the least. “I guess it does,” he answered. “But don’t you want to see if the major plans any further action on this?”

“Nope, I’ll handle it myself from now on,” Yeager said as he wheeled his horse to the side and loped away from the column.

A waste of the army’s resources, Justin thought, and a damn cold ride for no purpose.

The patrol had resulted in consequences that Justin had not anticipated as well. Thanks to the search of Randolph Valentine’s house, he had created an unwanted amount of friction between himself and Hope’s father. As far as the fugitive, Clint Cooper, was concerned, Justin didn’t care about him one way or the other. He admitted that he was surprised when he first heard what Clint had done, but he later reminded himself of the caliber of men like Clint Cooper, who were barely civilized at best.

* * *

Ernie Thigpen glanced toward the door when the heavyset, squarely built man walked in.

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