Riders West by Matt Chisholm

Author:Matt Chisholm
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: cowboys, old west, western fiction, peter watts, frontier fiction, piccadilly publishing, matt chisholm, storm family, cattle ranchers
Publisher: Piccadilly Publishing

Chapter Eleven

It was a fine day and it was good to be alive. Spring was in the air, the grass was up and green. Tristem and Twiney rode the heavily loaded wagon and half-dozen in the heat of the rising sun. As they had been ordered, they had kept moving. They had reached Spring Creek the previous evening and had obtained their stores from the newly established trading post. They’d downed a few well-deserved drinks, swapped news with Hiram Shuster, the store-owner, and discovered that the half-breed they sought was camped no more than a mile down the creek. Tristem went after him and found him lazing around there in company with his Indian wife and three or four half-naked brats. He had dickered a little over the price, finally come to an agreement and reluctantly said that he would set off for Broken Spur that very evening. Later he had ridden through Spring Creek on a ragged Indian pony and headed south. Tristem and Twiney, the wagon loaded, had set off at a slower pace after him. The horses were tired and they seemed to have settled down to be wagon-pullers.

It was half-way home that it happened.

It happened very quietly and they knew that there was nothing they could do about it. A grizzled Negro simply walked out on to the trail with a rifle in his hands and told them to pull up. They were correctly under the impression that if they didn’t do exactly as they were told they would be dead men. Neither of them were inclined to be dead heroes for the paltry sum of thirty dollars a month, so they obeyed. They climbed down on one side, as ordered, and shucked their guns into the dust of the trail. When the Negro told them to start walking north, they did so without an argument. In fact, they didn’t say one single word during the whole proceeding. They tramped off north with leaden hearts and already aching feet. Out of hearing of the Negro they agreed unanimously that given the chance at some future date, they would plant some well-placed lead in that man’s black hide. They agreed further that the act would give them exquisite pleasure.

As soon as they were around the bend in the trail, Joe Widbee got to work. He cut the horses from their traces and rigged them as best he could with straps and ropes to carry supplies. Then he loaded as much as he could on to their backs. That done, he pitched the remainder of the supplies from the wagon over the side of the trail into the rocks below and, with some physical effort, followed them with the wagon.

That done, he collected the gun-belts discarded by the cowhands and slung them with the rough packs on the horses, fetched his saddle-horse from the rocks and rode north along the trail leading his string of loaded Broken Spur horses behind him. A mile or more north of the

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