Chapter Six—Agony and Hollow Revenge

     Rob Conners rode home from Rogersville with some medicine for his pregnant wife, Julie. She was in her fourth month now and beginning to show, and beginning to have some sick mornings. Rob had gone to town to see if he could obtain some medicine from the doctor to help ease Julie’s discomfort. The doctor had given him some, with an assurance that he would be out to check on Julie within the next two to three days.
     As Rob rode home, his thoughts were on his lovely wife of less than three years. He absolutely adored her, her smile, her laugh that sounded like a chorus of angels from heaven, her thoughtfulness, honesty, purity—Rob didn’t think it possible that she could have an evil thought about anyone, even Wilson Brant who was trying to steal their land…”He’ll give up soon, Rob, he just doesn’t understand”…the rest of Julie was all bonus…her soft brown hair, striking green eyes, soft, lightly tanned skin, the way she held him at night, telling him, every day, how much she loved him, how much she needed him, how empty her life would be without him…and without fail, he would look into her eyes and tell her the same thing…and see those lovely green eyes smile their happiness and delight. No man could want more in a woman. Rob Conners considered himself the luckiest, most blessed man in the world.
     So he was thinking of her as he was riding home from Rogersville. He urged his horse on to a little faster canter so he could arrive at the ranch house just that much sooner. But as he neared their home, he saw something that concerned him—smoke. A little too much smoke, too much for a chimney fire for cooking…no, WAY too much smoke for a chimney fire…
     Supremely alarmed now, Rob put his horse into a gallop, his heart beating rapidly, fear and dread rising within him. And sure enough, when he topped the hill overlooking his home, he looked down and saw nothing but smoking cinders.
     “Julie!” he yelled at the top of his voice, and galloped down the hill as fast as Ol’ Paint could run. Rob could see that it was all in ruins—the house, the barn, the outbuildings…his corral had been torn down, dead horses everywhere…he could see his cattle in the distance—all dead. But he had only one thought on his mind at the moment…his devoted, darling wife Julie. Oh, God, please, please let her be safe, please! was Rob’s only thought as he rode down the hill…
     He jumped off the horse, shouting Julie’s name over and over and never getting an answer. The house was no longer in flames, except for a few logs that were still burning. Only the rock fireplace stood, and it was blackened by smoke and soot. Frantic, desperate, calling her name, tears starting to run down his cheeks, Rob searched and searched…and then, an agonizing, unearthly, banshee wail that would have frightened the very demons of hell came uttering forth from his lips, having begun from the depths of a now tormented soul…
     He saw a ring, a diamond ring, Julie’s diamond ring…among the ashes just inside where the front door of the house had been…
     Rob went cold with shock, his mind simply unable to endure the anguish and suffering that the realization brought to him…he slowly walked over to where the ring lay, and ignoring the fact that some of the logs were still hot, he pushed them out of the way. There was enough left that Rob could tell what had happened…the top portion of Julie’s skull had somehow escaped the flames, and there were a few strands of her soft brown hair that remained attached to it…Rob could clearly see the hole in the center of her forehead, a hole that could only have been caused by a bullet. And the outline of her burned body was also easy to delineate. There were no remains indicating she was wearing any clothes at the time of her death. And the ashes of her feet were spread far apart…
     Rob stood there and stared down at the remains of his beloved Julie for a good 10 minutes, not moving, scarcely breathing, afraid to feel, afraid to think. The evidence was clear—she had been raped, shot in the head, and then left to burn, hoping the fire would cover up the deed. Finally, the initial shock began to fade away, and Rob Conners fell to his knees, uttered that mournful, anguished wail from his tortured, demented soul, buried his hands in his face, and cried the cry of the damned, one tear for every piece of the billion parts his heart had been shattered into…
     Rob found enough of the remains of a shovel to dig a shallow grave. He collected what ashes he could of Julie’s body, putting the diamond ring in his pocket. He buried her, cried for another hour over her grave, then, with no more tears to spill, he turned his back on his land, mounted his horse, and headed for the place where he knew he’d find the man who had killed his wife.
     Wilson Brant.


     It was almost dark when Rob arrived on the hill overlooking the vast Brant estate. Nestled into a nice little amphitheater with a long, wide valley stretching in front…Carson Valley, hundreds of thousands of acres of wonderful grassland and water, named after the famed explorer, Kit Carson. Rob had only wanted a piece of it, 160 acres, and he had filed on it, and paid for it, and with Julie by his side, was making it pay. A few others, small ranchers, had done the same, not much of a dent in this vast, wondrous valley. But Wilson Brant had to have it all. He didn’t NEED it all, he just wanted it. He had never filed on an acre of it, had never paid for a foot of it. But it was HIS, HIS, HIS, and he wasn’t about to let a bunch of two-bit ranchers have any of it. “Before you know it, the valley will be swarmin’ with them squattin’ varmints.” It made no difference to him that those “squattin’ varmints” had paid for their land, fair and square. Brant was going to take it, regardless, and he had bought the local law in order to ensure than nothing stood in his way.
     He first had tried to buy out the “squatters,” offering them pittance for their land. Rob had paid $10,000 for his 120 acres, and had made many improvements to it so that it was worth three times that much now—or had been before the burnout. Brant offered him $1,000 for the whole thing, cattle and all. “Sell or else,” Brant had told him, and the other small ranchers in the area. A few, scared out of their wits, took the pennies and ran. Rob wasn’t made that way. He was going to stay and that was it.
     So he got the “or else.”
     And now Brant was going to get his “or else.”
     Rob had grown up in these mountains, knew them backwards and forwards, knew how to move with the stealth and cunning of an Indian. He had learned to shoot almost before he could walk, and it wasn’t a good idea to be at the end of what his pistol or rifle aimed at. So, now, he crouched in the trees above the Brant home, watching, waiting, reconnoitering…nothing moved but his eyes. There was nothing inside him any more…nothing…nothing but a burning, overpowering desire to end the life of the man who, for all practical purposes, had ended his.
     He surveyed the scene with care, planning his entrance and exit strategy carefully. There was a barn maybe 50 yards behind the house, with some stables behind that. Lots of horses. Rob would try to get out that way, and he would open the barn door sufficiently on his way down to where he could dash inside as part of his escape route.
     Rob had three guns with him—one in his holster, one in his belt, and his rifle.
     He couldn’t carry all three, so he would leave the rifle behind. Two guns—twelve shots. That would be enough, and he had some extra cartridges in his belt in case he had time to reload, which he didn’t figure he would. He watched until it got dark…saw three, four, five…no, eight men…he waited…waited…waited. The cicadas started chirping…an owl asked who he was…but Rob had eyes only for the house. Lights started twinkling out…now, near midnight, only a night light remained…everybody was asleep—or at least in bed. No—the glow of the tip of a cigarette, outside the back door. Probably a guard in front, too. He saw a dog, but it was in the front yard, too. Rob nodded…he could take care of all that. He stuck some jerky in his pocket for the dog…just in case…
     As silent as a church mouse, and keeping in the shadows as much as possible, Rob came in from the back. He sneaked in through the corral. Some of the horses were a little uneasy at his presence, but they were used to having men around so they weren’t bothered much. He entered the back of the barn and then went to the front entrance where, taking out his knife, he carefully eased the door open sufficiently to where he could enter it quickly on his escape attempt. If he got that far. He then backtracked, and made his way back into the trees. Moving carefully and silently, he eased his way to the side of the house. He peeked around the corner, saw the guard leaning against a support post on the porch. Easy pickin’s. Rob had no qualms, none at all. This man had very probably been on the raid that day which had destroyed his home and killed his wife. Rob took a knife out of a sheath on his belt, hoisted it, and threw. The man grunted, arched a bit, then fell to the earth, dead.
     Rob went over to him in a crouch, looking around to see if anyone had heard…no response. He retrieved the knife, and wiped the blood on the pants of the man he had killed. No remorse. Not one, single, solitary bit…he quickly and silently shoved the dead body under the porch…
     Nobody locked their doors. Rob opened the back door, and slipped inside.
     He didn’t know where Brant slept, of course, but somewhere on the second floor, he imagined. He was in the kitchen. Silently, he made his way into the living room…carpet on the floor…good, Rob thought. He made not a sound. He found the stairs, creeping up, keeping as close as he could to the wall to keep the possibility of creaking boards to a minimum…
     Down a hallway with three doors on each side, two of them open. Rob figured Brant’s son, Martin, also had a bedroom here, and that’s probably what the two open doors meant—the father’s bedroom, and the son’s. They were directly opposite each other, and even though it was a little too dark to see which bed held which man, the size and ornateness of the bedroom to Rob’s right indicated that that was where the old man slept. Brant’s wife had died a few years ago. Rob, in a queer sort of way, was glad. It would have been much harder to kill Brant if he had to leave a widow behind. Conners didn’t care about the son; he was a snake that could use a good stomping, too, but Rob wouldn’t kill him tonight unless he needed to.
     Rob slipped into the room, and silently closed the door, but didn’t latch it so that he could open it easily and quickly to get out. He moved over to the bed. Brant was on his side, asleep, facing Rob. Conners pulled his pistol from his holster, put the barrel in Brant’s exposed ear, and cocked it. Rob could have killed the rancher with his knife, silently. But he wanted to put a bullet in his brain, like had been done to Julie. The cocking of the pistol was loud, and since the metal of the barrel was against Brant’s ear, it woke him up…
     Brant opened his eyes, stiffened, but didn’t move for a moment. Rob pulled the gun back, but held it about a foot from the rancher’s face. Brant saw the gun and rolled slightly, looking beyond the barrel and up at Rob. The old man’s eyes weren’t as good as they used to be and Rob’s face was in some shadows, so Brant squinted.
     “Who are you?” he asked.
     “Death,” Rob replied, softly. “You made your final mistake today, Brant, when you burned my house, raped my wife, and killed her. There’ll be no more such mistakes for you to make.”
     “Conners,” Brant whispered. “Listen, man, I didn’t know they raped and killed your wife. That wasn’t part of the orders to abuse and kill her. I’d never do a thing like that.”
     “I see. Stealing a man’s land is acceptable, raping and killing are not. You gave the order, Brant, and hired the men, that’s all that matters to me.”
     Brant’s face got ugly. “I’m not stealin’ your land. You’re squatting on mine.”
     “Let’s see your title to it.”
     “I don’t need no title.”
     “No, I guess you don’t when you can buy the law.”
     Brant growled. “You’ll never get out of here alive.”
     “You won’t, either. But you killed me today anyway.”
     Brant tried to lift up, slipping his hand under his pillow at the same time. “Listen, Conners, we can still make a deal…”
     “No deals, Brant, no deals…” and Rob fired.
     The bullet went right into the old man’s forehead…right where Julie had been shot…
     Not surprisingly to Rob, Brant had had a pistol under his pillow…
     The shot would probably wake a lot of people up, and indeed, just a few seconds after, Rob heard someone yelling at the front of the house. “Who fired that shot?” Rob was already out of the room and into the hall. He saw Martin getting out of bed, so he fired a shot in that direction, not intending to hit him, but to send him into hiding. It worked, Martin dove for the other side of the bed. Rob ran down the hall, but paused before he reached the top of the steps. He heard someone coming up…the man came around the corner, and it was the last thing he ever did. Rob fired and hit him in the heart. The fellow tumbled down the stairs, but he was dead on his feet.
     Rob could hear shouting outside now, so he almost flew down the stairs. No doubt Brant’s men would be coming from both the front and the back of the house, and Rob, frankly, didn’t expect to live. Didn’t really care. But he also intended to take as many of Brant’s thugs with him as he could.
     And he wasn’t intending to simply be a shooting gallery, either. If they got him, they were going to work for it. Rob would go out the back way, since that was the closest to his horse. And because Rob figured they would be expecting him to come out the door, he dove head first out a window in the dining room onto the back porch, did a roll, and came up firing.
     He certainly caught them by surprise, and he got off two shots, hitting two men, before they recovered. There was a third man, and there would be more. The third man fired; Rob heard a bullet whiz by his ear, but it missed. Rob fired again, and didn’t.
     All of that had taken less than three seconds, so Rob was on his feet in a flash, heading for the barn, which was about 75 yards behind the house. The gun in his hand was now empty, so he shoved it into his holster and drew the one in his belt. He heard the shouts of men behind him and some shots flew his way, but he was a good 50 yards ahead, way out of good pistol range. The dog, a spaniel, was chasing him and barking, but Rob tossed the jerky in his direction and the pooch stopped for the treat. A rifle was what he was worried about now, and sure enough, he heard one firing. Rob ran in a crouch and at a zigzag, making himself difficult to hit. A bullet grazed his jacket. He turned, slapped off a couple of quick shots and saw men dive for the ground—he hadn’t hit anybody—and dashed through the open door of the barn, closing it behind him, though he couldn’t latch it. It was dark in the barn, of course, but there was enough light where he could spot what he wanted—a lantern. He grabbed it, smashed it on the ground just inside the door, spilling the oil, and then he quickly lit a match and tossed it onto the spill. A fire immediately whooshed up, ignited from the oil and the dry hay upon which it had spilled. Rob ran for the back of the barn. Brant’s men threw open the barn door before Rob got to the back, but the fire forced them back and he was into the corral before they could get around the blaze. He dodged among the now frightened horses and almost flew over the fence at the back of the corral. A couple of shots followed him, but missed. Rob turned and fired once, again, just a threatening shot, then ran for the trees. He made the cover of the foliage without being hit by any return fire and dashed towards his horse, which he had left about 30 yards inside the forest. He shoved the pistol into his holster, mounted his horse, and pulled his rifle from its saddle sheath. Coolly, calmly, he aimed down at the men who were now swarming towards the trees. He fired several times, hitting men with the first two shots, then over the heads of the others who had dived to the ground. Rob then turned his horse and they galloped away.
     There was no pursuit.
     He learned later that he had killed five other men, besides Brant.
     No regrets.
     Except maybe that he didn’t kill more.

     I had heard, soon after my raid on the Brant house, that I was wanted for murder. There is no way any of the surviving Brant men could have recognized me—it was dark and none of them got close enough. But a couple days afterwards, I rode to the house of a rancher friend of mine, Harley Harriman.
     “Rob! Ain’t you a sight for sore eyes! What happened? The law’s after you.”
     I quickly told Harley the story. “Of course, I have no proof that Brant did it, except that he told me, before I shot him, that he had ordered the raid, though he says raping and killing Julie wasn’t supposed to be part of it. He probably told the truth there. But he hired the men and he ordered the raid. He was responsible for her death, not to mention several others in this valley over the years, so I have no qualms about what I did.”
     “Well, I can guarantee you that none of the ranchers in this area are going to begrudge you for what you did. But you know that Dixon was in Brant’s back pocket and he’s already puttin’ out the tale that your house burned down accidental and that you went berserk, blamed Brant, and killed six men because of it.” Dixon was the local sheriff whose election Brant had engineered.
     I grunted. “Accident, huh. And I suppose all my cows and horses committed suicide.”
     “It don’t matter. Nobody’s going to buck the Brant people, though it might be interestin’ to see what happens now that he’s gone. His boy Martin ain’t got Wil’s salt.” Then he shook his head. “I’m real sorry to hear about Julie. Ever’body knows that Brant burned you out, like he done some others, but folks kinda figured that Julie had got away with you. I’m sure gonna go to town pronto and tell folks that Julie was raped and killed.” I grimaced and Harley apologized.
     “Well, thanks, but there’s nothing that can be done now. Dixon’s the law and what he says goes.” I shook my head. “I could never go back to my place again anyway. Never.”
     “Yeah, I reckon I can understand that. What are ye gonna do?”
     “Don’t know.”
     Well, the first thing I did was “rob” the Bank of Rogersville. I slipped into town, and though a few people saw me, Harley by then had spread the word of what had happened with Julie, so nobody was especially inclined to call the law on me. However, Peterson, the bank president, said that Dixon had frozen all my assets since I was now a fugitive, so I couldn’t withdraw the money I had there. So I shoved my pistol up his nose and persuaded him otherwise. All I took was what was mine—and I borrowed a few pesos from the Brant account—which was enough for me to live on for awhile. I headed north.
     Over the next six months, I basically lived off the land and mostly between Whitewater, which was, as noted, about 90 miles north of Rogersville, and Dry Gulch, another 70 miles or so on beyond Whitewater. I had been born in Rogersville—Julie had, too, we had been childhood sweethearts—so it was hard for me to get far away. At least too far. I stopped a stage when I started running low on money. I had thought about going into Whitewater for supplies because, even though my name was known because of what had happened in Rogersville, nobody probably knew what I looked like; I had been to Whitewater several times, but only as a way station for hunting I did in the mountains to the north. A few people would know me, but not many. The sheriff might have a wanted poster on me, so I decided to ride up to Dry Gulch when I needed some things. I’d always heard that the sheriff up there was kind of a lazy bum, while the fellow in Whitewater was pretty sharp. Come to think of it, I actually hadn’t been in Whitewater for several years now. But I decided the safest course was to ride up to Dry Gulch, get the supplies I needed as quickly as I could, then hightail it back to the mountains. I stopped a couple of stages before the one Robin was in, but I didn’t rob anybody in that first stage, which got me a few stares. There were five people in the coach and I had them come out, of course. They all looked like decent people, and I asked them all their profession. None of them were of occupations that were noted for wealth, so I couldn’t take their money.
     “You people get back in the stage and get outta here. I’m not going to rob people who are probably poorer than me.”
     They all just stared at me in disbelief, until I said, “Git!”
     So they got.
     The second stage I stopped had a lawyer in it. Didn’t mind taking money from that crook, but unfortunately he didn’t have much. I had hit a couple of other stages and “borrowed” some money, and then came Robin’s stage. I hit the jackpot there. I could live off $1,400—minus the $400 I paid for her horse—for quite awhile. I decided again not to chance Whitewater, so that’s why I had gone to Dry Gulch. Now that just about everybody knew who I was and more and more knew what I looked like, I figured I didn’t have much choice but to leave the territory, even though, unbeknownst to me, there had been, until the lady on the stage was killed by my impersonator, a massive amount of sympathy for me all through the area. But sympathy isn’t the law, and the law wanted me, so I had to keep my head down.
     And get out of the territory.
     But I just couldn’t do that yet.