Chapter 110

“Trapper, there are at least two dozen turkey-buzzards circling overhead back west of here,” Micah told him as they rode north.

Trapper and the others turned their horses to look back to where Micah was pointing.

“Looks like we could have a fresh one for you men to check out. Let’s get on over there,” Trapper said and spanked his horse with his reins.

They topped a small rise to see at least two dozen more buzzards on the ground tearing into a dead calf.

When they rode up, the buzzards flapped their wings, croaking and hissing at the men as they skipped across the ground, leaving the carcass to settle on bushes and the open spaces nearby. There were still dozens of the buzzards circling in a downward spiral overhead as more and more buzzards came to the smell of carrion.

“This yearling calf has only been dead a few hours,” Pike said as he squatted and looked at the fresh blood.

“Look at how they, or whoever, cut both hindquarters and one shoulder off. Someone sure knows how to use a knife and someone knows something about cutting up a beef too,” Isaac noted.

Ezra had walked out a ways from where the others were inspecting the carcass.

“Come over here and look at this, Isaac. This isn’t the same cow tracks as the ones near the dead calf,” Ezra said as he hunkered down and looked closely at the cow tracks in the loose, dry dirt.

“Damn, you’re right, Ezra. I’ve never seen a cow track like this with the point of the hooves in the ground like a deer track.”

“That’s what I thought too. But the size of the hoofprint is that of a grown cow. There’s something going on here. Let’s all spread out and take a look around this place.

“Pike, Micah, Caleb, y’all come over and have a look at these tracks and tell us what you think,” Ezra said and waved to his brothers.

“I see what you mean. With a hoof this big, that cow should have left a deeper print in this loose dirt,” Micah told him as he walked slowly, tracking the same hoofprints.

“Let’s spread out and walk away from the carcass in different directions. We need to see where these odd tracks lead and what made them,” Ezra told them.

“Here’s another set over here just like them,” Pike yelled back to the others.

“Here’s a set I’m following too,” Caleb yelled to them.

“You men sure have better eyes than me, I still don’t see what you’re talking about,” Trapper said, more to himself than the others as he knelt in the dirt inspecting the many tracks.

“HEY, come over here, Trapper. You’re not going to believe this,” Ezra yelled and stood up to wave to the others. He was close to thirty yards away from the carcass when he found the answer.

“If that don’t beat all!” Trapper said as he walked over to look down at where the cow tracks ended and boot prints started.

“There are at least four sets of these tracks from what we saw, leading off in different directions,” Pike told them.

“Let’s walk a wide circle out away from the carcass and find where they met. They had to have their horses or a wagon close by,” Ezra told them.

“Three of them had to be carrying the shoulder and two hindquarters. I doubt one man could carry more than one and stay balanced on his cow-leg stilts,” Micah told them.

“He’s right. More than one set of tracks should have deeper prints than the others,” Isaac agreed.

“How do you men figure all this out just by looking at tracks?” Trapper asked before they split up to scour the area.

“We were taught to track and read trail sign years ago. We raise cattle for a living back home and we butcher our own beef three or four times a year to have fresh meat for our ten families and our hired help.

“We just do this on the side for the fun of it,” Caleb told him and Trapper laughed at him when Caleb winked.

“What did they do, cut off a cow’s lower leg and strap it to a boot so they can make tracks like that?”

“That’s exactly what they do, Trapper. Someone is going to a lot of trouble to have fresh meat,” Ezra told him.

With the six of them spread out, walking back and forth while constantly making wider circles from the carcass, they quickly covered the perimeter within a hundred yards.

Pike discovered where the men had met, and whistled to get the attention of the others.

Isaac was the first one to reach him and while the others made their way over, he and Isaac followed the wagon tracks to the west, away from the carcass and toward the road they’d traveled when they first arrived in Saddleback.

“Let’s get our horses and track this wagon as far as we can. I doubt we’ll be able to find much of a trail once we get on the Saddleback road,” Ezra told them and they headed back to where they’d left their horses.

“Trapper, is there anyone in Saddleback who would have a need for this much fresh beef?” Isaac asked as they walked.

“None that I know of. Oscar would have the most need for beef at his hotel, but I doubt he’d use one hindquarter in a week’s time. However, he buys his fresh meat from the Sullivans down in the valley a ways and they make a regular run up this way to deliver twice a week.”

“Who are the Sullivans and what do they do?” Ezra asked as he looked at his brothers.

“They run a small meat processing house down in Garland not too far from the old fort. They ship fresh meat out to Denver and Pueblo. They even ship back east using the Swift Refrigerator Cars. I doubt old man Sullivan and his wife would be involved in something like this. I’ve known them since they came here and started the family business.”

“Do they get all their meat to process and ship from the same source?” Ezra asked and Trapper looked at him.

“You men can sure outthink an old man like me. I never even thought about that. William buys his beef and pork on the hoof mostly and slaughters the animals at the meat house. He told me once that he hardly ever buys a carcass anymore, not knowing for sure how long it had been dead.”

“Do you think he would buy hindquarters and shoulders from people he trusted?” Isaac asked.

“I know he buys some like that. There’s still a few small farmers and ranchers who sell him a side of beef or pork every week or two to get money to live on until they can market their small herds. He trusts them and I don’t know any of them who would resort to this kind of cattle thievin’ though.”

They were riding southwest on the wagon road with Blanca Peak at their backs and try as they may, they could no longer tell which wagon tracks were the same ones they had followed out of the brush.

“Let’s head back over to Saddleback and tell Eli what we’ve found. We’ll probably need to ride down to visit the Sullivans in the next day or so. Looks like we’re getting strung out and we need to solve one part of this at a time.

“This discovery sure shoots a hole in the idea you had about your mountain man killing cows and calves, Trapper,” Ezra said.

“I reckon it does, but I know for a fact that Mad Dog still comes down to the ranches for food and supplies. I can take you men out to talk to some farmers who give him food regular so as to keep him from stealing.”

“We’ll need to check this out too when we get more facts on where the fresh meat is taken after they’ve killed the cows and calves like the one back there,” Ezra agreed.

Meanwhile...

“Marshal Crow, I’d like you to meet Mizz Eunice Cupp.

“Mizz Cupp, this is Deputy U.S. Marshal Eli Crow out of Oklahoma Territory. He’s here with his five brothers to try and find who’s responsible for the death of your husband,” Oscar Hinchey said as he introduced Eli to Henry Cupp’s widow.

“Mrs. Cupp, I won’t take too much of your time today, but I’d like to ask you a few questions about your late husband and what happened to him,” Eli told her.

“Have a seat over here, Marshal Crow. I’d be glad to tell you all I can if it will help bring those to justice who’re responsible for Henry’s death. Henry was a good man. He’d help anyone who needed help and I always told him he was too soft-hearted when folks come at him with a sad story. I reckon that was just how Henry was made though.”

“Oscar told me that Mr. Cupp spoke the name of a man who you suspected of taking his life, is that correct?” Eli asked her.

Eunice Cupp was a tall, thin woman. Her long, gray hair was braided into a single braid that lay over her shoulder as she sat in her chair with her knitting needles and yarn on her lap. She looked much younger than her age; her face was almost wrinkle free. Her brown eyes flashed wide, looking at Eli, as she began to speak about the incident that took her husband’s life.

“He did and until this day, you and Oscar are the only two men I’ve told that to. I learned a lot from Henry during his lawman years, ‘Never trust any man until you know him’ was one of his favorite sayings. I reckon I’ve become even more wary of folks now that I don’t have Henry to lean on.

“With his dying breath, he looked me in the eye and called out Joe Dugan’s name.”

“Did he say Joe Dugan? Or just Dugan?” Eli asked, remembering what Oscar had told him.

“He just said his last name but Joe Dugan is the only man in these parts with Dugan for a first or last name. I thought about that too for a long time.

“Then I remembered — Henry and everyone else around here always called Joe Dugan by his last name. When he said Dugan, I knew what he was telling me. Joe Dugan killed my husband, Marshal!”

“Do you remember your husband ever telling you anything about Joe Dugan that would help you be so sure?”

“Henry hardly ever talked about his law work. Just now and then, when I asked him what was happening in town, did he talk. All the years Henry and me were together, he knew I’d never tell others about his law work.

“He confided more things to me after we moved here than he ever had before. I had feelings that there were things going on that Henry had suspicions of, but had no proof. The day he told me that he had overheard Grant McKown and Joe Dugan talking in the front room, outside his office, I could tell Henry was really upset over what he’d heard.”

“What was it?”

“He told me that Grant McKown offered him, meaning Joe Dugan, one-hundred dollars to make sure Henry was out of town early the next morning.”

“Did Mr. Cupp hear why Grant McKown wanted him out of town?”

“Henry told me that he overheard Grant McKown tell Joe Dugan that a special stagecoach delivery would be made at the bank McKown owns. Saddleback hardly ever has a stagecoach come through here, unless it is to bring more money to the bank. You can ask Oscar that, he’ll tell you.”

“She’s right, Marshal.”

“Mizz Cupp, I never knew of that conversation between Grant McKown and Dugan. Were you even afraid to tell me?” Oscar asked her.

“Oscar, I have been so afraid for my own life since Henry died simply because I didn’t know who to trust. Just like Henry told me, Never trust any man until you know him. If I have offended you by keeping this from you, I apologize. I was simply trying to stay alive until I could meet someone in the law business that I trusted well enough to give that information to.

“I trust this young marshal, here. He reminds me of some friends Henry had over in Pueblo who were part Indian. Henry told me he trusted them above all the folks who lived there. I reckon I had to trust someone and I picked Marshal Eli Crow.”

“I’m not offended, Mizz Cupp. I was just shocked to learn of what Henry had overheard.

“I remember the time you’re speaking of though. There was a robbery. The stagecoach was robbed and the driver and two escorts were killed just a mile or so outside Saddleback before they could make their delivery. There were no witnesses and when the sheriff came over to investigate he ruled that the robbers must have followed the stagecoach all the way out here so no one would ever know who committed the crime. There never were any charges filed and the case went unsolved.”

“How long ago was this?” Eli asked.

“The robbery happened around noon and Henry was killed earlier that same morning,” Oscar told him.

“Marshal, the day Henry told me what he’d overheard, he told me that he’d tried to bluff Grant McKown by closing the outside door of his office hard. When Grant McKown walked past the doorway of his office and saw Henry sitting at his desk, he told McKown that he’d just walked in the office and sat down.

“He told me at the time that he thought McKown had believed him because they talked casually for a few minutes before he left,” Eunice Cupp told Eli, then suddenly jumped up from her easy chair, grabbing her knitting as she hurried to the front window and peeked out through the curtains.

“Mizz Cupp, what did you hear?” Oscar asked as he and Eli looked at her, then each other.

“I’ve been afraid to stay in my own home alone and even more afraid to step outside alone since I lost Henry. I just know one day they will come for me, thinking I may have something on them that Henry told me.

“That was the McK rider they call Jesse McKee who just rode past. Henry told me more than once that young man was evil and he didn’t trust him. I see him ride past my home almost every day, just as he has for the past two weeks or so. Sometimes I get the feeling he’s trying to catch me outdoors and do me harm.”

“I’m sure he or one of the others saw us walking this way this morning, Mizz Cupp. You be extra careful from here on. They’ll be even more suspicious now that you and I have met with Marshal Crow,” Oscar told her.

“Oscar, you best be watchful yourself until this is all settled,” she told him.

“Mrs. Cupp, I want you to get some clothes and personal belongings together and come back to the hotel with Oscar and me. I’m not going to let you risk your life another day after you’ve talked to me about this. My brothers will be back soon and between the six of us, Oscar and Trapper, we’ll keep an eye out for you over at the hotel,” Eli told her as he stood.

“Marshal, as bad as I hate to leave the safety of my home, I know you’re right. I would never sleep now with them knowing I have talked to you. This meeting is the one reason I have tried to outlast them. I’m tired of hiding now; I want to get some sunshine, fresh air and some fresh-cooked food. If you men will excuse me, I’m going to pack a small poke and I’ll be right out,” she said and hurried through an open doorway after stuffing her knitting into a bag.

“Oscar, we won’t be able to do our jobs and watch out for you and Mrs. Cupp day and night. I’m asking you now to help us watch over her and watch out for anything you think is wrong in Saddleback. Put her hotel bill on my account and I’ll pay for her protection as a witness in this case.

“I’ll tell my brothers and Trapper about this when they return and we’ll try to get Grant McKown into town so we can start asking questions of him.”

“We still have that farmers and ranchers meeting coming up in a week. He’ll be here for that or he’d look too suspicious if he’s not. He’s a strange man, Marshal. You’ll see when you meet him. At times, he acts as if he’s afraid he’ll be caught in a lie when you ask him a simple question.”

“Mrs. Cupp, I’ll carry your bag for you,” Eli said when she stepped out onto the front porch with a cloth sack stuffed full of clothes.

“Marshal, I’d rather carry it. I’d feel uncomfortable, you carrying my personal things,” she said and smiled when he smiled at her.

At the hotel, Eli walked up the stairs with Mrs. Cupp and Oscar. Oscar put her in a room next to the one Eli and Ezra were sharing.

“Mizz Cupp, I can have your meals sent up to you or I’ll come get you and you can dine with me and the marshals if you like,” Oscar told her before they left the room.

“I think I’d like to dine in public again. I’d feel even safer if I ate at the table with all of you men. When this is over, I’ll have to cook a good home meal for all of you,” she told him.

“Oscar, I’m going to the stable to check on my horse. If my brothers stop here first, tell them where I am,” Eli said as he walked toward the front door.

“I will, Marshal...”

“You watch out for that McK bunch. Remember what I told you. They’d just as soon waylay you from behind as spit in your eye.”

Eli stepped off the boardwalk into the dusty street, walking at an angle toward the livery stable on the opposite side and down at the far end of the street. Out of habit, he’d scoured the street, buildings, doorways and boardwalks by the time he took three steps.

He was just about midway across the dirt street when someone yelled at him from behind.

“Marshal Crow!”

Eli knew the voice as soon as the man yelled his name.

Aiden McKown!

Without breaking stride, Eli whirled in the dirt street, his Colt already in his right hand, his left hand fanning the hammer back as soon as he brought his gun barrel around.

Jesse Cameron McKee had his gun out of his holster; he was smiling as he looked at Marshal Crow. The man’s smile faded in a less than a heartbeat, replaced by the fear of death when he saw the barrel of the Colt .45 swing to a stop. He saw Marshal Crow fan his hammer. He saw the smoke from the gun barrel just as the bullet hit him between his eyes.

Aiden McKown just knew he was going to kill Marshal Crow. He had his gun pointed right at the man before the marshal even turned around. Before he could back the hammer on his Colt and pull the trigger, Marshal Crow had killed Jesse McKee and now the marshal’s gun barrel was pointed right at him. His left hand was just a blur. Aiden McKown died with a hole as big as a quarter dead in the center of his heart.

Aaron McKown had his pistol out of his holster; he was thumbing his hammer back while the Indian marshal was still pulling his gun around. He knew Jesse was dead and then he saw his brother, Aiden, fall face forward. He could see Marshal Crow’s left hand still fanning the hammer, smoke belching from his Colt, just as Eli shot both the man’s eyes out.

In the blink of a man’s eye, three men fell face first in the dirt street as men and women stepped out of stores and others looked out windows to see the Indian marshal standing with his gun still in his hand as he reloaded. He turned a complete circle while looking around him, dropping spent brass and thumbing live cartridges in the empty holes. They’d all heard one of the McKowns yell the marshal’s name.

As they watched, Simon McKown leaped over the hitching rail near the boardwalk in front of the dry goods store and ran right toward Eli. He was trying to get his gun out of his holster as he ran. He was scared and he was shaking at the sight of Aiden, Aaron and Jesse lying dead in the street. He stopped a few feet from the marshal and just as he began to pull his gun, Eli fired two shots, both hitting the boy’s wrist.

Simon McKown’s gloved hand was still gripping his gun butt. His left arm had been flung up and back over his head by the force of the two .45 slugs which completely severed his wrist. With blood spurting from the stump of his arm, Simon McKown fell to his knees, screaming and yelling for his daddy. He was trying desperately to stop the flow of blood with his other hand.

“That’s the third time I’ve let you live, McKown. The next time I see you with a gun, I’ll kill you!” Eli growled at him when he walked over to look down at the boy.

Oscar Hinchey ran stumbling into the street with his sawed-off shotgun. He stopped dead in his tracks as he looked at the four men in the street, then saw Marshal Eli Crow with his Colt in his holster.

Eli saw a flash of white high up on the face of the hotel and looked up to see Eunice Cupp waving down at him from an open window. She had a smile on her face.

Four McK cowhands ran from the hotel and jumped on their horses. They were thrashing their reins against their horses’ necks from side to side as they rode south out of Saddleback.

There was an older McK rider standing on the boardwalk near the hotel entrance. The man had been looking at Eli the whole time he was reloading, and now Eli watched as the man reached out to take the hand of a young boy and lead him over to a horse bearing the McK brand. He watched as the man took his gun belt off and put it in his saddlebag. He picked the boy up and sat him behind his saddle then mounted up and rode slowly out of Saddleback, never looking back.

There was no undertaker in Saddleback but the owner of the hardware store had long ago volunteered to dig the graves and bury the dead in a wooden coffin. He charged five dollars for a full burial in the town cemetery, including the pine coffin. For another dollar he would make a cedar grave marker with the person’s name and epitaph carved on it.

When the five Young Bucks returned to Saddleback with Trapper, they saw a man and a boy load two bodies into a wagon then throw a tarpaulin over them.

“If one of them is Deuce, I’ll kill every damned man, woman, horse and dog in this county!” Ezra said as he threw his reins over the hitching rail and leaped across it to run crashing through the saloon door.

The first person he saw was his brother and tears came to his eyes.

Eli had been facing the door as he sat at a table with Oscar and Mrs. Cupp. The two of them turned to look toward the door when Ezra slammed the saloon doors open so hard that one of them flew off the hinges and fell on the floor at his feet.

Before the saloon doors had even opened wide, Eli was up with his gun in his hand.

The two brothers stood looking at one another. Each of them knew what the other was thinking just from the looks on their faces.

“You thought that was me out there, didn’t you?”

“You thought they were coming back for you, didn’t you?” Ezra said as he walked straight to Eli and grabbed him.

“What happened? Who all did you kill? I saw McKee’s vest when they loaded his body,” Ezra said as Isaac kicked the saloon door out of the way, with Pike, Caleb and Micah following him in to see them talking. They too were smiling now that they knew Eli was alright.

“Mrs. Cupp, I’d like you to meet my brothers, Ezra, Caleb, Micah, Pike and Isaac.

“Young Bucks, this is Mrs. Henry Cupp.”

They greeted Eunice Cupp, with Eli pointing them out to her as he called their names. The Bucks pulled chairs out and sat around the table. Trapper pulled a chair from another table and sat next to Oscar.

All of them had smiles on their faces.

“What did you find out on the range?” Eli asked.

“We’ll get to that later, Eli. We want to know what happened here in town while we were gone,” Ezra said, cocking his head back toward the front door.

“Well, after Oscar and I met with Mrs. Cupp, we brought her back here to the hotel for protection. When we had her safely in a room upstairs next to ours, I told Oscar I was going to check on my horse. By the time I made it out to the middle of the street, someone yelled my name from behind me.

“I knew it was Aiden McKown even before I turned and I knew by the sound of his voice he was calling me out. I turned and killed him, his brother Aaron and Jesse McKee.”

“Eli, you’re not getting away with that! You sound just like Dad. Now tell us what really happened out there!” Micah told him.

“Son, let me tell you what I saw from the window up in my room right above the gunfight,” Eunice Cupp said and continued as she looked at Micah then Eli and smiled.

“I had just stepped over to open the window and let some fresh air in my room when I heard someone down in the street directly below me yell your brother’s name.

“I was still at the open window looking down when I saw Aiden McKown and that Jesse McKee standing behind your brother with their guns already in their hands. Aaron McKown was pulling his gun out too as your brother turned with his gun in his hand. He was already fanning the hammer as he turned. He shot Jesse McKee right between his eyes with his first shot, then he shot Aiden McKown through his heart. Before Aaron McKown could get his gun up and pointed at him, your brother, Marshal Crow over there, shot both his eyes out,” she told them.

“I knew there was more to it than ‘ ... and then I killed them’,” Ezra said and smiled at Mrs. Cupp.

“Now let me finish! That wasn’t all that happened! Like you, I thought it was over too until I saw that youngest McKown, the one they call Simon, run into the street as your brother stood reloading.

“I will never forget how Marshal Crow just looked at that boy. Then when Simon tried to pull his gun, your brother shot his gun hand twice, severing his hand from his wrist. The boy’s bloody arm was flung completely back over his head by the bullets. Blood was spurting out and spraying the ground.

“His pistol was still in his scabbard, his bloody black glove on his fist, still gripping the butt of that six-shooter!

“I was married to a lawman for over forty-five years and I never in all my life saw, or heard tell of anything even close to what happened out there in the street of Saddleback, Colorado, today.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Cupp. Eli is just like our dad. He’s even named after him, Eli Crow II. In the family, we call him The Deuce and sometimes the rest of us know the name fits better than anyone else will ever know.

“They’re a perfectly matched pair!

“Neither of them ever gives details like you just did though. Would you mind writing down the events you just described and anything else you might want to add about this whole thing with the McKowns? Include what happened to your husband too. We’ll need a signed statement from you for our report anyway,” Caleb told her.

“I’ll be proud to, Son. I am so happy they sent the six of you brothers here when I requested the governor send someone here with backbone enough to stand up to the McKowns while they investigated this mess.”

“We still have to determine who killed Joe Dugan and Paul Miller, and find out who was behind all three of the murders,” Ezra told them.

“Now that we’ve all settled down some, tell me about your trip out on the range. Did you find out anything interesting we can use?” Eli asked.

“We found out how they’re butchering the cattle then taking the meat away without leaving tracks, or without leaving tracks that are easily spotted, I should say,” Isaac told him.

“Marshal, it’s the damnedest thing I ever saw out there how your brothers can read sign an ordinary man like me can’t even see. Hell, I just thought I was good! They spotted it right off. They had to get down and point it out to show me what was happening.

“Then Marshal Ezra hollered for all of us to come see what he’d discovered. I could hardly believe what I was seeing when I got there. I never knew men stooped so low as to pull stuff off like this,” Trapper told him.

“Eli, they’re taking part of a cow’s leg and somehow strapping it to their boots or fastening it to the boot soles to make cow tracks instead of boot tracks when they walk. We found four different sets of tracks leading from a fresh carcass out there. We tracked them to where they changed boots then tracked them to their wagon. We tracked the wagon to the southwest onto the Saddleback road but we lost it amid all the fresh horse, cow and wagon tracks,” Ezra said.

“What would they be doing with the meat? Whoever it is seems to kill a lot of cattle like that just to be feeding a family,” Eli said.

“Trapper told us about a small slaughter house and meat packing company down in Garland not too far from the old fort. He said they ship meat by rail in Swift Refrigerator Cars to meat companies in parts of Colorado and back east,” Micah told him.

“We’ll need to check with them when we get back down that way,” he added.

“Oscar, do you still think Grant McKown will be at the meeting after all this has happened?” Eli asked, looking over at him as he sat listening to them.

“Oh, he’ll be here alright. He’ll want to get a good look at you, though I doubt he’ll ever say a word to you. He’s a strange man and he thinks different than most folks. From what I know of him, he’ll let the deaths of his sons fester in his mind until he backs himself into a corner and decides to get revenge. Be watchful while you’re here and be extra watchful when you leave here. The man’s a conniver and he’s lower than a snake.”

“From what Mrs. Cupp just told us, it was his son who called Eli out. Even out there on the trail our first day here, it was Simon who bristled up at Eli and got his head smashed for it. How could Grant McKown hold anyone at fault for his sons being so dumb as to keep on prodding a Deputy U.S. Marshal?” Ezra asked.

“I’m telling you, the man thinks different than ordinary folks,” Oscar told him.

“He’ll have it in his head that his sons had the right to do what they did and you men didn’t have a right to be here in the first place. He’s never been stood up to and ever since his sons were big enough to carry guns, just like that dumbass Simon, they have never been told no or had anyone talk back to them the way you marshals have.”