Massacre at Powder River

“Morrison, you should be ashamed of yourself,” Matt said.

“What the hell!” Morrison shouted spinning around. Morrison’s pistol was in his holster. He saw that Matt’s gun was in his hand. “Where did you come from?”

“What is it? What is going on?” Teasdale asked, waking up groggily. Seeing Matt Jensen standing in his parlor, gun in hand, shocked him almost into insensibility.

“How? How did you get through everyone?” Teasdale asked.

“It was easy,” Matt said. “While they were shooting each other, I just came on into your house. I spent the night in your office. That is a very nice office. You had a very good thing going here, Teasdale. It’s a shame you couldn’t have been satisfied with what you had. You had to try and break Mr. Frewen by sending Logan and his outlaws out to steal his cattle.”

“I didn’t do that,” Teasdale said.

“Don’t lie to me, Teasdale,” Matt said with an irritable tone to his voice. “I don’t like it when people lie to me. I know damn well you have been working with Logan, and I have his journal to prove it.”

“What? What are you talking about? What journal?”

“Ahh, I see you didn’t know about his journal, did you? He wrote it all down, everything, dates, how many cattle he stole, how much money you gave him for each head. What was it? Five dollars a head, I think his journal says.”

Matt was running a bluff. There was no journal; he was merely using the information he had overheard in the conversation between Pool, Greer, and Bragg.

“What fool would keep a journal like that?” Teasdale asked in anger, and Matt knew that his bluff had worked.

“What I don’t understand is how you could do something like that to a fellow countryman—someone who is supposed to be your friend,” Matt said.

“Frewen is an incompetent idiot,” Teasdale replied with a scoff. “He has lost thousands and thousands of dollars for his investors. Once they find out what I have done, they will thank me.”

“And will they thank you for murdering so many of Mr. Frewen’s men? How many was it? Six?”

“I had nothing to do with anyone getting killed,” Teasdale said.

“What about Kyle Houston? Carlos Silva? Jake Scarnes? What about Carter, Hodge, and Decker? Did you have nothing to do with them being killed?”

“What are you talking about? You killed those men!” Teasdale said.

“Because you offered them money to kill me. You are the one who set it in motion, Teasdale.”

“You can’t hold me responsible for that.”

“I can, and I do. By my count, Teasdale, no fewer than twenty-two men have died because of your greed and ambition. And that isn’t counting how many were killed last night when your own men started shooting at each other. You are a mass murderer, Teasdale. You have killed more men that Billy the Kid.”

“You—you are crazy!” Teasdale said. “No court will believe that!”

“No court will believe it? No court? You don’t understand, do you? I am the court. I am the prosecutor, I am the jury, I am the judge, and I am the executioner. I find you guilty as charged, and I sentence you to death.”

Matt cocked his pistol, raised it, and aimed it at Teasdale’s head.

“No! God no!” Teasdale cried. He dropped down to his knees and held his hands up as if praying. “I beg of you. Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me! I didn’t know so many people were going to be killed. I thought Frewen would give up and go home.”

“William!” a woman’s voice said. Margaret Teasdale had just appeared in the door that opened onto the hall from the parlor. “You did that? You are the cause of all those men being killed? You are the cause of Moreton Frewen’s troubles?”

“You don’t understand, Margaret,” Teasdale said. “I did it for you. I did it all for you.”

“For me? You did it for me? How dare you say that?” Margaret said. “Clara is the best friend I have in this world. How can I ever face her again?”

“Stand up, Teasdale,” Matt said.

“No, please, no.”

“Stand up, William! Stand up and face him like a man, for God’s sake!” Margaret said.

Teasdale got up, and when he did, it was obvious to all in the room that he had wet his pants. He began shaking uncontrollably.

Matt eased the hammer down, then lowered his pistol. “The killing ends now,” he said. “How many men do you have outside?

“I had seventeen, counting the men who were out on the range looking for you. But four were killed, last night, and five were wounded. There are eight left.”

“Reed, go outside and call them in. I want them disarmed and standing out front. All eight of them.”

Reed left to carry out Matt’s instructions. Teasdale walked over to the wall, then leaned against it, shaking and whimpering.

“What happens to me?” Morrison asked.