“We just arrived today. We haven’t even seen the park yet,” George replied.
“I don’t care. I had no idea the West was this wild. Why, we could have been killed in our beds.”
“You were never in any danger, madam,” Ingraham said.
“How do you know?”
“Because these men weren’t after you.”
“Who shot them?”
“I did, ma’am,” Falcon said. By now he had pulled on a pair of trousers and was standing just inside the door of his room.
“Heavens! You shot all three of them?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“But, why?”
“It seemed to be the thing to do at the time,” Falcon said.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Oliver Bowman owned the Rocking B Ranch. His nearest neighbor and close friend, Doyle Clayton, owned the Lazy C. They were small ranchers, but their ranches were productive, and this year, between them, they would be taking over five hundred cows to market. In order to market them, they were going to have to drive them north to the rail head at Livingston, Montana Territory.
To that end, Doyle Clayton and his wife had been invited over to the Bowmans for supper. They enjoyed a good meal, then the Claytons’ six-year-old daughter Diane and the Bowmans’ eight-year-old son Clyde went into another room to play while the adults remained at the table and talked over coffee.
“We can put our cowboys together,” Bowman said, “and they should be able to handle the drive all right. But I’m thinking that perhaps you and I should go on ahead to scout the best route.”
“There’s only one route, Oliver, and that’s to follow the Yellowstone River,” Clayton said.
“That’s what I’m thinking, but I would like to check it out. Also, we’ll need to make reservations at the rail head up in Livingston.”
“You are probably right. So, when do you want to go?”
“I was thinking first light, day after tomorrow,” Bowman said.
“I’ll be here.”
“Oh, Doyle, Oliver, you two be very careful,” Mrs. Clayton said. “I just don’t like it that the Indians have gotten so bold of late.”
“Everyone agrees that it’s nothing more than a handful of renegades,” Clayton said. “This is a big country, the odds of us running into any of them are pretty small.”
“Especially since we won’t have the cattle with us the first time. Indians only attack when they want something. With just the two of us, it’s not likely we will have anything they want,” Bowman added.
“Oliver, you have a Winchester, don’t you?” Clayton asked.
“Yeah, I do.”
“Tell you what, if it will make the ladies feel any better, we’ll both take our Winchesters, in addition to our pistols,” Clayton said.
“Good idea. I’ll also bring along an extra box of bullets.”
“Why is that supposed to make me feel better?” Mrs. Clayton said. “If you think you have to carry extra guns, that means you are worried too.”
“No, dear. It just means we are being careful,” Clayton said.
There was a telephone in the Cinnabar Hotel, so on the morning after the shooting a call was put through to the sheriff and circuit judge in Livingston. They came down to Cinnabar on the morning train to hold a hearing into the shooting incidents in which Falcon had been involved.
There were eyewitnesses to the shooting in the hotel, so it was easy to establish that the gunman had attacked Falcon. And, though there were no eyewitnesses to the shooting in the empty lot, the sheriff and the judge listened to Falcon, Cody, and Ingraham tell about the train robbery and the incident with Slayton in Sheridan. In addition, a telegram from the city marshal in Bismarck told of Taylor being broken out of jail. Another telegram from the city marshal in Sheridan told of six horses being stolen, with Slayton as the principal suspect. By extrapolation, the judge declared the shootings to be justifiable, and no charges were brought against Falcon.
Later that same morning, Ingraham made another entry in his book.
Prentiss Ingraham’s notes from his book in progress:
