Dead Before Sundown

“Anyway,” Russell went on, “I saw they had you outnumbered and outgunned, and then those bushwhackers climbed up on the ridge and tried to get you in a cross fire. Didn’t seem like a very sportin’ thing to do.”

“Well, we appreciate the help,” Frank said. “We can offer you some coffee and something to eat, if you’re hungry.”

“That sounds mighty fine.” Russell leaned his head toward the canyon mouth. “You don’t think those varmints are liable to come back?”

“I’ll stand watch,” Salty volunteered. “Y’all go ahead.”

He muttered something about circus cowboys as he walked off.

As the others started back toward the fire, which had burned down and gone out during the battle, Frank told Meg and Russell, “You two go on. I’d better do something about those bodies.”

The two dead men lying on the canyon floor where they had fallen, plus the one lying sprawled just outside the brush barrier, were grim reminders of what had happened here. Frank still couldn’t be certain why the men with the Gatling gun had tried to kill him and his friends, but there was no doubt about their deadly intentions.

He walked over to the corpses, retrieving his hat along the way. The first man he came to lay face down. That was the one Frank had shot in the belly.

Frank rested his hand on the butt of his Colt as he got a toe under the man’s shoulder and rolled him over. The chances of the bushwhacker still being alive were practically nonexistent, but it never paid to take chances.

Sure enough, the man’s beard-stubbled face had the lax looseness that came with death. Frank hunkered next to him and went through his pockets, but the search didn’t turn up anything except a plug of tobacco, a few coins, and a harmonica.

Frank held the harmonica in his fingers and looked at it for a long moment, wondering what songs the man had played on it around a lonely campfire at night. His mouth tightened into a grim line. He tossed the harmonica on the man’s chest. Thinking about such things didn’t do any good. They were just reminders of what a waste it was when a man took a wrong turn in life and went down a trail that ended with him dying by the gun.

Frank had taken his own wrong turns, some by choice and some he’d been forced into by circumstances, and someday his own trail would end the same way.

He stood up and walked over to the other man who had fallen from the rimrock. This one had turned over as he plummeted and landed on his back, splitting his skull like a watermelon. His face was unmarked, though.

Frank didn’t recognize him, either, although he knew the type. This one, like the other man, was a hardcase, an outlaw, the sort of man who would steal a Gatling gun from the Army and smuggle it across the border into Canada for God knew what reason … although money was bound to be involved somewhere. The dead man didn’t have anything in his pockets except the makin’s and some folded, greasy greenbacks.

Frank went back to the first man, took hold of his legs, and dragged him over next to the other corpse. After he fetched the body outside the canyon, he and Salty could put the corpses next to the canyon wall and collapse part of it over them in a makeshift burial. Maybe Reb Russell would give them a hand, if he didn’t mind getting his fancy duds a mite dirty.

Thinking of Russell made Frank glance toward the camp. Meg had gotten the fire going again and was heating up the coffee. He saw her and Russell talking.

Frank didn’t trust the stranger. Why was someone dressed like Russell wandering through these rugged Canadian Rockies by himself? That didn’t make a lick of sense as far as Frank was concerned.

But there was no denying that Russell had helped them out of a bad spot. If he hadn’t given them a hand, they might not have been able to drive off the attackers.

Maybe after he’d had his coffee and something to eat, Russell would go on his way, leaving them in the canyon. Frank wasn’t going to count on that, though.

And he wasn’t going to take his eye off the man who called himself Reb Russell for very long, either.

He walked back to the brush across the mouth of the canyon. Salty stood there looking up and down the valley.

“Nobody movin’ as far as I can see,” the old-timer said. “Frank, I want to tell you again how sorry I am for gettin’ you and Meg into this mess.”

“Don’t worry about it, Salty. Like we told you, nobody forced us to come along.” Frank nodded toward the dead outlaw who lay out here. “Ever see him before?”

“Nope. Looks like a typical hardcase, all gun and no brain.”

Frank nodded. “Same as the two inside the canyon. You still think Palmer was with this bunch?”

“I got no earthly idea. It makes sense, though, and these are just the sort of ornery, no-good varmints he’d throw in with. He worked for Soapy Smith, after all, and Soapy was about as bad as they come.”

“You want to roll some rocks down on these three?”

Salty scratched at his beard. “I’d rather leave ‘em for the wolves.” He sighed. “But I reckon that wouldn’t be fittin’. We already left that fella you had to kill yesterday.”

Frank took the dead man’s shoulders while Salty got his feet. They carried the corpse into the canyon and placed him with the other two.

“Give us a hand, Russell?” Frank called over to the man.

Russell joined them right away. “Are you going to bury them?” he asked.

Frank shook his head. “No shovel.” He pointed to some loose talus rock on the slope above the dead men. “We’ll start a little rock slide and cover them up that way.”

“Sure, I’ll help you.” Russell started to climb, with apparent disregard for his clothes.