Judgement Day (Wind River Book 6) Read online

  JUDGMENT DAY

  JAMES REASONER

  & L. J. WASHBURN

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1995 by James M. Reasoner and L. J. Washburn All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address The Book Place, P.O. Box 931, Azle, TX 76020-0931 Email: [email protected]

  First printing: November 1995 HarperPaperbacks

  Second printing: August 2011 The Book Place

  For Oleta North and Patty Williams, with thanks for letting us invade their stores.

  Chapter 1

  Cole Tyler heard the music playing as he stepped out onto the porch in front of the marshal's office. The stirring strains of a martial melody came from down the street in the center of Wind River's business district. A speaker's platform had been built in front of the Territorial House, the town's largest and best hotel. Cole had seen carpenters working on it the day before. He had no doubt that was where the town band was playing.

  A well-built man of medium height who wore denim pants, Cole also sported a marshal's badge pinned to his buckskin shirt. He had held the job for more than a year, ever since he had arrived in Wind River on the first train to roll into the settlement on the Union Pacific rails. Before that he had been a civilian scout for the army, a buffalo hunter, and a wanderer in general, the kind of man who never stayed in one place for too long.

  Wind River had changed all of that.

  Cole's brown hair fell square-cut to his shoulders. He had keen gray-green eyes, clean-shaven jaw, and features that were too rugged to be called handsome despite their power. A Colt .44 revolver was holstered on his right hip, and a heavy Green River knife rode in a sheath at his left hip. He liked to think that town living had not softened him too much from his wandering days, and for the most part he was right. But he had grown fond of this settlement in the southern part of Wyoming Territory, about halfway between Rawlins and Rock Springs.

  True, the landscape was a little bleak in these parts, and the town probably never would have existed if not for the railroad, but to the north, south, and west were ranges of snow-mantled mountains whose foothills contained many lush valleys where thriving ranches had been established. The biggest spread was Kermit Sawyer's Diamond S, northwest of the settlement. Sawyer had come up from Texas with a herd of half-wild longhorns and a crew of even wilder Texas cowboys and quickly made his mark as a Wyoming cattleman. Nearby was Austin Fisk's Latch Hook ranch, also quite successful now that the rustling threat in the area had been dealt with. The town itself had grown by leaps and bounds as it served the needs of the ranchers and the railroad alike. Its main street, Grenville Avenue, was the equal of any in the territory short of Cheyenne. In the months that he had been here, Cole had watched Wind River progress from a raw settlement that was half hell-on-wheels to a civilized community.

  Soon the town would take one more step on the road of progress.

  Wind River was going to elect a mayor.

  Billy Casebolt stepped out of the solidly constructed stone building behind Cole and tilted back his battered old campaign hat. The middle-aged deputy was tall, lean, and grizzled. He said, "Sounds like we got a parade goin' on."

  "Nope," Cole said. "It's not a parade. If I had to guess, I'd say it's a political rally."

  Casebolt grimaced. "I can't figure out for the life of me why folks had to go and ruin things around here with a bunch of politics."

  "Somebody's got to run things," Cole said with a shrug. "Wind River's getting too big to just muddle along the way it's been doing."

  "Yeah, but Miz McKay's pretty much run things all along. Once she's the mayor, how's that goin' to be different?"

  "Because the people will have elected her. She'll have the power of the electorate behind her, like Michael said in his last editorial in the paper."

  Casebolt snorted. "Still sounds like a lot of foolishness to me."

  "Maybe so, but there's no going back. Once there's a change like this, it's here to stay."

  Casebolt didn't look convinced, and Cole couldn't very well blame him. Cole shared a lot of the deputy's sentiments. Like Casebolt, he remembered when this part of the country had been wild and untamed but still a rich, bountiful wilderness.

  That was before land developers William Durand and Andrew McKay spread around enough bribe money to find out just which route the Union Pacific would follow as the transcontinental railroad was built. Durand and McKay had bought up most of the land around here and started their town, so that Wind River was waiting when the UP arrived. Both men were dead now, leaving McKay's attractive widow, Simone, as the leading citizen and owner of much of the town. And Wind River had prospered under her leadership, Cole thought, there was no denying that.

  But Simone had promised that her election as mayor would bring even more changes, and that had Cole a little nervous. The town had survived riots, cattle stampedes, Indian trouble, bloodthirsty outlaws, and a lot of assorted uproar during its relatively brief existence. But maybe Billy Casebolt was right.

  Cole wondered if Wind River could survive politics.

  * * *

  Simone McKay looked out over the crowd gathered in front of the speaker's platform and felt her heart thudding almost painfully in her chest. She had never been a speechmaker; that had been Andrew's job, back when he was alive. Now the time had come for Simone to speak for herself.

  It wasn't as if she was facing a bunch of strangers, she thought. She had friends here, and plenty of them. Michael Hatfield, the sandy-haired young editor of the Wind River Sentinel, was waiting to jot down notes while she made her remarks, so that he could write a story about the speech for the next edition of the paper.

  Dr. Judson Kent, the tall, bearded, distinguished-looking Englishman who was the community's only physician, stood near Michael, a reassuring smile on his face as he waited for Simone to speak. Jeremiah Newton, the massive, moon-faced blacksmith and preacher, was also in the crowd, and Simone knew he was one of her most ardent supporters.

  She looked around for Cole Tyler but didn't see the marshal. Cole had taken the lawman's job only because Simone had asked him to track down her husband's killer, but in the months since then the two of them had grown closer.

  Cole had some romantic interest in her, Simone knew that, but she had been careful not to allow things to go too far. As attracted as she was to the marshal, she couldn't let herself become distracted from the goal she had sought for so long.

  The town band stood to one side of the speaker's platform, their brass instruments shining brightly in the afternoon sun. As the musicians finished playing, Nathan Smollett, the manager of the town's bank, who was sitting on the platform with Simone, stood up and moved to the lectern that had been placed in the center of the platform. He looked out at the crowd and said loudly, "Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It is truly an honor and a privilege for me to stand up here and introduce the lady who is about to speak to you this afternoon. I may not have known Mrs. McKay for as long as some of you have, but I am already well aware of the fact that a finer, more upstanding woman could not be found in all of Wyoming! She is more than qualified to lead this town as it takes its proper place in the wave of progressiveness sweeping across our fair territory! Ladies and gentlemen . . . I give you Mrs. Simone McKay!"

  Applause flowed from the crowd a
nd broke over the platform like a wave. Simone stood up, her heart pounding even harder, and moved toward the lectern. She put a smile on her face as she looked out at the people waiting to hear what she was going to say. She hoped she wouldn't let any of them down.

  The banker was clapping as hard as anyone when he stepped aside from the lectern. Simone nodded to him, then looked at the crowd again. Smollett drew back and sat down in his chair, still applauding.

  Simone let the reaction run its course, holding up her hands for quiet only when she sensed that she was about to get it anyway. As the applause died away she said in a loud, clear voice, "Thank you. Thank all of you . . . and thank you, too, for those kind words, Mr. Smollett." She turned her head and nodded to the banker again, then brought her attention back to the spectators. "I'm glad all of you came here this afternoon to hear what I have to say. My message is a simple one: Wind River must move forward with the times, and if our town is to do that, we must not look back." Simone had no need for notes. She knew what she was going to say; she had gone over it enough times in her head. "This community had somewhat humble beginnings. Many of the buildings were only temporary, intended to last only until the railhead of the Union Pacific moved on. Other such settlements have been born, lived their brief time in the sun, and then died, leaving no permanent mark on the land or the people who lived there. But Wind River is different!"

  Her voice rang out strongly, and more applause came from the crowd. Simone paused, basking in their approval.

  "From the beginning, Wind River was meant to be different. My late husband, Andrew McKay, wanted this town which he founded to be a model for all other frontier towns."

  She said nothing about William Durand, her husband's partner, who had died in disgrace as an outlaw, blamed far and wide for Andrew McKay's murder. There was no need to remind these people of the turmoil that had marked the settlement's early days. Many of them remembered it all too well.

  "From the very first days of this community's life, we have had a newspaper, edited and published quite ably by Mr. Michael Hatfield," Simone said as she gestured at the young journalist. Michael blushed, but it was clear that he enjoyed the attention. Simone continued, "And we have also been blessed with the services of a fine physician, Dr. Judson Kent. Our law enforcement has been in the capable hands of Marshal Cole Tyler and Deputy Billy Casebolt, two exceptional public servants. Our own Brother Jeremiah Newton has attended to our spiritual needs and will soon be building the town's first church. As soon as it was possible, a bank was opened, under the management of Mr. Nathan Smollett. The record of progress is undeniable. Wind River has lived up to the promise that was my husband's legacy!"

  Simone felt good now. She was enjoying this. It was all right with her that she would not be required to give speeches very often, since there was no one running against her for the position of mayor, but at least this one had gone well. She smiled, listened to the applause, then went on, "I am pleased to announce today that Wind River will soon be taking yet another step forward. A teacher has been hired, and by the time he arrives next year, a school for our children will have been built!"

  That brought more applause. When Simone lifted her hands for silence, she said, "So you can see, my friends, that Wind River is well on its way to being a highly respected—and respectable—community. As I said before, we cannot look back. For the sake of our town . . . for the sake of ourselves . . . for the sake of our children, we must only look forward! There is no room in Wind River for the forces that would drag it back into a morass of frontier hooliganism! There is no room for ruffians, for thieves, for all the violent, immoral elements who unfortunately remained behind when the railhead departed. We must drive them from our midst, we must—"

  An angry shout suddenly came from the back of the crowd. "She's talkin' about closin' down the saloons!"

  Simone leveled a finger in the direction of the man who had called out. "That is exactly what I'm talking about!" she said. "The saloons, the gambling dens, the dance halls, the parlor houses . . . There is no room for them in Wind River anymore!"

  She had lost some of the crowd. The muttering she could hear told her that. But many of the listeners began to applaud again, and more than that, some of them started to cheer.

  Another voice bellowed, so loudly that the words overwhelmed the rest of the clamor, "Don't let that woman tell you how to run your life! She ain't the boss of this town yet! Vote for a man who says live and let live! Vote for Hank Parker!"

  Simone stared thunderstruck at the man who had shouted. This development had taken her completely by surprise. There hadn't been any talk about anyone running against her, certainly not the burly, one-armed proprietor of the Pronghorn Saloon, Hank Parker. The wheels of her brain spun rapidly as she searched for a way to deal with this unexpected disruption.

  In the meantime, Dr. Judson Kent had turned toward the man, who happened to be standing near the medico. "I beg your pardon," Kent said stiffly. "What did you say?"

  "Well, I don't beg your pardon, sawbones!" shot back the man, who was roughly dressed and appeared to be either a railroad worker or a miner. "I said we ought to all vote for Hank Parker! He won't try to push us around!"

  Several more men took up the cry, shouting Parker's name. Kent grabbed the shoulder of the man he had spoken to and said sharply, "Here now! That'll be enough of that. Have the decency to let Mrs. McKay speak."

  "That bitch can go to hell!" the man shouted. "Get your hands off o' me, you Limey bastard!"

  He swung a knobby fist at Kent's head.

  The doctor saw the blow coming but wasn't able to move aside in time. The man's fist cracked against Kent's bearded jaw, jolting Kent backward into the crowd. Instantly men sprang to Kent's defense, grabbing the man who had hit him, but that individual had allies, too. Men yelled curses, women cried out, and punches were thrown right and left. What had been an enthusiastic political rally turned into an out-and-out brawl in a matter of seconds.

  Tight-lipped, Simone watched the chaos from the speaker's platform. Her hands tightened on the sides of the lectern. She had seen this sort of thing happen before, when the celebration to welcome the first train into Wind River turned into a melee. All-too-vivid memories of that day came sweeping back into her mind.

  That was the day her husband had died. Someone in the milling, violent crowd had slipped out a gun and fired a fatal bullet into Andrew McKay's body. William Durand had been held accountable for the murder, once Cole Tyler had exposed the rest of his villainy, but Simone didn't like to think about that. She didn't like to remember anything about that day. Her hands clenched into fists, and she lifted them to her mouth, shuddering.

  She was barely aware that Nathan Smollett had jumped up from his chair and hurried to her side. The bank manager put an arm around her shoulders and tried to steer her away from the lectern. Simone let herself be led.

  It couldn't be happening all over again, she thought. She wouldn't allow it.

  * * *

  Cole heard the commotion that broke out from down the street and hurried in that direction, Billy Casebolt at his heels. Both of the lawmen had still been lounging on the porch, enjoying the peaceful afternoon. Cole had been able to hear Simone's voice as she made her speech, even though he couldn't make out most of the words. That was all right with him. He just liked hearing her talk.

  But then the peace had been shattered by a lot of yelling and screaming, and Cole had come up out of his chair to break into a run. He had heard the sound of too many big fights not to recognize one now.

  The street in front of the speaker's platform was filled with knots of struggling men. Some members of the crowd were running away from the platform, trying to escape the fracas, but most of the men who had been listening to Simone's speech only moments earlier were now throwing roundhouse punches and grappling with each other.

  Through gaps in the mass of people, Cole could see the raised platform. Red, white, and blue bunting had been draped across the
front of it. Simone was at the rear of the platform, Cole noted, out of harm's way with Nathan Smollett at her side.

  Well, at least that was one thing he didn't have to worry about, he thought. He reached the edge of the brawl and grabbed a man's collar, slinging him to one side.

  Another man, either not noticing or not caring that Cole was a lawman, swung a wild punch at his head. Cole ducked under the blow, stepped in, and hammered a fist into the man's midsection, doubling him over.

  Cole shoved the man out of the way and continued to wade into the mob, yelling, "Stop it! Stop fighting, you damned fools!"

  Nobody paid any attention to him, which came as no surprise to Cole. Once the fighting frenzy had seized a group of men like this, it was difficult to break them free of it. To do so took a shock of some sort. Cole slipped his Colt from its holster, thumbed back the hammer, and pointed the barrel toward the blue Wyoming sky.

  Something slammed into the back of his shoulders, knocking him to his knees before he could pull the trigger. In the next instant a man landed on his back, looping an arm around Cole's neck and bearing them both to the ground.

  Cole tried to drag a breath into his body past the arm pressed against his throat, but the grip was too tight. And he had been caught with little or no air in his lungs, so that his head was already spinning dizzily. A red haze seemed to be seeping into the edges of his vision.

  He drove his left elbow up and back, smashing it into the body of the man holding him. Over the sound of his blood roaring in his ears, he heard a grunt of pain.

  Cole struck again, and the pressure on his throat eased. He gasped for breath, and the redness in front of his eyes receded a little. It didn't go away entirely, though. He was too angry for that.

  Cole arched his back, throwing his assailant completely off him. The man landed in the street beside him, then tried to roll over and get back to his feet, but Cole didn't give that a chance to happen. He lashed out with the gun still in his right hand and clipped the man on the side of the head. The blow was hard enough to make the man slump to the ground face first, stunned.