The Gunhawks (Cutler Western #2) Read online

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  The hardest winter in years was closing in fast as big, raw-boned John Cutler came down from the Big Horn Mountains. After months of man-killing work, the taciturn, leathery hunter of men and animals wanted nothing more than a bottle and a woman. He sure as hell didn’t want to tangle with the wild Calhoon Clan, but they forced it. And what do you know? It turned out to be the deadliest mistake they ever made ...

  THE GUNHAWKS

  JOHN CUTLER 2

  By John Benteen

  First Published by Belmont Tower Books in 1972

  Copyright © 1972, 2013 by John Benteen

  Published by Piccadilly Publishing at Smashwords: December 2013

  Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader.

  This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book

  Published by Arrangement with the Author’s Estate

  Chapter One

  Winter came early high in the Big Horn Mountains, and it was only September when Cutler and his outfit crossed Powder River Pass and came down the great, twisting gorge of Leigh Creek to Tensleep, with powder snow on a razor-edged wind whipping from a low, sullen sky.

  With the wagon rough-locked and the strong, black mules backing in the breeching against the steep downgrade, Cutler huddled in his mackinaw. With the Airedale dog beside him on the seat and Apache, the bay saddle horse loping tetherless alongside, he tasted the bitterness of defeat. Once again the bear, the big, stump-footed grizzly with the white blaze across its shoulder, had won. Somewhere in the Big Horns, it had gone to ground in winter hibernation, and now it would be beyond his reach till spring. But, he vowed, when spring came he would be back here waiting for it. Until then, there was nothing for it but to move on.

  But before that, he was going to have himself a drunk, a real high lonesome, starting at the first bar he hit in Tensleep. For four weeks now, he had roamed the Big Horns, living in the wilderness, on the big grizzly’s trail, and that was long enough for the memories to roil up within him and become unendurable. Only whiskey, a terrific binge, would erase them.

  When he reached more level ground, emerging from the great canyon, Cutler reined in the mules, sprang down, and deftly loosened the chains that locked the back wheels of the spring wagon, which was covered by a tarp on hoops. He was a big man in his early thirties, standing better than six feet, with a barrel chest, slim waist and long legs. A shag of black hair lightly frosted with gray spilled from beneath his stained sombrero. He had not shaved for over a month and his face, as craggy as if it had been hacked from living granite, was almost hidden by black beard. His clothes were travel-stained and dirty, but the Colt in the holster on his right hip was as impeccably clean as the long guns in the wagon and the steel traps that hung in festoons from the bows that held the cover. Beneath shaggy black brows, his eyes were the color of gunmetal, fanned at the corners with the wrinkles that come from looking across long distances outdoors. It was a hard face, but not a vicious one, nor was it usually without humor, but right now it reflected the inner agony and the bitterness of defeat, and, reading the tensions in it, a knowing man would have stepped wide of its owner.

  When the wheels were free, Cutler climbed lithely back to the wagon seat. The big Airedale laid its rusty-colored head across his thigh; Cutler rubbed it absently between the ears. For a month, the dog, Big Red, the two black mules, Kate and Emma, and the bay horse, Apache, had been his only companions. He could not help feeling a hunger for the sight of other humans, and besides the need for whiskey, there was another powerful tension within him; desire for a woman. He gathered up the lines, spoke to the mules, and, with a jingle of harness and a clank of the traps inside, his outfit started down the gentler grade again. Presently, he saw ahead the sparse buildings in the wider, lower canyon that was the settlement of Tensleep.

  The saloon was not much, a small building made of logs, but it was a saloon, and that was enough. Cutler, with the animals fed and housed in the livery, the wagon parked and the dog on guard, had a bath and shave at the barbershop and with clean clothes luxurious on his body, entered its muggy warmth gratefully and with anticipation. The place was empty save for two old men playing checkers at the rear; they raised their heads, looked curiously at the big man and narrowed their eyes at the sight of the six-gun on his hip. Armed men were less commonplace in Wyoming in 1894 than they had been a few years earlier during the bloody Johnson County War.

  Cutler went to the bar, clinked down a gold piece, and the man behind the counter came out of the doze he had been enjoying on his stool. “Bourbon,” Cutler said. “Kentucky stuff, a quart.”

  When the man set it out, Cutler took the bottle and glass and went to a table. By instinct, he chose a chair that put his back to the log wall. In his time, he had been a United States Marshal in the violent Cherokee Strip farther east, and, like any professional fighting man, he took no unnecessary chances. He poured a drink of whiskey, tossed it down neat at a gulp, poured another, drank that as swiftly, and sipped the third one while he waited for the first two to bite. When they did, he drained the third one and poured a fourth. He was just raising it to his lips when the woman came in.

  Cutler froze, hand upraised. He had not expected to see anything like her in Tensleep, much less in a bar.

  She was tall and blonde, with a ridiculous hat crested with a bird’s wing pinned to a luxurious helmet of golden hair, and the clothes she wore must have come from Chicago or San Francisco and maybe even from New York or Paris. She wore a short fur coat which could not conceal the full roundness of her breasts, and beneath it the long skirt molded itself to a slim waist and curved hips. Cutler saw her face in silhouette, clean-cut and lovely, with gray eyes, a straight nose, full, red lips, and a strong chin; her skin, unlike that of most women in this country, was soft and white and unaffected by the weather. She lifted the dress daintily so its hem did not scrape through the dirty sawdust on the floor and went directly to the bar. “Just checking up, Fred,” she said. “How was the day?”

  “Slow,” the bartender said. “Powerful slow, Miss Iris.”

  The girl shrugged. Cutler doubted that she was much over twenty-five. He had already noticed that her accent was peculiar, and now, as she spoke again, he pegged it: English. “To be expected, this time of month.” Then she added, “A whiskey, please. The private stock. With soda.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” The bartender poured, squirted seltzer from a flask. “When you leavin’ for Cheyenne?” he asked.

  “Casper first,” she said. “I have to see to my holdings there.” She sipped the drink, and then, slowly, she turned, and Cutler was aware of her eyes, enormous, the color of a dove’s plumage, but more lambent, fixed on him, and with boldness.

  He looked back at her; and when their gazes met, he was aware of something like an electrical shock tingling through the muscles of his body. She must have felt it, too, for she stiffened slightly. For a moment, she stood unmoving. Then she smiled, red lips curving, showing fine, white teeth. “We have one paying customer anyway,” she murmured.

  “Yes, ma’am, the first all afternoon ...” Then Fred broke off as the woman strode across the room. Cutler shoved back his chair, stood up, setting down his glass, as she came to the table. There was no shame in the way she looked at him.

  “A stranger in town,” she murmured. “New faces are alway
s welcome in the Elkhorn Bar. Usually we buy a new customer the first drink.”

  “I’ve already got a bottle,” Cutler said.

  “So I see. You’re Mr.—”

  “Cutler. John Cutler.”

  “Welcome to the Elkhorn, Mr. Cutler. I’m Iris Shannon.”

  “You own this place?”

  Her smile widened. “Among others. This in Tensleep, one in Casper, another at Thermopolis, one in Laramie, and one other in Cheyenne.” Then, unbidden, she sat down, putting her drink on the table. “May I join you? Strangers are an event in Tensleep, especially at this time of year.”

  Cutler grinned, dropped back into his chair, looked at her levelly. “I’m not the only event.”

  “You mean me?” She laughed softly. “Oh, I’m well known all over Wyoming. For better or for worse.”

  “You’re a long way from home. England?”

  For a moment, her eyes clouded. “Yes, England. And, yes, a long way from home.”

  Cutler poured another drink. “How’d you get here, a girl like you? And wind up owning . . . what, a string of bars?”

  Iris sipped from her glass. “Sometimes I ask myself the same question. But it just . . . happened.” Then, for a moment, her eyes clouded once more. “It’s very simple, really. In 1880, my father came out here from England. Maybe you know that back then all the big ranches around here were owned by English or Scottish companies. Everybody expected to get rich quick off of cattle. He was no exception. Only . . . first there was the winter of 1886, when most of his stock froze. By spring, the maverickers had the rest. He was bankrupt and so were all the friends who had invested in his enterprise. It was something he could not take. So . . . he paid his debt of honor with one pistol bullet ... in his temple.”

  Suddenly she drank half the glass at a swallow. “I was very young then and left quite alone and without even money to go home. But ...” She drank again. “Let’s just say I survived. Shall we say that? I survived and prospered. How, exactly, I don’t think is any of your business.”

  “Maybe I can imagine how,” Cutler said.

  “And maybe you would be right and maybe wrong. It’s not something I care to discuss.” She frowned. “But . . . Cutler. I’ve heard your name somewhere.”

  “Likely,” Cutler said. “It’s been in the papers.”

  She stared at him a moment, brow furrowed. Then she said, “There was a lawman in the Indian Nations . . . Cutler was his name. The man who cleaned up the notorious Boone gang and brought in the Thomas boys and saw them hanged—”

  Cutler nodded slightly.

  “That Cutler,” she said, and now a deeper interest blazed in her eyes. “A fighting man. One who took risks . . . and survived. Not like . . . my father.”

  Cutler did not answer. Only poured another glass of whiskey.

  “You drink a lot,” she said.

  “I have my reasons.”

  She did not push that. “Are you still a lawman?”

  “No,” Cutler said. “I’m a wolfer. A hunter and a trapper.”

  Iris arched her brows. “Isn’t that quite a comedown for a famous man like you?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. I used to hunt rogue men. Now I hunt rogue animals. Killer animals that nobody else can catch. I come high, but I get results.”

  She drained her glass. “Killer animals. We don’t have that kind any more in this part of the country. Rogue men, yes; Cassidy and his Hole-in-the-Wall gang, some others. But I know of no killer animals—

  “There’s one,” Cutler said. “He’s up in the Big Horn Mountains. A grizzly, a big old silvertip, with one hind foot gone. I missed him this time; he denned and snow drove me out. But, come spring—”

  “Strange. I hadn’t heard of a stock-killing griz—”

  “This one,” Cutler said tautly, “kills stock sometimes. But sometimes it kills people.” He drank once more and poured another drink for himself and filled her empty glass; she made no protest. The whiskey was strong within him now, and that was why he told her. “It killed my wife,” he said.

  Her eyes grew large. “Oh, no,” she whispered.

  “Yes,” Cutler said harshly. “And someday I’ll get the bastard if I have to follow him clear down to hell. I’ll . . .” Then he broke off as the front door scraped open and a blast of chill air blew through the room. Cutler laid both hands flat on the table and hitched his right leg forward, giving the butt of his holstered gun extra clearance; he did all that instinctively, because he knew somehow that the man who had just come in meant trouble.

  He stood there in the doorway, shoving the door closed with a kick of spurred boot. He was young, at least five years younger than Cutler, with a handsome, willful face dominated by a red, almost pouting mouth. But he was big, too; hulking, wide shoulders and muscular arms straining at his mackinaw. And he wore a gun, strapped low, in the manner of the gunfighter. For maybe ten seconds, he stood motionless, looking at Cutler and the girl. Then, spurs jingling, he strode toward them, taking off his hat with, Cutler noticed, his left hand.

  “Well,” he said, deep-voiced. “I’m in luck. Found you first shot out of the box. Hello, Iris.”

  “Cass,” said the girl in a cold voice, distant and full of displeasure.

  “You can do better than that. Cass, darling, it used to be.” He stepped around the table, so that he was standing between her and Cutler.

  “Used to be,” said Iris. “Yes. That’s exactly right. Used to be.”

  Cass’s voice roughened. “Don’t take that snotty tone with me. Goddam, I rode clear over the Big Horns to catch you here ...”

  Cutler said evenly: “Friend, I don’t know who you are, but I’ll buy you a drink if you’ll have it at the bar.”

  Cass swung around, blue eyes narrowing. “I was coming to you. Me, I want to talk to Iris alone. Clear out.”

  Cutler said, “Just like that?” His voice was very soft.

  “Just like that,” Cass said flatly. “Move.”

  Cutler said, without looking at her, “Iris. You want to be alone with him?”

  “No.” Her voice trembled slightly. “No, that’s the last thing I want.”

  “Damn it,” Cass said thickly, “it don’t matter what you want. I . . .”

  The whiskey burned in Cutler. “It matters what the lady wants. On your way, friend.”

  Cass’s face reddened, his eyes went hard. “Friend? Maybe you don’t know who you’re talking to, pilgrim. You ever heard of the Calhoons of the Double C?”

  “No,” Cutler said.

  The girl’s voice was full of irony. “How dreadful. You never heard of old Carson Calhoon from South Carolina and his whole brood of sons and daughters and cousins? Who came up here from Texas and just about took over Johnson County, bought out all the winter-ruined ranchers and set themselves up an empire? Why, I thought everybody trembled in fear at the Calhoon clan—except maybe me.”

  Cass’s eyes blazed. “Dammit, Iris, don’t you push too hard. The Calhoons are in a position to ruin you now in Wyomin’ if you . . .”

  Suddenly the girl sprang to her feet. “I’m not afraid of the Calhoons! You and I had something once, yes, until I found out that you weren’t really a man, just a spoiled brat depending on your father to get you what you want! That your family was your guts, that you didn’t have any of your own inside you . . .”

  “Why, you bitch,” Calhoon rasped; and he hit her, backhanded, hard. She cried out and reeled, and Cutler was on his feet, stepping around the table. Calhoon whirled toward him, hand swooping toward his gun, but Cutler’s hand shot out, fast as a rattler’s strike, and seized his wrist and clamped. Calhoon sucked in a breath of pain and raised his left hand, and then Cutler hit him solidly, letting go of his wrist simultaneously.

  The force of the blow drove Calhoon clean across the room, and he slammed into the bar. Once more his right hand drove gunward, and Cutler’s own right flicked, and Calhoon gasped, staring into the muzzle of Cutler’s Colt, with Cutler’s thumb ear
ing back the hammer.

  “You touch that iron,” Cutler said, “and I’ll blow a great big hole in you.”

  Slowly Calhoon straightened up, and his hand came away from his gun. His tongue ran over red lips. “You bastard,” he whispered. “All right, you’re fast. And you caught me off balance. But you ain’t got the brass to . . .”

  “To what?” Cutler asked, drunk and happy at the chance for battle. He did not take his eyes off of Cass, but he was aware of Iris straightening up, rubbing her cheek. “Take you on with fists? Is that it?”

  Cass’s hands clenched and unclenched. “That’s it,” he said hoarsely.

  “Why,” Cutler said, “nothin’ would make me happier. I never worked over a Calhoon before. But it shouldn’t be hard, if hittin’ defenseless women is their speed.” Then his voice was like a lash. “You want to fight the hard way, shuck that gun. Just unbuckle the belt, slow and easy . . .”

  “No!” Iris snapped. “No, Cutler, wait. He’s dangerous like that, I’ve seen him almost kill ...”

  “Hush,” Cutler said. “Well, Calhoon?”

  Calhoon grinned. Without answering, his hand went to the buckle of his gun belt. Cutler watched tensely as the younger man stripped off the belt, rolled it around his holstered gun, laid it on the bar. “Watch that, Fred,” he murmured and raised his fists. Cutler peeled away his own belt, handed it to Iris. “Hold that.” Then he faced Calhoon. “All right,” he said, whiskey and the lust for battle singing in his veins. “Come on, boy, cut loose your wolf.”

  “Yahh!” Calhoon roared as if it was a war cry, and he came for Cutler with a speed and lightness that astonished the wolfer. Before Cutler could shift weight to meet him, Calhoon’s right slammed into his jaw and knocked his head around and then Calhoon hit him in the belly and Cutler was picked up by the force of the blow and, with breath whoofing agonizingly out of him, was thrown back against a table. Calhoon was like a leaping pantherComing in again, he hit Cutler twice more before Cutler could straighten up; and there was the warm run of blood down Cutler’s cheek and his head rang. He fell back across the table, and the next blow from Calhoon missed; now Cutler knew what he had got himself into. Calhoon was slow with a gun, but he was the fastest man on his feet and with his fists that Cutler had ever met, and the realization came to him as he rolled with Calhoon’s knuckles grazing his cheek while he straightened up and Calhoon’s next blow glancing off his shoulders that Calhoon had him outmatched by far in speed; the younger man could hit him any time he chose and be away before Cutler could respond.