Teacher With a Tin Star Read online

  Teacher with a Tin Star

  Mark Brown is hoping to become a minister of the church, but for now he is teaching the elementary school in the little town of Barker’s Crossing in Wyoming.

  When a local landowner begins to terrorize the homesteaders around Barker’s Crossing, Brown realizes that it is time to act. He has not always been a teacher; in fact he was a lawman for over ten years.

  Now, before he can fulfil his ambition of becoming a minister, he must take up his gun one last time and fight to defend the helpless.

  By the same author

  The Homesteader’s Daughter

  The Marshal’s Daughter

  Saddler’s Run

  Teacher with a Tin Star

  Harriet Cade

  ROBERT HALE

  © Harriet Cade 2015

  First published in Great Britain 2015

  ISBN 978-0-7198-2424-1

  The Crowood Press

  The Stable Block

  Crowood Lane

  Ramsbury

  Marlborough

  Wiltshire SN8 2HR

  www.bhwesterns.com

  This e-book first published in 2017

  Robert Hale is an imprint of The Crowood Press

  The right of Harriet Cade to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her

  in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  Chapter 1

  The three loafers, leaning on the hitching rail outside the Luck of the Draw saloon, marked the approach of the town’s teacher with undisguised and contemptuous amusement.

  ‘Here comes the schoolmarm!’ observed one, in a voice loud enough to be heard by the object of his ridicule. Whether Mark Brown noticed these unflattering words, it was impossible to say.

  The school teacher was a nondescript and colourless character, who might have been any age from twenty-five to forty. In fact, he was thirty-one that year. He invariably dressed in sober and semi-clerical black, which tended to confirm the rumour that he intended to take holy orders in the not-too-distant future. For now though, he was superintending the education of the young folk in the town of Barker’s Crossing; a small place of just over 500 souls in the north of the Wyoming Territory.

  As the teacher drew nigh to them, the men lounging around outside the saloon greeted him politely enough, but with an ironic edge to their voices, suggestive of suppressed laughter.

  ‘Afternoon, Mr Brown.’

  ‘Hey there, Teacher.’

  ‘How’s it goin’, sir?’

  Brown acknowledged the men pleasantly, with a smile and a nod. After he had passed them, but before he was entirely out of earshot, one of the men said emphatically, ‘I’d sure hate to be an old maid in britches like that.’

  Mark Brown had grown used to the mockery of some of the rougher elements in town. Teaching young children was, it was true, a traditionally feminine job and so it was only to be expected that some might find it entertaining to see a man undertaking the task. He had only held the post for a fortnight; hardly long enough for the novelty to have yet worn off. Well, he thought to himself, as he walked away from the saloon, if a little joshing is the worst that I have to endure in this life, I shall be doing very well.

  Truth to tell, Brown had a good deal more on his mind than teasing from the kind of inebriated clowns who congregated in and around the Luck of the Draw. If he was any judge of matters, there was serious trouble heading this way and his main concern just then was to make sure that the children for whom he cared were protected from it.

  The open country surrounding Barker’s Crossing was rapidly being settled by homesteaders lured there by the government’s offer of 160 acres of land for any former soldier of the Union Army. The War Between the States had been over for ten years, but many of those who had fought in it, still hadn’t found any permanent employment. As the years passed, the attraction of being given a free stretch of farming land increased, until this part of Wyoming was experiencing what amounted to a land rush. For the town, this meant burgeoning prosperity, but there were others for whom the flood of newcomers spelled ruin.

  Until the end of the war, this part of the country had been pretty well all open range, with ranchers allowing their cattle to roam freely across the vast acres of grassland. Some of these men had grown rich and powerful from their activities; after all, they had limitless free land and abundant water. Thousands of cattle could be maintained for no cost at all. All that was needed was to round up the herds each spring and brand any calves. Then the homesteaders began to arrive.

  At first, these settlers were more of a nuisance than a serious inconvenience. Slowly but surely though, they began to choke off access to the rivers and streams that were so essential to the big ranchers. Their fences and fields meant that the huge herds belonging to the long-established ranches could no longer move freely on the open range. Worse than this was when some of the newcomers began to raise cattle on their own account. The cattle ranchers could see their stranglehold on stock-raising being broken before their very eyes. The wealthier ranchers had found ways to discourage such enterprise, which was what had led to the present state of affairs. It was in connection with this matter that Mark Brown was presently heading out to visit the families of some of his pupils.

  Meanwhile, back at the Luck of the Draw, conversation at the bar was turning to pretty much the same topic: namely the trouble between the homesteaders and the most important rancher in those parts, Randolph Parker.

  ‘What d’ye hear ’bout that shooting the other day?’ enquired one drinker of the barkeep, ‘Think it was Parker’s boys?’

  ‘Couldn’t say,’ said Nathan Dowty, who had been tending the bar at the Luck of the Draw for as long as most anybody could recollect. ‘Like as not it was just some fight ’tween those homesteaders. I hear where they’re a regular set of libertines and loose-livers. Maybe they was quarrelling over some woman business.’

  There was a pause for a few seconds, as the others digested this opinion. Then another man said, ‘Mind, they say that the killer was wearing a spook mask. You know, a white sack with holes cut out for they eyes and mouth. Seems a funny way to carry on if’n they just fighting over some woman.’

  A man who didn’t live in town and looked to be one of the homesteaders came up to the bar and caught the tail-end of this conversation. He said, ‘If this is about that murder the night before last, I can tell you men here for now that there was no woman in the case. It was hired killers from that big spread as is owned by Parker. They killed Tom Sadler ’cause he wouldn’t allow any cattle across his land to the river. Parker told him he’d live to regret it and so he has.’

  This blunt and unequivocal statement left the others feeling a mite uncomfortable and the conversation moved along other channels.

  After he had collected his horse from the field behind the livery stable, Mark Brown headed out of town. A number of his pupils were the children of sodbusters living a couple of miles or more from town. They walked in each morning, their parents somehow scraping together the nickels and dimes needed to pay for the schooling. Three miles from Barker’s Crossing lived one of the first of the settlers to make a home in this corner of the territory. Terrence McDermott had arrived with his wife and son six years ago and worked his quarter-section for a year, before suddenly and unexpectedly dying of the bloody flux. Everybody had predicted that his wife would up and leave when her husband died, but she had nowhere to go and so, to the amazement and admiration of her neighbours, stayed on and worked the land herself.

  Agatha McDermott, known to one and all as ‘Cattle Aggie’, had been one of the first homesteaders to begin keeping cattle. This had led to friction with Randolph Parker, as it had s
et a bad example to others thereabouts, who also started acquiring a few steers and entering into competition with Parker. Since many of these people owned the land lining the various water-courses, it did not take a prophet to see that the way things were going. It was the small farmers with their own land who would be the future of farming in Wyoming, rather than men like Parker who relied upon the rapidly shrinking open range for their livelihood.

  In the usual way of things, the teacher enjoyed visiting parents like the widow McDermott. Some mothers and fathers didn’t seem to give two hoots what their young ones learned, waiting only for the day that the children would be big enough to help around the house or farm. Others though, like Agatha McDermott, knew the value of education and wanted their own children to reach for a better life than they themselves had been able to hope for.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mr Brown!’ cried Aggie when she caught sight of the teacher riding up towards her house. She was engaged in washing a large dog of indeterminate breed and ferocious appearance. ‘To what do we owe the pleasure?’

  Brown dismounted and came a little closer to the farmer before speaking. He said quietly, ‘Is your son near at hand?’

  ‘Patrick? Why no, he’s gone over yonder to his friend’s to play. What’s to do?’

  ‘Everybody in town’s talking of the shooting over at the Sadler place. I wanted to speak to you about it without frightening your boy. I’m guessing it had something to do with Parker?’

  Mrs McDermott grimaced. ‘It’s a bad business. Tom Sadler got sick to death o’ having Parker’s men and steers trampling over his crops. He told Parker straight that he wasn’t about to see anybody passing o’er his fields again without leave. His wife says that Parker just kind o’ shrugged and told Tom as he’d be sorry.’

  ‘It’s much as I thought, then. Anybody see who killed him?’

  ‘Only Sally. His wife, you know. She said as two men rode up to their soddie and called on Tom to come out. He was a game one, came straight out with his scattergun at the ready. Didn’t help none. Those men just gunned him down as soon as he came out the door. They had masks on.’

  Mark Brown shook his head in disgust. He had never been able to abide such beastly tricks. He said, ‘I was wondering if you and some of the other families might like to have their children come to stay in town for a spell? Meaning, if you think there’s apt to be any more shooting or such like. I could offer them a shake-down in the schoolroom for a while, if it would help.’

  ‘That’s right nice of you, Mr Brown,’ said Aggie McDermott, her usually harsh and uncompromising features softening for a moment, ‘You’re a real friend. It won’t answer though, for all that I’m grateful for the offer.’

  ‘It might be safer for your son. . . .’

  ‘Once you start running and hiding from bad men, there’s no end to it. I reckon we’ll stop here and see it out together. But like I say, I’m mighty obliged to you for the thought.’

  It was the same story at all the other little homesteads along the valley that Brown visited. The men and women were very grateful to him for thinking of them, but not one was intending to split up their families that way in the face of trouble. He couldn’t say that he blamed them, really. Why should they back down in the face of naked aggression of this sort? If he himself had a family, thought Mark Brown, as he rode back to town, he would like as not refuse to budge an inch himself. Certainly, he would want to keep his children right by his side, just as these folk did. Well, he had tried.

  When he had arrived in the Wyoming Territory, two weeks earlier, Mark Brown had been aiming to take a year’s break before studying for the ministry. Teaching school seemed like a peaceful way of spending a twelvemonth, giving him the time to reflect upon what he was planning and deciding whether he really had a vocation for the priesthood. The last thing he had reckoned on was stumbling into a situation like this.

  Jack Brady, the old man who ran the livery stable, seemed disposed to be chatty when Brown left his mare there after riding out that afternoon. ‘Been visiting, Teacher?’

  ‘Keeping in touch with my pupils, Mr Brady.’

  ‘You want some advice?’

  ‘I can see you want to give me some,’ smiled Brown, ‘Go on, what would you recommend?’

  ‘Steer clear of Main Street today. There’s a bunch of new men working for Parker. They’ve come into town to get liquored up at the Luck of the Draw. Wild-looking crew. I know some of our boys poke a little fun at you, but these fellows might be something else.’

  ‘I appreciate your concern,’ said Brown, before bidding the old man good day and setting off in the direction of Main Street.

  ‘Well,’ muttered Brady, ‘Nobody can say that I didn’t warn him.’ He was stricken with a sudden spasm of coughing and when he hawked and spat, there was as much blood as spittle in the dirt. He grimaced and went into his office to get the bottle of medicine he had been given by the doctor.

  It wasn’t quite dark, but judging by the noise coming from the saloon, it was already doing a roaring trade. Many folk in Barker’s Crossing had an ambivalent attitude towards the cowboys from Parker’s place. On the one hand, they surely were free spenders, throwing their money around like drunken sailors. But then again, they did tend to get a little rowdy at times and most men liked to know that their wives and daughters were safe at home when a crowd of the ranch hands hit town.

  As he approached the saloon, Brown heard a short cry of distress from the space between two of the buildings to his left. It sounded like a child’s voice, or maybe that of a young woman. Either way, he felt that he should see if any help was needed. He walked briskly into the deeply shaded alleyway and saw two figures struggling at the far end. ‘What’s going on there?’ he called. Receiving no answer, he carried on down the alleyway, to see what was what.

  As he came closer, the teacher realized with a shock that the stifled cry had come from a young woman, really little more than a girl, who was being restrained by a rough-looking fellow of perhaps forty. This man, when he caught sight of Brown, said sharply, ‘Get the hell out o’ here. This ain’t your affair!’

  ‘Well,’ said Mark Brown mildly, ‘I reckon you’re wrong about that, friend.’

  The other man turned to face the interloper and released his grip on one of the girl’s arms as he did so. Lily-May Cartwright later related to her friends in awe what had next happened, hardly able to believe the evidence of her own two eyes. Like everybody else in Barker’s Crossing, she had the teacher marked down for a regular sissy.

  ‘That teacher, he just grabbed ahold of that fellow’s shirt-front and swung him round,’ she told everyone, ‘Banged him into the wall and then, ’fore the man knew what was going on, Mr Brown he reaches his hand down right quick and takes the gun from the other fellow’s holster and throws it clear out of the way. Then he grabs the man’s hair and proceeds to bang his head back and forth hard on the brick wall. Then, when he’s knocked him out stone cold, the teacher lets him fall into the dirt and he says, “You just keep your hands off other folk, you hear what I tell you?” I never seed the like!’

  Mark Brown felt sick at heart when he had finished dealing with the ruffian. He had sworn never to lose his temper in this way again. There was not the least doubt that the fellow richly deserved a beating, but this was hardly the conduct that one would expect from a man hoping to become a minister. Not for the first time, Brown felt like a rank failure. If he could not even restrain himself while working as an elementary teacher in a little town like this, what hope was there for his future life?

  In the meantime, there was the problem of what to do with this girl, whom he now recognized as the big sister of one of his pupils. ‘It’s Miss Cartwright, isn’t it?’ he enquired, ‘Whatever happened?’

  ‘I was taking a shortcut round back of the stores, when yon fellow jumped me.’

  ‘You know what they say about shortcuts, I suppose?’

  ‘No, what’s that?’

  ‘Shortcu
ts make for long delays.’

  ‘My pa wanted me home before sundown. I was in a hurry.’

  ‘Well, let’s see if we can get you home safely now. You live just down the road aways, don’t you? I teach your brother, Billy.’

  Mr Cartwright was almost incandescent with fury when he heard what had befallen his sixteen-year-old daughter, his immediate impulse being to charge down to the saloon, find the man who had assaulted his child and shoot him on the spot. Brown talked him out of this rash idea and, without going into details, hinted that the man had already been punished to some extent. It was Lily-May who supplied the details and, when she had finished her account, Pete Cartwright looked at the teacher in a different way. He said slowly, ‘I’ve a notion that we was wrong about you, Brown, and I don’t mind owning it. Happen you weren’t always a teacher?’

  Mark Brown smiled. ‘No, it’s what you might call a recent development, Mr Cartwright. That doesn’t signify. I’m glad I could be of assistance.’ He stood up to leave.

  ‘I hope that man you felled doesn’t take it amiss and come after you,’ said Cartwright. ‘I’d be sorry to think as me and mine had put you in danger.’

  ‘I’m not afeared of him,’ said the teacher quietly, making it sound not like a boast but merely a plain statement of fact.

  The atmosphere in the Luck of the Draw was tense. The men from Randolph Parker’s ranch were often a little lively when in their cups, but those who had come into town that afternoon were something else again. For one thing, they did not look or behave like cowboys. There were a dozen of them in the saloon and they all of them looked like men who were unused to hard, physical labour. It was noticed that they dressed more like members of some militia than anything else, with military boots and old patrol jackets; not at all like the run-of-the-mill ranch hands who normally came into town from the Parker spread. Then again, there were the accents. These men sounded as though they were from the Deep South; Georgia or Texas, perhaps. All in all, there was something distinctly odd about such men as these fetching up on a ranch in the northern part of the Wyoming Territory.