Montana Abbott 9: The Tail Dies at Sundown

By Al Cody

Montana Abbott had seen too much blood-running in his day to tangle with any more trouble. But assassination from ambush was not something he could look away from. There’s an old Western saying that “the tail dies at sundown”—meaning that no matter when a rattlesnake is killed, it never fully expires until the setting of the sun. And Montana knew that that drunken killer would strike again!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Piccadilly
• Release date: Jun 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005083168

Al Cody

Born in Great Falls, Montana, on July 25th 1899, “Al Cody” was a pseudonym of Archie Lynn Joscelyn. Joscelyn went on to become an enormously prolific and popular writer, especially in the western field, but also authoring a number of novels in the detective and romance genres along the way. In addition to the books he wrote under his own name and that of Cody, Archie Joscelyn also used the names A A Archer, Tex Holt, Evelyn McKenna and Lynn Westland.

Book preview

Chapter One

THE ROMANS HAD built roads, and with them the power of empire: avenues for the easier movement of men and materials. Here, in the wide reaches of Montana Territory, for the most part roads began by following ancient game trails. They were necessary to the opening up of a frontier and the development of what would one day be a state. So, like most things, they had their good points and their bad. Wagon wheels and churning hoofs, concentrated along with wind and rain and frost could scar and erode.

Montana Abbott shook his head, staring down at the incipient road winding through the valley below, a wheel-trace growing with usage. At the moment it lay empty, but already it was placing an indelible stamp across the land, a scar in the name of progress.

A big man, lounging in a big saddle on a big horse, eyes a trifle wistful in a face with a lean and hungry look, he loitered, faintly regretting that such change was necessary.

If the country is to develop it must have roads, he mused. But whether that makes for better or worse would take a wiser man than me to figure out. The Good Lord put the land here for man’s use, that’s for sure. But we sure have a way of bungling the job, spoiling a paradise, for ourselves and all those who come after us.

His gaze sharpened, intentness replacing the dreaminess in his eyes. Someone was coming along the road. The sounds carried far on so still and windless a day, rising from the valley floor, clashing with the soft ripple of the creek which wound and twisted its way, crossed and recrossed at intervals by the road. Sunlight struck silver from the water, turned darker in the shaded depths of a long pool; spray cascaded from the stick work of a beaver dam at the base of the pool. A beaver’s brown head cleaved the surface, gone in an abrupt dive as the same sounds reached its ears.

Then an equipage came in sight around a clump of cottonwoods, flanked by a denser growth of choke cherry brush. Drawn by a team of high-stepping horses, their harness brave with ornaments, equipage was the only word for it. Vehicles which braved such incipient roads were usually high-wheeled wagons, leather slung Concords, or nondescript carts.

This was a plush carriage, its paint sparkling black, yellow spoked wheels reflecting the sun. A fringed top afforded shade from the rays of that sun, and the socketed whip could be nothing less than whalebone. Double-seated buggies of that ilk belonged two thousand miles to the east, on avenues lined with elm or maple.

Both seats were full. The driver of the team drew only a passing glance from Abbott, but the man beside him, in top hat and frock coat, seemed as out of place as the carriage. On the back seat was a lady. The sharp clear blue of her waist, below a wide, flowered hat, attested to her position. But the man beside her was clearly the leader.

He was broad of shoulder, of medium height or a little above, with a squarish, strongly handsome face under a wide hat, from which dark hair overlapped at the edges. His smooth-shaven face, lacking even sideburns, was in contrast to the heavy mustache and flowing beard of the man in front. A black bow tie circled a standing collar.

Not far behind, a couple of horsemen jogged, clearly guards or sentries. Here was a person or people of importance.

Another movement, small but alien, caught Abbott’s attention, drawing it from valley bottom to a clump of brush and trees at about his own level, and a stone’s throw distant. Between, the scant trail which his horse had been following, questing for a path down to the road, made a sharp jog, a notch of gulch thrusting between.

Something or someone was also watching from that covert of brush, probably unaware of his own proximity because of the coulee, since Montana had drawn up before coming to where he could be easily seen.

This was an all but perfect summer day, the sky overhead as flawless as the deep blue of the lady’s blouse, the heat of the sun pleasantly tempered. Its rays cascaded silver along what could have been a drawn sword, flourished in salute to those passing below but what most obviously was the barrel of a rifle, leveled, shifting its aim.

Montana looked more closely, and the bushes trembled, despite the lack of wind. The reason for the pair who rode as a bodyguard seemed apparent, as did the heavy revolver sagging the holster of the driver of the team. But they were unconscious of danger, barely glancing toward these heights above the wheel-trace along the valley floor.

This might be accounted no business of his, no part of his affair. Montana had no idea as to the identity of the man on the back seat who seemed the most likely target for a bullet, no notion as to the possible merits of such an attempt on a man’s life. The lurking bushwhacker might have a legitimate grievance; probably he had what seemed to him an impelling reason, since the murder of someone so obviously important could be fraught with considerable risk.

But those were abstruse points, and to Montana’s mind, secondary.

Life was often held cheaply here on the frontier. But risk in a fair fight was one thing. Assassination from ambush was another, and reason enough for intervening, to prevent or spoil the attempt if he could. Even more impelling, there was the lady. She had the look and bearing of a gentlewoman, and probably was. To have her seat-mate struck down, his blood spilling across the daintiness of her rose-colored dress, would be inexcusably shocking.

His glance had already assessed the possibilities. He could shout, which might or might not frighten away the bushwhacker, but would be a chancy, far from satisfactory method in the face of such crisis. Or he could shoot first, driving a bullet through the brush, spoiling a further try from that point.

But if he miscalculated, he would be as cowardly a killer in turn. Also a shot sent wide could unleash a chain of consequences, almost certainly unpleasant and perhaps dire before the end was reached.

A third method seemed better and more reasonable. The team and carriage were still some distance away, and a man intent on murder would wait until his target was almost directly below, to make as certain as possible that he wasted no lead. A shot might be followed by a swift volley at the other occupants of the buggy and the riders behind. A repeating rifle could well destroy all six before they could retaliate or take cover.

Montana swung to the ground in an easy flow of motion, dropping the bridle reins. With them dragging, his horse would stand. He ran as an Indian would, a moving shadow and silent, skirting the clumps of brush and the head of the gully, coming upon the unsuspecting back of the man who, buckskin skirt and faded Levi’s blending with the covering leaves, glared down at the nearing outfit. In him was the quivering eagerness of a waiting puma at the approach of a deer. The long barrel of the rifle moved slowly, its blued steel darkly ominous.

Better not, Montana advised. Murder’s a nasty business.

Surprise may be gentle or devastating, depending on the degree or circumstance. The shock upon his auditor was scarcely less than the blast of the bushwhack gun would have been on those below. He jerked convulsively, so that it seemed a wonder that the finger already caressing the trigger did not jerk it. Such an involuntary spasm of terror would probably send a shot wide, and it had been a risk hardly to be avoided.

The gunman swung around, heavy face suddenly flaccid, eyes like those of a wolf. A reddish stubble of whisker beneath a scraggly mustache did nothing for a countenance less than prepossessing to begin with, and the blasting reek of a whiskey breath testified that he’d been imbibing courage from a bottle. The rifle shook in uncertain hands.

For a long moment he stared, slow in recovery, noticing the Colt whose muzzle, a scant six feet from his nose, stared back more unwinkingly. The horses, men and the woman below passed on and out of sight around a bend, the faintly rising sounds of hoofs and wheels muted and lost. Only then did the gunman pass an uncertain tongue across dry lips.

I—I— he managed thickly. Then, suddenly conscious that his intended prey was out of sight and range, rage flared wildly in eyes and voice. What the hell’d you have to butt in for? he demanded.

Montana shrugged.

It seemed like a good idea. Bushwhack’s a nasty business. Besides, when there’s a lady present—

If she’s a lady, she’d no business to be along, with a stinkin’ Yankee like him! He needs killin’!

Possibly, Montana conceded. But not that way. What do you have against the gentleman?

Gentleman! You callin’ him a gentleman? What are you, a blasted Yankee yourself? A Black Republican?

The trace of a smile edged Montana’s lips, though the irony was lost on the other man.

Hardly that. I battled the Yankees for four years, and being Texas born, I guess it’s natural to think of myself as a Democrat, when it comes to politics.

Then what you so choosy about a blasted Yankee Republican for? Why’d you want to protect that interferin’ Ashley, when I had a good chance to kill him?

A measure of light was beginning to penetrate. So that had been James Ashley, the newly appointed Governor of the Territory. Recently arrived in Montana, he apparently was having a look at some of the country, for the first time. Having been chairman of the Congressional Committee on Territories which had acted upon the admission of Montana as a territory of the Union, he had also played a major part in choosing the name Montana.

That much Abbott knew of him, though not much more. He had made a strong record against slavery, and for most of his career had worked for the interests of the common people as opposed to powerful pressure groups. Always a controversial figure, he had been appointed to succeed Green Clay Smith and the most recent acting governor, Thomas Meagher, whose meteoric but checkered career had come to an untimely end in the dark waters of the Missouri.

That he was a Republican was hardly to be held against him, at least in this instance. A Republican President would inevitably appoint a Republican to administer the affairs of the Territory, and, considering the part he had taken in its formation and his familiarity with its problems, Ashley seemed a reasonable choice.

Reasonable, at least, from the standpoint of politics. Though from that same point of view, he was being sent into an impossible situation. He would have to preside over and work with a territorial legislature made up almost entirely of Democrats, men who hated him and his policies as a matter of course, even if not quite the virulence of this man who had been ready to murder him merely because of his politics.

I didn’t know who or what he was, Montana explained reasonably. And in any case, what good would it do to kill him? They’d just send someone else in his place.

The other man still clutched his gun. Now, carelessly demonstrating how drunk he was, he rested its stock on the ground, his hands on the muzzle, it pointing directly toward his chin.

Could help, he declared, with owlish cunning. "Be rid of ’em for a spell, anyhow—like with the blasted Irish Yankee, Meagher. Got rid of him, din’t I? Left the rest