One Sin Too Many - Repentance for Cliff Pardone

By Robert Kammen

The small Wyoming backwater named Devil's Ford was a haven for drifters and outcasts, and they didn't take too kindly to welcoming a Bible toting sky pilot into their midst. But they didn't know the pastor's real name was Cliff Pardone and that he was a convicted bank robber and escaped inmate from the Territorial prison.
Only thing is Cliff Pardone didn't figure on his past catching up on him so quick when a local cattle rustling feud suddenly turned into a bloody range war. So it wasn't too long before Pardone decided that a parcel of land on Boot Hill was too small a reward for repentance - and that the best way to salvation lay in a well-aimed six-gun and hot lead!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Longhorn Publishing
• Release date: May 27, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224134823

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Nobody of any real importance ever came to Devil’s Ford. At least that was the considered opinion of Tyler Burnett, sometime hostler at the livery stable and town handymen. Back a spell, in the ‘80s, he’d been told, trail herds coming up the Shoshone Basin had taken the narrow gap between the Owl Creek and Bridger mountains, from there moving along the east bank of the Big Horn River to its confluence with Owl Creek, a smaller tributary running west to east. Once the trail boss discovered markers left by those who’d crossed the season before, he would order out the lead steers and point riders, but spring runoff coming down from the mountains changed the course of the main channel from year to year, and more often than not steers would get sucked down by quicksand or a horse would panic when getting caught up in the treacherous currents and would throw its rider, both perishing. And so a cemetery was formed on the western bank, with a nameless cowpuncher calling the place Devil’s Ford.

As time passed, a man named Moses Gintley started a trading post, and others came, some merchants and saloon owners, and even a missionary from Kansas who built a church out of raw lumber and shingles and who also fashioned a bell tower, and imported glass windows from St. Louis. For a while Devil’s Ford showed promise of growing into something bigger, but the trail herds stopped coming, because the local ranchers started raising breeding stock of their own. Some of the businesses closed down, and Devil’s Ford settled into the kind of place that hangs on where all the real work is spread out on the land around it. The families of some of the cowhands working on local ranches lived in clapboard houses scattered haphazardly beyond the buildings on Main Street. There were some fancier houses, of brick and painted clapboard.

After a while, even the missionary gave up trying to convert what people were left, and in a vindictive rage had rampaged through the interior of the church, destroying pews and benches and the altar before taking an ax to the glass windows, then clearing out.

Tyler Burnett, who was forking hay out behind the stable, leaned on the pitchfork and gazed past the fence with knotted posts leaning crookedly and rusted barbed wire to the church standing by itself in a field of tall grass and wild yellow flowers. The roof was sagging and some shingles were missing, one of the front doors hung from its hinges, and his eyes went to a barn swallow flitting in through an open window that church pretty much summed up what this waystop was all about: a home for outcasts like himself, a place nobody came to if they could help it, a town whose will to survive was challenged daily.

Beyond the church the meadow stretched to foothills speckled with trees, but on all sides were the different mountain ranges, keeping captive the townspeople of Devil’s Ford. Burnett had found a sort of contentment here. Though the life was hard, his needs were few, and he lived frugally. He was of average height; his homespun clothes were neat, but patched some; and he had the look of a sodbuster about him. The shapeless felt hat covered thinning sandy hair, and in his hazel eyes there was a glint of sadness, because Tyler Burnett rarely passed a day without thinking of the family he’d run out on down in Nebraska. In his small room in the Cutler House was a tintype showing Nell and the two children, and many a time he’d been on the verge of getting rid of it, especially when he was having a few beers at the Black Elephant saloon. But he never had, and maybe that was the way it was meant to be. Nell would never take him back now, not for all the double eagles in Nebraska.

From the position of the sun Burnett knew that it was drawing onto noon, and the hunger pangs also told him that. Jabbing the tines of the fork into the hay pile, he pulled out his checkered bandanna to wipe the sweat from his brow as he ambled into the stable. Earlier this morning, he hauled the manure from the gutters and spread fresh straw in the stalls. Most of his work here was done, and after dinner, he’d tackle the job of mending a cupboard for Charley Moore’s wife. He liked carpentry best, not only because he was good with his hands, but because the feel of wood somehow made him forget a lot of things.

As Burnett stepped out onto the boardwalk, his attention was drawn eastward along Main Street as it sloped toward the river and to a horseman on the opposite bank holding the reins of a packhorse. The rider urged his horse down the bank. Crossing would be easy, Burnett knew, since the water level was down, revealing sand bars and trapping some fish in pockets of water. It could be a rancher coming in for supplies, but at any rate that was none of Burnett’s business. Main Street consisted of seven business places, or counting the livery stable, eight: The Black Elephant saloon; Moses Gintley’s trading post; the Cutler House, the first building a rider encountered upon coming in from the river, Grenville’s general store, Cal Petrie’s blacksmith shop; the land claims office; and the other saloon, the Silver Bow, run by Charley Moore, who’d once been a copper miner up near Butte, Montana. The other buildings on Main Street were boarded up, and had decayed some. Last night it had rained, with puddles drying in the hard-packed street, and the only horses showing were two tied to the hitching rail in front of the Silver Bow. To the south the land rose, revealing, through a gap in the buildings lining the street, the cemetery, with its wooden markers and those of stone, and the picket fence surrounding it. The west end of Main Street curled northward and ran out into a lane to the ranches scattered throughout the Big Horn Basin.

Tyler Burnett moved under the arcade running along the facade of the Cutler House and paused to stare at the rider coming in on Main Street. One glance told him the man was a stranger, and not being in the mood for talking, Burnett entered the Cutler House. He went past a small alcove where two red painted tables and old chairs were, the staircase on his right, the counter with its glass case containing tobacco and other items, and settled down in one of the booths running along the east wall. Behind the counter opposite were doors leading into the kitchen and large dining room, while a large square table occupied the rear of the room Burnett was in, where some women were gathered now. Should have enough sense to head for home and prepare dinner, he figured, but the craving for companionship and gossip held them over a third or fourth cup of coffee. 

A smile chased Burnett’s irritation away when Caroline Sumner emerged from the kitchen and came around the counter to his booth. She was the best thing that had ever happened to Devil’s Ford, her coming in and taking over the running of the Cutler House. She served good meals, and could always be counted upon to put a customer at ease.

The special’s stuffed green peppers Ty.

Folding his large, square hands before him on the table, he looked up to return her smile. Stranger just rode in, he said loudly, with the sudden silence coming from those clustered around the back table giving him a satisfied feeling. The special’s fine. Well now, Caroline, is that a new dress?

Sunlight streaming in through the shaded window seemed to deepen the blueness of Caroline Sumner’s eyes. She had a direct way of looking at people and problems, not overly bold, but in a friendly manner. Her long corn-silk hair was drawn back along the sides of her head and held by a flowered comb at the nape of her neck. She had high cheekbones, a generous mouth, and a trace of freckles. Now she smiled self-consciously, and murmured in that quiet way of hers, I put it together over the weekend; just some calico cloth. The pale yellow dress fitted snug around her waist, and it showed some neckline, and revealed her slender figure to good advantage. Turning, she went around the counter and into the kitchen.

Removing his hat, Burnett placed it next to him on the seat and patted a few strands of hair into place, then he glanced at the front door as Marshal Will Calhoun entered, a bulky man with sloped shoulders, and a belly hanging over his gun belt, his jowls jiggling as he walked, and behind him, Art Grenville - limping more than usual, thought Burnett. They exchanged curt nods with Burnett before easing into a booth two removed from where Burnett was sitting, but if he felt any resentment at this wall of distance, it didn’t show on his face. After all, they considered him nothing more than an odd-job man, and those times when he became a little riled up over their smug attitudes, Burnett would head out trout fishing; trout, he’d found out didn’t particularly care who caught them.

He knew something of Will Calhoun’s checkered past - the man had ridden shotgun down Cheyenne way before being let go, and before that, according to local lore, he’d been marshal in a few places like Devil’s Ford, where there wasn’t much crime and asking a good man to take the job was considered an insult. Calhoun pretty much catered to the ranchers, letting their hired hands have a run a good time before doing anything about it. Once, and it had been eating at Will Calhoun’s craw ever since, a drunken hand from Judd Rambo’s Circle Dot spread had challenged him to a gunfight, only to have the marshal make fast tracks out of the Black Elephant. So Burnett figured that Will Calhoun wore that big Colt Peacemaker for show. And Calhoun had taken to drinking and becoming surly at times, but Moses Gintley was the unofficial mayor of Devil’s Ford, simply because he’d started the place, and then again, since nobody else had volunteered to take the job.

As for Art Grenville, he’d earned, and rightfully so, the reputation as being the tightest merchant in town. The wide brow below that balding crown was always wrinkled into worry lines, while the black eyes behind the bifocals always seemed to gauge the size of a man’s wallet before a friendly smile appeared. Though trappers brought in furs and what meat and eggs the store carried was purchased from local ranchers, most everything in Grenville’s general store was freighted in from Cody, and the prices were high, higher than in Cody, someone had said. The sight of Calhoun and Grenville eating together spoke for their reputations, lacking for friends and drawn toward one another because of it, and not really too concerned.

When Caroline Sumners set a plate and a mug of hot coffee before him on the table, Burnett’s thoughts swung back to her, for he knew that Judd Rambo, one of the biggest ranchers in the basin, was sparking her. She’d been awful quiet about Rambo’s intentions, and he suspected that she didn’t care as much for the rancher as he did for her. But Judd Rambo generally got what he went after.

As Burnett stirred a spoonful of sugar around his cup, the man he’d seen riding into town pushed inside, to come slowly along the counter, where he removed his Stetson and let his eyes flick over those already here before he settled into the booth behind Burnett. From the dust clinging to his woolen shirt and Levis it was clear he’d come a long way, and everyone stopped talking when Caroline went to warn on him.

This isn’t a fancy place, mister. But we can rustle you up a steak...and we have the special... Some color came into her cheeks as the stranger’s brown eyes smiled up into hers. He had ruggedly handsome features, with a stubble beard and appeared to be in his early thirties.

I’ll take the special; and a room.

Oh, of course, Caroline stammered, turning quickly and moving away.

Anger began building in Burnett as Will Calhoun stuck his feet out into the aisle and twisted on the seat to cast the stranger a long, searching look and then redden when the man flashed a quick smile. Glowering, Calhoun turned around and spoke in whispers to Grenville.

Impulsively, Tyler Burnett shoved out of the booth, then took a step over and said quietly, Mind if I share your booth?

Be obliged if you did.

Burnett picked up his plate and cup and sat down across from the stranger, who said, I’m Samuel Ellison. Grasping the extended hand, Burnett was surprised at the power in it when it closed to shake on his.

Burnett...Tyler Burnett, tolerably hot to be on the trail.

It was hotter down south.

That so, he murmured, absorbing this piece of information, as did Calhoun in the next booth. Since you plan on getting a room, that means you’ll probably leave your horses at the stable. I work there.

I left them over there.

Ah, Moses Gintley owns the place; me, I just tend to its needs. Burnett drained his cup and placed his hands on the table as if to move to go. I’ll head over there and pitch down some hay. Fashioning a tentative smile, he rose, reached into the next booth for his hat, and went out front to move along the boardwalk.

Tyler Burnett was curious about anybody riding in from the south, which could mean the Samuel Ellison, if indeed that was the stranger’s name, could have come up from Nebraska. Maybe he shouldn’t have made himself known that way; he’s surprised himself when he’d joined Ellison in