by Ed Roberts
Tom Parker’s private view was that Roland was a long-winded son of a bitch, but he listened patiently to what the fellow had to say. When the barkeeper had finished, he asked him, ‘So you think that people will oppose any of these hired guns that Carter has brought into the county?’
‘Damn right they will! I heard about those southerners. We don’t want them here and I’ll take oath you’ll have a dozen men sign up to drive them off.’
‘I’ll be needing a few more than a dozen.’
‘Stand on me, sheriff. I’ll give the word out.’
After making the rounds of other saloons and stores, as well as stopping some of the men he knew and telling them what was afoot, Sheriff Parker was moderately satisfied with the way the day went. Jack had taken little part in the proceedings, merely standing next to his father and keeping his mouth shut. Had he but known it, Jack was the object of remark by a number of people who saw the two of them that day, with observations being made along the lines that the youngster was a chip off the old block and no mistake. The fact that the boy was sporting a deputy’s badge surprised nobody. It was more or less assumed in Mayfield that boys would follow in their father’s footsteps, farmers raising farmers, storekeepers raising storekeepers and so on. That being so, it was only natural that Sheriff Parker’s son should be trained up to become a lawman himself.
It was when they called in at the telegraph office that the sheriff realized that things might be even more serious than he had hitherto supposed. Not only was the line to Cheyenne still down, but so were others leading south. The clerk in the office did not think for a moment that this could be coincidental. He shook his head and said, ‘Mark what I say, there’s mischief in this. Somebody wants this town cut off from the whole, entire world. Any idea why that might be, sheriff? Bank robbery planned, would you say, or something worse?’
Jack watched his father’s face as he replied, and suddenly noticed just how worn and bowed down by cares Tom Parker appeared to be. He had an urgent desire to take some of the burden from his father’s shoulders and transfer it to his own. So it was that before Sheriff Parker had a chance to reply to the clerk, Jack cut in and said, ‘It’s a sight more serious than a piddling little robbery, Mr Archer. This is an assault upon our statehood by a band of armed marauders!’
Ezekiel Archer, who had known Jack all his life, looked at the boy in amazement. He could not have been more surprised, had he heard his cat suddenly begin to express an opinion. There was an uncomfortable silence and Jack Parker wondered if he had somehow overstepped the mark and put his father out of countenance. This proved not to be the case though, for Sheriff Parker said, after a pause, ‘It’s just like my deputy says, Zeke. This here is more than just a few fellows on the scout, looking to knock over a bank. It’s next door to being an invasion.’
After they left the telegraph office, Jack more than half expected his father to roast him for speaking out of turn, but nothing of the kind happened. Instead, Tom Parker said, ‘You’re changing son, you know that?’
‘Is that a good thing, sir? You ain’t vexed with me?’
‘Not a bit of it. You’re doing just fine, from all I’m able to apprehend.’
Their visits around the businesses of Mayfield served to confirm what the sheriff had suspected: that people in the town were far from happy about a bunch of southerners being shipped into the county to kill those who had chosen to settle thereabouts. The wild days, when men could ride around with guns in their hands, doing pretty much as they pleased, were gone. Now, the folk in this town wished only to lead peaceable and industrious lives, getting on with their affairs without let or hindrance. In their minds, they had over the last twelve months or so weighed the matter up in their hearts and concluded that homesteaders and their families would tend more in this direction than having Mayfield surrounded once more by open range and visited periodically by drunken cowboys making whoopee, no matter how much cash money such roughnecks might spend in the saloons and stores.
There was, too, another factor in play, and this was that the older men of the town, now clerking in stores or engaged in other mundane occupations, had many of them fought almost thirty years earlier in the great war between the states. Aware though they were of the fact that the United States was now an infinitely more settled and prosperous nation, they sometimes yearned for the exciting days of their youth, when they could ride about, showing their enemies what they thought of them with shot and shell. One last, armed action in a righteous cause piqued the quixotic fancy of these older men. The youngsters sensed an opportunity to emulate their fathers and uncles and to go to war on those who would invade their territory. They, too, wished for a share of glory.
So it was that as Sheriff Tom Parker and his son went round Mayfield that July day, they found themselves unwittingly tapping into deep longings and hopes that were not at all evident on the surface of the little town. All of which meant in plain terms that when the sheriff sought a muster of those who would ride alongside him the next day, he really didn’t need to fret about how he would find the five dollars a day to pay the men. They would probably have paid twice that amount out of their own money, merely for the pleasure of fighting what looked to all parties likely to be the last armed confrontation on such a scale as any of them would live to see.
Chapter 7
The day of Jack Parker’s sixteenth birthday, 18 July 1891, dawned bright and fair. His father wished him many happy days of the sort in the future, and presented him with a heavy parcel, wrapped up in brown paper and fastened with string and sealing wax. Not having expected anything in the way of a gift, other than being sworn in as a deputy, the boy opened the parcel and found a stout, pasteboard box. Within, on a bed of dried straw, lay a long-barrelled pistol. His father said, ‘It’s a single action army model, the artilleryman’s version. You’re no great shakes with a pistol, but this is as good as a rifle if you hold it right.’ When Jack said nothing, his father said, ‘You like it?’
‘Pa, it’s just beautiful. I don’t need to pull the trigger to raise the hammer, is that right? That’s what spoils my aim so often with pistols.’
‘No, you just cock it so, with your thumb,’ said Sheriff Parker, taking the gun from the box and suiting the action to the words, ‘It only takes the gentlest pressure on the trigger and the hammer’ll fall. Might help your aim some.’
Jack took the pistol from his father’s hand and hefted it in his own. The balance felt just right and, as his father had observed, the long barrel looked a little like a rifle. He said, ‘I don’t have a holster, sir.’
‘You can borrow a rig from the office. You’ll need a dragoon holster for this, I’m sure we have such a one. It’ll be no good for quick draws or any of that foolishness, you know. But with practice, I guess we can make you as good a shootist as the next man.’
After a substantial breakfast of pancakes, the two of them started out for the office. Even before they arrived, it was plain that something unusual was taking place. From afar, they could see a dozen or so mounted men, milling about the roadway and by the look of it, others were arriving. When they reached the sheriff’s office, it became obvious by their clothing and demeanour that these were men from out of town, farmers who had abandoned their fields to come on an errand to town. What that errand was soon became apparent. Jerry Reece had been an effective emissary the previous day, for these men were effectually roused and wished to be sworn in as part of a legally constituted posse. Even as he established this by speaking to a few of them, the sheriff saw another three men ride up. If this continued, then there would be no need for anybody from the town itself to take part in the action which Sheriff Parker had planned.
A scene like this though, with grim-faced men, all well armed, mustering in the public highway like this, precipitated the men of Mayfield to action, lest they be left out of the game. Men on the way to open up their hardware stores, stopped in their tracks and, having discovered what was going on, hurried home to fe
tch their own weapons. Young hotheads begged the day off work from their employers, and they, too, fetched their scatterguns, hunting rifles and pistols, and congregated outside the sheriff’s office. By ten that morning, the crowd numbered over a hundred, and the ordinary mercantile activity of the town had ground to a halt.
As noon approached, it seemed to Sheriff Parker that unless Mayfield were to descend wholly into chaos, he should get these men moving against the enemy. He advised that each man should acquire provisions for a day or two and that they would be moving off at one in the afternoon precisely. It appeared that the telegraph lines were still down and that it was accordingly impossible to communicate with Cheyenne. One of the homesteaders, though, had news of the invaders, who had stayed seemingly at Timothy Carter’s ranch the previous night; camping out in and around his land. The rumour was that they had a list of seventy names of men who were alleged to be rustlers. The intention of the ‘range detectives’ was to call upon these men and either detain them, inflict summary justice or to draw them into gunfights, in which the odds would be overwhelmingly in favour of the Texans. Word was, that if nothing was done, then all the barbed wire fences of the settlers would be torn down over the next week or so, the soddies destroyed, the owners scattered to the four winds, and all the newly cultivated land returned to open range.
At one, the column of men left Mayfield. Women and children, along with older men, stopped still on the sidewalk to watch the procession. It looked precisely like what it was: a hastily assembled little army, going off to war. In total, there were well over two hundred and fifty men in the posse. Nothing like it had been seen since the war, almost thirty years before. However battle-hardened and heavily armed the southerners might be, they would be outnumbered by better than five to one if it came to a pitched battle.
At the head of the band rode Sheriff Parker, with his son. The other two deputies rode up and down the column, ensuring that stragglers kept up and that they all rode as a compact force. Although he could not allow it to be seen, Tom Parker was uneasily aware that his military experience was far from sufficient for such a task as this. During the war, he had from time to time found himself in charge of a patrol of a dozen or so men, but nothing on this scale. He had no real notion of tactics or military stratagems which might be useful when directing half a regiment or so on the battlefield. But then, he reflected privately, perhaps it would not actually come to combat. Seeing themselves so vastly outnumbered, Carter’s hired bullies might decide to throw in their hands without a fight. Fervently as he hoped that this would be how the day would pan out, in his heart of hearts the sheriff did not for a moment believe that this would happen.
Jack was exulting in the possession of his new pistol. It hung now at his belt in the long, military holster that his father had rooted out for him. Capable as he was with a rifle, Jack had never really taken to shooting with a handgun. This weapon was different, though. With its long barrel and satisfying weight, he had an idea that once he had got the hang of the thing, he would soon be as handy with the single-action Colt as he was with the Winchester.
There was something indescribably thrilling, for a boy who had just that very day turned sixteen at any rate, in riding at the head of a large body of men intending to make a stand for what was right. Jack Parker had devoured any number of dime novels in which this very thing had been delineated in the purplest of prose, but the reality far outstripped anything he had read. But the excitement was tinged and leavened by the fear that he felt – not only the fear that he, Jack Parker, might take a wound or even die in the course of an armed affray, but, even worse, the dread that he would prove not to be up to the job. This was enough to make him flush hotly when he thought of it, the idea that if and when any shooting started, he would cut and run, shaming both himself and his father.
Jack would have been mortified if anybody had guessed what he was worrying about as they rode down on Timothy Carter’s spread. Fortunately though, his face remained impassive. From time to time Sheriff Parker stole a sideways glance at his son and was pleased to note that the boy seemed as cool and collected as could be. He thought, once again, how alike his son was to himself at a similar age.
There was no sign of life at Carter’s place. Not only did nobody seem to be about, there was little evidence, either, that above fifty men had lately been based here – no tents or other accommodation. Sheriff Parker guessed that they had merely bivouacked in the vicinity of Carter’s house, and that the men were behaving now as though they were on active service in enemy territory, sleeping rough and without a permanent base until they had undertaken whatever commission they had been given by Carter and cronies in the WSGA. Was it true, as he had that morning been told, that a list of seventy names had been compiled and the aim was to rid the area of all those individuals? A swift calculation suggested that if each of the men on this supposed list was farming a section of a hundred and sixty acres, then disposing of them all would allow better than eleven thousand acres to be returned to open range. This would leave the remaining homesteaders to feel vulnerable and could be enough to trigger a general exodus.
While musing in this way, Sheriff Parker heard a rattle of metallic clicks as men around him raised their rifles and cocked them. He looked round to see what had promoted such a reaction, and saw, walking out of the barn, an old and decrepit man. It was Carter’s night watchman, who was as ancient as Methuselah and reputed by the local youths to have taken part in the War of Independence the previous century. As soon as he saw the man, Sheriff Parker cried out urgently, ‘Don’t nobody fire! This man means no harm.’ Then he called out to Dave Jenkins, ‘What’s afoot, old-timer? Where is everyone?’
‘Danged if I know,’ replied the old man querulously. ‘They don’t tell me nothing.’
‘I hear there was a heap o’ folk camped here last night.’
‘Sure was. Big bunch of Southrons, but what they were about is more than I could say. They set off an hour since, heading east.’
‘You know where they was headed?’
‘Couldn’t say. Up to mischief though, I’ll be bound. They’re that kind of men.’
‘All right boys,’ shouted the sheriff to the men behind him, ‘We’re going to speed up a bit and ride east, a good canter’d be the best dodge. That way, we might cross the path of those boys afore they’ve had time to cause more trouble.’ To Dave Jenkins, Tom Parker said, ‘Were I you, I’d get under cover and stay there. You’ll find there’s any number of trigger-happy fools about today.’
The track east led in the general direction of Scotts Bluff, but before that town was reached, there was a patchwork quilt of fields and little smallholdings which would one day, in the not-too-distant future, become settled, agricultural land. At present though, it was little better than frontier, part wild and part tamed and cultivated. At a guess, the Texans were going to shoot up a few places, kill one or two men and hope to stampede the rest into digging up and leaving their claims, before they had had a chance to prove up on them.
It was quite impossible for so many riders to proceed at a canter along the track and so, at a word of command from the sheriff, they spread out on to the grassy plain which lay upon either side of the road and rode on that as well. They were not charging yet at any enemy whom they could see and so there was no need for them to bunch up. The mass of riders scattered outwards, until there was at least six or ten feet between each horse.
About twenty minutes after leaving Timothy Carter’s ranch, smoke was seen in the distance, trickling up into the clear blue sky. When they reached the source of it, they found it to be a wooden cabin, which was almost burnt out. There was no sign of whoever had been living there, but it could be seen that a tangle of barbed wire lay on the ground for some distance about, along with uprooted wooden posts. It seemed that the process of returning the land to open range was already in progress. ‘Anybody know whose place this is?’ asked Sheriff Parker. It appeared that nobody did.
As th
ey moved on from the burnt out cabin, another cloud was soon ahead of them; over the crest of a low rise of ground. It was pale grey, not tinged with blue like woodsmoke. Jack said suddenly to his father, ‘That’s not smoke. It’s dust being kicked up by horses or cattle.’
‘Well spotted, son. I should just about say that you were right.’
When they reached the top of the high ground, they were able to see to the distant horizon. Some two or three miles off was a group of riders, kicking up the dust, which rose and hung in the still air like that pillar of smoke which Scripture says led Moses and the chosen people through the wilderness. It was too far to be able to distinguish individual figures, let alone count them, but there was no doubt that it was a sizeable number of riders. Sheriff Parker waited on the hilltop until others began to catch up with him. Then he yelled for them all to stop. It took a little time for his order to be passed from one man to the next and for a minute or two the whole posse was a chaotic mass of moving and shouting men. Eventually, things quietened down and the sheriff was able to make himself heard. He cried, ‘That there is the men as are acting unlawfully. As members of a legally constituted posse, every one of you is indemnified against any claim against you arising from the execution of your duties. Even so, don’t act hasty. We’re going to pursue those men as fast as can be, but I don’t want any shooting until I say the word. Is that clear? I’d as soon end this without bloodshed, if that’s humanly possible.’