Cheyenne Cowboy

by M Gunn

Hammer nodded and moved to the side of the lawman.

  ‘Let’s go check it out, Marshal,’ he said as he rested his hand on his gun grip.

  They headed slowly toward the corner. Both men barely uttered a word to one another as they rounded the corner and started to pace toward the far smaller bank. The red brick structure had two bright coal-tar lanterns directly outside its metal-framed door. Grey tested the door and then looked back at his companion.

  ‘This one seems secure enough,’ the marshal muttered as he walked back to the cowboy. The bank’s lanterns spilled glowing light all across the street as Grey stepped up to the young cowboy. He stared long and hard at Hammer and then grabbed his chin, turning his head to the left. The gash was bleeding again. Blood was flowing freely down the cowboy’s chiselled features.

  ‘That graze sure looks bad, boy,’ Grey stated bluntly. ‘It needs stitching up.’

  Hammer rubbed the back of his hand across the side of his face. He was surprised by the amount of crimson gore upon his knuckles.

  ‘We ain’t got time to get me stitched up, Marshal,’ he said before glancing around the street. He had never noticed how many females there were in Dodge, but he had never been there sober before. ‘Let’s keep looking for the bastard who tried his utmost to kill me a while back.’

  Grey removed his bandanna and handed it to the cowboy. ‘Wrap this wipe around your head, Cheyenne. It’ll mop up most of the blood until we can get that wound tended.’

  Hammer did as the older man suggested and tied a firm knot in the cotton bandanna. ‘I bet I look like a real dumb ass wearing this.’

  Grey grinned. ‘You looked like a real dumb ass before you tied my wipe around your head, boy.’

  Both men began to continue their search when three or four of Hammer’s cowboy pals were thrown from a gambling hall and landed in the dusty street just ahead of them.

  ‘You know them dirt-suckers, Cheyenne?’ Grey asked as he cradled the scattergun across his belly.

  Hammer nodded. ‘Yep, they’re trail pals of mine.’

  Grey watched as the three men scrambled to their feet and went to charge back into the gambling hall. Hammer raised his hand and stopped them.

  ‘Hold on there, boys,’ the cowboy shouted at the trio of blood-splattered wranglers. ‘I got something to tell you.’

  One by one their eyes fixed upon Hammer. One by one they smiled at their friend.

  ‘Where you bin, boy?’ Chuck Vale wondered as he steadied himself in the middle of the small group.

  ‘What’s so plumb important you stand between your amigos and a good fight, Cheyenne?’ Cookie Bray smiled as he checked his teeth.

  ‘What’s so damn serious, Cheyenne?’ Larry Pike chortled as he rested against a hitching rail. ‘How come you’re wearing that neckerchief on your damn head?’

  The face of Hammer was grim as he lowered his head and told them about Tom McGee’s killing. For a moment none of the four cowboys said anything as they seemed to instantly sober up.

  ‘Tom’s dead?’ Cookie said sadly.

  Hammer nodded. ‘Yep, he’s dead OK and I’m bleeding up a storm.’

  ‘Who killed him, Cheyenne?’ Pike asked.

  ‘That’s what me and the marshal are trying to find out,’ Hammer sighed as he noticed the lawman stare over at the swing doors of a saloon a few yards away from the gambling establishment.

  Marshal Grey looked to Hammer and shook his head.

  ‘They ain’t in there either,’ Grey said.

  Cookie marched up to the marshal and stared straight into his seasoned face. ‘We’ll help you look for the hombre that killed Tom, Marshal.’

  Grey suddenly noticed that Hammer’s colleagues no longer looked like drunken fools. They suddenly appeared to be sober and serious.

  Deadly serious.

  Suddenly their attention was drawn to the rattling of the well-laden buckboard as it emerged from a back street and was turned toward the railhead. Hammer stepped away from his four companions and squinted through the strange amber light at the vehicle that approached them.

  ‘What’s wrong, Cheyenne?’ the marshal asked.

  For a moment the cowboy did not reply. His entire concentration was fixed upon the figures he could barely make out aboard the buckboard. Hammer was about to turn away when his eyes narrowed upon the familiar figure sat beside the driver.

  The hair on Hammer’s neck began to rise. ‘Take a long hard look at that critter, boys.’

  The three other cowboys stepped forward and flanked Hammer as they peered through the gloom at the figures who were driving through the amber light.

  It was Chuck Vale who spoke first. ‘That sure looks like the varmint that you locked horns with a while back, Cheyenne.’

  Hammer nodded. ‘That’s what I was thinking.’

  ‘Is that the hombres we’ve bin looking for, Cheyenne boy?’ Grey asked his youthful friend. ‘Well? Is it?’

  ‘It sure is, Marshal,’ Hammer nodded, stepping off the boardwalk and walking to the middle of the sandy street. The buckboard continued on toward the men who were watching its steady approach. The marshal and the three cowboys strode into the centre of the street and stood just behind Hammer.

  Grey swung his scattergun up and levelled it at the men sat high on the driver’s board. He cocked its hammers and moved to the side of Hammer before aiming at the heavens.

  ‘Hold on up there,’ Marshal Grey ordered, waving his long barrelled scattergun like a warning flag. ‘I want some words with you.’

  ‘Keep driving, Bart,’ Holt growled as he pulled one of his .45s from its holster. ‘Don’t stop for that fat old star packer.’

  Reluctantly, Gibbs obeyed and slapped the reins hard across the backs of the two sturdy horses. The buckboard gathered speed.

  The street rocked as the marshal squeezed on one of his mighty weapon’s triggers. A plume of blinding light exploded from one of the shotgun’s barrels as it sent buckshot into the stars.

  ‘Stop,’ Grey loudly repeated.

  To his utter surprise the vehicle did not stop or even slow. It just charged straight at them as its passengers pulled their six-shooters free.

  As the cowboys and the startled lawman looked on, the six-shooters unleashed their venomous fury at them. Bullets passed within inches of the cowboys as the marshal dragged his Peacemaker free of its holster.

  More shots rang out. Their red-hot tapers cut through the shadows causing all five men to duck and dive for cover.

  As bullets peppered the sand around his boots, Hammer pushed the lawman to the side a fraction of a heartbeat before the buckboard hurtled between them. The wide-eyed team of sturdy horses charged, Hammer threw his long body to the side. He drew his .45 and blasted a shot up at the men on the buckboard. As his bullet embedded itself into the side lumber of the fast-moving vehicle he felt his left leg being hit by one of the horses. Hammer span like a child’s spinning top in the air before hitting the sand. He rolled over and over before coming to a violent stop beside a water trough.

  Hammer cocked his gun hammer again and blasted another wild shot in reply. Then he saw the hauntingly familiar face of Holt as it stared through the gunsmoke and fired down at him.

  Hammer rolled back.

  A bullet went clean through the trough sending a torrent of water to flow between himself and Holt.

  The air filled with the deafening overture of guns being fired from not only Holt but his men on the flatbed. The sand kicked up all around the men on the ground as the fast-moving vehicle skidded around a corner and vanished from sight.

  With the sound of gunfire still ringing in his ears, Hammer forced his long frame off the ground and winced as he put his weight on his leg. He gritted his teeth as the dust finally began to settle.

  ‘You hurt, Cheyenne?’ Grey’s distinctive voice bellowed out from across the street.

  As the dust thinned, Hammer caught sight of the marshal as he clambered back to his feet. ‘I’m OK. One of them horses caugh
t my shin.’

  ‘Is it broke?’ Grey called out as he steadied himself against a hitching pole.

  Hammer started to limp toward the marshal. ‘It ain’t busted.’

  As the Cheyenne cowboy neared the lawman his eyes caught sight of his three pals. They were lying where the horses had thrown them. Hammer moved as quickly as he could to the cowboys.

  ‘Chuck? Cookie? Larry? Are you boys OK?’ he questioned their motionless bodies. ‘Quit play-acting.’

  Marshal Grey had been winded by being pushed out of the path of the charging horses but refused to let the younger man see his discomfort. He walked past Hammer to the cowboys and knelt between them. He turned and glanced at Hammer.

  ‘They ain’t dead,’ he sighed. ‘They’re just knocked out.’

  Hammer felt a sense of relief flow over him as the marshal walked to a trough, removed his hat and filled its bowl with water.

  ‘This’ll wake them up,’ Grey grunted before emptying the water over Vale to awaken the cowboy. He repeated the action two more times and then stared at the dazed cowboys as they slowly clambered back to their feet.

  Hammer rubbed his leg and stomped it on the ground a few times as he tried to bring it back to life.

  ‘Them pals of yours got their noses bloodied but they’re in better shape than old Tom,’ Grey muttered to Hammer. ‘You sure that leg of yours is OK, Cheyenne?’

  ‘It’s sore but it’s OK, Marshal,’ Hammer said as he straightened up and stared through the dust. ‘Where do you reckon that heard of varmints were headed?’

  Grey rested a hand on Hammer’s shoulder. ‘The only thing down in that direction is the railroad, boy.’

  ‘Why’d you reckon they didn’t stop when you told them to, Marshal?’ the cowboy wondered. ‘That seems mighty strange to me. It just don’t figure.’

  The sound of pounding hoofs rang out behind them. Both Grey and Hammer turned and stared at the solitary horseman who was cantering toward them.

  Deputy Ben Graff pulled back on his long leathers and halted the mare. He leaned down from the saddle to Grey and whispered in the marshal’s ear.

  Grey’s face went ashen.

  ‘What’s wrong, Marshal?’ Hammer asked the lawman.

  ‘There’s bin another killing, Cheyenne,’ Grey muttered in disbelief. ‘Somebody just stabbed the old Cattleman Club caretaker. His body was discovered by the club chairman a few minutes ago.’

  Hammer’s eyes narrowed. ‘The Cattleman Club is where the cattle agents hold their money.’

  ‘The money’s all gone, Cheyenne,’ Graff said as he steadied his mount. ‘Mr Chester said the safe was cleaned out. Every last cent was stolen.’

  Grey rubbed his jaw.

  ‘They must have taken the bank’s money as well,’ he reasoned. ‘The bank has bin putting its money in the club safe since they started reinforcing the building.’

  In sudden realization, Hammer grabbed his shirt pocket and felt his bank book. His face went pale as his cowboy pals gathered around him and the pair of lawmen.

  ‘They must have gotten your money as well, Cheyenne,’ Larry Pike noted. ‘That’s where you’ve bin saving your money, ain’t it?’

  ‘Yep, it is,’ Hammer said dryly before glaring along the street. ‘So that’s why they didn’t stop. They must have had the money on that flatbed.’

  Grey patted the cowboy. ‘I bet you’re right about them having the Cattleman money on that wagon, boy.’

  Hammer looked into Grey’s eyes and shook his head. It had suddenly dawned on him that his entire life savings were part of the stolen money.

  ‘Not the Cattleman’s money. They got my money, Marshal.’ He growled like a tiger. ‘Them bastards got my money.’

  The cowboy limped to the deputy, hauled him off the horse and then swung himself up and on to its saddle. He steadied the mare and looked at them in turn.

  ‘Get yourselves some horses and follow me,’ Hammer said as he gathered up the reins. ‘I gotta catch them hombres and get my money back.’

  Marshal Grey vainly attempted to halt the angry cowboy but Hammer was far too skilled a horseman to be so easily stopped. He expertly backed the horse away from the lawman and then whipped the horse’s shoulders. Hammer spurred hard. They watched him race off in the same direction that the buckboard had taken.

  ‘Where in tarnation is Cheyenne going, Marshal?’ Graff asked.

  Ignoring the question, the marshal pointed at the saddle horses tethered to hitching poles along the street and feverishly gestured to the cowboys to round them up.

  ‘Get some damn horseflesh for us, boys. We got us some thieving killers to catch and kill,’ Grey grunted.

  The deputy watched as the experienced cowboys obeyed the marshal’s orders and then looked at his superior. ‘Ain’t stealing horses a hanging offence, Marshal?’

  The older lawman rolled his eyes and then slapped the deputy behind his left ear.

  ‘We ain’t stealing these nags, boy,’ Grey explained as Vale, Bray and Pike brought five horses to the lawmen. ‘We’re just borrowing them.’

  The five men mounted, slapped leather and then thundered through the hoof dust in pursuit of the Cheyenne cowboy.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Mason Dwire had only just arrived at the private railroad car when he heard the sound of gunshots ringing out in the heart of Dodge. His heart pounded as he scrambled from the rented buggy and watched the small one-horse vehicle hastily driven away from the length of the long carriages. He mopped the sweat from his face and squinted through the dimly lit stockyards. The sound of the gunshots still echoed around the vast yards and chilled the lawyer to the bone.

  ‘Something’s gone wrong,’ he mumbled to himself as he nervously looked around the enormous yard. ‘Holt and his boys must have hit trouble. Mighty big trouble by the sound of it.’

  Defying the night chill, sweat literally poured from his balding scalp and flowed over his plump features. This was not part of his well-constructed scheme. Now everything was in jeopardy and he knew it. Even getting out of Dodge City with the stolen money would prove no easy task.

  Dwire was already physically exhausted and yet he knew that the night was far from over. His shaking fingers located the derringer in his vest pocket. He used the light which spilled out from the private car’s length of windows to remove the two spent casings from the twin-barrelled gun and then he nervously reloaded. The derringer might be small but Dwire knew it was capable of killing. He had proven that when he had gunned down the two cowboys.

  The troubled lawyer could hear the rattling chains of the buckboard’s team as they carved a trail through the sprawling streets of Dodge. With each beat of his labouring heart Dwire could tell the buckboard was getting ever closer.

  Then his watery eyes spotted the cloud of dust as the buckboard hurtled through the unmarked entrance of the stockyards. The metal wheel rims skidded on the moonlit ground as it continued to charge toward the stationary locomotive. Dwire nervously watched as the driver whipped the team mercilessly and closed in on the train.

  Gibbs pushed his boot down hard on the brake pole and pulled the long leathers up to his chest. The buckboard abruptly stopped beside the passenger car.

  The lawyer had never seen Holt quite as flustered as he appeared to be as he and the rest of the hired gunmen dropped down from the buckboard.

  ‘Get that damn baggage car opened up,’ Holt commanded as he stood beside the train and extracted the spent cartridges from his smoking gun chambers. ‘Hurry up.’

  Dwire stepped toward the devilish gunfighter. ‘Was that you boys doing all the shooting a few minutes back, Emmett?’

  Holt glanced from his six-shooter to the lawyer.

  ‘Sure it was us. We run into a spot of trouble as we were driving through town on our way here,’ Holt replied before snapping the chamber back into the body of the gun. ‘Why?’

  The lawyer rubbed his many chins. ‘It’s just that you look kinda troubled, that’s all.
’

  Gibbs slid the door of the baggage car open. ‘I got it open, Emmett.’

  ‘Right.’ The leader of the group snapped his fingers at the others. ‘The rest of you boys get them coffins loaded in there as fast as you can.’

  Holt turned and scratched a match along the side of the buckboard as his men began to unload their valuable cargo and carry the hefty coffins toward the baggage car.

  ‘You look spooked, Emmett,’ the lawyer noted as Holt inhaled the toxic smoke of his last cigar. ‘I ain’t never seen you look like this. Anybody would think that you just seen a ghost.’

  Holt exhaled and glanced into the large watery eyes of the fat lawyer. He gave a sudden nod of his head.

  ‘Maybe I did see a ghost, Mason,’ he drawled as his teeth gripped the cigar. ‘We were riding down the main street on our way here. We were driving nice and slow just like you told us in your notes when the street was blocked.’

  ‘That don’t sound like any ghosts I’ve heard tell of.’ Dwire smiled as he watched the gunmen labouring under the weight of the coffin they were attempting to slide into the baggage car.

  Holt leaned over the rotund lawyer and stared straight into Dwire’s soul. ‘It was the marshal and a bunch of critters blocking the street, Mason. Then right in the middle of them stood the Cheyenne cowboy.’

  Mason Dwire suddenly stopped grinning. He felt his heartbeat stagger inside his sweat-soaked shirt.

  ‘That ain’t possible, Emmett,’ he stammered. ‘I shot and killed the Cheyenne cowboy as he was headed for the marshal’s office. Him and an older cowpoke was going there. I killed them both before they had a chance of spilling the beans.’

  Holt raised an eyebrow.

  ‘What you talking about, Mason?’ he growled. ‘Me and the boys just seen the Cheyenne cowboy back there. They might not recognize him, but I sure do. We locked horns and he scuppered my chance of making big money. I’ll never forget that bastard as long as I live.’

  Suddenly as the first of the coffins was pushed into the belly of the baggage car the sound of pounding hoofs drew their attention. They all turned and stared at the moonlit rider as Hammer expertly guided the horse beneath him into the stockyard.