But they were two. And that gave him pause. He could kill one of them, but would have no time advantage in getting back to Nelson. He wanted badly to make up for Denver. It had been a rare miss. That man Balum should be dead.
The memory bothered him. It gave him further doubts. If he missed again? Impossible. Still, if he did, he would be caught alone in wooded terrain with two armed men hunting him.
He turned the horse around and descended into the valley.
At a near constant run, he reached the wagons at nightfall. They had stopped for the evening, and campfires were already warming the chilled bodies of the settlers.
Nelson and his men had taken to setting up camp away from the others. They demanded privacy, and the members of the expedition had learned not to pester them with questions once they had stopped for the evening. When Major Shroud arrived on his hard-ridden horse, Nelson wasted no time in eliciting the details of the scouting foray.
‘You were right, they’re still with us. Worse, they rode all the way up. Got into the bowl canyon.’
Nelson clenched his teeth. He stared at the ground. ‘Should have never let those two on,’ he muttered.
‘Don’t worry boss,’ said Saul. ‘They come riding in and we open up the wagon. Cut ‘em down.’
‘You think it’s that easy, do you?’ said Nelson.
‘Don’t see why not.’
‘We unload on them and what do you think these fools will do?’ he said, directing his hand towards the smattering of campfires. ‘They’ll take off running down the valley in the wrong direction. They head back the way we came and we’ll never get them all. We need them moving towards the bowl. Speaking of which, starting tomorrow we aren’t the lead wagon anymore. I want them in front of us. No one is turning around.’
‘Why don’t we set up for them in the morning?’ said Billy. ‘Only way back is straight up the valley. We can pick a good spot. The four of us.’
‘They aren’t pulling a wagon any more you idiot,’ snapped Nelson. ‘They won’t come riding down the valley, they’ll be on the slopes, in the trees. And which side will they come down? And what if they don’t wait until morning? You think it’s an easy job; killing them. Why wasn’t it done already?’
‘It’s just a dumb half-breed and a cowboy,’ mumbled Billy.
‘Quiet,’ demanded Nelson. ‘Nobody is leaving tonight. I want two of you on watch at all times. Major, I want the gun loaded and ready. If we have to use it to push them forward, we will. You all understand that?’
The men mumbled in agreement.
‘Billy, Gus. Take first watch. Any sign of those two, kill them. I don’t care who sees it. Saul, you and the Major take second.’
‘Yes sir, boss,’ Billy grinned. The light from the fire made his face look like a rotted jack-o-lantern. He looked at Saul. ‘I’m going to get me two more notches tonight.’
Balum and Joe came upon Major Shroud’s tracks an hour after leaving the bowl canyon. They had no other options but to slow down. His tracks showed a horse racing ahead, but they could stop at any time. An ambush could be waiting, and crossing the valley floor to the adjacent slope would offer too clear a target if they chose the wrong moment.
They rode wide apart from one another. Often they would stop in the concealment of trees to stare ahead and look, listening for what their eyes could not see. When the sun set and darkness rolled in they moved no faster than before.
They pushed into the night on tired horses. Hunger rose in them and they ignored it. There was no time for rest. Once Nelson realized his plans were secret no more, there was no telling what action he might take.
The moon lit the canvas wagon tops like a hoard of weakened lightning bugs resting still on the valley floor. The coals of their fires had burned thin, and from their elevation on the mountain slope all seemed quiet.
They left their horses tied loosely to pine trunks and made their way on foot to the camp. They made little noise, and they walked in a crouch, pausing often to listen for activity. It did not take long to locate their friends. Nearly everyone slept inside the wagons, for the cold at night was enough to leave a frost.
Balum slapped the canvas of Jonathan Atkisson’s wagon. He waited a moment and slapped his palm to it again. There was a rustle and Jonathan’s head poked out, his eyes wide, taking in what he could by the light of the moon.
‘Balum?’ he said with a start.
‘Shh. Put your boots on and get out.’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Be quiet,’ said Balum, ‘and move quickly.’
They went to the other wagons, rousing Jeb and the others from their slumber. They came out into the dewy grass under the moonlight, each wary of what was unfolding.
‘You better have a good reason as to why you’re here,’ said Jonathan once the men were gathered together.
‘Be quiet and listen,’ said Balum. ‘You all have your doubts about me. You’ve wondered to yourselves why I’m on this expedition. I’ll tell you why; I did it as a favor to US Marshal Pete Cafferty. He wanted me to help you folks out and by God it’s what I’m going to do even if I have to cram it down your throats.’
‘What do you mean help us?’ said Robert Venton.
‘Frederick Nelson isn’t taking you to Oregon. He’s planning to rob you of everything you have, and that means killing every last one of you.’
‘Killing us?’ said Jeb.
Some of the women had dressed themselves and were coming out of the wagons.
‘It’s not the first time he’s done this,’ Balum went on. ‘You heard about the last caravan Nelson brought out here. He did the same thing to them.’
‘That was Indians that attacked them,’ said one of the women. ‘Everyone knows that.’
‘This is absolutely ridiculous,’ snorted Atkisson. ‘What proof do you have of this?’
‘By the time you see proof it’ll be too late. He’s driving you to a bowl canyon with no exit. At the end of that bowl are the remains of the last expedition, and you’ll die there if you reach it.’
‘You saw it yourself?’ asked Jeb.
‘I did, and Joe did too.’
‘What do you figure on doing?’ said Jeb.
‘Nothing,’ cut in Atkisson. ‘Absolutely nothing. This is foolish. Frederick Nelson is a fine man, and you Balum, have shown yourself to be no more than a fighter and a troublemaker.’
‘Jonathan,’ said Balum. ‘You’re a good man, but you’ve gone and bit off a plug of tobacco you ain’t got the jaw to chew. I’m a US Deputy Marshal. That’s why I’m here. It’s the favor I’m doing Cafferty. I’ve got the affidavit in my shirt pocket at this moment, and were there enough light to read by you could all have a nice long look. But there’s no light and there’s no time, and unless you all want to end up dead and forgotten at the end of a rock-walled canyon, you can choose now to help. I’m arresting Frederick Nelson and each of his men. There’s five of them to Me and Joe. That means we need you men to take up weapons and lend support.’
‘I’ll not have any part of this,’ said Atkisson. ‘And neither will any of you.’
‘That’s the right choice Atkisson,’ said a voice not of their group.
They turned, all of them, like children caught playing hooky from the school mistress. The uninvited voice was Gus Farro’s. His frame stood large in the moonlight, unmistakable for its size. Next to him stood the smaller figure of Billy Gunter.
‘Another good choice you folks can make is to step away from that man. Lest you don’t mind getting shot.’
They needed no prodding. Within seconds Balum stood alone. Joe was gone. Wherever he was, Balum knew the man’s gun would be drawn and covering Billy.
‘Gus,’ said Balum. ‘In case you didn’t hear it I’m a US Deputy Marshal.’
‘I heard it. So what?’
‘You’re under arrest. You too, Billy.’
‘I don’t think I cotton much to being arrested,’ said Gus. ‘How about you Billy?
You feel like getting arrested or do you want to put a notch in your belt?’
‘Listen to me boys,’ said Balum. ‘You’re alive now and you can stay alive. But that can change in an instant. I know you two think you’re fast with a gun. But believe me; you draw against me and you won’t so much as clear leather.’
Over a dozen people were awake and present. They made no sound, instead contributing nothing more than small translucent clouds from their breath, lit by the moonlight over the valley.
Gus’s hand dropped. The motion was nearly imperceptible. His palm slapped the gun butt, his fingers falling into place around the hammer and trigger.
Balum was right. He never cleared leather.
The .44 ball left Balum’s Dragoon at over a thousand feet per second. It shattered Gus’s third rib and sent shards of bone piercing through his lung. Blood immediately pooled into the lesion. Pressure from an adrenaline-infused heart sent it rushing into the bronchi, up the trachea, and finally spilling over Gus’s lip and down his chin.
He collapsed downward, as if deciding suddenly to sit. His fingers clutched his gun, half pulled from its holster. He stared at Balum from his seat on the ground. A look of confusion came across his face and he fell backwards and lay dead on the grass.
29
Billy Gunter was running. He flew past the wagons and mules and oxen, weaving in and out of them and fighting for breath. His throat seemed to have closed off. He looked behind him into the empty darkness, and finally slowed to a walk.
He replayed the scene in his mind. He couldn’t believe Gus was dead. He had seen men draw a weapon from a holster before. Plenty of times. He knew what it meant to be fast. But Balum’s draw he had never seen. And he had been looking right at the man. It didn’t matter that it was night; the moon cast enough light to see by. It had been nothing more than a blur, hardly a movement at all, and suddenly fire was blasting out of the man’s revolver.
He felt the handle of his own revolver nestled in its holster. It had not occurred to him to draw. He felt shame with himself, and anger towards Balum for causing that feeling within him.
Nelson and the men were already up when he reached them. The shot had awakened them.
‘What happened?’ said Nelson as soon as Billy came into view.
‘Balum came back. He killed Gus.’
‘Killed him? What do you mean?’
‘Gus drew on him and Balum shot him down.’
Saul Farro stopped pulling his boots on. He sat on his bedroll on the ground and stared at Billy.
‘Where were you?’ said Nelson.
‘I was there. I saw it.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I...I came back to tell you,’ Billy stammered. He heard the defensiveness in his voice, and a mixture of anger and embarrassment welled up inside him.
‘That’s it,’ said Nelson. ‘Hitch up the team. Now. Major, get in the wagon. Load the gun. We’ll move these sons of bitches towards the canyon if it means a trail of bodies twenty miles long.’
The camp began to come to life. People threw off their blankets and climbed down from their wagon beds to inquire on the source of commotion. Daylight was still several hours away, but once the word began to spread there was no going back to sleep. It spread from mouth to mouth, from wagon to wagon; the names of Balum and Gus, shooting, death, a bowl canyon, a massacre.
The commotion was senseless. In the dark, filled with confusion and few answers, the settlers placed no attention on Nelson’s wagon. It came to life with a jerk, and creaked away, rolling down the valley over ground they had already traveled.
Its wheels turned for a hundred yards and came to a stop. The draft team stood facing away from the camp. The canvas drape at the rear end of the wagon was pulled back and tied open.
All of this transpired in near darkness, under the dim light of the moon. There was a moment of activity in the back of the wagon, when the night was yet calm, save for the rumble of voices from the expedition.
And then it was broken. Piercing blasts of gunfire cracked out into the night. Bullets whipped into the cluster of wagons, ripping through canvas covers, splintering wagons boards and cutting through the flesh of both animal and man.
They came in a steady beat, more than three hundred rounds per minute. A blast of light accompanied each bullet. They flew over the heads of the settlers and into the ground, exploding into whatever they touched.
Panic enveloped the valley floor. The members of the Oregon Expedition ran from the source of gunfire. They did not stop to gather supplies or to coordinate with each other. They simply ran.
Some ran directly down the length of the valley. Others took off into the wooded slopes on either side. They ran without shoes, without coats, clutching children in their arms and tripping and falling and running again.
Balum ran. He ran for his horse and found it still tethered to the pine. Joe’s horse was gone. He ripped the reins from the tree and flung himself over the roan’s back.
The six barrels of the gatling gun continued to boom as they rotated one by one into their firing position. At a distance of a thousand yards they still carried enough force to decimate whatever stood in their path.
In the dark, Balum was at a loss to offer help. No one would have stopped to accept it if he did. They ran screaming into the blackness of night, concerned with nothing but the preservation of their own life, and gone mad with fear.
Out of range from gunfire he stopped and gathered himself. He could hear yells from the valley below. The shooting stopped and the night returned to silence. He sat in the saddle and turned his back to the chill blowing down from the mountaintops.
The echos of single shots being fired out of rifle barrels followed later. Nelson’s men. The shooting continued sporadically from the wagon, then stopped altogether.
There was no clear path forward. It was dark, folks were unaccounted for, and Balum was tired. He felt guilty doing it, but he hobbled his horse and spread his bedroll on a flat ledge under a pine. If he didn’t sleep he’d be useless by sunrise.
Morning brought more clarity to the situation. Nearly all members from the Oregon Expedition were on foot in the valley. They had no working knowledge of how to stay alive when alone and in harsh conditions. They were city folk, accustomed to a different type of hardship; no less difficult yet bearing no resemblance to their current plight. Of those that had run to the hills for cover, most had returned to the group in the valley. There was comfort in numbers.
For those that did not, Nelson’s men were sent to flush them out. Billy took the slope opposite Balum. Saul walked his horse across the valley and disappeared into the trees a half mile out and a fair distance below where Balum watched.
Nelson’s wagon followed behind the settlers at a distance of several hundred yards. The group moved instinctively away from it, further down the chain of valleys. They walked in a cluster, huddled together from fear and from cold. They conversed amongst themselves as they walked, their words lost before reaching Balum in the trees above them. How the debate unfolded he did not know, but by some agreement they stopped as one.
They learned their lesson quickly.
Nelson’s wagon turned fully around. He climbed off the driving bench and into the back, and moved the hanging drape aside. Sitting at the gatling gun was Major Shroud. He took hold of the crank, and with Nelson feeding the cartridges into the hopper, sent another volley of shots careening across the longgrass.
Chaos broke out again. They ran, tripping over each other in their desperation to escape. They did not make the mistake again. They walked as fast as their bodies could take them, none wanting to risk being the last in line.
Balum dismounted and shucked his rifle from its scabbard. He walked to a pine with a low hanging branch and knelt in front of it. He rested the barrel in the crook and waited. He swallowed. The wrong move or the right move too soon could make things worse. He calculated the distance in his mind, and the difference in elevation. He sw
allowed again.
He waited, deliberating on which line of sight to use through the trees, and questioning his actions all the while.
The air was still. It’s silence was broken at the pop of a stick being snapped underfoot. Balum rolled away from the tree and swung the rifle barrel towards the noise.
‘Balum!’ the voice cried out to him, and he slid his finger out from the trigger guard.
Leigha ran towards him, her dress torn and dirty, her arms outstretched.
30
She fell into his arms, and tears filled her eyes immediately.
He held her, hushing her. In part as a comforting gesture, and partly in concern that her sobs might be heard by Saul. Her body was cold, and she shivered against him.
When she had quieted down and dried her tears she drew away from him. She had gone from refusing to speak with him to sobbing in his arms. Still, she knew that for all her anger, there was no one more inspiring to see than the man in front of her.
‘Balum, what’s happening?’ she said. She nearly broke into tears again as the words left her mouth.
‘These valleys end in a bowl canyon a ways up into these mountains. That’s where he’s pushing us.’
‘That’s where who is pushing us?’
‘Nelson.’
‘Frederick?’
‘Yes.’
‘But why?’
Her eyes were wide, framed in by golden wisps of hair. They looked at him in disbelief, as if there was some rationale to all of this, some detail that might explain it all.
‘There’s evil in the world, Leigha. Sometimes it takes the form of a handsome man with a big voice. He’s pushing us in there so he can cut us down with that war gun.’
‘But why? Why would he do such a thing?’
‘Money. It’s not a pretty answer but it’s the truth. Every single party here has value. He didn’t take poor folk on. That’s why he charged upfront; a way to filter out the poor. There isn’t a family here who isn’t carrying cash, or gold, or jewelry. They’ve got everything they own with them. You add it up and it’s enough to make your eyes water.’
Wagons to Nowhere Page 12