Bury the Hatchet

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  Hawkeye hoped he would be able to convince Mr. Hagen to help Trammel, if the sheriff was not dead already.

  The front door of the great house swung inward, and Mr. Hagen stood by the door with a shotgun by his side.

  “Who the hell is damn fool enough to go banging on my door?” He squinted as he looked at Hawkeye. “You that idiot that works for Trammel? What the hell are you doing here, boy? Your place is in town.”

  Hawkeye was still trying to catch his breath, so Mr. Hagen gestured toward the trail. “You two responsible for all that noise down there?”

  “Raiders,” Hawkeye managed to say when he had caught his breath. “Raiders from Laramie come to burn down your ranch. The sheriff and me found out about it and headed them off in time at the Stone Gate, but you need to come fast. The sheriff is holding them off all by himself, but he won’t be able to hold out much longer. Please! You and your men have to get down there, quick!”

  King Charles Hagen pushed past the deputy as twenty of his men began to ride in from their respective fields and fill the area in front of the main house. One of them was trailing Mr. Hagen’s horse, a black mare Hawkeye recognized as a Morgan with a thick mane.

  Hawkeye had never known so many men could move so quietly on horseback.

  “Don’t look so surprised, stupid,” Hagen said as he climbed into the saddle. “Did you think I was just going to let anyone ride up here and shoot up my property?” He motioned for his men to move out down the road toward the gunfire.

  All of them did, except for Mr. Hagen, who hung back. “You’d better get another mount if you plan on joining the fight. That one looks about played out and will die on you if you push her any harder. Take your pick if there’s anything left in the barn.”

  Hawkeye watched Mr. Hagen ride away at a hard gallop. My, that’s a fast horse. Maybe the fastest horse I’ve ever seen.

  Then the world tilted as Hawkeye grew dizzy and collapsed.

  CHAPTER 30

  Trammel slid down the outcropping as bullet after bullet began to pelt the near side of the rocks he had been using for cover. It was only a matter of time before he got flanked or one of the shooters got lucky and took him down. He liked his chances on the ground better, especially since he could maneuver much better.

  But he hit the ground crooked, lost his balance, and fell back against the outcropping. The fire in his back blew up and he cried out in pain. The echo of his scream had just died away when a white gelding burst through the opening of Stone Gate and charged straight for him. Instinct made Trammel push himself off the wall and swing his Winchester like a club up at the rider just as a pistol shot went off.

  The butt of the rifle slammed into the rider’s chest, sending him tumbling from the saddle. The gelding, without the burden of a rider, reared and broke away as it ran farther up the trail in the direction of the Hagen ranch.

  Only then did Trammel get a good look at the man he had just knocked to the ground. Jesse Alcott.

  And despite the fall, he still gripped his pistol.

  Without thinking, Trammel stomped on his outstretched hand with his right boot and kicked the pistol away with his left. The weapon sailed harmlessly into the high grass on either side of the trail.

  For the first time since the shooting had started, Trammel thought he had a chance to win. “Call off your men, Alcott. It’s over.”

  Trammel saw the knife too late. Alcott buried it in his right leg and withdrew it before the sheriff could even react.

  The sheriff bellowed in pain as another man tackled him from behind and slammed him to the ground.

  He tried to use his rage to block out the pain shooting across his back and from his leg. His tackler broke his grip and tried to put all of his weight on Trammel’s head in an attempt to push his face into the dirt. Trammel drove his right elbow back into the stomach of his attacker, but the grip held. He did it a second time, then a third time before the man’s grip finally faltered and he stumbled backward.

  Trammel pushed off his good left leg and rolled onto his back, drew his Peacemaker and fired up at the man. The bullet struck him on the left side just below the shoulder. He tumbled backward and was dead before he hit the ground.

  From the right side, Alcott kicked at the pistol, knocking Trammel’s arm away, but his grip on the Colt held.

  Alcott stomped on Trammel’s bleeding right leg, causing the sheriff to cry out in pain once more. He knew the Peacemaker still in his grasp was his only hope for survival, but he was too blinded by pain to aim at anything and wildly swung the big pistol with all of his might, driving the butt of the big pistol into Alcott’s groin.

  The Pinkerton man collapsed to his knees in silent agony.

  Encouraged by knowing he had hurt Alcott badly, Trammel brought the pistol back again and clubbed the man in the temple. He fell across Trammel’s legs like a rag doll.

  The impact caused even more pain to shoot through Trammel’s body. The knife wound in his right leg was still pumping blood, and he could feel the life slowly leaking from his body. The bullet graze along his shoulders still burned and grew even worse now that he tried to find a way out from under Alcott’s deadweight. He had no idea if the Pinkerton man was still alive or dead and did not care. All he knew was that he was lying in the open with hostiles all around him and he could not move.

  When Trammel reminded himself that he had to deal with one threat at a time, he ignored the fire in his back, forced himself to sit forward, and pushed Alcott off his legs. The unconscious man rolled off onto the ground flat onto his back.

  Another Pinkerton man stepped through the Stone Gate and took in the scene. He had just enough time to glance down at Trammel—to see the man he had been sent to kill sitting flat on the ground like a kid who had just been bucked off his horse—when the sheriff shot him in the head.

  The assassin fell back through the opening.

  Trammel rolled away from where he had been as quickly as he could manage until he reached the relative safety of the Stone Gate.

  Another man burst through the opening, trailing gun smoke behind him. Trammel steadied his aim on his good left leg and fired, cutting the man down where he stood and before he saw where Trammel was hiding.

  He had lost track of how many rounds he had left.

  He knew he had other rifles on this side of the opening, but as he sat against the wall, could not remember where he’d set them.

  He had also lost track of how many he had seen riding up the road just before all of this started. He took a deep breath. Alcott plus twelve. That means thirteen, right? Yes, of course it does. What’s the matter with me?

  He felt the Peacemaker begin to grow heavy in his hand and almost dropped it in his lap. That is when he saw the hole in his right leg and saw all the blood pooling out onto the ground. The wound caused by Alcott’s knife. It was his blood, he realized, though it seemed like it should belong to someone else. He was Buck Trammel. He was not supposed to get wounded. But there it was. Blood spoke for itself.

  Trammel flinched when a bullet slammed into the wall to the left of his head, sending up a small cloud of stone dust with it.

  He looked up and saw one of the Pinkerton men had crawled through the opening in Stone Gate. The front of his shirt was a red mess and the heavy Walker Colt shook in his hand. The man struggled to have the strength to say, “Look at me. You killed me, you good-for-nothing—”

  Without moving the Peacemaker from his lap, Trammel was able to aim and fire. The impact caused the man to flop onto his back, dead. It was not until the smoke cleared that Trammel could see the bullet had struck the man just below the throat.

  Trammel smiled through his drowsiness. “Now you’re dead.”

  His last bit of strength ebbed and he fell back against the rock despite the pain from the bullet wound across his shoulders.

  He had lost track of how many men he had killed. He had also lost track of how many there were still left to kill. He had watched enough men in his
life bleed out to know the same was happening to him. Not in an alleyway or a boardinghouse or in the back room of a bar like his old mother had warned him. But out in the wilderness against a rocky outcropping in Blackstone, Wyoming. He was about to meet his end, no better than the mad dog his mother had always told him he was.

  Trammel fought off the sleep that was pulling at him as he felt the ground begin to rumble beneath him. In his drowsy stupor, he wondered if it might be some kind of earthquake. Or was it common for people who were about to die to feel before they took that last great step into the unknown? Was it the beat of angel wings? Were angels coming to carry him up to heaven? Or the hoof beats of the Grim Reaper’s pale horse to drag him down to hell? He was ready for either.

  Buck Trammel fought with all of his might to remain awake so he could see his destiny approach. Death, he knew, was a foregone conclusion. He would never see Emily again. Not in this life, anyway. He wanted to know if he would see her in the next one. He had survived too much in life to allow himself to be cheated an answer just before his death.

  His last vision before passing out was the sight of King Charles Hagen leading twenty of his men toward the Stone Gate. And toward him.

  Trammel thought of raising his Peacemaker to defend himself against this last assault from Mr. Hagen. But the effort proved to be too much and the pistol too heavy.

  And firing back suddenly didn’t seem to matter all that much to Buck Trammel.

  * * *

  Trammel heard someone calling his name before he felt someone smacking his face. Before he was able to open his eyes, instinct caused him to grab the hand that had been striking him before the next blow landed. “Stop.”

  “He’s alive!” a young voice cried out. “See, Mr. Hagen! I told you he wasn’t dead.”

  Trammel recognized that voice. It belonged to Hawkeye.

  He struggled to open his eyes and saw he was bending his deputy’s wrist at an awkward angle. “Why were you hitting me?”

  “To bring you back, boss,” Hawkeye said. “Could you let go of my hand now? It kind of hurts.”

  Trammel released his deputy and tried to get a better grip on his surroundings. He looked around and realized he was still at Stone Gate, but he was flat on his back. His hat was gone, but someone had put something under his head to help prop it up. He felt someone tugging on his right pants leg until he realized they were cutting it away.

  That someone was Mr. Hagen. “This looks like a knife wound, not a bullet wound. That sound about right to you, Sheriff?”

  “It’s what happened,” Trammel said, before a deeper, more intense pain than he had ever known spread throughout his entire body and a horrible stench filled his nostrils. A vaguely familiar, but still wretched odor.

  “Sorry about that, Sheriff,” Mr. Hagen said, “but cauterizing the wound is the best way to stop the bleeding, at least until the doc can take a better look at you in town. Just wish it had been on your hindquarters so we could’ve put the Blackhorse brand on you.”

  Trammel heard a smattering of laughter, which he took to be from Hagen men.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t do a better job of warning you he was gonna do that,” Hawkeye added, “but Mr. Hagen here said it might be best if you didn’t know ahead of time.”

  Trammel blinked hard to clear away the tears that had risen in his eyes. The pain was still there, but had died away some. He decided he would die first before he told him about the bullet that had grazed his back. “What happened to the rest of the Pinkerton men?”

  “I don’t know what you did here,” Mr. Hagen said, “but every one of them who could ride was already on their way back to Laramie by the time we got here. The ones left behind were either dead or too close to dying to bother marking the difference.

  “We caught them all. Killed them all in the bargain, too. Lost one of my men in the exchange, but it had to be done.” The rancher looked down at Trammel. “Thought we were going to lose you, too, for a while, Sheriff.”

  “Don’t look so disappointed,” Trammel said through the pain of his wound. “I might die yet.”

  “I doubt that.” The rancher laughed without humor. “You’re not the type.” He stood to his full height and looked down at the human carnage around Stone Gate. “If you had told me about this plan earlier, I wouldn’t have given a nickel for your chances up here, Trammel. Not up against eleven or so men. Lucky enough for you, three of them broke off when the shooting started, leaving you only a few to face, but still.”

  Trammel found a way to do the math despite his mind being fuzzy. “It was still eleven-to-one odds when the shooting started, Hagen. Sorry it wasn’t enough to impress you.”

  The rancher toed one of the corpses on the ground. “Your deputy tells me this one here is the ringleader of the whole group. Man named Alcott.”

  Trammel raised his head and saw Alcott’s bloody corpse looking far more grotesque in death than it had only a few moments before in life. His vacant eyes stared at nothing and everything all at the same time. The fight that had begun the previous spring on a train from Ogallala had come to an end. Jesse Alcott was finally dead.

  “Yeah.” Trammel lowered his head back onto his pillow. “That’s him.”

  Hagen cut loose with a stream of tobacco juice that hit Alcott’s corpse in the face. “Well, like you said, Trammel. It was still eleven to one.” The rancher walked to the opening he had blasted in the stone outcropping decades ago and looked at the carnage on the other side. “They’ll be talking about this for generations, you know? I can hear the campfire stories now. How big Buck Trammel fought off thirty men or more single-handedly from his Stone Gate fortress with only his trusty rifle and a few boxes of bullets by his side.” The rancher smiled as he shook his head. “Washerwomen get a bad deal when compared to how a cowboy can blow up a story. Yes, sir, Sheriff, you’re about to become a mighty famous man after Mr. Rhoades down at the Bugle gets hold of this.”

  Trammel struggled to raise himself up on his elbows. Hawkeye helped as best he could. “That’s why it’s not going to be told that way.”

  Mr. Hagen looked back at him, making no effort to help Hawkeye pull the big man to his feet. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about fame,” Trammel told him. “I’m talking about how I don’t want any more than I’ve already got. How fame is dangerous, both for me and for the town.”

  “Fame doesn’t ask for us, boy. It just happens, and it happens after something like this occurs. Hell, you just fended off eleven men single-handedly, Trammel. Now, I might not care much for you, and I’ll deny ever saying this, but that’s one hell of a trick to pull off. You’ve got plenty of praise and admiration coming your way, and as much as it galls me to say it, you deserve it.”

  “We did this,” Trammel said. “Not just me and Hawkeye. You and your men from your ranch. We fended them off together.”

  Hagen’s eyes narrowed as he took a closer look at the sheriff. “You take a knock to your head, too, Trammel? You’re starting to sound like the Hauk boy here.”

  “If I am,” Trammel said, “then I’m making plenty of sense. If word gets out about me fending off this crew by myself, it’ll bring trouble to town. Trouble that neither of us need. I don’t want to be the next Bill Hickok, and you sure as hell don’t want to live next to a town that’s a tourist attraction.”

  The rancher placed his hands on his hips. “Keep talking, Trammel.”

  “I’ve already got more of a reputation than I want. I don’t want more people coming here looking to test it, hoping to make a name for themselves. We already had enough trouble with the bounty hunters who came around looking for money. Imagine the trouble that will follow when men come looking for fame.”

  Mr. Hagen signaled some of his ranch hands to help the sheriff to his feet. It took four of them to do it, but they got the big man standing on his own. Hagen beckoned them to stay where they were afterward. “You’re saying you want my boys to share in the glor
y of what happened here?”

  “No glory,” Trammel said, winded from the effort of standing again despite the help. His right leg still felt like it was on fire, but at least the bleeding had stopped. “Not for me and not for your men. I’m going to have to write an official report on what happened here today and, when I do, it’ll say I helped fend off an attack on the Blackstone Ranch by a group of assassins led by renegade Pinkerton man Jesse Alcott.”

  Mr. Hagen looked just as puzzled as his men looked pleased. They had probably planned on bragging about their exploits in the matter anyway, but now that they had the official blessing of the sheriff to do so, it made everything better.

  “You going to get into their reasons for attacking my ranch?” Mr. Hagen asked. “Because that’s going to raise as much trouble as you getting famous.”

  “The report doesn’t have to get into motive,” Trammel explained. “And I’m sure Mr. Rhoades will get into that in the newspaper articles he writes on the subject. We’ll keep that vague until we know what we want it to say. But for the purposes of the report, this fight wasn’t just me against eleven or so of them. It was the brave men of the Blackstone fighting off bandits. Me and Hawkeye just happened to help. That’s all.”

  The Blackstone ranch hands were still cheering their newfound heroism when King Charles shouted at them to be quiet before shooing them away like pesky flies.

  The rancher looked at Hawkeye. “No need for you to be here either, boy. This conversation’s just for adults.”

  Trammel limped between them. “He was enough of an adult to save my life and he’s adult enough to hear whatever you’ve got to say to me. He’s my deputy and he’s entitled.”

  Charles Hagen didn’t like the challenge, but he seemed willing to tolerate it. “Have it your way, Trammel. I’d like to know what kind of game you’re playing here. You and I haven’t exactly been on the best terms of late, and you sharing this bit of glory with my boys makes me a little suspicious. It sounds like you’re giving away a lot of valuable things, and I know for a fact that nothing valuable is ever really free. It always comes at a price.”