Dig Your Own Grave

by William W. Johnstone

  “Be careful, I don’t trust that son of a bitch,” Calvin cautioned as he got up from his position and followed his partner. They made their way upstream, being careful to use the cover of the trees. When they reached a small hummock some twenty yards from the camp, they paused to look the situation over before advancing farther. “Jack, look yonder.” He pointed to the rifle lying a couple of feet from the lip of the gully. “We got him! He’s layin’ in that little gully and he can’t reach that rifle from there. If he could, he’d damn sure be holdin’ it. He’s dead.”

  “Looks that way,” Jack decided. “Let’s go see.” He left the cover of the trees and walked toward the campfire. When within a few yards of the gully, he could clearly see Will lying there completely still. “Yep,” he announced, “he’s in there.”

  “Careful, Jack,” Calvin warned, “maybe he ain’t dead.”

  “One way to make sure,” Jack replied, and brought his rifle up to his shoulder. That was as far as he got before Will raised the Colt .44, close by his side, and fired a shot that caught Jack in the center of his chest. He staggered backward into Calvin, who was trying to raise his rifle. It was enough to block his shot, and by the time he was able to push Jack aside, it was too late to escape the second shot from Will’s .44. He dropped to his knees, still straining to bring his rifle to bear on his executioner, only to feel the impact of another shot in his gut.

  Will got up from the gully, his pistol cocked for another shot if necessary, but he saw right away there was no need. He was well aware that the reason he was standing had a lot to do with luck. He knew he had to thank Jack for waiting to shoot until he got closer. Then he was in his debt again for staggering back into Calvin to block his shot. It had been a high-risk defense, but he figured he had no other choice—and it worked out all right. He picked up his rifle and went to check on each of his victims. Checking Jack first, he found him dead, his shot had evidently found his heart. Calvin, although mortally wounded, was still hanging on to life, obviously in great pain. The patch had been shifted to the side, revealing an ugly scar where his eyeball should have been. Unable to talk, he looked up at Will with his good eye, seeming to plea for mercy. It was obvious that he was dying, but it might be a long, painful wait. With the same compassion he felt for any suffering animal, Will cocked his. 44 again. When he raised it over Calvin’s head, the dying man managed to nod in appreciation. A moment later he was gone.

  Finding nothing of value except weapons and ammunition on the two bodies, he left them to be claimed by whatever scavengers happened by after he dragged them away from his camp. “I reckon that’s a genuine Texas welcome,” he proclaimed.

  Then he walked back downstream to find their horses tied near a stand of willows. By this time, it was pretty dark along the river, but he decided the two horses, both sorrels, were fairly good horses. He led them back to his camp, pulled their saddles off, and turned them out to graze with his horses. “I might know where I can sell those horses,” he speculated aloud.

  * * *

  Morning found him well rested and ready to get back to the business that had brought him to Texas. He saddled Buster and the two sorrels that had belonged to his visitors of the previous night and loaded his packhorse again. He was pleased to find a coil of new rope on one of the saddles, no doubt to be used to trail Buster and his packhorse, so he used it to lead the two sorrels back down the river.

  “That stranger back,” Cotton Poole’s Comanche wife informed him.

  “What?” Cotton blurted. “Where?” She turned from the window to face him, then pointed toward the road. He hurried to the window to see for himself, knowing that if the stranger was back, he must surely be a ghost. What he saw answered a question he had earlier that morning, however. Where were Jack and Calvin? “Uh-oh,” he muttered. “This ain’t good.” He turned to his wife and said, “Get your shotgun and stand over there at the end of the counter where you were last night.” He went to a rack of deer antlers on the wall, where a gun and holster were hanging, and strapped the belt on. “We’ll just see what he has to say,” he told the woman.

  “Well, howdy,” Cotton called out cheerfully when Will walked in the door. “I thought you were on your way to Fort Worth. What brings you back to see us?”

  Will took special note of the Indian woman at the end of the counter and the shotgun lying within easy reach of her right hand. He also noticed that Cotton was wearing a gun, whereas he had not worn one the day before. “Good mornin’,” he greeted them cordially. “After I left here yesterday, it struck me that you’re in the business of horse tradin’, and I remembered that I’ve got a pair of fairly young sorrels for sale, saddles and bridles included. And I’m willin’ to let ’em go at a good price, just because I’d rather not bother with ’em. I ain’t likely to give ’em away, mind you, just askin’ a fair price. Whaddaya say, are you interested?” He could see that Poole wasn’t quite sure what to make of the proposition. Even the Comanche woman had a puzzled look on her face.

  Cotton wasn’t sure what Will had in mind, but he decided the best course of action was to simply play the game Will had introduced. “Well, I have done some horse tradin’ from time to time, although I ain’t done much lately. I reckon it would depend on how much you’re askin’.” Before Will could respond to that, however, Cotton asked, “How’d you come by the horses?” He was reluctant to say he knew the horses well, both their good points and their bad ones.

  In answer to his question, Will said, “I reckon you could say they were left to me in the previous owners’ wills, so you don’t have to worry about ’em bein’ stolen. As far as the price, the last time I bought a horse of this quality, it sold for forty-five dollars. Does that sound about right?” When Cotton shrugged, obviously not pleased, Will continued, “So I figure I’ll let you have the pair of ’em, includin’ tack, for the price of one, forty-five dollars. That way, it’s a good deal for both of us.”

  Cotton could not help smiling. He had to admit that the stranger had a strange sense of humor. He found it ironic that he might pay the man for horses that Jack and Calvin rode to bushwhack him, but he could also see that he was buying two horses for the price of one, so he stood to make a profit. “You’ve got a deal,” he said, and reached in his pocket for the roll of paper money he carried. “Pleasure doin’ business with you, stranger. Maybe you’ll be back this way sometime.”

  “Never can tell,” Will said as he counted the money, then put it in his pocket. “I’d best be gettin’ along now.”

  “Say, what’s your name, stranger?” Cotton asked.

  “It don’t matter,” Will answered, nodded to the Comanche woman, and went out the door. He didn’t want his name to get out. There were too many outlaws and Texas Rangers who might find it interesting that a deputy marshal out of Fort Smith was working in Texas. He seriously doubted that his name would be well known here in Texas, but decided that caution was the best policy. Outside, he untied the lead rope and handed it to Cotton. “The rope’s yours, too,” he said as he stepped up into the saddle. “You say I can strike that wagon road to Fort Worth about twelve miles south of here, right?” Cotton said that was a fact, so Will touched his hat in a farewell gesture and started south. He figured he had been lucky to come out of his encounter with Jack Dunn and Calvin Wallace alive, and he was riding away with a clear forty-five-dollar profit.

  Chapter 14

  Just as Cotton had told him, he struck a common wagon trail after about twelve miles. It angled off to the southeast in the general direction Will figured Fort Worth should be. For the first time since leaving Oklahoma Territory, he was not sure he was still on Ansel Beaudry’s trail. The road he was riding now had tracks of all kinds, showing heavy farm traffic, and there was no way he could pick any tracks out and be sure they were Beaudry’s. All he was banking on was Cotton’s claim that Beaudry had stopped at his store and asked about the road to Fort Worth. It wasn’t much to go on, but that’s all he had, so he decided he would trus
t to luck that he could find some evidence that Ansel had passed this way. His first clue came to him after he had ridden approximately fifteen miles.

  He had pushed on a few miles farther than he normally would have before stopping to rest his horses, but there had been no good source of water since taking the road to Fort Worth. When he finally came to a creek, he rode off the road and followed the creek for about thirty yards to a grassy clearing that broke the line of trees bordering the creek. There was a cornfield on the other side of the wide, slow-moving creek, so he figured the creek was probably the property line for somebody’s farm. The corn had long since been harvested, leaving the brown, dried-out stalks to await plowing. As he guided Buster into the clearing, he saw right away that he wasn’t the first to rest his horses there, for he saw the remains of several campfires. The thought occurred to him that Beaudry might have stopped there, since he had ridden the same distance as he had from Cotton Poole’s store. There was no way to tell, however.

  After he released the horses to drink and graze, he gathered what wood he could find for a small fire to make some coffee. As he sat there drinking his coffee, he was suddenly aware of some movement in the corn rows on the other side of the creek. The movement was slight, like that caused by a small animal—or an Indian stalking an unsuspecting man drinking a cup of coffee. He chuckled to himself for having such a thought, for the Indians had long ago been moved out of this part of Texas. Even so, he subconsciously reached over and pulled his rifle closer, while keeping his eye on the movement of the corn stalks. Whatever caused it was obviously coming in his direction and was now only a few feet from the end of the row. Finally, the stalker emerged from the cornfield. It was a small boy who looked to be no more than seven or eight. He wore overalls and a straw hat, and was barefooted, even though it was almost fall. Will could not help remembering himself at that age, thinking he must have looked about the same as the boy. The youngster came down to the creek and crossed over, balancing on a couple of logs that served as a bridge. Once across, he came straight toward Will.

  “Howdy,” Will greeted him when he approached his fire.

  “Howdy,” the boy returned. “Whatcha doin’ settin’ there drinkin’ coffee?”

  Will laughed. “I’m sittin’ here drinkin’ coffee, just like you said.”

  “Papa said he wished to hell folks wouldn’t stop here to camp. First of the summer some feller went off and didn’t put his fire out. Papa said it was lucky I saw it, ’cause the wind blew some skunkweed on it and we had to put it out. Papa’s afraid somebody’s gonna start a fire in these trees and he won’t see it in time to put it out.”

  “Is that a fact?” Will replied. “Well, I reckon your pa is lucky to have you keep an eye on this spot. I’m glad you told me. You don’t have to worry, I’ll be sure to bury this fire before I leave here.” He could almost feel the boy’s eyes as he looked at his simple camp. “You want some coffee?” Will asked, then paused. “Do you drink coffee?”

  “Yes, sir,” he replied at once. “I drink it, but we don’t always have a lotta coffee, so I don’t get none too often.”

  “Well, I’ve messed around here and made more than I can drink, so I’d consider it a favor if you’d help me out, then I wouldn’t have to waste it.” He pointed to one of the packs lying near his saddle. “Look in that bag yonder. There’s a cup in that bag.” The boy went at once to the pack pointed out. “I ain’t got any sugar, though,” Will said. “Can you drink it black?”

  “Yes, sir, that’s the way Papa drinks it.” He found the cup and returned. “What’s your name?” the boy asked as he watched Will pour his cup of coffee.

  “My name’s Will,” he said. “What’s yours?”

  “Mark Taylor Thompson,” the boy replied, pronouncing each syllable clearly and proudly.

  “That’s an awful lotta name to carry,” Will teased. “Your pa must figure you’re man enough to handle it. They call you Mark?”

  “No, sir, they call me Skeeter,” the boy replied. “That’s what Papa said I looked like when I was born.”

  Will laughed and said, “Well, Skeeter’s a good name, too. Do you come over the creek and drink coffee with other people who stop here?”

  “No, sir,” Skeeter replied. “You’re the first one offered me any coffee. One time a man said he’d cut some strips off my behind and use ’em for bacon if he caught me snoopin’ around his packs.”

  “Sounds like he mighta been carryin’ something in his packs he didn’t want anybody to see,” Will said, still just amusing himself making conversation with the boy.

  “I bet it weren’t nothin’ but guns and such, ’cause he talked like a mean man.”

  Skeeter’s comment caused Will to realize he had let his mind go idle. “How long ago was that man campin’ here?”

  “Yesterday,” the boy answered, then changed his mind. “No, day before yesterday. Mama made me take a bath yesterday. She said I’d been playin’ with the pigs again.”

  “Was he a big man with a big black beard, ridin’ a gray horse?” Will asked.

  “Yes, sir, that’s the man. One of his horses was gray. You know him?”

  “Yep, I sure do,” Will said. “And you were right, he is a mean man.” He had the confirmation he needed. He was still on Ansel Beaudry’s trail. “How ’bout it, Skeeter? I’ll bet you know how far it is from here to Fort Worth. That’s where this road goes, ain’t it?”

  “Yes, sir, this is the Fort Worth road, but it’s a long ways from here.”

  “You ever hear your daddy say how many miles it is?” Will pressed, hoping by chance the boy might have heard him mention it. When Skeeter said he never had, Will shrugged indifferently. He had no idea how far he was from Fort Worth, and he would really like to know. He felt like he was running blind since he hadn’t a clue if Beaudry was trying to reach that cattle town, or it was just on the way to his real destination. Where was Beaudry heading in Texas? All he had heard about Ansel Beaudry was that he operated in Missouri and Kansas, and he concentrated on robbing banks. So why didn’t he head north to the territory he was familiar with when he ran from Grassy Creek? Once again, Will was prompted to ask himself if he wasn’t plum loco, trying to trail Beaudry, instead of turning it over to the Texas Rangers. But he knew it was because he owed Oscar Moon, and he wasn’t ready to call off his hunt and leave the cold-blooded killer to disappear into the Texas plains.

  He suddenly realized he had let his confusion over Beaudry’s flight tie his mind in a knot, and he became aware of the boy’s puzzled stare. “I almost went to sleep with my eyes open,” Will declared. “I reckon I’d best think about gettin’ my horses saddled up and get on the road if I’m ever gonna get to Fort Worth.” Feeling the urgency again, he said, “You take your time to drink your coffee while I’m gettin’ ready to ride. First thing, I’ve gotta kill this fire. We don’t wanna start any forest fires, right?” He winked at Skeeter and received a wide grin in return.

  When he had saddled Buster and loaded his packhorse, he took the coffee cup Skeeter handed him and did a quick rinsing in the creek before returning it to his packs. “Well, it’s been a pleasure meetin’ you, Skeeter,” he declared. “Tell your papa that he doesn’t have to worry about the woods catchin’ on fire today.” Skeeter didn’t reply. He stepped back and watched Will wheel the big buckskin and start back toward the road. When he could no longer see him, he crossed back over the creek and ran home to tell his folks about the stranger who shared his coffee. His mother would scold him again for approaching drifters who had stopped by the creek to camp.

  * * *

  Will had ridden for almost fourteen or fifteen miles when he caught first sight of a river. The road he traveled angled toward the river, then turned to follow it. He decided that was a good sign because it meant he didn’t have to look for a creek or stream when it was time to camp, as long as the road stayed with the river. He figured he could push on for another ten or twelve miles before the horses would be ready for
a rest. That was about as far as he wanted to push himself as well, because his stomach was beginning to remind him that he had had nothing more than a little coffee since starting out that morning. A little over an hour later, he saw what appeared to be a house, or building of some kind, on the bank of the river. The oak trees had been cleared around it to provide a wide yard. When he got a little closer, he decided it was a store or saloon since he saw a couple of horses tied to a hitching rail in front. The sight seemed to trigger an alarm in his empty stomach, for his first thought was the possibility of buying something to eat more satisfying than the bacon and hardtack he planned to fix for himself. “Maybe we can buy some grain for you and your partner,” he said to Buster. He had lost the feeling of urgency that had driven him for the past few days. It had been replaced by one of patient determination, for he realized that finding Ansel Beaudry was not going to be quick or easy, with the drab information he had to go on.

  He turned Buster off the road when he came to a path leading down into the yard and pulled the buckskin up to one end of the hitching rail. As a matter of habit, he checked the two horses already tied up there and noticed a rifle still in the saddle scabbard on each horse. That usually meant a peaceful customer. When he stepped down, however, he pulled his Winchester, also a matter of habit, and took a look around him at the small barn and corral, before stepping up on the porch. Inside, he found himself in one large room that held a general merchandise store on one side and three small tables set along the wall on the other side. There were two men sitting at one of the tables. Will assumed that side of the room served as a saloon. As he pushed the door open wide, he looked into a stranger’s smiling face, beaming pleasantly at him from behind the counter. “Howdy, stranger, welcome,” the man greeted him. “What can I do for ya? You needin’ supplies or lookin’ for a drink of likker? I’ve got both.”