Prairie Fire, Kansas

by John Shirley

  * * *

  * * *

  Did you hear gunshots a minute or two ago, Hannibal?” Diamond asked, coming back to the camp. He’d been answering the call of nature in the scrub brush nearby. Awaiting word, Fisher and Diamond were camped around a small fire on a clay bank a short distance from town. They were on the same little creek Seth and Josette had camped on but a quarter mile upstream.

  “Sure seemed like shots,” Fisher said. He was stuffing supplies back in his saddlebags. “We should ride out and see what we can see.”

  “You suppose it’s Gaines and them others?” Diamond asked. “Might be they ran afoul of the law.”

  “Might be. Or they found Coe. That’s more likely.”

  “Going off on this here wild-goose chase after Coe out here—it sure tangles things up, Hannibal. Not what you’d planned.”

  Hannibal shrugged. Once Coe had been spotted in Freeman, he’d had to send the men after him. “The opportunity come on up at me, had to take it.”

  They heard a rustling in the brush and a horse neighing. Diamond pulled his pistol, cocked it—and lowered it when he saw Gaines riding in, face twisted in pain. There was blood running down his right arm.

  “You hit?” Diamond asked, holstering his gun.

  “Now, there’s a smart question,” Gaines snarled, climbing off his horse beside them. “Of course I’m hit, you damn fool! Took a round in the shoulder. That Coe plugged me.”

  “Where are the others?” Fisher asked.

  “They’re chasing Coe and the girl. I can shoot with my left most well as my right, but I’m no good till I get this damn ball out of me.”

  Fisher took a pint of whiskey from his saddlebag and handed it to Gaines. “Pour that over it. Stanch it good, ride into Freeman, and find a doc. Tell ’em your friend was hunting and mistook you for something useful.”

  “And what then?” Gaines asked, uncorking the bottle. He took a long swig as Fisher answered.

  “Once you’re patched up, head out to Feathers’s place. Meet you there. Unless you’re too poorly to ride. Then you’ll miss out, and that’s all there is to it.”

  “I’ll be there,” Gaines growled.

  “Where they heading to?”

  “South on the main road. Half mile from here, last I saw.”

  Fisher nodded, climbed into the saddle, and said, “Come on, Curt.”

  Gaines looked balefully after them as they trotted their horses up the slope to the road.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Arm throbbing but feeling steady on his feet, Seth led the horses to the marsh water and let them drink. They could ride cross-country, but it was dark, and who knew what they might run into? He decided that the best course was to take the main road, behind their pursuers, and ride hard back to Freeman as fast as the horses could go. They’d find the Town Marshal, tell him their story. Only Seth wasn’t at all sure they could get on the road before Dubois and the others came back this way.

  Josette walked up to him, took the reins of her horse, and said what he’d been thinking. “They’ll be here, Seth, anytime now.”

  She then slapped his gelding’s rump hard so it sloshed off into the water as she mounted her horse—and Seth blinked up at her in confusion. “What’re you doing, Josette?”

  “They’re coming, Seth—I heard them just now. They’ll find our tracks down here. There’s no time to run. And they’ll kill you, Seth. They tried once, and they’ll do it again. I’m going with them—I’m going to tell them I’ll marry Heywood. I’m not going to be the cause of your dying!”

  Then she shouted “Yaw!” and slapped her horse’s rump and galloped off as Seth tried and failed to grab her reins.

  He stared after her for a handful of stunned seconds as she raced back up the ravine to the road; then he turned and splashed after his horse. He could hear voices from up on the road now—Josette’s voice and men replying—but he couldn’t hear what they were saying.

  At last he got hold of the gelding, mounted, and started off—but by the time he got to the road, Josette and the men with her were gone.

  * * *

  * * *

  The night was upon them, and Josette’s heart felt like a lump of lead within her as she rode toward Freeman with Heywood and the other men.

  But she rode with her head held high. I had to do it, she told herself defiantly. There were too many of them. There was no time to get away. They’d have killed him. . . .

  Heywood rode to Josette’s right, her father to her left. Behind her were three men, one of them called Briggs, another they’d called Peanut, and a younger man, seeming quietly troubled, who was as yet nameless to her.

  “He lit out for Prairie Fire, did he, Josette?” Heywood said gleefully.

  “That’s right,” she said. “Just left me there. Rode off on a deer trail, cross-country.”

  “Just proves he doesn’t give a fig about you!”

  “Are you lying, girl?” her papa asked, frowning. “That is not like this man Coe.”

  She shrugged. “Believe what you like.”

  “He probably passed us in the dark, maybe fifty feet away!” Briggs said.

  “Fisher won’t like Coe getting away,” said the younger man riding beside Briggs.

  “You can tell Fisher about it yourself, Bettiger!” Peanut said. “Here he comes!”

  Two men rode swiftly toward them, meeting them on the road. Everyone halted, and the horses milled nervously about as the men talked.

  “Fisher,” said Bettiger, “the man Coe has bolted. But we have the girl.”

  “You let him get away?” Fisher shook his head in disgust.

  Fisher? Josette stared at him, trying to see his face in the thin moonlight. Where had she heard that name? He had a long, cadaverous face. His curious lavender bowler and his three-piece suit suggested finery, but the clothes were dusty and threadbare, and the man had a patchy beard growing out.

  Then she remembered. Seth had told her about the encounter with him and Sheriff Dawson—and that face, even the hat, matched the wanted poster in front of the marshal’s office. This was the man who’d tried to kill her betrothed!

  The rider in the black frock coat said, “Bettiger—what’re you boys doing here? You should be chasin’ Coe down!”

  “We thought we’d ought to escort this woman to Freeman,” Bettiger replied nervously, “so’s she can get married to Heywood here. That was the deal, wasn’t it?”

  “The deal is what I say it is,” said Fisher. He moved his right hand languidly, reaching under his coat, and drew a gun. He kept it in his hand casually, as if toying with it, and said, “The deal now is that the girl belongs to me unless someone pays her ransom.”

  “What!” Heywood burst out.

  “Ransom?” Dubois said incredulously.

  “How much money you carrying, Heywood?” Fisher said, looking Heywood in the eyes.

  “Why—not much.”

  “I heard him talking to the old Frenchy here,” said Briggs. “He’s planning to take her on a trip to San Francisco. Have them a honeymoon! Get her away so she can see what money can do. He’s got a power of money in his money belt there.”

  “Now, that’s what we need to hear,” said Fisher. “Smiley, get that money belt and bring it here.”

  Heywood began, “Now, look here—” But he broke off when Fisher pointed the pistol at his head.

  Josette had to remind herself to breathe. Her pulse thudded as she wondered if they would simply kill Heywood and her father and take her away and . . .

  She refused to imagine anything more.

  Briggs got down off his horse, drew a knife, and reached under Heywood’s coat. In a few moments, he’d cut the money belt loose. He tossed it to Fisher, who caught it with his free hand.

  “Keep these two covered,” said Fisher. He
holstered his gun and lit a match with one hand, then opened the money belt. Humming to himself, holding the belt up to the light, he did a quick count. “I make it about two thousand four hundred dollars!”

  Smiley Briggs whistled at that.

  “Do you know who it is you’re robbing?” Heywood demanded, his voice quavering.

  “It’s not robbery,” said Fisher mildly, extracting some cash from the money belt. “It is a fresh negotiation. You will have a shorter honeymoon, is all, unless you can have your rich daddy wire you some more. I’m keeping two thousand two hundred dollars for delivery of the girl. Give this to him, Smiley.” He handed two hundred dollars to the pudgy red-haired man.

  “Cain’t I keep none of it?” Briggs asked.

  “You will share in what I’ve taken from him—and you’ll have your cut of the down payment he gave us, too. We’ll split the money later.”

  “That girl could be more valuable was we to keep her,” said Peanut.

  Shivers ran down Josette’s spine at that.

  Fisher shook his head. “I want no more trouble than I have already, so we will let him have the girl and his life and two hundred dollars. If Kelmer here speaks against me anywhere at all—” He looked Heywood in the face and said, “I’ll find him and kill him.”

  Heywood’s mouth quivered. He looked away.

  Briggs grumbled under his breath but handed the two hundred up to Heywood, who took it with an ill grace and stuffed it in a coat pocket.

  “Fisher,” Heywood began. “If you think—”

  “Heywood!” Josette said sharply, cutting him off. “You’d best keep your mouth closed and be glad he doesn’t kill you.”

  “A very sensible young lady,” said the man in the frock coat, chuckling. “She’ll make you a fine wife, Heywood!”

  “You want me to take his gun, Fisher?” asked Briggs.

  “Nope.” Fisher stuck the money belt in a saddlebag. “He might need to pawn it.”

  Briggs laughed at that.

  “Off you go to Freeman, Heywood,” Fisher said, moving his horse aside. He lifted his hat. “Felicitations on your nuptials.”

  Hands trembling, Heywood reached out and took the reins of Josette’s horse. He whipped his horse into a canter, and they started toward Freeman. Josette’s papa followed, cursing as he went.

  Josette half expected that the outlaws—for such they surely were—would shoot Heywood in the back. But Heywood, Josette, and her father rode around a curve without incident and headed for Freeman, with Josette feeling sure Fisher and his men would try to track Seth.

  And if they found Seth—they’d kill him.

  * * *

  * * *

  Down on one knee, his horse’s reins in his hand, Seth was puzzled by the tracks in the dirt road. He was pretty sure the daintier tracks belonged to Josette’s roan pony. It was smaller than many horses, and Josette didn’t weigh much. The hoofprints, just visible in moon- and starlight, were fairly clear. But they were going the wrong direction. He’d figured Heywood would head back to Prairie Fire. But those tracks, and the others grouped around them, were heading north. Maybe Kelmer didn’t want to ride all those hours south in the dark. And maybe he knew a way to get married after hours in Freeman. His father was a powerful man, after all, who probably had friends up there.

  Seth seemed to hear Josette’s voice again. I’m going to tell them I’ll marry Heywood.

  Josette would marry him, Seth thought bitterly, and she’d just have to get used to being wealthy, spoiled, and comfortable and having a handsome husband.

  But would she really do it? Maybe Seth could find them and change her mind.

  He stood up, mounted, and set off at a canter for Freeman.

  He could hear Josette’s voice, whispering in his mind. I’ll marry Heywood. . . .

  Seth spurred to a gallop and leaned forward in his saddle. He had to know.

  The twilight deepened. He galloped around a curve—and saw five riders coming toward him, spread across the road, silhouettes in the gloaming. They were only a hundred yards away. He couldn’t see Josette. Most likely she’d gone on with her father and Heywood Kelmer.

  But that rider in the middle, he was sure, was Hannibal Fisher. And he’d brought a whole damn gang with him.

  One of the men pointed at him, and another drew a gun.

  Seth swore to himself and turned his horse off the road and down a slight trail between a couple of cottonwoods. He heard the riders coming after him. A bullet cracked past, striking low on a tree.

  They were shooting at his horse, Seth reckoned. Fisher would want him alive, if possible, to find out where his money was. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the men riding down the embankment behind him.

  Seth drove the horse through the cottonwoods, trying to keep them between him and the gang. In a few moments, he reached the marsh, where several streams came together. He reined in, unsure which way to go and with but a second to make up his mind. If he rode to the right, they’d have a clear shot at him between the stream and the trees. They were coming down on his left, so he couldn’t ride that way. There was a good deal of brush and a grove of trees on a small island in the marsh, not far off. At least some of his pursuers might get mired coming after him.

  “Coe, hold on, now. Let’s talk!” called Fisher, behind and left.

  Seth applied his spurs, and his horse splashed into mucky water and through a stand of rushes. Mosquitoes rose around him, dragonflies darted away, and his horse balked at the deepening water.

  But he shouted, “Go, ya hammerhead, yaw!” and the gelding thrashed on. A bullet cut the water close by; another cracked past his left ear.

  Josette . . .

  He urged the horse on, slanting to the right behind a screen of tall reeds. A mallard flew up from a nest, angrily quacking. Behind them, the men shouted at one another, and he could hear their horses snorting, their legs splashing into the marsh.

  Seth’s horse struck a deeper place in the sluggish stream and floundered, neighing, its eyes rolling. The water was coming up over his boots. He thought about quicksand and figured maybe he was going to have to jump in the water to keep from going down with the horse.

  But then the gelding got its hooves onto something solid, and they were moving, and in a few steps, they reached the farther bank. If he could get to the trees . . .

  They were climbing the clay bank when he heard a gunshot mingled with the gelding’s scream. The horse sunfished in pain, and Seth jerked his feet out of the stirrups and vaulted free in a motion he’d learned from riding broncs. He came down on his boots, and the horse fell heavily on its side, squealing piteously.

  “I’m sorry, fella,” he said, pulling his Winchester from its saddle holster. He started up the bank toward the trees, wishing he could do something for the gelding. But glancing back, he saw blood pumping out of the horse’s neck; someone had hit an artery with a rifle shot. Death would come quickly.

  A bullet kicked splinters from the trunk of a silver maple as he dashed by, and then he was in the screen of swamp dogwood brush, thick and a little taller than he was. It scratched at him as he pushed between the brush and a big sycamore bole, looking for an escape route—or a place to take a stand.

  “Sweeney, Bettiger!” It was Fisher’s voice somewhere behind Seth. “Get south of him. We’ll catch him between us!”

  Seth paused by the upturned roots of a fallen tree and looked back through a gap in the brush. He couldn’t see Sweeney; he must have been on the other side of the little island, behind him. But a stocky, red-haired rider was coming up the bank about twenty yards north. Beyond him Seth could just see Hannibal Fisher riding into the trees, along with a man in a long black frock coat.

  Hannibal Fisher, Wanted Dead or Alive . . .

  Seth brought the Winchester up—but then Fisher passed from sight in the tree
s, the man in the frock coat with him. Seth swung the Winchester around to point at the man with the red hair—and hesitated. This hombre could be anyone, even some fool who thought he was on a posse. Seth shook his head. More likely he was an outlaw.

  But he couldn’t quite bring himself to shoot this stranger down without knowing for sure.

  “Son of a . . . Oh, the hell with it.” Seth turned and moved off alongside the fallen tree, hunkered as he went to keep its trunk between him and the gang. His heart thumped, and there was a metallic taste in his mouth.

  Hearing horses coming, he rose to look over the fallen trunk and spotted Fisher about fifty feet away, visible in the thin light from the moon and stars streaming between the trees. Without hesitating Seth propped the rifle on the tree trunk and aimed. The man riding up beside Fisher said, “Look out, Hannibal!” and fired a pistol at Seth. The bullet kicked up sawdust and splinters, stinging Seth’s cheeks, and his own pull on the trigger was more of a twitch. The shot went wild, and then Fisher was firing back. More bits of bark spat and Seth ducked down behind the thick bole. He scurried in a crouch alongside the fallen tree—and then he saw Sweeney and a younger man riding out of the brush on his right.

  They’d seen him and they had a clear shot. Sweeney was taking aim.

  Seth looked for cover and, not finding any, fired the Winchester from the hip. The shot hit the younger man in the side so that blood splashed and the man groaned.

  “Surrender in the name of the law!” bellowed a familiar voice from the trees to the south.

  Sweeney and the other man turned, startled—Sweeney bringing his pistol around to fire—

  A rider came bursting into the little clearing by the fallen tree, firing a shotgun from the saddle. It was Franklin.

  Hit square by the shotgun blast, Sweeney shrieked and fell backward off his horse—one foot caught in a stirrup. The other outlaw turned his horse; hunched in pain, he rode off into the brush to the east.

  Franklin’s shotgun let loose again, and someone yelled on the other side of the fallen tree.