“That’s one,’ Pop pointed out. “They got others, though.”
Rat followed the driver’s pointing finger toward the low hill just ahead. Five horsemen blocked the trail. Pop steered the horses toward a small pond. He then halted the coach and urged the passengers to seek cover.
“Give ’em the coach,” Haslett advised. “It’s all they want.”
“Well, they won’t get it,” Rat vowed. “Not so long as I’m up here.”
“Don’t be crazy!” Pop cried. “There’s too many.”
“Maybe gettin’ shot’ll discourage ’em some.”
Rat watched as the raiders formed a loose circle. They dismounted and began closing in immediately. A tall, thin bandit climbed atop a boulder, and Rat put a bullet through his shoulder. Another raced through a nearby ravine, firing wildly. Rat waited a second before putting a ball through his forehead.
“That’s three o’ you!” Rat yelled. “Anybody else want some?”
His answer wasn’t long in coming. A volley of rifle fire tore through the coach and the surrounding rocks. The little Lambert girls took to wailing, and their mother pleaded for Rat to stop.
“No, you leave him to his work,” Grant argued. “You wouldn’t enjoy them outlaws’ company a bit, Miz Lambert. They’d kill you, or maybe do worse.”
“Hush,” Lambert shouted. “I won’t have you frighten my family.”
“Then grab yerself a gun and help,” Rat growled.
Bob Grant was doing that already. He wasn’t any older than Rat, but he put a Colt pistol to good use. He killed one attacker and drove three others to cover.
“You got some spare shells?” Grant called.
“Right here,’ Rat called, grabbing a box from behind the driver’s bench. As he tossed the ammunition to Grant, the cowboy exposed himself for a fraction of a second. That was long enough for a concealed rifleman to put a bullet in Grant’s hip.
“Lord, I’m hit!” the cowboy screamed.
“Won’t somebody help him?” Mrs. Lambert shrieked.
Haslett tried, but the raiders were closing in, and three shots traced the gambler’s footsteps. A fourth shattered an elbow, and a fifth struck Haslett in the small of the back, toppling him into the pond.
“Let’s go, boys!’ the leader of the outlaws urged. Men hurried closer, and Rat opened up again. This time he had no success. Bullets now riddled the coach from close range, and Rat rolled off the side and tried to escape. A bullet shattered the Winchester’s stock then, showering Rat’s wrists with splinters. He howled in pain and discarded the useless rifle.
“It’s over!” Pop Palmer yelled, waving a white kerchief. “We had enough!”
Five gunmen descended on the stage that moment, and the masked raiders quickly disarmed Pop Palmer and young Bob Grant. They busied themselves but a moment with the others, then herded the captives into a huddle.
“Well, we done just fine after all,” their leader declared. “Ef, you and young Jim there fetch that box. Throw down the rest o’ the things, too. Might be somethin’ useful.”
“Sure, Bo,” the younger of the two agreed.
“You fellows keep usin’ names, we might’s well be done with these flour sacks,” a tall, well-built man grumbled.
“Shoot, they know who we are,’ the leader argued, tearing off his mask. “Don’t you sonny?”
The leader kicked Rat in his sore ribs, bringing a howl of pain.
“Yer posters don’t do you justice,” Rat told the face he recognized as Bo Oxenberg. The bigger man would be his brother Oren. Rat recognized the empty gaze of Efrem Plank, too.
“Well, we couldn’t give the artist much o’ our time,” Oren explained, spitting tobacco juice at Bob Grant’s feet. “Ain’t faces matter much anyhow. It’s reputation. That brings men respect.”
“Does it?” Rat asked as he painfully pried a long spinter from his hand.
“Take yours, Hadley,” Oren added. “Word is you can shoot a flea off a dog’s rump at a hundred yards. I didn’t think it likely, but the way you shot Hi Hedges off his horse, I’m not so sure.”
“Hi rode with us a long time,” Bo added. “I don’t like men to shoot my friends.”
Bo swung his rifle over at Rat, then turned and fired instead at Bob Grant’s hand. The cowboy rolled away clutching his bleeding fingers and wincing from the pain his hip wound brought.
“Don’t be reachin’ for yon pistol, boy!” Bo warned. “I’ll fill you fuller o’ lead than that gambler there.”
“Do what you want to him,” Ef Plank said, tossing the heavy chest onto the ground. “Rat there’s an old friend o’ mine, though. Cain’t just up and shoot him, Bo. ’Sides, he’s close to hitchin’ himself to Lem Cathcart’s gal over in Thayerville. I don’t fancy havin’ that ole hound on my trail.”
“Nor me,” Oren growled.
Rat gazed at Ef and managed a grateful nod. Ef went on with his work, though. Soon the outlaws were occupied wrenching open the money chest and tearing their way through trunks of clothes.
“Want to take the mail sack?” Ef asked as he held it up.
“You’ll have the army after you,” Pop warned.
“The army?” Oren asked. “They couldn’t find dung in a stable. Take it along, Ef. I like to read the letters.”
When the young outlaw called Jim broke open Louise Lambert’s bag and began tossing the undergarments about, Boyd Lambert finally reddened.
“Stop that!” he yelled.
“That little lady must be a sight in these things!” Jim answered, tossing a stocking high in the air.
Lambert reached for something in his boot, but a pistol shot tore the hidden pistol from his hand.
“Mister, best not press your luck,” a heretofore silent outlaw warned.
“I know you,” Pop Palmer said, turning toward the masked raider. “Lord Almighty! Mitchell Morris, you come of a good family. What brings you to rob my stage?”
“You old fool!” the gunman answered.
“Mitch?’ Rat cried, staring in disbelief as features appeared familiar. There was something new and foreign as well—the glow of hatred. Rat sat transfixed, stunned, as Mitch raised his pistol and fired a solitary bullet into Palmer’s large chest. The driver fell backward, and the gunman fired again.
“Mitch?” Rat called a second time.
“Who?” the shooter asked, turning the pistol on Rat.
“Fool boy,” Oren Oxenberg yelled, rushing over and turning the masked killer away from the captives. “You done it now! Be hangin’ sure to come o’ this!”
“Mitch?’ Rat shouted even louder. The masked figure never even turned, though. The Oxenbergs collected the cash from the money chest, loaded it in a pair of stockings, and tied the booty atop Bo’s horse. Then the raiders remounted their animals and set off southward. Rat counted six, though one barely hung onto his saddle horn.
“They’ve gone,” Mrs. Lambert announced. “Praise God. Let’s get our things collected and be off.”
“Things?” Rat screamed, bending over Pop Palmer. “We got people to see after.”
“I’ll have a look at the boy,” Mrs. Lambert agreed. “The gambler’s dead.”
“I ain’t!” Pop shouted. “Not yet, leastwise.”
“We’ll get you to town, Pop. I promise.”
“I’ll be elsewhere long ’fore you get this coach to Thayerville,” Pop said, coughing violently. “You promise me somethin’ else, Rat Hadley.”
“Anything,” Rat vowed.
“You promise to hunt down Mitch Morris and see him hung! He’s kilt me, Rat. See he pays for that!”
“Pop, don’t ask that o’ me,” Rat implored. “I’ll help with yer little ones. I’ll be like a big brother to ’em all.”
“I know that,” Pop grumbled. “Shoot, nobody ever needed speak on it. I got friends aplenty, Rat, to help ’em. What I need’s a man to track a killer!”
“You cain’t even be sure it was Mitch,” Rat argued. “I know him. He cou
ldn’t … “
“I know him, too,” Pop said, fixing a vice-like grip on Rat’s tortured hands. “Promise me!”
“I’ll see it done,” Rat said, trembling. “And yer family looked after, too.”
“Bless you, son. Never figured it’d be young Mitchell. Shoot, I took him ridin’ when he wasn’t yet Wade’s size. That was back in … “
Pop Palmer never finished. He coughed, and then his eyes rolled back. Death had claimed him.
Chapter Nineteen
The eastbound stage pulled into Thayerville three hours late. Sheriff Lem Cathcart was pacing in front of the stage office alongside Nate Parrott when Rat managed to rein in the horses and halt the coach. It wasn’t easily done. Even though Louise Lambert had pulled the worst of the splinters from his hands, she’d done nothing to stop the aching.
“They’ve had trouble,” Parrott announced. “Told you.”
“Rat?” the sheriff called. “Where’s Pop?”
“Inside,” Rat said as he pulled the brake. “He’s dead, Sheriff. There’s a gambler in there kilt, too, and a cowboy bad hurt.”
The sheriff nodded, then opened the door and helped the Lamberts climb out. Their ashen faces testified to the trials of the journey. Nate Parrott hollered for a pair of freight handlers and dispatched a boy for Dr. Jennings.
“Who was it?” the sheriff demanded to know. “How’d it happen?”
“Ambush,” Rat answered as he climbed down from the stage. “They hit us in the hills.”
“Who?” Cathcart asked.
“The Oxen bergs,” Rat said, “Seemed to be them anyhow.”
“Lord, Sheriff, look at his hands,” Parrott cried. “They look to’ve swollen double.”
“Splinters,” Rat explained. “My rifle shattered. If I’d just been able to hold ’em off …”
“No one man’s goin’ to fight them Oxenbergs,” the sheriff said. “Come on, son. Let’s hurry you down to Doc’s and see ’bout them hands.”
“He’s got the cowboy to tend.”
“That won’t take forever, you know,” Cathcart pointed out. “After your hand’s tended, I want you to have a look at some posters.”
“Yessir,” Rat agreed.
The sheriff escorted Rat to Dr. Jennings’s surgery. As for the doctor, he was heading up the street to the stage office to have a look at Bob Grant.
“Best sit yourself down, son, and wait on the doc,” Cathcart suggested.
“Won’t be much to it, Sheriff,” Rat said, turning his hands over. “Just need some drainin’. When’re we goin’ after ’em?”
“Lord, Rat, ain’t you had enough o’ them? They’re sure to be halfway to the next county by now.”
“Not all of ’em,” Rat declared. “One’s hit bad. And their horses been rode hard.”
“They shouldn’t have so much trouble findin’ horses.”
“We goin’ or not?”
“I’ll spread the word we need men. Won’t be hard puttin’ a posse together. People thought a lot o’ Pop.”
“Yessir, they did,” Rat agreed.
Sitting alone in the doctor’s small office, Rat closed his eyes and tried to forget the nightmare raid. It wasn’t possible. He kept seeing Pop Palmer, heard over and over again his cry for vengeance.
Doc Jennings returned to his surgery half an hour later. He looked haggard, and his trousers were spattered with blood.
“How’s Grant?” Rat asked.
“Poor,” the doctor grumbled. “Won’t walk anytime soon, and he’s lost a couple o’ fingers. All in all he’s lucky by my reckoning, though. There’s two stretched out dead down there. Sheriff said you caught some splinters in your hands.”
Rat raised his swollen hands, and the doctor scowled. He set his bag down on a small table, filled a basin with alcohol, and scrubbed.
“Come on over here, Rat,” Doc Jennings instructed, pointing to a long table. “Got some diggin’ ahead o’ me.”
Rat lay on the table, wincing as the doctor dug fragments of wood from each hand in turn. The pain was a torment, but he almost welcomed it for the distraction it provided. He knew pain, after all. He understood it. It was madness left him confused, and there had been too much of that lately.
“There’s the last one out,” Dr. Jennings finally announced as he set his needle aside and grabbed a bottle of iodine. “Seems like lately you been keep in’ me busy,’ he added as he dabbed the reddish-orange liquid over Rat’s hands. I’d advise givin’ trouble a wide berth for a day or two. These fool hands’ll stay swollen awhile, you know. Soak ’em in cool water. That’ll help.”
“No cool water where I’ll be headed,” Rat said as he rolled off the table and examined the doctor’s handiwork. “I promised Pop I’d see his killers caught.”
“We got a sheriff for that.”
“I know. He’s asked me to be his deputy.”
The doctor started to argue, but Rat dug two silver dollars out of his pocket, tossed them onto the treatment table, and headed back to t!le stage office. Halfway there he was intercepted by Ned Wyler.
“Colonel?” Rat gasped. “Didn’t expect you here.”
“I came in to handle the transfer of the money chest,” Wyler explained. “We had some trouble, I understand.”
“They got it, Colonel. Shot Pop Palmer, too.”
“What’s your view on the raiders, Hadley? Sheriff Cathcart says it might be the Oxenberg brothers.”
“Looked like ’em. I shot a couple of ’em. Then a bullet shattered my rifle, and …”
“I heard all that from the others.”
“They shouldn’t be too hard to track,” Rat declared. “I know every inch o’ that Brazos country.”
“I don’t know if that’s much of an edge,” Sheriff Cathcart said, joining the conversation. “Miz Lambert says Pop recognized one of ’em. Local boy, she says. Just who was it, Rat’?”
“Efrem Plank,” Rat said nervously. “He spoke up for me, Sheriff, and most likely saved my life.”
“We knew about Ef,” Cathcart muttered. “You sure there wasn’t somebody else?”
“I’ve got my notions,” Rat confessed. “If I’m right, we’ll find him up on the river. If I’m wrong, better his family not suffer for my mistake.”
“I, uh, see your point,” the sheriff said, eyeing Wyler. “You fit to ride, son?”
“Eager,” Rat answered.
“Best see Cora ’bout packin’ us up some food,” Cathcart advised. “I’m meetin’ the rest at the livery in half an hour.”
“I’ll send some men,” Wyler declared.
“Rather you kept ’em here unless they’re local,” the sheriff replied. “Hard country out by the river. Best I know my company.”
“I understand,” Wyler said, nodding. “Nate can choose a pair for you familiar with the land. You trust his judgment?”
“He’s a good man. Rat, you get along to the house now. Not much time to waste.”
“Yessir,” Rat answered, hurrying on his way. He glanced back as he crossed the street and was surprised to find the sheriff still conversing with Colonel Wyler. The colonel was bound to have his questions, Rat supposed, what with the robbery and two men dead.
Rat found Becky waiting when he reached the house. Busby and Mrs. Cathcart were there as well.
“The sheriff said I should get you to pack some food, ma’am,” Rat told Mrs. Cathcart.
“Is he takin’ out a posse?” Buzz asked.
“Yeah, we leave in half an hour,” Rat explained.
“Wish I could go,” the boy grumbled. “Guess I’m too young.”
“Be glad,” Rat said, dropping to one knee so he could stare intently into Busby’s eyes. “Ain’t nothin’ but death waitin’ out there, Buzz. No adventure. Just killin’ and dyin’.”
“Your hands!” Becky shouted.
“Got some splinters,” he explained as he hurried to collect some clothes and a blanket from the side room. He did so, then returned to the kitchen.
“Can’t you stop long enough to tell us what happened?” Becky said, gripping his arm. “All we heard was that the stage was held up.”
“I don’t know much more’n that myself,” Rat told her. “There will be time to talk later.”
“Will there?” Becky asked. Concern painted her face.
“Sure,” he said, sighing. Mrs. Cathcart handed over a flour sack full of supplies, and he slung it over one shoulder, rammed his blanket roll under the opposite arm, and set off for the livery.
Men were assembling there already. Others came, too, for the stable-man, Bart Medway, was also the best carpenter in town. He was already at work on two coffins. Meanwhile Pop Palmer and the gambler rested in a wagon bed.
Rat left the provision sack and his blanket roll with Nate Parrott before racing to the corral to fetch his mustang. The animal was already saddled, and Rat merely checked the cinch. Once satisfied, he led the animal back to the livery. That was when he saw Varina Palmer and Pop’s children. Almost immediately Tyler raced over and leaned against Rat’s side.
“Pa’s dead,” the boy whispered. “Shot all to pieces.”
“I was there,” Rat muttered.
“You were supposed to guard him,” the boy said accusingly.
“Tried,” Rat explained. “I wasn’t good enough, or maybe there were just too many of ’em.”
“That’s what Sheriff Cathcart says. You’ll find ’em, though, won’t you?”
“I promised Pop,” Rat said, guiding Tyler back to his family. “You don’t break a promise made to a man like Pop.”
“I promised him I’d take care o’ things while he was gone,” Tyler said as they walked.
“Be plenty o’ men around to help,” Rat observed. “You put me at the top o’ the list, Ty.”
The boy managed a brief grin before grief overwhelmed him.
Rat offered his respects to Mrs. Palmer, and for a few moments they shared a few of Pop’s stories and remembered better times. Then Sheriff Cathcart announced it time to mount up, and Rat made his farewells.
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