Bannerman the Enforcer 6

by Kirk Hamilton

  Cato, slightly ahead of Yancey, started to dismount and his saddle creaked. It was enough. The guard started up, the movement beginning before he was fully awake, hands groping for the rifle. Yancey slammed his spurs into his mount’s flanks, jumping it past the half-dismounted Cato, swinging his rifle by the long barrel. The guard got his hands on his gun and was bringing it up when the brass butt plate of Yancey’s Winchester cracked against the side of his head and lifted him clear off his feet. He fell with a clatter and lay still, blood oozing thickly from the wound in his temple.

  Yancey fought his horse to a standstill and hipped in leather. Cato was standing over the man. He looked up, shaking his head.

  “Killed him. He won’t give us any trouble.”

  Yancey grunted. “Likely only had the one man. That entrance is so well hidden they’d be confident with just the one guard.”

  They walked their mounts around the big, marble-like boulder where the guard had been stationed and stopped dead.

  Below them, down a slope, was a green canyon, thick with trees at the far end and splotched with patches of wildflowers. They could hear birds calling and chirping. A stream meandered lazily across the canyon floor. It was a beautiful, fertile place, peaceful, remote.

  What spoiled it was the encampment of armed men over against the west wall. A dozen of them were trundling around a big-wheeled cannon that glinted in the sun, while others were setting up and taking down a Gatling gun.

  “Well, if Burdin got them in here, he didn’t do it the way we came,” Cato said, gesturing to the heavy weapons.

  “Which means there’s an easy way out someplace. And we’ve got to see they’re cut off from it before we make our move,” Yancey said slowly, glancing up at the sky. “Sun’s westering. It’ll be dark in here, long before it is outside.”

  “And we’re gonna use that darkness. It’s gonna be one of the few advantages we’ll have,” Cato said grimly.

  They were lucky. Apparently the guard they had killed had only just come on duty, for no one came out to relieve him while they waited for darkness by the big boulder.

  They weren’t idle. Cato took out the empty coffee cans he had collected in Van Horn and the half-dozen sticks of dynamite.

  “No fuses,” Yancey commented. “Or detonators.”

  “Only fuse they had was perished, crumblin’,” Cato replied. “They didn’t have any detonators at all. Reckoned they must’ve been stolen. Even this dynamite’s unstable, startin’ to ooze. Don’t have much call for it around Van Horn, I guess.”

  “What’s your idea?” Yancey asked.

  “We got four cans, but only two with lids that fit tight. Before I left Van Horn, I got another carton of shot-shells. I figure we pack thick sticks of dynamite into each of the two cans and fill up the space inside with powder and shot poured out of the shot-shells.”

  “The shot, too?”

  “Hell, yeah. It’ll be blasted everywhere by the explosion, like a giant shotgun.”

  “Okay, I get it. We clamp the lids on and make two bombs. But how are we going to explode ’em?”

  Cato merely grinned and then took out his hunting knife and began scratching the labels off the coffee cans. When they had been removed, he scraped away at the surface of the tin until it shone like silver, glinting brightly in the sunlight.

  “Easier to see in the dark if it reflects,” he said by way of explanation and Yancey, started to get the idea then.

  The big Enforcer kept watch on the men in the canyon while Cato constructed his first bomb. The sticks of dynamite were bound together tightly with string. He stood them in the center of the can, then opened shot-shells and poured in the black-powder and buckshot charge. He used a stick to tamp this down tightly around the dynamite. Then he made a small slit in the top of each dynamite stick and inserted the brass end containing the primer cap of one of the shot-shells, which he had cut free of the cardboard tube.

  “It’ll help ignition,” he explained briefly.

  Then he pressed the lid home after the can had been filled to the top with the powder-and-shot mix. To be sure the lid stayed in place, he used lengths cut from a coil of cord fishing line which he always carried in his saddlebags, wrapping it tightly around and around the can, end for end.

  “That ought to hold up, even when it gets tossed around,” he opined. Yancey, standing by the boulder, watching the men through field glasses, turned and nodded briefly.

  “Fine. Looks like they’re dragging the cannon and the Gatling back to the camp. Figure they’re about to finish up for the day. Been some good riding down there, especially the fellers dragging that cannon around. They know just where they want to put it and get it there pronto.”

  “Been practisin’ a long time, I guess,” Cato said as he commenced to make the second bomb. “Likely aim to use ’em when they take over Van Horn.”

  “Which we got to see they don’t do. Yeah, they’re washing-up at the stream now and I can see the cook at his wagon lining up tin plates.” Yancey lowered the glasses and glanced at the sun. “In half an hour’s time shadows ought to be crawling across the canyon floor. Be dark in an hour and a half.”

  “Which will give us just enough time. Yance, might be an idea if you scrape the bluing off the blade of your foresight and the inside curve of the buckhorn. You’ll see ’em easier in the dark.”

  Yancey nodded and came back to squat down by Cato. He picked up Cato’s hunting knife and started scraping at the metal bluing gently with the tip of the blade.

  ~*~

  Sam Burdin was easy to recognize as he stood in the firelight in the circle of tents. He was tall, slab-bodied, hawk-faced, with thick yellow hair and a blond mustache which drooped around a mean mouth. There was a puckered scar on the tip of his chin and his eyes had the glint of a fanatic, as he briefed his men about the proposed raid on Van Horn the following day.

  He strode about, gesturing, hammering one fist into the palm of his other hand to drive home an important point. He frequently slapped his hand against the holstered six-gun on his hip. It was a regular army-style holster, with buttoned flap and worn high on a Sam Browne belt. His trousers were gray with deep blue stripes running down the outsides, the cuffs tucked into polished half boots. His shirt was dark gray with yellow shoulder-flashes. He wore a battered campaign hat with a single metal star pinned to the front. The Lone Star of Texas. Most of the men squatting around the campfire, lounging, smoking, but attentive, were dressed in similar manner, except there were no shoulder-flashes on their shirts.

  “Looks like a regular troop of soldiers,” Cato whispered as he and Yancey bellied forward to a vantage point. They were on a flat slab of rock that jutted out over the camp below and the chill night wind made them shiver. The ancient rock surface creaked and cracked at the sudden drop in temperature now that the sun had gone below the canyon rim. These natural noises covered any small slithering sounds the two Enforcers made as they worked their way into position.

  The canister bombs were dangling around Cato’s neck, slung on some fishing cord, each can wrapped around with their spare shirts so they wouldn’t clang together. They couldn’t make out Burdin’s words, but they could tell from his gestures and the tone of the voice as it drifted up to them that he was forcefully driving home his orders for the raid on Van Horn, a name they caught on several occasions.

  “He’s loco,” Cato opined with a kind of matter-of-fact emphasis: there was no doubt in his mind.

  “Yeah,” Yancey agreed. “Dangerous kind of loco. If we hadn’t gotten onto the fact that he was building up his so-called Texas Freedom Army, he might’ve made one hell of a mess of Texas. And Dukes.”

  “Well, we ain’t stopped him yet, Yancey, old pard,” Cato said, easing the cans from around his neck and untying them. He pulled them out of the shirts and they glinted clearly in the faint glow of the stars. “You ought to be able to see ’em plain enough in the firelight.”

  Yancey nodded settling himself firmly into
a patch of sand, getting the Winchester up to his shoulder. He eased back the hammer as Cato laid his own rifle within easy reach of his hands and took out his Manstopper, placing the big gun beside it. He eased forward on the rock and studied the camp below, then slithered back fast, reaching for the first can.

  “Looks like they’re about to turn in,” he said and Yancey saw the men standing and stretching as Burdin walked away from the group, shoulders hunched as he cupped his hands around a vesta flame, lighting a stub of cigar.

  “Now, Johnny! Before they scatter!”

  Cato lifted the can and drew back his arm, sighting down into the camp. “Let it drop as close as you can before firin’!” he said and then his arm snapped forward and the glinting coffee-can bomb arced out from the rock and was momentarily lost in the darkness.

  Then it began to fall, towards the dispersing men who were walking towards their tents in groups of twos and threes. Yancey lifted the rifle barrel and because he had removed the metal bluing from the foresight tip and the buckhorns of the rear sight, they glinted, and he was able to center the blade easily and hold it on the flashing metal of the coffee-can as it reflected the firelight.

  When the can was about ten feet above the ground, the rifle barrel leading it just a fraction, Yancey squeezed trigger.

  The detonation was tremendous, greater than either he or Cato had expected. There was a momentary, monster fireball that briefly lit the canyon like a second sun. Then the shattering thunder smashed into the walls and reverberated, drowning the screams of mortally wounded men. Those who were still alive had been knocked flat by the blast and, dazed, were slowly picking themselves up now, deafened, disoriented by the suddenness of the attack.

  Horses whinnied in the rope corrals and crushed against the restraining ropes and poles. A tent was blazing. Wounded men moaned. Sam Burdin was on his feet now, staggering about, yelling, trying to organize, but it was doubtful if he could make himself heard. Then someone got a gun out and working, though it was likely a purely reflex action, for Yancey and Cato didn’t hear where the bullets went. But Burdin was rapidly regaining his senses now and he was running unsteadily towards the gleaming metal of the Gatling gun.

  “Here goes the second one!” Cato bawled and tossed the second bomb as far as he could. This time it hit the ground and rolled and Yancey swore as it was harder to see. He saw a glint, fired, missed, spotted the can still rolling and drew a swift bead, squeezing trigger gently.

  The second explosion seemed louder than the first somehow, and there was an upward blast of dirt and broken men and tents. When the dust cleared, they could see that the Gatling gun had been blown over onto its side and Burdin was crawling away on all fours, shaking his head. Some of the men had their position pinpointed now and were blazing away with their guns. They were highly trained, Yancey had to give them that. Despite the surprise attack, they were determined to put up a fight. Bullets ricocheted from their boulder shelter. Cato snatched up his rifle and began blazing away at the running men. Burdin was on his feet now and stumbling back into deeper shadow. Guns were hammering from many directions, but the campsite was strewn with bodies. There couldn’t be too many of the Texas Freedom Fighters who had escaped those terrible blasts.

  And yet shadows flitted about down there; tongues of fire licked out into the night; gunshots echoed from the rocky walls. The horses began to mill and a rider broke away, silhouetted hazily against the lighter ground. Yancey drew a swift bead on the mount and fired. The horse went down sideways, threshing, throwing the rider. He staggered up and Yancey put him down with two swift shots.

  Cato picked off a man who was running for the corrals and the horses that were smashing down the barriers now, running wild through the chaos of the camp, knocking down men who leapt at their bridles or manes, whickering, wild-eyed, kicking. Some men mounted and were bucked off almost immediately. Others clung to the manes and were dragged until, eventually, they were forced to release their grips and fell hard, sometimes under the racing hoofs. Guns barked intermittently. Yells and shouts were lost in the general din. Tents were knocked down. Somehow, the cannon, too, had been knocked over onto its side and one big spoked wheel spun crazily on a warped axle.

  Then, abruptly, there was silence down below, an absence of movement and sound, the echoes fast fading. The dust slowly lifted and the two Enforcers stood up slowly, staring down at the ruins of the Texas Army’s camp. They waited, listening and, distantly, could hear the swift movement of horses towards the south end of the canyon.

  “Someone’s gotten clear, anyways,” Cato opined.

  “Yeah. More than one. But there are a lot of bodies down there, Johnny. Let’s go check.”

  It was a grisly job and the moon was climbing over the canyon rim now, flooding cold, silver light over the carnage. They counted sixteen men in all, every man dead.

  “Four got away then,” Cato said.

  “Five,” Yancey corrected him. “Burdin had twenty men under him. That would’ve been twenty-one altogether.”

  Cato looked at the death all around him.

  “I didn’t find Burdin, did you?”

  Yancey shook his head. “Looks like he got away,” he said and Cato nodded in agreement.

  Three – Oath of Vengeance

  Sam Burdin’s group quit the disaster canyon by means of a hidden, but easy-access tunnel in the south wall. It brought them out on the far side of the sierras and they made their way down the slope warily in the moonlight that was only now creeping across this face of the range. The peaks and crests threw long, heavy shadows down the slopes and they had to negotiate these carefully, for the ground was, broken and boulder-shot.

  One of the men sagged in the saddle, holding his left side, coughing occasionally. Twice he almost fell but men either side of him steadied him and then one of them took the reins from the man’s hand and led his horse.

  “Move!” Burdin yelled, looking back towards the dark maw of the tunnel. “Whoever pulled that raid might be lookin’ round and they’ll maybe find that exit!”

  “Clay’s hit mighty bad, Sam,” one of the men said. “Bleedin’ like a stuck hog.”

  “He better keep up!” Burdin growled, fighting his skittish horse around. None of the horses was saddled, though three had reins and one had a rope hackamore. Burdin’s mount had nothing and he guided the animal with knees and tugs on the mane.

  “Who do you think it was, Sam?” a man asked.

  “Dukes! Or his men,” Burdin said without hesitation. “Had to be. Couldn’t be anyone else.”

  “Sounded like the army to me, with them cannon shell.”

  “Hogwash!” Burdin snapped. “They was bombs. I seen one rollin’ along the ground. They set it off with rifle fire.”

  “Damn good marksman then, at night!”

  “Yeah, a dead shot,” Burdin growled. “I’ll find out who it was. Man who can shoot like that can’t hide forever, not when he’s workin’ for Governor High-and-Mighty Dukes! I’ll find out who it was and that son of a bitch is gonna die slow! But I’ll get Dukes first!”

  “Hell, you still after him?” a man asked, surprised. “Damn right I am!” There was a fanatical glint in Burdin’s eyes. 'Texas ain’t never gonna get back its independence while Dukes is governor! Now, move, before we get ourselves nailed!”

  The group moved on down the slope, Burdin in the lead. He walked his mount down to a small stream and across it, angling eastwards a mile and then cutting across a curve of loose sand. It was too loose to hold tracks, though the horses stumbled and floundered. Burdin cursed and yelled and kicked his mount across and then, standing on more solid ground, turned to hurry the others along. He saw the wounded man lean forward, then topple sideways.

  “Grab Clay!” he yelled, but it was too late. Clay’s body thudded to the sand and his mount shied away.

  Burdin leapt off his horse and ran back, pushing aside the man who was about to kneel beside the wounded outlaw. Burdin grabbed Clay’s chin and tur
ned his face upwards so that he could see it in the moonlight. There were deep-etched lines around his mouth. His eyes seemed sunken and lacked luster. There was dried blood on his lips and a few pinkish, fresh bubbles. Burdin looked at the man’s wound and was surprised to see that the whole of his side was drenched with blood from armpit to boot-top. He sat back on his heels, thumbing back his blast-scorched campaign hat.

  “He must’ve left a trail a blind man could follow, bleedin’ like that,” he muttered.

  “Told you that, Sam,” the other man said. “We should’ve stopped to bandage him up.”

  Burdin growled and snapped a cold look at the man. He pulled his six-gun out of the holster and the man’s jaw sagged in shock. Clay looked up silently, his eyes pleading. Burdin’s face was cold as he aimed briefly and dropped hammer, shooting Clay through the head. The gunshot echoed across the sand and Burdin rammed the Colt back into the holster and sprinted for his horse, ignoring the stares of the other mounted men.

  “Let’s go!” he said, vaulting onto his mount’s back. “If they’re following, that gunshot must’ve been heard.”

  The others hesitated and Burdin wrenched on the mane, holding his horse briefly. “Come on! Quit acting like a lot of old women! You know the rules! Might be the first time we’ve had to enforce ’em, but they are the rules. Now, anyone don’t want to stick with me, can say so right now and clear off, make his own way. But them that’s comin’ had better move pronto!”

  He turned the horse again and let out a yell to get it moving, slamming home his heels, driving it full tilt into the shallow stream. Water sprayed out in a silver fan, shot through in brief beauty by the moonlight. When Burdin was across he paused to look back. He smiled crookedly. All three men were coming after him. They knew where their best chances lay. He was a survivor. They knew they had a better chance of making it out of this alive by sticking with him. He had chosen well when he had started the nucleus of his Freedom Army.