Tascosa Gun

by Gene Shelton

  The wiry muscles were rock-hard with rage. Jim became aware that the other cowboys from the Panhandle outfits had gathered around, dark stares pinned on Siringo’s face. They weren’t all that far from a hanging, Jim sensed. Maybe Siringo deserved it, but not from his own crew.

  “Let it drop, Tom,” Jim said, his tone firm. “We can’t get the money back. Charlie, you screwed up. We all do, sometimes. But not this bad.” He pinned a steady stare on Siringo’s face. “I’ve half a mind to turn Tom loose on you. Maybe even help him out myself.”

  Jim felt Tom’s muscles relax, heard the lanky LIT man’s snort of disgust, and sensed the danger had passed. For now. “Charlie,” Jim said, “you better step real damn light around this camp for a while—and if I catch you with anything more than a piece of stale sowbelly in your hand, I’ll personally flatten you like last summer’s cowpatties.”

  Jim led Tom away from the buckboard. He turned his back to Siringo and faced the half circle of riders who had gathered around. “Well, boys,” he said, “it looks like we’re going to have to tighten our belts and postpone a few meals. We’ll be in White Oaks in a couple of days. Garrett should be there a day or so after that. Maybe he’ll bring some grub with him.” He turned to toss one last glare at Siringo before striding away. “Charlie, you better learn how to play cards before you decide to start gambling with our supper again.”

  Jim stalked back into the rough adobe that served as the Tascosa posse’s temporary headquarters. Nothing to do now but wait for Garrett and listen to our guts groan , he thought.

  White Oaks, New Mexico

  Pat Garrett leaned against a wall in the Texans’ quarters and surveyed the crew assembled in the small, close room. The posse had to be thinned down some.

  Garrett had made sense when he told Jim that ten men or less would have a lot better chance at catching the Kid and getting their stock back than a mob like this. Garrett had already picked out the men he wanted. They were the toughest of the lot.

  Word had already spread through the Pecos country that a posse was hunting the Kid. The locals had already put a name to the hunters. They called them “The Tascosa Guns.” The story went that as soon as the news had reached the Kid’s gang, several of his men decided the fire was getting too hot and pulled out for a cooler climate.

  Garrett pulled a thick cigar from a pocket and twirled it between his fingers. “The Kid isn’t the only one in New Mexico with spies, boys,” he said. “I’ve got information on where we can find him. He’s trailing a herd of stolen stock up by Fort Sumner. When we catch up with him, there’ll be a fight. You can count on that.”

  The lawman struck a match on the seat of his pants and fired the cigar, turning it over the flame until the end glowed red. “Stewart’s riding with me. So’s Barney Mason here.”

  Jim studied Mason’s swarthy, broad face. He didn’t fully trust Mason. There were those who said Barney had ridden with the Kid before he married Garrett’s sister, and that Mason was scared to the bone of the little buck-toothed gunman they were about to chase. Jim shrugged the thought away. Maybe Garrett could keep him in line. If not, there’d be at least one LX man keeping a close watch on Mason.

  Garrett shook out the match just before the flame reached his fingers and flipped the charred stick into the fireplace. “We’ll pick up a few more New Mexico men along the way.” He sucked at the cigar and cocked an eye at Jim East. “Jim, I’d like you to ride with us.”

  Jim nodded. “I gave the boss my word I’d do whatever it took to get our stock back.” Garrett nodded in satisfaction. “That makes three. Okay, let’s see who else ...”

  Fifteen minutes later Garrett had his posse: himself, Frank Stewart, Barney Mason, Jim East, Lon Chambers, Lee Hall, Tom Emory, Luis Bausman and George Williams. Men who were seasoned to the hardships of the trail and were good hands with rifles and handguns.

  Cal Polk, the likeable and eager young red-haired LX hand, a favorite among the Texans, begged to go along; Jim breathed a silent sigh of relief when Garrett turned him down. Cal was too short on years and experience to risk on a cold and dangerous trail.

  Jim wasn’t surprised when Charlie Siringo declined to join the group. It was more important, Siringo argued, that he stay in White Oaks and organize a winter camp for the men who stayed behind to hunt stolen stock along the southern Pecos. Jim knew the main thing behind Siringo’s decision was that Charlie didn’t take kindly to long rides and cold camps. Jim didn’t question Siringo’s guts. The man was no coward. Charlie just liked his creature comforts. Jim had the feeling Garrett knew that, too. Garrett hadn’t seemed overly anxious when he invited Siringo to come along. More likely, Jim mused, the lawman had asked Siringo just because Charlie was supposed to be the leader of the LX crew. I’d lay a month’s wages against a dime , Jim thought, that when Siringo tells this story it’ll be a lot different than the way it really happened.

  “All right, boys,” Garrett said, “we saddle up at first light. We’ve got nearly a hundred miles to cover to Puerto de Luna. We don’t stop until we get there. We’ll lay over a couple of days while I pick up some of my men and set a trap for the Kid. After that we won’t slow down a hell of a lot for another forty-some miles until we hit Fort Sumner.”

  Fort Sumner

  Jim East had to try three times before he was able to loosen the latigo strap of his saddle in the gloom of Pete Maxwell’s stable. He had lost the feeling in his hands three hours ago in the final stage of the long ride from Puerto de Luna through two feet of snow into the teeth of a sub-zero wind. He knew his fingers were still there. He could see them. He just couldn’t make them work. It was as if they were carved from wood instead of flesh and bone.

  Finally, the tongue of the buckle slipped free of the latigo. He pulled the saddle from the sorrel’s back, wrestled it onto a nearby rack, and turned to stroke the gelding’s neck. The horse stood with its head down, nostrils flared and flanks gaunt, exhausted from bucking the snow and drifts on half rations. Jim felt the cowboy’s sympathy for a game horse that kept going when it had to fight hard on every step just to get one foot in front of the other. He also battled a pang of guilt at abusing the animal, but there was nothing he could have done.

  The other riders in the Panhandle posse seldom spoke, and then in soft voices, as they stripped saddles from worn-down mounts. Jim found a grain sack in the feed bin, scooped a double handful of corn into a morral and slipped the feed sack over the horse’s head.

  Jim glanced up and frowned as Pat Garrett rode into the stable and dismounted. Garrett tossed the reins to Barney Mason. “Take care of this horse for me, Barney,” Garrett said. “I’ve got to take a piss. The rest of you boys get over to the old hospital and get a fire going.” Garrett strode toward a vacant stall. Jim followed. Now’s the time to get some answers, he thought. It may be a while until I can catch Garrett alone again .

  Jim waited as the lawman relieved himself and started fumbling with his fly. “Pat, something’s been bothering me,” Jim said. “I didn’t want to bring it up in front of the others.”

  Garrett arched an eyebrow. “What kind of bee you got in your britches, Jim?”

  “You told us the Kid was trailing a herd. Dammit, we both know nobody drives cattle in this kind of weather. You’re the man with the spies. I’d like to know where this herd is.”

  Garrett stared at Jim, his gaze cold and without expression. “What are you driving at, East?”

  “Just this, Sheriff,” Jim said, his tone as icy as Garrett’s. “I came out here to get back our stolen stock. I’m beginning to get the idea that maybe you have something else in mind.”

  “Such as?”

  “Using us to catch the Kid. I think it’s been eating at your gut for months that you haven’t been able to get him. I don’t like to be used by any man out to settle personal scores.”

  Garrett glared, but made no effort to deny the charge. “You pulling out on me, Jim?”

  Jim shook his head. “I signed on for
the whole roundup, Pat. I don’t quit a job once I start. I just wanted you to know there’s some things about this I don’t like all that much.”

  Anger flared in Garrett’s pale eyes. Jim braced himself for the showdown. Then Garrett abruptly sighed and smiled. The grin seemed forced. “Oh, what the hell, Jim,” Garrett said. “The Kid’s got that herd stashed somewhere. When we catch him I’ll make him say where. Then everybody will be happy. Trust me on this. There’s no future in us arguing about it out here in the cold. Let’s get on up to the hospital. The boys will have a fire going good by now.”

  For an instant Jim thought of bringing up the topic of the reward money. He had seen the notice in the Las Vegas newspaper, a brief one-paragraph statement that the governor had put up five hundred dollars for the capture of Billy the Kid. Garrett damn well knew it, but he had made no mention of splitting up the money if they caught the Kid. Jim shrugged the idea away. He wasn’t out here for reward money in the first place. He sighed. “All right, Pat. Like I said, I’m in for the whole ride.” But I s m not so sure I trust you all that much , he thought. He followed Garrett from the stable.

  A half hour later Jim sat cross-legged on his blanket beside the fireplace in the old adobe hospital at the edge of the plaza on the Fort Sumner-Portales road. He was beginning to feel warm for the first time since Puerto de Luna. A hell of a way for a cowboy to spend the week before Christmas , Jim mused, waiting to ambush a man I don’t even know. The wind still moaned outside, but at least the snow had stopped. The skies had cleared. A half moon bathed the plaza, its white light made more intense by the glare from the snow. The moonlight deepened the shadows until they were the color of printer’s ink.

  Lon Chambers had the watch, standing outside in the bitter cold. Jim could hear Chambers stamp his boots from time to time, trying to jar some warmth back into numb feet as he stared down the trail toward Portales.

  Several members of the posse had broken out a deck and started a poker game. Garrett sat in, watched in obvious disgust as Tom Emory raked in a small pot, then reached for the cards.

  “Pat, are you sure the Kid’s coming this way?” one of the players asked.

  Garrett shifted his cigar to the other side of his mouth and riffled the cards. “He’ll be here. My spies got word to him that we’ve pulled out for Roswell. I hear the Kid was right happy to hear the news. Whooped and hollered about how it would save him the trouble of whipping us in a fight, taking our horses and driving us on foot down the Pecos like a herd of cows. Five-card stud.” Garrett dealt the first round of cards. “Billy’ll be here. He’ll be wanting to celebrate.”

  There was one other bit of bait to lure the Kid into the trap at the hospital building. The Mexican wife of Charlie Bowdre, one of the men who had stayed with the Kid when news of the Tascosa posse spread, had living quarters in a room at the back of the hospital. She was now confined to her bedroom under threat of dire consequences if she tried to shout a warning.

  “Do you trust this spy of yours? He wouldn’t sell us out, would he?”

  Garrett half smiled. “He won’t sell us out. He’s more scared of me than he is of the Kid. Queen’s high.”

  Jim pondered the conversation. He might not like what Garrett was up to, but he wouldn’t bet against Garrett where the Kid was concerned. Garrett was shrewd. He understood the Kid’s thinking, knew his friends and the countryside.

  Jim felt his eyelids grow heavy. The murmur of conversation among the card players was soothing to the ears. He felt himself drifting toward sleep when a gust of cold air breezed into the room.

  Lon Chambers stuck his head in the door. “Somebody’s coming,” he said.

  Garrett tossed his cards down and reached for his rifle. “Nobody but the men we’re after would be riding this time of night, boys,” he said. Garrett jacked a round into the chamber of his Winchester. “Grab your guns. You know what to do. Let them ride in close. Nobody says anything until my signal. Somebody douse that lantern.”

  The room went dark as Jim rolled from his blanket, threw on his heavy buffalo hide coat and picked up his rifle. Moments later the trap was ready to be sprung.

  Jim huddled against the crumbling adobe wall of a low corral beside the building and stared toward the approaching riders. Tom Emory stood an arm’s length away, already sighting down the barrel of his Winchester. Jim counted six horsemen, hunched in their saddles against the cold and strung out single file. He glanced toward the front of the hospital. Garrett stood in the deep shadows, barely visible. A dangling harness further obscured his tall form. Lon Chambers waited beside Garrett, rifle in hand. Barney Mason and the others were concealed behind the adobe corral or waiting at the back of the building to cut off any escape in that direction.

  Garrett’s spy had named the men riding with the Kid—Charlie Bowdre, Tom O’Folliard, Dave Rudabaugh, Tom Pickett and Billy Wilson. Jim knew none of them by sight, but Garrett knew them all. He had said the best way to spot the Kid was by the big Mexican sombrero he wore. Rudabaugh, Garrett added, would be easier to smell than to see. The man had a strong aversion to water. The story was he hadn’t bathed since the age of ten.

  Jim felt the steady thump of his heart against his ribs as he watched the file of riders grow closer. One of the men reined his horse about and rode toward the back of the strung-out column. Jim couldn’t be sure in the moonlight, but he thought the rider who turned back was wearing a big hat. Jim slipped the glove from his shooting hand and immediately felt the bite of the cold on his fingers. He cupped his fingers against his mouth and blew on them. The warmth of his breath took away some of the sting.

  The lead horseman was almost in the hospital courtyard now, headed straight for the doorway beside which Garrett and Chambers waited. Like the others, he rode with his head down, the brim of his hat blocking most of the wind from his face. The horse stopped almost under the front porch of the building barely an arm’s length from Garrett.

  Jim lifted his rifle, thumbed back the hammer and waited. He picked his target, a slightly built man a few yards behind the lead horseman.

  “Halt!” Garrett yelled, “Throw up your hands!”

  The command jolted the rider bolt upright in the saddle. The horseman’s hand stabbed toward the revolver at his hip. Jim saw tongues of fire flash from the muzzles of two rifles as Garrett and Chambers both fired. The horseman’s body jerked; he cried out in surprise and shock. He almost fell from the saddle as his horse bolted, then righted himself.

  Jim squeezed the trigger of his Winchester as the second rider wheeled his horse away from the hospital. The rifle jabbed his shoulder. Jim knew the slug had gone wild. Another muzzle flash lanced from the porch, then a ragged volley of gunshots sounded from the concealed Texans. Jim levered a fresh cartridge into the Winchester, lined the sights as best he could and squeezed the trigger. He heard the solid whack of lead against flesh, like the slap of a hand on a side of beef. The muzzle flash of his second shot wiped out what little night vision Jim had left. He couldn’t be sure what his slug had hit.

  The outlaws rammed spurs into their frightened horses. The animals floundered a moment in the deep snow, then regained their footing, hit the trail they had broken only moments earlier, and raced back the way they had come. The firing from the posse gradually faded as the horsemen fled beyond rifle range. Jim blinked as his night vision slowly returned. He wasn’t surprised that none of the other outlaws had gone down. Shooting in moonlight at moving targets was no way for a man to make a living.

  One of the horses continued to crowhop and lunge in the snow, then gradually stopped as the rider regained control. Jim recognized the man as the one who had ridden almost into Garrett’s lap. The rider reined back toward the posse, slumped over the saddle horn. Jim heard the man’s groans of agony as he approached. Garrett stepped from the deep shadows and slowly lowered his rifle.

  “God, please—don’t shoot any more!” The wounded man’s call was weak, the words shaky. “I’m dying, Garrett! You hit
me hard.”

  “Put up your hands!” Garrett called back.

  The wounded man made no attempt to comply. One hand gripped the reins, the other pressed against his chest. Garrett stepped from the porch, rifle at the ready, Lon Chambers at his side. One by one the members of the posse approached the wounded man.

  “It ain’t the Kid,” Jim heard one man say.

  “It’s Tom O’Folliard,” Garrett replied, his voice calm. “Ease him down from that horse, boys. Watch him close. He might still have a trick or two left in him.”

  Barney Mason was one of the first to reach the wounded man. He pulled him from his mount—a bit roughly, Jim thought, considering the man’s obvious condition—and with the aid of a second posse member half carried, half dragged O’Folliard inside.

  “Put him on my blanket,” Jim said. Mason dumped O’Folliard onto the blanket, yanked open the wounded man’s coat and stared for a moment at the wound. Mason glanced up at his brother-in-law and grinned. “Nailed him solid, Pat. He hasn’t got a chance.” Mason leaned back over the moaning O’Folliard. “Take your medicine, old boy,” he said, his tone mocking. “Take it like a man.“

  Jim stepped around one of the possemen and stared down at Tom O’Folliard. He was surprised at what he saw. The wounded man seemed little more than a boy, clean-shaven, his smooth features twisted in agony, slender body half curled against the pain. Tears misted the pale blue-gray eyes. A thick shock of light brown hair still showed the impression where his hat band had been.

  “Oh, God,” O’Folliard gasped. “It’s awful cold in here, Garrett.”

  Garrett stared into the pain-glazed eyes. “Tom, your time is short,” Garrett said, his tone soft.

  O’Folliard stared at the ceiling for a moment, his breath shallow and labored. “The sooner the better, then,” he gasped. “It will stop the pain —” He cried out as a fresh wave of agony ripped through his body.