A Good Day to Die

by William W. Johnstone

  Latigo unsheathed a repeating carbine from its saddle scabbard and drove down on the stagecoach’s right-hand side, firing at three Comanches grouped there.

  Five braves, the trio faced by Latigo and the two on Sam’s side, wheeled their mounts around, turning them to meet the threat. A brave with an eight-foot-lance rushed Sam, thrusting the spear-blade at him. Sam shot him in the torso, felling him.

  A brave threw a tomahawk at Latigo and missed. A passenger stuck his arm out of the coach, gun in hand. He blazed away at the tomahawk thrower at point-blank range, burning him down.

  The brave holding the lead horse in check released its headstall to bring his rifle in line with Sam. Sam fired first, knocking him to the ground. He urged the pinto forward.

  The brave he’d felled was still alive, groping in the dirt for his weapon and catching it up. The pinto trampled him. Sam held the animal in place, its iron-shod hooves dancing atop the Comanche, hammering him into the dirt.

  Sam moved on, rounding the front of the team and coming up behind the duo on the other side shooting it out with Latigo. Sam shot one in the back while Latigo downed the other.

  Taking no chances with possible hair-triggered survivors, Sam shouted, “Don’t shoot, We’re friends!”

  “Amen to that, brother!” a man’s voice returned from inside the coach.

  Sam and Latigo reined in, eyeing downed braves pouring red lifeblood onto the hardpacked dirt road, the ground soaking it up like a sponge. Swinging down from the saddle, Sam hitched the pinto’s reins to an iron staple bolted to the side of the coach. Latigo similarly secured his horse, then checked the lead rope and two horses on the string. They checked out okay. He and Sam dropped finishing slugs into the skulls of the downed who looked like they were still breathing.

  Inside the coach, a woman cried out, “Lord be praised!”

  The stagecoach doors were flung open and two men climbed out.

  Carbine in hand, Latigo climbed up on the front of the stagecoach. He set the hand brake, locking it into place, and checked the driver for signs of life. “Dead,” he said, looking up.

  Sam’s clothes were damp with sweat and he was breathing hard. He started reloading, plucking cartridges from a bandolier and feeding them into the mule’s-leg. He faced west, eyes scanning west and north. The immediate landscape was partly obscured by dust clouds kicked up by the chase. He tried to peer through them, frowning. It looked clear of more Comanches, for now.

  One of the coach duo was a big, sandy-haired fellow with a handlebar mustache. He wore a baggy, rumpled brown suit with a tan vest and held a .32 pocket gun. The other, of medium height, was slight, birdlike and thin faced. He wore a derby hat, a natty green-and-black checked suit, and long, slim boots. His right arm at his side held a big-bore, heavy-caliber handgun pointed at the ground.

  “I don’t mind telling you, you and your friend saved our bacon, sir. Thought we were goners, sure,” he said to Sam. He mopped his face with a damp handkerchief. “Whew!”

  “Sam Heller’s the name. My friend is Latigo.”

  “I’m Hal Brewster, salesman out of St. Louis,” the second man introduced himself.

  “Donny Donahue, same line and town,” the sandy-haired man said. Drummers they were, traveling salesmen.

  A woman inside the coach stuck her head outside. She was haggard, white lipped, and trembling. “One of my girls is hurt, hurt bad. Can you help her?”

  “I’ll take a look, ma’am.” Holstering the mule’s-leg, Sam stepped up into the coach’s interior.

  Two dead bodies lay heaped on the floor like sacks of dirty laundry, a man with the shaft of a broken arrow sticking out of his eye socket, and a woman with half her face shot away.

  Occupying the rear seat was another woman and two girls. “I’m Mrs. Anderson, Mary Anderson.” She and a girl about twelve years old were huddled around the wounded youngster. At the same time they were trying to keep their legs and feet as clear as they could of the corpses on the floor.

  “I was taking my nieces Sally and June to meet their daddy in Dallas. June was hit,” Mrs. Anderson said. “I don’t know what to do!”

  Sally was about the same age as Lydia Fisher. Long brown hair parted in the middle framed a deathly white oval face. Her eyes stood out like they were on stalks. She was shivering, and held herself so taut that she looked to Sam like she’d twang like a plucked bowstring if touched.

  June, ten, was short and chubby with brown hair cut in bangs and a round face. She half sat, half lay in corner of the seat. The back of her head was cradled and propped up by a rolled-up fringed shawl. An arrow was stuck in the girl’s chest high on the right side. Sam winced when he got a good look at it.

  June’s eyes were closed, her lids drawn taut, orbs bulging like walnuts behind them. Her lips were parted, a line of wetness clung in the corner of her mouth.

  Mary Anderson peered over behind Sam’s back, breathing hard. “She’s not moving! Is she ... ?”

  Sam held the side of his head low over the girl, listening. Her breathing was faint, slow and laboring. “Still alive,” he said, straightening up.

  “Thank God!” Mary Anderson cried. June whimpered, tears spilling from half-closed eyes.

  “Fainted, looks like,” Sam surmised.

  A twisted hand gripped his forearm, squeezing it. Mary Anderson was a bony, wiry, old-maid type, but at the moment her clutch was so strong Sam’s flesh went numb under it. “How ... how bad is it?” she asked.

  “Not good, but it could be worse. There’s no wheezing in her breath or bubbles in the blood around the wound, so it probably missed the lung. I ain’t no doctor, mind,” he added quickly.

  “Can you pull the arrow out?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe not—too dangerous. Might do more harm than good. Better off leaving it be till we get to a doctor.”

  “What doctor? Where?” Hysteria rose in Mary Anderson’s voice, threatening to break loose.

  “We’re not too far from town, six to eight miles. The sooner we get there, the better—for everybody.”

  “Isn’t there anything that can be done now?”

  “See that she don’t move around much or jar that arrow against anything.” Leaning toward the open doorway, Sam eased away from Mary Anderson as best he could with her death grip clutching on his arm. “Ma’am, please ... I got to see about getting us moving.”

  She let go of him. Sam stepped down outside the coach. It was hot in the open under the declining sun, but not as close and stifling as it had seemed inside the coach. Sam flexed his fingers and shook out the arm, trying to get some feeling back into it.

  Donahue was taking a long pull from a pint bottle of whiskey he had stowed somewhere on his person. His head was tilted back, throat muscles working. When he lowered it, his eyes watered and his face was red.

  “Ah! Good for what ails you,” he said, gasping. He proffered the bottle to his companion. “Brewster?”

  “Thanks, Donny, I could use it!” Brewster had been reloading his six-gun. Putting the cylinder back in place, he stuffed the big gun in a hip pocket of his pants and took the bottle. Raising it to his lips, he thought twice and lowered it undrunk, holding it out to Sam. “Mister ... ?”

  “Thanks. I can use it,” Sam said. The whiskey was strong, raw, and fiery, giving him a jolt—what he needed. A shadow fell across him. Latigo leaned over the passenger’s side of the driver’s seat, looking thirsty.

  “Drink up, by God!” Donahue said.

  Sam handed the bottle to Latigo, who drank deep. When Latigo handed it back to Sam, there was only mouthful or so left in the bottle—but then, there hadn’t been all that much remaining when Sam passed it to him. Sam returned the bottle to Donahue, who finished it off and tossed it over his shoulder to the side of the road.

  “Not to worry, there’s plenty more where that came from. Got ’em in my bag. It’s the only way to get through this godforsaken country,” Donahue said.

  “Donny and me have been selli
ng the territory for our firms. We both got on the stagecoach in Santa Fe. That’s Apache country, but there’s been no sign of hostile Indians till now,” Brewster said.

  “These ain’t Apaches. They’re Comanches,” Sam said.

  “They’re sure as hell hostile, whatever they are,” Donahue said. “They came out of nowhere, hooting and a-hollering like banshees, running us down.”

  “They’re on the warpath. I saw a couple hundred of ’em up in the north hills not more than a few hours ago. This is the second bunch of ’em I’ve seen on the flat.”

  Donahue started, white-skinned pallor showing on his face under the red whiskey flush. “Good God! Let’s get out of here!”

  “I aim to do just that as soon as we get squared away,” Sam said. “In the meantime, you gents could help by gathering up any repeating rifles you see. They could come in handy.”

  “Let’s get to it, Donny,” Brewster said.

  “Watch out for live ones—Comanches, that is. They look dead, but you never know when one’s playing possum. They’re full of tricks,” Sam said.

  “I hear you, brother,” Donahue acknowledged. Reaching into the stagecoach, he grabbed his traveling bag. It rattled when he moved it. Opening the top and reaching inside, he pulled out a pint bottle of whiskey, uncorked it and chugged a quarter of its contents. It put the red back in his face. He offered it to Brewster.

  “Maybe later,” Brewster said.

  “You?” Donahue asked, holding it out to Sam.

  “Hell, yes. Thanks.” Sam took a good, solid belt. It burned going down his throat, blossoming into a ball of liquid heat in his belly, rising to the top of his head.

  Latigo’s hand reached down from the top of the stagecoach. Sam put the bottle in it. Latigo drank up. The bottle was empty.

  “Another dead soldier.” Donahue took a fresh pint bottle from his bag, dropping it in a side jacket pocket. Putting the bag back in the coach, he joined Brewster who was already scavenging the bodies of the dead Comanches for rifles. A third of their number had been armed with repeaters, but some had been downed a good distance from where the stagecoach was halted. A couple rifles were strewn nearby.

  Latigo heaved the driver off the side of the stagecoach. The body fell heavily, thudding to the ground, the impact startling a high thin cry of fright from twelve-year-old Sally in the coach.

  Sam and Latigo gathered up their own horses, hitching them all to a string secured to the back of the vehicle. They moved quickly but surely, glancing up frequently to look north and west. Sam removed his gun case and saddlebags from his saddle, setting them down on the ground beside the stagecoach’s open door.

  Brewster and Donahue each managed to find a working rifle; Brewster also scavenging a bandolier half full of cartridges.

  “Every bit helps,” Sam said. “Give me a hand with these bodies.”

  He and Donahue stepped inside the coach and Latigo and Brewster followed. Sam and Donahue took hold of the dead man.

  “Name’s Perlmutter, Arkansas bound. Never did catch the lady’s name, Lord help her,” Donahue said.

  “Mrs. Hamer,” Brewster said. “I got to talking to her at a way station. Her husband died in California and she was going back east to live with her sister.”

  Mary Anderson started as Perlmutter’s body was hauled across the coach floor. “What’re you doing?!”

  “Need to travel as light as we can, ma’am,” Sam said.

  “Can’t you carry them in the back? Take them to town for a decent burial?”

  “Folks’ll come back for ’em later, when it’s safe. It ain’t safe now,” Sam said. He and Donahue carried the body out of the coach and laid it down at the side of the road. Latigo and Brewster did the same with the body of the woman.

  Sam stepped back into the coach. Setting himself, he leaned over June. She was still unconscious. She didn’t look any worse, but she didn’t look any better, either. Sam’s left hand gripped the shaft of the arrow six inches above where it entered the girl’s chest.

  “What’re you doing? You said it was too dangerous to take the arrow out,” Mary Anderson said in a frantic rush of words.

  “I been studying on the matter, ma’am, thinking it over. I reckon it’ll be safer for the girl if I break off as much of the arrow as I can, before we set off. There’ll be less danger of it bumping into something and doing her worse hurt, if we hit some rough ground.” Or get chased by more Comanches, Sam thought, keeping it to himself. No sense scaring the poor woman even more.

  Come to think of it, he was scared, too. Not for himself, but for June. He was taking a risk intervening. It would be easier to wash his hands of any responsibility and let things be. Easier for him, but not for the girl. Her chances were better if he acted now.

  “Please, be careful!”

  “I’ll be very careful, ma’am. I wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t needful.” Sam’s right hand closed on the arrow a few inches inches above the top of his left fist where he gripped the shaft. His strong hands, the wrists as thick around as ax handles, were rock steady. A bead of sweat rolled down his nose.

  He applied increasing pressure to the shaft, breaking it in two. It snapped with a sharp cracking sound. An involuntary outcry escaped Mary Anderson’s lips.

  June remained inert, seemingly undisturbed. Her breathing continued shallow but regular.

  Sam eyed the wound where the arrow entered flesh. No fresh blood oozed up at the point of entry. “No harm done. It should help on the ride.”

  “Thank y-you,” the woman murmured.

  As Sam got out of the coach it occurred to him that it might have been wiser to carry out the first aid before drinking Donahue’s whiskey. Then again, if he hadn’t drunk it, he might not have ventured the effort at all. Conscious of the broken arrow in his hand, he threw it away. He took off his bandanna, using it to mop the sweat from his face, then retied it loosely around his neck.

  Latigo sat up front in the driver’s seat, clutching the reins.

  “Ever drive one of these before?” Sam asked.

  “I drive plenty wagons for Don Eduardo,” Latigo answered, somewhat insulted.

  That was good enough for Sam. Hefting his gun case, he climbed up onto the guard’s side of the driver’s seat. The drummers, Donahue and Brewster, got into the coach, sitting on the forward seat bench, each at a window, each armed with a repeating rifle taken from slain Comanches.

  “Everybody ready?” Sam called.

  “Let ’er rip!” Donahue replied.

  “The lady have good hold of the girl?”

  “She’s all set.”

  “Ma’am?” Sam asked.

  “Yes, I’m ready,” Mary Anderson said, a tremor in her voice.

  Sam nodded to Latigo.

  Latigo released the hand brake, taking up the long reins. “Yah! Vamonos!” he shouted.

  The team of horses started forward, straining against the harnesses. Wheels rolled and the stagecoach advanced. The horses fell into step, picking up the pace, carrying the stagecoach forward with them.

  The road was hard and rutted. The vehicle’s springs had taken a beating and didn’t have much bounce left in them. Sam was conscious of every bump and jostle as the stagecoach increased its speed. It was going to be rough on June.

  Setting the gun case on the tops of his thighs, Sam lifted the lid. He lifted the mule’s-leg and started fixing the extended barrel in place. He could have put the long gun together on the back of a galloping horse and had, many times. Assembly swiftly completed, he put the gun case in the front boot, behind the footboard under the seat. Latigo’s carbine was already stowed there.

  The road ran more or less directly east over the plains, good green land with gentle rises and hollows, speckled with trees and rock piles. Latigo drove the team at a brisk pace, but not all out. The horses had used up a lot of energy fleeing their pursuers earlier, and he wanted to leave them with some reserves in case they had to bolt hell-bent-for-leather.

  Sam�
�s eyes scanned the north, on his left-hand side. Often he glanced back over his shoulder, west. The string of four horses trailing the rear of the stagecoach trotted along nicely.

  The day was waning; the sun hung low in the west, an orange ball floating a few degrees above the skyline of the Breaks.

  Sam faced front. The tallest object in Hangtown, the white church steeple, would be the first to show above the east horizon. He longed to see it. Several miles rolled past. On the north, a row of stepped ridges ran east-west, the nearest an eighth of a mile away.

  A line suddenly formed along the crest—a long line made of mounted men ranked side by side. One second they weren’t there; the next, they were.

  Donahue stuck his head out of the stagecoach’s paneless window, shouting, “Injins!”

  Latigo was already urging the team forward, shouting, throwing a snap into the reins to get more speed out of them. The driver’s long whip would have been of service, but it had gotten lost somewhere back on the road. Sam fired a shot close above the horses’ heads to hasten them along.

  A black wave of riders came rolling down the slope, whooping and hollering. No scouting party, this; it was a significant group, numbering perhaps forty braves in all.

  Red Hand was not waiting for night to make his move. He was striking close to town by day. Sam wondered if the war chief had brought his whole force down from the hills and, if so, how close they were to Hangtown.

  The stagecoach’s race for life would be a close-run thing. It had a good lead and was off to a fast start, but riders on horseback were faster than horse-drawn coaches. And when the riders were peerless horsemen like the Comanches, the odds became narrower still.

  The stagecoach careened along the road, wheels blurring, the landscape unrolling at high speed. Comanches angled across the flat, closing on the road. Some opened fire, bullets whipping through the air.

  The nearest riders were those who’d been on the east flank of the line atop the hillcrest. The most distant, those who’d been on the west flank, crossed the road and plunged south, gradually curving southeast.