Sidewinders#2 Massacre At Whiskey Flats

by William W. Johnstone

  But they would close in on him sooner or later. Bo was convinced of that.

  CHAPTER 27

  Steve North and his men rode up while Bo, Scratch, and Pike were loading the dead men on their horses. The two rustlers who had fled had been in such a hurry to get away that they had taken only their own mounts.

  “We saw you wipin’ out those varmints and figured it was safe to go round up our horses,” North explained. “Never saw anything like that before in all my borned days. Don’t mind tellin’ you, it sent chills down my back, the way you fellas just marched right ahead like that, shootin’ down those wideloopers one after the other.”

  Scratch grunted and gestured toward his left leg, where a bloodstained rag was tied around his thigh. “It ain’t like we got off without even bein’ nicked,” he said. “Reckon I’ll live, though.”

  “Anything me and my boys can do to help you?”

  Bo shook his head. “No, we can take these bodies back to Whiskey Flats.”

  “We’ll start roundin’ up those cows that’re stashed in that valley then. It’ll be a big job, gettin’ ’em back out and sortin’ out Chet Bascomb’s stock from mine.”

  “I reckon the feud between the two of you is over now?”

  North grinned sheepishly. “I reckon so. Chet and me got more in common than differences. We’re both stubborn damn fools, fallin’ for a stunt like this and blamin’ each other.”

  “Don’t feel bad,” Bo told the rancher. “That was exactly what you were supposed to do, according to the fellow who laid out this plan.”

  “You got any idea who that might be?”

  “Not yet,” Bo admitted with a shake of his head. “One thing you and your men can do before you go…take a look at these bodies and see if you recognize any of them.”

  That effort proved to be just as futile as Pike’s study of the corpses. North and his punchers didn’t know any of them. “I can tell you this much,” North said. “They must’ve been mighty careful to steer clear of Whiskey Flats. Otherwise, we would’ve seen at least a few of them around the saloons on the south end of town.”

  “Yeah,” Bo said, frowning in thought, “that’s the way it looks to me, too.”

  North lifted a hand in farewell as he turned his horse away. His men followed him as he rode toward the valley where the stolen cattle were hidden. He had brought Bo and Scratch’s horses with him, as well as Pike’s mule, so they were able to mount up as well and head for Whiskey Flats, leading the rustlers’ horses carrying their grisly burden.

  The ride out of the breaks and back to the settlement took the rest of the day. It was after dark when the group reached Whiskey Flats. Bo, Scratch, and Pike had decided to keep moving when night fell. None of them wanted to camp out with a dozen corpses for company.

  As they approached the town from the north, Bo was surprised to see that not very many lights were burning in the buildings. It wasn’t that late. Some of the businesses should have still been open. He reined in and called softly to Scratch and Pike to stop as well. Instinct told him that something was wrong, and as he listened intently, he realized what it was.

  “There’s no music coming from the saloons,” he told the other two.

  “The saloons never close down,” Pike said.

  “It’s mostly dark south of the bridge, too,” Bo pointed out. He rested his hand on the butt of his Colt. “Let’s take it slow and easy until we know what we’re riding into.”

  They started forward again, but they hadn’t gone fifty yards before a challenge rang out from a clump of trees close to the trail. “Hold it, whoever you are!” a man’s voice called. “Don’t come any closer or we’ll shoot!”

  Bo reined in. Scratch and Pike followed suit. “Hold your fire,” Bo snapped. “What in blazes is going on here?”

  He didn’t receive a direct answer, but a voice muttered from the shadows under the trees, obviously talking to another sentry, “Well, at least they’re not Apaches.”

  Bo sighed. In the time he and Scratch had been gone from Whiskey Flats, word had leaked out about the raid on the Thompson ranch. Well, that came as no surprise. The news probably would have been announced by Mayor Jonas McHale at a town meeting by now, if the brewing range war between the Rocking B and the Star hadn’t cropped up.

  “No, we’re not Apaches,” he said to the unseen sentries. “I’m Deputy Creel, and Deputy Morton and Deputy Pike are with me.”

  “Deputy Pike!” one of the men exclaimed. “You don’t mean that big galoot Chesterfield Pike?”

  Pike started to growl a reply, but Bo held up a hand to stop him. “Where’s Marshal Braddock?”

  “In his office, I reckon. Him and that redheaded Rawhide Abbott are gettin’ the town ready to defend itself from those bloodthirsty redskins who wiped out the poor Thompson family.”

  Scratch leaned over in the saddle and said quietly to Bo, “There were less’n a dozen ’Paches in that war party. They ain’t about to attack a whole blamed town, even with new rifles.”

  “I know,” Bo said. “Folks don’t think too straight, though, when they see something like what happened at the Thompson spread.” He raised his voice. “We’re riding on in. Keep your fingers off the triggers, boys.”

  “Go ahead, Deputy,” one of the guards called out. “Best be careful, though. Folks are a mite nervous right now.”

  Bo was well aware of that. And a town full of nervous settlers with guns in their hands could be mighty dangerous.

  As they rode past the trees, one of the sentries let out a low whistle of surprise at the sight of the horses being led. “What the hell you got there, Deputy?” he asked. “Those look mighty like dead men.”

  “There’s a good reason for that,” Bo said. “That’s what they are. These are the men responsible for the rustling that’s been going on around here recently. They’ll be at the undertaker’s. When you get a chance, go by there and see if you recognize any of them.”

  “Sure thing, Deputy.” The sentry stepped out of the shadows and lifted a hand in farewell as the party rode on.

  They stopped at Ed Chamberlain’s. The place was dark, but Chamberlain was obviously still awake, because he stepped out onto the porch with a shotgun in his hands.

  “It’s a pure relief to see you boys,” the jovial little undertaker said. He didn’t seem so jovial at the moment, though. He sounded downright scared as he went on. “When I heard horses comin’, I was afraid they were Indian ponies.”

  The settlement was on the verge of panic, Bo sensed. He had been afraid that would happen once the townspeople found out about the Apache raid.

  “Got some business for you, Mr. Chamberlain,” Bo said.

  Chamberlain pointed the Greener at the porch and stepped forward as his instincts took over. “I see that!” he said. “Who do you have there, Deputy?”

  “The gang of rustlers that’ve been causing so much trouble hereabouts. Take a good look at them and see if you know any of them, Mr. Chamberlain.”

  “I sure will. Just leave ’em right there. Me and my helpers will tote ’em in.”

  Bo, Scratch, and Pike turned the corpses over to Chamberlain and then headed for the marshal’s office. A small light burned inside the building. The door opened as the three men rode up. Jake Reilly and Rawhide Abbott hurried out.

  “Bo! Scratch! God, it’s good to see you again! I didn’t know when you would get back, and folks are going crazy over this Apache business—”

  “You can’t blame them for being worried,” Rawhide interrupted Reilly. “Not after what happened to the Thompsons.” She turned to Bo, Scratch, and Pike as they swung down from their saddles. “What happened? Did you find the rustlers?”

  Scratch grinned and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “They’re down at the undertakin’ parlor right now.”

  Rawhide’s eyes widened. “You killed them? All of them?”

  “Except for a couple that got away,” Bo said. “And we found most of the cattle they stole, hidden
away in a little valley on the other side of those malpais breaks beyond North’s range. There won’t be any range war between the Star and the Rocking B.”

  Rawhide looked like she didn’t know whether to be relieved or angry. “I poke into that mess for weeks and don’t get anywhere, and you ride out for two days and come back with it all cleared up!”

  “I reckon we were just lucky,” Scratch said. He slapped his wounded leg and winced. “If you call nearly gettin’ killed half a dozen times bein’ lucky.”

  Reilly asked, “Did Pike behave himself?”

  “He did more than that,” Bo said. “He found the rustlers’ hideout and saved our bacon several times.” He reached up and clapped a hand on the big man’s shoulder. “You might think about making that deputy’s job permanent, Marshal.”

  “Yeah, I guess I could—” Reilly stopped short, and Bo knew what he was thinking. Reilly had never intended for his pose as Marshal John Henry Braddock to be permanent. He had no business hiring full-time deputies.

  But he didn’t say that, of course. Instead, he went on. “We’ll see, Pike. You’ve got to answer for those charges against you first.”

  Pike nodded. “I know that, Marshal. But I’d be right pleased if you’d consider keepin’ me on after that.”

  Bo nodded toward the open door. “Let’s go inside and see if we can figure out what to do about this Apache business.”

  The five of them went into the marshal’s office. The cell block door was open, and Bo could see that the cells were all empty. Everybody was too worried about being attacked by Indians to cause any trouble, he supposed.

  “First of all,” Bo said as he took off his hat, “I don’t think the settlement is in any danger from the Apaches. The war party that attacked the Thompson ranch was too small to threaten the town, even with new rifles. They’ll steer clear of Whiskey Flats.”

  “But just because the bunch that wiped out the Thompsons was small doesn’t mean there isn’t a bigger war party out there,” Rawhide argued.

  “Other than the fact that most of the Apaches are over in Arizona Territory or below the border in Mexico. This was just an isolated band of renegades, out for blood.”

  Reilly said, “You can’t be sure of that. Anyway, since they were able to get their hands on those rifles, that might draw even more of them over here. Whoever sold them the guns needs more customers.”

  Bo frowned. What Reilly said actually made sense. If word reached the larger bands of Apaches holed up in the mountains of Arizona and Mexico that new Winchesters could be had in this part of New Mexico, more of them could flock to these parts.

  “That’s a good reason to get to the bottom of that gun smuggling now,” Bo said.

  “How do you suggest we go about doing that?” Reilly asked.

  An idea was lurking in the back of Bo’s head. He didn’t answer Reilly’s question right away. Instead, he went over to the stove and poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot that sat there keeping warm. He took a couple of sips of the Arbuckle’s and then turned to face the others, who were watching him curiously.

  “We’ve got somebody bringing in guns to sell to the Indians,” he said slowly, “and we’ve got somebody who set up that rustling scheme so that Chet Bascomb and Steve North would blame each other for the stock they were losing. What I’m wondering is if the same somebody is behind both plans.”

  “We got no reason to think that,” Scratch pointed out. “One don’t have to have anything to do with the other.”

  “But how likely is it that two varmints capable of coming up with such schemes would be here in Whiskey Flats?” Bo argued.

  Rawhide said, “Bo may be on to something. It’d take a smart man, and there aren’t that many around here. Well, not outlaw smart anyway.” Her eyes narrowed. “But Dodge Emerson could do it. By God, I wouldn’t put either one of those schemes past him!”

  Scratch said, “What we need is some way to tie those rustlers in with Emerson. If we had that leverage, we might be able to find out if he’s got anything to do with runnin’ guns to the ’Paches, too.”

  Reilly went over to the desk and opened the middle drawer. “I’ve got a whole bunch of new reward dodgers in here. Came in from Santa Fe with yesterday’s mail. That’s how the folks here in town found out about what happened to the Thompsons. The stagecoach that makes that run had a horse throw a shoe, and the driver detoured over to their ranch to see if anybody there could take care of it. He found the burned-out ruins and the fresh graves and unhitched one of the team to gallop on into town to warn everybody.”

  “He didn’t have any passengers on this run, so he just brought the mail pouch with him,” Rawhide added.

  Reilly shrugged. “Once the news was out, I didn’t see any point in keeping any of it secret. I explained what we found to Mayor McHale and had him break the news to the citizens, just like we talked about, Bo. He was sure unhappy when I showed him those brand-new Winchesters we brought back from out there. Folks didn’t like it much when they found out we knew about the Apaches and didn’t tell anybody.”

  “Let’s see those wanted posters,” Bo said. “Scratch and I studied the faces of those dead rustlers. Maybe one of them will turn up.”

  Reilly took the thick stack of papers from the desk drawer and handed them to Bo. With Scratch looking over his shoulder, Bo began to go through them, taking a good look at the pictures drawn on each of them. It was a hard-bitten, desperate-looking bunch of owlhoots.

  Bo’s fingers suddenly tightened on one of the posters, and he sensed Scratch tensing beside him. Scratch said, “Ain’t that—”

  “Yeah,” Bo said. “It sure is.”

  “One of the rustlers?” Rawhide asked.

  Bo shook his head. “No, just a fella we ran into once. You don’t have to worry about him being mixed up in the rustling or the gun-running, though. He’s dead.”

  “No doubt about it,” Scratch added.

  “And no need for this poster to be cluttering up the place,” Bo said as he folded the paper and thrust it inside his coat. He went back to studying the others, but after a few minutes he shook his head and tossed the stack back onto the desk.

  “You didn’t recognize any of them?” Reilly asked.

  “Only that one, and it doesn’t have anything to do with this,” Bo said. “Whoever brought those hardcases in to handle the rustling must have sent for them in some other territory and told them to lie low once they got here. He’s a smart son of a gun, whoever he is.”

  “What do we do now?” Reilly wasn’t even trying to sound decisive now. He needed help and advice and didn’t bother trying to hide it.

  “Try to convince people there’s no reason to panic, I suppose,” Bo said. “That can wait until morning. The town looks like most folks have already hunkered down for the night, so we won’t disturb them.”

  “To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t mind gettin’ some shut-eye,” Scratch said. “I thought I wanted a big steak from Miz Dearborn’s place first thing when we got back, but I reckon I’m tireder than I am hungry. Anyway, it was dark over there. I wouldn’t want to wake her.”

  Bo put his hat on again. “Scratch and Chesterfield and I will take our horses over to the livery stable and tend to them,” he said. “Then we’ll come back here and trade off getting some rest while one of us stands guard the rest of the night. You can go back to the hotel, Marshal, and I reckon you can go on home, Rawhide.”

  “All right,” the redhead said with a nod. “We’ll figure out everything in the morning, I guess.”

  “All we can do,” Bo said.

  He and Scratch and Pike left the office, untied their mounts’ reins from the hitch rail out front, and led the horses and the mule up the street toward the stable. The town was quiet and dark, although the feeling of tension in the air dispelled the idea that everyone was sleeping peacefully. The settlers were too on edge because of their fear of the Apaches.

  The doors of the stable were locked, and no
light showed in the office window. “Let’s go around back,” Bo suggested. “Maybe that door will be unlocked, and if it’s not, Ike’s quarters are back there. We can knock and wake him up.”

  They led the horses and the mule around the big barn and into the shadows at the rear of the structure. Surprisingly, a light was visible back here, although it was only a narrow line that came through an inch-wide gap where the rear door was ajar.

  “Somebody’s up,” Scratch said. “Must be—”

  He stumbled before he could finish whatever he was about to say. Bo reached out to grasp his old friend’s arm and steady him. “Trip over something?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Hold on a minute.” Scratch dropped to one knee and felt around in the darkness, finding an old blanket that he pulled aside. “I didn’t like the feel of it either. I think…yeah, take a look at this, Bo.”

  Bo took a match from his pocket and used his thumbnail to snap the lucifer to life. He bent over so that the glow from the flame washed over the figure of a man lying on his back. He recognized the man’s face.

  “It’s Ike,” Scratch said. “And he ain’t ever gonna spread any more gossip. Somebody stoved his head plumb in.”

  CHAPTER 28

  Bo checked for a pulse, just to make sure. It took only a moment to confirm that the hostler was dead, all right.

  “Maybe a horse kicked him in the head,” Scratch suggested, his voice little more than a whisper.

  “If that had happened, McHale would have sent for the doctor, or for Ed Chamberlain if he knew it was too late to help Ike,” Bo said. “Somebody hauled him out here and then covered him up so he wouldn’t be found right away. It was just pure luck you tripped over him. To me, that adds up to murder.”

  “Mur—” Chesterfield Pike started to rumble in surprise, but Bo clamped his free hand on Pike’s arm to silence him. Even when Pike was trying to keep his voice down, he sounded sort of like an avalanche. If Ike’s murderer was still inside the barn, Bo didn’t want to warn him that they were out here.