by Ralph Cotton
“Good,” said Reese, letting out a sigh. “I was afraid we’d be tracking him down long after dark. My horse ain’t been feeling real spry of late.”
“To hell with your horse, Reese,” Peerly said sharply, giving him a harsh glance, then looking back at the oncoming rider. “Aimes got some damn tall explaining to do,” Peerly added, “causing me to have to ride out here after his sorry ass. It’ll be dark before we catch back up with the others.”
“Yeah, we’ve all got better things to do than traipse out across these plains,” said Reese.
Peerly lifted a canteen from his saddle horn, uncapped it, took a swig of cool water, swished it in his dry mouth and spit it out. Glancing again at Reese, this time eying his tired-looking horse, he passed Reese the canteen, then said, “I meant no harm, saying what I said about your horse. I’m just plumb worn out.” He plucked at the tunic of his wool uniform. “This gawddamn getup is hotter than a woodstove, even at this time of year.”
“Yeah, it is sure enough.” Reese pulled off his hat, lay it on his lap, lifted a swig from the canteen and spit it out. “I’d give anything for some whiskey.” He raked his fingers back through his hair.
Looking the horse over again, Peerly said, “Why don’t you do you and this plug both a favor, put a bullet in his brain?”
“Because he’s been a damn good horse!” Reese said defensively. “Hell, he’s only nine years old. He’s got a couple good years in him. He just has his bad days, is all, just like some folks do.”
“Gawddamn,” Peerly chuckled darkly under his breath, “a fucking horse.” He took the canteen back from Reese and said, “I’ll down him for you, if your heart’s a bit too tender.”
“You worry about your own horse, Peerly,” Reese said, getting prickly about the matter. “Anytime you think my heart is too tender, you’re welcome to come try taking yourself a bite of it.”
“I was just remarking, Reese,” said Peerly, passing it off with no concern.
“So am I,” Reese replied.
“Look, he sees us,” Peerly said, nodding toward Aimes, seeing him wave his hand, but make no effort to kick his horse’s pace up a little. “Don’t get in no hurry on our account, you malingering son of a bitch,” he muttered.
Reese chuckled. “You’ve got the red-ass at everybody today, don’t you, boss?”
“Not everybody”—Peerly stared straight ahead as he spoke—“just turds like Aimes, making me have to ride out here . . .” His words trailed as the two watched Aimes bring his horse over the last low rise and slow down to a walk the last ten yards until he stopped and sat facing them.
“Boys, I have just been put through pure hell,” Aimes said, taking off his militia hat and fanning himself with it.
“Where’s your sidearm?” Peerly asked bluntly, seeming unconcerned with whatever had happened to Aimes out on the plains.
“That’s what I’m about to tell you,” Aimes said, giving Peerly a narrowed gaze. “I was ambushed back along the trail by—”
“Where’s your rifle?” Peerly cut in. “I guess you lost it too?”
Aimes turned sharp himself. “I never lost a gawddamn thing, Peerly,” he said. “As I was saying, I was put upon by Colonel Bertrim Wilder and that crazy old sumbitch that rides with him. They ambushed me, stole my horse, my guns. Luckily I managed to get my horse—”
Peerly interrupted him again, this time by breaking into a fit of laughter. “You let them two old Injun war relics strip you down, guns, horse and all?”
Reese also laughed, but unlike Peerly, he lowered his face and kept his laughter to himself.
“No,” Aimes said in a chilled tone, “there were others with them.”
“Others?” Peerly stifled his laugh and asked, “You mean a young woman, wearing a tall Montana-style hat?”
Aimes gave him a hard questioning stare. “I didn’t see any young woman. What I did see was three or four more rifles pointed at me from all directions,” he lied.
Peerly nodded and looked off as if pondering Aimes’ story. “All right, let’s look at this,” he said. “You’re saying Colonel Wilder, an old Union officer, who is on the same side as us in this war, ambushed you, stripped you down and sent you running?” He shook his head. “That’s hard for me to swallow, let along Captain Plantz.”
“Yeah,” Reese asked, “why would the old colonel do something like that?”
“Because he’s old and crazy. That’s why the Union wouldn’t put him back in the field, ain’t it?” Aimes said.
The two only shrugged.
“Anyway, he’s got the Shawler boy I was chasing,” Aimes said, giving them both a grim look.
“Damn,” said Peerly. “Why didn’t you say so to begin with? Plantz is going to throw a straight-out fit when he hears that.”
“I know,” said Aimes, sounding worried. “I wish to God I didn’t have to tell him.”
“I bet you do,” said Peerly. As he spoke, his hand instinctively rested on the butt of a large pistol holstered on his side. “But tell him you surely will, you sorry bastard.”
“I was on my way to the old barn to tell him, Peerly,” Aimes said defensively.
“Maybe you was, maybe you wasn’t,” said Peerly. “But you for damn sure are now.” Nodding back along the trail leading up into the hills toward the Shawler house, he said, “Get around here and stay in front of us. I don’t want you turning rabbit on us.”
“Damn you, Peerly!” Aimes raged, yanking his horse around roughly by its reins and gigging it out ahead of them.
Following him, his hand still on his pistol butt, Peerly grinned and asked Reese, “So, tell me, Delbert, what have you got planned for yourself once this war winds down?”
Chapter 6
At dusk, Plantz brought his men to a halt at the sound of horses’ hooves galloping up from along the edge of a thin trail leading into a dry creek bed. “Check it out, Macky,” he ordered in a lowered voice. “If somebody is trailing us, I want to lead them to the crossroads barn.”
Macky cut his horse away from the rest of the riders and gigged it out toward the sound of the horses. No sooner had he dropped out of sight over a rise than the galloping came to a halt and left Plantz and his men sitting in silent anticipation until finally Macky called out to them, “It’s Peerly, Reese and Aimes, Captain.”
Plantz and his men relaxed in their saddles. “All right then, all of you get back here,” Plantz called out in reply.
As the four men came riding back into sight, seeing Aimes riding behind Macky, followed by the other two, Plantz said to the parson sitting close beside him, “I better see some proof that he killed the last of the Shawlers.”
“And if he didn’t?” the parson asked, his voice low, his eyes staring straight out at the four riders.
“Then I expect this is as good a time as any to start weeding out our fold,” Plantz replied quietly.
As the three riders approached Plantz and the other men, Peerly spurred his horse forward. Passing Aimes, he said sidelong to him, “It’s your ass now!” and raced into the lead until he slid his horse to a halt in front of Plantz. “Captain Plantz,” he said quickly, “I want you to know this son of a bitch Aimes hasn’t done a damn thing he was told to do! He deserves to be horse-whipped, sir!”
Plantz gave Peerly a narrowed gaze and said, “Keep you thoughts to yourself, Private. I’ll be the one who decides who gets horse-whipped.”
“Yes, sir, Captain,” said Peerly. He quickly reined his horse to one side and sat watching as Aimes rode up to Plantz, followed by Delbert Reese.
“Captain Plantz,” said Aimes, with a worried look on his bearded face, “whatever Peerly is saying about me is a damn lie!”
“Oh,” said Plantz coolly, “then where is the Shawler boy?”
“Yeah,” Peerly interjected, “and ask him where his damn guns are, Captain!”
Plantz slid Peerly a dark glance, then said to the parson who sat on his other side, “If he interrupts me one more ti
me, Parson, I’d be obliged if you’d carve his tongue out of his face.”
The parson nodded grimly. “I will do exactly as you ask when the next word leaves his mouth.”
Peerly seemed to freeze under the parson’s words.
“Now then, back to you, Aimes,” said Plantz. “Did you or did you not kill the person I sent you to kill?”
“No, Captain,” said Aimes in tone of dread and apprehension. “I was set upon by Colonel Wilder and some other gunmen. They have the boy now. I was on my way to tell you when I met Peerly and Reese. I figured you needed to know right away. I was headed to the old crossroads barn—”
Plantz cut the frightened man short with a brisk wave of his hand. “Get out of my sight, Aimes,” he said in a tight angry voice, “and do so quickly.”
Aimes turned his horse and, giving Peerly a dark glance, rode around the loosely formed column of men and sat at the rear, looking dejected and ashamed. The men deliberately averted their eyes away from him.
“All right, men! You all heard him,” Plantz called out along the ranks. “You can count on us having trouble over this. We do the work that regular troops don’t have the guts to do. But we will catch hell over this when the Shawler boy starts shooting off his mouth, especially when he’s got a crazy old army officer by his side!” He looked from one grim face to the next, then continued. “I know I could have this wretch shot for dereliction of his duty,” he said, pointing toward the rear at Aimes. Then he turned to the parson and said, “Parson, tell them why I won’t.”
The parson spoke up with confidence. “Men, with this war ending, the captain wants to be remembered as a fair man by his troops.”
“There you have it,” said Plantz in agreement. Taking over he said, “Aimes is one of us, and I’m not letting this come between us. Now, all of you remember this evening, and how I dealt fairly with him.”
The men nodded solemnly and murmured quietly among themselves. “Now all of you go on home,” the parson called out, “and God be with you.” He watched the men’s horses begin to move away from one another. “We’ve done good work on this ride. We can all be proud. As soon as we need to ride again, you’ll be notified where to meet by one of our own.”
“Keep Aimes and Peerly here,” Plantz said quietly to the parson.
Smiling knowingly to himself, the parson gigged his horse forward and sidled up close to Aimes before the man could ride away. “The captain wants you, Aimes,” the parson said in a lowered tone, while the rest of the men broke away and went their separate directions. Seeing the worried look come back to Aimes’ face, the parson said in a soothing voice, “Don’t make this any harder on yourself, Goff. We’re all your brothers. Don’t make yourself look bad.”
“Am I going to get whipped?” Aimes asked in a shaky voice.
“Probably not,” the parson said with a cold, blank expression. Watching Aimes closely, seeing that at any moment the man’s self-control might snap and send him bolting away, the parson said, “But whatever happens, think about Caroline and your baby. I know you only want the best for them. Am I right?”
Aimes weighed the parson’s words, understanding their dark meaning. He calmed himself and breathed deeply. “Will you see to them now and again, Parson?”
“You needn’t have to ask, Goff,” said the parson, giving him a coaxing nod toward Plantz, who sat as still as stone, staring at him. Off to one side of Plantz, Peerly sat slumped in his saddle, his head cocked curiously to the side.
“I hate giving that rotten little bastard the pleasure,” Aimes said under his breath, his voice shaky but under control.
“Use your knife,” Plantz said quietly to Peerly, watching the parson and Aimes ride toward him. “I don’t want anybody hearing gunshots out here.”
“Am I allowed to speak now, Captain?” Peerly asked, testing his standing. “I mean without the parson carving my tongue—”
“Speak,” said Plantz, cutting him off bluntly.
“Since you want me to use the knife, can I stab him as many times as it pleases me?”
Plantz gave him a disgusted look. “Take him out aways into the woods. Kill him as slow as you like, but I better not hear any screaming.”
“You won’t, Captain,” Peerly said, getting excited. “I promise you.”
“The parson and I are going to ride on. As soon as you’re finished, go get yourself some shut-eye; then go round up Kiley, Conlon, Macky, Evans and Muller. Bring them all to the old barn out by South Bluff.”
“Hot damn,” said Peerly, even more excited, “we’re heading out again, ain’t we?”
Plantz didn’t answer. Instead, he stared straight ahead in silence, watching Aimes and the parson draw closer with each slow rise and fall of their horses’ hooves.
Julie sat on the side of the small bed and wiped Jed Shawler’s scraped and scratched forehead with a damp cloth.
Jed had recovered from his exhaustion, but he remained weak, not yet in full control of his faculties.
“It’s the same as what us soldiers always called battle shock,” Shep Watson had said earlier, leaning down close to Julie’s ear as if to keep Jed from hearing him. “I’ve seen men act this way after their whole patrol had been slaughtered and they was the only one left alive.”
Jed’s eyes stared off at the flicking low flames of the evening fire in the hearth. Julie noted his blank eyes and asked Shep, “How long does it last?”
“It’s a hard thing to predict,” said Shep. “For some it lasts only a short while, maybe only a day or two. But there are others who never get all the way out of it.”
“I’ll—I’ll get out of it,” Jed said in an unsteady voice, surprising them both, his eyes still staring somewhere deep into the firelight. “I have to . . .”
Across the room, the colonel had stood lighting his charred briar pipe, but at the sound of Jed Shawler’s voice, he shook out the long slim twig of burning white oak and pitched it into the hearth as he stepped in closer. He still wore his leather brush chaps and kept his hat in hand, ready for him and Shep to ride to the Shawlers’ and see the carnage for themselves.
“Right you are, lad,” the colonel said to Jed. “You have to get back on your feet for your family’s sake, and see to it these men pay for what they’ve done.”
“I told you about it?” Jed asked, looking confused. “I don’t remember talking about it.” He reached a hand to the side of his scratched, bruised head. “I don’t remember much of anything . . . after what happened.”
“Yes, lad, you told us the whole terrible story,” said Colonel Wilder, “and you’ll have to keep things clear in your mind so you can tell it to the military and before a judge once these murdering scoundrels are brought to justice.” His voice softened as he added, “Shep and I are headed over right now to do what needs to be done for your family; then we’ll ride into Umberton and report what happened. We’ll instruct the Union troops to come here to talk to you and listen to your account.”
“I—I should go to,” said Jed, attempting to rise.
“No.” Julie pressed him back down with her hand on his chest.
“But I—” Jed tried to state his reasons but the colonel would have none of it.
“No,” the colonel said, cutting him short. “You’re staying here with my daughter. She’ll look after you until Shep and I return in the morning. We need you up and sharp when the army gets here.”
Julie looked up at her father and asked with a tone of apprehension, “Pa, are you and Shep going to be all right, riding all that way after dark?”
“We’ll be fine, Julie,” the colonel reassured her. “Shep and I know our way.”
“But, what if . . . ?” Julie let her words trail.
“Plantz and his men won’t be anywhere around the Shawlers,” said the colonel. “They’ve done their dirty work. Now they’ll all crawl back under their rocks somewhere until the next time they strike.”
“Mind what the colonel told you, Miss Julie,” Watson w
arned her with a wary look. “Keep these doors and windows bolted . . . and don’t let nobody in unless you see it’s us.”
“Come, Shep, let’s be off,” Colonel Wilder said. “Julie has both the ten gauge and the Sharps rifle.
She and Jed can hold off anything a snake like Plantz and his rascals can throw at them.” He looked at Jed and asked him pointedly, “I’m sure you wouldn’t mind putting a bullet in these murderers, eh, lad?”
Jed’s eyes lowered as if in shame. “I’ll try, Colonel,” he said.
“And try is the best any of us can ever give one another,” Colonel Wilder said, knowing he had touched a raw and sensitive nerve in the boy.
“We’ll use caution,” Julie reassured her father, taking the focus away from Jed.
“Of course,” said the colonel. He stuck his briar pipe between his teeth as he remarked, “This house was built to withstand the Comanche and the Cheyenne. I expect it will fare well enough against this Free Kansas Militia trash.”
“But do be careful, Pa,” Julie offered.
“That I will, and you can count on it,” said the colonel, reaching down with his free hand and caressing Julie’s cheek. “Now that I have my daughter here with me, I’ll do nothing that might steal any more of our precious time together.”
“And I’ll see to it he doesn’t forget that,” Shep said, rising to the colonel’s side, staying a respectable two feet behind him.
Standing up from the edge of the bed, Julie followed her father and Shep out onto the porch. Colonel Wilder turned, kissed her on her cheek and said as he turned toward the horses, “Don’t forget . . . Draw the bolt on the door as soon as you go back inside.”
“I will, Pa,” said Julie, still liking the sound of the word pa on her lips.
Placing his hat down firmly on his head, the colonel and Shep stepped into the saddle. Within a moment both turned their horses out of sight in the direction of the Shawlers.
Chapter 7
The first three hours after the colonel and Shep left, Julie had busied herself straightening up the house and preparing some dried elk shank and warmed-over hoecakes for her and the Shawler boy to eat. She’d set the plate of food beside him while he sat in silence staring once again into the flames. Moments later when she came back for the plate, the food had been untouched. “You should try to eat something,” she said, “even if you’re not hungry. You need to get your strength up.”