“Have any of your scouts not returned? When you have expected them to do so?”
“West of town two were killed and their bodies burned. From what evidence remained, both were murdered. The fire proved a feeble attempt to hide the nature of the crime.”
“West of town? The direction Dr. Samuel Knight rode when he left?”
“There is cause to believe he took part in the deaths of both soldiers. My tracker reported a second man present also participated, though what happened exactly will remain a mystery carried to the graves of my brave men. Since most Comanche attacks have been carried out using bow and arrow because we have so successfully prevented firearms from falling into their hands, we doubt the two were murdered by Indians. Both were shot. Other evidence indicates they were in the process of an arrest, shackles being dropped onto the ground before their horses were stolen.”
“What are your plans to bring Knight to justice?”
“He will be captured. Rest assured, sir. When he is returned, he will be tried by a military court for crimes against the government. I expect nothing less than a conviction and death penalty.”
Donnelly considered how he felt. Was such justice enough or should he pry Knight free and use the civilian courts to try him when the result would be the same? He needed revenge. By his hand, not this buffoon Norwood. But if Knight and those he rode with now gunned down soldiers with impunity, the chance to try him might evaporate in the first pitched gunfight with Norwood’s soldiers.
“Keep me posted on your hunt for him.” Donnelly cleared his throat and asked as Norwood left the room, “How many men do you have in the field hunting for him?”
“They all are, sir. As all are on the lookout for Comanches, members of the Knights of the Golden Circle, or those malcontents in the Ku Klux Klan founded by that devil, Nathan Bedford Forrest, or any other person or persons who might cause unrest. Good day.”
Captain Norwood closed the door behind him. As angry as he remained about being called to account, he did not slam the door.
Donnelly found the controlled click of the lock snapping into place more unsettling. Opponents who ranted and raved had weaknesses to exploit. Norwood relied too much on regulations and orders, doing everything by the book, to be successful finding Knight, but Donnelly knew the soldiers weren’t his only chance at bringing the errant doctor to justice. The second man prowling about where Norwood’s soldiers had been killed had to be Hector Alton.
The gunfighter must have captured Knight by now. His return would be imminent. Donnelly took out a sheet of paper, ink, and a pen to begin the letter to Circuit Judge Thompson. When Knight was stuffed into a cell in the jail adjacent to the courthouse, he wanted the judge in town in two shakes of a lamb’s tail to dispense justice. There would be no dispute over whose prisoner he was.
Donnelly moaned in pain as he shifted in his chair, his crippled foot a constant reminder of what Knight had done.
There would be no dispute whatsoever about who got to hang the son of a bitch.
CHAPTER 16
“They owe us. Why shouldn’t we take what’s our due?” Milo Hannigan looked around the campfire at his men.
“Ten dollars a head ain’t much for what all was done to us,” Porkchop said. “We was promised more’n that, anyway. Milo’s right. We should swoop down on some o’ them other ranchers, cut out a few head of cattle, and then sell them. There’s plenty of buyers.”
“Even the Indians might buy a cow or two,” piped up Hector Alton. All heads turned toward him. “They swap for all kinds of guns. They want horses. Cattle to them is only something other white men want but are willing to pay top dollar for.”
Knight stirred uneasily at all this talk of rustling. He felt the pressure of Captain Norwood breathing down his neck, even if there hadn’t been any soldiers sighted in the area. If anything, the rancher’s future son-in-law had made the call for help and had been ignored before Alton cut him down. That suited Knight just fine, but if the Comanches continued raiding, the army would eventually be forced to stop their depredations. When that happened, if he hadn’t put a lot of miles between him and Pine Knob, he was likely going to get caught.
He ran his hand around his neck, as much from chafing due to the tight collar of the rancher’s shirt he had taken as worry about a hemp noose dropped and tightened there. “We’re better off moving west, as we planned. Sticking around here will only get the law on our trail.”
Heads turned in his direction when he spoke. Staying quiet had given the others a chance to vent their anger at getting so little payment for fighting Indians. An opposing view brought out the sharp divisions among them.
“Now, now, Sam,” said Hannigan. “We know why you’re so all-fired anxious to get out of these parts. The rest of us don’t have the cavalry hunting us for crimes and misdemeanors.”
Knight looked sharply at Hector Alton. For a man who had murdered two soldiers, he looked innocent enough. He still used a sling on his right arm but had grown stronger over the past week. Knight had seen him practicing a quick draw. Even injured, he was fast. Real fast. Alton switched off between left and right hands and showed almost equal speed. Given that he was right-handed, he would be quicker with his right in a matter of days.
“I didn’t sign on to steal cattle.” Knight realized how sullen and petty that sounded. Before he could explain more, Hannigan cut him off.
“We’re owed. They didn’t pay. Most of the local ranchers don’t have a problem like that. Any dispute could be settled between themselves or taken to a judge. We have no standing. We’re not talking about making this a full-time job. The law might say it’s rustling, but I say it’s takin’ what’s ours.”
A murmur of agreement went around the campfire. Knight felt deflated when even Ben Lunsford and his brother nodded. They avoided his direct gaze, staring into the crackling fire and watching embers twist into the night sky. If he felt more confident, he would have challenged Hannigan’s leadership or at least demanded a vote. If the split had been big enough, the gang would see that and know trouble lay in breaking the law.
“How sure are you the Injuns’d want stolen beeves?” Johnny Nott stared straight at Hector Alton for an answer.
“Can’t be for certain sure, but it makes sense, doesn’t it? They steal from the white man all the time. They don’t care for gold or silver. A pile of greenbacks doesn’t mean anything more than a way for their squaws to start a cooking fire. All that’s useless to them, but they know we—white men—crave it all. They get a meal or two out of the herd and swap the rest. They pay us in gold or silver for the cattle. Everybody comes out ahead.”
“They’ll trade those beeves for guns. Ask the farmers and ranchers if they think that’s a good idea,” Knight said.
“We don’t know what they’d trade for. They don’t have many rifles. Might be, they get more, they decide to become hunters and give up raiding. A deer’s not as inclined to shoot back. We might be contributing to the peace by trading with the Comanches.”
Knight knew a snake-oil salesman at work when he heard one. Everything Hector Alton said made sense as long as you didn’t put it all together.
“We’ll end up with rewards on our heads.” That was the last card Knight had to play. He saw how this perked up Alton. The man looked eagerly around the campfire.
“Who all’s got a price on their head right now?” Alton scooted closer to the fire and poked it with a branch to get more light. “A desperate bunch like this must have a few dollars of reward offered by the law.”
“Not us. Not Seth and me,” Ben Lunsford said.
Porkchop looked confused. Lattimer fell silent. Johnny Nott looked defiant. Of them all, Knight suspected the back-shooting Nott was a wanted man.
Milo Hannigan waved it aside as if it meant nothing. “Leave it up to the carpetbaggers and we’re all wanted men. They hate Southerners. All the more reason for us to settle accounts on our own without relying on the authorities.”
&
nbsp; “Then we’re decided? All of us? We take what beeves are owed us and sell them to whoever’s willing to pay the most, even if it is an Indian.” Hector Alton sounded far too eager to engage in cattle theft for Knight’s liking.
None of the others saw what he did. They all agreed.
“What’ll it be, Sam? You in or you out?” Hannigan touched the butt of his six-shooter suggestively.
“I’m in.” It felt as if the words were ripped from his throat, almost choking him. “But it’s only this one time, to get what we earned.”
“That’s agreeable,” Hannigan said, his hand slipping away from his gun. “That’s mighty agreeable.”
Knight turned in, his sleep plagued with nightmares of cattle stampedes and Milo Hannigan on a hill, silhouetted by lightning, firing his six-shooter in the air and laughing.
* * *
“We got good steaks,” Ben Lunsford said. “What more should we have done than rustle the cattle?” He lifted a fork filled with prime beef, savored it for a moment, and then chomped down on it. Eyes closed, he chewed with appreciation.
“We didn’t get anywhere near what we were owed.” Nott spun the cylinder in his pistol until Knight wanted to tell him to stop. If he did, Nott would open fire. The man had been edgy ever since they sold the cattle they hadn’t kept for themselves to a Comanchero. “The trader rooked us. We’re owed. We deserve more.”
“I’m new to this wild bunch, but I have to agree with Mr. Nott.” Hector Alton looked earnest. “Y’all risked your lives and most of you got shot up real bad. Ten dollars and a steak, even if it is a good one, doesn’t come close to paying you for your trouble. You’re owed. You’re owed lots more.”
Knight felt the tension and knew how most of the men felt. Even Ben Lunsford agreed that they should have been given more. Rather than stifle the unrest, Milo Hannigan had remained silent and let the restlessness grow. He used this to secure his position as leader, though neither Knight nor any of the others had ever voted him into that role.
“What would make it right?” Hannigan poked the fire and got everyone’s attention. “If we all end up each with a hundred dollars, how’s that sound?”
“You have an idea how to get such a princely sum, Mr. Hannigan?” Alton poked the fire, too, but it had nothing to do with the one in front of them.
“The stagecoach carries money all the time. Enough to give us the money to ride on in style. But I see that Sam doesn’t like the idea of us taking that. What’s your idea, Sam? How do you think we should get paid?”
Knight took a deep breath. Hannigan ought to be a politician. He knew the exact moment to engage and when to ask questions of the opposition that fed those supporting him. Whatever he said wouldn’t be received well by the others.
“Yeah, Doc, we want to know what you have to say.” Seth Lunsford’s confusion was apparent. “You always have a level head.”
“That’s why I want to hear his opinion.” Hannigan smiled crookedly.
“Stealing’s not the way to live. The more trouble we cause, the more the law will come after us.”
“It’s not like we’re stealing horses. That’s a bad crime.” Hector Alton spoke in a level tone, but Hannigan laughed. The others snickered, even Ben Lunsford. They all knew his trouble with the army. “Unless you’re taking horses from the Yankees.”
“Hardly stealin’,” grumbled Porkchop. “Not if them bluecoats are forced to walk. Serves ’em right after all they done to us.”
That sentiment carried the decision. Knight could never argue with it.
“The war’s over. Our side lost, and we have to get on with our lives the best we can. The cattle weren’t taken from any Yankee.”
“The rancher owed us. He got killed. The boy who wanted to be owner refused to pay us and he got killed.” Nott slammed his pistol into his holster to emphasize his point. He looked significantly at Hector Alton.
“Sam’s got a point,” Ben said. “If we take something that’s not ours, it should be from Yankees, not the folks we went to war to defend. It might be too much holding up a stagecoach because we don’t know who’s riding along, not before we shove a gun into their faces.”
“There’s a trading post north of here. The three men there are all from Ohio. They’re come to Texas to exploit us.” Johnny Nott shot to his feet and stabbed a finger into the night as if he were a moral compass pointing to evil. “We can send them back to where they came from.”
“And take whatever they leave behind,” Alton said just loud enough for the others to hear and agree.
“In the morning, we run some carpetbaggers out of Texas!” Porkchop said.
* * *
“You’d think they had done this before,” Hector Alton said. Hands on the horn, he leaned forward in the saddle and raised in the stirrups to get a better view. “Do you know if they’ve held up a store before today? Any of them?”
“Why not ask if I have?” Knight said, his temper short.
The rest of those following Hannigan had fanned out to approach the isolated trading post from four different directions. Knight and Alton hung back to provide any support necessary, no matter which point of the compass required it. Nott and Hannigan went to the front door while the Lunsfords secured the corral with a dozen horses in it. Porkchop came in from the north and Lattimer advanced from the south. Knight cast a critical eye on those two. Porkchop rode easily, but Lattimer clutched his side as if his belly wounds still bothered him. Without real medicines, his wounds might have gotten infected. Telling Hannigan had gotten him slapped down.
“You steal horses.” Alton held up his hand as if to ward off a blow. “Just joshing you. You aren’t the kind to shove a six-shooter under someone’s nose and ask for their money.”
“I’d do it if I had to.”
“Do tell?” Alton’s complete attention focused on him.
“If medical supplies were being held back for no reason and a patient needed it, I would do whatever it took.”
“I’m right glad you’re my sawbones. Hannigan likes that you ride with him, too. I can tell. You two must go way back.”
Knight winced as gunshots echoed to him. A few seconds passed, then came another volley. Without waiting for Hector Alton, he snapped the reins and brought his horse to a canter to get to the store. One shot cowed potential victims to make them surrender without a fight. Many shots meant a fight had broken out. He hoped his medical expertise wasn’t needed—then he mentally changed that to hoping it was. Nott was likely to kill and not leave wounded needing attention.
“You goin’ in, Doc?” Ben Lunsford ran up with his gun drawn. “Better let me.”
“Stay outside. Keep Seth from getting into too much trouble.” Knight knew appealing to the man’s protectiveness for his younger brother kept them both safe. He had nothing to lose.
Hitting the ground running, he had his six-shooter out when he burst through the door. A quick look around confirmed his suspicions. Nott waved his smoking gun around wildly. Two men lay dead on the floor. A third sprawled over the counter, a sawed-off shotgun still clutched in his hands.
“Anybody injured?”
“Johnny took good care of them,” Hannigan said from the back room. He came out dragging a pile of buffalo hides. “They got a ton of these things stored there.”
“What the hell do we want skins for?” Nott prodded each of the men in turn to be sure they were dead. Only when he was satisfied did he thrust his six-gun into its holster and see what Hannigan had discovered. “Damn me if you’re not right, Hannigan. Hides and not much else. Not even much in the way of food.”
Hannigan let Johnny Nott poke through the piles of smelly, badly cured buffalo hides as he searched for money. He dropped a cigar box onto the counter, frowned and shoved the body away to the floor, and finally opened the box. Out spilled a handful of coins and a few greenbacks. “There’s not more’n twenty dollars here. They must have spent all their money buying those skins. We got here a few days too late.�
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“That means whatever hider sold the skins is rollin’ in the money. How hard is it to track them down?” Nott kicked one body and set to rummaging through the store, hunting for ammunition and anything valuable to him.
“Neither of you hit?” Knight ignored Nott and locked eyes with Hannigan. He didn’t like his expression. It mirrored Nott’s too closely.
“They cheated us, Sam. They don’t have enough to make it worth our time to rob this place, unless you know a market for buffalo hides.”
“They got others back there, too. Some fox, from the smell,” said Nott. He finished his search and piled what he was taking in the middle of a blanket. Four quick moves caught up everything into a bundle he fastened with secure knots before slinging it over his shoulder.
“How much cash was there, Milo?” Knight pointed to the pitiful pile on the counter. “Can’t be more than twenty dollars.”
“Less. We should have hit this place earlier, or maybe later after they sold the hides.” He pushed back his hat and scratched his head. “Who’s got money out here for buffalo? These were getting shipped back east. Maybe moved to a train and sent up to St. Louis or even Chicago.”
“They died for no reason,” Knight said.
“No reason? No reason? What’s wrong with you, Knight? They resisted. Tried to keep us from robbin’ them. That’s reason enough. Get the money, Hannigan, and let’s get out of here. The place stinks to high heaven.” Nott pushed past Knight.
Hector Alton stood in the doorway, but he made way, only to enter after Nott was mounted and riding away.
“Other than what you’d give a buffalo hunter, what’s in here?” The dandy poked about but took nothing.
“There’s enough beans and oatmeal to keep us on the trail for a month,” Knight said. “We can be in West Texas on it, without having to stop and hunt or scrounge whatever grows that’s edible.”
“You’re in a powerful hurry to be gone, Sam. You having nightmares about the army coming for you?” Hannigan laughed.
Knight forced himself to keep his hand at his side and not throw down on him. Hannigan never noticed, but Alton did.
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