Westward, Tally Ho!

by Milo James Fowler

  Slick licked his wart-covered lips at the mention of her name and lapsed into a few expletives as he described what he'd like to do with Kate Carson. But he stopped abruptly when his jaw was slammed backward by a sudden, crushing blow. Reeling away in agony, he left some of his beard in Percy's grip and fell to the sidewalk, unable to speak.

  "Whoa now..." Percy stared at the Englishman. "What did you do, mister?"

  "I struck him." Guthrie regarded the writhing clerk at his feet with little interest. Guthrie was not a violent man by nature, but when it came to defending a woman's honor, he was not one to be trifled with.

  "Yeah!" Percy nodded emphatically. "That you did. And what a mighty whack! Like a ramrod comin' outta nowhere—"

  "I need to know where Miss Carson is. Please, do you know where she may be found?"

  Percy blinked and scratched at his bristled head. "Shucks, I ain't seen 'er since I been back in town." Finding a torn wad of tobacco-stained hair in his other hand, he quickly rubbed it off against his pant leg. "Y'know, it's funny you mention her, cuz I was just comin' over here to ask Slick the same thing. Heh, he always seems to know where Kate's at." He winked at Guthrie knowingly. "Has high hopes, ol' Slick does."

  "You have not seen her, then?" Guthrie turned to look down the street. Only a few aimless cowpokes, bored train workers, and saloon girls with painted faces met his gaze. Where could she be? he wondered.

  "Guess she could be anywheres." Percy shrugged. "Want me to ask around?"

  "Yes." Guthrie's look was direct. "And so shall I."

  They headed down the street, one on each side, leaving Slick to moan in anguish behind them.

  "Aww wa wa wwawa," the clerk growled savagely with his busted jaw as he watched them go. (Translation: "You'll never find 'er.")

  Chapter 38

  Silas Carter's ranch was a small spread of fenced-in land a mile or so away from the watering hole he called his own. Inside the confines of the rough-hewn rail fence ambled a few dozen horses of all breeds, sizes, and colors. They roamed about freely, nosing each other and trotting sporadically.

  At one end of the spread sat a dilapidated shack. It had once been painted white and brown, but now most of the paint had either faded or flaked off under the sun. The roof sagged to the side, supported by three beams set in place. Two broken windows and a warped door faced east; the window facing west must have survived whatever had broken the other two. Off to one side of the shack, where the roof was still in good shape, sat a large barn. Inside, through the wide-open doors, three stalls could be seen. A mare tended to her foal, and a monstrous stack of hay loomed in the center. It was obvious to Clarence that these horses were well-cared for.

  "Here we be!" Silas announced. He swung out of his saddle and shoved the gate wide open, beaming with pride. "Enter Carter Castle!"

  Clarence and Kate nodded their appreciation and rode past him. As they dismounted, Kate's arm lingered around Clarence's middle.

  "You all right?"

  He nodded, meeting her concerned gaze. "Thank you."

  "For what?" she asked with a puzzled frown.

  He dipped his chin as his cheeks started to burn. "For riding with me."

  "Aw," she chuckled and gave his shoulder a playful punch. "Don't get sentimental on me now, Clarence."

  "Let's rustle up some grub!" Silas came by with his horse in tow and snatched the reins to MacQuaid's. "You two get inside and make yourselves at home. I'll get these mules to their quarters." He headed toward the barn, his springy gait comical. "Hmm, got a lot o' junk on you, don'tcha girl?" he said sympathetically to MacQuaid's mount. He eyed the multiple carbines and canteens with curiosity.

  It seemed like a lot for just one rider to bring along with him on a trek through the wilderness. But then again, considering the fact Clarence had gone after Kate's kidnapper with little more than the clothes on his back, perhaps he was not one to judge.

  "Guess we'd better make ourselves at home," Kate mimicked the old-timer.

  Clarence grinned down at her. "I say, I reckon so—" He stopped as his eyes caught sight of something he couldn't quite believe he was seeing.

  "What is it?"

  "I know that horse!" He stared at the sleek, oil-black steed amidst the others in Silas Carter's corral. As if sensing his attention, the horse turned to face him; its ears pricked up, its dark eyes shining in the late afternoon light. "Hello there, boy!" Clarence called as he jogged to the fence. "Remember me?"

  For a moment, the horse did not move. Its nostrils flared and it snorted as it watched the foreign-sounding human. Then with a low whinny, it trotted toward the rail.

  "That's a good boy!" Clarence reached over to stroke the creature's nose. "I'm very glad to see you, too. I wondered what had happened to you." The horse shook its mane as if it were pleased to see him as well. "How did you get here?"

  "You know horses can't talk, right Clarence?" Kate smiled as she came to his side. "How do you know this feller?" She reached up to stroke its neck.

  Clarence bit his lip. "Well..." he began sheepishly. "I may have borrowed him from town when I came to rescue—"

  "You what?" She stared at him. Her hand faltered on the steed. "You stole this horse? Tell me you're lyin'. They'll send a lynchin' mob after you!"

  "Who? What?"

  "The boys back in town—they hang horse thieves!"

  Clarence neglected to breathe. "Oh my. I had no idea…"

  "Must be why MacQuaid was out this way," she said quietly. "That's got to be it. He's been sent to capture you."

  Clarence swallowed hard. His knees had become jelly. "But he has no weapon. We left him—"

  "He's got a derringer in his left boot." She caught his curious look. "I know that skunk better than I should. Ain't proud of it." She shook her head. "Without a horse, he'll take a while to get here, and that's a fact. We'll see 'im headin' this way. No way he'll be able to sneak up on us, so that gives us the advantage."

  Clarence took a deep breath and glanced back the way they'd come. "Yes. Quite." He looked at her.

  She faced the sun as it dipped low in the west, and the wind caught strands of her hair, whisking them across her bare shoulders. Beneath the dust and grime of their travels, most of the paint she usually wore on her face had come off, and there lay beneath a striking natural beauty—the way God had intended her to be.

  "You think a woman like me could ever become a lady?" She stared off into the distance.

  "You are a lady…yes?" He'd heard of circus sideshows where men had become women, and he was almost certain that Kate was not one of those rare cases, but strangely enough, it was the first thought that had sprung into his mind. "I mean, of course you are—"

  "Y'know, like for a gentleman." She glanced at him quickly, then returned her gaze to the sun. "A real lady, with a parasol and manners and such."

  He bit his cheek for a moment, pondering what she might mean. Then he held out his forearm toward her.

  "Shall we retire to the drawing room, Miss?"

  She almost smiled, gazing into his eyes.

  "Let's not keep our host waiting," he said with a grin as she hesitantly took his arm. With an even stride, he led her to Silas Carter's shack and the baked beans that awaited them.

  From a distance, they might have looked like a lady and a gentleman out for a Sunday stroll.

  "Say, who's that lady and gentleman out for a Sunday stroll?" Big Chief Thunderclap and his trusted braves sat mounted along a high ridge overlooking the Carter horse ranch. "Hmm. They look familiar, but I cannot quite place them." Thunderclap narrowed his black eyes against the setting sun.

  "Indeed you should recognize them, Father," said Stubbed Toe, mounted astride his half-dead pony at the chief's right. "I did as soon as I set my sharp eyes upon them." He raised his chin. "They are the two palefaces we have sought. No doubt Buckeye Daniels is somewhere down there as well."

  Thunderclap did not favor his son with a glance. He watched the young man and woman as they
entered the dilapidated shack. "So. They are not as smart as I thought they were. They were not headed back to their village, but rather here, all along." He nodded with grim satisfaction. "We will not have to wait until cloak of darkness to sneak into their village and nab the suckers." He paused long enough to make the braves stir with anticipation. "We can nab them here. Now."

  An excited murmur swept through the company, and they checked their Winchesters, waiting eagerly for the chief's next command.

  Thunderclap heaved a deep sigh. "It is Buckeye Daniels that we want. The others are not our concern. But if they give us trouble, then we shall truss them up and carry them back with us."

  "Better we kill them all, Father!" Stubbed Toe protested. "It is best that no one lives who has witnessed our attack—"

  "This is not an attack." Thunderclap's eyes flashed menacingly at his son. "Let me make this abundantly clear. I don't know what it is called, but it is not an attack!" He stared the prince down, then went on, "Mayhaps we will call it a skirmish. Regardless, we will leave our poor, tired ponies up here. On foot, we shall descend this ridge to the ranch below and run off all of Silas Carter's horses just as that young Englishman ran off all of our ponies. Yes. Payback can be a grumpy squaw." The braves grunted their approval. "Then, we shall surround the shack and demand that they give us Buckeye Daniels. If they refuse, we shall set fire to their shack and wait for them to exit. Then we shall club them all and take Buckeye Daniels back to the home place for his torture. Ha-HA!"

  The sudden crazed look in their chief's eyes startled the braves at first, and they didn't seem to know how to respond. But under the withering glare of the monstrous chief, they enthusiastically voiced their approval of his most excellent plan.

  "Now we will go!" Thunderclap laboriously let himself down from his pony. "We…" he gasped from the exertion. "We'll nab the sucker!"

  The braves cheered in their own way and swung down from their ponies, rifles in one hand and ammunition pouches at the ready.

  "But before we go further, I must give my famous Zuni Indian war cry," the chief halted them. With reverence, he said, "It has been a tradition, you might say, and you must learn it well, Stubbed Toe, for you are to be chief of this tribe someday."

  Thunderclap cleared his throat, and the braves waited expectantly. They were never disappointed.

  "AAAAAAIIIIIEEEEEE!!"

  "Good heavens! What on earth was that?" Clarence rushed toward one of the shack's broken windows. Peering out, he gasped at the sight that met his eyes: perhaps a quarter-mile away from the fence, half-naked natives descended a ridge on foot with rifles in hand and war paint on their bronze faces. "Great Scott!" he cried.

  Kate had been sitting at the table, waiting for Silas to return from his chores. She rushed to Clarence's side now, her face paling at the sight. "Oh my God…"

  "They've found us, Kate!" Clarence yelped, feeling an overwhelming urge to flee but with no clear idea which direction to take. "What do we do?"

  The door flew open and in stomped Silas Carter, his arms filled with the carbines from MacQuaid's horse, along with what appeared to be his own collection of hunting rifles. Talking to himself excitedly, he slammed the door shut with his heel and unloaded the weapons onto the small table in the center of the shack.

  "Looks like we've got ourselfs some company, Abigail," he said to the dog-eared photograph of a pretty young woman tacked onto the wall nearby. "Don't you fret none, Darlin'. Ol' Silas will shoot their britches off! Heh, heh—" His smile dropped away abruptly as he turned to see Clarence and Kate. "Hey, who're you?" he demanded, grabbing up his rifle. "What're you doin' in my house?"

  "Wha-haa?" Clarence couldn't understand what had come over the old-timer.

  "Get out! Go on, git!" Silas shouted, his eyes bulging as he leveled the rifle on them.

  "Silas," Kate said calmly. "Silas, put down the rifle. You don't want to hurt us." She seemed to know how to deal with him. "You know us," she said with a reassuring smile as she stepped toward him.

  "Kate—" Clarence warned. There was no way to predict this old fellow's behavior. The way his age-speckled hands trembled on the rifle was nothing short of unnerving.

  "C'mon now, Silas," Kate urged gently. "Put down that rifle. Just set it down there. We're your friends—"

  "I-I'll kill you!" Silas shouted, backing away. His trembling finger curled around the trigger, and Kate's eyes widened in disbelief.

  "NO!" Clarence screamed and rushed forward, just as the old man fired.

  Chapter 39

  Guthrie and Percy had managed to round up the only two men in town willing to talk about anything with a stranger, it seemed. A pair of rough-looking cowpunchers they were, and they had agreed to converse only after Percy had offered them each a free bottle of whiskey at his saloon. Now as tinny piano music played in the background of the crowded room, Guthrie stood at the bar with the two cowboys and tried to discern what they knew regarding Miss Carson's whereabouts.

  "You said you knew 'a thing or two'," Guthrie reminded the more vocal of the two.

  "Heh, yeah." The fellow kept his dull eyes fixed on the life-size painting up on the wall behind the bar as he swigged down another shot of whiskey. "Quite a paintin'," he remarked appreciatively. "Mighty fine."

  Guthrie glanced through the haze of cigar smoke and noted that the subject of the painting resembled Miss Carson—and she was nude. He averted his gaze.

  "Mighty fine indeed." The cowpoke toasted the painting with his next shot. Smacking his lips, he nodded to Percy to refill his glass. "If you're lookin' for Carson, then you ought to be lookin' for Daniels." He downed the next shot and sighed with satisfaction.

  "Buckeye Daniels?"

  The fellow smacked his lips again. "And Slick's your boy iffin you're lookin' for Daniels. The two of 'em are always in cahoots." He turned his back on Guthrie then, and his meaning was clear: the meeting was over. Percy gave Guthrie a look that confirmed this.

  "Thank you." With a nod to the helpful bartender, Guthrie left his informant to his liquor and stepped outside.

  He took a deep breath of the horse dung-flavored air and surveyed the town. Dusk was falling, and there was little time to waste. Purposefully he made his way toward the hotel.

  What would the clerk and Buckeye Daniels have to do with Miss Carson's disappearance? He couldn't help but wonder. And where is Master Clarence?

  The hollow-sounding CLINK rang in Kate's ears as all the air went out of her. She grabbed onto a chair to steady herself.

  "Give me that!" Clarence wrenched the unloaded rifle away from the startled old man. "I ought to strike you!"

  Silas cowered under the infuriated Englishman's upraised fist. "Don't hurt me, please!"

  "Aw, let 'im be, Clarence," Kate said. "He's just loco is all."

  "Yeah!" Silas agreed. "You wouldn't hit a crazy ol' coot, now would you?"

  "I just might," Clarence snapped. He knew better than to strike one of his elders, no matter how mad the man was, so instead he gave Silas a shove that sent him into a slat-backed chair. "Are you all right?" Clarence approached Kate with a frown of concern.

  "Yeah, just a little shook up is all." She looked at the carbines on the table. "Ever fired one of these?"

  "Well..." Clarence picked one up, hefting it in his hands. "Lighter than the hunting rifles back home. But I reckon I'll do fine." He winked.

  She aimed one out the window with her cheek against the stock. "Short barrel." Her hands trembled as memories of Burly Jones' death flooded her mind. She set the weapon down. "Wonder how accurate it is."

  "I haven't the foggiest."

  "Huh?" She looked up at him. "Right," she remembered. "That means you don't know?"

  He grinned. "You're catching on. You'll be bilingual in no time, Kate."

  Just then, they heard the thundering hoofbeats of a multitude of horses. Shrill shrieks and gunshots echoed outside. Clarence rushed to the other broken window in time to see the natives scaring off Silas
Carter's steeds—the magnificent black stallion among them. At the same time, another group of the savages charged straight for the shack.

  "Quick!" Kate picked up the carbine and took aim. "Drive 'em back!"

  She pulled the trigger, and the closest Indian jerked into the air with a cry as the bullet hit him dead center. He crashed to the ground in a heap.

  "Good shot!" Clarence aimed his own carbine. "I thought you couldn't shoot!"

  "Sometimes I get lucky." She clenched her jaw and took aim again, but the shot was wide.

  The five remaining natives had come within thirty yards of the shack when they dropped to their knees and aimed their own rifles, launching a volley of shots.

  "Get down!" Kate shouted as the front wall splintered, punctured by the bullets. Shots hurtled through the broken windows and thudded into the back wall.

  "I do believe they're trying to kill us, Kate!" Clarence lay flat and winced at the roar.

  "No kiddin'!"

  Abruptly, the weapons fire ended. But another volley would soon be on the way.

  "They're reloading. Quick now!" Kate rolled to her feet and stood up beside the window. Glancing outside, she turned and fired. Another shriek came from the Indians, and a sick horror twisted her insides.

  "Allow me," Clarence offered, and her eyes flashed gratefully.

  Gritting his teeth, Clarence jammed his carbine's stock to his shoulder and took a quick breath. Then—

  "Clarence!" Kate screamed.

  A bronze-colored body filled his vision. A muscled arm came down on the carbine's barrel, wrestling it away from his grasp and tugging it out through the window. At the same time, another native climbed in through the other window. With a short cry, Kate jammed the muzzle of her carbine into his belly and pulled the trigger, just as he reached for her throat. The close-range shot exploded like a bomb with an explosion of crimson. Kate screamed as the native's grip on her neck relaxed and his body hit the floor beside her. She dropped her carbine and screamed again, staring at her blood-slick hands.