Death Rattle

by Sean Lynch

  More than twenty rebs lay dead in the street before the mob collectively decided to break and run. Pritchard didn’t let up as they scattered. He methodically fired, reloaded, and fired, again and again. Another ten men were shot down running away.

  Pritchard paused and opened the action to let it cool. He liked the Sharps, which he considered a vast improvement over the Hawken. The weapon had power, balance, ease of reloading, and seemed to fit his hands as if made for him.

  Not all of Witherspoon’s men fled. He noticed a guerrilla taking aim at him from behind a trough. He snapped another cartridge and cap on the weapon, took aim, and pulled the trigger, just as the reb fired. The pistol shot whanged harmlessly on the belfry’s roof, but Pritchard’s rifle shot hit his intended target squarely in the chest.

  Pritchard reloaded and waited. As expected, Captain Witherspoon soon came walking down the street with Sergeant Murphy beside him. He was surrounded by what was left of his furious men.

  “Private Atherton,” the captain called out. He shook his head as he stepped over the bodies of his rangers. “What is your problem, son? You just wiped out damn near half my men.”

  “Their choice, Cap’n,” Pritchard replied, “not mine. I told them to leave the womenfolk be, or I’d take it personal. They chose to ignore my warning.”

  “It would seem,” the captain continued, still counting dead bodies, “that your sense of chivalry is only exceeded by your marksmanship.”

  “I hit what I aim at, sir.”

  “This won’t do,” Captain Witherspoon said, putting his hands on his hips. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to hang you for this, Atherton.”

  “I’m getting powerful tired,” Pritchard said, shouldering the Sharps and taking aim, “of hearing men in uniform threaten to hang, or shoot, me.”

  “There’s simply no way around it, son. Military discipline must be maintained. Come on down from that belfry.”

  “I believe I will oblige you to come up here and get me,” Pritchard said.

  “I was afraid you’d say that,” Witherspoon said. “You realize, of course, your noble intentions, however misplaced, were for naught. Because now, instead of hanging only you, I’m going to have to burn that church to the ground. I’m certain the fair maidens you were so hell-bent on protecting, if given the choice, would have rather endured the rough affections of my men, and live, than die in the flames of their house of worship along with you and your noble intentions.”

  The captain motioned to his men. Several began lighting torches.

  “You’d do that?” Pritchard said. “Roast innocent women and children?”

  “Without a second’s hesitation,” Witherspoon said. “You heard me tell how I rode into Lawrence with Bloody Bill and Quantrill, didn’t you?”

  “Roast in hell,” Pritchard said as he fired. His shot blew the top of Witherspoon’s head off.

  Pritchard began his rapid-firing sequence again, aiming first for the men with torches. He got three before they got near the church. Then he took aim at anyone else in reb gray.

  Some stood and fought, others took cover and returned fire, and still others simply ran. To Pritchard, it made no difference. He focused all his attention on loading, priming, and aiming the Sharps. One by one, Confederate guerrillas fell. Before long, another twenty-five men had joined their brethren lying dead on the main street of Independence, Kansas.

  Except for Sergeant Murphy and two rangers, what was left of B Company, Shelby’s 5th, ran for their horses and rode out of town.

  While Pritchard was firing down on the soldiers, Murphy and his two followers lit torches and stormed the church, setting it ablaze. The sergeant and his men stood at the bottom of the belfry ladder as the church began to burn. He yelled up at Pritchard, a revolver in each hand.

  “Get out of that perch!” Murphy shouted. “Come down and fight, Atherton, you gutless son of a bitch!”

  “I’m right here, Sergeant,” Pritchard said from behind him.

  When Pritchard saw Murphy and the two Confederate guerrillas enter the church, he slung the Sharps, grabbed the bell rope he’d thrown over the side of the roof, and slid to the ground. He entered the church, a Remington in each hand, and found Murphy and the two partisan rangers still looking up the ladder.

  The three rebs whirled to face Pritchard, but not fast enough. He fired three times, and all went down. Sergeant Murphy weakly tried to raise his pistol from flat on his back, and Pritchard shot him between the eyes.

  Pritchard ran through the church, which was quickly becoming consumed, and threw open the cellar doors. He was met with terrified faces.

  “Everybody out!” he shouted. He began to usher people out of the cellar.

  “Samuel!”

  Ditch and Paul came running into the church. They, too, began to help escort the residents of Independence, Kansas, from the cellar. Within a few minutes, everyone was outside. Pritchard, Ditch, and Paul stood with the congregation and watched the church burn.

  “Where were you boys when the fireworks were going off?” Pritchard asked, coughing.

  “We were watching your shooting gallery from safely down the street,” Paul said. “We were afraid to get any closer, for fear you’d shoot us by mistake.”

  “A wise move,” Pritchard said. “Any reb guerrillas left around?”

  “None that I can see,” Ditch said. “About the time you killed more’n half of ’em, and unhinged the top of their commanding officer’s head, the rest decided to skedaddle. Can’t say as I blame ’em.” He noticed the remnant of Pritchard’s death-shadow still lingering on his friend’s face.

  Pastor Greer approached Pritchard. “You did it, son. You delivered us.”

  “I’m sorry for the loss of your church,” Pritchard said. “For what it’s worth, the money taken from your town’s bank is spread out on a card table down at the saloon. Maybe you can rebuild it?”

  “Don’t worry on it too much,” the pastor said, beholding the inferno. “This was God’s will.”

  “Iffen you say so,” Pritchard said.

  “What now?” Paul asked.

  “Yeah,” Ditch chimed in. “What do we do now?”

  “I don’t know about you fellers,” Pritchard said, “but I’m done soldiering. I’ve got no stomach for killin’ women and children. Besides, it seems to me, it don’t make no difference whether it’s Union blue or Confederate gray we soldier for. Both armies are lookin’ to kill us. I’m leavin’ Kansas a civilian.”

  “Where will you go?” Ditch said.

  “Reckon I’ll head further south,” Pritchard said, “and seek my fortune in Texas.”

  “You want some company?” Ditch asked.

  PART TWO

  RANGER

  Chapter 24

  Central Texas, May 1869

  Pritchard crawled on his belly slowly to avoid disturbing the dry, sandy, dirt. There wasn’t much wind, and he didn’t want to create a telltale puff of dust that would reveal his movement and location. He kept one gloved hand hooded over the top of the spyglass’s lens to prevent a glint that might also give away his position.

  Down below, at the creek, he counted over thirty armed men. The group was composed of a mix of white outlaws, Mexican bandits, and Comanche warriors. He noted a couple of Henry rifles and a few Spencer repeaters, but most were armed with single-shot, trapdoor Springfields left over from the war.

  Pritchard knew the odds he and his fellow Rangers faced were fair, at best. He was with a company of seventeen other Texas Rangers, each one armed with a Henry repeating rifle and at least two revolvers. They had the sun at their backs, and for now, at least, the element of surprise. He wasn’t overly concerned. Pritchard had faced worse odds, many times before.

  Pritchard and the Clemson brothers left Kansas in late November 1863, bound for Texas. They brought with them a string of fifty-three top-quality Confederate horses, formerly belonging to B Company, 5th Regiment, of Shelby’s Iron Brigade. They also had over two thou
sand dollars in Union cash and gold taken from the bodies of Captain Witherspoon and his partisan guerrillas.

  They sold the animals in Fort Worth, in January of 1864, to a horse buyer for the Union army, for $160 per head. By Texas standards, that made them rich. They then rode west in search of available ranch land, and found it near a lake in Taylor County, just south of what would someday become Abilene. Pritchard, Ditch, and Paul Clemson bought twenty thousand acres of Texas dirt for five thousand dollars. They called the property the SD&P Ranch.

  They spent the remainder of the winter and the spring of 1864 building a ranch house, erecting a corral, digging a well, and preparing for the coming summer. When it arrived, they rode into Fort Worth and bought four hundred head of cattle. It took Pritchard, Ditch, and Paul almost two weeks to herd them back to the ranch.

  By summer’s end, rustlers and the Comanche had depleted their herd by a third. The SD&P’s cattle were too spread out for only three watchmen, and the thieves too persistent. Despite their constant patrols and endless vigilance, their livestock continued to dwindle.

  It was on a hot September afternoon when Pritchard and Paul finally met up with one of the crews of cattle thieves who’d been plaguing them. The rustlers had become so brazen, since facing no challenge, that they’d moved to within only a few miles of the ranch house to ply their illicit trade.

  Ditch had remained at the house to do chores, and Pritchard and Paul had ridden out to check the stock. They smelled smoke and followed the scent. When they crested a shallow rise, they found five men over a campfire altering the SD&P brand on some of their cows to BB&B.

  The rustlers went for their pistols. Pritchard spurred Rusty and charged. He shot two of them down with his own pistols before Paul even got his carbine clear of its saddle scabbard.

  Pritchard rode right through them, with Rusty jumping the campfire, and shot another at point-blank range. Paul shot a fourth with his Spencer, and the fifth rustler dropped his pistol and raised his hands.

  It would be the first of many encounters with rustlers, Indians, and outlaws the three Missourians would experience in Texas. But it would be Pritchard’s last before becoming a Texas Ranger.

  Paul and Pritchard tied up the surviving rustler, loaded his dead companions onto their horses, and rode them all into the nearby town of Bristow. It was their intent to turn their prisoner, and the bodies, over to the marshal there.

  They’d contemplated hanging the rustler, but the town was closer than the nearest tree. When they got to Bristow they were surprised to find a large crowd of people assembled in the street in front of the marshal’s office.

  The marshal, a hard-faced old cuss named Bud Logan, stood in front of the jail with a shotgun across his bony chest. Standing next to him was a tall, lean, man with a mustache. Pritchard had never seen him before. He was wearing a star on his chest, a wide-brimmed Stetson Boss of the Plains hat, and a brace of Colt .44s.

  “You boys are gonna wish you hadn’t come into town today,” their prisoner said to Pritchard and Paul as they rode in. He laughed. “This is my lucky day, that’s for sure.”

  “Shut up,” Paul told him.

  The crowd turned to gawk at the convoy of dead bodies, with one live prisoner, being led into town by Pritchard and Paul.

  “Howdy, fellas,” the captive rustler called out to the crowd. Pritchard noticed that while most of the mob was composed of regular townsfolk, at the front of the pack stood a clump of about a dozen hard cases, all wearing pistols and spoiling for a fight.

  “What gives?” the marshal called out to Pritchard and Paul as they reined their horses to a stop.

  “Caught these five boys rebranding our cows,” Paul answered. “Four of ’em put up a fight. I’d ask you the same question, Marshal?”

  “Got Wade Boone in my jail for back-shootin’ a clerk during a bank robbery in Waco,” the marshal replied. “This Texas Ranger is here to take him back to Waco for trial. Seems some of Wade’s friends aren’t particularly pleased about that.”

  The Boone spread, or Triple B, known by the BB&B brand, was the ranch north of the SD&P. Old Man Boone had long been suspected of not only being one of the busiest rustlers around, but of selling his rustled beef and stolen horses to the Comanche, Comancheros, and the Mexican government. His two adult sons, Wade and Wesley, were notorious troublemakers. When not out thieving cattle or horses, they spent their time in gambling halls, saloons, and whorehouses. That Wade was suspected of bank robbery and murder didn’t surprise Pritchard or Paul in the least.

  “Iffen you don’t mind,” Pritchard said, “we’d be obliged if you’d allow us to deposit this rustler in your jail, so we can get on about our business.”

  “Nobody’s goin’ into that jail,” one of the men at the front of the crowd said. Pritchard recognized him as the foreman at Boone’s Triple B Ranch, and the men surrounding him as cowhands employed there. “As a matter of fact, somebody’s coming out. Turn Wade loose, Marshal Logan.”

  “Ain’t gonna,” the marshal said.

  “Then we’ll march in and get him,” the ranch foreman said. “And don’t think no withered old town marshal, nor one lonely, stinkin’ Ranger is gonna stop us, neither.”

  “Well, come on, then,” Marshal Logan said, leveling the shotgun at the spokesman. “See what’s a-waitin’ for you.”

  The onlookers and townsfolk who’d been watching the unfolding drama began to move back. Within seconds, there were only the two lawmen standing in front of the jail, with a dozen fuming cowboys facing them, each one primed to draw. Everybody else had moved to a position of cover behind a barrel, trough, or post to observe the drama from relative safety.

  Pritchard dismounted, gesturing for Paul to keep their prisoner covered with his carbine from horseback. He slowly walked through the throng of cowboys, a full head taller than any of them, until he turned to stand shoulder to shoulder with Marshal Logan and the Ranger in front of the jail.

  “What do you think you’re doing, Atherton?” the foreman said. “Are you taking sides with them lawmen?”

  “Might as well,” Pritchard said. “I already killed three of you thievin’ Triple B hands today, and it’s still early.”

  “You son of a bitch,” the foreman said. He and the two men on either side of him went for their guns.

  In the blink of an eye, Pritchard drew and fired three times. He felled the trio of gunmen with three headshots. Marshal Logan started to pull the shotgun’s trigger, and the Ranger had drawn both his revolvers, but both checked their trigger fingers after witnessing Pritchard’s display of blazingly fast, and deadly accurate, gunmanship.

  “Anybody else?” Pritchard asked what was left of the pack. Nobody answered him, nor dared move. His smoking guns, and the look in his eye, froze them in place.

  “Git on outa here!” Marshal Logan ordered. “Take your friends’ miserable carcasses back to your boss, and tell him Bristow is off-limits to the Boone spread. I see anybody from the Triple B walking the streets from here on out, I’ll shoot ’em on sight.”

  The BB&B cowboys grudgingly picked up their three dead comrades from the street and took the reins of the horses carrying their four other dead hands. Paul nudged his prisoner off his mount and let them take that animal, as well. The cowboys grudgingly moved off.

  “Into the jail,” Paul said, prodding the no-longer-laughing rustler with his Spencer.

  While Marshal Logan locked their prisoner in the cell with Wade Boone, the Ranger turned to Pritchard and Paul.

  “That was the finest piece of pistoleering I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen gunplay from New Orleans to the Dakota Territory,” he said. “I’m Tom Franchard, of the Texas Rangers. What’s your name, son?”

  “Joe Atherton,” Pritchard said, adhering to his alias. “This here is Paul Clemson.” They shook hands. “We own a spread not far from here. A spread the Boone family has been plundering.”

  “I’m not surprised. I tracked Wade here from Waco. I was hoping to
bag him before he got home, to avoid exactly this kind of showdown.”

  “Why didn’t you boys just hang him when you caught him rustling?” Marshal Logan asked, motioning to their now-despondent prisoner. “Might’ve saved us both some trouble. Nobody on this side of the law would have cared a whit.”

  “There weren’t no trees around,” Paul said.

  “I won’t make that mistake again,” Pritchard said.

  “Tell me,” Franchard asked, “how old are you boys?”

  “I’m eighteen,” Pritchard said. “Paul’s twenty-one.”

  “Where’d you learn to shoot like that?”

  “Necessity,” Pritchard said, “and the war.” He removed his hat and revealed the bullet-hole scar on his forehead.

  “Have you ever considered a career with the Texas Rangers?” Franchard asked.

  * * *

  Five violent, eventful, years had come and gone since Pritchard parted ways with Ditch and Paul Clemson and cast his lot with the Texas Rangers.

  He bid his friends good-bye, refusing to take payment for his share of the ranch, and accompanied Ranger Thomas Franchard to Waco with Wade Boone in tow. As expected in cattle country, the Triple B rustler Pritchard and Paul deposited in Bristow’s jail was tried and hanged within days of their departure.

  “Ranching was never the life for me,” Pritchard told Ditch, as they shook hands before he left. “I’m better with guns than horses and cows.”

  “I know,” Ditch said, thinking of the death-shadow that hung over his friend. “Good luck to you.”

  Also, as expected, Ranger Franchard and Pritchard were ambushed en route to Waco by a party of Triple B hands, forty miles east of Bristow. Ten cowboys came charging at them on horseback while they were breaking morning camp. They whooped and hollered and fired their pistols, hoping to convince the Ranger and his young sidekick to abandon their prisoner and flee for their lives.