Sipping Whiskey in a Shallow Grave

by Mark Mitten

  “Then why’d you say it, like I’d know?” Edwin said.

  Casey cleared his throat. The boy heard it and looked over. Casey had a sour look on his face.

  “Most folks know me as Charley Crouse,” Ned announced and tipped his hat.

  Edwin did not know a Ned Tunstall or who Charley Crouse was. However, seeing Casey’s scowl made him wonder if he should — since Casey never scowled at anyone. Edwin hesitated.

  “Charley Crouse cut the guts out of the Speckled Nigger,” Bill explained. “Speckled Nigger ran the ferry on the Green River up on the far end of Brown’s Park. Heard of Brown’s Park, turnip?”

  “I was drunk,” Ned said in his defense.

  Chapter 36

  LG was stuck under the tree. Specter refused to take another step. It turned out he did not like enclosed places, nor did he like the sound of pine cones crunching under his feet. The horse stood stock still, no matter how many times LG jabbed his spurs in the gelding’s side. This was especially embarrassing since LG prided himself on being a top hand. He hoped Casey and the boys had not noticed his predicament.

  Bill’s voice carried. LG heard everything as plain as day. Things were going south back there and here he was, stuck under a tree. He edged out his .44 caliber Colt Army pistol and looked at it. It was an old gun — the cap and ball style. He hoped it would fire properly. Or fire at all for that matter. With Edwin mouthing off like that, it sounded like he was going to need it. The .44 was his father’s gun. He had been a lieutenant in the Confederate army. But, his father was dead now, and LG carried it mainly as a family heirloom. Since the Indians were beaten — Geronimo had surrendered just last year — the only thing LG needed a handgun for these days was for show.

  “What’s goin’ on, Casey?”

  That was Steve’s voice. LG twisted around, trying to see through the pine needles. He could barely make out Steve — both he and Rufe were trying to get around the bluff but the cattle were in the way. The cows were bunched up so tight, a horse could not even get through.

  From up on top of the stagecoach, LG heard someone shuffle around. Rising up in his stirrups, LG pushed his head slowly through the branches. Sure enough, there was someone on top of the coach. The man had a Winchester and was clearly trying to sneak into a good shooting position without being noticed.

  Well, this is it, LG thought. Hope this fool horse don’t buck, bolt or slip. He knew the .44 was loud as a cannon and didn’t know how Specter would take to it. Probably not well.

  Chapter 37

  Steve could not believe his eyes. The herd was backed up like water in a dam — and cows were still coming, one after the next. Well, Steve thought, this was a pickle. At least half the herd was still strung out in the gulch, and Lee and Davis had no idea the road was blocked.

  The McGonkin brothers had gotten tired of riding drag. Earlier in the morning, they swapped positions with Lee and Davis. Of course, trailing cattle through springtime mountain grass was not nearly as dusty as taking them across the dry prairies below the Front Range. Steve had done that more than once in his time, and being downwind of two thousand cattle was not his favorite chore. He mainly wanted to trade out of the drags before they got down there. Once they made it onto the plains, whoever was on drag would be breathing dirt and stink all the way to the railyards. Despite setting the herd into a stampede, and he felt bad about that, Steve had no intention of riding drag if he could help it.

  Then he noticed there was someone on top of the stagecoach. The man had a rifle and was bringing it up at that very moment. Steve could not tell exactly who he had it trained on, Casey, Edwin or Ira — it was hard to tell. Reaching down to his rifle scabbard as fast as he could, Steve pulled out his own Winchester. He sat up straight and chambered a round.

  “Dry-gulch!” he yelled, and fired.

  The shot hit the top part of the coach and scattered wood chips everywhere. Too low, Steve thought to himself. He watched Bill, Ned and the two Mexicans duck when they felt wood chips sprinkle down on their hats. Steve knew his rifle sights were off. He wished he had taken the time to properly sight the gun when he had the luxury. Now he knew he had to aim high. Steve locked in another round.

  On the rooftop, Lem got on one knee so he could aim better. He liked to take a good moment and aim so as not to waste a shot. He was pretty frugal with his shots. He even took a deep breath and exhaled purposefully before he fired. He knew he got Steve because the man flopped in the saddle and his rifle fell on the ground. There it is, Lem said to himself, and smiled. Take a good moment, no matter what is going on. Breathe in and ease it out. Otherwise you might waste a round. And why waste a shot when all it takes is a moment to clear your mind?

  Chapter 38

  Bill flinched at both shots, but was pleased when he saw blood spray up from Steve McGonkin’s shoulder. Lem was an accurate long-range shot and Bill was glad he brought him along. Lem had been up in Leadville working for Big Ed Burns until December, which was when Bill rode through.

  One night, they got to talking. Even though Lem was part of Big Ed’s gang, he did not enjoy being penned up in the city with the rest of them. Lem was a marksman, he told Bill. He needed open, quiet spaces.

  Leadville was neither open nor quiet. It was busy, full of smoke from the big smelters, and overrun with chattery starry-eyed miners. Sitting around a dank bordello in Leadville was what Big Ed cared to do, not Lem — so Bill mentioned if he’d like to come along. Lem did want to come along, much obliged he said. Bill was pleased. He liked to have at least one man on his crew that knew how to shoot a rifle spot on.

  Rufe grabbed his brother’s horse by the reins and dragged him back around the rocky bluff, out of sight. Bill sighed softly. Trying not to kill people seemed like a good thought back in Grand Lake, when the chips were down. But the circumstances had changed. So Bill pulled out his .45, took two big steps toward Edwin and shot him out of the saddle.

  Edwin rolled backwards onto his bay’s hindquarters. He slipped off and fell on top of the cows, his arms flinging around. The cows bawled loudly at the sound of all the gunshots — and their eyes got even wider when Edwin landed on top of them. He slid off and disappeared without making a sound.

  Bill decided to just work on down the line. He pointed at Ira next and fired.

  Like a winter wind, Ira’s hat blew off in an upward draft. An upper chunk of his skull came off with it. Ira was a tall man. He swayed funny, then slowly buckled forward over his saddle horn.

  Casey was shocked. He tore open his coat roll, got a hold of his .45 and took a shot at Bill. He missed and hit the stagecoach instead. Ned flinched, since it had come close to hitting his head. On impulse, Ned drew and fired back at Casey.

  The cattle erupted. None of them liked the sound of the shots and they tried to get away from the gunfire. But the only way to go was back up the road. The embankment was too steep on the upslope, and on the other side was the ravine.

  Chapter 39

  Pressing his .44 caliber through the pine needles, LG held his arm out straight so he would not miss. He was close enough to begin with and the coach was not all that wide, but LG wanted to make sure. He stretched and pressed the barrel against Lem’s kidney and pulled the trigger. Lem was too busy leveling his rifle to realize LG was right there. The man’s torso shook with the impact, and he flew right off the coach top.

  Specter immediately lunged forward. Between the narrow tree tunnel, the pine cones crunching underfoot and the gun going off in his ears, Specter had had enough. Somehow LG managed to stay on his horse. He almost got raked off by the thick pine branches, but hung onto the saddle horn.

  “Whoa!” LG shouted.

  Specter bolted down the stage road, past the coach and the mules hitched to the singletree.

  LG knew he would have a bear of a time getting that horse to walk under another tree ever again. He made a grab for the reins. Specter slowed to a prancy walk, and LG glanced back up the road as he got the horse under control.
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  The mules were standing in their traces, watching. Bitty had her ears up. One was pointed at Specter, and the other was pointed back toward all the gunshots. But Bitty was a good mule. She had been used to guns going off. That was part of her training — after all, Ian Mitchell always carried a scattergun on the driving seat.

  The other mules were just as calm. Even Buckshay stood quietly, though he pinned his ears at Bitty out of habit. The coach had been sitting in one place for too long, in Buckshay’s opinion.

  Chapter 40

  There was really nowhere to go, but Casey popped his reins and kicked like crazy. Ira had been sitting right next to him, and Casey knew he was going to get shot next if he didn’t move immediately. He ran his bay straight over Bill, knocking him flat on the ground. Poqito, Caverango and Ned scattered out of his way.

  Casey turned and headed back towards the herd, hoping to find a gap now that the cows were moving. But there were not any gaps. The cattle were still pressed together, wiggling to get past each other and escape up the road. However, in their frenzy, they were locked up tight.

  Casey heard Bill yell:

  “Gone up the flume!”

  A tuft of fabric popped up from Casey’s shoulder and blood flecked his face. He didn’t even feel it. Casey leaned over the saddle as low as he could. His horse Boot Sock whinnied, and both Dark Bay and Berry Picker whinnied back. The horses were trying to find a way out, too. Since they had nowhere to go either, Poqito and Caverango ran up and grabbed their reins.

  Casey whirled around, taking it all in. No place to go. He edged his horse near the side of the road and looked down into the ravine. The slope was far too steep to get down — at least on a horse.

  Everything felt so slow to Casey — his horse’s black mane, waving; the rasp of his own breathing; the jostling cattle and the swaying treetops. Like water in a well, Casey heard the hollow clop of hooves and hide shushing against hide.

  Come on, Casey thought, come on!

  His horse was stalled between the herd and the ravine.

  Gritting his teeth, Casey slid off. He could feel Bill pointing a gun at his back, radiating like heat off a stove. He did not need to see it to know it.

  Bark spattered apart, just past his head. Bill had missed and hit one of the tree trunks instead. There was still time, then. If he could just slide down the slope and get to the river, Casey knew he would be okay.

  Looking down, he saw the sunlight flickering on the cold water.

  Chapter 41

  Jim Everitt and Ian Mitchell were dead. Their bodies were sprawled on the embankment, right by the mules, staring up at the sky. Several large mailbags lay on the ground, too, dumped out and scattered.

  Lem landed in a heap on top one of the mailbags. A fleshy twist of intestine oozed out of the big hole in his side. LG’s heirloom .44 had in fact functioned properly after all.

  LG trotted over to the stagecoach and looked at the bodies and the envelopes.

  He heard another gunshot.

  Blue powder smoke boiled up over the stage.

  LG checked his loads. He had five left, but he didn’t have another cylinder if he ran out. His shot was buried somewhere in his saddle bags — but there was no time to sit around re-packing, even if he could get to it. LG was still surprised the gun had worked at all.

  Granger jumped out of the coach and stared down at Lem’s body. Granger had several envelopes in his hands and looked confused. It had been a quiet afternoon up till then. Bill and Vincent had shot the drivers and they were all having a pleasant time going through the mail. It was like Christmas. They found a lot of gold dust and paper money. Ned even found a wad of cash on Ian Mitchell, and Bill took a fancy pocketwatch off of Jim Everitt. Now Christmas was spoiled and Lem had just fallen from the sky, deader than a fence post.

  When he saw LG, Granger dropped the envelopes and made a grab for his own gun. In that moment, LG realized he didn’t trust the .44 or the jittery horse he was sitting on. With a jerk he pulled Specter around and dug his spurs in. The gelding capered a bit, and then bolted down Lefthand Canyon.

  Chapter 42

  The ruts were bad. Julianna drove the buckboard along slowly. It was too rough to go any faster.

  “New springs next trip,” Julianna said tartly and gritted her teeth. The buckboard’s springs did not seem to have any bounce or give. Coming down the road behind her, she caught the sound of hoofbeats and looked around to see who was coming.

  It was Deputy Griff Allen, and he was leading the posse at a trot. All of them were on horseback except Roy Caldwell, who drove his own buckboard. As they got closer, Griff slowed and waved at everyone to slow down, too. The road was narrow, and they had to squeeze past Julianna to get by.

  Griff saw the buckboard was being driven by a young lady, and even though they were on the hunt it was only right to be courteous — it was a narrow road, and perhaps she had a spooky horse. Griff saw no sense in startling the lady’s appaloosa.

  Roy was glad they were all slowing down. Like Julianna’s, his buckboard had unforgiving springs and he was sore. A wagon had been voted a necessity for this manhunt. Since he owned a buckboard for his apothecary, which he regularly used for supply runs to Idaho Springs, Roy volunteered. But traveling at this pace, day after day, was rough…and he was starting to wonder if he could get someone else to drive it for an afternoon. Now that they were slowing to a walk, Roy decided he would ask around. Griff had kept a pretty unrelenting pace, and once they got going again there may not be another chance to talk to anyone until well after dark.

  “Pardon us, miss,” Griff said politely, as he eased by.

  The posse filed into a line to get past. Julianna stopped her wagon while they passed. She noticed Griff Allen and Ben Leavick, the first two, looked pretty bad. Griff’s face was bruised and his nose swollen. Both of Ben’s eyes were black and drooped.

  Julianna had driven this road so many times over the past few years that she never thought too much about her safety. None of these men gave her a bad feeling which was a relief. Except the last rider, just before Roy Caldwell’s wagon went by — it was Red Creek Mincy. Julianna watched him uncertainly. Though he never looked directly at her, she felt her skin prickle. The man had dead fish eyes. Vacant, cold and empty.

  It was a narrow fit for Roy’s wagon, but he knew he could squeeze past Julianna’s buckboard without scraping wheels if he got his own wheels up on the embankment a little.

  “I’ll get it by, ma’am. Don’t you worry none.”

  Roy spent a good deal of his youth as a freighter — prior to the success he had had with the apothecary. Only once a month did he have to make the long trip down to the train depot in Idaho Springs. He preferred to stay inside where the woodstove was. The whole store stayed nice and warm all winter long, and Roy found that winters near the Great Divide were getting to be hard on him. But Sheriff Greer had been shot dead right up the street from his store.

  When Griff announced he was setting off after the killers, all of the town leaders stepped up. Merle Hastings was a big ranch don — the man hadn’t even hesitated when Griff asked, and even volunteered his cowboys and bought them all new Winchesters.

  Roy had known Emerson Greer, of course — mainly as a customer, but the man had been their sheriff for quite some time and to get gutshot on a Sunday morning in his own office was a big blow to the community. So Roy offered up his buckboard. And now here he was, driving it down some narrow canyon, angling the wheels up a steep embankment.

  Julianna held her breath while he inched past. Roy’s old mule liked to start and stop in jerky movements, and it made her nervous to watch — especially since the ravine was on her side.

  “This is old Clyde,” Roy mentioned to her. “He’s blind in one eye, but don’t you worry none. As sure-footed as they come.”

  “I see,” she said. But the information wasn’t exactly reassuring.

  Coming off the embankment, blind-eye Clyde successfully made it past her, and
pulled the wagon back onto the road. By this time, Griff was back to a trot and the posse was almost out of sight. Roy would have to catch up if he didn’t want to lose them. He sighed. There had been no opportunity to ask anyone about trading places. If this road was as badly rutted the entire way down the canyon, the next town they came across he would certainly invest in some springs that actually sprung.

  Julianna watched Roy until he disappeared around the next turn. She released the brake and clicked her tongue. The appaloosa stepped forward in the traces, and they began moving again at a casual pace.

  “Haw-over,” she commanded. She wanted to get in the middle of the road. Parking next to the ravine had been a little nerve-wracking. She hoped no one else was coming up or down Lefthand Canyon for the rest of the day. She just wanted to go home. Although there was probably a pile of squirrels waiting to be skinned, once she got there.

  Chapter 43

  They passed the first few strays on the road. Griff thought that was odd. He had not seen any cowpunchers, and the cattle were obviously loose. As the posse rounded the next bend, black Polangus literally covered the road, and they had to ease past at a slow walk just to get through.

  “Lost herd?” Ben asked Griff.

  They passed the outlet to Spring Gulch. Looking up the draw, Griff saw a lot more Polangus and some Durham in the trees, rooting around in the low grass. But there were no riders. Griff wondered whose cows these were. Riding up close to one, he read the brand. It was fresh burnt on the all the yearlings: B + C.

  “Heard of the B-Cross-C?”

  “No,” replied Merle.

  Griff figured Merle would know better than any of them. He was familiar with all the local cattle outfits, both big and small. But Colorado was a big state.