Bloody Trail

by Ford Fargo

  The sudden sound of a child’s scream sent a shiver down Logan’s spine. He immediately knew who it was, for he had heard the sound not long before.

  Charley Blackfeather pulled the door open and he and Logan rushed out. They saw a burning wagon belching thick black smoke skewed across halfway up the street. A dead mule lay before it.

  “What in blazes?” Logan began.

  Then a gun fired, and a bullet sent them dashing back into the office. From all over town came startled voices and cries. The noise of horses’ hooves pounding could be heard and then the noise of more gunfire. Lots of it.

  “It’s a raid!” shouted Logan, rushing into his consulting room and grabbing his bag.

  Charley stopped him as he tried to go back into the waiting room.

  “If there is shooting, there will be wounded. I’ll be needed.”

  “You won’t be needed dead, doctor. Go the back way.”

  Together they left Logan’s place via a back window, and gingerly skirted round the back of the office.

  “You there, lay down that gun!” they heard a voice cry from Second Street. “I’m Deputy Marshal Garvey and I order you—”

  There was a gunshot, then a scream.

  As they hurried round the side of the office, they saw Fred Garvey’s body lying in the dirt, blood gushing from a chest wound.

  “You mangy dog!” cried Marshal Sam Gardner, running toward the blazing wagon, firing both guns through the smoke.

  Another shot rang out and the marshal was hit. Blood spurted from his left leg, and he collapsed on his side. More bullets dug up clouds of earth around him, and he crawled sidewinder fashion, dragging his shot leg, to the cover of a horse trough.

  “You got a gun, Munro?” Charley Blackfeather asked.

  Logan opened his bag and drew out his Beaumont-Adams revolver. “I carried this through three wars. It is a fine weapon.” He hefted it in his firm surgeon’s hand. “And I can use it.”

  Charley gave the curtest of acknowledgments. “We need to get past this gunman. If you pin him down, I’ll see if I can get around in back of him.”

  Logan obliged. Intermittently, he peered round the corner of the office and discharged a shot. With each one, a returned shot gouged out part of the wall. Whoever was firing from the other side of the grisly barricade knew how to shoot.

  Suddenly, there was a dull thud and a harrowing scream that went on and on, as if someone was in mortal agony. Then, abruptly, the noise stopped.

  “Logan!” Charley Blackfeather called.

  Logan peered round the corner, and through the smoke, saw Charley Blackfeather gesturing to him. In one hand he held his metal tomahawk and in the other, his big Bowie knife. Both were dripping with blood.

  “Maybe you should take care of the marshal,” he shouted. And without another word, he turned and disappeared into the smoke.

  ****

  Masked, armed men had galloped into Wolf Creek and seemed to be everywhere on both North and Lincoln Streets. They had pinned the town down, having shot mules and set fire to wagons that blocked off both Fourth and Second Streets. Already, a pall of acrid smoke had drifted down the streets, adding to the confusion.

  As the gang rode in, they had split into smaller groups, and while some had dismounted and systematically pillaged businesses and shops, others had either remained on horseback and raced back and forth between the connecting streets or dismounted and taken up positions where they could cut off any resistance.

  The raid was carried out with military precision, the effect being much as Danby’s crew would have wished. Most of the townspeople were panicked.

  Two of the gunmen rode up the streets shooting at close range all the horses that were tied to the various hitching rails. The horses, sensing their danger, were panicking as well, with much snorting, squealing and screaming.

  “You damned murdering dogs!” cried Slim Tabner, one of the tannery workers, running down Lincoln Street with an old Dragoon revolver. He stopped as soon as he came within range of one of the mounted men, took aim and fired. He hit the outlaw in the chest, and he was thrown sideward, landing in the dust in front of Wright’s Bakery. Immediately, one of the dismounted gunmen fired back, the bullet hitting Slim in the head and splattering blood and brain matter on the ground behind him.

  At the other end of the town, Jim Danby, Wes Hammond and their men had converged on the Wolf Creek Savings and Loan. Melvin Lohorn, the owner, had been startled by all the noise and the sudden appearance of five armed men who had kicked and barged their way in and immediately shot down Hank Jones and Jeremiah Barnes, the two tellers on duty. Three of the men had then forced staff and customers onto the floor while the leader had made Melvin open the safe, himself. The other kept a watch at the door.

  Once they had loaded up their saddlebags, for good measure they knocked out Allen Cook, the accountant, and Melvin Lohorn with the butts of their weapons. Then they departed, firing a few shots into the walls above the heads of the prostrate customers.

  “Anyone who makes any move to come after us will get to lie down permanently!” Danby growled.

  ****

  At the first sound of gunshots, Bill Torrance and his friend Jed Stevens had left the livery and run to North Street. The sight of a small army galloping along North Street toward them, and the other riders heading off down Fifth Street, left them in no doubt as to what was happening. It was a raid on the town, but most likely the main aim was to hit the bank.

  “Holy smoke!” exclaimed Jed, clenching his Navy Colt. “Let’s hope Marshal Gardner and Sheriff Satterlee and their deputies are close by. I’m going to see what’s happening.”

  “They’re shooting up the whole place,” gasped Bill. “I’m going to make sure Ann and the school kids all stay off the street.”

  “You watch yourself, buddy,” Jed said. “Everybody knows you never carry a gun, but these yahoos might not care.”

  As Jed ran down one alley, Bill turned and darted down another, then dashed across North Street into the school.

  Marcus Sublette, the headmaster, was looking out the window when Bill rushed in. He had already shepherded the children to the other end of the classroom and forbidden them to allow their curiosity to get the better of them.

  “Where’s Miss Haselton?” Bill asked in surprise.

  “She—she hasn’t come in yet. She was running some errands with the Li Children first. It’s for the—”

  Full of fear for Ann, Bill dashed out and almost ran into Derrick McCain, who was running up an alley toward North Street.

  “Have you seen Ann Haselton?” Bill asked, urgently.

  “Yeah, I saw her duck into the Expositor office with those Chinese boys. She’s safe enough there.”

  The two men had never gotten on, having different allegiances during the War, but Bill put a hand on the younger man’s shoulder and heaved a sigh of relief. He was about to say something when the sound of repeated shots from the bank rang out. Then the door flew open and a handful of gunmen charged out, each carrying a heavy saddle-bag. The leader whistled, and a moment later, a mounted raider came around the corner trailing the reins of their horses. They threw their bags over their saddles, mounted and wheeled round in readiness to make their escape.

  Then, Danby spied Bill and Derrick on the other side of the street. A hard light came into his eyes. “Hey, remember this son of a bitch?” he shouted to Wes Hammond. Danby laughed mirthlessly. “This is like old-home week! Bet I kill him first!”

  And, almost simultaneously, they both raised their guns and fired.

  Instinctively, Bill and Derrick dived for cover. Bill hit the ground and rolled over to find the protection of a shed. Derrick dived over a trough.

  Both Danby and Hammond raised their guns again, moving in for the kill.

  “Shoot the bastard!” Danby cried.

  But a shot rang out from close by, and they both looked round to see its source. Bill saw Jed flatten himself against the side of a building
, his smoking Navy Colt in his hand. It was enough to distract Danby and Hammond, and since they could not see where the shot had come from, they took off and their men followed.

  “Remember to shoot any horses. Don’t want any of these Wolf Creekers following!” Danby cried.

  Bill ran over to Jed. “My God! They’re shooting the horses. Cholla!”

  “And my Rojo!”

  Together they raced along Lincoln and rounded the corner to the livery.

  The first of the raiders were racing along North Street as Bill and Jed approached the livery. Rojo, Jed’s beloved strawberry roan gelding, was tethered to the hitching rail in front just as Jed had left him, alongside a sorrel. Both horses were snorting and straining to get loose.

  One of the five drew to a halt, pulled out his gun and shot the sorrel once in the head, and Rojo twice in the chest. The sorrel dropped dead instantly, but Rojo reeled, and then collapsed. He lay there, making a fearful noise, with his legs twitching.

  “No!” cried Jed, rushing ahead. He raised his gun and fired at the raider, but missed.

  The gunman made no such mistake. He shot Jed in the chest. Then, seeing Bill coming along behind him, he let off a shot at him.

  Jed, feeling his life slipping away, ignored the gunman and staggered toward Rojo—who lay snorting and squealing, his eyes rolling and his great chest pumping blood out.

  “Rojo,” Jed sobbed. “The bastard has done for us both.” And realizing that there was nothing he could do for his mount, his friend of so many years, he dropped to his knees and patted the horse’s neck. Rojo nickered at the feel of his owner’s hand.

  “I can’t stand to see you suffer, Rojo,” he wheezed as he pressed a hand to the gushing wound on his chest. He raised the gun to Rojo’s head. “We’ll go together, buddy!”

  He fired and shuddered as his horse convulsed, then lay still. Then, with his eyes full of tears, he slumped forward over Rojo and died.

  The gunman laughed and then turned in the direction of the stable and the corral beyond, where Bill had left Cholla and all his other charges.

  Bill seized the opportunity, his heart racing and his mind full of nothing except the desire for revenge. He ran, grabbed the gun from Jed’s dead hand, and shot the departing gunman in the back.

  ****

  Ann and the Li children had taken refuge in the Expositor where the editor, David Appleford, and his printer, Piney Robbins, had done their best to keep the boys’ heads down.

  At last, when the shooting and the screaming of the dying horses seemed to be over and the gang all seemed to have ridden off, Piney stood up, grabbed the old Baby Dragoon pocket revolver that he kept in his desk drawer, and opened the door into the street. The sight that greeted him made him feel sick. The street was still full of smoke and the smell of powder was everywhere. A couple of businesses had caught fire or been deliberately set alight. Through the haze, he saw the carcasses of about a dozen horses lying where they had been slain as they stood tied to hitching rails. Two human bodies lay at the far end of the street.

  Then he heard the noise of hooves and saw two gunmen riding fast toward him. He took a step to the edge of the boardwalk and aimed his weapon.

  The leading raider saw him and fired, his bullet going wide. Piney barely aimed, but luck was with him. The bullet caught the raider in the face and he tumbled backward overt his horse to land face up in an expanding pool of his own blood.

  At that very moment, Li Chang’s mice escaped from his pockets and made a concerted bid for freedom through the open door. Despite the combined cries of David Appleford and Chang’s brothers, Chang chased after them, his mind numbed by the horror of all he had heard. All he wanted was to protect his precious mice. He dashed through the door into the street then stopped when he saw the bloody body of a horse lying right in front of him.

  He did not see the frightened, riderless horse that had reared up as it lost its rider and then started into a gallop. It ran straight into Chang, its full weight trampling him into the ground, shattering his rib cage and instantly breaking his neck.

  Ann Haselton had instinctively run out after him, then stopped and stared in horror at seeing him trampled to death. She ran to him as soon as she was able, not seeing the panicking final gunman who had started shooting at anything that moved. He shot her in the back. The bullet went straight through her heart and she fell over the dead, broken body of her charge, Li Chang.

  ****

  Spike and Emory had both been working hammer and tong, without a word between them—which was normal—when they’d heard the sound of gunfire. Each glanced at the other, then Spike grabbed the Austrian .50 caliber he kept loaded and leaning on the ladder to the loft, and headed for the wagon doors which stood open. In seconds, he spun on his heel and yelled to his partner as he passed. “Town’s under attack—least there’s a hell of a gunfight going on. Grab the Spencer—I’ll take the side from above, you take the front.”

  The north side of the blacksmith’s shop looked out toward Torrance’s Livery, the front toward the school. The shop was on the edge of town, not in its center, where the shots came from. It was Spike’s thought that raiders, if indeed this was a raid, would be looking for anything of value, and Torrance kept some fine stock at his place. Spike, however, was more worried about his own steel gray.

  He couldn’t imagine them bothering the school. He was better armed than Em, and knew himself to be a better shot; after all, he’d been four years getting shot at by some of Mr. Lincoln’s finest, and other than a scar across his cheekbone—and that from a blade—and a limp from a cannon blast, he was not much the worse for the wear.

  Even though a lot more lead could be thrown from the Spencer, the long rifled Austrian was a much more accurate weapon at a distance, and he would lay down only fifty yards from the livery. He could put one through a button on a man’s vest at that range. He’d once dropped a Yank sniper out of a hickory tree with the long Austrian, and then paced off the four hundred-and-thirty-yard shot.

  As he’d suspected, and just as he got prone in the loft, two riders he didn’t recognize approached the livery. To his surprise, one of them drew and head-shot a horse tied at a rail across the road from the corrals—the animal collapsed like he’d dropped a hogshead barrel.

  Spike had no idea who the men were, but it didn’t take more than that one gunshot to figure them up to no good—the question was, did they deserve killing? He snapped the gun to his shoulder, took a deep breath, squeezed, and shot the mount out from under the lead rider—who hit the ground on the run, caught the arm of the second, and swung up behind him. As Spike bit the end off another paper load, they disappeared behind the houses at a dead gallop.

  His own horse, Hammer, a steel gray dappled gelding—cut proud enough that he still wanted to jump the fence when there was a mare on the wind—was in that livery, and he and Ham had been though a lot together. He wasn’t going to see him shot down by some lowlife. Reloading, he waited for another butt-wipe to ride on the livery, but none came.

  Spike did have money in the bank, and that concerned him, for raiders would surely make it their first target. But from many battles under many different conditions, he knew one thing for sure. It was better to evaluate your position, and the odds, before you set off half-cocked—to coin a particularly appropriate phrase. That is, if you wanted to stay alive.

  More shots rang out from different areas of town. Either there were plenty of raiders or some damn townsfolk-fools were shooting at each other. He and Em held their ground until the shooting quieted down. Then he dismounted the ladder, bade Em to take up his position in the loft, and retrieved his shirt. He buttoned up—he normally worked bare-chested in the shop’s heat—and strode out for the bank, only a block down Lincoln Street. Moving from cover to cover, keeping close to the walls of the buildings he passed, he kept a sharp eye for strangers or anyone armed.

  As he neared the town’s most substantial masonry building, he realized the situation was
damn bad. Not only were some men shot up, but a fine young lady, the schoolmarm, Miss Ann Haselton, and a child, one of the Li children—the youngest, Spike thought—lay dead.

  His throat went dry, and heat coursed his backbone.

  Spike had seen enough death to last him several lifetimes and had thought he was immune to it, but the woman and the child got to him. He stopped and stared at the weeping women who bent over the prostrate bodies, and old snakes started wiggling in his belly. He hated the thought of it, but innocent blood had been spilled—and that meant that blood had to be taken.

  ****

  Bill stood, numbed, alongside the bodies of his friend, Jed, and Jed’s horse. The Danby gang had raced west along North Street and out of Wolf Creek, leaving death and destruction in its wake. Powdersmoke, mingled with the smoke from burning wagons and three blazing buildings, formed a haze which burned Bill’s eyes, already filled with tears over Jed’s loss. Those tears mercifully blurred his vision as he looked over the carnage on North Street. He could see the bodies of at least three people, plus those of nine or ten horses. Somewhere down the street a dog howled mournfully, undoubtedly at the loss of its master. The cries of the terrified, wounded, and dying sounded as if Satan and his legions were invading Wolf Creek. Of course Jim Danby, Wes Hammond, and Satan were one and the same to Bill.

  “Cholla!”

  Bill tucked Jed’s pistol into the waistband of his pants, then headed inside the stable, the dead outlaw’s horse following, eager to get away from the smoke and blood. Bill’s vow to never again use a gun had been shattered when he saw Jed murdered, and Rojo, along with who knew how many other helpless horses, gunned down where they stood. He had acted strictly on instinct when he grabbed the gun from Jed’s dying hand and shot his killer. The man had turned away from Jed and toward Bill’s stable, clearly intent on killing the horses inside, then burning down the barn. There was no way Bill could let that happen. A quick bullet in the back was the only solution.

  The few horses remaining in the stalls were still nervous, pacing, snorting and nickering, eyes rolling and nostrils flaring at the scent of smoke.