by John Legg
In the morning, Coffin felt a deadly calm inside, as he always did when battle was imminent. He unloaded his guns, made sure they were dry and then reloaded with fresh powder. When he was done with the Remingtons, he hesitated. Then he nodded. Rising, he got his handmade shoulder rigs from his saddlebags. He emptied and then reloaded those, too. He pulled the contraption on, and then put his long yellow slicker back on. He still felt a little foolish wearing the thing, but it was not so bad since the two smaller guns were under his slicker and not readily visible.
The fog had lessened but was still present. It was a little easier for Coffin to see as he pulled out of his camp, but there was still enough fog to hide him a little. He walked holding the reins to his horse and the rope on the mule in his left hand.
He moved more swiftly, with more assurance. Now that he knew what he had to do, and the process was in motion, he had no doubts. He was confident almost to the point of arrogance. He could hear the voices a short way before he reached the enemy camp. He stopped and tied the horse to one tree and the mule to another.
He walked off, stopping again just outside the camp. He stood there for more than an hour, watching, waiting. A fresh gust of wind finally blew out most of the fog, and for a few minutes, nothing but a lacy curtain of clinging mist blocked Coffin’s view.
He saw three large canvas wall tents, their backs at the base of a sharply sloping rocky hill, in a small semicircle. The area in front of the tents was not entirely without trees, though they were sparse and well spaced. What looked like it had been another tent was torn apart and used as a cover for a central fire. The tarp was held up by four pine trees that had been cut or had fallen. The covering was tilted toward the side away from the mountain, so that water would run off away from the tents. Coffin spotted Merkle stepping out of the center tent.
Then the fog whisked back in. It still was not nearly as thick as it had been yesterday, but it was heavy enough to once again give the landscape a look from some demon’s world.
All in all, Coffin had counted nine men in the camp. There might be more in the tents, and there might even be more out hunting, but Coffin was certain about nine.
Coffin saw no more need to hesitate. Except for the fog, he was going to get no other help. He considered waiting until dark, using the night’s blackness to hide his approach. But that was a long way off, and Coffin was tired of waiting. He pulled his two Remingtons, took a deep breath and let it out slowly, and then left his haven.
He walked swiftly, with certainty, toward the tents, his pistols held down along each leg. No one outside saw him—until he fired two shots, killing one man and wounding another.
Several other men in Merkle’s camp looked up in surprise. Cady Merkle and Grady Whitfield rushed out of the center tent. Hugh Vickers, one of Merkle’s top lieutenants, came running from behind the tents, holding up his pants with one hand and a pistol in his other. Then Merkle and his men froze, seemingly suspended in whatever action they had been making when Coffin fired his first shots.
Coffin stopped and bellowed, “I’m United States Deputy Marshal Joe Coffin! You’re all under arrest!” That would sort of make it official, he figured. He wasn’t planning on actually arresting most, if any, of them. If he arrested them, he would be expected to guard them from vigilantes. And that was something he had little heart for.
Coffin’s words broke the spell Merkle’s men had been under. Suddenly curses rang in the air as hands reached for pistols. Men appeared and disappeared, though they did not move, as the fog shifted with each gust of wind.
Coffin began walking again, steadily, though slowly. He fired smoothly with both pistols. The fog still shifted constantly, and now Merkle’s men began moving in all directions. Powder smoke added to the haze. Coffin heard and sometimes felt bullets whiz by him. He got winged once that he knew of, but it didn’t bother him.
Then silence came, swift but uncertain. As if on cue, the fog thinned enough for everyone to get a look around.
Five of Merkle’s men were down, including Kurt Ochs, Merkle’s other lieutenant. Coffin did not know how many of them were dead and how many only wounded. Merkle, Hugh Vickers, and Grady Whitfield were in front of the center tent, which Coffin figured was Merkle’s. Vickers and Whitfield were kneeling, pistols held at arm’s length. Merkle was crouched.
The three stood slowly; Whitfield and Vickers reloading their pistols hastily. Merkle just stood there, arrogantly. He was a tall, dashing figure, with long blond hair that curled up at the collar. He wore a thin mustache and small goatee and was clad in a swallowtail coat, wool pants and wool vest. He had no hat.
Coffin stopped just under the tarp protecting the fire. He felt blood trickling down his side, and he risked one quick glance just to make sure the wound was not serious. Then he looked back at Merkle and his two cronies.
“Just who the hell are you?” Merkle asked.
“Marshal Joe Coffin.”
“Where in the hell are you from?”
“Madison. Come to get you and these other assholes for the murder of Marshal Beryl Pembroke and a passel of stage robberies and other killings.”
“And you’re alone?” Merkle asked. When Coffin nodded, Merkle laughed with a warm, deep sound. “You made yourself one hell of a goddamn mistake comin’ here, Marshal,” Merkle said in a pleasant tone of voice.
“I took out most of your boys already.” He slid his two Remingtons away.
“Yeah,” Merkle said with a chuckle, “that’s true. But new men are easy to get. There’s hundreds of ’em all over this country. Your real mistake was running out of bullets.” He laughed a little harder.
Vickers and Whitfield also were laughing now, and were nearly finished reloading.
“I expected that would be a problem. That’s why I brought these.” He tore out the two smaller Colts from the shoulder rig and snapped off a shot from each.
Vickers and Whitfield fired, and then just as quickly as it had gone, the fog returned.
Coffin dropped into a crouch not a moment too soon. A bullet flew out of the clinging fog and slapped his hat off. He fired twice more and thought he heard a grunt of pain.
Suddenly the silence came again. Coffin frog-walked to his right a few yards, then stood and slipped forward. Even with the fog, he could see a few feet, and as he neared the tents he could see one body. Whitfield was dead, but Merkle and Vickers were gone. They could be running like hell, or they could be ten feet away. There was no telling in this fog.
Coffin knelt beside Whitfield’s body trying to figure out what to do next. Vickers and Merkle were gone, where he did not know, and he did not want to go stumbling around in the fog. Of the others he had shot, some might still be alive and so a threat to him. He figured that he would have to check on them first, to see who was alive and who wasn’t. Then he could worry about Merkle and Vickers, and any other of the outlaws who were still alive.
Moving cautiously, he circled around the back of the tents. He stopped at the first man he found and rolled him on his back. The man was dead. Coffin neither knew nor cared who he was.
Of the five Coffin knew he had shot first off, three were still alive—Kurt Ochs, George Davenport and Doug Koop. The latter looked to be in bad shape, so Coffin left him where he was, figuring the man would not live another quarter-hour. The former two seemed as if they’d live. One was lying where he had been and looked dazed and frightened. Coffin knelt next to him. “Where’re you hurt, boy?” he asked.
“My head,” Davenport said shakily. “I’m gut shot, too.”
Coffin looked at Davenport’s head, then ripped his shirt open. “Shit,” he muttered. “You barely got winged.” He grabbed Davenport’s shirt and hauled him up as he rose. “March,” he ordered.
Coffin finally found Ochs, who had been crawling away. When Coffin stopped and pulled him up, too, he found that Ochs’s right leg had been broken by a gunshot. “Help him, boy,” Coffin said to Davenport, shoving him toward Ochs.
As Coffin walked the two men warily toward the tents, he heard horses galloping off. He swore. He had his two captives lie facedown on the ground, limbs spread wide. He backed into the first tent, watching the two captives as best as he could. He found some rope, which is what he had been hunting for. He went out and tied the two wounded men tightly—Davenport hand and foot, Ochs only his arms because of his shattered leg. He left them lying under the tarp.
He poked into the other two tents. In Merkle’s he found a woman—young, pretty, naked and dead—on a dirty pile of blankets. “Jesus goddamn Christ,” Coffin muttered. He jerked one of the blankets out from under the body, and covered her with it.
Back outside, he scouted the rest of the area as well as he could in the fog. Finally he went and got his horse and mule. He put them with Merkle’s animals. He wasn’t sure, but he thought four, maybe five horses were gone.
He stoked up the fire. A coffeepot already sat in the flames. He checked it and found it was nearly three-quarters full. He put some of the buffalo meat he had found on sticks and dangled them over the fire.
Minutes later, he heard another horse galloping. “Damn!” he hissed. Coffin jumped up and raced to the small horse herd. He threw himself on his own horse and raced off. Through the sometimes patchy, sometimes thick fog, Coffin spotted a horse and rider. He spurred his own horse to more speed.
Doug Koop looked over his shoulder. He was hurt bad, he knew, but he wanted to—needed to—get away from the demon who appeared and disappeared with the fog.
From his position behind Koop, Coffin could see Koop riding into an area of small fumaroles, their steam wafting up to mingle with the fog a little. Still, in some ways it seemed clearer.
Suddenly Coffin jerked his horse to a halt. The animal whinnied and neighed, unhappy. Coffin could see that Koop’s horse felt the same.
Suddenly the crusty ground on which Koop had wandered gave way. Koop and the horse screamed as they fell into the boiling, sulfurous water of the fumarole.
Coffin shook his head as the screams faded fast. He turned and rode back to the tents. He checked the ropes holding his two captives, and saw that they had not been tampered with.
So fast had the episode with Koop started and ended, that the meat Coffin had put on to cook was still not done. Coffin plopped heavily down at the fire. He placed one of his Colts right next to him, within easy reach. Then he began cleaning and reloading the Remingtons.
Ochs kept up a running stream of comments and curses until Coffin could no longer bear it. He cocked a Colt and aimed it at Ochs’s nether region. He said nothing, but Ochs shut up fast.
After taking care of his weapons, Coffin ate the buffalo meat and drank coffee, knowing Ochs and Davenport were staring at him with undisguised hatred. When he finished, he stood and stretched. It seemed as if the fog was really beginning to lift now. It was still there, but now it was faint, wispy, like a lady’s handkerchief.
Coffin walked around the camp, trying to see if he could spot any sign of Merkle and Vickers. He didn’t, but he did idly pick up two pistols from dead outlaws, doing it more as a reflex action than anything else.
He went back and squatted in front of the trussed-up Ochs and Davenport. “Howdy, boys,” he said coldly. “I believe we need to talk a little.”
“Eat shit, Marshal,” Ochs said.
Coffin clobbered Ochs on the side of the head with one of the pistols he had picked up. “Tell me about Cady Merkle,” he said.
“Nothing to tell.”
Coffin hit Ochs on the other side of the head, the pistol’s front sight tearing a jagged line across Ochs’s temple.
“You might think that with me bein’ a U.S. marshal and all that I’m duty bound to drag your ass back to Madison, or maybe Virginia City, and protect your rotten ass from vigilantes and bounty hunters and all such folk that’d like to see you dead. So I’m advisin’ you now that I feel no such pressure. In fact, I’d as soon peel your hide off you inch by inch right here and now. Still, you might get in my good graces if you were to give me a little information.”
“What do you want to know?” Davenport asked. He was a young, frail-looking man, who seemed scared out of his wits.
“Shut up, boy!” Ochs growled.
“But...”
“But shit, boy. This scum ain’t gonna let us go, nor is he gonna take us back to face the law. It’s too goddamn dangerous, especially since I’ll gut him first chance I get.” He looked defiantly at Coffin. “So you don’t tell him nothin’! You hear me, boy?”
“I don’t want to die, Kurt,” the young man said. He was on the verge of tears. “I’m too young to die.”
“You weren’t too goddamn young to kill some people and terrorize others, you goat-pokin’ little snot,” Coffin said harshly.
“You see,” Ochs said, “he ain’t gonna let us live more than two minutes after we tell him what he wants to know.”
“That true?” Davenport asked, eyes pleading.
Coffin shrugged. “Could be. The thing you have to remember, though, boy, is that dyin’ fast can sometimes be a blessin’. Dyin’ slow ain’t much fun. And if you and donkey-face over there don’t talk to me of your own free will, I’ll be forced to encourage you.”
Davenport looked like he wanted to cry, urinate, or vomit, or maybe all three. “I don’t know all that much about Cady,” he whined. “I don’t. Kurt knows all about him, though. He’s one of Cady’s...”
“Shut your trap, goddammit,” Ochs snapped. He rolled and swung on his buttocks and lashed out with his good foot, hitting Davenport in the side. Davenport winced but said nothing.
“Calm down, Ochs,” Coffin said. “I know that you and Vickers are Merkle’s right-hand men. Hell, from what I heard, you two even give Merkle a hand when he needs to piss.”
Ochs spit at Coffin. He missed, but Coffin would not take even such an attempt. He clouted Ochs again with the gun. But that brought him a little too close to Ochs’s good foot. He kicked at Coffin, catching him high on the side and bowling him over.
“Damn,” Coffin snapped as he rolled once. He got to his feet, his blood boiling in anger. He picked up the pistol he had dropped and walked over to Ochs. He said nothing. But he did begin pistol whipping the outlaw. Davenport’s eyes were wide in fear as he watched the brutal assault.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Coffin suddenly stopped beating Ochs to a pulp. He had decided for no real reason that he would take the two captives back with him. Along the way he might be able to coax—or beat—information out of one of them. That would be better than trying to do it in this hellish land. He also figured that if neither Ochs nor Davenport talked during the trip, Coffin could take the two on separately once they were in the jail in Madison. Davenport was certain to spill his guts with a little encouragement.
Coffin also wanted to get back to Madison. He wasn’t sure why—beyond wanting to see Amy again. But he felt an unease, a sense that something horrible was about to happen. He assumed a large part of it was brought on by the strange land he was in. It was not a place that was conducive to a warm, homelike atmosphere where one felt protected and secure.
Coffin could see no real reason to delay his departure, so he let Ochs lay there bleeding in the dirt while he went off and saddled horses for Ochs and Davenport. Then he crudely fashioned a splint for Ochs from wood and rope.
Getting Ochs onto the horse was some chore, but Coffin finally managed it with help from Davenport. Then he tied Ochs’s feet with a rope under the horse, no longer caring about Ochs’s broken leg. Ochs sat there slumped, almost lying on the horse’s neck. Coffin tied the horse tightly to a tree in case Ochs was playing possum.
He loaded some of Merkle’s supplies on a mule, and then helped Davenport onto his horse, tying him the same way as he had Ochs. Next he grabbed some rope and looped it around the necks of all fifteen of Merkle’s animals that were left in the camp.
Finally he mounted his own horse and rode northwest. The other animals, a
ttached to one lead rope, followed. Everything took longer with two captives. At least twice a day he would have to drag them off their horses, let them eat and then help them back on. Each night he had three horses to unsaddle; each morning he had to saddle them again. Two mules had to be loaded and unloaded. Five animals needed tending to. Coffin had to do all the cooking, all the gathering of firewood.
Coffin enlisted Davenport’s help right from the start. Anywhere Ochs had to go, Davenport acted as a crutch. That helped Coffin a little.
The small wound along Coffin’s left ribs was more annoying than painful, but it limited his movements a little, which he had to take into account.
Ochs gave him little trouble, at least for the first five days, since he had been pretty well battered around. Davenport was no trouble since he was too scared. In the evenings, after supper, Coffin would try pumping Davenport for information. He got little, since Davenport still seemed more afraid of Merkle and Ochs than he did of Coffin. Still, Coffin was sure he would be able to pry information out of Davenport once they got back to Madison. It didn’t hurt for Coffin to keep rekindling Davenport’s fear. It would make him more pliable later
Nine days after leaving Merkle’s camp, Coffin and his small procession walked into Bendersville. Coffin was welcomed with all the tenderness he had been accorded the last time, and it irritated him more than it had before.
He stopped outside the tent hotel and dismounted. He hollered for the hotel keeper, whom he could see sitting inside at a makeshift table. He got no response. With a sigh of annoyance, Coffin grabbed the lantern hanging at the entrance to the tent. He lit it. “You got three seconds to get your ass out here, or I’ll burn you out.”
He counted to three, loud enough for the man inside the tent to hear him. Coffin was aware that a small crowd had gathered. When he reached three, Coffin smashed the lantern on a wood post and then threw it onto the canvas roof. With the spread of the coal oil, the tent leapt into flames.
“What the flyin’ hell’re you doin’, you dumb bastard?” the hotel man screeched. He raced outside and looked up. “Jesus goddamn Christ all-flyin’ mighty!” he screamed, bouncing up and down in useless agitation. He turned, glaring at Coffin, but then hollered, “What’re all you bastards standin’ there for? Goddammit, put this fire out.”