by Paul Bagdon
I figured the best way to come in would be in a mass—there was no sense botherin’ with half the boys from one side an’ half from the other. This was gonna be like Pickett’s charge in that town in Pennsylvania—Gettysburg—an’ battle plans would be useless. It’d be a matter of killing or being killed.
I tried to re-befriend my stallion for a good part of the rest of the day, but he wasn’t having any part of it. I couldn’t approach him without him rearing and baring his teeth, no matter what kinda treat I brought or how I sweet-talked him. I shouldn’t have tried to ride him. He was as wild as a hawk an’ everything had been going good. It’d take some time to gain back the ground I’d lost, and it was a sure thing I’d never again drop a saddle over the ornery sumbitch.
Some of the crew slept. Others played poker and finished off Arm’s and my booze supply. There was some gunfire, but not a real lot of it. These men knew their weapons better’n they knew their horses or anything or anyone else in their lives. A few checked out their rifles. A long ride in a saddle scabbard could tick a sight off a hair. All of us knew, though, that we wouldn’t be shooting from any distance, so a tiny vacillation didn’t mean anything.
Teresa an’ Blanca fed us their usual wondrous meal and an extra big pot of their coffee. Lots of coffee—particularly range and cattle-drive coffee—is weak an’ hardly worth drinking. ’Hands dump it down, because that’s all there is. But the coffee at the Busted Thumb Horse Ranch brought smiles to the faces of all the men. It was strong enough to melt a horseshoe, had none of that goddamn chicory in it, and always had a taste of the Mex coffee that had the power of a cannon, but was never bitter.
We saddled up as the sun was on the verge of the horizon. The moon was about half and threw some light because there were few clouds. The horses hadn’t been ridden in a group and there was some squealing and biting, but nothing serious.
We rode out, Arm an’ me side by side, in front, headed for Hulberton. We rode at a lope, not pushing our animals, and not afraid of the noise the herd of us were making. Dansworth knew we’d be coming sometime. He had a few lookouts posted outside of town. Somebody shot one off his horse, and the other two or three hauled ass to town. Mad Dog picked off one of them.
There were a pair of big freighter wagons loaded with barrels of beer maybe a hundred feet apart in front of the saloon. As soon as the surviving outlooks pulled in, the freighters moved ahead, face-to-face, making decent cover. Rifle fire at us started as soon as the freighters were moved, men shooting from between the barrels.
It became immediately obvious I’d wired the right lunatics. They answered the rifle fire muzzle flashes with their own 30.30s—from horseback, mind you—and picked off maybe six or seven of the men who thought they had cover.
A flood of men and gunfire poured out of the saloon—and most of them dropped as soon as they appeared. Mad Dog swung in close on that thoroughbred of his, picking his shots with his .45. He was doing a lot of damage when he ran his horse into shotgun range and went down. It was messy—he and his animal must have gotten both barrels of a twelve gauge. Mad Dog got a good part of his face blown off and was dead immediately. His horse was trying to suck air through a throat that was gushing blood and he, too, died in a few moments.
I swung my horseback hard—almost running into one of my own men—because I saw the shotgun man reloading. I put two rounds in his midbody and one in his head.
I heard glass shattering over the gunfire and saw Dirty Eddie’s horse ground-tied in front of the general store. I wasn’t sure what he was doing, but I had to swing back or make an easy target.
Arm was riding in too close, but he was low on his horse, and he was dropping Dansworth’s men very handily. I saw him plug a rifleman and figured Arm knew what he was doing.
More and more men started shooting from behind the freighters and from the saloon. One of our men went down—and then another.
“Head home!” I bellowed. “Head home now!”
Heavy gunfire followed us as we galloped out of Hulberton, but it was little more than noise. None of the remaining crew was hit. Dirty Eddie had a pair of large canvas sacks riding in front of him, and he was sucking on a bottle of booze. I slowed a tad.
“What the hell, Eddie?”
“Whiskey an’ tobacco.” He grinned.
Arm an’ me led the crew back toward our ranch. I turned in my saddle a couple of times to check our losses, but clouds had moved in and it was hard to see—particularly since the guys were strung out in a ragged line with some yards between them, rather than riding in a cluster. We didn’t ride hard, but we kept moving at a fast lope.
None of Dansworth’s army was chasing us, which told me they were as disorganized and stupid as I thought they were. We were way the hell outnumbered, and even losers like Dansworth’s men could have done us some damage.
I was starting to feel pretty good about our sneak attack—our raid—and I looked back over my shoulder to see where Dirty Eddie was with his supply of booze. A sip or so woulda gone down nice. The clouds shifted a hair and I caught a glint of moonlight on a bottle Eddie was sucking on. I raised my arm to bring him up to me an’ Arm.
That’s when things went straight to hell.
For a tiny bit of a second it looked to me like one of our men dove from his horse. Then I heard the deep thud of a Sharps. Immediately following that there was a searing burst of pure white light—like lightning on a dark night. The blast was a totally, impossibly loud roar. Those of us who’d been in the war had learned to hate and fear that weapon—a goddamn small artillery cannon firing canister shot.
I’d heard somewheres that the Union developed canister, but I know the rebs used it, too. The load looked like a large tin can—like a two-quart peach can. It was filled with minié balls and pieces of metal—U-shaped with each edge surface razor sharp—and black powder. When minié balls and metal were short, the cans were loaded with horseshoe nails, pebbles, and whatever bits of steel or other metal could be found. A well-placed canister round could take down— tear apart—twenty men or more, depending on how they were positioned.
Canister was what made it possible to walk across the several acres of Seminary Ridge— Pickett’s charge—stepping only on dead rebs. The little stream to the east of the stone wall held by the Union ran with blood—it didn’t appear to be water at all, just blood.
There weren’t any options except to take out the artillery and hope they didn’t have another. Our boys were shooting at muzzle flashes of rifles and were taking down men, but that cannon…
I figured this was my show—mine and Arm’s— and it was up to me to do something. I slid my Sharps out of its scabbard and swung to the left of the cannon. Then, I buried my heels in my horse’s sides and raced at the artillery piece, reins in my teeth, Sharps to my shoulder, ready to fire. Since I was off to the side of the main battle I wasn’t noticed right away.
In the meager light of the torch man at the cannon I saw what I was looking for—a small wooden barrel. Firing from a galloping horse in full darkness isn’t what one might call easy—or even sane. But, like I said, I had no options.
Dansworth’s men didn’t notice me coming on until I was seventy-five or so yards out. Hell, that’s spittin’ distance for my rifle, but distance wasn’t the problem, accuracy was. I aimed as well as I could and squeezed off my shot. It seemed like I’d barely touched the trigger when there was a detonation that would make the July sun look like a firefly. Everything lit up for maybe twenty yards around where the little barrel had stood. I could clearly see dead men—and pieces of dead men— and the sky was raining all kinds of crap. An arm dropped directly in front of us, scaring my horse (an’ me) as I swung hard back the way I’d come. A small wheel slammed into the ground to my side and a spatter of tortured chunks and lengths of steel were striking the ground all over the place.
So much for the cannon. I just hoped that they didn’t have another.
I got back to my boys and we headed home wit
hout resistance. That explosion was something, all right—I couldn’t hear and I don’t think the others could, either. Arm touched my shoulder and said something, but all I saw was his mouth moving.
My men had no particular allegiance to one another. They were here for the money primarily, and secondarily because Arm an’ me had helped them in some major fashion. Nobody said much, either, because they couldn’t hear yet, or because they knew four of their comrades, friends or not, had been killed.
I got out bottles of liniment and we all rubbed down our horses’ legs—we’d given them some hard run. Then we used sacks to sweep the sweat off their chests and rear quarters. We gave water slowly—the animals were hot an’ tired and sucking too much cold water would go right to their hooves and initiate founder—a swelling inside the hoof that disabled a horse, permanently, very frequently.
A couple of the guys had relatively superficial wounds, lacerations we could use horse liniment on an’ then wrap. Arm’s horse had a gouge across his rump from a bullet, but it wasn’t deep. A couple of other of the animals had been hit as well, but there was nothing too serious.
Dirty Eddie passed out whiskey, tobacco, and papers as we worked on our horses. He’d grabbed nine quarts and only two had broken, because he stuffed sacks of Bull Durham between the bottles.
When we’d turned our horses into stalls, we sat on bales of hay and got to drinkin’. “That cannon,” Eddie said, “coulda beat us easily ’nuff, ’cept for Jake blowin’ their keg.”
“They could have another one—or more,” someone offered.
“It’s a right sure bet them men aren’t goin’ to sit tight. They’re gonna attack us here, just like we did at their saloon.”
“They loss many men,” Arm said.
“Yeah,” I said, “but they got plenty more. I don’t see no way we can get more troops in here in time to save our asses.”
Dirty Eddie lowered his bottle. “I do,” he said. “I know this ol’ battle scavenger who’s got a ton of weapons he picked up after battles.”
“We use to shoot them sonsabitches,” one of the men said. “They took wallets an’ pitchers an’ them Catholic beads…”
“Rosaries,” I said.
“Yeah. Them. An’ belts an’ boots an’ medals an’ surgeon’s tools from medics who got shot down.”
“That ain’t the point,” Eddie said. “He might have a cannon or two or other stuff we could use.”
“Where’s he live?” I asked.
“Not more’n a couple days from here, if I recollect right. Some of it’s hard ridin’ but we’d make it.”
“An’ carry the cannon on horseback? Makes no sense. We need to take our women’s wagon.”
There was a silence that lasted for a long time while men drank whiskey and thought about the possible cache of weapons.
“How do we know this scavenger’s got anything we want?”
Dirty Eddie grinned. “We don’t. Seems to me it’s worth a try, though. He could even have dynamite. If he don’t have nothin’, we can kill him anyway. Jake? Wadda you thinkin’?”
“I dunno. We’d need to have men away from the ranch for a couple days, an’ we lost four men tonight. That’ll leave but five to stay here an’ fight if Dansworth attacks. The odds ain’t good.”
“The odds in Hulberton, they were no good, either. An’ we kill what? Maybe seven or eight to each of their men for every one of ours—maybe more. We can no theenk of odds, Jake.”
I thought that over. Arm was right. “Okay,” I said, “me an’ Eddie will go out at first light tomorrow with the wagon an’ well make the ride without stopping. We should be back in a day an’ a half. Arm, you gotta run the show here.”
“Sí. No problema.”
The men looked around at one another. “Seems like we ain’t got no choice,” one said. “Gimme that bottle.”
The one thing we didn’t need at all was rain, an’ ’course that’s what we got. It started pourin’ down like the sky busted open a bit after midnight. By false dawn, it’d tapered off to a constant, soaking drizzle that turned the ground to mud.
“Roads are gonna be a damn mess,” I said to Eddie as we harnessed the horse in front of the cart.
“Don’t matter. We ain’t gonna be on roads anyhow.”
We pulled out long before full light, wrapped in our dusters with our canvas ponchos over them, with a bottle of whiskey an’ some food Teresa an’ Blanca had put up for us.
We’d tightened the horses’ shoes and they didn’t seem to be having too much trouble hauling the wagon, although the mud sucked at their hooves and the wagon wheels, making the trip tougher on them. Eddie began tapping at the bottle ’fore we were outta sight of the barn. I saw no reason not to join him.
It wasn’t that the temperature was real low; that wasn’t the problem. What bothered us was the constant spatter of the rain and the goddamn wetness of everything.
“Tell me about this fella we’re goin’ to see,” I said.
“Sumbith was a profiteer, sellin’ ammo an’ whatever else to both sides. ’Course when he sold out his stock, he had a empty wagon or two an’ that’s what he an’ his men would fill with whatever they could find at battle sites—rifles, clothes, black powder, swords, small artillery pieces, all that kinda thing. Also, they damned near stripped the dead: boots, Bibles, letters, whatever-the-hell. Then they’d haul ass back to his place an’ stash their loot in his barn. Sonsabitches cleaned up at Second Bull Run an’ at Gettysburg, an’ lots of smaller skirmishes, too. They done their stealin’ at night. Either the rebs or the Yanks managed to kill a half dozen or so of them, but the main man—name of Hargis—always managed to get clear.” He was silent for a moment. “Dirty business, robbin’ the dead like that. It ain’t right.”
“Yeah,” I agreed.
“I gotta tell you this,” Dirty Eddie said, “I’m gonna kill him. I been meanin’ to for some time. Should we find him, I’ll shoot him.”
“Fine with me,” I said.
The horses struggled some on slopes that wouldn’t have slowed them, ’cept for the mud. We rested an’ watered them often. There sure was no shortage of water—their were foot-deep puddles in every little depression.
The rain finally let up about dusk. The sky cleared. “I know the stars fairly good,” Eddie said. “I went to sea once when I was a kid runnin’ from a murder charge. No reason we can’t keep right on goin’.”
I nodded. I planned on that anyway.
We’d gone through our whiskey by the time the rain stopped. A little breeze came up, puttin’ a wet chill on everythin’.
“I wouldn’t say no to another taste of whiskey,” I said.
Eddie grinned and pulled a fresh bottle out from under the seat, where he’d packed it up in straw. “I believe I’ll join you,” he said.
We rode along for a couple of hours, Eddie every so often craning his neck and looking up at the sky, a couple of times drawing an arc in the air with his finger. I noticed he was clean shaven—even under his chin an’ neck where it’s hard to get the whiskers, and that his poncho was cleaner than mine. His hat—a Stetson, of course— was snugged down low over his eyebrows and the hat, too, was in far finer condition than mine.
“Care to answer a question, Eddie?” I asked.
“I’m innocent. I didn’t do it. I wasn’t nowhere near the place.” His teeth were white in the moonlight as he smiled.
“No, no—it’s not that type of question.”
“Well, have at it, Jake,” he said.
“See, ever since I’ve knowed you, I’ve called you Dirty Eddie, and so have all the other men like us. Thing is, there’s nothing dirty about you. You shave, you lop off your hair when it needs it, you wear decent clothes an’ good boots—so what the hell?”
Eddie laughed. “I thought everybody knew that story.” He rolled a smoke and lit it. “I wasn’t but a young sprout—maybe sixteen, seventeen —an’ I’d taken a shine to the sister of three brothers who were real tou
gh boys. They warned me off but, ’course, I didn’t pay no attention. One night I climbed up a trellis to the gal’s room an’ I was havin’ my way with her, when don’t one of her brothers bust in, all ready to wring my neck like a Sunday chicken. I went out the window without my pants or boots or gun belt, busted the trellis climbin’ down, an’ looked for a place to hide. All these folks had was a few hundred acres of wheat, an’ it wasn’t more’n a few inches high at that time a year. By then, I could hear all three of them brothers clamberin’ down the stairs. Well, hell. They’da pounded me inta the ground—an’ probably killed me. Then I seen the privy. I ran over to it an’ shoved my way under the back an’ into the pit an’ stood there in shit an’ piss all that night an’ into the morning. When them boys mounted up at first light, each carryin’ a twelve gauge, I gave ’em a good amount of time an’ then climbed out of the pit an’ ran my ass off to a friend of mine’s place—a blacksmith. He gimme some clothes an’ a pair of raggedy-ass boots an’ a horse an’ I left that county in a hurry. But he laughed so hard I thought he’d bust wide-open. This smith, he liked to run his mouth, an’ he give me the name Dirty Eddie, ever time he told the story. An’ that’s who I been nigh unto twenty-five years.”
“Don’t it bother you?”
“Nah.”
“Did you ever come across those brothers?”
“Yeah. I killed one in Tombstone. He tried to draw on me. I dunno ’bout the other two, but I don’t lose no sleep over ’em.”
I drifted off after Eddie’s story. We were on fairly level ground an’ the wagon was moving well. The horses were okay. We fed them oats we’d brought along an’ gave them some rest.
When we started up again, the sun was doin’ its best to make a appearance, an’ finally it did. Me an’ Dirty Eddie shed our ponchos in a hurry, an’ after another hour, our dusters. The sun was flexing its muscles. At first, ’course, it felt real fine—an’ then it turned into heat. We had to drink outta the shrinking puddles, ’cause neither of us had been bright ’nuff to fill a couple canteens. I always liked the taste of rainwater from a clean puddle, so it didn’t bother me.