by Paul Bagdon
We’d long since finished the sliced venison an’ biscuits the ladies had sent along an’ both of us were damned near starved.
“We might best park these horses an’ look around for game. I’m so goddamn hungry I could eat a boot,” Eddie said. “I don’t give a damn— prairie dog, snake, whatever-the-hell.”
“Let’s do it, then.” I was driving an’ I reined in. We tied the horses to the weight the ladies carried— they didn’t like hitchin’ posts—and Eddie went one way an’ me another.
It was hot an’ walkin’ wasn’t much fun, bein’ hungover an’ hungry. I loosened my Colt in my holster a bit—the dampness had tightened the leather a hair—an’ walked on out. After about a thousand miles, I figured it was a lost cause. I hadn’t seen a prairie dog or anything else. I drew on a sidewinder but he scooted into a bunch of rocks. I kicked some stone around, but he musta had a good den an’ I wasn’t about to go diggin’ for him. There was no size to him anyway— maybe three feet.
I didn’t see no sense in trekkin’ out farther, hoping Dirty Eddie had bagged something. If not—well, hell—both of us had been hungry before.
Then I got real lucky. I was scuffin’ along, not real payin’ attention to the terrain like I should, when I heard the beating and flurry of wings. Five or six prairie hens went up in a cluster of noise an’ dust. I dropped four of them and missed the others. I walked to the little buncha weeds they were in an’ found seven eggs. I grabbed up the hens, pocketed the eggs in my vest an’ shirt, an’ went back to the wagon.
Eddie already had a fire going. He was skinning out three rattlers, not one of them big enough to make a meal. He flung the snakes over his shoulder when he saw the feast I’d brought.
We didn’t have a pan to fry the eggs in, so after we stripped down the birds, we broke the eggs over the birds as they cooked.
The scent of them hens cooking was as sweet as a young chicken on a spit at a picnic, an’ they tasted at least as good. We pulled them offa the sticks an’ gnawed away at that sweet meat. Dirty Eddie an’ me ate all four of the hens an’ sucked the marrow outta the big bones.
“We ain’t far now,” Eddie said. “Let’s move on. If I’m right, over them next two rises is Hargis’s place.”
We topped the first rise and saw nothing. The second climb we stopped an’ looked down at what Dirty Eddie said was a war-scavanger’s cache.
Chapter Nine
It seemed like we’d been rolling forever. “You sure you know where we’re going?” I asked Eddie.
“Yep. The stars don’t lie.”
“Well, look. My ass is numb, I need a drink, an’ it’s too damn cold out here.”
“You’re gonna make me cry,” Dirty Eddie said.
After a bit, I asked, “Why do you want to kill this Hargis fella? I don’t doubt that he needs killin’—robbin’ our boys like that an’ then makin’ a profit—but why you?”
I expected a “Why not me?” sort of response, but that isn’t what I got.
Eddie rolled himself a smoke and lit it. “See, I had a what?—half cousin or so goddamn thing— but I spent lots of time with the kid before I had to start runnin’ from the law. His name was Uriah. We fished an’ hunted. His pa was a mean drunk—beat hell outta Uriah an’ Uriah’s ma when he had a load on. I was but fifteen or sixteen an’ not real big, an’ I knew I couldn’t take him when he was sober. So, I waited out in their barn ’til I heard Uriah’s ma scream an’ a bunch of crashin’ around in the house. I had me a ax handle an’ I went on into the house an’ beat hell outta that mean ol’ bastard. Thing is, I killed him— busted his head open.”
He flicked the nub of his smoke into a puddle.
“Me an’ Uriah, we planted his pa way the hell out in their wheat field, an’ figured that was the end of it. It weren’t. Uriah’s ma went to the sheriff an’ accused me of murder an’ said she seen me kill her husband, which she did. So, I had to scramble.”
“I see. But Hargis…”
“Uriah, he joined on with the Confederacy, like any good Texan would. He caught a Union minié ball ’twixt his eyes at Antioch. I heard about that an’ went on out there, plannin’ to ship him home an’ plant him on his own ground. I talked to some of the wounded rebs an’ learned Hargis got to Uriah real quick—took his boots an’ rifle an’ sidearm. Thing is, Uriah, he had a ring his gramma give him when he was a kid an’ Hargis couldn’t get the ring off, so he took the finger. That’s when I decided to kill Hargis—an’ that’s what I’ll do. But the goddamn law an’ the Pinkertons an’ the bounty hunters been chasin’ me like a hound after a bitch in heat, an’ I ain’t had a chance. Seems like I got one now.”
“Well,” I said.
Dirty Eddie nodded. “I figured you’d understand or I wouldna run my yap.”
“Don’t make my ass less numb or me less cold if you kill or don’t kill this ghoul.”
“Wassa a ghoul?”
“Kinda ghost or spirit that come back to life an’ screws about with livin’ people.”
“Oh.”
We started up a gentle rise, the horses working well, the wagon wheels making good purchase, even through the slop. We reined in at the top of the rise.
“There she is,” Dirty Eddie said. “Din’t I tell you the stars don’ lie?”
We sat there an’ let the horses blow an’ looked over the place. It wasn’t a farm—there was nothing plowed an’ nothing growing we could see in the murky light, but there was a small corral for horses.
The barn was way the hell bigger than it needed to be for a farm that didn’t grow nothing. And, I never seen three men with rifles guarding a barn that shoulda been empty.
We were maybe 400 to 450 yards from the barn. “Maybe could be your buffalo gun could take out that fella leanin’ ’gainst the front doors,” Eddie said. He spoke as if my rifle—or me— couldn’t make the shot.
I unwrapped my rifle from its deerskin. “Sounds like you’re looking for a bet, Eddie. How about a case of good whiskey?”
“How about two?” He grinned.
“You’re on.”
The damn fool at the front of the barn scratched a match to light a smoke. It was like shooting a elephant from six foot away. I loaded up, aimed, and carved a hole in the man’s chest the size of a dinner plate.
“Nice. I can’t reach out near that far with a 30.30. Care to keep shooting?”
“Sure.”
“No more bets, though.”
These scavengers were scum—no better’n men who diddled li’l kids. I had no more feelin’ for them that I did when I was target shootin’.
“Lookit there,” Dirty Eddie said.
One of the men was behind a water trough and he had his hat either on a stick or the barrel of his sidearm, and was moving it back an’ forth. I laughed an’ so did Eddie.
“Clever trick, no?” I said.
“Fooled hell outta me,” Eddie said.
The thumb-size .44-caliber slug from my rifle would blow through that trough like it were a birthday cake—and through the barn, as well, an’ still kill a man a couple hundred yards beyond the barn.
“Question is,” Eddie said, grinning, “is that jasper in front of the hat or behind it?”
“Another bet?”
“I need odds. Two to one.”
“Yer ass.”
“Okay, okay, even odds—a case. Take your shot, Jake.”
My thought was that the scavenger was leading with the hat an’ backing up an’ then goin’ forward an’ then back again, an’ so forth. I loaded my rifle. When the hat reached about half trough, I squeezed off a round. The impact flung the fella’s body up an’ into the side of the barn; then he dropped to the ground.
“Lucky shot,” Dirty Eddie growled.
“Lucky or not, I won’t have to buy booze for a while.”
The third guard was at the hayloft of the barn, gawkin’ out, tryin’ to figure out what to do. I took him through the thick lumber of the hayloft opening.
&n
bsp; “Let’s go on down,” Eddie said. “Hargis is sneakin’ around somewheres, but he ain’t got the balls to face either one of us.”
We kinda angled down the slope to keep the wagon from skiddin’ an’ spookin’ the horses an’ pulled up in front of the barn. Eddie drove down; I rewrapped my Sharps.
“What’re you boys after?” a voice called from inside the barn. “You can take whatever you want—no need to shoot me. Hell, I got a little cash I can give you, too.”
“You Hargis?”
“Yessir—at your service. I got guns, sabers, boots, all kinds of—”
“Slide the door open,” Eddie said.
Hargis did so. He was a fat man—as broad as a beer barrel and without no more muscle than a maggot. Hell, if someone were to hang him, he wouldn’t know what chin to put the noose around.
“Go ’round an’ light some lanterns,” Eddie said. “An’ ’member there’re two guns on you an’ neither one of us have missed in a long time. Ask your three men, you don’t believe me.”
Hargis scurried the way really fat men do— tryin’ to move fast but held back by his body, so his motions were jerky, uncoordinated. He lit a half dozen lanterns hangin’ from beams the length of the barn. Eddie an’ me climbed down an’ walked inside.
It kinda made me sick. Hargis had more muskets than the Rhode Island militia, two long tables of percussion pistols an’ some revolvers, a big pile of boots an’ gloves, an’ what looked to be fifty or more swords an’ sabers hung on the wall. There was another long table like you’d see in a mercantile covered with books, Bibles, diaries, pictures, an’ so forth—the personal stuff the boys carried. There were lots of pocket watches an’ lockets.
Along on side of the barn were five small artillery pieces, such as like Dansworth had tried on us. There was a small stack of sacks of black powder. There were a few military saddles, some bits an’ bridles, and sets of reins. At the far end of the barn, still in the half dark, was a small two-wheeled wagon with somethin’ on it covered by a big tarp.
“What’s that down there?” I asked.
“Jus’ miscellaneous crap we picked up,” Hargis said.
“You got any rings?” Dirty Eddie asked.
Hargis grinned a fat-man grin. “Sure—whole box of ’em right over here.” He led us to the other side of the barn an’ pointed to a trunk. Eddie hefted its sides an’ upended it, spilling what seemed like all the rings in the world onto the floor. Hargis’s mouth opened to say something, but then he closed it. Eddie swept his hands through the rings, spreading them out. Lots of them had small stones, and lots had initials or symbols of the Union or the Confederacy on them.
It took a good while for Dirty Eddie to find what he was after. When he did, he held it reverently, like it were a holy object. “Where’d you git this?” he asked.
“That there is a fine piece,” Hargis said. “Real fine. I bought it from a Rebel officer who was down on his luck an’ had lost all his money in a poker—”
Eddie didn’t stand from his crouch over the rings, but his draw was fast and smooth. He emptied his .45 into the fat man. Eddie put the ring in his pocket. “Let’s see what’s on the cart,” he said.
He walked down the length of the barn, feeling as if we were walking through a cemetery of unburied corpses.
We approached the cart, me on one side and Eddie on the other, and dragged off the tarp.
“Holy God,” Eddie said.
“I didn’t think…Jesus, man…” was all I could get out.
“Let’s cover it up an’ roll, Jake.”
“Sure,” I said. “Yeah. Let’s do that. We can use Hargis’s horses; it isn’t that big and doesn’t weigh that much.”
Eddie stood as if in a daze. “Ya know, I done a bunch a battles in the war an I ain’t I never seen one them things. Sure did hear ’bout’em, though.”
“Let’s get it back to the ranch. Dansworth ain’t gonna waste much time screwin’ around—he wants them horses real bad—an’ he wants to kill us real bad.”
Eddie looked over the cart. “Let’s tie this baby down an’ grab one of Hargis’s nags to pull it. We’ll tie our horses on the back—they done good work gettin’ us here.”
“Let’s take a look in the house—maybe find some grub,” I said.
We didn’t find much food, but there was a good supply of corn liquor. We loaded a few bottles on the cart and kept one with us as we set off back to the Busted Thumb.
The ground had dried out some an’ the two horses we took were decent animals, willing to pull. We drank corn and talked. “This sumbitch is gonna be a big surprise to Dansworth,” Eddie said. “Jus’ like that artillery piece was to us.”
“You ever operate one?”
“No.”
“Can’t be too hard,” I said. “Doesn’t seem like there’s a lot to it.”
“I guess we’ll find out,” Eddie said, “’cause we ain’t got time to screw around with it now. What we gotta do is get back.” He jigged the horses a bit and they picked up their pace. Eddie grinned. “I’m gonna rub these boys down real good back at the ranch, an’ purely feed hell out of ’em with that molasses grain.”
We got back about dinnertime, which was good, ’cause we were damn near starved. We drove the cart right on into the barn. Arm had been riding guard an’ he seen us an’ rode in with us.
“Any action?” I asked.
“No. Nothing. Ain’t gonna be long, though. They’ll come at night, no?”
“That’s the way I’d do it.”
We faced the cart out and left the tarp on it. A few of the boys peeked and walked away grinning and shaking their heads like they couldn’t quite believe what they’d just seen.
At Teresa an’ Blanca’s great dinner, we discussed what few plans we had.
“They’re sure as hell gonna torch the house,” one of the boys said. “We’d best bring the ladies into the barn with the rest of us, ’cept for a couple outriders to give us a alarm.”
“Sí. They’ll no burn the barn ’cause that’s where the mare an’ foal are.”
“All we gotta do is shoot them down an’ the game is over,” someone said. “This corn whiskey tastes like sidewinder piss,” he added.
“Be plenty dineros for you men for good whiskey when theese is over.”
Nothing much happened that night. A couple of riders—staying way the hell outta range—come by to look things over, but that was about it.
It was strange how calm our men were. They played cards, slept, cleaned and lubricated their weapons, and drank corn. Maybe when a fella has been in so many battles, put his life on the line so many times, it becomes no more than a job—like a ribbon clerk goin’ to work in the mornin’ in a mercantile. Even as the day dragged on, the tension level stayed low an’ easy.
“Ain’t you boys afraid of nothin’?” I asked Dirty Eddie.
He pondered for a few moments. “Well, I never been partial to scorpions,” he said. “I always shake out my boots real good ’fore I put ’em on.”
“About fightin’,” I mean.
“Fightin’? Naw. What’s to be scared of? We’ll either get killed or not get killed. We all know a bullet’s gonna catch us one day, but what day that it is don’t matter. Today—next week—next month—what difference does it make?”
“But…”
“See, we like fightin’. Hell, we love it. We’re real good at it or we’d be long dead. It’s like, maybe, somethin’ we gotta do. F’r instance, some fellas gotta be ministers. Well, we gotta be gunfighters.” I thought the analogy a strange one, but didn’t question it. Eddie paused again, this time for a full minute or so. “I guess that’s why you don’t see no ol’ gunslingers. There’s always some hothead kid who’s a hair faster or a skinch more accurate.”
“What about Dansworth’s army?”
Dirty Eddie smiled. “Most of ’em ain’t gunfighters, Jake. They’re losers an’ deserters an’ cowards an’ drunks. One-on-one, they ain’t no more trouble
’n swattin’ a fly off your horse’s ass. In a big group, some might get lucky an’ take down a real gunfighter. Now, this Dansworth: I heard-tell about that pistol of his. Them grips ain’t bone— they’re ivory. The gunsmith who built the pistol, he’s the absolute bes’ in the entire West. An’ the ol’ gunman who taught him had some balls. Dansworth’s good. He’d prob’ly take me. You—I dunno. I guess we’ll see.”
“Yeah. We will. Far’s I know, ivory grips never won a gunfight.”
We brought Teresa an’ Blanca down to the barn about dusk. They weren’t happy about it, but they didn’t complain too much. Each of them clutched their rosaries. We set them up in the grain room with a lantern—there were no windows an’ the only access to them was from the inside.
It was a decent night—some cloud cover, a half moon that shed some light, an’ a tiny breeze that kind of poked around every so often.
Musta been close to midnight when we heard them coming.
“Madre mia!” Arm said. “Sounds like a stampede. Lotsa men, Jake.”
Our men positioned themselves at windows an’ up in the hayloft, sacks of .45 rounds and cases of 30.30 cartridges at their sides.
It was like a stampede—looked to be eighty or more men riding hard, spraying lead toward the house an’ the barn. The first couple of torches smashed through windows of the house. The men who threw them were blown off their horses by our rifle fire.
The house caught fire good. I hated to see it go, but it was only minutes before long, hungry flames were reaching toward the sky and the interior was an orangish yellow inferno. The smoke was as thick as axle grease an’ riders coming out of it looked like ghosts riding out of some battle that’d happened a long time ago.
If it hadn’t been for the ear-shattering racket, the whole thing mighta been pretty—like Fourth of July fireworks with muzzle flashes all over the place. But the roar of shotguns, the blasts of rifles, and the comparatively picayune reports of pistol fire destroyed any beauty there mighta been. The screams of the wounded an’ dying, the pathetic squeals of wounded horses, an’ that hideous rebel yell of the men who’d deserted the Confederacy, were like listening in on hell.