Go-Ahead Rider

by Robert J Conley

  Chapter Fourteen

  Rider waited again that night beside the converted railroad car in which Omer Lyons would sleep. Branham and Crider saw him there. They had arrived by plan ahead of Lyons. They took up a position about thirty yards from the car, leaning against a tree. They tried to appear casual. Branham sat on the ground and leaned back against the tree trunk. He was facing away from the hotel car and Rider, but in such a manner that he could still watch Rider out of the corner of his eye. Crider stood leaning back on the tree trunk around the other side. He could not see Rider, nor Rider him. Their trick did not work, though. Rider noticed the two ruffians. Rider filled and lit his pipe. Crider pulled out a plug of chewing tobacco and a penknife. He cut himself off a chew and offered some to Branham.

  “Naw,” said Branham. “That’s a filthy habit.”

  He took out a sack of Bull Durham and a paper and rolled himself a cigarette. Digging a wooden match out of his pocket, he struck it and lit the smoke.

  “That’s our man over there by the car,” he said. “You see him?”

  “I can’t see him now,” said Crider, “but I seen him when we first come up. You sure that’s him?”

  “He fits the description ole Lyons give us. Well, don’t he?”

  “This town’s full of goddamn redskins. They all look the same to me. How do I know?”

  “Well, we’ll know as soon as Lyons shows up,” said Branham. He took a pull on his cigarette and exhaled loudly. Crider spat out a thick stream of dark brown liquid. A bit of it dribbled down his chin.

  “He’s a-coming now,” he said.

  “Sidle on around here a ways,” said Branham, “and help me keep a watch. But don’t let that Injun see that we’re a-watching him.”

  “We going to kill him now?”

  “Not unless he jumps Lyons.”

  Lyons approached the hotel by a path that led him to within four yards of the tree sheltering Branham and Crider. As he passed the tree, he spoke in a low voice.

  “That’s him,” he said.

  “I told you,” said Branham to his partner.

  “So you were right,” said Crider. “I figured it was him. I just said that I didn’t know. I can’t tell one from the other. Now we know for sure. That’s all.”

  Lyons approached the car. Rider did not move. He puffed his pipe. Lyons made out as if he didn’t even notice Rider standing there until he had climbed the steps and was about to go through the door of the car. Then he turned to face Rider.

  “You trying to smoke me?” he said. “I know all about that Indian medicine. You think that smoke of yours will do something to me, don’t you? Well, I don’t believe in that nonsense. It’s savage, heathen superstition, that’s all it is. Besides, I got some medicine of my own.”

  “Yeah,” said Rider, “I see them. Over there by that big cottonwood. Right?”

  “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” said Lyons, and he went quickly inside the car, shutting the door after himself. Rider kept puffing his pipe until it went out. Then he knocked out the ashes and pocketed the pipe.

  “He going to stay there all damn night?” asked Crider.

  “Just shut up and be patient,” said Branham.

  Rider walked to the hitchrail where he had left the big black horse. He unwrapped the reins from the rail, climbed into the saddle, and turned the horse around. He looked directly at Branham and Crider, smiled, and then touched the brim of his hat. Crider looked away quickly. Branham, more cool, reached up slowly and touched the floppy brim of his old slouch hat. The surly expression on his face never changed. Rider headed north toward his riverside camp. They’ll be along in a minute, he thought. It’s Lyons’s style.

  “Let’s go,” said Crider.

  “Hold on,” said Branham. “Don’t be in such a hurry. You’ll just get us killed. He thinks he’s got us figured out. He’s expecting us to follow him. We done lost our surprise, so we got to go slow and easy.”

  Crider spat.

  “All right,” said Branham. “Let’s go.”

  Branham stood up and led the way to a spot another twenty yards distant, where two ragged-looking ponies waited. They mounted the ponies, and Branham again led the way.

  “You’ve let him get a head start of us,” said Crider. “How do we know where he’s gone?”

  “He headed down that trail to the river,” said Branham. “Likely he’s got a camp down there. We’ll find him.”

  Crider was anxious, nervous. He wanted to race ahead and catch Rider and blast him out of the saddle. Branham held him back. He rode ahead and he rode slow and easy.

  “Damn it,” said Crider. “We’re going to lose him.”

  “Ain’t no place he can turn off this road,” said Branham. “I know this road. He’s straight up there ahead of us. We keep on easy like this, by the time we get there, he’ll be done bedded down. Then we slip up on him real easy-like, and he just won’t never wake up again. That’s all. You get it?”

  “All right. All right,” said Crider. “But I don’t like it.”

  Rider knew that the two men he had seen back at the Pioneer Boarding Car would follow him to his camp. He knew that they had tried to appear to be just lounging about, to be a couple of vagrants, to be not interested in him, and, therefore, he knew, or at least he felt reasonably certain, that they would not follow him too closely. If they were at all familiar with the area, they would realize at once that he was headed for the river, and they would quickly assume that he had a camp there or was planning to make one. They would lay back and plan to sneak up on him at his campsite, preferably after he had gone to sleep for the night. Well, he thought, he would accommodate them. He would hurry up just a bit in order to get back to his campsite in time to make a few preparations to receive his uninvited guests in the manner they deserved. He would be ready for them.

  Branham called an unexpected halt and got down out of his saddle. Crider hauled back on his reins but stayed mounted.

  “What the hell you doing now?” he said. “Let’s go get it over with.”

  “I think we’re too close,” said Branham. “I let your faunching get to me, and we started out too soon. We’ll wait here long enough for me to smoke a cigarette and for him to get his camp set up and crawl under a blanket. Then we’ll move out again. I want him bedded down before we sneak up on him.”

  “I still think we ought to just ride up behind him and blast him out of the saddle. That’s what I think,” said the nervous Crider.

  “And what’s he going to do when he hears two horses racing up behind him? Just sit there and wait for us to do as we damn please? Out here like this at night, he’d hear us coming before we got close enough to put a bullet in his back. You can hear farther at night. Didn’t you know that?”

  “Aw,” said Crider, “that’s bullshit. Distance don’t change. Your ears don’t change.”

  “It’s true. You can hear farther at night. Shut up and listen.”

  The two were silent for a moment as Branham rolled himself a cigarette.

  “I don’t hear nothing,” said Crider. “Near or far. Nothing.”

  “Then just humor me,” said Branham, striking a match. He inhaled to light the cigarette. “I don’t want to argue with you.”

  Branham sucked deeply on his smoke, and Crider reluctantly dismounted. He let his reins drop and trail on the ground, and he sat down beside his partner, leaning back against the same tree trunk.

  “I just want to get it over with,” he said. “That’s all.”

  “It’ll be over soon enough,” said Branham. “I just want to be sure that it gets over with the way we want it to. You get in too big a hurry, you apt to just get yourself killed. That old Palmer you’re carrying is a single-shot.”

  “One shot’s all I need,” said Crider with a sneer.

  “I damn hope so.” said Branham, “but if you miss, then all we got is pistols, and with them, we got to be in damn close to be sure.”

  “All rig
ht. All right. Hell,” said Crider. “Well, have we waited long enough now?”

  Branham took a last long drag off his cigarette, tossed the butt away, and heaved himself to his feet.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  They rode slowly and cautiously, Branham again in the lead. Every few yards, Branham would stop, sit and listen, then move ahead again. Soon he halted and dismounted again. This time he tied his horse to a low branch at the edge of the trail.

  “Not again,” said Crider.

  “Shh. Shut up,” whispered Branham. “The river’s just ahead. We go on from here afoot.”

  Crider climbed down and tied his mount, then pulled the Palmer single-shot bolt-action carbine out of its scabbard and thumbed back the outside hammer. Both men moved forward on the trail at a low crouch. Branham held in his left hand a Plant .42 revolver. Crider, in addition to his carbine, had a Smith and Wesson .32 revolver in his belt. They took cautious steps, moving slowly and planting each foot carefully to make as little noise as possible. Soon they saw the small camp fire. They paused instinctively, and then at Branham’s signal, moved ahead again. Once they were a little closer they could see the outline of the man. He was not quite sitting up, but he wasn’t really lying down either. Obviously, if Branham had wanted to catch the man asleep, they hadn’t waited long enough. The man’s back was toward them. He seemed to be on his back but propped up on his elbows. His head was up and his hat was on his head. Branham motioned Crider to move in a little closer. With only one rifle shot to count on, Branham wanted to get within easy pistol range before giving away their presence. When he felt comfortable with the distance, he raised his Plant .42 at arm’s length, took careful aim, and shouted and fired at once.

  “Now.”

  The Plant spat flame, and Crider’s carbine cracked. Crider dropped the carbine and hauled out his .32 revolver. The two men walked closer with every shot, and every shot hit its mark. They could tell. But there was something unnatural about the target. Branham stopped. He held up a hand to stop Crider as well. He stared hard at the target up ahead by the small camp fire, but he couldn’t see it clearly enough. He was afraid to move in closer, not without knowing. His revolver was empty.

  “Crider,” he whispered harshly. “Your gun empty?”

  “Yeah. I hit him every shot, too.”

  “Shut up and reload.”

  Crider didn’t understand, but the fear and desperation he detected in Branham’s voice transferred quickly to his own heart, and he reached into his coat pocket for bullets. Branham was doing the same.

  “Just hold still,” said Rider from somewhere in the dark. “You start to reload, I’ll kill you.”

  Branham quickly summed up the situation. The man could probably drop them both easily before they could either reload or dive for cover. If his intention was to kill them, he would have done so without calling out to them. He obviously would take them in to the law, if they let him. Probably he would march them back to their horses, have them mount up, and then follow them back to town. If so, there was yet a chance. Branham’s 10-gauge Parker shotgun, its barrels sawed off to a mere foot in length, was hanging by a leather thong from the horn of his saddle. He had left it there, thinking that it would be of no use in this ambush. It was loaded.

  “All right, mister,” he said. “All right. Don’t kill us.”

  “Drop your guns then,” said Rider.

  Branham dropped his pistol to the ground.

  “Do like he says, Crider,” he said.

  “But, but I—”

  “Just do it. Now.”

  Crider dropped his gun. Then their captor emerged from some thicket off to their left. He walked over to the fire, and they saw him. He held a big Colt in his right hand pointed just about between the two of them, ready to swing in either direction. With his left hand, he reached down for the hat. He put it on his head. Then he pulled a blanket from the target Branham and Crider had riddled with bullets. Beneath it was a pile of fire logs. The man tossed the blanket to one side, then walked away from the fire to where his black horse stood waiting, still saddled. Branham cursed himself silently. He should have noticed the saddled animal. No one would settle down for the night without having unsaddled his horse. The man swung up into the saddle and rode up close to Branham and Crider.

  “Your horses are down the road a ways, I guess,” he said.

  “That’s right,” said Branham.

  “Turn around and start walking,” said Rider. “Stay in the middle of the road. Make a sudden move of any kind and I’ll kill you. It’s a promise.”

  Branham started walking, and Crider followed. Soon they were back where they had tied their horses.

  “Okay,” said Rider. “Mount up, slow and easy.”

  As Crider reached for the reins of his horse to untie it, Branham reached over the saddle for his shotgun. Rider saw the movement just in time. As the shotgun swung into play, Rider threw himself off the black on the side away from Branham. The shotgun blast passed over the saddle just about chest-high. Rider’s horse screamed and bolted. Crider ran into the woods, and Branham took a dive for the bushes just as Rider fired a shot in his direction. Then Rider ran off the road for cover. That shotgun had another load. Rider was in the trees on the same side of the road as the other would-be assassin, but he was fairly sure that the man was unarmed. The one to worry about was the one on the other side of the road with the shotgun, and that gun would be useless at much distance. He crouched there in the darkness considering his next move. His horse was out of sight, having run back toward Muskogee. The other two horses were still tied where they had been all along.

  Crider had scampered pretty far into the woods, but he wasn’t sure how far. It was dark, and he wasn’t a good judge of distance anyhow. He just knew that after he had taken that dive, he had crawled on his hands and knees as fast as he could, and he hadn’t stopped until he had run out of breath. His hands and his knees were cut from the crawling, and his face had been lacerated by the brush he had raced through. When he finally stopped moving, he tried to be still and listen. He wondered if it was true that you can hear things at night from farther away than in the daytime. He tried, but he couldn’t hear anything but his own heavy breathing.

  Maybe that Indian could hear it, too. Slowly he regained control of his breath, and he decided that he had to do something. He couldn’t stay in the woods on his hands and knees all night long. He could turn over and sit or stretch out on his back. He could stay like that for a long time, except he was afraid that a snake or a spider might come along and crawl up on his face. Besides all that, he wanted the money that Lyons had promised if he killed the Indian. Slowly he raised himself up on his knees. He waited to see if there would be any reaction to his movement. There was none. He stood up slowly. Still there was nothing. He looked to his left. He couldn’t see much for the darkness and the thickness of the woods, but he knew that the river was that way.

  If the river was that way, so was the Indian’s camp, and so were his guns. If the Indian was busy with Branham, perhaps he could sneak through the woods and get back down there where his guns were just waiting for him. He could reload, sneak up on the Indian’s blind side, and kill him. Then Branham wouldn’t think he was so damn smart. He started to move through the woods toward the river.

  Branham had another shell in the sawed-off shotgun, but he didn’t know where his prey had gone. He had seen the man dive off his horse just as he had fired the shotgun, but then the man had taken a shot at him, and Branham himself had headed for cover. The man could be on either side of the road. He wasn’t out in the road, not as far as Branham could see. He wished he had his pistol. He would have to get pretty close to use the shotgun. He decided to sit and watch and wait. The man with the most patience, he thought, was the man who would come out alive.

  Rider knew just about where Branham had disappeared into the thicket, and he figured the man hadn’t moved since his initial plunge into cover. He had kept still and
listened for any noise that would be a sign of movement, and he hadn’t heard any. Branham had dived into his hole and stayed put. He was sure of that. The other man, the man behind him somewhere in the woods, was unarmed.

  They were playing a waiting game, and he guessed that he could play that as well as anyone. But he wasn’t sure that was the best strategy. He heard a slight rustling back behind him. It was some distance away, and he figured that the unarmed man was trying to sneak away to safety. He listened. The movement was in the direction of the river, of the river and the camp—and the guns. He had left the guns of those two lying in the road. That was a mistake he should not have made. Now if he continued this waiting game, he could wind up dealing with two armed men out in the dark woods—one on either side. He made a quick decision. He burst out into the road from his hiding place and ran across the road at an angle going toward the river. The angle was calculated to extend the distance between himself and the shotgun. When he was about in the middle of the road, he turned and fired a shot into the woods, aiming in general at the spot where he thought the man was hiding.

  Branham came out of the woods and aimed the shotgun. Just as he pulled the trigger, Rider made a dive for the far side of the road. He felt a few pellets bounce off his boots harmlessly, and he rolled and fired three shots back at Branham. The first one struck Branham just under the mouth, shattering his chin and tearing through his throat to exit at the back of his neck. The next two missed their mark as Branham sank to his knees, then fell over on his right side. Rider didn’t bother to check on him. The man was probably dead. If not, he was certainly badly hurt and he had fired his last shot. Rider turned and ran back toward his camp.

  Crider was fumbling with his Smith and Wesson. He was down on his knees in the road, and he had dropped the first two bullets into the dirt. He had gotten two into the chambers and was fumbling with a third when he heard the footsteps of the running man coming toward him. He looked up and saw the form getting closer. He snapped the gun back into firing position and lifted it up. Before he could thumb back the hammer, he felt the dull thud of a bullet in his chest. Then he heard the blast, and then he heard no more.