by Paul Bagdon
Jane crushed an unhorsed outlaw under the hooves of his horse and swung his bowie knife like a saber, leaning far from his saddle to skewer confused, panicked outlaws.
One Dog had gathered ten or so men near him, and bullets were whispering past Will, Austin, and Jane. Jane howled a wolf-call-type war whoop as he wheeled his horse around and galloped from the melee. Austin and Will followed, shots whistling past them, horses at full run.
Will dared a quick look back. There seemed to be more dead or dying outlaws on the ground than there were live ones on horses.
A mile away from the battle scene, Jane gave the halt signal and slowed his horse to a stop. He turned in his saddle. “Anybody hit?”
“Sonsabitches ruined my perfectly good rifle, makin’ me fire too fast. She’s warped to hell. Now I prolly couldn’t hit a damn barn with it, even if I was inside the damned barn. I had to toss her away.”
Jane chuckled. “Terrible thing,” he said. “I guess the reason they charged us like that was to damage your rifle.”
Will took off his Stetson. “One of them scum tore a piece off the top of a fine hat,” he said. “Other’n that, me an’ Slick are good.”
“Why ain’t they tryin’ to chase us down?” Austin asked. “Was me, I’d be haulin’ ass after the three pissants what caused me such grief.”
“Because they’re cowards and because they’re undisciplined. I expected more from One Dog, considering his reputation. We rode into them and stirred them around like a bowl of applesauce. I’d wager a good number of the dead were shot by their own men. Still, we sent more than a few off to the happy hunting ground.” He hesitated for a few moments. “You boys did very well, by the way.”
“What now?” Austin asked.
Will spoke up. “We have nowhere to run to. Seems to me we gotta make a stand in Olympus—choose the best place an’ fight from there, ’cause One Dog’ll be back. You can bet on that. An’ next time, he’ll make sure his crew fight like men.”
“I walked the street last night. The mercantile will be our fort. We can bring our horses right inside the storeroom in back. In the store are all the guns and supplies we will ever need.”
“I don’t s’pose the fella who owns the place will be too pleased,” Austin said.
Jane smiled again. “Will can pay for the damages, no?”
There was no reason to enter into immediate negotiations with the mercantile owner. He—and apparently the rest of town—had scattered to parts unknown, probably to the farms of relatives and friends.
“How’d they get word of our li’l tussle so quick?” Austin asked.
“A man on a bay horse followed us out and beat us back to town. It didn’t take long for the good folks here to figure out what we would do.”
“I didn’t see no rider on a bay.”
“No. But I did.”
“Well. Anyway, it’s a sure thing the barkeep didn’t take all his beer an’ whiskey with him. You boys up for a drink?”
“Of course,” Gentle Jane answered. “But after we drink we must prepare the mercantile for a siege.”
“Least I can get me a new rifle,” Austin said.
The mercantile was the end building of the block, and there was an alley next to it at least wide enough for a delivery freighter to pull in. There was even a pump in the storeroom the owner probably used to wash apples, carrots, potatoes, and other produce he brought in. The stream of water it produced was paltry, but it was better than nothing. The side of the structure facing open prairie had no windows, but Austin used a pickax to bash shooting ports in it every few feet. He set a rifle and a few boxes of cartridges at each port.
Will worked in the storeroom, hauling out things the horses could hurt themselves with, such as sacks of oats, corn, and sweet grain. Given time a horse could damned near eat himself to death—and if he didn’t die from the overfeeding, pressure inside his hooves would make him unusable and keep him in constant pain. Will remembered the old farmers’ adage about what to do for a foundered horse: “First you dig a big hole good and deep, the size of the horse . . .”
He lugged out bundles of shovels and picks, kegs of nails, and miscellaneous farm tools.
Then he filled a new trough with water and put it against a wall. He scattered some grain around to give the animals something to do. Emptied, the room was good sized, at least large enough to board three horses for a few days. Of course, Slick and Austin’s horse would give Jane’s behemoth most of the room, but Will didn’t expect any serious fighting; neither horse would challenge Jane’s.
Will led his and Austin’s horses into the room, leaving Jane’s where he’d been ground-tied. He went back out and approached the animal slowly, talking quietly—nonsense words with a little humming added—and reached for the reins. If he were a hair of a second slower, he’d have been a dead man: a steel-shod hoof that seemed the size of a wagon wheel snaked out toward his face. Will threw himself backward, landing clumsily and hard on his back.
Jane rushed out of the store. “I should have told you! I am so sorry—are you all right?”
He helped Will to his feet. “He’s trained that way—I didn’t realize you were going to try to lead him.”
Will brushed off his butt. “It’s a sure thing nobody’s gonna steal him from you,” he said. “Come on, bring him along.”
Jane tossed the reins over his horse’s head and began walking around the building. The horse followed him like a puppy following a boy. “Again, I apologize,” Jane said.
Will waved him off. “No harm done,” he said casually, but the fear in his eyes showed he knew how close he’d come to having his head cleaved open like a ripe melon.
Jane’s horse immediately took over the water trough, clicking his teeth at the other two, cringing against the far wall. “They will settle,” Jane said.
“You might could check on them real often,” Will said. “If there’s trouble, you’re the only one who can do anything about it.”
“I will do this.”
Will was about to turn away, but stopped. “Say—does that critter have a name?”
“Of course. His name is Partner.” Jane’s grin showed again. “Although you know as well as I do that naming a horse makes as much sense as naming a chicken, no?”
The three men sat at the table the store owner provided for checker players. Austin was alternating between gnawing an apple and taking belts from a bottle of whiskey.
“We could use a couple men on the roof,” Will said.
“Could use a Gatling gun, but we ain’t got one of them, neither.”
“Our biggest danger,” Jane said, “is if they decide to use fire arrows to burn us out. We must drop any man who shows a flame on an arrow or a torch, immediately.”
“That’s what I meant about men on the roof. Be a whole lot easier to see from up there.”
“Well, hell. How ’bout we chop a hole in the ceilin’ an’ put a stepladder there. Ever once an’ a while one of us can pop up for a look-see,” Austin suggested.
Jane and Will looked across the table at one another, almost stunned by the simple efficiency of Austin’s idea. Will spoke for both of them. “Boy, you’re somethin’, pard.”
Jane nodded toward the two broad front windows. “That’s an awful big opening,” he said. “We need to barricade it with whatever we can, just high enough so that we can shoot over it.”
The next couple of hours were spent grunting, sweating, and cursing—even Jane said “Dammit!” when he dropped a crate of yard goods on his foot. The barricade was a bizarre-looking affair, but the men felt it would be effective. It was made up of a small piano, two desks, several barrels of apples and carrots, a number of plow blades stacked atop one another, four saddles upon which crates of textbooks were stacked, a couple of butter churns holding up a crate of canned peaches, and so forth. It was a bit better than waist high on Will and it offered good cover the length of the two storefront windows.
Will sat on the floor a
nd wiped his forehead with his sleeve.
“How’s that hand?” Austin asked.
“Pretty much as good as new—fingers work good. I figure I’ll cut them stitches out in a couple more days.”
“You oughta take the ones outta your face too—they’re uglier’n a goat’s ass.”
“I’ll give those a little more time,” Will said, ignoring the insult. “I can still feel ’em pullin’ a bit.”
“The window glass,” Jane said, “will shower us when it is hit. The shards and pieces will be sharp and dangerous.”
Austin was the first to draw and he shot hell out of the expanses of glass, exploding them out into the street. Will joined in, firing until his Colt was empty.
“I always liked to bust glass,” Austin said. “With stones when I was a kid an’ later with bullets.”
“Me too,” Will admitted. “There’s somethin’ about the way it shatters that makes a man feel good.”
Jane shook his head but didn’t comment.
It was hot in the store and growing hotter as the sun reached and crossed its peak. The destroyed windows would have allowed fresh air to enter, but there wasn’t a breath moving outside.
Will had his Colt partially disassembled on the checkers table and was working with a piece of cloth and a can of gun oil.
“How do you think they’ll attack?” Austin asked.
“One Dog is an Indian, and he won’t come at night. Their initial attempt will probably be at first light in the morning,” Jane said. “It’ll probably be a sweep, as if they were closing in on a wagon train.”
“I dunno,” Will said. “I saw more white men than Indians earlier today. Seems like they might could convince One Dog to try a sneak-attack type of thing, even today. We gotta be on watch all the time.”
“I can’t see them scum changin’ Dog’s Injun ways—’specially with all that medicine horseshit he believes in.”
“Will is right. We must watch constantly.”
Austin pushed out from the barricade where he sat, watching the street. “There sure ain’t nothin’ out there now but heat,” he said. “If I’m gonna set here gawkin’, I’m gonna have a couple buckets of beer keepin’ me company.” He began climbing over a crate of goods to the street. “I won’t be but a minute,” he said.
“This is not wise,” Jane said.
“No—but try tellin’ Austin that. He wants his beer an’ he’s gonna get it. Tell the truth, I wouldn’t mind a sip myself.” Will put his pistol back together and spun the empty cylinder. It gave off a smooth, whirring whisper. He filled the chambers with cartridges and holstered the .45. Jane crossed the room to the spot Austin had vacated. Will rolled a smoke, lit it, and sat back in his chair.
The HW wouldn’t be the biggest spread in West Texas, but it’d be large enough to give Hiram and his family and me, and maybe even a family for me, a real good living. We’d have a few good horses as well as our working string, and as many beef as our land could graze. We’d hire decent hands—no drifters or saddle tramps—and pay them well for their work. And we’d work with them. Hiram an’ me ain’t the types to set around doin’ nothing. A mental picture of Hiram’s daughters—whom Will had never actually seen—playing on an expanse of lush, green grass near the house was so pleasant that he dwelled on it, half-asleep, almost able to hear the giggles and screams of the girls as they chased after one another.
A rattle of gunfire down the street dragged Will from his dream as quickly as a bucket of ice water in his face would have. He rushed to the window near Jane, snatching up a rifle. The shooting seemed to go on forever, round after round, constant, nonstop. Then it stopped abruptly.
“My brother and your friend is dead,” Jane said quietly. His voice was a monotone but there was great sorrow behind it.
“Maybe he got some cover. Maybe some of them shots were his. Could be that—”
“No.”
A whoop—almost a screech—broke the silence, as did the pounding of hooves. A man, a white man in a rebel jacket, galloped toward the mercantile, hugging the far side of the street. He carried a spear upright in his right hand. Impaled at the top of the shaft was Austin’s head, his hat still in place, his face a mass of blood, an irregular, deep red mass of meat stuffed into his mouth. It was his heart.
Jane stood, leveled his shotgun, and blew the rider off the horse to fall in a crumpled and bloody heap. Even before the rider hit the ground a dozen horsemen charged from the opposite ends of the street, firing rifles, shotguns, pistols, and a few arrows. Jane went for his rifle immediately; Will depended on his Colt until it was empty before he, too, snatched up a .30-30. Bullets riddled the barricade like a swarm of insane bees and the inside of the mercantile was a chaos of ricocheting slugs, shattering glass, tortured wood, and exploding bottles and cans.
Will and Jane fired like a combat-trained militia: steadily but not rapidly, aiming each round, making it count. It was the rare slug that didn’t wound or kill an outlaw.
“Sonsabitches are crazy,” Will shouted. “It’s like they want to die.”
“Is true—One Dog must have given them mushroom buttons. Their fighting is insane!”
Still the renegades came on, jerking their horses around when they’d galloped past the store, heading back the opposite way, fumbling loads into their weapons. There were several full-gallop collisions; outlaws and horses went down in twisted heaps of flailing hooves, arms, and legs. Survivors of the crashes were quickly dropped by the men in the store.
The street looked like the third day at Gettysburg: corpses were scattered as if they’d dropped from the sky. Small potholes and ruts were filled with blood that had seeped from men and from horses. A few attackers moaned in pain, and others writhed about in the blood and the grit and dirt. Jane stood calmly levering his .30-30. His rifle stilled those who were still alive.
The maniac charge had come to an end.
“We stopped ’em that time,” Will said. “Did you see One Dog anywhere in that mess?”
“I did not—and I did not expect to. He knew it would be a slaughter. He gave his warriors those mushrooms—”
“What mushrooms?” Will interrupted. “How could a mushroom make men not care about their lives?”
“Peyote, it is called. It is strong medicine. It paints insane pictures in the minds of men, strange colors and sounds, and they follow orders, no matter how deadly to them. It makes them crazy men. At times, if they eat the mushroom buds during the day, the men will stare at the sun until their eyes can no longer see—until they are forever blind.”
Will went to the back of the store, filled a bucket with water from the pump, and pulled a pair of shirts off a counter. He set the bucket down near Jane and the two men washed the blowback and bits of gunpowder from their faces. He wiped his face on his sleeve, winced at the stinging, and walked back to the slug-holed counter. He found a bottle of whiskey that hadn’t been smashed and brought it up to the barricade, pulling the cork with his teeth. He took a long, deep draft and handed the bottle to Jane, who did the same.
“Think they’ll leave those bodies out there?” Will asked.
“They will. One Dog cares no more for his men than a dog does about the tree on which he lifts his leg.”
Will carried a pair of crates of .30-30 cartridges to the barricade and set one next to Jane, and placed one at the spot he’d occupied during the battle. “We went through a passel of ammunition,” he observed.
“And we killed many snakes with it.”
“How many you figure we dropped?”
“Perhaps twenty—maybe more. It makes no difference. One Dog has more and will bring in any guns he needs to hire.”
Will mused for a few moments, his right hand unconsciously touching the grips of his holstered pistol. “Ya know,” he finally said, “they rode off to the west, so their camp is somewhere in that direction.” He paused again, for a longer time. “They won’t attack at night—we know that. I’m thinking I’ll slide out that w
ay and have a look-see and make up a bit for what they done to Austin.”
“Is foolish idea. Your heart—your love for your friend—talks louder than your mind, Will. I, too, need revenge. The bodies in the street are not revenge—they are the results of a battle. I will take blood for my brother’s blood, but not tonight.”
“You yourself said they were hopped up on that mushroom stuff. How long does that last?”
“Is impossible to say—how much is eaten, how strong and fresh the plant is.”
“Is there a hangover as it wears off?”
“Often. Yes. But—”
“So,” Will went on, speaking over Jane, “a bunch of ’em will be slow an’ stupid. There’s some moon tonight—at least enough for me to follow their tracks. I’ll go in on foot an’ do a payback for Austin.”
“I say no.”
“An’ I say you ain’t the honcho on this job of work—I am. If you want to ride out of here right now, that’s fine. You owe me nothing.”
“I owe my brother—and in my heart, we have become friends.”
“We have, Jane. You’re a hell of a man. But you owe me nothing. In fact, I owe you money, which you’ll get. Let me draw you a map to one of my stashes so that if I get killed you can—”
“No. This is not a job. It never was—not since I heard from Austin. Would you charge money for fighting for your Hiram?”
Will was silent for a moment. Then, regardless of Austin’s warning that rang in his ears, he held his hand out to Gentle Jane. A knife suddenly appeared in Jane’s hand. He took Will’s hand, turned it over, and put a half-inch slit in the palm. Then he did the same to his own right palm. When the blood was flowing from both cuts he grasped Will’s hand in the grasp of common blood—of brotherhood. Jane stood, carrying his rifle. “I will stand by Partner to make certain he doesn’t hurt your horse as you lead him out.”
The grain on the floor had been cleaned. Jane’s horse stood to one side, half-asleep. Both Austin’s horse and Slick had been allowed to suck at the water trough. Jane stood by his horse as Will led Slick outside and saddled and bridled him. A moment later he came back into the storeroom and shagged Austin’s horse out the open loading door. He slapped the animal on the rump, setting him into a lope into the darkness. To Jane he said, “Lots of herds of wild ones ’round here. This boy’ll find a home.”