The Riflemen

by Tony Masero

  Guardeen took out his old Army binoculars for a closer look. They were Naval Observatory issue that he won from a US sailor fresh off the monitor ironclad battleship Keokuk in a drunken card game after the failed attack on Charleston. They were the best Galilean style binoculars available and he’d used them throughout the War and ever since. They did not have the viewing capacity of a telescope but were a lot easier to transport and were still accurate for a distance of up to ten miles. Perfectly adequate for him to see the figure fastened to the crossed ties.

  A limp shape stripped to the waist hung there, hands and ankles tethered to the wood. The dusky skinned man with long black hair was obviously an Indian. His back was a mass of criss-crossed lines etched in black dried blood, the result of a fierce whipping that cut deep. He wondered if the poor man was still alive.

  Abruptly, a bugle sounded and men raced out from inside the barracks and formed up. Guardeen remembered his vulnerability and crouched lower expecting the daylight search for him that would soon follow the breakfast of the men. The troops on the parade ground waited at attention in serried ranks. They all wore the gray tunics and yellow collars and cuffs of the Confederate forces. He reckoned there were maybe five hundred men on the parade ground. Not quite an army but certainly the beginnings of one. He watched a man in a plain shirt and braces descend the steps of one of the administration buildings. Followed by a trio of aides, the man climbed up a few of the ziggurat steps and faced the gathered troops.

  Guardeen was unsure whether this was his target, the wealthy dissenter Cave Everett Wyatt, or not. The guard had called their leader ‘Commander’ not ‘General’. A sad-eyed, grim faced burly man with a full light brown beard that bushed down to settle on his chest. He carried a napkin in his hand and was obviously fresh from his breakfast. He wiped his lips with the napkin and cleared his throat. The megaphone funnel of the valley carried his words up to Guardeen and the sharpshooter could hear all the man said.

  “You will not have heard the news, those of you not about in the night. Two good men. Not fresh recruits. No shavetails these. Experienced men. Both of them taken by stealth in the dark.” He spoke strongly as if confident that his words carried with them an air of authority. “So we have amongst us an enemy somewhere in the mountains. Person or persons with the skill to bring down our two good men. Could be Indians, I’m not about to say it isn’t, but I have a feeling that these are white men out there. Union assassins! Blue belly killers! We’ve been expecting them and I reckon that now they have arrived. So today we search them out. I want them found, men. Alive if possible but dead will do just as well. Seek out these sneaking murdering backstabbers and bring them to me. We’ll give them a taste of Confederate justice. Captain Beckett will detail you off into search patrols. Do more than your best men, I want those scoundrels brought to book. That is all.”

  Guardeen turned his binoculars onto the figure of the captain by the officer’s side. Captain Lowell Beckett. At this distance a handsome fellow, he decided. A small trim dark moustache on a clean cut face with long sideburns. He carried himself well and saluted the departing officer with the correct amount of military bearing.

  He watched as Beckett gave orders. Once the parade had broken up and the men departed to their various duties, he saw a woman approach the Captain. She was slender and attractive, dressed in riding gear; tall with a head of curly auburn hair flowing freely down her back. She spoke to the Captain, her words too quiet for Guardeen to hear. Beckett shook his head and the woman protested. The Captain made a cutting gesture with his hand. It was final. But the woman turned her back on him and walked over to a groom that held the reins of a saddled black stallion. In a swift, smooth action she mounted and without another look at the obviously furious Captain, she rode for the main gate.

  Becket stared after her with barely disguised rage. With a quick gesture of his gauntleted hand, he ordered the groom to mount up and accompany the woman. Guardeen guessed he’d just seen Elias T. George’s spy, Mrs. Christine Lenoir.

  It was a grave risk to take but he needed the confirmation. He had to know for sure if the shirt-clad officer was indeed his target. Or if not, where his target was to be found. Quickly he made his way over to where the lariat was tied in place ready for his quick descent and, in a few minutes, he was at the cavern mouth below. The woman had headed south and Guardeen did the same, his eyes sharply quartering the surroundings as he ran in pursuit over the rough ground. His path was at an angle behind and parallel, running at the half crouch with his Sharps in his hand. He could see her proudly erect posture as she walked her stallion through the rocks, raising a small cloud of dust as she went. The groom followed her at a distance and she had obviously trained him on earlier rides to leave space between them.

  As he ran, he checked the horizon for any sign of search parties. Then when the breath was coming fast in his chest and he thought his legs were done with running, he finally picked out the woman’s objective. A group of low round-topped gray boulders formed a semi circle on the undulating plain not five hundred yards off. While she moved towards it, Guardeen veered in and, using a scrub-covered gully and some saguaro cactus for cover, ran at the crouch to come in behind the rocks. He slid down out of sight beside one of the domes of rock. He wiped the sweat from his brow and tried to silence his panting breath.

  The woman called out to her bodyguard in a high clear voice but Guardeen couldn’t make out the words. He risked a glimpse. She handed the soldier her reins and made her way on foot towards him and his hiding place in the circle of rock. He watched as she entered the enclosure and glanced over her shoulder to see if the guard could still see her. Then she crouched down by a large stone and took a small folded sheet from the pocket of her riding skirt.

  She was about to slide the note out of sight, when Guardeen stepped into the open. “That for me?” he asked quietly.

  “Dear Lord!” she gasped, turning on him in shock. “Who the devil are you?”

  “It’s all right, Mrs. Lenoir, the Governor sent me. Name’s Nicholas Guardeen. Maybe you’ve been expecting me.”

  She rested a hand on her heaving chest. “Thank heavens, you near scared me to death. Yes, I’ve been expecting you. But you still gave me a shock.”

  “Sorry about that,” he said, appraising her.

  She was a handsome woman with regular features framed by her auburn hair caught in a momentary flurry of wind. He was captured by the intensity of her eyes. Clear blue, like mountain water with a touch of ice in them. They focused on him and he felt her reading him from head to toe with severe intensity.

  “Mr. Guardeen, we don’t have much time. The guard–”

  “I know, I saw him.”

  “This letter here, it was for my contact. Could you pass it on?”

  Guardeen shrugged. “Sorry, ma’am. Don’t know who that might be.”

  “They didn’t tell you in Phoenix?”

  “Only about you.”

  She glanced at him suspiciously. “Mighty strange they said no word.”

  “There’s been a few strange things going on. Word was out on our mission before we’d even got started. I’ve got a few assassins on my tail right now.”

  “There is an informer, you think?”

  “I had my mind set on that Leatheridge fellow. Governor’s aide. Seemed a low sort to me.”

  She shook her head. “No, no. It can’t be him. He and the Governor were the only two to know of my work here. I would have been taken long ago if it were one or the other of them.”

  “Then I just don’t–”

  “You all right, Mizz Lenoir?” the guard called out suddenly.

  “I’m fine!” she answered quickly. “Be along shortly.”

  “You’d best be off back, he’s getting suspicious,” warned Guardeen.

  She nodded. “We’ll meet again. Tomorrow morning. There’s a bluff west of here, big yellow-faced rise, you can’t miss it. Half ten of the hour, is that all right?”

 
“Yes. One thing. The man I saw on the parade, is that Wyatt?”

  She huffed a laugh. “No, that’s not Wyatt. He looks the part though, doesn’t he? Colonel Cartright. No, he was a major in the postal service of the Confederacy, all they could find to fit the bill. Nothing more than a uniform that makes the right noises whilst the real leader is away. Wyatt arrives in a few days. I’ll tell you for sure when we next meet.” She pressed the paper under the rock and with a shrug in Guardeen’s direction turned on her heel and hurried off.

  “There you are, ma’am. Lord Almighty, I was just about to come looking.” The guard frowned, as he handed her the reins. “Thought a rattler might have got to you.”

  “Get used to it, Jake.” She laughed easily. “You men might handle this continual diet of beans and bacon without a problem but we ladies happen to have a more tender digestive system than you rough fellows.”

  “Sorry to hear that, ma’am.” The guard chuckled as they re-mounted. “I’ll have a word with cookie.”

  “Please don’t,” Christine smiled back at him easily. “This is no master of cuisine we speak of and I fear his improvements might be a lot worse than his limitations.”

  Guardeen watched them ride off, then he knelt and withdrew the note from its hiding place.

  CEW in transit. Advise rifles make haste. Distribution of arms imminent. Gold transports target for funding next shipment.

  He studied the note. CEW signified his target, Cave Everett Wyatt. The rifles, well, his presence meant they were here already. The arms and gold he’d have to ask her about at their next meeting. He refolded the paper and replaced it under the rock and then moved off back into the prairie.

  He found a shallow dip amongst wild brush not far away and nestled in, determined to wait for the go-between who’d turn up to pick up the message. He decided to give it an hour or two until the sun rose higher and the day got too hot. Then if nobody came he would make his way back to the plateau and await tomorrow’s rendezvous with Christine Lenoir.

  Guardeen was used to long periods of waiting. A sharpshooter often had to hold position for hours without moving. So, it was no hardship for him as he lay amongst the dry bushes and let his mind roam over his falling out with Thaddeus. It needled him. He did not like to admit it but he missed his old partner’s support. He felt like a man who’d lost an arm and still felt the need to scratch the missing limb.

  The screech of an ungreased wagon wheel snapped him out of his doze and he raised his head slowly to peer through the brush. A small covered wagon pulled by two mules was nearing the rock circle. The canvas sides bore sun-faded advertisements to the efficacious properties of an extracted snake oil medication prepared by the internationally famous and greatly respected Doctor Governance K. Solace.

  The character slumped up on the sprung seat spat tobacco juice across the mule’s backs in front of him; he looked far removed from any international fame and respect. A portly unshaven creature wearing a frayed tailcoat jacket, a battered top hat and a tired vest made of snakeskin. He drove the wagon directly into the circle and drew to a halt. The driver sat a long time, occasionally pulling on a jar he kept beneath the seat. He waited and watched the horizon in all directions for a good fifteen minutes before descending from the wagon. As the man went over to the message’s hiding place, Guardeen moved in quietly behind the cover of the rocks.

  The man knelt and drew the message from under the stones. The mules shivered and jerked in fright in their traces as Guardeen suddenly stepped into the open. The sound of jingling harnesses alerted the crouching man and he spun around. His eyes squinted at Guardeen’s rifle leveled at him.

  “Why, hello there, pilgrim. How are you? Doctor Governance Solace at your service.” His hand moved up to his hat brim.

  Guardeen waved it away with the rifle barrel. “Best not, huh?” he said. “You the man Governor George relies on for his information?’

  Solace spread his hands innocently. “Me? No, brother. I’m nobody just a traveling vendor of health giving medication, no more, no less.” His pudgy features were not improved by a pair of pink-edged watery eyes and a vein-ruptured nose that had obviously been buried too long in the neck of a bottle.

  “Then why are you crouched down there a-picking up his secret mail hidden under a pile of rocks in the middle of a no-account dust desert?”

  “Well, I .... um ... I, er .....,” the doctor faltered.

  “Now if you were me, you’d say that you were that man, wouldn’t you?”

  Solace chewed his lip nervously. “You with those folks over there at Fort Phoenix?”

  “No, I’m not. I did come down here to curtail their boss man’s activities though.”

  The Doctor breathed an obvious sigh of relief. “Why bless me, why didn’t you say so? I nearly fainted away, thinking you were one of them Confederates.” He grinned in appeasement and scratched his hoary chin, making a rasping sound. “Fetch you a snort?”

  Guardeen shook his head and waved the rifle at the paper in Solace’s hand. “How does this work?”

  “Oh, this here? Well, I’m round about all the time collecting snake venom for my potions, you see. Those rattlers proliferate around here. So, I catch ’em up and milk ’em for my medicines and in the meantime I do a little message carrying to and fro. The Confederates are well used to me by now, they let me come and go without trouble. The Indians, well, they just think I’m plumb crazy, they leave me well enough alone too. You must be the riflemen they was sending down. But I thought there were two of you?”

  “Parting of the ways,” supplied Guardeen cautiously, thinking he should try a testing question before he took the man any further into his confidence. “Who’s your contact at the Fort up there?”

  “Don’t rightly know. I’ve never seen him. Somebody loyal to the good Union cause I guess. For my end, I just have to pick up these here scraps and take them on up to the border then send them on by dispatch rider to the Governor’s office. Look, if it’s all right with you, I’m going over to the wagon to pick up my jug, okay?”

  “Go ahead.” Instinctively, Guardeen did not like nor trust the man. His mind ran quickly over the possibilities and came up with the solution that Doctor Solace was the most likely candidate as traitor. He was the only one outside the frame of inside knowledge as to two most important points of information. He did not know the true identity of Christine Lenoir as the spy and yet he did know that Guardeen and Thaddeus were on their way here. “How’s Black Band Doolin these days?” he asked as the snake oil salesman reached into the wagon’s seat well for his liquor.

  When Solace turned, he held no jug but a cut-down double-barreled shotgun. The minute it appeared, Guardeen pulled the trigger on his waist-high held Sharps. The bullet slammed Solace backwards, splintering the wood behind him as it passed clean through him and the sides of the wagon. Solace flopped down instantly in an untidy heap without making a sound, as a puppet might if the strings had been cut. The mules jerked fearfully at the boom of the Sharps and the smell of death; they leaped forward and raced off into the desert raising a cloud of dust behind them.

  He walked over through the cloud of cordite still hanging in the air and bent to check if Solace was indeed finished. He kicked away the shotgun and retrieved the note that had dropped from the dead man’s hand. Slowly he turned over the fallen top hat and smiled as he saw the small derringer fastened inside. “Devious,” he said to no one in particular. “Right devious.”

  With a quick look around the skyline, he backed away and headed off for his retreat in the mountains. He knew he had time. The scouts would have heard the gunshot but they’d follow the dust trail of panicking mules and, barring accidents, it allowed him enough leeway to make it safely to his hideout.

  It was late afternoon by the time Guardeen was back on the plateau overlooking the fort. Purple shadows stretched across the valley floor and the heat of the day faded as evening approached. He lay full stretch and looked over the edge of the plateau. F
our riders were coming in along the approach road. Guardeen quickly pulled out his binoculars.

  “Black Band Doolin!” he breathed as the front rider jumped into focus. His gaze shifted to the rider behind, a black man dressed in a Union forage cap. “Oh, my! Thaddeus, what the hell are you doing down there?” Then Guardeen saw that Thaddeus’s hands were lashed to the saddle horn and a lariat snaked from around his neck into Doolin’s hand. “Took you, huh?’

  The riders clattered into the forecourt and, without hesitation, Thaddeus was pulled down from his saddle. A crowd gathered, questions flying from the fort occupants. There was an ugly excitement in the air; Guardeen could feel it, even up here. He’d known it once before when he’d seen a suspected horse thief taken. That electric sensation that ran like an illness through a mob of unquestioning people when they were of like mind. It was a hunger. A hunger to see somebody dead and often it didn’t matter who the victim was. It was the grumbling beginnings of a lynch mob. Guardeen heard Doolin cry out, “Enough, we’ll report to the Commander direct. Now hogtie this Negro to the cross, will you? Don’t you harm him, the Commander’ll want questions answered.”

  Without further ado, the previous victim was untied from the cross and dropped to the ground where he slowly crawled away. Thaddeus was dragged in by the cheering crowd, the hat knocked from his head and the shirt torn from his back as he was lashed to the cross beams set in front of the gateway.

  His arms were pulled back against the wood, the wrists fastened by ropes looped through holes in the beams. Thaddeus’s muscles tightened as he fought against the indignity. But a hefty blow to his exposed stomach doubled up the rifleman and his wrists and ankles were swiftly lashed. Women jostled and forced their way to the front of the mob. Angrily, they vilified Thaddeus, spitting on him and screaming all kinds of abuse. They continued to scratch and smack at him until they were pulled off by the men. A guard was placed and the mob slowly dissipated, moving off either to their quarters or just to sit and watch at the periphery of the parade ground.