Hard Ride to Wichita

by Ralph Compton

  “What are you two doing here?” Luke asked.

  Carlo lowered his pistol without holstering it. “I was just about to ask you the same question.”

  “I’m scouting, just like I said I was.”

  “Told you,” Red scolded.

  “You find anything?” Carlo asked.

  When Frank and the other two men finished tying their horses to a post near the front of the Red Bison and started walking toward the billiard hall’s front entrance, Luke had the good sense to turn his back to them so they didn’t see him standing there with a gun in his hand. “There’s a bunch of soldiers in that billiard hall,” Luke said.

  Fixing a hard glare on the young man, Carlo asked, “You went inside?”

  “How could I scout the place unless I went inside?”

  Carlo shook his head while looking back across the street.

  “There were at least eight or nine soldiers inside,” Luke continued. “Didn’t seem like they were too worried about answering to anyone, though. Their uniforms were a sloppy mess and they strutted around like they owned the place.”

  “It’s possible Granger does own that place,” Carlo said. “I know he’s made enough money to buy an interest in several businesses throughout Kansas. Only makes sense that he’d own a piece of at least one place here in Wichita.”

  The three men who’d ridden to the Red Bison were slowly approaching the place with their hands resting on their holstered guns. Another three rode in from the opposite end of the street to meet up with the ones Carlo had followed. At Frank’s direction, three of them split off to go around to the back of the building while he and the other two headed for the front.

  “Who are they?” Luke asked.

  “Friends of his,” Red said while hooking a thumb at Carlo.

  When Luke looked over at him, Carlo said, “I used to ride with them.”

  “Are you all still friendly?”

  “Nope.”

  “If Granger is in there,” Luke said, “what will those men do to him?”

  “Considering the trouble Granger has caused, they’ll most likely kill him. The only question is whether they do it there or they drag him away to do it somewhere else after having some fun with him first.”

  “So let’s ride out to that camp.”

  “If the fight is here, then why go all the way out there?” Red asked.

  Luke looked at his friend and spoke as if they were once again back in their old schoolhouse. “Because if Granger’s in that billiard hall, he’s already got a fight on his hands. I’m guessing those six men can handle the soldiers inside. Is that right, Carlo?”

  “More than likely.”

  “If that’s the case, then Granger will be put down like he should. But if Granger isn’t inside that building, he’s probably at his camp. And since I saw a good number of soldiers in there,” Luke said while pointing to the Red Bison, “then that means there’s that many fewer protecting the camp. Sounds to me like the best time for us to head out there.”

  Red grinned and slapped his friend on the shoulder. “He always was the smart one.”

  “What do you say, Carlo?” Luke asked. “I’d rather not walk into a shooting gallery inside that billiard hall. You see any reason why we shouldn’t try our luck at that camp while fortune is smiling on us?”

  More than anything, Carlo wanted to shoot that plan down with an argument that nobody could dispute. Unfortunately he couldn’t come up with a single one.

  Chapter 24

  As they collected their horses and rode away from town, Carlo told Luke everything he’d told Red while they’d been running through the Wichita streets. There wasn’t as much time to talk as he would have expected since they were moving as if their tails were on fire. It wasn’t long before the echo of gunfire rolled in from the direction of the Red Bison. Once they were outside town, it was clear that a vicious fight had commenced and would spill out of that one building sooner rather than later.

  Making the ride in daylight was a whole different story than when he and Luke had approached the camp at night. Apart from simply being able to see where they were going, Carlo felt more exposed and vulnerable to a marksman’s bullet. Even from a distance, he could see movement near the camp. Horses were heading toward another section of town. One rider, most likely a sentry, took a sharp turn to head toward the three unexpected arrivals. Luke and Red barely seemed concerned with any of this. Carlo took no comfort from that. After all, there was rarely solace to be found in ignorance.

  Now that he could see more than what was illuminated by firelight, Carlo could tell the camp was more spread out than he’d originally thought. There were small watchtowers, constructed near clusters of trees and barely large enough for one man, at three different locations. If he and Luke had gotten much closer when they’d done their previous scouting, they could very well have been picked off by anyone posted in one of those towers. He signaled for the other two to stop and they reluctantly complied.

  “What are we waiting for?” Luke asked. “If we got a chance to take a run at that camp, it’s right now!”

  “Don’t you see those towers?” Carlo asked while digging in his saddlebag for his field glasses. “They might already have spotted us.”

  Luke squinted at the camp and picked out the towers.

  Studying each one through the field glasses, Carlo grunted under his breath.

  “What is it?” Red asked.

  “Looks like only one of those towers is manned,” Carlo said.

  “Ain’t that a good thing?”

  “Could be. Or it could be a trap.”

  Luke shook his head. “There’s no reason for an army captain to try and trap us.”

  “It may not be us he’s after.”

  “Then we should be able to keep ridin’!” Red said. “If anyone tries to stop us, we shoot ’em.”

  Carlo looked over to Red and scrutinized every harsh line scrawled across the young man’s face. “Since when did you become so eager to shoot anyone?”

  “Since we got so close to putting this whole matter to rest and goin’ home.”

  Luke lowered his eyes. “I can do this on my own from here. We won’t get a better chance than this.”

  “You’re so sure about that, huh?” Carlo asked.

  “It just makes sense.”

  “Well . . . I happen to agree with you.” Carlo put the field glasses away and pointed to one side of the camp between the two empty watchtowers. “We’ll ride in right there where it’s open. We leave the horses in the trees and go in on foot. Now, are you two sure you still want to do this? This isn’t a game. We could get killed in a dozen ways. There’s a chance none of us makes it out of there alive.”

  “I know,” Luke said. “So if you want to turn back now, I understand.”

  There was no changing Luke’s mind or convincing him to wait. There was no pointing him in another direction. His mind was set and he would take a run at Granger now or later, with help or on his own. Ever since they’d left Wendt Cross, Carlo had been watching the kid to see just how serious he was. If there’d been any glimmer of hope in ending this mission of vengeance, it was gone as of this very moment.

  “I’m not turning back,” Carlo said. “I’ve got business with Granger as well, remember?”

  Luke nodded. “So . . . do you have any ideas about the best way to get close enough to take our shot at him?”

  “You’re actually asking for advice?”

  “That’s why we brought you along.” Smirking, Luke added, “Sure wasn’t for your cooking.”

  “Well, as a matter of fact, I do have an idea or two.”

  • • •

  After a brief discussion about strategy, the three of them rode toward the closest thing the camp had to a blind spot. If they were in more rugged terrain or someplace that had
more hills to offer, Carlo would have felt a lot more comfortable with making his approach. Since relocating the camp wasn’t an option, they made do with what they had.

  Before they even reached the trees, a pair of riders had circled around to meet up with them. Luke and Red dismounted and were tethering their horses when the uniformed soldiers spread out to cover them with rifles and reined to a stop. The soldiers were positioned so if any shooting started, they would have the three unannounced guests in a cross fire.

  “Who goes there?” one of the soldiers asked. He was a burly fellow with a thick beard partially covering a scarred face. The other soldier looked to be around the same age as Red and had a minimum of insignias or markings of rank on his dark blue coat. While both of them wore the trappings of Union soldiers, they were far from polished. Their buttons were tarnished. Their collars weren’t starched. Compared to the soldiers Carlo had seen before, these men were more like vagabonds.

  “We’re from town,” Luke said in a rush. His eyes darted back and forth between the two soldiers and he froze while reaching toward Carlo’s horse.

  Carlo was still in his saddle, head down and body slouching forward.

  “Who sent you?” the bearded soldier asked.

  “One of the men from the Red Bison. There’s trouble.”

  Although the bearded soldier kept a stoic expression, the younger man was quick to ask, “What kind of trouble?”

  “A fight. Some men rode up and started shooting up the place.”

  “Was anyone hurt?”

  Before Luke could answer, the bearded soldier asked, “Why were you sent out here? Why didn’t one of them come with you?”

  “They had their hands full, sir,” Red said. “Whoever attacked that place did it in a hurry. Just started shooting through the windows without caring who was hit.”

  “And you happened to see all of this?”

  “It was a shooting right out in the open,” Luke replied. “Everyone saw it.”

  The soldiers looked at each other, but the rifles in their hands didn’t waver. Finally the bearded one said, “You were to find someone for help.”

  “That’s right, sir,” Red answered.

  “Why didn’t you fetch the law?”

  Pointing to Carlo’s slouching frame barely staying atop his horse, Luke said, “Because he told us not to. He said to bring him straight back here as quick as we could.”

  “And who is that, exactly?”

  Carlo groaned as he tried to lift his head, managing only to reveal his chin and the bottom portion of his mouth beneath the brim of his hat.

  The two soldiers closed in for a better look and when they were straining to see his face, Carlo brought both hands up to point a gun at each one of them. The pistols in his hands went off in a quick staccato beat, knocking both soldiers from their saddles.

  “What are you doing?” Luke asked.

  Keeping both smoking pistols in hand, Carlo swung a leg over Old Man’s back so he could slide off and hit the ground with both feet. “This is the job you signed on for, kid. Too late to turn back now.”

  “We don’t know if these men had anything to do with the man that came to Maconville,” Luke protested. “We were supposed to take them prisoner. Tie them up and keep them out of our way.”

  “If they’re Granger’s men, they had enough to do with what happened to your family. Besides, we don’t get to pick and choose who we fight in a war.”

  “This isn’t war,” Red said.

  Carlo was standing over the bearded soldier when he looked up to fix a fierce glare on Red that caused the younger man to retreat half a step. “If you believe that, then you never should’ve left your mama’s side. Now help me search these two before—”

  The younger of the two soldiers barely moved before Carlo was on him. Both Red and Luke were shocked by how quickly he covered the patch of ground to stand over the man he’d shot. The soldier’s chest was bloody and his face was already losing its color as he opened his mouth to speak.

  “How many of you are here?” Carlo asked before the soldier could get out a word.

  “Who. . . .who are . . . ,” the soldier grunted.

  “Never mind who we are. Just answer my question and you’ll get to a doctor.”

  “F-five. Or six of us. Some went to town . . . heard the shooting.”

  “Is Granger here?”

  “In . . . his . . . in his tent.”

  Without taking a moment to think or address the soldier’s pleading eyes, Carlo stomped his boot into the young man’s face to knock him out cold.

  Jumping at the dull impact, Luke said, “You’ve lost your mind. This wasn’t how the plan was supposed to go.”

  “You wouldn’t have gone along with this if I told you how I was going to play it, but this is the only way we stand a chance. You came here to kill a man, didn’t you? That ain’t no time to be squeamish.”

  “We were supposed to sneak in,” Luke protested.

  “You saw the look in that one’s eye,” Carlo said while pointing back to the spot where the bearded soldier lay. “He wasn’t going to let us go anywhere. The only way for us to gain any surprise here is to do the one thing they don’t expect and that’s to burn a path right to their front porch when they’re at their weakest.”

  “They’re after us now,” Luke whispered. “Someone must’ve heard those shots!”

  “They would have been after us anyway. Best for us to get through them now than give them time to form ranks and come at us stronger while we deal with Granger.”

  “What kind of fool plan is that? Weren’t you the one telling me not to go off half-cocked?”

  “It’s all a matter of timing, kid,” Carlo said. “I’m telling you now’s the time to charge.”

  Luke looked over to his friend for support and got only a wary shake of the head from him. “He’s right,” Red told him. “It’s now or never. Too late to switch tracks anyways.”

  Without waiting for the boys to come to a consensus, Carlo took the rifle from the nearest unconscious soldier’s hands and roughly pulled at the uniform’s tarnished buttons. “One of you take that one’s coat,” he said while nodding toward the bearded soldier. In a matter of seconds, Carlo had the younger one’s coat on and Luke was shrugging into the other one. “This won’t do much, but it might buy us a second or two,” Carlo said.

  Not far from their position, men shouted orders to one another while drawing closer. Carlo hunkered down and set his sights on the camp. “Follow my lead and stay close,” he said. Then, without any further warning, he shouted, “There’s only two of them, coming in from the east!” Carlo tossed his hat away, held the rifle in both hands, and lowered his head while rushing into the camp.

  Luke hurried to catch up, but Carlo was weaving between the trees and moving so erratically that it was hard to keep eyes on him. Fortunately the two other soldiers that came along had the same problem. When they did spot Carlo, they paused to get a look at the face of the man in the uniform. It wasn’t much of a pause, but more than enough for Carlo to fire a shot at them. The first went down with a wound to the chest and the second was hobbled by a shot from the pistol Carlo pulled from his holster.

  “Take care of him!” Carlo said as he moved on.

  Luke’s mind was swimming with confusion, fear, and trepidation. He was grateful for the chance to slow down for a second and collect himself as he ran past the dead soldier and pointed his gun at the wounded one. That man’s leg was bleeding profusely from a messy wound in his thigh. He lifted a pistol that was a similar, albeit newer, make and model to the Colt Luke had fixed up back home. Upon seeing the gun being pointed at him, Luke brought up his own weapon and pulled its trigger. His senses were flooded with so many sights, sounds, and smells that they bled together like a sloppy watercolor on a greasy canvas. The shot he’d fired did nothing
to slow the soldier down. In fact, the wounded man took an additional second to take aim.

  That second was the clearest thing in Luke’s world.

  It dragged by, ingraining itself upon him, assuring him it would be the last thing he would see on this earth.

  A shot was fired.

  A bullet hissed through the air, impacting upon flesh with a hard, wet slap.

  The wounded man was knocked flat onto his back, his arm flopping to one side as his finger clamped around his trigger to send a shot into the dirt.

  Luke blinked several times and shook himself out of the stupor that had befallen him. That’s when he realized he hadn’t been the one to put that soldier down. That shot had come from the rifle in Red’s hand, who walked forward while still sighting along the top of his weapon.

  “This is the fight you wanted, ain’t it?” Red asked. “Try not to get yourself killed.”

  Anger flared within Luke’s chest, which also ignited a fire that burned away all of the haze that had been settling inside him like a fog. It would be the last time in Luke’s life that he would ever be filled with so much doubt again. Now that it had passed, everything was clearer than it had ever been. He and Red charged forward, ready to burn to the end of the trail that had brought them all the way to Wichita from the small town where their childhoods had been laid to rest.

  But there was nobody left for him to shoot. Even the gunshots that had cracked through the air in front of him had been silenced somehow, leaving only echoes and a ringing in his ears. The silence that had enveloped the camp was peculiar and out of place. It was soon broken by a sharp command.

  “Drop your weapons and raise your hands!”

  The camp lay several paces ahead of Luke and Red, just past a thinning row of trees. He could see tents and a few horses tied to a wooden rail. Gritty smoke hung in the air from the last barrage of gunfire. It stung Luke’s eyes and made it difficult to discern shapes in the thick of it. One of those shapes stepped forward, dressed in dark blue and covered in polished brass. In one hand, he carried a pistol and in the other was a gleaming saber.