by Jake Logan
“What is it, Major?”
“I am sure this is it. We were so close before, but this time, this town, this is it. Make no mistakes. I want them alive. Do I make myself clear, sir?”
“Surely do, Major. But we might have trouble since most all our ammo’s been blowed up.”
“The guards responsible have been dealt with, I assume?”
“Yeah, punished,” Kimbrell said, distracted. “I had the two who’d snuck into camp cornered. If you hadn’t pulled me back, I coulda had both of ’em.”
“This is more important,” Magee said. “This is the reason we are in the field.” The major pulled up his collar against the steady rain. “We must overtake them now. If they get away in this rain, there will be no tracks, no catching them.”
“Everything else is the same?” The major nodded once. “Why’s this different? Are you sure the scout saw the women?”
“One of them. He saw a pretty blond woman in the town who was not a local.”
“Might be just passing through,” Kimbrell said, feeling ornery. There was no reason to argue with the major, but he was still pissed off that he had let two lawmen get away. The best he might have done was shoot one of their horses. That just wasn’t the same as shooting them.
“She was not a local and there is no easy way to ‘just pass through,’ as you put it. The town has no railroad depot or stagecoach service. From the scout’s report, she was a stranger to everyone in town.”
“What was she wearing? That might make matters a mite easier findin’ her.”
“A striped gingham dress. That was all he said.”
“More ’n we usually have to go on,” Kimbrell said, deciding it was time to appease Magee and get on over to the town. “How far do we have to ride?”
“Not more than twenty miles.” Magee indicated the direction the scout had come from. “We can make it by mid-afternoon riding steadily.”
Kimbrell gave a sloppy salute, then bellowed, “Into your saddles. We got a lot of ridin’ to do today!” He left Magee and went to see that the entire gang was ready. Twenty miles in the rain would be a chore, but it was better than sitting on his ass and being chewed out for minor infractions. Kimbrell snorted. He might as well be in the army.
A slow grin came to his lips as he touched his vest pocket and traced over the severed finger there. He pressed down firmly when he felt the West Point ring. After he and Magee parted company, one way or the other, he intended to wear this ring. He might not have gone to West Point and learned all their fancy tricks, but he was as good as any officer that ever graduated. He was certainly better than the man he’d taken the ring from.
“Move out!” He waved his arm around and then pointed in the direction Magee had indicated. Kimbrell might not have any idea where the town lay, but the scout could backtrack.
Then they could all kill.
The rain came down fitfully, obscuring the tiny town with a torrential curtain one instant and then blowing clear the next. Kimbrell wiped rain from his face as he looked the town over. It might have been any of the other tiny towns they had raided in the past month. One main street lined with businesses. A couple smaller streets running parallel, with a few cutting through at right angles. Mostly those were jammed with tar-paper shacks where people lived. Toward the outskirts of town he saw a few more substantial houses. They would hit those first. The men in them probably had enough money for both guns and ammunition. In the past, though, he had found that the poorer men in a town couldn’t scrape up the money for even an old black-powder pistol, much less the lead and powder.
Killing them wasn’t as much fun, but Kimbrell wasn’t much for keeping score like that. The shooting mattered most. And the robbing. A slow smile came to his lips. The raping wasn’t so bad either. Truth was, he enjoyed it all, and Clayton Magee was giving it to him for the taking.
“The scout is moving through the town hunting for the woman again,” the major said.
“We kin flush her if we attack straightaway,” Kimbrell said.
“Soon, Mr. Kimbrell. I feel this is the place. In my bones, I feel it. They will be here.”
Kimbrell almost asked why Magee wanted the two women when he could have any of them in any of the towns they pillaged. He held back because asking questions might delay the attack. More than this, he didn’t give two hoots and a holler.
“There’s the report coming now,” Magee said. Kimbrell turned in the rain and saw how intent Magee was. His eyes were fixed on the returning scout. Nothing else mattered to him but the response from the scout.
“Cain’t find ’er now, Major,” the scout said. “She’s prob’ly somewhere in town, though. The livery stable owner said she was ridin’ a sorrel, but took the horse ’bout two hours back.”
“She left town two hours ago?”
“Might jist be sightseein’.”
“In a nowhere town like this? In the rain?” Kimbrell could only scoff. The place was fit for burning, not taking in the attractions.
“Attack, Mr. Kimbrell. We might be too late. Attack and hunt for her.”
“Yee-haaaaaa!” The cry ripped from Kimbrell’s lips, and he motioned for the thirty-two men left in the gang to attack. They each drew a pair of pistols and guided their horses using their knees only, so they could fire to both sides as they rode, unencumbered by reins, which they held in their teeth.
The first rounds from their six-shooters sounded like distant thunder. Then it was obvious to everyone in town that this thunder was more deadly. Lead preceded the reports and people wilted like drought-stricken flowers. They collapsed into the muddy streets and across rain barrels, but die they did. Everyone in the way of the onslaught perished.
Kimbrell gritted his teeth as he held the reins between his teeth. His first two six-guns emptied, and then the second pair. He shoved those back into his belt and drew the last pair of the six he carried.
The reins fell from his mouth as he stared.
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered. He lifted his six-shooters and fired until they both came up empty, then went for his rifle. Louder, to be heard over the rain and gunfire, he shouted, “Cavalry! We got cavalry on us!”
His rifle fire brought down the guidon bearer. A sergeant bent low and scooped the guidon up before it hit the muddy ground. Using the pole like a lance, the sergeant galloped forward. Kimbrell fired twice, missing the enlisted man both times. He realized he was going to get skewered if he stayed where he was. Kimbrell grabbed up the reins and got his horse turned around. He galloped back through town yelling his warning.
The troopers were at his heels, hitting at the precise worst instant for the outlaws. They had expended the rounds in their six-shooters and now relied on their rifles. When those came up empty, they had nothing to fall back on. Usually, the town would have been wiped out by this time. But for all the dead townspeople, there were soldiers coming at them spoiling for a fight. Kimbrell bent low as the bullets from the army carbines whistled through the rain all around him.
“Clear out, git outta here!” Kimbrell saw that more than one of the gang had already retreated, leaving their partners to fight the soldiers. If they had presented a solid front, they could have turned the attack. There weren’t near as many soldiers as there were outlaws in Magee’s gang.
“No quarter,” came the order from the officer leading the charge. “Cut them all down, men.”
Kimbrell’s horse began to falter. It had been a long, tiring ride to reach the town, and the initial attack had been done at full gallop. There wasn’t any reserve left in the stalwart horse’s legs. Flanks lathered and sides heaving, the horse slowed.
Kimbrell let out a yelp of pain as the sergeant caught up with him and tried to impale him with the company guidon. The metal tip on the pole grazed his thigh and caused him to almost tumble from the saddle. The flag flapped against his arm and caused him to drop his rifle.
“You son of a bitch!” Kimbrell snarled. He swung his fist at the sergeant, but missed
and almost accomplished what the soldier had not. Clutching the saddle horn, he hung on until he regained his seat.
The harder he pushed his horse, though, the slower it moved, until he felt as if he were slipping through thick molasses.
“Give up and you’ll get a fair trial ’fore we hang you,” promised the sergeant. The soldier grabbed and caught Kimbrell’s sleeve.
The coat rather than the man went fluttering away. Kimbrell swerved to his right and the sergeant raced past. Working furiously, Kimbrell began reloading one of his six-guns. He was sorry now he had killed so many earlier. It would have been more fun killing soldiers. The town would have been icing on the cake.
“To me! Men, to me!” came the loud cry.
Kimbrell wasn’t sure if he was glad to see Major Magee taking charge. Of all the men he had ever ridden with, Magee was the cleverest field commander, but the man didn’t have a lick of sense. Nothing mattered to him but finding the damned women. Kimbrell almost kept riding, but saw the sergeant coming around after him. If he wanted to get out alive, he had to rejoin Magee and the survivors of the attack. Only by presenting a solid defense could any of them hope to escape. Otherwise, the army column would track them down and kill them one by one.
“This way, boys. Rally to the major!” Kimbrell did what he could to herd the few outlaws around him toward Magee. By the time he got to the major, about twenty men had gathered, and Magee was positioning them to repel the soldiers’ attack.
“Take the left flank, Mr. Kimbrell,” Clayton Magee said in a voice so calm he might have been discussing the weather. “My section will advance. You lead your men to the left flank and hit them hard. Everything you can bring to bear.”
Kimbrell wasn’t sure what this would accomplish, but Magee sounded confident.
“Reload, men, reload as many pistols as you can. We don’t have much time.”
Behind him he saw the captain in command of the troopers struggling to regain some order and position his men. The sergeant with the guidon rode about, relaying orders, then trotted back to take a position opposite the spot where Magee had ordered Kimbrell to attack. Fear closed on Kimbrell’s throat like fingers choking the life from him. He had to fight the madman who’d tried to skewer him with a flagpole. Fumbling, Kimbrell reloaded, dropping as many shells as he shoved into chambers.
“Now, men, full assault! Forward. Attack!” cried Major Magee.
Kimbrell saw the sergeant staring right at him. The soldier dipped the guidon in a mocking salute, then bellowed his own order to attack. At this instant, Kimbrell almost faltered. Then he touched the lump in his vest pocket with the severed finger and West Point ring. He had two vest pockets. It would be nice to get himself a second ring. To do that he had to kill the sergeant and then finish off the captain.
“Fire, fire, fire!” Kimbrell barked. He put his spurs to his tired horse and raked bloody grooves in the animal’s flesh to begin the attack.
11
“It must be a trap,” Marshal Vannover said. “I don’t hear so much as a rabbit stirrin’ out there in the woods.”
“I’ll see what I can find,” Slocum said, slithering like a snake over the rotted log and down to the stream bank. The rain was coming down harder now, making it difficult to see more than a few feet. The sound of the rain pounding on the leafy canopy above his head drowned out any possible sound, other than outright gunshots. Moving slowly, Slocum came to the spot where he knew the outlaws had to gather for an attack.
The rain had wiped away any trace of prints in the soft ground. Puddles obscured even the ankle-deep grass in places as water pooled before running down into the stream. Slocum moved quicker now, taking in a huge swath of the forest, and found no trace of the outlaws. He went directly back to where he had left the horses.
His paint pawed nervously at the ground, as mad at being in the rain as having been shot at. The limb where Slocum had looped the reins was damned near shot clean off the tree. He jerked the reins free and swung into the saddle. It took him another minute to fetch the marshal’s horse and ride slowly back to where the lawman crouched behind the log.
“It’s me, Marshal,” Slocum called. “I got your horse and I’m mounted.”
The lawman rose and wiped rain from his face, then pulled his hat lower to keep more from getting into his eyes.
“Thanks for the warning. Reckon you’re not being led around with a ring in your nose, Slocum. What happened to them owlhoots?”
“They cleared out. Don’t know why since they had us dead to rights.”
“Never question luck. I’ve drawn to inside straights, I’ve shot the center out of a quarter at ten paces, I’ve even gotten laid by a beautiful woman who didn’t ask for money. Accept luck when it comes your way.”
The marshal dragged his injured foot behind him as if it had become a stump. Grunting and swearing, he pulled himself into the saddle. The horse sagged under his weight, but was otherwise game.
“We need to get some rest,” Slocum said. “For the horses, if not ourselves. And you need a doctor to look at your ankle. If it’s busted, you need to get it splinted up.”
“The doc in Charity’s dead. I saw him with a bullet in the side of his head.” Vannover chewed at his lip as he thought, then said, “Cimarron Junction is the next closest town, and it’s quite a ride from here. Maybe twenty miles.”
“I don’t think Magee is heading back to Charity,” Slocum said. He had no idea if the major was likely to destroy another town, but he felt the need to warn as many folks as he could. “Which way’s Cimarron Junction?”
“That way,” Vannover said. “If we go up into the hills and cut straight through, it makes for a strenuous ride, but we can cut three or four hours off takin’ the road.”
“If the road’s turned to soup, going across country might be easier.” Slocum pulled up his collar against the rain, then surrendered to the inevitable. The rain came down so hard and at such an angle that it was going down his neck no matter what he did. He kept the hat pulled low to keep the water from his eyes. Other than this, he was going to be riding along miserable all day.
Within an hour the rain let up, and within two he was damp but not soaking. Ahead in the direction of Cimarron Junction, though, rain clouds still threatened.
“You hear that, Slocum?”
Slocum looked up. He had been riding along, lost in thoughts of how wet he was and how he wanted to get into dry clothes. The clouds ahead of them warned him not to put on his spare shirt from his saddlebags. He had kept a lookout for the outlaws, but had not seen hide nor hair of them and had been content to push on as fast as his tired horse would take him. The marshal had been right about the hills being steep, but every time they crossed a road, he was glad they had chosen this route. A horse walking in that mud would sink in over its fetlocks. That would force them to find grassy spots along the road itself. This way was quicker, as well as being easier going in the long run.
“It’s not thunder,” Slocum anwered.
“Guns. Lots of guns. You thinkin’ Magee and his boys are shootin’ up Cimarron Junction?”
There was no other explanation. Slocum snapped the reins and got his horse climbing a steep, wooded hill. Halfway up, a fine mist made the going more difficult, and by the top of the ridge, it was raining again.
“Holds down the gun smoke, if nothing else,” Vannover said wryly. “See that? Looks like we got two armies about to plow headlong into one another.”
“Flanking move. Magee’s attacking the soldiers’ flank,” Slocum said in grudging admiration. From what he could tell of the fight, Magee was in no position to press the attack straight through Cimarron Junction, and if he tried to retreat, the cavalry troopers would chew up his ass. By the counterattack, Magee bought himself time, and might force the cavalry officer to draw back. The instant he did that, Magee would get away with most of his men.
“That’s Kimbrell leading the charge,” Slocum said. He watched as Magee’s lieutenant led the
charge directly into a squad of exposed troops. The soldiers fought well, but were forced to retreat. When they began withdrawing in ragged twos and threes, their officer had no choice but to retreat alongside to keep his force from being cut in half.
“Magee’s getting away,” Vannover said. “We can follow him. We got to, Slocum, or—”
“Is your horse able to walk without staggering? Mine neither. And in this rain, his tracks are going to be washed away within minutes. Let him go and be content that he didn’t destroy Cimarron Junction like he did Charity and the other towns.”
“Damn, but I want his hide nailed to the barn door,” Vannover said.
“Let’s see what brought the cavalry to this town at the right time,” Slocum said. “From up here, the officer struck me as a decent enough field commander, but not one with a whole lot of imagination.”
Vannover looked hard at Slocum before speaking. “You always thinkin’ this hard? I didn’t expect a drifter to be so observant.”
“Makes my head hurt if I think too much,” Slocum said.
“Reckon it hurts all the time then. Maybe we can convince a barkeep down yonder to offer up some medicine for what ails us—your head and my ankle.”
They rode down the steep hill and angled into town, bypassing the muddy, bloody field where the major portion of the fight had occurred. Slocum saw that for every soldier that had been brought down, an outlaw had, too. Such an even swap was bad for Magee. The cavalry officer need only telegraph Fort Gibson and get out a full company to reinforce him. Sheer numbers would wear down Magee’s gang until it was no longer a threat.
At least, Slocum hoped it would work that way. He was sick in his gut at seeing entire towns massacred.
“Whoa, don’t go pluggin’ us, Private,” called Vannover. “I’m a marshal and this here’s my deputy.” He held up his badge so the guard could see. “Can you take us to see your cap’n?”
“Captain Langmuir’s seein’ to the troops.”
“What about your sergeant?” asked Slocum. “He put up quite a fight back there.”