Remington 1894

by William W. Johnstone

  Butcher’s plan was simple. Duke Gold and Parks were to hold the horses for the “inside” men—Butcher and his brother along with Gomez and Miami. The others would stay mounted and throw lead at any fool who dared show his face, raise a weapon or even a rock.

  Then they’d gallop out of town, tearing down the telephone and telegraph wires before heading west—to throw off any pursuers—and then south.

  Simple. But it didn’t turn out that way.

  Turned out, a lawman happened to be depositing some greenbacks when Butcher walked inside. He recognized the outlaw from all those wanted posters and pulled a pistol. Butcher blew him in half with a .45 Colt, and Miami shot down the teller who tried to palm a derringer. Some idiot clerk ran to the vault, slamming the door shut and spinning the lock before Greaser Gomez blew him apart with his carbine.

  “Get what’s in the till!” Butcher yelled to his kid brother as way more gunshots than normal sounded outside.

  The four robbers ran out of the bank feeling lead whip over their heads like a swarm of bees. Somehow, they found their horses and managed to take a fast lope out of Winslow.

  * * *

  Butcher had to give Duke Gold and Parks some credit. They hadn’t shirked their duties or turned yellow. He looked over his gang. They’d taken some hits. Down one man and two horses. Parks hadn’t made it, shot out of his saddle while trying to mount. Hanks and Ben’s horses got shot out from under them, but Gomez had picked up Hanks and Zuni had picked up Ben.

  The Winslow boys had formed a posse mighty quick and had not given up yet. Butcher figured they would soon as two more Winslow boys fell dead, but some boy in overalls surprised him by grabbing the reins of the dead idiots’ horses and leading the animals back around the bend.

  Gunshots clipped the branches over Moses Butcher’s head, and he cursed again. Duke Gold had fired too early, before most of those men from Winslow had rounded the curve in the road. The posse was taking cover on the other side of the road.

  “God a’mighty!” Duke Gold slammed against the boulder behind him and slid partway down the rocky bank. The fool groaned, whimpered, and brought both hands to his shoulder as the rifle he had been firing cartwheeled into the creek.

  Butcher looked across the creek. The bay horse had reached the other side. Dripping freezing water even in July, it trudged off into the dense forest.

  “Hold your fire!”

  That shout had come from someone out of view, one of the Winslow boys. Butcher’s men had already stopped shooting. There were no targets . . . thanks to Duke Gold. No men to shoot. Worse, no horses. Horses were the main reason Butcher had set up the ambush. Trying to replace the two they’d already lost.

  As the echoes of gunfire died away, he began reloading his rifle. Next, he untied his bandanna and wiped sweat off his face, retied it, and called out. “Any man hurt?”

  “I-I-I,” Duke Gold stuttered. “I . . . g-g-got . . . hit . . . in . . . in . . . in . . . m-m-my . . . sh-shoulder. Oh, Lordy, Lordy, Lordy, in I’m h-h-hurtin’ s-s-some . . . somethin’ awful.”

  Butcher leaned the Winchester, its barrel burning hot, against the pine.

  “I said is there any man hurt?”

  No answer.

  Of course, if one of the outlaws were dead, he wouldn’t be able to answer.

  “Ben?” Butcher called out.

  “I’m all right,” his brother replied.

  “And the others?”

  “None hurt.”

  “I’m h-h-hurt!” Duke Gold sobbed. “I’m h-hurtin’ . . . awful.”

  “Shut up.”

  Butcher removed the cavalry hat he had taken off a sergeant he had murdered a few years back down in El Paso. They had been playing poker at the Gem Saloon, and the dumb Yankee had accused Butcher of cheating—which he had been, naturally. When the horse soldier tried for his Remington .44, Butcher had shot him dead. He had needed a new hat and had always admired that cheap tan slouch number, so he had tried it on, and, well, as his Auntie Faye had always told him, “The Lord works in mysterious ways.” The hat fit him . . . perfectly.

  A big man, Butcher took after sweet Auntie Faye, who had raised him and Ben. Six-foot-four before he pulled on his boots, he weighed close to two hundred and twenty pounds . . . probably a bit more considering the lead he had acquired since he had taken to the owlhoot trail—buckshot in his back from a messenger on a stagecoach near Fort Worth; a .41-caliber derringer slug from a bounty hunter in Trinidad; and that .44-40 in his left thigh he had acquired when they had robbed the KATY near Muskogee. He could have weighed even more, but Bitter Page had dug out some slugs in line shacks and caves, and an old sawbones had managed to get the worst bullet—the one under his ribs—after they had taken thirty grand from a bank in Tucson.

  He wore striped britches, a red shirt, black vest, and peach-colored bandanna, all covered with dust and grime from traipsing across northern Arizona Territory. Two weeks of beard flecked with gray covered his face, which like his attire, needed a good scrubbing. His guns, however, remained clean—the Winchester. 44-40 he placed across his lap as he settled in for a long standoff with the posse from Winslow; the .45 Colt in the well-greased holster on his right hip; and his backup pistol, a .38-caliber Colt Lightning. That’s another thing Auntie Faye had always taught him. “Keep your guns clean, boy. And always loaded.”

  Removing his bandanna, he blew out a heavy sigh and began rubbing down the still warm barrel of his rifle.

  * * *

  As the sun sank behind the pine-covered hills, the air turned cooler. Butcher bit off a plug of tobacco and worked it with his molars. Auntie Faye had taught him that chewing tobacco relaxed one’s nerves, curbed the appetite, and made a body think better. And Auntie Faye . . . damned how she could spit. Could hit a spittoon twenty feet away and not stain the floor.

  He heard the rocks tumbling down the bank of the creek and saw Bitter Page making his way up.

  No telling what Page’s given name was, but Bitter fit him to a T. He never smiled, and his long, lean face reminded Butcher of all the undertakers and grave robbers he had known over the years. Almost as tall as Butcher and three times as lean, the gunman reached up to grab a branch and pull himself onto the embankment across from the gang leader, who did nothing to help. Getting that tobacco moist and chewable had become Butcher’s primary concern.

  “Pulled out,” Page said.

  Butcher pushed himself up. “Skedaddled? Or up to something?”

  “Runnin’ fer home. Found some blood droplets. We put a hurt into ’em.”

  “You certain?”

  Page raised one of his uncommonly long arms and pointed one of his thin, white fingers across the road. “Too tough a country. Woods too thick. Would have to leave their horses behind.”

  The tobacco felt good, so Butcher tested and spit on a beetle. Never able to spit as good as Auntie Faye, he wiped his mouth. “That would’ve helped us out a mite.”

  Page shrugged.

  “All right.” After grabbing his Winchester and butting the rifle on the ground, Moses Butcher pushed himself up. With Page following, the outlaw climbed up onto the road, bellowing for the boys to come on up and get their horses. He walked over to the horse Duke Gold had killed, and spit tobacco into the pool of blood that had dried into a dark stain on the sand.

  “God,” Gold muttered. “I’m hurt plumb awful.”

  Turning toward the gang, Butcher pointed the Winchester’s barrel at the dead horse.

  “The idea was to get us horses. Live horses. We’re short of mounts.”

  Gold paled even more. “That horse jumped up. Else I woulda kilt the rider true. Just like I done that first hombre.”

  “And that horse made it to the far side of the creek. We still need two horses. By now, every law dog in the territory knows we’re headin’ south.”

  “We need more than two horses, boss,” Dirk Mannagan said. “Ours are already played out. No way they’ll get us across that desert once we’ve cl
eared the Mogollon.”

  Butcher’s negative-thinking brother said, “If we get out. A mighty big if.”

  After spitting again, Butcher blew out a long breath and studied the rough country. “Ain’t likely to find even a wild, ornery mustang in these woods.”

  Silence.

  The coming darkness matched Butcher’s mood.

  “South a mite,” Gold mumbled.

  Butcher gathered his Winchester into his arms and faced him.

  “Huh?”

  “There’s a feller who raises good stock down around Payson.”

  “Is your knowledge of good stock better than your aim?”

  “Cowboys for the Hashknife Outfit swear by ’em.”

  Butcher considered.

  “Name’s McMasters,” the wounded Gold said. “His place is east of Payson.”

  The silent Indian, Zuni, not only grunted, but even spoke. “True. I have heard of this McMasters. But more of his horses.”

  That sealed the deal for Moses Butcher. “All right. We’ll pay McMasters a visit.”

  “And there’s a doctor in Payson, too,” Gold said. “I’ll pay him a visit.”

  “Nah.” Butcher swung the barrel of the Winchester around until it was touching Gold’s belly.

  Startled, Gold grabbed the barrel with both hands, but instead of jerking the rifle away, he brought it up. The .44-40 roared, sending him backwards, sliding down the embankment, and into the creek. His head disappeared beneath the water, but most of his body would remain dry—at least until the ravens and coyotes came to visit.

  Once the ripples had faded, no bubbles came to the surface.

  That was a pity, Butcher thought. Had Duke Gold not been an idiot and jerked the barrel up, he would have ended up gut-shot, taking a long time to die. He said what his Auntie Faye always said, “Que sera sera,” then turned to his brother.

  “Ben, you take Duke’s horse. We ride.”

  “At night?” Cherry asked. “In this country?”

  “You can stay with Duke if you want.” Butcher jacked a fresh round into the rifle.

  Cherry offered a weak smile. “Always wanted to see Payson.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Royal Andersen had parked his tumbleweed wagon—that rolling jail cell used to haul federal prisoners to the territorial prison in Yuma—exactly where John McMasters figured to find it. So McMasters reined in the buckskin, swung out of the saddle, and wrapped his reins around the hitching rail in front of the Sawmill Saloon.

  He had not reached the batwing doors before Mayor Ash Ashby—who always insisted that, yes, that was the handle his ma and pa hand put on him—stopped him on the boardwalk.

  “Rodeo’s next month.”

  Grinning but shaking his head at the same time, McMasters turned around, adjusted his eyeglasses, and held out his right hand. The smile faded just a bit when McMasters recognized the man in the unkempt sack suit standing to Ashby’s right.

  “So I hear.” McMasters shook hands with the mayor, and without any hesitation—despite how he felt—and offered his big right hand to the man in the suit. “Tom. How are things in Globe?”

  “Quiet,” Tom Billings said.

  “That’s good,” McMasters told the Gila County sheriff.

  “Now about our rodeo . . .”

  The smile returned in earnest when McMasters faced the mayor again and leaned against the rough pine planks of the saloon next to the batwing doors.

  “Why don’t you supply us with some good horses for those boys to ride in our August Doin’s this year?” the mayor continued.

  The rodeo had been going on for about as long as the town had been going by the name Payson. Cowboys from across the territory would come into Payson, gathering in the center of town near August Pieper’s rawhide saloon to try their hand at roping steers, riding broncs, and racing horses . . . not to mention that bloody game called chicken-pulling.

  “You don’t want good horses,” McMasters pointed out.

  “Well.” The mayor shuffled his Chicago-ordered shoes on the rough pine. “Before you train them horses, I know they are rank animals that even the best twister ever to fork a saddle at the August Doin’s would be hard-pressed to ride.”

  “Yeah.” The county sheriff had decided to put in his two cents.

  Must be an election year, McMasters decided. He could not think of any other reason Tom Billings would ride eighty miles north to visit Payson. “And you got your start here match-racin’, or so I hear.”

  McMasters did not bother to look at Billings or acknowledge his statement, which was true.

  Mayor Ashby was speaking up for McMasters.

  “That’s a fact, Tom. I saw John here beat a thoroughbred back in ’89. Last time you raced, wasn’t it?”

  McMasters did not bother answering. “You can get some Indian ponies up at San Carlos, Mayor, or send some cowhands into the hills to round up what’s left of mustangs like I do.”

  Ashby shrugged. “You’re a bona fide hero, John. Only Medal of Honor winner I’ve ever met. Made us all proud when you’d compete in the rodeo or match your best horse against any and all comers. Hell, I have to think that cowboys from as far away as New Mexico came here because of you . . . and your reputation. Might not even be any August Doin’s if not for you.”

  “I got old,” McMasters told him.

  “Well, look at it this way, John.” Ashby could be one persistent cuss at that time of year. “Rodeos. Our August Doin’s. That’s about all of the Wild West that’s left in the world . . . unless you’re traveling with Buffalo Bill Cody or one of those other—”

  “Dog and pony shows,” the county sheriff interrupted.

  “This is 1896,” Ashby continued. “Before long, there won’t be any rodeos.”

  McMasters laughed. “And no chicken heads and blood to clean up after the August Doin’s.”

  “Horse apples!”

  Royal Andersen’s blue-coated arms leaned across the batwing doors of the Sawmill.

  Stepping away from the wall, McMasters smiled even as he smelled the whiskey on the deputy’s breath.

  “This country is fer from becomin’ no paradise, gents. Hell’s fires and by golly, it ain’t no tamer than it was when I was ridin’ with Crook, scoutin’ fer the Army, chasin’ Nana and Cochise and Juh and Victorio and Geronimo. We never would have taken ’em bucks if it weren’t fer Crook. You know what the gen’ral told us?”

  “ ‘It takes an Apache to track an Apache,’ ” McMasters said. Hell, he had heard it enough from Royal Andersen over the years.

  “Takes an Apache to track an Apache,” Andersen said as if he were deaf and McMasters had lost his voice.

  The mayor and sheriff had heard enough and, as two career politicians, knew better than to stay around a person who would never let them speak, or who had never voted once in his life. Nodding their good-byes, both men hurried down the boardwalk.

  Royal Andersen pushed his way through the doors and grinned.

  Lean, tall, leathery, and harder than a fencepost, Royal Andersen pushed up the brim of his kepi, the blue wool practically bleached white by thirty-plus years in the elements. A cap like that did little to protect a man’s face the way McMasters’s equally battered wide-brimmed Stetson did, and Andersen’s face seemed darker than an Apache. He might even have been mistaken for an Indian if not for the thick white whiskers and his piercing hazel eyes.

  Despite the summer heat, Andersen wore an old Army blouse—although the brass buttons had long since vanished—over a muslin shirt and fringed buckskin britches stuffed inside old cavalry-issue boots that would never pass a by-the-book sergeant’s inspection. No spurs, but he did not need spurs when he drove the jailer’s wagon parked in the muddy street. Strapped across his waist, securing his Army-issue coat and likely keeping the britches from falling to his ankles, a black gun belt held a Remington in a cross-draw, flapped holster and the longest Bowie knife John McMasters had ever seen.

  They shook hands . . . and th
is time, John McMasters enjoyed the experience.

  “Been a long while, John,” Andersen said. “Dan said you’d be comin’. Said you was ’posed to come with him this morn, but you and ’em hosses you raise interfered.”

  McMasters smiled. “Dan wasn’t in any particular hurry to leave this morning, either. It’s good to see you, old friend.”

  The old-timer grinned. “I hear you got somethin’ fancy fer yer birthday.”

  Knowing Andersen would not mean the watch, McMasters gestured to the scabbard, and watched the tall ex-Army scout, and before that, a veteran of the 6th Wisconsin Infantry, stride to the buckskin and stare at the gleaming stock of the Remington. He cast a glance at McMasters, who nodded, and then his gnarled hands reached to pull the shotgun from the leather.

  “The onliest thing I ever got on my birthday,” Andersen said, “was a hair of the dog that bit me.”

  “No difference than any other day,” McMasters said.

  “No hammers.” Andersen opened the breech. “Smells sweet.” He snapped the barrels into place, turned, and trained both barrels on the backs of the sheriff and mayor.

  “Out of range,” McMasters said, “and ammunition. Need to get some shells over at Johnson’s.”

  “Yeah.” The old man slid the shotgun back into the scabbard. “How old are you?”

  “Fifty.”

  “Hell’s fires, son, you ain’t old. You ought to be carryin’ a long gun.”

  With exaggeration, McMasters removed his glasses, cleaned the lenses with his bandanna, and returned them. “My eyes beg to differ.”

  “Son, I’m nigh twenty years older than you now, but my eyes is as good as they ever was.” He tilted his head toward the batwing doors. “Buy you a better present than that scattergun?”

  McMasters pointed at the empty tumbleweed wagon.

  “Is that where your prisoners are?”

  The old man laughed. “No. I don’t drink with owlhoots. Dan’s signin’ all ’em papers it takes a body to get a man to prison in these dandified days.”

  “How many are you hauling to Yuma?”

  “Six.” He walked through the batwing doors and signaled to the beer jerker.