Seeing them, McMasters maneuvered around the independently run stagecoach parked in front where tenders were hitching a fresh team of mules onto the mud wagon. He reined up and slid from the saddle before the horse had come to a complete stop.
“Sheriff!” he snapped, stumbling to his knees in the still-muddy street.
“Good Lord!” Ash Ashby staggered against the hotel door, rattling the window.
“John, what’s happened?” Tony Jessop cried out.
“My”—McMasters felt one of the liverymen lifting him to his feet—“family.” When the young black man let go of his arm, McMasters had to grip the hotel’s wooden column for support.
“Dead,” he managed to say.
“You’re kidding.” Seeing McMasters’ glare, Sheriff Tom Billings took a few steps back. Likely, he saw the same thing in John McMasters’ eyes that Whit Rogers had spotted a few minutes earlier.
The Reverend Wilson Rutledge, in his maple-coated Southern accent, began praying for the souls of the blessed departed.
“John,” Jessop pleaded. “Tell us . . . everything.”
McMasters told them. Trying to control his emotions and not leave out anything, he described seeing the fire.
“We didn’t see any smoke,” Ashby said. “Did you, Tony?”
Jessop shook his head.
The preacher began another prayer and asked the others to join him. Most removed their hats, but only Rutledge prayed. The others looked across the street at the mountains.
Stupidly, McMasters looked back toward his place, too. Maybe . . . maybe no one had seen the smoke. From there, smoke would’ve been hard to see, and the wind had been blowing. His head shook. It did not matter. Nothing mattered anymore. Nothing except justice . . . revenge.
“I found Nate. Shot dead. And . . . Rosalee.” His voice cracked. “She was . . . killed . . . too.”
“Good God,” Ashby cried.
“Heavenly Father, please let us all awaken from this nightmare,” the preacher said. “Your will be done.”
“Eugénia?” Jessop asked timidly. “And . . . Bea?”
“Burned. I suspect. The—” His head shook savagely, and he tried to block away those images, the pungent reminder of burning flesh.
“Oh, God,” the preacher wailed, “pray that those are the only flames those poor children and blessed woman will feel. Tell me, sir, that their souls were saved.”
McMasters looked away from Rutledge. His eyes locked on Sheriff Billings.
“It was . . . Moses Butcher.”
Having finished hitching the mules to the mud wagon, the livery workers quickly retired to the stables across the street . . . likely to spread the gossip. A few other townsmen gathered around, along with the stagecoach’s messenger and driver.
“How . . . can you be sure?” Jessop asked.
“Whit Rogers,” McMasters said. “He told me.”
“Whit Rogers?” Those were about the only words Sheriff Tom Billings said.
It did not occur to McMasters until later that the county sheriff had not asked one question or even uttered more than one or two words.
“John”—Mayor Ashby shook his head—“you can’t believe anything that reprobate has to say. Why, Whit Rogers is crazy as—”
“Stop.” McMasters cut Ashby off, explaining what the tramp and peddler of kindling had just told him about the strangers on the Rim Road asking for directions to his place, about the Butcher Gang having robbed the bank up north in Flagstaff, Winslow, or Holbrook.
“We haven’t heard about any robbery.” Ashby looked at Marshal Jessop. “Have we?”
“No telegraph wire runs directly from Winslow, Holbrook, or Flag,” the stagecoach’s messenger said. “Have to run to Verde. Or up from Phoenix.”
“And,” Jessop said, “I haven’t been to my office since after breakfast.”
“That worthless Stevenson at the telegraph office wouldn’t know better than to track you down with a wire of that importance.” Ashby shook his head.
Why are these fools just standing around? Bantering about a telegraph operator?
McMasters quickly explained about seeing those riders cutting across the valley, heading south toward Globe. Nine riders.
“That,” Ashby pointed out, “doesn’t mean it was the Butcher Gang.”
“I don’t give a damn if it was William McKinley or William Jennings Bryant or any of their gangs!” McMasters roared, referring to the recent Republican and Democratic nominees for the upcoming presidential election.
“Easy, John,” Jessop pleaded. “What else can you tell us?”
They had stolen his horses, McMasters managed to say, turned loose what they did not find, killed his wife and all four of his children, even butchered a young colt for spite.
“Riding south,” he repeated. “Toward Globe.”
“Rough terrain,” the messenger said, and the stagecoach driver’s head nodded in agreement. “I expect they’ll cut to the road as quick as possible.”
“Maybe not if it’s Moses Butcher,” said Dixon Stuart, who ran a billiard hall across the street. “From what I’ve read about him, he’ll do whatever the law won’t expect.”
“If he robbed a bank, he’ll head for Mexico,” the stagecoach driver said.
“Yep,” the messenger agreed.
“I cannot believe I’m hearing this,” Ashby said. “There hasn’t been any blood spilled near Payson in years. None of consequence, anyhow.”
McMasters roared.
He looked into the faces of civilized men, men of peace, men of 1896. None of those, he thought, had even fired a weapon during the Civil War. None had seen the bodies of brave men in blue and gray littering fields so thick you could walk two hundred yards and never touch the ground. They were too young, and lacked enough guts. Hell, for decades John McMasters hadn’t told the truth to anyone who asked about his Medal of Honor. Hadn’t told what the War had been actually like. He had always said that he did not know. That he wasn’t a real soldier, not on the front lines like Royal Andersen or others who had fought so hard for so long. But he had been there. He had seen Seven Days . . . Mechanicsville . . . Malvern Hill . . . Second Bull Run . . . Antietam . . . Fredericksburg . . . Chancellorsville. . . Gettysburg . . . Wilderness . . . Spotsylvania. . . Cold Harbor . . . Petersburg. And after the First and Second U.S. Sharpshooters disbanded, he had been with the Sixth Wisconsin and Royal Andersen at Weldon Railroad and Five Forks.
The God-fearing men in front of him were peace-loving townsmen. They had not scratched a living for years on failed homesteads across the west before landing in northern Arizona Territory. Hell, they could not even believe what McMasters was telling them.
They might think I have lost all reason, that I’ve gone crazier than Whit Rogers.
And maybe I have.
Certainly, none had just seen his ranch, his way of life, burned to the ground. None had come across the body of his youngest son with the front of his head blown off from a point-blank shot. Seen his daughter . . . his daughter . . . his daughter . . . At that horrible image, his head shook once again.
The men on the boardwalk of Payson babbled about this and that. They pointed this way and that way, at each other, off toward the Rim Road and the rising hills. They had been too busy with their lives to have even noticed smoke from the hills and could not accept everything that John McMasters had told them.
“The Lord is my shepherd,” the preacher was saying.
“This can’t be true,” Ash Ashby said. “This just cannot be happening.”
“There must be some mistake,” Tony Jessop offered.
The messenger bit off a mouthful of chewing tobacco and passed the quid to his driver.
“What are y’all doing?” McMasters tightened his fists again. “There’s no time for talk. Senseless words.” He pointed directly at Sheriff Tom Billings. “We need to form a posse.”
CHAPTER 10
“Now, not so fast there, John.” Tom Billings had found
his voice again. “We need to do this by the book.”
McMasters swore. The Reverend Rutledge stopped his prayer and glared.
“Mayor”—doing his best to ignore McMasters, the county sheriff turned to Ash Ashby—“first thing you ought to do is ride out to John’s place.”
“Me?” The mayor managed to swallow.
“You’re the duly appointed deputy sheriff for this region. It’s your job.”
“What about your job?” Marshal Jessop said.
“I have an appointment in Globe. But don’t worry, if that is the Butcher Gang, and if those vermin are indeed heading south toward Globe, I’ll get up a posse when I’m in the county seat and will meet up with those villains.”
McMasters could not believe what he was hearing.
Obviously, the sheriff was coming up with the plan as he spoke. His head bobbed in excitement as he turned to the preacher, the messenger, and the stagecoach driver. “We’ll catch those swine in a vise. You boys from the north, and my posse from the south.”
Like, McMasters thought savagely, you’ll ever leave your office once you’re back in Globe.
“This talk isn’t catching the sons of bitches that butchered my family!” McMasters roared.
“We’ll catch them, John,” Billings said. “I promise you.”
McMasters spit and shook his head, thinking he never should have stopped in town.
“We need to get going,” the sheriff told the stagecoach operators. “Get to Globe as quickly as possible. Don’t worry. Justice will prevail.” He practically sprang into the mud wagon, and the driver and messenger glanced at each other nervously before turning back to stare at the mayor and the town marshal. None dared to look at John McMasters.
When nobody said anything or barely moved, the two men climbed aboard the stagecoach. The messenger picked up the shotgun, opened the breech to check the loads, and the driver released the brake, gathered the lines, and whipped the mules. With one passenger, the wagon crept along the main street, turned, and picked up speed as it moved south.
“I guess—” Ashby hesitated. “Reverend, I think it’s best if you accompany me to John’s . . . to . . . well . . . I think a man of God . . .”
“Of course.” The preacher managed to look at McMasters. His grim smile indicated that the ranch owner was forgiven for his coarse language. “We will see that Bea and your children get Christian burials, son.”
“You do that.” McMasters waited for more.
“Tony . . .” Ashby began.
The town lawman almost shook himself out of his boots.
“Can you—”
“I have no jurisdiction outside of the Payson town limits,” Jessop interrupted the mayor. “You know that, Ash. There’s nothing I can do.”
Ashby mustered up a modicum of nerve.
“You can gather some men, Tony. That you can do for me. The Reverend Rutledge and I will ride out to John’s place. You send some men—anyone who can ride, knows the country, or can pull a trigger. Maybe—” His eyes brightened and he turned to McMasters. Unable to keep his voice from squeaking, he said, “John, have you thought about sending word to Commodore Perry?”
“It’s not his jurisdiction, either,” McMasters said.
“Well . . . yes . . . I suppose . . . yes . . . silly of me. Do you wish to ride out with us, John? I mean . . . I know . . . well . . . what you’ve already seen . . . but—”
“You go on,” McMasters said. To his surprise, his voice had turned calm. Glancing down, he saw that his fists had unclenched. His arms no longer shook. His heart and breathing had returned to normal. He felt almost calm . . . but his mind raced.
The mayor and preacher hurried around the corner, leaving McMasters alone with the town lawman.
“John,” Jessop managed, “you know I really want to help.”
“Yeah.” McMasters glanced across the street.
“By thunder, I can’t believe this is happening. For God’s sake, this is 1896. We’re civilized. This—”
“It’s happening,” McMasters said.
“John,” Jessop tried again, “I’d go after them. You know I would. But I just don’t have the . . . the . . .”
“Jurisdiction.”
“Right. And with Ashby gone, and Billings gone, someone has to protect Payson. I mean”—Jessop’s face paled—“what if . . . Butcher comes back here?”
I was a fool to think anything else could have happened. I’ve given Moses Butcher too much of a head start. I need—
“What you need is a U.S. marshal,” Jessop said.
“A tracker,” McMasters said, their words overlapping.
“Your son . . . Rosalee’s . . . um . . . well . . . Dan . . . Dan Kilpatrick. He just left a few hours ago.” Jessop looked at the buckskin. “Maybe he could help.”
McMasters was already turning away, moving back to Berdan, and removing the saddlebags. “You better get your posse together, Tony,” he said without looking back as he slung the saddlebags over his shoulder and began crossing the muddy street. “And make sure my children, my wife, get a proper burial.”
He heard Jessop speaking, but did not catch the words. His boots hit the boardwalk and he moved past three buildings, his right hand finding the knob, pushing the door open.
“John McMasters!” Harold Johnson grinned as he lowered the Remington .44-caliber revolver he was cleaning. “You already out of birdshot?”
The smile vanished when he realized the wretchedness of stink on McMasters’s clothes. He dropped the. 44 on his worktable, removed his apron, and wiped his hands on his trousers as he moved around the counter.
“Good God, John, what has happened?”
McMasters was not about to explain everything again.
“I need a few things, Harold.” He pulled out his pocket watch, the solid gold repeater, and dropped it on the counter’s hard, glossy top. “Starting with”—he pointed at the boxes shelved behind the cash register—“buckshot.”
He figured to trade the watch for ammunition.
But Harold Johnson, once he heard briefly what McMasters told him, refused.
“You pay me when you get back, John.”
McMasters thought grimly If I get back.
He filled one saddlebag with buckshot shells, keeping the two boxes of birdshot he had bought that morning—a lifetime ago. Birdshot might come in handy for any quails or small game he happened across. He would have to eat. He knew it would take days . . . or longer . . . to catch up with Moses Butcher.
There was the gun belt and Colt—a .45-caliber with a seven-and-a-half-inch barrel and one-piece walnut grips. Johnson guessed that the weapon had been manufactured somewhere around 1877 but swore it shot true.
“I don’t know how I can thank you for all this,” McMasters said as he shook hands.
“Thank me by killing those bastards.” Johnson did not blink as he spoke. “And come back in one piece.”
“I’ll try.”
“I’d go with you, John . . .” He sighed and pointed at his right leg.
It was wooden. He had lost it at Chancellorsville, which always made McMasters feel remorse. Johnson had never said how he had been wounded, and McMasters knew not to ask. It was bad enough to know that while serving in the Confederate army, Johnson had been maimed in a battle in which McMasters had been firing from afar. He didn’t know how he would feel if he learned that Johnson had lost his right leg to a .52-caliber round fired from a Yankee sniper’s rifle.
Quickly, McMasters walked out of the shop, buckling on the gun rig and again crossing the street.
He remembered Colonel Berdan’s words from early in the war. “Eat when you can. As a sniper, you never know when you might be able to eat again. If you move for even a bit of hardtack or jerky, you might give away your position. Eat when you can.”
McMasters looked at the café, but ignored it. Eating would take time, and if he walked in looking as he did, he would panic the patrons, or at least spoil their early supper.
He entered the neighboring general store.
The merchant, a newcomer to Payson, showed no generosity. In fact, he wasn’t sure he wanted the Waltham repeater that Johnson had refused to take, but eventually the general store owner relented. Or maybe it was just how rough and deadly McMasters looked.
He piled supplies on the counter.
An extra canteen. A bedroll. Knife. Beef jerky, chewing tobacco, and peppermint sticks to curb his appetite or at least keep him in the saddle. New clothes. Changing in the back room, he found a washbasin, and scrubbed off most of the dirt and grime. The soap burned his hands and fingers, but those scars would heal, and the water and soap would help. Halfway human—at least in appearance—he reentered the store and gathered a war bag, just a canvas sack to slip over his horn or secure behind the cantle. To the counter, he added coffee, a cup, a spoon, and a fork. A rain slicker. At the last moment, he saw a compass, and tossed it on top of two extra scarves and a spare shirt and two extra pairs of socks. He also found a hat that would work and a pair of binoculars. Behind a glass cabinet was a Remington over-and-under derringer, and got it, as well, with one box of .41-caliber shells. A hideaway gun might come in handy. He would leave it in the saddlebags.
It would have totaled a right large sum, but nowhere near as much as Bea had spent on that sold gold watch at Brandenberger’s.
The store owner seemed to have remorse. He opened the hunter’s case and heard the music. He felt the heft of the piece.
“This is worth too much. I should give you more.”
“I have all I need,” McMasters said.
“But—”
“What good does a watch do? It’s nothing but a reminder of time.”
The clerk shook his head, and McMasters accepted a sack of grain for Berdan and some more jerky and beans. He also took fifty dollars in greenbacks.
Still the store man knew he had not paid McMasters enough.
“Just wait one more minute, sir. I have something else that might make this all a fair trade.”
Remington 1894 Page 8