McMasters waited till the man walked into the backroom. Then he gathered all of his plunder, and walked back onto the boardwalk. He wasn’t going to wait any longer.
Hurriedly, he stuffed his supplies into the war bag, wrapped the extra shirt and socks inside the bedroll, and fastened it behind the saddle’s cantle. He looked up and down the street. No sign of the mayor. No sign of Marshal Jessop. But he could feel the stares of the men and women of Payson.
Maybe he had too much stuff from the store. If he were a smart man, he would have bartered at Todd’s ramshackle livery stables for a pack mule . . . but a mule would slow him down. Hell, he had too much already. The ammunition and hardware he carried would weigh down Berdan. Besides, he might see Whit Rogers at Todd’s livery and, fearing his own deadly temper, John McMasters did not want to see that tramp again.
He could hear whispers. See lips moving. See an occasional finger point in his direction.
Word spread fast on the streets. It would soon reach the stores, the homes, and maybe even that damned newspaper editor. McMasters wanted to be out of Payson. He wanted to push the buckskin into a good run. A tumbleweed wagon hauling prisoners would not make good time.
That was his first stop. He had to find Dan Kilpatrick first. Get Kilpatrick and Royal Andersen on his side. Get them to ride with him. The way he had it figured, that was his only chance.
He opened the saddlebags, broke open a box of buckshot, and slid two shells into the twin barrels of the 1894 Remington. The weapon felt different, like it was part of him. He placed his thumb on the flat-ribbed switch and put the twelve-gauge into its SAFE mode indicated by the engraved word above the switch and just below the lever that opened the breech.
He slid the shotgun back inside the scabbard.
The merchant stepped outside the store in a hurry. Ignoring the clerk and the long rifle that he held, McMasters swung into the saddle. He recognized the weapon and knew that it might indeed even out the trade. It was a buffalo rifle, without one of those telescopic sights. With his eyeglasses on, he might have been able to line up a target . . . but he did not know how long he would be able to keep his spectacles.
The .45 Colt revolver and the twelve-gauge Remington shotgun would do. And the .41-caliber derringer, if it came to that.
McMasters turned the buckskin around in a hurry, eased the horse down the street, and turned south. He saw the ruts made by the stagecoach hauling the county sheriff back to the comforts and safety of his office in Globe. McMasters hoped he did not find that mud wagon on his ride south. Hell, he might let Tom Billings have both barrels.
Out of town, he spurred the buckskin into a trot. He would keep Berdan at a trot for a while, then into a lope, and back into a walk. The horse was all he had . . . for now.
Be smart, he told himself. Find Kilpatrick. Find the tumbleweed wagon. That had to be first. Maybe it would work out . . . maybe.
The wind blew into his face. Darkness would come shortly. He had to cover as much ground as he could. The fork in the road came directly, and McMasters knew which way to go. Not to Globe, though that was likely the way Moses Butcher and his black-hearted bastards had gone.
John McMasters turned the buckskin on the road to Phoenix and gave the horse more rein.
Again, Colonel Berdan’s words reached him. The memory came from later in the war, Mine Run in Orange County, Virginia, if he recalled correctly. A little set-to that no one remembered. That late in 1863, in the early months of winter, and for such a stupid little fight, it wasn’t much of a skirmish. He didn’t remember much of the fight, but he would never forget Berdan’s fire and brimstone sermon, for it did not match the nature of the quiet inventor and engineer.
On that November day, a few months before he resigned his commission, Berdan had quoted from The Book of Revelation.
“‘And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.’ ”
The buckskin was pale. John McMasters was Death.
CHAPTER 11
The damned fool driver hit every hole on the road, and Bloody Zeke The Younger knew that son of a bitch done it a-purpose. But that was all right. Just fine. Those hills and the road were bad enough to make the going mighty slow. Took more time, Bloody Zeke knew . . . and time meant life. Besides, the black hat he wore protected his head just a little bit from slamming against the iron bars of the tumbleweed wagon.
One of the wheels squeaked. In fact, that noisy racket irritated the deputy marshal so much, he kept stopping, having the old coot of a driver get out the grease bucket and slop on more of that junk . . . which quieted things for a short while. Once they got on the road again and had moved on a bit, the noise started up, sounding even louder. At that rate, they’d never make it to the Yuma Territorial Prison.
That was just fine and dandy with Bloody Zeke The Younger.
As the wagon moved along, the squeaking axle had a harmony. The chains rattled. The wind blew. The piss pot in the center of the wagon already stank to high heaven. And they had been on the road only a few hours. Two weeks it would take to get to Yuma. Maybe a little more. Perhaps less. No, not any less. Not as long as that fool of a deputy kept stopping the wagon.
Of course, Bloody Zeke had no plans to return to that hell some folks called a prison.
He looked across the wagon.
Sitting across from him at the rear of the wagon, the redheaded bitch had shown some brains. She had a pillow, probably from some fancy whorehouse, that she used to rest her head against, protecting herself from busting her skull against the bars.
Brains, he thought, and a good looker. He imagined what her flesh looked like beneath that green calico. The dress was dirty as all hell, but not full enough for her to be wearing a petticoat. He figured her body was white as a baby’s bottom.
Her green eyes locked on him.
Bloody Zeke grinned.
“Ain’t you gonna take a piss?”
Beside him, the old Rebel in patched britches laughed.
The woman spit in his direction.
“Feisty.” Bloody Zeke laughed. “I like that.”
She looked away, but only briefly.
The colored giant chained next to her said, “Shut up.”
Bloody Zeke turned toward the big cuss who was chained near the front of the wagon, but on the same side as the redhead. He wore no hat, just a red silk bandanna tied across his forehead like some old Apache. Only this man—Alamo Carter he had heard the law dogs call him—was no Apache. His head was shaved bald, a big head, and he was blacker than Bloody Zeke’s soul. He wore old cavalry boots, canvas trousers, and a muslin shirt that had no sleeves.
Torn off, Bloody Zeke figured, to show off those muscles. He had never seen anyone with that much muscle. The Negro was a giant. Six-foot-four, maybe even taller. It was hard to tell sitting in such a cramped, miserable jail on wheels.
“You talkin’ to me, boy?” Bloody Zeke asked.
“You show respect for the lady,” the black giant said.
Bloody Zeke laughed. He nodded at the redhead. “I’d take off my hat, ma’am, but, well, they chained my hands to the floor. Along with my legs. I sure did not mean to offend you, honey.”
He faced the Negro again.
“That suit you, son?”
The giant’s eyes narrowed. Bloody Zeke spit at him, and laughed again.
“Hey,” called the Reb chained beside Zeke. “Hey, Yank!”
The driver of the wagon, that tall drink of water wearing the bluecoat kepi, said without taking his eyes off the mules, “What do you want?”
“We needs another slop bucket,” the Reb said.
“You’ve filled one already?”
“Nah.” The Reb cackled like a coyote. “But that one’s for white men and the pret’ lil thing. You ain’t lettin’ him piss or do-do in ou
r bucket.”
“Do-do?” Bloody Zeke turned to the Reb.
The old-timer grinned as he looked at Bloody Zeke. “I’s watchin’ my language in front of the lady.”
“Shut the hell up,” the driver said.
The old Reb laughed. So did the gambler, who was chained next to the Reb. The Mexican, next to the gambler and at the front of the wagon, said nothing. Hell, he was probably still asleep. Maybe dead.
“I’m serious, Yank,” the Reb said.
“If he and Bloody Zeke have to piss or crap, they’ll do it in their pants!” the driver yelled back. “Now shut up or I’ll shut you up.”
All except the woman had been shackled to the wagon’s hard bed, but only two of the male prisoners had their wrist manacles also fastened to the bed—Bloody Zeke and Alamo Carter, the big black killer.
Bloody Zeke figured, if they had chained her leg irons to the floor, she couldn’t relieve herself.
The driver was right. Chained to the floor, Bloody Zeke and Alamo Carter could barely move.
Bloody Zeke brought up his wrist irons as far as they could go. He grinned across the wagon, first at the woman, and then at the colored giant.
“See . . . they think we’re the most dangersome of the whole bunch. And I think, they’s right.”
The black, one mean, uppity giant, glared again before turning away, leaning his hard head against the hard bars, and closed his eyes.
That satisfied Bloody Zeke real fine. The woman didn’t look at him, probably wouldn’t look at him. The Reb—his name was Emory something or other—shifted, kicking his legs out, rattling those chains again, trying to find a comfortable spot to catch a little sleep. Bloody Zeke breathed easier. The mean, cadaverous Reb wore a patch over his right eye, so he wouldn’t be able to get a good look at what Bloody Zeke was about to do. On the other side of the Reb, those two other prisoners—the gambler in the fancy vest and the burly bean-eater—would not have a clear view, either. . . as long as none of them got up to use the piss bucket.
Zeke looked at the leg chains. He’d never be able to twist his way out of those, securely fastened iron on iron as they were.
The wrist manacles were a different story. The rig Zeke’s wrists were fastened to wasn’t that strong. The tumbleweed wagon wasn’t designed for wrist manacles. The fool deputy marshal had merely asked that old codger driving the wagon to nail a big U-shaped pin to the floor.
“To disillusion Zeke and Carter from trying anything,” the law dog had said.
Zeke pulled the bracelets that shackled his wrists as tight as possible, bit his lip, and began pulling at the iron pin that held them to the floor. He was not a big man—especially compared to that bald-headed cuss sitting on the other side of the wagon—but he did not lack strength in that wiry frame of his.
Just a pull here and there, and the pin would come up.
The wagon kept jostling, that wheel kept squeaking, and no one paid any mind to Bloody Zeke The Younger.
Fools did not know how hard it was to disillusion Bloody Zeke The Younger about anything.
He had his own illusions. First, he’d catch one of the law dogs unaware. Easy enough. He figured men who wore badges were stupid. Get him in a headlock and make the other lawman set him loose. Then he’d be on his way. He’d pin the law dogs inside the tumbleweed wagon, and let the big colored boy and the others beat them to death, most likely, as Bloody Zeke took the deputy’s horse and rode away.
He’d leave the prisoners inside the wagon. As hot as the weather got, they all might be dead by the time some passer-by came across the wagon. But the redhead? Well, maybe Bloody Zeke would take her along. For a little bit. Then he’d leave her in an arroyo or behind some tree or cactus and go after Moses Butcher.
The mere thought of Butcher made Bloody Zeke work harder on freeing the wrist chains from the big U-shaped pin.
* * *
He drifted in from New Mexico Territory and found himself drinking down in the border town of Nogales when Butcher entered the same saloon. Situated on the Mexican side and the Arizona side, the town never minded what crimes anybody had committed in any town other than Nogales, so it was always a safe place to stay if you had a price on your head. No bounty hunter was crazy enough to go to Nogales. Wanted men would protect one another from some low-down cur who’d take a man in for money.
After a few bottles of tequila, Moses Butcher told Bloody Zeke about a little bank up in Tucson. Not much of a haul, except on two Saturdays a year. Then the bank held $50,000 . . . and one of those Saturdays was coming up in about a week.
“A piece of cake to rob,” Moses Butcher said. The bankers never wanted to call attention to just how much they had in the vaults on those two Saturdays, so they never hired any extra guards. Just kept business as usual. “A cinch,” he said.
Just drunk enough to buy that bag of horse apples, Bloody Zeke left Nogales with Moses Butcher, following him to his hideout in the Superstition Mountains. And then they rode into Tucson.
If the Gadsden American Bank did not hire any extra guards it was because it did not need any more than the dozen that patrolled the building—in front, on the roof, across the street, and in the alleys. Oh, they let Butcher and the boys inside fair enough. Maybe to give them a sporting chance. But when the last of the bank robbers stepped onto the street and headed for their horses, things got noisier than the Fourth of July.
The two kids hired to watch the street and horses got blown out of their saddles. Moses Butcher took one bullet in his chest or belly, and two other gang members fell dead in the street before Butcher, his kid brother, and some of the other veterans made it out alive. Bloody Zeke carried Butcher on the back of his horse.
They didn’t stop until they reached an old mission west of the Santa Cruz. The one folks called The White Dove. Mission San Xavier del Bac. Butcher had told his pards that fresh horses would be waiting for the gang there, but when Bloody Zeke dismounted and ran to the corral, he found only burros. When he turned around, he saw Moses Butcher clutching his bleeding belly with one hand and a .44 Remington in the other.
Oh, Butcher swore that some son of a bitch betrayed them, that there were supposed to be horses waiting, but the dust cloud off to the north meant a posse was coming and that they had a better chance of reaching the border if they didn’t share a horse.
“Stay here,” Butcher told Bloody Zeke. “Ask the padre for asylum. They got to give it to ya. We’ll split up the money later. But first . . . hand over your gun belt to Milt Hanks.”
Once that last transaction had been handled, Butcher led his boys down the trail to Nogales—the Mexican side of the town.
That story about asking a priest for asylum, that it would have to be granted? That didn’t happen. Maybe . . . just maybe . . . a good Mexican padre would have done what he was supposed to do, but Bloody Zeke wasn’t given a good Mexican padre. He found only one . . . who had known Bloody Zeke’s daddy, and who was old enough to remember the stories of a ten-year-old girl ravaged, murdered, and strung to a saguaro cactus.
The priest gladly turned Bloody Zeke over to the law.
The take was not fifty grand. Only thirty. Or so things had been sworn to in the trial a month later.
Sentenced to twenty years for armed robbery in the territorial prison, he served one of those years, plus two months, then escaped. Instead of heading south to the nearby border, he foolishly made his way north.
In his cups, Butcher had told Bloody Zeke a lot, explaining why he planned on heading north a bit after the Tucson robbery, and where he liked to hide out.
The law captured Bloody Zeke near Apache Junction. Chained him up. Sent him to jail to await the tumbleweed wagon. Rode all the way to Payson, chained in with the black bastard, the woman, the Reb, and the cardsharper before the law dogs had picked up their final prisoner, the bean-eater, in Payson.
* * *
The pin came out, rattling on the floor, shaking Zeke from his reverie. No one noticed. Carefully,
he slid his hands over, picked up the pin, considered it for a moment, and then slipped it underneath his left boot heel. Maybe the law dogs would not notice the missing pin.
He went to work on the painful part of freeing himself. Folks told him they had heard that Billy the Kid, some punk of a killer who got himself killed a long while ago over in New Mexico, could do what Zeke was planning. He thought maybe he was kin to Billy Bonney or whatever his name was. It had to be better than being the son of Bloody Zeke The Elder, but if his pa was responsible for giving him one particular feature, well, then at least Bloody Zeke The Elder had been good for one thing. He had that going for him.
Large wrists.
Small hands.
Of course, the law dogs had tightened those manacles till the iron practically cut off Bloody Zeke’s circulation. Maybe they had heard the stories about how Bloody Zeke could twist and tear his hands free from any cuffs. Tight as the iron was on his skin, they likely figured that would do the job.
But Bloody Zeke The Younger had always been a stubborn bastard, and pain did not deter him.
* * *
“Stop that damned wagon!” the deputy law dog called out.
Bloody Zeke grinned. Well, it was about time. The sun had started to sink behind the hills. Night was slow a-coming that time of summer, and he doubted if they had made six or eight miles since leaving Payson. Of course, they had gotten a late start. The deputy had waited a few extra hours so the old driver could sober up, and stopping every few miles to grease the axle had delayed and delayed and delayed things. And given Bloody Zeke The Younger plenty of time.
The tumbleweed wagon, mercifully, came to a stop.
“Do we have any grease left?” the deputy asked.
“Told you afore,” said the old man in the driver’s box. “Emptied it the last stop.”
The deputy swore. “Well . . . maybe we can get more at Fort McDowell.”
Once a regular Army post, it currently served as a reservation for mostly Mojave and Apache Indians, and some Pimas.
“Mebe so.”
“That’s a hell of a long way to listen to that damned noise, though.” The deputy swung down from his horse. “I guess we might as well camp here.”
Remington 1894 Page 9