Frank looked back at the empty horizon where the cowboys had disappeared. His jaw was set and he let out a sigh. “I’d say we should count on it.”
“Well, you have me and Otis. Alphonse is nigh unto eighteen, so I’m certain he will be able to shoot.” George began to tally their forces. “From what Paula’s told me, Dixie is pretty handy with a gun.”
“Still long odds,” Frank said. “Somebody’s likely to get hurt if we face them head-on.”
The two men rode for a time in silence. Then Frank began to smile. He folded his hands across the saddle horn and looked at George. “It’ll be tricky, but I think I just might have an idea.”
Chapter 16
Two hours before sundown, Frank pulled the wagons to a halt beside a dense grove of willows and silver olive trees. Wood was in relative abundance, and they enjoyed a roaring fire, hilarious stories from George, and some raucous recitations of Shakespeare from Otis. Dixie made a rich stew out of an antelope Frank had shot earlier in the day. Dutch-oven biscuits and Salina Chapman’s shoofly pie rounded out the meal. Alphonse stood guard until an hour after sundown.
Frank wanted the group to sound as loud and as carefree as they could. When Otis brought out a harmonica, each man took a turn around the fire with each of the women. Even Carolyn Brandon danced a bit. A tiny smile parted her lips while Frank took her in a promenade, but she never spoke. Alphonse danced with his mother, and his brothers, Shadrach and Meshach, danced with the younger girls.
The fire crackled and sparks twirled upward toward the stars in the still night air. Otis played every song he knew, and even made some up on the spot. The little group sang and laughed, some of them for the first time in weeks. Even Dog joined in the festivities, barking and nipping at the dancers’ heels.
Dixie looked up into Frank’s eyes during a waltz. “Do you think this will really work?” Her face was a picture of serenity and trust.
“I don’t know, Dix. If it doesn’t, we’ve had a heck of a good frolic for our last night on earth.”
Dixie frowned. “That’s not funny, Frank.”
“Sorry.” He gave her a twirl in time to the music. “I think it will, but it’s touch and go on a thing like this. I’m counting on what I know about human behavior. Especially outlaw behavior. There’s a few of them who’ll face you head-on to make a name for themselves, but most don’t like to buck the odds. Most outlaws are cowards when you boil ’em down to the bone. Sneak thieves and backstabbers. If those cowboys today were the type to face us, they’d have done it right then when their partner threw down on me.”
Otis ended his playing, but Frank kept Dixie’s hands. “No, they’ll come at us tonight while we’re asleep.”
By midnight the fire had burned to nothing but a pile of glowing embers and a few flickering flames. The women and girls drifted slowly off to their respective wagons and tents. Otis chased playfully after his wife and children, sending them squealing in all directions.
Frank took the watch. Except for the small remnant of a fire, the camp was dark. Only a thin sliver of a moon hung in the star-filled sky. A rustler’s moon. He walked slowly toward a small rise above the little creek that fed the Arkansas River a quarter of a mile away.
A knot formed in his chest. He’d do his part, but it was up to Dixie and the others to make things work right.
He’d walked the route in the light, so he knew where he was going. Still, the way was treacherous in the dark, and Frank took a few steps at a time, watching out of his peripheral vision for any roaming rattlesnakes or Gila monsters. Dog had better night vision than he did, so much of the time, Frank just followed along behind him.
From his vantage point a hundred feet above the wagons, Frank could just make out an outline that looked like Alphonse’s coat, hanging on a stick by the dying fire. No one else stirred.
At two in the morning, Dog rose to his feet and stared to the southeast. A long, rumbling growl escaped his throat. Frank hushed the animal, and slowed his own breathing so he could hear better on the chilly desert air.
It was a quiet sound, almost indistinguishable from the breeze in the willows—the jingle of spurs and bits. Frank watched as six mounted men picked their way along the wagon track. Rifle barrels glinted in the scant moonlight. Hushed voices carried in muffled bits on the wind.
“Careful!”
“Quiet . . . ”
“Watch it . . . ”
“ . . . son of a bitch is a quick one, so get on him fast . . . ”
The men moved in around the wagons.
“Fan out,” a hoarse voice whispered. “Dammit, Baxter, point that thing at the wagons, not at me.”
Frank licked his finger and wet the front sight of his rifle so he could catch a little more of the moon’s reflection. His guess had been right on the money. These were cowards—six men standing in the dark ready to execute sleeping women and children.
“Fire!” one of the cowboys yelled. A second later, the area around the wagons was filled with smoke and gunfire. Ten seconds later, six men and two of their horses lay dead and wounded on the ground.
The silence that followed the shooting was eerie and hollow. Below in the darkness, one of the wounded cowboys moaned. George’s voice pierced the night from a stand of willows along the creek.
“We’re coming out, Morgan. Don’t shoot us.”
“Careful of the wounded,” Frank shouted down. “They may still be able to shoot.”
“Help me,” a low voice moaned. “I ain’t goin’ to shoot nobody. Oh, Lord, I’m shot bad.”
“Leave him,” Frank shouted to the others as shadowed figures began to pour out of the willows and olive trees along the creek bed. “Wait till I get down there.”
* * *
“Hell of a plan, Morgan.” George gave him a good-natured slap on the back.
Alphonse stoked the fire back up to a full blaze. Dixie stood close to Frank and surveyed the damage the outlaw bullets had done to the wagons. They’d never had the chance to get too many shots off, but the ones they had would have been lethal if anyone had actually been asleep inside the wagons.
“I’d hate to think of what could have happened,” she said, tucking her head against Frank’s chest. He looked over and saw Paula was pulling George close to her as well.
All but one of the attackers lay dead on they ground. Two horses had been killed by the withering volley of gunfire from Frank, George, Otis, Alphonse, Dixie, and Paula. A third horse was wounded so badly, Frank had to lead the limping animal out of camp a ways and put him out of his misery.
The wounded outlaw was an older fellow. Gray swatches of grizzled whiskers decorated his ratty, twisted face.
“I wish to hell one of you women would get me a cup of water.”
Frank nodded at Dixie, who brought a cup. He squatted next to the dying man and helped him take a sip. Most of the water dribbled away out of the corner of the outlaw’s lips.
“I need you to tell us what’s going on here. Why are some of Swan’s men riding for the Circle V?”
“Swan’s men riding for the V ... ” the man gasped. His eyes darted back and forth in the firelight as if he didn’t know where he was. “Vic. Vic Sutton, you talk to him. He’ll hire you on.”
“Does Sutton have anything to do with Swan?” Frank gave the man another drink of cool water. The pool of blood on the ground grew by the moment. There were too many holes in him to stop the flow.
“Swan said ten-thousand . . . should do it . . . Lord, I hurt bad....Cindy! Oh, dear sweet Cindy . . . ” His voice trailed off.
Frank lowered the dead man’s head slowly back to the ground. “Seems like they always call out for their mama or some woman at the very last.”
“Wish he could have told us a little more,” George said quietly, still clutching a rifle in his hands.
“So do I.” Frank got to his feet with a tired groan.
The sun was already a pink glow behind the hog-back ridge to the east. There would be little
sleep for any of them for another day.
“We know damn little more than we did before.”
George and Otis helped him drag three of the dead outlaws over to the remaining horses and tie them across the saddles. Their guns and ammunition, he stowed in the back of Dixie’s wagon. They were beginning to amass quite an arsenal of dead outlaws’ weapons.
“You think they’ll go back to the herd?” Dixie said as Frank scribbled out a note on a piece of scrap paper.
“I do. Horses generally go to what they know, and these little ponies know where they get fed. Besides that, with these poor buggers drippin’ blood all over ’em, the animals will want to get shed of them as quick as they can.” He tucked the note in a dead outlaw’s shirt pocket, letting it hang out enough so it would be noticed, but not fall out.
“I’m guessing Sutton is trailing his herd to Pueblo. It takes a considerable crew to keep the cattle together and he’s bound to be running out of men. I’m hoping he won’t try anything for a few days.” Frank fired his Colt in the air, and the outlaw horses took off at a trot toward the rising sun. Their loads of dead men flopped like the wings on three ungainly birds.
Frank and the other men spent another hour scratching out graves for the other three before getting ready to move on.
Dixie took his hand. “What did you write?”
“I appealed to Vic Sutton’s common sense. Told him to meet me at the trading post fifty miles this side of Rocky Ford and we’d talk like two civilized men.”
“That’s it?”
“No, I also told him, if I saw any more Circle V boys near the wagons, I’d send ’em back like these poor souls. No questions asked.” Frank spit and readjusted his hat. “I expect he’ll get my meaning.”
Chapter 17
“My lands,” Otis said as he rode beside Frank and looked at the distant horizon. This country’s so flat, if you look hard enough you can see the back of your head.“
Frank chuckled. “It’s deceiving, though, my friend. A whole mess of Indians could be waiting up ahead of us over a little swell and we’d not know it until we were smack on top of them.”
“That’s why you keep riding ahead to scout like you do.” Otis nodded. “I thought you just didn’t like the smell of the mules.”
“Little of both, I guess.” Frank grinned. “Listen, there’s a little fart of a trading post about two miles up that way.” Frank pointed off to his right with an open hand. “I’d like to borrow Alphonse to go with me and check things out. I told Sutton to meet me there. I’ve seen him ride, and I need someone who can scoot back here if something happens to me.”
Otis beamed at the compliment of his eldest son. Then his face grew tense. “Death follows you, Morgan. I’m honored that you want my boy to go with you, but his mama would have my hide if anything happened to him. I’m a fair rider. Why don’t I come along with you?”
“I appreciate your concerns,” Frank said, slowing his horse so he could look Otis in the eye. “Mr. Chapman, it’s a hard country out here and your boy is young and inexperienced. I’d feel safer if he was with me than here, if the Circle V boys come ridin’ in here again. I was hoping you’d stay with the wagons and help George look after the women and your little ones.”
Chapman rubbed his jaw in thought. “I agree then. You take care of my boy, though. You’re right about it bein’ a hard country. Trouble is, Mr. Morgan, I don’t think you have any idea how hard it can be for a black man.”
“I see your point. We’ll be careful. Anybody crosses young Al and they’ll answer to me. I’m a father myself.” The two men shook hands.
* * *
Alphonse Chapman was a natural horseman, and easily kept stride with Frank as they let their horses eat up the ground between the wagons and the scabby adobe trading post. He was too polite a boy to speak unless he was spoken to, which was fine with Frank and one of the chief reasons he’d brought him along.
“You follow my lead,” Frank said as the two dismounted outside the earth structure and tied their animals to a cedar hitching rail. Dead coyotes hung by their back legs from the exposed timber cross-beams of the roof along the outside of the building. Flies buzzed around the freshest ones nearest the door.
“Stockmen pay a bounty for each critter killed. They don’t do anything with the carcasses, though, so old Ramiro uses them for decoration for his combination tradin’ post and bar.” Frank could see Alphonse was turning up his nose at the rank smell. “They don’t smell too good when they’re alive either. Anyhow, Ram thinks the bodies frighten off the evil hobgoblins or some such thing.”
“I’m surprised they don’t scare off the clientele,” young Chapman said in a rare outburst of words.
Morgan chuckled. “Probably would.” He waved his hand around to show the wide-open space around them. “But old Ram sort of has a corner on the market way out here.”
One other horse stood tied outside the trading post. It bore a Wine Cup brand—a ranch miles away from the Circle V
“Ram Solis is a friend of mine,” Frank said as they walked through the door into the dim interior of the trading post. “Anything happens to me, you do what he says and you’ll be all right.”
Alphonse nodded.
Ramiro Solis was a bear of a man, with a pockmarked face and a smile that belied his lonely, smelly existence.
“Morgan, my dear old compadre,” the big-bellied man said in the smooth tenor voice of an opera singer. “Why you not come to see an old man more often?” He pulled Frank to him in a huge backslapping hug and whispered in his ear. “The man in the corner has been asking about you. I think he is a hired gun.”
“Good to see you too, Ram, you old cuspidor.” Frank kept an eye on the solitary man in the back of the room while he spoke. “You gonna hug me to death or offer me and my young friend a beer?”
“Of course, of course.” Ram plodded back to the makeshift bar. “A beer and then some coffee. No?”
“You got that right.” Frank smiled and pointed to a small table, motioning for Alphonse to sit down.
“I’ll have a cup of that coffee too when you get a chance,” the man at the rear of the room said as tipped his chair back and took the makings for a cigarette out of his vest pocket. He stared at Frank and began to roll his smoke.
“Been waiting for you quite a while, Morgan,” he said as he licked the edge of his paper and twisted the ends a bit to keep in the tobacco. “What’s kept you?”
“Well, if I’d known you were waitin’, I’d have got here faster.” Frank turned to face him, shooing Alphonse out of the way, against the side wall.
“Don’t worry about the nigger boy,” the man said, lighting a match on the sole of his boot. “My contract’s on you. There’s no money in killin’ him.”
“So that’s it, Mr . . . ”
“Gamble, Nick Gamble out of Uvalde, Texas.”
“Gamble?” Frank shrugged. “Sorry, never heard of you.”
Gamble’s face twitched at the thinly veiled insult. To a hired gun, reputation was second only to speed at the draw.
“Mind tellin’ me who hired you, Gamble?” Nick sipped at the beer Ram gave him. “I’m kind of at a loss here.”
Gamble motioned to the empty chair at the table next to him. “Why don’t you join me, Morgan? We can chat for a while before we get to the dirty work. I got no particular malice toward you. This is just business.”
“I’ll stand,” Frank said, finishing off his beer. “Who’s paying you to brace me?”
The hired gun shrugged. “Not exactly sure. A representative gave me the money. Half before ... half after the job is done.”
“Hope you spent the first installment wisely,” Morgan said. “ ’Cause it’s awful unlikely you’ll ever get to see the rest of it.”
The gunman laughed at that. “Sit down and relax for your last few minutes on earth, Morgan. You’re too tense. You have a great sense of humor. We could have been friends under different circumstances, you and I.”
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Frank’s voice grew cold. “I doubt that I don’t hire my gun.”
“Ahh.” The gunman wagged his finger. “You don’t hire it for money, but you do hire it in a manner of speaking. You hire it for a cause. Let me hear you deny that, Morgan.”
“There’s a difference, Gamble. If you can’t see it, then I feel sorry for you.”
“Suit yourself.” The hired gun dropped his cigarette on the floor and stood, crushing it out with his boot. “I’ll go ahead and kill you now then, while my coffee cools.”
“I’ll give you this, Gamble. You got a certain style. But unless you plan on talking me to death, I’d just as soon you made your play. I’m tired of listening to your cock-a-doodle bullshit.”
Gamble’s face twitched again and his nostrils flared.
The hired gun was fast. He matched Frank’s draw for speed, but to do so, he had to rush. Morgan didn’t.
Gamble’s aim went wild, missing by a good two feet and knocking the horn off a stuffed antelope head on the wall behind the bar. Frank’s bullet tore into the gunman’s chest, sending him staggering back against his table, then onto the ground. His heavy pistol clattered harmlessly to the ground.
He stared straight ahead, gasping for air, the hole in his chest sucking air. Even lung-shot and in the throes of death, Gamble struggled to fulfill his end of the contract and bent to jerk a derringer out of his boot. He blinked, trying to find Frank.
“Stop it, Gamble,” Frank yelled. “It’s over.”
“I took the man’s money,” the gunman croaked.
Not one to argue with the gaping maw of a .45-caliber derringer, Frank put a round between Nick Gamble’s eyes. The bullet tore out the back of the man’s skull, spattering gray matter over the table and chair behind him.
Alphonse Chapman leaned out of his seat and vomited on the floor.
Frank kicked the tiny double-barrel away and calmly reloaded. The gunman twitched once, then lay still.
“Mr. Gamble, he should have stayed back in Uvalde, Texas,” Ram said, staring at the mess on his none-too-clean floor. “I’ll get a mop and a bucket.” He turned to Frank. “You want another beer?”
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