by Doug Thorne
He shuffled his skinny butt to get more comfortable on the wagon’s high seat, suspecting again that Johnny was actually a man after his own heart. As big and jaunty as he was, Johnny had never cared much for the Indians, and just maybe he felt the same way as Shaun – that they could avoid a whole pack of grief by cutting their losses and getting off this Godless high country before hell finally broke loose.
Not that it was going to be easy. They still had a heck of a journey ahead of them, through that wild panhandle country that thrust west from Indian Territory and was known as No Man’s Land, but even that was better than being stuck here on the Llano Estacado, with an enemy that had no mercy.
Bourke had organized things so that his two wagons were flanked on each side by three outriders. Shaun himself was driving the first vehicle, a one-eyed man called Frank Edgehill at the reins of the second. It had seemed to the short, underweight youngster that the column fairly bristled with guns, but still he continued to scan the scrub-littered, heat-scorched flats around them with that same, nagging combination of fear and dread.
Just then Johnny Bourke, who’d been riding point, drew rein and stiffened, and the fear started biting Shaun with even greater intensity. Immediately he hauled on the reins and stomped on the brake, bringing the wagon to a halt, and Dave Cullen, a buffalo hunter riding a few yards to his right, suddenly sat a little straighter in his saddle and tightened his grip on the .50-calibre rifle balanced across his lap.
For a time then there was only the silence of the plains, punctuated occasionally by the rattle of a chain here, the stamp or blow or head-shake of an impatient horse there, the soft creak of saddle-leather as ill-at-ease men shifted uncomfortably. Then Johnny Bourke, a barrel-chested man with a surprisingly soft voice, turned his horse towards the north-west and gestured, and they all saw it – the thinnest, wispiest spiral of smoke rising skyward about thirty yards away.
Shaun murmured. ‘I’ll be damned….’
There amid a sea of creosote bush lay a small, temporary encampment occupied by a single white man.
The man, clad in a homespun shirt and blanket leggings, was hunkered beside a small fire with his back to them. His chestnut horse, standing saddled and ready to ride, waited patiently a few yards away. The man must have heard their approach, but gave no sign to acknowledge their presence. Still, that was just about what you’d expect from crazy Milt Hagerman.
Shaun shook his head and let go a soft sigh. He’d never cottoned much to the scalp hunter. Hagerman had a dangerous, unpredictable something about him that made men wary in his presence. Furthermore, it was said around Adobe Walls that he shadowed the Indians real close before making his move against them: that wherever you found him away from the stockade, you could be sure the Indians weren’t far distant.
Johnny Bourke walked his horse through the brush towards the camp. Finally Hagerman raised his head and turned to face him. He ran his shining blue eyes from Bourke to the wagons and men waiting behind him on what passed for a trail, and meeting his gaze only with effort, Bourke noted again just how completely the loss of his family had busted and wrecked the last of Hagerman’s sanity.
Then he raised his voice, breaking the heavy moment. ‘Hagerman! Best you head on back to Adobe Walls before you part company with your hair!’
Hagerman eyed him sinisterly. ‘Keep your voice down!’ he hissed. ‘They’re around here somewheres, Johnny-me-boy, an’ they ain’t deaf! I can feel ’em, an’ they’re close. So it’s your hair they’ll be takin’, you keep usin’ your tonsils at that volume!’
The madman set down the enamel coffee cup he’d been holding and rose to his feet, his sabre knocking gently against his long leg as he bent to scoop up one of his two saddle guns, the Henry repeater, from where it had been leaning against a rock. ‘Best you ride on an’ ride fast!’ he advised.
Bourke licked his bewhiskered lips. ‘What about you?’
‘I am the avenger,’ Hagerman replied, his expression stiff and unmoving, his eyes wide and eerily alive. ‘I got a holy task to fulfil.’
‘Don’t be a fool,’ said Bourke. ‘Could be you’ll get a mite more’n you bargained for today. So show some sense, man! Either come along with us or head back to the stockade.’
Hagerman eyed him from under lowered brows. ‘I don’t belong in Dodge,’ he growled. ‘My place is here, on these Staked Plains, carryin’ out the Lord’s work. Now, git, you son of a dog! They’ll be here shortly. I can feel it in my teeth.’
And he moved the repeater casually, until the barrel was aimed in Bourke’s direction.
Bourke hesitated a moment longer, then spat to the side. ‘All right, Milt,’ he said gravely. ‘I can see you’re set on stayin’, so I’ll leave you to it.’
He backed his horse away from the small camp, took up his position at the head of the column again and then continued scouting the land ahead, leaving the wagons and outriders to move ponderously in his wake. Hagerman watched them go with a hostile twist to his lips, keeping his rifle trained on them until they were out of sight.
They added another mile to their back-trail, then half a mile more, and Johnny Bourke was still thinking about Milt Hagerman and the fate that had broken and reshaped him into something much darker, when an arrow slammed into his horse and sent it toppling to the ground.
Falling with the horse, Johnny just managed to kick out of the stirrups in time to avoid a crushed leg. Rolling, he came back up tearing a pistol from his belt, but an instant later he was knocked backwards by one, two, three, four arrows in the chest, no more than a second between the impact of each one, and he went down again without firing a shot.
Shaun Millican, watching it happen just yards ahead of him, instinctively brought his wagon to a halt, tossed the reins aside and grabbed for the Winchester under his seat. By the time he realized his mistake, that he should have whipped the team to greater speed and tried to reach cover instead, it was too late. The column was stalled at the centre of a narrow basin, unable to go forward or pull back, easy targets for an enemy intent on ambushing them.
A cacophony of wild, piercing war cries was suddenly joined by a fast-moving rumble of hoofs, and when he rose up and twisted sideways with the rifle in his hands, he saw a sizeable band of Indians galloping down on them from a low hill to the north.
Dave Cullen, he saw, was already trying to draw a bead on the approaching Comanches, but finding it difficult because of the frightened horse prancing and swapping ends beneath him.
Then the sky darkened momentarily with another rush of arrows, the feathers with which they’d been fletched giving them a gaudy appearance, like Chinese fireworks at New Year, and Shaun whispered, ‘Aw, sweet Jesus….’
Falling back to earth, the barbed tips struck the wagons’ sideboards and canvas tops, hit men and horseflesh both, and all at once a new sound was added to the din, that of men and animals screaming in pain and panic.
Seconds later the Indians were among them, spreading chaos and confusion as only Indians could. Men screamed in defiance or agony: guns blasted nearby and far; arrows whipped through the air, occasionally striking flesh with a distinctive, wet thwacking sound, and rideless horses, some carrying their own injuries, began to bolt this way and that, wall-eyed and terrified.
The impact of a bullet fired at close range tore Frank Edgehill off his wagon seat and flung him to the ground. Dave Cullen took a thrown lance in the side and tumbled off his horse, trailing something long and wet and red from the wound. Tearing his gaze away from the dreadful sight, Shaun spotted two warriors charging towards him and worked the long gun’s lever in a flustery blur, firing, reloading and firing again.
He caught one of the Comanches in the right shoulder and the brave dropped his hatchet, grabbed for the wound and rode on past, swaying drunkenly in his buffalo-pelt saddle.
That still left the second one, though.
Shaun pumped the combination lever and trigger-guard again, but this time the lever locked fast and a t
iny, frightened voice in his mind told him that his inexpert handling had caused the weapon to jam.
Oh God, please, no—
Was this how it had been for his father, he wondered? This sudden, overwhelming rush of blind, bowel-loosening fear coupled with an almost uncontrollable anger at the injustice of it all? Was this how he’d felt when the Paiutes had overwhelmed him and his companions and realization had finally dawned that there was no way out, that this was where it all ended?
Shaun preferred to believe that his father had gone down fighting instead.
Just like he was going to do.
With tears stinging his bloodshot blue eyes, he turned the rifle around, figuring to use it as a club, and screamed, ‘Come on, then, you sonofabitch! Come on!’
Eager to take up the challenge, the second Comanche came pounding towards him, but when no more than fifteen feet separated them, someone else blew the bastard’s head off his shoulders.
As the head disappeared in a burst of red mist, Shaun knew a giddying moment of shock, disappointment, relief and almost pitiful gratitude. His legs turned rubbery under him and he slumped back onto the wagon seat, his unsteady fingers fumbling instinctively at the trap on the side of the frame to try and clear the jam.
Then, above all the yelling, screaming, gunfire and war cries, he heard a shrill, distinctive cackling. A moment later Milt Hagerman galloped into view, a spiteful smirk twisting at his features, and all at once Shaun realized who had just saved his skin.
On his way in, Hagerman caught up the reins of Dave Cullen’s milling horse with his free hand and thrust them in the youngster’s direction. ‘Get outta here!’ he yelled, dodging a tumbling hatchet and using one of his matched Army Colts to shoot the warrior who’d just thrown it. ‘Ride an’ don’t look back!’
He fired again, this time taking down a knife-wielding brave who had come up on Shaun’s blind side and would have skewered him for sure had Hagerman not sent him to hell first.
Scared and confused, Shaun stared into the scalp hunter’s face and was startled to see something there that he’d never seen before, a sort of decency and humanity that chased away the madness for just a second, and in that same moment he finally understood that he could do nothing more here, nothing for his companions, nothing to save their cargo, nothing.
In any case, there was now precious little fight left to be fought. Most of the men he had hunted and killed and skinned with were already little more than bloodied, unfeeling carcasses themselves.
Without another word he climbed into Cullen’s saddle and took the reins, then nodded to Hagerman and lit out as fast as he could. Within seconds he took an arrow in the right calf, the shock of the wound making him sway and slump forward across the horse’s neck, but somehow he held on and kept going.
With a grunt of approval, Hagerman promptly dismissed him from mind. After all, he still had Comanches to kill. Dropping from his horse and taking his long guns with him, he threw himself under the brake-locked wagon and set to work, taking aim, leading the target, firing methodically and watching red men die.
For the last week or so, he’d had the strangest feeling. For the first time since everything had gone wrong in his life, he’d started dreaming about his wife and children. Vivid dreams, they were, and good ones too, because it was as if they were telling him that it wouldn’t be long now before they were all together again, and that things would be the same as they’d been before.
Something scratched a furrow along Hagerman’s right cheek, and hot blood washed down that side of his lean face, but he ignored the wound.
‘Come an’ get me, then, you lousy heathens!’ he yelled, switching to the Spencer when the Henry ran dry.
And in the minutes that followed he was a fury of action, firing, killing, firing, wounding, firing, reloading, and it was as if there was nothing the Comanches could do about it. He was unstoppable, absolutely caught up in the slaughter job at hand….
Then, all at once, white-hot pain stabbed through him. He chanced a look down, saw that one of the red devils had managed to catch his left leg with the point of a thrown lance. He screamed once, to relieve the build-up of pain: then, incredibly, he started chuckling again as he set the empty Spencer aside and drew his second Colt.
He had no idea how long he lasted after that.
An arrow hit him in the shoulder. With the softest grunt of pain, Hagerman rolled onto his side, snap-aimed and killed the bowman with a single bullet.
But the Indian’s companions used those few scant seconds to charge his position, drag him from cover.
Even now, though, he came out fighting, slashing and thrusting with the only weapon he had left, the cavalry sabre. He took off one brave’s fingers, buried the point in another’s crotch—
Then one of the Comanches leapt forward and plunged a hatchet blade into his skull.
Just before his brain was cut in two, Hagerman thought, Mary! It’s over now, Mary! I’m comin’ home—
Then it was over … and he was home.
SEVEN
‘This damn’ waitin’s enough to drive a man crazy,’ growled Bat Masterson, shaking his head irritably. ‘The longer it goes on, the more I reckon the Indians got the lot of ’em.’
Jim Mclnnery, who was manning one of the low, half-ruined walls to the north-east with Masterson and Oscar Sheppard, spat a mouthful of tobacco juice. ‘Anyone ever tell you you’re the life an’ soul of the party, Bat?’ he asked drily.
‘I’m only sayin’ what we’re all thinkin’,’ Masterson replied.
‘Well,’ snapped Oscar Sheppard, ‘let’s just hope we’re all wrong.’
And having said his piece, he fell quiet again and thought some more about the calculations they’d made earlier, just after Hennessy, Carlisle and O’Neal had set out after Ketchum’s crew. Johnny Bourke’s party might have left earlier that same morning, but that still left twenty-eight men at the stockade. That should be enough, he thought, if it came to a fight.
But what if Bat was right, and the Indians had accounted for Hank Ketchum and his buddies? That would bring the total down to twenty-five. And if anything happened to Hennessy, Carlisle and O’Neal….
Well, twenty-two looked a darn sight less comforting still.
Making a half-hearted stab at optimism, however, he reminded himself that they were twenty-two good men to have beside you in a fight. But when he considered the calibre of the men they might have to go up against, much less their number, it was hard to feel anything but fretful.
Mclnnery, who’d been staring thoughtfully into the far distance, suddenly frowned as a new thought occurred to him. ‘Did Hagerman get back?’ he asked.
Sheppard shrugged. ‘I never saw him. Maybe the Indians got him, too.’
Masterson shook his head. ‘Not Hagerman. He’s crazy. Indians wouldn’t harm a crazy man.’
‘Not even after all he’s done to them?’ Sheppard asked in disbelief.
‘Every man has his breakin’ point,’ muttered Mclnnery. ‘Me, I got no time for Hennessy, but he’s right about one thing. The Indians’ll only take so much from a man like Hagerman. Crazy or not, they’ll swat him good when they’ve had a bellyful.’
He fell silent then, his attention taken by a spot on the heat-blurred horizon, where a dust cloud could just been seen lifting towards the azure sky. Even as Masterson and Sheppard turned to follow his line of sight, a second, larger dust cloud became visible a short distance behind the first.
‘What—?’ began Masterson.
‘Trouble,’ growled Mclnnery. He pulled an ancient telescope from his buckskins and put it to his eye. A moment later he swore under his breath. ‘It’s Hennessy and the others!’
Sheppard stiffened. ‘You see Ketchum’s bunch with ’em?’
‘Nope – but I see a pack o’ riled-up redskins not far behind ’em!’ He heeled towards Masterson. ‘Sound the alarm, Bat! We got to give them fellers coverin’ fire, else the Indians’ll get ’em for sure!’
Bermuda Carlisle hipped around in the saddle and felt the blood drain from his bewhiskered face when he saw just how close the Indians were. Born to the saddle, the Comanches and their Arapaho allies had steadily closed the gap with their quarry. Now only a quarter-mile separated the pursuers from the pursued.
He faced front again, shook his head and spat. It had been a nightmare flight, and it had pushed the white men and their mounts to the edge of their endurance. He’d hoped the Indians might give up after the first couple of miles, and to his relief they did, once. For some reason that wasn’t immediately obvious, they’d reined down, clustered together, and a couple of them had pointed northward.
Slowing his own mount, Carlisle had chanced a look that way, seen black smoke billowing skyward. He didn’t know what it meant, and right then was in no position to guess, but just before Hennessy yelled for him to keep moving, it occurred to him that the smoke was coming from the direction Johnny Bourke would have taken to get back to Dodge.
Then he, Hennessy and O’Neal were pushing forward again, and their foam-flecked, wild-eyed horses were giving them all they could.
And the Indians started coming after them again.
Times like that, a man thinks about all kinds of things, but mostly he asks himself questions. What’s going to happen to him? Is he going to get out of this? What can he do to turn the tables on the men who plan to do him down? He wonders if he led a good life or whether it could have stood a little improvement, and almost inevitably he remembers his family and asks himself whatever became of them after he moved on and they lost touch—
Not wanting to pursue that line of thought any more, Carlisle tightened his jaw, faced front again – and frowned. Distracted though he was, the flats across which they had just started racing looked oddly familiar to him. And in the same moment something half a mile ahead and a little to his right claimed his attention. Recognizing it, he let go a strange sound that was half-exclamation and half-sob, and thought, with a disbelieving kind of wonder, Adobe Walls! Adobe Walls, dammit! Christ Almighty, we’re gonna make it after all!