by Chuck Tyrell
Stryker dismounted and looped Ruby’s reins over the picket fence. He took the flagstone walk to the door with a small sign like a lawyer’s shingle. Douglas Smithson M. D., it read. Stryker hit the lever on the door and a bell clanged. Martha Smithson answered the door. “Oh, Matt. You’re finally here. Marshal Nation’s been clinging to consciousness and life in hopes you’d come. Please, please, this way.”
“Thank you, Martha,” Stryker said. “Lead on.” As he followed her, he noticed the bulge below her ribs and smiled to himself. So doc’s gonna have a baby.
“This way.” Martha led him through the living room toward a door on the far side. She rapped on it gently. It opened a crack. “Matt Stryker is here,” she said.
The door swung open and Doc Smithson came into the living room. “He’s barely hanging on, Matt,” the doctor said.
“Getting nailed to the wall’s hard on a man,” Stryker said, “but it shouldn’t kill him.”
Doc Smithson shook his head. “Just before those heathens left, they sliced the sheriff’s abdomen open with a sharp knife. Virtually all his intestines rolled out and hung to the floor. I washed them with carbolic solution and put them back in place, but his fever’s high and sometimes he’s incoherent. I fear he’s got peritonitis. That will almost certainly kill him. Come in. He should be able to talk for a minute or two.”
Doc Smithson opened the door for Stryker, then closed it behind him, leaving him alone with the marshal in a miasma of iodine and something that smelled strong enough to kill the devil’s wife.
“Walt? It’s Matt, Walt.”
Walt Nation lay on his back, his face deeply lined as if he’d aged a dozen years since Stryker left for Yuma leading outlaw Regner with a rope around his neck. “Matt?” Nation’s voice was hardly audible. “Matt Stryker?”
“It’s me, marshal, Matt Stryker. What have you got to say to me, marshal?”
A hand came up and grabbed Stryker’s shirtsleeve. “They got Elly, Matt. Them beasts … cain’t call ’em men … they got no conscience. They won’t listen to reason, Matt. The only thing they understand is force, deadly force. Go after them, Matt. Bring ’em down, and bring my Elly home. Will ya do that, Matt? Do it like Tom Easter taught ya. Will ya?” the hand jerked at his sleeve, then fell away. Sweat glistened on Walt Nation’s face. His eyelids fluttered but did not open.
“Doc? Doc!” Stryker turned to open the door, but Doc Smithson was already coming in.
“Ya know, Doc. In the war, we didn’t have much in the way of medicine but sometimes moldy bread on wounds would help them heal. Would that help the general, er, the marshal?”
“I used carbolic solution, Stryker, and I sewed the abdominal wound as it should be done. He’s got a fever. Let’s hope it kills whatever’s bothering him.”
“You figure he’ll live?” Stryker said.
Doc Smithson shook his head. “Dunno. Miracles do happen.”
“I’ll find Elly, Doc. I swear. Be good if she could see her pa once before he passes. Her ma went to diphtheria in ’66. Elly don’t remember her ma. Marshal’s all she’s got. You keep him alive, Doc. I’ll be coming back, I swear.”
“I’ve done what I can, Matt. Now it’s up to Walt to fight any infection. His intestines are clean, no perforations, and I cleaned them as best I could before I put them back in place. Lucky the nails through his hands didn’t cut any arteries, or he’d have bled out before I could do for him. Maybe there is God and maybe he’s watching over Walter Nation.
“Don’t hurt to have a good doctor who knows what the hell he’s doing,” Stryker said. “I’ll be going. Got to rake up a posse and go find those polecats.”
When he left Doc Smithson’s house, Stryker headed straight west on Second Street. Within a hundred yards, he was among the tents and wikiups that housed the lower economic strata of Silverton. Up close to Colsen Butte, he came to a small stone hut topped with adobe mud on woven juniper branches with a thick growth of clover and grama grass on top. Smoke curled from the small hole at the back of the hut where its fourth wall was the sheer face of a lava rock.
“Iron Nail,” he called. “I need to talk to you.”
“Talk.” Iron Nail’s voice came from inside.
“Can I come in?”
“Can you? Are you able?”
Stryker put a hand to the pronghorn hide that served as the door. He froze when he heard the twin click of shotgun hammers being snicked back. “Iron Nail,” he said. “Don’t let it be said that you killed Matt Stryker before he had a chance to talk with you.”
“In,” Iron Nail said.
Stryker lifted one side of the antelope hide and entered. Once in, he could not stand up straight.
“Sit,” Iron Nail said.
Stryker sat on the sheepskin Iron Nail indicated.
Iron Nail sucked on his long pipe, blew the smoke toward the smoke hole, then passed the pipe to Stryker. “When do you leave?” he said.
Stryker smoked the pip slowly, drawing a great mouthful of smoke before passing the pipe back. He tasted the juniper bark in the tobacco. “You’re the first man I’ve talked to,” he said. “Don’t know how long it’ll take to put a posse together.”
“I cannot go, Matt Stryker, but I have one man who can,” Iron Nail said.
“One man?”
“Yes. One good man worth four or five not so good.”
Stryker chuckled. “You’re right about that.”
“So?”
“All right with me if you can’t go. Bring your man.”
“He is Seminole, but he looks black. He named Dred. Says it means something to be afraid of.”
“Close by?”
“Close.”
“Call him.”
Iron Nail gave Stryker a hard look. “Now?”
“Now.”
Iron Nail stood, bent at the waist, and walked through the antelope skin like it wasn’t there. The dying fire was the only light in the cabin. Iron Nail talked with a second person in tones too low for Stryker to tell more than the fact they were speaking Apache.
Iron Nail stuck his head into the hut. “Stryker. Come out.”
“Why?”
“Come out. You see.”
Stryker got to his feet and bumped his head on a beam, his hat taking most of the blow. “Dammit. What the hell do you want,” he said as he stooped to exit the hut’s little door, shoving the antelope hide aside. He squinted in the bright daylight.
Iron Nail looked like a midget beside the Ponderosa-tall man standing next to him. “I am Dred,” the man said. “Seminole from Florida Everglades, but come west with those of my tribe that moved.”
Stryker stuck out his hand. “You’re a friend of Iron Nail. You’re a friend to me. There’s only one rule among friends. No one tells friends lies. Never.
“I do not lie. Friend or no,” Dred said. “If a man does not lie, he never must worry to remember what he said.”
“Good enough for me,” Stryker said.
Iron Nail said, “Good.”
Stryker said, “Good.”
Dred said, “Good.”
“Now. The town’ll hire you as scout for the posse. Not much money, but better’n nothing. Get your food and ammunition at Goldberg’s. Tell Burt to put it on the marshal’s bill. I’ll make sure it gets paid.”
The two Indians looked at each other, nodded, folded their arms across their chests, and waited.
“The Shadow Box bunch has almost three days start on us,” Stryker said to Dred. “I’ll need you on their trail as quick as you can do it. Report to me when you’ve got something to say.”
Dred nodded. “I go,” he said. “You catch up when you can.”
Stryker walked back to Doc Smithson’s place, picked up Ruby, took him over to Lassig Livery, and switched his saddle to a roan Appaloosa named Speckles. Men milled around in front of the sheriff’s office when he got back.
“Hey, Stryker. When we getting after them bastards?”
Stryker turne
d at the front door. “So the Shadow Box Gang come through, eh. Well, they ran … ”
“. . . They never ran, Stryker. They walked their horses outta Silverton as pretty as you please . . .”
“Lance Penrod, you got something to say?” Stryker’s voice cut through the mumbles of the crowd like a sharp axe. “Say it and get outta the way.”
Penrod puffed up. “Them Shadow Boxers shot three men without so much as a by-your-leave, and they nailed the marshal up like Jesus Christ, except they cut his guts out. They said they’d do that to Maggie Brown and Elly Nation if anyone followed them and tried to get the gold back. That’s what they said. I heard ’em.”
“We’re going after them,” Stryker said. “Anyone willing to ride on the posse, meet me here in an hour. Bring your soogans and enough grub for two weeks. And don’t forget guns and cartridges. We’ll get those women back for sure and the gold back if we can.” Stryker turned on his heel and stalked into the marshal’s office. Grumbling, the crowd melted away.
Chapter Three – A Tenderfoot for the Posse
Lyle McQueen carried a nickel-plated Peacemaker Colt Single-Action Army M1873 stuck in a hard leather holster and wrapped in a cartridge belt with 24 loops full of .45 caliber bullets. He pushed open the door to the bullion room and walked over to Fletcher Comstock, who sat at the room’s roll top desk. Two days and a few hours ago, Comstock had turned over all the gold in the bullion room, twenty-four ingots of 40 ounces each, to the men that called themselves the Shadow Box Gang.
McQueen plonked the six-gun and its rig down on the desk. “You’re gonna need this,” he said. “You’re going with the posse, Fletcher. Sixty pounds of gold will be almighty tempting to whoever goes with the posse, and I want you there to see that it gets back to its proper place. And its proper place is in the vault over there against the wall.”
“Me?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Mr. McQueen. I have no skill with firearms, nor can I ride a horse well. What good would I be?”
“You don’t have to be any good. Just make sure that bullion gets back to where it should be, that’s all.” McQueen pushed the gun rig toward Comstock.
He shrank from the weapon.
“Put it on,” McQueen growled. “Be a man. Put some steel in your backbone, if you can.”
Comstock stood up, filed the papers he’d been working on, capped the inkwell, and put the turkey-feather pen in its accustomed place. He started to put his hand on the six-gun, but raised it at the last minute. “Really, Mr. McQueen, I’ll be more liability than asset if I go with Stryker’s posse.”
“Like I said, Comstock. Be a man. Represent the mine. Make sure what’s ours comes back. Got that?” McQueen stared at Comstock, his lip curled in a snarl of disdain. To him, as far as Comstock could see, his bullion room manager was nowhere near the man required for the job. “Be a man, Comstock,” McQueen said again.
Comstock took the Peacemaker and left the bullion room. Out on Bullion Street, he dodged a wagon and coughed as it raised dust that was at least half horse manure. He turned left on 3rd Street. No prospective posse members were at the marshal’s office. He opened the door and said, “Matt?”
Stryker looked up from the wanted flyers on the desk. “Fletcher! Heard about the gold. Too bad. I’ll get it back if I can. I’ll sure as hell do my level best.”
“I’m going with you, Matt.”
“We’re not going on a picnic, Fletcher. No buckboards or fancy buggies. What’ll you use for a horse?”
“Lassig Livery’ll have a horse I can rent. Matt, I’ve got to go with you. That gold is my responsibility, and in a way, so are Elly and Maggie.”
“McQueen put you up to this?”
Comstock examined the round toes of his shoes, then looked Stryker in the eye. “It’s just something I’ve got to do, Matt. Tell me when you are leaving, and I will be here.”
“Like I said outside, I’m leaving in an hour.” He looked at the cuckoo clock on the wall. “Make that fifty minutes, now.”
Fletcher Comstock left. First stop, Lassig Livery & Stable. Stryker couldn’t keep Fletcher from going, not by order anyway. Outside the marshal’s office, Comstock glanced at the mules pulling ore wagons down Bullion Road to the stamp mill, which was further south on Lassig Creek. The big wagons stirred up that nauseous dust and the canyon breeze carried the choking mix down Third Street to Comstock’s nostrils. He sneezed. Damn dust anyway. He buckled the Colt SAA around his hips. The weight felt somehow reassuring. He strode down the boardwalk past Goldbergs, turned right on Washington and hurried the three long blocks to Lassig Livery.
“Leroy? Oh, Leroy,” Comstock hollered as he entered the livery barn.
“You don’t need to yell like I was in the next county,” Lassig said. He leaned on the pitchfork he’d been using to muck out a stall. “What can I do you for, Mr. Comstock?”
“A horse. I need a good horse.”
“Didn’t know you as the horse-riding kind,” Lassig said.
“I’m going with Stryker’s posse, and need a good mount that can stick with Matt Stryker all the way.”
“You? You’re joining the posse?” Lassig chuckled.
Comstock straightened up. “That gang took bullion, and I myself am in charge of that gold,” he said. “Naturally, I will go with the posse to make sure none of the gold gets sidetracked.”
“Tell you what. I’ve got a tall brown horse by the name of Chicoueno. He’s not much on the run, but he can walk the legs off any horse in the country. Easy gait, too. I reckon you’ll be wanting to rent an outfit, too.”
“I’d counted on it,” Comstock said.
“You just hang on a minute. I’ll get Chicoueno saddled up. How long ya gonna be gone?”
“I heard we must carry provisions for two weeks.”
“Uh huh. Well. I’ll loan ya my long slicker. You can wrap a couple of blankets in it and use it as a ground cloth if it ain’t raining. Whaddya say?”
“Excellent,” Comstock said. He’d never slept outside in his life. The idea of sleeping out struck him as barbarous.
“Pick yourself a saddle from those,” Lassig waved a hand at a row of saddles next to the wall. “I’ll be back with Chicoueno in a jiff.”
With help from Lassig, Comstock got Chicoueno saddled with a slicker tied on behind over a pair of saddlebags, along with ten pounds of oats for the horse. He managed to climb aboard. Chicoueno turned his head to watch Comstock’s distinctly non-cowboy manner of mounting, but made no complaint.
“He’s a gentle pony,” Lassig said, “and he’s got lots of bottom. He’ll still be going when all the other horses are fagging out. You feed him a pound of oats every night and he’ll go on purt nigh forever.”
“I’ll have Mr. McQueen pay you for him when we return,” Comstock said. He reined Chicoueno onto Washington Street and headed for the marshal’s office. He’s get supplies at Goldberg’s, next door to the office.
Comstock arrived just in time to see Stryker throw his saddlebags across the saddle skirt and tie them in place, then put a tight blanket roll on top of them. He shoved a Winchester into the saddle scabbard and pulled his Remington Army M1875 from its hard leather holster, spun the cylinder, and put it back.
“I got a horse, Matt,” Comstock said as he followed Stryker into Goldberg’s. Stryker bought four cans of peaches, a pound of Arbuckles, a tin of hardtack, and a slab of bacon. He balanced his provisions with a gunnysack of grain for Speckles, the roan appaloosa he now rode instead of Ruby.
Comstock bought the same provisions as Stryker, and Goldberg put them in an old flour sack so they’d be easy to carry. “You going with Stryker’s posse, Fletcher?”
“I am,” Comstock said.
“Can’t remember ever seeing you horseback,” Goldberg said.
Comstock didn’t answer. He merely took the provisions and went outside to secure them to Chicoueno’s saddle.
As Comstock fiddled at getting his provisions an
d Chicoueno’s grain balanced behind his saddle, Kid Leslie rode up on a prancy brown with black points. “’Bout ready to ride, Stryker?” he said.
“’Bout,” Stryker answered. He went into the sheriff’s office and came back with a one-quart coffee pot. When he came back out, Milt Robbins was there, too. Stryker threw a hard look at Milt. “You sure you want to go along?” he said.
“Ain’t nobody can outride me, Stryker, you know that, and blessed few can beat me with a gun. I’m going.”
“Don’t blame me if something happens.”
“Don’t you worry. It’s them Shadow Boxers what oughta be worrying with me coming after ’em. I can take full care of my own bones.”
“OK. Your funeral.”
Timothy S. Grant, pushing fifty with his widening girth pushing at the buttons of his Union blue uniform, came on a pure white horse. A saber hung from his saddle horn, and it looked like he had a pup tent tied on behind his saddle. “Good day, Mr. Stryker,” he said. “Are the troops assembled?”
“If you mean the posse, Cap, looks like we’ve got who we’ve got,” Stryker said. “Me and you, Milt and Fletcher Comstock, and Kid Leslie.” Stryker raised his voice. “You all ready to go? We’ve got a black Indian scout who’ll be waiting for us along the way. Let’s not waste any more time.”
Weldon Higgins came down Third Street on ragged sorrel. He rode at a list, like a ship with an unevenly packed cargo. He pulled up by Cap Grant.
“You joining the posse, Weldon?” Stryker said.
“Am. Maggie’s muh niece, ya know.”
“Leave the liquor behind, then,” Stryker said.
“Ain’t got none.”
“Weldon. Don’t you try pulling my leg.”
Brown pulled a full bottle of whiskey from inside his shirt. “This is all. Fer medicine.”