by Chuck Tyrell
“You know it ain’t,” Stryker said, pointing at Brown’s bulging saddlebags.
“Rations, deputy, rations.”
Stryker pulled his Remington Army free of its holster and smashed the bulging saddlebag with its seven and a half-inch barrel. Glass tinkled and liquid dribbled from the saddlebag. Brown’s face looked like Stryker had hit him, not the booze. Stryker patted the sorrel on the hip as he walked around back of it. “Easy, boy,” he said, then smashed the other saddlebag. Again, whiskey bottles crunched inside the bag, and liquid dripped on the ground.
“What’s a man to live on?” Brown whined.
“Blood and guts,” Stryker said. He surveyed Third Street with a long glance. No one else seemed headed for the marshal’s office.
“Canteens full?” Stryker said. “We’re going after the Shadow Box gang. Anyone with second thoughts, leave now.” He didn’t wait for an answer to his question about full canteens, he just mounted Speckles and rode south on Washington Street.
Comstock hadn’t thought of a canteen, but he didn’t want to take the time to go buy one. It was all he could do to get Chicoueno pointed in the right direction to follow the rest of the posse. The Peacemaker on his hip seemed to weigh a ton.
The black Indian waited less than a mile south of Silverton.
Chapter Four – Let the Mormon Hag Live
Cahill Bowman laughed at how easy it was to bilk Silverton of more than sixty pounds of gold. He and the rest of the Shadow Box Gang walked their horses up to a two-bit excuse for a ranch house as the sun set in a blaze of orange out there in the west somewhere. It could have fallen into Death Valley for all Cahill Bowman cared. He piped a little whistle. “Hello, the house,” he hollered.
“What’ll it be?” The voice came from the stable of upright logs covered with a roof of juniper and mesquite branches, not to keep any rain out, but to give shade. A man came out, wiping his hands on a piece of sacking. “Howdy,” he said. “What might you be looking for?”
“Place to rest a while,” Bowman said. “Day or two.”
“You can see for yourself that they ain’t much here.” The man was close enough that even in the low dusk light Bowman could see he wasn’t past his twentieth birthday, if that much.
“Harlan? Harlan?” The voice that came from the shack was silky smooth. Not the kind of voice a man would expect in an out-of-the-way place like this rawhide outfit. Bowman came within a hair of shooting the young man, just to have that voice, but he didn’t.
“Harlan?” she called again.
“I’m here, Mercy,” the youngster called.
“Mercy, is it?” Bowman said. He knew the men behind him were already exchanging glances, mentally ticking down the picking order to see if there’d be anything left when their turn came around. “Mercy me. Come on out here, missus. We were just talking with your man. Come on now.”
The woman stepped hesitantly from the shack, and Bowman noticed the slight bulge of her belly at once. Two-bit outfit. Young kid instead of a grown man to watch over it. And a woman that would turn the heads of every man in the entire 10th Tennessee Volunteer Infantry, if such a regiment still existed.
“We need a place to bivouac, missus,” Bowman said, “and your mister said, like a good neighbor, he said we was welcome to do so.”
“Well . . .” Mercy’s eyes jumped from horseman to horseman, and only paused briefly on Maggie Brown and Elly Nation.
“We’ll be outta your hair afore you hardly notice us, missus,” Bowman said. “Boys, set up camp ‘tween the corral and the crick. Billy Bob, Rastus,”
“Yo.”
“Be good if you two could ride out and find us a slow elk to eat tonight and tomorrow. I reckon our Mercy could fix up slow elk in a minute or two.”
“Who is the woman, sir,” Mercy said, “and the girl?”
“Companions, missus. Just companions. They’re making this trip with us to keep us safe, so to speak, and we’re almighty thankful they’re ready to do that.”
Bowman waved an arm at Billy Bob Hunt and Rastus Smythe. “Go get that elk, boys,” he said. “It’ll be pitch dark soon and you’ll not be able to hit the barn door with buckshot, much less an elk on the browse. Now. Move out!”
Two men spurred their mounts and thundered away.
“Ain’t no elk hereabouts,” young Harlan said.
Bowman gave him a smile. “You’d be surprised, youngster, you purely would.”
A rifle shot sounded.
“Looks like there’s elk close by,” Bowman said.
Harlan’s mouth opened, then closed, then opened again, something like a carp in a pond. Maybe he realized he was in over his head when it came to the Shadow Box Gang.
“Sure would be neighborly if your missus could make up some coffee,” Bowman said.
“Ain’t got no coffee,” Harlan said. “Us Mormons don’t drink it, mostly. But we got Brigham’s tea. Mercy could get a pot of that ready if you please.”
Bowman stared at Harlan. “No. Coffee,” he said. “Now that’s not neighborly at all.” He shifted the tail of his mackinaw so it fell back of the grips of his SAA.
“Don’t mean nothing by it,” Harlan said. “But the good Lord told the prophet that hot drinks like Limey tea and coffee wasn’t good for our bodies. So we don’t drink it. A matter of faith, my pa always said.”
Bowman turned. “Maggie Brown. You can make coffee. You might as well teach the girl Mercy how, so she’ll be of some use around here.”
He dismounted, and the rest of the Shadow Box Gang did the same. Maggie and Elly were tied to their saddles and couldn’t get off. “Geebee, you watch Maggie. And make sure you keep a rope on her neck.”
“Yo.” Geebee Mills went to untie Maggie.
“The Good Lord damn your heart, Geebee, if you hurt that young Mormon or his wife.”
“You get down and teach that girl to make coffee.”
“Gotta have a fire,” Maggie said.
“Get off the damn horse.” Geebee jerked at the rope tied to Maggie’s neck. “An’ don’t try anything fancy.”
“Geebee, I’m just a poor woman with no man to do for me, so I got to do for myself.”
“Get down and get to making coffee.”
Maggie swung her leg over the cantle and let Geebee get an eyeful of ankle and calf. “Don’t you jerk me around by that lariat, Geebee. It hurts.”
Geebee jerked the lariat and Maggie squeaked. “Don’cha go telling me what to do and what not to do,” Geebee said. “My ma was forever telling my pa what to do and what not to do, and that finally killed him. Then she started in on me, and I killed her afore she could get me killed. So, Maggie, I’ll do what needs to be done, whatever you say about it.”
“Dear Geebee,” Maggie said in a sugar-sweet voice. “We still ain’t got a fire.”
Geebee called out. “Who’s making the dadburned fire?”
Bowman paused an instant, then said, “Sax, couldja get us a fire going?”
“Don’t see no wood,” Junior Saxenhausen said.
“There’s a split rail fence,” Bowman said, “and there’s brush atop that stable shack.”
“You cain’t just tear a man’s place apart to make a fire for coffee,” young Harlan said.
Bowman stepped close and backhanded Harlan across the jaw. “Just watch me,” he said. “You’ll be surprised about what I will and what I won’t do.” He glanced at Saxenhausen. “Get the fire going, Sax. I purely thirst for a good cup of strong coffee. I surely do.”
Sax did as he was told, using brush from the stable roof to get the fire going, then adding the top rail of the split rail fence to get the coals Maggie would need to brew a pot of coffee.
Mercy had gone back inside.
“Come on out here, girl,” Bowman said to the house. “You all needs to learn about making coffee for people who might drop by and not be of the Mormon ilk.”
Nothing happened. “Harlan, you tell that girl to come out,” Bowman said.
“Louder,” Bowman ordered.
“Mershi, it’s better that you come out,” Harlan said.
Mercy stuck her head out from behind the cowhide that served as a door. Then she slunk outside like a scared puppy.
“Good. Good. Big Ed, you get a rope on her.”
Mercy squeaked and ducked back inside, letting the cowhide slap closed behind her.
“Get her,” Bowman said.
Big Ed stuck his hand out to pull back the hanging cowhide, but as he drew it to the side, he met sixteen double-aught shotgun pellets from barrels of the 12-gauge Parker shotgun Mercy held in her hands.
Big Ed went to his knees, then keeled sideways.
For a long second, Shadow Boxers stood motionless in shock. Bowman’s hand went to his SAA in reaction, and less than half a second later, a .45 caliber bullet went from the barrel of his Colt into the broad forehead of the young Mormon called Harlan. “Your woman killed Big Ed,” he shouted. “You pay. You pay.”
Harlan lay dead, arms flung wide and legs spread. His wound showed hardly any blood. His eyes were wide with surprise, but dull with death.
“Harlan! Harlan!” Mercy burst from behind the cowhide with her Parker clutched in both hands. “Harlan!”
“Bitch!” Bowman yelled.
Mercy’s tortured eyes went from Big Ed to young Harlan to Bowman to Maggie and back to Bowman. “But he was coming into my house. Harlan always told me not to let anyone into the house when I was alone. The big man was coming in. He never even knocked. He just … he just … .”
Bowman strode to Mercy and wrenched the shotgun from her hands. “Worthless bitch,” he said. “Got back into that poor excuse for a house and stay there. Don’t let me see your face.”
Mercy fled.
Maggie pretended nothing untoward had happened. The fence rail had burned in two, so she tugged on the rope around her neck, got a little slack from Geebee, and moved the rail halves so they both lay in the flames. “I’ll need a coffee pot,” she said to no one in particular, “and coffee. Ground, if you’ve got it. If not, smash me some with a pistol butt.”
Nobody moved. The sound of Mercy’s sobs came from the shack.
“Geebee, give me some slack,” Maggie said. “I’ll see if there’s a pot of some kind in the house.”
Geebee looked at Bowman for instructions. Bowman hooked his jaw at the shack and nodded. “You keep on her,” he said. “Don’t let her do nothing silly.”
“Don’t worry, Geebee,” Maggie said. “I don’t plan on gettin’ what that poor Mercy girl’s gonna.” Maggie grabbed hold of the lariat that hung from her neck and pulled Geebee toward the shack. “You stand out here against the wall. I’ll have a look.” She pushed back the cowhide and went in, singing out, “It’s just me, Mercy girl. All I need is some kind of pot for coffee. You got one or must I look?”
When her eyes adjusted to the dim interior, she could see Mercy lying across the single bad, her shoulders shaking with sobs.
“Mercy,” Maggie said, “he’s gone. Ain’t nothing you can do about it. I don’t know what you’ll get for killing Big Ed, but it won’t be pretty. If you don’t try to fight, maybe you’ll live. Think about it.”
Maggie found a deep pot. Nothing like a coffee pot, but she’d make do. She took it, and went back through the cowhide door.
“Thank you, Geebee,” she said. “Now, can you fill this purt-near full of water for me?”
Geebee nodded and took the pot. He dropped the lariat attached to Maggie’s neck and headed for the creek.
Maggie ignored everyone and rearranged the fence rail, by now burned into four. She put the charred ends in the center and left a mound of coals for the pot. She looked straight at Bowman. “So. Anyone come up with some coffee yet? Ground or mashed. ‘Bout two-thirds of a cupful would be good.”
“Here ya go, Maggie,” Geebee said, holding the pot out.
“Who’s got coffee?” Maggie asked.
No one answered.
“Don’t tell me you rough-riding men don’t none of you carry your own coffee?”
Silence. Then the sound of horses dragging something. “Got that slow elk you wanted, Bowman,” Billy Bob called.
“Heist it up on that single tree there at the stable. Cut off some flank and a hunk of rump, and the liver, for that matter. We can roast it on willows from the crick,” Bowman said.
“Might as well put something in the pot,” Maggie said. “Beef tea’s good as coffee, some says.”
Each man stuck a strip of beef on a pointed willow stick and shoved it into the fire.
“You all want salt?” Maggie said. “Might be some in the house.”
“Go see,” Bowman said.
“Geebee, come along.” She handed the lariat to Geebee and marched to the shack, fairly pulling Geebee along with her.
She came back with salt in a jar that she gave to Geebee. “Just a little will do,” she said. “People are like to put on too much. Do that and all you can taste is salt.”
Geebee came back with the salt jar and two willow sticks with beef on their sharpened ends. “For you and Miss Elly,” he said. “Salt ’em yourself.”
“My goodness Geebee, you are a gentleman. You truly are. I reckon your ma’s right proud of you.”
“Nah,” he said. “Ma’s dead. Nigh on to ten years now she’s been dead.”
“Well, now she’s an angel,” Maggie said. “And she’s smiling down on her gentleman son tonight. I have a feeling she is.”
Geebee ducked his head and scrubbed the toe of his boot in the dirt. “Aw, ain’t nothin’,” he said.
Maggie smiled at him and took the two willows and the salt. “Could you get a gob of beef from that ‘elk’ and put it in the pot, please. Piece about the size of your fist would be good.”
“I’ll do it, Maggie,” Geebee said. He pushed his hat back on his head, pulled his Bowie from its sheath behind his left hip, and strode to the carcass hanging at the stable.
The Shadow Box Gang ate burned beef from a yearling steer. They drank beef tea brewed in the pot Maggie got from the shack. Even Elly ate a little of the salted beef Maggie roasted over the fire on the end of a green willow stick.
“Gather round,” Bowman said after the men had eaten all the beef they could hold. The Shadow Box Gang. He looked around the ring of men. “Geebee, Rastus, you all have first watch. One of you go back down the trail a ways. The other’n get up on that saddleback. He pointed at a dark hump a little west of the shack. “Billy Bob and Sax’ll take the second watch around midnight. Me and Flapjack’ll do the last one from about four in the morning. After your watches, if you get the urge, you can poke the little missus in the shack. Me and Flapjack’ll have first go. She flat out owes us for killing Big Ed.”
Maggie’s heart went out to the sobbing woman-girl in the shack, but she held her peace. Getting dead by interfering wouldn’t help get Elly back to Silverton alive.
Bowman and Flapjack went into the shack, and the screams began.
Chapter Five – Stryker’s Posse Rides
Townspeople said the Shadow Box Gang rode west out of town. Moapa lay a little north of west and Moapa Springs and the Muddy River were the last reliable fresh water, if a man planned to cross the Mojave Desert, and a good place to make a stop if he planned to follow the Muddy south to the Virgin River and on to Pearce’s Ferry, or to Calleville for a boat.
A couple of hours past noon, Comstock followed Stryker’s posse out of Silverton. They took the wagon road that led southwest toward the artesian water in Las Vegas Valley. They’d camp at the old fort and water up, Stryker said. And they trusted Dred to tell them if the Shadow Boxers did anything drastic.
Comstock urged Chicoueno up to the head of the posse’s column where Stryker rode, bouncing as the big brown trotted. The townspeople had said “Shadow Box Gang” like it was something or somebody every lawman shoul
d know. “Who is this Shadow Box Gang, Stryker?” he said.
“Got no idea,” Stryker said. “But that don’t mean nothing. Gangs of outlaws come together now and again. Sometimes they chose names like The Cowboys or The Innocents or the Hole in the Wall Gang. The Shadow Box Gang might be the name they took for this job and it might be something that’ll last longer.”
The posse rode on in silence. After a while, Comstock dropped back to bring up the rear, his butt pounding on the hard saddle.
By evening, the only thing Comstock knew for sure was that the gang had Elly Nation and Maggie Brown. That they carried sixty pounds of gold. And that his own behind felt like it was fast becoming one big bruise.
Stryker picked a dry camp just west of a low rise that let them see a full circle around. “Cap,” he said to Timothy Grant, “be obliged if you’d keep a lookout. We’ll holler when there’s something to eat.”
“Certainly, young man. My military experience should be invaluable. I will position myself next to yonder oak tree.”
“Thank you, Cap. You do that,” Stryker said. “Listen up. Dry camp tonight. I suggest you empty the better part of your canteens into something that your horse can drink from. We’ll be at Fort Las Vegas tomorrow and maybe on to Moapa Springs. You’ll be able to fill your canteens then.
“Fire big enough for coffee only. Eat sowbelly and hardtack. Cap Grant’s got first watch. Then the Kid and Comstock. Me and Milt’ll take the late watch. Weldon, you tend to the fire. Make it about the size of your hat, if you please.”
Comstock stood by Chicoueno, ashamed he’d forgotten, or rather not thought of bringing a canteen. He had no idea how to find water for the horse. Stryker seemed so far away, and he was busy with other members of the posse. In the end, Comstock unsaddled Chicoueno and picketed him with the other horses. “Sorry, old man. I’ll make sure you get plenty of water tomorrow,” he said.
Jimmy the Kid sidled over to Stryker as he chewed on hardtack and bacon. “Deputy? Whatta ya think? We gonna catch up with that goldurn Shadow Box Gang?”