The Gallows Gang

by I. J. Parnham

  ‘There is no dark place,’ The Preacher muttered to himself, ‘no deep shadow, where evildoers can hide, Job thirty-four, verse twenty-two.’

  The Preacher was now talking loudly enough for Nathaniel to hear him, not that he cared to spend the night listening to an endless series of Bible quotations. Although, mindful of the man’s reputation, he’d decided not to antagonize him by telling him to be quiet.

  Around the cage rasping snores indicated that most of the prisoners were asleep. When he abandoned his own attempt to sleep and opened his eyes he saw that, opposite him, Turner Jackson was asleep but Javier Rodriguez was awake. Javier’s eyes reflected the limited light as they darted around following the guards on their regular patrol.

  The tense yet poised way he sat leaning back against the bars suggested he hadn’t given up hope of escape. That made Nathaniel wonder whether something might happen tonight that could give him a chance to escape too.

  The first hint that something really was amiss came when Nathaniel heard a thud nearby, then the sound of a large object being dragged along.

  Javier’s eyes followed the motion of whoever was doing the dragging. When that man came into Nathaniel’s view he saw that Hiram Deeds was dragging an unconscious guard towards the large boulder that stood between them and the fire.

  Then Hiram made his stealthy way towards them, holding a bunched set of keys.

  Nathaniel closed his eyes to slits and let his mouth fall open as if he were snoozing. He watched Hiram open the cage door in a slow way that ensured it didn’t creak and awaken the prisoners.

  Hiram appraised The Preacher, but he continued to babble, showing no interest in the proceedings, as usual. Then he leaned over to Javier and passed him a key.

  Javier settled back and considered the prisoners, assuring himself that they were all still asleep; then he looked at Turner, then at Hiram who followed his gaze. Nathaniel guessed that a silent discussion was taking place as to whether to release Turner. That discussion ended when Javier reached down to his ankle.

  While carefully avoiding touching Turner’s body he released his leg manacles, then drew his leg away from him. Again he waited for a few moments before he released his wrist from both Turner and the bars. Then he stood slowly and moved towards the open door.

  Nathaniel waited until he raised the hand holding the key to the bars to steady himself as he climbed down. Then he lunged out with his own free hand, catching Javier’s wrist. He squeezed.

  He and Javier exchanged eye contact as Nathaniel conveyed with his bunched fist and flared eyes that he had the power to ensure this escape wouldn’t remain a secret for long if he chose to raise the alarm.

  ‘Take me with you,’ he whispered.

  CHAPTER 4

  ‘I’ve worked out how Hiram will get him to Pablo,’ Elwood said when he returned from his thirty minutes of scouting around.

  He beckoned for Shackleton and Barney to join him. Without asking questions, they followed.

  Keeping in the shadows and often crawling like snakes along the ground they inched closer to the cage, taking a circuitous route that several times doubled back almost to the place where they’d started. Shackleton couldn’t see where Elwood was taking them until they were almost there.

  Silently Elwood edged forward and rolled from view as he disappeared into a dried-out rill. Shackleton and Barney followed to find that the course of the rill was around three feet deep and followed a more or less straight course from the ridge to the edge of the canyon. A brief glance over the side confirmed that it emerged twenty yards from the cage.

  Lying on his belly, Shackleton ran his gaze up and down the watercourse then patted Elwood’s back.

  ‘Agreed,’ he said. ‘Javier could get away from the cage along here without being noticed from up on the ridge.’

  ‘So do we get closer?’

  ‘No. Javier won’t go anywhere without passing by us, so let’s see who’s at the other end.’

  Barney and Elwood grunted their approval of this plan. With Shackleton leading they crawled along the watercourse towards the ridge.

  They’d covered 200 yards when movement ahead caught Shackleton’s eye, about twenty yards ahead. He froze; the two men behind were aware enough of his movements also to halt immediately.

  ‘Pablo, or Kurt?’ Elwood whispered, crawling along to lie beside Shackleton.

  ‘I reckon Kurt ain’t the kind of man who sneaks around in the dark.’

  Elwood grunted that he agreed. Then they carried on, this time moving more slowly than before, taking fifteen minutes to reach the sprawl of boulders where Shackleton had seen something move. There they waited, listening to the wind, the sounds of the guards moving around the cage….

  A crunch sounded as of a footfall on grit, followed by a second. Then, looming up against the night sky, a man walked to the edge of the watercourse, looking out towards the canyon. He planted his feet a few inches from Shackleton’s head and stood, rocking back and forth as he stretched his cramped limbs.

  From over by the canyon the faint sounds of movement sounded, perhaps giving a reason for his having come forward to investigate.

  Presently the sounds petered out and so with a grunt to himself the man edged backwards a half-pace while looking around. His eyes took in the ridge above him. Then he looked to the cage and finally along the watercourse, his head swinging down as his vision lit upon the men lying beneath his feet.

  Elwood was the first to react. He lunged out with a firm hand and grabbed the man’s leg, then yanked it. Surprise ensured that the man didn’t put up a fight and went tumbling down into the dry watercourse. thereupon all three men leapt on him and subdued him, though not before he’d emitted a screeching cry.

  His alarm echoed amongst the gullies and passes of the ridge above as Barney delivered a solid blow to the man’s cheek, which crashed his head against the ground, making him flop. They held on to him for a moment longer to make sure he was out cold, but by then voices were rising up around them in the dark.

  Someone to their left hissed a question. Another person to their right uttered an audible demand for quiet while another said it was too late.

  Thirty yards down the watercourse two men appeared, looking towards the cage.

  ‘Is it happening?’ one asked.

  ‘I don’t think so. That sounded like Jim.’

  Gazing about him, the two men took in their surroundings. They couldn’t help but see the four men in the watercourse. Slowly they turned towards them. Then, with a grunted exchange, they scrambled for their guns, but Shackleton’s group had already drawn and they had a bead on them.

  Again using the unspoken understanding of each other’s intentions that didn’t need spoken orders Shackleton blasted two rapid shots into the man on the left while Barney and Elwood shot a slug apiece into the one on the right.

  Even before the shot men had hit the dirt they had rolled to their feet. Then, doubled-over, they ran towards the boulders from where the first man had emerged. They ducked down and peered out, awaiting developments.

  ‘They got Charlie and Lester,’ a voice cried out, now giving up all attempts to be quiet.

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘It sounded as if—’

  Gunfire exploded, the sounds of the rapid shots echoing all around them, and the gunfire itself was just as wild and splayed.

  Shackleton judged that Kurt’s men were shooting from their various hiding-places along the ridge. They were firing blind with little idea as to where their targets were. So the shots were peppering over a range that went from fifty yards into the flat area to a point high up on the ridge.

  ‘There must be more men out there than we thought,’ someone shouted. ‘We’re surrounded.’

  ‘To the horses!’

  ‘What about Javier?’

  ‘Later!’

  Then rapid footfalls sounded, receding into the darkness, followed by the sounds of around ten
men mounting up.

  ‘We going after ’em?’ Barney asked, then ducked as a stray bullet tore into the ground a few feet to his side.

  ‘Those were our orders,’ Shackleton said, ‘and we ain’t the ones in charge no more.’

  ‘I know,’ Elwood said unhappily as the riders hurried into sight and initiated a ferocious burst of gunfire from numerous directions along the ridge. ‘We’d have avoided all this.’

  ‘Pablo’s a fool,’ Hiram Deeds said as the gunfire echoed. ‘He’s been seen.’

  As the gunfire roused the prisoners from their slumbers he yanked Javier outside and slammed the cage door in Nathaniel’s face.

  ‘That means you’ve failed,’ Javier Rodriguez muttered, facing Hiram.

  ‘I haven’t. Just slip away like I planned while I take care of things here.’

  Hiram reached into his jacket and when his hand emerged he was brandishing a stick of dynamite.

  ‘What you doing with that?’ Javier demanded.

  ‘What do you think I’m doing?’ Hiram snapped. ‘I’m blowing up the cage and sending it down into the canyon. Then nobody will be able to work out if you were in there or not.’

  Nathaniel was surprised to see that Javier, a man who was supposedly utterly ruthless, balked at this plan.

  Slowly, Javier paced up to Hiram. He glanced down at the stick, then grunted with anger. He batted it away with one hand while lunging for Hiram’s holster with the other. Before Hiram could react the gun was in Javier’s hand and he had twirled it round in his grip.

  Gunfire roared as Javier blasted a slug into Hiram’s guts at point-blank range, making him fold over and slump to the ground.

  Then Javier dropped to one knee. Within seconds three guards came running to investigate, but three crisp shots rang out as Javier peppered lead across them.

  Even before the bodies had stopped twitching, Javier had ripped the keys from Hiram’s hand.

  Then he collected guns from the two nearest guards and turned to the cage to face the prisoners. They were now all awake and they considered him through the bars with a mixture of concern (presumably because most had heard Hiram’s plan), and hope.

  Javier Rodriguez wasted no time in letting them know their fate.

  ‘I have the keys,’ he said, holding them high. ‘I can either leave you for the gallows, or you can join me. You might not live for long, but I can promise you we’ll blaze a trail that people will talk about for a thousand years, and when you do die, you’ll die as free men.’

  The echoing cheer gave Javier all the answers he needed. He hurried to the cage and passed the manacle key through the bars while he opened the cage door.

  Nathaniel watched proceedings quietly as the key got passed from hand to hand, but when it reached the last prisoner before him, Mitch Cartwright spoke up.

  ‘Don’t give it to him,’ he said. ‘That double-crosser ain’t coming with us.’

  ‘What Turner said about me was a lie,’ Nathaniel said, as Mitch slipped out of the cage, leaving him and The Preacher the only prisoners left inside.

  ‘It sure wasn’t,’ Mitch said, smirking. ‘But don’t worry. When we’ve gone The Preacher might forgive you, provided he doesn’t get hungry first.’

  Several prisoners snorted a laugh, agreeing with Mitch’s plan to leave him, but Turner pushed Mitch aside and paced up to the cage.

  ‘I have a better idea,’ he said, holding Hiram’s stick of dynamite high. ‘Hiram was going to blow up the cage to hide what he did here. I reckon we should still do that, but with our double-crosser inside.’

  This suggestion made Nathaniel swirl round and shake the bars.

  ‘Someone listen to me!’ he demanded. ‘You have to listen to the truth about Turner.’

  Everyone ignored him and the few who did react grunted their support for Turner’s plan.

  So Mitch checked that Nathaniel’s chains still secured him to the bars while Turner lit the fuse. Then he pushed the stick through the bars at the opposite end of the cage to where Nathaniel sat. It rolled only a few feet in. He caught Nathaniel’s eye.

  ‘It looks as if I’m the one,’ he said, grinning, ‘who gets to see you die.’

  Then he ran back to the group, gibbering with delight.

  ‘Now move on out,’ Javier said with an overhead gesture. ‘We need to be as far away as possible by the time that blast lights up Devil’s Canyon.’

  Nathaniel ignored the prisoners’ departure as he strained, but the chain that secured his hand to The Preacher’s was short and he could move himself only a few feet nearer to the fizzing dynamite. His straining tugged The Preacher back and forth, but his efforts didn’t rouse him or stop his steady murmuring.

  ‘We have to do something,’ Nathaniel shouted at him, ‘or the blast will blow us both to pieces in about two minutes.’

  The Preacher’s only response was to clutch his hands more tightly together and raise his voice to a strident tone.

  ‘Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,’ he intoned, ‘for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, Matthew five, verse ten.’

  CHAPTER 5

  The last rider in Kurt’s group was 200 yards ahead. Occasionally Shackleton caught sight of Pablo Rodriguez’s gang and he judged that Kurt was gaining on him.

  He’d galloped on for another half-mile when gunfire blasted ahead, at first sporadically, but then more determinedly and getting closer. Shackleton wondered whether Pablo had doubled back but on following the riders into a pass he saw that Pablo had decided to make a stand.

  His men were scurrying into hiding on one side of the pass while Kurt and his men were dismounting to take up positions on the other side.

  They were already trading gunfire and although they’d started with evenly matched numbers the bodies of three men showed that Kurt had made progress in decimating Pablo’s group.

  By the time Shackleton’s group had dismounted, Kurt had accounted for one more.

  ‘How many are we facing?’ Shackleton asked when he scurried into cover beside him.

  ‘Eight tried to escape, and we’ve already halved that number.’ Kurt licked his lips. ‘This pass is where Pablo Rodriguez breathes his last.’

  Shackleton cast his mind back to the riders he’d seen leaving and he judged that Kurt’s total was right, but when he looked at Elwood, he received a shake of the head.

  ‘There was one more than that,’ Elwood said.

  Kurt dismissed his opinion with a wave of the hand, then settled down to organizing his men to take up the best positions and to lay down gunfire aimed at the opposite side of the pass.

  For the next ten minutes they chose their moments to bob up from behind their covering boulders and trade gunfire, but with only starlight available both groups had to pick their targets using merely sound. So neither side threatened the other with the slugs that whined into the rocks around them, frequently landing ten or more yards away.

  With everyone getting increasingly exasperated, Barney whispered an idea to Shackleton. Without consulting Kurt, Shackleton agreed.

  Two minutes later Barney and Elwood were ready. They slipped out into the pass and crawled forward for twenty yards, then lit the brands they’d made. They hurled them across the pass, getting them as close to Pablo’s position as possible, before scurrying back into hiding.

  The balls of light hurtled through the night sky. When they’d crashed to the ground in a shower of sparks they bathed the other side of the pass in stark light, leaving their side in relative darkness.

  Consequently, the first man to rise and fire got blasted in the chest from two different directions, sending him tumbling forward. Afterwards, the others had the sense to stay down and fire off only the occasional speculative shot, but each time they did, gunfire cannoned around their positions, keeping them pinned down.

  ‘Pablo Rodriguez ain’t as ornery as everyone says,’ Kurt said happily, glancing at Shackleton. ‘Even you managed to take on two of his men.’
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  Shackleton wondered if he were being insulted, but when Elwood got his attention he dismissed the matter from his thoughts.

  ‘I’m sure I was right,’ Elwood said. He pointed out the dead men, then the positions he’d identified as the source of the shooting. ‘Nine men hightailed it along Devil’s Canyon and I can count only eight here.’

  ‘Then where’s the last man?’ Shackleton asked, already having concluded who that man was.

  ‘Pablo ain’t no yellow-belly,’ Barney said, slipping closer. ‘So that means he’s hiding somewhere to surprise us when he can do the most damage.’

  ‘Then he’d better surprise us soon before we wipe everyone else out.’

  Barney and Elwood nodded. Then both men’s gazes rose to look up their side of the pass.

  Without further comment they slipped away from Kurt’s group. In the shadows they followed Elwood to higher ground as he moved towards the position he would have taken if he had wanted to have the most devastating effect.

  They were halfway up the pass and had still seen no sign of Pablo, if he were here, when in a burst of recklessness the three men on the opposite side of the pass started firing rapidly. Then they moved to new positions while laying down such a frenetic volley of gunfire that Kurt’s group had no choice but to think of self-preservation and keep themselves down.

  When the gunfire stopped Kurt and his men rose as one, aiming to pick off any stragglers. At that moment a new volley of shots rang out, but this time they came from this side of the pass.

  One man cried out and stumbled forward, followed by a second and third.

  ‘Damn,’ Shackleton muttered as he discovered where Pablo had gone to ground in the worst possible way.

  The gunfire was coming from behind a tangle of rocks forty yards away. They veered off towards that position and when they’d halved the distance and the shooter swung into view, Shackleton saw that his attention was on the exposed men below as he aimed to inflict as much damage as he could.

  Shackleton gestured, directing Elwood and Barney to take a route towards him over higher ground while he took the more direct route. He gave them a few seconds’ start then made his way along, putting his faith in the man, presumably Pablo, keeping his attention on the men below.