by Ralph Cotton
“Lord have…mercy, Will,” Webb groaned. “I’m…beat all to hell!”
“You can do it, Deputy. I know you can,” Summers insisted. “Now lift him up…throw him on that saddle.” Summers stepped back out of the way. “These men will follow you anywhere.”
The townsfolk along the street and the men mounted and ready to ride posse watched in hushed silence as a struggling Deputy Abner Webb pulled Edmund Daniels up and looped an arm across his shoulder. “Give him room!” Will Summers shouted. The townsfolk pulled back and watched Webb drag the knocked-out man to the big gray gelding standing in the middle of the street. With all his strength, Webb pushed upward against Daniels until finally the limp figure flopped across the saddle like a corpse.
Summers saw the deputy was about to fall, so he hurried over to him and grabbed the reins to the gray. “There now, you saw Deputy Webb make things right with Edmund Daniels,” Summers shouted to the mounted possemen. “Does anybody have any more to say on the matter?” He looked from man to man, making sure his eyes met theirs. When no one replied, he said, “All right then. Let’s be off and gone!”
While the possemen filed by, Will Summers held the reins to Webb’s horse. Webb struggled upward until he flopped over into his saddle. Summers handed him his reins, then handed him the reins to Daniels’ big gray. “Here, Deputy, sit tall,” Summers said. “You’ve earned the right to hold your head high.”
“I…need to see…the doctor,” Webb rasped. “I believe he’s broke…something inside me.”
“Don’t whimper like a pup,” Summers snapped at him. “You’ve just done a big thing for yourself. Be proud of it.”
“At least…let me wash my face, Will,” Webb moaned.
“Don’t worry, Deputy.” Summers pulled a wadded-up bandanna from inside his coat and shook it out. “Soon as the posse is farther down the street, you can clean your face up. Don’t let these men see you’re hurting though.” Summers reached down with the bandanna and gestured young Eddie Duvall toward them. “You, kid, take this over, dip it in the horse trough and wring it out for us.”
“The horse trough?” Webb moaned.
“Is he going to die?” Eddie Duvall asked, staring in awe at Abner Webb’s battered face.
“Naw, kid, this man is tougher than a pine knot.” Summers chuckled, handing the boy the bandanna. “When he catches up to the Peltrys, they won’t know what hit them.”
Abner Webb just stared at Will Summers through swollen eyes.
Seeing his son, Eddie, run to the water trough and back with the wet bandanna, Wild Joe Duvall cut away from the rest of the posse and circled back to Summers and Webb. “Son, you finish up what you’re doing and get on back to the house,” Wild Joe told young Eddie. “You look after your ma and your sister like I told you to.”
“Yes sir, Pa,” Eddie said, wringing out the bandanna and passing it up to Will Summers’ hand. “Mr. Summers asked me to fetch this back to him, so I did. Golly, Pa! Did you see the fight? I never saw nothing like it!” Eddie exclaimed.
“Yeah,” said Wild Joe grudgingly. “It was all right, as fights go. I’ve been in worse and not come out looking so bad.” He gave Abner Webb the once-over, then looked back down at his son. “You still here?”
“No sir, Pa. I’m gone,” said Eddie. Turning and bolting away, he called back over his shoulder. “Don’t forget—you said you’d bring me back one of the Peltrys’ shooting fingers!”
“Hope you brought yourself a sharp knife,” Summers said to Wild Joe Duvall.
Wild Joe’s face reddened as he saw the amused look in Will Summers’ eyes. “That son of mine thinks I’m some kind of hero. I don’t know why,” Wild Joe said, looking away and adjusting his wide-brimmed hat. When Summers didn’t answer, Wild Joe looked at Abner Webb again. “Come to think of it, that was one hell of a fight, Deputy. I couldn’t have done much better myself to be honest about it.”
“The roof…fell on him,” Webb said across thick blue lips, wiping the wet bandanna carefully across the welt on his jaw.
“Call it how you want to,” said Wild Joe, passing a glance over Edmund Daniels lying draped across his saddle. “But I think you’re just being modest. Daniels is a big piece of work, roof or no roof.”
Abner Webb looked at Will Summers. Summers only shrugged. “Wild Joe’s right, Deputy. You’re in a saddle. Daniels is across one. That’s how simple it plays in my book.” He turned his horse and heeled it toward the rear of the posse as the horsemen made their way out of town.
“What do you think Goose and Moses Peltry is up to about now, Deputy?” asked Wild Joe Duvall, stepping his horse alongside Webb’s. Abner Webb noted the nervousness in the man’s voice as he continued. “Think there’s a chance we might miss them altogether? Maybe they’ll cut for the border and get away from us.”
Leading Edmund Daniels’ gray by its reins, Abner Webb heeled his horse forward, one hand holding the wet bandanna to his throbbing jaw. “If they want to keep their shooting fingers, I reckon they ought to,” said Webb.
Lieutenant Freeman Goff stood up in his stirrups and gazed ahead at the lopsided wagon sitting sideways in the middle of the high pass trail. “Dagblast it!” the lieutenant said. “This just rips it for me. First the big gun jams. Now this!” He noted the wagon was heavily loaded and sitting up on an axle jack. A front wheel was off, leaning against the side of the wagon where the driver sat with an open tin of grease, slowly smearing the inside of the hub.
“Sergeant Teasdale!” Lieutenant Goff demanded. “Take two men up there and see if you can help that fool get under way. He’s blocking the whole confounded trail!”
“Indeed he is, sir,” said the big rawboned sergeant as his eyes went warily along the ridgeline above them. “And if you don’t mind my saying so, sir, we best keep a close lookout for some sort of—”
“Yes, I do mind you saying so, Sergeant!” Lieutenant Goff snapped impatiently, cutting Teasdale off. “For God sakes! Can’t anyone simply follow an order so we can get this detail finished? It’s hotter than a boiling pot out here. Do as I say.”
“Yes, sir, Lieutenant,” Sergeant Lawrence Teasdale said, his eyes still scanning the ridges, searching the black holes of shade among the jagged rocks. “Corporal Burnes…Trooper Frieze: up front on the double!”
“Speed this up, Sergeant,” Lieutenant Goff said. “I’ll be waiting in the shade back here behind the gun wagon.” He turned his horse and moved it back a few feet along the trial as two sweaty bays fell out of the short single column and bolted forward.
“Yes, sir,” said Teasdale.
As the two horses slid to a halt beside Sergeant Teasdale, he nodded toward the broken-down wagon thirty yards ahead. “Flank me, men, and be alert,” Teasdale said. “The lieutenant wants us to assist this man.” He nudged his horse forward, drawing his rifle from his saddle boot. The corporal and the trooper watched him check the rifle then cock it, keeping his thumb across the hammer. “Draw yours as well, men,” Teasdale said quietly. “The lieutenant doesn’t think this is anything to be concerned about.”
“Uh-oh,” said the corporal, tossing a quick glance along the ridgeline. Both he and Trooper Frieze immediately snatched up their rifles and cocked them. “Any time the lieutenant ain’t concerned, I am,” Burnes commented. “Does this smell like the makings of an ambush to you, Sergeant?”
“Not only smells like one…I think it’s going to taste like one any minute,” Teasdale replied. “Stay sharp, Corporal. You too, Frieze.” He nudged his horse closer to the man on the ground beside the wagon.
At twenty feet back, Sergeant Lawrence Teasdale stopped his horse between Burnes and Frieze, then stepped his horse a few feet ahead of them and sat staring down at the wagon driver. “What’s the matter, Sergeant?” said the wagon driver, his fingertips blackened by axle grease. “I don’t smell that bad, do I? Come on over here. I can use some muscle to shoulder this wheel on.” He nodded past Teasdale toward the gun wagon and the eight mounted s
oldiers sitting alongside it. “Would that be a Gatling rifle I see under that tarpaulin? If it is, you have little cause to fear anything on foot or hoof out here.”
“Indeed, it is a Gatling gun,” said Teasdale, stepping his horse forward another slow step while looking all along the snaking trail before him. “And it would be a mistake to misinterpret my caution for fear of anything…on foot or hoof.”
“No offense intended, Sergeant,” said the wagoner. He raised his drooping hat, ran his shirtsleeve across his forehead, then lowered the hat back into place.
“None taken, sir,” said Sergeant Teasdale. Yet as his eyes darted quickly to the high ridgeline then fell back upon the wagoner, Teasdale raise his cocked rifle and leveled it. “I saw that, you bloody bastard!” The cocked rifle bucked in Teasdale’s hand. The wagoner flew backward as his grease-stained hand raised a pistol from his lap.
“He signaled somebody!” Corporal Burnes shouted back at the short column of men. “Take cover!”
His words were partly drowned out by the pounding of rifle fire from the rocks above them. Looking back, Trooper Frieze saw the lieutenant spring up into his saddle then melt down the horse’s side as a bullet punched its way through his forehead. “Holy saints above!” Frieze bellowed. “We’re in for it now!”
Chapter 6
“That hateful sonsabitch!” Goose Peltry yelled, standing up as his men opened fire on the troopers below. “He shot Otis Hirsh before Hirsh could bat an eye!” Goose jerked up his rifle from the rock beside him. “I will personally carve that Yankee bastard’s heart out and eat it before it cools!” Rifle fire from the soldiers below zipped past Goose’s head like mad hornets. He jacked round after round into his rifle chamber and fired until the gun barrel was too hot to touch.
“Get down there and kill every damned one of them!” Goose bellowed at the men along the firing line. The men looked at one another and rose up from the ground. But Moses Peltry stopped them with a raised hand as they headed back a few feet to their horses.
“Wait, Goose! Damn it to hell!” shouted Moses above the exploding rifle fire. Keeping his hand raised toward the men as if holding them in place, Moses turned to his brother. “Did you even see Hirsh’s signal? Are you sure they were even carrying a Gatling machine rifle?”
The six riflemen stood staring, anxious to get under way. Moses Peltry wouldn’t let them go until he heard something from Goose. Along the ridge, six other riflemen kept a steady barrage of gunfire on the trail below. Goose Peltry stared back and forth wild-eyed, outraged that his brother had contradicted his order. “Yes, damn it, I saw Hirsh’s signal!” said Goose, his words broken up by the steady explosions. “He raised his hat and rubbed his forehead right before that Yankee put a hole in his belly! The Gatling gun’s there! We just got to be bold enough to get it.”
“You better be right about this!” Moses said in a threatening tone. “I ain’t risking these men for an empty wagon! We’re short of men as it is.”
From below, one of the troopers had managed to get inside the gun wagon and swing the Gatling rifle upward along the ridgeline. Bullets ripped up a long line of dirt and rock twenty feet below the edge of the ridge. “Well there, brother Moses!” shouted Goose. “Does that tell you anything?”
“All right, men,” Moses shouted. “Let’s get down there and cut them to pieces!” The riflemen seemed to come unstuck. They bolted toward their horses. Goose growled under his breath, “Damn it to hell, I can’t stand it when he does me that way!” Then he hurried to his horse along with Moses and the six other men. “Keep us covered!” he shouted to the riflemen firing down from the ridge.
On the narrow trail, a young trooper named Doyle Benson swung the Gatling gun back and forth, beating the rear of the mechanism with his fist. In the cover of the wagon blocking the trail, Sergeant Teasdale called out through the barrage of rifle fire raining down on them, “Damn it, man! What’s wrong now?”
“Sergeant, it’s jammed again!” shouted Benson. “I can’t get it angled up to where they are, and now the damn thing’s gone and jammed on me!” He stepped back and kicked the Gatling gun stand as bullets whistled past his head.
“Then get yourself down out of there and listen to Hargrove, you fool,” shouted Sergeant Teasdale from his stooped position behind the broken-down freight wagon thirty yards away, “before they shoot your eyes out!”
The young trooper dropped from the wagon, but not before a bullet sliced through the sleeve of his blue wool shirt. “Who’s up there, Hargrove?” he asked the older trooper huddled against the side of the gun wagon beside him. “Think it’s Apaches come to steal that broken-down freight wagon?”
“No, you mallet-head!” Trooper Lyndell Hargrove replied, firing upward as he spoke. “They’re white men! Ambushers! The freight wagon isn’t broken down! It’s a trap! Didn’t you hear the sergeant say the wagon driver gave them a signal? You best start learning to pay attention if you plan on seeing your next birthday!”
“How am I suppose to see and hear everything going on at a time like this?” Doyle Benson asked. He jerked a pistol from beneath his holster flap and checked it as he glanced around at two dead troopers on the ground. Nearby, a big bay lay mortally wounded, raising its head in a pitiful whinny as blood flowed from its wounded flanks. “Can you believe this is the first action I’ve seen?” Benson said through the melee.
“I can believe it all right,” said Hargrove. Hearing the thunder of hooves clamor down from a steep path leading up toward the ridge, the older trooper jacked a fresh round into his rifle and said, “Careful it’s not your last.”
Behind the cover of the freight wagon, Sergeant Teasdale also heard the thunder of hooves. He looked at the dead, staring eyes of Corporal Burnes. Blood ran down from a bullet hole in Burnes’ cheek. Then he turned to Trooper Frieze and asked, “How bad are you hit, Trooper?”
“It’s in and out, Sergeant,” Frieze replied. “I’ve got some fight left in me, if that’s what you want to know. To hell with that border trash. They’re not about to kill me.”
“Good man,” said the sergeant. “Benson and Hargrove are under the gun wagon. Everybody else is dead. They’re coming down now to finish us off. We’re making a run for it. Get ready!” Sergeant Teasdale looked around for any live horses but saw none. He shook his head.
“A run for it?” Frieze looked all around. “A run to where?”
“Over this edge and down into the rocks,” said Teasdale. “It’s steep and too rough for horses. If they want us, they’ll have to dig us out of there. I’m betting we ain’t that important to them once they get their hands on that machine rifle.”
“I’m with you, Sergeant. Just say the word,” Frieze replied, touching his fingertips to the wound in his right shoulder. “I hate the thought of dying without taking some of them with me.”
“That’s the way to think, Frieze,” said Teasdale. “It’ll keep you alive.” He turned and called to Benson and Hargrove through the bullets raining in from over their heads. “They’re coming down for us! Get ready to follow me!”
Benson looked confused, but Hargrove understood. “He wants us to follow him down the slope and into the rocks,” Hargrove told Benson. “He thinks they won’t take us on down there—it’ll cost them too much.”
“How do you know he thinks that?” asked the young trooper.
“Because that’s how a good sergeant thinks. That’s how I always thought when I was a sergeant.” He gestured toward the darker blue area on his sleeve where three stripes used to be. They watched Sergeant Teasdale point his rifle barrel toward the steep rocky slope over the edge of the trail.
“Is it the right thing to do?” Benson asked.
“If the sergeant’s game for it, so am I,” said Hargrove, hearing the hooves draw closer. “As long as he leads us right, I’ve got no complaints. But the minute he makes a bad move, I’ll take over then and there. Are you with me if I have to?”
“I’m all for staying alive,”
said Benson. “Whatever that takes, count me in.” He looked around quickly, then added, “Think I should make a grab for the Gatling rifle?”
“Why?” said Hargrove. “The damn thing keeps jamming. It’s not worth dying for.” He saw Teasdale and Frieze make a run for it, bullets from the high ridge stitching a trail behind them until they dropped out of sight into the cover of jagged rocks. “Stay close to me, Benson,” Hargrove said over his shoulder. As soon as he heard Teasdale’s rifle and saw the puffs of smoke rise up from the rocks, Hargrove jumped from the cover of the gun wagon and ran zigzagging back and forth like a wild hare, bullets licking at his heels.
Trooper Doyle Benson ran right beside him but split away just as they cleared the edge of the trail and ducked down into the sheltering rocks. “Are you hit, Benson?” Hargrove called out.
“No, I’m all right. You?” Doyle Benson asked.
“I’ll do,” said Hargrove, a hand squeezing his side where a bullet had grazed him. He looked toward Teasdale’s rock a few feet away. “What about you and Frieze, Sergeant? Either one of you hit?”
“Frieze took one through the shoulder. I’m good.” On the trail above them, the horses’ hooves fell quiet, replaced by the sound of men’s voices. “Let’s work our way farther down this slope, Hargrove,” said Teasdale, keeping his voice in check.
“Right away, Sergeant,” said Hargrove, taking his yellow bandanna from around his neck and pressing it to his bleeding side. He glanced over toward Doyle Benson. The young trooper sat staring at him, awaiting instructions. Hargrove nodded farther down the slope, then watched to make sure Benson understood. When Benson began crawling down the slope, Hargrove followed.
On the trail, Goose Peltry reined his horse close to the edge and shouted down into the rocks, “Come back, you yellow-bellied bastards, and take what’s coming to you! You’ve murdered a fine man in the prime of his life!” He drew his Confederate saber from its sheath and waved it in a circle above his head as he reared his horse high in the air. “Come taste the temper of my steel!”