by Ralph Cotton
“They’re not all dead,” said Daniels. “Best I could see in the dark, it looked like your pal Will Summers got out of here while the getting was good.”
“Good for him if he did, as far as I’m concerned,” said Webb. “I wish to hell we all could’ve cut out.” He looked at the body of a young Federale lying three feet from him. “What do you suppose made them attack us that way? Think they must have figured we were the Peltrys?”
“Who knows?” said Daniels. “Who really gives a rat’s ass? They beat the living hell out of us. That’s enough for me. It’s time to pack it in, head for home. Rileyville can’t say we didn’t give it our best try.”
With his pistol reloaded, Abner Webb crawled in beside him and felt the wet, sticky ground near Daniels’ leg. “My God, Daniels, you’re bleeding something awful.”
“I don’t need you to tell me that, Webb,” said Daniels, the resentment still in his voice. “The bullet cut through the big artery in my thigh. I’m trying to hold back the bleeding with this tourniquet I made with a bandanna and my pistol barrel. I don’t think it’s helping much though. I can feel myself getting light-headed and weak.”
“Here,” said Webb. “Let me look at it. Maybe I can get it to—”
“Keep your hands off me, Webb,” said Daniels, jerking his wounded leg away. “I know where we stand.” He raised a rifle that he’d kept hidden down the length of his other leg. Even in the darkness, Webb could see the hammer was fully cocked. “I only came along to see you die…either by my hand or the Peltrys’. I never counted on it coming about this way. Looks like we’re gonna leave this world together.”
Abner Webb acted quickly, grabbing the barrel and shoving it away from his chest just as Daniels pulled the trigger. The explosion kicked up a chunk of hard dirt that broke apart and stung both men. “Damn it, Edmund! This ain’t the time or place,” said Webb, wrenching the rifle from his blood-slick hand and pitching it aside. “I hope that shot ain’t going to bring them back down on us.”
“What’s it matter?” said Daniels. “You’re going to kill me. I don’t have a doubt about that.”
“You’re wrong,” said Webb. “I don’t want to kill you. I wish to God what happened between us never happened…but I don’t want to kill you. I won’t raise a hand against you unless it’s in self-defense.” He pushed Daniels’ bloody hands away and looked down closely at the bloodsoaked tourniquet. “Let’s call a truce between us, at least until we get out of this fix we’re in. What do you say?”
Instead of answering, Edmund Daniels said, “Let me ask you one thing, Webb, since there’s only the two of us here.” Daniels looked down at the wound as Abner Webb untwisted the tourniquet to take it off and get a tighter grip on it. “When you and her, you know…did it. Would she ever say or do—”
“Hush, Edmund,” said Webb, cutting him off. “I’m not going to talk about it with you. It ain’t right. Besides, you’ve lost a lot of blood. You’re not thinking clear right now.”
“Who brought it on, Webb,” Daniels asked. “You or her? Did you go looking, waiting for your chance…or did she come offering?”
“Stop it, Daniels,” said Webb, feeling the heavy surge of blood as he completely let the pressure off the bandanna. He hurriedly retied the bandanna tighter. He stuck the bloody pistol barrel beneath it and twisted it, cutting off the blood flow, seeing the fountain of thick arterial blood ebb down to a steady trickle then stop almost completely. “There,” he said. “Lay your hand right here on the gun handle and hold it in place. Can you do that while I see if any of our men are lying around here?”
“Yeah, I can hold the gun in place,” said Daniels, his voice starting to sound a bit slurred. “Didn’t you check this pistol while you had it loose? Make sure it’s not loaded?”
Now that Daniels mentioned it, Webb wished he had. But it hadn’t crossed his mind at the time. “No, I didn’t. But we’ve got a truce, remember?”
Daniels shook his head slowly. “I never said we had a truce, Webb. It’s just something you brought up.”
Webb had already placed Daniels’ hand down on the pistol and taken his own hand away. “If it’s loaded, I’ll just have to trust you not to shoot me,” he said. “If you undo that tourniquet just to shoot me, you’d have to be a damned fool. I doubt if you could get it back on before you bleed to death. You’d be killing yourself.”
“It might be worth it to me, Webb,” Daniels said in his slurred voice.
“Then you decide for yourself,” said Webb. “I’m going to take a look around.”
Three hundred yards away on the flatlands, Campbell Hayes and Cherokee Rhodes had heard the single rifle shot. The sound of it had only made them spur their horses to get farther away. They strove hard to stay side by side as they fled the scene of the battle, neither man trusting the other enough to turn his back on him. After another hundred yards had passed beneath their horses’ hooves, Campbell Hayes reined to a halt and said to Rhodes as the half-breed slid his horse down beside him, “This is crazy, Rhodes! We can’t do ourselves no good if we have to watch each other like hawks. All we’ll do is wear our horses to death.”
“You can trust me,” said Cherokee Rhodes. “You’ve got my word I ain’t going to shoot you in the back while you ain’t looking.”
“Your word don’t cut no ice in my river,” said Hayes. “Ain’t a half-breed alive ever gave his word and kept it.”
Cherokee Rhodes seethed but kept control. “Then what idea have you got?” Rhodes asked.
“We need to split up,” said Hayes. “We both know our way in the wilds. We don’t need each other. I can cover my own back; so can you.”
“All right, let’s split up then,” said Rhodes. “Which way are you going?”
“Why do you want to know?” Hayes gave him a suspicious look.
“Because, damn it,” Cherokee Rhodes spit, “I need to know so’s I can go the other way.”
“Oh,” said Hayes. He weighed his words and looked Rhodes up and down in the darkness. “I’m going to head for Mexico City soon as I can shake away from them Federales. I’m still going to get me a piece of the Peltrys’ hide for killing my partner. But I’ll have to bide my time till the soldiers are through out here.”
“Well, then we’ve sure enough got ourselves a problem,” said Cherokee Rhodes. “I’m headed for Mexico City myself. Looks like you’re going to have to trust me after all.”
“Huh-uh.” Hayes shook his head firmly. “Only way I’ll trust you is to kill you first.”
Rhodes made a sucking sound in his teeth, then said, as if having given it quick consideration, “I’m not good at changing my direction to suit anybody.” His hand rested on the pistol at his waist. “Are you sure we can’t work it out no other way?”
“None that I can see,” said Hayes.
“How you want to do it?” said Rhodes, swinging a leg over his saddle and stepping down without taking his eyes off Campbell Hayes.
“Take ten, turn and fire suits me,” said Hayes. “If you’re game for it.”
“Seems a shame you can’t just take me at my word,” said Rhodes. “But I’m as game as a rooster for taking ten with you.” He adjusted his pistol butt at his waist. “We best hobble these horses first so’s we don’t spook them away.”
“Mine won’t run off,” said Campbell Hayes. “Hobble yours if you need to.”
“Mine’s good,” said Rhodes. “Where you want to start from?”
“Right here,” said Hayes. “Let’s hurry up before more Federales show up.”
“I’m with you,” said Rhodes, turning his back to Hayes and standing rigid, his hand on his pistol butt. “Back up here and start counting.”
Hayes turned around and stood back to back against him, his hand also poised on his pistol butt. “Ready?” he asked over his shoulder.
“As ever,” Rhodes replied.
“One,” said Campbell Hayes, taking a step away.
Cherokee Rhodes turned and shot him
in the back three times, taking a step closer each time a bullet knocked Hayes farther away.
Campbell Hayes lay gasping on the ground, blood spreading across the back of his buckskin shirt. Rhodes stepped in, placed a boot down on the old plainsman’s neck and lowered the tip of his pistol barrel a few inches from his head. “That’s what you get for not trusting me, you pig-headed old turd you.” He pulled the trigger. Hayes’ head bounced from the impact, then settled into the dirt.
As Rhodes stepped back and punched the spent cartridges from his pistol, Junior the hound came running in, having followed the two horses away from the battle site. With his tongue hanging out, the dog circled over to Hayes’ body, licked Hayes on the neck, then made a whimpering sound and slinked over beside Cherokee Rhodes with his tail tucked under his belly. Sticking new cartridges into the pistol, Rhodes snapped the cylinder shut, cocked it and pointed it down at Junior’s head. “So long, dog.”
Junior looked up at him blankly. Rhodes cocked his head slightly, looked at the gun in his hand and at how close Junior was standing to his trouser leg. “I’ll be a month scraping your brains off my britches, won’t I?” He lowered the hammer on the pistol, shoved it back into his belt, reached down and rubbed the dog’s head. “Good boy,” he said. Junior stopped panting and licked Rhodes’ hand. “I won’t tell if you won’t,” Cherokee Rhodes chuckled under his breath.
Hargrove lay flat on his back in the dirt, staring up at the wide, starlit sky. The bleeding from his chest had slowed to a trickle with Sergeant Teasdale’s hand pressing down on the bandage Teasdale had quickly made from a dirty shirt he’d found in Hargrove’s saddlebags. “That was pistol shots, wasn’t it?” Lyndell Hargrove said in a labored voice, looking up at Teasdale’s face in the darkness. “Maybe you best get on out of here, Sergeant. Leave me be.”
“There’s not a chance in the world of me leaving you alone out here, Hargrove,” Teasdale said. He offered a tight smile. “I’m not going to have you spreading the word that I’m the kind of sergeant who’d desert a wounded trooper.”
“I’ve got to admit, you’ve surprised even me. I must’ve trained you well back then, didn’t I, Teasdale?” Hargrove swallowed a knot in his throat as he spoke. “There’s no doubt in my mind you can soldier with the best of them.”
“That means more coming from you then it would from any general in the army,” said Teasdale. “I was afraid you’d give me trouble once I sewed these stripes on my sleeves. I’m glad you didn’t…. Not much anyway.” He shrugged and offered a gentle smile. “Otherwise I’d have been the one to have to shoot you.”
“Yeah, sure you would have,” said Hargrove. He squeezed Teasdale’s hand. “But no joking, Sergeant. Get out of here now, while you can. Save yourself. I’ll surrender to the Federales when they come back,” Hargrove insisted. “It’s the smart thing to do, for both of us. I can heal up in an army hospital in Mexico City.”
“Hush that kind of talk, Trooper,” said Teasdale. “I don’t know for certain that they’ll come back, Hargrove, and neither do you. I can’t leave here thinking a coyote is going to be chewing on your leg, now, can I?’
“The Federales will be back around,” said Hargrove, ignoring the sergeant’s attempt at humor. “That pistol fire was them going around among the wounded, looking for our possemen and finishing them off one by one, I figure.” He caught himself and added quickly, “But they won’t finish me off. I’ll have my hands up soon as they get here. Plus, I can speak their language. I’ll be all right.” He coughed and spit a stream of blood. “I could use the rest. Might meet a nice señorita or two.”
“Lie still, Trooper,” said Teasdale, pressing the bandage more firmly. “Pistol shots could mean a lot of things out here. Might be one of our men trying to signal us.”
“Oh?” Hargrove coughed, then went on in a strained voice. “Why don’t you answer him then, if that’s what it is?”
“I said that it might be…not that it is,” Sergeant Teasdale replied.
“Yeah? Well, I believe you’re wrong, Sergeant. I’ve seen more of these night skirmishes than you’ve got fingers and toes—” Hargrove’s words cut short, turning into a broken rasp as he struggled for breath.
“Try not to talk. It’s got you bleeding in your lungs,” said Teasdale. “Give yourself a little while here; I believe we can get you through this.”
“Save that talk for greenhorns and shavetails, Sergeant. I already know the outcome to this,” said Hargrove.
“Am I going to have to stick a sock in your mouth to shut you up, Trooper?” Teasdale let up on the bandage just enough to see if the bleeding had slowed any. It had. He started to speak again, but the sound of horses’ hooves moving toward them at a steady clip caused him to turn away from Hargrove and draw his army Colt from his flap-top holster. “Who goes there?” Sergeant Teasdale said to the looming darkness. “Halt! Come forward slowly and be recognized.”
“Yiii!” said a voice. The horses’ hooves sped up as they came closer, but there was no answer to Teasdale’s question. “Halt!” he demanded again, stronger this time. Before he could start his next sentence, he heard the horses speed up toward him, and he leveled his Colt and fired four shots one after the other.
Two riderless horses raced past him, one on either side. Teasdale ducked down into a crouch, knowing there was little chance he could have blindly shot two men off their horses. He scanned his pistol back and forth in the darkness until he heard a rustle of footsteps coming up behind him. He swung around, ready to fire.
“Easy, Sergeant,” said Sherman Dahl. “It’s Will Summers and me.” Dahl had stooped down beside Hargrove, taking a look at his chest wound.
“That’s a hell of a way to ride in on a man,” said Teasdale, holstering his Colt.
“Don’t blame me, Sergeant. It was the schoolmaster’s idea,” said Summers, walking in from the outer darkness leading his and Dahl’s horses. The feed sack with the two outlaws’ heads in it still hung from Summers’ saddle horn. “We wanted to know who it was here before we came in and got shot at.” He jerked his head at Dahl. “Sherman says he learned that move in the war.”
“Someday I’d like you to tell me exactly who it was you fought for, schoolmaster,” said Teasdale.
“Make sure you really want to know first,” said Sherman Dahl with a solemn expression. “It might not be who you’d like it to be.”
“I bet,” said Teasdale. Then he looked back at Will Summers as if letting it go.
“There’s plenty of spare horses running loose out there tonight,” said Summers, changing the subject. “We snatched these two strays up on our way across the flatlands. I’m glad you didn’t shoot them.”
“Me too,” Teasdale said flatly. “I could use one of them for Hargrove. We had to share one getting away from the Federales a while ago. Glad to see you two made it.”
“Don’t worry about Hargrove,” said Sherman Dahl quietly. “He won’t be needing a horse.”
Teasdale stepped over and looked down at Hargrove’s wide-open eyes staring up at the wide, open sky. Starlight glittered on the dead man’s pupils. “I’m sorry, Lyndell,” said Teasdale. “I never should have gotten us into this.”
A short silence passed, then Will Summers said, “No disrespect toward your trooper, but we’re still in it, Sergeant Teasdale. We better get moving.” He nodded toward his horse, at the Gatling gun strapped behind his saddle. “We’ve got what the Federales wanted all along.”
“Jesus!” said Teasdale, giving them both a stunned look. “How did you two get your hands on it?”
“We found it lying on the ground,” said Summers. “I thought I’d heard the gun wagon crash. We played a hunch, went looking and there it was…just lying on the ground.”
Sergeant Teasdale shook his head. “Hearing it must’ve been enough to draw the Federales away from us and send them after it. No sooner had we heard a burst of fire than they all pulled away and took off toward it.”
“That’s
what we hoped it would do,” said Summers. He nodded down at Hargrove. “If you want to say some words over your dead trooper, get them said. We’ll cut out, hide somewhere till morning, then see if anybody else is left alive.”
Sergeant Teasdale stooped down, closed Lyndell Hargrove’s eyes, then stood back up with a sigh. “He was a good man, a hard fighter and a brave soldier. Bold men respected where he stood. What else needs saying over a man?”
“Amen,” said Will Summers. The three turned as one and reached for their horses’ reins.
Chapter 17
In spite of the danger a small fire might bring upon them, Abner Webb had built one anyway, for Edmund Daniels’ sake. He’d banked a saddle up on one side to help conceal the firelight from the long stretch of flatlands. He’d positioned himself and Edmund Daniels up close on the other side to draw whatever warmth they could get from it. Abner Webb listened to the silence of the flatlands beneath the low whir of wind through the darkness. Webb nodded and listened to Edmund Daniels’ weakened voice above the sound of wind-whipped flames.
“When I saw her undergarments on that rifle barrel and heard Goose Peltry blurt it out in public like that,” said Edmund Daniels, “my first thought was to go pick up a shotgun, come back and splatter your brains all over the street. I must’ve cooled off a little on my way to the house.”
“I’m glad you did,” Abner Webb responded quietly, placating a wounded man.
“Me too.” Daniels shivered and continued with much effort, his head resting in Abner Webb’s lap. “Because if I had of killed you, I would of had to kill her right along beside you. God knows I couldn’t have done that.” Wind blew across the fire, pressing the flames sidelong across the ground. Sparks tumbled and bounced and raced away across the dirt.