by Ralph Cotton
“Looking for the horses?” Dahl asked in a quiet tone. As he spoke, his hand levered a round into his rifle chamber and kept the rifle pointed and cocked.
“Yeah, sort of,” Murdock said warily. “I don’t see but one set of prints here.”
“That’s because I lied to you. There’s only one horse. Guess who’s going to be riding out of here on it?” As if knowing what was about to happen, Junior moved out from between the two men and took a seat on the hot ground beside the Gatling gun. He looked back and forth, his tongue lolling from his gaping mouth.
“Whoa now!” Murdock tried to laugh off the seriousness of Dahl’s words and actions, but it wasn’t easy, seeing the deadly look in Dahl’s flat, level stare. How the hell had he been caught off-guard like this? By a damned schoolteacher at that! “We made a deal! We both gave our word! What kind of man are you?”
“The kind who’s going to leave you lying here dead. I’ve been listening to you tell me how nobody’s life means anything but your own. You must be an idiot, telling me all that. Then you expect me to keep my word on anything I tell you?”
“Jesus, man!” Murdock sweated more freely. “I trusted you! I kept my end of the bargain. I could’ve shot you at any time, but I didn’t!”
“Only because you fooled around, overestimating yourself, underestimating me. You figured, ‘No hurry; what’s this schoolteacher going to be able to do?’” said Dahl. “Well, now you know. You had a gun to my head; you should have used it. That was pitifully stupid, too stupid to stay alive out here.”
“Wait!” Murdock shouted. “You’re going to need me! How will you fire the machine rifle by yourself?” His hand made a fast, desperate grab for his pistol.
“I’ll manage somehow,” said Dahl, cool, calm, prepared for Murdock’s move. He fired three times, spacing the shots a full second apart as he levered his rifle, taking a step forward each time Murdock rocked backward with another bullet hole in his chest.
Chapter 23
Two soldiers had dragged a kicking and screaming Goose Peltry away and up the stairs. Sergeant Hervisu stood flanked by two armed guards in the narrow corridor among the prisoners. The guards held the prisoners at bay with their cocked rifles. Hervisu held a saber thrust out at arm’s length, the tip of it almost touching Moses Peltry’s chest. Still, Hervisu did not like the looks of this situation. “Capitán, let us move to the top of the stairs, por favor,” he said to Oberiske. Any second, these outlaws could rush them. Oberiske had to be blind not to see it, Hervisu thought.
Yet Captain Oberiske stood with his hands folded behind his back, his chin tilted up at a haughty angle. Ignoring Hervisu, he said to Moses Peltry, “You have exactly ten minutes to decide, Herr Peltry. Either tell me where the Gatling gun is hidden, or your brother will be the next one to die.”
Will Summers, Teasdale and Abner Webb held Moses back. “You dirty, low-down sonsabitch!” Moses bellowed in rage, struggling against Summers and Webb. “If you harm one hair on my brother’s head, I’ll rip your heart out and eat it!” His men stood seething, ready to make a lunge at the guards, waiting for only one word from Moses to start a bloodletting.
With no apparent fear, Captain Oberiske turned on his boot heels and walked to the bottom of the stairs. Hervisu and the two guards inched backward until they joined him. “Make no mistake; your brother will die!” He looked from one face to the next. “Every one of you will die if you refuse to turn over the gun—”
Oberiske’s words stopped as three rifle shots resounded from the hillside above them. His eyes cut to Sergeant Hervisu and the two guards. “Sergeant, follow me. Let us see what the gunfire is about! You guards, stay here. If these men cause any trouble, shoot them. Shoot as many as you must to maintain order!”
“There it is,” Will Summers whispered near Moses Peltry’s ear as they continued holding him back. “That’s our schoolmaster giving us a signal.” Moses eased down a bit. They watched Oberiske and Hervisu bound up the stairs and close the thick wooden door behind them. They heard the large latch fall into place. “Get ready,” Summers added. “The guard on the right has the key to these cuffs. As soon as we hear the Gatling gun, your men are going to have to rush him.”
“We’ll get the key, no problem,” Moses Peltry whispered. “But how are we going to get through that door?”
“That’s a good question,” said Summers. No sooner had he said it than the sound of the Gatling gun rattled long and loud above them.
On the dirt street, Cherokee Rhodes and the two wagon guards had heard the three rifle shots as they’d returned to the supply wagon. Then, just as they’d found the other guard sitting propped up on the wagon gate with a trickle of blood running down the corner of his mouth, the Gatling gun began to spit lead down from the hillside two hundred yards above the streets of Punta Del Sol. “What the hell is going on?” Cherokee Rhodes shouted, staring into the dead eyes of the guard, who stared back at him as if in shock.
Bullets from the distant Gatling gun ran in a line along the roof of the old Spanish mission, kicking up chunks of orange clay tile. On its sweep coming back, bullets thumped into the water trough, split the hitch rail and toppled it and sent Federales diving for cover. In the dirt street, the bullets nailed the two guards who stood with their rifles aimed at Goose Peltry’s chest. Goose grabbed a key from the belt of one of the fallen guards and quickly freed himself of the handcuffs and ankle chain. He snatched up a rifle and ran screaming and firing at the cowering Federales on his way back to the mission door.
“Someone kill him!” Captain Oberiske shouted, pointing his pistol and firing at Goose Peltry. He fired three shots. Two of them hit Goose—one in the upper arm, the other in the thigh—causing the outlaw to fall to the ground. Three Federales rose and fired with their rifles. One shot hit Goose low in the belly. Another sent a graze along the side of his head. Blood flew.
But Goose Peltry came up screaming, firing back, his shots sending Oberiske ducking for cover. “I’m coming, brother Moses!” He ran staggering toward the mission door.
“Somebody stop him!” Oberiske raged. He stood up and fired at Goose Peltry, but this time the sweep of the Gatling gun came back along the street and forced him down. Horses from the broken hitch rail ran in a frenzy, circling in confusion, their reins still tied to pieces of the broken rail. Federales ran back and forth wildly in the dirt street, seeking cover from the deadly assault of the machine rifle.
“We’ve got that bastard,” Cherokee Rhodes shouted, running over from the corral, the two guards close behind him. Rhodes dropped onto one knee and took careful aim at Goose Peltry with his pistol as Goose stood up and grabbed the door handle. Rhodes’ shot hit Goose in the center of his naked back and slammed him against the mission door. Goose slid down, then turned with his back against the door, blood spilling from his lips. Through the roar of gunfire, Cherokee Rhodes shouted, “I got that crazy sonsa—!”
His words cut short as a shot from the rifle in Goose’s hands lifted him off his feet and slammed him backward into the two guards, who were squatting behind him. They threw Rhodes aside and fired at Goose as he pulled himself up and managed to fling open the mission door. Sergeant Hervisu saw what Goose was attempting to do. He hurried, running in a low crouch through the heavy gunfire to enter the mission behind Goose Peltry. He fired as he hurried over toward the cellar door, where Goose had pulled himself up and grabbed the latch with both hands.
“No!” Hervisu shouted, seeing Goose struggle with the heavy latch. He fired his last two pistol shots. One hit Goose high in his shoulder. The other thumped into the thick wooden door. But Goose continued to throw the latch open. Hervisu tossed his empty pistol aside and hurled himself forward, drawing his saber from its sheath.
Inside the cellar, atop the stair landing, Summers, Webb, Teasdale and Moses Peltry stood poised, listening to the latch trying to come open on the other side of the door. Behind them, the rest of the men pressed forward, eager to make their break. Tense sec
onds ticked by. At the bottom of the stairs, the two guards lay dead, their rifles gone, their pistols stripped from their holsters. “Come on, come on, hurry it up!” Will Summers pleaded with the slow-turning latch as if his voice could coax it open faster.
“Moses!” Goose cried out in agony as the big door swung open. He stood with one hand on the door, his free hand clasped firmly around Sergeant Hervisu’s throat. Hervisu was past struggling. His bulging eyes stared glazed and lifeless. Half of his broken saber still hung in his hand. The other half protruded from the center of Goose Peltry’s chest, the long point of it smeared with Goose’s blood.
“No, Goose, no!” Moses lamented, grabbing his brother as Goose slumped down to the floor, releasing his grip on Sergeant Hervisu’s throat. Webb, Teasdale, Summers and the rest of the prisoners poured out through the open doors. Moses lagged behind, holding Goose’s bloody head in his lap. Holding one of the dead guards’ pistols in his free hand, he wiped Goose’s hair back from his forehead with the other. “Look at you, Goose,” Moses said, weeping softly. “My poor, crazy brother. Why’d you do this fool thing? You shoulda took off and found some cover…not come back here.”
“See?” Goose rasped, his breath beginning to fail him. “Bet you wouldn’t…let nobody put me to sleep now.”
“Damn it, Goose.” Moses hugged his brother’s head against his chest, careful of the sharp point of the broken saber blade. “You know I would have never let anybody harm you. You’re my little brother.”
In the street in front of the mission, the Federales, led by Captain Oberiske, moved back toward the corral and the livery barn, where there were more horses. Will Summers saw where they were headed and shouted to Abner Webb and Sergeant Teasdale, “Don’t let them get mounted—they’ll head up after the schoolmaster!” He stooped down and picked up Cherokee Rhodes’ pistol from the dirt street and checked it quickly.
Three feet away, one hand pressed to his chest wound, Rhodes lay propped up on one elbow. “Summers, give me a hand…. I ain’t done for. I was coming for you and the possemen…. I swear I was!”
“Lie still, Cherokee,” Summers shouted above the pounding gunfire. “Try to die with some honor!”
“Honor hell,” Rhodes moaned. As Summers moved away from him, firing the pistol, Rhodes reached a hand up toward one of the naked scalp hunters passing by. “Help me up! I’m one of you!”
Big Catt and Cap Whitlow came running up and slid down beside Rhodes in the dirt as the Gatling gun made a pass along the street, kicking up chunks of hard dirt. “You’re Cherokee Rhodes, ain’t you?” said Cap Whitlow.
“Yes, yes! That’s me,” said Rhodes, feeling hopeful. “Help me over there, out of the street. Hurry, before the machine rifle comes back!”
“Have you got a knife down here?” Cap Whitlow asked even as he jammed a hand down Rhodes’ boot well and jerked out a long skinning knife.
“Yes, take it,” said Rhodes. “Now let’s go. Hurry!”
Big Catt grabbed Cherokee Rhodes’ boot and began twisting it off his foot. “These are mine, Whitlow. You can have his britches.”
Seeing what was going on, Cherokee Rhodes tried kicking the two men away from him. “You damned, lousy vultures…get out of here!”
“We sure enough will,” said Big Catt. “But I’m taking this along with me for luck!” He raised the front of Cherokee Rhodes’ hair high and tight in his fist and deftly skinned him from forehead to rear crown.
“Lord have mercy, Big Catt. Look at you! You ain’t even got drawers to hide yourself! You’re taking hair?”
“I see no better time for it than now,” said Big Catt, holding the scalp up as blood and fluid dripped from beneath it.
Rhodes writhed in the dirt, screaming. Big Catt slung the gore from the scalp and ran away in a crouch, veering off from the fleeing Federales and putting distance between himself and the sweeping Gatling gun. “I coulda told you he’d do that,” Whitlow said to the screaming half-breed. Grabbing Rhodes’ boot, he quickly twisted it from his foot. But before he could claim the other boot, a rifle shot from one of the fleeing Federales hammered into his forehead, causing his head to snap back and appear to explode from the impact.
Twenty yards away, Will Summers, Abner Webb and Lawrence Teasdale had taken a strong firing position behind an empty two-wheel oxcart. With rifles, pistols and ammunition belts they’d snatched up from the dirt and from the hands of dead soldiers, the three managed to keep Oberiske and the remainder of his men pinned inside the livery barn. Above them, the Gatling gun had fallen silent. Will Summers glanced upward through a thick sheet of dust in the air. “Either he’s run out of bullets, or else he figures we’re safely on our way out of here.”
Lawrence Teasdale reloaded and checked the pistol in his hand. “That’s good—so long as he gets away before these boys ride through us and head up there. Oberiske wants that Gatling gun. Nothing else is going to satisfy him.”
“Then let’s fall back and let them ride out of here,” said Webb. “So long as the schoolmaster is safe, what do we care about these Federates?”
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” said Summers as shots from the livery barn whizzed past them. A shot thumped into the oxcart near his head. He flinched and jerked his head back. He looked all around at the bodies lying strewn about in the dirt street. Then he said, “But you know something? I make it there’s only seven or eight soldiers left, and that’s counting the German captain.”
“Yeah, so?” asked Abner Webb, not liking the look in Will Summers’ eyes.
“So,” said Summers, “I keep thinking how arrogant that pompous sonsabitch was…going to take us out one at a time and shoot us like we were brute animals or something. Does that sit right with you two?” He looked back and forth between them.
“Hold on, Will,” said Abner Webb. “We’ve just about got what we came here for. Let these Federales ride out of here right now and go after the Gatling gun. Then all we’ve got to do is take down Moses Peltry and what’s left of his men.”
“That’s the end of it all right,” said Will Summers, realizing there was a lull in the firing from the livery barn, which meant that the soldiers were getting ready to make their move. “All we’ve got to do is let them ride out.” He looked at Teasdale, then back at Abner Webb. “Is that what you two want to do? If it is, make up your minds and let’s ease back away from here. They’re coming any minute now.”
Each of them considered their options as a ringing silence fell over the dirt street. For a moment, the only sound was that of Cherokee Rhodes moaning in the dirt as his lifeblood continued to pour from his chest wound and the raw, exposed top of his head burned like fire. The three possemen stared at Rhodes for a second, then shifted their gazes back toward the livery barn. A few yards from the barn, Junior the hound had slipped back down the path into town. He stood beside the body of a Federale, his nose down against a wide circle of blood in the dirt. “What’s that dog doing?” asked Webb.
“What do you think he’s doing?” Summers said, trading one question for another.
“He’s lapping up blood is what it looks like to me,” said Abner Webb.
“So he is,” said Will Summers. “It looks like all the excitement finally got to him.” Summers grinned. “Figures he’s going to get his share of all this, I reckon.”
“He’s welcome to it,” said Teasdale. “His share, and mine too.” He looked at the two of them and let out a tense breath, letting the rifle slump in his hand. “As far as I’m concerned, let them pass.”
“Yeah,” said Abner Webb. “That goes for me too. If you think the schoolmaster is safe…let them pass.”
“Consider it done,” said Will Summers. He raised his voice toward the barn. “Captain Oberiske. We’re backing away here. You heard the Gatling gun; you know where to look for it now. What do you say? Can we call it quits here? You go your way, we go ours?”
There was a silence, followed by Oberiske’s stern voice. “If you are out there, w
e will have to kill you. If you are out of my sight, I will not waste time and supplies looking for the likes of you.”
“Fair enough,” Summers called out. The three possemen backed away from the oxcart and watched from around the corner of a weathered shack as Oberiske cautiously led six mounted soldiers out of the livery barn. Summers spread a flat grin and said over his shoulder, “I hope the schoolmaster took out the firing mechanism before he left that gun sitting for whoever comes by.”
“How do we know for sure he left it there?” said Webb. “He might be carrying it with him.”
“No, he left it there,” said Summers. “That’s the way the schoolmaster would have it planned.”
“You don’t know that for sure,” said Webb.
“You better hope I do,” said Will Summers.
“I could use a drink right now,” said Teasdale, leaning back and sliding down the side of the shack.
“So could I, but don’t get too comfortable just yet,” said Summers. “Soon as these men are out of sight, we’ve still got some bounty collecting to get started on.” He gestured his rifle barrel toward the body of Cap Whitlow lying in the dirt with a bullet hole in his forehead. “There’s one.” He gestured farther along the street to the bodies of Thurman Anderson and Bert Smitson. “And there’s two more.”
“Who does that leave still alive?” Webb asked, looking all around the shot-up town.
“That leaves only two men: Roscoe Moore and Moses Peltry,” said Will Summers. “I look for them to come crawling up out of the dirt any minute, now that they see the soldiers are leaving.”
Teasdale stood up and checked the rifle in his hands. “All right then. Ready when you are. Let’s get it done.”
Chapter 24
Captain Oberiske and his six soldiers rode past without casting an eye in the direction of Summers, Webb and Teasdale. As the last soldier passed by, Will Summers let out a breath and shoved a pistol down into his waist. He started to speak to Webb and Teasdale, but before he could get his words out, Moses Peltry’s enraged voice resounded along the dirt street, causing Oberiske to raise a hand and bring his men to a halt. “Oberiske! You’ve got to answer for my brother, you dirty, bloodsucking bastard you!”