Ambushed: The Continued Adventures of Hayden Tilden (Hayden Tilden Westerns Book 4)

by J. Lee Butts

  Not a sign of regret in the heartless killer’s voice when he said, “Given any chance a-tall, you should’ve known that I’m gonna kill all you Parker boys before you can get me back to Fort Smith.”

  Pretty sure my voice dropped so low he could barely hear me. Must have sounded like cold steel sliding across a frozen pond in January when I said, “You’re not going back to Fort Smith, you stinkin’ stack of human dung. In fact, you’re not going one step off the spot where you are right this very moment.”

  Couldn’t believe my eyes. I’d seen some nervy behavior from men like Hillhouse over the years, but his took the cake. The sorry blackguard actually had the brassy gall to pull tobacco from his vest pocket and start rolling himself a smoke.

  “You cain’t do nothin’ about what just happened, law-dog. Cain’t do a single, solitary thing, but take me back to Fort Smith for trial. Hell, Tilden, way I’ve got it figured, neither one of you boys is gonna make it that far. Bet both of you bite the dust along the trail somewheres.”

  “Oh, you’re dead wrong about that, Selby,” I said. “You’re gonna cash in your chips right where you’re standing. Even if you could bring back time, like God Almighty, and make it right, I’d still kill you. And if I didn’t, trust me, Marshal Carlton J. Cecil would.”

  He threw his head back and laughed. Cackled like one of Satan’s puss-covered demons. Put the smoke between his lips and struck a match. “Bullshit,” he said, and put flame to the tobacco and started to light up.

  The burning match still dangled from his fingers when I shot him once between the eyes and again in the heart, at the same instant. His hat flew off and a good-sized glob of brain matter splattered all over the trunk of the tree behind him, along with chunks of bone, lung, and heart. Blood sprayed his sorry friends, who gaped, wide-eyed, on the ground nearby.

  Coyle and Crowder went to screaming and rolled on their bellies like moles trying to dig in for the winter. A look of total surprise flickered over Hillhouse’s pockmarked face as he went over backward like a felled tree and landed on a web of enormous cottonwood roots running along the top of the ground. I marched over to the motionless body, took careful aim, and shot him two more times.

  Toed the corpse and said, “Say hello to Satan for me, you murdering son of a bitch. I’m sure he’s got a place especially picked out for you.” Turned to Cecil and said, “How’s he doin’, Carl?”

  “He ain’t good, Hayden. Jesus, I cain’t get the bleedin’ stopped.”

  The seething rage I felt had abated not one iota. Cocked both pistols and stomped my way to a cowering Buck Crowder. I figured him for the stronger of the two remaining murderers. Kicked the groveling slug in the side, and rolled him onto his back.

  Leveled the barrel of one of my weapons up less than a foot from his head and said, “Stand up and die like a man, you back-shootin’ skunk.”

  He threw shaking hands up in front of his face and squealed like a tortured child. “Please, oh, God, please don’t shoot me! Please don’t do it! I didn’t stab your friend.”

  “No, but you were there when rancher Tom Black got rubbed out. You contributed to the destruction of the entire Wilson family. Helped murder Jonas Two Hatchets and his wife. And you were there when Hamish Armstrong and Samuel Crazy Snake got shot to pieces just trying to do a thankless, dangerous job.”

  Crowder popped up on his knees and slapped his hands together like a man praying at a traveling tent revival. Tears streaked his soot-encrusted cheeks as he whimpered, “Not me. I swear it. It was them others. Me and Mo didn’t kill nobody. We was there when them things happened, ain’t no doubt ’bout that, Marshal. But I swear ’fore Jesus, neither of us took part in the raping, crucifying, or killing.”

  Behind me Carlton groaned, then shouted, “Billy Bird’s dead, you sorry bastard.”

  Before I could even turn Carl’s direction, Crowder’s head exploded like a ripe watermelon. The huge bullet went in one side of his stupid noggin and blasted out the other in a saddle-sized spray of crimson gore, greasy hair, and bone. His limp body crumpled into a heap, the hands still extended in prayer.

  Carlton darted past me, grabbed Coyle by the throat, and forced the still-smoking pistol’s barrel into the screaming man’s mouth. “You’ve got exactly five seconds, maggot. Where’d Dawson, Storms, and Rix go?” Then he started ticking off the quickly fleeting measure left in Mo Coyle’s worthless life.

  At the count of three, Coyle mumbled something around the pistol barrel I couldn’t understand. Black powder smoke oozed out his mouth and nose with the words.

  “For Christ’s sake, Carl, let him talk,” I said. “I can’t figure out what he’s saying with your gun in there.”

  Cecil jerked the weapon from of the outlaw’s maw so abruptly, several teeth came out along with it. Coyle grabbed his spurting mouth and yelped like a shot dog.

  “Swhit a’mighty. You bwoke my tweeth out. Gwad damn.”

  My red-haired, red-faced partner pressed the muzzle of his shooter against Coyle’s temple till the man’s eyes crossed. Carlton was nigh to screaming when he said, “Where’d they go, damn you? I’m not gonna ask again.”

  “Twexas. Twhey went to Twexas. Gonna mweet up wid Rwufus Dwoome.” He fingered the newly excavated hole in his mouth and spit pieces of his broken teeth onto the ground.

  Carlton leaned down, put his lips next to Coyle’s ear, and yelled so loud dead folks buried in Fort Smith must have heard him. “It’s a damned big state, Coyle. Where ’bouts in Texas, you son of a bitch?”

  Coyle hacked and spit until he finally got control of his damaged, rubbery lips again. “We split up after the fracas at Boiling Springs. Maynard said if Hayden Tilden caught up with us, no one would come out of it alive.” Tears streamed down the man’s cheeks.

  “Leastways, you dumb bastards got one thing right,” Carlton snarled.

  Coyle flinched like he’d been slapped, but then went on with his tale. “Well, anyway, Charlie and Cotton decided to head south for Hell’s Half Acre in Fort Worth. Said they was plenty of whores, liquor, and gamblin’ available to men of the world. Figured they could get lost amongst all them passin’ cowboys on their way to the railheads. And besides, Rufus and Jethro Doome was already in residence and could maybe see to helping them hide out.”

  “By God, Carlton,” I said, “I can’t wait to put a bullet, or three, in Rufus Doome. How long you reckon it’ll take us to get from here to Fort Worth?”

  “Week. Maybe ten days. Depending on how hard you want to travel.”

  I glanced over at the lifeless body of my good friend Billy Bird. “We’ll put this piece of trash to diggin’ holes, right now. Get Billy in the ground, and then we’ll head out—maybe tomorrow afternoon or early the next morning.”

  Carlton glared at Coyle and snapped, “What about this son of a bitch? We gonna kill him, or what?”

  Shattered, bloody-mouthed gunman looked like a caged rat. “Oh, please, God. I done told you what you wanted to know. You wouldn’t kill me now. Would you?”

  I made a hasty assessment of our situation, and an even hastier decision on Coyle’s immediate future. “We’ll take him with us. If we run across any of Judge Parker’s other deputy marshals out here, before we reach the Red River, we’ll send him along to Fort Smith with them. If not, he might well be of some help in finding Dawson and the others once we reach Fort Worth. Right now, he’s gonna dig three graves—two over in the weeds by the water trough and one right here under this cottonwood.”

  Carlton nodded, and stared at our dead friend. And then, as if to himself, he said, “Damnation. Guess Billy ain’t never gonna get to see Moonlight Two Hatchets again.”

  Took Coyle all that afternoon, and most of the next day, to dig those graves, in spite of the softness of the rich red soil. Carlton kept after him pretty hot and heavy to get them done as quickly as he could. Course Coyle griped, whined, procrastinated, and complained about being made to do the job alone. All the bad-tempered grumping stopped aft
er Carl put the barrel of his shotgun to the outlaw’s temple and asked if he’d rather be dead and buried with the others.

  “I can most assuredly arrange it,” Carl growled.

  We put Hillhouse and Crowder in the ground first. Then turned our attention to our good friend. Wrapped him in a favorite blanket he’d always carried for cold nights, along with most of the leaves from a big sage bush—just so he’d smell good a little longer. I took his Schofield pistols and gave them to Carl. Tears etched hard lines on his dusty cheeks as he accepted those beautiful weapons.

  “I know he wouldn’t want them in the ground all rusted up and turning into junk, Carl. Man loved ’em way too much for such an ending,” I said. “Handsome Harry left his Colts to me. I’m sure Billy would want you to have these.”

  Stood beside Billy’s finished, dirt-covered grave and, for the first time since I’d started working for Judge Parker, I felt at a total loss for words. For a spell there, I couldn’t think of anything in the way of fine-sounding passages from Shakespeare, or the Bible, to read over a man I loved like a brother. Sending him off with secondhand words just didn’t seem appropriate. Deep down in the secret recesses of my own heart, I just felt he deserved something a lot more personal.

  Glanced over at Carl. He swayed slowly from foot to foot like a weeping willow in a hot breeze and twisted his hat in his hands. Poor man’s face was still damp with tears. Sounded on the verge of completely breaking down when he said, “Ain’t no point in looking to me, Hayden. Scarcely know what to think right now. Me and Billy done rode together for years. Fought many a bad man. No matter how stiff our competition, he always came out of every fight with nary a scratch. Sweet Jesus, I never thought it’d come to this—stabbed to death.” He slapped his leg with his hat. A quivering chin dropped onto his chest. “Dammit, I just cain’t believe it, and cain’t talk no more—not right now.”

  Took some doing, but I finally choked back the leaking from my own eyes and mustered up enough gumption to make my friend’s entrance into God’s blue heaven as smooth as possible. Not since Handsome Harry’s death at the hands of Brutus Sneed had I been so overcome with emotion.

  Held my hat over my heart, gazed past cotton-boll clouds, and wept like a child as I said, “Well, Lord, you know Billy Bird. He’d been the pointed instrument of your retribution for many a long year before I met him. Altogether, I suppose, Billy must have fought in over a hundred bloody encounters with bad men of every sort. He brought that many killers and thieves to justice for their infamous deeds. A body couldn’t ask for a better companion, out here in the big cold and lonely. He never complained—no matter how bad a situation we managed to find ourselves in. He always led the way into trouble, and saved my life, and Carl’s, more times than either of us care to remember. We’re both alive today because of this man. Me and Carlton, and a host of others, will sorely miss his smiling presence. He was as pleasant a fellow as I’ve ever had the good fortune to know—absolutely the finest sort in his native humor and conduct.”

  Of a sudden, I couldn’t go on. Took a second to recover myself. Bent down and scooped up a pile of dirt from my friend’s grave. From somewhere so far back in my memory I couldn’t bring out exactly how or when, I dredged up the pieces of a passage a preacher used during a funeral service I’d attended as a boy.

  Pretty sure I scrambled the prayer some when I said, “In the midst of all life, death is forever with us. Now, in the sure and certain belief in the Resurrection and Eternal Life, we commit our friend to the ground. Ashes to ashes, earth to earth, dust to dust. All glory be to the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

  Heard Carlton whisper, “My God, he’s gone. Billy, my good friend. My dear God.”

  We covered Billy Bird’s final resting place with all the water-smoothed stones from Wild Cat Creek we could locate. Put up a marker Carl fashioned from a plank he pulled out of what was left of the cabin’s remaining wall. He even built a red-hot fire, heated up a piece of iron, and burned Billy’s name into the heavily weathered board, along with a heartfelt message. Took him a spell of nasty work, but the final effort turned out right impressive. Brought more tears when we stood back and read it.

  HERE LIETH

  WILLIAM TECUMSEH BIRD

  HE FOUGHT FOR THE RIGHT—A BANE TO THE WICKED A FINE FRIEND

  Some years later, I happened to be on Pine Mountain again. As I remember it now, that was the time I went out looking for a murderous skunk named Bergan Muscleshell. Muscleshell was the whiskey-peddlin’ scum who shot Deputy Marshal Clyde Koontz in the back, up in the Arbuckle Mountains. Koontz, and the way he died, kind of reminded me of Billy. Guess maybe that’s what caused me to get to wondering about my old friend. Anyway, I took the time and stopped for a spell at Wild Cat Creek just to check on him.

  His grave appeared to have been well kept and was undisturbed after all that time—except for one significant difference. Someone had replaced our handmade wooden cross with a large, beautifully polished, carefully inscribed piece of Arkansas granite.

  Carlton always denied responsibility. Said he was absolutely certain Moonlight Two Hatchets did it. Such sentiment proved way too much for me to deny. So I just left it alone. Always felt Billy would’ve been pleased to know a beautiful woman still cared enough about him, long years after he’d passed, to do such a thing.

  12

  “SAID HE’D KILL ME DEADER’N A BRASS SPITTOON . . .”

  WE SPURRED OUR animals away from the horrors of Pine Mountain and struck out across the rolling grasslands. Over the years, it’s been my experience that most times the best thing to do, when it comes to death, is simply ride away from it as quickly as possible. People who sit around and dwell on God’s great plan can drive themselves to distraction. The madhouses used to fill up with such folks every spring.

  Can’t say as how our actions mattered much, though. Carlton and I were both steeped in a depressing melancholy funk we couldn’t shake off. Felt for all the world like a heavy, black cloud had come over us. The fog of sorrow that engulfed our hearts just wouldn’t be burned away by the sunlight of gratitude we should have felt for having been spared and still able to count our own selves among the living.

  We took a ferry across the Muddy Boggy near Atoka, and headed for Tishomingo, capital of the Chickasaw Nation. Carlton allowed as how he couldn’t stand the sight of Mo Coyle any longer. I had intended on killing every member of Dawson’s bunch. Can’t really say to this day why I let Coyle live. My angry friend commented that, every time he looked at the sorry sack of dung, it reminded him of Billy Bird’s foul murder, and how much he itched to put a bullet in Coyle’s head.

  Carlton figured it best we get shed of the outlaw, quick as we could. And being as how them Chickasaws had such a fine, sturdy, brick courthouse and jail, we could dump him off with the Indian police in Tishomingo, and go on our way to Fort Worth and Hell’s Half Acre. Sounded like a good plan to me, so that’s what we did.

  But as we dragged Coyle off his horse and pushed him toward them Chickasaw folks’ well-built brick building, and the certainty of a spell behind bars before being shipped off to Fort Smith and hanged, we bumped into Deputy Marshal Heck Taylor.

  Heck strolled from the front door of the courthouse and grabbed me by the hand. A robust, vigorous man who appeared to have never met a skillet full of eggs or slab of bacon he didn’t like, he sported an outsized handlebar mustache and a friendly, jovial disposition. Those traits tended to belie a deadly adversary when hot lead started flying his direction.

  We shook and he said, “What you got here, Tilden? Looks like the one and only Morton Coyle, to me.”

  “That’s the man, Heck. We caught him up near Wild Cat Creek on Pine Mountain in the company of other killers just as bad—or worse. Had to shoot hell out of a couple of them—Buck Crowder and Selby Hillhouse.”

  Taylor’s blue-eyed gaze flicked from Carlton to Coyle to me before he said, “My sweet Lord. You boys done went and killed Selby Hill
house?”

  Carlton grunted and said, “Deader’n a rotten willow stump. But it came at a mighty dear cost. Sorry son of Satan stabbed Billy Bird to death, ’fore we could stop it.”

  “Oh, my God. You don’t mean it? Killed Marshal Billy Bird, did he? Well, that Hillhouse feller was a bad ’un. And to tell the righteous truth, I’ve got a warrant for him right here in my vest pocket.”

  “What’s it for?” I asked.

  “He murdered a traveling dentist from over near Van Buren. Caught the defenseless tooth-puller about ten miles outside Vinita. Shot the man for four dollars and a horse. Had hoped to bring the murderin’ skunk in myself, but if you’ve put him in the ground, that’s just as good.”

  Carl said, “Tell you what we’ll do, Heck. Bein’ as how Hayden done went and snatched a bit of change from your pocket by rubbing out Hillhouse, we’ll let you have this insect as a replacement.” He pushed Coyle toward Taylor. “All you have to do is take him back to Arkansas and collect whatever you can get on him. We’ve gotta make a quick trip to Fort Worth. Have information that the Dawson bunch is hiding out in Hell’s Half Acre.”

  “One condition, though,” I added.

  The full-bodied marshal muscled Coyle into a chair sitting beside the courthouse door, grinned, and said, “Figured there had to be a catch. And what would that be, Marshal Tilden?”

  “Do you have any posse men along with you on this trip?”

  “Why, yes, I do as a matter of plain fact. Nate Swords. Fine feller. Better at coverin’ my back than any man I’ve ever rode with. Trust him with my life.”

  “We’ll trade you Coyle for Swords,” I said. “Need at least one more gunhand along with us for this trip. Actually, could use two or three, but we’ll settle for Swords.”

  Taylor’s gaze darted over my shoulder. He raised a beefy hand and pointed. “Well, here he comes now. Monetary proposition you’ve presented sounds fine to me. But you’ll have to talk with Nate ’bout goin’ to Texas. I cain’t be makin’ such decisions for the man.”