by Lyle Brandt
Because he wasn’t staying with them, Tippit had picked Jared Olney to protect the drive’s remuda, Piney Rollins due to age and inexperience, Bryce Zimmerman for his Winchester Model 1866, and Francisco Gallardo since his wounded leg was acting up a bit following the rounds of Longwood and the Sutter ranch.
Tippit’s assignment was to hit the ranch and bring back Mr. Mossman’s steers at any cost. To that end, he’d be riding with five Bar X drovers: Danny Underwood, Linton McCormick, Zeb Steinmeier, Jerome Guenther, and Jaime Reyes. He had no idea what they’d be running into, but assumed resistance was a given.
That left Bliss Mossman riding into Longwood with four hands behind him. Art Catlin was probably the coolest head among them, with Job Hooper, Mike Limbaugh, and Luis Chávez backing him.
Splitting their forces was a bad idea, in Sterling’s estimation, but he didn’t call the shots and ultimately had the least to lose if Mr. M’s plan fell apart. In that case, Mossman might lose everything he’d built up over time.
All Tippit stood to forfeit was his life.
And who would even give a damn when he was gone? Nobody he could think to name.
When he saw Piney Rollins headed his way, Tippit braced himself. He knew their cook was at loose ends, but finding a replacement for their chuck wagon and various supplies wasn’t Sterling’s priority just now. Aside from bringing back the stolen longhorns, Sterling was supposed to keep an eye out for a suitable wagon, prepared to offer Joe Sutter fair payment for it if the old man didn’t try to fight them on the steers.
And if he did, Sutter stood to lose more than a wagon when the smoke cleared.
“Mr. Tippit!” Piney called out to him. “Can I have a word?”
“I’ll try to find a wagon for you,” Sterling told him, “but the stock comes first, you understand.”
“Sure, sure.” Piney waved that away and said, “It’s something else.”
“Go on, then. We’re just getting ready to light out.”
“That Fielding fella. You know he’s the one that lit the wagon up and cooked young Berryman?”
“We figured that,” Tippit replied.
“Well, if you see him—”
“I intend to put him down. It’s on my list.”
“I thought it might be. One thing, though, before you blow his candle out.”
“What’s that?”
“I wish you’d tell him it’s for Tim.”
* * *
* * *
Art Catlin watched the sun set on Wabaunsee County while his strawberry roan stallion carried him toward Longwood and what waited for Bliss Mossman’s riders there.
Whatever that might prove to be, he reckoned it would mean blood spilled and bodies ripe for burial.
As far as Catlin was concerned, their boss was probably correct in his surmise that whoever held sway over the Badger’s Tail Saloon and brothel might well be the brains behind their current plight—but probably and definitely were two entirely different things. His own experience at hunting fugitives from justice taught Art that he was fallible and sometimes chased false trails to an unsatisfying end.
If that turned out to be the case tonight, his life was riding on the line along with Mossman’s and the rest.
The flip side of that coin was that Longwood harbored at least five obvious extortionists: the mayor, its justice of the peace, the attorney, the marshal, and his deputy. If Jay Fielding was still hanging around, he bumped the total up to six and would outnumber Mossman’s party.
On the other hand, Catlin wasn’t as worried by the odds as he would have been if they were going up against that many skilled gunfighters. His first meeting with Cyrus Harding told Art that the mayor wasn’t a fighting man at heart. Ditto the lawyer, who seemed used to winning quarrels with his mouth. Judge Butler, for his part, was obviously shaky, acting like a man with one foot in the grave.
If need be, he could get a shove in that direction soon enough.
Which left Marshal Whitesell, Whitesell’s second-in-command, and maybe Fielding, if that was in fact his name. Those three were armed and possibly acquainted with killing, although Art doubted that they had much call for shooting in Longwood. Arresting the odd drunk or wife-beater was more likely their speed, and if they hadn’t kept in practice on the killing side, there was a chance their nerve might fail them when it mattered most.
And Fielding?
That one was a puzzle Catlin hadn’t yet resolved. The man had wormed his way into Bliss Mossman’s confidence, seemed friendly to the other Bar X drovers, but he’d also graduated to the top of Catlin’s suspect list for knifing Nehemiah Wolford while they were on watch together, two nights earlier.
Art couldn’t work out why Fielding had murdered Wolford, and the motive wasn’t preying on his mind. The possibility of it—established now as fact in Catlin’s mind, along with the torching of the Bar X chuck wagon, frying Tim Berryman alive—was all he needed to square off against the infiltrator for a showdown.
That is, if the Judas who’d betrayed them hadn’t pocketed his money and lit out as soon as he got back to Longwood, after setting up the midnight raid on Mossman’s herd.
What kind of adversary would he prove to be? Again, Art couldn’t say.
Fielding carried two Colts, but that could be a bit of ostentation on his part. Some of the two-gun outlaws Art had known and brought to book could barely handle one six-shooter when the chips were down. That would not be a safe assumption with a man who’d slain two people Catlin knew of personally, but the way Fielding had killed—stabbing one unsuspecting victim, setting a teenage boy on fire—was very different from facing down a man who’d buried sixteen wanted criminals and put eleven more behind steel bars.
Guess I’ll just have to wait and see, Art thought, and part of him was hoping that he got the chance to do exactly that.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Sutter Ranch
Sterling Tippit sat astride his blood bay mare, surrounded by the five men he’d selected and addressing them in whispers.
“You can see the layout pretty well from here,” he said. “No sign of anybody stirring, but I’d bet a month’s pay that we’re bound to run into some guns. Watch out for shooters in the house or hiding in its shadow, likewise for the barn. If they cut loose on us, defend yourselves but spare the cattle. They’re the main reason we’re here.”
“And what if we’re outnumbered?” Zebulon Steinmeier asked.
“Same thing as back in Devil’s Crossing, when the Comancheros had us two or three to one. We made it out; they didn’t.”
“And whoever runs the place, jefe?” Jaime Reyes inquired. “Will he be fighting?”
“I couldn’t tell you, one way or another,” Tippit said. “The boss says he’s an old guy, didn’t have a weapon when they met him earlier today, but who would stake a claim out here with nothing to protect him? Take for granted that whoever’s firing at you has to be an enemy.”
“And we’re not taking prisoners?” Linton McCormick asked.
“We ain’t lawmen,” Sterling replied. “The only thing we’re after here is property that Longwood’s thieves already stole from us. If they decide to give it up without a fight, so much the better, but we’d be a bunch of idiots to count on that.”
“My momma didn’t raise no fools,” said Danny Underwood.
“Remember that,” said Tippit, “and you should come through all right. More questions?”
No one spoke, so Tippit cocked his head downrange, toward what appeared to be a sleeping ranch, and said, “Okay, let’s go. And fan out so we don’t make one big target.”
The Bar X foreman’s heart was in his throat as he rode toward the pen that held their stolen cattle, circling around the east side of the Sutter spread. He wished that they weren’t backlit by a nearly full three-quarter moon, but all his men had donned the dar
kest shirts that they possessed before departing camp. It might not help them in the long run, but he figured anything was worth a try.
If they could only reach the paddock unobserved and start to drive the longhorns out before any lookouts dispatched from Longwood opened fire . . .
That hope went up in gun smoke seconds later, when they’d closed to roughly half their starting distance from the ranch proper. A rifle shot cracked out below them, Tippit glimpsing the suggestion of a muzzle flash along the east end of the ranch house, then two others opened up and set the night to echoing.
“That tears it!” he told anyone inclined to listen. “Keep your heads down, boys, and ride like hell!”
Longwood
Art Catlin sat beside Luis Chávez, both drovers mounted, pistols in their hands, staring along the settlement’s main street from the north end of town.
Bliss Mossman had divided his combatants as they neared Longwood with night upon them, sending Catlin and Chávez around to block any opponents fleeing northward, while their boss closed from the south with Job Hooper and Mike Limbaugh. Catlin was undecided as to whether that was wise or foolish, but he hadn’t questioned it up front, and now it was too late.
Their target was designated as the Longwood “Justice Center,” though Art saw no reason to suppose the mayor, the marshal, or Judge Butler would still be there, now that suppertime had come and gone. There was a possibility, of course, but if he and Chávez missed any of the men they’d come to find, it meant they’d have to start searching the town from door to door.
And that, as Catlin knew, would just make matters worse.
His first choice for a secondary place to cover was the Badger’s Tail saloon, but Mossman had reserved that for himself and his companions, still convinced they’d find the man behind their livestock loss somewhere inside. If he was wrong on that score, both groups might be homing in on targets that would turn out to be duds.
In which case, what should they do next?
Forget about it, Catlin thought. He would have kept his fingers crossed for luck, but that would only interfere with shooting if the need arose.
Without streetlights of any kind, the shapes of Mossman, Hooper, and Limbaugh were barely shadow shapes as they approached the Badger’s Tail, but Catlin took it as his cue to move.
“We’re up,” he told Chávez, and urged his strawberry roan stallion toward the marshal’s office on the ground floor of the Justice Center. Reining in before he reached that destination, Art dismounted at a hitching rail outside the hardware shop next door and looped his horse’s reins over the rail without securing them.
If anything went wrong from that point on, he hoped the animal, at least, would manage to escape.
Beside him, Chávez slid down from the saddle his cremello stallion wore and joined Art on the wooden sidewalk leading toward the marshal’s door. A lamp inside the office, turned down low, cast dim light through a window that had gone too long without a decent washing.
As they reached it, Catlin looked inside and saw Bert Whitesell hunched over his desk, eating a sandwich that had dribbled leaky contents on a stack of “Wanted” posters set in front of him.
“Stay here and cover me,” he told Chávez, then pushed in through the office door.
“Well, now,” Whitesell remarked, setting his sandwich down while his right hand dipped out of sight, below his desktop.
The Sutter Ranch
Alonzo Markland saw the riders coming and tried to whistle through his teeth in warning, but the best that he could manage was a hissing sound that made him think of snakes crawling around his feet.
He thought of calling out instead, to rally his supporting gunmen, but Alonzo reckoned that would only tip off the horsemen that they’d been observed and might be coming under fire. Instead, he cocked his Colt New Line revolving rifle—not so new these days, since factory production of it had ceased in 1864—and braced its twenty-four-inch barrel on the top rail of a fence he’d chosen as his lookout post.
Now all he had to do was wait until his targets closed the gap between them and he had a chance to bring them under fire.
But someone beat Alonzo to it, with seconds to spare, the shot ringing out from behind him, its round flying over his head.
Cursing whoever fired that shot, Markland observed his targets scattering, three riders veering sharply to the left, three others jinking in the opposite direction. Following one trio with his Colt’s iron sights, Alonzo fired and lost sight of all three behind a cloud of the long gun’s black powder smoke.
Before he had another chance to aim and fire, the new arrivals opened up with everything they had, their muzzle flashes blinking at him, bullets sizzling on both sides of Alonzo and above his head. Behind him, his supporting gunmen—Quigley, Byers, Walsh, and Jarvis—were returning fire with more enthusiasm than good marksmanship, the hostile riders still advancing steadily.
Markland decided that the cedar split-rail fence in front of him made lousy cover against gunfire, and started running in an awkward crouch back toward the barn, trying to make himself as small as possible to hostile snipers. Pausing to return fire was a luxury Alonzo didn’t think he could afford just now, so he increased his pace and started weaving in a serpentine pattern he hoped would spoil the aim of anyone intent on drilling him.
He had nearly reached his destination when a bullet found him, white-hot pain causing his hands to spasm and release his rifle. Worse, it fell directly into his path, tripped him, and pitched him face foremost into the rough siding of Sutter’s barn.
On impact, Markland felt his nose splinter, then nothing as he slithered to the ground, his mouth and spurting nostrils leaving bloody tracks that looked jet-black under the moon’s wan light.
Longwood
“All right, we’re square now,” Murray Glatman told the man standing before his desk and counting greenbacks in varied denominations, lips moving as he kept track.
Jed Findlay finished, rolled the bills, and stuffed them in the left-front pocket of his denim jeans. “All square,” he granted as he turned to exit Glatman’s office in the Badger’s Tail.
Glatman craned forward in his swivel chair, stopped Fielding with his right hand on the doorknob, then asked, “But are you sure that you don’t want to stick around a little longer?”
Findlay smiled at him, surprising Glatman. “Why would I do that?” he asked. “To get my head blown off by cowboys stewing over how I killed a couple of their own?”
“Maybe to take them out if they can’t recognize a good deal when they’re staring at it.”
“Or they’re riled at getting screwed,” Findlay replied, still with that vaguely mocking smile.
“Look at it this way,” Glatman urged him. “Say they take me out and all the others. If you’re not around, you think they’ll just forget about what you’ve already done and let you get away with it?”
“If they pass on your offer,” Findlay said, “I reckon you and yours will slow ’em down enough to let me have a fair head start. Once I clear out, they won’t know where to look or even know my name.”
“I didn’t take you for a man who leaves unfinished business,” Glatman said.
“Our business is finished,” Findlay replied. “You just said so yourself.”
Glatman allowed himself a shrug and tried to make it casual. “What’s wrong with making a new deal, for higher stakes?”
“How much?” the gunman asked.
“What would you say to five percent?”
Fielding surprised Glatman by laughing that away. When he’d recovered from that first gale of hilarity, the younger man inquired, “That would be five percent of what, exactly, if the trail boss turns you down?”
“First thing to keep in mind,” Glatman replied, “their boss has no idea of who I am or what I have to do with it.”
“You sure of that?”
asked Fielding. “Are you trusting any of your milquetoast partners to keep quiet once he sticks a pistol in their faces? Hell, first thing they’ll do after wetting themselves is give you up.”
“I’ll take that as your final no, then, should I?”
“It’s a no all right . . . at least, at five percent.”
“Are we negotiating now?” Glatman inquired.
“Maybe.” Fielding considered it, then said, “From here on in, I want a hundred bucks for any man I have to kill. The first two, you can say were on the house.”
“Agreed,” said Glatman, “but I’ll limit that to gunmen from the cattle drive. I wouldn’t want you dropping any decent townsfolk by mistake.”
Instead of laughing this time, Fielding answered, “Decent townsfolk? Where would I find one of those?”
“I’m done sparring with you,” Glatman told him. “Do we have a deal or not?”
“We do,” said Fielding. “Just be damned sure that you don’t run short of cash.”
As if to punctuate that sentence, a gunshot reached Glatman’s ears, echoing from the Badger’s Tail barroom.
* * *
* * *
Bliss Mossman shouldered through the bar’s front swinging doors, with Mike Limbaugh and Job Hooper immediately on his heels. The Bar X boss was carrying his Winchester ’73, his two companions bearing a Springfield Model 1871 and a Bridesburg Model 1861 respectively, besides the pistols on their hips.
Across the room, four men wearing gun belts were bellied up against the bar. None of them looked familiar from behind, or in the backbar mirror, but an instant failure to identify them did nothing to put Mossman at ease. He had not seen the men who’d run off with his steers last night, except as shapes on horseback, racing through the dark and firing randomly to cover their escape.
The hinges on the batwing door to Mossman’s left-hand side squealed out a plea for oil, announcing new arrivals in the barroom. One of the four drinkers glanced up at the backbar mirror, froze with his beer mug poised halfway to his lips, then glanced over his shoulder to confirm what he’d already seen.