Then he appeared to have had a change of heart and turned the buckboard around. Leroy looked grateful until Karl shot him in the chest. Karl tied the body to the back with Leroy’s own shoelaces. You don’t want to leave too many bodies lying around, he thought. He had always schooled his associates not to carry any information on their persons, but there was no need to take chances.
CHAPTER 20
THE PASS
“What do you make of this feller, Lieutenant McGhan?” asked Butch. Mike had dismounted and was going through the pockets of the dead man that had been known only as Slats.
“Can’t find uh scrap ov paper on him,” said Mike.
“Well, they always say dead men tell no tales,” said Elzy. “Let’s go get those other two. Look at that big fella. I can’t believe you boys missed him. He could give shade to an elephant.”
“He’s sure hightailin’ it,” exclaimed Luke. “He ain’t even stoppin’ ta let that other dude git in the wagon.”
“We ain’t got time for this if we’re gonna get through these mountains,” warned Jack.
“I don’t give a damn,” said Elzy. “Any sonavabitch takes a shot at me has got some explaining to do.”
“He’s right,” said Butch, holding out his hand to catch some of the large, white wet flakes that were beginning to fall around them. “We start backtracking, we might never get out of these mountains.”
“We got tuh go on. They probably had us mixed up with some rustlers and were lookin’ tuh collect uh reward.” Mike said this without a great deal of conviction. He put his Smith and Wesson .38 back in his holster and mounted his horse.
“Anybody gonna be seriously offended if we don’t bury this varmit?” asked Butch. They gave each other cursory glances but said nothing. “Okay, let’s ride.”
The weather teased them with intermittent snow showers that conjured up images within the group of being stranded in the mountains. Legendary disasters like the Donner party loomed in their minds. By midday, Jack and Luke had led them to their secret pass; a river that had taken millions of years to cut its way through the mountains was now just a trickle. Butch and Elza looked up the soaring sides of the narrow canyon that disappeared in the swirling snow above them.
“Not much water running through this creek for a canyon like this,” said Elzy.
“Nope,” answered Butch.
“This would be a hell of a spot to be in if there was a sudden spring thaw though,” Elzy concluded.
Butch pulled his coat collar up a little higher on his neck. “Yep, we sure got that to worry about.” He turned again to check on Mike who was riding a few yards behind them. Mike didn’t notice the attention, as he was watching the trail behind him.
“Those two jaspers aren’t going to try to follow us,” said Elzy. “Why do you suppose he keeps looking over his shoulder?”
“Don’t know,” said Butch. “He must have a bad feeling about something.”
“You sure he checked all the pockets of that little weasel I shot?” asked Elzy.
“Even his watch pocket,” replied Butch.
“Damn strange,” said Elzy. “City gent in the middle of Wyoming with not one piece of paper telling who he is or where he come from.”
“I guess whoever sent that assassin out here didn’t want any paper trail that could be followed. Real professional like, if you think about it.”
“If they’re so damn professional, how come they’re all shot up?”
“That’s been bothering me,” Butch admitted. “They knew there was five of us but the little guy tries to wing a shot off soon as he sees Mike.”
“Yep, that is strange,” said Elzy. “I just naturally figured they were gonna try to kill us.”
“You ain’t gonna be disappointed if our names aren’t on that death list, are you?” asked Butch.
“Oh, hell we gotta be on it,” said Elzy as he stole another furtive glance over his shoulder at Mike, “we’re famous in these parts.”
“Hey, I got an answer to one of your questions,” said Butch, tugging Elzy’s sleeve to turn him around. “I can tell you why there ain’t much water runnin’ through this creek bed.”
Butch pointed ahead to a rockslide that had dumped itself into the canyon sometime in recent history as mountains go. Centuries of thawing and freezing had caused the sunlit side of the canyon wall to give way.
Boulders as large as houses blocked their path but Jack and Luke rode confidently towards the obstruction. They guided their horses towards an opening at the bottom of a point where two giant rock slabs had collided and wedged against each other. The passage was kept open by the trickle of water that rapidly moved between them. Once they had passed through the arches, they understood why only adventurous young boys came this way. They stood at the bottom of a slope that looked to be about a two to one grade. The posse dismounted and pulled their horses through the rocks and loose gravel to the top. On the other side was a pristine mountain lake that had been formed by the river water backing up before it found an easier way to go.
“Well, she’s all downhill from here,” said Luke.
“That’s good,” said Elzy, “cause I haven’t got any more uphill left in me.”
“I said I could get you through,” gloated Jack. “I didn’t say it would be easy.”
“That’s enough yammerin’, ladies,” said Butch. “The wind is going to start freezing that sweat we just worked up, so we ain’t got time to admire the view. We probably got an hour or more of daylight left, so we’d better make the best of it.”
The posse remounted their tired horses that snorted in protest, until they perceived the trail was all downhill. They managed to get below the treeline and out of the chilling wind before daylight faded, and they camped for the night.
CHAPTER 21
BILLY’S SPECIAL ASSIGNMENT
“If you ever sinned in your miserable life,” announced Billy Fayre, holding a cocked Winchester to the sheepherder’s head, “you had better confess now cause I’m gonna send you to your maker.”
The terrified man promptly discharged his bowels into his pants. The flickering night campfire revealed some anxious looks on other terrified faces. Several cattlemen and cowboys looked upon the unfolding scene but made no move to stop it. Finally Tom Smith rushed out of the darkness with a shotgun leveled on Billy’s midsection.
“Let him go, Kid,” he said firmly. “You’re just supposed to be watching him, not killing him. He ain’t on the list. He’s just a poor soul just happened upon us.”
“I don’t care if he ain’t on the damn list. He should be. We caught this sheepherder with a half-butchered cow. If we let him go, he’s gonna hightail it to town and tell everyone where we’re at. He’s needs to die.”
“You pull that trigger and I’ll cut you in two,” promised Tom.
Billy turned his murderous gaze on Tom Smith whose finger now twitched nervously on the triggers of the double barreled 12 gauge. The other men around the fire stood motionless and silent, waiting for Billy Fayre, alias Kid Del Rio, to make the next move.
“Damn,” declared a drunken cowboy stumbling into the fireside drama. “Who shit their pants?”
The snicker of laughter could be heard. Billy smiled sinisterly and dropped the Winchester to his side. “I think it’s this sheepherder here that smells so bad.” He threw the rifle to the cowboy. “Since it’s bothering you, take him down to the creek to clean out his britches. If he tries to get away, shoot him.”
Billy turned and walked past Tom, eyeing him as the nervous laughter spread around the fire.
“As for that damn list, Tom, let this sheepherder wipe his ass on it. I ain’t seen a warrant yet for one man we done already killed.”
As Billy stomped off into the darkness, Tom Smith turned away from the men around the fire so they did not see the sweat that was breaking out in large beads on his forehead. “Kid Del Rio,” he said with disgust. He sat down on a rock to compose himself. He couldn’t seem to lose
the image in his mind of, earlier this day, Kid Del Rio and the Texas Kid both gleefully pumping rounds into Nate Champion in some insane rivalry. Nate, Wyoming’s most famous rustler, was dead in his tracks but the continued barrage of lead kept his body gyrating as it hit the ground. He could still see the look of bloodlust on Kid Del Rio’s face. His hands began to shake as he thought of how close he had come to a needless shootout with the Kid a moment before. The Major had just provided him with a way to get rid of the chronic troublemaker, and he almost got killed trying to deliver the message. When this was through and if he were still alive, he promised himself to never come within ten miles of any hate-filled young hardcase calling himself Kid somebody or anybody. He reached inside his coat and pulled out a pocket flask, taking a long draw on it to settle his nerves.
“How in the hell did I get in this mess?” Tom muttered to himself. The regulators, as the cattlemen of the Cheyenne Club referred to themselves, were fools on a fool’s errand. The invasion of Johnson County was an ill-conceived disaster. Since it left Cheyenne on the 5th of April, it had moved with agonizing slowness. The spring roads were wet mud gumbo that brought the heavily-laden Studebaker wagons to a crawl. The cattlemen argued over who would throw out what to lighten the load while eating large, luxurious breakfasts and time-consuming lunches. They started too late every morning and quit too early every night.
The leader of the fiasco was Major Walcott, who had earned his rank as a Union officer in the Civil War thirty years ago. He now seemed to lack the temperament to command the unruly bunch of Texans that he had assembled. Even more detrimental was his inability to handle the arrogant members of the Cheyenne Club and keep his invasion force moving forward. Frank Canton, the former sheriff of Johnson County, had Tom’s backing to be the new leader. This had led to bad feelings between Tom and the Major. Their objective was Buffalo, but they had spent this entire day in a leisurely siege of Nate Champion at the KC ranch. There was supposed to be fourteen men on the list at the KC according to their source. There were only two. Nick Ray was the first to be gunned down. When he had taken about ten steps from the door this morning, the Texas kid shot him. He stumbled back through the door and died slowly all day while a determined Nate Champion bravely kept the regulators at bay. Finally Tom had convinced them to burn Champion out and get going. They sent men to the next ranch for a load of hay to set on fire and roll into the ranch house. They came back in two hours without any. And so the afternoon passed until three o’clock when Jack Flagg, also on the list, and his nephew came driving down the road that passed by the KC ranch. Knowing nothing of the invasion, he was hailing the men as if they were neighbors. He would have ridden right into their camp had not someone recognized him and let loose a barrage of lead from a distance. The shooter managed to hit nothing - not Jack, his nephew or either of the two horses pulling his carriage. They promptly turned around and made good their escape back to Buffalo. Any element of surprise the regulators could have had was now gone. There would be no one in the county that would not know of the invasion.
Tom saw Buck Garrett coming his way and waved to get his attention. “Hey, Buck, will you do me a favor?”
“Sure’nough Tom. What do you need?”
“Could you go down by the river and tell Kid Del Rio that the Major wants to see him?”
“Sure. Just as long as it ain’t no bad news. The Kid’s the type that’s apt to shoot the messenger if ya tell him something he don’t care to hear.”
“I think he’ll like this news,” Tom reassured him. “The Major says he’s got a special assignment for him.”
“Okay then. He’ll probably like that.”
“Tell him the Major’s in the front wagon,” he shouted at Buck as he walked away.
After getting the word from Buck to see the Major, Billy climbed the river bank and sauntered towards the lead wagon where the major kept his “Field Command Headquarters,” as he liked to call it. He stood at the edge of the campfire’s light trying to calm himself before he talked to the old Yankee who was leading the expedition. The incident with Tom Smith had just about capped off his day. Turning on him to save a sheepherder was unforgivable. Tom should have known that he was already unhappy, because the Major gave the honor of killing Nick Ray to the Texas Kid. Everyone he talked to had to admit that he was better with a gun than the Texas Kid. Nick Ray should have been his notch. At least he could claim Nate Champion. He was the more well-known of the two.
Billy took some consolation in that and walked towards the fire where two of the Eastern cattlemen were standing, warming themselves, and discussing things with the Major. Things were getting heated as he walked up. They were questioning the Major’s fitness to command among other things. The Eastern cattlemen were always bitching about something. Billy didn’t like these two from day one. They were both Harvard men. Whatever that was, they made sure everybody knew it right off. He would like to send them both back to Harvard in a pine boxes, but they were members of the cattlemen association. They were footing the bill.
When the two Easterners saw it was Billy, they moved away from the fire mumbling about having other things to do, and he and the Major were alone. The Major stared at them defiantly as they walked away.
“You want me to take care of those two fancy jaspers for you Major?” asked Billy. “I don’t give a shit who they think they are.” Billy had discovered the power of the bold statement. He liked to say things that he knew would shock people. He had come to enjoy the look of fear and disbelief in their eyes. It rocked them back on their heels a moment and always seemed to give him the edge.
“Well, ah, no, that won’t be necessary Mr. ah… Del Rio,” said the Major, the homicidal offer quickly taking his anger away and leaving him stunned. “We were just having a little disagreement on what was the best way to proceed.”
“Buck said you wanted to see me,” Billy said with a smile. He felt in charge of the conversation now. He couldn’t stand talking to people in authority unless he had taken control. The Major had a bad habit of talking down to the other Texans. He didn’t do that with him or the Texas Kid. The Major let his lariat out and let them roam where they wanted. They were like the two jokers in the deck. They were the unexpected that no one knew quite how to figure, and that uncertainty produced fear in peoples’ minds.
“Ah, yes, I - I have an interesting special assignment,” he said, finding his command voice once more. “It’s a bold undertaking and I feel you would be best suited for the job.”
Some recognition at last, thought Billy. The Texas Kid wasn’t getting this. The Major must have seen it was his round that killed Nate Champion. The Texas Kid was shooting a dead man.
“Special assignment,” said Billy, skeptically. “That sounds like more money, Major.” He did not want to sound too anxious. The Major might think him easy.
“Don’t worry about that,” Major Walcott assured him. “There will be a handsome reward.”
“Well, what do I got to do?”
“If you will step over here to the other side of the wagon, the gentleman that wishes to hire you will explain all that,” said the Major, leading him into the darkness away from the fire.
Billy hesitated for a moment. What kind of gentleman went lurking around in the shadows? He nervously fingered the butt of his gun and followed.
“Kid, this is Mr. Simms,” said the Major, introducing him to the stranger.
Billy jumped back in surprise and pulled his gun out of its holster.
“This pup’s a little jumpy,” announced a deep voice from the shadows.
“Sorry, Mister,” sputtered Billy, holstering his gun. “I thought you were a damn bear.”
Mr. Simms was almost seven feet tall and easily the biggest man Billy had ever seen. He also was now the only man Billy had ever told that he was sorry. That didn’t set well with him at all.
“Maybe I ought to talk to Brooks,” Simms said to the Major.
“Brooks? Who the hell is that?” Billy
demanded.
“That’s the Texas Kid’s real name,” said the Major.
“The Texas Kid again. Tell him, Major. That little pecker wart should be around just to clean my six-gun.”
“What your real name?” asked the huge man, ignoring Billy’s jealous outburst.
“Kid Del Rio is what I give when Tom Smith signed me up, and that’s going to have to be good enough,” declared Billy.
“On the run from something,” surmised the big man. “That’s okay. Simm’s isn’t my real name either. I took it from the first man I killed in this country. I thought it had a real American ring to it.” He didn’t say this boastfully but but in a matter-of-fact voice that was chilling.
“I heard you have killed eight men,” said Karl Van Dersel, alias Mr. Simms. “Is that an accurate total?”
“Nine men after this morning,” Billy lied. “Would have been ten if the Major woulda given me Nick Ray.”
“Is this information true, Major?”
The Major nodded affirmatively not wishing to equivocate on the killing of Nate Champion.
“I need a man to lead a little foray who has killed several times before,” said Mr. Simms, turning his attention back to Billy. “It’s not an easy thing, killing a man, but I have found that the more men you have killed, the easier it becomes. In my country I had to learn to kill at a young age or I would not be here. It becomes something you can do. Many men think they can kill, but when it comes to a gunfight, they hesitate. I need someone to lead a group to do a job who will not be afraid to pull the trigger.”
“I’m your man,” Billy said. “If the money’s right.”
“Don’t you want to know what the job is first?”
“If it pays enough, I don’t care.”
“I’ll give you a thousand dollars,” said the big man flatly. “Use it to hire as many men as you think you’ll need. Divide it up as you see fit. The Major has assured me you can have your pick of the Texans as long as you can finish the job in two days.”
The Cassidy Posse Page 14