The Cassidy Posse

by D. N. Bedeker

  “I heard it was three miles long,” said Flatnose, giving Butch a wink.

  “Now you’re just tryin’ tuh pull my leg, Flatnose,” said News suspiciously.

  “We’ll know more when the Logan brothers get back. They went out yesterday on a scoutin’ expedition.”

  “Well, I don’t know what you fellers are gonna do, but me and my gang are bettin’on Buffalo,” announced Red Alvins, jerking his thumb towards the other room. One of his “gang” was standing wearily at the doorway, awakened by the vocal discussion. Mike noticed he was still wearing remnants of his Cook County visit. The rest of the escapees were apparently trying to recover from their trip.

  “Why you so set on goin’ to Buffalo?” Butch asked.

  “Businessman up there says they will pay hundred dollars in cash tah any gunman that comes up there and helps ‘em take on the regulators.”

  “I heard the regulators were gettin’ paid more than that,” said News Carver. “How do we know you ain’t gonna take your Chicago boys and sign on as regulators?”

  The color rose quickly in Red’s freckled face and Flatnose moved to quell the situation. “They wouldn’t hire Red. He’s from Wyoming. Everybody they brought in is from Texas. They aren’t going to like any mixed loyalties.”

  “Don’t seem worth a hundred dollars to ride as far as you boys have and then to risk gettin’ shot,” said Elzy.

  “Well, I like ta be where the action is,” declared Red. No one argued that point.

  “That don’t sound like bad money to me. Times is tough,” said Butch. “You mind if me and my outfit tag along with you up ta Buffalo?”

  Red hesitated for a moment. He didn’t like anyone horning in on his action, but then he considered who was asking. Riding with Butch Cassidy would enhance his reputation as an outlaw. He would be considered part of the Wild Bunch. Respect would be his. Right now the only ones willing to follow him were a bunch of reluctant losers he broke out of Cook County Jail.

  “Sure Butch. It’s okay with me but you guys just got in. Are you all gonna be ready to ride tomorrow at sun up?”

  “Sure we will,” said Butch, speaking for everyone. “We’re thinkin’ of staying up all night and playing cards.”

  There were a few snorts of laughter from the tense men around the table. A handsome, well-dressed man sitting at the other table skillfully tossed a card from the deck he was holding across the table towards Butch. It struck the crown of the borrowed Derby he was wearing. Butch looked at him and smiled.

  “Damn, Harry, I didn’t know you was deadly accurate with playin’ cards too.”

  “That’s a real nice looking hat there, Butch,” he said doffing his own Montana peak hat with a four-sided crown. “It’s about time you got some style.”

  “Oh, he ain’t Harry no more,” announced News Carver, “He’s the Sundance Kid.”

  “Harry Longabaugh, the Sundance Kid,” said Elzy, unimpressed.

  “Well, I think it’s a fittin’ title for a man of your impressive skills,” chided Butch.

  Harry, in keeping with frontier tradition, feigned embarrassment but obviously enjoyed the attention.

  “They named him after the only jail he never slipped out of,” said Flatnose Curry.

  “It was brand new,” explained the newly-anointed Sundance Kid. “They hired extra guards to keep me in there. If Wyoming had renegotiated their deal with Illinois in time, I’d ah went to Joliet. I would have been able to slip outah there easy.”

  “Like hell yuh would ov,” Mike growled under his breath from the corner.

  Unfortunately, it was loud enough to be picked up by the keen hearing of the Sundance Kid.

  “Whose your new friend?” he asked Butch, looking over Mike appraisingly.

  Butch smiled and hesitated a moment. “Ah, that there is Mike Ward. We go way back. He’s a good man.”

  “Mike Ward?” Sundance questioned. “I’ve known you for a couple years, and I don’t recall you mentioning a Mike Ward. This feller sounds a bit Irish.”

  “Well, he is… that’s obvious,” said Butch. “His real name is, ah, Mike Cassidy.”

  “No kiddin’,” said Sundance in amazement. “This is the guy that taught you how to ride, shoot and rustle.” Sundance got out of his chair and walked to the corner to offer his hand to Mike. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  Mike shook his hand while moving behind Longabaugh’s body to shield himself from view. Sean Daugherty gave a disinterested glance in their direction and went back to mending his shirt. Two members of the Alvins’ gang looked at him from the doorway but showed no signs of recognition. Fortunately, Mike hadn’t had the pleasure of arresting either one back in Chicago.

  “Who are these young fellers?” Sundance asked, noticing Jack and Luke trying to stand in obscurity.

  Butch glanced at Elzy for help. He received only an amused smile. Butch knew the name of Cassidy had been overused at this point.

  “This here is the Rattlesnake Jack,” he said pointing to Jack. “And that’s his partner Luke. Both are good men.”

  The outlaws at the table nodded to them respectfully. Any friend of Butch’s was okay. Jack and Luke felt some pride as they moved from the shadows to center stage.

  “Rattlesnake Jack,” Sundance repeated, perplexed. “Where you from?”

  Before Jack had an opportunity to put his foot in his mouth again, the Logan brothers burst through the door to save the day.

  “Get your guns, boys,” yelled Harvey Logan. “There’s regulators comin’ over the hill.”

  The alarm was punctuated by the sound of a distant shot coming through the open door. The inhabitants of the cabin scurried in every direction at once. Butch was the only one that stood there looking relieved. Rifles appeared from various locations in the cabin and were used to knock out the window glass to take aim at the surrounding hills.

  “What the hell are you stupid sonabitches doing!” screamed Flatnose Curry. “I brought those windows all the way from Buffalo. They’re special ordered so they open. Do you have to destroy everything?”

  “Well, we is outlaws,” reasoned News Carver.

  Not wishing to challenge that logic, Flatnoose grabbed his Winchester and carefully gazed out the doorway into the failing light of sundown.

  “How many were there?” he demanded.

  “Five,” was the reply.

  “Five, they must be just a scoutin’ party,” reasoned Flatnoose. “The main bunch will hit us at dawn like they did Nate Champion. We may as well just post lookouts and try and get some sleep. We’ll spread out before dawn so’s we all aren’t caught in this cabin in case they try to burn us out.”

  CHAPTER 24

  THE ELEMENT OF SURPRISE

  “Well, there it is,” announced Little Jake as they crested a rise and looked along the length of a sheer red rock cliff that stretched for miles in either direction. “That’s it. That’s what they call the Hole-in-the-Wall. If the big fella was right, that’s where we’ll find our man.”

  “If he’s wrong, we still get paid,” Slim added as both a question and a statement.

  Billy Fayre, alias Kid Del Rio, raised his hand to halt his small band of gunslingers. He had taken little Jake and three others. He figured that was enough to do the job and keep costs down. Little Jake was known for having an abrasive manner, but he was the best tracker and he knew the country. His tall, easygoing partner Slim was reputed to be a deadly shot with a rifle at any distance. All they needed was one clear shot at this Chicago detective that some big shots wanted eliminated and the rest of the money was his. He had the down payment tucked away in his saddlebags. He wanted to give it a loving pat, but he didn’t want to draw any attention.

  “Enough talking,” said Billy Fayre authoritatively. “Get us through this Hole-in the-Wall to the other side.” He leaned forward in his saddle to look over the situation.

  “Kid, we are on the other side,” said Jake, aggravated. “I told you when we left the KC Ranch
this morning we was going to follow the river and come in around on the backside. Why do you think we have been ridin’ from sunup to sundown?”

  “Why’d we do that?” said Kid Del Rio angrily. “We shoulda just went the shortest route. Hell, we coulda killed this detective by noon and been back at the KC by now.”

  “We might be back at the KC now, but we’d be slung belly-down over our own saddles. Ain’t nobody goes through the Hole-in-the-Wall from the east that ain’t welcome. Why do you think the Major and those Cheyenne sissies passed it by?”

  “Hell, I could do it,” insisted the Kid, becoming defensive. “I’m tired of gutless bastards always tellin’ me what can’t be done.”

  “See there at the end of that V-shaped canyon,” said Little Jake becoming agitated. “There are always two men with Winchesters watching the backside of that wall for anybody foolish enough to try to get up to that notch. Now even if you make it up that slope somehow and got the two guards, all the shooting would bring everybody into the canyon to see what the ruckus was. They would be positioned behind all those boulders while you’re making your way down that cutback trail that would give a mountain goat the jitters. We’d be going back and forth like those ducks in one of them carnival shooting galleries.” Little Jake emphases his point by waving his arm back and forth in an exaggerated fashion.

  One of the men snickered and Billy gave him a malevolent look. He would deal with Little Jake later for his effrontery. This was the first time Billy had ever been entrusted to lead men. It was tougher than he thought. You had to be alert all the time and paying attention if you wanted them to respect you. They respected him because they feared him. That had always been enough before. This respect was different. You had to earn it by being focused all the time like Little Jake. The short, energetic cowboy was already off his horse and had his binoculars on a cabin that sat in an open meadow behind the great red wall.

  “Lot ah horses down there,” he said without removing the field glasses from his eyes. “Looks like more than a dozen in the corral, and there’s five hitched outside the main cabin. There’s a couple more horses around the smaller cabins.”

  “How many men you figure there is down there?” drawled Slim.

  “There’s, ah, about twenty men,” said Billy, trying to sound authoritative after adding up the horses.

  Little Jake looked at Billy and shook his head. “Half of them might be pack animals. I would say maybe twelve to fifteen men at the most. What did that big fella say the boys we’re lookin’ for were ridin’?”

  “He didn’t say,” said Billy.

  “I heard that the big feller’s from Africa,” said Bob, a slow-witted but dependable cowboy from Fort Worth. “Now ain’t that where slaves are from? How come he’s a white man?”

  “Cause he’s from South Africa,” said Billy with finality, as though it were an answer.

  “Oh,” said Bob, still puzzled, but he explored the matter no further.

  “Well, gettin’ back to the business at hand,” interrupted Little Jake. “It would ah been nice if we had a little more to go on. All’s we know is we’re lookin’ for five men and the one we want is wherein’ one of those Bowler hats.”

  “Simms said it was a Derby hat,” corrected Billy.

  “It’s the same damn thing,” said Little Jake. “What else did the big fella tell you?”

  “He’s about medium height and kinda stocky.”

  “Stubby here is medium height and kinda stocky,” said little Jake sarcastically. “Maybe we should start by shootin’ him.”

  “Stubby’s got a bum leg,” countered Billy.

  “So we know we’re looking for a guy about medium height and stocky build that don’t have a bad leg,” said Jake. There were more snickers of laughter. Billy felt himself becoming embarrassed and flustered. He knew that Mr. Simms had told him more, but he couldn’t remember. All he wanted to do was kill little Jake, but the cocky little bastard was the only one that could get him through this.

  “Well, that’s enough for me to find the sonavabitch,” said Billy. “I don’t need no photograph picture to kill a man.” He wheeled his horse out in front of the group and pulled his gun to re-establish his command. “Let’s go in and gettum while we got surprise on our side.”

  No one moved. Slim and the others were waiting to see to what Little Jake was going to do. He became more diplomatic in the face of Billy’s unholstered revolver.

  “There ain’t no surprise left, Kid” Little Jake said in a calming voice. “Those two riders that’s been shadowing us for the last mile have been high tailin’ it towards the cabin while we’re up here jawin’. I thought maybe if we swung a wide loop north of the wall and come in from the west, nobody would spot us. No such luck. They got lookouts posted everywhere.”

  “Riders,” exclaimed Billy, turning his horse back towards the cabin below. “Damn, why didn’t somebody shoot them?”

  “They been real careful about stayin’ out of range,” said the laconic Slim, matter-of-factly. “I coulda tried a shot, but the outlaw caves are just north of here. The noise would attract a lot of curious folks. By the time we got a shot at your detective, we’d uh had company closing off our escape route back to Powder River.”

  “Shit,” Kid Del Rio swore angrily as he watched the two riders gallup up to the outlaw cabin below and dismount on the run. They appeared to smack into each other trying to get through the cabin door simultaneously.

  “Oh, well,” sighed Slim, turning his pony around. “We would have had tah of had a lot of surprise goin’ for us. There’s at least two of them to every one of us.”

  “I knew we didn’t have enough men to get the job done,” said Little Jake. “You never know how many no-goods are gonna be at these outlaw hangouts.”

  “Especially when we’re in the neighborhood,” said Stubby, letting his pony fall in behind Slim.

  “Where the hell da you guys think your goin’,” screamed Billy. “I didn’t tell nobody tah take off.”

  “We’re going back to the KC ranch,” said Little Jake. “What did you have in mind? We can all ride down there and commit suicide. You set this thing up shy a few men. I heard the Major said you could have all the men you want, but you were too cheap to spread the money around.”

  “Well, you can ride down there and die or you can die right here,” screamed Billy, totally incensed.

  Little Jake looked at Kid Del Rio, trembling in rage, his gun pointed in his direction and seemed to reconsider.

  “Let’s not do anything crazy,” said Little Jake. He smiled and gave a nod to Slim who pulled up on the other side of Billy.

  The Kid caught the movement out of the corner of his eye and sensed a conspiracy. He whirled and fired at Slim, winging him in the side just below his ribcage. Before he could turn to face the others, Little Jake had jerked his Winchester out of it scabbard and turned it into a club. His gunstock caught Billy on the side of the head and knocked him out of the saddle.

  “Damn,” shouted Slim in pain. “Give me a gun tah finish the crazy sonavabitch.”

  “Don’t bother,” said little Jake, pulling up next to Slim to help his wounded comrade. “When those guys in the cabin get him, they’ll take care of him.”

  “Okay,” he said, examining his wound. “Guess I got lucky. Bullet passed right through. Let’s get back to the KC before I bleed to death.”

  CHAPTER 25

  THE LONE HORSE

  “The Rattlesnake Kid,” said Elzy in disbelief. “Is that the best you could come up with, Butch?”

  “Well, I didn’t see you helpin’ me out, smartass.”

  “Ease up on each other,” said Mike. “Twas my fault fer not keepin’ me big mouth shut.”

  They were hiding along the banks of Buffalo Creek a short distance north of the outlaw cabin. Flatnose thought they would be able to catch the regulators in a cross fire if they tried to approach from that direction. Butch had quickly volunteered his small band for the assignment
so he didn’t have to answer any more questions about his new comrades. They had moved into place shortly before dawn and were now watching the rising sun playing out a brilliant display of color along the red wall. It failed to reveal any regulators.

  “You don’t think Harry bought the Mike Cassidy story, do you?” asked Elzy.

  “Probably not,” shrugged Butch. “And Harry’s the Sundance Kid now, remember. I think he likes that.”

  “The Sundance Kid,” complained Elzy. “Ya know where this ‘Kid’ bullshit all started? It was some damn reporter calling that crazy little bastard down in New Mexico ‘Billy the Kid’. Ya know Harvey Logan tails around after Flatnose Curry so much they’re calling him ‘Kid Curry’.”

  “I’ll bet they’re not callin’ him that to his face,” said Butch. “Harvey’s a mean sonavabitch. He’ll kill ya and not think twice about it.”

  The newly anointed Rattlesnake Kid, apparently bored, was taking the bullets out of his six-guns and inspecting each one.

  “Mr. Cassidy,” whispered Luke from behind a cottonwood tree. “Could yuh…would yuh mind comin’ up with an alias for me?”

  Butch looked at him but did not answer, deciding to ignore the request. He saw a rider moseying their way from the cabin.

  “Hey Butch, Hey Elzy,” the Sundance Kid greeted them cordially. “Just came to tell you everybody’s pullin’ out.”

  “Pullin’ out,” exclaimed Butch. He jumped to his feet and climbed up on the creek bank. “What happened to all that talk last night about fightin’ them ta the last man?”

  “They’re sober this morning,” Sundance explained with a wry smile. “Red Alvins’ crew took off in the middle of the night. They snuck out real quiet like and headed north. Still got it in his head ta go to Buffalo. Maybe he ain’t as anxious for you to go with him as he was last night.”

  “Where’s Flatnose and News and the Logan brothers?” asked Elzy, climbing up the bank to stand in the open with them.

  “They decided to go down the valley and through the Hole-in-the-Wall. Figured nobody would try to follow them there.”