by Edward Gates
“Load it! Quickly!”
Charlie pulled the spent cartridge, loaded another, closed the breech and handed it back. Dave fired again and another Indian fell to the ground. Charlie pulled his pistol.
“They’re too far away for handguns,” Dave shouted.
Two shots rang out from the rifles of Walter and Ed. Without a long gun, Jesse squatted down out of the line of fire with his pistol in his hand. Dave handed the rifle back to Charlie who reloaded it quicker this time. Dave waved to him to fire the gun himself. Charlie raised the carbine and took aim at an Indian riding a pinto in front of the group. He recalled Clemens’s voice… Relax, take a deep breath, let it out slowly and squeeze the trigger. Charlie did just that and the rifle roared to life in his hands. The pinto stumbled and then fell to the ground, sending the Indian tumbling off into the dirt.
“You need to aim a little higher!” Dave shouted. “Elevation! Elevation!”
Another hail of bullets and a number of arrows slammed into the dirt around them. Charlie saw a puff of dust and blood erupt from Dave’s shoulder as he fell backwards from the impact.
“Dave!”
“I’m fine. Keep shooting!” Dave shouted as he scrambled back to his feet.
Charlie reloaded the rifle, took aim just above the head of another Indian and fired. The Indian jerked backwards and fell off the back of his horse. He reloaded as quickly as he could, but the rest of the Indians were closing in on them at a fast pace. Dave drew his handgun and waited.
“Get ready! Here they come. They’ll be in pistol range right quick.”
Charlie looked over the ridge of the trench just as a flight of what seemed like a thousand arrows sailed into and around the trench. He ducked and pressed himself against the forward slope of the trench for cover. He saw Walter, Jesse and Ed squatting for cover with their handguns drawn. Ed pulled his Bowie knife from its sheath and planted it in the ground in front of him for quicker access. Then he pulled the second gun from his belt and held it in his left hand. Charlie leaned the rifle against the forward slope of the trench and checked his Green River knife, praying it wouldn’t come to hand-to-hand combat. He drew his handgun and looked over at Dave.
“You ready?” Dave asked. “Pick one target at a time.”
Charlie gave a half-hearted nod.
“Let’s give it to ‘em!”
Dave jumped up and began firing his handgun. Charlie and the others did the same, trying to quickly pick targets and make each shot count. The blasts and smoke from their handguns echoed across the terrain and seemed to catch the Indians by surprise. Their first volley dropped several Indians and slowed the advance of the others. Once the Indians were off their horses, it was easier for them to reload and take better aim.
Charlie fired his fourth, then fifth, and finally his last shot. His gun was empty and there was no time to reload powder, balls and caps. He holstered his gun, picked up the rifle and took aim at an Indian who was only a few yards away. The bullet exploded the man’s chest. Charlie knelt down in the trench, loaded another cartridge and stood just as an Indian jumped down on top of him, knocking him and his rifle to the dirt. There was a shot and he could feel the Indian’s body jerk from the impact of a bullet. The Indian went limp. Ed had fired a shot to save Charlie. The Indians dropped back from their attack. After a few more shots from Walter and Jesse, all their guns were empty.
Ed pulled his Bowie knife from the dirt and squatted down in the trench. Charlie pulled his knife from its sheath and looked over at Ed, who looked scared but managed to force a smile and a nod his way. For the moment, the gunfire and arrow flights had stopped. Charlie loaded another cartridge in the rifle, closed his eyes and prayed. Up to this point he had been too busy to be afraid. Now, with the Indians just a short distance away, he began to tremble. The next charge would likely be their demise. Charlie feared that he would soon die.
All five of the teamsters huddled below the ridge of the trench. Charlie held his rifle. He knew he would at least get one shot off. He was puzzled by the delay of the Indians and looked at Dave with a questioning gesture.
Dave shook his head. “They’ll regroup and be back. I think we took out more of them than they expected.”
“Been right proud to know y’all,” Walter said. “No matter how this turns out.”
Ed patted Walter’s shoulder and smiled at the rest of the men. Charlie wanted to cry. He didn’t expect his life to end like this. He thought about making a dash for his wagon to grab the time belt for a quick escape. But he knew he’d be dead before he took two steps. All he could do was hope his death would be quick.
“Don’t count us out just yet, you old coot,” Dave said to Walter. “We took down a lot of ‘em. I don’t think they have as many left as they’d like.” He looked over at Jesse, who was frantically trying to get powder and balls into the chambers of the cylinder of his gun. “How you doing, Jess?”
“Caught a slug in my damn leg on the way over here, but it’ll be okay,” Jesse replied. He reinserted the cylinder in the gun, placed the caps on the nipples and raised his gun in triumph to show his success in reloading. He never got a chance to fire it.
A flight of arrows arched through the air and landed in and around the trench. Charlie ducked down low, pressed himself against the forward slope, and covered his head with his arms. One arrow knocked his hat off. Another arrow sliced through the arm of his slicker cutting clear through to the skin as it passed, while a third arrow stuck in the new boot covering his right leg. The thick leather of the boot absorbed most of the blow, but the point still pierced his calf. Charlie winced from the pain. He reached down and pulled the arrow from his boot and felt the warm trickle of blood roll down his leg into his sock. Then he heard the yells of the Indians. They were charging. His hands began to sweat in anticipation of a brutal combat that he was certain to lose and lose quickly.
Suddenly the ground began to shake, and the rumble of a low thunder grew louder with every second. The sound was coming closer. The war shouts from the Indians ceased. Dave and Charlie exchanged confused looks as they waited for the onslaught of the Indians. A barrage of gunshots echoed over the plains. The rumble was the sound of horses, many horses… and they came to a halt just behind the trench. The gunfire continued. Charlie peeked over the top of the trench to see the Indians in full retreat. The gunfire roared behind him. He turned to see a dozen men firing rifles and handguns at the retreating Indians. He couldn’t believe it. Had his prayers worked?
The teamsters stood speechless in the trench, staring up at the horsemen in disbelief. A thin man wearing striped trousers, a gray town coat and knee-high black cavalry boots jumped from his horse and walked to the edge of the trench. A gray, short-brimmed hat with a white feather in the band adorned his head and he sported a large black moustache that seemed too big for his thin face. He smiled at Charlie and the rest of the men.
“How y’all doin’?” he said with a grin.
Dave gave out a short grunt of a laugh and shook his head. “We’re doin’ just fine, since you showed up.” Dave and Charlie climbed out of the creek bed and shook hands with the man.
“Name’s Ross. Captain Lawrence Sullivan Ross. Most folks just call me Sul. And these here are what’s left of the Texas Rangers.”
“Texas Rangers?” Charlie asked. His comment went unnoticed.
“Well, you sure picked a good time to come up on us, Cap’n Ross. It’s a real pleasure to meet you,” Dave said.
“We’ve been chasing them Comanche renegades for nigh on three months now. They’ve been raiding the buffalo hunters and settlers up in this area. Always two steps ahead of us. We really didn’t know how close we was to them until we heard your gunfire. And we come a runnin’.”
Captain Ross barked a few orders at his men and half of his squad took off in pursuit of what was left of the Indian renegades.
“Dave!” Ed shouted from the trench. “You’d better come take a look at this.”
Charli
e and Captain Ross followed Dave to the edge of the trench. They looked down and saw Jesse lying down with two arrows stuck in him.
“Oh, no,” Charlie said as he slid down the embankment next to Jesse.
“He caught a slug in his leg on the way from the wagons. We didn’t notice he got hit with the arrows ‘til just now.” Ed knelt down next to Charlie.
Jesse was pale and his eyes were closed. He took short fluid-filled breaths… when he breathed at all. Charlie could see Jesse’s right pants leg was soaked with blood from the bullet wound. One arrow was stuck in the right side of his abdomen. A second arrow pierced his upper left chest and had gone completely through the torso leaving the arrowhead sticking out his back. Blood poured from the wound alongside the arrow shaft. Charlie guessed that from the amount of blood and the position of the arrow, it must have clipped an artery or hit the heart directly. He knew there was nothing anyone could do.
Ed looked at Charlie with eyes that begged for a hopeful diagnosis. Charlie just looked at Ed and shook his head. A tear moistened Charlie’s eye as he slipped his arm around Jesse’s shoulder and held him close. Ed lowered his head and held Jesse’s hand. Jesse jerked and cocked his head to one side and sucked in a breath that he held for a moment and then, with his final exhale, expelled any life that was left in his body. Jesse Williams passed away in the arms of Charlie, surrounded by the only family he had known for twenty years.
The Rangers took over the duty of digging a grave for Jesse. They fashioned a marker with a number of stones piled in a small pyramid shape. One of the Rangers etched Jesse’s name and the date on a soft piece of sandstone and rested it against the stone pile. The Rangers, who had never met Jesse, stood hat-in-hand around Jesse’s grave along with the four teamsters. Dave spoke a short eulogy and the burial ceremony was over.
Charlie was still in shock. He’d come so close to getting killed and then watched Jesse die. Wanting to be alone, he walked over to his wagon and pulled the canvas bag containing his time belt out of his valise. He sat on the ground, leaned against the wagon wheel and held the canvas bag close to his chest. His euphoria about living in the slower and simpler nineteenth century was now in question. Was it right for him to even be here, much less live here? That could have been him in that grave. What would history have recorded about that? Questions swirled in Charlie’s head about the various paradoxes of time travel. He wanted to vanish.
Dave slowly strolled up. He was holding a small square tin box and squatted down next to Charlie.
“You all right?”
Charlie shook his head. “I don’t know.” There was a pause as Dave sat down and leaned against the wheel next to Charlie.
“How long does it take before you get used to killing and watching people die?” Charlie asked.
“Ya never do. And pray you don’t ever get used to it.” Dave lowered his head. “It’s never easy killing a man or watching a friend die. Ya learn to put it behind ya, is all. Then ya move on.”
“I don’t think I can do that. How can you just brush death aside and move on, as you say? That could have been me in that grave instead of Jesse.”
“Yeah. You’re right. It coulda been any one of us there. But it wasn’t. It was Jesse’s time, is all. Out here in this wilderness you face death every day. If it ain’t the animals, it’s the weather, or the land, or the Indians. You do your best to get through the day so’s you can do it again the next day. When it’s your time, you go. You can’t change nothing.”
Charlie squeezed the time belt inside the canvas pouch. “What if you could?”
“What?”
“What if you could? You know, change something. What if you could? Would you?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Charlie paused. He shook his head as if to shake away the thoughts running though his mind. “Nothing. Forget it. I was just talking. That’s all.”
The two sat in silence for a while before Charlie spoke again. “I didn’t get to know Jesse all that well. But I liked him.”
“Yep. Jesse kept to himself a lot. He was a hard man and never got close to anyone. Man of few words.” Dave looked over at Charlie. “But he liked you, though. He told me such.”
Charlie cracked a slight smile and nodded.
“How’s your arm?” Dave asked, changing the subject.
“It’s good. It’s not bleeding anymore. But my leg burns like crazy.”
“Get that boot off. I got some cactus butter here that’ll take the sting away.”
“Cactus butter?” Charlie removed his boot and exposed a puncture wound where the arrow had pierced the side of his right calf. It was still bleeding, but not as bad as before. He stood and pulled a clean neckerchief and a fresh pair of socks from his valise. He cleaned the wound with some water from the water barrel. Dave opened the tin and smeared a sticky salve on Charlie’s wound then wrapped the clean neckerchief around the wound and tied it tight.
“What ya got there in the bag?” Dave asked.
Charlie pulled the bag closer to his chest. “Just an old belt. It belonged to my father.”
“That must be some belt for you to tote it around in its own bag.”
“It is. Believe me, it is.”
Dave stood and looked at him. “You set a spell, Charlie, and take what time you need. Just remember. Jesse is dead… but we’re not. That ain’t gonna change. You remember that.” Dave took a few steps away. “When you’re ready, we gotta turn these animals out to graze.”
Charlie watched Dave walk back and help Ed and Walter set up camp with the Rangers. He opened the bag and held the time belt in his hands. A strong feeling settled in him about running away. But where would I go?
40
Weatherford
The sun began to set below the hills while Charlie sat against the wagon wheel contemplating his escape from the nineteenth century.
Whenever troubles arose, he always looked for a way to get away from them instead of dealing with them. It had been a common practice in his life. He ran away from responsibilities, and any issues that came his way. Running away was what landed him in the nineteenth century. He reviewed the past six months and thought about all the different experiences he’d had. It occurred to him that he had learned quite a bit about life, especially life in these times. It was time to stop running away.
Charlie had never had a life of his own. He always followed his father’s lead about school and career. It was time to change that pattern. His rugged experiences on the frontier had taught him how to grow up and be responsible. It was time to make his own decisions about his life. He took a deep breath and put the time belt and canvas back in his valise. He would make his life here, in this century, starting with these men and this job. Dave had mentioned that the animals needed to be tended to when he was ready. He was now ready.
Charlie unhooked the horses and freed them to graze, then unhitched the oxen. When he began to string the static line for the horses, Dave came to help.
“You all right?”
Charlie nodded. “Yeah. I think I’ll be okay.”
Following the Indian attack, the squad of Texas Rangers rode along with the freighters for a few days until they were safely out of Palo Duro Canyon and on their way toward Weatherford. Charlie admired the Rangers’ courage, companionship and dedication. He wondered what they would think if they knew what was really in the wagons. Of course, being Southerners, they might just ride as escorts all the way to Galveston. Then again, maybe not.
Charlie spent a lot of time with the members of the Rangers. During their journey together, he talked with a Ranger named “Texas Jack” Cable. Jack was a little older than Charlie and had been a Ranger since he was a teenager.
“I suppose the war costs Texas a lot of money,” Jack said. “Governor said he can’t pay us anymore, so he disbanded the Rangers. Left us high and dry. Most of the others already went off to join the army.”
“Is that where you’re going?” Charlie asked
.
“Yep, eventually. Captain Ross is planning on us joining up with General Magruder’s outfit.”
“Magruder?” That name struck a familiar note with Charlie. “Magruder… Magruder…”
“Yeah, Major General John Magruder,” Jack said. “Ya know him?”
Charlie shook his head. He was busy concentrating on finding the General’s name in his memory.
“He took over the Confederate outfits here in Texas a while back,” Jack explained.
“That’s it!” Charlie exclaimed. “I remember!” He looked at Jack. “Magruder! He’s in Galveston!”
“Galveston?” Jack repeated, sounding somewhat surprised. “How do you know where the general is?
“Yeah. Yeah. I’m positive. Unless Dad got it all wrong.”
“What are you talking about, Charlie?” Dave asked.
“General Magruder. He… uh, he, uh…” Charlie stopped talking. This time he caught himself before he divulged information about the battle for Galveston that no one in this group could possibly know at this time. He knew that the battle had already taken place on New Year’s Day and that Galveston and the harbor were now in the hands of the Confederacy and would remain so for the rest of the war. Even though the news of the victory would be all over Texas, he knew that it wouldn’t have reached Dave and the Rangers yet. He so wanted to tell Dave all about what a fluke it was that the Confederates won the battle; the South really didn’t win so much as the Union ended up surrendering by mistake.
Dave and Jack were still staring at Charlie, waiting for him to explain his comment about Magruder being in Galveston.
“Well, I guess I don’t know for sure.” Charlie lowered his head. “I’m just saying that Magruder would be smart to seize an opportunity to take over Galveston Harbor. That’s all.”