* * *
Henry Barnes was standing outside his stable talking to Jim Bowden when Ben approached the north end of Buzzard’s Bluff’s main street. They both turned to wait for him when they saw who it was, and the two riders behind him told them he had accomplished what he had set out to do. It was not surprising to either man. “Henry, Jim,” Ben nodded to each of them in turn.
“Good to see you’re ridin’ Cousin,” Henry said.
“Yep,” Ben commented, “and I brought your red roan and Cecil’s Morgan back with me. They’re all in good shape and I’ll bring ’em back here to the stable soon as I get their riders settled in Mack Bragg’s hotel.” He looked at Bowden then. “In a day or two, I’m gonna need to let you put some new shoes on Cousin, Jim.”
“Sure thing, Ben,” Bowden answered, “any time you want.”
Gazing at the two sullen prisoners, sitting stiffly in the saddle, Henry was eager to hear Ben’s account of the incidents that led up to their capture. But he was reluctant to press him in front of his captives. Jim Bowden, on the other hand, suffered no such reluctance. “I see you caught up with these two jaspers. They give you any trouble?”
“Some,” Ben replied simply before giving Cousin a slight nudge with his heels and proceeding toward the jail. He didn’t get past the harness shop before Tuck saw him through the open door and dropped the bridle he was mending to chase after him. He arrived at the sheriff’s office seconds after Ben pulled up in front and climbed down from the saddle.
Seeing Ben and his prisoners through his office window, Mack Bragg stepped outside to meet him. “Sheriff,” Tuck announced as he hustled up to the horses, “Ben’s back.”
Mack glanced at Tuck, then back at Ben and grinned. “I see he is, Tuck. Thanks for lettin’ me know.” Turning his full attention to Ben and his prisoners then, he said, “I’ve got a nice clean cell ready for you. I expect you’ll be glad to get ’em off your hands. I’ll give you a hand gettin’ ’em down off those horses.”
Together, they pulled Pete and Ormond off the horses and marched them into the sheriff’s office. Tuck drew his .44 and proceeded to help guard them as they went through the door. “Tuck,” Mack suggested, “how ’bout goin’ up to the hotel and tell Lacy I’m gonna need two supper plates for these two? She’ll know what time to send ’em up here.”
“Right, Sheriff,” Tuck responded, “if you’re sure you don’t need an extra gun to lock these polecats up.”
“I think Ben and I can handle it,” Mack said. “’Preciate your help.” He walked Pete and Ormond into a cell and locked it, then had them back up to the bars, and Ben unlocked their handcuffs. Only then did Tuck give a little snort and go out the door. “I could just as easy have told Lacy when I went up to supper,” Mack confessed. “But I wanted to get Tuck outta here, so you can tell me why you brought these birds all the way back here, instead of turnin’ ’em over to the sheriff in Waco.”
“It’s a long story, but there was a damn good reason not to turn ’em over to Sheriff Walt Murphy. Before we get into that, you need to know the saddlebags on two horses out there are carryin’ a lot of money. And I think, if you add it up with that money you found on Malcolm Hazzard, you’re gonna find you’ve got the biggest portion of that twenty-two thousand dollars that belongs to the bank in Giddings.”
“So, it was those three that robbed the bank, just like we figured,” Mack said. “We’d best carry it inside and put it in the safe-box with the rest of the money. I ain’t real easy about havin’ all that money in here. I’m gonna have to ride over to Madisonville to wire Austin that we’re holdin’ two of the bank robbers and what’s left of the money.”
“I expect so, and if you’re worried about it, you could let Tuck sit on top of that safe-box till the marshal sends somebody to get it,” Ben said. “Maybe I can ride over to Madisonville to send the wire.”
Mack laughed at Ben’s crack about Tuck. “That might not be such a bad idea,” he said, “if Tuck ain’t too busy and I’ll take you up on that offer to ride to Madisonville. Now, let’s get that money off those horses before he gets back. He’d have the news all over town before supper.”
When they finished packing all the money into Mack’s safe-box, Ben said he might see him at the hotel for supper after he took the horses back to the stable. Mack confessed that he was feeling a little uneasy about leaving the jail unguarded with that amount of money in the office. “I don’t think you’ll have to worry about it,” Ben told him. “It’s locked in a pretty good safe-box. When you go to supper, lock the office like you always do. Nobody’s liable to get suspicious unless you change your normal habits.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Mack decided. “I just don’t want anything to happen to that money while it’s in my possession.” He walked outside and watched while Ben climbed aboard Cousin and led the other horses to the stable.
* * *
“Ben’s back!” Tuck Tucker announced loudly as he walked in the door of the Lost Coyote. “Brought them two saddle tramps with him. We put ’em in jail. He’s at the stable, takin’ care of the horses now.”
Ham Greeley turned around in his chair to look at Tuck. “Is that a fact? Well, thanks for tellin’ us. What color underwear is he wearin’ today?”
Not realizing he was being japed by his poker pal, Tuck answered. “How the heck do I know? White, same color as he always wears, I reckon. What difference does that make?”
Ham looked over at the bar to see Tiny’s grinning face. “Dumb as a stump,” he muttered. Back to Tuck then, he said, “Set yourself down and get ready to lose every dime you’re totin’. Tiny, bring him a shot of the cheap whiskey.” He dealt two hands on the table. “Read ’em and weep,” he challenged.
“I’ll be dad-burned,” Tuck charged, “not till I give them cards a shuffle.”
Tiny looked at Clarice and shook his head, then grinned at Rachel when she came out of the office. Now that Ben was back in town, everything could get back to normal, and when he came in the front door, Rachel met him. “Welcome home, partner. Tuck said you brought those two men back, and I suppose you rescued Cousin.”
“I did,” Ben replied, “and as soon as I throw my saddlebags in my room, I’m headin’ for the hotel dinin’ room. I told Mack I’d go eat with him. You wanna come along?”
“No, I expect not,” she said. “You and the sheriff probably have a lot to talk over about what you’re gonna do with the two you brought back. I suppose you’re gonna transport them to Austin.”
“No, ma’am,” he answered. “If the U.S. marshal in Austin wants ’em, he can send somebody to pick ’em up. I ain’t got time to ride all over Texas, anyway. I’ve got a saloon to run.”
“That’s right, you do,” she said, knowing he was japing. “You’d better stick around to make sure your partner isn’t stealing you blind.”
* * *
Another reunion that had taken place, this one over seventy miles from Buzzard’s Bluff, was not nearly so joyous. Riley Best turned his weary horse off the road and onto the path leading up to the church. Barely able to stay in the saddle, he had wondered if he was ever to reach the church again. As Ben Savage had advised, Riley had stopped and rested the horse but had ridden it into weariness again. At this point, he didn’t care if the horse died, he had made it back. He rode up to the front steps and stopped, not sure if he could get down without collapsing.
Inside the church, Booth Brayer was standing near the front door when he heard a horse whinny, so he opened the door to investigate. At first, he wasn’t sure who it was and he squinted to adjust his eyes to the darkness outside the church. “Damn,” he uttered an oath then. “Riley?” Without waiting for Riley to answer, he turned back toward the others in the room. “It’s Riley! And he’s by hisself, and it looks like he’s been shot or somethin’.” His announcement brought the others to their feet and rushing to the door.
“What tha hell, Riley?” Reuben Drum blurted as they gathered around him. Reube
n looked back down the path for the others. “Where’s Lester and Slim? What happened?”
“He’s been shot, Reuben, we need to get him offa that horse,” Charlie Taylor said. “Gimme a hand, Booth.” They pulled Riley off his horse and carried him into the church. Reuben walked at his side as they went up the steps, asking him where Lester was.
Riley looked up at him mournfully and finally spoke. “Lester’s dead. Slim’s dead, too—Ben Savage.” That was all he could say, so they carried him in and laid him on his cot.
Reuben Drum stood frozen, unable to speak upon hearing his son was dead. When Booth saw Reuben’s sudden ineptness, he took charge of the wounded man. “Dora,” he said to Dora Cox, “you and Paulene get a pan of water and some rags from Frances. He’s been bleedin’ pretty bad. Let’s see if we can clean him up a little and try to stop him from bleedin’ more.” He began to unwrap the bandage Jenny Priest had put on the wounds, so he could see just how bad they were. When the two women came back, the cook, Frances Wright, was with them. The three women took over the cleanup while the men stood around to watch. “Looks like there’s two holes,” Booth said when they were clean enough to see, “one where the bullet went in and one where it came out.”
By the time the women had Riley cleaned up and re-bandaged, Reuben had taken control of his emotions. He took a closer look at Riley’s wounds and determined they were not as serious as first assumed. For his part, Riley began to feel that he was going to survive, after having feared he was going to bleed to death before he reached the sanctity of the church. His eyes blinked open in a little while to stare up at the circle of faces gathered around him. “I thought I was a goner,” he muttered.
“What happened, Riley?” Reuben asked for the second time. “Lester, Slim, and Pete and Ormond, what happened?”
“Why don’t you let him rest up some before you ask him all them questions?” Paulene interrupted.
Reuben turned to glare at her and snapped, “’Cause I wanna know right now, damn it.” He turned back to the wounded man. “Tell me what happened. You said somethin’ about Ben Savage.”
“I need some coffee and somethin’ to eat,” Riley said. While Frances went to the kitchen to scare up something for him, he told Reuben about their pursuit of Savage and his prisoners. “We didn’t even know we’d caught up with him at that old man’s store ’bout halfway to Buzzard’s Bluff. None of us ever saw Ben Savage before, so he had the drop on us. We’da gone on to Buzzard’s Bluff if Pete and Ormond hadn’t started hollerin’. He had ’em locked up in the smokehouse. That’s when the shootin’ started. Savage shot Lester and me. Slim got blasted with a shotgun and Savage let me go.”
“He let you go? Why’d he let you go?” Reuben reacted, at once suspicious.
“I don’t know for sure,” Riley replied. “I think maybe he figured I weren’t gonna make it, anyway.”
After hearing the whole story, Reuben was devastated. Sheriff Walt Murphy had come out to the church that morning to set him straight on the disappearance of Pete Russell and Ormond Hazzard. Now, with Riley’s return to report that everything went wrong, he was struck with the death of his only son. Of lesser importance to him, but of major concern to the other men at the church, was the loss of somewhere around fourteen thousand dollars. The capture of Pete and Ormond was of no concern to anyone. Reuben’s focus turned to thoughts of vengeance for the death of his son. He knew he was not too old to take revenge into his own hands, but he was in a position to put a price on the head of Ben Savage, so he might as well pay one of the younger men to do it. He would wait, however, before announcing it until he decided how much he was willing to part with.
* * *
As Reuben expected, Walt Murphy showed up the next morning to see if the three men sent after Ben Savage had returned. The news of their demise was equally disastrous to him as it had been to Reuben, but not for the same reason. His loss was that of the stolen bank money Ormond and Pete had been carrying. He questioned Riley Best about everything that happened and Walt was not convinced that Savage had no designs on that money for himself. He doubted Ben was going to turn it over to the authorities. And it almost sickened him that the money had been right there in the church. “What a waste.” He blurted.
When he realized his outburst had garnered everyone’s attention, he went on to create a plan. “Listen,” he said, “I feel bad for Reuben for losin’ his son. We all do. We feel bad about Slim and Riley, too. Ben Savage needs to pay for what he did to those boys. But I’m thinkin’ there’s somethin’ else to do while we’re at it. Ben Savage told me he was intendin’ to hold Ormond and Pete in the Buzzard’s Bluff jail till the federal agents could come and get ’em. And after what Riley, here, said, I believe that’s what Savage is really gonna do. Them two fellers ain’t the only thing he’s holdin’ in that little jail of theirs. There’s also about fourteen thousand dollars those boys left here with, and maybe more, because the third man on that bank job was killed in Buzzard’s Bluff. So what happened to his share of the money?” He paused to look around at the faces captured by his words. “My bet is that it’s right there with the rest of the money now.”
Satisfied that he had everyone’s attention, he continued. “There ain’t no telegraph in Buzzard’s Bluff. So somebody’s gonna have to go to the nearest town that does have one just so they can wire Austin to come get the prisoners and the money. Then it’ll take some time to send some marshals to Buzzard’s Bluff to pick ’em up.” He paused again to see if anyone could see what he was getting at.
“All that ain’t gonna happen overnight,” Booth commented, “more like three or four days.”
“Those agencies don’t move that fast,” Walt replied. “I expect it might be a week before anybody shows up in Buzzard’s Bluff. So, what I’m sayin’ is we’ve got plenty of time to get down there, settle with Ben Savage for the killin’s, and rob the sheriff’s office of all that money. It’s too good a chance to pass up.” He paused again to watch their reaction, and it was obvious to the eye that everyone was considering the likelihood that it could succeed.
“We’d need to get there before the marshals get to town,” Charlie Taylor commented, “when we won’t have to worry about anybody but the sheriff and Ben Savage.”
Sitting at the table now that his wounds felt a little better, Riley was quick to give them warning. “If we decide to do what you’re talkin’ about, we’d best take care of Ben Savage before we try anything at the sheriff’s office.”
“If we plan it right, we oughta be able to hit ’em both at the same time,” Booth said, already enthusiastic about the planned raid. “Does he hang out at the sheriff’s office?”
“No,” Walt said. “He hangs out at the Lost Coyote Saloon. The best thing to do is to split up. We’ve got four men, so two can hit the saloon and two at the sheriff’s office. Shoot Savage first and anybody else that gets in the way in the saloon. When the sheriff hears the shots and comes runnin’, the two outside the office can nail him before he can lock up.”
“Two at the Lost Coyote and two at the sheriff’s office,” Dick Flynn commented. “That ain’t but four, and I count six of us here. ’Course I ain’t countin’ Riley. He’s wounded, so that sounds to me like four of us are gonna stick our butts out there to risk gettin’ shot, then split the money six ways. Am I the only one that thinks that don’t sound right?”
Walt Murphy answered him. “Reuben ain’t hardly fit to ride down there and get into the middle of it at his age. He needs to stay here and take care of this place.”
“I reckon that’s right,” Dick replied, “so I reckon that leaves you. How come you’re supposed to get an even split, if you ain’t gonna stick your behind out where the bullets are flyin’?”
Walt’s eyes narrowed as he concentrated a dark scowl in Dick’s direction. “Flynn, you and John Temple ain’t been here at the church but a week or two. So I reckon nobody’s told you that if it wasn’t for my deal with Reuben Drum, your ass would likely
be shinin’ one of the bunks in my jail right now, instead of layin’ around out here in a private saloon. You see, I know that you and John Temple are wanted in Kansas for armed robbery, but I don’t pass that information on to the marshals or the Rangers while you’re takin’ your ease right on my doorstep. Me and Reuben think that’s worth somethin’ and that’s the reason I get an equal share. The other thing you ain’t thought out yet is I’m the reason you know those two boys was carryin’ all that money. I don’t believe they volunteered that information when they lit here, did they?” He continued to lock eyes with Flynn, who stared back sullenly, so Walt made one more statement. “You don’t have to go on this little job if you don’t want to. But if you don’t, you know too much, so you’re gonna have to sit it out in one of my jail cells till we’re all back here.”
“Too many folks know Walt’s the sheriff in Waco,” Booth said to Flynn. “He can’t take a chance on bustin’ in the jail in Buzzard’s Bluff. It’d be all over the state by the time we got back here.”
“Yeah, I reckon I wasn’t thinkin’ about that,” Dick said. “No hard feelin’s, all right?”
Walt answered with only a nod, then got back to business. “Let’s decide how we’re gonna hit ’em. We can decide who’s gonna do what tonight and get on the road in the mornin’. That’ll still give us plenty of time,” he said when he saw questioning glances. “They’ll have to send somebody to the telegraph office, most likely in Madisonville. We’ll give ’em tomorrow to do that, in case Ben Savage decides he’s gonna do it. We need to make sure he’s in town.” He glanced over at Reuben and gave him a reassuring nod. “He’s got to pay.” He didn’t express it, but he was still needing a little payback himself for the way Savage played him for a fool.
The planning and the preparation for the big raid on the small town of Buzzard’s Bluff went on for some time before they finally called it off until morning. Walt decided it too important not to be back in the morning before they set out. “I’ll tell my deputy I’ve got some repair work on the roof of my cabin I have to tend to and I’ll be late comin’ in tomorrow.” He grinned at Brayer and said, “A payday like this don’t come along every day, does it, Booth?”
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