Ride With the Devil (13 page)

“Did you find her?”

Ken was quiet for a moment. “We found her,” he said. “The Injuns had her staked out, and when we got to her, it was already too late. She was dead. But the Injuns knew we would come for her, so they was just waitin’ there, usin’ her for bait. They hit us pretty hard and we got three good men killed right off, and four more was wounded. We had to pull back to the rocks, but we couldn’t take our wounded with us, so the Injuns got ’em.”

Ken paused for a moment and took a drink before he continued.

“One of the men they took was Travis Jackson. Jackson ’n’ me was particular good friends. Back when I was boxin’, Jackson would train with me. And when I quit boxin’, why, Jackson, he come too, and he join the army with me.”

“Yes, I remember Jackson,” Moses said.

“Well, sir, them heathens stake Jackson out in front of us, and they skin him alive. Jackson screamed somethin’ terrible before he died, and we had to listen to ’im.

“Damn, Sarge, him bein’ your particular friend an’ all, that musta bother you somethin’ awful,” Moses suggested.

“Well, it bother all of us, but it didn’t bother nobody any more’n it bother Cap’n Bailey. Him bein’ the commander ’n’
all, he figure he was to blame. So he tied himself a white flag to the end of his saber ’n’ he walk down to see could he make a deal with the Injuns.”

“Whoa, now, how you goin’ to deal with Injuns?” Moses asked. “I ain’t never known them to make no deals with anyone.”

“Oh, they deal all right,” Ken said. “If you make ’em the right offer, they deal. And Cap’n Bailey, he done just that. He tell ’em as how he was our chief, and how killin’ him would be bigger medicine than killin’ the three soldiers they be holdin’. Do you understand what I’m sayin’, Moses? What Cap’n Bailey done is, he trade hisself for the three troopers the Injuns ain’t started killin’ yet. A white officer, doin’ that for three colored privates.”

“So, what happened?” Moses asked. “The Injuns didn’t take his offer?”

“Oh, yes, they accept his offer, all right.”

Moses shook his head. “No, they couldn’ta done that. Otherwise he wouldn’t have still been alive for the army to court-martial him.

“Yes, sir. Well, the only reason Bailey didn’t get killed is ’cause the Injuns wanted to kill him slow. So they tortured him for the rest of that day and into the night, cuttin’ on ’im here, burnin’ ’im there. And they wasn’t nothin’ we could do about it, ’cept listen to him scream.

“Come night, though, we was able to sneak down and get ’im. We cut Bailey free and brought him back.”

“I guess I can see why you have sort of a special feelin’ for ’im, then,” Moses said.

“Then, when we get back to the fort, the army has Cap’n Bailey arrested for disobeying orders and putting his command at risk. They say they ordered him back, and when he went after the girl, he disobeyed those orders. And durin’ the court-martial, they told how the girl was already dead when
we found her so, what Bailey done was, he got four men killed for no good reason.”

“What about him tradin’ himself for the men the Injuns had captured?” Moses asked.

Ken shook his head. “The court didn’t let his lawyer say nothin’ about that. They said that had nothin’ to do with the charge of him disobeyin’ orders. He was found guilty and they give him a dishonorable discharge.”

“That don’t sound fair,” Moses said.

“There wasn’t nothin’ fair about it,” Ken said. “Bailey got his discharge, but he didn’t know nothin’ but the army. And, with that kind of discharge, there didn’t nobody want to have anything to do with him. So, about six months after he got out of the army, he shot hisself.”

“Damn,” Moses said.

“When I heard about that, I decided I didn’t want no part of an army that would do that to one of their own. So, when my time come to reenlist, I just take my discharge and get out.”

“But you loved the army, Sarge. You always said that.”

“Yes, I loved the army. But this was something I figured needed to be done. I owed that to Cap’n Bailey.”

“So, after you leave the army, you come here?”

“Yes. Bein’ as I’d been a farrier sergeant while I was in the army, well, it just seem natural to me I should open up a blacksmith shop. So that’s just what I done. I took my army pay I’d saved up, come to a place where they didn’t have no blacksmith, and started one up.”

“Do you ever miss the army?” Moses asked.

Ken nodded. “There don’t hardly a day go by that I don’t think about it. What about you? Do you miss it?”

“I miss the men we was with. But I got me a good job cookin’ for the Bar-Z-Bar.” Moses smiled. “And I got me a wife and two chilrun.”

Ken smiled broadly. “The hell you say! I knew you married that laundress. Sally was her name?”

“Yes, Sally Harrington.”

“So, you got yourself a wife off soapsuds row, huh? Well, good for you. I didn’t know you had any kids, though. That the reason you got out?”

“Yeah. Well, when Sally lose her job on the post, I didn’t make enough money as a private to support a family. Then she got a job with the Zigenhorn family. Mr. Zigenhorn, he own the Bar-Z-Bar, and he offer me a job to cook for the outfit, so whenever my time come up, I got out.”

“I remember that,” Ken said. “I said then that the army was losin’ a good man, and I tried to get them to promote you to corporal.”

“Like I say, I miss the army some, but me ’n’ Sally, we got us a good life, Sarge. A real good life.” He ran his hand through his hair. “And here be the best thing. There ain’t no chance now of me gettin’ my scalp lifted. Yes, sir, Sally is real happy to know that ever’time I go out, I’m goin’to come back.”

“I’m glad for you, Moses,” Ken said. “I’m really glad.”

“Maybe, someday, you can come out to the ranch and meet Sally an’ my kids,” Moses said. “Let me fix you a dinner like I used to when we was soldierin’ together.”

“I’d like that,” Ken said. “I’d like that very much.”

DOWN THE STREET FROM THE BLACKSMITH SHOP, in front of the Golden Calf, Pete, Dusty, and Kendall were leaving. But Pete, who was by far the most inebriated of the three, barely made it out to the street. Stumbling at the top step, he grabbed hold of one of the porch supports to keep from falling.

“Better be careful there, Pete,” Dusty said. He pointed to a horse apple very near the step. “You could wind up facedown in a pile of horse shit.”

Kendall laughed.

“You two boys jus’ don’ be worryin’ none ’bout ol’ Pete Malone,” Pete said. “I’m doin’ jus’ fine, thank you very much.”

Pete tried again to step down from the porch but missed the steps. Only the fact that Kendall was standing close enough to grab him kept him from winding up exactly where Dusty said he would.

Kendall helped him down, then led him over to his horse.

“I sure wouldn’t want to be inside your head in the morning,” Dusty said. He chuckled. “I don’t want to be inside my head in the morning.”

“That’s ’cause you’re durnk,” Pete said.

“I’m durnk?”

“Yep. You’re durnk,” Pete repeated. Then, catching himself, he said the word slowly. “Drunk. You’re drunk.”

“We’re all drunk,” Dusty said. “Except for Kendall. Kendall isn’t drunk.”

“Maybe not, but ol’ Kendall got his ashes hauled tonight,” Pete said. “You a man now, ain’t you, Kendall?”

“Yes,” Kendall said proudly. “And you know what else? You was lyin’ about that snappin’ turtle thing. Darci told me that don’t never happen.”

“Well, maybe it don’t happen to Darci, but that don’t mean it don’t happen,” Pete said.

“Come on, Pete, get mounted,” Dusty said. “We have to get back out to the herd. Parker is going to roust us out of the blankets before daylight tomorrow. You know damn well he is.”

“Yeah, I know it,” Pete agreed. He tried to mount his horse, but fell and wound up on his back in the street.

“Damn, Pete, you plannin’ on sleepin’ there? Or you goin’ to come on out to the herd?” Dusty asked.

“I’m goin’ out to the herd. Just hold your horses,” Pete insisted, and he stood up and tried, again, to mount his horse. The horse, sensing something was wrong, didn’t stand still, but began twisting around in circles.

Kendall laughed. “Hold your horses? You the one needs your horse held.”

“Damn, hold still, will you?” Pete said to his horse. He draped his arms across the saddle for a moment, as if preparing himself for another try. Then he looked around.

“Hey, where at’s Darci?” he asked. “I didn’t get to tell her good-bye.”

“Darci is with someone else,” Dusty said. “Which you woulda seen if you hadn’t been so drunk.”

“She went with someone else?”

“Yes.”

“Damn. What’d she go and leave with somebody else for? I thought after tonight she’d be in love with us.”

“She’s in love with ever’one,” Dusty said.

Smiling, Pete wagged his finger at Kendall. “Yeah,” he said. “But I think she loves our boy Kendall most of all.”

“Come on, Pete, get mounted. I don’t want to spend the rest of the night out here in front of the saloon,” Dusty said.

Once again Pete was pushing his horse around in circles as he tried to put his foot into the stirrup, making another ineffective attempt to mount.

“Kendall, he ain’t never goin’ to get up on that horse unless me ’n’ you throw him belly down across it,” Dusty said.

“I guess you’re right,” Kendall said. He and Dusty dismounted and started toward Pete when they saw Moses coming slowly up the street in his wagon.

“Moses,” Dusty said. “What are you doin’ here?”

“I came in for supplies, remember?”

“How long it take you to get supplies?”

“Not long,” Moses said. “But I’ve been visiting with the blacksmith, another gentleman of color.”

Pete made another unsuccessful try to mount his horse, again chasing him in circles. But when he fell this time, he didn’t get up.

“Damn, he’s passed out,” Kendall said.

“Put him in the back of the wagon,” Moses said. “Then tie his horse on. I’ll take him back.”

“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” Dusty said. “He’d prob’ly like that better’n goin’ all the way back belly down across his horse.”

Dusty and Pete picked up the unconscious cowboy and lay him unceremoniously in the back of Moses’ wagon. Then, after tying Pete’s horse to the back of the wagon, they mounted their own horses and started out together.

They were halfway down the street when Vox, Bates, Moody, and Hooper suddenly stepped out into the road in front of them.

“Where do you people think you’re goin’?” Vox asked.

“We’re going back to the herd,” Dusty said. “What’s it to you, anyhow?”

Vox shook his head. “No, you ain’t,” he said. “You boys is going to spend the night in jail. All of you.”

“What for?” Kendall asked.

“For bein’ drunk.”

“We aren’t causin’ anybody any trouble,” Moses said.

“Don’t make no difference whether you’re causin’ trouble or not. You are drunk in the street, and that is public drunkenness. That is also against the town ordinance. Come on, you’re going to jail. All of you.”

“Mister, we ain’t goin’ to no jail,” Dusty said. “So, the best thing you can do is to just get the hell out of our way and let us get on back to the herd.”

“Get down off them horses and drop your guns,” Vox ordered. “Or else.”

“Or else what?” Dusty said. “You think just ’cause you say shit, we goin’ to squat and ask how much? Now, get out of the way and let us through.”

“Mister, I’m tellin’ you and your friends, for the last time. Get down off them horses and unbuckle your gun belts.”

“And I’m tellin’ you to get out of the way, or I’ll run you down,” Dusty said, urging his horse forward.

Moody suddenly reached for his gun.

“Oh, shit! Dusty, they’re drawin’ on us!” Kendall shouted.

Dusty and Kendall pulled their own guns and six desperate men brought their guns into play.

For the next ten seconds bright flashes of light bounced off the facades of the buildings fronting the street as the flame patterns flared from the barrels of the guns. Crashes of
gunfire, like thunder, echoed through the town as the guns flamed and roared.

The citizens of the town of Salcedo had heard gunfire many times before. Most of the time it was no more than the exuberance of an inebriated cowboy shooting his gun into the air.

But the gunfire that night was different. It was more urgent, and in some cases the shots overlapped, so it was obvious that more than one gun was being fired. These gunshots had an evil, death-dealing sound, and all who heard them felt the hackles rise on the backs of their necks. They knew, without being told, that one or more men had died.

All over town people got up, walked to their windows and stared out into the black of the night. Most of them couldn’t see anything because the street was dark and unlit by street lamps.

Many of them shrugged and went back to bed. But some people got dressed and went out to the street to make a more thorough exploration. There, they saw others on the same quest, shadows within shadows moving through the darkness toward the center of town.

They spoke quietly among themselves, and their numbers grew as others came out from their own homes to join them.

“What was all that shooting?”

“Prob’ly just some drunken cowboys.”

“No, didn’t sound like just drunken cowboys havin’ a good time.”

“It sounded more serious to me.”

“Yeah, sounded like that to me too, shots on top of shots.”

“Look, down there. There’s several people gatherin’.”

By the time they reached the center of town, they could see by the ambient light of nearby buildings that there were, indeed, several people gathered. They also saw that the shots had been much more than drunken celebration.

Moses Gillespie, who was unarmed, had been caught in the melee. Hit twice, he tumbled forward from the wagon seat and was draped across the footboard of the wagon, head and both arms hanging down, his blood pooling in the dirt beneath him.

Dusty was sitting in the street, holding his hands over a wound in his stomach, desperately trying to staunch the flow of the blood pouring through his spread fingers.

Kendall had been hit also, but it was no more than a nick in the arm. Of the four cowboys, only Dusty and Moses had been hit. Kendall and Pete had come through the battle totally unscathed. Passed out in the back of the wagon, Pete was blissfully unaware of the drama that had just played out around him.

“Who’s hit?” Vox shouted.

“Looks like Moody is down,” Hooper replied.

“Anyone else?”

“None of us except for Moody,” Bates said. He laughed. “Woo wee! We sure as hell shot them cowboys up good, though.”

“Oh, Jesus! Oh, Jesus it hurts!” Dusty was saying. Kendall was on his knees beside his friend, tending to him as best he could.

That’s Moody,” a townsperson said, pointing to one of the deputies who was lying in the street.

“Is he dead?”

“I don’t know. He ain’t movin’.”

“There’s two more over there,” another said, pointing to Kendall and Dusty.

“I know who them boys is. I seen ’em in the saloon earlier tonight. They’re cowboys from a herd that’s passing through.”

“Was they causin’ any trouble?”

“No, they was just drinkin’ and keepin’ pretty much to themselves, as far as I could tell. Didn’t look like they was botherin’ nobody.”

“There’s another’n, over there, hangin’ down from the wagon. He ain’t movin’ none. Looks like he’s dead.”

“Get a doctor!” Kendall pleaded from his position next to Dusty. “Somebody, please! Ain’t there a doctor in this town?”

“Get up,” Vox said, grabbing Kendall by his shirt and jerking him to his feet. Vox turned toward his two deputies, both of whom were tending to the deputy that was wounded. “How’s Moody?” he asked.

“I think he’s dead,” Bates replied.

“You think he’s dead? Or you know he is dead?” Vox asked.

“He is dead.”

“Then what the hell are you wastin’ your time over there with him for?”

Turning to the two cowboys, Vox smiled triumphantly. “Well, Moody’s dead and that’s murder. That means you boys is goin’ to hang, right here, right now.”

“You can’t do that, Vox,” one of the townspeople said. “That would be lynchin’.”

“Who said anything about lynching?” Vox replied. “Hooper, you go wake up Judge Watermeyer. I want to be legal, but I intend to get these sons of bitches hung before mornin’.”

“Can we please get a doctor for my pard?” Kendall asked, looking over at Dusty. Vox’s deputies had dragged Dusty over to the wagon, and he was sitting, leaning back against the wheel.

“Somebody go get Doc Urban,” one of the townspeople said. This was Poindexter, the hostler for the stage line.

“No,” Vox said. “Leave the doc be.”

“But this man is hurt bad,” Poindexter insisted. “Wouldn’t be right not to get a doctor to look after him.”

“No need in wastin’ a doctor’s time on him,” Vox said. “He’s prob’ly goin’ to be dead in a few minutes anyway. And even if he don’t die from the gunshots, we goin’ to hang him.”

“Well can I at least try to stop him from bleedin’ to death?” Kendall asked.

Vox nodded at the deputy who was holding Kendall, and the deputy let him go. Kendall took off his shirt then started tearing it into strips to make a bandage.

Judge Watermeyer came out into the street then, obviously hauled from his bed because he was still tucking his shirt down into his pants. In keeping with the dignity of his office, his shirt had a collar, and he was wearing a jacket. “I heard gunshots. What’s going on here?” he asked.

“We’re goin’ to have us a trial,” Vox said. “And you can’t have a trial without a judge.”

“What do you mean you are going to have a trial? You mean now, in the middle of the street, in the middle of the night?”

“Yes, right here, in the street, where it happened,” Vox said. “And we’re going to have it right now. Somebody get some torches lit,” he added, looking around in the dark. “We got to see what’s going on here.”

“Where’s Culpepper?” the judge asked. “Is he back in town yet?”

“Don’t you be worryin’ none about Culpepper. Culpepper ain’t got nothin’ to do with this,” Vox said angrily. “I’m in charge.” He pulled his pistol and pointed it at Judge Watermeyer. “Now, by damn you are going to hold this trial, or I’m goin’ to shoot you where you stand!”

“This isn’t a court of law! You are asking me to condone a lynching, and I can’t do that.”

Vox pulled the hammer back on his pistol. “Then I’ll just kill you and do the judgin’ myself,” he said.

“No, wait!” Judge Watermeyer said in sudden fear. “All…all right,” he stuttered.

By then a few torches were burning and the scene was eerily lit in a pale, wavering light that cast deep shadows, painted skin orange, and made the eyes look as if they were reflecting the fires of hell itself.

“What’s going on here?” Paddy O’Neil shouted, coming out into the street then. Looking around at the carnage, he gasped.

“My God!” he said. “Vox, you insane bastard, what have you done? These men were just in my saloon. They weren’t bothering anyone!”

“You know the ordinance against public drunkenness,” Vox said. “You should’ve kept ’em in your saloon until they sobered up.”

Looking around, Paddy saw Kendall, shirtless, and with his arms tied behind his back. He also saw Judge Watermeyer standing near one of the torches. There was a pained expression on Watermeyer’s face.

“Judge, you aren’t going along with this, are you?”

“I…I have no choice, Paddy,” the judge replied.

“Well I don’t intend to let it happen,” Paddy said. He pointed to Kendall. “Let him go.”

“Get out of here, O’Neil, before you get hurt,” Vox growled.

“I will not get out of here,” Paddy said. He started toward Kendall but got only a few steps before Vox nodded at Bates. Stepping out behind Paddy, Bates brought his gun down, sharply, on the saloon keeper’s head. Paddy went down.

The gathered townspeople gasped in surprise and quick anger.

“Anybody else want to protest what’s going on here?” Vox called.