Winchester 1887 Read online

  To Millard, it would have made a lot more sense to have one shell fit any brand of weapon—Colt, Remington, Smith & Wesson—but those firearms companies could be greedy and proprietary. A lot of money was made by selling ammunition that fit only its models, and those companies were also looking longingly for government contracts.

  The army had tested several variations of the Remington. 44 Army revolvers around 1870, but never bought into the Remington model for its soldiers.

  Weapons were always changing. Folks called it progress. Flintlocks had made way for percussion caps, and after the Civil War anyone with a brain could tell that fixed metallic ammunition was the wave of the future.

  When Smith & Wesson brought out the American. 44 revolver—which chambered Smith & Wesson .44 cartridges—Colt followed the trend by introducing its 1873 single-action Army in .44 caliber. The Army loved it, but asked for a .45 caliber, and Colt complied. That six-shooter became the rage, the most powerful revolver since the old Colt Dragoons of the 1840s. In the late 1870s, Colt and Winchester finally understood a bit about “reciprocation” and Colt began manufacturing revolvers that fired Winchester’s .44-40 rounds.

  Yet Millard Mann still owned a conversion model of his Army Colt. He was too old-fashioned, maybe, too set in his ways. And he had never dreamed he would be forced to use those guns again.

  The Indian’s Remington would have to do. He pointed at the pistol. “Get it.”

  James picked up the weapon. “I’ve never fired a six-shooter before.”

  “Runs in the blood. I’m not much of a hand with one myself,” Millard admitted. “But it’ll have to do. And you won’t be shooting it until I can figure out what to do.”

  James pointed at the cartridges in Millard’s shell belt.

  “They won’t fit.” Millard didn’t explain the history of firearms and ammunition.

  James again looked at his father, and tried to find the words, but there was no time for any conversation, any family reunion.

  “We need to make tracks,” Millard said.

  “What about . . . him?” James motioned toward the body of Wildcat Lamar Bodeen.

  “I’m hoping he’ll keep the Chickasaws occupied.” It was a hard thing to say, but it was the truth. The whiskey destroyed and the culprit dead might be enough to keep those Indians from chasing after the slow freight wagon to avenge the Chickasaw that Millard had been forced to kill.

  He watched James climb into the box and handed him the empty Winchester rifle. Pulling his hat down low, Millard walked to the liver chestnut, pulled the reins from the spoke, and swung into the saddle.

  They’d ride south and east, should cross Caddo Creek if the map he had studied was right, and then follow another creek that fed into the Red River. He wasn’t sure how high the river would be, but that big storm from a ways back worried him. The Red could be full of quicksand and driftwood in the dry months. During wet years, it could rage like a mountain river during snowmelt. Nobody could estimate how many cowboys had drowned crossing that big muddy river during the trail-driving years or how many others had perished.

  Straight southeast was closer than making for Colbert’s Ferry, and Spanish Fort was just across the river in Texas. There might be a sawbones there who could tend to the girl.

  If the Chickasaws didn’t kill them first.

  Denison

  Everything had gone well, so far. Zane Maxwell had departed the train and watched John Smith ride out that morning. Those other two, Locksburgh and Red, should be disembarking in Indian Territory and meeting up with Tulip Bells, which meant all Maxwell had to do was buy a horse from the livery, ride out of town, and catch up with Smith. Then the two of them could find Link McCoy and that informant he was working with. They’d catch up with the whiskey runner and get ready for the Fort Washita job.

  After Maxwell finished his coffee, he left enough money for his breakfast on the table, grabbed his hat off the hat rack, and stepped out of the café and onto the boardwalk.

  “Hello, Zane.”

  He had been fishing a cigar from his vest pocket, and stopped to reconsider, but before his right hand moved for the Cloverleaf .41, the voice said, “Nah, just leave that hideaway gun in your pocket. But you can smoke. Especially if you got a cigar for me, too.”

  Maxwell nodded and brought out two cigars, biting the end off one and putting it in his mouth, before holding the other out as he turned to face the man leaning against the white wooden front wall of the café.

  A body didn’t see too many double-action Starr Army revolvers very often anymore. Starr Arms Company of New York had first patented those revolvers early in 1856. Most gunmen preferred more modern weapons, not the old cap-and-balls, but the two fitting snugly in a red sash seemed well cared for. Six-inch round barrels, a blued finish, smooth walnut grips, brass blade front sights. Of course, the man had no need of the two .44 revolvers, for he also carried a Winchester carbine, the barrel pointed, not exactly at Zane Maxwell, but definitely in his general direction.

  The gunman’s sidearms might be old-fashioned, but his long gun was modern. It was a Model 1892, one of the new lever-actions from Winchester with, like the two Army revolvers, a blued finish. The tapered round barrel appeared to be of a smaller caliber, maybe a .32 or .38, probably twenty inches long with a bead style sight mounted on the front and a Williams folding rear sight in a dovetail. The buttstock and fore end were walnut, smooth, showing almost no damage, and the crescent butt plate appeared smooth.

  The man holding the rifle was tall, old, his face scarred from pockmarks, fistfights, knives, and at least one bullet. That’s why he had a brown leather patch over his left eye. His mustache was more gray than brown these days, and his one good eye burned an intense blue. He had no left ear. That one had been sliced off with an Arkansas toothpick in a brawl in Eureka Springs.

  A gloved left hand came up to take the cigar, which the gunman put in his mouth, bit off an end, and then refit between tobacco-stained teeth.

  “Hello, Zane,” the man said again, waiting for Maxwell to light both cigars.

  “Jared.” Maxwell struck a match against the wall, lighted the gunman’s cigar first, then managed to get his going.

  Jared Whitney sucked in the smoke and grinned in satisfaction. “Nice flavor.”

  “El Pervenirs,” Maxwell said. “Imported from Havana.”

  “I like it.”

  Maxwell hooked a thumb down the boardwalk. “You can get them, two for a quarter, at the mercantile.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “You after a reward?” Maxwell asked.

  “You know me, Zane. I like money.”

  “What brings you to Denison?”

  “Money.”

  Maxwell removed the cigar, flicked some ash, and returned the Havana to his mouth. Jared Whitney, who would kill a man for a cigar or a thousand dollars, would talk when he was ready. Obviously, he didn’t want Zane Maxwell dead. That’s the only reason Maxwell still breathed.

  “I’m lookin’ for a whiskey runner named Bodeen,” Whitney said.

  Maxwell almost gave away his surprise, but he had played too many hands of poker to let that slip. He grinned. “Do you think Link and I want to get out of the bank and train business and start running rotgut?”

  “There’s been talk,” Whitney said.

  Maxwell let it slide, but inwardly he cursed John Smith. He should have instructed the hired gunman not to hit one of Denison’s myriad saloons when the train arrived, but go straight to his hotel, sleep, and get the horse in the morning without talking to anyone.

  “You can get whiskey here,” Maxwell said. “A lot better quality that you’d find from a runner in Indian Territory.”

  “Who said anything about Indian Territory?” Whitney grinned and blew blue smoke from his mouth. Then he talked. “There’s a Texas Ranger named Clarke with a score to settle against Bodeen. Seems this gent sold some liquor to some Podunk town up in the Panhandle and left some citizens de
ad, including the Ranger’s son. He’s hired me and some tinhorn with a Greener who calls himself Charley Conner to help him bring in that whiskey runner.”

  “You a lawman now, Jared?”

  The killer grinned again. “Ranger Clarke wants Bodeen dead. That’s something I can handle.”

  The town was coming to life. Across the street, businesses were being opened where just minutes earlier the only places showing signs of life were the livery and café. A man wearing two Starr revolvers and holding a Winchester ’92 would draw some attention, even in a lawless railroad burg like Denison. Might even attract a lawman.

  “I’m heading to the livery,” Maxwell said.

  “Thanks for the invite.” Whitney motioned with the carbine barrel, and Maxwell nodded and turned.

  Jared Whitney was too savvy, had lived too long with a gun, to make some fool mistake. He did lower the barrel of the Winchester, but Maxwell knew the gunman wouldn’t get too close to him, nor would he give Maxwell a chance if he tried anything. So Maxwell just walked, smoking the cigar, smiling at passersby along the boardwalk and issuing friendly greetings to strangers.

  Twice, he even tipped his hat to some ladies.

  Behind him, Jared Whitney did the same.

  When they reached the livery, Whitney tossed a nickel to a Mexican in jeans and a homespun shirt and told him in Spanish to fetch his horse, saddled and ready to ride.

  “You going somewhere?” Maxwell removed the cigar, dropped it in a dirt patch—he was careful to avoid the straw and hay—and ground it out with his boot heel.

  “With you,” Whitney said.

  “Where’s that Texas Ranger?” Maxwell tried to remember the name. “Clarke?”

  “In the Nations,” Whitney said. “Rode out with that assassin with the Greener. They left me in Denison, in case Bodeen loses the law dogs and injuns chasing him in the territory. If Bodeen shows up here, I’ll kill him. If Conner or Clarke guns him down, I still get paid. Not as much, but enough.” The gunman kept puffing his cigar.

  “How much?” Maxwell asked.

  “Fifty dollars. In gold coin.”

  Maxwell nodded as if that amount would impress him. Fifty dollars. Life could come cheap in that part of the world.

  “Well,” Maxwell said as the Mexican boy brought out Whitney’s horse, a thin, short but game cowpony, brown with two white stocking feet. “I think we might be able to do a little better than that.”

  “Thought you said you wasn’t in the whiskey running trade.” Whitney took the reins and thanked the boy.

  Before the kid could disappear, Maxwell cleared his throat and turned his attention to the Mexican. “I’d like to buy a horse.”

  The kid fired off something in rapid Spanish and pointed across the street.

  “Says his boss is in the store yonder getting some shoeing nails. Back directly.”

  The kid said something again.

  Whitney interpreted. “But there’s a good bay mare you can probably have.”

  More Spanish.

  Whitney grinned and nodded at the boy. “Says his boss will start at fifty bucks, but he’ll settle for fifteen, which is about what the horse is worth and five more than what his boss paid for her.”

  Maxwell looked at the waif. “Gracias,” he said, and the kid disappeared somewhere in the stables.

  “Five hundred dollars suit you?” Maxwell asked.

  Whitney removed the Havana and stared long at hard. “Didn’t think whiskey running was that profitable.”

  “It’s not, but you might also be able to collect that other fifty from your Texas Ranger. After we pull our job first.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Walnut Bayou, Chickasaw Nation

  They made camp in a small clearing along the meandering creek, thinking that the forest thick with hickory, elm, ash, and hackberry trees would provide them plenty of cover. Several yards from where James was getting a fire going and tending to Robin’s wounds, Millard butchered a six-point buck he’d risked a shot on earlier in the evening, knowing and regretting that much of the meat would have to be left behind for coyotes and other scavengers.

  So far, luck had favored them. The Indians had not followed them in the two days that had passed since he’d rescued the kids and unceremoniously left the dead whiskey runner lying among the wrecked barrels that once had held his poison.

  With enough venison steaks in his bloody hands, he walked back to the camp and deposited the steaks in an iron skillet.

  Robin Bodeen, if that indeed were her real name, had finally come back into consciousness. She wore Millard’s extra shirt he’d put on her. It fit her like a short dress. She stared at him, trying to figure out just who he was.

  “That’s my pa,” James said.

  Millard washed his hands, dried them off, and picked up the One of One Thousand Winchester. He kept it on his thighs as he kneeled beside her. “How do you feel?”

  “All right. I reckon.”

  He waited a few moments then decided there was no use bandying words and beating around the bush. “Your father’s dead.” He did, however, have enough compassion not to let the child know that her old man had taken his own life.

  “He weren’t my pa,” the kid said.

  James gasped. “What?”

  “’Bout two years back, my pa traded me to Wildcat.”

  James sang out in shock, “He traded you?”

  “For some whiskey.”

  It didn’t surprise Millard. Oh, it might have, a few weeks earlier, but he wasn’t working for the railroad any longer—wondered if he’d still have a job when he got back to McAdam, Texas—and had covered too many miles in too lawless a land to be shocked by anything anymore.

  “It wasn’t pizened.” Her face hardened. “Though sometimes I wished it was.”

  Millard leaned over, lifted the shirt to check the bandages, and said mainly to change the subject, “One of the bullets went through. Clean shot. I just drew a silk bandana through it to clean it. The other one”—he nodded at the one through the ribs—“I had to dig out.” He grinned at her. “You were tough. Tough as nails.”

  “Don’t remember it,” she said.

  “That’s good.” He peeled back the bandage and nodded in satisfaction. “I got the slug out. Didn’t go too deep, and don’t think it hit any vitals. It doesn’t look like infection has set in, but I want to get you to Spanish Fort first. Find a doctor there. Let him finish what I started.”

  He noticed James staring at him.

  “Where’d you learn to do surgery like that?” James asked again. He had asked earlier when Millard had forced the bullet out with a pocketknife blade he had held over a small fire the first night out of Wild Horse Creek.

  Millard had not answered, and might not have replied again had not the girl’s penetrating eyes locked on him.

  He stood, forcing a smile. “My brothers and I kinda ran into some trouble when we were growing up.” Surprisingly, that sentence made him feel pretty good, better than he had a right to feel, and memories came flooding through his mind. He could see Jimmy and Borden, younger, full of vim and vinegar, and see himself, much younger, although Borden had always said Millard was the old man of the bunch, even if he were the middle child. “I had some practice, doctoring.”

  He smiled at his son. It was good to see the boy . . . alive. They had not had a chance to do much talking, for James to explain why he had run away from home—although Millard had a fair idea of that reason—or how he had teamed up with an Indian-hating, man-killing whiskey runner and this girl who had been pretending to be a boy. That Millard could understand. Especially with rogues and ruffians—those who scoffed at the law and killed without cause—running loose.

  He remembered the three men he had killed earlier, and the smile faded. That was one side of him he had hoped his children would never have to see.

  “Bring me that Remington,” he said, and watched James tug the revolver from his waistband and hand the. 44 over, butt fo
rward. Millard set down the Winchester, took the revolver, and began plucking the casings from the cylinder. “Fry up those steaks while I do this.”

  James went to the skillet and Millard worked on the Remington.

  He had found the powder flask in the leather pouch, along with a smaller pouch of lead balls. Those would work, though he’d have to melt them down and use the bullet mold, also in the pouch, to make the bullets. It would take a while, and he wasn’t sure it would work, for he would have to trim the .54-caliber slugs with his knife to fit into the .44—actually, .45—caliber chambers for the revolver.

  Years, practically a lifetime, had passed since he had made his own reloads. He moved to the fire to begin the process, Millard melting down the lead bullets, and James across from him, frying venison steaks for supper.

  The steaks smelled better.

  He heard James’s sigh over the sizzling of the deer and grease in the skillet, followed by his son’s soft voice. “I’m sorry, Pa.”

  Millard lifted his gaze, but all he could do in response was just nod.

  “I didn’t mean for all this to happen.”

  After exhaling, Millard’s head shook. “You figured your mother and I’d just let you run off.”

  “It was just . . . I just . . . well . . . I had to.”

  “To do what?”

  James forked the steaks, turned them over. “Follow Uncle Jimmy.”

  Millard let out a mirthless chuckle. “Be a lawman? Pin on that tin star?”

  “Yes, sir. Something like that.”

  “Seventeen years old. I’m not rightly sure, but I think even in Fort Smith they’d want a man old enough to vote to enforce the laws and keep the peace.”

  “I figured—”

  Millard laughed with humor. “To lie about your age.” He waited.

  His son’s head bobbed. “Yes, sir.”

  “There are easier ways to get to Fort Smith than travel in a freight wagon with a whiskey runner.”