Guns of the Mountain Man Read online

  “Who’s that, boss?”

  “Men who rode with Bloody Bill Anderson and Quantrill’s Raiders and Merrill’s Marauders.”

  “I heard Bloody Bill an’ his men got pretty well shot up a year or so back. Word is that Bloody Bill was shot in the head by Marshal Wyatt Earp and some other galoots over in Dodge City.”

  Lazarus grinned again. “Yes, and do you know who was mixed up right in the middle of that little fracas?”

  “No.”

  “It was this same Jensen, Smoke Jensen, that practically wiped out Bloody Bill and his men. The ones that survived are thirsty for revenge.”

  “But I heared they was all put in jail in Dodge, and due to be hanged,” Blackie said, his chubby cheeks screwed up in an expression of puzzlement.

  Lazarus gave a slow grin. “They were, ’til one of their other gang members snuck into town one night while Wyatt was busy dealing faro over at the Oriental Saloon and broke ’em out.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah. They hightailed it up into a little town a couple of hundred miles from here, called Sweetwater, Colorado.”

  “How’d you know all this?”

  “I heard it from a man at that last tradin’ post where we took on supplies. He was run out of town by some of the outlaws, and was pretty mad about it. Said he was going to tell the first marshal he ran across where they were hidin’ out.”

  “So, them’re the ones you sent the wires to?”

  “Yes, and a few others scattered around the territory who might be interested in some gold that’s just lyin’ around for the takin’.”

  “When do you think they’ll be gettin’ here?”

  Lazarus peered over Blackie’s shoulder, and then drained the last of his whiskey in one long swallow.

  He pointed out the window. “Right about now, I suspect.”

  Blackie looked over his shoulder and saw a group of four men riding up. They were wearing dusters and hats that were covered with trail dust.

  Lazarus stood up and stretched. “Time to meet our new partners, boys.”

  Four men walked through the batwings, hands on pistol butts as they surveyed the room.

  One of the men, a youngster who looked no older than seventeen or so, walked with a pronounced limp. His face lit up with a smile when he saw Lazarus, and he hobbled over to shake his hand.

  “Howdy, Lazarus.”

  “Hello, Floyd. How’s the leg?”

  “Stiff, an’ it hurts like hell when the northers come through.”

  Lazarus shook his head in sympathy, then shook hands with the other men.

  “It’s sure good to see you boys,” he said. “It’s been a long time since we all rode with Quantrill.”

  He turned to his men, seated at several tables in the corner of the room. “Men, let me introduce you to some boys that know how to fight.”

  He pointed to the young one with the limp. “This here is Floyd Devers. He’s still carrying a bullet Smoke Jensen put in his right leg. The others are Walter Blackwell, Tad Younger—Cole’s cousin—and Johnny Sampson. These are the last of Bloody Bill’s gang.”

  Lazarus’s men crowded close and shook hands all around with the outlaws.

  “Mr. Blanchard, more whiskey for these men. They need something to wash the trail dust outta their throats,” Lazarus called to the bartender.

  7

  After Floyd and the others all had bottles and glasses full in front of them, Lazarus sat at their table.

  “Floyd, tell me about what happened that day Bloody Bill got killed.”

  Floyd took a long drink of his whiskey and wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve, then began to talk in a low tone, as if he didn’t particularly like to relive those hours....

  * * *

  Bill stood on a rock ledge just before dusk, watching their backtrail with his field glasses. He and Buster Young talked as Bill studied the horizon from the highest point they could find while the men waited in a draw, resting and drinking whiskey to pass time or dress a few minor flesh wounds that three of his gang had taken during the robbery. It had been a hard push to cover so much ground—hard on horses as well as men. And there was a problem of another sort—a man, or several men, who kept following them, who had killed Dewey and Sammy with a knife in a spot where they should have been able to see someone stalking them. Bill had watched closely for dust sign to the rear, and he’d seen nothing all day—not so much as a wisp of trail dust. What was happening didn’t make a hell of a lot of sense. He’d been running from lawmen and Union cavalry for so many years that he’d been sure he knew all the tricks of the game—until then. For reasons he couldn’t explain, he felt it was the work of just one man, and that was even more puzzling. Who would go alone after a gang the size of his? Only a madman, or one crazy son of a bitch.

  “Joe an’ Shorty ain’t comin’,” Buster said. “The guy who got Dewey an’ Sammy got them, too.”

  “Not Joe Lucas,” Bill answered. “He’s too damn careful to get bushwhacked. It’s just takin’ ’em more time than they figgered.”

  “This gent’s slippery,” Buster argued. “He could even be the feller who got Scar Face. Maybe he’s got some others with him . . . a posse. That’d explain why it’s takin’ Joe and Shorty so long to git back. They coulda run into a whole bunch of guns back yonder.”

  “We’d’ve seen some dust if it was a posse,” Bill said, passing his glasses along the crests of hills, then along the low places between them. “It’s that sumbitch who flung Homer off the roof who’s responsible. I’ve got this feelin’ about it, about how it’s him.”

  “It can’t be no good feelin’, if it’s just one man,” Buster told him, frowning. “It just don’t figger why some tough son of a bitch would be in Dodge this time of year. The gent who got Homer wasn’t no lawman. Big feller . . . real tall, from what I seen of him. I remember one more thing. He yelled real loud when he throwed Homer’s body, like he wanted us to know it was him an’ that he was up there. Damn near like he was darin’ somebody to shoot at him. Could be he’s crazy.”

  “Crazy like a fox,” Bill replied angrily, still reading the horizon through his lenses. “A genuine crazy man woulda showed hisself by now. I seen a few crazies durin’ the war, when they seen too much blood, too much dyin’. They’d come runnin’ at our lines like they was bulletproof, screamin’ their damn fool heads off ’til a bullet shot ’em down. Some of ’em would get right back up an’ come chargin’ at us again whilst they was dyin’. It was a helluva sight to see. This bastard who’s followin’ us ain’t that kind of crazy. Somehow, he’s able to sneak up on us without showin’ hisself . . . which is damn hard to do in this open country. But I still don’t figger he got Joe. Shorty, maybe, but not Joe Lucas.”

  “Ain’t no man bulletproof, not even Joe,” Buster said after a pause.

  Bill’s glasses found movement on a distant hill. A pair of horses came trotting into view. Bill let out a sigh. “Yonder they come, both of ’em,” he told Buster. “I can see both their horses—a sorrel an’ Joe’s big buckskin.”

  “Let’s hope they killed the sumbitch,” Buster remarked. “If they did, we can quit worryin’.”

  Bill watched the horses a little longer, because something about them seemed wrong, yet he couldn’t put a finger on just what it was. Dusky darkness made it hard to see detail. Long black shadows fell away from the hills in places, preventing him from seeing Joe and Shorty clearly.

  He waited while the horses came closer, holding a slow trot along a trail of horse droppings and hoofprints his gang had left in their wake. Bill was in too much of a hurry to make the alabaster caves west of old Fort Supply, where they could hide out, and there hadn’t been time to be careful about leaving a trail to follow until they crossed over the Kansas line at the Cimarron River. In the river, they could ride downstream in the shallows and lose any possemen or cavalry when the current washed out their horse tracks.

  “I can see ’em now,” Buster said, squinting.
“Two horses, only they sure as hell are comin’ real slow. Looks like they’d be in a hurry to bring good news. Maybe they couldn’t find the sneaky son of a bitch.”

  The pair of horses rounded a low hill, and Bill could now see them plainly enough. His jaw muscles went taut when his teeth were gritted in anger. “Damn!” he said, taking one last look before he lowered his field glasses, hands gripping them so tightly his knuckles were white.

  “What the hell’s wrong, Bill?” Buster asked, unable to see all of what Bill had seen, without magnification.

  “He got ’em,” Bill snapped.

  “What the hell’re you talkin’ about?” Buster wanted to know, glancing back to the horses that were approaching the ledge where they stood. “Yonder they come. That’s Joe’s yeller dun, an’ that’s Shorty’s sorrel, ain’t it?”

  Bill’s rage almost prevented him from answering Buster. A moment passed before he could control himself. “It’s the horses,” he growled. “Shorty an’ Joe are tied across their saddles. Means they’re dead.”

  “Dead? Why would the bastard take the time to tie Shorty an’ Joe to their saddles?”

  “He’s sendin’ us a warnin’,” was all Bill could say right then, fuming.

  Buster frowned at the horses a third time. “Son of a bitch,” he said softly, unconsciously touching the butt of his pistol when he said it. “They are dead. I can see their arms danglin’ loose.” He turned to Bill. “What kind of crazy son of a bitch would do that?”

  Bill tried to cool his anger long enough to think. “A man who don’t give up easy. He aims to dog our trail all the way to the Nations. Can’t figure why, only it’s real clear he ain’t in no mood to give up.”

  “I ain’t so sure it’s one man, Bill. One man couldn’t have handled Joe and Shorty so quick. I say there’s a bunch of ’em back yonder. Damn near has to be.”

  “I’ve got this feelin’ you’re wrong,” Bill said, swinging off the ledge, taking long, purposeful strides down to the spot where his men rested. “But there’s eleven of us left, an’ we’ll be more careful from here on,” he added.

  “We’ve lost some of our best shooters,” Buster reminded him when he saw the men waiting for them in the draw.

  Bill was in the wrong humor to discuss it. “Send a couple of men out to fetch Joe an’ Shorty back here. Their horses’re comin’ too slow, followin’ the scent of these others. I’ll have everybody get mounted. Maybe we can lose that bastard when we come to the river.”

  * * *

  Pete Woods and Stormy Sommers led the horses, with bodies lashed to saddles, over to Bill. Stormy’s face wasn’t the right color.

  “Joe’s got a hole blowed plumb through his neck,” Pete said while jerking a thumb in Joe Lucas’s direction. “Shorty caught one in the chest right near his heart.”

  Bill paid no attention to the swarm of blowflies that were clinging to both bodies, wondering how anyone could have taken Joe Lucas by surprise. “Cut ’em down an’ leave ’em here. We’ll use their horses for fresh mounts. See if there’s any money in their pants pockets. Don’t leave nothin’ valuable behind.”

  “Whew, but they sure do stink!” Pete said, climbing down to cut pieces of rope that were holding the corpses in place. Shorty’s body fell limply to the dirt. Joe slid out of his blood-soaked saddle to the ground with a sickening thump. “Goddamn flies been eatin’ on ’em, on the blood.”

  Bill didn’t care to hear about the smell. “Search their pockets like I told you,” he said. “Time we cleared outta here quick. Been here too long. We oughta hit the river close to midnight.”

  “Who you reckon done this?” Charlie Walker asked, fingering his rifle in a nervous way.

  “A crazy man,” Buster answered when Bill said nothing. “He has to be outta his goddamn mind.”

  Bill wheeled his horse, heading south onto a darkening prairie, leading ten men and four pack animals loaded with bags of money toward the Cimarron.

  In the back of his mind he wondered what kind of man was following them. Unlike Buster, Bill wasn’t quite so sure the stalker was crazy. Deadly might be a better word.

  And to make matters worse, the man on their trail seemed to be enjoying himself, in a way. Why else would he have sent the bodies back, unless he wanted fear to cause Bill and his gang to make another careless mistake?

  * * *

  The clatter of horseshoes on rock announced their arrival at the Cimarron River. Beyond the sluggish, late fall current, trees grew in abundance, which suited Bill Anderson just fine—more places to hide in the all-but-total darkness of a night without a moon.

  Buster rode up next to him while they halted on the riverbank to look things over.

  “Seems quiet enough,” Buster observed.

  Bill wasn’t satisfied. He gave the far bank a close look, listening.

  “Yore actin’ real edgy, Bill,” Buster said. “That bastard can’t get ahead of us, hard as we been pushin’ these horses. I say we get across quick.”

  Bill had been thinking about what had happened to Joe, Shorty, Dewey, and Sammy for the last few hours. “I’ve done give up on tryin’ to predict what he’ll do. But once we get in the river, we’re gonna ride down it maybe a mile or two. It’ll make it harder for him to find out where we came out. We’ll look for a stretch of rock north of them alabaster caves to ride out. Can’t no man track a horse on them hard rocks.”

  “This ain’t like you, Bill, to act worried ’bout one or two men, however many there is. We used to ride off like we was in a damn parade every time we pulled a job. Seems like we’re runnin’ with our tails tucked between our legs now, an’ all on account of one or two gents chasin’ us.”

  Bill scowled at the forests beyond the Cimarron. “Things have started to change, Buster. This land ain’t empty like it was before. An’ the sumbitch behind us—maybe it is two or three—has proved to be pretty damn good.”

  “That ol’ fort is abandoned. We could ride for it hard an’ be there by daylight. No matter who’s behind us, we can stand ’em off there real easy.”

  “It’s gettin’ across this river that’s got me playin’ things safe. Send a couple of men down to the water ahead of us. If nobody shoots at ’em, we’ll bring the money down.”

  Buster turned back in the saddle, picking out men newer to the gang. “Floyd, you an’ Chuck ride down to the river, an’ keep your rifles handy.”

  Two younger members of the gang spurred their trail-weary horses past the others to ride down a rocky embankment to the water’s edge. Both men approached cautiously, slowing their mounts to a walk.

  Bill waited until no shots were fired at his men. “Let’s go,” he said, sending his horse downslope.

  Floyd Devers turned to Chuck Mabry. Beads of sweat glistened on Floyd’s face. “Looks safe enough,” he said to his cousin from Fort Smith.

  As Chuck was about to speak, a rifle cracked from the opposite bank, accompanied by a blossom of white light from a muzzle flash.

  Mabry, the newest member of Bill Anderson’s gang at the tender age of nineteen, fell off his horse as if he’d been poleaxed. Floyd’s horse bolted away from the shallows when it was spooked by the explosion.

  Floyd was clinging to his saddle horn when a bullet struck him in the right hip. “Yee-oow!” he cried, letting his rifle slip from his fingers. Pain like nothing he’d ever known raced down his leg, causing him to let go of the saddle and to slide slowly off to one side.

  Floyd landed in the water with a splash, thrashing about, making a terrible racket, yelling his head off about the pain.

  From Bill Anderson’s men, half-a-dozen guns opened up on the muzzle flash. The banging of guns rattled on for several seconds more, until the shooting slowed, then stopped.

  Bill turned his horse quickly to ride back behind the bank of the river, out of the line of fire.

  “Goddamn!” Buster yelled, trying to calm his plunging, rearing horse. “How’d that bastard get across ahead of us?” he wondered at the
top of his voice.

  Bill was furious. He knew he should have sent an advance scouting party ahead to get the lay of things at the river, but with fatigue tugging at his eyelids he’d forgotten to do it until it was too late.

  He could hear Floyd thrashing about in the water, making all manner of noise. The kid, Chuck, fell down like he was dead the moment the bullet hit him.

  “This don’t make no sense,” Bill said when Buster got his horse stilled. “We’ve been ridin’ as hard as these damn horses could carry us an’ he still beat us to the river.”

  “Give me two men,” Buster said, “an’ I’ll ride upstream an’ cross over so we can get behind him. He won’t be expectin’ that from us.”

  Bill knew men as well as he knew anything on earth. “This son of a bitch, whoever he is, has got us outguessed with every move we make.”

  “We can’t just sit here all night, Bill.”

  “Wasn’t aimin’ to,” Bill replied. “We’ll swing to the east and ride as hard as we can. Let’s test his horse, see if he can stay up.”

  “He sure as hell ain’t had no trouble so far,” Buster said before he reined his mount around.

  “Make sure you stay close to the money,” Bill added in a quiet voice. “If one of our own decides to get rich while all this is goin’ on, shoot him.”

  “I’ll stand by you, Bill. Always have. But this gent we got shootin’ us a few at a time is smart. You’ll have to hand him that. We need to stay together. It’s when we split up that he cuts some of us down.”

  “Numbers don’t appear to make no difference to this son of a bitch,” Bill answered. “Just do like I say. Stay close to the packhorses. We’ll ride the riverbank for a ways an’ see what he does next.”

  “We need to make it over to them trees, Bill,” Buster told him. “Out here in the open, he’s got a clear shot at us damn near every time. We’ll be a helluva lot safer on the other side. We keep on this way, he’s gonna bushwhack us all.”

  “I’ve got eyes, Buster, an’ I don’t need no help countin’ the men he’s killed. Start ridin’.”