Dakota Ambush Read online

  Matt had no idea what time it was, nor how long he had been asleep, when something awakened him. He lay in the dark for just a second, fighting the momentary confusion of being unexpectedly awakened, when he heard, though it was barely audible, the sound of a key being inserted in the lock of his door. In one motion, he grabbed the gun from the holster that hung on the headboard, and rolled off onto the floor on the opposite side of the bed from the door.

  At almost the same time as he reached the floor, the door to his room was opened and three guns began shooting at the bed. Because of his alertness, none of the bullets struck Matt, though he could feel and hear them hitting the bed.

  Matt wriggled on his stomach to the foot of the bed; then, using the flame pattern of the muzzle flashes as his target, he shot back. He heard two of the men fall, followed by the sound of footsteps running down the hall. Matt got up and moved quickly to the door, hoping to get a glimpse of his attacker, but the hall lamps had all been extinguished, and he saw nothing.

  Leaving Sanchez and Gutierrez lying dead or dying on the floor behind him, Meacham ran down the stairs and, seeing a startled desk clerk coming toward the foot of the stairs, shot him down.

  Meacham left the hotel through a back door that opened onto the alley.

  “What was the shooting?” he heard a voice call from the darkness.

  “I think it was firecrackers. Kids have been setting them off all day,” another voice replied.

  “Damn fool kids,” the first voice said.

  A baby cried.

  One dog began barking, and others took up the chorus as Meacham hurried quickly down the alley.

  Chapter Seven

  Fullerton, Dakota Territory

  As the two cowboys rode into town, they were laughing and talking to each other. Three months earlier, they had left Texas riding in a generally northwestern direction with no particular destination in mind. But while they had no specific destination, they did have a purpose, for they sought not only to find work, but to experience new adventures.

  “What do you think about this town, Billy?” one of them asked. “Think we might find work around here?”

  “Maybe,” Billy answered. “Hey, Jeff, what day is this?” Billy asked.

  “I don’t know. Thursday? Saturday?”

  “You think it’s close to June 30th?”

  “I don’t know,” Jeff said. “Why are you askin’ anyway?”

  Billy pointed to a sign that had been posted on a kiosk that stood in the middle of the street just at the south entrance into town. “That’s where I’m goin’ to be on June 30th. I’ll just bet you there will be some pretty girls there.”

  The sign, neatly hand painted, read:

  FIREMEN’S BALL

  June 30th

  Morning Star Hotel

  Come One, Come All.

  “Yeah, well, we won’t be there if we can’t find us someplace to work at. That’s a month away. And if we can’t get took on at a ranch or somethin’, we won’t have enough money to support ourselves for a month. Besides which, if there are any pretty girls there, you can bet they won’t be alone,” Jeff said. “Every cowboy within ten miles will be sniffing around them like bees on clover.”

  “But you forget you are talking about Dakota men,” Billy said. “You know damn well that once a pretty girl gets a look at a Texas man, none of these Dakota fellas will have a chance.”

  Jeff laughed out loud. “You are full of it, Billy, anyone ever tell you that?”

  “Yeah, well, like they say, they’s some that’s got it, and some that ain’t. But don’t worry, Jeff, you’re with me, and I’ve got enough of it for both of us.”

  Jeff laughed again. “I’ll give you that,” he said.

  “How ’bout we stop over there for a while?” Billy suggested, pointing to a building that was identified by a large sign up on the high false front as the New York Saloon.

  “Sounds good to me,” Jeff agreed.

  Stopping in front of the saloon, the two young men dismounted, then began patting themselves down.

  “Whoa, Billy, you’re calling up a dust storm there,” Jeff said.

  “Well, you ain’t no pretty clear day your ownself,” Billy replied.

  “You think we got dust on the outside, what do you think we got in our throats? I’ll bet you that me and you done swallowed enough dirt to plant ourselves a hunnert acres of cotton,” Jeff said.

  Billy laughed. “We ain’t in Texas no more. “What makes you think anyone up here has ever even seen cotton growin’?”

  “I don’t care if I don’t never see any more of it my ownself,” Jeff said. “I picked and chopped enough when I wan’t nothin’ but a young pup. Come on, let’s go inside and get us a beer.”

  “Yeah, I can taste it now.”

  There was an ugly little man sitting on a bench just outside the door to the saloon, and he stood up and walked over to stand at the top of the three steps that led up to the porch.

  “The name is Butrum,” he said. “Ollie Butrum.”

  “Glad to meet you, Mr. Butrum. And not wantin’ to be rude or nothin’, but, how ’bout you step out of the way there?”

  “Where do you fellas think you’re a’ goin’?” the ugly little man asked.

  “Where’s it look like we’re goin’?” Billy replied, his voice showing his irritation. “Me’n my friend here is a’ goin’ in there to get us a drink, if it’s any of your business. Which it ain’t,” he added.

  “Oh, but it is my business,” the ugly little man said. “You see, there don’t nobody go into any buildin’ in this town without I let them.”

  “Well, now, that’s a hell of a thing,” Billy said. “How come that is?”

  “I don’t let nobody in without I see their coupon. Let me see your coupon.”

  “Coupon? Now, just what coupon would that be?” Jeff asked.

  “You did come through a toll gate, didn’t you? The road leadin’ into town has a toll gate down across the way, and you can’t get through unless you pay the toll. Once you pay the toll, you get a coupon that says you can pass. My job is to check to make certain that ever’one who comes into town has that coupon.”

  “Ha! Well, there you go then,” Jeff said. “We don’t have no coupons, ’cause we didn’t come in by no road.”

  “Then that’s even worse,” Butrum said. “That means you come across Denbigh land. So I’m goin’ to have to charge you for that, same as if you had paid the toll like you was s’posed to. That’ll be a dollar apiece.”

  “What?” Billy replied with an angry shout. Are you tellin’ us you expect us to give you dollar apiece just to go into the saloon and have us a drink?”

  “I not only expect you to give me a dollar apiece, I intend to collect it. Now, hand it over.”

  The man who had identified himself as Ollie Butrum stood barely over five feet tall, and though he was scowling at the two cowboys, the scowl looked like nothing more than the petulant expression of an angry schoolboy.

  The idea that a man so small had just told them that he intended to collect a dollar from each of them struck Billy as funny, and he laughed out loud.

  The expression on Butrum’s face grew angrier.

  “You find that funny, do you?”

  “Mister, ain’t you got somethin’ better to do, like sweepin’ out a saloon or muckin’ out a stall? I mean, what do little fellas like you do to make a livin’ anyway?” Billy asked.

  Now the expression on Butrum’s face changed from a scowl to a caustic smile. “Funny you should bring that up, cowboy. I kill people for a living,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Maybe you didn’t catch my name. It’s Butrum, Ollie Butrum.”

  “Is that supposed to mean something to me?” Billy asked.

  “I take it that you aren’t from around here.”

  “We’re from Texas,” Billy said. “And in Texas, scrawny little shits like you know their place. Now get out of the way before I knock you rig
ht on your ass.”

  Butrum stepped back from the steps, and his smile broadened, but still, there was no mirth in his expression.

  “You want to fight me, do you, cowboy?”

  Billy looked over at Jeff. “Which one of us is goin’ to teach this little feller a lesson?”

  “Billy, wait, I don’t like the way this is goin’,” Jeff replied.

  “Better listen to your friend, Billy,” Butrum said.

  “Who told you you could call me by my first name?” Billy asked. “I sure as hell didn’t.”

  “If we’re goin’ to fight, let’s get to it,” Butrum said.

  “There’s two of us, only one of you,” Billy said. “So I’ll give you your choice. Which one of us do you want to fight? And I sure hope you choose me.”

  “Oh, I want to fight both of you, cowboy,” Butrum replied.

  Billy whooped out loud. “Both of us? You want to fight both of us? Mister, your scrawny little ass couldn’t handle one of us. Why would you want to fight both of us?”

  “Oh, I’m not talking about that kind of fight,” Butrum said. He stepped back a bit, then let his arm hang so that his hand was near his pistol. “The kind of fight I’m talking about is permanent.”

  “Gunfight?” Billy said, surprised by the announcement. “Wait a minute. Are you telling me you are wanting to have a gunfight over a dollar?”

  “Two dollars,” Butrum said. “One from each of you. Now, you give me the dollars, like I said, and I’ll let you live. Otherwise, I’ll kill both of you and take the dollars from your dead bodies.”

  “Mister, you are crazy,” Billy said.

  “Billy, I told you, I don’t like the looks of this. Let’s give him the dollars,” Jeff said.

  “Don’t go gettin’ all scared on me now, Jeff. This little feller is as full of it as anyone I’ve ever seen.”

  “I don’t like this. I got me a bad feelin’. Let’s just give him the dollar and be done with it.”

  “Two dollars,” Butrum said. “Each.”

  “What do you mean two dollars each?” Jeff said. “You said one dollar each.”

  “It cost you a dollar apiece to come into town, and it’s goin’ to cost you a dollar apiece to leave town, and you will be leaving town, so I might as well collect that now too. That’ll be two dollars apiece.”

  “Mister, you done got into my craw somethin’ fierce,” Billy said. “We ain’t givin’ you one cent.”

  “Billy, I don’t know,” Jeff said.

  “I ain’t takin’ nothin’ more offen this little turd,” Billy said. “Now if you ain’t with me on this, get the hell out of the way and I’ll kill him my ownself. Which is it?”

  “I’m with you,” Jeff said reluctantly.

  “Draw!” Billy shouted as his hand dipped toward his pistol.

  Billy had often practiced the quick draw, and he considered himself pretty good, but aside from taking a few shots at some cattle rustlers one night, he had never actually shot at a man before. Now he was less than ten feet away from someone who, though Billy didn’t know this, had killed several men.

  Even before he had the pistol out of his holster, Butrum fired, and Billy felt a heavy blow in the middle of his chest, then nothing. He fell back, the unfired pistol still in his hand.

  Because Butrum had gone after Billy first, Jeff did manage to get off one shot, but his bullet hit the door frame in front of the saloon. Butrum’s second shot hit Jeff between the eyes and he joined his friend in the dirt.

  One block away from the confrontation, a farmer named Fowler pulled his team to a halt and sat in his wagon as he watched the drama play out before him. He had come into town for supplies, and his wife and young son were in the wagon with him.

  “Wow! Pa, did you see that?” the boy asked.

  “Yeah,” Fowler answered. “I saw it.”

  “I ain’t never seen nothin’ like that before,” the boy said excitedly.

  “And I pray you never have to see it again,” the boy’s mother said. “E.B., let’s get out of here. Let’s go back home.”

  “No sense in doin’ that, Sue,” E.B. said. “We need the supplies, and we’ve already paid to come through the toll gate. We’d be foolish to go back home now.”

  The Fowlers sat in their wagon for a moment longer as a crowd began to gather around the bodies of the two men Butrum had killed.

  “Let’s go to the store, get our goods, and then go home while everyone is distracted,” E.B. said.

  “He sure was fast,” the boy said. “I bet there ain’t nobody in the world faster’n him.”

  “I’ll not hear another word about it,” Sue said.

  “But Ma …”

  “You heard me. Not another word.”

  “John, what was the shooting about? Did you find out?” Millie asked when the editor came back into the newspaper office.

  “Yes,” John said. “Two young men were killed. Apparently they did not pay the toll when they came into town and Butrum was collecting it for Denbigh.”

  “Who were they?”

  “Nobody knows who they were. From what I understand they were both strangers, never been here before. I imagine they were just cowboys come up from the States to look for work.”

  “Oh, how awful. They came into a town that is strange for them, and they are shot down in the street. You know they both have a mother somewhere who is worrying about them.”

  As E.B. Fowler started back home with the supplies in the back of the buckboard, he and his family were startled when they passed by the kiosk that stood in the middle of Monroe Avenue on the south end of town. There, they saw the two cowboys who had been killed earlier. They were standing upright by virtue of each of them having been tied to a six-foot-long one-by-six-inch plank that had been stuck into the ground. Each of the men had their arms folded across their chest, held that way by the same rope that tied them to the plank. One of the dead men had both eyes closed. The other had one eye closed and one open, the open eye bulging almost out of its socket. There were red splashes of blood on the first man’s shirt, showing the entry wound of the bullet. The other had a hole, the blood almost black now, between his eyes.

  Covering the sign that had been posted to invite all to the barn dance on Saturday night was another sign. This one, much more crudely lettered, read:

  DO YOU KNOW THESE MEN?

  “Pa! Look!” young Green called. “That’s the two men that was killed, ain’t it?”

  “Oh, those poor men. Nobody even knows who they are,” Sue said. “No, Green, don’t look.” Sue wrapped her arm around her son’s head and pulled her to him.

  “Ma, that ain’t fair! Let me look!” Green protested.

  “E.B., hurry on by.”

  E.B. slapped the reins against the back of his team, causing them to move more quickly, but he stared long and hard at the bodies of the two men as he drove by.

  “They said in the mercantile store that Butrum shot those two men because they didn’t have the coupon that showed they paid their toll,” Sue said. “How can that be? Denbigh can’t kill people just because they haven’t paid the toll.”

  “That may have been what caused it,” E.B. said, “but Marshal Tipton has already said there won’t be any charges against Butrum.”

  “What? Why not? Butrum killed those poor men. We saw it ourselves,” Sue protested.

  “There were too many witnesses who saw the two cowboys draw against Butrum. Heck, we saw that, if you recall.”

  “It isn’t right,” Sue said.

  “Them getting killed isn’t right, the newspaper office getting messed up isn’t right, and collecting tolls on a public road isn’t right. Sometimes things happen that aren’t right.”

  “Do you have the toll money ready?” Sue asked.

  “Yes. Two dollars, one for you and one for me. I guess we’re lucky that they don’t charge for Green as long as he is in the buckboard with us.”

  “Two dollars to come to town and two dollars to
leave town. That’s almost as much money as we spent while we were in town,” Sue said. “It isn’t right. It just isn’t right.”

  Chapter Eight

  Pueblo, Colorado

  Leaving the hotel after the shooting, Lucas Meacham went to the livery stable where he spent the night sleeping in the same stall as his horse. He heard one of the stable hands coming in the next morning and, though he was awake, he pretended to be asleep until the man walked by the stall.

  “Good morning,” the stable hand said. “Slept with your horse, did you?”

  “Yes,” Meacham said, sitting up and stretching. “Mr. Forbis, the livery owner, said it would be all right.”

  “Sure, he lets folks sleep with the horses all the time, saves them from having to pay for a hotel room. Hey, if you spent the night here, I bet you don’t even know about all the excitement.”

  “You mean the parade and celebration over this fella, Matt Jensen? I thought that was all over yesterday.”

  “Nah, I ain’t talkin’ about that at all. I’m talkin’ about the shootin’ that took place in the hotel last night.”

  “A shooting?”

  “Yes, sir. Seems that there was three men who tried to kill Matt Jensen while he was asleep in his hotel room last night. Only thing is, two of ’em got themselves killed instead.”

  “How do you know there were three men?” Meacham asked. “Maybe they were the only two.”

  The stable hand shook his head. “No, they was three of ’em. Dupree seen the third one as he was leavin’. He seen him shoot down Bubba James too. Onliest thing is, Dupree just seen him from the back, so he don’t have no idee who it was.”

  “What about Matt Jensen? Was he hurt?”

  The stable hand laughed. “Nah, he didn’t get nary a scratch. I believe they’re goin’ to have a hearing about the shootin’ this morning. It’s goin’ to be open to the pubic if you’d care to attend.”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Meacham said. “Shooting and all that? I don’t like violence. I like to live as calm a life as I can.”