The Cassidy Posse (18 page)

He had only hurt one seriously, a new student whose rich parents had just moved from Capetown. The boy was unhappy leaving the city and regarded all the kids in the Tranvaal as country bumpkins. Their revenge upon him was simply to not to explain about Karl. Instead they told him that Karl was so big because he had flunked for several years and was dull-witted. The city boy was encouraged to treat him with ridicule. He walked into class early and saw Karl trying to fit himself in a desk designed for someone half his size. His remark was that in Capetown, they made big dummies sit in the corner. He waited for the laugh from the other boys but only saw evil smirks. The girls in class turned their heads away. Luckily, one ran for the teacher.

By the time teacher arrived, it was too late for the city boy to ever be quite right again. Karl had punched him so hard repeatedly that he had broken his jaw and caused permanent loss of vision to his right eye. The school officials refused to ever let Karl return even after his father beat him in kind. Karl had learned a valuable lesson that day in school though. Always pick your time and place to fight. Never act in anger.

Frustrated, he ran away from home at eleven, surviving by acting and passing as an older boy. He loaded grain, shoveled out stables and cleaned spittoons in bars. It wasn’t until the Zulu attack on a lonely mining outpost in Natal that he found his niche in the troubled world of South Africa. He killed three Zulu warriors that day, and the word of him spread among the Afrikaans. He was invited into the army and at fifteen, he was a scout guiding expeditions to the edge of the Kalahari.

Then the British joined the fighting against the Zulus, and Karl was offered something more than respect. The British were drawn there by rumors of gold and diamonds, and they wanted the Zulus out of the way. They were not hesitant to pay dearly for the top scout in the area. The Afrikaans took a dim view of his new acquaintances, but he did not care. He had heard his old man curse the British for years. How they stopped slavery and ruined the Dutch Afrikaans. Karl was doing his own thinking now, and he knew the British ruled the largest empire on earth. That made them somebody to go to school on. He learned the language and he studied their leaders. Divide and conquer. Turn one group against the other. They had a brutal but effective strategy.

When the Zulus were decisively defeated in ‘79, the British openly revealed their intentions in the Transvaal. As the situation escalated towards the Boer War, Karl became more and more a man-in-the-middle. He was a traitor to the Afrikaans and he was mistrusted by his new British friends. Having no ties to bind him anywhere, Karl decided it was a good time to move on. With his new knowledge of English, what better place to go than America - land of opportunity.

He entered at Boston and quickly found work in a tough bar in the Irish District as a bouncer and bartender. The owner, Johnny McGhee, liked him because he had no cronies and gave no one free drinks. A few years passed before McGhee discovered Karl’s ability to take care of things. He loaned him to a cousin in New York who was having a problem with a political rival and wanted him to go away. After this job, his reputation for dispatching of matters with cold military precision was established to the point he could go out on his own. A prominent New York attorney approached him about work in Chicago of a highly sensitive nature, and he was on a train for the Midwest. Traveling under the alias of Mr. Simms, he had brought with him Leroy Nibbs and a thin, acerbic man known only as Slats. He had found them to be reliable in New York, and some people who did not know Karl well would have thought them to be his friends. He had never had a friend; friendship was a liability.

All had gone as planned until this day in the state of Wyoming. At this point in the operation, he was to eliminate a snoopy but well-known Chicago detective. Through a providential set of circumstances, a plausible reason was presented to send Lieutenant McGhan to the desolate West. There he would be in the middle of another larger operation being carried out by friends of his employers. This would provide the setting he needed for an unfortunate case of mistaken identity. In the midst of an armed rebellion, innocents are frequently the victims amid all the confusion.

Karl had learned from the chief scout when he was young to always think like your adversary. Then you will find their weakness. He saw detective Mike McGhan as a duty-bound man who would be compelled to carry out his assignment even if he had second thoughts about it. He was also impatient. Karl would make this his undoing. No provisions were made for McGhan to receive any help when he arrived in Rock Springs. Blame it on confusion. Most men, knowing they were out-manned and out-gunned, would sit tight until they were re-enforced. He had guessed Lieutenant McGhan would not wait. He was right.

Slats was also an impatient man. He wanted to finish McGhan in Chicago. He saw no need to travel over a thousand miles to kill a man. He did not have the acumen it takes to be a first rate fixer. A prostitute could be found strangled in a back alley and there would be few questions asked. But if the most popular cop in the Irish “Patch” were to die in a violent and mysterious manner, there would be a public outcry. This matter had to be handled with finesse, something Slats would never understand or possess. McGhan was always with people in Chicago. His partner Bockleman was like his shadow. The hero of the Haymarket riot had to be isolated. He had to be taken out of the city.

On the barren plains of Wyoming, Lieutenant McGhan would be alone and out of his element. Karl liked the sparse terrain. It made him feel like he was back in the Transvaal tracking the cunning Zulu. They were resourceful like McGhan. Somehow, without any funds, he had managed to pick up two locals to ride with him. He couldn’t be paying them much, so in a shootout they would evaporate and disappear like the streams of the great basin. He figured Leroy and Slats were enough to get the job done. Then McGhan lost his nephew, the reporter, but picked up two more riders. Now Karl felt uncomfortably out-gunned.

Karl knew he would have to overcome their numbers with the element of surprise. He set an ambush up carefully along the only trail the posse would logically take. He and his associates, as he called them, would have the trees for cover. They could wait to open fire until the posse was well within range. He would get McGhan on the first volley. The others would probably go quickly back from where they came. If not, they would be caught between the river and the steep side of the valley. They would be easy targets.

Then the unexpected. Just as the posse was in his sights, they abruptly turned and crossed the river. Karl had pounded his rifle stock into the ground in frustration. Where were they going? Why were they going? Had they seen something that tipped them off to the ambush? The glint of a gun barrel in the sun. Not likely. The fog had just lifted. There was the deer they scared. That wouldn’t be enough for them to change course. Few men he knew had that much intuition. Who were these men riding with McGhan? He was enraged. They were heading out of the valley through a rocky draw that he would have to haul his wagon through to follow. He cursed his size, that he could no longer find a horse to carry him. He cursed Leroy and Slats just for being there to see his plan fail.

His anger did not begin to subside until he reached a broad, barren meadow in the foothills. His practiced eye could clearly see the hoofprints of five riders and a packhorse between the scrub grass and occasional spear-like Spanish dagger. Lester and Slats were befuddled as to how he had ever picked up the trail. To him, it was like old times on the Transvaal. He was stalking his prey.

The meadow narrowed to a pass about fifty yards wide with boulders on one side and a stand of scrubby pine on the other. If they just kept moving, just kept close, they could catch the posse somewhere in the mountains after dark. There would be plenty of cover. He could get in close for a kill shot. Mike McGhan silhouetted against the fire.

“I’ll be damned,” exclaimed Slats.

Again the unexpected. Karl looked up from the trail he was so intently trying to follow to see Police Lieutenant McGhan come from behind the boulders ahead of them. He was riding out to meet them, scarcely a hundred yards away. Karl instinctively reached down to picked up his rifle but stopped short. Where were the others?

“Dat’s our man,” said Leroy in amazement. “He’s ridin in like a lamb to the slaughter.”

“It’s too easy,” said Karl, still looking for the others.

“It’s cold as hell out here,” said Slats emphatically. “Let’s finish it now.” He pulled his stolen Winchester from its saddle scabbard and brought it to his shoulder.

“No!” screamed Karl but it was too late. A rifle cracked from the top of the boulder and Slats dropped limply out of the saddle. Then what sounded like a cannon shot came from the trees to the right. The big Sharps resounded through the meadow like a clap of thunder. Leroy’s horse was rudely knocked out from under him and he was deposited on top the still flailing beast. Its chest was torn open and blood sprayed everywhere.

Karl pulled hard left on the reins and whipped the horses to leave. McGhan was closing in on them, his pistol pointed skyward as he waited to get in range.
I could get off one rifle shot
, Karl thought.
I could end it here
. That urge vanished when a bullet fired from the boulder buried itself in the front of his buckboard and another from the trees kicked up dust next to him.

Leroy, meanwhile, had recovered from his shock. He was firing wildly in the direction of McGhan as he ran to catch Karl. Mike pulled his horse to a stop and steadied his aim. He fired one shot that caught Leroy in the leg as he was just getting on the back of the buckboard. He screamed in pain but managed to hold onto the back of the seat. Then Butch’s Winchester spoke again and the right support of the seat shattered causing it to collapse under Karl’s weight. Leroy desperately clung to the seat as it held only by the bolts on the left side. He was hanging off the back of the buckboard, his injured leg dragging on the ground.

When he had traveled about a mile, Karl slowed the horses and looked behind him. They did not appear to be giving pursuit. Worried about getting across the mountains before the storm hit, he thought. Large, fluffy flakes were already settling in around him. He realized that he too must move quickly. Leroy tried to take a step without holding on to the buckboard and collapsed on the ground. The leg was bleeding profusely. The bullet must have nicked an artery. Karl whipped the team and left Leroy screaming behind him.

“You’re of no use to me now,” he explained. “You’re going to bleed to death before I can get you anywhere.”

Then he appeared to have had a change of heart and turned the buckboard around. Leroy looked grateful until Karl shot him in the chest. Karl tied the body to the back with Leroy’s own shoelaces.
You don’t want to leave too many bodies lying around
, he thought. He had always schooled his associates not to carry any information on their persons, but there was no need to take chances.

“What do you make of this feller, Lieutenant McGhan?” asked Butch. Mike had dismounted and was going through the pockets of the dead man that had been known only as Slats.

“Can’t find uh scrap ov paper on him,” said Mike.

“Well, they always say dead men tell no tales,” said Elzy. “Let’s go get those other two. Look at that big fella. I can’t believe you boys missed him. He could give shade to an elephant.”

“He’s sure hightailin’ it,” exclaimed Luke. “He ain’t even stoppin’ ta let that other dude git in the wagon.”

“We ain’t got time for this if we’re gonna get through these mountains,” warned Jack.

“I don’t give a damn,” said Elzy. “Any sonavabitch takes a shot at me has got some explaining to do.”

“He’s right,” said Butch, holding out his hand to catch some of the large, white wet flakes that were beginning to fall around them. “We start backtracking, we might never get out of these mountains.”

“We got tuh go on. They probably had us mixed up with some rustlers and were lookin’ tuh collect uh reward.” Mike said this without a great deal of conviction. He put his Smith and Wesson .38 back in his holster and mounted his horse.

“Anybody gonna be seriously offended if we don’t bury this varmit?” asked Butch. They gave each other cursory glances but said nothing. “Okay, let’s ride.”

The weather teased them with intermittent snow showers that conjured up images within the group of being stranded in the mountains. Legendary disasters like the Donner party loomed in their minds. By midday, Jack and Luke had led them to their secret pass; a river that had taken millions of years to cut its way through the mountains was now just a trickle. Butch and Elza looked up the soaring sides of the narrow canyon that disappeared in the swirling snow above them.

“Not much water running through this creek for a canyon like this,” said Elzy.

“Nope,” answered Butch.

“This would be a hell of a spot to be in if there was a sudden spring thaw though,” Elzy concluded.