The Cassidy Posse (22 page)

“Well, there it is,” announced Little Jake as they crested a rise and looked along the length of a sheer red rock cliff that stretched for miles in either direction. “That’s it. That’s what they call the Hole-in-the-Wall. If the big fella was right, that’s where we’ll find our man.”

“If he’s wrong, we still get paid,” Slim added as both a question and a statement.

Billy Fayre, alias Kid Del Rio, raised his hand to halt his small band of gunslingers. He had taken little Jake and three others. He figured that was enough to do the job and keep costs down. Little Jake was known for having an abrasive manner, but he was the best tracker and he knew the country. His tall, easygoing partner Slim was reputed to be a deadly shot with a rifle at any distance. All they needed was one clear shot at this Chicago detective that some big shots wanted eliminated and the rest of the money was his. He had the down payment tucked away in his saddlebags. He wanted to give it a loving pat, but he didn’t want to draw any attention.

“Enough talking,” said Billy Fayre authoritatively. “Get us through this Hole-in the-Wall to the other side.” He leaned forward in his saddle to look over the situation.

“Kid, we are on the other side,” said Jake, aggravated. “I told you when we left the KC Ranch this morning we was going to follow the river and come in around on the backside. Why do you think we have been ridin’ from sunup to sundown?”

“Why’d we do that?” said Kid Del Rio angrily. “We shoulda just went the shortest route. Hell, we coulda killed this detective by noon and been back at the KC by now.”

“We might be back at the KC now, but we’d be slung belly-down over our own saddles. Ain’t nobody goes through the Hole-in-the-Wall from the east that ain’t welcome. Why do you think the Major and those Cheyenne sissies passed it by?”

“Hell, I could do it,” insisted the Kid, becoming defensive. “I’m tired of gutless bastards always tellin’ me what can’t be done.”

“See there at the end of that V-shaped canyon,” said Little Jake becoming agitated. “There are always two men with Winchesters watching the backside of that wall for anybody foolish enough to try to get up to that notch. Now even if you make it up that slope somehow and got the two guards, all the shooting would bring everybody into the canyon to see what the ruckus was. They would be positioned behind all those boulders while you’re making your way down that cutback trail that would give a mountain goat the jitters. We’d be going back and forth like those ducks in one of them carnival shooting galleries.” Little Jake emphases his point by waving his arm back and forth in an exaggerated fashion.

One of the men snickered and Billy gave him a malevolent look. He would deal with Little Jake later for his effrontery. This was the first time Billy had ever been entrusted to lead men. It was tougher than he thought. You had to be alert all the time and paying attention if you wanted them to respect you. They respected him because they feared him. That had always been enough before. This respect was different. You had to earn it by being focused all the time like Little Jake. The short, energetic cowboy was already off his horse and had his binoculars on a cabin that sat in an open meadow behind the great red wall.

“Lot ah horses down there,” he said without removing the field glasses from his eyes. “Looks like more than a dozen in the corral, and there’s five hitched outside the main cabin. There’s a couple more horses around the smaller cabins.”

“How many men you figure there is down there?” drawled Slim.

“There’s, ah, about twenty men,” said Billy, trying to sound authoritative after adding up the horses.

Little Jake looked at Billy and shook his head. “Half of them might be pack animals. I would say maybe twelve to fifteen men at the most. What did that big fella say the boys we’re lookin’ for were ridin’?”

“He didn’t say,” said Billy.

“I heard that the big feller’s from Africa,” said Bob, a slow-witted but dependable cowboy from Fort Worth. “Now ain’t that where slaves are from? How come he’s a white man?”

“Cause he’s from South Africa,” said Billy with finality, as though it were an answer.

“Oh,” said Bob, still puzzled, but he explored the matter no further.

“Well, gettin’ back to the business at hand,” interrupted Little Jake. “It would ah been nice if we had a little more to go on. All’s we know is we’re lookin’ for five men and the one we want is wherein’ one of those Bowler hats.”

“Simms said it was a Derby hat,” corrected Billy.

“It’s the same damn thing,” said Little Jake. “What else did the big fella tell you?”

“He’s about medium height and kinda stocky.”

“Stubby here is medium height and kinda stocky,” said little Jake sarcastically. “Maybe we should start by shootin’ him.”

“Stubby’s got a bum leg,” countered Billy.

“So we know we’re looking for a guy about medium height and stocky build that don’t have a bad leg,” said Jake. There were more snickers of laughter. Billy felt himself becoming embarrassed and flustered. He knew that Mr. Simms had told him more, but he couldn’t remember. All he wanted to do was kill little Jake, but the cocky little bastard was the only one that could get him through this.

“Well, that’s enough for me to find the sonavabitch,” said Billy. “I don’t need no photograph picture to kill a man.” He wheeled his horse out in front of the group and pulled his gun to re-establish his command. “Let’s go in and gettum while we got surprise on our side.”

No one moved. Slim and the others were waiting to see to what Little Jake was going to do. He became more diplomatic in the face of Billy’s unholstered revolver.

“There ain’t no surprise left, Kid” Little Jake said in a calming voice. “Those two riders that’s been shadowing us for the last mile have been high tailin’ it towards the cabin while we’re up here jawin’. I thought maybe if we swung a wide loop north of the wall and come in from the west, nobody would spot us. No such luck. They got lookouts posted everywhere.”

“Riders,” exclaimed Billy, turning his horse back towards the cabin below. “Damn, why didn’t somebody shoot them?”

“They been real careful about stayin’ out of range,” said the laconic Slim, matter-of-factly. “I coulda tried a shot, but the outlaw caves are just north of here. The noise would attract a lot of curious folks. By the time we got a shot at your detective, we’d uh had company closing off our escape route back to Powder River.”

“Shit,” Kid Del Rio swore angrily as he watched the two riders gallup up to the outlaw cabin below and dismount on the run. They appeared to smack into each other trying to get through the cabin door simultaneously.

“Oh, well,” sighed Slim, turning his pony around. “We would have had tah of had a lot of surprise goin’ for us. There’s at least two of them to every one of us.”

“I knew we didn’t have enough men to get the job done,” said Little Jake. “You never know how many no-goods are gonna be at these outlaw hangouts.”

“Especially when we’re in the neighborhood,” said Stubby, letting his pony fall in behind Slim.

“Where the hell da you guys think your goin’,” screamed Billy. “I didn’t tell nobody tah take off.”

“We’re going back to the KC ranch,” said Little Jake. “What did you have in mind? We can all ride down there and commit suicide. You set this thing up shy a few men. I heard the Major said you could have all the men you want, but you were too cheap to spread the money around.”

“Well, you can ride down there and die or you can die right here,” screamed Billy, totally incensed.

Little Jake looked at Kid Del Rio, trembling in rage, his gun pointed in his direction and seemed to reconsider.

“Let’s not do anything crazy,” said Little Jake. He smiled and gave a nod to Slim who pulled up on the other side of Billy.

The Kid caught the movement out of the corner of his eye and sensed a conspiracy. He whirled and fired at Slim, winging him in the side just below his ribcage. Before he could turn to face the others, Little Jake had jerked his Winchester out of it scabbard and turned it into a club. His gunstock caught Billy on the side of the head and knocked him out of the saddle.

“Damn,” shouted Slim in pain. “Give me a gun tah finish the crazy sonavabitch.”

“Don’t bother,” said little Jake, pulling up next to Slim to help his wounded comrade. “When those guys in the cabin get him, they’ll take care of him.”

“Okay,” he said, examining his wound. “Guess I got lucky. Bullet passed right through. Let’s get back to the KC before I bleed to death.”

“The Rattlesnake Kid,” said Elzy in disbelief. “Is that the best you could come up with, Butch?”

“Well, I didn’t see you helpin’ me out, smartass.”

“Ease up on each other,” said Mike. “Twas my fault fer not keepin’ me big mouth shut.”

They were hiding along the banks of Buffalo Creek a short distance north of the outlaw cabin. Flatnose thought they would be able to catch the regulators in a cross fire if they tried to approach from that direction. Butch had quickly volunteered his small band for the assignment so he didn’t have to answer any more questions about his new comrades. They had moved into place shortly before dawn and were now watching the rising sun playing out a brilliant display of color along the red wall. It failed to reveal any regulators.

“You don’t think Harry bought the Mike Cassidy story, do you?” asked Elzy.

“Probably not,” shrugged Butch. “And Harry’s the Sundance Kid now, remember. I think he likes that.”

“The Sundance Kid,” complained Elzy. “Ya know where this ‘Kid’ bullshit all started? It was some damn reporter calling that crazy little bastard down in New Mexico ‘Billy the Kid’. Ya know Harvey Logan tails around after Flatnose Curry so much they’re calling him ‘Kid Curry’.”

“I’ll bet they’re not callin’ him that to his face,” said Butch. “Harvey’s a mean sonavabitch. He’ll kill ya and not think twice about it.”

The newly anointed Rattlesnake Kid, apparently bored, was taking the bullets out of his six-guns and inspecting each one.

“Mr. Cassidy,” whispered Luke from behind a cottonwood tree. “Could yuh…would yuh mind comin’ up with an alias for me?”

Butch looked at him but did not answer, deciding to ignore the request. He saw a rider moseying their way from the cabin.

“Hey Butch, Hey Elzy,” the Sundance Kid greeted them cordially. “Just came to tell you everybody’s pullin’ out.”

“Pullin’ out,” exclaimed Butch. He jumped to his feet and climbed up on the creek bank. “What happened to all that talk last night about fightin’ them ta the last man?”

“They’re sober this morning,” Sundance explained with a wry smile. “Red Alvins’ crew took off in the middle of the night. They snuck out real quiet like and headed north. Still got it in his head ta go to Buffalo. Maybe he ain’t as anxious for you to go with him as he was last night.”

“Where’s Flatnose and News and the Logan brothers?” asked Elzy, climbing up the bank to stand in the open with them.

“They decided to go down the valley and through the Hole-in-the-Wall. Figured nobody would try to follow them there.”

“Well, that’s true,” said Butch. “Why didn’t you go with them?”

“Are you kiddin’? This suit’s brand-new. I’m not gonna ruin it scrambling over those rocks.”

“Yuh know, you fellas make uh mighty fine target standin’ out there,” Mike cautioned, his head peeking above the creek bank.

“I don’t think none of them are coming this way,” concluded Sundance, nonchalantly draping his leg over his saddlehorn and peering at the surrounding hills to the west.

“Well, if everybody’s headin’ out, I guess we’ll just go up to Buffalo and check out Red’s story,” said Butch, putting his hands on his hips and stretching backwards.

“That don’t sound like your kind of action, Butch. Risking gettin’ shot for a hundred dollars. I seen you lose that much at a poker table in one night.”

“Well, times is tougher now, Sundance.”

“You just sold that place you had north of here last year,” said Sundance. “Did you blow all that money?”

“You know, easy come, easy go.”

“What I always been wonderin’ is what ya did with the loot from that Telluride bank job. I heard it was upwards of fifty thousand. Here I serve eighteen months at hard labor in their fancy new jail in Sundance for stealin’ a horse and a gun, and you get away with that heist. Sometimes it don’t seem life is fair. You know there’s still a lot of folks think I was the fourth man on that Telluride robbery. I wish I was.”

“Look at that up on the hill,” interrupted Elzy. “What do ya make of that?”

A riderless horse was grazing on the hill close enough for them to see that it was still saddled.

“Whatever it’s doing there, it’s not a good sign,” Butch concluded, relieved to have the subject changed. “Let’s move outah here pronto. Elzy, you guys go back and get the horses and get your stuff together. I’ll go out and get that lonely lookin’animal. I think he could be our new pack horse.”

“I’ll go with yuh,” said Mike. “It might be uh trap tuh lure us out in the open.”

“That’s ah good idea Mike,” said Butch. He was worried that Mike might not stand up to close grilling posing as Mike Cassidy, his mentor. Before they could start walking out to retrieve the animal, Sundance spurred his horse and went out to pick him up. He quickly returned pulling the horse in tow by its reins.