The Outlaw Josey Wales (3 page)

Although he had heard that the Federals were moving in on the Cherokee’s land because of their siding with the Confederates, he knew the Indian would not be easily moved and that he still controlled most of the territory. Jamie had to be gotten to the Cherokee. There was no other help. In his mind Josey sketched the map of the country he knew so well. There were sixty miles of broken, rolling prairie between him and the Grand River. Beyond the Grand was the haven of the Ozarks that could be skirted but was always near at hand for safety … all the way to the border of the Nations.

Gathering clouds had moved over the sun. Where it had been warm, a brisk wind picked up from the north and brought a chill. Josey was reluctant to wake the boy, who was still sleeping. He decided to wait another hour, bringing them closer to the dusk of evening. It was pleasant in the glade. The light wash of the river was constant in the distance. A redheaded woodpecker set to hammering on an elm, and brush wrens chattered, gathering grass seeds in the ravine.

Josey rose and stretched his arms. He knelt to pull the blanket higher around Jamie, and in that split instant the chill warning of silence ran cold over him. The brush wrens flew up in a brown cloud. The woodpecker disappeared around the tree. He moved his hand toward the holstered right pistol as he turned his head upward to the opposite bank and looked into the barrels of rifles held by two bearded men.

“Now you jest do that, cousin,” the taller one spoke. He had the rifle to shoulder and was sighting down the barrel. “You bring that ol’ pistol right out.”

Josey looked at them steadily but didn’t move. They weren’t soldiers. Both wore dirty overalls and nondescript jackets. The tall one had mean eyes that burned down the rifle barrel at Josey. The shorter of the two held his rifle more loosely.

“This here is him, Abe,” the short one spoke. “That’s Josey Wales. I seen him at Lone Jack with Bloody Bill. He’s meaner’n a rattler and twicet as fast with them pistols.”

“Yore a real tush hawg, ain’t ye, Wales?” Abe said sarcastically. “What’s the matter with that’n laying down?”

Josey didn’t answer but gazed steadily back at the two. He watched the wind flutter a red bandanna around the throat of Abe.

“Tell you what, Mr. Wales,” Abe said, “you put yore hands top of yore head and stand up facin’ me.”

Josey clasped his hands on top of his hat, stood slowly, and squared about to face the men. His right knee trembled slightly.

“Watch him, Abe,” the short man half yelled, “I seen him….”

“Shut up, Lige,” Abe said roughly. “Now, Mr. Wales, I’d as soon shoot ye now, ’ceptin’ it’ll be harder to drag ye through the brush to where’s we can git our pound price fer ye. Move yore left hand down and unbuckle that pistol belt. Make it slow ’nough I kin count the hairs on yer hand.”

As Josey slowly lowered his hand to the belt buckle, his left shoulder moved imperceptibly beneath the buckskin jacket. The movement tilted forward the .36 Navy Colt beneath his arm. The gun belt fell. From the corner of his eye Josey saw Jamie, still sleeping beneath the blanket.

Abe sighed in relief. “There, ye see, Lige, when ye pull his teeth he’s tame as a heel hound. I always wanted to face out one of these big pistol fighters, they raise all the fuss about. It’s all in the way ye handle ’em. Now ye call up Benny back there on the horse.”

Lige half turned, his eyes still darting back at Josey. With his free hand he cupped his mouth, “Bennnnny! Come up … we got ’em.” In the distance a horse crashed through the undergrowth, moving toward them.

Josey felt the looseness come over him that marks the fighter, natural born. He coolly measured the distance while his brain toted up the chances for a pistolman. He was past the first tense moment. His adversaries had relaxed; there was a third coming up. This caused a slight distraction, but he needed another before the third man arrived. For the first time he spoke… so suddenly that Abe jumped. “Listen, Mister,” he said in a half-whining, placating tone, “there’s gold in them saddlebags… he brought his right hand easily from his head to point at the saddles, “and you can…”

In mid sentence he rolled his body with the quickness of a cat. His right hand was already snaking out the Navy as his body flipped over down the bank. The rifle shot dug the ground where he had been. It was the only shot Abe made. The Navy was spitting flame from a rolling, dodging target. Once, twice, three times… faster than a man could count, Josey fanned the hammer. The glade was filled with a solid roar of sound. Abe pitched forward, down the bank. Lige staggered backward into a tree and sat down. Blood spurted like a fountain from his chest. He never got off a shot.

Out of the roll, Josey came to his feet, running up the bank and into the undergrowth; but the frightened horseman had wheeled his mount and fled. Returning, Josey rolled the facedown Abe over on his back. He noted with satisfaction the two neat holes made by the Navy, less than an inch apart in the center of Abe’s chest. Lige sat against the tree, his face frozen in startled surprise. His left eye stared blankly at the treetops, and where his right eye had been, there was a round, bloody cavern.

“Caught ’em a mite high,” Josey grunted and then noticed the gaping hole in Lige’s chest. He turned. Halfway down the opposite bank, Jamie lay prone on his stomach, a .44 Colt in his right hand. He grinned weakly back at Josey.

“I knowed ye’d go fer the big ’un first, Josey. I shaded ye by a hair on that ’un.”

Josey came across the glade and looked down at the boy. “If ye’ve started them holes in ye to leakin’ agin, I’m goin’ to whup ye with a knotted plow line.”

“They ain’t, Josey, honest. I feel pert as a ruttin’ buck.” Jamie tried to rise, and his knees buckled under him. He sat down. Josey walked to the saddlebags and brought back a small bag. He handed the bag to Jamie.

“Jaw on this side meat and ’pone while I saddle the horses,” he commanded. “We got to ride, boy. Thet feller rode out’n here won’t let his shirttail hit his back ’til he’s got mobs after us all over hell and Sunday.” Josey was moving as he talked, cinching saddles, checking the horses, retrieving his holstered pistols, and finally reloading the .36 Navy.

“We got near fifty mile to the South Grand. Most of it is open with no more’n a gully ever’ ten mile to hide a hoss. Them Colorado boys rode south… spreadin’ word and roustin’ out all the jaspers after reeward money. Now,” he said grimly, “they’ll know fer sure, we’re headed south.”

A fit of coughing seized Jamie as Josey lifted him into the saddle, and Josey watched with alarm as blood tinted his lips. He swung on his horse beside the boy.

“Ye know, Jamie,” he said, “I know a feller lives in a cabin at the fork of the Grand and Osage. Ye’d be safe there and ye could lay out awhile. I could show m’self back upcountry and …”

“I reckin not,” Jamie interrupted. His voice was weak, but there was no mistaking the dogged stubbornness.

“Ye damn little fool,” Josey exploded, “I ain’t totin’ ye all over hell’s creation and ye dribblin’ blood over half Missouri. I got better things to do…..” Josey’s voice trailed off. Anxiety in his tone had crept past his seeming outrage.

Jamie knew. “I tote my end of the log,” he said weakly, “an’ I’m stickin’, slap to Texas.”

Josey snatched the reins of the mare and started the horses toward the river. As they passed the sprawled figure of Abe, Jamie said, “Wisht we had time to bury them fellers.”

“To hell with them fellers,” Josey snarled. He spat a stream of tobacco juice into Abe’s upturned face, “Buzzards got to eat, same as worms.”

Chapter 5

They followed the river bank downstream, away from Warrensburg, and crossed at a shallows belly-deep to the horses. Coming out of the river, they pushed at a walk through a half mile of thick bottom growth before they came up to thinning timber. It was two hours until sundown, and before them lay the open prairie broken only by rolling mounds. To their right was Warrensburg with the Clinton road running south; a road they couldn’t use now.

Josey pulled the horses up in the last shelter of trees. He scanned the sky. Rain would help. It always helped to drive undisciplined mobs and posses back indoors. Although the clouds were thickening, there was no immediate promise of rain. The wind was brisking stronger out of the north, cold and sharp, bending the waist-high bushes across the prairie.

Still they sat their horses. Josey watched a dust cloud in the distance and followed it until it petered out… it was the wind. He studied the rolls of mounds and came back to study them again … giving time for any horsemen to come into view who might have been hidden. All the way to the horizon … there were no riders. Josey untied a blanket from behind his saddle and brought it around the hunched shoulders of Jamie. He tugged the cavalry hat lower to his eyes.

“Let’s ride,” he said tersely and moved the roan out. The little mare fell in behind. The horses were rested and strong. Josey had to hold the roan down to a walk to prevent the shorter-legged mare from breaking into a trot.

Jamie urged the mare up alongside Josey. “Don’t hold back ’count of me, Josey,” he yelled weakly against the wind, “I kin ride.”

Josey pulled the horses up. “I ain’t holdin’ back ’count of you, ye thickheaded grasshopper,” he said evenly. “Fust place, if we run these hosses, we’ll kick up dust, second place they’s enough posses in south Missouri after us to start another war, and in the third place, ye try runnin’ ’stead of thinkin’ and they’ll swing us on a rope by dark. We got to wolf our way through.” A half hour of steady pace brought them to a deep wash that split their path and ran westward. Choked with thick brush and stunted cedar, it afforded good cover, but Josey guided the horses directly across and up onto the prairie again. “They’ll curry-comb them washes… anyways, that’n ain’t goin’ in our direction,” he remarked dryly.

A hundred yards farther and he stopped the horses.

Stepping down, he retrieved a brush top from the ground and retraced their steps back to the wash. Carefully as a housewife, he backed, sweeping away the hoofprints in the loose soil. “Iff’n they pick up our trail, and they’re dumb enough… they could lose two hours in thet wash,” he told Jamie as he swung the horses forward again.

Another hour, steadily southward. Jamie no longer lifted his head to scan the horizon. Jolting, searing pain filled his body. He could feel the swelling of his flesh over the tightly wrapped bandage. The clouds were lowering, heavier and darker, and the wind carried a distinct taste of moistness. Dusk of evening lent an eerie light to the wind-whipped prairie brush that made the landscape look alive

Suddenly Josey halted the horses. “Riders,” he said tersely, “comin’ from behind us.” Jamie listened, but he heard nothing… then, a faint drumming of hooves. Far ahead, perhaps five or six miles, there was a knoll of thick woods. Too far. There was no other cover offered.

Josey stepped down. “A dozen, maybe more, but they ain’t fanned out… they’re bunched and headin’ fer them woods yonder.”

Carefully, with unhurried calm, he lifted Jamie from the saddle and sat him spraddle-legged on the ground. Leading the roan close to the boy, he. seized the horse’s nose with his left hand, and throwing his right arm over its head, he grabbed the roan’s ear. He twisted viciously. The roan’s knees trembled and buckled … and he rolled to the ground. Josey extended a hand to Jamie and pulled the boy to the horse’s head. “Lay ’crost his neck, Jamie, and hold his nose.”

Leaping to his feet, Josey grabbed the head of the mare. But she fought him, backing and kicking, swinging him off the ground. Her eyes rolling, and frothing at the mouth, she almost bolted loose from his grip. Once, he reached for the boot knife but had to quickly renew his hold to prevent the horse from breaking away. The hoofbeats of the posse were now distinct and growing in sound. Desperately, Josey swung his feet off the ground. Still holding the mare’s head, he locked his legs around her neck and pulled his body downward on her head. Her nose dragged into the dirt. She tried to plunge, lost her footing, and fell heavily on her side.

Josey lay as he had fallen, his legs wrapped around the mare’s neck, holding her head tightly against his chest. He had fallen not three feet from Jamie. Facing the boy, he could see the white face and feverish eyes as he lay chest-down over the roan’s neck. The drumming beat of the posse’s horses now made the ground vibrate.

“Can ye hear me, boy?” Josey’s whisper was hoarse.

Jamie’s white face nodded.

“Listen, now … listen. Iff’n ye see me jump up, ye stay down. I’ll take the mare … but ye stay down ’til ye hear shootin’ and runnin’ back toward the river. Then ye lay back on thet roan. He’ll git up with ye. Ye ride south. Ye hear me, boy?”

The feverish eyes stared back at him. The thin face set in stubborn lines. Josey cursed softly under his breath.

The riders came on. The horses were being cantered, their hooves beating rhythmically on the ground. Now Josey could hear the creak of saddle leather, and from his prone position he saw the body of horsemen loom into view. They passed not a dozen yards from the flattened horses. Josey could see their hats … their shoulders, silhouetted against the lighter horizon.

Jamie coughed Josey looked at the boy and slipped the thong from a Colt and held the pistol in his hand across the head of the mare. Blood trickled from the mouth of Jamie, and Josey saw him heave to cough again. Then he watched as the boy lowered his head; he was biting into the roan’s neck. Still the riders came by in a maddening eternity. Blood was dripping now from the nose of Jamie as his body heaved for air.

“Turn loose, Jamie,” Josey whispered, “turn loose, damn ye, or ye’ll die.” Still the boy held on. The last of the riders moved from view, and the hoofbeats of their horses faded. Josey stretched to his full length and hit Jamie a brutal blow against his head. The boy rolled on his side and his chest expanded with air. He was unconscious.

Rising to his feet, Josey brought the mare up where she stood, head down and trembling. He pulled Jamie from the roan, and the big horse rose, snorted, and shook himself. He bent over the boy and wiped the blood from his face and neck. Lifting his shirt, he saw a mass of horribly discolored flesh bulging over the tight wrappings. He loosened the bandages and from his canteen he patted cold water over Jamie’s face.