The Taylor County War (15 page)

“That’s right. I can’t prove it
yet, but I’m pretty sure Andrew Rogers is to blame for that.”

Billy started to say something,
probably an angry claim about how he could damn well prove it
because he’d been there, but Satterlee silenced him with a hard
look.

“Now I’ve gotten word that Rogers
is going to have his men attack the T-Bar-B and wipe out old
Tobias,” Satterlee continued. “I’m fixing to pay a visit to Rogers
and let him know that’s not going to happen. They’ve got one of his
hired gun-wolves out at the Breedlove place. I’m going to pick him
up first, and if he’ll testify against Rogers, I’ll be making an
arrest.”

That made Sparkman’s eyes light up
with interest. “You’re going to arrest Rogers?” he said.

“If I can make a case against him,
I sure am.”

Sparkman rubbed his chin and said,
“I wouldn’t mind seein’ that. I never cared much for Tobias
Breedlove – that old goat always rubbed me the wrong way – but I
got even less use for Rogers.”

“I was hoping you’d say that,”
Satterlee said. “Why don’t you and your boys come with us?”

Jake Andrews spoke up in his Texas
drawl, saying, “I don’t know about this, boss. Seems to me like the
sheriff is just fishin’ for a posse. He don’t want to go up against
Rogers and his crew by himself.”

Sam Gardner said, “He’s not by
himself. We’re going with him.”

“That’s right,” Billy said.

“Justice needs to be done here,”
Marcus Sublette added. “Justice for Obie Wilkins.”

“There’s something else for you to
consider, Ward,” Satterlee said. “Rogers told me to my face that
he’s going to be the biggest rancher in these parts, whatever it
takes, and that means gobbling up all the other spreads. That’s why
he’s going after the Breedlove place. But that’s just the start.
Feed a range hog and he just wants more and more. If he’s not
stopped . . . one of these days he’ll come for the Crown W.”

A glare as dark as a prairie
thunderstorm about to break came over Sparkman’s face. “He’d damned
well better not try it. He’ll find that he’s bitten off more
trouble than he can swallow.”

“Why let it come to that point?”
Satterlee argued. “Let’s stop him now.”

One thing about a man like Ward
Sparkman: when he made up his mind, he didn’t believe in wasting
any time. He turned to Andrews and said, “Jake, I’m goin’ with the
sheriff to the Rollin’ R. You round up the boys as soon as they’re
finished here and come after us.”

“If you’re sure, boss,” Andrews
said.

“By God, when was I ever not sure
about somethin’ I said!”

Satterlee reminded them, “We’re
going to the T-Bar-B first, then to Rogers’ place.”

“Fine,” Sparkman said, jerking his
head in a nod. “Let’s just get it done.”

Satterlee turned his horse and
heeled it into motion, the others following suit. With their group
numbering five now, the men rode out of Wolf Creek.

***

The always-talkative Billy Below
used the time it took them to get to the Breedlove ranch to repeat
everything that had happened for Marcus Sublette and Ward
Sparkman.

Benton Kingsberry was the key to
everything, Satterlee thought as he listened to the cowboy. A hired
gun like Kingsberry didn’t ride for the brand; his only real
loyalty was to himself and the money he was owed. If he believed
that his own freedom was in danger and that there wouldn’t be any
more paydays from Andrew Rogers, he was more likely to betray his
former employer.

Satterlee wanted to settle this
today, one way or the other. He didn’t like having potential
problems hanging over his head. That interfered with enjoying
life.

So did being shot at. They weren’t
far from the T-Bar-B headquarters when Satterlee reined to a halt
and frowned. He leaned forward a little in the saddle and listened
intently as the others came to a stop as well.

“You hear that?” Satterlee asked
after a moment.

“I do,” Marcus Sublette said. “And
I’ve heard something like it before. It sounds like a battle.”

The schoolteacher was right. Dozens
of gunshots were echoing over the Kansas prairie.

“Those hired guns Rogers sent for
must’a got here early!” Billy yelped. “They’re hittin’ the ranch
now!”

That was what Satterlee thought,
too. It was the only thing that would explain the amount of gunfire
they were hearing. He snapped, “Come on!” and dug his heels into
his horse’s flanks, sending the animal leaping ahead.

The five men galloped toward the
T-Bar-B, which was only about a mile away. Satterlee would have
felt better about charging in like this if he’d had the rest of
Ward Sparkman’s crew with him, but he didn’t think they could
afford to wait for the Crown W punchers. If they did, Rogers’ men
might wipe out Breedlove and his allies before they could get
there.

They came in sight of the ranch
house, the bunk house, the barn, and the surrounding corrals. A
pall of gun smoke hung around the buildings as men who crouched,
knelt, or lay behind every available bit of cover poured lead at
the ranch house. Muzzle flame spurted from the house’s windows as
the defenders forted up inside returned the fire.

“Billy, who-all’s in the house?”
Satterlee called as he reined in again.

“The old man, Jimmy Spotted Owl,
Wes Quaid, and Sen Yung, I reckon,” Billy replied. “Unless one or
more of ‘em got caught outside and gunned down.”

Satterlee doubted if that were the
case. He saw gunfire coming from three different windows in the
ranch house. Breedlove, Jimmy, and Quaid would be the ones putting
up the fight, he figured, with Sen Yung reloading for them.

“How many bushwhackers do you make
out, Sam?” he asked the marshal.

Gardner squinted. “Close to twenty,
I’d say. Which makes the odds still more than two to one even if we
take cards in this game.”

“Don’t forget my boys will be
comin’ along behind us,” Sparkman snapped. “That’ll even up the
odds in a hurry.”

“So we have to keep them from
overrunning the house before help gets here,” Satterlee said. He
wished he had his old buffalo gun with him. He could have picked
off several of the attackers before they realized what was going
on.

Sublette expressed a similar
sentiment, saying, “If I just had my rifle . . . “

“We can still take the varmints by
surprise,” Billy said as he pulled his Henry from its saddle
sheath. “We’ll catch ’em in a crossfire.”

Satterlee nodded. “That’s our best
bet.” He drew his revolver and held it out to the teacher. “I know
you can handle a long gun, Sublette. How are you with a short
one?”

“We’ll find out,” Sublette said as
he took the weapon.

Satterlee pulled out his Winchester
and worked the lever to throw a round into the chamber. Sam Gardner
was already clutching his rifle, and Ward Sparkman had a Winchester
in his callused hands. The five men looked at each other, and
Satterlee nodded.

“Let’s hit ’em,” he said.

They put their horses into a run.
It was Satterlee’s hope that with all the shooting going on, the
attackers wouldn’t hear the hoofbeats until it was too late.

That didn’t quite pan out. A man
crouched at the corner of the bunk house must have either heard
them approaching or spotted them from the corner of his eye. He
whirled, yelled a warning, flung his rifle to his shoulder, and
fired.

Satterlee didn’t know where the
bullet went, but none of his companions pitched out of the saddle
and none of their horses stumbled. He hauled his mount to a stop
again and smoothly brought his Winchester up. The rifle cracked,
and the .44-40 slug punched the gunman back against the barn. The
man bounced off and fell forward on his face, landing in the loose
sprawl of death.

On either side of Satterlee, the
other men brought their horses to a stop and opened fire as well.
There were plenty of targets. Two more of Rogers’ gunmen tumbled
off their feet.

But then the inevitable return fire
began whipping around the heads of the men who had come out here
from Wolf Creek. “Hunt some cover!” Satterlee yelled to them.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much
cover to be found. The men flung themselves from their saddles and
bellied down behind small hummocks of ground that didn’t provide
much shelter. It was better than nothing, though. As slugs whined
over their heads and kicked up dirt around them, they started
shooting again, except for Marcus Sublette. The range was a little
too long for a handgun, so Satterlee called to him, “Save your
bullets, Sublette! You may need them later.”

It was a stand-off. The sheriff and
his companions had inflicted some damage on Rogers’ men, but not
enough to prod them into breaking off the attack and fleeing. But
now with enemies both in front of and behind them, the hired
killers were pinned down, unable to escape or rush the ranch
house.

That stalemate couldn’t continue
for long. The attackers made the first attempt to break it. Two of
them lunged out into the open from the barn, each carrying a
blazing torch they had fashioned from hay bound around short pieces
of wood. They raced toward the house, obviously intending to throw
those torches on the roof and burn the place down.

“Stop those fellas!” Satterlee
called. He drew a bead on one of them and snapped off a shot,
biting back a curse when he saw dust leap up behind the man,
indicating a clean miss. Gardner and Sparkman aimed their shots at
the other man, but missed as well.

The defenders in the house also
recognized the threat. Shots stabbed from the windows. A figure
that Satterlee recognized as old Tobias Breedlove leaned out for a
better shot and drilled one of the torch-wielding men. At the same
time as that man fell, though, and his torch guttered out in the
ranch yard, Breedlove fell back sharply. Satterlee suspected that
the old rancher had been hit.

Despite the shots coming at him
from both directions, the second man got close enough to throw his
torch. It spun end over end through the air and landed on the ranch
house roof. Satterlee grimaced, hoping the torch would roll off and
wind up harmlessly on the ground, but it stopped and continued
burning, threatening to set the roof on fire.

The man who had thrown it whirled
and tried to run back to cover, but as he turned a bullet from
Billy’s Henry ripped into his side and spun him all the way off his
feet. He lay there writhing in pain for a second before a shot from
inside the house thudded into him and ended his movements.

“If the house catches on fire,
they’ll have to come out,” Sublette said. “They’ll be easy targets
then.”

“Yeah, I know,” Satterlee said. He
settled his rifle’s sights on the blazing torch. It would take a
hell of a shot to knock it clear of the roof, but he knew that was
the only chance. He took a deep breath, held it, squeezed the
trigger. The Winchester blasted.

The shot hit right below the
burning end of the torch and made it jump. Satterlee levered the
Winchester and raised himself slightly to draw a better bead.
Before he could squeeze the repeater’s trigger, a bullet snatched
the hat off his head and sent it sailing away. He roared a curse
and ducked involuntarily.

“They get you, G.W.?” Gardner
called over to him.

“No, but the scoundrels ruined a
perfectly good hat!” Satterlee fumed. With an effort, he controlled
his anger and aimed at the torch again.

This time his bullet struck the
target and sent the stick and the burning hay spinning off the
roof. The fancy shot might have come too late, though. He couldn’t
tell if the roof was already smoldering and would soon start to
burn.

Meanwhile they were still under
fire from some of the hired killers. Satterlee got another vivid
warning of that as a bullet went past his ear, close enough that it
sounded like a giant bee humming through the air. He lowered his
head and slid backward, getting completely behind the hummock where
he had gone to ground. He took cartridges from his pocket and
started thumbing them through the Winchester’s loading gate.

“Those men of yours had better get
here soon,” he called to Sparkman. “Things are getting mighty hot
around here!”

“They’ll be here,” Sparkman
insisted. “They won’t let me down.”

Satterlee hoped he was right. He
was a little surprised none of them had been picked off so far.
That kind of luck couldn’t last.

Several more nerve-wracking minutes
passed before Satterlee felt a faint vibration in the earth
underneath him. If he hadn’t been stretched out full-length on the
ground, he might have missed it. As it was, he recognized the
source of the vibration: hoofs striking the earth. He had felt it
often during his buffalo hunting days. This wasn’t caused by a herd
of the great shaggy beasts, though.

Riders were coming . . . a lot of
them.

The sheriff risked raising his head
enough to twist his neck and look back toward town. He saw a cloud
of dust boiling up. That wasn’t just Ward Sparkman’s crew coming
toward them, Satterlee thought. The group of horsebackers was
larger than that. But he would take all the reinforcements he could
get, no matter who they were.

A disheartening thought crossed his
mind. What if the riders charging toward the T-Bar-B were more of
Andrew Rogers’ men?

If that turned out to be the case,
there was going to be a massacre here . . .

Sparkman must have heard the men
coming, too. He looked back and exclaimed, “That’s Jake! Looks like
he brought us plenty of help!”

Now Satterlee could make out the
figure of Sparkman’s foreman leading the charge. He called to his
companions, “Let’s throw some lead and make those bastards duck!
Sparkman, get your men’s attention and point ‘em in the right
direction!”

Satterlee, Gardner, Billy, and even
Marcus Sublette with the sheriff’s revolver began blazing away
toward the attackers as fast as they could pull trigger. That burst
of gunfire gave Sparkman the chance to heave up onto his knees and
wave his hat over his head.