Under the Stars and Bars (7 page)

Turning fast, he saw the lanky sentry—never the swiftest of thinkers—raising the rifle.

‘All is well, Brother Gustav!’ Wightman yelled, anxiety adding a tinny note to his tones, Relief rolled through him as he saw the rifle lower and its owner run forward. Turning to the scout, he continued, ‘What would you have us do now, stranger?’

‘Best get the Reb there tied up safe in the barn, like we was going to,’ answered the plainsman. ‘I’ll tend to it while you and your “brothers” see to them three fellers’ hurts.’

‘It would be better—and safer for you—if we came with you,’ Wightman objected. ‘He has already shown himself mighty in sin and evil. So we will come and make sure he doesn’t try his Devil-inspired tricks on you. Take up your knife, Brother Charley and put it in its sheath.’

Having regained an upright posture, Charley glared in amazement at his leader and felt prompted to protest. His habit of whittling pieces of wood had brought the Maxim brothers to grief and he felt that he should do something to avenge them. If he did, they might forget how his innocent pastime had affected them.

‘You mean you’re letting that peckerwood bastard get away with it, Parson?’ the young man squawked. ‘Hell! I’ll—’

‘Do like the Deacon tells you,’ the scout put in.

‘Yeah?’ Charley spat out, swinging to face the speaker and starting to raise his knife. ‘Who says so?’

‘I do,’ answered the scout. ‘If you go ag’in that Texan with the knife, he’s like to take it away from you and kill you— And if you don’t turn it away from me, I’ll lick him to doing it.’

Suddenly Chancy found himself looking at the barrel of the plainsman’s gun. Beyond it was a tanned, cold, savage face which sent a chill of apprehension through the young hard-case. Chancy had seen enough killers to know the signs. There stood a man as dangerous, or maybe more so, as the worst of Wightman’s band. The .36 calibre muzzle of the Navy Colt appeared to have a bore the size of a Napoleon cannon as it pointed at his head.

Almost griding his teeth in rage and frustration, Wightman forced himself to keep his temper in check. Schooling his face into what, for him, passed as an expression of benevolent friendship, he spoke to the others.

‘Peace, brothers. Let there be no more conflict between us.’

‘If you say so, Parson,’ gritted Charley, not regretting the chance to escape a showdown and returning his knife to its sheath.

‘Come, brothers,’ Wightman continued, promising himself revenge of the most violent kind if the scout had been lying about the presence of the Dragoons. ‘Let us secure this evil sinner before he works more mischief on us.’

* * *

Seated on the floor of a stall in the small barn, hands and feet securely tied with strong rope, Dusty felt a growing sense of apprehension and concern. Almost an hour had gone by since he had been brought into the building. So far neither the scout nor the guerillas had returned.

There had been no hope for Dusty to escape while being escorted to the stall and fastened up. Nor could the scout make a move to save him. Wightman, Chancy Herbert and Gustav had fanned in a circle around them, too far apart for there to be any hope of jumping them collectively. Under the circumstances, the scout had taken the only way out and given cooperation to guerillas. Give him full due, that long-haired Yankee sure knew how to tie a man. Of course, there had been no other way in which he could have acted while watched so closely by the four guerillas. He had secured Dusty’s wrists at the rear, taking the end of the rope down to knot it on the loop about his thighs and connect to the fastenings about his ankles, held in that manner, Dusty found the scout had left enough play on the vertical rope for him to sit in reasonable comfort. There was no way in which he could set himself free.

With the prisoner secured to his satisfaction, Wightman had led the others from the barn. Left to himself, Dusty rested his shoulders against the wall of the stall and let the effects of his exertions wear off. He thought of the information he had gathered outside Pine Bluff and wondered if his men had managed to evade the Yankees and deliver the warning. If not, the rocket battery might inflict heavy and ruinous losses upon Ole Devil’s already outnumbered Army of Arkansas and North Texas. It would not be a wild exaggeration to say that those losses might change the whole course of the War. Already the Union’s superior economic and industrial facilities were swinging the balance in their favour. If Arkansas was lost, the Texans serving on other battle-fronts would want to return and protect their home States. Even if they were compelled to remain with their commands, morale would be weakened.

Yet Dusty could do nothing about the situation at that moment. He knew better than let a wave of despondency take control of him, for he would need all his wits about him if he hoped to escape. Should he not get away, he wondered what his fate might be.

Unless the scout accomplished something in the near future, both he and Dusty could have mighty short life-expectancies. As soon as the guerillas knew for sure that the long-haired Yankee had been bluffing, they would do their damndest to kill him. Possessing their superior numbers, they most likely would succeed. After which, it would be Dusty’s turn. While he suspected that Wightman saw some benefit in keeping him alive, the Parson might not be able to hold back the vengeance-seeking brothers.

Slowly the barn’s door opened and Dusty tensed. There was a surreptitious motion about the moving timbers which hinted that the man beyond them wished to avoid letting the hinges creak. Seated in the stall, Dusty tried to think how he might defend himself should whoever was coming be one of the guerillas sneaking in to avenge the injuries inflicted on his companions. That young cuss, Charley, might do it as a sop for the humiliation he had suffered at the scout’s hands, or to placate the brothers’ anger over the result of his discarding the so-useful stick.

Although Dusty knew of ways to protect himself while his hands were tied behind his back,
¹²
to put them into practice he needed to have the use of his legs and feet. Fastened in such a manner, there seemed little he could do.

Stepping into the barn, with a final glance at the cabin, the scout closed the door. Dusty let out a deep breath of relief. Going by the fact that his gunbelt dangled from the Yankee’s left hand, he concluded that the time to escape had come. Crossing to the stall, the scout hung the gunbelt on its wall. Then he drew the knife from its boot-top sheath. While cutting Dusty’s bonds, he spoke in a soft, conspiratory manner.

‘Sorry I couldn’t get here sooner, Cap’n. That blasted Charley was stuck to me like a burr to a blanket. Sort of took a shine to me, way he was talking—and how he talked. Hey, you sure worked them three over good, they’re only just about getting on their feet again and won’t feel like going a-dancing at a ball for a fair spell.’

‘I sure tried to get ‘em that way,’ Dusty answered, working his arms and feet as the circulation pulsed back through them.

‘Happen you’re up to it,’ said the scout, helping Dusty to rise. ‘Buckle on your belt. We may still have to fight our way out of here.’

‘Sure,’ Dusty agreed.

Never had the leather of the gunbelt felt so comforting as it did as Dusty swung it about his waist. Swiftly he coupled up the belt buckle with its ‘CSA’ embossment, then knotted the pigging tongs about his thighs. After flexing his fingers a few times, finding them working with their usual fluid ease, he drew and examined the Colts one at a time. Realising how the gesture might appear to the scout, Dusty turned in his direction. The tanned face, framed by the long tawny hair, showed only complete agreement with what had been an involuntary, but understandable precaution.

‘I’ve got my horses ‘n’ that black of your’n down by the corral, Cap’n,’ commented the scout. ‘That jasper you downed’s lucky. If you hadn’t stopped him, it’d’ve likely stomped his head down level with his shoulders.’

‘What’s our play?’ Dusty wanted to know.

‘Be best if we pull out sneaky-like. I’ll fetch some soldiers along here and tend to their needings.’

Something in the scout’s tone brought Dusty’s gaze back his face. There was a tight-lipped grimness which added fuel to the small Texan’s earlier suspicions about the condition of the farm.

‘What happened to the folks who own this place?’

‘Those bastards killed ‘em,’ replied the scout coldly. ‘Man, his wife ‘n’ two children. I found a tin-type of ‘em and that young bastard come a-bragging to me’s how they’d shot ‘em ‘n’ planted ‘em in the hawg-pens. Lord! I don’t know how I kept from blowing his head off’s he stood.’

‘Buller’s not known for bothering what happens to our civilians,’ Dusty pointed out. ‘If he doesn’t get them, I’ll fetch my Company over here and we will.’

‘Sooner we go, better our chances of getting clear to do it,’ the scout suggested. ‘Let’s go. Given just a mite of luck, we’ll be mounted up and off afore they know it.’

That ‘mite’ of good fortune was not to be granted to them.

Walking from the barn side by side, the escaping pair found themselves confronted by—from right to left—Gustav, Wightman, Herbert and Charley. Slamming to a halt as if they had walked into an invisible wall, the guerillas glared in a mixture of shock, amazement and anger at the small Texan and the tall, long-haired Yankee scout. Of the six men only Gustav, carrying his rifle at what soldiers termed the ‘high-port’ position, held a weapon in his hands.

* * *

At first Parson Wightman had been too busy attempting to calm the partially-recovered Maxim brothers to notice scout’s departure. Even when, on being questioned, Charley admitted that the scout had left to take his horses to the corral, the guerilla leader did not appreciate the full implications straight away. An uneasy suspicion began to gnaw at him when he remembered that the Rebel captain’s Colt-loaded gunbelt had been hanging across the scout’s saddle.

Feeling distinctly uneasy, Wightman had gathered Herbert, Gustav and Charley together. The Maxim brothers had retired to the main bedroom, nursing their hurts and telling each other what they would do with the Texan. Wanting men on whom he could rely for instant obedience, Wightman had not called them. Instead he led the other three from the cabin. With Blocky and Abel not yet returned, Wightman wished to avoid a confrontation with the scout. So he ordered his companions to keep their weapons holstered, but allowed Gustav to carry along the Sharps rifle.

Coming face to face with the scout and the Rebel captain handed all four men a bad shock. Wightman felt it more than the other three. All the vicious, barely controllable temper that had cost him his hopes of a bishopric boiled up in a seething blast.

At last Wightman knew for sure that he had been tricked. The scout’s actions proved that no Troop of Dragoons were following on his trail. Instead, he had lied to save his neck—and to keep them from laying hands on the hated Secessionist.

On a Secessionist scum!

Why would any
Yankee
scout take such a desperate chance to save an enemy?

In his almost maniacal thrust of fury, Wightman sprang to what appeared to be the only answer.

That was no scout employed by the Union Army, but a Confederate spy in disguise. A lousy, stinking peckerwood agent. clad in the dress of a Federal supporter. There could be no other explanation—and only one way to treat the answer.

‘Cursed be all traitors!’ Parson Wightman bellowed, reaching for his gun; an example followed by his three companions.

Down lashed two guerilla hands, while a third went from right to left, and Gustav tried to bring his rifle into line.

Starting at the same instant, Dusty and the scout commenced their draws. Flashing across, Dusty’s hands curled around the bone handles of his Army Colts. Turning palms outwards, the scout wrapped his fingers about the ivory grips of his matched Navies. The .44 calibre revolvers cleared Dusty’s holsters slightly ahead of the .36 handguns leaving the long-haired scout’s silk sash. Swinging into alignment at waist level, Dusty’s weapons made a single crash; to be echoed by the lighter, more ragged twin bark of his companion’s armament.

Hit twice in the head, Wightman fell with his Navy Colt still not clear of leather. Caught in the withering blast of gun-fire, the man to his right and left sides joined him in crashing to the ground.

Stunned by the shattering holocaust of doom that had ripped into his companions, Charley froze with his gun barely above the lip of his holster. He wanted to scream for mercy, but the chance to do so did not come. Cocking his guns as their barrels rose and fell, the scout turned the right hand weapon and squeezed its trigger. The 140 grains of conical lead spiked into Charley’s throat and ripped apart his jugular vein. Gagging hoarsely, the young man spun around. Blood spurted from the ruptured flesh as he tumbled across the bodies of Herbert and Wightman.

‘Come on!’ Dusty snapped. ‘Let’s go,
pron
—!’

Flying from the direction of the cabin, a bullet spun the hat from the scout’s head. As they started to swivel around, Dusty and the scout saw the three Maxim brothers fanning out from the house. Stap had fired the shot, aiming it at Dusty. With his eyes swollen to two puffy slits by the small Texan’s earlier attack, the youngest brother could not line his sights as well as usual; especially when he wanted to shoot in a hurry. So his lead missed its mark and warned their prospective victims of the danger.

Alerted to the brothers’ presence, Dusty and the scout realised which of them would be the greatest danger. Swaying slightly, for the effects of the stick’s impact on his temple had not fully departed, Aaron flung a twin-barrelled, ten-gauge shotgun to his shoulder. Hobbling painfully and suffering a sensation like having two red-hot six-pounder cannonballs between his thighs, Job brought up a Sharps carbine. Each of the weapons slanted in Dusty’s direction. Seeing that he had been selected as the mark for both brothers, Dusty flung himself away from the scout. He saw the brothers trying to correct their alignment, then flame and smoke burst from their weapons. With an ear-splitting crack, the carbine’s heavy-calibre bullet passed a foot above Dusty’s head. An instant later, he heard the sibilant hissing as buckshot balls went by. In later years, Dusty would always swear that three of the shotgun’s nine .32 pellets made a triangle around his upper body.

So intent were the brothers on avenging themselves upon the man who had caused them severe grief that they ignored the scout. Left free from their attentions, he took full advantage of his chances. Right, left, right, left. Four times his Navy Colts spat, held at shoulder level so that he could use their sights. What excellent purpose he put them to showed as Aaron stumbled and dropped the carbine, while Job twisted in a circle, sending the charge from the second barrel harmlessly into the side of the cabin. Bleeding from a hole in his chest and another between the eyes, Job crumpled like a pole-axed steer. Clutching at his stomach, with agony twisting his surly features into hideous lines, Aaron sank to his knees.

Oblivious of his brother’s fate, Spat plunged towards Dusty. Three times the youngest brother’s revolver banged, but without any bullet taking effect. Thinking of the murdered family, Dusty did not hesitate with his response. Ramming down his forward foot, he brought himself to a stop. Lifting to waist level, the Army Colts bellowed an answer to Spat’s challenge. Dusty shot the only way possible under the circumstances, to obtain an instant kill—and he succeeded admirably. Where Spat’s eyes had been, two gaping holes blossomed as if by magic. A corpse hurtled through the air for a moment before landing on its back.

Still Aaron was not finished. Knowing that he must die a painful death, he made a final attempt to take at least one of his enemies with him. Withdrawing his gore-smeared right hand, he clawed the revolver from its holster. Before he could use it, two balls from the scout’s Navy Colts struck him in the head.

‘That finished them,’ said the scout, returning his weapons to the silk sash. ‘We might’s well move off.’

‘Just might as well,’ Dusty agreed and holstered his Colts. They turned just in time. With their thoughts fixed on the same matter, they had almost forgotten that two other members of the guerilla band remained alive and at liberty. Looking over the corral, with the three waiting horses, at the slope, they received an unpleasant reminder.

Returning with the news that no soldiers were in the vicinity, Abel Maxim and Blocky had heard the shooting. So they had left their horses ground-hitched and, rifles in hand, advanced on foot. They had come on the scene too late to save any of their companions, or to take the Texan and the scout by surprise.

‘Get ‘em!’ Blocky yelled, dropping his right knee to the ground and thrusting the Spencer’s butt against his right shoulder.

Being armed with a muzzle-loading Mississippi rifle, Abel elected to remain on his feet. By doing so, he could reload much faster than when kneeling or prone. Unlike his brothers, he did not allow hatred of the small Rebel to override common-sense. Nor did Blocky. They selected the most dangerous target and at that moment it was not the grey-uniformed captain.

With the two guerillas something like a hundred and fifty yards away, the scout knew his Navy Colts were of no use. So he flung himself forward, racing in a zigzag course to where his Henry rifle swung in its boot from the dun gelding’s saddle.

Watching the two men on the rim, Dusty guessed at their intentions, Instead of following the scout, he sent his left hand flashing across to draw its Colt and dropped to the ground. Breaking his fall with his right hand, he lowered his stomach until it rested on the soil. Pointing his body directly at the target, he extended both arms and placed his right hand under the Colt’s butt. With his chin resting on the left deltoid muscle, his left eye looked along the outstretched gun-arm. It was a position permitting a man with Dusty’s ability to shoot accurately almost to the longest limits of the revolver’s load. Like the guerillas, he made his choice of target on the basis of which man posed the greater threat.

Pressing the trigger, Dusty felt the Colt’s recoil-kick tilt the barrel upwards. Through the swirling powder smoke, he saw the hat jerk off Blocky’s head. Coming so unexpectedly, the bullet made the man rock backwards in alarm just as his forefinger carried the Spencer’s trigger to the firing position. The heavy repeating rifle bellowed, but its barrel slanted into the air. Caught by the recoil thrust, Blocky over-balanced. Dropping his weapon, he threw his hands behind him to lessen the force of his fall.

On Abel’s Mississippi rifle banging, a hank of tawny hair flew from the left side of the scout’s head. Only the fact that he was taking rapid evasive action saved him from a worse injury. Plunging forward the last few feet, he grabbed the wrist of the Henry’s butt. A jerk tore the medicine boot free and, swinging the rifle to the right, he flung the buckskin covering from it. With that done, he snapped the weapon towards the firing position.

‘Load it!’ Dusty roared, suddenly remembering that he had emptied the Henry’s chamber that morning.

After shooting, Abel dropped the rifle’s butt to the ground. He had come to the rim ready for trouble, having collected his powder horn and bullet-pouch from his saddlebags on hearing the commotion at the farm. While reaching for the horn, he saw the effect of Dusty’s long-range shot. Showing no interest in Blocky’s welfare, Abel let the muzzle-loader fall and snatched up the metal-cartridge repeater. Hooking his fingers into the trigger-guard-lever, he thrust it down to eject the empty cartridge case.

Hearing Dusty’s yell, the scout understood its meaning. In a blurring movement, he sent the mechanism through its loading cycle and took his aim. Twice the Henry spurted white puffs of powder smoke, the lever flickering down and up between the detonations. On each discharge, Abel’s body jolted. The Spencer’s barrel sank downwards. Stumbling around in a circle, the last of the brothers passed over the rim and came rolling down the slope.

Twirling himself around, Blocky rump-bounced out of sight of the two men by the buildings. Once sure they could not lay their sights on him, he rose and ran to the waiting horses. Swinging afork his mount, he grabbed the reins of Abel’s. Riding the animals in a half circle, he headed away from the valley as fast as he could make them run.

‘I’d say that’s the last,’ Dusty remarked, standing up and holstering his Colt.

‘And good riddance to ‘em,’ the Scout replied, lowering the Henry.

‘We’d best just go and make sure none of them’re left alive,’ Dusty suggested as the scout collected his medicine boot.

With his Henry once more hanging from the dun’s saddle, the scout accompanied Dusty around the bodies. And bodies they were, for not one of Wightman’s band—except for the fleeing Blocky—remained alive.

Returning to their horses, Dusty and the scout looked at each other. They each had the same thought in mind again and this time the scout put it into words.

‘Which of us’s who’s prisoner now, Cap’n?’

There, if either of them cared to force the issue, was a mighty tough point. While their experience when faced by Wightman and the three guerillas had proved Dusty to be the faster on the draw, both knew that he could not get off a shot in time to prevent the scout from throwing lead at him. So, should they make a face-to-face issue of it, both might easily be killed.

That point aside, each had saved the other’s life at least twice since they first met. Their eyes met and each knew that the other felt they should forget the War at that moment. Maybe they would meet on the field of battle in the future, but that would be different. Right now there was too much between them for either to desire the other dead or a captive.

‘What say we call it a stand-off?’ Dusty suggested. ‘We’ll go our ways and figure we’d never met.’

‘I’m for that,’ enthused the scout and offered his right hand. ‘Know something, Cap’n? I don’t know your name.’

‘Dusty Fog,’ the small Texan introduced, shaking hands. ‘And I don’t know your’s.’

‘It’s James Butler Hickok,’ answered the scout. ‘Only that’s a mite fancy. Folks mostly call me “Wild Bill”.’