Massacre at Bluff Point, page 1
Massacre at Bluff Point
Ethan Craig, Volume 3
I. J. Parnham
Published by Culbin Press, 2024.
Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead, is purely coincidental.
First published in 2007 by Robert Hale Limited
Copyright © 2007, 2024 by I. J. Parnham
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
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Chapter One
“Are you looking for work, cowboy?”
Ethan Craig leaned forward in the saddle and nodded to the approaching rider.
“I sure am,” he said. “Do you reckon there’s any on offer?”
“I don’t know. I’m doing the same as you are – looking for work.”
Ethan exchanged names with his fellow would-be cowpuncher, discovering he was Jeff Tyler. Around them the milling herd of longhorns rumbled back and forth, the distant cries of the drovers urging them on so they could complete their mission.
Twenty yards ahead was the chuck wagon where the owner of the outfit Sam Pringle was completing the handing over of his latest charges to a local rancher. Ethan had already caught Sam’s eye and they’d traded smiles.
Now he was waiting for the chance to persuade his old friend to take him on. While he waited, he chatted with Jeff, learning that he had come from the nearby town of Bitter Creek where he’d become tired of working as a teller at the bank and had decided to try cowpunching instead.
“Being a bank teller sounds less exhausting than this life,” Ethan mused. “Maybe I’ll try that if there’s nothing available here.”
“It didn’t interest me,” Jeff said. “Then again the grass is always greener elsewhere. Have you got any idea who we need to impress?”
“Sam Pringle, and he’s a good friend.” Ethan smiled when a flash of disappointment clouded Jeff’s eyes. “Don’t worry. I’ll put in a word for you.”
Presently, Sam concluded his business and made his way over to Ethan, a huge grin breaking out.
“Ethan Craig, I haven’t seen you for a while,” he declared. “Are you looking for work?”
“Sure,” Ethan said. “I heard you might be a few men short for your next drive.”
“Then you heard right. Two men left a month ago and I’ve been struggling. I’m heading over Prudence way to start up again in a few days, so if you two are minded to join up. . . .”
Ethan had been down to his last few dollars so he whooped with delight, while Jeff provided a more subdued grunt of pleasure. So with a shake of hands the two men joined Sam’s outfit.
By now the ranch hands had taken possession of the cattle so Sam led them over to meet their new colleagues, who were all in high spirits. Everyone was ready to head off to spend their money on several nights of well-earned entertainment. Their only problem was where they’d go.
“I’m not going to Bitter Creek,” Rory Scott, a red-headed and seemingly permanently smiling man, said. “I wasted a night there with Isaac a few days ago and I can tell you, it was the deadest place I’ve ever set foot in.”
Jeff shuffled from foot to foot and muttered something under his breath. Only Ethan noted his discomfort.
“I reckon when we ride into town we’ll liven them up,” Miles Osborn said, slapping a thigh with a mischievous grin spreading across his face.
“I don’t know,” Rory persisted as several men hooted their support. “Like I said, I’ve been to livelier funerals than that night in Bitter Creek.”
The men shrugged as they waited for one of them to make the decision as to where they would go. Jeff spoke up first.
“Speaking as someone who’s lived all his life in Bitter Creek,” he said, pausing to let Rory suffer a moment of embarrassment after his previous comments. “I have to disagree with you. It’s a mighty fine town.”
“No offense was meant,” Rory said, looking shamefaced.
“None was taken. It may be mighty fine, but it’s as dead a place as I’ve ever seen.” Jeff smiled while everyone grunted a laugh. “Luckily I know somewhere livelier – Fall Creek. It’s farther away and it’s not so grand, but the liquor’s cheaper, the women are prettier and the town’s a whole lot rowdier.”
“Yee-haw!” Rory shouted, Jeff’s declaration deciding the matter without further debate.
“I reckon you’re just the man our outfit’s been looking for,” Miles said, slapping Jeff on the back as they headed to their horses.
Jeff took the lead in directing everyone on what he said would be a two-hour journey. Ethan rode alongside Sam and they exchanged tales of what they’d done since they’d last seen each other while the other men bristled with excitement about the forthcoming chance to unwind.
After riding for an hour that excitement was growing, but after his initial animated enthusiasm in directing them toward Fall Creek, Jeff remained quiet. Ethan also noted something about his behavior that sent a tremor of concern rippling through his guts.
He didn’t want to alarm the others so he hurried on to ride alongside him. They were now riding across the plains with an enormous bluff a quarter-mile to their right rising upward like a giant, angry pimple, gleaming red under the rays of the lowering sun.
“What’s wrong?” Ethan asked, keeping his voice light. “You keep looking around, and mainly at that bluff.”
“It’s called Bluff Point and I reckon something flashed over there a few minutes ago,” Jeff said.
Ethan frowned. “Flash as in somebody signaling?”
“That’s what I thought. I first saw movement a few miles back, as if someone was following us. Now I reckon that person’s holed up on the bluff.”
Ethan turned to Jeff. “I’m sure you’ve got your reasons for wanting to leave town. If you reckon somebody has a problem with you, now might be the time to tell me about it.”
Jeff shook his head, his smile putting Ethan’s mind at rest.
“Nobody is after me.” He nodded back, signifying their trailing companions. “The same can’t be said about them. Eight men all just been paid might interest the bandit Ansel Stark.”
“I’ve never heard of him, but no matter, we should slow down and talk to Sam.”
Jeff sighed. “Do you get the feeling we picked the wrong day to join this outfit?”
Ethan snorted a laugh, but then shook his head. “I prefer to think we picked the right day. Maybe we can make a difference.”
Jeff supported Ethan’s positive thinking with a grunt. Neither man did anything untoward to draw attention to themselves as Ethan dropped back to ride alongside Sam and pass on the information.
“Rory, Isaac, you headed into Bitter Creek recently,” Sam said after thinking about Ethan’s news. “Did you get into any kind of trouble?”
“No!” both men blustered with indignation although their darting eyes betrayed their concern, and several men uttered snorts of laughter, implying there had been an incident that they hadn’t mentioned to Sam.
Sam sighed. “It could be that somebody like this Ansel Stark is spoiling for a fight, but nobody is taking our money off us, no matter what. . . .” Sam trailed off and then turned to Ethan. “Did you see that?”
“Sure,” Ethan said. The flash of light had been unmistakable, coming from high up on the bluff.
Open plains were to their left, suggesting that avoiding the bluff would be their safest option, but Sam still asked for opinions. Most agreed with this plan, but after some thought Sam provided his decision, uttering his words using the kind of quiet authority that Ethan remembered and which always ended a discussion.
“I reckon if someone is up on the bluff signaling, he’s signaling to someone out there, and they’re the people we need to avoid. We should head to the bluff and find somewhere to make a stand.”
“We’re ten miles out of Fall Creek, but I know of a pass that takes you through Bluff Point,” Jeff said. “It’s winding and treacherous so not many people use it, but it’ll cut miles off the journey, and might mean we don’t have to make that stand.”
After that pronouncement everyone waited for Sam’s reaction. This time he didn’t reply for a minute, his jaw rocking from side to side as he considered the options.
“All right, everyone bunch up,” he said at last. “Then on Jeff’s call hightail it to the bluff like the Devil himself is on your tail and don’t look back for nothing.”
Grim grunts sounded from the men. Then they rode on, waiting for the call. Jeff played his part well by pulling away from the group and veering toward the bluff. Only a wall of rock was ahead, but clearly Jeff knew what he was looking for because he raised a hand and then yanked his horse to the side and surged away.
Everyone hurried after him and in a straggling line they galloped for the bluff. Ethan fell in toward the back to ride beside Sam and, despite his orders, Sam checked behind him. His eyes flared and this encouraged Ethan to also turn in the saddle.
300 yards back six men were in pursuit, having appeared seemingly from nowhere. When he turned back, for the first time the gap Jeff was taking them through appeared, opening up between two towering blocks of stone.
Jeff slowed as he surged into the gap, but as soon as he emerged into the rising, boulder-strewn and winding pass, he tugged back on the reins, making his horse rear as he struggled for control.
“It’s a trap!” he yelled as gunshots rang out.
The group bunched, their horses spooked and bustling into each other as they struggled to identify where the shooting was coming from. A volley of gunshots thundered around them, some whistling over their heads, others kicking up pebbles from the hard ground.
A man to Ethan’s right clutched his shoulder before he tipped from his mount. Behind them the pursuing men were closing, trapping them between the two groups.
“Get to cover!” Sam shouted.
Nobody needed any further encouragement to leap down from their mounts and run to the sides of the pass, seeking out the best cover available, but now their attackers had them in their sights. Miles got a bullet in the back and he ran on for a few paces before he dropped to his knees and then bit the dirt.
Isaac went spinning around to land on his back as lead tore into his side. A second shot ripped into his supine form and ensured he would never get up again. Ethan gained the cover of a pile of boulders first and kneeled.
He shouted encouragement to the rest to follow him to relative safety. He slapped Jeff, and then Rory, and then Sam on the shoulders as they passed him. Nobody else followed them.
“Is this all we’re getting?” he said.
He got his answer when Sam pointed at the bodies. Everyone else had perished in the initial onslaught.
“Five years to get together the best damn outfit in the state,” Sam said, anger darkening his face. “Then these varmints wipe them out for a few dollars.”
“Save your anger for later,” Ethan said. “We have to find a way to fight back before we join them.”
As Sam raised his head and then ducked down when a bullet scythed over his head, Jeff shuffled around to face higher ground. His eyes were glazed, perhaps with shock or perhaps as he took stock of the lie of the land. Behind them Rory bobbed up to trade gunfire with their attackers, but a sustained burst of gunfire whistled around him and he dropped back down.
“I reckon we need to spread out,” Rory said.
“You’re right,” Sam said. He pointed at Jeff and Ethan. “You two head up there and see what you can do.”
Ethan slapped Sam’s shoulder as he left and with the shocked Jeff trailing behind him they scurried from covering boulder to covering boulder, gaining height. When Ethan paused for breath, the scene below sent a shiver down his spine.
A dozen men were scurrying around at the bottom of the pass. They were aiming to launch an assault on Rory and Sam, and if these were just the visible men, Ethan didn’t like to think how outnumbered they were.
“That sure is a lot of men to take on a small outfit,” Jeff said.
“Yeah, and against that many Sam and Rory don’t stand a chance, no matter what we do,” Ethan said. “We have to get them up here.”
Jeff nodded and picked up a handful of pebbles to throw down and attract Sam’s attention, but already he was too late. The attackers swarmed across the pass in a wave of gun-toting mayhem.
Two men must have already sneaked up on the outfit’s position because they appeared on either side of Sam and Rory. Sam was quick enough to take one of the men out, but not to get the other and Ethan’s guts churned as his old friend got a bullet in the stomach that dropped him.
Rory fared just as badly, getting cut down by the same man. Ethan aimed and then loosed off a round of lead, but from over 100 yards away he failed to hit anyone. Worse, a block of men surged over the boulders and fired off round after round into the two wounded men, ensuring they’d never fight back.
With the attackers having grouped so close together Ethan reckoned he couldn’t fail to hit some of them. He aimed at the center of the group, but before he could fire, Jeff slammed a hand on his arm and dragged him down to the ground.
“What are you doing?” Ethan said.
“I’m saving your life,” Jeff said, his wide and dead eyes displaying a mixture of fright and hopelessness.
“I can see you’re worried, but we’re not getting out of this alive unless we start fighting.”
“Facing that many men I don’t reckon we’ve got any chance, other than one . . . perhaps they won’t realize we’re here.”
“That’s a slim hope!” Ethan blustered.
“It’s the only one we’ve got,” Jeff said, his voice growing in strength. “If the raiders planned this, they would have watched the outfit and they wouldn’t be expecting there to be ten men here. Unless they had eagle eyes and were paying close attention, they might not even realize we’d joined them.”
“They must have seen us come here.”
Ethan sighed as Jeff gave a forlorn smile that acknowledged it was a long-shot. So, reluctantly, Ethan had to admit he was right and that keeping their heads down and hiding was the only chance they had of avoiding becoming the final victims of this massacre at Bluff Point.
Chapter Two
Five minutes after the last gunshot echo had faded away Ethan let himself hope that Jeff’s long-shot of staying hidden might pay off. When another five minutes had passed and the raiders still hadn’t found them, Ethan started to relax, but it took a full half-hour before he accepted that the plan had in fact worked.
Down below the raiders were milling around and from their occasional shouted comments to each other Ethan gathered they were dragging the bodies into the open. Each man was then searched and thrown over the backs of the horses.
Then they made ready to move on, taking all the horses with them. Ethan didn’t hear anyone talk about searching for more members of the outfit. So he edged up from behind his cover, but from around 100 yards away he couldn’t discern the features of the men below. Their clothes weren’t distinctive and although he screwed up his eyes he saw nothing that would help him identify these men later.
“Be careful,” Jeff urged from beside him, his shaking voice still betraying the shock he felt.
“I am, but I have to watch them,” Ethan said.
“I know, but maybe they’ll leave some clues behind, and besides, there’s a good chance that is the notorious Ansel Stark and his bandits.”
As the raiders rode off, moving out from the shadowed interior of the pass, Ethan shuffled down in the gap between his two covering rocks. When the last man left, he stopped and faced the scene of the massacre.
Although it was unlikely that he was visible, Ethan had the impression that they locked gazes, and as if in response, the man removed his hat and mopped his brow. The man’s bright-ginger crop of hair shone in the low sunlight, appearing for a moment almost as if the hair was aflame, before he replaced his hat, turned his horse and was gone.
Two hours later Ethan and Jeff traipsed into Bitter Creek, footsore and weary. Jeff’s suggestion that maybe the men would leave clues as to their identities hadn’t proved to be correct so they had put their faith in getting to town and alerting the law.
Although the outfit’s original destination was Fall Creek, Jeff reckoned they were more likely to get help in the larger town. As it was, Sheriff Henry Fisher considered the terrible news without so much as a flicker in his stern gaze.
“A massacre at Bluff Point, again,” he said with a resigned sigh when Ethan had finished relating their tale.
“Again?” Ethan said.
“Pretty much the same thing happened to the Clancy family. That Ansel Stark must be still out there, except he’s now moved on to picking off innocent passersby.”
