Outlaw Kingdom, page 10
Nix rose, rapidly crossing the room. He paused at the door, looking back. “Heck, despite any differences, you’re our most experienced marshal. You’ll be in charge.”
“Christ!” Thomas snorted when the door closed. “What d’you think of them apples?”
“Well, Heck,” Tilghman said, “I think he just put the bee on you.”
“Guess he did, ’cause I sure as hell feel stung.”
* * *
The sky was heavy with clouds, and beneath it the earth was cold and still. Trees along the creek swayed in the wind, bare branches crackling like the bones of old skeletons. A flock of crows fluttered against the sky, then wheeled and vanished beyond the treeline.
There were nine men in the posse, bent low as they crept forward in single file. The creek bank covered their movements, and the rush of water deadened the sound of their footsteps. A mile or so downstream where the creek angled southeast, they had left their horses hidden in a stand of trees. Stealthily, as though stalking game, they had spent the last hour working their way up the rocky stream.
Ahead, the bank sloped off sharply, and Council Creek swung westward in a lazy curve. Beyond the bend, hardly more than a stone’s throw away, stood a squalid collection of buildings. Heck Thomas held up his hand and the men halted, flattening themselves against the creek bank. Except for Thomas, who carried a double-barrel shotgun, every man in the party was armed with a Winchester. A sense of suppressed violence, something unseen but menacing, hung over the ramshackle town.
Tilghman scrambled forward on his hands and knees. He stopped beside Thomas, who nodded and jerked his thumb toward the town. They removed their hats, still hunched low, and slowly eased themselves to eye level at the top of the bank. Their weapons held at the ready, they subjected the huddled buildings to an intense, door-to-door scrutiny. For a time, with the squinted gaze of veteran scouts, they absorbed every detail.
Ingalls under an overcast sky was little more than a backwoods eyesore. The single street, rutted and dusted with snow, petered out into a faint wagon road on either side of town. Nearest to the creek was a blacksmith shop, beside that a mercantile emporium, and farther along the dulled windows of the two-story hotel. Across the street was a seedy-looking saloon, flanked on one side by a cafe and on the other by a general store. Beyond, a short distance upstreet, was the livery stable.
Heck Thomas whistled softly between his teeth, motioned toward the town. Everyone already had their instructions, and as they scrambled over the creek bank, the lawmen split into two groups. Tilghman headed for the cafe, trailed by three men, and Thomas led the others on a direct line to the smithy. Taking one building at a time, they were to work both sides of the street, one party covering the other, until they flushed the gang. A metallic snick broke the stillness as one man after another eased back the hammer on his Winchester.
Then, too quick to fathom, their plan came unraveled. The door of the cafe opened, and a man accompanied by a young boy emerged onto the street. A moment later Bitter Creek Newcomb stepped through the door of the saloon, a bottle in hand, and started across to the hotel. On the instant he spotted Thomas, then his eyes flicked past the man and boy to Tilghman. His reaction was one of sheer reflex, without regard for the consequences. He jerked his pistol and fired.
Tilghman’s shouted warning to the man and boy melded with the gunshot. The marshals behind him and those across the street shouldered their rifles in unison. The first sharp crack blended into a rolling tattoo, and Newcomb was struck in the left arm, dropping his bottle. Caught in the crossfire, the man outside the cafe went down like a puppet with his strings gone haywire. Beside him, jolted back by the impact of a slug, the boy dropped onto the boardwalk. Newcomb took off running for the stable.
Suddenly the street came alive with sizzling lead. Someone fired from an upstairs room in the hotel, and the front of the saloon appeared wreathed in a wall of flame as men opened fire through the door and windows. The marshal behind Tilghman grunted, clutching at his stomach, and dropped to the ground. Tilghman hefted his rifle and levered four shots into the upper floor window of the hotel. Glass shattered and a moment later Arkansas Tom Daugherty toppled over the windowsill. His rifle clattered to the boardwalk below.
From across the street, Thomas let go with his shotgun. Tilghman was aware that the other officers had concentrated their fire on the saloon, and he swung his rifle in that direction. Another lawman went down, a dark splotch blossoming on his coat, but the remaining Winchesters hammered out a withering barrage. The saloon windows disintegrated in a maelstrom of glass, and the building jounced as heavy slugs shredded the front wall. A third marshal swayed and crumpled to the earth.
Doolin suddenly leaped through the saloon door, followed by Clifton and Raidler. They sprinted toward the stable, where Newcomb was popping off shots at the lawmen. Tilghman fired simultaneously with the roar of Thomas’s shotgun, and the four remaining officers loosed another volley. Clifton staggered, then righted himself, as slugs pocked the walls of the general store. He darted into the stable on the heels of Doolin and Raidler.
There was a momentary lull in the gunfire. Then, as though prearranged, Will Dalton, Jack Blake, and Red Buck Waightman rushed out of the saloon. Doolin and the men in the stable covered their retreat, emptying their pistols rapid fire at the marshals. The officers returned fire, Thomas fumbling to reload his shotgun, and Tilghman winging Blake in the arm. The three outlaws, dodging and twisting through a hornets’ nest of lead, raced past the store and ducked into the stable.
An eerie stillness settled over the street. The marshals waited, staring over their sights at the stable. But the outlaws, unaccountably and all too abruptly, had ceased fire. Then, as Thomas cautiously motioned the officers forward, the screech of rusty door hinges broke the stillness. Doolin and his men, mounted on their horses, suddenly burst through a rear door of the stable and pounded across the countryside. They disappeared into a stark timberline at the north edge of town.
“Goddammit!” Thomas roared, hurling his shotgun to the ground. “The bastards already had their horses saddled. We let ’em get away.”
Tilghman crossed the street. “Why should that surprise you, Heck? Doolin’s smart and he always thinks ahead. He was fixed to run if anything happened.”
“Would you look at this?” Thomas stormed, gesturing wildly around the street. “Holy Jesus Christ!”
The man and the small boy lay dead outside the cafe. Nearby, one of the marshals in Tilghman’s group stared sightlessly at the overcast sky. Opposite them, in front of the blacksmith’s shop, two other lawmen were sprawled on the ground. The smell of blood was ripe in the cool, still air.
Along the street, townspeople slowly emerged from the shops and stores. The blacksmith walked forward, knelt beside the fallen marshals, and shook his head. A woman outside the cafe gently cradled the dead boy in her arms.
“A goddamn bloodbath!” Thomas raged, shaking his fist at the hotel. “All for that.”
Arkansas Tom Daugherty, arms dangling, hung from the hotel window.
PART TWO
CHAPTER 14
“Never saw a horse so proud of himself.”
Neal Brown laughed. “Figures he’s cock-o’-the-walk around here.”
“Guess that’s not far from the truth.”
Tilghman led the sorrel stallion from the stable to the corral. The weather was brisk even though a bright noonday sun stood at its zenith in a cloudless sky. The stud was frisky, impatient to be turned loose. He snorted, frosty puffs of air steaming from his nostrils.
Brown swung open the corral gate. Tilghman led Steeldust into the enclosure and unsnapped the lead rope. The stallion raced away, crossing the corral in a few strides, then swerved away an instant before colliding with the fence. Snorting frost, heels kicked high in the air, he circled the corral. His eyes were fierce with freedom.
Tilghman stepped outside as Brown latched the gate. They stood, shaking their heads with amusement, watching the sorrel stud cavort around the corral. Brown took out the makings, spilling tobacco into a paper, and rolled himself a cigarette. He struck a match on his thumbnail.
“Tell you what’s a fact,” he said, puffing smoke. “That critter almost makes me wish I was a horse.”
Tilghman smiled. “Yeah, he leads a pretty cushy life.”
“Cushy!” Brown hooted. “All he can eat, not a lick of work, and all the mares he can service. I’d trade places with him any day of the week.”
“I suspect lots of folks would, Neal.”
Tilghman was in a rare good mood. A month had passed since the murderous shootout at Ingalls. At first, the press had lambasted U.S. Marshal Evett Nix and the deputies involved for the debacle. Innocent citizens gunned down, one of them a nine-year-old boy, and three lawmen killed. On the other side of the ledger, only one outlaw had been slain and the Wild Bunch had escaped. Headlines denounced it as a tragic disaster.
Republicans, widely quoted in the newspapers, demanded Nix’s resignation. Neither Heck Thomas nor Tilghman offered any comment. In private, they reminded Nix that they had been opposed to such a large raid from the outset. In public, they quietly accepted the brunt of the blame, refusing to make Nix the scapegoat. Thomas, as leader of the raid, was vilified in the press.
Tilghman, the memory raw in his mind, had relived the bloody fight again and again. Fragmented in time, those moments were so brutalizing that the smallest detail would remain vivid all the rest of his days. Awake and in his dreams, he saw again the man and the boy step from the cafe only to be chopped down in a hail of gunfire. He wondered what would have happened if they had taken longer with their meal, remained in the cafe. At the very least, he ruminated, they would still be alive.
For the other part, though, nothing would have changed. He often reflected that fate, or perhaps simple bad luck, had brought Bitter Creek Newcomb through the door of the saloon at that particular moment in time. Given another minute, the marshals would have gained the element of surprise, trapping the gang in the saloon. But they’d lost the edge, and with it their composure, their ability to shoot straight in a moment of stress. Over and over in his mind he saw the outlaws retreating along the boardwalk toward the stable. He was still astounded that the other marshals, their guns blazing, had hit nothing.
In times past, from talking with Civil War veterans, he’d heard that most of the shots fired in battle never hit the mark. Still, looking back on Ingalls, there was no accounting for the marshals’ inaccuracy at such short range. After all, the Wild Bunch had killed three lawmen, and probably fired fewer shots. The whole affair reminded him of the cardinal rule for survival in a gunfight: Speed’s fine but accuracy is final. He took small consolation in the fact that he had killed Arkansas Tom Daugherty. The score was still three to one.
To make matters worse, Doolin and the Wild Bunch had again pulled their vanishing act. Following Ingalls, every lawman in Oklahoma Territory and the surrounding states had been put on alert. The rewards had been increased to five thousand dollars on Doolin and two thousand on every member of the gang. But there had been no sightings, no reports, absolutely nothing on where the gang had gone to ground. There was a rumor that they had crossed the Red River, taking refuge in Texas. Yet federal marshals and local lawmen in Texas had been unable to verify the story one way or another. The Wild Bunch, as a practical matter, had again disappeared.
Only one thing was known for certain. The doctor in Ingalls had confirmed that he’d treated Doolin for a gunshot wound to the foot. The wound, as near as Tilghman could piece it together, had been suffered in the running gunfight with the Beaver County posse, two days before the raid on Ingalls. Edith Doolin, the outlaw’s new bride, refused to confirm or deny any part of the story. Yet the wound, to some small degree, explained the month-long absence of the Wild Bunch. Doolin would stick to cover until his foot was healed.
“Consarn it,” Brown grumbled. “You got to where you just drift off, don’t you?”
Tilghman realized he’d been staring into space. “Only now and then,” he said lightly. “What’d I miss?”
“I asked you when we was gonna buy some more mares. We got land enough for a herd four or five times this size.”
“Well, I thought we might hold off till spring. I’d like to take a look at brood stock up in Missouri, or down south. Maybe improve our bloodlines.”
“Time’s a-wastin’,” Brown said. “Why wait till spring?”
“Unfinished business,” Tilghman replied. “You know I can’t leave.”
“You’re talkin’ about Doolin and his bunch, aren’t you?”
“Who else?”
Brown took a final drag on his cigarette. He dropped the butt and ground it underfoot. “So you’re stuck here,” he said. “I’m a pretty fair judge of horseflesh. Why don’t I go?”
“You’re stuck, too,” Tilghman said. “I wouldn’t trust anybody else to run the place.”
The Sac and Fox tribesmen were reliable workhands. Under Brown’s supervision, they cleaned out the stables, fed and watered the stock, and saw to it that the horses were exercised regularly. But Tilghman was wary of entrusting the brood mares, or Steeldust, to outsiders. He relied solely on Neal Brown.
“Helluva note,” Brown said, kicking at a clod of dirt. “We’re markin’ time till Doolin pops up again. Somebody oughta shoot the bastard.”
“Somebody will,” Tilghman observed. “His kind always gets it, sooner or later.”
“Trouble is, sooner’s already past. We’re workin’ now on later.”
Tilghman caught the disgruntled tone in his voice. Off and on, they’d had similar conversations several times over the last few months. Brown never stated it openly, but his opinion on the matter was hardly in question. All the more so since the vitriolic newspaper articles and editorials following the Ingalls shootout. He thought the job of federal marshal was a thankless task, often drawing criticism but seldom praise. Horses, in his view, were of far greater consequence than outlaws.
Before Tilghman could reply, a buggy rolled into the compound. Zoe waved gaily, gently hauling back on the reins, and brought her team to a halt. Tilghman walked forward as she scooted across the seat. He assisted her down from the buggy.
“Welcome surprise,” he said, grinning. “What brings you over this way?”
“Oh, just passing by,” she said, smiling past him at Brown. “Hello, Neal.”
“Howdy, ma’am.” Brown touched the brim of his hat, shy and curiously tongue-tied in the presence of a pretty woman. “Bill, I’d better check on things down at the stables. Nice seein’ you, Miss Zoe.”
“Nice seeing you too, Neal.”
Brown bobbed his head and walked off. Zoe stared after him a moment. “After all this time, he still runs whenever he sees me. Am I that forbidding?”
“You’re a woman,” Tilghman said simply. “And Neal’s not exactly a ladies’ man. He’s lots more comfortable with horses.”
“And you?” She looked at him, amused. “Are you a ladies’ man?”
“Common knowledge that I hold the title in Lincoln County. ’Course, I limit my attentions to one lady.”
“How gallant of you, Mr. Tilghman.”
“Believe me, it’s my pleasure.”
She laughed, touching his arm. Then, a startled look in her eyes, her gaze went past him. On the opposite side of the fence, Steeldust charged toward them, suddenly pulled up short, and whinnied a shrill blast of greeting. He was barrel-chested, standing fifteen hands high, his hide glistening in the sun. He watched them, pawing the earth as though he spurned it and longed to fly.
Tilghman smiled. “I think Steeldust likes you, too.”
Zoe nodded, her gaze abstracted. The stallion came on at a prancing walk, moving with the pride of power and lordship. Always protective of his mares, who returned his whinny from the stables, he halted a few paces short of the fence. Then he stood, nostrils flared, like a statue bronzed by the sun. He tested the wind, staring directly at Zoe.
The stallion fascinated her. Whenever he came this close, she always felt a curious sensation in her loins. Oddly enough, Tilghman and Steeldust were somehow intertwined in her thoughts. On occasion, when she looked at Tilghman, a fleeting image of the stallion flashed through her mind. The feeling she experienced made her skin tingle and left a sweet aftertaste in her mouth. Almost as though she’d bitten into a moist peach.
“Goodness,” she said softly. “He’s a handsome brute, isn’t he?”
“King of the mountain.” Tilghman chuckled. “Thinks he owns everything between here and St. Louis.”
“You certainly made a good choice. Father says you bought the best the Sac and Fox had to offer.”
“I reckon we’ll find out come spring. His foals will tell the tale.”
Tilghman’s breeding program centered on Steeldust. The stud had the spirit of his noble ancestors, the Barbs, the forerunners of all Indian horses. From generation upon generation of battling to survive on the plains, an almost supernatural endurance had been passed along to Steeldust. From this fusion with his Kansas mares, Tilghman hoped to breed colts and fillies with the speed for racetracks.
The brood mares he’d bought from the Sac and Fox were another matter entirely. By culling them, continually breeding up, he planned to breed the ultimate range horse. With Steeldust as the original sire, the offspring would have the stamina and catlike agility necessary for working cattle. Some would fall short of the mark, but with the sorrel stallion’s blood, he nonetheless thought they would have great value. He planned to sell them to the army, or horse dealers, for saddle mounts.
“So?” Tilghman said as Steeldust turned and loped across the corral. “What brings you over our way?”
Zoe rolled her eyes. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten!”
“Forgotten what?”
“The dance in town tonight. Have I lost a day somewhere? This is Saturday, isn’t it?”
