The Complete Western Legends Omnibus, page 29
Chapter Twenty-Four
Immediately after the short skirmish, Matt and the Bonhams had returned to their original encampment. From their vantage point at the top of the Crow’s Nest they were able to see the lone rider head out in the direction of Woodston. They speculated awhile as to who he might be, and why he might be leaving, but soon, they gave up their guessing as useless.
Shadows were lengthening and the long, eventful day was nearly spent when Matt uncovered their food stores and announced, grandly, that dinner was being served. He cut slices of smoked beef and tore off small chunks of bread from the loaf and handed it out. They washed it all down with cold water, watching as they ate, the sun fall below the towering mountains to the west.
The temperature began to fall—not a lot, but enough to give Bobby a chill. Sharee noticed her son’s shivering and wrapped a blanket about his shoulders.
“Time you got some sleep,” she said to the boy.
“I’m not that tired, ma. I can stay up a little longer,” he protested.
“I know you can,” she said softly, “but the sooner you get some rest, the sooner each of us can get off watch and get some sleep too.”
The boy didn’t take much convincing. He stretched out, putting his head down on his mother’s lap, and was soon fast asleep.
Down below, the campfire glowed like an image of Hades. Shadowy forms could occasionally be seen moving in the flickering light. Sometimes sparks and a red-orange flame would leap up into the darkness, illuminating still more of the large body of men so intent upon killing.
Sharee was mesmerized by the sight. Matt, however, had seen vistas like this during the war at least a hundred times. It filled him with no particular fear or awe. During the war, though, when he saw tableaux like this, he was part of a company of soldiers, attached to a division, with battalions—in fact, whole armies—waiting in reserve to fill any breach in the lines that the enemy might create. Now, however, he was alone but for a woman and a boy. He didn’t mind dying all that much, but that Sharee and Bobby should have to face death with him—because of him—filled Matt with despair.
He looked down at the sleeping, untroubled face of Bobby Bonham, then up into the eyes of the boy’s mother.
She met his look.
“I don’t know what to say, Mrs. Bonham,” he whispered above the barely audible sound of Bobby’s breathing. “I’ve been a damn fool. I never stopped to think of the trouble that’d follow when I set out to get Archie Walker. I should’ve, but I didn’t.”
“Mr. Howard ... please ... don’t blame yourself. Ballenger and Taren ... they’d have cooked up some other excuse to use against me if they didn’t have this one.”
Matt shook his head. “That don’t matter. I gave ’em this excuse right here and now. The worst of it, is that I got you into this, and now I can’t get you out ...”
She saw the anguish in his face despite the darkness, and heard it in his voice, when he sighed deeply and said, “It’s happening all over again.”
Softly, tentatively, she asked, “What do you mean, it’s happening all over again?”
He glanced away from her and stared at the fires that burned below. For a long time he didn’t answer. When he finally did speak, his voice was thin and far away, as were his thoughts ...
“You asked me once about my wife and son,” he began. “I didn’t tell you the whole story ... Ellen and me left San Francisco after Kelly was born. I wanted to get back to the land—the big open spaces. Raise horses. Anyway, that was my plan.
“Ellen was really a city girl. Lived in Boston and New York before sailing around the Cape to come to ’Frisco. She didn’t know a damn thing about the deserts, the mountain passes, Indians, not any of it, except for what she’d read in books. Fact is, she didn’t want to leave the city. But she was in love, God help me, and she agreed to give it a try.
“We found us a good piece of land in northern Arizona, not far from Flagstaff. Good mustang country. And things went well for a while, until the Apaches started raiding north, where we were.
“Rumors had been flyin’ for weeks among all the ranchers in the area, but I kept playin’ it down, tellin’ Ellen not to worry, that everybody was exaggeratin’.
Some nights she got near to hysterical when a coyote howled. She begged me to take her and Kelly into Flagstaff until the whole thing blew over, but I wouldn’t listen. I figured if there was any trouble, I’d be able to handle it, and told her to stop her carryin’ on. That was the hell of it—I really thought I could protect them—that they didn’t need nobody but me.
“One mornin’ I went out and saw part of the corral was busted. Some horses had gotten free. I didn’t think twice. I just took off after them, figurin’ to be back by noon.
“I couldn’t find hide nor hair of those cayuses and thought it mighty strange that wild horses could cover their tracks so well. Dumb as I was, I finally smelled an Injun trick and took off back to the cabin as fast as my horse could gallop.
“I was more than a mile away when I first smelled the smoke and ashes in the air. I ran that horse to death, not willin’ to believe that I’d left my wife and son alone to the Apaches. But I had. Lord, I had.
“They’d been dead for hours. What they did to my wife don’t bear repeatin’. I still have nightmares where I see it all in front of me. And in the dreams, I can’t ever seem to finish buryin’ ’em ...”
Matt’s voice trailed off into the empty, cold night air.
“I’m sorry,” said Sharee.
“Yeah.”
“You can’t put it behind you?”
He gave a twisted smile and said, “No more so, I guess, than you could leave your land.”
They were silent for a moment and then she surprised him by suddenly saying, “She was a lucky woman to have had a man like you.”
“What?”
“You loved her very much.”
“Yes ... I did.”
“Then she was a lucky woman. By my reckoning, it doesn’t matter how you die, it’s how you live.”
Matt laughed without humor. “That sounds real nice,” he said bitterly, “but what about now ... what about you? Have you been a lucky woman to have known the likes of me?”
She didn’t hesitate an instant: “Yes, I have been a lucky woman.”
Matt looked at her without comprehending.
“I’ll be eternally grateful,” she said, “that you thought enough of me to ride out yesterday morning to do what you tried to do. No woman could ask more of a man.”
Gazing up into the sky, Matt judged by the stars that it was well past midnight. They had lived to see another day.
“ ... Sharee ... you’re a fine woman,” he said.
She blushed and mumbled, “Thank you, Matt.”
The sky was beginning to lift its curtain of darkness. The birds, as always at this time of early morning, began to come alive with a cacophony of noisy squawking. Bobby, however, took little notice of the sounds of the birds. He’d been awake for hours, keeping watch first with Matt, while his mother slept, and now with his mother, while Matt slept.
The night crept by at such a snail’s pace, it seemed to the boy as if a month had passed. He tried to think of how long it had really been since he had sent off those telegrams to Cort Lacey and Griff Stewart. Was it only three and a half days ago? It couldn’t be, he thought. It must be a week, at least. Or pretty close to it. It seemed so very long ago.
He had said in the telegrams, “come quick” and yet they hadn’t come. As the sky slowly began to turn a light gray, an awful thought occurred to Bobby for the very first time ... what if his mother was right? What if the stories Matt had told about Cort and Griff were nothing more than tall tales? He shivered inside the blanket wrapped about his shoulders and tried to dismiss the thought from his mind.
Through the muddy light of dawn he strained his eyes, searching in every direction for these two men that Matt had claimed to know. It was as if he was trying to will them into sight. But still there was no sign of them.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Abner Pederson and Jack Morgan thought the town to be unusually quiet that morning. They were sitting in a couple of chairs propped up against the wall in front of the White Rose, oblivious to the nippy morning air, thanks to the wrapping of their eighty-six proof muffler.
They’d been drinking slowly, but steadily through the night. Sometimes one or both of them would fall off to sleep for an hour or so, but after these nocturnal intrusions, the drinking would continue.
Abner was talking about getting something to eat, so that they could wash it down with some more liquor, when Jack interrupted and said, “Ain’t that Harvey Minkin ridin’ this way?”
The former sheriff squinted and said, “Sure looks like him.” Pederson struggled to his feet and walked out into the street and stopped the gunsmith before he could pass.
“Where you goin’, Harvey?”
“Making a delivery to Ballenger out by those hills at the southern edge of the Bonham land. By the way, I’m sorry about what happened between you and him yesterday. But you really shouldn’t have bucked Vernon, you know.”
“Vernon, is it?” Pederson said with surprise. “Since when you and Ballenger on a first name basis?”
“I figured I got the right, seein’ as how he just gave me a rush order for forty-six dollars’ worth of business,” he boasted.
“Yeah? What kind of business was that?”
The gunsmith showed him the rifle sights he had spent the night fitting to five Winchesters.
The former sheriff looked at Minkin with disgust. He stiffened and said, “I can’t let you take those guns to Ballenger.”
“You got no say in this, Abner,” the gunsmith retorted angrily. “You ain’t the sheriff no more. Having the Circle B for a customer is my big chance to make some real money. So get out of my way!”
“I’m telling you, Harvey, you ain’t takin’ those rifles ...”
Abner never finished. Harvey Minkin spurred his horse forward, knocking the former sheriff down, and then raced out of town.
Jack Morgan shuffled over to his fallen friend and helped him up. “You ain’t as quick as you used to be, Abner,” the saloonkeeper said matter-of-factly.
“No, I ain’t ... not with my guns, my feet, or my brains.”
“Hell, your brains were the first to go.”
“And my liver’s gonna go next.”
“If you’re lucky.”
Together, they ambled back to their chairs in front of the saloon and kept on drinking.
Later that morning, Minkin arrived at the foot of the hills and handed the newly adapted Winchesters to Vernon Ballenger.
He took them from the gunsmith without comment, handing them, in turn, to the five best marksmen in the mob of vigilantes. All five men were hands of the Circle B. Along with the guns, went instructions ...
“Walker told you where they’re holed-up,” said Ballenger. “You get as close as you can. Pick your spots so that you’ll have a clear line of fire even when the rest of us charge up the trail and rush them. Don’t let them pick their heads up. You’ve got to keep shooting, whether you’ve got a target or not. If you keep them pinned down long enough for us to make that charge, they’ll never even see us till it’s too late.”
The five snipers immediately set out on the narrow trail leading up through the hills. While the rest of the men assembled at the foot of the path, checking their weapons, the gunsmith returned to his horse.
“Where are you going, Minkin?” questioned Ballenger, thinking that too many Woodston citizens had already pulled out of the fight.
“Gosh ... I’ve been up all night getting those rifles ready for you. I was going back home to get some sleep.”
“This will be over soon enough. You can sleep later.”
“I’m awfully tired ...”
Ballenger handed him a six-gun. “Don’t you want to see how your rifle sights work?”
“Sure ... but ...”
“But nothing. You’re staying.” So saying, he rudely shoved Minkin toward the rest of the mob.
A few minutes later Ballenger gave the order for the rest of the men to start up the hill. Minkin, as discreetly as possible, made sure to slowly fall back to the rear. Though his livelihood depended on guns, he found he didn’t much care for the thought of one being pointed at him.
The steady and continuous whine of bullets ahead told Ballenger that the sharpshooters were in place and that the fight was on. With growing tension, the rest of the vigilantes continued their climb. Originally, they all thought it was going to be easy. The odds in their favor were so overwhelming. But twenty-four hours had passed and there had been no lynching and no tar and feathering. The only result was three men dead and three men wounded. How many more, they all wondered, would lie dead or injured before this was all over?
The sound of the constantly firing Winchesters was getting nearer. Ballenger, at the head of the mob, could see their target. From his vantage point, it looked as if there was no returning fire from the rocks at which the snipers were aiming. Apparently, they were doing their job.
Joshua Taren made his way up through the men to join Ballenger at the head of their little army.
“I want to be in front when we charge,” Taren demanded. “It will be my honor and my salvation if they kill me before I can kill them.”
“If that’s what you want,” said Ballenger, more than happy to step aside and let Taren have the glory ... or the death.
“That’s what I want.”
“Then whenever you’re ready, give the signal to charge.”
Ready? he thought, I’ve been ready ever since my son died. Ever since I shamed myself spending two hours in Sharee Bonham’s bed. Ready ... ready to kill her or die trying ...
Taren gave the signal and over thirty men charged up the last fifty yards of trail, guns blazing, raking every inch of the triangular rock formation with lead.
They yelled like banshees, spreading out over the trail as it widened, running in the open, hoping to God that it would be someone else, anyone else, other than themselves that would get plugged when Matt and Sharee started firing back. For surely, they’d fight. Surely, despite the heavy fire, they’d want to take a few of the Woodston citizenry with them to their graves.
Joshua Taren ran in a straight line, way ahead of the rest, his six-guns poised to shoot as soon as he located a target. The others, however, ran in a curious fashion, dodging imaginary bullets, shifting from side to side, trying, whenever possible, to stay behind one of their neighbors, using him as a shield. That sort of maneuvering slowed the charge somewhat, but inexorably, it moved forward, by the magnetic pull of Joshua Taren at the lead, and the presence of a fair number of Ballenger’s men who had been collecting gun wages ever since the pursuit of Matt Howard began two days before.
At the short distance of twenty yards the charge found new life. Instead of lying back, waiting for the bullets to start flying in their direction, they were now getting so close that they saw the chance of overrunning their objective before being shot at, at all.
They came on now like race horses, straining for the finish line, almost catching up to Joshua Taren just at the point he reached the rocks, swung his pistol down to fire ... and had nothing to shoot at.
The men of the charge were confused and angry. Taren, in particular, felt like a fool, having led them against an undefended pile of rocks. Everything was chaos. Charges and countercharges of stupidity and cowardice filled the air. The mob seemed about on the verge of breaking up and turning on itself.
Ballenger acted quickly to quell the confusion.
The five sharpshooters fired into the air at his command. The flow of complaints came to a sudden end. Ballenger had no intention of being put on the defensive by the angry, glaring expressions of the mob as they turned to face him. A clever man, he knew how to deflect their anger and direct it at that which he wanted to destroy ...
“They’ve made asses of us again,” he said vehemently. “All of us. We can skulk away and make believe it never happened, or we can put an end to all of this once and for all. They can’t keep running us forever. They’re running out of time and they’re running out of places to hide.
“We’re nearly at the top of this hill. We know they’re not below us, so they must be somewhere up above—close by. They can’t escape us unless we let them. I’m not going to let them. Joshua Taren isn’t going to let them. And I don’t think any of you are going to let them. We’re going to finish what we started, no matter how long it takes. So let’s go!”
He turned his back to them all and began hiking up the steeper, narrower trail that led to the Crow’s Nest. He knew, of course, that his own men would follow him, and Taren too, and with that many men falling in behind, he had no doubt that the rest would follow suit. And they did.
Matt, Sharee and Bobby, couldn’t help but listen to the heavy gunfire that flared down below them. It echoed off the surrounding hills, filling their ears with sounds like that of ancient Gods fighting a war up in the clouds. Ominous and chilling in its effect, there was nothing for them to do but be thankful that, at least for the time being, they were not the objects of all that murderous intent.
The rumble of angry voices filtered up to them next, followed by a sudden burst of gunfire, after which, Sharee recognized the brittle voice of Vernon Ballenger speaking. Though none of them could make out what it was that he was saying, they could, however, make out the sound that eventually followed his speech ... boot heels striking stone, and gravel being tramped upon as men—lots of men—climbed the trail toward them.
“Sharee ... Bobby ... this is it now. Just do as I said before and we’ll have a good chance of holding ’em off.”
They settled into their positions, Matt overlooking the steep trail, Sharee at an angle where she could back up Matt or spot anyone trying to work their way up off the trail, and Bobby between the both of them, ready to do the reloading.
