by Frank Callan
‘Looks like your fibular artery, Eddie . . . you could lose a lot of blood.’
‘You heartless swine . . . get over here or die!’ Eddie snapped, taking his Colt and cocking it, then pointing the barrel at Doc, with his hand trembling.
‘Looks like you have a shattered lateral malleolus, my friend!’ Doc said, enjoying the tormenting of this man whom he rated lower than a rat.
‘You shoot him and you’re dead, Eddie!’ One of the men shouted.
‘Looks like you’re in a parlous state, Mr Kenny. You know, you need a physician!’
Doc started to laugh, though he was hurting real bad under that front. He was still keeping one arm wrapped around his brother, whom he had confirmed in his mind was dead.
Eddie’s mind was in a whirl. The cloth was soaked with blood. He started to feel faint. ‘I thought you medical men took some kind of oath. . . .’
‘Ah, that’s only to save the lives of folks who are of some use to humanity. In your case, you’re no more than a lice crawling in a corpse’s eyeball.’
The Kenny men all screamed and shouted for Doc to do something, but he played his game a little longer. Then, knowing that Eddie would be close to passing out, he went for his bag in the next room, telling the Kenny boys what he was doing.
When he came back, he bawled out orders for clean water. Eddie was now shouting out with pain and with the thought that he was bleeding to death. Doc Heath had had to push the fact that his brother was dead deep down inside him. He couldn’t let a man die, even the man who had taken his brother’s life. He called out more orders to the men standing by, and gathered all the materials he needed. ‘Kenny, you’re going to pass out . . . get a big pull of this brandy down you. It’s likely to hurt more than you can imagine. If I don’t stitch up this cut, you’ll die in a matter of minutes!’ He started sewing up the cut, leaving the bullet damage alone until that was done. The slug had gone through, slicing tissue and muscle. Eddie Kenny was out cold now.
Out at the Creek, Jake and their men were moving into position around the shack. They could see gun-barrels at the windows. ‘I count five,’ Coop said. ‘Who do we know is in there?’
‘We don’t,’ Jake said, puzzled.
‘Well, seems there’s five. We got thirty men.’
Jake looked to Coop, as the experienced man, for leadership. ‘You were with Pa . . . you seen everything, Coop. What’s best? We burn the place down?’
Coop looked around and thought for a minute. ‘No point in overkill. Anyway, there are some questions to answer, and corpses can’t talk. I mean, what’s the man Roney doing here? He’s a useful man in a scrap, and I heard he went into the war. He’s learned somethin’ there, son. What we do is just fire for cover while two or three men run in to squat by the doors. We get some men around the back as well. Jake, pick the best two hand-fighters to go around the back and watch any door.’
The men crouched and ran, crouched and ran, in turn, until they were in position by the lean-to, behind the nearest scrub. Cal’s plan worked out fine: he could see them both very clearly, and they had no notion he was there.
Coop picked out three men to run in, and lined up all the others except a man left with the horses. Then he tested the defenders, and ordered: ‘After a count of three, fire at the windows!’ When this happened, in a second, a rattle of shots cut a line across the side of the shack, and it was so fierce that planks were loosened and shattered. From inside, Sedge ordered to fire back, to the location of the shots. There were no casualties.
What this did was alert Octavius Gibbs, who was now close to the Creek, and when he heard the gunfire he dismounted and shinned up a rock to where he could see something of what was happening. Under the moonlight, he could see Coop’s white hat and three or four men moving around near him. He saw the shack and barn, and he could make out the barrels at the window. He had gone out there searching for Cal Roney, thinking it could be man to man, and he had stumbled on a battle.
He had never been so confused. All he knew was that probably in that building there was the man whose bullet had killed the young wife he had loved. Other than that, there was someone else in there, and an army of the Kenny brothers. He was there, and he was armed, but there was only one person he felt any malice about, and he was in the midst of all this crazy shooting. But if he had to take sides, he thought, it would be to help the folks inside see off the attackers.
In his hide-out, Cal could see everything that was going on to the rear, and he had only the two men to take care of. There was nothing for it but to cut them down and then wait for Ben Stile to lead the retreat out through the lean-to. They were sitting down behind a thick fallen log, just the right height to rest a rifle on, and they were watching the back door. From where Cal was, he could see the two heads and shoulders. He didn’t like killing, but it was them or him, and he was sure that the man with the white hat was capable of any iniquity and would have no restraint if he was let loose on the women in that shack, and young Charlie wasn’t exactly a seasoned fighter, so the odds were stacked against the defenders. Two less would help.
He took aim at the first man. What was needed was a clean shot through the back of the head, and fortunately the man was still, sighting his own target, no doubt concentrating on the door through which folk would run. Cal’s aim was true and steady: the trigger squeezed and the bullet sent home, bursting into the soft flesh at the base of the man’s head, between the two muscles at the back. He lurched forwards with a yell, and in a split second, his partner turned to look up. There was just the right moment presented then: a face to put a second bullet home, into the head right above the nose. He fell, quick and definite. Neither man moved again.
Cal ran down to check on them, and then took their position, when he was sure that they were gone. There was no chance of them clouding a mirror, and that gave him peace of mind. The question now was, how soon would the others come through that door? Inside, the second enfilade of rifle fire had wrecked a line of wood and dislodged a window frame. It was risky for anyone to fire back. Ben had darted quick as a jack-rabbit into a space and fired where he saw smoke, but everything was defensive, and there had been some close shaves, with bullets tearing into walls just inches from Emilia’s head, and one shot slamming into a vase which Lizzie had brought with her from home and treasured.
‘Let’s git out the back . . . Cal’s waitin’ for us . . .’ Ben shouted, and he let them go first, while he moved with his back to them, looking towards the window and door in case the Kenny boys were on the move and ready to smash their way in. He was right. One man came through the door after kicking it in, and Ben hit him in the chest with his first shot.
‘Come on folks . . . real snappy now!’ he screamed out. In a few seconds they were aware of Cal shouting out for them to come to him. One by one they reached the log and leapt over it, lining up by Cal. Finally, Ben Stile came out, and ran straight for cover by the log.
‘We have to move back directly to Cary Island!’ Cal called, and he had them moving back in a line, seeing some of Kenny’s men now emerge from the lean-to. They saw their prey retreating, and Cal, covering the retreat, saw Jake and the white hat come out behind their men. He decided that he had time for one last shot before he followed the others to the Creek. He stepped back and shot from the hip. The shot brought down another man, though it was meant for the white hat, whom he had now marked as his own. Before he left that place, he swore to himself, he would bring down the man who had killed his father.
At the edge of the Creek, the others were wading across to the little island. The water was waist high most of the way, but there was a deeper channel around twenty feet from the island shore, and the women were swimming this now, with the men close behind.
Cal was sure that the Kenny men would be moving quickly and might be able to fire from the shore as the party of defenders fought their way across.
He was right, and he was the last into the Creek. As he reached the deeper part, where
he knew he would have to swim, he held his gun high; he heard shouts from behind. He could make out Jake’s cry ‘Shoot now boys . . . they’re in range!’
Jake had found his little brother Jim by then, and seeing Jim wounded riled him even more. It was a mistake. He stopped thinking clearly and had to put up with the ranting and red-faced rage of Jim, who kept on snapping out the same word, that he wanted them all dead, all dead, for what they had done to him. He had to be content with a back seat as the action developed, sitting in the stables, seething with anger.
Bullets came to Cal’s side, missing him narrowly. But Cal couldn’t fight, he couldn’t turn, and the chances were he would be hit. He shouted for someone to give him covering fire, and he saw the blurred outline of Sedge through the water as he swam. Sedge knelt on the muddy edge of the island and fired some shots across. Then there was a loud, deafening sound of rifle fire, seeming like a whole company of men had sent a volley into the enemy. There was a cry of pain and someone on the island shouted, ‘Sedge. . . they got Sedge!’ It was a woman’s voice.
It was considerably later and darker now, and near the island there were boughs and dead trees reaching into the water, so Cal made for the nearest and gripped a thick bough, fighting to get his breath back.
He didn’t know it, but fifty yards away, Lizzie was weeping over the dead body of her friend Sedge Gulley, and Cy was screeching in panic for her to leave him and come back to cover.
CHAPTER TEN
Dug in now on Cary island, Ben, Cy and Cal had the others out of sight, while they stood watch, squatting higher up, above two large rocks which formed the main little fortress that Cary the recluse had made for himself. It was a perfect hole to bolt into if you were in trouble. The strange old character had done well all those years back. Everybody still had their rifles clasped close, and Ben had thought to bring ammunition. There was tension in the air, so tight you could feel it pressing on the skin.
Charlie, sitting with the women, hunched at the back of the earthy hollow that Cary had dug out of the rock side, saw how cut up Lizzie was about her friend, and he did his best to comfort her. But there was no time for sentiment, as they all knew. There were plenty of men on the far side of that Creek who would be able to get across. But there was a great advantage in being above the water level, and being able to see every movement over at the homestead.
Cal, Ben and Cy knew this as well, lying flat and watching the night, praying that dawn would come soon. ‘Our best chance is to bide our time . . . let them decide how much they want to risk an open attack,’ Cal said. ‘Question is, does Eddie Kenny want this place bad enough to risk so many men?’
‘I know the man,’ Ben put in. ‘When he wants somethin’ done, he’ll stop at nothin’. He fixes on what he hates and does everythin’ to destroy it, regardless of what he might lose.’
‘My kind of madman,’ Cal smiled. As he said this, he was thinking of white hat, and he wanted to know more about him. Ben Stile knew. ‘Now Cal, the white hat is Coop. He’s Wichita Cooper. So many times I’ve tried to have him shut away, but he always escaped . . . Kenny protected him. He’s Eddie’s number two. The boys will let him lead.’
‘They’re not likely to starve us out . . . not enough patience for that,’ Cal said, ‘So I reckon somethin’ bold will win the day.’ This was the time that Cy had been waiting for, and his feelings poured out.
‘Look, Mr Roney . . . Mr Stile, I haven’t your experience in these matters. My only thought is for Lizzie . . . and the other woman, Emilia, too. I mean, I’m a married man. I have to put my woman first. We was doin’ fine here, making it a home, if you understand? I know you two men are loners. You see the world different to me. I was here with my best friend and my new wife, hoping that the world might leave us alone a while. It did, and we had some time to build relationships, to let habits set in. But I always knew that the badness would come in, like a wound, on a good, healthy body. Fact is, I couldn’t bear to lose my Lizzie . . . I already lost my best partner out there. Me and Sedge been through a whole mess o’ trouble, and we seen the best of each other. I’m gonna miss him like I lost a limb.’
This was not the tough, heartless robber that the Pinkertons had in their files, Cal thought. He was starting to feel that destiny had decided that on this mission, he might be able to get his man – but would he want to? Duty was pulling at him from one side, and sentiment from another.
‘Cal Roney,’ he said to himself, laying there with his eyes fixed on the shore, ‘you always wanted to fight for justice, protect the weak against the strong without scruples. Now see you today . . .’
Then something inside gave him an idea. It was crazy, but the thought was there. Now things had changed: the hunt for Cy Felder had been eclipsed by the need to send Coop to the next world for what he had done. Maybe white hat would fight him for the victory, in a duel, like in the battles of the old days. He started raising the topic to Ben, when a shower of bullets came at them, tearing into rock and earth on both sides. ‘Fire at the smoke!’ Ben called out.
There was enough light now for targets to be seen. Coop and Jake’s men knew that they were more vulnerable, and they would be the ones who would have to move.
For what seemed to the defenders like half an hour but was only a few minutes, both sides fired wildly and rapidly at each other. Then there was a pause. ‘Sixteen shots . . . they all got Henry rifles!’ Ben said, ‘Same as us, apart from Lizzie’s old thing. This could go on all day!’
Cal took his chance now, but as he spoke, a voice called from over the Creek, cutting off his suggestion of a duel. ‘Listen up you folks . . . this is Jake Kenny. We don’t want no blood-bath today. No, we’re here for just one person – the deputy Ben Stile. He owes us. Would we want this old wreck of a place? Think about it. No, Ben Stile, you walk out over here and we’ll leave with you.’
Cy was the first to speak. ‘He’s as double-minded as a fox. I tell you, after what we did to his brother, he wants us all out of his life for good.
‘Yeah, Kenny wants this place as a base to work against the new homesteaders . . . he wants the territory between here and Laramie, and beyond to the main rivers. It’s them or us today.’
Cal dismissed his notion of a duel. It was no guarantee of any solution. But Ben saw a white flag go up into sight and Jake spoke again. ‘Now Ben, let you and me talk. White flag. . . .’
Ben stood up and crept to the end of the rock, then rested on his bent legs, keeping his gun handy.
Jake Kenny had his marksman in place, ready to shoot at Ben. ‘The fool believes me,’ he said, ‘Pick him off, cowboy!’ The man aimed his barrel at Ben and was ready to press the trigger – but he was hit from behind, and with a moan of pain, rolled down off his place on a thick log, to lie dead in the dust. His shot went wide of the mark, and Ben ducked down again. In the line of men sitting with Jake, all heads turned to see who was shooting from behind them. They couldn’t see Gibbs, who had decided that standing against Kenny was more satisfying than hunting for Roney.
It was Gibbs’ turn to play false now, and he put in a full round of bullets, strafing the line of men with Kenny. They had prepared nothing for an attack from behind, and they were easy prey. Several men fell, and Jake and Coop ran for cover to the lean-to. They were thinking that a dozen men now lay behind them and that they were trapped.
From where they were, Cal and the other men could not see all this, but they heard the shots and they saw men fall.
‘Thank the good Lord,’ called Ben, ‘Help has arrived . . . maybe the sheriff is back after all, and we’ve heard only lies about him!’
There would never be a better opportunity to get even, Cal was thinking. It was a moment to be seized, as there was now panic among the Kenny men, who were inside the shack, and reduced in numbers. The tide had turned. Cal told everyone to follow him after five minutes had passed, and to wait for his call. He ran across the water, paddling, swimming, then walking, his gunbelt and pistols held high, an
d he shouted for Coop. As soon as he reached the yard by the lean-to, he shouted, ‘Wichita Cooper. . . come out. It’s justice time! Me and you . . . nobody else.’
There was a silence which seemed to last ages. Then a voice called from the shack, ‘Who’s talking?’
‘Do you recall a time when you attacked the Red Saddle?’
A door opened and out walked Coop, into the dry earth, standing with his hands held out, above his guns. ‘Red Saddle?’
Cal took a few more steps into the light, out of the shade of the cottonwoods.
‘Little homestead, south of the Laramie Mountains. . .you and your roughnecks arrived one day and indulged in some slaughter . . . not for any reason, as far as I could tell. I saw it all. You had a real daunting knife then . . . a Bowie. I saw it all.’
‘Can’t recall, mister. Who are you?’
‘You took the life of a man called Roney and his wife . . . the worst killers in the Comancheria would not have done what you did that day, and I seen them kill, too.’
Coop’s face now showed beads of hot sweat running down it, in runnels to his chin. He wiped his brow with his jacket cuff. ‘I ask again, who are you?’
‘Name’s Roney. Your turn to die, Wichita. Know any prayers? But then, God has no place for you . . . better ask Satan for help, as you’re in his outfit.’
‘You’re Cal Roney? You saw me. . . ?’
‘Not so good for a little boy to see what you did. No children watching now, though.’
Coop fixed his stare on Cal, who now thought about calling the others over, but thought better of it. There was too much risk. In the hide-out, the women and Charlie scuttled out to join Ben and Cy. They all tentatively walked into the water, weapons held high, and saw in the distance two dark figures offset by the dry, pale dust.
