Massacre at Whip Station

by Dusty Richards

  It was as if the insanity of the War had not yet subsided. The Colored race was still mad.

  When this is over, they can leave, he told himself. Then he would have position, power—all that he had lost, and more.

  Part of him was very curious to see how far they got. Love and devotion made people blind and stupid. On foot, without survival skills, she would not last more than a few days.

  She should thank me every minute of her miserable life, he thought.

  Brent Diamond fell asleep with the baying of a wolf somewhere in the distance.

  CHAPTER 15

  “They’re gonna see us,” Joe called over his shoulder as he rode toward the trail, watching it to the south. “The trick is to make sure they can’t get us.”

  Riding at a pace that threatened to exhaust the horses, Joe and Clarity reached the stagecoach trail when what seemed like a long line of horses appeared in the distance. They were about a mile away, a shifting line in the moonlight followed by a low blossom of dust.

  Joe flew from his horse before it had fully stopped.

  “Take the rein,” he ordered Clarity.

  The woman reached the empty saddle a moment after Joe had jumped down. Clarity did as she was told without comment. She watched as Joe started kicking together tumbleweeds, then bent and pulled scrub and bushes out by the roots. He bunched them together on the trail, creating a line of dry weed leading to the tall grasses that surrounded them. Then he hurried to the other side and created another line of . . .

  “Kindling,” Clarity said very softly.

  “The birds and pests’ll just have to look elsewhere for a meal,” Joe said.

  When he was finished, he still had time to do one more thing. He ran up ahead, away from the oncoming riders, picking objects up from the ground.

  “What are those?” Clarity asked.

  “Patties dropped by the stage horses,” he explained. “Dung for fuel.”

  He placed them strategically throughout the bramble, then plucked the flint from his shirt pocket, knelt, and waited behind the pile.

  “Back away some,” he told Clarity. “Horses ain’t gonna like this.”

  Which was the point, she realized. It wasn’t just about delaying the riders, it was about them being thrown, injured. It was brilliant in its sinister way.

  The line of riders neared and she could see now that they were the Confederates. They were racing ahead, heedless of any danger, until they were nearly upon the tumbleweeds and one of the men called urgently for them to stop, and then Joe struck the spark.

  The wall of brush burned low along the trail for a moment and then erupted as if Satan’s own forge had been fired up underground. Joe ran to where Clarity had led the horses. He not only wanted to put distance between them and the pursuers, he did not want to be standing where they were likely to fire—once they got their wits back.

  He reached his horse and pulled himself into the saddle in time to see two men flailing horribly on their bellies, aflame from boot to scalp. Their horses had bucked back, colliding with the riders behind them, causing a general panic and collapse of the line.

  There were no gunshots yet. The men were too busy restoring order in the face of a twenty-odd-yard sheet of fire. But the fire would not burn so high for long.

  “Let’s go!” he snapped at Clarity, as they turned and picked up the trail toward the north.

  Joe pushed his horse, whipping it with the reins side to side, and checked to make sure the woman was keeping up. She was, though he knew it wasn’t long before bullets punched through the blaze. The first thing to do was get out of range. The second was to get out of sight. It wouldn’t be long before the Confederates went through the fast-burning fire or around it. Joe and Clarity needed to be far enough ahead to get the first shots in at whoever came after them.

  The trail went straight for about a quarter-mile, after which it followed the northwest curve of a deep, wide ravine. It had been created by an earth fall years ago, a tremor that shook the area and just swallowed down whole sections of the prairie. When Joe was scouting out the route for the Butterfield line, he suggested building a bridge instead of going out of the way like this. But money was deemed more important than a short detour. The ravine closed up about a half-mile ahead where the trail resumed its northward passage. The walls of the ravine were too steep for Joe and Clarity to go down and up again. And if they made a stand there, they would have no place to retreat. A line of Rebs could fire from the edge and cut them down.

  If the night had been darker, the Confederates might not know it was there, Joe thought regretfully. Many a rider under a moonless sky had tumbled to the death of himself and his horse in that pit. But unless they were blinded by the smoke and too angry to think, that was not going to happen.

  Until they rounded the bend, Joe had been able to keep track of the size of the blaze by the glow it cast, by the len’th of his own shadow. Just before they turned, he could see that the fires were dying fast. He wasn’t surprised. Dry scrub and horse patties burn hot but not long.

  “They’re coming!” Clarity shouted from behind him.

  “I hear!” he shouted back.

  There were a few loud voices, indistinct but mostly shouting one or two words that sounded like reorganization. That did not surprise Joe. Veterans of a recent war, still in fighting form, did not suddenly surrender their survival skills. They would leave the dead behind, as was done during battle, and collect them later. They would not make the mistake of running into another ambush or impasse. Most of all, they sounded determined to mount an immediate pursuit and catch the perpetrators.

  The ravine was to his right and he watched as it narrowed. To even attempt jumping it, they would have to back off a considerable distance to the left for a running start. And even then, he wasn’t sure he could do it, let alone Clarity. He considered leaving the horses, running down, and clawing up the other side—but there wasn’t time. The Rebs would be here before they could get up. And the men in pursuit would round the end of the ravine before Joe and Clarity could get away.

  All the two had going for them was a head start of maybe a quarter of a mile. Back at the station, some of those boys had the new Winchester muskets. They had a good hundred-yard range. If any one of the Rebs broke out and closed the distance, Joe would have to stop and cover Clarity’s escape. Using tactics he had heard about, they would leapfrog, one past the other, so they could keep up a constant fire while their brothers-in-arms reloaded or moved ahead. They didn’t give their quarry an opportunity to breathe . . . or, more importantly, to return fire.

  Just then, Joe heard whoops behind him. The enemy wasn’t mourning. They sure weren’t celebrating. It was a battle cry. It was how Rebels spurred themselves on in the face of the devil’s own odds.

  “Girl!” Joe called over his shoulder. “Switch places. Anything happens to me, you keep going and pick these skunks off. Gotta protect the stage.”

  “I can cover you from the other side of the—”

  “You can reach them, they can reach you!” he said. “No. The coach is what matters!”

  “I understand.”

  Clarity pushed her tired animal a little harder while Joe fell back a few paces. He immediately began looking for a place to put himself along the roadside.

  Flatlands or ditch, he thought.

  There wasn’t much choice. He would have to sacrifice the horse to take down as many Rebels as possible. If he was lucky, he could get one of their animals.

  If you are lucky, you will survive, Joe reminded himself. Nothing in life was guaranteed. Out here, that was especially true.

  At the bottom of the slope were piles of rough-edged rocks that had fallen when the crevasse was created, and cracked again when they hit bottom. Ahead, however, was a spot where they had piled high enough to reach nearly to the top. The rocks at that level were still fairly intact.

  That was where Joe would make his stand.

  Dismounting as he slowed, and gra
bbing his rifle from the sheath, he swatted the horse toward the south. The Rebels would likely not shoot it, since they could always use horses. If Joe needed the mount again, it was likely not to wander past the nearest spot of grass. Gunfire was likely to keep away any of the cats or coyotes that might otherwise trouble it.

  As he hurried to the rocks, Joe could feel the hoofbeats on the ground. He could also feel his heart whamming in his chest. He was a tracker and a hunter, not a trooper. He had to think of these men and their horses as charging varmints—winter-starved foxes or wolves, both of which he had faced in his time.

  You see something alive—shoot it, he told himself.

  He jumped to the nearest flat surface, some three feet down, then got to the west of it, opposite the direction the unit was coming from. He lay the long, brass muzzle flat on the rock, realized it shone in the moonlight, and backed up so he could shield it with his shoulder. Not as steady a shot, but it would have to do. He knew that he would only get off two, maybe three shots before they knew where he was. He had to make them matter. More than the lead man would have to be in range, which meant letting them get closer than he would have liked. He also knew he had to cover the area between the men and the ravine. Wouldn’t do for them to get in there with him, where he couldn’t see because of the rocks.

  He watched the turn in the trail with held breath.

  No. Breathe, he told himself.

  He got into a steady rhythm, lowered the gun to wipe his perspiring hands on his jacket, then raised the gun again. His body calmed but his head was active, like it had a family of squirrels running around inside of it.

  He thought about Dolley, about Jackson and Sarah, about the station he was here fighting for. Butterfield? He would benefit, but his well-being never entered into it. This was about their home, their land, the O’Malley family. That was what a man had to be ready to risk his life for. It was the lucky man—and so far, he had been damned lucky—who did not have to do that too often out here.

  Though it’s an unfair way for a man of seventy to be earning his keep, he thought with at least a hint of a smile. The smile was for himself. He knew he would not have it any other way.

  Well, he thought after a moment, there are two things I wish was different.

  One was that his Dolley would be waiting for him, still. Wherever they were living, that was reason enough to endure any hardship, reason enough to get back home.

  The other was that Clarity would get safe away. He was glad that she was still riding west with her back to the site of the upcoming strife. She did not want her to see him die, if it came to that.

  Just get away, he thought, stealing a quick look at her and the retreating horse. Get to the other side and run like a deer.

  A deer with a gun. He was grateful, at this moment, for having met such a remarkable woman. He didn’t want to wish his granddaughter were more like her but that’s where his heart and mind went.

  The vibration of the rocks under his legs and chest brought him back to the matter at hand. The Confederates were coming into view around the bend. They did not come stupid. There were five of them and they came at him abreast, behind a wall of gunfire.

  Joe swore. In the moment he had before dropping behind the rocks, he saw that they were in a wide formation with two out front and three behind. Even a scatter gun could not have taken them down. They would have to be targeted individually—while they were firing back. His other immediate tactical regret was that he couldn’t tell the Rebs from their dandy leaders. The Confederates were the real danger.

  The good news was they could not just keep him hunkered down and ride past in pursuit of Clarity. The Rebs could not afford to have him at their back. The shots were coming in waves, men reloading while others fired. There was no window when he could show himself to return fire.

  Ya gotta risk it, he told himself. Even if you just get one or two of ’em—

  Gunfire sounded fiercely from the other side of the ravine. It couldn’t be Clarity, who was still on this side. There were three loud bursts, each successive shot more forceful than the one before.

  Someone was coming closer from the north. It couldn’t be the Apaches. They would still be south of here.

  Within seconds, the gunfire from the Confederates had stopped. There were shouts, some from pain, and then the shooting was redirected—but only briefly. There was chaos on the southern side of the chasm, the disorder of a surprise attack and from the sound of it an enemy that no one could see.

  Joe risked rising a little so he could see over the north side of the crevasse. A rider was approaching, fast. He fired quickly, then moved suddenly in a different direction, then fired again before he had turned. Whoever it was, the newcomer was a good shot and a better rider. Joe looked ahead and saw a Confederate on the ground, one horse dead, and the other men still firing—though they appeared to be retreating. It was difficult to say, with the rock half-blocking his view and the dark blocking some more.

  Joe didn’t want to show himself. Not yet. He didn’t know who the other man was. Savior he appeared to be, but he could also be gunning for everyone out here. In his frontier days, Joe had seen everyone from put-upon prospectors to loco hermits to renegade Injuns cut down anyone who came into their land. If this man was one of those, he . . .

  The shooting stopped suddenly. It ended first on Joe’s side of the ravine. There were a few more shots from the north, nearer than before. Cautiously, he lifted his head a little more. The Rebels were already rounding the bend, headed south.

  Joe shifted his eyes across the chasm.

  There was a man on horseback about fifty yards east of Joe’s position. He was sheathing a carbine with his right hand, still holding a six-shooter in his left. He wore a hat and rode a horse that was too dark to make out. That was all the older man’s eyes could see.

  Remembering his companion, Joe turned and looked to the west. Clarity was just rounding the far end of the big gully. She had to have heard the gunfire. . .

  She did. She stopped about four, five hundred yards away where the stagecoach trail came around again to the northeast. Joe couldn’t tell if her own rifle was drawn but he suspected it was. Clarity just sat there for a long, long moment. After apparently assessing the situation, which she had heard but not seen, the woman kicked her horse forward, slowly. The moon glinted off the barrel of her gun, which was held shoulder high on the right while she seemed to maneuver the horse with her knees.

  Helluva woman, he could not help thinking.

  Just then, the new arrival turned his horse in the direction of the woman. He moved slowly and came forward several paces. Nothing aggressive, just a slow walk. Joe watched them, fearing that one or the other of them might be a little hot-kettled after what just happened. He didn’t want either of them doing something stupid.

  The man was nearly opposite Joe’s position now. The men were still probably just out of range of one another. Inhaling—and feeling the stiffness of his legs as he called on them to rise—Joe stood.

  “Hello!” he called across the rocky break in the ground.

  The man stopped his horse. He raised his arm in greeting.

  “Hi, Grampa Joe!”

  * * *

  The Rebels stopped running. They had not left as a unit but as a disordered group of men, each unsure who his companions were.

  Kennedy was the first to stop. Marcus Stone was the second. Dan Ridgewood was the third. Jessup Hathaway was the fourth. A fifth had fallen from his saddle after they had rounded the turn in the trail. His horse stood idly beside him.

  Spotting the animal, Ridgewood rode back. He returned a moment later, stopping between Kennedy and Hathaway. The two Easterners were facing south, the way they had originally come.

  “It’s Mute,” the former Confederate said breathlessly. “He’s shot up but alive.”

  Kennedy was also breathing hard. He looked over his shoulder. Not at Mute, but at the trail.

  “You say that as if we’re
supposed to do something,” the leader said.

  “We’re supposed to go back and help him!” Ridgewood yelled.

  “How do you know that gunman isn’t waiting for us around the bend?” Kennedy replied.

  “He’s on the other side!”

  “Not him,” Kennedy said. “Whoever was in that hole-in-the-ground. And—you saw the lady riding off? I’m guessing that was Clarity, which makes the man behind the rocks Joe O’Malley. He may be waiting for us to come get Mute!”

  Ridgewood rose in his saddle and drew his Colt. He aimed it at Kennedy. The Easterner was too beaten to move.

  “I oughta shoot you for a coward!” he snarled.

  “And I ought to shoot you for mutiny,” said a thick voice from behind him. It was Hathaway. He had raised his own rifle and was pointing it at the Rebel.

  “You want to go back, go back,” the Easterner said.

  “Let’s just cool down here,” Stone said more reasonably. “I happen to string with Ridgewood but a minute more or less won’t help Mute. We gotta know what our next move is, and it’s still four against three. I say we go after ’em, finish the—”

  “Shh!” Kennedy interrupted.

  Everyone fell silent. There was nothing but a faint wind and the distant, soft moans of Mute.

  “Jess, you hear that?” Kennedy asked, pointing south. “Out there?”

  Hathaway listened. “I don’t hear anything. What was it?”

  “It sounded like a horse,” Kennedy said.

  “Where?” Stone asked him.

  “Down the trail somewhere,” Kennedy told him.

  The men all listened.

  “Who in hell would be out there?” Ridgewood said. “No more coaches and nobody travels at night what knows better.”