Dig Your Own Grave

by William W. Johnstone

  “You sure they’re the same tracks we’ve been followin’?” Mica asked. “I figured he’d take the road and head for Fort Worth.”

  “I’m pretty sure, Boss, and these tracks are fresh, so it ain’t likely somebody else came along and turned off the road right here. I wouldn’t be surprised if we found a spot where he stopped to rest his horses, ’cause ours are gonna need some rest pretty soon.”

  “I reckon you’re right,” Mica reluctantly agreed. They had driven the horses hard in an effort to catch up with Ansel and his abductor. “We’ll ride on a little farther and see if you’re right about him stopping a little farther on.”

  With Brady scouting the creek bank ahead of them, they soon found the place where Will had stopped. The ashes of his fire were still warm, according to Brady.

  Chapter 19

  Will rode the two miles to Denton, and as the farmer had said, one of the first houses he came to had a sign on a post by the road saying it was the office of Dr. John B. Slaughter. He turned Buster onto the lane leading up to the house and tied the horses at the rail. With his rifle in hand, he stepped up on the porch and knocked on the door, then turned to keep his eye on Ansel while he waited. Ansel sat patiently waiting, willing to cooperate in getting his forehead stitched up. Will rapped again and in a few minutes the door opened and a bewhiskered little man peered out at him through the screen door. “Reckon you could stitch up a man’s forehead?” Will asked.

  “You’re late,” Doc Slaughter replied, noticing Will’s bloodstained sleeve, then looking around Will at Ansel astride the sorrel.

  “I am?” Will responded, thinking he must mean his office hours were over.

  “Yeah,” Doc said. “I’ve already finished my supper.” Then he broke out a hearty chuckle in appreciation for his humor. When Will appeared not to understand, Doc explained, “Usually you fellows with cuts and gunshot wounds come dragging in here just when I’m sitting down to eat my supper, but I’ve already eaten.” He laughed again. “Bring him on in.” He turned back from the door and yelled, “Martha! I’m gonna need some hot water.”

  Will went back to the horses and told Ansel to get down. “I sure am surprised you’re takin’ me to the doctor,” Ansel said. “I figured you didn’t care if I bled to death.”

  “You figured right,” Will said, and walked him in the door, his .44 pressing against Ansel’s back.

  “Whoa!” Slaughter exclaimed when they walked in. He had not noticed that Ansel’s hands were in handcuffs when he was outside sitting on the horse. “What have we got here? Are you a lawman?”

  “That’s right, Doc,” Will answered, “and we’ve got a man with a split forehead that needs some doctorin’.”

  “How about that arm?” Slaughter asked when he saw Will’s bloodstained sleeve. “Is there a bullet in it?”

  “Not anymore,” Will answered. “Just need his forehead stitched up.”

  “Are you gonna pay for it?” Doc asked. He stepped up to Ansel, pulled the bandage off, and took a closer look at the wound. “Three dollars,” he said. “Who’s gonna pay for it?”

  “I am,” Will replied. He reached in his pocket for some money, peeled off three dollars, then asked, “Can we get started? I’d like to find a place to camp tonight.”

  “Bring him in here and set him down on that chair,” Doc said as he picked up the three dollars and put them in his pocket. He got some instruments ready to do the stitching and by the time he looked about ready to start, his wife walked in, carrying a kettle of boiling water. She poured some of the water into a basin beside the table, then stepped back behind her husband. Well accustomed to seeing all manner of patients who came to see the doctor, she nevertheless eyed Will and his prisoner carefully. When she locked eyes with Will, he smiled politely and nodded, causing her to quickly shift her gaze back to focus on her husband. Will decided neither she nor her husband were convinced that he was a lawman. “Will you be talking with Sheriff McCauley after you leave here?” Doc asked casually as he pulled his needle through Beaudry’s forehead.

  “Hadn’t planned on it,” Will answered. “Why?”

  “Just wondered,” Doc replied. “I thought maybe you might be takin’ your prisoner to jail after I sewed him up.”

  “Never been to Denton before,” Will said, and took a couple of steps to the side when Doc moved and momentarily blocked his view of Ansel. “I didn’t know you had a sheriff. Maybe I’ll stop by to see him before I leave town.”

  “He’s easy to find, office is right in the middle of town,” Doc said. In a matter of minutes, he snipped the end of his thread and paused to take a quick look at his work. “That oughta do it. Nice job of stitching, even if I do say so myself. Martha, put a bandage on that, please.” He stepped out of the way and his wife promptly took over.

  “’Preciate it, Doc,” Will said, and started Ansel toward the door. The doctor and his wife both walked them out and stood in the door until they were on their horses and rode away.

  “There’s something that doesn’t look exactly right about that pair,” Doc commented to his wife. “Did you send Jimmy to tell Joe McCauley about them?”

  “Yes, I sent him as soon as I set the kettle on the stove,” she said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if their next stop is at the blacksmith to get those handcuffs off that one fellow.”

  * * *

  Denton, Texas, proved to be a thriving little town. Will hesitated when he came to the square in the center of town, then decided to skirt the main street and led a freshly bandaged Ansel Beaudry up the alley behind the stores. He thought it best not to parade his handcuffed prisoner past the people on the street. Coming out on the upper end of the street, he continued on a road that led north out of town, hoping to find a good spot to camp for the night. In less than a mile, he crossed a wide creek that made its way through a grove of oak trees. Thinking that was just what he was looking for, he turned Buster off the road and followed the creek for about fifty yards when he came to a small clearing. Judging by the remains of a couple of old fires, it had been used for camping before, so he dismounted and secured his prisoner to one of the many trees available. He went about his usual routine then, taking care of his horses first, then gathering wood for a fire, and before long he had coffee boiling and bacon in the pan.

  He drank coffee while he watched Ansel eat, and when he had finished, he chained him back up to the tree. “How the hell am I supposed to sleep, handcuffed to a tree like this?” Ansel finally complained.

  “You’ve just got to learn to relax,” Will said. “You’ll be surprised how soon you get used to it. Hell, after we’ve been ridin’ a couple of days, you won’t wanna sleep in a bed again. I’ll find some bigger limbs, so I can build the fire up and you’ll stay warm all night.” He walked back in the trees then to leave Ansel uttering a string of profanities.

  “All right!” The voice came suddenly from the edge of the clearing. “I’m holdin’ a twelve-gauge shotgun on you right now, so s’pose you move away from that tree.”

  “Fair enough,” another voice a little deeper in the darkness of the trees called clearly then. “I’ve got a Winchester 73 aimed at your back, and he can’t move from that tree. So you’d best lay that shotgun on the ground and walk on out in the clearing by the fire.”

  Sheriff Joe McCauley froze for just a second, then carefully laid his shotgun on the ground and walked over by the fire, his hands raised shoulder high. Will walked out of the trees behind him, his rifle leveled at the sheriff. “Now,” he asked, “just who might you be?”

  “Joe McCauley. I’m the sheriff.”

  “What is your business with us?” Will asked. “Is it against the law to camp here?”

  “No, it ain’t against the law, but it’s my job to find out what a man’s intentions are when he leads another man through town handcuffed. When our citizens complain about somethin’, it’s my job to look into it.”

  “The doctor?” Will asked.

  “It don’t matter who
,” McCauley replied. “I get a complaint and I have to check it out. So who are you and what is your business in Denton?”

  “You’re makin’ a helluva lot of demands, seein’ as how you’re the one with your hands in the air,” Will said. He reached down and picked up the shotgun. “You can turn around now.” When he did, Will released the hammers on the shotgun and handed it to him. “My business in your town is to get through it as fast as I can and be on my way toward Sherman. I’m a U.S. Deputy Marshal, transporting one of a gang of bank robbers back to Fort Smith, Arkansas, for trial. He pulled his badge out of his pocket and showed it to him. My name’s Will Tanner, and I wanted to get outta your town without causing any trouble for anybody. My prisoner needed a doctor, or I woulda rode around Denton.”

  McCauley studied Will carefully while he was talking and when Will paused for his response, he asked a question. “You do know you’re in Texas, don’t you? It’s about fifty miles from here to Oklahoma Territory, dependin’ on which way you go.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Will said.

  “Seems to me, if you were chasin’ this fellow, and he crossed over the Red, you’da got in touch with the Texas Rangers to go after him.”

  “That is the way we’d usually handle it,” Will conceded, “but I’ve been on this outlaw’s trail for a helluva long time, and I couldn’t just let him go because he crossed the river.” McCauley shrugged and considered that. Will continued, “Besides, this is a personal matter. He killed a friend of mine, so I’m determined to see him stand trial.”

  After a few more moments’ consideration, McCauley decided Will was who he said he was and figured there was no threat to him or his town. “You wanna keep him in my jail tonight, instead of chainin’ him to a tree?”

  “No, thanks just the same, Sheriff, but I don’t want him to get too comfortable sleepin’ on a bed, and I ain’t worried about him yankin’ up that tree and runnin’ off on me. At sunup in the mornin’, I’ll be on my way, and you won’t have to worry about us.”

  “All right, Will Tanner,” McCauley said. “I reckon that would save you some time, so good luck with your prisoner. I hope you don’t have any trouble.”

  “Much obliged, Sheriff,” Will said. McCauley turned to go back the way he had come, thinking it was a hell of a long way for a man to hug trees all the way to Fort Smith. He hadn’t taken more than a few steps when Will called after him, “Did you track me in here to this clearin’?” It occurred to him that he must have been careless about leaving a trail to follow.

  “Nope,” McCauley answered. “I just looked here first. Everybody knows about this spot. Seems like it’s everybody’s favorite place to camp.”

  That was not especially good news to Will. If he had known that before, he would have ridden on farther to find a place that wasn’t so well known. It was a little late for that now that he had Ansel locked away for the night. He walked back into the trees after a few seconds to follow the sheriff, and when he saw him get on his horse and leave, he went back to pick up the wood he had gathered. After a final nature call for Ansel, he locked him back around his tree. Then he suggested to him that he should lie on his side. That way, he could stretch his legs out on one side of the tree. When Ansel took his advice and settled himself to sleep, Will laid his extra blanket over him.

  * * *

  Much to Will’s surprise, Ansel fell asleep and was soon snoring. He figured the stress of his capture and the uncomfortable ride had contributed to his need for sleep. I wish I had the urge to sleep, Will thought, for he was wide-awake and his mind was still working on the fact that he had chosen this spot to camp in. Might as well have camped in a public park, he chided himself. As the night crept by, he could not rid his mind of the sensing that his camp and his prisoner were vulnerable. He didn’t know for sure if he had been followed from the Hornet’s Nest, but if he had, he had given them a lot of time to catch up while he was in the doctor’s office. As long as he was awake, he kept the fire stoked up. Might as well keep ol’ Ansel warm, he thought after placing a few more pieces of wood on the fire. That done, he laid back down on his blanket with serious intentions to go to sleep. He had not lain there for more than five minutes when he heard Buster nicker. With a thought that something might be bothering his horses, he got up to check on them. He found Buster by the edge of the creek and the big buckskin nickered again in greeting when he saw him. In a few seconds, he heard his packhorse answer Buster. Nothing seemed amiss with the horses, so he took a minute to rub the buckskin’s face and neck. He turned when he heard the sorrel come up from the trees behind him and started to give him some attention, too, when he suddenly realized that the nickering he had heard did not come from that direction. He was at once alert! There was somebody else in the trees with him. Sheriff McCauley? Maybe the sheriff had not bought his claim as to who he was. Then while he stood between his two horses, he caught a glimpse of a figure no more than twenty yards from him, darting through the dark forest toward his camp. Once again, he owed the buckskin for warning him. If Buster hadn’t tried to alert him to the presence of other horses, he would undoubtedly be a sleeping target by his big campfire.

  Without knowing who, or how many, he decided to get behind the figure he had seen slipping through the trees bordering the clearing. Until he knew what he was facing, he was reluctant to take any action. His immediate concern was Ansel Beaudry lying helpless near the fire. Whoever was advancing upon his camp, lone robber or Beaudry men, might not realize he was chained to the tree, and open fire. Driven by his intent to see Beaudry executed by rope on the gallows in Fort Smith, he quickly pushed through the bushes where he had seen the figure disappear. He came upon the stalker almost immediately, lying on his stomach, his rifle before him, aimed at the sleeping figure lying beside the tree. Unaware of Will behind him, the man reached up and levered a cartridge into the chamber, then put his finger on the trigger. With no time for conscious thought, Will fired, no more than a split second before Junior Hutto squeezed the trigger. His shot was high and wide of the target, while Will’s struck dead center between Junior’s shoulder blades.

  On the other side of the clearing, Mica Beaudry cursed. “That damn fool,” he hissed to Todd kneeling beside him, “I said nobody shoot, until I shoot.” His plan to walk right in to surprise the sleeping pair was now destroyed with more reports of gunfire from Brady and Rufus. He raised his Colt handgun and fired, concentrating his aim on what appeared to be a sleeping man several yards away from the one by the tree, thinking that to be the lawman. It mattered little, because there were enough pistol and rifle shots fired at the camp to hit both targets a dozen times over. Finally, the shooting stopped, there being no return fire from either form lying in the camp. A long moment of silence followed until Mica suddenly appeared at the edge of the clearing with Todd a step behind him. Soon, Brady and Rufus left their ambush positions and they all advanced cautiously toward the campfire.

  Back on the far side of the clearing, Will moved up to the body lying still in the bushes before him. Kneeling beside him, he rolled the body over to make sure he was dead. Even in the darkness, he recognized the battered face of Junior Hutto. His shot to prevent Ansel from being executed was unsuccessful, but at the time, he didn’t know there was a firing squad getting set to murder anything living in the camp. He knew now that he was up against four men, as they closed in on the campfire. Then he heard one call out.

  “Where’s Junior?” Brady asked, then yelled, “Hey, Junior, come on out. We got ’em.”

  When Junior failed to come out or respond to Brady’s call, Mica said, “Better go see about him. He mighta got hit by one of our shots.”

  Brady started to do as he said, but was stopped when Todd blurted, “That ain’t nothin’ but an empty blanket.” He followed that with, “Ansel’s chained to the tree! Where the hell’s the other one?”

  “I’m right here,” Will announced from the edge of the clearing. “You can drop your weapons on the ground and get on your kne
es. I’ll shoot the first one that tries anything.”

  There was a moment of hesitation on the part of all four, then Mica, infuriated to have succeeded only in the death of his son, shouted back, “The hell we will. You’re by yourself, so maybe you’d best come outta there and maybe I’ll let you live.”

  “I’ll shoot the first one that tries anything,” Will repeated, “so drop the weapons.”

  “Maybe we’d better do as he says, Papa,” Todd said, not willing to chance a wild gunfight that was bound to result in some of them getting shot before the lawman was dead.

  “The hell we will,” replied the stubborn old man. “You’d best run if you wanna live ’cause we’re comin’ after you.” He started toward Will. “Come on, boys, he can’t fight all of us. Spread out!”

  With only a small tree for cover, Will had hoped they wouldn’t follow the old man’s orders to charge him, but caught between their reluctance to attack and their fear of Mica Beaudry, they spread out and came at him in a line. He did the only thing he could think of to stop the assault. He fired at Rufus on the left, hitting him in the leg, and as he went down, Will reloaded, turned to the right and put a bullet in Brady’s shoulder. It effectively stopped the charge. “The next one’s for you, old man,” Will warned. “Stop right there and drop your weapons.”

  “To hell with you!” Mica shouted, and started to come forward again, firing at the tree where Will was kneeling. Then suddenly Todd staggered and fell to his knees, clutching his side, leaving his father to face the lawman alone. Mica stopped and looked at his son as if angry that he let himself get hit. “Now, by God,” Mica roared, “you’ve killed my family, but you’ll by God face me.”

  “Let that be the end of it,” a voice from behind Mica advised, “or I’ll cut you down with this shotgun.” Sheriff Joe McCauley appeared at the edge of the clearing and walked up behind the fallen men. “There’s enough dead and wounded here already. If there’s another one, it’s gonna be you, old man.” Finally seeing the hopelessness of his situation, Mica cursed and threw his gun on the ground and stood there scowling as Will stepped out into the clearing. Mica turned to glare at McCauley then before merely glancing at his wounded crew, with no more compassion for his son than for the other men. “Rusty!” McCauley yelled. “Bring them horses up here and bring some rope. We’ve got some prisoners to tie up.” He looked at Will. “Good evenin’, Deputy, looks like you were havin’ quite a party here. I don’t think it turned out the way your guests were plannin’ it, though. Hope you don’t mind me bargin’ in, but it looked like you had more’n you could handle.”