Dead Time

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  “Onward, lads,” the madman said, dropping the LeMat and now lifting Fallon over his shoulder. Fallon felt himself being carried through the dust, past the bloodied corpse of Juanito Gomez, toward the fort of wagons and horses, and . . . maybe . . . some more men.

  As he carried Fallon, Josiah Jonathan Justice bellowed a familiar song out of his forceful lungs. It was the last thing Fallon remembered before the dark void swallowed him whole.

  I wish I was in the land of cotton,

  Old times there are not forgotten;

  Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.

  In Dixie’s Land where I was born in,

  Early on one frosty morning,

  Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.

  I wish I was in Dixie. Hooray! Hooray!

  In Dixie’s Land I’ll take my stand

  to live and die in Dixie.

  Away, away, away down south in Dixie.

  Away, away, away down south in Dixie.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Cold water revived him. Actually, the water was lukewarm and had been emptied from a coffee cup onto his face. He turned to his left, a mistake, because the pain in his shoulder left him yelling out, and moved to his right, coughing, spitting out water, and wiping the water off his face.

  “You ain’t dead, not yet, nohow, and that bullet’s out of your arm,” a Texan drawled. “Get to your post, Alexander. At least you can die like a man.”

  Fallon’s vision came into focus. The murderer named Merle came into focus, and the man spit tobacco juice onto Fallon’s right boot as his left thumb and forefinger reached inside a vest pocket. He brought out a flattened piece of lead. “Thirty-two caliber,” Merle drawled. “I’ve been hurt worser with a slingshot.” He tossed the bullet that had slammed into Fallon’s shoulder onto Fallon’s chest.

  “Get up. We need ever’ gunhand we got.”

  The bandaging job wasn’t a work of beauty, but the rags Merle—or someone—had used looked relatively clean, and didn’t tear the wound open when Fallon sat up. He wet his lips, then hit the back of his head, which had just started feeling back to normal a few days before the ambush, against a wagon wheel.

  Fallon wiped his face. Merle reached behind his back and pulled out a long-barreled Smith & Wesson. “Figure you ain’t much good with a long gun. You got six beans in the wheel here. Make ’em count. Them greasers will likely charge directly.”

  The right arm lifted, to Fallon’s surprise, without tormenting the left shoulder. He opened his hand, and Merle, grinning without humor, laid the cold walnut butt of the .44 Russian on Fallon’s palm. His fingers and thumbs clasped the grip, and despite the fact that the .44 felt like a howitzer, Fallon didn’t drop it. He lowered his arm, came to his knees, shoved the revolver into his waistband, and got a grip on the spokes of the wheel. Only then could Fallon pull himself to his feet.

  “All right,” Merle said. “So you’re tough enough to stand on yer own two feet. Let’s see if you can walk ten yards to the Gen’ral.” Merle turned his back and walked away.

  It would be easy to shoot him in the back, Fallon thought, but he left the Smith & Wesson in his waistband and used the wagon’s side to make his way toward the command post of the New Confederate Army for Justice. Which was Merle, Fred Bennett, and General Josiah Jonathan Justice, standing behind a freight wagon, covered in dust and filth. Sweating men who had shunned their frock coats or shell jackets. Bennett had a dirty bandage wrapped around his head, no hat, and blood had dried to an ugly black, except for the dust coating it now, that ran from his temple, past his right eye, and down his beard-stubbled cheek.

  Justice fanned himself with his hat, the LeMat still shoved in his waistband. Winchester rifles, brand-new and just out of the box, leaned against the wagon’s side. Fallon saw the other wagons, with the surviving men huddled behind the wheels and inside the backs. They didn’t look like soldiers for the New Confederate Army for Justice. They didn’t even look like outlaws. They resembled frightened children and young men, weary, battered, and coming to accept the fact that death was close at hand.

  “Captain Alexander.” Justice stopped waving his hat and placed it back on his head. His eyes brightened and he even smiled. “It is grand to see you on your feet, suh. You look sharp. You look like a man ready to fight.”

  Fallon knew that he looked like hell. And that he felt awful.

  Yet he tried to salute, and said, “At your service, sir.”

  “Do not despair, men!” the General shouted, and stepped away from the wagon, looking down the line of wagons both ways. The wagons had been formed into a loose circle, and the horses and mules—those that had not been shot dead in their traces—were tethered behind the biggest wagon.

  “Help is on the way,” Justice said in a feeble attempt to rally what men he still had left. “Victory is at hand. The New Confederate Army for Justice shall not be defeated!”

  “Go to hell, you dingleberry!” someone answered.

  Justice appeared not to have heard.

  A voice shouted from the hills. It was Spanish. Fallon could make out only a few words, and he moved to the back of the wagon and looked through the space separating this freight wagon with the next one in line. Bodies littered the field. Bodies of horses and men, already bloating in the heat. Vultures had begun circling the sky, and the wind had stopped blowing. It was enough to make a man sick, but Fallon had nothing in his gut to throw up. He had left that on the sleeve of Justice’s frock coat. Fallon saw the coat. The General had used it to cover a dying man, a boy who lay shivering on the ground underneath the wagon.

  Sometimes Fallon didn’t know what to make out of Josiah Justice—other than he was stark raving mad.

  “They want our gold, sir,” Captain Bennett translated. “Again.”

  Merle was honing the blade of his savage bowie knife on the iron rim of the front tire. “Don’t we all,” he said in a mirthless tone.

  “They don’t know . . .” Fallon whispered.

  Justice whirled. “Alexander, what are you talking about? They don’t know what? Confound it, man, you will explain your meaning.”

  Fallon’s head shook. “They think we’re carrying gold.”

  “Which we was supposed to be doin’,” Merle said, still honing his blade.

  “That is obvious,” the General wailed, “since that is what they demand we give them. Gold.” He laughed. “United States script. Money we do not have thanks to traitors.”

  “Gomez . . .” Fallon started, but stopped when Justice gripped the butt of his LeMat.

  “We do not speak the names of scoundrels, cowards, and traitors at this command post, Mr. Alexander. Never! Do so and you shall find yourself in front of a firing squad. Or . . .” He laughed. “We’ll just send you out there running to those dirty little Mexicans. Give you a choice. Get killed by us. Or butchered by them.”

  Fallon touched his left shoulder, shuddered slightly, and swallowed down what little moisture he could summon up in his mouth.

  “He told them about the gold,” Fallon said. “But not the weapons.”

  Merle stopped sharpening the blade of the bowie. Bennett turned from staring at the hills, and the enemy, and looked Fallon directly in the eye. Justice rubbed his fingers across his sweaty, white head.

  Actually, Fallon didn’t think Juanito Gomez told the Mexicans anything. Gomez had come to help Fallon and the General. Justice had been out of his head and had killed the bandit. But the look on Gomez’s face, and the words Fallon recalled him uttering, suggested that he was no traitor. At least, he had not betrayed General Justice. Besides, Fallon remembered that conversation he had with Gomez days before this ambush. Gomez wasn’t part of this group. He hated them almost as much as he despised Texans. The big Mexican’s words echoed inside Fallon’s head: “Kill them. Send them all to hell, for surely they will do that to us all if they are given a chance.”

  “What do you mean?” Justice demanded.

  “They
’re asking for gold,” Fallon said. “Not weapons, bullets, and gold. Just gold. Dinero.” Fallon knew that much Spanish. “Money.”

  It made sense. By now news of the robbery had spread across the United States and her territories, likely north to Canada, and definitely into Mexico. But the United States government wouldn’t want a turbulent country like Mexico, with a dictator in charge and revolutionaries popping up like weeds after a wet spring, to know that a veritable arsenal had disappeared south of the Rio Grande. They just reported that money had been stolen from the express car.

  Bennett shook his head. “So what do you want us to do, Alexander? Give them the money we have? You think that’d stop them from killing us? You think they’d let us go for what probably wouldn’t add up to fifty dollars?”

  “I propose that we surrender,” Fallon said. “And then we send them all to hell.”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  “This is a foolish enterprise,” General Josiah Jonathan Justice said as he fanned himself with his hat. “You will waste precious lead that we might need when we drive the Yankee vermin out of Laredo, then Gonzalez, then San Antonio, then Austin . . . Waco . . . Dallas . . .” He shook his head and pointed toward the coast. “Reinforcements will be arriving directly. There is no need for us to do anything but wait.”

  “You’ve been mentioning those reinforcements since they attacked us yesterday, General,” Merle said as he studied the diagram and directions in front of him.

  That caused Fallon to stop feeding the new .30 caliber Army cartridges into the hopper. He had not realized how long he must have been out. But, of course, now it was so obvious. He had been shot yesterday afternoon. Merle had dug the slug out of his shoulder, and Fallon had slept through the rest of the day and into the next morning.

  At least he had been able to sleep. Most of these mercenaries had been awake for more than thirty-three hours. Others were sleeping an eternal sleep. Fallon sighed and fingered another cartridge. That was about all Fallon could handle with his bum left shoulder. Two other soldiers sat in the back of the wagon, feeding cartridges into more hoppers. On the wagon behind them, another crew worked at assembling one of the two Gatling guns.

  Justice refused to allow more than two of his new, stolen army trophies of war to be used against greasers.

  “This is ridiculous,” the General started, and the Mexicans began shouting again.

  “They might have a spyglass,” Bennett said, softer this time. “And see what we’re doing.”

  “If that were the case,” Fallon said, “they’ d be asking for the guns, too.”

  Bennett nodded. “Maybe. I hope so.”

  The voice from the hills died down.

  “What did that mongrel say?” Justice asked.

  Merle put a finger in his ear, twisted it, as if that could help, and pulled it out. He said, “This is our last chance. Either we surrender now. Or we will be put to the death. Kinda like the Alamo.” He chuckled.

  “If only Davy Crockett had a Gatling gun,” said Bennett as he tightened a bolt. “I think,” he said, “this one’s ready. Once we put it on the tripod.”

  Fallon looked over the tailgate at the next wagon. A bald man, shirtless, sweating, muscles bulging, nodded. “Ours is ready, but we ain’t sure how you fire it.”

  “Put both hoppers in the slots,” Bennett said, staring at the directions. “Turn the crank.”

  The Gatlings used what the directions and diagrams called a Bruce-style feed system. When the first hopper was emptied, it could be removed while the second hopper fed the .30 caliber cartridges into individual chambers. Fallon filled the twentieth cartridge into another hopper. He handed it to Bennett.

  “Four-man crews per gun,” Bennett said. “Everybody knows what he’s doing?”

  No one did. But they all nodded.

  “Four hundred rounds per minute.” Someone whistled.

  “Just turn the crank slowly,” Fallon said. “These guns have a tendency to jam.”

  “And aim low,” Merle said.

  Fallon, Bennett, and two men would be working the gun in Fallon’s wagon. Merle crossed over to the wagon with the bare-chested bald man and two other tired soldiers of fortune.

  General Justice yelled: “All right! Wave the white flag. Wave it high. Walk with dignity, men, and listen to my command.”

  Reluctantly, what was left of Justice’s New Confederate Army for Justice began walking or limping out of the circle of wagons, toward the hills, handguns stuck behind their backs. Most of them raised their hands high over their heads. Leading the way was General Josiah Jonathan Justice. Beside him, his sergeant waved a flag of truce.

  Lying down next to the Gatling gun, keeping his head behind the wagon’s side, Fallon saw all of this through a knothole in the pine plank. What these men were doing showed bravery. What Fallon was about to do almost made him sick to his stomach.

  “I’ve killed scores of greasers,” Fred Bennett whispered. “Plenty of white outlaws, too. And a few Yankees years and years ago. But I don’t reckon I ever done nothing this low.”

  “Me, neither,” Fallon said.

  “I don’t see nothing wrong with this,” said one of the loaders. “They plan on cutting us down.”

  “I know,” Fallon said. “But it doesn’t rest any better in my gut.”

  Clouds of dust formed behind the top of the hill. Fallon found his throat parched, like the land he was on. He wiped his clammy hands on his trousers. His shoulder no longer bothered him, maybe because of how scared he was, and how sick he felt.

  “A flag of truce . . .” Bennett spit in disgust. “Killing men while waving a flag of truce. Well, at least I’m getting paid a ton of money . . . Or damned well better be.”

  “They’ll be trying to kill men waving a flag of truce,” Fallon said, and the first riders appeared at the top of the hill. “Here they come.”

  He held up a hand, keeping his three gunnery mates down and out of view. He tried to wet his lips, but did nothing. The Mexicans could be heard now, yelling curses in Spanish and drawing their revolvers or cocking their rifles. Yes, these butchers had no intention of recognizing that white flag. But it still didn’t make Fallon feel much better.

  “NOW!”

  Bennett and the biggest of the men lifted the round cylinder, locked it into place, and Bennett moved behind the gun. Fallon slammed one hopper into place. The remaining outlaw did the second.

  “Hit the dirt!” Fallon yelled, and watched as the men who had been pretending to surrender fell belly-first onto the ground. All but one. General Josiah Jonathan Justice stood in front of his command, tall, rigid, a virtual wall, and he drew the LeMat revolver and fired the first bullet of the battle.

  The roar from the Gatling was deafening—Fallon couldn’t even hear the Gatling in the next wagon bed—and the smoke blinding, plus the wagon bounced around. The clip emptied, and Fallon withdrew it as Bennett kept turning the crank. Each barrel roared as Fallon ducked and handed it to the man in charge of reloading. He already had another empty hopper filled, and once he handed it to Fallon, Fallon rose back into the smoke, ready to take the second hopper after he replaced his.

  Down he went again, taking the warm hopper from the sweating, wild-eyed outlaw. Fallon saw that General Justice remained standing, daring some Mexican to kill him, and the mercenaries on the ground were firing from prone positions with their revolvers. Horses reared, throwing off dead men, or dying themselves.

  “This is a slaughter,” Fallon said, though only he could hear his own voice over the din of battle. “And I am its designer.” He turned to spit, and brought up another container of .30 caliber shells to rain upon the marauders.

  As he slammed the hopper into place and lifted his hand for the next empty one, his eyes teared from the smoke. Fred Bennett, murderer, traitor, and former Texas Ranger, was grinning with malevolent pleasure as he turned that crank, causing a steady pop-pop-pop. The gun could not continue at this rate. Already the mechanism was slowing, a
nd sometimes a chamber refused to fire. Gunpowder would foul the Gatling, render it useless. But these men were too desperate to stop.

  Suddenly Fred Bennett jerked the crank, straightened, and his eyes glazed over. Fallon saw the massive hole just beneath his rib cage, and he knew what had happened. A bullet had entered at the small of the killer’s back and blown an apple-sized hole in his upper abdomen. Blood gushed from Bennett’s mouth, and he tried to say something, but choked on the pool of crimson, and as Fallon reached for him, Bennett twisted to one side and fell forward, pushing the barrel down, twisting the crank, and riddling the floor and side of the wagon with bullets from the Gatling gun.

  Fred Bennett was dead when he hit the wagon bed.

  The soldier of fortune handling the hopper turned and caught a bullet in his forehead that blew off the top of his skull.

  “Behind us!” Fallon yelled. He stepped toward the gun and awkwardly spun the weapon around.

  The Mexican bandits had some sense. They had sent only part of their band to meet and slaughter the surrendering members of the wagon train. The rest had circled around. General Justice had not suspected the bandits smart enough to try such a simple, and what should have been predictable, move. Hell, neither had Fallon.

  He gripped the crank, pointed the barrel down just a tad, and turned the handle.

  Pop-pop-pop! The .30 caliber gun spit out lead, although the smoke was so thick, Fallon could not see if he had hit anything. Suddenly, the machine gun stopped firing. Fallon could not even turn the crank.

  He leaped, ducked, drew one of the Colts from Bennett’s holsters, and hurdled over the side. Two men had made it underneath one of the wagons. Fallon saw horses and dust beyond that. He squeezed the trigger, and the bullet caught the first killer as he tried to push himself to his feet. The man dropped his revolver and clasped his head with both hands. Blood seeped between his fingers as the man fell onto his side, shuddered, and breathed his last. Fallon dived to his right as the second man brought up his Winchester and fired. Fallon aimed from his side and touched the trigger. He missed. The man stepped forward. The last gunner in Fallon’s wagon fell over the side, hit the wheel, and slid into the dust, his feet and fingers twitching.