Epic

by Alexander Strijewski

The boy was shaken out of his reverie and looked back at Mark.

  “I have a bad feeling about what’s to come.”

  Mark guffawed, “Oh come now. Aren’t you always saying you have a bad feeling of what’s to come? Seriously, when was the last time we had an issue down here?”

  “How many men do you have protecting this town over the next several days?”

  “Oh come now. Well, I have Avery and Gleece who just went out of town, they will be back in a fortnight, but in a pinch I’m sure I can round up the usual posse of at least 8 men.” Mark smiled a brush off smile.

  Kachi continued in his same tones, “I have a real bad feeling about this. Something is wrong, very wrong. But I don’t know what it is.”

  “My boy, we just did our look out this afternoon, and there was no one coming to town. Why don’t you relax, it is getting late. Do you want me to make you some fresh beans? And then you should be heading off to your bed.”

  The boy paused again, trying to grasp at one of the flies. He sighed.

  “OK. I guess you’re right.” He was about to let it go when he had the thought, “have you gotten any wires lately? Maybe we have some news about something?”

  “Well actually, to tell you the truth, we haven’t gotten very much traffic lately. I don’t think I’ve gotten a message for days.”

  “Is that normal?”

  “Well…” the light of the lanterns that played across his masculine features revealed a fading smile, “I suppose that is irregular. I normally get 2 or 3 wires a day.”

  “When was your last?”

  “Hmmm..” Mark gave it some thought, “actually I think it’s been about a week.”

  Kachi went on, “All right, now has there been anything else odd going on? Have you gotten any strange shipments recently, or have there been newcomers to town that you didn’t feel good about?”

  “Well no, no strange shipments actually.” He rubbed his chin in further contemplation, “Now that you mention it, we haven’t gotten any shipments by coach recently at all. And the train has been gone, they were working on a new line into Dodge City last I heard. No there hasn’t been anything.”

  “All right. But were there any arrivals due? When was the last shipment we had?”

  Mark was starting to get spooked, “Arrivals you say? Over a week ago I believe. Well I’m not quite sure on that. I’m not much concerned with supplies.”

  “But you usually get something don’t you? Is there someone you can ask?”

  It was Mark’s turn to sigh, “I suppose Old man Garner, over by the Supply depot would have some idea. If it eases your mind, do you want to head over there and ask him?”

  “Yes!” Kachi was very definite in manner, more so than Mark had ever seen. Now he was really starting to get the creeps.

  “All right, get hold of yer britches, lets mosey on over there now and ask him.”

  He took his Stetson off the rack and they made their way across a Glimmer Rock which was especially quiet this evening. The sun painted the eastern sky a deep magenta and the clouds had decided to turn in for the evening. A tumble weed blew across the walk, as if to make up for the lack of affair. Mr. Garner’s shack was at the far end of town, bathed in red.

  Sheriff Mark thundered across, his prints making dust behind him, “Hmmm, a lot of lights are off. It would seem more folks had ridden out than I thought.”

  He poked his head into the Saloon out of curiousity. About half the usual suspects were about. Not the regular type of traffic they were accustomed to. He finally arrived at the Supply Post and rapped his knuckles on the old rickety door.

  “Who is it?”

  “This is Sheriff Mark Fenner, Mr Garner… Tom, if you would do me the pleasure of opening the door. My friend and I have a few questions for you if you don’t mind.”

  The door opened suddenly and a homely yet quite pleasant old man greeted them and waved them inside, “Ah Mister Sheriff, well why didn’t ya say so. Come right on in. What can I do you for?”

  They walked in, the store room was somewhat more sparse than usual. Many of the stocks had been used or sold. It had never occurred to Mark that anything out of the ordinary had been happening at all.

  “Say Tom, my friend here and I were wondering, have you missed any shipments of supplies recently? Has there been anything out of the ordinary?”

  Tom looked over in Kachi’s direction and then answered Mark, “Well sir, I’m glad you asked. I haven’t received a shipment of goods in two weeks. Nothing has come through ever since the harvest fair and the Overland Line had decided to expand their terminals, there hasn’t been hide nor hare.”

  Mark looked at him intently, “Really!? Well tell me this then. Where did everybody go?”

  “Oh well when Avery went off on his little excursion, several other pushers decided to join him. Ya know they have enjoyed the riches of our town quite a bit and believed it was about high tide they did some travellin’. But o’ course we haven’t heard from any of ‘em since?”

  Mark scratched his forehead, “Dammit! I shoulda told them there is nothing to see in these parts. They can go East back towards civilization, but the rest of the land around here is a lawless hog-wallows! Those fools! How many people left with him?”

  Mr. Garner looked perplexed, “Oh the Dillard’s, the Harris’s, I think the Wesley’s. It was quite a few now that I think of it. Oh I’m shore it was nuthin’. They should be back ‘fore you know it.”

  But Mark had already left. With a hurricane’s pace he raced back to his office, leaving the town in his whirlwind of dust.

  He went straight to the hidden alcove and shoved aside the bookshelf. Kachi was right behind him as they entered the anteroom.

  “All right, enough mystery. Let’s find out what this is all about!”

  The boy knew what to do. He went into the center of the room knelt and began his reverie. Already in an agitated state, it took Kachi a while to settle himself, he tried to concentrate.

  “Come on boy. You can do it.” Mark tried to keep his anxiousness corked as much as he could, seeing that the boy was struggling. “Concentrate.” He said in as a reserved tone as he could manage. Never having a dire emergency in his fifteen year tenure that he wasn’t was well prepared for ahead of time, he racked his brains for who there was left who could help him defend the town. John Wesley was his best sharpshooter, and only too happy to volunteer in the event of a raid. But he was gone. The Harris brothers had taken down countless bandits with their aim, this town wouldn’t exist without their expertise on a six gun. They were gone. He glanced back towards the armory trying to recall his stockpile of arms. As long as they had enough men, they would be able to hold back a small army. But with no men… Why did they have to go all at once!

  The boy was starting to come around now, his breathing seemed to have settled and he regained the detached tone he had when he attained clairvoyance. “OK I’m out. I can’t see well. It is dark on the plains.”

  “I know my boy. Please try. Do you see anything unusual, anything at all?”

  There was another long pause. In his mind’s eye, the boy scoured the land as the great eagle hunting prey from above. Time and time again, he only found more of the same, sage brush, gulleys, brooks, and the endless plains, all shrouded under the cover of night.

  Hours went by it seemed. Several times Mark thought he had lost the boy in the dream world. But with a little prodding he always got back the same laconic, “I’m looking.”

  “If someone is coming, they would use the darkness to gain the element of surprise. Keep looking, maybe you can hear something somewhere?” Mark pressed on.

  More time passed.

  “Maybe no one is coming.” said an increasingly sanguine Sheriff, “I mean we didn’t see anything earlier today. It might just be a false alarm. I think we should get some sleep.”

  No answer and then, “Ok.”

  Slowly, the young boy seemed to come back to life.

  “All righ
t buddy, we tried our best.” The sheriff wondered what time it was. “Come on, let’s get some sleep ok? We’re safe.” He tried to pat him on the back.

  “Ok.”

  Slowly they made their way back out into the marshals office, Mark took note of the munitions in the stock room and the bracketed rifles on the walls on his way outside as well as the clock. It was passed one AM in the morning.

  “All right my man. Let’s both rest it off. I’m sorry about that. Tomorrow’s another day.”

  Wearily, he saw the boy off but made a quick stop at the saloon just to see who there was. The day had left only a few stragglers, no one he could use in a fire fight. Sullen, he left and rolled off into bed trying to dismiss from his mind the events of the day like some bad dream long forgotten.

  * * *

  Sheriff Mark’s restive night was interrupted by a piercing shriek. He looked around. The morning sun had just begun its gradual trek over the Eastern bluffs through his window. It was the boy. He threw off his fleece blanket and rushed to him to as fast as he could.

  The boy stood by himself in the kitchen with terror in his eyes.

  “What happened!? Are you ok?”

  Again the boy didn’t answer him right away. There didn’t appear to be an intruder as far as he could tell. Mark glanced outside once again, there was no one there other than the morning herons wading their way through a nearby arroyo.

  The boy just continued to stare straight ahead. Mark tried to shake him into coherence. “Boy! KACHI! Answer me!”

  The boy looked up at him.

  “Answer me! What happened.?”

  “I was dreaming and I saw it.”

  “Saw what?”

  “Them.”

  “Dammit boy! Why do you always have to be so obtuse! Just answer me straight. Who is ‘them’!?”

  “All of them.”

  Lady Bingham wearily entered the room rubbing her eyes also having been shaken out of her slumber, “What’s all this commotion about? It’s 5:00 in the morning.”

  The boy looked at her and said, “They are coming.”

  Before she could answer Mark responded, “We may have outlaws on their way to attempt to plunder Glimmer Rock.”

  The Lady looked out the window incredulous, “Hardly. How would you ever know that? You must’ve just had a nightmare. Come now, let’s get back to bed. You can sleep it off with me.”

  “If it’s all right, I’m going to go for a walk. I need to collect my thoughts. Don’t wait up for me.”

  “All right, just don’t stay up too late.” The Lady left as wearily as she had arrived.

  Mark wasted no time, going out into the veranda, mindlful of anyone following them he directed all his attention on the boy who followed him. “All right now think. Were you just dreaming or is this real?”

  Kachi, a bit startled said, “Sir, I don’t know. It looked real enough.”

  “All right let’s go.”

  They made their way through the town grassplot and headed through the postern which lead into the Marshals office. Within a few minutes, the boy was again deep in trance, seeing the land as only he could, but this time with the help of the daybreak slowly creeping its way onto the sweeping plains.

  “OK now what do you see.”

  “It wasn’t a dream. They are coming.”

  “Geez! How many of them are there?”

  Another pause as little Kachi took in the details of the cavalcade heading straight for them, “I can’t tell exactly through the dust cloud. There are a lot of them, maybe thirty-five or more.”

  “Oh god!” The Sheriff looked around the room as if he could find a way out of this through the wallboards, “We’ve never had that many come after us. Are you sure they are hostile? Maybe it’s just Avery, Harris, Gleece and the boys on their way back!?”

  A fretful pause and ,”They are being led by the snaggle toothed man with the jutting chin we met earlier, the one who had threatened the Lady Bingham.”

  “That god awful mess of a man!? How could he lead anything but a cockroach to his refuse! Are you sure?”

  The boy didn’t answer.

  “Well tell me this, are they armed?”

  The boy looked at each of them in turn from his unique viewpoint across a distance, “Yes, all of them have fire arms, some of them have two guns, one booted and another holstered.”

  Mark thought fast.

  “How far away are they?”

  The boy calculated, “It looks like at their current pace, they will reach Glimmer Rock late in the night, they are still many miles away.”

  “So we have the day to prepare. I have no idea how we are going to hold back a small army. Can you find our boys anywhere nearby? Avery, Harris or anyone?”

  The boy looked, “No.”

  “What about the closest town. Is there anyone in Sandstone we can rally?”

  After a short moment, “Everyone is still sleeping, but it looks mostly deserted.”

  “Then it’s up to us.” Said Mark resolute, ”Ok my boy. That’s it, let’s round up who we can.”

  * * *

  Sheriff Mark combed through the township for every last gunfighter he could find and those he had to volunteer against their will. Every able bodied man had been collected before noon. They had tried to contact Sandstone by wire but there was no response. Something about the apparatus had been dismantled and they didn’t have time to attempt repairs.

  It was decided, that the makeshift posse would practice their shooting on soup cans, half of them completely unfamiliar with the workings of a pistol or rifle.

  “How do we even know anyone is coming?” said old man Garner, “What are we even doing any of this for? Our telegraph machine is not working”

  “Someone has purposely sabotaged them. They are coming and if we don’t defend the town, we will be mincemeat by morning. On that you have my word. But if you do exactly as I say we have a chance.”

  “Against forty armed and dangerous men? This is suicide. We should just give up and run.” said Jake, the ornery teen.

  “But with my myopia, how am I even supposed ta see anyone that I’m shootin’?” said Garner.

  “OK OK! Look!” Mark stretched his arms out as if to field any further talk from even starting, “I want to be very clear! We are the only defense this town has left. Without us we will lose everything to outlaws. I don’t want to force anyone to stay that doesn’t want to be here. But if you go you will leave everything you have built, everything you have ever loved and cherished to be overrun by brigands! If you really want to go, I won’t stop you, but know that you will leave as cowards forevermore. Now what’s your play?”

  Old man Berringer and the teen from the Harris farm lowered their weapons and started to back away. They turned their backs and began walking away, leaving only eight men. “We’re leaving. We don’t want to die.”

  “GET BACK HERE AND MAN YOUR POSTS RIGHT NOW OR I”LL SHOOT YOU WHERE YOU STAND! I changed my mind!” blared the Sheriff.

  “If you’re going to die, you’re going to die like men!”

  “But I ain’t no man Sheriff.” Said the Harris boy in a meek voice.

  “Well no boy, you ain’t, but TODAY YOU ARE! Whether you like it or not, you just came of age my friend. Now pick up ‘em guns and I’m gonna tell you exactly how we’re going to win this fight. I won’t have the women and children of this town perish because you’re yellah!”

  Tentatively the two made their way back to their guns and picked them up.

  “Now outta the lot of you I need as many sharpshooters as I can possibly find. We will have the element of surprise and we’re going to use it. Now you see this here!?” He held up a sleek looking burnished rifle, “This is a Sharpes .44. One of the most accurate guns in the West, unlike the Henry or the Winchester, this here rifle doesn’t have a puny cartridge that would leave you pot shooting all over the horizon! It is accurate and that which you aim at you will hit! You simply aim down the scope and pull the tr
igger. If you don’t, you and everyone here will die. We have enough ammo to find out who here can shoot from range and those who can will be the sharp shooters. ALL of you will fire to begin with from a distance and you will all fire at once in unison and you will all hit at once! Then the rest of you will lay ambush for anyone that makes it past our outer defenses to pick off the intruders by manning hidden recesses.”

  The crowd was starting to liven up. Slowly the townsfolk came out to see what was the commotion.

  “Now listen. We know exactly where these men are coming from and when they will get here. They will coming from the north-west right about there!” the Sheriff pointed, “and if they continue riding they will be here at exactly midnight tonight, on the button! They intended to get the jump on us but we will get the jump on them. Now before they enter the town, they will have to rein up somewhere near the outskirts of town to both rest and plan their attack. While they are doing that they will be standing still as targets. It is at exactly that point in time that we will strike and we will strike together!”

  A quiet murmur of cheers was starting to build up in the men now, the Sheriff’s speech was having an effect on them. The townsfolk began to congregate.

  “You will all be looking at me when they pull up, I will be behind cover and holding up my hand in silence. All of you will be stationed exactly where I tell you and you will be hidden in the dark. There will not be a single lamp lit in the whole town tonight, therefore your eyes will accustom themselves to the night and the bandits will not be able to see you. You will all have your weapons trained on separate men which I will go over with you. Then when I whisper a countdown from 3 and drop my hand, you drop your hammers and take down their entire front line!”

  The men began to cheer now! Hope had been restored and the townsfolk joined in.

  “Their ringleader is a man Hanley. He is a weak willed man and not a good leader. I will be the one to drop him. Once he is gone the rest of the band will be in a confusion. It will be into this confusion you will burst fire as quick as possible all the ammunition you have. And if they still want to make a charge, half of you will drop back to your alcoves and ambush fire them from the flanks until there are none left or they have all withdrawn.” He could see the effect he was having in their eyes now, a spark of life was being injected into them, “They are going to regret ever having set foot in Glimmer Rock! And anyone who doesn’t turn tail and run will leave from here AS COLD AS A WAGON TIRE!!!”