Colorado Crossfire

by Patrick E. Andrews

  The revolver bucked and spat fire, sending the slug into Orman’s jaw. The outlaw’s face caved in as fast as the draw and shot had been performed. He staggered backward three steps and made a half-turn before he hit the floor.

  Bill Hays pointed to Tip Tyler and Craw Mindon. “Drag his ass outside.”

  The two quickly complied, pulling the cadaver to the door and pitching it through the opening. Delmar Dawson had come running in when the shot exploded in the close confines of the cabin. Milo Paxton tossed him five dollars from Orman’s share. “That’s to pay you to bury the sonofabitch,” he said.

  “Sure, Milo. I’ll do it first thing in the morning,” Dawson said.

  Paxton quickly divided up the remainder of Orman’s share into the other nine piles. “Okay, boys,” he said. “Get your money.”

  Tip Tyler pulled his pile of coins toward him and slipped them into his pocket. “What’re you gonna be doing while we’re all resting up and waiting, boss?”

  Paxton shrugged. “Same as you I reckon.”

  “You going any particular place?”

  “That ain’t none o’ your business, Tip,” Paxton said.

  “Right, boss.”

  The rest of the gang quickly grabbed the coins, shoving them into their pockets. “What about Orman’s horse and gear?” Tom Foyt asked.

  “It’s mine,” Paxton answered. “I killed him.”

  No one put up an argument.

  ~*~

  Lefty McNally tied the saddlebags into place, cinching up the rawhide thongs as tight as he could, “I still don’t see why we can’t have no badges,” he complained.

  Jim Bigelow, leaning against the livery stable door, shook his head. “You don’t need ’em,” he said. “The railroad ain’t a government agency nohow.”

  “You got one,” Kiowa said as he checked his bedroll attached to the back of the saddle.

  “It’s just for identification when I talk to lawmen,” Bigelow explained. “It proves that I really work for the railroad. Anyhow, I don’t think Milo Paxton or any of his boys is gonna be much impressed one way or the other.” He looked toward the rear of the barn where fresh boards had been nailed into place. A pile of charred lumber was stacked up on one side. “You boys did a good job of trying to burn this place down.”

  “If we’d done a good job, it wouldn’t be standing,” Lefty said. “It was an accident.”

  “Accident, hell!” Kiowa scoffed. “You threw that damn lantern at me.”

  Bigelow’s eyes opened wide. “You threw a lantern in a livery barn? You was inside a dried-up ol’ building with hay all over the place, and you threw a lantern in it?”

  “Kiowa made me mad,” Lefty said defensively.

  “Drunken idjit,” Kiowa said. “I can’t see why you’d get all upset over a little remark about you looking kinda funny in the saddle.”

  “I’m lanky,” Lefty said. “That’s why I look that way.”

  Bigelow’s astonishment hadn’t lessened. “Kiowa said you were awkward on a horse, so you threw a burning lantern at him, huh?”

  “I wasn’t thinking when I done it,” Lefty said. “He said it and I kinda – well, I would’ve thrown anything in my hand, but it just so happened I was holding a lantern at the time.”

  “What was you doing with a lantern in here anyhow?” Bigelow asked.

  “It was night,” Lefty said. “We needed it so’s we could see.”

  Bigelow frowned as his amazement and puzzlement grew. “Then what the hell was you doing in here at night?”

  “Getting our horses,” Kiowa exclaimed. “We was out of money and couldn’t pay our bill to the old codger that runs the place. So we come in here to sneak the horses out.”

  “Then Shithead loses his temper and throws the lantern at you, huh?” Bigelow remarked. “Now you boys got me worried. Maybe you’re too damned dumb for this job.”

  “We only do dumb things in town,” Lefty said.

  “Well, never mind that,” Bigelow said. “Right now I want to hear how you plan on doing this job.”

  “Hell, we ain’t got any plans,” Lefty said. “Well just ride up into the mountains and start looking around ’til we find ’em.”

  “It won’t be hard,” Kiowa added. “We can start at Dawson’s Meadow and go from there.”

  “It won’t be hard to trail ’em,” Lefty said. “We’ll just ask folks if they’ve seen any o’ Milo Paxton and his boys. They’ll tell us.”

  “Yeah,” Bigelow said. “That’s an advantage you boys have over me and my railroad detectives. Nobody’ll talk to us up in the mountains.”

  “You’re damn right about that,” Lefty said with a laugh.

  “From Dawson’s Meadow we’ll prob’ly work our way up to El Campo and Luckville,” Kiowa said.

  Lefty nodded his head. “And go a few more places.”

  “What’re you gonna be doing through all this?” Kiowa asked. “Sitting around and waiting to hear from us?”

  “I’ll be trailing you by a few days,” Bigelow said. “Russ Wilson is gonna ride with me. Do you remember him?”

  “Yeah,” Lefty said. “A grumpy sonofabitch.”

  “He’s a good man in a fight,” Bigelow pointed out. “So we’ll both be coming up behind you. The two of us will count the bodies and identify ’em to make sure you’re doing the job we’re paying you for. And I can bring down any prisoners you get.”

  “Prisoners?” Lefty asked. Then he laughed.

  Kiowa grinned. “They ain’t gonna be no prisoners, Jim Bigelow. Didn’t you notice we didn’t ask to borry no handcuffs from you?”

  “Paxton and them gunslingers of his is coming out feet first,” Lefty said.

  “You boys are sure of yourselves and I respect that,” Bigelow said. “But don’t forget what you’re going up against. Milo Paxton is a brutal killer that makes folks nervous on both sides o’ the law. You make one dumb move and you’re both dead men.”

  “Hell! We know that,” Lefty said. “We been through manhunts before. Remember when we worked for you in Colorado?”

  “Yeah. But we wasn’t chasing Milo Paxton then,” Bigelow said. “That’s gonna make all the differ’nce in the world.”

  Lefty stopped grinning and glanced over at Kiowa. “That’s something worth remembering, ain’t it?”

  “I been thinking on it,” Kiowa said seriously.

  “One mistake or slip and your bones is gonna rot up there in them mountains,” Bigelow said. “Then me and Russ will be hauling you two out feet first.”

  Lefty slipped his boot through his stirrup and forked the horse. “We know it’s gonna be a hard job, Jim. That’s why you hired us for it, right?”

  Bigelow nodded. “Be careful, boys.”

  Kiowa mounted his gelding. “I’m a Kiowa Injun, Jim. I ain’t ever careful.”

  “Y’know,” Lefty remarked. “That’s what’s always worried me about you.”

  Bigelow waved as they rode out of the barn and turned up the street. He knew it was touch and go from that moment on.

  Four

  When Liam Norvall McNally and the Kiowa Kid left home to strike out on their own, the two sixteen-year-old boys did so with dreams of grandeur. Post Commissary Sergeant McNally took their announcement of immediate departure in a typically Irish manner:

  “Ye’re both daft!”

  “But there ain’t nothing around here for us, Pa!” Lefty protested.

  “Sure and there’s plenty,” McNally countered. “Kiowa’s people are settling in nice around Anadarko. As fer yerself, ye could do some homesteading right here in the territory. The land is there for the taking provided ye’re willing to do the work.”

  “We can’t get rich farming,” Lefty said.

  “Nope,” Kiowa agreed.

  “Ah! It’s rich ye want to be, is it?” McNally said. “Then, lads, go off and seek yer fortunes.”

  “You bet, Pa!”

  “Then after a bit ye can jine up fer a five-year hitch in the arm
y when ye’re close to starving,” McNally said. “There’s a regiment o’ cavalry and one o’ infantry right here at Fort Sill that’s filled wit’ would-be rich men.”

  “We’ll get rich alright,” Kiowa said.

  “The army might be just the place fer ye,” Sergeant McNally suggested.

  Both boys had seen plenty of the army. The sight of men going through brutal corporal punishment and enduring the mindless monotony of garrison soldiering had not been lost on them.

  “I think we can do better’n going for soljers, Pa,” Lefty said.

  “Learn yer lessons the hard way then,” McNally said gruffly. “Ye’ve got plans then?”

  “We sure do,” Lefty said. “The cattle country in Texas is the place to be.” Filled with ideas about the Lone Star State from listening to ex-cowboys and other frontiersmen spinning tall tales, the two boys had made firm plans after deciding there were plenty of opportunities to the south for a couple of sharpers like themselves.

  So, with a rather dubious blessing from the good sergeant, Lefty McNally and the Kiowa Kid departed for Texas. Before leaving, they bragged to all their friends and acquaintances at Fort Sill that they would soon be wealthy Texas ranchers.

  “We’ll be back with silver on our saddles and greenbacks in our wallets,” Lefty said.

  “That’s right,” Kiowa added, though his Indian upbringing didn’t help him when it came to putting wealth into a realistic perspective. “And we’ll buy anything we want at the sutler’s store.”

  “And as much of it, too,” Lefty said.

  Although the cattle drives had petered out a few years previously, the intrepid pair had dreams of gaining financial glory in a bovine empire that would stretch from the Red River all the way to the Rio Grande in the south. “After that,” Lefty said with a gleam in his eye, “we’ll take over Mexico.”

  The first thing they found after leaving their familiar haunts was plenty of trouble.

  The days of Kiowa and Comanche raids into Texas were still fresh in the minds of the state’s citizenry.

  The pair of potential Dukes of Cattledom didn’t realize it, but Kiowa’s appearance would not bring about friendly reactions during contacts with ranchers and farmers of the area. Around Anadarko, Fort Sill, and the surrounding territories, the Indian population was permanently accepted by all in the racially mixed territory. Such tolerance did not extend far from Oklahoma.

  Lefty and the Kiowa Kid left Fort Sill early on a misty spring morning. Excited about the prospects of riches and excitement, they saddled up their horses and headed south in the pale light of predawn. A couple of hours after daybreak, they splashed across a shallow portion of the Red River and galloped onto Texas soil.

  Lefty reined in and signaled to Kiowa to do the same. “Looky out there,” the sixteen-year-old said. “This is ours, pard. Our cattle and our cowboys is gonna roll across this prairie like the buffalo did a few years back.”

  “You bet.” Kiowa agreed.

  The time spent with Lefty and the other McNally kids had brought the Indian boy’s ability in English to their rather questionable standards. His skill and fluency in the language matched that of any other native person in the area. His appearance, like all the Kiowas and Comanches tamed by the peace treaty, had also altered quite a bit through his contact with whites. Mrs. McNally had sewn him some clothes on various occasions and even given him some of Lefty’s older brother’s duds to him as the larger boy outgrew them. In a matter of time, Kiowa found he preferred the white man’s style of dress, but continued to wear his hair in the braids common to a plains warrior.

  “C’mon now!” Lefty shouted. “The sooner we start working, the sooner we’ll be rich!”

  They cantered south, laughing and joking as they penetrated the Texas countryside. The terrain didn’t offer much for sightseeing. A few isolated farms popped up now and then, but the weatherworn buildings and haggard settlers were of no interest to the future cattle barons. Toward evening they finally entered the boundaries of a ranch. After skirting a medium-sized herd, Lefty and Kiowa spotted the evening cook fire of the drovers.

  “Let’s go on over there,” Lefty said. “We can eat with them fellers and maybe find out a few things that’s going on in the business.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Kiowa said in agreement. He laughed. “You know what?”

  “What?” Lefty asked.

  “Someday that bunch o’ cowboys might be working for us.”

  “Maybe they ought to start calling us ‘boss’ right away,” Lefty said.

  A semi-permanent camp had been set up by the work crew. A large lean-to held their bedrolls, and the cooking was done on a piece of sheet iron mounted on an adobe frame. Lefty and Kiowa, knowing proper etiquette from Oklahoma, made plenty of noise riding up to let the cowboys know that there was no underhandedness in their visit.

  “Howdy,” Lefty sang out as they pulled their horses to a stop.

  A large man, obviously the foreman, stood off to one side with his arms folded across his deep chest. “Howdy.” His reply had a somber note to it.

  “We got some grub in our saddlebags,” Lefty said. “Ifn you fellers don’t mind, we’d like to throw it in with yours.” This was a common custom. Lefty and Kiowa had joined other campfires in the past by donating the results of their day’s hunt to the fare.

  The cook, stirring a large pot of beans, spat a stream of tobacco juice into the flames. “What do ya’ll got?”

  “Nothing fancy,” Lefty said. “Some jerky and bread.”

  The cowboys looked over at the foreman. He nodded his assent. “Yo’re welcome.”

  “Thank you kindly, boys,” Lefty said. “I’m Lefty McNally and this is my pardner, the Kiowa Kid.”

  Kiowa, as usual, preferred not to talk in the company of strangers. The two boys dismounted and rummaged through their saddlebags, pulling out a loaf of bread and some dried meat. “The bread is from the army,” Lefty explained. “We lived at Fort Sill. My pa is the post commissary sergeant there.”

  “That ain’t salt pork you got there, is it?” the cook asked. “I pulled my time in the damn army. I swore I wouldn’t eat no more o’ that shit.”

  “No, sir!” Lefty replied with a laugh. “That’s beef jerky from the Kiowas at Anadarko.”

  “Set it over there with the rest o’ the grub,” the foreman said. He looked at the half-breed boy. “I can see where you get your name, boy. You’re a Kiowa, for sure.”

  “You bet he is,” Lefty said.

  One of the cowboys moved out a little from the others, his right hand dangling over his gun. “We used to see a lot o’ Kiowas around here,” he said. “Them and their Comanche pals played the devil in this part o’ Texas.”

  “Is that right?” Lefty asked.

  “They’d come killing and stealing,” the cowboy said. “Killing white folks and stealing their cattle.”

  Lefty’s grin eased a bit. “Well, I reckon that was a long time ago.”

  “Wasn’t so long ago,” the foreman said.

  The cook nodded. “I recollect it most clearly.”

  “They scalped a pal o’ mine,” the foreman said. “And he was alive while they done it.”

  “Yeah?” Lefty asked. Then he stupidly said, “I’ll bet that hurt!”

  “Sometimes when I’m asleep I still hear him yelling in my dreams,” the foreman said.

  Kiowa tensed for trouble. He and Lefty had gone through more than their share of fights with other kids at Fort Sill. Army brats and frontier kids mixed in with Indian boys made the juvenile crowd a pretty rough group. Lefty and Kiowa, being best friends, always stuck together in the fisticuffs and wrestling matches. Of course there was always the complication of Lefty’s input into any situation that offered the chance for a confrontation. Even circumstances that could have peacefully eased down soon broke out into full-fledged donnybrooks when Lefty stepped in and offered his verbal opinions of the other boys involved.

  The foreman reached b
ehind him, then quickly whipped a large Bowie knife complete with handguard in front of him. “I reckon I’ll get me a Kiowa gizzard.”

  “Hey!” Lefty said in protest. “What the hell’s the matter with you?”

  The cowboy standing away quickly pulled his Smith and Wesson, holding the .44-40 pistol on Lefty. “Don’t get jumpy, boy. We’ll learn you to pal around with a damn Injun.”

  The foreman walked slowly toward Kiowa, making slow slashing movements with his knife. “It’s payback time. I’m gonna lift yore hair, Injun.”

  Kiowa stood impassively, watching the man approach with the same calm he would have displayed toward a stranger passing him on the street. Then he shifted to his left, to his right, and moved forward. His own knife had appeared in his hand as if by magic. Without hesitation he launched a quick two-slash attack, then danced back. He’d been taught well by the ex-warriors of his tribe.

  The foreman’s weapon fell to the ground as he howled and grasped his badly gashed arm. Lefty took advantage of the situation to draw his Colt. Although an expert shot when hunting, now he was excited. The boy fired wildly and ineffectively, but the drover crew all dove to the ground or scattered for safety.

  “Duck, boys!”

  “Them two cubs is loco!”

  The two boys leaped aboard their horses and turned around galloping north back toward the Red River as the evening gloom began a slow settling over the prairie. After a half-hour of wild riding, they finally determined they weren’t being pursued. Coming to a halt, they looked at each other.

  “I don’t think I like Texas much,” Lefty announced.

  “Me either,” Kiowa said.

  Suddenly Lefty swore. “Goddamn!”

  “What’s the matter?” Kiowa asked.

  “I might’ve killed one o’ them fellers,” Lefty said. “I ain’t never killed nobody before.” He paused. “Hell! I ain’t never shot at nobody before.”

  “Killing is part of being a warrior,” Kiowa said. “But it ain’t as important as counting coup.”