“Yes, Lorimer, I’m afraid so,” Treadwell answered. “I’ve finally found out what our friends on the Flats are up to.”
“I was wondering about that too. Just what’re them sodbusters doing out there?”
“It’s not ‘out there’ that they’re doing it,” Treadwell said. “It’s over in Colorado. They’re panning gold.”
Jacks laughed. “I cain’t believe them fools would be dumb enough to think they can go prospecting and get a strike to cover their loans.”
“They’re not prospecting,” Treadwell pointed out. “It seems that Ed McKenna’s brother has a claim over there that’s about exhausted. He’s letting the farmers help him clean it out for a share of the takings. Evidently it’s more than enough to cover their papers.”
“That’s bad news for you, Mr. Treadwell. I recollect you saying the bank’s directors want the Flats without fail.”
“They do,” Treadwell replied. “At this point there’s not a thing I can do about the situation.” He gave the gunfighter a meaningful look. “But you can.”
“Give me the word, Mr. Treadwell,” Jacks said eagerly.
“If those farmers can be located and their plan thwarted,” Treadwell mused, “then the directors would be very, very grateful. And when they’re grateful, they’re most generous, Jacks. To the tune of one hundred dollars for each man that participates in this little project.”
“I see.”
“Do you think you could round up some of your associates and make it your business to see that any gold the farmers manage to acquire is taken away from them?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Naturally you can keep whatever you take,” Treadwell assured him. “We don’t want the gold, only the Flats.”
“And we still get a hunnerd each, Mr. Treadwell?”
“Certainly, Jacks. Why it’s like getting triple or quadruple on the price, is it not?”
“It seems so,” Jacks answered. “But the big problem is going to be finding ’em, ain’t it?”
“It would be impossible to locate them in Colorado,” Treadwell conceded. “But they are planning on turning the gold into cash in Amarillo.”
“With enough of the right fellers I reckon the approaches to the town could be watched real careful like.”
“Of course,” Treadwell said. “There will be six of them. Five sodbusters and Ed McKenna’s brother-in-law. You might watch him carefully. I’m under the impression he’s had experience when it comes to lawless activities.”
“Hell!” Jacks said. “That don’t mean nothing. I know five fellers right here in Dodge that can handle theyselves damn good in situations like this. We’ll take care of him, don’t worry”
“Good,” Treadwell said. “ There is one more thing. It involves J.R. Dawkins. In order get this information, I had to promise to extend the loan on his farm. That might have been foolish of me.”
Jacks understood. “But it won’t make a bit of differ’nce if he don’t come back.”
“You’re very understanding, Jacks.”
“What if none of ’em come back?”
“I’m glad you’ve made that suggestion,” Treadwell said. “That was my original intention, but it seemed indelicate to speak of it in an outright manner.”
“Don’t fret,” Jacks said, patting his pistol. “It’ll be took care of.”
Chapter Eight
On the first night after the robbery, the sodbusters set-up a camp in the Indian Territory. It was a treeless area where a small mound in the terrain bordered a depression in the short turkey feet grass. Since the weather showed no indication of rain, Ben McKenna suggested they sleep in the dip, and use the higher ground as a watch station.
“Another thing,” he added. “Since there ain’t no water nearby, don’t drink your canteens dry. We won’t be reaching a creek or anything ’til mid-morning tomorrow.”
After setting down bedrolls and rations, they built a fire to brew some coffee. Water rationing or not, coffee was a necessity that would not be ignored. They all contributed water to a common pot, and J.R. Dawkins added the grounds before setting it over the flames. He looked up with a grin as he gave the mixture a stir. “I gotta tell you fellers that I’m glad that robbery is over.”
“Amen!” Buford Turnbull responded.
Zachary Steuben chuckled. “The closer the time came to pull it off, the nervouser I got.”
Doss Kearns showed a wide smile. “Well, boys, let’s turn our thoughts to the coming planting of this year’s crops. That’s what we’ll be doing after Treadwell is paid off.”
Ed McKenna, who had been standing off to the side, turned and walked over to where the horses were hobbled. He stood alone, gazing out over the prairie. Ben noticed him, and got up to join his brother. “How’re you doing, Ed?”
“I’m sick about this whole thing. Any joy I might have had about saving the farm was wiped out when you kilt them miners.”
“Now you listen to me!” Ben hissed in a soto voice. “Don’t you never talk about that again. If the truth was found out, we’d all hang. That’s the way the law works.” He paused to let his advice sink in. “Now let’s go over to the fire, and you act natural.”
The two McKenna brothers walked back to join the others.
~*~
When dusk approached, Ben ordered the turns at guard to begin. A threat of trouble always existed in the wild country. Outlaw gangs roamed through the area, and some might have enough men to attack the camp just out of orneriness.
Zach Steuben was on guard for no more than a quarter hour when he spotted a lone rider approaching. He shouted a warning. “Somebody’s coming!”
Ben McKenna and the farmers stood up and looked into the waning evening light. “A lone rider,” Doss Kearns said.
Ben waited until the man got closer before making his own judgment. “It’s just a cowboy all by his lonesome.”
They waited until the rider came up to the camp. He was a young man, obviously a drover. He nodded politely to them. “Howdy.”
Ben stepped forward, his face showing no signs of friendliness. “Howdy.”
“I noticed your fire,” the cowboy said. “I got a bit to add to the supper if you’ll let me join y’all. I been by myself for a coupla weeks now. I could use some comp’ny.”
“Surely, friend,” Buford Turnbull said.
Ben glared at Buford, then turned his attention back to the cowboy. “We ain’t got much.”
Buford snorted. “We got plenty, thanks to the good Lord, and we’d be pleased to make your acquaintance.”
“Obliged,” the cowboy said, dismounting. “My handle is Tucker. Eddie Tucker.” He fumbled with his saddlebags and produced some beans and flour.
Becky Morris stepped forward. “I’ll take the vittles, if you please.”
Tucker was visibly surprised at seeing the girl. He lifted his hat. “O’course, Miss.”
“I’m Buford Turnbull,” the farmer said, offering his hand. Then, as Ben seethed, he introduced each of the Kiowa Flats group by name.
“Where y’all from?” Tucker asked.
Buford started to answer, but Ben interrupted him. “Missouri. My wife here and the others have been to New Mexico looking at some land.”
“I’m on my way to Texas myself,” Tucker said, squatting down with the others. “I been working on a ranch up Montana way, but, boys I couldn’t face another one of them winters. So I’m going home.”
“You’re just about there, ain’t you?” Doss Kearns asked.
“I should be leaving the Injun Territory sometime tomorrow,” the cowboy said. “I sure wish you fellers was going that way instead of north. It looks like I’ll be on my own ’til I reach Amarillo.”
“Hell!” J.R. Dawkins said. “That’s where we’re going.”
Tucker was surprised. “I figgered since y’all was from Missouri you’d be heading into Kansas on your way home.”
“We got business in Amarillo,” Ben said coldly.
&nb
sp; Tucker grinned. “Then this is my lucky day.” He broke into a laugh “If I talk too much, you fellers just shut me up, hear? I ain’t spoke to nobody in so long I almost forgot what human comp’ny was like.”
Tucker turned out to be a likeable young man. The remainder of the evening was spent listening to his yarns of punching cattle on a large Montana ranch that was owned by an Englishman. He kept the stories clean out of respect for Rebecca, but his imitation of the boss’ British accent kept the sodbusters laughing. Except for Ben McKenna, who sipped coffee in silence and gave the young man murderous looks until it was time to bed down.
The blankets were rolled out and, with the exception of the guard, the camp settled into silence. In less than an hour, the only thing that could be heard was the snoring and heavy breathing of the sleepers.
The sudden report of the pistol barely penetrated their dreams.
The second woke them and they instinctively sat up reaching for their weapons. Rebecca, who had been sleeping beside Ben, was on her feet, looking at him.
By the time the third shot faded into echoes, the guard J.R. Dawkins was back in camp. He found Ben McKenna, his pistol smoking, standing over Tucker’s blood-soaked bedroll.
“What the hell happened?” J.R. demanded to know.
“I caught this feller going through my saddlebags,” Ben replied. “I knowed we shouldn’t’ve let him stay with us.”
The others walked over, and Doss Kearns looked down at the dead youth. “How could he be stealing something from you when he’s still wrapped up in his blankets, godamn it!”
“He done it earlier,” Ben said.
Doss knelt down and rummaged through Tucker’s gear. “There ain’t nothing here that’s yours, Ben McKenna. You murdered this boy!”
Rebecca, close to crying, rushed to Ben. “That’s a terrible thing to say, Mr. Kearns!”
Ben pushed her away. “I said the son of a bitch stole from me. Are you calling me a liar?”
Ed stepped between his brother and Doss. “Now, Ben, don’t get mad, huh? Doss didn’t mean nothing like that. At worse he means you prob’ly made a mistake. Ain’t that right, Doss?”
“That boy didn’t steal nothing,” Doss angrily insisted.
Ben’s face contorted with rage for an instant, but he forced himself to control his temper. “Now y’all listen to me. We have committed a crime together when we robbed them Brethren, you hear? And if it be true that I did murder here, then y’all are as guilty as me.” He gave his brother Ben a meaningful look. “And that’s what the law says.”
“What about them shots down in the mine?” Doss asked. “Did you kill them men too?”
Ed McKenna was alarmed with thoughts of the reaction of the others. He spoke up quickly, saying, “No, Doss, he didn’t kill none of ’em. I was there. You don’t think I’d stand by and watch them fellers get gunned down, do you?”
Doss hesitated. “I guess not.”
“Maybe this damn saddle bum didn’t steal from me,” Ben said. “But I had to kill him. Suppose he hears about that gold robbery. He might figger us in on it, mighten he? And from the way y’all blabbed at him, he knows you better’n his own family. And I can tell you I ain’t about to do no more time in a damn penitentiary.”
“It’s wrong!” Buford Turnbull lamented. “That’s an outright disobedience of the Ten Commandants. The sixth one says clear as a bell, Thou shalt not kill!”
“You forget them commandments,” Ben said hotly. “They don’t mean nothing out here.”
“The Lord is ever’where, Ben McKenna!” Buford shouted. “But not in your heart.”
“Y’all are in a differ’nt world now,” Ben said. “The things that was important and worked for you before don’t hold water now. Fact is, it might be plumb dangerous if you tried to be your natural selves. And the next time some godamn stranger comes around, don’t be so all-fired friendly. Unless you want him dead.”
As he spoke Zachary Steuben had already gotten his shovel and began digging the young cowboy’s grave.
There was a special place just south of the Dodge City, Kansas city limits. It was a neutral area of sorts, in which the seamier side of life was allowed to exist. It came about because of the cattle drives that used to come up from Texas to the railhead in the town. In those days, the citizenry had to endure the vice and crimes of drunken cowhands because of the money they spent in the community. The contribution to the local economy was necessary and welcome.
With that advantage now gone, and the law clamped down hard on bad behavior on Dodge City streets. Now, if any young bucks wanted to do a little hellraising, they had to go to the open settlement to do it. The local law looked the other way when it came to disturbing the peace within those limits. A trio of saloons featuring rotgut whisky and ladies of the evening operated without interference.
This was where Lorimer Jacks went to recruit some gunmen for the job Banker John Treadwell had entrusted him with. Jacks went through the saloons and found five men he knew who would serve him well in going after the Kiowa Flats sodbusters. He gathered them together and they took a corner table in a drinking establishment with the misleading name of the Paradise Saloon.
The men that would listen to the proposition were Burly Tanner, a tall and muscular ruffian with a raggedy beard. He had practiced his gun craft with several gangs and, although wanted by the law in various parts of the frontier, carried on his life without giving the matter much worry. Ernesto Chavez, whose plumpness belied both his quickness and physical toughness was an experienced pistolero who did pretty much as he pleased on both sides of the American-Mexican border. Buck Krieger and Cole Bascomb were veteran train robbers, committing most of their crimes in the Indian Nations. The fifth man recruited was a half-breed called Charlie Chasseur who had French and Lakota Indian blood flowing through his veins. He lived his life between the Red man’s and White man’s worlds, and was a renegade in both.
After ordering a couple of bottles of whiskey and shooing away the bar gals, Jacks explained the proposition to the five men. He kept the pitch short and to the point in keeping with the outlaw tradition of not employing a lot of useless descriptive dialog. These were not literate or learned men, and a lot of discussion would have eventually confused them.
When Jacks finished, he knocked back a shot of liquor and asked, “What do you think of the deal? In my own opinion it’s the sweetest thing that’s ever come my way, and that’s the truth.”
“I kinda figger you’re right, Lorimer,” Tanner said. “You can count me in.”
Chavez mused, “A hunnerd along with the gold too, eh? Esta bien—all right—I will go along too.”
Buck Krieger, who was the spokesman for both Cole Bascomb and himself, give a silent nod of assent.
Charlie Chasseur was a bit hesitant. “This might take some time.”
“It’ll be worth it,” Jacks assured him.
“I don’t like being tied down to one thing for so long,” Chasseur complained.
Jacks especially wanted him on the project. Chasseur was one of the best trackers and plainsmen he had ever known. His excellent skills in following a spoor was an instinct inherited from warrior forefathers. The sodbusters might blunder through undetected if Jacks and the others were on the job, but not if Chasseur was nosing around.
“It’s a damn good paying job,” Jacks reminded the breed. “Think of the good times you can have afterwards.”
“I’m the only real tracker here,” Chasseur reminded him. “You others couldn’t find shit in a barnyard.”
Tanner took instant offense. “We’re better gunmen than you are! We ain’t extry mouths to feed.”
“And don’t you forget it, mestizo cabron,” Chavez added.
“I don’t like Mezkins,” Chasseur said.
Jacks saw it was time to apply some gunfighter diplomacy before things got out of hand. “No hold it, fellers. We all got our special know-how. That don’t mean one of us is any better’n the other.” He turned
to Chasseur. “Now listen. We’re gonna need a first-rate tracker, that’s why I asked you in. There’s none better than you, and that’s a fact.”
Chasseur was thoughtful for a moment. “All right. I’ll go along with it.” He glared at Chavez. “But I got my eyes on you, pepper belly, and you’d better not forget it.”
Chavez glared in fury at the half-breed, his hand dropping to his pistol.
Jacks quickly said, “We don’t need that kind shit here. There’s a good payoff ahead. Keep your minds on that.”
“Yeah,” Krieger said. “I don’t like sodbusters. They got ever’thing fenced in. A man can’t ride a mile without running into barbed wire these days. I’m looking forward to shooting a few of ’em.”
“Then you’ll have your chance,” Jacks assured him. “Now! We’ll use that old cabin on Two Dog Creek to hole up in. It’s handy there in the Injun Territory north of Amarillo.”
Burly Tanner stood up. “Let’s knock off this palaver and get to work.”
Deacon Daniel squatted, studying the tracks on the ground while the other Brethren watched. He looked up at Elder Brother. “It’s the same bunch, no doubt. But a eighth feller rode into this camp.”
“Mmm,” Elder Brother said. “Another of their confederates, no doubt.”
“I ain’t sure,” Daniel remarked. “His horse left but I don’t think he was on it. It looks more like the animal was run off.”
“And the rider?” Elder Brother asked.
Daniel thought for a moment. “I’ll bet he’s buried around here somewheres. He prob’ly stumbled on the bandits and got killed for it. Bad luck there. I’d like to know for sure though. It might be that we’re up against eight instead of seven.”
Elder brother turned to the others. “You look around the immediate area. But don’t take too long. We don’t want those wretched Outsiders to escape.”
Daniel directed a sweeping search through the camp area. It didn’t take long to determine where fresh earth had been turned up. They dug down and found the blanket-wrapped body of Eddie Tucker.
The Devil's Bonanza (A Piccadilly Publishing Western Book Page 8
