Winchester 1886

by William W. Johnstone

  Like her life ending.

  She knew about wind. It blew in Terre Haute, and she vividly recalled trembling with her parents and three brothers when the tornadoes came through in those violent, stormy springs and summers. Yet the wind in Kansas was different. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, no threat of rain, just the wind, always blowing, always blowing.

  “Miss Peggy . . .”

  She saw her husband, that rough, uncouth man, looking up at her, his calloused hand on the edge of the seat. He still called her “Miss,” even though they had been husband and wife for three days. Miss Peggy. She didn’t know what she was supposed to call him, so she had decided not to say anything.

  “We have to help these boys up to Russell Springs. A bit out of the way, but we have to help them. You see that, don’t you, Miss Peggy?”

  The wind blew.

  She blinked. She did not even try to speak.

  Her husband—what was his name?—turned, nodded to the sergeant with the bloody side. The sergeant said something, and the other soldiers reacted. In horror, she watched—unable to voice any protest, not even able to lean over and vomit—as two men carried one of the dead soldiers around the wagon.

  She felt the wagon dip and creak and heard the body of a dead Army officer—she had heard one of the soldiers say his name was Lieutenant Henderson—in the back of the wagon. Instead of hauling her life in trunks, they would be carrying corpses.

  Instead of traveling in a market and pleasure wagon, she would be traveling in a hearse.

  The wind moaned.

  Two other soldiers picked up another dead man, one grabbing the man’s boots, the other underneath his shoulders. His long arms dragged across the dirt and remnants of grass.

  She felt her heart twinge, and heard herself let out a little gasp when she saw the back of the man’s head—or where the back of the man’s head should have been.

  Again, the wagon tilted. The corpse was laid down. She wondered if her husband would be able to scrape away all the blood. Once the bodies were gone.

  The mules, she noticed, had no reaction to the dead men. Nobody even seemed sickened by the sight, by the fact that five men had been cut down.

  The wind wailed.

  She looked at the Indian. Two soldiers stood over him, guns pointed at his stomach, but the Indian boy looked as if he would soon be dead himself. She thought she might go over and help him, because the men who had doctored his badly wounded leg knew absolutely nothing about medicine. Maybe they didn’t care.

  He looked something like Rafe Mitchell, the most unruly of the Mitchell kids from La Crosse. Only darker. And skinnier.

  Yes, she told herself, I will go help that boy. After all, she was a Christian. It was the Christian thing to do. Yes, she would help him.

  Only she just couldn’t get off the wagon. Couldn’t let go of the seat.

  If she did, she knew in all her heart that the wind would blow her away, and keep blowing her across Kansas, all the way to hell.

  She watched as some soldiers carried another body to the back of her wagon. She closed her eyes. And felt the wind blow hard.

  Russell Springs

  Take away the courthouse, and there wasn’t much to Russell Springs.

  The courthouse, a giant monstrosity of brick and stone, sat on the town square. The rest of the town seemed a hodgepodge of brick and stone, soddies, and cabins, even a handful of framed wooden buildings. Nothing looked permanent except the courthouse.

  And the jail.

  It stood behind the courthouse, tan stones, black bars, a giant red door, pitched roof, and a chimney off to the side. A white sign with black block letters spelling JAIL hung crooked over the door.

  The county sheriff, a fat man named Barber, stood by the door, watching the troopers haul the dead bodies inside. On his head was a bowler, unusual for a sheriff.

  Matt Crabbe stood beside the lawman and Sergeant O’Donnell, keeping his left hand clamped on his Irish cap to keep the wind from hauling it to the Netherlands. Every so often, he would shoot his wife a glance, making sure she hadn’t moved.

  Of course, she hadn’t.

  Hadn’t moved . . . hadn’t spoken . . . barely even breathed.

  Well, he couldn’t blame her. She was a schoolmarm from Indiana who had just seen what a .50-caliber repeating rifle could do to the human bodies.

  When the dead soldiers were lying in one of the empty cells, two of the troopers came out to fetch the Indian and dragged him and his badly wounded leg into the jail.

  “What’ll happen to him?” Crabbe had to yell above the wind to be heard.

  Sergeant O’Donnell shrugged.

  Sheriff Barber sniffed and spit. “Hang, I reckon. Murdered five boys in blue.”

  Crabbe gestured toward the open door. “You don’t fetch a doc to take that kid’s leg off, you won’t be hangin’ ’im.”

  “Good.” The sheriff grinned. Two of his front teeth had gold caps. “Save Logan County of the expense of a trial an’ hangin’.”

  “Get a doctor.” The words came from Sergeant O’Donnell with authority.

  Barber sniffed again, sighed, and made his way to someone in the crowd that had gathered around the jail.

  To Crabbe, it looked like half the town had come to see the show. Not that half the town of Russell Springs amounted to much. The sheriff said something to a black man in bib-and-brace overalls. He nodded and took off running, favoring his left leg. He disappeared around the courthouse, and Sheriff Barber returned.

  “Sent the boy to see if Doc Kimball’s in his office.” The sheriff pointed at O’Donnell’s side. “You wanna have ’im look at that wound of yourn?”

  O’Donnell didn’t answer him. He told his men to water their horses, grain them, and be prepared to ride out in two hours—those that had horses. The others would have to wait until the commanding officer at Fort Riley telegraphed other instructions.

  Lucky, Matt Crabbe thought, for the boys who would wait behind. Unlike a lot of Kansas towns, Russell Springs still had a watering hole that served forty-rod and cheap beer. If Crabbe didn’t have a new bride and a farm to plow, he would have joined them.

  “Well,” he said to no one in particular. “Reckon I should head for home.”

  No one said anything, and he returned to the wagon, put a new chaw of tobacco into his cheek, and climbed into the driver’s box. He looked at his wife, tried to think of something to tell her, but couldn’t. He reached for the brake, and found Sergeant O’Donnell standing at the side of the wagon.

  “A marshal asked for this rifle, but he ain’t here, and he didn’t help us. You did.” He held out that big rifle.

  Crabbe reached for it, brought it to his lap. It was some gun, and even farmers needed something more than a shotgun out in western Kansas. The Spencer he had was showing its rust and shooting mighty loose lately.

  “Only three rounds in the tube,” O’Donnell said. “You might find a box in the mercantile here.”

  “Maybe.” Crabbe hefted the rifle and turned to show it to his wife, but decided against that. He slipped it into the back of the wagon, leaned over, and shook the sergeant’s hands. “Thanks.”

  “You earned it. Take it with the compliments of the United States Army.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Wallace County

  Matt Crabbe pulled the lines, coaxed the mules to a stop, and set the brake on the wagon. “We’re home, Miss Peggy,” he told his new bride.

  She merely blinked.

  Well, home wasn’t much to look at, Crabbe had to admit, but he had built the sod house shortly after filing his claim. Maybe that coyote that had bolted out of the door had frightened Miss Peggy. He would have to get that door fixed, so that the wind wouldn’t blow it open, but, well, he had been gone for practically three weeks, getting married, carting Peggy all the way from La Crosse.

  And that little fracas up at Monument Rocks had delayed them.

  Actually, there had been two delays. First w
hen he had joined the ruction and caught that Apache buck—which meant he’d had to haul the dead and wounded to Russell Springs. And second was their return to Monument Rocks to get all the luggage they’d left behind.

  Lucky, he figured. Nobody had come along and made off with a right smart plunder. Yet his new wife hadn’t seen things that way, on account that all she’d seen were the buzzards, coyotes, and wolves feasting on the dead Army horses.

  She had just sat in the seat, hardly muttering a sound. Hadn’t even offered to lift a hand to put those trunks and grips into the back of the market and pleasure wagon that had cost him a good month’s wages. And some of those trunks weighed nigh a ton. That woman sure loved her books.

  Crabbe dropped from the wagon, moved around the end, and came up on the other side, extending his arms, smiling his tobacco-flecked teeth, ready to help his wife down. Maybe he could even carry her over the threshold.

  Or maybe not.

  She just kept right on blinking, staring at him as if she didn’t know him from Adam’s housecat.

  He lowered his arms. “Maybe . . . maybe I’ll go check out our home. Make sure there’s no varmints hidin’ inside.” After all, that coyote might have had some company.

  He took the big Winchester with him. He hadn’t bought any bullets in Russell Springs. He’d found the shells that tough, smart sergeant had told him about, the ones the Apache had left in the sand near a window in a chalk rock. Only six shells, but enough to make him feel a mite better. Besides, he had also gathered the empty brass casings, figuring he would buy some powder and lead at Sharon Springs next time he went to town and make his own ammunition.

  Since the Army no longer manned Fort Wallace, folks would be apt to charge a small fortune for a box of Winchester shells in .50-100-450 caliber, and he had been making his own bullets, always reloading the empties, of his .50-.56 Spencer carbine for years.

  Inside the soddy, he figured it might take awhile for Miss Peggy to adjust to her new home. Maybe once the odor of the dead skunk that coyote had killed and hauled back to a new den . . . well, once that stink had faded, Miss Peggy would feel a bit better, get back on her feet, and forget about those dead men she’d seen at Monument Rocks.

  Best to leave the door open, air out their one-room home, he decided.

  Crabbe walked back to the wagon. “Crick’s just down the path yonder,” he said, pointing. “This time of day, might be a deer or somethin’ watering nearby.” He patted the Winchester’s stock. “I’ll see iffen I can’t scare us up something to eat. Antelope steaks sound good, Miss Peggy?”

  Yeah, she was getting better. Her lips moved. She didn’t say a thing, but she didn’t blink, either.

  McCook, Nebraska

  Though a dozen years old, the town remained young, raw, and full of grit. It had been founded back in ’82 once the Burlington & Quincy Railroad and the Lincoln Land Company reached an agreement to establish a railroad center. It made sense. McCook was roughly the halfway point between Omaha and Denver.

  Just like most railroad towns still sowing their oats, Deputy U.S. Marshal Jimmy Mann thought. Riding down the main street, he kept studying every building, every face of every man who walked along one of the boardwalks. He held the Winchester, kept his thumb on the hammer.

  A band practiced in one of the vacant lots. The leader, a man in a fine Panama hat and striped sack suit, kept stopping the assembly in mid-song, pointing out a mistake. Jimmy was no musician, couldn’t carry a tune and could barely recognize a sour note, but he knew one thing—the band needed lots and lots of practice.

  He rode a bit farther down the street, past the hotel, the bank, the land office, and a general store, until he came to the saloons, the gambling hall. Off beyond the privies and alleys, he could spy the cribs. That part of town he knew, even though he had never been in Nebraska, let alone McCook.

  Immediately, he spotted a half-dozen horses hitched to the rail in front of the Platte River Saloon on the south side of the street and knew the cowboys drank there. Across the street stood the Lincoln Saloon. There were no horses, not even a hitching rail, and he knew that’s where the railroaders got drunk. The massive, baldheaded man who came slamming through the batwing doors, spitting out blood and a few broken teeth onto the boardwalk kind of helped Jimmy make the determination. The man grabbed the wooden post out front to keep himself from falling into the mud.

  Almost immediately, a man with red hair, a thick beard, and much smaller—though with arms as strong as two-by-fours—stepped through the still-swinging doors. He stopped on the boardwalk, spoke something in an Irish brogue, and waited for the bald man to turn around, wipe blood from his mouth, and bring up the fists. The redhead moved like a catamount.

  Jimmy saw only the blur of the man’s fists, the bald man’s head snap back, and watched him stagger, grunt, curse, and fall into the mud.

  The bald man did not move.

  The redhead stepped to the edge of the boardwalk, spit a glob of phlegm between the unconscious railroader’s legs, and sucked on his skinned knuckles. Briefly, he looked up at Jimmy, dismissed him, and spun on his heels, pushing again through the batwing doors.

  From inside came a cacophony of cheers.

  The town founders had decided to name their new settlement after Union General Alexander McCook. He was one of the famed “Fighting Ohio McCooks.” Apparently, the railroaders felt the need to live up to the reputation of the town’s namesake.

  Jimmy stared through the swinging doors and then turned to look across the street. Some tin-pin piano played inside the North Platte Saloon, sounding even worse than the band up the street. A few doors down, he spied another establishment.

  The Boiler Room

  A. J. Conrad

  LICENSED GAMBLER

  It did not appear open, but it was still early in the day for gamblers.

  He rode on a few doors past the gambling hall and swung out of the saddle. Looping the reins over the hitching rail, he walked inside the town marshal’s office.

  Marshal Cedric Hardesty was stunned by Jimmy’s story. “Danny Waco?” The marshal whistled. “In Nebraska?”

  Jimmy tested the coffee again. It tasted like gall, but it was hot and thick as tar. “He has been here before,” he told the lawman, a pudgy fellow with spectacles, but his knuckles were crooked, his hands scarred, and his arms seemed as sturdy as railroad ties. “Killed that gambler in Omaha back in ’88.”

  “Got acquitted,” Hardesty reminded Jimmy.

  “Yeah.” The coffee went down slowly. Acquitted. That gambler had caught a .44-40 slug in his back, but he’d been wearing a revolver, had been accused of using a crooked faro box. That was enough for a jury of Union Pacific men to come in with a verdict of not guilty.

  “Well.” Hardesty tried his own coffee. He could drink the goo like water. “I wouldn’t know Danny Waco if I saw him, but there haven’t been any strangers in town. Not that that would give me or any of our businessmen reason to notice, that is.”

  “You’d notice Danny Waco,” Jimmy said, “even if you didn’t recognize his face.”

  The lawman’s head nodded in agreement. “You sure he’s in Nebraska?”

  Jimmy wasn’t sure of anything, but he said, “I think so.” Well, it was the only lead he had. The trouble, of course, was that Nebraska was a mighty big state.

  “He’d be looking to gamble, to drink. Maybe find a chippie. Somewhere the law wouldn’t mind an outlaw, as long as the outlaw didn’t cause any trouble.”

  Again, Hardesty nodded. “That’s McCook. Least, that’s my philosophy when it comes to keeping the peace.”

  Jimmy knew that to be the case in McCook. Some lawmen would have broken up that fight at the Lincoln Saloon.

  “But Danny Waco is not here,” Hardesty said.

  Jimmy stared at the lawman, waiting.

  “Because anywhere Danny Waco goes, he causes trouble. And I like this job, this town.”

  That made sense. Jimmy nodded. Another trail had
gone cold. He could move from hell-on-wheels to cow town to gambling den to those hog ranches that sprang up in every parasite village near every Army post. He could look forever, and never find Danny Waco.

  “If I were you,” Hardesty said, “I’d ride up to Ogallala. If Danny Waco’s in Nebraska, that’s where he’d wind up.”

  Wallace County, Kansas

  “When spring comes, the country really greens up,” Crabbe told Peggy. When the rains come, when we have a good winter. However, when there’s a drought . . . He figured it would be better not to mention those possibilities.

  Peggy smiled.

  Crabbe let out a breath. He knew she had forced that smile, had strained at the effort, but it was something, and it pleased him. “You get some wildflowers, too.” Suddenly, he was excited, seeing possibilities with his new bride. Maybe she was coming around, leaving the shock at what had happened at Monument Rocks behind her. “Not roses. Not tulips. Nothing like that, but . . . I dunno . . . it sometimes gets so colorful, reminds me of my ma’s patchwork quilt.”

  Peggy’s smile didn’t seem quite so labored. “Why, husband, you are a regular poet.”

  He almost blushed, then wanted to take her in his arms, but the smile vanished, and she grabbed her sides, squeezing herself, suddenly shivering.

  “Is it always . . . this . . . windy?”

  Windy? Child, you ain’t seen wind till you’ve been here in March or April. And God help us when the thunderstorms hit in late spring and all through summer. Tornadoes. . . well . . .