Massacre at Crow Creek Crossing

by Charles G. West

  “Glad you showed up, Cole,” Jim said. “I wasn’t sure you were comin’ back.” Guessing what Cole was thinking, Jim went on. “I was hopin’ there’d be a few more showin’ up. Maybe they’ll show up yet. It’s still early.”

  “Suppose they don’t,” Cole said. “You plannin’ to go against those four outlaws with the six of us here? . . . seven if you’re countin’ Sonny outside.”

  The question brought a quick response. “No,” Arthur Campbell replied at once. “You can’t count Sonny in on this. He’s too young. I promised his mother that he would not be involved in any kind of gun violence.”

  No one objected, since Campbell’s son Claude had been killed by a cold-blooded murderer named Sanchez only a little over a year earlier.

  “We have to be realistic,” Harold Chestnut, the postmaster, said. “I’m here to support you in any way I can, but I’m no good with a gun. Arthur and Douglas are in the same boat. We’re not gunmen, and frankly, we’re too old to try to act like we are. I doubt we’d scare any of those animals.”

  “I understand what you’re sayin’, Harold,” John Beecher said. “But if we don’t stop those bastards, they’re gonna wipe us all out. Now, with Cole here, we’re got a helluva lot better chance to overpower ’em and lock ’em up in the jail—maybe hold ’em till the marshal in Omaha sends a deputy to haul the lot of ’em to prison, or a cavalry patrol from Fort Laramie comes after ’em.”

  “Why bother with putting them in jail?” Douglas Green asked. “Why not just hang them? Hell, they’ve already killed the sheriff and a telegraph operator.”

  “Well, you’re right,” Beecher allowed. “We’d be justified in hangin’ the four.” He looked around the gathering, nodding enthusiastically. “But we need to be strong in numbers. If there ain’t but three of us that goes after ’em, they ain’t likely to back down, and somebody’s gonna get hurt.”

  Cole said nothing as he listened to the discussion while it went back and forth. After an hour or more, it was easy to see that Beecher and Low were not going to be successful in persuading the other men to participate in an armed confrontation with the four hardened criminals. Finally, he decided he had heard enough, so he got to his feet. “Gentlemen, I reckon I’ve heard all I need to hear, so I’ll be sayin’ good night to you.” With no further explanation, he walked out, leaving them to wonder.

  He was already stepping up into his saddle when John Beecher came outside after him. “Cole,” Beecher implored, “Are you sayin’ just let the bastards gut the town and do nothing to stop them?”

  “I didn’t say that at all,” Cole replied, turned the bay’s head away from the corral, and rode back toward town.

  CHAPTER 11

  Louella Sykes prepared to go downstairs after a visit with one of the cowhands from the Lazy-C ranch. A young man, little more than a boy actually, the cowboy came to the saloon to see her every chance he could. Oftentimes, he didn’t have the money to go upstairs with her, but even on those occasions, she took the time to have a social visit downstairs. Louella had practiced her profession long enough to have lost any belief in fairy tales and love’s innocence. But she had to admit she was touched by the young cowboy’s infatuation with her. He never called upon Lil or Junie, always Louella. At times, she had allowed her mind to fantasize about the possibility of escaping the world she had chosen for herself those many years ago—most recently, after she heard about the plight of Carrie Green—or Corina Burnett, as Flint Yarborough called her. She didn’t know Carrie, but she knew about her. Prostitutes learned about everything that happened in a town the size of Cheyenne sooner or later. Men talk. She found that she felt happy and sad for Carrie Green, for she had climbed out of her sordid past to gain respectability, if only for a brief two years. It might have lasted longer were it not for the arrival of Yarborough and his scum. That thought brought to mind the simpleminded brute Tiny Weaver, and Louella unconsciously reached up to feel the bruise on the side of her face.

  Finished with the straightening of the room, she lectured herself to put away foolish thoughts that only served to make her melancholy.

  On her way back downstairs to join the evening crowd, she stopped at the head of the steps. There he was, that sneering oversized lout with a child’s brain, a selfishly evil man-child who revolted violently when denied his wishes. He was looking for her, she knew that, and she told herself that she was not up to fighting off his barbaric advances, so she stepped back away from the stairs. If she was lucky, he might not have glanced up and seen her.

  She hurried down to the end of the hall and went down the back stairs to the porch behind the kitchen. A cautious look in both directions told her there was no one to see her leave the saloon in the darkness of the alley, and she made her way quickly to the crude building that housed the rooms of the prostitutes as well as those of the kitchen help.

  Once inside her room with the door bolted, she resigned herself to a quiet evening alone. She regretted retiring from the saloon while the evening was still fairly young, but her potential for earning much money was slight, anyway, and had been ever since Yarborough and his friends came to town. Lil and Junie should appreciate the lack of competition with her gone. Maybe Tiny Weaver would turn his attention to one of them. As soon as she thought it, she knew she wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Further thoughts were interrupted by the sudden crashing of her door as it was kicked nearly off its hinges and slammed against the inside wall, making a sound like a gunshot. Louella’s terrified scream drifted no longer than a few seconds on the night wind before the giant hand that clamped over her mouth silenced her forever.

  With the smug expression of a petulant child, Tiny walked past the shattered door and stood outside for a moment to think about the woman lying on the bed behind him. A slow grin began to form on his rough features when he told himself, she ain’t gonna be nobody’s woman but mine now. An instant later, he felt the solid impact against his chest, causing him to step backward against the doorjamb. Thinking he had been hit with a heavy rock, he struggled to stand solid on his feet again until he felt the intense pain shoot through his chest like that of a white-hot poker searing his lungs. He looked down to discover the shaft of an arrow protruding from his body. Confused, he stared in disbelief at the cruel missile for a moment before he attempted to run toward the saloon for help, only to be staggered by a second arrow in his lower back. The massive outlaw took two more steps before crashing to his knees like a wounded buffalo. Poised there for only a moment, he slowly keeled over to land on his side.

  Cole climbed out of the wagon bed he had used for cover and walked over to confirm his kill. He had found the wagon parked behind John Beecher’s blacksmith shop to be a convenient platform from which to fire his arrows, and he thought about the blacksmith at the meeting earlier that evening. You’ve got one less to worry about, he thought as he stood for a few moments looking down at the dying man.

  It was his first look at one of the three outlaws that Womack had joined up with since he had encountered them at Murphy’s Store, but it was easy to tell this was the one called Tiny. Although it was obvious Tiny was not likely to move, Cole took the precaution to relieve him of his weapon before he went to see if he could help the woman.

  Inside the broken door, he found Louella lying sideways across the small cot she slept on. He shifted her limp body around on the cot and covered her with a blanket. Then he stood over her for a moment while he silently apologized for not getting there in time to prevent her brutal murder. I could have done for him before he came to you, but I didn’t think he would want to kill you. He could have shot Tiny in the street when the hulking bully attacked a young cowboy in front of the saloon, sending the young man to find a doctor to treat a broken jaw. But had he shot him then, Tiny’s three companions would have been alerted to the fact that he had tracked them down. By taking one of them quietly, the other three could not be sure it was not a random killing.

  “I’m sorry, miss,” Cole whispered, t
urned, and left.

  Outside, he paused to check on the body lying in the alley behind the saloon. Tiny was still alive, but barely breathing. Cole was not sure if the brute was past suffering or not, but he did not want to use his handgun to make certain. He was not ready to call spectators out of the saloon with the report of a pistol. We’ll wait a while, he decided. Maybe your friends will come looking for you. He looked around then for the best place to lie in wait and decided the wagon he had used before was his choice. He went back to it and crawled up in the wagon bed to wait out the cold night.

  The wait was not as long as he had expected, for after an hour or so, one of the other women came out of the saloon and discovered the body lying in the alley. Her screams were enough to alert the town, even had she not run back inside to report the killing. In less than a minute, a small crowd poured out the back door of the Cowboy’s Rest and gathered around the body. Cole’s plan to eliminate one or more of the remaining outlaws was not to be, for about nine men and two women circled around the body.

  The distance was not that great, but in the darkness of the alley he found that he could not make out the faces. He concentrated on one man who could possibly be Troy Womack, but he could not be absolutely certain and could not risk killing an innocent man. He was reasonably sure he recognized Yarborough and maybe Red Swann as well. Due to the darkness of the alley, however, he could not be positive, so he slowly drew his rifle back from the side of the wagon where he had steadied his aim. There was nothing he could do but watch.

  Someone discovered the shattered door on Louella’s room and shouted to the others around Tiny’s body. Most of the men went inside the room to find Louella while four remained by Tiny’s body along with the two women. Cole had an idea that Yarborough and Swann would surely come to view the body.

  Before long, more people heard about the killing and came to see. Soon there was a sizable crowd of spectators and with it, less chance of getting a clear shot. They were too occupied with gawking at the huge body to notice the man slide out the back of the wagon behind the smithy’s forge and casually walk out of the alley.

  Behind him, one of the four men standing over Tiny’s body suddenly realized he had been left with the three ruthless outlaws, so he decided to follow the gawkers in to see the dead prostitute. Thinking that any protection was better than none, Lil Jones moved a little closer to the imposing figure of Flint Yarborough, no longer seeking to avoid him. “Why would Indians attack a town for no reason at all?” Lil wondered aloud.

  “Why would they kill poor Louella?” Junie asked. “Don’t the Indians usually capture women and carry them off?”

  The three men ignored the questions of the women, more concerned with the targeting of Tiny.

  “One of these local bastards caught Tiny when he couldn’t see where it was comin’ from,” Red commented. “It sure as hell weren’t no Injun attack.”

  Troy Womack stared down at the lifeless hulk, his mind focused on the two arrow shafts. He vividly remembered the man who had shot him, even while still pinned beneath his dead horse, and he silently cursed himself for not killing him then. He had panicked, thinking he was dying if he didn’t get to a doctor right away, telling himself the man was as good as dead. He feared the devil had somehow freed himself and had found him again. “You’re right,” he finally spoke. “It weren’t no Injun, but it was a devil that looks like a damn Injun, wears buckskins, braids his hair like an Injun, ’cause he lives with the Crows.”

  “How you know that?” Red asked.

  “That’s what that feller down at the stables told us. Remember what he said? Harley Branch, he’s the one killed my brothers and came after me. He’s the one who rode the horse with Malcolm’s fancy saddle on it.” Troy was certain of it, although it did occur to him that he wasn’t sure if Malcolm’s saddle was on the horse he killed on that night in the ravine. In that critical moment, the Mexican saddle had been of no importance.

  “Harley Branch, huh?” Yarborough replied. “I thought he took off for good when he found out we were lookin’ for him.”

  “Well, I reckon he decided to come back,” Troy said.

  “Maybe,” Red said. “But hell, maybe it was somebody else using a bow. Coulda been whoever shot Tiny just didn’t want nobody to hear the shots. And it coulda been anybody in this damn town.”

  “You might be right about that,” Yarborough said. “Coulda been anybody, but we’d best keep our eyes peeled for that son of a bitch Troy’s talkin’ about. Somebody lookin’ like an Injun. And just to be sure, if you do see somebody like that, shoot the son of a bitch and ask questions later.”

  “Makes sense to me,” Red agreed. “Too bad about ol’ Tiny, though.” He squatted beside the body and started searching Tiny’s pockets for anything of value. “Whoever took his gun, got any money he was totin’, too.”

  “I reckon we’re gonna have to show the folks in this town that we mean business,” Yarborough said. “They mighta started thinkin’ about some vigilante stuff. We’ll clamp down on ’em so’s they’ll think twice about pickin’ us off one by one like they did with Tiny.” He stood there a few minutes longer, still fuming over what he saw as possibly a secret resistance move by some of the town’s merchants. “We’ll see about that,” he expressed aloud.

  “Well, it ain’t helping none to stand around here in the cold jawin’ about it,” he decided. “Ain’t that right, ladies? Let’s go back where the fire and the whiskey is.” With that, he turned about and headed back inside.

  Troy and Red followed close on his heels, but the two women remained.

  “We’ve got to take care of poor Louella,” Lil called after them. “We can’t just leave her be.”

  “We’d best get Horace Smith to come get her and fix her up for burial,” Junie suggested.

  “Yeah,” Red called back, “tell him he can pick ol’ Tiny up, too, if he wants to.” He took a few steps more, then added, “Or leave him where he is. Tiny won’t give a damn, and I sure as hell don’t.”

  * * *

  Troy Womack wasn’t the only one who recalled that the man who had chased him up that ravine could have passed for a Crow warrior, even in spite of his sandy hair. Now that he had struck the first blow in the town’s war with the outlaws, Cole was aware that he could not move freely in the town unless he changed his physical appearance drastically. The one advantage he had was the mistaken notion the outlaws had that the man who had killed the Womack brothers was named Harley Branch. Red and Yarborough knew him as Cole Bonner. Changing his appearance might keep them from recognizing him at a glance. The same might apply to Troy Womack, who had also seen him as he was now, looking more Indian than white.

  * * *

  It was not unusual for Horace Smith to be called out at night to pick up a body, although it was normally the result of a bar fight that went too far. As the town’s barber, as well as the undertaker, he knew that it was all part of the job. It was a little sad on this night, however, for Louella Sykes had been a fixture at the Cowboy’s Rest saloon almost since the day it opened. Horace would do the best he could to make her look pretty before they put her in the ground. As for the body of the man who’d killed her, Horace moved it out of the alley only as a service to the town, for no one stepped forward to pay for a burial. He intended to merely dig a hole in the ground and dump the body into it. He had no intention of building a box to put it in. It’d be a waste of good lumber, he thought. And from the size of the son of a bitch, it’d take about twice as much as usual. In fact, he wished that he could personally thank the person who was responsible for Tiny Weaver’s death. He didn’t bother to remove the huge body from his wagon, thinking it might as well stay there since he planned to haul it off in the morning to bury it. It would be good if the other three outlaws could be taken care of in the same way.

  With Louella still laid out on his table, he covered her with a heavy sheet, picked up his lantern, and started to leave his shop and return to the house. He was st
opped by a knock on the door. “Who is it?” he asked without opening the door, wondering who could possibly be calling on him at this time of night.

  “Cole Bonner,” came the reply.

  Surprised, but more curious than concerned, Horace slid the bolt and opened the door. As his lantern cast its light upon his visitor, he was at once struck by the image before him, and the picture of Tiny’s body with the embedded arrows came immediately to mind. He knew without doubt that the two were connected. “Cole Bonner,” he pronounced solemnly and stepped back to bid him come in. “You did it.”

  “Did what?” Cole asked, not happy that Horace assumed it without asking. He was convinced more than ever that his appearance had to be altered.

  “Accounted for that load of shit in my wagon out back,” Horace answered.

  “This ain’t got nothin’ to do with that killin’,” Cole said. “I’ve been gone from here a long time and I’m in need of your barberin’ services so folks will think I’m civilized. I know it ain’t your normal business hours, but I saw your light on, so I decided to stop in.” When Horace didn’t respond beyond looking confused, Cole explained. “I need a haircut.”

  “A haircut?” Horace repeated, astonished.

  “I woulda just hacked it off myself with my knife,” Cole explained. “But I didn’t want it to look like that’s what I’d done.” He paused before saying, “If it’s too late, maybe I can come back in the mornin’.”

  “I ain’t surprised,” Horace said, still working on the question of who killed Tiny Weaver. “It was you that stepped up when Slade Corbett tried to take the town apart.” He nodded, satisfied with his deductions. “No, indeed, it’s not too late. It’ll be my pleasure to cut your hair for you.” With growing enthusiasm for the project, he suggested, “You’ll be needing a shirt and trousers, too, to replace those buckskins.” He turned and pointed toward the back of the shop. “I’ve got a passel of clothes in that closet back there, all kinds. I betcha we can find something just like you need.”