Bleeding Kansas

by Judd Cole

  Bill looked calm enough, as he always did except when cornered by Calamity Jane. But Josh read trouble in his eyes, even a glint of uncertainty.

  “Cover me from the corner of the house, kid,” Bill said, still watching the street for trouble. “That back right corner, where the willow tree will give you good cover.”

  Josh eased out his old French pinfire and cocked it. Both men slipped into the shadowy side yard of Ma’s Bunkhouse.

  “Listen up, kid,” Bill whispered. “This ain’t Miles City; don’t go for glory. No matter what happens to me, don’t be a fool and go beyond that corner, hear? They’ll cut you down faster than a finger snap.”

  Josh swallowed the lump in his throat. “You kidding? Don’t worry, I’ve seen what these two can do, remember?”

  “But then again. If you get a good bead on one of ’em,” Bill added, “drill the son of a bitch. You got a good eye, for a Quaker’s kid.”

  Bill fell silent as they reached the willow tree. For a long time, both men studied the apparently empty yard.

  “They coulda gone in the house,” Josh whispered.

  Bill nodded. But his next remark reminded Josh of Hickok’s remarkable powers of observation.

  “I think they know I’m here, kid, and they’re laying for me. Didja see that buck-toothed kid in the straw hat run around the house when I turned in?”

  Josh nodded.

  “I’d wager the kid was a sentry.”

  At this, Josh felt his calves go watery and remote.

  “Then . . . where would they hide?” he whispered.

  Before Bill could answer, something tipped over in the big barn at the far side of the yard. Josh heard a whispered curse.

  “Answer your question?” Bill asked.

  Josh watched Hickok remove his hat and set it near the house beside the sack of food. A hat, Bill once told him, gave a good target to shooters above you. Clearly, Bill was worried about that open loft above the big double doors of the barn.

  Bill eased a Peacemaker out, checked his loads, then burst rapidly across fifteen feet of open yard to the cover of the next tree.

  Nothing. Josh realized he was holding his breath, so he expelled it and commanded himself to take another.

  Bill again moved suddenly and swiftly, like a snake striking at its prey. Thus he leapfrogged from tree to tree, covering perhaps half of the big yard.

  Sweat poured out of Josh’s hair now, and he sleeved it out of his eyes.

  Bill was still alive. But now he faced a real dilemma—about forty feet of open yard, with no cover whatsoever until he reached the water trough to the right of the barn.

  Josh flinched hard when Bill suddenly sent three shots into the loft to clear the line of fire as he started running. The lithe Hickok moved fast as a jack rabbit, but avoided a straight line so any shooters could not “lead” him with their aim. He fired the remaining three shells in his .44 as he zigzagged, again clearing the open loft.

  He made it on raw guts, Josh told himself when Bill was about to dive behind the water trough. But Josh had rejoiced too early. Even as Bill started to slide behind cover, a single shot rang out from the barn.

  Josh felt his face drain cold when Wild Bill grunted hard, blood blossoming from his chest.

  It was Wild Bill’s avoidance pattern that threw off Logan’s aim just enough to save his life.

  Nonetheless, the slug caught Bill high in his right pectoral muscle, near the shoulder, striking with the force of a sledgehammer.

  Bill barely managed to cover down behind the trough, scattering some of the horses, before Logan sent several more slugs whining at him. Water spouted into the air as bullets chunked into the wooden trough. But Josh tossed two quick rounds at the loft, forcing Logan back to cover.

  Bill still had six bullets in his left-side Peacemaker. But blood was pouring from his wound with alarming force.

  Wincing at the hot, throbbing pain, Bill ripped a strip from his shirt. Then, holding it in place with his teeth, he tied off the wound as best he could for now.

  While Bill was thus distracted, ’Bama Jones suddenly burst from the back of the barn. Moving with clumsy but amazing speed, the big southerner leaped onto a claybank milling with the rest of the horses.

  Wedged awkwardly between fence and water trough, unable to clear his left holster, Bill had no shot at the rifle assassin.

  Nor did Josh—just as ’Bama moved into the open, Ansel Logan suddenly swung down from the loft on a rope tied to a loading arm.

  As he arced through the air, grinning in elation, Logan expertly dispersed his rounds between Josh’s position and Bill’s, pinning both men. Bill watched in helpless frustration as the killer literally swung onto the back of a big seventeen-hand sorrel and joined ’Bama in flight.

  While the hollow drumbeat of escaping hooves filled Texas Street, the first windows banged open in Ma Ketchum’s Bunkhouse. The violent shootout had alerted most of Abilene to trouble.

  “You still alive, Bill?” Josh called out, already sprinting across the yard.

  “I must be.” Hickok groaned as he tried to sit up. “Death couldn’t hurt this damn bad. Damn it, Longfellow! They gave us the slip again.”

  Josh helped him to his feet. Bill saw the first curious spectators starting to peek around the back corner of the house.

  “Jesus,” he said in a low voice, thinking of that reward on his head. “The pack senses wounded prey. Get me outta here, wouldja?”

  Wincing with each painful effort, Bill drew his left-side gun and watched the gathering spectators.

  “There’s a doctor’s office next to the mercantile,” Josh suggested.

  “No sawbones, kid. Not in this town. His scalpel might ‘slip’. Get me back to your room at the hotel.”

  “But who’ll take out that slug?” Josh protested.

  “Doc Robinson, that’s who.”

  “Me? Aww, man alive, Bill! I ain’t never done it.”

  “I have. Time you learned if you want to sidekick with me. I’ll guide you all the way. Just think what a story it’ll give you.”

  “Yeah. But what if . . . well, what if I botch it and kill you?”

  Bill wagged his Colt and a knot of men fell back, letting them pass.

  “In that case,” Bill replied weakly, for he was still losing copious amounts of blood, “make sure you collect that ten thousand dollars. And get me a fancy granite marker for my grave.”

  “Light that kerosene lamp,” Bill instructed Josh, taking his second stiff belt of Old Taylor. “Keep the chimney off it so you can use the flame to heat your knife.”

  Bill took a third swallow of bourbon, numbing his body for the ordeal ahead.

  He lay on Josh’s narrow bed, still holding a Colt in his left hand. The door was locked and a chair wedged under it.

  “We got nothing but their dust again,” Bill told Josh. “But now we’ve routed them out. We’ve got them on the run. They can’t come back to town, and we’ve ruined their cover as bone scavengers. Ahh—damn that hurts!”

  Bill sucked in a hissing breath as Josh gingerly pulled the blood-soaked cloth from his wound.

  “Now what?” the kid said nervously. He stared in grim fascination at the ugly, puckered flesh surrounding the wound.

  “Pour some whiskey in it,” Bill told him. “That’s it, slop it in there good. Then heat the knife.”

  “How hot?”

  “Till it glows red, you young idiot.”

  Bill kept an eye on the room’s only window.

  “We’ve got ’em on the run,” Bill repeated. “But we have to track them down before they can kill another railroad employee.”

  But Josh was too nervous to listen to any of this.

  “Knife’s glowing,” he reported. “Now what?”

  “Whad’ja think? Dig that slug out, that’s what. Work quick, kid. Do it once, and do it fast. First thing you do is probe with the tip of the knife until you feel it contact the slug. Soon’s you locate it, cut straight down to
it.”

  Josh caught his lower lip between his teeth. Gingerly, he poked the heated tip of the knife into the bullet hole.

  “Jesus God, kid!” Hickok snapped impatiently. “You ain’t carving jade! Cut the son of a bitch out, wouldja? Just—oh, Christ! Goddamnit, that hurts! That’s the boy, just cut it loose—yowch!”

  “Oh, man, there’s so much blood,” Josh wailed, but the plucky city boy did as ordered, working quickly and efficiently. When the red-hot blade cut deep into meat and tissue, Bill had to cram his leather belt between his teeth and bite down hard.

  “I see it!” Josh exclaimed. “I see it! There!”

  Triumphantly, the reporter held the flattened slug out between thumb and forefinger. Bill, awash on a sea of pain, barely nodded.

  “Now what?” Josh demanded.

  “Now comes the fun part. Heat your blade again,” Bill said weakly. “You’ve got to cauterize the wound or it’ll pus up.”

  Bill took another hit of Old Taylor while Josh heated the knife to a red glow again. The kid almost gagged at the bitter stink of scorched flesh when he laid the blade against Bill’s wound, searing the ragged edges together.

  “God kiss me!”

  Bill’s body bent like a drawn bow. Then his Colt .44 tumbled to the bed when Hickok passed out.

  Josh expelled a long sigh, sleeving sweat off his forehead. He walked over to the washstand and rinsed the blood off his hands. Then he picked up Bill’s gun, pulled a chair next to the bed, and settled in for a long stint of guard duty.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Two days after Josh’s crude surgery, Wild Bill could easily sit up in bed and walk short distances. The two men played nickel-ante poker to while away the time until Bill could ride again.

  Following Bill’s instructions, Josh whipped together a foul-smelling but healthful tonic of sulfur, black-strap molasses, and egg yolks. Bill, holding his nose, drank this restorative mixed with piping hot coffee to build up his depleted blood.

  “I eavesdropped on the KP foreman at the cafe,” Josh told Bill on the third day after the shootout at Ma Ketchum’s. “They’re going to need at least another two days to assemble a work crew.”

  Bill nodded, sorting out his discards. His neat mustache was growing back in. He wore only trousers and a long-sleeved cotton undershirt; but both Colt Peacemakers hung on the bedpost, only inches from his hands.

  “I’m glad for the delay this time,” Bill said. “Gives me time to get my fighting fettle back. I got a hunch I’ll be needing it. Gimme three, kid.”

  Outside the hotel room, the setting sun was a dull orange disk balanced just above the western horizon. Two hours earlier, a special courier had arrived from Denver with the latest news from Pinkerton. Josh had read the letter aloud while Bill cleaned his fingernails with a match.

  Although I’ve been disappointed at your progress so far, Pinkerton wrote, your efforts have yielded some positive results after all, at least for the future. Thanks to your tip about the telegraph lines, we’ve assembled enough circumstantial evidence to intimidate a vice president of the Santa Fe Railroad.

  So far he has admitted to nothing. But he hints that he might be willing, in principle, to turn state’s evidence against his coconspirators in exchange for immunity from criminal prosecution.

  I expect that indictments will eventually be issued against several high officials of the SFRR. But the wheels of official justice turn very slowly out here on the frontier. No court action will happen soon enough to stop ’Bama Jones and Ansel Logan. Indictments will also be issued against those two, especially because of the slaughter of Captain Bledsoe and his men. But no one I’ve talked to believes Jones or Logan will ever be taken alive. Only gun law will “arrest” them.

  Despite this bit of good news, Jamie, I cannot emphasize enough how imperative it is to stop those two killers before they strike again. If they succeed one more time, the KP will abandon this project at a huge loss.

  On a more personal note: A failure this important could perhaps cause irreparable damage to the Pinkerton Agency. If lawless thugs succeed in shaping America’s destiny this time, they will be even bolder in future.

  “That damned Pinkerton,” Bill commented sarcastically when Josh finished reading, “ain’t one to pressure a fellow, is he? Show your cards, kid. I got three tens with a king riding high.”

  But Josh noticed the brooding trouble in Bill’s eyes. Pinkerton had indeed scraped a raw nerve.

  “I’m saying he could be dead,” Ansel Logan insisted. “I plugged him in the chest, not the arm.”

  “Plug a cats tail,” ’Bama shot back. “You call yourself a shootist, yet you brag on a chest hit? Shoo! A true marksman goes for the head every time. That’s what you always tell me. Even a gut shot is better than a chest hit; it bleeds more. Hell, even my maw-maw knows that.”

  “To hell with your maw-maw, you damned ingrate! I kept Hickok and that city slick from shooting your fat ass while you escaped.”

  “So you did,” ’Bama admitted, softening his tone. “So you did. A fine piece of work, bo. But I wish we coulda took our gear with us when we hightailed it.”

  The two hired killers had waited until nightfall before returning to Abilene to retrieve their saddles and rigging. Their horses were tethered in open grassland about a mile east of town. Now the two men stood in the shadow of the livery barn, carefully studying the town.

  “If Hickok was dead,” ’Bama pointed out, picking up that thread again, “there’d be a reg’lar fandango in the streets. It’d be a holiday hereabouts.”

  “’At’s true,” Logan conceded. “Still ... I’d wager Hickok is holed up in the Drover’s Cottage, knitting his wound.”

  “Speaking of hotels,” ’Bama said. “Where the hell we gunna stay? I’m damned if I want to hole up in Ellsworth again after what you done to that preacher’s daughter, you sick son of a bitch.”

  Logan grinned, leaving his eyes out of it. “Ahh, she asked for it. Smilin’ at me like she done. That gal wanted it bad. But never mind her.”

  Logan’s tone changed as a new plan occurred to him. “Look ... we need to hole up somewheres, right? Just for a few days, at most?”

  “Didn’t I just say so? Clean your damn ears.”

  “All right, then,” Logan went on. “We need a safe place just until you can make one last kill. Then we can clear out of these parts. I know just the place. It’ll be perfect.”

  ’Bama studied his face in the buttery moonlight, finally taking Logan’s point.

  “Perfect for you, you mean. You’re talking about that little blond gal’s place.”

  “Perfect for both of us, porky. The McCoy girl’s quarter section has got a crick out back with scrub trees bordering it. We can hide our horses in plenty of grass and water.”

  “That is handy,” ’Bama had to admit. “Good location, too. We could see anybody approaching from miles off. Plus we can make that little heifer cook for us.”

  “Now you’re whistling!”

  Logan thumped the big man on his back. “Know what else?”

  “What?” ’Bama said carefully, for he recognized his friend’s reckless tone.

  “I know the night clerk at the hotel. Wouldn’t take but five dollars to find out what room Hickok’s in.”

  “So what? I ain’t looking to brace him,” ’Bama protested.

  “We won’t. We’ll just find out the room, then check things out from outside. There’s a big empty lot out back. Way us two shoot? Why, hell! There’s only the one story to the Drover’s Cottage. If that room’s got a window handy, we can easy make it hot for Hickok and that weak sister who runs with him. We kill Hickok, fine. We don’t?”

  Logan shrugged. “Leastways we’ll have a little fun before we leave town. And let that smug bastard know he ain’t safe no place near us.”

  “The trick to knowing cards,” Bill explained to Josh, “is to know people. ‘Luck’ is generally just the ability to recognize and seize an opportunity.”<
br />
  Bill nodded at the pile of nickels on the blanket beside him.

  “I cleaned you out in less than two hours. But not because the cards have been falling my way. It’s just that you can’t bluff worth a kiss-my-ass, kid. Every time you have a bad hand, you chew on your lower lip. When you stop chewing, I cut my losses and fold. Gimme one, wouldja?”

  Bill scooped up the card, his eyes slanting to the room’s closed and curtained window.

  “Think they’d come back to town?” Josh asked.

  “Sure they would. Why not? I came back to this hole, didn’t I? Kid, you’re chewing up your lip again. I’m trying to make a card player outta you.”

  “Hah! Tricked you that time,” Josh gloated, slapping down his hand. “I’ve got a full house.”

  Bill flashed a grin. “Whips my pair of ladies. You’re learning.”

  Hickok squinted as smoke curled up from the cheroot stuck between his teeth. Again Josh watched his gunmetal eyes cut toward the window.

  “How you plan on stopping them next time?” Josh asked. “When the work crew goes back out, I mean?”

  “I’ll talk to the work-gang foreman tomorrow,” Bill replied. “For starters, the workers will ride out in a coach car next time, not an open flatcar.”

  Josh shuffled the deck, then dealt himself and Bill five cards.

  “Beyond that,” Bill resumed, picking up his cards, “ain’t a helluva lot I can do. I’ve scouted out the best ambush points. Long before the spike mauls start pounding, we’ll be riding the danger line.”

  Bill fanned his cards open. Then Josh saw him frown so deeply that his reddish-blond eyebrows practically met.

  “Oh, hell,” Bill muttered. He stared at the two pairs in his hand.

  Aces and eights.

  His eyes flicked to the window again. And suddenly, Calamity Jane’s recent words were snapping in Hickok’s memory like burning twigs.

  That old witch said beware the dead man’s hand! Aces and eights will kill you, Bill!

  “Kid,” Bill said urgently, grimacing at the pain in his wound as he rolled off the bed, “hit the floor!”