The wagon drivers had mostly dived into cover, which was all that was expected of them – their job was to keep hold of the reins and look after their animals as well as they could. Mules and wagon-horses were valuable to all sides, should not be exposed to unnecessary hazard.
Attackers and defenders both had quickly dropped off their horses – far too exposed for comfort, up in the saddle – and the fight had turned into an exchange of aimed shots.
The one breech-loading rifle had made all the difference, Dick realised. It was no more accurate than a long muzzle-loader, but the man with the Sharps could lie down in cover while the proud possessor of a Kentucky rifle had to stand to use the ramrod. Normal practice was to fire a single volley from the rifles and then close to pistol range, twenty feet or less; the Sharps changed the nature of the game, keeping the fight at a hundred yards and more. He had shot at, and hit, four of the opposition whilst they had been unable even to reload their rifles.
There was almost complete silence, apart from one man somewhere who was dying, or thought he was, rather noisily.
Hoofbeats over the hill, one then half a dozen at the gallop and away.
“Dick! Stay where you are – watch right and to your front.”
“Heard you, boss!”
“Patrick! Jim! Watch left!”
Two more acknowledgements.
Blackjack broke cover and scuttled forward, the boss morally obliged to take the lead, four more guards following, running from cover to cover before dropping flat to ease over the ridge.
“They’s gone, boys!”
They shifted out from cover, scouring the long grass for the casualties. There were two pistol shots as injured horses were put out of their misery.
They moved on another five miles to water, taking the bodies as well as the wounded of both sides in the wagons.
“Might be you or me next time, Dick!”
They buried eight of the attackers and one of their own men in a small graveyard well clear of the creek and away from the three shacks and a tiny store cum saloon making up a settlement by the ford and watering place.
“Four of them was yours, Dick.”
He shrugged, said he had a good rifle.
“Don’t matter how good the rifle is if the man ain’t willin’ to shoot it, youngster! Enough of them saw you to think twice next time they spots my wagons – they ain’t goin’ to want to tangle with the Kid with the Sharps!”
“Pity about Arthur.”
“Bad luck – got hit in the first minute. Could ‘ave been any of us. But the word’s goin’ to go round, ain’t it. They hit old Blackjack from the hillside and buried eight men from their twenty with two more down and none too sure whether they ever goin’ to get up again!”
There was a mutter of agreement around the fire – they would all be safer for the rest of the season.
“What about your backside, Dick? You hit bad?”
“Not that I can see, boss. I cleaned it as well as I could.”
“Let’s ‘ave a look – come on, boy, we all seen more frightening things than you got!”
There was a roar of laughter and lewd comment – all friendly.
“Broke the skin but not a lot more, just a furrow through the surface. Can’t stitch it. Hold still, Dick!”
That was more easily said than done as raw whiskey was sloshed across the open wound.
“Smerts a bit, Kid, but it’ll keep it clean. Month from now you won’t know you got it.”
“Is that whiskey safe? Some of the stuff they make is more dangerous than bullets!”
“Old Man Jones’ best, Dick. The finest whiskey you can buy in Mud Creek!”
There was only the one store.
“Ain’t Mud Creek no more, boss! New man says you got to call the place Abilene – finest town in the west of Kansas, so he say!”
“I’ll take Topeka any day!”
“Man say the place gonna be the biggest city on the whole Plains, boss.”
“Man got more mouth than sense, you ask me!”
They laughed and put the whiskey bottle to good use.
“Got a problem, boys. Dropped off two wagons to Old Man Jones and we’s supposed to take the other four down to farms south and west of here, about a dozen homesteads around a place same size as this. Only, what I bin told is that they all’s been burnt out. Almost sure the man’s right; they probably ain’t nobody there any more. Take us a day to get down there and then we’s out in the ass-end of no place at all wi’ nothin’ to do other than come back agin. But suppose they ain’t burnt out, then they set there with winter comin’ and the supplies they reckon on up here.”
“Farmers, boss – they all got wives and children – cain’t run no farm without a missis.”
Blackjack agreed – if they were still there then they had families who needed the stuff on his wagons.
“A day for the wagons, boss?”
“That’s what I done said, Dick!”
“Four hours fer a hoss.”
Dick was quite proud of that – he was getting hold of the local dialect.
“If you want to take the risk…”
“I’ll go, boss.”
Patrick and Jim were generally agreed to be the finest shots amongst the other guards and each carried a Hawken long rifle, often said to be the best of the Kentucky rifles. Both volunteered to go with Dick – they had to be sure there were no women and children facing short commons in a Kansas winter; ‘probably’ was not good enough.
“Take out at first light, boys, grub for a week and full canteens. You should be back by sundown, but if you ain’t then I dunno that we can send down no rescue party.”
“Suppose we don’t none of us come back, then we all three dead, boss.”
“Right enough, Jim.”
There was a faint trace leading towards the farms, just the remains of wheel marks from the last wagons to run down, following the lightly wooded creek south towards the hills and then crossing more open land towards the west.
The three rode at a fast walk, twice the speed of a loaded wagon but easy on the horses. Where possible they kept to the grassland a little away from the track and beneath the ridgeline of the low hills, in concealment to an extent. At intervals Jim eased up higher and dismounted to stare out over the surrounding country.
“No dust, no sign – reckon we on our own out here.”
They came to an abandoned farmstead, a few feral chickens the sole sign of life.
“Gone for months from the feel of it.”
A mile over another low hill and they passed one more empty place, built next to a small watercourse, sod cabin long desolate, wooden barn burnt to the ground.
“Tracks, Dick, Patrick!”
They reined in, followed Jim’s pointing hand, picked up the marks of shod horses, no more than a day old, Jim said.
They spread out, thirty or so feet between them and carried on down the track towards the four buildings they could see where the creek widened.
“Seven hosses in a corral back of the biggest place,” Jim called.
Three of the buildings had been burned out; the fourth was store and stables by the looks of it, almost certainly had been a saloon as well.
“Do we go in?” Dick asked.
“No sense comin’ this far except we find out what’s goin’ on,” Jim replied.
“Rifles?”
“Leave ‘em on the hosses. Might look the least bit unfriendly we goes in with rifles in our hands.”
They hitched the horses to the rail outside the store, walked inside, out of the bright sun into the shadow, stepped right and left away from the door.
The big room had been looted, shelves and bar empty; the little that had not been stolen had been smashed apart with the exception of a single salvaged table and some chairs. Three men stayed seated, four others on their feet behind them; there were half a dozen bottles on the table and a strong smell of whiskey said they had been there some time.
“Who are you? This place is ours.”
“You’re welcome, mister. Riding with Blackjack’s wagons – supposed to deliver goods here and come down to see iffen they is any man to take ‘em off our hands.”
The seated men jerked to their feet at the mention of Blackjack’s name.
“You’s the Kid with the Sharps, you son-of-a-bitch!”
One of the men snatched a pistol from his belt and fired a hurried shot, missing whatever target he had aimed at.
Dick pulled out the Navy Colt, slowly he thought, raised and pointed and cocked the pistol, fired five unhurried shots, cold and calm, all the time in the world he felt.
Jim and Patrick loosed off two apiece from their own revolvers.
All seven were down.
Jim shifted slowly forward, shocked almost; he had never seen such execution.
“Three dead. Two belly shot – they goin’ to wish they dead before they go. One in the shoulder, other got it through the chest but way off centre – they goin’ to be walkin’ this time tomorrow. Nothin’ we can do. They can look to themselves.”
They turned and paced slowly out, untied their horses and walked them down to the water.
Dick sat and patiently reloaded the Colt while the other two saw to the horses.
Twenty minutes in the shade while they took a drink and refilled their canteens with fresh water and then silently away, onto the trail north.
They were back in Abilene with an hour of daylight to spare.
Jim and Patrick told the tale, half a dozen other riders in Old Man Jones’ place listening intently, the name of the Sharps Kid made and going into instant legend.
“Two months from now you goin’ to be known every place for a thousand mile, Dick.”
“A good thing or a bad, boss?”
“With a war coming on, Dick? What do you reckon?”
“Seems good to me, boss. Been thinkin’, these last few days, boss, about this war of yours. Suppose you was to head up north this winter, over the border to Canada. How many Enfield military rifles do you reckon you could buy up there and bring down ready to sell to any man what was goin’ to raise a regiment?”
“Five thousand dollars and I could pick up all a man might want. From all I hear tell you just got to find the right Quartermaster Sergeant who might like the idea of retirin’ from Queen Victoria’s service and half the stores of his arsenal might just get stacked away in them wagons. Happened more than once already.”
“I can put one thousand and five hundred English pounds, in good bank notes, in your hand, boss. That’s more than six thousand dollars, I make it.”
“Profitable way to spend a winter, Kid, and I can match your stake, pick up percussion caps and powder too. Not worth bothering with ball, that’s easy to make. What will you do?”
“Go back to Topeka, maybe to Kansas City – there ought to be some place there to take a job in the warm. While I’m in town I can find a Militia Company to drill with ready for the Secession you folk tell me is coming. A year of war and we split the profits on our trading and see what we can find to do in the conquered South. Play my cards right and I’m a captain by then and you’re a trader with a good reputation as a patriotic gentleman - between us…”
“Five years and we get rich, Kid. Shake on it!”
They parted in Kansas City, Blackjack selling his wagons and teams and taking his and Dick’s cash north on the railroad, Dick spending a couple of days to find a room in a respectable boarding house before setting out to look for congenial work.
Jim and Patrick were both in the small town, intending to overwinter there, living on the couple of hundred each had saved and perhaps working part-time, mucking-out in a livery stables or cleaning-up in a saloon in the early mornings. They were used to the life and were known figures, respected as working hands. The evenings were spent in one saloon or another, not drinking excessively but talking to the new faces they saw – after eight months on the trails in the company of the same dozen men they were ready for new conversation.
Inevitably, the Sharps Kid featured in their stories – they had been there, they had seen it.
Dick wandered into the biggest of the saloons, distinguished by curtains and four tables reserved for gambling men, leant on the bar and asked for a beer, looked idly about him. He had decided on a few days to familiarise himself before he searched for work, having no idea what was available for him with his limited manual skills. There might be something in the clerking line, he thought, literacy being none so common out west.
He did not notice the nudges, the mutters of recognition along the bar.
He called for a second glass – the beer was not strong but was surprisingly well-brewed, far better than he had expected.
A man stood to the bar at his side, nodded courteously to him, waited for him to speak.
He was dressed Eastern-style – frockcoat over trousers tucked into polished black boots; white shirt and a black string neck-tie, laundered and tidy; clean-shaved apart from a neat moustache, probably ten years older than Dick.
“Good evening, sir. I’m Dick Burke.”
They shook and the Easterner introduced himself as Michael Parsons and owner of the Grand River Hotel, the saloon they were in.
“I believe, Mr Burke, that you are recently known by another name as well.”
“The giving of nicknames appears to be a Western habit, Mr Parsons.”
“It is indeed, sir – but generally those names are earnt.”
“Men shot at me, sir. Slavers, at that. I have no love for their sort, sir, and certainly no desire to turn the other cheek to them!”
“Well said, sir. There is a rumour that you rode with the martyr John Brown, sir.”
Dick had listened to the stories, knew that he was of the same age as John Brown’s sons who had escaped the noose.
“Flattering, sir, but incorrect – I am only this year arrived from England. I took ship from Liverpool in the spring and came west to make my fortune.”
“And have you done so, Mr Burke?”
Dick laughed, shook his head.
“Not yet, sir – another forty years, perhaps!”
“If it was your intention to remain here for the winter, then I am in need of a gentleman who would spend most of his evenings in here, keeping the peace. The tables often attract our wealthier citizens and stakes can be high – a temptation to the light-fingered, one might say.”
“I would certainly prefer work to idleness, Mr Parsons, but it is my intention to discover a Militia Company, if such exists.”
Parsons hurried to assure Dick that he had a choice of three and he could recommend his own, mounted squadron.
“Thirty men, Mr Burke, each carrying a carbine or a rifle as well as pistols and a sabre. Six other men possess Sharps, sir, though I do not know that any has a name for their use. I am appointed captain and it is our intention to elect a pair of lieutenants as soon as we make up to sixty men. We parade on Saturdays.”
Dick was delighted to enlist with a cavalry unit – his family was not used to being foot-soldiers, he said. He agreed as well to move into a room at the hotel and take up employment there for his keep and twenty a month in pay.
“I doubt you will be called upon to take violent action, Mr Burke. Your name alone should be sufficient. As well, of course, your known presence may well attract more custom to the bar – many will like to cast an eye over the Sharps Kid!”
Dick wondered if he might have made himself a target for the pro-slavery faction.
“Are there many of a Secessionist persuasion here, sir?”
“Very few, Mr Burke – enough of this formality, sir! I am Mike and I trust you will have no objection to Dick?”
“None whatsoever, Mike! Our few Southern sympathisers, Mike, have they any great influence in town?”
“None, Dick. They are in fact lying very low while they pack their bags and make all ready for a getaway. The Militias total two hundred men and as many again will p
ick up a rifle or pistol if it comes to defending their own. Younger men, bachelors especially, are ready to march out to fight for the Union; their seniors will stay at home with their families and businesses, as they rightly should, but they will buy in all of the powder and shot they may ever need.”
“What of the territories as a whole, Mike?”
“On a knife-edge, Dick. Kansas probably has a significant Union majority while Missouri has more Southerners registered to vote, due to vicious gerrymandering by the corruptly made Governor. As you know, there are armed bands infesting the south of Kansas and all of Missouri. Some are patriotic Secessionists, honest in their beliefs and honourably ready to fight; others are the vilest of scofflaw scum to whom no crime is unknown – men such as Anderson and Quantrill are already infamous and there are hundreds of lesser monsters in their wake. When war comes then the Militia Companies will bear the brunt of the fighting, as the Union army is scattered in penny-packets across the whole of the west. It is my hope to have orders cut and ready in advance of need – I am in conversation, as you will appreciate Dick, with the other officers and with Washington!”
Dick accepted his asseverations at face value – Parsons obviously knew more than he did.
Parsons led him to the private rooms at the back of the building, offices and kitchens to the left, next to his own quarters, spacious and well-appointed. To the right there was a substantial bedroom with an easy chair next to a table and a small bookshelf.
"Just a few volumes, Dick - books are none so easily come by. A full set of Waverly, by Scott, brought out by my sister, and some of Dickens, of course!"
Parsons led Dick down the corridor and knocked on the door of his own sitting-room, waited for a female voice to call.
"My sister, Miss Parsons; Mr Richard Burke!"
Miss Parsons - Elizabeth she soon informed him - was a handsome young lady of much the same age as Dick, possibly a little older, self-assured beyond her years and educated, for a female. She spoke with very little of the American in her voice, suggesting Eastern money in her upbringing. She was very attractive, perhaps a little too tall for Dick's taste but well-rounded and brown-eyed with the jet-black hair of Victorian fashion. She was willing to talk, to ask him of England, of the far-away land of elegance and sophistication of which she had read, which one day she was going to see; even better, she was happy to listen to him.
A Victorian Gent (The Making of a Man Series, Book 1) Page 6
