Sixkiller, U.S. Marshal

by William W. Johnstone

  “Och, and ’tis not so sure I am of that,” Scullin said. “You saw what he did to our materials storage depot. Why . . . if Mr. Gunn had been staying in the shack there, instead of at the hotel, he could have been killed in that fire.”

  “Do you expect him to murder me?” Stevens asked.

  “No, I’m not for thinkin’ that. But what if he has it in mind to snatch you, and hold you prisoner to keep the KATY from buildin’ any farther?”

  “I’ll tell you what, Mr. Scullin. If it will make you feel any better, you can go with me as my bodyguard.”

  “Aye, lad, ’twould make me feel much better.”

  Joy had suggested that they meet in Garnett, Kansas, which was not only a neutral site, but was accessible by railroad.

  “I see you’ve brought your strong man with you,” Joy said.

  “Aye, and ’tis keepin’ an eye open I will for any of your underhandedness,” Scullin said.

  “My underhandedness? And who was it that attacked my men in Columbus?”

  “See here, Joy,” Stevens said. “Can we not compete like honorable men?”

  “There was nothing honorable about you wrecking my supply train, nor was there anything honorable about your thugs beating up my men,” Joy replied.

  “Wrecking your supply train? Why, I did no such thing. But if I had done it, it would be no less honorable than you setting fire to my supplies,” Stevens replied.

  “I did not set fire to your supplies,” Joy said, “though I certainly had every right to do so, since you wrecked my supply train.”

  “I told you, I did not wreck your supply train.”

  “Oh? Then how do you explain this? It was left at the site of the wreck.”

  Joy showed Stevens the note.

  We will do whatever it takes to be the first railroad into the Indian Territory.

  Stevens looked at the note. “I’ll be damned,” he said.

  “Uh-huh. It’s hard to lie about it when the evidence is put before you, isn’t it?” Joy asked.

  Stevens reached into his own pocket and pulled out a note. “This note was left at the scene of the fire, when your men—or somebody—burned my supplies.”

  “Or somebody? What note?”

  Stevens handed the note to Joy.

  We will do whatever it takes to be the first railroad into the Indian Territory.

  “That’s—that’s the same note,” Joy said.

  “And the same handwriting. Look how the letter f is formed. It is backwards on both notes.”

  “What is this?”

  “Someone, and I don’t know who it is, doesn’t want either one of us to cross into Indian Territory,” Stevens said.

  “But why?”

  Stevens shook his head. “I’m afraid I can’t answer that, James. I have no idea who it is, or why he is doing it. But it is pretty obvious that he intended for us to do just as we have done, start warring with each other.”

  “What do you propose we do about this?” Joy asked.

  “We could swear a gentleman’s oath, here and now, that neither of us will use physical force against the other, nor will we make any attempt to destroy the other’s property,” Stevens suggested.

  “I so swear,” Joy said, extending his hand.

  “Just so that we are clear about this, the oath we are taking declares that I will not use physical force against you, or your men, nor will I attempt to destroy any more of your equipment, or your track already laid. And you are making the same promise to me. Is that how you understand it?”

  “It is.”

  The two men shook hands, and their agreement was made.

  Over the next week, both the Border Tier and the KATY railroads continued to make progress, neither railroad impeded by the activity of the other. The renewed effort was noticed by newspapers all through Kansas, Arkansas, and Missouri.

  The Doster Defender, which had earlier highlighted the difficulty, now printed a story filled with hope that the railroads would continue their competition, fairly.

  Competing Railroads Make Agreement

  James Joy and Robert Stevens, both known to be men of great honor and integrity, have shaken hands on an agreement to compete fairly. The prize of their competition, to be awarded to the first railroad to reach the border between Kansas and the Indian Territory, is to be a government-sanctioned right of passage through the Territory into Texas.

  Of late, there has been some difficulty as fighting has broken out among the railroad workers, resulting in some injuries. There was also damage done to the real property of each of the railroads, though it has been determined by Joy and Stevens, that the damage was the result of a third party, perhaps trying to stir up trouble between them. The identity of the third party is not known, nor is there known the reason for such perfidy.

  Eberwine had enjoyed the earlier article detailing the troubles between the two railroads, but this article troubled him. Not only had the railroads made peace with each other, they seemed to have figured out that the trouble between them was being caused by a third party.

  It was in the open that there was a third party behind the trouble, but nobody knew who it was. Better yet, nobody knew the reason for the attacks on the railroad, for if someone had been able to ascertain the motive, they could surely trace it back to him.

  It was time to take another step, and to that end, he called upon Percy Martin again.

  “I’ve got another job for you,” Eberwine said.

  “You want me to wreck another train?”

  “No. I just want you to make a nuisance raid against the town of Ladore.”

  “Ladore? Why?”

  “Why should it matter to you, as long as it is worth another five hundred dollars?”

  Martin smiled. “Five hundred dollars?”

  “And anything you manage to take from the town. Do you think you can do that?”

  “What do you mean, anything I manage to take from the town?”

  “Ladore is at the end of track for the KATY railroad. There are a lot of workers there. This is the end of the week, and most of them have just been paid.”

  “You’re saying I should rob the workers?”

  “No, far be it from me to tell you how to take advantage of a small town with no law, and filled with people who have money in their pockets. People who are railroad workers, I might add, and who are unarmed. I would think that if there was enough trouble stirred up in the town, that it might have the effect of delaying the building. Do you think you could do something like that?”

  “Yeah,” Martin said. “Yeah, I know I can do something like that.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Two days later Percy Martin and six more heavily armed men rode into the town of Ladore, which was just across the border into Kansas. Ladore had sprung up at the end of track for the KATY Railroad and, like end-of-track towns all across the West, it was a place designed to take advantage of the most basic needs of the men who were building the railroad. There was a livery, grocery store, and apothecary, but the most lucrative businesses in Ladore were those that involved whiskey and prostitution.

  Percy had been hired by Marcus Eberwine to do what he could to disrupt the building of the railroad. He was initially paid five hundred dollars, but had the bonus of being able to keep anything he managed to round up during the operation.

  Neither Evers nor Tinker, nor any of the other men who were riding with him, knew anything about the money Martin had been given by Eberwine. Martin told them only that if they would come into Ladore, there would be an opportunity to “make a little money, and have some fun, besides.”

  “Hey, Martin,” Evers asked, “how are we going to make any money here? Hell, there ain’t even so much as a bank.”

  “That’s goin’ to make it even easier,” Martin said.

  “How?”

  Martin pointed to a hastily constructed, rip-sawed lumber building. The sign on the outside, roughly painted, read RAILROAD SALOON.

  �
�Suppose we go in there and have a few drinks. We can discuss this inside.”

  “Sounds like it might be a good idea, if I had enough money for a drink,” Tinker said.

  “I’ll buy the drinks for all of us. By the end of the day I figure everyone will have enough money to pay me back.”

  The others, agreeing to the proposition, swung down from their saddles and tied their horses off, then walked into the saloon.

  “Get a table. I’ll get us a bottle and some glasses,” Martin said.

  The men couldn’t find one table big enough for all of them, so they pulled two together. Martin stepped up to the bar.

  “Yes, sir?” the bartender said.

  “Give me a bottle of whiskey and seven glasses.”

  “If there’s seven of you, one bottle won’t go very far,” the bartender said.

  “How much is your whiskey?”

  “Three dollars a bottle.”

  “Three dollars? Look here, I ain’t askin’ for sippin’ whiskey. All we want to do is get drunk.”

  “Well, you ain’t goin’ to do it for less’n three dollars. And as many of you as there are, you’ll be needin’ at least two bottles, and that’ll be six dollars.”

  “All right, all right, if that’s the best you can do. Bring it over to that table,” he said, pointing to the other men.

  The men drank for the rest of the day, going through four more bottles of whiskey. Then, as it started to get dark outside, Martin held up his hand. “All right, boys, it’s time to start makin’ a little money.”

  “How we goin’ to do that?” Evers asked.

  “Ever’one in this town is workin’ for the railroad, and the railroad pays good wages,” Martin replied.

  “So?”

  “I know that the railroad paid today, and if there ain’t no bank for ’em to put their money in, whereat do you reckon that money is goin’ to be?”

  “Ha!” Tinker said. “They’ll have the money on ’em.”

  “That they will,” Martin said. “It’s goin’ to be like takin’ candy from a baby. They’s seven of us. We’ll just sort of wander through the town and take whatever we want from anyone we might happen to run across.”

  “Yeah,” Evers said. “Yeah, I like that.”

  The seven men left the saloon just as the evening crowd was beginning to come in. They weren’t a block away before they came upon their first victim, a man who was walking up the road toward them.

  “Hey!” Martin called out to him. “Where you goin’?”

  “I’m goin’ to the saloon, if it’s any of your business,” the man answered.

  “You can’t go to the saloon without you got money. And I’d say you didn’t have one cent on you.”

  “Don’t you worry about me. I got money.”

  Martin smiled. “You don’t say.” He nodded to the others and, too late, the man realized that he had made a mistake. The men were on him before he could cry out. He was knocked down and beaten senseless, then robbed.

  “Damn!” Tinker said. “The son of a bitch didn’t have but eight dollars on him.”

  “I’ll take that,” Martin said, holding his hand out.

  “Why should you get it?” Evers asked.

  “I paid for all the whiskey, remember? Don’t worry, we’ll split up the next one.”

  “Yeah? Well, we damn sure better,” Evers insisted.

  “That wouldn’t be a threat, would it, Mr. Evers?” Martin asked.

  “Not a threat, just puttin’ in my claim is all,” Evers replied.

  With their action shielded by darkness, the men wandered around the town, pouncing on the hapless railroad workers, beating them, then relieving them of any cash they might have on them. In this way, they managed to attack six more men, coming up with a grand total of one hundred and nine dollars, which they divided among themselves. As the division didn’t come out even, Martin pocketed the extra money.

  “Hey, what do you think that buildin’ is down there?” one of the men asked, pointing to a rather large building about a quarter of a mile south of the rest of the town.

  “Looks to me like it’s a house,” Tinker said.

  “If it is, it’s a pretty big house,” Evers noted.

  “Yeah, well, anyone livin’ in a house that big has got to have money, don’t you think?” Evers asked.

  Martin smiled. “Yeah, I think.”

  The men walked through the darkness until they reached the building.

  “This don’t look like no house to me,” Tinker said.

  “It ain’t. Look at that sign,” Martin said. “It’s a boardinghouse.”

  “A boardinghouse? You mean a place where people pay money to stay?” Evers asked.

  “Yeah, a boardinghouse where people pay money to stay,” Martin said.

  “I wonder if they have any of the money with them?”

  “Where else would it be? Like I said, there ain’t no bank here,” Martin said. “Come on, let’s pay them a little visit.”

  When the seven men went inside, they found themselves in a little entry area, separated from the rest of the floor by a counter. On the other side of the counter was what appeared to be the apartment where the owner and his family lived. There was an older man and two young women sitting at a table, eating, but when Martin and the others came in, the man got up and, wiping his lips with a napkin, came toward them.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t at the counter,” he said. “My daughters and I were just having our supper. My name is Roach.”

  “You run the place do you, Mr. Roach?” Martin asked.

  “I do, indeed. But if you are wantin’ a bed, I’m afraid we are all full up. However, if you’d like, you can sleep out in the barn. The hay is clean, and it’ll only cost you a nickel apiece. A dime each if you want a blanket.”

  “Yeah, we’ll do that,” Martin said. “With blankets.”

  “All right, the blankets are under here,” the man said, leaning over to reach under the counter.

  That was when Martin brought the butt of his pistol down hard on the man’s head.

  “Papa!” one of the young women at the table shouted.

  “Get the women,” Martin ordered as he knelt down and hit the unconscious man again.

  “No! No!” one of the young women said. “Please, don’t hit him again!”

  “Shut ’em up, but don’t kill ’em. We’ll have some fun with ’em,” Martin said.

  The two girls, ages seventeen and nineteen, were gagged so they couldn’t call out, then dragged from the house to the nearby woods. There, they were stripped down, and the men began taking their turns with them.

  Evers was about to go to one of them when Martin reached out to grab him by the shoulder and pulled him away.

  “It’s my time,” Martin said.

  “The hell it is,” Evers replied. “This here is first come, first served, and I was here first.”

  “I said it was my time,” Martin said. He pushed Evers away and Evers responded with a right cross to Martin’s jaw, knocking him down.

  “Ha!” Evers said. “I reckon that’ll teach you to mess with ole Harry Evers.”

  From his position flat on his back, Martin drew his pistol and fired at Evers. Evers went down and Martin regained his feet, then walked over to Evers’s form. He looked down at him, then, with his foot, turned the body over. There was a black bullet hole in the middle of Evers’s forehead.

  “Son of a bitch!” Martin said. “Now that was quite a shot!” He looked at the others, who were looking at him in shock. “Like I said, this one is mine. Anyone got an argument with that?”

  “What did you kill him for?” Tinker asked.

  “The son of a bitch hit me,” Martin replied. “I don’t let anyone hit me and get away with it. Anyone got ’ny argument with that?”

  No one did.

  “Come on, honey, me ’n’ you’s goin’ to have some fun,” Martin said to the younger of the two girls.

  When Percy Martin woke u
p at about two o’clock in the morning, the two girls were gone. The men were still here, but all five of them were passed out drunk. Martin went through their pockets to take what money they had, then he left.

  Less than half an hour after Martin left, the two girls, Betsy and Carol, returned, leading at least ten armed men.

  “That’s them,” Betsy said, pointing to the sleeping figures.

  The self-appointed leader of the posse was a man named Jim Abell and he walked over to the closest sleeping man and kicked him hard, in the side. The man grunted.

  “Get up!” Abell said. “Get up, you son of a bitch!”

  “What is it? What do you want?” the man said.

  “What is your name?” Abell asked. He was holding a shotgun leveled toward the man on the ground.

  “Tinker. Gerald Tinker. Who are you?”

  “I’m the man that’s going to hang your sorry ass, along with all your friends. Get up, now! All of you!”

  By now the others were awake and, gradually, they began to stand.

  “You, too!” Abell called to one of the men who had made no effort to stand.

  “Won’t do you no good to yell at him,” Tinker said. “That’s Harry Evers. He ain’t goin’ to stand.”

  “Oh? And why won’t he stand?”

  “He ain’t goin’ to stand ’cause he’s dead. Percy Martin killed him.”

  “Which one is Percy Martin?”

  Tinker looked at the other four men. “He ain’t here,” Tinker said. “He’s gone.”

  “Hey!” one of the other men said. “My money’s all gone!”

  “Mine, too,” another said.

  “Martin! That son of a bitch took all our money!”

  Ladore had never incorporated itself as a city, so it had no city government, no mayor, and no marshal. But it had a population of over two hundred and fifty people, all of them connected with the railroad in one way or the other, so they declared themselves a town, then held court in the saloon, which was the biggest building in town. They selected Jim Abell to act as the judge, and two of their members, both of whom had some college, were appointed as prosecutor and defense counsel. Next, they empaneled a jury.