by J. Lee Butts
He and Judith had spent several hours of extra effort greasing every part that turned. They’d tied down all the bits and pieces that might rattle, clink, or bump against one another. Covered the trace chains in strips of cloth ripped from Judith’s mattress, and muffled the wheels with a layer of prairie grass twisted over the iron bands on the rims, then wrapped the grass with rope.
Just before he climbed up onto the ammunition chest, that feisty little gal grabbed Carlton and laid a lip-lock on the man that almost set his longjohns to blazing. He had it tough leaving her that morning. I knew exactly how he felt.
Last time I glanced over my shoulder, she had her rifle up at waist level, and motioned for Bully May to move back to his corner. Man might have had about as much in the way of brains as a wagon load of rocks, but he jumped over to his assigned spot real quick, scrunched up in the corner, and acted like he knew she would do exactly what I’d told her to do if he didn’t. Just to be on the safe side, I left Caesar with her. Told him to bite Bully’s ass off if he moved.
We pulled our animals up at the bottom of the craggy, rutted trail, dismounted, and waited for Carlton. Everything had gone so well, at first, it caused us to let our guard down a bit. Got a mite cocky, I suppose. But there were still no guards or lookouts in evidence. Couldn’t hear any movement ahead. Place seemed deserted in spite of Old Bear’s claim he’d heard noise about half a mile down the trail, and speculated at least a dozen men were somewhere ahead of us in the haze.
Since Three Bones wasn’t actually an official member of the group, we left him to guard the horses, and the rest of us set out on foot. Pistols, rifles, and shotguns came out all around. Every weapon we carried was already primed and ready for action. I took my Winchester. Course Lucius favored his pistols, and must have been loaded down with at least six of ’em. Barnes lugged a long-barreled Greener with him. Carlton slid in behind us with Beulah/Irene, and kept the animals pulling the rig to something around a slower-than-molasses-in-January speed. Altogether, we were loaded for bear and itching for a fight.
Once the trail bled out into the gorge, a heavy crop of scraggly trees that desperately clawed upward for the sparse light closed in on both sides. Most of those leafy poles pushed their way out of the hard soil beneath our feet, but some clung precariously to the canyon walls by way of roots that grew from million-year-old cracks in the rusty-colored sandstone rock. Dense undergrowth about waist high clogged the limited space beneath the plants we silently passed, and a goodly bit of the scruffy stuff grew up the tree trunks and competed with the larger shrubbery for any available sunshine.
After about thirty minutes of creeping along like snails on walking sticks, visibility got considerably better. The foggy mist lifted to the point where I could make out individual bushes and rocks. We’d just brought everything to a halt at the edge of a stagnant, scum-covered pond on our right when unexpected things started popping.
From ahead of us, a clear strong voice with a slight halting quality to it charged up the trail and slapped us right in our surprised faces. “You—lawdogs think to come here—unknown. We hear ’bout you—weeks back.”
Everyone scattered, and found himself a crusty rock or ivy-draped tree to hide behind as our unseen greeter went on like he was inviting us to an English tea party. Lucius had one side of a fractured depression in the easternmost wall, right next to me.
The voice got bolder. “Been—gettin’ things ready—for you, Til—den. Yes. I know you. Me and Smilin’ Jack—good friends—of Saginaw Bob Magruder’s. Watched you and that Yankee disgrace Parker—kill our friend.”
Guess Billy Bird had heard all he wanted. His patience with thieves and killers hadn’t grown the slightest during the whole time I’d known the man. From behind a broken rock that looked like a totem pole about forty feet forward of my position, he yelled, “If you’re so damned smart, then you know we’re a posse of deputy U.S. marshals from Fort Smith. We have enforceable warrants for anyone we find in this rat’s nest. You might as well throw your hands up now, and save us killing some of you.”
Our invisible rival didn’t miss a beat. From somewhere around an outcropping in the canyon wall on our left, he chuckled and fired back, “You funny man. Maybe you get job—with dancing bear act—I seen it once—in Fort Smith. You tell jokes. Do card tricks. Dance a little jig. Sing some songs. Make people laugh. Pass the hat.”
That really got Billy’s goat. “You come out from behind that corner and we’ll see who does any kind of a dance, you son of a bitch.” A second or so passed and a deep-throated chuckle, followed by hearty laughter from several other concealed adversaries, floated down the canyon. Their amusement was loud enough even Three Bones should have heard it.
Out of the corner of my left eye, saw Barnes pressed against the canyon wall doing his version of the Comanche tiptoe in the direction of our otherworldly opponents. He made it to the shattered corner and peeked around about the time we all got an invitation. “You boys—come on in. Martin Luther Big Eagle, Smilin’ Jack, W. J., and almost twenty more—we been waitin’ for you. Soon as the sun gets some higher, Til—den, my boys up top gonna give you hell.”
Lucius snapped a glance above us to a spot where the canyon’s knifelike edge sliced across the sky. “Don’t see anything, Hayden. But if he’s got guns up there, we’re gonna be in horse fritters eyeball-deep in about twenty minutes.”
’Bout then, Barnes snaked his way back to our hollow from his scout. He weaseled up to me, squatted, and said, “You ain’t gonna believe what I just saw, Hayden.” He pointed to the bend in the sandstone wall he’d recently abandoned. “Once you get around that corner up ahead, there’s a sharp break and a shallow depression that goes back about sixty yards. They must have moved a hundred ton of rock, dirt, and logs from somewhere. Made themselves a good-sized hill, and built a double-deep log-and-boulder castle on top of it. Here, it looks like this.”
He took a stick and drew a straight line for a bit, then made a kind of half circle and continued on. Inside the depression he dropped a flat rock and said, “The fort’s on top of the rock. It’s backed right up against the canyon wall, and must have at least fifty gun ports sprinkled hit-or-miss fashion all over the front. Our talkative friend is standing in a kind of bell tower, right in the middle of the structure.” He threw the stick down. “This is gonna be a real humdinger, Hayden.”
Billy had scrambled his way back to us in time to hear Barnes’s description of what waited. “Look,” Billy said, and pointed to a spot across from Barnes’s corner, “let’s move Carlton’s toy over to that point in front of the pond. We’ll have a clear shot at whatever’s back there.” He turned, scratched around in the dirt some, then smiled before he went on. “And just to give them something to think about, let’s limber Beulah up right now and put two or three balls into the canyon wall over there where Barnes stole his peek at ’em. It’ll rattle their eyeteeth right down to the sockets, and maybe make a few chinks in some of their smart-assed bluster.”
Everyone nodded his individual agreement for the idea, and to setting it all up real quick. Carlton wheeled the gun around. We detached her from the ammo box, moved her to the flattest place we could find, and in pretty short order, Billy and Carl had beautiful Beulah loaded and ready to roar.
When I gave the signal, that big popper bellowed to life and sent a shattering blast that ricocheted from one end of that gulch to the other, like the crack of God’s own doom during a Kansas cyclone. It was the first shot fired in what would forever after be referred to as the Battle of Red Rock Canyon.
Got to give proper credit to our amateur artillery-men. They couldn’t have launched that first ball into a better spot if they’d climbed up the wall on a rope and placed it by hand. That big lump of black iron hit the brittle rock about twenty feet from the canyon rim. The unnerving sound of cracking stone fell on everything below, and a giant column of it snapped from the force, split away, and moved almost five feet from the spot where it had been at
tached.
Carlton and Billy whooped and laughed like things insane. They lowered the barrel a bit, loaded her up in what had to have been a record minute or so, eyeballed everything one final time, and sent the second shot into the new crevice they’d just created. Must have hit the exact perfect spot right down to the smallest possible grain of dirt. That crimson, tree-shaped pillar looked like it had grown feet and could walk. When it finally stopped moving, the newly shaped post made it appear as though the canyon wall had grown itself a chimney. We all froze in place like bird dogs on the point.
Billy whispered, “I’ll be dipped in snuff. If that won’t blow air up your dress, I don’t know what would.”
“By Godfrey, I think I’m getting that Cletis Broad-bent disease.” Carlton cackled and stroked Beulah’s barrel as though she lived, breathed, and could purr.
Billy looked puzzled. “What disease is that?”
Carlton grinned like a possum eating peaches. “Think he infected me with his love of blowing thangs up. Hell, this is about as much fun as I’ve had in years without being drunk, completely nekkid, and covered with molasses.”
From a spot only Barnes had seen so far, we heard panicked shouting. Then, a ferocious volley of rifle and pistol fire kicked up dust and chinked rocks forward of our position, but hell, they were just shooting at nothing.
The stupid gomers didn’t have any better view of us than we did of them. But, hey, we had a much bigger fire-stick.
Then, Barnes came up with another great idea. “Let’s move her up as far as we can and still be on this side of the corner. Carlton and Billy can put a couple of big’uns into the wall, back over on the south side of those boys, just to rattle their resolve a mite more. Bounce a few around over there, and I’d be willing to bet they get a lot more nervous than they already are—and pretty damned quick.”
Lucius had himself all geared up for the fight, but observed, “I think maybe our talkative friend was lying about people up above. We might have caught them with their pants down, and he’s just out to throw a bluff on us if he can. Bet they never got around to sending anyone up top. If he had guns up there, they’d already be dropping lead all over us. So I think we can do whatever the hell we want, and not have to worry overmuch about it.”
Old Bear, who had come up and squatted beside Barnes, said, “Me and Three Bones saw no sign of men along canyon rim. Lucius is right. They might have known we were coming.” He picked at his teeth with a splinter of wood and added, “But they didn’t expect us today.” He grinned like a man so happy he could barely stand it and added, “It’s a good day to shoot a cannon, Tilden. Let’s blast the hell out of ’em.”
Everyone grabbed a piece of Beulah and leaned into the move. We got her set up, while our friends inside the stronghold kept pouring pointless torrents of lead into the ground and all around a spot about forty feet in front of the howitzer’s newly established position. Some of them even decorated our recently transformed feature to the landscape with shots that accomplished absolutely nothing. Guess it must have made them feel better about their situation in the process. Carlton and Billy primed the gun again, while the rest of us found anything available to hide behind and covered our ears. Billy set her off that time.
Think someone might have added a thimble or so too much powder to the cartridge used on that shot. Or maybe it had held up better than its ancestors over the years since Cletis found it. Anyway, thunderation ruled. Boxed in like we were, that thing made a hell of a noise. Can’t begin to imagine what those poor stupid devils inside their stick-and-stone refuge must have thought. Concussion sent red waves that looked like the ocean for sixty feet in front of the muzzle. That six-pound slug shot across the opening in front of their hidey-hole, hit a shelf of sandstone about fifty feet square on their south side that shattered, dislodged, and came down like a deafening echo of Beulah’s report.
When the dust finally started to settle, things were considerably quiet back there. Didn’t hear any more of the smart-mouthed taunting we’d got at first. We formed up next to Beulah, and talked it over again. Lucius scrunched in beside me, and pointed to a stand of scruffy trees nicely grouped around a pile of waist-high boulders and rocky rubble that would give us a nice barricade of about twenty feet across. Located some thirty paces in front of the pond, the rocky refuge directly faced our objective and seemed to be awaiting our arrival. From all appearances you would have thought someone had known we’d need a place to set Beulah up and made sure we got it.
The lanky Texas Ranger stood with his thumbs hooked in his pistol belt. “We’re gonna have to get over there, Tilden. Only place I can see where we’ll have a completely clear shot at ‘from down here. If that don’t work, we’ll have to move Beulah back up top.” His terse Texas drawl gave the impression we might have been discussing the various gradations of how to roll a handmade, rather than where best to locate an instrument designed to bring death and destruction to everything in front of its open mouth.
Barnes agreed. “What we can do is, two of us can wiggle over and lay down a little cover—maybe take they minds off what the rest of us be up to. Those back here will get everything set, and make a quick push to move the whole kit and caboodle into place.”
Carlton scratched his chin. “It’ll take two trips. Have to make one run for the gun, and another for the ammunition chest. Could get truly hairy out there, boys. Especially on our second jaunt. Them ole boys up the hill will have the range by then. Might get dusted pretty good. But what we could do is load Beulah up before the initial move, and then some of us can tote a few cartridges and balls for at least two, maybe three, additional shots.”
Billy stood, glanced in the direction of our objective, and said, “Well, we ain’t gonna get over there by sittin’ here talking about it. Let’s do it.”
He and Old Bear volunteered to make the initial dash. Both of them carried an extra cartridge and ball. Lucius, Barnes, Carlton, and I were left to bring the cannon over. We had a relatively level, unobstructed track to run till we got to the trees. Getting everything under cover would be a minor problem. We were going to have to do it with a curtain of blue whistlers drilling deadly holes in the air all around us.
Our friends ducked from rock, to tree, to boulder, to stump, to anything they could hide behind till all the decent cover ran out. Then, they made the short sprint for the trees. My God, but the first seriously threatening shower of fire from that nest of vipers stunned us with its power and concentration. Billy and Old Bear had scarcely made cover when a lead scythe cut a deadly swath through everything around them. Tree limbs fell in piles and a steady shower of perforated leaves that looked like they’d been swarmed by a horde of angry cutworms dropped all around them.
Lucius shook his head. “Sweet jumping Jesus, Tilden, this little Pecos promenade might get a whole lot tougher’n we figgered.”
Barnes jerked his hat off, and swabbed the sweat from his huge head with a blue and white bandanna. “When we starts in that direction, Hayden, we’re gonna have to go fast. Not stop for nothin’. We get slowed down for a second—they’ll chop us up like the kinda stuff you’d feed that big yeller dog of yours.”
Carlton pointed to the space between our position and the trees. “If we’re fast enough, they won’t be able to see us but three, maybe four, seconds at the most. Let’s give everything twenty minutes or so to die down a bit, then surprise ’em. We’ll get Beulah primed and ready to fire, run like hell, set her up, and throw one their direction as quick as we can. It’ll scare the blue-eyed hell out of ’em.”
Lucius went to checking all his loads again. He’d not yet had chance to fire a shot. “You Arkansas boys got a thicker layer of bark covering your crusty asses than I ever imagined. Scares the hell out of me just thinking ’bout getting across that stretch of ground alive, after the last round of fire them boys delivered.” He twirled a pistol on his finger, dropped it back into its holster, and grinned. “But hell, I’m the gamest rooster in the barnyard,
so let’s get to it.”
We signaled Billy and Old Bear as how we were gonna wait a bit to come over. Once the general gunfire died out, the four of us—two on either side—lined up, grabbed a spot on Beulah’s carriage tail, and on a silent signal from Barnes Reed, ran like Satan and all the imps from hell itself chased us. For two or three seconds, we must have caught Big Eagle’s bunch flat-footed and unprepared. But they woke up and, good God Almighty, a hailstorm of bullets chinked or blasted damn near everything around us.
Lead bounced off Beulah’s barrel, took chunks out of her wooden wheel and spokes on the side closest to the shooters, put holes in Barnes’s hat, shirt, and pants leg, burned a nasty trench in Lucius’s upper left leg, and left hot creases in a variety of places on all four of us.
Fortunately, as it turned out, they could lay down a blistering wall of fire, but couldn’t shoot worth a damn. I landed beside Old Bear like a felled moose with a burning groove across my left shoulder and the back of my neck. Carlton lay beside me, twisted at the waist in an effort to get a partial view of his backside.
“Look at that.” He was madder than a bucket of red ants, and pointed to a spot just below his pistol belt. A fuzzy, ragged rip across his behind had almost cut the canvas pants off the man. “One of them sons of a bitches come nigh on to shooting me in the ass! I been shot by the best of ‘in some pretty tender places, but damnation, ain’t nobody ever shot me there afore! Something like that could make a man look real bad to other folks, Hayden.”
In spite of all the rips, cuts, holes, and such, we had managed to make it to safety relatively undamaged. But that cavity in the seat of Carlton’s pants really pissed the man off. He scuttled over to Beulah like an angry horned toad, and started jerking on the carriage tail in an effort to get her pointed the right direction. Man swore a purple streak from the ground all the way to heaven’s gate during the process. We all stopped checking our individual gashes, tears, and bloody places, and helped him get her swung around. Took a few more minutes, hunkered over behind the pile of rocks that protected us, for Billy and Carlton to get the old girl lined up and sighted in to their recently acquired expert-cannon-shooter satisfaction.
