by Judd Cole
Bill pointed to where St. Vrain’s General Store once stood, on the south side of the plaza. “And they stood guard. That flag’s been waving up there ever since. Only lowered and replaced when it’s weather-tattered.”
“Man alive! That story’s going in my next dispatch,” Josh vowed, impressed.
Taos Pueblo itself, however, was a bit less than impressive. Mostly drab adobe buildings with batten shutters instead of glass windows. Nonetheless, Josh gazed around in awe at this rustic, yet historic, place. Its roots gave America a long history. Many even believed the name Taos reflected the fact that its first ancient settlers came from north China, followers of the great master Lao-tze and his doctrine of Taoism.
It wasn’t history, however, that Wild Bill was in search of now. For a long time, he studied everything with the alert vigilance of an animal in new territory. Then, reassured, he turned his bruised and battered face toward the twin ruts they had been following since they left Chimayo the day before.
The ruts evidently continued north of the pueblo. But Bill reined in where the tracks swerved in close to the old train yard at the edge of town.
Both riders swung down, Josh favoring his throbbing right hand. An old, diamond-stack steam locomotive with a single boxcar attached was parked on the narrow-gauge siding.
Bill studied the ruts for some time while the new sun heated up the day. Josh watched him glance inside the empty boxcar. Then he walked up front and laid his hand on one of the locomotive’s steam vents.
“Still warm,” Wild Bill muttered. “Should be cool if it sat all night. Still a horse smell in the boxcar, too.”
Josh didn’t understand Bill’s drift. “But the trail continues on to the north,” he pointed out. “Toward Pueblo, Colorado. You said that’s a mining town. They could smelt gold there.”
“That’s what we’re s’posed to conclude,” Wild Bill agreed. “But then why did El Lobo bother to swing in so close to the rails?”
“You’re thinking they loaded the bell, and everything else, onto the train and took it east?”
“The way you say,” Bill replied. “Be a mite crowded, but with a few men riding in the steam engine, they could do it.”
He glanced toward a little canvas-and-clapboard structure in the middle of the train yard. A horse tethered beside it suggested someone lived there.
“It’s early to come calling,” Wild Bill said. “We’ll feed our faces first.”
The two men shared a can of tomatoes and the last of their hardtack. Then Josh built a fire right beside the tracks and boiled a handful of coffee beans. By the time they finished their leisurely meal, the streets of Taos were beginning to fill and thicken.
Josh was scrubbing the coffeepot out with sand when someone inside the little shanty began singing in a gravelly voice:
And the moonbeams lit
on the tipple of her nit. . .
Bill walked over to the little shanty.
“Hallo!” he called out.
A man threw back the old moth-eaten blanket that served as an entrance flap. He was perhaps fifty or so, portly but not fat, with deep-sunk eyes like a pair of wounds. He wore old stovepipe trousers, and shaving soap mottled his face.
“Howzit goin’?” Bill greeted him.
“Same shit, different day, Marshal.”
“The boss around?”
The man gave them a friendly, snaggle-toothed grin. “Believe it or not, fellas, I’m the big chief around here. Witter Boyd’s the name. C’mon in and have a seat. Place is humble, but me and the cooties like it.”
“Humble” was an understatement, Josh quickly saw. Two cowhide-covered chairs, a packing-crate table, and a shakedown of dirty straw in one corner, obviously the bed. A coal-oil lamp gave off a pungent stench.
A fragment of mirror was nailed to one wall. Witter resumed his task of scraping off whiskers with a straight razor.
His eyes cut to Wild Bill’s battered face, then Josh’s bandage. “If you two was the winners, Marshal, I’d shorely hate to see the losers.”
Bill grinned, for Witter himself had a cauliflower ear from too many blows in his youth.
“I’m on the trail of a man called El Lobo Flaco,” Hickok informed him. “Seen him lately?”
“Seen him? Huh! I’d sooner run into a she-grizz with cubs. That El Lobo is meaner than Satan with a sunburn.”
Boyd tapped a finger against his temple. “You ask me, I don’t think all his biscuits’re done, neither. Sumbitch is crazy.”
“Make a run last night with your train?” Bill asked casually.
“Naw, hell no. I never make night runs on accounta there’s still Apache renegades in these parts. Old Bessie ain’t been fired up since she hauled a load of longhorn cattle to the terminal in Springer. Butcher beef bound for a rez up north. That was day before yestiddy.”
Josh expected Wild Bill to challenge this, invoking the authority of his badge. But he only nodded. “‘Preciate your time, Mr. Boyd.”
Before the two visitors left, Boyd remarked: “Only a soft-brained fool would go after the Skinny Wolf without a small army. He’s got tough riders with him at all times. Killers all. Apaches and Mexer soldiers what deserted.”
Boyd’s manner was relaxed and conversational. But Josh had the distinct impression they’d just been warned. Bill thanked him and they left.
“Kid,” Bill remarked as they swung up into leather, “Witter Boyd is affable enough. But I’d say he’s the best liar since Simon Peter denied Christ.”
“He’s crooked, huh?”
“Crooked as cat shit. He took Lobo, his gang, and that bell to Springer last night. But I know his type—he won’t admit anything even if we carve an eye out of him. He’s tough as boar bristles.”
“But why Springer?”
“That’s one nut we ain’t cracked yet,” Bill admitted, reining his mount around toward the center of town. “There’s no smelter in Springer— it’s just a little crossroads stop. But see, it would be a good move to throw anybody off your trail. There is a smelter down south of Springer, down in Cerrillos.”
“So are we riding to Springer?”
Bill shook his head. “Not if I can avoid it. It’s forty miles with no water. There used to be a U.S. Army remount station there with a telegraph. We can go to the Western Union and send a telegram. Verify which direction El Lobo’s trail goes. If it’s to the south, then we’ll know for certain it’s Cerrillos. Save us a day and a night’s ride.”
“Good. I’ll file my next story after you send your telegram.”
“You mind reading it to me first, Longfellow?”
“Sure. I didn’t say anything about the gold bell, just like you asked.”
Josh pulled the story out of his pocket and read it while the two men rode. As Josh had promised, most of it was a stirring tribute to Sam Baxter, with Wild Bill as his principal source.
“Kid,” Bill marveled when Josh fell silent, “you’re some pumpkins as a writer. Look there, you gave me goose bumps. But Allan Pinkerton’s going to have a cow when he reads it. I took French leave from his agency, and here I’m pinning on a badge for half the money.”
By now Taos was much busier than when they rode in. Josh saw Indians at work grinding corn and tanning hides. But the two riders were in for disappointment: The Western Union office was deserted, evidently gutted by a recent fire.
“What now?” Josh demanded. “We have to ride all the way to Springer?”
Bill shook his head. “Maybe not, slick. I got one more ace up my sleeve. C’mon. And keep your eyes peeled for trouble.”
Bill followed the telegraph line out of town. He reined in about a mile south of Taos Pueblo. The first thing he did was make sure the rimrock was well off in the distance, minimizing ambush chances.
“Light down, Longfellow,” Bill told Josh, swinging to the ground and digging into a saddle pocket. “I want you to hand me this after I get started up that pole.”
“What’s that?” Josh demanded, sta
ring at the small battery Bill pulled out. It was attached by colored wires to some kind of switch.
“It’s called a pocket relay, kid. I took it out of Sam’s saddlebag. All U.S. marshals carry one; so do most Cavalry units. You cut the main wires and fasten the pocket relay to the cut ends. Then you can send or receive Morse to the nearest telegraph station that’s up and operating. For us, on this line, that should mean Springer.”
“You know how to tap out Morse code, Wild Bill?”
Hickok, showing good agility, was already skinning up the pole.
“I hope I still remember enough to make sense. All us deputies had to know it. Been a while, though. Hand me the relay, kid.”
Josh had put his derby away earlier. He wore a military cap with a havelock to protect the back of his neck from the unrelenting sun. It tickled his neck now as he reached up, handing Bill the device.
Hickok climbed up to the wire and cut it with his knife. Josh watched the frontiersman, brows touching in a frown of concentration, splice the main wire to the relay. Then he worked the sender in a series of pulses and pauses.
Some time passed in silence.
“Cross your fingers,” Hickok called down. “The wire could be down somewhere. Or the battery might be too weak. Or maybe there’s nobody there to receive the mes— Whoa!”
Bill fell silent as a message abruptly came pulsing back. Hickok sounded it out.
“Affirmative on arrival... of El Lobo . . . bearing south . . . too many for me to handle . . . have requested help from Fort Union. . . use extreme caution, stop.”
“Must be the U.S. marshal there,” Bill said.
“Good work!” Josh praised. “But now what?”
Wild Bill, grinning in triumph, was busy unfastening the pocket relay from the main wire.
“Kid, they’ve got to be headed toward Cerrillos. Nothing else down that way. Now we’ve saved forty miles. That means we can get in to good position just east of Pecos at a spot called Chama Bluffs. It’s high ground, excellent firing position. I once held off Dan Turner’s gang from there.”
“But what about that help from Fort Union? The—”
“Out here, you save your own ass. Even if the fort does respond, they’ll be half a day staging the patrol. Forget the Army. You’re a literate man— what’s Mr. Emerson’s greatest essay?”
“‘Self-reliance,’” Josh admitted.
“Damn straight.”
Wild Bill was still about ten feet above the ground when a fist-size chunk of wood flew from the pole. A fractional second later, a rifle shot shattered the hot stillness.
“God kiss me!” Bill sang out even as splinters pecked at his face.
Hickok didn’t bother climbing the rest of the way. The relay unit almost banged off Josh’s head when Bill dropped it. Hickok himself fell right behind it, landing in a crouch.
Again, again, yet again the hidden weapon spoke its deadly piece. Bullets whumped into the ground, sending up geysers of dirt.
“Cover down under your remount!” Bill ordered Josh, for there was absolutely no natural ground cover around them. “But move quick if the horse is shot.”
Bill himself, however, ran a zigzag pattern into the open. Sliding the Winchester ‘72 from its saddle boot, Bill tucked and rolled just in time to avoid the next bullet.
“I figured Tutt was notching his sight on me,” Bill told Josh, rolling immediately to a new position. “That’s why I kept us well out in the open flats. He’s got to have a scope at this range.”
Josh, his lips chapped with fear, realized what Bill was doing, even as Hickok rolled from spot to spot to throw off Tutt’s aim. Hickok was “following the bullet back to the gun,” as he called it. He was using strike angles, and an expert instinct for ballistics, to locate the shooter’s probable position.
“Gotta be it,” he muttered, swinging the Winchester’s muzzle onto a headline with a tumble of glacial moraine dead ahead. With no specific target, Bill emptied the repeater in a saturation volley.
Bill worked the lever again and again; shell casings winked in the sunlight as they were ejected, and the acrid stink of spent powder stained the air. Either Tutt had already left, or Bill’s wall of lead sent him packing. At any rate, the sniping ceased for now.
“Let’s ride, kid,” Bill called out, rising to catch his chestnut. “Tutt will have to wait. If we let El Lobo and his bunch get that bell past Chama Bluffs, it’s as good as gone.”
Calamity Jane emitted a screeching roar that combined a Sioux war cry with the kill cry of a puma. At the sound, a dozen galloping camels broke their line formation to form a flying wedge. They left Ignatius, the master camel that Jane rode, at the point position.
“Well, God a’mighty!” Jane roared out with an ear-to-ear grin. “You ugly flea traps finally done it right, huh?”
Jane pulled in and fed a stale biscuit to each animal to reward it. Jane had the herd well east of the Lazy M, teaching the camels to hold standard Cavalry battle formations in the arid flatland.
Jane was about to climb aboard Ignatius again when she spotted them: several flashes of light from the Indian mirror station at Black Mesa, north of here. She glanced south and also saw answering flashes from the village at Point Otero.
Jane couldn’t read the actual messages. But so much mirror activity usually meant trouble for somebody. And with Wild Bill Hickok in the area, chances were good the trouble involved him. That seemed a law of nature.
“Bill’s up against it, Ignatius,” Jane told her favorite. “And the trouble’s coming our way. We got to be ready. Anybody even touches a curl on Bill’s head, I’ll cut ‘em open from neck to nuts!”
Jane brought her light sisal whip across the ugly beast’s neck, and he obediently knelt so she could climb on.
“By grab!” Calamity Jane cried out. “Uncle Sam’s Humpback Battalion will soon see their first combat action!”
Chapter Twelve
“That’s where we hole up, Longfellow,” Wild Bill announced as the two riders topped a long rise. “Chama Bluffs. Some call it Battle Bluffs, been so many scrapes there.”
It was all laid out in front of them like an artillery map. On the long western boundary ran the Rio Chama, fairly narrow hereabouts but hemmed in by steep, stony banks. To the east was a series of connecting redrock canyons, impassable for any conveyance. The only way past these twin obstacles was a narrow, grassy draw that led to the south.
Bill said, “If anybody’s looking to get somewheres south of here, like Cerrillos, either they pass the bluffs or they go four days out of the way.”
Bill pointed again. “See how the bluffs stick way out into the draw?” he said. “Leaves only about twenty yards of clear ground before you drop plumb into the canyons. Sorta ‘funnels’ anyone trying to pass, forces them in close to the base of the bluffs. Directly into the line of fire from above.”
Bill was speaking from experience here, not battle strategy. Josh paid close attention, getting it all straight in his mind now while he was still fairly calm. He had survived other hard stands at Wild Bill’s side, so he knew that, soon, quick reactions, rigid discipline, and heroic exertion must replace thinking and planning.
“The bluffs got one major weakness,” Bill conceded as they rode closer to the headland, leading their remuda. “It’s just a steep, grassy slope up to the rocks where we’ll be. It’s high up, but it ain’t that hard for attackers to climb unless there’s constant firepower from above.”
Josh understood Bill’s grim point. “Constant firepower” was beyond their capability. Josh had only six cartridges left, and this time Bill couldn’t chew him out for negligence. Pinfires were hard to find outside of big cities like Denver. And Bill had been in an all-fired hurry to leave, giving Josh no chance to stock up.
As for Bill: He had enough ammo on him for the usual defensive purposes. But he was understocked for a siege. Besides the twelve loads always ready in his Colts, day or night, he had less than a third of a box of .44 cartridge
s left, about twenty shells, to share between rifle and short guns.
Luckily, Bill was able to buy an old breechloader from a retired soldier who ran the ferry at Rio Moro. It was a cap-and-ball single-shot rifle made by William F. Marston of New York City. Although more than twenty years old now, this was to be Josh’s “main siege weapon,” as Bill put it, with his pinfire reserved for close-in charges.
Now, as the two men led their mounts up the steep front slope of Chama Bluffs, Josh could feel the heavy cartridge pouch swinging at his waist. Bill was about to give him a quick lesson in firing the antiquated weapon.
“That old percussion gun is slow against charges,” Bill conceded. “And your wounded hand will slow you down more. But a Marston rifle always has an excellent ramp sight on it, makes it an accurate piece. Accuracy’s important, Longfellow, when you’re outnumbered and slowed down. No more ‘saturation volleys’ like I fired at Frank Tutt back near Taos. It’s down to the Lakota battle slogan: One bullet, one enemy.”
However, their first priority, once atop the bluffs, was to move the horses all the way back clear of the line of fire. They tethered each animal in good graze.
“They need rubdowns. But they’re safe now unless attackers breach that slope in front of us,” Bill reminded Josh. “We can’t let that happen. And don’t forget—it ain’t just the Skinny Wolf and his bootlickers we got to watch for. Frank Tutt’s out there somewhere, too, nursing a bad grudge.”
Bill’s serious tone made Josh carefully study the terrain below, once they’d returned to the vulnerable front of the bluffs. The only movements he could detect, however, were cloud shadows sliding across the scrub flats.
Quickly, Bill showed Josh how to charge and fire the old breechloader.
“Just chew open the cardboard cartridge,” Bill said, spitting out a wad of brown paper, “and thumb the ball through the loading gate, right there. Then you just stick the rest of the cartridge in, like so, close the breech, and your primer’s built into that leather base on the cartridge.”
