War Cry

by Charles G. West

  “Nothin’,” he said, and made a halfhearted attempt to unbutton his shirt.

  She reached up and stopped him with her hand on his, realizing at that moment what the problem was. “It’s a woman, ain’t it? You’ve done gone and fell in love with somebody!” It was not a question and she could tell by his reaction that she had hit the nail on the head. “And it ain’t goin’ the way you want it to, is it?”

  He was at a loss for words, surprised that she had seen through the haze in his mind right to the root of the problem. “Nah,” he drawled, trying to deny the message his face conveyed, “it’s no such thing.”

  He wasn’t very convincing. “The hell it ain’t,” she insisted, convinced now that he was trying to cover the pain in his heart. She sat him down on the bed and seated herself beside him, and for a moment simply sat there gazing at his face, studying the boyish longing that had remained hidden beneath the rugged profile. “What are you gonna do about it?” she asked softly.

  “I don’t know,” he answered in a voice equally soft. He was reluctant to talk about it, but under pressure from a compassionate Lula that he would never have guessed existed, he finally told her the reason for his melancholy.

  “Well, much as I hate to admit it,” she said, “this ain’t gonna help it none.” She got up from the bed and took the three dollars from a chest by the bed. Handing it to him, she said, “Go on back up to Fort Dodge and tell her how you feel. That’s the only way you’re gonna find out how she feels about it. You owe her that.”

  He pushed her hand away. “You keep the money,” he said. “You earned it . . . and more, I reckon.”

  “Get on outta here before I remember who the hell I am,” she ordered and put the money back on the chest. She remained there a while after he left the room, taking enough time to dry a tear that had gathered in the corner of her eye. She had been young once, a thousand years ago, when it wasn’t necessary to paint her face to hide the miles. She heard him saying good-bye to Mickey as he left the saloon, and she thought about the time when she and a young man stood facing a fork in the road, only to make the wrong decision when she sent him away. “Well, that’s enough of this horse shit,” she suddenly declared and grabbed her hand mirror to survey the damage to her face. “Damned if I ain’t gettin’ soft in my old age.”

  It’s probably too damn late, he told himself as he held the spotted gray gelding to a businesslike gait, heading north. He had decided to take Lula’s advice with or without Ben Clarke’s permission, but the chief scout had met him minutes after leaving Mickey’s saloon with word that he was sending him to Fort Dodge. Ben told him that Colonel Arnold had requested his services for quite some time and he decided that he would let him go for a while. “It’s temporary,” Clarke stressed, “and I expect you back here in a couple of months or so.” So at least he hadn’t lost his job over his personal problems. His chief worry now was whether he was too late to let Sarah know his mind.

  His first reaction was one of elation when he rode into Fort Dodge late in the afternoon and saw the wagon still parked by the river. Then the thought wormed into his mind that maybe the wedding was back on. It was enough to cause him to hesitate before approaching the wagon, wondering if he should report in to the orderly room first. That notion was immediately discarded and he nudged Coyote forward again. Although it was surely suppertime, he saw no one about the tent or wagon. Sarah’s two horses and Emma’s paint were grazing nearby, all three hobbled—Whiskers’ doing, he figured.

  Inside the tent, Sarah realized that she was late in starting supper. She started to call Emma to put some wood on the fire, but decided to leave her where she was, playing in the wagon with her dolls. Stepping outside, she paused to breathe in the evening air for a moment. Glancing toward the river, she was startled to see what she thought at first was her mind playing tricks on her. But as the illusion became real, she suddenly felt a feeling of calm flow over her body. “Will,” she whispered softly.

  As he pulled the gray up before the wagon, their eyes met in silent greeting. But the spell lasted for only a brief moment before Emma, suddenly aware, burst from the tent in a bubble of excitement. “Will!” she exclaimed. “Mama, it’s Will!”

  “I know,” her mother said, smiling as she stood and watched Emma clamoring to be picked up, almost before he had time to dismount.

  After Emma had settled down enough to give the grown-ups time to talk, Will said, “I thought you mighta been gone before I could get back. I reckon there haven’t been any trains goin’ back east.”

  “There was one last week,” Sarah replied, “but Emma and I decided to stay here a while longer.” He nodded solemnly, thinking that over. “You’re just in time for supper. I was just getting ready to start it.” She smiled at Emma. “Put some more water in the coffeepot, honey. You know how Will loves coffee.”

  Emma started to do her bidding, then paused to ask Will, “Where’s Spades?”

  “I’ll tell you about him later. We got a lot of time to talk.”

  Once again embracing the peace that his presence always brought her, she silently agreed. There was time to talk, time to let things happen the way fate intended.

  Read on for a special sneak peek at the next

  thrilling Western adventure

  from Charles G. West,

  Ride the High Range

  Coming from Signet in December 2010

  “Moran!” Henry Butcher called out, then waited for the boy to pull his horse up even with his.

  Jim Moran nudged his horse into a gentle lope and passed the other riders in the twelve- man raiding party that was plodding along a dusty road that followed the Solomon River. When he reached the head of the column he pulled up and looked expectantly at Butcher. “You call me, Captain?” As leader of the gang of raiders, Henry Butcher liked to be called captain, although he had no rank and, in reality, no military standing in the Confederate army.

  “Yeah,” Butcher replied. “Ride on up ahead and see what’s farther up this river. Me and the rest of the boys will stop here for a spell to water the horses.” This was not the first time he had sent Jim ahead as a scout since leaving the remnants of Quantrill’s Raiders behind in Missouri. The young boy, barely fourteen years of age when he joined Quantrill’s band a year and a half ago, was a perfect choice to reconnoiter the countryside ahead when approaching a town or crossroads. Jim had a sharp eye, and with his smooth cheeks and dark hair, he displayed a picture of innocence that gave no cause for suspicion in the event he ran into the local law or a Union patrol. Adding to that, the boy appeared to be fearless. Judging by the wheat fields on either side of the road, Butcher knew they were approaching civilization of some kind, hopefully a community ripe for the picking.

  “Yes, sir,” Jim replied, and pushed on ahead. It had been six months since they had received word that Lee had surrendered and the war was over. Butcher had insisted that General Lee may have surrendered the army of Northern Virginia, but the war was still going on in Missouri. So they had continued their particular brand of guerrilla warfare—bushwhacking small Union patrols, attacking stagecoaches, and robbing trains—all of which helped cripple the Union forces, according to Butcher. Their activities, though small in perspective, had attracted the Union army’s attention, resulting in a concentrated effort to run them to ground. As a result, Missouri had become too hot for them and was the reason Jim Moran found himself on this late-fall afternoon astride a weary sorrel gelding on a dusty road north of Salina, Kansas.

  Butcher had sworn that he would keep raiding if he had to ride to Montana to stay ahead of the troops hunting them. Some of the men were talking about calling it off and going back to whatever was left of their homes. Butcher, a flint-hard brute of a man, had suggested that such talk was treason and would be dealt with accordingly. In spite of this, three of their original fifteen had slipped away in the night, leaving them to be a force of a dozen men. Butcher was furious, but due to an increase in Union patrols chasing the raide
rs, he was reluctant to turn back to search for the deserters.

  Jim gave this a lot of thought as he rode along the river road. He was thinking that maybe he should have gone with the three who took off. One of them, Amos Barfield, had told Jim that the real war was over and they were now no more than a gang of common outlaws and Butcher knew it. Jim had a lot of respect for Amos. He was a little older than the others and not half so wild when it came to killing and burning. Amos had shown a special interest in the naive young man who had shown up one day near the Marais des Cygnes River in Linn County, Missouri, squirrel gun in hand, to volunteer to ride with Quantrill’s Raiders. Upon talking to the boy, Amos soon learned that Jim held no motives beyond answering the call to defend his homeland after the war had claimed the life of his father at Vicksburg, and he had traveled all the way from his home in Tennessee to find Quantrill. The notorious Rebel guerilla leader was killed in May 1865, and it had been Jim’s lot to end up riding with a remnant band that had split off from the original. Although young and inexperienced, Jim was welcomed by Henry Butcher to join his ragtag gang of ruffians. The more Jim thought about it, the more convinced he became that he should have listened to Amos Barfield. He was right about Henry Butcher, Jim decided, he was little more than a common bushwhacker and a bully who intimidated his followers with fear. There was a difference between ambushing Union patrols and riding roughshod over small civilian settlements, and Jim had decided that the latter was not to his liking.

  Back on the banks of the Solomon River, Butcher’s men took advantage of the time to rest while Jim was scouting the countryside ahead. Joe Coons, a short, stocky man of thirty-four years of age, took it upon himself to build a small fire to boil some coffee. Joe was unofficially second in command and had always been the first to back any plan Butcher came up with. “We’ll have us a little coffee in a minute or two,” he announced as Butcher settled himself on the ground beside the fire.

  After the horses were watered, the rest of the men gathered around to partake in the pot of boiling coffee. Joe gazed around the circle at the gaunt faces, evidence of their desperate endeavor to stay one step ahead of their Union antagonists. Maybe it was time, he thought. Maybe Amos and the others had been right. It was a treasonous thought, and he hesitated to mention it to Butcher, but he was noticing signs from the other men of a definite lack of dedication to the original cause. It had been over three weeks since they had held up that train depot and they were all short of supplies and ammunition. “You know, Henry,” he started reluctantly, “the pickin’s around here is got pretty damn lean. Maybe we oughta forget about the Confederacy and go on down to Texas. I mean, hell, the war’s officially over.”

  Joe’s remark brought a squint to Butcher’s eyes and an instant lowering of his heavy eyebrows as he sent a piercing gaze in Joe’s direction. Before Butcher answered, Quincy spoke out. “I been thinkin’ ’bout that myself. Hell, this damn war was over when Lee surrendered. It’d be a lot safer down Texas or Mexico way, I reckon, but Montana’s where the gold is.” His comment captured the attention of the others gathered around, causing some nodding and grunts of agreement, as well as a darkening scowl from their leader.

  “Maybe you boys are thinkin’ somebody else oughta be callin’ the shots,” Butcher replied, his voice low and carrying a warning. His words were aimed mostly in Quincy’s direction, for he had pegged him to be the most dangerous challenge to his authority.

  “Ah, hell no,” Joe Coons quickly responded. “No such a thing, Henry. You’re the boss.” He glanced around him for support. The others were equally as quick to respond with signs of reassurance. No one of them was eager to challenge Butcher’s authority. “I was just sayin’ that, since we’re really raiding just for profit right now, we might as well go somewhere where the damn army ain’t lookin’ for us.”

  “That’s all we’re sayin’,” Quincy added, somewhat indifferently. “You’re the boss. Just thought it’s about time to think about movin’ on to someplace where they don’t know us.”

  Butcher continued glowering at them for a minute or two while he considered what Joe and Quincy had suggested. It had in fact never crossed his mind to give up the pretense of carrying on the war, but what they said made sense. He relaxed his scowl and said, “Well, as a matter of fact, I was plannin’ to do just that very thing, but we need one more good raid for supplies first. Maybe there’s a town up the road where we can take care of that.” His announcement was met with approval by all, and an instant lightening of the somber mood.

  “Yonder comes the kid,” one of the men called out.

  “Good,” Butcher answered, “we’ll see what we’ve got now.”

  Jim hopped down from the saddle and turned the sorrel loose to drink. “Come on over and get you some coffee, boy,” Joe said.

  Butcher gave him only a few seconds before demanding, “Well, what did you see? Is there a town up there?”

  “No, sir,” Jim replied as he held out his cup while Tom Banks poured. “There ain’t nothin’ but a right good-sized farm—nice house and a big barn, but there ain’t nothin’ we’d want to bother with. Just peaceful folks tryin’ to make a livin’.”

  “The hell you say,” Butcher responded. “Sounds like easy pickin’s to me—just what we’re lookin’ for. We’ll ride in there and take what we need.”

  Jim was not comfortable with the response. The scene he had discovered was a typical family farm—a man and his two sons working to clean out some hedgerows between two fields, his wife and daughter picking late beans from the fall garden. He felt compelled to express his opinion. “They’re peaceful folks. They don’t have nothin’ to do with the war.”

  “Well, by God, they do now,” Butcher replied with a wicked smile upon his face.

  Seconding his boss as usual, Joe said, “They most likely fed a lot of Yankee soldiers with all the wheat raised in them fields we passed. It’s time they paid for it.”

  Jim was suddenly sickened by the gleeful reaction of the men, all anticipating an easy romp over this Kansas family. He remembered then something that Amos Barfield had said. “You watch, pretty soon they’ll be stealin’, rapin’, and murderin’ with no conscience at all.”

  “This ain’t right,” Jim stated. “I don’t want no part in it.”

  His comment received immediate response from Butcher. “I’m the one says what’s right and what ain’t,” he roared, glaring at Jim. “Why, you ain’t much more than a snot-nosed kid. This is war! What the hell do you know about what’s right?”

  “I know this ain’t right,” Jim calmly replied, and turned at once to go to his horse.

  “Grab him!” Butcher shouted. A couple of the men reached for him, but they were not quick enough to stop him from reaching his horse and galloping away with just one foot in the stirrup. “Shoot him!” Butcher commanded when Jim headed back toward the farm. In the confusion, several of the men scrambled to get off a shot, hoping for a lucky hit, but Jim was already beyond the accurate range of their revolvers.

  “Dammit!” Quincy exclaimed in anger when he missed with his revolver. “That damn boy is gonna warn ’em!”

  “Get after him!” Butcher ordered. “He might warn ’em, but we’ll be right behind him, so they ain’t gonna have much time to do anything about it.” All twelve were soon on his heels.

  “Come on, boy,” Jim implored as the tired sorrel’s hooves pounded the dirt with a steady tattoo, giving the best it had to offer. He looked over his shoulder at the gang of riders gradually shortening the distance between them, their horses fresher than his. He was determined to warn the innocent folks of the hell that was about to descend upon them. At the same time he was reprimanding himself for not choosing to see the obvious evidence before that Butcher’s gang had transformed from Confederate guerilla fighters to common outlaws. “Don’t let me down, boy,” he encouraged the rapidly failing horse.

  The house and barn were in sight now, but Butcher and his men were charging no more than one hun
dred yards behind him. Galloping into the barnyard, he heard shots from his pursuers and realized that the men he had ridden with for a year and a half were trying to kill him. “Take cover!” he shouted. “They’re comin’!” But he saw no one in the field or garden where they had been before. “Grab your guns!” he yelled, “Raiders! Raiders!” He could hear Butcher right behind him as they poured into the yard.

  He wasn’t sure what happened next until sometime later. At that moment, he vaguely remembered a glimpse of the barn doors opening and a wave of Union soldiers flowing out and the popping of rifles as the sorrel went down headfirst, throwing him from the saddle. Unable to move for a few seconds until his brain stopped spinning around in his head, he finally attempted to get to his feet in an effort to gain cover behind the carcass of his horse. He had taken no more than two steps when he was slammed in the shoulder by a rifle slug, spinning him around before landing him on the ground again. Trapped in the crossfire between his former companions and the Union soldiers, he was forced to lie where he was, next to his dead horse while a swarm of hot lead flew overhead.

  Riding at the head of his gang, Henry Butcher was the first to slide from his saddle, fatally wounded. “It’s a trap!” Joe Coons yelled as he backed his horse while emptying his six-gun at the charging cavalry. In the chaos that followed, two of the outlaws fell from their saddles as the raiders tried to retreat. Taken completely by surprise, there was little the outlaws could do but scatter, every man for himself, but in the confusion of horses bumping into one another amid the cursing and shouting of their riders, they were easy targets for the soldiers’ rifles. Only four of the twelve- man gang managed to escape to scatter across the Kansas countryside, and only one was able to effectively return fire. Quincy managed to get off one shot, killing one of the soldiers before he fled with the others.