Northfield

by Johnny D. Boggs

  Botched things up. He smelled like a walking whiskey vat. I started to curse him for being a fool, for drinking when I told him and all the boys there shouldn’t be no John Barleycorn, not when we was on a case, but a gunshot roared inside the bank. Another.

  Then I saw Clell Miller, leaning over, adjusting his stirrup, and straightening in the saddle, yelling out in surprise as a bullet slammed through his shoulder.

  He tumbled on the ground again, his horse— damned traitor—skedaddling over to Fourth Street where some citizens was shooting at us, and I run to that gallant Missouri boy who had rode with us for so long.

  “Clell!”

  He pulled himself on his knees, his shoulder already drenched with blood, and tried to tell me something. “Charlie!” I shouted. “Charlie.” Charlie Pitts, who had stepped into his saddle, started toward me, and I yelled one last holler at the bank: “For God’s sake, Buck, come out! They’re killing our men out here!”

  Buck come out, cool as you please, and Charlie held up, to make sure my friend made it into the saddle. I saw him get hit—Frank James, I mean— in the leg, above the knee, but he didn’t fall, just pulled himself into the saddle about the time Clell collapsed in my arms, and I laid him gently on the boardwalk.

  “Clell!” Dingus yelled as he galloped past.

  “He’s dead,” I said.

  Clell Miller, sporting a few days’ growth of beard stubble, no pipe around anywhere, looked at me with those pretty blue eyes of his, only he couldn’t see nothing no more. Poor Clell. I unbuckled his shell belt, strapped it loosely across my duster. Grabbed his other revolvers, too, shoving one in my waistband, holstering my own, using his little .32 Moore rimfire to shoot.

  “Bob!” I shouted, looking up.

  Bob and that bearded fellow who had most recently laid Bill Chadwell low was playing a game of chicken, using the stairs as a sort of barricade between them. Neither could get a real good shot at one another, but that fellow who had shot at Jim moments earlier, who was perched somewhere upstairs at the hotel, he drew a clean bead on my kid brother. Same fellow, it would turn out, that had run off the streets, shouting—“Robbery! Robbery!”—same fellow that Clell was about to back-shoot, same fellow whose life I had ordered be spared.

  He put a .52-caliber ball into Brother Bob’s elbow.

  Now, Bob, he might be the youngest, but he ain’t lacking game, not one whit. No, sirree, Bob. Soon as the bullet crippled his right arm, he tossed his Colt into the air, caught it in his left hand, spun, snapped a shot at the upstairs window.

  Then Brother Jim wheeled in the saddle, dropping his long-barreled Colt, grabbing his shoulder, finally the saddle horn to keep himself from being pitched into the dust.

  “Ride out!” I yelled. “Save yourselves!”

  “I won’t leave you!”

  “Ride out, damn you. You ain’t leaving nobody!”

  I started for my horse.

  Dingus come by, jerked the reins from Jim’s hands, screaming at Jim to hang on, and they thundered down Division Street. That wasn’t the way we planned on lighting out, but we felt certain sure nobody would come out of here alive if we tried to cross the big bridge by the mill.

  I had to take my time, keep from getting my head blowed off. Charlie and Buck were down the street, offering some covering fire. I kept one eye on my horse, the other on Brother Bob, still in the corner, by the stairs.

  “For God’s sake!” It’s Bob who was pleading now. “Don’t leave me! Don’t leave me here!”

  “I ain’t leaving you,” I told my brother.

  Only now I spotted this other person, just standing in the street, looking at me. Drunk or a fool. I couldn’t tell. He said something, but my ears were ringing pretty bad, and it ain’t no language I could savvy no how.

  Someone downstairs yelled at him. “Come down here, Nicolaus!”

  But Nicolaus wasn’t listening. A bullet clipped my hat, and that’s when my patience was shot. Nicolaus jerked his finger at me; over the barking dogs, screaming horses, gunshots, and everything else, I heard him laughing at me. The son-of-a-bitch was laughing at me.

  So I shot the bastard in the head with the .32.

  He fell down the stairs, rolled down toward the basement.

  Another fair-skinned face popped up from the stairs, eyes wide, and I pointed the Moore at him. “Get back down, you son-of-a-bitch, or I’ll kill you, too!”

  Me? Thomas Coleman Younger, the fellow who had told everyone we wouldn’t shed no innocent blood. Me? I’d just shot an unarmed citizen in the head. ’Course, Clell Miller had practically died in my arms, and I’d just seen my two brothers get bad shot, seen my pard Frank Buck James take a hit in his leg. I was smarting some, too, from a big slug in my left hip. No excuse, though. I can’t put the blame on anyone but me, ’cause it was me that shot that fellow. Shot him for no reason, other than he—like the rest of them Minnesotans in Northfield—just wouldn’t listen to me.

  Like Bob wouldn’t listen back in Missouri when I told him this was a damned fool plan.

  Bob was screaming again. “Cole! Cole! Don’t you leave me, Cole, for God’s sake, don’t you leave me here alone!”

  “Bud!” Frank’s shouting from down the street. “Get the hell out of there, Bud!”

  Rest of it, I see like a dream that just keeps on coming to you, slowly, clearly, too damned real. Just too damned real.

  I shoot the Moore dry as I run, pull myself into the saddle, and ride by, shoving the empty .32 in a pocket and drawing my Russian. A bullet takes my hat off. Another clips my left rein. Quickly I draw my knife, slice the other rein close to the bit, will have to guide this gelding with my knees, but he’s a good horse. Yet another shot slams into the saddle horn, shredding it loose. This is hell! Using only my legs and spurs to guide my horse, I ride hard, wheel up at the corner, fire a shot at the second-story window in the hotel and another past the bearded horse-killer’s head, reach down, and grab Bob’s gun belt, pull him up behind me. Hurts like hell, for both my brother and me, but I get her done. Ain’t got no choice.

  Then I’m spurring my horse, emptying my .44, riding down the street toward Charlie Pitts and Frank James. Dogs bark. Bullets fly overhead. I see some kid, not even in his teens, step out of an alley, wooden pistol in his left hand, a chunk of brick in his right. He lets the brick fly. Damned near tears my nose off, missing it by inches. Then, he’s aiming his toy pistol, mouthing: Bang. Bang. Bang.…

  A few rods up ahead, Charlie doubles over, hit in the shoulder, and finally I’ve reached them, and we’re riding—riding toward Dundas, leaving Clell Miller and Bill Stiles, alias Bill Chadwell, leaving them two boys and I don’t know how many dead citizens in the streets of Northfield.

  Riding to…where?

  Chadwell, he’s the one who knowed this land. Sure, we’ve studied it a mite, but this is a foreign country. Soon we’ll be hunted.

  We catch up to Dingus and Jim. Keep riding hard, five horses abreast down the street. Five horses. Six men.

  Bob almost slips.

  “Hang on!” I yell to him. Suddenly I remember something else. “The telegraph wires!” I shout.

  “No time!” Dingus yells back, and he’s right.

  We were supposed to cut the lines, but now the whole damned state will be alerted.

  “Hold on, Bob!” I cry.

  “For God’s…sake…don’t…leave me!” He’s choking out them words like feeble sobs, crying, whimpering.

  “I ain’t leaving you, Bob!”

  My horse stumbles, and Bob’s whining more. “For God’s…sake…don’t…leave me.” I figure he’s in shock now, thinks he’s still on that damned boardwalk, trading shots with the bastard who killed his horse.

  “Which way?” screams Charlie Pitts.

  “Just ride, damn it!” Dingus answers. “Ride or get buried!”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  JOHN OLESON

  Nic and I had been share wee taste of spritdryck—mycket liten, not much,
two, three swallows, no more—when shots began. We down in Bierman’s basement, Bierman being man who owned furniture company who had ask me to hang door. Odd. You think furniture company fellow could hang own door, but he hired me, and I am carpenter.

  Nicolaus Gustavson, he new to this country, live in Millersburg. Swede, like me, he comes to better place, to start life new, see something better than in old country.

  But he like strong drink. Like me. Maybe Nic like it better. I mean…liked… Nic, he dead now. Man killed him. Well, Nic not quite dead, but I told there is nothing to do but wait. So I wait. Wait for Nic to die.

  He got shot this way. We hear gunshots when we sit on stairs to basement. Nic say something, start up stairs, but I tell him, no. This not right. Something wrong.

  Maybe Nic had more drink than before I share spritdryck. He pull away from me. I crawl up steps after him. Beg him to stay down.

  Nic tell me it some theater show. He has hear of it. I tell him, no. I speak all of this in old language. Nic, he not understand English much. His nephew and others in Millersburg tell me this because too much spritdryck Nic drink. Maybe so.

  “Nic,” I plead to him. “This real.”

  Mr. Manning, I see, fire big rifle. It boom. Mr. Manning, he no in theater company. Own hardware store. Mr. Ames, big government man, he run up beside Mr. Manning. I see that Mr. Manning has killed hast in front of bank. Other men, strangers in town, keep shooting.

  “Nic…Nic! They rob bank.”

  “Nej,” Nic tell me. He wave me off. Call me dumbom.

  “Brottslings!” I point at mounted men who thunder past.

  “Get off the street,” shout one, “you sons-of-bitches!”

  I almost soil myself.

  “Feg stackare,” Nic tell me, and he laugh.

  I climb down stairs, cringing at whine of bullets. Men curse. Feg stackare? I no coward, but nor I dumbom. I screw open flask, have long drink.

  How much time pass? I know not. Seem hours, but only minutes, ja. Nic yell again at me, still calling me feg stackare, dumbom, and I climb slowly steps, like cat. Nic, he berusad. Stinking drunk, like they say here. Not from my flask, though. He point again, laughing loudly. Now I see two men in long coats worn by cattlemen. I see them in streets, one near us, other toward corner of square. Another man, he cry out, hiding under stairs, throw his pistol into air, catch it with other arm. He shoot at window in hotel.

  More curses. Dogs bark. Men gallop past us. Bullets whine. Feel hot.

  “Nic!” I yell.

  Then I see man, he crouch, he fire, he yell at Nic: “Get down, you son-of-a-bitch!”

  Nic, he cannot understand, but I know it not his no good English. Two men dead. Hast dead. Guns. Shouts. Cursing. That language clear enough. No act this is. Get down! But, Nic, he drunk.

  I see Nic laugh at highwayman. I see man’s cold eyes flame with anger. He cusses. He shoot Nic in head, and Nic, he fall down stairs, roll past me. For some reason, I look up, maybe to see if man, if he come to shoot me, too.

  He see me. He yells: “Get back down, you son-of-a-bitch, or I’ll kill you, too!”

  I come down. All way down. I bang on door to Bierman’s, but it locked. I bang and bang. And then I hear no more shots, and when I look up, Nic, he gone.

  Slowly I climb stairs into streets. Men and boys, they point down Division Street, but that way I see nothing. I look around. Two men on street, dead. Hast dead. Some men run into bank. Mr. Manning and Mr. Ames, they walk slowly. Others run. To bank. To livery. To dead men.

  “We need a posse!” someone yells.

  “Get a telegraph off to Dundas. That’s where they’re headed!”

  “They shot Alonzo Bunker!”

  “I heard. How is he?”

  “With the doctor now.”

  “Somebody go fetch his wife!”

  Wheeler boy, one studying to become doktor, he step out of hotel, holding big long rifle in arms. He yell at some boys standing over body of one of dead brottsling.

  “By God,” come cry from bank. “Joe Heywood…he’s been murdered!”

  I remember Nic. Maybe I am drunk, too, no? No, I think it is just fear.

  “Nic! Nicolaus Gustavson! Where are you?” I cry out for him in English, in Swedish. No answer.

  Someone point toward Cannon River, by mill pond. “The Swede run off that way!” he yells.

  “Tack,” say I, and I hurry to river.

  There, I find Nic. His head all bloody, and he try washing blood off his face. I cannot believe he dead not.

  “Nic,” I tell him. I grab him by his arm, pull him from water’s edge. He look at me. He vomit.

  I wrap his arm around my shoulder. Nic, he sob. I tell him he will be fine, that we must find doktor, and lead him to Norske Hotel. It where newcomers from old country stay often. Nic, he stayed there. I stayed there. By then, Nic, he asleep. Other men help me, they carry him to bed. Doktor look at me, look at Nic.

  I wait.

  Doktor, he say Nic will die. “The bullet fractured his skull, pierced his brain. There is nothing I can do, nothing anyone can do.”

  So now I sit by my friend, Nicolaus Gustavson.

  I wait him to die.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  HENRY MASON WHEELER

  “Hey, boy, you stop that. Put that pistol down!”

  Still in my stocking feet, I raced across Division Street, from the hotel to the body of the man I had killed. This pockmarked kid—I didn’t recognize him—held a big Colt’s revolver in his hand—a pistol dropped by one of the outlaws, I expect— aiming it at the dead man’s face, and I wasn’t about to have his body ruined so. As a medical student, I envisioned a much higher calling for this young desperado. And his friend lying up the street, also.

  “I said…put it down!” The boy obeyed, started to keep the gun, but J.S. Allen wrenched it from his hand, and told the kid to show some respect.

  “Man’s dead. He can’t hurt you now. And we might need this pistol in the inquest and trial of those murdering b’hoys.”

  The kid took off running. I made sure he didn’t detour toward the other corpse.

  “My word,” someone said, staring at my handiwork, “look at all that blood.”

  Another: “Like a hawg killin’.”

  The man stared at us with unseeing blue eyes, his curly, reddish hair matted in sweat and drying blood, one side of his linen duster soaked in blood. No gun belt, but I remembered one of his companions relieving him of his weaponry. A drummer, visiting from Faribault, bent over the dead man and began going through the pockets of his striped britches, under the pretense of learning the deceased man’s name, but I think he just wanted to touch a slain outlaw. The search revealed only a map, a battered Waltham no longer ticking, and 10¢. Not much to show for his life, I thought. A young man doomed to die an early death because of his outlaw ways. Fate had let me kill him.

  “Still can’t believe a shoulder shot would kill that poor bastard,” someone else said.

  “My bullet severed the subclavian artery,” I explained. “No way he could survive. He bled out in seconds.”

  “Your shot?” The Faribault man looked up, sounding skeptical.

  All you did was touch him, I thought to myself with some vehemence and irritation. You certainly didn’t kill him. I patted the Smith carbine’s stock, pointed its barrel at the second-story window at the Dampier House.

  Dr. Dampier crossed the street now, and he overheard this conversation, came forward, and patted my back, saying: “Brave lad, brave lad. That was some shooting, too.”

  “Yes,” I said, trying to sound immodest.

  Nor do I wish this to sound as brag, but I suspected these strangers were up to no good when they rode into town.

  Northfield is home. Well, technically, I was born in New Hampshire but have lived twenty of my twenty-two years here. Father runs an apothecary shop on Division Street, and, last year, I was graduated from Carleton College here in town, then went off to Ann Arbor to st
udy medicine at the University of Michigan. Having returned home between semesters, I found myself relaxing in front of Father’s store, boots off, whetting my appetite on soda crackers while reading the Rice County Journal with only passing interest.

  Three strangers rode into town, tethering their mounts to the hitching post in front of the bank, then moved down the street and sat on some boxes in front of the mercantile. One produced a bottle, flask, something, and passed it amongst themselves. The first things I noticed were the quality of the horses, the fine saddles, out of place in a farming and milling town like this. The men did not look at home, either. They wore long dusters, buttoned for the moment, boots, spurs, broad hats. One sported an auburn mustache, a dark-skinned man had a thick mustache and Van Dyke, and the third man, tall, cocksure, wore a full beard, evenly cropped. He glanced often at the bank. The dusters, I thought, would be fine to hide sidearms, and I thought to myself—these men bear watching.

  From that moment, my eyes did not leave them for more than a few seconds.

  A while later, I noticed two other men, also well mounted, coming down the street. They, too, donned long dusters, and, when the first men saw them, the bearded man said something, but the youngest of the trio—the one with the auburn mustache—jumped to his feet and headed for the bank door. The dark man shoved the flask into his pocket, and all three entered the bank, leaving the door open.

  Yet not until later did I know with all certainty of their evil intent. The two riders swung off their mounts. One pretended to be adjusting the girth, while the other, puffing a homemade pipe, hurriedly slammed the door shut and stood blocking the entrance. Seconds later, J.S. Allen stepped into the scene.

  When the pipe-smoking man rough-handled Mr. Allen, I leaned forward in my chair.

  “Father,” I called inside, “something is happening!”

  Then I saw the pipe-smoking man unbutton his duster and draw a huge revolver, cursing at Mr. Allen, who turned and fled, shouting: “Get your guns, boys, the bank’s being robbed!”

  The men fired, although their shots at this time were aimed at the heavens, and I leaped from my seat. “Robbery!” I yelled. “Robbery!”