by Joe Corso
Longstreet remained shotgun rider for the Butterfield Overland stage line until they reached Abilene, Kansas. At the time, Abilene was in its infancy and consisted of a small cluster of buildings. Wally, the coach’s driver, knew his way around Abilene’s muddy rutted streets and in a little while he steered the big coach to the Tim Hersey and W. H. Thompson stage stations located east of Mud Creek and south of the trail. Hersey himself greeted the coach by pulling on the reins to slow the horses and bring the coach to a stop. The Kid leapt off the coach. While the passengers took a well needed break, Longstreet, Wally, and Hersey went into the small log stagecoach office.
“Mighty glad you were riding shotgun, Mr. Longstreet. We’ve had a rash of robberies lately. It seems that as the town grows, transporting the payroll money tempts the worst kind of men.”
“I’m aware of that, Mr. Hersey, but this was my last stop. I’m gonna buy me a good horse and ride the rest of the way to Virginia City.”
“What takes you to Virginia City, Mr. Longstreet?”
“My brother is having a little difficulty and I’m going out there to help him.”
Hersey thought about asking the Kid what the difficulty was, but it was none of his business so he decided against it. “Then I won’t hold you up. When it comes to kin, lending a helping hand in difficult times is the right thing to do. Sit down a minute, Kid, while I figure out your pay.”
After receiving his money, Charlie asked Hersey, “Do you know where I can buy a good horse in this town, Mr. Hersey?”
“I surely do. Go see Web down at the stable. You passed it on your way into town.” He pointed in the direction of the stable. “You can’t miss it. Stay on this side of the street and you’ll find it down a ways near the beginning of town.”
Charlie approached a man hitching a horse to a buggy. “You Web?”
“Yep, that’s me. Who’s askin’?”
“I’m Charlie. Mr. Hersey told me you might have a horse for sale?”
“I always have a lot of horses on hand, because of the stage line. They always need horses and they’re all for sale. Go out to the corral and pick one out.”
The Kid shook his head. “I want a real good mount, not one that pulls a coach.”
Web thought for a moment as he rubbed his bearded chin with his forefinger. “I think I might have one for you, son. Hang on a minute while I check my ledger.” He picked up a worn paper pad hanging from a nail on a beam near the entrance to the stable and thumbed through it until he came to the page he wanted. “Here it is. A man left his horse with me saying he’d be back in two weeks to get it, but he never did come back. It’s been two months now and he owes me for the horse’s keep. Wait here a minute and I’ll bring her out and you can look her over. See if she’s what you’re looking for.” A few minutes later, Web walked out of the stable, leading a beautiful chestnut mare.
Charlie knew his horseflesh. He looked her over thoroughly and he liked what he saw. “What’s her name?”
“Comet,” Web replied. “The man who left her with me said he named her that ‘cause she as fast as a comet.”
“How much do you want for her?”
“Well, let’s see now. That’ll be thirty dollars for boarding her for two months, which includes takin’ her out and exercising her. Ain’t good for a horse to just stand in a stall for months without exercise. So I put her in the corral every day so she could run around and kick up a bit. And - well, I’ll take seventy-five dollars for the horse. That comes to a total of one hundred five dollars in Yankee dollars.”
Charlie reached under his shirt for the money. “If you throw in that saddle hanging over the rail over there, you’ll have a deal.”
Web smiled, showing a mouthful of missing teeth. “That saddle came with the horse. I was fixin’ on selling it to pay for the care of the horse, but I’ll throw it in and I’ll include the tack and reins - and for another five bucks I’ll throw in the rest of the outfit, including this silver and black star Concho headstall.”
Charlie examined the Concho headstall and smiled because it matched the headband on his hat. It was sort of like an omen, a good omen, he thought. “You have a deal, Web. I’m leaving in the morning so have Comet saddled and ready and I’ll pick her up then.” He handed Web his saddlebags. “Put these on her too. I’m going to the hotel across the street and get cleaned up, but first I’m gonna get me a drink and then after I get cleaned up, I’m gonna have me a nice juicy steak.”
Longstreet strode across the deep rutted muddy street and sauntered into the hotel and to the front desk, which was on his left as he walked in. He approached the desk clerk. “I’d like a room and a bath and I’d like my clothes washed; they’re filthy from riding shotgun.”
The manager turned the ledger around and pointed to where Charlie should sign. The manager then signaled to one of his clerks and told him to prepare a bath. “Your room is at the top of the stairs. It’s the first door on your right. I’ll send the clerk up to your room to let you know when your bath is ready, Mister . . . Mister . . .?” He looked at the ledger. “Mr. Longstreet. Longstreet?” The manager looked up, took notice of his two guns, and the way he wore them, and asked, “You wouldn’t happen to be the Lone Jack Kid, would you?”
Charlie looked the man right in the eyes. “That would be me. But I plan on leaving town tomorrow, so don’t go telling anyone who I am. Okay?” He looked at the sign beside the ledger, which read Horace Morgan, Mgr. “Do you understand what I just told you, Horace?”
“Yes, Kid, I mean, Mr. Longstreet. I won’t tell anyone who you are.”
“Good! Now get my bath ready - and make it fast.”
Twenty minutes later, Charlie was in a private guest bathroom situated behind the manager’s office, soaking in a hot tub and scrubbing all the trail dirt off of his body with a brush. Charlie had wedged a chair against the door before stepping into the tub. He was taking no chances of someone breaking into the room and shooting him. The Kid kept his gun close to him, placing it on a chair close to the tub. Charlie knew that in the second it took him to reach for his gun, he would be a dead man. That’s why he took the precaution of wedging the chair against the door. If someone tried to break into the room now, the time it took to open the door would be all the time he needed to pull his gun and kill the intruder.
When Charlie finished shaving; his hair combed and with new clean clothes on, he stepped out of the room and walked down to the dining room. He couldn’t ignore the hush in the room, and he knew instinctively that Horace had opened his big mouth. Now everyone in town knew that the Lone Jack Kid was staying in his hotel.
The Kid was famished. He took his drink to a table with a clear view of both the front and rear doors. When he was seated, he motioned to the bartender for someone to take his order. A short while later, a nervous little bald-headed waiter with a thick handlebar mustache, wearing a white apron came rushing out of the kitchen with a pad in his hand and a pencil wedged behind his ear. He took the pencil and with a shaking hand, he took the Kid’s order, which consisted of a thick rare steak, mashed potatoes with plenty of gravy, and a nice cold beer.
After he finished dinner, the Kid leaned back in his chair, patting his stomach in complete satisfaction. He had savored the thick tender steak and enjoyed his meal, even though the beer was warm.
He paid the waiter the fifty cents for the meal and as he was about to leave, he heard a metallic tap - tap - tap coming from somewhere in the room. Everyone who had read Buntline’s book recognized the sound. They rose from their seats and hurried to the wall at the side of the room to get out of the line of fire. Tap - tap - tap. Charlie looked around, trying to locate where the sound was coming from. Then he noticed a rough-looking hombre standing at the bar, staring at him defiantly. Charlie was angry. Probably some damned Yankee with nothing better to do, he said under his breath. Without waiting to hear another three taps, Charlie got up from his table and walked purposefully toward the man, ready to kill him if his hand e
ven twitched in the direction of his gun. The gunman was surprised to see the Lone Jack Kid react in this way. The fact that the Kid was striding toward him was so unexpected that the gunman stood frozen in place and he didn’t react until it was too late. He decided against drawing his gun, instead he chose to wait and see what the Kid would do. Big mistake! Charlie walked up to the man who was leaning against the bar smiling nervously, and without saying a word, his hand a blur, he pulled the man’s gun from its holster and hit him hard on the side of his head with it, knocking him down. Once he was down, Charlie reached over and hit him again on the side of his head with the barrel of the gun, knocking him unconscious Charlie preferred bloodying a man and leaving him unconscious rather than having to kill him. All of the action happened within a matter of seconds and everyone in the dining room and those standing at the bar stood in numbed silence at what they had just witnessed.
Charlie turned and walked toward the stairs, and as he headed to his room, he passed the bartender and casually tossed the unconscious man’s gun on the bar.
CHAPTER 7
As Charlie was finishing breakfast, he heard gunshots coming from somewhere outside. He threw two bits on the table and walked outside to see two men who looked like they hadn’t slept a wink last night shooting into the dirt at a frightened man’s feet. The two drunken men were having a good laugh while the man danced to the tune of their gunshots. “Looks like he can dance a good jig, don’t you think, Lem?”
“Yeah, Cal, I’ll say. Come on! Let’s reload and have him dance his way out of town.”
A woman screamed. “Why don’t you hooligans leave him alone? Can’t you see that he’s defenseless.”
“Sorry about that, lady, but you’re absolutely right. Give him one of your guns, Lem, and let’s make this a fair fight.” Lem threw the man a gun that landed in the dirt in front of him, but he was too frightened to pick up. “Pick it up, sodbuster, or I’ll kill you right where you stand.” By this time, everyone in the town was witnessing the two bullies tormenting the man in the middle of the street. “Go on; pick it up. I’m not going to tell you again.” Charlie had seen enough. In another few seconds, one of their shots was liable to hit him in his foot.
“I’m your huckleberry, boys. I’ll pick it up.” The two men turned to the stranger. They didn’t recognize him, so they turned their attention to him. “We’ll finish with you later, sodbuster, ‘cause now we have someone else to dance to our guns.” If the two men had been sober, they would have been more wary and recognized the threat facing them. But they were too drunk to realize that. “Looks like the ball is about to start, ‘cause we have somebody here who doesn’t know how to mind his own business, has to be a hero. Well, boy. You started the ball, so now we’re gonna make you sorry you didn’t mind your own business,” Lem bragged with drunken confidence.
“Yeah, because you’ll be dead,” his friend said, slurring his words and laughing.
Charlie figured he could take them if they were sober, but in the condition they were in, the advantage was all his because they had been in their cups all night. “Why don’t you boys go home and sleep it off instead of picking on law-abiding citizens like these nice folks.”
“See, Lem, the Reb is backing down. He’s a scared of us two Yanks. Well, you better go for your gun, Reb, or we’ll kill you right here in the street.”
Without turning, Longstreet called out to no one in particular, “Where’s your sheriff? Someone go and get him right now because I don’t want to be forced to kill these two drunken fools,” he pleaded with the crowd. There were a few chuckles from the crowd.
One person yelled, “Sheriff can’t make it.” Some more guffaws. “Seems the sheriff had a little too much to drink last night himself.” Some more laughs.
Suddenly, the man known as Lem yelled, “Enough talk, stranger - go for your gun.” And as he said that, he reached for his gun. Longstreet pulled his iron from his shoulder holster in a blur and fired two rounds faster than the eye could follow. The two troublemakers fell dead in the street. Everyone saw the man who did the killing, but no one knew his name. Not yet, but everyone who witnessed the shooting would soon know that the two bullets were fired by the Lone Jack Kid in the little town of Abilene.
Charlie walked over to the man the two men were shooting at. “They didn’t hit you in the foot, did they?”
The man looked Charlie up and down and finally said, “No, no, they didn’t hit me, but I want to thank you for what you did for me, son. I would have been a dead man if I would’ve picked up that gun. Probably would’ve been a dead man if I didn’t pick it up. Either way, I figure I’d have been a dead man, but you saved me.”
“Where are you heading?” Charlie asked.
“Virginia City, the good lord willing.”
“So am I. I’ll ride out a ways with you folks to make sure no one decides to follow you.”
“Much obliged, son. I didn’t catch your name.”
“Charles Longstreet. And you are?”
“Ezra Saunders, and this is my wife Mildred, my daughter Abigail and my son Ezra Jr.”
Abigail poked her head out from the bed of the wagon and said, “Hi. I’m pleased to meet you.”
“Me too,” Ezra Jr. said.
Abigail appeared to be seventeen or eighteen years old and Ezra Jr. nine or ten. The boy squeezed himself between his parents and said excitedly, “I never seen anyone shoot a gun as fast as you did.”
His mother hushed him. “You never, in your young life, saw a man shoot a gun before, except for your father when he shot game.
“Yes, well still . . . I never saw anyone handle a gun the way Mr. Longstreet did.
The Kid rode along alongside the wagon with the Saunders family for days. He hadn’t intended to stay with them for this long, but Mrs. Saunders cooked the most delicious meals out of seemingly nothing, so he decided to travel along with them a while longer. In the mornings, without her mother or father knowing it, Abigail watched the handsome stranger mount his horse and ride away early, and when he returned, he always brought game of some kind with him. At night, he slept under the wagon with Ezra Jr. Ezra Sr. woke everyone before daybreak and Mildred had breakfast ready, so by the time the sun came up, they were on the road.
A troop of fifteen Union soldiers rode towards them one morning. Charlie instinctively reached for his gun and then remembered that the war had ended. The officer approached the wagon, but he remained on horseback while he talked with Saunders.
“Is there Indian trouble, Lieutenant?”
“Well, there’s always Indian trouble, but that’s not why we’re here. It’s the Reilly brothers. They’re wanted for murder. They butchered a few homesteaders and their families, and we’re hunting for them. They’ll hang when we catch them. I just wanted you folks to be aware that they’re somewhere in this area, so if you see two strange men approach your wagon, be on your guard. Be especially wary at night. You might want to post a guard because these men would think nothing of slaughtering you and your family without so much as second thought for your valuables. As far as Indians, we’ve had reports of Arapaho attacks on wagon trains and settlers in southern Montana Territory, which means that they’re somewhere close, so besides the Reilly brothers, watch for signs of Indians.”
The Kid kept watch nights by hiding in the shadows of the trees spread out around the camp, giving him a good vantage point to see any intruders who might approach. He went without sleep at night and during the day when he wasn’t out hunting for game, he slept in the slow-moving wagon. During the night, his concern was that the Reilly brothers might see the smoke from their campfire. On the fourth night after the troopers’ warning, Charlie knew he had a reason to be concerned. He knew the campfire smoke had lured someone to their camp when he heard a horse neighing. He got up quickly and backed further into the shadows, making him invisible to anyone approaching the camp. It wasn’t long before Charlie spotted a black form moving cautiously towards the wagon. His instin
cts told him it was one of the Reilly brothers. His eyes followed the black form as it made its way quietly nearer to the wagon - and the sleeping women. Charlie wanted to do something, but he couldn’t act until he knew where the other brother was. He watched as a black arm extended from the black form and began to pull the wagon’s canvas slowly aside. Then, the dark form began to climb slowly and quietly up onto the wagon. Charlie was about to move, but stopped when he heard a rustling sound to the right of the wagon. He squinted his eyes and looked in the general direction of the wagon and he noticed the foliage near the wagon move unnaturally as if something was pressing against it. If he figured right, that was where the other brother was. It was a smart move, the Kid thought. He had positioned himself at a vantage point where he could protect his brother if he were discovered.
Charlie couldn’t wait any longer; he had to act. He pulled his pistol and fired at the spot where he saw the brush move and he was rewarded with a moan and then a thud as the brush moved once again, then he whirled and shot at the man about to enter the wagon, all having taken place in a heartbeat. The shots woke Ezra, who jumped up from his bedroll, grabbed his rifle, and pulled the lever back, loading a cartridge into the chamber. “What happened?” he asked loudly. “What did you just shoot at?”
Charlie knew he hit the second brother, but because of the darkness, he wasn’t sure how badly he was hit, so he put his finger to his lips, signaling Ezra to be quiet. Ezra immediately shut his mouth and remained quiet. The Kid stood quietly, his gun cocked cautiously approached the foliage he just had shot at. Saunders’ wife and children, awakened by the gunshots, wondered what had happened. Charlie pushed the bush aside and saw a man lying still behind it. He felt for a pulse, but there was none. Then, he rushed to the wagon, pulled the second man off of it, and checked to see if he was alive, but he too was dead. Charlie searched both men, hoping for some means of identifying them and he was rewarded when he found two billfolds with their names in them. There was no doubt now; they were definitely the Reilly brothers.
