Crow Creek Crossing

by Charles G. West

  “One thing for sure,” Corbett told her, “is a helluva lot more respect outta you.” Mary Lou snorted her derision. He ignored it and continued. “Me and Sanchez want some supper, and I wanna know where that friend of yours is. You know, the coward with the Henry rifle. I heard he was lookin’ for me. I’m lookin’ for him now, so where’s he hidin’ out?”

  “How the hell would I know?” Mary Lou replied. “Even if I did know, I wouldn’t tell you, and that’s a fact. Whaddaya want with him, anyway? You’ve already slaughtered his whole family. Ain’t that enough for you two murderers?”

  “What the hell are you talkin’ about?” Slade questioned. “We ain’t murdered nobody.”

  “You know what I’m talking about,” Mary Lou came back, thoroughly into her revulsion for the two murderers. “That family you and your gang of garbage massacred on Chugwater Creek,” she charged. “Why do you think he came after you?”

  Stunned by the accusation, Corbett was left speechless for a moment before demanding, “Who told you we had anything to do with that?” Then thinking it best to claim ignorance of the incident, he said, “I didn’t know there was anybody killed on the Chugwater. We ain’t been up that way in a year. That mouth of yours is liable to get you into more trouble than you’re set to handle.”

  Realizing that she had already said too much for her own good, Mary Lou decided it best to hold her sharp tongue before she became their next victim. “Maggie says I gotta feed you,” she blurted. “You want supper? Six bits each.”

  Corbett hesitated, still shocked that she knew about the little party he and his gang had had at that farm on the Chugwater. He glanced at Sanchez, to gauge his reaction to the accusation, but was met with the insolent sneer his partner always wore.

  “Yeah, we want supper,” he answered her. “And we want it quick.” Favoring him with an expression of contempt, she turned and went into the kitchen.

  When she had gone, Corbett said, “So now we know why that son of a bitch came after us. He ain’t no lawman at all. He’s just a crybaby sodbuster tryin’ to get back at us for killin’ his wife and family—just a damn farmer that don’t know when to just thank his lucky stars he wasn’t home when we hit his place.”

  “He shot Tom Larsen,” Sanchez reminded him, not ready to take the rifleman lightly.

  “Maybe so,” Slade conceded. “But you know damn well he had to catch Tom by surprise—snuck up on him when he was playin’ cards, or shot him from a safe distance. Hell, he was usin’ a damn rifle. He most likely shot Tom from the front door, and Tom never saw him.”

  “Tom got a shot in him,” Sanchez reminded him again. He was not prone to dismiss Tom Larsen’s killer as a simple grieving farmer.

  Sanchez’s remark was not enough to alter Corbett’s opinion of the man stalking them. “Right,” he responded. “The son of a bitch got shot. He’s run off somewhere to hide—might be dead already.” Their speculation was interrupted then by the arrival of Mary Lou at the table with their coffee. Filled with the confidence then that the lawman they had fled was now running for his life, Corbett questioned her again. “Now, how ’bout you tell me where that stud is that shot a friend of ours? Is he still in town?”

  “No,” Mary Lou replied, thankful that he wasn’t.

  “How bad was he shot?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not a doctor,” she answered. “Now, if you’re gonna eat, stop asking me questions, so I can go to the kitchen and get your supper.”

  “Somebody’s been tellin’ you the wrong story ’bout us,” Slade said, still trying to convince her she was wrong. “Hell, killin’ peaceful folks ain’t our style. Is it, Sanchez?” Sanchez merely grunted in reply.

  “Is that so?” Mary Lou responded. “I remember how quick you got outta town when you heard what Cole Bonner had done for your friend and was coming for you.”

  “Is that his name?” Corbett replied. “Sounds like you know him pretty well.” He waited for her to respond, but when she didn’t, he continued. “Me and Sanchez left town so there wouldn’t be no more killin’. ’Cause we’da had to take care of that crazy son of a bitch, and some innocent folks mighta got hurt—like the time you got shot when that feller got Frank Cowen.” He didn’t realize that the man who shot Cowen was the same man who now stalked him. Recalling that incident, he commented, “Musta not been too bad. You look like you’re doin’ all right.” Mary Lou declined to respond.

  Seeing no useful purpose to the conversation between Corbett and the woman, Sanchez interrupted. “Go get the food—too much talk. I’m hungry.”

  “You know,” Corbett said to Sanchez when Mary Lou went into the kitchen, “the feller that shot Frank—reckon he’s the same one that shot Tom?”

  Sanchez gave it a thought. “Could be,” he allowed. Then his face twisted with an evil grin. “Be kinda funny if he is—gettin’ shot served him right for killin’ Frank.”

  Further conversation on the possibility was interrupted by the arrival of supper, but the possibility served to convince Sanchez that it was more than a simple farmer they were to be concerned with.

  Mary Lou placed a bowl of thick soup before each of them. Slade picked up his spoon and stirred it around. “Looks pretty good. You didn’t spit in it, did you?” He gave her a malevolent grin while Sanchez dug in immediately.

  “Now, why didn’t I think of that?” she replied, and turned to go back to the kitchen, smiling to herself, since she had done that very thing just moments before.

  When she returned to the kitchen, it was to find Arthur Campbell talking furtively to Maggie, having slipped in through the back door. He looked up when Mary Lou walked in, and whispered, “What are they doing?”

  “Eating,” Mary Lou replied matter-of-factly, wondering what he had expected.

  “They came into the hotel,” Campbell said. “I didn’t have much choice. I had to give them a room. I sent Claude down to the stable to tell Leon.”

  Maggie became upset immediately. “If you men are thinking about getting the Gunnysack Gang together to do something with those two, you do it outside my dining room. I’ve had more than my share of damage because of that man and his gang.”

  “By the time Leon gets a posse together, they’ll most likely be out of your dining room—might be in the Sundown Saloon. That’s where they liked to hang out before.” He slipped over to the edge of the door to get a peek at the two outlaws. “Sitting there big as life,” he whispered, “like they had nothing to worry about.” He watched for a moment more before speculating, “It would be pretty easy to shoot both of them while they’re sitting there eating—do the whole town a favor.” He spent a moment more thinking about the danger to the person who tried it and happened to miss. Withdrawing carefully from the edge of the door, he said, “I’d best get out of here and go meet with Leon and the others.”

  “What are you planning to do about them?” Maggie persisted, still concerned about her dining room, especially after hearing his speculation.

  “I don’t know,” Campbell said. “I’ll meet with the others and I reckon we’ll have to decide the best way to handle it.” He went out the back door then. “It’s best if we act as a committee and not one man on his own.”

  • • •

  In the time it took Arthur Campbell to hurry down to Bloodworth’s stable, only two other members of the vigilance committee had shown up. Arthur found Bloodworth talking to Jesse Springer, the blacksmith, and Douglas Green, who owned Green’s Dry Goods. “We’re gonna need more than the four of us to take those two gunmen,” Green said.

  “Four of us against two of them,” Springer said. “Seems like enough of us to me.”

  “Four merchants with wives and children, against two hell-raising gunmen.” Green was quick to differ. “We need more than the four of us. We at least oughta send for Gordon Luck.”

  “Hell, Douglas,” Springer scoffed.
“They’re in the dinin’ room now where we can surprise ’em. It would take too long to ride out to the sawmill to get Gordon. We’ve hung a few hell-raisers before who thought they were too big to worry about the law in our town. These two ain’t no different.”

  “The hell they’re not,” Green insisted. “Those two are in the business of killing. And there were a helluva lot more of us on those occasions, if you’ll recall.”

  Gordon Luck had been at the forefront of every lynching in town, and Green would have been a lot more confident with him to lead them. A powerful man, with shoulder-length sandy hair and a trim beard to match, Gordon was a natural leader, as well as the minister of the town’s newly established Baptist church. Far from being humble in his religious beliefs, he conducted himself as a soldier in the Lord’s service. His Sunday sermons contained more than a few casual references to the evil that had descended upon Crow Creek Crossing with the coming of the railroad, and the duty for all citizens to take up the sword against it.

  “If you ain’t got the stomach for it, I reckon the three of us can do the job,” Springer chided Green.

  “Hold on,” Leon Bloodworth stepped in. “It don’t do no good for you two to have a catfight right now. John, I understand what Douglas is sayin’. It would be a whole lot safer if there were more of us to go take those two down. I’m glad that you’re willin’ to go after ’em with just us here now, but let’s wait a little bit to see who else shows up. I’ve sent my boy, Marvin, to tell some of the others about the meetin’.”

  Some minutes later, Marvin returned with Alvin Tucker right behind him. “I figured we could count on Alvin,” Bloodworth remarked when the rawboned proprietor of the saddle shop walked in, carrying a double-barreled shotgun. Along with Gordon Luck, Tucker had played a leading role in every hanging carried out by the Gunnysack Gang, and he looked eager to stage another one. “What about Swartz?” Bloodworth asked his son.

  “I told him,” Marvin said, “but he said he couldn’t come right now, ’cause they already stopped in his place before they went to the hotel. And he said he oughta stay there in case they come back.”

  “Hell, five of us is enough to take care of two low-down gunmen,” Tucker said.

  “That’s what I’ve been tryin’ to tell ’em,” Springer said. “We’ve got enough for a committee. Ain’t even no use to wear masks. We’re actin’ in the name of the law.” He looked directly at Douglas Green to see if he was going to object. When Green did not, Springer went on. “All right, then, let’s decide how we’re gonna do this.”

  The discussion went on for a quarter of an hour, with some difference of opinion over whether to try to take Corbett and Sanchez alive, then hang them, or to surprise them in a blaze of gunfire and be done with it. “You say they’re in Maggie’s dining room?” Tucker asked Arthur Campbell.

  “Well, they were when I left,” Campbell said. “I reckon they’re still there.”

  “Then I say let’s jump ’em while they’re settin’ there stuffin’ their gullets,” Tucker said. “Don’t give ’em a chance to reach for their guns.”

  “I reckon that’s the safest way to do it,” Bloodworth said. “If all five of us go in shootin’, I don’t expect they’ll be ready for that. I’m for it.”

  “Anybody got any objections?” Tucker asked, again looking at Green. No one said anything. “All right, everybody’s in. It’s important that every one of us shoots the bastards. We don’t want to give ’em any chance to fight. Agreed?” Everyone nodded. “All right, then, let’s go show the sons of bitches who owns this town!”

  “I didn’t bring my gun,” Arthur Campbell said. “I wasn’t sure we were gonna do something like this right away.”

  “Well, what the hell did you think we were meetin’ for?” Springer blurted. “I swear, Arthur.”

  “Never mind,” Bloodworth said. “I’ve got an extra gun in the feed room. He can use that.”

  He hurried to the feed room in the middle of the stable and took a .44 handgun and holster off a peg by the door. Before handing it to Campbell, he checked the cylinder to see if it was loaded. Campbell strapped the gun belt around his waist, looking slightly uncomfortable as he did so, causing Springer to look at Tucker and shake his head in doubt.

  “Now,” Bloodworth said, “everybody ready? Let’s go.”

  • • •

  The short-staffed version of the Gunnysack Gang had taken longer to make their decision to act than they realized, for the two they came to assassinate had finished their supper and were preparing to leave the dining room.

  “You can just run us a bill,” Slade told Mary Lou when she asked them to pay. “We’ll settle up at the end of the week.”

  “The hell we will,” Mary Lou said. “We don’t run credit lines here. You were supposed to pay before you ate anyway.”

  “We’ll settle up at the end of the week,” Slade repeated emphatically. Then he smiled wickedly and said, “If you’ve got to have it now, you can come up to the room to collect it. I might even give you a little bit extra.”

  His suggestion caused a feeling of nausea in the pit of her stomach. She did not say anything for a few moments, knowing that there was nothing she could do to make them pay for their meal. Mary Lou looked with contempt from Slade’s lascivious grin to Sanchez’s crude sneer. Knowing the evil they had done, and what they were capable of when no one was around to stop them, she was suddenly overcome by a deep feeling of fear. Concerned for her safety, she spun on her heel and fled to the kitchen to find Maggie kneeling behind the table, her shotgun aimed at the door. With no gun of her own, Mary Lou grabbed a butcher knife from the table and stood behind Maggie. Prepared to defend themselves, they waited for one of the men to appear in the doorway.

  Sanchez had started toward the kitchen when Slade suddenly stopped him. He had taken a quick look out the window to discover five heavily armed men walking around the building toward the back door.

  “Hold on, Sanchez,” he said. “I think we got company comin’ to see us.” He stepped up closer to the window for a better look. “Ain’t that the son of a bitch that runs the hotel?”

  Sanchez moved to the other side of the window to see for himself.

  “Yeah,” he said, “that’s him, and the man that owns the stable. Looks like some of the fine citizens of Cheyenne are plannin’ to pay us a little visit.” Like Corbett, Sanchez had no fear of a hastily formed handful of the town’s businessmen. They were a far cry from an angry lynch mob.

  “Well, now,” Slade said, “that’s right neighborly, ain’t it? Let’s get ready to welcome them.” He watched from the window until they disappeared around the corner of the building. “They’re comin’ through the kitchen. Let’s turn a couple of these tables over.”

  They worked quickly, turning two tables over to serve as barriers. Once that was done, Slade directed Sanchez to one corner of the large room while he went to the opposite one. They both knelt down behind the corner tables and chairs and waited.

  Maggie gasped, startled, when the back door opened and Jesse Springer led four of the town’s businessmen into her kitchen, signaling her to remain silent. Whispering quietly, she was at once alarmed as she tried to tell him to take the fight outside, even as they tiptoed around her with their weapons drawn, intent upon attacking.

  “It’s too late now,” he told her. “You and Mary Lou best find you a place to hide till it’s over.”

  “You’re too late to surprise them,” Mary Lou warned. “They saw you through the window and turned a couple of the tables over to use for cover. Why in hell didn’t you come up the alley?”

  “That woulda been the smart thing to do,” Alvin Tucker whispered. “But we didn’t. Anyway, them tables ain’t gonna be much cover when we hit ’em all at once.” He turned to the others in the posse. “Hit ’em with everything you’ve got, as fast as you can shoot.” He looked at Springer a
nd received a nod to show he was ready. “Me and Springer will lead the charge. They won’t know what hit ’em.”

  They inched up closer around the doorway, taking care not to show themselves through the open door too soon.

  “Everybody ready?” Tucker whispered. “Let’s go!” he yelled then as he and Springer charged through the doorway, blasting away at the two overturned tables on the other side of the room. Like a cavalry assault on an enemy position, the five-man vigilante posse unleashed a blistering barrage, knocking great chunks of wood from the two tables and splitting the tops in their fury.

  They realized too late that there was no one behind the tables and they had blundered into a trap. Tucker and Springer were cut down almost instantly by gunshots from the corners of the room. The resulting panic to escape the lethal return fire led to a rush to retreat, but not before Arthur Campbell caught a round in his left thigh and Leon Bloodworth was hit in the shoulder. The only member of the posse who escaped with no wounds was Douglas Green by virtue of his tendency to hang behind during an attack. Consumed by fright when the tide of the battle turned immediately in favor of the two outlaws, he sought a place to hide. Seeing the pantry door, he plunged inside where Maggie and Mary Lou had taken refuge. Bloodworth and Campbell, limping along as best they could, escaped out the back door.

  As suddenly as it started, the shooting stopped, and in a few seconds, the three hiding in the pantry could hear the sound of heavy boots in the kitchen, walking toward the back door.

  “Yonder!” Slade blurted as he caught sight of Campbell rounding the back corner of the rooms behind the kitchen. His exclamation was followed at once by a couple of shots. “Too late, they’re gone. Don’t matter. We’ll find ’em and finish the job.” He saw that as no problem since the vigilantes had not bothered to wear masks. He recognized both men as the owner of the hotel and the operator of the stables.