“Eagle Feather want see all gunrunners hang,”
“Then who’d sell you guns?”
“Always greedy white men sell Comanches guns.”
“Not good guns like I got.”
“Mebbe so, Honest Bob. Mebbe so. Eagle Feather want all Comancheros hang. You cheats.”
“That ain’t so, Eagle Feather. You know that. I never cheated you.”
“You cheat but not so bad as other white men,” Eagle Feather grudgingly allowed.
“The truth of it is, you’d like to see all white folks hang,” Honest Bob said, grinning.
“Mebbe so, mebbe so.”
“Well, let’s get to business.” Honest Bob turned and walked away, Sefton following.
The Comanches came afterward, walking their horses at a slow pace.
TWO
“The gang’s all here,” Sam Heller said to himself. “Gunrunners, Comanches—and me. The uninvited guest.” He was in a covert, a kind of shooting blind. A sharpshooter’s nest.
It was in a cleft at the top of the rock walls of the eastern face of the bench overlooking Bison Creek. A V-shaped crack dropped vertically from the edge of the cliff. It was six feet wide and ten feet long, tapering downward.
It was five feet wide up on the cliff top, forming a kind of cup-shaped hollow or basin. The cup was roomy enough for Sam to curl inside. Its floor consisted of loose rocks and dirt, which filled the cleft from its base to cup. Scrub brush, weeds, and vines grew from the surface of the dirt at the top of the cup.
The cliff top rim was thick with brush. Shrubs and bushes covered Sam, screening him from view of any of those below who might casually glance upward at the scarp.
It was a tight fit in the sharpshooter’s nest, sharing it as he did with his rifle and supplies. Sam lay on his side in the nest, legs together and bent at the knees. He propped himself up on an elbow.
He was a big man, six-foot-four, 210 pounds, full-grown, and in the prime of life. He wanted to stay that way, a condition that would require some deft maneuvering and more than a little bit of luck in the next twenty-four hours or so. He had yellow hair and a same-colored beard, looking like a blond Viking. He hailed from Minnesota but had spent most of his youth in the West. A committed Unionist, he had fought for the North throughout the war.
Sam wore a dark, battered slouch hat, buckskin vest, brown denims, and moccasin boots. The boots were knee-high and worn under the denims. Beside him in the nest was a knapsack and canteen.
He was armed with a Winchester rifle, a .36 Navy Colt worn on his left hip in a cross-belly draw, and a bowie-style Green River knife sheathed on his right side. Twin bandoliers crossed chest and shoulders, their loops holding rifle cartridges.
The rifle was one of the new Winchester 1866 models, Sam’s piece having been one of the first to come off the production line. It was one of the most effective and up-to-date weapons on the frontier—in the world, for that matter.
A keen-eyed viewer would have noticed that the rifle displayed several unique modifications. Special socket rings and fittings showed at the front stock and butt. Sam had chopped the rifle, sawing off most of the barrel and butt stock to create a mule’s leg, as sawed-off repeating rifles were popularly called. It was generally worn in a custom-made holster on Sam’s right hip, though not at the moment.
Sam was a born outdoorsman, and his trade required him to spend a good amount of time on narrow streets and in crowded saloons, gambling dens, meeting halls, cafés, and such in frontier towns and settlements. Easier to sport a mule’s leg in those places than tote a long rifle.
It could be put into action quicker, too, a vital attribute in deadly encounters where a matter of split seconds might spell the difference between life and death. He could unlimber the mule’s leg faster than most triggermen could shuck a handgun from a holster.
There were times, though, when a man preferred to work at a distance rather than up close. For such times, a long gun was necessary.
Thus the special fittings on the mule’s leg, allowing different-length barrels to be attached to the muzzle, with similar arrangements at the rear allowing for the add-on of wooden stocks in place of the standard curved pistol-grip handle. The piece had all the modifications as Sam lay curved in the hollow, awaiting the moment of truth.
He’d waited a long time, weeks of solitary prowls through plains, badlands, and back trails, searching for signs that would lead to his quarry. He was a special agent with a presidential warrant. His mission was to break up the gangs supplying weapons to the Comanches of the Texas frontier.
The hundredth meridian was the Texas frontier, so Sam had set up his base of operations in the town of Hangtree in Hangtree County. What began as a mission had become a quest. He’d seen what the Comanches could do when it came to turning the frontier into a living hell.
There were many Comancheros of the rank-and-file variety, foot soldiers of the gunrunners’ trade, who dealt directly with the Indians. They were renegades, enemies of humanity, and Sam killed them when he could.
But they weren’t his real target. He was after the big fish, not the small fry. He wanted the ones at the top of the pyramid, the ringleaders, the organizers who supplied the contraband in bulk.
A long dark trail had led him to Bison Creek under Boneyard Bench. Honest Bob Longford and the rest of the bunch were far from unknown to Sam Heller. He’d long been aware they were Comancheros, part of the Hog Ranch outfit.
The Hog Ranch was a low dive, a deadfall that lay near Fort Pardee. It was a thieves’ den, a magnet for saddle tramps, drifters, and outlaws. It featured cheap whiskey, saloon girls, and gambling. It was a great favorite with the cavalry troopers of the fort, despite having been posted off-limits by their commanding officer.
Sam had had his eye on the Hog Ranch for some time, but it was only in the last few weeks that his suspicions had taken shape regarding the expedition to the Llano. He had trailed the gunrunners to Bison Creek, always keeping out of sight.
Under Boneyard Bench, Honest Bob’s bunch had tied in with the next rung of the ladder, Felipe Mercurio, who would lead to the Comanchero bigs. With his sidemen, he had supplied Honest Bob with a wagonload of weapons. Mercurio was the Santa Fe Ring’s man. The Ring were known Comancheros, biggest in the territory.
Mercurio’s presence was the first link to directly tie the Ring to gunrunning on the Llano. He and his men had met Honest Bob and company at the creek the previous day at dusk, delivering the wagon full of guns. They’d stayed the night, sitting around the campfire with the Hog Ranch crew, eating and drinking while Sam made cheerless camp hidden on the cliff top above.
He guessed they were sticking close to the site until the Comanches took possession of the weapons. Maybe Mercurio wanted to make sure the transaction was completed in full and Honest Bob didn’t make off with some of the guns to resell them on his own. Mercurio might also be dogging Honest Bob for his share of the proceeds.
Whatever the reason, Sam meant to find out. He was no lawman, though he could have been called a law enforcer in the loosest sense of the term. He was a man on a mission, authorized by the highest law in the land, the President of the United States.
He was not bound by the rules of evidence and legal protocol. He didn’t have to prove a case against his quarry in court or even bring them back alive. In fact, it was often preferable to leave as many dead as a warning to others.
He was a troubleshooter, and it was his job to shoot trouble
It had been a long hard hunt. As he watched the negotiations below him, he thought back to the past few days.
Alone, he had dogged Honest Bob’s crew from the Hog Ranch to the Llano, trailing them just at the edge of vision, following them into the badlands. Their southwesterly course took them toward Boneyard Bench.
Sam knew the way. In the months since first arriving in Hangtree County, he’d ridden trail in the territory, criss-crossing it a number of times. He wished to live, so he’d learned where the wat
er was. The twenty-five miles of the bench’s eastern front was the source of three different dependable watercourses. Bison Creek was the most abundant of the three.
Sam guessed the gunrunners would make for it. Breaking off direct pursuit, he detoured northwest, taking a course that would bring him to the north end of the bench. He knew there was no way through the scarp, only around it. He rounded the gentle slope where the north edge of the bench joined the flat and rode up on top of the plateau, heading south.
The landscape was all earth tones—a dust-muted blur of grays, yellows, and browns—speckled here and there with patches of dark green. On the plains, the winds blew mostly from the west, sometimes from the north. They could whip up a hellbender of a gale, but the air was hot and still, though from time to time, a welcome breath of a breeze lifted. It barely stirred up a scrum of dust, whipping it a few inches above the ground for several dozen yards, only to let it fall, exhausted.
The plateau summit was flat tableland that came to an abrupt end in the east. Sam was careful to ride far enough into the interior to avoid skylining in the east and being spotted by anyone in the Boneyard. In the other three directions it showed empty plains as far as the eye could see. If Comanche raiders spied him, he would be in a tight spot. There was nowhere to hide, not when once seen.
What seemed unyielding monotony of landscape proved to present a variety of terrain. Seemingly featureless plains were broken by rises and dips, rocks, trees, and brush.
The prairie unrolled as Sam rode south. If he’d guessed wrong, if Honest Bob had altered his southwesterly course toward the bench for points unknown, Sam would have lost him. It was highly unlikely that he could pick up the gunrunners’ trail again.
But if he was right, if Honest Bob planned to set up shop somewhere in the Boneyard, the detour could save Sam many hours of hard riding. The Boneyard offered water and cover, things generally unavailable farther out on the plains.
High overhead, black V shapes circled. Vultures searching for carrion.
Several hours later, a ring of green brush took shape in the distance. It bordered a shallow basin about eight feet wide and three feet deep. A waterhole. A small spring lay beneath the basin, filling it with several inches of muddy brown water.
Sam halted, stepping down from the saddle. Small game trails arrowed in and out of the basin rim, indicating that local wildlife drank from the spring.
Good. That means the water isn’t poisoned, he thought. Sometimes waterholes were contaminated by trace elements of corrosive minerals.
Sam cupped a hand, scooping out some water and tasting it. It was not warm but hot from the sun, brackish and muddy. It tasted good to him, whose water supply was so tightly rationed.
He filled his canteens, then let Dusty, his horse, drink. The animal was a gray Steel Dust, part mustang, short and scrappy. After watering the horse, Sam let it browse on the greenery ringing the waterhole, then he saddled up and moved on, reaching what he judged to be the midpoint of the plateau. Ahead lay a small cone-shaped hill, looking like an overgrown ant mound. A stand of thin straggly trees grew at its base. The cone was a landmark, a signpost pointing to Bison Creek below.
Sam halted at the mound about a hundred yards away from the cliff edge. He stepped down and tied the horse’s reins to a tree branch.
Tree? Little more than scrub brush, really, but no less welcome for all of that. A man without a horse on the plains was for all intents and purposes a dead man. That’s why horse theft was a capital crime on the frontier. Stealing a man’s horse was pretty much the same as condemning him to death. The frontier was no country for a man afoot.
Dusty began nibbling on the green leaves. He wasn’t the type of horse who ran away. He’d stay in place when his reins were free with their ends dangling on the ground. But Sam wasn’t a man to leave things to chance. No telling when the unexpected would rear its ugly head and let chaos loose.
Sam heard noise—voices, shouts, horses neighing, movement. The sounds made his skin tingle, quivering like a struck drumhead.
He prowled the edge of the cliff, screened by thick bushes. The rim was not a straight line, solid and unbroken, but was saw-toothed with seams and fissures. One in particular looked promising, a V-shaped vertical cut topped by a dirt-filled hollow cup.
Nearing the edge, Sam ducked down and lay flat on the ground. He crawled to the cliff’s edge, staying low. He parted the brush, looking down.
Rock walls dropped straight down to the flat twenty-five feet below.
Yes, gunrunners were making camp at Bison Creek.
A cut in the cliff wall below had been pressed into service as a makeshift corral. Sticks and branches were used for a palisade type fence and gate. A thin trickling vein of Bison Creek ran through it. There was green grass for grazing. Two guards were posted outside the gate, armed with repeating rifles.
There was not much work to be done by the gunrunners. Their tasks were finished and they busied themselves with eating, drinking, smoking, and loafing.
Sometimes a trick of the air currents brought a taste of tobacco smoke to Sam’s nostrils. He thought of his own tobacco pouch and sighed. No smoking now, not for him. He couldn’t risk having the smoke seen by the foe.
He sternly put the thought of it out of his mind, but the craving kept sneaking back.
He had a hat to keep the sun off his bare head, a canteen full of water, and beef jerky to chew. Nothing for him to do but watch and wait.
Late afternoon shadows were falling and the sun was lowering in the west when the next round of newcomers arrived.
Felipe Mercurio and the Comancheros rode in with the gun wagon. Two men sat up front on the box seat. Five men rode escort alongside. Honest Bob’s bunch acted glad to see them.
Sam knew the man in the passenger seat beside the wagon driver. Mercurio was a well-known figure along the owlhoot trail on both sides of the Rio Grande. A killer, slaver, dealer in contraband, he was henchman to Quatro Matanzas, driving wheel of the Santa Fe Ring.
That was a surprise. Sam hadn’t known the Ring reached so far east.
While Mercurio and Honest Bob conferred, the newcomers squared away their mounts in the corral. The gun wagon was placed at the foot of the cliff. Half-Shot showed the new arrivals to the cooking pots so they could chow down and drink up, not necessarily in that order.
Sam’s empty stomach rumbled. No hot meal for him. He dared not risk lighting a fire. He used his blade to cut off a chunk of beef jerky, jammed it between his jaws, and went to work on it. Strong white teeth slowly ground it to pulp. It had to be chewed slowly if he wanted to keep those teeth intact and unbroken. He washed it down with sips of muddy water from his canteen.
One of many such cheerless meals he’d had on the trail, but that was how he managed to stay alive.
The sun set, a cool breeze whipping a snaky line of dust eastward. Venus twinkled low in the west, stars brightening in a blackening sky.
Sam rose, shaking out the kinks of knotted muscles from his long vigil. He went to his horse, stroking its muzzle. He took some dried parched corn from his saddlebag and munched it, washing it down with several mouthfuls of water. He made camp nearby, a simple camp with no fire. He spread his bedroll on the ground and used his saddle for a pillow. He lay on his back and went to sleep with the Navy Colt in his hand under the blanket.
Sam awoke sometime during the night. He sat up, blankets falling around his waist, Navy Colt held steady in his hand. What woke him? Natural body rhythms or something afoot in the night? He looked around, eyes accustomed to the dark. Dusty stirred nearby, aware he was up.
A half moon hung in the sky. Fitful night breezes rose out of the west and northwest. Somewhere out on the plateau a coyote howled, a lonesome sound that never failed to send a chill along Sam’s spine.
It sent the same reaction, but for different reasons. Was it a coyote? Or a Comanche imitating a coyote, signaling to his fellows, maybe giving the signal to move in for the final assault?
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The night cries were not repeated. Sam sank back down, pulling the blankets up, and went back to sleep, gun in hand.
When he woke again, the sky was lightening in the east. He stretched, then got up. “Going to be a big day!”
It was a cold cheerless breakfast he fixed for himself. No coffee. A fire was needed to make coffee. He consoled himself with a slug of whiskey gulped from a pocket flask he carried. “For medicinal purposes only,” he told himself. It was no time to go on a tear, but a drink wouldn’t do him any harm. Might do a bit of good.
He took a generous swallow of the stuff, a line of fire plunging down his throat, blossoming into welcome heat in his belly. Welcome recompense for his dog’s breakfast of pemmican and parched corn washed down with tepid murky water.
Another belt of the whizz would sure go down good, but he capped the flask and put it away. Only half-joking, he said, “Satan, get thee gone . . .”
It was light enough for him to get about his business, so he picked his way along the cliff rim, returning to the spot he had chosen for his sharpshooter’s nest. The brush screened him from those on the flat below. Through spaces in the foliage, he could spy on the gunrunners’ camp without being seen.
Sam set to work shaping up his shooting platform and readying his weapon. It was a good feeling, knowing the showdown was nigh.
He’d been on the trail for days . . . weeks. Weeks of burning days and chilly nights. Even the steadiest nerves became taut and worn from relentless stress.
However long the wait, he could stand it, especially with the end in sight. The nearness of his quarry was a tonic.
It was more than a bit provocative, that nearness. He had to fight the urge to start lining up the gunrunners in his sights and opening up on them, burning them down. He was seized with an almost overwhelming desire to get an early start on the cleanup but fought it down.
The long day wore on. Sam told himself he should have known that the Comanches would wait till the last before showing.
They did it deliberately, of course. It was a stalling tactic designed to prey on the nerves of the gunrunners, wearing them down. Comanches were always looking to maximize their advantage at the expense of their foes—or friends; the role could change in a moment according to want and whim. If they saw an edge they’d take it; if not, they’d make it.
Rebel Yell Page 3
