Cal forced a weak smile, deathly pale and looking green around the edges.
Deputy Smalls returned with Doc Ferguson in tow, black leather medical bag in hand. One of Hangtree’s leading physicians and a former Confederate Army medic, the doc was by necessity and practice an expert on treating gunshot wounds. He wasted no time getting the others to move the table under the pull-down ceiling lamp so he’d have better light.
Steve Dirkes took the opportunity to bring Barton up to speed on the whirlwind vortex of calamities which had hit the country west of the Breaks like a tornado—mass murder by poisoning at Fort Pardee, the onslaught of the Free Company and its rabble horde of camp followers, the stealing of the howitzer and munitions wagon from the marauders and its deliverance to the Cross Ranch, and the Free Company’s encampment at Sidepocket Canyon west of Wild Horse Canyon.
Long before Steve had finished his account, Barton sent Deputy Smalls to make the rounds of the Golden Spur, Alamo Bar, and Doghouse Bar to round up a posse ready for action as soon as possible.
Doc Ferguson removed the bullet from Cal’s side; luckily it had not hit any vital organs. He cleaned the wounds, sewing them up and patching them with bandages. “He’s lost a lot of blood, but he’s got youth and strength on his side. With that and a little bit of luck, he should pull through.” Doc mopped the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief already soaked with the stuff.
“Nice work, Doc,” Barton said appreciatively.
“From what I’ve heard tonight, my work is only beginning.”
“Mine, too.”
Three a.m. found the Hughes camp sound asleep save for a handful of night watchmen. Denton Dick slept under a canvas top on a cot in one of two Conestoga wagons, a prerogative of his rank as leader. Second in command Leo Plattner slept in the other prairie schooner.
The rest of the men slept out in the open under the stars and around the campfires. Some slept on bedroll blankets, others on the grassy ground where they had passed out dead drunk.
Half an hour later, they suffered a rude awakening, rousted from their slumbers by well-armed Hangtree posse men. Numbered about forty in all, the posse was mostly hardcases of the type one would expect to find lingering into the wee hours in the town’s saloons and dives. They bristled with rifles, shotguns, six-guns, and an excess of ill will toward the outsider bad men.
That the Hughes bunch had literally been caught napping was no accident. The handful of armed guards who weren’t snoring away noisily in drunken slumbers had been surprised and knocked out cold by a select band of veteran Indian fighters chosen by Marshal Barton for the task. Those who have hunted the Comanche and lived to tell the tale were not the type to be thwarted by the likes of Denton Dick’s back-shooting renegades.
As the main force of posse men moved in to subdue and disarm the sleeping outlaws, gunfire erupted over the scene. A couple outlaws with good reflexes and little common sense jumped up, shooting. They downed several of the posse before being shot to pieces by the concentrated firepower of massed Hangtree shooters.
It was an object lesson that took out what little fight the remaining bad men had in them.
Denton Dick Hughes from Denton, Texas, tried to flee, climbing down from the rear of his wagon only to find himself looking down the barrel of the gun.
The waiting Marshal Barton thrust it into his face the instant the bandit chief’s boot soles touched ground. “I knew you’d take it on the run, Dick. That was a sure-thing bet.”
He disarmed Denton Dick, pulling first one gun then the other from their holsters and tossing them away. He patted him down, searching him none too gently, discovering a covert sleeve gun, pocket pistol, folding knife, and set of brass knuckles.
He also discovered Denton Dick’s sizeable bill-roll, which he dropped into a vest pocket. “I’m confiscating this money in the name of the law, Dick.”
“But you’re keeping it for yourself,” Denton Dick said after mouthing a few obscenities.
“I am the law in Hangtree,” Barton said.
The bandit chief mouthed a few more obscenities until a well-placed meaty fist in the belly abruptly silenced him.
“Don’t take any chances with these rannies, men!” Barton shouted, with a hand cupped to the side of his mouth to amplify the volume of his words so they’d be sure to be heard. “Be sure to search for concealed weapons and be careful. These men are slippery cusses!”
The posse men set to with a will in carrying out Barton’s commands, all but tearing the clothes off the bad men and tenderizing their flesh with many well-placed punches and kicks. It was a melee, an out-and-out rout of the outlaws.
A squad of searchers ransacked the wagons to make sure that no outlaws were hiding in them. They were surprised and delighted to find Leo Plattner in the other Conestoga wagon, bound hand and foot the way his fellows had left him after subduing him from his whiskey-fueled hell-raising.
The bandit chief stood hunched over, hugging his middle with both arms and leaning against the wagon for support. He was hatless, his face bruised, his nose bloodied.
Barton raised a hand, causing Denton Dick to flinch, cowering with both hands raised to protect himself.
“Why Dick, I was just brushing away a bug to keep it from flying in my eye. You don’t think I was going to hit you?” Barton asked, mildly soft-spoken. “Remember our town motto. ‘We’re all friends here in Hangtree.’”
“I ain’t from Hangtree,” Denton Dick gasped.
“Oops, there is that. Hard luck for you, I reckon,” Barton said. “Now suppose you leave off slinging the horse manure like you been doing all day and tell me what you know about Jimbo Turlock and the Free Company.”
TWENTY-FOUR
Sunrise came to the Cross ranch.
“Ready?” Otto Berg asked.
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Sam Heller said. “I’ve got my ducks all lined up in a row.”
“Yeah, but that ain’t birdshot you’re using.”
“Not hardly.”
Sam was preparing to use canister shot, the artillery equivalent of double-ought twelve-gauge buckshot. In close combat, it was the anti-personnel weapon supreme. “We’ll make it hot for the marauders.”
Sam had the howitzer from Fort Pardee set up on top of a knoll facing the eastern mouth of Cross’s Cut and about 150 yards away from it. He was no artilleryman, but he’d picked up enough tradecraft in that line during the war to be able to effectively aim and fire the weapon. He couldn’t do it without a gun crew. Otto Berg had some knowledge of the piece’s working arrangements. The three scouts had also been recruited for the crew.
Surprisingly, Luke had volunteered to help out. He couldn’t get around too quickly, so he was in charge of the care, maintenance, and disbursement of the howitzer’s gunpowder loads. Premeasured and self-contained within their own bagged containers, a supply of the charged loads had been found in the munitions wagon accompanying the stolen howitzer, along with various types of shot and shell, ramrod swabbing sticks, fuse cord, and other items needed for turning the piece into a working engine of destruction.
Luke had volunteered for the chore because, as he said, it would put him in the front lines of the action.
As darkness had shaded into dawn, Sam had trained and practiced with his crew to prepare them for the coming clash. He’d schooled them in the basics of reloading and tending the piece.
He reckoned they were as ready as they could be in the time allotted. Of one thing he was sure—men like these would withstand anything the foe threw at them, or die trying. Such men would not run.
Luke stood to one side leaning on his crutch, eyeing the howitzer, and scowling.
“What’s got your back up, Luke?” Sam asked.
“One of these devil’s tools took off my left leg below the knee. You can’t expect me to like it.”
“Well, here’s away to get your own back,” Sam said cheerfully.
Luke smiled tightly.
“Be careful not to ge
t in front of the piece while it’s firing or you might lose the other leg,” Otto Berg said seriously, not joking.
“Don’t you worry about me, Yankee boy. I’ll be safe behind that cannon when the shooting starts, tending the powder charges. You’re the one who’d best look out,” Luke said.
Otto laughed without humor. “Think you’ve got a soft job? Think again, Reb. If one spark or ember touches the charges, it’ll blow you sky-high.”
“You and me both, mister, and don’t think that won’t be a comfort.”
“Save the fight for the enemy, men,” Sam said, knowing how easily such back-and-forth needling could degenerate into harsh words and quick guns. “We’ve got to pull together.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve got enough scrap to go around,” Luke assured him.
“I believe it!” Sam said. He did, too.
“For a civilian, you sure can make noises like an officer,” Otto said to Sam.
“I’m no officer and you can walk off anytime. Nothing’s keeping you here. Nothing but yourself.”
“I was at the fort when the poisoning went down, remember? I’ll stick till the last Free Company dog dies,” Otto said.
“Then we’re all squared away,” Sam said.
“All we need is somebody to fight,” Luke said.
“We won’t have long to wait for that,” said Sam.
The gun crew was the tip of the spear blade of Hangtree’s fighting forces. Two hundred men or more were massed in the area opposite the cut. The county militia was assembled for the fray.
Mack Barton had organized a formidable fighting force in the hours since Cal Lane had ridden into Hangtree. The marshal had been aided by the movers and shakers of the town and county—the Big Men of Hangtree. They’d clawed and scraped and schemed for everything they had and no one was going to take it from them without a fight.
Chief among them were the three biggest ranchers in the county, Wade Hutto, Don Eduardo del Castillo, and Clay Stafford.
Wade Hutto was town boss, a rich rancher and power broker who pulled the strings of the mayor and town council. He’d helped Barton win office as marshal, but Barton had made it painfully clear to his overbearing patron that he was his own man when it came to laying down the law in town. He’d secured his own following among the small ranchers, farmers, and storekeepers, anxious to avoid being gobbled up by Hutto and his moneyed clique.
Hutto held a controlling interest in the town bank, not to mention its president Banker Willoughby. He owned much of the choicest real estate on Trail Street and its surroundings and owned a piece of or held the mortgage on many more buildings, lots, and small ranches and farms. He was also the owner of a prosperous and sprawling ranch on the south fork of the Liberty River. Impressive as it was, it was not the biggest ranch in the county.
That honor was reserved for Rancho Grande on the Liberty’s north fork, whose master and patron was Don Eduardo del Castillo. The spread had been owned by his family a hundred years and more before the first English-speaking Texicans had settled in the area. His relations with his Anglo neighbors were prickly at best, fueled by his vast distrust of all Tejanos and his passionately held belief that they were out to steal his land and property.
In this assumption, he was one hundred percent correct. His small army of hard-shooting, hard-riding vaqueros and the high, thick adobe walls protecting his magnificent hacienda and home grounds ensured that the rancho remained securely in his possession.
The third member of this power trio was Clay Stafford, a recent newcomer to Hangtree who’d come up hard, fast, and strong. A relatively young man, he was a ruthless, ambitious rancher and landholder who had survived a murderous family blood feud to become sole master of the Ramrod ranch.3
The Ramrod land lay along the Liberty’s south fork, butting up against Wade Hutto’s extensive holdings. Stafford and Hutto’s volatile relationship proved the truth of the saying, Well-armed neighbors make good neighbors until the shooting starts.
Clay Stafford was well-prepared for the inevitable confrontation. A number of his hired men were handier with guns than they were with livestock. His foreman Jord Hall was a hard man and Tom Lord, another hire, was a well-respected triggerman. He was also known as “Tom the Lord” for his aloof, standoffish ways. More than a few other fast guns were in his employ.
The Ramrod forces were held in check by Hutto and his top gun Boone Lassiter, who headed a crew of fast-shooting hardcases.
Hutto and Stafford maintained an uneasy peace, but it was only a matter of time before their simmering mutual antagonisms burst into flame.
But this day the two of them and Don Eduardo were united in bucking the Free Company horde massed on the far side of the Breaks. All three had sent sizeable groups of their best fighters to the Cross Ranch.
A semi-invalid, Don Eduardo had remained behind at the Rancho, sending his son Diego, foreman Hector Vasquez, and a cadre of pistoleros. Wade Hutto and Clay Stafford rode in at the head of their flying squads of gunmen.
Fewer in number but second to none in heart and nerve were the small ranchers and farmers of Hangtree, represented at the Cross Ranch by a solid contingent of up-on-their-hind-legs-and-fighting militiamen.
The townsmen were no less represented, with shopkeepers, store clerks, artisans, stable hands, bartenders, and a score of other occupations appearing in the form of well-armed, rough-and-ready fighting men.
Several notable Hangtree personalities had come out for the fight. There was Damon Bolt, scion of a Louisiana plantation dynasty and onetime riverboat gambler, now turned co-owner with the redoubtable Mrs. Frye of the Golden Spur Saloon. His was a deadly gun.
Also present was Dan Oxblood; the raffish, redheaded, left-handed gun for hire was donating his formidable professional services for free.
Squint McCray was there, owner and proprietor of the rowdy Doghouse Bar. He headed a crowd of Doghouse regulars, those who sobered up in time to get in on the scrap. They were drifters, saddle tramps, petty gunmen, and smalltime crooks, a rough bunch, but most of them basically decent and goodhearted at bottom, if not the most scrupulously law-abiding element in the community.
But they could fight like wildcats and were always ready to tie into a tussle. In fact, when there was no fight to be had, they’d often start one, which frequently brought them the unwelcome official attentions of Marshal Barton.
The denizens of Mextown formed up a band of pistoleros and vaqueros, seconded by a following of hardworking campesinos of modest means armed with shotguns, muskets, machetes, scythes, and whatever else might come in handy in a close-quarters fight to the finish.
Together the defenders made up a cross-section of Hangtree society high and low, from prosperous businessmen to penniless, hard-bitten drifters.
Their numbers were increased by the addition of fighting men from the Brooks and Baca wagon trains who’d offered to pitch in and help out. They were frontiersmen who’d battled the perils of pitiless Nature and their fellow man in the form of warlike Indians, bandits, and renegades.
Most had served in the Confederate army during the war. They came loaded for bear and spoiling for a good fight.
Organizer and key man Marshal Barton had more volunteers than he could use. He detailed a large group to stay behind to guard the town, including the wagon trains out on the campgrounds.
He was wary of Hangtree being taken by surprise by Free Company gunmen making a sneak on the town while most of the defenders were massed at the Cross ranch, guarding the eastern portal of the cut.
The howitzer was positioned on the knoll and aimed so as to have a clear field of fire deep into the corridor of the pass.
Riflemen, marksmen all, were posted high up on the rocky summit of both sides of the hills bordering the cut.
A large number of foot soldiers originally formed up in a military-style square between knoll and pass dispersed to take cover in the rocks and rills of the flat at the base of a gently uptilting slope accessing the pass.
<
br /> On the flanks of this infantry force were two groups of mounted men, the cavalry. They waited in the wings in anticipation of the moment when they would be called to deliver the decisive killing stroke.
The dawning sun began picking out countless reflected glints and highlights from weapons in the hands of the defenders of the pass, the blue steel of a six-gun barrel, the razor edge of a sharpened machete.
All the defenders could do was wait, wait for the enemy to engage them.
But they couldn’t be sure the Free Company would come through Cross’s Cut, rather than going east through the Notch and along Hangtree Trail. If the attackers went that way they could swing north and hit the defenders hard on their south flank.
Or the Free Company could strike farther north, traversing a different pass to advance east of the Breaks before moving south to hit the defenders on their north flank.
The defenders had no guarantees that the Free Company would come by way of Cross’s Cut, especially if they learned that a counterforce was massed there to resist them. The presence of the Hangtree militia could not be kept secret for long.
What was needed was some irritant, some gadfly to sting Free Company and sting it so hard the marauders would come charging full-tilt after its tormentors, with no thought to the consequences of such a headlong rush. Just as a man may be driven temporarily mad by the sting of a persistent horsefly, some aggravating factor would enrage the Free Company into insensate fury, causing it to charge blindly into the cut.
When he was so minded, Johnny Cross could be such a gadfly.
Johnny Cross, the Kid from Texas who during the war shot his way into the inner circle of Quantrill’s Raiders....
TWENTY-FIVE
Johnny Cross led a group of fifteen mounted men on the mission to maraud the marauders.
Among the band of gunfighting skirmishers were Lone Star notables. Tom Lord from the Ramrod wore a fancy brocaded vest and black sombrero with silver filigree embroidery. His weapons were a pair of elaborately engraved silver-plated revolvers.
Rebel Yell Page 24
