Bushwhacked

by C. Courtney Joyner

  Colby had actually thought about having a nice place, a little extra security. Something like what his folks had.

  That notion had nothing to do with the job at hand, and he stopped it as soon as it entered his mind. No imaginings was his rule, so he wasn’t listening when Winchester made another statement about the cattle and their value.

  Colby’s grin took up his entire face when he replied, purposefully stumbling over his words. “Yes, sir. That’s as fine a bunch of that shorthorn breed, you know, that I ever seen.”

  “Durhams can fetch an all right dollar.”

  “That’s a for sure, and I’ll be keepin’ a good watch on ’em.”

  “But what about those men yonder?” Winchester let the question hang, jerking a thumb toward the riders trolling the edge of the herd, listening for incomers and scooting back the strays. No muss, no fuss, just earning their pay.

  Soon they would share the one low fire and take their grub quietly, with voices down, so the cattle would stay settled. It was the way professionals did it, and those men were all pros. It was the point Winchester was trying to make, but Colby already knew it. He’d been watching them closely, making note of who did what, and how.

  And the guns they carried.

  Winchester said, “I’ve known some of them since they were kids, and they’ve grown up to be damn handy”—he looked back at Colby—“and all good with a gun. Good men.”

  Colby’s strained grin had gone lopsided, and he kept nodding his head in agreement, even when it wasn’t needed. “Yes sir, you can see it. That’s why they’re drawing top wages.”

  “You must have something on the ball, too, or you wouldn’t be ridin’ with us.”

  “Well, I surely want to do a good job. I’m eager.”

  Winchester drew out his words. “That’s fine, but you’re all elbows and thumbs. Seems like you should have more experience, given your age.”

  Colby inhaled deeply on his misshapen cigarette. “The other fellas been talkin’?”

  “They’re looking at you. So am I.”

  “I surely don’t want to disappoint nobody.”

  “Then step up. Throw a rope or show yourself with a gun. You have to do something, son.”

  The twisted cigarette went out. Colby tossed it before opening his stained jacket to show a shirt that had been patched so many times it didn’t deserve wearing and that he had no gun belt. By contrast, Winchester’s shirt was fresh, and buttoned to his neck, his new hat held in place with a chinstrap.

  Colby said, “I don’t carry no gun. Maybe you can teach me? I admire that rifle.”

  “If you’re serious, we can give it a try. But”—Winchester’s eyebrows came together, forming a gray question mark over his sandpaper face—“if you can’t shoot, how are you standing guard over anything? This isn’t adding up for me, son.”

  “Actually, I misspoke.”

  Colby held up a hand to pause Winchester’s next remark and took a gold pocket watch from his dirty jacket. The watch was polished diamond-clean, and he handled it delicately, snapping the engraved face cover open to note the time. “I make sure things go the way they’re supposed to.”

  Winchester covered the hammer on the rifle with his palm, easing it back. “What in the Sam Hill does that mean?”

  Colby held the watch, smiling at a cameo on the inside of the cover. It wasn’t a silly grin, but something real and satisfied. He snapped it shut. “Swiss works. Always perfect. My meaning is, that you have a choice to not use that rifle, sir. I hope that’s the choice you make.”

  Winchester crooked his elbow, settling the rifle on Colby when shouts from the other cowboys startled him.

  They were loud cries, and one had some panic. “Whoa, Lordy, do you see that?”

  Winchester turned his attention for a heartbeat.

  That heartbeat was all Colby needed to slip the blade down his arm into his palm and launch it, bullet-fast and sure, burying itself completely into Winchester’s chest. The blade had no handle, and plunged so deep, Winchester’s body seemed to swallow it whole, the wound just a slit above his heart, spraying a geyser of red.

  Colby had hit the artery he was aiming for. It was perfect. Surgical. Winchester looked down at the blood soaking his starched-white shirt, then back to Colby, wounded surprise in his eyes. He tried to crack off a shot.

  It was only a grazing as Colby dove from his horse, rolled, and came back up to his feet in a single acrobatic motion, before yanking the rifle from Winchester’s hands. There was no struggle; his fingers just let it slip away. The older man settled forward, clutching his chest. Colby pushed him out of the saddle with the rifle barrel and watched him tumble.

  The sound of the body hitting the ground was a confirmation. Colby gave Winchester a few moments to see if he’d move beyond twitching. He didn’t. That satisfied Colby.

  The shouts of the cowboys trying to figure what the hell had happened and the sound of the cattle stirring rose together like orchestrated music. Colby felt the thundering under his feet and faced the wide slope of grass that led into the small Kansas valley to see the demons crossing it at full gallop, charging toward the herd.

  Their horses were phosphorous white skeletons with bursts of flame rippling from their manes and tails. Cloaked and hooded in red, the Fire Riders numbered twenty. They rode in a tight military formation, almost shoulder to shoulder, out of the spring night. Half held torches high, with their rifles in saddle scabbards. The others rode with pistols in their free hand, keeping their reins tight with the other. Several brandished cavalry sabers.

  Some cowboys broke wide, getting off their shots, while the rest kept the herd in check. Colby positioned the Winchester to his shoulder and took aim, shooting the cowboys from their horses as if he were knocking old cans off a fence post.

  He had seen one show off his quick-draw, so he killed him before angling the rifle around and shooting an older fellow who kept his gun in the belt loop of his pants. The revolver was drawn, and he was trying to steady it, when Colby put one through his throat.

  Colby had talked to him over morning coffee, learned about his grandkids and his reputation as a man who could kill six men with five shots. He’d gotten a kick out of the old man’s bragging, so he hoped the cowboy hit the ground dead, not lingering.

  The one who laughed at Colby the loudest?

  He rode fast around the herd, drawing down and screaming at the rustlers, letting loose four rounds from a Henry rifle. He managed to hit one Rider in the leg and a horse in the rump. Colby cracked a slug into the laugher’s chest, saw him lurch back in the saddle but still holding on, then fired again, taking him out through his left eye.

  They’d been difficult shots, each one a flame with an echo that Colby didn’t let die before shooting again. He made it all one clean action, one continuous sound, and then it was done. He felt satisfaction as the Fire Riders circled the cattle and began moving them off, with no one putting up a fight.

  Colby touched the side of his collarbone where he’d been bullet-kissed. The tiny wound burned as if someone had slapped him with a hot spoon, but the pain of getting shot was nothing. What Colby hated was that a bullet wound of any kind was evidence that the job had gone sloppily.

  This job had gone well.

  He stayed his tall chestnut stallion, patted the sweat from the back of the animal’s neck as a steer butted his way out of the herd and started to run. His cries were loud, getting louder. The other cattle stirred, brayed, began pawing the ground.

  Colby angled his horse around, the rifle at his shoulder, just in case. A cloudless moon gifted him just enough light to watch it all over the sights of the Winchester.

  The Fire Riders signaled each other to ride out for a larger circle, giving the cattle their room, then moving ahead of the herd. Cloaks were stuffed into saddles and belts cinched tight to prevent excessive movement of their clothes, to prevent the cattle from spooking any more.

  Eyes in the herd were wide, heads bowe
d to fight, and cries getting damn loud. Their weight and near panic could be felt as the cattle slammed into each other, ready to run for nothing.

  One of the Riders, just a towheaded boy with his hood pushed back, galloped past Colby, charging for the running steer. With a good grip, the boy seemed part of his horse as he rode alongside the steer but not too close. He let his pinto and the shorthorn share movement before slipping his lasso over its head and pulling it easy. The steer bellowed, twisting at the rope.

  The herd reacted to the cry. A few more started to break. The Fire Riders chased them down.

  Colby stood in his stirrups, watching the boy lean from his saddle, stretching as far as he could to grab the steer’s tail and bring it up toward his shoulders. He held it there, his skinny body straining, but legs locked around his horse.

  The steer slowed, feeling the pressure on his tail. The kid pulled up, dropped from his saddle, brought the steer to a stop. He dug in his heels, tightening the lasso, and turned the huge animal around, leading it back to the herd.

  The Riders had moved in front of the other cattle, slowing them enough to push them toward the trail break. The boy let the steer loose, and it fell in with the others.

  Colby settled back in his saddle as the other cows and steers were brought into line. The boy showed the other Riders how to work them, make them move together.

  A Fire Rider pulled up his white-skulled horse and spoke through his hood to Colby, his words catching in his throat. “We almost lost it, but you did it good for us.”

  “You were late.”

  “We’re riding in, not coming on the Kansas Express.”

  Colby kept the rifle cradled in his arms. “I’m just saying that when there’s a plan, I like to stick to it. I’m not inflexible, as you can see.”

  The Rider’s voice was easy, the Eastern Europe bleeding through. “That old man was a dead shot with a rifle. He was a worry, I can tell you. But you got them all.”

  “I like a job done thoroughly. This is a good herd, and you got it without a fight, which was the point of my being here.”

  With the Fire Riders pushing them, the sound of the cattle moving out was solid in the air. The towhead was in the lead, guiding the herd with expertise.

  Colby had to shout over the din. “That’s a good boy, knows more about what he’s doing than anybody.”

  “He’s a kid. He is learning.”

  “Just an opinion.” He held out his hand. “My money. The rest of my fee.”

  The Rider just looked at him from behind the red hood, his barrel chest straining against the matched tunic. There was no expression that could be judged, no sense of emotion in the eyes, so Colby angled the barrel of the rifle toward him.

  The Fire Rider said, “You going to kill me?”

  “Not part of the strategy, but if it needs to be altered, I can accommodate and get my fee from your superiors.” Colby frowned. “Did you understand anything I just said?”

  The Rider had a Peacemaker in his hand. “I can’t never tell if you’re an educated ass or just an ass.” He took a stack of bills bound with paper bands from his saddlebag and tossed it.

  Colby caught it with one hand, keeping the other on the rifle’s trigger.

  “You want I should stay while you count it?”

  Colby slipped the cash into the pocket of his filthy disguise. “We’ll be working together again. If it’s short, we can settle our debts personally.”

  “You talk like that, but my face, you haven’t seen it.”

  Colby said, “Not in person, but you have a wife—dark hair with blue eyes, which is very unusual—and two daughters. In Havalock County, isn’t it? And you’re Romanian?”

  The Rider managed to spit through his hood, turn his horse, and run it to join the others as they herded the cattle across the small patch of grazing land, toward their new water and new brands.

  Colby just shook his head in wonder at the quality of the people he was forced to sometimes work with. It almost wasn’t worth the feel of the cash in his pocket. Almost.

  He watched as the last of the Riders followed the herd and was lost in the night shadows. He dropped from his stallion and walked it to the small cook fire, poured himself half a cup of reboiled coffee, then topped it off with premium Evan Williams from a silver comfort flask.

  He could still hear the cattle making their way over the hill, just a distant jumble of sounds. The stallion snorted in the night chill.

  The fire was dying.

  Colby looked at the cowboys scattered about the camp, lying facedown, their lives spilled wet around them, their blood black in the moonlight. He lifted his cup of coffee and bourbon, toasting his targets, “Gentlemen, to a hard life lived well.”

  * * *

  The voices were fragments, drifting through the barred window above Bishop’s bed. He knew one of them was Tucker, but the other was someone younger, with a thick Louisiana accent, talking so fast his words swamped into each other without a pause in between. He kept repeating Bishop’s name, but the rest was blather to him, as he fought himself awake. Bishop tried sitting up, but his right hand jerked him back. He’d been handcuffed to the iron frame of the bed.

  Harvey laughed, his braying coming from someplace Bishop couldn’t see. “How’d you like it? Can’t open your big mouth now, can ya?”

  Bishop hadn’t been asleep. He’d been unconscious. Coming back was like putting together pieces of a broken mirror—sounds and faces not quite fitting, slivers missing. And the pain. The more Bishop was aware, the worse the pain hit him, but he wasn’t going to slip back. He wasn’t.

  Harvey dangled the bullwhip on Bishop’s swollen face, just letting the frayed tip rest on one of the wounds. “I started with the Cattleman’s Crack to put you down, and then I used the Snake Killer. Just a little flick to bring the whip back, that’s the trick. Supposed to take the head off a rattler. Must sting like hell.”

  Bishop managed, “It does.”

  “You’re gonna have some scars.”

  “Already have some.”

  Harvey teased the end of the whip by Bishop’s purple . . . and shut . . . eyes. “Maybe you’ll have, uh, bitchin’ pains in your face,” he brayed, “if you live that long.”

  Bishop twisted away, throwing a kick at Harvey. “You never dropped me with that whip.”

  Harvey punched Bishop in the chest with the whip handle. “Keep tryin’ half-man, ’cause your time’s coming.”

  “Kill a one-armed man while he’s chained, maybe when I’m sleeping? Brave as hell.”

  Harvey slammed the edge of the bunk with one of his size twelves, knocking Bishop off, wrenching his left arm behind him, stretching the wrist that was anchored to the iron frame.

  “I don’t have to do nothing. That guy out there with Tucker? He just claimed the body of one of the men you and that squaw killed. Chaney? I dug him up, threw him in his wagon. He’s a relative, and damnation, does he want to see you.”

  “I’m sure.” Bishop stood, slowly turning to release his arm, almost popping his shoulder. The whip marks seemed joined as one blister across his face, the purple cuts splitting up his cheeks, eyes, and throat.

  Harvey said, “Tucker won’t let him in ’cause he might blow your damn head off.”

  “Want to save that for yourself?”

  “Hell, it won’t take that much to finish you.”

  “Harvey, there’s nothing you can do. You’ll never match what I’ve known.”

  Harvey coiled the bull whip. “You really askin’ for more?”

  Bishop’s broken face came together in a go-to-hell smile.

  * * *

  Albert Tomlinson didn’t fill up a quarter of Colby’s hotel room doorway. He stood there clutching a leather satchel and waiting for permission to enter. His new suit hung too loose on his stooped shoulders and couldn’t hide the single-shot Marlin Standard pistol in his inside pocket. The weight of the gun actually made him favor his left side a bit.

  Colby, i
n a satin robe piped along the collar and sleeves, noted the outlined shape of the Marlin and guessed its make and model.

  “You’re quite a man with weapons, Mr. Colby.”

  “One of the reasons you hire me. Shut the door. The drafts in this place are this side of intolerable.”

  Albert shut the door, pressing his hand flat against its parquet inlay that was in keeping with the rest of the room. The furniture was new. A bookcase took up one wall and a personal-sized desk was built into it. The large bed was angled between a standing fireplace with scuttle and bed warmer and French doors that opened onto a small balcony overlooking the street. A pair of rocking chairs waited in the balcony’s shade for whoever wanted to enjoy their comfort.

  “Have you taken advantage of your balcony, yet?”

  Colby said, “No reason to,” as he took pressed pants and clean shirt from the closet and started to dress.

  “It’s paid for . . . at the maximum rate. Seems a shame to waste it.”

  Colby checked a loose button on his shirt, feeling no need to respond.

  Albert said, “Me and my girls were making do in a prairie schooner, trying to get down Wyoming-way, for my new position and all. Ever travel like that? I think we found every piece of bad luck you could trip over, but finally made it.”

  “Congratulations on your tenacity.”

  Albert’s eyes couldn’t help but envy the shaving kit laid out on the dresser. An ivory-handled razor lay open on a fresh towel. Specialty lathered soaps were stacked neatly next to the washbowl, alongside a bottle of imported after-scent.

  “A place like this would have been a fine break from the way we were getting along.”

  “You’re working now, Tomlinson. Why not treat yourself?”

  “I’ve never felt comfortable doing that.”

  “All business, yes?” Colby noted. “There’s a tub behind that folding screen. I just used it. The bottom’s still wet if you need to check, but the bed has more lumps than a swaybacked mule, so I’d ask for a partial refund.” He tossed Albert the too-patched shirt caked with dust, sweat, and a little blood. “Put that in the stove.”