Outlaw

by Charles G. West

  * * *

  Evening shadows lengthened as nightfall approached. It had been a long, exasperating day for the two prisoners upstairs over the sheriff’s office. Taylor or one of his deputies had looked in on them from time to time during the day. And the sheriff stopped by one last time before going home for the night, bringing the news that their trial was already scheduled for the following week. “The town council don’t wanna go the expense of feedin’ you boys for long,” he said. “We’ll get her done, so you boys won’t have to wait for your hangin’.”

  “Much obliged,” Matt replied facetiously, causing Taylor to chuckle as he descended the stairs.

  The cells were soon drowned in darkness, the only light a faint glimmer of moonlight through the window. The prisoners sat on their wooden bunks, deep in their personal thoughts, feeling no need for meaningless conversation. Matt considered the possibility of an early death by hanging. He didn’t fear death, never had, but he did regret never having made it to the Rocky Mountains and the high meadows. He wasted no thoughts on the unfairness of his pending death. He had killed, more than once—some he had felt guilty about, but that was during the war. Maybe he really was an outlaw, for he had taken it upon himself to punish those who had committed murder. He was about to dismiss the subject from his mind when he heard a faint sound. “What?” he said, thinking Ike had whispered something.

  Ike didn’t answer, but got up from his bunk and went to the window. “It’s Crooked Foot,” he whispered.

  Matt joined Ike at the window. Down behind the building, in the deep shadows, he could just barely make out the form of the Cherokee boy Crooked Foot took a long look at the back of the solidly built building. Then he went to the corner, and took hold of the overlapping siding, testing it to see if he could climb it. He managed to pull himself up about six feet before losing his grip and sliding back to the ground. Determined to climb up to the window, he tried several more times, each try meeting with the same result as before.

  “Ain’t no use,” Ike whispered. “You ain’t gonna climb that wall—wouldn’t do you much good if you could. They built these damn bars to stay put.”

  Stymied for the moment, but still determined, Crooked Foot studied the back wall of the jail for a few moments more before deciding to retreat. “I’ll be back later,” he promised.

  “You’d best watch yourself—they’re lookin’ for you,” Ike cautioned. “We ain’t aimin’ to set around here and let ’em hang us. One of ’em will make a mistake sometime, and we’ll get our chance.” He glanced over at Matt. Both men realized that the chances were pretty slim. He whispered down to Crooked Foot again. “It ain’t healthy for you to hang around here. Somebody’s liable to spot you, and then we’ll all be settin’ in this jail. Me and Matt’ll think of somethin’. Take the horses up that little crick we crossed over south of town. Find you a spot back up that ridge somewhere. If we don’t show up in two days, you hightail it on back home.”

  Crooked Foot stood silent in the shadows below for several long seconds, considering Ike’s instructions. Making up his mind then, he said, “I’ll be back.” Then he turned and disappeared into the night.

  “I’m afraid that boy is gonna wind up gettin’ hisself shot,” Ike said as he sat down on his bunk again.

  * * *

  Jim Tarpley got up from the desk, and replaced the whiskey bottle behind the file cabinet in the corner where Sheriff Taylor kept it hidden. As a matter of habit, he checked the front door to make sure it was locked. Then he picked up a lantern and walked up the stairs to make a final check on the prisoners before he turned in for the night.

  In their bunks, neither man bothered to sit up when the light of the lantern played across the steel bars of the cell. “Looks like you boys is all set for the night,” Jim remarked. “Keep it real quiet, and I’ll see you get a good breakfast in the mornin’.” His remarks were met with silence. Satisfied that all was well on the second floor, Jim went back down to settle in for the night.

  * * *

  Something seemed to be hammering away at the deputy’s head, and he awoke with a start. Confused at first, he was not certain if he was still dreaming or not. The room was totally dark, and the hammering began again. He now realized that the noise he heard was someone pounding on the door. His mind cloudy and sleepy, aided in great measure by the generous toddy he had sneaked from the sheriff’s whiskey bottle, he reached for the lantern on the desk. The pounding continued as he fumbled for a match. Once he had some light, he looked at the clock on the wall, thinking he must have overslept.

  “What the hell?” he mumbled when he realized that it was only two o’clock in the morning. “Who the hell . . .” he started, then yelled, “All right! Dammit, wait a minute.” He pulled his pants on over his long johns, grumbling to himself, “Some damn drunk lookin’ to sleep it off.”

  “Who is it?” The deputy called out at the door, but there was no reply on the other side, only the incessant knocking that was by this time echoing in his skull. He threw the bolt, and opened the door just enough to peer through. He was immediately startled to discover the young Cherokee boy standing there. He did not see the Springfield rifle propped against the wall beside the door.

  “You been looking for me?” Crooked Foot asked.

  “What?” Jim stammered, his mind still foggy with sleep. It took a few seconds to register that he was gaping at the Indian boy who was responsible for the arrows in one of the dead men. When it finally hit him, he opened the door, and blurted, “I sure am. You done the right thing, givin’ yourself up.”

  Crooked Foot stepped inside, grasping the rifle as he did. Jim stepped back to permit the boy entry, only to find himself staring into the barrel of the Springfield. “Damn!” he exclaimed, and took another step backward, “Easy, boy, take it easy with that damn thing!”

  “Get the keys,” Crooked Foot ordered.

  “Boy, you’re in enough trouble already. The best thing for you is to give me that rifle, and maybe the judge will be easy on you, seein’ as how you’re so young and all.” He held out his hand for the rifle.

  Crooked Foot raised the rifle, aiming it at the deputy’s head. “Get the keys,” he repeated.

  “All right, all right,” Jim replied at once. “Just take it easy with that rifle.” He wasted no more words on an obviously useless endeavor. The boy had not hesitated to put two arrows in one man’s back. There was no reason to believe he would hesitate to pull the trigger. “I’ll get the keys,” he said, and went to the desk. He was about to pull the desk drawer open when Crooked Foot stopped him.

  “No!” The Indian boy commanded, and with the rifle, gestured toward a ring with two large keys, hanging on a nail near the stairs.

  “All right!” Jim exclaimed. “I’m goin’. I forgot they was hangin’ on that nail.”

  He moved away from the desk at once. Crooked Foot followed him around the desk, stopping to open the drawer. As he had suspected, inside lay one of Mr. Colt’s fine Navy revolvers. Crooked Foot withdrew the pistol and stuck it in his belt. “Light,” he commanded, pointing toward the lantern.

  Upstairs in the cell, both men were awake, having heard the noises from below. Half expecting a midnight lynch mob, they stood watching the stairs as the light from the lantern ascended toward them, casting shadows through the bars. In a moment, the head and shoulders of the deputy appeared at the turn of the stairs. He was carrying the lantern, and as he came on up the steps, another figure followed behind him. “Crooked Foot,” Ike and Matt uttered the name almost simultaneously.

  No one had to tell the deputy what to do. He dutifully unlocked the cell door and stepped aside while the prisoners filed past him. Fear for his life compelled him to stare wide-eyed at the Springfield rifle still pointing at his head. These were desperate men, who had wantonly gunned down three victims in the saloon before dozens of witnesses. What would one more corpse mean to men like these?

  Seeing the fear in the deputy’s eyes, Matt spoke. “We�
��re not cold-blooded murderers. The only reason we came to Springfield was to rid the world of five men who were murderers. Sometimes things don’t turn out to suit everybody, so step inside the cell. We’ll leave the key downstairs, so the sheriff can let you out in the mornin’. You might as well go on back to sleep. It’ll be a while yet before sunrise.”

  Emboldened by the prisoners’ apparent lack of evil intent, Jim was encouraged to remark. “You boys might wanna think about what you’re doin’. Breakin’ outta here only makes it look worse for you, and you know there’ll be a posse comin’ after you at first light. This time, they most likely won’t bother bringin’ you back here. They’ll probably just hang you on the spot.” He paused a moment to complain. “Does that crazy Injun have to keep that rifle pointed at my head? I didn’t give you no trouble.” At this point, he feared the boy might accidentally pull the trigger, and he could imagine what the .58-caliber bullet would do to his head.

  Ike couldn’t help but smile, looking at the stoic countenance of the Cherokee boy. “We got no reason to shoot you.”

  “Maybe I shoot him anyway,” Crooked Foot growled, threatening, the rifle still aimed at Jim’s forehead. And before anyone could stop him, he pulled the trigger. The deputy’s face froze in horror as the firing pin clicked sharply on the empty chamber. A smile crept slowly across the Cherokee boy’s lips.

  Matt shook his head, amazed by Crooked Foot’s brazen bluff with the late Wesley Tyler’s Springfield rifle. “There’s cartridges for it in my saddlebags,” he said.

  “Damn!” Jim swore, already certain that he would make no mention of the absence of a cartridge when the sheriff arrived to release him in the morning.

  “Let’s go, boys,” Ike said, winking at Matt. “It’s a long piece back home to Oklahoma Territory.”

  With no desire to waste more time, the three went down to the office, where they recovered their weapons from a cabinet behind the sheriff’s desk. While Matt looked his Henry rifle over to make sure it was still all right, Crooked Foot asked Ike, “We go back?”

  “Nah,” Ike said. “We got two more weasels to run aground, and I’m hopin’ maybe that posse will take off in the opposite direction.”

  With weapons secured, the two escapees left the jail, and followed Crooked Foot to a grove of trees where the horses waited. In the darkness of early morning, they galloped out of Springfield, taking the west fork toward Kansas City.

  Chapter 14

  The lone rider stopped to read the sign by the narrow bridge that spanned a clear-running spring. Ignoring the bridge, he guided his horse down to the water to let it drink. When he thought the animal had had enough, he jerked the sorrel’s reins back, gave it his heels, and Jesse Tyler rode into the peaceful town of Neosho.

  Riding down the dusty street at a slow walk, Tyler took notice of every building he passed: the church, the blacksmith’s forge, the post office, a carpenter’s shop. The place had a familiar feel about it, but he felt sure he had never been there before. He didn’t give it a great deal of thought. So many of these little towns looked alike, and Tyler had seen a lot of them when he and Wesley were raiding along the Missouri border with Brance Burkett’s gang during the war.

  Like his late brother, Tyler worked both sides of the law, depending upon which promised the greatest reward at that particular time. He and Wesley had collected a fair amount of reward money over the past few years, but nothing close to the sum they had robbed from innocent citizens. This manhunt was different. There would be no bounty collected when he finally caught up with Shannon. But the satisfaction he anticipated upon killing the man would be reward enough. Jesse thought about him every day and night, especially when seated before his campfire, unable to sleep because of the bitter bile of hatred that seemed to have filled his veins. His life had evolved into one single quest, to kill the man that killed his brother. Nothing else mattered.

  When he had left Brance and the others back in the Cherokee village, he had been confident that Shannon had ridden west toward the Flint Hills. He had felt so strongly about it that he continued on after finding no real trail to follow. Finally realizing that his hunch was in error, he had turned around and returned to Old Bear’s village. Deserted, the Cherokee camp had still possessed a sense of death. The funeral pyre was no longer there, the bodies long since recovered by their families—all save one. Tyler had snorted contemptuously when he gazed at the remains of Corbin, already bloated and rotting.

  Brance and the gang had left an obvious trail when they departed the village. With nothing else to go on, Tyler had followed after them, hoping that Brance had found some sign of Shannon’s trail. Now as he walked his horse slowly through the sleepy settlement of Neosho, he could imagine that there was nothing here that would invite a lengthy visit. Bannerman’s store, near the end of the short street, looked to be the only place showing any signs of activity.

  Myra Bannerman sat on a cane-bottom chair behind the counter, altering a pair of her late husband’s trousers. Her father, Barney, could wear Roy’s pants, but he needed the legs shortened a good inch or two. She looked up from her sewing when she heard the little bell on the front door jingle, announcing a customer. One glance at the dark frowning eyes, surveying the room from under the wide-brimmed hat, caused her to suddenly catch her breath. During the past few weeks, Neosho had attracted more than its share of strangers. Unfortunately, especially for her, they had brought nothing but sorrow to the peaceful little town. The sinister-looking stranger standing in her doorway now appeared to be more of the same grief.

  “May I help you, sir?” Myra dutifully greeted Tyler, putting her sewing aside and getting to her feet.

  Tyler didn’t answer right away as he glanced at each corner of the room before stepping inside. In his business, he had learned to always be sure there were no surprises, no matter how innocent the scene appeared. Satisfied, he shifted his gaze back to the woman standing at the counter. He took note of the fact that she was dressed in black—a sure sign that Brance and the gang had passed this way. The thought brought a grim smile to his face. “I’m lookin’ for somebody,” he finally announced. “Five men. They shoulda come through here three or four days ago, maybe more.”

  So, she thought, this was one more in the dangerous string of strangers come to threaten honest people. She was about to reply when a voice came from the doorway behind the stranger. “Were they friends of yours?”

  Tyler started, his hand dropping to the handle of his pistol, but recovering almost immediately, when he saw the badge on the man behind him. “I ain’t got no friends,” he answered, and stepped to one side, so he could face the lawman head-on.

  Waymon Roberts was not cut out to be a lawman. He was a carpenter by trade, and accepted the position of sheriff temporarily after Bert Wheeler was gunned down. At this moment, locked onto the deadly gaze of a born assassin, he couldn’t help but wish he had not seen Tyler ride in. It was not unlike staring into the eyes of a rattlesnake. Tyler, long on experience facing dangerous men, read the fear and uncertainty in Waymon’s eyes, and relaxed the hand on his pistol. “Well,” he said, “have you seen five men passin’ this way, or not?”

  Waymon bolstered up his courage, and strived to inject a degree of authority in his response. “Oh, they passed through all right. They left two dead men behind them—one of ’em this lady’s husband.”

  Tyler shot a quick glance at Myra Bannerman, unconcerned for her loss. Looking back at Waymon, he asked, “Which way’d they go when they left here?”

  “Took the road to Springfield,” Waymon said. “At least that’s the direction they left in.” Tyler nodded thoughtfully. Waymon continued. “’Course I’ll tell you, same as I told them other fellers, they coulda turned off in any direction after they left town.” This caught Tyler’s attention in a hurry.

  “What other fellers?” Tyler demanded, his eyes flashing with excitement.

  “Two men and an Injun boy,” the sheriff replied. “They said they were tra
ilin’ them five for shootin’ up their camp.”

  Tyler tensed, certain he was on the right trail now. “Their names,” he demanded impatiently. “The two men, what were their names?”

  Waymon’s freshly summoned bravado began to fade in the face of Tyler’s sudden mood swing. “I don’t remember,” he stumbled, turning to Myra for help. “Smith, I think the big one called himself. The other . . .”

  “Shannon,” Myra said.

  “Shannon,” Tyler repeated, allowing a smile to gain access to his sinister features. He was confident now. The last few days had been spent with concern that Shannon might be riding out across the prairie somewhere, getting farther and farther away. “So now the fox is chasin’ the hounds,” he said, amused by the thought. His sense of urgency was immediately intensified by the fear that someone else might kill Shannon before he could get to him. He turned away from the acting sheriff, and gave Myra some gruff orders. “Give me five pounds of salt pork and about a peck of oats for my horse, and some coffee—sugar if you got some. And make it snappy. I’m in a hurry.”

  Feeling small after being so abruptly dismissed, Waymon felt compelled to assert his authority as sheriff, if only to save embarrassment before Myra and her son, Nathaniel. The boy had slipped quietly in from the saloon when he heard the conversation in the store. “I’m gonna have to ask you a few questions, friend. We’ve had more trouble in our town lately than the folks here wanna tolerate. What did you say your name was?”

  “I didn’t,” Tyler replied bluntly, his cold gaze locking on the sheriff’s.

  The cruelty lying behind that gaze was enough to discourage Waymon’s feeble efforts toward assuming authority. He hesitated for a long moment, trying to find a way to retreat without losing face. “Well,” he stumbled, “I expect you’ve got the money to pay for them things.”