Outlaw

by Charles G. West

  “Hat,” Crooked Foot stated softly, and patted his head with his hand.

  Matt looked again at the object, focusing his gaze upon it as Ike crawled up to join them. Crooked Foot pointed the object out again for Ike’s benefit, and the big man settled himself between them, squinting his eyes in an effort to focus. Matt was about to question the Indian boy’s imagination when the object suddenly moved, revealing the flat crown of a black hat before disappearing completely from their view. “Damn,” Matt uttered in awe of the boy’s keen eyesight. “It is a hat.”

  “I seen it right off,” Ike said, causing both Matt and Crooked Foot to give him a sideways glance.

  It was certain now. Their quarry had, indeed, stopped running, and was now waiting in ambush. One thing was without question: they had picked a good spot to lay in wait. From the deep gullies, the outlaws could watch the creek below them, as well as the open area behind them toward the ridges. It would be foolhardy to attempt to cross that open ground in daylight. “I reckon we’ll be waiting for dark,” Matt said.

  * * *

  Seated with his back against the hard, sandy side of the gully, his eyes focused upon the bank of the creek some thirty feet below them, Brance Burkett complained. “We’ve been settin’ here all day. I believe if them bastards are on our trail, they’da been here by now. Hell, we were just lettin’ ourselves get spooked by that son of a bitch with the Henry rifle. They’re coolin’ their heels in the Springfield jail.”

  “Maybe,” Eli replied. He squinted up at the sun now rapidly settling toward the western hills. “There ain’t much daylight left. We might as well stay put right here, and move on in the mornin’.”

  Brance was in agreement. His headache had eased off considerably since sitting quietly at the head of the gully. The only thing that kept a spark of the throbbing alive in his head was his disappointment at not being able to settle with Shannon once and for all.

  Eli dug down in his saddlebags to find some bacon to fry, unaware that Brance was patiently waiting out a headache, hoping to avoid one of his spells. Brance had not moved from his position at the head of the gully during the entire time Eli had taken the horses to water, come back, and put some coffee on to boil. In fact, his partner had uttered no more than a few grunts in response to Eli’s comments. Finally Eli was moved to inquire. “What the hell’s wrong with you?” Then the thought struck him. “You ain’t fixin’ to have one of your spells, are you?”

  Brance didn’t answer at once. The pain that had eased off an hour before was now back with a vengeance, and it gave indication that it was going to continue to increase in intensity. He finally answered, his words soft and drawn out, each one seeming to echo in his brain. “No,” he mumbled, “just leave me be.” He knew by then that it was a lie. He was going to have one of the debilitating headaches, and he knew it would render him helpless. Already, his head was beginning to spin, and the pain was slashing between his eyes like jagged bolts of lightning. Pretty soon the nausea would come. He wanted to retire to some place where he could be alone to wait out the ordeal, but he was too sick now to get to his feet. He closed his eyes tight, trying to shut out the pain. When he did, he could feel his eyelids grating across his dry eyeballs as if thousands of nerve endings were suddenly exposed.

  Although the tormented man remained motionless, Eli could tell there was something wrong. He stood over him, staring down, unable to avoid a feeling of disgust for his partner’s apparent weakness. “Can you eat something?” Eli asked. “Maybe drink some of this coffee?” The suggestion was enough to bring a wave of dry heaves over Brance, who fell against the side of the gully, fumbling for his pistol. Eli stepped back then. Brance was taking his usual defensive position. If he was not already, he would soon be virtually blind and prone to shoot at any sound approaching him.

  From experience, Eli knew it was not safe to remain where a bullet might be accidentally sent flying his way. He said not another word, picked up the coffeepot and the frying pan with the bacon, and left that particular gully to his inflicted partner. Better to sleep in a cold blanket than to chance getting shot by a half-crazed maniac, he thought. He settled himself down near the horses, close to the creek. Maybe Brance would sleep it off, he told himself. If he don’t, I’ll leave the crazy son of a bitch in the morning. He had finally had enough of Brance’s insane spells.

  * * *

  Crooked Foot sat near the base of a tree, watching the clearing that separated him and his two friends from the bluffs. As he waited, he cradled the Springfield rifle across his lap, his hand unconsciously tracing the outline of the wooden stock. The rifle, once the possession of an outlaw named Tyler, had been a gift from Matt after Crooked Foot had used it to bluff his way into the jail. He had never owned a rifle before, and as he sat awaiting the darkness, he thought about how proud his father would have been to see his son in possession of such a weapon. Then the picture of his mother and father tossed carelessly upon a funeral pyre returned to his mind, and his hand tightened upon the trigger guard of the Springfield. You will be avenged before this night is over, he silently promised.

  Shifting his eyes momentarily from the clearing, he glanced at Ike, stretched out under a scrubby oak, in all appearance seeming perfectly at ease. Crooked Foot knew that Ike’s appearance was deceptive, for the grizzled old warrior was as thirsty for revenge as himself. He shifted his gaze back toward the gullies. The thin ribbon of smoke that had pinpointed the outlaws’ campfire was lost now against the dark shadows of the night. It was time to move. He had no sooner had the thought when Matt returned from checking the horses. He knelt down beside the prone figure of Ike.

  “Let’s get at it,” Matt said softly. Ike responded immediately.

  Under a deep, moonless sky, the three spread out several yards apart, and moved silently across the expanse of open ground. Upon Ike’s insistence, he was in the middle, moving straight for the head of the deep gully from which the smoke had come. Matt and Crooked Foot flanked the huge man. If luck was with them, they hoped to find the two outlaws asleep by the fire, making their execution quick and neat, although the thought of a long torturous death had entered Ike’s mind.

  Halfway across the clearing, they paused to listen for sounds from the camp. All was quiet—not even the sound of horses came to them in the stillness. The thought occurred to Matt that the three of them might be walking into an ambush. If that were the case, he could expect the sudden flash of gunfire to erupt at any second. But there was nothing. A few yards farther and they were approaching the first of the series of gullies. Crouching low in the darkness, Ike motioned for Matt and Crooked Foot to move into position to converge upon the camp. No more than a few feet from the brow of the gully, Ike waited until they were ready. Then he flattened himself upon the ground and eased his body forward until he could see over the rim.

  There was no one there. A couple of saddlebags lay near the dying embers of the fire, but there was no sign of the men who owned them. Ike was immediately alert to the possibility that he might be in the midst of an ambush. He hugged the ground, looking quickly to either side, expecting the worst.

  Crouching back in a deep slash at the head of the gully, his knees pulled up before him, Brance Burkett strived desperately to endure the debilitating hell that had seized him. The stabbing pain that relentlessly assaulted him left him blind and helpless, and he pressed his spine as far back against the cold clay of his cocoon as he could. Always afraid that someone might take advantage of his helplessness, he gripped his pistol tightly while his head rolled from side to side with the pain. A slight sound penetrated his torment. Fearing he was being attacked, he fired the pistol, emptying the weapon into the darkness against an unseen assailant.

  The sudden barrage of gunshots startled Ike, and he dived for cover below the rim of the gully. Matt and Crooked Foot hit the ground, searching frantically for the source of the firing. From his side of the gully, Crooked Foot was the first to realize that the shots had come from a hollow
ed-out crevice in the head of the deep cut. He raised up on one knee, and fired into the dark hole. Following his lead, Matt pumped three more rounds into the cut. They waited then. All was silent. After a few long moments had passed with no return fire, Matt dropped down into the gully by the campfire. Picking up a half-burnt limb, he tossed it into the crevice. There was still no response. The limb offered very little illumination, but it was fairly evident that whoever had been hiding in the hole was done for.

  Down by the creek, Eli sat up in his blanket when he heard the barrage of pistol shots. His brain still half asleep, his immediate reaction was to roll out of his blanket and reach for his rifle. He paused then as his brain cleared. Something spooked the crazy bastard, he thought. It’s a damn good thing I didn’t stay up there. He was about to return to his blanket when he heard the distinct sound of a Springfield rifle, followed by the rapid fire of Matt’s Henry. “Shannon!” he blurted.

  * * *

  Ike stirred up the fire until he generated a stout flame on one of the limbs. Then, using it as a torch, he went to the crevice and thrust it inside. “There ain’t but one of ’em in here,” he warned, “but he’s deader’n hell.” Matt and Crooked Foot immediately reacted. Expecting an attack from below, they set themselves ready to fire. There was no sound for a moment, then one shot rang out from the bottom of the gully. Crooked Foot grunted dully when the bullet struck his breastbone. He staggered backward a couple of steps, then sank to the ground. Ike sprang to his side.

  Leaving Ike to tend the wounded boy, Matt moved quickly down the dark ravine to the water’s edge. He got to the creek in time to hear the beat of hooves as Eli’s horse thundered away into the darkness. Searching frantically, it took several precious moments before Matt sighted the dark form of the horse and rider against the black tree line on the other side of the creek. By then it was too late to get off a good shot. But he took it anyway, purely out of frustration. As he expected, his shot was wasted. “Damn!” he swore, for his horse was on the opposite side of the second ridge.

  With no thought of giving up the chase, he did not hesitate. Scrambling back up the gully as quickly as he could manage, he paused for only a moment when he got to the top where Ike was doing his best to stop the bleeding from Crooked Foot’s chest. “He got away,” Matt said in answer to the question on Ike’s face. “How bad is it?”

  “It’s bad,” Ike said.

  The sight of the wounded Indian boy only increased the feeling of urgency in Matt’s brain. “I’m goin’ after him,” he stated.

  “I can’t leave him,” Ike said. “He’s bleedin’ somethin’ awful.”

  “You stay with him,” Matt said. “I’ll get back as soon as I can.” He didn’t wait to discuss it. In only a moment he was gone, disappearing into the night.

  Chapter 16

  Common sense told him that there was little chance of success in continuing the chase. Valuable time had been lost while he had crossed the ridge on foot to get back to his horse. The only thing he had to go on was the direction in which the shadowy figure had disappeared. But Matt was determined to find the remaining member of the gang. His determination had been for Ike until this night. Now it was for Crooked Foot. He had his mind set now to finish the job they had started.

  Starting out from the point where he had taken a shot at Eli, he crossed over the creek, and made his way along the other bank, taking the easier route through the hills. With no light to follow a trail, he figured his best bet was to take the most direct path, counting on the idea that Eli would have done the same in his haste to escape. Holding Blue to a steady pace, he pushed on through the night until reaching a wide stream that bisected a narrow valley. Here, he was forced to pause. The man he trailed could have taken any of a number of directions. There was no choice but to wait until first light, and try to pick up the trail. Pushing his frustration aside, he settled where he was, and prepared to wait. It was not a sure bet that he was even on the outlaw’s trail at this point. The thought that he may have been wasting time riding around in the dark was worrisome at the least.

  With the first rays of light, he was scouting the edges of the stream, looking for some sign that his blind gamble had not been for naught. The sandy bank was smooth and undisturbed. No horse had passed this way. Matt stood looking first upstream, then downstream, feeling totally defeated, but still unwilling to admit it, even to himself. His only hope of catching Eli had been to follow his trail. He had only seen the man through a veil of darkness as Eli sped away in the night. Although he had been one of the men sitting at the poker table back in Springfield, Matt realized that he wouldn’t be able to identify him if he saw him in a crowd.

  With no options open to him, he climbed aboard Blue, and crossed to the other side of the stream. Within twenty feet of the point where he came out of the water, he saw the hoofprints. “Well, I’ll be damned” he blurted, at first unable to believe his luck. He dismounted to take a closer look. Judging from the direction from which the tracks left the water, it appeared the outlaw had been riding down the stream, probably from a good distance back, in hopes of losing anyone pursuing him. “And I just happened to stumble on his tracks right where he came out,” Matt murmured, still finding it hard to believe. With a trail to follow, he wasted no time getting back in the saddle. Time was important. According to what Ike had told him, Topeka Landing and the Kansas River were not far from where he now was. He wanted to catch up to Eli before he reached the settlement and decreased the odds of finding him.

  As the sun climbed to brighten the morning sky, Matt rode through a land of rolling hills and tree-covered slopes, following a trail that was becoming easier and easier to follow. That fact in itself should have served to give him concern, but his mind was on cutting the distance between himself and the man he pursued. Pushing Blue hard, pausing only now and then to study the tracks, he entered a long narrow ravine. In the next moment he was startled by a dull sound, like the sound of a fist hitting solid flesh. He saw the hole that suddenly appeared in Blue’s neck an instant before the sound of the rifle penetrated the morning stillness. He immediately flattened himself against the confused horse’s neck. Blue reared back in pain, and a second shot smacked into the blue roan’s chest. The horse screamed in panic, and lunged forward as if to gallop, but took no more than three strides before its front legs folded and horse and rider went crashing to the ground.

  Matt stayed with the horse, taking care to remove his foot from the stirrup to avoid being pinned beneath Blue’s weight. Using the horse as cover, he pulled his rifle from the sling, and scanned the ridges that formed the ravine, searching for the source of the shots. In a few moments, two more shots rang out, the slugs thudding dully into Blue’s belly, and Matt was able to spot his assailant. He brought his rifle to bear on a clump of juniper surrounding a large boulder near the top of the ravine and opened fire, sending three slugs glancing off the rock.

  That son of a bitch, Eli thought as he ducked back behind the boulder. He cursed for having missed Matt with his first shot and hit the horse instead. And then the big roan had reared up, causing him to miss with his second shot. One thing for sure, I sure as hell stopped him from coming after me. That thought brought some satisfaction. However, Eli wanted the man he knew as Shannon underground. So he moved to the other side of the boulder, hoping to get a different angle and a clear shot. His prey was almost totally protected by the carcass of the horse. The only target available to him was one moccasined foot left exposed at the rump of the dead horse. Eli rose up slightly, took dead aim at the foot, and pulled the trigger. He saw a little puff of dirt inches away from the moccasin, but before he could fire again, he was suddenly spun around by a slug slamming into his left shoulder.

  “Damn you!” Eli roared in anger as he clutched his shoulder and ducked back down behind the rock. He had been tricked into exposing himself. The shot that found his shoulder had come from behind the dead horse’s neck. In all his years of raiding, murdering and pillaging, he
had never been shot before. At first, his reaction was unbridled fury, and he moved to the other side of the boulder and emptied his rifle into the carcass of the horse. But as his sleeve became soaked with blood, he was struck with the thought that he had better do something to stop the bleeding. Several scattered thoughts bombarded his brain as he looked for something to stuff against the wound. It was beginning to throb, and the blood would not stop. Topeka Landing was at least five miles away. Maybe he should get himself to a doctor. At the same time, he hated to leave while he had Shannon pinned down behind his horse. Another thought told him that Shannon could hold him off until dark, and then it might be a different game. In the end, he decided he was more concerned about the wound.

  Lying low behind Blue’s body, Matt figured he was in for a long siege before darkness gave him an opportunity to go on the offensive against his attacker. For that reason, he was surprised when he heard the sound of a horse galloping away from the ridge. Peering out from his fortress of horse flesh, he saw Eli riding down the side of the ravine on a buckskin horse, the sleeve of his shirt red with blood. Lucky shot, he thought, and got to his feet, watching until Eli disappeared past the north end of the long ravine. “Well, he won’t be hard to identify now,” he said before turning back to look at his horse. He and Blue had been partners since the war. It was hard to imagine that the big blue roan was gone. “I’m sorry I got you into this mess,” he said, shaking his head sadly as he gazed at the bullet-riddled carcass. Now there was one more reason to finish the job. He picked up his moccasin and put it on, removed the cartridge bag from the saddle pack, and with some great effort, managed to pull his saddle from the horse. Then he set out on foot, following the direction Eli had taken. Near the end of the ravine, he found a dense thicket in which to hide his saddle. Once that was taken care of, he continued on his quest.