by Chuck Tyrell
Issuing classic fiction from Yesterday and Today!
Cahill Bowman and his Shadow Box Gang invade Silverton, Nevada, and make away with some sixty pounds of gold from the McQueen Mine’s bullion room and take Marshal Walter Nation’s daughter Elly along for insurance when they leave. But before they ride out, they nail Walt Nation to the wall and slit his belly open, just to leave a message. Young Matt Stryker, deputy marshal of Silverton, must ride at the head of a posse made up of a black Seminole Indian, a woman stage driver, the town drunk, a former captain in the Union Army, a kid who’s looking to make a name as a gunfighter, and a dude that don’t know which end of a horse to ride. The Shadow Box Gang rides on, raping and killing as they go. Will Stryker’s posse be enough to bring them in?
STRYKER’S POSSE
STRYKER 4
By Chuck Tyrell
Copyright © 2014 by Chuck Tyrell
Published by Piccadilly Publishing at Smashwords: September 2014
Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader.
Cover © 2014 by Ed Martin Visit Ed here
This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book
Series Editor: Ben Bridges
Published by Arrangement with the Author.
Chapter One – The Sack of Silverton
The Shadow Box Gang took over Silverton on a bright day in March. They rode in easy, guns out of sight beneath the tails of Mackinaw coats, rifles in their saddle scabbards, not even a single Bowie in plain sight. Just a rag-tag bunch of riders that happened to be together, or so it appeared.
Silverton started growing when the McQueen Mine began producing silver like a good mine should. When Lyle McQueen struck that heavy vein of silver, the town had only six buildings and a few tents, but within three months, the number of buildings grew to almost a hundred. Bucktooth Alice brought her girls in. McQueen hired Welshmen and Irishmen and Limeys to dig for silver. Chinese appeared out of nowhere to run laundries, eateries where a man could get a meal for a dime, and an opium den. This far north of the border, Mexicans were few, but Francisco Valencia still opened a place called Cantamar, and young brown girls twirled to show off their slim legs to lusty cowboys and vaqueros who worked at the Bar B Bar or the Rocking S. Some were just drifters that stopped to wet their whistles.
But the Shadow Box Gang chose Jesse Clark’s place on Bullion Road where all seven men tied their horses to the hitching rail with slipknots that would come free at a jerk if they had to beat it out of town. That was not Cahill Bowman’s intention. He came to make Walt Nation wish he’d never been born; came to make him pay for all the jail time Bowman’d spent in Yuma.
Jesse Clark’s place served two purposes in Silverton. Its restaurant had white tablecloths and good food whenever the makings were available. Of course there was always beef and beans and sourdough bread. Its little barroom gave “gentlemen” a place to relax and have a whiskey and a cigar while the womenfolk and children, if any, chattered away in the eating room. When the Shadow Box Gang walked in, there were two men and a bartender in the barroom and one family in the restaurant.
Bowman stepped through the front door and walked three steps toward the bar. Six Shadow Box men followed and spread out against the wall back of Bowman, who drew his six-gun and shot the two men at the bar. “Don’t reach for the sawed-off,” he said to the bartender. “Instead, you might want to bring me Elly Nation. You do that and you just might live.”
Flapjack Kranz and Big Ed Grainer went into the restaurant before the family could collect their senses and leave. Flapjack waved a converted Colt Navy at them. “Just set right there and you might live to tell the tale. Try and be brave and you sure as hell won’t live.”
The family froze. “We’re just passing through,” the man said. “Please don’t mix us up in local problems.”
Flapjack laughed. “You’re plenty mixed up, you surely are.” He raised his voice. “Maggie Brown. You in there?”
A matronly woman hesitantly put her head out the door leading to the kitchen. “Yes?”
“You Maggie Brown?”
She nodded.
“Come on in and sit down with the mister and missus and their tit suckers.”
“I’ve got dishes to wash,” she said. “Ain’t no one else here.”
“I reckon you’re a liar, Maggie Brown. Where’s the Frenchy cook?”
Maggie’s eyes went wide. She sputtered. “F…f…frenchy c…c…cook. Umm, we don’t have one of those. Besides, Gerard, our regular cook, has gone out to choose vegetables for the supper meal.”
“Well then, Maggie m’dear, just come on in and sit down with your customers.” Flapjack waved his big Navy Colt toward the family. Maggie marched across the room and sat herself down in a chair not far from them.
Flapjack Kranz raised his voice. “All clear in here, Bow. Mommy and Daddy and two tit-suckin’ kids, plus Maggie Brown. Ain’t no one else in here.”
“Good,” Bowman said. “Rastus?”
“Yo.”
“You and Geebee grab them dead ones and dump ’em in the street, couldja?”
“Gotcha, boss.”
Rastus Smythe and G. B. “Geebee Mills each dragged a dead drinker from the bar at Jesse Clark’s place and rolled them off the porch to lie in a jumbled heap at the foot of the steps leading up to it.
“Some men’re killing people over to Jesse Clark’s Place. Just killing ’em.” Phil Stone, the bartender Cahill Bowman sent after Walt Nation’s daughter, could barely pant out his message to Miss Higgenbothem, the schoolmarm. “They’ll stop killing if I can get Elly Nation over to Jesse Clark’s fast.”
“Phillip, you know good and well that you cannot just take a child by the hand and lead her to a killer.”
The whites showed around Phil Stone’s eyes. He shook his head. “Oh yes I can, Miss Higgy Piggy. I can. And I will.” He marched into the school’s single room and grabbed Elly Nation by the arm. “You come with me, girl,” he growled, jerking her out of her seat and dragging her toward the door.
Elly fought him. “My daddy’s marshal,” she hollered. “He’s gonna lock you up. You can’t take me away, you can’t.”
Phil Stone cuffed her on the ear. “Shut up. Come along.
Elly went limp.
Stone just threw her over his shoulder like he would a keg of beer, and strode back toward Jesse Clark’s Place.
“My daddy’s the marshal,” she cried. “You’d better put me down, dirty Phil Stone. You’d just better.”
Stone said nothing.
Elly kicked her legs, and pounded Stone’s back with her fists. He didn’t even break stride. To Elly, it was like pounding on a rock wall.
“Daddy,” Elly screamed. Daddy!”
“Holler all you want, girl. All I gotta do is get you to Jesse Clark’s Place and I’ll be outta trouble. Don’t matter at all if you holler.”
When he got to the steps leading to the porch, he sidestepped the bodies in the road and quick timed up and into Jesse Clark’s. He burst through the door and put Elly on the floor. “Here’s Walt Nation’s kid,” he said, and Cahill Bowman shot him between the eyes.
“Get him outta here, Rastus, Geebee,” Bowman said. “Dump him on the others.”
Rastus and Geebee took an arm and a leg each, hauled Phil Stone out the door and tossed him atop the two dead drinkers.
Bowman grinned at Elly Nation, who stood like a stone, shock showing in her wide-eyed stare.
“Thank you for coming to see us, Elly. You’re just what we needed right now. Would you like some sarsaparilla?”
Elly shook her head.
“All right then, if you’d please come with me into Jesse’s restaurant, we’ll get you a comfortable place to sit and wait.” Bowman held out his hand. “Come along now.”
“My daddy’s the marshal, mister,” Elly said in a tiny voice.
Bowman’s grin turned into a wicker smile. “Yes, he is, Elly. Yes, he is. And I’m quite sure we’ll see him come in here before long. Now, let’s go and find you a place to sit.” Bowman reached for Elly’s hand, but she put her hands behind her back.
“Don’t be silly, girl. Come along.”
With no alternative, Elly followed Bowman into the restaurant.
“Sir? Are you the man in charge?” The question came from the father of the family of four who cowered in their seats under the guns of Flapjack and Big Ed.
“You could say that. Sometimes we all get together when something big comes along.”
“Well, sir, we’re just passing through Silverton. Just waiting for the stage to come, so we can get . . .”
“Mister. This town is mine … ours. We’re taking it for all it’s got. And I reckon we could start with you. Flapjack. Big Ed. You all see what the gentleman’s got that’s worth anything.”
Flapjack waved his Navy at the man. “Over by the wall,” he said. “Now.”
“Look, mister, we’re just traveling through. Going to Saint Johns in Arizona.”
Flapjack stepped closer and smashed the Navy into the side of the family man’s head. The man mewled. “Didn’t ask who you was or what you was doing, asshole,” Flapjack said. “Get up against the wall like I said.”
The man stood on wobbly legs.
“Against the wall.”
The man stumbled over to the wall.
“Face it.
He turned and stood face to the wall.
“Hands on the wall. Step back. Spread your legs. Keep your hands on the wall, dammit.”
The man did what Flapjack told him to.
“You keep your gun on him, Big Ed.” Flapjack began patting the man, looking for valuables. Whatever he found, he tossed on the nearest table. A tintype. A watch on a chain. A notebook that looked like some kind of tally book. A small leather bag closed by a drawstring. The clink it made when Flapjack tossed it on the table said money.
“Take the coat off,” Flapjack said.
The man complied.
Flapjack examined it thoroughly. “Nothing sewed inside,” he said, mostly to himself. He tossed the coat over the back of a chair. “Don’t think about moving,” he said. He ran his hands down the man’s sides, starting under his arms. “Ha,” he said. He dragged his Bowie from the scabbard behind his left hip and cut the man’s suspenders. His trousers puddled at his feet.
“Lookee here. The man’s got a money belt.” Flapjack hoisted the man’s shirttail with the barrel of his Navy. He slipped the Bowie under the belt and cut it in two. It fell to join the trousers on the floor.
Flapjack returned the knife to its scabbard and picked up the money belt. “Here ya go,” he said to Bowman.
“On the table’s good enough,” Bowman said.
Flapjack tossed the money belt where Bowman said to.
“Pull your pants up, man,” Bowman said.
The man did as he was told, his hands shaking. He had to hold his waistband as the suspenders no longer worked. “That’s all we have, mister,” the man said, tears forming in his eyes. “We are going to Arizona to make a new start.”
“Life ain’t fair,” Bowman said. “Now, all of you, get in there.” He hooked his head toward the doorway of the barroom. “Now!”
The man and his wife went past Bowman on their way into the barroom. The son and daughter followed. The boy stopped to stare up at Bowman. “You’re mean, mister,” he said. “Really mean.”
“Get on in there,” Bowman said. “You, too, Maggie.”
“How come you know my name, mister?” Maggie stood with her arms akimbo, a big woman whose arms showed the muscles that came from lifting heavy things, and lifting them often.
Bowman smiled, and it wasn’t a pretty thing to see. “You’re famous, Maggie Brown. Nearly as famous as Jesse Clark’s Place itself. In fact, you’re so famous, you can do our talking for us.”
“I will not!”
Bowman stared at Maggie, his dark eyes like the twin bores of a shotgun. Then he spoke, very quietly. “Maggie, Maggie, Maggie. When you don’t do what I say, someone’s bound to die. I’m saving you for last, so who do you think will die just because you’re stubborn? The boy? The girl? Elly? Who?”
For a long moment, Maggie could only search Bowman’s face for a hint of jest. There was none. “You wouldn’t,” she said.
“Try me,” he said.
Flapjack grabbed the boy, who let out a little squeak. The outlaw drew his big Bowie and held it, edge up, under the boy’s chin. He looked at Bowman. “Now?”
Bowman grinned. “You just stay ready, Flapjack. I think Maggie realizes the boy’s life is in her hands. Now. Maggie darlin’. Are you ready?”
“Let the boy go,” she said. “You can have me for whatever, but let the boy go.”
“Good. We’ll think about the boy.” Bowman came over to stand by Maggie. “You go on out there, Maggie. You go on out there and tell everybody who’s wondering what’s going on in here. You tell them who’s in here and how they’re going to die unless the people out there do what I say.”
Maggie nodded.
“And you tell them, Maggie, you tell them the Shadow Box Gang wants the gold in the McQueen bullion room. Silver ain’t worth carrying, but gold. Now gold is something else. You tell Walt Nation that he’s to bring the gold himself if he ever wants to see little Elly again … alive, that is.”
Maggie nodded again. “I’ll tell them,” she said.
“And you come back when you’re finished, Maggie. You come back or the kid’s dead. Got that?”
“Yes,” she said in a tiny voice.
“What? Cain’t hear you, Maggie.”
“Yes!”
Bowman showed his wicked smile again. “Good. Good. You just go on out there. Make sure Walt Nation comes in here. And make sure he’s carrying that gold.”
Chapter Two – A Posse for Stryker
Matt Stryker rode into Silverton with a smile on his face and a twenty-dollar gold piece in his pocket.
“Hey! Matt’s back,” someone hollered, and Silverton citizens turned to watch Stryker as the blood bay he called Ruby arched his neck and pranced a little. Stryker’s first job was to report to Marshal Nation that he’d delivered prisoner Lee Regner to Yuma Prison as promised. Stryker’s smile grew wider. For some reason, delivery of Regner to Yuma had been worth a double eagle to the warden, and Stryker didn’t argue. That double eagle’d be worth more than a few drinks at Jesse Clark’s place.
The men who waited for Matt Stryker in front of the marshal’s office had no smiles on their faces. They had scowls.
Stryker dismounted and made two wraps of Ruby’s reins around the hitching rail. A line of men stood on the boardwalk, most of them members of the town council.
“We’ve been waiting for you, Matt Stryker. What took you so long?” Onzel Wilkinson headed the town council and some would figure he was the mayor.
“Long ways down to Yuma and back,” Stryker said. “What’s your problem. Where’s Marshal Nation?”
“A bunch that called themselves the Shadow Box Gang came to town, Matt. Stole supplies and whiskey and all the gold in the McQueen bullion room,” Wilkinson said.
“Walt go after them?”
“Stryker, Walt’s hanging on so he can talk to you.”
“Hanging on?”
Wilkinson grimaced. “Shadow Box’s got Elly and Maggie Brown. They made Walt go into Jesse Clark’s Place where they was holding out. They said they’d kill her if he didn’t come. They’d al
ready killed three men. Dumped them on the street like garbage.”
“So the sheriff went in without guns?”
“He did.”
“Sheesh. How’d they get the gold?”
“Maggie Brown come saying they had a family in there that they’d kill if Walt didn’t bring the bullion.”
“He took it to them?”
“Yeah. Fletcher Comstock give it to him. A thousand ounces or so.”
“Maggie can’t carry more’n sixty pounds of gold.”
“Comstock got her a wheelbarrow, but Walt pushed it.”
“So the Shadow Box outfit got gold and Elly and Maggie? And what about the family? Who was that?”
“Them Shadow Boxers, they took the family’s money and the missus’s locket. They got no money so they can’t go nowhere. Bob Turley’s putting them up ‘til you can get their stuff back for them.”
“No posse out?”
Wilkinson shook his head. “Marshal’s hangin’ on. Waiting for you.”
“Hangin’ on?”
“Yeah. He went in with the gold and no weapons. Them rowdies went and nailed him to the wall. Spread his arms out wide and nailed him to the wall. Left him there until they got all they was askin’ for.”
“Nailed him to the wall?”
“They did. Just like Christ on a cross, they did. And they made us bring horses for Elly and Maggie.”
“He’s alive, then?”
“Barely, and he wants to talk to you.”
Stryker didn’t like the situation, but there was nothing he could do about it. Seeing the marshal was the first thing. Then he could think about getting up a posse. “Where’s Walt?” he said.
“At Doc Smithson’s,” Wilkinson said.
“Let’s go.” Stryker climbed back up on Ruby’s back. He reined the bay west on Third Street, then north on Jefferson to Doc Smithson’s place on the corner of Jefferson and Second. None of the town council followed, but Stryker didn’t mind. Most of them were Yankees and Stryker had fought with the South. He never mentioned Peach Tree Creek or Nashville or Franklin. He never talked about the nineteen thousand who’d gone down under John Bell Hood, and he never said a thing about his own battlefield commission. Matthew Stryker came away from the war as a colonel at 20 years of age, but CSA colonels didn’t pull any weight. He didn’t talk about the war, but he’d been there. Maybe they didn’t trust him any more than he trusted them, but Sheriff Walt Nation trusted him, and that was enough.
