Stryker's Posse

by Chuck Tyrell

  Cap barked a laugh. “Don’t reckon that’ll happen as long as Matt Stryker wears the town star.”

  “I’m just a deputy Cap. Walt Nation’s the man with the town star, and he’ll be mighty glad to see that daughter of his. Much obliged for you taking them into town for me.”

  “I can do that, Matt. Never fear.”

  “Obliged, Cap. Truly obliged.” Stryker gathered up Speckles’ reins and mounted, keeping Dred’s rifle across the saddle bows. He hooked the ammo built over the saddle horn. “We won’t be back to Silverton before we catch this Shadow Box gang,” he said.

  “Don’t expect so,” Cap Grant said. “God go with you, Matt Stryker. You’ve saved Silverton a good deal of suffering this day.”

  “Obliged, Cap. But don’t count the chickens before they hatch. We’ll be off after then scallywags.” He reined Speckles toward the mouth of Dead Man’s Notch. Cap Grant went the other way. Zopilotes circled lower as the two men left Dred’s body. When Stryker and Cap were out of sight, the zopilotes landed. They walked toward Dred’s body with stiff-legged hops, wings extended, just in case they had to take to the air again. But nothing bothered the zopilotes. They stiff-legged their way to Dred. Nothing scared them away. Stryker and Speckles came out of Dead Man’s Notch at a walk. Comstock and Rockwell waited in the shade of an overhang.

  “How’d it go?” Comstock said.

  “Dred’s dead.”

  The only answer was silence.

  “The outlaws ain’t gonna be running away,” Stryker said. “They’ll be walking. Just like us.”

  Then he said, “Thought you’d be off after those outlaws, Rockwell. Seems like that’s what an avenging angel would do.”

  “We don’t ride into situations that get innocent people shot or mutilated or killed,” Rockwell said.

  “And who’s innocent around here?”

  “Women. A little girl. Who knows?”

  “Me. I know that Cap Grant’s got Milt and Maggie and Elly with him and the rest of the posse, and they’re on their way to Silverton right now. Let’s get them low down skunks what killed Phil Stone and cut Walt Nation so’s he mayn’t live.”

  “Don’t forget Harlan Taylor,” Rockwell said. “Nor Mercy Taylor’s baby. In the sight of God, killing that baby was just as bad or worse than shooting a full-grown man in the back.”

  “Who says?”

  “Me.”

  “You speaking for God?”

  “I could be.”

  “Well, are you?”

  “If I ain’t, I should be.”

  “So, God’s spokesman, whatta ya say we do?”

  The bow went out of Gid Rockwell’s back, and he settled down. “Your posse, Matthew Stryker, you call the shots. But if you ask me, we oughta head right back the way we come and see if we can hit that Shadow Box camp on the Muddy before they get there.”

  “Took the words right out of my mouth,” Stryker said. “How ‘bout you leading out?”

  “My pleasure.” Rockwell gigged his Morgan and the blocky horse started off on the trail on the outlaws as if it had just spent two hours cropping grass and drinking from a sparkling stream.

  “After that man, Fletch,” Stryker said. Speckles struck out at a fast pace as well. If there was anything the appaloosa hated, it was another horse out in front. In moments, Speckles was up beside Rockwell’s Morgan, matching it stride for stride. Chicoueno, Comstock sitting gingerly in his saddle, had stretched his long legs and stayed within a length of Rockwell and Stryker.

  The horses were game, even though they’d crossed the flats once, running most of the time. Rockwell kept the pace at a fast single-foot, a gait that ate up miles while using perhaps the least amount of energy of any save a dead-slow walk.

  Sunset found Stryker’s posse more than halfway across the flat. They had no water, so they made no water stops. With the sun gone, temperatures cooled. Speckles head came up and his nostrils flared. He picked up his pace, but Stryker kept him in a single-foot. No doubt they’d reach the Muddy by midnight, if not before. None of the riders spoke.

  They moved into the draw that would take them to the campsite where Dred had killed two men on watch and Maggie and Elly had just walked away from their captors.

  Rockwell, in the lead, held up his hand and reined his Morgan to a stop. Stryker came alongside to Rockwell’s right, Comstock to his left.

  “Just a suggestion,” Rockwell said, “but why don’t you and me, Stryker, why don’t we do some sneaking around? Comstock can take the horses upstream a piece and let them drink and graze a bit. How’s that sound to y’all?”

  “Good suggestion. Fletch, you game to do that? Don’t go upstream thinking you’ll get a fair chance, ‘cause you may not. Them jaspers may be up there waiting. You all right with that?”

  “I am,” Comstock said.

  “Good.” Stryker dismounted. He stuffed Dred’s cartridge belt full and buckled it above his own. He filled the magazines of both his and Dred’s Winchesters, then hung his own across his back by its leather sling. Finally, he dug into his saddlebags for a pair of moccasins, took off his boots, and replaced them with the moccasins.

  Stryker and Rockwell disappeared into the night. Off up on the hill, a coyote yipped. After a whir of wings, a rabbit screamed as an owl buried its talons in the rodent’s furry back. Comstock sat and listened to the night, and then realized he was hearing sounds he’d never noticed before. He stretched his ears even farther toward the night, searching out the natural nocturnal sounds, separating them in his mind, then struggling to identify them. The click of a snapping beetle. The soft plodding of horses hooves as he turned them upstream. The chortle of the river as he drew near. Small plops as horses stepped into the stream. Sucking noises as they began to drink. Now the gun rig around his hips felt natural. Not natural in that he could draw the .45 and shoot a tin can off a post at fifty feet, but natural in that it felt like it belonged, like it was part of his everyday wear, like he’d feel half naked without it. Automatically, he settled the rig in place after he’d dismounted Chicoueno. He knelt so he could scoop water with his hands. He drank. Then repeated the process. Again. Again. And again.

  He took the bridles off the horses and left them to crop at the grass along the banks of the Muddy, knowing they’d not stray far. Comstock found a weathered boulder hard beside the bole of an old oak tree. He sat, wriggled for a better position, and settled his gun rig just right.

  The night went silent.

  A stick cracked in the night as someone or something stepped on it. Comstock drew his Colt and surreptitiously eared the hammer back. The click of the mechanism seemed unnaturally loud in the silent night.

  “Don’t shoot me, Fletch.” Stryker’s voice carried just far enough to reach Comstock’s ears. He nodded but kept alert for unnatural sounds from directions other than the one from which Stryker’s voice had come.

  Nothing.

  Comstock felt a presence. He tightened his grip on the cocked Colt.

  “Don’t you shoot me, Fletch.”

  Stryker’s voice was right on top of Comstock.

  Comstock whispered. “What’s happening?” He could only hear the sounds of horses cropping grass.

  “They ain’t showed up yet. We must of passed them during the night.

  “Figure they know we’re following them?”

  “They’ll be expecting someone to. But they may be set on skedaddling, not fighting.”

  “That’s good?”

  “No way to tell. I’m gonna watch the northward approach. Rockwell’s taking the south. Be obliged if you’d keep an eye on the horses, Fletch. We’ll be dead without horses, ya know.”

  Comstock nodded.

  “You hear me, Fletch?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Don’t let us get caught without something to ride, then.”

  “I won’t.”

  “That’s good, Depending on you.”

  Then there was nothing but the silent night. But soon a sna
pping beetle clicked, and some small animal rustled among the dried leaves at the base of the oak tree. Horses cropped grass. Comstock dozed. Then forced his eyes wide open. He listened to the night. Nothing new. Nothing different. His eyelids felt like someone had put ten-pound weights on them. He nodded. Snapped his eyelids open. Listened. Nodded. Nodded.

  When Fletcher Comstock opened his eyes, all three horses stood facing him, their heads down, sleeping. He tried to move without making a sound, but Chicoueno’s head came up. Then Comstock realized he could see. Dawn lit the meadow and the river and the red rock cliff on the other side of the Muddy.

  No sight or sound of the Shadow Box Gang. Could they be that far behind?

  As he thought about the outlaws, Stryker walked up, making no attempt to keep out of sight. “Thanks for watching after the horses, Fletch. That helped a lot.”

  “Did they come? Did the Shadow Box outfit show up?”

  “They never.”

  “Damn. What’ll we do now?”

  “Find ’em.”

  “How?”

  “Look.”

  “Oh yeah. Look. We run across the desert twice in a row. And now we’re gonna look.”

  Stryker gave Comstock a long look. “We whittled that seven-man wolf pack down to two, Fletch. But they killed Dred. And they killed Kid Leslie. They owe us. Again, after a long stern look, Stryker continued. “And Fletch, we ain’t turned up hide nor hair of all that gold they got out of McQueen’s bullion room. We look for them. Two riders coming from Dead Man’s Notch. Something tells me they had good reason to hit the Muddy before turning south … or north, for that matter. We look for them,” he said again.

  Chapter Eleven – Run for the Gold

  Cahill Bowman paid no attention to Geebee and his limping horse. He urged his own bay to a lope, but the fagged horse could not keep up the pace and soon fell to a slow walk, no matter how Bowman applied his quirt or how he hollered at the lazy brute.

  Back there, Bowman had shot and killed one of the posse. Dead for sure. Bowman could tell by the way the man hit the ground. And if he had a chance, he’d down ’em all. Few could match Cahill Bowman with rifle, six-gun, or sheath knife. Yeah. For sure.

  Now all he had to do was get the gold. Get the gold, ride to Big Johnnie Gulch, or maybe to Alma, New Mexico. The Clantons might want to throw in with him. Before long, there’d be a whole new Shadow Box Gang. There surely would.

  The bay stumbled. Then he stopped, head hanging.

  For a moment, Bowman did not realize the horse was no longer moving. He blinked. Then rubbed his eyes. A three-quarter moon gave him enough light to see quite well. But the scene did not look right somehow. There were mountains ahead, but the highlands bordering the Muddy could hardly be called mountains. He turned to look back. Far off, he could make out a hilly line with the shadows of mountains behind them. Behind. The Mormon Mountains seemed to jump right out of the desert floor. So Bowman decided the mountains he saw behind the line of hills was not the Mormons. At least not the part where Dead Man’s Notch cleaved the range in two.

  Bowman dismounted and ground-tied the bay, not that he’d wander off. The outlaw walked away from the horse, going at least twenty yards, far enough to get his bearings, he thought. He looked straight ahead. The Mormon Mountains. He could even see the cleavage of Dead Man’s Notch. But why was it straight ahead? And close. Real close.

  “Cahill? Cahill Bowman? You there?” Geebee’s voice had gravel in it. Scratchiness that only comes after long hours in the desert.

  “I’m here, Geebee.”

  “Yeah. I see that. We going back to Dead Man’s Notch?”

  Bowman didn’t answer Geebee’s question. “Where’s yer hoss?”

  “Pulled up lame a while back.”

  “Whur’s yer gear?”

  “Left it. Had to catch up with you.”

  “Yer rifle? Canteen? Yer cat’riges?”

  “Carried the long gun for a ways. Got too heavy. Laid it by a rock. Get it on the way back. Drunk all the blood from the canteen just getting here.”

  “Blood?”

  “Stuck m’knife in the hoss’s neck. Got me half a canteen of blood. Gone now.”“You drunk your hoss’s blood?”

  “’Paches do it all the time. Other critters’ too. Rabbits and gophers and prairie dogs and such.”

  “How’dju know that?”

  “Heard it from Owen Perry.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “He’s the range detective what the Mescaleros call Man of Iron.”

  “You know him?”

  “Nah. Heard him talkin’ onct at the saloon where my pa pushed drinks, that’s all.”

  Bowman looked at his bay and ran a tongue along his cracked bottom lip. His hand went to the Bowie sheathed behind his left hip. “How much blood you figure my useless bay hoss’s got?” he said.

  “Owen Perry said they wasn’t no need to kill a hoss to drink its blood. If’n I remember just right, he said taking a gallon of blood wouldn’t hurt a hoss all that much. That’s what he said.”

  “No guff?”

  “Would I guff ya, Boss? Y’all’s the boss of the Shadow Box Gang. I be just a pee-on. No guff.”

  Bowmen went to the bay. He took out his Bowie. “Geebee, get the canteen.”

  Geebee unhooked Bowman’s canteen from the saddle horn and pulled the cork. Just to make sure, he up-ended it over his own gaping mouth. After a good long wait, a single drop fell into his mouth. “Aaah,” he said.

  “Get over here,” Bowman said. “You hold his reins. Hold ’em tight so he won’t shy away.”

  “Got ’im,” Geebee said.

  “Now I remember watching the smithy bleed a horse oncet. Used something like a pocketknife. Used a stick, too. Tapped the handle of that pocketknife until the blade was in a couple of inches. Then he turned the blade sideways and let the horse bleed a while. Looked purty easy. Bowman returned his Bowie to its sheath and dug in his pocket for his genuine Shear Company jackknife. He opened its spear-point blade, the one he kept razor sharp.

  “Maybe oughta stick him in the leg,” Geebee said. “You can see the blood vein real clear. See how it stands out?”

  Bowman opened the spear-point blade. “You hold ’im good, Geebee,” he said. “I’m gonna punch a hole in him.”

  “Do it, then,” Geebee said. “It ain’t gonna hurt the hoss that much.”

  Bowman put the spear-point blade in the middle of the protruding vein and gave it a push. It didn’t penetrate.

  “Damnation.”

  “Tap it with the handle of your Bowie knife?” Geebee said.

  “Hmph.” Bowman unsheathed his Bowie knife again. “I’ll do that,” he said. He placed the tip of the jack knife blade against the vein vertically. Then tapped the end sharply with the Bowie. The blade penetrated and blood wept from the little cut.

  “Now turn the jack knife sideways,” Geebee said.

  Bowman turned the knife so the blade was crosswise of the vein. The flow of blood increased. “Don’t just stand there,” he said, “fill the damn canteen.”

  Geebee stuck the neck of the canteen so the bay’s blood dribbled into its mouth. The bay horse stood still as if he’d been bled a hundred times and it was no more than a horsefly sting.

  At last Geebee said, “It’s full,” and pulled the heavy canteen away from the bay’s front leg.

  Bowman removed the jack knife blade from the bay’s leg and tied his neckerchief around the leg and over the cut. It stopped bleeding almost immediately. “Good boy,” Bowman said. He patted the bay on the neck. The horse stood with his head hanging, ignoring Bowman completely.

  “You drink some first,” Bowman said. “You’re used to horse blood.”

  Geebee tipped the canteen up and took two big swallows. “Aaah,” he said. He handed the canteen to Bowman.

  “Smells awful raw,” Bowman said.

  “It’s wet,” Geebee said. “That’s the most of it.”

  Bowman managed to ta
ke a mouthful. After a long time, he swallowed. Then gagged. But the horse blood stayed down. And after a few minutes, he took another swallow. He knocked the cork back into the canteen with the heel of his hand. “Wet,” he said, “but that’s about all a man can say for it.”

  “Won’t last long,” Geebee said. “Sours up purty quick. Prolly be best to swallow as much as we can right here, right now.”

  Bowman didn’t like the idea of a belly full of horse blood, but Geebee had a point. He nodded, and forced himself to take two more gulps of the blood. He handed the canteen to Geebee, who seemed to have no problem quaffing the blood.”

  “Where to?” Geebee said. “We don’t get started, we don’t get where we’re going.”

  Bowman started to cut Geebee down to size. Who ran the Shadow Box Gang anyhow? He pointed a finger at the Notch. “That’s Dead Man’s Notch. That ain’t the Muddy.” He turned and pointed due west. “Thataway.” He gathered up the bay’s reins, checked the loads in his six-gun, put Dead Man’s Notch to his back, and started walking.

  A careful circle all the way around the Shadow Box camp on the Muddy told Stryker that no one had come into the camp since his posse had passed two days before. Bowman and whoever was left in his gang had not been there.

  Stryker’s posse—himself, Gid Rockwell, and Fletcher Comstock—could hunt for Bowman, or … .

  Morning found them huddled by a tiny fire where Fletcher had brewed coffee in a four-cup pot.

  “Passable coffee, Fletcher. You’re becoming a passable trail hand.” Stryker wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  Comstock grunted.

  “The Shadow Box Gang had a running head start on us coming out of Dead Man’s Notch,” Stryker said. “But they ain’t showed up here.”

  “Who says they was coming here?” Rockwell said.

  “Where else would they go?”

  “Straight south. Hit the Virgin along the line, then go to Calleville.”

  “Possible. But I didn’t see nothing that could a been sixty pounds of gold. To me that says the treasure is hid somewhere between this camp and Dead Man’s Notch. And I figure it’s closer to here than to the Notch.”