by Ralph Cotton
“He’s gone…fishing,” Abner said, dropping his voice to prevent the townsfolk from hearing him.
“Gone fishing!” Goose Peltry bellowed, laughing aloud and looking around at the sour expressions on the faces of the silent citizenry. “Lord God, folks, did you hear that? Here you people are on the very edge of death and destruction, and damned if your sheriff ain’t gone off fishing!” He gestured down at Abner Webb with his pistol barrel. “One’s off fishing. The other’s laid up in a buckboard with another man’s wife! What sort of terrible place have we stumbled into, brother Moses?”
“Get yourself under control or so help me I’ll bust your head wide open!” Moses warned his brother, his voice lowered to carry just between the two of them.
“Hold on now, Moses,” Goose Peltry responded, the humor leaving his voice quickly. “I don’t take no more head bustings from you or nobody else.” His hand tightened on his pistol butt.
Moses’ nostrils flared. He took a step toward his brother as the helpless townsfolk looked on fearfully. But before Moses could say anything, Frank Spragg called out from the open door of the livery barn. “Moses! Goose! You better come quick! Somebody has knocked the holy hell out of Smitson!”
“Is he dead?” Moses called out.
“No, but his eyes might be crossed from now on,” Spragg replied.
Beside Spragg, Gilbert Metts appeared with Smitson’s arm looped over his shoulder. Smitson’s head bobbed up and down as if attached by a loose spring.
“Damn it all,” said Moses Peltry, looking back and forth along the dirt street. “This is what happens when we stand around here jawing and threatening people. We should be loaded and gone by now.”
“Want us to go help them tote Smitson over here?” asked one of the men still atop his horse.
“Sit still, all of you,” said Moses. The gunmen watched in silence as Metts and Spragg dragged Smitson along the street and lowered him to the ground. For a moment, Smitson managed to wobble back and forth on his knees. But then he crumbled to the ground, blood running down the swollen split along his jawline. Moses and Goose both winced at the sight of it.
Moses looked at Spragg and Metts. “Any horses in the barn?”
“None worth feeding,” said Spragg.
“Every stall door is wide open,” said Metts. “So’s the rear door. Looks like somebody saw us coming and cleaned out every good horse in town.”
“Well now, ain’t you clever!” Goose shouted, keeping his voice loud enough to be heard anywhere along the dirt street. “Hear me good…. If you don’t come leading them horses back here right now, we’ll just start shooting people dead in the street!”
A gasp rose up from the townsfolk. They appeared ready to bolt away in every direction. “Nobody move!” shouted Moses Peltry, stepping around his brother and staring down at Abner Webb. “Who did it? Who took off with the horses?”
Abner Webb looked bewildered for a second. Then he remembered Will Summers’ string of good riding stock from Bently. “Those were a trader’s horses,” said Webb. “Nobody took off with them. He must’ve just left town before you rode in. You can’t blame the whole town for that.”
“Oh?” Goose stepped in closer, Moses’ arm holding him back from Abner Webb. “Then how the hell did Smitson’s jaw get splattered all over his face?”
“I have no idea who hit him,” said Webb, looking up at Moses Peltry as he answered Goose’s question. “Don’t kill any of these people; they had nothing to do with—”
“Shut up!” Moses shouted. “I’ll say who we kill or don’t kill here.” He looked along the line of frightened faces. Then he said to Goose, “Get these men started cleaning out the stores. Any horse at the hitch rails worth taking, get them gathered up.” He looked back down at Abner Webb. “Who’s the trader?”
“I don’t know,” said Webb, stalling for a second while he figured out whether or not there was any harm in telling him.
“You better think real hard,” Moses warned, cocking his pistol as he lifted it from the holster across his stomach.
“All right, hold on,” said Webb. “I believe his name is Summers.”
“Summers?” said Goose Peltry, jerking his attention back to Abner Webb. “You mean Will Summers?” Goose looked off across the grassy hillside west of town as he spoke, as if searching for any sign of Summers and the string of horses.
“Yes,” said Webb, “I think that’s his name.” Abner Webb studied the expression that swept over Goose and Moses Peltry’s faces.
“Well, I’ll be double dog damned,” said Goose, still looking all around.
“One thing for sure,” said Moses. “If they belong to Will Summers, it’s just as well we didn’t take them. We’d have to fool with him for the next month…else blow his fool head off.”
“So?” said Goose. “I don’t mind blowing his fool head off. Fact is, I’d kinda enjoy doing it.”
“Sure you would,” Moses said, sounding sarcastic. He turned to the gunmen. “All right, men, let’s get busy. Strip these stores down…grub, guns, ammunition, anything you see worth taking.”
“Don’t forget—we like cash money too,” said Goose. He looked back at Moses. “What about shooting a few of these folks just for good measure? Leave them lying dead in the street for Will Summers to see in case he rides back this way.”
“No,” said Moses. “I got a better idea. Get everything we want loaded up.”
“All right. Then what?” Goose asked expectantly.
“Then get some kerosene, lamp oil or whatever’s on hand,” said Moses.
“Yeah,” said Goose Peltry with a wide, cruel grin, a dark gleam coming into his eyes. “I hear ya, brother Moses! Let’s burn this place to a pile of cinders…every last store, house and privy jake!”
“Huh-uh,” said Moses. “Not everything. We burn everything, these men have nothing left to lose. We’ll burn just enough to keep everybody too busy to follow us.”
“You’re always thinking, Moses,” Goose said with admiration. He turned to the gathered townsfolk. “After today, if anybody asks you who burnt this town, you tell them Will Summers done it. Whatever we do, you’ve got him to thank for it.”
On his knee in the dirt, Abner Webb stared at the ground and shook his bowed head.
Chapter 2
In the small, rough-plank schoolhouse a half mile from the edge of town, schoolmaster Sherman Dahl hushed the two dozen excited students and continued to listen closely beyond the strip of shaded white oak surrounding the schoolyard. After a moment, when he’d heard no more gunfire, he turned to the children, who had assembled at the far end of the long single room near the door.
“Everybody pay attention,” he said, raising his voice. “I have no idea what the shooting was about, but apparently it has ceased. Since we don’t know what to expect, we are going to venture to the edge of town, single file, and see what we can find out. Each and every one of us is going to behave. Isn’t that right, Eddie?” He raised a thin finger for emphasis, his gaze fixing on a red-haired ten-year-old boy who stood poking another child in the ribs, using his finger as a pistol barrel.
“Stop it, Eddie,” the other child hissed.
“I said, isn’t that right, Eddie Duvall?” Sherman Dahl’s voice took on a louder, more impatient edge.
“Yes, Mr. Dahl,” Eddie Duvall said grudgingly.
“Very good, children,” Sherman Dahl said. “I want all of you to stay close together. Do not get out of line without my permission.”
A thin hand shot up. “Yes, sir,” said a thin lad wearing thick spectacles, “but what if it’s scalp-raising wild red Indians come to kill every one of us?”
“Take your hand down, Joel.” Sherman Dahl offered a short, calming smile. “I assure you, if there’s any wild Indians out there, I will give everybody permission to leave the line immediately.”
“Don’t worry. If it’s wild red Indians, my pa probably already shot them down,” Eddie Duvall boasted.
&nb
sp; Joel Stevens nodded, seemingly reassured. The other children nodded in quiet agreement.
Drawing a key from his vest pocket, Sherman Dahl walked over to his battered oak desk. He bent down to a lower drawer and unlocked it. Concealing his actions from the children, he slid the bottle of rye whiskey to one side, reached farther back and picked up the loaded army Colt. He turned his back to the class, checked the pistol quickly and shoved it behind his belt, smoothing his vest down over its butt. He buttoned his suit coat, then closed the drawer and locked it, reminding himself how good a shot of the rye would taste. “All right, children: Form a line behind Constance Melton, and let’s proceed in an orderly manner.”
It would have been safer perhaps to keep the children in the schoolhouse, Sherman Dahl told himself. Yet now that the shooting seemed to have stopped, something compelled him to go investigate. With young Constance Melton leading the line of children a few yards behind him, Dahl kept a cautious gaze beyond the sparse stretch of white oaks between the schoolhouse and the edge of town.
“Whatever the shooting was about,” said Eddie Duvall, “I bet my pa took care of it if he was there.” A murmur of whispers rose up from the boys.
“Keep it down back there,” said Sherman Dahl in a hushed tone of voice. “Don’t make me tell you again.” Ahead Dahl saw the first rise of dark smoke lift up above the hillside. As he continued on, other rises of smoke joined upward on a sidelong drift of wind. “Oh my goodness,” Dahl said under his breath. When he’d led the children a few yards farther along the path, he heard the sound of horses’ hooves and the crack of a wagon whip. A man’s voice gave a loud “Yee-hiii,” and Sherman Dahl quickly shooed the children off the dirt path into the shelter of the trees as the first riders appeared above the roll of the hillside.
“Everybody duck down and remain quiet!” Dahl ordered. “Don’t let them see you!” But it was too late. At the front of the riders, Goose Peltry and Frank Spragg caught a glimpse of Dahl’s coattail as he tried to duck out of sight.
“Well now, what have we here?” Goose Peltry said, grinning, his voice in time to his horse’s loping gait. Three small faces peeped out from behind an oak tree then jerked back out of sight. “Looks like we’re about to be ambushed, brother Moses.”
Nudging his horse up between Goose and Frank Spragg, Moses caught sight of the schoolhouse in the distant clearing. “I saw them, Goose. They’re just kids…from that schoolhouse, I’d wager.”
“Hell, brother Moses, of course I see they’s just kids,” said Goose. “I’m just having a little sport on such a lovely day. Come on, Frank,” he said to Frank Spragg. “Let’s scare the hell out of that little schoolmarm.”
“That weren’t no marm,” said Frank Spragg. “It looked like a man to me.”
“What’s the difference?” Goose laughed. “If he ain’t a woman, I bet he’s always wanted to be.” He spurred his horse’s sides.
“Hold it, Goose!” said Moses Peltry, but his brother had already ridden forward, Frank Spragg right beside him.
On the path alongside the white oaks, Goose Peltry raised his pistol from his holster and cocked it. Beside him, Frank Spragg did the same. As the rest of the riders caught up to them, Goose called out to the hidden faces, “All of you in there, come out with your hands raised.” He shot Spragg a wink and quick grin. “Any false move, and it’ll be your last!”
“Please don’t shoot,” said Sherman Dahl, stepping out from behind an oak, his hands up. “There’s only some schoolchildren in here…. They’re no danger to you.”
“Oh? Well, you don’t look like a school kid to me,” said Goose Peltry. “Get over here closer…. Keep them hands raised.” Then he called out to the children as Sherman Dahl moved closer, “You heard your schoolmarm—get on out here. Else I’ll take the top of his head off!”
“Schoolmarm?” Constance Melton whispered to the other children strung out alongside her on the ground behind a rising edge of rock and earth.
“We better get out there,” said Joel Stevens, his voice quivering in fright.
“No. Sit tight,” Eddie Duvall whispered harshly.
“But you heard him,” said Joel Stevens. “He’ll shoot Mr. Dahl!”
“Quit the yapping,” said Goose Peltry, “and get out here before I commence peppering the woods with bullets!”
Moses and the other riders pulled their horses up to a halt around Goose and Frank Spragg. “What’s going on here?” Moses asked impatiently.
“Nothing,” said Goose. “Just some kids fixing to see this fool shot all to pieces”—he raised his voice to the white oaks—”if they don’t do like they’re told and get out here!”
“Children, listen carefully and do as I tell you,” said Sherman Dahl, taking note of the dozen heavily armed riders, some of them dressed in ragged Confederate issue. Many of them carried cavalry sabers and field rifles strapped to their saddles. “Raise your hands and step out far enough for these men to see that we mean them no harm.”
Behind the riders, Dahl saw a large freight wagon loaded high with supplies and arms. A long string of horses stood tied to the end of the wagon. His eyes went from Goose to Moses Peltry, sensing instinctively that this was the real leader. “I trust, sir, that you won’t harm innocent children.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the swelling dark cloud of drifting smoke from town and heard the shouting of townsmen as he pictured them trying to subdue the licking flames.
“Bring them out,” said Moses Peltry in a firm tone. “No harm will come to them.”
Goose Peltry didn’t like being bypassed for his brother, especially in front of all the men. He seethed and pointed his cocked pistol at Sherman Dahl. “No harm will come to them, but you’re a different story if you don’t do like you’ve been told!”
There was a calmness to the schoolmaster that Goose Peltry resented. Even as the man turned and waved the children in around him, he didn’t seem frightened enough to satisfy Goose. “You. Schoolmarm…Get over here. I want to see you sweat!”
Moses Peltry stared, knowing he could stop his brother at any time. Something about this young schoolmaster seemed to say that Goose was in for a disappointment. Sherman Dahl stepped closer as the children drifted forward warily, their eyes wide with fright and excitement. “That’s close enough, schoolmarm,” Goose instructed. Sherman Dahl stopped three feet from Goose’s horse. Goose gave him a nasty grin. “Now, did anybody say you could talk to my brother instead of me?”
“No, sir,” Sherman Dahl offered in a submissive voice.
“What’s your name, schoolmarm?” Goose asked.
“Dahl, sir…. Sherman Dahl.”
“Dahl, you cut a poor example for these younguns, speaking out of turn that way.” He half turned in his saddle and said to two of the riders, “Thurman, Roscoe, you two take your can of coal oil, get over there and stick some fire into that schoolhouse. There’s too damn many Yankees can read and write as it is.” The two riders spurred their horses off toward the empty schoolhouse, both of them whooping aloud.
“Sir, please,” said Sherman Dahl. “I beg you; don’t burn down our school. It belongs to these children! Many of them even helped build it with their own han—”
“Shut up, schoolmarm!” Goose Peltry snapped, his hand tightening on his pistol butt. “You should have thought of that before you talked right past me.” As they spoke, the two riders prodded their horses upward into the small plank building, both of them slinging small coal oil tins back and forth.
“Yes, sir. You’re right,” Dahl said, speaking fast, hoping against fate that there was still time for the leaders to call the two men back. “It was a rash and ill-considered thing for me to do. I—I apologize, sir.”
“Oh, you do, huh?” As Goose spoke, he maneuvered his horse around sideways to the helpless schoolmaster. At the schoolhouse, the two riders reappeared, jumping their horses out the front door as flames began to lick upward out of the open windows. “Well, I think an apology ain’t going to get it
done. Your manners are in sore need of correcting!”
Seeing the schoolhouse aflame, Sherman Dahl felt a sickness down deep in his stomach. Behind him he heard the younger children sobbing, and he heard Constance Melton trying to comfort them. There was nothing Dahl could do now to keep this dangerous situation from getting any worse but accept what had happened and remain as calm as possible.
“I reckon that makes you fighting mad, don’t it, schoolmarm?” said Goose Peltry. “Bet you’d like to take out on my head right here and now, eh?”
“No, sir,” said Sherman Dahl. “I’m not a fighter. Not me, sir. I only want to take these children away from here.”
“I bet you do,” said Goose Peltry. The two riders slid their horse back in among the others as the schoolhouse became engulfed in high, swirling flames.
“All right, Goose,” said Moses Peltry. “You’ve had your fun. Now let him go.”
Fun…? This was fun to them? Sherman Dahl felt the bitter taste of dark anger rise at the back of his throat. He swallowed hard and managed to keep himself in check.
“Just one more thing, brother Moses,” Goose said.
Dahl saw Goose’s boot shift back an inch in the stirrup. He saw what was coming and could only prepare himself to take it. Even with the pistol shoved down in his belt behind his suit coat, Dahl knew he was powerless to take action, lest he cause harm to the children.
“Maybe this will teach you!” shouted Goose Peltry, his boot jerking back out of the stirrup and snapping forward, kicking Sherman Dahl full in the face.
Dahl fell backward; the children gasped. But Moses saw that the schoolmaster hadn’t taken as hard a blow as it looked. Moses had seen the way the young teacher had managed to roll back away from the kick, taking it at a glance instead of full impact. Pretty quick and savvy for a schoolmaster, Moses thought, seeing Sherman Dahl roll up from the ground onto one knee, his hands going up to cover his mouth. Yet looking closely, Moses saw no blood seep down behind his fingers. A kick that hard could have cost a man a couple of teeth, Moses thought.
