by Ralph Cotton
Seeing Sherman Dahl spring up in the midst of rifle fire and take off behind the fleeing outlaw, Louis Collingsworth asked above the explosions, “What the hell’s got into that schoolmaster all of a sudden?”
“Beats me!” shouted Margood, firing and levering his rifle without missing a beat.
Near the horses, Will Summers lay firing at the two outlaws still trapped in the center of the campsite with only the two bullet-riddled saddles for cover. In the racket of gunfire and the commotion of men locked in battle, the line of horses reared frantically against their ropes. At the other end of the line of horses lay Abner Webb, also firing at the two outlaws. But as he stopped to reload, Lester Odell and Davis Gant took advantage of the lessening of bullets kicking up dirt around them. They rose up as one into a crouch amid the continuing fire from the other possemen. Snatching up the saddles as shields, they bolted out into the greater darkness, a sawed-off shotgun swung on a strip of rawhide down Davis Gant’s back.
“Stay after them, men!” Will Summers bellowed, still firing at the fleeing figures as he came to his feet. “Don’t let them get away!” He ran over to Abner Webb and pulled him to his feet as the rest of the men gave chase to the outlaws. “You okay, Deputy?” Summers asked.
“I’m all right. What about you?” Abner Webb gave himself a once-over, brushing dust from his shirt front and feeling for any wounds he might have missed in the heat of battle. “We better get with them, Will!” He levered a fresh round into his hot rifle chamber and turned to take off behind the other men. But Summers grabbed his arm, stopping him.
“Take it easy, Deputy. Let these men feel like they’re earning their keep.”
“But they’ll get themselves killed,” Webb protested.
“No, they won’t. Not unless they run off a cliff. Vertrees’ men are hightailing now. They won’t stop till they figure they gave us the slip.” He let out a breath and looked all around. But before he could relax, they both heard the sound of someone dragging something through the brush. “Who goes there?” shouted Summers, aiming his rifle.
“It’s me, Dahl. Don’t shoot,” said the young schoolmaster. “I’m bringing one in…. I think it’s Vertrees himself.”
“Vertrees?” said Summers, giving Abner Webb a surprised look in the flicker of low firelight. “This teacher’s starting to impress me,” he added under his breath.
“Bring him on over here, Dahl,” said Abner Webb. “Let’s take a look at him.” In the brush fifty yards off to their right, they heard the possemen yelling and firing as the two outlaws fled on foot. A blast of Davis Gant’s sawed-off shotgun resounded loudly through the brush.
“Yep,” Will Summers said, stooping down over the body when Dahl brought it and laid it on the ground. He took a close look at the dead face with a long veil of blood stretching halfway down the chest from beneath the stubbled chin. “That’s Dick Vertrees all right,” said Summers. The surprised look on his face matched his surprised voice. “You—you cut him like this, schoolteacher?” he asked, sounding even more stunned.
“I had to,” said Sherman Dahl. “It turned into a risky situation.
“I bet it did,” said Summers, looking him up and down.
Dahl continued. “I chased another man into the brush toward the horses. He slipped away in the dark, but this one was hiding nearby. I didn’t know how many more might be around. So to keep quiet, I chose the knife. That was all I could do,” he added with finality.
Will Summers looked at the deep, perfect gash across Dick Vertrees’ throat. “This wasn’t your first time using a blade though, was it?” he asked in a somber tone.
“No,” said the young schoolteacher. “I’m a veteran of the Civil War: fought in the Wilderness Campaign. Saw a lot of action as a forward scout.”
“Forward scout would have been my guess,” said Summers, turning his eyes away from Dick Vertrees’ slit throat and up to Dahl’s solemn, cold blue eyes. “Who’d you fight for, the North or the South?”
“That’s right,” said Sherman Dahl bluntly. He stared at Will Summers until at length it became apparent to Summers that further information would not be forthcoming.
“Either one, you do good work, teacher,” Summers offered. They turned at the sound of winded voices and brush scraping against trouser legs. The possemen came trotting in one and two at a time from the darkness like hounds fresh off a scent.
“Collingsworth and Edmund Daniels caught one of them bushwhacking rats, Deputy!” said Carl Margood, out of breath, his rifle dangling in his hand. “They’re dragging him in right now!” As he spoke, he caught sight of Dick Vertrees’ pale face, the vacant, wide-open eyes seeming to stare up at him. “Lord God! Quick, boys, come look at this!” Carl Margood exclaimed, his breath heaving in his chest. “Somebody’s nearly cleaved this one’s danged head off!”
The men gathered, looking down at the grisly sight on the ground at their feet. “Oh no!” said Wild Joe Duvall, throwing a hand over his mouth and looking away.
“Joe? Are you all right?” Abner Webb asked.
“Huh-uh,” Joe grunted, shaking his head, not looking at the deputy. “I’m…not feeling so good.”
“Then get off into the brush,” Will Summers insisted. “We’re going to be sleeping here tonight.”
Wild Joe hurried away, his right hand planted firmly against his puffed out cheeks.
Hearing the angry, winded voices coming out of the brush, Abner Webb and Will Summers turned and saw Louis Collingsworth and Edmund Daniels throw Davis Gant into the dimly lit campsite. “You’re making one damn bad mistake, you bunch of square-headed sonsabitches!” Gant cursed. “I was just passing through the tree line and heard the ruckus going on! That’s the truth, so help me God!”
“Oh yeah?” said Collingsworth. He raised his panting voice to the rest of the men. “Somebody get a rope! He started out just passing through the tree line…. We’ll put him right back where we found him. Only this time, he’ll be hanging from a limb!”
“Easy, Collingsworth,” said Webb. “Don’t get carried away. He’s a prisoner now; he’s under my custody. There’ll be no hanging while I’m in charge.”
“Like hell,” said Collingsworth. “He’s killed Ike Stevens. Go look for yourself. Are you the one who’s going to face Ike’s woman and boy and tell them this skunk is still alive while poor Ike’s lying with dirt on his face?”
“Ike Stevens is dead?” Abner Webb looked all around.
“Here he is, Deputy,” said Miles Michaels, the blacksmith. “He ain’t far from it.”
The men stepped to one side so Webb could get through them to where two men had just laid Ike Stevens on the ground near the low fire. “It’s true, Deputy,” Ike Stevens said in a failing voice, both hands clasped to the gaping hole in his stomach where he’d caught the full blast from a load of buckshot. “I’m all numb down both…legs. I’m missing…some stuff down here.” He nodded grimly at the surging stomach wound, then lay back, trying to clasp it shut with both hands.
“Oh good Lord, Ike,” said Deputy Webb, looking away from the terrible wound. “What can I do? Tell me what to do for you!”
“Get me home…and buried, first thing,” Ike Stevens murmured, his breath becoming more shallow and weak. “Tell Martha…tell my boy…tell them—” He struggled for a second, seeking one last gasp of air. But when it didn’t come to him, he relaxed with a long sigh and settled limply on the dirt.
“I ain’t the one who gut-shot him. I swear to God I ain’t!” Davis Gant pleaded.
“You rotten, murdering son of a—!” Louis Collingsworth hurled himself at Gant, his spread fingers plunging toward the outlaw’s eyes like an eagle’s talons.
“No!” Abner Webb caught Collingsworth and held him back. “He’s a prisoner!”
“Let me go, Deputy!” Collingsworth screamed.
“String that bastard up!” one of the men cried out.
All of the men advanced on Davis Gant at once, forcing Abner Webb to turn C
ollingsworth loose and take a stand between them and Gant.
“Men, you can’t lynch him! I won’t have it!” Abner Webb shouted. He tossed a worried glance at Will Summers for support. “Will, come on! Do something here! Help me out!” The men pressed closer.
Ted Logsdon, the barber, had hurried over to his horse and now came back waving a coiled-up rope. “Let’s see how he likes wearing this straight to hell!”
“Lay the rope down, barber,” said Summers. “You won’t be using it tonight.”
“You’ve got no authority to stop me,” said Logsdon, gripping the rope tighter and staring into Summers’ eyes.
“I know that,” Summers said calmly. “I’m just appealing to your good sense.”
Davis Gant let out a dark chuckle, seeing Will Summers draw his pistol and cock it. “There you go, Summers,” Gant said. “You can’t let these square-headed poltroons hang me, can you?”
Summers turned to Davis Gant, his gun cocked and held at arm’s length. “So long, Gant,” he said.
“Hunh?” Gant looked confused. Ted Logsdon jumped away.
The bullet hit the outlaw in the center of his forehead and flipped him backward, a long ribbon of blood spouting from the back of his head and turning into a wide spray.
“God almighty!” Abner Webb shouted, startled. Davis Gant’s warm blood splattered his face. In the chilled night air, steam swirled from the hole in Gant’s head.
“Sorry, Deputy,” said Will Summers. “You was standing too close.”
In the tense silence, the possemen stood stunned, their eyes wide, their mouths agape. Will Summers lowered the pistol back into his holster. He looked from one to the other of the men. “What’re you looking at? You were going to hang him, weren’t you? He had to pay up for Ike Stevens, didn’t he? Now it’s done.”
“It’s done, Will, but my God,” said Webb, wiping blood from his face.
“What?” Will Summers looked back and forth between Webb and the other possemen. “Now none of you can stand the sight of blood?” He stared at each man in turn. “You better take a good look at this man lying here…. Then you better look at yourself as well. This ain’t no child’s game we’re playing out here. Men bleed and die here!” He gestured a hand toward Ike Stevens. “There’s what death looks like up close. It’s bloody and terrible, and it stinks to high hell. Turn Ike over, five to one says he’s shit himself!”
The men looked at one another and milled uneasily in place.
“You don’t like hearing about that, do you?” Will Summers continued. “But you’ll all do the same thing out here if somebody puts a bullet in you. You better remember that before you go any further with this.”
“Damn it, Will, what are you doing?” Webb asked, trying to get him to shut up. “These men just fought one hell of a fight. Don’t take that away from them.”
“I’m not taking nothing from them,” said Summers. “You men fought and won. But then winning wasn’t enough for you. Then you needed to see somebody hang!” He pointed again to the body of the outlaw on the ground. “Well, there he is. He’s not been hanged, but he’s as dead as I can make him for you. Is everybody satisfied?”
“That was nothing but stone-cold murder, Summers,” said Ned Trent, his broken nose still affecting his voice.
“Oh, was it, Trent? But you saw something right in hanging him?” Summers stepped forward, grabbed Trent by his coat and jerked him forward, forcing him to stoop down over Davis Gant’s body. “There now, tell us what you see!”
“Turn me loose, Summers!” Trent protested.
“I said tell us, Trent!” Summers insisted. Holding Trent firmly, Summers reached down with his boot toe and kicked Davis Gant’s closed hand. A small derringer pistol fell into the dirt and glinted in the flickering firelight.
“Oh, Jesus,” said Ned Trent, his voice sounding shaky all of a sudden. “He was holding a hideout gun…. One of us was fixing to die before this was over.”
“Thank you, Trent!” said Will Summers, turning him loose with a shove. “That’s right, men,” he added, looking back and forth among them again. “One of us was going to die before this was over.” He let the hard cast of his eyes convey the gravity of his words to each of the townsmen. “These are dangerous men we’re hunting. Do you think they give up, call it quits, just because you’ve managed to catch them?” He shook his head. “No…that’s not the way it works. They die bloody, fighting and clawing like a wildcat. They’re a danger to you as long as there’s a single breath left in them. When you wound one, you better wound him bad, then keep both eyes on him.”
“We made a simple mistake, Summers,” said Edmund Daniels, both of his eyes still swollen and dark from his fistfight with Abner Webb. “Quit making it seem like—”
“A simple mistake?” Summers cut him off. “You were all so broken up over Ike Stevens and so full of yourselves over catching the man who shot him that you didn’t even search him down good before you brought him back here. You stupid bunch of peckerwoods!”
“Take it easy, Will,” said Abner Webb. “We all get your point now. These men aren’t experienced lawmen. They never pretended to be. They’re just hardworking, everyday citizens. They done the best they could.”
Will Summers ignored him and spoke to the men. “While you good, hardworking, everyday citizens were busy deciding whether or not to hang Davis Gant, he’d already decided clear as day what he was going to do. He’d made up his mind that he was going to take one more of us with him.”
“All right, Summers,” said Edmund Daniels, still trying to finish what he’d started to say. “We all made a mistake here not searching this outlaw. But it’s over now, and we all learned from it.”
“I sure as hell hope so, Daniels,” said Will Summers, sounding disgusted as he turned and walked away. At the edge of the campsite, he said over his shoulder to Sherman Dahl, “Schoolteacher, you and Bobby Dewitt come with me. Let’s see if we can bring in their horses.”
As Sherman Dahl and Bobby Dewitt hurried to join him, Will Summers said to the rest of the men, “I smelled whiskey on at least four of you. Come morning, any whiskey left over is going into the fire. Drink it while you got it, right, Webb?”
“Who the hell does Summers think he is?” a muffled voice asked among the men. The men turned their attention to Abner Webb to hear his take on things.
“Summers is right about the whiskey, men,” said Deputy Webb. “This is neither the time nor the place to be drinking hard liquor. You all see what’s at stake here.” He nodded at Ike Stevens’ body. “We’ve already lost one good man. Let’s do whatever we’ve got to do to keep from losing any more.”
PART 2
Chapter 9
Deputy Abner Webb awakened before dawn to the quiet sounds of men readying their horses for the trail. Standing up from his blanket, he looked across the campfire at Will Summers and Sherman Dahl, who sat drinking coffee with solemn expressions. Behind Summers and Dahl, on the other side of the campsite, the townsmen were raising Ike Stevens’ blanket-wrapped body across a saddle. “What’s going on here?” Webb asked Summers and Dahl, rubbing sleep from his eyes with both hands. “I said we’d break camp at first light.”
“Yep, that’s what you said all right.” Will Summers tossed a disgusted glance over his shoulder at the townsmen, then looked back at Webb. “They’re all leaving. I reckon they were hoping to get out of here without having to face you.”
“Damn it!” Webb jerked his hat up from the ground and jammed it down on his head. “And you was just going to sit there? Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“Don’t get yourself all worked up,” said Summers. “We wouldn’t have let them leave without you knowing it.” He shrugged. “We just figured to let you sleep until they were ready to travel.”
“Well, that’s damn considerate of you,” said Webb, raising his gunbelt from beneath his saddle and quickly throwing it around his hips. As he fastened his belt buckle, he looked at Sherman Dahl and asked,
“What about you, schoolteacher? Are you cutting out too?”
“No,” said Dahl. “Mr. Summers and I have discussed it. I’m continuing on with you.”
“So am I,” said Edmund Daniels, his voice coming from the outer circle of firelight. Webb turned to face him. Daniels sat cleaning a rifle, his swollen eyes looking strange and demonlike in the thin, flickering firelight. “I plan on being with you every step of the way,” Daniels said with resolve, the end of the sentence punctuated by his hand levering a cartridge into his rifle chamber. Abner Webb just stared at him for a tense second.
“The cowboy is staying with us too,” said Summers. “He’s just helping the men get Stevens’ body ready for the trail.”
Webb looked over at the townsmen and saw Bobby Dewitt tying the blanketed corpse down to the saddle. The townsmen avoided Webb’s stare and busied themselves with their horses. “Forget them, Deputy,” said Summers. “All they would do is get themselves killed out here. We’re better off without them.”
“The Peltrys have a dozen or more men,” said Webb. “What chance will the five of us have against them?”
While Summers and Webb talked, the townsmen finished preparing for their ride back to Rileyville. They spoke to one another in a huddle for a moment, then led their horses over closer to the campfire. Keeping his eyes lowered, Ted Logsdon spoke on the townsmen’s behalf. “Deputy, we don’t want you thinking this is any reflection on you. We just figured since we need to take Ike Stevens’ body back to Rileyville anyway, this is a good place to call a halt to hunting the Peltrys. We’re all tired, and we need to get back to our homes and families.”
“Jesus, Logsdon,” said Webb. “We’ve only been gone two days! As far as hunting the Peltrys, we haven’t even gotten started. One little run-in with some gunrunners, and you men give up? I can’t believe what I’m hearing!”
“We’re not making excuses, Deputy,” Logsdon continued. “I can’t afford to be away any longer. I’ve got a business that needs to be run.”
