Alkali shrugged as he pulled himself up into his saddle. I noticed he had strapped a brace of huge pistols over the pommel.
“Let’s get goin,’” he said.
As though he had heard and understood, Useless came loping out of the house to trot behind us, having licked the dishes clean.
As we rode away I twisted in the saddle, unable to keep my eyes from the astounding sight. Thirty beautiful horses bounded off across the plain headed north, the sun in their wavy manes.
Later
We have stopped to rest our animals within sight of Sorefoot. As Alkali predicted, it is nearly nightfall. Soon Plenty Skins will go to his duty, and Alvin to his. Alvin is to break into the telegraph office and dash off a message to the federal Marshal in Bastrop asking for help, as he is the only one among us who is adept at its operation. I say a prayer for all of us, for our success and our survival.
CHAPTER 15
Dr. Riley Ravell’s Diary
Aug 29th
This town is going straight to hell.
John Gridley contracted syphilis. Told him to stay out of the cribs over at the Sunup, but he knew better I guess. That isn’t the half of it. Tonight Aurelius Firebaugh busted into the jailhouse and shot Rufus and one of those Scandinavians and loosed Cole Morris and Ranny Brogan. They are now on the run with a posse of Skoll’s boys after them.
Everybody has heard by now how Skoll got Cole and Ranny arrested on the charge of murdering that fellow Thorsen, and most see it for the bunco it surely is. Don’t know if it’s got to do with the row that went on at Skoll’s place or what, but it has escalated far beyond all of that now. Some are saying Skoll’s big boys chased the Q&M waddies all the way back to the Morris spread and burned them out of the big house. Nobody knows if any of them were killed or not, but most of the Scandinavians came back without anything to show for it.
I had thought this town had progressed beyond mob rule and night riding. Guess I was premature. Rufus and Judge Krumholtz are either in cahoots with Skoll or they have been bullied into cooperation. The Judge sits in his house and drinks while Ettie Krumholtz prays at the church with Parson Loon despite their difference in theological perspective. My wife is there too, and most of the other ladies in town. I suspect they are all praying that the Lord reneges on the blessings they asked Him to lay on Skoll after he shot down Harley Crenshaw.
Well, I had been walking home after spending too much time handling John Gridley’s ‘case’ and thinking how things were getting trumped out of proportion. Around then I heard the shouts of ‘fire’ and saw George Sagramore and the Negro woman he employed running about like a couple of headless turkeys in front of their grain shack, which was lit up and smoking like the Devil’s own shitter. Teller Carlson came running out of the Sunup with a bucket of water and the whore Whey-Belly Mary was right behind him with another. Dave Reed and Puff Tammany and Tim Morton all came running over, so I figured the fire would be well in hand. Funny how a fellow can rally an entire county to his call of ‘fire,’ and not turn up a single helpful soul if he shouts ‘help.’ I must have been the only one on the street headed in the opposite direction.
A few of the Scandinavians that had been sitting on the stoop in front of the jail went past me. I knew only that there was a fat chicken in the yard that I’d been imagining on my plate for the last week, and that after dealing with the intimate details of John Gridley’s romantic life I felt like wringing its neck and treating myself.
I had just about reached the corner when I heard breaking glass and saw a figure throw up the window of the telegraph office and crawl inside. I’m no coward, but I’ve seen my share of fighting and want nothing further to do with it. Anyway there is nothing to steal in the telegraph office. Jake Krebb takes the cashbox with him after closing, and usually spends the day’s profits at the Sunup unless his wife is there to intercept him.
Well, if I had taken the time to investigate the burglar at the telegraph, I might not have wound up in the fix I did.
Soon as I got to the corner, I saw a body of riders stop in front of the jail and go charging in with pistols out. It was dim in the lantern light, but by his hobble I recognized Aurelius Firebaugh out in front. There were two others besides him. I don’t know who they were, though I expect they must have been Q&M sympathizers. Knew right away what their business was and tried to hurry past, not wanting any stray bullets to keep me from my chicken dinner. I could see through the window of the jail that Rufus had got up from his desk and filled his hand as soon as they kicked in the door.
“Empty your hand, Rufus!” Firebaugh said.
“They’ll kill me, Alkali,” Rufus answered.
“You dumb brush popper, what the hell you think I’ll do?” said Firebaugh, and he fired.
Rufus fell to the floor, moaning and out of sight.
Then out of the dark doorway of the Picayune four men stepped quickly out into the street and headed for the jailhouse. They were Scandinavians (no bigger men exist in this part of the county) and they were armed.
Through the little lit window of the jailhouse I saw Firebaugh and his men stepping in totally unaware, hunting up Rufus’ keys.
I did a fool thing then, and I haven’t figured out exactly why. I dove behind the rain barrel that catches the run-off from the courthouse and gave out a yell for Alkali to watch out.
I didn’t see all that happened next, but I heard Firebaugh’s voice give a warning to his fellows in the jail followed immediately by an extended volley of shooting, both inside and out.
After that first exchange I dared a look and saw the four Scandinavians lying in the street. In the window of the jailhouse Cole was up against his bars with a pistol in hand. Alkali or one of the others had armed him and he had partaken in the fight.
I heard Rufus Shetland sobbing in the jail. Then:
“Cole, you alright?”
“Yeah. Get us out of this cage.”
One of the men that had gone in with Firebaugh rushed up to the cell door and fitted a key into the lock. He looked like an Indian.
Cole stepped out and looked down at what I guess must have been Rufus lying there hurt.
“Confound you, Rufus,” Cole said, “why’d you go and put up a fight? Do you work for Skoll now?”
“Not no more,” Rufus answered. “That I’ll admit. I just wanted to be sheriff, Cole. The Judge said...”
“You simple fool! How about the Judge? Is he Skoll’s boy too?”
“I can’t speak for him,” Rufus answered, sounding pitiful.
“Hey we gotta go, Cole,” hissed Alkali.
Cole lingered on Rufus for a moment before somebody passed him his hat, then the window was empty.
A horse came trotting up the side street right past my hiding spot. I plainly saw Alvin, and he was white as a sheet when he saw the dead men.
He looked like he was about to turn about and head out of town, but then the two men that had accompanied Alkali inside rushed out of the jail. Cole and Ranny Brogan were with them, Cole sporting a rifle and a bandolier of cartridges. Ranny tried to climb onto one of the big Scandinavian’s horses, but it nickered and pulled away from him.
Then there was another voice I recognized. That of the Dutchman, Van Helsing. He said;
“Do not trouble with that mount, Ranny. It will only serve its master.”
“I reckon you’re right,” Ranny said, and he and Alvin doubled up.
Alkali was the last to emerge, and he turned in the doorway and called inside in his usual blustery tone, “Keep quiet, Rufus, you damned turncoat, or I’ll bust another cap on you.”
Alkali took his time climbing onto his horse though the others seemed anxious to go, and I heard him remark, “We ought to go pay a visit to the Judge while we’re at it.”
“There’ll be plenty of time for that later,” Cole said.
“Alvin, did you...” Van Helsing began.
“Don’t worry about me, I did my part. Just hope Ruddles gets the damn message.
”
“Hope? Hah!” said the Dutchman. “A more resilient man has faith.”
“Whatever you say, Professor.”
Then to my surprise, one of the Scandinavians I had taken for dead in the street took a shot at the riders. I don’t know if he hit anything, but the next minute the whole lot of them went galloping west out of town.
By then the Scandinavians that had made for the fire came rushing up. The two men I’d believed dead got up from where they lay, and there were a lot of hot and angry words between both parties in their native tongue.
The Scandinavians seemed unsure of what to do, when two men on giant horses came up. One was Skoll, and the other, that red haired lawyer, Vulmere.
Skoll swung down from his saddle and stormed into the jail, ignoring the words of his men.
“Shetland! What happened here?”
Rufus answered in between nervous sobs. “It was Firebaugh and some others...they took ‘em out of here and rode west out of town...”
Skoll was already on the porch and yelling at his men in the street before Rufus finished. All the Scandinavians went for their horses and Skoll and Vulmere mounted up. Just like Van Helsing had said, those big horses were as facile as lambs when the big blondes took hold of them. They went tearing out of town in the direction Cole and Alkali and the others had taken.
Rufus stood in the doorway holding his bleeding shoulder and called after them, asking what he should do next.
I slipped away in the dark.
That damn chicken has been granted a stay. There is a helluva lot going on here, and Skoll is in the thick of it. I don’t like to think how Rufus became sheriff and how he is now under Skoll’s thumb. I don’t like to think about it, but I can’t help it. It has gone and ruined my appetite. Turlough was a lazy bastard, but he didn’t belong to anybody, not even Krumholtz. And after what Alkali said about paying a visit to Krumholtz...
I don’t know, but I hate to just sit here.
* * *
Telegraph from Alvin Crooker to Marshal Stan Ruddles
Dated August 29th
M. RUDDELS,
INA BED WAY. STOP. SHERIFF SHITLARD HAS DEPUTISED FORINNERS. STOP. COLE MORIS IN NAIL. STOP. NORRIS HOUSE HAS BEENBUNNED. STOP. SEND HELF RAIGHT AWAR. STOP.
A. CROKER
Telegraph to Operator, Sorefoot, from Operator, Bastrop
Dated August 30th
MESSAGE OF AUG 29 TO M. RUDDLES INCOMPLETE OR UNCLEAR. PLEASE RE-SEND.
CHAPTER 16
From the Pen of Alvin Crooker
30th Aug
Won’t be long now.
Don’t know why I’m even writing this account, except to give me something to do. No doubt this will be lost as soon as Skoll’s men make it down into the canyon. Van Helsing has pulled out those papers of Buckner’s and is sitting in the firelight trying to decipher them. When faced with mortality I expect each man reveals his true nature in how he opts to spend his final hours. I write (and drink).Van Helsing reads and puzzles. Plenty Skins sits staring into the fire and singing quietly. Alkali, despite having lost his pegleg and sporting a passel of cuts besides, is running a rag through his pistols. Cole... Well, there my poetic theory fails. Cole is asleep.
And Ranny Brogan is dead.
I guess there is time enough to write about all that.
We weren’t a mile out of Sorefoot when Skoll’s bunch came after us. I don’t know how many. All of them, I guess. Vulmere was there for certain. I could see his dark red head out front among all those blondes in the moonlight. Probably Skoll was beside him. We picked a helluva time for a breakout. At least the moon made the trail easy to see and the horses were sure footed.
We still had the advantage, our horses being quicker and lighter, but Ranny and I were doubled up, as were Van Helsing and the Indian. It wasn’t long before we were lagging behind. Our horse’s flanks lathered up quick. Soon I could hear the hooves of those giant horses behind us.
Then the shooting started. I’ve never pretended to be a man used to action. I was too young or too old for any wars, and any bravery under fire I’ve ever shown has usually up and bit me in the ass. The broken arm I got trying to ‘save’ Van Helsing is proof of that. I kept low against the neck of that horse as soon as the bullets started flying. I could hear them plopping into the dirt behind us. If our horse slowed a foot or more, those bullets would be relaxing square on our backs. The weight of the both of us got to be too much for the chocolate bobtail Ranny and I were on. It started panting like a winded bloodhound.
Then old Alkali, bless him, fell back and with the reins wrapped around his hook, pulled his pistol and took to firing behind us, discouraging the speed of the Scandinavians. Cole fell in line with him and did the same. The distance between our two parties became a no man’s land of flying lead. We slowed, but our pursuers dared not gain any more ground. One tried, and had horse shot out from under him. He is probably still hoofing it.
It was a hell-bent ride and the horses were one and all spent when we finally got to within walking distance of Misstep Canyon, just north of the road that went past Buckner’s shack. Our horse made a gurgling noise and fell dead, spilling Ranny and I to either side in the tall grass. The horse that carried Van Helsing and Plenty Skins died next, bleeding from its nose. Its game heart had burst in its breast.
Cole’s and Alkali’s ponies were no better off, and staggered as they were drawn up. Cole wasted no time in dismounting, and Alkali did the same. Their ponies wobbled off into the night, and if they fell somewhere out in the darkness we didn’t know.
Now the strength of those slow, massive Scandinavian horses became apparent. They were galloping up the road, relentless as locomotives with their second wind.
Alkali, Cole, and Ranny took up positions behind the fallen horses and bade us all lie down in the tall grass unless we were shooting. We got low, but not a man among us would lay his head to the earth. The barrels of our weapons gleamed like hunting adders in the grass, and spat poison when the big horses came in range.
The Scandinavians rode into a perplexity of bullets, and I saw a few of them crash down. Then Skoll’s voice bellowed a command in his guttural tongue and the other riders pulled back across the road and became fleeing, indistinct shadows.
Though one of the big horses lay twitching in the road, its blood black in the silver light of the moon, I saw no human bodies.
“Don’t let up, boys,” urged Cole, already reloading. “They’ll be coming.”
“Yes,” said Van Helsing. “But not as men. Not on horses.”
Plenty Skins nodded grimly.
“The Professor’s right. They’ll come as wolves.”
Alkali glanced back over his shoulder.
“If we can get down into that canyon we can find cover and pick the sons of bitches off as they come down.”
“They’ll never let us,” I whispered. “If we creep back they’ll just get us in the dark.”
“They’ll get us if we stay, Alvin,” Cole said.
“Not if one of us waits here and keeps ‘em busy,” Ranny said, and his voice was barely a whisper he was so scared.
“I’ll stay,” Alkali said almost immediately. He’d had the foresight to swing his pommel scabbards off of his horse before he let it go, and now he had one of the big irons in his fist. He was a game old buzzard.
“No, I think I better, Mr. Firebaugh,” said Ranny, his voice breaking like a fishing line in his bobbing throat.
When we looked to see the cause of his distress, he lifted one hand from his side. There was a dark spot on his white shirt about three inches to the left of his stomach, and the front of his dungarees was oily like the hide of the horse in the road.
“Lord, Ranny!” Cole hissed, crawling over to where we lay beside each other, behind the cooling carcass of our pony. Out of the same instinct I suppose a dog at a dying compadre’s side must feel, I inched away from Ranny. I got a splitting sensation in the middle of my stomach when I realized his w
ound might’ve been mine if it’d been me on the back of that horse.
“I musta caught it on the road. Didn’t feel it till we fell.”
Van Helsing was pushing me further away then, and peered at the wound.
“How is it, Professor?” Cole asked, his voice sinking.
“It don’t matter!” Ranny sobbed. “I ain’t goin’ nowheres.”
“We’ll heft you,” Cole muttered.
“Lord no, Mr. Morris. Them bastards’ll get the whole lot of us. Ain’t I enough?”
“Quiet boy...”
I looked at Van Helsing. He replaced the boy’s coat over the wound and shook his head. There was nothing for him to do.
Somewhere out in the dark across the road a great noise went up, as if a whole chorus of men had raised their voices and screamed. It wasn’t anything like a rebel yell. It was deep and angry and savage, like a chorus of angry bears. It ended even as we heard it. Sounded like ‘Laayyy-diiing.’
By his face, Ranny was fighting down hysterics.
Plenty Skins was crouched at the outer edge of us, back toward the canyon, ready to bolt.
“If we’re goin’...” he said.
“Shut up!” Cole barked.
Alkali came over then and flopped down against the horse carcass. Without a word he laid one of his big pistols on the bobtail’s belly. Then he took Ranny’s own gun from its holster, checked the cylinder, and pushed it into the boy’s hand. He lingered on Ranny’s pale face for a moment, and it seemed like the young cowboy took something from the old bushwhacker’s eye and strapped it to his spine, for he straightened though it pained him and sobbed no more.
“Sell it to ‘em high, boy,” Alkali growled.
Another bellowing yell went up from the Norgies out in the dark. It was terrible, and different from the last time. This time it went something like ‘Dro-Maaaaaaa.’
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