Ambushed: The Continued Adventures of Hayden Tilden (Hayden Tilden Westerns Book 4)

by J. Lee Butts

  2

  “. . . NAILED SOMEONE UP LIKE CRUCIFIED JESUS.”

  NEXT MORNING I kissed Elizabeth, waved good-bye, and headed for the ferry crossing. Billy and Carlton arrived ahead of me, had thrown several large pieces of bedding on the ground for a place to lounge about, and were engaged in a heated discussion involving their various female problems.

  “Ain’t no way to understand a woman,” Carlton snorted as I reined up beside them.

  Billy worked paper and tobacco into a smoke, poked it into his mouth, and said between clenched lips, “That’s the damned truth. You know, when we got back from chasing the Crook brothers all over hell and gone, I thought Lucy Waggoner was the one for me. Then, be damned if that loose-legged woman didn’t up and run off with a cross-eyed, three-fingered whiskey drummer from St. Jo.”

  Carlton and me had not heard one thing about Miss Lucy’s recent departure. As I stepped down from Gunpowder, Carlton grumped, “The hell you say? She ran off with a whiskey drummer?”

  Billy scratched a lucifer on the leg of his canvas pants and put fire to his roughly rolled cigarette. “Hell, I do say. He was one ugly son of a bitch, too. Can’t even imagine what Lucy saw in the woman-stealin’ bastard. Worst part of the whole affair is that she evidently abandoned the poor gomer in St. Jo the day after they arrived. Rumor goin’ round now says she hotfooted it to Kansas City, and is sellin’ herself to the highest bidder down on Wyoming Street.”

  I’d heard such stories before. One of my wife Elizabeth’s best friends had fallen in much the same manner. Tried to comfort my obviously agitated friend when I said, “There’s always another woman, Billy. You’ll find someone. She’s just waitin’ for you to show up. Could be the perfect gal is out there in the Nations right now and she’ll seek you out on this very trip.”

  He looked at me like I’d grown another nose right in the middle of my face. “Mighty unlikely, Hayden.” His head dropped and I couldn’t see his eyes when he mumbled, “You know, I really thought Lucy cared for me.”

  Carlton grabbed our downcast friend under the arms and jerked him to his feet. He brushed ashes off the front of the lanky boy’s shirt. “Ferget ’er, Billy my boy. Let’s go kill some bad men. Make you feel a whole lot better to put holes in Maynard Dawson. Git them big Schofield pistols of yours working and I’d bet you’ll perk up, right smart. For certain sure, you’ll forget that two-timin’ gal soon as you blast the hell out of somebody evil.”

  Billy grinned like a schoolboy just thinking about such a happy eventuality. Life tended toward the hard and lonely back in them days, and I couldn’t blame him for being upset. But he handled the situation as well as could be expected. Pushed those big pistols’ butts forward with the palms of his hands and said, “Let’s go git ’em.” Less than an hour later, we’d crossed the Arkansas and were headed south into the land of criminal darkness and wicked uncertainty.

  Took us almost three weeks of talking to anyone who’d stop long enough to get a handle on the direction Maynard Dawson set out on after he’d brutally murdered Tom Black and most of his poor benighted family. Actually surprised me that the information came our way as quickly as it did.

  Iniquitous sorts blanketed the Nations and maintained a series of signal fires on hills and mountains in every direction. Killers and thugs always knew where lawmen were, almost without fail. Average citizen out in the wild places was, for very good reason, terrified of being seen in the company of Parker’s men. Reprisals tended to be the norm for those who couldn’t count on any established law enforcement within fifty miles of their ranch, store, farm, or residence.

  Then, late on a cloudy afternoon of the third week, we happened on a feller Carlton knew who was fishing from the brushy bank of a rock-littered creek, just off the Canadian, a few miles from Tom Black’s ranch. Poor man appeared some troubled by our appearance. But once Carl stepped down and talked with him for a few minutes, his skittish behavior abated a mite.

  Carl eventually invited me and Billy over to join in on the discussion. “Hayden this here is Silas White Bird—Choctaw friend of mine. Silas lives not far from here, over in the Washita Valley. Former member of the Choctaw Light Horse. Educated in missionary schools. He might have some good news for us.”

  White Bird shook hands all around, and we gifted the man with tobacco. Billy lit him up once he got a fine-looking pipe loaded. Edgy feller had relaxed considerable, by then, and got right talkative. He took a puff or two and used the pipe stem to point north and west.

  “Seen Dawson and some others headed toward Chickasha two, maybe three days ago.”

  “How many others?” I asked.

  “Oh, four or five. Maybe six. Hard to tell. They was movin’ through them trees yonder on the far creek bank. Caught glimpses as they passed. Hid myself soon’s I seen ’em. Them’s the kind of men reasonable folk don’t want no truck with. Dangerous to your health and general welfare. Killers, every one of ’em.”

  Billy chimed in with, “Did you know any of the men traveling with Dawson?”

  “Couple. One looked like Cotton Rix. Mo Coyle and Mica Crow Dog ridin’ with him, too. Can’t say on the others. Couldn’t see that well.”

  Carl slapped the leg of stovepipe chaps with his riding quirt. “Damnation, boys, I know that one. Cotton Rix is worth three thousand dollars from the M.K. & T. He’s robbed them poor railroaders near half-a-dozen times over the years. Kilt several express men in the process. We catch ole Cotton and that’s a thousand each.”

  Billy eyeballed Carl and scratched his stubble-covered chin. “Well, Mo Coyle ain’t no slouch. Bank of Vinita posted him more’n a year ago. Last one I seen said he was worth fifteen hundred for his part in a robbery that resulted in the bank manager gettin’ rudely shot to pieces for failure to open the safe fast enough.”

  “If Mo Coyle and Mica Crow Dog are part of this crew, then you can just about bet the Crowder brothers, Harvey and Buck, are somewhere nearby,” I said.

  Carl pulled a faded bandanna and wiped sweat from a dripping forehead and brow. “Best check all our weapons and make damned sure every smoke pole we’re carrying is ready for action, Hayden. If what Silas says is right, and them others are along for the ride, this might well be the worst gang of killers in a single group we’ve seen in years. They could easily rank right up there with Saginaw Bob Magruder and his bunch, or even rival the Crook brothers when they was at their worst.”

  Billy pointed upstream a ways. “Why don’t we pitch camp under that big cottonwood? Make sure everything’s cleaned and loaded for action. Have a hearty meal and get a good night’s rest atop this fluffy stand of grass. Wanna be sharp for whatever comes our way tomorrow.”

  White Bird left us a mess of perch and hotfooted it with no words of farewell soon as he got a chance. Not much talk, joshing, or run-of-the-mill leg-pulling that afternoon, or night. My companions and I turned our attention to the deadly necessities we deemed would help keep us alive when Dawson and his lethal crew fell under our guns. Billy couldn’t have been more right about the situation. We needed to keep ourselves as sharp as the business end of Mexican hornets. Everyone crawled into a bedroll soon as it got dark.

  Come morning, we had to ride more than a mile downstream before we could cross over and head back north. Picked up the trail exactly where Silas White Bird said it would be. Hadn’t followed the track but about three hours when we reined up on a grass-covered hill that overlooked a ranch building surrounded by several split-rail corrals.

  Billy leaned on his saddle pommel and said, “Feller that built this house must have had some military in his past. Looks like a fort. Bet you couldn’t blast your way in with a six-pound Napoleon.”

  Carl pulled a long glass out, fitted it against an unblinking eye, and stood in his stirrups. He swept the area, then handed the collapsible scope to me. “Best take a good look down there, Hayden. Think them’s bodies I see.”

  Spotted what he’d noticed immediately. “I count one just outside the door on
the porch, and one over by the water trough. Sweet Merciful Father, Carl. What do you make of the barn door?”

  “Looks to me like them evil bastards nailed someone up like crucified Jesus.”

  Billy threw both of us a fleeting glance, grabbed Carl’s spyglass, and fixed it to his eye. “You boys are kiddin’, right? Oh, no. I’ll just be damned. Cain’t be true. Looks like a woman to me, boys.” He lowered the glass and slowly handed it back.

  We hobbled our animals and left them on the treeless hill. Carefully picked our way down to a bloody scene of rampant, muderous insanity. It’s a skin-prickling, eerie feeling no matter how many times you confront hideous murders done in such a brutal manner.

  All of us dodged over to the poor woman nailed to the barn door first. Quickly discovered there was no need to hurry. She’d been dead for some time.

  Billy shook his head and looked ill. “Ain’t seen nothin’ to match this since we found that soiled dove everyone called Sweet Sweet Sally what got nailed to the outhouse door behind Gopher Stanley’s dance hall over in Muskogee.”

  Carl covered his eyes with a shaking hand. “Never caught whoever did that ’un either. Tell you the God’s truth, boys, looks like the work of the same animal to me. Way too many similarities here. Even down to the placement of her feet.” He glanced at the much-abused corpse for a few more seconds and stomped away. As he passed me, he mumbled, “Christ Almighty, how do men this sick get born and set loose on the world?”

  We turned our attention to the rest of the shocking sight as soon as we got that unfortunate woman down and properly covered. Altogether, we found five bodies—two outside the house, two inside, and the woman. Lucky fellers outside had been shot, while those in the house appeared to have been hacked to death with an ax. All of them were sock-footed.

  Carl growled, “Sorry bastards stole their boots.”

  Most experienced at tracking, Billy stood on the porch and pointed back to our mounts. “We had the right trail. The entire party came from yonder direction. Seven of ’em. Guess there’s one we didn’t account for. Sure would like to know who he is. They rode up in the yard. This poor fool musta come out to see what the party of strangers wanted. Think they climbed down, walked up to the step bold as brass, shot him right off, then stormed the house. Saved the woman for all the real fun. Did the job on her last. She must have been an Indian gal. Otherwise, this well-dressed white feller wouldn’t be livin’ out here.”

  I said, “You’re probably right, Billy. She was burned so bad, I couldn’t have testified to her race. Guess we should take a second look just to make sure.”

  Carl figured the corpse hanging half on and half off the front porch for the ranch’s owner. Dead man was a tall, healthy-looking gent, who’d been shot between the eyes with a big-bore weapon of some kind. A washbasin-sized gob of brain matter and bone decorated the front door in a splatter of dried blood and gore.

  Carl knelt beside the body, snatched his hat off, and shook his head. “I’ve seen more’n my share of wounds like this before. Most likely done with a Sharps. Bullet went clean through the poor goober’s skull. Bet I can find it in the wall, or door, somewheres. Rest of these boys got shot, hacked, stabbed, and beat slap to death real quick soon as this poor trusting soul fell here by the door. House reeks of blood and murder. Got that coppery taste in my mouth when I was in there. So strong I cain’t spit it up.”

  I toed the body in the doorway. “Looks to me like the entire massacre could have been avoided if this feller had stayed inside and kept the door barred. Can’t imagine why he opened up and stepped out here when there was a bunch as disreputable-looking as Dawson’s showed up in his yard. Hell’s fire, don’t even appear to me he was armed when he went down. Incredibly stupid, if you ask me.”

  Billy swept the entire scene into the conversation with the motion of one arm. “When do you think it all happened, Carl? Yesterday, or the day before? According to Silas White Bird, the Dawson bunch is at least three days ahead of us. What we’ve got here might just be the beginning. Depraved sons of bitches could have killed triple this many, by now.”

  “Well, these folks are startin’ to ripen up pretty quick. Poor souls went down shortly after Silas seen Dawson’s gang pass him back yonder on the creek. I’m thinkin’ this unfortunate lot has been dead two days, at least.”

  Took some backbreaking, odoriferous lifting, and more time than we had at hand, but we got holes dug. Buried those folks before we left. Prayed over them some. Carlton fished a Bible out of the wreckage. Discovered the family was most likely named Wilson. He opened the book and surprised me by reading a passage from the Scripture. Thought he would ask me to read Shakespeare, but he must have figured God’s word worked better than the Bard’s.

  “Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. By Him were all things created, that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible . . . all things created by Him and for Him: And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist. The day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. Amen.” When he finished, Carlton dropped the book in one of the open graves before we covered them over.

  The killers had taken an extra horse apiece from the dead rancher’s corrals. We turned out all those left behind. Couldn’t take them with us. Figured if we left them, the poor neglected beasts would have suffered for no good reason.

  Billy didn’t have any trouble putting us back on Dawson’s trail. As we rode away from that unspeakable scene of carnage, Carlton pulled up beside me and said, “We had enough problems when it was just Dawson who had to be found. Got a creeping feeling of black doom about this, Hayden. Have a grinding suspicion this gang of yahoos are gonna turn out worse than the Crook brothers ever thought about being. Worst of it is, there’s more of ’em.”

  “Could be, Carl. All we can do is catch up with ’em. Kill as many as possible. Blind justice might not be well served by what I’ve got planned. But once we’ve plugged ’em each, a time or three, they won’t ever do anything as gruesome and cruel as this again.”

  3

  “ALL CUT OPEN, CHOPPED UP, AND GUTTED LIKE THAT.”

  PERHAPS THE MOST interesting thing about riding for Judge Parker was always the unpredictability of the work. Truth be told, you just never knew what might happen next. And no matter how long a man worked at the lawdog’s trade in the danger-filled, outlaw-riddled Nations, virtually every trip into harm’s way offered up at least one event of such peculiar circumstances as to make it remarkable. That surely proved to be the case with Samuel Crazy Snake.

  We couldn’t have gone more than five miles, a bit north and northwest from the scene of the Dawson gang’s brutal murders at the Wilson ranch, when we came upon a sixty-foot-deep, box-shaped depression that appeared to be about a quarter of a mile wide and twice that much long. Picking the killers’ trail out of the rough terrain had proven slightly more difficult than we first expected, and slowed our progress more than any of us really liked.

  Their track led to a creek off the Washita that cut through the inviting hollow. Lined with cottonwood and oak, the tiny stream dwindled away as it made progress on to the south. Liquid refreshment and abundant vegetation provided innocent traveler and bad man alike with a fine place to shelter from the weather. Every indication was that the murderers had stopped to rest their animals and water up before moving on.

  A covered Studebaker Brothers freight wagon sat near the gurgling stream. A rope corral contained six healthy-looking mules. Not more than ten steps in front of the wagon, a white feller had been spread-eagled and staked to the ground.

  “Looks like a whiskey deal gone bad to me,” Carlton offered. “Probably tried to charge the Dawson bunch more’n they were willing to pay. Then again, they could’ve simply done him in for the pure meanness of it.”


  Billy twisted in the saddle and went for his tobacco. “God, I hate these liquor-introducin’ bastards. They cause as much trouble as all the killers loose in the Nations.”

  About then, a tall, lanky Indian dressed in the garb of a Boston banker jumped from the back of the wagon with a rough jug in each hand. Oiled black braids cascaded from under his flat-brimmed felt hat. He held the whiskey containers skyward, whooped and danced his way over to the feller on the ground. There followed some heated, but impossible to understand, yammering directed at the dead captive. Then the dance started up again.

  Indian had circled the staked whiskey trader several times when Carlton said, “Think I know the dancer. Bet you whatever we make on this raid, that’s a half-breed Comanche feller called Samuel Crazy Snake. He lived in the East with a white family for some years before he came back out this way. He’s fairly well known for once-a-year drunken rips and spurts of somewhat peculiar behavior even when sober. Guess he must have had to come quite a distance from his normal stompin’ grounds to find a drink. Usually stays to himself over in the Wichita Mountains.”

  Gently urged Gunpowder down the slope as I said, “Let’s mosey in and put a stop to Mr. Snake’s ceremonial before he decides to scalp the poor dead slug on the ground.”

  Carl chuckled. “Oh, I don’t think he’d do anything like that, Hayden. Man’s pretty well civilized, just drinks too much every once in a while. Of all the Indian drunks I’ve had to deal with in the past, Crazy Snake’s one of the most pleasant. He’s about the tamest Comanche you’re ever gonna run across. Think he got all his killin’ out some years before goin’ East.”