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

by J. Lee Butts

  Nate Swords looked more than capable. And, after the shock of erroneous recognition, I had to admit that he reminded me more than a bit of Billy Bird. Tall and lanky, his shoulder-length hair sprouted from under a military style campaign hat, spilled over the collar of a fringed leather shirt, and matched the strawlike color of a droopy mustache. He sported case-hardened Colt’s pistols in the butts-forward, Wild Bill Hickok fashion, and appeared totally comfortable in well-used canvas pants and soft knee-high cavalry officer’s boots. Entire getup was highlighted with a pair of the most ornate Mexican spurs I’d seen since Lucius Dodge went out with me and Carlton to kill Martin Luther Big Eagle, up in Red Rock Canyon.

  Marshal Taylor took the situation in hand as Swords ambled up beside him. Placed a brawny arm around his posse man’s shoulders and said, “Nate, this here is Hayden Tilden and his good friend Deputy Marshal Carlton J. Cecil. These boys are on their way to Fort Worth. Have reliable information that Maynard Dawson is holed up in Hell’s Half Acre. Hayden was a-wonderin’ if’n you’d like to tag along. Be mighty good experience for you, if’n you should be interested in my particular opinion.”

  A toothy grin spread over Swords’s face, as he extended his hand my direction. “Damned sure would. Be my privilege to ride along with you, Marshal Tilden. Been hearin’ about the exploits of you and Marshal Cecil for some time now. A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

  “Well, then,” I said as we shook hands, “it’s settled. We’ll leave at first light tomorrow morning. Want to try and catch up with Dawson and Storms before they hightail it for New Mexico, Arizona, or points even farther west.”

  Later that afternoon, I sent a telegraph message to Fort Smith that informed the U.S. marshal and Judge Parker of Billy’s unfortunate demise. Might well have been the most difficult missive I’d ever had to write, up to that point in my life. Also penned a heartfelt note of regret to my long-suffering wife. Apologized for not being at home with her, and threw everything into that note I could think of to ease the pain of having to be away in the wilds of godforsaken Texas for the good Lord only know show long.

  Nate Swords turned out to be a real blessing. His cheerful demeanor, boundless good humor, and joking manner did wonders toward livening mine and Carlton’s damaged spirits. Memories of Billy Bird’s unfortunate passing slowly faded to the backs of our troubled minds, over the next few days, thanks to Nate.

  By the time we ran upon Deputy Marshal Caleb Masters, about ten miles north of the Red River, we’d healed plenty enough for another dustup with some of the Indian Territories’ most vicious criminal element. Caleb Masters was just the man to provide such a distraction.

  We found the famed marshal, near day’s end, camped under a sheltering oak. He’d cooked coffee, and we could smell it long before Carlton spotted him. Eased up on the man so as not to surprise him, but he’d already taken note of our approach through his long glass, and readily invited us to step down and take our leave.

  Carlton, who’d known Marshal Masters for some years, appeared extremely pleased with the chance meeting. He hopped off his animal and grabbed the tall, black lawman’s hand. Then, he turned to me and our new helper and said, “Caleb, not sure you know my friends. This here’s Hayden Tilden and our new posse man, Nate Swords.”

  Masters offered everyone a toothy grin, nodded, and waved his acceptance of our presence. Then, he motioned for us to unsaddle our mounts, sit, and partake of his welcoming campfire.

  In a deep, rumbling voice, tinged with the molasseslike undertones of Mississippi, or Alabama, our host said, “Glad to see you fellers. Don’t know what you’re doin’ way out here, but you’re welcome to the fire and the stump juice. I could sure use some assistance shortly, if’n you’ve a mind, and the time, to give it.” The marshal reminded me of a somewhat smaller version of Judge Parker’s famed deputy Barnes Reed, who’d accompanied Carlton and me on our Red Rock Canyon raid.

  We unburdened our horses and threw our traps on the ground near his smoldering campfire. I poured a full cup from Marshal Masters’s soot-covered coffeepot. Blew on and sipped at the kind of belly wash that’d grow hair on a saddle. Said, “Well, we should be able to help you out, Caleb, as long as our stay doesn’t last more’n a day or two.”

  Masters smiled again. “You boys arrived at just the best possible instant. Late tomorrow, or maybe the next mornin’, ’bout ten miles south of here, at the Delaware Bend Crossing on the Red, Tom Dozier’s gonna push a small herd of stolen horses back into the Nations from Texas. I intend to catch him in the act and put an end to his thievin’ ways, for once and all.”

  Carlton perked up. “That a fact, now? Tom Dozier for absolute certain, Caleb? Hell, that sorry rascal’s been stealin’ and killin’ all over the countryside for as long as I’ve been carryin’ a badge for Judge Parker. And if my sometimes addled memory serves, you’ve been after him, off and on, that whole time.”

  Masters served up a weak grin. “Well, he’s one sly, sneakin’ son of a bitch, and has managed to stay about half a step ahead of me through the efforts of his friends and confederates in crime. They’ve displayed an uncanny ability, over the years, to warn him of my presence, on a number of occasions when I truly thought I had him dead to rights. I can assure you boys, the whole of my experience with the man has been most frustratin’.”

  “Well, now, guess we all know as how bad folks here in the Nations are inclined to assist the outlaw element in their nefarious endeavors. At times, it does seem there’s a lookout posted on every hill,” I offered.

  Nate perked up and said, “Ain’t Dozier the feller what likes to leave notes warnin’ that he’ll by-God kill the hell out of anyone doggin’ his trail?”

  Me and Carlton had heard such stories as well. Way most folks told them, Dozier maintained a particularly large and knotty twist in his trapdoor drawers about Caleb Masters in particular, and never missed an opportunity to taunt the man. Carl and me would never have broached that particular subject. Came as something of a surprise that Nate brought it up. Have to admit, I was somewhat taken aback that Caleb didn’t seem to mind the subject in the least.

  “Yes, well, the sorry scoundrel’s left notes for me all over the countryside after he robbed stores, banks, cattle buyers, stagecoaches, and even a poker game or two. Said he’d kill me deader’n a brass spittoon in a Denver whorehouse, if’n I didn’t stop a-followin’ him.”

  Carlton pitched what was left of his cup of up-and-at-’em juice into the fire and said, “Reckon he meant it, Caleb?”

  Masters sat up, fetched out tobacco and makin’s, and began rolling himself a smoke. “Oh, he’s killed many a time before. Well known in some circles for his lethal behavior. Have no doubt he’d do it again, if given a choice between that and spending a few years in the Detroit Correctional Facility.” He licked the paper on his hand-rolled cigarette, as big around as my finger, lit it, and went to making smoke like a fire built from wet wood.

  “How long have you been after him this time out?” I asked.

  “More’n two weeks. Came upon what I feel is some mighty good information when I dropped a couple of prisoners off in Tuskahoma for safekeeping. After years of close calls and fruitless chases, pretty sure this ’uns gonna end in success. Have a good feelin’ ’bout it.”

  The conversation kind of dwindled off, after that. Carlton, Nate, and me were bone tired and ready for a restful night’s sleep. Darkness and dreams came down on my head like an anvil dropped from Heaven’s front gate.

  I must not have even stirred through the whole night. Next morning, I woke up lying in the same position that I’d snoozed off in. Every bone in my body ached like someone had whipped me all night long with a barrel stave.

  We broke camp about sunup, and an hour later picketed our animals and pitched another camp in a stand of weeping willow trees, fifty or sixty yards west of Delaware Bend Crossing. Dragged up as much underbrush as we could find and placed it between our hideout and the river. Caleb noted that the a
dded concealment couldn’t hurt our cause.

  Nate enjoyed himself immensely. He said, “This is like fortin’ up when I was a little kid playin’ Indians and cavalry back in Kentucky.” Was the first time I noted something of the child that still occasionally presented itself in the man’s personality.

  We spent most of the rest of the day hunting and fishing along the river in both directions. Didn’t kill anything, but caught a fine mess of pan-sized sunfish Carlton fried up that night. Nate turned out to be one hell of a fisherman. He caught most of them. It was a right funny experience to watch him. Man beamed with childish excitement every time he got a nibble. Relaxed mood of that single afternoon went a long way toward soothing the ache I still felt over Billy’s sad passing.

  Early the following morning, a feller riding a dappled gray showed up on the Texas bank of the Red. Marshal Masters went out and motioned him to our side. Stranger waded across. Water only came up to about his animal’s hocks and was barely flowing.

  Caleb and the new arrival talked for a spell out of our earshot. After a few minutes, the unknown rider cast a nervous glance over his shoulder, pointed to where he’d just come from, and hurried off to the northeast at a trot.

  Masters hustled back to where we’d hid ourselves in the trees. Called us together and said, “Sure you’ve figured it out by now, but at ’ere was my informant. He done brought me word as how Tom Dozier’s definitely on his way.”

  Carlton scratched his stubble-covered chin. “How long ’fore he gets here?”

  “Maybe an hour or so. Way my man told it, Dozier and two or three other thievin’ snakes are a-leadin’ a right nice herd of twelve to fifteen horses they stole from a rancher down near Gainesville. Must have been some shootin’ in the process. Not for certain, but one of the bandits might already have some lead in him.”

  Nate levered a round into the chamber of his old Yellow Boy Winchester. “Well,” he said, “guess we’d all best get hid somewheres, hadn’t we? Wanna make sure we surprise these boys when they show up.”

  Caleb nodded his agreement. “Here’s how I figured we’d play it, fellers. Me and Hayden’ll stay mounted and brace ’em soon’s they get about midstream. Trail from the river climbs up that steep wash, over yonder. There ain’t much room to maneuver between the cut banks on either side of the wash. Pinched off the way it is, Dozier and his men should have to walk the herd up.”

  “Where you want me and Nate?” Carlton asked.

  “You boys pick a spot. Hide along the ridge on either side of the cut. Want all of us to try and come out at ’em at the same time.” He waved in the general direction of scrubby areas on the opposite crests of the wash. “We get ’em bottled up real good, and it should be easy to grab these fellers without much of a fight.”

  While that’s the way Caleb figured on the thing, it’d been my experience bad men seldom wanted to cooperate when a lengthy stay behind bars in a stone-cold hard-rock Northern prison was most likely in their future. Yep, thieving, murdering, raping, horse-stealing bastards tended to fight for their sorry lives. And that kind of attitude usually proved especially true if such men found themselves in the company of other sons of bitches who’d willingly go down shooting, rather than spend time swinging a sledgehammer up in a desolate Michigan penitentiary.

  Carlton slapped the butts of his pistols. He had the look in his frosty gray eyes of a man primed for a bloodletting, and itching to get at it. My friend never would have admitted it, but I’m sure he felt about the same way I did. It was time for some retribution, even if that meant killing two or three men who had absolutely nothing to do with Billy Bird’s unfortunate death.

  What we both craved, more than whiskey, women, or gold, was some much-needed release from our grief. Shooting the hell out of a couple of known killers sounded like a damned fine idea to me, whether Caleb saw it that way or not.

  “Guess we’d best get set up. I’ll take the east flank of the trail. Nate can take the west,” Carlton said. Then, he turned to me. “Caleb’s plan sounds like a good ’un. But just ’tween you and me, my friend, if these ole boys stampede their herd, there’ll be hell to pay if we ain’t on our toes. So, you cover his back, Hayden. That’ll put two men in front of ’em, and one on each side. If them boys start their horses running, get to cover quick—cross fire from my direction could get downright murderous.”

  So, that’s the way we worked it. Once Carlton and Nate got hid out and settled down in the scrub, Masters and me staked us out a shady spot under a friendly tree and tied our animals. Found us place to sit, piled up a mound of them big ole dead cottonwood leaves for comfort—and waited.

  In spite of anything Caleb’s informant might have thought, took a good bit more than an hour for those bad boys to show up. I kept checking my two-dollar Ingersoll pocket watch. The wait eventually turned into almost three hours. A blazing sun had got up pretty good, by then. Blistering heat, buzzing flies, and skeeters got right bothersome. I was in the process of trying to shoo one of those big, ugly, yellow jacket wasps out of my face when Caleb reached over, poked me on the leg, and pointed toward Texas.

  “They’re here,” he whispered.

  As we got ourselves horsed, half-a-dozen or so sleek-coated, well-fed hay burners eased up to the shallow river’s ragged edge, and gazed at the far bank barely a hundred feet away. For a few fleeting seconds, those animals in the front rank hesitated, nervously pawed at the shallow water, but eventually waded in and started across.

  A rider, who sported a brace of heavy, silver-plated pistols high on his waist, dressed in the short jacket and concho-decorated pants of a Mexican vaquero, trotted up. Horse thief didn’t waste any time checking the river. Bold as brass, and with what appeared to be very little thought on the matter, he slapped a wide-brimmed sombrero against his leg, whistled, and urged the hesitant broncos down the muddy embankment.

  Me and Caleb kicked over to a spot that should have served to block the herd’s progress. Personally thought we’d moved a mite too soon, and had barely reined up when, under his breath, I heard Caleb mutter, “Damn the bad luck. Bastards always have brothers.”

  His odd declaration at such a charged moment got my attention right quick. “What is it?” I snapped. “What’s the problem?”

  In his excitement and duress, the black marshal’s soft Southern accent shortened and became more clipped. “I recognize that horse-stealin’ brush popper comin’ over now. It’s Dorsey Cobb, one of the most evil sons of bitches I ever knowed, or heard about.”

  “So?”

  “Pert sure, if Dorsey’s around, that means his brother Millard is probably back there in the herd somewheres. Problem is, Millard’s worse than Dorsey ever thought about bein’. Separate and alone, either of them boys can be a handful. When you put the two of ’em in the company of a scoundrel like Tom Dozier, you’re looking at a fierce, bloody gunfight, for sure.”

  Those prophetic words had barely escaped Caleb Master’s lips when the man he’d just identified spotted the two of us. Dorsey Cobb had almost made it to our side of the river, by then. He pulled a long-barreled Remington pistol. Didn’t hesitate for a second. Audacious thief set to punching holes in the air, all around us, with blue whistlers. Skittish horses bolted like God had jabbed them in the flanks with a flaming pitchfork.

  Panicked herd surged out of the water at a dead run. Headed straight for me and Caleb. About then, a second and third bandit appeared on the far bank of the meandering Red. They pushed a like number of animals, and both launched into a rash of random, promiscuous blasting as soon as they realized that something they hadn’t planned on, and didn’t quite understand, had occurred.

  The cut in the Nations’ share of the riverbank funneled the charging hammerheads down to no more than three ponies abreast—just the way Caleb had expected. Only trouble was, those spooked, red-eyed broomtails were in a panic, as they hoofed their way up the rugged trail that led past us.

  Caleb kicked his animal to Carlton’s side of t
he cut and managed to get out of the stampede’s way—just in the nick of time. I jerked Gunpowder in the opposite direction and spotted Nate Swords as he stood, leveled up his Winchester, and blasted Dorsey Cobb out of the saddle. All those ringtailed knot heads charged past me in sheer terror. Ahead of them, a whooping second rider snatched his pinto mount to a stiff-legged stop when he spotted his wounded comrade struggling in the mud.

  Dorsey Cobb clutched at a hole in his bloody left side and scrambled to uncooperative feet, attached to shaky legs. Second outlaw twirled his mount in a tight circle and yelled, “Dorsey. Have the ambushin’ bastards done went and kilt you, brother?”

  Thief’s concerned speechifying led me to believe the still-horsed brigand had to be Millard Cobb. He laid the spur on hard in what appeared an absolutely futile effort at helping his wounded brother in a time of desperate, life-threatening need. Poor stupid goober didn’t make it far, though.

  Carlton J. Cecil jumped from behind what was left of a lightning-slashed tree stump and shot the horse from under Cobb before it could take more’n half-a-dozen steps. Three thunderous, rapid-fire blasts from Carl’s rifle, and the animal tipped over—end to end. Landed on top of, and damned near buried, its rider in the squishy embankment. The fallen and dazed Millard Cobb crawled from under the flopping animal, wobbled to his knees with a pistol in each hand. He fired blindly at everything in general and nothing in particular.

  In all the confusion of whinnying horses, thundering hooves, flying mud, splashing water, gunfire, and spent black powder, the third thief had miraculously and totally disappeared from view. Guess everyone in our party must have zeroed in on Millard Cobb at about the same time. Like me, I suppose the others figured the already shot-to-hell Dorsey posed somewhat less of a threat than his dazed, but still-in-one-piece, brother. As it worked out, all four of us fired at almost the same instant, and riddled Millard Cobb with so many holes, my grandma could have used his perforated corpse as a flour sifter.