CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
No wagons. Just one horse in the corral, but using his spyglass, Jackson Sixpersons could see enough horse apples to know that several mounts had been there recently. And someone was still in the dugout in the arroyo. Smoke drifted from the chimney along with the smell of bacon and coffee.
Charley with the Greener snorted. “What kind of fool builds a soddy in a danged arroyo?” He spit tobacco juice. “Place must get full of water during the rainy season.”
Slapping the spyglass shut, Sixpersons backed away from the edge of the arroyo suddenly aware that Charley with the Greener wasn’t as dumb as he had thought. Caddo Creek curved just a mile east of the soddy, and the arroyo would carry rainwater to the creek. Only it had not rained lately. The country was mighty dry and hot.
“Who’d look for a hideout here?” Sixpersons asked, and Charley with the Greener understood. From Orr, they had picked up the tracks left by the riders and the two wagons.
Those men had played things mighty carefully, trying to cover their trail, crossing streams and riding through pastures of grazing cattle. They were not homesteaders, not squaw men, but professionals. Outlaws. Hiding something.
Sixpersons had lost their trail twice, only to pick it back up a few hours later. He didn’t know what Link McCoy or Zane Maxwell had planned, but he knew he was following those two hombres.
“How many do you think are down there?” Charley asked.
Sixpersons backed away for the arroyo’s edge. He answered Charley, “One horse,” but he looked at the Ranger, whose expression remained blank.
Years ago, Jackson Sixpersons and his wife had lost two children. Young, of course, still in diapers. It hurt, naturally, hurt deep, but you had to accept that as part of life. Some lived. Some died. It was a hard life in the Cherokee Nation. Three others had survived, and Jackson was a proud grandfather. Maybe the boy who had died from Lamar Bodeen’s rotgut had been Clarke’s only child. He didn’t know. He did know that Clarke’s look troubled him.
“So one man?” Charley grinned, liking the odds.
Sixpersons shook his head. “Why would McCoy and Maxwell leave one man behind?”
“Could be an ambush.” Charley began looking around, but there was no likely spot to set up an ambush . . . unless a half-dozen men were waiting inside that dugout.
Sixpersons found that possibility highly unlikely. He figured McCoy and Maxwell had left Bodeen’s kid and maybe the other bootleggers behind, but he wouldn’t make any more guesses. He didn’t have time for that.
He pointed below with the spyglass. “I’m going to make my way down to the lean-to. You two stay up here and cover me.”
“Why?” At last, the Texas Ranger had found his voice.
“Because you have rifles.” With his other hand, Sixpersons held up his Winchester twelve-gauge. “I have this.” He dropped the spyglass and went into a crouch, making his way a few yards before dropping off the edge and into the arroyo.
Still morning, the sun had yet to turn the country into an oven, but Sixpersons had worked up a sweat as he eased toward the corral. The horse lifted its head from the scattered grain, snorted, and stared at him, ears showing alertness but no anger or surprise.
As long as he could remember, he’d had a connection with horses. They did not fear him. He didn’t think he actually communicated with them somehow, but they just realized that he posed no threat. He nodded at the horse. It did not whicker, merely snorted again and went back to its breakfast.
Sixpersons eased behind the corral, keeping an eye on the doorway to the dugout. No sound came from inside the sod house. He figured breakfast had been cooked, and the occupants were chowing down. He put both hands on the Winchester ’87 and moved toward the lean-to, took a deep breath, held it, watched the doorway, and sprinted the ten yards through open country until he disappeared inside the lean-to. Bales of hay made up the wall nearest the dugout, and butts of cigarettes and one empty stoneware jug littered the ground. He glanced back at the soddy, then used his left hand to pick up the jug. He sniffed and tossed it aside.
Whiskey. Low-grade. Rotgut.
Maybe his posse had been right. Maybe whoever had taken the wagon away from the late Lamar Bodeen was back in the business of running contraband spirits throughout Indian Territory. Sixpersons frowned. But was that whiskey poisoned?
He leaned past the bales of hay and studied the dugout. No more smoke came from the chimney. He had the perfect spot. All he had to do was wait for whoever was inside to come out of the dugout.
“What I can’t figger out,” Jared Whitney said, “is how come a pup like you got a cannon like this.” Slowly, the gunman drew back the lever on James Mann’s Winchester ’86 .50-100-450. “Fifty caliber.” He smiled. “Hundred grains of powder. I’m guessing it has a muzzle velocity of fourteen, maybe fifteen hundred feet per second. Blow your head off at this range.” He finished cocking the rifle.
James knew that the outlaws had bought rounds for his rifle at one of the stores they had visited in Orr. And he’d figured out why one man had been left with him and Robin. To kill them. But to wait until his father was too far away to hear a shot. Wait a day, kill the kids, and join the group of outlaws at Fort Washita. As soon as Jared Whitney caught up with the outlaw gang, James thought he understood that they would kill his father, too.
Robin Gillett had just emptied the coffeepot onto the fire. Following Whitney’s orders to clean, she stooped to shove the pot into a canvas sack on the floor.
When she rose, James yelled, “Run, Robin! Run!” He kicked back, pushing up the table as the big rifle roared.
Inside the close confines of the dugout, the shot proved deafening, and the muzzle flash, so close it scorched James’s left ear as he fell back, almost blinded him. Yet his move had worked. The table had knocked the barrel of the Winchester, spoiling Whitney’s aim.
Over the roar of the blast, James heard Whitney’s curse. The table and kick of the massive rifle had knocked him onto the dirt floor. James staggered to his feet, tried to find his bearings, saw the open doorway.
Robin was already through it.
He tried to follow, but Whitney was a pro. A survivor. The gunman had jumped to his feet, and saw James. Instead of cocking the rifle, he swung it hard and savage. The barrel caught James straight across the forehead, and that was the last thing James Mann remembered.
Sixpersons’ wait lasted three minutes. A figure exploded from the doorway.
An incredibly loud shot had followed the shout, and he’d gone to his knees, pressing the butt of the shotgun to his shoulder, drawing a bead on the open doorway. He had enough sense to relax his finger on the trigger, seeing it was one of the kids.
The boy—no, it had to be a girl—staggered, tripped, and came up to her feet, running, screaming some name, looking back as she zigged and zagged, unsteadily, heading for the corral.
He had no time to think. Only to react. Coming to his feet, he stepped away from the lean-to. “Over here!” he called out. “Over here.”
Another figure appeared in the doorway to the dugout.
Sixpersons saw the barrel of a rifle, touched the trigger, and buckshot sprayed just above the doorway. The rifle and the man disappeared back inside the dugout. Sixpersons could have held his shot just a second and killed the man, but he hoped to take him alive. If possible.
Quickly, he worked the shotgun’s lever. It wasn’t the fastest action, but John Moses Browning had made it simple, and the ’87 responded perfectly. Keeping an eye on the doorway, Sixpersons brought up his left hand to his mouth and shouted again. “Over here!”
A bullet kicked up dust in front of the girl’s feet.
The first thought racing through the old Cherokee’s mind was that Charley with the Greener had been right. It was some sort of ambush. A second later and a glance up the high bank of the arroyo told him otherwise. He swore and ran toward the girl, firing a quick blast at the dugout’s doorway, just to keep the gunman in
side from getting any peculiar notions.
Another bullet whined off a stone on the ground, and Sixpersons cursed again. The Ranger, that crazed old grief-struck Texan, had mounted his big black horse and was firing, leaping the horse down the bank.
Clarke wasn’t trying to help Sixpersons. He was trying to kill Lamar Bodeen’s kid.
It’s my own fault, Sixpersons thought. Should’ve kept my mouth shut. Done this alone.
A few second later, Charley with the Greener was riding just a few yards behind Clarke, no longer carrying his shotgun, but a Winchester carbine.
The girl stood, shocked, stunned. She saw Sixpersons running toward her, but thankfully, did not move. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her toward him. A bullet tore through the old Cherokee’s long gray hair and then he was falling.
From inside the cabin, a rifle roared. It hit top of the stone well and bounced away. Jackson landed behind the cover of the well, dragged the girl with him, and jacked another load into the shotgun.
Cursing, he fed fresh shells into the twelve-gauge. “Stop it!” he yelled at the hard-riding Ranger.
The Ranger levered his Winchester and the rifle spoke. A bullet whistled past Sixpersons’ ear.
Another round came from the dugout, destroying the well’s bucket. Sixpersons didn’t know what kind of rifle that man inside was firing, but he guessed it to be a baby cannon.
Clarke shot again. Reins in his teeth, he rode hard, jacking another round into the rifle, pulling the trigger, cocking the Winchester again.
Jackson Sixpersons did not hesitate. He had given the Ranger enough chances. He brought the shotgun up and fired. Not waiting to see if he had hit Clarke, he swung the barrel toward the cabin and sent buckshot through the open doorway.
He dropped down, crawled around the side of the well, and saw the black horse gallop past him. The horse in the corral whinnied a greeting as the black, eyes wide with freight, galloped off to the north.
Sprawled in the dust lay Ranger Alan Clarke.
Sixpersons swallowed, sucked in a breath, and worked the Winchester’s lever, wondering what hand Charley with the Greener would play. The air smelled of gun smoke. His eyes burned.
“Stay down,” he told the kid, who had covered her ears.
Seeing the Ranger in the dirt changed Charley’s thinking. He leaped off the horse and fired a quick blast at the doorway, figuring he stood a better chance against the outlaw than the Cherokee lawman’s shotgun.
Charley shot again, but a round boomed from inside the dugout, and Charley was knocked a good five yards back, leaving a pink mist hanging in the air. His rifle clattered on the ground. He did not move. Nor did Alan Clarke.
Sixpersons backed away, cursing Texans for their stupidity. He was alone . . . unless he counted the girl. He didn’t.
Sometimes a bluff worked, so he called out, “You in the cabin. I’m a federal marshal. I got ten other deputies out here and a stick of dynamite.”
From inside the cabin, a gunshot roared, sending splinters from the near post of the well.
Usually, of course, the bluff never worked.
He tried again. “You got nowhere to go, But hell.”
“I’ll see you there!”
Sixpersons looked at the girl, reached behind his back, and pulled out a pistol. He put it by the kid’s right hand. “That’s all I got. Five-shot .22. Hide it. Use it when you have to.” He had confiscated the Remington Elliot rimfire from a soiled dove he and Jimmy Mann had arrested in the Creek Country two years back. It featured a three-inch fluted group of blued barrels and two-piece rosewood grips.
“Hey, Deputy Lawdog!” the man inside the dugout shouted.
Sixpersons kept quiet.
“I’m coming out. With a kid. So hold your fire.”
He slid to the other side of the well and watched.
Sweat dripped off the ends of the outlaw’s thick walrus mustache. A brown patch covered his left eye, and he had no left ear. His right hand held the big Winchester across a boy’s chest, blood congealing on the boy’s forehead and across his face. The outlaw’s left hand pressed a Starr revolver directly under the kid’s throat.
He looked over at Charley with the Greener’s horse standing halfway between the cabin and the corral. “I ain’t gettin’ kilt by you or hung by Parker. I’ll kill this boy right now. Blow his head clean off. Lessen you toss that scattergun aside and stand up. You got five seconds, law dog.”
In the old days, Jimmy Mann would have been somewhere with his Winchester, covering Sixpersons. Jimmy had been such a marksman, he would have put a round right between the outlaw’s eyes. Would have killed him before he could have even squeezed the trigger and killed the hostage. But Jimmy Mann was dead and gone.
Knowing he couldn’t use his shotgun—it would kill both the outlaw and the hostage, Sixpersons looked at the girl. “Remember what I said.” He held the shotgun up, stood, and got ready to die.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“Shotgun in the dirt.”
Carefully, Jackson Sixpersons laid the Model 1887 on the ground. As he stepped away from it, the outlaw released the boy and shoved him back into the dugout, never taking his eyes off the Cherokee.
“An injun.” The outlaw chuckled. “Injun with a badge. You can’t arrest white men, injun. Don’t you know that?”
Sixpersons thought but I can kill them. He held his hands, not over his head, but above his waist.
“Where’s the runt?” the outlaw asked.
Sixpersons gestured with his head. “You killed her.”
James Mann had landed in the dugout with a grunt. His head felt as if it had been cleaved into with an ax, but he was still alive—and had no intention of dying without a fight. That would be Jared Whitney’s fatal blunder.
He staggered to his feet, only to trip over the sack on the floor and sprawl again.
He heard voices from outside. Something about an injun. Then a strange voice saying, “You killed her.”
Killed her. That no-account rogue Whitney had killed Robin Gillett. Murdered her.
James did not think. Only hours later would he remember what happened, vividly and in slow detail.
A blinding rage replaced the pain he felt everywhere, but mostly in his head. His hands grasped around for anything he could use as a weapon. He touched something hard and cold and iron. The handle to the cast-iron skillet. Cleaned with bacon grease, it still smelled like breakfast.
He was on his knees, jerking the skillet from the canvas sack, and next he found his feet. Blood and sweat he could taste on his lips, but he felt nothing but rage. Uncontrolled anger. He vaulted through the doorway and into the morning light. All he saw, all he heard, was Jared Whitney.
“Balderdash.” The gunman smiled. Slowly, he brought up the Starr revolver, pointing it at Sixpersons. “But I reckon I will kill you.”
Hearing James, Whitney turned quickly, but he wasn’t fast enough. Cursing savagely, James swung the skillet with all his might. The iron pan caught the outlaw on the jaw, and blood and teeth sprayed from the stunned killer’s jaw as he slammed to the ground.
The momentum sent James sprawling. He landed, still holding the pan, and came up.
Whitney had risen too, his jaw busted, mouth pouring blood, but gunmen knew how to deal with pain. Often, living with pain meant living, period. The rifle he had lost, but the Starr revolver was still in his hand, and he aimed it directly at James.
The skillet came up as the gunman fired. James heard the whine of a bullet, and his hands stung as the cast iron pan went flying off to his left. The skillet had saved his life, but it was gone, and James had been flattened by the impact. He came up quickly to charge that man, that beast.
Looking like a clown with his shattered jaw and blood everywhere, Whitney spit out more teeth, bloody phlegm, and a piece of his tongue. He aimed the pistol again at James, but instinct . . . or something . . . told him the danger lay behind him. He spun, snapped off a shot at the lawman, an Indian in a bla
ck hat, blue shirt, long gray hair, and . . . eyeglasses.
The bullet sailed over Sixpersons’ head as he dived for the shotgun.
Whitney’s Starr barked again.
A moment later, another figure appeared—Robin Gillett!—standing behind the well. Something popped in her hand, some sort of derringer.
Whitney turned again to aim at her, but James yelled at the killer, charging and cursing as he ran.
The killer turned back toward him.
Something told James to dive to his left. He ceased his charge and found himself flying out of harm’s way.
Robin’s five shots missed as he landed on the ground. Whitney did not fire, mumbled something, and turned forward yet again, trying to snap a shot at the old Cherokee.
If the killer got off a shot with the revolver, James didn’t hear it. All he heard was a deafening roar. All he saw was blood spraying from Whitney’s chest as the killer was lifted up a full foot before he landed on his back, still gripping the smoking Starr, his eyes staring vacantly at the beautiful morning sky.
I am not dead. Jackson Sixpersons didn’t understand it, certainly didn’t believe it, but he looked over the smoking barrel of the Winchester shotgun, and saw the killer sprawled in the dirt, deader than he’d ever be.
First, Sixpersons sucked in a breath. Then he put his right hand on the wall of the well and used it to help him stand. The shotgun felt as if it weighed a ton. He leaned against the well for a moment and looked around.
The girl was on the other side of the well, the little Remington Elliot smoking in her hand. The boy, his face a bloody mess, came up slowly, dusting off his shirtfront. The Ranger and Charley with the Greener lay still. Dead.
“James!” The voice came from Bodeen’s daughter, who dropped the derringer, and stood. She reached for the crank of the well, noticed that the bucket had been shattered by one of the killer’s shots, and ran toward the corral.
Jackson Sixpersons wondered if he could move that fast, even fifty years ago.
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