“Well, it must have been awful damn narrow.”
“Naw, it was pretty wide.”
Butch hoped he did not notice his torn shirt or the abrasions on the flank of his buckskin filly. The new passage he had found was no more than a crack in the rocks. He had to pull his horse through it.
Mike, Elzy and Luke had caught up at this point and were also surprised to see him.
“How’d you get out front, Butch?” asked Elzy.
“Found a short cut,” he announced proudly. “It was wide enough to drive a wagon train through.”
“Damn,” declared Luke. “Jack and me should’ve knowed about it.”
Hearing Luke include him in his weak self-admonishment, Jack wheeled his black stallion around and headed up the trail without a word.
“You could drive uh wagon train through it,” said Mike skeptically, reaching over to inspect the bloody flank of the filly. His face broke into an involuntary smile.
Elzy reined in on the other side of Butch. “What’d you say to make that hard-ass smile?” Mike was still in earshot and the smile was quickly gone.
“Never mind that,” Butch said. “Luke, go get your two-gun buddy and bring him back here. We got a problem and I’m tired of chasin’ him.”
“Yessar, Mr. Cassidy.”
Luke rode ahead screaming at Jack to stop until he finally turned around and reluctantly returned to the group.
“Jesus Christ, what now!” shouted Jack when he returned.
“Dun’t be blashfimin’, young man,” Mike warned him. Jack shot him back a defiant look but kept his mouth shut.
“Good,” said Elzy. “I was hoping someone would clean up the language around here.”
“Everybody just shut up and listen to me!” shouted Butch. His uncharacteristic loss of temper shocked them into a momentary silence. “We got company comin’ and I don’t think they’re friendly.” He explained to them the apparent ambush that would have been waiting for them.
“Yuh think they’re part of Red Alvins’ bunch?” asked Mike.
“He might have picked up a rumor about a posse after him,” said Elzy.
“I don’t think they’re with Red,” said Butch. “I was pretty far away though.”
“Then yuh dun’t know thet they’re not with Alvins,” insisted Mike. “Accordin’ tuh Luke’s little brother, there were some that dressed like dudes. He coulda left the three prisoners from Chicago behind tuh ambush us.”
“Don’t put a lot of stock in anythin’ little Lester tells ya,” Luke warned them.
“He would have remembered the big guy in the buggy,” said Butch. “This is a man too big to ride a horse. Red wouldn’t have nobody like that slowing him down.”
“They got to be regulators hired by the big cattlemen,” concluded Jack. “They’re all over the state. I heard there’s over a hundred of them. They must have us mistook for rustlers. If we just explain to them who we are, they aren’t gonna bother us.”
“Well, you can tell them yourself because here they come,” said Butch pointing towards a rise about a mile behind them. “They made good time getting that buggy through the draw.”
“Did anybody bring binoculars?” asked Mike.
“Yep, your nephew Patrick got a pair when we were buyin’ out the General Store in Rock Springs,” said Butch. “Never thought to get them from him before we left.”
“Every time we need some spyglasses, we say we’re going to get some,” complained Elzy, “and we never do.” He squinted in the direction Butch had pointed.
“I don’t see them,” declared Jack.
“I sees ‘em, Mr. Cassidy,” said Luke.
Jack turned and looked at Luke angrily. “I’m the only Mr. Cassidy here and I don’t see them.”
“If Butch says they’re coming, they’re coming,” Elzy said with finality.
“Then let’s keep moving,” said Jack. “They ain’t moving fast enough to catch us.”
“I’d like to relax by a nice warm campfire tonight,” said Elzy, “and that ain’t gonna happen with these three jaspers dogging our trail.”
“Well, it’s Lieutenant McGhan’s call,” said Butch.
“I can see ‘em now,” said Mike. “They got me curiosity up. Let’s find out what they want.” Mike took his Smith and Wesson .38 caliber service revolver out of his holster and broke it open to expose the cylinder. He put in one more bullet to give himself a full load. “I’ll go out and talk to them if you boys can give me some cover with those long guns.”
“If we’re gonna do that,” said Butch, “we might be better off back there where the trail narrows. Those big rocks on both sides will give us cover and they’ll be wide out in the open.”
“Why don’t we just keep moving,” said Jack, “and if and when they catch up to us, we can all talk to them. We’re five guns to their three.”
“Naw, I’m with Butch,” said Elzy. “If he’s got a bad feeling about these guys, I say we go for position on them.”
“Might as well stack the deck in our favor,” said Luke. “Least ‘til we find out what their business is.” Jack shot him another disapproving look as Mike shook his head in agreement.
“Elzy and me will get up on those rocks to the left,” said Butch, pulling his Winchester from its scabbard. “Jack, if you and Luke would set up behind those stubby little pines on the right, we’d have the whole meadow covered.”
Jack responded to the polite request with a surly scowl. Luke, however, moved into action. He dismounted his bony horse and detached the crude buckskin gun sheath from its side. Butch and Elzy, who had moved closer to satisfy their curiosity, were amazed when Luke pulled out the formidable-looking weapon.
“Jez, it’s a damn buffalo gun,” exclaimed Elzy.
“A Sharps,” said Butch. “Is it percussion?”
“Naw, it taint that old,” Luke assured him. “It uses regular cartridges.” He held out a hand full of huge 50 caliber rounds, each almost three inches long.
“Those look like they could knock down a house!”
“You’re sure welcome ta use it, Mr. Cassidy,” Luke said to him with admiration. “I’d be proud to say Butch Cassidy kilt ah man with my grandpa’s gun.”
“Well, thanks for the offer,” said Butch, “but considering the situation, I’d better stick with my Winchester. I know how to handle it. That cannon of yours might take some gettin’ used to.”
“They’re gettin’ close tuh the gap,” said Mike tersely. “I’m ridin’ out tuh meet them. If any ov you gents could cover me, t’would be appreciated.”
They all moved to their designated positions and watched as Lieutenant Michael McGhan rode out onto the meadow to greet the approaching strangers.
CHAPTER 19
MR. SIMM’S BAD DAY
Some of Karl Van Dersel’s earliest memories were of fear. His father, a retired army sergeant, would instill it in young Karl on a nightly basis. A huge man with an evil temper, he would beat Karl savagely because he could not lay his hands on the demons that tormented him.
After his wife disappeared, he moved to the Tranvaal region of South Africa to try farming, taking a reluctant Karl with him. Unfortunately for Karl’s new schoolmates, he inherited his father’s enormous size and aggressive disposition. Among the passive country people, he began to understand the bright, shining edge of fear. To have fear made him feel weak and humiliated, but to evoke fear made him feel omnipotent. His dark hair and small eyes, sunk above prominent cheekbones, gave him a villainous look. As he grew larger and larger, he was treated with increased deference as everyone’s fear of him grew. He saw it in the eyes of parents who were afraid he would hurt their precious sons.
He had only hurt one seriously, a new student whose rich parents had just moved from Capetown. The boy was unhappy leaving the city and regarded all the kids in the Tranvaal as country bumpkins. Their revenge upon him was simply to not to explain about Karl. Instead they told him that Karl was so big because he had flunked
for several years and was dull-witted. The city boy was encouraged to treat him with ridicule. He walked into class early and saw Karl trying to fit himself in a desk designed for someone half his size. His remark was that in Capetown, they made big dummies sit in the corner. He waited for the laugh from the other boys but only saw evil smirks. The girls in class turned their heads away. Luckily, one ran for the teacher.
By the time teacher arrived, it was too late for the city boy to ever be quite right again. Karl had punched him so hard repeatedly that he had broken his jaw and caused permanent loss of vision to his right eye. The school officials refused to ever let Karl return even after his father beat him in kind. Karl had learned a valuable lesson that day in school though. Always pick your time and place to fight. Never act in anger.
Frustrated, he ran away from home at eleven, surviving by acting and passing as an older boy. He loaded grain, shoveled out stables and cleaned spittoons in bars. It wasn’t until the Zulu attack on a lonely mining outpost in Natal that he found his niche in the troubled world of South Africa. He killed three Zulu warriors that day, and the word of him spread among the Afrikaans. He was invited into the army and at fifteen, he was a scout guiding expeditions to the edge of the Kalahari.
Then the British joined the fighting against the Zulus, and Karl was offered something more than respect. The British were drawn there by rumors of gold and diamonds, and they wanted the Zulus out of the way. They were not hesitant to pay dearly for the top scout in the area. The Afrikaans took a dim view of his new acquaintances, but he did not care. He had heard his old man curse the British for years. How they stopped slavery and ruined the Dutch Afrikaans. Karl was doing his own thinking now, and he knew the British ruled the largest empire on earth. That made them somebody to go to school on. He learned the language and he studied their leaders. Divide and conquer. Turn one group against the other. They had a brutal but effective strategy.
When the Zulus were decisively defeated in ‘79, the British openly revealed their intentions in the Transvaal. As the situation escalated towards the Boer War, Karl became more and more a man-in-the-middle. He was a traitor to the Afrikaans and he was mistrusted by his new British friends. Having no ties to bind him anywhere, Karl decided it was a good time to move on. With his new knowledge of English, what better place to go than America - land of opportunity.
He entered at Boston and quickly found work in a tough bar in the Irish District as a bouncer and bartender. The owner, Johnny McGhee, liked him because he had no cronies and gave no one free drinks. A few years passed before McGhee discovered Karl’s ability to take care of things. He loaned him to a cousin in New York who was having a problem with a political rival and wanted him to go away. After this job, his reputation for dispatching of matters with cold military precision was established to the point he could go out on his own. A prominent New York attorney approached him about work in Chicago of a highly sensitive nature, and he was on a train for the Midwest. Traveling under the alias of Mr. Simms, he had brought with him Leroy Nibbs and a thin, acerbic man known only as Slats. He had found them to be reliable in New York, and some people who did not know Karl well would have thought them to be his friends. He had never had a friend; friendship was a liability.
All had gone as planned until this day in the state of Wyoming. At this point in the operation, he was to eliminate a snoopy but well-known Chicago detective. Through a providential set of circumstances, a plausible reason was presented to send Lieutenant McGhan to the desolate West. There he would be in the middle of another larger operation being carried out by friends of his employers. This would provide the setting he needed for an unfortunate case of mistaken identity. In the midst of an armed rebellion, innocents are frequently the victims amid all the confusion.
Karl had learned from the chief scout when he was young to always think like your adversary. Then you will find their weakness. He saw detective Mike McGhan as a duty-bound man who would be compelled to carry out his assignment even if he had second thoughts about it. He was also impatient. Karl would make this his undoing. No provisions were made for McGhan to receive any help when he arrived in Rock Springs. Blame it on confusion. Most men, knowing they were out-manned and out-gunned, would sit tight until they were re-enforced. He had guessed Lieutenant McGhan would not wait. He was right.
Slats was also an impatient man. He wanted to finish McGhan in Chicago. He saw no need to travel over a thousand miles to kill a man. He did not have the acumen it takes to be a first rate fixer. A prostitute could be found strangled in a back alley and there would be few questions asked. But if the most popular cop in the Irish “Patch” were to die in a violent and mysterious manner, there would be a public outcry. This matter had to be handled with finesse, something Slats would never understand or possess. McGhan was always with people in Chicago. His partner Bockleman was like his shadow. The hero of the Haymarket riot had to be isolated. He had to be taken out of the city.
On the barren plains of Wyoming, Lieutenant McGhan would be alone and out of his element. Karl liked the sparse terrain. It made him feel like he was back in the Transvaal tracking the cunning Zulu. They were resourceful like McGhan. Somehow, without any funds, he had managed to pick up two locals to ride with him. He couldn’t be paying them much, so in a shootout they would evaporate and disappear like the streams of the great basin. He figured Leroy and Slats were enough to get the job done. Then McGhan lost his nephew, the reporter, but picked up two more riders. Now Karl felt uncomfortably out-gunned.
Karl knew he would have to overcome their numbers with the element of surprise. He set an ambush up carefully along the only trail the posse would logically take. He and his associates, as he called them, would have the trees for cover. They could wait to open fire until the posse was well within range. He would get McGhan on the first volley. The others would probably go quickly back from where they came. If not, they would be caught between the river and the steep side of the valley. They would be easy targets.
Then the unexpected. Just as the posse was in his sights, they abruptly turned and crossed the river. Karl had pounded his rifle stock into the ground in frustration. Where were they going? Why were they going? Had they seen something that tipped them off to the ambush? The glint of a gun barrel in the sun. Not likely. The fog had just lifted. There was the deer they scared. That wouldn’t be enough for them to change course. Few men he knew had that much intuition. Who were these men riding with McGhan? He was enraged. They were heading out of the valley through a rocky draw that he would have to haul his wagon through to follow. He cursed his size, that he could no longer find a horse to carry him. He cursed Leroy and Slats just for being there to see his plan fail.
His anger did not begin to subside until he reached a broad, barren meadow in the foothills. His practiced eye could clearly see the hoofprints of five riders and a packhorse between the scrub grass and occasional spear-like Spanish dagger. Lester and Slats were befuddled as to how he had ever picked up the trail. To him, it was like old times on the Transvaal. He was stalking his prey.
The meadow narrowed to a pass about fifty yards wide with boulders on one side and a stand of scrubby pine on the other. If they just kept moving, just kept close, they could catch the posse somewhere in the mountains after dark. There would be plenty of cover. He could get in close for a kill shot. Mike McGhan silhouetted against the fire.
“I’ll be damned,” exclaimed Slats.
Again the unexpected. Karl looked up from the trail he was so intently trying to follow to see Police Lieutenant McGhan come from behind the boulders ahead of them. He was riding out to meet them, scarcely a hundred yards away. Karl instinctively reached down to picked up his rifle but stopped short. Where were the others?
“Dat’s our man,” said Leroy in amazement. “He’s ridin in like a lamb to the slaughter.”
“It’s too easy,” said Karl, still looking for the others.
“It’s cold as hell out here,” said Slats emphatical
ly. “Let’s finish it now.” He pulled his stolen Winchester from its saddle scabbard and brought it to his shoulder.
“No!” screamed Karl but it was too late. A rifle cracked from the top of the boulder and Slats dropped limply out of the saddle. Then what sounded like a cannon shot came from the trees to the right. The big Sharps resounded through the meadow like a clap of thunder. Leroy’s horse was rudely knocked out from under him and he was deposited on top the still flailing beast. Its chest was torn open and blood sprayed everywhere.
Karl pulled hard left on the reins and whipped the horses to leave. McGhan was closing in on them, his pistol pointed skyward as he waited to get in range. I could get off one rifle shot, Karl thought. I could end it here. That urge vanished when a bullet fired from the boulder buried itself in the front of his buckboard and another from the trees kicked up dust next to him.
Leroy, meanwhile, had recovered from his shock. He was firing wildly in the direction of McGhan as he ran to catch Karl. Mike pulled his horse to a stop and steadied his aim. He fired one shot that caught Leroy in the leg as he was just getting on the back of the buckboard. He screamed in pain but managed to hold onto the back of the seat. Then Butch’s Winchester spoke again and the right support of the seat shattered causing it to collapse under Karl’s weight. Leroy desperately clung to the seat as it held only by the bolts on the left side. He was hanging off the back of the buckboard, his injured leg dragging on the ground.
When he had traveled about a mile, Karl slowed the horses and looked behind him. They did not appear to be giving pursuit. Worried about getting across the mountains before the storm hit, he thought. Large, fluffy flakes were already settling in around him. He realized that he too must move quickly. Leroy tried to take a step without holding on to the buckboard and collapsed on the ground. The leg was bleeding profusely. The bullet must have nicked an artery. Karl whipped the team and left Leroy screaming behind him.
“You’re of no use to me now,” he explained. “You’re going to bleed to death before I can get you anywhere.”
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