The outlaws following the herd drew rein. They had rifles too, and Ira Reid flourished his over his head and waved it as if it was some sort of challenge.
“He’s awful eager for our blood,” Ollie said.
“For mine, most likely,” Chancy said. He would have to watch his back if shooting broke out.
All this while the dust cloud had circled to the northwest and would soon be directly in the herd’s path.
“They’ll have us hemmed,” Ollie said worriedly.
“We have to trust Stout’s judgment,” Chancy said. “He’ll know what to do.” Or so he hoped. Trail bosses were accustomed to dealing with all kinds of problems, but battles with outlaws usually weren’t one of them.
“Where’s a tin star when you need one?” Ollie said.
“You know the answer to that,” Chancy said. Lawmen in Indian Territory were scarce. Federal marshals, mostly. They were so few, and so overworked, that the territory had a reputation as no fit place for the law-abiding. Lawbreakers, on the other hand, had flocked in from all over to take advantage of being able to do as they pleased with little fear of ending up the guest of honor at a hemp social.
“What are they doing?” Ollie said.
Reid and his bunch were spreading out, forming into a curved line with each man about twenty yards apart.
“They’re cutting off our retreat,” Drew Case said. “They want to keep the herd here.”
“Or us,” Ben Rigenaw said.
Chancy’s palms grew slick with sweat. He had an awful premonition that nothing could keep blood from being spilled. The outlaws would do whatever they had to in order to make the herd theirs.
Long Tom rose in the stirrups and peered over the cattle. “That other bunch is doing the same to the north of us.”
“We’re in for it,” Drew Case said.
“They think they’re smart, but they’ve made a mistake,” Ben Rigenaw said.
“I’m listening,” Case said.
“There are only ten of them back here. And six of us.”
“The odds are still in their favor.”
“Not as much as at the front of the herd,” Rigenaw said. “We can scatter them if we do the last thing they’ll expect.” He smiled grimly. “We’ll charge the bastards.”
“Like the cavalry does?” Ollie said.
“Only without sabers,” Rigenaw said.
Drew Case grinned and Long Tom laughed.
Chancy didn’t find it funny. Riding into a hail of lead seemed to him to be certain suicide. “Why not let them come to us?”
“To rattle them,” Rigenaw said. “They figure we’ll stay put to protect the herd. Not take the fight to them.”
“That’s a good idea,” Drew Case said. “It will shake them up.
“No matter which happens,” Ollie said, “I’ll be pretty shaken.”
“It’s just nerves,” Long Tom said. “You can control them if you try real hard.”
From off toward the front of the herd, angry shouts broke out. It sounded to Chancy as if Mayor Broom and Lucas Stout were yelling back and forth. He couldn’t make out the words, but it was apparent that both sides were growing angrier the longer the shouting went on. Finally the moment that he dreaded came. Clear as a thunderclap, a volley of shots crackled like fireworks.
“Now, boys!” Ben Rigenaw cried, and spurred his bay.
Instantly Drew Case and Long Tom and Lester Smith followed suit, Lester whooping as if he was having a grand old time.
“Oh Lordy,” Ollie exclaimed.
“Come on!” Chancy bawled, and worked his Winchester’s lever on the fly. An image of Missy Burke standing over his grave filled his head, and he shook it to clear it. He needed to concentrate on the fight and nothing but the fight.
True to Ben Rigenaw’s prediction, the outlaws were caught flat-footed. They were just raising their rifles when Rigenaw fired, and the instant he did, Drew and Long Tom and Lester cut loose.
An outlaw grabbed at his chest and fell. Another was nearly slammed off his horse and had to grab his saddle horn.
Chancy fixed a bead on Ira Reid. He held his rifle as steady as he could and banged off a shot. If his slug hit home, Reid didn’t show it. Instead Reid fired at him.
Chancy heard the buzz of a lead hornet, worked his rifle’s lever, and squeezed off another. To his surprise and delight, Reid’s hat went flying and his head jerked to one side. But Reid stayed in the saddle, and the next moment he hauled on his reins and raced toward town.
Three of the outlaws were down. The others, including two who were wounded, decided Reid had the right idea, and fled.
Lester yipped in glee and would have gone after them except that Ben Rigenaw bellowed for him not to, and drew rein.
Chancy had no hankering to give chase. Lester seemed to forget the herd came first. He came to a stop with Ollie beside him. “You hurt, pard?”
“Not a scratch.”
Long Tom hadn’t been as lucky. He lay on his back, his arms outflung, a red hole smack in the bridge of his nose. The slug had gone clear through and spattered the ground with brains and hair.
Drew Case vaulted down and ran to him, but it was plain there was nothing he could do.
“Reload!” Rigenaw shouted. “Just in case.”
Earlier Chancy had placed extra cartridges in his pocket. He fished some out and was inserting the first when the shots and the yelling at the front reached a crescendo.
“They’re having a battle of their own,” Ollie said.
“Should we go help?” Lester Smith asked.
Whether they should or they shouldn’t was taken out of their hands by the next development. The longhorns at the front of the herd commenced to bawl in fear and mill about, and their fright spread like a contagion. In no time the entire herd was moving away from the gun battle and toward the rear.
Straight toward Chancy and his friends.
Chapter 37
“Oh hell,” Lester Smith exclaimed.
“We have to calm them,” Ollie hollered.
“Just us?” Drew Case said.
Chancy shared his skepticism. Fifteen hundred head were a lot of cattle. The five of them stood a snowball’s chance in a furnace of stopping the flood. Still, it was part of the job, and no cowboy worth his salt would let it come to that, if he could help it. Shoving his Winchester into the scabbard, he resorted to his rope.
Without waiting for the others, he spurred toward the herd.
“Too late!” Rigenaw cried.
The longhorns were breaking into mass motion. Slowly at first, as the cattle on the south end were pressed by those to the north. With every few steps they went faster, until suddenly the herd gave way to panic.
“Stampede!” Ollie screamed.
Chancy reined around and brought his horse to a trot. A glance showed a phalanx of sinew and horns bearing down on him. The leading longhorns were only about seventy yards away, and closing.
“Ride for your lives!” Drew Case yelled.
Chancy passed Long Tom’s body and tried not to think of the mangling it would take from all those hooves.
Ollie came up on his right, shouting, “What about Mr. Stout and the others?”
“We’ll find out later,” Chancy replied. The important thing now was to stay alive. He slapped his coiled rope against the dun.
Up ahead, Rigenaw, Lester Smith, and Drew Case were flying for their lives. Lester appeared terror-stricken but Rigenaw and Case were surprisingly calm.
Chancy wasn’t. He slapped his rope harder but his horse was galloping full out. Behind him, thunder swelled, the pounding of six thousand legs. Even louder was the bawling from hundreds of bovine throats.
Chancy was so intent on not letting the cattle overtake him that he’d forgotten about a couple of others who were in d
anger.
“Old Charlie!” Ollie cried.
The chuck wagon had been lumbering like a canvas-topped turtle well behind the herd. The outlaws hadn’t paid it any mind. They didn’t rate Old Charlie much of a threat. And now the chuck wagon was directly in the stampede’s path.
Ben Rigenaw reined over to it, held out his arm to Old Charlie, and motioned for the old man to swing on behind him. Old Charlie shook his head. The stubborn cuss wouldn’t abandon his wagon.
“Jump on!” Chancy shouted.
Rigenaw tried to grab Old Charlie’s arm but Charlie swatted his hand away and said something.
Chancy couldn’t believe his eyes. The old fool would get himself killed. Worse, he’d get Finger Howard killed too. Reining over to the back of the wagon, Chancy bawled, “Finger! Wake up in there!” Not that he imagined Howard was asleep. “Hop on behind me or you’re a goner!”
Finger’s head poked out. His jaw was set, his teeth clenched. On his hands and knees he shouted, “A little closer!”
Chancy obliged.
Finger jumped, but he was still weak and would have missed had Chancy not gotten a hand around him and virtually pulled Finger on behind. Finger wrapped his arms tight.
“I’m on! Light a shuck.”
The cattle weren’t thirty yards from the chuck wagon.
Rigenaw was trying to pull Old Charlie out of the seat, but the old man was having none of it.
Chancy couldn’t stay to help. With his mount bearing double, he needed a lead on the longhorns. He rode on, Ollie next to him.
Drew Case was well ahead by now, and so was Lester Smith. But Lester saw the hard time Old Charlie was giving his pard, and he slowed.
Chancy looked back.
Rigenaw had been able to clamp a hold on Old Charlie and was pulling him off the wagon. Incredibly the cook struggled to break free. Apparently deciding enough was enough, Rigenaw slugged him, then dumped the unconscious figure across his saddle and reined away. Not a second too soon.
The longhorns reached the chuck wagon. Their front ranks parted, sweeping to either side. The wagon might have been spared except that the frightened team reared and tried to turn, and in doing so brought about their own destruction. Longhorn after longhorn slammed into them and down they went. Their weight caused the chuck wagon to tilt. There was a resounding crash. Almost in slow motion the wagon canted and buckled and burst apart. Wood splintered as the horses voiced their death whinnies. Like a raging sea at high tide, the rest of the herd swept over everything.
“That would have been me,” Finger gasped in Chancy’s ear.
It still could be, Chancy was tempted to reply. He smacked his rope but it was useless. His horse couldn’t go any faster. Ollie had pulled a little ahead, and Rigenaw was coming up fast with Old Charlie flopping and bouncing.
The lake came into sight, and the charred remains of their campfire.
Chancy’s heart pounded in his chest. The longhorns were gaining, enough that he wasn’t sure he could make it past the lake before the herd overhauled him and brought him and Finger down.
A desperate idea bloomed. Excited at the possibility, he shouted at the others and pointed at the lake. Their confused looks showed they didn’t understand. The only way to remedy that was to do what Chancy did next. He reined toward it, and without letting his horse break stride, rode right into the water.
Chancy was taking a calculated gamble. All the stampedes he’d heard of, there were a few instances where cattle had plunged into a river or a stream and gone right across. But he’d never once heard of a herd stampeding into a lake. He was banking that if his hunch was right, the herd would stay away from the deep water, and anyone in it. The level rose to his boots and then his knees. Ollie and Rigenaw had followed but Drew Case and Lester Smith were still fleeing to the south.
“They should have done as I did,” Chancy muttered, and then beheld a sight that turned the blood in his veins to ice.
The longhorns weren’t staying shy of the water. They were plunging into it, too.
Chapter 38
Chancy sought to rein deeper into the lake. Turning a horse in water that high was slower than on land. For a few harrowing moments he feared the longhorns would reach them. But no. The ones that had plunged in were slowing, and those behind were turning to avoid the lake entirely.
Chancy rode out a little farther. Finger was slumped against him and breathing raggedly. “Are you all right?”
“Still not myself, but I didn’t fall off.”
Ollie and Rigenaw joined them. Old Charlie lay sprawled across the gun hand’s saddle, part of his arms and his legs in the water.
For an eternity the herd thundered by, raising a choking cloud of dust. All fifteen hundred save for a few stragglers. To the south, beyond the seething river of horns, Lester Smith and Drew Case galloped hell-leather.
“Those critters will run a mile yet,” Ollie said.
Rigenaw was staring after his pard. “Lester,” he said, more to himself than to them. “Why’d you keep going?”
“They’ll be all right if they stay ahead of the herd,” Chancy said.
Old Charlie stirred and muttered and raised his head. He looked around and scowled. “Damn you anyhow, Ben Rigenaw. You had no cause to bring me against my will.”
“Would you rather be busted to pieces like your wagon, you old goat?” Rigenaw replied.
“That wagon was all I had in this world,” Old Charlie said. “I’d rather have died than be without it.”
“Show some gratitude,” Chancy said. “Ben risked his hide saving yours.”
“I didn’t ask him to,” Old Charlie groused.
Ollie surprised all of them by saying, “Ben should dunk you in the lake, you ornery cuss.”
Instead Rigenaw helped Old Charlie to sit up, then swung Charlie around behind him. “Your life comes first whether you like it or not.”
Old Charlie made a “harrumph” sound.
“Some people,” Ollie said.
The dust was in Chancy’s nose and eyes. Coughing, he clucked to his horse. Once out of the lake, the dun shook itself.
A few straggling longhorns paid them no mind.
“I wonder how the others are doing,” Ollie said.
“We’ll soon find out,” Finger said, and pointed to the north.
Addy and Mays were trotting their way, leading Lucas Stout’s mount by the reins. Stout himself was doubled over in his saddle, his hand to his shoulder.
“That doesn’t look good,” Old Charlie said.
Caked with dust and looking frazzled, the two cowpokes drew rein. Lucas Stout stayed hunched over.
“Glad to see you gents are still breathing,” Addy said.
“How bad?” Ben Rigenaw asked, nodding at their trail boss.
“He took one in the shoulder,” Mays said. “It’s still in there. We have to get it out before it becomes infected.”
Chancy agreed. Blood poisoning from wounds killed more folks than being shot.
“We saw what little was left of the chuck wagon,” Addy said.
“Hell,” Old Charlie said, and spat.
“Forget the wagon,” Rigenaw said. “What happened up there? Where are the rest of the hands?”
“Pretty near twenty of those outlaws got around in front of us—” Addy began.
“We saw that much,” Ollie interrupted.
“Ives was with them, and that one called Krine, and the damn mayor,” Addy went on. “The mayor hollered for us to turn back and Stout told him to get out of our way. The mayor yelled that if we didn’t turn back, they’d take the herd as payment on the taxes and fees. Stout told them to come and try.”
“Good for him,” Finger said.
“The mayor gave us one last chance,” Addy said. “He told us to throw down our hardware or there wou
ld be hell to pay. Stout shouted back that they’d take our herd over his dead body.”
“That’s when the shooting commenced, I reckon,” Ollie said.
Addy nodded. “They charged us, all of them firing at once. Stout had formed us into a line, and we fired back. I saw some of the varmints drop but there were a lot more of them than there were of us. Parker went down, and Lafferty when he tried to help him. Webb was hit in the throat and screamed and was hit again.”
“That’s when the boss took a slug,” Mays threw in, “and everything went to hell.”
Addy nodded again. “We had to light a shuck or we’d all have bought the farm. The herd had stampeded, and the dust was so thick I figured the smart thing to do was follow after them and stay in the dust so the outlaws couldn’t see us. I grabbed Stout’s reins, and Mays and me lit out.”
“What about Collins?” Ollie asked.
“And Jelly Varnes?” Chancy said.
“I don’t know about Collins,” Addy said, “but Jelly was a hellion. I never saw the like, the way he worked that Winchester. He shot three or four. I hollered for him when Mays and me took off. The last I saw, he was still shooting.”
Chancy felt a swelling of pride. Evidently he wasn’t the only one.
“Damn, that’s grand,” Ollie said softly.
“But not very smart, if it got himself killed,” Ben Rigenaw said. “We need as many hands alive as we can if we’re to reclaim the herd.”
“That’s right,” Ollie said. “The outlaws will be after it, won’t they?”
Lucas Stout picked that moment to straighten. He was slick with sweat and in terrible pain. “We can’t sit here in the open like this,” he said, taking command. “The dust will settle and they’ll spot us.” He nodded toward a strip of woods to the west of the lake. “Head for those trees yonder.”
“We’ll get that lead out and you can rest,” Rigenaw said.
Stout stared after the herd. “Our outfit has been shot to ribbons, our chuck wagon is kindling, and we’ve lost I don’t know how many good men.”
“Too many,” Addy said.
“Once those cattle tire and stop,” Stout continued, “it will be easy for the outlaws to round them up. And you know what? We’ll let them.”
Ralph Compton Outlaw Town Page 14
