Bannerman the Enforcer 17

by Kirk Hamilton

  Yancey figured he might as well get both sides in on this deal and he hunted up Hemp Carswell who was now out at his ranch outside of Pecos. The big man met him with a cocked Winchester at the ranch gate and told Yancey to grab a handful of sky.

  “No need for the rifle, Carswell,” Yancey said, folding his hands on the saddle horn.

  “Lift your hands, mister!” Carswell snapped, glancing at the three riders who backed him.

  “I’m still on the public side of the gate,” Yancey pointed out. “You can’t say I’m trespassing, and if you shoot me here, you’re in big trouble. Just put up the rifle, mister.”

  Carswell’s bruised and battered face darkened: he didn’t like being bested this way in front of his men. In fact, he was still living down the beating he had taken in Pecos at Yancey’s hands. But he saw that Bannerman wasn’t going to be bluffed and he slowly lowered the hammer on the rifle, but held the gun at the ready. It was the only compromise he intended to make.

  “Now, that’s sensible,” Yancey allowed. “Carswell, I’m meeting with Red Dog tomorrow at the army post out at the Crossing. I’m going to discuss aspects of the treaty, that’s all. Now, you hombres around here feel mighty strongly about the Kiowas keeping the Pecos Valley …”

  “Damn right we do!” the rancher snapped.

  Yancey held up a placatory hand. “It’s their tribal home and they’ve got their sacred burial grounds in the valley ... You fellers got any suggestion for an alternative?”

  “Let ’em take the plains the far side of the ranges,” Carswell growled.

  “From what I hear that land’s no good for anything.”

  “Ain’t no good for cattle, that’s for sure. Ain’t no gold there, neither, that I ever heard of. But it’s good enough for Injuns, Bannerman! You tell your governor that!”

  “How’re they going to live out there? If there’s no grass, it won’t support game. They’ve got women and kids to feed, Carswell.”

  “That’s their problem,” the rancher said flatly. “More of them varmints that die, the better it’ll be for us!”

  His riders growled agreement and Yancey gave them a hard, bleak look.

  “Look, you have to forget the past, the fighting and the killing ... No one enjoyed that, on either side ...

  “Well, I sure didn’t, mister!” growled Carswell. “I lost my wife and son to them murderin’ polecats and I buried them both in a gunnysack. That’s all that was left.”

  Yancey nodded, mouth tight. “Sure, I know how you must feel, Carswell. Other men, too, who’ve lost families and wives and brothers. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy to forget such things, but there are atrocities the whites committed on the Kiowas, too, that they’ll find hard to forget ... What I’m saying is that the new treaty will put an end to any more killing. That’s the thing that has to be considered now. You’ve got thousands of acres of land here. The other ranchers hereabouts have big holdings too. You don’t need any more. You sure don’t need the feed and water you claim is in the Pecos Valley. You’ve ample for what you want. It’s the gold in the hills, isn’t it?”

  Carswell clamped his jaw tight, the muscles knotting as he bored his gaze into Yancey’s face.

  “The Injuns have got no use for it. But it can make a lot of white men rich.”

  “And lose a lot of them their lives ... by fighting with other white men!”

  “It ain’t any use to the Injuns!” Carswell snapped doggedly. Then he quietened down suddenly. “Look, Bannerman, this treaty is a good thing in some ways, I admit that. But only if it’ll keep the Kiowas off our necks while we mosey up into them hills to dig out the gold ...”

  “Governor Dukes has the Indians’ interests to consider, too, Carswell.”

  “He’s in Austin. You’re here. You’re the one who can go back and advise him, Bannerman. It could get you a lot of—uh—appreciation from the locals if you recommend the Kiowas be moved to the plains over the range and leave the Pecos Valley for us whites ...”

  “And the future settlers Dukes wants to see filling this corner of the state?”

  Carswell shrugged. “They take their chances, same as we did.”

  Yancey sighed slowly, shaking his head. “Well, if that’s your side of it, I can’t ever see this treaty working out. If Dukes goes ahead and gives the Kiowas the Pecos Valley, you men will go into the hills anyway and there’ll be fighting and killing again because you’ll be breaking the treaty.”

  “That’s how it’ll be, mister,” the rancher told him tightly. “That’s just how it’ll be ...”

  Yancey turned and rode back down the trail on his hired livery horse, his shoulders squared, the back of his neck aching with anticipation of a bullet.

  But none came and he made it safely back to Pecos. That was Tuesday, in the late afternoon. That night, Yancey met Chuck, who had been finalizing his land deals all day, and they had a few quiet drinks and a meal.

  “The word is out that you can’t be bought, Yancey,” Chuck said, as they smoked cigars after their meal.

  Yancey looked at him through the cloud of smoke. He said nothing, but there was a chill in his gray eyes.

  “I had a couple of—ah—offers myself,” Chuck went on. “There could be a few thousand more acres made available for purchase if I was to talk you around to advising Dukes that he move the Kiowas over the range ...” Chuck added.

  “Is that what you’re trying to do, Chuck? Talk me around?”

  Chuck shrugged, smiled winningly as he lifted his glass and sipped his whisky. He dragged on the cigar, exhaled a plume of smoke and squinted at his younger brother through it. “Some of that acreage could be in your name, Yancey. You’d stand to make a killing when the settlers rushed in …”

  Yancey’s eyes were frosty now and his mouth was a taut line. “Haven’t you learnt your lesson yet?” he snapped. “I’d have thought that Magnus deal, with its bribes and blackmail, would have knocked some sense into you, Chuck!”

  Chuck flushed as he was reminded of J. J. Magnus and his one-eyed assassin Hawke Venters. iii It had happened about six months ago and, strangely, it had been Yancey’s involvement, on behalf of Chuck, that had first brought the younger Bannerman’s talents to the attention of Governor Dukes ...

  “Different thing altogether, Yancey!” Chuck snapped. “This is no more than a business deal. A man has a right to look out for himself.”

  Yancey stood up, dropping his cigar into his brother’s drink. “You do that then, Chuck. But count me out.”

  Chuck flushed and stood up as Yancey turned and walked out of the dining room. He went after him, caught up with him outside the hotel. He grabbed Yancey’s arm and jerked him around to face him.

  “Listen, who the hell do you think ...?”

  The movement was so violent that Yancey was pulled off balance and it saved his life. A gun roared out there in the darkness and a bullet smashed into the wall, travelling clear through the space where he had stood a moment before. Yancey grabbed Chuck around the waist and shoved him violently back through the hotel doors, at the same time doubling, and lunging off the boardwalk into the street.

  The gun roared a second time as people ran for cover and dust kicked up a foot in front of Yancey as he came up to his knees, the Peacemaker in his right hand, already turning towards the muzzle flash of the assassin’s gun, and thundering. He heard glass break and then there were three swift shots that had him hunting the horse-trough for cover. The last bullet ricocheted from the stone trough and Yancey huddled down.

  But his keen ears detected the sound of running footsteps and he went after the killer fast, leaping over the trough, heading down a side street. He caught a glimpse of the killer as he rounded a corner of a building at the far end, and the man paused long enough to bring up the rifle he held and got off a shot from the hip. Yancey lunged to the other side of the narrow street but he didn’t hear where the bullet went. Pounding down the middle of the street now, Yancey slowed as he neared the corn
er. He moved in against the wall of the building, dropped to his knee and, keeping his head low down, looked around cautiously.

  The killer was waiting by a rain-barrel, rifle resting across the top for steadiness. Yancey saw the man start and half rise to angle the rifle down towards the ground where he saw the movement of Yancey’s head, three feet below where he had expected to see it. Yancey didn’t wait. He somersaulted out into the cross street and came up onto one knee, slip-shooting three fast shots.

  The killer’s rifle roared and water spurted from a hole in the rain-barrel. Then he was slammed back by the impact of lead, his head snapping on his shoulders as if jerked by a string. Yancey heard distinctly the thud his body made as it hit the ground and he ran forward, hammer cocked, Colt ready ...

  He came around the rain-barrel and saw the man spread-eagled with the rifle three feet from his hand. He was unmoving as Yancey knelt beside him and turned the bloody, bullet-wrecked face towards a shaft of light. There was enough of the man’s features left to recognize him as one of the men who had been with Hemp Carswell that afternoon ...

  Yancey stood up, reloading his Colt’s chambers as townsfolk hurried to see the corpse. He turned to face the pale, agitated Chuck.

  “Looks like Carswell didn’t figure you for much of a talker, Chuck ... Sent his man along to take care of me.”

  Chuck lifted an awkward hand. “Hell, Yance ... I never figured on anything like this.”

  “That’s one of your troubles, Chuck,” Yancey said, shouldering past him. “You never figure things properly.”

  Chuck swallowed and stared after his tall, wide-shouldered brother as he strode off into the night.

  On Wednesday morning, Cato had the Gatling gun ready for its trial shoot.

  It was carried outside the town in a buckboard, lashed in position with ropes. Four men manhandled it off the buckboard’s flatbed and set it up according to Cato’s instructions on an area tolerably clear of stones. He adjusted the legs until the gun was about level and by that time, most of the town had gathered on the hillside behind the target area to watch the proceedings.

  He prised open an ammunition box and fed about fifty cartridges into the Accles drum.

  “What are you gonna shoot at?” Jake Edge asked as Cato squatted behind the gun and made some adjustments to the elevation wheel.

  Cato straightened and pointed to a patch of red sandstone about three hundred yards away. From where they stood it looked about the size of a nail keg lid.

  “I’ll start on that to get the range.”

  Edge frowned, pursing his lips in a silent whistle. “How far do you reckon it’ll shoot?”

  “Effectively, anything from five hundred to maybe seven hundred yards ... But you can drop ’em all over the countryside up to a mile.”

  Edge looked at Kidd and his tight-knit group of train robbers. Clearly he was impressed with the weapon he now had at his disposal,

  Cato crouched over the gun, took his sighting, and grabbed the crank. He turned slowly, meeting some resistance, and then the crank jerked forward and the barrels revolved and the one that came up to the eight o’clock position on the cycle fired. Rock dust sprayed a yard above the red patch of sandstone. Cato kept putting pressure on the crank, surprised that it was so hard. Something was wrong, he figured, hoping the trouble would clear itself. The second barrel exploded but there was such a time gap and the whole gun jerked wildly on its stand, that Cato knew he had problems. He straightened and met Edge’s cold eyes.

  “Somethin’ wrong with the crankin’ mechanism,” he said. “It worked okay without any cartridges in the magazine drum ...”

  Edge said nothing as Cato worked over the crank, removing the handle from the shaft and then the brass cover over the gear system. He saw right away what had happened. He had packed the gears with axle grease last night and, in the gloom of working with an oil lamp, late into the night, racing against time, he had forgotten to put back the spacer washer. This meant the handle was binding on the gear housing itself.

  “Have to go get a washer,” he told Edge. “It’s back in the cabin.”

  “Go with him, Jethro,” Edge grated. He reached out a hand as Cato went to move off, stopping the gunsmith. “You better not be stallin’, mister.”

  Cato met his gaze levelly but said nothing. Edge released him and he and Kidd drove back to town in the buckboard. It took him twenty minutes to locate the washer amongst all the junk in the room and there was a time when Kidd was helping him look that he could have escaped. Kidd had his back to him, the Manstopper in leather, both hands full of garbage as he searched for the missing washer. Cato had a long pair of iron pincers and he could have slugged Kidd, grabbed his Manstopper and hightailed it ...

  But he still didn’t know what Edge wanted the Gatling gun for and he figured it was his job to find that out before he made his escape bid ...

  Once the washer was in position, the handle turned smoothly and the barrels revolved without resistance. The gun roared in staccato bursts, lines of dust kicking up all around the red sandstone patch. Cato made adjustments to the elevating wheel and the oscillating device. After three or four of these adjustments, he was placing his line of shots right through the middle of the sandstone patch. He soon used up the fifty rounds and then filled the Accles drum to its full capacity.

  He moved the gun around, changing the point of aim to a clump of cactus just over five hundred yards away. After a few ranging shots and some more adjustments, he sighted carefully and fired a burst of about fifty shots. When the smoke cleared, the cactus was splintered to shreds.

  ‘“Now that’s what I call a weapon!” Edge said, pleased. He shoved Cato aside roughly and cranked the handle himself. The shots roared away and made a line of dust spouts across the flats. He tried traversing and ‘walked’ the shots from left to right, right to left. He slapped the brass breech covering with his hand. “A right dandy weapon!”

  “You need some target practice,” Cato told him.

  Edge looked at him coldly. “I won’t be shootin’ from any five hundred yard range, mister. Maybe less than a hundred, is what I reckon.”

  Cato frowned. “What the hell’s the use of a long range, rapid-fire weapon at close range? You can do that with a battery of men and Winchesters ...”

  Edge hit him casually across the face, sending Cato staggering. “I know what I’m doin’, mister. You just keep that gun shootin’ as good as it is now. We move out early Friday mornin’.”

  “I’ll need someone to give me a hand to get it fixed to a wagon bed like you want,” Cato said, dabbing at his cheek, which was bleeding.

  Edge waved around at the men on the hillside.

  “Take your pick,” he growled. “Now get started.”

  Cato nodded as Edge swung away. He started to say that now, after firing, the gun would have to be thoroughly cleaned with hot soapy water to prevent black powder fouling and the formation of rust, which could happen within hours, due to the gunpowder’s ingredients. But he closed his mouth again without saying anything.

  Could be it would be better if he didn’t have the Gatling gun in first-class working order. He’d see what he could find out while they were working on the mountings. Or maybe Conchita would tell him what he wanted to know. She had been showing signs of weakening last night ...

  Red Dog sat cross-legged on the floor in the guarded log cabin that had been allotted to him at the Horsehead Crossing army post. He spread out his beaded armbands and bear claw necklace and seemed absorbed in the motions of his hands.

  Yancey looked a little uncertainly at Little Flower, wondering if her father had heard his question about the sacred tribal burial grounds.

  “He heard you, Mr. Bannerman,” she said quietly, unsmiling as usual. “He does not answer because there is no answer he can give to such a question. The burial grounds cannot possibly be moved. It is hallowed ground. That is why it is so important to my people to have the Pecos Valley included in any land we may
negotiate for in the treaty.”

  “Does it have to be the whole of the Pecos Valley?” Yancey asked. “I’ve studied army survey maps and the tribal grounds are marked. They take maybe just over a third of the valley. Suppose the governor grants you, say, half the valley and more land stretching beyond the hills?”

  “The area of land granted is not so important as its fertility, its location and the game that live there.”

  Yancey nodded, sighing. He was getting nowhere. He could see the Indian logic and desire for traditional lands. Also, he could see how white men would resent gold-bearing country being included in any grant to the Kiowas. If there was no solution, then the treaty would fail.

  Yancey stood, nodding to the girl. “I don’t see much point in carrying on with this just now, ma’am ... Till train time.”

  He lifted a hand to Red Dog who merely stared and made no move to acknowledge Yancey’s gesture. The big man nodded again to the serious-faced girl and left the room. Outside in the bright sunlight, Captain Grant was waiting anxiously, with several loiterers straining their ears to hear what Yancey had to say. But a look at his face would tell them all they needed to know.

  “No luck, huh?” Grant said. Not waiting for a reply, he added, “Feelings are running high in town ... They figure Red Dog’s being stubborn and you’re not coming down hard enough on him. Could have a nasty situation come train time.”

  “Up to you to supply an escort, Captain,” Yancey told him.

  Grant nodded. He knew the security was his responsibility and he didn’t like the way things were shaping up. He was afraid there would be a riot on his hands before Yancey and Red Dog and Little Flower cleared town ...

  The word soon spread around Pecos that Red Dog would not relinquish his claim to the Valley or any part of it. Men began to gather in tight groups, sober-faced, discussing what they saw as the Indian’s stubbornness. Trouble was, there weren’t enough family men in the southwest at that time: it was too wild and dangerous to entice whole families of settlers. So most these men had only themselves to think about and they were ready to defy the treaty if they had to as long as gold remained in the hills surrounding the valley.