Hanover didn’t think he did. “Now climb down and find them gold pieces on your cousin’s person.”
He kept the Colt trained on Walt as the younger Bowman stepped over his cousin’s body to where the horse had trotted off and searched the saddlebags. He held the purse aloft as he grabbed the horse’s bit. “Here it is, Lefty. Just like Uncle Matt said.”
“Fetch it over here, now. That gelding, too, while you’re at it.” His own horse was played out by the long, hard ride up from Texas, and he could use a fine mount like Bowman’s. The dead man wouldn’t have any further use for it anyway.
He watched Walt as the boy did as he was told. He thought about whether or not he should shoot him now or keep him around. The boy hadn’t done anything when Lefty had gunned down his cousin. There could be a dozen reasons why and all of them might prove useful as they ran down Trammel and the gambler. Even idiots had their purpose, as evidenced by Parrot’s continued and unexplainable existence.
He took the purse Walt handed up to him. Lefty knew by the heft of it that Bowman had been telling the truth, but life had told him it paid to be cautious. Keeping the Colt on Walt, Lefty pulled open the purse strings with his teeth and looked inside. Ten gleaming coins winked back at him. One thousand dollars. The most money John “Lefty” Hanover had ever seen in his life was now in the palm of his hand.
His joy was interrupted by three gunshots echoing from somewhere down the trail.
Lefty pulled the strings closed with his teeth and tucked the purse inside his filthy shirt. “Sounds like you’re the last man from the BF ranch standing.”
Walt tried to put on a brave face. “Could be the other way around. Our men can handle themselves.”
Lefty thumbed back the hammer on the Colt. “You really believe that, boy?”
“No. I guess I don’t. And I hope I won’t meet the same fate as them, Lefty. I’d like to join up with you if you’d be kind enough to have me.”
Lefty grinned. “You mean you’d turn on your own kin after everything we done?”
“My kin never thought much of me, and the feeling was mutual,” Walt said. “Guess I’ve got just as much right here as I’ve got waiting for me back at the BF. Maybe more. Hell, they were never going to let me run that ranch anyway.”
Lefty eased back on the hammer and tucked the Colt away. Yes, maybe young Walt Bowman could be useful after all.
Lefty turned when he heard a rider coming back from the north. It was Chico, and he was smiling. “You better ride up here and take a look at this, boss man. Looks like Trammel and his friend did some of our killing for us. Got two dead men at an old campsite up ahead.”
He looked down at Matt Bowman’s body on the trail. “What happened here?”
Lefty stepped down from his horse and took the reins from Walt. Yes, it was a good mount indeed. “What you see here is progress, Chico. Plain, old-fashioned progress.”
CHAPTER 11
After three days of good travel and harsh nights of bitter cold, Trammel and Hagen finally led their team of horses into Nebraska. Winter had already lost its grip on the land, but the air was much colder than Trammel would have liked it to be.
“So this is Nebraska,” Trammel said aloud as they rode along. The land was as flat as it was plain. “By God.”
“Kansas isn’t exactly a bustling metropolis, my friend,” Hagen said. “You’ll find our passage will be quieter here, as long as we keep our heads about us.”
“We been doing anything but that since we left Wichita?”
“I’m afraid more vigilance will be required of us in these parts, for there are many trials we may face on the trail to Ogallala.”
“Like what?”
“Renegade Indians are always a concern,” Hagen explained. “Hunters, too. Men of various ill repute and reputation are as common to these plains as the buffalo.”
Sometimes all the words Hagen used to describe one simple thing gave him a headache. “Did you always talk this way or did you learn it?”
Hagen smiled. “Why use three words when ten will do? I find language to be a poor enough form of communication, so I try to make the best of it whenever possible. Besides, it’s not like there’s a better way to pass the time, is there?”
Trammel saw something in the distance that made him bring his horse up short.
Hagen followed suit. “What’s wrong?”
Trammel pointed to the sky over the slight rise in front of them. “See for yourself.”
Both men saw a flock of buzzards circling high overhead in the near distance.
“Good eyes, Trammel,” Hagen said. “I hadn’t seen that.”
“Too busy talking, I suppose.”
“Shut up.”
Trammel looked around them to see if anyone might be hiding nearby or if there was any sign that might tell them what had attracted the buzzards to whatever was just over that rise. There were no obvious clues.
“Wonder what they’re circling,” Trammel asked.
“Something big to attract a flock that large,” Hagen explained. “Maybe a couple of buffalo carcasses left by skinners. No way of knowing until we see for ourselves. Let’s hobble the horses and make our approach on foot. Safer that way.”
Both men dismounted and hobbled their horses where they stood. They removed the Winchesters from their respective saddles and approached the rise at a crouch. When they got near the top, Hagen dropped to his belly and used his elbows to propel himself the rest of the way. Trammel did likewise, though far less gracefully than his companion.
When they saw what had attracted the buzzards, both men spoke at the same time.
“Good God.”
* * *
With the stocks of their Winchesters on their hips, Trammel and Hagen rode their horses into the charred remains of what had once been a wagon train.
By Trammel’s count, five wagons had been burned where they had formed a semicircle in an attempt to ward off some kind of an attack.
“Think it was Indians?” Trammel asked Hagen.
“Can’t tell as of yet.” Hagen dismounted and tied his mount off on a burned wagon wheel. “You stay mounted and keep watch. Everything’s still smoldering, so whoever did this might still be close by.”
Trammel figured Hagen was right. The smell of burnt wood was too strong to have been there for long.
Rather than stand stock-still in one place, he rode the horse around the wagons to get a better look at the surrounding area and the wagons themselves.
The outward sides of the charred buckboards were peppered with bullet holes. From atop his horse, Trammel could see the burnt bodies of men who had taken cover inside the wagons. Their dead hands were curled around rifles that were no longer there.
“Whoever it was took their rifles,” Trammel called out. “Horses, too. Looks like they burned whatever they couldn’t take.”
Hagen was moving among the bodies lying inside the wagon circle. “See any women in the wagons?”
Trammel picked up his pace, fighting his horse to keep moving despite the stench of burnt flesh that hung heavy in the air. “Not a one. Think whoever did this took them?”
“Most assuredly,” Hagen said, then called out. “Buck, one’s still alive! Keep an eye out for anything coming our way!”
Trammel jerked his horse around to go back the way he had come. Even he knew a man on horseback was an inviting target. He didn’t want to make himself any easier to hit by riding around in a predictable circle.
He saw Hagen cradle a man’s head in his hands. Trammel could see the bullet wounds in his legs and arms were still bleeding. His skin had been burned, but he managed to somehow move his hand as he talked into Hagen’s ear.
That same hand trembled, its fingers becoming rigid, before they went limp. Hagen slowly lowered the man’s head back to the burnt ground and laid the dead man’s blackened hands across his chest. Trammel couldn’t swear to it, but he thought he heard the gambler praying.
“Better get
in here,” Hagen called out to him, “and bring the horses with you. Theys who did this hit the train only a few minutes ago and they’re still around.”
Trammel changed direction again and doubled back the way he’d just ridden. “You sure about that? Maybe we should just get the hell out of here?”
A rifle shot echoed as a bullet struck the ground about ten yards in front of Trammel’s horse.
“You were saying?” Hagen said.
Trammel rode his own horse through the narrow gap between two burnt wagons and ran to bring the rest of the animals into the makeshift fort. Sometimes, he hated it when Hagen was right.
* * *
Trammel tossed Hagen his Winchester and a box of cartridges from the pack mule. He took his own Winchester and coach shotgun from the saddle and laid them against a wagon on the other side of the circle. Hagen would guard the eastern side and Trammel would take the west. Since they had come from the south, he figured that side was clear.
“How many are we looking at?” Trammel asked as he made sure there were two cartridges in the shotgun.
“The dead man told me ten or so.” Hagen already had his Winchester at his shoulder, scanning the horizon for anything to shoot at. “Said they rode off when one of their lookouts spotted us. Five of them took the women in a wagon they’d brought with them. A couple stayed behind to scalp the survivors.”
“Scalpers?” Trammel aimed the Winchester at a copse of trees in front of him. If an attack came, he figured it would come from there. “So it’s Indians, then.”
“No,” Hagen said. “White men. That makes it worse.”
Trammel gagged on the odor of charred death all around him. “Can’t see as how it could be any worse.”
“Indians would most likely ride on after they got what they were after,” Hagen explained. “White men who’d do this will double back for our supplies, figuring there’s more to be had. That shot they took at you was to find their range, probably hoping they’d hit you or the horse and cut down the odds even further in their favor.”
Trammel scanned the horizon nervously. “Maybe if we ride like hell, we could get clear of them.”
“They’d only run us down on the trail eventually, probably before nightfall. And in open country no less. No, there’s a fight coming regardless, and I’d rather it happen here where we have cover.”
Trammel wasn’t so sure. “Cover didn’t do these folks much good.”
“True, but they were farmers. We’re not.”
A bloodcurdling yell echoed across the plain as the brush in front of Trammel shook before five riders came bounding straight for him. “Five on my side!” he called out.
“Same here,” Hagen answered. “Hope you know how to use that Winchester.”
Trammel drew a bead on the lead rider, steadied his aim, and fired. Man and horse pitched to the side and fell hard. He levered a fresh round into the chamber and aimed at a second invader. “Don’t worry about me.”
He heard Hagen firing, too, but was too busy with the four remaining riders to check on him.
The four riders broke apart, two splitting left while two split right. All were coming in fast. Trammel aimed at the lead rider on his left and fired. He missed but struck the man behind him in the chest. The man dropped from the saddle as his horse rode on.
He levered another round and took aim at the man he had missed. He led him a bit more this time and fired in front of him. Again, he missed the rider, but his round slammed into the horse’s rear flank, causing it to rear up as the impact of the bullet caused him to spin and crash to the ground. The rider was thrown clear and landed flat on his back.
Bullets from the other riders struck the wagons all around him, but Trammel kept his focus on the thrown man. He aimed steady until the man tried to get to his feet. When he got on all fours, Trammel fired again, striking him in the side and laying him out flat.
The ground to his left rumbled and instinct made him dive for cover as another rider sped by much closer to the wagon wall, peppering the area with pistol shot. Another rider followed right behind him, almost hitting Trammel in the leg.
Trammel dropped the Winchester and scooped up the shotgun as he rose up and fired both barrels into the last rider’s back. The man pitched forward on his horse amid a red cloud of his own blood.
Trammel dove behind the wagon as another rider came in at his right with a shotgun of his own. The blast obliterated the bottom of a wagon wheel behind Trammel, causing the wagon to sag.
Trammel grabbed the Winchester as he rolled onto his back and levered another round into the chamber. He brought up the rifle to his shoulder just as the shotgunner rounded the wagon. Trammel sent him to hell with a squeeze of the trigger, the bullet striking the man high in the chest.
A bullet crashed into the wagon just above Trammel’s head as another shot from Hagen’s Winchester rang out from the eastern side of the wagons. Another horse screamed and another thud shook the ground.
“One’s on foot!” Hagen called out. “Be careful.”
Trammel had just gotten to his feet when the impact of a rifle butt struck him at the base of the neck. The blow dropped him to a knee, but didn’t rob him of his senses. Instinct caused his left elbow to shoot backward, catching the man in the stomach and sending him sprawling back against the wagon.
Trammel wheeled and snatched the man by the throat, pinning him against the buckboard as he slapped the man’s rifle away. The man grabbed at Trammel’s arm, trying to break the viselike grip on his throat. His eyes began to bulge as he his lungs could no longer get oxygen.
“Get clear of him and let me shoot him!” Hagen yelled.
But Trammel’s grip held.
The rage began to wash over him again, as it always had when people struck him. His father had struck him so many times over so many years as a boy when all he could do was cower and take it.
But Buck Trammel wasn’t a boy anymore.
And he would never let anyone hit him again.
“Damn it, Buck,” Hagen yelled. “He’s going for his gun.”
But Trammel put all of his weight on the man’s throat as he twisted it. A sickening pop, followed by the man falling slack. Trammel threw the body aside.
“That all of them?” Trammel asked.
Hagen didn’t answer right away, but when he did, his voice was quiet. “Yes, Buck. I think so.”
Trammel heard a man cry out from beyond the wagon. He looked up and saw one of the attackers pinned beneath his horse. It was the first man he’d shot. And he was still alive.
“There’s still one left.” Trammel pulled the Colt from his shoulder holster and moved between two wagons to walk toward him.
Hagen scrambled after him. “What are you doing, you damned fool? There might be more of them out there.”
Trammel kept walking. “Let them come. This one might know where the women are.”
Hagen had to run to keep pace with the big man’s stride. “They’re probably long gone from here. Let’s get out of here like you wanted to before.”
Trammel kept the Colt at his side as he walked. “No.”
He found the man’s left leg pinned beneath the dead horse. The leg was crushed. The grass around him had been clawed away as the man had obviously tried to pull himself free, but to no avail. Trammel saw the man’s pistol and rifle had fallen on the other side of the dead horse, well out of reach of the dying man.
Trammel stopped five yards away from the man and aimed the Colt down at him.
The man held up his hand as if it could stop a bullet. “Please, no. I’m out of the fight.”
“Like hell you are.” Trammel thumbed back the hammer. “Where are the women?”
“Pull me out of here and fix me up, and I promise I’ll tell you.”
“Say nothing and I’ll let the buzzards have you. Tell me where they are, and I end it now. If not, I walk away. Your choice. Last chance.”
The wounded man pointed back in the direction of the wa
gon arch. “We moved them back there when we saw you two coming. Tied up in a wagon just down that hill. Listen. You can still hear them screaming.”
Trammel cocked his head and listened to the wind. A slight breeze picked up from the east, and he could hear whimpering.
The same sound his mother used to make when his father came home from a night out with the boys from the docks.
“You hear that, Buck?” Hagen said. “He’s telling the truth.”
Trammel fired, killing the man on the ground. “So did I.”
CHAPTER 12
Trammel and Hagen left the packhorses in the wagon circle while they rode to where the dead man had told them the women would be. They found all of them in an old buckboard tied together by their hands and feet, even the children. They were still cowering in the middle of the wagon while the two horses hitched to the wagon nosed the grass at their feet, oblivious to the misery behind them.
Sometimes, Trammel envied animals.
Trammel stopped about a hundred yards from the wagon. If the women saw them, they didn’t show it.
“Hagen, you’ve got a better way about you than me. It’d be best if go down there and tend to them. Cut them loose and put them at their ease. Tell them we’ll bring them to Ogallala with us where they’ll be safe.”
Trammel noticed Hagen had lost some of his flair for the dramatic. Maybe the shoot-out had taken some of the starch out of him. Maybe watching his companion choke a man to death with his bare hands had done that, too.
Trammel had known people to act this way around him before. People, especially women, always liked to be around a big man until they saw what big men often had to do. It had been like that back in New York. It had been like that in the Pinkerton Agency, too. He saw no reason why Hagen should be any different.
“Of course, Buck, but you should come in with me. Help me assure them that they’re safe.”
“No. I’d just scare them, and they’ve been through enough for one day. You’re more charming than I am. Tie your horse to the back of the wagon and start heading north. I’ll strip the dead devils of ammunition and weapons and be along with the animals. Find a good safe place where we can make camp for a couple of days, maybe near a stream where they can wash up. We’ll push on to Ogallala when they’ve gotten over the shock. I’ll be along in a bit.”
North of Laramie Page 7
