CHAPTER 17
The Texans made their camp in some
trees about a quarter of a mile from the spot where the troopers
had pitched their tents and built those big cook fires. Scratch
arranged some rocks in a circle and kindled a tiny blaze just large
enough to boil coffee and fry up some bacon. No one outside the
trees would be able to see the flames. It was going to be a very
cold night, Bo sensed, and a big fire would have felt mighty good,
but every instinct in his body warned him against such a
thing.
After they had eaten, Scratch put out
the fire, but they lingered next to its ashes, sipping the last of
the coffee. They could hear the troopers moving around, talking
loudly, and laughing.
“Those fellas better hope the army
never sends ’em to Arizona to fight the Apaches,” Scratch
commented. “If there were any ’Paches skulkin’ around, some of
those soldier boys would be dead by now.”
“I expect you’re right,” Bo agreed.
“Between the fires and the racket, the Devils probably know right
where they are.”
“Question is, what are they gonna do
about it?”
Bo took a sip of his coffee. “Reckon
we’ll have to wait and see.”
The Texans sat there in companionable
silence for a few more minutes, then Scratch said, “It’s time you
tell me what you been ponderin’ about these past few days, Bo. You
got some ideas that the Devils ain’t regular road agents, don’t
you?”
“The thought crossed my mind,” Bo
admitted. “As soon as Marty Sutton said something about the Argosy
wanting to buy her out, I got to wondering about
Nicholson.”
“All the other big mines lost gold
shipments before the Argosy did,” Scratch said. “And the Golden
Queen wasn’t the only one.”
“Yeah, but if the goal was to make Miss
Sutton so desperate that she’d sell, what better way to disguise
that than to hit all the other outfits, too, including your
own.”
Scratch thought it over and then nodded
slowly in the gathering darkness. “That makes sense, I reckon. As
much sense as you could expect from a snake-blooded varmint so
ruthless he’d have some of his own men murdered and carved up just
to keep suspicion from fallin’ on him.”
“That’s not all,” Bo said. “When we
first rode up Deadwood Gulch with Chloride and I got a look at the
terrain, I realized that it’s not really very far as the crow flies
from the Golden Queen to the Argosy. I confirmed that by looking at
the map in Keefer’s office this afternoon. You know how a pocket of
gold-bearing quartz can run for a long way sometimes.”
“Son of a gun! You think the Argosy
miners are followin’ a ledge that winds up smack-dab in the middle
of the Golden Queen?”
“It’s possible. And listen to this.
Reese Bardwell, Nicholson’s superintendent, has a brother named Tom
who led a gang of outlaws down in Kansas.”
“Yeah, I remember Chloride tellin’ us
about that rumor,” Scratch said. “He didn’t know if it was true or
not, though. He was just tryin’ to get under Bardwell’s hide that
day.”
“It’s not a rumor,” Bo said. “I looked
through the wanted posters in Sheriff Manning’s office and found a
reward dodger on Tom Bardwell. The poster was a couple of years
old, so there was nothing to indicate that he’d ever been hanged,
or even caught. I’d be willing to bet he hasn’t been.”
“So Nicholson hits on the idea of
recruitin’ his superintendent’s outlaw brother to raid the gold
shipments, with the idea that sooner or later he’ll force Miss
Sutton to sell out to him. That way he can keep minin’ the ore that
runs all the way through this ridge under us into the Golden
Queen.” Scratch smacked his right fist into his left palm. “That
all fits together mighty nice, Bo!”
“Yeah,” Bo said. “There’s just one
problem with it that ruins the whole thing.”
“What’s that? I’m danged if I see
it.”
“If Nicholson’s really behind all the
trouble, why would he go along with sending that letter to
Washington asking that the army be sent in to deal with the
Devils?”
For a long moment, Scratch didn’t say
anything. Then he muttered a curse and said, “Yeah, that don’t make
sense. Unless all the other big mine owners were gonna do it anyway
and Nicholson had to go along with the idea to keep anybody from
gettin’ suspicious of him.”
“Maybe,” Bo said. “I can’t help but
think, though, that Nicholson’s influential enough around here that
he could have talked the other owners into waiting if he’d wanted
to. When he was talking to the lieutenant, Nicholson looked and
sounded like he really wanted Holbrook to be successful in putting
a stop to the Devils.”
“We’ve run across hombres before who
were good at actin’ all innocent-like when really they were no-good
varmints.”
“Shakespeare wrote, ‘A man may smile
and smile, and be a villain,’” Bo quoted.
“Ain’t that what I just said? And what
if it ain’t Nicholson at all, but somebody else at the Argosy who’s
behind it?”
“Like Reese Bardwell,” Bo
said.
“He’s the one who’s got the owlhoot
brother. He could be workin’ behind Nicholson’s back, tryin’ to get
his hands on the Golden Queen. Or maybe he’s just out for a share
of the loot.”
Bo nodded. “Could be. Bardwell’s a
troublemaker, no doubt about that. I’m not sure he’s a cold-blooded
killer, though, brother or no brother.”
“So where does that leave
us?”
“Sitting in the cold and the dark,” Bo
said with a smile, “waiting to see if a bunch of outlaws are going
to show up and try to kill us all.”
The Texans took turns standing guard
during the night, as they usually did in a potentially dangerous
situation like this. Bo stood the first watch, and Scratch took
over around midnight.
Bo wasn’t sure how long he had been
asleep when his friend touched his shoulder, but he was instantly
awake. He sat up with the fog from his breath wreathing around his
head and reached for the Winchester he had placed on the ground
next to his bedroll.
“What is it?” Bo asked in a whisper
that couldn’t have been heard more than a few feet
away.
“Horses smelled somethin’,” Scratch
replied, equally quietly.
“Mountain lion, maybe?”
“They ain’t spooked. I’d say it’s more
horses.”
Bo lifted his head to judge the cold
wind that blew across the top of the ridge. It was from the
northwest, and that meant their horses wouldn’t be able to smell
the cavalry mounts, which were picketed several hundred yards away
to the east.
Here under the trees, it was too dark
for the Texans to see each other, but they had ridden together for
so long each of them knew what the other would be doing in these
circumstances. Bo found his boots and pulled them on while Scratch
ghosted through the trees to a point where he could see the
camp.
Bo joined him a moment later. The big
fires the troopers had built earlier had died down quite a bit, but
they were still visible. Bo saw dark shapes cross between him and
the orange glows as the guards Holbrook had posted walked their
picket lines.
“You hear any horses earlier?” Bo
breathed.
“Nope. But that don’t mean anything.
The Devils could’ve dismounted a ways along the ridge and started
sneakin’ up on foot.”
Bo knew Scratch was right. Cold-blooded
killers could be slipping into position to open fire on the camp
right now. As far as anybody knew, the Deadwood Devils numbered
around a dozen men, maybe a few more. That wasn’t enough to take on
a troop of thirty or more well-armed cavalrymen, even if the
soldiers were under the command of a
greenhorn like Vance Holbrook.
But if the outlaws could take the camp
by surprise and kill some of the troopers in the first volley, that
would go a long way toward evening up the odds. Bo and Scratch
couldn’t let that happen.
“Let’s make some noise,” Bo said as he
lifted his rifle. He had levered a round into the Winchester’s
chamber before he ever turned in for the night.
“What if the Devils ain’t around?”
Scratch whispered.
“Then we’ll apologize later for
disturbing Lieutenant Holbrook’s sleep.” Bo had the rifle at his
shoulder now. He pointed the barrel at the sky and cranked off
three shots as fast as he could work the lever. Beside him, Scratch
did the same thing. The thunderous racket of the shots rolled
across the top of the ridge toward the camp.
Then the Texans hit the dirt, just in
case some of the startled troopers jumped up and started blazing
away in the direction of the shots without knowing what they were
shooting at.
Somewhere in the darkness a man’s harsh
voice yelled, “Hit ’em!” and tongues of orange muzzle flame licked
out from a different clump of trees near the camp. Bo knew that was
where the bushwhackers were hidden. He propped himself up on his
elbows, lined his sights on those trees, and started firing. Again,
Scratch followed suit.
The pickets weren’t sure exactly where
to shoot, but they knew they were under attack. They opened fire,
the shots from their Springfields snapping out. Since all the
soldiers could do was aim at muzzle flashes, some of their shots
were directed toward the trees where the ambushers were hidden,
while others whipped through the branches and thudded into the
trunks in the grove where Bo and Scratch lay. The Texans had known
when they opened fire that they ran a risk of being shot by their
own allies, but there wasn’t anything they could do about that
except stay low.
The troopers who had been sleeping
scrambled out of their blankets, lunged from their tents carrying
their rifles, and took cover behind the rocks scattered around the
camp. Even over the roar of guns, Bo heard Sgt. Olaf Gustaffson
bellowing orders. This wasn’t Gustaffson’s first fight. He would
know what to do.
Bo wasn’t surprised when the firing
from the other clump of trees abruptly stopped. He spotted several
dark shapes racing through the shadows, and so did Scratch. The
silver-haired Texan exclaimed, “They’re lightin’ a shuck!” Scratch
tracked one of the running figures with his Winchester and squeezed
off another shot.
The fleeing outlaw tumbled off his
feet. Bo threw lead after the others but couldn’t tell if he hit
any of them. Over at the camp, Gustaffson yelled, “Cease fire!
Cease fire!”
“Countermand that order!” Lieutenant
Holbrook shouted, his voice a little higher than normal from
excitement and probably fear. “Continue firing! Over there in those
trees!”
“Better duck, partner,” Bo
warned.
Both Texans hunkered as low to the
ground as possible while a storm of lead tore through the trees
above them. During a brief pause in the firing, they rolled away
from each other and crawled behind a couple of pines, putting thick
trunks between themselves and the camp.
After a few moments, the shooting
trailed off again. Bo heard Gustaffson saying, “Lieutenant, I think
that’s where Creel and Morton were!”
“My God!” Holbrook yelped. “Why didn’t
someone say so?”
Because you didn’t give them a chance
to, Bo thought. But now that the guns were silent, he took
advantage of the chance to cup his hands around his mouth and call
out, “Hold your fire! It’s us!”
“You reckon the Devils left behind any
sharpshooters?” Scratch asked as the Texans got to their
feet.
“I hope not,” Bo said.
He hoped their horses had been picketed
far enough into the trees that the animals had remained safe during
all the shooting, too. He hadn’t heard either of the horses scream,
so maybe they hadn’t been hit.
Bo and Scratch reloaded, then held the
rifles ready as they trotted toward the camp. Bo noticed that the
fires had been doused completely, plunging the whole area into
darkness. Probably Gustaffson’s idea, he told himself.
“Hold it!” a voice said as they
approached. Bo recognized it.
“It’s just us, Sergeant,” he
said.
Gustaffson stood up from behind the
rock where he had been kneeling. “Come ahead,” he told them.
“Either of you fellas hurt?”
“No,” Bo said, and Scratch added,
“Nope.” Bo heard a man groan somewhere nearby and went on. “Sounds
like somebody else is, though.”
“Yeah, we’ve got casualties,”
Gustaffson said, his voice grim now. “Including the
lieutenant.”
That surprised Bo. “I heard him just a
few minutes ago.”
“He ain’t dead, just wounded. He’s
being tended to now. Come on, I’ll take you to him.” To the
troopers scattered behind the rocks, Gustaffson said, “The rest of
you men stay where you are, and for God’s sake, stay alert. If you
see anybody move out there, chances are it ain’t a
friend.”
The sergeant led Bo and Scratch to the
largest of the tents, where a makeshift field hospital had been set
up. By lantern light, one of the troopers was cleaning a bloody
gash on Lieutenant Holbrook’s upper left arm where a bullet had
creased him. Holbrook looked pale and queasy, and he turned his
head away from his wounded arm as if he was afraid the sight of the
blood would make him sick.
“How’s he doing, Wilson?” Gustaffson
asked the trooper. The man was older than the usual cavalry
private. His weathered face and iron-gray hair put him at least in
his forties.
“He’ll be fine, as long as he doesn’t
get blood poisoning,” Trooper Wilson replied. “And I’m doing
everything I can to prevent that. The lieutenant was
lucky.”
Luckier than the two soldiers lying on
the ground with blankets pulled up over their faces, Bo thought.
Blood soaked through those blankets in places. Those troopers
hadn’t made it.
A couple of other men, one with a
bloody bandage around his right thigh and another who had been shot
through the hand, were in better shape, certainly better than the
two fatalities. Holbrook’s wound appeared to be the least serious
of the lot.
The lieutenant winced as Wilson used a
carbolic-soaked rag to clean the gash. “Where were you two men?” he
demanded of the Texans. “You’re supposed to be helping us! Instead
you let those outlaws attack us!”
“If we hadn’t fired those warning
shots, the first shots you heard would have been the ones that
killed all your pickets,” Bo said bluntly. “And then the Devils
would have riddled all the tents before your men could even crawl
out of their blankets. They had plenty of light to aim by, after
all, with those fires still burning.”
Holbrook flushed angrily, which at
least got a little color back into his face. “This was our first
night out here,” he said. “I didn’t think the Devils would attack
us yet—”
“I don’t reckon they saw any reason to
waste time,” Scratch said. “They didn’t like the idea of havin’ a
cavalry patrol out here huntin’ ’em.”
“They’ll soon learn they can’t get away
with ambushing the United States Cavalry,” Holbrook snapped.
“Sergeant, did we suffer any other casualties?”
“A few nicks,” Gustaffson answered.
“Nothing the men can’t tend to themselves.”
“Very well.” Holbrook flinched again,
this time as Trooper Wilson bound a dressing in place around his
arm, and went on. “Organize a burial detail. We’ll lay Troopers
Rutherford and Bennett to rest first thing in the morning. Assign
one of the uninjured men to accompany Mitchell and Stoneham back to
Deadwood.”
The man who had been shot through the
hand spoke up, saying, “Beggin’ your pardon, Lieutenant, but I
don’t have to go back. I can ride just fine, so I should stay with
the patrol.”
“You may be able to ride,” Holbrook
said, “but you can’t handle a rifle one-handed, Stoneham. You’re
going back.”
“I’ll see to it, Lieutenant,”
Gustaffson said before the young soldier could protest
again.
Holbrook nodded. “Excellent. The rest
of us will continue searching for the enemy.”
“What about you, sir? You’re injured,
too.”
Holbrook’s face hardened. “I said, the
rest of us will continue searching for the enemy. That’s exactly
what I meant, Sergeant. Tell the men we’ll be leaving as soon as
it’s light enough to follow a trail.” He frowned at Bo and Scratch.
“That is, if our scouts think they’ll be
able to pick up the trail of the men who ambushed us.”
Bo could tell that Scratch was about to
make some angry response, and he couldn’t blame his old friend for
feeling that way. The lieutenant was making it sound like they were
somehow responsible for what had happened, when the truth was it
had been Holbrook who had ordered those big fires built. Chances
were, things would have been a lot worse if the Texans hadn’t done
what they did.
But Holbrook was in no mood to listen
to that, Bo knew. To keep Scratch’s hot temper from annoying the
officer any further, Bo said quickly, “We’ll be ready, Lieutenant.
The Devils may have overplayed their hand this time. Could be
they’ll lead us right to their hideout.”