Ride Tall, Hang High Read online

  Chapter SEVEN

  "That’s it, they’re gone," Willy Boy said staring into the darkness. "I can hear their horses galloping away. Geeeeeeehaw! Didn’t we give them a reception! Damnation but that was a fine little go-round!"

  "One of us got hit," the Professor said quietly. "Who was it caught a slug?"

  "Me," Johnny Joe Williams said from a dozen feet away.

  "Get over here and let’s take a look," Willy Boy said. "Juan, come take a look at this. "

  They shielded the light with their bodies and Eagle lit a torch he had whittled with a lot of fringe edges on it so it flamed up brightly.

  Johnny Joe looked pale in the harsh fire light. The slug had caught him high in the chest. Juan pulled open his shirt and looked at the entry wound.

  "Should be above your lung," Juan said. "You having any trouble getting your breath?"

  Johnny Joe winced as he shook his head.

  "Good. Let’s look at your back. " He hoisted up Johnny Joe’s shirt and Eagle moved the torch to that side. There was an inch wide bloody wound running a stream of blood. Juan took a clean handerchief and pressed on the wound.

  "Neckerchiefs," he said, and the men pulled them off and gave them to him. He folded one and put it on the front wound and had the Professor hold both in place. Then he tied the other neckerchiefs together and wrapped them around Johnny Joe’s chest wound and his back and under his arm.

  "Not the best bandage, but we’ll make it do until morning. You shouldn’t be riding anywhere tomorrow. Maybe we should move to a better defensive spot and lay over for a day or two. "

  "We lost a horse," Eagle said. "One of them slipped into the brush and shot one of the mounts in the head. She went down and dead in a minute. I hit the guy with a pistol shot but he kept on running. "

  "So, we take stock in the morning. Eagle, can you stand guard for the rest of the night? Don’t want them bastards slipping up on us again. "

  "Yes, I’ll be on guard," Eagle said. "They rode out to the north. Might be planning on bushwhacking us tomorrow as we ride by. "

  "We might not ride by," Willy Boy said. "We got no timetable, excepting to get Johnny Joe fixed up. " His face frowned in the light of the torch. "Where the hell did they come from, that town where we robbed the bank?"

  "Not a chance," the Professor said. "He knew your name. Got to be the sheriff from Oak Park, our friend Dunwoody. He’s a hard man to shake. "

  "Maybe we should shake him for good tomorrow. How many were there?"

  "Six," Eagle said. "But now four or five. One of them got put out for good in that fire fight. I don’t think they took their dead with them. I’ll go out and check for sure. " He handed the torch to Willy Boy who put it out on the ground.

  "Yeah, check them. If they’re shot up, they might be heading home. If not, we should make sure they don’t bother us again. We can always kill the ones left. ""Remember, we’re short a horse," Gunner said. "Maybe they left one. "

  "Eagle will know," Willy Boy said. "Now, let’s get to sleep. Do the best you can, Johnny Joe. We’ll figure out tomorrow how to patch you up. We can’t backtrack. If that is the Oak Park Sheriff, he left word about us on our back trail. "

  "Sure they aren’t coming back?" Johnny Joe asked. "Damn certain, now try to get some sleep. " Willy Boy watched the wounded man lay on his side, then turn on his back and then to his side again.

  Willy Boy watched the rest of the camp settle down. He though about Johnny Joe and snorted. What was this? Why was he worried about the kid? A month ago he would have ridden off without a word. Now, somehow, the kid made a difference. Yeah, the guy had helped them break out. They had fought together. He was one of the six, The Outlaws, one of a group.

  And Willy Boy was the group’s leader.

  So, he had a gang. So he had to think about each of the members or they wouldn’t be in his bunch. The group gave them all safety, he’d told them that. Damn, now he was starting to believe it himself.

  Either one of the posses could have run down one or two men and killed or captured them. With six it became a goddamned war. Most of these posses didn’t like to fight a war.

  Hell, right now it was ride tall or hang high.

  They had to stick together, which meant they had to take care of Johnny Joe. Next town they’d find a doctor, make him fix up Johnny Joe, or else. Yeah. Next town.

  Eagle came back, running into camp with that Indian trot he had learned as a kid with the Comanches. He came directly to Willy Boy.

  "We killed two of them. Two out of six. Can’t figure out why they left their dead out there. "

  "They was getting their asses shot off is why. Probably plan on coming back for them later. "

  "Maybe," the black eyes of the Indian glittered in the moonlight. "I went over to where I could smell their horses. None left there, so they took all six. We need another horse. "

  "We’ll get one at the next ranch we pass. We can buy one, we got money. Horse and saddle. Right now we don’t need nobody else gunning for us. "

  "Johnny Joe?"

  "Damn right, we take care of Johnny Joe. What the hell’s wrong with that, you redskin savage?""Nothing, white eye. "

  Suddenly they were both grinning.

  "Think we hurt any of the others?" Willy Boy asked. "I’ll look for dried blood in the morning. " Eagle said. "Know I winged one by our dead horse. I’ll check the other firing positions. They were using Henrys so there’ll be some brass out there. "

  "Get some sleep. "

  "No guard?"

  "Hell, no. The last four in that pcsse are scared so bad they’re about to piss their pants. Get us up at dawn. "

  With dawn, Willy Boy came awake slowly. Eagle had been up for ten minutes, found a lot of blood where the dead horse lay and on a drip line out to the firing positions. There he found what could have been where another wounded man bled. He had checked around as far as he could see and couldn’t find a stray horse.

  They left that morning without a fire or breakfast. They had no idea how far the next town was. They rode down the trail for half an hour, then went off the track to the right by half a mile and rode just so they could see the scar across the edge of the grasslands. They saw a ranch to the left, but it was three or four miles, and they didn’t want to make that long a detour.

  They passed several clumps of trees and brushy creeks, but kept well off the trail so any bushwhacking attempt by the sheriff could not take place. Just before ten that morning, they saw a small town coming up.

  They had made the trip with Johnny Joe riding double behind Willy Boy, since he was the lightest of the group and the double riders would not be that much harder on the horse.

  The Professor checked with Willy Boy, then rode faster into town to see if a strange posse had been there and to find where the doctor’s office was.

  Eagle met them at the edge of town and they circled around Main Street to the other side of the village to a white painted house and attached office. The doctor was in.

  The medical man had only one other patient and when he saw the chest wound he hurried Johnny Joe straight through into a small room and lay him down on a high table. He probed a moment, looked at the wound in back and completed the removal of the makeshift bandages.

  The doctor was small, thin, about 60 and bounced around like a rubber ball.

  "Mmmm. By rights you should be half dead, son. That there slug missed the top of your lung by a quarter-of- an-inch, I’d say. Ever have a hole in your lung? Whole damn thing can collapse and you might take your last breath in a rush. Sure, some folks live with one lung, but not the best kind of life.

  "Near as I can tell, that chunk of lead didn’t do much else in the way of damage. Mot likely cracked a rib going in and maybe another one coming out. Pain’ll be terrible for a week or two, but you’ll heal. You’re young. " He washed off the puncture wound with some kind of watery looking substance, then put salve and ointment on the wound. He did the same thing on the back one, then bandaged t
hem both with sticky tape to hold the compresses in place.

  "Bed rest for at least a week. No running around, and damn sure no horseback riding. Hear me, son?" Johnny Joe nodded.

  Willy Boy and the Professor had helped Johnny Joe walk into the office and waited during the doctoring. Now Willy Boy asked the sawbones about his fee and he looked up quickly.

  "Mean you can pay in real money? No chickens or spuds or maybe a quarter of a steer? By crackies, hardly know what to say. Two dollars’ll be fine. "

  Willy Boy gave him a two dollar gold piece and the doctor handed him a small jar of the salve. "Put some of that on the wounds each time you change the bandages. "

  The sawbones looked at them, then dug into a drawer and took out half a dozen of the square compresses, some thin rolls of bandage and a roll of the white sticky tape. He handed them to Willy Boy, who gave him another dollar bill.

  Outside they got a report from Juan and Eagle. Nobody had seen four riders come into town.

  They had a big meal at a cafe and as they finished, the Professor checked in with the local law, but they didn’t know anything about a bounty hunter named Deeds Conover.

  Johnny Joe wheezed softly as he breathed, and held one shoulder lower than the other.

  "Don’t hurt quite so damn much that way," he explained.

  They finished their second cup of coffee and looked at each other. At last Willy Boy asked the question.

  "Johnny Joe, you feel like riding on toward Dodge? Not sure how far it it now, two days at least. "

  "Hurt worst last night, better today. I can make it if we walk the horses. Would like to have one to myself, though. "

  They bought a horse and saddle at the livery stable and rode out of town. They were a mile past sight of the town, where the trail northeast went through a small creek, that it happened.

  With proper discipline of his men, Sheriff Dunwoody could have killed all six of the outlaws.

  The outlaws rode into the small ford through the brushy woods as a bunched group, two ahead, three abreast and Eagle bringing up the rear. One of the four men left in

  Dunwoody’s crew fired too soon. Willy Boy and his gang had just started into the brush which was about 30 yards wide at the roadway.

  The first Henry rifle round slammed into Willy Boy’s saddle an inch from his leg and he kicked his horse in the flanks and drove it into the brush moving away from the side where the gunshot sounded.

  The shot warned the other five. Johnny Joe, who rode just behind Willy Boy, kicked his mount and lay against the animal’s neck and galloped straight ahead and out of the line of fire and to safety.

  The three in the center—the Professor, Juan and Gunner—rode in three directions. Gunner rode to the left straight at the man who had fired. The Professor and Juan swung to the right and galloped into the brush and trees away from the line of fire.

  Behind them, Eagle heard the shot, jerked his mount around and rode back the way they had come for 50 yards, then swinging off the saddle to the right until he was hidden behind the horse, holding on only by his left stirrup and a handful of mane, he angled the horse into the protective cover of the brush and trees.

  Willy Boy broke into the brush, kicked out of the saddle, dropped to the ground and dove behind a cottonwood. He stood and looked where the pall of blue smoke settled around a tree across the trail. He lifted his Spencer, aimed at the tree and waited.

  A form stood up near the tree and looked around it. Willy Boy tightened his finger on the trigger as he realigned his sights and fired. He saw the man’s head explode into a gush of red froth as the bullet slammed through his skull.

  Willy Boy-dropped to the ground out of sight while

  the blue cloud of smoke gave away his position.

  Gunner had charged into the brush, saw a man bring up a rifle and Gunner shot him with his pistol before the man could sight in the long gun. Gunner kept riding directly past the downed posse man, then swung wide through the brush and back to the road as he rami after Johnny Joe who was now a quarter-of-a-mile down the trail.

  Juan and the Professor had dropped off their horses as well, aware that they were massive targets while mounted. They lay in the brush, flat on the ground, listening.

  Juan pointed to the left. They both looked that way but saw nothing. A minute later they heard the familiar sound of a Spencer firing with its .52 caliber voice. They had heard Gunner’s six-gun go off a half a minute earlier. Now they lay there silently and waited.

  Soon they heard low voices across the trail, then the sound of someone running. A few seconds later horses’ hooves pounded on the ground and they had a fleeting glance as two horses burst from the trees and raced back down the road, south. They galloped flat out.

  By the time Juan and the Professor got to the trail, the horsemen were out of effective range. Then another horse came out of the brush to chase them. They saw Eagle riding and as he came up quickly on the two riders, he slipped off his saddle to the right. He swung his mount around to the pair of sheriff’s possemen, bent under this horse’s neck and fired his six-gun.

  The confused pair of men had no target. They looked in surprise at the riderless horse slamming along beside them. Then the revolver sounded four times, and the nearest man tumbled off his horse onto the ground.

  Eagle swung back up in the saddle, turned his mount and walked back to where the posse rider lay sprawled on the trail. He would ride no more. Eagle dropped out of his saddle, picked up the dead man’s Henry repeating rifle and his six-gun, remounted and rode back for the ford across the small creek. He paused, then rode on north.

  The outlaws gathered a half mile beyond the ambush. Johnny Joe sat his horse shaking his head.

  "Stupid fool luck," he said. "We all should be dead right now. Hell, if we’d set up that ambush it would have worked. "

  "Somebody fired before he should have," Willy Boy said. "He not only fired too quick, the damned fool also missed. He should have blown me out of the saddle. Led me a little too much. "

  "It was the Sheriff who got away," Eagle said. "I had to take the man who was nearest me, and by then the Sheriff was out of range. "

  "Five out of six ain’t bad," Johnny Joe said.

  Gunner nodded. "They shouldn’t have tried to bushwhack us that way. They were not nice men. "

  "Can’t fault you on that, Gunner," the Professor said. He looked at Johnny Joe. "How’s the bandages? You making it?"

  "So far, but I sure as hell could use a bed to sleep in tonight. "

  Willy Boy nodded. "Now that seems like a good idea. I’d almost bet my last peso that our friend Sheriff Dunwoody doesn’t come pestering us anymore. Let’s get down to the next town, go in twos, and register at the best hotel in town. Everyone still have some cash money?"

  They all did.

  "Fine, let’s ride. We’re still a day and a half away from Dodge. "