Rawhide Flat Page 20

  “Take that damned bacon off the fire,” Crane snapped, shoving the mule skinner’s gun into his waistband. “That’s my supper you’re burning.”

  Again the man, obviously frightened, was quick to comply. When he straightened up after shoving the fry pan aside, the marshal said, “I’ve given you my handle, now what’s yours?”

  “Nathan,” the man gulped, “Nathan Tull.”

  “Where are you bound, Nathan?”

  Tull managed to look scared and sly at the same time. “Carson City.”

  “You’re a liar. You’re coming from Carson City, headed for the Rafter-T Ranch and a man by the name of Reuben Stark.”

  Robbed of his chance to play coy, Nathan settled for surliness. “Then if you know, why the hell did you ask me?”

  “Just trying to see if you were honest.” Crane shook his head. “You’re not.”

  He smiled. “Now, give me my supper like a hospitable gent, and later we’ll stroll over there together and see what’s in the wagon.”

  “I don’t know what’s inside the wagon and I’m not lying to you, Marshal. A couple of men gave me twenty dollars to drive it to the Rafter-T Ranch, said to deliver the goods to a man named Stark. The back of the wagon was covered by a canvas and I didn’t see what’s inside.”

  Crane held out his plate and as Tull filled it with bacon and sourdough flapjacks, he asked, “You didn’t look?”

  Tull, a shifty-eyed little rodent with a thin, pockmarked face, shrugged. “I didn’t figure it was any of my business.”

  “Wagon could be full of silver,” Crane said.

  The little man looked like an angler who has just seen the lord of the lake break his line and swim into the reeds. But after a few moments his face cleared.

  “Nah, them hard cases in Carson City wouldn’t have trusted me with a wagonload of silver.”

  “Probably not. I wouldn’t trust you with anything, Nathan.”

  The marshal scraped his plate clean, then rose to his feet. “Let’s go take a look-see.”

  Pushing Tull ahead of him, Crane undid the rope ties. “Now, haul the canvas back and let’s see what you were asked to deliver.”

  The contents of the wagon came as a shock to the marshal, and Tull looked genuinely startled.

  “Gunpowder in barrels,” the little man said. “But what the hell’s that thing?”

  “It’s a Gatling gun,” Crane said, “mounted on a light cavalry carriage. I saw one at an army barracks down Texas way a few years back, but it wasn’t near as fancy as this. An officer shot it off for some visiting folks from Washington and it made some big bangs that went on for quite a spell.”

  Beside the Gatling, a wooden box was packed with long rectangles of metal wrapped in wax paper. On the lid, stenciled in black paint, were the words:

  50 × 40-ROUND STEEL

  MAGAZINES—CALIBER .45

  Tull was staring openmouthed at the Gatling. “Who needs a big gun like that?”

  “Reuben Stark does.”

  Tull was perplexed. “What’s he plannin’ to shoot with that? An elephant?”

  Running his hand over the bronze housing that enclosed the gun’s ten .45 caliber barrels and breech, he said, “This has got to be a new model.” He shook his head. “I was told a man can buy anything in the Comstock if he’s got the money to pay for it. Maybe I didn’t quite believe it then, but I do now.”

  “Where did them hard cases in Carson City get a big gun like that?” Tull asked.

  “I don’t know. Could be they stole it, or bought it in Mexico. The Diaz government always needs money.”

  “You didn’t tell me, Marshal. Who’s this Reuben Stark feller gonna shoot?”

  “Maybe nobody, maybe just a few. Nathan, my questioning friend, this gun is designed to intimidate and terrify. Reuben Stark is holding a town to ransom, and with this he would’ve had no need to fight a pitched battle. A little demonstration of what a Gatling can do and the good citizens of Rawhide Flat would’ve anted up the money he’s demanding real fast.”

  “How much money?”

  “A hundred thousand dollars.”

  Tull whistled between his teeth. “With all that dough at stake, no wonder them boys could pay me twenty dollars just to drive a wagon.”

  Crane smiled. “But it works out that when Stark bought the gun, all he did was to sow the seeds of his own destruction.”

  “What does that mean, Marshal?”

  “It means, Mr. Tull, that I’ve got him by the cojones.”

  Chapter 37

  “Hitch up your team, Nathan,” Crane said. “We’re moving out.”

  The little man looked horrified. “But . . . it’s dark.”

  “Scared of the dark?”

  “Driving a wagon full of gunpowder across rough country at night, you bet I am.”

  Crane nodded. “Yes, I understand your point of view. That’s why I’m giving you a choice: drive the wagon or I’ll blow your brains out.”

  “What kind of choice is that?”

  “My kind.”

  Cursing and grumbling under his breath, Tull began to hitch the mule team.

  Drinking the last of the coffee directly from the pot, Crane watched him. When the team was in the traces he doused the fire and tossed the coffeepot and pan into the back of the wagon.

  He swung into the saddle and rode beside Tull, who was already up on the driver’s seat. “Move out,” he said.

  “Marshal, if we’re both blown to kingdom come, don’t blame me,” the little man said.

  “I won’t. And later we’ll have a real good laugh about it in hell.”

  Tull let rip with a string of words under his breath that Crane couldn’t hear, but that probably questioned the legitimacy of his birth.

  They traveled south under a luminous moon that shone a lamp above the way ahead, but shrouded the hidden hazards in shadow. Twice the wagon hit rocks that threatened to topple the rig onto its side, and once Tull got bogged down in a muddy seep caused by one of the numerous underground streams that flowed through limestone beneath the high ridges, only to immediately surrender their water to the thirsty ground.

  It took Crane, slowed by the wagon, three hours to reach the spot where he believed he’d left Clinton Thorp.

  He stood in the stirrups and called out the gambler’s name. A few minutes passed and the marshal tried again.

  This time the shadows parted and a man stepped into the moonlight, leading a horse. “Right here,” he said. Only then did he slide his Colt into his shoulder holster.

  Thorp was framed in moonlight and Crane saw his head move. “That’s what Stark was waiting for, the wagon?”

  “Yeah. Gunpowder and a big gun, .45 caliber Gatling on a wheeled carriage.”

  “Heard about them repeater guns. With that, he could’ve chopped up Rawhide Flat and everybody in it.”

  “I’d say that was his idea. Some insurance, you could say. ‘Pay up, or I start shooting.’ ”

  “He doesn’t know we have it,” Thorp said.

  “No, he doesn’t. The only one who could have told him is Mr. Nathan Tull here. But, as you can see, I brought him along.”

  “The Gatling will even up the odds considerable.”

  “It will, if Stark and his men oblige us by charging straight at it.”

  “How do we do that, Marshal?”

  “I’ve got an idea. It might work, but it’s mighty thin.”

  “You mind telling me?”

  Crane did. Then Thorp stood silent for a while. Finally, without a trace of enthusiasm in his voice, he said, “It’s your call, Marshal.” Then he shook his head, smiled faintly and said, “God help us all.”

  Crane picked up Jack Palmer and Silent Sam; dawn was breaking as he led his little party back into Rawhide Flat.

  A quick glance around told him the barricade at the end of the street was still manned, though there was no sign of Mayor Reddy. Paul Masterson still sat on a chair outside the Texas Belle, and someone had cov
ered him with a blanket.

  The gamblers left to put up their horses, and Crane told Tull to park the wagon outside the saloon.

  He swung out of the saddle and stepped up onto the boardwalk. Masterson’s head was bowed and for a moment the marshal thought he had died.

  But as soon as Crane’s boots thudded noisily on the boards, the sheriff lifted his head. “I reckoned it had to be you, Gus. You’re the only tangle-foot I know who can make that much of a racket just walking.”

  Masterson looked as though he had aged fifty years overnight.

  His face was gaunt, a colorless death study in gray and charcoal, lips bloodless, drawn tight across his teeth. But the eyes still lived, bright blue jewels in the shadowed sockets of a skull.

  “How are you—” Crane backed up, tried again. “Glad to see you’re still with us, Paul.”

  Masterson read the clumsy sympathy in the big man’s eyes and it made him laugh, a pained, choking sound. “Gus, did anyone ever tell you that your bedside manner leaves much to be desired?”

  “Sorry, I—”

  “I’m dying. A little more slowly this morning, but dying still. But I’ll be with you until I get a bullet into Stark. Then I’ll let go.”

  “Are you in pain?” Now Crane was really trying to reach the man, attempting to share his burden.

  “I got my whiskey. It works most of the time.”

  “You should go into the saloon, Paul. What if it rains?”

  “Then I’ll be wet, outside as well as in.”

  Crane opened his mouth to speak again, but Masterson’s raised hand stopped him. “Tell me about Stark,” he said. “Did you slow him?”

  “He hasn’t even started out.” The marshal waved a hand toward the wagon. “He was waiting for that.”

  In reply to the question on Masterson’s face, Crane told him about the gunpowder and the Gatling gun.

  “As far as I can tell, it’s one of the newer models,” he said. “Ten barrels fed by a forty-round magazine.”

  “A real door buster,” Masterson said. “With that Stark could have—”

  “Extorted every last cent out of this town without a battle.” Crane grinned. “But we’ve got it and Stark doesn’t know we have it.”

  “You got a plan, Gus?”

  As he had with Thorp, Crane told Masterson what was on his mind.

  After he finished speaking, the sheriff thought for a while, then said, “It could work, if Reddy and the others play their parts.”

  “They’ll play their parts. If they want to save their town they have no choice.”

  A middle-aged man carrying a rifle was stepping along the boardwalk toward Crane, but as he stepped around to go past, the marshal stopped him.

  “Where’s the mayor?”

  “General Reddy is at home taking breakfast and talking strategy with his subordinates,” the man said with great formality, obviously impressed by the mayor’s uniformed splendor. He would have spoken in the same reverent tone about Robert E. Lee.

  Crane suppressed a smile and said, “Please give the general Marshal Crane’s compliments and ask him to meet me here at his earliest convenience.”

  For a moment it looked like the man might salute, but he seemed to think better of it and said, “I’ll tell him, Marshal.”

  Crane watched the man go. Then he said to Masterson, “We have to get Stark to lead his men into the street. Even with the big gun, if he attacks from all directions we’re finished.”

  Speech was a struggle for the sheriff as his strength faded. His voice was barely above a whisper as he said, “I only met Stark a couple of times. To me, he seemed more sly than smart.”

  “But maybe he’s both. That’s what’s troubling me.”

  “I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”

  Crane looked up as feet pounded on the walk. Reddy, booted and spurred, was hurrying toward him.

  While he was still a ways off, the mayor yelled, “Is he close?”

  “He hasn’t started out yet,” Crane said. “And that’s good, because we’ve got matters to discuss.”

  The marshal showed Reddy the Gatling gun and explained yet again how he’d come by it. “Now it’s our ace in the hole,” he said.

  Then he told the mayor his plan.

  Reddy listened in silence, his face growing paler and more horrified with every passing second, and when Crane was finished he almost strangled on his words.

  “But that’s—that’s dangerous, Marshal,” he choked. “It puts me and the other town dignitaries right in the line of fire.”

  “Yes, it does,” Crane said. “That’s why, when the shooting starts, you’ll have to skedaddle fast.”

  “I’ll cover you, Mayor,” Masterson said. “I’ll be right here.”

  Reddy glanced at the dying lawman and took no comfort in what he saw.

  “It’s suicide,” Reddy said. “We’ll be gunned down fastern’n scat.”

  “We have to get Stark and his men in the street, General,” Crane said, using his military title to recall him to a sense of duty. “There’s no other way.”

  “How many of us would you want to sit at the table?”

  “The more the better—make it look dignified and official, like. I’d say at least you and four others.”

  Reddy took a step back, as though to put distance between himself and the marshal.

  “We’ll all be killed,” he spluttered. “You’re crazy, insane, mad as a hatter.”

  “Goes with the badge.” Crane smiled, not an ounce of sympathy in him.

  Chapter 38

  One of Reddy’s pickets rode in just before noon and reported a huge dust cloud to the north. The man said the others were scouting in that direction and would report back as soon as they confirmed it was Stark’s wagons.

  Crane and the mayor got the news in the Texas Belle where Dr. Preston was setting up a field hospital, helped by several nuns who were not teaching in school that day.

  The marshal knew the risk of allowing classes to continue, but Sister Marie Celeste insisted, and Crane reluctantly conceded they would give the town an air of normalcy.

  The last thing he wanted was for Stark to smell a rat and launch an all-out attack.

  “Mayor,” he said, “you’d best get changed into your best Sunday-go-to-prayer-meeting suit. The uniform will be a red flag to Stark that something’s up.”

  Reddy nodded. “I filled the money bags from the bank like you said, Marshal. I don’t even want to think what Stark will do when he finds they’re full of sand.”

  “If it comes to that, we’ll all be dead anyway, Mayor,” Crane said.

  The marshal walked out onto the boardwalk where Masterson was keeping his painful vigil. His eyes swept the street.

  A table and chairs had been set up a few yards in front of the sheriff’s office. The table was piled with canvas money bags and, a nice touch, a water jug and glasses. Nearby someone had raised the U.S. flag and red, white and blue bunting, taken from the gallows, was swagged around the table.

  All the barricades had been cleared and the sign he’d ordered was being lettered with painstaking, tongue-protruding care by Simeon Pearl, the undertaker.

  Four carpenters were working on the front wall of the sheriff’s office. One of the men saw Crane and called him over.

  “Just shove on her and she’ll come down, Marshal,” the carpenter said. He had a solemn, long-jawed face that was badly pockmarked. “Of course, the whole damned roof might collapse on you at the same time.”

  “I’ll take that chance.” Crane studied the man. “What’s your name, pardner?”

  “Jake Hooper. My friends call me Hoop.”

  “Well thanks, Hoop. And say the same to the others.”

  Hooper nodded, then said, “You think Stark will hooraw this town? Me an’ the missus kinda like it here. Well, up until recent.”

  “I don’t know, Hoop. I’ll do my best to stop him.”

  “Folks are talking about the big gun you br
ung in.”

  “It might make the difference.”

  “I’m sure it will.”

  Jake Hooper nodded, but he didn’t look like a man who was setting store by the marshal’s reassurances.

  The pickets rode into town at the hottest part of the day with the news that Stark and his men were getting close.

  “Marshal, it looks like there’s a whole town on the move, and it’s a bigger town than Rawhide Flat,” one of the men said. His eyes were haunted, as though he’d added up the odds for the first time and didn’t like the bottom line.

  “When will he get here?” Reddy asked. The mayor wore his best broadcloth suit and a silk top hat.

  “Two hours at most. The wagons are slowing him.”

  A crowd had gathered after the pickets returned, eager to hear their report.

  Shorn of his sword and gray and gold finery, Reddy looked what he was, a worried little man sporting huge side whiskers that bookended a face that was usually ruddy but was now ashen.

  He held up his hands and said, “Listen folks, all them as wants to leave should do it now. There’s nobody in this town will hold it against you.”

  One of the pickets, a young man wearing a plug hat, a dusty suit and a high celluloid collar, leaned forward in his saddle. “Mayor, my Nora is in a delicate condition as most here present know. I don’t want her in town when the fighting starts. This will be our first young ’un.”

  “I understand, Ezra,” Reddy said. “Get your wife and ride on out.”

  As the young man rode away, the mayor asked, “Is there anyone else?”

  Men muttered to each other and shuffled their feet, but no one elected to quit.

  “Good,” Reddy said. “Now, I suggest we send our womenfolk and children to safety. We’ll start them out for Carson City immediately.”

  “That’s not how it’s going to be, Ed Reddy.” This came from a tall, string bean of a woman in a white dress and sunbonnet. “I’m not leaving my Tom alone, and I think I can speak for the other ladies in Rawhide Flat when I say we will not desert our husbands,” she said.

  The score of women present, including several saloon girls, nodded their bonneted heads.